Griffin:
Since Ryu, Leo, and Cordt give very complete reports below, I’ll try to give you all the short version.
Friday night saw our party venture onto an island in Rathkeale to retrieve a piece of Stravamore’s Heart. In addition to resistance from the local undead, Stravamore sent resistance in the form of Logain, a cleric from Warian on Elemirre Isle whose mind had been corrupted by Stravamore’s blight. We had to proceed through challenges of the old Knights of the Chalice (from a time before Rathkeale’s Knights of the Silver Chalice), where we eventually found the place where the shard was sealed. After fighting off Moths who were attracted to the glowing pillars sealing the shard away, we were eventually successful and extracted the shard from Rathkeale.
On Saturday, we traveled back to Elemirre Isle. We gathered pieces of Jade from several rock deposits throughout the day, which became relevant later. We also spent the first half of the day tracking down trees and learning a set of inscriptions which indicated how much Bloom (not Blight) was in their sap, as the Golems that lived on Elemirre Isle had revealed to us they know ways to purify the sap and draw power out of Stravamore to make new golems. Once we had collected enough sap and deciphered the math required to ensure we extracted the maximum amount of power from a combination of saps (which I’m told we did not initially succeed at, but eventually figured out later), we rushed to form a ritual which connected jade filament between the trees that sourced the saps in question, during which we were attacked by allies of Stravamore - specifically, Wolf Swiftwarrow, who could only be damaged by silver weapons. We eventually defeated him, but he disappeared before we could see to him permanently.
After creating the new Golem, we discovered that Logain was marching a sizable force on Warian, and so we hunkered down in a fortress and whittled down the forces from inside. Ryu covers more about Logain in her report below. During this siege, we were also attacked by Wood Woads that had taken the forms of some of our friends who had fallen on the western flank: Rosetta, Evie, and J’Ortsa. Once we had cut down a considerable portion of Logain’s forces, we fought some Bullywugs that had been enhanced with Blight to have a set of considerable powers. Once those were dealt with, we moved on to our final confrontation with Logain, which involved a lot of fighting and throwing blighted dung balls through a scarab totem of some kind. That was the final confrontation of Saturday.
On Sunday, we travelled around the island and cut down several Blighted/Bloomed trees, similar to the one placed in the Gaian Grove of Goldenhall, and we were eventually able to free our friends from the west. The main goal of cutting the trees down, however, was to absorb their Blight into a staff that Logain had given us. With suggestions from the Golems, we decided to take half of the Blight’s power on the island and keep it on the mainland in the Realms, to reduce the overwhelming power the Blight had on Elemirre Isle. This led to many people taking on Blight at some point, so we used the staff to absorb the blight from people as well as the trees, then at the end of the day we performed a ritual to attempt to purify the blight in the staff. We were fortunately successful in doing so. The Northern Alliance volunteered to house the staff deep in the cold north, as a measure to slow the power absorbed in the staff.
Yours in service,
Squire Griffin Hurana
Champion of Chimeron
Cordt:
As a stranger in a strange land, I entered the Realms for the first time. I have heard many a story from my beloved nephews and finally decided it was time to see for myself what lie beyond the lands of Hurana from which we hail. I will recount my adventure as best I can, although if you seek specific details of what transpired, you may need to search elsewhere!
I traveled light and so was in need of many provisions. My nephews obliged and also prepared me for many of the unexpected encounters. Our mission, as I became aware of it, was to help the people of Rathkeale to battle against the growing power the leshin Stravamor had amassed against them. I knew not what we were to encounter, but I felt confident that we could prevail, as I knew the strength of my company, and trusted those whom they trusted, to persevere.
