Session3.4

Hardholme S3E4: East Temple Canar Forest Adventure — Part 2
Aurelae (Lauren), Nihilus (Caspar), Buckler (Luther), Fallynde (Elaine), Rael (Rick), Indigo (Shane).

CONTINUED FROM S3E2

DAY 5 (CON’T)
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 * The group emerges from the eastern temple. They walk down to the lower terrace where there is a giant yellow circle door. Rael uses Stone Shape to clear away crumbled debris. They open it, and the stench is immediately obvious and strong. There are piles of bones — Morgrizzon’s bones. RIP. Lots of gross, slush, melted flesh is piled everywhere.
 * Rael: “I’m such a GOOD person. I set him free from this mortal coil.”
 * Nihilus takes some of the smaller wolf-dragon bones and two teeth. Aurelae takes two teeth. Everyone else takes one tooth. Morgrizzon clearly has some magical properties. The wolf-dragon was obviously kept and used for the magic contained in his body. You can plainly see the tubes coming from the ceiling that went into the creature to extract its magic are still there.
 * They are on the east side of the mountain, and remember they left their striders on the west side, so they head back for them. Griefer (Nihilus’ raven familiar) is flying around, keeping watch. The sun is beating down on them. They hear distantly familiar screeches, and look up to see several Psora flying overhead. They don’t seem to be friendly though, because they are diving at the group. Aurelae sees a giant nest about 150 feet below them, with eggs in it. That might possibly, probably be why.
 * Both Indigo and Aurelae try speaking to them in Abyssal, but apparently they are rusty (they both rolled terribly) and the Psora are still aggressively swooping at them.
 * Rael says, “Fuck this.” And casts a ring of fire around the nest.
 * Nihilus casts Fog and a 20 foot sphere of fog appears between them and the psora, partially obscuring the Psora’s view of the party.
 * Fallynde yells in Abyssal, “Our bad! Sorry! We didn’t see your eggs!” But it doesn’t seem to do anything. She starts moving sideways, away from the nest.
 * Both psora attack Indigo, they viciously hit him three times. (Down to 12 HP)
 * Indigo casts Fear on the psora. One misses, the other critically misses. They now cannot willingly approach Indigo.
 * Rael casts Cure Wounds on Indigo and heals him for 25 HP. Also uses Mantle of Inspiration on everyone (free movement as a bonus action and +8 temp HP — not Aurelae though). Rael considers stealing one of the eggs...
 * The others all continue moving away from the eggs. There WERE six of them though… now they know where the psora are lol, when they want flying mounts. They just have to steal some babies, no big deal.
 * They get to the Striders, it’s been about a day and a half. The striders are fine. Yay!
 * They’re on the ground now, and Rael tries Cure Wounds on some of the Creep. Nothing happens. Then it starts pulsating quickly, it responds...a little too happily to Rael’s touch.
 * They’re at the base of the mountain, where the Pyramid used to be. They start off into the “forest” Northeast, to see what they can. A few hours in there is another pulsating mass, a depression in the ground now, just like where the first pyramid was. Oops, we missed that one.
 * As they get further and further in, the “pulsating, throbbing fleshy rods” get deeper and thicker, more dense. #tentaclepornforest
 * They camp. There are no wngas.

