Kay's Journal - 8/19 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal – 8/19

We’re back in the underground passages. We open the door to the next area and are greeted with a pleasant breeze, somewhat humid, like it’s coming off a lake or something. The wind whips up as we step into the room. CornCob and Abran go first.

We get to a room so large it seems like a wide-open space with liquid rather than a floor. There are stone pedestals floating in the air. One of the pedestals has a large creature that appears to be nesting. Pujol and CornCob think they recognize it as a hippogriff. 

There’s a platform in the middle of the area that appears to be constructed, rather than natural stone shapes like the pedestals. There’s no easy way to cross to the platform – we would need to fly or swim. The water doesn’t seem to have a current or flow. It’s very clear, and has nary a ripple – the wind, strong as it is, doesn’t seem to affect the surface of the water.

Fathom spots a few tiny ripples in the water. The surface moves, stops, and grows clear again. She thinks the water is very deep, maybe hundreds of feet. She pokes it with her staff, and the staff end comes back charred. Right. No swimming.

CornCob chucks a silver piece into the water. It sinks; he loses sight of it quickly, but it leaves a bit of a shimmery path as it goes.

Fathom uses her staff to transfer some water to where we are standing. It sizzles when it hits the stone.

The next island is 25, maybe 30 feet away and 10 or so feet above us.

Fathom pours some water from her decanter into the pool. The water spits and sizzles. Yup. This isn’t water, it’s acid.

The constructed platform is about 70 feet away. There’s writing on it that looks vaguely elvish, but is old Lizardfolk.

I look around with the goggles. The floating pedestals are magically held aloft. There’s also magic on the surface of the acid; it seems to be what’s suppressing the ripples and almost seems to be holding it in place. The center platform is definitely magical, and there’s a glow of magic coming from the hippogriff’s nest.

Gooseneck holds up the key and shouts for the door to open. He adds keywords – ‘smoke’ and ‘mist’. The central platform lights up. Good?

Not good. I see a wave of magical mist poof out like someone stepped there. It moves in our direction. The hippogriff wakes up, and stands. Air elementals get pulled up from the surface of the pool. We think the words were wrong, and now we’re being attacked.

I fly over to one of the pedestals. Gooseneck shouts to the hippogriff to ask for help. It does not look impressed. Abran shoots at the air elemental and hits it, but the poison from hit bow doesn’t affect it. It still takes the regular damage from the arrow, though.

I see the color of the platform has changed.

Pujol tells Abran to move back so that he can continue to fire without being in front to meet the enemy. CornCob casts a protective spell on himself and calls his spiritual weapon. The weapon swings at it, and hits. Fathom gets out the talisman from the djinn and tries to make contact. She backs up behind Gooseneck.

The air elementals are fast. The smaller one flies at me and knocks me off the pedestal. The big one goes to the rest of the group. A third one forms in front of the hippogriff.

Pujol runs to the back of the group with Fathom, and casts a protection spell for the group. 

I go to the central platform. When I land, it starts lighting up, but seems to be waiting for something specific to activate it. Gooseneck tells Fathom to cast Fly on him. He holds out the key again and this time, says all three words – obsidian, smoke, mist. That seems to get the hippogriff’s attention, but the elementals keep attacking. Abran shoots the big elemental again.

The hippogriff flies to Gooseneck and offers him a large egg of swirling colors. The elemental attacks me. Gooseneck takes the egg and flies to the platform. When he lands, the platform changes colors again. He sees a hollow on the platform where the egg would fit. Abran shoots the elemental he’s been firing at, and it dissipates.

CornCob and Fathom cast spells at the elemental that’s on the platform with Gooseneck. The elemental attacks Gooseneck; the other one attacks CornCob and hurts him. Pujol tries to cast a wall of thorns on the platform without hitting Gooseneck, but the magic of the platform prevents it from taking hold.

Gooseneck tries to put the egg in the slot, but the presence of the elemental prevents it from going in. So, he hits the elemental with his axe. Abran shoots it, CornCob casts a spell at it, and Pujol tries to hedgehog it. After all that, it finally dissipates. 

With the elementals gone, Gooseneck puts the egg into the slot. The platform activates. It turns and spirals down, creating a staircase going down. That’s the way out.

Kay's Journal - 8/5 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal, 8/5

There’s a portal to another plane filling the doorway in front of us. It smells like flowers. Pujol sniffs hard, trying to identify them, and it is flower-scents he remembers from his childhood that remind him of home and good times.

We go through the porta and end up in a long, prismatic passageway. We walk what feels like a long way, during which the smells of home and comfort get stronger for us all. Eventually, a godly voice speaks to us, requesting help. Some of its people, a group of pixies, needs help. We agree to help, and the presence says it will send us to ‘Chrysanthemum’. 

We appear in front of a very vibrant glade with lots of plants, a flower throne, a plate with coins, a glowing tree stump, and a small winged woman in a cage. This is Chrysanthemum. She asks if we are here to help, and when we say yes, she says ‘Piggy’ will be back soon. 

The gold in the tray is a random pile, not neat stacks.

Chrysanthemum thinks using magic to open the cage would be bad. She says her people are in the tree stump; she’s more worried about them than herself. Her suggestion for how to resolve the situation is to kill Piggy or otherwise force her to release the pixies.

We ask about ‘Piggy’. Her full name is Iggly Piggly Wardleglade, and she’s been taking over territory in this realm. She has a lot of magic, and goes away from here every day to do…something, then returns at sunset. She looks like an elf.

CornCob feels confident that Chrysanthemum is telling us the truth. She says all of her people, aside from herself, are in the stump – hundreds of pixies. They’ve all been imprisoned for about a month. She tells us that Piggy talks about an ancient god returned, and she’s on a mission for them. When Piggy returns, she seems to teleport in. When she initially came here, she had creatures with her. They were winged, with red scales and tails, kinda like Gooseneck. Chrysanthemum says that Piggy casts spells very quickly.

We consider plans, and decide to go with ‘ambush’. Abran and Fathom move behind the stump; Pujol is near there as well. I climb up into the ruins. CornCob places a guardian of faith half way between the throne and the stump. 

Piggy shows up, appearing on the throne in a sitting pose. She’s a dark-skinned elvish woman. She squeals as she hits the wall of thorns we’d cast upon it. Chrysanthemum says she did it, and laughs. Piggy stares at her. The rest of our group attacks – Fathom casts a spell, CornCob throw his Robe of Entangelment at her, Abran shoots her, and Pujol tries to hedgehog her. The results are, at best, mixed. She takes limited damage from the attacks, but mostly shakes everything off. I aim my bow at her and tell her to free the pixies and leave, or we’ll really start attacking. It’s a bluff, and has no effect. She teleports up to where I am.

Gooseneck goes over to try to free Chrysanthemum from the cage. As soon as he touches the cage, he turns into a pink bunny with a single horn. 

Piggy casts a spell at Abran and Fathom. They take some damage and are also stricken with fear. They hit back at her, with Fathom casting a spell and Abran shooting at her. The attacks damage her, but it’s still not slowing her down any.

Piggy casts another spell. A rift opens up under Fathom and Abran; Fathom, Abran, and Pujol fall in. Fathom goes down.

Three winged creatures emerge from the rift and then it closes. Abran, Fathom, and Pujol get spit out. Pujol turns invisible and moves away. CornCob casts a spell at Piggy and then calls up his magic weapon.

I try to knock Piggy off the wall, but fail. Gooseneck tries to use his horn to open the cage, but has no effect. Abran shoots one of the demon insect creatures, then backs away. Fathom regains consciousness, then casts invisibility on herself and moves away.

Piggy casts a spell and CornCob and I. We’re both damaged…and charmed. Pujol does what he can to help everyone resist her spells. One of the demons approaches CornCob, but the guardian intercepts it and hits it.