There were many quests along the way, and many foes encountered. We searched a cemetery for names of the knighted, to help another knight rise and see only honor. We engaged in puzzle solving and challenges of strength, and found an important clue. We searched for trees where runes were recorded and sap samples obtained in search of a cure for the blight that had infested the area. We defended a castle under siege, engaging in intense combat, but stood shoulder to shoulder with our brethren and valiantly prevented a breach. We waded through swamps to battle pollywogs and salamanders. We battled against moths, wolves, beetles and eagles as we trekked across the land, through castles, and up a mountain.
We finally determined there to be 3 trees where the blight was present, and we came into possession of a staff that could absorb the blight. We were able to quest to each of the trees, surviving the attacks of the foes between us and the trees. Each tree was hewn and its blight removed, though all magic was lost for a period after. Several citizens of the land including Logain were ultimately freed from their affliction and could once again exercise their own free will.
Alas, some of our party were afflicted themselves with the blight, which caused them to behave in unusual and erratic ways. After our final return to the haven, these brave comrades were able to be cured of their blight, although the means by which this happened is still a mystery to me.
Upon reflection, and it may be my biased assessment, but I believe we would not have been as successful without the leadership of Commander Ryu Goldscale of Chimeron. Ryu stepped up in many situations as a leader, helping facilitate discussions among our party, reaching out to Logain and guiding her return to sanity, and looking for solutions to solve the riddle of the sap concentrations.
I also would like to thank the rest of the party who were welcoming to me and/or guided me through my inaugural venture to these lands, and to anyone who expended a ‘rise and fight’ on my behalf. In particular I wish to thank King Orion for the many, many repairs to my armor, and to Aester who put faith in my shield and presumed my ability to take direction.
And finally, to my coolest nephews, Squire Griffin Hurana and Leo Hurana II. Griffin inspired my trek and inspired me throughout our questing with his skills and abilities in battle. Leo taught me many aspects of what I would encounter and provided guidance (and jokes) along the way. I am proud of them and wish them well on their journeys.
-Cordt Hurana (The Coolest Uncle)
OOC: This first event for me was truly a great experience. It was physically and mentally demanding and so much fun! I even remembered to use my event-granted ‘resist death’ at one point! I really appreciate feeling welcomed by so many at the event, and especially to Ryan (King Orion) for contributing much needed armor. I had hoped to be able to talk with the NPCs after – idk, I thought there might be a curtain call or something but I wanted to extend my thanks to them and also say how impressed I was with all of them and their fighting abilities. They were truly challenging opponents and made the event extra enjoyable (except when it took too long and we couldn’t figure out how to beat them - Lamp!).
I felt the entire experience was a representation of life. You are presented with situations that have less than clear objectives, but at least a lofty goal. You have people around you who want to participate in reaching the goal. You have different opinions on how to get there. You have forces that oppose you. You have battles to fight and need people to do the fighting. The fighters need people to care for them when they or their armor are injured or worse. There are puzzles to be solved and need people to solve them. There are people to be dealt with and need people with people skills. A lot of educated guessing is involved, and you don’t know what will work and what won’t, but you band together and find a way through. And along the way, you get to figure out who you are.
Leo:
I came to Rathkeale with my Coolest Uncle Cordt, who had sent me a letter a few days before letting me know that he'd be joining me. This came as a bit of a shock to me, as is seeing *any* other Huranans, but I was glad he was coming and I was excited to show him around in The Realms a bit. I think he had a pretty good time and could tell Griffin and I were doing well. *Hopefully* his experience here can help get the Hurana royalty off our backs a bit more, but that's a problem for another time.
