Episode 8: The Faun and the Bird Cage

While we’d followed the trail of the local hero, Iskander, to this weird new land of dusk light and forest there was really no clues around indicating which way he’d gone. We looked for tracks and it was not working for us. I asked Gray about talking to plants again but the guys had to remind me that Iskander had been gone for weeks and plants have a really crappy memory. So - no good. So I climbed a tree and looked around and it just looked like wild lands. Pretty, but unhelpful.
 
There was something unnatural about the place. Thinking about it, perhaps super-natural, not in the usual way, but more like extra-nature-y.
 
We followed a path of clearings I’d seen from the trees, which was actually the way Skathor had been going on instinct, which is pretty cool. We saw flying mushrooms! Pretty cool, right? Theren and Gray also marked the trees so we could follow our way back to the stone stairs back home.
 
Then there was this beautiful array of fireflies. These blue ones started to appear, but they turned out to be the blue eyes of a number of shadowy figures.
 
Most of the eyes were for these creepy looking wolves, who just didn’t look quite right. And they seemed to be the pets of a weird humanoid creature. It had the legs of a goat and some non-goat like horns on its head. It was gray and creepy and only spoke Sylvan. It also seemed to think we were really amusing. Seemed like a real jerk. Nef called it a faun and was the only one able to talk to it. I’m not sure what they talked about but Nef assured me later that things went fine.
 
So the faun was hostile, naturally, so a pretty rough battle ensued, mostly us fighting these wolves. It turned in our favor and two of the wolves turned tail and ran off. Theren did this thing where his sword burst into green flame. It was awesome. I knew he was interested in the arcane but I didn’t know he had gotten that far with it. Theren was under a laughing spell for a while. A weird choice by the Faun, but I don’t get magic that well, it’s not like ki. Not from what I can tell. I was able to tap into ki I’d never tapped into before. I created a ki blast with my punch that sent a wolf flying. It was awesome. I’ve tuned into the elemental nature of my Khaian Druidic Monastic tradition. They said I’d figure it out eventually if I kept practicing, and I did! So sweet. But mostly we just stabbed/bashed stuff. Nef shot green lightning. And Gray summoned these weird Briarborn ghosts while he was raging. We’re really coming together.
 
So the Faun tried to run and Skathor used some of the Tower’s divine power and just froze him right on the spot! We caught up, tied him up and Nef interrogated him about Iskander. We hogtied him and he led us to where Iskander would be.
 
In time we ran into swamps and then this massive tree, ancient and lush, kind of raised up in a kinda natural rings of swampy pools. It felt natural but it didn’t really make sense as a totally natural arrangement. Way up in the tree was a human sized birdcage.
 
That’s where Iskander was. Unfortunately the faun escaped with some Fey magics and ran really fast away. Theren thought of this clever rope pulley branch thing and we were able to slowly lower the cage. Skathor and Gray tried to bend the bars. Theren and Nef searched around for Iskander’s stuff and found it. I think they were also looking for ANYTHING of interest, really. No sign of the butterfly broaches. They did find a skull with gem eyes which is kinda creepy. I kept an eye out for trouble in the direction the Faun ran. We could all hear the wolves getting louder as Iskander donned his chainmail and stuff.
 
We need to get out of here.