Toof’s arrow struck true, and the leathery, coat-like object that had been haunting the party with its dreadful moans unfurled and revealed itself to be a cloaker, a predator of the Underdark. As the creature took to the air and surrounded itself with phantasmal duplicates, our heroes saw what it had been feeding on: Staxalon, whom King Knut had wounded in their last confrontation. The dragonborn was not yet dead but he was fading fast.
Flying above the adventurers, the cloaker began to admonish them in Undercommon. As the sole party member fluent in the tongue, King Knut convinced the cloaker to give him time to speak with Staxalon (and loot his valuables) before it resumed its meal. Staxalon told King Knut that Elune and Jemwise were beyond their reach now, having met with their allies to be escorted to the “Dark Lady.” Before succumbing to his wounds, Staxalon used the last of his strength to chomp down on King Knut’s face as he leaned in to hear him.
The party continued through the forest of giant glowing mushrooms and dozens of footprints indicating that Elune had, in fact, been joined by several others. They were then visited by a group of friendly flumphs, who were privy to the plans of Elune and her cohort, having siphoned psychic energy from several of them and absorbing their dark thoughts. They revealed that Elune planned to sail across Lake Trankil to commune with the goddess Shar’eth in a place called The Hanging Tower.
They bid the flumphs farewell and journeyed onward to the shores of the underground Lake Trankil, where they found a small village of squat clapboard buildings and huts. Andoryx struck up a jaunty tune, and the adventures headed into town with great fanfare. They found a svirfneblin holding his war pick to the throat of a kuo-toa captive in the center of town, and as he warned the party to either give up their chase or die, Cardigan noticed a pair of figures moving along the rooftops to either side. Andoryx, immediately charmed the svirfneblin, who began treating him as an old friend.
Seeing their leader stricken by uncontrollable feelings of brotherly love, a group of hidden attackers set themselves upon the adventuring party. Drow perched on rooftops brandished hand crossbows, while darklings, svirfneblin, and duergar charged into the fracas. All of them were killed mercilessly.
The kuo-toa denizens of the town emerged from their hiding places within their huts, surveyed the carnage, and immediately fell prostrate to worship the party members as gods. King Knut did nothing to dissuade the notion, while Cardigan built a lending library/shrine with a book detailing the tenets of The Witness, Ta’ahsu recorded the jubilant cries of the villagers onto a disc to leave on their shrine to Blibdoolpoolp as a means of endless celebration around the goddess, and Adnoryx took four kuo-toa to the bedchambers in one of the huts to show them how they do it on the topside.
A kuo-toa elder asked if the party could teach the villagers to defend themselves, as Elune and her group had terrorized them and stolen a boat without any resistance. Feldrimax gave lessons in trap-making while Toof and King Knut ran them through combat training and Artair provided a demonstration on how to distribute glowing spores from the mushroom forests to flush would-be attackers from the shadows. The kuo-toa, emboldened by these efforts, provided the group with two bags of powerful Morpheus Morel Jerky as a way of showing thanks. They informed the party that another boat wouldn’t be arriving back in town until the following day and bade them to eat and drink at their tavern and rest until morning, an offer our weary heroes graciously accepted.
With Luvon and Hasselhoff both badly injured, and Geo suddenly incapacitated, the battle with the remaining dire wolves and one very slippery Ettin is looking grim. The Ettin is thoroughly confused by the situation it finds itself in and is unable to rise in the puddle of grease beneath it and howls in rage. The party takes advantage of this situation and focuses their deadly attention on the remaining dire wolves.
Hulnir is able to kill one of the wolves with a well placed fire bolt, but not before it bites Luvon, knocking him unconscious. Luckily, Hasselhoff is able to grab a healing potion left by Uhr near the now dead hill giant Thum and force it into Luvon’s mouth, restoring a decent portion of his health. Meanwhile Uhr takes a shot at the last dire wolf and strikes, pushing it further back into the painful spikes. With more attacks from the party the isolated wolf is quickly dispatched while the terminally clumsy Ettin finally realizes it can crawl from the grease and do so with much wailing. Finally freed, it stands and takes a hesitant step only to be immediately splashed with a new puddle of grease as Hulnir cackles in the distance. The Ettin does an an impressive set of splits as both feet shoot out from under it in opposite directions. Uhr uses the distraction to create an illusion of the party as larger, more intimidating version of themselves, but based on the befuddled expressions on the Ettin’s faces the illusion was seen through.