Bunny Gooseneck tries to stab the demon with his horn, and misses. Abran swings at a demon near him, hits, then runs away and heals himself. Fathom casts a fireball at Piggy, which hurts her some. Then Fathom hides behind Abran. Piggy moves down off the wall and tries to polymorph Fathom, but fails. Pujol moves closer to Abran and cheers him on.

CornCob casts a spell on one of the demons, and does some damage. He moves behind the stump; the two demons that had been attacking Abran move toward him. The demon that Gooseneck attacked comes at me, but attacks Gooseneck – it bites and claws at him, which breaks the spell and turns him back to himself. He swings at it, hits.

Abran shoots Piggy and does a bunch of damage. She’s finally starting to look hurt. Fathom tries to cast a spell at her, but she counters it.

Piggy casts a spell at Abran, banishing him to a plane with lots of hedges. CornCob casts a bolt at her, but misses. 

One of the demons hits Fathom; she’s just barely still up. One tries to bite CornCob, but misses. Another attacks Gooseneck, but misses him. Gooseneck hits it with his axe. Abran escapes the hedge maze and returns. Fathom casts Darkness on Piggy’s necklace, then moves into the darkness…but gets clawed on the way. She goes down again, and the darkness disappears.

Piggy casts the charm spell at Abran; he takes some lightning damage and is charmed. She orders him to attack CornCob. Pujol moves toward Fathom. CornCob summons the water elemental and has it attack one of the demons. The demons attack the elemental, Fathom, and Gooseneck. I shoot at one, and it goes down.

Gooseneck attacks Piggy, hits. She’s pretty hurt now. ABran swings at CornCob, misses. Piggy flies back up into the ruins and casts her charm at Gooseneck, tells him to attack me. Pujol heals Fathom. CornCob and the water elemental attack one of the demons.

I fly upwards to avoid Gooseneck, and he climbs the ruins and ends up next to Piggy. Abran shoots her once more, and then she falls down, dead. When she falls, the cage disappears and the stump releases all the pixies. They swarm the demons and shred them. 

Chrysanthemum goes over to Piggy’s body, and says she has a couple magic items if we want them: an Amulet of the Planes, and a Robe of the Archmagi. We take them. She offers us each a gift, opening a sack and telling us to reach in.

• I get a paper wasp nest in a jar

• Gooseneck gets a bar of soap that smells like home

• Abran gets a silver fork with the tines bent sideways

• Fathom gets a large iron fingernail

• Pujol gets a pendant showing the phases of the moon

• CornCob gets a tinted glass monocle (Green)

• The water elemental gets a delicate silver cameo with pictures of twin children

Chrysanthemum says we can use the amulet to get back where we came from.

Kay's Journal - 7/22 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal, 7/22

After getting past the gargoyles, we rest briefly in the corridor before continuing on. As we go down the corridor, the air gets warmer and more humid. It’s very hot by the time we see an orange glow in front of us. Fire is next, apparently.

We hear a bubbling sound up ahead, and smell sulfur. Fathom takes the lead since she’s comfortable with heat.

The hallway opens up into a room. Yup…it’s lava. There’s a big pool of it, mostly filling the room. There’s a solid island in the middle of the big pool of lava, which is piled with coins, gems, swords, shields, chests…all kinds of treasure. There’s a narrow pathway around the edge of the room; on one end of the room it’s broken by the river of lava running through. On the other end of the room there’s a bridge over the lava river. There’s a door on the far side of the room, opposite from where we entered.

I see some fiends on the far side, in front of the door, though they look like they are trying to hide. Fathom greets them, taking them by surprise since they thought they were hiding successfully (that’s so cute). She tells them we have the key and would like to pass through. She’s speaking to them in Infernal. The lead fiend, a female who is directly in front of the door, says that they are observers, and it’s not for them to let us through or not. Fathom asks who we need to talk to, then. She thinks they might be trying to trick us, but the fiend says it’s the watcher in the center that we have to talk to, of course. She also notes that people travelling through here usually know what they are doing.

I look at the island and the pile of treasure with the goggles. There’s definitely magic there – looks like it might be some kind of alarm, maybe. Also, it looks like the bridge over the lava at the end of the room will collapse if we try to cross it.

We debate. What if the pile of treasure is previous offerings, and this is a ‘bribe the guards’ type of situation? We try offering 10gp each. Pujol summons an Unseen Servant and has it carry the 60gp over to the island. I see the magic on the island coalesce a little. Fathom watches the fiends; one of them is smiling a big stupid happy grin. Otherwise, they don’t react.

The coins start to shake as if the platform is vibrating. Fathom asks the fiends if that was a sufficient offering. The female fiend continues to be vague about it, but they do step back. That seems like a bad sign.

Screw it, we jump across the lava to the island. We feel the tremor…and the coins rise up into a vaguely humanoid-shaped golem. Great. It points at Pujol and says something in Ignan. Does anybody speak the elemental language of fire? No, of course not. Fathom casts Tongues on herself and asks the golem to repeat what it said, pretty please. It’s asking for the words of passage, and asking this of Pujol.

We debate on the words. We know, thanks to Pujol’s friend the gargoyle, that the first word is ‘obsidian’. What could the second be? Obsidian is earth that came from fire…a mix of the element of the last section and the element of the next section on the map. Maybe this would be something similar. We check the map…the next section is Air. So, what’s fire + air? Pujol follows ‘obsidian’ with ‘smoke’.

That seems to be it. Yay! We do not die. The golem reaches into a chest and pulls out a gem and offers it to Pujol. It’s a big gem, a good 4” across. Pujol takes the gem, and the golem dissipates. The fiends draw their weapons.

I am an arrow at the lead fiend and tell her to cut the crap; we satisfied the guardian. She says that now that we have recovered the jewel, she can take it from us. So, I shoot her in the face.

The other fiends turn into misty liquid and flow around her, giving her more armor. Abran shoots her twice. She flies across to the island and attacks Abran. She hits him once, and it turns out her sword is poison. Great! The poison is way worse than the sword wound itself.

CornCob tries to banish her, but fails. Gooseneck attacks her, hits once. She’s clearly a highly skilled fighter. Pujol tucks the gem into his shirt and books it back to the entrance; then casts an illusory duplicate of the key, sets it on the ground, and runs. The fiend smiles at him knowingly – I think she’s not buying it. Fathom casts a bolt at her, hits her, and asks why she needs the key. The fiend says it’s a gift.

Abran swings at her, but she parries. He hits her with his second swing, then he backs up. She follows him, giving Gooseneck an opportunity to hit her while she’s moving, but he misses. She swings at Abran and hits him three times. He goes down.

CornCob casts a spell at her and Gooseneck attacks her again. Pujol runs back into the room and turns invisible. Fathom casts a psychic lance at her, and that does it. As she fades out, she telepathically tells us all that we won’t succeed, others worse than her search for the keys. Gooseneck grabs her bow as she dissipates.

As he hands the bow to Abran, Gooseneck feels a twinge of regret at giving it up. The twinge is mildly unnatural. Fathom identifies the bow – it’s a +2 bow that does 3d8 poison damage. Abran thinks the bow is almost alive, but he attunes with it anyway. It tells him they will do wonderful things together. He asks its name, and it tells him it is called Ahtar Paire. This is fine. It’s totally fine.

We rest on the island. CornCob heals Abran.

The key gem is probably worth 500gp, just as a gem. It’s a sapphire. We stick it in the door; the door glows along the seams. The doorway is extra-planar. We are going somewhere else. The doorway is a permanent gate to a different plane.

