Even as Siobhan starts to wonder how much further it is, Alorea's guidance proves to be good this time: the dense trees and thick brush of the forest give way, parting seemingly in respect for the titanic darkwood tree that dominates this clearing. Its towering trunk reaches over a hundred feet toward the sky, its broad branches fanning over the surrounding glade while thick tangles of roots spread out at the tree’s base. Large, densely-hung strands of elderwood moss drape down from the lower branches, almost bending the enormous boughs under their weight.
You don't have much time to ponder the view however since one branch seemingly comes to life and slithers towards you! A huge, sinuous snake-like creature (larger than even the largest moorsnake) with two small fore-limbs and a vast gaping mouth lined with sharp teeth. Alorea was leading the way, so she takes the brunt of its fury at having its lair disturbed by intruders. It grabs her in its jaws, shaking her like a terrier with a rat before dropping her to the ground.
Alorea cries out as the creature grabs her and thrashes her about. She gasps and presses her hand to the grievous wounds. Channeling her anger and fear, she manifests her thoughts into a spray of coruscating colors that wash over the thing, allowing her an opportunity to scramble back to safety.
"WhAt iN tHe HelLs iS tHaT?!?!? A dRaGoN?!?!?!" Lucia changes her tuen - literly - when it bites into Alorea, going from alarm to a WHOOP of something more alive, a note of defiance and nature and growth. Alorea feels her injuries starting to patch themselves up. Lucia then carefully moves to fight the createru, standing in front of Alorea so it can't atack her again. "You can't get to her unless you get through me!"
Happy to engage at a distance, Vyana nocks an arrow and whispers words of magic before firing.
Not wishing to harm his allies, Scupper forgoes any of his fiery bombs and instead sends a stone from his sling zipping toward the creature.
Dazzled 1 round
FFS
Dmg 15, Enfeebled 2 for 1 round
It's entirely possible that Alorea's spell is what saves Lucia's life: the creature flinches back as the rays of colour temporarily overload its senses; and in the aftermath it can't focus properly. Its jaws snap shut once, twice, on empty air - only on the third attempt does it connect with flesh and blood, leaving her torn and bloodied rather than dead or dying. Siobhan's powers intervene, depriving the blow of force and leaving the creature weakened - but it's not going to pass up the chance of warm food. It hisses with rage, and redoubles its efforts...
Seeing Lucia in trouble, Alorea taps into her emotions and unleashes the full power of her mind. Colors and flickers of feelings swirl around her. Alorea reaches out to telepathically reassure Lucia, bolstering her resolve. She then telekinetically lifts a sharpened branch and hurls it at the vicious creature!
Scupper tries again to hit the creature with his sling, but to little effect.
Lucia screams in pain as the monster bites her, the worst agony she's ever felt, a cry that says *help me* more clearly than any words. She casts a warding spel over herself.
HP 13/16
Foucs points 1/2
Effects: Inspire courage (everone), Hymn of healing (Aloriea)
Vyana follows up with another arrow targeted at exactly the same spot as before.
The tatzlwyrm rears back with a human-sounding shriek as Alorea's sharpened branch pierces its scales - this gives Vyana the opening she needs and she doesn't miss. The arrow pierces the creature's heart and it falls dead.
Lucia puts her sword away, it doesn't need to be cleaned as she didn't even use it this fight. She looks around at the others. "Alright, Von and I can heal everone. Vyana, can you harvest the stuff we need? Al the greenry looks the same to me. Then we can mvoe on"
Half an our or so later, everyone is healed and ready to head off again. "Right, so where are we going next?"
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Von nods her agreement to Lucia and sets to work on the bard since she's the most damaged and then takes a few minutes to refocus herself while Vyana works on harvesting what she needs.
"We did well." She says to no-one in particular before turning to the psychic. "Thank you for your help Alorea. We are all indebted to you."
After quickly retrieving what arrows are recoverable, Vyana sets to gathering the elderwood moss.
"Ulizmila's hut," Vyana says, answering Lucia's question. "I know where it's at, but we should stay outside if we have a choice."
Scupper stuffs a small pouch with several handfuls of the moss and then quietly follows after the others toward the hollow.
Alorea heaves a sigh of relief when the creature falls. The colors surrounding her fade away, and she puts a hand to her head as she works to collect herself. She nods to Siobhan. "You're welcome. My abilities have gotten me out of dangerous scrapes more times than I can count. I doubt I'd be standing here today without them."
"Looking for a missing friend," Alorea says, telling Siobhan about the ersatz dwarf Druingar Glintaxe. "But in the meantime, I'm trying to help out where I can."
Move, Bite, Knockdown
Vyana doesn't get lost, it's important up-front to say that. The route from the forest elder to the hag-haunted hollow is not marked on any map, but the ranger manages to find a trail. It's just that something else finds you first.
Despite the best efforts of Payday and the other bosses who work for the Lumber Consortium, rumours have been filtering back into town of attacks on the woodcutters by wolves. Some of the rumours (wolves that use traps, or walk and talk like humans) are obviously laughably false, but the creatures are said to be getting bolder in their attacks. A couple of hours into your journey, something has clearly picked up your scent and for another hour or so you are followed by a persistent pair of predators, whose howling (always just behind you, but always out of sight) sets the hairs on the back of your neck to prickling.
