a bunch of dweebs play dnd

Wolf does the recap.

We head into the temple, the climb is around 30 mins. Toldar informs Tobi that non-dwarves haven’t really ever seen it. Tobi gives his word, as a “fellow dwarf”, that his party won’t tell.

As we’re walking, a boulder hits Tobi and Toldar. The party notices the remains of a tripwire. Weird. We continue on, Toldar saying he’ll stay back and protect the wounded (coward).

We arrive at the doorway and see two statues of welcoming dwarven figures. Beyond the arch, we see a open courtyard with a gathering outside of a larger dwarven statue. Many dwarves, and two figures taller than them in brown robes. They turn to Tobi as he interrupts a dwarven wedding. They invite us into the ceremony, tho.

Roscoe hands Tobi his flask, and Tobi refuses. The ceremony begings. There are 4 dwarves and 2 humans in the crowd. (Hindsight is 20/20, Toldar said humans don’t know where this temple is.) Everyone except Tobi, who is just jazzed to be at a dwarven anything, notices that the dwarves are wearing armor under their clothes.

Naivara and Roscoe notice small bumps under the robes where they’re concealing weapons as well. All thw dwarves are making side glances at eachother. Roscoe asks Tobi to go check on Toldar; but they notice Tobi start to leave. Tobi asks Ash to go check on Toldar.

Naivara and Tobi fail to make a good distraction as Ash tries to sneak out. Roscoe says “Yknow, this isn’t really our scene so we’re just gunna go......” Ash recognizes the two humans in the crowd. 

Initiative!

Naivara casts wall of fire. Oh god these poor fuckin dwarves. Ash suggests we find out who they work for. Wolf casts chill touch at the priestess. Tobi shoves a dwarf into the fire wall.

The humans fire at Naivara, Ash fires at them and kills one. We kill both humans fairly easily. Roscoe knocks a dwarf out. The dwarves all fire at Naivara, only one hits. The wall of fire drops tho. 

The priestess rises into the air and exhales a cone of cold at Tobi, Ash and Naivara. Oh no. We all pass, then she floats just above the statue. Naivara casts another wall of fire. There are no more dwarves. 

Ash fires at the priestess. Wolf casts Fly- wild surging! She creates a copy of herself. Wolf flies up to the priestess and says “You have 2 options, either we kill you, or you come down and answer some questions.” Roscoe and Tobi hold in case she gets aggressive. She becomes invisible. 

Wolf takes an opportunity attack on her- missing her, but ice knife means a dex save. The priestess’ invisibility is broken. Roscoe misses her attacks. Naivara tries to hold person her, but it fails. Wolf tells her to surrender again. Tobi breaks the wand of magic missile.. gg Tobi, you pissbaby.

The priestess tries to retreat again, and tells Wolf that her friends pressed the attack, so she will not be surrendering. We see her eyes go yellow, her form becoming large, her mouth filling with jagged teeth as she turns into an Oni in front of us.

Wolf and her clone her with 2 ice knives. The priestess is invisible again and she gets away. Ash seeking arrows her. Tobi and Naivara give chase, Tobi now aware that she’s an oni where Wolf was the only one who knew. We all give chase.

Naivara conjures animals; 8 giant bats. She also turns into a quetzcoatlus. Wolf shoulder bumps the priestess, then her clone casts chill touch on her. The bats converge on the oni, bc blindsight exists. They kill the oni for us.

Looting time! Naivara tells the bats to help Roscoe and Ash loot. they aren’t happy about these bats and are able to drive em off. Wolf tries to keep a human bone, Tobi loses it and tells her she can leave the party. He storms out. (The entire table afterwards like)

Roscoe pulls Naivara and Ash aside, and says he wants to do a painting of Harbuck for Tobi. We heal the one guy Roscoe captured and question him. Wolf’s clone goes off to the left path.

The guy who survived’s name is Fallon. We find out the oni was working for his boss, a dwarf named Grumik. Lately, the boss has been taking them on a bit of a treasure hunt. They have a human whose part of the “Stray Dogs”. They killed all of the clerics and, as far as he knows, the oni was the only supernatural employee.

Down the hallways there’s a shrine, then a sleeping quarters. Wolf-clone realizes she can’t hear her sisters at all. She backs out and hauls Roscoe off. There’s things she needs to tell him without letting the other sisters know. She tells him what she can now.

Eladrin are normally able to change what season they are. She’s been cursed, her emotions compartmentalized. Spade is her joy and happiness, Summer her passion, her kindness is Fable. She doesn’t know how to break it. She just needs to find a way to be whole again.

Ash, Roscoe and Wolf go up the stairs in the room we killed the oni. Naivara, 8 bats, Tobi and Snowball all wait at the bottom of the stairs. Upstairs, they see 5 dwarves. 1 ready to kick ass, the others with picks and hammers. They’re digging a tunnel. They don’t see the human Fallon spoke of.

Tobi charges in and gets absolutely wrecked. He fails a death save. Naivara picks Tobi up off of Snowball, and all the bats converge into the room. Snowball guards the door Tobi is in. Human man appears and hits a bat 3 times. Wolf fire bolts Grumik.

Roscoe hits human guy real good a bunch. Ash draws his sword on human guy, trying to grapple him. Ash whispers “Felidae” in his ear and drags him towards the curtain.

One thug misses Roscoe, then Roscoe makes him stab his boss. The other thug hits him. The others in the room hit the bats a bunch. Grumik hits Roscoe, then a bat.

Wolf does the recap.

As we leave, Wolf pulls Roscoe aside. She goes back to talk with the cultists, says she just needed us out of the way. Roscoe insists on following her. Wolf’s proposal is to hire the cultists, to gather information.

She reveals that the elemental shenanigans are affecting the Feywild too, claiming she seeks to destroy the fire cult. In return for them writing down everything they know about the other cults, she’ll pay them. She hires them for 5 days; most of the Kenku aren’t interested.

They reconvene with the rest of us. Naivara becomes our ferry (thank you Blue.) On the way back to us, Wolf asks Roscoe about his laurels. She finds out he’s a branded slave to a satyr named Sybil. She can’t tell who Sybil really is, despite being from the Feywild. 

Wolf says she and Roscoe may have more in common than they think. Roscoe lets wolf read his thieves cant, but not the little black book he has on him.

When we go to leave the cave, there’s a figure standing at the mouth of it. It’s the drow wizard; he tells us that he warned us, and there will be retribution for this. Wolf is told who this guy is, considering she knows almost nothing (whoops).

We make our way to Rikeer. We have to teach him about hugs and handshakes. This will no doubt be a important lesson to bring back to his kind. Roscoe slaps him on the ass and says “Go team!” and he’s told this is an encouragement gesture. 

We continue to the shrine. Tobi summons Snowball, to carry unconscious birb. During travel, Naivara easily notices an ambush waiting in the rocks. She flies down to warn us. 

