Talking to Trees

Heading Back

We start flying back towards the capital.

Stella's uncle Carlo calls her - apparently he is a priest of Jord! We request a feasibility study. Stealing someone from Middlesea is something Jord might be able to help with. The Guild might be calling an election soon, so many people are done. He'll think about it and see if anyone has taken a serious look at it.

We are hit by a yellow surge of darkness just as Scout appears; Hmm. We persist, and it wears off after an hour.

We make it back to the priests, and we check in with them. Fire giant, huh. Okay.

We head back to the capital. “Let’s not go to the palace, okay?” asks Scout. People seem puzzled, but Scout continues “Because the Maharani will ask us ‘AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?’, and she’s terrifying.”

Vidan gets a note as we approach the capital. “There was a wave of assassinations in the Ministry of Redactions. The high priest of Tam, Sai Ko Ti, put together a ritual that revealed a bunch of the half-orcs in the capital, and they’ve either fled or been killed. He’s hopeful that the immediate danger from the half-orcs is under control, but the Ministry of Ramifications thinks that alerting you to the ongoing half-orc problem is probably helpful. ” A note thanks him for his efforts to direct Victoria in Red against the orcs rather than against Purple.

Vidan replies: “We did encounter half-orcs in Red, but none in Yellow thus far. We had success using the Ministry of Lilac’s tinctures to detect half-orcs.”

We tell Seph, the Blue mage, about the fire giant; he thinks he’s not doing anything about that.

At the Capital

Day 4 of flying, we get close to the capital. Two ravens fly to the boat - they turn into a guy and a dog. (WHO ARE THEY? The Red mage from … Bran, and Vakla the dog)

The Lord Captain wants to know if there's any way to get Baron Vostok out before the whole thing goes down.

(Nesh is born in Red and from the Homelands, Scout divines. Nesh thinks the Homelands are the place sauriens come from, east of the Oasis? Nesh remembers that the sauriens he was eavesdropping on in Middlesea mentioned the Homelands. Hmm.)

Diomarche writes a report, and shares it with Bran. Bran knew about the alliance with the merfolk; he has been to Blue and spoken with the Admiral. He doesn’t have as much information on the Mage. The information about the on-land fight with the slith is useful, and what the country turns out here are doing is useful. He’s supposed to speak with the local political leaders, if there are introductions that could be made…? We can probably do that.

Nesh chats about Red magic, as he is thinking about learning it. Scout talks to Vakla about flying, etc. THere’s some discussion about whether Animal is a single language. Scout thinks that Nature thinks all Animals speak one language, but Essence says each animal species speaks its own language. Interesting…

We return to our rooms at the palace. There’s a letter for Gale from Nidari, a Servant of Life, saying that her brother Stephen is in the process of returning to Melmane. The letter has been forwarded on but will probably not get to him for some time. Scout gets a letter from Jabril, and he says he spoke to the priest whose name he gave me, and they’re supposed to be looking into it in Rinyan.

Talking to the Tree

We go to the Tree. The High Elf suggests getting rid of the Oasis miracle, which she could probably arrange. We ponder whether that’s going to be a problem. Vidan thinks that he could sanctify us out of the Oasis miracle, but that would bring the Oasis’ direct attention. A shaman miracle would probably be better? Scout thinks he could probably Scout/Find the Path away from the group a bit, but then we have to worry about the being-on-the-same battlemap issue.

Vidan, with help from Gale and Scout, comes up with a ritual to put Scout on an inset battlemap. He and Gale and Stella will be on the three corners, and there will be ritual rolls, and then Scout will need to escape without anyone seeing him.

The High elf will provide us with space, but reserves the right to veto Scout going to see the Tree if she thinks it’s a problem. “Oh good. Our rituals rarely have Quality Control Officers,” says Vidan.

They do the ritual, and Scout sneaks off. The High Elf doesn’t stop him, so he asks entrance, and spends a DI.