For now, our goal was to find a piece of the Leshin Stravamor's heart before his agents could. There were a few places for us to search in this section of Rathkeale: the graveyard, the temple, and the mason's guild. We went to the graveyard first, battling through plenty of undead (it's Rathkeale, after all) and found eight graves: three that were Masters/Mistresses, and five that were Sirs/Dames (this became important later). We then made our way to the mason's guild, where we found the faint spirit of a knight and Logain, the agent of Stravamor whom we were sent after. Etched in a wall were the words "SHOW ONLY HONOR AND PASS" which were gradually being covered by gunk thrown by beetles Logain was controlling. When the words on the wall were covered in such a way that the spirit could only see "HONOR", he began to rise, and he told us that he is the sixth knight of his order, and we need to give him a key so he can tell us where to go to find the piece of Stravamor's heart. I remained in the mason's guild for a while ((deflecting missiles with shields is fun)), but others went back to the graveyard and some went to the temple. Those that went back to the graveyard discovered that all the graves were empty, I'm not sure we ever figured out why, but that's probably fine. When I finally left and went back to our Haven on the island, the party had written down the names that were on the graves, and had noticed there were five Sirs/Dames. The letters of their first names could be ordered as ABCDE, which gave us the "key" that we then gave to the knight in the mason's hall (this whole ordeal took us much longer than it probably should have). The sixth knight informed us that he was a Knight of the Chalice, which is probably an ancient version of the Knights of the Silver Chalice, and he gave us a stone disk engraved with a chalice. He sent us to a maze filled with moths (for some reason???) and wood woads, a couple of which got up quickly and needed 500 rending blows. I think there was some puzzle to be done with the moths and a couple lamps that were in the maze, but I could NOT tell you what it was. I was too busy regenerating into a lesser undead like eight times (it's Rathkeale, after all).
Once we were through the maze we came to a wall holding a stone tablet with ten slots, which the knight's disk fit into. We went down a nearby path and found nine more knights, representing various… ideals? I'm unsure, there was a Knight of Wisdom, a Knight of the Wayfinder, a Knight of Strength... Anyway, they each had challenges after which they gave us their corresponding stone disk: do this puzzle, beat me with these combos, find my dagger (it was literally just above us the whole time), arm-wrassle me, etc. A Precog told us that the positions of the disks on the tablet didn't matter, but a few people, Hedda especially, were determined to put them "in the right spots" anyway. Once the disks were slotted in, the wall slid open and we could continue. In the center of the next room was the piece of Stravamor's heart, protected by some sort of energy field? There were pillars in the corner that could be lit up or turned off, but I'm not sure how it all worked. I spent a lot of time regenerating in this room, too. Thank the gods I have Death Watch, right? Logain was there too, commanding the shitton of moths in the room. Ryu was talking to her, trying to convince her to leave Stravamor's side. I don't know how, but eventually Logain left and we got the shard out of the field it was in. There was some discussion on what to do next but that was largely it for the first night.
Saturday morning we arrived on Elemirre Isle and were informed of twelve blighted trees with runes representing how much blight their sap had. Spark, an awakened golem from The Stone Grove, wanted us to find the combination of three trees with the highest amount of blight so that they could empower and awaken a new golem, and he provided us with a chart of the runes (they were in a circle where each had a number value, opposite runes canceled out). A member of the village of Warian (I can't remember their name) also wanted us to find the lowest possible amount of blight so they could figure out a cure. After much deliberation on which to prioritize, we decided that we would decide later, and would instead go out to find the trees and collect the saps first. This led us to a swamp full of bullywugs and rust monsters, and... a member of Neden? I think it was actually just a wood woad disguised as them, but they were very clearly blighted regardless. I'm not sure what if we specifically got anything from that swamp, but we
