1-21 “Tree”

It was a very restful sleep, and an early awakening. We all finished breakfast before dawn. The sun must be just above the horizon now. The forest becomes quiet as we approach the place where I had encountered the amalgam. There wasn't a clearing here before.

A sky blue crystal tree at least fifty feet tall stands in the middle of a circle of uprooted and broken down trees. Its branches move regardless of the lack of wind. The area nearby the tree looks somewhat burned. As we approach the tree line, it bends its branches in one massive sweep, scratching the bark off of the trees at the border. It must still be growing if that was the first time it could reach these trees.

The Lords and Ladies start discussing what spells they should use before approaching, and who should stay back. They think those burns look like acid burns, one of them has a spell to protect against that.

Lord Hawkins calls me over, “You all have ranged weapons right?”

“Yes, sir, crossbows.”

“This thing can topple trees, I think it'd be best if you all stayed back and offered ranged support.”

“Yes, sir! You heard the lord, crossbows at the ready.”

I guess now it's time to find out if keeping my bolts in my bag instead of the belt box is a good idea. I reach in to pull out my crossbow and a bolt. It's already drawn and loaded when I withdraw my hand from the magical bag. That's... How does it do that?

Lords Hawkins, Hawklight, and Gimaim, as well as Ladies Maple and Hefthammer all advance toward the tree over the fallen trunks of trees uprooted by the corrupted one. Zilo flips up his hood, and his silhouette begins to fade as his cloak blends with the surrounding foliage, I quickly lose track of him. It's a good thing we can aim high to avoid friendly fire, though he probably knows how to avoid the line of fire if he does this frequently. Sephram stays between Lady Averdine and the tree, holding a defensive posture. Lord Mcgee starts firing arrows from an exquisite looking bow with remarkable speed.

The rest begin to cast spells. Lightning and fire burst forth, streaking toward the tree. Much of it dissipates as it contacts a hitherto unseen field around its trunk and branches. Lady Averdine finishes an incantation that leaves me feeling lighter, and it has obviously affected everyone else as we all begin moving faster.

Lord Alejandro turns out to be a spell-caster as well, I never would have guessed from the full suit of plate armor that he wears. I have heard armor interfered with one's ability to channel magical energy. The globe of fire he throws begs to differ, penetrating whatever protection surrounds the gemtree and leaving large cracks and scorch marks around the point of impact.

The tree makes reply by swinging massive branches down hammering on those that advanced with massive limbs. Those that are hit by these smashing attacks immediately receive healing magic from either Lord Carlmon or Lady Celano. A vine twists around and blasts a large gout of a greenish liquid that mostly dissipates where it contacts one of us but leaves distinct burns in the ground or trees that it contacts with. Lord Alejandro receives a volley of arrow sized splinters from the higher branches of the tree. All of them bounce off of what must be at least grade four armor. Crystalline roots also burst forth from the ground at Alejandro's feet, and are just as ineffective at penetrating his defenses.

The watchmen and I might as well not even be there, each volley of bolts we fire bounce off of the trunk. This thing has less gaps in its crystalline hide, and the gaps keep moving.

The advancing warriors make it to the trunk and begin smashing through the tree. Sword axe and hammer leaving cracks and notches with each swing. Lady Maple's punches are doing just as much as Lady Hefthammer's massive maul. Zilo's form fades back into view near the gemtree, he looks up it perhaps thinking of climbing it. He reconsiders and proceeds to stab at it with a pair of short swords.

More blasts of fire and bolts of lightning are launched. The gemtree seems to feel the warriors are a greater threat though as the root spears and branches are all focusing on them. Leaving only the occasional hail of thorns to threaten us, mostly aimed at Alejandro, whose spells seem to be doing the most damage. Only one even manages to break through the magical armor. It is quickly removed and the wound healed.

One of my bolts actually manages to hit a soft spot and stick, I wonder if that did any good.

Cracks begin to spread along the trunk of the gemtree. The constant hammering of spells and blades leaving the area near the ground looking much like the patch of cobblestone road in the city where a worker managed to spill a wheelbarrow of bricks from the second floor of a building he was working on.

Lady Averdine fires a quintet of small radiant bolts of energy at the gemtree. That was the last straw, the whole thing shatters and disintegrates. While everyone else starts congratulating each other on a good fight, I look for signs of Stanton.

I think I see him.

1-18 “Gardening”

Nothing responds to Sephram's shout. He sheaths his weapons and continues to walk around a bit before returning to where he crossed the barrier.

“It seems to be safe to travel on at the very least, though I would suggest that you stay close just in case there are more of those.” Sephram's tense posture returns as he stands near Lady Averdine.

