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2011_01_15

Page history last edited by Azeari 13 years, 1 month ago

Helena summoned a wind that blew her, Garyn and Elsa towards the island at great speed. They had already begun the process of turning back to their physical form when they arrived. Garyn established a spiritual connection with the oak tree and asked it if it had seen Clicker: "a many-armed humanoid who looks a bit like a cockroach."

After some thought, the tree replied, "Perhaps I have. The Wise Ones may have brought him here."
"Do the Wise Ones live here?" Garyn asked.
"I am their guardian," the tree replied.
As they solidified, Helena, Elsa and Garyn landed down near the shore of the island to confer with each other. Lukwind soon joined them, still in his avariel form. Their conversation was interrupted when four creatures with putrid, gray skin and greenish-black hair emerged from the water. Using improvisation, Lukwind identified them as scrags. Garyn cast blast of flame and Helena cast flame strike. Seeing the flames in the distance, Martok dove to pick up speed and conjured chilling tentacles that grappled the trolls.
One of the scrags broke free of the tentacles and swam towards Garyn. He cast arrow mind and shot the monster. Elsa flew out to attack the troll, but missed. Lukwind began to inspire courage with inspirational boost and Helena attacked the other scrags with flame strike again. Martok shot the scrag that Elsa and Garyn were fighting with a vitriolic spear. It dived under the water, but not before Elsa caved its head in with an opportunity attack. The remaining three scrags broke free of the tentacles. Two threw javelins at Elsa, while the third dove beneath the surface. Elsa flew at one of the scrags who had thrown a javelin, while Rohit flew in from the other direction and scored a sneak attack with his bow. Martok shot the scrag with vitriolic spear and it sank beneath the water. The other scrag dived under as well.
The oak tree, actually a treant, charged down the hill and took a swing at Lukwind, hitting one of his mirror images. Lukwind flew out over the water, provoking an AoO from the treant that hit another mirror image. Elsa flew closer to the treant and it stepped towards her and took a swing, but missed. Lukwind fired his rod of ropes at the treant, but it bounced off the tough bark without doing any harm.
Ducking beneath the surface, Garyn fired arrows at one of the scrags that was trying to sneak up on him. Helena ran from the treant, diving into the water and joining Garyn. The waters of the lagoon were murky and full of reeds, limiting visibility. One of the scrags grabbed Garyn in its claws, rending him, while two more scrags swam towards them from the other direction. Garyn fired three arrows into the scrag at point-blank range and Telemachus jumped onto its back, taking an AoO from its claws, but clawing and biting it into unconsciousness.
Rohit threw a flask of alchemist's fire, setting the treant on fire, then Martok hit it with a vitriolic spear. Elsa chopped it down with her qullan greatsword, then dove into the water alongside Garyn and Helena. The scrag that Telemachus was fighting was regenerating, but the little feline was doing enough damage to keep it out of the fight. Garyn fired an arrow at one of the other scrags, dropping it. The remaining scrag rended Elsa with its claws and a giant octopus swam out of the murk and attempted to grapple her in its tentacles. Telemachus bit into it with an AoO, liking the taste of calamari.
Behind the octopus were two more scrags, accompanied by a female humanoid with sickly, yellow skin, covered with warts and oozing sores. Her long, filthy hair resembled rotting seaweed. Elsa hacked at the scrag that Telemachus was attached to, then chopped the octopus into pieces. Two of the scrags were frightened by her bloody blade and ran away. Rohit slipped silently into the water to flank the remaining scrag and hit it with a sneak attack. Lukwind altered himself into an aquatic elf and dove into the water so that Elsa and Rohit would be able to hear his bardic music. The hag tried casting spells at Elsa, but she used mind over magic to reflect them straight back at the caster. The scrag spotted Rohit and began to attack him with its axe. Elsa took a 5ft step and slashed the hag with her greatsword. Although it was difficult to swing the weapon underwater, she still managed to do a significant amount of damage. The hag withdrew from combat and, after another of Rohit's sneak attacks, the remaining scrag did the same.
Helena and Garyn dragged themselves back to the shore, gulping in fresh air. A thri-kreen climbed out of a hole at the top of the island, where the treant had been, and waved to them. However, something was wrong about the way that he moved. Garyn warned Helena that we was suspicious that it might not be their friend Clicker. Helena shot him with searing light and Garyn fired three arrows. "Hey!" he called out, ducking back down the hole. It didn't sound at all like Clicker's voice. Garyn cast guided shot and fired three more arrows. One of them struck "Clicker" in the chest and he dropped out of sight. Martok turned invisible, then flew up the hill and looked down through the hole, seeing only a scrag entangled with plant roots and crawling with insects.
Lukwind stacked a third alter self spell on himself, changing form into an asabi, then burrowing up the hill. He sent his mirror images ahead of him to look down the hole, to make sure it was safe, then he followed suit. The detect secret doors spell indicated that there was a hidden passage somewhere down there. Unfortunately, the insects (a swarm of thousands of centipedes) had tremorsense and thus ignored the illusion, but attacked the flesh and blood Lukwind. He used his boots of big stepping to teleport away, back down the hill.
Since all of the underwater monsters had run away, Elsa climbed back up onto the island. Rohit heard the hag casting a spell, over 100ft away, so he swam off to chase after her. Garyn saw ripples in the water behind Elsa, like the bow wave of a huge creature. He shouted out a warning and Elsa turned around, just as two tentacles yanked her off her feet and dragged her back into the water. Lukwind popped an alter self off the stack, cancelling his asabi form and becoming an aquatic elf once more, then waded into the water to assist Elsa. She broke free of the grapple and attacked the giant squid, but it soon had her in its clutches once again. It also lashed out at Lukwind with its tentacles, but only hit his mirror images.
Martok and Garyn noticed animated corpses, sopping wet, climb onto the shore and head in their direction. There were 3 to the south and another 6 to the northeast. The air around them glistened with moisture. They also saw Rohit spring out of the water on the south side of the island and tumble into a hiding position. He made several attacks of opportunity as the undead moved past him, but suddenly he clutched his throat and fell to the ground, unconscious. Helena tried turning the undead, but they ignored her. The hag tried to cast a spell on Helena, but she resisted its effects.

