Time Started: Fireset, c2393/Lavanda-12, 6’30

Starting Location: Feodris | Dosleron Region | Grasmere Island Province | Grasmere Keep | Waterfront District

After listening to the crew planning their investigation of the cemetery the next morning, Olivia grew worried about Riv and left to find him, leaving word with the others to go ahead without her and she’d catch up with them later.

Meanwhile, after resting in the camp outside of town, Riv returned to the Waterfront District pre-dawn to try and find some information. He strolled casually through the mostly empty streets, unsure where to begin. He noticed a curiously busy building on the north side of Cliffside. Pausing to watch for a bit, he noticed the activity around the building suddenly dry up as he observed. Perplexed, he resumed his wandering until his attention was drawn by a commotion a little ways down the main thoroughfare.

At the back of a multi-story white building, Riv observed a somewhat heated exchange as a young woman appeared to be quitting her job, complaining about some aspect of it that was affecting her health, mental and physical. As the woman stormed off, Riv struck up a conversation with the man and was able to convince him that he might be of some help, adopting the persona of “Telsinus the Trouble-Solver.” The man guided Riv/Telsinus into the Telin’s Hand Healing Center and made introductions to the Center’s Administrator, Oliver Genberos. Genberos seemed a bit put off by Riv’s sudden insertion of himself into the matter, but indulged the newcomer.

Genberos initially described the situation as being mostly a shortage of clerics and healers. Telin’s Hand being the primary provider of healing services to Grasmere Keep, they were down to six or seven capable magic-users trying to cover an always-open staffing rotation (six sets per week, 20 hours per set). He attributed the staffing shortage to “The Troubles,” a shorthand in the medical profession for a particular discomfort experienced by some wielders of healing magic when casting their spells. He described it as a feeling of being unwell or unclean when trying to heal others. It was affecting an increasing number of the employed healers, causing many of them to burn out or simply walk away rather than subject themselves to the offensive, upsetting side effect of their vocation. Some, he indicated, claimed the Troubles had robbed them of their ability to cast healing magic entirely.

Riv inquired about the nature of the tainted magic, and Genberos indicated similar reports had been circulating for as far back as anyone could remember, but in much smaller numbers. Commonly dismissed and attributed to undisciplined spellcasting or some sort of issue between the caster and their source of power (whether divine, thalmological, or arcane), it wasn’t given much attention until it began to become endemic. He continued, saying the problem was being compounded because under normal circumstances they would have simply leaned more heavily on healing potions imported from elsewhere in the kingdom, but he cited a national shortage of a key ingredient in Feodrian healing potions: pixiepuff mushrooms. Without sufficient potions, they had to ask their healers to use magic more frequently, which he suggested may have played a role in the increase of healers suffering from the Troubles.

When asked about resources available for addressing the problem, Genberos mentioned that the kingdom had reluctantly put together a task force to look into the issue, but they had fallen silent and unresponsive in recent weeks as the Troubles had continued to become more pervasive. Riv suggested local druid circles might be of some help, through Genberos indicated he wasn’t aware of any such societies and wouldn’t really know where to begin with them. Riv suggested he could serve as an intermediary to help on that front, and also volunteered to chase down the task force for additional support.

Riv then enthusiastically described his ability to provide healing berries to the Center, and Genberos seemed somewhat skeptical, but was willing to entertain any new avenue of aid. Genberos also mentioned the local Thalmological Society (the TSF) and indicated he was either planning or had already reached out to them to provide aid or even temporary healers to bolster his overworked rank and file. During the meeting, a nurse interrupted, appealing to Genberos for aid with a dying orc. Riv hastily volunteered to help as they hurried to the emergency ward and the harried clerics on-staff indicated the wounded orc was dying and all available healers—at the tail end of their long shifts—were tapped out.

