(14 days total)
Feeling Small
Hulda and Portia slept, while Isabella, Giers and Kaylan stayed up a little later, passing worry and concern and their grand plans between one another. Isabella expressed her sincere determination to get Blight to Reedthagn and somehow convince him to take it. Kaylan still looked a little sullen, perhaps over Frederick. Giers huffed and paced, entirely out of his element in this blackest primeval woods.
Setting Watch
Isabella volunteered for first watch, reading her spellbook and finishing a private document amidst the unseen chaos of howls, screams and rustling that went on around her. Then Blight began to pulsate lowly, provoking the wizard to chide it for wanting so desperately for her to lift it. But it glowed for another reason, the nearness of another who sought its power. Suddenly the camp was ambushed by sleek, black, hulking fey panthers.
Surprise Ambush!
The rest of the group was awoken to teeth and claws as four panthers dug in, peeling back bedrolls and flesh in what must have been a horrifying few moments of sleepy realization of attack. They managed to stand and draw their weapons, having wisely chosen to sleep in armor, however it was difficult to anticipate the next attacks in such a small radius of camp light.
Snarling and padding sounded from the wall of shadow encircling the group like so many panthers.
The Howling Hag
Isabella, however, was faced with a much different threat, the tamer of these monstrous cats...
... a grotesque woman suffering some gangrenous infection around her mouth and eye wells, the moss having eaten half her face even. In rags and bits of bone and hide, she carried a very large pack on her hunched back. Her naked teeth chattered before she released a brain-scrambling scream that drowned out everything with pain.
Scions and panthers alike were blasted back fifteen feet from the thunderous shriek, some even into darkness.
Big Cats, Big Problems
Larger, stronger, quicker and smarter than their Othyrian counterparts, fey panthers of the Wild used their native forest to its full night-time advantage, striking from the shadows at Kaylan and otherwise using flanking tactics against the others. They weathered even Hulda's blows long enough to rake some nasty wounds, forcing the cleric to administer more than one healing power on herself.
Yearning for Blight
Isabella bravely endured, blasting the hag with acid and fire, but she was no easy winnickel. This twisted fey was a hunter of the Twistwood, a survivor, who had managed to dominate a small pack of panthers. Her hide was thick and her strength abominable. Even her aura was like a maddened whisper that pained any within earshot of her babbling. She matched and exceeded the witch's ferocity with her own and things quickly looked darker and darker for the princess.
Always the hag reached and ripped for Blight, drawn to its decaying power, so in tune with her own decrepit nature. In a desperate swing, the hag knocked Isabella unconscious and with a shudder of sickened glee took Blight into her gnarled claws.
To the Rescue!
Hulda, still battling the furious panthers, caught Isabella's desperation from the corner of her eye. Taking Giers by the waist, whether he wanted or not, she flung her brother at the hag. He attempted to impale her, but stabbed well short and into the rich, black earth. Portia joined him, also sensing the potentially deadly situation. The half-giant and half-elf resigned to keep the four panthers at bay.
Isabella Falls
Giers landed a nasty poison wound in her belly, provoking the burned, bowed crone to lift the New Sun and release its deadly radiation as a burst against Giers, the unconscious Isabella, and Portia. The paladin and the rogue managed only surface burns, but Isabella's defenseless body was wracked with evil, radiant light and a subsequent necrotic radiation poisoning. Before the group's very eyes, Isabella dried and shrivelled like a mummy, then fell away into dust all together. Isabella was dead.
A Hollow Victory
The survivors were moved, each of them experiencing a sudden and painful personal hell. Mortality, loss, a family broken, a sense of failure, guilt and responsiblity, powerlessness, the children stammered in the glowing wake of Blight. They rallied like never before to end the cats and their hideous pack leader, the would-be successor of a legacy of demonic evil.
The Will
The group was a wreck. Giers trembled as he scooped Isabella's remains into an empty potion bottle, assuring himself his mother would bring her back, while the others mourned a heavy loss. Their companion of two weeks, and for some life-long friend, or new life-long friend, was gone, died defending the demon mace.
In a sort of dark irony, her spellbook revealed a freshly-finished document: Her will. It seemed she had doubts of her strength in completing the mission to Reedthagn's...
Dear friends,
I wish I could have shared many adventurers with you. If you are reading this, then I have died, and my soul will be with Gabriel in the Underworld. In the event of my death, I plead for all to read my last will and testament.
