Session 15: Cruel Ultimatum

Night, Kelehess 12th - Morning, Kelehess 14th
(16 days total)

The Foot of Highmist
The kobolds led the group through the higher hills and deeper vales of what some might call the Two-Faced Highlands. They took wary stock of Blight, towed behind Kaylan on her perfect disk, but had no intentions of claiming it. In fact, they looked rather nervous around it, but no more than any in the group who knew its black legacy.

With the onset of night, the kobold formation tightened and a constant survey of scouts was sent in all directions, reporting back to the shaman who altered the route accordingly. Always, though, the band was headed for a squat, low keep on the bottom rung of the mountain.

Small Keep
Well after dark, the column reached the old keep, several times the size of Green Chapel but not terribly big in the way of forts. From the walls and peeks, it seemed overrun with kobolds, and not just green ones, but also red, black, blue, copper and gold. Inside was a shadowy courtyard where hundreds of eyes watched the group escorted down into a prison. The group made little fuss as they were put in cages. There they were left for the night.

Stranger
In the dim light, Portia noticed something in one of the empty cells, a pile of rags that was actually a person. A name was never given, but eventually he revealed horns, perking Jeda's interest until he revealed ram's haunches. A satyr. And a nasty one, at that. He said he was a spy, but offered little more in the way of information. He did get some out of the group though, names, a general purpose, their story in the wild, and threw a few mean jabs along the way, eventually rolling back over and going back to sleep. Portia offered to help him escape, but he didn't seem interested. He did, however, wish the group good luck as they were escorted the next morning out of Small Keep.

Procession
Seven green kobolds escorted the group out of the keep and up the green slopes of Highmist, headed for Reedthagn's puzzle lair. The trek wasn't easy, as there were no paths, only swaying hemp ladders and hidden stairs at near verticle angles. Up, up, thousands of feet, until Small Keep was like a bug and the trees around it like the tiny stubble of a short-cut lawn. Everything was cloaked by passing mists.

A challenge sent Giers and Jeda scrambling up the last slope. The kobold escorts were quickly passed by as the tiefling and ethrey made a race of it. To the prince's dismay, Jeda won by a wide margin, chiding the paladin and then lending him a hand. Kaylan was thoroughly winded, though Hulda and Portia seemed to enjoy it.

The Tesseract
Embedded in the sheer mountain wall was a titanic cube face made of what looked like jade, easily a 1000 feet high by a 1000 feet wide, truly gargantuan. Trees looked like sprouts before it and a flock of birds seemed tinier than gnats before a face. The group was in awe.

The shelf it sat on looked as the world did when Lordanna first kissed it with life, such a verdant, vibrant state of natural life that could be found no where else in all the universe. Everything was wet and mist-shrouded. It smelled of life, decay and sweet flowers both, and sounded of a million singing insects, calling birds, a symphony of creaking trees and whispering brush.

It was another mile before the group reached the edge of the Tesseract. A few hundred feet from its polished surface, murky and marbled and swirling with strange mineral lights, there was a great and thunderous shuffling sound from within it and a sudden crash. The entire shelf shuddered and all the birds again flew up. Then quiet.

Ritual Opening
More and more green kobolds seeped from the trees and brush, snapping quick dialog with the shaman then taking flank on either side of the group. Soon there were twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred kobolds with spears and shields, or swords, or quarterstaves. Portia nervously edged toward Hulda, who looked warily at the crowd. Jeda fought the urge to fight her way free. They had no choice but to continue on.

Shrill horns lifted from the wilderness as the group was deposited mere feet from the cube's sprawling face. It emanated power, almost humming with the stuff of magic. The group's hackles raised. Suddenly all the kobolds dropped to their knees and began chanting in Draconic, the name Reedthagn recognizable in their utterings, which grew louder and more fanatical as the horns grew in frequency. Drums added to their chaotic ritual, as did the cries of drakes high above. The group cowered before the presence before and behind them, waiting.

When the noise was deafening, it ceased, greating a painful silence. The Tesseract drew the group like magnets to its jade wall, where each member and Dokur disappeared.

