Cleansing Waters - 10/03/2022 - A Kavel Perspective

Checking The (Adventurers) Board

There was a damp and heavily water stained piece of paper pinned among the week's notices, the smell of moss and algae clinging to the air around it. I picked up the note and read it:




Hmmm. I took the note with me, and went to make some tea.


Getting Ingredients To Make Magical Tea

Moss and ivy were easy enough to get in the Fort with the surrounding woodland and gardens. There was a forest gnome tending to the ivy when I went into the Fort’s gardens. He left before I gathered everything I needed.

In the Great Hall, I showed the note to Coll and he let me make the tea myself in the kitchen, where I had access to honey and spices. I chose nutmeg for the spice in my tea. The gnome from the garden was leaving the kitchen as I entered. I didn’t realise the garden staff had free access to the kitchen.

I took my freshly brewed tea to the open bathes in the Fort’s basement. When I walked in, the forest gnome from earlier had just drawn his own bath and was also holding a mug of tea!

I introduced myself.

“Hello. I am Kavel. You have tea. You will also meet Reka?”

Amble, the forest gnome, replied that that was correct. Up close, he looked less like a gardener. He looked more like a spellcasting adventurer, I was certain of this… but also uncertain. It is easier to guess someone’s trade if they are fully clothed, and Amble was not.

“Comrade. I am going in with my clothes on.” Amble carried on naked.

Our baths were side by side. We both climbed into our baths; me clothed, comrade Amble naked. We laid down in our tubs; I barely fit in mine, I felt comrade Amble must have been standing in his. We turned our heads to face each other, took one look, extended our cups in salute to each other, and then bottoms up, and we both said, “comrade Reka.” Well, I said ‘comrade Reka’. Amble just said, ‘Reka’.


A New Form of Teleportation

It was as if we fell through the warm water of our baths. Somehow my entire body sunk into the small bath I was in. My head rose back above the water, but not the warm water of the Fort Ettin bath, but the water of a lake. We were close to the shore. There was a large rowboat, and surrounding the lake was a mist-covered forest of tall, dark trees, much like the forests in the Witching Court, which I saw two weeks ago.

This was a new form of teleportation for me. The upside was it didn’t cost fifty gold pieces, and you didn’t need an appointment. The downside was you got fully wet.

Fortunately for comrade Amble, his clothes had also made it to the lake we now found ourselves in.

We were not alone. I saw a couple of familiar faces and two new ones. Comrades Florian and Zola were here. I last saw both my chill human friend and warrior drow friend when we were in Gadenthor and Tricorvem together. Unlike back then, Florian did not have a bunny rabbit with him, but Zola seemed to be accompanied by a rather large elk.

Of the people new to me, there was a tall tiefling woman, who introduced herself as Orianna. She had a crescent headed staff in hand, and had a similar nature vibe as Florian. The other new person was Ivan, a human male with an awesome-looking axe - respect.

No one but Amble was naked. “I told you, you shouldn’t have been naked,” I pointed out to my nre gnome comrade. However, Ivan, having seen Amble unclothed in the water, decided that he too should be shirtless, and removed his shirt.

A few minutes of chatting later, and we had a crew of fully dressed adventurers.


By The Shore

Orianna and Florian appeared to be using a magic spell to dry themselves. Ivan, who mentioned he was a sailor (he also felt it necessary to mention he was a poet too), noted that the water of the lake was oddly still. Amble felt confident that we were in the feywild and in fact, the Witching Court, which explained the misty forest. Clarifying Amble’s intuition, Zola - who it turns out is from the Witching Court confirmed we were indeed where she grew up, and we were in the lake known as, The Quiet Bay.

Comrade Ivan is very boisterous. He greeted me with a double high five. We both spoke of a fondness for training. He noted our similarities, and contrasted them to comrade Amble and his less physically impressive body - he did this quite openly for everyone to hear. I do not believe comrade Florian was much impressed with comrade Ivan. Florian might have been impressed earlier when Ivan took his shirt off and began posing, but at this point Florian was not pleased - nor were the others, it seemed.

