Session 18 - Mysterious Warnings

General Summary

37th of Planting - cont.

Nonplussed by this strange woman who was clearly magical, the party accepted tea from Ms. Price before she settled back in her chair and surveyed the four adventurers. "So," Eskarina started, "I'm sure you are all wondering why I appeared so suddenly and invited you inside." Taking a moment to sip her tea, she contiuited, "To be direct, there is a situation brewing up in Foxhall and I believe you four to be the most capable of handling it. Interested?"

Denye spoke up and said, "It would really depend on the problem." at the same time as Janora said, "What exactly do you mean by situation?"

Esk shook her head, "I am not 100% sure, there is a darkness over the village. I believe that something has been, or will shortly be released. Something antithetical to life. But there is a chance that we, or rather you, can stop it from happening. After tracing this evil back to Foxhall now, I looked ahead to all the possible futures and discovered that the four of you have the best chance of defeating whatever is coming."

"I see," said Janora, "Can you tell us more? For example, how did you come by this knowledge?"

Eskarina smiled, "I'm what you might call a watcher, or maybe a fixer....some might call me a meddler or an explorer. It really depends on the day and what needs doing. But at the end of the day I stand guard against certain powers, you might call them Outsiders, who desire to bring destruction to the multiverse."

Janora exchanged a glance with their companions before turning back to Eskarina and asking, "And have you done this before? Just shown up and dumped a quest in someone else's lap?"

"A few times," answered Ms. Price. "I prefer to act myself, but I cannot intervene directly this time."

"Why not?" asked Denye.

"Well the short answer is that I didn't do it before so I can't now," answered the violet-haired half-elf. "But really, it because of certain promises I made a long, long time ago regarding that location."

Ell sat his teacup on the table, "Well, I don't think we have any more pressing business at the moment. Can you tell us more?"

Denye nodded, "We need to keep looking for those Gulthias Trees anyway. We could do something useful while we are looking."

That last statement caught Eskarina's full attention, "My dear, did you say Gulthias trees?"

"Oh yes," replied Denye, "There are two somewhere...or rather two more I should say."

Eskarina began tapping her finger against her lips, "Very interesting. I was under the impression that all of the trees had been destroyed in this plane."

Janora shrugged, "Well we destroyed one a week or two ago. So..."

"I see," muttered Esk, "I will have to look into this some more." Turning to address Ell she said, "There isn't a great deal more I can tell you, I'm afraid. But if you do go to Foxhall, I would suggest investigating the missing mice and rats. And I will pay you a handsome sum if you are able to deal with the problem."

Janora asked the strange woman for a few moments to discuss with the others and Esk stepped into another room through a door on the far wall. Turning to their companions, they raised an eyebrow and asked, "Well, should we take this job?"

The party seemed mostly amenable since it was in a northerly direction. Most of the time was spent discussing various routes and how long it would take to get there. Janora proved to be a possible answer there. They shared that they had recently learned a new spell that would allow them to transport themselves and others between forests.

Having solved the transportation and timing riddle the adventures decided to take the job. Looking around for a way to signal Eskarina, Jilken caught the flash of a quick wink from the young boy before he dashed out of the frame. A few moments later the door opened and Esk stepped back into the room.

Upon hearing the party's acceptance, Eskarina smiled brightly, "Excellent. I do have one other thing that I think will be useful to you. Now....I'm only lending you this, I shall need it back." She held out a small silver ring that appeared to be a band of three strands of silver braided together and when no one took it, the half-elf dropped it in Ell's hand.

Pulling her hand back she suddenly stiffened and her eyes rolled back into her head. In a deep sonorous voice, quite unlike anything the heroes had heard before, she pronounced:

At Foxhall’s heart a long-lost gate is hidden, Uncovered only when by spellcraft bidden.
A lonely wanderer can see its place, And story-keepers its dark provenance trace.
One overgrown by green roots thriving, Defeated by good friends together striving.
What first to last cannot, last to first can. The Forest’s key you hold now in your hand.
The Forest’s power turned against it may Disrupt the seal which locks that world away.
Once more, the ring will form to mark the gate. Once more, the key will help you reach your fate.
Let magic-bolstered friends prove creature’s bane, Lest it be free to walk the world again.

Coming back to herself with a small shake, she smiled and said "Oh...what was I saying?"

Ell flashed a grin of his own and offered, "You were about to tell us about this ring and how it will help us, my lady."

Glancing down at the ring, Esk's brow furrowed, "Why it's the key. You will need that to open the gate to the Forest. There is an inscription inside that will tell you what you need to do. You must hurry, you only have until the 1st of Quickening. Any later than that will be too late to stop this hungry evil from entering your world."

