D&D - VA (864TK; August 6th - 7th): Grungs’ Moving Temple (A004/A005)
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Klein, Lily, Kwoth, Mouse, Imani, Hanahop, and October / [XP: 10]
Bevin didn’t play. Smike and Jaye were a little late, but didn’t miss too terribly much.
August 6th (Continued)
Mouse outmaneuvered the two Nereids and managed to toss the sword and bow into the fountain; the waters of which immediately began to cavitate. The Nereids then tangled up October for the remainder of the battle as two of the satyrs did the same with Hanahop.
The last surviving centaur relentlessly pursued Klein, but was worn down by magical counterattacks and finally finished off by Mouse. The last remaining satyr drove Kwoth to the brink of madness by nimbly eluding her attacks, but was utterly obliterated by divine wrath when she finally managed to land a blow.
Lily all the while provided magical close support from the safety of one of the rooftops. Only moments after the two gifts were tossed into the fountain, the longbow was ejected (and claimed by Elodwn).
By the time the PCs were done explaining the dead sylvan folk to the local knights, it was getting on into late afternoon. The PCs decided to spend the night and head for home in the morning.
August 7th, 864TK
Rather than back-tracking up the road and around to Braelon, the PCs decided to spend the gold to take a ferry across Lake Lucadia to the city of Limeglade in Darhawk; then take the roads north from there. Getting a very early start, it was still morning when the reached the eastern shore.
Limeglade was a much smaller city than Marsol; and while the peoples of Darhawk weren’t as obsessed about appearances as the peoples of Paladesia, the place still looked quite warm and inviting. Most of the buildings were constructed of white stone; well-spaced with plenty of greenery.
As the ferry tied up and the PCs got ready to disembark, they noticed an anxious-looking woman on the dock who was wearing an officer’s uniform and scanning the passengers. When she saw the PCs, her eyes went wide in a look of hopeful anticipation. “Excuse me…”, she called. “Are you here about the raids and the civilian abductions?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Klein replied “We could be?”
“Three villages to the south-east of here have been hit over the last three nights”, the officer explained. “Eight dead and almost 30 missing; they seem to be taking prisoners; several of them have been children.”
“From the descriptions we got, we’re still not sure who or what is doing it. They’re ‘frog people’ of some kind, but they sound like they’re too small and colorful to be bullywugs and they’re definitely too hostile to be gripplis.”
“Trackers after the first incident said the tracks dead-ended in the middle of an open field. Trackers after the second incident never came back. We’re stretched out all over trying to find these people and we’ve got nobody to follow this newest trail; and the longer we wait, the less likely we’re going to find them.”
The woman was nearly in tears with relief when the PCs agreed to go look. “Gods bless you! The village is called Micanopy. Take the south-east road out and follow the signs; it’s not too far out of town.”
Though he’d never encountered one, Klein had once read about a third species of frog-like humanoids called ‘Grung’. Smaller than bullywugs but more hostile than gripplis, they seemed to fit the description; but as far as he knew, they were only found in the Depths of Kari.
As the officer indicated, Micanopy wasn’t at all hard to find; and the PCs got there by mid-morning. The dead and wounded were already being tended to; the big worry now was the missing.
Imani wasn’t the greatest tracker; but with Elodwn and Hanahop both temporarily out of availability, she was the best that the group had. She wasn’t able to determine much about numbers or composition, but definitely picked up the trail of a large number of individuals heading further south-east.
By mid-day, the tracks led into a wide open field of rolling grass; a field which at the moment was flooded in over a foot of water. Klein could tell from the grass that it wasn’t normally submerged like that, but he also saw no indication of recent rains heavy enough to have caused it.
The flooding was substantial enough that Imani lost the trail, but that didn’t really matter. Rising up from beyond the trees on the far side of the clearing was some kind of enormous stone structure.
From what little the PCs could see, it appeared to be some sort of step pyramid; topping out at maybe 100’ off of the forest floor. On the second tier from the top were two enormous tropical trees, and water appeared to flow out from their bases; cascading tier to tier down the sides of the structure.
It wasn’t the most unusual thing to see anywhere in Vhas Aetheria, but it seemed significant enough that someone would have mentioned it or it would have been indicated on the nearby road signage. Between that and flooding, things just weren’t adding up.
