Loose threads None
Participants Racathra Zia Maimasu She-Who-Lays-Among-The-Jagged-Rocks-And-Feeds-The-Wandering-Crabs-As-They-Scuttle-Past-Her Calador "Cal" Lomin
Locations Outside of First Landing
Short summary:
We killed some assholes.
Full Report
Our contact for this mission was a tiefling named Little Rainbow, who explained that the Rainbow Room they had made for this year's parade had been invaded by vampiric creatures. It took us more than a day to reach the Rainbow Room's location in the hills southwest of First Landing, but we didn't encounter any trouble on the way.
As we approached the mission location, Siobhan and Zia noticed a waterfall that shouldn't have been there. We looked more closely and found that the waterfall was some kind of illusion, and sadly didn't involve any water at all. We passed through the illusory waterfall to find an extraordinarily colorful and pretty chamber that we decided must be the Rainbow Room.
Shortly after we entered, the room's beautiful colors, smells, and music faded. There were four crowns in the room, so four of us tried putting them on, which caused a trapdoor to open in the floor. We went through the trapdoor and found ourselves in an illusory hall of trick mirrors that reflected warped images of us. The invaders played some kind of mental trick that made everyone more and more confused and upset the longer we stayed there, but eventually the illusion vanished and they attacked us directly. They were definitely vampiric creatures of some kind; they were sentient and able to speak Common; they could fly, but didn't seem to be very good at it; they could paralyze us by cutting us with their claws; they seemed to be able strike directly at the minds of anyone who tried to scare them or harm them mentally in any way; they could be harmed by healing magic, but not poison; and they could heal themselves, both passively over time and by doing something to the people they had paralyzed that clouded their minds.
Cal remembered that another FLOAT group had fought similar creatures and found them to be vulnerable to their intended prey speaking cherished memories and intimate secrets aloud. Several of us tried this, and it did cause them to flee from whoever was speaking and retch in disgust, though it didn't seem to physically hurt them. (Out of respect for my friends' privacy, I won't go into detail about what anyone said.) We eventually killed them both in the usual way (hurting them with spells/weapons/friendship), and they turned to ash. As soon as they were both dead, the Rainbow Room regained its former glory, so it seems the mission was a success.
The entities used their mind-clouding attack on both Zia and Mai, and at the time I'm writing this, neither of them has recovered yet. Hopefully they can be cured, or if not, maybe the effects will eventually wear off.
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#Siobhan's Ballad
In Little Rainbow's dwelling place
Behind illusion's waterfall
The colors drained, the colors drained
The dwelling was not ours to play
The vibes were off
The music strained, the music strained
And in our heads, inside our thoughts
Our fears and insecurities
Then replayed, and replayed
A battle of our steely wills
To push the doubts away
It left us shamed, left us shamed
The power of togetherness
We bring ourselves from the brink
Unafraid, unafraid
And when our minds were cleared of it
There stood two figures
Unexplained, unexplained
They set upon us, Ill intent
And drew us to a fight
Our will sustained, yet sustained
And with allies at our side
We prevailed
Now unashamed, unashamed
The evils tamed, the evils tamed
Rainbow reclaimed, reclaimed
And all of this to say, to say...
Love yourself
Love yourself for who you are
You are enough
You are loved
And honey, you're fuckin' killing it out there.
Slay.