"Everyone has something they want. Perhaps we might find out what that is for Sedisserax. It would be a great shame to have to harm such a magnificent creature." Sanjana tilts their head to one side, considering. "Perhaps one of the other cloud dragons could aid us? She might be more willing to talk to one of her kind than to us."
"You would have to travel pretty far to find another cloud dragon, I fear," Blegkenu says. "I'm not sure of any others that dwell nearby."
After hanging out for a bit while Briar instructs you on mountain travel, you depart the shrine. The directions are easy enough to follow. It is a 2-hour hike down the mountain to the lakeshore in question.
The thick, squat trees of this bowl‐shaped valley grow densely together. A deep blue lake lies here, the trail turning upon reaching its shore and winding off to the east. A cliff rises from the lake’s western shore, and a large cave entrance is visible at the base. A jagged rock protrudes from the lake’s surface not far from the cave entrance.
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With Briar's instructions after she took a bit to acclimatize to the region, she is able to lead the group in how best to traverse the terrain. Eventually bringing them to their destination probably.
"So the plan is talk first and otherwise wrestle a dragon into submission? I have a few ideas what they may want as payment for such an artifact, but I doubt we'd be capable of granting that sort of succor."
Pen nods slowly at the question, having no better plan. None of them seem particularly sneaky, so breaking and entering to avoid fighting does not look likely. "Defeating without killing... if possible" the elf wizard doesn't think it is likely to take it 'easy' on a dragon.
"I would much prefer it if we do not kill this dragon. Let's attempt talking to her first, and then if that doesn't work, I hope we can subdue her," Sanjana adds. "What could a being such as her want? Beyond physical possessions and rare items, I am thinking perhaps forgiveness from the dwarven clan?"
Pulling the Carnival card out of a belt pouch, the kashrishi studies it intensely.
Sanjana thinks the dwarves of Cloudspire would be willing to forgive Sedisserax if she was truly remorseful for her last actions. Looking at the Carnival card, the kashirishi sees a woman dressed in a colorful dragon costume. She senses that the dragon can be trusted, but trusted to do what? Deal fairly with you, or to eat you?
As you approach the lakeshore, Pen and Sanjana notice three flowering vine-like plants concealed among the surrounding foliage. They have large, trumpet-shaped flowers, and they are beginning to move in your direction, vines writhing around them!
Sanjana tries to recall what these ambulatory plants were, casting a bit of protecting magic just in case they were hostile.
Sanjana recognizes the ambulatory vines as oppalis. Stories passed down through generations refer to the oppali as a “bad luck vine” and warn against letting one take over a copse or garden, lest “your luck drain away like water down a hole.” They can produce large blasts of sound through their trumpet-like flowers and they are weak to cold damage.
When Sanjana mentions the weakness to cold damage Pen tries a quick burst of ice at the nearest.
Pen blasts the nearest oppali with ice, and while it injures the plant, it doesn't seem to be particularly effective against it.
The oppalis move to block your path as they point their trumpet-shaped flowers in your direction, then they unleash massive blasts of discordant noise!
Visna grits her teeth, powering through the waves of sound and pain as best she can.
Sizing up the clamorous plants she makes a plan of her own...
"Interesting" Pen said softly to herself, as she did when she is considering a problem. "The cold seems no more effective than against normal creatures. Is this a mutantati-" she was about to ask Sanjana, never considering the Kashrishi could be wrong. But she was interrupted by blaring discordant sounds that tore through her brain, bringing her to her knees in agony, then to the ground as another and then another pounded into her.
Sanjana manages to endure the first trumpet blast, but the second and third deafen the kashrishi, blood trickling from their ears. Seeing Pentella fall, they clutch the staff, triggering one of the spells stored within.
"Pen! Tend to her Lorekeeper, and anon these clamorous wretches shall be cut short."
Visna vaults over their foes, crashing down behind the thicket of foes with a snarl on her face!
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Pen groaned, the pain a little less, but still pronounced. Somehow she pointed her hand at the enemies, three rays of bright fire shoot out at all three plants.
Briar misses with her attack, but Visna moves around to flank the oppali, scoring a critical hit with her snagging strike! Sanjana heals Pen, who unleashes a trio of scorching rays, burning two of the three vines.
The oppalis all focus their attacks on Visna, whipping at her with their vines. One of them hits twice, including a critical hit, and the Ulfen thaumaturge feels her luck draining away...
Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to Drain Luck for 24 hours.
Success The creature takes 2d6 poison damage. Until the start of the creature's next turn, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks.
Failure The creature takes 2d6 persistent poison damage. For 1 round, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks.
Critical Failure The creature takes 4d6 persistent poison damage. For 1 minute, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks.
Continuing to lay on the ground seems like a proper battle tactic, so Pen continues to do so. Grasping her staff, she drains some of its power to retrieve her last spell and fire it at the plants again.