Kay's Journal - 6/24 - Reaper Errant

 Kay’s Journal, 6/24

Gooseneck’s left arm is in the rock lizard mouth. He’s not hurt, but he can’t get his arm out without hurting himself. 

We all feel a vibration in the rock below us. Some heavy mechanism is at work. A door slides open, and we see a dark passage beyond it.

Fathom goes into the passage to look for something that might release Gooseneck. She finds a stone handle that could be twisted right or left. I look, I see the walls have divots, like maybe they were dug into recently.

CornCob takes a look at the stonework. He doesn’t think it’s supposed to be a deadly trap. He also doesn’t think it can close any further than it already has.

Abran turns the handle. The stone jaws open and release Gooseneck. Gooseneck pulls the key out. There’s another lever that will close the door.

Abran casts a spell on Gooseneck to give him dark vision. I put on the goggles so I can also see in the dark. So, we don’t need torches as we head in to the cavern. The path slopes slightly downward. CornCob thinks it follows a natural vein of something through the stone. He thinks both the gate and tunnel are both very old, at least a couple hundred years.

We walk for 30-40 minutes, heading downward. There are no side passages. The size of the passage varies as we go along. CornCob spots some quarts fragments in the walls. Morgot thinks we’re beneath the surface and heading toward the center of the mountain. I look at the map, it seems to match where we are, but the scale is off. The map shows a long, straight area opening into a room. One of the symbols is at an opening at the end of a passage, right before a color change on the map. There are no lizardfolk markings here, but there are some sconces for torches on the wall.

We get to where the tunnel opens up. I see two carved gargoyles crouching up on the walls. There’s a beat-up gate in front of us. With the goggles, they don’t look magical, but they seem very lifelike. Pujol plays his harp soothingly.

The gate is old and decrepit. There’s no recent damage, and it looks functional. There is some debris under one of the carved statues. The gate swings into the next room to open. The gargoyles are looking down; their sight lines would cross about 4’ up in the corridor.

We debate what to do. Fathom uses a spell to open the gate. It blows open. The gargoyles start to move. Gooseneck jumps up and swings at one, misses. They jump down to the floor, and one swings at Gooseneck and misses. The other swings at Abran and hits him. I jump behind it, try to stab it, and miss. CornCob casts a spell at it, and finally manages to damage it. Pujol shoots his crossbow at it, hits.

The gargoyles look like Chibi Gooseneck.

Fathom casts a spell at one, hits it, and does a bunch of damage. One of them crumbles away, having taken enough damage to be destroyed.

Gooseneck shows the key to the remaining one. It focuses on the key. It stops attacking, puts its hand over the key, and then goes back to its spot on the wall. It looked like it was trying to figure out if the key was the right shape.

We go on. The gate opens in to a much larger room. It feels like we’re not alone in here. There was a brief sound of movement, like stone on stone. There was a symbol on the map that correlated to the gargoyle room; there is a different symbol here. I look around with the goggles while Gooseneck announces to anyone who might be listening that we have the key.

There is an area on the far side of the room where crystals are glowing. After Gooseneck says he has the key, a gravelly voice responds, telling him to come forth with the key. He does. It looks like a large gargoyle. There’s a stone door behind him.

We gather up. Gooseneck shows the key, and asks to pass. The big gargoyle isn’t convinced, but doesn’t attack us, either. It says that half the whole is not enough. Fathom shows him the map. She thinks maybe the symbols form a word, but she doesn’t know what it is. Gooseneck says we have the whole, and we should be able to pass.

Fathom draws the symbol for the room in the air. That doesn’t appear to be what the gargoyle wants. He says he’s waiting. Gooseneck offers the key. He seems hesitant to agree. He says we are not of the tribe, we don’t know the words, and should leave.

Pujol tries to charm it, and succeeds. It makes a placating gesture and a bunch of small gargoyles come out of hiding. They do not attack. Pujol asks what the magic word is – it’s OBSIDIAN. Then it lets us pass. Fathom looks at the crystals. Pujol asks about the crystals and asks for translations of the symbols on the map. He gives us some names. Gooseneck recognizes them as dialects of primordial languages – earth, air, water, fire – Aquan, Ignan, Oran, Terran.

Fathom looks at the crystals. The gargoyle says they are remnants left unmined. He doesn’t know why they were left behind. CornCob looks at them; they look amethyst in color, rather than clear and colorless.

Pujol asks about the slaad brothers. They were disciples of earth. The came through ‘not long ago’. They knew the word, and passed through. Fathom shows him the slaad crystal, and he says it wasn’t mined here.

We move on. The key goes in the door, and opens it. It opens into another cave. We hear water dripping as well as a trickle of running water ahead. This corresponds to another color change on the map.

Kay's Journal - 6/10 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal - 6/10/22

We get to the tent city after finishing off the dinosaur. The residents aren’t hostile, but they are distrustful – usually people dressed like us show up to cause trouble. Pujol starts playing his harp to try to improve the mood, and it helps. People begin to gather around Pujol, and more residents emerge from their tents.

Gooseneck helps Margaret hand out soup. CornCob surveys the crowd, looking for people who stick out. He sees a couple people who might be smugglers. Fathom keeps an ear open for people talking about Bentor. I look around the camp with the goggles, and see one magical tent. It looks like it has magic similar to a bag of holding; maybe it’s bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside, or maybe it rolls up very small.

CornCob goes to talk to the maybe smugglers. He has trouble placing their accents. They ask if he’s sailing; he says yes. They ask if he’s looking for goods or labor. CornCob tells them we’re doing exploration and research – well, not here, right here we’re just on shore leave – but that’s what the ship is doing overall. They agree to talk some more over some wine. CornCob gets Gooseneck to go with him for the conversation.

Fathom and I go to look at the slaad brothers’ ex-tent. Margaret takes us to a small red tent. It’s just tall enough to stand up in, but no more. Fathom asks how they decide who gets what tent, and they just distribute what’s available to those who need one.

Margaret knocks, tells the resident of the tent that supper is ready, and then asks if we can look around the tent. He’s fine with it; he doesn’t actually seem to care at all. We ask him if the last residents left anything behind, and he points us to a small piece of cloth that he put in a chest. We look around inside the tent. It’s pretty bare in there – two cots, a chest, a tiny table, two stumps that would do for seating, and a weaving project of some kind that’s been done poorly. Bedding has been hung up so that bugs/snakes can’t get in there.

We open the chest and see the cloth. It’s about the size of a beach towel, maybe 4’ x 2.5’. There’s a lotus pattern woven into the cloth. Every third petal has been dyed after the weaving was done. Fathom leaves the guy 10 silver and takes the cloth.

Pujol wraps up his song. A 5-6 year old kid come up to check him, and the harp, out. Pujol plays some kid songs.

Gooseneck and CornCob talk to the maybe-smugglers. The maybe-smugglers seem to be trying to figure Gooseneck and CornCob out. They were hands on a ship, but stopped doing that when they found a better opportunity being ‘porters’ on ships occasionally. Gooseneck asks about the sladd crewmen. They say the brothers were there about a month. They dealt with the brothers a bit; got them some clothes, and they hunted with everyone else. Gooseneck asks if there was anything alarming about them – no. Just one odd thing: they went bathing daily, but didn’t always come back clean. They were looking for long term jobs.

Gooseneck asks if people looking for work go through or around Bentor. They say feelings are mixed. He’s both villain and hero to people here. Some think he wants to see that pay and jobs are fair. Others think they can do better without him. Bentor takes a finder’s fee from the ships captains. Gooseneck asks about hands who don’t want to go through Bentor. We need deckhands and a helmsperson. They know a few candidates for deckhands, but not a helmsperson. They suggest a gnome who lives in the tent city, a fiery lass, maybe a couple others. CornCob brings out a drawing of the tattoos from the guy from the ship who did the rubbing. He asks the maybe-smugglers about it. One of them thinks he’s seen it before, maybe on someone bathing over in the stream by the falls.

