Editing To The Heart (section)

== Rin'yan ==

Off we go towards Rin'yan.  The main road is nice.   We travel for four days and head to the temple of the Goddess that [[Stella]] belongs to.  Scout turns the horses over to a trade contact of Rekar's.

[Gazelle 28]

We are greeted by [[Diana]], another priest. "Oh finally, you're back.  [[Meraldi]] is off talking to people, and I need to leave for a few days, so can you take care of things for a while?"  Stella admits as to how we're only here temporarily.  Diana seems a bit annoyed by this but will deal.  She offers to put us all up at the temple; which we accept.  Stella sets up a nicer space for Diomarch than the standard stable. 

Time to go to visit the Cult of Alan?  We head across the city.  The cult have an actual large compound - fifty priests rather than three.  Stella recalls that [[Ritasi]] is the head of the order, but doesn't talk to people any more, as he's largely retiredish.  [[Leonardo]] is the one that mostly deals.

When we start to come in, alarms seem to go off-- bells are ringing and people start coming to the entry.  We start to back away, and Stella invites Leonardo back to her temple, where she briefs him about the Broken miracle on us.

Leonardo looks to Managaratha - you didn't explain?
"How is Alan?"
"Long dead."  
"Oh.  :("

Leonardo says there is a person who has an old enchantment, which is in need of some repair.  Managaratha has repaired it before.  A rainbow mage with skill in Purple and Yellow, usually.  Hmm.  Stella might be able to repair magic.   The person with the spell is drawn to the Breaker's plans.   It often transfers on their death.  (We suspect the last of Tirinian's Mark!)  The cult keeps track of it and keeps it in repair as best as possible, and the information should not be spread around.

Gale runs into [[Giaconni]]!  He's doing better here than he was in [[Kor]].  Anything worth doing right now?  How much trouble you want to get in?  Well, I don't want to get dead...

Leonardo comes in with a young woman, [[Thistle]] and an older man (well, thirties, to Thistle's 20-ish) who happens to be Giocanni.  Thistle is told that Stella might be able to get the spell under control.  Thistle seems a bit skeptical of her being the chosen one.

What Needs Fixing?

Managaratha examines the spell, and notes his own sigil among the various ones on it.

Probably the best is to do a ritual with [[Risto]] and some others.  It would be wise to have friends around because there will likely be consequences.   Stella doesn't know who Risto is, but Leonardo does.  Let's not just turn him loose on it - he has a shtick in attacking magic, but working with Stella they could make it more surgery.

How are things going awry?   Since Thistle got the spell, she'll have unpleasant visions or wind up in a different part of the city - it's not very useful.   Moving it to someone else would be fine.  Visions of things like orcs and goblins.   It's supposed to be less random, she hears. 

We leave the temple (which is Goddess holy ground) for Scout to take a look at the spell.  It's on par with the Middlesea stuff, it's yellow/purple. Has been patched multiple times; refilled in power and restructured.  It's close to full though could be topped up, but it's frayed - 50 to 100 years since it was patched.   There's a major sigil and many patch sigils, several of which were Managaratha.

A plan is made-- three priests of the Goddess will do the ritual tomorrow to let people work on the spell. 

While we are waiting, we receive invitations to both Master Cassandra's party tomorrow and Master Divoli's party, which are at the same time.  Stella asks for information on the politics of the situation.  Meraldi says they are the two most able to step into [[Mariana]]'s shoes (she is in the Conclave bubble).  The Masters have been given reports from [[Vincenzo]], so this is more about leveraging her or us into conferring Mariana's blessing.   Better to split the party or go to both, don't snub both of them.   She suggests splitting 2:4 with Stella in the 2, and Meraldi will party hop and convince both parties that it's Not Throwing Influence. 

A guy with a dog ([[Bran]]) shows up to the temple, looking for Diomarch.  The Commander got Diomarch's message two weeks ago, and has sent him to get more details.  Nesh gives him a Tarn Evidence Packet.  Diomarch also briefs him on the Rush priest insights.  (We still don't know who the Fourists are.)

Apparently, tensions are rising in Red with Darstan missing half its leadership.   Looking at war.   Victoria is taking advantage of orcs invading Purple to try to make headway there.  Richard and Baranna are both eying Darstan since the Baron is gone.  The Lord Commander is not willing to actively ally with Darstan - he's not so great at *preventing* wars.   Can we get the Baron out sooner?   Diomarch doesn't have any sense in which that can be done soon.  There's the red life thing too. 

If he can get the Baron back without destroying everything else, do that.  But the most likely looking result is everything else explodes. 

The next day [Gazelle 29], we perform the ritual.  It involves the priests making rolls while standing around a hexagon of dominoes, two per side, representing the spell, while people draw dominoes from a hat to replace the dominoes to try to repair the spell.  Minimal repairing of the spell would involve there being no blanks, and all the corners adding to 7.  Repairing the spell perfectly would also have each side be all evens or all odds, and alternating evens/odds/evens... around the hexagon.  Replacing dominoes comes with side effects, small/medium/large in either Yellow or Purple flavors, depending on the largest number of the tile that's removed from the hexagon.  A domino could also be placed perpendicular to the normal edges, by turning an existing tile perpendicular, but only if the two numbers that would be in the hexagon matched.  [This was easier to explain visually...]  If we took that option, it would make the spell decay faster, based on the total number of pips that were outside the hexagon.

Different people had different bonuses in drawing tiles. The side effects were one level smaller on Nesh.  Scout could declare he was looking for a number and draw up to 5 dominoes, stopping the first time he ran into that number.  Managaratha could roll a wild magic effect to draw more than one and pick.  Diomarch had a way of blowing up a tile, but was told not to do that because it would be a miracle of [[Rush]], and would cause the priests some burnout.  Gale didn't have any special power, but as it turns out, her plucky adventurousness was benefit enough!

Nesh drew many of the tiles.  The small side effects were bounced, but the larger side effects involved things like being stuck in a Purple force cage; gravity reversing; a hrulgin being teleported in; smelling roses.  Diomarch drew one and now has a song playing in his head constantly.  Gale got a vision of a woman murdering her husband, who she could stop, but she would have to leave RIGHT NOW.  She fled into the afternoon, calling out that she had to stop her from killing him!  Ominous.

After about 20 turns, we complete the ritual!

End results:
* The spell is repaired perfectly, with 4 extruding non-blank tiles, for a total of... 19? pips.
* Gale has run off to find a woman about to stab her husband. 
* Nesh is in a force cage and floating up, speed drained, smells roses, can't lie, sees in black and white.
* Managaratha is blind.
* Diomarch is extra big and hears a song. 
* Scout can only say "What should I say?" and his eyes return! (probably an illusion...)

And then, before we can deal with any of the effects, [[Thistle]] teleports out.