found some trees to collect sap from. From there my memory is a bit fuzzy on the order of things so it may not be exactly correct, but here goes. We went down a path fighting more wood woads and that same member of Neden, finding more trees and collecting more sap along the way. We were informed that Logain was marching toward us with an army, so we prepared for a seige. A member of the Northern Alliance locked the doors behind us with magic keys that they'd apparently been carrying for ***6 years*** and never used. Anyway, thanks to that we only had to worry about the front. A shield wall was set up, with Orion directly behind it rapidly providing armor whenever it was lost. It was a long and intense battle, with beetles throwing things at us and at one point one of the strong wood woads (the 500 rending blows kind) came in through a window. There were also adventurers attacking us that appeared to be very blighted, similarly to the Neden member: Evie, J'ortsa, and Rosetta. Logain knocked us all back several times, but the shield wall didn't let them get any purchase, filling in the gaps as quickly as they were opened. Ryu left to talk to Logain again, eventually convincing her to leave, though she still commanded the moths to kill all of us at the end. After that, we returned to the
tavern and were informed that we didn't have much time left to select trees for the golems, and that they needed to be connected through jade wire to the ritual. We came to the conclusion that empowering the golem was more pressing than developing a cure for blight, so we picked three trees that we hoped would be good enough and rushed to connect them (we had about five minutes before the ritual started at this point). I shed most of my gear and ran the jade wire ((surveyor's tape)) from the ritual to one of the trees, while others did the same for the other two. Spark announced the ritual was starting, and that we needed to keep the connections to the trees secure. The Wolf in
Sheep's Clothing (Ulf Swiftarrow? I think?), who started this whole mess by bringing Stravamor a piece of his heart, attacked the lines with a group of wolves and wood woads, breaking one of the lines almost immediately. We rushed to beat him away and thankfully repaired the line before the ritual was affected too much. I only stayed guarding the line to the tree that I connected, but from what I could hear, the same scenario happened to the other two lines and the ritual center as well. The ritual eventually completed, resulting in a powerful awakened golem that should help us in our fight against Stravamor in the future.
After a short break we made our way to a field of bullywugs, with a few pools of concentrated Blight. There were diving bells that let one person go in to grab small chunks of Blight that each had a rune on them. There were two bullywugs that were extra powerful and kept regenerating and we weren't sure how to deal with them. What followed was a looooong battle of figuring out that those powers corresponded to runes (there were indicators for what power was what rune, but idk where they came from), getting all of the blight chunks out of the pools, putting jade into the pools to cleanse them, and learning that to defeat these two bullywugs we needed to feed them chunks of blight that would cancel out the runes of their powers. Now, that either sounds really simple or really complicated, but believe me when I say it took a while. You needed to feed ALL of the right runes that cancelled out ALL of their powers to actually kill them. I killed one of them (I really just picked up the chunks and ran to their corpse, credit to JB and Potato for organizing all the runes with the powers they cancel), and its list of powers was: 10-pt floating armor, 30-sec forced regen, immune legs, throws magic missiles, Final Strike 5ft on death, raises undead, and swings poison. There was also a Blight tree beyond them that had J'ortsa, Evie, and Rosetta tied to it. Once we finally killed both of them, we made our way to a bridge that needed wood, which we carved out of wood woads that were attacking us. In the room past the bridge were moths, beetles, and Logain once more. Ryu talked to them again, slowly convincing them that Stravamor is using them, and they don't need him to help the people of Warian. She manages to convince Logain *through the mind-control Stravamor had on them* to take a Potion of Restore that had been powered up using jade, Divine Aids, Mage, and the sap of Setiyah, after which she transformed... into a giant beetle! Dung beetles raced around the room, hitting people with Blight and Boulder. There was a ring with strands of Blight floating above Logain, which we needed to throw the dung-boulders through. Luckily for me, I had Mo, my Dire Moose Mount, who helps me carry boulders ((lets me carry boulders with two hands)), so I got a good two throws through the hoop, which broke off Transformed Logain's wings. I felt a bit worse after handling the dung the last time, so I decided against finishing the Transformed Logain and handed Mo off to Daekara (don't worry dear reader, I told Mo not to kill him) so that he could throw the last boulder. Once the beetle was defeated Logain returned to normal, much less blighted and plant-y than she was before. She also gave us her staff, which could manipulate, transfer, and hold Blight.
