C2 Session 3

After landing amongst the rubble of the tower, [[Rafwar]] sets the heavy tablet of stone down, and says that he will leave the tablet somewhere in [[Ouran]] and take the rubbings he made of the murals to the city of [[Thera]], his hometown. Looking through the rubble, nothing much of significance can be found except for a few beaten up trinkets and tools. The real struggle is that of finding a way to escort the 500 pound tablet of stone. Rafwar intended to take a rubbing of the entire mural, but the tower collapsed so he wants to try and preserve it. [[Henry]] wants to leave Sir Rafwar to deal with the problem, but Rafwar offers gold as a reward in order for the help getting the tablet to his hometown. They settle on tying ropes around the rock with leaves to support the bottom and drag it along. At that pace, travel will take about 3 days.
   In four hours, Henry manages to find out that one of the spells in the farming book is Earth Tremor, and although he cannot cast it, at least he has the knowledge and can inscribe it into his spellbook when he obtains the resources to do so. As they are walking through the jungle, the canopy is very thick and the trees tower over the ground with large diameters. After a while, sunset approaches and the group looks around for any significant landmarks. They are on a narrow path, with a few slightly open areas along the ground. [[Koin]] is a native of the land and suggests they make camp in the trees, which is a bit unsettling to Henry and [[Xodon]]. Xodon manages to make his way up the tree, but Henry does not have the same success, at which point Koin throws down his 50 feet of rope, which stops halfway down the 100 foot drop between Koin and Henry. Henry tries again, but to no avail. As Henry’s falling from his attempt, Rafwar swoops down and grabs him, hoisting him up to the branch 15 feet up the trunk, where Henry decides to settle for the night.
  In the middle of the night, Henry wakes up from his fall into slumber, hearing a scurrying nearby. He starts feeling vibrations, as if something is coming up the tree. Henry lights his lantern and looks down, seeing two faceless humanoid creatures, with plant-like texture and hundreds of thorns on their bodies, climbing up the tree using those thorns. Henry screams, waking up Koin and Xodon. Koin looks around and sees multiple creatures from the direction of the rivendale tower flying towards them, about 2 hours out, as well as the thorn creatures. He then climbs down the tree quickly and lands on the branch that Henry is on. Xodon, who is only about 45 feet up the tree, also sees the thorn creatures and throws his dagger at one of them, striking it in its head, but it keeps climbing as if it was not affected in the slightest and now has a dagger in its head. As it continues to climb, it reaches Henry and throws thorns out at all 3 of them. Henry uses the shield spell to negate damage, but it hits Koin and Xodon. The second one fires and only hits Koin. Henry casts chromatic orb, but this time feels a surge of power, firing at the one with the dagger, sending it falling to the ground burnt to a crisp. Koin rushes up the tree with his sword in his mouth. Koin headbutts the creature but misses and pins the creature into the tree with the thorns on its back. He then kicks it hard and punches it harder, killing it. Sir Rafwar alerts the group of the creatures flying towards them, and they decide to hoist the stone tablet into the tree so they don’t have to carry it. Henry and Xodon both hide, as well as Koin. 10 to 20 minutes later, multiple things dash through the forest. 
  A couple stop to examine the corpses of the thorny figures before continuing. One of them stops to investigate further and sniffs the surroundings before turning towards the root Xodon is hiding under. Another which was investigating the corpse whispers hastily to the other before both dash off. They all stay in their hiding spots for the night and go to sleep. They wake up and Rafwar goes to scout the area. They all begin to walk, dragging the rock along slowly. After about an hour, Koin and Xodon’s minds are empty, only thinking of dragging the rock. Suddenly, the floor beneath them collapses and all 3 of them fall into a pit full of vines adorned with many thorns. As they look around the vines and shrubs nearby begin to form bodies and faces and limbs. They are all the same type of thorn creatures with varying shapes, some medium size, some smaller. Xodon takes out his oil flask and torch, lighting it and threatening the creatures. The creatures back off a bit, but are now in a surrounding formation, preparing to attack. Koin takes out one of his bags of flour, but as if he forgot the purpose of his bags of flour, he opens it and the bag explodes into a cloud of flour, blinding himself, Koin and Xodon. They all see the vines around them start to wrap around their bodies. Henry moves his hands a bit, creating four duplicates of himself. One of the creatures throws a thorn at Koin and hits him. Another goes towards Henry, but he blocks with the shield spell. The third towards Xodon and misses. A shrub creature latches onto Koins leg and scratches it. 
  Another tries to latch onto Xodon but is kicked away. All of a sudden, the cloud of flour lights on fire from Xodon’s torch. Xodon then rushes out to the bigger vine creature, slashing it. Koin dashes towards a thorn creature, piercing it with his sword and sending it flying with a flash of divine light. He then slashes one of the smaller creatures, severely injuring it. The large vine creature attempts to swipe at Xodon but he dodges. Henry attempts to escape but can’t. The small creature that Koin attacked chucks a thorn at Koin. The larger thorn creature then throws part of its volley at Koin, knocking him unconscious, another part at Henry, also knocking him out, and the last part at Xodon, which hits him but does not knock him out. Xodon then starts to transform, his eyes going fully white and the hairs on his back standing up a bit more, killing the large vine creature. The smaller thorn creature tries to swat at Xodon, but he quickly dodges it. The larger thorn creature starts another attack against Xodon. As the thorns hit, Henry and Koin begin to wake up and see Xodon stare down the creature, and the thorn hits a forcefield around his now beastial body before he takes out his sword and rushes at the creature. Stabbing it in its leg and then sinking his teeth into its head and ripping it clean off. Koin walks over to Henry to heal him. Koin and Henry look up behind Xodon to see the dead plant life animating into one big mass of vines and thorns. Xodon tries to attack the beast, but the thorns on it poke out at him and he misses, falling back. Henry throws Chromatic Orb at it, hitting it for a decent amount of damage. The creature jumps in the air and lands between all 3 of them and lashes out at Henry and Xodon. Henry blocks with shield, but grabs Xodon and knocks him out. The creature lets go of Xodon, revealing holes in Xodon’s legs, indicating that the damage will continue even though he is unconscious. Koin runs around the creature, reaching Xodon and reviving him. Henry tries to cast chromatic orb again, but the spell fizzles into nothing. The creature turns towards Henry and swipes at him, but Xodon yanks the arm and stops the attack from hitting. The creature tries to stomp Xodon, but barely misses. Xodon then chucks two daggers at it, one of them hitting and bloodying it. Koin rushes the creature and slashes it with his sword, getting pierced by two thorns before sliding under the beast, slicing an arm off and dealing a crushing blow to its kneecap, flipping in the air and bringing his leg down in a white radiant blow on the neck of the creature, bringing it to its death.
