Callie’s Journal
In the morning, Grimma the goblin brings us a huge wooden cup filled with something stinky and insists we drink out of it. It smells like rancid meat. We have to swear a goblin blood oath before we leave. If I drink it and then barf, does it still count? She tells me it’s literally impossible to throw up, which doesn’t make me feel better.
Rotesabal sticks his head out from a hut, the one with the teleportation circle, and watches us.
Grimma insists that we promised to help her and her people, so that’s why we need to swear a blood oath. Anything less doesn’t count. The pretty sparkly crystals have gotten everywhere and it’s a nuisance!
Freki tries to argue that for us, our word is our bond, no gross-smelling concoctions required. Grimma doesn’t buy it, but she offers to go first as long as Freki. She hocks a loogie into the cauldron and drinks. Freki does the same. Bec volunteers to go next, to minimize how much other people’s spit she’s getting. After every one, Grimma says: “By blood and bile, by root and rot, I swear to return when Grimma calls, or may my dreams be filled with crawling things.”
Cal asks her whether the oath is considered fulfilled if she dies before we fulfill it. “That’s your problem, dingus!” is her opinion. She has no plans to die soon. Myself, I would never put anything this nasty in my mouth if I intended to break the promise I’m making on it.
“Are you asking me to promise I’m not going to die?” Grimma says incredulously. After a suspiciously long pause, she says, “Yeah, sure, I promise.”
Once we’ve all sworn the oath, she dumps the rest of the stuff out on the ground. Then she licks the cup and grimaces, so I guess that was as disgusting to her as to us. Looks like we’re all in it together (?).
Bickerbeard joins us and comments that he thought there were more of us. Sure enough, Vondal is missing. Hey! He didn’t have to drink that disgusting sludge! Shenanigans!!! Grimma comments that she already dumped it out and she ain’t makin’ it again. Maybe I’ll make my own version later and trick him into drinking it.
We go and teleport. Bec thinks that teleport has a mishap chance, but Bickerbeard doesn’t seem concerned. He seems to know what he’s doing.
We find ourselves on a little patch of land rising up above some murky water with foul-smelling vapors. Even the sounds here are disgusting. These are the Acrid Marshes. Bec calls it “the armpit of Aecus,” which is colorful for an elf moniker. The elves must seriously hate this place, just like we gnomes do. Cognitutus stays well clear of it, even before all the Flux damage that happened more recently. I’ve also heard this is kind of a supernatural dumping ground, and may even have been one of the reasons the titans were overthrown. These stories are sketchy, even for myths, involving a god named Zas that didn’t exist, but there were conflicts surrounding the area. No matter what, though, everyone seems to agree that nobody sane should go here. So here we are!
Cal warns us that there are things called Bog Mummies here. He thinks they might be able to raise minions, and if we find any, we have to cut out the heart. Otherwise, they’ll just get right back up again. “And eat it!” adds Freki, I think just to watch me dry heave.
Freki starts calling for Claudius. Cal tells him to hush up, because he may attract unwanted attention. At least we don’t have far to talk; Grohnea’s house is right here.
Bec compliments Bickerbeard’s teleporting acumen. He says it’s due to the mindlink; he’s connected to Grohnea’s anchor, which gives him a familiarity with the area even though he himself has never been here.
The house seems to be perched on a bed of lilypads, somehow. What looks like an enormous orchid is growing all over the house. Its name is Claudius, and Freki was calling out to it respectfully. Freki has never seen one this big, plus it looks like a hybrid of three varieties. It tendrils are curling across the front door, blocking our path, but not necessarily uninvitingly.
Ayina says everything looks fine to her. “Stay kind and respectful and I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she advises us. She and Rejal disappear.
Freki uses his plant speech ability to introduce us to Claudius, tell him that we mean no harm, and ask him if he’s happy here. It just sounds like a bunch of weird noises to the rest of us.
Nothing happens.
