Passing in the Blight

Discovery, Exploration

The yet-to-be-named Sapphire Oath come to the aid of a Wealth Reclamation Society expedition being attacked by the very trees they are cutting down in their dig site.  A tragedy is nearly avoided and a looming threat is sniffed out before it can do any more harm.

On the morning of the fifth day of travel for Joubert and his escort, a panicked runner came by the camp seeking out aid. The red haired halfling, Emmon Tunnely by name, was a part of an expedition of the Wealth Reclamation Society. They had begun operating in the area a week back attempting to dig up an old alchemist's laboratory. During the process, yellowed grass continued to sprout and small dead trees continued to repopulate the area. The alchemist Opcurious Tiburs had been an expert on Decomposition and Biomatter so the austere situation was taken in stride. When the door to the buried home was cracked open, orange dust burst from the hold. Within the hour, workers started going missing. The next morning, bodies were found hanging in the trees. Guards sent to investigate dropped dead from a a hundred needles covering their body. The next two days were spent held up in camp during the day and fighting unseen monsters cracking through the trees at night.
  With the knowledge of wounded trapped in the camp, Joubert was of the mind to provide aid. No one objected to the situation. The party began the 7 mile trek back north that Emmon had just run down this morning. Ravel determined that the trees were the monsters in this situation. She described the nature of Blights to the party and predicted that they were also the wilted trees the diggers had seen resprouting over night as well.
  When the party arrived at the palisaded camp, the few healthy works unstacked the boxes buttressing the broken gate. Entering inside, the party met with a suave and debonair adventurer name Colter the Professional. Colter meant to be this camp's lead in dealing with hostile threats to the expedition. He sarcastically prodded at how good of a job he had done. At the very least though, he was able to show off a partial body of a needle blight. When Emmon had fled in the morning, Colter had gone out to find answers. Ravel knew that blights tended to congregate around a blight tree or under the control of some form of darker druid. If the dig site is where they were congregating , that is where the party would go. Joubert set about his work in the camp lending aid to the wounded while the quartet of adventurers went north to deal with the monstrous danger.
  After a five minute cautious walk, the party found the austerity of the dig site. Walls and buildings at odd angles and half submerged into the ground. This laboratory was not meant to be found again, whatever magic that had pulled it under. The regrowth of the yellowed grass, shrubs and dead trees made the setting even more unsettling. Whether due to the alchemist or the blights, the partial unburial mixed with immediate regrowth left the structures looking as if they were meant to exist in this topsy-turvey place.
  Wagons and carts were locked in vines and undergrowth similar to the base camp. The party approached the house and began to hear snapping and wrapping of twigs through the bushes as the blights revealed themselves. Marduk heaved the cellar-like front door open with a burst of might despite it's kilted and vined state. There was a moment of pause, Ravel and Lord Sapphire not immediately jumping into the house. They wanted to try to communicate with the Blights. Despite their magically aided attempts, the plant creatures did not return language. Their strides altered and attention was drawn as as the pair spoken as what was said was understood but the blights were incapable of responding. As the approached still, Beatle took the opportunity to psychically insult one of them which got the party started.
  Twig blights wrapped in while a pair of needle blights launched volleys of thorns from their arms. The party twisted and turned, repositioning themselves as they attempted to prioritize different threats. As Lord Sapphire retreated back from the prominent speaking position to a back line, they wrapped around the side of the building protruding from the ground. Doing so revealed a confusing and worriesome sight of a man, bloodied and beaten, pulling himself out of a hole rotted and torn through where the wall met the earth. Arms showing the friction burns of bindings and wearing barely any cloths, the muddy face of Colter pulled himself out of the topsoil. A Muddy face of Colter that was terrified, panicked, and one that did not recognize Lord Sapphire.
