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The Adventures of Baabby and Sam - a Skylanders Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7137051" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 13: THE FOREBODING FOREST OF FORBIDDANCE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 7</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 7</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 7</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 3 June 2017</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"Wait," said Sam Crow, a confused expression on his face. "The Earth Rune is where again?"</p><p></p><p>"In the Geode Caverns, which are in the middle of the Perilous Plateau, which is inside the borders of the Foreboding Forest of Forbiddance." repeated Sapphrina, as the three heroes disembarked from their troll airship.</p><p></p><p>"Man!" scoffed Sam. "Who names these places? So how far away is that?"</p><p></p><p>"Several miles," said Baabby, proving at least <em>he</em> had been listening to their fairy guide the first time through the explanation.</p><p></p><p>"So why are we parked out here, several miles away from where we want to be?" griped Sam, ensuring Shelldon was safely anchored to his customary place on the archer's left shoulder.</p><p></p><p>"I told you," repeated Sapphrina. "This area is infused with Earth-element magic; it repels Air-element magic. The airship would likely fall out of the sky if we tried flying straight where we wanted to go."</p><p></p><p>"Well, we don't want that," agreed Sam. "That silly ship's been through enough crashes as it is." As the heroes talked, they entered a small village of straw-roofed wooden huts. The place was absolutely silent, though - nothing stirred, there was nobody in sight, and it looked like nobody had been around the area for years.</p><p></p><p>"Hello?" called out Baabby, strolling toward the closest of the huts. He peeked inside the open window, seeing nobody inside - but signs that the former inhabitants had left in a hurry: toppled chairs, the ancient remains of a former meal turned to mold and rot on abandoned plates.</p><p></p><p>"There aren't even any birds singing in the trees," observed Sam. "That's a shame: every location can be enhanced by birdsong."</p><p></p><p>"Aas someone who's heard you sing, I can say thaat's not always true," observed Baabby.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, Sam cocked his head to one side, listening intently. "I hear scratching from inside this hut!" he said, approaching another dwelling to the south of the one Baabby had been checking out. The crow peeked through the open window and squawked in surprise: inside was a humanoid skeleton, standing upright, rubbing the stump where its right hand had been against the wooden walls. It turned at the sound of Sam's cry of surprise, then dashed to the door and opened it with his left hand. Then, running through the door, it rounded the hut and attacked the trio of heroes. Around them, the doors of three other huts slammed open, and three more one-handed skeletons came dashing out to join the fray. Unlike normal undead skeletons, these wore the tattered remains of rotting clothing. They formed an arc around the heroes, closing in fast.</p><p></p><p>Prompted by fear, Sam scrambled back away from the undead horde and shot at a point on the ground between three of them with an explosive arrow from his Dynabow 3.0. His strike was true - it's hard to miss when you're aiming for the ground - and the three skeletons were engulfed by the blast of fiery energy that resulted. As the flames flickered out, all three skeletons fell to the ground, destroyed at once.</p><p></p><p>"Whoa!" exclaimed Sam. "Did you guys see that? I got three at once! <em>I got three at once!</em>" The crow was used to seeing multiple foes drop all at one time, but in the past it had always been the result of Baabby's <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> and the strength behind the baabarian's arms that were responsible.</p><p></p><p>"We saaw it," reassured Baabby, cutting the fourth skeleton in half with a casual swing of his greatsword. "Nice one, Sam!" The crow puffed out his chest at the rare praise for his combat prowess.</p><p></p><p>"Let's check out these huts," suggested Sapphrina, flying over to the one Sam had approached. Like the majority of the others in the small village, it was round with a pointed roof; inside, a line of white powder ringed the inside of the exterior walls. And carved on every wooden surface was the same phrase, over and over: "Imprisoned, he yet feeds."</p><p></p><p>"That's weird," commented Sam, looking at the white powder. "What is this, sugar?" He dipped a feather-finger into the powder and tentatively touched it to his tongue.</p><p></p><p>"I'm sure that's bone dust," replied Sapphrina, not really paying attention to what Sam was doing. "That would explain why none of the skeletons had their right hands: they've worn them down to a stub by clawing this phrase over and over on the walls."</p><p></p><p>"Why would they do thaat?" asked Baabby, intrigued. Unnoticed behind them, Sam was gagging and frantically spitting bone dust out of his mouth.</p><p></p><p>"A magical compulsion?" guessed Sapphrina. "Judging from the first hut, some of the villagers left here in a hurry, and the others stayed behind and carved the phrase into the walls with their fingers, not even stopping once they'd died." They checked out a few more huts and found the results to be about fifty-fifty: either signs of panicked flight or the same phrase carved into the walls. Their investigations prompted two other skeletal villagers to attack them; Baabby skillfully handled cutting them down without breaking a sweat.</p><p></p><p>Sam checked out a smaller hut that had two tiny totems just outside its door: one was carved like a mantis; the other, a butterfly. Sapphrina, meanwhile, had floated over to the largest hut - apparently a meeting hall. It, too, had two totem poles outside its door, this time an ox and a sheep. But of more importance, the large wooden table inside was covered in unrolled maps weighted down with books. The maps proved to be of the local area, while the books were journals of the village's history.