Acting quickly, Riv used some of his own healing magic on the orc. The spell started normally, but soon after he began to feel the flow of magical energies through him, Riv found something was wrong. His Whimsey magic, stemming from the element of water shared between the phases, usually cleansing and purifying in that form, abruptly felt tainted. Invaded by other elements like earth and blood, it quickly went darker still, thickening with sticky tar or ichor, leaving Riv feeling unclean and confused. The healing worked to stabilize the orc, but rather than the fresh start and full recovery Riv expected, the orc remained partially wounded and in need of continued care.

The nurses, clerics, and Genberos looked on sympathetically as Riv, clearly struggling, didn’t pause for rest but launched immediately back into another spell, searching for the source of the magical impurity or some kind of festering disease nearby. Other than the other sick, he found nothing. Frustrated, Riv asked more pointedly for next steps, feeling a new personal investment in getting to the bottom of the Troubles and fully embracing his persona as “The Trouble-Solver.” Genberos offered to attempt to set up a meeting with the High Regent and agreed to try and make introductions between the Pillarhand‘s task force, indicating their representatives were scheduled to arrive in Grasmere in a couple of weeks. Riv requested all the information they had to date, and Genberos clarified conspiratorially that the Arcanist’s Guild and the task force had broadly blamed the Troubles on inept or inexperienced spellcasters.

Meanwhile, Olivia was searching around Grasmere, trying to find Riv. Unbeknownst to each other, they began making their way back to The Stewed Prune from opposite sides of the city. Riv made a point to pass by the curious house in Cliffside and as he did so, he noticed he was being followed, and changed his disguise self to lose the tail. Now appearing like a squat dwarven woman, he doubled back to get a look at the person following him. He was surprised to see a familiar face: a beautiful, purple-skinned ovor woman in thieves leathers. This was the same woman the staff of the Prune had chased down the alley the night of the fire and brawl, the woman Judge Wapelode had been having an affair with.

Riv began following the ovor woman, seeming frustrated with having lost track of Riv/Telinus. He followed her around the block where she slipped through another property toward what must have been a back entrance. Unwilling to try and infiltrate the curious building alone, Riv headed back to the Stewed Prune where he finally ran into Olivia. After catching her up with his activities and discoveries. Olivia began asking about the Troubles and they agreed to perform some experiments somewhere outside of town. She suggested returning to the Renwen Brewing Company and checking in with Jaikon.

On the way, they passed a small inn. Their attention was drawn to a massive, heavily armored individual with penetrating yellow eyes lurking outside near a horse hitch. The huge armored figure gave them a hard stare and then began following them. Olivia and Riv turned to confront them. They reached a hand toward Olivia, which Riv intercepted, and Olivia cast her Hunter’s Mark. Her magic gave her a little insight into the skeletal form of the figure, revealing this was a kogo. She slipped a bit away from the kogo and Riv put himself between the two, trying to engage in a conversation.

The kogo said in an oumgean accent, “Olivia Vahlen. Missing. Wanted. 2,000 gold piece bounty. Step aside please.” Riv tried to refuse, and the kogo effortlessly slipped past Riv, moving toward Olivia. “Please come with me, I’m here to rescue you,” they said.

“Rescue me from… what? Exactly?” Olivia asked.

“You have been kidnapped. You are wanted. 2,000 gold piece reward. Please come with me,” the kogo replied.

“Who’s paying this bounty?”

The kogo paused briefly. “Your family,” they intoned.

Olivia asked who in her family had posted the bounty, and the kogo indicated they didn’t know, they had seen a sign with an illustration that matched her exactly. Olivia continued to refuse “rescue” while the kogo pressed her to join them, eventually choosing to shoot the kogo to dissuade them. Before the shot could get off, the kogo redirected the crossbow’s aim with the butt of their sword, partially withdrawn from its scabbard, then made a point to stagger Olivia with a second punch using the sword hilt, again not completely drawing the blade. The strike was clearly a very restrained blow, meant only to knock her off balance, which the kogo then used to their advantage, using the sheathed sword to trip Olivia up and send her to her backside in the road.