Sunday began with the party deciding whether to leave the Blight on Elemirre Isle, where it would likely continue to harm the people of Warian, but would also allow the golems of The Stone Grove to continue awakening powerful golems; or to gather half of the Blight into the staff and bring it to the Realms, to reduce the danger to the townsfolk, but also prevent the golems from harnessing as much Blight, and possibly give Stravamor a way off the island. After once again, much deliberation (we really love doing that, don't we?), we decided we would take half the blight to the realms, where we could more easily deal with it if it became a problem. To do this, we needed to find three Blight trees and chop them down while extracting their Blight using Logain's staff. The first of three was in *another* godsdamned swamp, with more bullywugs, and the king bullywug, who kept calling upon "The Great Skywug!" and electrifying the water. We eventually figured out that to get rid of the pillars that the bullywugs were reviving from, we had to mine them using pickaxes we had gotten the day before. Once the three pillars were down, we were able to kill the King Bullywug and chop down the tree. A couple words were said for the 'ritual' of chopping down the tree and extracting the Blight, and then it was cut with a Silver axe (anything else would break). This created a large burst of null magic, which felt worse than it did last year? I didn't really get that impression from anyone else though so it might've just been a me thing.
The next tree was at the end of a maze that had many webs of Blight within that were being sourced by small nodes we could break. Only enough people had to make it through each one such that they were able to break the node and the rest of the party could make it through. This still resulted in several people's infections getting worse, mine included so far as I could tell. We eventually made it to the tree and went through the same thing. Chop, null magic, feel a little dizzy until making it back to a haven. The last tree was at the top of a mountain, so we all had to climb while fending off birds, then zipline while dodging magic missiles. I lost my hat while ziplining (it's a magic hat, so that's noteworthy) but thankfully with Griffin's help and some lucky "wind" it was retrieved. Once past the zipline we made it to a spiral going up to the top of the mountain that birds were knocking us off of. Once again, chop, extract Blight, feel like shit, go to the haven. There was then a whole lot of cleansing done with the staff, I still felt a bit off afterwards but that's what happened last year when I got cleansed so I'm not sure if there's anything to be done about that.
That's pretty much the long and long of it. I think my skin was getting a little bit paler over the course of each day, but it got better once I was cleansed.
Leon Hurana II
Funniest Man in The Realms
Demonstrably The Worst
OOC: Okay that was perhaps a bit long-winded. my bad. I had a lot of fun this past weekend! lots of interesting mechanics and cool puzzles, and a great balance of NPC difficulty. I can't wait to see where this plot goes, I'll definitely be going to the next event!
Also, thanks to everyone for being super welcoming to Cam & I's dad! I'm really glad we picked this event to be the one for him to come to, I think it was a great combination of everything you would want in a quest. sorry to anyone disappointed that you probably won't see him again, but since he had such a good time there might just be a chance... We'll see.
Thanks for reading!
Adam Huneke
Ryu:
Buckle up because this is going to be dense. We learned a lot of information during this event, and I have tried to disseminate it as best I can.
First things first, on Friday we ventured into the lands of Rathkeale to take possession of a splinter of Stravamor's heart before one of his lackeys could get it. I had expected to face Emeris, or perhaps Stravamor himself, but we underestimated the level of starvation and tragedy the Villagers of Elemirre Isle faced in the year since we last visited. Instead of a known agent of Stravamor, we found ourselves at odds with Logain, the Shaman of Warian village that welcomed us adventurers last year. She was in so much pain and distress. All the supplies we sent the village lasted no more than 4 days once reaching the shores, all the livestock withered away, the crops refusing to grow within the jade wards. Warian is now a ghost of its former self. With 90% of the village dead from starvation, Logain had no other option but to feed the Blight (or Bloom as some may call it). In doing so, she opened her mind to Stravamor and allowed his will to influence her thoughts and actions. She had even been transformed somewhat by the Blight into a mothlike creature. Naturally she had been directed to obtain the same splinter we were seeking, and this brought us into conflict. Nevertheless, we forged ahead, through the ancient graveyards, the "Free Range" zombies, and ancient temples. At first, we were stalled by an ancient knight asking for a special key, but some direction from a ghostly Watermancer led us in the right direction. After facing challenges from ancient Knights of the Chalice, we finally reached the location of the Splinter, and Logain. Remembering our previous friendly encounters, I tried to reason with her, but she had Stravamor's voice in her head telling her what she wanted to hear. Sir Nos came up with a great idea to try one of his potions of Restoration to see if it could cure the influence of the Blight. It did... a little. Unfortunately, that was the final straw for Logain and she fled, leaving her army of moths to destroy us. It didn’t stick. We struggled through turning on and off lights, but eventually, the circle around the Splinter was broken and I carried it out of Rathkeale.
