In which our heroes wrestle a giant crocodile, fight bees with bees, stop a summoning ritual (?) and retrieve parts for Runner’s legs. Also, Vim antagonizes a powerful fey and pays for it.
Session recount
Our heroes awaken at the Unyielding Shield Inn to the smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchens below. In the communal area amongst the common locals they see a strange looking elf sitting at the long central table dressed in leaves, a bewildered look on his face and sniffing the assorted cooked meats and vegetables on a plate in front of him. The party orders their breakfast, including morning ale, and join the odd elf, mostly since it was the only empty table able to accommodate the assorted adventures. The elf introduces himself as Theren and is new to Ghalt, Aundair, Khorvaire and the civilised world in general.
Before he can introduce himself further, Bruiser wanders into the common area looking for his master Nedne, but is nowhere to be found and so is entertaining himself sniffing the patrons of the Unyielding Shield. Making his way around to the Theren he stops and they share a moment where Theren makes some bear-like noises, obviously communicating with each other. Theren introduces himself to the bear and asks after his well-being to which Bruisers response is “I’m a happy bear” and other such positive phrases all will a somewhat sad tone – as much as sad bear gruffs and growls can be understood.
Donnerjack and Artillery are in deep conversation about the days plan. Donnerjack wishes to obtain a skull, for his own reasons, and Artillery wishes to help out Runner, a warforged who works at the Unyielding Shield who needs components to fix his crippled robotic legs. Well, ‘why not both?’ they agree amongst themselves. Hearing their discussions of adventure, Theren perks his ears up and asks if he could tag along – whilst not especially experienced he feels that if he helps these group of seemingly capable travellers find what they need, maybe someday they too will help him find what he needs.
So the party splits up, half on their way to discover the whereabouts of a potential human skull led by Donnerjack along with Kaster and Theren whilst the other half head out towards the Crying Fields to the east outside of Ghalt – a location where a battle was once held. The Crying Fields are dangerous marshlands; misty with uneven footing and sporadic deeper pools of water haphazardly dotted around that own the corpses of many dead warriors. Nevertheless, our heroes are far from timid and Sol, Artillery, Aileen and Vim venture out towards the humid, boggy lands.
Donnerjacks party reach the town centre and come across Peacekeeper Mathelas talking to a fairly concerned looking citizen standing by his cart. Donnerjack walks up to the two and overhears that there has been another attack on the road, probably giants venturing out of the Eldritch Grove again and stealing horses for snacks. A dangerous road will certainly drive away traders and Kaster once again reassures Mathelus that they will do their utmost to make the roads safe again. They also discover that the ossuary in town that holds a particular skull that Donnerjack is keen on ‘acquiring’ is closed, but will have a grand opening in a couple of days for its annual festival for citizens of Ghalt to pay their respects to those that died in the great war. With this knowledge, Donnerjack decides that the next best place to look for a skull would be in the area where there was a somewhat recent battle… which would be at the Crying Fields…
Theren calls over a bird and bribes it with breadcrumbs to seek out their friends already in the vast marshes to the east and once found to circle around in the sky as a marker to help a swifter rendezvous. Meanwhile, in the marshes, Artillery & Co have made their way fairly deep into dangerous territory whilst looking for a broken, lifeless warforged body for salvage. It is slow going, but they eventually discover a rusted warforged slumped up against a dead tree. Within the chest cavity of the mechanical corpse, is a massive hornets nest and as they get closer disturb it. Hundreds of hornets erupt from their home in a defensive swarm and attack the small group. With some clever charm music played by Sol the bard, the remainder of the bees enter combat with Aileen, the druid, who transforms into a swarm of hornets of her own kind and proceeds to have a miniature, insect on insect dogfight.
Back at the inn, Ifrid slams awake from the comfort of his room, slightly dazed and confused and equally annoyed that it seems his friends have forgotten to awake him. Dashing out of the Unyielding Shield after receiving information from Runner as to the potential whereabouts of his party, he heads east to the marshes with reckless abandonment. Splashing through the shallow pools and long grasses, he slips on an uneven rock and falls into a much deeper and larger pool of water. Inwardly cursing his misstep and with the intention of pulling himself back to the surface, in the gloom of the murky waters he sees an enormous shadow coming towards him. In an instant, the shadow is upon him and massive jaws engulf him entirely.
