Session 10: The Temple

NPC's
Nema, Tia, Ana

Location
The High Enclave, Guardian Forest

Summary
Cryllos uses the antique shop owner's power to enter Nema's dream in hopes of returning Garoon's colorvision; he extracts a yellow crystal from it. Oleander returns. A small, mysterious figure, who turns out to be Tia, flags the party down, and invites them into her house. There, she tells them about her time after the party; She was looking at legal documents to put Lalia's death as a result of self-defense, and she found that Lalia and Cryllos are forgotten, and their informational papers were "taken away on royal orders". She tells the party her plans to sneak into the castle to investigate. The party goes to the Guardian Forest to talk to Ana first. The path forks: one way is a jungle, the other is blocked by stone doors. They go through the jungle, filled with many pictograph-covered pillars and walls. They find a bell tower and ring the bell inside, and two gazelle guardians open the stone doors, leading to a stone ruin, covered in pictographs of people and animals. Inside, the party runs into a tiger guardian and see many stone statues. Going through, Oleander hears whispers getting louder. The party goes to two archways, one with a weapon and fire pictographs, and the right with one of a sun and a heart. The party goes through the left, which has a fountain in it, and many inscriptions. At the end, there is a doorway, which says it bars sinners. As Oleander goes through the door, it transports them:


 * Oleander stands in a courtyard with white flowers, where the voices are the loudest. They find a pool with oleander bushes, and at the end, they see Ana, who is wearing a white cloak and is missing their mask. Oleander greets them, to realize that they don't have the bark. Ana tells Oleander their purpose: Both of them are blessed by Arbora, and they must carry its will, which is to bridge humans and nature, through healing and protection. Ana leads them into the pool, and they swim deeper into the waters. In the bottom, they see a temple, which has a tiger statue in it. Ana hands them a guardian mask, and dons a tiger guardian mask. As they do, vines creep out from behind it, enveloping them, turning them into a guardian tiger. Oleander realizes that their "funny" arm has grown.
 * The rest of the party goes through the right archway, which has a statue of a woman with antlers, hooves, and vines and inscriptions. The tiger guardian returns, and they are forced to fight. The tiger grows bioluminescent, exploding flowers in its steps. The fight drags on, then suddenly, the tiger bows and ducks away.

Misc.

 * Oleander was at a rat seminar; they got 10 rats from it.
 * The dream: Cryllos hovers in a room with root walls, which has a golden pulsing object in the middle, lighting everything up. Below the object is a pool with something shiny in the bottom. Two voices mumble nonsense. When asking Nema for help, she responds "within the heart, it beats for you, it calls you, it calls all of us". He swims down the pool and grabs the shiny object. When asking Nema, she said she does not remember the events of the dream.
 * The bell has a clapper and an external, hung up hammer.
 * Left door inscriptions: "Here, those who are chosen will ascend.", "here, the blessed meet their mother, here they cross celestial path. Sinners are barred from entering. Sinners, follow the sinners' path."
 * Right door inscription: "Sinners, meet your mothers, pray that she chooses you to be subject to her love."