"You worry too much, Willow!" Nuruk grumbled, grinning wide as her curse pulled at him. His actions didn't reflect that thought as he grabbed the haft of his greataxe and pulled it over his shoulder. With the weapon in both hands, the massive dragonborn would follow the parting of the trees to find the goblin covered in key.
"My apologies, Willow. I truly despise your curse. I do not like saying what I do not mean." Nuruk mutters, putting the heavy weapon onto his shoulder like a lumberjack would before using his free hand to gently rub her back.
"I know most of you are quite sneaky. When we get closer, I'll be the distraction we need. Let them test their might and will against mine...and if they're strong...shoot them in the back?" The last was said with a cheeky grin as he hurried along the revealed path.
Khalil arches an eyebrow at the mention of the harengon. Then furrows it into a frown. "It could be the burrowing Jingle Jangle is under the malevolent influence of a magical sleep." The druid contemplates. "I only hope waking them will not require yet another quest across the swamp." He adds hurrying after Nuruk and muttering a simple incantation over his trusty staff to make it a bit more effective should the need arise.
"It's fine," Willow replies flatly, schooling her face into neutrality and flicking her tail back and forth with mild agitation. "I'm used to it. I know you guys don't mean it." Despite her obvious upset over the curse being triggered, she does relax just slightly at Nuruk's comforting touch.
"I can make a copy of myself as a distraction," Willow says after a moment, looking thoughtful. "I haven't had the chance to try that out anywhere where it would be helpful."
She nods to Khalil, snorting a little bit at the comment about the possibility of another trek across the swamp. "I'll say a prayer to The Dreamwalker that we avoid it."
While Willow may not have been keen on Karley's outlandish schemes, she still loves her friend dearly. She starts a tad at the metallic clattering and, seeing her friend's predicament, makes her way over to and offers her hand to the halfling to help her up. "You alright, Karley? Need me to carry anything for you?"
Vashrin glances in the direction of Karley and winces when the halfling slips, landing face-first in the dirt.
He's about to go to the halfling and help when Willow beats him to the punch.
The half-elf shakes his head rapidly in some sort of an attempt to clear the distractions and regain his focus on the task at hand.
Drawing his rapier, he readies himself for what he assumes will end up an aggressive confrontation.
Khalil stumbles as the sound of the pasta drainer clattering among the stones. The start is nearly enough to send him tumbling backward and halfway down the hill. Fortunately he's just able to anchor his staff and catch himself just in time.
He starts to open his mouth to question the halfling's packing skills, only to recall his own not so distant encounters with a certain heavy set Waterdhavian noblewoman, mud puddles and beverage tray. He decides instead, to keep his peace and simply keep climbing. For unexpected misfortune can certainly strike any of us at any time.
Willow watches her friend with brows furrowed in concern, especially when the halfling's blade buries into the living hill's presumed flesh. "Be careful, Karley. This hill appears to be alive."
Telemy Hill, fortunately, does not see to notice the little stab wound.
As you all reach the entrance to Jingle Jangle's abode, the keyhole-shaped cave opening atop the hill, you peer within. Worn stone steps lead down into what feels like a cellar. Chilly air wafts out, and you detect a subtle scent of iron in the air.
From a distant spot within the chamber, sputtering candles illuminate a multitude of keys dangling from hook on the walls in an organized fashion, though a number seem to be missing. Hundreds of other keys lie strewn across the dirt ground. You see a dark hole in the middle of the room's floor, and near it, a harengon sifts through a pile of the keys as though seeking a particular one.
Willow creeps forward, trying to stay quiet and see what's happening. She frowns a little bit, unable to see much beyond the harengon digging through keys, and glances behind her at the rest of the crew. "I see one...digging through a pile of keys. Nuruk...you going to try to talk to this one?"
Nuruk gives a small nod before sheathing his axe on his back, though he keeps a grip on it nonetheless. The hulking man begins to go down the worn steps, trying his very best to be quiet.
It was a decent effort and the paladin doesn't knock anything immediately over as he clears his throat. From where the harengon was searching, he would see the broad form of the dragonborn taking up most of the room.
