The Adventures of the Big HELP, Session 32

General Summary

• Hest led The Big HELP down to her former home of the Six Tenet Monastery. Seeing all of the festival booths, the group split up to find what they liked the most. Larka sought out a meat on a stick vendor. She found one, who she frustrated with her search for very fresh meat. Larka eventually ended up with chicken on a stick while Petrichor bought some salmon jerky.
• Bigwig and Helena decided to get a drink, specifically mead. They found a firbolg brewer and bought a couple drinks. Bigwig recognized the brewer's outfit looked similar to Hest's original outfit. When she remarked on his outfit, the brewer revealed he was a monk and introduced himself as Gregory. Bigwig learned that Gregory and Hest knew each other and were close friends growing up. He told them a story about Hest getting into trouble (this was likely due to Wild Magic, though he wouldn't know that) and she was punished by having to muck out the stables for a month. Bigwig wanted to start calling her "Stinky Hest". Bigwig and Helena went off to regroup with the others and Gregory asked that they bring Hest over at some point.
• Hest left to find the shiniest booth. She wandered around and found a booth called Gemma's Wonderous Gemstones. The tiefling owner, bedecked in tattoos, pins, and gemstone piercings, welcomed her. Hest bought a pair of amethyst earings which Gemma enchanted it glow with a purple-blue light. Hest left to make sure as many people bought from Gemma as possible.
• The HELP reunited and decided to follow Hest to meet Gemma first. Larka wanted to buy a broach but Gemma seemed to not want to interact with her once he learned she was from the Fell Tribe. With Hest's help, Larka was able to buy ruby red pendant that emanated a red aura. Larka tried to figure out why Gemma seemed so cold to her. It seemed like Gemma had dealt with raiders from the Fell Tribe in his travels before and so thought poorly of anyone from the tribe.
• The Big HELP then met up to reintroduce Hest to Gregory. He didn't recognize Hest at first, due to her Reincarnation, but started to put two and two together when he heard her voice. The two reminisced over their childhood while bringing each other up to date. Hest talked about how she was almost ready to reunite the body and soul of Ravenna, and learned that most of the monastery did not know the accident had been her fault. Gregory explained he had become apprentice to the brewmaster and had brewed several unique blends himself. Since the Big HELP had offered so much assistance to Ghispar and the areas around, Gregory offered them a round of free drinks. Bigwig asked to be surprised and got tropical drink that smelled like the sea to honor Cerisa. Petrichor ordered a mead that looked like pond scum but tasted like honey-glazed bacon. She had mixed feelings on this. Hest ordered a cider that imbued the drinker with the emotions of the apples when they were picked, resulting in her giggling uncontrollably.
• Gregory started talking about how he needed to come up with a new drink for the festival but was having some creativity-block. Bigwig suggested a drink with pineapple and peppers. Gregory liked the idea and asked the HELP to pick up the ingredients, offering 50G in exchange. The HELP left to pick up the fruit.
• At the fruit vendor, a group of monks selling fruit grown in the Hall of Forests, Hest bought the fruit Bigwig suggested. The monk who helped her seemed to be sad and distracted. Bigwig asked what was wrong and the monk explained that he was a physician trying to help a girl who had been found and nursed back to health at the monastery over the past few months. He was worried that she wasn't getting better and asked the HELP to look in on her. Petrichor asked how they could help her and got the monk to admit that he had seen, among her personal belongings, a nasty knife and thought other adventurers might be able to get her to talk about her past. Larka and Petrichor worried that she might be another assassin from the Church of Gorthag.
• The monk, named Sven, gave the HELP stamps that would allow them to enter the monastery. He said the girl was a unique looking tabaxi named Zirabelle recouperating in the Hall of Oceans. Hest guided the others to the Hall of Oceans where they found Zirabelle struggling to catch a fish. The HELP tried to get her to open up with only partial success. One look suggested that she had some tiefling heritage. They learned that her cover story of falling from a cliff while climbing was fake but they couldn't get her to talk more about her past. While listing random things that could cause someone to close off, Larka suggested betrayal and Petrichor saw an almost imperceptible flinch from Zirabelle. Larka tried to talk about her own feelings of betrayal but got nothing from Zirabelle. As the HELP decided to walk away, they heard Zirabelle mutter something about "not betrayal, failure."
