Wait, the plan worked?! - June 27, 2025

- Long May He Reign

 

- After they have rested, Caleb pulls one of his largest daggers and starts hacking. He gets the creature's head and the part of the carapace with the red hood symbol. Niniel asks for one of the pinkies of the creature, Caleb asks if he wants to know why, and Niniel says no, but he just chops the pinky off for her anyway.

- Soliana throws up in the woods because of the gore and ichor.

- She has to re-prestiditation herself clean.

- They walk back to town. Soliana and Niniel go to Thomas's house to explain about the monster and to show Thomas that they are okay after killing the creature.

- Thomas's dad doesn't know much about the bandits north of town, so they head back to the house.

BASTION TURN 1 

- They bring the head and bits to Nym to ask him to Research on it. (That was Soliana's order to the Library. Tanelia is helping with preservation spells)

- Zemma tells her Smithy to make a chain. She gets the glass blowers in her Workshop to make her a spyglass.

- Poetry has the herb garden start harvesting and everyone in the party gives 100 GP to start investing in the Store house (total of 500 GP invested) to start getting the party fund proceeds going.

- Niniel has her herb garden (under the sea) harvest 50 GP and with the money saved buying ingredients, they invest that in the Storehouse. 

- Caleb just has his smithy and workshop just work on repairing the very dilapidated house. (Maintain)

       - One of his smithy workers thinks they saw a ghost in the forge!

- The next morning (19th Redfall a Fireday), when Emmyth doesn't know the man who complained about the bandits, the group heads to the pub in town called the Thorny Rose.

- Niniel immediately orders the house special (house made whiskey). Soliana "objects" because it's 8AM. Niniel gets her drink. She says it's the best drink she's had on land. She gets a second one to which Soliana "objects" because it's 8:05 AM. They learn they are mostly picking on merchants, but Christophe (the bartender) lost a really nice shovel.

- They head back to the manor for Soliana to change into her new green dress, she digs a gold belt out of her mother's closet which she cleans and Niniel polishes. She then uses Shape Water to make shiny, sparkly jewelry to catch the light and attention.

- They borrow Mrs. Bronzebelch's nicest cloak for Zemma so she and Soliana can hold hands and walk looking like a parent and child (maybe?) while Niniel makes herself and Poetry invisible and Caleb does his sneaky rogue thing in the woods and grass beside the road.

- The plan goes into affect about a mile outside of town. 

- Stardust is overhead keeping an eye out and sees a person standing beside the road just the other side of the crest of the hill.

- Once they crest the hill, they see a middle aged man in a thick wool sweater and a pitchfork.

- Soliana suddenly realizes the problem with the plan is that she is the one who has to talk to strangers.

- She greets the man and has the world's most awkward small talk. While attempting to flash her water bracelet subtly. 

- Niniel patiently waits in the road and watches the man leave the road and go over another hill. 

- Once he's over the hill, she catches back up to Soliana and shares the information. 

- Soliana sends her sight back into Stardust who flies over the hill and sees several men camped behind a wall of hay bales that blends into the fields and hides their position, but they can see two sides of a curve in the road.  

- They keep walking and do not get ambushed.

- Soliana draws a quick bird's eye view map and they plan a route where Caleb, Niniel, and Poetry sneak ahead to get into position and then Soliana and Zemma will approach.

- Soliana approaches and asks how to get back to Lamara because her "young one" ran off the road and she got turned around. She also asks if they are bandits because they did not talk about what Soliana should say when she got here. She also tells them she's Lady Ashera 

- Caleb manages to sneak in and grab a really nice shovel out of the look out area.

- Soliana continues talking and then Caleb pops out right next to one of the eight guys and says they can do this the easy way, the hard way, or the fire druid burns every thing you own to the ground way. 

- Jethro and Benjamin immediately concede. Niniel gathers up the weapons. 

- They are offered jobs at the manor in the fields or doing repairs or helping in the smithies and workshops. 

