I Only Waterboard People to Bless Them!!!

The group decides to split up to cover more ground and deliver baskets to different parts of the town, but first they all travel to check in on Nell and Alora. Nell answered the door, Adalia calling out a cheerful Good morning! and Carindrina explained that they were delivering food and holy water for the church and asked if she had a moment for them to come inside. She agreed, saying she always had time for members of the church. The group looked at each other questioningly at her odd phrasing.

“Where might your sister be?”

“Oh, you know Alora? Yes, she is upstairs.”

Carindrina hesitates, “Oh..yes. We met her yesterday.”

“Oh I don’t remember seeing you.”

Adalia jumped in, “Yes, we are friends of Alora’s, we met at the market.”

Carindrina nodded, “She may not have mentioned it.”

“Oh that’s nice” Nell took the basket and water, “I don’t need a healing potion right now, I will put this in the altar.”

“Oh the priests asked us to have people take these to help cleanse themselves with the confusing times outside.” Carindrina smiled and tried to sound benign.

Nell nodded and offered to make some tea for the group, leaving them alone in the living room. Adalia tried to go upstairs, but they let out a loud groan, and she abandoned the effort. Looking around, it was clearly a modest home, a few paintings on the walls, a small altar to Liguaquide filled with water. Adalia decided to try to bless the water in the altar, but knocked the altar over. Nell poked her head back though asking if everyone was ok. Adalia blamed Aquilla, saying he has no self control. Nell returns to the kitchen and returns with tea.

Nell poured tea and handed everyone a cup. They chat politely and tell her that they are just passing through but the church was kind enough to give them shelter for the night. Nira suddenly remembers they left Mirella, Leonora, and Henley at the church alone. Adalia asks if Alora will be joining them. Nell goes upstairs to get her sister. Carindrina pours her tea out. Adalia tries to sense the water and realizes it is corrupted. The water they gave her wasn’t enough to fill the whole teapot, so she had to use town water. They decide to dump the water from the altar down the sink and to replace it with fresh holy water. Adalia goes through and replaces all the water in bottles that she can. Carindrina dumped the teapot out and replaced it with Adalia’s holy water and poured a bit into her cup.

Alora came down with Nell and said she didn’t remember meeting them in the market, and asked if they had made plans.

Carindrina tried to redirect the situation, “I suppose our interaction may have been a fleeting moment for you, but your kindness was not unnoticed. We wanted to reward your kindness with the first holy water from the church today and your sister made a pot of tea for us.” She poured a cup of the new tea and handed it to Alora.

Adalia sent up a prayer to the spirit of water, but felt no reply. She noticed that the slashes and puncture marks on Alora’s arm are healing, but still there. Alora wrinkles her nose at how weak the tea is, but she is gracious and drinks the tea. Galia tries to sneak some of her family’s tea into the teapot, but just spills tea everywhere. Carindrina nods at the group, indicating they should leave. Galia whispers to the group that we should tell them that the water is turned off. She attempts to bluff, and tells Nell and Alora that the pipes are off today because they are working on the pipes and not to run water, and to ask them to tell their neighbors the same. This poorly executed lie somehow manages to convince them and they agree.

When they leave, Furus asks if they need to get people to drink the water or if they can just splash it on them as he doesn’t want to pretend to drink tea at every house. Adalia suggests starting a waterslide for the kids. Carindrina agrees that would be an excellent idea, but that we should tell people that the church wants everyone to take their vial immediately so we can return the vials, and if that doesn’t work, they can just douse people.

The first door is an old man’s home. Carindrina and Furus greet him, Furus tried to greet the guy and slaps him on the shoulder and hands him a bottle, shouting, “Hey man! Shots for Jesus!” Confused but enthusiastic, he takes the bottle and drinks it. They can see memories rising to the surface, trying to regain clarity, but then returns to the glazed look. Carindrina sees the confusion, but can’t see anything beyond that. She tells him to have a blessed day and they move to the next house. When they regroup they realize that they haven’t actually given the baskets of food to anyone. Belladonna suggests next time they make holy water chicken soup.

The next house is Belladonna, Carindrina, and Adalia in front, with the rest hanging back. There is a middle age lady and a 6-7 year old child hiding behind her skirts. Belladonna offers her the water, telling her that she is here to offer pure water and asks if she would like to try some. She agrees and drinks it. Adalia crouches down and talks to the child, “Do you like water slides?” He nods and agrees that he doesn’t know what they are but he is excited. The woman says she actually has a sick daughter upstairs and asks if they have more to heal her. Carindrina explains that she had medic training in the war and agrees to help. The group follows her inside and crams into the small room. The girl has a fever and when Carindrina inspects her, she notices there are no scratches, bite marks, or other indications of an attack. The girl asks who she is and remarks that she has very orange hair. They give her water and Nira heals her as well. The girl blinks and looks around and asks who all these people are in her room, and two leopards at the foot of her bed. She asks what day it is, and Nira asks what the last thing she remembers was. She asks if she missed the end of the festival and Nira explains that the summer festival is still going. The little girl shakes her head, you’re crazy, that is in three weeks. The group tries to tell her that it is the summer festival. She demands to know if it is the summer festival, where is the honey? Nira looks through the baskets, but there isn’t any. Galia rummages through her bag and gives the girl some honey. The girl says thanks, are you just staying in my room? The group takes this as a cue to leave and Adalia calls back upstairs to remind the kids to come to the water slide. The little boy reaches out to touch the two leopards as they go downstairs, still hiding behind his mother’s skirt. Belladonna stays a minute and tries to talk to the girl,” Hey kid. What’s crack-a-lackin? Is that what the kids are saying.” The girl asks if she is a kid, saying she is very short. Galia cuts in, nonono, don’t say that we are adults, just short. Brad asks her what was the last thing she remembered. The girl said they were picking flowers in the garden in hightown to save for the next festival. He asks if he can see them, they are pressed between the pages of a fairytale book. She says he can look that them, but not take them, he needs to pick his own. He looks at them, they are normal feyblossom flowers. They leave as well, and the mom offers to let them drop by if they are still in town for the summer festival.