• Hest decided to look into reuniting Ravenna's body and soul. Larka asked how they could know if the ring was even ready. Hest suggested they travel to the Hall of Flames to ask one of the monk mages to send Nascour Varna a Sending spell to ask him for an update. At the cost of 60G, the mage sent Hest's message and informed her Nascour would have the ring finished shortly and that he would contact them when they could bring Ravenna's body. Larka prepared a message to send to her mother Leelu but was unwilling to divulge the information that the spellcaster would need to identify Leelu and cast the spell. She instead asked the message be sent to her brother Kenji but didn't get a useful response.
• Petrichor asked the spellcaster to cast Locate Object on the missing part of her Staff of the Woodlands. The spellcaster warned her that, if the object wasn't within 1000ft, the spell would fail. Petrichor tried it anyway but wasn't surprised when the spell failed. The spellcaster could see that the staff was imbued with Sindara's magic and suggested Petrichor might be able to find what she was looking for in the Hall of Forests.
• The HELP returned to Gregory with his drink ingredients. He put them together following Bigwig's recipe, added his own flair, and offered everyone a shot. Bigwig and Helena liked it while Petrichor, Hest, and Larka thought it was too spicy. Petrichor expressed doubts on how good Gregory's concoctions were. His pride injured, he prepared her two other drinks which she enjoyed more despite getting a little tipsy. They both had some unexpected effects, though, causing her fur to stand on end due to static electricity and her eyes to glow orange like the sun.
• The HELP decided to split up. Petrichor and Larka went to the Hall of Forests hoping to learn more about Moonvale Grove and psionics, respectively. Bigwig, Helena, and Hest stuck around to check out one of the visiting circuses.
• Petrichor and Larka found the library in the Hall of Forests. Larka asked about any information on the foundations of magic and other forces similar to magic. The librarian was unsure what she meant. Larka, wary about what reaction it may garner, summoned one of her psychic daggers and asked about psionics. To her relief, the librarian didn't seem concerned about her power but didn't have any insight to offer. He gave her a book detailing general knowledge on the foundation of magic and off-handedly mused whether Mother Wonder's library may have any information on Larka's power. Larka asked who Mother Wonder was and if she could see the library. The librarian explained that Mother Wonder was the founder of the Six Tenet Monastery and a powerful mage despite her lack of connection to the magic of the gods. Unfortunately, only the current abbot or abbess can access her library.
• Larka wondered if helping Hest return Ravenna's soul to her body would get her permission to access Mother Wonder's library. The librarian said that Abbess Cinder would probably be grateful but wasn't likely to grant that request.
• Petrichor then asked for help researching the location of Moonvale Grove. The librarian was more familiar with that name and recalled it was a location Sindara often came to when visiting Udarich before the Element War. Its location has since been lost to time but he offered to help Petrichor with her attempt to locate it. After reading for hours through a couple dozen books, the firmest clue they found was that the grove was likely near Lake Verdauga. The librarian offered to help Petrichor continue her search and hopefully find a more useful clue the next day.
• Bigwig and Hest wandered through the festival, reuniting with Orda and the Tempest Sprites' Circus. They mentioned problems with the Bubble Ride they had taken which worried Orda. Hest tried to downplay it like it wasn't a big deal, but failed to convince Orda of that and he decided to speak to Lulu later that night about how he ran the Bubble Ride.
• Bigwig and Helena went up in the Bubble Ride per Helena's request. Helena said she wanted to spend some time here at the monastery to recouperate after everything that had happened with the Fireblood. She asked Bigwig to come back after she finished adventuring and the two kissed. No orphans watched the kiss.
• Hest wanted to play some games and sought out Farkle, the circus's Gamesmaster. She volunteered to try a dunk tank and managed to dunk the goblin Trundle. Trundle clearly had issues swimming but the water drained before he was in much danger. Hest checked to make sure he hadn't drowned then asked Farkle for her prize. Farkle tapped her with his wand and made her glow rainbow colors.
• The Big HELP took up an offer to sleep in some unused quarters in the Hall of Forests for the night. Everyone had difficulty sleeping due to Hest's rainbow glow.

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41 Days After the Crash of the Raziel

Report Date

17 Nov 2024