A promise is a promise! Unless you betray someone for a greater good… We have to help the plantlings! I not just vote for option 2 but also start preparing to cast my storm strike.
So, while the brave adventurers prepare themself, the four plantlings attack the tapped druid who cant really do anything to defend himself, but deliver a blow to one plantling who in return bites a chunk of meat out of the druid before he dies.
The other three plantlings make short work of the druid and then face the snake and the dryad. (End of Plantlings turn.)
The Snake attacks a plantlings and kills it while the plantling deals one damage to the snake, reducing it to 3/2. The Dryad also attacks a plantling and gets bitten in return, reducing the plantling to 1/1 and the Dryad to 2/1. (End of Druids turn.)
Nonplussed by how easily the druid fell, a sharp staccato drumbeat rings out as Duucxejial moves to clean things up.
Duucxejial casts Sundering Sonata on the snake (choosing the first mode to deal 2 damage to it), then attacks the dryad (slaying her before combat damage via Ring Blade and Shrouding Dragonflame triggers).
As the Dragonspeaker rushes in to help the plantlings, the last two remaining enemies are easily defeated by the Dragonspeakers power, and this battle ends. The druid and his minions are dead and you kept your promise to the dark treant. The two remaining plantlings run around very excited and make sure that the druid and his allies are really dead.
Quest updated.
1. This worked out fine. Lets collect the dead dryads and the dead plantlings bodies and the dark treants branch. After all thats all high quality wood. Then lets chop down one or two dead trees, load everything on the ox cart and return home to get our reward.
2. Lets show some respekt for the dead and bury their bodies. Then chop down some dead trees and bring that wood home. The quality of the wood might not be that high, but that is the only right thing to do.
3. Lets pile up the dead and burn them as a warning for everyone, not to mess with us. Then collect whatever wood we can find.
4. I dont like this. I dont know who's right or wrong here, but i feel used by both sides. One side is dead, so lets even everything out, kill the remaining plantlings, then kill the dark treant too and bring the treants wooden body to the town. Let nature alone decide if the forest will survive or not and not some druid or treant.
5. I know of something better. We should ... (enter your own solution).
Duucxejial suggests an option 5. Let the dark treant decide what to do with the bodies; it’s not really our place to interfere any further (not that he’d decline if the dark treant wants the party to take the bodies). As previously offered, one of the plantlings can show us the best deadwood, then we can collect and get out of here.
The Plantlings seem to realize that youre a bit unsure what to do next, so they lead you to a group of dead trees that are quite dry but have a lot of natural resin. They are easy to chop down and should burn quite good. And they are not even that heavy so its easy to place many of them on the ox cart.
While you collect the wood, the plantlings dig a small hole where they then carefully place the bodys of the druid and his minions and those of the dead plantlings too, and then cover it with earth and wood and leaves and whatever is lying around. You wonder why they care so much, but hey, they are plants. Who knows how plants are thinking. And afterwards they just disappear into the woods.
Seems like there is nothing left to do here and you got what you came for. So you decide to leave. After all everything went fine more or less.
Only Eldric seems a bit lost and disctracted and is moving uncomfortably around on the ox cart as if there is something lasting on him. Sometimes he's even mumbling something you dont really understand and after a while you ask him what it is that he's thinking about.
"Oh, uh, nothing. I just wonder, umm, did we really have to let the druid and the dryads die? The plant things and their tree were really scary. I mean they helped us and all, but i wonder what will come out of those eggs they planted inside the corpses before they buried them. You were busy chopping trees, but i saw what the two plantlings did."
New Quest:
Calm down Eldric
1. Relax Eldric, what the plantlings did, it is none of our business. We got our wood and everything else doesnt matter.
2. Dont worry Eldric. Nature may sometimes seem strange or cruel, but whatever the plantlings did there, is only natural for them, like, lets say drinking water is for us.
3. They did what? They desecrated the corpses and layed their eggs into them? We must turn around immediately and burn the corpses before whatever creature it is can hatch.
4. Shut up Eldric. Youre here too learn. Now you learn to talk and think less.
Duucxejial snorts. "I suppose you object to the slaughter of livestock then? Nature is neither kind nor safe. The dead are life's foundation. These are fundamental facets of the great web's endless transformation."
