Enchanted Wood

"I will get rid of this darkness," Armania stated as she pulled out a light rock.

There was a catwalk across the upper part of the ballroom.  The area around the catwalk was filled with webs.  

"We should get prepared," said Armania as Ursina cast Bless, Armania cast Haste and Ciprian cast GoodHope.

Armania then cast Purge Invisibility as the party moved on down the catwalk.

As they moved toward the center of the catwalk they saw a young woman partly encased in webs several feet north of the catwalk.  Also four giant spider like creatures blinked into being from Armania's Purge.  An aura of fear washed over the party with Armania and Paullus feeling shaken.

Ciprian identified two of the monsters as Ettercaps and started a Bardic Performance to buff the parties attacks against them.  Gavril studied one of the Ettercaps in front of him as the battle started.  Exchanges of attacks back and forth occurred with the party successfully evading the poison of the spiders.  There were two kinds, Giant Spiders it seemed and the Ettercaps.  The Giant Spiders fell quite easily but the Ettercaps were more difficult as they evaded some damage and regenerated on their turn. Then another Ettercap joined the fray and the wave of fear again washed over the party.

Erevel and Gavril downed two of the Ettercaps with Paullus helping with arrows and Armania with magic missiles and rays. When the last Ettercap attacked Gavril its Frightful Presence scared Paullus.  Ursina cast remove fear on Paullus allowing him to remove his fright.  The last Ettercap fell and Ciprian moved forward to get a better look at the woman in the web.  He cast mage hand to start removing the webs from her but another Ettercap attacked with its aura again waving over the party.

Armania moved forward and two more Giant Spiders that continued the attack.  The rest of the battle moved forward normally as the party still resisted the poison and eventually the three spiders fell.

Ciprian continued to use the mage hand to free the woman from the web as Erevel moved out onto the webs to grab the woman, who she pulled to the catwalk.

"Thank you for rescuing me," the woman stated with great emotion.  "I thought I was dead!"

"Are you Maudette?" Ciprian queried.

"Yes, how did you know?" she responded.

"Well take a few minutes to recover as we walk to the ladder down," Ciprian said with empathy, "Hopefully you can find your friends."

As they walked toward the ladder Ciprian related that the Viscount would like to rescind his promise to dance the Sunset Waltz with her.

"Oh, thank heavens.  I don't think I could dance anymore tonight anyway.  I am greatly relieved that I don't have to break the promise." Maudette replied.  "Tell the Viscount I accept."

The party went back down to the ballroom with Maudette in tow.  Her friends made there way over to collect her directly.  Then the heroes headed to the throne to collect their reward.  The Viscounts sycophants grudgingly allowed the group to approach Brellin once again.

"Were you thuccthethful in getting acceptanthe from my intended partnerth?" Brellin inquired.

"Yes, they all finally were satisfied with our deals," replied Ciprian.

"I will thend one of my lackeyth to get the ring." answered Brellin.

He called over one of the bodyguards who set off quickly and disappeared from the ballroom.  After ten minutes or so he reappeared and brought something small to the Viscount.

"Here ith your reward, a fine thignet ring with my cretht on it," Brellin held forward the ring to Ciprian.

"Altho, pleasth accept thith belt for helping me.  It is a +2 Belt of mighty constitution."  he said holding the Belt out to Ciprian.

The party headed for a corner of the ballroom to start their attempts to wake up from the Dreamlands. A hush fell over the ballroom as the musicians ceased playing. The partygoers backed away from the center of the dance floor as an immense, bloated, purple spider with seven legs descended from the darkness above the ballroom on a thick string of webbing. The spider arrived just before the Celephais sunset to dance with the viscount. The viscount stood, enraptured, and sighed, “My beloved!” as streamers of tarry drool dripped from his mouth. Viscount Brellin slowly made his way onto the dance floor to dance the Sunset Waltz with the monster to the polite applause of the revolted partygoers.

Ciprian recalled that he had found a magic decanter and scimitar in the caravanserai.  He found them on his person and identified them as a Decanter of Endless Water with the command words etched on the bottom.  The scimitar was a +1 Vorpal Scimitar.  The party then successfully awakened on board the Sellen Starling as the sun rose.  The image of the Huge Spider still haunting them.  As the day progressed Ciprian, Armania and Ursina were busy looking through the books, journals, and papers in regards the second item on the list Feline Tail (Blue and Purple Mottled fur).  They found that many books were written in an unknown language, so Ciprian began with casting Comprehend Languages.  He could read the books but knew that the research would take extra time to explore using the spell, for eight hours a day!

To research the feline tail, the they must read through the following titles: Monuments of the Forest, Tigers and Flies, and The Wise Harmony.  Over the next twelve days Ciprian and Armania studied the texts finally revealing all the information they could find.

According to a naturalist’s papers, felines with blue and purple tails are called pards, and they can be found the Dreamlands’ Enchanted Wood. One of Lowls’s diaries indicated his intent to seek the advice of zoogs, a race of intelligent rodent-like creatures native to the Enchanted Wood. Zoogs are carnivores and particularly enjoy feline flesh; Lowls assumed the zoogs would know where to find pards.  The PCs learn the proper phrase that allows them to use the Dreamlands excursion occult ritual to reach the Enchanted Wood, "A Mighty Oak".

