Dalviss is clearly startled by her appearance. “Leeara, is that really you?”
He looks around, worried. “We best get you to your room. People in town are already on edge, and I’m not sure how they would react to you.[/ooc]”
Nalan and Alyssia are also surprised by her new look.
Once Dalviss gets her settled, he comes back.
“[b]What do you know of what happened to her, and how can she be cured?”
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"The magic is beyond me. This emessary from the Dark Tapestry is empowering disciples, some group called the Dominion of the Black I think, and it is they that are poisoning?, cursing?, diseasing?, heck, maybe all three, folks like Leeara and us. Came here in some kind of vehicle that fly's through the dark tapestry and wants to take over... well, as much as it can take over I'll bet..."
Warpac pauses in thought.
"You know, that seems to be quite common nowadays..."
"Anyway, we found Leeara in that cave you sent us to. At first we didn't find her. Instead we found a food cache and a couple of dead disciples. They seem to all like wearing these here amulets..."
Warpac pulls one of the amulets from his bag.
"When I did a detect poison spell it came back positive on everyone - and no, we didn't toch or eat anything so I have no idea how we got poisoned. We were poisoned before we went into the room to examine the bodies and food. Perhaps it was the frogs we fought, or their treasure in the river? Right now we are under a slow poison enchantment which is probably helping... thanks Tycho and Melody."
"Leeara was a bit out of her mind and thought we were more of the nasty disciples and attacked us, but we subdued her around without too much harm. She thought we were more of the cultists and did not want us in her cave. Melody managed to convince her that we are allies, particularly when we mentioned you sent us. She mentioned she got shot and that started the transformation. I think it was this poison stuff, but I don't think we were hit with the same stuff or perhaps the same stuff but not refined yet."
"After that Tycho convinced het to help and lead us to the woman that shot her in anoethr cave a few hours away - Nesher mines? Tycho is VERY convincing for all his wierdness. Hmm. Or maybe because of his wierdness in this case. Communicated in a series of stories with face changes. She gave us one of the alien spheres she took from the 'bad lady' that can make us speed up and looks like some planet."
"We went down and found another transformed soul. Again we tried to talk peace and again we were unsuccessful and had to subdue the creature. It was then we discovered that any time we tried to do anything stressful we got sick and, in my case, momentarily confused. Don't know who she was since she could only talk in Aklo. Sounded something like Sonriser."
"After we calmed her down she started babbling about how this eye thing lost it's planets and, I guess, wants this one as a replacement or somehow to get the old ones back. I don't know. She wasn't actually very clear and I only got it translated second hand to boot. She drewhad drawn lots of pictures of places wasted and mentioned some long dead place called... Heck if I remember. Some place where a swamp is now. My guess is this eye is the same as The Emissary. Which, I'm getting to."
"So then we move on and find another cave with yet another madman by the name of Abtaroh and her guard. Before things went sideways, she told us about the Emissary coming soon, her creating this poisonous stuff to cause transformations, and how she wanted us to join her noble cause. We were having a nice peaceful talk and all of a sudden, for no reason, she went berserk and started attacking us. Said it was because I started tapping the walls with my axe. Stupid as well as wonky. So I started swinging my axe for real so she could tell the difference. Once again we subdued them. We do that a lot."
"After the battle, in spite of her rediculous plans to change everyone into... whatever Leera is, we didn't have the heart to kill her or the means to drag her with us, so we left her there. We did take all her stuff so that shold at least slow her down. We have two bags of holding so carrying stuff is not a problem. Say, can you put a person into a bag of holding? Maybe we should have done that?"
"Anyway we found three more of those planet spheres. One casts confusion, one resilient sphere, and one teleport. They are all mysteriously tied to one another and can somehow be charged up as one. They make good toys if you are a little unstable too."
Tycho may remember playing with them for a while by juggling, spitting, bleeding, and other insane attempts to charge them up. Or just for fun.
"Then we met the unpleasant Nesher brothers, recently deceased and turned into specters. Them we did not subdue. We did find their bodies and buried them with full rites. Nasty fellows tried to suck Mongo and me dry, but I guess it wasn't their fault. I'm still feeling a bit under my full potential. I hate things that can reach through my armor. Seems rather unsporting."
