Session 21:

 

Everyone gathers themselves up.  They are all aware that Rannok was talking through Silas.  William had done detect magic and was able to determine that there was some kind of enchantment on the statue that allowed Rannok to see through it.  They suspect because of the nature and orientation of the statue, it's above the trees and he might be able to use it to look down on the nearby town.  Brinden keeps his sword out and cleans it.  He does a little patrol around the perimeter of the trees and listening.  He starts at the big tree on the right and circles around, listening out for any other possible threats and noises.  

 

Brinden cautiously makes his way around the trees, looking all around.  He's hacking at the undergrowth.  As he goes around, he's aware acutely at certain points that there's subtle motion.  In fact, at one point he was making his circle around, he sees for a minute what appears to be a shine, a glimmer, and these two eyes looking back at him.  The minute they realize that he observed them, he see hears a yelping and it runs.  The basic shape and presence, it looks he assumes it kinda looks like the wolves at the front.  He doesn't know if it's exactly those, but it's the basic shape.  As the creature withdraws, Brinden isn't a pro with wolves, but in the mountains, his tribesmen keeps large dogs and he feels like the wolf might have been there or around all along and just watched its alpha get killed.  It seems to be reacting with a little bit of trepidation towards him at this point.  Brinden continues around.

 

Artemis focuses on the statue, a little bit unsure about it.  She doesn't sense any currently active magic on it.  It doesn't seem like there's a current powerful enchantment at play here.  She does remember when Silas started talking, not only were Silas's eyes eradiated with a red energy, there was a shaft of subtle red light beaming forth from the eyes of the Rannok statue that was washing over Silas's face, which she doesn't see right now.  She's not sure if that means that it can't see right now or if Rannok's not looking right now, maybe he is.  She does feel a little bit uneasy standing underneath the statue.  

 

Artemis and Illi plods around and looks at the plants.  Artemis is careful to stay clear of the undulating growth left behind by the wolf.  She climbs through the undergrowth and sees this corruptive root what she thought were creeper vines initially as she looks at these undulating mass, there's these dark green throbbing kind of blackish, they look like veins but they're like roots that have been shooting off this and into the ground and spreading like a corruptive force on everything around it.  It doesn't just make her uneasy, but being kind of attuned to nature, this is a blaspheme.  She doesn't like it.  But as she moves away from it, she is able to detect some patches of ground where she doesn't see any of the corruptive roots or growths.  As she climbs around the tree and clasp amongst the undergrowth, the foliage, the fallen dried leaves and such, she's able to find a sprig of belladonna, which it seems to be flowering and it reminds her of immediately of the carving or etching inside on the first floor of the mausoleum where they made their offerings.  She collects it.  She scoops up some soil with it and wraps some moistened paper around it to keep it damp.  

 

Illi is looking for spices.  Illi’s little elven nose is sniffing around, it’s really hard to detect anything of value.  As she’s going through the undergrowth, she gets past some of the dried foliage and vinery and where she suspects to find some growth, she finds nothing but corrupted roots and sprouts that have come out.  She sees some kind of bulbs making their way around it and sucking nutrients out of it.  It looks like the things that was growing on and in the wolf, warping and mutating its presence.  They may have been flavorful roots at one point, like ginger, if it weren’t for the fact they were clutched and emaciated and dried out from the vile vines that wrapped around it and sucked the nutrients from it.  There appear to be patches of them all along and throughout the undergrowth.  Kinda seeing how they emanated so quickly from the one orb the wolf left behind, and also remembering how happy he was to vomit up a whole bunch of filth, they almost intuit that this whole area might have been his hunting ground, den, home, and is completely awashed with this corruption.  The vines are patches sprung forth from all kinds of sources.  Brinden comes hacking his way back into the circle, few grass cuts on him.

 

Silas:  Find anything?

