We've got fun...

Once again, thanks to Kyla Cox for keeping the notes and doing the write up!

Things pick up right where they left off: with the party slowly making their way through the dense jungles of Chult. Their progress forward was halted by the smell of death in the air. The smell was soon joined by the sound of heavy footsteps slowly dragging their way through the brush. And then came zombies.

Quite a few zombies, in fact. All of them had a blue triangle painted on their foreheads. A warning? The party didn't know. Between their efforts (and the timely use of Spirit Guardians by their cleric follower), the party made quick work of the pack of undead. Taban, the fighter, made mention of blue triangle-marked zombies typically being found deep in the jungle.

The threat concluded, the group continued their slow progress. But it wasn't long before trouble found them again, this time in the form of a albino dwarves laying in wait with an ambush. Only some quick talking (and some just as quick bargaining for food and water) kept the encounter from getting violent.

The dwarf and his fellows proved surprisingly useful as a source of information. The triangle-marked zombies the party met earlier, he said, were marked as part of an undead army from the time of the Spellplague. He also warned them about a red dragon that had driven the dwarves from their home.

Curiously, he also mentioned that a man named Artis Cimber was seeking the Soul Monger just like the party was. The man had been last seen at Camp Righteous, before it was destroyed by zombies...

After nearly having their supplies stolen in the middle of the night by a pack of goblins, the party ran into another group of people wearing the blue tirangle. Only THESE ones were still very much alive. The sole survivor they took as prisoner spent his time rambling about a "Night Serpent" and the lost capital city of Chult known as Omu.

A few more days of journeying deposited the group at the ruins of Camp Righteous. The place was a wreck, with no sign of anyone living in the vicinity. (The canoes moored at the river bank, however, were a welcome sight after so long spent hacking through the underbrush.) The camp was constructed outside of what looked like a temple. A statue of a man with a crocodile on his back stood just outside the entrance.

Confronted with the lure of gold, our adventurers did what they do best: crept their way inside to see what riches lay ahead. But that is a tale for next time...

Welcome to the Jungle!

This blog post come courtesy of my best friend and partner in crime, Kyla Cox. Read on, adventurers!

Our adventure begins with a motley crew of adventurers entering Baldur's Gate one by one. Some of them have come to strike it rich, and some have come as punishment for breaking the law. Here's the line-up:

Alec, playing Jane Cena, a half-orc bard

Shannon, playing Remy Wiseflaw, a halfling monk (an old friend from Tomb of Horrors)

Laz, playing Orly Owlface, a gnome wizard

Jeff, playing Khungror Earthhide, a dwarf druid

Will, playing R. Frick (yes, his first name is literally R), a goliath cleric

Joseph, playing Grim Buckman, a human rogue (from Storm King's Thunder)

Kyla, playing Brynn Rennock, a human ranger

The party has been hired by Syndra Sylvane, a wealthy noble living in Baldur's Gate, to mount an expedition to the Chultan Peninsula in order to uncover the cause of a mysterious illness racing through the world: the Death Curse. It afflicts those previously restored to life by magic, and those afflicted by the curse waste away bit by bit every day until they die. And once dead in any way, no one can be revived. Not even by clerics or paladins of holy faith.

Syndra herself is suffering from the curse. She greets the party while wrapped up under a blanket, sounding raspy and sick. She offers them wine (Jane chugs an entire bottle and bounces the cork off of Brynn's head with one good spit). Syndra herself doesn't know much about Chult; much of the area is unmapped and is no doubt full of dangers. The curse is believed to originate with a relic of necromantic power knows as the "Soulmonger".

After a bit of haggling, the group convinces her to pay them 50 GP each as spending money for supplies. She also offers them 1 magical item each upon completion of the hunt for the cause. They have approximately 79 days before the curse kills Syndra.

After teleporting to Port Nyanzaru, the main settlement on Chult, the group joined Syndra in visiting the villa of merchant prince Wakanga O'Tamu. He give the party the lay of the land in Port Nyanzaru: explaining the merchant princes and the Flaming Fist patrols out of Fort Belaurian. He also offers a quest to give the group the lay of the land: locate the control amulet for a shield guardian called Vorn and return it to him.

