15 KiB
The party is comprised of Grunt Rawson the blue dragonborn paladin, Cumburgler the human monk, Vasselina Moistalina the tabaxi bard, and Spastica Autistica the human ranger. They are ex mercenaries that were dissatisfied with their previous trade and, after finding a flier for adventuring franchises, decided to seek their fortune and strike out on their own.
They arrive at the outskirts of the town of New New New Jerusalem, they are down to their last few coins as they struggle to get their new Acquisitions Inc adventuring company, "Nihilus Creatatus", off of the ground. Finding work has been much harder and lower paying than the corporate pamphlets made out, and there aren't hordes of old ladies looking to pay significant sums of gold to clear rats out of their basement. Unfortunately, that isn't corporate's problem, the team are still contractually obligated to pay their franchise fees, and need to make some gold, and soon.
They wander around the town square, hit up the local notice board and find some interesting listings: A notice about a missing pet pigeon called Speckled Jim from Gertrude Blythe, A flier for a local yard sale at a farm, and a request for mercenaries and laborers to escort logging supplies for Verdant Expansion Co to a nearby logging site.
Vasselina Moistalina grabs all three of these and presents them to the party; Grunt takes personal interest in the search for Speckled Jim and the others want to check out the yard sale. They find out from the locals that the town is called "New New New Jerusalem" because the previous instances of it had been destroyed in mysterious circumstances, then later rebuilt; there are rumours of instability in the area in the past.
They hit up a local farm where an old couple are selling off odds and ends, they obtain a leatherworking set, a dog bowl labelled "fido" that Spastica Autistica is convinced is a holy relic and overpays for, and 3 "Happy Animal Friends" trading cards that belonged to the couple's now adult son.
As they are leaving the farm, Spastica attempts to use her ranger powers to locate animals in the greater area, hoping to sense Speckled Jim, but finds about 3000 misc birds instead.
They head to the local inn next where Verdant Expansion Co have a temporary field office setup in a hired room, meet the gnome administrator, Bartemius Fowl, and are given the task of moving a cart of logging goods from the town, to a logging site in the nearby forest. They are offered 250 silver (25gp) each up front, and on their return for proof of completion of the task. Spastica goes over the paperwork, as CFO, and signs it after reading the fine print.
The goods are needed as there have been issues with supplies going missing, mystery illnesses and workers walking off the job, getting creeped out, at the logging site and there is a labor shortage.
The party collects the cart, with the unusually strong Spastica pushing it, after Cumburgler somehow failed miserably to do it himself.
As they head into the woods, the surroundings slowly begin to change and become more fey, with the forest becoming quiet, sounds echoing and distorting strangely, trees becoming increasingly blue and colours in general become more vibrant. There are glowing lichens, mushrooms and saps etc.
Not long after entering this new region of the forest, the party begins to encounter issues; one wheel of the cart suddenly sinks into a mudpit that seems to have spontaneously sprang into existence around it. Cumburgler attempts to show off his strength again by lifting the cart out of the mud, fails, and proceeds to just push himself down a meter into it instead. The party get the cart unstuck, hand it back over to Spastica to pull, and continue on their way.
The sounds of the forest suddenly go silent, fog is rolling through the trees off to the side of the road and there is something large moving through and disturbing the trees with a rhythmic clacking and scraping sound. The party ignores this and hurriedly resumes their journey.
After walking for a period of time, they come back to the same patch of mud they encountered earlier, although there were no branches in the path and it seemed to be going straight, somehow they got turned around 180 degrees.
The sounds of the forest suddenly go silent again, and the same presence is passing by them in the trees as though something is on patrol. Vasselina tries to use his Tabaxi agility and claws to climb a tree and see what is going on, fails, slipping on the wet, sappy trunk, and lands on his head, but is able to see a large blue claw stab down through the fog as it makes its way past. Spastica tries to investigate as well and finds that the creature is a massive blue crab that is perhaps 8 ft tall and 24+ft wide cruising through the forest, oblivious to them.