The party faces a difficult choice: Let the Ettin attempt to flee, or try and attack. Hasselhoff stops to consider and with a truly impressive misunderstanding of the danger the Ettin presents, chooses to shoot it with a firebolt, lighting it and the grease it lays in on fire. The Ettin seems shocked that these insignificant (yet scary) bugs would attack it. The metaphorical table having been flipped, the rest of the party jumps into the fight.
Uhr summons a massive illusion of more oil and grease gushing up from the stones between the party and the Ettin and has the tide of oil appear to surge slowly towards the burning Ettin. This illusion seems to stick in the Ettin’s mind.
Luvon summons a bonfire underneath the burning Ettin and it appears as if the roiling surface of the sun peaks from the stones beneath the roaring giant-kin, while Hulnir strikes with another well-placed firebolt.
Enraged, the Ettin begins squirming and crawling out of the burning grease, but the party sensing a theme for this fight, begins to pour on the fire. Luvon pulls more power from the sacred sun and rips the burning ball of fire shaped after the sun from the ground and places it directly on the head of the Ettin as it finally stands. The Ettin, now fully intending to smash these pests, backs up and runs forward leaping through the flaming sphere and over the burning grease, and sprints forward stopping directly in front of Uhr with a massive club swinging down towards his head.
Seeing the danger, Hulnir strikes with a well placed Chromatic Orb right into the Ettin’s left chest burning away ragged cloth and flesh alike, exposing bone. Time seems to slow as Hasselhoff brings his crossbow to bear. You won’t make it as a bard if you don’t have a good sense for dramatic timing, and so Hasselhoff’s bolt strikes true, straight into the Ettin’s heart, dropping it dead at Uhr’s feet.
After a well deserved rest, and a frantic bit of looting the party carries on further up the trail. It isn’t long before a suspiscious rock slide blocks a long portion of the trail in loose rocks, soil and scree. This proved no issue, as Uhr was able to mold the earth to his will and clear a path with minimal effort. It seemed as if the rocks almost rolled out of the way of their own accord after being whispered to.
Finally making good progress again, the party finds it self in a massive V-shaped cleft in the mountain-side with a relatively flat bottom. Near the deepest part of the cleft another series of nearly vertical switchbacks appear to be carved into the stone wall some 300 feet up. As they begin their trek up the switchbacks, a dapper figure in a dark suit (wholly out of place in these mountains) leans over the cliff above and waves. “Fancy seeing you here, look out below!” he says cheerily as he pulls a large stick out of something and tosses it out over the chasm. A bone-rattling rumble begins above and the party has mere moments to react as an avalanche roars towards them.
Thinking quickly, Uhr molds the earth in a nearby advantageous position to create a small redoubt for the party to hide behind. This helps keep the party alive and only a few with more serious injuries. As the massive cloud of dust begins to settle, the party quickly decides to use Uhr’s illusory powers again to create an image of the party dead and crushed in the rubble, while they hide nearby to attempt to ambush any who investigate the avalanche. This appears to work, as not 20 minutes later a troupe of 10 small goat-people roughly the size of gnomes come capering into the cleft wearing simple clothes and bearing basic weapons. The Vlazoth have arrived. We’ll find out what happens next week!
Silexa, the bald druid; Fen, the halfling rogue; Grizz, the angel-kin ranger; and Dresden, the warlock fanatic of Ferrovax all find themselves in a sticky situation: face-to-face with the biggest (and hungriest) fucking frog (BFF) they’ve ever seen. Heimer, who has fallen unconscious, and Fen are both inside of The Temple of Uller, safely outside of reach. With no small-sized targets to go after, the frog decides to chomp down on Grizz, and prepares to swallow him whole. Silexa jumps on top of the frog, ready to attempt to lull him to sleep while Dresden swings his chromatic blade at the beast’s side, popping several boils of sticky pus that splatter all over him, restraining him.
