Want to help? Consider becoming a Patreon.

• Aros – Lightfoot Halfling, Rogue
  • Rubber Ducky of Inspiration
• Galiena Erenaeth – Half Elf, Celestial Warlock / Druid
  • Dearbhán – NPC, Fairy Dragon (Galiena’s pet)
  • Kavium – NPC, Tiefling Paladin (Oath of Conquest)
  • Darko Wintersage – NPC, Undead Wizard (Flame Skull)
• Baldur – Human, Pack Chain Warlock (Spear) / Paladin
  • Khor’taur – Dragon Spirit inside the Dracospear
  • Hellina Kaitlyn Deramu – Human NPC, Wererat

• Baldur and Aros can confirm Kavium’s suspicion – that the spined devils that attacked them (see Session 35) were indeed conjured by Lord Brenmoon – or at least one of the many wizards who still serve him – as a part of the bonding – it requires the marking of its master upon its body – and two of them have the symbol of Lord Brenmoon’s crest infused into their palms

• Galiena shakes her head. “This is all your fault, Baldur. You need to find a way to fix this. Do not impersonate me again.”
• “What if,” Baldur asks, “if I do it to make the situation better?”
• Galiena shakes her head.
• Aros opens his mouth to say something several times – but no one is paying him any heed. Aros looks over his shoulder and shrugs – and leaps into the bushes.

• Perhaps drawn by the sounds of combat, two winter wolves, who come down from the nearby mountain which Caith Mathan calls home have picked up the scent of blood and looking for a quick meal

• The fight to proves dangerous, as the wolves use pack tactics to get advantage on attacks; and their wolf breath offers additional damage; and with Galiena reminding Kavium to use Spiritual Hammer, it proves to be quick successful (two Natural 20’s!)

• One of the wolves is completely destroyed in the fight, when Galiena uses Sacred Flame putting an end to the dying wolf, who begins to smolder and burn; the second wolf is also eventually defeated and Aros pleads with the others to not desiccate the body; he would like to try and skin it (or have someone skin it) to try and make a cloak out of it
• However, in his haste to plead to leave the wolf’s skin intact, Aros had forgotten – it hadn’t been the Winter Wolves he saw approaching that made him originally dive in the bushes – it’d been three humanoid figures in the sky, who were flying – without wings, unlike the previously fought spined devils. Those three humanoids – all women – rush in and make an attack! And they look undead – baring fangs – like vampires of some kind!

• Aros shouts, “Hey! I am so sorry! I saw them coming – but then the wolves showed up and distracted me – forgot to tell you I saw humanoids flying above us! Pretty sure they were following the spiked devil things; like those were the hunters – and after we killed them they knew where to find us.”
• When Galiena drops Faerie Fire on the Vampire Spawn; it manages to turn the fight around in favor of the heroes – after taking some bad cuts

• Aros kills the last of the three; and goes around recovering whatever arrows he can find
• Galiena is able to skin the winter wolf’s hide (meeting the DC I put – at 15 exactly!) with Aros helping her on how to skin it (giving her the Help action that allows her to have advantage)

• The party takes a rest – with Galiena create a small fortress using her Plant Growth spell

• The party uses the meat from the skinned wolf to cook and eat dinner; and everyone takes a long rest for the night. Kavium points out that they’ve been attacked by the winter wolves, who were probably used to track them; the spined devils were ariel detection and the vampire spawns probably have a connection to Lord Brenmoon, so it’s good that they’re hiding in the overgrown fortress. Galiena uses her arcane magic to summon tea leaves on the end of her staff
• Aros sets up his alarm bell on a string
• That night, Aros climbs into a nearby tree and hears the constant sound of wolves, which is not too surprising. When he taps in Kavium, Kavium also hears wolves all night, but doesn’t see any come close.
• The following morning, Aros checks the alarm string – and discovers – the line has been cut. Not broken – but cut. Someone knew it was there – and cut the line. Aros looks and spots a paw print of a canine – but the paw print is massive in size. Too big to be a wolf – even one of the large winter wolves.