- The offer is accepted. They are mostly farmers, but there was a weevil infestation over the summer that wiped out most of their crops.

- Jethro and Benjamin and their crew say they definitely don't want to mess with Caleb because he's freaking scary. 

- Soliana says she can control gravity and casts Magnify Gravity out in the field near some rocks and detritus. 

- Everyone walks back to Lamara together. Some magical philosophical discussion is had along the way.

- Niniel checks her Patron Pouch and finds the skull of a fish's head in her pouch and she has another compulsion and builds another cairn. She hides it in the slowly collapsing stable this time.

- Soliana does her agreed upon Sending to Sir Foxglove, "How is the research coming along? We're in Lamara rebuilding my family's manor which has becoming dilapidated after fifty years of abandonment."  

- She receives back, "I think I have found another anomaly if you are still on retainer. Or if I need to find someone else." 

- Soliana gets with her friends and then Sends back to Sir Foxglove, "We are still interested. If we can get back to Arrandale, do you have the means to teleport us back to Port Carling?" 

- "No."

- The new plan is to contact the carriage service at the Moonveil Academy to get them back to Arrandale and ask very nicely for Sharai to send them to Port Carling again. 

 

-  1,250 XP ea for 14,000 XP total ea. - LEVEL UP TO SIX

A Nightmare in the Woods - June 20, 2025

 - Positive dinosaur

 

- Additional information is decided about the Bastion hirelings:

- Tanelia Yelmoira (recently graduated Transmutation Wizard) works in the Arcane Study

- Nym Ularan (recent history graduate from Moonveil Academy) work in the library.

- Alvyn and Carla Bronzebelch (a married gnome couple) work in Zemma's smithy

- Budurk (male half-orc) works in Zemma's workshop

- Nekaria (female tiefling) works in Zemma's workshop

- Rolamin Cedarflower (male forest elf) works in Zemma's workshop

 

- After a few days of activity at the house, people start showing up to greet the young Lady Ashera and bring present, like sacks of potatoes. Soliana does her best to take everything as gracefully as her mother would have. She also gets a brace of coneys and a lovely green dress sewn with golden thread that actually fits pretty well considering how tiny she is.

- It's only another day after that that the requests for help start coming in. 

- Another day, a young elven woman comes to visit and she looks very sad. She thinks there's a creature in the woods east of town who ate her daughter. The young girl was playing near the woods with several other children, and only one boy came back. That poor boy will not go near the woods and is too scared to speak. 

- Not long after this as well, an older gentleman comes to ask Soliana for help ridding the area of some bandits that assaulted his son on the road that leads north out of the village. She hands him the healing potion she conjured for the day to take home to his son.

- The next day before they can even leave the house to go hunting, there's a strong rapping on the door. There's a tall man standing there, who wants to complain about the local priest Father Powell. They want to build a new temple to Chislev, but the father is against it. He's a bit bombastic, and Niniel shoves him out the door so they can finish getting supplied up to go child-eating monster hunting.

- Within an hour of finally setting out, they arrive at the traditional area by the woods where children used to play. It is at this point that Zemma asks what they are looking for. Niniel asks why they didn't try talking to the kid. Soliana says, but the boy can't talk. Caleb says he could ask him in his head, so they turn around and head back to Lamara to find the boy.

- They get directions from a friendly lady to The Boy Who Lived's house. She also mentions that The Hunter went into the woods to look for the children, but he never came back either.

- They have to persuade the boy's (Thomas) father to let them speak to the child because he is only just starting to act more normally and the father doesn't want him re-traumatize. Soliana reminds the father that her parents 

- Soliana sits next to him and holds his hands and gets his permission for Caleb to talk in his head so he doesn't have to talk out loud. She also gives his the labradorite stone she found on the island with the siren problems. She also tells him that he can go to the library to read books about rocks whenever he wants. 