On the far side of the field, the PCs found two things of interest. The first was a river; roughly 20’ wide. At the edge of the tree line, its bed just abruptly ended; sending all of its water spilling into the field; which was undoubtedly what was causing the flooding.
Running parallel to it was a dirt road; which again, just abruptly ended at the edge of the flooded field. The PCs again found tracks, which were now far more discernable. It looked as though quite a few humans had gone up the road but not returned, while countless small frog-like bipeds had been going back and forth for quite some time.
After a short distance, the road and river both turned to run parallel to the front of the pyramid; and the foliage thinned enough for the PCs to get a better look at it. The magnificent structure was surrounded by crumbling stone ruins built on bridge-connected stone islands in the large pod surrounding the base of the temple.
Between the edge of the clearing and the base of the pyramid, the road went back and forth several times; gradually gaining altitude at switchbacks and repeatedly spanning the river on bridges of wood or stone. Just before the first switchback, the PCs were surprised to see a house.
While the house was completely unremarkable by the architectural norms of the Western Kingdoms, it jarringly clashed with the ancient stone marvel rising up behind it. Heavy logs were leaned up against the doors and through the windows; clearly intended to keep something inside. Many of the human tracks went up to the door, but none returned or continued further up the road.
The PCs moved one of the logs and found 28 people inside; including the 12 from that morning and a total of 8 terrified children. The 16 people from the previous two raids all seemed groggy and lethargic, and Klein discovered that there was a mild poison in the food which they had been given.
“I don’t know how many there are”, one of the more lucid adults informed the PCs. “There’s one yellow one and one red one; they seem to be in charge. Then there’s about half a dozen orange ones and a whole big mess of green ones.”
Once the captives were all ready to move, the PCs instructed them to head down the road as quickly as they could. “If you hear fighting behind you, just keep moving; we’ll cover you.”
As the escapees ran, the anticipated attack commenced. From where they’d been hiding in the water; several small, green, frog-like bipeds used crude shortbows to fire a barrage of poisoned arrows at the PCs. Armed with wooden clubs and shields, half a dozen orange-colored ones appeared from the ruins; leaping with no effort down the 10’ high switchbacks.
The aforementioned yellow and red ones also appeared at the apex of the pyramid. Armed with a whip and a crude knife, the yellow one was a little larger and more muscular; and he very loudly croaked out from the top of the temple, clearly shouting orders and/or encouragement to the grung who were closing in on the PCs. The much smaller red one was armed only with a staff, which it held aloft as it silently surveyed the battle bellow.
The PCs were ready to battle their way all the way to the top of the pyramid, which also appeared to be what the grung were anticipating and preparing for. Hanahop, on the other hand, had a different idea. Grabbing Imani by the arm, she used her recently-acquired Dimension Door spell to transport the two of them straight to the top of the pyramid; right behind the red and yellow grung.
On the road below, the PCs were outnumbered; but the green grung weren’t very tough and got picked off one by one. At the top of the temple, the sudden flurry of blade slashes and mace bashes caught the two leaders completely off guard.
At the very moment that the red grung died, the entire area went dark; so suddenly and completely that several of the PCs thought that they had gone blind. At the same time, the temple and surrounding ground firmly quaked.
The fighting continued; and just a few moments later, the shaking and darkness ended just as abruptly as they had begun. By that point, Imani had finished off the yellow chieftain; and the rest of the survivors were retreating into the surrounding jungle.
The PCs’ victory elation was short-lived, however. The first thing they noticed was that the heat and humidity had both noticeably increased since their arrival.
The second thing was that; while the immediate surroundings were the same as they were before, the terrain beyond was not. The trees were more dense, wild, and tropical; and the PCs could no longer even see the flooded field through which they’d entered.
Klein frantically examined the surrounding jungle and came to a conclusion. The good news was that it could have been much worse; they might have ended up on an unknown continent or even different plane of existence. The bad news was that they definitely weren’t in Darhawk anymore.
Based on what he was seeing, he was quite positive that they were in the Depths of Kari. His theory was that the grung had been using the temple to travel and raid; and when the red one had been killed, the temple had ‘snapped back’ to its ‘normal location’.
Hoping to find a way to move the temple back to Darhawk, the PCs thoroughly searched its interior; but found nothing even a little bit promising. They didn’t even find anything worth looting.
Depending on just where in the jungle they were, the nearest coast would either be to the north or to the east. Since they didn’t know which, they agreed to just trek north-east and hope for the best.
