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• Anathema Haniel – Tiefling Paladin (Oath of Redemption)
• Grace Obadiah – Aasimar Cleric (Twilight)
• Kasumi Makaio Iolani – Goliath Monk (Way of the Four Elements)
• Skrizz – Tabaxi Rogue (Soul Knife)

DM Note: I forgot to bring the microphone to record this session. Le Sigh.

• The Dwarf cleric of Jarisfargen introduces herself as Gineva Bavara.

• Gineva, who explains most people call her “Gini” explains that she has a wagon with two horses that the party can use to urge them on more quickly.
• She asks if anyone is well versed at handling horses and Grace assures her that her deity will guide her hand true as true.
• Grace watches as the party climbs into the wagon, and almost immediately pulls to the side. Gineva pulls the young daughter, Reilna Evershine, close and mutters, “I am not sure her goddess is truly guiding her hand…”
• Grace continues to struggle managing the horses as they try to push hard to get to the location of the wagon from which the child had fled
• The party finally arrives at the entrance of the forest and the horses seem much calmer as they enter the woods; however, the party gets an uneasy feeling as they begin to notice the lack of sounds – there are no rabbits scurrying away just off the path, no birds singing or moving through the upper branches; as they travel further inside, it becomes clear why… the forest seems to be encased in webs, and web sacks are everywhere of trapped creatures…

• Grace places her hand on Skrizz’s shoulder, “My goddess will watch over you. Go on and scout ahead.” (DM Note – She cast Guidance on Skrizz)
• Skrizz growled, jumped off the wagon and quickly vanished into the shadows. There is a moment where the party is looking for him, but finally, up ahead they see him light his torch and try to burn the web; but the webbing is too thick, too new and too moist and instead creates a sizzling sound
• However, Skrizz is able to make out three, humanoid, plump figures moving through the trees, coming closer to him, moving quickly, the webbing slowing them down; one reaches him, while the other two continue, heading for the wagon in the web covered tree tops. One tries to grab Skrizz, but misses and Skrizz quickly bolts back to the wagon, explaining what he saw – but at that moment, two of them drop down from the tree top – on each side of the wagon – one near Grace, the other near Kasumi and Skrizz

• The Ettercap who dropped near Grace managed to bite Grace, inflicting the Poisoned Condition on Grace (failed Constitution save!), making Grace woozy and unsteady on her feet, but it doesn’t shake her faith as she proclaims, “My goddess will make quick work of you!” She holds out her holy symbol and uses Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary – granting temporary hit points to the party
• This proves quite useful as the Ettercap fighting Kasumi lands a Critical Hit dealing significant damage to Kasumi. However, Anathema begins attacking each of the Ettercaps – on both sides of the wagon – bringing her short sword into the flesh of each of the creatures
• Skrizz is able to finally finish off the one on their side of the wagon, using his claws to rake its throat open – this, however, exposes the poison sack which sprays into Kasumi’s mouth, inflicting the Poisoned condition on her (DM Note – Since these creature had poison sacks and he mentioned slitting it’s throat – I thought it’d be fun to have Kasumi do a Dex Check DC 10 – which I assumed she’d probably make and I’d just describe how she turns away as poison sprays on her from the ruptured poison sack… but she actually did not make the DC and ended up poisoned… Ooops!)
• Anathema then finishes off the other Ettercap on the other side of the wagon by crushing its head between her boot and the edge of the wagon, then running her sword through the creature’s head.
• The skittish horses then proceed to bolt, leaving Skrizz standing there, as the other three ride deeper into the woods. The third Ettercap attempts to leap down on the wagon, but misses, and sees Skrizz standing alone – and identifies it perceives as an easy target and that perhaps the party has abandoned him – it begins running for Skrizz – and the tabaxi shouts out.
• Kasumi leaps out of the moving wagon and bolts over to help Skrizz fight the Ettercap; Grace manages to convince the horses to turn around and race back and together they’re able to defeat the final Ettercap.
• Skrizz and Anathema manage to harvest poison from the Ettercap poison sacks, four and six uses respectively; and they decide to split it evenly (each one a one time use)
• Grace examines one of the webs at the base of the tree and cuts it open with a crossbow bolt, and frees a young fawn. She then looks around and spots another one, larger, and determines it’s a deer – and cuts that one – releasing the deer. The deer and fawn both flee away from the woods.
• The party regathers and boards the wagon and continues down the path, when they finally reach the wagon the little girl had come from not far ahead. Grace again places her hand on Skrizz’s shoulder and says, “My goddess will guide your hands. Go on and scout.”
• Skrizz looks at her with a long side glace, his tail flickering in frustration. Spotting not tree with any low branches he decides to use his claws to climb a tree and stick to the trees. He makes his way over to where the toppled caravan is and notices that the wagon’s wheel has been smashed, and by the look of it, whatever hit it, capsized it as well. The horses are missing, and where they were, there’s blood – not a good sign. However, there’s no visible signs of any corpses.

