[IC] The Plague of Tamor Town

[Izzarra]

Wading into the lake Cailenam sees the the corpses reach up out of the water pulling him in, their jaws opening unhinged from their skulls to try to suck out his life essence. The lake is bottomless and darker then night, the water thick like syrup, the shore is so far away, his limbs feel heavy, his movements sluggish, how will he be able to swim back to the shore when he can barely keep his head above the water? To everyone else he only appears to be a few feet away from the shore in rather shallow water.

Once he regains his senses he is able to make an assessment of desecration and figures out what it will take to cleanse the area. It feels off somehow, ragged and inconsistent, as if the desecrated ground and subsequent plague might not have been created intentionally. Rather they might be an unintended side effect of dumping the bodies, corrupted by being sacrificed at the unholy alter, into the lake.

-----

Zarron looks around the building. Near the base of the building is a cord of firewood, with an ax and splitting maul. Not too far away is a camp site. There are four bedrolls with packs and a camp kitchen with some buckets for getting water.

In the top floor of the building there are two cots with packs, a table, some shelves, a map nailed to a wall, two chests, and a small fireplace in one corner. The map is a rather simplistic representation of the adjacent valley with five locations marked around the perimeter of the valley. Comparing the map to the peaks you can see above the fog you think you are at one of the marked locations. On the table is a quill, ink, scroll cases, and some blank parchment. Most of the room on the shelves is filled with supplies such as sausages, flour, cheese, carrots, potatoes, onions, cooking/lamp oil. There are also some freshly harvested mushrooms and blueberries. On the top shelf there are some bundles of incense, candles, and other misc spell components for rituals.

The bottom floor is a makeshift holding cell, there are chains fixed to the walls with manacles for prisoners. There are two malnourished goblins in said chains, they are unconscious but alive with no life threatening injuries.

Spoiler: OOC

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No damage but Cailenam is frightened and must take the Dash action and move away from the lake by the safest available route on each of its turns. This continues until he ends his turn in a location where he doesn’t have line of sight of the lake. As we are not in combat this is only a matter of narration.

The map I posed on discord contains far more information about the valley then is on the map you find IC. The map you find does not show that the volcano is a volcano, the presence of a castle, ruins, or the tower.

The ax and splitting maul are adventuring gear not weapons, like the hammer and sledge hammer on the gear table.
Camp kitchen is cooks utensils, 6 mess kits, a cauldron w/ tripod, and two hooded lanterns.
The packs only contain cloths and some personal effects of negligent value.
Chests were used to transport things up the mountain and only have some and empty sacks inside.
On the table 2 quills, one bottle of ink, 2 scroll cases, 10 sheets of parchment.
Top shelf has 25 gp of incense, 5 candles, a brass brazier. Other items have negligent value.
Other shelves have 5 flasks of lamp oil and food for a group for 3-5 days.

[Zergrinch]

Zarron reports back everything he discovered. Apparently, the cultists have been holing up in this cave for quite a long time, and have made themselves at home. The supplies should be enough to last them for a few days, at least, while they try and clean up the desecration.

Piqued by the goblins, he takes some sausages, and splashes their faces with water to attempt to wake them up.

[Xihirli]

Lana steeled herself. She knew she was the best option to pull the bodies out - if she was dragged under by the weight she wouldn't die. Of drowning. Inhaling the plague probably wasn't great either. She waded into the water and slowly approached the bodies, grabbing the first of them and hauling them out, welcoming any help she could get.

Spoiler

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(1d20+5)[25] Wisdom save to wade in and get the bodies out so I can start purifying.

This time she felt... not great, obviously. But she wasn't about to vomit and run in fear anymore. She was... capable, she realized. Of dealing with this very real problem in front of her. She hauled the bodies to the shore, one by one, until the lake was emptied enough for her ritual.

Spoiler: OOC

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I assume that will take a while.

[Izzarra]

At first the goblins are afraid of Zarron, he can see that they have been whipped recently. However, his soothing demeanor and offering of meat has them not shying away as much. When they notice that they are not being beaten for making noise they say a few things between themselves in their native language not appearing to understand anything that Zarron is saying. After spending a few minutes trying to establish communications Zarron comes to the conclusion that they are only fluent in goblin and orcish, and might know only a dozen words at most of common. "Where Xeld" is the only that Zarron understands them say to him.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara tied the branches together and dragged them by one hand while her other held the staff. She looked out into the valley and felt at home in the mountains, just like when the party had arrived on the other side. She sighed in relief and then noticed the reflecting object in the clearing. Simply noting it, she returned to the cave.

---

Taara took the two shortswords, then helped Lana with taking the bodies out of the water. Or rather, she didn't want to experience what Lana and Zarron had experienced, so she largely just encouraged her from the side, pulling up the bodies when she was near enough. When Lana got out of the water, Taara had blankets ready to wrap around her when she returned, and held her tightly whispering in her ear about how proud she was of her. Then, she continued to sit with Lana as she performed her ritual.

