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====== Druids, Mushrooms, and a Heartbeat ======

==== Curse of Strahd ====

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Session 34 – 2021-08-28

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Session Summary

We started off tonight’s session in the thick of it, again. We still had five druids, three of their berserkers, a goliath, and a pile of rats. The lights stated giving us issues again. Deb was getting frustrated! We continued the battle, and they attempted to best us. There were Thunder Waves, Call Lightnings, and many other spells. More spells than you can shake a stick at. What does that even mean? Oh, and rats, even the stupid rats scored a good hit on Rinn. Dain takes a druid out on his first hit. He turns to another nearby damages it. Snoggly has three additional images of himself available to be hit. Should someone attack him, there is a good chance that they would hit one of these images instead of him. This proved out very quickly as one of his images was destroyed.

Zanfyr moved his Call Lightning onto another victim. Deb started moving down the slippery slope of using pseudo cussing with phrases like “Fog Off”, and “Son of a Ditch, or Witch” or some other rhyme. There were quite a few enemies moving on Misty. The goliath moved to intercept her. She was going to be in trouble very soon. Adrian had moved forward to the batch of Druids that were near Dain and Rinn. This left an opening for Rinn to slip out without suffering any additional attacks. He made his move to head towards Misty. Haldar also moved to a position that gave him a full field of targets to choose from. He also chose to target the group converging on Misty. He focused his attacks on the goliath. Two good hits should have taken him down but somehow, he mustard the strength to shrug off that damage and stayed standing and fighting. Kyana pulled out her amulet and casted, Radiance of the Dawn against toward two of the enemy, dropping one and severely injuring the other.

As the main druid fled down the hallway and disappeared from view, two bears, Yogi and Boo-Boo, came from that direction moving in to attack Misty. Rinn moved in to close quarters combat hoping to draw some of the fire from Misty. Misty made one final attack on the goliath and though he was able to fight through the first hit and remain standing, he couldn’t withstand the second hit. She then shadow stepped out of this area and back closer to Haldar. The rats finally died.    

This battle continued on with the bears and druids slowly falling. With each of their deaths, the battle became easier as we were able to focus our hits on fewer targets. Misty did get very close to falling but with her shadow step, managed to put distance between her and the enemy. Rinn moving forward at the same time, drew their attention and they didn’t try to give chase. Haldar kept dishing out some pretty major damage, while Zanfyr kept using the Call Lightning spell, with some electrifying affect, on the remaining druids. Dain cleaved a berserker or two and moved to the opening where the rest of the action was taking place. Snoggly kept handing his attacker, acid splash balls and damaging him well with those. His attacker managed to hit him again and take out a second image, and then finally fell to the acid. Kyana kept dealing out spell and bow damage and finally, the battle ended within this room.

Haldar and Dain give chase to the druid that seemed to be leading all of this as she fled down the hallway. Haldar found a wooden barricade with a door in it. When he tried to push it open, the door was latched. Kayana and Zanfyr provided some healing to everyone. They all moved forward to join Haldar and Dain. Dain kicks the door open and we were greeted by a couple of brown bears. The room had a desk, chest of drawers, and some furs on the ground. Haldar focused on the bears and took down the larger of them. Misty followed suite and killed the second bear. After that, we started searching the room. Apparently we missed the druid hiding amongst the furs. As she was about to make her move, a debate about how the Gloom Stalkers ability determining that in darkness he is invisible to creatures that rely on dark vision. That doesn’t apply to dim lighting though. The druid cast a blight spell on Haldar. She was quickly dispatched. She was Mortilla.

We began to search everything and all of the bodies. We found a Gulthias Root Staff. It had some interesting powers that appeared to be more pointed to the Druid in our party. Zanfyr felt it was too evil for him to wield. We discussed other options but finally determined that it should be destroyed. Dain tried to burn it but it wouldn’t burn so he took his axe to it. The resulting damaged sucked a portion of Dain’s life energy and caused him to suffer 1 exhaustion point. After completing our search, we decided to rest. 

**Zanfyr’s crazy dream**

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Your sleep that night is troubled. You dream of youth..., a teacher in a forest grove, you do not know or recall this place or the people yet it all feels very familiar. As if from your childhood, a druid speaks to you in a forest glade, green and teeming with life and birdsong. "Repeat what you know of the Ladies Three, the Rozana."

Your voice lilts as you reply,

"The Weaver of the river's run, weaves ripples since the world begun. Rippled frost and rippled fire, Rippling lightning over rocky spire. Joyful Rozana dancing with her ilk Feasts of honey, berries, fruits, and milk.

The Huntress haunts the forest deep, Goes where beast and monster sleep. Her lithe movements, stealth perfected; Tracks her quarry, nondetected. Silent Rozana, makes predator prey. Proper preparation makes her favor sway.

The Seeker, eldest Lady fair, Walks mountains roiled with stormy air; Enduring as the granite stone, Seeking daughter lost to vast unknown. Strong Rozana, holder of life's retention, Only willing blood captures her attention."

As you speak each verse, the teacher crafts a magical representation of the goddesses. One by one they appear in the glade, moving around you in interweaving circles.

"We honor the Ladies at the Three Fanes of Cerunnos..."

As the teacher begins to speak and continue the lesson, suddenly a cold wind blows. The sun vanishes in an immediate dusk and standing beside the teacher are two dark figures.