• Skrizz leaps down to take a closer look, and notices the content in the wagon looks as if it was riffled through – most of all that’s left is just scriptures and books, all of them religious. Skrizz spots an easy path to the right where something big made its way – making no effort to hide its path.
• Skrizz makes his way back and calls over for the others to come check out the wagon – especially the scripture. Anathema reads through the books – most of them seem to focus on Tearak, the God of Judgement – with notes written along the edges, about how since his apparent demise there’s been a drastic increase in hauntings – and that whoever wrote these notes believes it’s because with Tearak dead, there is no one to judge the fallen – so they remain in this limbo with no way to pass.
• The party then follows the clear path to the right – whatever made this was large. Kasumi points out, despite her larger size as a goliath – the bare footprints left by whatever did this are about two to three inches larger than her own foot

• Whatever made this path of broken trees did not even consider or try hiding its path, making it quite easy for the party to continue to follow it. They eventually reach the edge of the forest and there’s a large field with a mountain ahead of them and Skrizz’s feline eyes (Natural 20!) spot a path up the mountain, a large cave entrance, and two creatures standing at the mouth of the cave. Skrizz focuses his eyes and identifies them as Bugbears.

• The gaping field would make moving across the field very difficult without being spotted by the Bugbears. Skrizz finally comes up with a plan using Psychic Whispers – he listens in on the two bugbears – who seem disgruntle that they have to pose as guards outside the cave – while the giant one eats the horse meat – and that this is stupid – but the money is good, being paid to stand guard, because no one ever comes for the giant – Skrizz then uses his own communication them and says, “Why do we need to wait for the giant to give us scraps? There’s a whole pack – I mean, herd – of horses down to the west. We should go get it.” The bugbears are puzzled about the voice in their head – but they can’t deny that it would be much funner hunting – and the giant one just captured some people and horses so he won’t be coming out – so the bugbears make their way down the path and move westward (DM Note – This was fun, because I had Skrizz roll Performance for the voice, then Persuasion to convince the bugbears to abandon their post)
• The party ties up the horses and hides the wagon and run as quickly as they can across the open field and up into the cave. Standing outside the cave, Grace touches Skrizz and says, “Go on, scout ahead again.” Skrizz’s nose twitches. He moves inside and see fairly quickly the cave splits to the left and right. Moving left first, he sees evidence of something dragged as well as splotches of blood – probably from the slain horses. He backtracks and moves to the right and comes to a large underground lake and hears the sounds of many large frogs and quickly backs out.
• He returns to the mouth of the cave where the others are keeping an eye to see if the bugbears come back. He explains that to the left he found evidence of where the prisoners were taken; and to the right was a large underground lake with the sound of frogs
• The party goes in, and moves to the left, following the evidence of someone being dragged – and quickly pick up large footprints – as they move – they take notice that along the path are mushrooms of all kinds, illuminating the path in various colors and shades of those colors