On Saturday, we returned to Warian Village on Elemirre Isle with a renewed interest in thwarting Stravamor's schemes. Immediately upon arriving, I could see the terrible state of the village. Failed crops were rotting in the fields, any livestock that remained alive was withered almost beyond recognition. The Jade ward we spent so much energy protecting lay broken, presumably by Logain who felt she had no other option. I truly question if the influence of Blight on the village was worse than the famine they experienced without it. We may never know now, all we can do is move forward and give our best for those that remain. I held a quick briefing for the gathered adventurers about the events of the past night, and what we should remember going forward. Afterward, I was approached by Setaya [spelling?], the local Dryad, who wanted some backup for a planned meeting with Emeris, her partner aligned with Stravamor. I expressed my concerns about this meeting considering that Emeris had, perhaps unknowingly, poisoned Setaya with Blight the year before, causing her great pain and anger until the Blight was cured. Setaya, however, was adamant that she wanted to try to work things out with Emeris as they were still very in love. Love can make us take large risks, as I know well, so I enlisted the help of Chrysantha, Princess Cressida, Sir Nos, and Ser Gordon; all people well equipped to advise on relationship issues. To my surprise, Emeris showed up alone, with no tricks or traps. It seemed he really did want to work things out with his love and was genuinely surprised that the Blight had hurt Setaya. Stravamor had told him the Blight was the only way for Emeris and Setaya to be together, a situation that I can empathize with. With the help of Licensed Couple Therapist Princess Cressida and Emotional Support Goat Chrysantha, we grilled Emeris about such topics as "taking accountability", "the importance of scientific evidence", "believing the evidence of your eyes and ears", and "Stravamor's methods". Ultimately, Setaya and Emeris reconciled, and we extracted a promise from Emeris that he would start thinking critically about the things Stravamor tells him. However, the most important bit of information that we learned was that the Blight, or really Bloom, had existed on Elemirre Isle far before Stravamor woke up, and was what originally made the land fertile in the first place. Later, we did confirm the Bloom is entirely natural and a manifestation of the natural magics of the land, but Stravamor has been twisting it to use for his own end. More on that topic later.
