Curing Thornroot--Barovia
General Summary
Over Emyr's objections, you went back to cure Thornroot, the treant who had given you the berries, of the fungal infection that was killing him. On your way, you saw more of the sluagh in their bird forms, chatting back and forth in the trees and laughing. Rose eavesdropped with speak with animals and heard something about the "fireflits" (which she knew to be a name for the pixie-like fey) wanting to take her shadow. When she told Vanya about it, he cautioned her that the fireflits had promised to give her the greatest reward they could imagine if she healed the plants, but that wouldn't necessarily be the greatest reward she could imagine.
When you reached Thornroot's grove and Rose approached the treant, (with Vanya ready to jump in at a moment's notice), his blood-draining tendrils reached for and lightly caressed her, but he withdrew them when she told him she was having none of that if he wanted her help. She tried to cast remove disease, but only a few of the mushrooms sprouting from his bark withered. Still, a few was better than none, and she thought she might be able to heal him given more time. You discussed it and decided that Vanya would go back to Krezk to check on Julien, while Rose would stay with Emyr for a few days and try to finish curing Thornroot. Vanya agreed to this plan, but only when Rose promised never to deal with Thornroot alone.
(Ilya, Casimir, and Gabriela all have their mini-writeups on the Krezk page since they're too minor to get their own pages, if you're having trouble remembering who's who.)
Vanya went back to Casimir and Gabriela's house and found out that Julien had done something to Ilya; Gabriela wasn't sure what it was, only that a shaken Ilya had handed Julien off to them without looking back. She remarked on Julien's occasional "fits" (Vanya waved this off by making it sound like he had epilepsy) and said he'd gone off on some confusing tangent about how you were going to die if you didn't find the toad, but then said you'd found the toad and would be all right. She took Vanya back to where Casimir and Julien were (leading to one of Julien's traditional enormous oh-thank-the-gods-you-aren't-dead hugs), and Casimir told Vanya that he'd been having Julien cut wood; it was heavy work, it made him feel strong, it was violent without being dangerous, and it tired him out. He sent Julien away on a paper-thin excuse of an errand and quietly told Vanya that he wouldn't trust Julien with an ax unsupervised, given the look that sometimes came into his eye. Vanya asked how Julien had done, and Casimir reiterated that there had been some kind of unpleasantness with Ilya but that he didn't know what it was.
There would have been a little more, but then Paul woke up. Rose time!
Rose was perfectly happy to spend a couple days catching up with Emyr, learning more about the shadow fey, and trying to treat tree fungus. When she told him about the fireflits wanting her shadow, he told her that in their mind, this truly was the greatest reward they could give; to the immortal fey, even elves were as short-lived as insects, and they could take stolen shadows back to the Shadow Rift with them to live forever. If they wanted to take Rose's shadow, they believed she was worthy of this kind of preservation, and she would spend eternity tending their gardens...but her personality and spark of life would be lost, and the fey wouldn't understand why this was a problem. Rose said that she'd turn them down and mulled over how strange their outlook was on life. Emyr told her that they were like children studying butterflies; one child might innocently try to catch it and cry when she crushed its wings, one might humanely kill it and pin it to a laboratory table, one might pluck its wings and legs off out of sheer cruelty, but if the butterfly was very, very lucky, they would simply observe it and leave it alone. Rose said that sounded a lot like Borca, and confided in Emyr about how difficult it had been for her to like and trust Bianca only to find that she was a monster; she was sure that if Bianca had decided to actively prey on her, she wouldn't have stood a chance. She talked about the ball and the passionflesh a bit, and about how hard it had been for her to not be able to trust her instincts, but Emyr's protective dad instincts kicked in too much for her to get into too much detail--and certainly too much for her to mention dancing with the Gentleman Caller.
Rose asked Emyr what he thought about Vanya, and Emyr said that he seemed like a good man; Emyr would have killed him when you fought him, and Vanya clearly knew that, but he still put himself between Rose and Emyr without hesitaiton. Rose agreed, saying that Vanya always seemed to think that he wasn't a good or brave person even though he was.
Emyr told her a bit about Nicolae and confessed that he had always felt contempt for the man because he couldn't understand how anyone, even bespelled, would betray Rose like that; he did now. He said that Nicolae seemed to believe Rose was either possessed or some kind of hag changeling--the story changed from minute to minute--and that if he tortured this vile creature with his daughter's face enough, it would eventually flee and bring the real Rose back. He had asked Emyr to call Rose back and help him to torture her, and when Emyr refused, the curse had taken hold. Rose asked if Emyr had been able to sense another presence with Nicolae, and Emyr said that there was something almost like a heat shimmer in the air and that the animals had been acting distressed; Rose took this to mean that the Dark Man was still keeping close tabs on her father. Emyr warned her that by putting this idea into her father's head, the Dark Man had weaponized Nicolae's very love for her against her, since every terrible thing he did to her would be to save the "real" Rose. Rose agreed that the Dark Man was a loathsome creature and remarked that she needed to remember that, earning her a sideways glance from Emyr and a victorious cackle from the GM.
Between heart-to-hearts, Rose cured Thornroot of his infection with Emyr keeping a close eye on the proceedings. When Thornroot was completely cured (except for a large gash in his bark that Emyr was all ready to slap down with contagion if he tried any funny business), he gave Rose a scroll, which he said was made from the heartwood of his grandfather; humans had cut him down and used his remains so that they could cast parlor tricks. If she showed this to any other treants, they would know her as a friend of the Black Grove.
When you were out of earshot, Emyr told Rose that the Black Grove was an evil circle of treant druids and that he wouldn't trust them as far as he could throw them. Rose reminded him that he had always told her there needed to be balance, and that maybe druids like those in the Black Grove were a necessary countermeasure to druids like her. Emyr gave her a look that was a blend of frustration, resignation, and fondness, which might be the expression that Rose sees on him the most often, and said that he was always impressed by how much she saw the good in everyone.
Next time: party reunion!
Rewards Granted
Scroll of mage hand made from treant heartwood
Character(s) interacted with
Casimir
Gabriela
Thornroot
Related Reports
Report Date
19 Mar 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
Related Characters
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