Before making their way back to the city, the agents spend a day and night recuperating at Grohnea’s cottage in the aftermath of their clash with Rhyzophus and the weight of Sissae’s death and partial(?) restoration.
The most pressing business first: Grohnea conducted the Fluxtaint extraction ritual. The agents were asked to hold their idealized selves in mind rather than their fears as the taint was drawn out:
- Oz’s idealized self: Dope ass swashbuckling halfling with no horns or sparky feet who moves at the speed of hobbit, Dean of Stabington University’s school of Stabbings, rocking out with ye olde booze while doing backflips on a pirate ship.
- Freki’s idealized self: Free of the killing curses, at peace with not only Nature, but with my nature. At peace with Hugin and Munin, understanding the meaning of their words, rather than just hoping I interpreted them correctly.
- Freki’s internalized fear: I am moving in the wrong world, for the right world, but accepted by neither. Woodfolk don’t like me because I spend too much time in the city and dealing with things that are not Natural Law. “Civilization” doesn’t like me because I’m different. Somehow, in a world of monsters, I am the monster. Freki sees his cursed self almost as a separate entity—like watching a movie from the inside. He’s afraid he doesn’t like himself, but accepts that if he must live with Evil Freki to keep his woods safe, that’s a deal with the devil he’ll take.
Michael rolls a nat 20 on his Wisdom save, focusing on the ideal rather than the fear. He emerges from the extraction feeling a deep sense of well-being and oneness he hasn’t approached since he meditated with his father decades ago to commune with the beast within. He knows in his bones that—far from being pawns of the Raven Queen—Hugin and Munin are ancient allies who have been steering the course of history since the world was young: instruments of Gaia’s primal authority and universal oneness. They are important, and their connection to Freki is fated.
In the afternoon and evening that follow, Freki collaborates with Grohnea to craft a small supply of specialty arrows:
- Treant Sap Arrows (×3) — Tipped with hardened ancient treant sap. On impact, releases a sticky resin that coats the target’s feet, halving their movement speed and leaving a trail a skilled tracker can follow for hours.
- Razorvine Arrows (×2) — Fletched with preserved razorvine leaves. The arrow leaves a trail of razor-edged cuttings in flight; creatures passing through its path take slashing damage from the debris cloud (hangs in air for 1d4 rounds).
- Black Lotus Heads (×3) — Tipped with crystallized black lotus extract. The target must succeed on a Constitution save or fall Unconscious for 1 minute. Valuable, difficult to make, and morally complicated—exactly the kind of thing the SPI would regulate heavily.
- Verdant Bloom Arrows (×2) — Inspired by Sissae’s bloom curse. On impact, causes rapid plant growth from the wound site: flowers and vines bloom across the target’s body. Mechanically, what happens is… unknown.
Oz listens in surreptitiously, then secures vials of Black Lotus and Belladonna from Grohnea’s stores, along with a simple poisoner’s kit.
Zanqaa the Devoted says his goodbyes to the SPI agents, transplanting himself from Vondal’s ring to Grohnea’s brooch. He asks the agents to pass his regards along to Vondal.
In the morning, the agents decide to have Grohnea teleport them to Xaos rather than Alye’adu to report on what happened to Sissae, who remains behind in a coma at the cottage. Bec senses that Grohnea is somehow pleased about this arrangement.
From Xaos, the agents return to SPI HQ and debrief with Mallory—and another Mallory? While at first the agents are confused how Mallory is running two debriefing interviews at once, they suspect it might be Mallory’s changeling double Eeoram…
During the interviews, most of the field agents tell Mallory/Eeoram most of the things that happened, some more coherently than others. Bec tells much but omits several things: the fight between Freki and Oz, the Prometheus god chamber, and the surviving cultists and their quest of redemption to liberate Xaryuvia. Oz’s interview is its own event: he reports accurately on several things that genuinely happened, but does so through such a tightly egocentric lens—spending roughly 75% of the time describing how high he was able to jump when stabbing Rhyzophus—and with so little connecting context, that Mallory is left staring at his notes in baffled silence afterward.
Once the interviews wrap, both Mallorys gather everyone together for a meeting to explain what happened: yes, Eeoram has returned from the faux Afterworld. He woke up from his trance at the bottom of the ladder beneath SPI HQ, climbed up, knocked on the trap door, and Cassandra heard and let him in. Their working theory is that Lorelei’s grip on him waned after she was gone from the phantom Afterworld for sufficiently long. He is still a bit tired and disoriented, but fine.
