Session Date: 2/24/2024

We finish combat and have to climb up to the next floor. There is a sphinx waiting Valentine as he climbs up to the next floor. He tries to talk to it and it squaks at him, beginning to attack the party.

This is a Hieracosphinx. They are intelligent but only speak Sphinx. They’re very cruel and guard their territory fiercely against weak creatures.

AC: 24 Fortitude shriek save: 24 Weakest save is WILL.

We manage to kill the creature. Opal cooks up the Hieracosphinx as steaks and everyone who was hurt feels better after eating it. The elves with our offerings come up and bring the offering for her. They leave after setting up all of the offering and Ria blows the strange spore horn. Orange spores are released from the horn and are carried off by the wind, and nothing seems to happen. After a little while, the ground starts to rumble.

To the east the jungle starts to shake and what appears to be a person starts to raise as the forest itself lifts as She Who Walks Through Seasons moves to us: she is a large quadrupedal creature. She stops as she opens her mouth for the offering, and a handful of birds come to get the offering and carry them into her mouth. Ria and Yuna work together to attach ropes to her so that we can get on her back and enter the Godspine Forest.

As we arrive, a group of Kappas tell us to halt and call us intruders, telling us that we can’t just come here and walk around and take what we want. We talk with them and Ria explains that we need the water to cure our friend of an illness, and they are less inclined to believe her. Killian speaks up to explain the curse and the key and they seem to like Killian, going so far as to actually get the water for him.

They go and get a gourd full of the water from the geyser. We make it back to the city and they immediately make the cure to cure our friend. An Alchemist named Oloffia is the one that’s making the cure and she gives the cure and as the tincture touches her tongue the change is instantaneous. The curse peels away and she rises up with renewed health and vigor, apologizing for keeping us waiting. Everyone around has emotions: some laugh, some cry, some sigh in relief.

Oloffia asks for the key, and Killian put it on a table for her to see. She pours some of the water from She Who Walks onto the key. The key shakes, then sort of explodes into small smoke that dissipates. Killian and the others here realize the curse has been removed from the key.