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Tl;dr: Adventurers from Ruined Oak escort a road building crew to the Frozen Forest by the ZHT portal and barely survive to return to tell the tale.

Future Adventure Notes:
•The outpost at the ZHT portal is destroyed and needs to be rebuilt
•There are ruins to the northeast of the ZHT portal that are unexplored by AFK adventurers.
•Inside those ruins was a book, History of Ellabron, which contained an ancient map of some AFK territory.

Session Title : A Road too far and a bridge too soon
Session DM: Geokhan
Session Date: 21 Jun 2022 @ 23:00 UTC
Session Risk: 6+

Characters:
•Aneksi (Paladin 2/Sorcerer 2 / Warlock 2) (played by SlyOkami)
•Barley (Druid 6) (played by Tootired78)
•Cavendish (Fighter 7/ Warlock 1) with Gamma the mount (played by Troy)
•Glanfath (Barbarian 9) (played by Mal)
•Olivia (Rogue 6/Wizard 1) (played by Seph)
•Vivi (Sorcerer 7) (played by Konopa)

Out of a sense of responsibility towards the AFK I agreed to join a group guarding a crew or road workers as they worked to scar the land. Nature will heal it eventually. We began in Ruined Oak, with workers much more seasoned than I recall. They were well organized. We went through the LAS portal through to the ZHT portal.

The outpost there has fallen into ruins since the attack that slaughtered everyone. In such a unhospitable climate it will require repairs before being usable again. The workers had not been working for long when a commotion started amongst those at the fore. They said something wrong was happening in the ground and expected us to manage this problem.

Having dug through the snow to place the stones for a road, one stone had fresh crimson blood flowing out from underneath, steaming as it touched the snow. This blood was slowly seeping into a sizable area and the workers claimed the land was cursed and it was folly to build road here. They were right in so many ways but it seemed imprudent to tell them that then.

Glanfath and Aneksi entered the bloody area to remove the stone, finding the remains of a small clay vase and getting some form of malaise on them that Aneksi used her divinity to remove. In the shards of the vase was a small idol of some kind, which they smashed, and the blood stopped expanding.

As we rest while the worker continued, Glanfath, curiously, began to grow red hair, which is anomalous to his goliath heritage. The workers finished their work for the day so we set up camp for the night. During the second watch an alarm was sounded.

A man was being chased by some ogres, but there were also gargoyles. bird headed creatures with whips, small devils and a swarm of tiny ice devils. Additionally there was something that made a crystalline web on the snow, that slowed any who got near. We managed to survive this assault. Afterwards we spoke with the chased man.

His name was Scotty Mcgee. He declared himself and explorer and that he had been exploring with his party northwest, then corrected to northeast. The had found some ruins and entered them, thinking to make some easy coin. In the first chamber, a large squarish room, thirty feet by thirty feet, with some stone columns was a large black with silver band on the back wall.

“Stevie One-Eye”, described as having itchy fingers, touched the door, causing it to open. The creatures behind bum-rushed the entire party. “Larry’ sacrificed himself to save Scotty Mcgee as they tried to flee. Scotty ran into the night and saw our campfires and ran towards us with the creatures chasing him.

He then confessed to having taken something from this place. A book. Non-magical in the end, but important some how. Much of the text was missing, including the legend key for the map. I expect many of the AFK will be interested in this map.

Map from “History of Ellabron

Scotty Mcgee knew we had portal stones and declared he would stay with us until we left, as he had no was back otherwise. We let him stay. The night was finished uneventfully and work resumed in the morning.

Glanfath’s hair problem worsened, with coarse red hair covering his entire body, his pupils an eerie yellow and his incisors had elongated. It was clear he needed magical help but none of us were capable of the proper kind. The workers finished their work on the road on a rather peaceful, if freezing day.

We set up camp again and early into the first watch an alarm was sounded again. Spotted close to our camp were several crystalline webs and clicking noises. Through the eyes of an eye I could perceive movement beneath the web, burrowing through the snow. The movement stopped.

Cavendish approached one web, and as she did so we were surrounded on all sides by a large group containing spiders in the crystalline webs, griffons, one rode by a glaive-weilding magic using humanoid who demanded in Elvish that were here to take the book and our blood.

Later a red werewolf came in, jaws elongated as it swallowed Scotty Mcgee whole. Vivi’s mighty magic and the spear tosses of our worker flcok were inestimable to our survival. A late addition to the fight was a flying purplish creature, looking rather alien to our domain. This creature was talking to us in a language none of us knew, possibly Infernal.

It went for Aneksi first, fallen on the ground, and infected her with something, then later, managed to infect Glanfath and Gamma. Those afflicted slowly lost the ability to function, eventually paralyzed for a short amount of time before wearing off. This creature absorbed spell energy to regenerate, and piercing attacks went right through its shifting form.

Eventually Vivi turned Olivia into a giant ape who bashing fists combined with Glanfath’s warhammer managed to take it down. It was clear that between Glanfath’s hair problem and the parasitic infections in Aneksi, Glanfath and Gamma, we needed to return through the portal as soon as possible.

We finished the night and head straight for the portal, inputting the LAS stones we had brought. We got back to Ruined Oak safely, though some workers had died over the two nights. I was told Aneksi, Glanfath and Gamma managed to find some cleric to remove their afflictions, but his name I can not seem to remember.