“That was impressive. Who taught you to fight like that?” Sam follows the question with a glance around checking the bodyguard's armor, not even a scratch where the two hits connected with him.

“My mother was a Templar of The Hammer, my father was a master of unarmed combat, they taught me from earlier than I can remember.”

“That's an interesting sword you have. I haven't seen one designed like that, what is it?”

“It's a kodachi, a sword from my father's homeland. He came from far to the northeast of here.”

I've heard of some of the far off lands, but have never seen someone from that far away. I wonder what other weapons they have that are also different in style.

“Well, if it's safe to walk across, I think we should probably see if we can find any more of those plants and destroy them before they eat something that let's them move.”

We decide to do so until sunset. The sun is already low in the sky, we'll still have a decent enough amount of time, though. We can come back tomorrow, if we feel it's necessary. The lady and her bodyguard go off in one direction and we take the other side to cover more ground.

They look like they used to be pitcher plants, and they give off a deeper aura of darkness than the rest of this field. They seem to be able to sense us coming. The first one we come across turns, albeit very slowly, toward us. Though unnerving, none of us are afraid of this display. Halberds are long and these things can't move. It's obvious after destruction that there is a lot more under these plants than I would think, seeing the size of the leaves above ground. Instead of roots there is what I can only assume is a large pocket of a stomach, I guess that is why they can eat things larger than bugs now. Perhaps that stomach used to be the bulb they grew from. Luckily, we don't find anything in any of these.

For the most part, the plants are very easily dealt with. Just as I'm wondering how these things caught anything to begin with, the rookie gives me an unintentional demonstration. Whether out of boredom or just inexperience, he decides to try and stab through one in a small cluster instead of cutting. Reacting much faster than the rest we have encountered, its mouth widens and grabs on to the head of his weapon, good thing he knows enough to drop his weapon rather than allow himself to get pulled in to the group. We manage to kill the plants and let him retrieve his weapon, though it's now covered in goo.

“Way to go, rookie.” Sam probably has more against working with a rookie than the rest of us, with all of his time spent investigating solo.

“What the hell? That one was way faster than the others.” I'll give the rookie that much, it was that much faster, and he did manage to avoid being dinner. I should probably give him some pointers when we get back to the guardhouse.

“Maybe we should have gone back and gotten the gardener from up at the keep.”

“Why's that?” Gordon probably wants a real story but I'll only give him this much for now.

“I heard that when Iztram was in charge, he had the poor guy taking care of strangle vines.”

“I didn't even think those existed.”

“You should go find him, Gordon. He tells the story a lot better than I do.”

Not much of note happens along the rest of our path to clear the area. Occasionally we find one that has sprouted a pair of legs, but is still tethered in place. The darkness around the area grows faster than the lowering of the sun, we call it a day early before it becomes too dark to see. As we leave and discuss what should come next we hear a group of approaching horses.

1-17 “A duck?”

We all approach the glowing wall as Sephram walks in toward where the river still runs through the crystalline ground.

“That's odd, I guess the crystallization has stopped growing,” Lady Averdine indicates where her barrier meets the ground.  “It used to be growing right up to that spot, even climbing upward, slowly trying to overcome the wall.”

Sure enough there's about half a foot between the edge of the strange growth and the barrier’s foot.

Our attention is then grabbed by a splash. We look back toward the river and Sephram. Out of the water have climbed two more amalgamations. One shares the features of a duck and a beaver, or maybe it is just the features of a platypus. It also must have caught a crayfish.  Two large pincers extend from additional arms near its front. The other seems to have the bodily features of an otter, the head of a frog and is slightly smaller than the first.

Sephram, whose motions read of tenseness the whole time he stood near the Lady, now seems relaxed in the face of a pair of slightly more than wolf-sized enemies. His stance is wide and aggressive, each sword held toward one of two enemies.  The amount of time before any of them make a further move is long enough for the lot of us to draw our crossbows.   We begin loading as the first move is made.

The frog-otter, in a motion similar to what I've seen before, launches a spear-like tongue at Sephram. Before I even have time to give warning, he deflects it with the longsword in his right hand. Sidestepping, he slashes a portion of it off before it recedes. The other begins to approach him, its gait rather comical and clumsy-seeming as it totters along.

The frog-otter also begins to run at him, but faster and with less confusion among its limbs.  It leaps at him only to be met by what I can only describe as a whirlwind of steel. Not shifting his feet at all, Sephram brings his blades around in swift circular strokes, each making contact with either a crunch as fractured pieces of the beast’s armor fall to the ground or a softer sound as the blade meets an unprotected section. His speed is hard to follow, as pieces of the amalgam fall to the ground.

