Session 52 - The One Where Carro's Survival Skills Get Them In Trouble
19th January 2024
In-game timeline: DR1489 Uktar 1 - Uktar 2
Our "Heroes" have managed to take care of the renegade fey creatures who disapproved of The Hunter and Callista's relationship. One escaped, but The Hunter doesn't think they will cause any further problems now that his entourage has been dispatched.
The party approach the unmoving body of a sylvan lady, who they know is Callista when The Hunter confirms this. She seems to be asleep and has a silver thread tied around her leg, and around the large oak tree next to her. The Hunter rushes forward to rouse her lover, but as soon as the Tabaxi touches the fey's body, she immediately falls to the ground, asleep.
After some investigation to check that both of the unmoving bodies are breathing, the party discuss how to wake them up without touching them. TC doesn't take long to decide that he should slap The Hunter around the face with his Mage Hand. He does so with some enthusiasm, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. He reluctantly decides to attempt a less violent approach, and uses his Mage Hand to untie the knot of the silver thread. He manages this pretty easily, and the thread falls to the ground, unties. At this point, Callista wakens.
Callista is very grateful towards the party, and after some explanation into who they are and why they are there, she heads into her tree and brings out a selection of seemingly random, but obviously dear to her, items that they can choose from as a reward. TC decides upon a small, pretty, silver mirror frame that instead of a mirror seems to contain simple, transparent glass.
Soon after this The Hunter awakens from her sleep and her and Callista have a touching reunion. The Hunter is really grateful towards our "Heroes" and after some time spent with the Dryad, she leads the party back to her lodge in the woods. She presents them with her treasured warhammer weapon, a magic item named Traxiil, that Mahtis gratefully accepts. She also gives TC some vials of tangleweed poison that could prove useful in their fight with lycanthropes. Lastly she offers to train Carro in survival skills, which the wood elf accepts, and they spend some hours together, resulting in Carro gaining expertise in survival and specialism in tracking lycanthropes.
The party decide to rest at The Hunter's lodge and then head to the swamp the following morning. At the edge of a swamp the party decide to take it in turns to lead the group through the swamp to try to find the ruins of An-Sen. Carro wonders how he can use his Slight of Hand skill traversing the swamp, but instead tries to use his newly-improved Survival skill to guide the group for their initial encroachment into the swamp. Unfortunately his confidence in his own abilities is, on this occasion, misguided, and he leads the group in circles for a time, and eventually comes upon a marshy area which has a mangrove tree being dragged down into the swamp by a large vine. There is a glint of shiny metal in the base of the tree that catches Carro's eye, and the group decides to try to see what that could be.
Unfortunately the vine that is dragging the tree down seems to be somewhat sentient. And evil. And angry. It attacks the group as they approach. The vine has a long reach, and the ability to drag its target towards it, as well as being able to cause the undergrowth around them to rise up and make movement difficult. It also seems to be able to conjure up smaller vine-creatures to attack too.
The environment, difficult surroundings and unfamiliar creature attacking them causes our "Heroes" quite a few problems. Carro especially, now he is no longer in a "favoured environment" is caused a number of problems. Enough problems that he falls unconscious under the attacks of the vine-creature. Luckily Mahtis' forethought at casting water breathing at the start of the day means that Carro is not drowning whilst unconscious. However, his fallings means the others need to spend valuable actions reviving the elf before he is strangled by the large, aggressive vine. The fight is difficult. Carro actually falls twice and needs bringing back from the brink of death twice, leading to Carro having two levels of exhaustion. TC also takes a battering, and many spells are used during the battle.
Eventually, and with a great deal of relief, Mahtis finally brings down the large vine creature and this removes any of the summoned vines that were also attacking.
Mahtis grabs the metal chest from the old skeleton at the base of the mangrove tree, that was the cause of the initial glinting they spotted before the battle. Its contents are rewarding and valuable, though whether it was worth the harm (and two levels of exhaustion) they suffered during the battle is up for debate.
Battered and bruised, the party spend more valuable spell slots and abilities (and all goodberries!) to heal themselves up a bit before they think about pressing on further into the swamp…