Gnoll ambush! 3 giant hyenas with gnoll riders, 2 regular gnolls, 1 pack lord. Roscoe tells everyone to back up. He hits one of the giant hyenas, misses second one.

Tobi tells Snowball to back up with the birdmen, moves up with Roscoe and holds his action. Naivara holds a dive attack. Ash aims for the same one Roscoe hit, does that good sneak damage. 

Snowball retreats off map. Rikeer stands behind Tobi and Roscoe. The mounted gnolls fire at Naivara twice and Rikeer once. The hyena gets in range, and Naivara dives at it- killing the gnoll on it!

The pack lord is just barely on map. Wolf slaps Roscoe (why?) and goes invisible. The regular gnolls are now on map. 

The 3 birds form a defensive line behind us. Toldar bravely runs away. Roscoe boops a hyena’s snoot very hard 4 times. Naivara kills a hyena! Tobi holds his action. Ash misses a hyena.

Rikeer holds the line.

A hyena misses Tobi, but his gnoll rider hits. Tobi misses both his attacks. Not using the cult weapons, every other weapon feels wrong. Roscoe feels this too, his fists are fine tho. Wolf critically wounds a gnoll rider. 

Rikeer kills a gnoll!! AN NPC KILLS A THING!!! We’re so proud. 

Wolf chaos bolts the pack lord. She also gets an opportunity attack on him (another chaos bolt). The pack lord tries to hit her but misses terribly. The regular gnolls also miss. Roscoe hits a hyena real hard on the snoot. Naivara dives at a hyena, and Tobi smites it to death.

Ash kills a gnoll! Rikeer kills a hyena! Wolf kills the pack lord- WILD SURGE.... but nothing happens :<. The remaining gnolls rush and we easily clean them up. Wolf finds 56 GP and a pearl while looting. None of the others have anything on them.

Wolf shoots Roscoe, he taches it and throws it back. Rikeer slaps us all on the ass. Tobi punches Roscoe because this is his fault, Roscoe collects the still-fleeing Toldar. We continue. 

We arrive at a secluded temple, surrounded by pools of water in this stone basing area. Hidden on the stone face, sits the temple itself. Roscoe, taking in this fantastic scenery.... pees off a cliff into one of the sacred pools. Tobi tries to push him, failing miserably. Tobi gets peed upon.

Spade does the recap.

Roscoe gets the bird men down. He sits, meditating in front of the portal. He hears a voice in his head and asks them “What do you want?”.

We don’t get to see the reply. Tobi leads the birds to the cavern entrance. Roscoe floats up to a foot within the portal. He looks at it and thinks “close” through Windvane. 

He tries to stick Windvane into it, but stops just short of doing that. He tries again, but doesn’t do it again. Naivara suggests we destroy the weapons. Roscoe hands over Windvane. Tobi refuses to let Ironfang go and has to be knocked out.

Both of them end up in Naivara’s bag. Roscoe + Naivara go with the prisoners. Ash is left with the unconscious Tobi and Spade. The birds are all placed in a cuddle puddle with Spade and Tobi.

The prisoners ask Roscoe if the rest of us are dead. He informs them we are not, and there are cultists waiting for us upstairs. The dwarf calls us idiots. Naivara grabs the Silver Raven from Tobi’s bag of holding. With it, she sends a message to Kaz. 

The awake party members set up watches. Four hours in, Wolf wakes up and attunes to the belt in the next room. She then rejoins the awake party members. On his watch, Roscoe kicks the female prisoner. She thanks him for finding her. They caught her trying to sneak out and branded her a traitor. 

Roscoe tells her our plans. She wants to report back the “The Grandmaster” Roscoe tells her that he wants to bring Tobi to the Grandmaster. She tell him that’s a bad idea but okay. He tells her we don’t know how to close the portal, and that we also have Ironfang. 

Naivara doesn’t overhear this conversation. He bids the human woman “Goodnight, Desna.”

Wolf, later on Naivara’s watch, asks WTH is up with the weapons. Naivara tells her that the weapons are extraplanar. Wolf asks to look at the weapons, Naivara allows her to look at them after Wolf gives her word that’s all she’s doing. All that Wolf gleans is that Windvane wasn’t forged in the Material Plane.

We complete our long rest. Wolf has sprouted a large white beard come morning (which she shaves). Naivara sees her shave it off. Tobi tries to deck Ash first thing when he wakes up, then we all regroup. 

Wolf’s plan with the cultists is to get them to do recon on the other cults. Both Tobi and Naivara interpret this as ‘get them to put themselves in danger’ and yell at her.

We decide to present the options to the cultists and let THEM decide. 

Wolf pulls Roscoe aside and asks if all goblins are this bitchy, as Tobi continues to be a pissbaby. They whisper back and forth. 

We enter the wind hugger room, and the cultists we had tied up escaped. Ash reveals that he has a treasure map, it looks like an older dwarven map. We continue on, getting back to the deep chasm. 

Naivara shifts into a quetzalcoatlus and ferries us across the gap. We collect the cultists who we saved from devil guy. They asked what we did with Oskarr. We told them we dropped him at the temple to Sarenrae and, last we checked, he was perfectly fine. 

We enter the boiling + freezing water room. Naivara is the bird ferry again. As she drops the last few off, the lake freezes. 

Toldar, the dwarf prisoner, asks us what we’re going to do with the aarakocra. He claims to be a man of the cloth, and there’s a well-hidden dwarven temple to Berronar called The Shrine Of The Tender Oath, in the Vale of Dancing Waters. We can tell he’s kinda leaving some stuff out, but Tobi’s heard of this shrine so he at least knows it’s real. We decide to take the aarakocra there, and Toldar asks us for an escort there.

We reach the pit and up top, no signs of cultists. Climbing up the worm tunnel, we see a cultist waiting for us just down the hall. He leads us to the mess hall area.

Naivara does recap. 

Initiative time! 

Roscoe stands in front of a prisoner, the jailor tries to hit him but misses. Roscoe retaliates. He does not stun the creature, but he DOES... get punched real hard.

Ash tries to toss hair dye at the jailor. He misses. Tobi frees the dwarf prisoner, and fails to hit the jailor. The Hadrosaurs sit. Spade wants them to move. 

Naivara holds her action to throw an alchemist’s fire. Roscoe waits until he gets punched again. Tobi almost gets punched, Naivara misses her alchemist fire throw. Roscoe gets punched. Ash misses. Tobi ands the Hardosaurs hold their actions.

Naivara goes giant constrictor, which has blindsight (Thank god. Bad news, it’s only 10 ft.) Roscoe gets punched, Tobi misses both his attacks. Naivara manages to hit the jailor! He’s grappled!!! Ash kills him, finally, and ends our suffering.

Tobi releases the human woman, then heals both prisoners. The dwarf is named Toldar, and the human is named Desna (though I don’t think the party was introduced to her formally.)

The Queen passed through here with 3 bird-looking people. we head out, most of the party on Hadrosaurs. The wind is getting intense; Snowball and Tobi are lagging behind, but it’s fine. They make it through.

