ADVENTURE 16: FOREST DREAMS
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 18 September 2021
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"So where is this next dreamer supposed to be?" asked Zander Quilson, astride his horse Eddy. He was riding directly behind the mule-driven wagon, since the forest path they were traversing wasn't wide enough to accommodate riding beside it.
"Somewhere in a clearing here in the Darkwood Forest," replied Xandro, who had paid attention last night during their dream session when Mogo explained where they'd be heading next. "An area where two of these roads cross each other, leaving a wide area in the middle. We're apparently on the right road, so we shouldn't be able to miss it."
Up ahead of the wagon, with Wakuren the only one riding in it now that Alewyth had her dire goat Pyrite, Thurloe Pulver sat astride his own hastily-named horse, Horse. He scanned the sides of the trees as they ambled along, his ever-cautious nature making him the perfect point guard to check for an ambush. But it wasn't an ambush the group ran into - not at first, in any case - it was a dire wolf, crouched as bold as you please in the middle of the road ahead. His muzzle was covered in blood as he looked up from the body of the dead deer he'd been eating, locking eyes with Thurloe and growling a warning not to approach any further and try to take the wolf's meal from him. Thurloe brought Horse to an immediate halt and held his hand up to signal Wakuren to do the same; the half-orc pulled on the mules' reins and brought them to a stop, veering them to the left in case any of the others behind him might need to pass. From his vantage point he couldn't see why Thurloe had stopped them, but he assumed it wasn't on a whim.
And Thurloe would have simply had the group turn around and find a side road past the dire wolf and his deer feast had it not been for the humanoid figure lying sprawled on the ground beside the deer. It was the size of a gnome, although beyond that it was hard to make out any features, for the figure was either covered in branches and leaves or else had them growing out of his body. But from the distance between them, Thurloe couldn't tell if the little possible-gnome were even still alive or not. And, of course, Thurloe being Thurloe after all, part of his mind measured the possibility that the gnome guy was in league with the dire wolf and this was some sort of trap.
In one smooth motion, Thurloe dismounted from Horse and brought his bastard sword out from its scabbard over his back. He stepped slowly towards the humanoid figure, sword out and readied but not in an offensive stance; at this point he just wanted to get close enough to see if the gnome guy was still breathing or not. "Easy, big guy, we're not here to hurt you," he said to the dire wolf, hoping the tone of his voice if not his actual words would convey his non-threatening posture.
The dire wolf was having none of it. Standing over his meal, if not technically his kill (for he had come across the three-foot-tall humanoid and the deer shortly after the deer had been brought down by a well-thrown javelin), his growl deepened and his body tensed as if ready to pounce. And it was at this time that Wakuren walked up to see what was going on, tensing at the sight of the downed humanoid and ready to go provide aid to him if he could. Instinctively, he used his paladin training to sense the taint of evil among any of the present group and saw none; the dire wolf was merely a hungry predator attending to his needs and the humanoid was either still alive and not evil or already dead, in which case there would be no evil emanations from him even if he had habitually slain babies and bathed in their blood every day - a corpse was just a corpse.
Since Wakuren had pulled the mules over to the side, beneath the overhanging branches of the trees flanking the narrow road, Alewyth had enough room to ride Pyrite up to see for herself why they'd stopped. Seeing the dire wolf, she cast a bless spell on the group, just in case it was needed. And it most certainly was, for there were now far too many enemies for the dire wolf's liking, too many who might try to take his meal for themselves. He sprang forward, sinking his teeth into the nearest of these enemies. Wakuren had tried to block the lupine head with his shield but merely shunted the beast's muzzle to grip his upper arm; fortunately for the half-orc, his armor held against the wolf's jagged teeth and he managed to keep his balance.
Thurloe was beside Wakuren in a heartbeat, his bastard sword swinging down upon the wolf's flank, causing it to howl in pain and release Wakuren's arm from its grasp. Behind the wagon, Xandro and Zander slipped off of their horses and ran up to see what was going on - some sort of combat, it sounded like. The bard pulled his lute from his back and started the chords of his song of inspirational courage, while the sorcerer cast a mage armor spell upon himself.
And then an unseen attacker entered the fray from an unseen vantage point, attacking an unusual target: from somewhere overhead up in the trees came a flaming javelin to pierce none of the current combatants but rather the downed figure that lay unmoving by the slain deer. The flames on the weapon's tip started the leaves and branches covering the figure ablaze.
And then more of these flaming javelins started raining down from the treetops, two of them hitting Thurloe and Wakuren, causing the fighter's suspicions about an ambush to harden in his mind, although he wasn't sure why the little gnome guy would have been the first target of the attack, since he was probably already dead and thus couldn't have been in on it. Oh well, time enough to figure out the whys and wherefores after combat had been completed - right now, it was more important to stay alive!
Wakuren concentrated his attacks on the massive dire wolf before him, trusting in his plate mail armor to keep him relatively safe from the fire-tipped javelins from above. He brought the bottom edge of his shield crashing down upon the wolf's head, cutting it open with the point. Then he stepped back out of immediate range of his snapping jaws and dared a quick glance up at the trees, unable to see any enemies at all up there but distinctly seeing the evil auras of five different individuals.
Alewyth cast a protection from evil spell on herself as she rode Pyrite closer to the dire wolf, her warhammer Sjondra gripped in one hand. The dire wolf changed targets suddenly and nipped at Thurloe, biting him on the leg but failing to pull the fighter to the ground, where he'd likely have an easier time of killing him. Thurloe retaliated with another swing of his bastard sword, cutting a deep gash in the wolf's shoulder. And now he could hear Xandro's tune behind him, inspiring him to greater acts of courage.
Zander cast a ray of enfeeblement spell at the wounded wolf, draining off a bit of the massive brute's impressive strength. The wolf, at this point, was starting to look very much the worse for wear, but he wasn't the only foe the group had to worry about for another wave of five flaming javelins came streaking down from the treetops; this time they had been better coordinated, with each of the five heroes being targeted by his or her individual missile.
Squinting up into the trees, Wakuren spotted a wooden face among the branches, with twigs and branches growing out of it from all sides. He tried to recall if there were any fey creatures fitting that description and why they might be attacking him and his companions; in the meantime, on a more practical front, he cast an entropic shield spell upon himself, hoping to deflect a couple of those flaming javelins being hurled his way.
Alewyth was also peering up into the treetops, trying to spot who it was hurling flaming javelins down at them. She didn't have much in the way of ranged weaponry - just her sling - and preferred using her spellcraft in any case, but when she saw a wooden face peering down at her she cast a doom spell on him, hoping to mess up his aim at least. Unlike Wakuren, she had no idea how many of these hidden foes were up there, but there had to be at least five, given five javelins had been hurled almost simultaneously.
The dire wolf made a half-hearted snap at Thurloe's leg again and the fighter brought his blade down upon the beast's neck, killing it. Then he looked up into the tree branches above him, trying to pinpoint who these hidden enemies might be. In the meantime, Xandro cast a cure light wounds spell upon Zander Quilson, as the elf was their physically weakest member and was easily taken out in combat, but he was also their most powerful source of offensive combat spells and it was always a good idea to keep him in the fight for as long as possible.
