Troubled Fey

Session 1 - Nov 11th, 2008

Started after Mega Turtles

We talk to the Fey near Caltha'na'b, that we had previously encountered when a young girl had gone missing.

We set up a nice little party in the woods and brought along some of the magic wine that we had gotten from the Stalwart adventure. After a while the no longer young girl came along chatting with folks that were not visible. We met up with her and started chatting with her and her friends, toasting chatting, giving them the wine, talking for what seemed like hours through the afternoon and far into the evening... Unbeknownst to us, we had drifted into the realm of the Fey... but we could catch glimpses of our hosts, after several more hours we noticed that our companions and the bard were not around, and couldn't see anyone, we then asked our hosts what world we were in and realized the others had been searching for us. Sadly we had to leave and asked for escort back to the mundane world... The young girl knew the way and guided us back.

We left what was deep night, came through a bush and found it noonish... Upon making our way back to the town, we found that we had been gone for 10 days!!! Needless to say, our friends and companions were very glad to see us again!

Upon checking, we discover that each of those that went into the Fey Realm have each been given a unique item that we think is some sort of special token or key.
-- Trona received a wooden dagger. dark, blue-tinged, and fine-grained
-- Nasar received a small bark box with a feather inside
-- Millain recieved a small crystal jar full of an odourless liquid. It gently swirls, sparlking, and always reflects a forest behind you
-- <Inn town's priest of Ehlohnna> received a firefly lantern

The messenger had been and gone, left the message with Leriwyn, indicating that there was definite troubles near The Keep and Living Forest.

We make arrangements with Janosh and Leriwyn to coordinate the construction of The Snapping Turtle.

We finished our arrangements and are waiting for a group put together by Lady Naomi to be ready before we head off to The Keep, where her folks will stay and we head off to the Living Forest to find out what is going on with the Fey.

Session 2 - March 08, 2009

Presumably we will wait for the group that Lady Naomi is putting together, then head pretty straight to The Keep, gather information there, resupply and head for the Living Forest, possibly dealing with wierdness along the way...

John's character (unknown name right now) joined us at the The HearthStone Inn.

Actually we headed towards The Keep but had a bit of an adventure with another caravan at a place our caravan camped at one night. Someone stole some supplies, which led to us tracking down the theives, who had a bunch of loot tucked away in a special carpet much like a custom bag of holding. We returned what goods we could to the caravan, and then took the rest, and the criminals off to the next town where we reported eveything... we got to keep the carpet..

On our way we were given the option of escorting a shipment out to Murt's_Haven, which we declined due to timing.

We then continued on our way, and I believe ended up at Dallford and talked to Alfdis about supplies and information.

Session 3 - Apr 05, 2009

XP: 600 @ lvl 12; 660 @ lvl 11; 730 @ lvl 10; 800 @ lvl 9

I believe we will likely head up to The Keep after resupplying in Dallford, connect with our friends there and plan the route accordingly.

By default, I am assuming that we will head to Muq'Al from The Keep and from there into the Living Forest. Perhaps we can arrange some contact in Muq'Al from the Keep in order to get the latest information?

Adventures in Dallford:
Trona witnessed a murder in a crowd but was unable to help other than ensuring the body was recovered.
Gweara saw someone trying to steal Trona's saddlebag. She charged through the crowd on horseback, hurting several people. The thief gave up and ran away but Gwear found and captured him, holding him for the eventual arrival of Trona and the guards.
The party breifly tried to buy some items from the market but gave up on the slimy merchants to wait for their lunch with Alfdis the next day. Meanwhile the rest of the party dug up some info on current events, including local trouble with minor Fey.
The party went for lunch with Alfdis where they dug up lots of info, met some people who were very interested in their previous adventures in the Orc Lands, and were pointed at: a Living Forest expert in Muq'Al; a gear contact locally; and a local minor Fey expert.
They met with the Local Fey expert and arranged to trade their time for her time the next day.
They met with the local gear contact, who turned out to be Alfdis. She arranged for significant gear shuffling and supply for the party, including several rings/collars of sustenance. She also introduced them to Golradir Helyanwe
The party opted to stop at this point, leaving time to discuss how to proceed.

Session 4 - May 17, 2009

Stopped in Dalford, got more info, stocked up courtesy of Elftis, met Gal, went to Muka'l, got info on how to get to Waterfalls.

Session 5 - Sept 13, 2009

Cleared the infection. Talked to the two treants Fought the cohorts

Session 6 - Sept 20, 2009

Fought the messed up Nymph and cohorts etc. and then teleported back to the town. Big fight, stories need to be added.

