Out of Nuono
After a successful trip into the Everdeep in the prior session, the party brings the Metamorphic Horn back to Nuono and to Queen Ismene. The next morning, the party is invited to a ceremony to see its usage; with a long and soundless toot on the horn, the Queen expands the bubble surrounding the residential district such that it wraps around the city and reconnects on the east, creating a large area of protected land in which new homes can be grown and those residents of Bihara that wish to stay can do so.
As another form of thanks, the Queen takes the party to the vaults below the People’s Palace, holding treasure brought back by Nuonian explorers in ages past, traders visiting the city, and so forth. They each choose two, with Serafina taking the Rebel Yell and the Wool Cuirass, Cynthia the Azotophore and Living Kelp Cloak, and Irving the Camera Obscura and Engineer’s Jacket. Asking an additional favor, they visit the forbidden section of the library for research, containing tablets deemed to contain information too dangerous to circulate widely.
After an incredible Study check (with a result of 31), the party deduces the full effects of the Lifestream Orb, which are a variety of ways to control life and death. Irving also takes the opportunity to consult his mysterious grimoire a second time along with what they’ve larned and finally finds, if not a solution, then a starting point: fixing the miasma requires fixing whatever is wrong with the World Tree.
The three of them debate for a while about where to go next, and finally settle on returning to Bihara to retake it. After speaking with both the Queen and the Biharans who do not necessarily wish to resettle, a small group forms: Ysildea, ten or so of the Nuonian knights under her command, and a group of Biharans consisting of alchemists Reza and Ando, a town guard, and some enthusiastic youths. Using her notes from how the wooden amulets were constructed (which she copied back in Marilun from Dr. Collodi’s notes), Cynthia performs a ritual (draining her own health to fuel it, using one of the newly-discovered powers of the Orb) to create equivalent coral amulets for those who will be going with them, enabling others to freely move about in the miasma.
After a day of further preparations in the town, the small warband sets out to meet in the Waterfall Grotto, with the party returning to their boat for the first time in a week or so. (It still needs repairs.) Despite a run-in with a sea serpent of some kind, the group makes it to the grotto, to find that it has been occupied in their absence by water fairies, a sort of friendly elemental, frolicking in the clean environment. They offer to guide the group across the sea safely when they set out, ensuring that at least the travel to Bihara will be uneventful… but there’s still the matter of retaking the town.