Just as Ciprian and Armania finalize the information about the Feline Tail, Gavril awoke with his skin beginning to slough off and injuries failing to heal.  His charisma was lowered as the Leprosy took hold.  In horror Ursina found the Remove Disease scroll she was holding to heal the Slayer.  With this behind them, Ciprian said "We won't be able to use the Ritual tonight, as I need to memorize new spells."  So one more night and day before the party could entertain attempting to move to the Enchanted Wood.

In the morning everyone awoke refreshed, no Fatigue from Night Terrors and the spellcasters spent the morning memorizing new spells for the day.  Ciprian slept in to recover completely from the days of research.  Ciprian negotiated with Wreben for the Wand of Restoration, he wanted to take it with them to the Dreamlands, where the charges would not be expended.  He successfully talked Wreben into the deal as Wreben wanted to assure the protection of the heroes on the trip.

"It only has 10 charges left, though, hopefully you won't need more in the Dreamland," Wreben said offering the wand to Ciprian.

That evening the heroes gathered to perform the Ritual passing around the staircase while performing the skills of the Ritual.  Ursina succeeded at both her attempts while Ciprian was successful at two of three as he stated "A Might Oak" and tossed the staircase down on the deck of the Sellen Starling.  A staircase open down into the darkness and the party headed to the Dreamlands once again.

The heroes arrived on the wide, flat branch of an enormous oak tree. Smaller branches ended in sprays of wide, sturdy leaves and connect to the branches of other trees throughout this arboreal landscape. Looking down the party could not see the forest floor as enormous leaves block sight, the immense trees reach yet further upward, extending smaller branches and ordinary sized leaves. This elevated forest terrain is brightly lit— as it is daytime—but shadows pool where the canopy far above provides deep shade.  No creatures other than birds and insects are apparent, no rodent like creatures were seen.  Clearly the party could walk along the branches even moving from tree to tree.

Again the party found themselves in possession of the items they had found or were given in previous encounters in the Dreamlands.  As they started to move toward the tree trunk they party saw a human male on the branch opposite the trunk.  "Come over here, I have something to show you," the man said.

Ciprian was skeptical and tried to determine the man's motives but it seemed a valid want.  Armania took out the gem of seeing, which she found in her pack again, and looked at the man.  She saw nothing there, no man, no creature of any note, just insects and birds in the distance.  She still heard the voice inviting them to come over to him for a treat.

"Please join me, we can look at the beautiful sky from here," the group heard as the man swayed.

"It is not there, but where is that voice coming from?" stated Armania.

Erevel moved toward the image and Ciprian and Armania stood together back toward the trunk.

"It is coming from here," the party heard as a large creature merging the features of a horse and human pounced on Gavril from above. The monstrosity had an equine snout, sharp fangs, and long forelimbs with clawed fingers.  The animal bit at Gavril and then proceeded to attack with its hooves.

The heroes sprang into action, attacks from Erevel, Paullus and Gavril, magic missiles from Armania.  Ciprian identified the creature as a Tikbalang and started a Bardic Performance to inspire confidence, Ursina caste bless.

The Tikbalang then trampled Paullus as it overran his position.  The battle raged for a short time period with weapons and magic flying around the area.  Then Erevel hit with both attacks, one critically, that dropped the large creature to the branch.  When Erevel stopped raging she also hit the branch.  

Ursina raced over to bring Erevel back to consciousness while Ciprian looked around for magic items.  Seeing none he helped with healing the wounded.

As the heroes were progressing with dealing with the aftermath, several skittish creatures, an amalgam of beast parts with luminous eyes, a rat’s tail, simian appendages, and tendrils extending from a mole-like nose, appeared from various hiding places. They began a squeaking, chipping discussion between themselves and then directed at the heroes.  Not being able to understand, Ciprian cast Comprehend Languages and heard the creatures thanking the heroes for saving them.

"We were being hunted by that monster.  We are so grateful for your destruction of the beast." Ciprian heard.  "Who are you and what are you doing in our realm?" they creatures asked warily.

Ciprian tried to explain through mimic and pictures since he could not speak the language.  He represented the group as collectors looking for a creature with blue and purple fur.  He used cloth to represent the colors.

"Oh yes pards, we know of them. Some pards used to live on the forest floor, but the er killed and ate them several weeks ago. We have only the bones and tails of the pards in our possession." came the reply.

Ciprian represented interest in one of the tails.

"We would be willing to trade a pard tail to the PCs for a new meal of exotic feline." the creatures calling themselves zoogs responded.  "We know that several tigers hunt a higher, sunnier portion of the Enchanted Woods’ canopy. If you return a freshly killed tiger to the zoogs, we will to trade it for the pard tail."

Ciprian again represented a question of where the tigers lived.

The zoogs provided clear directions to the tigers’ hunting grounds a few miles to the east through the boughs of the Enchanted Wood’s massive trees.

DM's Notes: It was a good night as the party earned 2,667 XP.