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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2816818" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the One-Hundred Eighty-ThirdIn which: if you were an archmage, would you live here?The next morning, the group treks up the overgrown path that Reyu located the previous evening.The trail is long and meandering, with no sign of recent passage or habitation.  Reyu notices that at one point they make a complete loop around a grove of darkwood trees.  The sigil they saw branded into the vine creature has been burned into the trunks, and Reyu finds signs of a light harvest made some years back.  (The party members might have stopped to take a bit themselves, but most of their players have not read the DMG. “Dark wood?  Okay.  Whatever.”)Seeing nothing of particular interest, the party moves on.###Maybe a quarter of a mile farther up the trail, Annika suddenly stops and points off to one side.  “We should go that way.”Thatch stops short beside her, nodding.  “She’s right.”Reyu frowns.  She can see no sign of anything of any interest off the trail in that direction.  “Why?” she asks.  “What is it?”“I’m not sure,” Annika says. “It doesn’t matter… We should go.”Anvil frowns.  If it was just Thatch he would dismiss it at magical mind-control, but Annika is usually stronger-willed than the young fighter.He confers with the other members of the party who do not feel any certainty in the indicated direction.“I see nothing off the trail,” Reyu says, keeping her voice low.Apparently, not low enough.  “It’s just out of sight,” Annika insists.“Okay, that’s weird,” Eva decides, and Lira nods.“Still,” Anvil points out, “it is not unworthy of investigation.”Eventually, and with much prodding from Annika and Thatch, the group does leave the path.  However, they make their enthusiastic “guides” walk at the back of line.  “This is dumb,” Thatch points out.  “How will you know which way to go?”Eva keeps a hand on his elbow.  “You can tell us if we’re heading in the wrong direction,” she tells him grimly.At first, nothing appears amiss.  Then, about fifty or sixty feet off the path, Reyu stops the column.“There,” she says, pointing.Sure enough, almost concealed in the litter of the forest floor are two semi-circular rows of sharp thorns facing each other.Reyu takes a fallen branch and pokes at the center between the two semi-circles.  Like teeth of a giant mouth, the thorns snap together, closing around the end of the stick and trapping it inside a gleaming reddish pouch.Thatch and Annika blink, the effect attracting them to the site apparently broken. “What the hell is that?”  Thatch asks.Lira grits her teeth.  “I hate plants.”The party presses on a little further along the trail, but as it becomes increasingly clear they are the only humans to have passed this way in quite some time, they eventually decide to turn around and try their luck on the next island.###As they first draw near the second island, the party is greeted by an imposing rocky shore, broken only by a waterfall plunging into the sea below.  Thatch rows on, in hopes of finding a dock like the one on the last island, but as it grows dark, they settle for a comfortable-looking beach.The night passes quietly, although Euro—not trusting the others’ ability to keep watch—gets very little sleep.  And so, the next morning, as Reyu and Kiara take wing to survey the island from above, the rest of the party—and a very sleepy weasel—set out to explore the island on foot.Aerial reconnaissance reveals another dock on the side of the island farthest from the open sea, and a clear, spring-fed lake at the isle’s highest elevation.  From that basin, streams and cascades feed other, smaller pools all over the island.  At ground level, Annika sums up the overall effect. “It feels… tranquil.”And it’s true.  The island is forested, although not as thickly as the first island, which the party has dubbed “The Island of the Killer Plants.”  And as their party makes their way through the woods, their path is punctuated with numerous freshwater springs and pools.  At one such spring, filled with glittering koi fish—after checking to be sure the water is clean and not magical, evil, or chaotic—the party gratefully takes the opportunity to refill their water-skins and wet their toes and faces with the cooling liquid.Still, the island appears to be as devoid of archmages as the last.  The party hikes on until late afternoon, finally finding a dry flat place to camp.In fact, it would be hard to imagine a more perfect campsite.  The ground is flat and level, and there are no tree-roots sticking up or undergrowth to clear.  There’s even a small, still pond, tranquil in the shade of the overhanging trees.Reyu looks at the pond again and blinks.  There’s something… off about it.  After a second or two, she realizes what it is.“The pond,” she says, indicating it to the others.  “It’s not… fed… by anything.”And yes, on second examination, there is a certain, stagnant quality to the water.  Reyu approaches, and just as she draws within steps of the pond… there is a ripple in the water, and a huge pseudopod lashes out at her.</blockquote>

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