</p><p></p><p>While Sapphrina (and Baabby, once he'd finished dispatching the last two one-handed skeletons) examined the maps, Sam gave himself over to a search for more important things - like treasure! He cried out in delight when pulling away a rotting carpet of woven jungle fibers revealed a trap door in the floor - nothing more elaborate than a piece of sturdy wood over a hole dug into the dirt floor. Tearing away the wood, Sam pulled out the sole contents of the hidden space: an elaborately carved box with three keyholes on its top. "Now we're talking!" exclaimed the greedy archer.</p><p></p><p>Squinting at the images carved by the three keyholes - he wanted to make sure they weren't trapped - Sam made out the images of a crow, a sheep, and a butterfly. "Well, that's weird," he muttered and showed the others what they'd found.</p><p></p><p>"You think they represent us?" asked Baabby.</p><p></p><p>"Could be," admitted Sapphrina, fluttering her fairy wings, which looked very much like an oversize pair of butterfly wings.</p><p></p><p>"Here, hold this!" said Sam suddenly, thrusting the box at the fairy as he rushed outside. An idea had suddenly formed in his mind; searching the sheep carving in the totem pole, he poked and prodded until he found a secret compartment. And sure enough, hidden inside it was a small metal key - with the head of a sheep engraved on its end.</p><p></p><p>"I knew it!" cried Sam, rushing over to the smaller totems of the mantis and the butterfly he'd been looking at earlier. A close perusal unearthed another hidden compartment containing a butterfly key. "Now we just need a crow!" exclaimed Baabby, finding his companion's enthusiasm contagious.</p><p></p><p>"Everybody needs a crow," agreed Sam knowingly. But a quick search throughout the small village finally led them to another pair of totems, this time a matched hawk and a crow along a path exiting the village. Sam found the crow key and the trio eagerly opened the box. Inside were three necklaces, each with a single ornament carved from a green stone: a sheep, a crow, and a butterfly. "Gee, I wonder which one is whose?" snickered Sam as he placed the crow necklace around his neck. "What do these do?" he asked Sapphrina. She usually knew the answers to such questions.</p><p></p><p>"I can only assume they'll aid us in some way," said the fairy. "Obviously, somebody here had heard of the Prophecy of the Courageous Sheep and the Cowardly Crow and stashed these away for our use when we came this way."</p><p></p><p>"Man, that stupid prophecy needs a new name," grumbled Sam. "So now what?"</p><p></p><p>"We should go check out those journals," suggested Sapphrina. "Great," snorted Sam at the suggestion as he followed his two friends back to the meeting hall hut. "Reading! That sounds exciting!"</p><p></p><p>It wasn't. Sam left the boring journal-reading to their studious fairy while he went searching the village for a totem pole carved in the image of a snail. "Sorry, Shelldon," he said after his explorations were complete. "I guess they didn't think to make a necklace for you." Returning to the others, he asked if they'd had any luck.</p><p></p><p>They had. Sapphrina explained that the journals told of an explorer who had come to the village on his way to searching for a rare and magical gemstone. The villagers told him to follow the river but to stay out of the caves. He returned days later with a chunk of the gemstone he'd been looking for, which he'd apparently broken off from the rest of the stone. But then the journal ended suddenly - and the last sentence had looked like it had been scrawled rather hurriedly. "It looks like the gemstone chunk brought the troubles with it to the village," surmised Sapphrina.</p><p></p><p>"So, it sounds like we haave two options," suggested Baabby. "We caan either follow the river and stay out of the caves, like the explorer was told to do, or we caan try to find this chunk of gemstone aand return it to where it came from." No matter which plan they adopted, their path to the Earth Rune would be taking them the same way the unnamed explorer had gone.</p><p></p><p>"Well," piped up Sam, "How about we follow the river, stay out of the caves, and if we happen to see any gem fragments lying around we figure out what to do with them when the time comes?" It was as good a plan as any, so the trio left the village through the totem poles of the hawk and the crow and trudged south. As they traveled, Sapphrina's necklace started glowing. "Hey, how come yours is glowing and ours aren't?" demanded Sam.</p><p></p><p>"I think mine's the only one doing anything right now," she said. "Odds are, it's allowing me to stay in flight, fighting the anti-Air magic infusing the area. And a good thing, too, or one of you would be carrying me." It was true: fairies had no legs, their lower torsos tapering off to a fine mist like a genie. As she was ahead of her companions, she missed out on Baabby and Sam looking at each other, then silently racing to put a finger to their nose in a "Not it!" gesture. Baabby smirked at his victory while Sam sulked at his loss. But then he decided if he was going to lose a competition like that, it was best to do so when the outcome wouldn't matter - Sapphrina's necklace seemed to be keeping her in the air just fine.</p><p></p><p>After a lengthy troop through the rainforest, made all the more memorable by the two light showers and the constant grumbling from Sam, the trio came to the river. It was about five feet below the surface of the rest of the ground, its winding passage through the jungle having carved a snakelike channel. The river wasn't very wide and probably wasn't very deep, judging from the occasional smooth rocks rising up above its surface. But that wasn't what had initially caught the heroes' attention: rather, somewhat expectedly, their focus was on the massive tyrannosaurus standing on the other side of the river in between a sharp curve. It had been dipping its muzzle in the river, either to quench its thirst or snap at some fish, but it looked up at the heroes' approach.</p><p></p><p>Everyone froze, too frightened to move. But the tyrannosaur's eyesight was apparently not all that good - or perhaps the heroes would make little more than a light snack to the massive beast - and it returned its gaze to the river below where it stood.</p><p></p><p>"Whew!" breathed Sam.</p><p></p><p>And that was when they noticed the dire tigers.