Adv Log, Session 36: On the River to Dwarfchat

General Summary

Jyprasday, Leafturn 17, 879 AFE


Almë breathed heavily, both from the pain of his wounds, and his sudden, revenge-fueled exertion. He held his staff in both hands, the tip resting on the ground, and he was surrounded by globs of brownish-grey chunky goo. He was naked, save for a scrap of his undershirt, hanging by the remains of his left sleeve. His body was covered in chemical burns from the chest down, where the reek had been digesting him. There were blisters and bleeding fissures in his skin, pulled open further by his almost spastic, cathartic movements to kill the thing that had hurt him.

Reek


The crew, woken up by Almë’s screams, were looking at them with surprise, concern, and confusion. They had no idea what had just happened. They had barely had time to get out of their bedrolls before it was all over. All they knew was that Almë screamed, his friends all ran towards him, there were some bright flashes and loud noises, and it was over.


“What the hell just happened?” Captain Robert Gwendal asked. He didn’t like not knowing what was going on. He was the captain; he was supposed to be in charge, and to do that he needed appropriate amounts of information.


The rest of the crew were muttering amongst themselves, trying to piece together what they had seen. “There was fire!” “Yelling and screaming”, and “Something must have been on the Elf” seemed to be the consensus, as ambiguous as that was.


“Uh,” Almë groaned, “can someone patch me up a bit?” He looked down at his ravaged body and winced. There were sensitive parts of him that he really didn’t want to look at too closely, afraid to see what their state was.


Taid stepped up, casting a healing spell and laying a hand on Almë’s shoulder. The mana energy flowed through Taid and into Almë, and the network of fissures closed up, and the blisters disappeared, as well as the reddened, damaged skin and muscles. All that remained were some faint scars from the fissures. He felt much, much better.


Almë looked down, seeing the remains of his clothing and bedroll. Both were fit only for rags, if that. The whole front of his clothing was gone, leaving only the portions covered by his body. The top half of his bedroll was also gone, dissolved and consumed by the reek as it made its way to the Elf encased within it.


He wrapped the ragged remains of the bedroll around his like a cloak, and dug around in his pack for his second set of clothing. He put those on, covering his nakedness.


Almë finally answered the captain’s question. “I got reeked. It slid up onto me, and started to eat me. It went through by bedroll and clothing, then got to me.”


Captain Gwendal turned to Taid. “I thought you said that you had cast a protective spell that would keep wild animals out.” His voice was accusatory.


“I did,” Taid replied. “It must have been within the camp when I cast it. Anything within the area when it’s cast is considered friendly.”


“Huh. Didn’t seem very friendly to me.”


“Or to me,” Almë added, looking up as he put on his shirt.


Taid could only shrug. “It must have been hiding somewhere nearby, then came creeping out in search of food, finding Almë. We were lucky. It could have been one of the magical reeks, like the one that makes you love holding it in your lap.”


“That sounds suitably horrific,” the captain said distastefully. “It would eat you, and you wouldn’t mind.” He shuddered. He was indeed glad it hadn’t been one of those.


Veliday, Leafturn 18, 879 AFE


The sky started lightening in the east, and no one was in any mood to go back to sleep. The crew just started a rather leisurely camp breakdown, and by the time the limb of the sun crept above the horizon, they were all back on the boat.


Slowly, the landscape moved past them, a blur of greens with occasional brightly colored flowers or birds.


Once, behind them, Ruby glanced up to see an immensely long snake-like creature slither through the air from one side of the river to the other, but she only saw it for a short moment before they went around a bend and it was hidden from view. All she knew was that it was green and wingless.


The day didn’t heat up as much as it had, and was only in the mid 80’s (29C). It was still hot, just not unbearably so, and the humidity wasn’t bad for the tropical jungle. It was a relatively “dry” 60% humidity. There were scattered clouds in the sky, slowly drifting on a wind that never made it to ground level to fill the sail. The rowers had to do all of the work.


The movement of the craft had both Almë and Ruby spending time at the bulwarks, their stomachs queasy as they tried not to lose their breakfasts. Water travel didn’t suit either of them, and they spent the day mostly feeling awful.


But they couldn’t stay crouched at the side of the boat all of the time. Almë stood up, stretching his long legs, a rush of more severe nausea coming over him as he did so. But his eyes, trying to watch the trees, not the water, in a vain hope of feeling less horrible, saw something. He watched, as the uneven edge of the jungle canopy dipped and rose, and he saw it again.


Not too far from the river, above the jungle canopy, he could see some regular humps of vegetation. Elitheris, in the bow of the ship, was looking in the same direction, a thoughtful look on her face. She must have seen something too.


He watched for another few moments, and saw it again, and this time he was able to resolve some details before they were hidden again by the nearer tree tops. It wasn’t so much as the humps, but the way they appeared to be grown. There were subtle patterns there, in the way they were formed. Elitheris looked at him, her eyes asking him silently if he’d seen what she had. He nodded.


Almë turned to the Captain, who sat at the tiller not too far behind him. “Captain, which Elven town is that over there?” He pointed into the jungle.


“Excuse me?” Captain Gwendal asked, seeming very confused. “There isn’t any Elven town that I’m aware of. And I should know, I make this run three or four times a year.”


“It’s very well hidden because it’s made out of trees in the jungle, but I’m very sure that there’s an Elven town very close by.


“He’s right,” Elitheris said, backing him up. “I saw it too.”


“So,” Almë asked, “would you mind stopping for an hour or so? So we can check out the town?”


Judging from the look on the captain’s face, and his laborious sigh, he didn’t really like the idea. He was on a schedule, and got paid a bonus if he got the cargo to its destination on time. The sooner he got it there, the larger his bonus.


He glanced around at his crew. They seemed tired, as they’d been rowing all morning. It was always difficult going upriver.


“Alright,” the captain acquiesced. “We can do that. Be back in an hour. We have to get to Dwarfchat.”


He guided the boat towards the riverbank, where a pair of fallen trees formed a makeshift quay. He anchored the boat between them. It was a chance to rest his rowers.


Almë was first off the boat, followed by Ruby. They both enjoyed any chance to get off of the boat. Elitheris, Eykit, and Taid went as well.


Taid stepped off of the fallen tree trunk and onto the riverbank. He cast the spell of Danger Sensing, and nothing seemed to cause him to feel any sense of foreboding.


They moved off into the jungle, Almë leading the way. They had to move single file, pushing their way through the vegetation. Elitheris took up the rear.


About forty meters from where Almë and Elitheris thought the edge of town was, they stopped, Almë’s hands out in a silent warning for them not to move any closer. They weren’t sure exactly, since it was dense jungle, and they couldn’t even see that far through all of the foliage, but it was a good estimate nonetheless.


Elven towns typically didn’t have walls. They didn’t need them. They used dangerous plants instead, such as the whipweed they had encountered earlier in the trip.


Almë and Elitheris both knew that Elven towns had rings of dangerous plants around them to keep trespassers out. Many were distractions, to slow an approaching enemy until the town’s defenders could show up. Others were designed to stop the enemy in their tracks.


The Elven town didn’t seem like it was inhabited; they could hear none of the standard sounds a living, breathing community would have. They could hear birds, some monkeys, the drone of insects, and every once in a while some other noise of the wilderness that they couldn’t place. There were no Elves living here any longer.


So there was no telling what kinds of dangerous flora was still growing. In an earlier life, it had been Almë’s job to tend to the defensive plants, caring for them and keeping them from running rampant or going feral. While the Elves had designed them long ago to be hard to cultivate, that didn’t stop the occasional lucky plant from being able to propagate and “go wild”.


The whipweed that Almë had tangled with had been one of those: a wild, feral plant that had somehow rooted and survived in the wild.


From the size of the settlement, Almë figured that the ring of defensive growths would be around twenty meters deep, although what had happened to the plants after the Elves had gone no one could say. He was being cautious, because there was no telling how much wider that ring had gotten.


There were several different kinds of plants used for defense. Nassëa liantassë, also known as spikevine, was a thorny, vining plant that was used as a kind of barbed fence. It was often used to keep animals in pens, and as an area-denial plant. Almë could see lines of it criss crossing the area in front of them, and he pointed them out to the others.

Spikevine


He also pointed down to a spot less than a meter ahead of them, moving aside some large ferns to show what was underneath. There were some long lines of stems that looked something like a cross between a philodendron and kelp, with several seed pods like air bladders lying on the jungle floor. It was snapweed, a harmless plant that when stepped on, made loud popping noises that acted as a kind of alarm.

Snapweed


He pointed out a couple of other plants to watch out for, including Hloimawelvë, or poisonpuffs, a species related to snapweed but whose bladders were filled with a toxic gas, a couple of paradise plants, which emitted a hallucinagenic euphoric, and a man-trap plant, which was something like a very large and very active Venus flytrap.

Poisonpuffs

Paradise Plant


What he didn’t see was a clear pathway through them. It had likely been overgrown years or decades or even centuries ago.


Of the plants extending before them, the paradise plant was likely the most dangerous, if only because it made victims not pay attention to the more toxic or damaging plants around them. Almë certainly didn’t want to have anyone get near any of those.


Through the dense foliage, they could see another plant type used by the Elves: an archtree. Several of its peripheral saplings were actually growing in the ring of dangerous plants; apparently it too had gone a bit feral, and was growing past what it normally would if there had been any caretakers. Archtrees were something along the lines of a banyan, in that they dropped roots from the branches. But there the similarities stopped, because the archtree then grew another trunk from there, and repeated the process. Over time, a single archtree could make a whole network of connected trunks. The branches that ran between the trunks made great supports for flets and buildings.

