|
Nicholo's attacks fall flat on the leshy as he gets too involved in the conversation with Bolan. Injured Sunward spreads his petals wide and looks to the ceiling. The bright light from the torches seems to pull into its body, reflecting it back at those in the doorway.
As the light dazzles you the leshy begins to windmill its vined tendrils at Onye.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Daehalya
Sunward
➤ Ezgara
Bolan
Onye
Odioki
Nicholo
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Diurnal. Solar irradiance for pollinator attraction. Black out the sun with a storm!
Ezgara then hides behind his shield.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Between his shield, his wooden mask, and his feline eyes, Onye Dinta endures the radiance emitted by the sunflower.
|
|
The jolt leaps between the pair, making their muscles twitch slightly. Bolan rears his staff back in both hands and swings it at Daehalya.
Bolan's staff leaves a decent sized bruise in Daehalyas ribs as it knocks the wind from her.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Daehalya
Sunward
Ezgara
Bolan
➤ Onye
➤ Odioki
➤ Nicholo
The amurrun warrior draws a claw-shaped blade from a sheath on his hip and slashes at the sunflower standing in the doorway. "Return to the communal plane and reconsider your actions against creation," he condemns the leshy.
HP 3/15
AC 18
Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +5
Effects:
"You're forcing us to do this, Bolan! You claim to be a friend to the fey and nature, but we saw what you did to the gnomes who lived here, not to mention that poor unicorn!"
|
|
Odioke stares blankly at his handcannon as it seems to jam up on him as Onye sets the leshy's fate and begins shredding vines and leaves from the sunflower with his blade. Its mouth opens in a silent scream. You could hear the shrill pitch but the frequency of the scream is out of range of any of your ears.
Daehalya trades blow for blow with Bolan as her own staff catches the druid in the knee and throat.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Daehalya
Sunward
Ezgara
Bolan
Onye
Odioki
➤ Nicholo
|
|
DC 16
Nicky - always one to keep his eyes on everything pays special attention to when the sunflower draws the light into itself. So, he is flat footed as the light comes back at him!
WHOA!
Nicky moves by the creature, first juking one way and then the other to get by it and into the room. His game-plan is to help take down the druid.
◆ Move - Tumble
◆◆ Devise a Strategy
◆◆◆ strike!
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nicholo doesn't make it past the Leshy and instead swiftly slices its stalk in half with his blade. Sunflowers petalled half tumbles across the floor. As it does primal energy explodes from its body, leaving a 30' radius of sunflowers blooming from the floorboards.
Seeing this Bolan drops to his knees, his staff rolls from his loose fingers as tears well up in his eyes. "Sunward..." Reaching out his fingers gently caress half a dozen sunflowers on the floor as it brings forth memories of his childhood.
Bolan grew up in the logging camps of Andoran, the son of parents with too many offspring and too little affection. Shy and scrawny, he found himself a target of constant abuse from burly loggers’ children, including his own siblings. He took to spending as much time as possible hiding in the woods. There, in the quiet among the trees, he could finally let his guard down. In time, he managed to befriend local fey, including pixies and brownies. Bolan began to pray that he’d turn out to be a changeling—anything but the child of boorish humans.
Time and again, the same story would play out: Bolan would return to a favorite grove and find it clear-cut, his fey friends nowhere to be found. As he grew older, he filled out, and he used his new strength to fight these atrocities. Yet the loggers— those same childhood chums who’d spent their lives bullying him—only laughed as they bloodied his nose. Hopeless, he tried to drink his troubles away.
It was on one of these benders that he first heard of Sevenarches. In Sevenarches, people served nature, rather than the other way around. Guards called Oakstewards reminded citizens of the delicate balance between the needs of humanoids and those of plants and animals. Bolan set out immediately, vowing not to rest until he was apprenticed to these sagacious druids.
It worked: Bolan excelled in his training and soon became a full Oaksteward. With his knowledge and magic, he felt closer to the natural world than ever— while also appreciating the distance his status put between him and Sevenarches’ deferential citizens.
