7th Letter

General Summary

After we came up we headed to the coast and found an inn. Oddly, the innkeeper recognized Baermak. These people travel far more than we do, mother.
Also at the inn was a group of Sylvans. We kept an eye on them, but they didn't seem to be too interested in us. Perhaps they think we're locals due to Baermak being recognized. If so, that was good fortune.
We rested and had an excellent stew, with real beer to match. A wonderful meal after so long eating different types of mushrooms. And mushroom beer.
Baermak learned from the innkeeper that those Sylvans were fairly regular visitors, stopping in every few months to stock up on supplies.
Which made them very interesting to us!
Even more interesting is that their leader was wearing a medallion that Bearmak recognized: his old boss used to wear that exact medallion.
We decided to follow them. They will certainly lead us to their camp, and we can ambush them to thin out their numbers.
I kept an eye on them from above, scouting out the area. Very nice! You would like it here. Lots of wonderful cliffs, tall trees, and the smell of the sea. After a few days I spied a large stone tower, which I investigated. It was early evening, but there were no lights anywhere in the tower. Yet I could see figures moving about...so I decided it best not to get any closer. Having been the focus of much fire recently, I have become slightly more cautious when lacking support. And if these creatures don't need light to see, they might be undead. And if not, they are certainly more likely to see me flying through the sky, silhouetted.
After it becomes clear where the Sylvans are heading, we decide it's time to thin their herd.
We snuck over to their camp at night, surrounding it. Baermak has a handy spell allowing us to communicate over a distance, so we started to coordinate our ambush.
Then they heard us.
The old man has a nifty mechanical spider, but that spider can be loud. And it was.
There were 2 archers, 4 soldiers, and the leader with the medallion. We decided to take the leader 1st.
So when the mechanical spider tripped over a leaf, or whatever happened, we let loose.
The 'Baxi has a neat trick where she shoots somebody in the back and then fades into the underbrush before they can spot her. It works great. Except that I don't have that trick, so they spotted me immediately. And when they did, they shouted some strange phrase in Sylvan and pointed at me.
And all shot at me.
Fortunately I was able to evade most of their errant shots while continuously landing mine. The entire party came alive, dropping Sylvan after Sylvan till there were no Sylvans left standing.
We ransacked what they had left (Baermak retrieved that amulet, of course), and they were absolutely loaded with supplies! They're either very hungry, or there are many more of them than we want to encounter.
After a bit of rest, we headed out to find a permanent camp site. Now, I must be honest and admit that the 'Baxi has a better sense of this place than I do. So we've been letting her find our camp sites; she's good at it. I don't have such a good understanding of the area, or the needs of these people. But this time...I don't know that she got lost, or whether she would admit it if she did, but...
She got lost. We ended up trying to make camp in a very bad place.
At first it was actually quite beautiful. The sun had set and the insects were singing, filling the jungle with calls. As were were getting ready to dine, we saw a dancing light, about the size of a Western Conch, flitting and floating in the near distance. It really was beautiful! Almost mesmerizing.
And no, I know what you're thinking. It did not put us under a spell or anything like that. It was just a beautiful thing out in the middle of the deep jungle, surrounded by the evening songs of the forest night.
But...not knowing what it was, and realizing that we were no longer on the path, we decided to backtrack and try to find the main trail again. Except that there was now a large mound of ... vegetation ... on the path we had just traversed. It had, obviously, not been there before.
As we pondered out next action, another dancing light appeared. That's when we knew we might be in trouble.
And that's when the will o' wisps attacked.
Yes, I know, I know. But I've never encountered one before, and I didn't think they were real.
They are.
And they shoot lightning.
Even though I was dodging the lighting, it still singed feathers on the way by, imparting some of that aggressive electrical energy.
They are really hard to hit.
And these ones had a friend. I'm sure you've already guessed, but as we fought with the wisps, that huge mound of vegetation came at us from behind.
The young Drow attacked it, but it landed a phenomenal blow on her, dropping her to the ground, and she immediately disengaged, staggering away.
The wisps seemed to focus on me, so I dropped down from the sky. I'm extremely hardy, but no need taking all of the heat when I have compatriots who can share the pain.
Hitting the wisps was exceedingly hard because as we tried, they would blink away. So we might land an arrow, but as soon as we did, the wisp vanished. Thus we payed a lot of attention to the large mound, which had no such escape mechanism.
However, the wisps appeared to recharge the thing. And that mound...what animated it I do not know. It had no sight organs, or any organs at all, but somehow it sensed us well enough to fight us. In fact, it...well, it ate the mechanical spider. Better that contraption than one of us, of course, but my point is that this strange conglomeration of branches and moss and earth and whatever else actually posed quite a threat. And there was a wisp keeping it going.
So I knew I had to take out the wisps or this would not end well.
Baermak came to the same conclusion and knew I was the one to do it. He shouted some excellent words of encouragement, and I waited for a wisp to appear; while it remained visible I focused very intently and landed arrow after arrow, until at long last the wisps disappeared (dead? or just giving up?). We demolished that mound, but it took a surprisingly long time.
We found our way back to the main path, camped, and rested. Then set out again on our journey.
After almost a week we came to the cliff, near a beautiful waterfall. At the top of the cliff the view over the jungle canopy was breathtaking. We spent some time sitting at the top of the cliff looking out at the sea in the distance, the sounds of the jungle providing happy music above the gentle drone of the tumbling water. You really would have liked it.
In the coastal jungle I spied the Sylvan camp and several digs. One of the digs was active, so we decided to reconnoiter one of the unoccupied excavations.
There we found a room nearly identical to the room we found in our earlier adventure, with a teleportation pedestal (marked THANE) and 4 statues surrounding it; a Sylvan, a scholar, a mage, and a strangely understated, dark figure.
These Sylvans, they are excavating these ancient ruins mother, and they are acquiring these ancient technologies. Their plans cannot be good.

Report Date

14 Mar 2022