4 air priests await us, armed and ready. Initiative! Hadrosaurs go first. Only one gets up to a priest. Ash misses. Spade is asleep. Tobi hits a priest twice. Snowball gets hit once, Tobi gets hit twice. 

The others hit the hadrosaurs. One priest hits snek Naivara with a witchbolt. Hadrosaurs are Still Here. Naivara hit the priest that casted witchbolt... and breaks his concentration. (This is what she does now, ya’ll.)

Roscoe stabs a priest once and wakes Spade up. The hadrosaurs attack and do some domage. Ash hits with his short sword, killing a priest. Tobi hits a priest, who is not yet unconscious. Imagine that.

Tobi and Spade are both missed. The snek is also missed. Roscoe kills 2 priests, then damages the last one very badly, who Ash kills. Spade takes the head of a cultist as a “Ball”. Tobi very firmly yells “NO!”.

We continue on to (probably) fight da Queen. We see her, in a chamber that’s 120 ft wide, 100 ft long. There’s a giant, swirling thundercloud flanked by 3 pillars, each of which has a birdman on it. At first glance, it’s hard to tell whether they are dead or alive.

In front of the cloud, we see the undead Queen flanked by 2 Air Myrmidons. Aerisi talks to us, thanking us for freeing her from the Nagpa. Apparently, he planned to lead us down here. She taunts Naivara, who licks her own giant snake eyeball in retort. 

Roscoe casts Dominate Monster on one of the elementals. It works! And we roll initiative!

The Queen goes first. She says “If you just married my idiot brother, you wouldn’t have taken my kingdom from me!” then throws lightning at Naivara, Tobi, Spade, and Ash. We all fail, but Ash has uncanny dodge. Tobi and Spade are both down immediately. Hadrosaurs are still up. 

Roscoe flies up and stabs the Queen but misses. He tries to stun her on his second strike, fails, and he flurry of blows. Misses one attack. Tobi fails a death save. Spade passes. Snowball moves to the side so he’s outside of AOE. Ash heals Spade + Tobi. (Ash is our main healer this fight. You know a fight’s bad when.)

He then heals himself. The hostile Elemental hits Naivara. The hadrosaurs remain. Naivara gets hit again. The other Elemental goes to hit the Queen, bc he likes Roscoe, as everyone should. (I think he misses tho) The hadrosaurs get nat20′s to hit!! Halved but i’m so proud!

The Queen moves away from Elemental friend, taking an attack. She goes through Roscoe, forcing him to make a wis save which he passes. She goes more transparent, and his attacks go through her. Roscoe goes near the one of the Aarakocra. Spade firebolts the Elemental but misses. 

Tobi hits the Elemental twice, then disengages and moves behind a hadrosaur. Naivara constricts the Elemental. Ash attacks it, too. It breaks free of the grapple, moving, and all opportunity attacks miss.

The Queen reappears, letting out a horrifying scream that hits everyone but Spade. Snowball disappears, his HP reduced to 0. Roscoe goes unconscious and drops Windvane. 

Spade grabs it, Tobi blasts the Queen with the wand of magic missile. Naivara polymorphs into a Giant Ape. She moves under the Queen.

Ash heals Roscoe. 

One Elemental hits Naivara, now that it’s no longer dominated by Roscoe. She’s still a giant ape, she gets hit twice more. The second one goes after Spade, who is still barely up.

The Queen casts a 20 ft radius sphere. Everyone except Roscoe passes, so only he takes damage. A bolt of lightning from the sphere hits Naivara. She goes next, however, and hits the queen with her big monkey hands. She knocks out the Queen’s concentration!

Roscoe flies up to the Queen, and stuns her. Spade firebolts the Queen, then runs. Tobi yells for Naivara to toss him up to her, and she fastball specials him. He hits her on the way up, then again on the way down, smiting both times. The Queen is still up, but looking real low. 

The Elemental hits Naivara a bunch... and her concentration on Polymorph breaks. Roscoe goes down. 

The other one splits it’s attacks between Naivara, Tobi, and Roscoe.

Roscoe goes down. Naivara and Tobi aren’t hit. Roscoe is next, then the Queen.

Roscoe rolls his death save.... NAT 20. He hits her and KILLS HER, SAVING THE DAMN DAY. 

Spade does recap.

We head back into the temple, and take a short rest. We do see the kenku dragging the bird man down the worm tunnel, before we are no longer ethereal. Ash is a monkey for part of the short rest. Tobi summons Snowball, who is then grappled by Spade.

Roscoe takes off his pants, then makes disguise self look like he’s wearing pants, then reverses it. But it’s fun to know that Roscoe can just decide not to wear pants and no one will know. 

We hear voices in the worm tunnel. Spade calls out “Hello???” and the voices stop. We see al the cultists, all wary. Tobi steps up. They tell him that they only wanted to be free, but they’re no longer chill with the Queen. They don’t want to be used anymore. Tobi tell them he seeks to change Yataar, and that we can help them if they can step aside.

Kaz says to prove we’re powerful by killing the Queen. We agree and head down into the pit. It’s dark, and we can hear the distant howling of wind. We come to a fork, and go left because it sounds windier. We keep going left and enter a super chilly room.

A mass of frozen water is taking up 90% of the floor of the room. While we’re standing there, the room starts to get warmer and warmer (just as we’re starting to bundle up) to the point where the water starts boiling. There are small bodies floating in the water, but we’re unable to identify their race. There’s another passage to the other side of the room.

Roscoe safely flies us over the water- even Snowball! We come to another split. We see the remains of the bloody footprints and we follow them to the right. The next room sounds super windy, and there are many stalagmites. We continue going right.

We enter a very large chamber that seems like it was living quarters at one point. Many small, decaying corpses. We ID them as deep gnomes. We see 4 ghostly apparitions appear out of the rubble. Similar to the drow, but with a sparking electric energy. We rollin initiative!

Ash, Spade, and Roscoe hit the one near Tobi. Two are quickly killed by the party. The ghosts zero in on Roscoe, missing him. Tobi kills another ghost! Spade kills the last ghost! This area doesn’t look all that much like the drow temple.

We head left, down the closest path. As we approach we hear a very low chuckling. On the walls of this cavern are multiple chained-up creatures. We see 2 human, who we recognize as the two cultists we had failed to rescue before, and one male drow. Other humanoids, but those ones all appear to be dead. 

In the middle of the room we see their jailor- a large, green-skinned, horned figure with wings on his back. He has a large greataxe.. and we rolling intitiative! 

Naivara knocks him prone. Roscoe stuns him. Spade goes to firebolt him.. and rolls a nat 20! But he’s resistant to fire. Ash hits him for that Big Damage. Tobi hits, then misses. Naivara kills him with her hooves. This fight was one round. Continuing to Stooge Aidan’s Big Fights, It’s Us. 

Tobi lets the captives down. The drow tries to run as soon as we let him down. Spade questions him, Tobi grabs him, they’re all in magical darkness. Spade yanks Tobi by the hand and the drow escapes. He claimed he was looking fr his partner then returning to his people.

