ratkingdnd

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fifty Four - Magnets are sick

The heroes step out of their little safe zone and back into the maze. Vines above their head spell out PART II as they walk down the path. The second part of the maze was much the same as the first, the hedge’s seemed no different and the floor was basically the same mix of dirt into cobblestone and back into dirt. “Anyone else freezing?” asks Ned hugging himself, “Yeah, it’s considerably colder” says Dolgan, “And darker. The fog seems lower here too. We should probably watch out for that”. “I should be able to take care of it” says Vaurien as he holds his hands out and a mini cyclone appears inside of his palms, “Wind magic” says Scaly looking on in awe. 

“Let me climb again to have a look” says Vaurien as he blows out the wind from his hands and starts climbing the hedges. Buffalo reaches down towards the ground, picking up some of the dirt and tasting it on the tip of his finger, “Nothing, this land is too foreign” he says shaking his head. Doooof Vaurien lands on the ground next to the heroes, standing up and dusting himself off, “We’re just as far away as we were before” he says, “And the hedges are still moving” says Ned, who had trailed off from the group, placing his hands in the hedge. “Helloooooooo” a weirdly high pitched voice echoes out through the maze as if coming from all directions. “What was that?” says Dolgan looking around in circles, Ned and Buffalo raise their weapons, preparing for the worst. “Hellooooooo…….I’m here” the voice rings out again, from above the heroes this time, they all look up and see a winter melon floating above their heads. It had two small holes and a large one cut out of it, so as to look like a face. “Going through the maze I see” the winter melon said, its mouth hole moving as it spoke, “Well this is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen” says Buffalo. “Two humans, a dwarf, an eladrin and a lizardman are walking through a maze hanging out with bee bartenders isn’t strange, but me a simple jack o’ lantern is, is it?” says the winter melon in a sing songy voice. “We’re doing the beefolk games, isn’t that why you are here?” asks Ned, “Never heard of them” responds the melon, still floating and bouncing around like a balloon. “Then why are you here?” asks Buffalo, “I don’t know, where am I?” asks the melon, “In the hedge maze, of the beefolk games” answers Buff, “Beefolk? Never heard of them” says the melon. “This is ridiculous” says Buffalo under his breath so that only the others could hear. “Ridiculous? I think not. This is not the shadowfell”, “You’re from the shadowfell? That explains a lot, what are you doing in the Feywild?” asks Dolgan. “This is the Feywild? It’s nice here” the melon answered, it was barely paying attention to the heroes and more to their surroundings, it’s gaze shifting slowly from the sky to the walls of the maze. “Do you know how to get to the Bon Gland from here?” asks Scaly, “What’s the Bon Gland?” responds the melon, “The giant tree”, “I’ve never seen a live tree before. I’ve seen dead tree’s”. “What exactly do you do?” asks Buffalo, “Are you involved in the trials?”, “No..no..noo. I’m just here. I speak to dead things. I see dead things. I can enter dead things if need be, but I prefer fruit or vegetables”. “You speak to dead things?” asks Buffalo, “Well I am right now aren’t I?”, Buffalo stares at the melon for a second before Ned taps him on the shoulder, “This thing is a pain. It’s too ditzy to get any info from it”. “Why does it think we’re dead?”, “I don’t know, who cares. Let’s give it some fruit or something and leave”. Vaurien pulls out an apple from his rucksack and holds it up for the jack ‘o lantern, the jack wriggles with glee and the apple floats out of his hand as the melon crashes onto the ground. Eye and mouth holes appear on the front of the apple. “Thaaank you” says the jack, “I like this”, and like that, he starts to float away, leaving the group confused standing in the middle of maze once more. 

Vaurien takes the lead, making sure he checks every stone and leaf as he walks. “I think I can get a better grasp on where we are if we pay attention to the nature” he says looking to Buffalo for guidance, “This place is not known to me, but I can help” he says with a nod. Scaly walks ahead of Vaurien, “THIS WAY” and starts walking forward with gusto. The rest of the heroes all stand around looking confused with Scaly’s new sense of confidence. Scaly turns around and looks at them, “Well, COME ON”, the heroes start following Scaly. As they do, the hedge maze starts moving apart, separating for them as if it knew that Scaly had taken charge. “How is he doing this?” asks Buffalo to Ned, but only gets a shrug from him. They continue to follow Scaly until they come to yet another clearing. This one had a giant yellow, viscous puddle in the middle. “It’s a puddle” says Scaly, staring at it from the edge, “It’s not just any puddle” says Vaurien, walking out from behind the heroes, “That’s ambre d’arbre”. The heroes look at Vaurien confused, “We don’t speak the language here…” says Buffalo, “It’s tree sap, it translates to tree amber and it’s the blood of the tree. It’s incredible adhesive and will lock you in unless you have the solvent. Many heroes have battle many monsters only to be killed by ambre d’arbre”. “Well best we avoid it then” says Ned, as he walks over to the hedge and starts hacking at it with his axe. “What are you…Ohhhhh” says Buffalo watching Ned, “Let’s help” he says to the rest of the heroes as they collectively work together chopping down branches of the hedge maze. “This would be a great way to get through the hedge maze if it didn’t grow back within two seconds” says Scaly as he snaps off a large branch. One by one they place the branches onto the puddle forming a rickety bridge over the top. After a few minutes the puddle had a fully functioning bridge through the centre of it and the heroes cross over with no troubles. 

The next area they walk into is another beezone. Once again, a beefolk male was in the corner with a small bar around him, cleaning glasses and placing them on a shelf behind him that had tonnes of little jars of honey on them. The difference was that in this clearing was a lady standing in the corner, she wasn’t beefolk though, in fact it seemed like she was human. “G’day mates, honest Jane here, selling’s the game” she says with a huge smile on her face, many of her teeth were missing and her hair was poking up directly out of her head, above her, the sign for her shop read Onist Jane’s Stuf 4 Sayl. “Why can none of the onist folk spell” whispers Ned to Dolgan as he leans back, a quick shrug from Dolgan and eyes darting forward was enough body language for Ned to know to look straight ahead. “Spelling’s not me strong suit, but I got some great deals for you!” says Onist Jane as she whips off the cloth on her table revealing a bunch of trinkets, items and knick knacks. “Run us through these Jane” says Vaurien, “What have you got for us and why would we need it?” he asks, and a small glint in Jane’s eye sparkles as she starts “Well……”

“This is a blood red pearl” says Jane as she picks up a small red stone, “It will turn any body of water blood red, useful for fooling people”. She holds up a small vial, “In here is grease, throw it and let it shatter over an area. It’ll make it real hard to get up. This over here is a quiet cage, anything you put in it will be magically silenced. It also expands and contracts!” she says pushing down on top of the cage as it shrinks. “We have this heavy little pebble”, Dolgan’s eyes light up, “What does it do?” he asks, “It will allow you to sink to the bottom of things. Weigh you down” Dolgan stares at Jane excitedly, “We’ll take it”, “The stone?” Jane asks, slightly perplexed by Dolgan’s sudden obsession with the stone, considering the rarity of the previous items. “Yes please”, “I’ll take the blood red pearl” says Vaurien, “Well, why don’t we just wait and see what the rest of it is” says Scaly, stepping in front of everybody, “Continue Jane”, “Thank you” she says as she holds up a jar “In hear, is a banshee’s scream, caught fresh from the shadowfell”, “We’ve fought a banshee before” says Buffalo, “Then you would know how dangerous their screams are”, “This has been magically stored so that you can use it when you need”, “Lastly, we have ambre solvent”, in front of her were 2 small vials. “I saw you come in through the south entrance before, so you would’ve had to get through the puddle of ambre somehow”, “We made a bridge out of sticks from the maze” says Buffalo, “Very clever” says Jane, “Well if you had of gotten stuck, this would’ve removed the tree sap, one vial will clear about 5 square feet of space. You would need to use it sparingly as this is all I have and the Bon Gland is covered in it”. “Bon Gland?” asks Ned, “The giant tree, where your third trial ends” answers Jane. “We’ll take it all” says Buffalo, “All of it?” says Jane with a smile creeping across her face, “Yep, take the price of them all individually, knock off say 20 percent and you got a deal”. “Done and done” says Jane, “650 gold pieces and you have yourself a deal”, “Done” says Scaly, handing over the gold. Jane bids the heroes adieu and starts packing up her shop, “We don’t need everything” whispers Ned as the heroes make their way out of the shop clearing, “Yes, but we had the gold and now any groups after us have no option to buy anything” responds Buffalo, “Ahh that is a good idea” says Ned as the heroes walk down a hallway of the maze only to hear a chilling horn sound.

“What was that?” says Scaly, a worried look on his face, “I don’t know, let’s keep moving” responds Buffalo, pushing past the group and walking forward. A couple more minutes of walking and the heroes find themselves once more in an open area, but this time it was different, this time there was no exit. FRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOR, the loud horn rings out once more, this time echoing around the clearing, the sound seemingly coming from the walls of the hedge maze. Scaly turns around and sees the entrance they just used close up. He runs up to the wall attempting to open the living branches, but gets thrown back out, pushed away by the vines. The silence between the sounding of the horn is broken by a crackling of moving twigs stirring to the right of the heroes. A long thin, 30 foot tall branch pokes out of the hedge maze wall, hitting the ground with a light thud considering the size of the branch. Another one appears, slightly to the right of the first, and then another, and another until 8 of them had appeared. A huge winter melon appears, about 3 feet tall, suspended by the branches 30 feet in the air, “Wooooah” says Scaly, looking upwards, towered over by the massive daddy long legs looking spider creature that featured a winter melon as it’s abdomen. HIISSSSSSSS a gas starts spurting out of the sides of the wintermelon, it had eye holes and a mouth hole, much like the jack ‘o lantern they had met earlier, TFFFT TFFFT TFFFT three squirts of gas came out of its sides and fill the surrounding area. Vaurien, Ned and Scaly manage to clasp their hands over their mouths in time, but Buffalo and Dolgan weren’t so lucky, they breathe the gas in and immediately start coughing, spluttering, struggling to talk. Ned acts quickly, grabbing his stag axe and charges at the front legs of the daddy long legs, JACKIEEEEEE a voice echoes throughout the area, seemingly coming from inside the wintermelon, but the mouth hadn’t moved, it was still in it’s cutout form, stagnant like the eyes but so creepy that it ran chills down Ned’s spine. “ARRRRRRGH” Ned yells, a rage fueling his body as he runs at the long legged monster, his axe raised above his head, his blood boiling with anger. He takes a swing at the front legs, the strength behind his blow so hard the it snaps the legs at the point of contact with the creature falling forward onto the bloody stumps. The damage didn’t last long though, as the monster starts to rise up, the open wounds of it’s chopped legs growing new legs from the inside. “It’s regenerative!” yells Ned, leaning over his axe, slightly out of breath from the massive limb severing attack. The other legs of the creature start stabbing downwards towards the heroes, a leg comes flying down out of the sky like a needle, hitting Buffalo and knocking him on to his back. Another leg pokes sideways, the bottom of it piercing Scaly in his chest and forcing him backwards.

JACKIEEEEEE the eerie voice rings out of the wintermelon again, as three more puffs of gas come out of it like a steam train. PFFT PFFT PFFT the dark green gas rains down on the heroes. “DON’T BREATHE, LET THE GAS SETTLE!” yells Scaly, but his warning was laboured by himself breathing, causing an intake of the gas. Scaly starts coughing again, but it was different to last time, in fact Scaly very quickly started to feel quite nauseous. “Ooooh guys” he says, “I don’t feel so well”. Buffalo turns around, his hand still over his mouth to see Scaly fall to the ground. In the meantime, Dolgan had managed to evade the beasts watch and had snuck underneath it. “Buffalo!” Dolgan whispered loudly, “Grab this and go right” he says throwing Buff one of the Con Clavi pitons with a rope attached to it.  Buffalo nods and starts running right, holding the piton as he does, the rope wrapping around the long legs of the monster, as Dolgan runs the opposite way doing the same as Buffalo. Vaurien watches for a split second, realising the plan that Dolgan had cooked up and turns himself into a mist of vapour, teleporting himself 30 feet into the air so that we was face to face with the mysterious wintermelon creature. Using the second or so of hang time he had post teleporting, Vaurien unleashes a flurry of attacks using his orange and blue swords, hit after hit, the wintermelon is slashed over and over again. Vaurien lands on the ground just under the wintermelon, as bits of the flesh of the fruit rains down upon him, but the monster was still standing. Dolgan and Buffalo were still circling the monster, but their might was not enough. The more they pulled towards each other, attempting to make use of it’s gangly legs, the more it resisted. Small spines poking out of the leg flick out like tiny knives, severing the rope, the tension that Buffalo and Dolgan had on the rope sending them backwards as they fall onto their backs. Scaly shoots his palms forward, a lightning bolt erupts from the centre of his hands. A small puff of purple smoke manifests in front of Scaly’s attack, “I wouldn’t do that” says a voice. A face appears inside the puff of smoke, Scaly remembers to be Tritched Renard the fox. “You! What’re you doing here?” Scaly exclaims, quickly looking around himself and realising that not only had the lightning from his hands stopped moving mid air, but the rest of the heroes were all stopped in time. “What the hell is going on?!” says Scaly, “It don matter” says Tritcher in his trademark accent, “Don use de lightnin’ this creature ain’t gonna feel”. “Okay” says Scaly, still staring at Tritcher in bewilderment. Scaly pulls backs his hands and instead draws his crossbow, “Much better” says the fox and suddenly time was restored back in motion. The attacks of the others were still going and Scaly stares for a split second at everyone, all of them not noticing what had just happened. He quickly realises that he was mid attack and shoots a bolt at the melon, piercing it’s flesh and creating an exit wound as the bolt flies directly through it. Dolgan gets himself up, abandoning the rope around the leg plan and starts to climb one of the legs of the monster, the spikes on the outside piercing his flesh as he moves up the leg. “Ned!” Ned turns to attention, seeing Dolgan waving at him with arm, the other arm wrapped around the leg. “Distract it!” Dolgan yells and with a quick nod from Ned, he raises his axe and swings in a downwards arc hitting into one of the other legs. Dolgan uses this opportunity to raise his hammer, one arm hanging off of the spiky leg of the 8 legged freak. “Vulnera” (Inflict Wounds) he whispers as the head of the hammer glows green. He thrusts the hammer upwards, the green orb slightly trailing the head of the hammer so as to create a meteorite looking tail. The upgrade from the wickerman pushes the head of the hammer even further, the shaft extending so far upwards that it hits the underside of the wintermelon, cracking through it and smashing it open underneath. Meanwhile, Buffalo had been paying attention to all the goings on and had prepared a flour and flint arrow. He takes aim and unleashes the arrow directly into the wound just created by Dolgan. The hole in the wintermelon was now quite large due to Dolgan’s magical extending hammer and the target was near unmissable for someone of Buffalo’s skill. The flour and flint arrow hits dead center, the flour puffing out and the flint striking catching the miniscule fallings of the flour and lighting it up like a gas cloud of fire. The wintermelon explodes out, the three attacks too much for the fruity body to handle. The heroes protect themselves as roasted and toasted wintermelon flesh falls down upon them with a sweet nutty smell filling the area. There was nothing in there!” exclaims Ned, standing from outside the ring of dead legs left by the monster. Vaurien looks up and the rest of the heroes follow his gaze. A small orb of light, made brighter by the dark shadows cast by the fog resting on top of the hedge maze. The orb floats in the sky for a few seconds, the light from it slightly illuminating the heroes faces as they gaze upon it and with a flash it flies away, disappearing into the fog above them. 

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fifty Three - Maze Boys

The heroes stand in their area, cheered on by the crowd as the other mansions disappear, revealing the remaining two groups of Theatre and Musique. Their champions look tired, bloodied and worse for wear, it would seem that they didn’t come out of the mansion as easily as the first three hives. Above the heroes heads numbers start appearing, Scaly looks forward and can see a beefolk, clearly trained in the arcane arts waving a wand that made the numbers appear above their head. Mr. Sandy White floats down from the sky once more and starts announcing the scores “Hive de la Dansant, 292 points. Hive de la Musique, 221 points. Hive de la Theatre, 138 points. Hive de la Peinture, 303 points”, at this point the crowd starts going wild. Hive de la Peinture seemed to be a crowd favourite and at this point they were ahead. “Okay, okay settle down” Mr. Sandy White said in his weird voice. “Finally, Hive de la L’Ecriture….308 points!” the crowd roars into life, it was as if the stadium itself was rumbling with the sound of foot stomps, claps and the flutter of wings. “The trials are close! L’ecriture only lead by 5 points! The next trial will be the final one and it is a doozy! Everybody prepare for the greatest games to ever bless the Feywild!” says Mr. Sandy White. The crowd continues to cheer as the champions walk into their respective rooms around the stadium. 

The heroes are greeted by the hive’s queen and Jerry at the door to their room. “I would just like to say that we are so proud to have you as our champions” says the Queen, “When Jerry asked me to consider you, I thought he was an idiot, but now after watching I have come to see that I was completely wrong”, Jerry stood behind the queen, with a huge smile on his face. “Please come inside and accept the delicacies we have prepared for you”, behind the queen, Jerry opens the door to their room and the heroes are hit with a waft of what smelled like the most delicious meal. Upon walking in, platters among platters of food line a bench in the middle of the room, enough for 30 people with ease. Candles light up the table and sconces sit along the walls, a deep steam rolls out of a door at the back, the heroes know to be the entrance to their own private bath house. Dolgan walks directly in, taking an item of clothing off for each step he walks. He reaches the dining table, completely naked and grabs a whole roast chicken, and without saying a word walks directly into the bath house, disappearing into the steam. “Oh man, that seems like a good idea” says Scaly as he does the same following Dolgan into the steam room. The rest of the heroes follow in suit, grabbing a large plate of food off of the table before heading into the steam room. Vaurien chooses to pick up a bowl full of rose petals before following the rest of the heroes. 

All of the champions sit in their own baths, the steam rolling off of the top of the water like a thin mist shrouding the room in a little privacy. Each of them munch away at their food, Dolgan was covered in grease from the whole roast chicken, but the occasional dunk into the water of the bath allowed him the cleanliness he was after. Vaurien choosing to take the more sensual approach had place the rose petals into his bath and was enjoying the steam, warmth and aroma of the now rose scented water. “Grerry?” says Dolgan, his mouth full of chicken, “Yes mate?” says Jerry appearing out of the steam as if he had teleported in there, “Could I possible get a massage?”, “Of course” says Jerry, “I’ll have someone come in here in a few minutes”. Dolgan dunks himself under the water one more time to wash the chicken juice off of himself before getting out of the bath and into a towel to dry himself off. He walks off into a more private area that housed a smaller, singular bed and lays down on it with his head sinking between two pillows so that he was facing the floor. “Hellooooo” says an odd voice as Dolgan hears the curtain being pulled back on the entrance. “Hi, just a full body please” says Dolgan, still facing the floor. Little did he know, that Scaly had put on the clothes of the masseuse that was supposed to be looking after Dolgan, and Scaly was going to be the one to massage him instead. “Oh that feels great” moans Dolgan as Scaly rubs deep into his back, massaging his shoulders all the way down to the tip of his butt crack. Scaly’s forked penis starts to make its way out of his scales, dancing like the python of a snake charmer. It starts spitting out little bits of fluid, hitting Dolgan on his back, “What is that?” Dolgan asks, now a little confused, “Just some oils” says Scaly, but forgetting to put on his feminine voice. Dolgan turns around immediately, “YOU!” he yells before launching at Scaly and tackling him onto the ground, Scaly’s penis still shaking around like a lizard's tail. Dolgan grabs his throat, “Don’t EVER do that again” he yells, Scaly starts to pass out from the lack of oxygen before Dolgan relaxes on his grip and Scaly splutters back to life. 

Meanwhile in the bedroom, Ned, Vaurien and Buffalo had gotten out of their baths and were getting ready to get into their beds. “Can I help you with anything else tonight?” asks Jerry, “I’m good thanks” says Buffalo, “Hmmm actually…” Ned ponders for a second, “Jerry, you wouldn’t happen to have any access to a bear skin would you?”, “A bear skin?” questions Jerry, “Should do, let me find out. I can let you know in the morning”. “Awesome, thanks mate” answers Ned before rolling over and placing his blanket over himself. Jerry walks to the door to leave, before he feels a tap on his shoulder “Woah!” Jerry says in shock staring at Vaurien, “You scared me”, “A crown of autumn leaves” says Vaurien, “Huh?!”, “A crown of autumn leaves, can you find one of them for me?”, “I….guess so, maybe, maybe not. I’ll have a look”, “Thank you” says Vaurien before he dissipates into a watery cloud and reappears in his bed. Jerry shrugs and walks out the door, closing it softly behind him. 

“Up and at em!” yells Jerry Ba booooowwwww, he blows into a small conch shell horn, abruptly waking all of the champions. “Woah!” Jerry dodges quickly to the right as a pillow comes flying at him, courtesy of Ned. “You wouldn’t be doing that if you knew what I got you Ned!” says Jerry in a sing song way, Ned sits up in his bed, bleary eyed. Jerry was holding up something large and white, “It’s no bear skin, but it’s the skull of one!”. As Ned’s eyes started to focus more, he noticed that indeed, Jerry was holding the skull of a bear, “Holy shit! Thank you!” he says, getting up, completely naked, his penis swanging around the place and walking over. Jerry attempts to look away slightly so as to avert his gaze from Ned’s member, but after a second gives up, having seen Ned’s penis many a times by now, he clearly didn’t care who saw him naked. Ned takes the skull from Jerry and places it slowly on his head, the power of the bear filling him with strength and resilience, “This is so much better than a skin” Ned says, touching the skull on top of his head, “I will put this to use today”. Vaurien by this time had also gotten up and was looking at Jerry, “Don’t worry I got yours too!” says Jerry, as he turns around and reaches behind him, revealing a large crown covered in orange leaves, “Though, does this do anything for you? What is its purpose?”, “I am in my autumn phase at the moment”, said the burning orange skinned eladrin, “It’s purpose it to be on my head” he says cryptically. “Okay” says Jerry a little confused, but not terribly fussed. “Guys, eat breakfast and then head outside. You have 1 hour before the next trial starts. Get yourselves sorted and meet me outside”.

The heroes eat, clean and prepare themselves without any issues and walk to the door. Jerry greets them, “Great. Come to the front door, I’m about to walk you out”. The heroes line themselves up single file behind Jerry as he opens the door to the stadium and the walk out to cheers, shouts and screams. “Hive de la LE CRI CHUUUURRREEEE!” they hear Mr. Sandy White yell their name out in a long draw, the crowd rises up out of their seats clapping their hands and buzzing their wings. Their queen and a few guards were standing next to the front door clapping as they walked past “You got this!” says the Queen, a giant smile across her face. Jerry leads them to the centre of the stadium where Mr. Sandy White was standing. All the other teams were next to him in small sections in a circle. “Stand on the platform” says Jerry, ushering them through, Mr Sandy White motions them to walk over to him and the champions follow, seeing that the platform was a round disk slightly raised up out of the sand with a giant pole in the middle. As soon as all of the champions had gotten onto the disc the platform starts rising slowly, each of the hives in their small sections. Some of them in huddles speaking to each other, some of them looking out over the crowd and others staring at each other. The disc continues to move up the pole until the disc is well over the top of the stadium. “Look!” says Buffalo pointing to the heroes right and in the distance was a gigantic tree, “Bon Gland” Vaurien says under his breath, “Bon what?” asks Scaly, “Bon Gland, it’s the sun court’s court. It’s also the jail of the fey”. “Bon Gland is correct says Mr. Sandy White, his voice booming out to the audience. The third trial will be the most difficult as it will combine puzzle solving and combat all in one. The champions will all start from different positions from the outside of a hedge maze. In the centre of the maze is the Bon Gland, a 400ft tree that houses some of the most despicable life forms in the Feywild, but all of them will be on their best behaviour as the champions climb level by level until they face their final foe on top of the tree. “Hmm, doesn’t sound too hard” says Dolgan, “This will be hard” says Vaurien, “The feywild is just as dangerous as it is pretty. If they are using fey native creatures to run this maze and the tree, we are in for the fight of our lives”.

The disc travels over the top of the stadium, the heroes got to choose their entrance first as they had finished with the most points at the end of the second trial. The disc drops them off at the north west entrance and then continues to drop off the rest of the hive’s one by one until they had all been placed at their entrances. The heroes entrance was completely blocked by overgrown vines as they were not allowed to enter until everybody was ready to go. The audience from the stadium had flown over so that the sky was almost black with beefolk watching all the hives get ready to enter their third and final trial. The number three appears on the vines of the hedge maze entrance, 3, 2, 1….the numbers flash across the vines. The vines pull apart by some force, creating an opening where the champions are allowing them to enter. “GO!” they hear Mr. Sandy White’s voice echo around them and they walk into the hedge maze as the vines close behind them. Immediately they feel a sense of cold, the temperature was considerably lower in the hedge maze. So low that they were able to see their breath as they breathed in and out. The hedge’s were also incredibly high, about 70 feet up in the air. The ground seemed to be a mixture of soil and grass, changing as they walked forward. The last thing they noticed was that the crowds cheer had disappeared, in fact they could hear nothing but the sounds of their feet crunching the sticks and grass under their feet. The heroes look around at each other and with a shrug start walking forward.

“Does anyone have a gameplan hear?” asks Buffalo, no one answers. “Anyone?” says Buffalo as he turns around to see why the others weren’t answering, but they were all standing in a circle looking at the sky. “What are you doing?!” Buffalo asks, but the only answer he got was Dolgan pointing directly up, “What’s that?” he says. A giant cloud was over the top of the hedge maze and was coming down quickly, unnaturally quickly. Within seconds the giant cloud had come to the top of the hedge maze so that it fit snugly on like a lid of a pot. The light inside the maze dissipated instantly, leaving the heroes in dim light. Buffalo takes an arrow out of his endless quiver and loads his bow, aims up and shoots directly into the cloud that was now covering the entire maze. The arrow shoots up pooffff creating a small hole in the cloud. “At least that lets in a little light” says Dolgan, and as if the cloud was listening, the hole quickly closes over with more of the cloud, “Ahh shit” he says. Sheeeeew the arrow flies back through the cloud, this time piercing another hole in the cloud, about 10 metres in front of where Buffalo originally sent it, “We’re probably going to have to deal with that at some point” says Buffalo with a sigh, “Let’s start moving guys, the longer we stand still the less likely we are of winning this competition”. The heroes start walking, taking turns here and there as they travelled. “We’ve got to find a strategy for this, at least doing something other than just walking and hoping to get somewhere” says Buffalo, “I’ve got an idea” says Scaly, as he reaches down to his belt and gets his little pouch out. Opening the top of the pouch he reaches his hand in and pulls out Brulee, his familiar. Snap! Scaly clicks his fingers together, producing a flame in his hands and putting it to the wick on top of Brulee’s head. Instantly she wakes up, wildness glowing in her flame filled eyes. “HEY!” she says, turning around to look at Scaly, “Brulee, can you zip forward real quick and find us a good way to get to the center?”, “YEeeeesssss…..” she says, the sound of her voice trailing off as she had already left the group. “What?” says Scaly, looking at the rest of the heroes looking back at him with a look of frustration on their faces, “You need to train her she’s nuts” says Ned. “She’ll be back, don’t worry” Scaly says, but the heroes find themselves waiting. “I’m going to try and climb the maze wall” says Vaurien, “See if I can’t see where the tree is from the top so that we can at least know the direction we should be going”, “We’ll wait with Scaly then” says Dolgan as Vaurien places his swords in their hilts and starts climbing upwards. 5 minute’s pass, then 10 minutes, “We need to go” says Buffalo, “We can’t until Brulee comes back” says Scaly, “Isn’t she attached to you magically? Won’t she just find you no matter where you are?” says Dolgan, “She’s trying to find us a way to the Bon Gland” says Scaly, Ziiiiip a flame flies past Scaly’s head at breakneck speed. “Brulee!” says Scaly, “Did you find us a way to Bon Gland?”, “Bon Gland?” says Brulee, “Noooooo…I was just trying to burn through this maze, but I think it’s protected by something” she says, speaking faster than anyone could really understand. “Errrrgggh” says Ned, getting up off of the floor after waiting for Brulee. Dolgan and Buffalo rolls their eyes. Vaurien manages to get his way back down to the ground with the rest of the group, “It’s directly forward” he says, pointing down the lane Brulee had just returned from. “Then let’s head that way” says Dolgan, “We’ve already wasted too much time” and the heroes start following Vaurien.

Continuing forward, Dolgan let’s his hand run along the side of the maze, “I once read that if you hold out only your left hand in a house fire and touch the wall you will eventually get to a door” he says, running his hand through the thickets. “I guess that makes sense” says Buffalo following closely behind him, “Well the issue is, that I’ve had my hand in the walls for a few minutes now, and I’m quite sure they’re moving”. The group stops and turn to look at Dolgan, “What do you mean?” asks Ned, “I thought it might’ve been just bugs or my imagination, but after taking a closer look, the walls are moving. It’s very subtle, but they definitely are”. “Shit” says Buffalo, “So Vaurien climbing up and finding the Bon Gland potentially means that we still aren’t going the right direction due to the moving maze”, “I’m quite sure” answers Dolgan. Buffalo lets out a loud sigh and kneels on the ground, “Let’s try this” he says as he places his hands into the ground, digging his fingers into the dirt and closing his eyes. After about 10 seconds, Buffalo opens his eyes to find the rest of the champions all looking at him with perplexed looks on their faces. “Nothing” he says, getting up and shaking the dirt off of his fingers, “What were you doing?!” asks Scaly, “I thought maybe my connection with nature could potentially alert me to the direction of the giant tree if I got deep with the dirt but it may be something that doesn’t work as well here in the Feywild”, “I see” says Dolgan, “Good idea, bad luck”. “Yeah” says Buffalo as the heroes continue on, lost, in the hedge maze.

The heroes continue to walk for a few more minutes before coming to a square clearing with only the entrance they came in from, about 30 feet across. “Well this is different” says Buffalo, looking around the area. “Well this is different” says a voice in a sarcastic tone behind Buffalo, he turns around to find himself face to face with Dolgan. “Why are you mocking me?” asks Buffalo, “That wasn’t me’ says Dolgan but Buffalo was already looking behind him, “The entrance!” says Buffalo, Dolgan turns around along with the rest of the heroes to catch the last of the opening close over. Buffalo runs over to the now closed over entrance, fumbling his hands through the sticks and leaves. He turns around back to the heroes with a defeated look on his face, “We’re not getting back through there” he says. “We’re not getting back through there” the sarcastic voice rings out again, this time from the otherside of the clearing. “Who is that?” says Buffalo, “It’s me” says the voice, but still, no one showed themselves to take ownership for it. The heroes continue to glance around, none of them able to see anything out of the ordinary until Dolgan yells “THERE!” pointing at the far right corner of the clearing, “Where’s? There’s nothing there” says Scaly, “Look closer” says Dolgan. 

The champions squint at the corner, attempting to find anything out of the ordinary and after a few seconds, a fairy walks out of the thick maze hedge. “I’m not that hard to see” it says, it was clearly a fairy but looked considerably different to the other fairies the heroes had met and seen so far in the feywild. It was roughly the same size, had a rough woody toned skin with brown and green highlights. It’s head look like a bunch of thorns and leaves made up to form a face, whilst it’s back was covered in small spiky spines, similar to a porcupine. Each of the spines also seem to be covered in a green viscous liquid that was slowly seeping out of the tip of the spines and onto the floor. It reaches behind it self and grabs one of the spines around the base, nearer to it’s back and with a sickening Snap! It breaks it off into its hand, bringing in front of itself and staring as the green liquid drips down the spine and onto it’s hand. “This one will do” it says as it bellows out a whistle loud enough to make the hedge maze itself shudder a little. Instantly a small black and red looking fly like creature flies out from the hedge maze and rests next to the little fairy. The fairy jumps on the back of the fly and gives it a little whack on it’s head with it’s spine and the fly starts flying directly at the champions. “What the hell!” yells Ned as he drops down onto his knees, narrowly avoiding the fairy cavalier and it’s spiny needle, but before the heroes can even react the little fairy and it’s fly had already u-turned and was heading back for Buffalo. “Yeeeeeeeee” the yell of the fairy was more cutting than a goblins shriek, perhaps because of it’s small stature. Buffalo pulls out his bow and draws an arrow, aiming directly ahead at the dive bombing fairy, but he was too slow, the fairy flies straight at his chest and jousts him with the spine ripped from his own back. The spine sinks a couple of inches deep into Buffalo’s flesh. Immediately the needle starts pulsing green and the viscous fluid flows out of Buffalo’s wound. “Arrrgh!” yells Buffalo, keeling over in a second, holding his chest and rolling on the ground. 

Dolgan runs over to Buffalo, his hands lighting up with the distinct colours of holy magic as his hands cure the wounds of his fallen teammate. Meanwhile Scaly spawns a flame ball in his hand, hurling it at the fairy. “Woooah!” yells the fairy, clearly enjoying itself as it zips around the clearing before sticking it’s twig like fingers in it’s mouth and blowing, unleashing another ear aching whistle. Two more of the little bramble fairies appear. Vaurien closes his eyes and disappears in a cloud of vapour, appearing behind one of the fairies and brings his swords down onto it in a matter of milliseconds. The fairy is sliced in half, dropping in a goo of green and red. “Yuck” says Vaurien in disgust, flicking his swords downwards so as to remove the green goo off of his weapons. The original bramble fairy flies towards Scaly, “Murus Ignis” (Wall of fire) he says without raising his voice as a wall of fire rises in front of him just in time to catch the wooden bramble fairy in its wake. By the time the fairy thinks to stop, it is already on the other side of the wall and burnt to a crisp, it’s mount crash landing onto the ground in a ball of fire. The third fairy was riding a huge dung beetle, about the size of Ned’s foot. It charges directly towards Dolgan who was still holding his healing hands over Buffalo, but it’s attack was short lived as Ned’s axe swings down on the fairy and dung beetle, splitting both of them in half as the beard catches the head of the fairy and travels all the way down its body and then into the beetles. “Phew” a quick sigh from Dolgan, “I can’t heal this” he says, “It’s not regular poison, it’s something else. Best we can do is just to help him through”. Dolgan reaches an arm under Buffalo and nods at Ned to do the same. They both pick him up, slumping Buff over their shoulders as they continue.

A new entrance, or rather an exit establishes itself in the clearing on the opposite side of where the heroes came in from. Scaly walks out first, with Dolgan and Ned carrying Buffalo second and Vaurien following up the rear. The heroes walk for a minute or so, following the straight corridor before Dolgan and Ned bump into Scaly’s back, a groan from Buffalo seeps out of the now sweating archer, “Why the hell did you stop!” asks Ned, but Scaly wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was glancing around, looking at the sides of the maze in confusion. “What is it?” asks Ned, this time in a slightly more worried voice. “We’re back where we started” says Scaly, “I know, I saw these little berries before”, “How do you know they’re the same berries”, “I just know” answers Scaly. “He’s right” mutters Buffalo, both Ned and Dolgan turn their heads to see that Buffalo had at least gained a little consciousness. “They’re the same berries, there’s a faint outline of our footprints. We’re back at the start”. 

Buffalo pulls his arms out from over Dolgan and Ned’s shoulders, falling forward a little, but managing to stumble himself back into stability. “Also, the entrance, where we first came into the maze, didn’t look like that when we got here” says Buffalo, turning around and pointing at the exit of the clearing they just left. “That’s because that’s the back of the clearing” says Ned, “It’s not though” responds Buffalo, “Trust me, if we were able to cut through those oddly coloured maze hedges right now, we would be outside the maze. It’s moving around us and I think our actions are determining how we get through. It’s the only way to explain what is happening”. “That part of the maze hedge IS oddly coloured” says Scaly, walking towards it slowly. “Why is it a different colour to the rest of it?”, Scaly reaches out a hand and places it on the slightly greener area of the hedge maze, but his touch was short lived as the vines of the hedge reach out and grab his arm “ARRGH!” Scaly yells, as he rips back his arm and starts running back towards the heroes. “It’s alive!” he yells, the champions turn around to see their lizard friend running at them full pelt, and behind him was what could only be described as a humanoid looking bundle of vines with garden shears in its hands, also made from vines chasing Scaly. “Go” says Dolgan to the rest of the group, as he quickly whips out a bunch of rope from his rucksack and ties it to each side of the narrow hedge maze corridor. Vaurien runs ahead and Ned lends a shoulder to Buffalo, who whilst still being able to move, wasn’t terribly fast. “DUCK!” yells Dolgan as Scaly edges nearer to Dolgan’s rope trick, Scaly slides down onto his side, feet first, flying under the rope and gets himself back up to a sprinting pace as Dolgan follows in his wake. Scaly turns around looking back at the monster, seeing it hit the zipline, it’s vines wrapping every which way around the rope. The group continue to run forward, slowing down bit by bit as the threat of the vine gardener grows less and less. 

As the heroes continue to run, Scaly whips open his little pouch again, lighting a flame in his hand as he runs and igniting Brulee’s wick. She immediately zips out of the bag and starts flying alongside Scaly. “HEY! Why are we running?” she asks with a confused look on her face, “Vine man….garden shears….chasing us….help” says Scaly his out of breath voice managing only a couple of words at a time. “Okay!” says Brulee as she flies ahead of the group in a flash of burning flames and within seconds is out of sight. “Shit” says Scaly, realising that Brulee might’ve gotten excited again and just left, but after a few more steps he sees a small light up ahead. It gets larger and larger the closer he gets, sheeeeewwww Brulee rips past him at breakneck speed, turns in mid air and lands back on Scaly’s shoulder. “Make a right, right, left, right, right” she says, “Are you sure?” asks Scaly, “Of course I’m sure, there’s a nice bee man there. He said you’d be safe with him”, “Better than this I guess” says Scaly as he yells to the front of the group “Make two rights, a left and a right!”. Buffalo turns around and nods, leading the way. Scaly turns the corner to see Buffalo standing at a door made out of vines, holding it open and waving his arms about ushering the champions inside. “Quick, Quick!” he says, one by one the champions run through the door, Buffalo the last to enter as he shuts it quickly behind him, as the heroes look around and find themselves in a square clearing.

“Hi!” says a bee in the corner, he was standing behind a wooden counter cleaning glasses out with a cloth. Behind him was a small wooden stand full of golden liquids in little jars. “How can I help you today?”, “Where are we?” asks Ned, “Well you’re at the crossing, from part one of the maze to part two! Congratulations!” says the well dressed bee. “The beefolk games would like to give you a complimentary honey drink and honey toast” says the bee. “We have a giant vine monster chasing us” says Buffalo, “We have to go!”. “Nothing to worry about here” says the bee, “This is a safe zone, nothing except contestants can get in here”. “Oh, okay...have there been contestants through here yet?” asks Ned, “One group” says the bee, “Bunch of weird looking blue skinned people. Painters I think they said they were?”, “Shit” says Dolgan, “They’re the ones close to us in points and they’re ahead of us”. “They’re not too far ahead” says the bee, “Chug this down and head on out, it’ll give you a lot of energy” he says as he places five little shots of honey on the bench. They all take the shot and a munch of the bread placed in front of them, immediately feeling invigorated. “Woah, this bread is amazing” says Scaly looking around at the group each of them staring at their own piece of bread. “That there’s honey bread, it’ll grow back a limb”. “Thank you” say the champions almost unanimously. Ned finishes his last bite first and looks at the rest of them, “Onwards?”

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fifty Two - Let’s Dance

“I’d like to do the Hive de la Dansant puzzle next” says Vaurien looking back at the rest of the champions, “If we can do these one by one without losing any points, I couldn’t care less which room we do next” says Buffalo, “Let’s do the dance one”. The heroes gather themselves, walk through the eerily quiet manor reception hall, Ned takes a step forward and grabs the door handle to the dansant door. It had the symbol of the dansant hive, what looked like a silhouette of a person standing on one foot, their legs and hands stretched out to form the letter T in italics. As the champions walk through the door, once again the door shuts behind them only to disappear into thin air. The room was a perfect square and in the middle of the room was a small cauldron on top of a pedestal, inside the cauldron was a green bubbling liquid, but beneath the cauldron was no fire or heat source whatsoever. There was another door at the back of the room, the first one to have another door instead of just one that appears and disappears. The door wasn’t any normal door though, it had a large demonic face on the front of it, it’s cheeks, nose and horns protruding out of the door. It looked like it was made from steel or stone and as far as the group could tell, was asleep.