• He calls over Kavium, Baldur and Galiena who all examine the track, and Baldur immediately says, “It’s those gnome riding wolves again. They must still be tracking us.” Galiena sighs deeply, with Kavium placing a firm hand on her shoulder to stop her from lashing out at Baldur further.
• Galiena recalls her time being stuck with the wizard Marduk (aka Razathorn) – that she’d read something similar – there’s creatures called Jackelwere, which tend to hunt in pacts, and pawn themselves off as humans first; the other is werewolf, which is typically more solitary – but may form a pack of others who have turned.
• Galiena points out that the canine prints are on two feet; not four, based on how the prints are spread apart. And because it seems to be solitary – Galiena determines she believes it might have been a werewolf of some kind. (DM Note – I was foreshadowing another adventure coming up…)
• The party determines they need to deal with the Rot Troll first; and because they’d lost the track originally – it takes them roughly four hours to finally find the sign that a Rot Troll has come by.
• Up ahead, they see a small hamlet – that’s roughly eight wooden buildings – and there’s sounds of combat – and a slight blaze of fire – and the party rushes up – and there’s a fire on the wagon, there’s a barn on fire with pigs trapped – and the people are trying to put out the fire, while others are vomiting

• Standing at the edge of the hamlet, still in the shadows, Galiena pulls out Darko and asks, “Can you see anything?”
• Darko looks around, “Yes. I see a crappy small town. Place is on fire. Am I possessing one of these people? They look like simpletons.”

• Baldur sees a man vomiting nearby and rushes to him and uses his Lay On Hands to remove whatever disease seems to be wracking the man’s body and asks, “What is going on here?”
• The man, who with vomit still in his beard and on his breath answers, “It was wild, ya’all,” the mans says with an accent that Baldur does not recognize. “Some kind of… dying troll, by the looks of it, came into town – and it … it… it wasn’t trying to eat anyone – it seemed its main goal was to … touch as many people as it could… we let the dogs out to try and scare the troll away – but it… it thrived on touching people – and from time to time, might throw someone to the side… but it was like no troll I’d ever seen… it didn’t fight us… but someone in the hamlet mentioned trolls hate fire… so we got fire… and that’s when it began throwing us around – a few of us hit homes and barns and things caught on fire… and that’s when the troll quickly left… the fire making it very uncomfortable… we’ve been trying to put out the fires… but most of us suddenly got very sick… like we have the same disease that troll has…”
• Kavium and Baldur move through the town using their Lay On Hands to cure the disease that each of them
• After, the party explains they will be right back – and that they’ve been tracking the very troll that came through – and they need to finish it off before it can do the same to a larger town. The people of Korvask nod in agreement, thankful to be cured of the disease.
• It takes roughly forty minutes, before the party finds the Rot Troll, hunched down – back to them – feasting on some kind of wildlife. The wind blowing downward – brings down a rancid smell of rotting flesh that churns the party’s stomach
• Galiena releases Darko and asks if he can see what’s going on; he looks at the party and shakes his floating head, “I can’t smell anything… because I don’t have a nose. But from here, it looks like he’s feasting on some kind wildlife. And that is the ugliest troll I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen my share. But he… he has some kind of skin condition going on. That is not someone I want to possess if that’s your idea. Trolls have no brains, I’d never be able to cast spells.”
• “No,” Galiena sighs. “Trolls are suspectable to fire.”
• “Do you guys run around just helping everyone who asks for it?” Darko sighs, his voice hollow. “Well, except for me. You will fight trolls. But won’t help a guy find a new body.”
• “All right, we need to do this,” Kavium grips the hilt of his blade
• Aros looks around and sees a tree that is close by – but the branch is much higher – but would be difficult to reach. He leans towards Baldur, “Can you throw me up onto the branch?” Baldur looks up, “That’s pretty high up there.” Aros looks, “Yeah, but you’re strong.”
• Baldur grabs Aros and tries to throw him – but his strength fails – and unfortunately Aros isn’t able to recover – and slams face first into the tree – his face making impact – breaking his nose, doing trivial damage from the impact
• This immediately alerts the Rot Troll of their presence

• The Rot Troll rushes the party, while Aros is lying on the ground prone

• Kavium manages to hit the Rot Troll with his spiritual hammer – and the troll rushes up on them trying to claw Kavium – the odor of the Rot Troll causes damage to everyone who stands around them
• As the battle rages on, the troll’s rancid breath keeps doing damage; and in the same turn, both Kavium and Baldur use their Hellish Rebuke trait to inflict damage back on the troll. Galiena goes down; but is brought back up; as she tries to roll away, she’s hit again, and goes down again
• Thankfully, the Rot Troll has no healing ability, like other trolls – and between Darko landing a critical hit – this brings the troll’s health down – so that Baldur, much to the Dracoshard Spear’s Spirit’s regret – manages to plunge the weapon through the troll’s rancid mouth and pierce it’s brain – bringing it down, finally.

• The party, very, very, very badly wounded, and get Galiena back up – staring at each other, and sigh…

TO BE CONTINUED.