To Kaylan, my closest friend. I loved you as a friend, you have shown me a world of experiences beyond my own and opened my heart up for others to see. For that I thank you, and wished we could have been together.
To Giers, my childhood crush. I wanted to give myself to you when I was ready, I hope we could spend many nights together. But, it seems it would not be so. I wish for you to find happiness, and to live well.
To Hulda, my silent rock. I wish that you will someday find the courage to speak, so that others may hear your voice. I am sure it sounds lovely. You were a noble woman, and you should be proud of who you are.
To Portia, my Green Bean. I will never understand you, but you were there for me when I needed you. Resourceful, funny and cunning, you were never afraid. I wish I could have been like that.
Should I die, please make use of my belongings. If you are able to, construct a coffin and bury me six feet into the ground. Bring Blight to Reedthagn the Ancient and plead for him to take the artifact, so that the world will never be corrupted by its evil presence.
Should I be possessed by it and you were forced to slay me, please forgive me. If I used Blight, it was only to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Bring my bone wand to my mother, Queen Victoria of Saspien. Tell her howI died, and that it was not her or father's fault. I wasn't strong enough to make it back home.
I love you all.
~Izzy
What Next?
Portia asked what about Reedthagn, at which point the group resolved to finish the way to the dragon and deposit the demon mace.
Kaylan took it upon herself them to be the bearer of Blight, conjuring a strong floating disk to bear it. The cleric felt its great burden almost immediately, slightly distancing herself from the group as the seriousness of Isabella's requests sunk in. She wanted to go on alone, but the group outright refused her.
Dokur returned, frowning at the loss of one of the Liberators, but steadfast in his duty as guide. Santh also returned, panicked as he looked for Isabella. Once he discovered the witch was dead, his empress's reincarnation, he entered a fit of utter despair. In a storm of tears and sobs, he fled up into the tree tops, despite Giers offer of consolation. Exiled, bereft a queen a second time, the final-sting faerie was never seen from again...
Through the Twistwood
Abandoning ideas of an audience with the naiad queen Merlodia for a safer road through the woods (which is saying something), the scions travelled for the next five days. Dokur led the group through the wilder-than-nature-wilderness. His and the groups' tracking, stealth, wilderness knowledge and blind luck spared them much of the darker inhabitants. And luckily the Ceallach never again caught their scent, nor did any other hag.
Kaylan's Burden
The night before reaching the edge of the woods, Kaylan slipped out of camp with Blight in tow. Portia, with her excellent perception skills, woke as the cleric passed her. She asked where the cleric was going and got fed the nature calls line. However the boggart was persistent, determined not to lose another friend to the dangers of the night wood. Portia also suspected Kaylan was trying to fulfill Isabella's will alone. It wasn't long before the cleric admitted as much and the two entered an emotional conversation over abandoment, reason, emotion, guilt and duty.
Ultimately the boggart was going to give the cleric a head start before alerting the group, to at least give Kaylan some sense of an attempt, but Dokur emerged from the forest and outright refused her. The stubborn gnome and the more reasonable boggart eventually steered Kaylan back to camp.
Lo, Highmist!
The massive trees thinned and shrunk until they died out onto grassy hills, which rolled higher and higher until they became lightly wooded shelves on the side of a mountain. Still many miles away, it looked massive, emerald green, and shrouded in mists around its midsection. Stone keeps perched at various points on the way up.
Dokur was given the opportunity to leave, but he refused, and pointed to the mountain. The guide named it "Highmist Mountain, where lies The Highmist Seat, throne of Reedthagn, and shelf of the Tesseract, his riddle lair."
Questions were quickly asked. The riddle lair, known as the Tesseract, was a cube within a cube within a cube of trapped, square compartments that comprised the only entrance into Reedthagn's lair. Trapped and always-shifting, it would require a true genius to solve, or otherwise the dragon would want to see the group, in order to pass through.
When asked of the ancient dragon himself, Dokur didn't know much, only that he was one of the three major factions on this side of the Wild, along with The Green God and Al'kek'uma. Neither could seem to outmatch Reedthagn, so well-entrenched in his mountain, nestled for thousands of years before The Green God or Al'kek'uma came to power.
The Two-Faced Hills
They crossed into the small hills, which eventually became medium hills. The green tops were sun-bathed and covered in flowers, but the small vales were deep with mist and shade and held only moss and mushrooms. As these hillocks grew, so too did the group's time on sunny faces and in gloomy dips. The tops were warm, the vales cold. Many strange and exotic creatures lived on and in both, versions of Othyrian animals and plants and insects made magical in this land. Others were entirely native to the plane, things resembling nothing of Othyrian beast, bugs or blooms.
