SE06 : EP07 - B.R.E.A.D.

Cassandra, Xavion of the Razorgrass, Merit, Hone, and Ryder find themselves follwing Cornelius Lamont Corvacus through an a hallway in the Arcane University. There, a very wound up Lucas starts browbeating the Aracoca. Cornelius asked the party to help him with an inventory job he agreed to, calling it taking stock of "bread." Lucas is perturbed at the tartiness and unprofessionalism of this whole situation. He pleads with them to get on with it. He hands them a sheaf of blank paper; each marked for a different lettered room code. After hearing of the vast importance of these older projects. Summing it up as perhaps the key to solving the Yam shortage.   Cornelius leads them off toward a room dominated by a column covered in glyphs. This is the nerve center of the Biome Replacement Experiment for Agricultural Development or B.R.E.A.D. He overly explains this interdimensional space contains a number of isolated artificial green spaces and is helix bound and accessible only through glyph coordinates. This sails over the majority of the party members' heads. Merit takes charge of drawing on her academic training to start encoding the coordinates. Working in tandem with Ryder, they target the first biome. The doorway opens to "A," and suddenly, there are readable notes on the papers. It seems that this experiment was not likely to succeed and was last accessed about 155 days ago. They gather their Cart and step through.   The air is warm with a salty tang, and they feel and hear the crunch of sand under their feet. As the world revolves around them, there is a rolling dune of a beach with a line of tropical trees to one side. While it all seems natural at first, there are signs of the artificial nature of the chamber. The sky doesn't extend as far as it should. There is the smell of the ocean but no water to be seen. Lastly, the pressure in the room betrays that while large, it is much smaller than it appears. They see pathetic seaweed and more promising coconuts hanging on the far-off trees. As they make their way to the trees, and find that a few feet in are soaked in water. There is salt water extending out from there. The ocean is on the wrong side. They collect samples of the flora and a coin-sized card they found and put it in the cart.   They exit back into the tiled room of the helix gate. Cornelious greets them working on the various other aspects of the inventory with Mo'Bahn. Warren and some other student. He checks in and then sends them off to the next biome. Warren lingers to check in with Merit, complaining he got roped into this with the Loxaodn on the assumption there was actual bread. Cass urges the halfling not to bad mouth Cornelius with a withering look.   The next biome was more recently accessed, only about a month ago. Two inches or so of water is under their feet as they walk into a sheet of green water with swirls of red in the color. There is a potent flower fragrance that assaulted their nostrils. Hone "tastes" the water with his hands. It's a pollen-infused slush. There are called plants dotting the surrounding area. Like the other chamber, they can sense the relatively small space despite their senses. They approach one of the smaller pants, a round puffball bush covered in green with red pollen. Xavion roars at the plant, making sure it doesn't hide any more dangerous creatures. Hone extends an arm blade and gets under it, cutting it away from the ground. As soon as he starts, it pulls its roots up and begins to roll away. He tries to grab it and only catches a fistful of fibers. Xavion rushes ahead of it to grab it. As he lays his hands on it, his powerful arms sink deeply into it. It then explodes in a cloud of red and green powder coating the Leonid and Merit. They collect what remains of the plant and some pollen samples. Xavion tries to wash off the pollen with the thin water with little success. They feel they need to at least try to collect another tumble plant. A comedy of errors occurs. They blunder one after another and find that a deep inhale of the pollen incapacitates them for a minute or so. Eventually, capture one into the cart on the 3rd attempt.   Returning to the city, they try to clean up a bit before pressing on to "C." The new environment is a plain grassland with a single large greenhouse. They approach the structure and open the unlocked door. Ryder takes a started step back away from the door's threshold, having taken damage from magic missiles used as some sort of security measure. Xavion seems to sense what happened, diving through the door and sees three wilted plants that he knocks over, causing them to screech with a painful sound. After seconds of ear-splitting noise, Xavion lashes out and destroys the plants completely. The rest of the party enters and looks over the remains and pottery shards. Merrit discovers that amongst the dirt, a bulb of the plant remains. She senses a magic within that allows her to connect with its history. There is nothing else in the greenhouse, so they take the bulb and pack it out.   They start to set the next coordinates, Lucas enters, telling them to stop. He ask for what they inventoried. They explain the manifest of specimens they collected. While unsure of their methods, he seems pleased enough with the results. He shows them the items that the other group collected. Such as 200 foot long corn cob that has watermelon-sized kernels. The party is dismissed, and head off to shower off all this pollen and grime.