From Demon to Daughter

"So who are you, exactly?" Valdulk asks the elf. 

"Oh," she says, standing straight. "I'm Miss Zimmy, ward of Godo. And this is Godo!" 

The old mage they accidentally killed had run into before nodded, clearly encumbered by his advanced age. 

"Mobile Magic Circle mages?" Draeden asks, standing from his meal with a bit of blood on his mouth. 

"From Mobile Magic Circle Inc!" says Zimmy happily. 

"Great." Valdulk clearly wanted to leave. "Can you take us to the Myzos Wastelands?" 

"Sure thing," she says. She and Godo stand together and open the portal together. Godo struggles on his end, weak and frail. "Keep it together boomer," Draeden whispers as he walks through the portal. Valdulk says nothing and follows through -- and Rhymus, on Trigore, offers Zimmy a pickle as he did with the last elf woman. She politely declines, upon which he throws it in her face. 

They get through as soon as the portal closes. 

The land they see is all swamp, the world covered in a heavy mist. Bogwater makes up every puddle -- mossy, graying trees take root in the sludge. It smells much like their soon-to-be-ready grog.

The mage on the other end of the portal was a Pockling (a short humanoid with red or blue skin, bald, and possessing deer or moose-like antlers) who wore a long green cloak -- long as in it dragged upon the ground for dozens of feet behind him. He smoked a pipe, and after a short confrontation where Valdulk smoked a bit of its contents (and hallucinated strongly), he went running toward the nearby village. The party, with their mission of protecting the village's river from being poisoned, of course needed to follow to ask around for some leads. 

They make it to the village in no time, taking note immediately that mages have installed anti-toxicity lightning poles into each end of the river, effectively purifying water as it passed through the beams. Valdulk made a history check to discover that he knew these were rare and not always effective, but it was all the village could afford.

Trigore plays in the water and startles two children collecting some in a bucket near the purifying poles -- a teenage boy and a little girl. 

"Children," says Valdulk, "We are here to defend your village. Might you tell us what you know of the witch who--" 

Just mentioning the witch made the little girl wince. Her older brother moves in front of her, shielding her from the party. "How should we know to trust you?" 

"Well, we're mage adventurers," says Draeden. "Isn't that enough?" 

He shakes his head. "I don't trust you. Magic is harmful here." 

"No," says Valdulk. He kneels. "Magic can be a dangerous thing..." He put out his hands. 

The little girl watches in awe as he produces a teddy bear for her with Prestidigitation, handing it over. She takes it cautiously. Then, Valdulk smiles, and transforms the bear into beautiful monarch butterflies. Their orange is a color unseen in the muddy greens, grays and browns of the swamp -- and they take flight. 

"But it can also be a wondrous thing." 

The girl is in awe. A smile creeps across her lips. She--

Loki strolls out from behind a wall, startling everyone involved. The boy, who isn't amused, is a victim to his schemes as he kneels down and pulls his lips back into a smile. "Enjoy the illusion, children," Loki jokes. "It's hilarious, isn't it?" 

"Stop it!" said Valdulk. He stomps over to the god, unafraid of his might, and shoos him away. Loki plays along and bounces into another dimension, gone as soon as he had appeared. The children, shaken, makes Valdulk feel as if Loki's mischief has undone his attempt to win their favor. All is somewhat fine, however. A bit angry, the boy protects his sister once more and points to the corner of town with their church. "Ask the priest." 

And so they do. The church follows the Hooded One, the God of Death in the Settaran faith. The priest tells them to look for giant chicken tracks in the swamp, for they will come upon the foul witch who has been antagonizing the village for centuries. 

They go into the swamp and do just that -- pushing past brambles of wet bush arms, twiggy tree branches, and stepping around as many of the deep puddles and bogs as they can. The stench is fetid and thick... the insects hiss and rattle, and fireflies are some of their only sources of light in the thickest of the wood. 

They eventually come to a clearing, flanked by two large trees. Rhymus waits for Trigore to stop being occupied with some mushrooms as Draeden walks into the clearing. 

Valdulk inspects one of the trees... and they attack!

"Whoa!"

Valdulk tries to jump back, but is whapped on the head by the one before him. They've entered combat, and Rhymus and Trigore are ready to fight. 

They make quick work of the threat, bashing them in with flame and blade until they're nothing but ash. The final hit on the tree that attacked Valdulk was by the effort of Draeden, who ran up behind it and said, "Wanna know what this axe is for? It's for chopping down trees!" before hacking it apart. 

Expending but a single spell slot on Valdulk's end and the rest of the party faring fine in the fight, they manage to find their chicken tracks. They follow them through the trees. Valdulk checks if they're an illusion... to which they're not. And they don't take long to find exactly what they're looking for. 