Ruby looked about, cataloguing all of the dangerous plants that Almë had pointed out to her. “Should I burn a way through it?”


Elitheris looked stricken, although she couldn’t see a clear pathway through the deadly flora either. Burning a corridor through it might be the only way through. She looked up, at the forest canopy. She could see paradise plants growing like epiphytes up there, too, as well as at least two poisonpuff plants. Climbing over the defenses would likely result in an even more dangerous fall into the defensive ring.


Almë contemplated using Wither on the area. Doing that would be expensive in mana cost, but doable. Having Ruby burn a small corridor through it might be easier.


“Why are we going in there?” Ruby asked. “Is there anything even in the old Elven city that we can find? What’s interesting about this place?”


Almë looked at Elitheris, who shrugged; if she had any specific motives for visiting an abandoned Elven town, she wasn’t saying. Almë said finally, “We haven’t been in an Elven town for quite some time, and we both just wanted to go take a look. And also, we are adventurous, and there might be some loot.”


Ruby smirked. “Okay, good enough for me.” She stepped forward, changing places with Almë, and cast the spell of Flame Jet. With a rushing noise, a meter long gout of flame spurted out of the end of her staff, which she held close to the ground, in order to have a bit more control over where she was applying the flames. She swept the end of the staff back and forth, singing and crisping the vegetation both in front of her and to the sides. She didn’t want anything being able to reach them as they walked down the center of the burned out section.


The smell of burning vegetation filled the air, along with a lot of smoke from the wet vegetation. She focused on clearing a path about three meters wide. She avoided burning trees, curving the path she was making around them. If she had had Almë’s knowledge of the dangerous plants, she could have been more targeted, and ignored the harmless plants that were mixed in with the dangerous ones. But she didn’t want to take any chances.


Taid was right behind her, ready with a spell of Water Creation, just in case the flames got out of hand.


For the most part, the flames didn’t spread too far. It was, after all, a jungle, and it rained almost every day to one extent or another. So Taid mainly watched for potential flare ups, since the moist ground and water-saturated jungle plants wouldn’t easily burn up as a wildfire.


They moved forward slowly, following Ruby and her her fire-spewing staff, burning down the undergrowth. Off to their right, a sapling, already covered in spikevine despite its relatively young age, burst into flame, but Taid was ready with his magic. A few magic words and a gesture of his hand later, and a small column of mist surrounded the sapling, smothering the fire before it do more than singe a few leaves.


They moved forward, towards the archtree that formed the foundations of the Elven village. They could see it fairly well, now that they were closer to it and there were fewer jungle plants obscuring their view. Another flare up, this time to the left, and fire raced up some vines that draped a tree like tinsel. Taid cast the spell of Water Creation again, and not only did the burning vines get enshrouded in mist, but a line of mist ten meters long rushed from the vines towards the center of town, stopping a little past the edge of the area with the dangerous plants in it. The mist hung there like a fog.


"Well," Taid said, a little surprised. "That worked out better than I expected!"


Ruby concentrated on the left side of the pathway, being careful to use the misty wall as a sort of backstop for her flames. Within a few more moments, they had a pathway all the way from the outside edge to the first trunk of the archtree.

Diagram of the abandoned village


Once the pathway was complete, Ruby extinguished the flame, and let Almë take the lead again.


There wasn’t much visible from the ground. Up in the tree, they could see a few small remains of flets, and some of the buildings grown from living tree branches were still recognizable, although all were overgrown. Through the undergrowth, they could see some crumbling stone or brick structures at ground level, likely chimneys for the smithy, kilns, or ovens. There also looked to be the remains of a stairway that might have arced up to the first level of flets.


Colorful birds roosted where Elves once lived, sharing the space with squirrels and arboreal marsupials.


Almë and Elitheris clambered up the archtree trunk. Taid looked up at the tree. There were plenty of handholds, although whether or not those branches that he saw could hold his weight, he couldn’t be sure. He opted to stay at the base of the tree, on guard.


Eykit watched the two Elves climb up. He was good at climbing, after all, he was a second story man, trained by Elend Rabbitfoot to get into the higher floors of houses. He’d climbed plenty of trees in town. He made it up halfway before the branch he grabbed bent and snapped under his weight, and he slid down the trunk almost back down to where he started. “Dammit,” he said to no one particular. “Climbing on bricks and stones is so much easier. Those have hand holds, not this smooth-barked nonsense!” But he tried again, and soon was scampering on the mostly horizontal 30cm wide branch that acted like a bridge between two trunks.


Ruby followed Eykit up the tree. She had grown up in the city, and worked as a courtier. Climbing trees wasn’t something she was very good at, but she was a trained observer, and had watched Eykit and how he had ascended the tree trunk. She followed his example, and managed to get up to the first level of main branches along with everyone else. Although she much preferred the stairways and bridges found in active Elven towns.


Elitheris and Almë headed towards the center of town, which is where the community building usually was. Once they got there, they could see the remains of stone structures below, totally overgrown with weeds, undergrowth, and vines. They could see the remains of what was probably the town smithy, a large earthenware kiln that was caved in, and a mostly intact oven. Above them, at different levels, were several grown structures that used to be buildings and rooms, but were now clusters of branches, totally overgrown over the decades.


While she couldn’t see any direct evidence, Elitheris suspected that something unnatural had caused the Elves to leave their town. She couldn’t think of any other reason Elves would just leave their homes. Especially since the archtree they were all standing on had to be a few millennia old.


The whole town was maybe a hundred meters in diameter. Almë cast his spell of Plant Vision, and the tree, and most of the “buildings” that had been grown from it, turned transparent to his eyes. Suspended here and there were fragments of what used to be furniture, some metal tools, and a box, sitting at an angle, wedged between two branches of one of the structures at a higher level.


He let the spell fade away, and the branches of the archtree became solid again to him. “This place is mostly empty, but up there,” he pointed up at a structure some forty meters away and twenty meters higher than they were, “is a large box. I mean, there are some fragments of flets, and some rotting bits of dead wood that looks like it used to be furniture, and there are some metallic parts here and there. You know, nails, hinges, and drawer pulls and the like. But other than that, this place is empty.”


There wasn’t a direct pathway to the box. Whatever means of access, rope bridges, slack lines, or boardwalk pathways, were long gone. They would have to do some more climbing.


They walked across the branch to the next trunk, then moved around the trunk to the next branch. That led to another trunk and another branch, and thence to the trunk under the structure that contained the box. That structure, likely some kind of residence, was about fifteen meters above them. It was time to climb.


Almë methodically climbed up the trunk, and fortunately there were plenty of branches to use as a ladder.


Elitheris wasn’t so lucky; her path upward, about a third of the way around the trunk from Almë, wasn’t as sturdy, and a branch broke off when she tried to pull herself up. She fell, but kicked off the trunk, flipped, and landed on a branch five meters below. She started climbing again, being extra wary of slender branches.


Eykit wasn’t about to be outdone by a bunch of poncey elves. He could climb too.


Ruby tried to climb, but there weren’t any suitable branches that she could reach. Shrugging, she said, “I’m going to look around a bit.”


Elitheris, Almë, and Eykit stood in a room, if that’s what it could be called. It was more like an overgrown bower, with a mass of branches growing through the middle of it. Moving around them was difficult, requiring a lot of squirming to get through them. Somewhere in there, was a box.


Taid could no longer see his friends. He sat down, and leaned against Norolind. Mister Wiggles stood up from where he was laying, and padded over to Taid, flopping down next to him.


Almë searched around, looking for where that box might be. There was so much growth that it was difficult to find, but he knew vaguely where it was, and once he was able to move enough branches aside, he could see it. “Found it,” he called.


It was a beautifully carved wooden box, about a meter wide, a half meter deep, and about a third of a meter tall. It was also wedged between two branches the thickness of an elephant’s leg, and surrounded by smaller branches. It would be a chore to remove it. And both Elitheris and Almë could tell, now that they were fairly close to it, that it was enchanted.


Almë moved through the twisted, overgrown branches until he was next to the box. It was wedged in tightly, and over the last few decades other branches had grown around it. He’d need to clear the smaller branches out of the way, and then unstick it from between the larger branches.


He cast the spell of Plant Shaping, and cleared the smaller branches out of the way. He grabbed the box, and it was fairly heavy. As he shifted it, trying to get it out from between the two branches that had pinned it, he could hear and feel things shifting around inside. There were several muted thumps, and as he hefted the box, he estimated its weight at something around 18kg. It wasn’t easy to carry, mainly due to the fact that it was large and unwieldy, and whatever objects were inside were moving around, throwing the center of mass off.


With some effort, Almë was able to maneuver the box through all of the branches that crisscrossed the interior of the chamber, and set it down on the floor made of woven but overgrown branches. Then he unlatched the box and opened the box.


It was full of fresh meat, butchered into conveniently sized cuts, about 14 kilos worth. Elitheris could identify a trihorn haunch, some venison, wild boar, rabbit, and at least two species of bird.


And the box itself was of Elven craftsmanship, finely detailed, with intricate carvings. Elves, being the long-lived race that they were, always took the time required to do a beautiful job.


Eykit looked at the box. His eyes widened as he realized that he had only heard of preservation boxes of this size, usually in very upscale restaurants and the houses of the nobility. By his estimation, the box itself was worth upwards of 20,000 marks. He wasn’t sure exactly how much it would go for on the open market, given the quality of the craftsmanship, but it was at least the 20,000. If they sold it, it would bring quite a windfall. And the gods knew they could use the money! All they needed was a rich buyer….


