Session Summary #17

[Nathan Sherman]

This session was the first where the game went digital to avoid the spread of the Coronavirus! The game won't be stopped!

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham
Q'Tahna, NPC, a Myrian ranger guild from the Nengeli tribe

The party is in the Gethyan village that Q'tahna brought them to. U'gita and his brother Nu'Takie are intrigued with the outsiders and have ofterd them shelter. The Gethyan lack of love for the Amaputu tribe that now wants to kill the party helped in that decision.

U'gita is the leader of his village, one of about 200 villages in the Gethyan tribe. He wears a necklace of bone around his neck. His head is plucked bald in all but the back portion which is a long black braid. He is the villages holy man in addition to its leader. He is a worshiper of the Myrian god Ox'oh'lae.

Nu'takie is U'gitas brother and the villages shaman. Nu'takies head is bald in all but a topknot that he wears in a long ponytail. His front teeth are filed to points. He has a string of bones at his side with runes written all over them.

That afternoon, Akronos gets a Sending from Master Ta'hana, the Myrian master monk of Ynthar.  He says "Another glyph has failed. Activity is staying hidden. Haven't seen Black Sorcerer but know he is working here. What is your progress?"

Akronos replies with: "We are in Myria, nearing 4th skull. With Gethyan tribe. Travel through the jungle is slow but we are getting close."

Theren has a brilliant plan to build a contraption of seats under a framework that would hold the Dasjani stone, the floating rock that they scavenged from the wrecked sky ship. His thoughts are that they can have little Lutheo on the top, covering and uncovering the Dasjani stone to control the amount of lift it gives, while the rest of the party rides on the seats below. Akronos would then use his spell of Mage Hand to push the contraption along in their desired direction. As long as there are no complications, they should be able to make good time flying over the jungle this way and avoid many of the challenges of traveling on foot.

Theren sets about looking for sturdy building material in the jungle and finds a great section of bamboo that will be both strong and light weight. He spends the next several days perfecting his flying contraption, making sure that it will support the weight of the party and be sturdy enough to hold the Dasjani stone in place. The village children are fascinated by the project and Theren takes breaks to entertain them with illusions of tiny dragons flying as he practices his abilities to craft distractions out of thin air.

Akronos spends a full day with Nu'takie trading spells. Most Myrian shamans are reluctant to trade spells with competing shamans that live in the neighboring villages and even less so for trading with a shaman from another tribe. The opportunity for Nu'takie to get spells from the outside world is too good for him to pass up and he and Akronos each expand their spell books, or in Nu'takies case, his string of bones with runes on them.

That night, the party tests the finger and it points to the north east. They ask Nu'takie what lies in that direction.

He tells them: "Several days journey in that direction is the jungle of death, the D'loc Aloc.

In the time of my fathers, fathers, fathers, father there was a demon man-tiger that haunted one of the Amaputu shrines on the edge of their territory there. It would posses tribe members, taking them back to its lair to slowly devour them. Sometimes it would curse a man to have terrible nightmares anytime he closed his eyes. Death became favorable to sleeping for those cursed. The Amaputu tribe in the area tried to kill it and lost many leaders and warriors. It was immune to almost all of their attacks. Outsiders came to our land and hunted it, but they too died. Then one day the demon tiger disappeared.

Several years of peace followed until the Forvalaka (for-vul-ah-kuh) showed up. The forvalaka shifts between Myrian, black leopards and a half-man, half leopard form. The forvalaka are predators which feed on anything but love the taste of humans most. They drink the blood of their prey, and when possible, eat the internal organs, especially the heart and liver. The beasts have speed and agility greater than even a leopard and normal weapons do not harm it. It is said that even some magic can not harm it.

In all of the Gethyan tribe there is probably 50 villages with about 200 souls each. From all of those villages, the Gethyan people might have amongst us one shaman, holy man or warrior of similar skill that can change forms or control the weather or greater acts, two who could cast balls of fire and lightning bolts in the same day, four who could cast a single ball of fire in a day, eight who could make themselves and others in their party invisible, thirty who could make darkness so pure that it would make Dasjani stones plummet to the ground and 12 or 13 souls per village who have the first skills in magic, the gods or fighting.

Several generation ago, one of the tribes, the Buriska, gathered several of their stronger warriors, shaman and holy men to take on the forvalaka. The Buriska didn't risk the tribal leaders but had the second strongest from each village join in the assault. It was a massacre. Many of the Buriska warriors couldn't damage it at all. It killed most of them and only a few survived to tell of the horrors. It took the Buriska tribe decades to recover, something the Gethyan helped with but we were eventually betrayed by the Buriska.