The duck-thing has made its approach in this time, despite being hit by a volley of our crossbow fire, most of which bounced harmlessly off of the hard plates covering it. Sephram turns and defends himself from a surprisingly fast barrage of punches and grabs made by the lobster-like claws of the thing. Only one makes it past his guard and contacts despite his dodges. It does nothing more than make him step back a pace with the force. His chest plate takes the blow, not even leaving a dent.

Moving around the beast so as to make it turn slowly leaving only one claw to contend with, Sephram begins his own offensive. Using the longsword  to fend off the closer claw's strikes, he brings his other foreign blade down right where the oddly placed extra arm meets the body. It falls lifelessly to the ground. The more confident of us launch a second volley at the two locked in close quarters. One, probably fired by the rookie, deflects off Sephram's vambrace, the rest either stick in the duck-thing's front or bouncing ineffectively to the ground.

With its remaining arm the creature manages to grab Sephram's leg. Before it can take advantage of this, Sephram severs the limb. He follows with a thrust that goes straight through one eye on the creature's duck-like head, and comes out the other. Spasming slightly for a second or two, it slumps over.

I hear the men exchange coins as Sephram stomps the ground twice and yells, “Any more?!”

1-16 “Crystal Delta”

I don't have much reason to trust the sorceress, yet she doesn't seem to be lying.

“Well, I guess we follow.”

The shimmering gateway floats slightly above the ground. I don't see any clue as to where it leads, only a white glow. Hesitating only slightly, I enter the portal.

Immediately, I emerge to the sound of water lapping riverbanks. The journey was dizzying despite its short length, it takes me a short while to bring everything into focus. One of the men bumps into me from behind as they begin to emerge from the portal itself.

After getting my bearings I look around, I've been here once, a long time ago. 'New Lake.' It was formed before I was born, but is so called because one of the previous owners of Midrange Keep created it when, out of some amazing miscalculation, his engineers were digging a channel to draw water to make a moat for the keep and, somehow, ended up drawing the water here, many furlongs south of the castle. The lake was created in what used to be a rather large and deep valley among the wide and hilly plains of this area. The fishing was good here until Iztram had come to power. Renaming the lake after himself and overfishing it until naught was left. Nobody has bothered coming around since, I suppose they're giving some time for the fish to come back.

Looking toward the delta that leads into the lake I see the Lady and Sephram, as well as something very odd. Several acres of the delta are completely covered in a gem-like substance. What used to be rough sand or silt, was now smooth with angular rises and falls. The variety of color is also a jarring change in the terrain. No longer just tans browns and greens, the entire spectrum must be represented now. The area is also slightly darkened even accounting for the approaching sunset, except for a faintly shimmering wall of light around the whole area.

The men look uneasy, something like this isn't natural. We don't have training to deal with magical issues of this scale, and there are only a few wizards in town that work for us.

Moving to get a closer look, I turn to the Lady and ask, “What happened here?”

“I found out about this just recently myself actually,” She responds, “I had been collecting clay from here for a while. One day I had found a sword sticking from the ground. I don't know why, but I had a bad feeling about it so I let it be. For my next several visits I found the area near the sword to be crystallizing. I decided to observe it for a few days, the last of which saw an explosion of growth. It went from about two acres to over seven in one night. That's when I placed this mana barrier around the area.”

“And you think the creature got past your wall?”

“No, I think it got out before I sealed the area off. I had noticed strange effects on some of the carnivorous plantlife, but once I saw some of them taking on frog-like or bird-like aspects I actively began destroying them, lest they grow larger or mobile and become dangerous. There might be more, if one managed to escape before my vigil on the place.”

“What about this sword, where is it?”

“I left it there in the middle, you can't really see it from here, though.” She points off into the distance.

“Is it safe to walk along this ground.”

“I wouldn't know. I prefer to levitate, it keep my shoes from getting dirty.”

It is just now that I notice that she's been floating a few inches off of the ground this whole time. Though her gem studded boots still seem to be supporting her weight on some unseen platform. I'm not sure I want to walk on this terrain, especially if this stuff has been growing.

Sephram speaks up, “Allow me to test the safety of this ground if you wish to explore it.”

“A wonderful idea, I'm sure you can handle anything unpleasant that may happen,” responds Lady Averdine.

“Two copper says something bad happens.” Mario whispers behind me. Betting, some of the watchman use it as a means to make light of something that's too serious, others use it to get better meals.

“I'll take you up on that.” Gordon this time.

“Five copper says he'll be able to handle it, if something bad happens.” Sam bets.

“He's pretty decked, sounds like a fools bet to me.” Mario responds, and then the rookie accepts the challenge.

Drawing both of his swords, each glowing with what must be layers of enchantment, Sephram steps past the magical wall. It oscillates and lets him through.