DAY 6
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 * The next day — a tree! It does not look good, like it has held out a long time and is struggling. There is a Canar there too! He is not covered in the Creep! He appears to be tending to the tree. He is a French Bulldog Canar.
 * Canar, in Common: “Help! Please help!”
 * Aurelae: “How have you survived this long?”
 * He’s been here the entire time, fighting off the Creep. By himself. Bless him.
 * The Canar seems to have some Creep slowly taking over his hands and arms. He says there is a plant that he uses to keep it from consuming him, but it can’t heal him. Buckler casts Lesser Restoration on the Canar, it seems to help, backtracks it, staves the Creep off a bit.
 * Canar: “There are still places in the forest, especially if you dig deep, to find herbs to make a salve to fight off this stuff.”
 * Aurelae: “What herbs?”
 * Canar: “I believe, if I were to translate it into your language, you would call it… Kibble.” Kibble is a spotted, green vegetable-like plant, like an eggplant.
 * Aurelae tells him that there is one person in a village far away that has the spell that can heal The Creep infection, but it’s quite a journey. (A healer in Viven.) He won’t leave the tree. They give him a bunch of rations.
 * Aurelae: “My name is Aurelae. What is yours?”
 * Canar: “Uh, let’s see, my name in our language would be unpronounceable to you, but simply translated, you can call me…” He thinks for a few seconds, “Sparky.”
 * Buckler casts Lesser Restoration on the tree. Same stuff, it helps beat it back a little bit, but doesn’t cure it.
 * Rael gives Sparky two of his spell slots so he can slow down the infection on the tree some more. Sparky is rather old, and so tired. He says we should seek out the People of Richard. It’s the last group of Canar left. “Ask for Fido.” They should continue eastward the way they are going and they will find it.
 * Aurelae: “How will we know when we find them? The People of Richard? Is their settlement hidden?”
 * Sparky: “You will see The Wall of Fire.”
 * # OperationSaveSparky
 * They spend some time talking with Sparky. He doesn’t think he has more than 5 days left before The Creep takes him over. They promise to return with Kibble for him, and head onwards to find the People of Richard.
 * As they travel along, they see more and more just how infected the entire area is. The forest is completely overtaken except for that one tree Sparky is guarding.
 * They stop for a short rest, Rael does an experiment and casts fire and burns a small area of The Creep. When the fire stops the Creep comes back — fast. They take some time to search for some Kibble. They find some!
 * They set up camp.