Spade finds a bunch of money, Tobi doesn’t notice; Roscoe does. He tells her that she should share, and she says that Wolf wanted to surprise the party with something nice. Roscoe makes Spade sad. Tobi is disappointed.

We continue to the right, coming to the same fog + lightning as before. Roscoe pushes his hand into the fog. He gets shocked, and so does Spade because she was on his back. We end up in the room of the deep gnome settlement and come across that chasm again.

We make a vote whether or not to go into into it and Snowball, the Celestial, votes yes. (he really doesn’t like Spade OR Roscoe). They hit stone about 50 ft down. There is Nothing down there and it was a waste. We continue on, entering a room with a forest of mushroom. Spade recognizes some of them as magic; she knows that 2 of them aren’t dangerous, and 3 of them have healing properties.

There is one that she’s unaware of what it does. There are 2 paths; a windy one, and one with a pale glow. Ash goes to the windy one, coming to another chasm. Spade and Roscoe go to the light one. They come to a larger cavern with a very clear pond in it. They see a carved, exposed stone piece in the middle of the pond covered in yellow moss. 

Roscoe flies out, Spade swims. The altar looks more like a sarcophagus, and less like an altar as they get closer. Roscoe tries to peel the moss back with mage hand and is poisoned for his efforts. He then flies up, Spade on his back, and Spade fires fire bolts at it. It’s very flammable.

There aren’t any traps, they pull the sarcophagus open. Inside, they see a dead dwarf. He’s still in armor, looks like a warrior. On top of him is a dwarven belt. They head back towards the group, not telling anyone about the belt. Spade has it hidden under the robes of the Nagpa that she insists on wearing.

We head towards the windier area. The chasm goes right and left. Roscoe ferries the group across, Ash scouts ahead and sees 1 priest and 8 intitiates. They’re.... T-Posing into the wind. The room is noisy, the wind is going in all different directions, and they’re unaware of Ash (and now Roscoe too.)

The wind is so loud that Ash and Roscoe have a chance to Metal Gear Solid this. They each kill one.... then Ash rolls a nat 1 and we rollin initiative. Naivara conjures her hadrosaurs again. These poor, poor cultists. I’m so sorry.

Roscoe knocks out like 3 in one turn. He kills one of them tho. Spade firebolts the priest, then Ash kills the priest. Tobi knocks out one initiate, but kills the second one because Ironfang had other ideas.

Tobi ties up the 3 cultists that we knocked out and leaves a note saying “We’ll be back, don’t go anywhere :)”. We continue on down the halls.

The next chamber is several stone columns, with 2 paths. Two light sources with burning green fire are in this room. There are several blood spatters and bloodied ropes on the columns. There are 2 figures; one human woman and a older dwarven man. 

Roscoe does the recap.

We go to make camp not underground, Tobi slaps healing into birdman. We find a cave to sleep in for the night.

Wolf pulls the party aside, saying she wants to redeem the cults if she can/ Tobi agrees to try, but he can’t promise anything.

Wolf gets a infodump about the cults and everything else. This was Tobi, ya’ll. Apparently, the air cult has spies in Yataar that Roscoe knows about. Thanks, Roscoe.

This session “Wolf gets exasperated as while the players remember the plot of the game.”

We all go to rest, having successfully confused Wolf. On his watch, Roscoe pokes Wolf. He offers to tell Wolf both his secrets AND the party’s secrets. Their conversation illuminates the following:

Wolf is from the Feywild, can’t control which personality comes out, and has never heard the name Sybil.

Roscoe out here with goblin racism, but says Tobi is “Proof that goblins can be good.” Wolf tells Roscoe to make sure Spade shuts her mouth about Tobi in towns.

Wolf knows about Nerileth. Roscoe tells her Naivara’s entire deal.

Roscoe tells her that Ash is from Anthrocon and, while Roscoe knows little about him, he speculates that the “Stray Dogs” are connected to him. They’re a mercenary treasure hunting group.

Roscoe tells her he’s never actually drunk, and promises to tell her more in Yataar. 

Roscoe is here bc the cults are causing trouble for the people he works for. 

All of this is in a little black book that Ryan’s had since playing Roscoe. An actual in-game black book where he writes all of our BS. Thanks, Roscoe. (Tobi HAS NO SECRETS. he’s immune. Take That. HA.)

Partway through the long rest, once the elves have long rested, Wolf changes. Her hair is bright pink, with cherry blossoms in it, and her dress is made of cherry blossom petals. 

As we wake, Spade has spread strawberry jam on the rations. Tobi eats one, no one else does. She offers more, Tobi says ‘sure’. Then she cuts herself, spreading her strawberry jam blood all over the ration. Tobi is Grossed Out.

She REALLY likes Lucky, Naivara’s pet fox. Birdman tells us to call him “Rikeer”.

We hide him in the cave, then hide the entrance. We give him food, water, and Roscoe gives Rikeer his +1 spear. He apparently had 4 other companions, captured by cultists.

We head down to the air cult. We slather ourselves in the remainder of the Oil of Etherealness we have, the party is Ethereal. Roscoe has to explain to Spade to wait for us. Where Ash’s mud was, we see quite a few limbs sticking out of the floor, now rock. Whoops. 

We explore the temple, not heading directly to the pyramid this time. We enter a room with multiple Kenku, and see another of Rikeer’s companions. Another room contains living quarters. The cultists in there are heading towards the pyramid.

We follow.

They circle around the pyramid and head north, we continue to follow. We come to a plaza with the statue of a dwarf holding a large lantern. They head right, and so do we. They pass a room, more cultists join them. They go into a large open area, where the remainder of the Howling Hatred is congregated. 

We see a large, worm-like creature. It looks mostly skeletal and forms a tunnel, that the cultists are going into. The Nagpa is there directing them. Then he turns... and his eyes are completely normal. He sees us. 

He then casts a spell.. and now he’s in the ethereal plane with us. We’re fucked. We roll initiative and Spade tries to yeet him to the Party Plane™ (aka Banishment). It fails.

Naivara conjures 8 hadrosaurs. Tobi gets a mount, I guess. Roscoe gets paralyzed via Hold Person. For hiS ACTION the Nagpa casts a fireball, on all of us. Tobi lands a branding smite on the Nagpa, astride a hadrosaur. Only one hadrosaur hits on their turn. Ash misses his shot.

Spade conjures 8 wolves, which also surround the Nagpa. In case anyone is wondering, this is what the field looks like. 

The dots are wolves.

The Nagpa centers a fireball on himself and honestly, who can blame him? He kills most of the hadrosaurs, and all of the wolves. He tries to hold person on Tobi, but fails. Tobi smites him a whole bunch of times.

Spade does a big nat 20 chaos bolt. 

Naivara tries to ram the Nagpa, and he’s knocked prone! His strength isn’t great. Spade and Tobi are Confused. Roscoe breaks his hold person! Tobi is still confused. 