Both Ell and Janora pressed Eskarina for more information, but sheonly shoke her head and muttered things about breaking the strings of fate and needing to not be too involved.

Eventually Eskarina got tired of the questions and turned the tables, pointed at Janora and asking, "What exactly do you have in your bag there? It is very powerful magic. There is also something very familiar about it, but I haven't been able to tease the memory out. Granny knows, I spent the last 20 minutes trying to pull it out." This last was said in a low mutter almost as if she didn't mean to say it out loud.

Janora looked confused for a moment and hesitant for a moment more before they slowly pulled the bell, wrapped in its leather sheath, out of their pack.

"Oh my….where ever did you come by her?" asked Eskarina. Holding out both hands, "May I? I promise that I only wish to examine it."

Janora hesitated for another moment, but passed it over before replying, "We found 'her' in a subterranean labyrinth guarded by a Minotaur."

It was clear that Esk was only half listening as she stared at the bell. "I was there you know; the day that the Bright Shiners bound Ollamaas and formed the Wall. Or maybe I will have been?" Shaking her head, she muttered, "Never enough tenses...only Ailurian and Saurain come close."

Realizing that others were all still gathered and watching her she started a bit before pointing at the mahogany handle. "You see these small runes...did you know that they move with they think you aren’t looking?"

Janora nodded, "I thought I had noticed something like that. Only once or twice and only from the corner of my eye. What else do you know of the bell?"

Eskarina sighed as she handed the bell back to Janora. "Dralloe was such a lovely gnome woman, hot pink hair with flame red streaks. Never able to sit still for more than a moment or two however...you would swear she is part hummingbird."

"But the bells, the Titans couldn’t kill their brother you see, at least not without the Deserter. So they bound him and chained him at the heart of the Writ. Chained him like his father before him...may we never see either again. The Eight wove starlight, soulfire, and the song of creation into a cage and shield. All that was left at the end was their bells, infused with the spell and the last of their spiritual essence."

Looking at Janora and then at the rest of the team she shrugged, "I am not sure what it means if the bells are coming back into the world." Crossing her arms, Esk muttered to herself, "But you can be damn sure I'm adding that to my list."

Janora asked, "And do you have a way for us to contact you? In case something else comes up?"

Esk pursed her lips and muttered "I didn't before" before looking off into the distance with a blank stare for several moments. Coming back to herself, she walked over to a large cabinet and pulled out a conch shell. Handing it to Janora, the strange woman said, ""I don't think it will hurt anything, just remember I can't enter Foxhall. But hold the shell up to your mouth and say my name three times. I will hear and try to get to you."

"Oh yes, one last thing," said Eskarina. "If you end up in the Forest that I expect you will and can bring me back a blossom of a certain flower I would be quite grateful. The flowers are unmistakable, a deep red with purple veins."

"Any hints on where to find it?" asked Ell with an arched eyebrow.

Eskarian's smile brightened even more as she said, "Turn Left." And with that last cryptic remark, ushered the party out onto the streets of Haven once more. While a final "Clock ticking," the door shut and shattered into pieces of light before winking out completely.

Jilken looked around before shaking her head, "This has certainly been quite the interesting day in the city."

Ell let out a small laugh and said, "Welcome to Haven."

Janora just glared at Ell, "Well it sounds like we'll be leaving soon. But in the morning, I am ready to sleep." Putting actions to words, the witch resumed the interrupted journey back to the Rose and the others quickly followed.

38th of Planting

The next morning the party gathered as usual in the common room and over breakfast discussed what remained to be dealt with before leaving Haven. In general everyone seemed onboard for leaving today, but there were still a few loose ends to tie up.

After breakfast the four adventurers exited the inn and scattered to complete those outstanding tasks. As they did so, a town crier was walking past calling out, “Explosion in the Docks! New factory completely destroyed. Cause unknown, investigations underway. New water wands, marvel of magical innovation!”

Ell had a few letters to post and made his way over to the Dizzy Quill] while Denye went to the Celestial Dragon to pick up her new wand. Meanwhile Janora and Jilken headed over to the Sleeping Caravan to refresh their food stores.

Having had her interest piqued by the town crier, Denye made her way over to the docks to see if she could get close to the accident site. When she got there however she found that the remains of the building were cordoned off by royal guards while several investigators moved through the wreakage. Slipping into a nearby alleyway, Denye spent several minutes casting Detect Magic.

Moving out of the alley and towards the building, Denye was able to pick up the echoes of conjuration magic around the destroyed warehouse. Shocked by this, the Corva wizard marched up to the guards and informing them of the magical residue and demanded to speak to whoever was in charge.

