Their sleep interrupted by a shadow passing overhead, the party roused themselves and prepared for battle! However, the shadow passed westward over the river, and disappeared into the darkness.
A short time later, screams of panic and fear were heard from west, followed by load crashing noises. The party raced along the riverbank, and soon came across a green dragon attacking a small barge moored to the shore. The party then attacked the beast using ranged weapons and spells, albeit from relatively range, before it could react. When the dragon
did react, it found most of the party clumped together for mutual support. The dragon unleashed a mighty belch of poisonous breath on the party, then rose about 30 feet into the air.
Realizing the danger of clumping up versus a dragon, the party then dispersed, yet continued their attack. Koravhik activated a rune which caused him to grow to 20 feet in height, he then stepped on the wrecked barge under the dragon, and proceeded to leap up into the air and try to grapple with his foe. Although was was able to just reach the dragon, he was not strong enough to get a firm grip. and fell back onto the barge multiple times.
Meanwhile, one of the passengers, a hill-dwarf named Riswynn, was awoken from her slumber on the barge by screams and loud crashing noises. The cleric of Chauntea had booked passage downriver for a yet-to-be-revealed purpose. As she looked up at the newly-formed hole in the ceiling, she locked eyes with a large green dragon. Just as the dragon was about to bite at Riswynn, it was distracted by strangers attacking it. The dragon rose vertically into the air, and it was soon attacked by a 20 foot tall goliath. The goliath leapt high into the air in attempt to grapple with the beast, and after each leap it crashed down next to Riswynn, narrowly avoiding crushing her.
As Riswynn scrambled out of the wreckage, and away from the menacing stomping boots, then quickly healed one of the fallen party members. She then spied movement in the branches of a nearby tree. Looking closer, she saw that is was a giant spider! Not realizing that it was the druid Squirrelly in one of her wildshape forms, she decided to move a bit further away from the action.
The party eventually drove the dragon off. The massive creature dove into the river and swam away upstream while under the surface.
Riswynn applied a few more healing spells to party, and everyone then searched the wreackage of the barge. There were no other survivors, and nothing of value was recovered. Riswynn identified the body of the barge-caption, a half-elf named Wyew Likus. Korvhik suggested leaving the bodies of the dead barge-crew out for the scavengers, as is customary for his people. Cressidien commented that his people usually create their dead. In the end, the party decided to bury the dead barge crewmembers. Riswynn then returned with the party to their camp site.
Uncharacteristically, Ravinte did not actively attack the dragon during the fight. When the party returned to camp, he seemed distracted, and announced in the morning that he had urgent business to attend to back east. He split with the party at this point.
In the morning, she decided to accompany the party on their journey upstream to the west. That night they decided to camp further into the forest, away from the open sky above the river. They found a suitable campsite (almost
too perfect in the eyes of some party members.
After taking first watch, Squirrelly then walked a couple hundred paces further south, stopping just before a large dead white oak that she knew would be there. He's spotted unusual arrangements of twigs, leaves and pinecones when they first found the campsite, and recognized it as a messaged coded in the secret druidic language. The message instructed her to meet another druid here. Squirrely was soon joined by an old human man who stepped out of a nearby live tree. He introduced himself as Reidoth.
Reidoth said that he was pleased to finally see another druid, as he had been alone for a very long time. Reidoth revealed that mutated owlbears, gricks, and aggressive plants the party had encountered were his creations. He said that once he recognized that Squirrelly was a druid, he had tried to direct his creatures away from the party. However, the party was moving around so frequently that he kept losing track of them. He then revealed his "master plan".
He stated that druids usually aim to reduce the damage that civilization do to nature until the civilization inevitably collapse. Then, druids help nature to reclaim the lands ruined by the civilization. Then, after a time, a new civilization arises, and cycle begins anew. However, Reidoth noted that each time the new civilization recovers faster than before and does more damage before it collapses. For example, the inhabitants of the city of Thundertree had discovered how to harvest the giant thundertrees, and turn them into lumber!
When the Ash Mounts erupted, and killed most of the inhabitants of the province, Reidoth had an epiphany! He could harness the forces of nature itself to end this round of civilization early, and perhaps forever! He then modified creatures and plants to attack the local civilization. He intends to "cleanse" the province and isolate Allenstad. Then he will turn west to cleanse Allenstadt, then turn back east to wipe out the rest of Wallacia. he asked Squirrely to join his holy crusade.
Squirrely tried to warn Reidoth that his "modifications" of nature were in fact corruption, but Reidoth did not seem to understand. Squirrelly asked for time to consider Reidoth's words, and Reidoth agreed. However, he warned Squirrelly to lead his party back to the east as she considered, as they would face more dangers if they approached Reidoth's lair in the ruined city of Thundertree. Squirrely then returned to the camp site.
The next day as they traveled west along the river, she confided with her friend Cressidien about the meeting with Reidoth. The two agreed to tell the rest of the party about Reidoth, and also that the owlbears tags they had been collecting over the last few months were engraved with the druidic numerals for 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, & 11. Despite Reidoth's warning, the party continued traveling westward towards Thundertree.
They soon found the ruins a stone dock, and spotted what appeared to be the remains of water mill along a small stream leading to the south. Investigating the mill, they found rusted remains of machinery, and it appeared that a large machine of some kind had been torn out of the stone floor, and could not be found anywhere nearby. The overgrown remains of a cobblestone road was found leading up into the hills, and party began to follow it.
The path lead into an area of heavy undergrowth. Suddenly, vines all around the party sprang into action, grasping at their legs. A large, twisted oak also began assailing the party. They'd faced aggressive plants in the past, but these plants were stronger, more resilient, and attacked them at close range. it was a harder fight than previous plant encounters, and one or two of the party were temporarily taken out of action. Fortunately, Riswynn's healing magics were up to the task.
The invasive plants were finally subdued, and then...
Comments