Most of the party spent the first day in preparation for the trip. Mostly. R Frick negotiates the purchase of a hadrosaur for half of the offered price. A sizeable chunk of the party bets on the local dinosaur race (and promptly loses because the odds are decidedly not in their favor). Brynn takes on an odd job as a bookie's hired muscle, promptly loses when the target of the debt, a gladiator named Taban picks a fight, and walks out with a new friend and a splitting headache. In Brynne's defense, gladiators are challenge 5 NPCs with buckets of hit points and high damage potential.

Jane and Frick, showing what real friendship looks like, bet against her success.

Remi, however, has a moment of pure heriocs in rescuing a Chultan man's husband from being mauled to death by raptors in a fighting pit. Jane helps by casing Sleep on the dinos (and providing a distraction while the others slip away unnoticed).

Orly remained in Wakanga's villa, studying in the library, and eventually learns of a ruined city upriver, said to be guarded by a wise and generous naga...

The group meets a representative of the Order of the Gauntlet who requires an escort to Camp Vengeance, further inland. So, with a priest, a gladiator, and a dinosaur in tow, they set out.

Not long after leaving, however, they meet a Flaming Fist Patrol requesting their exploration permit. After some quick negotiations with the Flaming Fist mercenaries, they are allowed to pass unhindered. The next time, however, may not end as easily as the first.

This is where we leave our party: cutting a path through the jungle towards Camp Vengance, meeting the local homicidal fauna (a constrictor snake) and flora (a mobile, poisonous flower called a tri-flower frond) and all-too-aware of the time that's slipping away from them with every day...

Undead suck, demons suck, dragons suck

So shit continues to happen. But on a more personal front, this company wants to publish my novels. I've been focusing on writing those, and I'll be focusing on them for a while. But this blog will continue. I already have some help.

So, we started exploring the undead infested portion of the forge. We managed to find a dwarven shrine containing Durgeddin's body, as well as a wight and some skeletons. Life drain sucks. Usually the life out of you. Ask Phox. Kyla seems to have the worst luck with these: first Tathora now Phox.

Then we found a ghostly dwarf when Hoggle peaked into a room. It used a feature called horrifying visage to age Hoggle and Phox 40 years. Hoggle, being a gnome, didn't care so much, but Phox is now 60. Then the ghost possessed Hoggle. And started attacked Hiro. We used some percussive exorcism to knock the ghost out of him. After we banished it, we took a short rest.

Most of the rest of this area contained smashed furniture and and dwarf skeletons. Rooms full of nightmares are best not gone into, so we left them alone. We came upon a nice, fancy bedroom with a suspiciously well described rug. Lydia nudged it with mage hand and of course it sprang to life. Hiro watched Aladdin too many times as a child (How is that possible? Reasons!) and tried to ride him. So it did what rugs of smothering do: wrapped him up and tried to smother him. We beat the rug and moved on.

The next interesting thing we came across was a library where a suspiciously beautiful woman was reading at a table. Phox talked to her, and learned her name was Idalla and that she was trapped in that room by a wizard living somewhere below us. She wanted us to go and kill the wizard and free her. In the meantime, Phox and Squiz examined a few books. Lydia, feeling a little deceptive, told Idalla we already had killed the wizard. Whether or not Idalla believed the lie, she chose that moment to reveal herself as a succubus and cast charm. Lydia was a little miffed at her friends hurting her new BFF, but she laid a deadly smooch on Lydia, knocking her out. Phox got a little miffed by this, and grappled the demon. The demon just charmed Hiro, instead. Hoggle handed out some bardic inspiration, then dropped silence to prevent Hiro from casting spells. But Phox finally dropped the demon.

After we recovered, we found a series of secret doors that ended at a natural cavern at the lip of chasm with a rope ladder leading down into it. We climbed down to a muddy waterfall pool. Lydia identified the tracks in the mud as belonging to a dragon.

We probably should have taken a long rest before continuing. But screw that, we're adventurers! Also, Alec let us level to 5 and granted us the benefit of a long rest for leveling. A narrow beach around an underground lake with an island heaped with treasure. Seems totally safe. We crossed a crumbly bridge, separating the party when it collapsed after Squiz crossed. Then the dragon, a black dragon, struck by sticking it's head out of the water and breathing it's line of acid. It dropped Vrinn and Hoggle on the first round.