Ash misses again.

Naivara tries to ram him again, but fails. He taps his staff on the ground and says “Enough!” And everyone except Naivara is held in place.

Her hadrosaurs knock him out of his concentration tho! Mage Slayer, comin in handy. Spade chaos bolts him again, but the Nagpa counterspells her. Naivara tries to ram him again, but fails.

Roscoe is told to “finish us” and then he goes back to the material plane. He gets one lightning bolt off before Tobi stands right next to Roscoe and nah, he doesn’t want to fight us anymore.

Spade casts twinned banishment on herself and Naivara. Spade, however, goes to the feywild as that’s the plane she’s native to. She breaks concentration. 

We follow the Nagpa in the Ethereal, Naivara is a elf again. He’s going through the crowds of cultists, and eventually reaches a pit. Before he can go down, however....

Naivara turns Ash into a giant ape. Then, Spade twin banishes Ash and Naivara. They appear before the Nagpa. Ash punches him, effectively ruining the potion he just took. Naivara does erupting earth on him, he passes, but half damage.

Naivara has to make an Int save. She succeeds. Later confirmed by the DM to be fucking feeblemind.

Ash misses both his hits. The Nagpa casts a spell, but Naivara’s mage slayer comes in clutch again and Ash is not held in place.

As a note: I will be referring to Fey as whatever season she is. Check this page to see what names mean what season.

Naivara does the recap.

Tobi tries to sit on the throne, crushes it with his monkey butt. Wolf mends the horn. we take a short rest. Naivara turns back into herself, not a Giant Elk. 

During the short rest, we’re interrupted. They see Big Monkey and very slowly back out of the room, allowing us to complete our short rest.

Roscoe attunes to the spear, named Windvane. It’s a +2 spear, with the finesse property. Once per day he can dominate Air Elementals, and he can fire a blast of lightning (2/day). While attuned, he has a fly speed of 60 ft. The flaw is a fun mystery for the party to figure out later.

Tobi de-monkeys, Wolf keeps the Djinn horn. We all start to hear voices, like a large gathering of people. Behind the stained glass window, Roscoe sees the outside of the pyramid. To the right and left, he can kinda see people gathering on the bridges, holding defensively.... and blocking our escape. We see air priests, initiates and kenku. 

As we’re trying to plan our escape, someone calls out “Warriors, we want to talk.” We decide to go out and talk to the cultists. Roscoe makes himself look like a male version of the Queen.

The whole party goes to parley, with Wolf leading the charge. The bottom of the pyramid has been clearned out, and we see the floor with the howling pit of darkness in the middle of it. We walk to the same bridge we used to enter, and Roscoe can see that they’re guarding all 3 bridges now. 

Theres a priest named Kaz who adresses us. They want the spear very badly. Wolf says she’s here to take ovr, and see the original plan to fruition. She says the Queen was planning to sacrifice them all to their god, Yan’sab’bin. Wolf claims that Roscoe is their king now, a king who cares about them, and he wants to summon their primordial forth.

Tobi is Vibrating With Anger™ but keeping his mouth shut.

We hear a raspy voice whisper “Enough” just as it seems that we have the full attention of most of the cultists. We hear footsteps, and the tap of a cane against stone. 

We see a figure unlike any of the other cultists. He’s not human, he has the head of a vulture. He’s very hunched, under a dark, stormy grey cloak. His staff is topped with a human skull. He does not believe Wolf’s shit. (OOC: He’s a nagpa, which i’ll just call him from now on.)

He was the advisor to the Queen, and the one with the real power. Wolf can’t get the cultists on the side of running away from the cult. Wolf casts Suggestion on the Nagpa, suggesting that he “sits down and shuts up.”

A WILD SURGE! The next time Wolf speaks, her words appear above her head.

The Nagpa just... orders a cultist to jump into the moat. And he just. Does it. He then says “bring forth the prisoner.” They bring forth the aarakocra that met us all the way back at The Spire. (Aka: The blog’s second update.)

They propose a trade: him for the spear. We go to the side to Talk™.

Kaz, while we’re talking, is speaking to the Nagpa. The Nagpa summons an apparition of the Queen. He says that she failed quite spectacularly, and that she serves him now. She’s Actually Undead. All the cultists start bowing to the Nagpa.

Wolf casts Fly on Tobi + Naivara. And another surge! We don’t know the effect. Wolf is in Tobi’s grasp, and Ash is in Naivara’s. Roscoe tries to grab the aarakocra... and manages to scoop him up! We roll some initiative, to keep track of our second frantic escape from the air cult.

Wolf tries to shove the Nagpa and succeeds! He is... not strong. She fey steps the heck out of there, not scaring the Nagpa but scaring a few cultists. Roscoe gets to the outside door and opens it. Ash shoots Kaz. The priest tries to Thunderwave all of us, then Ash gets punched a lot. Wolf gets grappled, Naivara GTFO’s with Ash, Tobi gets Wolf out of that grapple and goes Protec mode.

A lightning bolt is fired, Tobi goes down. Wolf and Naivara get shot at a bunch. Roscoe grabs Tobi, Naivara heals herself and goes fast. The Kenku fire through the door. Roscoe closes it, then stands in front of it and tells us all to go.

Ash grabs Wolf and bolts. Naivara grabs the aarakocra then dashes out. She heals Tobi on the way, and he gets out.

The door opens in front of Roscoe. He gets shot by all the kenku... then the Nagpa holds him in place. 

Ash rushes in, and transmutes rock to mud in front of the door, where the cult is converging on us. All the kenku are stuck, as well as many cultists. Wolf hastes herself, and closes the door on the enemies.

We take a short rest. Fey tries to pet Snowball, but backs off when he sighs. We continue travelling, set up camp, and Fey puts Haste, Featherfall, and Cure Wounds (from Tobi) into her new ring. 

In the morning, Fey’s hair is white- her eyes are all white, no coloured parts, and her dress is a tangle of thorns. This morning, she introduces herself as “Wolf”. She learns Ash’s real name is, in fact, Ash and not Yellow. She also learns that Naivara has a real name, but she has people looking for her so she goes by “Blue”. Tobi, the honest idiot with no tact.

We travel a bit before finding our way to the Howling Valley, where we know the Air Temple resides. Here’s our plan: Fey and Roscoe pretend to be initiaties. Naivara is a spider, in Roscoe’s clothing. Ash is invisible. Tobi is... a prisoner because he’s too loud to serve any other purpose. Fey and Roscoe are going to pretend to have captured Tobi.

We get to familiar chasm, and the party manages to save Tobi from falling to his death. Fey’s cover name is “Andello” and Roscoe’s is “Marc”. Ash is already invisible, Tobi is tied up, and we head inside. Moving through, Fey makes a very convincing guard. Tobi is growling it up. We’re all very convincing.

We see a the same stone obelisks we saw before, then we see the stone pyramid. We see a knight, atop a wyvern. Fey readies to slash Tobi’s ropes the minute that things go south. We approach the moat. In the moat, we see a humanoid form moving. We all see many, many shiny things at the bottom. 

