Making a Rescue

Been a little sidetracked, but I wanted to share my info from this with everyone. These are just some piecemeal notes of mine so if there is anything you want me to elaborate on, please let me know. I'm just trying to get as much out as possible. The lair for this new breed of living paint was off in the mountains of Pendarvin. It appears to be an Order-based paint this time and works in a hivemind just like Sir Hopsalot does.

The gnome is dead. If you see the gnome, it is actually a paint copy of him. It looks like the paint rebelled and killed him and took over. This new copy appears to be called "The Keeper" I think?

The paint creations that were replicas of our friends were a lot stronger now. When they were taken from us by the gnome, I had the Kanas one in a small jar away from him. When it was not in sight of him, it fell still and didn't do anything. Even when I opened the jar it just sat there, but when it was around him it copied him exactly. When we encountered this one (which had grown to be fully Kanas-sized), while it still copied his fighting style exactly, it did not replicate what he was doing and was capable of independent behavior from him now. This was the same for all the other paint copies. When we found Caelvan and Ravani, all detection abilities told us that it was them. We believed it was. It turns out that the real Caelvan and Ravani were in some sort of weird magitech machine further in, with their souls and minds attached to these paint bodies. So while it WAS them. They had their minds and memories and they remember everything those paint versions did, but it was not their real bodies. The machine has been destroyed, but I believe we still have the schematics that were found in there. There was one paint duplicate (this one shaped like Caelvan) that was draining the Order out of plants. It was taking the literal lifeforce from them, and that concerns me. We found some sort of prep area and notes on how to hide paint in food and still have it taste normal. I cannot tell if this is because the weird false paint bodies actually need food like us, or if these are steps to some sort of hidden takeover via a foodstall somewhere. There was definitely a pile of dead bodies in there. I'm still not sure what the use of them was for and would like to take some time trying to identify them and see if we can figure out who they were and where they came from. Maybe it can give us some insight? While we were in there, Maria and I were able to essentially disrupt the Order hivemind via some chaos bombs we designed and I utilized a series of verdant-based summoned creatures to help us get them in and set them off intermittently. I am not sure if this strategy would be able to work again, but it was something we were able to do to help weaken it this time. Supposedly there is a chance to possibly parlay with The Keeper? I am not sure, and I am not sure how much we should really trust him. But if Sir Hopsalot can be a good entity after our last encounter with living paint, then maybe this one can be reformed too and be productive? They definitely do not think the same way that we do. So it might take some time and some people who are good at talking. There were two things that Sir Hopsalot was able to remove from the hivemind. One is a metal cat (used to be the statue called The Trickster) that is now a part of Sir Hopsalot's hivemind. It is currently staying with Ravani. There is also a small blob of paint that he managed to remove from the main hivemind and is now in a small mini hivemind with Melchior. Please do not be alarmed if you see those hanging out with them. They are safe. We did not see any of the other statues when we were there. It is theorized that The Keeper took them all with him. The Keeper also has a terrifying creature called the Consuming Maw. My research has revealed that this is an undead halfling wight that was tortured to death via starvation and then turned. It can literally eat anything. I thought the story I found of it eating a castle was just a legend, then I found proof that that was a true story. Supposedly it is being kept from eating everything via a muzzle right now, but I worry about what will happen if he unleashes that on us or if it breaks free from his control. Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, let me know please. Thanks.

-Khala Stormbringer