Gooseneck sets up a meeting with the candidates. The maybe-smugglers are Sirella and Creanna.

Back in the tent, I look for hiding places. The bed frame has a little makeshift headboard that has a centerpiece. The top of one of the supports as a plug in the top. I get the plug out; it has threads like a screw. Underneath, there’s a hollow with a mildewy piece of parchment. I pull it out; it’s a rolled-up scroll. I tuck it away to look at later.

A young girl comes up to the table; it’s the fiery girl Sirella mentioned. She says her name is Mint and she can tie knots, swab decks, whatever. CornCob offers to introduce her to the captain. Mint wants nothing to do with Bentor, but will be glad to talk to the captain.

The gnome shows up for his interview. He’s smaller than Pujol. Gooseneck says we are looking for a helmsman. The gnome says he can do it. He’s served on 2 or 3 ships. He wants 2.5 copper/day. His name is Trent. Fathom asks him about the guy who’s tent we were searching. Trent thinks he’s fine.

With these two, Ray (the guy from the tent), and the two women from the bar, we have our 5 candidates. Ray is interested. He wants food and to be told what to do. Doesn’t care about the salary. He’s worked on a ship before, the last ship he was on was the Baroness. He’s from the south end of the continent. Where he’s from the sea is teal, then gets dark and stays that way.

We ask Margaret about the slaad brothers and the bathing. She says they went a couple times a day, but she didn’t pay much attention. Most people bathe by the falls.

I look at the scroll with the goggles. There’s a series of five distinct areas with magic runes. With regular light, there’s a labyrinth detailed out in charcoal. It looks like the stuff was added on over time. It looks like there’s at least one rune per different type of ink. The runes do correlate to the colored sections of lotus flowers in the towel. There also seems to be an unmapped/missing section on the scroll.

The labyrinth looks like an amateur map. It looks like the entrance to the labyrinth in near the waterfalls. All the various markings are in the same hand – one person drew it all.

In the morning, we take our candidates to meet the captain. We go along the t-rex path rather than through the town. The captain talks to them. We show the map to Morgot and see if he wants to come along, and he’s up for it. Morgot thinks the lotus towel is some kind of code.

We have Morgot transcribe the runes and lotus stuff to show to Brooks. Maybe she’ll have an idea what it is. Fathom looks at the runes. They are not written in infernal, but each one refers to a layer of the Abyss. The map maker thought of the places as layers of hell, whether or not it really aligns to that. 

We go ask Brooks about the symbols from the map. Tell her we stumbled across them. Then we describe the lotus and ask if there’s any correlation. She doesn’t have anything obvious. Then we ask about the tattoos as well. One of the tattoos was a rose. Then we show her the towel. She tells us about lotus symbology, lotus = rebirth, separation from the dirty parts of the world. 

The colored parts of the lotus is different shades of green. CornCob’s religious experience doesn’t include this particular lotus symbology.

The towel does look like it could be an infant or child blanket, and the lotus symbol was rebirth?

We go back to the hot springs to talk to Margaret. We ask her about the runes – any local legends of note? She tells us the ruins around are from ancient lizardfolk. The ones by the T-Rex were a temple. They are now very incomplete. There are more ruins inland. Hundreds of years ago, a great lizardfolk tribe lived here. It’s not known why they left. Margaret might be able to lead us to some other ruins. She says there are some by the bathing falls as well.

We go to the waterfall. We think the entrance to the labyrinth must be close. I see a piton up in a rock in the waterfall – I think it’s about half way up. Morgot agrees. He thinks the labyrinth is behind the waterfall.

Pujol thinks they might have climbing and/or other gear stowed around. We search for any hidden equipment. CornCob finds it at the bottom of the pool under the waterfall. There’s a chest wrapped in oil cloth. We open the chest and find a key carved out of stone. There’s lots of metal in the stone, like an ore of some kind. It is magnetic. The carving is definitely lizardfolk in origin. The key doesn’t point to anywhere down here.

We try to find a way to the top of the waterfall. There’s a roundabout path that would get to the top, but it would take a while. A good climber would be able to climb faster. Fathom casts Fly on Gooseneck, who goes up to where the piton is. He ties a rope off to it. He also sees an area where we could climb in behind that waterfall. It looks like people have traversed that path. Gooseneck goes back there and finds the remnants of a carved platform. There’s a lizardman mouth carved in the wall that looks like the perfect size to stick an arm into. The opening for the key is in there. Gooseneck reaches in and puts the key in the lock. The door starts to open.

Kay's Journal - 5/27 - Reaper Errant

While we are still at Brooks, CornCob asks if the bouncy castle comes with furnishings. It does not. Further, if we put stuff in there and collapse the castle, it will eject whatever was in there. 

We decide to think about it for a while. In the meantime, we go check out the noises at the warehouse. We hear people talking about how crates should be arranged. Gooseneck charges in to the warehouse. He sees a lot of movement as people move around crates and chests. It looks like a wagon full of stuff just got delivered and they are trying to make space for it – getting it in its own space, separate from the other things. The other stuff is similarly arranged in to separated piles. It looks very disorganized. The crates appear to be mostly from ships, but a few come from inland. One of the crates definitely looks damaged; that could have been the crashing we heard.

Gooseneck says we heard the crash and came to check it out and offer aid. The warehouse manager apologizes for the noise, but says he has it under control. He asks everybody’s names; Gooseneck tells him. The warehouse manager is Johan. He asks if we have goods in the warehouse, or if the Silver Swan has goods to store. 

Gooseneck asks about hiring crew. Johan becomes visibly uncomfortable and says he can’t help with that; most people go to the Jagged Blade to hire crew. Pujol has Gooseneck ask if there is any cargo from the Starfish or the Bloody Anchor. The Bloody Anchor hasn’t been there for a long time. They did offload some cargo when they were here last, but didn’t store it here. The Starfish mostly deals in foodstuffs.

We go to the hot springs. It’s a little bit of a trek to get there. The jungle is still very natural, lots of typical jungle creatures, but it’s very well-travelled. Gooseneck and I see someone patrolling the path, so clearly the place is guarded. Nothing would go completely unnoticed here. I see where the path veers off to go to the tent city.

We see two people at the springs. One greets us, says it’s been quiet there recently – not many people coming. She’s Margaret, and is making stew. I look around with the goggles, and don’t see anything that stands out.

The second person, a young woman, comes out from behind some rocks. She’s carrying something in a big leaf which she takes to Margaret.

Gooseneck goes and sticks his feet in the water. It smells a bit of sulfur, and is quite hot, maybe 107, 108 degrees. He doesn’t see anything in the water. It’s clear, and deeper in the center. The edges are maybe knee deep, but the center is probably deeper than Gooseneck is tall. Fathom also sticks her feet in the water.

Abran is uncomfortable; he stays on the periphery and looks for animals. CornCob looks for trails, he sees a couple of paths. One leads to where Margaret is making stew, and past that to the tent city. The second goes off in the opposite direction. Neither go by the log where people would store their stuff. 

Nobody sees any mammals here (apart from ourselves). Plenty of little lizards and amphibians, though. Pujol talks to one of the smarter looking lizards, and asks it if this is a safe place. The lizard thinks it is! Also, there are good scraps. 

Abran patrols. He finds some tracks that concern him – it looks like a large wild boar; following those tracks, he gets to a spot where a bush has been uprooted. It looks like something grabbed the boar and dragged it away. He thinks this happened yesterday. It looks like the boar got dragged away from the town or tent city. He circles back to the springs and tells us he wants to go fight whatever dragged the boar off.