“What the hell are we supposed to do in here?” asks Scaly, “I’m not sure” responds Buff. He had walked into the centre of the room and was gazing into the cauldron. “How is this bubbling? It’s not hot at all” he says touching the side of the cauldron. He reaches his hand into his ruck-sack and pulls out a fairy wing from earlier, dropping it into the liquid. The wing hits the top of the green fluid, sitting on top for a bit and slowly sinking, “Whatever it is, it’s thick” Buffalo said behind him, he watches as the last of the fairy wing sinks under the green goop until it finally disappears. Vaurien walks over to the door with the giant face “Hello?” he asks, but there was no response. “Dance” says Buffalo to Vaurien, Vaurien turns around his face screwed up in confusion “What?”, “Dance” says Buffalo, “This is the puzzle of the dance hive is it not? And you are a dancer?”, Vaurien starts to talk but before he can even get a word out Buffalo walks over to the door and starts to dance, with no music. Buffalo’s dance moves left a lot to be desired, but it was something. He starts to dance a jig, his arms punching downwards and his legs jumping into the air, swinging from side to side as the top part of his body swayed in the opposite direction. As his feet hit the floor, they start to form a pattern and the face opens its eyes in excitement. Buffalo turns around to the champions still dancing, “See?!” he says, the face starts to sing “Daa daa da doo doo de da” in a sea chanty type fashion. The face was visibly happy, singing along to whatever Buffalo was doing and Buffalo started to dance faster and harder. The face also started to increase it’s tempo, singing faster and faster. “Daa daa daa, doo doooooo dee dee” the melody sped up, Buffalo’s dance moves however, were now starting to get the best of him. He wasn’t a terribly skilled dancer and his ability to keep up was lacking, but he continues on getting faster and faster. He watches as his left foot moves out of the way for his right foot to stomp on the ground, but it wasn’t fast enough, “CRACK” in his next move, he stomps on his foot, falling over in the process and lands on his butt. The face stops singing immediately, “Ohhhh” he says, his disappointed eyes closing quickly as the room falls into silence once more. 

Vaurien laughs at Buffalo as he falls to the floor. “Please, make way for the real dancer here” he says, walking past Buffalo and standing directly in front of the door. Striking his hands out and down, he flourishes his head upwards before swinging his legs in a circle, allowing only the tips of his toes to touch the ground. He pirouettes a full rotation, hands flicked up in the air, his hair following a millisecond behind. As he reaches his original position though his delayed hair flicks into his mouth a second later causing him to splutter and cough. The cough shakes him, his single foot stance giving out from beneath him and he falls to the ground in a loud clatter. “HAHA!” says Buffalo, “Not as good as you think”. Vaurien mutters to himself, getting back onto to his feet. “Maybe we should all try dancing together?” says Vaurien, dusting himself off, “Something simple”. “Soulja boy?” suggest Buffalo, “We all know it” he says with a shrug, a smile creeps across Ned, Dolgan and Scaly’s face, “Let’s do it” they same almost in unison. “You familiar with this one?” asks Buffalo and Vaurien simply stares at him “Of course I do”.

The champions get themselves into position, two in the front, three in the back. Buffalo and Vaurien turn around looking back at the rest of them, and with four nod’s of his head, leads them into the dance. Jumping on their left foot they move in unison to the left, their arms pushed out to the right. They jump four times to the beat then back towards the right, this time bouncing on their right foot. The face on the door awakens again and starts beat boxing the rhythm of Soulja Boy, the heroes looks at each other, eyes widened and smiles galore. They had figured it out, but their joy was short lived. In the second that they had taken to look at each other in confirmation, they all lost their footing, falling over and under each other. The face once more sighs with an “Oooooohhhhh”, like a child that had his sand castle spoiled, before closing it’s eyes and mouth and returning to the lifeless door. “That worked, but I’m not sure it’s what we need to do” says Vaurin staring at the door as he gets himself up from the ground. He walks over to the cauldron, “A sacrifice maybe” before taking out one of his swords and slicing the inside of his palm ever so slightly. A red line appears and gets bigger as blood seeps out of his hand. He holds it over the cauldron letting the blood droplets drip into the acidy looking substance. “Ewwwwwww!” the champions jump as a sound echoes loudly across the room turning around to see that the face had woken up again, but as quickly as his eyes had opened, they had closed too and he shut down once more. “Well that was different” says Buffalo, “I assume it this puzzle must have something to do with the cauldron, otherwise there would be no point in it being here” he continues, “But then again, it could also be a red herring”. “Nothing else has been a red herring yet though” says Dolgan “It’s weird that they would start that now”, “Yeah, you’re right”. 

Vaurien, still standing next to the cauldron announces “I’m going to try and pick it up” as he reaches over to it and grabs it from the bottom. “Oh it’s quite heavy” he says as it sloshes around a little inside, he takes a step and suddenly the face wakes up again and starts to sing a song. The song had no words, but it sounded like a folk song of some sort. As soon as the face starts singing, Vauriens eyes stare in shock as his legs start to dance, his top half was keeping it’s composure, but it was not enough to keep the liquid in the cauldron. He wasn’t spilling all of it, but bits and bobs were sloshing up on the side, losing a little each time Vaurien switched from one foot to another. “Why are you dancing?” says Buffalo, talking a little louder so as to be heard over the door’s song. “I don’t know, but I cannot stop” says Vaurien, the heroes could hear the worry in his voice. “Let me try” says Dolgan, reaching his hands out to Vaurien who hands the cauldron over, but it was no better, in fact Dolgan’s legs start moving immediately and he starts to raise the cauldron to his face and with a quick move has the edge of the cauldron at his lips where he starts drinking the green bubbly liquid. “What are you doing?!” yells Scaly as Dolgan chugs away at the liquid, Scaly grabs the cauldron from the other side, his hands gripping into the side of the black steel, but Dolgan was holding on tight. Scaly could see his eyes from around the edges of the cauldron and could tell he was not in control of his body. Dolgan’s eyes were wide in fright as he continued to drink the green liquid, it was coming out so quickly from the lip that it was dripping down his cheeks and onto his clothes and it did not look good. The liquid steamed as it trickled down his body, burning his clothes as it went. Scaly yanks once more on the cauldron and manages to get a better hold. The cauldron flies back into Scaly’s chest, spilling liquid onto him, but it didn’t seem to bother him as he starts dancing too “SHIT!” he yells as his legs move vigorously below him, “I’m going to drink it!” he yells as he starts to raise it towards his lips, Buffalo runs over and smacks the cauldron out of his hands. The cauldron flies across the room and hits the floor, smashing into tens of pieces on the ground, the green liquid spilling out all over the ground, filling in the dips between the stone blocks. “Awwwww, I wanted to drink that!” yells the door before closing its face once more. “We got to make the face drink the liquid!” yells Buffalo as the cauldron’s shattered pieces disappear from the floor, almost as if they were phasing out of existence, only for it to reappear on top of the column it sat on when they first entered. “I guess if we break it, it doesn’t matter. We just need to feed it to the door” says Buffalo, but only Ned was listening. Dolgan and Scaly were clutching their hands around their throats and Vaurien was tending to them. “It...it’sssss….” Dolgan was struggling to speak, spluttering up remnants of the green liquid, “It’s acid” he finally gets out as he coughs again. Dolgan grabs his amulet and says in a croaky voice “Remidium vulneribus” and a beam of radiant light appears above him. He stands up, no longer coughing, “That’s better” he says, before touching Scaly on his back. Scaly stands up too, “Thanks Dolgan” and walks over to the cauldron again. “So how are we going to do this?”

“I’ve got a plan” says Vaurien. “What if I dance, along with someone else. Someone carries the cauldron and two people stand either side of the carrier to make sure they don’t drink or drop the cauldron. That way we’ve planned for anything that can go wrong”, “That sounds good. How do we divide it up though? Who is the carrier?” asks Buffalo. “I can do it” says Dolgan, “You just drank 2 litres of it!” says Ned in protest, “Yes, but I can also heal myself easily”, “That’s a good point” says Buffalo, “Ned we could use your strength as a protector on the side. That way if it falls, or if Dolgan is compelled to drink it you can rip it back” says Scaly, “Also a good point. I can help on the other side then Scaly, if you want to dance with Vaurien”, “Deal” says Scaly and the champions move into position. Dolgan stands with his back to the door, facing the cauldron, he lets out a large breath of air and bends at the knees a little so as to lift the cauldron. Standing back up, the cauldron was in his hands, the urge to dance starts to fill Dolgan’s body, but he holds himself rigid, expecting the feeling and quelling it before it got to him, but he had forgotten about the other thing this cauldron did and within a few seconds his determination to not dance, had only opened the doors to make him start chugging the liquid again. Glug..glug..glug… it was flying down his throat, “SHIT” yells Buffalo as he grabs the pot, using all his strength to wrestle it from Dolgan’s grip. The pot was now in Buffalo’s hands but his will wasn’t strong and before he knew it the cauldron was at his lips and the liquid was trickling down his front. Dolgan runs over to Buffalo to help removed the cauldron from him, like Buffalo did for him only seconds ago, but the liquid from the previous cauldron was still on the ground and Dolgan falls forward into Buffalo knocking the drink up and into his mouth, forcing the liquid to move even quicker into his mouth. “GODAMMIT” yells Ned, as he stomps over to Buffalo, still drinking the liquid with Dolgan holding the cauldron upwards so it was easier and faster for Buffalo to ingest. Ned rips the cauldron back from Buffalo, pulling Dolgan off of him at the same time. He raises the cauldron above his head and smashes it into the ground, the pot explodes into a tonne of pieces and reappears once more on the pedestal again.

“Why did you do that?” asks Vaurien, himself and Scaly had been dancing for the face but had turned around to see the shenanigans that had been going on behind them. “It was almost empty and I could see the face. Everytime it got drunk or sloshed over the edge, the face winced. I don’t think we can give it the drink without it being at least at half the amount it started with” says Ned, “Let’s try again”, “Same idea same positions?” asks Vaurien, “The same” says Ned as he walks back over to the side of the cauldron to start once more. 

Dolgan stands at the edge of the pot, his hands around the cauldron but not touching it yet, “Everyone in position” he yells back without shifting his gaze from the liquid, “Yep”, “Yep”, “Uhuh”, “Yes”. “Okay” says Dolgan and he grabs the cauldron once more, lifting it up so that it was at chest height. The urge to move his legs and dance was strong, he could feel the blood pumping through his legs as he lifts one leg so his foot was just off of the floor, the liquid sloshes up the side of the cauldron but doesn’t make it over the edge. Dolgan takes in a deep breath and continues walking forward, his foot finding it’s place back on the ground without dancing. Dolgan’s dead pan stare at the cauldron never moves, his concentration was key to the success and the only sound in the room was the face singing as Vaurien and Scaly danced in front of it. Dolgan walks between the two dancers and rests the lip of the cauldron on the lips of the face in the door and immediately starts pushing at the bottom of the pot, the green liquid flowing out of it and directly into the mouth of the face. Glug...glug...glug “Mmmmm” says the face, the last of the green liquid dropping out of the cauldron and being swallowed by the face. “Thank you! It exclaims, the door swings open, the face disappears swings backwards as the door moves and the heroes find themselves at the reception of the manor once more. They walk out to the large grandiose, yet spooky entrance as the door behind them disappears and they look around. “Two left now” says Buffalo as the heroes look at the last two doors. Peinture and Theatre.

Ned walks towards the Hive de la Peinture door and grabs the door handle, “This one?” he asks looking back at the group. “Sure” says Buffalo as they walk over, Ned opens the door and the champions enter the room, the door disappears behind them and they find themselves in a four walled room, each wall covered completely in a mural. “The sun, a snowflake, an orange leaf and a seedling” says Scaly, pointing out the painting on each wall. “They’re seasons” says Vaurien, “Each painting is a season. Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring”. “What’s this?” says Buffalo walking into the centre of the room eyeing a small mound of dirt on the ground. “It must be part of the puzzle” says Dolgan, following Buffalo over to the mound. Buffalo places his hands on the mound, touching it and scratching at the dirt with the tips of his fingers. “I’m going to dig in it” he says and without hesitation starts digging with his hands. The dirt rolls round the sides of it’s own mound, creating a mess around the base of the mound. “There’s a seed in here!” exclaims Buffalo, “Maybe we have to take it to each wall, make it experience the seasons?” says Dolgan. Buffalo shrugs and starts picking up the mound from the bottom, making sure that there was still dirt between his hands and the seed, Dolgan holds up his shield on it’s side so that the back of the shield was facing upwards “We can use this” he says, “Great idea” says Buffalo and he transfers the seed into Dolgan’s shield along with the dirt.

Dolgan walks over to the painting with a picture of a seedling sprouting out of dirt, holding it close to the wall, but nothing happened. “Maybe we have to make the weather?” says Buffalo, before holding up a finger in realisation and running over to the chest. He turns around and runs back to Dolgan with a waterskin in his hand, taking the cap off and pouring a little bit of water onto the seed. A sprout pops out of the dirt within a couple of seconds, “There we go” says Buffalo, Dolgan nods and walks over to the Sun painting. “We need heat” says Buffalo and Scaly starts to create a flame in his hand, “NO STOP!” Buffalo says, “No magic! We’ll lose points”. “Oh…” says Scaly, clearly a little disappointed, “What about this” says Ned, holding his everburn torch, “That could work” says Dolgan and he walks over to Ned. Ned places the everburn torch slightly above the seedling and it starts to grow rapidly, it’s leaves wilting a little in the process. “Okay, now Autumn”, says Dolgan, “How do we do that without magic?”, “Well what is Autumn?” asks Vaurien, “Leaves falling and wind. What if we plucked a leaf and let it fa…” but Scaly was already at the shield blowing on the plant and sure enough, the little leaves turned brown and fell off, floating to the base of the plant in the shield. “Easy” says Dolgan “And now for winter”, “What if we just apply something cold to the plant?” says Buffalo, “Do we have anything that is cold?” asks Dolgan, “The metal of my axe is cold-ish I guess” responds Ned, “Let’s try it” says Dolgan, “If it’s not cold enough then I assume we can find something else after it”. Ned walks over to the plant and places the side of his axe against the plant near the base of it. A miniature storm cloud appears above the top of the plant and starts raining, the plant droops down, turning into a small brown stick, poking out of the top of the mound. A door appears behind the heroes, where they first entered. “Done!” says Dolgan, he pours the dirt and the now dead plant out of his shield back onto the ground in the middle of the room and starts to walk out saying “That was the easiest one we’ve ever done” as the rest of the group follow back into the main entrance of the manor. The heroes walk directly into the last room. Hive de la theatre.

The room was completely empty except for a mirror on the opposite facing wall. The entire wall was a mirror and in the middle was a door, which was also a part of the mirror except that it had a handle and the linings of a door. Ned throws out one hand to the right, his mirror image mirror’s him. He throws out a hand to the left. His image mirror’s him once more. He turns around to the rest of the group and says “Seems like a mirror to me”. Dolgan walks over to the door and places his hand on the handle, his image does the same from the mirror’s side. Dolgan looks at himself in the mirror and starts to turn the handle, the image does the same and the faintest of smile’s appears on the images face. “He’s trying to stop me” says Dolgan, still staring at his own reflection, “I can see him smiling”. Buffalo walks over to Dolgan staring at his own reflection as well, “It seems like it’s just my reflection” says Buffalo, “It’s not. Trust me. I saw him smile sinisterly”, “Okay” responds Buffalo as he hears Dolgan whisper quietly “Blow out the sconces”. Buffalo nods and turns around walking to the sconces, his image doing the same and blowing out each candle in the sconces. His image copies him. They were now in complete darkness. Click….click click click, the sounds of the door knob being turned echoes through the bare room. “Shit” they hear Dolgan say. “Ned can you relight the sconces” asks Dolgan. As Ned lights the first one Dolgan turns around to speak to the group. “I thought maybe if it couldn’t see me it wouldn’t be able to copy me, but I think it’s perhaps more internal or magical than that”. “We have mirror’s don’t we?” says Scaly, “Yeah in the chest” says Buffalo. “Maybe try something with them?”, “That’s not a bad idea” says Buffalo as he walks over to the chest and gets out one of the cracked mirrors they got in the Shadowfell. 

Buffalo holds the cracked mirror up to the wall mirror, “Nothing” he responds. Using the main mirror to look into his own cracked mirror, “Try the other way round” says Scaly, “Okay” responds Buffalo as he turns his back to the large mirror and look’s into his cracked mirror. “Oh!” Buffalo exclaims, “There’s something written on the mirror!”, “What does it say?” asks Ned, “It says, Politeness is key. I know what to do” says Buffalo, confidence now beaming out of him as he walks up to the door and looks his reflection in the eye. “Can I please come through the door?” he asks his own image and the face on the reflection changes into a big smile “After you” it says and opens the door for him. “Ayyyeee!” yells Dolgan and the heroes walk out of the door, but this time it wasn’t into the manor. They walked straight out into the arena.

The crowd cheers loudly, screaming out for Con Clavi and Hive De La L’Ecriture. The champions look to their left and right, seeing the mass amount of people that had made their way out to watch them and the other hives compete. Two of the other hives still had their manor’s on the playing field. As far as the champions could tell, both Peinture and Dansant had already made their way out of the puzzle mansion.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fifty One - Puzzle Day

Jerry ushers the heroes into the dressing room, “Well done my champions!” sings the queen, “I knew you were the right pick. You’ve done well Jerry” she says with a smile. “Nothing but the best for you my queen” says Jerry as he bows to her. “Please get yourselves ready, as the dinner of the first trial will begin in an hour!” says Jerry as he and the queen exit the dressing room. The heroes look around, there were luscious couches, with cushions, throw-rugs on the ground and a burning fireplace in the back of the room, a door led out of the room and into a wet room. Inside were 5 ornate bath’s all bubbling with the smell of sweet jasmine emanating through the steam. The heroes strip off, enter the baths and enjoy the feeling of the warming water on their wounded bodies. They clean themselves up and re-dress, with a few minutes to spare. 

Knock knock, Buffalo opens the door to Jerry and the Queen waiting dressed lavishly in robes and jewelry. “Good you’re ready, please follow us” says Jerry, motioning for the champions to walk behind the Queen. They travel out into the middle of the stadium and see that it had been redecorated. Five long tables forming a pentagon, each with five dinner settings, five lines of bunting all tied up to a column in the center of the tables. Each of the strings were held up by little brightling fairies that illuminated the night sky, the sound of joyful music was being played as Mr. Sandy White walked out into the middle to greet the champions. “Welcome, to the Dinner of the first TRIAL!” he yells, his voice now becoming more annoying than funny, “Le’ecriture you are over here” he says motioning towards the table across the area. On either side of the heroes were Musique and Theatre, across from them were Dansant and at the bottom of the pentagon was Peinture. A bunch of fairies flew out from the stadiums with multiple plates balancing on each arm, “Crispy owl beak?” asks one of the fairies in a high pitched voice, “Why thank you” says Dolgan, reaching and grabbing one, Ned slams a fist into the plate grabbing and scoffing a bunch of them in one shot. Around them the other tables had just started and eating and were chatting amongst themselves. The theatre table were not talking at all, and instead miming everything to each other, miming offering food, miming drinking, miming eating and miming laughter, considering they had all been knocked out just over an hour ago and had come last, the dwarven mimes seemed in high spirits. The Peinture table seemed a little more conservative, whispering to each other, eyes darting back and forth from table to table without ever really meeting gaze with any other table. The Dansant table were acting exactly like they had before the trials, aloof and rude. They refused to smile, acknowledge or even pay attention to any other table but their own. Finally, the Musique table were a raucous bunch of halflings, they were swigging beer, throwing owl beaks from across the table into each others mouths and generally creating a tonne of racket. “Look!” one of them yells pointing just outside the group of tables as a large group of fairies bring in a huge barrel, “Blackbark” says Mr. Sandy White, “A fey specialty, fermented black bark from fey woodward trees, mixing with sugar to create a fascinating ale!”, the little fairies fly around collecting mugs from each of the tables before filling them and bringing them to the champions. Two of the halflings from the musique table get their ales and pour it over each others heads, before starting a rough and tumble on the ground, Ned walks over to the table with his mug and holds it up swinging it in the air before skulling the drink. “Yeeeeeeah” yell the halflings as they start sculling theirs too, Ned turns around to Con Clavi with a nod “I like these guys”. 

Buffalo walks over to the musique table and throws his mug of ale onto the halfling in the middle, the halfling wipes away the beer from his face a scowl appearing across his mouth before it breaks into a smile and he jumps across the table tackling Buffalo to the ground. They start wrestling and rolling around in the mud and beer before Buffalo manages to pin the halfling, he holds down the arms of the halfling, breathing heavily as they meet face to face inches from each other. Ned grabs another drink, pouring it over himself and slides along the table, the halflings cheer and start slamming their mugs on the table over and over again. Dolgan looks over at the other tables and see that the Hive of Dansant had already left, he walks over to the Hive of Theatre and leans on their table, “Come join us?” he asks, but they just stare at him completely confused. 

Dolgan holds his hand to his chin, thinking for a second before he starts to mime himself. He mimes drinking and eating, then points at the table where at this point Scaly and Buffalo had already dragged the Con Clavi table over to the music table to join them. The theatre table continue to stare at Dolgan, “Guys, I need help getting these guys over” says Dolgan without turning around, feeling a little odd with the five mimes staring directly at him. Ned walks over and feigns wrapping rope around the table, tying it in the middle. The mimes eyes widen watching him tie the rope, before he walks backwards, still miming holding the rope in front of him, until he starts leaning back, pretending to be pulling the rope backwards in a tug of war like fashion. Dolgan cottons on and grabs more of the invisible rope from behind Ned as the mimes start pushing the table towards the group, moving it inch by inch as if it were really being pulled by Dolgan and Ned. They start smiling and pulling back on the other side of the fake rope, but Dolgan and Ned pretend to be straining, harder and harder and before long the table had been pushed all the way over to join up with Con Clavi and Musique’s table. They jump up on the table and start miming dance moves as the musique’s halflings start playing their instruments. Meanwhile Vaurien walks over to Hive de la Peinture’s table asking them if they’d like to join. Sheepishly the darkest blue skinned of all of the peinture’s folks agrees and they walk over, grabbing their drinks and stand at the end of the table, flinching everytime beer flew their way but with a smile on their face. Vaurien jumps up into the middle of the three tables and starts dancing, the mimes making a circle around him as the halflings continue to play and the rest of the champions sing out in joy.

The heroes wake the next morning, feeling slightly groggy but okay nonetheless. “Guys, get up” says Jerry bursting through the door, “The second round of trials start in a couple of hours, clean yourselves up and get ready!”, the heroes slowly get themselves out of their four poster lavish beds, jumping into their baths and getting dressed. 

“TRIAL TWO!” Mr. Sandy White’s voice echoes throughout the stadium in his notorious over the top voice. “THE PUZZLE TRIIIIIAAAAALS” he yells and the crowd loses it, screaming and stomping, he points behind him, “We have five mansions, for our five teams, each with puzzles for the champions to complete. We will have the rules and point system set out, inside the mansions, which will be displayed the audience through our amazing honey-hive technology! So without further adieu, Le’Ecriture, Dansant, Musique, Peinture and Theatre!” the crowd lights up once more, streamers and fireworks lighting up the sky as the doors to the mansions open to the champions, each of the groups walking into their separate mansion. The door behind Con Clavi closes and immediately the roar of the crowd disappears.

Inside the mansions was a large reception room, the ceiling was incredibly high but there was no second storey. At the opposite wall was a single door with a metal engraving of a piece of parchment. On the left hand side of the room were two doors, one with the symbol of a humanoid with two arms and one leg in the air, another with the symbol of a paint brush. On the right hand side wall were another two doors one with the symbol of a lute and another with the symbol of two masks one happy and one sad. “It’s the hives” says Buffalo, “There’s one door for each of them”. “Are we supposed to do these separately?” asks Vaurien, “Well five of us, five hives and five doors” says Buffalo, “Still it’s risky to split up” says Dolgan. Scaly had split off from the group and was looking at each of the doors, “There’s a point system on the plaques next to the doors” he says pointing at the one next to the L’ecriture door. “It says Complete puzzle +20 points, No mistakes +10points, Hero down -5 points, Hero dead -10 points and at the bottome it says Be inventive”. “Yeah they all seem to say roughly the same thing except for the dansant one that says Be Careful” says Dolgan. “Lets try split up and see what happens?” suggest Vaurien, “I’m not entirely confident we would be able to do a room each, what happens if we get knocked out, there will be no one to help us up, meaning that a knock out will equal a death which gets us even less points and worse than that, we’ll be dead” says Buffalo, “What about groups instead?” he mentions, “Me and Scaly, Dolgan and Ned, Vaurien by himself”. “I’m okay with that” says Vaurien. “Okay, let’s try that” says Buffalo as they split into groups, “I’ll take Dansant as they were Eladrins, so I might have an edge on the puzzle” says Vaurien, “Scaly and I will take music” says Buffalo, “And us peinture” says Dolgan. The champions nod at each other and walk into their chosen rooms, but nothing happens. The doors don’t close behind them and the rooms seemed completely empty. Buffalo leans his head out of the musique room, “Did anything happen for you guys?” he asks, the rest of the champions head’s pop out of their rooms, “Nope”, “Nah”, “Nada”.

The champions reconvene in the center of the mansion once more, “Lets try all going into one room” says Buffalo, “Which one?” asks Dolgan, “I was thinking Hive de la L’ecriture?” says Vaurien, “Sounds good to me, it’s our own house...hive thingo” says Ned, “Okay done” responds Buffalo as he walks to the door at the back of the room. “Complete puzzle and no mistakes” says Buffalo pointing at the plaque on the outside of the room. The champions enter the room together and the door behind them disappears leaving a cold stone wall behind them. “Looks like we’re stuck in here” says Scaly, looking around observing the room. “Look” says Ned walking over to a wooden table in the middle of the room. On said table were 6 stone statues, it looked to be granite or something similar, Dolgan touches one of them and closes his eyes, “Nothing special about them, just regular stone statues”. “What are they?” says Buffalo picking one up, “This looks like a gorgon” he says to himself, “I’ve seen them on my travels in the sea. These things are pretty dangerous, if you meet their gaze they can turn you into stone”. “Maybe that’s what happened here?” says Scaly, “Nah, first of all, this is somewhat of a mini version of a gorgon, normally they’re taller than myself” responds Buff. “What are the other one’s?” he asks looking up at the rest of the heroes. “Seems we have some oldish looking lady, a big satyr, a bunch of skulls with a coat on, what looks like a bunch of slime and this considerably larger looking man” says Ned, pointing at each one as he goes. “We have to place them on the stands” says Dolgan, facing away from the group, looking at the walls. “There’s two lines on each wall” Dolgan was looking at the left wall, he starts reading aloud

“This is the story of a young man who travelled the world, collecting wondrous items from all corners.

He went to the furthest depths of the sea, stealing a strand of hair from the….It’s blank here” says Dolgan pointing at the wall before continuing on

“He went to the highest clouds, stealing a boot from the...It’s blank here again”

Vaurien reads the back wall out “He went to the brightest parts of the forest, stealing the light of the forest from the blank. He went to the most brilliant parts of the feywild, stealing the hand from blank.

Scaly walks over to the right wall “He went to the darkest parts of the shadowfell, stealing the face from the blank, and he went to the lowest planes of the underdark, stealing the chest from the blank”.

“This is the story of Aldrich the Wanderer” says Buffalo, finishing the story. “It’s a mix and match” says Dolgan, we have to place the creature on the pedestal, matching it with the story. “We know that Aldrich has 6 items, two hands, two legs, a chest and a face. Buffalo walks over to the gorgon statues, picking it up and looking at the group “This is definitely a gorgon, I reckon he plucked the hair from this. Gorgon hair is made from snakes, this would be the snake leg of Aldrich”. “That sounds plausible” says Ned, “What about this one?” he says holding up the statue with a bunch of skulls surrounded by a shoal. Dolgan walks over taking it from Ned’s hands, “Well, we can also use location for this too, skulls and skeletons means Shadowfell or Underdark to me” he says, turning the statue around and looking at it from different angles. “I agree” says Buffalo, “Skulls and skeletons don’t habituate in the clouds, the sea, the feywild or the forest”. “Also the Shadowfell line is combined with the face artifact.This has a lot of skulls, which when skulls are alive have faces” says Dolgan, “Alright, let’s place that one down on that podium then” says Buff and Dolgan walks over placing it carefully on the small stone stand, he walks back cautiously, his hands outstretched ready for anything, but slowly lowers them as he nothing happens. Buffalo shrugs, “Okay next one, what is this thing” he says holding up a statue that looked like a bunch of blobs and spheres”, “I thought it looked like a bunch of slime. It actually kind of looks like what Ryland had hidden in his rucksack before we killed him” says Ned without any hesitation but Scaly saw Buffalo flinch as Ned spoke, “He was a bunch of slime” Ned continues on, “We’ve also fought our fair share of slimes too, back in the bottom of the castle turret in the living forest, as well as inside the pitcher plant we got stuck in recently” says Scaly, “Oh and Onist Jon’s snail thing is also a slime” says Ned in excitement. “I mean, this does look kinda similar, in the way that it has essentially no form and is just made up of blobs and bubbles” says Dolgan, at this point Buffalo had left the conversation and was staring at the right wall. “It makes sense” he says, still not turning around, “Slime’s live in the underdark, or at least come from there. The only artifact that could remotely look or act like a chest of a human would be a big blob of slime”, he places the statue on the pillar next to the skull statue, taking a step back, nothing happens. “Three more to go” says Buffalo, walking back to the table.

“This statue is huge” says Scaly holding up the bearded man statue, it towered over the other statues more that double their size. “It looks like a giant to me” says Dolgan, “THE BOOT!” yells Scaly, excitedly. Dolgan lifts his leg up looking at the winged boot Scaly had given him, a true artifact of Aldrich. “Giants move long distances quickly, well at least comparatively to us” says Scaly, “That boot allows you to move faster and jump really high. Plus none of the rest of these things seem like they’d wear a boot, maybe the old lady, but a huge boot doesn’t look like something she’d wear, considering she’s also seems to be hovering above ground”. “Okay, boot on the giant man pedestal” says Buffalo. “That just leaves us with the back wall, the satyr and the floating woman” says Vaurien, “That Satyr belongs to the Feywild naturally”. “That satyr looks exactly like the satyr we encountered when we left the Shadowfell through Dolgan’s bag of holding” says Buffalo, “We met him, in the living forest”. “A satyr can live in the material plane, but they belong in the Feywild” responds Vaurien. “In which case, how does this floating woman exist in the living forest, if we are to say that the satyr is definitely the Feywild line?” asks Ned, “No idea, but I know, being from the Feywild that the satyr is from my plane”, “Let’s vote” says Buffalo, “Who goes with satyr on the Feywild pedestal?”, “I’m going to go with that” says Dolgan, “Vaurien seems to know what he’s talking about”, “I’ll go with that too” says Scaly, “I guess I will too” says Buffalo raising his arm, “I don’t think so, but I’m already outnumbered” says Ned picking up the satyr statue and placing it on the feywild pedestal, Dolgan picks up the floating woman and moves her onto the living forest pedestal. Both of the heroes stand back waiting for something to happen, but all remains quiet. “ERRRRRRRRRRRRR” the heroes all jump back in shock as an incredibly loud alarm’s rings out through the room. The satyr statue and the floating woman statue start to crack, the lines running down the stone faces as small pebbles start to fall from the pedestal. A small floating woman breaks out of the statue, alongside a small satyr, both of them making their way towards the heroes. The small woman starts firing flames out of her palm, whilst the satyr’s looks at it’s arm as it slowly turns into a miniature version of the light of the forests. “Fuck sake!” yells Ned, “I told you” as the small versions of the satyr and floating woman move towards them. Ned charges straight at the satyr tackling, “AAAARRGH!” he screams, a rage burning in his eyes. His shoulder hit’s it’s stomach, “Oooof” the satyr makes a noise out of its mouth, Ned uses his strength to lift the satyr into the air all whilst running towards the podium the heroes initially put the floating woman on. Slamming down the satyr, it immediately returned to stone, Ned then yells “The other one!”. Vaurien reacts first, flanking the floating woman. “Viens ici” he mutters as the floating woman is dragged back, drawn to Vaurien. Vaurien makes a pulling motion with his hands, finally stopping when the woman is atop the podium she was initially meant to be on and turning to stone within a second. “Woah” says Scaly, “That was some fast reactions” he says letting a whoosh out. They hear a creak behind them, turning around to see the door they entered the room in the first place, re-appeared and now open, the heroes exit the room back into the manor’s reception looking around at the other doors. “What room next?” says Buffalo.

“So we can do each room then” says Dolgan, “They all still seem available, I guess we just do all of them?”, “Sounds good” says Ned as he walks to the room left of the opening to the manor, “What room is that?” asks Scaly following after him, “I don’t know yet” says Ned in a gruff manner, “Music” he says, hitting the shaft of his axe on the plaque as he walks in. 

The rest of the champions follow after Ned and once in the music room the door disappears behind them again like the literature room. In front of them were 8 bells with legs coming out from where the chime would be. They were running around the room at a breakneck speed, almost like headless chickens, they seemed to have no idea where they were going and were just running in a direction until the wall...or another bell stopped them. “What the fuck…” says Ned, looking around at the bells chaotic running patterns. At the back of the room written in gold paint on the wall read “Play DEAD”. “Are we supposed to lay on the ground and play dead?” asks Scaly, “Nah I don’t think so. Look” says Buffalo pointing at the bells still running around, “Each of them has a letter on it from A to G”. Buffalo draws his bow, the string creaking back as he pulls the string with a regular arrow loaded, he closes one eye and slowly moves about his aim until it is following the bell with the letter D on it, taking in a deep breath and holding it, he releases the arrow, “DING” the bell rings out loudly. The D bell and the rest of the bells start running even faster than before. “Okay, I got this” says Vaurien unsheathing his blades and running towards the group of bells. Vaurien side steps the D bell, ducks under the F bell, sliding towards the E bell but his blades weren’t in keeping with his body. “DING” the A bell is hit by the tip of Vauriens red sword as the blade chinks the edge. “Shit!” yells Vaurien turning around to look at the rest of the heroes as 2 small bells appear out of little hatches from the sides of the walls. These ones were different though, they didn’t have legs and were instead carried by little flying fairies. The fairies were laughing carrying the bell in one hand and a chime in the other. “DING” the first fairy smashes it’s chime into the bell, “AAARGGGH” Scaly yells out as the sound of the bell rings in his ears, deafening him. Buffalo and Dolgan feel the bell reverberate through their bodies, dropping their weapons on the ground as the sound vibrates their arms into jelly. Ned runs at the D bell grabbing it with a bear like grip and pushing it into the wall at the back. “DINNNNNG” the bells rings out, before Ned grabs it once more, disallowing it to move, “Hit the E and A, I’ll hold onto this one until the end!”. Scaly, seeing Ned smash the D bell, didn’t need to hear Ned to figure out what he was doing, he grab’s his crossbow and aims at the E bell. “Phssseew” the bolt flies across the room, metal upon metal clanging into the E bell, “DIIING” the bells rings out and once again the bells starts to run even faster. Dolgan picks up his hammer from the ground, his legs still shaky and runs towards the A bell, he takes a couple of steps gathering speed, “CRASH!” Dolgan is taken out by a bell running sideways to him, smashing into his side and knocking him to the ground. It was the F bell, it continues to run, ringing it’s note as it slides along the tiles. Two more fairies with bells appear from the wall. “FUCK” yells Ned, using one arm to pin his D bell and another to reach into his rucksack to grab a piton. One of the new bell fairies flies towards the original two and they all grab hands together. Using their free hands and counting down with a nod, the three fairies hit their little bells. This time the sound was excruciating, everyone bar Ned drops to the ground, losing their weapons as they use both of their hands to block their ears. Even the running bells slow down to almost a stop for a few seconds as their metallic shell shakes from the vibrating acoustics of the carillon.

Buffalo, still on the ground, crawls over to his bow, “Ned hit it!”, Ned looks at Buff and nods using the piton he was holding to whack the D bell. Buffalo looks around him, seeing Dolgan, Scaly and Vaurien all shaking on the ground, the sound of the bell still echoing throughout the small stone room. Buffalo grabs too arrows from his quiver, loading them into his bow and sits up. Breathing in, he holds his breath aiming dead centre in the room biding his short amount of time. “Whoosh, whoosh!” both arrows fly out of his bow, one straying left one straying right. “DING DING” both the E and A bells ring out, Ned reacts quickly and slams his piton once more into the D bell, “DING!”. All the bells drop to the ground immediately,clanging and rolling around the room, their legs were gone, they were just now regular bells lying on the ground. The bell fairies slot back into the wall, disappearing from sight. “Woah” says Dolgan, finally able to sit up, that was intense. He flicks his hands back and forth shaking his arms out before leaning back on his arms, “Uh oh” he says pointing at the back wall, “It’s changing”. Sure enough, the words that read “Play DEAD” had disappeared and instead “Play LIVE” now was coming into view. “How do we do that?” asks Dolgan as the legged bells start to get up once more, this time they had roman numerals on their bodies instead of letters. Buffalo starts to get himself up, dusting his jacket off and says “Same thing”.

“What do you mean?” asks Scaly, “Well, L. I. V are all roman numerals too. L is 50, I is 1 and V is 5. The E, I’m not so sure”. “How do we get to 50 though? Do we just hit the V 10 times?” asks Dolgan, “What if the letters correspond to their place in the alphabet? L being the 11, so E would be 5” says Buffalo. “What if….” says Ned scratching his head in thought, “What if… it’s a mixture. What if we hit the I for L as they and the IV for the iv of live. Then the V for the E. That spells out LIVE”, “That seems convoluted...but in saying that, these are puzzles that require a bit of lateral thinking” says Buffalo, “Let’s give it a shot. Three of us do the bells and two of us prepare to attack any of the bell fairies that may appear”. Ned walks over to the I bell, following it as it runs around. Vaurien makes his way to the IV bell and Dolgan walks over to the V bell. Buffalo and Scaly ready their bows. “Okay, Ned go!” yells Buffalo as Ned grabs his axe and whacks his bell, “Now Vaurien!” Vaurien slings his swords against the metal of his bell Clang!, “Do it Dolgan!” Dolgan swings his hammer hitting his bell. Scaly and Buffalo draw back on the strings of their bows and crossbows, ready to hit whatever was to come at them. They wait a few seconds, but nothing happens, slowly lowering their aim they look towards the rest of the group near their bells only to seem them standing ready with their weapons too. Above them on the wall read a new sentence PLAY A CHORD.

“Oh…” says Dolgan, lowering his hammer “We did it”. The rest of the heroes look at the new words. “I know that playing a chord requires more than one note, but how many?” asks Buffalo, “Three” says Vaurien in his fey accent, “You need to hit three at once”. “Any three?” asks Ned, “No they have to be specific notes, but technically yes, if you hit any three notes they can be considered a chord” answers Vaurien. “So let’s choose any bells, as long as they’re different and hit them all at the same time then” says Ned, “What if the chord does have to be specific though, we should get ourselves ready like last time. Three of us to hit the bells and two to prepare for potential bell fairies” says Buffalo, “Okay, let’s do that” says Ned. Scaly still hadn’t moved his eyes from the wall, “What if it’s more cryptic than that?” he asks, “What if instead of it asking us to play a chord, it wants us to play A chord, as in the chord of A?”, “Well that’s a good point” says Buffalo, “A chord is A, C and E” responds Vaurien, “Let’s do that then, even if it isn’t supposed to the an A chord, at least it’s a chord nonetheless and hopefully will get us through. Still, we should also prepare”, the champions nod and take their positions. Vaurien, Ned and Dolgan take the bells A, C and E, whilst Buffalo and Scaly prepare their weapons. “Three, two” says Buffalo ‘creeeeeek’ the sound of his bow string stifles the silence before he says “One, GO!”. Dolgan, Vaurien and Ned all hit their bells simultaneously, ‘DING!’ the bells echo throughout the room, louder than before. The bells disappear but the ringing of them continues as the words vanish from the wall and the door behind the heroes opens up with a creek of the hinge. The manor reception was waiting for them once more, three more doors and three more puzzles were left.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fifty - #gayandgorey

“Alright then” says Scaly, drawing his crossbow and loading a bolt. He aims it directly at the urn closest to him and pulls the trigger, the bolt flies across the room striking the purple urn. The bolt didn’t do much, but did remove a small piece where the head hit, “Well it can be damaged by regular means, which is good” said Scaly, “It does look pretty sturdy though” responds Ned. Vaurien walks over to King Daragne, staring at him and slowly fades away into nothing, only to reappear atop the king’s head. Saying nothing he starts to push the crown, the crown doesn’t seem to budge for a couple of seconds before a large creak echoes out through the hallway, the acolytes stayed undisturbed, but the heroes all turned their heads just as the crown falls off of King Daragne’s head, cluttering onto the ground in front of the dead king making a huge racket as it clangs onto the ground, the sound of metal hitting stone. Vaurien then draws both his swords, striking the crown multiple times, schling schlang!, the sound of the swords hitting the metal crown reverberates through the hallway, dents and scratches appear where the swords struck hardest, but the crown maintained it’s form. Buffalo follows Scaly’s idea and shoots and arrow at an urn, hitting it dead centre, but only a small piece broke off, landing on the cold stone floor.

