Session date: Monday, May 14, 2018
Game date: Dreaming as the days go by
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70930/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 19846/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 4, hp 15, xp 8697/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 7664/8000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 1177/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 16523/32000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 4079/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1780/4000
Jack, Thief 3, hp 10, xp 2461/4800
The adventurers stood blinking in the unexpected daylight. Something very strange had happened indeed. Having slain the Goblin King, and fled the mazelike corridors of his palace, they now found themselves not in the subterranean caverns below Idalium, but outside on a neatly manicured lawn. And somehow, Orehoe was with them, as if she had been there all along, although everyone was sure she had not. The grass rolled gently to what they decided to call the east, for lack of any other orientation, where a well-tended flower garden was laid out. Something seemed odd about the perspective of the garden, as if it were either much closer than it seemed or perhaps the flowers were much larger than they ought to be. As they walked across the lawn towards the garden, rolling their plundered barrels of coins in front of them, it turned out to be the latter case.
Tidy gravel paths were laid out in orderly rings between neatly-trimmed hedges, and in the center of the formal garden the paths came together where four flower beds contained a number of enormous flowers, taller than any of the party members. Upon closer examination, the adventurers saw that the petals of the flowers gleamed as though made of mother-of-pearl. In the center of the blooms, enormous gemstones glittered and sparkled in the sunlight. The leaves below the blossoms likewise glittered as though gilded with gold and silver. Even in these bizarre circumstances, the adventurers could not help but have their attention drawn to potential treasure.
Suddenly, one of the flowers (a tiger-lily) twisted on its stem to turn towards the group.
"Ugh, what are you doing in OUR garden? And what sort of horrid flowers are you, with your dull petals and drab leaves? Ugh, so wretched!"
"Oh, and they smell terrible, too!" a rose chimed in. "They must be some sort of stinkweed! Or skunk cabbage perhaps?"
Gulleck tried to ignore the abuse and talk politely with the flowers, trying to ascertain where they had found themselves. But the flowers were impertinent and seemed to stubbornly refuse any sort of proper conversation, continuing to heap abuse on the adventures while the rest of the flowers sent up a continuous stream of shrill giggles and cackles.
"Why don't you just leave, already! Oh, you'd better not be thinking of planting yourselves here in OUR beds!"
"Oh no!" wailed a violet. "I'd sooner be plucked than have to share a bed with that pale sickly flower! Look at that dreadful little weed!" It looked pointedly at Orin as it said this.
Orin had by now had enough, and cast a Sleep spell on the irritating flowers. Three of them stopped giggling, and their blossoms drooped down.
"What!? How dare you!" shrieked the tiger-lily. "Help! Help!" A cacophony of shrieks and rude noises erupted from the flowers. Moments later, a loud, low buzzing filled the area, and an enormous bumblebee bobbled through the air into the group. Before he could react, the bumblebee stung Orin in the arm and he fell to the ground, at first writhing in pain and then still and silent. The others drew weapons and attacked the bumblebee, but as they did another bumblebee clumsily flew in from behind a hedge. Gulleck and Simon were attacked by the bees but fortunately dodged both stingers, and quickly enough the party dispatched the two bumblebees.
Orin was down to exactly 0 hit points, so I let his player make a 1d4-1 roll to see recover hit points during this lull in the combat. It turns out Orin had only briefly passed out due to shock and he grimly pulled himself to his feet, just as another bumblebee arrived, along with three enormous ants, each about three feet in length. Gulleck killed the bee, and Adrien injured one of the ants, but then yet another bumblebee and another three ants came in from the other side of the garden. This was clearly an untenable fight, and one that they hadn't really wanted in the first place, so they decided to run. As a parting shot, Gulleck swung her axe and hacked off a glittering leaf from the violet ("Oh how dare you! You awful, terrible, disgusting creature!") and then they all ran off to the south. Orehoe was overtaken by an ant and savagely bitten in the ankle, bringing her down to exactly 0 hit points, but Father Chase was quick to heal her with his sacred staff of healing, and they all ran away, pursued by giant ants and bumblebees. There were a few more ant bites, but none that prevented their escape, and the insects stopped pursuing them when they reached the edge of the formal garden. As they ran south across the grass, they could hear the howling laughter of the giant flowers growing fainter behind them.
Now they found themselves at the top of a hill overlooking a great expanse of countryside. There were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook. The squares seemed to alternate between open fields and dense wooded thickets in a way that gave the impression of an enormous green chessboard. A path led down the hill in front of them, zigzagging back and forth in switchbacks, and the party began to descend, but in the strangest way all their walking did not seem to advance them down the path at all. Something very strange was going on. Simon tried walking backwards but that only looked silly. Gulleck tried to leap down to where the path zigzagged back below them, but try as she might all she could manage was to jump in place. They tried running and that seemed to move them a little, albeit very slowly, and eventually they tried running as fast as they absolutely could. The world seemed to blur around them and when they stopped running they found that they were at the bottom of the hill, not far from the first little brook that marked the boundary of the great chessboard landscape.
The party crossed the brook, and made their way across the first open field without event. Then they stepped over another brook and entered a dark thicket. Midway through the woods, they encountered a creature whose lower half was a horse, clad in full barding, painted red, and whose upper half was a man, likewise clad in red plate armor and helmet.
"Halt, strangers!" commanded the centaur. "You are hereby challenged to mortal combat. Fight me, or return the way you came. Make your choice now."
Well, they figured there were nine of them and only one of him, so retreating didn't seem like a serious option. Gulleck hefted her axe and stepped towards the centaur, when he reared up on his hind legs, whinnied, and leapt right over Gulleck, kicking her in the back before she could react. That was momentarily impressive, but then Adrien and Simon stabbed the centaur and he collapsed to the ground.
"Well fought, friends. You may proceed." And he disappeared in a sudden cloud of white smoke.
They moved on, emerging from the woods and crossing a stream into an open meadow, where they confronted a squat dwarf-like man in red chain mail, who issued a similar challenge and was dealt with almost as swiftly. He too vanished in a puff in smoke when vanquished. They crossed through another wooded square and another open field, where they fought another squat fighter, this one in gleaming white chain mail. In the wooded copse in the next square, they were picking their way through a swampy wet area when suddenly a mass of semi-decayed leaves and unidentifiable vegetative sludge rose from the bog. It seemed to be wearing a silver crown on its amorphous head.
"Turn back," it hissed, "turn back or perish."
And Gulleck attacked, slicing into the vines that made up its torso. The strange decaying mound swung a foul-smelling arm at Gulleck and it slammed into her, and then it did the same with the other arm. Gulleck found herself embraced by the horrible rotting creature, pulled deeper into its chest as vines entwined and entangled her.
This was potentially a bad situation for Gulleck, but she resisted the suffocating embrace and managed to break free of the vines that held her. She took a few steps back and recovered her composure, while Simon shot an arrow into the monster, and then Gulleck's axe cut deep into it, and it slumped back into the bog beneath dissipating into a cloud of white mist.
The adventurers moved on, across another open field and into one more copse of trees. This time they were confronted by a very strange creature, somewhat like the centaur. This one had the upper half of a woman, wearing silver chainmail and a crown, but her lower portion was a bizarre hybrid of a goat and a lion.
"You have done well to get this far, travelers. Now you must face your final challenge. Defeat me in mortal combat and you will be victors of the game. But be forewarned, I do not intend to die easily."
And that is where we had to stop for the evening!
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