Wolves are of course cunning ambush predators, and when it comes their attack is swift and sudden - and not from behind you. Vyana, who has been leading the way, is taken down first, the half-elf is savagely bitten in an attack that opens up her jugular and knocks her down in a spray of red blood. Alorea, distracted by that, is easy prey for the second wolf which bites her hamstring and sends her sprawling to the ground.
The attack was sudden enough that Vyana didn't get a chance to shout a warning, much less raise her bow. Just teeth, blood, and pain.
Then Von was shouting her name and her mouth was filled with the coppery taste of blood. Having dropped her bow when she fell, Vyana draws her rapier as she stumbles to her feet.
She then stabs at the nearest wolf.
Alorea shrieks as once more, she is tossed around like a doll. She gets to her feet and backs away from the wolves, raising a psychic shield of force to protect herself.
At the first sign of the voracious canines, Scupper quickly grabs several of his most volatile ingredients from various containers and mixes them together in a small round jar. Once he applies the final ingredient, the mixture begins to fizzle and bubble. He waits another second and then tosses the fragile globe at the second wolf. The projectile flies true, crashing against the creatures head. Although not initially as potent as the goblin may have hoped, the poison does creep into the wolf's system where it soon begins its corrosive work.
Quci, sudden, fur and fang and screams and a call to action. Lucia doesn't even think as she runs froward to help Vyana, her sword a blur ast it stabs over and over into the wolf.
"Bad! Doggy! Bad!"
Wolf 1 -5, 4 persistent poison
Move, Bite Scupper, Knockdown
Wolf 2 -17
Bite Siobhan, Knockdown, Bite Lucia
WTF
The wolves do not react well to being hurt. The wolf that Scupper poisoned runs at him, knocking the goblin down and tearing into him with an almost rabid fury. The other wolf does its best to tear Siobhan and Lucia to pieces, knocking the paladin off her feet as it does so.
Alorea telekinetically hurls a rock at the wolf attacking Scupper. She raises another shield, this time in front of the goblin.
Vyana moves near Siobhan and after intoning the words to a spell, stabs at the nearest wolf.
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Having seen what the wolves can do Siobhan is taking her defense seriously and it pays off, keeping her shield between her and the jaws that get dangerously close to her throat!
With a heave the paladin stands and lashes out once more at the wolf that is currently facing down all three girls, and winning...
Lucia flinches when the wolf bites her but bites back with words. "That the best you can do? I've been biten by a REAL monster already today!" Her defiance gives courage to her freinds. She then attackes the wolf fiercly.
Hero Point
Hero Point
HP 9/16
2 Focus points
Curent efects: Inspire courage
Cantrips Ghost sound, Lihgt, Mage Hand, Summon Instrument, Sheild
Spells 2/day (magic weapn, soothe, true strike)
Lucia manages to kill the wolf before it can flee - it was already wounded by Vyana's spell and its body slides off the blade of her sword to the ground. The other wolf howls in rage and grief, clearly intent on rending you all...
Suddenly discovering most of his insides rushing to the outside, Scupper does his best to scuttle away from the wolf. While backpedaling his assembles another alchemical concoction and tosses in toward the beast. Unfortunately, slipping upon his own blood causes the goblins aim to go awry. The fire bomb explodes harmlessly in the woods.
The sparks from Scupper's misfiring bomb singe the wolf's fur; it gives a startled yelp that turns into a whine as Alorea's rock hits it from out of nowhere.
Still poisoned, outnumbered and with the element of surprise well and truly lost, it turns tail and flees!
It takes almost an hour for Lucia and Siobhan to patch up everyone's injuries but eventually you are all healed and ready to continue.
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Siobhan spends a lot of time praying to replenish her magical powers but even in the midst of that normally reassuring activity her eyes keep sliding to Vyana and the image of her lying bleeding on the ground.
It's not a nice memory.
"Everyone ok?" She asks once all the injuries are fixed up. "I think we should push on as much as we can. We don't have any time to waste and the less time we're in the woods the better for all of us!"
"Thanks, Von. That was a bit of ugliness," Vyana says in a voice that sounds like it's been drawn over heavy gravel. She puts her hand to her neck and the recently healed injury there. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to clear her throat, she shakes her head in annoyance.
"Well there goes my singing voice," she says.
Moving closer to the young woman, she puts a hand on her shoulder. "Really. Thanks. It was completely careless of me not to notice the wolves before they attacked. That's not the sort of mistake you can make out here." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry that you and the others had to bear the brunt of my failure."
Alorea grimaces as the healers work on the group. She looks down at her torn and tattered clothes and sighs, wishing she had brought a few extra outfits with her.
"Let's keep going. The sooner we finish up here, the better," the halfling agrees.
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"Well there goes my singing voice," she says.