Session 7 - Oct 18, 2009

We train, and we equip and we head back to the woods... and continue the grand adventure...

We also allocated the MVP awards(out of game)

A) circle dance - 300XP -> GAL B) infested civilian detection 500XP -> Willow C) defeat nymph's minions etc. 800XP -> Trona D) defeating the nymph etc.1000XP -> split 50/50 Willow and Nasar

This ended up as a big shopping expedition as we sold the dagger for 6500GP and the armoire for about 54,000 GP... So we got a lot of booster stuff

We then headed back to the previous location only slightly hampered by a minor teleport error, and discovered that there was little trace of the previous battle.

We then headed on and encountered a swarm of infected bugs/fey which we survived courtesy of Willow's wind and Gal's summoning a shelter and a quick fire being lit... then Jungle razing the swarm...

We went further and found a spot and settled in for the night, only to have the door knocked on an hour later.

After some dickering through the closed door we found that these were pretty high up Fey one in particular being the Dawn Brother with whom we exchanged much information and got some clues about what is going on. He also shifted us to within a few minutes walking distance of the Elven WaterFall City, and helped Willow regain her Fey heritage again.

We checked out the location and bumped into two infected Treant's and had to do battle, curing one and killing the other... at the cost of Gol getting trapped under one and Nasar becoming slightly infected, but cleared.

We then wandered up to the actual Elven WaterFall City and it looks like lots of stuff is infected there... so we called it quits for the night/day.

Session 8 - Nov 1, 2009

We slept in the rope trick overnight, recharged spells

Via Alex/Trona: This session, we fought a blackberry bush! With rabbits in it! One of them tried to kill Willow! Then Trona went on watch and sucked at spotting things (a trend that continued that session), so got suckered by a squirrel on her back! Killed it but got wormed (sigh) but her sword could at least remember what she couldn't. Then a crow tried to get her. Then a deer nearly came to us, with a wormy arrow (great a wormed archer). But the deer left. Then we ran into a burrowing mammal. It is like they all saw Disney and got pissed off at it or something. :)

Then we went closer to the waterfall and found wormed displacer beasts in the woods (with a BIG mama displacer beast). We tried to outrun them invisibly while Willow caused a distraction. But they tracked Willow by scent to the waterfall where we were to meet, so the fight was on anyhow. So far, the good news is the mama is at the visible worm stage (so stage 2, one stage from death and vulnerable to a remove curse in an explosive way). The bad news is that the littler kitties are up the tree with party members causing all sorts of trouble near the rope bridge (well, single rope) we want to use to cross over to the cave behind the waterfall to find out what's what. Oh, and that Nasar is (unbeknownst to us) under the control of his EVIL ANCIENT RED DRAGON ancestor. Yee gawds protect us all. :)

Nasar:

Was climbing the tree/ladder then fell into the maw of one of the beasts (big mamma?) and realized his only chance to escape was to call on his ancestors... unfortunately the wrong one answered... but she the dimension doored to the top of the tree, then launched a Jungle Razor blast down at the big beast, and is now trying to decide what to do next...

XP:

lvl 10 - 900 lvl 11 - 660 lvl 12 - 540

MVP of 450 points to be awarded

Session 9 - Dec 6th, 2009

Where we hopefully finish the battle with the wormed displacer beasts... and get to the other side of the waterfall...

Rough sketch before we forget:

Big mamma wormed displacer beast engulfed the tree... we got out by flying, levitation and greater floating disks

Gol burned the rope Trona got engulfed, fought her way free, aided by a few fireballs from Nasar/Red and a lightning bolt from Gol, Big mamma 'dissolved' into the tree...

On the way across, Trona's sword noticed Red's evilness, so Red threw an Allip at Trona to distract her and it basically worked.

Gol determined that there was part of the surface at least a 40 ft sphere of Anti-magic coming out of the waterfall.

We got to the top of the waterfall cleared ourselves of the worms. Red had to drop the non-detection, but stayed mostly away

On scouting the area, we found heaps of bodies, mostly decomposed ~ 6months old, determined they were defenders, but noticed strange holes in the back of some of the skulls. Tried to find another entrance, no go. Found a place to anchor the rope. Found a place to shelter. Laran did a Legend Lore on the site of the ambush and got some info about the battle.

roughly summarized here:

- disguised as trade
- attack was evil in thought, deed and goal
- the weaker attackers were used as fodder to wear down the attackers
- the guardians found till the end
- innocents who served them were dedicated and strong but could not resist when minds consumed
- alarm raised too late
- entrance betrayed
- guardians failed

A necklace was found that registered as evil. Red recognized it and gave some sketchy details, as she had a clue about what opponents they might be up against.