</p><p></p><p>There were two of them, one over behind the tyrannosaur and the other much closer - just on the other side of the chasm from Baabby, who was in the lead of the trio's formation. It had been laying down in the tall grass when it suddenly stretched, stood, and looked the humanoid sheep straight in the eye with a look that said, "Why yes, I think mutton will do quite nicely for dinner tonight!"</p><p></p><p>Baabby wasted no time. Pulling the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> from his broad back, he leaped - and landed with a splash into the river below, where he quickly waded away as fast as he could. (He might have been a massively-muscled baabarian, but he was nobody's fool.) He looked up to see the dire tiger watching his every move, ready to pounce - and then saw a cave opening along the side of the riverbank. "In here!" he called, wading into the narrow cave opening and assuming a defensive stance.</p><p></p><p>Sapphrina followed at once, flying diagonally across the chasm in a bee-line to safety. Her wings brushed Baabby's arm as she flew past him into the dark interior of the cave.</p><p></p><p>"Well, this is just great!" complained Sam, looking across the narrow chasm at the hungry-looking dire tiger that was apparently deciding that a poultry dish would make an acceptable alternative to the mutton course he had originally planned. In desperation, Sam sent an explosive arrow directly into the tiger's face, then jumped into the water - and ducked. The water was only waist-high, so he wanted to make sure he was completely submerged and hopefully out of view when the dire tiger shook off the sudden attack. Because the former Son of Archery knew full well that a tiger that big wasn't going to be toppled by a single arrow, explosive or otherwise!</p><p></p><p>And sure enough, it wasn't. With a roar of fury, the dire tiger leaped the gap and landed where Sam had been just moments before. It spun around and spotted Baabby standing at the entrance to the cave, a perfectly good meal. And yet, surprisingly, it didn't leap down at the sheep-man. Instead, its ears flattened against its head, almost as if afraid to go down into the cave with its potential prey.</p><p></p><p>"That doesn't particularly bode well," sputtered Sam as he rose up from the water at the cave's entrance and followed his companions into the darkness within. "Even the tigers know better than to enter the caves."</p><p></p><p>"Guys," called Sapphrina from deeper within the cave, after it was apparent the tiger wasn't going to follow them inside. "Come look at this." She showed Baabby and Sam a pile of shattered crystal shards in a pile along one side of the cave tunnel - for from here, they could see there was another cave opening at the other end, opening back into the river chasm. The fairy was visibly shivering at the sight.</p><p></p><p>"Whaat is it?" asked Baabby, concern in his voice.</p><p></p><p>"Don't you feel it?" asked the fairy. "Something's...very off about this place."</p><p></p><p>"Really?" asked Sam in sarcastic amazement. "You mean here, in this cave that the villagers warn people not to enter?"</p><p></p><p>"We didn't really haave a choice," argued Baabby. "Would you have raather stayed and fought the tiger? And the tyrannosaur?"</p><p></p><p>"No," admitted the crow. "But still." He looked down at the pile of gem-shards, idly wondering if they were worth anything, but ultimately deciding he didn't want anything to do with gems that could have him scratching "Imprisoned, he yet feeds" until he wore out his bones. Birds had very delicate bones, after all. As Baabby and Sapphrina moved to the other end of the tunnel, though, something else entered Sam's notice: all of the shards were the exact same thickness - almost as if the full gemstone had been hollow....</p><p></p><p>"Hey!" Sam called, realizing he was the only one left in the cave. "Wait up!"</p><p></p><p>The baabarian had taken a deep breath before exiting the cave and was now skirting along the bottom of the river - which was a good thing, as he was passing beneath the area where the tyrannosaur stood overhead. Fortunately, there was a downed tree covering the chasm that partially blocked the access to the river below; even if the dinosaur had spotted Baabby, he'd have to move the tree out of the way before he could snap down at him.</p><p></p><p>As Sam exited the dark cave and blinked in the sunlight, he could see Sapphrina submerge and repeat Baabby's strategy for getting past the tyrannosaur. Something must have caught the beast's eye, for it lunged down with its giant head and snapped the tree in half, sending both chunks falling into the river to be washed away by the current. But by then Baabby had ducked into another riverside cave and Sapphrina soon followed suit. <em>Oh well - nothing for it!</em> thought Sam, taking a deep breath and ducking beneath the water, hoping his dark feathers would keep him fairly well hidden from the dinosaur above.</p><p></p><p>"You made it!" said Sapphrina when Sam staggered into the cave; the crow was glad to hear the worry in her voice as she voiced her happiness that he'd made it.</p><p></p><p>"Easy-peasy!" scoffed Sam. "I'm actually part duck on my mother's side."</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Baabby had walked halfway down the tunnel and found another gemstone - this one intact. "Guys!" he called. "Check it out!" He gave the gem a knock with his knuckles.</p><p></p><p>And it knocked back.</p><p></p><p>"Um," gulped Sam, moving up to examine the gem. "Is it supposed to do that?" As an experiment, he rapped on its surface three times, and in response it rapped back at him three times. He stared at the gemstone and was sure he could see mist of some type swirling around in there. It was almost hypnotic...but also somehow <em>wrong</em>. "I think I'm getting those heebie-jeebies Sapphrina got in the last cave," he said, starting to shiver.</p><p></p><p>And then the first crack appeared in the surface of the gem.</p><p></p><p>Sam leaped back as if the gem had bitten him. Despite its great size - it stood almost as high as the humanoid crow did, so it would likely be worth a fortune intact - Sam wanted nothing to do with the eerie thing. He stepped back, complaining: "'Follow the river,' they said. 'Stay out of the caves,' they said. So what do we do? We follow the river and we enter every single cave we see!"