The Ironwood Giant (07/05) - Laurel
May 7, 2020 22:15:02 GMT
Jacinta Montajay, Queen Merla, the Sun-Blessed, and 1 more like this
Post by Laurel Shortstride on May 7, 2020 22:15:02 GMT
Meeting in the Angelbark, Jacinta, Jaezred, Ruk and I headed to find Tuppence Sterling. He had posted signs around Daring Heights saying that his daughter had vanished, and it was crucial to find her very quickly. On arrival, before even introducing ourselves, Jaezred and Ruk managed to create quite a bad impression of themselves to this obviously stressed-out man, so things didn’t start quite as well as hoped. After explaining that his daughter, along with several of his automatons (some like mannequins, one dog and one ironwood giant) had gone missing, and that he needed to find her before the end of her 13th birthday (today), we set off with him into the forest.
The trail was hard to find and we travelled around for a full 10 hours before stumbling across anything. At this point, we found a mysterious fountain with symbols of a coin, a leaf and hands at prayer in the bowl. After Jaezred started to pray but nothing happened, I dropped a copper piece into the bowl and tried to pray to Silvanus. Prayer isn’t something I’m very familiar with, so it was more of a meditation and some mention of how lovely the fountain is, but apparently that was enough. On the surface of the water floated a small wooden duck toy, which turned out to be one that my dad made for me but I lost when I was very young. Briefly completely distracted from what we were trying to do, I grew a daisy by the fountain in thanks (and also noticed Ruk loudly “praying” to Melora for a Pina Colada, which somehow worked as the fountain water temporarily turned into the cocktail.)
There were also two groups of footprints leading away from the fountain, one group looking humanoid and the other looking like a dog and a giant. Deciding that she was most likely to be with the ironwood giant that Tuppence had described to us earlier, we followed those tracks. It was another 6 hours following these before we came across some slumbershrooms extending out along the track. It was lucky that Jaezred spotted them before we got too close (from experience I know those aren’t exactly helpful when you are in a rush), and after several ideas including Jaezred levitating and punting through the trees, Ruk suggested his bird could keep watching the trail and we would stay clear.
The footprints came to a sudden stop, and Jacinta decided to check for portals nearby. Sure enough, she sensed one that was somehow moving away from us, in the direction that we could see deer tracks. Speeding up, it still took another 4 hours before we caught up with the source of them, a two-headed deer with antlers shaped like tuning forks used for Plane Shift.
Jacinta went to talk to it, reached out to pet it and both she and the deer vanished. A moment later, they were both back, and she explained that they had gone to the feywild. We all reached in and transported there this time, and...wow.
I have had interactions with creatures from here. I have heard a lot about it. I even draw energy from it to heal others. But I’d never actually been there before. Everything was overflowing with life, it was all so vivid. I stood there just gaping for a few seconds before being harshly snapped back to the mission by seeing Tuppence in tears with worry.
Following the deer further on, we wandered through these vibrant woods, briefly stopping to try and stop Jaezred from picking a golden apple from a tree, but failing. He picked it, then promptly shook his arm and dropped it, where it became a normal apple then rotted. That was for the best really, as the deer did call out “Fool”, “Midas” as he took it.
A bit further along, we finally arrived at a clearing where we could see this giant automaton and the dog-bot, but not the girl. Ruk sent his bird forward again and found her hiding in a hole at the base of a tree. It was at this point that Tuppence finally explained what was happening.
Something had happened to his wife that meant she had vanished, and left behind a note to explain that, when she turned 13, their daughter would fully transform into a hag. He explained that he did not mention this earlier since his experience with adventurers had taught him that this would likely lead to them instead trying to hunt her down to kill her, and also that he had left it so late because he had only just managed to get a potion of true polymorph that should stop the transformation.
We spent a while trying to work out how to approach the situation, until it seemed that these two guards would spot us imminently, at which point I decided to try and draw their focus by transforming into a giant goat.
However, it didn’t seem like a simple diversion would be enough, and since Tuppence had already explained to us that as long as they weren’t badly damaged he could fix them later if we had to disable them, we instead had to attack. Standing there in goat form, the dog chose me as its target but after biting into me, it got hit by a swarm of...locusts? Spiders? some hybrid of the two, that Jaezred summoned around him. I saw Jacinta loose some arrows at the giant but it headed towards me. It started to cast something, and then…
I woke up with a spider-locust trying to crawl into my nose. I had changed back and both automatons were on the ground. It seems it simply made me fall asleep, as I wasn’t hurt at all.
