Lark's Landing, Episode 22

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.


35th of Waxing Summer - 8th of Waning Summer, 0AL

Having slain a pride of lions to make it safe for a caravan from the settlement to harvest the field of blue grass, the adventurers find themselves quite worn out and in need of a rest. However, they also need to decide what to do with all the lion corpses they have. Stor and Balasar each claim a lion hide, and Kordak takes the head of the biggest one, but they need to decide what to do with the rest. There is a lot of meat here that would be very useful for the settlement, if only they could find a way to get it there.

They discuss many possibilities, many of which revolve around a spell Balasar can cast that will preserve the corpses for ten days. Eventually, they decide that there is simply no way they can get all the meat home without spending the next month or so working at it (this does, however, lead to a conversation about trying to get a magical bag of holding). Nevertheless, they spend the rest of the day and night at the cave, allowing Balasar time to take a closer look around. He doesn't discover anything more, but he is able to decipher a bit more about the paintings covering the walls - figuring out that they are representing hoards of monsters (including dragons, giants, orcs, goblins, and many others) destroying cities and killing people.

Akta spends her time drawing missing person posters with pictures of Shend, one of which she posts outside the cave.

In the morning, Balasar preserves three of the lions and they painstakingly drag them back to the white stone building, which the goblins have succeeded in getting it slightly cleaner. There, Extang cooks up one of the lions using the various seasonings he has with him. They then cut one of the other lions in half, leaving half out for the goblins and sealing the other half, along with the third lion, in the secret room. Akta hangs another one of her posters on the building.

They head off for the settlement a little after noon, getting in a good half-day's travel. On the morning of the fourth day of their journey, while in the jungle, they hear a tromping sound. Identifying that it is coming in their direction, the group position themselves behind trees, with Stor actually hiding.

From out of the jungle comes charging a large iron-plated bull. It runs right past them. Extang recognises it as a gorgon and says he thinks they can handle it, so Akta hits it with a blast of eldritch energy. The gorgon skids to a halt, turning to face whatever assaulted it. Kordak and Stor run up, with Kordak throwing a couple of axes that glance off the beast's hide and Stor lashing at it with a whip of water, which it avoids the brunt of the damage from.

Extang then casts a spell on Kordak, making him grow to a size almost as large as the Gorgon, then launches a minor spell at it that misses. Akta and Balasar also cast spells that fail to pierce the creature's tough hide, but Akta's hex manages to take hold, affecting the beast's strength.

Infuriated by all these attacks, the Gorgon takes a couple steps back, pawing at the ground, then charges straight into Kordak, nearly knocking him off his feet and goring him with its horns. The enlarged Kordak tries to counter by grappling the Gorgon, but it manages to throw him off. Spells start flying at it from the others - most missing, but a few finding their mark. Stor hits it with another water whip, managing to knock it to the ground.

Even angrier now, the creature climbs to its feet and breathes a cloud of greenish gas over Kordak and Stor. They both feel the unnerving sensation of their limbs trying to turn to stone, but they shake off the magic and Kordak successfully grapples it this time. This struggle of straight up strength keeps it occupied while the others continue to attack, until Stor finally brings it down with a well-placed stab of his spear.

Kordak pries up enough of the metal plating to cut off the gorgon's head. Stor collects some of its blood and Balasar - with great difficulty - pulls off a couple of the iron plates that made up the beast's skin. They decide that its flesh probably isn't suitable for eating.

They continue home, arriving in the afternoon on the 1st of Waning Summer - the day of the Summer Festival, celebrating Oa, god of summer, agriculture, loyalty, and devotion. Akta and Stor head to the celebration, finding Natat and giving her the seeds they collected and telling them that the lions have been taken care of. Natat is delighted, and says they've had a wagon built for the harvesting mission, but she's also a little grumpy about needing to work during the festival. Stor then joins the festivities by making fresh fruit juice and using his elemental skills to chill it before handing it out and later joins Wyatt and the other musicians. Akta wanders her way over to the house Gilligan is constructing for Triena to spend some time with baby Chance.

Extang heads to his own house to check on his garden, while Kordak takes his two new heads to the anthill he's been using to clean the skulls. Balasar heads over Feryon's swaying tower to ask the wizard if he can make a bag of holding. Feryon insists that he's far too busy, but, after some thought, admits to having a bag of holding that he doesn't entirely need anymore. He's willing to part with it in exchange for Balasar and his friends bringing him any magical items they find - saying that he's looking for something and he doesn't know exactly what it is, but he'll know when he finds it, and when he does he will accept it as trade.

