Session 5: Return to Quinton Report

General Summary

The party decided to head back to Quinton by the same route they followed to get to the north. Leaving a message for any rescue party in Seeker Cant to let them know they had been there and safe and were heading back to town in case they missed the group sent out to find them.   As they travelled back, they begin to notice a few small animals who seem to have dropped dead of no disernable cause. Soon they have to hide as a stampede of animals sweeps into their path, unfortunetly, some of the animals are angered or matbe scared when they see the party in thier way and attack. Flic terrifies everyone by manifesting acidic fangs and ripping out throats. Arenor proves himself to be a solid wall that no one can hurt, Ofelia is as fast and deadly as ever and Grubbis shows that in his hands, glass eyes can be deadly weapons.   The party fight off some wolves and boars, making sure to make use of the animals they kill by harvesting meat, hide and tusk.   Arenor performs a ritual and tries to detect if any magic is impacting the animals of the forest, he see's that the normal flow of the forest magic is disturbed, where it would usually flow along the ley lines like a cool breeze, it is loose and wild as a squall.   As they go further along thier trail to the dead tree they found earlier, they find the forest growing ever more oppresive, the sunlight filtering through feels weaker and colder, more dead animals and break throughs of larger creatures fleeing from the location of the ritual.   As they approach the dead tree, they see that the surrounding aura of decay and death has spread, where previously it was less than a metre from the trunk of the tree, now it has spread almost eight, the ground cover dead, mould and dark fungi covers the leaf litter and the tree and the transplanted sapling has a growing patch of decay where it touches the truck on the dead tree.   Arenor once again attempts to see the surrounding effects of magic and notes that where he would have expected the wild magic of the forest to flow together at this conjuction of ley lines and ground itself in the earth through the trunk of this tree it is now a swirling maelstrom of unseen green power. Ofelia, in a moment of inspiration, figures that it must be that the ritual has blocked the magic from its normal flow and has untethered the magic in the local area which has caused this decay, death and fear.   As they are working this out, creatures made of an amalgam of branches and twigs pull themselves from the greying trunk and dead, mouldy branches of the tree, a steady stream of small creatures attack, while three taller animated branch spirits pelt the party with needles. Once the three larger monsters are taken down, the smaller Blights fall to pieces. They note that Tree Blights are usually just defenders of areas of the forest, and no threat if left alone but are made of the wild magic of the forest but these seem to be a vacuum of that power.   With the Blights dispatches and Ofelia badly injured in the fight, the party head south for a while until they feel they're far enough from the tree to take a moments rest.

Rewards Granted

• 2 wolf pelts
• 4 wolf canines
• 2 boar hides
• 3 boar tusks
• 4 Rations of Meat