Our bodies were teleported and then trapped down inside the earth. Kind of a "great now what?" experience for all of us. Rose reached out and told us not to resist, which felt odd after our latest experiences. Most of us took Rose at her word and didn't resist. Without that resistance the world went grey, painful, and cold. Like our souls were being carefully excised out of our bodies. A couple minutes later it was over and we were called forward into Rose's home. Didn't feel like the kindest of greetings, but we all went forward nonetheless. Rose introduced herself and her home, Scientros, a place where she has gathered all the knowledge she could find. I guess the place itself has turned into a bit of a difficult topic with the divine folks that would attempt to hide information from mortals or other gods. Rose later let us know that this is the 17th iteration of Scientros as the others had been found and destroyed. After a bit of walking, searching, and conversation we learned the Rose is realizing her end may be near and she is looking for proper replacements. Basically it feels like she is applying a long term test on us to see if we are worthy of the keys to her kingdom. It's difficult to read her other intentions, but for some reason it feels like there must be more to it. Near the end Rose kindly gave us a few very powerful books to read as well as future access to her home. Siona and I quickly agreed that we would be coming back very soon. After that, we left for the fortress outside Fiddletown and we all decided to take 10 days off to recoup and study.
On those days off:
2 days spent resting off the wish cast
6 days studying
evenings spent in Fiddletown eating, drinking, shopping for Siona, and buying more potions
1 day spent casting simulacrum
Last day morning spent casting wish (mighty fortress) and returning to Scientros. In Scientros we dove into a host of new spells which should be very handy for casting wish in the future. Then we jumped into a bit of history looking through the Valdeni and trying to find anything about their day to day life. Learned a lot. Including some locations of their prior homes, their evolution into Merfolk and dwarves, and that the Valdeni used some very powerful magic to preserve the souls of powerful/impactful people into items. So it turns out that Vic is actually the fallen soul of a Valdeni and that's a thing. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle that and I don't have a great way to describe my feelings yet. After a bit more research we left for the fortress again, rested for the night and now we are ready for whatever is next.