Perplexed by this, the guards did what all well trained guards do....go get someone in charge to deal with the question. One ran off and disappeared into a small side room that seemed to have survived the fire, reappearing a moment later with Prince Leafblade k'Sheyena in tow.

The Prince was quite surprised to see Denye again, but told the guards to let her through. She quickly shared that she had heard about the explosion and came down to offer her services. The Prince shared what he knew, which wasn't a whole lot, but he had also notice the conjuration magic. He did give permission to Denye to look around, perhaps she would find something he had missed. Nodding excitedly, Denye began to explore the wreckage of factory and machinery.

While Denye was playing detective, Janora and Jilken had returned to the inn with the supplies. Remembering the spice shop that Ell had mentioned Jilken decided that she would run over and see if it truly was someone from home.

As it turned out, Al was not Aiel but rather Bur'an. He was more than a little brusque, but he did indeed have several spices from the deserts of Muspait, He also had something else, hora dust! Jilken grew quite excited at this and quickly bought his entire stock of the dust as well as several of the other spices.

Heading back to towards the inn, Jilken ran into Denye who was just completing her investigation. The only thing she had found were a few blue threads on the broken office window. Realizing that the threads were the same blue as Ell's coat, she called him through the new telepathic earrings and asked him to come down to the docks.

He was reluctant at first, but when Denye insisted Ell made his way down to the manufactorium where she showed him the threads and asked what he knew about the factory. Ell shrugged and replied "I was here yesterday. I was looking into new businesses that had opened since I was last in Haven. It looked like quite an interesting place. As for the threads, I really couldn't say. It does look to be the same color as my coat, but everyone in my family wears that blue....and almost everyone in the city knows it."

Unable to find out anything more, Denye went and said goodbye to the Prince and the three of them headed back to the Rose where Janora was waiting. Bouncing up from their seat they said, "Ready to go? I'm all packed up." The others still needed to pack and headed up to their rooms while Janora headed out into the stable yard.

Opening their new ritual spell book, they began the process of summoning a steed. Drawing the circle, they began to chant. As they did so, a purple and green mist began to form into a large shape. Coming to the end of the spell, there was a flash and an enormous Saint Bernard was standing in front of Janora.

With an excited woof the huge dog stepped forward and gave Janora a slobbering kiss with a tongue larger than the witch's head. Laughing, Janora buried their fingers in the soft fur and gave him a good scratching before moving around and tying the packs onto his back. As the others came outside, Janora added their packs as well.

With that, the four friends made their way out of the city and onward toward Foxhall.

---

A few hours down the road, Janora judged that the party was far enough into the woods to cast their new spell. Pulling out a silver athame, they began to carve a circle of symbols in the dirt around the party. Once it was completed Janora stepped inside and turned to face northwest. Raising their dogstaff, they began to chant the All Forests are One spell.

As they did so, everyone began to feel a sense of constriction and presence...as if the trees and hills around them were listening. With a final barked command, Janora brought the dogstaff down on a perfect dogpaw in the circle. The sense of listening vanished as did the carved circle in the dirt, but otherwise things seemed unchanged.

"Right. Let's go," said Janora and quickly began to stride forward down the path. For the first ten minutes or so nothing magical seemed to happen, but as the party continued through the woods they began to change. At first it was subtle, the leaves on the trees began to change shape and color, becoming even larger and more vivid.

The next change was much more noticeable, the trees became much thinner with strange bark and the branches and leaves formed into long frond like leaves. A minute or two later and it was an enormous mushroom forest in a dark cave. Through it all Janora led the party forward and a few minutes later the team found themselves once more under an open sky and walking through a pine forest.

Another 10-15 minutes of walking and the group found the trees thinning and the terrain becoming more rocky and open. Looking around, Janora spotted the dark shapes of the Amesgar Mountains in the distance as well as a glint of water to the north.

Turning to face the others with a large smile on their face, Janora said, "We're about an hour south of the Basin." Pointing west and a little north, they continued, "I believe Foxhall should be a few hours walk, that way."

Denye was quite excited by this new spell , as were the others, and asked, "Can you go to any woods? How does it work? What was that weird mushroom forest?"

Janora shook their head, "Not any forest, i can only travel to forests that I have been to before. And I'm not really sure how it works, just that it taps into the weave of magic and creates a sort of tunnel. And I have no idea what those mushrooms were...I've never see them before."

Realizing that it was already early afternoon and they still had a ways to walk, the party got moving again. As they walked, it became clear why most of Rubresh Province is often referred to as the Broken Lands.

Following what could charitably be called a goat track, the party wound their way between sharp, jagged upthrustings of rock and once a large deep crevice that just opened in the earth. Twenty minutes or so later, saw them on a more defined road that Janora recalled circled the Basin.

