Chapter 1 - Session 4

Eyes gazing off, the rosy skinned complexion of Lily, Nite's sister steps forward. Step by step Lily gets closer and reaches a hand out, silent until her fingers gently rest on Nite's shoulder. It is then when Lily sends chills down Nite's spine with the phrase "We feel you..." as the surrounding humanoid shaped mushrooms shake in chorus.

Fyrn who is off to the side remembers some mention in past texts about a species of fungi known as the Rubyagaric, a parasitic red mushroom and she now suspects have infected the Hekate members. Fyrn starts to tie up some of the standing Rubyagaric hoping they won't prove to be a problem in the future. Bewildering both Nite and Diana feel a tug in their abdomens, almost as if they were being bound by the rope. The terror sinks in of the spores they breathed in just a day ago has started to infect their consciousness.

Vlaliskia quickly tosses over an ointment they found within the abandoned temple towards her companions to cure them of the intruding infection. Everyone then jumps at attempting to defeat the Rubyagaric to free whoever may be under their influence. They start hacking and burning their way through a mound of thick mycelium roots and dig down to a room where all the fibers converge at a giant 10 foot ball suspended in the air. The centralized consciousness residing within the hovering mass is the target of Diana's fury, but she is not alone in the room. A pod is expelled from the mass. It drops onto the ground and hatches another Lily, a clone.

This must mean the real Lily is somewhere else within the cave. Nite sweeps the area and stumbles upon a long curved hallway littered with pods along the floor and sprawling up the walls as far as she can see. Cracking one open she sees a person, unconscious, but real. Lily is somewhere within the stacks of pods.

Vlaliskia and Nite search through the pods as quickly as they can while Diana and Fyrn try to do what they can with the fungal source. Through fire and steel nothing seems to be affecting the ancient lifeform. More duplicates of Lily spawn. Diana in her fight breathed in a fresh set of spores and started to feel the connection once more to the mushroom hive mind. This connection does give Diana a feeling which pulls her attention away, through the rocky tunnel, down to a select pod.

The group disengages from the fight, finds the pod and are relieved to find Lily, the real Lily. Everyone packs up and carries an unconscious body from the opened pods with them and prepares for extraction as they head out of the cave.