A Dozen Roses

A Dozen Roses

 **GM: Quentin**

Amaranth - Jennifer

Poppy Montajay - Sam N

Juliette - Chris Haliwell

***I would like to begin this report by stating that mind control and cloning is not okay.***

During his speech, Yorrik had mentioned a Druid named Bramble who had become the leader of the bears after the death of the Bear Queen. Poppy, Juliette and I left Stoneshield to see if Bramble and the bears would be willing to aid us in our fight against the corrupted Oligs.

The last known location of Bramble was the Royal Forest, near Mt. Beej, to get there, we needed to travel to Adrossen where we could portal to Teira then proceed on foot to Mt. Beej.

***We rode out from Teira through the Marsh-fold toward Mt Beej where things quickly started going poorly - our quartermaster’s pack fell of the barge and a giant fish ate all our food forcing us to travel to mudflap to purchase more supplies*.** 3 gold for 16 fish! That is far too much to be paying, we could have negotiated better**. *We were then led the long way round the foothills of Mt Beej where Juliette and Amaranth were ‘captured’ by dragon cultists.*** Because Dragon Cultists are lying liars who lie. ***Seriously they didn’t even realise the danger they were in, apparently they thought the people who had ambushed them were Brambles associates. COMPLETELY IGNORING THE DRAGON CULT SYMBOLS ON THEIR ROBES!!!!!*** THEY WERE HIDDEN!!! **T*HEY WERE BLATANTLY OBVIOUS!!! It’s not important anyway I saved them*.** We had it handled.***You did not have it handled, you didn’t even know they were cultists. Until I told you!*** Anyway, we killed the four cultists, two halflings, a dwarf and a human.

**Upon examining the bodies, the two halflings bore a startling resemblance to my wife Rose. \****Coughs uncomfortably\* I examined the two halflings and discover they had each had numbers tattooed into their feet - one bore the number 3 the other the number 12.* **It was so nice of you to SHARE that information with the rest of the party!** *Had I told you then it would have ruined the plan. YES I HAD A PLAN!!! Juliette managed to salvage two of the robes, one human sized and the other halfling sized so we decided to infiltrate the cultist camp taking Amaranth as our apparent prisoner***.**

We were attacked overnight by a marauding bear that managed to pin Juliette against a tree before Poppy and I realized what was happening. Poppy decided that this was the perfect situation to try maneuver 38 ***(I run toward Amaranth who then launches me into the air toward our opponent - works very effectively when fighting beings much larger than ourselves*)** in a combat situation, and it worked almost flawlessly. It did however result in a bear with a severed spinal cord as opposed to an unconscious bear as was the plan. ***Look I healed the bear let’s just move on, we usually use that maneuver to kill things.*** Right, so the bear ran off in complete fear and confusion and the rest of the night passed without incident.

In the morning we headed into the camp of the Dragon Cultists with me ‘tied up’ as a prisoner. Poppy got us in without a problem saying something about being ‘number three’ and that I had been ranting about roses? ***All part of the plan****.*Your plan is bad and you should feel bad! ***I will not feel bad for saving the world from this group of Dragon Cultists. Need I remind you my dear that once again I found myself at the end of your blade.*** I WAS BEING MIND CONTROLLED ! It was not by choice, I was fighting against it as hard as I could. Which incidentally brings us to the next part of the report.

We were lead to the ‘Rose Garden’ to see the leader of this group of cultists. When we arrived I saw Rose sitting upon a throne. She was missing an arm. ***I feel the need to point out that this was the third ‘Rose’ we had seen since embarking upon this quest.***I feel the need to point out that this Rose was alive when I first saw her, as opposed to the two previous ones who were killed before I knew they were ‘Rose’. And you don’t think I feel terrible enough about killing my ‘wife’ already. I’m STILL having nightmares. ***I can’t help you with that I already found you a therapist go talk to them. Amaranth and Juliette quickly broke our cover simultaneously running to Rose and attacking a guard. ‘Rose’ gave the order to kill Amaranth and I sprang into action throwing Amaranths sword to her and attacking the one that had been identified as the real leader of the cult.*** As I swung my sword to attack the leader who appeared to be controlling Rose, I felt my mind be overtaken, and I stopped mid-swing, turned, and began attacking Poppy. It felt like my mind was at war with itself. I had to protect the leader, no matter what, but the real me was still aware of what was happening and fighting as hard as possible not to hurt Poppy to no avail. ***Apparently the leader was a wizard because I soon found myself not only fighting him but also Amaranth and his three guards. Juliette was kind enough to draw the attention of the other two guards. Once I killed the wizard the four people he had under his mental dominion collapsed to the ground unconscious. This included Amaranth and Rose.***

***Juliette and I tied up the cultists and woke Amaranth and Rose. Rose revealed to us that she was in fact an earth elemental - not a halfling. The cultists had been using her, cloning her to make expendable troops. By killing the wizard we had freed her but by now the damage had been done. Rose had been cloned too many times and was dying, it was only the wizards magic that had anchored her to life. While she and Amaranth spoke Juliette and I drew oaths from the three surviving guards and agreed to bring them back to the fortress we now call home. Before we made our escape we set strategically placed fires to destroy the remaining clones We laid Rose to rest at the ruins of Briarvale where Amaranth and Rose grew up. We returned to Teira victorious but subdued.***

### Juliette's Report

**Morals of the story:** being tall and using sharp weapons are good things, and Illegal Activities draw the ire of both Paladins and Sentinels.