I shared Ivan’s displeasure at the lack of importance strength-training is given by the magic-users of the adventuring community. Strength comes first - I feel - even for spellcasters, but you wouldn’t think that to look at them. If not strength, they should focus on their conditioning. Even whilst conjuring, you need well conditioned bodies, or so it seems to me. Where mine and comrade Ivan’s attitudes to strength-training appeared to differ though, was that I was more than happy to have comrade Amble come train at Kavel’s Corner. I said so to Comrade Amble. “You are welcome at Kavel’s Corner, comrade.” After all… if anyone needed to train at my gym it was precisely people like Amble (and comrade Glint). I then remembered to tell Amble that he must wear some clothing when at a gym.

Something out on the water, far away from the shore caught our attention as it broke the surface of the water, and then dove back under.


Barbarian Rowers

We climbed into the rowboat by the shore and took it out, heading towards where we saw something break the surface of the water. Comrade Ivan did most of the rowing. I did a little. We complimented each other on our good technique.

Ivan thought we were hunting the creature we were trying to find. The others mentioned that the creature was most likely our employer, Reka… I stopped sharpening my javelins and put them away.

I did ask though, “will we need our teas? I drank all of mine.”

Zola told me this was fine, and comrade Florian casted a nature-y spell that allowed us all to breathe underwater for a day. When he was done casting, I was not the only one to dip my head below the water to test it out. Ha! Breathing under water is weird!

The further out we rowed, the less we could see the shore, this was partially due to the defensive mist that surrounded the Witching Court’s forests, as well as distance alone. There was mist here on the lake too, we merely trusted that we had rowed in a straight line.

The rowing got easier the further we went, and suddenly our forward motion stopped and the boat began to rise. Immensely huge fingers surrounded the boat. Emerging from in front of us was an extremely large face covered with long, soaked hair. She seemed humanoid - but much bigger than a giant. If the Witching Court decided who ruled based on height, then Queen Nicnevin, as a giant, was a surprising ruler given the size of the person before us - this was Reka, and she seemed quite annoyed that we were here.


Reka

“Why have you come on to my lake?” Reka asked.
Zola explained we all received her note. Reka was annoyed that we were all that answered. She then explained that her friend needs help. The friend was described to us as ancient, the embodiment of water, beautiful, but dangerous, and someone had tainted her shrine. The shrine was in Spriteswell Depths, which apparently was fairly close to where Zola grew up in Haspar Knoll.

Reka lowered us back into the water, and a glass bottle emerged from the water near our rowboat. Orianna picked it up. Inside was a map of the Witching Court and a splinter of bone with runic markings on it, wrapped in a fine cord. Reka explained that the bone was a marking of hers. If we clean her friend’s shrine, and place the bone splinter in the water near the shine; she will know Reka sent us.

Reka herself said she could get us close to Spriteswell. Reka recommended we split our focus - half the team should focus on cleaning the shrine, which should end the madness her friend was under. The other half should focus on holding the water spirit back, “but beware! You are not capable of killing her! Draw her attention away from the shrine, so that others can rectify whatever has sullied it - this is key to releasing my friend from whatever has poisoned her.”

“What is the old lady’s name?” I asked.

Reka said she doesn’t have a name. She also grew increasingly impatient with each further question until we said we were ready to depart.

I couldn’t see what was happening, but both the rowboat and Zola’s mount began to be propelled through the mist of the lake and suddenly, we were no longer in a lake surrounded by mist. We found ourselves free of mist, and now on a river.


Spriteswell River

We were bobbing downstream, with mountains to our right and an open plain all around us. Zola pointed out her family home behind us on the map from the bottle.

Based on Reka’s suggestion, we had decided on the two teams:

Shrine Team : Amble, Florian, Orianna (the big magic-users who don’t visit the gym enough)
Strike Team : Ivan, Kavel (me), Zola (the warriors who do visit the gym frequently)

I didn’t understand the designation of ‘strike team’, “I thought we just needed to distract the old lady?” I said. It was pointed out to me that she was likely to be irate with us and would have to very much be an attack force and shield.


Spriteswell Depths and the Shrine

We rowed down the river and arrived at where the river became Spriteswell Depths. There was some shore where we stowed the rowboat. The water here was crystal clear, you could see the bottom easier where it wasn’t deep. Further away the water appeared very murky and it was difficult to make out, but there was an underwater shrine within the darkest, murkiest depths further away from shore between some colourful plants on the surface of the water.

