←

Session #29

→

Thu September 14, 1178 (10:00) - Mon September 18, 1178 (02:00)

With Markinat's help, the Executors set off on Dirt's trail, hoping to catch up and rescue him from the gnomes. Or to find him for information. Or to catch up and join him, maybe the gnomes he's with might be good? Nobody's quite sure. The trail was a hard one to follow, but Markinat was able to keep them on course, with Teemo checking his work and learning from him along the way. The first day of travel was quiet, with the party successfully dodging a grove of glowing mushrooms along the way. They also noticed the tracks they were following changed: when initially there was clearly a group of 10 or more, they eventually realized they were now only following a group of 3 or so people. Nearing the end of the day, Fang found a beautiful and safe flower to pick, intended as a gift to Markinat. They talked about Markinat's hometown, which led to a discussion of Fang's home of Fieldsgrove, in which he took out a map to show where it is -- but he accidentally used the map of the world as it was before the Unification. This seemingly shattered Markinat's worldview, and he declared the Executors to be storytellers, creators of a fantasy that could never be true. Undeterred, the Executors started to look for ways to prove their claims. Fang took out the seashell he kept from the ocean, and tried to explain the reality of the world to Markinat, who was unable to really take it in, and instead went to sleep in a state of anxiety. At this point, the party set up a watch system for the night and figured they'd also get to sleep. Teemo's watch was first, and passed uneventfully. So uneventful it was, that he fell asleep before waking the next person, and a few hours of watch were skipped before Astrid woke up from her trance. Astrid initially didn't see anything odd.. until she noticed the spiderweb. A huge spiderweb covered the opening in the leaves above them, with a spider as large as a person hanging over them. She also saw a strange light hovering in a bush nearby, as still as the spider. Interested, she cast a Detect Magic to see if any magic was at play, and found that there indeed was - specifically, illusion. The spider and web were entirely illusory, but the strange light was not. Astrid kept watch over them for a while, ready to move if anything happened, which eventually it did. The spider started lowering itself onto the camp, and the light in the bush moved closer to the front. Astrid quickly woke as many people as she could, and frantically made hand gestures to try to signal what was happening. Fang and Carnage were confused - Fang swung at the spider, going right through the illusion and dissipating it. Teemo was totally lost due to his lack of darkvision, and mostly sat on the side, confused. At this point, the bright light emerged from behind the bush, bursting out in laughter. Of course, it was a tiny fairy, delighted at the joke it had pulled on the party. Carnage did not find this joke as funny. With an Eldritch Blast already prepared, she immediately blasted the fairy, destroying it instantly in a burst of light and sparkles. That morning, all that was left was a small pile of dust. The party continued travelling the next few days, encountering more magical creatures of the forest and continuing to teach Markinat about their discoveries beyond the Wastes. They eventually reached the border of the forest and entered the Rutred logging fields, quickly traversing them to where Dirt's trail went cold - on the banks of the Thursday River, by a convenient rock jetty into the water. Dirt, and whoever he was travelling with, were nowhere to be found. Though, it was clear the other sets of tracks that split off from the one they followed had joined together once again. The party did a quick search around, and used a Speak with Plants spell to ask a small shrub what it saw. It told them of a large party that had passed through just a few days before, and gotten on a boat at this location. Encouraged, they did a more thorough search, and discovered some footprints in the mud on the riverbank, bearing the emblem of a brightly glowing sun - the seal of House Kasden.