"Why, hello there little fella." The deep, rich voice of the paladin resonate as his red eyes flickered in the dimly lit room. "Seems like you have a lot of keys there. Probably would help if Jingle Jangle was here. Where are they...and the rest of your friends?"
The paladin maintains a polite demeanor even as his muscular frame moves underneath his armor. He waited to see what the furry person would do next. "Now don't do anything foolish. Let's talk."
The harengon opens it's jaw unnaturally widely, emitting a horrifying screech that should not come from an intelligent humanoid, and it moves to leap down through the hole in the floor, seemingly unconvinced by Nuruk's golden tongue.
With an almost uncomfortable speed, Nuruk rushes forward to towards the creature. Not to strike it down but to slam his form against it, knocking back away from the hole where it sought to escape to. There was a wrongness to it, something strange and terrible, but fear took a back place to duty as he lowered his shoulder and sought to slam into it hard.
As soon as Willow sees Nuruk rush forward, she motions for the group to follow her down and she darts down after, drawing her mace and shield in anticipation of a fight.
As soon as Willow sees Nuruk tackling the creature, marking it as an obvious threat, she will shoot off a Guiding Bolt at it.
The harengon thing is shoved away by Nuruk's bull rush. It's visage seems to melt away and shift, and it assumes a new form -- a vaguely humanoid-shaped pile of the little frog-eyed creatures that had swarmed over Nuruk and Willow at the carnival when they were children. As one, they looked at the dragonborn and reached for him...
In the same instant, Willow's guiding bolt struck it, blasting the pile apart. It was not creepy frog things, however, that scatted across the floor. The bodies seemed to dissolve into the stuff of fear itself -- centipedes, spiders, formless shawdows, and an eerie laughter, all of which faded from existence a moment later. All went quiet in the cave, the conflict over in an instant.
The harengon shifts form and transforms into a terrible sight, dozens of the little frogmen that had stolen his voice. Nuruk's eyes widened for a moment, his chest tightening as those grubby, wet, strange hands reached for him.
A bolt of light crashed down from behind him, slamming into the minions and scattering them apart. Whatever it was, it fell apart into an assortment of spiders, centipedes, and other little horrors that dissipated from reality a moment later. Nuruk's eyes scanned the room frantically for more of them, more of it, until he remembers to breathe.
"I-I-I think its safe." The paladin says with a tremble in his voice, his hand reaching back up to comfortingly hold tightly onto the haft of his greataxe again.
Willow rubs her hands together after the glowing bolt crashes into the creature, her heart pounding from the brief glimpse of the little lornlings that had stolen precious treasures from her and Nuruk so long ago. The tiefling walks over to Nuruk tentatively, her face drawn in fear, and stares at the spot where the creature was.
"It's gone. They weren't real. We're safe." She breathes, almost a chant, trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure the golden dragonborn. "It's safe," She repeats, hugging her arms tightly across her chest and rocking back on her heels. "They weren't real. It's gone."
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Nuruk jerks for a moment, breathing in as Willow's words fill his ears rather than the rapid beat of his pulse. His body tenses for just a moment as he looks over at her. She holds herself tightly and a hand gently reaches out. There was the urge to pull her close, to use his strength gently to hold her and assure her that she was right. Amidst the keys and dim lights though, the moment was wrong.
His hand reached her shoulder, a large scaled paw that gripped delicately along a graceful shoulder. His smile, albeit weak, was sincere as he nodded.
"They weren't real. We're safe. We have strength, magic, and courage on our side. We can beat them."
"This time." Nuruk silently added. They were no longer children, easy prey for heartless hags to feast upon. They were the consequences of their predation and they were coming to ruin all they had wrought.
F$!@ing classic player-characters.
"Yes," Willow replies, a little louder, her tone a bit more confident. She nods once, sharply, and places a hand over his on her shoulder for a moment. It was easier, dealing with facing these fears in the presence of friends. She lets her hand drop after a moment and looks back at the rest of the group who (presumably) were following down the stairs and gestures for them to come over and investigate the large hole in the ground with them.