(Im assuming Duucxejial is the party leader now if thats ok for Torchbearer Rarg.)
Eldric grumbles a bit, but after a while he seems to understand what you mean. Meanwhile you travel slowly back towards Lastwood Village while its getting darker and darker. Its getting cold and mist and fog is creeping over the ground and the night begins. The long night where monsters are rumoured to roam around in the darkness and where everyone tries to stay at home and lock the doors.
Luckily for you, suddenly only a few hundred foot away you see light appear. This must be Lastwood Village, but something is wrong. You see light through the fog, but you hear absolutely nothing. At least the tavern should make some noise, but there is only silence. No Sound, no movement, nothing.
As you carefully enter the Village, you see bodies lying on the ground. You found the former inhabitants of Lastwood, at least what remains of them. Some have visible wounds from weapons, others have bitemarks, but everyone here is dead. As you get closer to maybe find out more, suddenly there is movement. Slowly the dead rise as zombies, moaning and making strange noises. Then as they see you, they start walking and crawling towards you.
And so the battle against the undead horde begins.
Defend yourself!
Enemies:
30 x 1/1 Zombie
(3 per player at the same time. 30 Zombies total.)
The Zombies are slow, so you start first. Also there is a lot of them but youre standing near the village gate. There is not enough space, so only 3 zombies can attack a character at the same time.
@LvB before I finalize that, there’s something I’d like to confirm: When Duucxejial casts Shrouding Dragonflame, does it affect the entire party, or just Duucxejial and any creature tokens he summons?
Duucxejial sighs. So much for having an audience tonight. He advances with measured steps, ring blade dancing about as he recites an excerpt from an ancestral epic.
“…and Rekka, fourth of the Denkeeper’s second brood, strode into the mountains, clad in crimson flames against the elements. And when the frigid beasts fell upon him…” (I’ll expand this later; putting this out now to not delay any further.)
Scarlet Shrouding Dragonflames engulf the bard, burning away any zombies that draw close. He takes no other actions.
So…nonfunctional wording aside, I don’t get what you want us to do here, especially since it looks like Rarg is about to join Eldric in impending undeath. Leave? Slog through until we can take shelter in one of the houses? Are either of those even options?
Realizing that fighting the ever again rising zombies is not an option, you try to disengage from combat. As you're trying to take Eldric out of the dangerous zombie infested village, the zombies follow you, slow but relentless, shambling towards you, hungering for your brains.
But then, you hear a shout "Over here!" and out of the darkness you see a shape appear. A house? Maybe a small tower? But whatever it is, someone is there who isnt zombified and a building could provide shelter against the zombie horde.
You rush there as fast as you can, and then you see a figure.
"Come, hurry, into my tower. Its an old military watchtower that i call my home now. The zombies cant come in, if we bar the door!"
You dont really have time to think, as the zombies are getting closer and closer, and so you run to the tower. As soon as youre inside, the Village Healer slams the door shut and uses a big wooden beam to barricade it.
As he sees Eldric wounds, the healer takes a potion from a shelf "Here boy, drink this, you will feel better soon, i promise."
While the healer takes care of Eldric you have time to look around. You see a table with alchemical stuff on it, a desk, some shelfes and a bed. The tower itself looks like it was once made to be part of some fortification, but was then abandoned by the military. And now it serves as home for someone.
As the healer is finished taking care of Eldrics Wounds, he turns to you.
"Now that was quite close. Has no one told you that the night is really dangerous? Ah, however, its good that youre alive unlike those unlucky fellas outside. But where are my manners. Im Grombak the Healer of this Village and this tower is my home. And now listen, cause this is very important. We must be really quiet now. You see, zombies are not the smartest creatures and if they dont hear anything from us, they will probably leave and go back to the village. Undead as they are, they are always drawn back to the place of their death."
Sitting and waiting inside the tower for the zombies to disappear, you quietly whisper about whats going on here. You hear the Zombies clawing against the towers door and walls, but Grombak the Healer assures you that they cant get in and that the tower is safe. Then he tells you what he whitnessed.
