30 August 2019
A Mindless Trick
Our adventurers begin the session contemplating how to rescue the dwarf that Bree discovered while taking an intermittent pee break during the party's tea session with Ezradaur. Kais develops a plan around her familiar dropping a pygmywort mushroom to the captive dwarf and then carrying her off.
Kais first changes her familiar Sirene into an owl. Sirene is given a pygmywort mushroom and a handwritten note from Jimjar that simply reads, "Eat the mushroom". Bree casts Invisibility on Sirene and Kais and also Water Walk on the entire party. Kais then heads out to get in range of the dwarf and releases Sirene while the rest of the party waits near the boat, which is slowly pushed into the water. Sirene makes it to the dwarf, deposits the message and shroom, and begins making her way back. That's when things start going wrong for our adventurers.
Sirene notices Ezradaur's door opening as she begins returning and a quaggoth appears near the party on the beach. A fight ensues while Kais guides Sirene back to the party. Autun and Caius are up front protecting Kais, while Jimjar and Bree stay near the boat holding Shuushar, Rumpadump and an out of commission Ezri. Sirene makes it back and drops two shapes on the beach. One is the dwarf, limp and unmoving. The other, an Intellect devourer, attacks Caius and attaches itself to his head until Caius and Autun manage to kill it. Meanwhile, Bree and Jimjar are shooting the quaggoth from range as it charges toward the boat now moving slowly away from the shore.
Ezradaur now appears on the beach, as does an umber hulk that is still eating its lunch. Ezradaur places Caius and Kais under his spell, immobilizing them and stirring confusion within the party. Caius shakes it off, and with Autun's help drags Kais and the lifeless dwarf back to the boat. Bree and Jimjar dispatch the quaggoth from afar and the party all clamour aboard the boat as Autun activates the Wind Bag and they shoot forward away from their pursuers. Ezradaur curses them from the beach as the umber hulk hurls its lunch at them. A giant half-eaten salted fish slams into the party from astern nearly knocking Shuushar unconscious. But with the Wind Bag leaning the boat decisively onward the party escapes before more damage can be inflicted on them.
Once clear of conflict the party takes stock and licks their wounds. The lifeless dwarf is discovered to have the top of its skull entirely sheered off, something no one seemed to notice in the heat of battle. Many of the party are badly injured and languish about the boat resting. The dwarf is given a burial at sea wrapped in a cloth, and as the charge from the Wind Bag slowly extinguishes the party finds themselves once again on calm, lifeless waters with nothing but the intrepid nose of Shuushar to guide them. For three days they continue like this. The waters contain neither fish nor waves and the landscape remains featureless and dark.
On the fourth day the party notices a horrible smell. A rotten, dead, decaying flesh of a smell that gets worse as they continue onward. The water gets thicker, swampier, and Autun begins rowing to keep them moving forward. They eventually come upon the source of the stench and find a 40-foot dead beast floating in the water. They make out a tail, but not much else as it has been dead for a long time. Rumpadump relays a thought found hanging in the ether, "He thought about dying for a long time." But not much else can be discerned from the mystery of this giant decaying beast. No smaller beasts devour its corpse, only bacteria work at the carrion creating an awful stench. It may possibly be the neolithid that Ezradaur spoke of, but the party cannot be sure.
Inventory Adjustments
Gained:
Lost:
- 48 rations
- 1x find familiar spell components (Kais)
- 1 pygmywart mushroom
- 1 charge from the windbag
- 2 +1/+1 magic arrow (Autun)
- Bree's leftover cheese from the Badger Hall
Prior: 23 August 2019, All: Play_Sessions, Next: 6 September 2019