"Sorry about that, sometimes magic doesn't work like you want" Svog closes to the body of the brute and poke it with his sword to make sure it is dead.
Svog's arcane art touches the elemental through his words, healing the burn wounds before your eyes. The elemental opens its eyes for the first time - its irises are a brilliant green. You can see color returning to its bark. "Th...thank you," he manages, tears welling up in his eyes. "I th...thought I'd be b..burning for hours...it hurts," the elemental moans piteously.
It makes a move to sit up, and you all give it some room instinctively. It digs its twig-like fingers into the earth, and you can see life flowing back into its limbs, healing it further. After a few moments' contact, the elemental sighs and stands, growing longer legs and limbs as it does so. Like a time-lapse of a rapidly growing tree, the elemental seems to "grow" into a standing position, becoming bigger, rather than standing up.
It speaks again, in a deeper, more mature voice. "My name is Five-Rings-of-Halvar-Delving-Under-the-Summer-Sun, and I am in your debt."
Svog, your healing spell spills over a little bit to the..."mushroom-brute" that had expelled the plant matter from its back. It's unconscious, but its wounds are healing before your eyes, its wounds closing over.
"It was our pleasure." Mazatl grins at it, patting the summoned elemental on the back, and studiously ignoring the mushroom. "A pleasure to meet you... Halvar. Perhaps rather than indebted, we could simply be friends." she shortens the name to make it easier to even come close to remembering. "We're lucky to have met you as well... as we've no idea where we are, just now." Though, Mazatl was slowly working her way towards a suspicion.
"Wild magic! Fast! We need something to tie this brute or get away from here. He is recovering from the thing he did." Svog shouts to the others not paying much attention to the elemental.
"I don't have a thing to tie him up with. I left the house to go to the tavern, not an underwater cavern.... Hey, that rhymes! And then whatever place this is. I wonder if it rhymes, too. Anyway, nope, I got no rope. If you want, I could just stab him in the ear with my trusty little spear."
"What do you think should be done, Halvar?" Mazatl questions. She's more inclined to show mercy to the creature... if it believes they healed it on purpose and set it free, maybe its friend wouldn't come back... and that was just looking at it from a pragmatic perspective!
Halvar glances down at the mushroom-covered brute's body as it lies there. "Stabbing him in the ear would kill him. That would only keep him off our trail for a short time. It is better that we restrain him, so that it takes longer for his injuries to recover. He is hoping that you finish the job."
So saying, the elemental Halvar strides over to the fallen brute. He places his foot over the brute's wrist, and allows the roots of his feet to grow over them and deep into the earth. Then, he violently twists his ankle, breaking his foot off and leaving it attached to the roots. He repeats this process for the brute's other wrist and ankles, showing signs of pain with each twist. When he finishes, he's a foot shorter.
"Come, let us be away before his companion returns. You do not belong here." With that, he gestures toward the woods and begins walking down the slope away from where the other brute fled. What do you do?
Svog follows the elemental, "Have you seen little guys that make pranks?" Svog with a little anger in his voice describes the little devil they met a few minutes ago to the elemental.
Mazatl follows after him as well. She's surprised by the resiliency of this creature that seems to be an elemental. Her grass elemental trails along behind her. "My apologies." she says to her conjured one. "I suppose you have a name as well. I seem to have skipped those pleasantries. I'm Mazatl, and it's a pleasure to meet you."
Aifric is not about to get left alone in this place that makes no sense whatsoever! Off he goes, keeping up with the group. He looks over his shoulder at the brute pinned to the ground. Too weird!
From behind you in the hills, you can hear a frenzied hooting being carried to you on the breeze. Looking over your shoulder you can see the injured brute raising its fist to the sky and screaming at you in impotent rage. The treelike elemental you call Halvar sees it too, and picks up his pace a little.
The elemental glances back at the elf in surprise. "You know of the Imps? They plague our kind, and they disappear before we can smash them. They are chiefest of our kind's pests." You near the treeline now, and you see some of the trunks swaying back and forth of their own accord, as if moved by a breeze you can't feel. Halvar makes no note of this as he gazes forward past them, guiding you to the forest.