While our group was assisting Setaya, the rest of the party met up with Spark, a Golem native, to assist him in clearing a pond of unusually aggressive Bullywogs. Our group only arrived at the very end, so I did not get to see if there were any additional goals achieved. Regardless, I was able to discuss the nature of the Blight with Spark, who helpfully agreed that the Bloom is natural, while Blight is the version touched with Stravamor. The Golems had learned how to "steal" blight from Stravamor and use it to create new, sapient Golems. To do this, we needed to identify Blighted trees and connect them with jade filament to the central ritual point. Unfortunately, we had to act fast. If Stravamor discovered what we were attempting, he would draw all of his Blight away from the area. We worked at a brisk pace, and almost missed the deadline, but ultimately the ritual started. While we expected Blighted creatures to attempt to stop the ritual, we didn't expect quite so many to descend on the hill. I organized teams to sweep the jade lines and protect the trees in case any creatures tried to interfere. The battle was fierce, especially when the awful Ulf the werewolf, another of Stravamor's lackies, showed up. We did prove victorious though and a new Golem, bowtie, was born. We took a short break for soup, and when we returned, we got concerning news that Logain had raised an army of Moths and Wood Woads and was marching on Warian Village! Fortunately, there was a defensible fort between the village and the incoming army, so we set up and prepared for a siege. Logain arrived with her forces, and I was shocked to see some familiar faces among the troops. Somehow, Magus Rosetta, J'ortsa, and Evie had succumbed to the Blight and were aligned with Logain. The siege began and it was chaos. Dame Raindrop and Rani joined forces to take on Corrupted Rosetta, Lord Elric and the other citizens of Rathkeale focused on Corrupted J'ortsa, while the Broken Spears tried to reason with Corrupted Evie. I however, couldn't shake the feeling that the Logain I knew was still in there. I made a brash decision (some would probably call it an unwise risk) and broke through our own line to parley with Logain. Somehow, that worked, and I once again tried to reason with my friend. As we talked, I could see reason beginning to return to Logain, however, she started to hear a voice in her head and then became confused. I begged her to pull her forces back and let us help her. I told her that we didn't understand the importance of the Bloom before, but now we did, and we wanted to help the whole Island. I told her of the Golems who could harness the Bloom without the interference of Stravamor. I saw in her eyes that she was just about to give the order to pull back, but as she started to speak, a Wood Woad placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "It is time for us to go." Logain's eyes turned hard once again and nodded. She then gave the order to her troops to "kill them all" and retreated, leaving me in the middle of an enemy line with only a hidden dagger for protection. When I woke up, the enemies were defeated and Logain was long gone, with our Corrupted friends being nothing more than disguised Wood Woads. Despite my frustration, we forged ahead and cleared a Bullywog swamp of Blight using some jade pieces the Golems had refined. Once again, we took a short break, during which I and several others put our heads together to figure out a potential potion that could cure the Blight from Logain. I was convinced that if Logain was freed from the influence of Stravamor she would choose peace, but I also knew this cure had to be her choice. If the cure was forced upon her, it would be only a matter of time until she succumbed again to Stravamor's lies and deceit. I have seen firsthand the harm that can come when we remove the agency from those in awful situations. Last year, we made a mistake by not listening to the villagers when they told us feeding the Bloom was their only option to avoid starvation. Instead, we collectively decided the Bloom had to be stopped, and the wards had to remain in place, and we undermined every effort the villagers made to save themselves while providing them with very few alternatives. This is something I will carry with me, perhaps forever, as a lesson in why agency is essential in protecting the continuing existence of all creatures in the Realms.
The potion we brewed was complex and would take a while to finish. In the meantime, we finally got a lead on our Corrupted friends and set out to a shifting maze full of Blighted creatures. Sure enough, at the end we discovered our friends unconscious and entangled in the roots of a Blight tree. With the last of Sir Nos's potions of Restoration, we were able to free them from the roots and the influence of Blight. Thankfully there did not seem to be any permanent damage, but before they all left, Magus Rosetta kindly helped infuse one last potion of Restoration with the unrestricted power of a Mage. Chrysantha set up a quick ritual to empower the potion even more with jade and several others in our party called out to their Gods to help this potion be enough to cure Logain of the Blight. For those of you that helped, I am extremely grateful, even to Rosetta who I acknowledge will likely accept my Lien and Obligation. With our friends free, there remained only one thing left to do.
