Fortune’s Favour - 08/08/2023 - A Kavel Perspective

Need Goliath - Come to Strength Corner

My cousin Kruger is a good sport. He is used to our training sessions being interrupted by adventuring missions. He is also used to looking after little Timor, my golden lion headed tamarin pet, when I have to depart unexpectedly. Both are okay with this, which is good.

While I was lifting kettlebells with Kruger, Oziah came and asked me if I would come join her adventuring party right then and there. I had never actually been in an adventuring party with Oziah before. I had been in missions with one of the, as known as, ‘Murderwives’ before, Delilah, the fast-stabbing half-elf with good punches (also has a dragon dad - it still doesn’t entirely make sense to me). But never had I been on a mission with Oziah.

Comrade Ozia is an aasimar, also a blade master like Delilah. But more of a big cleaving type by all accounts. Also smite heavy too. Somewhat similar to comrade Zola, who was also at Fort Ettin that day. Zola, my half-drow, duel-wielding, duel-smiting friend, wanted to recruit both me and Oziah for a mission she had planned concerning the Wild Hunt business. It turned out, both me and comrade Ozian had some part to play in the Lord of the Hunt coming back to the Feywild.

Both me and Zola unintentionally helped the red-hag Drusilia obtain the Horn of the Wild Hunt. And we both unintentionally became enthralled by the Lord of the Hunt for a short time (I hope a short time - it is unclear how long it was, because Fey time!)

Poor comrade Zola also helped restore Drusilia’s daughter’s memories. Comrade Oziah, it turns out, also played a part in this. Orianix, the daughter, can transform into a giant fey stag creature, the Lord of the Hunt’s mount. The horn and the mount were two of three items Drusilia was after to bring back the Lord of the Hunt. The spear was the last item… I’m not sure if Zola was involved in that. Zola inadvertently fucked up a lot. So, it’s possible she was involved in the spear blunder too. But, even if that was true, what is good about Zola is she is true to herself. When she know’s she’s fucked up; she tries her best to set things right. So, she wants to strike back at the Wild Hunt people, and so she came to recruit a couple of big hitters like herself. In Oziah and I; Zola made good party member choices.

Unfortunately, I had to tell Zola I could not accompany her as comrade Oziah had just recruited me for her party. But, comrade Oziah negotiated a good deal with Zola. If Zola came with us on Oziah’s own mission, then she’ll come with Zola later on Zola’s Wild Hunt mission. Good deal.

Next to the Training Yard, where Strength Corner is, is a perfectly situated tent for healing care. Inside the tent, Oziah recruited Laurel, the halfling nature and divine caster. Laurel wears a flower crown on their head. I hadn’t seen comrade Laurel since our time in Phlegethos. Phlegethos was a shit time - oppressively hot there - but comrade Varga got a flying shark skeleton there, which was nice.

Comrade Oziah’s mission came from Counselor Aurelia. Oziah was pretty convinced she would be getting a castle as a reward for a successfully completed mission. I offered to give her castle a once over with my mason, and carpentry eye. But before then, we had to get to Daring Heights to talk to Counselor Aurelia about the castle. So, since we were in Fort Ettin, Jenna helped us and teleported us to see her mum about a castle.

Before we left though, I noticed that Zola was very mopey. I couldn’t think why though. Sure, being enthralled by the Wild Hunt was terrible, but there was no use overthinking it. Plus, I had heard from Archie, my human wizard friend, that they had a successful time in the Court of Sorcery, where Zola learned how to do fey bargains like her mums. So that must be a good thing, right? Also, she always returns home to her mums, who look after her well. They all live in a big house in Haspur Knoll in the Witching Court. I’ve been there once. Nice place.


Big Sword, The Mission, A Promising Castle and News From The Witching Court

At Portal Plaza, Zola stopped to have a chat to Je’Sathriel, aka The Jackal, by interacting with his big sword that he left embedded in the stone of Portal Plaza. No doubt Zola was receiving a divine buff from the chat. You see, Velania and Zola are both Je’Sathriel’s favourites, so when they interact with the sword, their get rewarded.

When we talked to Counselor Aurelia in her home. She told us about Lady Jemina Billlowing of the Billowing fortune. Very wealthy family in Faerun. This lady wanted to teleport a castle of hers to the Dawnlands. This required a big, expensive teleportation spell with big liability procedures. Lady Billowing skipped out on the magical insurance and the result of this was that the big teleportation spell fucked up. The castle did make it to Daring Heights. It was northwest of the city. But, there were reports of monsters. Lady Jemina was not happy with the state of her castle. She washed her hands of the whole thing and just left her castle there. Aurelia said she was happy to give the castle, called Fortune’s Favour, and the land to Oziah, if she could get rid of the monsters for the Dawnlands.

