Session 51 - The One Where They Weren't Afraid Of The Dark

6th January 2024

In-game timeline: DR1489 Uktar 1 - Uktar 2

Our "Heroes" have provided the villagers with enough tangleweed to survive the current phase of the moon, and probably the next one too. They hope to be able to contact other Moonfall villages to gain enough further tangleweed to tide them over until the herbs at the grove have a chance to regrow.

Discussion about how to defeat Charlotta and her 'tribe' and rescue the local children shows that the party need two things - some silvered weapons to actually harm lycanthropes, and a means of finding the ruins of An-Sen in the marshes. Both of these can be obtained from The Hunter, who lives in the nearby King's Wood.

The next morning, the party set off to find The Hunter.

Using Carro's oft-talked-about skills in the wood to find the Hunter's Lodge, they soon come upon a hut in the woods. It seems to be being watched by a sabre-toothed tiger, sitting upon a nearby rock. Our "Heroes" have a discussion about the best approach to take…

In the end they go for openness and politeness, and this seems to work well - they win over The Hunter, who turns out to be a female Tabaxi, and her pet tiger, Pax. The Hunter is keen to help the villagers, and provides the party with silvered weapons and tells them of a route to get to the ruins. This is enough to send them on their way, but The Hunter also has a problem. Her lover, a dryad named Calypso, has been captured by some fey and they are preventing the two from meeting. Although the Heroes approach has already gained them the information they need, they kindly agree to help The Hunter.

Setting off to the Glade of Dreams, armed with knowledge of what enemies they are likely to face, the make use of the little-known forestry skills of Carro, that he hardly mentions, to find their way (though they are also accompanied by The Hunter, who knows the way very well, so these skills are not actually required!).

Instead of rushing in recklessly, Mahtis instead conjures up some giant poisonous snakes, and sends them in instead. Our "Heroes" need to keep relatively close, in order to see what is happening, due to the thick undergrowth around the glade.

To cut a long battle short, the poisonous snakes got quickly dispatched by the quicklings that were darting around them, though the snakes did manage to take down a couple of the quicklings too. The party entered the battle and struggled to hit the very fast moving fey creatures, and were further harassed by darkling fey, including an elder darkling who cast darkness to further confuse the battle. The fey caused significant damage when they hit, which was somewhat concerning to the party, but they switched to using spell attacks requiring saving throws, as the melee and ranged attacks were not hitting often enough to win the battle.

Carro used his surprisingly humble skills to stay hidden, firing off the odd arrow or two, which tended to miss, and left the actual fighting to the other two. His inactivity was noticed.

The battle was long, compared with others they have fought, but they did manage to dispatch all the small and quick quicklings, as well as the darkling threat. The elder darkling fled at this point and The Hunter, who they had told to stay back for the battle, was convinced that the elder darkling was no longer a threat, now that he had lost his entourage of other fey creatures.

The group approached the unmoving body of a beautiful dryad lying at the base of a large oak tree…