Session 12 Report

General Summary

The party started off standing by the Ginkgo Tree Park. Everyone decided to walk over to Donovan's place, like Michael suggested, and formally present them with the "Apology Plant" and come to a resolution. Amanti was conflicted about gifting Donovan the plant, but eventually relented after a mix of arguing and reassurement among the party. It was decided Nadyn would hold onto the plant itself, while Amanti would do most of the talking.   To get to Donovan's apartment, across the city, the party walked through Main Street, where all of the businesses were located. They were exposed to the colorful, albeit incredibly busy, sights, witnessing several street performers at work. When they got to Donovan's apartment, they heard not one, but two voices inside: Donovan, and the halfling archaelogist woman that assigned them to go find the River Dragon's Pearl, Joanna. After some hesitation from the party, Donovan eventually opened the door, letting them in.   Joanna was delighted to see the party again, while Donovan's reaction was more subdued. After some awkward greetings, Amanti, Donovan, and Nadyn stepped back out into the hallway. Amanti formally apologized to Donovan, stating that the Spirit Medium Michael would take Nadyn in and take care of him. Nadyn, who was very nervous and sweaty despite Thien and Fanna having earlier reassured him, awkwardly handed the plant over. Donovan looked over it silently, before commenting on its properties: It's name was a Sun-Streaked Cloud, and it turned out to be a very valuable plant, as people historically harvested the fluffy tufts from its center for use in clothing. Amanti also asked if there was anything he and the party could do to help Donovan. After mulling over it for a moment, Donovan handed Amanti a shopping list: It turned out to be mostly groceries.   Inside the department, to keep Joanna busy, Fanna presented her with the Heartstain dagger they had acquired from Ayer's office. She examined it, before declaring that the material it was composed of was mostly found in North-West and North-Central Lingguo. It appeared to not have any special ceremonial use, tho was peculiar as the lack of a guard hindered its practicality. Amanti, Nadyn, and Donovan came back inside. Donovan also took a look at the dagger, foolishly touching it barehanded and staining his hands as a result. After he and Joanna disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, they returned the dagger. With their teamwork, they discovered one final property of the dagger the party was unaware of: When struck, a creature must pass a DC 14 Constitution save or be forced to perceive the world in black and white until the end of their next turn, with all bright light becoming dim and all dim light becoming darkness.   The party then helped Joanna and Donovan cook dinner: Rice noodle soup with pickled vegetables and pork, along with a side of grilled fish. Thien expertly helped Donovan prepare the fish. Fanna, who wanted to show off, decided to cut the vegetables fruit-ninja style, causing vegetable pieces to fly everywhere. After much pestering, and a morally questionable use of Charm Person on Brooks, the two cleaned up the mess. Donovan eventually decided to just come over and sweep up the vegetable bits himself.   The party put together the ingredients and waited as they cooked. Fanna, meanwhile, went to attend to Soup, who had been wriggling around in their lute bag for some time. When Soup was released, they immediately took the chance to start walking toward the kitchen, prompting Fanna to grab them and try to put them back in the bag. Unfortunately, things wouldn't be that simple: Soup resisted, kicking Fanna in the face. A frustrated Fanna threw Soup at Brooks, but Brooks easily sidestepped the creature, and instead the plants caught Soup instead. Thien, hearing the racket, looked inside the living room to see Fanna standing in the center of the room, holding onto Soup, as all of the plants in Donovan's apartment were reaching toward the two. Thien promptly closed the door and returned to the others. With Nadyn's help, Fanna finally stuffed a petulant Soup back in the lute bag.   The party gathered together to eat dinner: Though the noodle soup wasn't the best, it was good enough. Joanna told the party how thanks to their efforts in finding the pearl, they would receive 100g each. It was decided the gold would be sent to Amanti's house, as he was the only one with an address. Joanna departed then, leaving Donovan alone with the party. He asksed the party if they were free two days from now: The evening of the second day of the kite-flying festival. When the party affirmed their schedule was clear, he told them of a way they could help him, besides the shopping list: The government had shown interest in the plant constructs he had presented over a month ago at the Shuixiu Fair, and he needed people to test the effectiveness and durability of them. The party agreed to do this after being promised payment.   The party finally decided to take their leave. They checked into an inn for the night, where to their surprise, they saw Iskra the waitress from the Yumalyan restuarantant in Shuixiu. She greeted them, and asked if any of them knew any good places for the business to move into at the capital. Amanti told her that over by the Ginkgo Tree Park would be a good place, and she thanked the party, before wishing them a good night.   The party then went to sleep, taking a long rest. The next morning, after a brief breakfast, everyone decided to shop for the items Donovan listed. They went to a cute bodega, and after stopping to ogle the cat sleeping outside, went inside. They found almost everything with no difficulty: All that was left was the distilled water. When they went to go ask the person at check-out the location, the bumped into a disturbance in the store. A Yumalyan man was blocking two Leferinese men from reaching what they needed on the shelf, feigning ignorance of their language. Amanti conversed briefly with the man, who quickly got agitated, but eventually relented. The Leferinese men thanked Amanti, and he and the party continued on. They found out where the distilled water was located, then checked-out. Fanna decided to buy milk, apples, and oranges with their own money. When Nadyn asked them what they were doing, Fanna said they were going to dump the milk on the Yumalyan man from earlier. This annoyed Nadyn, and after some arguing, Fanna was convinced to abandon the plan.   They instead began drinking out of the milk jug as the party walked back to the inn to store the groceries. This annoyed Nadyn even more, who felt embarrassed and worried that people would be judging them. He yelled about how he was trying to start over after being stuck in the Yumalyan Civil War, and that they were making things more difficult for him.   Back at the inn, Fanna decided to make some homemade Orrappilk for Nadyn as an apology. The beverage contained less than optimal apple juice to the difficulty in extracting the apple juice, but Nadyn accepted the apology and juice. He told Fanna about the Yumaylan Civil War, what led up to it, and some of his past. Fanna in turn shared about how they never really had a home due to their unusual upbringing.   Now that they had finished shopping for Donovan, Nadyn suggested everyone go to the temple they heard being mentioned by a tour guide from earlier. Everyone agreed, and the party arrived a shortwhile later. The group of tourists from earlier was crowded in the front, and the party saw an elven woman in religious attire sweeping at the front. They entered the temple, where the woman, who introduced herself as Guiying, welcomed them and offered them joss sticks to burn, along with making idle chatter, proclaiming that the temple was always open to anyone in need of peace.   The head caretaker of the temple walked in at that moment. They were revealed to be a High Elf, the first one the party had ever seen since Lauran. He immediately grabbed Fanna and asked why they had the "essence of Lauran" inside of them, asking them and the rest of the party to come to the back with him. After shutting the door, he asked Fanna about what they knew about Lauran. Things turned hostile when Fanna talked back at the High Elf, prompting him to cast a spell on Fanna. The now frightened Fanna countered with their own spell, also frightening the High Elf. They finally dropped their spells when a concerned Guiying opened the door to check in on everyone.   Finally, the High Elf offered to help Fanna and tell everything he knew about Lauran, if Fanna also did the same. He led the party into the courtyard, where the campaign now resumes.