Alec just made an unconsciounable number of recharge rolls on that breath weapon. It was able to use it almost every round.

Lydia used a scroll of spider climb to use the walls and ceiling to get around the bridge. Hiro made everyone invisible again after another wild magic surge. This included the dragon. It didn't last long, the dragon breathed again. The most beneficial effect we got, however, was when Hiro's surge cast fly on Squiz. He flew to the island and found a wand of magic missiles in the dragon's hoard. Then Hiro got breathed on and got dropped. Phox and Tog managed to use a Healer's Kit and potions to revive or stabilize people, getting Hoggle back on his feet, who was able to get Vrinn back on his feet. Then the dragon breathed again and killed Hoggle outright.

Lydia broke out a new spell hunger of Hadar, to create an area of icky, tentacly, whispery blackness that finally smoked the dragon out of the water. Tog finally got the killing blow, and Hiro stabilized on his own.

We hauled Hoggle back to town for resurrection, since we had the money now, thanks to the dragon's hoard.

Next week, Tomb of Annihilation begins. It's gonna be fun!

Dig, dig, dig!

Tragedy seems thick on the ground these days: but you can help here!

Also, we're no longer AL. We moved to la Casa de Yaeger, and it was pretty nice. Quiet dinner table and not having to shout over a crowd of people. Of course, Calvin no longer felt he could make it. So we were down Bruenor.

So, as I predicted: Herman died again as he unlived: being a meat shield. He opened the door and got sprayed with all the alchemist fire. Enough it overwhelmed his Undead Resilience. We didn't have time to pour one for our deader buddy. The room beyond contained nothing of interest, however: just some reservoirs of alchemist fire and the trap mechanism. The door did start to close, presumably resetting the trap, but Phox wedged it open.

We explored the southernmost door in that same room and ran into an orc shaman and some body guards. Once again, Vrinn got to open up, but I scored a critical hit on the follow-up.  Hiro got to use another spell out of Elemental Evil: Snilloc's snowball swarm. It hits an area with snowballs. Phox but the finishing hit on the shaman, Shannon tried a new, and effective tactic, in this battle. Hoggle opened with bane and supplemented it with Cutting Words. The notion being that a bard's de-buffs are more effective than their healing. In this case it did prevent Squiz from having a new axe-hole being torn in him. Once again, Jeff decided to hit the RNG button for a wild surge. Summoning some flumphs, which scared poor Phox.

We did find some alchemists' tools in the shaman's lair. Which would have been nice for harvesting that alchemist fire. If anyone had the proficiency. Instead we climbed down.

The stairs were cut into the stone and lead to some natural and excavated caves. At one point, a stream crossed them: a rill! D&D is good for your vocabulary, kids! Because we all want that 100% Map Completion Trophy, we followed the stream.

It led to a little side cave that served as a lair for more stirges. They had managed to exsanguinate another adventurer, and we looted the corpse. We continued down the stream, and Lydia fell heels over ass down into a larger cavern, where the stairs would have eventually led us. Now, with several passages to traverse, we went for left-hand most one first, coming upon a group of troglodytes, stinky subterranean lizard people in D&D monster terms. The real fun was a locked gate in their lair.

Phox loudly proclaimed, "There's no bears in caves" before we opened it. Of course there was a bear. This, apparently, made out barbarian angry. So she raged and grappled it. In effort to help her pet human, Lydia used hex on the bear's Strength, to give it disadvantage on the checks needed to escape a grapple. This gave Vrinn the opportunity to sneak attack it in the hit points, dropping it.

We continued on, finding ourselves in a forest of fungi. Some of it glowed, of course. We came to a side ledge, an iron gate, and a grand stair case. Since we just had to have that 100% map, and Hoggle volunteered to go first, Phox hoisted him up onto that latch. Only for a couple of gricks to attack. These ugly things are resistant to non-magical attacks. So, pretty tough on their own. But then a giant subterranean lizard attacked us, too. It put the bite on Phox, holding her in it's jaws. Once again, Lydia used hex, not wanting the funny human to die. Jeff mashed the RNG button again with Hiro using a wild surge, turning everything and everyone in the fight invisible. This did allow Vrinn to end the fight with a sneak attack on the last remaining grick after everything else was dropped. Unfortunately, Phox and Hoggle both got dropped. With the healer down, we had to use a potion of healing.