They move to return to the cart, but as they are attempting to resume their journey, Grippli (small frog people) leap out of the forest and bar their path. Their names are "Leap-Over-Stone", "Mud-Singer" and "Thorn-In-Reeds". They repeatedly call the party "dry-skins" and complain about their kind harming the forest and that they have been causing the situations that have been inconveniencing them passing through. They plead with the party to leave the forest and not help the dry-skins that are hurting their home. The party agrees to go with them to their village and speak with their elders about the issue, but as they are talking, a distinctive bird call is heard through the trees nearby, could this be Speckled Jim ?
Spastica runs into the forest trying to find the source of the sound, comes across a clearing with a pool and a majestic, tall red bird fishing in it. She attempts to approach the bird, identifying it as a "Red Heron", then proceeds to try and have a conversation with it using talk with animals. The bird is most gracious that she wishes to talk with it and begins rambling extensively about its life and other irrelevant things. Not put off by its behaviour, Spastica continues talking with it and enjoys the exchange, until the Grippli arrive, notice it eating their tadpoles from the pond, and throw a spear at it that drives it off.
The party follows the Grippli into the forest, passing by various oddities and curiosities on their way, such as the "opinion moss", that when listened to closely, is whispering and muttering various contradicting opinions possibly held by people on this plane.
They arrive at the Grippli village of "Rootbound Chorus", a rustic melange of huts on stilts, spanning walkways and a series of tiered small waterfalls and pools through the centre with some bioluminescent green water. They notice what appears to be a sick/dying grippli woman being carried by others, placed into the waters of one of the pools and they can see her visibly recovering.
They see some small juvenile Grippli running around that show curiosity towards the outsiders and Grunt tries to purchase "Pebble-On-Shore" for some reason.
Grunt asks Leap-Over-Stone about how they come up with their names, says it sounds like how a race called "Indians" come up with theirs, just looking out of a tent flap at their birth and naming them after the first thing they see. The Grippli is mildly offended and says that their naming scheme is part of their culture and not for dry-skins to concern themselves with.
They continue on towards where they can find "Elder-Thrum-Of-Reeds", a warrior Grippli called "Ripple-Skip" and his cronies intercept them, express their distaste for outsiders and that they should just go and kill everyone at the logging camp, they want war. The elder arrives and clarifies that that is not their way, they are a peaceful people that live in harmony with the forest; its magical waters help sustain them and in turn, they help sustain the forest.
He confirms that they have been causing the nuisances at the logging camp and that they have been trying to drive the dry-skins off through peaceful actions; ideally they want a peaceful solution and seek the party's help. He explains that the continued logging of the magical forest is harming "the spirit of the forest", as all the trees are connected, and threatens the collapse of the ecosystem, their sacred pools etc.
Grunt and Spastica ask what the Grippli can offer them as compensation and end up having to basically explain what material wealth and possessions are to the simple tribespeople. The Grippli offer them some "shiny rocks" and show them a few handfuls of small, assorted, stones and glowing globs of magic tree resin etc; among them is a genuine emerald, although the Grippli don't seem to differentiate between any of them. They are sort of confused by the party's interest in the "shiny rocks", but are quite happy to look for them, for them.
The party travels through the woods back to their cart, curiously the path through the undergrowth now seems obvious and easy to follow, whereas before it seemed impenetrable. They take their cart to the logging camp and have no further setbacks on the way.
They arrive at the logging camp, see magic blue tree stumps that seem to have had the roots withdraw from the soil and curl up like the legs of a dead spider, with holes bored on the tops of them. They meet with dwarven foreman Garrick Stonehand, who addresses them sharply, thinking they are workers or soldiers standing around idle; they explain why they are there, delivering stuff, and are referred to the quartermaster. The party walks into the makeshift office and find the gnome quartermaster, Tamsin Greaves, talking to the VEC mage surveyor, Alistair Venn, who is holding a strange crystalline hand drill.
The mage turns away and pockets the drill (that they notice has a glowing gem on top of it), while the quartermaster is talking to them, signs their paperwork to say they have completed the job and asks them to take the paperwork, and the empty cart, back with them to Bartemius. The group calls him out for trying to get them to take the cart back for free and, flustered, he quickly references a book from his shelf "the art of barter" and tells them that he will pay them 2000 coppers to take the cart back for him. Grunt is mesmerised by this large sounding offer and hurriedly agrees to it, having the papers signed by Spastica, not realising its only 20gp.
