Session 12 - The One Where They Found A Pear (pair of what?)
29th Nov 2020 20:00 - 22:30
In-game timeline: DR1489 Elesias 11 - Eleasias 11
We rejoin our "Heroes" after a short rest recovering from an attack of killer trees. Past experience made them very wary of corridors, trees, bushes, darkness, life in general. It therefore took them 30 minutes to progress down the next length of passageway, with Carro firing an arrow at every tree they saw (there were a number of them) and TC making sure by stabbing each one with a longsword as they passed. None of the trees reacted. Maybe they are part of a sleeper cell, triggered on exit, rather than on entry. Who knows? I do :-)
When they eventually reach the end of the passageway, they came across two doors. Listening at each in turn, Carro hears nothing at the first, but possibly a little scraping noises from behind the second? Mahtis decides to investigate in her usual guise of a spider.
Heading under the door, she sees the source of the scraping noises. Four goblins, one of them with purple coloured blood in its veins, are packing boxes and shifting barrels in the room beyond. To the north is a closed door, whilst the south opens up into a large, unworked cavern. Mahtis the arachnid decides to head into the large, open cave and spends a considerable amount of time scouting out the expanse of caves, all covered in growing briars. She managed to reach an area which seems to contain a large, impressive tree before she feels she ought to head back in case she ends up running out of 'spider-time'.
In arriving back at the original room containing the four goblins, Mahtis then decides to risk a foray into the northern room, rather than play it safe and get back to the rest of the group, impatiently waiting outside in the corridor. The northern door leads to a study of sorts, but Mahtis doesn't have very long to look around it before she promptly changes back into her dragonborn self, having run out of time with her wild shape ability.
Frustrated at the lack of action, Kandi messages Mahtis and finds out what happened. They arrange for a pincer-movement attack, or better still a negotiation, with the goblins, and, so prepared, Kandi, TC and Carro head into the room with the goblins.
TC tries to negotiate in goblin, but the minions are having none of it. These four are better armed than the goblins they met earlier, and in no mood for talking. The battle commenced!
The goblins proved to be tricky little buggers, what with their ability to hide after attacking, and the crates and barrels around the room providing plenty of places for them to duck out of sight. Their shortbows did damage to all members of the party, and Carro got covered in purple vomit. Kandi messaged Mahtis to inform her what was going on, and Mahtis tried to run through the door to rejoin the party and surprise the goblins, only to find it was locked. Mahtis had to instead try to knock down the door.
Meanwhile the goblins were being slowly taken out. The vomiting purple goblin was taken down by a mighty javelin throw from Tommy, followed up with a string of insults from Kandi, which offended so much that the goblin just gave up and died. Carro, Mahtis and TC all took another goblin down each, but not before the goblins had done more damage with their bows, and the last one standing had managed to shout a warning into the southern cave system before being taken out.
Battered, the group quickly did some healing, using a number of their precious potions in the process, as the report from Mahtis that there was a large tree to the south made them sure that they were nearing their goal. As they recovered, Mahtis spotted a group of bushes moving up from the south, and immediately engaged the twig blights, taking most of them out with her icy cold breath weapon before they could do significant damage, though the two survivors did manage to get a couple of scratches in before they too died.
Wary of what else might appear from the south, the group decided to press on quickly, keeping to the shadows as much as they could, though their movement was hampered by the difficult briars that covered the ground.
They managed to get a fair way south, without incident, before Carro spotted the large tree in the next cave. As he, and the rest of the group, moved around to get a better look, those with good dark vision saw the outline forms of the druid, Belak, and a large bugbear, standing before the dark, imposing tree.
Mahtis tried to talk to Belak, using the druidic language to try to garner a level of trust. It didn't seem to work. The group's confirmation of Belak's suspicion that they had killed his guards on the way to this chamber was enough to ensure any goodwill he may otherwise have shown them was negated. He sent his bugbear to engage them - roll for initiative!
The battle was long. The longest this group had ever had to contend with. Belak stayed within cover of the tree, making it hard for the group to land any shots on him. He managed to restrain some of the group in tangling vines, which meant the bugbear guard could try to take potshots at those restrained, and meant the rest of the group had to step in to prevent this. Kandi suffered when more twig blights appeared from the north, and attacked him in his restrained state, causing small, but consistent damage to him. The bugbear was eventually taken down by Carro, but the focus on the guard meant Belak was able to loose off some more disruptive spells, first bathing the group in glowing, purple light, making them easier to hit, and then conjuring a large, flaming sphere to appear next to those still restrained by vines. The group then had to try to avoid being burned by this sphere, which was able to move each turn, whilst trying to free members of their group from the tangling vines that were preventing their escape. The sphere did considerable damage to many of the party, and ensured most of their focus was taken away from Belak for a while longer.
The fact that Kandi was the one holding the torch by which Mahtis and TC could see, proved a further hindrance, as Kandi was restrained, and was busy fighting twig blights, meaning the key fighters could not see Belak in order to engage him. Tommy was getting more and more frustrated.
As the flaming sphere continued to do damage, Mahtis turned into a spider, giving her useful darkvision, and tried to run towards Belak, hoping to distract him and maybe damage him enough to stop the flaming sphere from doing even more damage. A cunning plan, that was suddenly interrupted by Belak's giant frog, that descended from the tree branches where it had been hiding, and attempted to eat spider-Mahtis! Luckily, despite frogs being very well designed to catch spiders, the frog missed completely, allowing Mahtis to get to Belak and promptly run up his trouser leg!
Belak then needed to try to kill the spider running up his leg. This he managed to do, immediately returning Mahtis back to her normal form, in time for her to land two hefty blows upon the druid, not only injuring him, but also disrupting his flaming sphere.
TC meanwhile engaged with the frog, using his luck ability to cause it to miss, and then landing a perfect slice with his longsword to take the frog down before it could do more damage.
With the bugbear, the frog and the twig blights down, and no flaming sphere to worry about, things were looking bleak for Belak (an anagram!). He did a bit of damage to Kandi with a thunderous blast, but the rest of the group laid into him and Tommy landed the final blow, opting to knock out the druid rather than kill him.
With the battle seemingly over, the group had a brief look around. The tree was large, with an oppressive dark wood and heavy, purple leaves and a deep violet coloured sap running through the tree, seeping out of the trunk in places. About 10 feet up the tree, enveloped in branches that seemed to deliberately wrap around her body, was the seemingly lifeless body of a halfling girl. Hanging precariously from a high branch was a single, ruby-red pear. Belak was tied up and gagged before he was able to recover consciousness. Carro spotted what looked like a wooden stick, or wand, lying next to Belak's hand where he fell. The elf picked up the stick but Thomas was drawn towards it, as a moth to a flame. TC reached out his hand, asking Carro for the item. Carro dutifully handed it over to TC.
There was a blinding flash from the wand/stick/TC's hand, and TC fell to the floor, seemingly unconscious.
What has happened? Is it all over? Why did TC react to the stick in that way? Will he recover? All these questions, and more, will be answered, possibly, in the next enthralling episode….