We found some dead adventurers in a back cave past the ledge. We looted the corpses, then barricaded ourselves in for a nice long rest.

Then we climbed up that long flight of stairs, coming to an unlocked iron door. We heard the sound of hammers on anvils beyond. Seems someone or something was still making those weapons! It lead into an octagonal room lined with doors and more statues or armed dwarves. Hiro went up to a door and a statue attacked him. To add insult to injury, the door was false. Hoggle searched around for more traps, but some poor rolling led to the conclusion that nope, there were no more traps! Then Squiz tried to open another door and also got hit by a statue. Again, the door was false and trixie. Why did we send the arcane casters, the squishiest party members, to check for traps? Reasons.

So, Lydia, another arcane caster, but slightly less squishy, looked around and found a secret door with her drow eyes. She, however, exercised a little prudence and opened it with mage hand. It led to a pillared throne room. As we arrived, we heard a voice, possibly an alarm, shout something in dwarvish about intruders. We moved in cautiously and were confronted by duergar. These subterranean dwarves aren't generally regarded as altruistic, but are willing to treat with other races from time to time. So we opened with parley.

The dwarves told us they were reactivating the forge for their own business, which was none of ours, thank you. They told us there were undead roaming some rooms to the north that needed clearing, and also let us know that a dragon lived in the lower levels of the complex on top of a treasure hoard. They offered to take us to the dragon for 200gp. Hoggle tried to barter with a potion, that was in fact poison, but failed. Then Lydia offered to clear the undead for them for half that fee, and they agreed.

Alec really wanted us to just go to the dragon. He wants to take a break from running, even though he's pretty darn good. He wants to go to Chult and fight Acererak.

But, we took the undead option. In return for the promise that we could keep any treasure we found. Looks like he'll have to run another week or two. I'll be good to go.

LEEEEEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYY JENKINS!

Before we get started: this is happening. If you or someone you know (or someone who's blog you read!) has a pre-existing condition, this will devastate them economically. Call the congressional switchboard and tell you senators to vote no: 202-224-3121.

So Joseph made it back to our table. He rolled up a half-orc fighter named Tog. Tog is a little like Thok, Shannon also brought a new character named Hoggle. Yes, based off of that Hoggle. The race was a home-brew mixture of dwarf and gnome. And he's a bard.

So we had crossed the bridge, our new PCs fell through a plot hole and joined us. We did have some debate over have Tog along. Lydia did speculate that his ear might be worth 12gp and 5sp in bounty. Once the playful banter passed, we found that we had a door.

Phox kicked in the door!

There were more orcs. We had a particularly deadly opening turn before the orcs closed with our mostly ranged party and did some damage. We still managed to drop them without severe casualties, however. It was a barracks for the orcs and included a cage full of human prisoners. We freed them and sent them on their way back to town. Then we leveled up!

We moved on, finding a storage area and well. We passed that area and into more corridors with lots of options for doors. One of those doors had a cool statue of a dwarf holding a sword and a hammer in front of it. Hoggle went forward to examine it. It was, of course, trapped. The mouth opened and sprayed poison gas. That poisoned him. Vrinn disabled that trap while the poison wore off, and then took a listen at the door. There was some raucous shouting and cursing behind the door. We all positioned ourselves in the corridor outside. Except Hiro, he position himself way in the back so he had clear sight and access to another door.

Fuck.

We kicked in that door by the trapped dwarf statue. It was another orc barracks, and one of them was the bigger, meaner orog variety. But by this point, we were a well oiled monster killing machine. "We got this!" we all said.

Then Hiro set that door behind us on fire using the bonfire spell. It turns out there were more orcs behind that door, and they were upset that their door got turned to kindling, so they charged through, getting a little burned in the process.

Back on the western front (you know, the only one everyone cares about in American pop culture), Lydia and Hoggle discovered that shatter is a good crowd control spell on the second level list.

