Abe: Created page with "Ignis checked in on the weary kobold nomads as Ekkels flew the Tortoise through the black-flame smoke and into the empty sky. Though the most severely debilitated had already..."

2023-02-18T02:40:04Z

Created page with "Ignis checked in on the weary kobold nomads as Ekkels flew the Tortoise through the black-flame smoke and into the empty sky. Though the most severely debilitated had already..."

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Ignis checked in on the weary kobold nomads as Ekkels flew the Tortoise through the black-flame smoke and into the empty sky. Though the most severely debilitated had already received his attention, the village - already appreciative of the party's dragonslaying - was grateful for his and his teammate's aid in their time of crisis.

With little other interruption, the Tortoise flew south to the Blight. Its fungal peaks loomed on the horizon, and, at about the same distance, its stench of pervasive rot curdled the increasingly humid air. The kobolds that were unable to fit belowdecks looked vaguely sickened by this miasma. Klaitos tried to protect the ship, but found it difficult to wrap in an envelope of wind. Robin tried to fashion some protective facialwear, but found her materials and tools unsuited to the task.

Ekkels passed the steerage over to Klaitos, with Robin backseat-piloting, and imitated the storm giant's spell with his own power. Ignis asked the kobolds belowdecks for a tent to pitch at the front of the ship to help shape the barrier, and Vennat conjured a pair of spectral dragonwings to contribute to the spell. Working together, they were able to freshen the air around most of the abovedecks, leaving only Klaitos and Robin to deal with the stench.

Klaitos, wary about damaging the Tortoise with his average piloting skill, felt for the flow of the wind to help him guide the craft. With Robin's help, he evaded the periodic eruptions of fungal spores from the canopic Blight. They reached the waterfall Arijat had described, and found a gap between the cliffside and the canopy through which the vessel would fit - but only barely. Klaitos carefully avoided scraping the rocky wall, but accidentally brushed against a sporulent node on the side of one of the towering mushroom-stalks. It erupted into a mass of purple-grayish fuzz that quickly began to spread across the side of the ship.

Ignis rushed over and interposed himself between the spreading infection and the kobold nomads. He quickly confirmed that none of them had been caught in the splash before conjuring some fire magic to try and manage the spread of the slime. However, the humidity and the ambient spray from the waterfall literally dampened his flame, and he was unable to do more than keep it from flooding up the deck.

Robin headed belowdecks to retrieve a large jug of sanitary alcohol to purge away the fungus. Klaitos abandoned the steerage, allowing the ship to hover, so that he could relieve Ekkels from the burden of maintaining the wind-barrier. He suggested that the fungal growth could be magical in nature. Ekkels was unable to sense any significant magic coming from it, but realized that the air was saturated with ambient chaos - a force that had been steadily increasing since they reached the Blight, subtler than the stench and general unpleasantness. The fungus may have been warped by chaos, but it was not obiously relying on it to fuel its growth.

Ekkels, alongside some earnest but ill-equipped kobolds, hurried over to where Ignis was keeping the slime at bay. He was able copy Ignis's flame magic, and used a great blast of it to clear off the majority of the mass from the deck. Ignis, irritated that he had been bested by mindless mold, channeled a wave of heat through the side of the ship, scouring the majority of the remaining slime from its side.

Robin's alcohol and the kobolds' cleaning efforts purged the last of the fungus. Now that Klaitos was sustaining the barrier of wind, Ekkels resumed piloting the Tortoise through the gloomy subcanopic Blight. Having become aware of the ambient chaos, he noted its force waxing as they flew deeper within.

Arijat's instructions said to find a specific landmark - a collection of stone obelisks - on the ground below, but Ekkels wasn't sure how he'd know it was there in the hazy darkness without flying dangerously close to the jungle floor. Ignis helped by casting a fireball of glowing light out before the ship. Robin considered helping, but decided that the events of the journey thus far had not yielded enough profit to warrant her attention, and retired belowdecks.

With the aid of Ignis's beacon, Ekkels was able to find the Obelisk Hall. As the ship briefly circled around it, Robin's Bracelet of Greed tugged lightly at her wrist. She didn't think it was worthwhile to dive overboard now, when they were close to their destination, but decided to revisit her larcenous opportunity on the way back.

The Tortoise flew due south from the Obelisk Hall to find the ancient, upturned roots of a vast tree. Arijat emerged, leaning heavily on her younger aide, to guide Ekkels. They flew a winding route between the roots in a specific order. The passage was tricky for a ship of the Tortoise's size, and several of the old roots bumped against its hull. With one final loop, an impossible passage of denser foliage appeared before them. Within, Ekkels felt the chaos's influence lifted. Beyond, the vessel landed safely in a grassy grove.

Arijat's destination seemed even better than she had described -a glade of living trees holding aloft a village of treehouses and wooden bridges, large enough for the whole village and clean enough to breathe freely. Arijat called out their arrival, at which an old dwarven woman with mossy streaks throughout her hair and petals on her clothes emerged from the treehouses above. She climbed down to hug the old kobold and to welcome the new residents as they disembarked from the Tortoise. She introduced herself as Weavegreen, druid of the Petalbearer, and keeper of this last hidden village within the Blight.

[[Category:Session Logs]]

Session Log 2023-02-16 - Revision history

Abe: Created page with "Ignis checked in on the weary kobold nomads as Ekkels flew the Tortoise through the black-flame smoke and into the empty sky. Though the most severely debilitated had already..."