Episode 54: The Blooming

General Summary

Clocks

Recap

Greenbloom 18, 3033: Year of Darkness

When the Flamebringers returned to the Mortal Realm, they confronted the False Tribunal once more. The medusas asked if their deal would be honored; they had allowed passage for the adventurers into their most carefully protected secret, and expected them to leave them in peace to their facsimile kingdom. The Flamebringers had other ideas. In memory of the god they had just slain, Tyra told them that the group had decided the False Tribunal were unfit to impersonate the true Tribunal.

Before the creatures could utter a response, there was a flash of fire, followed by a cleansing radiant light, and concluded with a clap of thunder and lightning. The medusas lay dead on their reclining couches, struck down before they could even raise their eyes. Their servants, blinded and muted, coward in the corners, unsure of what was going on around them. But Charles reassured them, and as the yuan-ti followers of the False Tribunal amassed outside, Pharos whispered a prayer to whatever god may be listening.

"Was violence necessary?" The manifold voice whispered to Tyra.

"Yes. Violence is required if it is responding to something bad enough," they replied.

"Was this bad enough?"

"Yes."

And then Pharos heard them, as he prayed.

"We think we may be able to help with what you ask..."

And the world bloomed around them. Servants sprouted new tongues, their eyes filled with vibrant green and gold, restoring their sight. Moss and flowers grew to cover the frescos of the False Tribunal, replacing lies with verdant growth. The yuan-ti were turned to leaf and bark, still living, but their violence stilled. The halflings that had been subjugated by the False Tribunal felt their agency, stripped down over years of oppression, returned to them. The statues that for so long kept silent vigil over the path into town, remnants of adventurers that had found the city, animated once more, stone returning to natural flesh.

And the wind sang.

Amoris 24, 3032

If this is my last journal entry, let whoever finds it know what to do with it. Reharis must be stopped. I don't know if he is mad or genius or both. There is a machine in the base of the Tower which the Scribes have been using to read Potential. Whatever secrets they have uncovered, the Scribes have decided they need to turn this Tower into an ark that will survive when the Next World comes.

The Scribes have also weaponized some form of the Verdancy; they are using it to turn their prisoners into remnants; shambling plant creatures that can take on any form. We are set to become the next victims of the blooming. I don't know how they're doing it, but the Call is strong here, I can feel it pulsing in a wild cadence I've never heard before. The thing inside me is afraid of it, and I am afraid of what this power may do if left confined in this space.

— From the Journal of Callisto

Notes