Hiro, however, tried get the RNG to help him conjure a fireball on that horde of orcs out of wild magic surge. Jeff, has, apparently, no experience with the RNG. Instead he had spend the rest of the session shouting. He did pull back.

Then, because in table-top games sufficient loud noises will pull more encounters, another door opened. Out stepped an ogre with a small hunting pack of dire wolves.

Hiro DID make a good speed bump for that horde of orcs. And they did make a decent roadblock for that pack of dire wolves and the ogre.

While they were busy killing Hiro, we killed the orcs in, then re-grouped in, the original orc barracks. You know, the encounter we had planned to pull in the first place and not the other two. Kyla went with path of the totem warrior for Phox, and chose Wolf as her totem. And let me tell you, giving the pack tactics feature to your allies while raging is amazing! And speaking of Phox, she blew that whistle and turned one of those orc corpses into a zombie, which, because Kyla is that kind of person, she named Herman.

Using Herman as a speed bump and the corridor as a bottle neck, we cleared the second pack of orcs and killed the ogre. With their boss dead, the dire wolves fled.

Bruenor drunkenly stabilized Hiro and we took a long rest. During that period Phox found some money and a potion of healing in the orog's bed. Then, in the ogre's room, we found more money and a +1 rapier. Finally, we visited the third orc barracks and found more money. Hiro, of course, just said, "Your welcome."

We finally got around to investigating the well. No gray oozes. No black puddings. Just normal, brackish water. We came at last to a stairwell with a locked gate nearby. Vrinn picked the lock and we found a swarm of stirges.

Hiro triggered another wild magic surge with a casting of ice knife, this one causing ethereal music to follow him around. Phox was in the explosion's area, but managed to uncanny dodge it.

At the north end of the stairwell chamber was an ornate stone door. We spotted spouts around it and a pile of charred bodies in front of it. When we left off, the rest of us stood well back while Phox sent Herman to open it.

Herman will die (again) as he unlived. Or will he?

Orcs, orcs, orcs!

So the new adventure, Tomb of Annihilation is out. It's got everything: undead, dinosaurs, pirates, undead dinosaurs, undead pirate dinosaurs. It's gonna be fun!

Shannon wasn't feeling well, so Auryx took a hiatus. But three younger players were orphaned, so we adopted them into our table: Douglas playing a wood elf rogue named Bruidist; Victoria playing a wood elf druid named Nyalda; and John playing a human wizard named Rein.

Jeff also decided to restat Hiro as wild magic sorcerer. And Will restatted Squiz as a dwarf wizard.

We returned to Waterdeep after getting our reward from the Sunless Citadel. There, we learned the tale of Durgeddin the Black and Khundrukar, a redoubt he had taken his clan to after their homeland had been invaded by orcs. From this fortress he declared war on orc-kind. He and his clan were renowned weapon-smiths. This news alone got Phox's interest. Lydia, who's developed a habit of reading her book and muttering to herself in in strange languages, felt this was a good portent to follow. We haggled for a map to Khundrukar, under a mountain called the Stone Tooth near small town called Blasingdell.

Our newest recruits and Squiz went shopping. I had done some before leaving Waterdeep: acquiring a rapier for a better melee option when forced into it. Squiz got a potion of healing while the new recruits bought some weapons. I also bought a potion of healing, depleting the town's stock.

The local militia had captured an orc raider, but it didn't have much in the way of information. The militia did offer us a reward of 25 gp per orc head. We walked to the Stone Tooth and camped at it's base, hiding but still able to view the trail leading up. During third watch, the watch Lydia took, a group of orcs were bound up the trail. She woke up everyone. The rogues managed to ambush the orcs while the rest of the group rushed them.

This degenerated quickly into a running battle. Hiro used an unusual tactic: setting a twig in the midst of the orcs on fire with fire bolt, then causing a blinding flash with pyrotechnics. Then Nyalda hit a bunch with faerie fire. The non-blinded ones made a break for it.

Phox did what any good barbarian would do: she took off after them screaming at the top of her lungs. Lydia finds her pet human too interesting to let her die, so she followed. Vrinn and Hiro didn't want to watch us both die, so they followed.

So everyone else finished off the blinded orcs, and Squiz started harvesting orc heads, in the form of left ears.