“So, how do we get this big old box down from this tree?” Eykit asked.


They had left their packs on the boat, since they were only going on a quick little jaunt. So none of them had any rope. Getting the large, heavy box down was going to be difficult.


Taid laid Maggie next to the dogs. He was going to climb the tree, and get over to where the rest of his companions were. He had a spell of Apportation, and would be able to maneuver the box rather easily using it.


But first he had to climb the tree. He was rather short, and stocky, and wished, at times like these, that he had longer arms. But he was strong, and he managed after a time. Soon he stood by Ruby, looking up at the grown and woven structure that had, at one time, been a residence. Almë held the box, ready to push it over the edge so Taid could use Apportation on it.


Taid cast the spell, nodded to Almë, and the Elf pushed it over the edge. It toppled and fell, and slowed to a stop as Taid mentally caught it, setting it to hover at about waist height. He pushed it along in front of him, making his way back towards their entry point, Ruby following.


The others made their way down the tree, and soon caught up to the Dwarf and Hobbit. Eykit took a different path, wanting to do a bit of exploring himself, just to make sure that they didn’t miss anything. He noticed four areas that seemed a bit odd. Each of the four areas were about two to three meters across, and all of them looked like a tangle of plants, all with what seemed to be the same set of species. There were several different flowers, the scents of which he could smell even from the main level of the archtree branches. It was a pleasant, floral scent, reminiscent of a meadow full of wildflowers.

Rinqualastë


The plants in those clusters were not found anywhere else, and didn’t seem to be the kinds of plants he’d been seeing in the jungle. His first thought was that they might have been little gardens, although the almost even placement around the perimeter of the town, just inside the ring of dangerous plants, confused him a little.


He also got a surprise when he approached what seemed to be a cluster of foliage, but as he drew nearer, several blossoms opened up. The blossoms weren’t large, only about two centimeters across, and resembled an orchid in general shape. The blooms were pale violet, with fine, deep pink veining, and had a pleasant scent.


When the Goblin moved back, the blossoms closed again. He grinned, and stepped forward again, watching the blooms open back up. He laughed as he stepped forward and back a few times, watching the flowers open and close.


“Hey Almë,” he called over his shoulder. “Know what these plants and flowers are?” As he had been moving along the archtree, he’d seen several of the clusters of the flowers that opened when people got close.


Almë moved over to where Eykit was. “So, which plants?”


Eykit pointed to the small blooms that opened when he got within twenty meters.


“Oh, that? That’s a Hísivanessë. Also known as Hitobana. We, Elves that is, use them as a warning system and doorbells. They only open for strangers. Once the flower gets to know you, it stops opening for you.”


“Cool. And what are those?” Eykit pointed at the nearest tangled cluster of plants below them.


“Rinqualastë,” Almë answered. “It’s a waste disposal plant, used for sewage and other garbage. It's actually a colony of several different kinds of symbiotic plants. They quickly reduce midden piles to compost, and are also capable of taking metals and incorporating them into their structure. See those bladders, like on kelp? Those absorb water, purifying it. A few of the plants can form berries, whose pits are mostly metallic. It’s also good at reducing environmental toxins. Most people know them as the place to dump chamberpots. All of the Elven communities have at least one, and many Dwarven undercities in the Empire have them as well. They are a lot better than extensive sewer systems. Fewer rats. Smells better, too.”


“Yeah, but fewer bolt holes and secret tunnels.” Eykit rather liked having a sewer system. The thieves’ guilds in Port Karn used them all the time, and many guilds had secretly expanded on the system, digging tunnels that the city management wasn’t aware of. He hadn’t really mentioned any of this to his companions, but felt that having a few secrets might be useful someday.


They carried the box back to the boat. With two people, it wasn’t even all that heavy.


The crew was waiting for them when they got back, looking like they were itching to get moving again. “Looks like you found something!” Elias said, as they maneuvered the box onto the boat. “Nice box. Anything interesting in it?”


“Just some meat,” Eykit said. “So we should be eating well for a little while, at least. You’ll be able to save the salt pork for a while.”


“And you trust the meat you found in an abandoned village?” Elias said, surprised.


“Absolutely not suspicious,” Almë quipped.


“We trust this meat. It’s been preserved,” Eykit said, glancing at the Elf.


“Well, shit. Impressive. It’s a magic box, then?” Elias said.


Almë nodded. “Should be able to handle any fish Artur manages to catch too.”


Artur laughed, then held up three fish he’d caught while waiting for their passengers to get back. It took him both hands. They were each about ten or so kilos.


Almë saw the fish, and laughed himself. “We’ll have to eat what’s in there first to fit any fish that big!”


“Then we will eat these fish tonight!” Artur said, grinning.


But Almë’s joke about suspicion made him think. So he surreptitiously cast the spell of Sense Danger again, just in case. Again, he didn’t get any sense of foreboding or danger. As far as he could tell, the box, and its contents, were safe.


The crew got the boat moving again, eager to make more progress upriver. The rest was very pleasant, but they couldn’t afford too many of those and still make their deadline.


The midday sun was hot, and it only got warmer as the day progressed. There was a section of the river that necked down between some rocks, which made rowing upstream a bit more difficult, and Captain Gwendal had to put all eight rowers on just to make any headway at all. But the cold spray of water that the bow produced on occasion was a welcome respite from the heat.


Towards evening the crew started looking for a promising place to camp, but the thick jungle on either side of the river made that a longer process than usual. The boat moved past a series of curves, and with every bend they hoped they would find a spot. As they came around yet another curve, they saw that a tree had fallen across the river, blocking passage to all but small canoes, or perhaps a rowboat. But the knarr was too big and the passage near the side of the river, where it was still passable, was too shallow.


“Well, damn,” Erven said. “It will take hours to chop through that.” He looked up, at the sky that was starting to show the signs of sundown. “We need to find a place to camp, and fast. I don’t relish the thought of setting up camp in torchlight.”

The tree was large, about a meter in diameter, and must have been seventy meters tall. When it had fallen, it had taken a couple of other trees with it.


“It must have fallen not too long ago,” Taid said. “This is a pretty busy river traffic wise.” He looked at where the fallen trunk disappeared into the jungle. “Question is, is it a tree fall, or was a tree felled?”


“Ambush, you think?” Elitheris asked.


“Maybe? No one’s attacked us. Yet.”


Elitheris, and several other people, started scanning the riverbanks, looking for archers.


“If it’s pirates, they’ve done a really bad job of harassing us.”


Elitheris could see several birds in the trees around the fallen tree, and a couple more in the foliage of the downed tree as well. “I don’t think it’s an ambush. They would have scared all those birds away,” she said, nodding in that direction.


Taid turned to Ruby. “Think you can burn through that?”


“I’ve got some ideas, the spell of Explosive Fireball being at the top of the list,” she replied. She wasn’t sure how much wood she’d be able to get through with one fireball, however. Wood was pretty resilient. And it wasn’t like there was loose material or fragile material to blow into fragments. It might take a long time to blow through a tree trunk like that.


Almë had a few ideas. One was the spell of Plant Shaping. That would take somewhere around an hour to scoop out enough of the trunk to fit the boat through it. Assuming he could get the mana to maintain the spell for that long.


Another idea was casting the spell of Walk Through Wood on the boat, and allow the boat to pass through the fallen trunk. But the boat was pretty big, and he wasn’t sure he had the power to do it. It would also take several long seconds for the boat to pass completely through it, and the spell didn’t really last that long. Had it been possible, it would have been a really good way of bypassing the obstruction.


Although that meant that whoever came along next would have to deal with it.


But he had another spell, Reverse Plant Growth. That would effectively de-age the plant, all the way back to a seed for the duration of the spell. Given the size of the tree, it would take over ten minutes to revert back to the seed. Plenty of time to row the boat upstream and past the blockage.


“Alright, I think I have a solution,” Almë said. “I’m going to grow it in reverse. It will shrink down to a sapling or seed, then grow back again. During that time, we should have several minutes to get past it.”


“Hey, can someone reorient that thing during that time?” Eykit said.


“Uh, sure?”


“Well, we don’t want it blocking anyone else.”


To cast the spell on a target as large as the tree, Almë had to use a lot of mana. Fortunately, he had a powerstone, which could store mana for him to use for spell casting. It was mounted on the tip of his staff. “Captain?” he called. “I’m going to shrink the tree. It will only be temporary, though, so you’ll need to get the boat past it before it grows back to normal size again.”


“How long do we have?”


“A few minutes.”


Captain Gwendal nodded. “We can do that.” He turned to his rowers. “Get ready, all of you. Let’s not waste any time. When the time comes, row like hell.”


Eykit started removing his mail shirt, then started unbuckling his gambeson. He was going into the river, and he didn’t feel like sinking to the bottom. It was his idea to make sure the tree didn’t block the river again, so he felt responsible for turning it to face a different direction.


Almë moved to the bow of the ship, standing by Elitheris. He knelt on the deck, and cast his spell.


The tree started shrinking, retracting back to the shore where it had once been rooted. As soon as the branches moved out of the way, Captain Gwendal shouted “Pull!” The boat surged forward in time with the rowers as they put their backs into it.


