Session 4 - Vortex Warp Hell

Interruption in the Night

Session starts in pitch black with half of the group sleeping: Cadence Loch in her hammock and Kharli (see: Jhertalli) 30 feet away on a tree root, Azriel Presch awake and no longer trancing, and Eman (SKLE, see: Shalis Kerny Laurence Emanuel) just recently getting shot in the face with an arrow. Cadence has half cover in the hammock, Kharli has half cover in the trees 30 feet away, and no one knows where the attacker is currently. Azriel takes the chance to rouse Cadence by yelling her name. Cadence wakes up, and Kharli does not. The attacker fires another arrow soon after, this time hitting Azriel in the shoulder, who yells “Fuck!” and wakes up Kharli.
On Azriel’s first turn, he spends his time trying to make out where the arrow came from. The tree canopy above the group parts perfectly, shining down early morning moonlight and starlight in a direct path to the attack, a pretty buff woman with a slicked-back brown ponytail, tan skin, and scars on her face. Upon realizing she’s been seen, she makes a point to hit one of the trees near her and ducks behind it for half cover. She uses her reaction to let out a whistle and wolves’ howls are heard in the distance
Next, Kharli uses half her movement to stand up and takes a dash action, making it within 45 feet of the woman. She did this with an “As It Was Foretold” stealth check (thanks to divination wizard Eman). Next up was Cadence who used half movement to get up out of the hammock and then transforms into a panther, getting closer to where the woman is. After that was the wolves’ turn, and they take their full movement to get to the woman and flank her. One of them notices Kharli and begins to growl. Then it’s Eman’s turn, who stands up, looks for better cover (and finds it in a bush by the path), and tries to shoot off a first-level sleep spell that does not work.
Top of the order, the woman sees everyone has caught sight of her and decides to take a dash action, making it 60 feet back into the forest. Azriel decides to move forward and attack with his longbow, hitting her with an arrow. Kharli gets closer to the woman and casts “hold person” which the woman fails on, meaning she is now paralyzed. Cadence gets closer to where Kharli, the wolves, and the woman are in panther form. The wolves go to attack Cadence and Kharli who are pretty close together, and one of them takes a bite of Cadence and knocks her prone. The other misses Kharli. Eman then casts a second-level sleep and is able to put the wolf that attacked Cadence to sleep.
The woman makes a save at the end of her turn and gets out of hold person. Azriel takes another longbow attack at her and it hits. She uses her reaction to call more wolves, and two more howls in the distance begin. Kharli moves closer to the woman, getting within 15 of her, and takes an opportunity attack by the wolf she was in melee with. Two more wolves join at Verran’s side. On Eman’s turn, he casts Vortex Warp and places Verran directly in front of Azriel.
Confused but not sure how to get out of the situation, the woman takes her hunting knife and crits on an attack against Azriel. Azriel attacks her with his glaive, and she uses her reaction to call more wolves and a few more howls are heard in the distance. Azriel takes a chance and starts talking to the woman, and they have a little bit of back and forth before the group falls out of combat. As combat closes, three more wolves come from the forest to join the group.

Questioning, questioning, questioning... Part Two!

Upon talking to her, Cadence and Eman took the reins, asking her name (Verran), asking what she’s doing out there (she lives there), if she knows the butcher (she answers, “what butcher?”), and then she tries to take off running again. Eman casts Vortex Warp again and places her in the center of the group where the fire Cadence has constructed is. Worth noting that they have/are taking a short rest. She is asked a few more questions, including whys he shot at Eman (who is now holding himself differently, his posture has changed, and he has the scary voice again). She doesn’t want to answer but is intimidated by him, so she gives a panicked but short “I live here, okay?” The questioning continued, along with questions about if she’s from Fletcher and if she wants to go back to Fletcher, which a good insight check shows Eman that she’s uncomfortable and a little angry about the mention of the town. Cadence also is able to piece together that she is simply a human woman (and is notably not a werewolf). They also ask Verran essentially where they are supposed to go to find answers, and she says to just keep following the path, that the forest will lead them where they need to be.
Because she’s literally incapable of getting out of this situation unless they let her out, she asks if they’re gonna let her leave, and when they do, she takes off running and takes a sharp turn off the path directly into the forest. The party finishes up their rest, Eman looking noticeably a little out of it, and they take off down the path again.
Retcon: Kharli had also talked telepathically in Verran's mind, asking her if she knew of any changeling communities around. Verran was under the impression that changelings were extinct.

A Path Quickly Taken

The path beneath them seems to have condensed, and it appears that they’re making much faster time than they had the rest of the time they’d been in the forest. As they near the first building they’ve encountered the whole time in the forest, a cottage built out of stone with a light flickering in one of the windows, they make various checks. The most important things are that there doesn’t appear to be any tracks leading up or around this cottage, it looks to be about two bedrooms, and the trees are dead silent here. The trees and the forest around them up until this point have been making different whispering sounds, but here they are dead quiet. The path is leading directly up to The Cottage without branching off, and there’s nothing else to be seen around.
See Whispers of Redwillow NPCs for information about any NPCs introduced this session. See Session 5 - Creepy Cottage Vibes for the next session.