Loose Threads: What caused the dream? Spider's Nest? Alchemical enhancement of animals? Someone named Drevial? Presence of Worm that Walks?
Participants: Khirl Galesinger Tarah Nirimaya Bravo Burgwild Xander Marshall Vahz
Location(s): Millennium Forest
Short summary:
The party looked over the reports and decided to venture into the Millennium Forest to investigate the appearance of Unknown animals. During the search, they encountered alchemically glowing spiders. Had a weird dream. Found and fought Worm that Walks Unknown. Discovered evidence of increasingly ambitious alchemical/magical experiments on animals. Cleared out a spider nest, and recovered the body of a guild scout.
Full report:
The party gathered on a cold morning, made acquaintance with each other, and set off into the Millennium Forest. After six hours, the party encountered their first threats in the form of a sandpit trap, which Xander fell into and had to teleport out of. The party surmised that the pit was made by some kind of Earth-attuned beasts (rock dogs?), but were unable to locate them. The party found and proceeded to follow a series of spider tracks into an ambush. The spiders attacked from the trees, but were quickly dispatched by spear, shot, and spell. Inspection of the corpses revealed them to be glowing steadily, and the source of the glow seemed to be from an alchemical mutation rather than magic. The party healed up and continued further ahead before finding a sheltered location to make camp. Vahz and Khirl managed to gather a meal, and the group settled in for the night.
During the night, the party each had similar dreams, featuring themes of lost mothers, lost children, and lost homes. The party concludes that the dreams were supernatural in origin, but an exact cause eluded them.
The party continued forward, seeking a location where a primal or alchemical ritual might have occurred. On the way, they found a large spiders' cocoon, and spotted a pit in the distance. Unsure on whether it was safe to burn without a conflagration spreading, the party decided to leave the cocoon alone and proceed ahead to the pit. The pit contained two dead snakes and a dead kobold, and bore hints of a blood ritual, but certainly was not the pond the last elemental ritual occurred within. Spotting something shiny within, the party entered to investigate, whereupon the snakes and kobold animated and attacked.
A quickly scribbled note signed by Khirl, with a few misspellings: This proved to be more dangerous than expected, as the bodies in the pit came into motion to attack us. Though there were some close calls, we managed to dispatch them eventually. The kobold in particular proved to be a challenge. It seems it was a large set of worms that animated the body, and demanded sacrifices. The worms eventually scurried away when the tide of battle turned. If you follow our footsteps, be wary of these creatures; normal weapons seem less effective, and they have eyes all over.
The kobold was animated as a Worm that Walks, and it attacked primarily with magic. This foe in particular was weak enough that it mostly relied on cantrips to fight, and therefore threatened little damage at once, but it yet had a very high threshold to resist its magic, and any more powerful animation could prove very dangerous when slinging real spells. Their resistance to physical damage and immunity to flanking meant it took a protracted fight to bring it down, and while it did little damage at once, the difficulty in avoiding that damage meant the party was quite taxed by the time it was defeated. Once defeated, it did not die outright, but rather split into separate worms that wriggled away into the ground.
Once the fight was over, the party found a journal (excerpt transcribed below)
> "The fool that was summoning the elementals was killed by 'heroes' in that forsaken town. We will have to go back to the plans and try to do something different that doesn't draw as much attention. Perhaps magical, alchemical or natural enhancements. We will have to get Drevial on it.
> "The experiments are not going well. There seems to be a mutation that makes them glow. Physically they are bigger and stronger, but the glow makes them easy to spot. Will have to keep working on it. The forest gives us the perfect cover."
The journal mostly detailed the experiments being performed, but not the location. Experiments involving spiders, ants, cats and dogs are noted, but nothing yet larger.
Unable to track the worm, nor locate a trace of other tracks leading to the pit, the party decided to cut their losses. They took a rest, gathered the journal, and headed back to deal with the cocoon. As the party closed in, they accidentally provoked spiders hidden nearby, starting a fight.
Two large spiders and a swarm attacked the party. The swarm's resistance to physical damage made it a headache, since the party tended to do small amounts of damage at once. Meanwhile, poor attack rolls and high saves from both sides resulted in another protracted fight against the two larger spiders. Eventually Tarah managed to spear one before being pinned by a web, Bravo skewered the other, and Khirl managed to scatter the swarm with a spellstrike.
Searching the cocoon, the party found the body of an ysoki guild scout wearing a backpack ballista. They gathered up the remains and returned to First Landing.