The noise created by the champions so far had finally alerted some of the cultists to their presence. The cult fanatics standing on top of the pillars had now redirected their attention from chanting to the champions below them, staring at them with fire burning in their eyes. The cult fanatic closest to Scaly starts moving his hands in a circular motion, a flame building in the middle, pushing his hands forward he sends the flames directly at Scaly, but he manages to duck just as the flames whiz over his head and hit the cultists still chanting on the ground. Three of them start to burn, their robes completely engulfed in flames as they get off of their knees and start walking towards one of the urns. One by one they get inside the urn, throwing their charred bodies, still burning into the well of the purple bowl. The urn, fueled by the dead acolytes starts to burn white hot and what looks like a beam of white flames shoots out of the urn and into the chest of the undead king, the flames traversing all over his body. Meanwhile two of the other cult fanatics reach their hands out towards Buffalo and Dolgan as ethereal swords appear beside the two of them, the cult fanatics swing their hands in the air as if the sword was in their hands and the ethereal swords next to the champions start to swing down on them. “Shit!” yells Buffalo, the sword glows red and takes its first strike at Buff, he manages to avoid it by ducking left. The sword re-adjusts and starts vibrating, it’s red tint slowly changing into green, Dolgan notices yelling “Watch out, that’s necrotic magic!” as Buffalo ducks once more, but he was too slow, the green blade slices along his shoulder opening a wound that immediately starts festering, pustules bubbling in the blood. The other sword swings at Dolgan, glowing red at first like Buffalo’s, the sword hitting Dolgan’s armour but not strong enough to pierce through, the sword’s blade changes to the green and swings once more at Dolgan striking through his armour and making contact with his flesh. The green light floods onto the wound but within a second seems to retract itself, almost as if repulsed by Dolgan’s flesh, the cult fanatic controlling the sword remotely watches with a confused look on his face, the confusion only amplified after seeing Dolgan’s face, just as equally confused. “What the hell…” says Dolgan, watching the green light move back into the ethereal sword and his wound healed. In a quick flash, Dolgan see’s his shadow scepter appear in his hands for a brief moment, Dolgan looks down and shakes his head, redirecting his attention towards the trial, he jumps up using the winged boot of Aldrich, raises his hammer and lands on top of the column, slamming down the hammer onto the fanatic that was controlling the sword on him. “Aargh!” the fanatic cries out, crumpling under the hammer, the last fanatic hearing the cry and looking over, his eyes dart from Dolgan and his companion on the column to the cultists on the ground below him. Making a quick decision, the last fanatic makes a circular motion in his hands and creates a flame in the centre shooting it down into a few more of the cultists. They burn brightly and get themselves up, walking towards the urn closest to them and throwing themselves in, the urn lights up like the previous one, turning the temperature of the room up a notch and leaking the white fire directly into the chest of the king.

Ned runs up to the first urn that Scaly and Buffalo had been hitting, it was still leaking the white flames into the king, the initial three bodies of the acolytes fueling it’s fire. Ned roar’s a deep rumble and swings his axe at the urn, hitting it with immense power, the urn chips at the tip of his blade before lines of cracks creep all over the entire urn within seconds, Ned yells out once more “GAAARRGH” and swings again this time the axe flying right through the urn, smashing it into smithereens as it explodes out with white hot chunks of ceramic. The burning bodies, now almost a liquid flow out of the bottom of the urn, travelling over the broken base like lava and leaking onto the ground. Ned backs up quickly, dodging the hot fluid as it travels down the steps in front of the king. Scaly turns his attention to the next burning urn, releasing three blue dart like missiles from his palm, each of them sinking into the side of the urn and creating small explosions at their contact point, the urn cracks a small amount, but the fire keeps burning and fueling the king. Vaurien runs towards some the acolytes grouped up near one of the unused urns and launches into the air, smashing downwards with all the force of his body, landing with his sword stabbing into the ground. The earth tremors below him, rippling like a stone thrown into a calm pond, the acolytes around him start to fall over, not able to stand due to the stone acting like water. They crumble under their robes, their legs crushed by the rocks below them, disappearing into the nether.

In the second that Dolgan glances away to see Vaurien smash down into the group of acolytes, the cult fanatic in front of him manages to get his hands on Dolgans chest, pushing him backwards, sending him flying off the column, Dolgan’s loses grip of his hammer as it flings off into the corner of the hall. The cult fanatic jumps off the column, walking towards Dolgan, spinning his hands and creating a new flame ready to burn him to a crisp. Reacting quickly, Dolgan grabs his amulet around his neck and yells “Telo lumen!”, the cult fanatic looks at him strangely turning his neck like a dog before a bolt of pure light manufactures itself above the cultist, striking down with the power of Dolgan’s god. “Aaaaarrggggh” the cultist screams as blood starts to erupt from his mouth, his body arching back like it was suspended by the light, before crumpling into the ground like all the other acolytes, Dolgan get’s himself up and runs to grab his hammer. Meanwhile Vaurien yells “VIENS ICI” at the other cult fanatic on top of the pillar, the cloaked figure turns around to hear Vaurien yell but not before he is magically ripped off the pillar and thrown down onto the ground with a thud, “Ooof” he yells as his body hits the cold stone floor. Vaurien draws his two swords and makes quick work of the fanatic reducing him to the robes he was dressed in. 

Ned yells “You guys take care of the acolytes, I’ll head towards the king” as he makes a bee line towards the undead lord, smashing through the worshipers as he does. Buffalo nods to Ned and loads his short bow, making shot after shot without stopping, his magical bow firing it’s own rounds of coloured arrows at the same time, hitting cultists after cultist, their bodies falling to the ground. The other two cult fanatics start chanting faster, yelling their religious verse into the sky, drawing flames from their hands and shooting the very cultists Buffalo had hit. The cultists get themselves up, the arrows still stuck in their backs and start walking towards urns left standing. Scaly continues his onslaught of blue dart like missiles, shooting more and more into the cracked urn the cultists had turned their attention to. Ned makes it to the king and raises his axe slamming it into Daragne’s shin, but the axe bounces off of the bones like it was made of titanium. Ned’s hands shake as the axe flies backwards, he puts all of his strength into it, slamming down once more. The axe pings off it once more. “Shit” says Ned, looking at his axe, turning around and seeing the worshipers, burning, walking towards the cracked urn. 

Vaurien runs back to the crown and starts swinging again, hit after hit, slice after slice, the crown’s metal wears thinner and thinner. “Crrrik” the metal splinters, the last thread of the crown holding itself together splits as the tightly wound base of the crown spills open, swinging backwards and knocking acolytes off of their knees. “Something’s happening!” yells Ned, his focus moved from his axe to the undead king’s head. A light was shining out of the top of King Daragne’s head, almost like a beam shooting out towards the roof. As this happens, one more blue dart shoots out of Scaly’s palm, striking the urn and piercing directly through the ceramic. Molten fire starts to pour out of the hole and the cracks, before the urn bursts open spilling the liquid everywhere. “The king” says Buffalo, pointing, “He looks weaker every time an urn is destroyed”. “Yeah I just noticed it too” says Ned, his gaze not faltering since the light started shooting out of the king’s head. Some of the burning acolytes had made it to the urn closest to Ned, filling it with the flame magic fueling the king. Ned turns around, abandoning his post in front of Daragne and sticks his axe under the urn, levering the handle at a forty five degree angle, “Help!” he says to Buffalo. Buffalo draws an arrow from his quiver, it’s head had three prongs facing back at Buffalo, “Watch out!” he yells to Ned, Ned ducks just in time for the arrow to latch itself onto the far side of the urn, away from Buffalo and right in front of Ned’s face. Dolgan runs over to Ned, placing his hands on the handle with his barbarian friend and yells “1! 2! 3!”, Ned and Dolgan push down with all their weight onto the axe handle and Buffalo pulls back on the rope attached to his arrow, the urn cranks for a bit “nnnneeeerrrgggg” the sound of the ceramic scratching against the floor as the urn’s lifts up from Ned and Dolgan’s side, the burning bodies inside the urn sliding away from the two and shifting the weight of the urn towards the ground. “Gussssh” the liquid bodies of fire spill out onto the floor, Ned and Dolgan pull the axe out and Buffalo releases the rope from his grip. The king behind them deteriorates further, his bones visibly becoming pock marked. 

“CRACK!” the sound of splitting chains whoosh past the heroes, their backs still to the king. Pieces of metal rain down upon them, before magically disappearing into the ether. “What the fuck was that?” yells Ned, “His arm’s free” says Buffalo, staring at the king. The burning acolytes had now turned their attention to King Daragne, walking towards him now that the urns were all broken and smashed. One by one, they climb his legs and up through his arms eventually getting to the top of his head before disappearing out of sight into the beam still emanating from the top of his scalp. Dolgan rushes the king, climbing him faster than any of the acolytes, getting to the top of his head. “There’s a hole!” yells Dolgan, looking down at the heroes below, “A hole?” asks Vaurien, “A big hole, in the top of his head. I can’t see in it because the beam of light coming from it is too blinding. The acolytes are throwing themselves into the hole though”. “Shit” says Ned, they’ve made an urn out of the head of this skeleton giant”, “Telo LUMEN!” yells Dolgan, as a bolt of radiant light crackles above him, shooting directly into the hole in the kings head. The king starts to shudder a little, but returns to it’s dormant state seconds later. “CRACK!”, “Woah” Dolgan slips backwards, sliding on the clean skull of the king, grasping at the rivets and pock marks created by the urns being destroyed, his fingers gripping into the small holes at the last second, sparing his fall into the hole. His feet hang over the edge of the hole and start to burn, the bright light now licking his feet like flames, the burning acolytes hands reaching up and grabbing his heels “Spiritus sanitatem!” shouts Buffalo as an ethereal spirit appears above the hole, spinning around an invisible column, circling over and over. The acolytes back off, falling backwards into the hole burning brightly. 

Buffalo unloads another flurry of arrows, changing target each shot, hitting one cultists for every arrow. Each of them crumble into their robes, as if their bodies never existed in the first place, dissipating into nothing. “I’ll focus on the cultists” he yells, still firing arrows as he speaks, “The point system said we get 20 points for killing cultists, you guys focus on the king!”. “Crrraaack!” one of the legs of the king breaks free, the chains flying out over the heroes and cultists, Buff, Scaly and Ned dodge the flying pieces, two of the cultists are smashed with the metal, crumbling into the stone floor. “IT’S GOING TO BE FREE SOON” yells Dolgan, the king now shaking under his feet, “VULNERA” he shouts, his mighty hammer loading up with green necrotic energy, he then holds it up in the sky “TELO LUMEN”, another white strike of radiant light fills the room hitting his hammer it now coursing with green and white light. He slams the hammer down striking the inside of the king’s head, hitting the white hot mound of dead acolytes fueling the dead king. White and green light shoot out of the head as the building starts to rumble, the king reaches one hand up grabbing Dolgan, “Urrrgh” Dolgan makes a gurgling sound as the giant hand crushes his body, “H….eeelp” he utters as the kings arm swings back, throwing him across the throne room, Dolgan’s body slides across the stone floor ending with a sickening crack into the furthest column previously occupied by one of the cult fanatics. Dolgan get’s himself up, using his hammer as a prop to lift him onto his knees, pointing at the heroes he says “He hasn’t got much left in him” as he gets onto his feet once more.

“AAARRRGH!” Ned screams in a rage, taking two steps before using the kings only bound knee as a platform to leap up onto the kings head, Vaurien holds his two swords, crossed in front of him “Pas brumeux” he says quietly to himself as he vanishes into a cloud of vapor, only to re-appear on top of the kings head, stabilizing himself on top of the shuddering giant. Buffalo arches his bow back, loading a large arrow with a blunt stopper on the end and Scaly starts muttering incantations, staring at the hole in the king’s head. 

Ned starts the onslaught, slamming his axe downwards and into the hole, purple shadows travelling up and down the handle of his great axe, Vaurien dives down into the hole, his swords spinning as he pirouettes slashing at the now giant mound of burning carcasses. Buffalo releases his arrows, they arch up before flying directly down into the hole, bludgeoning the mass, squirting the liquid flames out and finally Scaly holds both his hands in the sky as a bolt of lightning appears above the hole, Vaurien disappears once more and reappears next to Ned, dodging Scaly’s lightning bolt by a split second. The bolt cracks, thunder echoing throughout the hall, the electricity creating petrified cracks to appear all over the molten lava, hardening the once soft substance into a rapidly cooled igneous rock. The hole starts to de-materialise, the skull Ned and Vaurien were standing on, starting to disappear, the heroes look around themselves seeing the walls of the throne room, slowly de-materialising as well and the crowd of the beefolk stadium start to come into view. The roar grows and grows until as the last piece of the floor disappears below their feet revealing the stadium dirt below them, the sounds of the cheering were so loud that they thought they might go deaf. “TRIAL ONE COMPLETE, CON CLAVI!” says the voice of Mr. Sandy White as the crowd erupts even louder. The heres look around themselves seeing the other groups standing together, there were still two throne rooms going. Hive de la Dansant and Hive de la Peinture had also finished and it looked like Hive de la Musique had just finished theirs too as the walls around them started to disappear. There was one throne room still going though and the crowd was going quiet. 

The heroes watch on through the one way mirror-esque walls of the throne room to Hive de la Theatre, the champions were struggling, three of them had been knocked out and the king was walking out the huge doors that led to the stadium. The last dwarf standing raises his hands in front of the king, a thin semi invisible wall appearing in front of him, between the king and himself, but it didn’t matter, the king simply continued to walking, flicking his wrist and hitting the dwarf as it was flung into the column, it’s lifeless body falling to the ground with a thud as the king exited the throne room. The bricks and stone disappear around them and the king walks out the front doors only to dissipate into nothing. “OOOoooh” moans the crowd as the dwarves get themselves up one by one. “DING DING DING DING DING DING” a number starts counting up from 0 above the heroes and the rest of the groups. Mr. Sandy White starts speaking again “Annnnnd now that the champions have all completed their first trials the scores will be displayed above each group!”

Hive De La Dansant - 140 points

Hive De La Peinture - 115 points

Hive De La L’Ectriture - 160 points (The crowd goes wild!)

Hive De La Musique - 105 points

Hive De La Theatre - 0 points

The crown erupts with an applause for everyone and the queen turns around to the heroes, “Follow me” she says, and starts walking forward to the side of the stadium where they see Jerry waiting for them at an open door.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Nine - Gnostic gnomes gnaw on gnostic homes

“JUST A SECOND” a voice yells from the back of the shop. The heroes spread out and start looking around the shop. There wasn’t a lot of things to see, a lot of what looked like dried meats and bones. There was another door on the other side of the shop that led out to the hallway that the heroes were first brought through when arriving at Le Chat Noir after being eaten by the giant pitcher plant. A small gnome walks out from the back door with a butchers apron on, covered in blood. “Jesus” says Dolgan as he walks out, the gnome takes his gloves and apron off, “Whadderya want” he says gruffly. “We’re just exploring the shops and are looking for anything that can help us with the beefolk games” says Dolgan, “Champions are ya?” asks the gnome, “For the Hive de la l’ecriture” responds Ned. “Well, I can’t really help ya with anything, I can harvest beasts and animals for ya, break it down if need be for you to make, craft or create. Or, you can buy me book, it has all the info you need to be a harvester yourself”. He pulls out a book from behind the front desk and hands it to Buffalo, “This book is amazing” says Buffalo thumbing through it, “We’ll take it” he says to Hammond. The heroes make their purchase, parting with 100 gold in the process. “This is a really expensive book” says Scaly, removing more gold pieces from their little treasury, “It is, yeah, but we can get so much use out of it. I’ve looked through it and we can harvest the majority of things that we kill, either to sell on or use for ourselves” says Buffalo. “If you say so” says Scaly, clearly not convinced as the heroes exit Hammond’s, back out into the dining area of the markets. 

The heroes walk past the customers eating and relaxing on the ornate rugs laid out on the floor, enjoying their food and smoking their hookahs. “Do we need to do anything else before the night is through?” asks Ned, “I would like to try out Sang Boutique” says Buffalo, “That place with just the door?” asks Dolgan, “Yeah. The secretive places always have the best stuff” says Buff. The heroes head back to the hallway of shops to the left of the entrance to the market, and make their way back to the entrance of Sang Boutique, met with the familiar plain door towards the back of the shop with only a small sign above the door indicating it was indeed the correct shop. Dolgan reaches forward and goes to knock on the door, but before his hand even touches the wood the door creaks open with a long winded “nnnnnrrrggggh” the door making more noise that any knock could do. Dolgan turns around to look at the heroes with a shrug and walks in, the rest of the heroes follow suit, entering the Sang Boutique as the door closes behind them by itself, much like how it opened in the first place. As soon as the door shuts, all sound of outside ceases, the talking, laughing and chattering, all gone. 

One by one, four candles light in the room, illuminating their surroundings. The room was essentially bare, bar a basin in the middle of the room. It looked like an ornate bird bath made from some type of stone, perhaps limestone and it had blood stains in the centre leading to a finger sized hole in the middle. Dolgan walks up looking at it, “It seems like we have to donate some blood into here” he says, and without hesitation Ned walks over, grabs the knife from the chest and pulls it down across his palm. Gripping his hand in a fist tightly, blood drips down into the basin, splashing around the edges before seeping into the hole in the middle. “Crrrrrrrrraaaawwww” the heroes hear the sound of stone against stone below them with a small shake, followed by a whisper that seems to echo around the circular room made louder by the acoustics, “Moooooore, Moooooore”. Ned grips his fist hard, squeezing out a little more blood, but nothing happens. Dolgan takes the dagger from Ned and slices his hand adding more blood to the basin. “Crrrraawwww” the floor below them starts to spin a little and depresses slightly like a screw following the thread into a piece of wood. “Mooooooore” the voice echoes again, Buffalo audibly sighs and walks forward, cutting his hand and dripping his blood into the basin, lastly followed by Scaly who does the same. As soon as Scaly donates some of his blood, the circular floor starts spinning in a circle, moving down at the same time. “Woah!” yells Buffalo, spreading his legs out so that he was more stable, Ned grabs onto the blood basin and Scaly holds onto Dolgan. The floor keeps spinning, moving downwards, revealing that the floor covered the fact that the basin’s stand was much longer than first thought, the floor moved down about 15 feet, around the basin’s stand. Once the floor had reached the bottom of the next floor the heroes could see their blood trickling down the stand, acting as a pipe. The blood flowed down slowly, trickling into grooves in the floor below them, as their blood continued to travel against gravity towards a door at the end of the room. Four notches above the door pulses one after another as the blood moved up the door against gravity, each line of blood leading to a notch.

“Glllooorb” Scaly made a hurling sound as he keels over, looking like he was about to vomit. “Are you o….bleeergh” Dolgan starts dry reaching, “Oh shit” says Dolgan as he puts his hands over his mouth attempting to push back in whatever was about to come out. Ned starts coughing profusely, leaning against the stand of the blood basin, spitting out blood onto the floor. Ned continues to hack, placing his hand to his mouth before a large blue stone. “What the fuck?” he says loudly, the string of saliva still connected between his lips and the stone, he turns around to see Scaly had spat a yellow rock onto the ground, Dolgan had caught his hacked up rock in his hands like Ned except his was red and finally Buffalo who for some reason hadn’t coughed at all, reveals a rock covered in saliva in his hand, his rock green. Ned stares for a second before blood starts dripping out of his mouth, “What is happening?” he says whilst the blood bubbles as he speaks. 

“Speak of your curse and you will be harmed, but speak of another’s and remove the charm” a woman’s voice echoes around the room, with the heroes looking around at each other with worried looks on their eyes. The room is silent, each of the heroes attempting to keep their curse satiated, before Buffalo says “Okay so, as far as I can….” but before he can finish his sentence, Dolgan starts talking immediately, “We need to speak each others…” and Ned starts spurting blood out of his mouth, but as soon as Buffalo stops talking, as too does Dolgan. “What we do?” says Scaly, “I don’t know” says Ned, slowly, whilst looking like he was pondering his words. “I think we need to speak about each others…” Buffalo starts again, but is once more cut off by Dolgan “Yeah I think we should speak each others…”, “Is your curse that you must repeat what I say?” says Buffalo to Dolgan, but Dolgan just shakes his head. “Say my curse” says Scaly, “Why are you talking like that” says Ned, before his eyes widen “You can only talk in three word sentences!” and Scaly yells out “Yessss!” as the stone in his hand goes grey, and the line of blood to the left hand side of the door trickles further upwards illuminating the left most slot. Scaly walks over and places it in the slot and the stone pulses yellow twice before lighting up. “One down” says Scaly, walking back over to the heroes. 

“Okay so now we have to work out…” Buffalo starts once more, but Dolgan starts talking again “Yeah I agree”

“I haven’t finished what I…” says Buffalo

Ned starts vomiting blood

“Yeah” says Dolgan

“But how do you kn…” says Buffalo

“We should do that” says Dolgan

“Ned keeps vomiting blo…” says Buffalo

“We should help him” says Dolgan

At this point Buffalo was looking at Dolgan, visibly annoyed at his interruptions. “Stop interrupting me” he says and suddenly Dolgan starts pointing excitedly at Buffalo. “Wha..”, “Yeah” Dolgan interrupts again and as if an epiphany washes over Buffalo, he starts to speak quickly, blurting out “YOU CAN ONLY SPEAK WHEN OTHERS SPEAK!”, “THANK YOU!” Dolgan yells, sighing as he can finally speak properly. The third line along the ground starts swelling with blood as it travels forward and up the door finally arriving at the third stone slot. Dolgan places his stone in the slot and it flashes red twice before becoming solid red like Scaly’s. 

“Okay, two more” says Buffalo to Ned. “Ned, see if you can…” but Ned was already vomiting blood again. “God, okay” says Buffalo, Ned looks up at the group and walks over to the left of the room and touches the wall “Side” he says, he then walks to the back of the room and says “Back” before walking back towards the middle of the room and towards the door with the stones above it, pointing. The heroes look at silently with confused faces, about five seconds later, Buffalo pipes up “I’m going to talk now”, “Okay” says Scaly, looking at Buffalo like he was an idiot. “Okay so I’m talking and this is fine” says Buffalo and Ned starts vomiting blood again, “Guy’s i’m not doing so well” he says, his tunic covered in blood and bile, “But, HE” Ned says pointing at Buffalo “Can only speak when no one else speaks”. The last line along the door lights up and the blood travels along to the fourth slot, Buffalo runs over placing the stone in. Flash, flash, solid. His stone was locked in.

Ned then raises his finger in the air in excitement. “Guys, how many stones did we start with?” he says, “Four” Buffalo responds and Ned starts vomiting, but doesn’t keel over and instead looks Buffalo dead in the eye, nodding. “He can’t hear numbers!” yells Scaly enthusiastically, Ned rolls his eyes and then says “How many stones do we have to go, to put into the door?”, “One” says Buffalo, “Correct” says Ned with a smile on his face. “Something to do with four” Buffalo ponders, but within a second Ned was vomiting blood again, ‘Five” says Scaly with a smile on his face and Ned starts vomiting again, “See, he can’t hear numbers!” says Scaly once more, “But we said one and nothing happened” responds Dolgan, “But one can be interpreted as another word, like we ‘won’ the game” says Scaly, “That’s not a bad point” says Buffalo, “Okay what about….EIGHT!” Buffalo yells, “Eight is okay” says Ned,  without vomiting. “Okay so eight is fine” says Buffalo, but Ned starts vomiting again, “Ah shit, eight is not fine” says Buffalo and even more blood flies out of Ned’s mouth. Through the blood flying out Ned attempts a sentence “Eight is OKAY” he emphasises the ‘okay’ with his hand, “Eight is not f…” he starts but can’t finish before blood projectile vomits out of his mouth. At this point Ned was on all fours on the ground, struggling to stand up, Dolgan walks over and touches his shoulder, his hand glowing with warm radiant heat as Ned manages to stand up, being healed by Dolgan’s magical touch, “Thanks” he says. “What have we said so far that Ned vomits from?” asks Scaly, “Four and five” responds Buff, Ned starts wretching over again, vomiting blood onto the ground. “Gross” says Buff, “There is so much blood vomit on the ground now”, “I can’t help it” says a gurgling Ned, still struggling to speak. “Ned also walked around for a bit, what was it?” says Buffalo thinking to himself, “Side, back and forward”. As soon as Buff says forward, Ned starts to point immediately at Buff “YES!” he yells as he spurts out more blood, “Five, four and forward” says Buff once more to himself before his eyes light up, “YOU CAN’T HEAR THE LETTER F!”, “THANK YOU!” yells Ned, this time not vomiting at all. The line of blood trickles down along the floor, rising up the door and making its way to the only stone slot not lit yet. Ned walks over and places his stone in the slot, the four stones light up and pulse twice before turning into dark lumps, falling out of the slots. The clatter of the stones onto the ground distract the heroes from the door, as it creaks open and they see what looks like a small, cosy house on the inside. 

Upon entering the house, the heroes are greeted by a beautiful woman who walks out from another door towards the back of the room. “Bonjour Con Clavi” she says walking towards them, with one hand out in front of her, a small red ball floating above her hand. Buffalo takes a closer look and notices that the ball is actually a sphere of a liquid that he could only assume was blood, “What is that?” Buff asks pointing at the floating sphere. “Oh zis? Zis is your blood”  she says coyly, a smile spreading across her face. “Is that what the basin was for? To get our blood?” asks Buffalo, “Oiu, how else to learn about my guests?”, “You can learn about us from our blood?”, “Oui, I know all about you now. I know that you are after the artifacts of Aldrich, I know that you are looking for the Gulthias Tree, I know that you will be competing in the Beefolk Games tomorrow and most of all, I know that you murdered my sister and damaged my other sister so badly that she left an eyeball for you to grind into a paste to save your own skin”. The heroes eyes widen as they realise the lady knew much more about them than they even remembered themselves, “Do not worry” says the lady, “I care not for my sisters, wretched beings stuck in the old ways of the coven”, the heroes let out a sigh of relief. “My name is Auntie Amelie and I am the blood hag of Sombrillant. Though I do not like to call myself a hag”, “Why is that?” asks Dolgan, “I have long been excommunicated by the coven. I have no interest in respecting the laws of the coven and therefore do not consider myself a hag anymore. The offer of goods, trade and gold is much more appealing than living out archaic rules set by the great grannies. In saying that..” and Auntie Amelie points at the table in front of them, “I have a lot of items that you could perhaps use in the Beefolk games, but for the right price” she says smiling again.

Auntie Amelie walks behind the table as the heroes walk up, looking to peruse the goods. “What’s this?” asks Scaly pointing at a blood red candle on the table. “Ahh this candle provides warmth and comfort as you sleep. Bask in it’s flickering flame and feel inspiration rise up in you to fight another day!” says Auntie Amelie, “How much?”, “15 gold pieces”, “Done” says Scaly, reaching into his sack to grab the payment. “And what of this?” asks Buffalo, holding up a piece of parchment covered in blood, “Ahh an invitation to the blood dance” says Auntie Amelie, “It is yet to be accepted, but when it does, it will transport you and any friends to a place of your choosing. For you only 75 gold pieces”, “Done” Scaly goes to reach into his money sack once more, but Dolgan grabs his hand, “Let’s have a look what else we can buy, maybe make a deal”, Scaly nods as Auntie Amelie smiles and walks over to the next item on the table. “Zis is a hags door knob” she says, holding up a doorknob that looked like it had been bashed by a mallet of some sort, it was dented and cracked all over and looked like it hadn’t been touched for years. “Zis doorknob can be attached to any surface to create a small hallway of about 10 feet, need a door? You will need a doorknob first. The only catch is that you must collect it, otherwise you will lose it for good. 100 gold pieces for this one”. “Does it work?” asks Ned, holding it up against the light to inspect it closer, “It looks like it has seen better days”, “Don’t be fooled by appearances boy” says Amelie, a stern look on her face, “Okay” says Ned, placing the doorknob back onto the table raising his hands up. 

Auntie Amelie walks further along the bench, “Arrows for you ranger Buffalo?” she says suggestively, holding her hands outstretched towards Buff. “There’s nothing there” says Buffalo, looking confused at Amelie, “Look closer” she says and as if appearing out of thin air, 5 arrows appear in her arms, but they weren’t wooden or metal but rather a shimmery green and translucent. In face Buffalo could see right through the arrows, bar a thin red line that seemed to travel all the way down the shaft, “Ethereal arrows” Amelie says, staring at Buffalo with delight, “Arrows that can weave in and out of the ethereal plane on the whims of the wielder. Very useful for enemies that like to hide from you”. “And these ones?” asks Buffalo pointing at another small pile of arrows sitting on the table, “Disarming arrows, yes” says Amelie, picking them up. At first glance, the arrows seemed like normal every day arrow’s, but as Buffalo continued to look at the arrows it almost seemed like an arm and hand extended the entire length of the arrow. In fact, on closer inspection it looked like the arrow itself was instead an arm, with a hand on the end, with an arrow on the inside, except the arm and hand, similar to the ethereal arrows was translucent. So much so that it was almost imperceptible, “Beautiful isn’t it?” says Auntie Amelie.

Whilst Buffalo checks out the magical arrows, Auntie Amelie shifts her focus to the rest of the group, “Luck be on your side, I have this” she says holding up a rabbits foot. “I have heard of these before!” shouts Dolgan, reaching over to pick it up from Auntie Amelie, before cringing, “But not like this, ergh. This is disgusting”, Dolgan hands it straight back to Amelie as she chuckles under her breath. “This is a mummified rabbits foot” she says, “Different to the luck with a regular rabbits foot, but will work nonetheless. If you are not interested in the foot, perhaps these?” says Amelie as she pulls out small little bags, no bigger than the palm of her hand. Amelie opens the bag by pulling apart the drawstring that holds the pouch together, inside the bag was what looked like the finest sand the heroes had ever seen. The sand seemed to change colours whilst the heroes looked at it, as if wind was blowing across the sand and with every gust the sand changing from different hues of pastel colours. “Fairy dust!” said Amelie in a whisper, “Breathe it in and give yourself the wings of a fairy for a short time!”. Buffalo turns around to the rest of the group, “I want the arrows, not sure what the rest of you are after?”, “I think the fairy dust will be incredibly helpful for the games” says Ned, “And the doorknob” says Scaly, “Okay let’s get all of that then” says Buffalo, before turning around to face Amelie once more “We’ll take the arrows, the fairy dust”, “And the doorknob I know” says Amelie “In fact, I’ve already packaged it all up for you” she says, pointing at small bag sitting on the table, “And Buffalo, I have made you your celeritas and tarde arrows” they are also in the bag for you too. “How did you….?” Buffalo starts, looking into his own rucksack to notice that he no longer had the herbs he had purchased from Herb earlier, “Do not worry about the how, just be happy you now have it, and that you now owe me 450 gold pieces”, Scaly reaches into the money bag and retrieves the gold for Auntie Amelie. The heroes thank the hag and take their leave, walking back out to the markets. 

The heroes make their way to their rooms upstairs and get prepared for bed. “What about these books?” says Scaly, holding up a bunch of books he pulled out of the chest. “Oh yeah, they were the ones we got from Salvador’s Special Softcovers back in Wolfspine” says Buffalo, “Could be worth a read tonight, get ourselves even more mentally prepared for tomorrow”. The heroes wash, eat and move to their beds, Buffalo starts working on creating new arrows, attaching small bags of flour to the tips. The heroes take their books to bed, Buffalo snuggles up with Dolgan and read to him whilst he rests, they stay up late, gaining the most they can from the books, before falling asleep in the early hours of the morning. “BANG BANG BANG!” the door to their room echoes as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer, Ned jolts up first grabbing his axe and running towards the door, opening it with his weapon drawn, but it was just Balu. Ned lets out a sigh of relief, resting his axe on the ground “You scared the living hell out of us Balu” says Ned, by this point the rest of the heroes had gotten themselves out of bed and were putting clothes on. “YOU NEED TO GET UP!” he yells, “THE BEEFOLK GAMES START IN LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR!”, “Oh shit!” yells Buffalo, loading his weapons onto his back as the rest of the heroes do the same. They get themselves ready within 5 minutes, running out the door at breakneck speed. Balu yells at them as they run down the stairs “I have a cart ready to go for you out the front!”, the heroes burst out the front door, and see a cart with two centaurs strapped to the front. The heroes jump in, thanking the centaurs before they take off, heading down the cobblestone path and down the dirt trodden road that separates the Rasoir fields leading towards the Hive De La L’ecriture.

The huge hive soon comes in to view, but amazingly enough, the hive was not the biggest thing in the heroes sight. In the background, behind the hive, a gigantic stadium looms, “Woah!” yells Scaly pointing ahead towards the stadium, “When the hell did that get there?” the heroes turn the heads to see the incredibly gargantuan stadium make it’s appearance, the sound of buzzing from the beefolk starting to make it to their ears. As they arrive at the stadium doors, 4 beefolk guards stand at the entrance, the heroes can hear the noise of cheering behind the stadium walls echoing out, louder than the buzzing somehow, so much so that cart wheels shake under the thunderous cacophony. “QUICKLY!” yells Jerry running out of the stadium doors, motioning towards the heroes to come in. “You are incredibly late!” says Jerry, basically pushing them in from behind, “Where have you been?”, “We stayed up late, preparing for the games” says Scaly, but at this point Jerry wasn’t listening anymore, he was signalling the guards to come over. “Tell the Queen her champions have arrived”, the guards nod and fly off, “Okay so you will line up behind the Queen and she will walk out marking your arrival. Accept the applause and act like champions for the audience. After that you can head into the waiting rooms for the first trial. Follow the Queen’s lead and you will be fine”. The Eladrin they had met at the hive they knew to be their fifth member walks out of the double doors as the guards fly back over, “The Queen is ready, please follow us”, the heroes stare and look around at each other, “GO” yells Jerry, pushing them again as they start to follow the guards. As they walk down the hallway, the roar of the audience gets louder and louder, the guards open double doors in front of them and they see 4 lines of people, with a Queen bee at the front of each line. All of the people in each line were facing the next set of double doors, except the empty line, which had the Queen of Hive De La L’Ecriture standing with her back to the doors, staring straight at them. “Go and line up behind your Queen” says the guard and the heroes walk behind forming a single line, “How dare you be late” says the Queen under her breathe, Ned was in front just behind her, “We were preparing and lost track of time, we apologise”, “Don’t worry about that now, smile and get ready to walk out”.

Four guards pull the doors open, the roar of the audience was louder than the heroes could even imagine. Claps, stamps, screams and yelling rush in through the doors like a violent wind as the heroes hear a booming voice echo all around them “Welcome to the annual BEE. FOLK. GAMES!” the stadium roars alive once more, Ned looks at the rest of the heroes mouthing “Woah!”. “And without further adieu, Team Du Vide of Hive De La Peinture!”. The Queen on the furthermost right side raises her head high and starts walking forward, with her champions following behind, a group of five elf looking people, both male and female, but had purple-ish blue skin, they also seemed to have scars all over them, along with tattoos and mutilations on their skin. “Aren’t they the people from the Shadowfell?” asks Buffalo, tapping Dolgan on the back, but Dolgan turns around pointing at his ears “What?”, Buffalo shakes his head and continues to watch the announcements. “Team Chanson of Hive De La Musique!”, the second line along starts walking forward, the five champions all being halflings this time, they all looked like Buggy, except they had longer hair and held lute’s and harps in their hands. Walking out into the audience the heroes could tell that this hive seemed like favourites, their applause being much more intense than the previous hives. “Team Faire Semblant of Hive De La Theatre!”, the third line starts moving forward, Dolgan turns around excitedly pointing at them. Buffalo stands a little taller to see what Dolgan was excited about, “Ahh they’re all dwarves” he says loudly. Dolgan had already turned back around to watch theatre hive. All five of the dwarves were dressed in striped black and white shirts, with black pants and red suspenders, along with a beret on their head. “Should we have dressed up?” asks Ned to the Queen, but the queen waves him off. 

“Team Bouge Toi of Hive De La Dansant!” the line next to the heroes moves forward to a loud roar, they were all female and all Eladrins, but for some reason Con Clavi’s Eladrin seemed to pay zero attention to them. In fact, he hadn’t payed attention to a single group of champions yet, he just stood completely still staring forward into the crowd. Each of the champions from team Bouge Toi had a weapon already on them, a mixture of rapiers and whips, along with all black clothing that covered them head to toe. They all walk out in perfect unison, striking poses as they enter the audiences gaze, “And finally, Team Con Clavi of Hive De La L’Ecriture!” yells the announcer and the audience goes wild, the cheers and woo’ing loud enough to make the stadium collapse. “Follow me” the Queen says and starts walking out the double doors, as the Queen enters the stadium the audience gets even louder, the deafening noise making it impossible to hear anything else. The first team of the Peinture hive was already have way around the stadium, each team following one after another as they do a lap, engaging with the audience via waves and kisses. There were more people and creatures here than the heroes had ever seen in their entire life and every single one of them were here to watch them and the other team compete. Overwhelmed but excited, the heroes continue to wave at the audience, Ned flexing his muscles, Buffalo aiming his bow in different directions, Scaly blowing lightning out of his mouth and Dolgan tossing his hammer up in the air, the eladrin behind them holds both his swords in the air, they glow red and blue, almost lighting up like wild fire. Finally after one round of the stadium the heroes come back to the entrance doors and once again stand in line behind the Queen before a new voice echoes through the stadium and the audience quietens to a hush.

“Hello, hello, hello, hello…” it almost seemed like the each echo of ‘hello’ was coming from a different section of the stadium. “Hello, hello, hello, hello….” another echo splashes out across the crowd, with everyone looking around in multiple angles attempting to find wherever the announcer was. “HEL…..LOOOOOOO!!!” a giant set of fireworks burst out of the centre of the stadium, confetti floating down and a shower of sparks bursting out of the ground only to reveal a platform rising from the bottom with a large beefolk standing in the middle with a gigantic moustache that stretched out further than his wings. “I YAM YOUR HOST MR SANDY WHITE!” he said in the weirdest voice the heroes had ever heard. It sounded like a mixture of a loud horn with someone scraping the floor with a piece of metal. “Our first trial of the Beefolk games will be a tough one. Not for the faint of heart. The champions will be tasked with stopping the massive King Daragne!” as Mr. Sandy White throws his hands up, giant spinning pictures of a large skeleton with a crown on, strapped to a throne by his arms and legs. “Woah! How are they doing that!” yells Scaly, watching essentially giant screen floating above their heads, “Some powerful magic I guess” says Buffalo, still looking at the screen. “The ruuuules are simple”, Mr. Sandy White sputters out, “Do. Not. Let. The. King. Escape. The points attributed for different areas are displayed above, read them now, and they will be tallied whilst the heroes wrestle this tough task. As for now, heroes, go to your private chambers, you have 15 minutes to discuss your strategies and ideas before you will meet King Daragne and his cultists!”. The queen of L’ecriture starts walking back through the main doors and summons the heroes over to her side, as the queen walks through the guards in front open doors eventually leading to a room that somehow was dead quiet despite the massive amounts of crowd cheering coming from the stadium. “This room is magically protected from scrying or any time of spying, you are completely safe to talk here. I will leave you now, but do the best for your hive, I’m counting on you” says the Queen before walking out with the guards closing the door behind her.

“Okay so how are we going to do this?” Buffalo immediately gets down to business, “Look at all this food!” exclaims Scaly, walking over to the far wall where a bench of food leans against a wall. “The points are on the wall” says Dolgan, walking over to the left hand wall and pointing at a poster, “Also, did you see the all dwarf team! I did not think they would be welcome in the Feywild”, “Well you’re welcome here aren’t you?” asks Buffalo, “Yes, but I’m one dwarf, they’re 5 dwarves in one group and still got a big cheer”, Buffalo shrugs and motions to Ned and Scaly to come and look at the poster. The poster reads

Stop the king before he leaves the hall : +50 points

Destroy an urn : +10 points 

Kill all cultists : +25 points

Kill a cult fanatic : +5 points

If the king escapes : -50 points

If a champion is knocked unconscious : -10 points

If a champion is killed : -50 points

At the bottom was a little foot note that read “Be inventive, find different ways to do things”. “So as far as I can understand, there’s King Daragne, urns, cultists and cult fanatics. Killing all of them will gain us a lot of points, but also doing other things may allow us to gain even more points”. “Other things like what?” asks Scaly, “I’m not sure” responds Buff, “Perhaps things like if we don’t kill all of the cultists, what if that gives us even more points, we don’t even know how many cultists there are. Also it says to stop the king, not kill the king, what if we kill the king and lose points?” says Dolgan, “I would daresay that we would always get the 50 points for the king not getting out of the hallway, I think we’ll have to make the decision inside the trial once we’re there”. “What about him?” Scaly whispers and as if he heard him, the eladrin walks forward sheathing his swords, his hand outstretched to Scaly “My name is Vaurien and I can tell you right now, that not killing things, often benefits you points wise in the Beefolk games”, “Really?” says Buffalo, “Indeed, I have been to a few myself. You can almost always find a way to do things without killing things, if you do, you are rewarded”. “Okay, that’s a great idea,” says Buffalo looking at Vaurien. A knock on the door, sounds through the room and Ned goes to answer it. Jerry walks in with the queen behind him, “Are we ready?” she asks, “I think we are” responds Ned, looking back and checking with the rest of the heroes with a slight head nod. “Excellent, Jerry lead the way” says the Queen as they walk back out the door and towards the double doors that lead out to the stadium. 