Shrine Team began casting all sorts of magic to help. Comrade Amble did Derthaad duties and began investigating the surrounding area and detected necromancy over by the shrine, and explained to us that there were beacons of necromancy around us by the shore. He found the source of one of these beacons in the form of a flat pebble. When he lifted it out of the water, the magic ceased.

“What’s the plan Strike Team?” Zola asked me and Ivan.

Ivan, who had a Cube of Myriad Form, threw the cube into the depths of the beach where the water began to get murky and a small white whale appeared. In response to this, the water on the lake started to swirl and a female figure made of water rose from the swirling water scowling with rage at us.

I did not like the old water spirit’s posture. I quickened my breathing and entered into a barbarian rage to show my own strong posture, and firmly - and politely - held my arms out straight as I walked towards the edge of the shore, and said:

“We are here to clean your shrine!”

The watery form then transformed into a huge scaly creature with fur and fins framing its body, and it rushed towards us.


Old Water Lady Doesn’t Want to Talk

The water spirit swung her large, muscley tail at me. I managed to duck. If it had hit, I would have been knocked prone. As the tail passed over my head, I could see that the fur on the underside of the water spirit’s body was covered in a black, oily substance, which matched the same colour further into the lake.

Further down the shore I saw a human turn into a shark. It was a cool sight, but I should not have been looking in that direction, when I should have been concentrating on the huge water spirit in front of me.

The spirit snapped forward with an open mouth, sharp teeth on display and neck muscles propelling it forward. The water spirit took two powerful bites out of each of my shoulders. One bite alone pierced my skin deep and tore into muscle, causing me to bleed out extensively. I dare say just one of these bites would have caused a member of the Shrine Team to go into shock. The second bite would have killed them. Thankfully for me, I take strength and conditioning seriously, like everyone should! My comrades were right; this was not an old lady that wanted to talk.

Comrade Ivan moved behind the water spirit and sank his greataxe into its rear. He attacked recklessly, as I am familiar with, but also with a look of frenzy in his barbarian eyes. The water spirit was not pleased, and not frugal with its tail swipes. Ivan just managed to duck out of the tail’s whipping motion.

From comrade Zola, a protective aura emerged and at the same time a beam of moonlight energy hit the water spirit on its back causing a powerful radiant burn.

From the corner of my eye, over my bleeding shoulders, Amble felt strongly about gathering up the necrotic flat pebbles and told the rest of Shrine Team to head off without him. Orianna launched what I recognised as a Guiding Bolt at the water spirit, then jumped on Florian’s shark back as they swam into the murk towards the shrine.

The Guiding bolt hit the water spirit and distracted it, allowing me to get a hit on it with my poleaxe as I swung the hammer end into its neck. This did not hurt the water spirit enough to stop it from both spitting an icey sharp projectile my way, and whipping its tail at Ivan. We both managed to avoid any harm.

The water spirit continued to take a battering from the Moon Beam spell Zola had raining down on it. So it moved, opening itself up to attacks from both Zola and Ivan. Zola slashed deep into the water spirit’s side adding extra magical smiting damage to the slash. Ivan crashed his greataxe deep into the creature’s hind leg - his arm muscles more powerful than the water spirits bite.

Rearing back in pain, the water spirit spit out another cold projectile both at me and Ivan. We were standing side by side now. Ivan dipped and the icy projectiles skimmed past his shoulders. I tried to do likewise, but my shoulders were slow to move and I absorbed enough cold damage to send a lesser humanoid into unconsciousness. Again; work on your conditioning adventurers!

Ivan seized the moment to bring his greataxe down repeatedly on the creature, slashing huge cuts into it and knocking it prone.


Old Water Lady Brings Back Up

I could see team Orianna and Florian were heading towards danger, as a huge eel had appeared from, and possibly as part of the murky oil substance near the shrine.

Zola continued smiting the water spirit, but was not as fortunate as me and Ivan with our tail ducking, as she was knocked off of Cor’Vandor and now seemed to be hindered by the oily substance that was on the underside of the tail. Zola’s legs seemed stiff, and the treacle substance appeared to be very sticky.

I could see Amble making progress with his flat pebble collection. I hoped this was paying off, as another creature, an octopus appeared near Orianna and Florian who were halfway to the shrine. The octopus had managed to grapple Florian in shark form. Orianna casted a powerful spell that seemed to destroy the water near the shine. She exchanged a look with Florian as the murky oil came back to fill the space of the missing water.