Bolan looks up, tears streaming down his face. "For all of their talk of balance, the Oakstewards actually put humanoid interests above all else. The natural world was going out of balance. It was to be my responsibility to cull the herd." He uses the back of his hand to wipe away some of the tears. Bolan grins unpleasantly. “You’re too late, though. I already gave the gate key to Kaneepo the Slim.”
|
|
Nicky feels bad about having to dispatch Sunward, it was a dirty deed done dirt cheap but a required deed.
Sorry your sunflower friend had to disappear.
He looks sincere. But he then starts asking questions as Bolan is not so innocent- he was the intentional mastermind.
Kaneepo the Slim?! The story gains breadth and complexity! Who is Kaneepo? Why would you give him the key? Did he trade favors?
The catfolk eyes the area for hidden dangers or trickery when Bolan surrenders. Finding none and all his companions left standing, he sheathes his kukri and approaches. "Your friend was leshy. Do not mourn. Leshy is spirit and returns to nature to be reborn again," he says with a modicum of compassion before shifting his tone. "Onye Dinta repeats himself: each thread of creation is unwoven and rewoven at different times, to unweave the entire tapestry at once is foolhardy destruction that leaves nothing to feed rebirth. Bolan is misled. Did this Kaneepo trick you into this folly?"
|
|
Bolan smiles stretches. "Kaneepo played no tricks on me. I gazed into the portal and say a perfect world. A tranquil, natural world. One where humanoids were no more important than the blades of grass. Though I don't remember much after passing through the portal it left me with these newfound abilities to control the human-despoiled remains of plants—the wood in buildings, the fibers in fabric." To Bolan, this vegetative necromancy was a sign that he’d been chosen as an avatar of nature’s vengeance.
"Kaneepo the Slim. Maybe you’ve heard the stories: a skull-faced smile in the fog, a stick-thin boogeyman who lurks near the Wilewood, a shadowy absconder of the overly precocious. But Kaneepo is no mere story. The Slim is fey, lord of the Thinlands and powerful beyond mortal ken—and they’ve chosen me as their instrument. Kaneepo sends the gorgas. Kaneepo created the obnubilate curse. And Kaneepo will punish you for what you’ve done here."
"The gorgas are enemies of creation," the amurrun says with a low growl. "It is folly that you do not recognize this. Bolan must receive justice for the harm he has done. Onye Dinta is prepared to deliver it if necessary."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bolan must be feeling better. His misanthropy has revived.
Ezgara paces, pulling his hair and muttering to himself, clearly forgetting he's speaking aloud. The stream of consciousness flows hypnotically… Do they see it? Do they know? Bolan's vision. Ezgara's vision. Interchangeable. My obsession with silence. Dearth of nattering, drooling fools making racket. Prosaic industries wrecking the mountainsides. Poisoning the streams. The trees scream! He pauses to scratch vigorously beneath his tattered robes, first one place, then another. I, alone among all mortals, have been shown the truth arrayed before me. Thresholds, transitions. Yet Ezgara would not hurt an animal who deserves it, not even Donkey. Deserves to have his brain boiled. Justice will be served. In tiome… in time. Not by Ezgara. Oh no. Two entirely separate issues. Bolan's monomania. Ezgara's mission. Distinct, unrelated, both equally lucid. Bolan fails. bullies fail. Patience was needed. Subtlety. Subtlety is needed to restore the balance. To set it right. Do they know? They cannot. They don't see. Thus: misdirection! And there is none better at misdirection than Ezgara! Tell them stories, fill their little minds with stories. Hehehehe!
Ezgara spins quickly and shakes his broken twig at Bolan. Obnubilate? Punish Ezgara? Bolan will be punished! I would blast you to ash you but the saccharine Druids want you alive… yes, we must play along. So nice for unicorn-killers.
|
|
Onye Dinta is prepared to deliver it if necessary."
Nicky is totally fine with frontier justice. It just might not be the most advantageous at this moment.