The moat is ~20 ft deep, the creature is a bout 12 ft tall. As we step onto the bridge, the wyvern rider lands right in front of us. He buys our Lies that Fey and Roscoe captured Tobo. Roscoe, claiming to be an initiate, and Fey claiming to want to join.

We keep going towards the Queen. We go up the stairs, and there’s a room 5 initiates, a feathergale knight, and a person wearing feathered robes and a cowl. They’re held aloft and chanting in a language we don’t really know. There’s a pit, with howling winds coming out of it. The cowled figure approaches the group. He believes Roscoe’s bullshit lies.

We ascend to the second level. This room looks like it used to house some sort of creature. Griffon stalls, maybe. There are large windows at the back of the stalls. 

We head to the third, and final chamber. It’s 70 ft tall, and 60 ft wide. The ceiling is 20 ft above us and into the floor we can see a etched map of Ti’ar’basil. The room is lined with pillars, which have fine blue drapes between them. We see a half-ef playing a bone flute in one corner of the room, 5 initiates around him performing with varying degrees of success.

Upon her throne, we see the Queen. A bold looking blue elf, lazily holding a fine silver spear, with the a purple gem affixed at the head of it. The gem looks like an eye, similar to the one on Ironfang. She’s wearing a elegant elven gown and she has 2 feathered, golden wings upon her back.

There are two others next to her throne, wearing breastplates and standing at attention. The queen has a tiara made of platinum upon her head. Fey detects that her wings are, in fact, illusions. 

Fey’s smooth talk wins the Queen over, then she starts questioning Tobi. He’s a really, really bad liar but that... works in our favour in this situation. Tobi gets lightning blasted because he’s being an asshole.

It’s all going well... until Fey suggests that her and the Queen have a private audience. The Queen passes, Tobi’s ropes are slashed, and we’re rolling some initiative! This is where this session ended, but i’m just going to smoosh two into one. One session was all combat, anyways.

We’re all Fucking Nervous. 

The Queen makes the chamber windy as hell. Ash shadow arrows the priest. He’s hurt, but unfortunately not blinded. The bard plays a high note, hitting everyone except for Ash. Tobi gets hit with Confusion, in the air cult, yet again🙃. Everyone else is fine tho.

The Queen starts floating then lightning bolts both Fey and Tobi. Fey saves, but not Tobi. Tobi is Very Confused, and yet his first instinct is still to punch the priest right next to him. He misses tho. 

Fey casts Slow on both guards, the priest, the Queen, and the bard. Everyone except the guards fail. Fey gets punched by something invisible, almost dropping her Slow spell. 

The guards go to hit Roscoe and Fey. The guard misses Roscoe... instead hitting his priest friend. Roscoe KO’s the Priest, then punches the guard and manages to stun him! 

Naivara casts Thunderwave on all the initiates and the bard. All the initiates are dead now. The bard is knocked back and hurt, but now dead. The Queen sees Naivara, not a spider now, and starts yelling about how she “stole her throne”. Naivara is as confused as the rest of us. She gets lightning bolted.

Tobi and Naivara don’t save, Roscoe and Fey do. Tobi is knocked unconscious. The Queen still be slowed, however. Ash shoots the guard next to Fey.

The bard blasts us all with Shatter and Tobi fails a death save. The Queen’s lair action is a spell. She goes invisible, still slowed. Fey ice knives the Queen, missing her but the ice shattering hits her. She’s visible again. 

Fey is down and slow is broken. The other guard then goes to hit Roscoe. Roscoe hexes the stunned guy and kills a guard. Naivara healing word’s Fey, then heals Tobi (on 2 failed death saves.)

The Queen lightning bolts Fey + Naivara. Ash kills the last guard. The bard forces Ash to make a Wis save and Ash gets hit with whisper damage. The lair action, a lightning bolt, also hits Ash. 

The invisible man hits Naivara. Roscoe hits the bard a whole bunch. Naivara turns Tobi into a giant ape, and herself into a giant elk. TIME TO DO THE BIG DAMAGE!

The Queen yells again about how Naivara “took her crown from her” and casts a Death Cloud. It knocks Fey out. 

Ash kills the bard. The Queen fires a Ray of Frost at Roscoe. Tobi fists the Queen as a big monkey.

Ash is getting struck by invisi-guy. Roscoe moves into the Stink Cloud to try and heal Fey. He heals her, then drags them both out of the Stink Cloud. Naivara takes fart damage, then charges the Queen. The Queen blows into the horn on her hip, summoning things probably. She does not move. 

The Queen gets hit by Ash, then goes invisible. Tobi hits ger a few times despite disadvantage, Fey does another Ice Knife. Roscoe gets attacked, going down.

Naivara heals herself then charges the Queen.

The Queen Is FucKING DEAD. (Jesse needed to lie down on the floor, despite the fight not being over.)

A large blue Djinn appears. He holds Tobi aloft in his own personal tornado, and does the same to Naivara. 

Ash, noticing the horn, shoots it. He ends up destroying the horn. Fey heals Roscoe with the ring, and approaches the Djinn, telling him he can either “work with us or die.” The invisi-guy then hits Fey. Roscoe grabs the Queen’s spear then tries to hit invisi-guy.

The Djinn drops the tornados on his turn, and thanks Ash. Ash asks him to kill the Wyvern Rider that just appeared and the Djinn is like “Sure thing buddy.” 

TLDR: they’re killed very easily by him mostly. We only helped a little bit. The Djinn GTFO’s, we loot. The Queen had stuff that is probably worth a lot. The instruments are made of human bone. Great™.

Fey does the recap. Naivara says goodbye to Forge, then leaves for Redlarch. She gets scolded by Snowball when she gets back, but we all link back up and head off after Fey drops her books back off.

The day after, Fey looks orange again, rather than like summer. She’s Fable again.

In the afternoon, we come across a figure sat on a small rock. On either side of him, there are elk and he looks very dejected. Roscoe approaches this man. He’s a dwarf, with a big white beard and wearing a red coat. He was coming through with his flying sled but was blasted out of the air by a massive air elemental. He delivers presents all over the frontier, small trinkets. His name is Kristoph Evergreen. (He’s not Santa tho. TOTALLY not Santa.)

We decide to help this poor dwarven toymaker and take down this elemental. We head off and see a big windy boi flanked by 2 smaller air elementals (aka normal sized ones.) It approacheth. Fey hits it with her longbow, so does Roscoe.

One of the elementals rushes up on Fey + Tobi, and manages to hit one of em. The huge elemental moves forward, striking the ground between Naivara and ash with lightning. They take that Big Damage™. Blossom casts Haste on Snowball and herself. Roscoe hits a smaller elemental.

Naivara goes giant elk, then charges a smaller elemental. Snowball and Tobi get flung, and SOMEHOW Snowball isn’t dead. The other hits Roscoe a few times, Tobi uses the Wand of Magic Missile. Ash shoots the one hitting Roscoe.

