Scarred One looks at the hand
He clealry sees signs of mummy rot. He grunts and turn around beggining to pull out his tools. He wonders how Yan will explain this to the Mayor.
Dorianna clutches the griffon in her left arm and extends her right.
While the orcs can't agree on the cause of the bruises, Sendoski knows they aren't natural. They don't come from this world... They aren't just random bruises but they make out a word in Aklo...
Leng
The dimension of dreams...
"Hmm" shares the old one
"Ruin delver does it tell you something?"
Oorgatch groans when Sendoski shares the word.
Yan will also try to recall knowledge as available. "Sendoski may know more than any of us."
Both Oorgatch and Yan agree that the bruises aren't natural, and seem dream related but can't make out the word that Sendoski sees.
She seems to have a little more focus, enough to ask her about one more thing.
Scarred One looks around the room. "Ruin Delver, didn't you have a the book of that forsaken deity? Does it refer in any way to Leng?"
Nothing else suspicious in the room.
She gladly hands the griffon over, Sendoski can tell it has something hard sewn into it. "Oh, I had it when I was a child, but it was long since lost. The Motley Man remade it though and gave it to me. He's so wonderful."
Her eyes glaze over a bit as she begins pacing back and forth, babbling at nothing. "Yes... the glade... flying paced river town... otter..." As though you're hearing snippets of half a conversation.
It's a rather unpleasant experience from your end, but doesn't seem like she's an immediate danger to you or herslef.
Sendoski does detect magic present, even though he did not last time. Some time concentrating on the magic does reveal a curse upon Dorianna. Outcast's Curse.
You now have a lumpy griffon, seemingly named Super Kitty.
She seems totally unobservant towards what you are doing or saying at this point, it's easy enough to walk away with the lumpy griffon.
Checking it out later, you're able to remove a rather sizable flawless ruby, worth 30gp from the griffon. The griffon does not otherwise seem magical but does seem much newer than a childhood toy would be in.
Between the markings on the wrist and the ruby, those of you trained in Occultism (Everybody except Yan I think) are pretty sure a Denizen of Leng is the culprit here.
Leng Ruby (enchantment, occult) Many denizens of Leng carry strange rubies mined from quarries in Leng. As long as a creature holds a Leng ruby that it willingly accepted as a gift or payment from a denizen of Leng, any denizen of Leng can target that creature with outcast's curse, phantom pain, or mind reading at a range of 1 mile, and the bearer uses an outcome one degree of success worse than the result of its saving throw against outcast's curse.
"Yes, I think we should know. Also, I think maybe we should crush this ruby into dust. It might make for some spell components or something. But why would she have received this as a gift?
"He should take her to have the curse removed. Perhaps Vandy Banderdash could ask The Dawnflower for help. Sarenrae is a healing goddess, so I expect that would work."
Yan nods. She must be de-cursed, and this evil gem destroyed.
There was another soul gem too right? In the doll we fought, who almost killed us. Could these be related?
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"It might make for some spell components or something. But why would she have received this as a gift?
Scarred One responds "That creature remade her toy, and hid the jewel inside it. So the girl accepted a gift of a toy, taking curse upon herself. Why her? Because she was the easiest way into the manor, I can imagine for that creature to target adult, it would require more convincing or trickery." says the old man looking at the toy.
He takes out a knife, the same one that he made number of scars on his and his friends bodies, and begin to make a small kitty out of wood.
Wooden figurine even resembles a feline, when it is done he makes a small symbol of the butterfly on the basement. "Maybe Desna will calm her dreams..."
Yan looks on, admiring the carving. Very thoughtful, Scarred One. I'm sure it will help.
Scarred One quickly carves a nice wooden cat/Desna charm.
What's the plan?
"Sendoski, you can cure her, right? Your silly cat knows the spell, I presume?" He then winks at Naught, knowing full well he'd piss off the cat.
When the girl is taken care of, he returns to the Thirsty Alpaca, and sets to work fixing the walls and doors, so that they can secure the place. Next is the roof, but that seems an almost total loss.
Yan visits the bookstore to see if Morblint has any leads on the gem and what it might be used for. Is Bellacora scrying upon the town? Something else?
In his free time he repairs the Thirsty Alpaca with Oorgatch. It's good to work hard for a change.
