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*Shortly after returning to Haven from Gateway, Korrigan asks the heroes of Haven to gather in the Tipsy Traveler. Looking a bit haggard but completely sober, Korrigan stands at the bar and waits while Barry serves food and drink. Once all are assembled, he produces a scroll and holds up a hand to get the room's attention.*

"Alright folks, I've got some announcements to make and some information for you.

First off, I'd like to thank those of you who kicked Red Tear ass over in Gateway and helped us nix that crazy curse. We did good work over there, and those of you who busted your rumps to help out can pat yourselves on the back.

Second, I’d also like to thank you for how well everybody is working together in our new monarchy. The Kingdom of Haven is getting a lot stronger, and that wouldn’t be happening without all of your blood and sweat. Even though we’ve been set up for a few moons now, we’ll be having a coronation ceremony for the people here shortly, and you’re all invited to attend. There will be a bit of dress-up and pageantry, but don’t think we’re getting all high-and-mighty on you. I want all of you to know that even though we’re “King Korrigan” and “Queen Fionna” to the people, things will keep on working as they’ve been working as far as all of us are concerned.

Third, you're going to see a lot of changes happening around here in the next moon or so. Abaddon, Cirrus and I stumbled on a "squatter village" when we were hunting that shapeshifter last year, and so I sent my Rangers out to see how many folks were hiding in the trees. Turns out there were lots of them, hundreds, actually, and a bunch of them would like to live more regular lives.

On that note, you'll notice a lot of new buildings around here. Over the past few moons, The Tipsy Traveler has dumped several years-worth of profits into the construction of a full Hospital, a School for children, a University for training grown folks, an Orphanage, a massive research Library, and a huge amount of barracks-style transitional housing for the refugees, with more on the way. I know that Woodhaven has an orphanage and a hospital, but we've got more orphans and injuries than the facilities in Woodhaven can handle. This will help folks in both communities get the services they need.

Even with this new Hospital, there will still be some folks who are too old or too sick to make it in to see a healer. Once I got thinking about it, I realized that there a lot of jobs that need doing that don’t involve fighting something, and so I’m founding a new order called the Caretakers. These folks will be healers, nurses, alchemists, clerks, librarians, teachers and the like. Once we get them started, A Caretaker trained in healing will accompany the Cavaliers and Messengers on their trips to the outer villages and make sure our people get the attention they need.

Training the Caretakers and getting the School and Academy going will take a lot of work, and that’s where I’d like your help. Many of you have skills that would be an asset to the School, University and my new Caretakers, so I’m offering all of you the chance to pass on your knowledge and make Haven stronger. We’ll need instructors in all sorts of arts, so chances are everyone can contribute. Our University will have Colleges of History, Art, Magic, Literature, Numbers, Nature, and Philosophy, as well as a Warrior’s Academy and anything else we think we’ll need.

Lastly, with Marcus’s help and guidance I’m founding Haven’s first order of Knights. We’re still working on the details, but anyone interested in membership should talk to one of us.

So, that’s what I’ve got for ya. We’ve still got to save our new Kingdom from all sorts of craziness, but I thought you all deserved to know what your efforts are helping create. The people are starting to sleep through the night and have celebrations again. A kid born in Haven today stands a decent chance of growing up without getting eaten by monsters. If we can keep going like we have been, working together as one Kingdom in concert with our allies from Woodhaven and Killeshandra, we might just bring about the dawn of a new age.

Keep it up, heroes. Keep it the fuck up.”

Nellie stands up, looking somewhat sleep deprived and cranky. "If I may take over for a little while to expound on one of those 'sorts of craziness'?"

"I talked about this at the end of the harvest last year within this inn, but either the story got forgotten over the long winter slumber and preparations to fight the Red Tear, or not enough people heard me in their fatigue after dimension hopping. Either way, it's come to my attention that not enough of you know WHY we are traveling to various towns this year."

"Yes, one of the reasons is to fight the Red Tear. They're doing a bunch of little rituals at various places of population with the ultimate goal, to our current knowledge, to make Phanterra a necromantic paradise."

"During the end of the Harvest last year we learned about one such ritual being done in their graveyard in a separate 'pocket dimension' that had been created through a specific type of magic called 'Roads' magic, and used a magic sword to power a device to get us there to fight them. We stopped that ritual, and Ceres recovered an odd magic box that seemed to be a focus of that ritual. Further gathered information from various sources told us that the Red Tear were going to continue efforts to complete said goal throughout the land."

"At the same time, we'd been having longer and longer 'visions' of the land being a desolate wasteland and the people about us nothing but withered things. During our adventures, travels, and missions, some of us were finding strange rune markers about the land of Haven. After some months while the visions were prolonging in length, we uncovered a total of eight of these markers, and with a little ingenuity I and Skylar managed to open another inter-dimensional gateway using the markers to travel to another one of these 'pocket dimensions'. Inside this particular dimension was a vast white plane of seeming nothingness, of which was only broken by a single ancient old man having convulsions on the floor. Skylar and I managed to heal and bolster the man's reserves enough to have a conversation."