While in his office, they notice that he has an immaculate taxidermied pigeon on his wall, with a distinct speckled pattern, and think they may have found Speckled Jim; Grunt tries to negotiate for the taxidermy and Tamsin says it will cost a fair bit of gold, its a great specimen, and they cant reach an agreement. Grunt brings up his HAF trading cards, the neckbeard mage perks up and interjects, having a chat about their shared interest in HAF cards.
While this is happening, the logging crews have felled another tree and there is suddenly a disturbance, they start screaming and everyone goes outside to investigate. They find that hte giant blue crab from earlier has burst from the treeline and attacked the loggers, picking up one and crushing him in it's claw. It does not chase the fleeing men and after linger for a few moments more, it recedes into the trees, disturbing them as it goes deeper into the forest.
The Foreman comes up in a huff, yelling for people to get back to work, but they are mostly fleeing, with the few guards in the camp still moving to see what has happened. The foreman complains about issues they have been having with what should be a relatively routine job; the party mentions the Grippli and their request for them to stop hurting the forest, which causes a stir. Now having someone to blame for the setbacks, the foreman, quartermaster and mage begin talking about how to remove the nuisance and its suggested they poison the water sources in the forest and simply wipe them, and the crab, out so they can log in peace. They talk about how this wood seems to have magical properties and is desirable for reagents, crafting and spellcasting, its valuable and they can pay the party if they can help expedite the removal of these pests.
They tell them to consider it and add requisitions for large amounts of poison, soldiers and combat materials to the papers to take back to Bartemius with the empty cart.
The party head back to the Grippli, tell Elder-Thrum-of-Reeds and co what has transpired; deeply concerned he mentions the Spirit of the Forest again and that perhaps they should be allowed to talk to the "spirit" in its hidden glade, although its deeply sacred and secret to them. They travel to the glade and find a large, gnarled and warped tree in the centre, with the face of a man protruding from it as well as one arm.
They find out that the "Spirit of the Forest" or "Moss-Where-Heart-Was" as the Grippli call him, is actually a druid called Thaddeus "Ted" Bramble who was spliced into this tree during a magical mishap long ago. He hears of the issues with the logging company and confirms that he's sensed it and could feel the trees dying, he has a symbiotic relationship with them and these lands as part of his circumstances.
The giant crab is in the clearing near the tree, with its limbs curled in resting and watching the party, guarding Ted; it turns out that this was a Grippli that had "ascended", choosing to become a forest guardian when the old one died. The Grippli worship him as a god and feed him their magic imbued healing waters that help to maintain his humanoid biology. Ted advises them that he is able to use the strange arcane power of the forest to transmute volunteer Grippli into a guardian for the forest that he can exert some control over and guide.
The power comes from the arcane wellspring under the land, a naturally occurring font of power that was locked inside the earth, until magical surveyors from VEC arrived in the region a century or two ago, started fiddling with these arcane syphon/drill apparatuses and broke the seal on it. Wild magic eruptions started happening at random, causing widespread chaos in the region, destroying the local town of Jerusalem etc and as a druid, he came to investigate the imbalance in nature. He found a surveyor and small team attempting to use the drill again to attempt to extract magical energy from the wellspring into gemstones. Ted attempted to stop them and cast a spell to destroy the drill, unfortunately, the wildmagic caused his spell to go awry and caused a terrible explosion that killed the VEC personnel and when he woke, he was partially merged with this tree, that has only grown larger and absorbed more of him since then.
Its roots connect to the other trees in the forest and into the wellspring itself, giving him awareness and some control over the land; he was able to direct the growth of the trees that had absorbed magical energy over a long time into a natural patch on the wellspring, restoring stability to the region. Now that VEC are back, have rediscovered the area and previous team's research, they are all at tremendous risk again as they weaken the seal and attempt to re-tap the wellspring for its power.
The session ends and the party has a lot to consider regarding their next moves.