When Phox, Lydia, Vrinn, and Hiro finally caught up to the fleeing orcs, they only managed to pin one of them, and the rest continued running up the path. At one point Vrinn even took off through the forest to skip the twitch-backs climbing the hill. Here though, Alec did some clever DMing. Orcs have a feature called Aggressive, which lets them use a bonus action to move up to their speed toward a hostile creature. They moved toward Vrinn, then used Dash and their normal movement to move past him.

Incidentally, PC orcs also get Aggressive. If something ever allows a creature to use 2 bonus actions on a turn, an orc monk or rogue could theoretically move up to 120ft (rogue) or 240ft (maxed out monk) in 6 seconds. That's a 27.28 miles an hour sprint for the monk. That's just shy of Usain Bolt's current record. We all know what has to happen: Wizards needs to release that rule. I suppose, as the rules stand, you could put haste on that maxed out orc monk. Which, even with only one bonus action (for either Aggressive or Step of the Wind), adds up to 480 feet per 6 seconds. That's 54.55 miles an hour. Highway speeds for a car. Nice! That is, of course, assuming haste doubles speed after the Unarmored Speed feature is applied and not before. I'm sending that one in to Sage Advice. Incidentally, assuming a monk's Unarmored Speed applies directly to an aarakocra's flight speed, a maxed out monk, hasted, would make 73 miles an hour or so flying.

At this point, we did catch up with the fleeing orcs. Because they had run into reinforcements near the top of the path. Vrinn managed to get surrounded and dropped by those orcs before we got in enough support to kill the lot.

Then, after healing Vrinn's wounds, we did the only ethical thing: sent him ahead to scout again. He spotted a stone door and several arrow slits. Not satisfied with that information, we sent him back for more. This time, however, he was spotted and had a few crossbow bolts to show for it.

We made another plan. We used Squiz as bait, since he can get his AC up to 20 with shield going, to lure out the orcs' attacks then shoot back while they're firing. This only sort of worked. So Lydia dropped her Quaal's feather token in front of one of the windows. It blocked the attacks out of one, and provided and convenient way to climb into the other windows. Squiz climbed on up, then used Aganazzar's scorcher on a line of orcs. Parkour! and Fuego!

After dropping these sentries, we took a short rest. We found a secret door out of the arrow slit corridor and into the main gate area. The orcs had barred the inside of the stone door. Opposite the door was a deep chasm crossed by a rope bridge. We heard water gurgling up from the depth. Phox unbarred the door while the rest of us poked around for secret doors, finding an entrance to another arrow slit corridor on the other side of the stone door.

Someone lit a torch and dropped it into the chasm to test the depths, attracting the attention of orcs on the other side. We easily dropped them. The bridge held up under our weight, but the crossing wasn't without incident. It turns out Phox is scared of heights. So Lydia had to encourage her while crossing.

We broke at that point. Next week: more orcs? Probably.

Kill All the Trees, No-Tongued Bastards.

Again, shit is happening. Always be aware of what's going on. Shit will affect you sooner or later.

So after resting in the fire snake den, we returned to where we fought the goblins and moved on. We continued to find infestations of bio-luminescent fungus in the corridors. We did find an intact wall mural depicting a dragon doing dragon stuff: burning down stuff and pillaging. We ran into another bugbear, this one apparently a fungus gardener. I got to viciously mock it out of my new Warlock Book of Shadows. Shannon suggested a Shakespeare insult generator to accompany this spell. Sounds legit. Phox took it out with a crit. Hopefully this breaks Kyla's bugbear curse?

During this scene we learned that Bruennor is meta-aware that Calvin re-statted him from a Knowledge Cleric to a Life Cleric, and has taken up a new hobby in response: drinking. We found ourselves in an area of plant-filled rooms. After opening some more doors we came to a different room.