Eykit jumped out of the boat into the river, and grabbed the end of the tree as it shrunk past him. As it shrank, it pulled him through the water towards the shore. The riverbank was a mix of silt and rocks, and he banged his knee on a rock before he could get his feet under him in the shallow water. It caused him to let go of the top of the tree, and he chased it into the undergrowth, limping. Not too far from the riverbank was a huge hole in the ground, the place where the root ball of the tree had pulled free. There were several smaller trees around it that the larger one had pulled down with it when it fell, connected via a network of vines.


Eykit turned the tree a quarter turn to keep it from growing back into the river. As he finished turning it, it started growing again, pushing through the undergrowth, and sliding past some tree trunks in a splinter of broken branches. After a few minutes, a thick enough branch of the growing tree caught on a tree trunk, locking it in place, and the base of the tree pushed in the other direction, pushing the dirt at the edge of the hole it had made, and continuing through the jungle growth in the other direction. In another minute or so, that end too came to a stop, the jungle trees preventing the root ball from moving. The tree started shuddering, and Eykit could see the trunk starting to bend.


He’d watched it long enough, and he bolted back to river before the tree trunk shattered and splintered. He ran to the river, and, seeing the boat a ways upriver, ran along the bank, his feet splashing in the shallow water. “Throw me a rope!” he cried. He could hear more splintering and trees and brush moving. It sounded like a large creature moving through the jungle, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed him that several treetops were moving and bending. The growing tree was pushing on them, and he didn’t want to be around when it either splintered, or caused more trees to fall.


Elias grabbed a rope, and tossed the coil to Eykit. It was a perfect throw, the result of long practice, but Eykit was a bit flustered from the crashing of the trees, and he almost fumbled the catch. But only almost. He rotated his wrist to wrap the rope around his forearm, shouting, “pull me back!”


Elias started hauling on the rope, pulling Eykit into the river and towards the boat. Jory joined him, and both of them pulled Eykit back to the boat and over the bulwarks.


“Well,” Erven said to Almë, “that was remarkably effective.”


Almë was exhausted; even pulling power from the powerstone in his staff, he’d still tapped himself out almost completely. So he just nodded in acknowledgement.


“We still need to find a campsite, and fast,” he continued.


“Yeah, and let’s grill up some of that meat, people!” Eykit said, grinning with his sharp Goblin teeth.


It took another twenty minutes before a suitable area came into view. There was a place to moor the boat, and a fairly level place to pitch a camp. Erven wasted no time in getting the campsite organized, and even the Captain pitched in to get it up and running before it got too dark.


Almë, once off of the boat, slumped down, his back against the trunk of a tree. “We will have to be careful tonight, because I am way too tired to do my usual scouting around with Plant Vision.”


Elitheris said, “I’ll scout the perimeter.” She made a circuit around the campsite. She did find a dangerous plant, or, more precisely, a plant that would have been dangerous, had it been larger. She saw a man-trap plant, about waist high, and could only trap animals smaller than an average rabbit. But she noted its location, and warned everyone about it anyway. She found a pair of sticks, and placed them in the ground in an “X” shape in front of the man-trap plant, as a visual reminder not to go there.


Other that that single instance, there were no other dangerous plants nearby, and no animals that seemed threatening. She did hear several small critters run off through the undergrowth when she got near, but she didn’t find anything overtly dangerous.


It occurred to Almë that he no longer had a sleeping roll. “Uh, Erven, you guys have any extra sleeping rolls?”


Erven shook his head. “We don’t have that kind of room in the holds. We only have our own.”


“Crap.” He got to his feet. He had to find some materials to sleep on to keep him off of the damp earth. He was too tired for this, but he pushed onward, scavenging the edges of the campsite for ferns, new shoots, and some small branches that wouldn’t be too uncomfortable to lay on. Within the hour, just in time for dinner, he had himself a low pile of vegetation that would do the trick.


Alexa handed out some stale loaves of bread, which she had cut the tops off of and formed a bowl. She ladled a meaty stew with fish and fowl into them, handing them out to the crew and passengers. She had a smaller pot over the fire as well, a meatless chili made of beans and vegetables. Much of the meat and vegetables had come from one or the other preservation boxes. Only the potatoes, yams, onions, and carrots had come from ship’s stores.


Almë ate slowly, doing what he could to regain his energy. The powerstone in his staff would take days to recharge, but he would likely be fine in a couple of hours. He was planning on going to bed early. Fortunately, it was going to be a warm night, so he didn’t really need any blankets, although, he thought, that might change as they head up into the mountains.


After dinner, Taid cast his spell of Mystic Mist. Opalescent fog rolled out from him, flowing outward until it got to about ten meters away, then faded, leaving everything within the area with an iridescent sheen. Those inside the mist would be protected, those outside would prefer to leave it alone. Animals would straight out avoid it. Any fully sentient creature daring to enter it would be disoriented and confused, their sense of direction utterly baffled. They were as likely to wander out of the area as to get deeper into it. He wasn’t even tired; he’d managed to pull the required mana from the environment around him, instead of using his own power. He grinned.


Taid took first watch.


Towards the end of his watch, he saw movement in the jungle, coming closer. There were several of them, but he couldn’t tell how many there were. They were insectoid, and about the size of a puma. And their images jumped from place to place, making it difficult to tell both how many there were and where they were actually located. Aheru-Mazda! he thought, I hate flickerbugs! They were pack hunters, much like wolves, but more dangerous because they had the magical ability to project their image away from their body, making them effectively invisible. They were never where they appeared.


This pack came up to the edge of the mystic mist, appeared to sniff at the edges, then moved off. Taid sat still, watching them, Maggie ready just in case. But he didn’t need her. They were animals, and animals avoided going into the magical mist.


That was as exciting as the night got. Almë didn’t even wake everyone up with his night terrors, and nothing else bothered the camp. Everyone woke up pretty refreshed.


Ralsday, Leafturn 19, 879 AFE


Elitheris was off to one side, still within the mist, doing her morning business. Something attracted her eye, while she squatted there, something milky white under a bushy fern plant. At first she thought it might be a flickerbug egg, but she noticed that it was faceted, like a gem.


She pulled out one of her arrows and moved the undergrowth out of the way. It was a cluster of crystals, similar to quartz, about the size of a small child’s hand. It was a cluster of four Shards. She picked it up, but nothing immediately happened.


She went back to the rest of them as they were taking down the camp. She held up the cluster. “Hey, guys, look what I found.”


Eykit’s eyes bugged out. He wanted it. It would make a nice addition to his collection, although these Shards were bigger than most of the ones in his pouch. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if it would fit in his pouch. It didn’t matter, he’d make it fit.


“Let’s see if it will connect to anything,” Eykit said, pulling out his pouch of Shards.


“There’s a flat rock. We can use that as a table,” Elitheris said.


The crew of the boat, focused as they were on getting the camp broken down and the gear stowed on the boat, hadn’t yet noticed what their passengers were doing.


Elitheris put the Shard cluster on the rock, and, one by one, Eykit tried his Shards. None of the 22 single Shards matched, and neither did the two pairs.


Taid got his out, and by now, the crew had seen what they were doing, and some of them were drifting over to see how it was going. Taid laid his on the rock, one by one. Like with Eykit’s Shards, none of his paired up with the crystal cluster that Elitheris had found.


“Can we check against mine as well?” Almë asked.


“Yep.”


None of Almë’s matched up with the cluster either. It was possible that the cluster had only a one-off effect, or there could be a power locked up in there, waiting for it to be released. Elitheris didn’t know.


“Uh, we’ve got some Shards,” Elias Travers said. He was with a few of the crew. The others, likely those without Shards, were waiting on the boat, or making last minute preparations to get the boat moving. “I’d like to see if either of my two Shards will join.”


Elias placed his first Shard on the stone, about twenty centimeters from the four-Shard cluster. Almost as soon as his hand left it, it shuddered, flashed brightly, then flew to the cluster, joining with it with a musical tink.


Elitheris and Elias, along with Taid, Eykit, and Ruby, all suddenly had headaches that felt like someone was using a very slow, large drill to bore into their skulls. They could also hear voices in their heads, as if they were at some kind of cocktail party, filled with people. It sounded loud, and somehow muffled, so even though they could hear the voices, the voices weren’t very clear. They were fuzzy somehow, which made it all the more annoying to have them all screaming in their heads.


Elitheris tried to concentrate, focusing on only one of the voices, and managed to dial back the others. Eykit was able to do the same, and even managed to make the voice he was concentrating on be less loud. Taid was caught off guard, and was having no luck at all dealing the voices. They were all shouting, all the time. Ruby, like Eykit, was able to tune out the yammering voices. They all still had the headaches, but even that seemed to be more bearable after several seconds.


Almë had been too far away, and just looked confused at what everyone else was going through.


After about a minute, the voices stopped, and their minds were quiet again. The headache slowly faded.


“Was that our voices, or voices from elsewhere?” Elitheris asked.


No one seemed to know.


She picked up the cluster of five Shards. She concentrated, trying to activate it.


Taid could hear her say, “I wonder what this thing does?” He looked around, but no one else seemed to have heard her.


“I can hear you,” Taid said. “I can hear you asking what this thing does.”


Elitheris glanced at him. She thought of butterflies, black and iridescent blue, fluttering amongst wildflowers.


Taid heard Elitheris’ voice in his head say “butterflies”, and he began to see an image forming, as if someone was drawing a wing in blue paint. “Butterflies.” Taid said. But even before the wing was finished, it vanished.


Elitheris directed her thoughts at Eykit, projecting the words, “This is very cool, especially when I’m acting as lookout.”


“Yeah, it is,” Eykit said aloud, “no more sign language or bird calls.”


