Recap/Highlight reel of Friday Night's session
Brought to you by @nevergonnarollagain AKA Cookie (02/04/2021)
The session picks up from where we left off last week; everyone who'd been fighting Ivan is recovering from what happened. Jayfice has drunk the potions they took from the potion shop, Rosania has cast a healing spell on Javier and apologised for hitting him with the flour bomb, then he and Harmony have shifted to lean against the potion shop wall. Oh, and Ned has gone off somewhere on his own, possibly back to the tavern to have a drink.
When Jayfice realises that they can understand the grass around them, they try asking the grass if Ivan is standing on any of it. All they get however is the grass screeching that so many of them are dying, why were they being burnt, why were they being trampled on, and everything is agony.
Jayfice glances towards the group of Ivan's crew who are setting up camp; there's probably about 40 of them that they can see and they're working in smaller groups that are all spaced out around the area. Some of them are setting up a fire pit and tents, while others are foraging around for supplies. As much as Jayfice wants to try and take them on, they know that it isn't practical and that they'd swiftly be outnumbered.
Inora comes towards the party with some salves that she'd made with ingredients in the potion shop, and goes over to give some to Javier and Harmony first. Jayfice starts trying to taunt Ivan to make him show himself, but unbeknownst to them they're still talking in plant language; all anyone else hears coming from their mouth is the rustling of grass.
Rosania walks over to Jayfice and tells them they're rustling, but Jayfice doesn't understand what Rosania's saying. They get the idea that Rosania can't understand them and tries talking in Infernal, but all that comes out is more plant noises unlike anything heard on the Material plane.
Rosania has no idea what to make of this and starts muttering to herself, causing Jayfice to panic a little. They start shouting at their friends asking if they can be understood, but nobody can answer. After some thinking Rosania comes up with an idea; they grab a stick from Jayfice's bag and write "youre rustling" in the snow.
Thankfully Jayfice can still understand written common, and writes back that the plants are screaming. When Rosania asks how Jayfice can hear the plants they write "HOW THE FUCK WOULD I KNOW. HELP ME"
Inora comes over to see if either of the pair need salves, and when Rosania explains Jayfice's situation Inora explains that essentially, Jayfice is cursed. It'll take a skilled magic worker to undo these effects, but thankfully it can be done. She asks whether Jayfice wants a larger salve or a smaller one, and Rosania takes the smaller one for them. Inora doesn't question this since Rosania seems to be a druid, and druids can understand plants right?
Jayfice heads into the middle of town so they can see if any of the other groups need help fighting Ivan's forces. So far though things seem to be going ok, and the fights seem to be reaching some sort of middle ground. Neither side is actively advancing on the other, and at the moment it seems that they're having some kind of trench warfare.
Rosania walks over to Jayfice and takes the stick from them again, writing out "you are cursed" in the snow. Jayfice looks at the words, then at Rosania, then at the words, then at Rosania, then stares at the ground in disbelief. Rosania asks what Jayfice did to get cursed, and Jayfice responds that they drank the "special liquids". Rosania smirks when she sees that although doesn't comment on the word choice, and Jayfice glares at her.
Javier and Harmony move to sit by the temple, and Jayfice goes over to ask if they have any writing tools since it would be easier to write on than writing in the snow. Javier takes Harmony's calligraphy kit from her bag and gives it to Jayfice before going back to hugging her. Jayfice goes back over to Rosania and explains via the parchment that there's magic of some kind in the temple that they might be able to use to defeat Ivan.
The pair head into the temple, and Jayfice hears breathing in the back room. They start being as quiet as possible, and Rosania picks up on that and stays quiet as well.
Jayfice tiptoes over to the desk where the egg is and writes on the parchment that they're back and need help fighting before pressing it against the egg. When they take the parchment back they see that their words are gone, replaced with the sentence "What's it worth?"
They ask what the egg wants and press the parchment against the egg again, much to the confusion of Rosania who walks over to the desk as well. A draconic voice in Jayfice's head responds to Jayfice's question with "Treasure," and Jayfice offers to give them the stick, only for the dragon heads on the wall to shoot fire at it. Jayfice yanks the stick out of harm's way and asks what sort of treasure the being wants, and gets the response "Powerful treasure." It's then that Jayfice works out who they're talking to here.
This temple seems to be set up as a place of worship for a dragon arch-devil called Tiamat who has a lair in one of the layers of the 9 hells. If she wants a powerful treasure, there's a chance it might be for an evil cleric that she's the patron of, although she does also like hoarding treasure so it could be for her own collection.