Then, a number of flowers turn towards Freki. It’s eerie, not gonna lie.
“Am I happy? And you mean me no harm? Then I am not happy. Because I am hungry,” says Claudius to Freki. It seems there’s a tasty toad around one side of the house, but Claudius can’t quite get to it.
Freki relays this to us and we all look over to see. It blends into the swamp pretty well, but it’s also FREAKING HUGE. A milk pail probably couldn’t contain it.
Cal silently fancy-foots his way over to the toad without touching the water. Huh, he’s really light on his feet! The toad doesn’t move. Maybe it’s watching its own lunch. Cal manages to lasso the toad, which actually turns out to be even LARGER than it looked, probably even bigger than me. He only has to get it in range of Claudius, though. As soon as he does, Claudius nabs the toad with its tentacles.
“Thank you very much. What a pal. What a chum. My new best friend. What’s your name?” says Claudius.
Freki says he’s from the SPI. That’s not a name, so Freki says “Agent Sarin.” Oh, that’s his last name!
“Why would you choose to subject yourself to Her Malevolence?” asks Claudius.
“She knows things other people don’t know,” says Freki.
“True! Also, I am messing with you. She is really quite lovely once you get to know her. And she wouldn’t like that I called her malevolent. Please don’t tell her!” says Claudius.
Cal introduces himself to Claudius, who wants to know who is the guy with the toad-snagging talent. Claudius opens up a flower by way of introducing himself. Freki relays that Claudius finds that difficult, but worth it for Cal. “I didn’t say it was difficult, I said I hated it,” Claudius corrects him.
After explaining that we want to see Grohnea because of our curses, Claudius says that he’s been expecting us. Oh great, our reputation as curse victims precedes us.
Claudius opens the door and we all file in. Grohnea calls us back, so we walk through the house into an expansive greenhouse. Aside from the plants, she also has quite a number of insects, especially butterflies. Lots of them are clearly supernatural or hybrids like Claudius.
“One moment, dearies. I have to finish this. Timing is important.”
Bec and I go over to see what she’s doing, while Freki and Cal keep a respectful distance. She is coaxing a butterfly out of a cocoon. The creature glows with some sort of internal light. To Freki, this thing smells like a person.
To me, this feels spiritual. Unnatural, but not evil. Strange.
Freki asks if it has a name.
“Oh dearie, I don’t name them, then I’d get attached to them,” Grohnea says. Then she waves her hand and the butterfly disappears. She calls for “Cattywumpus” and there’s a huge owl. It’s perched, but an…um…appendage snakes out from under its feathers and deposits another cocoon on her workbench. We watch her do her thing with another cocoon, then she’s done.
She apologizes politely for being busy, but of course it isn’t like we made an appointment. Bec is enthusiastic about what she’s up to and wants to know all about it. “This is how I’m going to help you,” Grohnea explains.
After watching this procedure for the second time, Freki thinks the uncanny glow looks like a will o’wisp, a creepy thing he’s heard legends of and maybe saw once in the jungle. Supposedly, no one who follows a will o’wisp is ever seen again.
She leads us into a parlor and suggests we get right down to business. Bec explains, in her charmingly roundabout fashion, that we ended up with certain maladies in the course of our work, and we’re hoping she can point us to a solution. I flutter my fairy wings dejectedly, getting glitter all over my chair. “Don’t worry about the glitter, dearie. I’ll take care of that later,” says Grohnea.
Grohnea holds up two butterflies and says two of them are ready to use. She’ll let us have them in exchange for our help in getting more of these creatures.
“Are they just butterflies?” Bec asks doubtfully.
“Of course not. These are soul larva,” says Grohnea.
When people die, their souls get shuttled to one place or another due to the machinations of the gods. Soul larva are not a part of this cycle. They’re created, by someone with that specific power.