Cube within a Cube within a Cube
Each scion found themselves in doorless, lightless chambers on an hourly timing mechanism. The cube within a cube within a cube defense Reedthagn had programmed into the puzzled lair. Despite each scion's best efforts to best the impossible chambers, they were all of them herded on the hour for three hours into larger and better-lit chambers until they met Reedthagn himself.

The Five Faces of Reedthagn
Each scion saw Reedthagn in a different face, pertaining in some way to their person and hinted situation. Kaylan, during her meeting, asked why the dragon had separated them, to which he answered, "People are so much more genuine when they are alone." Whether a giant, a giant toad, a murder of crows, a two-faced monster or a comely old elf, the group learned a little something pertaining to themselves and the plots of Provia. Advise was given, along with a magic gauntlet in one instance, and the option to pursue a dragon quest.

The Price
One by one the scions reunited, glad to be together and well. And then the back wall of the awesome chamber opened, revealing an expansive darkness inside what must have been the largest chamber yet. Green, burning eyes lit in the black and a hot wind from a titanic dragon's breath washed over them.

Reedthagn agreed to harbor Blight like a "black, crown jewel". The group was relieved, but Portia found the audacity to question the ancient creature on whether or not he now owed them something. After all, Falst's mace was a powerful artifact. But the boggart didn't get an answer, instead a psychic lash that sent her skidding painfully thirty feet back.

He went on to say that taking it for nothing was simply not his nature, and that they would have to do something for him...

“Go to the Kingdom city of Provia. There you will route out a young green dragon named Gisidhran that hides as a man there in. Cunning and well-entrenched, he is also a traitor to his own kind, turned to the fanatical worship of The Green God. He works with their sleeper cult to undermine Othyrian civilization at large. Destroy the cult if you like, but I want Gisidhran's dissident tongue brought back to me. You may harvest his brain, eyes and bones for whatever ritual reagents you like, and his hide for armors, but the tongue is mine. And be sure to let him know who sends his angels of death, though I imagine he will.” The last remark almost sizzles with venom.

Giers tried to speak up about possibly returning poor Isabella to life, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Portia remarked dourly that she'd already tried to ask him. The dragon continued...

“You have one month, until the moon is new again in the Othyrian sky. If you choose to ignore me or you simply fail, then I will personally take Blight and drop it somewhere in Othyr... Etheria... Niflheimr... Molg, perhaps, and watch as Falst is reborn to plague your native lands. That is my ultimatum. Now go.”

The wall closed back up almost immediately after, and the chamber folded in on itself until the group was painfully crunched together in a doorless jade space. Then in a flash of magic they were on a higher, green shelf of Mount Highmist. Blue kobolds with blinders and leather straps barked at them in Draconic, motioning to follow.

Flight
The group was led to a cliff, where four giant blue drakes, looking like elephant-sized dragons with feather-edged winds and beaks, waited. Dokur was already strapped into one, waving nervously as the pilots scurried into their driver seats. The group mounted and strapped in, some excited, some sick with nerves. Then the drakes were driven off the cliff, where they fell... and fell... and fell, until the last possible moment they drew up and avoided sured death.

The group was whisked into a fiery sunset, over the Two-Faced Highlands and the Twistwood. They flew through the night, by early morning back over the Savanna and the ruins of Mangletooth Tower.

Tifana in Ruins
However it was not a pleasant return, as the gnome village of Tifana was a charred, smoking ruin. The drakes cautiously landed well-away from the village, whereupon Dokur tore from his belts and ran full-speed for his home. The others followed suit, calling after him vainly.

The drakes, looking tired, were spurred back into the air by the cowardly kobolds.

Demon
Dokur flew into town, finding the place burned and blackened and void of people. And there was a horrible smell on the hot wind, of burnt meat. He entered the village square and was met by a horrific sight...

A twisted half-demon kneels just within a tent of thin, stretched flesh, praying. The sun through the membrane gives the monster an orange-red light. It looks as if the muscle and bones of a normal gnoll grew too big for its flesh and it burst at the joints and torso. It wears the skin of a gnoll more like scraps of an under-sized garment now, raw meat and bloody skeleton exposed. It must be around Hulda's height when standing, though emaciated where the flesh doesn't cover it. It leans on a heavy flail.