The heroes walk back out into an eruption of cheering and clapping with a large rectangle room directly where they had just been when walking around the stadium. “You’re in the first door” says a guard to the heroes and beckons for them to follow him. The heroes find themselves lined up behind the first door, with each of the other teams of champions positioned outside another four doors running down the gigantic rectangular building. Flying above the building Mr. Sandy White looms, as soon as all the champions are ready he counts down “Foive, four, tree, two one! BEEEEEEEEEEEP” a huge siren rings out and the doors to the rooms open. The heroes walk inside and once more, the roar of the crowd disappears as soon as the door shuts. In front of them, the heroes see King Daragne, sitting in his throne, his arm resting on his knee. He was not moving, nor did it even seem like he was breathing. A low hum comes from the sides of the room, and on quick inspection there were walls halfway between each door entrance, meaning that the champions were separated from the other champions, each had their separate King Daragne. “Look along the walls. They’re everywhere” Buffalo says in a low whisper, quickly realising that they were the reason behind the low hum, they were chanting. Down the middle of the large hallway were 6 large pillars, about 5 feet wide each. Atop the pillars were more hooded figures, but these ones had their hands in the air and were standing. They were also chanting but it was more discernible that the low hum of the kneeled hooded figures lining the walls. In front of King Daragne, were four large purple pots, “I would say, we have cultists down the side, cult fanatics on top of the pillars…” says Ned, “And urns in front of the king” responds Vaurien.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Eight - Toad Draat

The heroes start to walk out of the queen’s throne room, “Before you leave” she says, “I must ask that you keep where you come from a secret”. “Where we come from?” asks Dolgan, “You are marche du monde no?”, “March the what?” responds Dolgan. “Mid walker, is what she means” says Jerry in a whisper, “It means you are from the material plane”, “Oh! Yeah, how did you know?”, “There’s just something different, that’s all. We here at the hive have no problems with you, but people of Sombrillant may not. Especially sun court dwellers and their guards”. “Why is there an issue at all?” asks Dolgan. Jerry takes a step forward in front of the heroes, “This may not be common knowledge in the material plane, but all magic comes from the Feywild. Every spell, every enchanted item, every potion, everything magic comes from the Fee Sauvage (Feywild). The magic trickles down from us, to you, to the L’ombre est tombee (The Shadowfell). This has never been an issue as the rate at which magic is supplied from the Fee Sauvage has always been more than what has been used by the lower planes, but for the last decade, we have not been able to create it as quickly as it has been used. There have been multiple uprising’s here from people wanting to protect the mid plane and the shadowfell, but Mere Le Vieux has such control over the decision made by the sun court that the voices of the citizens no longer matter. Fee Sauvage will sever the ties with the material plane for good, which will in effect sever ties with the shadowfell too. There are devout followers of the sun court, as well as many normal citizens who believe in the sun courts cause. It is why you may notice that magic is exceptionally dull in the day time and uncontrollably extravagant in the night. Sombrillant is run by both courts, and the rules change every 12 hours, hence why it is safer to not mention your homeland, centaurs are the guards of the sun court and will make your life very hard knowing you are marche du monde. Keep it to yourselves”. “I feel like that’s something we might need to handle at some point” says Buffalo, looking at the rest of the heroes, “But for the moment, Jerry, where do you keep your dead?.

The heroes say goodbye to the queen, vouching to see her tomorrow and start walking down the sticky steps to the balcony room. “Our dead are delivered to the Champs de Fluer. Their bodies breakdown and are used as nutrients to the flowers. The very flowers that we got the pollen from earlier. It is the circle of life us Beefolk use to sustain ourselves” says Jerry, “And what of the stingers?” asks Buffalo, “They are left attached to the bees, unless they died using them”. “Sooo could we go and get them? I would like to make some arrows using the poison. I hope that isn’t too presumptuous?”. “No it is okay, we do not see the bodies as the beefolk, we seem them rather as a vessel. Myself and Elaine can take you to the graveyard if you would like?”, “Yes please” says Buffalo. “We will have to wait in line, but jump on my back and we can get going” says Jerry bending down for Buff and Ned to jump on. The heroes take off, Elaine carrying Scaly and Dolgan, as they travel back to the Champs de Fleurs to collect the deadly stingers of the beefolk.

They arrive at the flower field with gusto, the heroes knowing they only had roughly 24 hours before the beefolk games were to start. This time Jerry and Elaine flew below the flower buds, revealing a much darker and colder area just below. Ned, as always wearing the least shivers a little as they enter the draughty underbelly of the champs de fleurs. “You will have to stay on one leaf each” says Jerry, “They don’t hold a tonne of weight and won’t be able to support much more than you individually. The floor is littered with the dead bees, so it’s best for you to not come down lest you be stung”. “Sure” says Buffalo, maneuvering himself off of Jerry’s back and onto the highest leaf. Scaly was the next to get off, followed by Ned and then Dolgan.

The heroes wait on their respective leaves for a couple of minutes each, before Jerry and Elaine start bringing up broken off stingers. “Be careful with these, if you get stung, you will be in an intense amount of pain. It does kill us to sting something, but it will more often than not kill whatever is stung” says Jerry as he hands Buffalo the stinger. They continue bringing up the stingers until all of the heroes have two each, cradling them under each arm. “I can take one more” says Dolgan, “Are you sure? How will you hold a third one?”, “Two under one arm, one under another”, “Okay well you’ll need to jump back onto my back too, think you can manage” says Jerry to Dolgan, “As I would make it too heavy if I were to land on your leaf”. “Right” says Dolgan, On my count of three. One, two, three!” Dolgan makes a jump for it, holding onto the three stingers, but his acrobatics were not nearly at the calibre needed to attempt what he needed to do. As he leaps for Jerry, using only his legs, he realises mid air, that he would definitely not be making it onto his back with the stingers and flings them away, only just managing to grab onto Jerry’s back end at the last second. “Wooah” yells Jerry, aiming his own stinger back inwards so as to not sting Dolgan. “I told you it’s too many” he says, dropping Dolgan back onto the leaf and flying down to the bottom again to get the stingers. He brings up two and says “Just take two”, Dolgan nods and attempts the jump once more, this time nailing it and landing on Jerry’s back with no issues. Each of the heroes follow suit, one after another until they were back flying over the rasoir fields and before they knew it, back at the hive.

The heroes pack up their things, placing the stingers in their chest and head out of Hive De La L’ecriture, making their way back to Le Chat Noir within the hour. The tavern had it’s usual ambience, it was mid afternoon so there were a few patrons inside, but it wasn’t packed like they had seen it before. Balu wasn’t around either, so the heroes had no trouble walking straight down to the floor below. Opening the door to the subterranean markets, the smell of food whooshes into them, all the flavours of the stalls and chefs combining into one scent of meat, vegetables and fire. The staircase leads them down to the open food hall and dining area. There were people of all races sitting down on the purple and blue cushions and rugs that covered the dining area’s floors. Wafts of smoke pouring out of the kitchen’s, steam rising from hot drinks and the chatter of the customers all populating the large area. To the right, there heroes see the fountain they were found in by Balu and to the left were a bunch of shops and stalls they were yet to explore. “We should look at gearing up before heading to the games tomorrow, as much as we still don’t know what we’re doing, I’d prefer to have as much stuff on me as possible in case of anything happening we’re not prepared for” says Buffalo, “And after that some food?” says Scaly, “Sure” responds Buff as he leads the group into the shopping area.

The first stall they come across was a decent size, there was a small table in the front with a bunch of items placed haphazardly on it. Many rugs of different colours, cover the floor with larger items resting up against the wall. A small human woman walks out from behind a small desk and speaks with a booming voice “Velcom, Velcom travellers! I am Madeline Gros and this is Madeline Gros’ Rare Treasures!” she makes the statements with sweeping hand movements indicating her wares. “Here we have treasures from very far away places, sourced from mystic lands and obtained from illegal sellers, all in one place ready for you to purchase for the low prices on Madeline Gros can offer in the beautiful Sombrillant!”. “This stuff looks like it comes from home” whispers Ned to Dolgan, “Excuse me, Madeline” pipes up Dolgan, “Where exactly is this stuff from?”, Madeline leans in closely to the group, motioning with her hands for them to move in too, “Vell, as you’re down here in Le Marche Noir, I can assume you are not of the sun court so I vill disclose that these treasures, these very rare treasures come from the place known as…” she stands up a little, checking behind the heroes then popping her head back in the huddle “The material planeeeee”. The heroes look at each other, smiling, “Ooooh, so show us what you have!” says Scaly sarcastically, though Madeline Gros was not picking up on it. “Ve have many things!” she says, walking over to the display table at the front, “Ve have zis bag of flour, used for cooking and finding invisibles! Ve have zis drinking glass, previously used to hold all different types of marche du monde drinks. Ve have zis piece of cake, only a few bites taken from it and still here!” she holds up a rotten piece of cake that smelt as bad as it looked. “This stuff is all rubbish” Ned whispers into Dolgan’s ear, “Who the hell would want a rotten piece of cake?”, Madeline continues on in the background, at this point the heroes weren’t sure if she was talking to them or the people behind them that had started to come in looking at some of the items. “I had a look at most of the stuff and none of it is even magical” says Dolgan, “I am in the need of some rope though” responds Buffalo, “Me too” says Dolgan, “And me” says Ned. “I saw some in the back corner, let’s see what it’ll cost and get it if it’s priced well enough” Buffalo says walking over to Madeline Gros who was back at her desk again, “How much for the rope behind the table?” asks Buffalo, “Zee hempen rope, I see you are a man of culture. Vat do you have to offer?”, “They don’t take gold in the Feywild” whispers Ned leaning over Buffalo’s shoulder, “Shit. Yeah, you’re right” says Buffalo, holding a finger up to his chin, he stares at the rope for a second, before lifting his finger in the air in an “Ahah!” moment, tapping his hand on his leg as the chest runs up and licks Buff. Tapping the lid twice, the chest opens and Buffalo reaches in grabbing a crowbar from it and placing it in hands, as if he were demonstrating its beauty before turning around to Madeline with wide eyes. “Madeline. This is, a crowbar. Have you seen one of these before?” says Buffalo, Madeline’s eyes widen “Nooooo, never have I seen something like this” she reaches out to touch it, before Buffalo withdraws with lightning speed. “Sorry! You cannot touch it. It’s a magical item from the material plane and cannot be touched by anyone bar the owner, lest you want harm to come to your family” says Buffalo, Madeline’s hands immediately retract to her sides, a scared look on her face. “I can transfer it to you, for all the rope you have” says Buffalo, Madeline turns around looking at the 100 odd foot of rope she had. “Okay” she says quickly, “How do we do the transfer?”, “I must speak aloud to the gods” says Buffalo still holding the crowbar in two hands outstretched. “I Buffalo Buffalo, transfer this blackened crowbar of…” and he stops to think for a second “the righteous to Madeline Gros” he then kneels onto one knee, as Madeline watching him does the same, holding out her arms like Buff. Behind Buffalo, Scaly struggles to hold in laughter as the exchange takes place, Buffalo hands over the crowbar, Madeline winces as it falls into her arms, anticipating pain, but opening her eyes to reveal the crowbar in her possession and Buffalo standing in front of her with a stern look on his face. “The crowbar is now yours, wield it with caution and protect it with your life” he says, placing his hands together and bowing, Madeline bows too. The heroes collect their rope, thank Madeline and move on, happy with their exchange. 

The next shop along had a small wooden sign hanging out the front that said “Partum’s Palace of Parts”, the heroes start to walk in before Dolgan stops them with a quick whistle “Is this Partum? As in THE Partum that sold us out. As in THE Partum that is the whole reason we were trying to prove our innocence in the first place. THAT Partum?”, Buffalo ducks his head around the corner, catching a glimpse of a gnome working at a table with a bunch of metal, gears and clocks. “Was he a gnome?” Buffalo says looking back at the heroes, “Yep” answers Dolgan, “There can’t be more than one alliteration loving, gnome tinkerer in this universe called Partum” says Buff. “Agreed” responds Buff. “Let’s go introduce ourselves then” says Ned, now standing up straight and brushing off his tunic. Ned pushes past the group and barges into Partum’s Palace of Parts, “Well, well, well, look who it is” says Ned but Partum doesn’t even look up. The rest of the heroes walk in standing with Ned, arm’s crossed. “Partum!”, “Hmmmm?” he says without looking up from whatever he was making. He had small glasses on, that were made from small bundles of gears and cogs. The shop was filled with random bits and bobs of metal, most of them hanging on the wall, some of them stored on top of small shelves in the ceiling and a small table with a large cloth over it. There were also two humanoid looking statues made from the metal parts situated in each corner of the room.“PARTUM!” yells Ned once more, “WHAT!? Ohhhhh….” Partum finally looks up to see the heroes standing around his desk. “Hey guys, how are we?” he says a little nervously. “Not too good” says Ned, placing both his fists downwards on the table, “We didn’t have the best time falling down a pit, fighting suicide snails and wood woads, dealing with hallucinogenic mushrooms only to be shipped off to the forest court and trialed for something we didn’t do. Partum leans back in his chair, slides his glasses off his face and wipes his brow with a handkerchief on his side, “Money’s money guys. 500 gold pieces and I’ll basically do anything”, “Aaargh!” Ned goes to grab Partum around the neck but before he can even get his hands around the little man Partum raises a finger and wags it in his face “Uh uh!” he says as the two robots come to life. Their eyes light up and they raise their weapons into an attacking position within half a second, “I wouldn’t do that” says Partum with a smile, “You see, I’m currently working for the sun court. I’m the one in charge of creating their guards, not only am I hot property, but I am also constantly surrounded by my creations which will soon be elite guards. So lower your rage barbarian”. Ned lowers his hands back to his sides with a grunt, as Buffalo walks forward “Partum”, “Yes?”, “We will be participating in the beefolk games tomorrow and would like to peruse your wares”, “That’s more like it” he says, as he takes a step forward and whips the cloth off of the table in the middle revealing a small amount of little mechanical contraptions.

“These are my latest creations” Partum says his hands held out wide encompassing the length of the small table. First up here are my Beetle Bombs”. He turns a dial on the end of one of them and holds his palm out, the little copper looking beetle starts to beat its wings as it takes off from Partum’s hand and immediately heads towards the heroes. “Woah!” Scaly yells as he has to duck to avoid the beetle, “Don’t worry. It hasn’t been loaded with explosives yet”, “Explosives?!” says Scaly, “Correct, these little guys will fly towards whatever you aim them at and will blow up on impact. These one’s have had their explosives removed so as to not cause too much of a commotion down here in the markets”. Scaly bends down to pick it up and starts twirling it’s dial at the end before letting it go back into Partums shop, “This is pretty cool” he says as he watches it fly out of his hand. “This mouse is what I call a key mouse. Pretty straight forward. Wind it up, send it towards a door and it will hunt out keyholes. Once at the keyhole it will use its tail to lock pick it, opening the door for you”. Buffalo picks up the key mouse, turning the dial on it’s top, watching it’s segmented tails move in place, but with no keyhole to open, it was just moving it’s parts bit by bit randomly attempting to open nothing. Nonetheless the mouse was quite amazing in itself. “Lastly, this is my prized creation, it’s to inspire you in battle” says Partum as he winds up a small mechanical bird, he places it on the table and it starts walking, it’s little gold feet stomping on the table with each step. “Tweet, tweet, tweet” the little bird sings a happy little song as it walks along, it’s head in the air. “So this is the song it plays by default, as soon as you deal an incredibly damaging blow to an enemy the bird will notice and start singing a marching song. Noticing your efforts in battle and singing aptly”. Partum picks up the bird with a tiny screwdriver makes a change and plops it back down as it starts to sing a regimental song, stomping its feet in a marching pattern. “When this song is being sung, you will be filled with inspiration and might, and this will continue until you get critically wounded”, Partum picks up the bird once more and makes another adjustment with the screwdriver, plops the bird down once more as it starts walking again, but this time much slower and it’s song much more sombre and melancholic. “Finally it will sing this dirge, which will help with your ability to take a hit. Consider it a mechanical bard!”. Buffalo turns around and looks at the heroes “That little bird is amazing and we should definitely get it”, “I wouldn’t mind some of those beetle bombs too” says Scaly, “Let’s get the key mice too, I feel like they could come in handy” says Dolgan. “We’ll take all of it ahhh shit. You don’t take gold do you?” says Buffalo, “You’re in luck my material plane friends” pipes up Partum, “I am not Fey born nor do I care for rumours unless I’m actively listening out for them, so gold is completely fine with me. In fact most places down in these markets will take gold”. “Really? We got told no gold in Sombrillant, in fact in the Feywild in general” says Buffalo. “In most places in Sombrillant...no, in Le Chat Noir….yes” says Partum, “And for all of these, that’ll be 300 gold. 10 for each beetle, 50 for the mouse and 200 for the bird”, “Done deal” says Scaly, reaching into the chess and handing over the gold. 

The heroes thank Partum, the situation still slightly tense, but amicable nonetheless. The next shop along the corridor was different to the previous two. For one, there was no shop front, no furniture, no items, nothing. In fact the only thing that was in the stall was a single door, situated against the back wall. Above it reads a sign that says “Le Sang Boutique”, “That’s ominous” says Dolgan standing at the door, “Yeah, let’s come back to this one” says Buffalo “I had a chat with Jerry before we left and he mentioned that Sang Boutique would be a place of interest to me, considering I was after some special arrows. He also said that no one had been there in years, so let’s come back to it at the end of this”. “Sure” says Dolgan as he waves over Scaly and Ned, motioning towards the shop behind them on the other side of the corridor. 

The shop directly opposite Le Sang Boutique had fumes pouring out of it, so much so that it obscured the shop signage. Ned take a step forward, waving away the many colours of smoke before revealing a sign behind it all reading ‘Potions and Lotions’. “Oooh great” says Buffalo walking through the smoke, the rest of the group following him in. As soon as they appeared on the other side of the smoke they see a scantily clad lady with gardening gloves on, mixing different coloured liquids into a flask. She looks up noticing them, “Heeeeeey” she says coyly, specifically eyeing off Buffalo, “What can I do for you handsome fellas?” she asks. “Hi!” Buffalo says with more of a spring in his speech than normal, “We’re appearing in the beefolk games tomorrow and wanted to stock up with useful supplies before we do, is there anything you sell here that could potentially help us?”. “I certainly do” says the lady, walking over to another table the heroes hadn’t even realised was there yet due to the smoke and vapour surrounding it. “We have a few potions here that might help, a berserkers potions, a toad draught, a language potion and a death ward. I can also make other potions and or lotions for you at 8 gold per potion, that would require you to find the herbs first unless you bought them off of Herb who could have them at his shop already”. “What do each of those potions do?” asks Dolgan, she walks over to the potion furthest away, holding up a red, fiery looking liquid. It was shaking vigorously and seemed extremely unstable. “The berserkers toxin is good for people willing to go beyond their own body, and by that I mean fight past what your body is capable of. You won’t feel pain whilst under the effects of the potion but it’ll catch up with you later if you push too hard. Good for hunks like you” she says rubbing a finger up and down Ned’s muscly arm. “The toad draught is a poison lotion”, she holds up a jar of what could only be disguised as bubbling green mess of a paste. “Rub this on your skin and you won’t have to worry about getting poisoned for a while. Alongside that, anyone that touches you will also get poisoned if they’re not healthy enough. Perfect for swamp crawling. '' She places the jar back down, walking over to the third concoction. 

“This one is the language potion”, she says holding up a small tincture, that if she hadn’t of told the heroes had anything in it, they would have no idea. “Drink this and you’ll be able to comprehend any language spoken for a few hours. Very useful in diplomatic situations. Lastly we have the death ward” she says holding up a black perfectly still concoction. This potion will allow you to stand up, even when something hits you so hard you would swear you would fall down, but only for a few more seconds, so use it wisely”. She places the potion back onto the bench before looking at the heroes, Buffalo turns around to the rest of the heroes “I think we should see Herb first before we do anything. You never know, he may have herbs that are better than these”, “I’m okay with that” says Ned as Buffalo turns back around to the lady “We’re going to have a look at what Herb has, as we’re after some pretty specific stuff. If we find it with him, we’ll bring it over and get it turned into a potion or lotion with you if that works?”. “That’s very okay with me honey��� says the lady, before turning around and heading back over to her laboratory set, “I’ll see you soon” she says with a little wave and a crack of a smile towards Buff.

The next shop along the heroes little shopping spree had no sign out the front, but instead what looked like a Feywild native, “Bonjour” says the lady as the group walk into the shop, her elven ears revealing her heritage through a clump of matted hair, She was writing something on some parchment, not paying much attention to the group.”What is this shop?” asks Ned, “This is Wheels and Scrolls Baby. You want the scrolls you gotta pay the tolls” she says incredibly unenthusiastically. As Dolgan and Scaly hear the word scrolls, both of them take a step forward, “Scrolls?” asks Dolgan, “Scrolls” she replies with not nearly as much gusto. “What kind of scrolls?”, “These are the only one’s I have at the moment” she says “It’s been busy recently with the beefolk games coming up and I’ve sold out of most of my stuff. This is all I have left, an ascending flame scroll, an absorbing ward scroll and a necrotic visage scroll. Would you like me to explain what they do?” she asks, “Please” responds Dolgan. “Okay, so I made ascending flame to be a mixture of a hurt and heal spell. It will burn your enemies with light and also give that light back to you. It also comes from above, so whether they’re hiding or not, you’re hitting them. The second one, absorbing ward, basically makes a barrier around you that will absorb things that target you specifically. When it cannot take any more attacks it will explode out and you can redirect that power towards your enemy. Very useful for fighters up front. Lastly we have necrotic visage, this spell is very powerful but a lot of the beefolk games champions decided against it due to its marcheur du morte ties. When you cast this spell, a shadow visage appears behind you, waiting for you next attack and will attack with you like a double”. “I’ll take the necrotic visage spell” says Dolgan without hesitation. “200 gold pieces” says the woman, as Dolgan turns around to Scaly to get some money. “Are you going to get anything Scaly?” asks Dolgan, “I’m good for now” he responds, as Dolgan hands the money over to the woman. “A pleasure doing business, and please come have a look after the beefolk games, I will have more ready to go by then” she says as the group thanks her and continues on to the next shop.

The heroes could hear the shop before they even entered it. “Oiiii fuck yaaaaaah” yells a little man with a large red hat. He was in a cage and had his little arms out of the bars swinging at his supposed owner. The owner was hobbled over an aquarium with his arm deep in the water. “How you boys doing there” he says as he see the heroes enter. “Me name’s honest Jeff”, “Honest Jeff? Do you know somebody called Honest John?” asks Buff, “Yeah he’s me cousin mate. Deadly bloke that fulla”. “Ahh we know him too, we’ve shopped with him”, “Yeah he sells some interesting stuff that fulla. I deal more in the exotic animals trade meself. Got a bunch of Bullywug tadpoles here, some here brain dog. Not sure what they’re actually called, but I call them brain dogs” he points at what was literally a brain with four legs jumping up and down in a cage. “Holy shit” says Ned, “That’s what was in my head back in Wolfspine”. “You fullas from the material plane?” asks Jeff, “Uhhhh” the group starts to respond remembering the bee queen’s words, “Don’t stress, I don’t care. I would keep it under wraps though. Risky around here, being from the wrong parts”. “Yeah we are” sighs Buff, “We have been alerted to the fact that it’s not a good thing around here”, “Yeah not too happy the fey’s are with you stealing all the magics” says Jeff. “Anyway, I’ve also got here a red cap”, “Come here you fuckin’ dog’s I’ll slit ya” the red cap yells from his cage, “Ignore him, he’s an angry little fulla. Needs to bathe his hat in blood every three days otherwise he dies. Fucking useless cunt”. Buffalo walks over to the red caps and pulls out his short sword, attempting to hide it but Jeff was watching with a keen eye. Buffalo slips the sword into the red cap, just the tip, but enough to draw blood. “Oiiii what the fuck you doing?!” yells Jeff, the red cap starts screaming too “Fuuuuck he stabbed me the fucker! Fuckin’ kill him, I’ll fuckin’ kill him, come here you!” the red cap starts frantically throwing his weight in the cage, attempting to knock it over. “Mate you gonna buy it now?” asks Jeff, “You can’t stab me shit. You don’t want to fuck with me or my cousins, I swear I’ll git ya”. “I didn’t stab him” says Buffalo, “The fuck you on about” says Jeff, “I fuckin’ saw you do it, and he’s got a short sword sized hole in him now”, the red cap had calmed a little and was now applying his own blood to his cap, he actually looked quite pleased. “Either you buy it for 30 gold, or you give me 10 gold to fix him up” says Jeff, “I didn’t do it” says Buffalo, “MATE. I know you did” responds Jeff as he reaches behind his desk, Dolgan sees the glint of a blade on Jeff and turns around to Scaly, give him 10 gold he says and Scaly quickly fumbles into his purse grabbing 11 gold and hands it over to Jeff. “There we go” says Jeff, “See. No issues now, but you can fuck off”. The heroes walk out, having purchased nothing.

The next set of shops sat behind the dining area, just around the corner from the set of shops on the left of the underground market. The first one they come across had one big and one small man, they greeted the heroes with huge smiles “Welcome to Big Bowb” said the big one “And Little Bowb’s” said the little one  “Fruit and vege” they say in unison. “Hi” responds Dolgan, “Whatcha got?” he asks, “Why we gotta few fruits and a few vegies that sorta thing” they respond in unison, “We’ll be competing in the beefolk games tomorrow”, “Oh wowsers!” they say together, “Do you have anything that could assist in that?” asks Dolgan, “Well definitely” they say walking towards the far end of the table, “This here’s a horned melon, it might make you a bit of a dummy, but whoooeeeeee! Can ya hit hard!” says Little Bob, Big Bob continues “We also got the stink feet turnip”, Little Bob waves his hand across his nose, “That stuff’ll smell out your house if you’re not too careful, nobody will wanna come see you, but you’ll move REAL fast” he says, “And lastly” starts Little Bob again “We have the Haricot bean, this here little bean will take anything small and turn it into mount size. Ever wanted a horse sized rabbit? Feed ‘em one of these!”. The heroes share glances at each other for a few seconds before Buffalo finally speaks quietly, “I don’t really need any of this” he says, Dolgan shrugs, “Neither” says Ned and Scaly had already walked off, losing interest. Dolgan turns back around saying “Thank you, we’ll continue on our way”, he could see the immediate disappointment in the two Bob’s eyes, but they thank the heroes as well, as they continue on to the next shop. 

The next two shops along, the Hot Hut and Your Local were both food and drink shops that the heroes got a couple of nibbles at, before moving on to the next shop, Herb’s Herbs. “Oh well hey there, my name’s Herb” says the counter clerk as they enter, “What can I do for you today?”. The heroes explain their involvement in the beefolk games and Herb shows them what he has to offer, he turns around behind him and brings out 5 small mesh bags. He pulls the drawstring open on each one, revealing different leaves and plants in each one, “Right here we have Bog Myrtle” he shows the group the leaves inside of the bag, perfectly round and dark green, “Something like this, ground up and into a paste will give you a numbness that can help with battling through all the wounds to make sure you can continue fighting. We also have the answer to this too. Snap Flower”. He opens the next bag showing the heroes what looked like little fly traps with extended teeth, these are normally dangerous to small bugs but can be used to hold together wounds too if you aggravate them enough. Pop some bog myrtle down, take the hits, then seal them with snap flowers and bob’s your tiefling”. “What else have you got?” asks Buffalo, Herb seemed a little taken back, clearly proud of what he had already shown the heroes. “I also have Frog Seat, you can blend this down into a paste that can be used to clean armour, and celeritas and tarde. One slows, the other one hastens”. “We’ll take the celeritas and the tarde” says Buffalo. “No worries, that will be 16 gold pieces in total”, the heroes trade with Herb and move onto the final store, a much larger store opposite herbs. The heroes open the door as the wooden sign swings reading “Hammond’s Harvesting Haven”.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Seven  - Do you like jazz?

"There are five hives in Sombrillant. Hive de la l'ecriture, Hive de la peinture, Hive de la dansant, Hive de la theatre and Hive de la musique. Choose one of the hives and I will put down a wager on you to win" says Tritcher. "That seems easy enough" says Ned, "When do they start?", "In two days" responds Tritch, "TWO DAYS?! I thought we needed to plan this out, get everything ready, that sought of thing?" says Buffalo perhaps a bit louder than he meant to. "Normally, oui, but we are out of time" says Tritcher, taking another puff from the hookah and refreshing the cloud of purple smoke above them. "So we just need to choose a hive, win the games and you gives us the leg piece?" asks Dolgan, "Oui" says Tritcher, leaning back into his floor cushions, he gets up for a second and draws his fingers in a rectangle shape. His fingers spark as a piece of parchment appears out of thin air, he looks over at the heroes "If you do not trust me, just sign here. It says I will give you the artifact for the win in the beefolk games". The heroes look at each other with concern, "I think we're good to take your word for it Tritcher" says Buffalo, "Ne tinquiete pas", he says waving away the parchment as it disappears into nothing as quickly as it appeared. "We have a deal no?" asks Tritcher, "Yeah. We do" says Buffalo. "Ahahahahah!" a loud laugh punches through the purple smoke behind them, Buffalo turns around and swipes away the smoke to reveal a bunch of odd looking people and creatures laughing in the corner of the hall. Two of them sit in chairs, whilst another five or six people sit around them throwing money down onto a table. "Three!, two!, one!" the group at the table yells, as the two people in the chair shoot their arms into the air. One of them releases a fireball out of his hands as it smashes into the roof, billowing flames outwards with force. The other one has a chicken fly out of his hands, it shoots upwards smashing into the roof releasing feathers raining down on the two as everyone laughs and claps. "What's going on there?" says Scaly turning around to look at Tritcher, but he was gone. The hookah and the fog cloud was gone too. "Where'd he go?" asks Scaly to the rest of the group, but at this point they were too interested in the chicken fireball situation to pay attention.

Scaly walks over to the rest of the group, watching the strange bunch of people doing magic in the corner. "Scaly, you should do this. I think they put down money, do some kind of magic and see what happens" says Buff, "Yeah why not" says Scaly, walking forward and taking a seat at the table. Scaly gets out his lizard penis on the chair and starts rubbing it against his scales "Velox Digitus" he whispers as the tip of his forked member shoots blood and semen out in a small fire cracker display. "Woah!" they audience cries out, clapping loudly and laughing. A goblin walks forward "Again" he grunts in a low voice, slamming a gold piece on the table, Scaly starts rubbing the end of the fork once more. He goes at it for about 10 seconds, before a second eruption of blood and semen shoots out, but this time it was more of a dribble rather than a large shot. The entire audience starts losing their mind laughing, all pointing at Scaly, including the rest of the group. "That one wasn't as good" says Scaly to Buffalo, "I don't think they're laughing at your lizard dick" responds Buffalo, "Look" he says pointing at a mirror. Scaly walks over to find he has a large beard, down to his stomach, except it was made out of bird feathers. "What the fuck!?" exclaims Scaly, touching his new beard, "Again" the goblin yells slamming another coin onto the table. "Not again" Scaly mutters, walking back to the group. "Do it again!" says Buffalo with a smile on his face, but Scaly walks past them "Nah I'm done. I'm going to bed". Buffalo looks at Ned and Dolgan, shrugs and they follow Scaly, heading back up to their room into their beds, resting for the next day.

They wake up the following morning feeling well rested and ready to start their day. They head downstairs and are welcomed by Balu, "Good morning my friends, can we get you some breakfast?", "We'd love some" says Scaly, his tongue flickering out, smelling and tasting breakfast in the air. Balu waves over to the kitchen and leans into the window, an elf walks out of the kitchen carrying a bunch of plates, laying them out on the table for the group. "My name's Natalie, Balu has appointed me as your waitress during your stay here" she says with a weak fake smile, "Thanks Natalie" says Dolgan, "Can I get you anything else?" she asks the group, "We're fine thanks, and please tell Balu that we're good, we should be able to work it out ourselves here". A sign of relief washes over Natalie's face as she nods and walks back to the kitchen. The food looked okay, there were small whole fish that looked like they had been grilled on sticks, next to that some oat looking porridge and some fresh bread. The heroes gobble up their meal in a few minutes, enjoying the service of Le Chat Noir before making their way to the front door before Balu steps in front of them, almost bumping into Dolgan at the front and blocking the door. "Uhhh where are you going?" he asks, Dolgan looks at him with a slightly confused look on his face, "Outside..." he answers as he starts to move forward, but Balu moves quickly blocking the door completely. "Uhh why? It is lovely in here no? You have food, shelter, the markets downstairs...", "Not that it matters, but we'd like to explore, have a look around. We want to check out the beefolk, potentially see if we can participate in their games". "Ohhhh" Balu breathes out in a large sigh, "No worries, what hive will you be going to?", "We're not sure yet, do you have a hive you barrack for?" asks Ned from behind Dolgan, "This year it will be Hive de la l'ecriture" says Balu with confidence. "Any reason why?" asks Buff, "Well people generally barrack for their closest hive, this year l'ecriture is that high for Le Chat Noir", "The hives move?" says Buff, "Well yes" says Balu, looking at Buffalo, "They move every year" he says matter of factly. "If you head out the door and turn left, you will come across a path leading back into the Rasoir fields, that will get you to the hive quickly. You can't miss it" says Balu, moving out of the way of the door, opening it for the heroes to exit. "Okay, thanks" says Dolgan, the heroes leave the tavern and start walking left, "That was weird" says Dolgan, turning around and looking at the rest of the heroes, "I know. He seemed stressed about us leaving, then all of a sudden couldn't care less" responds Buffalo, "Yeah...odd" says Ned. A few centaur walk past them with weapons in their hands, stopping for a second to glance at the heroes. "Do we look different to them here, or is there something about us, because we are getting a lot of odd looks" Dolgan says in a whisper to the group, "I dunno, but let's move on" says Buffalo, giving Dolgan a small push in the back. They hurry down the cobblestone path, avoiding peoples gaze as they move quickly.  Soon enough they come up to a small downtrodden pathway in the blades of grass. "This must be it" says Buffalo, seeing a hill in front of them, covered with the razor sharp grass. "Let's go have a look" he says as he starts walking down the path.

The heroes find themselves walking for about ten or so minutes before reaching the peak of the hill. From the top, they could see the hive. It was gigantic, taller than a castle and floating in mid air. It looked like a giant cocoon suspended in the air, roughly ten or so stories high and a silvery gold colour. They could also hear the hive, it wasn't terribly loud, but neither were they that close to it. The slight noise of buzzing was in the air and the heroes could tell it was only going to get louder the closer they walked. They started to make their way down the hill, still following the path as trees started appearing around the edge. This was different to before, as previously in the rasoir fields it had basically been a plain, with zero other shrubbery or animals, but trees populated this area between the hill and the hive. Once at the bottom of the hill with the trees a little closer, Scaly points ahead saying "There's someone there", "Where?" asks Buffalo, but he had already noticed them as he asked. They walk over to the tree and notice not a human but what they could only assume was a beefolk sitting at the bottom of the tree, writing in a book or diary of some sort. He looked like a human on the top half and was quite well toned, he had small antlers coming out of his human head and his bottom half down was the end of a bumble bee. Yellow and brown lines of fuzzy fur and a big butt with two human legs and four bee like leg appendages. Perhaps what was most odd, was that he had a crown on his head, his antlers sticking out of the middle, swaying side to side. "Hi" says Buff, the beefolk man looks up from his book for a second, but doesn't stop writing. "Yes?" he asks, "Ummm we're heading to the hive of literature" says Buff sheepishly, a little put off by the beeman's short demeanour. "That way" he says, moving his eyes back down to his book, using one of his bee legs to point towards the hive the group were already heading towards. "Thanks..." says Buff as they leave, feeling a mixture of awkwardness and annoyance.

The closer the heroes get, the more everything was coming into view on the hive. They could see small little black specks coming and going from near the top, the hive walls on the outside were made from large hexagonal shapes, a metre or two in width each. Coming to the entrance, they spot a ladder coming from the bottom of the hive to the floor. It was completely covered in honey, but seemed to be the only way for the heroes to get in. "Eww" says Ned, as he started to climb the ladder, "I like honey, but this is ridiculous", "Yeah it's pretty sticky too" says Buffalo, but the heroes push on climbing the 10-12 rungs until they were inside the bottom of the hive. There was no one in there, no guards, nothing, just circular steps with with honey dripping down them. "Guess we go up?" says Ned with a shrug, they then start walking up the staircase, having to lift their legs more and more in an attempt to actually move their legs due to how sticky the honey was around their feet. The sound of buzzing continuously gets louder to the point of deafening and after a grueling six or seven flights of stairs, they come to a room. The room was bare and quite large, it felt like they had reached about two thirds of the way to the top. At the other end of the room, they could see hundred of beefolk standing at a large open window looking out over the fields. The beefolk all had their backs to the heroes and none of them had noticed that they had arrived yet, they were walking closer and closer to the edge and the heroes could see other beefolk flying towards the window. Quickly they realised that it was not a window at all, but rather an open hole or balcony leading to outside. The beefolk were flying in and out of the hive using this windowless window, the beefolk's backs they were looking at were in fact waiting in line to fly out. "Is this how they enter and leave this place?" asks Scaly, "It looks like it" says Buffalo, before a beefolk turns around saying "Hey! Who are you?"

"We're here to be your champions" says Ned taking a step forward. "Champions?" says the bee with a confused smile, "We already have our champions". "You do?" asks Ned, "Well yeah, of course we do. The beefolk games start tomorrow, it'd be ridiculous to not have our champions yet" responds the bee. "I guess that's a good point" says Ned looking back at the rest of the heroes. "My name's Jerry" says the bee, walking forward with his hand out. The heroes all shake and introduce themselves, "Look, I've got to go out on a run, I'd be happy to talk more with you about this, but you'd have to come help", "We can do that" responds Buff. "You and you jump on me" says Jerry as he points to Ned and Buffalo, "and you other two can jump on the back of Elaine over here" he says pointing at Scaly and Dolgan, "Make sure you grab a couple of buckets". The heroes grab their buckets and board the two beefolk. "Alrighty, hold on and lets gooooo" the bee's take off, flying out of the large open window out above the rasoir fields. The heroes turn around to see the hive was already looking small and Sombrillant behind the hive was but a speck on the ground. "Holy shit we are really high!" yells Scaly to Elaine but she was focused on flying forward. "So, where are we going?" asks Buff, he was sitting at the front of Jerry, "Wait!" yells Jerry, struggling to be heard over the wind as he points one of his hands forward at the mountain in front of them, and like it was meant to be a gigantic flower started to appear as they flew over the peak of the mountain and within a few seconds hundreds and thousands of gigantic flowers, taller than the hives themselves become terribly abundant. "Wow!" yells Dolgan, the sight was amazing, every colour was represented in this field of flowers, the stems were larger than the largest tree trunks the heroes had ever seen before, each petal was large enough to hold Ned at his largest. Jerry and Elaine land on the same flower and allow the heroes to get off, "This is where we get all of our pollen from" says Jerry to the group, "Grab a bucket and start scooping" he says, the heroes arms and legs were already covered with pollen, it had some weird static effect that essentially made it gravitate towards them. "So, why do you want to be our champions?" asks Jerry, "Well, we've come over from the material plane and heard of the trials and wanted to be apart of them. We are champions of our city in Wolfspine, so we thought why not make our stake here". "That's fair enough, to be honest I'm not completely confident in our current champions" says Jerry, "Who are your current champions?" asks Ned as he bends down, using his arm in a L shape to maximise the amount of pollen he was scooping, "I don't know their names, but they're an eclectic bunch. Much like you guys. There's a goblin, an aasimar, a tabaxi and two beefolk". "I have no idea what two of those things are" says Ned, "Angel person and cat person" Buffalo responds quickly to Ned, "Right" says Ned. "I'd be happy to speak on behalf of you to our queen" says Jerry, "We need strong contenders, the Hive de la l'ecriture has not won in years". "That sounds good thank you" says Buff as the heroes finish up filling their buckets of pollen, they jump onto Jerry and Elaine and take off back to the hive, arriving within ten or so minutes and landing safely back near the top of the hive, swapping with the next bees in line to go and collect pollen. "Just chuck those buckets over there, the workers will made do with it" says Jerry showing them a pile in the corner that wingless bees were carrying buckets to and from. "This way" says Jerry guiding them up a new set of stairs. They walk up following Jerry with Elaine following behind as they come to another open room, this time with a huge bee, sitting on a throne in the corner. Jerry bows as soon as the large bee notices. It was the queen.