Portia quietly pocketed one.
Jeda
The sounds of battle ahead drew the group into a strange altercation between small, green lizardmen known as kobolds and a red-skinned, horned tiefling woman.
Jeda stands about six feet tall, a red and black-skinned woman with two large horns curling from her forehead. She's dressed in leather and chain, and wielding a sharp battleaxe and a steel shield strapped to her left arm. A long tail with a set of barbs at the end swishes back and forth as she crouches down into a battle stands, and her red eyes glow angrily.
The fiend-blooded managed to eventually kick one down the hill, at which point the small creatures fled with the growing number of strangers. Dokur murmured they were supplicants of Reedthagn, his little spies and trap-makers, but his musings were quickly halted when he noticed Jeda. From then on he was tight-lipped and semi-hostile, memories of fifteen years of slavery under Al'kek'uma all too fresh in his mind.
Mixed Meeting
Giers was of like mind, hostile to the monstrous stranger. Hulda kept rather quietly behind, allowing her brother to take over diplomacy. Kaylan quickly interceded, however, questioning the red woman on the manner of her being in the Wild, where she was originally from, and what her intentions were. Portia actually seemed to like the woman, curious as to what drink she kept sipping. The tiefling tossed her the flask or a taste, but as soon as the boggart took a sip, she got a look on her face that screamed GROSS. She tried it once more for good measure before tossing it back.
Giers continued his hard stance on this seeming demon, at which point Jeda called him Sparky. This through the ethrey in a huff and put the two of then on opposite ends, with only the Kalindian cleric there to maintain the peace.
You Come See Big One!
But peace was not meant to last, as twenty kobolds returned and surrounded the group. Despite being commanded to shut up, the group let slip all sorts of things, being stabbed with spears for every word. Eventually they got the message as a kobold shaman shuffled forward and said, "You come see Big One."
Determined to meet the dragon, they followed, Jeda a willing addition.
Experience: 270 xp each (4438 total)
Magic: Exalted Armor (Kaylan), tf. Blight (Kaylan)
Loot: Hag's sack, quarterstaff, 3 black panther hides, Hopper II (Portia), Isabella's gear (Kaylan), Isabella's Will (Giers)
Money: 420 gp (105 gp for Giers, Kaylan, Portia and Hulda respectively)
Deaths:
Isabella, Princess of Saspien, slain by the withering power of Blight in the hands of a Howling Hag.
PCs:
Jeda, Tiefling Warlord
NPCs:
Howling Hag (dead)
Kobold Shaman
Monsters: Howling Hag, Fey Panthers, Kobolds
Places: Twistwood, Two-Faced Foothills
Organizations: Supplicants of Reedthagn (green kobolds dedicated to their green master)
Exalted Armor
Forged by the infernal priests of The Church of Delights, this indigo chain increases the potency of divine healing.
Level: 5
Price: 1000 gp
Armor: Chain
Enhancement: +1 AC
Power (Daily • Healing): Minor Action. Until the end of your turn, each character healed by one of your encounter powers or daily powers regains additional hit points equal to 1d10 + your Charisma modifier.
ATTUNABLE: This armor, being related to the Divine, is capable of being attuned to a new deity. If a divine wearer performs a ten-minute prayer, the armor's appearance will shift to one more suitable to his or her faith.
Hags: Hags are truly twisted fey, evil embodiments of decay and blight. They look like decrepit and hideous crones, taller than most, with abominable strength and terrible magic powers. They constantly seek ways to destroy things of beauty and undermine vitality and life.
Kobolds: Three-foot lizardmen accidentally created by Kultuss in the afterbirth of his prided dragons, kobolds share the colors of their prodigous kin. Almost as soon as they were discovered, they were subjegated, used by dragons as servants and fodder. However kobolds never experienced a renaissance of thought and independence like the goblins of Othyr, for their entire racial mindset is completely different. Where as goblins were tamed and broken to other masters, kobolds willingly (and happily) put their draconic overlords above their lowly existences. To kobolds, dragons are gods, and truthfully there are few things capable of standing up to one.
They usually tend for masters in line with their own color heritage, but all wyrms are sacred. To even better serve their masters, many kobolds developed skills in trap-making and trap-springing, and a large part of a kobold on lair duty is to maintain and trigger these traps as needed.
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