Just the Essentials
The heroes had their first combat against an ogre and some evil vines, got their first look (sorta) at the villain of the adventure, did some exploration of the moathouse, and then killed some elves and interrogated the one elf they didn’t kill. They learned that the villain is a Wode Elf Green Elementalist named Caerwyn, and that he’s downstairs doing gods know what.
The Long Story
The session began as the first session ended: with an ogre charging the party. This ogre was noticeably covered in vines and vegetation, and it seemed like some of the vines were even growing into the ogre. The combat started out with the party figuring out how to keep Michael Thornberry, who was at the front of the group and is just a normal dude, from getting turned into paste by the ogre. Paarthanoxx, the Dragon Knight Null, went first, got up to the ogre, and then used an ability that taunted the ogre, which makes it less effective at targeting anyone but Paarthanoxx. Immediately after Paarthanoxx’s turn however, he was yanked quite viciously into the muck by a rather sinister vine. Over the course of the battle, Light of an Autumn Dawn Refracted by a Kaleidoscope killed the vine suffocating Paarthanoxx, Allora did a really cool combo where she teleported behind the ogre in reaction to it attacking her, the immediately took her turn in a sort of “Nothing personnel kid” sort of way, Michael Thornberry ran away as fast as he could, and Scarn landed the final blow. In doing so he split the ogre in twain, revealing that the ogre’s body was completely taken over by vines, which began twisting together into a crude humanoid form. From all directions, like it was coming from the swamp itself, the party heard a voice say, “You do not belong here. You must leave.” before the form collapsed on itself.
At this point, Michael Thornberry has had quite enough of the swamp and very much wants to go home. There’s some debate amongst the party about what to do. Some of them think they should let him go, some think that if they just let him leave he’ll die in the swamp, and Scarn at one point floats the idea that they should just make him continue to the moathouse with them. Ultimately, they end up escorting him out the the swamp to the road because that won’t take too long and will at least ensure Michael doesn’t get drowned by an evil vine. They also take a short break to rest up and use some recoveries.
Continuing on, Light of an Autumn Dawn Refracted by a Kaleidoscope now leads the party through the swamp and manages to find the moathouse. It’s a two story stone building, but the top story is almost completely destroyed. They search the moathouse’s tower, which is still intact, and find a giant spider which has been skewered by vines and roots erupting from the walls of the tower. From the top of the tower, they can see that there’s been a lot of foot traffic through the courtyard to a set of doors. They go through these doors to a large room that has been thoroughly ransacked, and find that there are two hallways branching off either side of this room, and a door on the opposite side. They choose to check out the door at the far end, but before they go through, they pause at the door and listen.
There are indeed voices on the other side, speaking Ylliric, the Wode Elf language. They send Allora, the party’s resident Wode Elf, to go talk to whoever is on the other side of the door. She peeks a head in, makes some small talk, asks some questions, and is thoroughly convinced that they’re just travelers who have taken shelter here for the night. Allora’s companions are not as convinced, and they barge in to ask some more questions. The Wode Elves are understandably not very interested in being interrogated by a bunch of strangers, and the party takes their caginess as a sign that the elves are up to no good. Communication quickly breaks down and now it’s their second fight of the adventure.
Once the fight breaks out it becomes clear that one of the elves is not actually an elf, but a human that is completely overtaken by vines, much like the ogre from before. The fight goes pretty well for the party, except for Paarthanoxx, who kinda got stuck in between three of the elves for most of the fight and got pummeled quite a bit. Eventually all but one of the enemies are dead, and the party just knocks the last one out to interrogate him. Now that he’s alone and bound, he’s a lot more communicative. The party learns from him that the group they just fought was here helping out a Green Elementalist named Caerwyn, and the party puts two and two together that the figure that told them to leave in the swamp was Caerwyn, or at least a message from him. Caerwyn, according to the party’s prisoner, is downstairs performing strange rituals and experiments.
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