“Oh this is awesome,” Elitheris said.


After a minute or so, she was no longer able to send her thoughts. But during that time, she had realized that she could send thoughts, but couldn’t receive them. It seemed to be a one way communication. She hoped that it wasn’t a one-time thing; she’d heard of Shards that worked for a certain number of times per day, or for a set amount of time per day, and even one that only worked during the time when Kynett was full. She would have to try it occasionally during the day, and see when it reactivated. If it reactivated.


The excitement of the game of Shards delayed the launching of the boat for another half hour. “Come on, people,” the Captain called. “Let’s get a move on. You can do your Shard games around the campfire.”


They got onto the knarr, and shoved off, into the current. It was a day much like the one before, promising to be hot and windless. For the most part, the boat calmly went upstream, powered by the rowers, four at a time. It was slow going, but steady.


At about midafternoon, Captain Gwendal started looking for a place to moor the boat for a short break. The rowers had been working hard all day, in the summer heat, and he wanted to give them a break, preferably in shade.


Itura, the Orc, was looking particularly haggard, and drenched in sweat, a by product of the fact that she had to wear garments that covered her skin, lest the sun cause some severe health problems. Orcs were nocturnal, and didn’t do well in the sun. She wore a large straw hat with an immense brim, nearly a half meter in diameter, plus long sleeves, gloves, and darkened glasses. She hated summer. But she didn’t complain. Much.


Coming around a bend, Captain Gwendal saw a large shaded section that would be perfect to rest his crew. Except that someone had gotten there first.

A mama bear was teaching her cubs how to fish in the river, and she didn’t take kindly to anyone getting too close. “And we’re moving on,” the captain said. “There is no reason to rest here.” The captain steered the boat past the bears, not wanting to disturb them more than they already had. He kept an eye on them until they moved past another bend, and the jungle hid them from view.


About a half an hour after that, a voyageur canoe, going in the opposite direction, passed them. It was manned by eleven people, all rowing, and making good time downriver. It was so laden with cargo that it had only a 13 centimeter freeboard.

Voyageur Canoe, and its cargo


Several of them waved, the crew of the Dossit Float waved back. There were also shouts of “Ahoy, there!” as the two crews passed each other.


Taid noticed that several of the crates on the canoe had logos from Dwarven companies. Most of them looked to be subterranean agriculture products, but there were also a few crates of Dwarven made tools.


In late afternoon, they made camp again. Almë and Ruby did their usual perimeter walk, with Almë using his spell of Plant Vision to make sure he could see things that normally would be hiding in the undergrowth with Ruby there as backup. Once the camp was set up, Taid did his spell of Mystic Mist.


Dinner was a pleasant mix of roasted meats and vegetables, augmented by a fish caught by Artur. After dinner, the crew wanted to continue what had been started earlier that day. They were ready to see if any Shards would join.


Artur Henning held his four Shards in his dark-skinned hand. “I’ve got these. Let’s see if they match up!” He and Eykit sat on either side of a space cleared of weeds and crudely leveled. They exchanged turns placing Shards down in front of them, but there were no matches. Artur was a bit disappointed, but he knew the chances were low. But he’d had to try anyway.


Erven was next, and he sat down, grinning and confident that he would get a match. His attitude outmatched his reality. There were no matches.


Jory was next. He put his sketchbook and pencil down, and pulled out his six Shards, playing against Eykit. Like Erven and Artur before him, there were no matches. None of his Shards connected to any that Eykit had. “Hey, Itura!” he called to the Orc, who sat on a rock on the riverbank, her feet in the cool water. “You should play!”


The sun was down, so Itura had removed her long sleeved shirt, gloves, and hat. She hated having to wear all of that extra clothing, but the sweat and the heat was worth it not to have the sun burn her skin and weaken her. “I don’t do the Shard game thing,” she replied.


Eykit noticed that she didn’t say she didn’t have Shards, only that she wasn’t interested in gaming with them. He filed that little tidbit of information for later.


Fikkiil, who had been watching the game intently over Jory’s shoulder, took his place when Jory was done. He pulled a bag that hung from a strap around his neck, and dumped out six Shards. They played their Shards, and, like almost all of the time, there were no connections. The bearded Goblin was just as disappointed as Erven and Artur.


Alexa didn’t have any Shards, although she was interested in the exchanges, even though she wasn’t quite interested enough to get too close.


None of Eykit’s Shards matched up with any of the crews’, so he let Taid take his place. And the crew tried matching theirs agains Taid’s. Like with Eykit, there were no matches. Almë tried with his, but again, no matches.


Elitheris, off to the side, was gazing at her Shard cluster. It was five Shards, each about three inches in length, all connected at their base, looking something like a hand with crystal fingers. It was too big, and too pointy to fit in a pocket. “I need a pouch,” she said. “Or a drawstring bag.”


Erven happened to overhear here, and said, “Ma’am? I’ve got something that might work for that.” He went to the boat and rooted around in one of the holds in the stern, where a lot of the crews’ gear was stowed. He came back with a piece of leather about half a meter across. “Will this do? I’ll sell it to you for two marks. Normally, I’d use it for shoes.”


“That should do,” Elitheris said, paying Erven a couple of marks.


Elias had gotten out his knitting, and was apparently making a stocking cap. He nodded at Elitheris as she punched a bunch of holes around the perimeter of the leather sheet, then strung cordage through it to form a drawstring bag. The Shard cluster fit neatly inside.


There was a bit of talk around the campfire, but not much; most of the crew hit their sacks early, as did their passengers.


The night passed uneventfully.



Starsday, Leafturn 20, 879 AFE


The camp was broken down quickly, and the five travelers and their dogs packed up their portions of the camp quickly as well. It seemed as if everyone wanted to get going as fast as they could.


Almë and Ruby, although they didn’t like being on boats, wanted to get the journey over with and get to Dwarfchat.


It was another hot summer day, without a cloud in the sky. The rowers made good progress; the river had widened for a while, and the current was slower. About three hours into the morning, they saw a line of smoke up ahead. Several minutes later, they passed by a campsite on the bank. The smoke they had seen had come from the campfire, and they could see a tarp laid over a horizontal branch which acted as a tent. Under it was a bedroll. On the other side of the small clearing was a wooden rack, made out of sticks and tied together with cordage. As they were passing by, an old Orcish man walked out of the jungle and into the small clearing, holding a boar over his shoulders.


Alme waved. The old Orc waved back. The boat wasn’t stopping this time, and they kept floating past.


The Orc dumped the boar onto the ground near the campfire. It looked like he was going to start butchering it. The rack was likely for smoking the meat.


Eykit recognized that the helmet the old man wore was the same type as used by the Rural Watch, a wide brimmed kettle helmet, although this lone camper wasn’t wearing the rural Watch’s maroon and gold livery. But he certainly looked like he could have been in the Watch, if he wasn’t still in it. Maybe he was just on holiday.


After a long hot day in the heat, the sun finally made its way across the sky and touched down past the western horizon. They found a spot to camp, and Almë, Ruby, and Taid did their usual campsite security details.


Artur sat on a rock in the twilight, his fishing line out, casting a line and drawing it in, then repeating the process. He hummed softly to himself. He hadn’t caught anything yet, but anything he did catch would be the morning’s breakfast, as dinner had already been served.


Jory sat fireside, sketching the people around the fire with him. His brother, Wynnstan, was dealing himself a solitaire hand, but he kept asking if anyone wanted to play some poker. He wasn’t getting any takers. He was stuck dealing only for himself.


There was some chatting at the campfire, but most of the crew was fairly silent and tired. Unlike the crew of the Water Lily, this one didn’t seem to have the culture of campfire storytelling.


A bit later, Artur walked back from the riverbank. “No luck?” Alexa asked.


“Nothing worth spend the time to cook,” Artur replied. “It was too small. I threw it back.”


“Raw fish isn’t so bad,” Fikkiil said. “I rather like it, myself.”


Artur laughed. “That’s because you don’t fish and gut them. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, you’d never eat raw fish again.”


“What?” The Goblin looked stricken. “What have you seen? Why didn’t you tell me?”


“If any of the fish you ate had those nasty, wormy parasites, I’m sure you would have noticed.”


“Eww.” After a pause, he asked, “What do they look like?”


“Oh, worms. Thin, pale, about the same color as most fish. But they squirm a lot, so you wouldn’t have missed them, unless you were taking big bites.” Artur grinned. He was enjoying this.


Fikkiil was thinking back, trying to remember the times when he’d had fresh, raw fish. The only times he could remember were when he had been really, really hungry, and he had a tendency to gobble his food. He’d have turned green, if his skin wasn’t already that color. As it was, his eyes bugged out, and he suddenly had some trouble swallowing.


Artur relented, seeing his friend looking like he was about to do what two of his passengers kept doing. “Relax, Fikkiil. When was the last time you had raw fish?”


“Uh,” the bearded Goblin said, thinking back, “a month ago, I think.”


“Well, if you’d gotten parasites, you’d have felt rumbly in the basement, in pain, and possibly feverish. You didn’t, so you’re fine.”


“Ugh. You are a mean, mean Human.”


“Oh, nonsense. I’m just looking out for ya.”


“Yeah, but you enjoyed it.”


“Yes, I did. The look on your face was priceless.”

Meanwhile, the five companions were discussing the messaging Shard cluster again. It was time for more testing.

“We need to figure out the range of this messaging cluster,” Taid said. “And I’ve got an idea. Ruby can turn into a bird, fly out to different distances, and Elitheris can send quick messages to her. Send a message, move farther out, send a message, and so on, until we run out of time.”