"Your majesty" says Jerry, the heroes see Jerry bowing and instead choose to do cool poses. Scaly and Ned go back to back with their arms crossed looking towards the queen with a squint, whilst Dolgan and Buff get down on one knee each to do a hardcore handshake. The room was circular, a little smaller than the entry and exit balcony from the floor below. This floor seemed to be the first floor where the hive started to reduce as it came closer to the top. There were beefolk everywhere. Most of them surrounding the queen. She was quite over weight comparatively to the rest of the beefolk. There were platters of food on small tables to the right of her with a few beefolk fanning her with their wings. On the floor filling the perimeter of the room were hundreds of wingless beefolk that all had little books with them. They all seemed to be scribbling away in the books, dipping quills into honey. "Jerry" says the Queen, "Who have you brought with you?" she asks staring at the heroes slightly confused. "They are here to offer themselves to our hive for the beefolk games. I can vouch for them. I have told them what is at stake and they are willing. I might also add that they have already assisted the hive on a run to the Champ De Fleur". The queen stares at the heroes for a few seconds without speaking, "We already have a team" says the queen, looking at the heroes, still in their poses, "You don't have Con Clavi" says Ned beaming with confidence from his amazing pose. "Very well. You will have to prove yourselves. Ecris moi un monstre!" she yells as the heroes start to see tonnes of parchment flying from all sides. The wingless beefolk where ripping pages from their books and flinging them at the heroes. Honey starts pouring down from the ceiling, dripping onto the pages as they stuck together, growing in height. Within a few seconds, what was standing in front of them was no longer a small hill of paper and honey but instead a creature, built from paper, stuck together with honey. It was about ten feet tall, quite skinny and had no eyes or mouth. The writing on the paper acted like stripes across his body, his arms outstretched in claw like forms. "Defeat this and you may be the Hive De La L'ecriture's" champions!" yells the Queen, as the monsters hand starts swirling with paper.

Parchment starts whipping up in a small tornado around the base of the monster, travelling up it's body and towards it's arm it holds out pointed at the heroes. The parchment flies off of it's arm, thousands of pieces travelling through the air all at once as the temperature in the room drops significantly. Each piece of parchment turns to icicles with the pointed end aimed at the heroes, flying towards them at breakneck speed. Ned hits the floor, ducking and avoiding the icy parchment, but Scaly, Dolgan and Buffalo were too slow, getting hit directly in the chest. The ice so cold, it chills the heroes to their core, feeling the tiny needles enter their bloodstream. Scaly snaps of the icicles still stuck in his scales and raise both his hands up "Murus ignis!" he yells as a wall of fire erupts from the ground around the paper mache monster, encircling him within the fire. Ned feeds the fuel of his anger, his rage building inside of him and charging directly at the monster, running through the wall of fire and slamming into the creature with his axe and pushing him into the wall of fire behind. Buffalo pulls out a note arrow from his quiver, placing it to his forehead and muttering a message. He turns around and runs up the wall, kicking off it and shooting the arrow downwards into the creature hitting it directly in the forehead. The note is pinned against it, Ned still with his axe holding the monster down. The words of Buffalo's note shoot out like a glyph written in the air, as all the lines of text on the surface of the creature start jumbling up, making it look like the words were jumping from page to page as it shakes and explodes in a glitter of parchment, burning in the air, each piece with it's own flame, landing on the floor ashen and black. The beefolk erupt with applause, cheering and shouting. The heroes raise their hands in triumph.

The queen gets up for the first time, a glare on her face, walks forward and grabs Ned and Buffalo's hands in the air. "THE HIVE DE LA L'ECRITURE HAVE THEIR NEW CHAMPIONS!" and the applause turns thunderous as they the beefolk start stamping their feet on the ground, the bee's from lower levels buzzing their wings in glee. "Now, we only have one thing to work out before we start tomorrow" says the Queen. "Who will be your fifth member?" she motions towards the previous group that the heroes had just ousted. "You may choose from one of them". The heroes look at their options, there was a small green goblin making aggressive jabs with a knife at them, shrieking. A cat like humanoid figure, licking it's hand paws but not paying much attention to the heroes. An angelic looking being with two large white wings looking past the heroes, holding a golden rod with a winged gem at the top, and lastly two beefolk that were considerably more muscly than the rest of the bee's. Their wings were glowing red. The heroes turn around and huddle for a second, "I like the goblin" says Buffalo, "Me too" says Scaly, "I'm for the Angel thing it looks strong" says Dolgan, "The beefolk surely would be the best choice, given they're beefolk and would know the beefolk games inside out?" says Ned. "Yes, but didn't Balu say it changes every year?" replies Buff, "Hmmm good point" responds Ned. "So goblin then? That's two against one, unless Ned want's to swap his vote?", "I guess so" shrugs Dolgan, and the heroes stand up, look towards the queen as Buffalo walks forward clearing his throat "Ahem, we would like to take the gob..." but the queen interrupts, "Unless you would like to take this one" and a tall elf looking being walks out of the shadows, he was extremely lean with two glowing rapiers, one red and one blue, his eyes burning the two opposite colours as well. "Woah" says Buffalo and turns around again to huddle once more. "That thing is an Eladrin" says Buff, "They're native to the Feywild". "Well that seem's like a no brainer then" says Dolgan, "I vote him", "Me too", "Me three" the other two respond. "Okay" says Buffalo and turns around once more. "We'll take the Eladrin", "Very well" says the Queen as the goblin shrieks throwing his knife onto the ground.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Six - Crackin’ fats under the table

Ned grabs his torch, walks towards the floating rocks with it outright, but before he can get the torch to the rocks it stops and goes out, pushing back into Ned's hands. "Something's here, something in front of the rocks, like a barrier of some sort" he yells back before he feels the torch starting to get sucked in to whatever was in front of him. His hand goes past the barrier and he starts to feel the chemical burn of whatever the barrier was made from. "Arrrgggh" he yells, using his other arm to wrestle his torch arm out of the area. The rest of the heroes look on as Ned seemingly fights with air, attempting to pull one arm with another. After a few seconds, Ned falls backwards, holding his arm, it was burnt on the surface but the damage wasn't too bad. "That thing burnt me" says Ned, Buffalo looks past him, staring at the floating rocks behind Ned, his arrow still sticking out of it in thin air. Scaly walks over, being careful to avoid the floating rocks, before making to the end of the room and picking up Brulee, placing her in her little bag. "She's okay" he says with confidence. Buffalo's inquisitive nature takes over, as he walks alongside the walls, staring intently as he goes, "There are little holes every few feet" he says to the group, "That's what seems to be leaking the acid stuff that's filling up the floor. As Buffalo is investigating the holes, a limb like length of goop flicks out of the floating rocks, missing Buff by only a few centimetres, "Woah! These things are attacking" he says. Dolgan lays his shield down onto the ground so that his legs were out of the acid goop, using his hammer to ferry his way across. "Telo Lumen" he says as a bolt of light energy shoots down out from above them, hitting above the rocks and lighting up what seems like a perfect invisible cube around the rocks. "What the hell?" says Dolgan, looking up from his makeshift boat and seeing the weirdness of what his spell had lit up. 

"Now that we can see where it is, we can kill it!" yells Ned, as he pulls out his axe, runs across the room and holds out the blade on the side of the invisible cube, slicing it open. The wound holds open for a few seconds, like cutting jelly. It's a perfect slice, but nothing seems to come out. No blood, no goop. Within a few seconds the wound slowly closes over itself, removing all evidence of the gaping cut. Scaly pulls out his tainted willow, the sword once more streaking with green flames, moving up and down the blade, "Ignis!" he yells, striking down into the cube as a red flames coalesce with the green flames moving up and down the sword. The cube shudders, taking Scaly's blow into it's goopy body, the area around the sword sears and sizzles as the flames burn the cubes odd shaped body, "It's pulling me!" Scaly yells as the sword starts getting sucked in by the cube. The rest of the heroes run over to grab Scaly, but it was too late. Scaly had been swallowed, or rather ingested by the invisible cube. He was now, like the rocks inside of the cube, floating in mid air.

Buffalo, now right next to the cube, draws his bow, pulling two arrows from his quiver. He aims the arrows at the corner of the cube, instead of the centre, hoping to cut off pieces of it instead of letting it ingest more of their weapons and friends. The two arrows shoot out in quick succession from Buff's bow, cutting deeps into the top right hand corner of the cube, a piece of it falls onto the ground making a squelching noise as it lands in the goop around them. "Don't hit it's centre!" yells Buffalo, "Cut pieces off instead, it seems to work". The cube starts quivering, the heroes see Scaly's eyes widen inside of the cube before his mouth opens to scream but no sounds comes out. Scaly passes out inside the cube, the pain from whatever stomach juices was digesting him providing too much for his body. Dolgan gets out of his shield boat, running towards the other floating rocks behind them, "I'll get this one!" he yells before drawing his hammer, green necrotic energy flickering around the head, he runs towards the rocks, stopping short and smashing his hammer into mid air. The cube splits in two, the centre of it completely squished under the head of his hammer. Both sides of the cube falling over into the acid goop on the floor, before dissolving into nothing. 

Ned takes a note out of Buffalo's book and uses his axe to slice off the back left hand corner. Another piece of the cube falls into the acid on the floor and dissolves. Inside the cube, Scaly's body starts to burn on the outside, his scales receding back. "We need to get him out of there" says Dolgan, wiping away some of the goop leftover from the cube he just destroyed. Buffalo nods, turning around to face the cube with Scaly in it before drawing an arrow with a blunt end. He releases the arrow, the cube splits apart, the blunt end doing it's work as it bludgeons its way through the goop. He draws another blunt arrow, shooting it directly into the previous arrow, pushing it deeper into the cube, forcing it out the other side, creating a large exit wound. Scaly's lifeless body starts to roll out of the hole, slipping in the slimy goop, rolling out into Ned's hands. The rocks fall onto the ground as the cube dissolves into the acid below. The two cubes were gone as far as they could tell, the next question being, how do they get out of here.

Dolgan starts eyeing the roof as Ned tries to wake up Scaly, slapping him across the face. "Try this" says Buffalo, throwing Ned a good berry. Ned opens Scaly's mouth feeding him the magical berry. "There's small gaps in the ceiling" says Dolgan, pointing upwards. Dolgan balances his shield on the top of his war hammer, he bends down slightly, before jousting his hammer upwards, using the enhancement of the wicker men to launch his hammer head even higher, shooting the shield upwards. The shield flies with force, but the trajectory was off, hitting the upper right of the opening but missing the light streams feeding into the room. "Damn" he says, walking over to his shield to pick it up. Scaly wakes up with a jolt after swallowing the good berry, "Good to see you back with us" says Ned, staring over Scaly's head, before Scaly gets himself up out of Ned's hands. Ned laughs and slaps him on the back. "We're still stuck in here!" yells Scaly, "Shhhhh" says Dolgan still staring at the roof, but it was too late. The room around them starts to quiver as the heroes feels the wet acid drip down on them from the roof above, the acid around their feet rising up a little higher, up past their ankles now. All the heroes feel the burn of the acid, singeing their skin and seeping into wounds already on their bodies. "Arrrgh" they all scream one after another, "We gotta try another approach" says Buffalo as he moves his hand upwards "Spiritus Sanitatem" he says softly as an ethereal jaguar appears above Scaly, purring and walking around his head, white light trickles down like rain on top of Scaly as he feels himself feeling better, the wounds on his body closing over and his burns disappearing. Buffalo then turns around, arming his bow with another arrow and shooting it straight into one of the holes he had found earlier. The arrow pushes deep into the hole in the wall, creating a larger opening, as one small beam of light comes through. "I made a hole!" says Buffalo as he reaches his hands towards the arrow, attempting to peer out of the room. The rest of the heroes start to walk over to see what Buffalo was talking about, as the room starts to quiver once more, "Uh oh" says Dolgan looking up, as acid rains down from the roof once more, covering the heroes in more goop, burning their skin. The acid around the feet rising even higher, coming up to their knees. "Guys I...." Buffalo attempts to speak out, but falls flat onto his back in the acid before passing out. "Shit" says Dolgan running over, the ethereal jaguar disappears from above Scaly's head, the spell dying as Buffalo fell, and like Buffalo Scaly falls downwards too into the acid, no longer receiving the healing properties of the spirit. 

Dolgan places his hand onto Buffalo, his hands lighting up with warm energy, "remedium" he says as the energy flows down his arms and into Buffalo's body. Buffalo's eyes open as he feels a surge of life within himself. "Keep doing that" yells Ned, "I'll try and get us out of here!" as he walks backwards away from the wall, before charging forward, his axe in both hands, the stag symbol on the blade lighting up as he bolts towards the wall. Smashing upwards into the hole that Buffalo had widened, the axe breaks the barrier of the wall, slicing it open about an inch or so, light bursts through around the blade of his axe illuminating Ned. He pulls his axe out of the wall and swings it a second time into the wall, opening the slit even more with the beard of the axe getting stuck on the outside of the wall this time. Buffalo gets himself up, struggling to stand in the acid and walks over to Scaly, feeding him another good berry and getting him up, "Come on" Buff says, "Let's go help". They walk over together and each place two hands on either side of the slit, pulling it apart from both sides as it opens up, allowing more light to enter the room. "I can see outside!" says Ned sticking his head through the hole, but the room starts quivering again, shaking violently this time. Acid rains down on them from the ceiling again, heavily. The heroes find themselves saturated with the acid, it clings to their skin, burning their clothes and everything else it touches. Scaly is the first to fall, unable to hold the hole of the wall open anymore and passes out into the acid. Buffalo falls seconds after, the wound they had put in the wall, starts to close over Ned's neck, he manages to withdraw his head before it closed completely, but his body was now covered with welts and sores from the acid. Ned turns around and looks at Dolgan, holding his arms out attempting a spell before passing out. Dolgan watches as the rest of his friends fall unconscious around him and starts to attempt to heal himself, but the acid creeps up around his body, his shorter stature not working in his favour as it pools higher than his chest. He slips under the acid, his clothes and armour protecting the most vulnerable parts of his body, before he passes out.

"Hey!" Buffalo awakes with a slap in the face. "HEY!", another slap, not particularly hard, just like a wake up slap. Buffalo spits out water from his mouth, his skin feels quite hot to touch. "I'm up, I'm up" says Buffalo, sitting up. He looks around him and sees a couple of other people slapping the other heroes awake. They were sitting in some kind of fountain at the back of what looked like a market. "Where the hell are we? asks Ned, standing up in the fountain and revealing he was wearing nothing, even more 'nothing' than he normally did. He was completely stark naked. Buffalo looked down at himself and realised he was also naked. "Where are our clothes?!" asks Buffalo, a man bursts out from between the men waking them up, "I am so sorry this has happened, please please, let me help you out". He waves his hands up in the air, turning around to summon some workers, who quickly come to the groups aid, pulling their cloaks up around them so as to create a makeshift screen to protect the heroes' naked bodies, though the heroes walked with confidence, as if they had clothes on anyway. The man continues to look back at them, checking that they were following, whilst guiding them through whatever market they were in. There was a ceiling over head so they knew they weren't outside, or at least it was open aired. The smell of grilled fish and other scents permeated their nostrils, Ned takes a deep whiff, breathing in all the smells of food and drink, before coughing and spluttering, spitting out some of the goop from the bath house they were in previously. "Oh yeah, what happened to us?" says Ned as they walk, "Last thing I remember, the goop fell from the roof, just before we started to rip the opening in the side of the creature", "Yeah then I passed out and woke up here" says Buff, "Same" says Scaly, "Me too" says Dolgan. The man, who at this point was clearly in charge as he told other patrons of the markets to move on, look away etc, guided the heroes up a set of stairs, ending with a door that he opened for them, walking through and guiding them with his hands. They exited the markets into a tavern. Nothing inherently special jumped out about the tavern, it seemed similar to the ones from the material plane, a few tables, a bar, a kitchen and a few patrons. Quite a few actually - this tavern was busy, but the heroes didn't have the time or the clothes to sit down for a drink, as the man whisked them away up another set of stairs. "Where are we going?" asks Ned, "I've prepared a room for you, I must apologise a million times over, this has never happened before", "What's never happened before?" says Buffalo. The man doesn't answer and instead opens a door, just left of the top of the stairs, "You can have the premium suite, it sleeps much more than the four of you. I have organised food and drink to come too". "Thank you, but we still have no idea where we are, how we got here, who you are and what you're apologising for" says Buff, the man looks out the door and shoos away the maids carrying the screens, shutting the door after they leave. "You are in Le Chat Noir! A tavern in the east side of Sombrillant. My name is Balu and I own this place as well as the market you arrived in. I am apologising and offering you this room as I have a trap disguised as another tavern called Le Lavoir out on the edge of the Rasoir fields, meant to catch beasts to bring down to me, so we can make food out of them. You obviously fell for the illusion, slipping down the gullet of my magical plant, arriving at the doorstep of my underground markets". As he completes his sentence, the door knocks, Balu opens it revealing 3 maids with multiple garments hanging off of each of their arms. "Ah they've arrived!" Balu says, ushering the maids inside as they place the clothes down onto the chest at the end of the bed. "I've prepared new clothes for you, as your previous ones would've been melted off from the stomach acid of the pitcher plant". "THAT'S what happened to our clothes!" says Scaly, Ned turns around and takes off his bear cloak, revealing it to himself, tattered and torn, "This is going to be a problem" says Ned, looking at his defunct bear cloak, "You wouldn't happen to have any bear paraphenalia would you?" asks Ned to Balu, "Not personally" he responds, "But you'll most likely be able to find it in the market below". 

The heroes dress themselves, once Balu leaves to give them some privacy. Scaly chooses quite a dapper looking noble suit, feeling like a business lizard inside his new garments. Dolgan pops on a tunic he finds with some leggings for his bottom half. Ned follows in suit of Dolgan but foregoing the leggings. Buffalo turns around in his new outfit, a bright red sailor outfit, looking at the rest of the heroes and nodding in satisfaction. Another knock on the door startles the heroes a little, the door swings open and it was Balu with maids once again, but this time they had some food. A bunch of bread, some cheeses and fruit. "Here you go guys, again, I apologise for my little trick. I honestly never thought anyone would be fooled by it, I will have to have a look at the magic behind it" says Balu. "Well, we weren't really fooled by it per se" says Ned, scratching the back of his neck, "We got told to look for a bath house after leaving Le Champignon. It was the first one we saw so we just assumed it was the place recommended by our friend". "I see!" says Balu, the illusion is modelled on Le Lavoir, the actual bath house tavern. However it is only an illusion and is not meant to be taken seriously unless you want to die". "We know that now" says Ned, clearly getting a little annoyed at Balu's patronising tone. "Anyway! We're all here now, safe and sound. I believe this is yours?" he steps out of the way of the door and the chest walks in, barking as soon as it see's Ned, running up to him and jumping on him. "Arf arf!" it barks as it licks his face.

The heroes finished getting dressed, collecting their weapons from their chest and having a few nibbles of the food given to them. They head downstairs to the tavern and see Balu sitting at a table speaking with a small gnome. "Con Clavi! How are we? You're looking much better. I guess I can now formally say WELCOME TO LE CHAT NOIR!" he says in a booming voice, holding his arms open. "Thank you for everything" says Ned, "No worries at all my friends, please if you need anything, anything at all, let me know!" says Balu. The heroes nod and walk out of the tavern, feeling the mixture of emotions that the feywild seemed to flood into their bodies. Happiness, sadness, anger and almost every emotion under the sun all tied into one bundle of emotions. The cobblestone streets had a certain ambience to them, streetlights with small brightling's circling them creating waving shadows and calming yellow light over the town and the smell of freshly baked bread filling their nostrils. Fairies and pixies float about the streets whilst the rest of the flightless beings wander around, stopping in at small shops and food stalls to grab their fix. Dolgan starts to walk towards the smell of the bread and in a minute or so finds a small street stall with a large looking troll behind it, fumbling with small pastries. "Bonjour a tous, welcome to my pastry stall!" says the troll, "Let me give you a hand" says Dolgan, picking up some of the pastries the troll had dropped on the ground. "Merci, merci!" says the troll, "Thesa stupit hands, make moving le pastries tres difficule" he says with his fey accent. "Would you like to try? Free" he says, handing over a few of them to the group. "Thank you!" says Dolgan taking them and handing them around, "What are these?", "Triangle de ver violet" responds the troll "Or "Purple worm triangles". "Purple worms?" asks Dolgan, "A delicacy of Sombrillant!" he exclaims holding up a triangle before throwing it down his throat in one bite. The heroes each take a bite from the triangle pastry puffs and see live purple worms wriggling inside, "These are delicious!" says Dolgan, a purple worm half hanging out of his mouth, "Thank you!" I didn't make these myself, I do more of the dishes at Le Chat Noir, "You work at Le Chat Noir?" asks Buffalo. "Oui, I am the head chef there, Chef Boulanger!" he says, "Well Chef Boulanger, if your food is anything like these pastries, sign me up".

The heroes finished off their pastries and decided to head back to Le Chat Noir, interested in the markets below. They walk the two or so minutes back and come to the large tavern, from the outside it wasn't too loud, mainly because the majority of the commotion was underground. They walk through the door and walk towards the door near the back of the bar where what seemed like guards stood blocking it. "Non" they say without even looking at the heroes, "Ahhh, pardon pardon!" says Balu running over, "They are guest of mine, Fee Alcool", the guards turn around and open the door without saying anything. "Oui!" says Scaly as he walks past the guards, the sounds of people gets louder and louder as they travel down the stairs, odd smells of cooking and fire. "Welcome to Le Marche Noir!" says Balu behind them as they traverse the last two steps into the huge open hall. It was where they first arrived. They could see down towards the right, the room tapered off into a small hallway with the fountain they woke up in at the end, along side lay tonnes of small little stores, each of them separated by fabric hung up. In the middle of the room lay a bunch of rugs and cushions on the ground, many with people and creatures of all types eating, drinking and relaxing. Sitting in the back left corner, was a fox with a hookah blowing out purple clouds above his head and watching them fall to the floor around him. He looks at the heroes, catching their eyes and gives them a quick wink, before blowing more smoke back up. The heroes make their way over as the fox sits up, "Bonjour" he says, he was dressed in a long white, tattered shoal with large, flowy pants on and a few necklaces of gold and silver laced around his neck. He blows out more purple smoke before cracking a smile, "I 'eard you came out of the pitcher plant no?", "We did" responds Ned, "And you did not die? Well...obviously, you are here" he motions with his hands towards the group. "Please, take a seat", he blows another large puff of smoke into the area above them. The smoke cloud hangs in the air for a few seconds before shrouding the space around them. Slowly the sounds of the markets and the chatter start to die down into a muffle, the heroes look around themselves and see that the purple cloud had formed a small barrier of fog around them, seemingly preventing noise from coming in or out.

"My name is Tritcher Renard" the fox says, his fey accent shining through, his voice was low and raspy. "I have an interest in you" he says meeting everyone's gaze one by one, "You don't even know who we are" says Ned, "Oh but I do...I saw you come through the pitcher plant with nothing but a few scratches, not many people can do that". "So I have a favour to ask" he takes another puff from the hookah and blows upwards, then hands the end of the hose to the Buffalo, who takes it, breathing in whatever he was smoking. "The beefolk games are coming up, and I'd like to place a bet on you", "Beefolk games?" asks Buffalo, coughing up a bit of the purple smoke as the words leave his mouth, "C'est vrai......" he says as purple smoke billows out of his mouth, filling the small area in even more haze, "They have the games every year, and I have a lot of moongems to wager. Enter under one of the hives and I'll put a good bet on you". The heroes look at each other for a few seconds, slightly confused, "Sorry, why would we do this?" asks Ned, "Ahahaha, well I don't know, what could I possibly have that you need? He taps his chin looking up into the smoke sardonically, before lifting his loose pants up around his right leg, revealing a stone snake wrapped around his leg. The heroes look at each other with wide eyes, it was one of the artifacts from Aldrich the Wanderer. "We'll do it" says Ned, followed shortly by "What do we need to do?".

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Five - Milk will fall out of my scales

The heroes, Buck and Rene continue on drinking in the upstairs area of Le Champignon, each leaning against the bed end in the circular room. Buffalo looks across the room, seeing Rene get up and plop herself next to Ned, sharing his bed end with him. Buffalo, Scaly and Dolgan all meet eyes for a second with a slight smile on their face. The heroes drink a little more and after about 5 or so minutes, Ned gets up from the bed end and pushes the empty bed Rene was leaning against up against his with a loud "Grrrreeeeeee" as the bed scratches along the floor. At this point Dolgan get's up, "Lets uhhhh, go get more booze" he says motioning with his head toward Scaly and Buffalo. Buck chimes in "We have tonnes of this fairy liquor up here?" as Dolgan motions with his head once more at Buck, catching his eye, and then towards Ned who was currently taking off his loin cloth. "Ohhhhhh" says Buck, "Ahaha" he gets up and follows Dolgan down the stairs, Scaly and Buffalo leading in front. Once down the stairs and back in the tavern section of the inn, Buffalo pipes up "Sooo what do we actually do now?", Buck walks over to behind the bar and grabs a bottle of liquor and a small wooden box from underneath the counter, "We smoke and drink!", he walks past the group and wanders outside, as they follow him out. He opens up the small wooden box and grabs a pipe from the sack he had left on Chuck. "They shouldn't be long" he says chuckling whilst stuffing his pipe with tobacco.

Meanwhile in the bedroom, Ned shortly after taking off his loin cloth jumps onto the bed, landing sideways with his arm holding up his head. His penis now not covered by the small flimsy loin cloth he called clothes, rock hard, resting on the bed in front of him. Rene turns around, her back still against the bed end, seeing Ned's large erect penis in full view. "Oh mother and father!" she says blushing and turning back around quickly. Ned grabs the fairy liquor and a couple of glasses, clinking them together, Rene turns around once more, her face a little more seductive this time, "One drink can't harm right?" she says as she gets up, leaning on the back of the bed end looking at Ned up and down. She cat crawls over the bed end, pulling her top down a little to reveal cleavage as she arrives at Ned's hands and pulls one of the glasses from Ned's hand and necks it down in a couple of seconds, throwing the glass behind her and lowers her mouth over Ned's throbbing member taking him all in at once. Ned quivers.

"Do you reckon they're up to it?" says Scaly whilst leaning against Chuck outside with Dolgan, Buffalo and Buck. "Probably" says Buffalo as he takes another puff from Buck's pipe. "What is this stuff?" he asks, "Fey tobacco" says Buck "A delicacy in the material plane, just normal tobacco here. It's cultivated by Fey farmers, such as the farms I work on, using fey soil and fey methods of growth it becomes quite different it taste to tobacco from Wolfspine". "Yeah, it's different alright, it's like every time the smoke comes in my mouth goes numb, but I can feel the sensations of tiny little explosions in my mouth", says Buffalo, "Yeah, it'll do that. Once you get used to it, you'll not notice it anymore". 

Inside Le Champignon, Rene continues to bob her head up and down over Ned's cock. She removes his penis from her mouth, drool connecting between her bottom lip and the tip of his baby maker. She smiles coyly at Ned and cat crawls up the rest of his body, squatting over him, her hands pushing down his chest as he moves to get up, she lowers herself onto his rajah, moaning as the head splits her lips apart, slipping into her warm, supple vagina. She rocks up and down on Ned, teasing re-entry at the tip almost every time, "Uhhhhhgggh" creaks out of Ned as Rene says "Not yet" in a whisper, but it was too late. Ned's penis fires out a load just as she moves up, the semen squirts all over her vagina, covering it with white cream as Ned lets out a huge breath and sigh. "Ohhhhh" she says, "That's okay" she says to Ned, but he was already asleep.

"I think they're done" says Buffalo, standing a bit back from the mushroom house, looking into one of the windows. "I can't hear the moans or creaks anymore and they're shadows have disappeared from the walls". "Well alright then" says Buck, as he opens up the door to Le Champignon and walks in. "Let's hope it doesn't smell too much in there" says Scaly following the rest of the group in. They have a few more drinks before making their way up the stairs and back into the sleeping area. "Ergh" says Scaly sniffing in the air, "My sense of smell is better than you guys and let me tell you, it's not nice in here".

Ned's the first to wake in the morning, feeling a little groggy from the liquor from the previous night. He rolls over and see's Rene sleeping on her side with her back to him. He places one of his hands on the side of her bum, feeling her leg up and down. "Good morning" she says, turning around to kiss him, "Hey there" says Ned, his cock erect again and pushing at her back. "Looks like you're not the only one that's up" she says with a smile as she pry's apart her butt cheeks, letting him enter her once more. The spunk from the previous night still there to lubricate his second entrance. "Ohhhhhh" she moans, quickly cupping her mouth with her hand, remembering everyone else in the room asleep around them. Scaly wakes up, stirring from Rene's slip. He leans up a little from his bed, seeing Ned hugging Rene from behind with the covers moving back and forth. Scaly sits him up a little more, being as quiet as possible so that only his bottom half was covered with sheets. Slowly the sheets around Scaly rise up, his distinct thin red lizard penis poking out the top of the sheets, he begins to rub the underside of it as his animal instincts kick in and his forked tongue flickers in and out of his mouth. Milk seeps out of his scaly member as it immediately goes limp against his stomach and Scaly tucks himself back into bed, falling asleep comfortably.

Meanwhile, Ned continues to slip in and out of Rene attempting to make as little noise as possible. Rene wasn't doing the same. Even with her hands over her mouth, the sensation of Ned was different than it was the previous night. Perhaps it was the effect of the alcohol numbing the feelings or just that the second time round Ned was more aware of her body, but whatever it was, she was struggling to keep it under wraps as her moans start slipping out of her cupped hands, progressively getting louder and louder. Ned comes to climax shooting into Rene once more, filling her with his love, the explosion of cum hitting the walls all over the inside of her venus mound, which in-turn spawns her orgasm. Her legs start to shake uncontrollably, her stomach rising and falling as deep breaths pant out of her, her vaginal lips quivering around Ned's schlong, pulling it further and further into her as it continues to leak his man ooze. Finally she is able to let out a huge sigh as warm liquid squirts out of her tunnel, hitting Ned and her own legs in a salty wave. Rene shakes and shakes until there's not a drop left in her to loose, her body sinking back into the bed in ecstasy as Ned pulls his penis out, the bed soaked with cum. They cuddle, both of them falling back asleep for a little before the day properly starts.

One by one the heroes wake up and make their way down to the bottom floor. Ned heads downstairs, leaving Rene to sleep a little longer, he pops into the bathroom, washing the sex off of him before starting breakfast. Joining the table of heroes and Buck, Buffalo pipes up "Eyyyyyyyyy" he says as Ned pulls up a chair. "Good night that was" says Ned with a huge grin on his face, "This morning too", "Really? I didn't hear anything" Scaly says as he lowers his head into his porridge and oats. Olivier walks over to the table with a dishcloth over his shoulder, "Sorry about the breakfast, Rene usually cooks but I assume she may be a bit worn out at the moment" he says smiling at Ned. Ned nods his head, "She's still asleep upstairs. It's a mess up there", "Well she deserves the rest, she's a hard worker, happy to give her a little time to enjoy herself. She is the cleaner as well though, so I don't know how that's going to down" he says with a chuckle. "What is this sweet stuff? It tastes like honey but it's like...something else" says Dolgan, poking at the thick yellow lines through his porridge. "That there is beefolk honey, all made locally by the hives" answers Olivier, "Beefolk?" asks Dolgan, "Yeah, like people except bee...ish. They have a few hives around the Fey and sell of their leftover honey". "Right" says Dolgan, "Well, it's delicious. It's like normal honey but so much more". "Yeah it's great" says Olivier, pleased with himself over his first attempt at cooking for guests.

The heroes revitalised by the food, feeling a touch better after their serious night of drinking, collect their things and make to leave. Ned and Rene exchange kisses along with addresses to meet up later on down the track. "If you're heading towards Sombrillant, I can guide you there, but I won't be going there myself for a bit" says Buck. "I've got a few other things to do beforehand, but if you head on down this path here" he says pointing at a clear path that split the bladed grass, "You'll eventually come across a big bath house, called Le Lavoir. Once you pass that, you'll be real close to to Sombrillant. I do suggest a little stay in Le Lavoir though, those waters will make you feel fantastic" he says rubbing up and down his body with a smile. The heroes thank him and start to travel down the pebbled road. "What a night" says Ned, stretching out, pulling his loin cloth back and forth to remove some of the splooge that had crusted it to the point of stale bread, "Yeah, seems like you had a lot of fun, the smell was intense" says Scaly. Ned looks at Scaly intensely for a second, "I thought I saw you...", "Saw me what?" says Scaly, "...Watching", "You got the wrong Scaly", "Hmph...okay" says Ned with a small smile on his face. 

Before long, the heroes come across a tremendous bath house, the size of a small castle. Large, ornate columns hold the pitched stone open roof up, long vines crawl up and down said columns with large grape like fruits of all different colours hanging off. The heroes walk up the stone steps, peppered with small puddles of warm water as that approach the many entrances between each column. A small fairy with light blue wings stands at the top, doesn't say a word, but hands the heroes a towel each, they accept happily, one by one, entranced by the sounds of laughter and chatter coming from within the columns. They enter the bath house, seeing multiple square baths, steam rolling off of the top of the water like waves of humid air, shadows and figures of all different types of people and creatures populate the bath's, sitting on the steps. Talking. Laughing. 

"This place is amazing" says Ned, "What a luxurious tavern" echoes Scaly, "People in the Fey know how to live" finishes Dolgan, "Shall we?" says Buffalo, taking off his clothes, armour, weapons and his bags. "I'm in" says New and whistles for his dog chest, that comes scampering out of the steam like fog before opening it's top to let Ned put his equipment inside. "Let's place our stuff in here, I don't really want to leave it around here in case of any thieves" says Ned as the dog chest moves itself around the group one by one collecting their stuff. Buffalo is the first to remove all his clothes and cover himself with a towel, the rest of the heroes follow suit, Ned hardly removing anything (Just his loin cloth) to be completely naked. Scaly and Ned walk over to the bath with the least amount of people in it and edge themselves in, the water quite hot to the touch at first, but after a little meandering, amazingly comfortable. Dolgan and Buff lower themselves in on the other side, the one extra person in the bath sitting against the third wall of the bath. "Mother and Father! This bath is amazing!" says Ned, "Mother and father?" reciprocates Buffalo in a question, "Yeah I've noticed they say that here as an expression, I guess I picked it up" says Ned with a shrug. "For real though, this water, I don't know what's in it, but it feels out of this world" says Scaly. Dolgan and Buffalo take a quick glance at each other, "It's really nice" says Dolgan, "But do you notice the smell is a little off? Like kind of sour, or vinegar-y?", "Yeah" responds Buff, "I get that too". At this point Ned and Scaly were way too involved in the bath to listen to Buff and Dolgan as they continuously dip their heads under, laying on their back and splashing lightly. After a few minutes, Ned finally seems to come out of his ecstasy-like state of emotions and sit up once again on the opposite side of the bath. "Guys, take it easy, this bath is beautiful. Look at this guy right here, he's been sitting here the entire time and hasn't said a word, even with us splashing around. He's enjoying it better than any of us". "Yeah, he hasn't moved for a while" says Dolgan from across the bath, Ned moves across the water to have a closer look, but stops mid way, "Is the....is the laughter and chatter coming from below us?" he says. "What do you mean?" asks Buff, but Ned ignores him and places his head under the water once more, coming out seconds later. "It is sour!" Ned says, "It's worse when you put your head under, try it", "No" says Dolgan with a grimace on his face, "Why the hell would I do that?", "It's not the only thing" says Ned. "The square in the middle, I'm pretty sure that is much more deep that we think it is. In fact I cannot see the bottom".

Scaly in the meantime, continues to enjoy his bath, the steam lapping up so far around him that his vision is almost completely obscured, now only hearing the voices of his friends around him. "Ned" hears Scaly, "Somethings wrong with that person", "Nothings wrong with him" says Ned, "He's just relaxing". Scaly pushes some of the steam out of his way and starts to swim over to the voices, sculling across the bath. "Oh shit!" says Dolgan as he swims over quickly to the mysterious figure, the water ripples from Scaly's scull disturbing the figures area enough to make him slip straight into the water and down the black hole in the middle. "What happened?" asks Scaly, his vision still obscured by the steam a little, "There was someone in here" says Dolgan, but the little waves you made swimming over made them fall down into the hole in the centre", "What hole?" asks Scaly, "The one you are over right now" Dolgan points as Scaly looks down, a fear flowing through his body as he rushes over to the rest of the heroes on the other side of the bath. "Something's wrong" says Buff, looking around warily. The pale blue winged fairy appears at the side of the bath with towels once more, offering it with an outstretched hand. "Thank you" says Buff, climbing out of the bath and taking the towel, but as he does he realises all has grabbed from the fairy is a bunch of sticks and vines, "What the hell?" he says to himself as Ned climbs out of the bath near the back of the fairy, careful to not make any noise, he breaks out into a run and makes a forward jump to attempt to tackle it down, but instead leaps right through it, as if it wasn't there, flying straight back into the bath once more. 

Ned gets himself up out of the water and turns around to see the glimpse of the fairy he attempted to tackle dissipate into nothing. "What the hell is going on!" he yells, splashing down into the bath with his fists, the water ripples outwards, but with an incredible force. So much so that bath's adjacent to the one the heroes were in start rippling too, to the point of waves. "Woah" he says looking at the rest of the group, "I didn't realise I was that strong", "I don't think that was all you" says Buffalo staring up at the roof, as the ground below them starts to rumble.

A small rock falls into the water with a splash, alerting the heroes, "What's happening?" yells Ned, but none of the heroes respond as they look around themselves, seeing the columns shaking, fruit falling to the ground, the water seeping into the black holes in the middle of the baths and the floor cracking up below them. "We need to get out of here NOW!" yells Buffalo as they start to make a run for it. Unfortunately for them, they were deep in the bath house and there was quite a distance to go. "The walls are closing in on us!" yells Dolgan, "What wall's?" Scaly yells in exasperation, "There aren't any walls to this place", "I know that! But something is rising on either side, like this thing is folding in on itself!" he says pointing at the sides of them, where indeed the ground seemed to be folding up around them, as if they were in a cylinder that had been flattened out and it was recoiling. "RUN!" yells Buffalo.

Buffalo jumps out of the pool, narrowly avoiding rocks falling down from the roof, Ned runs along the side of the bath's attempting to hold the columns back from falling overs and collapsing on them, Dolgan slams his hands down into the floor letting his mastery of rocks and stone to flow through him like blood commanding the stone hold together, Scaly slips out of the bath with no one else noticing sliding along the side to keep hidden. Buffalo takes a second to look around seeing the top close over "It's a plant of some sort" he yells as he continues to run down the long hall, Scaly yells out "STOP!" both hands in the air whilst breathing lightning in a column directly up but the roof seems to continue to close. Ned slides along a wet patch on the tiles "I see another way out, run left to the side" he says but as he gets back onto his feet into a sprint, two columns fall down, crashing onto the ground blocking the pathway. "Try the other way" he yells! as the heroes start to run to the right, but another two columns slam down, blocking the other path. As the group reconvenes for a couple of seconds, Scaly points up "We're too late" he says, as the roof over head closes, darkness setting in.

Now stuck inside whatever it was that seemed to have swallowed them, the heroes were in complete darkness. "Everyone okay?" says Ned's voice from the darkness, "Yep", "Uh huh", "Yep" came the voices of Dolgan, Scaly and Buffalo. Ned gives a quick whistle out to his dog chest as they hear it scamper over, pulling out his everburn torch and lighting it in his hands. Slowly as their eyes adjust to the new source of light, the heroes make out each others faces and positions within closed up bath house. "What happened?" asks Ned, "I feel like we've been swallowed by something" says Buffalo, his intuition with creatures and animals second to none. They hear a faint "drip, drip ,drip" noise coming from almost all around them. Dolgan places his hands onto the ground, seeing remnants of the tiles that previously covered the floors of the bath house. He looks at his hands as he sees a wet goop like oil, covering them and upon looking down at the ground once more, realises that there was no stone there at all, and instead what seemed like some kind of spongy mess of liquid goop and plant material. Dolgan then gets out his necrostone and mutters "Lux" as the stone lights up, he lowers into a squat and jumps up, throwing the stone directly upwards. It flies straight for about 50 feet, until it hits a roof and falls back to the ground, before reappearing in Dolgan's hand, just as gross and goopy as his hands already were. As Dolgan looks at his stone, the heroes hear the dripping get a little louder before all of them suddenly get hit with a bunch of the goop falling from the roof, hitting their skin, seeping in and burning a little. Like an allergy. 

"Gross" says Buffalo, attempting to wipe some of the goop off of his shoulders, "This slime is dripping from the ceiling". "Yeah I think I might've knocked some of it when I threw my stone", "You're not kidding" says Scaly, furiously scrubbing at his scales to remove the sticky substance. "We need more light" says Scaly, taking out the tiny brightling Brulee from his bag, clicking his fingers together to get a small flame of fire, before applying it to the wick on top of her head. Her eyes open immediately, burning with flame and wide as they can go, she looks around quickly and bee lines away from Scaly, flying only about 40 feet before she bangs into a wall, setting on fire for a few seconds before the goop slowly covers over it, removing the oxygen and the flame. She flutters slowly to the ground, shaking her head as the goop covers over, putting out her flame. "Oh no!" Scaly cries, running after her, grabbing her and putting her back into the bag. "Bit too early to be using her I guess" he says, pulling the drawstrings tight, closing the opening. Dolgan's coin was still glowing in his hand, alongside Ned's everburn torch giving off a wide glow in the cavernous room. "The slime is everywhere" Buffalo says, as he casually draws his bow and shoots directly in front of him. "Phhum Phhum" both arrows hit something solid and wet by the sounds of it. The walls around them shudder a little as more of the goop drops down. This time landing on some open skin and burning, "Owwww" says Buffalo, this stuff is starting to burn. "Guys....what the hell is that?" asks Ned, staring straight forward, "What?" says Buffalo, "look at where you arrows landed, one quite far away, where Brulee crashed, and the other one is floating towards us with some rocks in it too" says Ned pointing now a little lower down. Sure enough, there were rocks, seemingly floating in mid air, directly towards the heroes, at an inexplicably slow pace. Buffalo's arrow sat a touch closer to them, as if suspended in mid air, caught in time. 