- Caleb connects with Thomas and learns that the children followed a path until the forest got dark and then there were too many legs, and little spiders were everything, and first it grabbed Beth and then it grabbed his other friend and then there were screams and then there were spiders everywhere and he ran. And there were screams.

- Thomas is trembling with the memories, so Soliana reminds him that he has his shiny new rock and he can go ask Nym the librarian to help him find all the best books about rocks and he was very brave to let Caleb talk to him in his head. They do let his father know about being allowed to visit the library and that they were off to the woods to deal with the spiders.

- They get back to the woods, and Zemma can easily see that there's a path and starts leading the way.

- When they get to the point where it's hard to know if they are still on a path, Caleb, Soliana, and Poetry realize that the forest is really very dark. The canopy is very thick, but that it also seems like it's dimmer than it should be. There's also a fog and mist rising off the ground as well. 

- Poetry also realizes that something doesn't feel right and she realizes that she hasn't heard any ambient sounds in a while.

- Poetry and Niniel look around and don't really see many new growing things. Poetry uses her sense of Nature to figure out which direction feels worst.

- Up ahead they start to hear leaves rustling. 

- Soliana casts Mage Armor on herself because she was so distracted this morning she forgot.

- Poetry casts Pass Without a Trace and they start sneaking towards the rustling sounds.

- Zemma takes point.

- What they see when they look ahead is a giant centipede. It is probably 42" tall and at least 15' long. The legs aren't legs but human arms with hands and a human face that comes to a point like a cone of a face. 

- It locks eyes with Caleb. 

NIGHTMARE CENTIPEDE BATTLE

- Nightmare Centipede moves up to Niniel and grabs her with one of its arm legs. Niniel is grappled. Then it bites her with its weird, pointy human face for 10 piercing and 2 poison dmg. Niniel is poisoned. Then it stabs her with a centipede pincer thingy for 12 slashing dmg and 2 poison dmg. 

- Soliana backs up a little bit (15' or so) then casts Grim's Mischief on the centipede, but the centipede saves. 

- Poetry moves a little closer to the NC and summons Ember within 10' of it but farther than 10' from Niniel and then Ember misses with her Flame Seed.

- The NC makes a low rumbling sound and then suddenly the leaves all around start rustling and two spider swarms coalesce. One next to Soliana and the other next to Caleb. 

- Spider Swarm 2 bites Soliana for 9 piercing dmg. Grim's Mischief fades as Soliana is surprised by this sudden attack.

- SpSw1 misses biting Caleb.

- Caleb Disengages from the SpSw and runs up to the NC and stabs it with his rapier for 13 piercing. As a reaction the NC turns its face to Caleb and vomits a 40' line of grossness so Caleb takes 34 poison dmg. (Caleb now has 2 HP.) Caleb runs away again since Disengage is for your whole turn.

- Zemma Rages into a scaled kitty cat with big claws. She runs up to the NC and claws it for 9 slashing dmg. Then she claws it again for 13 slashing dmg. She then rears back and claws it again for 18 slashing dmg. 

- Niniel looks at the arm gripping her and says "Oww". She Misty Steps 30' away from the NC and casts Eldritch Blast at its butt. 

 

-  The NC attempts to grapple Zemma, but she is little and mighty then it moves up to Caleb and grabs him. It misses biting Zemma then pincers Caleb for 14 slashing dmg and Caleb is unconscious. 

- Soliana casts Vortex Warp on Caleb's body moving him almost 90' away from the NC then Starlight Steps next to him and pulls out her pre-conjured Healing Elixir and pops the cork. 

- Poetry casts Call Lightning and strikes the NC for 21 lightning dmg. Ember nails the NC with a Flame Seed for 17 fire dmg.

- SpSw2 moves up to Poetry and bites her for 10 piercing dmg.

- SpSw1 misses biting Poetry.   

- Caleb fails a Death ST.

- Zemma claws the NC for 9 slashing dmg. Then again for another 9 slashing. Then again for 10 slashing dmg. 