The trek to Logain with fraught with danger. Her moths attacked us from every angle and they, of course, could fly over the deep ravines that slowed us down. We were able to construct a makeshift rope bridge and traversed over the great yawning chasms to reach our final obstacle, Logain herself. She was erratic and confused, upset that we were killing her moths but unwilling to stop them from killing us. Every time she got close to accepting our help, she would suddenly push us back with a powerful wind. I am positive this was Stravamor directly controlling her actions to keep Logain from breaking free of his control. However, it was too late, I had already seeded doubt in Logain's mind, and she was fighting a battle for her mind. As a last-ditch effort, I threw down my weapon and embraced Logain with open arms. I asserted that there was another way, a future where she and the other villagers could harness the Bloom without Stravamor. I told her that I didn't have the answer right now, but she and I could work toward a different future for Elemirre Isle, free from anyone's control. In a moment of clarity, Logain took the potion and drank it. However, Stravamor would not let go so easily. Before the potion could fully take effect, he transformed Logain into a massive Scarab creature. It was clear that to reclaim my friend, we needed to defeat this creature. Thankfully, Leo brought his Dire Moose Mo and effortlessly tossed massive boulders at the flying creature. It took some coordination, but finally we knocked the beast out of the sky. With its death, the Blight infused flesh dissolved away leaving Logain, finally, free. With her newfound clarity, Logain handed us the ornate staff she had been carrying this whole time, telling us it was powerful and Stravamor wanted it. It has the power to pull Blight from things, and it would be instrumental to our efforts to defeat Stravamor, and what we were about to attempt the next day.
Sunday came with a sort of frantic energy. I could tell we had delt a massive blow to Stravamor by taking both the staff and one of his Lieutenants away from him and he was not happy. He was about to be even less happy. We all gathered in the tavern and were joined by Spark, Logain, Setaya, and the Village Chief. Now that we had the staff, we could finally attempt to control the Blight or at least cut back on how much was leaking from the core of the island. We had 2 options. We could lock the Blight away within the core of the island, cutting off access to it for everyone. Unfortunately, that would pretty much seal the fate of the villagers. Without the blight the land would no longer be fertile, and the villagers would either have to relocate, or die. The other option was to take half of the blight, seal it in the staff, and take it to the mainland. With half of the blight removed, the rapid overgrowth would subside and Stravamor would have a lot less power to throw around. This, however, would prevent the Golems from making new Golems and would pose a significant risk to the Realms should the Blight escape the staff. It was a difficult decision that no one of us could make alone. I called a council of as many Realms Leaders as were present and we discussed the options. The debate was fierce and long, but ultimately, we decided to put the risk on us, the adventurers, and bring half of the Blight to the lands of the Northern Alliance. We hoped that the frigid region would mitigate any spread of the Blight, and the low population density would keep people from getting infected. With that decision, Setaya led us to the oldest Blight trees on the Isle. We trudged across swamps, up mountains, and finally through a forest completely riddled with Blighted webs. Along the way, Dame Raindrop had the idea to try and gain insight on the true nature of the Blight and Bloom. They set up a ritual and seance the Bloom directly in its most natural form. They reported seeing a figure with horns (almost definitely Stravamor) and a figure with a crown of pink flowers. It appeared to Raindrop that the Bloom was like a god, and the two figures were akin to the two sides of an Avatar. They were out of balance, with one side more dominant and that was the cause of this disharmony between nature and civilization. We must research further to find out who this figure with a crown of pink flowers is, and how we can restore balance to the Bloom. I believe this is the only way Elemirre Isle can survive. As we reached each tree, we absorbed the Blight, causing the tree to fall and several new Null Magic zones to be created. I was assured by Logain that this would not be a problem, and very few villagers use magic. At the last tree, we finally found the ensnared figure of Sir Noj of Neden, who had also been Corrupted by the Blight. With half the Blight now contained in the staff, the only thing left to do was remove the Blight from anyone who had been afflicted during this adventure. As the sun set, I boarded a ship to return to the mainland and said my goodbyes to the denizens of the island, promising to return. I find myself with many questions still, especially concerning the Heroes of the Past who originally sealed Stravamor. Needless to say, there is much work left to be done on Elemirre Isle. If you would like more information or have any additional questions regarding the events here, feel free to send me a letter.
Yours in service to the Realms,
- Commander Ryu of Chimeron