Klein, Lily, Kwoth, Mouse, Imani, Hanahop, and October / [XP: 10]
Bevin didn’t play. Smike and Jaye were a little late, but didn’t miss too terribly much.
August 6th (Continued)
Mouse outmaneuvered the two Nereids and managed to toss the sword and bow into the fountain; the waters of which immediately began to cavitate. The Nereids then tangled up October for the remainder of the battle as two of the satyrs did the same with Hanahop.
The last surviving centaur relentlessly pursued Klein, but was worn down by magical counterattacks and finally finished off by Mouse. The last remaining satyr drove Kwoth to the brink of madness by nimbly eluding her attacks, but was utterly obliterated by divine wrath when she finally managed to land a blow.
Lily all the while provided magical close support from the safety of one of the rooftops. Only moments after the two gifts were tossed into the fountain, the longbow was ejected (and claimed by Elodwn).
By the time the PCs were done explaining the dead sylvan folk to the local knights, it was getting on into late afternoon. The PCs decided to spend the night and head for home in the morning.
August 7th, 864TK
Rather than back-tracking up the road and around to Braelon, the PCs decided to spend the gold to take a ferry across Lake Lucadia to the city of Limeglade in Darhawk; then take the roads north from there. Getting a very early start, it was still morning when the reached the eastern shore.
Limeglade was a much smaller city than Marsol; and while the peoples of Darhawk weren’t as obsessed about appearances as the peoples of Paladesia, the place still looked quite warm and inviting. Most of the buildings were constructed of white stone; well-spaced with plenty of greenery.
As the ferry tied up and the PCs got ready to disembark, they noticed an anxious-looking woman on the dock who was wearing an officer’s uniform and scanning the passengers. When she saw the PCs, her eyes went wide in a look of hopeful anticipation. “Excuse me…”, she called. “Are you here about the raids and the civilian abductions?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Klein replied “We could be?”
“Three villages to the south-east of here have been hit over the last three nights”, the officer explained. “Eight dead and almost 30 missing; they seem to be taking prisoners; several of them have been children.”
“From the descriptions we got, we’re still not sure who or what is doing it. They’re ‘frog people’ of some kind, but they sound like they’re too small and colorful to be bullywugs and they’re definitely too hostile to be gripplis.”
“Trackers after the first incident said the tracks dead-ended in the middle of an open field. Trackers after the second incident never came back. We’re stretched out all over trying to find these people and we’ve got nobody to follow this newest trail; and the longer we wait, the less likely we’re going to find them.”
The woman was nearly in tears with relief when the PCs agreed to go look. “Gods bless you! The village is called Micanopy. Take the south-east road out and follow the signs; it’s not too far out of town.”
Though he’d never encountered one, Klein had once read about a third species of frog-like humanoids called ‘Grung’. Smaller than bullywugs but more hostile than gripplis, they seemed to fit the description; but as far as he knew, they were only found in the Depths of Kari.
As the officer indicated, Micanopy wasn’t at all hard to find; and the PCs got there by mid-morning. The dead and wounded were already being tended to; the big worry now was the missing.
Imani wasn’t the greatest tracker; but with Elodwn and Hanahop both temporarily out of availability, she was the best that the group had. She wasn’t able to determine much about numbers or composition, but definitely picked up the trail of a large number of individuals heading further south-east.
By mid-day, the tracks led into a wide open field of rolling grass; a field which at the moment was flooded in over a foot of water. Klein could tell from the grass that it wasn’t normally submerged like that, but he also saw no indication of recent rains heavy enough to have caused it.
The flooding was substantial enough that Imani lost the trail, but that didn’t really matter. Rising up from beyond the trees on the far side of the clearing was some kind of enormous stone structure.
From what little the PCs could see, it appeared to be some sort of step pyramid; topping out at maybe 100’ off of the forest floor. On the second tier from the top were two enormous tropical trees, and water appeared to flow out from their bases; cascading tier to tier down the sides of the structure.
It wasn’t the most unusual thing to see anywhere in Vhas Aetheria, but it seemed significant enough that someone would have mentioned it or it would have been indicated on the nearby road signage. Between that and flooding, things just weren’t adding up.
On the far side of the field, the PCs found two things of interest. The first was a river; roughly 20’ wide. At the edge of the tree line, its bed just abruptly ended; sending all of its water spilling into the field; which was undoubtedly what was causing the flooding.