The rope was fetched and anchored up to the top.

We sheltered through the night, then tried legend lore on the necklace, no go, and then it was destroyed, and then Red was again detected by the sword... and through another allip, but folks noticed the spell casting... and much telepathic discussion ensued...

We then headed into the waterfall...

First Trona and Willow, then Nasar/Red and Laran

Upon entering the Waterfall City, Nasar returned to the fore, and confused tried to back out, then Red popped back in control, and decided to go on into the Waterfall, figuring she'll get some gain out of it, and wanting to know what is going on.

Once back inside and in the entrance, Trona explained roughly what had happened and that they believe Red was in control.

Willow went ahead and found some traps, disabling one or two of them

Gol, Gweara and Felix are at the top outside the Waterfall...

And this is where we stopped this session...

Oh and XP was awarded:

lvl 10 - 900
lvl 11 - 660
lvl 12 - 540

Bonus points for TJ for Playing 'Red'

Session 10 - Dec 11th, 2009

We get to explore the Waterfall City...

And interesting things happen with Nasar...

Session 11 - Jan 10th, 2010

We explore further into the depths of the Waterfall City...

Alex's summary:(tweaked by TJ/Nasar)
Ok, we couldn't get Gol or his cat out (his prison door control thingy was busted) but we got a kobold out (after charming him and finding out things, see below) and granting the kobold the merciful death it craved. The details, well it looks like: a) An Illithid (Mind Flayer) is behind this and is trying to do something with the artifact, probably in the service of its God, the Devourer of Souls (this God has been quiet lately, perhaps bound ages ago by artifacts like this one?), and b) By the way, this Illithid was pretending to be the paladin we met long ago at The_Mine! So those kobolds we thought we had reformed, didn't, the paladin we thought we left in charge, was in charge the whole time, and the poor miners, etc. that we sent to resettle the mining town were simply totally screwed! Plus, there was something weird about the mine that we never figured out, but that the Illithid probably did, because they are dangerously smart. Yikes!

So after that bombshell, we rely on Willow to get out of the prison room (well, Mala/Nasar has to Dimension Door past the door out, because otherwise she gets bounced back into a prison cell). Then we find more bodies of elves (alas) that start attacking us (alas!), well , attacking Mala mainly. We deal with them and then find out this is where the children were. Very grim work indeed, putting their bodies to rest. Then we find a very very very very very trapped door that Willow deals with at cost. We decide not to go through until everyone has their spells back. Willow the next day tries to gather some poison from a door trap, but gets poisoned (losing two neutralize poisons, since the trap resets and she gets poisoned AGAIN!). But we get through. Then we face a suicidal ghost that Trona talks down (fairly high diplomacy + agent of the same god as the ghost = chance of success) so we avoid a combat and find out that the ghost got frightened and likely mind controlled to help the attackers breach the defenses. We lay the body of that ghost to rest and it quiets down a bit. Then we find a Labyrinth that likely has the relic in it, and Laran does a Legend Lore. Turns out it was build by a minotaur sorcerer, taken over by dwarves (who added to it), taken over by a follower of Ehlonna when they died out, and then left in the care of the follower's acolyte when the follower died helping to raise the Great Big Mountain Range (Scar Mountains) wayyy back in the past to keep the really bad monsters out. The acolyte grew in power and added even more defenses to the Labyrinth and general area (I think I get where all these traps came from) and likely put in animals and plants and such inside to keep the relic safe, but alas the Illithid and his metric fuckton of kobold followers breached the defenses and compromised the legacy.

So we are planning to enter in a reverse V formation, with Trona and Willow as advance points, Laran and Mala/Nasar next, and Gweara as the vertex at the back.

We think there could be kobolds, an Illithid (maybe with class levels, since it seems capable of illusion and dimension door and maybe fear and charm or compulsion powers), and possibly warped defenses (more wormed animals, maybe? Does the memory eating ability of worms tie into the illithid's eating of brains?). And possibly lots of traps, both magical and mundane, as set by Minotaurs, dwarves, paranoid elves, kobolds and an Illithid. Oy!

XP
10 - 1200
11 - 990
12 - 720
13 - 585

MVP - 500