Sitting on the throne of charred corpses are two massive hyenas, side by side, but their heads are conjoined, with four red eyes scattered across the heavy mass of deformed flesh, along with four misplaced ears, dozens of random teeth, two snouts and surfacing white islands of skull and jawbone. A tongue dangles in an abscess below its chin, while another lolls from a peek of mouth near the top of its forehead. It wheezes and gasps, pawing a blackened skull beneath it and noticing you instantly.

Two gnoll hunt mistresses, with hip-side hatchets and drawn bows, emerge from the shadows of either throne flank. One is Nelisha, the other unknown. Both growl lowly. The Conjoined's red eyes look you over, what when he speaks its from within your minds. The voice is like a hum and a shriek sounded as one, sending shivers despite the terrible heat. “We knew you'd come back eventually.”

Experience: 400 xp (4838 xp total)

Magic Items: The Open Hand (key-fingered glove; Kaylan)

Loot: None

Money: None

NPCs:
Copper Kobold Jailers
The Unnamed Satyr
Green Kobold Shieldbearer
Reedthagn
Blue Kobold Pilots
The Conjoined
Krander Half-Demon

Monsters: Green, Blue, Red, Copper, Black, and Gold Kobolds, Green Dragon, Drakes, Demon

Places: Small Keep, Slopes of Highmist, The Tesseract, (over) Twistwood and Savanna, Ruins of Tifana, Tifana Square

Drakes: The smaller, animal-minded cousins of dragons, drakes are a reptilian afterbirth much like kobolds, accidentally created by Kultuss in the wake of his masterpiece children. While lacking the magic and intelligence of their superior kin, drakes resemble dragons in physiology, possessing reptilian features and often wings. Drakes are marked from young dragons by some sort of non-dragon feature, as well. In the case of the flying drakes at Highmist, their telling features were feathers and beaks. Others have fur, hooves or some other slightly-odd distinguisher. Drakes were native to Othyr thousands of years ago, but have since fallen into what many suspect extinction. There are, however, a multitude of planar drakes, largely found on the mirror worlds of Cadavera and the Wild.

Demons: Mothered by the Queen of Madness and Murder, Daughter of Chaos, demons are pinnacles of destruction and obscenity. As varied as mortal nightmares, demons come in all shapes, sizes and corruptions. They tend toward the extremely grotesque, and seek to make all around them reflect their cosmic awfulness. They corrupt through force of will and fear, versus the subtler game of devils, and are much more heavy-handed when it comes to politics, war and just about anything else. Their seven "saints", also known as The Seven Demonlords, are a terrifying collection of the worst beings in the universe united in one goal, the ressurection of the dark goddess mother Delilah and the subsequent destruction of Creation, so that it might be reborn in demonic image. Most demons, though mindful of the race's goals, partake in the great demonic hordes and war efforts of their archdemons more for the carnage that comes with them. Demons are, if anything, appetites.

Session 14: A Death in the Family

Night, Kelehess 7th - Afternoon, Kelehess 12th
(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.

Session 13: Angst

Late Afternoon, Kelehess 5th - Night, Kelehess 7th
(9 days survived)

Celebrations
The celebrations continued as the freed gnomes returned from hunts, finished decorating and reclaimed their long-neglected homes. The spirit of the small fey shined, emotional, uplifting, all of it because of the group and their efforts. Pongwa was again king and, thanks to The Heart of the Wild, the Savanna was quickly reversing the great damages done by Blight and Al'kek'uma. Dancing, singing, feasting and story-telling commenced.

However this party was only a short respite in the dark days, for the Tifana gnomes planned on gathering what forces they could and attempting to topple the Twisttongue Tower in a few days' time. And an even more important mission was also about to be gotten underway, the disposal of Blight, which the group themselves volunteered and were charged with.