Running parallel to it was a dirt road; which again, just abruptly ended at the edge of the flooded field. The PCs again found tracks, which were now far more discernable. It looked as though quite a few humans had gone up the road but not returned, while countless small frog-like bipeds had been going back and forth for quite some time.
After a short distance, the road and river both turned to run parallel to the front of the pyramid; and the foliage thinned enough for the PCs to get a better look at it. The magnificent structure was surrounded by crumbling stone ruins built on bridge-connected stone islands in the large pod surrounding the base of the temple.
Between the edge of the clearing and the base of the pyramid, the road went back and forth several times; gradually gaining altitude at switchbacks and repeatedly spanning the river on bridges of wood or stone. Just before the first switchback, the PCs were surprised to see a house.
While the house was completely unremarkable by the architectural norms of the Western Kingdoms, it jarringly clashed with the ancient stone marvel rising up behind it. Heavy logs were leaned up against the doors and through the windows; clearly intended to keep something inside. Many of the human tracks went up to the door, but none returned or continued further up the road.
The PCs moved one of the logs and found 28 people inside; including the 12 from that morning and a total of 8 terrified children. The 16 people from the previous two raids all seemed groggy and lethargic, and Klein discovered that there was a mild poison in the food which they had been given.
“I don’t know how many there are”, one of the more lucid adults informed the PCs. “There’s one yellow one and one red one; they seem to be in charge. Then there’s about half a dozen orange ones and a whole big mess of green ones.”
Once the captives were all ready to move, the PCs instructed them to head down the road as quickly as they could. “If you hear fighting behind you, just keep moving; we’ll cover you.”
As the escapees ran, the anticipated attack commenced. From where they’d been hiding in the water; several small, green, frog-like bipeds used crude shortbows to fire a barrage of poisoned arrows at the PCs. Armed with wooden clubs and shields, half a dozen orange-colored ones appeared from the ruins; leaping with no effort down the 10’ high switchbacks.
The aforementioned yellow and red ones also appeared at the apex of the pyramid. Armed with a whip and a crude knife, the yellow one was a little larger and more muscular; and he very loudly croaked out from the top of the temple, clearly shouting orders and/or encouragement to the grung who were closing in on the PCs. The much smaller red one was armed only with a staff, which it held aloft as it silently surveyed the battle bellow.
The PCs were ready to battle their way all the way to the top of the pyramid, which also appeared to be what the grung were anticipating and preparing for. Hanahop, on the other hand, had a different idea. Grabbing Imani by the arm, she used her recently-acquired Dimension Door spell to transport the two of them straight to the top of the pyramid; right behind the red and yellow grung.
On the road below, the PCs were outnumbered; but the green grung weren’t very tough and got picked off one by one. At the top of the temple, the sudden flurry of blade slashes and mace bashes caught the two leaders completely off guard.
At the very moment that the red grung died, the entire area went dark; so suddenly and completely that several of the PCs thought that they had gone blind. At the same time, the temple and surrounding ground firmly quaked.
The fighting continued; and just a few moments later, the shaking and darkness ended just as abruptly as they had begun. By that point, Imani had finished off the yellow chieftain; and the rest of the survivors were retreating into the surrounding jungle.
The PCs’ victory elation was short-lived, however. The first thing they noticed was that the heat and humidity had both noticeably increased since their arrival.
The second thing was that; while the immediate surroundings were the same as they were before, the terrain beyond was not. The trees were more dense, wild, and tropical; and the PCs could no longer even see the flooded field through which they’d entered.
Klein frantically examined the surrounding jungle and came to a conclusion. The good news was that it could have been much worse; they might have ended up on an unknown continent or even different plane of existence. The bad news was that they definitely weren’t in Darhawk anymore.
Based on what he was seeing, he was quite positive that they were in the Depths of Kari. His theory was that the grung had been using the temple to travel and raid; and when the red one had been killed, the temple had ‘snapped back’ to its ‘normal location’.
Hoping to find a way to move the temple back to Darhawk, the PCs thoroughly searched its interior; but found nothing even a little bit promising. They didn’t even find anything worth looting.
Depending on just where in the jungle they were, the nearest coast would either be to the north or to the east. Since they didn’t know which, they agreed to just trek north-east and hope for the best.