Donnerjack’s group makes better time, albeit still cautiously, through the crying fields and the help of the circle bird in the distance gives them a direction. Yet as they continue to progress, Kaster gets an uneasy feeling they are being hunted. He calls out the group to quicken their pace as the waters of a nearby pool start to ripple with movement below the surface. Making a run for it and gracefully jumping from muddy clump to mossy rock, they see the rest of their party in the distance dealing with the last of the hornets.
With not but a hot minute to greet each other in such a place or to enquiry what they were doing there, a gigantic dire crocodile breaches the surface of the adjacent pool approximately 100m away. Jumping into action, Artillery begins to shoot at the croc, Aillen – still in swarm form flies – flies over to continue her aerial-based stinging assault and the rest of the party take cover. As the battle progresses on and the danger steadily increases, from the fey mists a majestic, rainbow-mained unicorn appears and nods his head towards Theren. Theren is seen weaving a sign in the air and bringing forth for the first time a spirit totem to aid them against their foes.
Despite this shiny, equestrian fey now standing in the fog, waiting for command, the croc seems to have problems with keeping something it ate down and ignoring the attacks to its thick hide, it violently vomits out their hobgoblin friend onto the muddy bank. Our heroes valiantly slay the beast and as the blood flows from its many wounds, Donnerjack brandishes his daggar and calls dibs on skinning the scaley behemoth. He skins it to the best of his abilities – which is none, and shreads the beast’s hide in such a poor method that the party wonders if he has ever cut food on his own plate before. Nevertheless, due to the sheer amount of hide, he accumulates enough to perhaps fashion into some armour later on.
With the danger no longer present, the party investigate the dead warforged, now free from hornets, only to realise that the limbs and components are heavily weathered and rusted from the moist atmosphere and must now look further afield to discover anything worthwhile in this harsh land. They meet a party of Silver Flame soldiers performing post-humous rights on fallen brothers, and also gain some information from a blonde, female priest that there is a cave nearby that perhaps might be worthwhile investigating since patrols that have been sent near the cave have not come back. Donnerjack, ever willing to impress a pretty face, accepts this mission on behalf of the group.
Making their way northwards, they come upon the entrance to the cave and with cunning stealth, Vim hugs the shadows to perform exploratory recon alone. Deeper and deeper he ventures into the cave, nimbly crossing over a stone path separating pools of green, fetid waters until he hears a low chanting from around the next corner. “Rak Tulkhesh” it repeats, over and over. The rest of the party makes their way to just behind Vim as he peers around the corner to see several ghouls performing a ritual. Kaster, being less stealthy than Vim accidentally knocks over a bone and sends a clattering noise through the rocky summoning chambers. Despite the chanting, the noise carries to the ears of the ghouls and in a screeching wail, the light is snapped out by the ghoul wizard performing the ceremony and our heroes are plunged into darkness.
Luckily, as is the case for most races, several of the party can see in the dark so this is more of an annoyance rather than a hindrence, however for Donnerjack – he is now completely unable to see his quarry. He also does not see several other ghouls crawling out of the green pools behind them and so the party, already fairly tired, must once again fight for their lives. Donnerjack, at his disadvantage of being blind, is taken down by two ghouls who proceed to tear into his chest, gravely wounding him. With what seems to be the end for our charming, charasmastic-less wizard, Theren pounces out of the darkness in a dire wolf form and tears the ghouls apart with the help of Aileen in a large cat form. Bones, guts and thick blood ichor splatter over the fallen, unconscious Donnerjack and walls. The summoning ghoul, in a last ditch effort to complete his summoning ritual, is slain by Ifrid without prejudice. The body lights up from the fire spell, illuminating the cave to reveal at the far end a massive, warforged titan body encased in to the rock face. A body that contains ample, usable components that our heroes gather whilst basking in their victory over the undead, unnaturally sized beasts and the satisfaction of staying true to their promise of helping Runner.
That night, as the group takes some well earnt rest in the comfort of the inn, Vim is compelled to leave, alone, to venture into the nearby forest of the Eldritch Groves. As if drawn to a specific location, he enters the lair of the dryad Amaryllis. With daggers drawn he sneaks up on her with intent to kill. Amarayllis turns around to face Vim with a smile as if she had always known he was there. She laughs at the concept that he thought he ever had the opportunity to kill her and gives him the option to die, or to embrace her. Looking around, his eyes widen as he takes in the many eyes peering back at him from the edge of the grove. Realising the futility of his actions and seeing no way out – he embraces the dryad and his vision fades to black.
Session glossary
- Rak Tulkhesh – some demonic entity; depicted as a warforged titan filled and decorated with bones
Turn of the Age 