CornCob suggests that Abran ask one of the attendants about it. Abran does. Margaret says the heard some large creature sounds in the jungle yesterday, but did not investigate. Probably because there was a large creature out there, and it’s known that there are large predators around. So far, people who have gone hunting for them don’t come back, or come back empty handed. But few bother, as the creatures don’t generally bother humans.

Abran asks Margaret where she lives – in the tent city. He asks if there’s anything or anyone to look for. He says we’re looking for crew, and asks if she knows anything about slaads. She doesn’t, and asks if they are land creatures. Abran says that’s a question for the demonic Fathom.

Gooseneck asks the ladies if they remember the two guys who became slaad. Margaret remembers them well; they were brothers and lived in the tent city. They helped hunt for game. She remembers them as being very cleanly. Gooseneck asks if she could show up where they lived in the tent city. She says their tents are still there, but occupied by others now.

It gets on toward evening. Nobody else comes to the hot springs today. Gooseneck eats some of the crew – definitely boar.

We go with them to the tent city. CornCob asks where they got the boar for the stew. They had set snares.

On the way to the tent city, it falls oddly silent. A large shadow looms above us, leaning down slowly. There’s a massive shape coming toward the center of the group – it’s a big dinosaur.

Gooseneck runs to grab Pujol and Fathom and get them out of the way. Abran shoots at it, hits, then takes cover behind a stone column. Pujol polymorphs it into a hedgehog – which works – and then goes and picks it up.

Margaret shows us the way to a large lava crevasse. Pujol uses Mage Hand to drop the hedgehog into the crevasse. Half an hour later, when the polymorph wears off, we hear a hedgehog squeal turn into a large lizard roar. Then, a mangled dinosaur head pops out. It’s not dead, but it’s damaged. We finish it off and then head to the tent city.

Kay's Journal - 5/13 - Reaper Errant

 Kay’s Journal – 5/13/22

We are going to Eudroya, a part town on the southern continent. It’s much smaller than Ven, and in a jungle. Most normal supplies should be available. This is our last stop before heading to the places the ship was hired to explore.

The captain is planning on hiring 3-6 people here. We’re thinking maybe going on the high end of that would be good.

We review the journal of the sailor who turned out to be a slaad, as this town is where they hired on with the ship. The journal says they went to the Jagged Blade – it’s a tavern in town that’s the place to go if you want to get hired on to a ship. They also visited some hot springs in the area, and a shop that is known to barter with sailors for things they find on their travels. They stayed in the tent city that’s on the periphery of the town, near the hot springs.

We get to port. The captain reserves a berth for up to a week. Everyone is supposed to check in at least every 2 days, but other than that people are cut loose. Pujol expresses concern about people or creatures sneaking on to the ship. There will be a couple people staying on the ship to keep watch, but there’s not much more than can be done. We’ll plan on giving the ship a once-over before we leave.

There is no dominant religious order in this town.

The captain goes to talk to the harbor master. I overhear part of the conversation; the harbormaster says ‘Bentor won’t let anybody in’. Apparently, this dude Bentor is causing problems at the Jagged Blade, not letting the normal hiring process go on.

So, we head to the Jagged Blade.

Morgot is unexcited by the stop in port; it’s just a distraction from the mapping that he wants to be doing. Pujol asks Morgot about the hot springs; he’s been there but hasn’t mapped it.

In the Jagged Blade, we get a table and plan to watch and see if this Bentor person gives the captain any trouble. We pick a table in the dark back corner, of course. CornCob goes to get drinks. A large, brutish man at another table eyes us when we come in. CornCob eyes him back. He’s at most lightly armored. CornCob thinks he looks shrewd.

Pujol starts performing with his harp.

I look around with the goggles (because we’re subtle like that). Mr. Cranky has a magic weapon and pendant. The suit of armor by the bar is magical. A couple bottles among the beverages behind the bar and a rock burning in the fireplace are magical. Seems like a lot of magic for a bar in a tiny little town, but utility magic items in a bar is not unheard of. The suit of armor also has a jagged blade; it looks like it’s gotten dinged through use.

CornCob goes over to Mr. Cranky, greets him pleasantly, and invites him to our table. He doesn’t want to move from his spot but invites CornCob to join him. It’s Bentor. CornCob says we heard he’s the guy to talk to about hiring crew. Bentor asks how sailing has been going. CornCob says it’s been fine, we explored a couple of islands. Bentor asks if it pays well, and CornCob says we’re being paid fairly. Bentor says many overeager people have signed on with ships and not come back. He wants to make sure people hire on with decent ships.

Bentor has been in town 5 years. CornCob asks if his role is official or unofficial. Bentor says not much is ‘official’ in this town. CornCob asks if Bentor gets a cut when someone is hired – yes, a bit. CornCob offers him a bonus to point out any particularly good hands we might be able to hire. He agrees, says it will take a couple days to find appropriate crew. Bentor orders drinks for the two of them.

Bentor has a pendant that’s a bear claw. CornCob compliments it, asks if it’s a trophy. Bentor says yeah, trophy or acquisition. Bentor has never fought a bear. Crocs, crabs, yes, but not bears.

There’s a lot of people coming in. Maybe another ship came in, maybe this is just when everybody comes to drink. Pujol keeps playing his harp, keeping it low key.

Fathom realizes it’s really much to warm in this area to need a fire…but the fire in the hearth doesn’t seem to be putting off heat, anyway. Maybe that’s what the magic rock is for, producing a fire that’s just decorative. She looks around for anyone who isn’t listening to Pujol. Everybody is except for Bentor & CornCob, and a couple other people at another table who were here when we got here. They are deep in conversation. Fathom tries to listen in.

Pujol thinks most of the people coming in are sailors. A couple have a very elven look to them, though they are not elves.

Abran gets us more drinks, and asks the bartender about the suit of armor. The bartender claims it’s a good luck charm, handed down from owner to owner…and you don’t want to do anything inappropriate in the bar.

The captain and first mate come in. They acknowledge us, then look around, evaluating potential crew. Gooseneck goes to the bar and buys them both a drink. He asks if they recognize anyone here; there are a couple sailors they’ve seen before. The captain isn’t thrilled with the idea of going through Bentor to hire crew. Feels his intervention is unwelcome. The captain says Bentor can’t cut it himself on a crew, so now he’s just bullying people in to going through him to get hired. Gooseneck offers for us to handle it. The captain suggests we check out the item shop if we’re looking for the slaad. Then she gives Gooseneck some coin and turns over the hiring to us (though she gets final say), especially if we’re going to investigate Bentor. Then she and the first mate head out.

Pujol and CornCob return to our table. We think there’s about 100gp in the bag the captain gave us.

Abran tries to listen in to the two sailors at the table next to ours, but can’t hear. Fathom and Abran decide to go talk to them, because clearly they are up to something. There’s totally no other reason people could be having a quiet conversation.

Fathom compliments them on their clothing and asks to join them to talk. They say they’ve been trapped here, waiting for the right ship. Fathom asks why they are ‘trapped’ – it’s Bentor insisting everyone go through him to get crew. Some people don’t want to pay him, but Bentor has powerful friends who will come to his aid in a fight. These two are considering taking the risk anyway. Bentor’s friends are from out of town. The two agree to maybe help if we go at Bentor.

We learn that Bentor charges the captains ‘finders fees’. His friends are a wizard and  huge person who are out of town, and a gang that stays in town. The wizard doesn’t seem super invested in Bentor. Fathom asks where Bentor goes when the bar closes; he has a house in town. Abran asks them about Brookes, the shop. They say it’s a wonderful place and the proprieter deals fairly with customers.

Fathom asks the bartender what he thinks about Bentor. The bartender doesn’t seem to care.