• As the party walks – they notice a particular mushroom, closest to the edge of the path that seems to react to noise; each step they take, they briefly illuminate. Grace kneels down to harvest one; and the plant lashes out, striking her for very minor necrotic damage, thanks to her Aasimar racial trait of being resistant to necrotic damage
• She looks to Skrizz and says, “Scout ahead.”
• Skrizz rolls his eyes and begins to move ahead when suddenly – behind him – he sees several figures – and hears the distinct sounds of frogs.
• “They’re coming,” he whispers, pointing behind them. “The frogs.”
• “Do that thing you did,” Grace shrugs. “Talk to them or we kill them.”
• Skrizz reaches out and once again does his Psychic Whispers and hears one of them say, “Giant have more soldiers now.” “We check. Not look like many. Just one.” “No, me see more now. Look like four.” “We got five. We got three more.” “One more.” “They got one more?” “No, we got one more than them.”
• Skrizz reaches out, “We are not agents of the giant. He is our enemy. Is he your enemy?”
• “He enemy,” one of them telepathically communicates. “How you inside head?”
• “Magic,” Skrizz lies. “If he is your enemy we should join forces.”
• The frogs reveal themselves to be bullywugs

• The leader introduces himself as Oofra. He tells the party that “the giant never sleeps” and that he goes to the lake and captures Oofra’s people (the bullywugs) and eats them if he doesn’t get enough horsemeat.
• As the party formulates a plan, Grace explains how Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary works and how they will be bathed in a dim light
• Oofra points to another Bullywug, and says, “Boza, she talking about you when she say dim.”
• Skrizz stealths ahead again – moving about sixty feet and he sees over the ledge, there is a giant – but an usual giant – he has two heads. And he’s sitting by a large campfire that has some kind of meat laying in it, cooking, he assumes. In a cage are a male and a female who look like they’ve been roughed up. Skrizz follows and sees the path up along the ledge that leads to where he is. The two headed giant has a club and mace on each side of him, wearing matted furs. Skrizz also notices that there’s a portion of the wall down below that seems purposely smoothed out and there’s some form of shimmering image.
• He conveys this back with the bullywugs who then explain, “Giant got people. Meat in fire. Wall all smooth and nice. Glimmer-like.”
• Kasumi stealths up half way while Anathema stealths up next to Skrizz and looks down at the scene. Grace tries to stealth – and gets 30′ – but makes quite a bit of noise. Skrizz notices that one of the Ettin heads begins to look around for a moment and he telepathically communicates, “Tell her to stop. He almost heard her.”
• Oofra says, “Kitty say stop. You loud.”
• Up ahead, Skrizz whispers to Anathema, “Do you plan on casting Sleep?”
• Oofra somewhere behind him says, “You plan on casting sleep?”
• Grace shakes her head. “No, I am out of spell slots.”
• Oofra thinks back towards Skrizz, “Light lady say she no got magic.”
• Skrizz thinks, “I wasn’t talking about her.”
• Oofra passes the message, “Kitty not talking about light lady,” he says to Grace.
• Anathema casts Sleep however, it’s not powerful enough to put the Ettin to sleep who then senses a spell had been cast at him and grabs his weapon and roars – Initiative begins!
• Skrizz winces, “Here he comes.”
• Oofra tells Grace, “Here he comes.”
• Skrizz thinks, “Stop repeating everything!”
• Oofra informs Grace, “Stop repeating. You annoying Kitty.”
• As the Ettin reaches the party (just 10′ away), Skrizz throws a vial of oil on the Ettin
• Kasumi takes a pose, and channels the natural Ki energy around her and invokes the Fangs of the Fire Snake and strikes the Ettin – who, with his matted furs, which were now oil drenched, ignites into flame, causing massive fire damage
• Grace rushes forward using her Twilight Sanctuary
• Anathema is able to strike the Ettin with the blade she dipped in poison, which the Ettin fails to save against, giving him the Poisoned condition
• As the battle rages, it’s finally Anathema who strikes the Ettin – and she allows her blade to glow with the holy energy as she dispenses a Smite through her blade – finishing off the Ettin, who in his last moment of death, tries to grab Anathema, Kasumi or Skrizz as he plummets off the 60 foot cliff and crashes to the ground below with an incredible thud
• The party rushes down and frees the family, assuring them that their daughter is safe
• They now see clearly on the wall, a hill giant devouring food and he growls, “You failed to find who the High King would be… and you have failed me…” And suddenly the shimmering ceases, and it is just a smooth wall again

To Be Continued.