Session 29: There be giants in that forest...

General Summary

The party, after just leaving the Dark Highway, took a moment to enjoy the bright sunshine and fresh warmer air of the Copia Wildwood. Atreena even climbed into the trees to get a feeling of a forest that wasn't corrupted by wild, evil magic. But not to wait too long, Brother Les quickly found an old overgrown path that was probably used by smugglers previously and the party gathered up everything and got moving along this path, clearing the way for Lunch and Dinner and the cart.
That night, members of the party were visited by patrons.
Eglantina, originally dreaming of dark caves left behind, then found herself standing in the center of the camp over her sleeping body. Behind her, her patron Xalicas appeared, her one white wing and one brokened black wing folded up and the blind-folded eyes staring into Eglantina. Xalicas spoke some words of encouragement then hoisted Eglantina into the air, soaring high up over the trees of the forest. Eglatina's skeletal wings erupted from her back and held her aloft in her dream. Xalicas held Eglantina's hand then rapidly flew northwest, over mountains then a huge expansive forest, then dove into the trees, dodging around trees. Then they came to a large clearing with a old stone temple with torches alit and humanoid figures everywhere. Xalicas flew them into an entrance of the temple, down corridors until they arrived in a large room with many Yuan-Ti praying a huge idol to a humanoid snake like person, with an old, familiar snake face of someone the party originally met back outside of Palebank Village. The person, with a snake's head, came from the rock egg that villagers of Palebank Village pulled from the water, that swayed them then obliterated them to give birth to it.
Xalicas said that this is what they needed to stop.
Then, Xalicas pulled her up and out of the temple, saying that Eglantina deserved to know about a personal problem nearby. Xalicas flew them south to a large city on the coast itself. They dove into the city and landed in an alley way. In the alley way, Lavena Preney, Eglantina's sister, sat hiding and staring out of the alley, with another person she knew, Quintilian Labiena, standing nearby. Following their gaze, Eglantina saw that they were following another familiar person, her brother Moryn Prendergast.
Xalicas then brought her back to the camp quickly and settled her down. Eglantina asked about a few things, such as a Lash that Pooka carried, and found that it was a champion's weapon of Zehir himself and that it should not be wielded, and better it should be destroyed if possible.
Then Xalicas left Eglantina to sleep restful, peaceful dreams again.
Atreena was also visited that night. As she sat in a nearby tree outside of Zanthros' hut, since she did not need to sleep, a large raven landed on the branch nearby. Then that raven morphed into a woman, clad in a dark, slim dress with a flowing black cloak. A porcelain mask adorned her face, hiding the features. The woman introduced herself as the Raven Queen, goddess of death. Complaining that Atreena's soul is a hard thing to retrieve, the Raven Queen suggested that if she can't take her soul to the afterlife, Atreena should work for the Raven Queen and help bring those that should pass over to the realm of death, as well as stopping those whose time hasn't come from crossing that barrier. Atreena agreed and became a cleric of the Raven Queen.
The next 2 days, the party crossed near Copia Lake, it's huge body a natural beauty. During the afternoon of that second day, Atreena's ears perked up as she heard the crunching of trees to the south west. She snuck ahead and spotted several giants crashing through the forest, pushing over trees in their way. She followed them briefly and noticed that they had fear in their eyes and looked behind them constantly. But the giants never approached the party, and the party left them to continue to the south east.
A few days later, after finding red x's on tree denoting lumber crew's marking trees for cutting, the party arrived at the city of Tussoa.
Tussoa sat mostly on the western side of the Tyodan River. It was a lumber town predominantly, but also sat on the Tyodan Byway and had a lot of merchant traffic. The guards were numerous on the outskirts though, and the party later learned that the guards were on alert as giants had been spotted in the Copia Wildwood.
The party found a decent inn called the Flowing Bull that smelled of heavy incense. They settled in for the evening and enjoyed hot food and actual beds again after a couple weeks of travel.
The next day, they realized that it was a holiday, Harvest's Rise; a day of celebrating a return to the fields to start the farming again. Brother Les immediately decided to head off to find the local temple to Pelor and offer his services to the priests there. He found the temple was very busy with farmers and loggers looking for blessings. A priest there happily accepted Les' help and he spent the rest of the day offering his services.
Pooka spent the day enjoying the many different foods of the celebrating market. The people here did not seemed upset to see his kind in the city and he felt accepted for the first time in a city since he left Xorhas or Shadycreek Run.
Eglantina and Zanthros wandered together, looking for magic or curiosity shops. They found one in particular that had mostly random useless items, but did offer up a rod that, when a button is clicked, causes it to be stuck in space and time no matter where it is (such as floating in the air). Eglantina purchased it.
Atreena made her way to a smaller shrine to Melora to inquire about activity of the giants. She talked to a hunter who divulged that the giants were known to live in the mountains but usually stayed there. To have so many leaving, bodes of something bad.
Later that day, a town crier made it known that the Zhelezo (city guard) were now firmly protecting the city but that logging crews and farms were to be left unprotected.
Brother Les learned from several people that came to the temple that people in town have started walking away from everything and heading into the forest. Those that are found are without memories of why they came to the forest, or are dead by thirst or some violent attack. He then spoke with the high priest of the temple of Pelor, attempting to get an audience with the Marquis. The priest said that he could. But then a half-orc woman came into the temple, stating that she needed help. That the guard wouldn't help as they won't leave the walls. Brother Les inquired to what happened to her.
Her name was Dayana and she was the leader of a logging crew about a day and a half north of town. She said that her logging camp was attacked by giants and that most of her crew was killed, 3 were dragged off and she barely made it away. The Zhelezo is focusing on the safety of the town only so they won't help. She thought that maybe Pelor would listen to her.
Brother Les agreed to help her and sent her to the Flowing Bull with coin. He then made sending spells to Atreena and Eglantina to get everyone together at the inn, as they had a job.
They fed Dayana, gathered additional information and then left that night (right?) to get an earlier start on hunting down the giants.
1.5 days later, they arrived in the late morning to the decimated logging camp. Bodies still crushed and smashed laying here and there; tents and equipment destroyed. To the northwest and southeast, obvious trails of smashed trees point to where the giants came from and where they were going. Brother Les gave Dayana additional coinage and asked her to take Lunch and Dinner back to Tussoa and that they would see if they could rescue her possible still living crew. 
The party looked southeast towards where the giants went, but they couldn't help but wonder what was causing a large amount of giants to leave the mountains in droves from behind them.
Will they save any of the crew from the giants? Will they find out why they are moving and what they are so afraid of in the mountains?

Report Date

03 Jun 2021