The Amaputu say this is the curse for trespassing on one of their sacred temples. I do not know if this is the truth but the area does seem to be cursed and we avoid it, never hunting in the area the forvalaka hunt and roam, never getting close to give them a taste of Myrian flesh."


The party discuss this and they decide that they should avoid this area if at all possible. If the finger is pointing to that area, they will figure out what to do when they get there.

After several days of working on the flying bamboo contraption, they finally have something that looks like it will work. They have tested it out and it supports the parties weight. They say their farewells to U'gita, Nu'takie and the village and carry the contraption out of the village to a clearing a little ways away. Many of the village children follow them since they have been so enamored by Theren and the contraption he made. To lose the kids so they don't see them fly off, and worse, don't seen the forbidden use of the Dasjani stone, they have Ceress use the Combat Shroud to hide them, then they go into the Snatch Pit with the contraption and seal it up from the inside. They wait almost half an hour for the children to leave before reemerging. They have taken the Dasjani stone out of the bag of holding and tied it to the framing of their contraption before opening the pit. They cover it up so the sun won't touch it and carry the contraption out of the pit.

Lutheo climbs on top and the rest of the party take their assigned seats. Q'tahna is uncomfortable with this use of the Dasjani stone, but he has spent many year living outside of Myria with the sailers of the Pirate Isles so he isn't as tied to the old superstitions.

Lutheo uncovers a small portion of the concentrated Dasjani stone and the contraption is quickly lifted off the ground. Given that just six of these concentrated stones carried a small ship and a crew of 16, this one is more than powerful enough to lift the whole party. Lutheo covers the stone a little bit before the party gets too high and they settle in at an altitude of about 200 feet above the tree tops, probably 300 feet off the ground.

One factor that they didn't take into account when they had Akronos check the weather and see that the skies were clear with plenty of sunshine is what the wind would be like. It is a very windy day and the floating contraption gets pushed along with the wind. It blows the party to the north by northwest, not the north east that they need to go. Akronos tries to influence their direction with his Mage Hand but it isn't nearly strong enough to push them in the right direction. At best, it makes the course more northern than north by northwest.

After a rocking and adrenaline filled flight the party decides it is best to set down on the ground. They have Lutheo slowly cover the stone to descend but the wind is still pushing them along. As they spot a clearing in the jungle ahead they cover more of the stone and drop below the tree line where the wind isn't as strong. The landing is bumpy and almost tips the contraption over which would have exposed the Dasjani stone to the sun and sent them rocketing back into the air. Akronos quickly casts Earthen Grasp to hold the contraption tight to the ground but unfortunately that also damaged it.

They all get off after properly covering the stone on all sides. Theren and Akronos set about repairing the contraption through Akronos Mending spell. This takes them a while to repair all the damage done while the rest of the party stays wary of what might be lurking in the jungle waiting to attack them.

After they finish the repairs to the contraption the party starts talking about what to do next. Before they can settle on a plan, a buzzing sound is heard. Q'tahna screams in a voice almost too high pitched to come from the man, "Horaxx!"

The Horaxx are a bizarre and deadly cross between a dragonfly and the poisonous stinger of a scorpion. They measure about a foot long and are incredibly quick in flight.

Otep advances out in front of the party to take the brunt of the initial wave of attack. The huge insects swarm in, stinging Otep, Akronos and Theren repeatedly. Akronos succumbs to the stings poison and realizes the deadly impact that it has on him. He is weakened, his constitution is sapped and with it his life force is depleted.

Q'tahna moves behind Lutheo and Ceress to take shelter from what he knows to fear. A small swarm of several dozen Horaxx can be deadly but a large swarm of hundreds of them have been known to wipe out entire villages.

The party is successful at killing many of the winged terrors attacking them but they are replaced by more and more flying in. They realize that they will quickly be over powered and reduced to helpless meals writhing on the ground if they don't take shelter quickly.

All in the party except for Theren are successful in gathering around Lutheo. Lutheo uses the power of the Sumerak shield to protect the party with only a handful of Horaxx trapped inside of the impenetrable shield with them. Otep, Ceress and Q'tahna set about killing the few Horaxx that are inside the protective sphere.

Theren becomes invisible to escape the Horaxx attacking him and runs to join the rest of the party in Lutheo's protection sphere. Well timed use of bringing the protection down and then back up lets him in while keeping the Horaxx out.

Since creatures and items can't pass through the Sumerak sphere ten feet around Lutheo, but spells can, the spell casters in the party set to killing off the Horaxx buzzing around the outside of the protection. Since the shield only lasts for one minute and a couple rounds have already passed, they work fast and furious to kill off the remaining Horaxx. Fortunately for the party, it was a very small swarm of Horaxx and they dispatch all of them before the shield fails.

This is where the session ended. The party has just survived a small Horaxx swarm.