Mallory is pleased about the Fluxtaint cures. He is less pleased about several other things. He rebukes Freki and Oz for their personal conflict (“There is no room for personal disagreements while on the force. I can’t believe I have to say any of this, but: Freki, do not bite non-hostiles—ESPECIALLY fellow agents! Oz, do not kill non-hostiles—ESPECIALLY fellow agents! Do you actually want to remain a part of this team? If so, do better!”) He is angry about Vondal’s summary execution of Sissae. (“Do you have any idea how much it costs to resurrect someone?! The SPI is not made of diamonds! We could hire a whole new team of elite agents for a year with that kind of money! In the future, ALWAYS consult the team—do NOT act unilaterally!”) He is disappointed in Bec’s failure of leadership (“Two of our best agents were nearly killed on your watch—BY EACH OTHER”). However, he is impressed by what Cal’s allies have to say about his conduct—enough that he has decided to promote Cal to team captain on a probationary basis. “This is an important role,” he tells Cal directly. “Take it seriously.” And to the others: if the new arrangement doesn’t work, he may have no choice but to split up the team—though he makes clear, with some frustration, that this is the last thing he wants to do. “You’re the best field agents we’ve got right now, dammit.”
Other news conveyed at the meeting:
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The agents get paid their back wages for recent missions.
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Mallory has hired new administrative staff—not field agents, but logistics personnel needed to properly staff the three SPI branch offices. This means Mallory can start putting his field agents back where they belong.
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Mallory has hired new personnel to staff the three branches—administrative staff, not field agents—so that he can get more of his field agents back in the field where they belong.
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Cassandra shares that she has developed two new abilities using the SPI badges and sending stones. The first, Hearthkeeper’s Reach, allows her to cast touch spells through sending stones. The second, Cassandra’s Soul Extension, allows her to extend her selfhood into certain others—a strange and intimate ability that doesn’t work with Mallory or Eeoram, but which she suspects will work with the field agents. She asks Bec’s help after the meeting to test this theory.
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Finally: over Mallory’s objections, Xaryuvia’s petition to join the Aecus Concord was accepted. There are now officially eight member nations (Cognitutus is a secret, *shh!*). Mallory reminds the agents that each member is responsible for contributing personnel to TEAM, MAD, and the SPI. He’ll call another briefing soon, once he has more specifics on Xaryuvia’s nominees.
Mallory then orders them to take a well-earned break from cases to recover from their recent ordeals. In response to questions about open urgent cases, he says, “There are always more cases.” But he also tells them:
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The international hurricane crisis between Trell, Zephyr, and the RUP has been officially handed off to TEAM to deal with the diplomatic fallout. Zephyr did as they promised/threatened and dispersed the hurricane, the RUP is outraged that Pelor’s prophesied “cleansing storm” never arrived at their sunparched lands when it was most needed, and Trell continues to profess total innocence and ignorance of the hurricane’s suspicious origin.
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The mysterious crystal crisis of the goblin tunnels under the Mountain has also abruptly been resolved: Rubinia Elka and Esprit Repose sent word to the SPI that the situation is now under control, and the SPI’s assistance is no longer required. Everyone trapped in the crystals—dwarves and goblins alike—has been rescued, with the goblins being taken into custody for King Durak’s judgment, and Squeaks McKraken gratefully returning to normal SPI field agent duties. Frustratingly though, there were almost no details included in Rubinia’s report, and Squeaks’s memory is full of holes about the whole incident.
In the following days:
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The agents collect their back wages (at last). Freki and Cal finish working through their Manuals of Gainful Exercise. Freki also ranges into the Selva to harvest plants and replenish his arrow supply—and notes with quiet satisfaction that the foliage no longer withers and crumbles wherever he walks.
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Cassandra confirms her hypothesis about Soul Extension: she can project her essence into Bec and the others. “It’s as though we all share a piece of the same soul,” she tells them. In anticipation of this outcome, she has crafted a small bejeweled statue of each field agent—crude but deliberate—and is eager to see whether they can function as anchors for Bec’s contingency spell. She enlists Bec and Callie for an R&D push, and by the end of it, every “special” field agent has had a contingency placed on them.
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Callie is troubled that the clamulet currently around Oz’s neck shouldn’t exist—she clearly remembers giving it to Sophie Steelboots to protect her during the vampire hunt, and Sophie never gave it back. But here it is now, and somehow slightly different from the one she remembers. She, Bec, and Cassandra puzzle over it together, and eventually conclude that it must be from one of the parallel realities that folded into them while they were in the phantom Afterworld.
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Vondal pays a visit to Alyeadu. Ameesha—the changeling who was imprinted on Sima Cordelia and has been adrift and rotting since Sima’s death—still needs an anchor, and Vondal had volunteered. Now that his Fluxtaint is healed, he hoped to deliver on his promise. The changelings, however, are not ready to commit: they have concerns about Vondal’s inherent instability, given his close connection with the Flux. They want to study him further before agreeing.