  As the battle continued, Colter shouted for the adventurers to be gone, that the blights fought to keep a worse threat locked away. As this happened, though, a new threat began to move. Roots upturning and branches bobbing, a nearby dead tree's trunk split open into a jagged maw as the blight tree had awoken. Ravel took a mighty womp before retreating, calling down a beam of moonlight to sear across the bark. Beatle jostled and joked with it magically to cause root to grab branch trunk to twist in on itself. Marduk continued to deal with the smaller blights as arrows and inflammatory volleys assaulted the tree. Lord Sapphire kept Colter calmed as the battle continued by ensnaring his mind. Marduk tried to finish up his business but could not manage to break the flimsy blights fast enough. Beatle's jocularity was taken too far as Ravel's spotlight shown on the tree. Straightening itself out, the tree first brought a heavy branch down onto the bard, pummeling him to the ground unconscious. It then scooped the body up into it's splintered mouth and began to puncture and a mash the corpse.
  A thousand calls of alarm and anger erupted from the companions. Marduk pushed himself through the twig blights ignoring their stings to bring his fully fury onto the damaged and creaking tree. Cleaving through the crack his companions had already made, the bugbear cleft the tree in twain. The tree was dead but Beatle was beyond Ravel's care. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing she could do. Rushing over, Ravel once more took her horse form as Lord Sapphire ordered Colter on top. Beatle's body was drapped over Ravels shoulders and Lord Sapphire ordered Colter to get her friend to a priest she had brought to the camp. As Marduk and Lord Sapphire finished off the blights, Ravel ran.
  Galloping onward, what had taken the party five minutes to cautiously traverse on humanoid stride not but a moment ago Ravel now did in moments. Heart booming, lungs pumping, the galloping was heard from the gates and Colter shouted to be let in. The gates were only partially open as Ravel thundered and lept through. Shouting for the priest, Joubert was in mid conversation with the expedition executive, an obese merchant man. Time ticked down as Beatle's spirit unstitched itself from his body. As Ravel tranformed back to her eladrin from, Colter and Joubert blerted something about diamonds, Colter grabbing the merchant by the wrist and prying a ring from his hand.
  Joubert took the ring and approached the knelt down eladrin holding Beatle's body. Calling out to his god, he raised the diamond into the air and pulled from the sky a beam of sunlight that gathered into the diamond. The light grew until the only thing that shown was the dazzling ring, and Joubert brought the diamond down upon Beatle. The diamond burst into an aura of light that settled across the man. A few touching moments happened in succession as Beatle first woke up to Ravel followed by his other two companions rushing back to camp. As relief was shared, a new tension rose as things began to settle on uneven ground.
  Dario Rebić came forward in a distemper about strangers barging into his camp, coercing private property from him, and destroying it to save one of their own. Where was this care when his own men were dying? Marduk did not take this sitting down. The Bugbear made it known that they were here to fix the problem and likely the only ones to be able to do so. While this struggle for power went down, the frazzled and battered Colter stumbled through the camp. His men were confused at his renewed presence, neither knowing he had left or how he got into such a state. Colter and the companions attempted to find the man the supposed imposter Colter but he could not be seen. Likely, the imposter wasn't even Colter anymore.
  The party congregated to understand the situation. Lord Sapphire had suspicions to what this creature was. Colter had described a genderless, nude alien person with hard rubbery skin like insect like plates. While they didn't know why or how this creature was here, the elven sorcerer had grown up in a noble station and had been warned of doppelgangers. The creatures could perfectly impersonate others in form and were capable of reading their minds for information. Due to the creature's preference for decadent lifestyles, Lord Sapphire's noble training warned of such imposters within courts. Unsure of how exactly they would deal with the situation, the companions took a rest to recenter themselves and finally recuperate from the battle against the blights. In the mean time, the charmed Colter locked down the camp and ordered that noone be let in or out. Rebić locked himself away with a guard or two and Joubert continued his treatment of the injured soldiers and workers.
  After the companions had had their time to rest, the investigation began. Ravel transformed into a maned wolf to begin. If eyes could not be trusted, maybe a nose could be. The party moved to the table and blight carcass the false Colter had brought in this morning. Sniffing about the carcass and the table he had been working at, Ravel picked up a highly chemical scent un fitting for anything around. She then followed her nose through the camp, working by tents until she got into the piecemeal constructed hall built off of Rebić's yurt. Moving through the cramped quarters and past Joubert, the wolf approached the injured guard standing outside the merchant's closed door, the scent leading inside. Lord Sapphire had said that doppelgangers preferred impersonating those of a more decadent lifestyle.   The companions demanded admittance to see the leader of the expedition. When the guard called in to see if Rebić was willing, things escalated far too quickly. From inside, the party could hear the voice of a guard call out in terror. Marduk began to slam into the door to get in. Blows fell within as the door splintered and cracked but held for the moment. It was a process slower than desired. Marduk was strong, but he was also exhausted from overexerting himself in against the blights earlier. Despite only taking 15-20 seconds for the bugbear to get in, every moment of delay shrouded what was going on. Despite this, Lord Sapphire was able to get peaks inside the room as the door splintered and shook, the glimpses happening as Marduk impacted the door.