At this moment, the frog leaps high into the air and comes down hard on the roof of the temple, which was already in disrepair. He crashes through the roof, just barely missing Fen, and grabs him with his froggy mouth. The adventurers pepper the frog with crossbow bolts and arrows, but it isn’t enough to bring it down. The BFF then leaps back out of the temple, and starts making his way towards the lake. Grizz, presuming that the frog is trying to drown his tiny scoundrel friend, grapples the frogs hind legs. Silexa has been riding the frog this whole time, and begins to soothe the frog by rubbing its head and speaking to it in the language of the forest. Struggling to stay conscious, the frog collapses on the ground spilling Fen out of its mouth. Fen flourishes his blades and finishes off the monster.
With the BFF slain, the doors to the Temple of Uller open wide, permitting the adventurers entrance. Scral Luz, who had been trying to get back into the temple through the roof, parleys with the party and tries to convince them to let him free in exchange for the magical goods on his deceased companions, along with his magical dagger. The party gathers the loot off of the dead bodies in the temple (which it seems may have died at Scral’s hand): A driftglobe, 4 potions of healing, a bit of silver and copper, and backbiter the magic dagger. The driftglobe responds to the command word Lumen, which seems to make it glow with a moderate light, and Vol, which makes it shine with the brilliance of daylight. Fen keeps the dagger to inspect later. The adventurers stick Scral to the side of the frog, which is still leaking sticky fluids. Silexa collects a few samples of the goo, and then they are back off through the forest towards Landfall.
The sun has set, and after a few hours of trekking through the pitch-black forest Silexa and Fen hear an eerie whistling in a minor key. They extinguish their driftglobe and stand back-to-back, prepared to face off with whatever enemy the forest may offer up. Grizz, one of the two party members with Darkvision, notices a man in a heavy leather cloak carrying a large pack near the edge of his vision. He calls out to the stranger, who disarmingly introduces himself as Damos, the traveling merchant. Damos warns the party of the dangers of Xeraketh’s Blade in this area, and tries to sell them an assortment of expensive magical items. Unfortunately, the adventurers are low on coin, and have to send him packing.
The party makes camp near the edge of the forest, just within sight of Landfall. As the flames of campfire dance below the canopy of the forest, the party exchanges stories of their pasts.
Fen was raised as a member of a crime family. He has left Batavia in order to let the new generation of thieves and scoundrels make a name for themselves.
Dresden doesn’t remember his past. According to him, he was stepped on by the dragon-god Ferrovax, who gave him a sentient blade and an order to spread word of his power.
Grizz was a bit of a hermit back in the old country. An adventurer named Jonathan Jarnathan drew him out of his hermitage with tales of the Golden Coast.
Silexa’s mum wanted her to run Roses Inn, but after an encounter with talking lambs and dogs at a nearby farm she discovered that she was meant for more and left her village, seeking adventure.
As the party falls asleep, they grow in power (advancing to level 2).
As the members of the party each take their watch during the night, they each have an encounter with a strange man named Darqour. He presses the adventurers about their opinion on civilization, and asks them strange questions about hunting. On the final watch, he delivers Fen an ultimatum: hunt or be hunted. Scral, who the party had left behind, is revealed to be tied to a nearby tree. Darqour demands that Fen either hunt and kill Scral, or he will hunt and kill the party members. Fen calls out to her sleeping party members, instigating a fight.
Giant owls swoop out of the trees and dead shrubs come alive around the party as Darqour begins casting spells. Fen teleports behind Darqour, delivering a nasty blow. He leaves the Driftglobe floating near Darqour in order to attack with both blades, and Darqour takes the opportunity to snatch the item and try to run. Dresden and Grizz manage to let loose a volley of magical and physical projectiles, felling the creepy Druid as he runs. The owls and shrubs flurry Grizz in anger, seeking to get revenge for the death of their master.