RB 4-8: Gardens of Fog

Mission Report

Fri, Jan 12, 2018 ((Nov 17, 2019))
Party: Jane Irwin (Cael), Cyrus Riggs (Sielic), Proud Flame (Aunne), Cadeos (DragoN), Haelra Vayn (Basil) (late arrival because assisting Lyndi)
Absent: Lyndi Fletcher (Aslene) (dealing with CRA political matter)

The team travels to Talarin Crystal Tower, where they find Nails comatose and dying. A psychomancer named Daria Blake arrives and leads a ritual that allows the team to enter Nails' mind. Inside, they find a ruined greenhouse surrounded by a bleak garden criss-crossed by many paths. The team follows a trail of red feathers to the Skittering Wood. There they overcome four anxiety tornados and then defeat an undead aarakocra named Kvidi. An aspect of Nails is freed. Then the team follows a trail of tar to the Doleful Grotto. There Proud succumbs to a malaise.

Preparing for the Ritual

• Team is briefed, will travel to Talarin Crystal Tower
• Max says Blake says come prepared. What you bring physically, you will carry into the mind space
• Flies in Bron to Tower
• Met by Vi'essa Keestrix
  • Captain Vi'essa Keestrix is a black female elf soldier. Her black curly hair is cut short. She's wearing a matte white bodysuit with light military armor, with a slung hi-tech assault rifle and sheathed katanas.
  • Thank you for protecting Tanesha and bringing her home. We're engaged to be married.
• Medical sector
• Guards
• Nails
  • Thin, pale
  • Intubated and on IV
• Jane Irwin: Jane pets Stygi with nervous energy. There's a to-go cup in her hand that smells obnoxiously strongly of coffee, and she snarfs what looks like four ice cream sundae flavored poptarts wrapped in a paper towel as they ride the elevator.
• Jane Irwin: Jane inhales a hissing, shallow breath, a little shaky. Her knuckles around the cup are white.
• Proud Flame: It's okay. We're here. We'll save him. It's what we do.
• Proud Flame moves over to the bed, and - unless stopped, presses his forehead to Nails's for a moment.
• Proud Flame speaks in elvish.
• The Psychomancer
  • Daria Blake is a white female half-elf psychomancer. Her pale blonde hair is short and wavy. She's wearing advanced power armor. Clad in gleaming full plate with a flowing white-gold cape and a full-face helm, the psychomancer is an awe-inspiring sight. One feature stands out above all others: the psychomancer's floating drone shield. It radiates with an unexpected warmth and seems to subtly soothe disquieting emotions, projecting an aura of hope. It bears its dents and scratches proudly, heralding its frequent use in the defense of others. When Daria speaks, its with a sure, calm voice and thoughtful purpose.
• Jane Irwin: Jane blinks. Damn.
• Jane Irwin: That's some badass armor.
• Jane Irwin: Jane goes... a little pink across the cheeks.
• Proud Flame stands a little taller - he's a little.. looser. A little more muscular. Overall, however? He's suprisingly still /very/ himself. His fangs might be a little longer?
• The ritual Ajami Rao lead included Lyndi, Jane, Chuck, Proud, and Ryu

Into Nails' Mind

• Inside a ruined greenhouse
• Once outside, the team is in a clearing in an overgrown, dying garden: the Cursed Arboretum
• DM: > Proud finds mangy red feathers
• Proud Flame [Common]: The entire place makes... no sense. It really doesn't. I'd call it madness, if I wasn't... you know... not at all certain that it wasn't?
• Jane Irwin: Jane's hands have reddish-brown stains on them, like dirt caked into the lines of her hands, but it's not dirt.
• Draco: This mind has been deeply poisoned. It tastes a little like my mother's addiction.
• Proud Flame [Common]: I wonder if that's a resurgance of Nails's or.. maybe that's exacerbated by the parasite?
• Something tries to read the heroes' minds
• Team also finds a trail of tar
• Team follows trail of feathers

The Skittering Wood

• Winding paths through the sharp brambles
• The feeling of insects on your skin
• Team finds Kvidi (KUH-vee-dee), a mangy red aarakocra
• Nails is in a prison of brambles
• The heroes confront four anxiety tornados, one at a time

• Jane: losing your powers, losing another member of the team, Lyndi weakened and surrounded by starving tigers
  • Proud helps
  • Jane Irwin: Jane just suddenly -has- her staff, and uses it to lever herself to her feet, shaking in her hands, but furious in her expression.

• Cadeos: has a private vision of something draconic
  • Jane helps

• Haelra: in a corridor, falling behind, boot caught in a crack, swarm of bugs coming on the floor, the walls, the ceiling
  • Cadeos helps

• Cyrus: on Cryos, part of a team tracking some Childstealers, deep in some snow-blanketed mountains, low on supplies, found a cache of supplies, eating, find a child's fingerbone, cannibalism
  • Proud helps
  • Cyrus fails to escape the anxiety tornado

• Kvidi attacks in a rage, with major physical blows
• Jane summons giant eagles
• DM: > Kvidi summons a pillar of molten rock
• DM: > Haelra's use of her Wand tells her that Kvidi is the memory of a being: an undead being like a ghost, set loose in Nails' mind as a living nightmare
• DM: > Two of the summoned eagles continue to tear at the cage of brambles
• The heroes defeat Kvidi; Cyrus gets the killing blow
• DM: > Kvidi says, "She will lie"
• bumblebasil (Haelra Vayn): on the ground or like not the truth

• This aspect of Nails looks somewhat better
• DM: > Nails, "Thank you. But you're not done."
• This aspect of Nails disappears
• Blake: > Nails' vitals have improved. You're making progress.

• The heroes return to the Cursed Arboretum
• The heroes check other paths
• DM: > Another path seems to lead to an overgrown university campus, possibly another aspect of Nails' past or psyche
• The heroes follow the tarry path

The Doleful Grotto

• A seemingly-peaceful clearing, with tiers descending to a motionless black pool
• Glowing succulents
• Proud moves ahead
• DR: > Proud sits down and relaxes