 

Brinden:  Uh… nothing really.  But I did see a couple of our wolf brethren hanging around, I think.  But they didn’t seem too threatening, in fact they seemed a little scared.  So.  We might have done something towards our advantage there.  But I was gonna ask, could we pop that orb thing over there?  I could do it myself, sacrifice an arrow, but what if we just pop that thing and see what happens, get it out of the way.

 

Illi:  Okay.

 

Artemis:  It’s gonna release some stuff.

 

Brinden:  Yeah, but it saves us, like, bumbling around it.  If it’s gonna disperse, like the other one after a bit of time, might as well just pop it.

 

Artemis:  Yeah so then we can walk around it, I guess? Okay.

 

Silas:  Are we staying up here?

 

Brinden:  I don’t think so.

 

Illi:  It might keep something else from running into it.

 

William:  I don’t know where else we could go.

 

Brinden takes out his shortbow and stretches his strings a little.  Illi gets on the side and watches.  She’s all Indian style, if she had popcorn she’d be eating it right now.

 

Silas:  Do we know how this stuff works?

 

Artemis:  I had an idea, the first one kind of like… it was definitely reactive to motion.  I don’t know if it was just waiting for someone to come around and in the meantime it’s kind of stagnant, but…

 

Illi:  I’m curious how he shoots!

 

Artemis:  I’m hoping that when he shoots it it will disperse, and it won’t be just piles of acidic stuff.

 

Brinden is still warming up his strings and feathering up an arrow.  William is hiding behind Silas and poking him.  Brinden tries to use Artemis’s shoulder to steady things, but she ran off to a safe zone.  Brinden limbers up his shoulders a little, still stuff after the fight.  Gonna stretch a little.  Brinden looses an arrow and they all watch as it does fly straight and true and sinks in halfway down to the shaft and hits this thing. As it does, it quivers for a second then it lets this mist spray which emanates five feet around it.  

 

Brinden:  Fascinating… I’ve never seen anything like this.

 

William:  It’s terrifying…

 

This is very foreign even to those of them who have spent time in the woods.  This is not natural to them.  The mist hangs in the air for 30-40 seconds as it slowly goes down.  What’s left behind is the deflated remnants of what once was this active living plant thing.  They notice the motion has ceased, it’s dissolved a little bit under the weight of the fumes and it appears to be no more.  There is ever so slightly an acidic tint in the air, almost vinegary. Brinden’s feeling pretty (???) with himself nonetheless, he flexes his strings again, pretty happy to himself and puts his bow back.  He turns around and smiles and nods at the rest of them.  Silas slowly claps.  Everyone is clearly impressed.  Brinden knows it.

 

Illi:  Silas, were you feeling okay?

 

Silas:  I’m okay now.

 

Illi:  Good.

 

Silas:  (turns to William) Was there anything on the back side of the pedestal too?

 

William:  Um… What’s an oathblade…?

 

Brinden:  Ah!  ...I have no idea.  Of that, I know nothing!

 

William:  ...I don’t either.

 

Silas:  I would assume it’s a blade that you made an oath by… but…

 

Artemis:  I think of you cutting your hand and dripping blood into some cauldron, but I don’t know…

 

Illi:  Well, I certainly did cut my hand and nothing seemed to happen.

 

Brinden:  That’s right.

 

Artemis:  Oh, and that it’s a sword.

 

Silas:  On the statue’s sword.

 

Illi:  Yeah.

 

Brinden:  So is it like, whoever has the bloody hand can actually open the door downstairs without getting pummeled like I did? Maybe?

 

Illi:  I don’t know about that.

 

Artemis:  We’re gonna (???) test the door.

 

Illi just kneels down and touches the statue.  She widens her wound to get some flow going.  As she puts her hand on the statue, it’s cool to the touch, smooth.  She focuses for a moment and nothing happens.  William sees Illi holding a hand out upwards in the direction of the sword on the statue.  Even with the weathering and vines on the statue, there are no chips or blemishes on the statue, as if the sculptor had just finish liberating it from a slab of marble.  He casts detects magic, focusing on the sword.  He detects the presence of that powerful scribed enchantment on it. The object does appear to be enchanted, but nothing in particular and nothing special about the blad.  Illi pushes on the statue.