"I'm sure there's more down there. I hope Jingle Jangle is safe," Willow says, concern creeping into her voice. She peers over the edge of the hole and looks within to see what awaited them below.
Nuruk nods, biting his lip hard enough to nearly make it bleed to prevent Willow's curse from affecting him. He looks down into the deep, dark hole and squints.
"Looks kind of clear to me." He rumbles, looking at the others. "Someone grab a torch from my pack, we'll drop it in."
Vashrin, seemingly finally snapping out of whatever had been distracting him during the journey to the living hill, walks over to the hole and looks in.
Reaching out with a mage hand, Vash grabs the dropped torch and raises it a bit off of the floor of the pit to help prevent the torch from guttering out.
"Good thinking!" Willow whispers to both Vash and Karley.
Willow's hand reaches out and rests gently, but firmly, on the halfling's arm. "I don't think that's a wise idea," she says, eyebrows raised meaningfully.
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Reacting slowly to the illusionary harengon, or whatever the thing happened to be. Khalil takes a few moments to inspect the rest of the cavern before peering over the edge of the well with the others.
Vash's keen elven eyes pierce the darkness below. It looks as though someone has carved out a labyrinth of tunnels below the room in which you now stand. It's only a ten foot drop down through the hole, but Vash can see a tunnel that goes in both directions, forking into two branches one way.
Karley investigates the keys long enough to realize it will take years to try them all on Sir Talavar's little cage. Some are obvious misfits -- Karley's favorite being what appeared to be a key the size of a sword, with a handle for gripping it. There are large ones, small ones, intricate ones, some that have a simple rectangle sticking off the end, keys made of tarnished brass and silver and one of ice that is slippery but doesn't seem to melt away. Thousands of keys. Hundreds of thousands.
A scream issues forth from the hole in the floor-- one that sounds vaguely feminine, and fraught with terror. "Noooooo! Please, stop!"
"Sounds like someone needs our help." Vash says, beginning to lower himself into the hole. "Shall we?"
Once down, Vash listens carefully, trying to determine the direction from which the pleading is coming from.
Willow drops down after Vashrin, stepping out of the way of the opening as soon and she does, and looks around to do the same as Vash.
Nuruk had finished tying up the rope that Karley had set up, making sure it was snug and secure. He was heavy and loud and it would be best for him to travel down lest after his companions. He turned and suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light and the halfling was gone entirely, a dusty cloud in her place.
The dragonborn and the cloud dog shared a look together before he looked to the others, clearing his throat. "Anyone...see where she went?"
Upon hearing the scream from below, Khalil immediately loses interest in all else and hurries after Vash and Willow. Once down the well, him joins Vashrin in trying to determine the direction of the pleas, twisting his head back and forth to try and decipher bouncing echoes from actual calls for help.
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With the light brought down into the cellars with you, sharp, flickering shadows are cast by the walls, which are covered in black moss, and one thing becomes clear. A goblin, presumably Jingle Jangle, is strapped onto a chair, some sort of apparatus on her head. It looks like they used bent keyrings to bind her in place. All around her, harengon are busy torturing keys. Biting them, bending them, twisting them, melting them -- Jingle Jangle cries out again as the nearest harengon files down the teeth on another of the goblin's keys, and the anguish in her voice is what you might expect from a mother seeing her child harmed.
Several of the harengon look at you, and you can tell that something about them is wrong, like with the one above.
Willow darts forward into the fray, stopping short of surrounding herself with the harengon. She closes her eyes for a moment, grasping her crow's foot pendant. Her body glows a soft pink and purple swirl and a perfect duplicate of herself steps sideways out of her body, immediately mimicking her stance. The Willows look at each other, then, both move forward again to stand on either side of one of the harengon near Jingle Jangle, both snarling at the creature angrily.
For a moment, Willow is nervous--the one on the upper level turned into lornlings. If these ones do too...Can't let my friends down. Can't let this get to me. Willow mutters a soft prayer to the Dreamwalker to lend her and Nuruk the mental strength to face these creatures should the worst happen.
As an action, you create a perfect illusion of yourself that lasts for 1 minute, or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). The illusion appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within 30 feet of you. As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the illusion up to 30 feet to a space you can see, but it must remain within 120 feet of you.