"Like everytime before the long night, in the evening i was checking if everything was alright with my tower. You see, since the tower is outside of the village, it is more exposed to the night monsters. And i really dont want whatever might be out there to come in here. Ah, well, where was i? Oh, yes the monsters. Everything was ok with the tower, but when i looked at the village i saw something strange. A dark misty fog was in the village and when i looked again i saw a blurry figure with glowing eyes standing next to the barn where the Tutorisnail lives. Next thing i saw was the Tutorisnail snailing away and out of the village as fast as it could and then the horror began. All the people came out of their houses and instantly started fighting and killing each other. But that wasnt the worst. The adults, they ... they ... tried to eat the children. Im ashamed to admit that i was so terrified, that i hid in my tower when i witnessed this. And then after a while it was over and everyone was dead. Or at least i thought so, until these poor people arose as zombies. And that ... thing ... i saw, looked like this"
New Quest: Find out what happened.
1. You said the Tutorisnail fled right before this happened? Could the snail be responsible?
2. Tell us more about this creature with the glowing eyes.
3. What do you know about zombies? What causes zombification?
"Well, zombies can be made in a more or less natural way and in an unnatural. The natural way is the zombie plague, but i dont think that this is the case here. You see, the zombie plague infects people and when they die they become zombies. But here people werent sick. So i think it was the darkest and foulest magic that turned them into zombies.
I think whatever that creature with the glowing eyes was, first used mind controlling magic to make the people fight each other or to drive them insane. And then when they were dead it raised them as zombies. And because the zombies stayed in the village it probably gave them an order. Zombies arent smart, but a powerful necromancer could order them to guard a place or to attack intruders or to just kill anyone who comes close. The zombies then act, depending on that order until the dark magic runs out and they become ordinary corpses again."
He pauses for a while, thinking.
"But surely you have more Questions. That creature with the glowing eyes, i have no idea what it is. And i havent seen or heard of something like this before. Maybe people with more knowledge know what it is, but im just a Village Healer, not a Magician or Librarian.
But i have a theory about the Tutorisnail and why it left. The Tutorisnails mind is really limited and its almost acting on instinct alone. That must be why it wasnt affected by the mind controling magic of that creature. But it must have sensed the danger and so its instincts told it to snail away as fast as it could.
Oh, and dont worry about Eldric. He will be fine. Because those were unnatural zombies, there is only a very small chance of Eldric being infected by the zombie plague."
As Eldric hears this he turns to the healer as fast as he can, looking shocked and horrified:
"I WILL BECOME A ZOMBIE ?!?"
"Shhhh, dont worry, its only a very small chance. You will probably be alright. But do you hear this?"
- You listen, but you dont hear anything -
"No zombie sounds! The zombies must have gone back to the village, or maybe the magic ran out and they are dead now. We should go and investigate whats going on in the village. But we must be stealthy and very silent"
1. Sounds like a plan. Lets go!
2. Lets better stay here in the tower and wait some more hours, just to be sure.
Suddenly something strange appears. A wave of untamed chaotic and wild magic is crashing over everything, distorting and shifting reality itself for a short time. Then afterwards, everything is back to normal.
"Whoa, what was that? Is everyone alright?" asks Rarg.
"Yeah", "Yeah", the Dragonspeaker and Raulus answer, while Eldric grumbles something about a zombification future.
"That must have been a magical outbreak", says the healer. "I've heard of such events, but never seen one. It is said that they somehow shift reality, but no one can really say how or why. But it is rumoured that it has something to do with the magicians experiment that went almost wrong and turned this world into a state of eternal twilight. But, since everyone of us is still here, and nothing has changed compared to before, i think the magical wave just flowed over us without any effect."
"Alright, whatever that was, it doesnt seem to have an effect on us, so we can think about it later. We still should decide if we go now into the village or wait a while. As i said before, better wait a bit longer, cause you know, better to be safe than sorry."
Welcome to the party, Raulus. Or wait, your character has been here all the time ...
Rarg likes challenges, and the eldritch dangers are not a problem for him. If zombies are not here, we must try to sneak into the village. Then we could defeat the thing of glowing eyes and the zombies will become corpses again. We also have to know if someone has survived. (This is a version of option 1)
Raulus waits for Duucxejial to voice his opinion of what the party should do, as it will settle our plans. [Out of character] @cadstar369, please contribute as you haven't posted in a while. I don't what the party back to two characters just as I join, hoping to increase party size.