Jayfice explains that we need help to fight Ivan and his army, and Tiamat tells them that due to contractual agreements she can only help with the army, but she is at least willing to help us fight. A contract forms on the parchment which Rosania and Jayfice both look over, however Rosania doesn't understand the language it's in and thus can't determine if there might be any unsavoury clauses.
Jayfice decides to sign the contract, and when they do the sound of wing beats can be heard outside. They run to one of the windows and look out, and sees a dragon swooping down on Ivan's groups and wiping out a large amount of them.
All of a sudden the door to the back room slams open. Rosania and Jayfice turn to see what's going on but there doesn't seem to be anything there. However, they do both sense some kind of movement in the room as someone moves towards Jayfice, and it seems like it might be Ivan.
Panicking, Jayfice strikes out against where they think Ivan might be standing but doesn't find him. Rosania runs towards Jayfice and shouts to Javier and Harmony that Ivan's in the room before striking out herself, however she also fails to hit him.
Harmony makes it into the room first, running to the middle and looking all around to try and work out where Ivan might be standing. After a moment she casts Witch bolt, managing to hit Ivan with it.
Ivan stops being invisible right as he swings at Jayfice with his war picks. He catches them in the shoulder blades and rips towards their chest, and as Jayfice falls unconscious and falls over Ivan stands on their leg and rips it off, causing Jayfice to let out a shriek of pain, which to everyone else is just an agitated rustling.
It's at that moment that Javier walks into the room.
He spots Jayfice and screams, and sensing something bad is about to happen Rosania stumbles backwards out of the temple. Javier ends up zapping everyone else in the room before firing two Scorching Ray beams at Ivan as Rosania runs back inside.
Feeling extremely panicked (and admittedly rather guilty) over having narrowly avoided being zapped by Javier as well as seeing Jayfice be brutally attacked, Rosania turns into an Allosaurus again. She spins round and bites Ivan, although it's not as effective as it could be due to her being really panicked right now.
Knowing he doesn't have much health left, and satisfied at having made the bird unconscious for now, Ivan walks past the Rosaniasaurus towards Javier and Harmony, then attacks them both twice with his war picks, taking down Harmony before turning invisible.
Javier sees Harmony fall down and loses it. He grabs his fire rapier and stabs at where Ivan had been standing but misses. He thrusts forward again, stabbing Ivan through the heart. Rosania spots this and as Javier yanks his rapier free she stomps on Ivan.
However, she didn't count on Javier stabbing at Ivan again.
Thankfully for Rosania, Javier manages to narrowly avoid stabbing her, angling the rapier to stab between her toes at the last second. She swiftly moves her foot away as Javier stabs Ivan one last time before using up all of his spell slots launching his most powerful spells at the now very dead Ivan to make sure he stays down.
As Rosania starts trying to calm herself down so she can turn back into herself again, she suddenly notices something.
The grass noises in the corner have stopped.
Jayfice finds themselves standing on a dock. In front of them standing in a small, 2 person boat is a skeleton delicately engraved with pristine runes and wearing black robes. They walk towards the boat and ask where they're going, and the skeleton explains that that's not up to him and he's just the ferryman. Jayfice can say where they'd like to go, but ultimately it's the gods who would decide.
The ferryman notes that Jayfice has sure made a name for themselves among the gods, and that they seem to be fairly restless. He says that Jayfice possibly has some unfinished business, and that if they were extremely desperate they could try and return to the Material Plane as an Undead. However, he notes that he's never seen anyone do that before, at least not with their soul still fully intact.
Jayfice decides that they want to go to Aborea, but is worried about how their friends will be without them. The ferryman explains that he can't see far enough into the future to say for sure, but that if Jayfice wanted he could show them how their friends were right now. Jayfice agrees, and the ferryman uses his oar to stir the water a little. An image appears of the inside of the temple, and Jayfice moves over to take a look.
Inora walks into the temple having heard the chaos from the potion shop. She spots Jayfice in the corner and runs over to them, desperately trying to stabilize them. After reaching the conclusion that they're dead, she glances over at Javier. Seeing the state he's currently in though, she attempts to lie and says that Jayfice is going to be fine.
Javier looks over at Jayfice and starts saying "No" over and over, grabbing his fire rapier and stumbling into the middle of the room. He stabs himself with it as Rosania turns back to normal, and she runs over to him and tries to knock the rapier out of his hands. She doesn't manage to do that, and Javier stabs himself again and almost falls unconscious, but his hair starts glowing and he sends out some kind of magical effect, stabilizing Harmony. When he realises that it didn't help Jayfice he crawls over to Harmony, hugging her and crying.
