^

Party members: Fiver Deekins, BCS (short for Blood Curdling Scream), Tingork, Joule, Cade, Zoren

Leader: Fiver Deekins

Scout: Cade

Trailblazer: Tingork

Day 1:

We set off from the town of Ruined Oak to investigate a trail of black smoke coming from in the distance. We travelled up north on a recently constructed road on the island of Katashaka.

Several fires were burning down wooden houses. Even as a cleric that serves light, seeing uncontrolled fire was distressing. Tingork and Cade mentioned that they had been before when the roads were getting built.

We entered a keep that was not on fire. Fiver inquired about checking for traps, but noone in the party was proficient at that. Suddenly, strange sounds came from inside, and zombie-like creatures appeared before us. They favored shooting magic missiles at us, which was strange considering it was arcane magic that I didn’t expect for undead to have.

  • Tingork shot things from afar.
  • BCS shot rays of frost.
  • Cade shot eldritch blasts, accidentally hitting himself once. He fired a witch bolt too.
  • Cade also had a familiar named Patrick Star.
  • Joule changed things up and hacked away with her glaive.
  • Fiver shot eldritch blasts too.
  • I used sacred flame and my Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn. Patrick saw this and used a radiant attack himself. That was new.

A few of them disappeared out of sight and then reappeared back again. Perhaps through magical means? The walls of the keep provided cover for them, which was a nuisance.

Fiver ended up overextending herself and became very tired. The sunlight didn’t help either. She later ended up accidentally throwing her spellcasting focus in front of the monster and damage her armor at the same time! It was impressive how both of those things happened at the same time. I learned from this experience that eldritch blasts are not that reliable for offensive spells.

The skeleton creatures disappeared from one spot and then reappeared in another spot, which made them a nuisance to fight. They were eventually disposed of through getting prepared for their habits of reappearing. After a short rest in the keep when Fiver fixed his armor, we continued looking around the keep. There were bloodstained handprints in one room and looked as if someone was dragged away forcefully…

BCS gestured at me to come over to help bury the corpse of a body. Next to it was a child’s drawing of a warrior and a note reading,

“I love you, mommy.”

It seems the child was not able to deliver the drawing before his or her demise. I gave a short prayer in the name of Lathander after the burial.

Tingork found ogre tracks leading away from the keep. We tried to stealthily follow the tracks to find the ogres.

Not much happened during my watch. Cade mentioned seeing a pack of beasts moving northwest as well.

Day 2:

I noticed that Fiver had pine cones on him. I wonder where those came from.

We followed the ogre tracks northwest and passed by a lake. A wolf ran off carrying a hand in its mouth.

On a snowy field, several unidentified creatures came dashing at us. Several of us tried retreating, but we ended up fighting. As I expected. Fiver cast a spell that engulfed two of them in murky darkness with terrible, twisting tendrils. It was helpful except for the fact that our allies could not hit the targets inside very well also. The creatures had sharp appendages on their upper bodies like scythes.

Burrowed underground with their upper limbs.

Another one burst out from the ground in front of Fiver! They used their scythe like limbs to burrow underground and emerge for ambushes. I got to use my Channel Divinity again, and things looked well until Joule got as tired as Fiver did the other day.

One of them burrowed away.

Sometimes I’m annoyed by how slow my spiritual weapon is, even if it is useful…

Fiver mentioned they were called slivers. Tingork mentioned they were going northwest as well.

Slivers. Looked like aberrations.

An ogre was eating a humanoid body. Due to the fatigue of Fiver and Joule, we retreated.

During the night, we were attacked by a shadowy wraith! It sucked some life out of Fiver. I tried using as much radiance as I could. It was a tough battle, and before we could finish it off it fled. Fiver looked sickly. I tried casting lesser restoration, but it didn’t do a lot of good. I saw a creature make noise and come close but ran off before I could see what it was.

Day 3:

Fiver looked a lot better in the morning.

An odd pole 3 feet tall with a feather on it was stuck on the ground. My intuition told me not to distub it, but BCS took it with him. The rest of us kept our distance in fear of getting cursed.

Tingork saw tracks of beasts heading to the east of town.

We pushed our limits and returned to Ruined Oak in the night, weary but otherwise fine. Other members of the party wondered if the pole was cursed, but I wasn’t too worried as BCS seemed alright. It’s hard to tell with kenku like BCS or Plink usually. The others pestered me about casting Augury, but I didn’t have the necessary material components, so it was not possible. Detect Magic didn’t find anything magical on the pole, so I personally concluded it should be fine. For now.