Lukwind used his boots of big stepping again, to teleport himself and Elsa 60ft into the air. With her fly spell, she managed to keep them both aloft, but the hag quickly put a stop to that with a flame strike that killed Elsa instantly. Lukwind splashed back down into the water and the giant squid grabbed him in its tentacles, knocking him unconscious.
Garyn applied oil of undead bane weapon to his bow. As the undead climbed up the hill towards him, Garyn began to have difficulty breathing. However, he managed to use his scroll of water breathing to counter the effects of their aura of drowning. He began shooting the undead with arrows, but he saw that the damage was gradually repairing itself. He managed to destroy one of the ones that Rohit had damaged, but the others kept coming. Martok tried trapping the undead in chilling tentacles, but they broke free.
An amorphous mass of leaves and vines rose up out of the water and grabbed Rohit's body, dragging it back down into the swamp.
Helena retrieved a candle of invocation from her backpack. The hag cast another flame strike, this time burning both Martok and Helena. Now that the candle was lit, Helena opened a gate to the Elemental Plane of Water and summoned an elemental to chase after the giant squid. It took off towards the south end of the island and she flew after it.
Martok began a duel with the hag, trading flame strike for vitriolic spear. Garyn used a scroll of greater invisibility and managed to evade the undead. He also shot the hag, but found that she had some kind of damage reduction. The acid did its work, however, and the hag was forced to retreat underwater. Half of the undead followed after her.
The squid attacked the elemental with all eight arms, two tentacles and bite. However, the elemental's damage reduction prevented more than half of it from getting through. The shambling mound changed shape, revealing itself to be a second greenhag. She ordered her undead and scrags to surround the elemental, but it transformed itself into a whirlpool. The undead, a scrag and the hag were all swept up and carried off.
Helena saw that the squid had swum in the other direction, so she used her freedom of movement to fly down into the water. She found Rohit's body, lying in front of an open portcullis. A tunnel led inside the island. Grabbing him, she managed to climb back out of the water. While she did this, she noticed that the vanara was still breathing. Once back on dry land, she cast cure light wounds on him and he regained consciousness. The first thing he did was to grab his pearl of the sirines out of his backpack, although it appeared that he no longer needed it.

Martok trapped some of the remaining undead with chilling tentacles and he and Garyn began to shoot them. They destroyed two, but the other two broke free and fled down the hill. They went straight past Rohit, who was invisible to darkvision, since he hadn't picked up his weapon yet. The undead splashed into the water near the south end of the island and disappeared from view.

The elemental retrieved Elsa's dead body and washed it up on shore. Garyn dragged her up the hill and Helena flew over with a scroll of revenance to bring her back to life, albeit temporarily. The heroes headed to the top of the hill to regroup and try and figure out a way past the entangling roots and the creeping doom.

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