Campaign Journal: More Forest Sight-Seeing. Now with Wildlife!

Whew, that was a session....

The miscreants:

• Frederick
• Fulvus
• Rondel
• Slick
• Mareth
• Hench-cleric
• Hench-thief
• Four Redshirts

The party awoke after an uneventful night at Ashryn Spire, guarded by Brutus the Bear and numerous watchful eyes of forest creatures. Thefri the Hermit greeted them in the morning, and committed to keep an eye out for nefarious forces. He gifted the party a wooden amulet that would allow a messenger-creature to locate them, and wished them good luck in their quest.

After brief discussion, and review of the "Snake Map," the party decided that locating one more node would be helpful to confirm their place on the map, as well as to hopefully find intact components to reverse-engineer or duplicate. With confidence in their plan, they trekked northward toward the Lion's Tail River. Mareth counted their rations, figuring the party had about two days left.

A long day of uneventful travel brought them to the river. A bit of scouting and they found a reasonable ford for horses and men on foot.

Just for funsies I had everyone roll a d6 to see if they slipped while crossing. Only Rondel fell, and I asked him to roll a random item to lose. He lost his rations... Oops.

As night fell, the party set up camp. First watch, and the Random Dice struck. Frederick was taken aback as the ground burst forth in front of him with a pair of massive mantis-like insects.

Oops, indeed.

Fortunately, Frederick wasn't surprised by this, and was able to defend himself as the creatures burst forth. The rest of the party and various henches soon followed. They struggled to pierce the tough exoskeletons, and Fulvus took a horrific bite. Recognizing that he was terribly injured, and possibly sizzling from acid, Mareth directed his hireling to toss the halfling into the river. Battle continued, with some injuries to the bugs. In the melee, three hirelings were shredded by the massive insects. The party bravely retreated to missile range and finally put the bugs down, Slick with a sling stone, and a very disgruntled, wet halfling with a well-fired bow shot.

They checked for gut-treasure with prejudice, pulling coin and gems from the burrow and bugs. Fulvus harvested chitin plates from the insects, with the intent of crafting armor. The deceased hirelings were interred into the burrows.

The rest of the night was quiet. Thankfully.

The somewhat diminished party continued onward in the AM. Following the relative locations on the map, as well as dead-reckoning from their last known tower location, they continued north-northwest. Their navigation was rewarded with a carved marker stone, covered with a snake carving similar to their map, and sigils of the "Keepers of the Light," the rumored caretakers of the Barrier.

Mareth took a rubbing of the patterns to add to his collection.

Taking a hint from the stones orientation, the party continued northwest. And the Random Dice struck again.

Rondel was attacked by some barely-seen assailant, falling from his horse. A telepathic voice yelled into the heads of the characters, "Stay away from my nest!" Mareth spotted the camouflaged critter in the trees, and attempted to talk it down with offers of jerky. 

by Trampier, of course

The tiny dragon finally calmed, realizing that the party didn't mean harm. Explaining its paranoia as due to various twisted creatures haunting the woods, the party confirmed that these were more of the mutants previously encountered. The pseudodragon introduced itself as Skakwibela, and apologized for attacking the elf, noting that he'd be okay in a few days (at least he wouldn't need those rations)... The party inquired as to any towers or structures in the area. Skakwibela suggested a man-made structure it had seen about one-half day to the northwest along a ridgeline.

Onward. With a comatose elf trussed to his horse.

Eventually, a ruin appeared on the horizon. The blocky building didn't appear to be inhabited on first glance, and seemed long abandoned and damaged by mishap or time.

Circling around, the party spotted a small annex building. Slick and his hench (Flick, of course), checked the door, to be set upon by an armored fighter. They took some hits before the rest of the party joined, eventually slaying the fellow. 

They recovered the guy's gear, puzzling at his garbled, confused speech as he attacked. Finding a carved plinth inside, Frederick investigated it as a possible clue for the Barrier. Unfortunately, this was a decoy, with an electrical trap. Oops.

Shaking it off, the party hit a side door of the complex. No sound was heard, and Fulvus burst through the door. But something was in there. A voice, "You've invaded my home!" So they had... Fulvous fired into the darkness, missing. And his eyes went blank, with a command of, "Protect me," in his head. Damnit. Other characters attempted to fire at the creature in the dark, causing minimal damage. Mareth, sensing what had transpired with Fulvous, attempted a counter-charm. Fulvous made this saving throw, of course. And in defending his new friend, stabbed Frederick. "Dead."

Henry Cee, barely 2nd level hench-cleric, dragged him out to heal.

With this, the party gang-tackled the errant halfling, trussing him up and hastily departing the building.

With night falling, the diminished crew barricaded themselves in the annex building. Time to retreat back to town and heal.

Creature to be revealed at a later time...

DM notes:

That was something. Ok, I'd joked on thinning out the hirelings, but the Random Dice burrowed up into the campground. Ankhegs are on my regional wandering encounter list, and the number finally came up. The party will scout their campsites better in the future...

Attacks were likewise randomly selected, and the dice again fell against the poor mooks.

The pseudodragon was also a random critter. Its initial roll was belligerent, although as we saw, the creature was calmed and eventually apologized. 

Overall, I had loose contingency plans for the PCs either heading back to town or continuing the search. The notebook contained a number of potential encounters and features, intended to both move the story forward, and to add to the local lore.

Regarding the two out of action PCs, I am hesitant on taking away agency. Fortunately, Rondel's player could back up to the cleric. We'll see how a charmed halfling continues to behave (I think he's chewing through the ropes). That said, the players were aghast that I would use their favorite spell against them... The horror! ;)

The players reported another fun time, and we'll pick up where we left off. I did let them know to come with some "roses and thorns" to discuss at the beginning of next session, as we've progressed a bit and I want to do a check in. 

They are already thinking bigger things, such as recruiting allies to aid in the search and reaching out to the larger factions, so we'll see how that evolves. 

But they need to get home, first.

No foreshadowing...