We go to the store. There’s a kid in there and an adult who looks maybe dragonborn. The adult is Brookes, and asks what ship we’re from. CornCob tells her. She says we’re free to browse, but ask her any questions if we have them, and don’t mess with anything that has a warning label on it. Apparently some of the stuff might be dangerous.

Gooseneck asks about the slaad crewmen. She doesn’t sound like she knows much/anything about them. She kinda remembers seeing people who met that description browsing the store. Pujol asks if she saw them with anyone else, and she says it was just the two of them hanging out. He asks what other ships they were with – they were most recently with the Bloody Anchor, and the Starfish before that.

CornCob asks if someone handling hiring them on to the various ships. She says the thing with Bentor is recent.

She says the Bloody Anchor dropped off other hands at the same time our two left; a handful left the ship and have since moved on to other ships. The Bloody Anchor is picky about their crew, but maybe not in the expected way.

Abran asks how Bentor went from being a failed hand to running a con. Bentor doesn’t follow structure well. She doesn’t know anything about his associates but thinks the big one must be a giant. The wizard is Oathen – he buys a lot of stuff from her – diamonds, moss, lichen, unguents, a wide variety of stuff. He goes for lichen that’s not native to the area.

Abran asks if Bentor’s behavior is good or bad for her business – it doesn’t really affect her.

Gooseneck asks where Oathem is – pretty far away in a capitol city. He sends people to pick stuff up for him and seems to be very powerful.

Then we get down to looking at stuff to buy.

CornCob asks about a magic war hammer. She’s got two, a less complicated one for 500gp, or a more complicated one for 2000gp. One of them is a +2 hammer.

Pujol asks about protection or armor; she suggests concealment instead. She has a potion that will make someone undetectable, but it’s 10k gp. A potion to make him silent is just 500gp.

CornCob asks about throwing axes; she has a set for 600gp – but we already have a set.

Gooseneck asks for something that would increase lightning damage.

Pujol asks what she’s offer for his last poison dart – 200-300 gold. In trade for an item in the store, she might trade it for an item she’d sell for 500gp. He trades the dart for the war hammer for CornCob.

Pujol offers some of the spores he exudes. He has to work to sell her on the idea, but eventually she offers 500gp for a sample. They make the trade.

Abran and I hear a sound from outside; it sounds like maybe a large crate being dropped either outside or in the building adjacent to the shop.

Fathom asks about a green item she sees in the shop. It’s a barrel with arrows with green fletching. They are magical.

Abran also asks about protection – she has some +1 leather armor. She wants 1000gp for the 20 magical arrows. Abran pulls out his sniper rifle and asks what she’d value it at. She offers 12k gold. CornCob offers to throw in the pistol. She offers 20k gp for the pair. Abran also wants a ring of fireballs – she doesn’t have that, but she has a necklace.

She shows us a 1” cube that can make a 20’x20’ fortress. It’s reusable, just put it on the ground and say the word. It’ll do it 1-2 times a day. It will absorb some amount of damage before it dissipates. Pujol really wants it.

She shows us another cube. This one it larger, at 3”. Each side has a different image. It transports users to other planes of existence. It’s damaged, so it has some limitations. It will open a portal to the fae wild, a plane of water, and the astral plane.

We decide to sleep on it. We hear another crash from outside. She says there’s been a lot of noise from the warehouse behind her shop lately.

Kay's Journal - 4/15 - Reaper Errant

 Kay’s Journal – 4/15

Pujol asks the captain if she knows anything about ‘the great tree’. She says no, so he goes to ask Morgot and we all tag along, though most of us stay just within earshot so as not to scare him. I’m not sure why we’re suddenly concerned about intimidating him. Morgot also doesn’t know anything about the tree – he says he hasn’t stopped at the island. He does tell us that you have to go north to get there and go through the Dragon’s Teeth twice.

Gooseneck asks what kind of terrain we can expect. He says rocky, with some wetlands and jungle. The island is an old volcano, or has one on it. CornCob asks about the fungus situation; surely there is some. Gooseneck asks about dangerous creatures. Morgot says there are some lizardfolk communities that could be hostile. CornCob asks what they trade with the lizardfolk – metal, linen, etc. Fathom asks if Morgot is excited to explore someplace new. Morgot is and asks if he can come along, we say sure.

We get to the island and go ashore. Some of us notice that something about the layout looks unnatural, like maybe the shape was originally a dock or something, and now sand and vegetation have built up over it. Others see some animal tracks in the sand. The tracks are large, probably boar. There are also some snake and crocodile signs. At least one crab is a good four feet(!) across. Abran notices that the tracks of the different types of creatures go off in different directions. He also sees a piece of iron driven in to or wrapped around one of the rocks.

We think the boars go left, the crocodiles go straight, and the snakes went right. 

Pujol wants to look for signs of an ancient road. It seems like as good an idea as any.

CornCob asks Morgot about the tide. Morgot says it’s at its high point now and will be again in four hours or so. Morgot also pulls out an astrolabe, looks around, says he thinks it’ll be evening before the feeding frenzy on the beach starts again.

We walk up and down the beach. Pujol spots an area that maybe used to be a road. Some of us could fly up and search for the great tree that way. So, Pujol casts levitate on me. Up in the air, I look out over the island and spot a couple of interesting features – the top of a volcano, which is not currently doing anything. It has a circular rim of tall trees. I also spot a swampy area. In the middle of the swamp there’s a peninsula of land with a big tree in the middle. There we go! It’s between the crocodile and boar paths, so we head off that way. I stay aloft as long as possible to keep a look out.

Good thing, too, as I spot a crocodile and boar going at each other. Somebody is going to have dinner, and somebody is going to be dinner. We hold back, waiting to let them work it out. It takes about five minutes and then the crocodile takes out the boar. We skirt around the crocodile and head on to the tree.

As we get into the swamp, we start testing the ground with sticks as we go. Abran looks for any indications of ruins. We see some movement at the edge of the water – Lizardfolk! They’re trying to be stealthy, but they are bad at it. I wave at them. They freeze. Gooseneck moves forward to talk to them. They as why we are here, and Gooseneck tells them about looking for the tree that needs help. They don’t like that at all and tell us to leave. Gooseneck says we have good intentions and offers some of our saffron as a gift. They aren’t buying it.

The rest of us move up and Pujol starts playing his harp. Pujol has them figured out, and his music calms them down. 

Then a croc jumps out of the water and grabs one of them.

I run in close, but can’t get close enough to attack. Gooseneck rages and attacks, but can’t get through the croc’s hide. On a second hit, he hurts it. Abran moves closer and shoots at it, hits it.

The crocodile moves back into the deeper water, but Gooseneck gets in a swing at it as it moves and hits it. CornCob moves toward it, walking out on the water to cast a spell at it. The lizard person the croc grabbed gets free and heads for land. He’s missing an arm. One of the others shoots and the croc, and the third helps his friend to shore. 

Fathom shoots a blast at it, hits. Pujol shots it with his crossbow, hits. Gooseneck swings at it again, misses. Abran’s next shot kills the crocodile.

Gooseneck brings the dead croc in and gives it to the injured lizardman. They thank Gooseneck as CornCob binds up the victim’s wounds. Gooseneck tells them their enemy is our enemy, and this time they buy it.

They say others like us showed up, touched an old rune, and then the plants turned dark and hostile. They tell us that Silia watches over the trees, and watches over them. She is at the tree. They are willing to take us to the area, but once there the plants will fight us and they don’t want any part of that.

We get there, and sure enough, evil plants. I look at it with the goggles. It’s living and has a magical aura. It’s ability to move was granted magically but is now intrinsic to it. Pujol thinks it was initially a protein eating plant, but the way it’s moving is not natural.

We can see some ruins from here. They look kind of familiar, like what we saw at Abran’s trial, but not quite the same. It’s also a bit like the big tree in Ven.