The grass elemental that Mazatl summoned inclines its heavy head as it walks, and then speaks with a dry, deep voice. "Calmly: Fields of Summerstein Made to Walk the River Deltas," it intones, and the pits of darkness that form its eyes behind the veil of grass seem to blink slowly at you.
By the time the elemental has finished introducing itself, you're among the trees of the forest. The elemental called Halvar looks about himself, as if checking for danger. Parts of it that were dead and blackened from the fire are falling off of it, and when they fall to earth, you see that they are becoming green once again and sprouting roots that grow into the soil.
Halvar turns to the rest of you. "I think we're safe for now," he says, his voice calmer than before. "I thank you once again, strangers from a strange land, for rescuing me from my torment." To the grassy elemental, Halvar speaks in a language only elementals and Mazatl understand, a rumbling word that doesn't translate well into Common, but is similar to eternal gratitude.
What do you say?
"We met one earlier, and it was not funny." Svog anwsers with some anger in his face.
After Halvar stops and thanks them again, Svog bows in gratitude, "thank you too for showing us to a safe place. We kind of arrived here by accident. Can you tell us what is this place?"
"My mother used to tell me a story about a boy that followed a red fox down a fox hole. It was called 'Osric in the Land of Enchantment.' Could this be the Land of Enchantment? Did we fall down the foxhole? The fox was late, late for a very important date. Let's see.... How did Osric get back home. I think he clicked his heels together or something.... No, that's a different story. Halvar, are we in the Land of Enchantment?"
Athena spoke to Mazatl rather than the elemental in a quiet voice."We need to get home."
Mazatl nodded to Athena, "Yeah." Then turned her attention to the elemental. "And do you know of a way to help us get home? We were kind of in the middle of trying to help the merfolk..." Mazatl frowns.
The elemental gazes from one of you to the other, listening to you all speak. "You have such..distinct voices," Halvar says, "and I know not from whence you came, but I know where you are now." the tree-shaped elemental spreads its arms wide and gestures to the woods all around it. "You are in my home, the source of all life, the Deathless Lands. I welcome you as a friend for coming to my aid when I needed it most."
His arms come to rest at his side again with a slow creaking of wood against wood. "As for getting you home..." the tree's wooden face cannot meet your eyes, looking down at the ground. "I...know not. I have heard tales of those that travel between worlds, and I knew of the Imps that could do so, but up until now I had only seen wickedness come through the barriers, never good people like yourselves."
He looks up at all of you again. "I wish I could send you all home myself, but I am ignorant of the way how. I am sorry, friends."
"That... isn't a huge deal to me." Mazatl frowns all the same, releasing the ties that bind her grass elemental, having no need of his services just now, and allowing him to go on about whatever business he likes. "I mean... we were in the middle of something really big and important for our people. Our city might have been becoming a puppet nation, and all that... but I had no idea what I was doing anyway. I just wanted to help the merfolk and maybe that'd have been enough to give us a foothold. Just as lost, now... but you just have to put one foot in front of the other." she seemed to be taking on a bit of an Aifric quality just now. She sighs lightly. "But maybe this is better. If we can connect the deathless lands to a grove I know near home... we'd at least have one more set of allies." she looks to the others, she seems to still be somewhat lost, but she's persevering.
"I didn't know the bad guys were going to turn us into puppets. We've got to get back and stop them. We've just got to!" Aifric stares at the scar on one hand while holding his medallion in the other. If there was only some way to get it to do more than just detect magic or sing to him.
Athena tries to take in the surrounding looking for anything that look familiar or helpful.
Has Athena Ever Heard of this place or know anything about it?
What here is useful or valuable to me? Also Elf auto find any hidden doors/passages
Athena, when you were just a child, you heard many tales of the Deathless Lands. That is what the Elemental Plane of Life is known as, to its denizens and to the fair folk. It is from this plane that all life on the Material Plane sprang; it is said that the Goddess of Life makes this plane Her playground, growing all manner of living things in an endless existence that knows no death. You close your eyes, reliving the memory.
"No creature knows oblivion there. There is no old age, no tragedy of death," the storytellers would say, all three of them in unison.
"When the Material Plane was nonexistent..." the first one began, "...a mere thought in the Over-God's mind," said the second, "...there was life in the Deathless Lands," finished the third.