"It turns out that this man is the famous scholar Plank Tennyson, who wrote such works like the Haven Fallacy. Since the cataclysm he's been holed up in this pocket dimension, using ancient magics he'd learned through years of research and study to affect people's minds and bodys. In truth, the visions we'd been having is the true state of reality as it is, due to the ravages of the cataclysm. His magics have been allowing us to see the land recovering and because we see it doing so believe and make reality of what we believe. He did this to prolong hope for a better future in the post-cataclysm survivors."

"However, the strain of using such magics has taken a toll on Mr. Tennyson's body. He's dying, and despite what the two of us could do for him, he believes he had only a year as of that conversation left to live. He has however through research over the years found various locations in Phanterra likely to have somethings, if used in the correct way, that could restore the cataclysm blighted land. He gave us those locations, and since then we've found more information on those locations and have made preparations to go to these population centers to find what we need."

"The problem we face is that we don't know EXACTLY what we're looking for at these places. Whatever it is, be it information, a ritual, an item, a person, a spell, it should have some sort of property to help restore life and fertility to the land or some sort of amplification to help with that. Mr.Tennyson has had a vision that to help us find these things, the treasure hunter Cornelius Zon would be a great boon, which is why I stressed we needed to find his kidnappers and hope he was still alive last year."

"Unfortunately, if we don't manage to find these things and use them correctly, when Plank Tennyson's time comes to finally pass on those visions we had last year will be our reality from here on out. Mr. Tennyson doesn't have the strength to teach and keep his magics going. Nor is there time to train a novice in multiple years worth of knowledge in a branch of foreign arcane arts. The long term prognosis is that we will all starve and die if we don't persevere in this mission."

"I'm sorry if it feels I've been keeping this from you. I honestly believed after discussing it that night in the tavern, the seriousness of the situation would cause people to pass the information on by word of mouth. It wasn't until long after we had arrived in Gateway that I thought to ask if Mr. Zon was with us, being holed up so long in the tavern going over so much new information. Finding out that no one had procured his services greatly upset me as I remember saying we needed him on these ventures."

She stops and takes a long draught of her ale. "Well, that's what I got. I'm not sure if our trip to Gateway was successful in this matter or not. There were certainly multiple things there that could have been what we were looking for, but like I said we're not sure WHAT we're looking for. If your adventures came across something that sounds like it could be it, speak up. Because this world saving business certainly isn't my area of specialty."

Malachi listens intently, then speaks

"This man Tennyson, is he human?"

She pauses and thinks. "He looked human to me? He might have been something else - I didn't think to look if he was disguised, and you tall beings all look the same to me when you're all old and wrinkled if you don't have fur or feathers."

He nods

"So it's reasonable to believe that the man is human as he has no reason to hide his true nature from us. That being said, it's safe to believe that either some phenomenal magic has kept him alive or that time passed at a different rate within the pocket dimension. Either way, we have options if we fail to divine what magic bits we need."

"Father Time owes us at least one favor for recovering his potentially world-shattering clock. It's possible he could reverse time for Tennyson himself without affecting our plane, or could send an apprentice back in time to learn his magic, to pass on the burden."

Cirrus is playing with said magic box as Nellie, Malachi, and Korrigan say their piece. She twitches a piece back and forth between two right angle positions, and her feathers abruptly go from limp and dull to healthy and covered in butterflies. Her head cocks to the side, eyes narrowing slightly as she listens to the conversation.

"Hang on a sec Nellie, I didn't find this in the Necropolis. We found a crystalline heart, and Abbadon and I found over the winter it empowers undead under your control... and a bunch of other ooky necromatic drenn. Think he's still got it."

She leaves the box fully completed into a cube, and plucks one of the flowers off of her pauldron to toss it into her beak.

"You'll be happy to know I got the cube off of... what was his name? Got his ass kidnapped... Rothek and I went to rescue him from some Red Tear as the snows broke, and the guy had the sense to cower behind a rock. One of the Tear straightened the box all the way out and suffered the fiery consequences. There were still enough of 'em to give us a run for our gold, especially since no one went with Rothek when he asked for backup."

She glares around the tavern at this, then smirks before continuing.

"I think what we're looking for is the uh... dishes? The big round silver plate thing with the stick poking out of the front of it?"

She gestures weakly as her words of description fail her, quickly drawing out the shape of the focus of the nightly Red Tear rituals seen in Gateway with both feathered hands. The left was still coated with ink and hasty scribbles.

"I wanted to try spinning it. I have it on good authority that they're usually pointed north. We want 'em pointin' northEAST. We move 'em, they redirect the energy... or somethin' like that. The wallaby came by real early in the mornin', and then there was that go juice that I drank too much of... ANYWAY, didn't get a chance to try since I got my very own treasure dungeon. Shoulda told someone when I became a frelling HERO, so I guess I gotta take some blame for us not tryin' there either. I default to explosions."

Marcus lets out a long breath of frustration after hearing Nellie's description.