</p><p></p><p>"It looks like it's trying to hatch!" exclaimed Baabby, who had stepped forward to check out the gemstone himself. Multiple cracks had appeared all over the gem, but they were all on the inside - the outer surfaces were still as smooth as ever. Baabby hefted his greatsword and announced, "I'm going to give it a hand!"</p><p></p><p>Sam got about two words into his next sentence - which was going to be "I don't think that's a good idea!" - when the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em> smashed through the gemstone, sending shards everywhere. The mist darkened and took form - and suddenly, there in the tunnel with the three heroes hovered a darkness elemental, its alien form (roughly humanoid, but bizarrely so, with gaps and spaces missing from its arms and torso like it was partially skeletal, and with wispy tendrils instead of legs) hovering above the floor of the cave tunnel. Although it was hard to make out facial features, it didn't look as if the elemental creature had a mouth; nonetheless, as its body formed the words "Imprisoned, my master feeds!" could be heard whispering throughout the cavern.</p><p></p><p>A great fear entered the hearts of all three heroes at the sight of this monstrosity. "I have an idea: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" cried Sam - but for once, uncharacteristically, Sapphrina beat him to it. With a frantic beating of wings (more hummingbird speed than butterfly), the fairy flew back the way they'd come, out of the cave, up the side of the chasm, and straight into the surrounding jungle before the tyrannosaur could even register her presence.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, Baabby and Sam weren't as affected by the darkness elemental's frightful presence as their fairy companion had been. Sam sent an explosive arrow into the creature's torso; then, as the flames flickered out, Baabby leapt up and slashed the thing with the <em>Rift-Weaver's Blade</em>. Despite Sam having to wait for a moment before he could charge another arrow with explosive energy (and the apparent uselessness of a normal arrow - it hit the creature but seemed to pass right through), the hulking baabarian was up to the task of taking down the monstrosity he had helped birth.</p><p></p><p>And once the creature had been slain, the fear left the two heroes as suddenly as it had appeared. Together, they exited at the far end of the tunnel, far enough away from the tyrannosaur's position it was no longer aware of their presence, only to find Sapphrina sheepishly fluttering to meet them. "Sorry about that, guys," she apologized. "I think that was a fear effect - it was like I had no control over my actions."</p><p></p><p>As luck would have it, there was another cave opening directly across the chasm from where the heroes stood. Without hesitation, Baabby entered it, sword at the ready. "'Follow the river,' they said," repeated Sam dejectedly. "'Stay out of the caves,' they said...."</p><p></p><p>"Caan it, Sam!" commanded Baabby. "There's another gem in here! We need to destroy it!"</p><p></p><p>"Couldn't we just leave it alone?" wheedled the archer. "It's stuck in here, not doing anybody any harm...."</p><p></p><p>"Better that we aactivate it and destroy the monster within," countered Baabby. "Otherwise, somebody could come along and there could be aanother village destroyed. You don't waant thaat, do you?"</p><p></p><p>"No," replied Sam, knowing when he was beaten. "But before you go cracking it open like an egg, let me try something." Rummaging in his backpack, the little crow pulled out his canvas tent and a 50-foot supply of sturdy rope. He plopped the tent over the top half of the gemstone and wrapped the rope around it. Once he saw what his little partner was planning, Baabby even helped him pull the rope tight so the crow could tie the knot as tight as possible. Then he started tapping on it, only to hear something - the darkness elemental within, they now knew - tap back. When cracks started appearing on the inside of the gem, Sam had everyone step back out of the blast radius and targeted an explosive arrow dead center on the gemstone. With any luck, it would get tangled up in the tent and the ropes, and they could make easy work of it.</p><p></p><p>It didn't quite turn out that way. It broke through the gemstone, sending shattered pieces tumbling down beneath the bound tent, but the tent and ropes slipped off the elemental like a shed skin. Not that it really mattered all that much, though: Sam got off his shot, and then Baabby rushed in with his greatsword. He took a raking of sharp claws across his chest as he approached, but it didn't deter the sheep-man - instead, it caused the rage to build inside him and further fuel his strength. Several slashes later, the darkness elemental's alien form dissipated into nothingness, but not before whispering a creepy "Imprisoned, my master feeds!"</p><p></p><p>"Say 'Hi!' to your little pal Don from us!" called Sam, still irritated that his tent trick hadn't worked.</p><p></p><p>"Don't feel bad," said Sapphrina. "Darkness is kind of hard to tie up, after all."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah," agreed Sam. "But I blew up my tent."</p><p></p><p>"We'll get you aanother one," promised Baabby.</p><p></p><p>Exiting the other end of the cave tunnel, the heroes found themselves back at the river. No further caves were visible, but they floated down the river with their eyes peeled for any new riverbank openings; Baabby was determined to activate and destroy any further darkness elementals they might encounter on the way.</p><p></p><p>But the rest of their river trip was uneventful and the trio soon enough saw the Perilous Plateau looming ahead.</p><p></p><p>"Oh yeah," remarked Sam. "I forgot we still have a long way yet to go."</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>This adventure was a "travel to the location of the next Rune" adventure, not a "get the next Rune" adventure (as Logan explained to Harry once we were finished playing). Harry accepted it, although he's eager to collect the Earth Rune and be on our way to the next one.</p><p></p><p>The necklaces each add a +2 to Will saves vs. fear, which were useful against the darkness elementals, although Sapphrina did poorly on her saves anyway and went from shaken to frightened and thus fled. Fortunately, upon killing the darkness elemental its effects faded, so she regained her composure and found her way back to the rest of the group.