**The story:**

Two paladins - Poppy and Amaranth - decided that it might help the effort to retake the Citadel and deal out justice and peace to the world if we were allied to the bears from the Royal Forest.

Ugh. It was a *mess*.

So, we had to work out a route to get to the royal forest - easy enough. We walk to Ardrossen, take the portal to Teira, and then walk to the Royal Forest, leaving a generous allowance between us, the Citadel, and Port Plenty.

We get to Teira without any trouble, apart from an apprentice Portal Mage opening the portal a few feet too high, causing Amaranth (or was it Poppy?) to trip and land very awkwardly (it was a little amusing, to be honest).

The folks in both Ardrossen and Teira were quite wary of us, which confused me somewhat at first, but it turns out that they don't really want the Elves to come and cause trouble in their lands, which is fair enough. *I* don't really want Elves coming and causing trouble either. But if it happens, what can you do, right?

Anyway, we left Teira and headed through the Marshfold, with Poppy (Amaranth? Poppy? They're very similar.) leading the way through the marsh (she grew up there, apparantly). A very kind gentleman ferried us across a river, and was appropriately sad for us when our food supplies fell in the river. Luckily, he was happy to lead us to a nearby village.

Mudflap. Interesting little place. Apparantly tourist rates for fish are a gold each. We managed to get them down to 3 gold for 16 fish in the end (Amaranth can do great things with fish - inspirational!), and headed on.

As we headed across the foothills just south of Port Plenty, I espied a shortcut, and endeavoured to travel it with my companions. To my dismay, however, it appeared to not be a shortcut.

A group of nice people (coincedentally wearing robes) surrounded Amaranth and I, and offered to take us to Bramble, which was delightfully pleasant of them. Poppy came racing over the hill saying that these nice people were dragon cultists!

Dragon cultists! My first time being led by criminals!

A fight ensued, and we managed to kill all of the cultists, and after looting a map from one we assume was the leader, we decided to track down the cultist camp, and see what was up. Oh, and Amaranth (who it turns out is married 0.o) recognized two of the cultists as her wife. Not the nicest way to meet your wife after 5 years of not knowing if they're alive or not.

I had managed to use my embroidery skill(!) to patch two of the cultists' robes back into shape when a bear charged into camp and attacked us! It picked me up and held me against a tree, when Amaranth spoke to it very authoritatively, at which point it attacked her instead.

She managed to pull off an awesome maneouver with Poppy, and severed the bear's spine, leaving it paralysed. This made her feel absolutely terrible, so she healed it (some people are strange), and it left, seeming very off-put and wary of us.

Nothing else untoward happened on our way to the Cultists' camp, but when we got there, it started to get messy again.

We reached the camp wearing the robes I had so carefully embroidered (but which the bear had trampled on, giving them an authentically dusty look, which helped us get in, needing Poppy only to lie and tell the cultists we were "group 3", and that we had let Amaranth (the "prisoner") live because she was muttering about a "Rose" (her ex-wife. She'd been having minor nightmares and the like from killing her wife. twice.).

The cultist on guard seemed to believe this significant, and decided to take us to see the Boss right away.

Now, the cultists' camp was in one of the foothills around Mt. Beej - their main headquarters were in a ravine with dugout spaces for working on whatever tasks criminals undertake (probably practicing necromancy and sapient-race experimentation). Almost all of these had curtains covering the openings, although a few had signs above - "Sector 3", "Armoury", and the like.

At the end of the ravine was a garden, and a not-quite-throne on which sat someone who turned out to be (surprise surprise) Rose. That's right. 3 Roses. There was a garden off to the other side, with flowers who's petals encased what looked like androgynous adults being grown in the middle. They had no real facial features, or fingers, and their skin looked like it had a grain.

While I was examining the flowers, an (very tall, imposing) Orc came up behind me, and told me I knew we weren't supposed to get too close to the flowers. She worked out I was an imposter, so I hit her as hard as I could.

Turns out a knife is a better stabbing implement than a gauntlet.

Amaranth couldn't take any more Rose nonsense, so charged her wife (real one? fake? We didn't really know, and Amaranth didn't seem too worried). Mid-charge, I think she realised someone else was in charge (maybe mind-control?), because she changed target to one of Rose's guards, but then Poppy started defending him - it was really weird, and the guards both ended up dying, so it all ended happily.

Turned out Rose had been being kept alive by the apparantly-not-a-guard, and was now dying, but in control of herself. We took 3 of the cultists with us back to the citadel (they agreed to come if we would agree to protect them. from what, though?), 2 of whom had been mind-controlled.

Man, what an adventure. Oh yeah, we burned the garden and ravine. Should help with the cultist threat.