Onye, you bring up a critical point. Before you act, hear me out -- I think Bolan deserves justice, and we sort of already promised the Warden's we'd bring him and the key back for justice. Since we don't have the key - it's fairly important we at least bring Bolan back --- alive. They will obviously have lots of questions. As a side bonus, there might still be Bolan allies downstairs or around the perimeter. We escort him through the compound and tell his friends to surrender peacefully.
I think if we have him well in hand we avoid getting injured more -- and all of us have been injured enough this trip. Plus we have gnomes to protect or at least return their village back to them.
He sees what others say.
|
|
You strip Bolan of his equipment and armor before securing him further, before deciding to return to town with Bolan in tow.
There are two empty vials shattered in the corner. Likely healing potions Bolan used prior to your arrival. Tying Bolan up you begin to lead him through the lower level to help clear the compound out of malicious fey. Upon seeing Bolan's defeat the gnomes cheer and quickly begin to pick up straighten up some of the mess.
You lead Bolan through the Greenhouse, Gathering Hall, and Textiles Room.
Large windows and elaborately positioned mirrors fill this warm greenhouse with bright light. Potted plants choke the room in what can only be described as an indoor jungle. A door to the east leads to a rope bridge. North and west, other doors lead farther into the house.\
In here are a couple of simple-minded gourd leshy's, named Wisteria and Hyacinth. They tend to the gardens and continue to work for the gnomes, simply agreeing to help the Oakstewards until the gnomes return.
Ultimately they notice zero change, nor do they care.
One of the plants growing in the greenhouse is a flayleaf.
★ -- ★ -- ★ -- ★
This dining hall sports a long wooden table lined with benches. Assorted musical instruments lean against the walls. Two doors lead south, another north.
The gnomes used this area as their dining hall and entertainment space, where they could sing and dance away the long winter nights. Now it is occupied by a grig and a sprite tinkering with gnome instruments. Neither has a death wish and flees back into the woods as Bolan gives them each a defeated command to do so.
There are four ordinary handheld musical instruments here—a drum, a fiddle, a flute, and a bass guitar—as well as a lesser maestro’s instrument.
★ -- ★ -- ★ -- ★
Looms with colorful, half-completed fabrics are mounted around this room, along with large washboards, basins, and baskets of laundry. A wooden ladder leads up to another room through a five-foot-wide hole in the ceiling.
There is little of interest here as it simply leads up to the dream spiders chamber above.
★ -- ★ -- ★ -- ★
In the morning you return to Sevenarches with Bolan in tow. The Oakstewards seem surprised as Lemma is called to the gate for the transition. "We have an enchanted cell with your name on it Bolan. A good place to think for many years." She looks back to you. "Did you manage to get the key in time?"
"Bolan claims to have given the key to a malicious fey named Kaneepo," the amurrun answers, today wearing his wooden tiger mask. "Onye Dinta must track down Kaneepo, but Onye Dinta is not certain how."
|
|
The Oakstewards all look concerned about the missing key. "It seems clear that Bolan was a junior partner is this revival of the obnubilate curse. As long as the key remains in this Kaneepo's hands there is no way to guarantee anyone's safety."
Leema pulls forth a small sack of gold coins and hands it to you. "30 gold for bringing Bolan in alive. 20 more if you can investigate and find this Kaneepo before it is too late."
One of the Oakstewards near her speks up. "Been here a long time, I have heard rumors of an eerie slender figure roaming the Wilewood, there are a thousand folktales floating around the River
Kingdoms—"
"Most of them," Lemma points out, cutting him off, “The product of overimaginative minstrels and farmers afraid of the dark.” She sighs "If you really want to find Kaneepo, you're going to have to do some research."
She nods to Bolan. "Thanks to him we have three pieces of key information to go on. The name Keneepo the Slim, Some connection between Keneepo and the Gorgas, and the Thinlands." She moves to the side. "You can use the Sevenarches Quacking stacks to comb through records."
The Oaksteward speaks up. "Pabel Moseby was attacked by a Gorga about two nights ago returning to his farm. He ran 10 miles home and is now lying bandaged in bed."