[Xihirli]

Lana wasn't overly cold, nor did she feel an overwhelming need to be dry, considering, but Taara wrapping blankets and hugs around her was great so she didn't say that. Instead she smiled and leaned into the hugs. "Thank you so much!" she said. "I'm proud of me, too. If that's not... a bad thing to say?" Lana shrugged and leaned on Taara as she put one arm in the water, urging it to heal, to be better, to purify. The whole ritual would take eight hours, yes, but Lana was prepared to spend eight hours like that.

[ProudGrognard]

Adamas

Adamas goes into full housekeeping mode, making the camp outside in a nice place, setting the cauldron on fire and bringing non-tainted water from the mountain.

"So, wise and clever friends! I cannot help with your magic things. If you need something carried or lifted tell me. Otherwise, I will use these nice provisions to make something to eat. I am thinking fresh salad with greens, carrots and berries, baked bread with grilled cheese and sausages and thick soup with mushrooms and onions."

He gets right to cooking, a broad grin in his face.

Spoiler: OOC actions

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Cooking check (1d20+3)[10]

[Gluteus_Maximus]

"I think that's fine, to say you're proud of yourself. You've been through a lot, after all."

She turns to Trunksplitter, "Sounds and smells good, Trunksplitter! There are some big branches up the trail that you could break down and then we could use." she shares his grin, then watches Lana perform the ritual.

[Xihirli]

Spoiler: Aquan

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"Hey water. Hey water. Are you cured? Swish around if you're cured. Okay, are you swishing around because you're cured or because of my arm in you?"

Lana drove herself to giggle.
"By the way, this will take eight hours," she said as an aside to Taara. She resumed her chanting for a bit, then added: "So you don't have to stay with me all that time... if you don't want?" Lana felt her face heating up in embarrassment.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara also giggled, though she didn't understand the language Lana was speaking. "It's fine. I want to see you do this... Whatever it is you're doing." she smiled and continued to watch. After a little bit she untied the rabbit's foot from her staff and tied it around Lana's ankle.

She maybe gets up to go eat, but otherwise sits crosslegged next to Lana with her staff against her shoulder and leg.

[Zergrinch]

Zarron releases the goblins from their shackles and steps back. He beckons them to follow him outside, where he shows them the corpses of the cultists they killed. "You free," he says, pointing to them, and then pointing to the mouth of the cave. "Who Xeld?"

Does the name Xeld sound familiar to him?

(1d20)[8]

[Xihirli]

"Oh, I'll explain it," Lana said, smiling chipperly.
"Creation... the world around us. It's alive, and suggestible. You've seen that, I think, whenever people around you do magic. Spells are... kind of taking advantage of the chaos inherent in the world, the chaos the order was created from. Reality is unstable enough that we can reorganize it, right? With the elements, that gets a bit more complicated. If I wanted to force my will upon some of this water to cleanse itself, I could. I don't have the energy to do it a lot, though, so I'm... convincing it that it wants to be clean. The water does the rest, separating the impure parts of itself out and toward my magic, which gets rid of it. I'm not sure if that makes much sense."
Lana hummed to herself and the water.
"Water is... well, it's a lot like me. We both like jokes, and songs, and talking, so I just treat the water like a friend and it listens to me because it knows that I care." Lana put her free hand on Taara's. "Thank you. I'm... I love spending time with you."

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara simply laughs and says "I see." she smiled internally, too; she had realized over the course of this adventure that Lana was not just similar to Maut, but Kaj and Chand as well. People could be a combination of different personalities that she had once known. Or was Lana special? If that was the case Taara wanted to be special too. In any case she was already special to Lana, so that was enough to pique her interest about being special all around.

She comes back to focus when Lana placed her hand on Taara's. Her face warms up again, she looks away, and responds nervously "I L... I like spending time with you too, Lana."

[Xihirli]

Lana smiled and sang out a song in Aquan, something that might have been mistaken for a whale song if they couldn't see the singer right in front of them.

Spoiler: Aquan

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When you see water in a stream
you say: oh, this is stream
water;
When you see water in the river
you say: oh, this is water
of the river;
When you see ocean
water

you say: This is the ocean’s
water!
But actually water is always
only itself
and does not belong
to any of these containers
though it creates them.
And so it is with you.

[WhismurWanders]

Cailenam scrambles out of the water, gasping and panting as he tried to make sense of the vision. He finds a quiet place to meditate and calm himself before returning to the group, who seemed to have found more supplies. He speaks up when a moment presents itself, "Well, I have ... thoughts on how to proceed." He produces the ale he received from the monks in the earlier leg of their journey. "The ale we were gifted is close enough to holy water that we can use it to purify the ground here. We might need to use all of what they gave us to do so, but otherwise we'll need rituals, lots of silver, and at least a day or two to produce the amount of holy water we'd need to achieve the same task. It will be a stop to new victims, at least, though I can only hope that un-desecrating this place will cure the afflicted as well. Then it's just a question of what these cultists were really up to, and if we need to stop them from performing other rites like whatever they were doing here."