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Four - 5400/24

Ned stands in the centre of the others as they bask in the glow of the moon and the shine of the sun. "Guys..." he says, "Look at the sky". The heroes look up, Buffalo laying on his back in the grass. "Wow..." he says, seeing both the moon and the sun in the sky, on opposite ends, "What is uhhh..what's going on here?". "It's weird, it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Perhaps this is just something that happens slash appears in the Feywild?" says Dolgan, "There's also nothing around us" says Ned "As in, as far as they eye can see, there's only this long grass". At this point Buffalo gets up, looking around himself, "What do we do? We don't even know where to go" says Scaly. "Shhhh!" Buffalo whispers loudly and points right of him, a shimmering oily looking figure hovers slightly above grass level, "What's that?". The heroes hear the small fluttering of wings as the see through figure moves closer to them. As it arrives to about 5 feet in front of them, it materialises from the top down, two pointed ears upon a mostly humanoid looking face, small body with shabby clothing and 4 little wings on the back. "HI!" he says vibrantly, "Who are you?", "Uhhhh" starts Buffalo, before Ned walks forward "We're Con Clavi" he says. "What're you doing here?" asks the little creature with innocent intrigue, "We're adventures" says Dolgan, wind blows a little stronger and the grass surrounding the heroes flutters around making almost a whirring noise. "You'd better follow me" says elfish looking boy, "These winds will pick up soon and the grass will hurt you". The heroes look at each other with a shrug and start walking behind the boy. "My name's Souffle, what're yours?" asks Souffle, the heroes introduce themselves one by one, "You look like you're not from around here, have you come to the Rasoir fields before"? asks Souffle, "No, never" says Ned. "So noooobody know's your here? asks Souffle, "No one" responds Ned. Dolgan looks at Buffalo, a little worried and walks up closer to Souffle, He turns around to Buffalo and shakes his head, something was wrong. The wind blows a little stronger once more and suddenly the whirring of the grass gets louder, "Owwww", "Yooowch" the group starts to exclaim as they feel their legs and lower torso get tiny nicks and cuts all over it. "I told you the grass is sharp when the wind runs through it!" says Souffle, a grin starting to widen across his face, he looks past the heroes as Scaly yells out "Aaaarrgh!", the heroes turn around seeing Scaly holding the side of his neck, another small fairy, a girl this time, hovering behind him, holding a small needle like stick with a handle on the end. The girl holds the stick up closely to her face and yells "Got some!" with a smile as Souffle charges forward into the heroes. 

Buffalo turns around to face Souffle as he rushes forward, pulling an arrow from his quiver and stabbing it deep into Souffle's chest, "Urrrggggh" spits Souffle, but before he can even react Buffalo rips the arrow back out and locks it into the string of his bow, blood still dripping off of the tip. Whipping 180 degrees around, he takes aim, releases his two fingers as the arrow flies with pinpoint accuracy, weaving between his fellow adventurers to strike the second fairy that had stabbed Scaly. Dolgan grabs his sacrificial dagger and makes a stab for the second fairy, but the force of Buffalo's arrow shoves the fairy back, causing Dolgan to strike only thin air. Ned reaches deep down inside himself, feeling the anger he knows, well up inside of him as his eyes burn with rage. He leaps forward, arms extended reaching for Souffle, "I'll rip your wings off!". Souffle still holding the wound from Buffalo hears Ned yell out and moves out of the way in time so that all Ned grab's is air. "Hahahahaha!" Souffle laughs in a fit of giggles, coughing from his wound. Scaly watches the battle unfold and pulls out his sword from the Shadowfell. "Taaainted willoooow" a whisper echoes through the air as the sword is unsheathed. Scaly lifts it up as green smoke like fog travels up and down the blade. He swings down on Souffle, striking true, the blade slices along Souffle's body, multiple iterations of the green smoke billowing up and down the blade, stopping at the hilt, before travelling up Scaly's arm and into his mouth as he gets reinvigorated from the attack. A wind blows across the fields, the blades of grass start whirring once more as the heroes feel stinging in their legs, looking down and seeing small cuts all over where the grass had been in contact with them.

Souffle yells out, "Eclaire watch out!" as Buffalo shoots another arrow towards the female fairy. Eclaire distracted by Souffle, doesn't react in time and gets hit in the shoulder by Buff's arrow. Dolgan takes out his hammer, charging at Souffle, but Souffle flies directly up, making it impossible even with the extendable enchantment for Dolgan to make contact. Ned yells out in rage, charging forward with his axe towards Eclaire, but before he can get to her, Souffle drops down with his needle in his hand sticking it directly into Ned's neck. "Arrrgh" yells Ned as Souffle rips it back out again, blood dripping off of his weapon with a sparkle like substance glittering around it. "Yeeeeaah!" he yells, stabbing the needle into himself as a shimmer travels all over his body. Ned looks up at the fairy, suddenly feeling out of breathe and tired, "Whaa...what the hell did you do to me!" he whimpers out in a soft voice. Eclaire rushes forward stabbing Scaly with her weapon, ripping it back out and staring at it with intent, blood was dripping but there wasn't the glittery substance that Ned's attack had, "Damn!" she cries as she flies backwards and higher into the sky. Scaly holds his sword into the sky yelling "Come here you runt!" as the two fairies giggle and laugh from their place in the sky. Another wind blows through, the whirring of the grass starts once more as all the heroes feel the now familiar small cuts strike at their legs. 

Buffalo lowers his bow and places his current arrow back in his quiver. He looks up at the fairies and starts talking, "Why are you doing this? We don't want to attack you. We don't want to hurt you. We just want to leave". They continue to giggle, "These fields are ours. We do what we want, when we want" says Souffle laughing so much that he lays backwards in the air holding his stomach. Buffalo shakes his head in disappointment, before getting out two arrows and shooting them directly at the two fairies. Both arrows hit, one in each of the fairies. Eclaire is a little stunned but manages to continue laughing. Souffle however didn't seem as good. He get's hit in the neck with the arrow from Buff and starts to bleed profusely out of the wound. So much so that his wings give out a little as he slowly hovers down towards the ground. Ned see's this happen and runs directly at Souffle with his axe out, he smashes downwards over Souffle, driving the axe so hard that it splits the ground below him, sinking deep down into the earth, only Souffle's wings showing out of the dirt. "Nooooooooo!" yells Eclaire, recovering from the arrow and watching as Souffle dies in front of her eyes. 

"Do you see what will happen? We do not want to fight you, Souffle didn't have to die" says Buffalo to Eclaire as tears run down her face. "You killed him!" she screams, "Aaarrrgggh!" she yells charging towards Buffalo. As Eclaire launches down, Buffalo draws two arrows from his quiver, firing them in quick succession making use of the distance Eclaire had put between herself and the heroes previous to Souffle dying. Both arrows hit Eclaire, each one taking a little wind out of her charge. The wind billows strong across the fields, vibrating the blades of grass once more. The grass starts shaking violently more so than before as long slashes start appearing across the heroes lower bodies, opening new wounds and enlarging old ones. Scaly falls to the ground, not able to stand due to the injuries, passing out on the ground. Eclaire land's on Buffalo stabbing downwards with her needle weapon, sinking it deep into his shoulder. She pulls it back out and stabs it into herself. Dolgan runs over to Scaly and holds his hands over his lifeless body "Sana Vulnera" he whispers as light emanates from his palms flowing out and onto Scaly. Scaly's eyes open as he looks down, watching his wounds from the fairies and the grass start to close, like they were never there. Scaly launches himself up, out of the grass, grabbing his sword once more and running at Eclaire who was still relishing in whatever vitality the needle gave her. He slices with all of his might, striking her directly in the head, the fairy starts to split in two as the sword falls through her like butter. The sword hits the ground as the two halves of Eclaire fall onto the ground, her blood seeping onto the soil and seeping in.

Scaly picks up his sword once more and places it over his shoulder, breathing out in a large long sigh. Buffalo walks up next to him and places a hand on his back. "That was a fight we didn't want to have, but they gave us no choice. Don't feel bad brother", "Yeah" responds Scaly. Ned bends down over Souffle, out of the heroes visibility due to the grass, "What're you doing?" yells Dolgan, the wind stirs up once more. "They dropped some stones out of their clothes" says Ned holding one up to show the group. The rock reflects the moonlight out in a chromatic shimmery sparkly, "We could potentially use these later?" says Buffalo holding up some of the fairy wings, dripping with blood and interrupting Dolgan and Ned, "Ergggh" says Scaly looking on in disgust. A small rustling in the grass grabs the attention of the heroes and Dolgan is first to raise his weapon ready to fight once more before he and the group hear a lowish voice, "Well hey there".

The heroes turn around in a flash, weapons drawn, seeing a tallish man, sitting upon a large ox. He was wearing a lumber jack like flannelette, long blue pants and a leatherish looking hat. "Woah!" he says putting his hands up, "I'm not here to fight ahuh. I'm just passing by and noticed you there". His voice was low but had a jolly like quality to it. The heroes put their weapons down, a sigh of relief exhaling from each one of them. "My name's Buck and I like to get people to where they need to go safely" he says with a smile on his face, his arms still up in the air in the surrender position. "This here's my ox, name of Chuck" he pats the ox on the head as it rear's back a little in a display of affection, "What're you doing out here?". Ned leans on the hilt of his axe, attempting to attach one of the fairy wings to the butt, Buffalo takes a breath in, still winded from the previous fight, "We're looking for some stuff" he says, "Aren't we all?" responds Buck. "Did you want a ride? I can take you to the closer tavern to here, won't cost you too much", "How does currency work here?" asks Buffalo, "Ah! Material planers! Haven't seen you guys for a while. I myself am from the material plane. I can tell you right now, gold ain't gonna do you much good over here", the heroes look on as Buck speaks with intrigue. "You can get most things through trade, trade of secrets, rumours, stories, tales etc. Anything that piques the interest really. That and moon gems", "Moon gems?" says Buffalo, "Moon gems" reiterates Buck. "In fact you have a few in your paws right over there" he says looking at Ned. Ned holds up the prismatic, pinky-purple looking stones as the moonlight bounces off of them "These?" he says. "Those right there" says Buck. 

"How much is one gem in the material plane?" asks Buffalo, "I can't really say" says Buck, "It's really about what you need and what you're willing to give out for it, there's not a lot of structure here, especially when it comes to economics. It's part of what makes the Feywild so beautiful but also so frustrating. I'm always after a moon gem as they're generous trade in my business. I can take you to the closest tavern and give you a beginners guide to the Feywild for one of them if you'd like? Get you out of the razor grass". Buffalo looks back at the heroes with a shrug, "We don't know where we are, have just been attacked by some fairies, have razor sharp grass chopping our legs up and as far as we can see, there's no end in sight. Buck seems to know where he's going and is only asking for one of our four gems. Seems fair to me" says Buff, "Can't argue with that" says Ned as he walks towards Buck and hands him a moon gem. "Well thank you very much kind sir" says Buck as he pops two fingers in his mouth and blows out with a large whistle. The whistle echoes along the fields and around the heroes 4 more oxen appear out of the grass as if they were there the entire time. "Mmoooooooorrrgggh" they raise their heads into the air and moan. "You can each jump on one of them, they're very friendly" says Buck. "I'll take you to Le Champignon, it's a little bed and breakfast that'll fit you guys up nice and snug" he says as he taps on the back of the neck of Chuck. Chuck lets out a small "Mmmmerrgh" and starts walking forward, followed by the rest of the heroes' oxen.

"So how long have you been here for so far?" asks Buck, "Before you arrived? About 10 minutes. We used a portal given to us by an archfey and appeared in the Rasoir fields, only to be attacked by Souffle and Eclaire almost immediately". "Oh wow, you've only been here a short while then. I can give you a few hints as to how things work then. No worries at all" says Buck looking back at the group and smiling. "Have any of you used magic here yet?", the heroes shake their head, "Well in the night time, you have to be real careful. Sometime things happen that you don't plan to happen". "What do you mean?" asks Scaly, now interested in what Buck has to say, "Well cast a spell on that tree over there" says Buck, Scaly places his palms out aimed at the tree and says "Ignis Pila" as a fireball erupts from his hands, shooting out towards the tree, lighting it up in flames. The heroes all look at Scaly to see if anything different happened, "You feel that?" asks Buck, "Yeah I do" says Scaly, "What happened?" asks Dolgan, "I don't know, I just felt something odd inside of me when I cast that spell, like I was stronger, but not like I had the choice to become stronger. It was weird", "Hmmm" says Dolgan unsure of what to make of Scaly's cryptic words. The heroes continue forward on their oxen, Buffalo pipes up "So what do you do Buck?", "Well, I'm a farmer myself. Came to the Feywild many years ago and decided to never leave. These here are my oxen, I work for a farm up north and I collect Brightling's on the side". "Brightling's?" asks Buffalo, "Yeah, these little guys" says Buck stopping on his ox and turning around with a small bag in his hand. He puts his hand in the bag and grabs out a tiny little fairy with a wick on it's head. It was sitting with it's legs tucked up to it's chest, but seemed to be asleep. "This here's Brulee, she's a sweet little thing. Have to be careful with Brightling's though, their answer to absolutely everything is fire", the heroes stare at Buck slightly confused. "I'll show ya, probably the best way to explain it" he says and he clicks his fingers, creating a small flame at the tip of his thumb. He puts the flame to the wick and immediately the fairy wakes up, small flames burning in it's eyes. "Wooooooooooowwww" it screams and flies striaght out of Bucks hands, flying in a boomerang like oval over the Rasoir Fields burning all the grass as it goes. "Hwiiiisss" Buck whistles loudly and Brulee flies back over to Buck's palm, jumping up and down on it's tiny legs, Buck grabs two fingers and places them over the wick putting out the flame as Brulee falls back asleep. "That, is a Brightling" says Buck. "They sell really well to wizards, sorcerers, warlocks etc. Wizards like to use them for their libraries as a source of light and some people like to use them to amplify their own powers too. You just have to be real careful, forget to put them out and your house is burned to the ground by the morning". "You sell these?" asks Scaly, "I do indeed", "How much?", "1 moon gem will get you Brulee", "Done deal", Scaly hands over a moon gem and Buck gives him Brulee in the little bag. "I just got myself a familiar!" Scaly says ecstatically, "Oh what, I want a familiar" says Dolgan, "Sorry there bud, but Brulee was my last one, I might get some more soon so I'll keep ya posted".

  The heroes continue following Buck, he explains the day and night cycles to them whilst they travel - "It's perpetually twilight here, no sun rise, no sun set. Similar to the Shadowfell really. Have you guys been there before?", "Yeah we have" says Dolgan, "Right, well you know how in the day you feel extreme depression and melancholy, and in the night you feel anxiety and stress. Well over here in the Feywild, the day time is a feeling of heightened emotions, childlike wonder and intrigue, whilst the nighttime is feelings of incredible mellowness and calm. "Choose your battles and conversations carefully as they can go either way depending on the time of the day. A tavern owner might kick you out for being loud in the day and then be louder than you in the night, it all depends on what they're feeling". "Duly noted" says Buffalo. "Annnnd we're here" says Buck pointing slightly ahead, "There's nothing there?" asks Buffalo, looking ahead and seeing just more of the Rasoir fields, "There is!" says Buck, "Have a closer look....it's a giant mushroom with a red cap and white spots" and like magic a giant mushroom with a red cap and white spots starts to appear in front of them. "What the hell, that wasn't there 2 seconds ago" says Ned, "Well sure it was" says Buck as he gets off of Chuck and ties him to a stake out the front of the Inn. "Welcome to Le Champignon!" he says as he opens the door and walks in.

The heroes get off their oxen and tie them to the left over stakes out the front of the inn, following Buck closely behind. As they enter the place, it seems much bigger from the inside, the heroes crane their necks looking up, seeing a ceiling and spiral steps going into it. At the opposite end to the door, a man stands behind a bar, wiping it down with a cloth as a girl next to him cooks some small fish on a grill. "Well hey there Buck!" says the man, "Well hey there Oliver!" says Buck, the girl turns around seeing Buck and says "Well hey there Buck, "Well hey there Rene!" says Buck. "Where Chuck?" asks Olivier, "Chuck?" says Buck, "Well he's outside", "Can I give Chuck some food Buck?" asks Olivier, "Well of course you can there" says Buck. Dolgan turns around to Ned holding a hand up to his mouth and whispering "Why are they saying their names so much?", Ned just shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. "These people here are from the material plane" says Buck, slapping Scaly on the back, "Oh material planers, don't get you guys here too often. What can I getcha?", "Ale?" asks Buffalo, "Do you guys have that here?", "We do!" she says and starts pouring multiple drinks out of a barrell. "One for too please Rene!" says Buck, "No worries Buck" says Rene, concentrating on her pouring. Buck takes a seat looking around at the quite homely establishment inside a hollowed out mushroom. "Nice here isn't it" he says looking at the group, "Yeah, very cosy" says Ned, "Been coming here for years myself, always pop by after leaving the Rasoir fields. Good for a night in". Rene brings the brews over and places them on the table, then stares wantonly at the heroes, Buffalo looks over to Buck, slightly stressed - "We don't have any money!", "No money here remember?" says Buck. "Tell Rene about Eclaire and Souffle", "We killed them..." says Buffalo looking sheepishly at Rene, her eyes start to widen, ".....sssorry" says Buffalo sheepishly. "This is great news!" yells Rene and rushes to the door opening it and leaning outside "Olivier! These travelers have killed Souffle and Eclaire!", "Mother and Father! Well we've got a reason to celebrate then!", Olivier walks in and grabs a stool from one of the tables, walks behind the bar and goes to the top shelf, taking down a large bottle of liqueur with a fairy inside it. "We will drink well tonight, come Rene sit down. We don't have many customers tonight, enjoy the fine wine" says Olivier as he uncorks the bottle and starts pouring out drinks for everyone. 

The heroes, Buck, Olivier and Rene enjoy the night, drinking the fine fey wine and eating fish made by Rene. As the night progresses on the heroes make their way up into their bedroom, a circular room inside the cap of the mushroom. There was about 8 beds but none were taken. Rene comes upstairs with Olivier and Buck, still drinking, leaning up against the headboards of the beds. Olivier falls asleep against one of the headboards before falling off the bed and waking himself up in a stupor. The heroes laugh as he gets himself up and excuses himself walking downstairs. "Where's he going to go?" asks Buffalo, "Oh he has his own quarters downstairs, he'll be heading to bed there", "I see" says Ned, "And you Rene? Do you live here too?, "No actually I live in Sombrillant, I just work here", "Ahh okay, feel free to stay here if you'd like, saves you going back into town" says Ned. "You know what, I just might..." says Rene with a small smile on her face

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Three - Drool into the void

Ned watches as the tentacles return back to the giant sack behind Ryland, he grabs his necklace, holding it tight in his hand as the gem in the centre blasts out small missiles of magical energy. The three dart like sparks of blue spin around each other as they travel through the air, hitting Ryland in the chest one after another and pushing him back a little. Ryland grabs his chest, staring at Ned and starts to walk over to him the giant oozing sack behind him dragging along. Dolgan holds up his amulet yelling "Telo Lumen", as a ball of white energy appears above his hand feeding into his amulet and shooting out directly into to Ryland in a perfectly straight line. Ryland pushes against the bolt hitting his chest, lifting his hand slowly into the air as Buffalo's lifeless body rises with it, Ryland then throws his hand forward and Buffalo's body is flung directly into Dolgan, knocking him back. "Iiiiiimmmm Ryyllaagrraah" the mouth of Ryland contorts as he attempts to speak, "ET CONLIDAM!" yells Scaly as what sounds like a bell rings out from above Ryland, the broken rocks on the floor rippling out in the soundwaves as the sack behind him starts to wobble. Ned uses the distraction and runs over to Buffalo, attempting to wake him up but Buffalo was out. "Dolgan, help!" Ned yells, as Dolgan runs over, skidding along the floor up to Buffalo. The two of them work in tandem for a couple of seconds, shaking and smacking Buffalo in the face until he comes to. "Eeeerggh" Buffalo groans as he gets up, grabbing his bow and crawling behind the closest column, putting his back up against it. Buffalo takes a second, sighing, taking a large breath in screaming "Aaaaarrgggh!" as he stands up, draws back on his bow string and releases a flurry of arrows at Ryland's back end.

Ryland's bulbous ooze takes multiple hits but pays no attention as Ryland's eyes hone in on Ned. A tentacle appears out from behind Ryland once more and travels across the room at break neck speed, stopping just before Ned's forehead. It lingers there for a second before stabbing into Ned's head once and then retracting back to Ryland in the same speed in which it came. The heroes look at Ned, expecting a wound where the tentacle had hit, but nothing was there, Ned's eyes though were different. He had a glazed over look about him, as he stared directly forward. "Ned!" Buffalo yells, but Ned doesn't answer, instead he starts running over to where Scaly is and launches up in the air before bringing down his axe into Scaly's shoulder. "What the fuck!" yells Scaly, the axe sinking deep, Scaly's natural scales all but holding his arm on. Scaly falls to the ground, unconscious from the pain. Dolgan runs to Buffalo and holds his hands over him, "Remedium" he says softly as a warm light emits from the palm of his hands and Buffalo immediately starts to feel better, "Go" says Buffalo, "Help Scaly, I'll try and distract it" as Buffalo pulls another 4 arrows from his endless quill and starts shooting them, one after another, straight at Ryland.

Ned stares down at Scaly, removing his axe from the shoulder as he turns towards Dolgan running over. He lifts his axe to attack Dolgan, but before he can swing down the cloudiness from his eyes disappear and suddenly his pupils grow in size, "Oh my god" he says to himself as he turns to look at Ryland. "You!" he says pointing at the huge sack of flesh as he starts to run, the small symbol of the stag on his axe lighting up. Buffalo looks from behind his column as spectral antlers appear on Ned's head before Ned swings directly into Ryland, the blade sinking deep into his chest as he flies backwards 20-30 feet, tumbling over the sack of meat behind him. Buffalo continues his flurry of arrows, one by one, not stopping. Ryland attempts to stand back up after being battered by Ned and the continuous arrows. He manages to get himself up to his knees, but his body had taken more damage than he could manage as he falls back down, onto the ground, the sack behind him deflating. "Stop!" yells Ned to Buffalo, "We need him alive". Buffalo lowers his bow and Dolgan holds his hands over Scaly, the wound in his shoulder slowly disappearing. Behind Ryland the heroes hear a small thud, Ned walks behind to see what it is and finds a wicker looking arm with a small glass ball of light at the end of it. Ned leans down and picks it up, noticing a staff next to it. It was swirling with purple shadows, much like his own shadow axe, he picks that up to and walks over to the rest of the heroes.

"He dropped this stuff" says Ned to the group. "Well, it looks like we have the light of the forest then" says Buffalo back, "And what's that?", "I don't know, it was next to the wicker arm" responds Ned. "Seems like something you would use Dolgan" says Ned, handing it over to Dolgan, "It looks like it's from the Shadowfell, it has the same kind of wispy shadows that surround my axe, so I assume it is". "Thanks" says Dolgan, looking over his new staff. "Are we going to talk about Ned attacking me?" asks Scaly seeming a little annoyed, "He was being controlled, you know that" says Buffalo lazily to Scaly, "Yeah, but...it hurt...". Ned laughs out loud, "Best we never fight then" he says, smacking Scaly on the back so hard he fals forward a little. "I had a voice inside of me, talking to me whilst I was possessed by Ryland, or whatever he is. It said a few things like 'attack the dragon' and whatnot, but one that struck me was 'You don't know what you're doing'. It's not that it was a terribly odd thing to say, but it was the voice that said it. The other things it said were in Ryland's voice, but that sentence was from a voice I've heard before, the last time I heard it was when I had the dog brain thing back at the bottom of the mausoleum, before the brain rats came and took it". The heroes look at Ned confused, he rolls his eyes "The whole reason we went to the mausoleum was to get whatever was in my head, out. When it was in my head, I heard voices and it was the same voice as when Ryland was controlling me, but I know it wasn't him". "It seems we may have someone else that's playing behind the scenes" says Buffalo as he walks over to Ryland's body, "Also.....what are these?" he says, squatting over Ryland not turning around and holding couple of pages in the air. 

Buffalo starts to read the pages whilst the rest of the group walk over to him. "It's from 'The History of Wolfspine', but it looks like it's been torn out of the book", "How do you know it's from there?" asks Scaly, "Because it says so at the top" Buffalo points to the header with a slight smile on his face, "Oh..." responds Scaly. "A lot of this has been scratched out though, I mean this is the history we learn in school, but for some reason a lot of these pages have been scribbled on" says Buffalo, "I always thought the whole Aldrich thing was more of a tale mothers told their kids to make sure they treated people with respect, I never thought it was true until we found the boot on the Granny Hag from Tallow Swamp" says Dolgan, "Yeah..me too" says Buffalo. "It seems that Ryland didn't believe this, I wonder if he did any research?" Buffalo says to himself whilst everyone else starts to put Ryland and his sack like appendage into the chest. "We should go to see Hamelyn" says Ned, "At least speak to him about what Ryland is", "Yup, good idea, we can check for more info while we're there too, lets go" says Buffalo, packing the pages into his bag and helping the heroes with the chest. 

Arriving shortly afterwards at the Kings Coin, they are greeted by Hamelyn's but he seemed with a little more spirit this time. He was still drawing on the magical parchment given to him by Ryland, but there was a spring in his step. "How'd it go?" he asks, looking up for a second from his writing, "I see you got Dolgan back, so it couldn't of been all bad. Where's Ryland?", Ned walks forward with the chest behind him, opens it and drags out Ryland's body along side the large deflated sack attached to the back of him. "What the fuck?!" says Hamelyn loudly and running over to Ryland's body. "He's not dead" says Hamelyn, "No, we didn't kill him" says Ned, "What the hell happened to him, what is this stuff coming out of the back", "We were going to ask you the same question" says Buffalo, "We take it, you didn't know this was what he was?". "No I just thought he was a regular old human...this...I don't even know what this is". "Capo basically mocked us then exploded Ryland's rucksack which seemed to be holding all of this mess. Ryland then started attacking us as soon as we saw what he really was", Hamelyn was really paying attention, he was mainly lifting up different parts of Ryland and attempting to work out exactly what he was looking at. "Did Ryland have a place he slept here" asks Buffalo, "Yeah just over there" Hamelyn points, without looking up. 

Buffalo walks over to what looked like an old shabby bed and starts pulling behind the sheets, looking in and around the mattress. He finds a small book and opens it, thumbing through the pages quickly until he stops at one page near to the centre. "What's Clavus Clypeus?" says Buffalo aloud, the heroes don't answer, but Hamelyn looks up from examining Ryland. "I don't know, but he was obsessed with it. He was obsessed with the whole Aldrich myth to be honest, he was sure that it was all a lie, that Aldrich never received the artifact's from a djinni, that he never returned the artifact's but rather was killed and they were dispersed another way. I never really paid much attention to his ramblings as I had better things to do, plus I also believed it all to be just that...a myth. That wasn't until we met you guys, of which he was also obsessed with. We...well I guess he saw the boot and the face mask and then started getting excited of the light of the forest, then Capo came along with the Pale Hand and all of a sudden his stories didn't seem so far fetched anymore". The heroes listen as Hamelyn talks and Buffalo continues to thumb through the book, "It also says here The Great Beast Urlatore (Howler)" says Buff, "He could've mentioned it before, but as I said, most of the time I didn't really pay attention. It was something that he did himself and it kept him occupied at nights. So I had no problems with him delving into a little mystery". "He also has the 'Wanderer' part of Aldrich underlined multiple times all throughout this book" says Buffalo still not looking up from the diary. Dolgan leans down next to Hamelyn examining the large sack on the back of Ryland, "We've seen this before" says Dolgan. Buffalo looks up from Ryland's diary, 'Huh?", "We've seen this before, a few times actually. This is the same thing that was at the bottom of the tower in the keep outside of Wolfspine on the edge of the forest with Gurvassh. It's also the same thing as Onist Jon's snail just without the shell on top". "Ohhh yeaaah" says Scaly, "This one is clearly different though. For one, it can talk. It can copy Ryland to a tee, it also seems to understand things like conspiracies and general human life and activities" says Dolgan. 

Buffalo closes up the book and looks at Hamelyn, "Ryland did have the light of the forest. It's actually why we came to find him, because we were told he would have it. We need to return it to the archfey at the living forest lest we be blamed guilty. We also need to take Ryland to them too. We hope you will be okay with this". Hamelyn looks at Buffalo for a few seconds and starts to talk "I....yes, I think it will be for the best. The Archfey are not known for being explicably cruel, if Ryland truly is this monster, then I want nothing to do with him, but if there's a Ryland stuck somewhere in there via magic or whatever - they'll be the right ones to fix it. Feel free to stay here tonight, you can travel in the morning". The heroes thank Hamelyn and rolls out their beds, it was already quite late and they were well worn out from the day and fight. 

Waking up the next morning, the heroes pack their things and make start making their way towards the living forest. The guards were noticeably not paying attention to the heroes, which was odd considering how much flack they had gotten for the first few days since entering Wolfspine after the spell in the Shadowfell. They arrive at the old alchemists keep shortly before midday and can hear the sound of singing coming from the inside walls. They walk across the drawbridge and see Gurvassh swaying his branches around with a person sitting at the bottom around the roots poking out of the soil. Gurvassh notices the heroes before the person sitting at his roots does and says loudly "Someone here says they know youuuuu!" in a sing song voice. As the heroes get closer, they realise (Though it was hard to tell with the long hair and beard) it was Carver from the Red Coq! "Carver!" yells out Dolgan, "Heeeeeyyy" says Carver back, with a bottle of whisky in his hand. He was clearly, completely drunk. "Well look who it isss" says Carver, "Con Clavvvviiiiii" says Gurvassh in a sarcastic tone as Carver pretends to be scared "Ooooooooh". The heroes furrow their brows, "What are you guys doing?" asks Buffalo. "Well, I stumbled here because I had no place to live after YOU guys left. You had me up for the night at the Closed Eye, but they kicked me out after that. ME! I walked out of Wolfspine, thinking there might be some shelter in the living forest and I found this place, and THEN this giant sunovabitch started talking to me and we found out we had friends in common. So we got drunk". Buffalo looks on, a smile starting to spread on his face. "Well, I'm sure Gurvassh will be okay with you staying here then" says Ned, "STAY HERE?!" says Carver, "Gurvassh said I can open a new tavern here. For allllll walks of life, not just the types of creatures the Pale Hand deems okay". The heroes look at each other and nod in satisfaction, "I think that's a great idea" says Dolgan. "Yeah me too...that's why I said it" says Carver as he falls over slightly into Gurvassh roots. "Buuuut we need money, this place is a bit run down and people won't come if they can't even had a roof over their head" says Carver holding his hand out and motioning around to the walls of the castle and the undercover areas near Gurvassh. "We have money" says Buffalo, "How much do you need". "You have money?" says Carver, pointing at Buffalo with the bottle in his hand, "We have money" repeats Buffalo. "600 gold will get us a tavern, 1000 gold will get us an inn". Buffalo looks over to Scaly, the treasurer or sorts for their group. "We just ran into a bunch of gold right? I think we can spare some money for Carver", the rest of the heroes agree and they hand the gold over to Carver. "Thaaaank you" he says, stumbling over Gurvassh's roots. "You'll see, this will be *hiccup* better than the Red Coq even!". 

The heroes continue on their journey to the forest courts, arriving shortly after noon. "How do we get them back here?" asks Ned. "I don't know, can we call out for them? What was the archfey's name?" says Buffalo. The heroes turn around to look at the part of the forest they had just traversed and hear from behind them, 'Okay, so what have we got here? Have you held up your end?", the heroes shocked, turn around seeing the flower with the glasses once more, holding his long scroll. "We have the Light of the Forest and the person...well thing who stole it" says Ned, reaching down into the chest and pulling out Ryland and his weird appendage, whilst Buffalo holds up the light arm. "Yes....yes yes yes, this all looks correct" says the Sunflower, as the archfey appears laying on her side, on the large tree stump again. "Good, well that matter is now settled. Please bring whatever that is to the stump along with the light of the forest and we will be on our way", she says and then looking behind the heroes says "Your job is done". The heroes turn around straight away, seeing nothing but feeling a slight whooshing blow past them and towards the archfey. "We're still in need of getting to the Feywild" says Buffalo, "Ah yes, I do remember you being concerned about that before. Fine. You have proven yourselves. Here" she says throwing two statues towards the group, they were the same statues as the ones Ned had collected a week or so before that they placed at the large Feywild statues west of where they were. Ned bent down and collected the statues "Thank yo-" but the sunflower and archfey were gone. "Huh" he says looking down at the statues, "They seem to be identical to the other ones". "Let's try and put them down, see if they do anything different" says Dolgan as Scaly starts to walk towards the Feywild statues that resided in the living forest. 

They arrive at the statues about an hour later. They had not changed since the last time they were there, the vines had grown slightly more around the statues but that as about it. Ned places the original two statues at the offering plate in front of the large statues. The beams shoot out of the large statues as they had done before, hitting the stone plate's on the ground the heroes had unearthed last time. "Maybe put the other statues on the plates?" says Scaly, Ned shrugs and walks over to the stone plates, placing the two new statues down, one on each with the moon corresponding with the moon and the sun with the sun. Suddenly a bright light bursts out of where the two lines coalesce and knock the heroes back a little. "Woah!" yells Scaly as what looks like a portal starts opening up at the centre, starting at the size of thumb growing to the size of a small room within a couple of seconds. "I guess this is our entrance" says Ned, taking a step forward. He takes one step in the swirling portal and looks back at the heroes before stepping inside and entering the portal completely. The rest of the group follow suit, jumping into the hole and find themselves flying down a kaleidoscopic tunnel. Images around them, leftover from the living forest they just left start to distort, lengthening and widening till they were so stretch they were unrecognisable. A long, high pitched whooshing sound fills the air around them, so loud that they have to hold their hands up to their ears, the smell of the earthy living forest disappearing and changing into the smell of freshly cut grass as they hurtle down the tunnel to the Feywild. 

"Doof, doof, doof, doof" the heroes fly out of the other side of the portal and land into soft grass followed by one louder "THUD" directly after them. Ned gets up quickly to see that his chest had come through too and had landed after them. It quickly gets up and clanks it's lid a couple of times in happiness. The rest of the heroes slowly stand up, Scaly rubbing his backside, Buffalo squinting and Dolgan cracking his back. Ned looks around and see's what looks like an endless field of grass, the grass is about two feet high and waves slowly in the wind. The smell of it permeating his nostrils. Ned immediately feels a sense of childlike wonder, waving his hands through the grass, feeling the tips of the blades tickle his palms. He starts feeling overwhelmed by emotion, happiness, love, laughter all flowing through him at the same time as he looks back towards the rest of the group, seeing their eyes widen in excitement as they look around themselves. "I don't know why but I feel amazing" says Buffalo kneeling down into the grass and rubbing his face and hands through it as if it were water from Elmdew Pond back at home. "Is this the Feywild?" asks Scaly, "I think it is" responds Dolgan, both of them smiling at each other in glee.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Forty Two - The Man in the Middle

Salvador looks at the heroes, a worried look on his face. "What happened in there...?" he asks slowly, "Nothing, just a misunderstanding" replies Buffalo. "If you guys have to fight, please make sure it is outside of my place, I cannot afford to have attention drawn to my shop. Not with the pale hand around", "Don't worry" says Ned "If anything happens we'll make sure we take it outside. "What did Ryland buy?" asks Buffalo, "Just some magical parchment, not entirely sure what it is for but he generally comes in here for supplies for Hamelyn" says Salvador, "Yeah, Hamelyn's the one who led us here to find Ryland" responds Buff. "What do you want with him?" asks Salvador, "Nothing important at the moment" says Buffalo. Salvador got the message though, "Okay" he says not asking anymore questions. 

"Dingalingaling" the door bell rings for Salvador's shop as the door opens. "Excuse me guys, I need to go get that" says Salvador as he squeezes past the heroes. The heroes here muffled talking and Ryland re-appears through the door to the back room where the heroes were standing. "Hi again" says Ryland with an irritated look on his face, "I never got what I needed" he says pushing past the heroes. Ryland grabs a bunch of parchment from the stock room and walks to Salvador, "12 gold" says Sal as Ryland places it on the table. "Say hi to Hamelyn for me" Sal says but Ryland doesn't answer and walks to the front door opening it. As he does a loose nail on the side of the door catches on to the side of his rucksack opening it a pinch. It was only for a split second, but Scaly's superior dragon vision caught a glance. A long, tube like appendage was glistening in the bag, the light from the moon on the street reflecting off of whatever it was for a moment. The door shuts as Ryland leaves and Scaly immediately turns around to everyone else, "Did you see that?" he asks, "See what?" responds Ned, still arching for a fight since the close call with Ryland. "There was....there was something in his bag. It was like an octopus arm, except it was glistening, like it was slimy or something". "Nope" says Ned, "But that's enough for me, we should follow him and find out what's going on, because even though you may believe him not innocent Buffalo, something is up and we need to find out". Buffalo looks at the rest of the group for a decision, but they all start straight back. "Okay" he says reluctantly "We'll follow him, but that's it. Unless he literally does something bad in front of us, we leave him alone". "Deal" says Ned as the rest of the group nod their head in agreement. Buffalo mutters "repo" under his breath as a slight glow washes over the heroes, as the glow moves over their entire bodies, the colours slowly leave their clothes and skin as they become more darker, grey and bland. "It'll be harder for him to see us now especially in the night rain. Thanks Sal" says Buff as they open the door quietly and move outside. 

The heroes walk out single file from Sal's with Buff at the front and Dolgan leading the back. They take only a few steps outside of Salvador's before they hear a "BANG" behind them. Turning around quickly to see what the noise was, they see Dolgan standing looking incredibly sheepy at the door. "Sorry guys" he says, his hand still on the door knob. They turn around and continue to walk forward seeing Ryland slightly further up near another shop. Ned looks up at the night sky, the rain bouncing off of his now greyish skin, the moon was particularly bright that night considering the cloud cover. The heroes start to move closer again and this time Ned could also see what Scaly had mentioned earlier. An octopus like appendage shining in the moon light hanging out of Ryland's rucksack, though he would say it looked more like a thick vine than an octopus arm. Ned elbows Scaly quickly motioning with his eyes to look at Ryland, Scaly takes notice and his eyes widen pointing wildly but silently at Ryland. Dolgan not paying attention, walks into the back of Scaly whilst he is pointing at Ryland's rucksack appendage. Dolgan doesn't manage to hold his balance and falls over as Ryland turns around to look at the heroes. "You guys really aren't good at followi..." he stops mid sentence as his eyes widen in shock, but he wasn't looking at the heroes, he was looking behind them. Buffalo immediately turns around and notices that Dolgan wasn't with them anymore. "What the fuck...where's Dolgan?" says Buff, Scaly and Ned lose interest in Ryland and turn around to see Dolgan missing from the group. Buffalo turns his head back to Ryland "What did you do to him?" he yells. "He was taken, by the Pale Hand...." says Ryland "I turned around to tell you guys you weren't being very good trackers and Pale Hand assassins dropped down and took him in a split second". "We've got to go get him back then" says Ned in a huff as he turns and starts walking in the direction of the Pale Hand church. "Hold on" says Ryland, "The Pale Hand don't just take anybody, it's much more in them to just kill someone they don't want. Which means they want you to go to them, which means you need to work something out before heading in". "That's a good point" says Buffalo looking at Ned and Scaly, "If we don't go now, they could kill him" yells Ned, "If they wanted to kill him, they could have assassinated him then and there, hell if I didn't turn around to see them take him, they could've done anything without you guys noticing". says Ryland. "Come back to the King's Coin, we can speak with Hamelyn, he knows more about them than most, then we can work out what to do". Buffalo walks past Ryland, "Thanks" he says as he motions Scaly and Ned to follow, the heroes catch up with Buffalo as he and Ryland lead the charge towards the King's Coin tavern.

They arrive at the King's Coin not too long after, the second time they had been there that day. "Ah good Ryland, you're back I wanted to get started straight away" says Hamelyn before looking up and seeing the heroes with Ryland at the entrance. "Ah so you found each other!" he says taking another swig from his glass of liquor. Ryland walks over to Hamelyn and hands him the parchment he got from Salvador's, "Here you go sir" he says and walks over to the bar to pour himself a drink. Hamelyn dips his quill in some ink, holding his hand over the ink and muttering something, then starts writing straight away. Ned walks over to join Ryland at the bar, "What's in your bag?" he asks, Ryland hears him but doesn't meet his gaze. "Nothing you need to worry about" he says, continuing to stare straight forward at the old dusty bar. Ned pours himself a drink, throws back his neck and shoots it straight down his throat, slamming the glass down in front of him. "What. Is in. The bag" Ned says, gripping the glass so hard it looked like it was about to shatter in his hand, Ryland continues to look forward and says softly "I told you, nothing you need to worry about". Ned's hand was so tight around the glass at this point his forearm starts to shake, before he slams it down onto the bar and gets up, the chair he was sitting on flying back onto the ground. Ryland doesn't even flinch and continues to sip his liquor. 