Lemma thinks for a moment. "You can also question residents of Thinland Farms." Her forehead creases with worry. "I worry that with each passing day Keneepo will be that much closer to completing this sinister ritual. At most I think we have 3 days and 3 nights to investigate." She hands you a barkwrit allowing you access into the city.
Ezgara tries to harvest the flayleaf but it a bit too distracted to pull it off. He drags DDonkey back with everyone, making sure to save all the masks he can find. Perhapos subterfuge is in order…
Quacking?
"Onye Dinta is wondering the same thing," the amurrun murmurs quietly to Ezgara.
Daehalya manages to remove the flayleaf from Ezgara's hands.
"I think you have no need of that, my friend."
"The Thinlands?" Daehalya asks. "I'm not familiar with the River Kingdoms. Is this a First World location, or something more mundane?"
She idly twirls the new staff she's claimed from Bolan, hoping that she can put it to some greater good here.
As the group gets their answers and makes plans, she murmurs. "If there are gorgas out there, we should stay together I think. Time is fleeting, and it's not like any of us have the ability to slip its bonds, but if we wind up dead, we learn nothing."
|
|
Time is fleeting, and it's not like any of us have the ability to slip its bonds, but if we wind up dead, we learn nothing."
I loved how you said that. That was adroit!
He is intrigued by a Quacking Stack.
I am like a fish on a hook. All these other items seem to be ultra important- the attack on a citizen for example-- but I don't think I can focus until I learn what a Quacking Stack is. That's my vote. if this is a voting kind of thing.
|
|
Sticking together you all head towards the Quaking Stacks. Sevenarches’ grand library is one of the city’s tallest structures, and it’s also unlike any other. Once a spiraling stone tower that tapered into a cone like a snail shell, its ruins have been thoroughly taken over by a grove of magical aspen trees. Resident druid‑librarians shaped tree boles into shelves and branches into roofs to protect the library’s collection of birch-bark scrolls and leather-bound tomes. Most incredible, however, is the way the semi-sentient grove—in fact a single vast being connected by roots—can function as a living database. The “library tree” stores vast quantities of information in its sap and can even guide readers to the books they need.
With Lemma’s barkwrit, you are able to gain access to the Quaking Stacks and enlist one of the building’s caretakers to commune with the library tree and lead you to the more likely records, but you'll still need to comb through the sources by hand to understand what you're looking for.
"This library is beautiful. Amazing," the amurrun says as the caretaker explains how the grove communicates. "Onye Dinta is still perplexed by the name, though." He tries to explain to the caretaker what they are looking for.
"Perhaps it was originally quaking, because the tree was not as sturdy?" Daehalya suggests, more focused on looking around than the records they need. It's like some sort of grand work left after a Painted Walk.
Ezgara knows his way around druid libraries, though he needs to be constantly shushed and consequently threatens to call dire and deadly cantrips down upon every fool's head.
Odioki will follow to the Stacks, but can't make heads or tails of their filing system.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nicky enters the Stacks, and he finds this place to be right up his alley. He just needs to convince others to get the information for him to glean the true knowledge from.
He approaches the caretakers to see if they will commune with the library tree.
So, hey. This place has lots of knowledge, but I bet it's lacking on information about Tieflings!
He points towards his horns.
Maybe a little exchange of information. Stuff The Tree knows for stuff about Tieflings that it doesn't know? A little quid-pro-quo?
DC 18
His conversation doesn't really go anywhere. The only help he gets are books handed to him - such as The Tiefling in the Hat, and Green Eggs and Horns. All kiddie books and nothing of substance.
|
|
The group makes slow progress in the Stacks, just as Ezgara begins to make sense with his insane ramblings Odioki seems to goof the dewey decimal system and misfile several items you already looked at.
In a tome of ancient elven lore, the characters find a short passage mentioning the defeat and imprisonment of “a slender, lurking creature of shadows.” If this is a reference to Kaneepo, it would suggest the Slim—or something like them—has been around for millennia.
