Session Log 2023-03-19

The party and Ted realized that the webbing growing between the towering mushrooms would soon surround the Obelisk Hall. Klaitos leapt out into the swamp, powering through the toxic Blight muck with Ekkels in tow. Robin used her crossbow to pin a rope to the nearest unwebbed mushroom so that she, Ignis, and Ted could pull themselves through the mire.

As the group splashed to freedom, they were set upon by swarms of rat-sized insects. Robin conjured an illusion of the smell of pungent rotting food, drawn from her memories of living on the streets of the Torch, to distract a portion of the swarm. Ignis, still channeling his fire magic, blasted many of the rest out of the air.

The group made it past the growing fungal fence. Ignis paused a moment to blast the encroaching swarms. He felt something splatter against his collarbone and immediate began feeling ill. A violet stain of poison had struck him from a masked assailant clinging to the mushroom above. He cleared the poison from his system with a swig of healing liquor and warned his friends of the threat above. Klaitos pulled him bodily away from the spot before the webbing separated him from the group.

Robin struck Ignis's poisoner with a crossbow bolt, but the figure simply climbed higher into the shadowy subcanopy. Ignis spitefully and recklessly decided to knock the mushroom down. He chopped at the stem with his sword as Klaitos pushed it to tear and topple. Ekkels borrowed Ignis's flame to help somehow, but when Robin and Ted were attacked by the remaining insects, he shifted his focus to wiping out the swarm. Though Robin was able to drop below Ekkels's poor aim, Ted's reflex were not as sharp, leaving the orc burnt and dazed.

Klaitos and Ignis's efforts saw the canopic mushroom topple heavily. Daylight streamed through the spore-haze as the great stalk collapsed onto another, and another mushroom. The chain reaction concerned Ted, who warned that greater threats than an assassin and some bugs would investigate a noise like that. Ignis healed his burns as Ekkels searched for the masked figure. A far-off, rumbling bellow drove Ted's point home and spurred the party to urgency.

The assassin was found alive but unconscious. Under the mask, the party found a starkly unwashed but unfamiliar human face, with violet staining around his mouth. Ekkels felt a strange unease around him, distinct from the realization that he could sense chaos magic radiating from the man. Ted labelled him a Venom Drinker - a member of an omnicidal, corruption-worshipping sect that had wiped out many of the Hidden Villages before the Petalbearer's exocus. The wildlife, he reasoned, didn't make much distinction between nice folks and Venom Drinkers - whatever came by was as likely as not to eat the man. With that, the group headed back towards the Hidden Village.

In the village, Robin studied the crystal she had pulled from the dwarf statue. It bore layered inscriptions and runes that she recognized as Dwarven. She brought it before Weavegreen, who recognized the names of old dwarven cities, and advised her to hold it up to some light to project the image correctly. The refractions formed something that looked like a map, but curiously circular, shifting as Robin turned the crystal.

The rest of the party said their goodbyes to a shaky-looking Ted and the rest of the village. Vennat requested to join them on the Tortoise for a lift to a Torch city of their convenience - the village was comfortable and safer than their river, but his clan still needed the material support from his mercenary work. Weavegreen suggested that, even though Arijat's favor had been paid, if they ever needed to reach the village, they could commune in dream with the help of the other druid they had mentioned.

The Tortoise and its five passengers took to the air. Ekkels steered them well clear of where they had been ambushed at the Obelisk Hall, but was surprised at his own familiarity in navigating the Blight. This deja vu spurred him to turn off of the path out of the Blight at the waterfall. Instead, he brought the Tortoise up to the side of a vast, rotting log, and rediscovered a hidden tunnel in a whorl of its bark. Vennat offered to man the ship, and the party dismounted to explore the mysterious, shadowy passage.