The Twenty-Ninth Session

August 22, 2020, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

Last session

The six Party members and Moon are on a boat, sailing north.

We planted a bean on this island in the middle of the body of water, and sailed away on a boat of Quaal's Feather Token.

We're on a Boat

Where shall we go, once we find land? The Party is mostly agreed that we will probably go back to Sky Diamond Academy.

Moon says she can't go back to Sky Diamond Academy.

Why can't Moon go back and finish her studies in magical crafting?

Jerry and Ryltar have insight rolls of 13, and they understand that she's sad, embarrassed, almost grieving. Last time, there was a massacre of students under the influence of the Battle Locusts. Moon doesn't want to go back.

Jerry plans to talk with Moon about horrific deaths in the past, because Jerry is intimately familiar with this problem, having lost her entire command to Yuan-ti during the eastern campaigns of the West Haven.

The boat is making 6 mph, and will last for 24h, giving us a radius of 144 miles. The weather is clear, with a slight breeze.

The spire on the shore

It comes to evening, and we see a shore. And there is an unnatural structure on the edge of this shore: a solid-stone monolith, 40-50 feet high, with a point jutting out into the water. It's wider on the base. As we near the shoreline, we see a small fire, and a person sitting beside the monolith. He waves to us.

We're about a hundred feet offshore.

Bugfood jumps off the boat and takes the form of a crocodile. He swims to shore. The man on the shore watches, and reels in his line. Bugfood recognizes him!

We've all seen this person before. He's a wanderer on the road from West Haven to Sky Diamond. He sold us healing potions and offered healing. He says to Bugfood, "Can you turn back? You're scaring the fish."

Bugfood sinks below the waves and holds his breath for fifteen minutes.

Jerry drives the boat to shore, and the Party debarks, save for Jerry.

Ryltar says hello, and asks where we are. "By this big rock, I guess," he says.

Zelrathi asks, "Do you know where you came from?" "Yes. I know this land."

Ryltar asks for the man's name. "My name is Maltese MacGuffin. I travel for the most part of the land, selling, trading, tinctures and something."

Extended questioning reveals that this shore is not an island, because the man walked here.

"If you're wondering where to go, I wouldn't go that way," he says, pointing to his left. "There seem to be people missing, webs." The Party considers ignoring his advice, and going that way, because that way are the spiders to fight, and Moon doesn't want to go back to Sky Diamond. Maltese MacGuffin suggests against it.

He's got a lot of fish roasting on the fire. Ryltar asks him about the obelisk. He says it points north. It protrudes over the water, and has a graven arrow pointing in the direction that we were going, approximately.

We ask after his wares; he has some healing potions. Zelrathi asks after a diamond and the old man finds a white crystal that might be a diamond. And with some investigation, it is revealed to be a small diamond worth about 75 gold in material components. He also has a potion cure for petrification, and a family-recipe blue potion to boost morale and such: Potion of Heroism. We trade him a shovel and 100 gold for the potion cure to petrification.

Salris buys a healing potion, as does Vurguron. Salris gives the Boots of Winterland to Bugfood.

MacGuffin offers food to party: roast fish. Food is pretty good. Bugfood casts Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow. MacGuffin mentions that we’re actually around a large lake, not the sea. Town to the south of here. East of there is another small town, then trail splits North and South. We are in the middle of the three cities.

Six legged giant frogs are seen at night; they don’t attack the party.

Morning post-boat

MacGuffin packs up his stuff. He’s going West.

We go south/southwest towards the town along the shore. The boat dissolved over the night.

Moon offers 100GP of residium to Salris to start crafting a spell component. Residium is a sort of universal spell component that is/was used at SDA.

As we walk along the shore, through small trees, the waters of the lake begin to fizz and bubble, and a multiheaded snake-like creature rises from the lake, and walks over to Bugfood, who is leading the Party.