Aurelia told us more about what she knew of the castle and how it came to be where it now lay in Daring Heights. It was reported that there was an immense explosion during the teleportation, and the monsters that have allegedly been seen had huge mouths.

Explosions and monsters. It sounded interesting. I nudged Zola standing beside me to see if she was excited to bring a divine smite style solution down on the monsters. Zola didn’t react, it was as if she didn’t notice I nudged her. She seemed deep in thought. I hoped she was paying some attention.

Delilah had her teammates in mind. Delilah enquired about a significant reward for the rest of us too, since she and Oziah would be getting the castle. I said it’s alright, because I do not need a castle. I was comfortable in my current home. Zola then said that her home had exploded…

I asked about Zola’s mothers who lived at Haspur Knoll. In a distant voice, Zola mentioned she wasn’t sure. Apparently they were in the Hells, safe. We all had a little chat in Aurelia’s office, while Aurelia busied herself with paperwork. Eventually we said goodbye to Aurelia, she wished us luck, and off we trekked to find Fortune’s Favour using a map Aurelia gave us. All the while, the chat with Zola continued.


Trek to Fortune’s Favour

As we walked over the planes of the Dawnlands leading towards Kundar, Zola explained that Lord Vandree was following up a lead for her concerning the explosion of her home. Oziah complimented Zola on her adamantine plate armour. I mentioned how it used to have a horrible, gothic chandelier on the back of it until Mendal got rid of it for Zola (Mendal was looking forward to keeping the adamantine chandelier so he could try and forge adamantine, but it turned out the chandelier was just brass).

As we ascended the final hill, we could see Fortune’s Favour come into sight. It was a hexagonal structure. From hundreds of yards away, I could still make some interesting observations about the castle. Firstly, it appeared to be made of obsidian, it also had giant windows on the outer wall too; appalling for defensive purposes. Additionally - it appeared to be missing a keep. I conveyed all that to comrade Oziah. She proposed we do an aerial reconnaissance before going in.

Delilah joined Oziah on her flying steed, Deimos, who is a bony-looking pegasus - very gothic. Maybe Oziah would have liked the chandelier back plate ornament? Funny aside: I recently learned that the adamantine splint that Zola gave to Mendal, after I sold her the adamantine plate, Zola bought from Oziah. Mendal’s adamantine splint has good forebears.

Laurel joined Zola on Corr'Vandor, the now flying fey stag. The two flying mounts and riders began to circle the walls from above. While they did this, my powerful flight legs brought me to the top of the walls with a mighty hop, skip and flying jump.

The walls were wide, but not really thick. They came to around 50ft wide. They were hollow, they had living spaces in them to go with the large windows - this really was more of a palace than a castle.

I jumped off of the wall to join the others who had gathered in the centre of the fort around what once used to be the location of a keep, but now stood an immensely wide and gigantically deep hole in the ground.


The Keep That Wasn’t

It was about 150ft wide and probably over 200ft deep. Standing up at the top, we couldn’t really see the bottom very well. Zola improved things by using the Light spell on a stone sized piece of rubble and throwing it down the hole. The piece of rubble Zola found seemed to be part of the once erect keep. There were more pieces all around inside the courtyard’s walls.

Piecing together what we were told, Oziah concluded that the keep was destroyed during the faulty and very explosive teleportation spell. The explosion must have bored the giant pit as well.

Something caught my eye where Zola’s luminescent stone had fallen.

“Big worm!” I said aloud to my comrades, as I pointed in its direction. I saw a giant mouth around 20ft wide, and then it swallowed the light bearing stone. But, whilst the loss of light reduced my vision, I could have sworn the large mouthed creature vanished.

“Gone!” I updated the party. Before I could be questioned about my observation, we heard a powerful, earth-shattering roar from the bottom of the pit, quite likely emitting from a very large mouth, even though we couldn’t see it.

Oziah reminded us that Aurelia had hired her because the Counselor saw this problem as needing an Oziah-like solution. So, we prepared to go down there and do some gigantic pest control. Laurel provided us with some powerful constitutional boosting magic. This paired very well with how good I was already feeling from earlier.

Earlier in the city, before we entered Aurelia’s home, Oziah gave us a little speech. Oziah talked about how we all deserved castles. To reiterate, I still do not feel I want a castle; but when Oziah finished what she had to say; in the moment felt that I deserved a castle.

For us all to reach the bottom of the pit safely, I offered to carry Laurel while I jumped from point to point descending with short bursts of flight. But, Laurel decided to stay on Corr’Vander with Zola to reach the bottom of the pit instead.

