Lark's Landing, Episode 72

Colonial Caerdia: Lark's Landing is a story being told through a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I'm running at a local hobby shop called the Devil's Bench. If you aren't familiar with this ongoing story, you can follow this link to Once Upon a Tabletop on YouTube to hear the start of it or read the brief summary I wrote when I switched from video to blog.

You can find the previous episode here.


8th-9th of Waning Fall, 1AL

Patrick has just crumpled to the floor, unconscious and bleeding out from a double-handed axe blow from Logan, who appears to be quite delighted by this circumstance. The rest of the 3rd Watch leap into action, taking out Logan before he can do any more damage. Extang pours a healing potion into Patrick while Logan is securely tied and placed on the floor with the immovable rod inside his armor. This done, they settle down to wait through the night so Patrick can remove the latest curse Logan has clearly gotten himself entangled with.

When Logan wakes up, he immediately begins struggling to escape, but his efforts seem futile - so he refocuses his attention on breaking his armor so he can wriggle out of it. He succeeds on breaking the first strap while T'Zaric has flown out of the castle's tower to investigate a campfire - which turns out to have one humanoid-looking person cooking their lunch, which doesn't seem to be a problem, so he returns to the tower. When her turns his watch over to Quib, he informs the bard of the fire, then heads off to sleep.

Out by the fire, an elven ranger named Somolor sees a strange shape fly out of the castle, hover over him, then fly back to the tall, central tower. So he packs up and goes to investigate - using his magic to allow him to jump his way up onto the balcony, where he skulks around the outside, observing the strange happenings within, wondering about the context.

While Quib is guarding, Logan manages to break another strap, but Quib hears it and rushes over. Bound hand and foot, all Logan can do is try to headbutt Quib as he adjusts the positioning of the immovable rod so Logan is once again immobilized. Frustrated, Logan begins subtly working at the ropes binding him.

When Quib hands the watch over to Extang, he tells him about the broken armor, which Extang uses his magic to mend. He's more active in his watch, going out onto the balcony and hopping down to the roof, but doesn't see anything concerning since Somolor proves adept at avoiding him. Then, as he's returning to check up on Logan, he walks in just as the ropes snap.

He casts a spell, sending fire to burn Logan and waking the others, but Logan deactivates the immovable rod, jumps up, and hurries out onto the balcony - where he drops the item over the edge. Angered that someone would throw away a magic item, Extang charges at Logan, throwing him from the balcony and jumping off after, casting featherfall on himself so he can slowly drift down to the ground.

In response to this, Patrick, still half-asleep, uses his cloak to try to teleport to the ground - and misjudges by a lot. He appears in mid-air, crashing to unconsciousness not far from where Logan does the same. Quib also runs out, jumping off the balcony and featherfalling himself for a safe descent.

T'Zaric is left alone in the tower until Somolor runs in, demanding to know what's going on. T'Zaric says it will take to long to explain, learns that Somolor has some healing magic, and requests that the elf lets him carry him down to the ground to heal his friend. Somolor agrees, but part way down, Quib tells the two of them to drop, assuring them he'll cast featherfall on them. T'Zaric tries to reinforce this by telling Somolor to jump down, but Somolor doesn't like the look of that fall and is very uncertain about these people. Once again invoking his jumping magic, he leaps off of T'Zaric and back onto the balcony. T'Zaric follows after, apologizes, and convinces the elf to come down again - but this time, part way down, T'Zaric turns himself into mist, allowing Somolor to fall. Quib catches him with a spell, and he drifts down to the ground beside Logan - who he heals.

As Logan wakes up, Extang breathes poison in his face, taking him out again, and instructs Somolor to revive Patrick instead - which he does. Patrick makes sure Logan is stable, then they all get back to completing their rest. Extang spends the remainder of his watch trying to enlighten Somolor on the situation.

As evening falls, they're feeling at least mostly refreshed. Patrick removes the curse afflicting Logan, and Quib says Logan is never allowed to have an axe again. Quib then teleports up into the tower, where T'Zaric slept, bringing with him a diamond ring they found. The two of them agree that saving the petrified Fiaeorri is worth more than the rather high value of the ring, and they crush the diamond into dust so Quib can use some of it to turn Fiaeorri back to flesh and blood - but it doesn't work.

Now turning their interests to the orb in the tower's hidden attic, which T'Zaric believes can be used to control the castle's movement, the entire group is brought back up into the tower. Patrick, upon hearing T'Zaric's recounting of what interacting with it was like, volunteers, and finds himself touching what he believes to be the very large and slow mind of the castle. After a few interruptions, in which he discovers that time is passing far faster than he thinks, he spends six hours communing with the consciousness.

While this is going on, Extang tries to determine a way to save Fiaorri, arriving at the conclusion that he must somehow return her soul to her body from the cursed axe. Quib wanders lower in the tower, finding that he recognizes the lowest level. Seeing no orcs, he makes his way to the library, then to the baths - where he takes a bath before returning to the others.

Patrick emerges from his reverie imparting the information he received as he interprets it. The castle is hurting and wants someone to take care of it, and to be repaired. The group accepts this information, but decide to sleep through the night before moving onward, as it's been a really rough day and they'd like to fix their sleep patterns.


And that's where this week's game session ends. While the game is continuing on, this is also where the recaps of the game will be ending. To read more about it, you continue to this blog post.