Re: Out of character thread
I'll explain it in OOC so it doens't become a lingering cause of confusion, the idea was that the magic of the amulet and the magic of Celindara's counterspell picked exactly the wrong moment to react, right when the portal opened.
So the combined spell turned Goodwin to a stick. Celindara just had to reverse her side of the spell, but as explained because Goodwin and the amulet were now combined together, it was impossible for him to reverse his side of the spell in a normal way - even if he knew how to reverse the amulet's effect. However, the magic could just as well be unravelled by Goodwin mentally changing his mind about having cast the spell.
Now, at this point in time you might recall a certain elvish poem Meri found way back in the portal dungeons, that Goodwin was embarrassed about? It seemed to be a poem about how someone's singing was better than nature and trees? So, it could have been Goodwin buttering up Celindara, but, of course, there's another singer closeby... one that maybe Goodwin was trying to say was better than Celindara?
Whether Goodwin was actually writing a poem about Blace because he was smitted, or whether he was simply trying to ingratiate himself with her, clearly he was drawn to her as being an important person to impress and befriend. Perhaps he simply trusted that she seemed to be someone genuining putting herself out and helping everyone, and he actually felt guilty about doing something as selfish as hurt Celindara to safe his own skin. So note when he had doubts about his doing anything to Celindara he went right to Blace. And he did trust her over the two of you when you first met Blace.
So the idea was that even when Celindara undid her part of the spell, and even though Blace had of course rejected him pretty harshly, there was still just that 'no, but...why? I thought you were good? Maybe I misunderstood and I'm just really horrible?' in his mind. Hence why even though he feared she was evil, he was pulling you towards Blace just to confront her. After all, while Goodwin's talk about hope might just sound like the justification of a con man, perhaps Goodwin subconsciously was speaking about himself too...
Really, you just needed to get Goodwin to get angry and go back to being selfish, or engineer Blace basically somehow ruining the 'good' image Goodwin had of Blace.
So when Meri provoked Blace, Blace's torrent of abuse on Goodwin was more than enough to make him go 'oh, she's not the person I thought she was, she's as bad as the phystal and wow did I almost make a huge mistake.' Or maybe Goodwin's last fragment of goodness died that day and he decided everyone sucks and went to being really selfish. Who knows! :D
I mean I think Goodwin didn't trust the phystal enough that the whole Blight thing was needed, but it certainly didn't hurt in making Goodwin regret his decisions either.
Hope that's a little clearer?