There was a sudden startled cry from behind the wagon and Zander thought it sounded like his horse Eddy. Sure enough, there was another wolf back there attacking his mount! The sorcerer wasn't sure if this was just a normal wolf or perhaps the offspring of the dire wolf but it didn't really matter; that was his horse the wolf was trying to kill! Zander ran toward his horse and raised his hands, channeling a scorching ray through his fingertips and sending the blazing flash of fire cascading into the startled predator. Eddy took the opportunity to flee in terror down a side path, while beside him Xandro's horse White did the same thing. The worg, in the meantime, snarled in fury at the sudden magical onslaught; he'd been trying to pace his master as he went scurrying about in the tree branches and hadn't expected to encounter spellcasters when he came across a pair of what he had thought were unprotected horses!
Another wave of flaming javelins came flying down from all directions above them and this time Wakuren, having spotted one of their tree-borne tormentors, had been able to see how that process worked: the wooden faces all had pipes in their mouths and dipped the tips of their javelins - no doubt coated in some type of flammable oil or something - into them to set them ablaze before hurtling them down at the adventurers. Activating his ring of invisibility, Wakuren vanished from sight and took a few steps to the side so their assailants wouldn't know his exact location.
Sudden inspiration hit Alewyth and she cast a spiritual weapon spell, causing a warhammer of solid force to materialize in the air above her. She had spotted one of these tree-pests and could send her spiritual warhammer to go deal with it while she sought out future targets for it to smash. The force-hammer went streaking into the trees, hitting its target square on and causing it to plummet lifelessly from the branch upon which it had been perched to the ground below. One down: a start, at least!
Thurloe sheathed his blade and brought out his bow, notching an arrow into place and looking up into the trees for a suitable target. Once he spotted movement he shot at the tree-bound foe but failed to bring him down.
Not wanting a repeat of the fire magic that had seared his fur, the worg went sprinting at Zander Quilson, biting down hard up the elf sorcerer's leg and trying to bring him crashing to the ground so he could rip out his throat. But even slightly off balance, Zander had no problem targeting another scorching ray spell directly at the worg at that distance and the creature died immediately, its corpse ablaze.
Four flaming javelins came flying out of the trees above, this time focused solely on Thurloe and Xandro. Wakuren, seeing the success Alewyth was having with her spiritual weapon, cast one of his own, his taking the form of a heavy mace, the weapon the god Cal wielded. It went flying straight for the wooden-faced foe Wakuren had spotted among the trees, killing him instantly and dropping his body to the ground in a heap. In his aura-sensing vision, the half-orc saw one of the remaining sources of evil scampering deeper into the clump of trees from which they had attacked their foes on the ground - he was apparently heading back the way they had come, paralleling the road the adventurers had taken.
Alewyth's force-hammer swung at another of these arboreal foes, smacking it good but failing to drop it. She took the time to lean down and channel a cure light wounds spell on Zander, healing up the jagged gash on his calf where the worg had bitten him. But with the priestess's spiritual warhammer all but pointing at a potential target, Thurloe had no trouble slaying it with his next arrow shot. The dead enemy crashed through the branches to fall to the ground to the accompaniment of Xandro's courage-inspiring tune.
Zander saw a brief flash of light up in the trees and realized it was another javelin being lit on fire right before being thrown; now that he could make out the creature's shape up there, he cast a magic missile spell flashing up there, slaying the assailant before he could let fly with his javelin. Both body and javelin fell to the ground below.
There was now only one of these arboreal enemies left and he was in fast retreat. Knowing he had to get word back to the tribe, he sent his owl familiar on ahead so that if he didn't make it back at least one of the other adepts could learn of this team's slaughter, for the loyal bird would easily be able to lead them back here and if the old stories were true, human marauders just left their slain enemies to rot where they fell.
But as this last survivor leaped and skipped from branch to branch, he didn't realize he was being tracked from the ground. Wakuren was tracking the retreating figure in the branches through his aura of evil, which glowed in the cleric-paladin's vision like a beacon. And that was enough to allow the half-orc to send his spiritual heavy mace slamming into the fleeing figure. In the meantime, the armored half-orc bent down over the burning form of the body by the slain deer the dire wolf had been eating. Wakuren was intrigued by the thought this might be a humanoid plant of some type, like those needlefolk they'd met up in that old abandoned mine. But no, the branches and leaves that had covered the form, now that he had a better look at them (and many of them had been burned away), had merely been sewn to the leather armor of the figure, whose "wooden face" was nothing more than a mask. Flipping the body over with his shield and stamping out the flames still burning the body, he bent over and pulled off the mask, revealing the face of a green-skinned goblin. That was a surprise, for as far as Wakuren knew there weren't any more goblins living out among themselves, they'd all been civilized and could be found as servants in the larger cities. How strange to see a band of goblins running around in the trees, of all places!
Alewyth, in the meantime, had spurred Pyrite to enter the forest proper, skirting around the trees so she could keep her spiritual warhammer actively attacking the last of the assailants; she caught a glimpse of the fleeing figure and her force-hammer gave one final blow before it winked out, the duration of its magic having expired. But that last blow was all that had been necessary, for the tree goblin adept went tumbling off the limb he'd been traversing, falling in a lifeless heap upon the ground. And just that quickly, the attack was over.
The group searched the bodies and found these odd tree goblins had nothing worth taking, merely a handful of javelins each, a lit corncob pipe, and that weird leather armor with leaves and branches interwoven in as camouflage. The wooden masks they wore were crudely made, but the overall effect certainly did what it was supposed to: help them blend into the background while leaping from branch to branch and hiding the fact that these "tree-people" were in fact goblins. The adventurers gathered up their mounts, Alewyth and Wakuren cast healing spells on those who needed them, and then the group moved on, back in the direction they had started, seeking out the crossroads opening in the Darkwood Forest where they were to find the next trapped dreamer.
An hour later they were certain they'd come to the crossroads, for it fit the description Mogo had given them precisely. However, there were no buildings in the area at all to be seen. "Tree house?" guessed Alewyth, shielding her eyes from the sun and scanning the trees for any signs of habitation.
"Watch it's one of those tree goblins, sitting up in a nest at the top of the trees or something," joked Zander.
"Better not be," replied Thurloe, dismounting from Horse and leading him in a clockwise direction around the edge of the clearing; maybe the house was camouflaged or something. The others dismounted and did likewise, with Wakuren pulling the mule-wagon over to one side. Thurloe saw a bunch of prints in the dirt of the intersection, mostly those of a horse without horseshoes and the bare feet of what was likely a young woman, given their size. But no dwellings of any kind that he could see.
In was Xandro who first made contact, although in reality he was the contact recipient, not the instigator. "Hello?" said a shy voice from the other side of a clump of broad-leafed plants. "Have you come to help my friend Belisandre?"
