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• Aros – Lightfoot Halfling, Rogue
• Galiena Erenaeth – Half Elf, Celestial Warlock / Druid
• Baldur – Human, Pack Chain Warlock (Spear) / Paladin
  • Hellina Kaitlyn Deramu – Human NPC, Wererat
• Wickedstraza – Dragonborn (Bronze), Sorcerer (Draconic Bloodline) – Not present

The party descends down the mountain and despite Baldur urging the others to push on so they can bring this Vargouille Kiss Cure to his good friend, Waesyn – Baldur looks and sees that Galiena, Aros and Ramgor are all hurt – from the encounters in the cavern – as well as the ascent and descent through the mountain – and Galiena looks especially worn, her connection to the Fey and seeing the Cursed Satyr, Ossis, truly weighing heavy on her heart.

“Fine,” he sighs. “You guys set up camp. I will walk around the lake and see if we’re alone down here. Make sure we don’t get a crazy bear attacking us again.”

As Baldur makes his way around the lake – he spots some tracks in the mud around the lake that look amphibian in nature – and also look bipedal. It is difficult to tell the number – because the tracks step over one another – and Baldur is able to determine, due to frequent experiences – that it’s not Sahuagin prints. They definitely appear to be the size of a halfling based on the footprints. Baldur assures everyone that everything’s fine – and that whatever these are – are friendly. The goblins had given them liquor, and the Kobolds were kind enough – all they had to do was help overthrow their chief. “Come to think of it,” he mutters to himself, “the ‘monsters’ on this island are much nicer than the monsters from the mainlands.”

The party makes camp at the edge of the lake.

Aros decides – being reminded that the mangy bear had attacked at the other lake – decides to tie a string alarm around the camp – however, it’s a little loose, and every gentle breeze that seems to come across, triggers the bell – since the bell seems to ring needlessly through the night.

Baldur, since he’s feeling good, offers to take the first watch for the night; and Galiena comes out of her tent to say she will help with the watch. Baldur looks shocked and says, “Well, I guess the date can’t be going that well if you’re not spending some quality time with Ramgor.”

She sternly looks at him and shakes her head, “No, it’s not that. He’s pretty beat up. We could all use a healing.”

“Except me,” Baldur points out, matter-of-factly.

(Because the two players were bantering back and forth, I decided to do Perception Checks at Disadvantage since they’re not paying attention, more for fun than punishing)

The night proceeds uneventful, and Baldur wakes up Aros. Galiena wakes up Ramgor who comes out to take the second watch next to Aros. As Ramgor and Aros exchange stories about their different homelands when they begin to hear the sounds of toads or frogs – not uncommon near a lake – but unusual how loud it is – and how it’s growing closer and closer. They try to gaze through the firepit’s flame, but it appears to be pure darkness that surrounds them beyond the lake.

A number of arrows fly through the air and strike Aros – and immediately, being familiar with poison – realizes he’s been poisoned. Quickly feeling ill and wounded, Aros shouts to awaken Galiena and Baldur.

Baldur shouts from the comfort of his tent, “It’s just Forest Gnomes.”

“They’re attacking me!” Aros shouts back.

“What did you do to anger the Forest Gnomes?” Baldur growls as he flips open the tent and looks around.

Leaping out from the water, several humanoid frog-like creatures appear – and they look angry.

Seeing two people surface from the tents, one of the Grung’s fires extra shots (Natural 20 on Initiative) – he fires two shots – one with a Critical Strike (Natural 20!), however Critical Fails the second shot – wounding one of his friends. In one shot, Ramgor finds himself bloodied (his health exactly where it was before the long rest).

(DM Note – I will often revamp monsters and make lower tier versions of them for the party to encounter – which is what I did here – lowered their HP considerably and lowered their AC slightly but left the damage the same – so it made for a very difficult fight, but gave the party something new to encounter – which, who knows, they may encounter “normal” versions of later and remember how dangerous they were with the poison damage)

One of the Grungs fires at Aros and manages to land another hit – and once again, Aros is unable to avoid the poison coursing through his veins. Bleeding out, Aros clings to a tree for balance. Come out of the tent, Baldur looks around and sees four small, frog like humanoids sticking to the lake. Baldur looks around and slaps Aros on the back, and shouts, “Get back in the game! They’re just forest gnomes!” and pats him on the back, using his Lay On Hands as he charges towards the Grungs in the water, cursing one of the humanoid shapes he can see in the water (since he lacks dark vision to see the actual Grungs in the water).