  Within, Lord Sapphire saw flashes of Dario Rebić Standing to the left cudgeling down the guard on the right. The next flash was of Rebić standing over the downed guard with a large clump of mud in his hand. Another moment later the door burst in to an austere scene. Rebić was on the ground to the right unconscious. The guard stood to the left, groaning and leaning on the wrecked furniture. A confusing scene.
  The companions knew only that they trusted no one. The idea of just killing everyone was thrown out there with tying up both Rebić and the guard until things got sorted. The guard verbally resisted being tied up and left under Marduk's violent powers but eventually agreed to confinement to the cots of the improvised medical bay. As the group was shuffle out of the yurt into the adjoining hall, Ravel in wolf form picked up two austere clues. First, the suspect guard's had smelt of the chemical odor. Second, as the unconscious Rebić was pulled through the chamber, the merchant's overcoat drug to the side a bit allowing the lower eyes of the wolf to see underneath. The merchant was wearing similar guard apparel and armor underneath the coat. The wolf snagged the coat and pulled, revealing to everyone else the bulbous form of the overweight merchant constricted into the guard attire underneath.
  At this, the Suspect guard cursed, head lowering in disappointment. Pulling free the seems of his adjusted clothing to fall to the ground, the man grew, limbs and head stretching. Eyes milked over as his skin grew darker, bluer, amorphous and plated in large callouses. Without understanding it fully, Ravel had found it's secret and it needed to get out. He looked back to the yurt but Marduk stood in the doorway. The wolf snapped and bit. Beatle's discordant magic rippled out and Lord Sapphire missed with a crossbow shot, The doppelganger needed out. It snagged one of the infirm to use as a shield as he stumbled from the cramped room. Getting to the door way, it leapt to the side between a pitched tent and the building's wall. But however desperate it ran, it could not be saved. Marduk howled in rage, barreled to the doorway, and looked to the side. He didn't need to catch up, just see it. Through reach of arm and reach of glaive, two ferocious swings of the cleaving weapon expertly placed sent the body tumbling to the ground in two halves.   Despite finding a threat, more questions arose than answers in that moment. The rest of the day was spent trying to figure things out. First, the party found remnants of the chemical infused mud within the attire discarded by the doppelgangar. Arcane in nature, Joubert could not identify it. Later on, though, the form of Rebić wearing the guard armor partially melted away, the excess skin slopping to the ground in a similar mud. Underneath and unconsciouswas the guard Lord Sapphire had seen assaulted within the yurt. It seemed that this doppelganger had a means of alter the forms of others as well to increase the trickiness of their ruses. What this also meant is that now one knew where the real Dario Rebić was if he wasn't either of the people in the tent.
  Looking for the body, the party found a dig out under the yurt's back wall away from any of the guard's sightlines. A way in and out in secret for the doppelganger. If the party or Colter had any guess, the doppelganger had taken Rebić back to the unveiled laboratory for further information harvesting if needed. The companions brought the information forward to the camp. While some workers seemed willing to let the merchant die and to just save themselves, Lord Sapphire and Colter saved the situation. The Sorcerer may have promised the ability to pay for the expedition if things went worse, but the camp would hold out. The party would go into the laboratory to defeat whatever evil still remained and would seek to find Dario Rebić. This expedition, though a tragedy, was on their shoulders to save. They had already saved the lives of some of the men and if any good would come of this, it would be because of them.
  The night would pass in greatly needed rest. The party would have to find a name for themselves should this tale be the beginning of a greater reputation for the party. Despite that, some of the workers such as Emmon Tunnely were already approaching them at the campfire to thank them for everything else they had already done.