That's some very important information. Likely the most important thing we could possibly know right now. And that's why I truly wish that I had heard at least something about this before we went to Gateway. Or before the winter, in fact, so I could have helped look into it. Unfortunately, at least in my case, leaving things to be passed on by word of mouth is next to worthless, as I evidently travel in none of the circles of information in this town, regardless of what I might try.

First of all, this Tennyson man and what he is doing is probably one of the most disturbing things I have ever heard. At the risk of sounding prideful, I frankly don't even know how to process the thought that everything I have done might be attributed to another person's manipulation of my mind and body towards an end they want, rather that my personal willingness to sacrifice for others. The only way I can even get past that is that I know that in my very heart, I would try to help others even if I was in reality a starving wretch who could barely pick up my hammer, as I saw myself and everyone last fall and persevered in spite of.

Second, finding this information out now shows the price of ignorance, and we need to learn from that. I just thought we were in gateway to stop a ritual from being performed by the Read Tear, as simple as that.

If we are truly looking for some sort of "artifacts" for lack of a better term, that can act alone and together as a focus to make the world better, I think was in the presence of one such thing in gateway, but didn't realize it at all through lack of this knowledge.

The Knights of the Green are tending to a garden, which has at it's center a plant that can reverse the effects of the cataclysm on the land around where it grows. They say they have been slowly- so as not to damage the parent plant- giving out cuttings of it to worthy groups, so that it can eventually replicate that process the world over as it takes root and spreads. Myself, Blythe and two others- though I regrettably forget their names as I had never met them before- saw this first hand when we were given a cutting to plant on one of their former members grave-sites, which was at his family farm in the care of a brother.

In moments, I saw what was probably the most blighted land I have ever seen turn into a pocket of paradise, which the Knights said would spread as the cutting grew. I simply thought were doing something in the service of Compassion, without knowledge that it might have farther-reaching implications, if we might have been able to be gifted with a cutting of our own to plant and tend here in Haven.

Thesius puts down his ale as Marcus finishes speaking. He stands and motions to those gathered that he was going to speak.

"I agree with Marcus. Sharing of information in these times is critical. I can understand if one would not want to share directly with other adventurers. But at the very least information should be shared with the King and Queen of Haven. At least then they would be able to communicate this information with those they think needs to know it. If we are to prevent the things that are going on from happening we must work together."

Having slipped over to the bar for refills, Nellie takes quite a few long pulls from her stein as she hears the others talk. She has plans to get quite drunk tonight, and doesn't see the point in being polite enough to wait on getting that started.

"Thanks for clearing that up, Cirrus. And the man you and Rothak saved *was* Cornelius Zon - I remember you and Rothak bringing him into the Tavern. Now knowing that he gifted you with that box, and knowing that one feature it has is to rejuvenate a small area with the box as the area's center, I believe it could be one of the artifacts we're looking for."

"Marcus, I did over hear about the tree the Knights of the Green had while we were at Gateway. Unfortunately, the most I could do on that front was stay behind for some time and attempt to talk them into bringing a cutting here to Haven to plant. As far as I know they're still discussing the issue. If anyone they have deemed worthy from our town would like to visit them and put in a good word for Haven in their discussions, I'm sure it would improve our chances of the discussions ending in our favor."

"As far as information dissemination issues - again, I'm sorry. We were all tired at the time, and I'm not a broad spectrum mind reader - I don't know who knows what or doesn't know what. I reported my findings in the tavern in front of multiple people and stressed the need to go to these places. I even did it for *free* considering the import of the information. That the Red Tear will be at these places as well gives us the chance to kill two priorities at once."

She nodded in Malachi's direction. "I don't know who this Father Time is, but if he can give back Tennyson's lost years that he gave in the service to the whole of Phanterra, I think that would be a wonderful boon to ask of Father Time - but as a reward for services rendered, not so that Tennyson can continue this magic indefinitely. Quite frankly, it's a stupid and desperate plan to put the burden of an entire world's welfare on the shoulders of one person - it's like building a structure with a single support beam. Take it out or put too much weight on it and the whole structure collapses."

She pauses to swirl her stein and take another long pull. "As for these 'dishes' Cirrus described the Red Tear using, this is the first I've heard of them. We'll need to get someone looking into researching them, and probably send someone back to Gateway to redirect that one."

Don't worry about the Knights of the Green; I already have plans to spend quite a bit of time with them. I'm trying to learn as much about the remaining Knighthoods, tand those like mine that are newly born, that exist out there as possible. I think, in their own way, that they can be valuable allies, and I have taken it upon myself to cement them as such.

"The Red Tear have been broken into factions. Each faction is trying to do something different at each ritual site. It is our intent to destroy and subvert their ritual and use it to fix this world on our own. " Abaddon says, holding a cup of tea in his gloved fingers. The staff sat behind him pushed up against the wall.

"Three factions of Tear each with a different goal. This is actually the greatest thing to happen to us in a hundred years. If we can kill them, root them and burn them to the ground we can kill the tear forever. After this, imagine what a world we could make with out the pressure of the tear on all sides."