Session 5: A Stroll Through the Garden
The party took a long rest at the Glory Hole.The vine walls around town gota bit bigger overnight.
While the rest of the party is preparing, Sartorii goes outside to sneak into a nearby barracks, one that Glory had indicated might contain a replacement bow. Sartorii slips into the only window not choked with vines and skulks through a stone brick hall, eventually coming upon the source of this building's vines; several guards who had grown together, broken bodies blooming. She breaks into a footlocker and finds a leather-bound journal, a flimsy, hand-whittled wooden chess set, a whittling knife, and an unstrung bow with maintenance supplies.
She tucks her goodies away and sneaks silently back out, though vines bloom into three little feeler leaves and follow her with their gaze as she passes. Once she leaves, the vines relax.
Sartorii returns to the Glory Hole, passing the personal belongings from the footlocker to Sadie. Sadie vows to seek out the next of kin to return it to, and hands Sartoriia map of the apothecary.
The party steps out the front door.
The air is a haze of yellow and green, like smoke before the sun. Everything is eerily quiet. Sartorii and Rutana feel a breeze from the north, though the grass waves as if the breeze comes from the south. Even the previous day, the party felt the prevailing wind coming from the north.
The party decides to stick to pavement, following the roads to the apothecary.
While vines grew across more buildings overnight, the mayor's house remains unchanged and unharmed.
The apothecary is now more a mass of plant matter than a building. Walls of ivy, towers like hollow tree trunks. Only the doorway remains unobstructed and intact.
The party opens the front door. A cylindrical hall of vines stretches back into the depths, pitch-black. Sartorii notices that little shoots emerge from the vines, blooming into three-leafed stalks to drink in the sun and watch the party.
Rutana lights a torch and stick it in the front door.
Several vines immediately lash out and wrap around the torch, consuming the flame.
Rutana drops the torch, which is pulled into the plant mass.
While the party deliberates, the Sprite lobs a rock in the front door.
Nothing happens, but the floor seems to have some give to it.
The Sprite lobs a stick inside next, and nothing happens.
He pokes the wall with Mage Hand, and still nothing happens.
He uses Produce Flame to make a spark by the wall, but the vines immediately lash out and smother the flame.
The Sprite steps inside with no issue. Everyone else follows suit.
Sartorii enters last and pulls the door shut behind them.
Sartorii observes that the building is still roughly the same as their map, just slightly more spherical.
Walking across the hall feels like walking across a bouncy castle, indeterminate whether it is moving and writhing or just soft to walk on. It looks almost like a throat. (Crystal: Why are you making us go into the vore hallway!!)
The Sylpheum's office is upstairs and in the right tower, but the spiral staircase has been replaced by a hollow tree. Vines grow up the inside of the tree trunk, stuck in sap and spread out like a ribbonworm's tongue.
The party would have to climb.
Sartorii elects to jump, get them mad uppies. With a strong beat of her wings she leaps onto the landing of the second floor, escaping the party's view.
Sartorii lands safely, greeted by a sweet-smelling flower close to her face. She shoves it away from her.
The Sprite tries to imitate Sartorii, but only makes it up to the top of Clarence's head.
Sartorii drops a rope down, anchored to the vine walls. The Sprite scrambles up, followed by Clarence.
Rutana smells something sweet in the aire, but joins the party. Clarence takes the lead, office just down the hall.
The door to the Sylpheum's office looks similar to the building's front door, but it is instead a mosaic of flower petals in the shape of a door, with a small sprig imitating a door handle.
When the handle is touched the flowers return to their buds and the door melts away. Within the office is a desk. Willum sits at his desk writing in a book, now more green than before. He waits placidly for the party to enter.
The Sprite asks him where the willow saplings are. He responds there should be one just fine in the back yard.
Willum makes here-kitty-kitty noises at Clarence. Then proceeds a speech about how we should all just become plants because we rely so much on plants for our health.
The sprite pulls out his shopping list.
Plants we need to get:
Willow Sapling
Camphor Sapling
Mint Sprig
Aloe Plant
Poppy Seeds
Willum reveals that Clarence has the spooky plant growing inside him.
He blooms, and a violet pollen fills the room.
The Sprite asks if Willum knows where to find a yellow-musk creeper heart, then the room starts constricting.
Clarence and Sartorii exit just in time to see the vine throat close, hard. A mound of vines separates them from Rutana and the Sprite.
Within the office, warm and wet and smelling of freshly-turned earth, the vines press against Rutana and the Sprite. They can move through the mass, but their breathing is restricted as they are entirely restricted. They feel a warmth in one direction.
Rutana spits.
The Sprite carefully holds onto their staff and tries to move away from the warmth.
When Rutana spits, she instead pushes a stamen out of her mouth.
The Sprite wakes up with this thing in his mouth. His first instinct is Gale Blast. Rutana takes 4 bludgeoning damage. A bubble of vines rises up and pops like a blister, revealing Rutana in Fuckin WImdy mode with fur sticking at a weird angle, and the Sprite flailing about with a flower stuck to his face. Clarence pulls the flower off the Sprite's face.
The party finds themselves in the back yard, the whole building had collapsed.
Rutana angrily exclaims they should burn the whole thing down.