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara listens to the song and smiles. Not knowing what a whale was she could not have mistaken it for that, but she appreciates it all the same. She hums along to the melody with her eyes closed.

"I like your songs, Lana. They're nice. They sound carefree, like you."

[Zergrinch]

Zarron takes out the flagon of ale given to him and hands it to Cailenam without a word of complaint. The sooner they are rid of this place, the better.

[Xihirli]

Lana smiled at Taara's compliment and then looked up at Cailenam. "Oh, Taara. I didn't even realize I still had my pack on. Could you take it off for me, please? I need one hand in the water."

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara immediately, yet carefully, reaches around and pulls Lana's pack, brushing her hand against her arm, which feels amazingly soft and causes Taara's face to heat up. Then, moving to the other arm, she hesitated for a moment realizing that if she took it off normally it would get in the water. She untied the knot which held the shoulder strap on, pulled the pack away, and then hurriedly retied the knot.

"Done," she says and returns to her previous position.

[Xihirli]

"Thanks!" Lana smiled and reached into her pack with one hand, withdrawing her holy ale. She lifted it up for Cal to take. "Got it!" she yelled.
Then she looked at the rabbit's foot around her ankle. "What's this mean?" she asked. "Is it like... a courtship thing on the land?"

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara also started to offer her own pack, though nothing of real value was in there, before she shouted audibly and incongruously and fell backwards when Lana asked about the rabbit's foot. Her face flushed. "U-um, no," she managed, looking away with both hands on her cheeks. She starts speaking hurriedly, trying to explain herself and not be awkward. "I just saw you put that other thing on your ankle when you went to sleep at night, so I thought... I thought I would try tying my rabbit's foot. It's supposed to be good luck."

[Xihirli]

Lana's eyes opened in embarrassment and understanding. "Oh! Oh, I'm really sorry. No, I... okay, I live underwater. We don't have beds, we have little anchors to hold ourselves down while we float and sleep. I guess I just got used to the feeling, and I'm a little afraid of waking up miles away from where I fall asleep, so I still wear it." Lana looked right at the water while she brightly blushed.
"I'm really sorry, Taara. I thought... I misinterpreted some signals, I guess. I won't bring it up again."

[Gluteus_Maximus]

"No, it's fine!" Taara said pleadingly, getting up and putting a hand on Lana's shoulder. "You just interpreted the meaning, which I left... Um... Unclear. I forgot you don't have rabbits under the ocean." she looks away for a moment, mumbling the word "courtship" under her breath. It was a dizzying word. "O-on the surface, people usually give jewelry and things. F-for courtship. But also less pretty items of significance, so there's that" she talks fast again "I guess you can interpret it the way you did since it's something I gave you, idon'tknow,"

[Xihirli]

Lana paused, parsing through all of that. "I'm not sure I followed all of that," she said.
"But I think you said that because it's a pretty thing or item of significance you've given me, and because you want to court me, this can be a courtship thing. Is that right?" Lana swished around the water to make sure it was still doing what she wanted, since she hadn't been paying much attention to it lately. It assured her that it was having a good time.

[Gluteus_Maximus]

"U-umm..." Taara kind of awkwardly smiled and stuttered. "Y- um, yes." she paused and looked away, still smiling. "Am I distracting you? I can go watch from further away. Or not talk."

[Xihirli]

Lana was about to jump around in excitement, but kept one hand in the water instead. "Oh no, distract me, that's fine." she once again used her free hand to hold one of Taara's hands and grinned like an idiot while talking to the water.
"Hey water?" she said in common. "Guess what? This wonderful woman just said she wants to court me, and now I'm really happy. What's going on with you? Getting clean? I'm so proud of you!"

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara, for some reason embarrassed, turned her face away, but didn't pull her hand away. She mumbled almost inaudibly. "W-w-woman? Ummm, I'm only twenty-two..." it almost felt odd to her that she hadn't told someone other than herself her age in 6 years. "It's fine, though, I guess."

[Xihirli]

"I'm twenty-two!" Lana added to the conversation.
"When do you consider people to become adults? I've been an aisha... ah, woman, since I was sixteen."

[Gluteus_Maximus]

Taara built up some courage to explain to Lana in detail, surprised that Lana was 22 as well."Um, well, Elves like Cailenam and I, we live a really long time. Like, really long. We grow only a little bit slower than others, but our adulthood is less of a physical thing and more of a thing about emotional maturity and experience. Being calm and collected and not foolhardy at most times. Often comes with an air of feeling superior," she raised her voice so Cailenam could hear, "I've, um, only heard about this, but usually only a much older elf can declare when an elf is an adult. Though I don't see much need to prove myself to Cailenam."

[Xihirli]

"Ah. Well, we don't have the time for that kind of waiting where I come from. My sister Lazorem - she's only a little older than me, she already has three husbands and she's working on getting a daughter. We gotta keep the city going, you know?" Lana asked.

Spoiler: Aquan

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"You don't have to worry about that, water."