Mushroom Tower - Full Rainbow (10/19/2021)

**Wrapping up in Silverton:**

The party made their return to Silverton proper where they encountered frightened townsfolk holed up in the local tavern. Upon realizing that the cultists were now gone and the captives were being returned, the people of Silverton provided the best reward they had available. Victory Soup. Everyone had their fill, slept through the night, and woke the next morning to deliberate on a course of action. Without a concrete plan in mind and no other clues to work on, the decision was made to return to Alescia and try to discover more about the prophecy that was discovered in the visit to the Historium. Leaf bade his family and friends goodbye, leaving the town more of a local hero than he left before. Xofren agreed to this with some hesitancy as it involved a long trip in the company of horses...

**Journey through Crossington:**

Crossington was the natural path back to Alescia from the party's location. On their return through the town, the harsh realization set in that the Realm Shard had been taken. A brief investigation was performed but no additional clues were discovered outside of the knowledge that the previous campsite that had been used by the cultists had been used again more recently. This at the least implied that cultists came back after the town evacuation and stole the Realm Shard. The party pressed on, not stopping to rest and getting whatever rest they could take in the bumpy cart, only the sound of Ryafyrie's drum and some delightful horses to keep them company.

**A Druid's Wife in distress:**

A day or so into their journey, they were flagged down by what appeared to be a local woman. Despite her desperate appearance, Hadrian and Alluin hesitated to approach for fear of traps. They bade the woman come closer to the cart, which she was more than willing to do. Seeming very distraught, she informed the party that her husband had gone missing and her son was very ill and pleaded for some aid. Some of the information she provided did imply that cultists had come to visit her husband and she even recognized the blade that Talek still carried. Hoping that this could be another lead and of course wanting to lend whatever aid they could, the group agreed to help in any way they could.

Travelling along with Tabea back to her small village, the party was filled in on the events that had occurred. Her husband Searl had been trying to develop a cure for his son who was very ill. He had gone missing recently, prompting a small search party of a few men and some dogs to go out looking for him. They also did not return. Upon some investigation, Xofren discovered that Searl was in fact a druid as he found some druidic writing in Searl's home. His notes detailed that he had been trying to create a cure by combining 2 different types of mushrooms together, but the mushrooms were somehow fighting each other and would not stabilize. Tabea let the party know that Searl did most of his research in a nearby tower, which the party decided would be a good place to start.

**Descending the tower - a journey towards madness:**

Approaching the tower, a few of the heroes began noticing the air filling up with airborne spores. At the entrance to the tower, there were a number of mushrooms growing that gave off a faint blue glow. Upon further inspection of the mushrooms, it was quickly observed that any disturbance would cause an outburst of toxic spores, though the effects of inhaling the spores were largely unknown. Talek and Alluin warned the party that they should cover their mouths to try to avoid ingesting these toxins just in case.

Descending the tower was slow and arduous, as with each step into the depths the abundance of mushrooms increased. Slowly, the party began noticing some effects of the toxin as they began to hallucinate seeing walls wave and their own skin crawl. Leaf, Fen, and of course Kizzik seemed to be the most resistant to these effects (likely a result of healthy upbringing or a general resistance to toxins built up over time....). While this was overall pretty disturbing, they had no choice but to continue onward into the depths of mushroom tower. Xofren turned into a disgustingly large spider and scouted the tower ahead of the party.

Eventually they came upon a room with what looked like a body slumped against a wall. The body was completely covered with mushrooms. It appeared that some had even taken root inside of the corpse and had started growing out. It was unclear who this might have been, but the party assumed it was part of the search party. Clearly there was nothing that could be done to help this poor soul, so the party continued descending the tower and the depths of their own sanity.

In yet another room, the party passed 7 more corpses that appeared to be growing mushrooms. At this point, some of the party members were hearing terrible voices and there was a moment where they were unsure if they could press on or if this had been a huge mistake. There was one more staircase at the end of this room that led further down. Not wanting to risk a complete loss of sanity for the entire group, it was decided that Leaf, Fen, and Talek would be tethered by rope and would continue the descent while the rest of the party held fast in this room. As soon as the three were out of sight, a terrible shuffling sound was heard behind the party...

**Animated mushroom people:**

The corpse that was discovered originally was now somehow up and shambling towards the party. It did not appear friendly.

- Big fight, lots of spores

- Leaf sprints up the stairs directly into the fray

- Xofren casts Moonbeam and learns that radiant damage clears out spores. Hadrian and Talek have lots of radiant damage (praise Avandra)

- Alluin holds a mushroom man the entire time

**The Druid's study chamber:**

- Descending last stairs into obvious study chamber, Alluin and Hadrian are just a step behind and locked behind a wall of mushrooms

- Journal is found along with blue vial containing cure. Blood was the secret catalyst needed to combine mushrooms but at the cost of losing soul. Possible connection to blood magic here?

- Huge growth of fungus radiating out of a corpse with exposed heart on the wall comes to life (Searl). Always attack the heart. Battle stuff happens. Ryafyrie makes Kizzik a hero again. Fen goes mad and tries to hug the corpse monster and basically dies. Talek picks him up. Xophren in bear form gets the killing blow by leaping onto it's exposed ribcage and biting the heart out, crushing it in his jaws.

**Healing a child with a questionable name:**

After a hectic battle, the group ascends the Mushroom Tower into the light of day and returns to the little town to deliver both bad news about Tabea's husband and good news that a cure was found. They delivered the cure to Tabea's son who had a nearly immediate turnaround. Whatever blood and mushroom magic was used by Searl, it seemed to be pretty effective.

In an act of gratitude, the small village had pooled 350 gold together and offered this as a reward. After trying to refuse (the village folk didn't exactly look well off), the good people of the village insisted. The party was left with the decision of what to do with this reward and what their next steps were on their epic journey.