The Sprite took the book, but it's as big as he is. He very solemnly hands it to Rutana, who has many pockets dedicated to everyone because she's nice like that.
As the party walks toward the garden, Rutana slices up flowers as they go. Big angy.
The largest willow stands tall at the center of the garden, surrounded by saplings. Further back is a walled garden with "Sylpheum's Garden - Do Not Enter" on a sign above the gate. Clarence pops open the latch and the party enters. The garden is still, apparently untouched, save for a large pod in the center of the garden, about the size of a baskteball. Several tendrils grow out of the pod, each tipped by three leaves. They all turn to face the party.
This thing is clearly not a yellow-musk creeper, or if it is, it's heavily mutated. The party does not know what it is.
Clarence asks, "So we're killing that thing, right?" and looks at the Sprite.
The Sprite responds, "Yeeeup!" and lobs a gout of flame at the pod. And then, a will save!
The moment fire appears, all the tendrils in the garden lash around.
A guttural voice speaks in a language none in the party have heard, but the Sprite knows what it says.
"In eons past before your sentience, we were. A drop of blood potent enough to bring races to their knees. What hope have you?"
The pod catches on fire and screams in a way all too alive, then falls over.
Rutana mutters, "Burn it again to be sure."
The Sprite burns it again to be sure, but it is now just ash. Nothing else appears different, however.
Sartorii joins Rutana in pushing the pieces of the remains of the pod away. They find roots that grow deep within the earth, unburnt. The roots seem to spread south, southeast, and southwest.
Rutana retrieves the book and whips it open. Within is a bookmark made of a pressed three-eyed flower. It appears to be the Sylpheum's journal. Most of the journal is normal, research on plants and tracking illness in town. An entry from a month ago details how he met a stranger while traveling abroad. The stranger ran a shop, Umr At-Tawil's Curiosities, and was described as an interesting man in a hood. They spoke at length about the nature of medicine and healing before the stranger showed Willum a very interesting plant.
From everything Willum knew about the ancient, extinct plant, sylpheum was an unidentified miracle plant from ancient times. It was used as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine. It could heal poison, fight toxins, increase survivability after ingesting harmful or poisonous herbs. The stranger offered a very fair price and said only that it would be a challenge to cultivate properly, and may take all that Willum had.
Clarence coughs up yellow mucus. He's not doing well, but he would ask someone to kill him if it goes too far.
Rutana pulls on her esoteric knowledge wondering how to cure it. A mixture of wine, berries, and camphor, plus smoke. She relays that there is super complicated cure, or they could just kill the heart of the plant.
Possible locations of the heart:
A shambling mass of living plants mulls around the river, but does not see the party.
Rutana continues reading the journal.
Willum chronicles how he tried to grow this plant. He got five different shoots, four of which died. He fell asleep beside the last one. When he woke up he continued writing with the plant rooted in his right arm. It did not hurt and he could not muster the energy to be terrified. With growing dread he realized it felt quite good, actually. His next entry talks about how much better the plant was doing. His assistant excised the plant from his body, and he never fell asleep beside the plant again. The plant became revitalized, but Willum felt more weary and took more notice of his aches and the realities of living. He wanted to become more like a plant, and not deal with this.
There is a break of a few days.
The next entry states his assistant had left him.
Days later, Willum offered his flesh to the plant again, musing that the world would be better if humanity could be as plants are.
Two more days go by.
Willum sat in the sun. He sat, and he took root. He is sitting there still. Could any mortal bein fathom how it feels to feed only on water on sunlight? This is a bliss that I have never known, that no one has ever known. He was scared at first too. He is sure they'll understand.
Another entry later. The heart has left me. Where it is now I do not know, but the growths in town now spread. Like the shuddering aspen the roots bore through the earth and bloomed elsewhere as the same organism. He will spread the good word, but it is now out of his hands.
Rutana shares this with the party.
The Sprite suggest checking the fountain first.
The fountain is a bit murky, more viscous than water should be and filled to the brim with yellow.
The Sprite tries to look for roots or cracks, fails. Sartorii notices deformations in the ground. Rutana fuckin crits her esoteric knowledge.
he liquid is super-saturated. If anything was growing beneath it, the water is nutrient-rich being fed into an incubation pod. Essentially, it is a breeding pool.
Rutana suggests poisoning the fountain.
Clarence is a cat. He does what cats do, and plans to piss in the pool.
He is shy. He cannot do it.
And then the map changed!
The Sprite suggests asking Glory if they have salt.
Bernardd pipes up, "Salt, ey! Well, I happen to have a line on it. Bags of the stuff!"
Clarence and Rutana fail to intimidate him.
At Rutana's urging, Clarence coughed and spot on Bernardd. Glory tries to break them up.
In the background, Sartorii makes away with several bags of salt.
Clarence and Rutana make a whole dramatic show of getting out.
Glory chews Bertrandd's ass out while the party runs with the salt.
Back at the fountain, Clarence immediately starts ripping bags of salt open and dumping them in the fountain. After six bags the water starts breaking up. The fountain gutters, the cells within the water clumping together.
The fountain stops dry.
The ground starts to rumble.
A horrible screech permeates the ait and the fountain explodes.
A great and terrible creature grows out of the ground...