Xandro peered between the leaves and saw the face of a beautiful young woman staring back at him, although it was one seemingly made of living wood. "Well, hello," he said. "Yes, we're here to help your friend - if she's been trapped in a dream, that is. Can you take us to her?" The young woman nodded shyly and stepped forward.
"What is your name?" asked Xandro, looking at the lovely vision stepping from between the undergrowth. It was a woman of his own size and age, although her smooth, brown skin held the lines one found in the rings of trees; her head had a handful of branches erupting out of it in all directions like a crown and green growths of ivy cascaded down from her head like hair. "My name is Nyla, she said, adding (perhaps unnecessarily), "I'm a dryad."
"My name is Xandro," replied the bard, taking her hand and bringing her out into the open to meet his friends.
After introductions had been made, Nyla told the group what she knew. "Belisandre is a dryad, like myself. She has been asleep inside her tree for three weeks now and I have been unable to awaken her." After Alewyth explained how they had been able to help others who had been stuck inside their dreams, she asked if it was possible for Nyla to take them inside Belisandre's tree. "No, I am afraid that is not possible," Nyla said with regret. "As a dryad I can enter her tree as well as any other, but I cannot take others in with me to anywhere but my own tree."
That didn't seem like too much of a problem, though; Alewyth handed over a leather headband holding a dreamstone and asked Nyla to place it around Belisandre's brow, with the dreamstone aligned in the middle of her forehead. "Once that's done, the five of us will sit around her tree and enter the dreamscape, rousing her from her dream. We'll need you to stand watch over our bodies while we do that, though, because here on the Mortal Plane we'll be asleep." Nyla instantly agreed, took the proffered headband, and walked into an oak tree at the edge of the clearing.
Zander activated his figurine of wondrous power and instructed the cooshee to wake him if any danger approached while they were sleeping around the oak tree. Alewyth brought her dire goat over as well, and while she had no way of communicating any instructions to him that he would be able to understand, she was comforted knowing he would be nearby while she slept.
"It is done," Nyla said as she stepped back out from the tree. "Now what?"
"Now," replied Xandro, wearing a headband identical to the one they'd given the dryad, "the five us go inside your friend's dream and bring her back." He flashed the young dryad a smile and received one in return. "I will watch over you," Nyla promised.
One by one, the five dreamwalkers slowed their heartbeats and breathing and entered a dream state. Their minds went immediately to the dreamlands, where they were each met up by their personal moogle guide who led them to the Hall of Dreams. And there, as usual, hovered Mogo, his hand on one particular door in an endless hallway with doors all side by side for as far as the eye could see. "Good luck in there, kupo!" Mogo called as the five dreamwalkers entered the open doorway.
None of the heroes had ever been inside a dryad's home in the middle of a tree before, but they judged that was likely where they were now, for the room they were in had no straight lines or right angles, just a flowing, organic shape. But what was surprising - and not at all what they'd expected to see inside a dryad's living space - was all of the fungus sprouting all over the place. White puffballs grew out of the walls, tangles of bluish-green tendrils dangled from the ceiling like the tentacles of a giant jellyfish, and blobs of green and brown and black mold and spores grew along the floor like overripe melons. Large toadstools were growing all around the edges of the room, some of them extending purplish growths that swayed as if in an unseen breeze. In the middle of the floor lay a pile of hardened growths in the vague shape of a humanoid figure.
Realizing this was all just a dream, Thurloe stepped forward and gave the lumpy growths in the middle of the room a hard kick with his booted foot, receiving a muffled grunt of pain from within the human-shaped mass. "What are you doing?" demanded Alewyth. "That's probably Belisandre in there!"
Zander closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to force the hardened growths to dissolve away with the sheer force of his will. Mogo had told them that with sufficient training, a dreamwalker could eventually shape any dream to suit his own desires - and right now the elf desired the hardened fungus to get off of Belisandre, if that was indeed her underneath all of that. He opened his eyes again and looked down at the vaguely humanoid shape, trying to see if his attempts to alter the dream had had any effect. Maybe? It was kind of hard to tell.
"I'm going to try treating this as a disease," Wakuren decided, casting a cure light wounds spell on the pile of fungus before him. Touching the fungus burned his fingers, but the healing energy of the spell seemed as effective against the intrusive fungus as if it had been undead. Great clumps of it blackened and fell away, exposing a good portion of the sleek, wooden body underneath.
Xandro, in the meantime, had taken his rapier out of its scabbard and was going to town against the puffball fungus. It crumbled and flaked away at the touch of his blade, causing great clouds of choking spores that didn't seem to affect the dream other than making it harder for them to breathe. He quickly stopped doing that.
Then a pair of the toadstools shambled forward, slapping out with their violet tentacles at Xandro and Zander. Alewyth came immediately to Zander's aid, slamming the violet fungus that had been attacking the elf. Thurloe, who had been attacking some of the dangling tendrils (to little effect), saw the commotion and chopped his blade into the "head" of the fungus attacking Xandro. Zander cast a scorching ray at the violet fungus attacking him and it was immediately set ablaze, its violet tendrils waving around feebly as whatever strange life it possessed burned away.
But by now Wakuren had figured that completely freeing the imprisoned dryad was the key to waking her from her ongoing nightmare of decay and suffocation, and he cast another healing spell on the fungus still covering her body, this time using a more powerful cure moderate wounds version. That had the remainder of the rot sloughing off her and crumbling away to nothingness. He held out a hand and helped her to her feet and the room around them started dissolving away as the dryad began to wake up for the first time in three weeks....
One by one, the five dreamwalkers willed themselves back awake (Xandro breathing a sigh of relief at finding out this time there were no difficulties) and back outside the dryad's oak tree. "You did it?" asked Nyla. "You were successful?"
"She should be awake now," Xandro answered, but before the dryad could reply Thurloe interrupted her. "Uh-oh," he said.
"What?" demanded Alewyth, getting to her feet and lifting her warhammer into a defensive stance. She didn't see anything to startle the fighter.
"Thought I saw some movement in the trees across the way,' Thurloe replied, pulling his bow from his back. "Might be nothing but the wind..."
"...or it could be more of those tree goblins," finished Zander. A flaming javelin came streaking across the way to hit him in the arm as if to settle the matter; the elf slapped the weapon away before the flames could catch his robe on fire.
"Back here, by me!" Thurloe commanded, for he was on the far side of Belisandre's oak tree from where the javelin had been thrown. Zander hurried to comply while his cooshee barked his displeasure up at the trees. He raced across the intervening road, barking up at the unseen menaces as if he'd just chased them up there himself, his tail wagging as if complimenting himself upon a job well done. Nyla, in the meantime, raced around the oak tree and hunkered down beside Zander.
But then Belisandre sauntered out of the tree, directly in the line of fire of the tree goblins. "What's going on?" asked the young dryad. "I just had the strangest--"
Her words were cut off as a flaming javelin stabbed her in the stomach and took root, the flames trying to catch hold of her smooth-barked body. With a shriek of surprise and pain, Belisandre tugged the burning weapon from her body as Wakuren pulled her to safety, then activated his magic ring to fade from view. He moved over by Zander to see if he needed any healing from the attack and decided it was probably worthwhile to heal him up while he had the chance.
