Session 94 - The Lake of Lost Dreams and Below

24 Flaurmont 1011 - 25 Flaurmont 1011

General Summary

After finding a place to take a short rest, and catch their breath, the party decides to continue their investigation into the destruction of this town. Leo is still worried that some of the damage to the houses reminds him eerily of the damage they found in Leeside from the False Hydra.
Elincia suggests that they do some aerial scouting, and invites Leo to ride the Eagle and get a feel for the rest of the vicinity. They can see some signs of damage running along the road north out of town, and it leads to the split in the river ahead. The party continues north as the flying duo continue further ahead. They find where several tributaries feed into the Rugalov river, forming the Lake of Lost Dreams. Near the middle of this lake they spy a small island with a small copse of woods and some old ruins.
Other than the signs they see of damage to the trees along the way created by something very large (and the damage clearly very old, as trees have grown back in), they don't notice anything too unusual. When they reach the lake they use Walk on Water to cross easily, though Elincia of course flies. As they gather on the shore of the island, Tork notices small creatures in the trees that seem to be watching.
Seraphina conjures dancing lights and tries to engage with the creatures, which seem to be frightened by the lights, and shoot the tiniest little arrows at the lights - harmlessly, of course. Elincia tries to "play" with them as an eagle, but instead terrifies them as she swoops over their small forest, and they retreat from the tree, fluttering to the ground ground. Eventually, Seraphina breaks through with music. Playing tunes back and forth, eventually the tiny little creatures, some sort of woodland fairy, get bold enough to come join the party and sing and dance.
After some introductions, and more singing and dancing, the party learns that these creatures have always lived here, but something is wrong, though they can't seem to identify what is wrong. They are pretty sure there used to be more of them, and that they used to know more, but they can't seem to describe the wrongness. Leo asks if this wrongness somehow is related to the ruins, and the fairies explain that they don't go there, it is dangerous. When probed further on this, they don't really remember why they know it is dangerous, or who told them it was dangerous, but it is. The party offers to try to fix the wrongness the next day, and they turn in for a long rest.
Naturally, the first thing they do in the morning is explore the ruined building. Within, they find a well worn tunnel angling down into the ground. The tunnel appears well worn, but not terribly recently used, as if it had been abandoned, though it would accommodate a very large creature. Eventually the tunnel opens up into a large cavern - large enough that they can't see the far side. As they enter they quickly come upon the glint of metal and find themselves among large piles of treasure! Gold, silver, gems, weapons, armor, and other relics... countless wealth. Along one side of the room lies the skeleton of a great dragon of some sort - green, by the scant scales still remaining about its corpse, so probably the Argosyl they were seeking. Leo checks the artifact to see if the next segment is nearby, and in fact it seems that it must be part of this horde. Leo begins to cast detect magic and, as he does, the bones of the dragon stir and rise to loom over the party.
Its voice booms and echos throughout the cave, and it asks them what they are doing here. Leo jumps a bit, as of course he did not notice the Dragon stirring as he focused on casting. Leo suggests that Tork show him the spear, and explain that they are seeking a way to remove the curse from the spear. The dragon-skeleton, in fact Argosyl, takes the spear between two pinched claws as Tork explains that if he leaves it behind, it reappears in his hand. They are seeking the advice of a dragon, as it appears that the spear is crafted from the bone of a Gold Dragon. Argosyl takes a deep sniff of the spear and says, "Ah, yes, this appears to be the bone of Denagoth! It amuses me that he has met his end." The party decides not to point out that the Green Dragon seems to have perhaps met a similar fate himself. The dragon says it appears that there is a demon in the spear, which is probably the source of the curse. Leo asks if there is anything the Dragon can do to advise the party on dealing with this situation with the spear - he does also mention they are seeing a piece of an artifact, but does not outright mention the apparent presence of it within the horde.
Argosyl ponders this a bit, and says that though they have not brought him any tribute, he will help if the party and give them the item they seek if they bring him the head of the creature that killed it. This of course opens the discussion on exactly how was the dragon killed. Strangely, the dragon does not know what happened. It has no memory of being killed. Leo immediately brings up the False Hydra theory, explaining what they encountered at Leeside. Seraphina asks if there are any other exits from this lair besides the long hallway they came down. The Dragon says no, though immediately Tork points out an exit on the other side of the room! Everyone is now convinced that they must be dealing with another False Hydra. The party asks the dragon for permission to explore this other exit, and he gives it right away.
Now, if the party were wise, and remembered their harrowing experience in Leeside, they would have immediately started coming up with a way to plug their ears to protect themselves from the known dangers of the False Hydra. But, alas, they seem to have completely forgotten about this danger, and instead immediately depart for the passageway.
As they proceed they begin to smell decay from ahead. This unpleasant smell grows more powerful as they go further into the passage. Eventually they find themselves in another larger cavern, where there are piles of refuse and an acrid mist in the air, but no sign of immediate danger. However, Leo yelps as he feels something hurt him. He looks down to check but, seeing nothing wrong, he promptly ignores it. A few seconds later this happens again. It is only now that he recalls the true danger of the False Hydra and calls out "Plug your ears!" When he does this himself, he sees that he is being attacked by the False Hydra, which is now in plain sight with the song blocked by his fingers. Towering over him, much larger than the previous False Hydra they'd killed and having almost twice the heads, Leo realizes just how poorly they planned for this encounter. The party blunders into action, all responding differently to the revelation.
Leo quickly rummages in his bag, finds the two earplugs from their past adventure, and jams them into his ears. Meanwhile Stavos retreats toward the back of the cavern, towards the dragon's lair, to work on plugging his ears. Tork on the other hand tries to work around the illusion, simply jamming two goodberries into his ears, juice and pulp running out, and jumps into the fight - this is not completely effective, but is better than nothing.
Elincia, Seraphina, and Stavos each take two turns (between fumbling through their packs and forgetting why they're doing so) to find something that can be fashioned into earplugs, being assaulted by the False Hydra all along. By the time the party is in proper combat mode, they have been beaten up pretty badly and False Hydra larvae rise from the ground and join the attack!
Fortunately, once the party has its stuff together they are a powerful fighting team. Leo manages to get several heads and the main body in a Synaptic Static blast, Tork is able to whittle one of the heads down, and Seraphina is tanking the main creature. The False Hydra continuosly bites at the party, clamping down and restraining its targets when it connects, but whoever is restrained tends to eventually defeat the head that is chewing on them. However, as the party whittles down the heads, smaller heads regrow in their place. Thankfully, the larvae don't seem to have any regenerative abilities and the smaller heads on the true False Hyrda are not as strong and fall again more easily, though more regrow in their place as well. Between smites, Seraphina casts a high level Moonbeam on the Hydra and one of the heads. Leo uses Scatter to pull the party back from the direct combat range, then follows up with Maddening Darkness, warning the party not to enter the magical darkness, where gibbering and screaming can be heard. Unfortunately the False Hydra is able to lumber its way back out of the darkness, and the party is forced back into close combat. Elincia lays down her Bear Totem to rejuvinate the party, and eventually they are successful at breaking down the False Hydra, needing to destroy the body first to prevent any more heads regrow.
The party is still in disbelief that they had forgotten to plug their ears before coming in search of the False Hydra. Perhaps a bit more caution would be wise in the future

Report Date

12 Jan 2025