Balasar immediately thinks of Mirinrie's Anvil, a magical artefact made by a goddess. However, he needs to check with his friends before revealing its presence to Feryon. He goes home, finding only Kordak there. They agree that they need to make sure Gorbosh, whom they gave the anvil to, is okay with the possibility of losing it to the wizard. They go to check, and Gorbosh says he's be sad to lose it, but it's more theirs than his. He also gives Kordak the head of a great axe he'd asked for, saying he hasn't found someone to make the haft yet. Before they leave, Balasar gives Gorbosh the two iron plates he'd prised from the Gorgon.

The two then go to Feryon to tell him about the anvil. The wizard asks them about it, and says it's not what he's looking for - and he advises Kordak to find a cleric to remove the magic the anvil wrought on him, because no one should have their personality controlled by magic. Balasar tries, but he doesn't have any spells powerful enough. However, in spite of not getting the item he wanted, Feryon gives them the bag of holding anyway, trusting them to eventually bring him what he wants.

Balasar heads home, and Kordak - after thinking very hard about it - goes to speak with Orfo to get a haft made for his great axe. Since it isn't an arrow, Orfo isn't particularly interested, but he's willing. He becomes a bit more enthusiastic when Kordak tells him to think of it as a really big arrow.

Eventually everyone goes home to retire for the night. In the morning, Balasar takes Stor and his magic items to Feryon, just in case one of those items is what the wizard is looking for. They aren't, so they return to the others and head out into the jungle.

On their last trip home with Shend, the ranger had noted that the sickly portion of the jungle (where they had encountered strange living plant-creatures) had grown a minuscule amount. The party wishes to investigate this, as it could prove to be a threat to the settlement. They get there late on the second day and find a surprise - the boundary of the sickly jungle has been marked with half-made arrows stuck into the ground. They suspect Shend is responsible for this, but they don't know for certain.

Balasar casts a spell to help conceal their passage, and they all enter very stealthily. Stor sets course for where he guesses the middle is. It takes them an hour to get there, sneaking their way through the withered, sickened plants with occasional glimpses of living plants - some of which are humanoid while others look just like vines swinging through the trees. They look around, but find nothing beyond what they saw elsewhere, though their closer examination reveals green-yellow veins running up the trees from their roots.

The group hurries the rest of the way through, not wanting to spend the night in this dismal place, and make camp on the edge of the savanna. In the morning, they sneak back in, doing a more thorough search of the area. This time they find what looks like it could be the centre of the problem: 3 huge trees with large yellow-green veins that Stor believes are pumping something into the ground. However, the area is swarming with plant-creatures and they decide that this isn't the time to deal with the situation. It is certainly a problem - one that's dangerously close to home - but a slow-growing one that can be dealt with later. They sneak their way out and return home.

They arrive home late in the evening on the 7th of Waning Summer. Everyone heads to their respective homes for the night. In the morning, Stor remembers that they haven't told the council about the book they found in the lion's den and goes to show it to Hargrom. However, the dwarf doesn't read elvish, so Stor makes a translation for him.

Kordak and Balasar go to visit Orfo, collecting the completed haft for Kordak's greataxe and showing him one of the arrows that had been marking the sickly part of the jungle. Orfo is able to confirm that it's Shend's work - saying that the dwarf needs to practice more and get more training. He misses his apprentice.

On the way home, Kordak and Balasar ask around about an alchemist. Kordak is thinking about mixing some kind of poison to deal with the living plants. They do find out about an alchemist, but it's one of the crazy short creatures living on their own little herb farm - the ones who had chased off Gilligan with an axe.

Stor joins the two and they cautiously go to investigate. They politely remain on the edge of the property and call out to the creature they see meticulously working in the garden. When they say they're looking for an alchemist, the creature calls out to Fonofo, the other one, who - believing these people to be interesting in alchemy - begins talking their ears off about chemicals. Kordak offers the correction that they're looking to have a concoction made up, which leads Fonofo to say they need more glass for their equipment, and then somehow circling around to believing that these three are bringing the glass that was requested.

Kordak patiently explains that they want to poison some living plants - at which points the two short creatures panic, believing that if plants are walking around the world must be coming to an end. They flee to their house. Stor and Balasar remain behind while Kordak goes to try to calm the creatures and set the situation straight. Unfortunately he's unable to convince them the he isn't a walking plant that has come to eat them. He eventually gives up and leaves when they charge out of their house swinging an axe that looks too big for them.

He rejoins Stor and Balasar. When Gilligan had first come to them with word of these creatures, they had believed his concerns about them to be exaggerated. Now they aren't so certain, though Kordak seems to still be willing to give them a chance - he thinks they can be reasoned with, as long as they're careful about what they say.


And that's where this game session wraps up. Find out what happens next in Episode 23.