</p><p></p><p>Logan picked up a new Pathfinder Flip-Mat for this adventure: <em>Forbidden Jungle</em>. It had the village of huts on the one side and the winding river on the other; he added the six cave openings along the riverbanks using paper overlays he had built and cut out. For the cave interiors, he used three different "Map Pack" cards of cave passageways, explaining away the fact that they weren't the correct size and shape to extend from one cave opening to the other as dimensional distortion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7137051, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 13: THE FOREBODING FOREST OF FORBIDDANCE[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Baabby, humanoid sheep barbarian/cleric (Life) 7 Sam Crow, humanoid crow ranger/rogue 7[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Sapphrina, fairy sorcerer 7[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 3 June 2017 - - - "Wait," said Sam Crow, a confused expression on his face. "The Earth Rune is where again?" "In the Geode Caverns, which are in the middle of the Perilous Plateau, which is inside the borders of the Foreboding Forest of Forbiddance." repeated Sapphrina, as the three heroes disembarked from their troll airship. "Man!" scoffed Sam. "Who names these places? So how far away is that?" "Several miles," said Baabby, proving at least [i]he[/i] had been listening to their fairy guide the first time through the explanation. "So why are we parked out here, several miles away from where we want to be?" griped Sam, ensuring Shelldon was safely anchored to his customary place on the archer's left shoulder. "I told you," repeated Sapphrina. "This area is infused with Earth-element magic; it repels Air-element magic. The airship would likely fall out of the sky if we tried flying straight where we wanted to go." "Well, we don't want that," agreed Sam. "That silly ship's been through enough crashes as it is." As the heroes talked, they entered a small village of straw-roofed wooden huts. The place was absolutely silent, though - nothing stirred, there was nobody in sight, and it looked like nobody had been around the area for years. "Hello?" called out Baabby, strolling toward the closest of the huts. He peeked inside the open window, seeing nobody inside - but signs that the former inhabitants had left in a hurry: toppled chairs, the ancient remains of a former meal turned to mold and rot on abandoned plates. "There aren't even any birds singing in the trees," observed Sam. "That's a shame: every location can be enhanced by birdsong." "Aas someone who's heard you sing, I can say thaat's not always true," observed Baabby. Suddenly, Sam cocked his head to one side, listening intently. "I hear scratching from inside this hut!" he said, approaching another dwelling to the south of the one Baabby had been checking out. The crow peeked through the open window and squawked in surprise: inside was a humanoid skeleton, standing upright, rubbing the stump where its right hand had been against the wooden walls. It turned at the sound of Sam's cry of surprise, then dashed to the door and opened it with his left hand. Then, running through the door, it rounded the hut and attacked the trio of heroes. Around them, the doors of three other huts slammed open, and three more one-handed skeletons came dashing out to join the fray. Unlike normal undead skeletons, these wore the tattered remains of rotting clothing. They formed an arc around the heroes, closing in fast. Prompted by fear, Sam scrambled back away from the undead horde and shot at a point on the ground between three of them with an explosive arrow from his Dynabow 3.0. His strike was true - it's hard to miss when you're aiming for the ground - and the three skeletons were engulfed by the blast of fiery energy that resulted. As the flames flickered out, all three skeletons fell to the ground, destroyed at once. "Whoa!" exclaimed Sam. "Did you guys see that? I got three at once! [i]I got three at once![/i]" The crow was used to seeing multiple foes drop all at one time, but in the past it had always been the result of Baabby's [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] and the strength behind the baabarian's arms that were responsible. "We saaw it," reassured Baabby, cutting the fourth skeleton in half with a casual swing of his greatsword. "Nice one, Sam!" The crow puffed out his chest at the rare praise for his combat prowess. "Let's check out these huts," suggested Sapphrina, flying over to the one Sam had approached. Like the majority of the others in the small village, it was round with a pointed roof; inside, a line of white powder ringed the inside of the exterior walls. And carved on every wooden surface was the same phrase, over and over: "Imprisoned, he yet feeds." "That's weird," commented Sam, looking at the white powder. "What is this, sugar?" He dipped a feather-finger into the powder and tentatively touched it to his tongue. "I'm sure that's bone dust," replied Sapphrina, not really paying attention to what Sam was doing. "That would explain why none of the skeletons had their right hands: they've worn them down to a stub by clawing this phrase over and over on the walls." "Why would they do thaat?" asked Baabby, intrigued. Unnoticed behind them, Sam was gagging and frantically spitting bone dust out of his mouth. "A magical compulsion?" guessed Sapphrina. "Judging from the first hut, some of the villagers left here in a hurry, and the others stayed behind and carved the phrase into the walls with their fingers, not even stopping once they'd died." They checked out a few more huts and found the results to be about fifty-fifty: either signs of panicked flight or the same phrase carved into the walls. Their investigations prompted two other skeletal villagers to attack them; Baabby skillfully handled cutting them down without breaking a sweat. Sam checked out a smaller hut that had two tiny totems just outside its door: one was carved like a mantis; the other, a butterfly. Sapphrina, meanwhile, had floated over to the largest hut - apparently a meeting hall. It, too, had two totem poles outside its door, this time an ox and a sheep. But of more importance, the large wooden table inside was covered