  A sound is heard among the trees, and from the canopy Rafwar emerges and says that he could not find any trace of the darklings that were tracking us. Everyone pitches in a bit of strength to heave the rock out of the pit and begin walking their path once again. Henry travels slightly in front of the group, studying the book and its hidden spells. Henry found a spell named Unseen Servant, and large clouds formed in the sky and rain began to pour. They now realized that there is a large trail being left in the soft dirt by the large stone tablet. Xodon and Koin begin debating as to what trap to set up while Henry stands in the back. Koin decides to set up a trap to hit the darklings with a bag of flour if they pass through, while Xodon sets up a string with a bell to detect movement and Henry gets ready to cast an illusion. They all take a short rest without any interruption and continue on until sunset, where Henry studies the farming book more. The spell he finds this time is much more intricate than the other two, with the name of Arcane Lock. Xodon takes first watch, but doesn’t see anything. Koin takes second watch and hears something in the distance, but can’t tell what it is. Henry takes the last watch and in the very early morning something dashes and cuts the bell trap with one foul swoop, it’s a darkling. Another darkling emerges and attacks Henry, but he blocks. Slowly, 4 more darklings emerge, along with a tall elvish figure with glowing runes on his arm, which now the word avenger on the stone is faintly glowing, revealing that they were tracking the rock. Henry wakes the rest of the group up and Xodon immediately bloodies the elvish figure with a large slash. Koin runs to the smaller darkling on Henry and kills it one hit, but it explodes and blinds Henry. 
  The elvish darkling then looks at Xodon and Koin, and suddenly neither of them can see anything anymore. A dagger pierces Koin’s back, and another piercing Henry, and a third hitting Xodon. Henry puts his hand on his chest, and equips a magical chest piece. Xodon rushes down the elvish darkling, slashing and killing it. Koin attacks a darkling, hitting it once but missing his second attack. A darkling then attacks Koin, knocking him out, as well as attacking Xodon and Henry, both of whom dodged the attacks. Henry throws his dagger at the darkling that knocked out Koin, piercing its skull and killing it. Xodon takes out both his shortswords to hit each of the two darklings in front of him once. He manages to put both of them in a combined headlock and kills one, but is blinded. The darkling in front of Henry misses twice in a row, and as he’s going for a third attack, time slows in front of Henry’s eyes and he moves the dagger slightly and the attack misses. The darkling that Xodon missed attacks him and knocks him out with a strong blow. Henry then throws a fire orb at the one that missed him, and is blinded by its death. Koin wakes up in the process of Henry’s attack, and stands up.
   The last darkling is on its last legs, and Henry hits him with a fire orb, putting him near death. Koin then walks up bloodied, flashing behind the darkling before it can even notice, killing him and causing a final bright explosion. They all continue on the last 2 hours to Ouran and get into an inn. He says that he is going to take the rubbings to Thera and set up accommodations for their journey to Thera to deliver the rock. They all get some drinks and something to eat, and then pass out midday to rest their bodies for the coming day. In his sleep, Koin dreams and hears a chanting  in darkness, which then turns into light, revealing a vast sky and a large looming platinum tree. There is smoke around him that solidifies into a bridge, leading him to the tree.
   A booming voice asks if he is ready, and Koin says he is. As he crosses the bridge, it begins rising and becoming more steep to the point where he is climbing the bridge. The voice comes back and says “then prove it,” and the smoke bridge disappears, leaving Koin to fall. Just as he would hit the ground, he wakes up, along with everybody else, shaking off the odd experience. Koin bribes a bartender into telling him any rumors, and he points to a white tabaxi in the corner and says that we should talk to her. Koin goes to talk to her and she says that her work is more difficult and requires the work of an expert. She then smells him and asks what piece of history he has on him, and Koin pulls out his Xirian coins. She offers him 200 gold and says she’ll deliver it tomorrow. Koin accepts the offer, and she walks out. Xodon tricks the bartender into giving him a drink for a cheap price, and Henry asks if there have been any Dragolians around in the past few days. 
  There have only been rumors of Dragolians in the city, but no knowledge of their whereabouts. Koin and Xodon arm wrestle and Koin wins. They all decide to leave the city and according to Koin “Venture into the mountains and back,” a journey which will take about 2 and half weeks round trip. They spend the day finding the designated equipment. They pay for the room for the rock to stay secure in. In the morning, the gold from the white tabaxi [[Yinta]] is delivered, and they spend the first part of the day chatting and planning out their journey. Henry and Xodon learn that Koin is a part of the platinum church which worships the platinum dragon. This is because his family was attacked and he was saved by the church. Xodon comes from a city named [[Fio]]. They all now prepped for the journey and left anything behind that they didn’t need.