“What has happened to each of you is now part of you, but it can be undone. It can be divorced from you such that what you are no longer includes the curse, or malady. If it is something that can be conceptualized by living minds, then it may be possible. If you have an idea of who you are, and who you were, then the difference may be captured and placed into one of my pretties.”
We all think about our new…qualities. “You have geomantic drift, all of you,” says Grohnea, very matter-of-fact. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“So how do we procure soul larva?” asks Bec.
“First of all, you find someone who richly deserves it. Fortunately, I know several such people,” says Grohnea. She seems, to me, to be perfectly at home being here, doing this. Freki gets the sense that she is patiently waiting for us to catch up. In fairness, we are being slightly dim right at this moment.
“Then we need to kill people?” says Bec, not wanting to believe it.
“I want to help people who need to be helped,” says Grohnea.
“Can we harvest souls from the undead?” says Cal.
“Most undead do not have souls, and those that do are not well-suited for this purpose,” says Grohnea. “In some cases, the soul can be set right, but I would only advise that course of action for the most notorious of spirits. Once the soul has been set right, they no longer deserve this kind of treatment. But there is a certain cult….” She looks at Cal. “Do you know the Storm Stables?”
Cal has. They’re stables for storm creatures called behir. The stables are carved out of a glacier and the giants claim to have built them. Why breed a thing that’s so dangerous nobody is allowed to go near them? High-ranking giants use them as mounts, apparently.
Grohnea has a candidate for us to collect the soul larva from. “In so doing, there would be many of the unworthy who could become my pretties. The reason that I care about this is that I care about this region and I care about Hyperion’s household. I have a positive relationship with them and I would like to keep it that way. But the giants would not take kindly to an outsider such as myself interfering in their affairs.”
Cal wonders why Hyperion wouldn’t just take care of any problems himself. That seems strange.
We talk amongst ourselves (and honestly, right in front of Grohnea) about whether this deal is remotely ethical. She isn’t evil, she picks evil people to pluck out of the world and remake as butterflies, or at least that’s the case she’s making.
Cal’s opinion is that if there’s really a problem at the stables, we should try to fix it. He asks me to send a message to his dad, Hyperion. Sure—wait, WHAT? Hyperion? I don’t even know if I can send to him, to be perfectly honest, but I don’t say that.
I try this: “I heard there was an issue at the stables. Good if I take care of it? From Cal.”
Upon reaching him, I get a chill all the way to my soul. I’ve never felt anything like this, it’s so cold…. But I withstand it and wait to receive the response.
The response is: “CORRECT. TELL NO ONE ELSE. DESTROY THE INFIDELS. DO NOT LET IT DISTRACT FROM YOUR DUTY. REPORT BACK WHEN IT IS DONE.”
“Sounds like an order,” says Freki.
“Well, if you knew him…he just means this is how it is,” says Cal. This is not as reassuring as he’s trying to make it sound.
Cattywumpus comes back and serves us tea with a bunch of those strange, noodly appendages we saw earlier.
“What manner of creature is this?” asks Cal.
“Cattywumpus is a psychopomp. He is a scribe. He records what must be recorded. He is my loveable spy, making sure I don’t do anything that The Lady disapproves of.”
The owl thing produces a book (not bothering to use the appendages) and shows that there is a quill always recording.
“The Lady…?” asks Bec.
“The Lady of Death, of course,” says Grohnea.
Catty gives us a little leather pouch with a number of squishy eggs. There are as many as we need in there. When we encounter a creature that we wish to subdue, we just set the egg on their unconscious form and the egg will do the rest.”
“Is there a list?” asks Bec.
“Oh no, dearie. But cults have leaders and such. I know you’ll do well.” It really does seem like she knows that.
The cult is called Ordning’s Downfall. She suggests we don’t go through the marsh. She can transport us closer, but not too close, lets we be discovered.
“You must make a choice,” she continues. “I can transport you such that you will later return here, or I can transport you such that you won’t. Do you have the means to return here?”
