When the saints went marching in
A deal’s a Deal – 2018 April 5 18:00 UTC
A scroll was found on the Map table in the Axe and Thistle. It marked the Way to a point on the south east of the Briar wall forest. Your mission is to enter the garden and retrieve some of the Golden Fruit.
PC’s: Jax, Colbolt, Ragnar, Blink, Shaun, Wulfgar, Tam
DM: Grumpy
Let me begin this log by mentioning this strange curse I seem to have. Every time I leave the town I run into particularly dangerous creatures whose names all start with D. The hell is up with that? Demons, Dragons, Devils, and a crazy ass amount of dinosaurs. Seriously, it’s like the universe is out to get me. No matter, for my lady watches over me and I walk under her wing with the power of the Solar Viryn at hand.
On to other matters. Might be a joint log, there was a mission I never got around to writing about. I went with some others to see what was north of the Neathy Woods. The answer to this incredibly interesting inquiry is death. Death lies north of the Neathy Woods. Some sorta witch queen up in a fortress built into the ribs of a monstrously big dragon, creepy ass old ladies pretending to be elves, rhinos that can track people for miles, and a hostile hobgoblin clan that can all use magic from the look of it. Won’t be goin back there too soon.
A slightly deranged lizardman who went with us died trying to ride one of those rhinos, his name was Rak. I said a prayer for him and this elf, possibly named Silvana, that was the origin of the creepy woman’s glamour. We also passed by some bones hanging from a tree with some sort of warning, we buried those and I performed last rites for them as well. Heck, that weird ass woman also killed Ted, a pugilist I’d fought alongside before, but luckily we were able to bring him back to life. She had grabbed him into a hug and squeezed him to death. Pretty gruesome.
That was that mission though, this mission was something else entirely. Most reading this around when it will be posted should know about Ragnar’s signing of a contract with the devil Salazan. Well, said devil sent WMC a note requesting a golden apple from a garden just to the south of the Briarwall forest. A strong desire among the adventurers in town to be free of this devil led to the formation of an incredibly divine party. The paladin Ragnar, aforementioned signer of the contract; the monk Blink, who is also a cleric; Jax, a cleric who wields lightning as a personal weapon; Colbolt, wielder of H.A.M.M.E.R which was forged by a cleric named Kamino; Captain Shaun, another cleric who seems a little lost on land; and myself, Cleric to her holiness the Raven Queen, chosen of the Solar Viryn. I feel like this group should be called THESAINTS, maybe we’ll challenge some Giants.
We set out and ventured north, didn’t get as far as the Blood-Eye Clan this time. Instead, we ventured west and were promptly attacked by giant flying lizardy things. Probably more of Isaac’s ‘Dinosaurs’. They nearly killed Blink but with so much healing magic available he was able to get back up and continue the good fight. From there we moved on to find the garden, we got close to the forest but couldn’t see it until we rested in its area. Under the light of the full moon a massive stone wall appeared, hundreds of feet high, and had a massive gate of flowing silver. We had a bit of a hiccup in the diplomatic route as Wulfgar failed to convey our peaceful intent but Blink took over and got us in the door. From there we were led by some the guards into the Garden, inside of which lived many beautiful fey; pixies, elven women, weird bug guys that looked really cool (those were the guards), OH and the Satyrs. Just getting to them. So the guards took us to this grove to meet the garden’s council, along the way we passed the tree with the golden fruit in the distance. The creature guarding it was a massive beast of reptilian form with 5 heads (by the time we finished fighting him, he had 8. That’s later though). The council were these four satyrs, goat men with pipes on their necks, pretty cool looking dudes. They talked and moved in unison as we discussed the situation with Salazan, they asked to look at the message he had sent and upon doing so informed us that he’s a lying fuckface (go figure). Turns out the scroll will summon him to retrieve the fruit. It also turns out that the garden was made by the goddess Selune, the lady of silver, and the fruit have a tiny spark of divinity in them that allows those that eat it to stay young for a bit. Salazan probably wants it for something incredibly nefarious since it has that spark in it. Either way, the council let us take Ladon’s trial to see if we could earn the fruit. On a rather interesting note, the area was very strange. Music that sapped our strength and nearly killed some played everywhere and as we moved about the land seemed to stretch and contract depending on where we were going.
Oh gods, that trial, Ladon nearly killed a bunch of us. His scales repelled the physical blows my allies sent toward him and every time we took off one of his heads two more would take its place. We were told before hand that Ladon wouldn’t stay dead so I expected to have to kill him to finish the trial but just after we managed to wound him enough that he might have been close he turned his then 8 heads at us all and commended us for the challenge we gave him. He then shed his scales, allowing them to form into a pile of wealth, curled around the tree again, and grabbed a piece of fruit which he handed to us. We were then rushed out of the garden by the guards as the gate rapidly began to close. Right as we exited I shouted back a farewell with a small prayer to Selune as we stood beneath the light of the half-moon.
From there we made it back to the town and greeted everyone in the tavern with news of our success and the information about the scroll. A few days after I even managed to make it back to King Zix where I also informed him of the news about the fruit and the plans.
-Tam Aloric, son of Nymma Corenthius Derrin Aloric XXV, cleric of her holiness, the Raven Queen, pact bearer of the Solar Viryn