The camp wakes after an uneventful night spent not all that far from the obsidian portal. All are rested, though Vasco has the uneasy sense that they have been watched. Magically. Through scrying. He’s not entirely sure, but it seems if the Darl Quethos and his party have a very good sense of where the party is and where they are going. Vasco attempts to scry back, focusing on the tiffling twins they saw on the boat when scrying with Lashonna, but to no avail.
Talis has been doing some thinking of her own over the night. The name Krathanos is more clear to her now. She remembers the vague tales of an ancient titan named Krathanos, a murderous menace whose reign ended abruptly when he vanished from the world fifteen centuries ago. Tilagos must be where he has been banished these long years – and somehow without his titan’s ability to gate away. A titan’s golden belt, indeed!
Vasco offers to teleport the group there, to expedite their journey in this vibrant land. He sends up a magic eye to help him look directly at the massive ruin in aid of the teleport. The spell somehow fails and the group ends up in, what Yldar figures is somewhere deep in the Doomshroud forest. The place is a lonesome, alien landscape. Its black, monolithic trees appear to shift unnaturally without the aid of wind. The canopy blocks out the dim light provided by the overcast skies, and the forest is dark as night as a result. It is not, however silent or lacking in odour. Vibrant with life become accustomed to the dark, the namesake of the forest is not apparent. Kydara notices they have arrived in an area of broken, scattered bone and rocks.
Zeek notices that the Doomshroud’s drooping trees continuously weep a thick black ichor. This sap is oily and foul smelling. Zeek decides that the fowl smell is sometimes worth a taste, and that indeed it is actually quite edible. In fact, Zeek kind of likes it and gathers up a source to supplement the breakfast rations that he was not so fond of today. Shortly after consuming the ichor, Zeek’s skin turns the ink black of the forests. The rest of the party, laughing with Zeek, follows suit, each turning ink black, the elves laughing over becoming like Drow.
Humour passes to strategy, as they stand discussing changing tack and following their second quest – to silence the forest – since the are here. Yldar heads up a tree and spots a single 50' tall tree in the middle of a fairly large forest clearing. Then, there is a terrible crashing from the bush, something moving quickly towards them. Everyone in the party hides behind the trees – blending into the darkness – to brace for what arrives
Yldar stands out and full round attacks him with arrows, with Vasco wondering outloud if that is the best idea to this local beast. Too late for second thoughts, as several arrows hit, doing Yldar’s typically massive damage, and truly angering the Girallon. Kydara steps out from behind her tree, having cast repulsion, to act as a kind of bait. Alas, the spell does not repulse, and the Girallon moves in and gives him a monstrous hit.
More volleys of arrows and spells fly – Talis scorching him with a fireball, Vasco following it up with an ice storm, effectively slowing down the giant beast without lighting the entire forest on fire (a concern Zeek hollers out between spells). Kydara goes ethereal to avoid being completely pulverized, and Girallon chases Talis, who runs away, dodging amongst the trees. More arrows and spells, and the Girallon who had just caught up to Talis is finally taken down by Kydara who comes out of ethereal mode and scorching him, the beast luckily not falling on top of Talis.
Zeek comes out of hiding – having blended into the dark woods and not wanting to be crushed by the giant beast. He floats the idea of skinning the beast to carry his pelt, but is persuaded by the force of the party (who had clearly smelled the pelt) that the true value is in the testicles and gall bladder , which now fill his bag of holding
Vasco casts comprehend languages on Talis, who approaches the tree to make inquiries of their quest. The ancient tree seems to sway slightly, as if waking to the unfamiliar sound of voices, it having been so long since it had a visitor. And with good reason, perhaps, that not even the other trees will grow near it. With the swaying, twisting and cracking of branches and twigs a monstrous charge of magical energy is snapped off. The response to Talis’s question is given to both her and Vasco, who see the worst nightmare of their past somehow conjure before them. Talis is struck with horror as the old necromancer, a villain who many years ago she encountered vially desecrating a tomb that she and another archaeologist were investigating, stood before her. The necromancer had killed her archaeologist friend and begun to use her body against Talis, nearly killing her too before Talis remembered the trigger to an ancient trap and saved herself. Here, the wicked man was before her again, and this time to finish her completely with the femur of her friend in hand. Talis buckles to the floor in an uncontrollable freight, her mind shutting down entirely before this memory. Her friends only see the look on her face in the mere moments before her death.
Vasco is similarly tormented, but by his own more recent demons, ones which raged in the temple of Kyuss. His bravado and wit during the Champion Games had nearly become unnerved as Rancik had gone toe-to-toe with the ooze demon. Here the demon was back, swearing to finish what he had started, to suddenly and powerfully obliterate the supposed Champion. The demons’ ooze enveloping him, Vasco too grabs frantically at his body, and is overcome, falling to the ground. His companions see only a brief struggle with himself before Vasco, like Talis, lies dead from their own nightmares. A rumoured but not yet seen by her, Weird is clearly a terrible spell, Kydara thinks.
And thinks some more of the need for immediate and urgent protection. She casts an antimagic field hoping this will protect them from whatever other evils this terrible twist could hail on the party. The tree tries to sing its miserable despair song, but its effects are muted within the field. Birds, voles and other nearby forest creatures not in the anti-magic field, suffer their own despair and, their short lives beyond controls, neglect themselves and die. Yldar, seeing this as an opportunity to comfortably penetrate the life of the tree with as many of his deadly arrows as he can, stands for many minutes, blasting at it with literally hundreds of arrows sinking deeply into the wood, drawing a sickly resin much different than the dark but lively ichor of the surrounding wood. While it attempts to defend itself with regular gusts of winds, the hundreds of Yldar’s arrows finally fatally plunge into the wood.
Preparing the costly ritual, Kydara once again moves to bring back to life Vasco and the Talis. Pelor favours them for the second time in as many days, and sputtering and frustrated, the mad, broken minds are restored, and life jolts back to their bodies. Shaking his head, Vasco requests that they burn the tree down, in spite of whatever attention it may bring. Zeek, seeing a good idea when he hears one, is quick to oblige.
The party waits out the night at the site of the tree, confident that no animals will approach, and make plans to teleport the next day.
Waking up to another uneventful night (not a single creature sniffed at the smouldering clearing), Vasco prepares another teleport, which this time fails completely. Concerned that there may be something in the way this plane may somehow not be fully connected to the Astral Plane, they agree to walk south towards the ruins where they hope Krathanos the titan may be found. After a long hike out of the forest and through grasslands, they can now see the broken edifice and hide behind some oddly placed rocks – they seem almost to have been placed or thrown here – and consider their approach...