Xandro had, by this time, pulled out his crossbow and tried to hit one of the well-camouflaged enemies. The bolt skewered its way through numerous leaves but there was no cry of pain by the time it had finished its flight path. Alewyth spotted a tree goblin and instinctively cast an innate ray of frost at it with one hand while she unpacked her sling from a pouch at her belt with the other. The ray struck but didn't do enough damage to slay the tree goblin.
Thurloe's first arrow managed to hit one head on, though, causing it to plummet to the ground with a shaft piercing its wooden mask and the middle of its head. But more incoming javelins came aimed at Thurloe and Xandro; once again the humans seemed to be the goblins' primary targets. Zander cast a magic missile spell at a tree goblin as soon as he could make it out among the surrounding trees, causing the second death in this wave of arboreal attackers.
On the adventurers' recommendation, Belisandre ran back inside her oak tree, while Nyla followed suit. Off in the distance, Wakuren saw one of the tree goblins drop to the ground and run across the dirt road to the clump of trees off to the west. As he didn't have much in the way of ranged attacks available, the half-orc sprinted in the direction of the tree goblin, hoping to catch him while he was still on the ground. The cooshee had also spotted him, it seemed, and was racing over to catch him as well. Wakuren put on a burst of speed and slammed at the fleeing tree goblin with the edge of his shield, missing him but popping back into visibility as he made the attempt. Xandro, seeing the commotion there on the ground, shot at the fleeing goblin as he scampered his way up the nearest tree, but the bolt embedded itself in the tree's trunk, having missed the fleeing creature entirely.
Alewyth sent her sling spinning over her head to build up speed and then sent the stone flinging across the road up into the trees, towards the tree goblin she'd spotted moving among the branches. It didn't sound like she hit him, though - a pity. But Thurloe spotted another one among the branches and took him down with another well-placed arrow. Beside him, Zander scanned the trees, looking for another tree goblin to shoot a spell at, but he couldn't see any. Thurloe and Alewyth had each taken down another tree goblin before the elf found one he could target with a magic missile spell, slaying it instantly. Zander nodded appreciatively to himself, glad to be pulling his own weight in this fight.
The cooshee snapped at the tree goblin rapidly climbing up to the safety of the higher branches over across two dirt roads from Belisandre's oak tree. But from his lofty perch, the tree goblin adept looked down upon the scowling half-orc that had chased him and sent a scorching ray blazing down into its ugly face. That caught Wakuren completely by surprise - he hadn't been aware these little pests could cast spells! Angered beyond measure, Wakuren vowed he was going to climb up that tree and drag the goblin spellcaster down where he could give him the proper beating he deserved. Tree climbing wasn't something Wakuren did often, and certainly not while in plate mail armor and with a heavy steel shield strapped to one forearm, but the cleric-paladin somehow managed it and pulled himself up onto a thick branch.
Of course, by that time, the nimble tree goblin adept had leaped over to a nearby adjoining branch from higher up in the same tree. But Wakuren wasn't going to allow that to stop him; judging the distance between them, he leaped up at the goblin pest, hoping to topple him out of his perch even if it meant taking a tumble himself as well. Unfortunately, tree combat was not the half-orc's forte and he went plummeting face-first back to the ground, without having managed to get a grip on the tree goblin adept who was now calling insults down at him in his Goblin language.
Xandro, having given up on trying to pick off tree goblins he could barely see with his light crossbow, had switched over to his lute and was beginning the song of inspirational courage - if he couldn't take them out himself he'd do what he could to provide magical assistance to those who were having better luck at it than he was. But Alewyth's next sling bullet went wide and she saw why: the tree goblin was scampering away from her, apparently having come to the decision to live to fight another day rather than throw its life away in a battle it couldn't win. After all, by this time there were half a dozen tree goblin bodies scattered beneath the clump of trees by which they approached their targets, and not one of their ground-borne foes had been taken down.
Thurloe shot at another departing tree goblin but missed. Zander saw it just in the nick of time and managed to bring it down with another magic missile spell, but he was about out of those and would soon be limited to his absolutely least powerful combat spells. He sighed; it looked like the battle was just about over.
But over at the clump of trees to the west, battle was still raging. The cooshee was still barking at the tree goblin adept, who seemed to enjoy taunting the elven dog below him. However, at Zander's urging, the cooshee used Wakuren as a springboard and leaped up high enough to get its teeth on the surprised goblin spellcaster, magically ripping a spell from the adept and then running back to his master to infuse it into the sorcerer, tail wagging furiously at what a good boy he was. Zander patted the dog's head and felt the spell energy seep into his being: power enough to fuel another magic missile spell! Now, if he could only find an appropriate target....
There was no movement within the original clump of trees, the few remaining goblins from the assault force having retreated. That left only the spellcaster, but he too had retreated deeper into the clump of trees and Zander couldn't spot him. But Alewyth and Thurloe were determined to bring him down, racing over that way and searching above them for telltale movement. Xandro continued his song, hoping they'd be able to find their foe, while Wakuren cast a badly-needed healing spell upon himself - he'd nearly broken a tusk from his fall! "There!" Alewyth called, sending a sling stone flying to cut a swath through leaf after leaf, to no avail. But Thurloe spotted the fleeing spellcaster, sighted his arrow on him carefully, and let fly. With a cry of pain, the tree goblin adept fell lifelessly to the ground below.
Alewyth and Thurloe exchanged congratulations as the heroes all regrouped. Seeing it was now safe to do so, the dryads exited their tree homes and Belisandre was able to express her thanks for having rescued her, as Nyla had filled her in on what all had happened over the past three weeks. Belisandre gave the group three doses of a healing paste, potions of barkskin, lesser restoration, and remove paralysis, as well as a vial of stone salve and a magical silver dagger with the holy symbol of Feron engraved on the pommel, the latter a gift from a passing druid.
And then the group was back in the saddle, heading off to the location of their next dream victim. "It's a shame we couldn't stay with them for a bit longer," sighed Xandro as they made their way back onto the road they'd been following. "I wouldn't have minded getting to know Nyla a bit better. She seemed nice." Plus, as a bard, Xandro Silverstrings was always looking for ideas and new experiences that could be turned into new songs or ballads - it never hurt to expand one's repertoire.
"Bad idea," called back Thurloe from astride Horse at the front of the expedition. He waited for the bard to object or ask why, and when he did neither Thurloe provided the answer anyway. "You'd get splinters."
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Having finished up "Forest Dreams" in a little over two and a half hours - about half the time we allow ourselves for a Saturday afternoon session - we decided to plunge ahead and go through the next adventure immediately afterwards, as that one was about as long as this one and I figured we could get through it in time.
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T-shirt worn: My "Hanes Moore Family Reunion" T-shirt with the silhouette of a tree, representing the oak tree of the dryad Belisandre.