Carindrina says it will be harder than they thought to cure people, so they should do more of a split up. The group agrees.

Adalia, Venus, and Nira go together. They agree to convince them that this is a baptism. An older, balding gentlemen opens the door, and panicking, Adalia sends forth a large burst of water, knocking him back 5 feet as Nira blesses the water. He yells “What the fuck was that?” Nira tells him you have been selected by the church of *indistinct mumbling*, you are now blessed and don’t need a shower. How do you feel? He grumpily replies wet. He then drinks the water offered to him. He says that he got a little drunk at the festival, but not that drunk. Nira tells him they rescued him from a lake, to which he replied that the lake is several miles away. Adalia says no, she is bad with water, it was the canal. They tell him that it is actually Samradh and not Adh Mor. They ask what he remembers from before the festival. He said there were acolytes that came before the festival and that while they probably were in black robes, it was a little chilly, and lots of people were in robes. They provided mead and that is how he got so drunk.

Carindrina knocked on the next door. A young couple answer the door. Carindrina hands them the basket of food and asks them to please take the dose of blessed water to help with the end of the summer festival. They ask if she means the festival of luck. She waves it off explaining that now is the time of the summer festival for her people, the dwarves. They are puzzled, but agree. The man drinking the water is kind of coming to, and the woman is as well, but then she groans and grabs her stomach. Carindrina asks if she is ok. The girl says, I don’t know. She notices a subtle baby bump and offers to help carry her upstairs so she can lay down. The girl says she is fine, just tired and not to make a fuss. Carindrina says it is important to keep the village safe, especially people like you who are pregnant. If caution were a rose, we should all have a garden. The woman glared at her, yelling I know I’m not skinny but it’s a little rude to call me pregnant! The husband intervenes and tells her to leave, showing her to the door. He asks again, you said you were with the church? Carindrina shrugs, “I’m new.”

Furus and Belladonna go together. They are determined to remember to give the food, and Belladonna agrees to try to be stealthy. Furus knocks on the door, forgetting that Lowtown isn’t the best construction and knocks a hole through the door. A young boy runs and opens the door, seeing the damage and sobs “My mom is going to beat me!” To make things worse, Furus somersaults over him and lands with a “Ta-da!” Belladonna tries to inspect the door to see if they can fix it. Furus promises that they will fix the door. Belladonna asks him to give the water to his mom for her to drink later. He says he will try, but she gets home late and works in Hightown. He closes the door and they can hear him muttering she is really going to kill me. They bring Carindrina over and she puts a tarp up over the hole, but they need to return to fix the door later.

Galia follows Midna. They agree to get them to drink water and then Midna will “trip” and spill a flask on them. A girl about their age answered the door and Galia explained that the church wants everyone to drink this to get rid of the fevers. Midna tripped and splashed water on her, and apologizes, asking if there is anyone else that they can help. She calls her brother down and they repeat the thing, but spill even more water on him. He starts to look around after he drinks, but then is quickly back to the glazed over state. Galia offers them more water, saying they should drink to make up for her and Midna being rude/clumsy. The girl is unaffected, but the boy comes back to his senses and asks who they are. Midna throws more water on the girl, they both seem to be awake, though now wet and confused. Midna tries to tell them they put out a fire, they don’t believe it, so Galia says that they are working on the water today and not to use it, and that leaking roofs are a side effect. They barely believe it, and Midna and Galia return to the rest.

They go to the town square and Furus begins playing music and calling people to the town square. They mix Galia’s family tea with holy water and break the fountain and refill it with holy water. They also invent a waterslide which is a hit with the kids. The townsfolk appear to start remembering, and all is well. Nira sees a man in black robe running and takes off, Venus and Adalia on her heels. They chase after him and Venus tries to throw a fireball. Nira screams at them to stop or they will use fireball, and Venus’s fireball sails over her shoulder towards the men in black, though it misses. The robed figure stops and stares at them. Nira bull rushes him and throws him to the ground. She shouts in his face, “Where is your rebel base?” Adalia, puffing as she catches up, “Why were you running?” VInur C stares at her, “I can’t explain it to you. We are here to save people.” Adalia asks Nira if she is ok if she gets wet and Nira nods. Adalia casts wave strike and casts bless water, soaking both of them. Adalia stealthily comes up beside him and punches him, but it doesn’t hurt. He just turns to look at her confused. The rest of the party has caught up by now.

Vinur C turns back to Nira and commands: DROP. Nira, feeling her will bending, snaps out of it, then grins at him I don’t think so. Adalia throws another blast of water on him for good measure. He manages to wriggle out of Nira’s grasp. Belladonna points a finger at him, attempting to be menacing, but waits to move. He blinks out of existence, shouting “The Devourer will have us all!”.