Visna is quickly buried in a snarl of vines to thick for even her axe to carve a path. As she hauls at the vines, her tattoo begins to glow, shining against the slow spread of poison in her verins.
It was not hard to figure out what these creatures would be vulnerable to, even without Pentella flinging fire spells at them; the mountainous environment would build a resistance to cold, but fire consumed even the hardiest plants.
With that knowledge, Sanjana sets the edge of their boomerang on fire, then catches Briar's eye. "Burn them, aṉpē."
Pen manages to burn the most wounded of the vines, but everybody else fails to land a hit. As Briar swings far wide of her target, the plant seems to become energized.
Since most of you are still bunched up, the energized plant unleashes another discordant blast from its flower before whipping its vines at Visna, landing a single hit. The other oppalis attack Visna as well, but neither one manages to hit.
Visna pants with exertion, hauling vines off of her by main force as she clears herself breathing room to swing her axe.
Every time she tries to speak a vine happens to block her face, but eventually she just spits it out and stares meaningfully across the plant at Briar.
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Huddled on the ground seems like a good place to resist trumpeting blasts, Pen catalogs the fact in her brain. She had felt only horrible ear splitting mind squeezing pain this time.
Despite that observation, Pen finally gets up, and considers yelling out We Should Run. Plants are bad things. No more salads for any of us Ever.
Oh wait, that is probably the concussion speaking, she tells herself.
Fire seems to be doing good so she reviews her remaining fire producing spells, and sighs, before lobbing a simple cantrip.
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"If we're having this much trouble with the weeds in her garden, I cannot imagine going up against Sedisserax in battle," muses Sanjana as they expend another charge from the staff to keep Visna alive.
Then they make another attempt at striking the vines.
Briar tears apart the damaged oppali with her teeth. As it falls, she moves to flank the next of the deadly vines and bites it as well. Visna misses with her first hit, but manages to grab a hold of the oppali with her second strike. Sanjana hits the same creature with their boomerang, then Pen's flame finishes it off!
Only one enemy remains. Unharmed, the oppali lashes at Briar with its vines!
A creature other than an animal or plant hit by an oppali's vine Strike must attempt a DC 29 Fortitude saving throw twice, taking the lower result as the actual result.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to Drain Luck for 24 hours.
Success The creature takes 2d6 poison damage. Until the start of the creature's next turn, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks.
Failure The creature takes 2d6 persistent poison damage. For 1 round, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks.
Critical Failure The creature takes 4d6 persistent poison damage. For 1 minute, the creature must roll twice and take the worse result on all checks.
Pen's head clears just a little, reminding her that she can use her staff to help make sure her fire blasts does not hit Briar in the muzzle, because that seems like it would be really bad.
She recognizes Sanjana said words, and after a moment they make sense "Weeds are notoriously hard to get rid of." memories of a quiet garden so long ago, and the repeated attempt to keep dandelions out of it, flutter across her brain.
"They don't seem inclined to let us press into a herbarium, either."
With two of the vegetal assailants down, hope starts to glimmer that they might come out of this alive. Sanjana focuses on trying to expedite the third one's demise.
Visna speeds past the sweep of the plant's vines in time with Briar's approach, axe flashing as she hews her way towards its core.
Briar fails to land a hit, but Sanjana and Pen both do so. Visna snags the oppali, grabbing a hold. Energized by one of your critical misses against it, the oppali lashes out at Visna, but it is unable to get past her defenses!
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Even as the vines attempt to whip out at Visna, Briar takes the opportunity to dig her way into the roots of the creature searching for something more meaningful to gnaw on. The first bit seems to be mostly dirt and detritus, but the second seems to be a stem-like root of some sorts and she crunches down hard.
Briar works out her frustrations as she rips the oppali apart with her teeth! At last, the final foe falls, giving you time to recover from the fight.
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There's a good chunk of time after the plant goes limp that Briar continues to dig at it, though she pulls back and rips open and starts fishing around in it's plant-guts for a while before ripping a large fruit-like object out of it and moving to the others.
"Ah.. they do have hearts like the legends say. They make a potent poultice. Not sure it'll do much for the ringing ears but." She looks down at the wet mass.
"I'll get to work on it."
She then spends the next Twenty minutes or so tearing out the cores of the other two Opalli. Before she carefully rips their large brilliant petals off and tears them down to smaller strips for use as bandages. Splitting and preparing the fruit-heart into a thick pungent paste that smells somewhere between Aloe with a prime spritz of skunk.
Taking care she lights a thick piece of the root on fire and lets it burn for a bit before snuffing the flame and using the smoldering end to warm the poultice laden petal bandages before wrapping them gently on everyone's wounds. Using a practiced and gentle hand one would only find in the alms houses and hospitals of the most generous variety. Showing that while Briar is, sometimes, able to unleash great destruction she is also, if not more so, able to mend the very wounds caused by her acts.