Moving closer to the young woman, she puts a hand on her shoulder. "Really. Thanks. It was completely careless of me not to notice the wolves before they attacked. That's not the sort of mistake you can make out here." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry that you and the others had to bear the brunt of my failure."
"You have lots of other talents." Siobhan replies, choosing not to mention the fact that singing had never been on of Vyana's skills. "And it's not your fault Vy. They caught us all by surprise. I'm just glad I was able to get to you in time. If I hadn't..."
She trails off and then grabs the other girl in a hug - her breastplate makes it less pleasant than usual but Siobhan at least seems to appreciate it.
"Don't you dare go dying on me, ok Vy? And not just because I wouldn't know how to get out of here without you..."
Once you are ready to get moving once again, it's a few more hours before you reach the hag-haunted hollow. The sounds of the forest become suddenly distant as the trees part, opening into a small, almost perfectly circular glade around 120 feet across. The nearest stands of pine, fir, and darkwood twist away from the clearing, as if bent by some impossibly strong wind or perhaps in an attempt to turn away from the clearing. At the glade’s center squats an ugly cottage, little more than a pile of twigs, shoots, and ivy stacked upon mud walls. From the thatched roof dangle bundles of gnarled roots, old animal bones, and knucklebone bangles, all clattering together like gruesome wind chimes. A dozen thatched fetishes — each around 3 feet tall, and shaped like a tiny person, imp, or rearing serpent — stand propped in the yard, keeping guard before a rickety plank door which can clearly be seen to have rotted off its hinges long ago; it now leans precariously against its frame.
What appears to be the remains of a recent campsite sit near the northern portion of the clearing. It was neatly put together but there are a few items strewn nearby, as if whoever camped there left in a hurry. One item in particular, catches the eye: a glittering brooch of elven make.
It seems highly unlikely he would have left it here deliberately.
Although there has been heavy rain in the last few days, you can clearly identify the prints of the attackers as kobolds. It's hard to tell numbers but it looks like there were half a dozen or so. The absence of blood on the ground indicates that they took their victim by surprise, with little to no fighting involved.
"You have lots of other talents." Siobhan replies, choosing not to mention the fact that singing had never been on of Vyana's skills.
Lucia catches Siobhan's gaze and gives a meaningful eye-roll.
Once they reach teh clearing, Lucia can't make any more of the scene thatn Siobhan, which is not a surprise as woodcraft isn't really her thing. "What was it we were looking for again? Some sort of pickled thing?" She heads towards the door of the cottage, noting it hangs of its hinges. She tries to see through the gap into the room on the other side.
Vyana is too distracted by the brooch to discern anything else about the campsite. Taking it from Siobhan's hand, she gives it a pained look before slipping it around her neck.
"It was my mother's. Barlus was here," she says.
Finally noticing Lucia attempting to spy inside the hut, she calls out, "Hello to the cottage!" and gestures for the bard to step back from the door.
She heads towards the door of the cottage, noting it hangs of its hinges. She tries to see through the gap into the room on the other side.
Lucia can see that the inside of the cottage is a single room, dank, reeking, and filled with shadows. Haphazardly hung shelves line the walls, covered in all manner of clay jugs, clouded bottles, strangely cut rocks, rotted bunches of herbs, and a museum of other crude curios and remnants of a bone grinder’s artifice. A rusted iron cauldron, with a hinged lid built to resemble a frog’s jaws and a depth of almost 3 feet, occupies the center of the room, its ash-covered surface shaped with a relief of capering fiends and leering devils. A high-back chair stands against the far walls across the door, made of wicker, the gigantic curved tusks of some monstrous beast, and thousands of humanoid teeth. In the chair sits some sort of figure wrapped in filthy linens, its form padded with pungent herbs and sprouting patches of thick white mold.
Finally noticing Lucia attempting to spy inside the hut, she calls out, "Hello to the cottage!" and gestures for the bard to step back from the door.
There is no reply from the interior of the cottage - nothing stirs, not even a mouse.
Alorea pokes about, but doesn't uncover anything new. She stands behind Vyana and Siobhan. Once it's clear that there is nobody inside the hut, she asks, "So, should we let ourselves in?"
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"No!" Siobhan replies, nearly shouts. She continues a moment later in a slightly calmer tone. "There's no way of knowing if Ulizmila is still here and if she is we should be polite and leave her alone. If she wanted visitors she'd make that clear."
It's not clear if she's afraid, determined to be polite or some odd combination of both, but either way her opinion is clear.
Vyana approaches the door and using the hilt of her dagger, knocks loudly.
"Ulizmila! We really need to find out what happened to Barlus! Please speak with us!" she calls out.
With a quick cantrip, the young woman checks the door for magic and lets the spell extend into the room on the other side.
"It was my mother's. Barlus was here," she says.
Lucia is about to ask how those two sentecnes go together, when she sees the espression on Vyan's face and the penny drops. She decieds not to say anything, but Vyana gets her best knowing look.
She shakes her head as Siobhan dithers over the rules of pliteness. "People are DYING! What is WITH you and yur mum's constant wiating for stuff to get better by itself?!" She pushes teh door open and steps in. "Im here in peace, but I have other options."