An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary
With one portal to the dark frontiers of the feywild destroyed before it was completed, the heroes allowed themselves several hours of rest before gathering their allies to shut down the already active one. They knew it was going to be a tough battle for the waning cult was dug in around the gate they’d opened weeks ago to allow a smaller fey host in. Even though the Lesionnaire contingent was small by army standards the disease it spread along with the warping of the land had decimated Hillsbrook Valley. It was high time to shut that portal down before anything else came through. Still, the heroes decided to leave six of their mercenaries behind to guard the crossroads’ ruin they’d just liberated. That left their allies at a dozen sellswords, a winter fey with two enthralled Plated Meliuscores , two summer fey knights, a goblin healer, an artificer, a mage, and a stone golem with a cannon mounted on its back. Hoping the force would be enough, the party set out.
The thunderstorms that plagued the afternoon had given way to a full arcane tempest by that evening. Scintillating colors of raw magic danced through the clouds above, carried on bolts of empowered lightning. Strange auras coated the natural world as infused rain pelted it and it wasn’t long before the heroes and their friends came across a spot channeling the magic storm.
The copse of trees appeared long abandoned and off a forgotten path. Dozens of crows perched on the canopy of stripped trees, shrieking with one another. Power from the arcane tempest visibly flowed down the trees’ trucks and through their thick roots to the center of the tangle. Fearing that they’d come across another waning court construction, the champions decided to investigate.
Riley, the changeling dervish, went into the thicket first. They activated their ability to speak with beasts and chatted with the crows. The avians demanded blood in unison, speaking of the gift of the Devourer. Within the ring of trees lay a massive stump with a great-stone basalt block nestled in its bark. Atop the altar law a ruddy and corroded blacksmith’s hammer of ancient make. Ever curious, Riley slit their hand and bled onto the stone. Letters in the lost tongue of Enuk’lun lit up crimson along the basalt surface. Eshkar the nature cleric as able to make some of it out as the bearfolk language derived from that ancient one, and Psykes with her warlock eyes was able to discern the rest. This was a place to imbue someone with the gift of the Devourer, a primordial ember (either a celestial or infernal; it was hard to tell). The Devourer had been bound to the service of the Sorcerer King Enuk’Lun. All one had to do, the crows explained to Riley, was to smash their hand with the hammer.
Of a fickle soul, Riley lifted the hammer and smashed their hand on the altar before anyone could stop them. Their eyes become glassy and in rapid succession the changeling beat their hand as one would shape a sword, leaving a bestial talon behind. Snapping out of the fugue, Riley felt a pull at their primordial senses. They shifted their hand back to normal, insisted everything was fine and though wary the party continued on. They had a cult to stop.
The closer the heroes came to the waning cult camp, the easier to see the arcs of arcane lightning the cult was pulling into it. They assumed their foes were empowering the portal and Sykes the eladrin assassin and Wild the tabaxi ranger scouted it out. Of course, there were more cultists as before (Waning Cultists and Devout
, as well as veterans and warlocks of the archfey) as well as Lesser Deadwoods patrolling the area. Before the portal, which was full of building power, stood a rushlight chanter nude from the waist up. Her blighted heart visibly glowed crimson and pulsed within her breast while she and three waning warlocks (warlocks of the archfey) were enacting a ritual. Several direfly hives worked in unison with the chanting, constructing an uncanny latticework at the top of the portal.
Sensing their time was short, the heroes sent the bulk of their allies to storm the camp from the northeast. The rolling plated meliscores and cannon-blasting stone golem follow the charting line of brave mercenaries lead by the fey knight Lady Lasthope for Spring. It proved a sufficient distraction.
In the meantime, the heroes sneaked across the creek northwest of the encampment and bypassed the thick swarms of direflies there. The Knight of Veins stayed behind to guard their rears against the menacing insects. Once everyone is in place, the heroes made a push to get to the rushlight chanter and warlocks before they could complete their work.
Wild again used the high ground to his advantage. The archer ascended the largest pavilion and sank an arrow into the rushlight chanter. The woman didn’t miss a beat in her chants and responded by enrobing herself in invisibility.