PC Roster:
Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 4
Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 4
Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 2/paladin 2
Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 4
Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 4
Game Session Date: 18 September 2021
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"So where is this next dreamer supposed to be?" asked Zander Quilson, astride his horse Eddy. He was riding directly behind the mule-driven wagon, since the forest path they were traversing wasn't wide enough to accommodate riding beside it.
"Somewhere in a clearing here in the Darkwood Forest," replied Xandro, who had paid attention last night during their dream session when Mogo explained where they'd be heading next. "An area where two of these roads cross each other, leaving a wide area in the middle. We're apparently on the right road, so we shouldn't be able to miss it."
Up ahead of the wagon, with Wakuren the only one riding in it now that Alewyth had her dire goat Pyrite, Thurloe Pulver sat astride his own hastily-named horse, Horse. He scanned the sides of the trees as they ambled along, his ever-cautious nature making him the perfect point guard to check for an ambush. But it wasn't an ambush the group ran into - not at first, in any case - it was a dire wolf, crouched as bold as you please in the middle of the road ahead. His muzzle was covered in blood as he looked up from the body of the dead deer he'd been eating, locking eyes with Thurloe and growling a warning not to approach any further and try to take the wolf's meal from him. Thurloe brought Horse to an immediate halt and held his hand up to signal Wakuren to do the same; the half-orc pulled on the mules' reins and brought them to a stop, veering them to the left in case any of the others behind him might need to pass. From his vantage point he couldn't see why Thurloe had stopped them, but he assumed it wasn't on a whim.
And Thurloe would have simply had the group turn around and find a side road past the dire wolf and his deer feast had it not been for the humanoid figure lying sprawled on the ground beside the deer. It was the size of a gnome, although beyond that it was hard to make out any features, for the figure was either covered in branches and leaves or else had them growing out of his body. But from the distance between them, Thurloe couldn't tell if the little possible-gnome were even still alive or not. And, of course, Thurloe being Thurloe after all, part of his mind measured the possibility that the gnome guy was in league with the dire wolf and this was some sort of trap.
In one smooth motion, Thurloe dismounted from Horse and brought his bastard sword out from its scabbard over his back. He stepped slowly towards the humanoid figure, sword out and readied but not in an offensive stance; at this point he just wanted to get close enough to see if the gnome guy was still breathing or not. "Easy, big guy, we're not here to hurt you," he said to the dire wolf, hoping the tone of his voice if not his actual words would convey his non-threatening posture.
The dire wolf was having none of it. Standing over his meal, if not technically his kill (for he had come across the three-foot-tall humanoid and the deer shortly after the deer had been brought down by a well-thrown javelin), his growl deepened and his body tensed as if ready to pounce. And it was at this time that Wakuren walked up to see what was going on, tensing at the sight of the downed humanoid and ready to go provide aid to him if he could. Instinctively, he used his paladin training to sense the taint of evil among any of the present group and saw none; the dire wolf was merely a hungry predator attending to his needs and the humanoid was either still alive and not evil or already dead, in which case there would be no evil emanations from him even if he had habitually slain babies and bathed in their blood every day - a corpse was just a corpse.
Since Wakuren had pulled the mules over to the side, beneath the overhanging branches of the trees flanking the narrow road, Alewyth had enough room to ride Pyrite up to see for herself why they'd stopped. Seeing the dire wolf, she cast a bless spell on the group, just in case it was needed. And it most certainly was, for there were now far too many enemies for the dire wolf's liking, too many who might try to take his meal for themselves. He sprang forward, sinking his teeth into the nearest of these enemies. Wakuren had tried to block the lupine head with his shield but merely shunted the beast's muzzle to grip his upper arm; fortunately for the half-orc, his armor held against the wolf's jagged teeth and he managed to keep his balance.
Thurloe was beside Wakuren in a heartbeat, his bastard sword swinging down upon the wolf's flank, causing it to howl in pain and release Wakuren's arm from its grasp. Behind the wagon, Xandro and Zander slipped off of their horses and ran up to see what was going on - some sort of combat, it sounded like. The bard pulled his lute from his back and started the chords of his song of inspirational courage, while the sorcerer cast a mage armor spell upon himself.
And then an unseen attacker entered the fray from an unseen vantage point, attacking an unusual target: from somewhere overhead up in the trees came a flaming javelin to pierce none of the current combatants but rather the downed figure that lay unmoving by the slain deer. The flames on the weapon's tip started the leaves and branches covering the figure ablaze.
And then more of these flaming javelins started raining down from the treetops, two of them hitting Thurloe and Wakuren, causing the fighter's suspicions about an ambush to harden in his mind, although he wasn't sure why the little gnome guy would have been the first target of the attack, since he was probably already dead and thus couldn't have been in on it. Oh well, time enough to figure out the whys and wherefores after combat had been completed - right now, it was more important to stay alive!
Wakuren concentrated his attacks on the massive dire wolf before him, trusting in his plate mail armor to keep him relatively safe from the fire-tipped javelins from above. He brought the bottom edge of his shield crashing down upon the wolf's head, cutting it open with the point. Then he stepped back out of immediate range of his snapping jaws and dared a quick glance up at the trees, unable to see any enemies at all up there but distinctly seeing the evil auras of five different individuals.
Alewyth cast a protection from evil spell on herself as she rode Pyrite closer to the dire wolf, her warhammer Sjondra gripped in one hand. The dire wolf changed targets suddenly and nipped at Thurloe, biting him on the leg but failing to pull the fighter to the ground, where he'd likely have an easier time of killing him. Thurloe retaliated with another swing of his bastard sword, cutting a deep gash in the wolf's shoulder. And now he could hear Xandro's tune behind him, inspiring him to greater acts of courage.
Zander cast a ray of enfeeblement spell at the wounded wolf, draining off a bit of the massive brute's impressive strength. The wolf, at this point, was starting to look very much the worse for wear, but he wasn't the only foe the group had to worry about for another wave of five flaming javelins came streaking down from the treetops; this time they had been better coordinated, with each of the five heroes being targeted by his or her individual missile.
Squinting up into the trees, Wakuren spotted a wooden face among the branches, with twigs and branches growing out of it from all sides. He tried to recall if there were any fey creatures fitting that description and why they might be attacking him and his companions; in the meantime, on a more practical front, he cast an entropic shield spell upon himself, hoping to deflect a couple of those flaming javelins being hurled his way.
Alewyth was also peering up into the treetops, trying to spot who it was hurling flaming javelins down at them. She didn't have much in the way of ranged weaponry - just her sling - and preferred using her spellcraft in any case, but when she saw a wooden face peering down at her she cast a doom spell on him, hoping to mess up his aim at least. Unlike Wakuren, she had no idea how many of these hidden foes were up there, but there had to be at least five, given five javelins had been hurled almost simultaneously.
The dire wolf made a half-hearted snap at Thurloe's leg again and the fighter brought his blade down upon the beast's neck, killing it. Then he looked up into the tree branches above him, trying to pinpoint who these hidden enemies might be. In the meantime, Xandro cast a cure light wounds spell upon Zander Quilson, as the elf was their physically weakest member and was easily taken out in combat, but he was also their most powerful source of offensive combat spells and it was always a good idea to keep him in the fight for as long as possible.