“Okay,” Elitheris said. “That makes sense.”


“I’ll screech once for yes, twice for no,” Ruby said, and cast her spell of Shapeshift, and became a falcon. She flew up to a branch about ten meters or so above their heads.


Elitheris touched the cluster, and thought “Frog”. A single screech came from the unseen bird above their heads.


Elitheris waited for a moment, then send the word “Frog” again. “Butterfly” was too long a word, and took up too much of her one minute’s worth of time. Again, she got a screech.


This was repeated, as Ruby flew farther and farther away. It was easier for her, once she got above the tree canopy, and she had some light to work with from the stars and the moon.


She flew farther and farther away, pausing at every increment of about ten meters or so, and kept getting short words in her head in Elitheris’ voice. The increments weren’t exact; it was hard to visually measure exact distances over a moving canopy of variously sized leaves.


But, by her estimation, when the words stopped coming, she had been at the 150 meter mark. She flew back to the others, changed back into her normal Hobbit form, and told them how far she had been.


She noticed Elitheris holding some broken pieces of jewelry. It looked like it might have been a simple amulet.


“My Bless amulet just broke,” she said. “I guess it did its job, and protected me from some bad luck. She tossed the fragments aside, then dug around inside her backpack. “I could have sworn I had another one in here,” she muttered, as she rifled through her gear, checking all of the pockets. “Ah! Here it is!” She put that one around her neck.


Ruby said, “That thing can send to animals, so you can send Nori and Mr. Wiggles commands when they are far away.”


“Wait,” Eykit said. “You’ve got something that wards off bad luck? I want one!”

“I’ve got an extra you can use, until you get your own,” Taid said. He dug around in his pack, and Brough forth a simple silver disk on a chain. There were some magical looking runes all around the edge.


“Oh, hey,” Eykit said, looking at the disk. “What do the runes mean?”


“I don’t think they mean anything. I think they are there to make the amulet look like a magic amulet, and command a higher price.”


“Heh. Figures.”


People were starting to go to bed, and Elitheris took the first of the watches.


Two hours after midnight, Almë started screaming. The whole camp roused, and people grabbed weapons, looking around for a threat. “What’s going on?” was on several crewmembers’ lips, but all they got were blank stares and shrugs. No enemy could be seen, but then, the reek couldn’t be seen either. Captain Gwendal stood over towards Almë, who was sitting up on his bower of sticks under his tarp, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat off his face with his hands.


Robert looked around, trying to see what, if anything, was attacking the Elf this time. He didn’t see anything.


“What is it?” he asked, pointedly not saying the “this time” part out loud.


Eykit spoke up from his bedroll, although he was standing with his knives out as well. Taid with his knife and Elitheris with her bow were ready as well. “Almë is plagued by nightmares. He gets them on a regular basis. So that screaming in the middle of the night is not necessarily danger, it’s just Almë being Almë.”


“Well,” Captain Gwendal said, “that’s good to know.” He turned to the crew, who stood, ready to fight in the near pitch blackness of the deep jungle night. “Back to sleep people. Our Elf passenger was just having bad dreams.” He made his way back to his bedroll, but before he climbed back under his tarp, said, “but keep a weapon to hand, just in case it’s not just bad dreams. We’ve been surprised once already.”


It took at least a quarter hour before the adrenaline had calmed down enough for anyone to sleep. But soon enough, soft snoring could be heard.


Just before the sky started lightening in the east, a monstrous howl echoed through the air. The screeching roar woke up Ruby, Elitheris, Taid, Almë, and Eykit, along with their dogs, who started barking, and about half the crew of the Dossit Float.


“What the hell was that?” Wynnstan asked.


Almë started putting on his gambeson, as did Taid. Eykit, Elitheris, and Ruby followed suit. The crew was looking around, not exactly sure what was happening, but they were starting to feel very afraid when they saw their passengers gearing up and strapping on weapons. But they had followed their captain’s advice, and had weapons ready to hand. They fumbled for them in the dark.


“I don’t see anything,” Itura said, scanning the area. She was an Orc, and they could see heat, which was why they needed to wear darkened glasses when out during the day.


“This wasn’t Almë this time,” Eykit said. “Something else screamed. Roared. Whatever.” He looked around. “Does anyone recognize whatever that was? Elitheris? Ruby?” He waited, hoping for an answer, but none came. “Whatever it is, let’s not attract its attention.”


“If we do,” Taid said, “we still have the Mystic Mist, which should help protect us. At the very least, it will still give us an advantage.”


They all waited, with bated breath, for the sound to repeat. None of them truly heard what it was, only the very tail end of it after it had woken them up. The sky started lightening up in the east, and they realized that the unearthly scream, whatever it was, had woken them about a quarter hour before they were planning on getting up anyway.

Lifesday, Leafturn 21, 879 AFE


“Aw man, I got robbed of the best fifteen minutes of sleep!” Eykit said. “No point in going back to sleep now.”


“I do hope that we get less screaming, humanoid or otherwise, in the future,” Alexa said, putting her knife away and getting out of her bedroll. “I need my beauty rest more than the rest of you.”


The crew started getting the camp put away, while Alexa heated up some porridge with dried fruit and nuts for breakfast. She added a bit of butter and a pinch of sugar, then announced that it was ready for whomever wanted any. Most of the crew ate, wanting some fuel for their day ahead. The passengers, with the exception of Eykit, had some as well, finishing what was in the pot.


As she was eating, Elitheris saw a shape among the treetops in the distance, moving quickly. From what little she could see, it seemed to be flying. She watched it, what she could see of it beyond the jungle canopy, and noticed that it wasn’t flying towards them, or even circling them. It simply appeared to be flying from one point to another. It wasn’t a bird; it was much too large for that. Even the Aarakocra didn’t have wingspans that big. It also didn’t seem reptilian, either. Whatever it was, it hadn’t seemed to have noticed their camp, or, more likely, the blob of fog which currently hid it.


Although she hadn’t seen very much of it, and never the whole thing all at once, Elitheris was able to make a decent guess as to what it might be. “Guys,” she said, “I think that was a manticore.”

“Are they valuable?” Taid asked. Maggie was ready.


“I suppose alchemists might like, I don’t know, their poison, maybe?” Elitheris said.


The manticore didn’t make a second appearance, or roar again. Captain Gwendal eventually said, “We need to get going.” The camp was taken down, and Alexa was rinsing the breakfast pot in the river. The rest of the crew was boarding and taking their places on deck.


“But it could come back, if this is its hunting area,” Elitheris said.


“All the more reason to get the fuck out,” Captain Gwendal said, and he turned and made his way to the boat. “Come. We are leaving.”


“Good idea, they are highly venomous. Getting hit by the their stinger is pretty much a death sentence.”


“Let’s not do that,” Eykit suggested, as he scampered to the boat.


“I’ll chop the stinger off!” Taid said. But he didn’t delay getting onto the boat. And neither did anyone else.


As the boat moved out into the river current, Eykit said, “Sometimes it feels as if everything is out to kill us.”


“Pretty much,” Elitheris said. There were a lot of dangerous things out in the world. She’d met a lot of them, although she was able to not attract their attention. When living alone, discretion was often the better part of valor. And she remembered plenty of times when she had to hid under a log or behind some rocks, hoping that the dangerous beastie found something else to try to eat.


The manticore sighting must have spooked the rowers, because they weren’t completely in time with each other. This, of course, made the boat move through the water a bit more roughly, swinging side to side a bit in addition to moving up and down. It didn’t do good things to Almë’s stomach, and he spent the morning with his head over the rail, losing his breakfast.


Ruby was able to handle it a bit better, and was only the usual amount of ill.


Fortunately, the manticore didn’t make another appearance. The only trouble they had was that the boat went through an area of rapids, and while the boat bumped up against some rocks now and again, it was fairly uneventful.


When late afternoon rolled around, they found a decent spot to make camp, moored the boat to a tree stump in the water, and started unloading their gear. Almë had to sit down on a log to let his stomach settle enough to cast anything. After about a half hour, he felt much better. Very hungry, but better. Fortunately, no one had stumbled into anything dangerous, so at least the campsite itself was safe enough.

Almë checked the perimeter using Plant Vision. He didn’t see anything within twenty meters that appeared dangerous. Once Almë has assured Taid that the campsite seemed safe, Taid cast the Mystic Mist over everything.


But there was something that Almë noticed. It wasn’t dangerous, per se, just…strange. About 5 meters away from the rear edge of the campsite, was a large dead spot in the jungle. Nothing grew there, not even weeds. It was a roughly circular area, about forty meters in diameter, where the jungle just didn’t grow. The edges were thick with growth, as the jungle plants fought for sunlight, but no plants grew in the bare dirt of the open area.


The dirt didn’t look burnt, and there were no charred plants or ashes. It just looked like regular dirt, with regular jungle levels of moisture, although it was likely a bit drier since the sunlight had been actually able to get to it.


“Okay, that’s weird,” Almë said softly.


“What?” Ruby asked him.


“There is a dead spot over there. An open area, in a jungle.”


“Where? I don’t see any open spot.”


“Over there,” Almë replied, pointing, “about five meters or so that way. That dense growth is likely due to being at the edge of the area, where the light can get in.”


He looked around for a rock, and found one, digging it up out of the damp soil. It was about the size of an egg. He planned to throw it into the dead area. He moved forward, through the thick jungle growth, until he stood next to the dirt circle. If he hadn’t moved through the undergrowth, he wouldn’t have been able to throw the rock. Now his throw was unobstructed, and he tossed the stone into the middle of the circle. It bounced on the dirt with a soft thud and rolled to a stop.