- Niniel moves around behind the NC and casts Lightning Bolt on it for 18 lightning dmg. In reaction to this, the NC turns its head toward Poetry and gets her and SpSw1 for 33 poison dmg. Most of the SpSw1 spiders are dissolved in the grossness. Poetry is very hurt. Niniel then summons a tentacle in the NC faces region and hits it for 5 cold dmg.

 

- The NC moves around to Poetry and grabs her with one of its 100 arm legs. It continues on to Niniel who manages to dodge the grapple. It bites Niniel for 16 piercing dmg and she is unconscious. It pincers Poetry for 12 slashing dmg. As it was leaving Zemma managed to claw it for 10 dmg. 

- Soliana feeds her Healing Elixir to Caleb, and then she moves 25' to "hide" behind a small tree.

- Poetry fails a Death ST. Ember prepares to Dodge.

- SpSw2 moves toward Soliana

- SpSw1 moves to Zemma

- Caleb stands up. He moves 15' toward Soliana and throws a psychic knife at the NC for 9 psychic dmg. Then he Hides.

- Zemma moves up to the NC and then misses with her claws. Then she slashes it successfully for 12 slashing dmg then she really gets in there with some claws for 16 slashing dmg. With one slash she takes off at least four arm legs. It is dead! The Spider Swarms dissipate now that their friend . 

- Niniel succeeds on the Death ST. 

 

- Soliana attempts to stabilize Poetry, but fails.

- Poetry succeeds on a Death ST.

- Caleb moves and Dashes to Niniel and also fails to stabilize.

- Zemma moves up and knocks Soliana's fumbling hands out of the way and succeeds in stabilizing Poetry.

- Niniel succeeds on a Death ST.

 

- Soliana runs over to Niniel and fails to stabilize her.

- Caleb knocks Soliana's fumbling hands out of the way and properly stabilizes Niniel.

 

- Soliana is nearly inconsolable over her unconscious friends because she got them into this mess.

- Caleb and Zemma sees that the back of the NC has a red symbol that looks like a faceless-hooded head. (A bell with an oval in it, kind of.) 

- Grim doesn't know what the creepy bug is or the symbol.

- A short rest is had.

 

- 2,000 XP ea. for 12,750 XP total ea.

An Interrogation Gone Wrong? #BastionDay - June 6, 2025

 - Man wearing bearskin

"Anything can be a shanking chisel if you try hard enough." - Katie Patterson

 

- Bright and early the next morning, Soliana, Poetry, and Zemma hide in a nearby alley while Niniel and Caleb enter the Tattered Parchment shop. It is a very small storefront packed full of shelves which are also packed too full of books.

- Midway down in the shop, there's large, red-faced human man with a handlebar mustache. They immediately start asking about what Rex knows about Grim. He claims to not know anything about the book and Niniel and Caleb believe him. (Bad Insight checks all around.)

- Niniel looks around the shop and finds that the nicest books are on the shelf adjacent to the counter itself, so Niniel grabs a random nice-looking book about botany and flips through it to test Rex's reaction.

- She then takes a different book about Elven architecture, but she isn't interested in that either.

- Niniel then gets fed up with the the situation and summons one of her day's tentacles then pulls her trident out and holds it under his chin and says she wants to know what he wants for it. 

- Caleb also immediately gets in on the act saying that they already took care of the people who tried to steal the book in question and they don't want to have to do it again.

- Rex hits a book and the whole shop fills with smoke and Niniel trips backwards and lands on her back. Caleb and Niniel hear the sounds of someone fleeing.

- Niniel casts Fly on herself goes over the counter and follows the sounds of fleeing down a hallway behind the counter, but she doesn't see Rex anywhere. She hears footsteps off to her right somewhere in the room.

- Soliana, Poetry, and Zemma see the small dusty windows fill with fog, but Rex does not come out the front.

- Caleb feels his way around the shop to follow after Niniel. 