“You know we don’t!” says Sissae, annoyed.
“Of course. That is why I offered the first option.”
“You just keep pretending to be helpful,” Sissae grumbles.
It doesn’t seem like we have much choice, really, so we iron out the details of how many days this “round trip” will last. Grohnea warns us that we won’t be able to return early, or we risk “shear,” which will be unpleasant for all of us. I don’t know what that means, but none of the possibilities seem good at all.
Sissae asks whether Grohnea can remove the white crane tattoo. Grohnea says she can, the same way she can remove the other things, even though she’s disappointed that Sissae isn’t on the crane train.
Bec invites Sissae to either come with us or stay here. Grohnea is amused that Bec has extended an invitation to her house, but assures us that it’s quite all right.
We’re apparently going to have a hike from outside the dragon patrol’s perimeter. And what’s inside? Cal doesn’t really know, but he thinks it’s only the strongest of the strong.
Freki asks if Grohnea has any enchantments or spellbooks or something that might help. She doesn’t deal with spellbooks, but sure, she has some enchantments.
Cal points out that she has two soul larvae ready to go. Indeed! Grohnea suggests that whether we have one malady or many—and whether we’re able to retain the good parts while losing the bad parts—depends on how we conceptualize it. Or in other words, “If you can describe it more elegantly, you might have more success.”
While we talk, Grohnea says Freki can take what he wants from her conservatory for our mission. No cost, just promise to do your best!
Among ourselves, it is decided that Bec and I will be the first to get our maladies treated, due to how much it impacts our ability to travel even remotely stealthily. She places one of the soul larvae in Bec’s mouth and it crawls down her throat. Bec conceptualizes herself from before she manifested plant-like qualities (no thorns, no woody skin, no bushy eyebrows). The butterfly goes down and then…comes back out. Grohnea takes it back. It has little spines now. “All done. You did very well, dearie,” says Grohnea.
Then I get my butterfly. I remember a time before I pooped glitter everywhere… and gods be praised, when that butterfly crawled back out of me, it was covered in glitter, and I wasn’t anymore!
Grohnea can offer us each help in any mystic sphere we choose. We can set up a trigger and a response.
After we decide on what boons to pick, Bec asks some questions, like what is “shear.” Grohnea says she learned about it from Bec, so Bec can’t learn about it from her. That would make no sense, after all.
Grohnea continues, “The next time I meet you, I will not know you quite so well as I do now. I may comment on your special properties. Each of you has something very special about you, something I would very much like to capture. I will not be wholly successful in this endeavor, but if you allow me to try, things will go better for all of us. The world wants to be how it is, and if you try to twist it too far, bad things happen.”
She tells us that Ordning’s Downfall is unhappy with how giant society is organized, so they’ve taken control of the storm stables. They’ve done some protective wards and enchantments against storm giants, otherwise they would already have been defeated. When we get back, we should try not to tell her too much about how it went, otherwise the future and the past might get entangled.
The cult is led by someone who is only in it for personal gain, surprise surprise. His name is Rhyzophus, and he is a cloud giant enchanter who was once part of Hyperion’s court. Cal remembers him getting exiled from giant society after being even more of an asshole than most giants. It seems Rhyzophus has gathered up similar malcontents—especially those with magical powers—and they’re plotting a rebellion against the giant ruling class.
“You spoke of meeting a friend that you knew before, who was a friend to you once again,” Grohnea tells Cal.
“There is one more of your number, an agent who is not present currently. He has something I need in payment for my services. He won’t want to give it, but do try to convince him. You must believe me, it is very important—for all of our sakes.”
That’s all she can say right now, so it’s time for us to embark. Sissae says it doesn’t sound like she’d be much help, so she’ll stay with Grohnea while we go. In fact, she seems eager to stay although also she seems to very much dislike Grohnea. It’s odd, but Grohnea didn’t have any objections, so…?