The big boi shoots lightning at Tobi, Naivara, Fey, and Snowball. Bye Snowball. It moves next to Naivara and the smaller elemental. Fey hits both smaller elementals, then uses her hasted action to shoot big boi. She kills the one near Roscoe!

Naivara hit’s the big boi, same with Ash and Tobi. The elemental enters Naivara’s space (the smaller one), but she does not get flung. Fey misses, but Roscoe hits smol elemental. Naivara kills it!

Tobi hits Big Boy, then lightning gets spammed again. Tobi, Fey and Naivara all get hit and Tobi goes down. Fey strikes it with a chaos bolt, Roscoe punches it, Naivara brings Tobi back up. Tobi misses a bunch and the big elemental spams lightning again.

Tobi and Fey are both down now. It’s starting to flee tho! Ash kills it bc he’s best boy. 

We return to Kristoph and his two elk. He decides to give us gifts as thanks!

Ash gets Boots of Quick Action (aka advantage on initiative.) 

Fey, as Fable, gets a small silver ring with small engravings around it. It’s a Ring of Spell Storing. She gives him a leaf from her dress as a gift in return. 

Tobi gets a red leather saddle. It’s a Saddle of The Cavalier. 

Roscoe gets a shabby-looking tophat. It’s a Hat of Disguise.

Naivara gets a small, palm-sized orb. It shows the sun in the sky inside the orb. It’s an Orb of Time.

As a note: Roscoe’s player was absent this session. (He missed out tho. Ryan u missed the new player AND all the dates.)

Ash does the recap.

Naivara goes to Damascus before we leave. He says how proud he is of her, and gives her a green ivy bracelet which wraps around her wrist. It’s magical and Very Cool.

Ash + Tobi fish, both of them catch 3 decent sized fish. Naivara comes to get them, and we say goodbye to all the druids before we go to leave. Damascus brings us to a tree large enough to fit the party and BAMFs us through the tree. We end up just outside the Everwood.

We set off at a fast pace, because getting back to the Plot™ is imperative. We notice there are far more dark clouds in the sky. Things are very windy, but not severely so. 

We cut to D, our newest player! His character is just now arriving in Redlarch, she notices the needles on the trees are a bright red. When she arrives, she’s met with a strikingly handsome man in half-plate wearing an orange sash. She introduces herself as Fable Feyblossom and she’s here to find a library. She’s pointed in it’s direction and starts heading that way. On the way, she notices the town is undergoing a fair few repairs and there’s a big covered up hole in the middle of town. She books a room at the inn, then goes to find her way to the library.

On the way, she sees a large tornado with a half-orc in full plate trying desperately to keep up with it. Fey twin spells Haste on herself and the half-orc (we all know it’s Feng. I’m just gunna call him Feng.) They pursue it into an alleyway. It goes for Fey, but Feng gets a very decent slice into it. Feng attempts to compell it to duel him, but it instead flies out of the alley.

They chase it across town. Smash cut to the rest of the party! We see an air elemental being pursued by Feng and a elven woman with red hair, orange eyes, and a dress made of orange leaves. The air elemental summons 5 air mephits. 

Feng hits the Air Elemental, so does Ash. At the end of Fey’s turn, both her and Feng are Tired™. The mephits split- 2 to Fey + Feng, 3 to the rest of the party. Naivara conjures 2 giant toads. Tobi kills the Air Elemental with a smite. 

Now, Jesse already typed all this once before losing so they DON’T want to type it again. Long story short: We kill the mephits very easy and they blind some of us and Fey kills 2 at once. Tobi introduces himself and the party to Fey, she introduces herself as Fable Feyblossom.

Naivara goes to the inn to rent a room. She does that, and notices that instead of Kalessa the inn is being run by a dark-haired man. She then goes outside, finds a tree, and just... travels to Yataar. The only one to see her go is Fey, who keeps this to herself.

Ash gets himself armor from the smiths- he gets delicious half-plate. Tankty boi with the good AC.

Fey + Tobi head to the library. Tobi is informed by Xander that things are Not So Great, before him and Fey go to look for books. Fey is looking for arcane books, with Xander’s help. She fibds a good book on how different people use magic, and one written by a sorcerer.

Meanwhile, WITHOUT Xander’s help, Tobi is looking for books on romantic advice. He finds a book titled “Sleeping with Sirens And Various Other Creatures” by Leeman. He is collected by Fey, and tries to cover that book up with an EVEN worse one. He puts them away, and then asks Fey is she’s down to Kill Some Cults. She’s down.

As they’re leaving, Xander pulls Tobi aside. He pulls out a cloudy, glass orb, an Orb of Scrying. He can try scrying on the Air Queen. Tobi gives him the name “Darakalinoth”, a name we heard in the Everwood and Tobi assumed was her real name since she’s also a blue elf.

Xander starts the scry... and it goes through. He sees a throne room, her sitting on the throne with golden wings. There’s a bard in the corner of the room, and in the centre of the room there are various kenku before her. She’s angry about something- some left and she wants to know where they went. She just snaps and one of them is just... suffocating, with no spell from her. The kenku stops breathing- and Xander stops the scry, throughly shaken up.

We head back to the inn, Tobi updates the party. Fey retires to her room to read for the evening and learns a lot about the magics. 

Tobi goes to find Feng, and finds him talking to Harbuck. Tobi is bad at lying to Feng about not being in the Sumber Hills. He also finds out things have been escalating, with the wind and the spawning elementals and the giant tornados spotted north of redlarch. Huge elementals, instead of large ones. Tobi, master of timing, invites Harbuck out for that drink. Harbuck accepts, miraculously. 

MEANWHILE, Naivara makes it to Yataar. She had to go to a tree about a half day’s walk away, but she’s in Yataar now. The sun’s just going down, she puts her hood up, and goes to Forge’s home. The forge is closed for the day, but she knocks on the door... and then hides in a bush.

She doesn’t do a very good job hiding. Forge finds her, but once Forge sees it’s Naivara, she freezes. So does Naivara. Naivara is invited in, they’re both very very awkward and it’s very cute. Forge says that she got Naivara’s letter, and it was the sweetest thing that anyone’s done for her. 

Forge takes out a simple wooden box, a gift for Naivara. Inside the box is a finely made custom dagger. Etched on the blade are 3 hearts, and the handle is bound with intertwining red and blue leather straps. Forge says she’s bad at words, but this is a gift for Naivara. Naivara returns her feelings and they both say they’re going to try and make the long distance thing work. 

Back at Redlarch, Tobi finds Feng. He tells him where they actually were and why, but not who the werewolf in the group is. Then he has that drink with Harbuck. They talk about work, and responsibility, questions about Tobi’s race are danced around, and Harbuck gets SLAMMED while Tobi Cheats and drinks from the Tankard of Sobriety. Tobi gives Harbuck a kiss on the cheek at the end, out of nowhere, probably confusing this poor man.