Hydra

1. Surprise Round: a five-headed Hydra attacks Bugfood, and a second approaches Vurguron.
   1. The creature makes five attacks on him; of which two hit and deal 26 piercing damage to him.
   2. A second hydra approaches Vurguron.
2. Round 1: Jerry cuts off one hydra head, then remembers that that's bad. Salris frightens that hydra. Zelrathi uses Haste and Ryltar uses Slow.
   1. Vurguron uses his bonus action to cast Shadow Blade, then attacks the hydra twice, misses twice.
   2. The hudra nearest Bugfood misses all its attacks on him.
   3. The hydra near the rest of the Party makes five piercing attacks, one to each Party member, and only connects on a couple.
   4. Bugfood Disengages from his hydra, runs away, andcasts Shielf of Faith
   5. Jerry pops Hunter's Mark on the nearest hydra, and with Orcish Fury and the Slayer of the Unnatural weapon, deals 2d10+3d6+1+5 + 1d10+3d6+1+5 slashing, cutting off one of its five heads. Then she recalls that cutting off the heads is bad.
   6. Salris pulls some bullshit with a Phantasmal Killer, frightening the nearest one, and dealing 4d10 psychic to it.
   7. Zelrathi pops Haste on Jerry and Vurguron
   8. Ryltar pops Slow on both hydras, affecting only the nearest one.
3. Round 2: The damaged hydra grows two more heads. With a combined effort, that hydra is totally beheaded.
   1. Vurguron, hasted, attacks the slowed hydra with his Shadow Blade, dealing a lot of damage.
   2. The damaged hydra grows back two heads, and then takes 22 points of psychic damage from Phantasmal Killer. It then stops being slowed.
   3. The undamaged hydra advances upon the party and attacks. Jerry takes 6 piercing damage from two attacks, but passes her constitution save. There's lots of other attacks.
   4. Bugfood loses his Shield of Faith from damage, and uses Balm of the Summer Court before moving behind Ryltar, triggering an attack of opportunity
   5. Jerry uses the haste bonus attack and Whirlwind Attack to make three attacks to the Hunter's Marked hydra, dealing more than 70 bludgeoning and flattening three heads, and then attacks the unmarked hydra for 29 damage.
   6. Salris cuts one head off the most-damaged hydra, then follows it up with Eldritch Blast blasting the eyes from its last head. The body tries to regenerate a new head, but fails.
   7. Moon casts Ray of Sickness on the hydra, and fails.
   8. Zelrathi casts Cure Wounds on Bugfood for 16 healing.
   9. Ryltar casts Slow on the remaining hydra.
4. Round 3: We procedurally whittle down the hydra's health.
   1. Vurguron does some attacks with his shadow blade, dealing enough psychic damage to kill a head.
   2. The hydra takes one attack against Jerry for 8 damage.
   3. Bugfood Blesses Jerry, Vurguron, Salris, fr +1d4 on each attack and save rolls.
   4. Jerry deals 55 bludgeoning with three attacks.
   5. Salris stabs the hydra with Staggering Spite, dealing 24 psychic damage and 12 on the second attack.
   6. Moon uses a spell that deals 9 damage to the hydra.
   7. Zelrathi casts Eldritch Blast twice on the hydra, dealing 13 damage and 18 damage on a crit.
   8. Ryltar adds a -2 to AC and super slow to the hydra.
5. Round 4.
   1. Vurguron moves up and attacks thrice with his Shadow Blade, beating the hydra into a bloody pulp.

Zelrathi ends Haste, leaving Jerry and Vurguron to take a short rest.

Skim reading

We want to take some of the hydra parts with us, but there are too many books in Jerry's bag of holding to make that work. Jerry dumps out some books, and the rest of the party takes some time reading.

Among the books:

• Salris finds a book on making jewelry, regarding gems and metalworking.
• Ryltar finds a book on gardening and caring for trees.
• Vurguron finds a book on the binding between the Air and Water planes, written in Primordial.
• Zelrathi finds a book on the motions of celestial bodies and such like, including eclipse cycles, including the eclipse in the upcoming year. He sets it aside for Ryltar and Bugfood to read. It doesn't mention the constellation Abraxes at all, which contains the star that went away. It's either from before the star appeared or after it went away. The book is written in what Ryltar recognizes as the Ice Lord's own handwriting. The relevant cycle of eclipses is every six years.

Zelrathi tries to remember when the last eclipse was.

After a while, we pack up and continue to follow the southern route to the city.

Another couple hours later, we see another spire sticking out of the water, pointing towards the center of the lake.

The Ice Lord once had a tower, but we never saw it. Where did it go? Jerry wonders if it melted.

We come across fishing vessels on the lake, and they're heading back to an established wharf on the town.

Malcolm's Wharf

It's a fishing village, kinda small. No wall, but an established town. Bugfood goes looking for a store that will sell him lemon pepper, and finds one.

Zelrathi looks for a jeweler, and finds an old store of things. It's packed full of books and boxes and has a small jewel case. A white-haired female Dwarf responds to his call. He is looking for quantity over quality, and she offers him a box of diamond dust and a tray of some smaller diamonds. She picks the small diamonds out, 7 in varying colors, and offers 80 gold as the price. He buys.

Vurguron goes looking for a blacksmith, and finds it.

Jerry and Ryltar, looking for beds, find a cottage named "Today's Catch", which is a full bar and a lodging place. The rate per person is 5 silver.

We all gather in this place, and spend the evening eating.

Salris sees a dwarf with a black beard and a white stripe in it: It's Rezzik Brazzik, his contact.

Next session

We've found civilization, and our place on the map.

• Where do we go from here? Sky Diamond Academy?
• Jerry would like to conduct a therapy session with Moon, helping her get over the loss of all her classmates.
• Why's Rezzik Brazzik here?
• What happens if you cast Animal Friendship on a horde of giant spiders?