An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary
Under assault from an Eyestalk's sinister rays, the heroes scrambled for cover. Though, the changeling dervish, Riley, didn’t get the chance. They were frozen in place by a lace of magic while the other champions exchanged fire with the plant from behind cover. Thanks to Wild the tabaxi ranger’s well-placed shots and Ea the bearkfolk wizard’s bearfolk, the eyestalk was eventually turned to mulch, and Riley rescued. The party took a moment to catch their breath. All the while, the warily watched the waterfall the Waning Blade had disappeared behind last sessions.
After twenty minutes, the coast remained clear. The heroes made their way down the cliffs to a small island at the base of the waterfall. As they suspected, there was a cavern behind the water. Its entrance was sealed off by a pair of stone doors dating back to the Empire of Enuk’lun that was tangled with fresh vines. The heroes decided to investigate further instead of launching a direct assault.
Downstream and not far away, they came across an opening in the cliffside. Creeping Carpets writhed down the short corridor and they could make out the leaves of thick vegetation and the glow of direflies within. Aelric the satyr bloodhunter and Sykes the eladrin assassin crept ahead and noted there were Waning Barb and waning blades waiting within. The dark fey were already on alert, but this appeared to be a weaker point for the heroes to assault. So, assault they did.
Aelric crashed into the fey archers further in whiles Sykes veered into the waning barbs by the entrance. It wasn’t long before Riley whirled their way to Sykes. Ea and Wild stayed in the corridor and exchanged fire with the invaders not caught up in melee. The party’s ally, the goblin healer Niq, dashed back and forth to stem their wounds. It wasn’t long before the fey lay dead at their feet and the animated plants within the grow house were extinguished.
At first, the heroes thought this was just a side cavern until Ea and Wild noticed a false wall. The agriothier wizard foolishly opened this hidden door without letting Sykes check it first. Ea and Wild were dosed with poisoned gas. They ended up with burned sinuses but survived. Beyond the door, the corridor led into the ancient fortress that the waning court now occupied, specifically its common room.
Despite their wounds, the heroes capitalized on their unintentional ambush of the dark fey within. They faced off against more waning barbs and blades as well as an Inkhorn that had grown in the secret passageway. While the heroes again came out on top, they edged closer to exhaustion. Likewise, they were rattled by the suicide of the last waning barb who fell on his own short sword rather than face defeat at mortal hands. However, after a brief survey of the overgrown room, they pressed on into the next which ended up being a foyer where a pair of waning blades awaited on the other side of the main doors. The heroes made short work of the fey and moved on.
They were briefly stymied by another inkhorn plant, but shortly encountered a sprawling cavern attached to the abandoned ruin. Alien greenery belonging in the feywild carpeted the floor and covered the walls amid chunks of blood-honey hives. No sooner did the heroes discover the cavern than they were set upon by the remaining waning court fey. They were soon involved in a running battle across the expanse.
Aelric summoned his direwolf to aid him and gave into his bestial form. In turn, Ea revealed his skill with bloodmagic and summoned a hound of gore, much to Niq and Riley’s dismay. The pair of conjured beasts tied up a pair of waning barbs deeper in the cave's recesses while the heroes advanced through the waning blades.
Down at the other end, Bloodmane, the mercenary Hive Crofter in charge of the encampment, bristled at the intrusion. She was the sister of Cindermane, the animus artisan the heroes had recently encountered. However, she was less apt to listen to diplomacy than her sibling. Calling upon dark druidic magic, Bloodmane assailed the heroes with spiky growths, animated vines, and supernatural blight as they cut their way through her host. When the heroes drew too close Bloodmane retreated back into another section of the Enuk’Lun fortress, but first sprouted another eyestalk to cover her retreat.
While the party overcame the ocular horror, they found Bloodmane had made her escape in the next room via a sprawling growth of blood-engorged ivy. Frustrated, the heroes set fire to the plant after snatching what scraps of information they could from what the fleeing fey left behind. Besides sacks of feywild soil, they found a map of the area dating back to the Empire of Enuk’Lun. Bloodmane had scrawled new locations relating to the Congressional Colonies across it, along with locations of interest. One of which was an Enuk’Lun ruin the heroes had already been hired to investigate, the other was the mysterious Amber Tower that overlooked Blade Bay. Across the region the party had been adventuring in for the last month was written ‘Cindermane?’ Clearly, Bloodmane was looking for her previously enslaved brother.
The heroes opted to take a rest inside the fortress and weigh their options. The Enuk’Lun Temple and Amber Tower were a week or so away in opposite directions. Which would they choose first?
At the same time and on the other side of the region, back at Hillsbrook Valley, Gwaedd the otterfolk bard received an urgent message from the nuns that run the convent he and Eshkar the bearfolk cleric had stayed behind to help. There was more fey trouble that had developed at the Grm-Faced Bridge the heroes had previously traveled through. Bereft of his allies, Gwaedd set to assembling a new group of brave souls among the swell of refugees and visitors to Hillsbrook Valley. This was becoming a war on two fronts, perhaps even more than that.
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