"But there is a dark side to this place," the fourth storyteller, an old elf harridan named Bomba, broke in. Her age was beyond reckoning, and she was a crone even by long-lived elven standards. "For while there is no Death on the Plane of Life, there is yet Evil. Sometimes...death is a mercy, a blessing, as welcome as the embrace of a friend. That embrace is denied to all the denizens of the Deathless Lands. They are consigned to an eternal existence..." the old elf woman grinned widely at this, exposing her werewolf fangs, "whether they were ready for it or not."
You open your eyes, about to tell the others what you remembered...and you see a river through the trees up ahead. The shimmering, flashing quality of the water brings to mind another, happier memory - drinking long draughts of Elfwine! The word was a misnomer for what it really is, of course - enchanted river water - but the effects were similarly intoxicating, giving unprecedented clarity of mind to those who drank it.
No hidden passages here.
"So...uhm...are we stuck in here?" Svog looks around and sighs.
"That isn't really what I meant." Mazatl says to Aifric. "It means our leader isn't really the leader. At least I think. Doesn't matter. We can't really trust the umps, even though they're travelers... So well have to find someone else, or make our own way... Maybe I can pull you guys through to the material, if I work on it enough... but pulling myself through my own forehead seems... unwise." she frowns.
"No, we don't want to turn you inside out just to get home. We can find another way. Oh, yeah, I remember how Osric got home now; he stood up to the leader of the Land of Enchantment, Chief Knucklebone. But we've already stood up to those brutes. Maybe they are just puppets of the real leaders here. Maybe we have to find the Chief Knucklebone of this place."
The elemental that Mazatl dismissed simply walks away, not needing to warp back anywhere. With a nod of respect to the channeler, the grassy hulk makes its way through the trees in the direction of the river.
There's an awkward silence for a few moments as you all consider what to do. Halvar shakes his leafy head, creating a sound like wind in the branches. "Without your intervention, those merciless brutes would have left me to burn for hours more. Honor demands that I see you safely back to your home plane. I swear it!" the elemental pounds his palm with his fist in determination, sounding like a baseball bat hitting a tree.
clap...clap...clap...clap... the sound of slow applause can suddenly be heard. All of you, including Halvar, look all around you to find the source, and Aifric spots him first - the piggy-tailed imp from earlier is in a tree branch overhead, smirking down at you and slowly clapping for you.
"A rousing speech!" the imp says before laughing uproariously at you all, its voice high-pitched and grating. The miniature demon rocks back and forth on the tree branch, clutching its belly in laughter and pointing down at you with one finger. "I wonder how you'll do it, barkface? Gonna grow some roots awhile and think on it?" the imp blows a raspberry at Halvar, chuckling spitefully.
"Actually, I could probably bond with you as well... in theory. If I can consistently channel well, you could be mostly indestructible," she says, ignoring the imp. Haters gonna hate. "I couldn't pull in another ally though. But... it could also backfire. I'm not sure how it would backfire if I had you specifically in mind."
Athena would move off while the others spoke, if the river provided clarity it would surely be something they needed.
"Come down here and see how he is going to do it!" Svog tells angrily at the imp, showing his shark teeth and stringly squeezing the grip of his sword.
Athena, you sneak off during the discussion while people are looking elsewhere, Batman-style. The catch becomes clear when you reach the river - there's an enormous feline-looking animal with its back to you drinking from the river, on your side. It hasn't noticed you yet...what do you do?
Halvar is nodding along as Mazatl thinks aloud, but his attention is clearly being divided by the imp. You can tell he's trying to focus on you and what you're saying, but the imp's taunting is bothering him, it's clear. Svog openly challenges him, grasping his sword.
The imp grins at Svog Kos. "Nice teeth, elfy boy," he smirks, offering the bard a mocking salute with two fingers to his brow that he flicks away like he's flicking sweat. "I have to say, you four are the funniest travelers I've seen pass through the portal from the Material Plane in over a thousand years! I bet you're dying to find a way back home, aren't you? What if I could help you with that?" The imp leans against the trunk of the tree he's standing in, elongating his tail and whipping it around in a lazy circle next to him with one hand.
Athena had no reason to bother the creature so she would sneak past and take a drink for herself.
