Session 13: Wisp Hunting, Making a Wall, Paranoia

General Summary

Wisp Hunting

The session began with you all deciding how you wanted to spend your time building this wall around your camp. Part of the necessary defenses of the Spirit World happens to be Spiritual Wards made from wisps and such. Fearing that she was running low on salt and wisps, Namina decided to head out to find some Wisps with DAN accompanying her as they had some radical new ideas about the future of farming and Underground Gardens.

During their journey, they began to hear the roar of thunder and began to see the world around them illuminated by the occasional spark of lightning. They stopped near a group of mushrooms that was lit up by one such spark to find many portobello and oyster mushrooms, all great for cooking and ready to be harvested. Amongst these culinary delights, DAN happened to spot a more rare species of mushroom which inflicted great pain upon them when they attempted to harvest it for future study.
This mushroom, while slightly damaged by DAN's fumbling, was eventually harvested by them and delicately stored so that DAN can some day learn everything they can about it. The spores, or whatever was oozing from the white spikes that covered its brown and bulbous form, seemed to inflict a great deal of unimaginable pain upon the trio of halflings, and they found themselves having a hard time walking or functioning in general. Namina was able to heal them right up though and their journey to find more wisps continued.

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The four of them soon came upon a grove of younger trees, still quite small and accompanied by a pond. Plantlife filled the area in all manner of ferns, flowers and the like. Moths fluttered by though were only ever briefly illuminated by the lightning. Namina helped navigate through the dark using some magic, and as they were investigating this grove several wisps began to appear.
These six wisps floated carelessly in the air as they are want to do, and Namina spent some time studying them while meditating and reflecting back on the last time she encountered such spirits. She was able to discern that the consistencies between the two areas involved a variety of plants and other wildlife, recently trimmed plants with the potential for new plantlife to grow from them, and herself. She gathered that this changing of life coupled with the wisps innate curiosity over her ability may be what causes them to appear.
DAN, with hopes of utilizing these wisps to grow the group's necessary crops underground, harvested as many of the different plants as they could while Namina collected the wisps into a jar as well. After all of this, they began to head back to the base.

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Making a Wall

Meanwhile, back at the base, Frode and Kaswink were working on some heavy lifting.
The two of them were able to cut down enough trees to make the requisite amount of spikes for the wall's spiky trellis, and while felling these trees the two of them were committed to not harming any wildlife and also keeping the trees from falling on the existing tents in the base. They were successful in this endeavor and after cutting down the trees began wittling away.
During this time, Agave had also been busy at work digging out the trench, and Hysteria was busy looking for ingredients to make a nice, damaging poison.

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While clearing wildlife, Kaswink happened to find a group of flowers which transformed into birds before taking flight. She missed the first two, but was able to grab one of them before it got too far away. She gingerly held the small animal in her hands before eagerly rushing over to Frode to show off her find.
Frode was just as excited to learn of the existence of such a bird, and asked Kaswink if this might be "What he's looking for", referring to Frode and his king. Perhaps filling a garden with these flowers would be a worthy endeavor rather than stripping the land of all resources. They would need to find more of them someday, thankfully Kaswink is familiar with the direction they flew in to escape her.
They spent some time wondering how to preserve the creature before finally dropping it in a small puddle. It wiggled about for a bit before propping itself back upright, cleaning itself off and watching the two of them without much fear.
Hoping to get back to work, and to not lose the exciting discovery before their botanist can look at it, Kaswink decided to keep the bird in Hysteria's tent until DAN returned from their expedition with Namina. After dropping the bird off, she was able to continue splitting logs and whittling spikes with Frode at the extrabarrier workstation.

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Namina and DAN eventually returned to the base with their new findings. Kaswink, seeing their arrival, went for Hysteria's tent to retrieve the bird while Namina found Hysteria for a friendly conversation about menacing spirits and auras.
While retrieving the bird, Kaswink discovered that it had reverted to its flower form. While this would normally not be a problem, there was some concern regarding what happens to the creature should its "roots" be damaged, and the flower had definitely plunged several roots into the ground. She had to utilize frightful tactics involving noise and vibrations to eventually cause enough stress and awaken the creature which led to a deeper understanding of its abilities.
With bird in hand (I hear that's worth two in the bush) Kaswink returned to the outside world and gave it to DAN. DAN seemed to be grateful for the new project and brought it to their tent where they decided to remove any light besides just enough of the barely visible moonlight to see what happens to the creature. They were able to observe it transform from a bird into a flower, and noted the relaxing environment as a cause for such an event. DAN then went to find Namina with hopes of observing the plant with more light, and they were able to retrieve a coin with her magical light.

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Putting up Walls

DAN continued to study this plant, Namina continued speaking with Hysteria, Agave continued digging, and more and more spikes were being whittled away by Frode and Kaswink. DAN had their tent door open at this time, and everyone had a good view of the center of camp.
Namina and Hysteria were around the camp center discussing the strange spirit that Namina saw expelled from them while the group was fighting The Spirit of Christmas. Hysteria seemed unaware of having such a spirit thinking that they had always been a little paranoid, but Namina was insistent and demanded that they consume a special bit of water with some of the empathetic salt that she had been working on from the wisps. Hysteria was willing to give it a try, but also seemed skeptical of Namina's words while frequently glancing into the forest as they were hearing voices.
"She cannot be trusted."
This salt has the ability to impose ones emotions on another person which is very helpful in situations where one party is incredibly stubborn, uncaring or when misunderstandings occur between equally stubborn groups. Understanding how everyone feels can be a valuable tool in diplomatic discussions, but Namina has decided to use it to help Hysteria feel what she is feeling. Hysteria was still hearing voices...
"We're coming for you."
This saltwater worked for a little bit, but while Namina was attempting to meditate and see what was afflicting Hysteria, her empathetic nature and tendency to be sensitive to spirits caused her to be overwhelmed by Hysteria's own paranoia and the spirit of Paranoia that they had been unwittingly harboring.
Around this time, Agave had finished his digging and as he admired his work a single rain drop fell from the sky and landed on his nose. More and more rain drops began falling, making a lovely pattering sound against the canvas of your tents as a sheet of heavy rain suddenly fell.