There was a sudden startled cry from behind the wagon and Zander thought it sounded like his horse Eddy. Sure enough, there was another wolf back there attacking his mount! The sorcerer wasn't sure if this was just a normal wolf or perhaps the offspring of the dire wolf but it didn't really matter; that was his horse the wolf was trying to kill! Zander ran toward his horse and raised his hands, channeling a scorching ray through his fingertips and sending the blazing flash of fire cascading into the startled predator. Eddy took the opportunity to flee in terror down a side path, while beside him Xandro's horse White did the same thing. The worg, in the meantime, snarled in fury at the sudden magical onslaught; he'd been trying to pace his master as he went scurrying about in the tree branches and hadn't expected to encounter spellcasters when he came across a pair of what he had thought were unprotected horses!
Another wave of flaming javelins came flying down from all directions above them and this time Wakuren, having spotted one of their tree-borne tormentors, had been able to see how that process worked: the wooden faces all had pipes in their mouths and dipped the tips of their javelins - no doubt coated in some type of flammable oil or something - into them to set them ablaze before hurtling them down at the adventurers. Activating his ring of invisibility, Wakuren vanished from sight and took a few steps to the side so their assailants wouldn't know his exact location.
Sudden inspiration hit Alewyth and she cast a spiritual weapon spell, causing a warhammer of solid force to materialize in the air above her. She had spotted one of these tree-pests and could send her spiritual warhammer to go deal with it while she sought out future targets for it to smash. The force-hammer went streaking into the trees, hitting its target square on and causing it to plummet lifelessly from the branch upon which it had been perched to the ground below. One down: a start, at least!
Thurloe sheathed his blade and brought out his bow, notching an arrow into place and looking up into the trees for a suitable target. Once he spotted movement he shot at the tree-bound foe but failed to bring him down.
Not wanting a repeat of the fire magic that had seared his fur, the worg went sprinting at Zander Quilson, biting down hard up the elf sorcerer's leg and trying to bring him crashing to the ground so he could rip out his throat. But even slightly off balance, Zander had no problem targeting another scorching ray spell directly at the worg at that distance and the creature died immediately, its corpse ablaze.
Four flaming javelins came flying out of the trees above, this time focused solely on Thurloe and Xandro. Wakuren, seeing the success Alewyth was having with her spiritual weapon, cast one of his own, his taking the form of a heavy mace, the weapon the god Cal wielded. It went flying straight for the wooden-faced foe Wakuren had spotted among the trees, killing him instantly and dropping his body to the ground in a heap. In his aura-sensing vision, the half-orc saw one of the remaining sources of evil scampering deeper into the clump of trees from which they had attacked their foes on the ground - he was apparently heading back the way they had come, paralleling the road the adventurers had taken.
Alewyth's force-hammer swung at another of these arboreal foes, smacking it good but failing to drop it. She took the time to lean down and channel a cure light wounds spell on Zander, healing up the jagged gash on his calf where the worg had bitten him. But with the priestess's spiritual warhammer all but pointing at a potential target, Thurloe had no trouble slaying it with his next arrow shot. The dead enemy crashed through the branches to fall to the ground to the accompaniment of Xandro's courage-inspiring tune.
Zander saw a brief flash of light up in the trees and realized it was another javelin being lit on fire right before being thrown; now that he could make out the creature's shape up there, he cast a magic missile spell flashing up there, slaying the assailant before he could let fly with his javelin. Both body and javelin fell to the ground below.
There was now only one of these arboreal enemies left and he was in fast retreat. Knowing he had to get word back to the tribe, he sent his owl familiar on ahead so that if he didn't make it back at least one of the other adepts could learn of this team's slaughter, for the loyal bird would easily be able to lead them back here and if the old stories were true, human marauders just left their slain enemies to rot where they fell.
But as this last survivor leaped and skipped from branch to branch, he didn't realize he was being tracked from the ground. Wakuren was tracking the retreating figure in the branches through his aura of evil, which glowed in the cleric-paladin's vision like a beacon. And that was enough to allow the half-orc to send his spiritual heavy mace slamming into the fleeing figure. In the meantime, the armored half-orc bent down over the burning form of the body by the slain deer the dire wolf had been eating. Wakuren was intrigued by the thought this might be a humanoid plant of some type, like those needlefolk they'd met up in that old abandoned mine. But no, the branches and leaves that had covered the form, now that he had a better look at them (and many of them had been burned away), had merely been sewn to the leather armor of the figure, whose "wooden face" was nothing more than a mask. Flipping the body over with his shield and stamping out the flames still burning the body, he bent over and pulled off the mask, revealing the face of a green-skinned goblin. That was a surprise, for as far as Wakuren knew there weren't any more goblins living out among themselves, they'd all been civilized and could be found as servants in the larger cities. How strange to see a band of goblins running around in the trees, of all places!
Alewyth, in the meantime, had spurred Pyrite to enter the forest proper, skirting around the trees so she could keep her spiritual warhammer actively attacking the last of the assailants; she caught a glimpse of the fleeing figure and her force-hammer gave one final blow before it winked out, the duration of its magic having expired. But that last blow was all that had been necessary, for the tree goblin adept went tumbling off the limb he'd been traversing, falling in a lifeless heap upon the ground. And just that quickly, the attack was over.
The group searched the bodies and found these odd tree goblins had nothing worth taking, merely a handful of javelins each, a lit corncob pipe, and that weird leather armor with leaves and branches interwoven in as camouflage. The wooden masks they wore were crudely made, but the overall effect certainly did what it was supposed to: help them blend into the background while leaping from branch to branch and hiding the fact that these "tree-people" were in fact goblins. The adventurers gathered up their mounts, Alewyth and Wakuren cast healing spells on those who needed them, and then the group moved on, back in the direction they had started, seeking out the crossroads opening in the Darkwood Forest where they were to find the next trapped dreamer.
An hour later they were certain they'd come to the crossroads, for it fit the description Mogo had given them precisely. However, there were no buildings in the area at all to be seen. "Tree house?" guessed Alewyth, shielding her eyes from the sun and scanning the trees for any signs of habitation.
"Watch it's one of those tree goblins, sitting up in a nest at the top of the trees or something," joked Zander.
"Better not be," replied Thurloe, dismounting from Horse and leading him in a clockwise direction around the edge of the clearing; maybe the house was camouflaged or something. The others dismounted and did likewise, with Wakuren pulling the mule-wagon over to one side. Thurloe saw a bunch of prints in the dirt of the intersection, mostly those of a horse without horseshoes and the bare feet of what was likely a young woman, given their size. But no dwellings of any kind that he could see.
In was Xandro who first made contact, although in reality he was the contact recipient, not the instigator. "Hello?" said a shy voice from the other side of a clump of broad-leafed plants. "Have you come to help my friend Belisandre?"