in unrolled maps weighted down with books. The maps proved to be of the local area, while the books were journals of the village's history. While Sapphrina (and Baabby, once he'd finished dispatching the last two one-handed skeletons) examined the maps, Sam gave himself over to a search for more important things - like treasure! He cried out in delight when pulling away a rotting carpet of woven jungle fibers revealed a trap door in the floor - nothing more elaborate than a piece of sturdy wood over a hole dug into the dirt floor. Tearing away the wood, Sam pulled out the sole contents of the hidden space: an elaborately carved box with three keyholes on its top. "Now we're talking!" exclaimed the greedy archer. Squinting at the images carved by the three keyholes - he wanted to make sure they weren't trapped - Sam made out the images of a crow, a sheep, and a butterfly. "Well, that's weird," he muttered and showed the others what they'd found. "You think they represent us?" asked Baabby. "Could be," admitted Sapphrina, fluttering her fairy wings, which looked very much like an oversize pair of butterfly wings. "Here, hold this!" said Sam suddenly, thrusting the box at the fairy as he rushed outside. An idea had suddenly formed in his mind; searching the sheep carving in the totem pole, he poked and prodded until he found a secret compartment. And sure enough, hidden inside it was a small metal key - with the head of a sheep engraved on its end. "I knew it!" cried Sam, rushing over to the smaller totems of the mantis and the butterfly he'd been looking at earlier. A close perusal unearthed another hidden compartment containing a butterfly key. "Now we just need a crow!" exclaimed Baabby, finding his companion's enthusiasm contagious. "Everybody needs a crow," agreed Sam knowingly. But a quick search throughout the small village finally led them to another pair of totems, this time a matched hawk and a crow along a path exiting the village. Sam found the crow key and the trio eagerly opened the box. Inside were three necklaces, each with a single ornament carved from a green stone: a sheep, a crow, and a butterfly. "Gee, I wonder which one is whose?" snickered Sam as he placed the crow necklace around his neck. "What do these do?" he asked Sapphrina. She usually knew the answers to such questions. "I can only assume they'll aid us in some way," said the fairy. "Obviously, somebody here had heard of the Prophecy of the Courageous Sheep and the Cowardly Crow and stashed these away for our use when we came this way." "Man, that stupid prophecy needs a new name," grumbled Sam. "So now what?" "We should go check out those journals," suggested Sapphrina. "Great," snorted Sam at the suggestion as he followed his two friends back to the meeting hall hut. "Reading! That sounds exciting!" It wasn't. Sam left the boring journal-reading to their studious fairy while he went searching the village for a totem pole carved in the image of a snail. "Sorry, Shelldon," he said after his explorations were complete. "I guess they didn't think to make a necklace for you." Returning to the others, he asked if they'd had any luck. They had. Sapphrina explained that the journals told of an explorer who had come to the village on his way to searching for a rare and magical gemstone. The villagers told him to follow the river but to stay out of the caves. He returned days later with a chunk of the gemstone he'd been looking for, which he'd apparently broken off from the rest of the stone. But then the journal ended suddenly - and the last sentence had looked like it had been scrawled rather hurriedly. "It looks like the gemstone chunk brought the troubles with it to the village," surmised Sapphrina. "So, it sounds like we haave two options," suggested Baabby. "We caan either follow the river and stay out of the caves, like the explorer was told to do, or we caan try to find this chunk of gemstone aand return it to where it came from." No matter which plan they adopted, their path to the Earth Rune would be taking them the same way the unnamed explorer had gone. "Well," piped up Sam, "How about we follow the river, stay out of the caves, and if we happen to see any gem fragments lying around we figure out what to do with them when the time comes?" It was as good a plan as any, so the trio left the village through the totem poles of the hawk and the crow and trudged south. As they traveled, Sapphrina's necklace started glowing. "Hey, how come yours is glowing and ours aren't?" demanded Sam. "I think mine's the only one doing anything right now," she said. "Odds are, it's allowing me to stay in flight, fighting the anti-Air magic infusing the area. And a good thing, too, or one of you would be carrying me." It was true: fairies had no legs, their lower torsos tapering off to a fine mist like a genie. As she was ahead of her companions, she missed out on Baabby and Sam looking at each other, then silently racing to put a finger to their nose in a "Not it!" gesture. Baabby smirked at his victory while Sam sulked at his loss. But then he decided if he was going to lose a competition like that, it was best to do so when the outcome wouldn't matter - Sapphrina's necklace seemed to be keeping her in the air just fine. After a lengthy troop through the rainforest, made all the more memorable by the two light showers and the constant grumbling from Sam, the trio came to the river. It was about five feet below the surface of the rest of the ground, its winding passage through the jungle having carved a snakelike channel. The river wasn't very wide and probably wasn't very deep, judging from the occasional smooth rocks rising up above its surface. But that wasn't what had initially caught the heroes' attention: rather, somewhat expectedly, their focus was on the massive tyrannosaurus standing on the other side of the river in between a sharp curve. It had been dipping its muzzle in the river, either to quench its thirst or snap at some fish, but it looked up at the heroes' approach. Everyone froze, too frightened to move. But the tyrannosaur's eyesight was apparently not all that good - or perhaps the heroes would make little more than a light snack to the massive beast - and it returned its gaze to the river below where it stood. "Whew!" breathed Sam. And that was when they noticed the dire tigers. There were two of them, one over behind