For you see, the tracks come from a large house with two bird-like legs. The witch in question isn't only a random magic user, but a figure of ancient legend. 

Baba Yaga.

"Ah -- so the chicken is an illusion." - Draeden 

"All chickens are an illusion." - Valdulk

They jump down a cliff into another clearing that contains a small pond and a ring of wet trees that flanks the outskirts. 

Yaga isn't initially hostile. They don't attack immediately attack, either. Valdulk tries to sweet talk her with the idea that poisoning the village was a great idea -- and that it was a wonderful bit of magic. There's a problem, though. 

She hadn't done it yet. 

He fails his deception check and she flies into a rage, angry that unfamiliar faces have come to upset her plans. They ready for battle (with Draeden throwing his spears into her house's legs, knocking her off the porch), but Rhymus has other plans. On his turn he busts out a rap, a diss track even -- and lays down some hard disrespect on the old angry witch. 

"Hello bitch witch, let me throw you a pitch -- 

 We'd like to kill you and drop you in a ditch

You think you can just poison a village? 

Without someone coming to stop your pillage?

But what-ho! You dubious, evil, vile hag,

Just throw thing head into the elf's bag,

Think you can defeat us with thine magic -- hah!

You harlot, that notion is tragic!

Use every little spell in your book,

Won't do you any good against our Valdulk, 

Found you by using the best Elven Map, 

He and his ancestor hit the double tap -- 

And ho, don't act so frail, your evil plans will fail!

You can't pierce my mail, so eat mine flail!"

(You bet your ass he earned an inspiration.) 

He used his Inspiring Leader ability as well.

Rhymus rolls advantage to hit, but unfortunately misses on both of his attacks. Baba Yaga (who seems to float inches off the ground) flanks Valdulk and tosses a potion at him. It shatters on impact, coating him in a thick green poison. He takes damage, and will continue to do so on his turn for the foreseeable future. In anger, he casts Chromatic Orb, and launches a blast of ice damage at the evil witch.

They fight on -- Rhymus making a few hits, Valdulk taking some damage, but Draeden jumps into her injured house and loots it, finding a small flask of silvery powder.

Meanwhile, outside, Valdulk says in anger, "I wanted a simple conversation, and you spit in my face." He launches more spells, but misses. They notice that when Baba Yaga moves past them, they're not able to take opportunity attacks for some reason.

Back in the house, Draeden lifts up her bed, and is attacked by a giant spider. It grapples him, but he breaks free. It scampers up the wall beside the window of the house, clicking its huge hairy fangs.

"I call upon my ancestral guardian!"

He appears, and on Draeden's command puts the spider in a headlock. Draeden backs up, sprints, and tackles the spider out the window, landing on top of it with his arm locked firmly around its ugly head.

Valdulk, still harmed from the poison, shatters the cliff that Yaga had fled atop of in the time Draeden was fighting the spider. It crumbles, boulders falling to the field below. Rhymus and Valdulk both take some damage from this, as does Yaga when she lands unevenly on her feet.

"I chromatic orb again," says Enrique, ready to take this enemy down. Valdulk lobs one of lightning damage at the witch, and only realizes his mistake afterward, when she uses the power to heal. He feels like he only confirmed his suspicions, since lighting had been arcing through her hair the whole battle.

Rhymus uses his Loki powers to go invisible and hop behind her. He manages to hit -- but she can still see him the whole time. Valdulk flanks her on the right, and as the two are closing in she lifts a potion above her head and crushes it, the liquid falling upon Valdulk once more and Rhymus for the first time. Rhymus escaped the most of it, getting it only on his shield... but Valdulk now takes double the poison damage per turn.

At the other end of the clearing, Draeden tussles with the spider for only a few more moments before crushing its hairy shell of a head. He stands, and sprints to enter the fight.

But Yaga is almost defeated. She can't take much more, with her lightning arcing in unnatural ways and blood pouring from her hooked nose. With a single chromatic orb of ice, Valdulk fells the villain and they emerge victorious.

With the help of the potions and Rhymus's Paladin magic, they heal up.

But there was a light coming from within the house.

Valdulk and Draeden went to investigate. Above Yaga's bed appears an eight year old girl, wearing the same garments Yaga had. Immediately they could tell that she'd reincarnated. Valdulk, hoping to raise a better person than the Yaga of before, tells her to come with them. Not knowing any better, only with the fleeting memories of where things might be in her walking house, the new Baba Yaga agrees to go with him.