"On the way back to town we decided to stop at Leeara 's mine and ran into the 4 miners from the inn. At least I think it was the same 4. They were all cult wizards or something with spellbooks and fireballs and such. We subdued them and stuffed them in a wagon that Tycho conjured. Leeara decided to continue with us into town and here we are with cultists in tow, diseased, cursed, poisoned, and drained. Been a busy day."
"Did I cover everything important guys?"
Dalviss looks at the amulet and says “Yes, that is the amulet that the four prospectors wore. I thought it was some sort of group badge or something, but didn’t know the meaning of it.”
“Are you sure you met the prospectors? The only left the Inn about an hour before you came here. I’m not sure if they have left town yet.”
With a shrug, Dalvis says “Given where you said of when you met the four folks, I wouldn’t have expected them to get out there that fast.”
Alyssia asks more about Leeara’s condition, “So what have you already found out about this curse or poison, and which is it? Any idea how it might be cured, and what have you already tried?”
The drinks are poisoned. When you check, the stew is poisoned.
Dalviss, Nalan, Alyssia, Mongo, Tycho, Theodric and yourself (Warpac) are poisoned.
I assume no one in the party has taken a drink or eaten food here yet today.
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Warpac jerks in surprise.
"Oh no! Looks like they got to the food supply. All the food and drinks are poisoned. Dalvis, Nalan, Alyssia, you are poisoned like us. In addition to us, at this point that makes it Dalviss, Nalan, Alyssia, Mongo, Tycho, Theodric and me - all poisoned. Not good."
All three are surprised and dismayed by the news.
Alyssia asks “What are the symptoms of this poison? Anything we can look for without the spell? I can pray for it tomorrow, but it would be good to find out how widely the poison has been spread,”
Looking at the vial you brought them, Dalviss asks “Any idea how it has been spread? Is it an inhaled poison?”
Nalan just looks worried.
Theodric ignores the poison for the moment and comments "we did find those 2 corpses in the mine, I wonder if those were the prospectors?"
Looking over, Dalviss says “Can you describe them?”
Hearing the descriptions, Dalviss shakes his head and says “Unfortunately, that sounds like the Nesher Brothers.” He then asks a few more questions and soon it is clear that is who the two who became specters were.
With the helpful squawking guidance of his bird Theodric will try and examine the auras.
Theodric is having trouble making anything out about the aura.
The substance is a combination of toxin and curse. Only someone immune to both poisons and curses would be immune to it.
The poison can be ingested or delivered as part of an injury on a weapon carrying the toxin.
The full strength curse causes the person to transform into an id mutant.
An id mutant loses its identity almost entirely, changing into an animalistic version of its previous self. The curse reduces the victim’s intelligence and charisma. If its adjusted Intelligence score remains above 3, it can still speak and understand language, but it does not retain any societal affiliations it had prior to devolving.
Survival becomes the paramount concern for an id mutant, and it focuses more on base animalistic desires—the thrill of the hunt, securing a safe lair, and procreation. An id mutant's personality is entirely new—one based on fulfilling base needs, and as such an id mutant's alignment changes to chaotic neutral.
When a humanoid becomes an id mutant, its physical deformations almost always result in a resemblance to a specific animal. For up to 10 days after a humanoid transforms into an id mutant, break enchantment or remove curse can remove the template. After this window of time closes, the condition becomes much more difficult to reverse. Both miracle and wish can restore an id mutant to its previous life. Likewise, an id mutant that dies and is then brought back from death sheds the template and is restored to its previous self.
Even heavily diluted, the toxin can bestow a lesser version of the curse.
Symptoms of the lesser version would include severe headaches and a general shortness of temper. In stressful situations such as combat or disarming a trap, the person may feel ill if they do anything beyond hitting their opponents with a weapon. Continuing to act in that way can cause a short burst of confusion.
There may be ways to trigger the lesser version of the curse so that the victim transforms into an id mutant, but that would require an outside force.
Theodric says "As mentioned beforee I can use Tycho's scroll to learn remove curse and Warpac can memorize remove disease. Might take us a few days to clear us and we'd still be at risk of reinfection..."
After pausing for a moment and nodding towards our 'mutant' friend Theodric asks "What's the calendar like on this one?"