the tyrannosaur and the other much closer - just on the other side of the chasm from Baabby, who was in the lead of the trio's formation. It had been laying down in the tall grass when it suddenly stretched, stood, and looked the humanoid sheep straight in the eye with a look that said, "Why yes, I think mutton will do quite nicely for dinner tonight!" Baabby wasted no time. Pulling the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] from his broad back, he leaped - and landed with a splash into the river below, where he quickly waded away as fast as he could. (He might have been a massively-muscled baabarian, but he was nobody's fool.) He looked up to see the dire tiger watching his every move, ready to pounce - and then saw a cave opening along the side of the riverbank. "In here!" he called, wading into the narrow cave opening and assuming a defensive stance. Sapphrina followed at once, flying diagonally across the chasm in a bee-line to safety. Her wings brushed Baabby's arm as she flew past him into the dark interior of the cave. "Well, this is just great!" complained Sam, looking across the narrow chasm at the hungry-looking dire tiger that was apparently deciding that a poultry dish would make an acceptable alternative to the mutton course he had originally planned. In desperation, Sam sent an explosive arrow directly into the tiger's face, then jumped into the water - and ducked. The water was only waist-high, so he wanted to make sure he was completely submerged and hopefully out of view when the dire tiger shook off the sudden attack. Because the former Son of Archery knew full well that a tiger that big wasn't going to be toppled by a single arrow, explosive or otherwise! And sure enough, it wasn't. With a roar of fury, the dire tiger leaped the gap and landed where Sam had been just moments before. It spun around and spotted Baabby standing at the entrance to the cave, a perfectly good meal. And yet, surprisingly, it didn't leap down at the sheep-man. Instead, its ears flattened against its head, almost as if afraid to go down into the cave with its potential prey. "That doesn't particularly bode well," sputtered Sam as he rose up from the water at the cave's entrance and followed his companions into the darkness within. "Even the tigers know better than to enter the caves." "Guys," called Sapphrina from deeper within the cave, after it was apparent the tiger wasn't going to follow them inside. "Come look at this." She showed Baabby and Sam a pile of shattered crystal shards in a pile along one side of the cave tunnel - for from here, they could see there was another cave opening at the other end, opening back into the river chasm. The fairy was visibly shivering at the sight. "Whaat is it?" asked Baabby, concern in his voice. "Don't you feel it?" asked the fairy. "Something's...very off about this place." "Really?" asked Sam in sarcastic amazement. "You mean here, in this cave that the villagers warn people not to enter?" "We didn't really haave a choice," argued Baabby. "Would you have raather stayed and fought the tiger? And the tyrannosaur?" "No," admitted the crow. "But still." He looked down at the pile of gem-shards, idly wondering if they were worth anything, but ultimately deciding he didn't want anything to do with gems that could have him scratching "Imprisoned, he yet feeds" until he wore out his bones. Birds had very delicate bones, after all. As Baabby and Sapphrina moved to the other end of the tunnel, though, something else entered Sam's notice: all of the shards were the exact same thickness - almost as if the full gemstone had been hollow.... "Hey!" Sam called, realizing he was the only one left in the cave. "Wait up!" The baabarian had taken a deep breath before exiting the cave and was now skirting along the bottom of the river - which was a good thing, as he was passing beneath the area where the tyrannosaur stood overhead. Fortunately, there was a downed tree covering the chasm that partially blocked the access to the river below; even if the dinosaur had spotted Baabby, he'd have to move the tree out of the way before he could snap down at him. As Sam exited the dark cave and blinked in the sunlight, he could see Sapphrina submerge and repeat Baabby's strategy for getting past the tyrannosaur. Something must have caught the beast's eye, for it lunged down with its giant head and snapped the tree in half, sending both chunks falling into the river to be washed away by the current. But by then Baabby had ducked into another riverside cave and Sapphrina soon followed suit. [i]Oh well - nothing for it![/i] thought Sam, taking a deep breath and ducking beneath the water, hoping his dark feathers would keep him fairly well hidden from the dinosaur above. "You made it!" said Sapphrina when Sam staggered into the cave; the crow was glad to hear the worry in her voice as she voiced her happiness that he'd made it. "Easy-peasy!" scoffed Sam. "I'm actually part duck on my mother's side." Meanwhile, Baabby had walked halfway down the tunnel and found another gemstone - this one intact. "Guys!" he called. "Check it out!" He gave the gem a knock with his knuckles. And it knocked back. "Um," gulped Sam, moving up to examine the gem. "Is it supposed to do that?" As an experiment, he rapped on its surface three times, and in response it rapped back at him three times. He stared at the gemstone and was sure he could see mist of some type swirling around in there. It was almost hypnotic...but also somehow [i]wrong[/i]. "I think I'm getting those heebie-jeebies Sapphrina got in the last cave," he said, starting to shiver. And then the first crack appeared in the surface of the gem. Sam leaped back as if the gem had bitten him. Despite its great size - it stood almost as high as the humanoid crow did, so it would likely be worth a fortune intact - Sam wanted nothing to do with the eerie thing. He stepped back, complaining: "'Follow the river,' they said. 