I noticed as I descended close to the walls of the pit that the earth and stone around seemed to contain lots of small, semi precious looking stones. It was nice. It reminded me a little of the Damphenite Tangle with all its beautiful damphenite rocks. “Good stone!” I yelled to the others on flying mounts before finally landing at the base of the cavern with a satisfying thud. I looked to the others to see if they were impressed with my very athletic descent. But, before I could receive any praise, we heard and felt an enormous rattle as a humongous purple worm, whose mouth alone was gargantuan, appeared before us as if they had been invisibly hiding. The strangest thing was, it really felt like no one else was down here when we first landed.


Faulty Teleportation Spells Can Give You Magical Powers

We later realised that the uber-gargantuan worms were not turning invisible. They were in fact able to planeshift into the Ethereal Plane and then shift back. Also there were actually three of them in total.

It was quite the shock discovering the second worm. You see, I pounced immediately at the apparition of the first worm. In an instant my flight legs carried me onto the purple worm’s back, where I took up a mount position and started pummeling it with my mighty fists. The worm had amazing flexibility as it turned around with its front end and tried to swallow me on its back. I punched one of its incoming teeth away as it bit my arm. It backed off from trying to swallow me as I gave it some advice, “fuck off!”

Oziah was next with radiant and necrotically-charged, magical slashes from her longsword carving giant wounds into the worm’s side. Laurel meanwhile provided us with some new light, since the worm that tried to swallow me inconsiderately swallowed our earlier light source. Laurel wisely took the light source away from the purple worm, and took themselves to hug the cavern wall, to stay out of us melee fighters’ way. Unfortunately, this smart move put them right next to the second purple worm when it materialised and swallowed the nearest available target - Laurel. Our powerful healer had been consumed. Rudely, mine and Oziah’s worm shimmered away and I dropped to the cavern floor.

Delilah downed one of those Potions of Speed that Varga loves so much, and hasted away at great speed towards the second purple worm, the one that had Laurel. When Delilah was in range of her blades, she unleashed a lethal combination of thrusts and unarmed blows to the halfling-eater in an attempt to free our healer. Each of her strikes were powerful enough to stun you in place. Unluckily, these gargantuan worms had a gargantuan fortitude. Fortitude aside though, the worm Delilah attacked was not happy with the attention it was getting from her, so it attempted to gulp her down too, but Deliah’s hasted footwork helped her avoid being digested.


Wild-shaped Solutions - Or Nothing

These purple worms were enormously large! I can jump-fly really far, but I was too far away to jump from where the first worm left me to get over to the second worm. Deimos flew Oziah over to the second worm in a flash, and when Oziah got there she struck mighty slashing radiant pain into the worm and declared she’d, “give it a few more seconds before going in after Laurel.”

I propelled myself as far as I could to reach the second worm in time to help Oziah free Laurel, but I could tell I wouldn’t reach the worm before Oziah would feel compelled to enter the worm. So, from the distance I reached, I pulled out my Horn of Blasting and blew a note toward the worm, whilst bracing myself for disaster. The worm was hit by a thunderous blast, and fortunately the horn did not explode in my face. Unfortunately, the worm did not, “spit out our healer!”, as I had demanded it do. The worm rather cheekily struck Zola with its tail instead. Immediately after that a bat unexpectedly flew out of its mouth. It seemed that there were more things in the worm's mouth than just Laurel. But then I noticed a little crown of flowers on the bat’s head that was very similar to what Laurel wore - and it hit me, ‘oh that is Laurel.’ Bat Laurel flew to safety.

The first worm reappeared behind me. I didn’t even turn around to look, it was so enormous I could see it in my peripheral vision. The second worm, no more halfling inside it; got busy with the rest of my comrades. Zola slashed the worm deeply, but this did not stop the worm from swiping its poisonous tail at Delilah, and biting Oziah with its gigantic mouth. Oziah couldn’t bring her sword up in time to intercept the creature's teeth, as it bit and scooped her inside its mouth, and then swallowed her whole. Before any of us could attack it, the worm vanished. To make matters worse, this was when the third worm appeared.

Delilah stayed focused, she sprinted back toward the injured first worm, and unleashed a flurry of stabs and unarmed strikes into the pre-existing wounds on the worm, splitting its wounds open wider. Zola flew in on Corr’Vander to assist with her hurricane slashes of radiant, cutting pain successfully slicing so deep into the worm that only a few seconds after it had rematerialised, it was dead.

Success did not remain with us for long though. The new third worm wasn’t happy with its friend’s death, it was pissed off. Especially as Zola went straight from her kill of the first worm towards the third worm, and started cutting deep gorges into that one,too. The third worm bit and swallowed Zola to deal with her duel-wielding sword cuts. Effective. It was also effective when it got ahead of my unarmed strikes, by biting and swallowing me too…

“Hey Kavel,” I heard from in front of me, as I found myself squeezed by the throat muscles of the third worm, with Zola’s swords very close to my face.