Since the healer seems intent on staying inside awhile longer, Duucxejial turns his attention back to observing and exploring the tower, with the occasional glance at Raulus. While he hasn’t taken a proper moment to speak to the other reptile, now doesn’t feel like the proper time or place.
(Voting for option 2)
~~~
Apologies; part of the reason my replies are slow at the moment is that, in character, Duucxejial has no interest in investigating or resolving this issue (I’ll add in flavor text to this effect later). He’ll go along with it because he might as well at this point (and it might turn into a half-decent story), but he’d rather spend the night in the tower, take the wood back to town, and go find another job that actually pays for their trouble.
You wait for some more hours, but as you dont hear anything, you finally decide to look after the zombies. It takes a bit of convincing, but then even the Village Healer decides to come with you. He probably wont be of much use should you have to fight, but at least he can take care of wounds.
Careful, silent and slow you sneak into the Village, but since its dark and theres mist and fog everywhere you cant see very much. Then, as you approach the middle of the village, you see a pile of corpses. Did the zombies pile themself up? Did the unknown creature do this or is there something unknown at work here? You carefully look around, but you dont see anything moving and you hear nothing. After a while you have searched the whole Village and the houses, but there is no monsters here anymore, except the pile of corpses that starts to move now.
IT WAS A TRAP!
This was no ordinary pile of corpses, no, the zombies amalgamated into this abomination. It is almost 3 meters tall and maybe as wide as that too.
And the worst thing, it appears during your turn and instantly casts
Hitting everyone in the party for X=3.
Eldric instantly becomes unconscious, while the rest is seriously weakened. But at least the Hitpoints of the Zombie Abomination have been reduced by 5 and its down to 15.
And so this fight begins!
The Village Healer, being 0/3, taps itself to create a healing potion. Just in case.
Wheeling away from the blast, Duucxejial spins and slides to a halt beside the healer. "Have anything that might help with whatever that was? I don't think I can take a second hit." Without waiting for a response, he begins playing his drum, fervent beats ringing out into the darkness. A fiery blast from a Sundering Sonata falls upon the abomination, dealing 2 damage.
Raulus casts Summon the Wyrm, summoning a 3/3 dragon with flying and haste, then equips Blazetongue, his sword and charges the Abomination swinging his sword at it for 2 first strike damage. (power of 2 because of the equipment bonus.) [Out of character] I assume that the dragon I summoned acts on its own turn to fight the abomination. I now have 3 or 1 mana left, depending on whether equipping the sword costs mana.
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Duucxejial casts Sundering Sonata on the snake (choosing the first mode to deal 2 damage to it), then attacks the dryad (slaying her before combat damage via Ring Blade and Shrouding Dragonflame triggers).
(Reflavoring answer 2.)
Duucxejial sighs. So much for having an audience tonight. He advances with measured steps, ring blade dancing about as he recites an excerpt from an ancestral epic.
“…and Rekka, fourth of the Denkeeper’s second brood, strode into the mountains, clad in crimson flames against the elements. And when the frigid beasts fell upon him…” (I’ll expand this later; putting this out now to not delay any further.)
Scarlet Shrouding Dragonflames engulf the bard, burning away any zombies that draw close. He takes no other actions.
In the meantime, Raulus votes for option 2, thinking it's better to be safe than sorry.
If zombies are not here, we must try to sneak into the village. Then we could defeat the thing of glowing eyes and the zombies will become corpses again. We also have to know if someone has survived. (This is a version of option 1)
[Out of character]
@cadstar369, please contribute as you haven't posted in a while. I don't what the party back to two characters just as I join, hoping to increase party size.
Apologies; part of the reason my replies are slow at the moment is that, in character, Duucxejial has no interest in investigating or resolving this issue (I’ll add in flavor text to this effect later). He’ll go along with it because he might as well at this point (and it might turn into a half-decent story), but he’d rather spend the night in the tower, take the wood back to town, and go find another job that actually pays for their trouble.
Without waiting for a response, he begins playing his drum, fervent beats ringing out into the darkness. A fiery blast from a Sundering Sonata falls upon the abomination, dealing 2 damage.
[Out of character]
I assume that the dragon I summoned acts on its own turn to fight the abomination. I now have 3 or 1 mana left, depending on whether equipping the sword costs mana.