Defending the Temple

General Summary

April 26-28 - Dezy, Cherubix, Faraday, Mervin
Party returned to the Temple, learned that something had changed around midnight after they left, and that the Heartmother had evacuated the forest between Devil’s Fall and the Temple
Heartmother asked the party to help, either by scouting out the oncoming force or going out into the forest and enlisting allies in the fight
Heartmother knighted Faraday, naming her the Knight of Cloudless Dawn
Party split in two - Mervin & Cherubix to go ask for aid from Hyperion and/or any of his family, and Dezy & Faraday to go assist Eliadri and free up the treants guarding her grove
Hyperion was easily persuaded, and he allowed two of his children to join the Temple’s defense in exchange for a future favor
Eliadri sent Dezy & Faraday off to kill the scrags that had been hunting & kidnapping fey in her part of the forest D & F, through successful use of precognition, found the cave the scrags were lairing in, and by baiting them out in multiple waves managed to kill them and free the fey they had captured
Eliadri sent two of her guardian treants to aid in the Temple’s defense
Party regrouped, and after learning that the thing in Devil’s Fall had begun moving towards the Temple, set out to do some reconnaissance
After a precognition ritual and multiple flybys by Ko and their friend Thureli, they realized that there were 40+ bog mummies marching through the forest, and some sort of tentacled ooze monster leading them, with the Hand of the Green Man buried inside of it
The party decided to retreat and attempt to hold the line at the river crossing; Mervin, realising that his magic would be useless against these foes, retreated to the Temple to help build a last-ditch defensive line
After an hour or two passed beyond when they expected the enemy to hit them, they sent Ko forward to scout out what was going on, and he found the army stopped, with the ooze meditating(?) on top of a hill
Another precognition ritual led them to believe that whatever the ooze was doing, it needed to be stopped, so they sent word back to the Temple and gathered a strike force to interrupt the thing before it finished
After much planning, the party moved forward, F & D mounted on the gryphons Xerxes and Athena, and the treants gathered together outside of hearing range of the army; the Timeless Strand was activated, buffing the gryphons, their riders, the treants, and Cherubix, and everyone rushed forward to attack
D & F, catching the ooze by surprise via aerial assault, managed to severely damage and blind it in their opening volley, and kill it in their second, before it had a chance to recover
The mummies massed to assault, but the massive trees and two magical barriers created by Cherubix and Velena managed to contain their rush until the treants could arrive
With the treants in the fight, and immune to the mummies’ drowning aura, the mummy army was eventually destroyed, and the party settled down to find out what could be salvaged
The party retrieved the blight/ooze’ claws, which had some nasty properties
The Hand of the Green Man was thoroughly corrupted, and seemed to be emitting a form of entropic radiation, sapping the life force of anything nearby that wasn’t shielded
After flying the Hand to Bridgetown, where it could be contained and purified (eventually) without causing further harm, Dezy returned to the Temple and walked back to town with Cherubix and Mervin
Faraday stayed at the Temple to help the forest recover, and eventually made his way to the chateau, which he had chosen as his domain within the forest

Report Date

02 Dec 2018