To be fair to Oziah, it really was only a few seconds before she entered the second worm’s mouth, although not quite by her own initiative. Now me and Zola were sharing a worm ourselves. I remember thinking at the time, “I know I can’t… but, I also don’t think Oziah nor Zola can do the druid thing and turn into a bat?”


Punch Slash Retch

The worm squeezed its throat muscles, and I could feel it wiggling, trying to shuffle me and Zola down into its belly. Its attempts at trying to wrestle a Dwarven MMA trained fighter were laughable. I twisted myself around to face the teeth of the worm and began punching rock-splitting strikes down onto the worm's inner throat. I got it to retch.

“Come on Zola,” I said encouragingly, “you give it a try!” As I moved forward as much as I could to get out of her way, Zola obliged. As Zola slashed repeatedly at the inside of the worm’s throat, it forced the worm to gag harder than it did at my punches. The worm forcefully regurgitated us out of its mouth and onto the cavern floor, on our arses, covered in slime and a little acid.

On the floor, I looked around. It was good to see Oziah was back. But, so too was the second worm - and Zola was not inside it.

Bat-Laurel flew towards us, we were all in the centre of the cavern then. Laurel turned back into their regular self and healed us all with a powerful healing spell. It was much appreciated.

I tried to point out to Zola, who had remounted Corr’Vander, that Oziah was back. But then Oziah vanished again. The second worm was trying to swallow Oziah, get her back in its belly. It seemed worried that the third worm would get there before it. So it bit Oziah to try and get purchase on her, and in the attack Oziah vanished, but this time without first being inside the worm. This worm, the second worm, was frustrated. But, without missing a beat, it swung its poisonous tail at the now ‘back to halfling’ Laurel and stung them good with its poisonous tail. Delilah sprinted towards the worm in defence of our healer and with masterful, precise thrusts of her shortsword, ended its life. The elevated tail and front of the purple worm came crashing down on the cavern floor, shaking the ground, and its threatening movements were no more.

As I watched Delilah in action, the third, and only purple worm left, tried to bite and swallow me. It bit me, but I fended off it’s swallow, pushing myself away from its mouth and advising this one to also, “fuck off!” Once was already too much.


Cavern Clearing Completed

I threw thunderous punches into the remaining gargantuan worm's side, the impact splitting open the multiple slash wounds my comrades had dealt it. This pissed the worm off. But, it looked too injured to do anything about it. So, I stepped back to put some space between me and it to deliver a spectacular finish. Distance achieved, I took to the air to deliver a flying knee into the spot on its body where I was compounding its wounds. It was going to be good! But, the worm intercepted me mid flight in its mouth. I was surprised it had the energy left. Well played by it, I suppose. A lucky swallow.

It wasn’t long though before Delilah in her hasted fury ripped open an exit point for me with the continuous slashing of her shortsword into the worm’s wounds. Two dead purple worms for Delilah. She
did very well clearing up her new place of monsters.

I sort of swam out of the exit Delilah provided me. I came out to see Delilah lying down on the floor breathing heavily. The effects of the Potion of Speed wearing off. The potion had done its job, but the trade off was a terrible exhaustion. I bent down and patted her shoulder to say thank you for the easier exit point.

Oziah was back - fully! She told us it was a weird consequence of the Banishment spell, that she casted, whilst she was in the Ethereal plane inside worm number two. The fine print of that spell kept returning her to that plane.

Laurel saw to any remaining wounds in the party.

Zola took care of the grime many of us were covered in after being inside those worms with her Prestidigitation spell. Very handy spell that. It prompted me to ask comrade Oziah, “any baths in your new castle?”


Exploring Fortune’s Favour - Sans Monsters

There were baths. There were lots of rooms too. There were magically billowing curtains. There was also Aurelia.

Aurelia had turned up to thank Oziah and the rest of us. Those of us not receiving a fixer-upper castle received 25pp - nice.

Oziah and Aurelia talked for a bit in private. Aurelia came back, and I could swear I heard Oziah swearing from wherever she had remained for a bit. I thought maybe the castle-fixing costs were upsetting her. Delilah said she would take charge of renovations. I offered to give the castle a look over and estimate the repair costs, since I am a mason and carpenter. This should help when negotiating contracts.

Aurelia had also given us an Ioun stone she made herself. It was nice, but when we discovered it wasn’t going to enhance anyone’s sword technique or unarmed strikes, Laurel became the recipient of it. The stone reminded me of something though. I asked Oziah and Delilah if they wouldn't mind, if I took a tiny amount of the gems in the cavern walls I saw earlier. They were cool with that. Since the gems reminded me of the Damphenite Tangle, I decided to polish a few up, and decided that the next time I see Nathalie I could show her some gems we have on the Material Plane and give them to her as a gift.