Inora casts some kind of spell on Jayfice's body as the scene fades away, and the ferryman explains that the spell would buy them some time to try and revive Jayfice, but that Jayfice would only return if they wanted to. He explains that Jayfice would be able to wait in whichever afterlife they go to, but Jayfice decides to stay at the dock with the ferryman.
They ask the ferryman for his name, and he introduces himself as Kalvaxus. Kalvaxus gets off of the boat and walks over to Jayfice, wobbling around a bit as he does so. He sits down next to Jayfice, and the pair start to converse to pass the time.
Back on the Material Plane, Rosania hurries out of the temple. She knows that people will be making their way there soon enough and doesn't want to be around when they find out Jayfice is dead. She has no idea how they'd react to that, but she doesn't want to be around when they do. She runs back to the tavern to have a drink, and as she steps inside she sees Aiac, Vannessa and Gorgak walk into town.
The trio spot Rosania dart into the tavern, but don't think too much of it. They head over to the temple to find Jayfice and the others, with Aiac walking in first and the other two following a few seconds later. The other group of fighters return from their battles as well, and having seen Vannessa and Gorgak go into the temple they head there as well.
Rosania isn't sure of what happened in the temple. All she knows is that everyone came back in complete silence. Nobody said anything to each other, they all simply bedded down for the night. She knew she should follow their example, but she just couldn't shake the images -- and the guilt -- from her mind.
She could have saved Jayfice. They didn't die immediately, she was sure of that, and she could have made it over to them and healed them. But no, she just had to panic and turn into that big lizard creature again didn't she? Was it a curse from the druids she'd possibly accidentally stolen the wand from, to turn into that thing whenever she got scared? Talaya did say it was possible that she would have upset the druids by taking it...
She sat in the corner trying her best to slip into a resting trance, but all she could think about was her panicked transformations. It hadn't hurt to transform, it was just annoying really. She took out her wand and looked at it, thinking. Maybe this whole transforming thing was a power that druids had that she was really bad at controlling?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wings outside. Remembering Jayfice signing the contract earlier she stealthily moves over to the window to see what's going on, wondering whether or not to wake the others before deciding not to in case it's a false alarm.
As she reaches the window she begins to hear a voice talking. Looking out the window she can see a devilish woman talking to an elvish woman, and she recognises the elvish woman as the one she'd met during her isolation who'd talked about guns. As she listens, the devilish woman explains to the elvish woman that she was feeling generous and was willing to say that the elvish woman had successfully killed Jayfice and let her go free.
Rosania keeps listening as the elvish woman asks if she'd still have to do the "dirty work" for the devilish woman, and the devilish woman tells her that she wouldn't if she took this offer now. The elvish woman thinks it over for a few moments before agreeing, and the devilish woman flies up into the sky before nose diving towards the ground. A portal of some kind opens up below her, which she swoops through before it vanishes.
On the docks, as Jayfice's conversation with Kalvaxus pauses, they happen to glance towards the other end and sees the devilish woman they'd spoken to the previous night walking towards them. She greets Kalvaxus before telling Jayfice that they're going to be going with her now since she owns their soul.
Jayfice asks how that's possible when it was Ivan who killed them, not the assassin that the woman had sent, and she explains that she proposed the idea to the assassin who was happy to take it. Jayfice counters with the fact that it wasn't the assassin's soul to give in the first place, and after some thinking the devilish woman decides to leave them for now.
As she leaves, Kalvaxus tells Jayfice that it would probably be safer for them to go and wait in Aborea or, well, whatever afterlife they end up going to. Jayfice agrees, and the pair get into the boat and Kalvaxus starts rowing.
After a few minutes Kalvaxus stops rowing, leaning over the side and stirring the water with his oar. He announces that Jayfice is extremely lucky, and that they're going to get to go to Aborea after all. Sure enough, a small portal seems to have formed under the water, and there's a view of some mountains that can be seen. Jayfice thanks Kalvaxus then steps off of the boat into the portal and enters freefall.
Jayfice scrambles around flapping their wings in a panic as they fall, unintentionally slowing their descent. Turns out that in the afterlife their wings work fine, although they don't quite register that fact until they land. As they get to their feet and look around, a woman comes out of a cottage nearby and walks over to them before nodding.
