Session 42 - "Strength of the Wilds" Report

Venen 12, 1247

As night falls, Ambrose Praxidice begins to conduct his ritual to cleanse the tomb (casting hallow).

In the meantime, Foenix Stolnent begins to identify the items found in the tomb and dole them out to the party. The magical items are divided up thus so:

• necklace of adaptation - Ambrose
• adamantine armor - Ambrose
• +1 axe - Olena
• staff of healing - Ambrose
• elixir of health - Thais Argyri
• potion of maximum power - Jacob Sterling
• spell scroll of spirit of death - Ambrose
• voidwalker armor - Foenix
• eversmoking bottle - Foenix
• +2 armor - Olena

Foenix's work is not yet done. After identifying all the magical items in their possession, he sets up his kitchen and begins to serve up dinner for the party with the help of his extraplanar companion, the weasel Mickey (named after Micaiah Louvre).

As they eat, Thais spills the beans on Micaiah: that he had clutched onto the orb for long enough to cause his body to undergo metamorphosis and she discovered it whilst engaging in a threesome with Micaiah and a third tiefling.

This tryst is news to most of the party - barring Jacob, who is confused that no one else knew about it. It throws Olena and Foenix for a loop, though they try to push past it valiantly.

Still, as the fire burns low and Ambrose continues his ritual, keeping far from Foenix and Thais as they keep watch, Foenix demands answers from the paladin. What exactly is going on with her.

She hesitates for a moment, then breaks down. She shows Foenix a hairpin that she kept inside her armor: it's made of electrum, with one gem in the middle of it, a hexagonal, step cut orange garnet. Its plain, straight band has symbols and glyphs engraved into it all the way down its length, which is about as long as the index finger.

Thais asks him what he makes of it - if he can identify it for her. He does so, and tells her that it is good luck . She admits that she doesn't remember getting it, or who it came from. She also doesn't know where she got the wilted marigold that also stays tucked close to her heart. Foenix tells her that she plucked it from a tomb in Brillante that they visited together.

Thais is quiet for a moment, before saying through choked back tears, "I think there's something wrong with me."

Her memory, which has quietly been slipping away for months, has finally become too damaged for her not to notice. She also confides in Foenix that she feels that she is a bad person - even in comparison to the other Fate-Steppers. Foenix dismisses this, reassuring her that she's no worse than any of them, and that they'll try to find out the source of her memory loss.

Reassured, Thais lapses into silence, and the two of them finish out their watch together quietly.

H011-3 picks up the next watch by themself, contemplating the Celestial Orb as they attempt to calibrate to its energy. They notice Ambrose on his solemn walk, swinging his censer back and forth, and ask him about "what comes after" death. He answers that it's different for everyone, but Holly admits that they don't know how they came into being, or when they began. Ambrose isn't able to offer much comfort, but he still offers his companionship for the rest of Holly's watch. They accept, and finalize calibrating to the Celestial Orb before waking Jacob and Olena.

The final pair's watch is uneventful. They play dice together, talking about the new party members. While Jacob expresses worry for Holly, they both agree that Ambrose will probably not be with the party long - probably only until they reach Valorum, Ambrose's hometown.

As dawn breaks and Ambrose, exhausted, completes his ritual, the party begins to break down camp and exit the tomb. They saddle their horses, deciding to head towards Valsáth. It will take them right past Valorum, so Ambrose asks if he can accompany them. They accept, and Ambrose mounts with another one of the party as they begin to ride through the Letalis Jungle.

As they do so, Holly begins to get nervous. Valorum is home, but they do not wish to be recognized (though they do not say why). The party decides, while having lunch, to disguise the automaton. It's not a great disguise, but the cloak, bracers, and fake facial hair and hood seem to bring them some comfort, and so they continue on apace.

The Fate-Steppers eventually reach the ruins of a complex. Whether it's a palace, temple, or some other gathering of buildings is impossible to tell. The stone walkways are about the only thing left, overgrown with grass and weeds. The walls are mostly crumbled, save for one set into a large boulder, and even that one is so faded and crumbled away that it's impossible to tell what was once on it.

Ambrose is only able to tell it is probably a relief of some sort of battle because of labradorite gems embedded in the wall, marking eyes and the pommels of handheld weapons. Even though they're only worth about 15 gold each, Foenix uses the pearler's blade to pry one free as a souvenir.

As he does so, Foenix notices some movement through the hole bored into the rock: something in some tunnels or hole in the rockwork. He points it out to the party, and Ambrose comes over to take a look.

The cleric bends down, staring through the hole. After a few moments, Foenix asks him what he sees. Ambrose doesn't respond, and when Foenix touches his shoulder, he realizes that Ambrose has become a stone statue. A sound from the woods makes him whirl around, blade out, as three basilisks and two large burrowing beasts (bulettes) surround the party, closing in.