Xandro peered between the leaves and saw the face of a beautiful young woman staring back at him, although it was one seemingly made of living wood. "Well, hello," he said. "Yes, we're here to help your friend - if she's been trapped in a dream, that is. Can you take us to her?" The young woman nodded shyly and stepped forward.
"What is your name?" asked Xandro, looking at the lovely vision stepping from between the undergrowth. It was a woman of his own size and age, although her smooth, brown skin held the lines one found in the rings of trees; her head had a handful of branches erupting out of it in all directions like a crown and green growths of ivy cascaded down from her head like hair. "My name is Nyla, she said, adding (perhaps unnecessarily), "I'm a dryad."
"My name is Xandro," replied the bard, taking her hand and bringing her out into the open to meet his friends.
After introductions had been made, Nyla told the group what she knew. "Belisandre is a dryad, like myself. She has been asleep inside her tree for three weeks now and I have been unable to awaken her." After Alewyth explained how they had been able to help others who had been stuck inside their dreams, she asked if it was possible for Nyla to take them inside Belisandre's tree. "No, I am afraid that is not possible," Nyla said with regret. "As a dryad I can enter her tree as well as any other, but I cannot take others in with me to anywhere but my own tree."
That didn't seem like too much of a problem, though; Alewyth handed over a leather headband holding a dreamstone and asked Nyla to place it around Belisandre's brow, with the dreamstone aligned in the middle of her forehead. "Once that's done, the five of us will sit around her tree and enter the dreamscape, rousing her from her dream. We'll need you to stand watch over our bodies while we do that, though, because here on the Mortal Plane we'll be asleep." Nyla instantly agreed, took the proffered headband, and walked into an oak tree at the edge of the clearing.
Zander activated his figurine of wondrous power and instructed the cooshee to wake him if any danger approached while they were sleeping around the oak tree. Alewyth brought her dire goat over as well, and while she had no way of communicating any instructions to him that he would be able to understand, she was comforted knowing he would be nearby while she slept.
"It is done," Nyla said as she stepped back out from the tree. "Now what?"
"Now," replied Xandro, wearing a headband identical to the one they'd given the dryad, "the five us go inside your friend's dream and bring her back." He flashed the young dryad a smile and received one in return. "I will watch over you," Nyla promised.
One by one, the five dreamwalkers slowed their heartbeats and breathing and entered a dream state. Their minds went immediately to the dreamlands, where they were each met up by their personal moogle guide who led them to the Hall of Dreams. And there, as usual, hovered Mogo, his hand on one particular door in an endless hallway with doors all side by side for as far as the eye could see. "Good luck in there, kupo!" Mogo called as the five dreamwalkers entered the open doorway.
None of the heroes had ever been inside a dryad's home in the middle of a tree before, but they judged that was likely where they were now, for the room they were in had no straight lines or right angles, just a flowing, organic shape. But what was surprising - and not at all what they'd expected to see inside a dryad's living space - was all of the fungus sprouting all over the place. White puffballs grew out of the walls, tangles of bluish-green tendrils dangled from the ceiling like the tentacles of a giant jellyfish, and blobs of green and brown and black mold and spores grew along the floor like overripe melons. Large toadstools were growing all around the edges of the room, some of them extending purplish growths that swayed as if in an unseen breeze. In the middle of the floor lay a pile of hardened growths in the vague shape of a humanoid figure.
Realizing this was all just a dream, Thurloe stepped forward and gave the lumpy growths in the middle of the room a hard kick with his booted foot, receiving a muffled grunt of pain from within the human-shaped mass. "What are you doing?" demanded Alewyth. "That's probably Belisandre in there!"
Zander closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to force the hardened growths to dissolve away with the sheer force of his will. Mogo had told them that with sufficient training, a dreamwalker could eventually shape any dream to suit his own desires - and right now the elf desired the hardened fungus to get off of Belisandre, if that was indeed her underneath all of that. He opened his eyes again and looked down at the vaguely humanoid shape, trying to see if his attempts to alter the dream had had any effect. Maybe? It was kind of hard to tell.
"I'm going to try treating this as a disease," Wakuren decided, casting a cure light wounds spell on the pile of fungus before him. Touching the fungus burned his fingers, but the healing energy of the spell seemed as effective against the intrusive fungus as if it had been undead. Great clumps of it blackened and fell away, exposing a good portion of the sleek, wooden body underneath.
Xandro, in the meantime, had taken his rapier out of its scabbard and was going to town against the puffball fungus. It crumbled and flaked away at the touch of his blade, causing great clouds of choking spores that didn't seem to affect the dream other than making it harder for them to breathe. He quickly stopped doing that.
Then a pair of the toadstools shambled forward, slapping out with their violet tentacles at Xandro and Zander. Alewyth came immediately to Zander's aid, slamming the violet fungus that had been attacking the elf. Thurloe, who had been attacking some of the dangling tendrils (to little effect), saw the commotion and chopped his blade into the "head" of the fungus attacking Xandro. Zander cast a scorching ray at the violet fungus attacking him and it was immediately set ablaze, its violet tendrils waving around feebly as whatever strange life it possessed burned away.
But by now Wakuren had figured that completely freeing the imprisoned dryad was the key to waking her from her ongoing nightmare of decay and suffocation, and he cast another healing spell on the fungus still covering her body, this time using a more powerful cure moderate wounds version. That had the remainder of the rot sloughing off her and crumbling away to nothingness. He held out a hand and helped her to her feet and the room around them started dissolving away as the dryad began to wake up for the first time in three weeks....
One by one, the five dreamwalkers willed themselves back awake (Xandro breathing a sigh of relief at finding out this time there were no difficulties) and back outside the dryad's oak tree. "You did it?" asked Nyla. "You were successful?"
"She should be awake now," Xandro answered, but before the dryad could reply Thurloe interrupted her. "Uh-oh," he said.
"What?" demanded Alewyth, getting to her feet and lifting her warhammer into a defensive stance. She didn't see anything to startle the fighter.
"Thought I saw some movement in the trees across the way,' Thurloe replied, pulling his bow from his back. "Might be nothing but the wind..."
"...or it could be more of those tree goblins," finished Zander. A flaming javelin came streaking across the way to hit him in the arm as if to settle the matter; the elf slapped the weapon away before the flames could catch his robe on fire.
"Back here, by me!" Thurloe commanded, for he was on the far side of Belisandre's oak tree from where the javelin had been thrown. Zander hurried to comply while his cooshee barked his displeasure up at the trees. He raced across the intervening road, barking up at the unseen menaces as if he'd just chased them up there himself, his tail wagging as if complimenting himself upon a job well done. Nyla, in the meantime, raced around the oak tree and hunkered down beside Zander.
But then Belisandre sauntered out of the tree, directly in the line of fire of the tree goblins. "What's going on?" asked the young dryad. "I just had the strangest--"
Her words were cut off as a flaming javelin stabbed her in the stomach and took root, the flames trying to catch hold of her smooth-barked body. With a shriek of surprise and pain, Belisandre tugged the burning weapon from her body as Wakuren pulled her to safety, then activated his magic ring to fade from view. He moved over by Zander to see if he needed any healing from the attack and decided it was probably worthwhile to heal him up while he had the chance.