Back on the Material Plane, Rosania muses over what she heard outside. She figures that Jayfice is probably in danger wherever their soul is now, and starts thinking through her options. She remembers that Inora revived her and Ned after the fight with "Klilic" and decides that she could ask her if it would be possible to do the same for Jayfice in the morning. Satisfied for now at least, she finally manages to slip into a trance.
As soon as Rosania comes out of her trance she goes over to Inora, who is already awake, and asks what it would take to bring Jayfice back to life. Inora explains that she needs 300gp worth of special diamonds, and there aren't any in this town. Rosania nods, knowing that she doesn't have nearly enough, but hoping that perhaps the others could pool their funds to pay for Jayfice's revival.
Javier happens to overhear this conversation and gives the money to Inora himself, and adds that they'll also need a way to transport the body. Rosania nods again, already piecing together an idea. It'd rely heavily on this magic that she seems to have now, but figures it'd be worth a shot.
Once everyone is awake she raises her voice, asking if anyone knows how to build carts. A few of the group who are fairly knowledgeable about land vehicles figure that they could give it a shot, and head off to get the materials and put it together. Rosania then turns to Gorgak and asks if he could go get Jayfice's body, but Aiac cuts in and asks to go and get them instead. Since Aiac is Jayfice's brother Rosania immediately agrees, knowing that Aiac would probably want some time alone with them in case the revival does fail.
Rosania walks out into the town square and paces around for a few minutes, trying to figure out what she keeps doing (aside from being scared) to turn into that weird lizard creature. Vannessa comes over and shows her the cart, and it...it certainly looks like a cart. Everything has been nailed in pretty good. Was there supposed to be a nail sticking out by the back wheel? Eh, it'd be fine.
Aiac comes out of the temple with Jayfice's body wrapped up, and he doesn't really look at anyone as he places them in the cart. Everyone else comes outside, and Rosania attempts her transformation. And...well...she's certainly a horse. A small horse. Actually, she's turned into a pony. At the very least, she does seem to be able to think as herself in this form, which she'd not really stopped to think about during the times she'd been that lizard thing.
She also hadn't told the others what her plan is.
Thankfully they get the idea, attaching the cart to her before several of them climb into the cart. She’s initially surprised that nobody seems to be going to ride her, but figures that if she can think for herself in this form, it might have just annoyed her having someone on her back.
The group all set off, and Rosania notices that despite her not being a full-sized horse and the cart not running particularly smoothly, they seem to be making fairly good progress for the first day. Every once in a while they come across some kind of small marker leading onto a different path to the one they're heading along, and when they follow that path instead it turns out that the original path was blocked up ahead. She thinks it's strange that they keep finding these markers, but figures that maybe someone was travelling a little further ahead of them.
After about 6 hours Rosania suddenly turns back into herself, and despite her best efforts she can't seem to change into the pony again. The others seem to expect this however, and go about setting up camp. Once they've got everything set up Javier announces that he thinks if we keep making good progress like this we should get to the city in about three weeks. The others seem surprised at this news, but Javier explains; one of the wheels keeps catching on a nail sticking out of the cart which slows them down, and Rosania's pony form isn't quite as strong as a horse would be which slows them down more. Rosania feels a little bad about slowing them down, but decides that any progress is better than no progress.
The next day as the group travel onwards, they stumble upon a small camp. Thinking back to her time in isolation, Rosania figures that it'd be best to leave this as it is and carry on. Before we can do that however, a bunch of orcs come, seemingly out of nowhere, and surround the group. One of them addresses the group in Orcish, and Gorgak walks over and responds. The pair seem to converse for a couple of minutes, then the orcs all walk off. As we continue on our way several of the cart's occupants ask Gorgak what he and the other orc were talking about, but he just grins to himself and shakes his head.
Over the next few days we make steady progress, until one day we come across an area cleared of trees. The scent of rot and metal is thick in the air, and as we walk into the area it becomes clear why; the remnants of a fight between various humanoids and frost giants is spread across the clearing; there's about 13 humanoid corpses and 4 frost giant corpses. They haven't just been sitting rotting though; large carnivorous birds and several dire wolves are feasting on them.
As we try to process this gruesome scene, an immense feeling of dread falls over the group. The wolves and birds suddenly all flee, and Rosania gets the feeling that something powerful -- and dangerous -- is about to make itself known.
That's where we ended the session, and Locke revealed that the conversation that Gorgak and the other orc had was the lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up" translated into Orcish. I spent quite a few minutes laughing about that one! XD