Old Water Lady Has New Tricks

Lightning rained down on one of the Shrine Team’s opponents, freeing shark Florian from being grappled, as I managed to deal some damage to the water spirit with my poleaxe. The water spirit was not pleased, it attacked me directly with the oily slick substance. I was hit directly in the chest by the oil goop. It did not hurt, but it expanded into a bubble around my entire body. I was imprisoned in a giant oil bubble - and the bubble began to float upwards!

As I rose ten feet into the air, Ivan with frenzied rage brought his greataxe down on the water spirit three times again, yelling, “we can do this everyone!” He then got bit by the water spirit. I was not proud of the schadenfreude pleasure I got from witnessing my comrade get injured, but it did delight me to see him finally take some damage after the death defying injuries I had received that were constantly setting up the attacks he was able to land.

The water spirit caught Ivan in a slick bubble, too - I took more schadenfreude pleasure from this.

Amble paused from his pebble collection. I waved at him from up in the air. I had a good viewpoint from up here. Amble shot me and Ivan’s bubbles with magical force. Good comrade! Unfortunately our bubbles did not burst. Amble then lifted another of the necrotic flat pebbles out of the water, and from my vantage point I could see one of the aggressors against the Shine Team vanished. I was unsure if there was a causal effect, but maybe pebble collecting was a Strike Team activity rather than Shrine Team one?

I popped my bubble with a mighty thrust of the poleaxe’s top spike. I fell to the ground, but this was the least damaging event of my time here. I wanted to help the Shrine Team, but they were so far away. Whatsmore, this blasted oil had stuck to me as the bubble burst. It was so sticky it hindered my movement, like it did Zola’s. I was about to go to the Shrine Team, then I caught Ivan yelling at me from his bubble. He had not risen from the ground yet, so I trudged over despite the hindrance of the oil, and thrust my poleaxe into Ivan’s bubble - damn. I did not burst it. What did unfortunately burst the bubble was the icicle spike that the water creature spat towards Ivan. It burst the bubble and tore into Ivan’s shoulder causing pain from both the piecing of flesh and the cold of the projectile. My barbarian comrade was fearsomely more of a threat than me. However, as well conditioned as his body was, this was not his area of specialty. The cold affected him more than it did me. But, like a true warrior, he grit his teeth, sucked up the pain, and strode back up to the water creature and buried his greataxe into it two more times. There was even time for banter with comrade Zola, who followed up Ivan’s attacks by knocking the water spirit off its feet.

Amble located another hidden pebble and brought it out of the water. I could swear the murky water by the Shrine Team was thinning out. I gave that area a closer look and one of the creatures threatening my Shrine Team comrades fizzled away. I could actually just about make out the shrine under the water, and at that moment, Orianna who had swum under the water was completing the somatic components of a spell as I saw a second Moon Beam crash into the area near the shrine. Suddenly, the prone water spirit changed back into water.

Orianna rode Florian - who was now a large eel - back towards us on the shore. Orianna said she placed Reka’s marker on the shrine, which we could now clearly see. Orriana said her Moon Beam spell destroyed a dead body that was releasing the oily necrotic poison into the water. The water was now completely crystal clear everywhere.

Amble found two more flat pebbles, he hoisted them from the water with his Mage Hand spell, and the necrotic magic dissipated. He kept all the pebbles and said he’d take them back to the Daring Academy.


Rest on the Shore

Strike Team took the time to rid ourselves of the oil slick on our bodies. Orianna performed some healing magic on both Ivan and I.

We looked back at the shrine, there was something glowing. From the water emerged a watery hand holding an elegant sword and a bag. Orriana waddled back into the water to retrieve the items from the hand.

As a gesture of gratitude, we had received some rewards from the water spirit for cleaning her shrine and ridding her of the poison oil. The magic users took the time to identify what we had received.
Ivan was partial to the sword, as he was a sailor and it had water magic in it. There was much platinum to divide among us, and a few potions. I took the Water Breathing potion.

Florian wanted to know if the water spirit was okay. We got the impression that she was, and was willing to send us back to Kantas. Zola suggested we could visit her family home for some tea and a snack before leaving. The water spirit was willing to send us up the river to its start, closest to Haspar Knoll.

So, before returning back to Kantas we went to visit Zola’s family.

Coming soon…

Haspar Knoll And The Three Hags (aka Zola’s Mummys)