Sanguine Sunrise #4: Following Fungus

General Summary

The Northerners came across the battle at the village, and saw as the bullywug host attacked the other creatures in the village. They quickly moved to aid the others in combat against these bullywugs which were seeming infested with some odd strain of orange fungus. They manage to dispatch of many bullywugs, but four manage to escape with two lizardfolk bodies in toe. Whilst these four are escaping, a creature of vines and swamplife emerges from the huts, a shambling mound come to attack the party. Surprisingly enough, a half-orc also appears out of nowhere and shouts, where's the necromancer as he is chased by a decaying visage of an obese giant, a large skeletal snake, and another skeleton that is more humanoid.
The combined efforts of Luthrin, Kiwi, and Grimace manage to bring down the shambling mound, but the undead manage to very badly hurt the half-orc and skek, requiring Kiwi's aid to stabilize them throughout the fights continuance against these creatures.
Eventually however, with Luthrin introducing his blade to these undead, they are felled, and the Northerners emerge, victorious from the battle. The group run into some lizardfolk children, fleeing their burning home, but are unable to communicate and have to let the children flee, unable to gain anything of use from them.
After this, the group brings the half-orc to consciousness and learn his name is Agro, short for Agronok, a war mage who is hunting down the necromancer in the swamp. The group and him decide to combine forces and head back to the fort to recuperate before following the fungal creatures and the captured lizardfolk.
Upon awaking, the group have a short exchange with Theirastra where she remarks on the peculiarity of the keep's other occupants. She states that upon further investigation, the doors gaps were covered with cloth of some kind. The others brush this off, citing the fact that people are odd and this seems to be some privacy/security measure taken by a group that decide to take refuge next to an undead infested swamp that houses some kind of legendary dragon.
Following this short exchange, the group follow the trail of the infected bullywugs, heading deeper into the swamp. A few hours of travel followed, during which, the group noticed as the swamp slowly becomes more of a fungal forest, an area where only fungus seemed to take hold. As they came upon the end of the attacker's trail, they notice a large bird standing on its hind legs though it was leaning down, tearing into the corpses of frog people with its large talons and sharp beak. Behind it, stood an entrance to a cave covered in the same fungus as the bullywugs the party had fought the day before.
During a lengthy debate of what to do, the bird stopped its carnage to look around. The group did not react in time, and the bird spotted them, charging to attack. A fight ensued where the bird-like entity tore into Grimace and poisoned others, including Kiwi's summoned wolves. However, the party slayed the creature, as it turned into a black sludge that disappeared into the earth.
The Northerners then rested before descending into the cave. In it, they spotted a mushroom that moved, and Luthrin shot it with an eldritch blast and followed it, finding it to be in the shape of a small fungal humanoid. The child shot spores into the air and telepathically spoke to the characters, speaking of a small man who had previously come here and hurt others, his friends covered in spores, and how they brought two yellow men into the cave a short while before. Suddenly, a group of about ten adult versions of the creature Luthrin shot appeared, and the party decides to leave. They walk and talk for a few minutes before an infested bullywug charges in front of them and points a spear at them. It doesn't attack or make any other hostile motions, but due to it blocking their way, Luthrin cuts through it and begins walking. The Group then notices twenty of the mushroom people behind them and begin to run, but they are quickly surrounded, and the mushroom people shoot spores into their faces, dazing them into an intoxicated state, and bringing them deeper into the cave.
Before they can regain their senses, the group is placed in a large room with a large fungal mass in a circle of strange orange fungus. They look as creatures are bound to the walls of this room by the same fungus and unconscious bodies of lizardfolk are brought in front of the mass before rotting away and dying. The fungal mass then reanimates them, and it begins a dialogue with the party.
It speaks in a matronly tone, and asks what their motives are, citing the attacks of other intruders that stole something from "her" and killed the entirety of another species of a fungus barring one thorny by the matron's side. Agro and Luthrin tell her that they are hunting a necromancer, and she states he is the one who had come before. They convince her to let them go to hunt him down, but in order to leave, they must take a mushroom from her circle with them. Agro takes it, and the party leaves, with a goblin as a parting gift from the sovereign noting in their sober state that the architecture and life of this society follows a fungal facade of what life looks like for humanoids.
The group leaves the cave and convinces the goblin to lead them to Castle Naerytar, the location of the rest of the goblinoid host.

Missions/Quests Completed

Found a lead to the necromancer by capturing a member of the goblinoid host

Character(s) interacted with

Theirastra

Report Date

11 Apr 2020