CornCob carries Pujol across the water to talk to the dryad. Fathom can also walk on water, so she goes across with them. They get most of the way there when three plant people form out of the ground. They wait and watch. Pujol greets them in Sylvan, telling them we are here to talk to Silia at her request. The plant people appear to confer amongst themselves. Pujol casts Speak with Plants and repeats. They respond with hostility and threaten to eat us. Pujol asks again to speak to Silia, but they say she is treacherous and won’t let us pass.

CornCob tries charming them with a spell. This seems to work; they are less hostile. The agree to let him approach the tree for 2 hours. 

On the peninsula with the tree, Pujol looks around for runes, and sees some. Also, they spot Silia. Pujol talks to her in Sylvan; she wants us to stop their ritual. She says we need to finish what the other humans started – reverse the pattern. She says whatever they are doing, it’s an arcane thing. Fathom looks around, and sees places where the blighted plants have traced patterns over some of the runes.

Abran asks how many people came the first time. It was just one person, wearing robes that were too hot for the weather.

CornCob casts a spell that will summon a guardian to fight if they attack us. Pujol watches what they are doing; it looks like they are drawing dark energy from themselves into the runes.

Gooseneck swims over to the island. The plant guys turn to look at him, but Pujol tells them he’s a friend. 

We decide the blighted plants need to go. Fathom casts Blight at one of them, and hurts it a bunch. Gooseneck swings at it, but misses. Pujol starts playing a counter-charm on his harp, just in case. The plants are no longer charmed, and attack. CornCob’s guardian hits two of them, and hurts them. One swings back at Gooseneck, but misses. Abran casts a spell that lets him run past the moving plant to get to the island. He shoots at one of the plants we are fighting, hurts it. CornCob casts a spell at the one Fathom hurt, and that kills it. The he summons his spiritual weapon, which attacks another one.

Fathom casts Blight again, and another of the plants dies. Gooseneck hits the remaining one and kills it. 

We still need to reverse the damage. CornCob sends the spiritual weapon to kill the guardian plant, and we all end up over by the tree.

Fathom and Abran check out the runes. Abran figures out they are runes of life. We talk to the lizard folk and ask if they have a spellcaster. They bring their shaman. Gooseneck explains the situation. The shaman helps them reverse the ritual.

CornCob casts a spell to fertilize the tree for a year. 

We learn more about the guy wearing the robe. He was human, with olive skin. He paralyzed Silia, did his thing, and then left. 

Abran thinks the area was a training ground. Same architecture as the trial area. He asks Silia what the runes do, and she says they give life to the plants in the area. 

Pujol asks Silia if she has any stuff we can loot. She gives him an amulet. The amulet has an engraving if a dryad and woven shield. Fathom identifies it, and determines that it’s protective, providing defense and armor.

Kay's Journal - 4/1 - Reaper Errant

Harpies! Three harpies are approaching the ship from the air. On deck, I see a few areas that are magically growing dark, and shout a warning. Fathom casts a fireball at two of the approaching harpies. One of them dodges, but the other one takes it in the face. 

One of the dark areas on deck starts to coalesce. A hand forms out of the deck behind Gooseneck and tries to grab him. Another forms by Abran, another by the captain, and one by a couple of crew. Gooseneck is off guard but swings at the hand anyway and manages to hit it. The captain and one of the crew are grabbed, and so is Abran. Abran notices that while the hand grabbing him is doing a bit of damage, it also seems to be trying to draw magical energy from him.

The harpies close in and start to sing. It echoes in everyone’s heads, making it difficult to focus on what’s going on. Abran, CornCob, and Gooseneck shake it off, while the rest of us zone out.

 

CornCob shoots a bolt at one of the harpies and hits it. Abran uses Shocking Grasp to encourage the magical hand that’s grabbing him to let go. Pujol shakes off the harpy’s song. Gooseneck rages, and then hits the hand that’s grabbing him with his axe. He hits it, chopping off its fingers, and it disappears back into the deck. He moves toward the harpies.

The captain and twin who is grabbed by the hands are turning wood-ish where they are grabbed. Abran’s boot is changing, too. 

One of the harpies rushes in at Gooseneck and slashes at him with its claws, hitting him. The other two harpies land on the deck. One attacks a crewman and kills him.

CornCob calls forth a spiritual weapon and has it attack the hand grabbing Abran. It does enough damage that the hand sinks back into the deck. CornCob moves toward the harpies after that.

Abran shoots the harpy that killed the crewman, twice. 

Pujol moves to a central location on the deck, then plays a counter charm to the harpy’s song on his harp to try to help everyone who’s still enthralled to shake it off.

Gooseneck hits the harpy that’s attacking him with his axe. The captain attacks the hand that’s grabbing her, but the wood grain has crept half way up her thigh. The twin who’s been grabbed is wooden up to his waist, and sinking in to the deck.

Fathom shakes off the harpy’s song.

CornCob casts a spell at the harpy that’s attacking Gooseneck. He sends his spiritual weapon to attack the hand that’s grabbing the twin. It does enough damage to make it dissipate. 

The harpy near Gooseneck goes to attack Morgot, the navigator. He takes a nasty gash. The other harpy attacks Gooseneck again, hits him. The third harpy goes after Pujol, and hits him twice.

Abran shoots the harpy that’s attacking Pujol, and it goes down. Pujol turns invisible. Gooseneck hits the harpy he’s been fighting a couple more times, but it’s still up. Fathom casts a new spell at the other harpy – it necrotizes some of the harpy’s flesh (gross), but isn’t enough to take it down. The captain takes down the claw that is still grabbing her.

The harpy that Fathom attacked goes at her. The navigator takes a swing at it as it goes. The harpy hits Fathom twice, but she kills it. Gooseneck also gets hit again by the harpy that he’s been fighting. CornCob finally takes it down with a combination of another spell and his spiritual weapon.

CornCob does a mass heal to heal up our people and those in the crew who were injured.

I search the harpies’ remains. CornCob thinks they are not normal harpies, while Pujol thinks they look like the harpies we fought before, just bigger and healthier. I find that each of the harpies were carrying a necklace with a baby bird claw. It’s not magical, but I think it they could have used it to summon the grasping hands. Fathom finds a ruby that might have been in each of their throats. One of them has a ruby, one has an onyx, and the third has nothing. There’s a thought that they might be control gems, like with the slaad, but there’s no magic in the gems. There’s nothing else unusual about the harpies. The gems are probably worth 200gp each.

We rest for a while. Cook runs up from below, chasing chickens. Gooseneck helps him round them up.

The dead crewman’s name is Terese. We’re starting to get short-handed.

The crew is starting to wonder what mishap is coming next. The hope the transit through the Dragon’s Teeth goes well. That sounds like it’ll totally go fine.

CornCob asks if the crew has come across the hands sprouting from the deck thing before. They say no. The captain says the spot where she was grabbed felt numb and a little itchy. She thinks it was related to the harpies, but there’s no proof. She asks CornCob if he knows of a spell that would do that kind of thing; he says no, and asks Fathom. Fathom thinks something like that would fall unto the transmutation school of magic.

In the morning, the crew buries Terese at sea. 

Fathom asks Morgot about the Dragon’s Teeth, which don’t sound at all problematic. He says they are a natural feature – a gap between continents that is rocky and stormy. The stone is white-ish in color and sticks up from under the water, so it looks kinda tooth-like. CornCob wonders if anything lives on the rocks. More harpies live there! Yay. But apparently, they’re on the east side and we’re going west, so we shouldn’t be sailing close to where the harpies nest. Super reassuring, that. But regardless, we have to pass through the Dragon’s Teeth to get to the next port. 