It held a dragon statue with the eyes glowing blue and a circle of runes in the in front of it. As we moved to attack it, a shadow ambushed us. As you may recall, these incorporeal undead are weak to radiant damage. Auryx used moonbeam. I also used another new one out of my Book of Shadows: sacred flame. Bruennor also used that spell. But Calvin decided that being drunk reduces Wisdom (as well as Intelligence, Charisma, Dexterity, Strength...), so Bruennor kinda sucks at it, now. Once she had her moonbeam, Auryx became a giant honey badger. The thing had a bad habit of hiding behind that statue, so I broke out the drow racial ability to cast faerie fire, and it failed. Fortunately, Vrinn was finally able to sneak in and get a sneak attack off. Once we had beaten the shadow, we read the runes in the circle. It said in Draconic, "Sorcererous power illuminate my spirit." We tried putting some sapphires in dragon eyes again to no avail. Then Bruennor just said it out loud and got advantage on Charisma checks for a while.

Moving on we found a modest library. We took a short rest there. Vrinn poked around, finding a spell scroll of Melf's acid arrow. Phox tried to read by holding a book upside down. I helpfully flipped it right side up. Bruennor, in addition to his drinking problem, has also decided to take up the hobby of destroying and belittling knowledge. So he tried to vandalize books before the rest of us subdued him.

Beyond that we found some descending stairs! But dang it if we aren't players and we don't want that 100% map completion achievement (it unlocks a new skin for characters!), so we back-tracked to open more doors in the plant-filled area. We found a room of skeletons clearing scorched plant matter. As we engaged them, some twig blights appeared. We did have short discussion about Harryhausen, then moved on.

We found an octagonal room with more scorched plant matter and several holes in the walls. Squiz decided to stick his arm in one of the holes. He got attacked by another fire snake. Hiro used a new trick: charging his bow with psychic energy before attacking it. Needless to say, we won. Sqiz was rewarded for searching its lair, though, finding some sapphires.

Last, we found some goblins collecting edible lichen. We totally face murdered them, then moved back to library for another short rest. One of the fun features of the warlock: a short rest tops off their tank of spell slots.

The stairs led down, under a room we had explored, and then back up. It led down another corridor. We opened some stone doors, finding big old room full of goblins and twig blights. Another opened into another rift. Vrinn tried to pick a locked door, but failed. We fought the goblins, and they called for the Protector of the Twilight Grove, which summoned more twig blights! Hiro covered the area of that swarm of twig blights in darkness. Surprisingly they started moving away from us. Auryx dropped a flaming sphere to burn out the twig blights. Hiro also summoned up a pair of shadow beasts to block their retreat.

Squiz, once again proving he just exists to try different things, started throwing tridents. As Hiro's shadow beasts started killing blights, we had to check some rules. Apparently, if they kill a non-evil humanoid, it will raise a shadow in 4 hours. So we need to be careful with those. Once we had cleared the mob, we got to explore.

There was a back door to the locked room Vrinn failed to pick. It lead to a study with a soil floor. I found an interesting book written in draconic: Treasures of the Firelord. I opened it. It was trapped with a cold damage glyph of warding. Haha. Looking around we found some more spell scrolls: entangle and protection from poison.

We took a short rest back at the stairs. We decided, even though it would end with us running late, to go on to the final battle.

We came to a walled clearing: the site of the Gulthias Tree. We found Belak, and some humans: Sir Braford and Sharwyn Hucrele. The last two weren't looking good: a little bit like Zerg-infested Terrans but with wood. We got Belak monologuing about the tree: it grew from a stake used to kill a vampire. He using the fruit to "spread it's seed" as it were. Plus, he had turned Sharwyn and Sir Braford into "supplicants" of the Tree.

We concocted our plan: grab a red apple off the tree and use it to, hopefully, cure the transformed humans. Vrinn snuck around to the flank. Or tried to. This was the last straw, and Belak started fighting. Auryx finally got to use her entangle to tie down some of the enemies. Vrinn did manage to sprint up the tree and grab that apple as we were fighting twig blights, Belak, and the "supplicants." We managed to knock them out. I did helpfully remind newer players that you can decide to knock out a foe when you drop them to 0 hp in this edition. Yay more cinematic play style! Hiro got to score the killing blow on Belak.

While everyone else was trying to secure the humans for restoration, I listened to the strange voices in my head and poured lantern oil onto the Gulthias Tree and set it ablaze. Fortunately, the apple did cure the humans of their tree-infestation, and we were justly rewarded.

Next week, we move on to the Forge of Fury.