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Paranoia

The heavy rain that had been expected at last arrived, and just in time for everyone in the area to begin feeling incredibly paranoid. You all had a clear view of Namina's glowing eyes in the dark and rainy environment. Her arm was stretched out and resting on Hysteria as though they were mid conversation, but neither of them were talking. Darkness briefly engulfed them before being scattered throughout the surrounding forest, and the paranoia that plagued each of you brought about distrust for each of your companions along with hallucinations of voices, eyes and reaching arms.
As you were all hearing these strange voices informing you that none of your friends are really your friends, and that something is coming to murder you or take you away, and see glimpses of eyes watching you from between the trees...some of you took this opportunity to run into the woods. Particularly Hysteria and Kaswink ran into the woods to find whatever was taunting them, and to avoid whatever dangers may exist in camp. Both of them also overheard Frode, Agave and DAN discussing how to find the rest of the group that had ran off, but to Hysteria and Kaswink it sounded more like a frightening hunting party against them.

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Kaswink's mission through this forest was to find the deepest point of paranoia, fear, and the like and roar in its face. A challenge to the being that would dare say such awful things, a challenge to the hallucination and to see it for what it truly is. She fought off many reaching arms, each of which always revealed itself to just be another tree branch, but she eventually stopped to let the arm reach her as a test.
The arm reached for her with impossibly long fingers and claws that were stretched and distorted beyond any recognition, and as it wrapped around her mind she felt the chill and unpleasantness, the reality that no one really enjoys her company... but the thoughts were shrugged off by the committed bugbear, and she roared in the face of these lies. She had managed to overcome the depths, and the paranoia was less harmful because of this.

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Hysteria's mission was similarly to find this creature and put an end to it, but they had a much worse time than Kaswink as they wandered through the woods lost and alone. The quieting and distancing conversation of the trio back at camp being a frightening warning of a hunt, and that the history they had been building with these people was merely a delusion. Though they were able to put this out of their mind as they continued to follow each eye that appeared in their vision, each arm, chasing after them rather than wandering and letting the arms grab at them as Kaswink had done.
They quickly became lost, the many eyes and arms surrounding them, instructing them, suggesting lie after lie until Hysteria stopped, knelt on the rain-drenched ground and began to repeat folk tails from their youth, almost like a mantra as they meditated away the nefarious thoughts. This seemed to work as the negative feelings against them from within their own mind began to fade, and the next time they opened their eyes they felt a sense of peace. Their gambit had paid off and they were able to proceed with hopes of finding Kaswink, conveniently enough just as a roar was heard deep in the forest.

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Meanwhile, Namina's mission was to defeat this Paranoia from within her own mind. The spirit that had been leaching off of Hysteria was now within her and filling her mind with lies.
She first saw Agave approach her, as he did in reality, but instead of him gently jostling her awake and asking about some unheard thing, she instead saw him lunge at her with a frightening expression with hopes of strangling her. She was able to deftly dodge this attack though as she saw Agave stumble forward. Agave in reality had collapsed for a moment after mentally hurting himself from attempting to say something...weird, that's probably nothing.
She next saw Frode stab her hand with one of his spears. In reality, Frode had just left some red string in her hand, but Namina watched as this red blood pooled in her hand and she was mentally injured because of it. This red blood though was a dead giveaway to Namina as she realized that this must be a lie due to the color of her blood being incorrect.
She continued struggling in this frightening, dark place within her mind as Agave, DAN and Frode discussed how to get Kaswink and Hysteria back from the forest while it was heavily raining and dark out, but she eventually broke free as she challenged each and every lie with suggestions that it doesn't matter if they are genuine friends or not, she does what she does to be nice and to be a good person... She declared that she would continue helping them, no matter what they think.

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She escaped her own mind, and in doing so she also exorcised the Paranoia into the open and drenched air of reality. Frode, Agave and DAN were just about to head out to find the two missing members of the Spiritual Tourists, braving the frightening nature of the forest around them, when Namina awoke from her meditative stupor. The three of them were able to see this strange, dark cloud filled with eyes and grasping, stretched hands.
The source of your Paranoia had made itself known, and, without hesitation, Namina launched a bolt of guiding, radiant energy directly at it as combat began. Two of your party members are out in the woods somewhere, perhaps providing their own form of help in this combat or perhaps just lost in their own paranoid delusions, and the four (6?) of you at camp have a spooky monster to fight.

In-game Date:
Nurend 05, 308

Report Date

17 Jan 2022

Primary Location

Tympi's Forest

Secondary Location

Home Base

Related Plots

• The Expedition

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Discovered Animals
Bird of Paradise

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Discovered Plants
Bird of Paradise
Paincap

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Discovered Spirits
Paranoia