Buffalo walks over and picks up the chair Ned had knocked down in anger. Placing it upright, he takes a seat next to Ryland, "Look, I'm really sorry about what happened in Sal's, things got a little out of hand and I'm...we're all really sorry". Ryland looks up from his drink for the first time, meeting Buff's gaze, staring him straight in the eyes. "But I gotta ask, do you have an octopus in your bag?", "Ha ha ha!" Ryland bursts out laughing, Buffalo looks taken aback and starts laughing nervously in response. "You always knew how to make me laugh" says Ryland lifting the glass back to his lips, "It's a spell, it's currently keeping me alive. To be honest, I'd rather not talk about it". "I think we should go and speak to the Capo" Ryland says changing the subject abruptly, "I will help you, you never know it may not even be a trap". Buffalo looks at Ryland in confusion, "Ryland, it's definitely a trap, why else would they take something to lure us there", "To be honest" Hamelyn pipes in, "Capo is not known for his diplomacy, but considering he didn't kill Dolgan on the streets may mean that he wants to touch base with you". "Then why not find us and speak to us?" asks Buffalo, "Could be a power play thing, couple be a intimidation thing, it could be many things. One thing for sure though, you're not getting Dolgan back without going there. Either you go there and it's a trap or it's not, both circumstances land you at finding and getting Dolgan back, if you win" says Hamelyn whilst continuing to paint text onto the parchment. "What are you writing anyway?!" Buffalo says in annoyance realising that Hamelyn was right, "On here?" Hamelyn points at the parchment, "Well" he smiles, "Nothing", lifting up the parchment and revealing that there was truly nothing written on there. "Is that what the parchment does?" asks Ned, hides messages, "Correct" only certain people can read this message. Scaly suddenly speaks loudly "Well, if we're done working out drawings and octopus arms, I am ready to go to the church. Hamelyn's right, there's no way we get Dolgan back without going to see this Capo fellow. We may fight, we may not, but there's only one way to find out". Scaly gets up and walks out the door, Ryland slams down the rest of his drink and gets up, walking directly out the door without saying a thing. Ned turns to Buffalo, "We can't let them do this alone" and follows the first two out the door. "You'll be okay" says Hamelyn, sensing Buff's hesitation, "I don't think Capo is here to fight yet". Buffalo nods and leaves, letting the broken door swing behind him.

The trip to the Pale Hand Church took roughly 20 minutes. It was a little more difficult due to the rain. As they reach the steps of the church the guards raise their halberds up, allowing access through the main door. "Look's like we were definitely expected then" says Ned under his breath to Buff, "mmph" Buffalo grunts back. The church was warm inside, much warmer than would be expected of such a large grandiose hall. The entire inside was lined with hundreds, thousands even, of candles all lit, their flames bobbing on top of the their thin wax bodies. Every break in the wall, every gap, every small stone jutting out fit a candle on it some way or another. Even cracks in the stone had candles shoved inside, sticking out at an angle dripping wax down onto the floor. Through the centre stood 8 large columns of stone, all of them also covered in candles, half way down the columns two birdbath looking sinks extend from the wall with a cross stitching above it that read "Wash away your sins", inside the sink seemed to be a milk like substance being filled by a small fountain just below the cross stitched sign. Finally in between these columns ran a long red carpet leading directly up to an altar and throne in the middle. Seated, slouched over in the throne was a cloaked person, one hand leaning out of the his robes and his mouth barely visible under the shroud of his hooded gown. "Dolgan!" says Scaly out loud, his voice echoing around the room, as a torn down and dismantled Dolgan crawls out of the shadows, right next to the throne where the person sat. Dolgan was manacled to the wall and looked like he had seen much better days, but he was alive. 

"I assume you want him back?" says the figure sitting on the throne, not moving any part of his body except for his hand jutting out of his cloak. His hand detaches from his wrist and floats towards Dolgan grabbing him by his throat and lifting him into the air, the manacles clink on the ground as they lift off of the ground and lose their slack. "Aauuugghhh" the sound of Dolgan choking echoes through the hall. "Let him go Capo" says Ryland stepping forward, "No worries" says Capo, standing up, his robes falling off of his face and revealing an ashen faced man. The pale hand returns to his wrist and Dolgan's manacles clink off of the ground, Dolgan quickly lifts his hands to this throat caressing it. He slowly gets himself up as Capo starts talking again "It's good to finally meet Con Clavi, you've been under my watchful eyes for a while now". "Why?" responds Buffalo, "Well, I assume you're after this?" he holds up the stump of his wrist with the pale hand spinning on top of it, "Isn't that what you're after?", the heroes don't respond. Dolgan begins to walk back to the heroes slowly, Capo raises his hand in the air towards him and immediately all of Dolgan's wounds heal, "I can't bear to see you like that Dolgan" says Capo. "Ryland, why don't you give Con Clavi the Light of the Forest" he says looking to Ryland with a large smile. Immediately the heroes turn around to look at Ryland, his eyes darting wildly around. "Revelare" says Capo, it was a whisper from his lips but the word echoed over and over in almost a omnipotent voice around them. Ryland's face starts to bubble up, his cheeks swelling to 3-4 times their size before returning to normal, then dropping down almost to his shoulders all within seconds. "Ryland, are you okay?" asks Buffalo starting to panic now, Ned turns back to Capo and arches his arm back, javelin in hand. A fire burns in Ned's eyes as he focuses his anger towards Capo and delivers the speed with incredible speed and power directly towards the Pale Priest. 

The javelin looks like it hit's Capo directly in the chest as the rest of the group turn to see Ned's attack, but all they see is the shaking javelin jutting out of the throne Capo once sat on, Capo closer to them now that he was before, he had somehow teleported. He walks slowly past Dolgan saying "I'll leave you with Ryland" pausing for a brief second before saying Ryland's name. As he fades into the ether once more and re-appears at the church doors, the bag on Ryland's back that he was so fond of explodes in an array of fabric, the inside material looking like the changing colours of an oil slick. A giant blob bursts out of where the tiny bag once was, covering the floor with slime and pustules, the smell of sulfur exploding like a nuclear waft. "RYLAND!" yells Buffalo, Ryland or whatever he is attempts to speak but his face continues to get mixed up, blowing up and dropping all in a split second over and over again, "Bllerrgghaarrrgh" the leftover of his mouth lets out a belching noise. Dolgan looking on see's a piece of the bag holding Ryland's monster ball fall next to him, he picks it up, looking at the rainbow like oil slick colours emanating from the inside of the fabric. "It was a bag of holding" says Dolgan, but Buffalo was too occupied with the new monstrous Ryland, he places a hand on Ryland's shoulder, his face still contorting and looks him dead in his eyes. "Ryland....are you...are you there?", the monster gurgles loudly and at that point, Buffalo knew this thing was no longer his friends of many years. 

Ned runs at a column next to Ryland and slams into it with all his might. The column doesn't even budge. Tentacle like appendages seep out of Ryland's large blob and start to wrap themselves around Ned's head as a white wash of light flickers over them, Ned manages to get a hand in and forces them off his head. Ned looks at the monster Ryland had become for a minute, as if he had no idea what it or he was doing there, but shakes his head and get's himself back on course. Buffalo takes a few steps back, draw his bow and releases a force arrow, splitting open Ryland's blob, then following it up with a flint arrow he had got from the Wong's. The flint lights up for a second and a small flame bursts out of the hole, but is quelled within a few seconds. Ryland's humanoid body turns around, looking at the wound and makes a weird gurgling noise again "Gleeggaarb". "Stand back!" yells Scaly, already moving flames around his hands in some sort of pattern, rotating hand over hand as the fire licked his palms. Throwing his hands into the air he yells "Murus Ignis!" (Firewall) as a cylinder erupts on the ground around Ryland and his blob in a circle, encompassing them completely in the fiery pit. Ned grabs the long red carpet from the middle of the columns and throws the end over the top of the fire circle, it lands covering Ryland and his blob but starts to burn at both ends next to the magical fire. Ryland removes the carpet from his body and waves his hand in an arch like fashion in front of him. A door materialises and he opens it, walking straight through and avoiding the fire. A door appears next to Buffalo and Ryland walks out a millisecond later, "What the..." says Ned, but Buffalo had seen it before. In fact he had used the spell 'dimension door' when Kalgrin had given him the ability to in the bottom of the mausoleum. Tentacles leap out from behind Ryland, like a giant squid was hiding behind him and they latch onto Buffalo's head and start to lift him off of the ground via his neck. Buffalo attempts to wrestle them off, but they were too strong for him. The heroes start to run over to help Buffalo but before they can even traverse the room, the tentacles drop a Buffalo onto the ground, lifeless and unconscious. 

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fourty One - Dumb Cunt Bag

"Raissh Le Vieux" says Raissh. The heroes look at each other, raising their eyebrows a little realising that they hadn't even know Raissh's surname and they had been with her for so long now. Scriba finishes up the last pass and taps his quill on to the table a couple of times. "All done" he says, blowing on Raissh's pass. Scriba hands out the passes to everybody, the penmanship was exquisite, clearly this gnome knew how to do his job. "Thank you for this" says Ned as the heroes get up to leave, "Thank you for fighting for us" says Scriba. He runs towards the front of the store and unlocks the padlock, opening the door for them to leave. "Have a good day!" he says, waving at the heroes as they look at each other "Where to next?" says Dolgan, "We now can walk around with no worries". "I want to go and see Mr and Mrs Wong if they're still there, I need some arrows" says Buffalo, "Plus we can check with them if they've seen Ryland". "Lets do it" says Dolgan and the heroes walk to Mr and Mrs Wong's.

The presence of guards in Wolfspine was intense compared to when they left. They walked past them almost every few minutes or so, the majority of the guards seemed nice enough but some obviously had been empowered by their new ruling. "Pass" says one of them holding his hand out to Buffalo, "And the rest of you" says another guard next to him. The heroes hand over their passes and get them handed back within a few seconds. The original guard continues to hold onto Buffalo's pass, looking up and saying "Name?", "Bison Bison" says Buffalo, thankful that he remembered he had given a fake name to Scriba. "Address?", "7 Elmdew St, Wolfspine", the guard hands back the pass without even looking at Buffalo and they walk off. Buffalo lets out a small sigh of relief and they continue to walk to the Wong's. 

Arriving shortly after, they open the door to the Hammer and Anvil, the little bell on the door ringing out signalling the arrival of customers. "Just a minute" they hear the familiar voice and accent of Mrs Wong from behind the counter. "Oh my god Con Cravi!" yells out Mrs Wong, her head appearing from the door at the back. "Lái dào zhèlǐ zhang,con clavi jiù zài zhèlǐ!" Mrs Wong yells out, turning back out the back door. The heroes hear a bunch of short footsteps, followed by Mr Wong's face appearing out of the door. "Con Cravi!" he yells out and runs towards the group with his arms out, both Mr and Mrs Wong hug them all, happy to see the group of heroes. "Where have you been?" says Mrs Wong, and Ned recounts the tale of their time away in the Shadowfell and the reasons behind their disappearance. "Is very hard these days" says Mrs Wong, taking off her glasses in the process, "Pale Hand in charge of everything now. We must make weapons for them, but we receive no payment". "Yeah we're looking to fix that" says Ned. Mrs Wong takes a glance at Ned seeing his old axe on his back. "How long now, you had this one?" asks Mrs Wong, "Too long" says Ned "I've been using this axe we found at the mausoleum. "Give here, I fix for you" says Mrs Wong, taking it from Ned's back and handing it to Mr Wong. Mr Wong walks out the back and says "Give me a minute!" in a sing song voice before the heroes start to hear the sound of metal hitting metal along with the humming of some old songs by Mr Wong. "Actually, while we have you here Mrs Wong, do you have any arrows for me? Even one's I could potentially get made? asks Buffalo. "I cannot get a lot of things to make anything as we don't have much anymore, we have these grappling arrows?", "Yep I'll take them" says Buffalo, "Yup okay" says Mrs Wong. "I also have some flint, is there a way you could put it at the tip of an arrow so that it sparked when landing?" asks Buffalo, "Yup, I can make" she says, motioning with the come here signal. "Also bolas arrows, any chance of them?" asks Buffalo, "Yes can make that one too" says Mrs Wong, collecting more rope from the heroes. "Give me a couple of hour" she says, walking to the back of the shop to meet with Mr Wong. The heroes take a seat in the back room and wait, Mrs Wong brings over some tea and a bunch of biscuits they had not seen before.  They eat and share more stories with the Wong's as they work, the Wong's explain the dominance of the Pale Hand whilst the heroes tell stories of the Shadowfell and what they had been through. The heroes ask about Ryland and the Wong's mention that he came in often to buy things such as horse shoes, pots and pans etc. "He still works for Hamelyn, one of the few staff he has left" says Mrs Wong as she works on Buffs arrows.  

A few hours pass and the heroes are laughing with the Wong's like old, before Mr Wong turns around and says "Power of the tiger or power of the stag?" using his hands to indicate a pouncing tiger and the horns of a stag both in one motion. "I think I'll go with the stag" says Ned. "Okay!" he says returning back to work. Mrs Wong walks over to Buffalo with a leather looking bag, opening it up she reveals five bolas arrows, five flint arrows and five grappling arrows. "Thank you!" says Buffalo taking them out and inspecting the expert craftsmanship. "These are amazing, you did them so quickly!" says Buffalo. "Of course, I'm very good" Mrs Wong said with a confidence only she had. "Annnnd here" says Mr Wong, walking over to Ned with his axe. The handle looked different and had the symbol of a stag burnt in to the bottom of the hilt. Along the beard of the axe was also an imprint of a stag's head. "Woah! This is fancy!" says Ned, turning it over and looking at it from all angles. "Yes, very good this one" says Mr Wong, "Power of the stag will make you easy to charge and push people around", Ned looks on in awe, very happy with his upgrade. "Lastly" says Mrs Wong as she drags over what looked like a very heavy bag of something, she dumps it on the floor next to them and a few of the items fall out. "Here you go!" she says waving her hand at the heroes, seemingly a little annoyed. Dolgan leans down and picks one up, it was the pitons they had ordered with the Wong's before they left the Shadowfell. "Holy shit!" we forgot about these said Dolgan, "I know, you leave with us for so long, we think maybe to throw out but keep here in case you come back. You back now, you have now". "Thank you" Dolgan says with a smile handing them back to the rest of the group as they all have a look at them. "How much do we owe you?" says Scaly leaning in, "Nothing, we have deal from before remember" says Mrs Wong, "Oh yeah, that's right" Scaly says with a smile looking back at the heroes. "Let us give you some money anyway" says Ned, for both your troubles and to help out with everything going on at the moment. The heroes hand over 200 gold and thank the Wong's for everything. As they leave the shop Mr and Mrs Wong give the heroes a hug, Mrs Wong hugs Ned a little closer and whispers into his ear "Be careful, bad things are happening in Wolfspine" before giving him a kiss on the cheek and waving him off. 

The heroes walk out of the Wong's onto the rainy streets of Wolfspine, the smell of burning wood rising up from chimneys hitting their lungs. "I know Ryland's parent's, they don't live too far from here, perhaps we could go there?" says Buffalo , "Sounds good to me" says Ned, "This way then" responds Buff as he starts walking down an old street towards the Aldridge's. The house wasn't too far away, nothing really ever was in Wolfspine, and they arrive at the front door not 15 minutes after leaving the Wongs, taking a minute or two to stop at a bakery for some bread. Buffalo knocks on the door of Ryland's parents, a small old lady opens the door and her eyes light up as soon as she see's Buffalo. "Buffalonio! Whatta surprise! Frrraaaank!" Cecilia yells over her shoulder as an equally as small old man appears behind her. "Oh my god, is that Buffalo!" he yells as he walks over to hug Buffalo, but Cecilia gets to Buff first, wrapping her arms around Buffalo's waist. "Whattaya doing here?" asks Cecilia "Pleasa come inside, it's so cold outside", "These are my friends Dolgan, Ned, Scaly and Buggy" says Buffalo, "Oh yes of course, please come in, come in". The heroes leave their wet jackets and robes at the front door and enter the warm house. Cecilia guides them into the living room, "Sit, sit" as she runs into another room, the heroes take a seat as they hear "Fraaank come helpa me", "Okay okay!" yells back Frank as he follows Cecilia into the kitchen. Buffalo raises his eyebrows at the heroes as they look somewhat confused at him. "Okay!" says Cecilia as she burst back into the room with a platter of cheeses, cold meats and olives, "Normally it's very hard to getta these ingredients so we have celebration today!". The heroes thank the Aldridge's and tuck in, gorging themselves on the wide array of Italian goods. "So Buffalonio, why you here?" says Frank, "Well we were in the area and I hadn't seen you in ages and wanted to catch up, how have things been?", "Very bad" says Cecilia, "Ever since the Pale Hand have moved in, it has been hard to live in Wolfspine". "Yeah so we've heard, have you seen Ryland recently?" Buffalo asks, immediately Cecilia's eyes start to water. Frank grabs Cecilia as she starts to weep into his shoulder. "Why woulda go ahead and say something like that?" says Frank consoling Cecilia whilst glaring at Buff, "I'm...I'm so sorry" says Buffalo as he looks around the room for some support from his friends. "He's dead!" wails Cecilia, into Frank's chest now, sobbing profusely. "He's dead?" asks Ned, "No he's not, we saw him a couple of weeks ago", "No it was months and months ago, remember the time difference Ned" says Dolgan in a whisper. "Well, not technically, I mean we saw him in the Shadowfell and the Wong's said he has been going to their store for a couple of months now", "Oh yeah....what the hell?" says Dolgan. Cecilia looks up from Franks chest at the group, "You seen him? He's dead!". "He most definitely is not" responds Ned, "NED!" Dolgan whispers under his breath. "Well he isn't!", "When did you last see him? asks Buffalo to Frank, "2 years ago, he went into the Underdark and we never see him again", "So you never saw his body or had a funeral?", "We had a funeral" Frank says. "Hmmm, well Frank, Cecilia, he definitely is not dead, we have a few eye witnesses saying they saw him. On top of that, we saw him in both about 8 months ago and in the Shadowfell. He works for Hamelyn". "Hamelyn? Hamelyn Falstaff?", that's the one. Cecilia gets up, muttering to herself, "I think you should leave" says Frank, "Buffalo, you are always welcome here, but today is not a good day". "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" says Buffalo, "I'll pop round another time", "No worries" says Frank guiding them to the door. 

  "Let's go see Hamelyn then" says Buffalo wiping away some of the rain from his face, it wasn't enough rain to hide from but enough that after a while it got annoying. "Yeah, at least he might be able to tell us where Ryland is right now" says Dolgan as the heroes start walking over to the west side of Wolfspine. They trek it down the wet streets for about 10 minutes before arriving at Hamelyn's tavern and main base of operations, or rather, where it use to be. The King's Coin Tavern used to be a place of elegance, perfectly trimmed hedges lined the front entrance, the walls were kept in perfect condition, meticulous awnings with filigree filling each corner and lines of yellow roses in under each window. It no longer looked like that. The hedges were gnarled sticks, with all their leaves gone. The walls covered with water damage, mould growing all over. The rectangular pots for the roses were still under each window, but more of them cracked with dry soil spilling out onto the ground, the roses long gone. Even the sign for the King's Coin, a symbol so well known in Wolfspine was broken and decrepit. "What has happened here?" says Scaly, looking over the front of the tavern. "No idea" Buffalo says stepping past him and pushing open the front door. It wasn't locked, it was hardly hinged. Buffalo peeks his head and looks left and right, to the left shows the old cloak room filled with spider webs and a bunch of old coats thrown onto the bench. To the right was the old weapons collection area. The King's Coin had a strict no weapon policy and offered a collection service as you walked in. They would give you a ticket and you could store it there until you left. 

"It's safe" says Buffalo, taking a step inside the building. The once ornate looking reception's tables were all but charred, some of them remained un-burnt and covered with cobwebs. The long running bar with it's brass banisters was covered with dust. "Holy shit!" says Ned, looking around the place "I never really like this place, but it's really sad to see it like this". Suddenly a light sparks in Ned's eye, "The rug! The rug is still here!" says Ned running over the bear skin rug he had been after since their last visit 9 or so months ago. Ned bends over to pick it up as a voice from the darkness says "Put down the rug" in an assertive tone. "FUCK!" yells Dolgan, almost jumping out of his skin. The heroes turn around to where the voice came from and see a long haired man sitting in the corner, head against his hand with his other hand occupied by a glass of some type of brown liquor. "Hamelyn?" asks Buffalo, squinting to see better, "Aye" says Hamelyn, raising his glass just a little, but never moving his head. "What...what are you doing here?", "It's my pub isn't it" he says in a gruff voice. The heroes don't respond. "Sorry" says Hamelyn, "I...come, have a drink", he raises the bottle next to him shaking it a little before placing it back down, "Glasses behind the bar, help yourself". The heroes walk over and grab a glass each, Ned hands one down to Buggy. Sitting around Hamelyn's table, Buffalo starts the conversation "How're you doing Hamelyn, it's been a while", "Aye it has, could've used you during the takeover of the Pale Hand", "We were in the sh...", "Shadowfell, I know. Ryland said he saw you there". "Ryland is actually who we're looking for right now!" says Buffalo, "Why? ah..whatever it doesn't really matter I guess. He's off on a job for me at the moment. At Sal's he is, picking up some parchment for me". The heroes look and nod at each other, silently agreeing on their next place to visit. "What happened here Hamelyn?" asks Dolgan, "The pale hand happened" he says, "The pale hand would've been just starting to pop up more regularly when you guys left for the Shadowfell. From there, they took over everything". "How?" asks Ned, "Well, at first it was just their priest and a few followers, but he has that hand thing that he can do so many tricks with. Wolfspine is mainly made up of simple folk, simple parlour tricks can bewilder and fascinate most people. That alongside a charismatic leader with a penchant for militant dominance and you get a city under the thumb. That's it really, nothing terribly special, the story is as old as civilization". "It's so weird, coming back from what seems like a couple of weeks only to find your city in ruins" says Ned, "Yeah" Hamelyn responds under his breath, clearly done with talking. "Salvador's you say?" says Buffalo, "That's where Ryland is?", "Yep. Well that's at least where he should be". The heroes slowly get themselves up from the table, "Hamelyn" says Ned, placing his hand on Hamelyn's shoulder, "Don't give up. Con Clavi will make things right", "Okay" Hamelyn says with a chuckle. The heroes make their way out of the old tavern, the floorboards creaking under them as they walk. "Shut the door on your way out" yells Hamelyn as they exit the building. 

Once back on the street, Buffalo turns around to look at the rest of the group, the rain beating down quite heavily now. "So I guess we go to Salvador's now. Even if Ryland's not there, it will be good to catch up with him, get his story and potentially see what he's got for sale". They walk back over to the east side once more, being careful to dodge the larger puddles constantly being filled by the rain. It's a quick walk to Sal's, no more than 10 minutes. "Ringaling" the bell above the door dings as the heroes enter. Salvador looks up from the his bench and yells "Con Clavi!" ecstatically, "What a sight for sore eyes!". Salvador runs over to the only other customer in the shop at the time and ushers him out, "Come back later sorry!" he says almost pushing the person out of the door before locking it behind him. Sal turns around, "Boys! Welcome to Salvador's Special soft-covers I know it's a little different from before" he put's the back of his hand against his face and says quietly "Things are a little different if you hadn't of noticed", "Yeah we have" Ned laughs nervously. "Where have you been?" asks Sal, "It's a long story that involves the Shadowfell, time dilation and a giant centipede" responds Dolgan. "Fair enough" says Sal, looking a little worried. He runs up to the door and pulls the blinds down. "Come out the back" he says with a little delight in his eyes, the heroes follow. Stepping through the next door, the heroes find themselves in a circular room, shelves packed to the brim with different books of all sorts, what looks like a small chemistry set bubbling over on the right with a table in the middle full of books stacked to the brim. "I have SO many books guys, what do you need? I have multiple copies of Cooking With Bargo, Wolfspine : A History and Agriculture, Who Needs It?" his little hands rub together as he walks past copies of each book. "2 gold pieces per book, that's all! Real cheap and a great help with a lot of daily duties around Wolfspine!" says Sal, "I'll take cooking with Bargo" says Scaly, "Excellent!" Scaly barely finishes his sentence before Sal chimes in, "Buuut you guys are heroes, you probably need something different don't you, what about theeeese ones?" Sal moves out of the way of the bookshelf behind him, pulling one book down as a small hatch opens revealing another smaller bookshelf behind. "These are superb books, guaranteed to make you stronger, fight harder and dodge better" he says as the heroes lean in and have a look at the small hidden shelf of books. "We have here; Misdeeds and other misfortunes, Blasphemy or Chastity?, Charmed I'm Sure, Wise Guy Eyyyyy?, Strong Boy Do Strong Things and Hey Poindexter!", Buffalo reaches a hand out and closes his eyes, slowly waving his hand over the books. "How much?" Buffalo says, opening his eyes and looking at Sal, "100 gold pieces for the first two, 150 gold pieces for every other book" Sal says. "We'll take them all for 600 gold pieces" Buffalo says, "Woah woah woah" Scaly interjects, "They're just books Buffalo, why would we pay 600 gold for them", "They're more than that, trust me" says Buffalo, "Ahhh I see you know you're literature" says Sal "600 for the lot is fine". Scaly reluctantly hands it over "This better be worth it" he says to Buffalo under his breath. 

"Thank you" says Sal, "Business has been exceptionally difficult these days, this money will help me out for another few months. Ever since the Pale Hand took over, I have been struggling to make ends meet. No one buys anything, no one can afford it. Other than a few people still daring to buy magical items, I have to rely on books that don't sell because no one wants them". "Well, glad we can help" says Scaly a little disgruntled in his speech, "By the by, what other customers are still willing to risk it all for magical items?" asks Ned, "A few of them, I'm sure you can understand that their names need to be kept quiet. In fact one of them is here now, I assume you would know each other, his name is Ryland".

"Oh yes!" says Buff, an old sailor friend of mine, "I thought you guys would know each other, he's just through here looking through some of my parchment" says Sal pulling across on a bookcase close to him. The bookcase starts to move and pushes the other bookcases as the entire room moves in a circle, spinning until another door is revealed. Sal opens the door and through it the heroes see Ryland standing looking at some books inside a rectangular room, Ryland looks up seeing the group as a smile forms across his face "Guys! You made it back from the Shadowfell!"

The heroes walk inside the room with Sal standing in the middle, "What a meeting of rebels!" says Sal excitedly. "How have you been?" asks Ryland looking at Con Clavi. "It's been rough man, we had a hell of time in the Shadowfell, came out and got lost in the living forest and now come back to Wolfspine only to find our town is in ruins from the Pale Hand" says Buffalo, "How have you been?" about the same old friend says Ryland, "I'm doing jobs for Hamelyn still, but obviously I don't have access to the lavish lifestyle I led before anymore. It seems all of us going to the Shadowfell was perhaps a bad idea". Ned slowly moves in front of the door blocking exit for Ryland with an intense stare on his face, Ryland notices watching with a confused look on his face. "What are you buying for Hamelyn?" asks Dolgan, "Some parchment, I'm not sure what he needs it for, but he is often planning against Pale Hand these days", Ned continues to concentrate on Ryland noticing sweat beads start to form on his brow. "Why're you nervous Ryland?" asks Ned, "I'm...I'm not nervous" says Ryland in a shaky voice, "You're starting to sweat" says Ned, "Well, I feel like I'm being interrogated a little, plus for some reason you've decided to block the door....Buff...what's...what's going on?". Buff sighs with his head down as Ryland looks on scared at the rest of the group, "When we came back from the Shadowfell, we exited out in the living forest, whilst we were there, we were brought to court by an archfey and a bunch of forest creatures who accused me of stealing the light of the forest" says Buffalo, "Not only that, but just before all this started I was accused and placed in jail for stealing something from the Roan Manor. Both times it wasn't me and both times someone that looked like me or dressed like me or something was seen". "And you think I what...pretended to be you and did these crimes?" asks Ryland. "Well, we've been told on good authority that you currently have the light of the forest in your possession" says Buffalo, "I don't" responds Ryland.

"Hamelyn did ask me to go and get the light of the forest" says Ryland "But by the time I got there, it had already been stolen by the Pale Hand, I never even got to see it" said Ryland looking a little more relaxed that Buff and explained their motives. Sal looks up and says "Well, I'll leave you guys to it", looking a little worried as he scoots past Ned, "Door please" he says looking up at Ned. Ned opens the door without looking back at Sal, never losing contact with Ryland the entire time. He closes the door with a click behind Sal, "Guy's I don't have the light" says Ryland looking even more worried now that Sal was gone. "Give it to us" says Ned, "Give you what?! I don't have anything!" says Ryland, Ned notices Ryland's hand move into his rucksack. "What are you reaching for?" asks Dolgan, "Something to protect myself with, I feel like I'm seconds away from being attacked", Ned nods. Buffalo places his hand across Ned blocking him, "If you don't have it, then bring us to where it is" Buffalo says staring Ryland in the eye. "I told you where it is and you know this town Buff, it's with the Pale Hand, at their church. If your memory is that bad, I can bring you to the church itself but I'm not going in there". "Why not?" says Buffalo never moving his gaze off of Ryland, "Because they'll kill me! I still work for Hamelyn and they know that!", "Why do they even have or want the light of the forest?", "I HAVE NO IDEA. I'M NOT IN THE PALE HAND" yells Ryland. Ryland was sweating buckets at this point and a little out of breath, "I assume they're doing the same thing as you, they already have the other Aldrich relic and they're going around collecting them". "What?! What other relic?" asks Ned moving off of the door and towards Ryland more inquisitive than defensive now, "The Pale Hand", "Yes I know it's the Pale Hand Church but...", "No, the relic is THE PALE HAND" Ryland's voice rises as he gets more annoyed. "They have the relic, the Pale Hand, it's what the church is founded on". Buffalo turns around to everyone else "If one of the relics is enough to form a cult and take over a town, imagine the power they could have with two. I don't think Ryland did it guys", "So I can go then?" asks Ryland, listening to the heroes from behind. "Yeah, I'm sorry man...Ned give him some space" Buffalo says, Ryland picks up his parchment and walks through the door, as it opens Sal runs back from the door, apparently he was listening in on everything. "So uhhhh...everything's all okay orrr?" says Sal with a shaky voice, "Yeah" says Buffalo, "Just a misunderstanding". Ryland looks back at Buffalo as he says this, shaking his head, "Just these today please Sal", "That'll be 20 gold pieces". Ryland hands over the gold and looks back at the group about to say something, but turns around and leaves, opening the lock to Sal's himself as the door swings open. The sound of a wintery storm rushes in from outside before the door closes behind Ryland.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Fourty - It’s got a cute asshole

The bartender walks back over and says "Okay, go speak to Ysabel over there", he points to his right at a woman standing behind the bar with a book and keys behind her. Scaly walks over "We'd like some rooms please, for the night", "Yep we can do that" says Ysabel "How many have you got?", "Seven" responds Scaly. "We can do two rooms of four if that works?" says Ysabel, "Yeah that's great" responds Scaly. "Could we please get a bathroom too?" chimes in Ned, "Absolutely", so that will cost $30 per room plus an extra $10 for the bathroom. Scaly hands over 70 gold and Ysabel grabs two keys off of the wall labelled 13 and 14 "Your rooms are just out the left door and down the hallway". Scaly turns back around as he walks away and attempts to act cool "Heya...you wouldn't happen to have any idea where Ryland is would you?", "Ryland....Ryland Aldridge?" says Ysabel, "That's the one!" says Scaly, "He comes in here sometimes, but I haven't seen him in a week or so". "No worries, if he's around, let him know that Scaly's looking for him", "Ooookay" says Ysabel as the heroes walk off. "Grum" Ysabel says, "Please make sure room 13 and 14 is clean for our new guest", a large green orc walks out from a back room with a mop and feather duster, heading towards the guest rooms.

The heroes sit down to have a meal, having eaten only Shadowfell and Forest food for the last couple of weeks, a typical meat and potatoes dish was looking particularly delicious. The bartender brings out the meal, a plate full of roast meats alongside another plate of root vegetables. The heroes scoffed it down in less than ten minutes in silence, looking forward to a nights sleep in their hometown. A couple of ales later, the heroes call it a night heading to bed around 11pm and walk towards the door leading to the guest rooms. As the group uses the keys given to them to open the door, the door opens inwards and they see a large green orc in front of them. "Sorry" says the Orc in a gruff voice, "Grum clean, now good" he says walking past the heroes. Ned puts up a hand to signal Grum to stop and looks him in the eyes "Thanks Grum, we appreciate it" and hands Grum 2 gold pieces. "OOOooHH" says Grum, clearly happy, "Thanks". Grum walks off and the heroes enter their rooms. Dolgan and Ned hop into the baths in the bathroom, next to the baths were two giant pots of water, one with a fire another at room temperature. Ned and Dolgan fill their bath's with the appropriate amount of water to get it to the right temperature and take the much needed soak they had paid for. 

Once out of the bath's, dressed and about to hit the hay, hears a "Knock, knock" on the door. "Come in" says Buffalo, as the door slightly opens, revealing Grum with a round tray and 7 small glasses. "Night cap" he says softly with his low voice. "Oh thank you!" responds Ned, handing out the small glasses of liquor to everyone. "You have this one" says Ned, handing it over to Grum, "No, for you" says Grum pushing it back towards Ned, "Please I insist" says Ned, "Okay..." says Grum, throwing back his head with the liquor slipping down his throat. Grum collects the rest of the glasses and walks out, "Night" he says gruffly shutting the door. The heroes blow out their lanterns and drift off to sleep.

"Crrrreeeaak" Dolgan and Buffalo both sit up out of their beds, hearing the door creak open. Dolgan reaches down and picks up his non magical boot from the ground whispering "Lux" as it lights up and throwing it towards the sounds of the door. "Oww what the hell!" says Buffalo as a bright boot hits his leg, "Sorry" Dolgan whispers realising his throw had been a little off the mark. Dolgan gets up on his bed and moves to the closest sconce, lighting it up. The torch casts a faint glow over the room, Dolgan's shadow growing out over to the door to the bathroom. "Guys! Get up!" he yells at Scaly and Ned at the opposite end of the room. Both of them stir, slowing sitting up and rubbing their eyes. "What is it?" says Ned, a little more awake than Scaly due to the torch being closer to his bed. "Tsew tsew", the sound of two crossbow bolts shoot through the room, followed by "Argh", "Fuck" both Buffalo and Scaly being hit in the chest by bolts. Buffalo picks up the bright shoe off of the ground and throws it back to Dolgan, takes a step off of the bed and raises his bow, shooting two arrows at the door, the source of the noise from the crossbow bolts. "Thud!" the first arrow hits the door with enough force to slam it shut, "Arrrhh" the second arrow had hit the unseen assailant. Scaly runs through to the other room and yells out "Get up! We're under attack"

Meanwhile in the other room, Dolgan grabs his shield from under his bed and places it in front of him, then charges directly towards the door. "OOooof" he catches whatever was in their room in the chest and slams it into the door. "Got him!" yells Dolgan, but not before whoever it was pushes back, it was strong, strong enough to force Dolgan back. "Schhling" the sound of a sword being unsheathed comes from the shadows, the creature flying directly at Buffalo slicing into his skin with a green looking short sword. A line splits across Buffalo's chest, revealing a wound left by the sword. The wound starts festering immediately around the wound, "There's poison on it's blade!" yells Buffalo lifting his bow once more and pulling back on the drawstring. He releases another arrow, this one loaded with a net loaded into the tip. The arrow flies across the room as the net expands, capturing the creature under it as it falls to the ground. Scaly takes the opportunity and breathes in deep, exhaling lightning at the net, Ned lets the rage burn inside him, runs up to the creature and smashes down with his fists over and over again. The door bursts open, it was Grum! he runs towards the assailant axe raised in the air, but trips over the light boot on the ground, falling forward, throwing his axe across the room into the bathroom, cracking open one of the bath's. The side of the bath splits open, gushing water out over the bathroom floor and into the main room. Dolgan grabs his hammer and runs to the creature, smashing down on top, crushing it under the weight of his hammer. It crumbles below, falling into a heap on the ground, the breathing shortens as it dies.

Dolgan picks up the net, pulling it away from the creature. Buffalo lights up the sconce near the bathroom, finally illuminating the entire room so that they could see who their attacker was. "It looks like it was an assassin" says Dolgan, looking at the black robes crumpled on the floor. He pulls back the hood on the person, revealing an ashen faced human, completely bald. Dolgan splits the persons robes open, revealing the symbol of the pale hand branded into his chest. "Pale hand", Dolgan says softly, "How do they know we're here?" says Buffalo, "No idea, but they're sending assassins now it seems. I'm not sure if he was after us, or just anybody in this tavern, either way we need to be careful" Doglan says covering up the pale hand assassin with it's robe. Grum picks up the body and slings it over his shoulder "I take away now?", "Yeah Grum, thanks" says Dolgan, sitting back down in his bed. 

The heroes wake up in the morning to the smell of warm bread and porridge, "Breakfast" the gruff voice they now knew to be Grum's echoing down the hallway as the scent wafted through their doors and into their noses. Getting up and popping some clothes on, the heroes walked like zombie down to the tavern area to eat their food. It wasn't the best, but it was warm and filling and that's all the heroes wanted after the rough night that they had. After the meal Ned gets up from the table and walks over to the bartender from the night before, "Did you hear about last night? We were attacked by an assassin from the Pale hand". "I did, and I apologise, this is the first time this has happened. We had no idea the Pale Hand had any type of presence inside the Closed Eye. To be honest it's worrying for our business, if they know about the operation of this bar, why haven't they shut us down yet like all of the other taverns?" the bartender trails off in his own thoughts. "It's okay, we're okay, but you should definitely have some sort of vetting system that allows safe passage for people not so close with the pale hand" says Ned. "Yes, it seems we will have to come up with something different" responds the bartender.

The heroes gather their things and get dressed for the day, Scaly and Ned making sure they were appropriate for the street as per the Pale Hand's rule. They venture out, in the direction of Scriba's, which through a couple of conversations with the patrons of Closed Eye, they had worked out was just near the other three Kipp brothers that lived in Wolfspine. "Blingalingalingaling" the bell dinged as they walked through the door to Scriba's Superb Scribblings. "Hold on!" they hear from the back of the shop. The walls of the shop went right to the rooftop, pigeon holes completely covering where the flat wall should be. Each pigeon hole seemed to house a different type or different size of parchment. The amount of paper in the shop was astounding. "What can I do for you?" says a voice coming from nowhere. The heroes look around confused, not able to locate the person behind the voice. "oomf, errgh, aarrr" a small voice comes from behind the counter near the rear of the store, much higher than it should've been due to the mass amounts of paper piling up on top, yet everything seemed to be perfectly organised, the piles were extremely neat. "Scriba's the name" says a gnome as his small hat pops over the top of the piled paper, the heroes finally able to match the face with the voice. "What can ae do fur ya?" he says, his accent thick as porridge. 

The heroes introduce themselves one by one, "We're after passes" says Buffalo, "We have been stuck in the Shadowfell for a couple of weeks and that has affected our time in the material plane long enough that the Pale Hand has become a dominant faction. We need passes so that we can explore Wolfspine with not interruptions". "Ssssshhhh" says Scriba, "Come here", he motions towards a small gnome sized door at the back of the shop and walks through. The heroes, especially Ned and Scaly have to get on all fours before they're able to get through the door. The next room is a little bigger, big enough to at least accommodate the big boys standing up straight. "Some fake passes you need is it?" says Scriba, more ready to use a louder voice now that they were out of the front of the shop. "Yes, we have some things to sort out in this city and it would be near impossible without these passes" says Ned. "I can do that for you, but it'll cost a pretty penny" says Scriba lowering his glasses to look at the group. "How much?" asks Ned, "100 gold pieces per pass" says Scriba, still not moving his eyes off of the group. "Sure, we can afford that" says Scaly checking his bag for gold. "No worries, I'll need your full names, date of births and places of residency" says Scriba as he walks to the front of the store grabbing parchment from a pigeon hole particularly high on the wall. Scriba places a lock across the front door and walks through to the backdoor room. The heroes look at each other, concerned. They had not had their own place to live in a long time and at this point weren't able to provide half of the information Scriba needed.