'Stay out of the caves,' they said. So what do we do? We follow the river and we enter every single cave we see!" "It looks like it's trying to hatch!" exclaimed Baabby, who had stepped forward to check out the gemstone himself. Multiple cracks had appeared all over the gem, but they were all on the inside - the outer surfaces were still as smooth as ever. Baabby hefted his greatsword and announced, "I'm going to give it a hand!" Sam got about two words into his next sentence - which was going to be "I don't think that's a good idea!" - when the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i] smashed through the gemstone, sending shards everywhere. The mist darkened and took form - and suddenly, there in the tunnel with the three heroes hovered a darkness elemental, its alien form (roughly humanoid, but bizarrely so, with gaps and spaces missing from its arms and torso like it was partially skeletal, and with wispy tendrils instead of legs) hovering above the floor of the cave tunnel. Although it was hard to make out facial features, it didn't look as if the elemental creature had a mouth; nonetheless, as its body formed the words "Imprisoned, my master feeds!" could be heard whispering throughout the cavern. A great fear entered the hearts of all three heroes at the sight of this monstrosity. "I have an idea: LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" cried Sam - but for once, uncharacteristically, Sapphrina beat him to it. With a frantic beating of wings (more hummingbird speed than butterfly), the fairy flew back the way they'd come, out of the cave, up the side of the chasm, and straight into the surrounding jungle before the tyrannosaur could even register her presence. Fortunately, Baabby and Sam weren't as affected by the darkness elemental's frightful presence as their fairy companion had been. Sam sent an explosive arrow into the creature's torso; then, as the flames flickered out, Baabby leapt up and slashed the thing with the [i]Rift-Weaver's Blade[/i]. Despite Sam having to wait for a moment before he could charge another arrow with explosive energy (and the apparent uselessness of a normal arrow - it hit the creature but seemed to pass right through), the hulking baabarian was up to the task of taking down the monstrosity he had helped birth. And once the creature had been slain, the fear left the two heroes as suddenly as it had appeared. Together, they exited at the far end of the tunnel, far enough away from the tyrannosaur's position it was no longer aware of their presence, only to find Sapphrina sheepishly fluttering to meet them. "Sorry about that, guys," she apologized. "I think that was a fear effect - it was like I had no control over my actions." As luck would have it, there was another cave opening directly across the chasm from where the heroes stood. Without hesitation, Baabby entered it, sword at the ready. "'Follow the river,' they said," repeated Sam dejectedly. "'Stay out of the caves,' they said...." "Caan it, Sam!" commanded Baabby. "There's another gem in here! We need to destroy it!" "Couldn't we just leave it alone?" wheedled the archer. "It's stuck in here, not doing anybody any harm...." "Better that we aactivate it and destroy the monster within," countered Baabby. "Otherwise, somebody could come along and there could be aanother village destroyed. You don't waant thaat, do you?" "No," replied Sam, knowing when he was beaten. "But before you go cracking it open like an egg, let me try something." Rummaging in his backpack, the little crow pulled out his canvas tent and a 50-foot supply of sturdy rope. He plopped the tent over the top half of the gemstone and wrapped the rope around it. Once he saw what his little partner was planning, Baabby even helped him pull the rope tight so the crow could tie the knot as tight as possible. Then he started tapping on it, only to hear something - the darkness elemental within, they now knew - tap back. When cracks started appearing on the inside of the gem, Sam had everyone step back out of the blast radius and targeted an explosive arrow dead center on the gemstone. With any luck, it would get tangled up in the tent and the ropes, and they could make easy work of it. It didn't quite turn out that way. It broke through the gemstone, sending shattered pieces tumbling down beneath the bound tent, but the tent and ropes slipped off the elemental like a shed skin. Not that it really mattered all that much, though: Sam got off his shot, and then Baabby rushed in with his greatsword. He took a raking of sharp claws across his chest as he approached, but it didn't deter the sheep-man - instead, it caused the rage to build inside him and further fuel his strength. Several slashes later, the darkness elemental's alien form dissipated into nothingness, but not before whispering a creepy "Imprisoned, my master feeds!" "Say 'Hi!' to your little pal Don from us!" called Sam, still irritated that his tent trick hadn't worked. "Don't feel bad," said Sapphrina. "Darkness is kind of hard to tie up, after all." "Yeah," agreed Sam. "But I blew up my tent." "We'll get you aanother one," promised Baabby. Exiting the other end of the cave tunnel, the heroes found themselves back at the river. No further caves were visible, but they floated down the river with their eyes peeled for any new riverbank openings; Baabby was determined to activate and destroy any further darkness elementals they might encounter on the way. But the rest of their river trip was uneventful and the trio soon enough saw the Perilous Plateau looming ahead. "Oh yeah," remarked Sam. "I forgot we still have a long way yet to go." - - - This adventure was a "travel to the location of the next Rune" adventure, not a "get the next Rune" adventure (as Logan explained to Harry once we were finished playing). Harry accepted it, although he's eager to collect the Earth Rune and be on our way to the next one. The necklaces each add a +2 to Will saves vs. fear, which were useful against the darkness elementals, although Sapphrina did poorly on her saves anyway and went from shaken to frightened and thus fled. Fortunately, upon killing the darkness elemental its effects faded, so she regained her composure and found her way back to the rest of the group. Logan picked up a new Pathfinder Flip-Mat for this adventure: [i]Forbidden Jungle[/i]. It had the village of huts on the one side and the winding river on the other; he added the six cave openings along the riverbanks using paper overlays he had built and cut out. For the cave interiors, he used three different "Map Pack" cards of cave passageways, explaining away the fact that they weren't the correct size and shape to extend from one cave opening to the other as dimensional distortion. [/QUOTE]
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