They travel along the road (after Rhymus makes a spectacle of decapitating the old Yaga's corpse, or course) to get back to the village. Her body yielded a few of her poisonous potions and a special tooth necklace that seemed to have been what allowed her to avoid opportunity attacks.

But on the way back, Rhymus decides it's time.

The whole adventure, he had been debating on whether to open it or not. The "it" in question is a letter he's had as long as he could remember. Once upon a time, a witch cursed him to rhyme with every sentence, and he lost a host of memories from between the ages of 19 - 24 as well. He suspects it's from this part of his life that he found said letter, but he didn't know who'd given it to him or when.

He didn't get what he expected.

His letter, which he kept out of line of sight from the others, was written in a runic language he didn't understand... but with it came a host of new memories. A tiefling woman he had spent a lot of time with. She had silky black hair... did they used to love each other?

Draeden takes notice, and attempts to use his ancestral guardian to sneak a peek at the letter. It's not something he can read, however... so the rest of the party doesn't know what it says either.

When they make it back, they deliver Yaga's head to the village priest. A celebration is thrown in the streets, and Valdulk gives his spellbooks to the little girl they met before. Although she can't read, her older brother promises to teach her so that they can learn magic.

And from there, they return to Gallanai.

--

Date Played: October 18th / October 30th, 2019

A Changing Game

Rhymus is the first to awaken. 

He's dazed, confused -- it seemed like he had just fallen asleep and woken up out of the blue. He nudges Valdulk (but first, checks on the grog of course) and can't seem to wake him up. 

That's because Valdulk is within a realm of nothingness, pure black if black had no shape. Like space. 

But in it, he sees the god Ra of Kemet -- not his patron deity Zeus. 

"I've come to inform you that Zeus has withdrawn his powers from you, mortal." 

Valdulk is silent. 

"It isn't personal. I do apologize, but in this tangling of fates I have left you with my underling Anubis. I hope you do find his powers and guidance something you can depend on in your mortal's journey, my son." 

"I accept," said Valdulk. 

Ra dissipates, leaving Anubis. 

"Will your soul hold up to my feather?" - Anubis to Valdulk, his new patron mortal

Initially, Anubis's speech is only the huffing of a jackal -- but in this realm, they can understand one another psychically. "I am judging you," says Anubis. Valdulk accepts, and gains his powers. 

Back in the mortal realm, Valdulk wakes up to Rhymus's insistent nudging. 

But Magress is still asleep. He too ventures into the nothing-realm, seeing Ra. 

"You again," he says, not so happy. 

"You've lost your way, my child," says Ra. He opens a portal to a realm of vast glowing forests, filled with fungi and plants that sprawl into the powerful light of fairy magic. Trees tower into the sky, mushrooms emit light that blows across the sky like pollen, and the sun is gone, yet the time is that of day. Instead there only exists a crescent moon.

"Welcome to the Feywild, my son," he says. 

And together they go through the portal. Magress seems to have accepted his fate. 

In the mortal world, he had simply disappeared. 

Rhymus and Valdulk weren't unhappy about it. "I don't mean to be a bruh," began Rhymus, "but when he got sad he'd question Ra." 

"So who will go with us now?" Valdulk asks Dren von Sven, the elf coordinator of Gallanai's (quite small) branch of the Yggdrasil Corporation. 

"Well," he said, looking over his papers, "there is a patron of Zeus who--" 

The door of the establishment went flying off its hinges, landing on the stairwell across the hall with a crash. Standing in the doorway was an enormous (one could even say barbaric) elf, a dragon tattooed across his bare, muscular chest. Before the dust had even settled he looked upon his new companion, flexed his pecks (making the dragon move) and said, "Hey!" 

"Our new companion is an elf?" Valdulk looked at Sven, who was in quite a bit of shock. "Yes," he replied. "An elf warrior." 

Valdulk and Rhymus didn't quite like elves. Valdulk looks at Sven deadpan and says -- 

"Hey there, what's your name?" says the elf as he pats Valdulk's shoulder. Valdulk cringes from the contact, but gives him his name. 

"Ah. I'm Draeden, but they called me Drags back in the pack."

"I'm not calling you Drags," says Valdulk. Rhymus nods.

"That's okay, Draeden works just fine!" The barbarian was a little too cheerful for these two. 

"Well you seem to have taken Zeus's favor from me," said Valdulk, adding that to the list of reasons not to like this newcomer, "which means you must have traveled down from Lake Persephone. What's your combat experience?" 

"Well, I can swing an axe, and sword," said Draeden, "and on the way here, I froze a goblin's piss."

Silence. "...How?" Valdulk turned away. "By giving him the cold shoulder?"

Draeden looked down. "Ouch..." 