Flirtations
A glimmer of light and hope in what had been a consistently dreary Savanna seemed to spark not only the gnomes into frivolity, but Kaylan as well. She made more than enough hinting at being interested in Frederick who, at first, flirted with and then actually turned down!

But a certain Ethrey was there to pick up where the Nors left off...

A Mysterious Meeting
Portia watched the party from off and away, still brooding over the loss of Precious. She was joined by a shady looking gnome hunter who introduced himself as Dokur. The two passed words, Portia not in the mood for being friendly, and when Dokur misjudged her race as a whole for her particular actions, she turned to counter but he was gone again.

Entertaining The Moment
Kaylan, dejected and horny, went off with the smooth-talking Giers. Out of sight, they kissed and groped, but just when it might have gone further Kaylan stopped. She was only tasting what she could not have and valued Isabella's feelings too highly to betray her trust. A blue-balled Giers agreed and they returned to Hulda and Isabella.

Summoned
A soft-faced gnomess named Sagemarie, messenger of the king, came to the group and requested their presence in Pongwa's great hut. The group agreed, Portia joining along the way, but they thought better than to have an audience without Kaylan present. Hulda went to find her, followed by Frederick, and then Giers along with them.

Under Moonlight
The cleric, by that point, had strolled well outside the village, admiring the returned beauty of the grass sea. Out from behind a rock sprung Frederick (a second one!) and asked for a dance. The blaring music from town was muted and almost gentle at the distance that stood, and of course she agreed. One thing led to another and they were stripping, kissing, and going at it. Kaylan was bent over a rock and experienced the best sex of her life, in part from Frederick's finesse but also because of the way The Wild heightened sensations.

Kaylan's Trail
Frederick the tracker led Hulda and Giers out of town and down a trail only he was skilled enough to see. However he developed a harsh cough on the way, which both siblings realized was masking... a laugh. The laughing grew, even as the urias and ethrey grew more and more suspicious.

Frederick suddenly dropped to all fours, laughing to the point of dry heaving. Hulda and Giers moved for him, but he flicked his wrist and roots exploded from the ground and entangled them. The paladin managed to escape with the frantic beating of his wings and stab down on Frederick's back. However, the warden suddenly became a million wriggling worms in man shape and fell to the ground, where upon they dug their way to freedom with a high, piercing cackle.

It was later revealed that this creature was a Changeling, feeling spry after the effects of Blight had been reversed, and likely drawn to the music, song and life radiating from town.

Giers vs. Frederick
Kaylan heard the laugh and Giers cries of panic, and tore off Frederick to go chasing after. The warden finished up and raced after, hopping into his pants along the way. When they got on the scene, however, a confused and angry Giers attacked the warden. He stabbed him brutally in the stomach, then tried to punch him, at which point the warden managed to one-two the paladin backward.

Kaylan stayed Hulda with cries of protest and healed the warden's wounds. What followed was a confusing, infuriating, sorrowful and dangerous exchange of emotions and subtle threats between half the party, one that sent each of them storming off.

Giers, Hulda and Frederick returned to the patient Isabella and Portia, waiting outside Pongwa's hut, but it was quickly apparent Giers and Frederick couldn't be within fifty feet of each other. Kaylan ran after the Nors warden. The rest went inside.

Bind Yourselves
Pongwa waited inside with his advisers, who performed a binding ritual of friendship, trust and responsibility between the four present. Empathic, the gnomes sensed all the turmoil and tension, but Pongwa did his best to reassure the group. He explained the monster looking like Frederick was a Changeling and offered council in trusting one another. The ceremony was brief, but rather beautiful, and actually did help to cool heads and restore a bit of optomism.

Goodbye
Meanwhile, Kaylan and Frederick had a very heartfelt conversation just on the outskirts of town. The Nors did not understand the ways of Kalinda and asked if passion without responsibility was one of her tenets. Kaylan explained that was her own doing, as was all the pain she'd caused him. He couldn't blame her, though, but he couldn't go on with the group, either. Too much bad blood had boiled up between Giers and him. Kaylan wished him well and left, a little heartbroken. Frederick, for his part, could not speak nor watch her go.