Thais puts out a hand, a word of command that causes the ground beneath two of the basilisks and one of the bulettes to begin to spin and churn in a hypnotic pattern. The three monstrosities are transfixed, staring downward without response as Olena lets out a bloodcurling scream, raging as she charges the other bulette, up the crumbling stone stairs and using her great weapon mastery and recklessly swinging at the horse-sized creature. Her lance hits twice, one striking so perfectly that she's able to pull the weapon out and strike again (critical hit). The bulette lets out a cry of pain as dark blood dribbles from the crease between shoulder and body that Olena stabbed into.

Holly takes the opportunity to cast spiteful weapon on Olena's lance, connecting it to the bulette and bolstering its ability to damage the monstrosity. As they do so, their body begins to spark with electricity, as their wild magic discharges, zapping the closest basilisk and the injured bulette with a healthy dose of lightning. It's unfortunately not what the doctor ordered for the bulette, and it collapses, lightning arcing between its foul teeth.

There is only one basilisk that is not captivated by Thais's illusion, and so it lumbers forward towards Foenix. It bites into his shoulder, and he cries out as its fangs nearly clamp totally shut, piercing deep into his flesh (critical hit). Thankfully, his lineage as a stout halfling helps his body resist the poison inherent in the basilisk's mouth. He averts his eyes as he stabs into the bulette's ribs. It lets go, and he darts backwards out of its grasp.

Jacob makes his way down towards the hypnotized combatants, lining himself up before unleashing a lightning bolt that the basilisk fails to rouse itself out of the hypnosis to dodge. The bulette, despite being larger and closer to Jacob, does indeed have enough presence of mind to dodge the electricity (even with Holly attempting to bend luck in the party's favor). Changing tactics, he quickly moves back with a thunderstep that the bulette also manages to fortify itself against. But Jacob is out of the range of the creature and really, that's what matters.

Thais covers her eyes and raises a prayer to Syria, then drops her hypnotic pattern to bless the entire party (besides herself) in the Winged One's name.

Olena, for her part, does not bother to protect herself against the basilisk's petrifying gaze and instead rushes with abandon towards the one that bit Foenix. She once again uses her expertise with great weapons and her reckless abandon to her advantage, stabbing once into its body next to Foenix's wound and then raising up her lance and stabbing downwards through it's skull, pinning it to the ground for but a moment as it writhes in its death throes. She doesn't wait for it to stop moving, instead wrenching her lance free and running to the second bulette and, as her jaw and teeth length into her wolf form, attempts to bite it. Her teeth pierces its hide, and she's withdraws, licking the black ichor off her lips.

Holly's body begins to whir, and from the Celestial Orb a literal wall of light pierces through the clearing, spreading form their chest to burn through one basilisk and the bulette, and trapping the other one behind the incorporeal (but still terrifyingly radiant) wall. The two hit by the wall certainly agree, belling in confusion and pain as they whip their heads around, blinded by its light.

The basilisk in the wall stumbles forward, running in a random direction that just so happens to send it barreling towards Thais. Recognizing an enemy, it attempts to bite her, but she puts up an armored arm and its teeth simply clatter uselessly against her armor.

Foenix wisely keeps his gaze turned away from the basilisk as he uses his new voidwalker armor to send an illusory copy of himself over next to Olena, and his illusory pearler's blade stabs into the bulette next to her own bite marks in its face. The shadow's dagger hits, and he watches with fascination as an illusion opens up the creature's flesh.

The bulette doesn't take kindly to being attacked by shadows, and attempts to leap towards the true Foenix, but as it winds up to do so, Olena recognizes what its about to do. She crouches, waiting, and as it leaps towards Foenix, she springs off her back haunches towards its belly as it jumps over her head. The lance goes straight through the bulette's belly, and as it lands it instead tumbles into the ground, digging a trench into the dirt with it's dead head.

Jacob turns his attention towards the last basilisk on the party's side of Holly's wall of light, and uses his hands to quickly spin up two chromatic orbs, lobbing both at the basilisk in quick succession. The lightning balls hit the monstrosity and it convulses violently before collapsing, dead.

The last basilisk, on the other side of the wall of light, decides that it no longer wishes to attempt for a meal with these adventurers, and begins to run into the jungle. Thais notices and leaps through the wall, getting close enough to strike it, should it attempt to move again. Olena follows suit, using the same combo of her exemplary skills with her great weapon and swinging recklessly. Her lance pierces its back twice, but it doesn't kill it. Holly is the one to get that honor, uses their strange arcane abilities to extend the grasp of shocking grasp to clutch at the heart of the basilisk, and it also keels over dead.

As the wall dissipates, the party gathers around Ambrose's stone form. Foenix takes out Cirvai's recipe book, and looks through it, quickly finding a passage on reversing a basilisk's petrification by using it's own salivatory glands (which return a creature to flesh and blood as its stone form is devoured by the basilisk).

Working quickly (but carefully), Thais harvests the basilisk's glands and the party works together to rub it against Ambrose's skin, lifting his veil and thick mourning garments to do so - being careful to never look at his face.

As he is returned to himself, the party give him the glands to finish restoring his body as they begin to harvest the rest of what they can from the corpses....