Xandro had, by this time, pulled out his crossbow and tried to hit one of the well-camouflaged enemies. The bolt skewered its way through numerous leaves but there was no cry of pain by the time it had finished its flight path. Alewyth spotted a tree goblin and instinctively cast an innate ray of frost at it with one hand while she unpacked her sling from a pouch at her belt with the other. The ray struck but didn't do enough damage to slay the tree goblin.
Thurloe's first arrow managed to hit one head on, though, causing it to plummet to the ground with a shaft piercing its wooden mask and the middle of its head. But more incoming javelins came aimed at Thurloe and Xandro; once again the humans seemed to be the goblins' primary targets. Zander cast a magic missile spell at a tree goblin as soon as he could make it out among the surrounding trees, causing the second death in this wave of arboreal attackers.
On the adventurers' recommendation, Belisandre ran back inside her oak tree, while Nyla followed suit. Off in the distance, Wakuren saw one of the tree goblins drop to the ground and run across the dirt road to the clump of trees off to the west. As he didn't have much in the way of ranged attacks available, the half-orc sprinted in the direction of the tree goblin, hoping to catch him while he was still on the ground. The cooshee had also spotted him, it seemed, and was racing over to catch him as well. Wakuren put on a burst of speed and slammed at the fleeing tree goblin with the edge of his shield, missing him but popping back into visibility as he made the attempt. Xandro, seeing the commotion there on the ground, shot at the fleeing goblin as he scampered his way up the nearest tree, but the bolt embedded itself in the tree's trunk, having missed the fleeing creature entirely.
Alewyth sent her sling spinning over her head to build up speed and then sent the stone flinging across the road up into the trees, towards the tree goblin she'd spotted moving among the branches. It didn't sound like she hit him, though - a pity. But Thurloe spotted another one among the branches and took him down with another well-placed arrow. Beside him, Zander scanned the trees, looking for another tree goblin to shoot a spell at, but he couldn't see any. Thurloe and Alewyth had each taken down another tree goblin before the elf found one he could target with a magic missile spell, slaying it instantly. Zander nodded appreciatively to himself, glad to be pulling his own weight in this fight.
The cooshee snapped at the tree goblin rapidly climbing up to the safety of the higher branches over across two dirt roads from Belisandre's oak tree. But from his lofty perch, the tree goblin adept looked down upon the scowling half-orc that had chased him and sent a scorching ray blazing down into its ugly face. That caught Wakuren completely by surprise - he hadn't been aware these little pests could cast spells! Angered beyond measure, Wakuren vowed he was going to climb up that tree and drag the goblin spellcaster down where he could give him the proper beating he deserved. Tree climbing wasn't something Wakuren did often, and certainly not while in plate mail armor and with a heavy steel shield strapped to one forearm, but the cleric-paladin somehow managed it and pulled himself up onto a thick branch.
Of course, by that time, the nimble tree goblin adept had leaped over to a nearby adjoining branch from higher up in the same tree. But Wakuren wasn't going to allow that to stop him; judging the distance between them, he leaped up at the goblin pest, hoping to topple him out of his perch even if it meant taking a tumble himself as well. Unfortunately, tree combat was not the half-orc's forte and he went plummeting face-first back to the ground, without having managed to get a grip on the tree goblin adept who was now calling insults down at him in his Goblin language.
Xandro, having given up on trying to pick off tree goblins he could barely see with his light crossbow, had switched over to his lute and was beginning the song of inspirational courage - if he couldn't take them out himself he'd do what he could to provide magical assistance to those who were having better luck at it than he was. But Alewyth's next sling bullet went wide and she saw why: the tree goblin was scampering away from her, apparently having come to the decision to live to fight another day rather than throw its life away in a battle it couldn't win. After all, by this time there were half a dozen tree goblin bodies scattered beneath the clump of trees by which they approached their targets, and not one of their ground-borne foes had been taken down.
Thurloe shot at another departing tree goblin but missed. Zander saw it just in the nick of time and managed to bring it down with another magic missile spell, but he was about out of those and would soon be limited to his absolutely least powerful combat spells. He sighed; it looked like the battle was just about over.
But over at the clump of trees to the west, battle was still raging. The cooshee was still barking at the tree goblin adept, who seemed to enjoy taunting the elven dog below him. However, at Zander's urging, the cooshee used Wakuren as a springboard and leaped up high enough to get its teeth on the surprised goblin spellcaster, magically ripping a spell from the adept and then running back to his master to infuse it into the sorcerer, tail wagging furiously at what a good boy he was. Zander patted the dog's head and felt the spell energy seep into his being: power enough to fuel another magic missile spell! Now, if he could only find an appropriate target....
There was no movement within the original clump of trees, the few remaining goblins from the assault force having retreated. That left only the spellcaster, but he too had retreated deeper into the clump of trees and Zander couldn't spot him. But Alewyth and Thurloe were determined to bring him down, racing over that way and searching above them for telltale movement. Xandro continued his song, hoping they'd be able to find their foe, while Wakuren cast a badly-needed healing spell upon himself - he'd nearly broken a tusk from his fall! "There!" Alewyth called, sending a sling stone flying to cut a swath through leaf after leaf, to no avail. But Thurloe spotted the fleeing spellcaster, sighted his arrow on him carefully, and let fly. With a cry of pain, the tree goblin adept fell lifelessly to the ground below.
Alewyth and Thurloe exchanged congratulations as the heroes all regrouped. Seeing it was now safe to do so, the dryads exited their tree homes and Belisandre was able to express her thanks for having rescued her, as Nyla had filled her in on what all had happened over the past three weeks. Belisandre gave the group three doses of a healing paste, potions of barkskin, lesser restoration, and remove paralysis, as well as a vial of stone salve and a magical silver dagger with the holy symbol of Feron engraved on the pommel, the latter a gift from a passing druid.
And then the group was back in the saddle, heading off to the location of their next dream victim. "It's a shame we couldn't stay with them for a bit longer," sighed Xandro as they made their way back onto the road they'd been following. "I wouldn't have minded getting to know Nyla a bit better. She seemed nice." Plus, as a bard, Xandro Silverstrings was always looking for ideas and new experiences that could be turned into new songs or ballads - it never hurt to expand one's repertoire.
"Bad idea," called back Thurloe from astride Horse at the front of the expedition. He waited for the bard to object or ask why, and when he did neither Thurloe provided the answer anyway. "You'd get splinters."
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Having finished up "Forest Dreams" in a little over two and a half hours - about half the time we allow ourselves for a Saturday afternoon session - we decided to plunge ahead and go through the next adventure immediately afterwards, as that one was about as long as this one and I figured we could get through it in time.
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T-shirt worn: My "Hanes Moore Family Reunion" T-shirt with the silhouette of a tree, representing the oak tree of the dryad Belisandre.
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