by: Amber "Tarnisha" Fox & Emma "Companion" Rovira
We started our day with a Blue Ranger(though that is not his Name), looking to guide us to the Laurins village of Spring (the first known point of the blooming) so we could do some detective work. For payment, he asked for the name of the door into the Laurins so he could Find the Path to it in the future...and P.S. his services started in the Laurins. Getting to and through the door was our problem to solve.
Soon after a shady character in black robes ~~named~~ called Blot (though that is not his Name). Blot left the Laurins a few months back. His intro usually includes 'yes I'm a villain, but not your villain'. To that I add 'yet'. He was selling some pre-charged, transferable spell sashes that day, not collapsing the whole Narromancy system with massive collateral damage, so no reason to stab this time.
How to find the door? Someone volunteered their Find the Path spell :/ ... to the door we don't know the name of. Luckily, Four has been several time and could lead from memory. Per usual, we had to cross through a section of Hell where red and blue devils are squabbling. Luckily it was a short span so some were able to just run the gap. Ash of Creathorne started a rumble on one side, drawing lots of attention which helped out the slower folks.
We found the door, it was neither labeled nor talkative about its name. Also it was closed. Four had the brilliant idea of writing a statement on the door, paraphrasing the statement of our previous passing. It didn't work for the first two people, but the third wasn't a scholar or artisan, etc., but had the role of hero. The door opened for our hero and and everyone could tailgate from there.
Margaret guarded by Tir and a few others lingered to do a ritual and got that name. Ask Margaret or me if you want the door's name.
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We were lead to the village of Spring, and what do ya know there were plant monsters swinging seed strike in the area, just like last time. We had known that Spring was early in the transmission line of the Blooming, but not how early. Apparently, this town was where the Blooming Patient Zero was from. That's new-ish info.
There were 5 very dilapidated, abandoned buildings. The First I looked at was a quarantined house-- all boarded up tight and the door had been locked from the outside (before falling in at some point). One bed was inside, no other furniture. There were scratches and claw marks around those barred openings and tally marks on the walls of the days passing by --who or what ever was in there for a full year at least judging by those tally marks.
I nearly missed it, but on the same wall that the door was on, there was the message "This was all my fault" scrawled on a wall.
I moved on while the other folks were distracting the the nasty and aggressive plant monsters swinging vines to slap seedstrike onto folks. In case y'all are concerned, We were very responsible and (as planned) after we left the Laurlins everyone got a Cure Disease from Violet's CoH, whether they needed it or not. We brought home no new cases of the Blooming.
The hut furthest back was weird. It had been massively overtaken by vines... but they were growing inward, not towards the light.
The vines were being *told* to keep the hut together. So the vines *can be* controlled. Who or what made that possible was no longer in the hut.
Next in line was the village Inn, also a bit weird. It looked like folks in the common room didn't just get attacked by vines and claws, but also with swords and all quite suddenly.
Fourth was the Apothecary's hut. A lady named Molly had done a lot of research and we found her spellbook... but she was super frustrated with not being able to develop a cure. Since it didn't look like they knew about the curse part of the Blooming, alchemy alone wasn't gonna get the village to a cure.
Her Ghost was *cheesed* and pretty stabby, but some reassurance that her work was valuable and her spirit was able to move one.
The 5th structure was the Smithy. Four, shapeshifted into Opal's butterfly form, investigated there. Umm, nothing significant was reported when I asked.
With the ghost gone, we could get some reading in. There was a string of Foretells, some of which had come true and several hadn't been crossed off yet. One foretell mentioned the King's guard confiscating that spellbook of research notes. Oh Hey, 2 fighters soon came on scene saying they were the Guard, "The Queen's Guard?", "No, not the Queensguard". Yeeeeah, they were very likely working for the Laurin's "Fae king" and like the ones mentioned in the foretell. (We know that this monarch was the one who hired The Villain to create the Blooming.) Very prudently those guys never saw or heard about the spellbook and we took it with us when we has beat down the vine monsters fully and the Door appeared again.
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Welp, the door dumped us out near a cult dedicated to "the curse Rune" of Miradu. I headed out to the Western flank and missed a lot, so I'll let Companion tell this tale.
[Companion's section]
Here is a rundown of what we found.
We arrived, and were presented with Midoru cultists, and a barrier made of fire and water behind them. They were looking for and mining silver, though they had a slave to mine for them as if they didn’t they would slowly die. They offered me a position by their side as a smith that has worked with silver before. Of course we started killing them. On them they had concentrated elements. We used concentrated fire arranged in the shape of the rune Iru to turn off the water half of the barrier, and we used concentrated water in the shape of Dana to turn off the water half of the barrier.
Through the barrier there was another one, this time made of wind and earth. So, rinse and repeat. The cultists were getting annoying as we were getting cornered, so I killed them all with a 5pt. And the lieutenant got another one to make him fuck off for a bit. However, once we broke down the final barriers, there he was again.
He had made a Midoru creature, one that only dies when it was stabbed while smiling. Our group went on to kill the lieutenant, and find out information about a ball/dance party the cult is hosting at some point.
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The Door then opened to have us visit 'T'he 'H'ero (this guy is Entitled and a pinnacle of his role, so said with capitals). He was fighting hard to keep the forces of Hell at bay and prevent all of the Laurins from being overrun. He did have a dashing profile but was all business while frequently slapping fireballs out of the air with his shield.
We didn't have any fighters or any 5 foots for the one paths so Raindrop did a mage rune ritual to invoke as The Defender. They got mystical armor and better weapons... as long as they didn't stray too far from The Hero, who the magic was channeling through.
The rest of us helped out by collapsing the fissures the devils were entering from. There were lots of fissures and only the two fighting distractions-- it was tough going but we managed. After crossing a lava lake on a distressingly narrow bridge, more of the same, but the door was back and it was time to leave. However, Raindrops still invoked, charged off after a distant cluster of devils. <Sigh> They'll be with the hero, we will worry if Magus Raindrop doesn't come home in a few days. [footnote: Happily, Raindrop did make it home and with a little more info about the history of the hero].
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Next the Door lead us to Qua Taereth Nuuna (Warlord Makhta's lands). However, this was not quite the realms, but some off balanced spirit space.
To start off we though the original McKrye could help, so we flaunted the booze and bar with no N to dare him to show up and deal with the shadows.
No dice. We soon encountered a murder owl, many wolves, and hostile ghosts handing out guilt trips. ((My daughter was NPC'ing so I may have murdered the child ghost more often than my character normally would.))
We started collecting any bottles of booze we could find. We didn't know what we needed them for, but knew they'd come in handy.
A precog went off and gave us direction. We needed the QTN banner, the letters for the barN sign, and lots of booze inside the foundation of the real-realms barN. The wolves were hiding some of the letters, others appeared when a task was finished.
It was hard getting booze off of the drunks, but by performing some of the QTN regionals, we managed. One was raising a toast to valor or courage but with a story.
I was walked through doing a four point ritual by a spirit who couldn't speak. We were calling to the animal guardians spirits of QTN. North was the stag who invoked strength, East was the hawk who was fierce and had piercing vision(insight), South was the turtle with healing (/health), and West was the bear specializing in protection. Other folks were drafted into pairs or trios to face the murder owl with valor and to hunt the threat.
With the tasks done, the Spirit space faded away and we were truly in the Realms again, watching the true sun riding low on the horizon.
