As Conor goes in with the intent of taking his time and not causing harm he finds that the underbrush reveals a path that he can follow without retaliation from thorny plants. Any time he thinks about straying from the garden path, the brush reprimands him with a prick or scratch.
The Urban druid looks on as Jek and Conor both channel their inner freaking foliage druids!
The Patryn takes another puff before following.
Nice plants and leaves. Don't mind us; just passing through to get some bad guys.
"Good bushes, I promise not to bring any more shamblers through here... niiiice bushes..." Nik says as he follows along slowly and nervously.
Rinika smiles as her friends find they can pass into the underbrush without harm. "Hey, they listened! I'll do rearguard." She waits for the rest of the group to venture in before she does so herself.
Conor slowly backs out after entering the foliage.
"Woah! I can't believe that worked. Looks like if we follow the path we'll be fine, plants didn't like me leaving the tail too much. I guess onward then."
He suits action to words and heads back into the bushes.
"I'm still confused about the tower, but at least it didn't trample these guys. What do you think they'd say if they could talk?"
"'Don't f!~@ with us.'" Nik says, maximally honestly.
"Hopefully I can make a believable apology if we run into one of the Norns. Better yet, maybe we just catch those lizard guys and we don't find even more trouble..." Nik trails off, watching the bushes to make sure he stays on the path.
After you’ve trudged through the briar-filled forest for quite some time, you notice that the trees have grown significantly larger. Branches reach up over a hundred feet into the sky, and trunks swell to over 10 feet across. In fact, the path you’re following leads right up to a fallen tree of enormous size half buried in the earth. The trail seems to climb right up the slope of the trunk.
Climbing up onto the trunk and continuing to follow the khaasta’s trail, you soon find that
the tree disappears into a wide, round, colored portal. Trying to peer around the portal reveals that the tree disappears into the portal with nothing on the other side. Arkynn confirms that the tracks left by the khaasta lead directly into the portal.
Both Nik and Rinika suspects that they have found a branch or root of the World Ash, Yggdrasil. They know that the portal is always open and requires no key or to be contained within a bounded space, unlike the portals found in Sigil.
Nik pauses to pull out his heavy crossbow and wand of Minor Image.
"Should we go in with weapons drawn or... something friendlier?"
Conor flashes his most friendly smile behind his helmet and chuckles.
"I'm always friendly, even if I happen to be holding my blade." more seriously, "Around here it seems good sense to be ready for anything, anywhere."
The young druid just shrugs his shoulders.
We camp, or we jump in?
Nik puts the wand away and cranks his crossbow string back. Placing the bolt in the groove he says "I can always pull the wand out later. Jek, maybe be ready to drop that tied up corpse we forgot to heal. I can turn him into reinforcements..."
Jek starts to feel ill. Oh no... Am I a monster? He quickly opens up his bag and withdraws the bound captive somehow hoping they might still be alive but knowing deep down that they weren't.
"Well this is a bit awkward..."
Nik shrugs.
"He can double as our alibi, we can say we found him like that."
Conor groans a bit at Jek and Nik's antics but refrains from comment, happy to have another shambler if the portal leads somewhere exciting.
"Camp or jump, I'm ok either way." the mercenary responds to the druid.
Akrynn continuously turns his head from Nik and back to Jek with an expression of what the f*~+!
Rinika shrugs and rubs at her sleeves. "I wouldn't mind camping, but I can keep going if we have to."
"If we're going to camp, let's get a little ways from the portal first."
Jek shrugs at Akrynn. "You forgot too, right? It's like that old saying 'when everyone's to blame, no one is.' Is that how it went? I guess it doesn't matter. Let's not tell anyone."
Conor takes stock of himself, then laughs.
"Ah, I feel fine. I say we push on. Never got paid standing around doing noyhkng, though I hear guard work is awful boring."
The next day and through the portal with a “fresh” shambler
You emerge on the other side of the portal, you find yourself not standing on a fallen tree but on a giant branch of an unimaginably huge tree. Behind you is the colored portal that leads back to the Outlands. As you walk the branch grows larger, becoming well over 500 yards in width. All around you branches and leaves blot out the sky, occasionally you spy a clear blue sky but never see a sun or other source of daylight. Though the air is warm, a chill and gentle breeze blows through the branches. You find that the branch exerts its own gravity and you are able to walk all the way around it without falling off, this causes a moment of disorientation as gravity shifts when two branches meet.
"That's right, Conor. Guard duty is boring. The dustmen rent out shamblers for it sometimes when the guards don't have to be very discerning. I now that we're past the bushes, I should make Zombington the third..."
After stepping through the portal and feeling a lurch in his stomach at the long distance below, Nik looks around with wonder. "Yggdrasil..."
He tries to stay in the middle of the branch as they venture trunk-ward until noticing that his shambler seems to walk at more of an angle than usual. Eventually he cautiously does a lap around the bottom of the branch.
"Well. At least Zombington won't fall off." He says, still rather uncomfortable with the gravity here.
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Akrynn looks as if camping and relaxing and gathering druidic herbs while Nik patches and stitches is fine.
Rinika rests up during the downtime, she's okay with waiting around the extra time for Nik to do his ritual.
Once they're through the portal, she seems to brighten up a bit as she looks around, blinking lazily. "It's so shady here, I could get used to this. Might be hard to pick up a trail though."
As she looks around, she tries to determine if anything in the area seems out of place.
The druid steps through the Portal with a resigned sigh.
One of these times; bam! Walking right into a Witch's Candy House!
Appearing on the huge tree branch, the druid smirks.
