"It was supposed to be, yes, but we're not there yet," says Calliope. "The original version of the song did have it as a reaction to Demeter changing the rain, which no longer made sense once we got something different from Demeter. I tried to leave it in as something Poseidon did just as part of the storm, but the first version of the story did get spread a bit before the change..."
Ipek gives a stalagmite an experimental push, but it doesn't move. "If we could destroy these it would make the maze much easier, but I don't think they're damaged enough yet...Demeter could grow plant roots into the cracks, right? And if we say they're being nourished by the rain then that keeps the "twisting Poseidon's power against him" bit without directly contesting it."
Viola gives Calliope a you-might-have-mentioned-this-earlier look, then turns to Ipek, "So we find her, yes? Then how do we stop the stone? Magic makes it dark? But does that work with the story?"
Viola can visibly see Ipek taking a few moments to reorientate her thinking to someone who isn't Ipek, and who therefore wouldn't automatically pick up and investigate any unusual thing in her path.
"...We could send her a message? Can she read? Or you could shout it, although I bet Poseidon would try and sabotage it if you did that."
She pauses a moment, and then continues "As an alternative, if someone had kept back a few of the magical sleep seeds from Demeter, the resulting plants might do more than just break apart the rocks?"
[I don't have any reason to believe Viola would have done that.]
Viola shakes her head, "Breaking the rocks...it won't help. We need to get the drink...in her."
In any case, Halia presumably is on her way at this point, having heard Viola's call. OK, here's a good question: for Halia to turn Viola to stone, does Viola have to see her, or does she have to see Viola, or both?
[Failing to exactly follow instructions does not have a good record in Faerie stories, it has to be said, and Viola would know that. Ipek could be genuinely unsure, suggesting some creative reinterpretation of history, or...exactly how sure is Viola that no-one else could have "acquired" some of the grain?]
That is definitely a good question, to which Viola doesn't know the answer for definite. On the one hand, it's more standard for (Hermetic) magic to work off the caster seeing the target. On the other hand, the original Perseus legend involves him avoiding petrification by looking in a reflection rather than directly at Medusa.
It does also occur to Viola that Halia is going to have to find them - even assuming she knows the maze relatively well, it's unlikely that she'll be able to exactly place where Viola's voice came from. If left unimpeded, she'll probably find them eventually - but the storm seems to be picking up again.
It's raising the possibility, but leaving it up to you how plausible it is (in particular, whether Viola thinks she'd have had any opportunity). If not, then presumably she was just unsure or suggesting creative interpretation of history.
It wasn't dying down, but it had also stopped building at the point you stopped moving forward. Now it's started building again.
Viola is well aware that Ipek is a loose cannon, and would have been careful to secure brew ingredients from her.
That may mean Halia is getting closer.
We could try pouring a little bit of the brew in one of the cracks--what does Ipek think about that?
As for dealing with Halia once she gets closer, either way things work, a PeIm could elminate all the visual species in the area. That would be a start, anyway.
Chryse volunteers in a rush "Soaking barley makes it grow". She hesitates, and her lip trembles. "...Mother showed me..."
[OOC: Apparently soaking barley for several days to make it germinate is a step in malting. Admittedly I suspect Viola may have heated it a bit more making the brew than is standard in malting, but you've got at least a basic link?]
Viola peers at Ipek and her mumbling. "A prayer?" she asks. She's going to sit back to wait and see what happens--but if the stalagmite shows signs of giving, we may need to think about getting most of the party out of sight before Halia arrives, unless Viola can think of a way to have warning so that she can cast the appropriate spell first--maybe the amplified crying again?
It's not really mumbling - rather, it seems half-way between a song and a recitation.
The barley continues to grow rapidly, and by the end of a couple of minutes full heads of barley are ripening. The wind whips away the seeds, flinging them to the ground where they soak up the water from the storm and begin to sprout again.
The stalagmite starts to make cracking noises - it's obviously going to start falling apart fairly soon. Some of the new seeds appear to be growing roots into adjacent stalgmites.
Ipek looks satisfied. "That should do it..."
The wind continues to build.
[OOC: The wind is now solidly into "severe weather phenomenon" - consider the effect roughly equivalent to Charge of the Angry Winds. The wind in your immediate corridor is still affected by your dampening spell.]
Viola casts her spell, but can no longer hear the sound of sobbing...
...Until the stalagmite collapses, letting through a gust of wind that sends Chryse tumbling back into the opposite wall. Suddenly the sound of sobs is very loud, close and rather panicky.
Meanwhile the barley is doing its work on the neighbouring stalagmites, which are also starting to crack.
Looking at the PeIm guidelines, removing an object's ability to produce sight species is a level 4. Bump that up to Touch, Conc, and Room, and we're looking at a level 20--which Viola could do--while Winded, her total before a die roll is:
Pe 5 * 2 + Im 8 +2 Sta + Aura 6 + Words 1 + Gestures 1 - Fatigue = 27
That's likely going to require 2 Fatigue levels (1 for a really good roll, 2 and a Light wound for a really bad roll), and require a Conc roll with the -5 Dazed modifier for her to do anything else after casting the spell.
Therefore, Viola turns to the one person present who she's fairly sure will be willing to do something dangerous but interesting. "Ipek, I'll make it dark. Can you call Halia and give the brew? Talk to her...her children."
I'm not sure that spell will work as Viola wants it to - if she wants to stop Halia emitting visual species (which I think is the intent?), she'd have to penetrate her magic resistance (as well as probably adding a magnitude for moving images as per Veil of Invisibility). Note that Viola's spell will make affected stuff invisible rather than the area dark - the way to make it dark would be to use Ignem rather than Imaginem. The good news is that that's a slightly easier base level.
In addition, what are you using as the "Room"? The maze has walls made of stalagmites but is open to the sky, and those "walls" are starting to crumble. Halia is also currently not within a standardly sized room touchable by Viola.
She's destroying the species after they're emitted--species themselves aren't magical, so there's no need for penetration (and yes, there's some discussion on this in the forum). Yes, you can use PeIg to make things dark, but there are two ways to skin this particular cat: you can destroy the light the causes the species to be emitted, or you can destroy the species themselves. In this case, the light would still be there, but it would be "dark" in that there are no species flying around. And also note that the object here is to destroy all the species around, not just Halia's, because we're not positive that our species going to her won't trigger her magic (and since this is Faerie, the rules could change when you change the circumstances).
Nonetheless, if we can't make Room work, we have a problem. The other issue you mentioned is that a moving image requires an extra magnitude (and that's another indication of the difference between targeting the species themselves vs. targeting whatever's generating them--other types of magic don't have trouble with a moving target), though arguably that doesn't apply if you're just destroying all visual species indiscriminately.
So, changing tack, what about an Auram effect to make the storm clouds so thick that it's pitch black? That might be ReAu, but it might also be MuAu because that kind of total darkness isn't natural.