DAY 7
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 * Rael and Nihilus work together to first freeze the Creep, and then cast Fairy Fire to light up any objects underneath. Success! They find another Kibble. The Creep slowly grows back as they watch.
 * They continue on. As they are striding along on their Stryders they hear a foul sound, one of the Creep pustules explodes and out comes a giant nasty worm thing, spraying yellow Creep goop everywhere. Fallynde gets covered in goop. She is now… immune to poison. Ha! (Could have been MUCH worse!)
 * GIANT FLIPPING WORM. Bigger than a Quakesnake.
 * Rael: “Ribbed for your displeasure.”
 * Indigo casts a Ray of Enfeeblement at it. Aaaaaaaaand he opens his possibly magical flask at it. They all hold their breath and… the flask… is empty. Nothing happens.
 * Rael casts Mantle of Inspiration — +8 temp Hp to everyone but Fallynde.
 * Nihilus casts Slow, but the Giant Wormsaved and is not affected.
 * Aurelae puts some distance between herself and the Giant Worm and shoots it. (38 damage)
 * Fally activates rage and drinks a Potion of Growth. She GROWS SUPER BIG, hops off her Strider, and RUNS TOWARDS THE GIANT WORM MONSTER.
 * Buckler runs up and attacks THE FUCK outta the Giant Worm. (41 damage)
 * The Worm spews a giant cone of acid at everyone right in front of it and to the left (so everyone but Aurelae and two Striders). Fally takes 38 dam, the others take 19 (but not Buckler, he has a Shield Something Reaction).
 * It has GRABBY TENTACLES THAT COME OUT OF ITS MOUTH. IT HAS MOUTH TENTACLES. It reaches right for Buckler and Fallynde. Thankfully they don’t get pulled into its mouth.
 * Indigo uses his Staff of Frost and creates a 20-foot-high wall of ice between the Worm and Buckler and Fallynde.
 * Rael casts Bardic Performance — everyone gets 1d8 to roll to substitute another roll. He then runs southwest so he can just barely see the Worm. He casts Wall of Fire.
 * Aurelae blows the Horn of Valhalla, and 10 valiant Viking Berserker Warriors appear and run to their aid!
 * The Giant Worm breaks through the Ice Wall and goes right for Fallynde. At least it doesn’t swallow her whole! Half of the ice wall is now gone.
 * Fallynde is not holding back. She slams into the Giant Worm not once, twice, but THREE TIMES! (68 damage)
 * Buckler heals Fallynde for 35 HP.
 * The Valhalla Warriors swarm the Worm! (51 damage)
 * Indigo uses Cause Fear, but the Worm is immune to fear...
 * Rael runs up to Fallynde and casts Cure Wounds. (Heals her for 25 HP)
 * Nihilus runs farther West, stays just in casting range. If the Worm hits him he is as good as dead.
 * Aurelae puts a little more distance between the Worm and herself and then shoots it for 33 damage.
 * The Worm shoots its Acid Breath again, and it’s not pretty. Seven of the Valhalla Warriors are now dead, and Buckler takes a hard hit.
 * Fally hits The Worm for 35 damage. Huge parts of the Worm are sloughing off now.
 * The Warriors attack The Worm with much fervor and honor.
 * Indigo uses his Staff of Frost to cast a Cone of Cold on the Worm (24 damage).
 * Rael says, “FUCK THIS.” and pulls out his gun and shoots The Worm. It is NOT super effective. The bullet hits the worm with all the fury of a mosquito bite.
 * Nihilus runs forward (into a 60 ft range) and casts Mind Spike. (10 damage)
 * Aurelae shoooooots it (36 damage) AND IT IS DEAD!!! :D
 * NOT RAEL. AURELAE. AURELAE GOT THE KILLING BLOW. (Not Rael.)
 * The Worm withers and slides back into the hole from whence it came.
 * They continue onwards and find a large ring of fire in the middle of the Creep forest.
 * Fallynde: “We have come to speak with Fido!”
 * Fido comes out, he is an Australian Shepard Canar. “What? Who sent you?”
 * Fallynde: “Sparky sent us.”
 * Fido: “Oh that guy? What do you want?”
 * Fallynde: “We just want to help.”
 * Fido: “You’ll have to speak with the boss.”
 * Fido opens the firewall and they walk through a crowd of at least 100 Canar. There is a small encampment set up here. They are the last group of The Canar left in existence.
 * They hear a deep, booming voice, “WE MUST FIGHT! WE MUST CONTINUE THE FIGHT! NOW AND FOREVER! WE MUST NOT LET THEM TAKE THE FOREST!” —Richard, Leader of The Last of The Canar.
 * These Canar are totally different than the other Canar they had met in years past. The Canar were originally a hive mind species, but that hive mind was broken, corrupted, and now they have independent minds. That’s why they are autonomously functioning now, as opposed to the rather creepy, mimicking Canar the group had met in adventures past.
 * Aurelae tries to convince Richard to come back to Hardholme, to recruit help and return to fight another day. He says no, they must stay and fight. They are the last hope for their homeland forest. “Wait…” Richards eyes fixate on something Indigo is holding. “Is that… is that a stick?”
 * Indigo: *holds the stick up* “You want the stick?”
 * Richard begins yelling and barking at the stick: “Yes! Yes! Throw the stick!”
 * Indigo throws the stick and a bunch of The Canar run after it. This process repeats itself until Richard composes himself and gets back to business.
 * The group mentions the Hyla and how they were able to help them take their home back too, and The Canar say that they know of the Hyla. Richard starts taking the strangers a little more seriously after this.
 * Rael suggests taking a cutting of the last tree, tells them about Root and his ability to grow trees. Suggests that at least we can grow their forest anew in another part of Kazzaran’s Valley. That gets their interest. It’s not the same, but it is better than losing everything.
 * Aurelae gives them Dinnerbird Jerky and they loooooooovvveee it. Dinnerbird Jerky for everyone!
 * They are convinced, and agree to go with them. They rest at The Canar Camp for the night.

DAY 8

 * The next day they head back towards Sparky along with the ENTIRE Canar group.
 * They try their best to convince Sparky to come with, but he will not hear anything of it. (Two crit fails ouch.) The group promises to come back to check on Sparky, and leave him a giant pile of Kibble, and they move on towards Hardholme.
 * They arrive back at Hardholme and help the Canar set up a camp west of the Coliseum and north of The Groveyard.
 * THE END