---

As the team made their way westward, enjoying the pleasant spring day, Janora's dogstaff began to give a low growl just as Denye caught the sound of something scraping and chittering ahead. Sending Helenwye forward for a better look, the small dragonette quickly returned and projected a picture of a huge insectoid creature with rust brown chitin and enormous, sharp mandibles. It was currently digging in a pit further up the road and hadn't seemed to notice the party yet.

A quick telepathic conference later and the party began circling wide, giving the creature a large berth. This worked well for a few moment...until another one of the creatures burst up out of the ground ahead of the group.

Jilken was the first to react, swinging up her heavy crossbow and firing at the beast before dropping the bow on it's strap so that she could follow it up with a light crossbow bolt. Both bolts hit home, the heavier one cracking straight through a chitin plate. 

Denye ran forward and summoned six small meteors that circled her head. At the same time Janora sent the large Dog forward toward the insectoid beast. It let out a deep, thunderous bark that echoed across the hillside. Dashing back to Janora the ankheg swiped at the dog with one jagged claw and the summoned steed vanished in a puff of purple and green smoke.

Seeing this Janora pointed a sharp index finger and the monster and cast Ray of Sickness, the sickly green light splashing over the beast and sinking in at the joints. At the same time Ell sent an Eldritch Blast screaming into the creature, pushing it back 10ft and knocking it onto its back.

  The ankheg pushed itself back on to it's feet and rushed at Ell. It attempted to latch on with its mandibles, but the human was just too quick and stepped aside as the monster charged past. A second monster burst out of the ground behind Jilken and spit an arc of acid toward the elf. Jilken dived to the side and avoided getting splashed. Unfortunately Janora was behind the elf and the acid splashed the witch, their wide-brimmed hat taking most of the damage. 

Jilken pushed herself to her feet and bringing the Rainbow Reaper up her face, she kissed the wheat stalk and sent the bolt flying. The arrow pierced into one of the creatures forearms. A small flood burst out from the bolt and sank into the ground as large spikey brambles wrapped themselves around the ankheg. A second shot from the Reaper turned all the water to ice, as the monster squealed and chittered in anger. Turning to look at the others, she shouted, "Get off the ground if you can. Maybe it will confuse them" and jumped onto a log.

Denye threw up a hand and cast Guiding Bolt, sending a large feather made of golden light into the ankheg that was menacing Ell. As the bolt hit, the creature let out a loud noise and curled in on itself dead. Turning to look at the other one that Jilken had restrained, Denye sent two of her meteors flying into the creature with crunching, sizzling bursts of steam as the ice melted around it.

Janora followed up that salvo by calling a moonbeam down onto the ankheg as it chittered in pain. Ell knocked it back with another Eldrich Blast, riping it free of Jilken's vines and causing more of the poisonous to find crack in the armor. 

Flipping itself over, the ankheg began to quickly dig at the ground before it and disappeared a moment later. Jilken looked around and sent a quick message through the earrings, "It's digging underneath us, get off the ground. Denye quickly joined her on the log, as Janora ran over to a large rock. Ell chose to climb a tree, which proved to be good as another ankheg, this one looking fresh and unhurt, burst out of the ground near the base of the tree.

Seeing this quarry out of reach, the creature let out a loud his and spit another glob of acid, burning into his legs. The other, more injured ankheg burst out of the ground near Janora's rock and spit another stream of acid at the three adventures. All of three of them dove out of the way. As Jilken did so, she loosed a bolt right into the creatures mandibles and it curled in on itself, dead as well. 

The warrior elf spun and fired a second bolt at the other beast, but the bolt skimmed off the chitin and flew harmlessly to land in the road behind it. Denye let out a squawk and threw another Guiding Bolt at the remaining ankheg. She followed it up a moment later with two more of the spinning meteors as Janora swung the moonbeam into the face of the creature eliciting several more gasps of pain.

Freaked out a bit by all the magic going on around him, Ell casts Thunderstep and disappears from the tree with a loud boom and reappeared between Janora and Jilken. Shaking it's head the monster rushed up and took a bite at Janora, injuring them quite badly. Jilken responded by blasting the thing in the head with another crossbow bolt and explosion of ice. With a final squeal the last ankheg lay dead.

Breathing heavily, Janora dropped onto the rock they were standing on. "I have to take a rest and deal with this arm before I'll be fit to travel." Ell nodded vigorously standing panting with his hand on his hips. The others readily agreed and took a short rest to eat and bandage up wounds.

Report Date

26 Feb 2021

Primary Location

Haven

Secondary Location

Rubresh