HotDK 18: "Of Mud and Mushrooms"

At the end of the battle with the Ettercaps and Spiders it begins to rain, slightly at first but eventually becomes a down pour. As a group, spider meat is harvested for later consumption, but the caravan overall just wants to get as far up the road as possible before nightfall.

After two days and nights of heavy rain, not to mention lightening and the wind howling through the trees you awaken to the ground covered with mushrooms. They’re everywhere and many of the folk in the caravan see it as some strange omen and refuse to travel through them. To make it worse, when one of them is kicked over, it shrieks as though in utter agony while emitting a puff of black spores.

Despite the horrible sounds, Malice and Pubert set to the task of clearing them from the road at least so the caravan at least has a clear path. Malice, using magical fire from a distance is fine, but Pubert’s approach of using his axe like scythe eventually causes him to inhale to many of the spores and he is suddenly overcome with horrible grief and despair and becomes essentially useless for almost 20 minutes.

After a couple of hours, though, the road is clear, and the caravan begins its trek north for the day. By mid-day though, you observe what look like large birds circling high overhead. They seem to be tracking the group. Thankfully, Pubert recognizes them as perytons – predators that rip the living heart from their humanoid prey to feast upon. As he points them out for what they really are, they attack. Despite Pubert and Malice sustaining wounds, you dispatch the perytons relatively quickly, their meat and colorful plumage harvested for later use.

Finally, another couple days later, after off and on rain storms, you reach a roadside inn and are happy that for the first time in several days you won’t have to camp out in the rain. Unfortunately, you enter to find that the entire inn is completely sold out of rooms. Not only that, but the common room has been reserved for a private party. Looking around you see only one group – what appears to be an aristocratic judge and his entourage of human dilettantes.

They make comments from across the room like “enjoy your evening”, “sleep tight”, and “Our horses are rather picky about who they share space with, so we’ve reserved the all of the stables too. I’m sure you understand.” All the while laughing at the idea that you’ll once again have to sleep outside in the cold and rain.