We all headed over to the tree, at which point he requested that Jacinta and I help him talk to her (much to Ruk’s annoyance). Once we managed to calm her down from trying to hide because she thought she was too ugly to be seen, we did convince her to take the potion.
With the transformation seemingly stopped (although some of the wrinkles still remained), we eventually made our way back with them. I refused to take any payment, although I suspect Jaezred or Ruk may have taken my share anyway, content in knowing that they were reunited and safe. Although what happened with his wife and where she is now is still a mystery...
The trail was hard to find and we travelled around for a full 10 hours before stumbling across anything. At this point, we found a mysterious fountain with symbols of a coin, a leaf and hands at prayer in the bowl. After Jaezred started to pray but nothing happened, I dropped a copper piece into the bowl and tried to pray to Silvanus. Prayer isn’t something I’m very familiar with, so it was more of a meditation and some mention of how lovely the fountain is, but apparently that was enough. On the surface of the water floated a small wooden duck toy, which turned out to be one that my dad made for me but I lost when I was very young. Briefly completely distracted from what we were trying to do, I grew a daisy by the fountain in thanks (and also noticed Ruk loudly “praying” to Melora for a Pina Colada, which somehow worked as the fountain water temporarily turned into the cocktail.)
There were also two groups of footprints leading away from the fountain, one group looking humanoid and the other looking like a dog and a giant. Deciding that she was most likely to be with the ironwood giant that Tuppence had described to us earlier, we followed those tracks. It was another 6 hours following these before we came across some slumbershrooms extending out along the track. It was lucky that Jaezred spotted them before we got too close (from experience I know those aren’t exactly helpful when you are in a rush), and after several ideas including Jaezred levitating and punting through the trees, Ruk suggested his bird could keep watching the trail and we would stay clear.
The footprints came to a sudden stop, and Jacinta decided to check for portals nearby. Sure enough, she sensed one that was somehow moving away from us, in the direction that we could see deer tracks. Speeding up, it still took another 4 hours before we caught up with the source of them, a two-headed deer with antlers shaped like tuning forks used for Plane Shift.
Jacinta went to talk to it, reached out to pet it and both she and the deer vanished. A moment later, they were both back, and she explained that they had gone to the feywild. We all reached in and transported there this time, and...wow.
I have had interactions with creatures from here. I have heard a lot about it. I even draw energy from it to heal others. But I’d never actually been there before. Everything was overflowing with life, it was all so vivid. I stood there just gaping for a few seconds before being harshly snapped back to the mission by seeing Tuppence in tears with worry.
Following the deer further on, we wandered through these vibrant woods, briefly stopping to try and stop Jaezred from picking a golden apple from a tree, but failing. He picked it, then promptly shook his arm and dropped it, where it became a normal apple then rotted. That was for the best really, as the deer did call out “Fool”, “Midas” as he took it.
A bit further along, we finally arrived at a clearing where we could see this giant automaton and the dog-bot, but not the girl. Ruk sent his bird forward again and found her hiding in a hole at the base of a tree. It was at this point that Tuppence finally explained what was happening.
Something had happened to his wife that meant she had vanished, and left behind a note to explain that, when she turned 13, their daughter would fully transform into a hag. He explained that he did not mention this earlier since his experience with adventurers had taught him that this would likely lead to them instead trying to hunt her down to kill her, and also that he had left it so late because he had only just managed to get a potion of true polymorph that should stop the transformation.
We spent a while trying to work out how to approach the situation, until it seemed that these two guards would spot us imminently, at which point I decided to try and draw their focus by transforming into a giant goat.
However, it didn’t seem like a simple diversion would be enough, and since Tuppence had already explained to us that as long as they weren’t badly damaged he could fix them later if we had to disable them, we instead had to attack. Standing there in goat form, the dog chose me as its target but after biting into me, it got hit by a swarm of...locusts? Spiders? some hybrid of the two, that Jaezred summoned around him. I saw Jacinta loose some arrows at the giant but it headed towards me. It started to cast something, and then…
I woke up with a spider-locust trying to crawl into my nose. I had changed back and both automatons were on the ground. It seems it simply made me fall asleep, as I wasn’t hurt at all.
We all headed over to the tree, at which point he requested that Jacinta and I help him talk to her (much to Ruk’s annoyance). Once we managed to calm her down from trying to hide because she thought she was too ugly to be seen, we did convince her to take the potion.
With the transformation seemingly stopped (although some of the wrinkles still remained), we eventually made our way back with them. I refused to take any payment, although I suspect Jaezred or Ruk may have taken my share anyway, content in knowing that they were reunited and safe. Although what happened with his wife and where she is now is still a mystery...