One is tall with dusky skin, pale from lack of sunlight. His pointed ears stab out from beneath long lank hair. His cold eyes peering beneath an ugly scar across the length of his forehead.

The other man is even paler. His jet-black hair is kept swept back from his face, resulting in a prominent brow and widow's peak. His dark, liquid eyes lock onto you with an intensity that sends fear down the length of your spine. He's dressed exquisitely with a ruby-and-gold necklace over a blood red vest, fitting tight on his lean but muscular physique.

A sword flashes in the hand of the scarred man and the screams of a thousand men, women, and children fill your ears. He grabs the teacher from behind and slowly begins to push the sword in between the shoulder blades. The scarred man repeats the teacher's words with a mocking voice, "Repeat what you know of the Ladies Three, the Rozana."

Your limbs move lethargically, as time stretches impossibly slow. The sword pierces through the teacher's breast.

The finely dressed man smiles at you with a fanged grin, then opens his mouth, unhinging his jaw like a serpent until it's impossibly wide. With uncanny speed he grabs the visions of the dancing Rozana and one by one swallows them whole. The gaping mouth turns on you, surrounding you with its voice, "I am the Ancient! I am the Land!"

His hand reaches for you... You wake up with a start. You try to scream but your mouth makes no sound! You try to sit up but your body refuses to move! The hungry gaze of liquid eyes smolders above you, and then all of a sudden, the vision, and the paralysis leave you and you gasp in the darkness.   

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Kyana noticed, during her watch, that Zanfyr was resting but it appeared that it was a fitful rest. After we completed our rest, Kyana asked Zanfyr about his sleep. He explained to her about the dream he had. Dain’s exhaustion was lifted after a good rest. We discussed what we needed to do next. We moved back out to the main room and searched it again. We found some Druidic writing on the wall! Zanfyr moved up to investigate it. 

The first message he found said, “Strong Rozana, holder of life’s retention, only willing blood captures her attention.”! The verse seems strongly familiar to him. He thinks he remembers it from the vision he had.

On a another wall, he reads,”The Seeker, eldest Lady fair, Walks mountains roiled with stormy air; Enduring as the granite stone, Seeking daughter lost to vast unknown.”!

Around the room he sees more writing from the vision from his sleep. 

We then moved to the next hallway. Starting down that, Rinn backed off and let Haldar take the lead, since in near darkness, he is almost invisible. We found another wooden barrier with a door in it. He opens the door and is assaulted by rotting poblano smell. The room has three exists other than the one we are entering through. There are piles of compost throughout the room will plant material but also bones sticking out of it. The floor is a covered in dark soil with footprints leading to the various doors.

Haldar sneaks into the room and sees big dirt mounds, smelly with bones, and fur sticking out of it. Haldar begins to move between the poles and Rinn comes in the room and when trying to stick about 20 feet behind Haldar, loses sight of him quickly, in the darkness. After loosing sight of him, Rinn changes his direction to circling the out walls of the room. He also maintains an open message to him. Down one passage, Haldar sees another wooden wall with a door that is closed, no light coming through underneath. One of the other paths opens into a large chamber. The third direction makes a sharp turn part of the way down its path. Haldar chooses this path and make his way down there. Rinn cast Dancing Lights and lights this room up for everyone else.

Haldar continues down his path while Zanfyr examines the dirt piles and they to turn out to be compost. He decides that the animal and blood components might be especially tasty to a Guilthias tree sitting above us. The hallway he went down dead ended but was lined with little shelves, stocked with dried meats of various kinds and stacks of simple hardtack flat bread. He found a deli. He messages that information back to Rinn who passes it on to the rest. He comes back out and stealths over to the passage with another large room. 

It was cool and musty smelling. What he finds is a long narrow cave with wooded boxes constructed along the walls. Misty is watching the path with the wooden wall and door, to make sure nothing comes out. Haldar begins searching the boxes. The boxes contain a dark rich soil and from the soil grows mushrooms, some he recognizes and some he does not. He came out and told us that it is a growing room for files things, things that maybe should be burnt. Kyana goes in to see if there is anything that might be useful to her apothecary skills. Zanfyr also goes in to help identify what’s in there. Zanfyr identifies one of the mushroom types as poisonous. The rest are more natural and Kyana is searching for helpful types to use.

Haldar, while they are looking around, moves to the door of the next passage. As he gets closer to it he realizes that there is something more to this door. He can hear a sort of rhythmic thrum coming from beyond it, or is he? He just can’t be sure. He messages the information back to Rinn, there is something wrong with this door. Dain stays back to keep an eye on Zanfyr and Kyana while Rinn moves forward to Haldar to help investigate the door. He’d brings the lights with him. While they are investigating the door, Kyana and Zanfyr determine there is nothing useful in the growing room and move to join the rest at the door along with Dain.

Rinn checks the door for traps and finds none, Rinn uses his mage hand to open the door. He sees a passage that slowly sweeps right descending slightly. Haldar moves into the cave and starts down the passage while we a good distance behind. He made his way down about 300ft. Misty is trying to stay closer by following foot steps but we didn’t determine if she was able to. The rest are going down slowly so as to not wreck Haldar’s ability to move with extreme stealth. As Haldar gets further down the passage, the thrumming sound gets louder. As he touches the stone, he can. Feels it, something akin to a heartbeat. We are reminded that He is the land! It may also have something to do with the Gulthias tree.

We stopped there!