Dusk begins as the sun drops below the horizon as the first day starts off a bit slow.
"The tribe has the writ of passage, but is the tribe truly welcome in the Sevenarches? Maybe it is safer to sleep in the wilds," the amurrun says to the others.
|
|
I'm all for camping. I agree with Onye that we need a bit of safety during the evenings. Who is taking first watch? Also, I recommend the Gorga attack victim- it's possible his injuries might be severe and he might not even be in a condition to interview if we wait too long. What do the rest of you say?
Ezgara makes campo in the forest; he sets his hammock far away from Donkey who's tormenting him again, and also away from the others.
"Onye Dinta can keep watch during the deepest night," the catfolk prowler offers.
|
|
So, if Onye is middle shift, who is on early watch? I'll volunteer for it. I was never on regular sleep patterns while in jail in Cheliax, I got the prctice of an off sleep pattern.
Nicky volunteers, going about his business in getting the camp ready for the night. Not seeing the figure that Ezgara has noticed.
Ezgara's mutterings lead the rest of you to notice the figure in the tree. They think they watch. Nothing escapes EAzgara. None else notice, but I do. I do.
”Onye Dinta will hunt down this watcher,” he whispers with a low growl. ”Maybe the one who spied upon Onye Dinta before.” He slips into the shadows and drops into a low crouch to stalk in the direction Ezgara indicates.
|
|
Onye sneaks off as the group discusses tight watch rotations while Ezgara keeps glancing back and forth to the thin peeper. Onye moves from bush to bush slowly, drawing within a few dozen feet. As Onye leaps out the creature is gone without a trace.
Getting back to camp you are all on high alert throughout the night expecting something further to happen and yet no attacks or visitors happen, though as you awaken the next morning, you find a strange symbol—halfway between a five pointed star and an elongated stick figure—carved or drawn on the ground.
"This did not appear when Onye Dinta was watching. Does anyone understand the meaning?" the catfolk asks. He wears his wooden lion mask this morning.
Daehlaya frowns as she looks over the strange symbol and ponders the appearance of this Slim Man.
"Perhaps those in the Thinlands are as interested in us as we are in them?" she muses aloud as she considers both visitor and symbol.
|
|
Gathering your items you begin to head off towards the Gorga victim as Daehalya ponders the meaning of the rune. She comes to the conclusion that this definitely has something more to do with the Thinlands and less to do with the masked man watching over you the other night.
After a couple of hours you come across the house where Pabel “Pa” Moseby lives. It looks a little worse for wear, in need of some repairs but otherwise seems quiet and peaceful. The only entrance appears to be the front door.
Ezgara viciously scratches out the rune. They watch from the shadows. They are not far. Never far. I see everything.
He drags Donkey into yard and puts down all the gear he's been carrying. Civilized people knock, yes? Ezgar knows this. He knocks on the door.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ezgara hisses when he sees the wounds. He sniffs the air for disease. He immediately prods "pa" with his twig and gets to work, mumbling his thoughts to himself.
Ezgara knows that to do. Help hurt. So they talk. So they're willing. Bartering in the snow, extracting information from Gorga victims. Make them think you like them. Make them comfortable. What a good doctor. How nice. How kind. All the same. It is all the same. Don't let them see you despise them all. Acculturated. Civilized. Be a nice doctor. Oh so nice.
"Onye Dinta and his tribe have come to ask about the creatures who attacked Pabel Mosbey," the anurrun says. "Do not be afraid of Ezgara and his rambles."
|
|
Ezgara helps make Pabel a bit more comfortable as he changes he bandages. Pabel groans as he sits up. "Yea, two nights ago I was returning home from Sevenarches. These large eyed, starving skull-dog beasts came out of nowhere. Their eyes were as large as dinnerplates and as dark as the night sky." He shudders at the thought. "They killed my mule, Shelyn, I barely escaped with my life."
Ezgara continues doing what he’s doing.
The catfolk nods as Pabel describes the creatures that attacked him. "Such creatures also attacked us in the woods. They are fearsome threats to creations."