Scarred One joins others on working in Thirsty Alpaca, but he focuses his efforts on the garden
Burn the weeds, plant some nice vines, that would give fruits during summer, and could be animated to defend the place. He also plants Otari roses, well known for their thorns to leave a distinct element. When he is done, Scarred One is dirty with mud, but satisfied seeing his work.
Despite casting remove curse twice, Sendoski can't seem to effect the curse. Dorianna continues to wander around ignoring everybody and hugging various plushies.
While Sendoski has trouble removing the powerful curse, Yan, Oorgatch and Scarred One decide to finally make some more progress on the Thirsty Alpaca. (9/30 Days)
---
"I think that we should stay around to try and heal Dorianna. Sendoski is the only one in town that can do it; he just needs another day to try again. I know that he can do it."
Oorgatch may also be enjoying the simple pleasure of manual labor.
Scarred One gives the girl his feline figurine "Hold it kid, keep it in your room. Sometimes the ones uglier on the outside are in fact prettier on the inside."
Listening to the words of the young orc he nods "I agree, Ruin delver and the cat are the only one that can help. Assuming that this mouser is willing to"
Dorianna ignores Scarred One and the figurine but there's no objection to the item sitting in her room.
The next day, things continue much as before. Sendoski doesn't make any progress on the curse, Dorianna continues to ignore you and annoy her siblings.
The rest of the party continues to make progress on the tavern though.
12/30 Days on the Alpaca.
Another day, more progress on the tavern but no luck on the curse. Sendoski feels like the curse is within his reach to remove, just difficult.
15/30 Days on the Alpaca.
Continuing?
We cannot let this young person suffer, even if Sendoski has Oorgatch’s luck!
Nonetheless Yan visits Wrin for a weal or woe augury on spending another couple days on the curse.
Wrin listens and waits for night time to read the stars.
"It is terrible to watch the girl suffer like this."
"A cosmic figure beneath the tower lies.
Though his hex you may remove
the fiery gem will recur
True refutation is not within your grasp."
Yan looks sad. It seems we must delve back down to save her.
Scarred One nods "Yeah lets deal with the cosmic figure beneath."
"My luck? I guess. Maybe we can learn something about this curse by going back in, is that what you think?
"I guess we could get more picks. I have five, though would prefer not to use the last one, as it was Otari's."
It's easy enough to head back down and take the staircase down to the arena level.
There you find a hastily constructed statue painted to be some sort of horrible monster guarding against creatures coming from below.
"Shall we go for the monster on the arena?" he asks looking at the statue
It's not any sort of real creature, just some sort of horrible mess, almost like a petrified failed fleshwarp.
Yan agrees with Scarred One and heads toward the arena. If we clear it out, perhaps a new path will become apparent.
Yan nods. Of course!
"That does make sense. Get a little cash out of the deal. Let's start with 1 bushel. That should get him started brewing some real beer. We should find out how much it costs to get malted barley, that might be a better profit margin, especially since he doesn't have to wait to brew. That, and see what we can do in regards to purchasing hops. He is likely resorting to some sort of gruit for flavoring the beer."
Yan slings a whole bushel across his shoulders. let’s go to the tavern first.
Heading down to the Warped Brew, you find it a little less happening than last time. The Drider is still ready to eject you, with violence if needed and there's no band on stage.
A pair of morlocks play cards, clearly gambling and the tavern keeper is cleaning up some plates.
"Welcome back!" he shouts your direction as you come in. "It's been a few days, Nebog bet me a few coin that y'all had been eaten by some horrible surface creature, like a giant eagle. Looks like I'll be collecting from him once he finishes gettin' fleshwarped."
Yan tries to look tough as he throws the sack on the ground, but you can tell he's short of breath. We brought you barley.
The bartender smiles "You came through." He opens up the sack and takes a small bit out. Gives it a sniff crumbles a bit between his fingers. He feels around the outside of the sack for lumps and eventually puts each sack in turn into a barrel to check the volume.
The drider will put down their book and keep their hand on their weapon as the bartender pulls out a lock box, opens it up and counts out enough silver to pay for the Barley.
Yan eyes the paltry silver and hopes that their efforts have at least ingratiated them to the patrons here. "How long does the process normally take?