The final results are a warming soothing bandage that seems to soak up the pains of the battle and relax not only the body but the mind. As she warned any headaches will persist, but one would wager if she had access to the correct ingredients in the hostile wildlands of Mwangi she'd be able to produce a cure-all for that as well.
Pen is quite happy to sit down for a little while. Normally she would be fascinated by Briar's dissection, but at the moment she just wants to close her eyes from the headache. Though she knows it is silly, she sticks her fingers in her ears to keep her brain from leaking out.
"Thank you" she says to their medic, who helps her much more than her fingers. Then breaks out cups from her halfling pack, fills them with clean crisp water from her decantor of endless water, offers a tart to whoever needs it, and nibbles on her own.
"You are incredible. Thank you." Sanjana gently squeezes Briar's hand as her friend applies a soothing poultice to their forehead and temples.
They close their eyes for a moment, allowing the balm to work, before opening them again and surveying the rest of the group. "How are we all feeling? Do we want to press on, or find a spot to camp and rest?"
Visna scarfs down one of the too-small tarts with gusto. "Delicious! And though noisome, this salve is elsewise soothing. I say let us continue. There are hours yet before I sleep."
Pen catalogs her spells, pulls out her notebook and makes copious amounts of meaning scribbles (to others at least) and then puts everything away, slides her backpack straps back on her shoulder and nods.
"Okay, ready." she tells the others. Before suddenly remembering her staff and bends down to pick it up. Straightening and looking slightly flustered (brain wound and all), "Okay, NOW I'm ready."
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Briar shies away from the compliments but takes heart that she was able to help her allies in such a meaningful way.
"I only wish that I could have done better Sanjana, so that perhaps you all weren't as injured in the first place. But it is good enough to see you all alive and well. I believe we are nearing our destination, or at least the person of interest."
She looks towards the cave as Pen makes her final motions to ready. "You did well Visna, let's see if we can talk down a dragon. I'm not sure either of us would do well in a fight against it today."
"Hwaet? As though the squawkings of foliage could drown out the roar of my battlehunger. An this dragon should not feel reason's grasp, it will feel mine."
You take some time to heal up and refocus. Once you are ready, you approach the cave where Sedisserax lairs. You only get as far as the lake's shore, however, before the huge cloud dragon hurtles from her cave as dramatically as she can to perch atop the rock protruding from the lake! The blue-white scales of the four-horned dragon exude wisps of fog, and her snout is short but filled with sharp teeth. She shrieks, “Thieves and trespassers! You will pay with your lives!”
Critical Success The creature is unaffected by the presence.
Success The creature is frightened 1.
Failure The creature is frightened 2.
Critical Failure The creature is frightened 4.
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"You ask a price most dear, but never yet have I paid my Last Coin to one such as you. Now come, we do not travel hence seeking your life or your treasures unbartered for. But if your thread spins threats instead of tales, it will be cut."
Visna hurls herself into the water, a look of serene joy across her face as she splashes down. Despite her expanded bulk, she carves through the spray without the slightest hindrance or resistance, as if born to battle beneath deeper waves than those she here causes.
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Briar curses under her breath as the dragon comes out swinging with insults and threats. Visna springs into action so it appears that they'll do some good old fashioned Mwangi negotiation. With the spells of Pen aiding her she let's out her own battlecry and shakes off the presence of the draconic entity flying iver the water and over the dragon biting into it's wing and pulling it's attention towards her away from Visna.
"We come to talk but have it your way."
Visna demoralizes Sedisserax as she swiftly swims across the lake. She exploits the dragon's personal anathema as she snags the wyrm with her axe. Briar charges into a flanking position, biting the dragon's wing.
The dragon opens her maw and exhales an electrified cloud into the water, shocking Visna! She then snaps at the Ulfen women with her jaws, narrowly missing!
Pen's heartbeat spikes as the terror of the massive beast hits her, though not the sensible RUN NOW, YOU IDIOT kind of fear a sensible person would drowning in. More of a Oh, That's Big kind of way.
Seeing that her two marital companions are already, and rather impressively leading the charge, Pen grasps her staff, speaking her magical words (not shouting, more a practical tone, Not drawing attention). Her divination magic combs its pearlescent scales, nope nope nope, OH, one is discolored, potentially a fungal infection. That will do.
Her target set, she let's her disturbing green beam of energy tear through the sky from her hand, cutting into the majestic creature's side.
Visna lets Maiden's Smile fly in a vicious circle, hauling the dragon's wing up so that the returning axe bites deep between her thinner scales.
She heaves against the huge beast, trying to drag her beneath the water, to Visna's realm, but Sedisserax wriggles free.
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Shaking their head sorrowfully, Sanjana calls out to Sedisserax. "Sedisserax, please stay your wrath! Would we show ourselves so openly if we were thieves? We beg your forgiveness for the tresspas, but truly, we only meant to talk to you!"