We started, still at Blintzsky’s, trying to get a long rest before continuing. But first, there were a few more things to investigate. Lady Petrina asked about any high-quality inks that might be for purchase. I.e. for magic scroll and spell book copying. Turns out, he did have some because the monkey created that scroll spell book, we found last time. Brian rolled randomly and got, I think, 26 levels worth. Lady P was given the leftover mitral and palatium pieces off the party sheet and Loki gave her 3 platinum from his sheet to cover the costs. She also picked up a bag of dice that she intended to use for her new Animate Objects spell. Kharn asked about the line of dolls that looked remarkably like him. He was told that they were commissioned by a guard in Valaki who claimed to be missing his little brother. So evidently, not only does Kharn have a twin sister but a brother as well. We folded up the portable boat and took that long rest.
In the morning, we sailed to the shore closest to the Tree of Life encountered last time. With a good Survival roll from Kharn, we found it without much trouble. (Brian had bolstered this encounter so it was laid out a bit differently.) We saw the original tree, 4 more and one dead one in sort of an H pattern. Each had a Fey lantern hanging in its branches. Loki cast his Speak with Plants spell. Only the biggest spoke into his mind, all be it slowly. Loki offered to help it and ask for help against the Vampire. When asked why, he said that she was throwing off the natural balance and name-dropped Laura Stoneheart’s name (the druid god we recently rescued) for good measure. He was shown a ritual in which the heart of a creature (i.e. a raccoon) could be harvested and combined with an acorn to create another Guardian Tree. Presumably to replace the one that was dead? He turned that offer down. Meanwhile Lady P examined the lanterns. They were emitting tons of life energy but were pointing in random directions. She thought if they were focused, they might be able to turn her into a live person. Or, we thought, revive the dead tree. So, we started talking about how to do that. The tree stopped talking by that point.
However, then player paranoia started kicking in. (And in this place where everything is out to kill us, paranoia just makes good sense.) The Paladin could detect some vague evil. Loki rolled a good Insight and could sense the tree was holding something back. But isn’t everyone? What if the dead tree was an evil tree? The Baron was in favor of walking away and was Ambrus. However, the consensus was to try it and see what happens. What’s the point of playing if you don’t do stuff? And, of course, it all went bad. Once the first lantern was redirected, Wood Woads emerged from each tree. Patrina tried to explain to them in Sylvan that we were trying to help them but they did not appear to care. Once Kharn raged and attacked, we were in combat mode. The WW were tough. The Baron hit one with an upcasted Blight which did max damage against a plant and it was only wounded. Good AC, attack, damage, two attacks, various resistances and they regenerated 10 a round to boot. But we do a lot of damage and after a couple rounds, there was only one left.
And then things got worse. Evidently, the lanterns were part of a mystic seal that was holding a 20-foot-high Night Terror demon thing. (No good deed goes unpunished.) It had a damage field that extended 30 feet which was tough on our hand-to-hand heavy group. It did lots of damage and had tons of hit points. Its AC was low though. Ezra did a ton of damage with a smite crit. For his efforts, the demon knocked him out, the next round. This was particularly dicey since he was in the damage field and would automatically miss a death save each round. Nobody could really help him but damage kept pouring into it. Luckily, it didn’t have any legendary actions so it didn’t go very often. But its damage was adding up, plus we started hurt from the first fight. But then the Baron hit it with a Banishing Strike and it popped out. Since nothing can get out of this place, it could not return to its native plane. So, one minute later, it would return. In that minute, we gave Ezra a berry, he did Lay on Hands and Patrina cast some Cure Wounds. People positioned themselves with various advantages and we waited. But when it came back, it didn’t last the round. It was reduced to a burned-out heart. An Arcana roll concluded it could not be destroyed in this plane so we put it in a jar and stuffed it in the portable hole. (Dan: Brian later told us that he had intended to have the encounter either way. That was why he made all the clues so vague and conflicting)
We took a short rest and got back onto the boat. We returned to the Vastani camp and took a long rest there. We debated going into Valaki. Some wanted to overthrow the pro-vampire government that so ruthlessly took over recently but we didn’t know what we’d replace it with. It seemed a tall order. There were also various loose ends including Kharn’s brother. But most of us were wanted and it just didn’t seem worth the hassle. Plus, with the inks we got a Blintzsky’s our most pressing need wasn’t needed any more. So, we decided to move on to the site of Mord’s fight to recover his Staff of Power. One night, the first watch was visited by a reporter who went by “S”. Most assumed he was Stradanya, come to mess with us again. Kharn Intimidated him and he ran off into the night. The next watch, a Gaston like oaf showed up with the body of “S”. It was harder to get rid of him. Eventually, Kaldain convinced him that he needed to be out in the night, saving damsels and he left. The last watch missed the wolf watching us from a far. We then got to the bridge where 4 vampire spawn(?) awaited us. A couple of them, we fought in Valaki. That was the fight where collateral damage burned down some buildings and put us on the wanted list. Anyway, one said that “she” wanted to talk to one of us. We assumed Standayna and Kharn but we stopped there.