The crew tells us that sometimes they hunt boar on the far side, or scavenge at the Dragon’s Teeth. 

Someone on deck shouts about something going on by the bow. We go to see what’s going on. There’s a figure there, a forest dryad with tropical foliage who is shimmering – it’s an apparition, not physically present.

Pujol speaks to it in Sylvan. She wants help. Pujol verifies that she’s a projection; she says she was casting around to find someone to ask for help, and was drawn to the wood of the ship.

Pujol calls the captain over and explains the situation to her. The captain wants to know where the dryad wants aid – the north side of the land mass we’re headed toward, near the Dragon’s Teeth.

Pujol asks what kind of aid she wants. She says she’s guarding ruins that are being overrun by creatures of great malevolence. He asks for a landmark by which we can recognize the place, and she says ‘the Great Tree’.

Kay's Journal - 3/18 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal – 3/18

Abran spends some quality time with his newly won woobie/cloak. It protects him from the cold and will help camouflage him in snowy/mountain environments. Nice!

We get back to the ship. Fathom overhears some conversation – apparently one of the deck hands went missing for a while, came back, and got yelled at by the 1st mate. Fathom joins the conversation to learn more. The missing hand said he walked the shore line a bit. She asks if he’d normally shirk his duties like this – no, the crew says, he’s a solid worker at sea, though…less so on shore. 

We consider what to do. Is he another slaad? Or could he be the one who sabotaged the ship? Pujol suggests we try to track where he went on the beach. He goes to ask the captain about that. She agrees to let us go, so long as we don’t take too long.

Abran finds the tracks and we follow them. We come across a fresh water stream, at which point the tracks disappear. We follow the stream for a while, looking for tracks on either side, in case he hid his path by going through the water. Sure enough, after a while we find tracks leaving the stream and heading off.

We follow those tracks to a large boulder. Something has been carved into the stone. It’s different in style from the elven writing we found before, but it’s definitely ruins of some type. None of use recognize it.

I notice a broken piece of charcoal on the ground by the boulder – it looks like somebody did a rubbing of the carving. We see some charcoal dust around the area as well. Pujol thinks the charcoal was just pulled from a fire.

Pujol inspects the boulder, and thinks it’s a partly buried pillar, or maybe statue – it seems to have facial features, though not human features. Pujol walks a little ways in the direction the statue is facing, as far as he can get without getting out of sight of the rest of us. He doesn’t think out wayward crewman went that way.

Pujol has Abran do a walk around the place while he does a rubbing of the runes on his underwear. Abran finds Thorel’s path back to the ship; he also spots places where Thorel stopped and picked up shells. 

There are no indications of magic on the boulder. 

I copy the runes into the special book.

Fathom thinks the Fall is old enough (3-4 millennia since founding) that they’re likely to be generally interested in old stuff.

We get back to the ship and update the captain. Fathom asks the captain if she’d let us look through Thorel’s stuff. She will allow it, but only if we talk to him and he and the captain are there. We’re not so keen on that, so we decide to just watch him for a while.

But for now, we rest.

After resting, we decide to confront Thorel. We take the captain with us and go to Thorel at his bunk. The captain introduces the situation, saying we’re going to question him about his time on the beach. He seems caught off guard.

Thorel apologizes for skipping out when he gets on shore. CornCob asks if he saw a carved rock. He admits he saw it, and it looked old. CornCob asks if he took a rubbing, Thorel says he tried but isn’t sure he did it well. CornCob asks what he did with the rubbing. Thorel says it wasn’t very good, but after being asked again he says he has it and goes to get it out of his footlocker. It looks like he tried to do a good job, just isn’t practiced at it.

I ask where he got the paper, does he usually carry paper with him? He says he doesn’t usually carry paper, but he bought this in Ven. He was thinking about taking up drawing.

I look at him and in his footlocker with the goggles; there’s nothing magical in either place.

I ask what he was doing when the ship started leaking. He was the 2nd person to find it, and he started bailing right away. He had heard a rumor that it was sabotage.

CornCob asks what he plans to do with the rubbing. He planned to keep it – the salesman in Ven who sold him the paper suggested he document his trips. CornCob asks how he found the boulder – he says he just happened across it. This is a little odd, given that it looks like he made a direct line to the thing.

Pujol asks to take a look at the rubbing, and CornCob offers to buy it.

I think he might be lying – or, he might have been magically induced to do it. It seems like…maybe the second is the case. Maybe someone he met, like the vendor in Ven, made him do it, or maybe he’s a member of the order and they gave him the quest.

We decide to follow him the next time he goes ashore.

We consider adjusting the rubbing and giving it to Morgot. 

We ask Cook if he’s seen Thorel and Morgot hanging out much. Cook makes us omelets. Fathom asks if he’s seen Thorel hang out with anybody in particular – who are his friends on the ship? Cook says not really, Thorel goes his own way. Fathom asks Cook if Thorel hangs out with Morgot; Cook says they once had a dispute about bacon vs. pork belly. We ask Cook about tattoos; Thorel has two, a flower and a compass. The flower is old, but the compass is just a couple years old. The compass is under the flower. It has 8 points and is rotated a little.

We consider the compass tattoo. From a religion perspective, a compass might be used to highlight points in a text, but it’s not something that has a meaning of its own.

From a historical perspective, a compass was a guiding point to…something. There are a couple stories about errands to be run, and the hero of the story was given a map/compass that would always point in the direction they need to go. Fables include this as a motif in stories dealing with the rise and fall of nations or people.

All this goes into the magic journal.

Fathom considers trying to dispel the geas, if indeed Thorel is under one. She and Pujol go talk to him. Pujol chats him up while Fathom does the dispel. After the spell is cast, his demeanor hasn’t changed. Fathom asks again about why he was exploring. He talks about just…liking to explore. She asks if he was drawn anywhere in particular, and he says he was drawn to the NW side of the island. He says the rock was in a barren area and drew his attention because of that. He says it was just luck that he brought paper along that day.

Fathom asks about this merchant in Ven that got him interested in artistic pursuits. He describes a short man with greasy blonde hair, wearing a cloak where he carried all sorts of different stuff. Cook, Morgot, and a couple of the rest of the crew (the twins) were also there when Thorel met him. Morgot also talked to the parchment seller and bought a bunch of parchment from him, but then he always does.

Pujol asks who the first person at the whole in the ship was – it was Tanya. They had gone below to check the cargo. Tanya found the hole and sent him up to alert the crew.

Thorel seems more relaxed at the end of the conversation than at the beginning.

They ask him about his tattoo. He says he got it before Ven, and it’s on his butt. He had some extra coin and decided to get a tattoo. It’s flipped, so it’s pointing SE.

We go talk to Morgot to find out more about the weird parchment guy. Morgot says his name was Bryant. He sells all kinds of writing material. Morgot isn’t sure if he’s a patron of the arts, but does think the stuff he sells might be hot. Also, he sells bad ink that fades.

Pujol asks about Bryant’s personal life; Morgot doesn’t know. Pujol asks what temple they might be associated with; no answer. CornCob asks if Bryant has any special parchment that only goes to certain customers. Yes he does – last time he had some high quality stuff that must have come from the church or the military. CornCob points out that parchment like that could be used to fake orders. 

We show Morgot the rubbing; turns out that it’s on the special high-quality parchment, which as it turns out is not very good parchment for doing rubbings. We point out the symbol, but he doesn’t recognize it. We tell Morgot about the stone. CornCob describes it, and asks Morgot if he’s seen anything similar. He thinks he might have, on another island they came across. We are heading toward that island, more or less. CornCob asks if he has a sketch of what he saw on that island. He does; as he turns to get the drawing, we feel the ship nose dive suddenly. Winged creatures like the harpies we fought before are approaching.