The infected trees, backed up by cultists, met the rest of the party on the hillside bank. Siegfried the satyr wizard cackled as he lanced them with fire magic. Sykes cut her way into the cultist ranks, trying to get to the warlocks. Eshkar summoned up a patch of spike growth to slow down the split reinforcements from inside the encampment from reaching their position. As often is the case, Gwaedd used hypnotic pattern before shooting at the lesser deadwoods with his flame-powder pistol. Riley charged into battle, but when the dervish raged this time, a long tail of spectral feathers sprang from their lower back and helped block incoming attacks. Clearly, not everything was right with Riley…
Though Wild had the rushlight chanter tagged with hunter’s mark and knew roughly where she was, he elected to fell one of the lesser warlocks instead. However, this allowed the rushlight chanter to finish the ritual. The high cultists appeared as she called out to the fey lord she’d pledged herself to. The direfly larva around her heart chewed their way through, rapidly grew to maturity, and carried her still-burning, still-beating heart into the lattice above. It slotted in perfectly and the portal changed….
Wild gaped in horror as he saw into the feywild frontier the waning princes inhabited. Leagues of blighted, spoiled land spread out on the other side of the portal. The trees were covered in lumpy fungal growth, the ground covered with cancerous gourds and greasy grace. From a strangely-angled keep came striding an imperious figure. Wild sank arrows into the interloper, only to be assaulted with a phantasmal killer spell for his trouble. Wild’s own connection to the fey allowed him to resist the deadly spell, but then he got to witness Lord Fallowfields, Duke of Autumn's End in all of the archfey’s blasphemous glory.
Desperate to stop the dark fey duke from entering and corrupting their plane, the heroes redoubled their efforts. Siegfried sculpted a fireball around his comrades as they cut the last of the cultists near the portal down. Sykes tried to destroy the burning heart with her sunblade, only to have the fantastical weapon flicker and fail. Magic wouldn’t work, as the portal heartstone had absorbed part of the fireball as well. Riley, Eshkar, and Sykes stood before the portal as Gwaedd covered them with gunpowder and spell. Niq, their allied goblin healer scampered about healing where they could. Despite blanching at the approaching threat, they readied to drive them back.
That was until Duke Fallowfields neared the portal. His very nature visibly warped the land and ate away at the souls of the three heroes standing before the portal. There was no way they could defeat the Lord of Autumns End in combat. Eshkar transformed his staff of the wild into a massive tree to fill the portal, hoping to destroy it. While it shattered the wicker edge of the gate, the heartstone and the circle of magic it produced could not be stopped. The tree began to wither and worse, Duke Fallowfield’s rusted scythe sprang from his hand and worked on saying the barrier down.
Riley rapidly ascended the tree, as easily as a great bird might, and tried to pierce the rushlight heart with their enchanted rapier only to be rebuked and thrown back the ground. Dazed, the dervish fell out of her rage. Sykes tried to attack again, this time with her mundane short sword. The weapon rapidly rusted and fell apart in her hand before she too was knocked away. The rusting scythe was nearly through… Duke Fallowfields poised to follow. Magic had not worked. Nor could anything normal save the day.
Wild recalled the unbreakable arrow that his evil fairy godfather had forced unto him (Session 9). Despite not wanting to be right, the ranger drew it back and his shot went true. Unbreakable but mundane, the missile pierced the heart and shattered the stone around it. The portal closed as the Lord of Autumns End howled in frustration. Wild felt much the same as his despised fairy ‘patron’ had given him what he needed to save the day.
The heroes breathed a sigh of relief and went to cleaning up the rest of the camp. Seeing that one of the bewitched plated meliuscores had fallen in battle, Eshkar rushed to its side. He pulled out a diamond and used revivify to bring it back to life. Of course, the monstrosity was no longer enchanted. However, it recognized the nature cleric’s kindness and nudged to bearfolk with its massive head. Then it growled at Mistress Weaver who still had its mate enthralled until the winter fey let it go and the pair of megafauna lumbered off. Eshkar’s relief was only temporary, though, for as he retrieved his staff of the wilds he found it now corrupted and pitted like deadwood.
The party looted the camp, bandaged what they could and made out for the Tower of the Nightveil to the south. They’d lost more mercenaries and their twin monsters. It was time to pick up the allies they left there. One last battle remained; breaking the siege of the Convent of Quiet Grace.
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