"Name please" Scriba says pointing at Ned, "Ummmm, Ned..Ned Den" Ned responds. "Ooookay Ned Den" says Scriba as he starts to write on the parchment card, "Aaaand you" Scriba points at Buffalo, "First name Bison, Surname Bison". Scriba looks over the top of his glasses at Buffalo "Bison....Bison?", "Yep" Buffalo says with no hesitation. "Okay. These are weird name. Some would say fake names" says Scriba, continuing to write on the parchment. "And you three?" he looks up at Raissh, Scaly and Dolgan, "I don't need one" says Raissh. "First name Scaly, second name Jack", "First name Dolgan, second name Boneseeker". "No worries" says Scriba, he scribbles away for another couple of minutes as the heroes wander around his backroom before Scriba pipes up once more "So, what're you going to do with these passes?", "Don't worry about it" says Ned. "Well, I am a little worried about it. I'm the only scribe in Wolfspine, so if you're caught and these are revealed to be fake, that's my head" responds Scriba. Buffalo leans over to Ned saying quietly "If he's doing this for us, it must mean that he's not associated with the Pale Hand", Ned nods and says to Scriba "Fair enough" and starts to recall the tales of their last couple of weeks. "So to conclude this story, we basically need these passes to walk through Wolfspine uninhibited to find the light of the forest" Ned finishes the story as Scriba finished the names on the passes. "Well, we're all in this fight together it seems. Although I have had a lot of work from the passes of everyone in Wolfspine, I haven't been paid for any of them, I was purely just told to, nay forced to do it. No one's ordering anything from me as everyone's too poor to do so. These times are really the darkest" says Scriba. Scaly goes to hand over the 400 gold pieces. "I can't take that" says Scriba, "Now that I know what you are doing for this city, I can't possible take it". "Please take the money" says Ned, you need it and we can always get more from jobs around the town, "Why don't I give you a discount then, what say the price be 200 gold pieces instead and I'll do yours for free" Scriba says looking at Raissh. "Deal" says Scaly, handing over the 200 gold, "And let us know if you need anything Scriba, we can always help out" says Ned. Scriba applies the made up address of the heroes onto the passes including their birth dates and finally looks at Raissh and says "Alright, we're up to you now. What is your name?", Raissh says "It's Raissh, with two S's".

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Thirty Nine - And now you have seen me

The heroes look around at each other, covered in rotting sticks and branches from the blight beasts. "Well, what do you want to do next then?" Buffalo says to the group, Dolgan turns around to talk to the forest court "What do we d...they're gone" he says. "What?" says Scaly turning around as well, to see that all of the people that stood in the court were gone, just like that. "I still want to find Partum" says Buffalo, "Lets get this air elemental/goblin ship thing going, then we can get back to Wolfspine". The group agrees and they start walking, "Partum was supposed to be near where we got trapped" says Buff, "Yeah...I think he built the trap" says Ned. The heroes arrive shortly at the pit trap and see the leftovers of their fight, trampled ground, blood and the pit with a burnt dead wood woad in it. There were also pieces of scrap metal lying around the ground too. "Hello?" yells out Buffalo, but only hears the echo respond, "It doesn't look like he's here. I've been looking at the tracks on the way here and it seems they only leave here, none come back. Let's head back to the courts and we can see where they go from there".

The heroes make their way back to the forest court and stand in a group behind the judge's tree stump. "This is the last place there are any gnome like tracks" Buffalo says kneeling on the ground, touching it with his hands. The heroes hadn't noticed yet but a face was slowly appearing out of the tree next to them, so much so that the by the time the heroes even see anything the entire torso of a woman was leaning out of the tree, still covered in bark with an orange hue. It was the Dryad that had spoke out against them in court, she was also the dryad that fought them near the cemetery mound. "Mankoi naa lle sinome?" she says, her mouth slightly opening, splitting the wood that covered her face. Raissh looks at the heroes "She said - "Why are you here?", "We're looking for Partum" says Buffalo to the Dryad, Raissh translates it for her "Lye're lookien ten' partum". The dryad shakes her head "Ro sane ho pay.  Ro's hyarya", "She said he's left and took his payment" says Raissh. "Where did he go?" asks Buffalo, "Manke ume ro auta?" says Raissh to the Dryad. "Wanwa" says  the dryad, slowly merging back into the wood. "She said he's gone. That's it". "I see another two tracks on the ground here, but they're not a gnomes. Well at least, they don't look like a gnomes prints" says Buffalo "What if he got carried away by a couple of cronies and that's how he left?", "Better than nothing" says Ned, "Let's follow them". 

The heroes follow the two sets of footprints with Buffalo leading the charge. They walk for a little while until they come across an familiar location. They were at Elmdew Pond. Breaking through the hedges that line the tranquil area they see Yan swimming around in the pond, having chats with the other animals. "Ahhhh Con Clavi, how are we?" he says swimming to the shore to greet them. "Yeah good" says Buffalo "Have you seen a gnome come here at any point recently?", "No, nothing other than those two things over there" Yan says pointing just behind the heroes. The heroes turn around, seeing two hunks of steel laying on the grass. "Are they dead?" asks Scaly, "No idea' says Yan, "They came through the hedges, spoke in a weird language, came into the pond, seemed to have a small seizure and fell onto the grass after walking out of the pond". Buffalo walks over and gives one of them a kick. It rolls over to one side, but didn't move other than that. The rest of the heroes walk up and have a look. "I have never seen anything like this before" says Dolgan leaning down and poking it's side. It was a square metal box on top two legs, the back of it had two steel wings and it had two small arms out of it's side as well. Lastly it had a couple of eyes on the front but they looked like they were made from some type of glass. "Yeah this thing is weird" says Scaly trying to open it's mouth "It doesn't seem to have any proper insides". Buffalo pulls an arrow from his quiver and raises it above the metal monster in two hands, "Hey, hey, hey...what are you doing?" says Yan, "I'm about to open this thing up and find out how it works" responds Buffalo. "Not in here you're not" says Yan, "This is an animal sanctuary, no harm can be done to anything here. Not on my watch anyway". Buffalo pops the arrow back in his quiver, 'Sorry" he says. 

"What if we tried heating them up?" says Dolgan, still staring closely at the alien machines, "I could do that. We wouldn't be hurting them Yan" says Scaly looking at the fish. "That's fine" says Yan and Scaly starts to light a small flame just under the metal contraptions. "Clllnnkkkk.....aaannnk" the metal starts to slowly heat up and expands. "Pfffshhhh, Pfffshhh" steam starts to pump out the top of the square body. They both get up and look at each other "Jeng jong fruh naru" one of them says and they start walking out of Elmdew. "Hey!" yells Buffalo following behind, "We just saved you, where are you going?", they continue to walk forward a little more briskly. "HEY!" yells Buffalo continuing to follow them, the rest of the heroes now following too. The metal monsters break out into a gallop, "Heeeeey!" Buffalo continues to chase them before they break out into a run. The small machines continue to pick up speed as their wings start flapping, "Fwoo, fwoo, fwoo, fwoo, fwoo" they legs start to raise off of the ground as their wings pick up the slack, rising up into the air. "HEEEEEEYYYYY!" Buffalo yells, stopping and leaning over whilst panting. "Fuck!" he says as the rest of the heroes catch up, "They're gone...".

The heroes make their way back to Elmdew, defeated by the run and the lost monsters. "Back so soon?" says Yan, "Yeah, we lost track of those machines" says Ned as the group hops into the pond to mend their wounds from the fight at the forest courts. "Mind if we stay here tonight" asks Dolgan to Yan, "Of course! Be my guest!" says Yan. The heroes grab a bite to eat, set up a small fire with their bed rolls and fall asleep fast.

The heroes wake in the morning feeling amazing, as it always did with their Elmdew rests. "Where to today boys?" asks Yan, "We're off home, back to Wolfspine!" says Scale, "Ahhh yes I forgot you were all originally from there, we've seen you so many times at Elmdew it's hard to remember you're not actually from the forest!" responds Yan. "Yeah it'll be nice to go back, we've been gone so long" says Scaly, "Well, don't forget about us! The living forest is not that far away from Wolfspine, so don't forget to come and visit!" says Yan swimming off to welcome some new animals into the Elmdew sanctuary. The heroes make their way to the forest's exit, the last thing passing them by being the alchemists keep they had cleared out a few days earlier. "Let's pop in and see Gurvash before we leave" says Ned making a quick turn into the keep. "Gurvash!" says Ned walking through the gate and seeing the huge tree in the middle of the keep. "Hellllloooooo" says the giant tree, it's voice straining and slow as it rumbles through the heroes bones. "We're heading into Wolfspine for a bit, so we thought we'd come and say goodbye for now" says Scaly, "Gooodddbbyyyeee" says Gurvash, not really paying attention. "Actually" says Dolgan, "Do you know anything about the Gulthias tree?", "Why yessssss, it's a treeeeeee in the feywild, booooorn of a vampires deeaattth" says Gurvash. "Yeah, do you know how we get to the Feywild though" says Dolgan, "Foooouuur small statues, placed at the oooooooffering plates at the Feywild statues will open a pooooortal" responds Gurvash. "These statues?" Ned says holding up the statues he had gotten from the bottom of the murky water pond. The giant tree nods slowly, a few twigs and branches falling out of it's canopy. 

The heroes continue on their journey to Wolfspine. Arriving on the city outskirts about a 30 minute walk later. "Why are there so many graves?" says Scaly as they walk down the well trodden road, "Where did these all come from?". "Yeah...I don't know" says Dolgan, a worrying look on his face. The heroes walk on, past the freshly dug graves looking at all the flowers put on them, "Something's happened" says Buffalo. 

Getting to the south gates of Wolfspine, the heroes see 2 guards standing duty, particularly armoured. "Pass" says one of the guards in a monotonous tone, "Ohhh I...we..left ours in the city" says Ned, the guards cross their pikes blocking the entrance "Sorry, you know the rules then, no pass no entry" they say. "But we can't get our passes because they're in the city" says Ned, a little irate. "NO pass, NO entry" responds the guard. At that moment, "psssst" a mysterious whisper comes from Scaly's left. Scaly turns his head and see's Ragus standing about 100 feet away next to the city walls, Scaly taps Ned's arm discreetly. "What?!" says Ned annoyed with the guards and looking angrily at Ned. Scaly shakes his head and pulls Ned aside walking out of hearing distance from the guards. "Ragus is over there" says Scaly, "The wizard/magician guy?" asks Ned, Scaly nods. Ned walks over to the rest of the group still near the guards "Hey uhhhh, sorry guys" he says looking at the guards, "Looks like we've really stuffed up here, but we'll go and sort our passes out and come back through, thanks!", the confused looks on Buffalo, Dolgan and Raissh's faces told Ned they had no idea what was going on. He grabbed Dolgan and Buffalo by the arms and starts walking backwards, "Just come with me" he says under his breath. The guards don't seem to care much and pull back their pikes as the heroes move away from them.

Once the whole group is out of earshot, Scaly tells the group that Ragus was trying to get his attention. They walk into the shrubbery around them, off of the path and emerge close to where Scaly said Ragus was. Ragus was waiting, leaning against the wall playing with his hair. "Oh my god, guys!" he says in a whisper, "Where have you been?! Actually, tell me later, let's just get you in first" as he turns around and mutters something under his breath, bricks start moving out of the wall, circling Ragus hands. "Go through" he says motioning with his head towards the man sized hole he had created in the wall. The heroes walk through, Ned and Scaly having to bend a little, their larger stature making it difficult to fit easily through the hole. Once on the other side, Ragus walks through and replaces the bricks with whatever magic he was using. "Come with me" he says, scaling the walls of a dark alley, I'll get you somewhere safe and then we can talk.

The heroes follow Ragus in to a small alley that they hadn't been to before. "The chest, pick up the chest" Ragus says, "You can't have the chest walking around willy nilly, you'll be picked up for that. Actually, Scaly you need a hood - nothing other than humans and and things closely related to humans in Wolfspine anymore. Ned, get yourself a coat, no public indecency. Wolfspine has changed since you left and we need to fall in line otherwise we'll be locked up or even worse". "What the hell has happened here?" asks Dolgan, "I will tell you when we get to the Closed Eye, but for now, just listen to me and follow my lead" responds Ragus. The heroes listen and make the changes requested by Ragus, Ned goes into the chest and fishes out a few bits and bobs of clothing making sure him and Scaly are all covered up, Ned then picks the chest up carrying it against his own chest. "Okay, lets go" says Ragus pointing out ahead of him at a street, "Act natural, don't skulk around" he says, "Act like you live here". 

Ragus walks out first, chest up high as if he was not harbouring a bunch of people not allowed in Wolfspine. Ned, Buffalo, Scaly and finally Dolgan followed in the rear. They crossed from one side of the road to the other, hitting up another dark alley way. The alleys smelled like piss and stale water, their feet creating ripples in the small puddles that peppered the pock holes of the alley. They crossed another street in the same fashion and then another after that. The rain that was always so present at Wolfspine started, a slow drizzle falling between the houses onto the heroes clothes, not enough to brush off but too much to not be annoying.  After walking for four to five minutes, keeping their appearance discreet and making sure they were quiet but not oddly quiet Ragus says "Okay, just this last street, then down another alley and we're there", the heroes nod and start making their way across the street in the same order once more. Ragus walks out of the alley way and turns around quickly looking at the group, eyes wide. Something was wrong. Ragus turns around so fast that his robes fly up around him as he starts walking again. Ned follows quickly behind, looking left and right as he moves across the street. Directly to his right he see's four guards walking up the street directly towards them. Ned puts his head down and crosses the street, followed by Buffalo, Scaly and finally Dolgan. Ragus turns around to see the heroes cross the street, Dolgan coming up last, but he was too slow. "Oi!" yells out a guard, Ragus see's the guard looking at Dolgan and waves his hand out to Dolgan, motioning for him to run to him, but Dolgan stops whilst the guards catch up to him.

"Pass" says one of the guards, holding his hand out. "Ummmmm" Dolgan stumbles around pretending to be drunk, "Itsss at home". "Shit, shit, shit!" says Ragus, himself and the other heroes hiding in the darkness of the alley, "Let's go out and kill these guards" says Buffalo but Ragus places an arm across his chest. "It would be easier to let him get caught and break him out of jail then fight these guards right now". "Give me your pass" says the guard once more, this time with a little more demand in his voice. "I toooold you, I don't have it, itsss at home" says Dolgan. One of the other guards behind grabs the the guards shoulder from behind "I know this guy, he's a resident of Wolfspine. He's always around here, mostly at the Black Barrel Inn". The guard looks at Dolgan and pushes him to the ground "You're lucky John is willing to vouch for you, otherwise you'd be going straight to the church" he says as he walks away. Dolgan stays on the ground for another thirty seconds or so, pretending to not be able to get up. As soon as the guards turn the corner, Dolgan jumps onto his feet and runs to the alley where the rest of the group was waiting for him. "Phew!" says Dolgan as they start walking again.

Another minute or so walk and the heroes walk down a small staircase, the rain had pooled water at the bottom of it, so they stood directly on the staircase instead of actually going down to the last platform. Ragus stands at the bottom step and seems to be saying something under his breath, "Ah that's it!" he says as he knocks on the door with an odd, but rhythmic pattern. A little hatch across the door opens and a pair of eyes appear, looking side to side at the group. The hatch closes and the door opens, a waft of warm air flies out of the tavern along with laughter and the smell of alcohol and food. "Welcome to The Closed Eye" says the man holding open the door as the heroes make their way in. The tavern had a lot of different people in there, from dragon borns to tieflings, they all seemed to congregate under the one roof. Buffalo walks forward, finding a table and sits down. Ned, Ragus, Dolgan, Scaly and Raissh follow suit with the chest walking it's way over at Ned's legs. Ned sit's down and knocks twice on the lid of the chest, the lid lifts slowly revealing Buggy staring cautiously out "It's all good to come out" says Ned, Buggy jumps out and looks around, "Back in Wolfspine!" he exclaims as he takes a seat next to Ragus. Kalgrin follows after Buggy, but staring around much more intently, "Where the hell are we in Wolfspine?" he asks. "The Closed Eye" answers Buff, "Some place for outcasts I think", "Hmm" Kalgrin says to himself, finally sitting down. A waiter comes along, "Ale or wine?" she says with an odd accent the heroes couldn't place, "I'll take a wine" says Buff, "Me too" says Dolgan, "Me three" says Scaly. "An ale for me" says Ned, "And me" says Raissh, "And me" says Buggy with a smile on his face, "Actually order me one too Buggy" says Ragus, Buggy obliges "And another one for my friend here please!" pointing at Ragus. The waiter gives Buggy a weird look and notes the groups drink order. He looks to Kalgrin but Kalgrin waves him off. "Right, be right back" says the waiter walking away. 

"So, Ragus, what the hell has happened here" says Dolgan, "Well, since you left almost a year ago, the entire Pale Hand has taken over Wolfspine, smiting sinners and wrongdoers by fire. That's what". "That cannot be right Ragus" says Buffalo, "We've been gone maybe 3 weeks in total". "The last time I saw you" says Ragus as the waiter plops down the drinks in front of the heroes, "Was when I saw you at Wolfspine Manor. Ned had something wrong with his head, all the cactus kids were singing that song, and you went to the mausoleum to get it sorted with Kalgrin. Then, you disappeared for the good part of a year". "We absolutely did go to Kalgrin's, but then we went to the Shadowfell for a few..." Ragus cuts off Buffalo half way, "Ahhh, then that explains it. Time works differently in the Shadowfell. A few days can easily be a few months in the material plane", "Oh well, there you go then" says Buffalo a little defeated. "Whilst you were gone then" Ragus continues to explain. "The Pale Hand took over, I think before you left, they just had a small church. Their followers grew in numbers and their hold over the leading faction became very apparent. A lot of Wolfspine residents have been killed for acts against the church, and they can be almost for anything. If you're a magic user, or even look like one, they can burn you alive, creatures of non human origins or that don't look like humans, drunks, adulterers, prostitutes. Even if you harbour people of this ilk, you can be burnt. Wolfspine locales have been burnt to the ground, the Red Coq, Octavious' shop even the Endless gaze...all gone". At this point Kalgrin gets up and starts walking away, "Hey! Where are you going?!" says Dolgan, "I'm out" says Kalgrin, "I'm going home, my mausoleums not far from here, I miss Bob and you guys are fucking crazy. So I'm out. Call me if you ever need anything hee hee hee" he says as he opens the door to and waves as he leaves. "Well that was abrupt" says Buffalo as the heroes return their attention to Ragus. "Eventide and Salvador have changed their stores into less magical places, focusing on books and juices instead. Which reminds me, you need to go see Scriba, one of their brothers, at Scriba's Superb Scribblings. He can draw you up a fake pass for now" The heroes nod. Ragus gets up, finishing his beer, "By the way Buffalo, your friend Ryland seems to be back in town too. He disappeared around the same time as you guys, but returned a couple of months or so back, he's got some new arm thing, looks like a bunch of twigs and branches with a light on the end of it. If you see him, you should let him know that, that is a dangerous thing to be waving around in Wolfspine these days". Ragus walks towards the door, grabbing a robe off of the stand, "Stay safe Con Clavi, you're going to need it" as he exits.

"Well shit" Buffalo says stirring his wine with his index finger, "I never would've thought that Ryland would be the one to be impersonating me. He's an old friend, one of my oldest friends. How could he do that?". "It is weird isn't it" says Ned, finishing the rest of his wine. A smelly man sits heavily on the chair next to them at their table, "Well, well, well, look who we have here" he says, the alcohol on his breath so strong it could be detected form a mile away. "What happened to you guys? You said you'd protect my place if I gave you lodgings and then you disappeared!" said the hairy person. "Hang on" said Scaly looking closer at the man, attempting to gaze under the unkempt hair covering the top half of his face, "Carver?!", "TIS ME!" he yells, sloshing his drink across the table. "I thought you had died after the Red Coq burnt down", "Nup, got out, live on the streets now. Or here if they let me". "We're sorry" says Buffalo, "We didn't mean to go for so long, we were stuck in the Shadowfell, but look, we're staying here tonight. You can stay with us and we'll sort you out a new tavern". "Okay" says Carver, looking down into his drink, he didn't seem like he understood what Buffalo just said. Buffalo calls for a waiter and says "We need two rooms for tonight", we can get that organised says the waiter as he walks away back to the bar.

[ratkingdnd]

Chapter Thirty Eight

The pendant swings like a pendulum over the fire, slowly spinning clockwise at same time. The pendant swings less and less until it sits dead straight above the fire, lingering in the smoke. Out of the middle of the gem at the end of the pendant, a little light comes out, beaming to about 15 centimetres outwards in a cone. The pendant keeps spinning, the beam moving around with it. After a few seconds, the pendant starts oscillating it's spin between west and east, never moving to south. It continues to narrow it's oscillation, eventually moving between two points that make it come to a complete stand still, facing north. "He's that way!" says Locus, pointing north, he's not far away either, the beam is quite short on this one. A couple of hours will get you there. "Awesome, thanks" says Ned, as the group get up, say goodbye to Locus, Pappilio and Aquila, moving on to the north to find Partum. 

After about an hours walk, the heroes come to a very small clearing and look at each other perplexed. There was a giant stone stuck in the ground in front of them. The base was quite small, maybe 5 feet across in total, but the top seemed to be much larger, although they could not see the top. Vines wrapped around the the rock, looking like the could support some weight to be climbed. "Give it a shot" Ned bumps Scaly in the back, pushing him towards the rock. "Yeah alright" says Scaly, licking his lips, looking upwards at the top. He walks to the base of the rock and starts climbing up, his claw like hands gripping hard into the vines and stone, giving him safe passage until about two thirds up where the vines start to thin out. Scaly looks down and yells "It's quite thin up here, I'm not sure if I can continue", "You'll be fine, just get on with it" yells Buffalo, Scaly shakes his head muttering under his breath as he continues upwards. The vines were thin at the top third, but were still enough to hold Scaly. He gets to the top and lays down immediately, tired and sweaty from his climb. The top of the rock was well maintained and had soft grass covering it. It also had an obelisk, jutting out of the top in the centre of the rock, it was at least another 30 feet up, at the top, he sees a glint of something in the afternoon sun. Scaly looks over the edge at the group "It's just grassy up here, there's another rock but it's much thinner and I think there's something at the top!", "GET UP THERE!" Ned yells. Scaly lays back down, still catching his breath from the climb, he closes his eyes for a second before he feels something hit his forehead. "What the hell?" he says opening his eyes and seeing a small rock next to him. "Come on!" he hears Ned yelling from below, Ned had clearly thrown the rock. It was a good throw, considering he didn't know where Scaly was. "Fine" Scaly mutters under his breath as he starts to climb the obelisk. He gets about 10 feet up before falling back down onto his back, luckily the soft grass was there, cushioning his fall. The obelisk was much smoother than the last climb and there were no vines to use. Scaly gets back up and digs his claws into the rock, hugging around the obelisk, using his strength to shimmy his way up. He reaches the top quickly and finds a blue gem, sitting right at the pinnacle, "Wow, what an odd place for a gem" Scaly says to himself. He starts to climb back down the obelisk, making it to the top of the first rock. He leans over the edge again and yells out "Here I got this!", dropping the gem over into Buffalo waiting with his hands up and cupped. Scaly climbs down, but his strength leaves him at about 20 feet up as he falls backwards onto the ground. The ground had a lot of foliage that broke his fall, but it still didn't feel great. "Owww" he says rubbing his back as he gets up, "There you go" Scaly motions with his hands towards the gem. "Was there anything else up there?" asks Buffalo, but Scaly was already walking away, still holding his lower back, "Guess not" Dolgan says, tapping Buffalo on the shoulder as he walks past, following Scaly. 

The heroes continue the walk north, as they start to get close to the rocky mountains that surround the forest. Once at the base of the cliffs, a small clearing emerges. "This is where Partum is supposed to be" says Dolgan, "Where is he, or his shop or whatever?". "If he ripped us off, I swear.." Buffalo says as the heroes converge in the middle of the clearing, looking around. "Nnnnnrggh" a small creak ripples out, but almost inaudible. Scaly's reptile ears pick it up and he immediately jumps to the left, Ned's quick reactions follow suit as he jumps to the right, Dolgan and Buffalo however were not paying attention while complaining and the forest floor gives out from beneath them. They fall directly down, about 30 feet but their landing is cushioned by something soft and mushy. Dolgan places his hands on the ground and pulls a bunch of mushrooms up, "Well that's lucky" he says looking at Buffalo, "Maybe the trap isn't made to kill..." says Buffalo a little more suspiciously. "Hey!" Dolgan yells, looking up, but neither Ned or Scaly respond.

Up top, Scaly walks towards the edge to check on Dolgan and Buff below. As he gets to the edge, he hears Ned yell "Watch out!" as he once again jumps to the side just as a large wooden club hits the ground in the spot he just was. Ned turns around just in time to see a wood looking creature, with two legs, two arms and a head, but it's where it's hands should have been instead was a shield and club growing out of the wrist. Their weapons were a part of them, literally growing out of their limbs. The creature swings its bat at Ned, but missed as he dodges to the side like Scaly. Both of the wood creatures make another attack with their bats on Ned and Scaly, but this time there were prepared as they both dodge again. Scaly using the small distance between him and the creature yells "Fulmen ignum!" as a firebolt erupts from his hand, shooting towards the creature, but the wooden beast is quick and places his shield in front, smashing the attack to the side as it hits him. Ned on the other side, also manages to get behind the creature so that it was between him and the pit that Dolgan and Buff had fallen into. "Aaarrggh" Ned runs at the creature barehanded attempting to push him into the pit, but the monster was faster than he was and dodges at the last second, as Ned crashes forward, falling downwards into the pit alongside his friends. 

Dolgan and Buffalo, during this time had been looking up towards the opening of the pit, feeling a little woozy. Staring directly up, suddenly they see a giant gorilla fall over the edge down towards them landing in the mushrooms with them. "Woah, what the fuck!?" yells Dolgan, dodging the gorilla, "There's more!" yells Buffalo as a couple of mage looking humans stare down at them, pull out their wands and shoot fireballs down at them. "Aaargh" yells Buffalo, feeling his feet on fire as the flames lick at his does, seeming exploding as they hit the ground. "What the hell is going ON?!" yells Dolgan, his feet also burning with a gorilla lying next to him rolling around in pain from it's fall.

Up above, Scaly learns a quick lesson from Ned and moves around his creature once more, putting himself between the creature and the pit. The creature runs at him as Scaly smiles, his plan had worked. Scaly quickly moves out of the way, the wood man running too fast, unable to stop as it falls over the edge flying down into the pit. Scaly then turns around to the other wooden soldier, the one that had foiled Ned, and lets loose another firebolt at it, the flaming lightning bolt flying out of his hand, but his attack was made with too much haste as his projectile goes askew, shooting off into the distance. 

Deep down in the pit, Ned gets himself up and smashes barehand into the creature that had fallen in with them, breaking off some of it's bark in the process. Dolgan whips up a small amount of purple smoke into his hand, pushing it forward towards the creature as he says "etiam hominem". The purple smoke cirlces around the head of the creature as it stops moving and attacking completely, almost infatuated by the smoke around his head. Buffalo takes the opportunity to load his bow whilst yelling "SCALY! I'm sending up some rope" as he shoots an arrow directly up with a rope attached to it. The arrow lands on the ground just outside of the pit and Scaly sees it, running over and grabbing it quickly whilst tieing it to a tree. The wood man pulls his arm up to his mouth and blows into a hole just near the edge of his wrist, "Bwwwwwwoooooooorrrrrrnnn" a huge horn echoes out as birds fly out of trees fleeing the area. The wood dreature in the pit looks up for a second as the horn sounds, just long enough for Ned to grab his everburn torch and jab it into it's eye socket, "Blllrrrhgghghghg" the monsters muffled screams burst out as it rips its head back just before Ned makes another jab with the torch, missing. Dolgan smashes down with hsi hammer straight after Ned's torch attack smashing the creature backwards into the wall, bits of wood and flesh flicking off of it as it falls onto it's knees. 

Buffalo watches on, waiting for the rope to become tight. Feeling the rope in his hand, Buffalo gives a couple of tugs to make sure it was safe and goes to start climbing. He grabs the bottom of the rope and starts to make his way up, but before he even gets a foot up he looks at the rope in his hands seeing instead of a rope a long snake with a red head and black body, "Argh!" he yells, letting go and falling backwards onto the floor of the pit. Dolgan takes a breather after his hammer smash and leans against the wall of the pit. He feels something wet on his arm and looks to the right, seeing a large snail, about the side of a teacup crawling along. On top of the snail a large flame on top of what looked like a wick burns, with the flame slowly travelling down the wick towards the snails shell. Dolgan moves the snail onto his other, just as the wick gets to the snails shell and it explodes in his face, hitting himself, Buff, Ned and the wood creatire. At this very moment Buffalo yells "They're back" as him and Scaly look up to the top of the pit once more, seeing more mage's lean over and shoot fireballs down with their wands.

On the surface, Scaly and the wood creature battle it out, blow for blow. The wood creature smashes his club and shield into Scaly multiple times whilst Scaly continues to unleash spell after spell on the creature hitting him with thunder, lightning and fire. 

In the pit, Ned stabs his everburn torch into the face of the wood creature another two times, burning it's eyes out. Buffalo loads an arrow into his bow and aims directly where Ned had been stabbing as he pulls back on the bowstring and releases the arrow. The arrow travels through Dolgan and Ned, almost slowing down time as the heroes dodge around it. The wood creature looks up at the last second, it's eyes burnt out from Ned's torch, it isn't able to see the arrow coming for it. The arrow strikes the creature directly between the eyes travelling through it's head and hitting the wall of the pit behind it, splitting its head in two as it crumples slowly onto the ground, blackened by the fire and splits from the arrow. 

Scaly looks around himself, noticing that while he was fighting more wood creatures had come out, circling him. He was now trapped, encircled by his wooden foes. Scaly thinks fast and slips out of his skin, shedding his old skin for a new one. The creatures around him still thinking he's there, attack the left over of his skin. Scaly had moved so quickly out of his skin that he had left a perfect, still standing statue of himself behind, albeit hollow and transparent. Scaly runs to the edge of the pit and yells down to his friends "Hey! It's starting to get real up here!" but the heroes just look on at him in confusion.

Ned, Dolgan and Buff hear someone yell out "Hey" from the top of the pit. Looking up they see a wobbly looking dragon staring back at them "It's starting to get real up here!" it yells. Buffalo looks at Dolgan, "What the fuck is that?" he says as Dolgan shrugs. Ned walks over to the snake hanging over the edge of the pit and says "Hello", the snake responds "Hiiiiiii". "We uhhh, we need to get out of the pit and you look climbable" Ned says, "All abooooaaard" responds the snake as Ned grabs it behind the head and starts climbing up it, "The snake said it's all good for us to climb it" he yells, way too loud considering how close they were to each other. Dolgan and Buffalo follow and within a few seconds they are all hanging off the the snake. 

Scaly watches the heroes as they start to climb the rope that at this point had been there for a while now and turns around just as a wood creature attempts to shove him off the edge. He rolls to the side, dodging the push, but had forgotten about the rest of the creatures he had left with the skin version of himself. The wood creatures had once again circled him and all of them grouped together to push him off. Scaly can't resist the strength of all of them at once and get's shoved off of the edge, falling past the heroes on the rope as he hit's the ground. "It's okay!" yells Ned, "This lovely snake said we can use it to get out", "Snake?!" says Scaly getting up, "It's a...." his sentence is cut off as all the heroes fall backwards off of the rope. The wood creatures must have cut it. The heroes look up, out of the pit and see a small gnome lean over the edge "Got eeeeeeemmmm" he yells as one more mage pops his head over the edge, shooting another fireball as all of the heroes pass out on the floor of the trap.

The heroes wake up, their eyes blurry, attempting to make out what was in front of them. Buffalo goes to move his hands to rub his eyes, but feels something holding them back. Waking up a little more, he looks at where his hands should be and see's them tied behind his back. He was sitting on some kind of chair, made out of a tree stump. Looking around, he see's Scaly, Dolgan and Ned all waking up too, realising they had been captured. Raissh had been captured too it seems, but for some reason she was tied to a chair to the right of them and was situated between their chairs and a large tree stump that was directly in front of them. On top of the large tree stump was a woman with pale pink skin, she had a hood on with large dark green robes and antlers growing out of her head. In her hand was a gavel, but she seemed incredibly bored, slouching over on her left elbow, fiddling with a quarter staff. The quarter staff was ornate, with small leaves and berries growing from the top of it, it looked expensive. In front of the large stump there were four of the wooden creatures that the heroes had fought earlier. Two on each side of the stump. 

"BANG BANG" the antlered woman bands her gavel on the stump in front of her, "The defendants are awake, court is now in session. We have the pleasure of Iudex (Judge) Cornibus (Antler) presiding over us today" says the sunflower. "Iudex Cornibus" the sunflower looks at the judge, "We may start". "Does Con Clavi know what they have been charged with?" asks the judge, "No!" the heroes answers unanimously. The flower unrolls the scroll he was reading before, "You have been charged with stealing the light of the forest from the wood woads" the sunflower says as he points towards the wooden creatures. "We have on several eye witness accounts, that Buffalo" the sunflower points at Buff without looking up, "Was seen stealing the light of the forest from the protection of the forest guardians". "Doesn't sound like it was that well protected then" says Ned under his breath, "What?" asks the sunflower looking up whilst adjusting his glasses, Buffalo kicks Ned softly, "Nothing" says Ned. Buffalo leans over to Raissh, who was about 10 feet away and talks softly "Who is this Iudex person?", "She's an archfey, she's important...and powerful. The fact that she's here means this is a big deal".

A dryad comes out of a tree trunk just near Raissh, the wood melting off of her body as she exits it. The woman was quite orange in colour, it looked misfitting in the forest. She had a blade extending out of her arm, similar to the wood woads shields, it was a part of her. "Ahh here is our first witness" says the flower. "Amin essa naa arancia legna, ar' amin fought sina group en' monsters ale' ron defiled i' cemetery coron.  Ron nae il- y' match faarea ten' amin, nan' ron managed usin" the dryad says. "The forest thanks you" says the sunflower, "ar' lle" says the dryad. Raissh looks at the group and says "She said, My name is Arancia Legna, and I fought this group of monsters after they defiled the cemetery mound. They were not a match enough for me, but they managed to escape". "Pfft" says Ned, shaking his head. "We left because we didn't want to hurt her too much" he says loudly muttering, enough that everyone could hear. "What is the light of the forest?" asks Buffalo, "I know we're...I am, being accused of stealing it, but I don't actually know what it is", the sunflower scoffs in disbelief as the judge pipes up, "It IS the light that lights our forest, it keeps away the darkness. It looks like a wicker weaved arm extension that holds a ball of light at the end of it". "Isn't that something we're looking for?" says Buffalo to the group in a whisper, "I'm pretty sure that's one of the parts of Aldrich that we're supposed to be looking for". "I think so too" says Dolgan. "Madam, when was the light of the forest stolen?", the sunflower answers "About two weeks ago". "Well, we weren't in the forest or even the material plane two weeks ago, in fact we only arrive here a few days ago. We have been in the Shadowfell", a low rumble of muttering and disapproval sounds from the audience of the court, "Disgusting", "Vile", "Abominations" the heroes hear over the top of the low conversations. "Do you have any witnesses that can prove you were in the Shadowfell?" the sunflower asks, "Yes we do, we have a bag that leads to Velsharoon, one of the deities of the Shadowfell that can vouch for us" says Buffalo. "A being of the Shadowfell, holds no weight here" answers the judge. "The satyr! the satyr's house that we came out of when we exited the Shadowfell! He saw us come out and had a bag to the Feywild too, his house disappeared after we left, but if you know him he saw us come out!" Buffalo expresses excitedly. "What was the Satyr's name?" asks the judge, "His name was...his name is..." Buffalo says, then looking towards Raissh and the rest of his group, "Oh no, did we ever get his name?", "I don't think we did" says Dolgan with Raissh shaking her head over by the side, "Shit!" says Buffalo. "So you're saying that a nameless Satyr saw you come out of a bag in his house, which was next to a bag that led to the Feywild and when you left the house disappeared leaving only a doorway in the middle of the forest behind?" says the sunflower, peering over his half moon glasses. "It sounds crazy when you say it like that, but yeah...essentially" responds Buffalo.

A wood woad from in front of the judge walks forward and starts talking in the language that Raissh spoke, "I' er yassen i' kawa stole i' me'a en' i' taure tuulo' ta rightful yamen'.  Amin nae no' tira tanya night.  Ro kole y' rucksack yassen ho.  Ro tul e ar' quene yassen lye, usien i' lammen en' i' taure.  Lye don't sinta mani marte ale' tanya.  Ta nae vee' manka coiasira waane nan' lye weren't part en' ta.  I' ento nowa lye sinte, ro had wanwa". The Iudex nods, "mmmm" she says yet still somehow looking bored. Buffalo looks to his right at Raissh, "He's blaming you for stealing the light" she says, he said "The one with the bow stole the light of the forest from its rightful place. I was on guard that night. He carried a rucksack with him. He came and spoke with us, using the language of the forest. We don't know what happened after that. It was as if time passed but we weren't part of it. The next think we knew, he had gone". "That wasn't me!" says Buffalo, "I know that..." responds Raissh, "I've been with you the entire time, I know you didn't do it, but the Wood Woads are literally the guardians of the forest, their word holds a lot of weight here". "I don't know what to do" says Raissh, as the bush behind the heroes on the left starts rustling. The entire court heard it too and everyone looks over to the bush. The shrub rustles a little more and a little vegepygmy pops out, "Sssgush!" yells out Scaly, "Hello Con Clavi!" says the vegepygmy as about 6-7 more vegepygmies pop out from the bush. "We are here to provide character reference for the group of heroes, Con Clavi, to the living forest court" says Sssgush with his chest up high. "Yeeeeaaaah" yells Buffalo, but not before on his right another bush starts rustling, "More of you?" he asks towards Sssgush, "No, all of us are over here" he responds. Out of the bush jumps a small wickerman, "Elder Genere!", another wickerman pops out, "Elder Arbor!" Scaly yells. "The elders of the wickerman village and our family are also here, to provide character reference for the group of adventurers, Con Clavi". Raissh looks over to Buffalo with a giant smile on her face.

"The heroes, Con Clavi, have promised themselves with a band of oath to protect this forest from the blights by going to the Feywild to destroy the Gulthias tree" says Sssgush. "This group of adventurers fought blights and came to us for help with weapons and wicker built materials" says Elder Arbor, "They haven't harmed the forest at all and we are happy to put the power of the Wickermen behind them". "And the vegepygmy's too!" says Sssgush. "They can prove themselves right now" says the Iudex, pointing lazily over their heads as they turn around and see two gigantic blight beasts walking towards them.

The chairs that they were sitting in reduce back into the ground, turning back into vines at their feet. The heroes get themselves up and turn around to face the monsters head on. Their weapons appear out of the ground as if they had been buried right in front of them and rise up to their hands via small mounds of dirt in front of them.

Dolgan grabs his amulet yelling "Custos Spirituum" as a bunch of white light orbs start flaoting around him, he begins to walk forward to the blights. Buffalo grabs his bow from the mound and shoots an arrow into the centre of the blight. Scaly points his finger at the two monsters the ground beneath them lighting up in flames, burning both of them. Ned runs up to the monster on the right and jumps on top of it's shoulders grabbing it by it's head and ripping upwards, pulling branches and leaves removing it's head. As soon as it's head comes off vines burst out of it's neck. The vines grab Ned holding onto him and turning him horizontal on top of the shoulders of the monster. Dolgan runs up to the other monster, his hammers gleaming with green light flickering up and down the shaft and up to the hammer head. Swinging upwards, the hammer hits the blight beast, the green light travelling throughout it's body as the vines turn black. 

Buffalo pulls out an arrow with an exploding potion attached, made from when the heroes encountered Granny Moon in the Electric Forest in the Shadowfell. Taking steady aim on one knee, he shoots the arrow at the blight beast without Ned attached to it's shoulders. The arrow flies directly into the centre of the blight beast, stopping for a second or two before exploding outwards. Vines, branches and leaves blast out of the beast, showering the heroes with debris. The monster, still alive, walks towards Dolgan and smashes down with it's arm branches. Dolgan feels the brunt of the branches strike his chest, knocking the wind and wounding him. Buffalo shoots another arrow, cleverly using one of his rope cutting arrows. He fires it at the beast holding onto Ned, the rope just missing Ned's wrists and cutting the vines free of his right wrist. Ned in a split second reaches into his bag grabbing his everburn torch and slamming it down into it's neckhole. The monster shudders below him, crumbling into a mess of vines and branches as Ned gets himself up, brushing himself off. Dolgan, focusing his aim on the other monster that previously attacked him, runs, dragging his hammer behind him, leaping into the air and smashing downwards from it's head. Dolgan's hammer connects with a sickening sound, squashing the head into the neck. The hammer head continues downwards, breaking through the chest and legs, turning the monsters vines and branches into a liquid mess on the ground, ending it's life.

"Well that was great to watch!" yells out the archfey, more excited than they had ever previously seen. She slams the gavel down on the wooden stump and proclaims loudly "The Living Forest Court hereby gives Con Clavi a chance today", looking from her stump at the heroes, "Find the thing that stole the light of the forest if it was indeed not you and bring it to the forest court so that justice can be served. Do this and consider yourself free".