Dungeon ADVENTURE!: Forest of Fear, Part One

28th Quatre, 504 A.S., Summer

The party arrives at Pothurst Forest. It is a relatively small forest, tended by foresters and loggers both. The party find it to be well-maintained and quite penetrable. There are signs of logging industry and replanting efforts throughout.

Suddenly, there is a scream of terror, and a grunish woman comes tearing down the forest path toward the party. She runs past and through them, shouting, “run! Run! The smoke is coming for us all!”

A fearful Marion tries to follow the grunish woman, only to be caught and restrained by Aries and Talia. Talia leads the party onward, and eventually smells smoke. Curious, she continues deeper into the wood.

The party stops at the base of a low hill. On the other side, plumes of thick, red smoke twist skyward. Talia and Ulfast suspect that the smoke is of magical origin, and Ulfast fears that it was shaped by sorceries inimical to living creatures.

The party crest the hill as the smoke begins to break up, and find a small logging camp on the other side. Strewn around a clearing are heaps of clothing and shoes that leak tendrils of smoke. Nearby, burned into the bark of the largest tree in the area, is a single word.

RUNNARUCH

Pothurst Forest: Six Hexagonal Miles of Adventure!

As the party surveys the eerie scene, loggers arrive from a nearby camp. They are brought by “The Kid,” who escaped the smoke. Their leader is Jenks, the camp supervisor. The loggers initially suspect foul play from the party, but soon relent. They instead begin to blame someone called the Mistress of the Pines.

Two other loggers seem to have escaped the smoke: Scamper, the grun woman that passed the party on the road, and Slipsaw, a dwernun man who lost two fingers on his left hand in a logging accident. Slipsaw is also, apparently, the reason why the logging camp is a dry one, as he was very drunk when the accident occurred.

Phinneas sees that someone has blundered into the forest to the east, and that the trees there have been burned. Tegwin asks the loggers if there is anything in that direction, but does not receive a straight answer. Jenks takes half the loggers back to the camp to look for Scamper and Slipsaw, and leaves the rest of the loggers—with The Kid, in charge—to explore the forest.

After Jenks leaves, the loggers admit that they have a still to the east. They take the party there. On the way, they spot a bloody handprint missing two fingers. They also find a curious metal rod, which is hollow and partially full of a strange liquid. A square cut crystal tips one end.

Thavick analyzes the rod and determines it is part of the Ancients’ technology. Talia also studies it and notes powerful Natramantic sorcery surrounding it.

At the still, Tegwin helps himself to some moonshine. Ulfast and Daegal find Slipsaw in a nearby hut, semi-conscious and oozing blood from his pores. She and Thavick tend to him, and Ulfast determines that Slipsaw has been affected by Chaos sorcery.

The party returns Slipsaw to the camp and discover that Scamper has returned unharmed. They turn Slipsaw over to Cookie, the loggers’ cook and surgeon. They are invited to stay for dinner and rest at the camp overnight. During their stay, they are warned not to leave the road if they go north of the Orish River. They are also warned to stay well away from the old pine forest in the west, which is the home of the Mistress of the Pines. Jenks mentions giving the same advice to some, “academics,” who he is pretty sure did not listen to him.

The Mistress is a Spirit of the Wild of immense power, who first appeared to the loggers and threatened them with fiery death if they clear cut too much of the forest. They have a healthy respect for her rules, and do whatever they can to remain on her good side.

29th Quatre, 504 A.S., Summer

Rehappa

After breakfast, Phinneas manages to convince the party to go looking for the Mistress of the Pines. Marion balks at this, but is eventually persuaded to go along with it. They wander the forest for a while, sticking close to banks of the Orish, so as not to get lost.

They encounter a trio of people: Rehappa (a sylvani woman), Anosto (a human man), and Jorgain (a dwernun man). The trio seem to be lost and seem to have a very tense relationship. This is made worse by Rehappa clumsily flirting with Aries. Aries takes Rehappa aside to make sure that she is not the men’s prisoner, while Marion takes Jorgain aside and asks if he is planning to waylay and rob the other two. Jorgain is confused and admits they are all “friends,” while Aries realizes that Rehappa is the troublesome one, and is manipulating both men to her benefit.

The trio are students of history, apparently, and are searching the forest for ancient ruins. Rehappa mentions an old Soldarian tower somewhere to the north, but admits the boys didn’t want to explore it because it looked too unstable.

Shortly thereafter, the party and the trio part ways.

