The urge to cause chaos returning, I set off with a small group of five on a fun adventure. I was the dictator leader, these people formed my party:
- Timmy the cat, professional scout serving as a survivalist.
- Oogway the young monk, professional ass-kicker serving as watcher
- Dimble the chill gnome, sorcerer, puts people to sleep and freezes them
- Wolfgang the cleric, healer of the good, slayer of the evil
- Snipper the wonderful gnome, savior of the people, prophet of all the gods, greatest archmage to live, ruler of the whole world and soon to be most powerful humanoid ever.
We set off with no plans and no ideas. All we had was a direction, we wished to explore down south. It was a sunny morning but the distant clouds revealed the oncoming storm.
During the first half of the day I was by far the craziest thing in sight. Nothing fun or significant… Oh wait, there was a really round rock with the words: “To my beloved Ellenore” carved into it, written in elvish. Managed to resist the urge to play king of the hill on it though.
More South-er
The day dragged on, the boredom of travel making my favorite sentence resurface: “Are we there yet?” but ‘there’ was vague, we knew not where we would end up.
As I was recalling my troubled past as an only child, without a father, with only a very sick mother by my side, we spotted an old house. Being adventurers and generally annoying people, we wished to explore this place. The sun was slowly setting so we decided we would follow the road, find a resting place and go to this house in the morning.
Then suddenly, a cry for help pierced the silence. Being a natural hero, I pushed past the party and bolted to the rescue of whomever might be calling. As a largely superior being I was able to see from miles away, that a man was being chased by four vine like creatures. Combat instantly began, I would’ve won the fight in an instant but Angry and Sweetie were arguing in my head. I had to step back.
Quickly enough, we had knocked the tree like people out and were healing the man. Sadly Snapper died… I burned the wood thingies, trying to make myself feel better but they smelled like flesh. It was nasty. At least the fire reminded me of my brother…
The man introduced himself as Nicolas, a local author. He wanted to reward us and so he held out a beautiful necklace. It was super shiny, encrusted with a nice gem in the middle. I snatched it up in awe. A fine reward for a great hero like me. I carefully lay it in my bag whilst making conversation, not noticing that Timmy managed to steal something out of the man’s backpack.
We made our way to a local tavern and found safe food and rest.
Ambush
I woke up early and waited for the assembly of the party in the common room. I sat for a few hours and soon enough, everyone was awake. Everyone but Timmy who was lazing around as all cats do. I wanted to wake him up with a bang and pull one of my pranks but he heard me and sprung to action..
We made our way off the road towards the house. After a few hours of travel at about mid morning I noticed that my backpack was glowing. I slowed to inspect it and out of the bag sprung two vine like creatures. The same kind of creatures as the ones who were attacking Nicolas. At the same time, two thugs jumped out from the bushes.
I teleported out of their reach but the vine creatures seemed to be attracted to me. Things escalated and sure enough, we soon broke into battle. The vines were easy to ‘dispose’ of and Timmy killed one of the thugs. The other thug was furious and was trying to hunt him down but he is a nimble and sneaky little guy.
Sidenote: I had a cut on my finger but the baddies never managed to hit me…
The situation under control, we had some questions.
The Scientific Method
Being a genius and all, I used an elaborate process to help find answers.
Question: Why the fuck was my bag glowing and where the fuck did these vine creatures come from? Also why was I cut?
Background Research: Seeing as I invented this I totally know what to put here… Umm well Nicolas was being attacked by these creatures and our only link to him is the necklace. Does that count as research?
Hypothesis: The thugs have nothing to do, they are a pure coincidence. But I theorize that the Necklace I was given is cursed and that after a certain amount of time it summons these evil vine creatures.
Experiment part 1: Wolfgang cast detect magic on it, it was very magical. I also threw rocks at it from afar, nothing happened.
We didn’t have enough information to know what happened so we decided to venture to the house and make a decision from there. We knew though that the necklace was most definitely a source of problem though, so for the moment the big guys were to handle it.
A Regular ol Shack
We went to the house and discovered an old smashed up shack, swallowed by the swamp. Part of the roof had caved in and it looked horrible. We exercised caution and tried to be regular annoying adventurers but there really was nothing to this place.. Just a boring, old, normal cottage. A storm looming up ahead, we decided it was pointless to stay.
Someone left the cat out in the rain
We began stumbling about northwards after a short rest. We had no clear plan but joining the road was our best idea. Wolfgang tried to form a bond to the necklace but it ‘rejected’ him (I think he also hears voices hihi!).