The rock had told him nothing. He shrugged, and said again, “Okay, that’s weird.”


He turned, heading back to camp. He hadn’t felt any change in mana levels, and nothing in his Thaumatology studies seemed relevant. He would need more data to see how mana interacted with this place.


Almë came back from his perimeter walk, looking thoughtful. “Hey guys,” he said, ‘’there’s a weird area in that direction, empty of everything in the middle of the jungle. Huge clearing, no plants, no nothing.”


“We were just experimenting with the messaging cluster that Elitheris has,” Taid said.


“Really? Good.” Taid filled him in on what they had learned. “Ah. I say we should try to somehow figure out how well you need to know the person and to what extent? Do you need to know name, and what they look like? Do you need to see the person? Because that’s interesting, because if you can do long distance stuff, you can communicate with your friends in Port Karn.”


“Well, my friends are here,” Elitheris said, “but I get your meaning.”


Ruby spoke up. “I’d like to borrow it for a few minutes.” Elitheris either didn’t hear her, or ignored her. She wasn’t really interested in sharing it anyway. She liked it. It was hers. Her first Shard, and it was a cluster, with a useful ability. She felt pretty damned lucky.


“So, Almë, lead us to this dead zone,” Elitheris said. “Maybe it’s the habitual resting spot for a very large creature.”


Almë gave her a look that said “not bloody likely,” but kept silent. After all, he didn’t know what it was, either.


Elitheris pulled out her rondel dagger that had Maica Melehtë inscribed on it. She could see the Elven Tengwar characters softly glowing along its blade. It wasn’t enough to shed any light to see by, though. It was dark under the canopy of the jungle, and they had to go through several meters of dense jungle growth in order to even see the open spot Almë had mentioned.


She used her knife to slice through the branches, stems, and leaves that blocked their path. Soon she stood just at the edge of the open space.

Like Almë had said, it was a circular area where nothing grew. Not even grass.


Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to affect animal life. Her experienced tracker’s eye found bird tracks, rodent tracks, and even some bounding antelope tracks. The tracks seemed normal in every way. The area didn’t seem to be actively dangerous.


She looked down, and saw a small black beetle crawling along the dirt.


“Huh,” she said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea what could be causing this.”


“I don’t even want to go near it,” Almë said. Elitheris was surprised. Almë was usually certain that he could take care of any problem. “It’s scary. I don’t trust it. I don’t want to know what it is, and I want to move on.”


Almë was a plant mage, so maybe a dead area where no plants grew freaked him out?


“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he continued.


The area appeared empty. Except for the beetle. And it probably wasn’t the only one in that large open space.


Almë went back to the camp.


Eykit crept to the edge of the empty area. He was trying to listen for anything making a noise, his ears twitching, listening to different areas. All he heard were the typical jungle noises, coming from the jungle. The empty area, not surprisingly, was silent. The wind rustling the foliage, the occasional call of a night bird, the droning of insects, all came from around the area.


Taid stepped up behind the crouching Eykit. He extended his halberd over him, and poked at the dirt with the top spike. It dug into the damp soil several centimeters. “Huh,” he said, noncommittally. “I’ll be right back.”

Eykit gave him a look. How was he, a small Goblin who weighed maybe 90 lbs, going to pull a bulky muscular Dwarf in armor out of anything? But he nodded, and figured he’d be shouting for help in any case, so maybe with help, he’d be able to pull Taid out of whatever blasted hole he fell into.


The Dwarf went back to his bedroll, where he had stashed his pack. Shouldering it, he came back to the edge of the open area. He retrieved some rope, and tied it around his waist. He tied the other end to a sturdy tree. He coiled the slack, and handed the coil to Elitheris. “Pay out the slack as I go. That way, if I fall through some bullshit pit, you can pull me out.”


From the camp, Almë called out, “Remember, Kallia really wants to see you, and if you die by some creepy horror in the jungle, she will be very disappointed!”


“I’m just doing my best Almë!” Taid called back. “Just charging in!” He stepped into the area, poking the ground ahead of him with the spike of his halberd. He headed towards the middle of the area, testing the ground ahead of him. It seemed like normal ground. No pits, as far as he could tell.


Once he got about to the middle of the space, he noticed that there was a slight but even depression in the center of the dead area, as if the ground had subsided a little. The depression wasn’t very large, only about a half meter in diameter.


Taid poked it with Maggie. It felt like normal dirt. Nothing jumped out at him like a trap door spider. But he did smell a sickly sweet odor that he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t all that great, either. His vision blurred a little, as if he was having trouble focusing his eyes. He stepped back, rubbing at them, but it didn’t help. But the blurriness seemed to go away after several seconds, and he couldn’t smell the odor any more.


“It’s kind of nasty out here,” he said to Elitheris, Eykit, and Ruby, who had all stayed standing at the edge of the open space.


He turned the halberd over and started to dig at the earth with the hook. He scraped at the dirt, loosening it.


“If I start to pass out, pull me back!” Taid said. He used the axe blade of the polearm to shift the dirt out of the way. It wasn’t the most efficient digging tool, but it did the job well enough. He loosened the dirt with the hook, then pushed it out of the way with the blade.


He dug down about fifteen centimeters. All he could see from where he stood over two meters away, was dirt. He used his spell of Water Creation, and a globe of water formed suspended in the air as small droplets all came together over the depression in the ground. When the spell was complete, it fell into the depression and the churned up dirt. It made a small puddle, then soaked into the earth.


He stepped forward, wanting to dig a little deeper. Elitheris had come over to where Eykit held the rope, and they played out a bit of line, keeping the rope taut, but not tight. She wanted him to know she was there without restricting his movements.


Taid wanted to know why it was a depression, and if anything under it was causing it. He wanted to dig down another fifteen centimeters. He hit something that felt like clay, and not just the normal, sandy soil. There was a kind of stickiness that was transmitted through the halberd shaft as he worked the soil. He got a bit closer so he could look into the hole he had made.


The clay-like soil was a bit greyer than the dirt was. But he couldn’t really tell in the dim light, especially since it was still mostly covered by the dirt. With Maggie, he couldn’t really clean the dirt off enough to see it very well. He needed better leverage; using Maggie at full extension was fine for the loose, sandy soil, but he’d need to choke up on the polearm to have any luck with the more clay-like soil.


He knelt, and got a shorter grip on his halberd, holding it at the langets, near the head. He started scooping away the dirt. It was much easier now that he had some decent leverage. As he removed the dirt, he could see that the clay was mainly a greyish brown color, with some little iridescent bubble-like inclusions in the clay.

The top was curved, but he couldn’t be sure of the overall shape. He started excavating around it, trying to see its extent. While digging around it, Maggie must have scraped against one of the inclusions, because it burst with an audible pop sound. Again, he could smell that sweetish odor, and his vision got blurry. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes, and he raised up from his bent over position, noticing that he also felt slightly dizzy. Almost like a pleasant buzz after a few ales.


After several seconds, his eyes cleared, and the dizziness, faint as it was, disappeared.


He started using his hands to expose the clay nodule to try to avoid popping any more of the inclusions. As he cleared the dirt away, he was getting the sense that this was a spherical object, about a meter in diameter.


Elitheris and Eykit could only see that Taid was digging at something, but were too far away to see any details. Elitheris still kept some tension on the rope.


Taid kept digging around the edges of the nodule. Several of the inclusions popped; his hand must have brushed by several of them. The smell was almost overwhelming. His eyes again got blurry, but much worse than before, and the dizziness wasn’t so ignorable this time. His head kept wanting to go down to the right, as if controlled by a gyroscope. He had to brace his arms on the ground to keep him from falling over.


Taid waved over his shoulder to Eykit and Elitheris to come on over. He heard them rustling in the brush as they emerged into the open area. But he also heard something else, something he couldn’t identify or place. It was a deep rushing sound, but somewhat muffled. It sounded like a river, but if he were submerged in it. No, not a river, but the fish in the river. He was hearing movement, but with his blurry vision he couldn’t see anything.


“I can’t see anything,” Taid said, “can you guys get closer? I can hear things, but I can’t see anything.”


Eykit was feeling much like Almë. He didn’t want anything to do with it. He stayed at the edge of the area.


“I need someone to come over here and help me and at least see what it is.”


“All right, I’m coming,” Elitheris said. She came closer, keeping a grip on the rope as it played through her hands as she went forward. She could have just pulled him back using the rope, but that wouldn’t have solved the problem of “what is that thing?”


She stood over Taid, who was still on his knees at the edge of the hole he had dug. She could smell an odd, unrecognizable odor. She felt a wave of dizziness, and all of a sudden, the air around her was filled with odd, globular entities reminiscent of fish. Not in their appearance, but in the way they moved through the space around her. Except that they had wispy tentacles or feelers coming out of random spots on their bodies, and some appeared to have wings, or multiply-jointed legs.They ranged in size from a few centimeters in length to long, eel-like things two meters long. They looked somehow…unfinished. They moved in a disturbing way, and weren’t pleasant to look at. She could hear them around her; they made a kind of muffled rushing noise, as if she were underwater.


They were all over the open space, but she could see them floating into the jungle at the edges. They were passing through the trees and foliage as if it wasn’t there; the vegetation showed no signs of anything moving through or past them.