"I have to say, you four are the funniest travelers I've seen pass through the portal from the Material Plane in over a thousand years! I bet you're dying to find a way back home, aren't you? What if I could help you with that?" The imp leans against the trunk of the tree he's standing in, elongating his tail and whipping it around in a lazy circle next to him with one hand.
"Why should we believe you'd help us? You were mean mean to Svog before, and we've heard you're mean all the time."
Svog agrees with Aifric.
Mazatl continues to ignore the creature, letting her allies deal with it in whatever way they decide is proper. She's pretty certain that her complete lack of interest in it is the thing that would bother it most, after all.
The imp rests his chin on his fist and pouts, sticking out his lower lip comically far. "You think I'm mean? Ohhh, I've been misjudged! Simple monkey," he says, and here he wraps his piggy-tail around the branch he's sitting on and hangs below the branch from it - "I'm over seven centuries old. I need to ruffle some feathers to amuse myself. All these elementals and mushroom-folk and rengrahs, so boring, so predictable! That's why we come here, to shake things up and make it interesting for them again. Can you believe that without intervention, these losers," he gestures at Halvar, "will sit around all day in the sunshine doing nothing? They might as well be dead already! My folk and I like to make sure things stay interesting." upside-down now, he smirks at you, about 3 feet overhead.
He whirls around the tree branch on his tail a few cycles, and releases his grip on the top of his whirl, flying through the air and landing daintily on top of one of Mazatl's antlers. His magic keeps him weightless, so you don't notice immediately, Mazatl. "But regardless of what you think of me or my kind, I don't see this overgrown bark-face offering you much help. What have you got to lose, eh?"
Athena, your movement goes unnoticed even by the sharpest of observers. Creeping through the grass is second nature to you, and you reach the Elfwine river without being seen. You glance over at the big feline again when you are closer to the water. To your astonishment, the creature, though its body and neck is that of a lion, has the face of a severe-looking woman. As you stare, the woman looks in your direction, and you have to duck down to avoid being seen. When you chance to look again, the feline creature is wading into the river, crossing to the other side fearlessly.
You drink from the river. The water is cold, so cold as to be shocking to your system. It seems to freeze your tongue briefly as it passes over it.
When you finish drinking even a mere handful of the Elfwine, you feel its effects immediately. You feel at ease, hale, more healthy than you've felt in a long time. You feel as if you could run a triathlon or read a novel of War and Peace-like proportions in an afternoon. Choose one general action - when you attempt that action, roll 3d6 instead of 2d6 and take the more favorable result.
Mazatl does her level best to pretend that he's not there and show absolutely no sign that she cares. Perhaps it was more a contest of will... but that was effectively the same thing for the half-elven were-deer. It simply was a thing she did rather often.
"Do you know of anyone who has ever left this place other than via summons?" she asked Halwyr.
"Get off her!" Aifric shouts. "Mazatl, look out! He's landing on your head!" He sweeps at the imp sideways with his spear, not to stab it but to push it off Mazatl.
As Aifric says for Mazatl to look out, she actually does react, attempting to tumble forward towards Halwyr... but only because she's fairly certain that the thing must be doing something that she didn't spot.
The imp, unruffled by Aifric's spear-sweeping, merely steps onto the spear's blade instead. From his new vantage point, he sneers a cruel smile at Mazatl. "You're no fun at all, you know. I completely overestimated your intelligence, charisma, and general attitude altogether. I can't see having any sort of fun with you as-is."
Hopping off of Aifric's spear, the imp begins walking back and forth, pacing in midair for a moment. He stops, his expression brightening. "You aren't fun yet..." he laughs happily, clearly pleased with his idea. "...but you will be."
He continues laughing as he disappears, like the Cheshire Cat. Halvar shakes his leafy head in disgust. "Infernal powers are wasted on trivial creatures such as those," he said, motioning to the forest in the direction of the river's flow. "Come. I will call a Gathering to find out what to do to find you help and get you back home. It's only a day's walk."
Their scout having gone silent, and them now being lead, Mazatl simply changes roles to Scout, keeping a lookout for any danger they may run into. She won't leave before Athena... where did she disappear to this time..? Returns, however.