Across the Savanna
The party set off across the Savanna, making for Twistwood and Highmist beyond it. Dokur led the way, a somber or otherwise mopey group trailing behind. Kaylan often looked back, but he wasn't coming. Giers tried to express everything he was feeling, but the cleric stopped him after too long. Hulda wiped some tears as she went. After the binding ceremony, though, the group didn't seem as hostile toward each other, instead rather remorseful and sympathetic.

I'll Cry If You Like
All the chatter, and the boggart's cartwheeling, provoked a scolding from Dokur, who the group was finding much more dour and grim than his other gnome kin. Portia retorted with some wise words on the pointlessness of despair. Her shouted response was so sudden, everyone in the group stopped, and Dokur actually agree, ceasing his group depreciation hence forth.

After camp and another day's travel, they reached the emerald treeline of Twistwood.

Bind Yourselves Once More
Before they entered The Twistwood, Dokur removed some rope, joined with Portia and Hulda's own. The group bound themselves around the waist, Isebella rightly suspecting the misty forest interior would try to separate them. And so they entered, almost immediately swallowed by the cloudy ground. Soon it was impossible to see beyond a foot or so.

The Gnarled Arm
Suddenly Blight began drifting away from Isabella, its sick glow fading in the gray soup. She used her mage hand to help her retrieve it from the persistent drift of the mist, only to watch in horror as a gigantic, gnarled arm leapt from the unknown, black with seeping red pustules. It grabbed Blight's handle and tried tearing it away.

The witch was shocked and entirely unwilling to let her charge go. She fought her will against the nameless monster's strength, aided by the flapping, anchoring and struggling of the group, but whatever lurked this fog was stronger still and began to tear them through the forest. Branches and saplings wipped by, winding everyone, even as the witch fought the monster for control of Falst's Legacy.

Up became down, everything was noise and carnage, and the monster shrieked and gargle-roared with ferocity beyond the animal kindgom. In a last ditch effort, it tried to tear away the mace, but Isabella prevailed.

Escape
Seeing an opening in the lull, Dokur screamed at the top of his lungs for the others to follow. The ropes around the group's waists began to tug and everyone ran, even as the thick mists stirr with empty claw swipes, flung trees and waves of clawed earth. They escaped the mists and entered into the forest proper, a vast forest with trees twisting upward near a hundred feet, pulled by some strange, planar gravity into growing thus. The Twistwood was beyond verdant, glowing brilliant green and all the shades between, heavy with thick, wild vegetation and crawling with life.

Keep Moving
Dokur regained his bearings, suddenly marveling at how far they'd been dragged off course. He also looked worried, spurring the group to keep moving. When questioned why, he told them whatever was in the magical mist had pulled them a good forty miles off course, forcing them to take a more dangerous road to Highmist. They'd be at the mountain in about a week, if they made it there at all.

Buzzing
Not too long after getting a move on, a loud, insect buzzing began to trail the group in the canopy above. Portia and Dokur caught flashes of what seemed like hornets or wasps. Eventually a swarm of giant fey hornets, each of the size of eggplants, descended. But they did not attack. Kaylan wondered why aloud, when she was answered.

Santh
Eight ten-inch creatures looking like indigo crosses between elves and insects emerged from behind the high leaves, provoking Dokur to spit the word faerie almost like a curse. They chided the group, gauging whether or not they could successfully ambush them.

Then one called Santh, a particularly crooked Final-Sting faerie, took one look at Isabella and swore she was the reincarnation of Feith Gwyllion, their former queen of Leafshadow slain in a demon incursion nearly twenty years ago. He postulated all sorts of strange, unlikely theories as to how Isabella could be this reincarnated fey queen and seemed to mentally and emotionally bind himself to the young wizard then. Perhaps he was exhausted from the long years of searching for an object of worship, maybe he was just crazy, or maybe he really did see in Isabella something of The Empress of Leafshadow.

Exile
Santh's incessant claims that Isabella was queen finally boiled over in the lead faerie Marilis. She offered her errant kin one last chance to rebuke his mad claims (for indeed none of the seven other faeries saw the striking resemblance Santh did), but he refused. She exiled him from Leafshadow forever more and left with the final-sting cadre.