For the duration, you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion’s space, but you must use your own senses. Additionally, when both you and your illusion are within 5 feet of a creature that can see the illusion, you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature, given how distracting the illusion is to the target.
Vashrin rushes in along side Willow, pulling his rapier along the way.
Finding himself next to one of the offending rabbitfolk, he stabs at the creature, but unfortunately it hops to the side just before the strike would land.
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Anger burning bright as starlight rushes through Khalil upon seeing the harengon tormenting the poor goblin with the destruction of what are quite obviously something very precious to her. These rabbitfolk were more than bullies, if the one they encountered above was of a similar vein, they were also another evil arcane manifestation of the hags. At least that was the druid's current opinion of the creatures.
The druid's desire to aide the little goblin courses through his body. And he hurries down the tunnel in the wake of Vashrin and Willow, something begins to happen. His body begins to glow, or rather different points upon his body begin to glow light bright stars upon a clear night sky. The crown of his head, his heart, the center of his stomach, wrists, ankles, elbows and knees. A half dozen more points emerge around his hands. The tips and arc of a bow, arrow at the ready. Dim, misty lines of pale, aetherial blue link each glowing point of body and weapon as a scholar sketches the constellations to a group of students.
The radiant light adds to that of the torch light in the cavern. For a moment Khalil is taken completely by surprise at his sudden transformation. Certainly he has always felt an affinity with the celestial skies, but never before has he called upon their power in such a way. But even as he hesitates, something within him boils to the surface, guiding his hands and his aim. Showing him the potency and power hidden within this newfound connection with the great beyond. In a single motion, the aetherial archer draws and fires a arrow of pure starlight at the same harengon called out by Vashrin. The arrow flies true and bursts upon the rabbitkin in a flash of brilliant light.
Willow drops into the tunnels, seeing more of the rabbit things as she charges the first one she noticed near Jingle Jangle. A copy of herself surrounds the harengon, and she moves into position to attack.
Vash rushes in and swipes at Willow's target, and he swears the strike should have hit, but it passed through the rabbit-thing's body as though it were an illusion.
Suddenly, the tunnel sparkles as starlight reflects off the myriad crystal facets in the rocky walls as Khalil harnesses the night and the constellation of the hunter. His arrow flies true, skewering the harengon...which ceases to be a harengon in that moment. Instead, standing in its place, is an insectoid-looking creature with pincers for hands, its alien eyes glaring at the lot of you for interrupting.
Sammy leaps down next and hurtles a dagger towards the creature in the same instant, the blade missing as the harengon's body disappears to be replaced with its true form.
Khalil notices from down the right hallway, one of the harengons transforms -- into a face that he can recall upon seeing it. His father.
The image is pulled from the locked up subconscious part of his mind. He still can't summon an actual memory of his father, but seeing the man's face on this creature he knows it to be him.
From the left hall, Sammy sees the little pig-faced ghoul girl shambling towards him.
Vash sees the harengon in the nook beside him turn into his sister...dead, as she always is, but no mere reflection. Her clouded eyes turn upon him.
One approaches Willow, appearing once more as the horrid little lornlings.
Each of them takes a strike at each of you. Willow manages to dodge the sudden appendage of lornlings that reaches for her, but Celeste claws at Vash with long, sharp fingernails. Sowpig rushes up to bite Sammy's arm, and Khalil's father, with a look of hatred on his face, swings a meaty fist to deck the druid solidly in the face.
The creature between the Willows lashes out at one of them... It's claws pass harmlessly through fake Willow.
One of the other two harengon creatures, near Jingle Jangle, sees this and runs towards the real Willow. As it moves its appearance changes -- it becomes Nuruk, only with a derisive, mocking expression on his face that the real Nuruk would never direct at her. It's as though her curse is distilled into the image, her feelings being dismissed and ridiculed without a word being spoken. Then a taloned dragonborn claw swipes at her and connects, tearing parallel scratches down her arm.
The final harengon remains in rabbit form, already content to torment the terrified goblin in the seat before it.