Lark's Landing, Episode 59

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.


32nd-34th of Waxing Fall, 1AL

It's the final day before the 3rd Watch head out to secure a route to the location they are meant to find for a new settlement - though they've already decided that the familiar white stone building they discovered long ago is the perfect location. They go about, doing their last minute preparations before leaving. In the evening, Extang asks T'Zaric about how he got the very expensive diamond he gave Patrick for his healing spells, and is surprised and confused when T'Zaraic is very forthright about keeping treasure for himself. This sparks an argument between the two, with Extang insisting that the rest of the group have pooled their resources, and T'Zaric saying he isn't willing to give up his financial independence.

Patrick leaves to go home and talk to Saul, letting him know he's going off to secure a location for the new settlement and learning that Saul is intending to live in the new settlement, even if it means leaving the ocean side - he says he's too old to be living in an area under the constant threat of war. Patrick then pays a brief visit to the graveyard to pay his respects to the mysteriously murdered dragonborn before going home to sleep - where he asks the strange being known as Yaella who appears in his dreams every night if she knows what has happened to the greatsword once wielded by Balasar - but he derives little from the cryptic response.

Fiaeorri also leaves, the argument not long after, seeing that Logan and Quib are just going to sleep. She arrives at the graveyard shortly after Patrick's departure, seeking to ensure that no one else speaks to the corpse of the blue dragonborn she murdered. Unfortunately, as she was avoiding the funeral and there were many deaths in the raid on Port Noble, she doesn't know which grave is correct - since everyone is too busy to engrave the headstones. She decides to spend the night sleeping hidden in the graveyard on the off chance the widow shows up, waking up early to sneak back home.

In the morning, they set out. There is a bit of debate over if they should walk or fly, but they decide to walk as they're meant to be securing a route - with T'Zaric flying overhead, of course, to look for nearby threats. They choose to follow the coastline, skirting the jungle, to save some time as well as to find a better route for wagons, before heading inland. On the second day out, they find themselves heading into savanna grasslands with the jungle to the south of them. They see no apparent threats so far, but they do see a lot of the local wildlife wandering in distant herds. Extang, spotting some towering brontosauruses, decides to use his magic to turn into one. Quib teleports himself and Logan up onto the brontosaurus's back, then climbs up to ride on the head.

After they have been walking for some time, those on the ground notice the shredded corpses of some creatures on the ground. Before they have much of a chance to wonder about this, four screeching wyverns take flight from the trees of the jungle and start towards them. The very odd battle starts off well, with a fireball from T'Zaric blasting a couple of the wyverns as they charge in, Patrick summoning up a storm and calling down lightning, and Fiaeorri hitting one with an arrow. As the wyverns get close enough, bronto-Extang whips one with his tail, Logan hits one that targets him with his axe, and Quib uses a spell to send one tumbling to the ground, rolling with laughter.

Then the battle turns a bit strange. As Fiaeorri tries to stab the downed wyvern with Renn and has to win a battle of wills with the rapier just to bring herself to attack - followed by the sword telepathically complaining to her about being stabbed into things and getting covered in gross ichor. Up on bronto-Extang's back, Logan gets hurt by one of the wyverns and flies into a rage, attacking what's closest to him - including the brontosaurus he's standing on.

Quib manages to use a spell to turn Logan's attentions away from Extang, but the paladin keeps attacking wildly in a blind rage, casting the powerful magic from his axe and hitting friend and foe alike. Fiaeorri finds that she's having trouble hitting anything with the distracting Renn screeching complaints inside her head, so she finally cleans the blade for a bit of peace and quiet.

One by one the wyverns fall - one in a dazzling display of electricity from Renn that electrifies Fiaeorri as well as the target - but when all the enemies are dead, Logan keeps fighting. He leaps off the back of the brontosaurus, landing a blow on Fiaeorri and knocking Patrick unconscious. T'Zaric wraps Logan in an illusion of being inside a cave and tells the others not to attack him - but that doesn't stop Extang from reverting to his own form and making a magical hole form under the paladin, of Quib from making the axe grow so hot that Logan drops it.

Miraculously, however, being isolated in that illusory cave seems to calm Logan down, returning him to his usual self. The rest of the 3rd Watch storm over, demanding to know what was going on. Patrick tries to convince Logan to part with the axe, but Logan finds himself unwilling to part with it...


And that's where this week's game session ends. Check back in another week to see how events unfold in Episode 60.