Santh didn't seem too broken up as he played in the wizard's hair, crying they'd all be sorry. He would be a prince of New Leafshadow and they would wallow (he later checked with Isabella if that would indeed be the case which she agreed to). And so he continued his grovelling, adulation and fawning over the little princess, which she didn't seem to mind at all.

Deeper (Beware the Ceallach)
Dokur, and Santh with him, spurred the group onward, the stretch of woods they tarried in apparently very dangerous. The faerie mentioned something called the Ceallach roamed these parts, an undisputed dominant predator, though in a realm as wild as Twistwood that seemed hard to fathom. Little did the group know they'd already encountered the Ceallach once in the mist...

Can You Sing?
As the sun began to set, Dokur remarked on the dangers of camping in the open Twistwood. He suggested they all bury themselves in top soil and escape notice, but the group had had some very bad experiences underground and refused. Santh suggested climbing a high tree, but considering the twisttrees spiraled nearly a hundred feet up, that idea too was scrapped.

Santh mentioned, then, of one called Merlodia, a powerful naiad dwelling in a near-by pool. She loved songs and music, worshiped them really, and if someone in the group could impress her she'd verily harbor the group from danger. However Dokur interjected that if the group sounded off-key or unappealing, she'd eat them.

After some discussion, Merlodia's pool was decided a preferable plan to burying or climbing, but the sun fell faster than anticipated.

In the Bushes
Kaylan, Isabella and Giers wandered off behind some trees, hammering out some differences and misunderstandings. It ultimately lead to a glum cleric moping back to camp while Isabella and Giers fooled around. Perhaps The Wild inspired such things...

Night
Darkness drew over The Twistwood, the group having little choice but to remain outside in a tight camp. Dokur, in disbelief, went off to bury himself in top soil and a frightened Santh withdrew to the highest tree tops.

Howls, screaming, crackling branches and heavy breathing roared around the children's small fire, blackness obscuring the origins of such ruckus. The cathedral of nature that once sprawled so high and far during the day shrunk to an orange sphere of existence barely capable of holding the group. They did not feel safe...


Experience: 400 xp each (4168 xp total)

NPCs:
Dokur, gnome guide to Highmist
Sagemarie, gnomess messenger of King Pongwa
Santh, final-sting faerie (and future familiar)
Marilis, final-sting female (who exiled Santh)
Merlodia (mentioned), naiad queen of song and eater of the off-key

Monsters: Changeling, The Ceallach (gnarled arm that pulled you through the mist), Fey Hornets, Final-Sting Faeries

Places: Savanna, Twistwood (Mist and Forest)

Organizations: Wadi Hafa Resistance (savanna gnome nation of three villages, two of which are still under the power of demon towers, looking to break free thanks to the group's inspiration), Leafshadow (queenless kingdom of the final-sting faeries)

Faeries: Though much has been written on Othyr about small, pretty, joyful fey called faeries, a visit to any forest in The Wild reveals the real nature of the Folk of the Wood, quick, wily and often cruel, with a touch of madness and appearances falling somewhere between tiny elves and bugs. Their kingdoms span the plane, largely in wooded areas where they create cities in the tree tops similar to hives or nests.

Final-Sting Faeries
While there are undoubtedly many varieties of faerie, the group's only experience has been with The Final-Sting bloodline, ten-inch tall, purple-skinned, with long limbs ended in hornet-like hands and feet. Their faces are drawn out, looking like elven caricatures, framed in black, matted hair and crowned with twitching antennae. Their off-white wings look almost feathery and they tend to carry giant stinger rapiers. They command the fey hornets of The Twistwood.

Collected in the kingdom of Leafshadow, Final-Stingers are in a state of flux. Their queen, Feith Gwyllion, was slain during a demon incursion, leaving her children bereft of leadership. The bloodline has remained intact, awaiting her reincarnation or the rise of a new queen, but as of yet none have revealed themselves.

There is one believer, Santh, who is insanely sure Isabella is the reincarnation of his queen.

Highmist