Ramgor maintains his position guarding Galiena’s tent. Galiena comes out of the tent and looks around and sees both Ramgor and Aros are bleeding profusely; but Aros seems paler in comparison. Galiena moves across to Aros, and looks at Ramgor and says, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to heal him before I can heal you.” Dodging arrows, Galiena makes it to Aros and prays quickly – but the healing isn’t very effective. After the heal, Aros leaps into the bushes and stealths (Natural 20).

One of the Grungs goes after Ramgor, but misses – but the other, who’d been focusing on Aros no longer sees him – but sees Galiena where Aros used to be – and fires an arrow and hits her – and she too, feels the effects of the poison – and rapidly begins feeling ill. Ramgor moves to her side – and gets hit – and also feels the injection of poison from the arrow’s tip. Another sees Baldur – and fires, and completely misses. Baldur plunges his spear forward but misses; and even as he tries to use the butt end of the spear, his spear slides across the Grung’s flesh, but does no damage (missed by 1 AC). Ramgor quaffs a potion, and quickly takes a drink, but it does little to heal him. He places a healing potion next to Galiena and turns to face the Grungs in the water – and it’s clear he’s about to charge. Seeing that he’s still bleeding profusely, Galiena uses Cure Wounds and the spirit – and grants those within 30′ of her to some nice healing.

Aros springs out of the shadows, furious – Lycan Biter in hand and plunges it deep into one of the Grung’s – and he brings his dagger across its throat – it lets out a load croak – as Aros shoves off of it and dives back into the water, using stealth (Natural 20). One of the Grungs fires at Ramgor but misses; another fires at Ramgor also – and despite Baldur being close, causing Disadvantage – the Grung is able to hit him – and inflect even more poison damage, making Ramgor bloody again.

One of the Grungs seeing Baldur too close – begins making a croaking sound with its throat. The sound stuns Ramgor and Aros (The grung makes a chirring noise to which grungs are immune. Each humanoid or beast that is able to hear it must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned until the end of the grung’s next turn) which makes Baldur turn around and shout, “Get back in the game, I said!”

Baldur spears the one making the sound as well as striking him with the butt of the spear. Galiena stands up and casts Ice Knife – however, from being dazed – she can’t focus and misfires (Critical Fail!) and hits Baldur in the back with the spell, causing slight damage – however, the other Grung are able to avoid its explosive effect, except for one of them – who perishes from the ice knife explosion. Baldur shouts, “Ow! Learn to aim! You have done more damage to me than their entire team! I can only block one side, damn it!”

Aros leaps out from the water attempting to slit another Grung’s throat, but their slippery flesh makes him miss; but he dives back in the water to stealth again. As they combat continues, Aros tries to attack again – and misses; and stays there to disadvantage the Grung – but despite that, the Grung is able to fire at Galiena and hit her again. Baldur, having learned his lesson – moves to the opposite of the Grungs so he isn’t struck from behind by Galiena’s misfired spells.

Ramgor decides to remain on the shore, and drops his Moon touched blade and draws his crossbow to fire at the Grungs. Galiena hands Ramgor the healing potion he’d originally given her and she proceeds to heal herself – and the glow heals Ramgor for a few hit points as well. Aros manages to spring out of the water, and kills another Grung. With Aros and Baldur in its face, the last remaining Grung knows the battle has turned – but the two in front of him are too healthy – he plans to at least take out one of the wounded ones on the shore – and despite disadvantage – he manages to hit Galiena, who is yet again – bloodied.

Baldur tries to spear the final one; misses – but the butt end of the spear hits; but the Grung still lives! Ramgor fires his crossbow and manages to hit the Grung – who squaks about being hit again – but furiously lives on. Galiena climbs into the tent for (partial) cover and casts Healing Light. Aros in the meantime stabs the Grung – and kills it with a lethal strike.