At this point, I realized the dynamic the group was fostering had left out Sven's opinion. I began to say he was looking at Valdulk and Rhymus-- 

"Rhymus is passed out on the floor," says Titus, Rhymus's player. 

Valdulk goes over to Rhymus and kicks him in the face. (He was just pretending to be asleep to avoid talking to the elf). "Your opinion?"

Rhymus stands. "They say that a party less than three is worse than a flea..."

"Very good!" says Draeden. He takes an Yggdrasil pin from Sven. ("Where will you pin it?" I ask).

He pins it into his chest. A trickle of blood slides down his peck, dripping onto the ground.

"You three are insane!" Sven says, shaking his head. He runs up the stairs and locks himself in the top floor. "Leave me be! You can carry on your mission without further assistance!"

"We can't, though," says Valdulk. "We need to know where to find Mobile Magic Circle mages to head to Myzos. He gave it some thought, and when they knocked on the door to ask Sven to let them in (and he wouldn't), Valdulk's player asked, "Can I cast Shatter to destroy the building?"

"No!" said Titus. "You'll destroy the grog!"

"Then we just need to break down this door!" said Draedan.

"Wait," said Valdulk. "He doesn't seem very cooperative right now. We need to make sure he'll do what we want."

So Rhymus rides Trigore up the stairs and has the goat bash its head against the door. Sven quiets, and starts to whimper in fear when the beast continues. Eventually they bust down the door and find Sven cowering in the corner. They approach him, with Valdulk kneeling by his side and running his fingers through his hair. "There there, Sven..."

The man shakes.

Rhymus sits atop Trigore, the two of them staring down Sven head-on.

The man shakes some more.

Draeden kneels on his other side, huge manly pecks in his face. "Listen," he says kindly. "We need you to tell us where we can find Magic Circle mages in the city."

"We also need you to draw a map of our destination," says 

Sven shakily withdraws a sheet of paper and tries to hand it to them.

"No, we want you to put it somewhere we can see it," said Valdulk. He points to Draeden. "Draw it on his chest."

"I... I don't have a q-qui--"

Rhymus hands him one. Trigore looks to the side and stares Sven down with one big, goaty eye.

Sven carefully draws a map of Ocrea on Draeden's chest.

"Write down the enemies we may encounter too!" shouts Valdulk, frightening Sven even more. "We want to be prepared!"

Sven looks down at his paper, tears in his eyes and whining from the fright, to position his pen away from the map and write - B I G   S P I D E R - on Draeden's chest. When he's done, Draeden says, "Now point to where our location is on the map."

He points to the Myzos wastelands, large dry mountains that enclose a fetid bog/swamp marshland.

Draeden pulls out his pin and stabs it there.

"Thanks, my good man," they said, and were on their way. Sven ran past them and sprinted out the (doorless) entrance, screaming as Lamerie came home from having gone to the markets. She gives them each a health potion and wishes them luck, promising to watch the grog.

On their list they see three possible Magic Circle mages: Senior Harlopps, Miss Zimmy, and Godo. They first try Harlopps, and see he's not where he should be -- so they trek to the other end of the city where Godo seems to be. They pass an alley by the exit of the city, when suddenly they hear a tiny, quiet voice.

"Draeden. Draeden, come here." 

Confused, the party stops. The tiny voice whispers again, and they follow it to the alley, where a tiny piglet is waiting in the shadows.

"Come closer," says the piglet.

Draeden gets closer and tries to talk to the pig, but suddenly it roars and grows three times in size, its gaping maw filled with teeth like a shark. It lunges at him.

Draeden backs up and calls upon his ancestral guardian.

(Draeden not pictured)

With no effort at all, the barbarians cleave down on the monster, splitting it in half. It falls in two pieces.

The others try to block this sight, as it had happened on a decently busy city street. Draeden bends down to pick up a strange, green object inside the pig monster's body. He retrieves it, and (quite hungry, I might add), begins eating the pig body to hide the evidence.

But someone did see -- a young elf woman with curly brown hair and a flowing red cape, and the man behind her. An old man, wearing purple with stars and long of beard. "Was that a whisper pig?" the elf woman asks, interested.

"A wha-?" Dreidan tries to chew faster.

"A whisper pig," she says. "It's a kind of beast that whispers to catch prey, and grows in size when it makes the kill. You can find whisper bezoars inside them, that's a potion ingredient!"

"She's just Hermione bro," Enrique whispers

"Uh," says Valdulk, unhappy that he's had to talk to so many elves. "Nice to know."

--

Who are these mysterious mages? What happens next? Find out next time!

TO BE CONTINUED...

--

Date Played: October 18th, 2019