- Niniel doesn't see an exit from the room, so she lands and casts Wall of Water in a ring around the edges of the room and she takes her time feeling around and does not find an invisible man in the space.

- Caleb finds another room off the hallway. It's a small storage room with nicer manuscripts and a safe.

- Caleb calls out to Niniel about the other room and she lets the Wall of Water fall with a sploosh.

- Caleb starts checking for traps and finds that the entry to the room is not trapped, but the safe probably is.

- Before dealing with the safe, Caleb goes into the room that was previously blocked by a Wall of Water and finds a secret door that leads to a back alley.

- He sticks his head out the door and tells his waiting friends to head to the university and get the carriage ready to go and they'll be along in a few minutes.

- Caleb then heads back inside and starts examining the safe more closely.

- Niniel goes through the desk in the room she soaked and finds ledgers with running ink. She feels good about ruining his notes.

- Caleb handily picks the lock and opens the safe without detonating the trap. He finds 100 GP and a fancy looking book. He takes both. Books goes straight into the bag of holding.

- Niniel doesn't find anything useful in the other rooms, but she leaves a note in the emptied safe that says, "If you come after my friends, I'll ruin the rest of your books."

- Caleb slightly adjusts the trap inside the safe so it works differently and then closes the safe back up.

- Niniel also checks behind the counter and she finds a silver-skull (Orcish?) the size of a coin. She yoinks it.

- Caleb and Niniel catch up with the others who are just about to board a carriage.

- Caleb confirms with the coach driver that the area is safe enough that Caleb needn't ride shotgun.

- Caleb hands the book to Soliana who doesn't sense any magic in the book, so she opens it. It is written in Dwarven. She holds Grim with one hand and asks him for help, and casts Comprehend Languages through her bond with the book. She can now read Dwarven.

- Soliana goes back to reading it. It is a spell book. It will take her a little while to figure out the spells.

- A few hours later, the carriage comes to a stop in the town of Lamara and the driver opens the door. 

- The village looks the way Soliana remembers it from 54 years ago when she left, and she remember the way to walk to her house.

- They walk the half hour from Lamara to the Ashera estate, and Soliana talks the most in that half hour that her friends have ever heard her says. She's almost chipper.

- And then they come to the gate and turn to look through it, they can see the dilapidated, once-beautiful manor house. Parts of the roof are missing, most of the carved wooden trim is missing and any stone carving trim is so dirty and covered in mold and grime that they are no longer visible. 

- They enter and see that the front parlor right off the entry way has some chairs and a little bed set up in there where it's clearly being lived in.

- Ms Emmyth greets them at the door and Soliana finally breaks down sobbing into her neck.

- When Soliana finally calms herself, Ms Emmyth and the group sit down over food and start making a plan.

- Soliana of course decides that she's going to re-organize the Library and sort out an Arcane Study as well. She'll also clean up her bedroom (cramped) and the kitchen (roomy).

- Zemma says she can organize the Smithy and Workshop (6 tools here). She'll also clean up a bedroom and the family parlor (roomy) to hang out in. She cleans out the cupboard under the stairs (cramped) and puts a cot in there, because, you know, kobold.

- Poetry is going to organize a Storehouse for the orchards and vineyards (vineyards installed by Ialantha) and a Garden for spell components (instead of herbs). She's going to grow herself a natural bedroom (cramped) in the orchard. She's also going to clean out the courtyard area and fix the plants there for an outdoor hang out space. 

- Caleb will organize more Smithy and Workshop (6 tools here) and he'll clean out another bedroom and the dining room. 

- Niniel disappears into an empty room somewhere and texts with her friend Gin. There's a magic tarp behind which Gin has discovered a magical space with a Garden (herbs), Storehouse, Kitchen, and Parlor. She just hangs a hammock in Ashera mansion somewhere until she eventually gets to go back home.

 

- 1,000 XP ea for 10,750 XP total ea.