Aifric is very frugal with the party's rations, when they get going.
"We can't leave without Athena..." Svog looks arounds for her.
Athena goes to rejoin the group but wouldn't tell them about the lake unless she could do so without the Imp hearing and even then would mention she suspected drinking too much would be risky.
Athena: you feel a sense of inner peace settle upon you as you finish drinking. Quietly, you rise from the bank of the stream and wipe your mouth, keeping low as you move to rejoin your friends. As you leave, you catch the feline creature's head moving in your direction...but you were moving so quietly and quickly, there's no way it saw you. Right?
Just as Svog is saying "We can't leave without..." is when you rejoin them, taking the bard slightly by surprise.
"Everyone here? Then let's proceed," Halvar comments, and the living tree begins walking off toward the south.
Your journey through the Undying Lands takes you through a forest that resembles many of the forests north of Magna Gracia. You may even recognize certain species from your world. Halvar leads you over dale and under root, over stream and under strange flowers that bloom overhead in displays of brilliant kaleidoscopic color.
As you journey, you notice that Halvar is stopping every so often to sniff at the wind. Sometimes the sniffing leads to nothing...when this happens, he snorts in satisfaction and continues on without a word. He turns to you, Mazatl, as you walk. "Tell me of your home, strangers. I do not travel far beyond the safeties of Halvar Delving, and I have never met a mortal before." the tree lowers his voice, as if asking an awkward question. "Where are your friends' antlers, if you aren't offended by my asking. You have such a majestic pair yourself."
Still patently ignoring the imp, Mazatl smiles to Halvar. "Where we're from, our people have been merged with beasts of all shapes and purposes. While many are carnivorous... I'm an herbivore. Most of my friends utilize their arms or teeth to defend themselves... mine's a little more obvious." she smiles, "Each of us has a tell that helps to define what we are. In my case, it's a bit more obvious than most... but if you take a look at Aifric's roots, you'll see his as well. I'm still not certain as to why a female deer even has antlers... but I do. Back where we're from... there are many like us who have become Feral, giving into their beast... as a direct result, we live within pockets of civilization, cut off from one another. Our people just began to speak with another nation's envoys by ship. Their Envoys are... converting our people, as best as I can tell. I'm... not much of a leader much of the time, so I'm just kind of trying to follow along. It's... a lot less vibrant, that is for certain. And there are many, many rules. I'm not certain if you have many of those."
"My roots? I don't have any roots.... Ohhhhhh. I get it." I flex one prehensile foot. "I can grab ahold of anything with these."
Halvar gazes upon Aifric's feet with a curiosity bordering on wonder. "I have heard tales of distant lands with tree-friends that have feet like those. You have flexible roots indeed..." the branches that form Halvar's fingers cover his open mouth for a moment, before turning his attention back to Mazatl.
"Rules we have little use for - all life abides here in a space set aside for it by the Goddess. When there is need for a community's decision, a Gathering is called, to reach consensus." the tree's voice rumbles in a deep baritone as you walk with him through the massive, sprawling forests of the Plane of Life.
With the threat of the planewalker imp fresh in all of your minds, your senses are on high alert, and you're able to navigate many of the mundane dangers of the forest with little difficulty. Your journey with him takes two rations ordinarily; however, Aifric was able to find some broad-leaved plants along your way that bore heavy, sweet fruit that saved you from having to consume one. Mark off 1 ration.
It's approaching dusk the following day; you may sidebar anything else you wanted to do/say during the journey, but your good rolls mean you weren't ambushed or lost along the way to the Gathering point.
You stand at the crest of a cliff that overlooks the Elfwine river that has been following your path throughout. The river is at its delta below, opening into a vast ocean beyond. You can see whales of incalculable size blowing massive plumes of sea foam hundreds of yards in the air in the water.
Halvar gestures at the delta below. "Here is where we must part company." he sighs.
"Wait, what?" Mazatl asked, antlers askew. "Why are we being dropped off at the edge of an ocean hundreds of feet below us? I feel as though there is something that you have not mentioned here."
"I thought we were going to a Gathering?" Svog is confused, he goes ahead and touches the water to see how it feels,
"Is it underwater?"
Sorry guys...I had plans, they just felt so weak. :( See the discussion page.