Puzzled by Theodric’s statement, Alyssia gestures towards Melody and points out “According to her, it isn’t a disease. Only remove curse or break enchantment works,”
She pauses in consideration, then adds “I believe I have two of each of those scrolls, but as I understand it neither is guaranteed to work.”
In response to the question about Leeara, Dalviss rubs his chin in thought. “I’m not sure, it might be too late already. I don’t know exactly when she slipped away nor when this woman you told me about shot her with the poison.”
Looking to Dalviss, Alyssia says “At least this explains why everyone in town is in such a bad mood.” Looking towards your group, she admits “I came here to talk to Dalviss about getting your group to look into the problems.”
Theodric replies "Oh, I thought it needed both spells. That's good news that it only needs remove curse, I can memorize it twice in the morning and do much better than a scroll."
Looking to Melody "Anything you can do to help determine the potency of the poison will be helpful in the meantime. Pharasma sometimes grants me small snippets of the future, but knowing what I'm up against will make it easier."
The concern clear on his face, Dalviss says “I think if you are to cure Leeara, you might not have until morning.”
Theodric nods solemnly.
Melody thinks it is likely more deadly than she can treat.
Theodric will take one of the remove curse scrolls and sends his mind to look into the Gray Lady's prophecies as his corporeal form reads the scroll.
Reach the end of the scroll Theodric's mind and body fully reform as he he uses the exact same intonation he saw himself use before.
Melody asks Alyssia nicely if the group could get the scrolls. She hesitates, then decides it is a good cause — especially if they can restore Leeara. She fetches them from her temple and hands them over.
Theodric takes one of the scrolls of Remove Curse and uses it on Leeara. Thankfully it works and she is restored to her normal self. The fur and other animalistic features fade away once the curse is broken.
Leeara thanks the group profusely. “It was like a nightmare, my mind slowly being eaten away like that.”
She does want to rest, regain her equilibrium.
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Ahh, ha, umm, well… I don't specialize in making food, only eating it. They rub their belly. Can we pray to purify our food? Conjure little berries like my woodsy friend Karl does? I do not think there is a way to help the whole town, unless we have more powerful magics… but in the meantime we can, perhaps, help ourselves to Leeara's cooking, and thereby and help ourselves to better help everyone else.
Theodric responds to Tycho "You've been suffering quite a bit, I think our best bet may be to keep ourselves clean long enough to deal with the source of this problem before tackling the potential large numbers of infected."
Frowning, Alyssia admits “I don’t like it, but it does make sense. We need someone not afflicted to stop this at the source.”
“How do you plan to track it down?”
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There was a place marked in Abtaroh's journal… They snap their fingers. Speaking of, they're outside in my carriage, right now. Can we put them in your jail? Do you mind?
Tycho nods at Theodrioc and Alyssia.
Yes, take care of ourselves… they take their scroll of remove curse and casts a remove curse on themselves, using their mnemonic vestments and powering the magic with their own energies
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Warpac tries casting a purify food and drink spell on some of the poisoned food and then checks with detect poison again to see if it worked.
While he is doing that he says, "I'm also interested in getting rid of the spectres effects. Alyssa, do you have anthing for that? And how many of those remove curse scrolls do we have? I'd be willing to hold off if there are those in more dire need, particularly if I could get a slow poison cast on me to stop the advances for a day."
“You would need to discuss that with Enmet about that, but I imagine it will not be a problem,” Dalviss says.
Alyssia offers “If you wish, I can go with to introduce you and help convince them that these people should be jailed,”
Tycho is successful in removing the curse.
When Warpac casts his spell on the food and then checks the results, there is no signs of poison or the curse in the food.
When asked about curing the negative energy effects, Alyssia gives a short laugh and says “I’m sorry, but I’m not that powerful a priest. I don’t know of anyone in town that is. There might be someone with a scroll of the restoration spell needed, but I don’t know of any.”
Alyssia directs you to the town hall, explaining that the jail is beneath it.
Checking in the town hall, you find Mayor Enmet Kurigoss. Most of you heard him long before you saw him. As you enter, he is yelling at a woman, demanding that she find some records. Alyssia frowns, somewhat taken aback by this behavior.
Once the woman hurries away, the mayor looks at your group and loudly asks “What do you want? Hurry it up, I’m an important man!”