She also noticed that they were “swimming” through her and Taid. They didn’t seem to hurt, or affect them in any way. They didn’t even seem to realize that Elitheris and Taid were there at all. “What the fuck are those?”


“What are what?” Taid asked. “What do you see? I don’t see anything.”


“I’m not sure. Creatures, floating all around us, swimming through the air.” She looked around at the myriad creatures, no two of which were exactly alike. Similar in form, but not the same. They wriggled and flopped through the air, moving in fits and starts, changing direction in seemingly random ways.


“Can you communicate with them?” Taid asked.


“Uh,” Elitheris started to say, but her attention was on something large, just beyond the edge of the trees, moving quickly. All of a sudden it changed direction, as if it had suddenly seen Elitheris. It burst from the tree line, charging straight for the Elven woman.

She froze, her mind trying to make sense of the insensible as the thing shot towards her, its legs wriggling, propelling it forward somehow despite it not touching the ground. Her mind just couldn’t put it together. Its form altered; some combination of viewing angle and shape shifting. Some of its parts seemed to move through each other. It was hard for her to make sense of it.


Taid looked around, he’d thought he’d heard Elitheris make a noise, but all he could see was that she looked like she was in shock for some reason.


As the thing approached, it raised its striking limbs, which looked like spiky mantis arms, and slammed them through Elitheris’ chest. She stumbled back as pain exploded through her body, a cry of pain on her lips. A part of her brain registered that there were no visible wounds, and it flew through her, but it was filed away for later, when her brain could function again. She managed to keep her feet.


Eykit was confused; and wasn’t able to see whatever it was that had attacked Elitheris.


“Go get Almë!” Taid shouted at Eykit. “Maybe it’s an Elf thing!”


Eykit nodded, turned, and ran over to where Almë lay on his bedroll. If he had been sleeping, Elitheris’ cry of pain had woken him up. Most of the crew hadn’t gone to bed yet, and were looking at Eykit in alarm. “What’s going on?” Alexa asked, reaching for her medical bag. “Someone injured?”


“I don’t know! Maybe!” Eykit said, as he was getting Almë and Ruby moving. The dogs were barking, and clustered around Ruby, Almë, and Eykit. Almë grabbed his gambeson jacket, and started putting it on.


The thing was behind the Elf woman, who was doubled over from the pain in her chest. The blurriness in Taid's eyes was improving, but it wasn’t clear yet. He started getting to his feet, Maggie in his grip.


Taid stood in front of Elitheris, Maggie at the ready. If something was going to attack her again, it would have to go through him first. He didn’t understand why she could see it, and he couldn’t. Was it because she was taller? he thought. Was it a racial thing and only Elves could see it? Damn it, I hate not being able to see enemies! Just like those fucking flickerbugs!


He could hear something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. The muffled rushing noises—and it sounded like there was more than a single source—were all around him, coming from discrete points. It wasn’t like the wind, which was more of a general noise without a discrete source. These noises seemed to be coming from specific spots, and they were moving.


There was something—or several somethings—out there, somewhere. He just couldn’t see them.


They both heard a chittering bellow, louder than the rushing noises, and it came from behind Elitheris. She turned her head to try to keep it in view. It was circling around, appearing as if it was going to attack again. It’s face, if that is what the misshapen mass on the front end of the thing could be called, opened in a multi-jawed manner that seemed overly complex for reality. It glared at her with several of its globular eyes.


Whatever was going on, apparently Taid had woken it up. Maybe it was a guardian of the ball of clay. Taid fell back to his knees, scrambling to pile the dirt back in the hole he had dug. Maybe they could mollify the thing by burying it up again. Maybe it was the thing’s eggs.


Elitheris watched it as it barreled towards her again, strikers upraised for the attack. Her mind kept telling her to jump out of the way, to move, to do anything, but it was ignored because it just didn’t seem that important.


But her body actually listened, and she dove for cover at the last moment, doing a very clumsy shoulder roll as the thing swept past her.


Taid was busily scooping the dirt back into the hole as fast as his arms could move.


The fishy things disappeared, as did the elephantine shrimp thing. “Where’d they go?” Elitheris asked, looking around. She couldn’t see any of the odd, twisted creatures floating around.


“They are gone?” Taid asked her, not looking up from his frantic reburying. He was almost done shoving the dirt back into the hole. A few seconds more, and it was a low hump in the open space. “This must be some kind of ghost trap that we opened up.”


“Yeah, they are gone. I can’t see them any more.”


Taid leaned back on his heels, his hands on his knees. He looked at the mound of loose dirt in front of him. “The question is, what do we do with it?” He stood up. They both made their way out of the dead area, and back to camp.


“Nothing!”


“Is there any way we can pick this up but keep it buried?”


Elitheris rubbed her chest. She could still feel the wound, despite not seeing any evidence of holes in her gambeson. “No. Why would we want to do that?”


“Well, we should mark on our map where this is, in case we need any ghosts, or whatever.”


“We should put a big sign here that says, ‘No touchy’.”


Taid tried to think back to his days at the monastery, and his theoretical thaumatology instruction. He couldn’t think of a single thing that applied here. Although there did seem to be a similarity to the skull spirit that Herbert Vesten had used on them. That was necromantic. Perhaps this was something similar. Perhaps it was one of Kallia’s experiments, performed out in the middle of nowhere. He wouldn’t put it past her to do something that killed the jungle completely in a twenty meter radius.


“We are hunting a necromancer,” Taid said. “Maybe this is some kind of trap. Like some kind of Shard ball or something. I don’t know. Why don’t we just make note where this thing is. What did you see, anyway? I didn’t see anything.”


Elitheris described the fishy things, then the elephant shrimp thing. She had a hard time describing them, because she’d never seen anything like that before. They were disturbing, and their forms didn’t seem to stay consistent. Worse still, she could have sworn that at times their limbs would pass through other limbs, but that could have been an optical illusion, because she also had had trouble figuring out where one limb was with respect to their other limbs. Sometimes they seemed to fold in on themselves or something, and something that was in front of the creature would suddenly be in the rear. Distance and proportion had been hard to judge, and even now her memory vacillated about the creatures' construction.


Taid frowned. He’d never heard of anything like that before, either. Although they were reminiscent of the things he’d seen in the Water Brane, at least conceptually. In the Water Brane, there had been nearly invisible creatures in the water that characterized that dimension. So whatever she had seen, perhaps they were creatures from another dimension. Maybe the nodule was some sort of gate. Or an object that weakened the dimensional borders, allowing things to have an easier time passing through from one dimension to another.


The creatures weren’t undead. Or at least, didn’t seem to be. Whatever they were, they weren’t obviously necromantic, although they had seen enough weird critters to have their doubts.


Elitheris opened the front of her gambeson, and opened her collar far enough to see where the creature had struck her. Her skin was unmarked, but she could feel the pain of the wounds. The spots where the striker limbs had struck were tender and sore.


Taid cast a healing spell on Elitheris and the pain in her chest went away.


Captain Gwendal looked over at the group of passengers, discussing what had just happened. "Elias," he said quietly, "I'd like you to assign someone to tag along with them. They keep getting into trouble, and that trouble is likely to trouble us. And I hate not knowing what is going on."


"Aye aye, Captain," Elias said. "Jory would be good. Give him something to draw. And document."


Robert Gwendal nodded. "He's level headed, too. Might come in handy if the chamberpot tips over."

Rewards Granted

3 CP
A beautifully carved Elven chest of Preservation, capable of holding 30lbs of food in 0.16 cubic meters (over 5 cubic feet of volume).
A Shard cluster of 4 Shards, later joined to a fifth (one of Elias', who was really disappointed that he lost that exchange).

Character(s) interacted with

The crew of the knarr, Dossit Float:
Captain Robert Gwendal
Elias Travers
Artur Henning
Erven Aldin
Jory Skender
Wynnstan Skender
Itura Rokaro
Fikkiil Ebiri
Alexa Karlmann

Report Date

29 Oct 2023

Primary Location

The Tondene Empire

Related Characters

• Almë
• Elitheris Notes
• Eykit the Eel
• Mister Wiggles
• Norolind
• Ruby Smallburrow
• Taid Tehoredor Lasu

GM Note: I’d like to address Sarah’s Explosive Fireball idea. I didn’t do a really good job of explaining why it wouldn’t work very well. Wood has something called “semi-ablative DR”, based upon thickness. In this case, the fallen tree trunk had 96 HP and 200 DR for each 1 hex (meter) section, six sections of which would be needed to be cleared away to fit the boat through it. Semi-ablative DR works like this: instead of completely shrugging off any damage less than the DR, one tenth of the damage is subtracted from the DR. So, over time, the DR gets smaller and smaller, to a minimum of 1.
Ruby can make a 6d explosive fireball, which costs her 11 mana and takes three turns. Average damage from 6d is 6x3.5, or 21 pts of damage. She would effectively be going through 2 pts of DR per fireball. That means it would take 100 fireballs just to degrade the DR, and there is still 96 HP left to go through (another 5-6 fireballs). That’s for the first of six hexes. There is a chance for the fireball to catch the tree trunk on fire, but since it falls into the category of “green wood” it takes 30 pts of damage in a single attack to do it. So, while possible, it’s not very likely. However, if the trunk was set on fire, the DR would go from semi-ablative to simply ablative, with the DR taking full damage from the flames (1d-3 per turn, per hex). So, Ruby could use Explosive Fireball to chip away at the trunk, but it would take a very long time to go completely through it. Explosive Fireball isn’t an artillery shell (which does something like 6dx51 High Explosive damage for a modern heavy artillery piece).