Riv tried to retaliate, but the kogo easily evaded the attack and reached out to Olivia, asking again for her to join them. She asked to see the poster the kogo had spoken of, but they indicated they didn’t have it, they had seen the poster 23 years earlier and had a photographic memory. Olivia, exasperated, pointed out she wasn’t even 23 years old, which seemed to confuse the armored kogo. They indicated the Olivia Vahlen they had seen on the reward poster had gone missing from the elven town Reyennenora, and Riv and Olivia pounced on the opportunity to weave an alternative explanation that perhaps a relative had been the one on the poster, someone Olivia had been named after, like an aunt. Despite not being fully convinced of the story, the kogo distractedly provided the name of “Hollow” and wandered off, bemused.

Riv and Olivia shrugged off the encounter and continued on their way to Renwen. At Renwen, they were greeted by an enthusiastic Jaikon and made friends with a new hire/barmaid named Pancake. The pair and Pancake bonded over their familiarity with magic, a shared connection to the Salt Slums in Grasmere Keep, and barstaff life until they mentioned The Stewed Prune, at which point Pancake got a bit uncomfortable. When pressed, she mentioned that the Prune had something of a bad reputation when she was growing up, constantly the site for various odd occurrences and frequently requiring repair, remodel, or rebuilding.

Jaikon offered them use of some horses and they set out, moving further west from Grasmere Keep along the main roads, arriving in short order in the small town of Myrtledale. They were greeted by three Town Guards: a kogo woman named Gelsey Dunhall, a bald halfling with a bad attitude named Bertin Knotwise, and an unidentified male human. They confiscated Riv and Olivia’s weapons and Bertin insisted on escorting them to the local healing woman.

The dark hut had a different vibe from the far more sterile Telin’s Hand center in Grasmere. A dwarven woman with wild black hair, violet eyes, and a greased, pointed beard wearing loose silken robes greeted them from a relaxed, reclined position. Olivia presented her minor injury from the scuffle with Hollow as a need for healing. The healer suggested some minor folk remedies and Olivia pressed for a more magical solution, forgetting herself and her little kid act, diving straight into discussions of the Troubles affecting clerics and healers back in Grasmere. Shortly afterward, Riv revealed his true marijinn nature to the dwarf. Growing suspicious and mistrustful at this point, the dwarf directed the pair to join her away from the few other sleeping patients for some privacy.

She indicated that the pair were taking some serious risks in laying their cards on the table and inquiring around blindly. She confirmed that there was something rotten festering in the wells of healing magic, and that she had been dealing directly with it for at least six seasons (months). For her, it had gotten so bad she’d abandoned using restorative magic altogether, relying instead on her alchemical knowledge and a stockpile of healing elixirs she’d been saving for a rainy day. She also confessed she’d been keeping an eye on the developments for a bit, and had noticed that the occasional visiting healers were struggling with the corruption as well, suggesting to her the problem was wider spread than officials were letting on.

Olivia theorized that if healing magic was corrupted or weakening, perhaps a different type of magic might be intensifying or that some kind of balance had been upset. The dwarf woman hesitated a bit and hedged, but hinted strongly that if such a theory were to be pursued, it might be best to look first into some sort of necromantic magic. In her studies, there was a principle that magic required a degree of balance and that certain aspects of magic power acted as counterweights against other types. For her, magics focused on healing (abjuration) were in opposition to magic that manipulated life and death (necromancy). Of course, she reminded them, necromancy has been outlawed by the Song of Harmony for nearly 100 cycles, so finding a source of that magic to determine if it had changed commensurately with the changes observed in healing spells would be somewhat difficult.

When pressed about where they might begin looking for such cautious and underground actors, the dwarf cryptically suggested there might be a cemetery outside of Grasmere Keep where interested parties just might find the kind of thing they were looking for. Recalling their companions had left on a mission to Hillcrest Memorial, a place which matched the dwarf’s description, Riv and Olivia departed with much haste, pushing their borrowed horses to the limit to return and warn the others about the danger.

Time Ended: c2393/Lavanda-12, 12’00