Conor sits around with the group while they rest, joking and being generally jovial, taking extra watches at night if needed since he was in good shape after the fall, magic and only a little rest.
Conor looks around the giant branch in awe, this being the most astounding thing he had seen in his life. His jaw fully drops at Nik's circuit around the tree.
"I, you, we. Shouldn't you have fallen? Never thought I'd be excited to get back to normal in Sigil."
After some hesitation, he makes a loop himself, a bit tentatively at first, but ending with a broad grin on his face.
Two shamblers in tow, Nik is extra careful to guide them safely around areas where two boughs fork.
Supernatural Abilities
. 7/7 Power Over Undead (30' burst; DC 16 will)
. (1 at a time) Corpse Companion
Spell-like Abilities
. 7/7 Bolster (Undead) (+1 profane on attacks and saves; 1 temp hp/HD; +2 turn resistance; 2 round duration)
. 1/1 Pyrotechnics (DC 14)
Spells Prepared:
. 2nd (3+1/day) Command Undead (DC 16) (S), Flaming Sphere (DC 16), Glitterdust (DC 16), Levitate
. 1st (4+1/day) Repair Undead (S), Enlarge Person, Grease (DC 15), Infernal Healing [x2]
. cantrips (at will) Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Prestidigitation, Read Magic
Jek stares wide-eyed in amazement as he walks with the group along the branch. He nervously follows after Nik as he walks around the underside. After gaining some confidence, he runs around it a few times.
"I'm afraid to try jumping."
Jek takes out a copper coin and proceeds to toss it higher and higher to see what will happen.
Eventually Jek finds the limit to the branch's gravity, thankfully higher than he can jump. The coin flies off into space eventually landing on another nearby branch.
After six hours of walking along the branches of the World Ash the party comes across a gigantic knot, similar in scope to a small canyon on any normal land. Arkynn notes that the trail descends downward, however just a bit further they see a town nestled between the trunk of Yggdrasil and where their current branch meet.
The druid traces a Guidance Rune. He then begins to look for an easier way down.
Rinika keeps an eye out as well.
Conor squints, "A town! Might be a good spot for a drink." then remembering the last town they passed, "or another mob testing itself apart over those thrice damned bottles."
He sighs.
"Still, probably needs to be checked. Maybe someone can tell us which way our lizard friends went."
"If the lizards didn't stop there, then I don't really want to either. Also I'm not sure how they'd feel about Zombington the 3rd and 4th over here." Nik indicates the bow wielding and polearm wielding shamblers following him closely with a jerk of his head.
"We're not in the outlands anymore and I'm not fond of bigots that chase shamblers" (or their masters) "out of towns."
Rinika spies an easier climb down.
Akrynn pats Rinika on the shoulder.
Going down?
"By the way, Jek, are you going to be okay on the climb down?" Nik asks, eyeing Jek's four hooves and wincing slightly as he is reminded of why they're on this tree in the first place.
Jek begins doffing his armor for the climb.
"It doesn't look too bad. Did anyone want to ride in my backpack? Zombington could go back in the barrel if needed."
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Conor looks a little green at the trail down while wearing his heavy armor. "Guess we are going down then." he gulps before gingerly making the climb down.
Rinika brushes Akrynn's hand off and says, "I dunno, are we? There's an easy route there." She points to a cleft in the wood that looks like it offers more handholds than the rest.
As the others make preparations for the climb, she shrugs off her armor and summons up her Cloak of Shadows for protection during the climb. "I'm not the best climber but I think I can make it down that."
Nik carefully unloads his crossbow, not wanting to somehow upset Yggdrasil or its residents of unknown temperament.
"Thanks Jek, the shamblers would be fine by themselves, but it'll be faster if you carry 'em."
After getting the shamblers to stow their weapons and hang on to Jek, Nik stretches and starts climbing down.
It takes about a half an hour to pick your way down the crater-like knot of the colossal tree. At the bottom is an opaque portal the only apparent way the khaasta could go.
Out of the frying pan...
Akrynn looks to the area for evidence that the asshats came this way.
The place looks heavily traveled Arkynn determines that a large amount of khaasta and giant lizards frequently use this portal. He notes that they only enter here, not exit.
...and into the Fire!
The druid enters.
Jek walks down the slope in a goat-like manner while using his arms for balance.
Once at the bottom he re-dons his armor and unloads the shambler.
"Into the fire? This better not be another portal to the fire plane... We could see through that portal though. Why can't we see through this one?"
Nik retrieves and reloads his crossbow.
"Probably because of pointy objects on the other side. Let's hope we have enough firepower."
Nik looks over his shoulder at Zombington III & IV. "Follow me, shamblers."
He reaches out to the one with the polarm to Bolster it and then steps through the portal after Akrynn.
before this post
Supernatural Abilities
. 7/7 Power Over Undead (30' burst; DC 16 will)
. (1 at a time) Corpse Companion
Spell-like Abilities
. 6/7 Bolster (Undead) (+1 profane on attacks and saves; 1 temp hp/HD; +2 turn resistance; 2 round duration)
. 1/1 Pyrotechnics (DC 14)
Spells Prepared:
. 2nd (3+1/day) Command Undead (DC 16) (S), Flaming Sphere (DC 16), Glitterdust (DC 16), Levitate
. 1st (4+1/day) Repair Undead (S), Enlarge Person, Grease (DC 15), Infernal Healing [x2]
. cantrips (at will) Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Prestidigitation, Read Magic
"Guys let's take a min--dammit." Rinika takes the time to put her armor on as well before heading through as quietly as possible.