The travel was extremely unpleasant seeing as it was storming on us. We were drenched and cold when we got to the road. The clouds blocked all sunlight but we knew that it must be sunset and we needed to set camp before night. Timmy was a little grumpy and distracted, he couldn’t find a nice spot for our rest. We pushed on even further to look for a place to sleep. The cat was exhausted and in the end we had to settle for a small spot next to the road.
During my watch, I tried attuning to the necklace as had Wolfgang. I saw fog surrounding my friends. Getting thicker and thicker until I was alone. I was drawn to the core and then I felt a sense of rejection.
A Swarm and a Decision
Now that we were well rested and on the road, we decided to move back South to where we encountered Nicolas. I felt more comfortable with the necklace after holding it all night so I carried it once more.
Mid morning once again a deep gash on my finger and suddenly 4 vine creatures appear out of my bag, surrounding me. I misty stepped out of there but they followed me and I ended up getting hit pretty hard. The second I got slapped 6 more vine creatures were summoned. I was totally surrounded, I couldn’t see my party. In an attempt to make myself harder to hit I cast blur. It worked extremely well, I wasn’t hit for the rest of the encounter!
As I dodged and weaved, all I saw was sudden flashes of blades as Oogway spun in a flurry of death, shards of ice exploding on the creatures, and arrows raining down. My party saved my life. They killed all these creatures, I was helpless…
After this tense encounter, we decided we needed to figure out what the hell this necklace was and how to get rid of it, or master it. Easiest solution, going back to WMC to get it Identified.
White Moon Cove
On the outer limits of the town we encountered a burnt corpse that turned to dust on contact. For some explainable reason my party accused me. It wasn’t me though, I don’t burn my own kind… Unless I had another episode oh god…
Experiment part 2: We went to this creepy old man that identified magic objects for quite a fee. We ended up giving him 4 gems that we had acquired on the adventure. He didn’t see any magical effects yet Wolfgang detected magic, telltale signs of a curse.
Conclusion: There is a definite curse on this piece of jewelry that summons vine creatures most likely in the morning and summons even more of them when the wearer gets injured.
Timmy the Thief
Now begins a debate on what we should do with this cursed thing. Give it away to someone? Illegal and definitely evil. If we keep it we put the village at risk of invasion. We need to get rid of it but how? We can’t just ditch it, the vine creatures were able to follow me in battle, they will find me again.
Then, Timmy revealed that he robbed the man. He got a book and as we opened it, we saw it was his diary. It spoke of this necklace and the monsters. He wished to give it to the next fool who crossed his path… That son of a bitch, I wanted to scorch him so bad. But it also spoke of a cave to the N-W, the cave where this necklace was found. We knew where we had to go to dispose of this thing. It was time.
Wearing It
I don’t know why but I decided to put on the necklace. It was so powerful, I just wanted to wield it. I shook as I clasped it around my neck, but nothing happened. Very anticlimactic.
I decided to remove it, I tugged and tugged but it was stuck around my throat. I couldn’t remove the cursed object from the most vulnerable part of my body and pulling only made it tighter…
I pretended to be getting strangled, running in circles and lying prone (playing dead). It was quite the little prank.
Then it began glowing and cut me up, summoning a few but we murdered them with ease.
The Travel to the Cave
We finished our rest in WMC and journeyed along the road. As per usual, mid morning summoned the baddies. We killed them and confirmed our conclusion.
I realized it began glowing when I faced the cave. I basically had a compass strapped to my chest, pretty useful. We arrived at the wide mouthed cave but decided to rest before entry. We had been travelling all day so sleep was essential.
The night was uneventful but during my watch I had a vision. I saw the fog again, and as I focused on the core I saw an old man. He told me he was the creator and that if I didn’t put the necklace back on the pedestal within the next day, it would get worst.
Kicking the Door Open
We walked in and scouted with my newly revived Snapper. It was just your average cave with double doors at the end of a hallway (?). We got to the doors, unlocked them and kicked em in. Everyone barged in to the throne room-esque space.
We woke up the old man from my vision with a startle. I was surprised that vision was real but had to focus on the task at hand. We argued a little because he called me a thief but there was nothing I could do about it. He told me the necklace was just protecting itself and blablabla. Eventually he slapped me and took the necklace off, revealing that I had to be hurt for it to be removable.
Results: Our hypothesis lacked information but was generally correct. Every early morning the necklace summons vine creatures. If the wearer of the necklace is hurt more creatures are summoned. This is indeed a curse that apparently protects the necklace.
The journey back was quite uneventful, as I digested this weird ass encounter. On the way into town I saw a pale ghost like figure watching me. Apparently Graela had been following us. We clearly have some unfinished business, but that is an adventure for another day!