Inside there are a grove of Trees. There’s not anything obviously to talk to, but he’s obviously IN a Spirit. He spends a DI to stay connected to Middlesea. There’s Green here– more Essence and Nature than Alchemy. The Essence changed the Nature of the Spirit, in some way. The Nature is mostly just passplant-y sorts of things. The spirit has connection to the spirit hubs on the outside, and . There was someone Big who did this, making a big Green ritual, that changed its nature which still resonates, and also connected it to the trees outside it. The Essence change Scout is less clear on; the Nature change was more that it had a connection to the world in one place. Now it has lots of connections in lots of different places. They’re both at least hundreds of years old. THere’s more than one sigil on the green; none of them are ones Scout recognizes.

Scout introduces himself. Nothing happens for a minute or two, but then Middlesea says “Its connections to Jabar are difficult to maintain in a holy land, and are shrinking. A large enough either Green or Shaman ritual could strengthen it. De-holy-landing Jabar would be fine, but it would weaken Jabar against the Oasis, so maybe don’t do that, but it would work. Bringing it power from the heart of Green would work. There are probably other ways to help. A strong reality spell might help. Disentangling it from Melmane could help if it was only holding here and not beyond.”

Scout ponders. He asks whether it knows anything of the Oasis’ plans– is it just trying to grow? It doesn’t know, but growing is probably part of its plans. Looking around, Scout thinks a ritual here with 25 DI would work. A bunch of smaller rituals in the 5-10 range at each Tree would work. A Nature ritual could be done, but something on the similar power level. A Nature/DI ritual would work if you are long on skill and short on dice. (Don’t do that, seems to be the subtext.) Severing it from Melmane would be relatively easy. Connecting it to the Heart of Green would change its nature, as that would be far from defending against the Oasis. (The Grove is about 35 DI, ish?) A well-designed ritual with several people putting DI in will be worth 10 successes, or something. And then there’s the amount of DI being put in, and then there’s the number of successes to do the ritual.

Scout casts Detect Broken, to see if there’s anything wrong here; he sees something way over there oh crap that’s the Oasis, okay, bye! He escapes. It takes a few hours to re-connect with the party.

Other Errands

Diomache and Bran go to talk to Suvatra. She seems pleased to meet him, and will make some relevant introductions. Diomarche also tells her about the fire giant– THE WHAT?-- the fire giant. We didn’t approach. Probably wise.

Vidan tries to find out what fallout there was from the party. Well, Rani Dwalla did not get the blessing of the Lady of Life, so that’s good. As to the assassins, it appears that most of the agents there were trying to break or steal the goblet which provides the Goddess’ blessing. The exact reason for that is not clear to Suvatra, but that appears to have been their goal. They weren’t all working together– there were two thieves, trying to steal the chalice, and the poisoner, who was trying to break the chalice. Her poison would have made the chalice no longer holy. Those three have been disposed of. The priests who brought them in were, as far as anyone can tell, unaware of their plans. The politics of the Church, however, are not officially Suvatra’s business. So the Lady of Life will be resolving the issues with Life’s Servants. But as she presumably doesn’t want the chalice broken, she will presumably deal with it, as she is not incompetent (more’s the pity).

There have been no further attacks. Her Majesty is in the field again, along with her bodyguard. THe princesses and Suvatra are still plausible targets, but security has been enhanced. Lord Tongree has been informed, and presumably has increased his security. She’s not sure what the next target will be; probably not the Maharani herself while she’s in the field.

Vidan also mentions that we’re investigating the connection between Love and Feelings.

Diomarche shows Bran around, gives him some more information, and gets some Red spells put into his rack. A 3 success spell of passing a 3 sentence message to Vakla. A 4 success spell of grow wings. And 8 successes of Red Restore Body (touch), which will restore 4 Body that has been taken from someone. Won’t work as well against divine, but will work against non-Slith poison, magic drains, etc.

Scout talks to Messalina. She thinks that the big ritual is more Green than expected, she was thinking closer to the do-small-rituals-at-each-Tree step.

The band meets up with Ruprecht, and Scout points the way to the first step to a Phoenix feather in the mountains. It’s not to the feather itself, but the first step is near the mouth of the Great River. He gives distance and direction to Vidan, who teleports the group to a few hours travel from that location.

Loot

• +6 EPs
• +10 SPs