Baldur searches the Grung’s bodies; and quickly discovers that they have poisonous skin – but makes his Constitution save to prevent being poisoned. Baldur finds one vial of poison on one of the Grungs. Aros attempts to search one, and unlike Baldur, finds himself poisoned by the Grung’s poisonous skin – sending him into a psychedelic breakdown for several minutes before he regains his composure. He looks back at the camp as he makes his way out of the lake and pauses – something is off.

Aros – still in the lake – points at the camp. “Hey, something’s going on … there’s… more trees now? Or is it the poison? Or is there really more trees?”

Aros blinks a few more times – and is astonished to notice – that some of the very trees he’d tied the alarm bell to are the ones that have moved closer to the camp. “There’s definitely more trees. And either… we shrunk or those trees got closer too.”

Baldur looks around and also notices – that the trees have definitely clumped closer to the camp. “The bells ringing all night,” Ramgor points out, “may have been these trees somehow moving closer?”

Galiena comes out of the tent, hearing the discussion and looks around. Familiar with the Fey, she’s heard of creatures called Treants – but as she examines the trees – she can sense magic, rather than sentient life that Treants would normally give off. It was also unusual that if they were Treants – they did not come to Galiena’s aid, since she’s a druid. Baldur looks around and spots several birds in the tree and uses Speak with Animals – and learns that these trees in this area around the lake have been known to simply, very slowly move around. Galiena, after a moment, realizes that these appear to be what’s known to be Awakened Trees – extremely rare, and typically triggered by powerful magic. Her eyes go up the cliff side that they’d climbed down only hours before – and she recalls Ossis talking about how he primarily lives in the cave beneath the waterfall – but has come down – and how his magic corrupts the things around him – and she realizes his seeping magic may be what has “awakened” these trees – who somehow seemed curious about these new “beings” that were near them.

The party decides that they should do another long rest; and curious how the awakened trees might respond as they camp. Baldur attempts to climb one of the trees; and whether it’s his inability to climb the tree, or the tree dislikes being climbed upon and moving its branches out of his reach – Baldur isn’t able to get far before he decides to climb back down. The party decides that camping near the lake may be a bad idea – so they decide to consider their options. To the East, is the beach – where the Harpies had been. To the North is the Glacier Falls mountain. To the West is deeper into where the forest where the Grungs had come from. South is more woods, and also the general direction of the farming village where they need to go.

Galiena laughs, “Ramgor, we’re either going to be a power couple after this, or we’re never going to want to speak again.”

“Admittedly,” Ramgor responds, pulling her close, “despite the treacherous lands I live in, I’ve never experienced a date quite like this one.”

Heading south for an hour, cautious of sounds around them – the party finds themselves deep in the woods, with no lake, no river, or anything – just endless trees all around them. Baldur asks uses Speak with Animals and asks if the trees move from a small bird; and the bird seems confused by the question. Baldur looks at the party, “We should be good. These trees don’t move according to the confused bird.”

Baldur offers to take first watch, and Galiena pulls Ramgor into their tent, and Aros offers to stay up with Baldur. During their watch, they discuss the encounter with the frogs – and the rest of the night goes uneventful during their watch. Galiena and Ramgor take the next watch; and Galiena swears she can see a pair of red eyes (four eyes total) seems to be watching them – but every time she turns her head, there’s nothing there. When Galiena shares what she thinks she keeps seeing something – Ramgor claims he’s not seen anything – but he’d been tending to his wounds as well as hers. Galiena tries to persuade him that there’s something there – but Ramgor believes that Galiena is potentially still suffering some of the effects of the frog poison.

The red eyes appear time and time again; but each time Galiena turns her head to take a better look, it’s gone. She tells Ramgor that she’s convinced there’s something out there watching them. However, she’s never able to get Ramgor to see it – and it seems to fade away – and from time to time, she hears something draw close – and as her eyes grow heavy, she feels a warm breath on her neck – which startles her – but when she looks, nothing is there – but there’s an odd, lingering smell.

Aros gets out of the tent and he and Baldur both notice large canine prints near the edge of the camp – exactly where Galiena had seen the red eyes. And it looks canine in nature, but has deep claws like a bear….

TO BE CONTINUED.