We went back to the base camp to pick up Bell Cry and take a rest. The idea was that Bell Cry would be able to cast Remove Curse on the blue elf Olara, who had been accursed for hundreds of years and could not leave the area for centuries and centuries.
Bell Cry informed us that the other Kenku had had a similar vision to Blynce's -- a voice that popped into the head.
We were beginning to piece together a picture of a lot of psychic things going on -- monsters dealing psychic damage, psychic messages from beyond. We still didn't know what the connection or the meaning was -- our quest to find out about Alyxian was still far short of completion. We did some experimentation with the ruidium in our possession, but didn't find out much, save that the ruidium seems to be "rubbing off" when handling it too much, as if the ruidium were seeping into our bodies. So far, Bumi seems to be the only one affected by this. But it seems ruidium has benefits and drawbacks.
We went back to the Sunken Tavern and removed the curse from Olara. She was greatly surprised to realize that she'd been down here for centuries. We offered to show her the new world, in exchange for hearing about Alyxian/Apotheon, who was blessed by the three gods to perform a task for them.
"The host gathered to defend the city against the betrayer gods let by Gruumsh. A cataclysmic light and sound," and she remembered little after that.
She also said Alyxian seemed "doomed," which tallied with the emotions of the visions we'd been having.
She remembered the ruidium, saying that Consortium folks had been seen carrying it over the last year. (We also discussed the idea that the ruidium has a relationship with one of the moons, which is why it's called ruidium after the similarly-named moon.)
We left her, promising to return, to go back to our search for the lost researcher, one Galeokaerda, a high elf professor of ancient literature.
We found a big hole! Amid the ruins of a sunken palace is a gaping rift that pulsates with sickly red light. Black energy swirling with oily colors shimmers and hisses inside the opening of the rift. Glowing spines of ruidium sprout from its edges, forming a jagged, partially intact dome around the space.
Ack! An aboleth! All shot through with ruidium, and a mutant second face stuck on the side of its abberrant head! Surrounded by a cloud of sticky mucus, it was just all kinds of yucky. It attacked!
For some reason, it had a second face growing out the side of its head -- a head which strangely reminded us of Alyxian!