 

Silas:  I was thinking we could take this pod down there and try to acid the door open.

 

Brinden:  Use it on the door downstairs?

 

Silas:  Yes.  Do you see another door we could use it on?

 

Illi:  Maybe on the handle?

 

Brinden:  From the shock I took to my hand, I’m not assuming that acid is gonna be the thing…

 

Silas:  It’s worth a try.

 

Illi:  We could throw the disk at it.

 

Silas: Let’s not…

 

William:  Let’s go then!

 

Illi:  Knocking is always an option.  Silas, he knows you’re here, you can knock and we can wait behind.

 

William:  Let’s go…

 

Silas:  ...I’m not knocking on that thing.

 

William:  I don’t want to be up here anymore.

 

When they get back downstairs, Illi pulls out the medallion.

 

Illi:  This is empty.  We should probably fill it before we go destroying doors.

 

Silas:  Can you refill it with the same memory?

 

Artemis:  I think you can…

 

Illi:  I think it’s possible, but I don’t think I can.

 

She holds it out to pass it to someone.  Brinden grabs it and he’s turning it over in his hand.  He’s examining it and tries to pass it to someone else.

 

Silas:  You don’t want to put a happy memory in it?

 

Brinden:  Um… eh… I got plenty of happy memories, but I’m not sure I trust this thing. So I would rather someone else can dig and find a happy memory, then by all means.  Whoever wants it.

 

Everyone is sheepishly looking back and forth at each other as he holds out this medallion.  No one’s being awfully coy or secretive about it.  As his eyes go from person to person, it’s like choosing someone to go up to the front of the room to put the math problem on the board.  As his focus goes to William, William’s eyes go wide and he pulls the drawstrings on his cape as the thing starts closing around his face until only his little nose is kinda sticking out from it.   Brinden holds it out to Artemis, who starts pulling a “I’m at the grocery store and someone asked me if I was missing based on a poster” and starts tussling her wild hair and looking up and whistling a little bit and flipping the belladonna over in her hands like “oh this is interesting, plants, plants, I love plants.”  He continues to sweep over to Silas, and Silas’s laser focus is on him and the most intense frown ever, this scowl is looking at him as if to speak a thousand volumes in a thousand ways of saying “hell no I ain’t gonna share.”  Brinden tosses it in his hands a couple of times.

 

Brinden:  No one’s got a happy memory?  Fine.

 

He walks off and sits in the corner of the room near the water for a couple minutes, tossing the thing around and looking at it again and moves it if it moves, see if there’s any parts to it or anything.  It’s pretty solid, there’s no mechanisms to it, once he focuses on it, he becomes attuned to it and realize if he were to think back to a memory of his own, he can feel a connection to the device in his hand and like it would just kind of resonate there.  As he focuses on the thing and live in the moment, he sees a dull glow coming from it almost as if someone quickly escalated a dimmer switch, it extends to this light, basically giving the radiance of a torch.  He plays around with it a little bit and realizes he has control over it, making it as intense or dim as he wants just by focusing his mind.  Brinden is staring at this thing and thinking stuff and hoping it has done its thing and looks to Illi.

 

Brinden:  Is that it?  What do I do?  I’m thinking of stuff.

 

Illi:  The light’s on, I think you’re done.

 

Brinden:  Already?

 

Illi:  (in Elvish)  Thank you, I don’t know if I’m ready to see her again.

 

Brinden:  (in Elvish)  Well, y’know, in your own time.  But we’re good for now.

 

Illi:  (in Elvish)  That was Moonface.

 

Brinden:  (in Elvish)  I figured as much.  Don’t worry, don’t worry.  I’ve got some good pure thoughts going into this thing.

 

William steps away from Illi.