To The Heart

Overview

Being the events of the third run. In which our heroes venture into Orange, to meet with the Cult of Al'an and see what they know about the Breaker's plans, and are recruited to assist in a ritual to repair a fraying ancient-yet-familiar-sounding spell, which leaves many with strange new characteristics and behaviors. With diversions for parties and possible adventures.

Leaving the Islands

We return to our Heroes having just thrown a dead goblin through a tree, where he went to Green, at the border between the Plains and Forest.

Vidan starts fading out, while Managaratha shows up. Scout says the passplant spell will fade at dawn - can Managaratha tell anything? Managaratha looks, but doesn't discover much. He wants us to go to Green to get ingredients. Everyone else is dubious about the wisdom of this plan.

Nesh discovers that his sword has become lighter, and sneaks off to investigate. Scout sneaks after him. It's lighter and sharper and rolls with agility!

Diomarch finishes chopping the tree by sunrise, so the spell is no longer active.

We head back to the keep, where Managaratha wants to use his sigil-getting spell to look at the Muddle in Middlesea. Gale unfolds the boat and we go up. The Purple and Blue spells are visible from outside the keep area.

The spells in effect include:

• Blue extra effort battle thing
• Purple stasis
• Yellow unreality
• Can't see the green fog

7 Detect Magic: many small spells on people. There’s a Red spell that stretches out of the region, that’s the most interesting thing. Probably Life rather than Blood, which means it's likely the one that was being supported by the Darstan mage in Second Run. There are three sigil-ish things on that, which Managaratha more or less got.

Scout boldly proclaims his theory that the Duke and the Baroness merged their lives at their wedding, and weird things will happen if the Life connection breaks.

Our investigations done, we decide to head off to Rinyin, via Kor. It's about three days sailing; Managaratha makes vegetables to keep us fed. Nothing too eventful happens - as we approach Kor we see the Golden Falcon leaving, but manage to evade before they spot us.

We find an inn and begin puttering. Gale and Nesh and Stella stock up on some provisions. Managaratha wanders off, overseen by Diomarch.

Gale badgers Scout into reporting to the ambassador. "Hey, den mother! Where is an elvish ambassador?" Stella points out the Elvish quarter.

Managaratha: "Oh, I have a spell for splitting the party. I forgot to cast it."

Scout goes to the Elf Quarter, and scouts the area, finding a Forest Trade Delegation. There's not an active Green spell, but there's definitely some magic going on. He goes in and is greeted by a halfling, and Scout says he's new in town and was hoping to send a message to the King. There's a courier service, or for something more discreet, talk to the Master Trader.

While waiting for the Master Trader, Scout talks to the halfling-- what should he know about Kor? The halfling says things are more expensive than you’d expect, and that it requires money to deal with the Guild in most instances.

About half an hour later, the Master Trader, a troll named Rekar, shows up. Rekar asks why he needs to send a message to the King-- Scout says he was in the delegation to the Conclave at Middlesea, and was the only one to escape, and he needs to report back. The Master Trader seems to think this is enough to merit a secure message. He takes out a sheet of paper, does some green magic, and asks Scout what he wants to say.

Scout goes through a copy of the Tarn Evidence packet, also adding that the miracle is from the cataur Oasis, and pointing out the elf things in particular (status of the delegations, Flint saying who the traitor was), and leaving out the bit about Nesh.

Is there any assistance? We're heading to Rin'yan, could they help us with horses? Yes, those can be provided tomorrow.

Afterwards, everyone reconvenes at the inn. While hanging out in the common room, a guy in fancy robes comes in. "Do I have the honor of addressing the remainder of the delegations? Guildmaster Vincenzo wishes to extend an invitation to after dinner drinks and a party - he'd like to speak to everyone. [Looks over the party's attire.] It's a... formal affair."

"We lost a lot of our luggage in the transformation event" -Stella

The messenger says that can be dealt with. Nesh hands him a Tarn Evidence packet to bring to the Guildmaster. Later on some tailors arrive. We get redressed in +1 charisma clothes. There's some orange Creation going on.

Party

The overall shape of the party - Guildmaster Vincenzo meets us and thanks us for the information (he has read the packet). People tell the story multiple times. Not much of note happens, but we do gather some information.

We hear Vincenzo was smart to send his journeyman. If people are going to be stuck there for a while, who is looking after what interests? 20 important guild members are stuck in a time halt!

Gale looks for adventure hooks because that's what she does. There's a journeyman who is talking about a line on some old stuff that is going to get dug up soon. He's looking for people to go run his dungeon when he finishes digging it up.

Scout scouts; there’s lots of Orange magic, and a moderately large priest of Jord, a priest of Tam, a priest of the Goddess. No spirits. Some orange magic has been thrown around actively at the party, but no miracles are being thrown around.

Nesh is Lucky but not Karmic; he notes that the tension is present but subtle between the humans and the Saurians. The one Saurian Guildmaster gets the story from Nesh, and offers him a job if he wants to apprentice. Nesh demurs, saying we’re stuck, something to do with a Blue spell. The fact that Nesh does not speak Saurian gets one of the other Saurians interested– a noble, not a merchant. The poor dear. She sends him a book at the inn.

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.

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 briefs Leonardo about the Broken miracle on us.

Leonardo looks to Managaratha - you didn't explain? [INSERT MORE DETAIL HERE] "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!) That's a thing that the cult does, 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 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 Thistle 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 tons of 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 is everything else explodes.

The next day, 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 draw two choose one (I think?). 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.

Loot

• 5 EPs
• 5 SPs
• +1 Charisma clothes for everyone except Vidan
• +1 TiRinian's Heart
• Lots of side effects