In the morning, we notice Fey looks different. Her dress is bright green, and so is here hair, and she has flowers in her hair and dress. Her eyes are also green. 

Ash does the recap. 

Flashback to the battle. Kuori’s mother gets shot, and he stands guard outside his home. Another goliath shows up and takes his place, and he heads to go to his sister and the chief. The chief is on guard, but everyone seems be doing alright by now.

The first and second waves are both easy for him... but Ryan has to roll dice for this. Bad Idea™. Kuori is surrounded by the drow. He’s getting beat up, but he continues on fighting. There’s a pale light around him; flashes of elk horn on him, and of the form of a bear over him. He continues fighting, past the point where it should’ve been possible. As soon as all the attackers are gone, he collapses onto the ground.

Back to the party, at the end of the battle. Tobi and the gang go to Kuori’s home and find out that he isn’t there. They go in search of him. We find him- very bloody, with a goliath woman near him. He’s still breathing, but just barely. 

Tobi’s lay on hands has no effect. Kuori says a few words to the party, and I couldn’t possibly write all of it, but a few people at the table were feelin some Emotions™. Kuori closes his eyes and breathes his last. 

In the morning, there is a funeral pyre prepared. Tobi casts a funeral rite on Kuori’s body. Kuori’s family is v distressed. This is v sad. The goliaths that remain will look for the missing and hunt down the remaining drow. We discover the name of the drow’s leader is Xallia.

Naivara buys a thermos and coffee, plus 4 cups. THe next day, we start to head back to the druid circle. Roscoe FINALLY finds out that Snowball is a celestial, and his name is Tobias, and who he actually is. The only person Snowball likes is Ash. because Ash Stays In His Lane.

Naivara gives us all coffee on the way. Coffee spiked with bonerpotion. 3 hours of bonertown for everyone in the party (except Snowball).

As we’re walking, still in bonertown, we see someone in the distance who is calmly walking towards us. We see a elven figure, wearing elegant plate armour. They question who we are, and we’re Suspicious. They look like they’re from Nerileth.

They are looking for a blue elf princess- all of us are on edge at that. Roscoe is in the BG being Disgusting. They say how many archers they have in the forest, and ask Naivara to remove her glasses. She removes them, and the elf turns away after examining her. 

The princess they’re looking for tried to kill her own brother and seize the throne. Her name is “Darakalinoth.” They’re from Ishvalas (Jesse, and by proxy Tobi, has Suspicions abt the air queen.)

After that, we continue on to the druid circle. A thick fog is surrounding the circle; but on the inside, it’s still nice and sunny. Naivara gets the elders together, gets out the sacred stone brandy, and pours the last of the boner potion into it. They oblidge in the toast, knowing not what they agree to. Kasmir leaves, Gero doesn’t care, Damascus asks Naivara what she has done before also leaving.

We learn that tonight is festival, though. It’s called the Fireside Frolic. It’s a masquerade, where people dance + wear masks. Tobi makes and wears a ram mask, Roscoe wears a fox one, Ash wears a wolf mask, and Naivara wears a deer mask. As it begins, many people begin to dance. The who party dances- Roscoe is the best at it. 

We see various couples leaving this dance. A few people approach Roscoe, who refuses because he’s just doing his own thing. An elf approaches Naivara- Laurel. She asks if we’re having fun and dances with Naivara, then her and Naivara leave.

Ash gets a few suitors as well- leaving with another man in a wolf mask named Otto. 

Tobi enjoys dancin by himself, being pretty drunk, then sleeping. He dances with Roscoe for a bit. Tobi awakens at Damascus’, Roscoe on the table he fell asleep on.

Naivara wants to start the ritual now, because she’s nervous about it. So we start the de-werewolfing ritual now that will hopefully not make her into a wolf forever. 

Da,ascus starts a much smaller fire and starts the mixture. He explains that Naivara needs to inhale the smoke it produces. He’s putting her into a trance to try and confront the curse from within. She needs to contain it, not destroy it, if she wants to be in control of it. The smoke in the bowl is slightly purple and Naivara takes a whiff, going into the trance. The party waits anxiously. 

Naivara finds herself standing in a very dark space with a door right in front of her. Through the door, she’s in a very fine elven palace. She sees a powder room, and there’s a mirror and another door in the room. In her reflection, her hair is long again and she’s in a very fine, silk, white gown. She’s lacking all her gear.

Through the door, she can hear a whimpering. She sees many forms and figures but they’re indistinct. They’re all looking at the center of the room, a large, golden cage containing 4 wolves. Two large ones, a adolescent, and a wolf pup. They’re all blue. The two adults are sitting tall and proud, and the pup is rolling around happily. The adolescent is lazily batting at the bars, obviously unhappy being there.

Naivara tries to open the cage. The wolf looks at her, but the door is locked. she pushes in on the bars of the door, popping the cage open. As soon as it opens, the wolf bolts out of the palace. 

The scenery expands to a forest. They’re at a pool of water, the wolf drinking alone. It drinks, then howls at the moon. Free but not sure where to go. Figures of a pale white light seem to appear around it. The wolf weakly steps towards them, and they seem to welcome it. 

The scene changes again; She’s surrounded by flowers and the wolf is a young adult. It seems happy, playing with the great spirits. After a while, however, the spirits eventually go back to where they belong. Once again the wolf is alone, but happy this time. The wolf takes off in a run and Naivara keeps pace with it.

It isn’t sure where it’s going; until it stops in front of more animals. First a bear, then a ram. The three find a crow, then a cat, and they reavel together for a time. Eventually, the bear leaves, followed by the crow. They come upon a tortoise, and he happily joins them. The wolf is happy, with its friends. The path brings the 4 to a darker part of the woods. It doesn’t feel right. 

Then, Naivara only sees a dark cave in front of her. She can hear a low growl from inside the cave. All the animals are gone. She enters the cave. Sulking in the back of the cave she sees a large, shadowy, wolf-like figure. Two large, red eyes, and a body made of living shadow. It howls, the sound it make unnatural.

Naivara is not afraid. She stands against the wolf, ready to fight it. Initiative is rolled.

She holds her action until it goes to attack her. The wolf attacks her, striking her with its powerful claws. She goes to grab the scruff of the creature and succeeds. She tries to slam it to the ground, it tries to throw her off. She’s still clinging on, and yanks it’s ears, trying to bend it to her will. The wolf rears back and yelps. It’s resolve is weakening, but it’s not done yet.

It keeps trying to throw her off, she keeps her grip. She yells at it to submit, that she doesn’t want to have to hurt it. At that, it’s shrinking somewhat. It tries to shake her off again- managing to throw her off this time. The wolf attacks... and misses. 

Naivara tackles it again and lets out a roar of her own. Her roar echoes through the chamber, making the walls shake. The wolf shrinks back into a normal wolf, afraid of Naivara. She reaches out to it, petting it and comforting it. The wolf accepts the pets, then settles back down in the back of the cave, in it’s den.