The Adventures of the Big HELP, Session 20

General Summary

• The Big HELP ran to check on Hest after she was reincarnated by a Wild Magic Surge after her wooden body burned to ash. Hest arose, now a taller, buffer tiefling. Much of the dress Glamour had loaned her had burned away, leaving an orange-red outfit behind. Despite the trauma, Hest was more concerned about getting flaming blood from the Cult of Arazid assassin in her Everfull Flask. Unfortunately, the flask was unable to replicate the magic aspect of anything placed into it. Hest vowed to write the disclaimer on the flask at some point.
• Bigwig absorbed the Arazid power from the assassin's transformed corpse. No transformations or new powers appeared immediately.
• Nascour thanked the Big HELP sincerely for saving his and his daughter's lives (though he was a little pretentious about it). Hest was unsure if Nascour would be safe on his own. Nascour assured her, back home where he could ask Ania to bunker down, he was very capable of defending them. Nascour and Ania then left for their home. He would be staying in Valadris longer, studying the necklace of Amroth.
• Zinnia dropped from the rooftops once Nascour had departed. She offered to walk home with the party. Bigwig and Hest were a little suspiscious of her, given her role as a spy and randomly appearing in the mine when they needed her help. Zinnia felt put off by this. She told Larka that King Hespiro had pushed back the Church of Gorthag and was now able to cross the Ribahrn River. Wanting to hear more Petrichor and Larka convinced the others to at least eat dinner with Zinnia.
• At an inn, Zinnia recognized Petrichor's Weakened Staff of the Woodlands and asked if she knew what it was. Petrichor had a vague idea that it was important to the Nature Goddess, Sindara. Zinnia knew about the staff from her archdruid mother and said the staff would have appeared to a chosen Disciple of Sindara. She asked Petrichor if she was really happy following the ancient orders of a goddess who left the world millenia ago. Petrichor thought she was alright with this until Zinnia talked about forging her own path. Zinnia had fought with her mother over this many times. Her mother argued that nature had a set path, ordained by the gods and always needing balance. Zinnia believed that every living creature had the right to choose its own path. Petrichor was left with a lot to think about regarding that debate. She did figure out that Ivy, the archdruid she had met at Firelda Outpost, was Zinnia's mother.
• At this point, the Big HELP were unsure where to go next. Larka took advantage of this to suggest going to rescue her family from Hespiro. She started by trying to convince Petrichor that he was trying to destroy her magic, then noticed Zinnia biting her lip at that. Larka pressed Zinnia for more information and Zinnia cautiously revealed that Hespiro was not just trying to outlaw magic, but offer an alternative. Zinnia said she was asked not to talk about this. Larka, horrified, realized that it was Hespiro that asked her to do this.
• Zinnia did her best to subtly confirm this, revealing she had changed allegiance to Hespiro from the Catfolk Freehold. She explained that, on a night she could have assassinated Hespiro, he was tinkering with something that completely blanked out her magic. Zinnia was unsure whether this was an accident or if Hespiro knew she was there. Hespiro explained to her about a threat was coming to Udarich that was being accelerated by the use of magic. Hespiro wanted to offer people an alternative to magic. His talk of people forging their own path and the revelation of the danger they faced won Zinnia to his cause.
• Zinnia revealed that her adoption of the Circle of Stars came from Hespiro's teachings. He taught her how to commune with nature directly rather than with the druidic magic bestowed upon people by the gods. The party was still unsure of Zinnia. She told them that Hespiro wanted to explain the stakes of his conquest in person.
• Reeling from Zinnia's revelation, the party decided to call it an early night. Hest slept restlessly, unaccustomed to her horns. Bigwig was greeted in her dreams by a red-scaled dragonborn, handsome with cunning grin. The dragonborn said Bigwig was performing impressively as a host for his powers. Bigwig asked who he was and why he was in her head. The dragonborn admitted he did not know. His memories were gone, but slowly returning as Bigwig absorbed more Arazid power. Bigwig was unsure why the cultists were attacking her if she had him in her head, guessing that the dragonborn was Arazid. The dragonborn theorized that they all had him in their head, to some degree. Those that could hear him best would fight until one remained and all of his fragments would coallesce within that survivor. Bigwig asked what that would look like for her. The dragonborn responded, if she was the one killed then she'd look dead, if not then she'd likely look a lot more like him based on her transformation.
• Bigwig and the dragonborn talked at length in her dream. She confronted him about how he could lose his memories if he was so powerful. After searching what memories he had regained, the dragonborn recalled dying at the hands of a glittering blue person and trying to persist beyond death via something called blood-bonding, though he could not recall what that meant. Bigwig first wondered if the blue woman was the skeleton Larka and Petrichor had found. She then asked if the blood-bonding meant that the dragonborn was her father. He guessed that he probably wasn't in the traditional sense. As Bigwig began to awaken, she told the dragonborn "Bye Dad" and he responded by saying "Farewell, child of my blood."
• Hest started the morning by checking herself out in the mirror for the first time since her reincarnation. Liking what she saw, she headed downstairs. The HELP were worried about Bigwig, seemingly starting to grow scales on her face. Amroth joined them for breakfast and to say farewell as he left the party to study the necklace with Nascour and hopefully free Caerda.
• The HELP then debated where to go next. Bigwig wanted to travel north to learn more about herself and the cult. Larka prepared a presentation on why they should travel southwest to speak with Hespiro (and possibly overthrow him) which convinced Petrichor and Hest. Verga Stonehammer overheard this and advised the HELP to travel through a mine to the south seeing as Vala Pass was still blocked. She also gave Bigwig a letter that had come in the mail for Bigwig. Larka snooped on the letter. Verga wished them well, offering each 200G in case of emergencies. Before leaving Valadris, Hest purchased a quarterstaff.
• The HELP spent the next day traveling underground. The following morning, they left the mine and found themselves in Singor Forest. Larka and Petrichor felt that something was off, like something trying to muffle them. The party ran into some dire wolves coated in a black sludge. Larka howled, intending to commune with them but just ended up aggravating them. As the HELP killed the corrupted wolves, they watched the sludge fade away. Petrichor used Detect Magic to figure out what was going on here and realized the forest was filled with nature magic but something else was trying to nullify it.
• The HELP travelled east until Larka and Bigwig began crying out. Petrichor and Hest looked around and only saw mist rising off a corrupted pond. Larka instead saw the bodies of her family. Bigwig saw the dragonborn from her dreams and the Fireblood laughing at her and taking her powers away. Petrichor and Hest realized that the mist was causing Larka and Bigwig to hallucinate and carried them back.
• The party decided to travel west instead. They came upon a dying creature that Larka recognized as a myconid. The myconid was trying to fight off corruption. He reached out with his Rapport Spores to communicate with the HELP. Larka and Bigwig resisted the spores. Petrichor was unable to resist them and Hest welcomed the myconid into her mind. The myconid's thought were broken and ragged. The HELP learned that he had friends lost in the forest, some corrupted while others fought the corruption. There may also be a way to purify the forest and the corrupted. It was too late for this myconid, though. He had walked into a sunbeam to whither and die before the corruption set into him. Larka remembered that myconids whithered in the sun and wanted to pull him away, but Petrichor convinced her that the myconid was doing this on purpose.
• After the myconid died, Petrichor used Mold Earth to dig a grave and the others moved the myconid into it. As Petrichor buried him, they heard one last "thank you" in their thoughts from the myconid. The HELP decided they needed to find the other myconids and help them. Traveling north, they found a putrid, corrupted lake with an island in the middle.
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Report Date

20 May 2024