Phinneas leads the group to the tower, which is leaning, but still structurally sound. From the parapet, he and Marion spy an encampment on the other side of the Orish, a tall, white tower some distance to the north, and a ruined structure to the southwest. 

"Geeeeooooff...are those skulls in the trees?" "Yep!"

Phinneas cajoles the party to visit the ruins. They find a large, burned out and collapsed building surrounded by overgrown vegetation. Numerous dead trees around the ruin have had skulls placed among the branches. Phinneas spies a cluster of very large mushrooms, but realizes that they are probably not good to eat. Marion pokes his head into the ruin and discovers that it might once have been a temple of some kind. He also spots the skeleton of a gigantic humanoid.

The bones begin to move, assembling themselves into animated armored skeletons. The party gives battle. During the fight, Ulfast uses her necromancy to speak to the skeletal warriors, who demand that she speak “the countersign.” She unfortunately does not know the countersign and cannot give it. Instead, she tells one of the skeletons that she cannot speak the countersign while there are intruders about, and convinces it to let her into the ruins.

One of the skeletal warriors

At this moment, the large skeleton animates. It is twice the size of a man, with skeletal wings and numerous horns. Marion becomes enraged seeing it animate, for reasons he cannot explain. Thavick ducks into the temple and fires a reservoir arrow filled with adhesive, injuring the giant skeleton and gluing it to the floor.

Ulfast tries to trick the countersign out of the giant skeleton to little effect. However, Marion, out of nowhere, realizes that the countersign is, “nine by nine.” He tells Ulfast, who says it to the giant skeleton. It and all the other remaining skeletons deanimate and crash to the ground, lifeless.

The much, much larger skeleton

The party searches the ruins and discovers they are in a former chapterhouse of the Cult of the Nine Abyssal Lords. Tegwin mentions that the Church of the Pantheon of Light destroyed the cult’s presence in the region about 50 years ago.

The party finds an obviously evil book hidden inside the altar. It is written in Soldarian and seems to contain the rites, precepts, and rituals of the cult. Ulfast takes it, along with the giant skeleton’s skull and fingerbones.

Talia realizes that the skeletons were animated by an old ritual magic spell bound into the area. She suggests smashing the skeletons so that they cannot rise again if anyone else finds this place. The party does so.

The Mistress of the Pines

The party sets off to the pine forest to speak to the Mistress. It is not long before she makes a dramatic entrance in a flash of lighting and thunder, surrounding the party with a cloud of angry wasps. Aries and Talia kneel (with everyone but Thavick following suit). They explain their recent adventure in the ruins, and of the curious scene at the tree. The Mistress is deeply concerned by this, and says she must make preparations, in case the Cult of the Nine is trying to return to the area.

As for the word, “RUNNARUCH,” the Mistress says she does not know its meaning, but that Lokerimon the sage, who lives in a tower in the north, might. She tells the party they can rest at her home, should they need it, and then vanishes.

Lokerimon, sorcerer and sage

The party travels to Lokerimon’s metal tower in the north. They find it surrounded by a hedge labyrinth. The labyrinth confounds them, at first, until they realize that the maze on Talia’s sigil of Yin’Isstil matches the labyrinth exactly. Following it, they exit the maze, reach the tower, and speak to Lokerimon.

Lokerimon invites them inside and provides refreshments. He learns of Talia’s faith and says he knows of her order. He promises to trade knowledge for knowledge. The party tells him of their encounter at the ruined chapterhouse, which disturbs him. They then tell him about the incident at the tree and the word “RUNNARUCH.”

Lokerimon, intrigued, disappears to check his archives. Leaving the party to their own devices. They are hailed by a strange, caged creature that looks like a puffball with thick legs and too many eyes. They later learn that it is a patinko, a creature from another world.

The sage returns and says that he has a possible explanation for the party, but it is based on several leaps of logic. He tells them that:

• The Ancients had a house of healing in the hills north of the lake.
• The Ancients had discovered the four elemental forces that make up living beings.
• In humans, these forces are referred to with the following symbols: ACGT
• In grun and vihrea, these forces are referred to with the following symbols: HNRU
• The magics at the tree were a mix of necromancy, pyromancy, and natramancy
• He posits that someone has rediscovered the Ancients’ knowledge, and is using it for some purpose.

The party begins to speculate wildly on this. Ulfast thinks that they should find the Ancients’ house of healing and investigate it for more clues. Lokerimon shows them the rough location of the house of healing via a vision on a scrying table.