Session Dates
In Game Start Date
Remitag, 3rd prime post-Periastron 1054
Days in Game
10 days
Location
Record Kept
In Freelancers
TLDR
Dryali, Kaelani, Hikawera, and Manu go to Arnari and take a mission to investigate the "rowdy" trees which have been interfering with the harvest in Haven, mostly because they wish to discover what that could possibly mean.
- Dryali, Kaelani, Hikawera, and Manu were in the Freelancers Tavern. Hikawera and Manu thought going to Pembroke sounded cool, so they went to talk to Arnari
- Arnari, at her desk with a glass of ice wine to hand, told them there was not enough time left in conjunction to do the run to Pembroke & back.
- Fui Fui has asked for help, people coming to Orderly Stones have been getting attacked by kobolds. He's offering 100gp per person to find the kobold encampment and wipe it out.
- On the other side of Cliffshadow, the route south to the Children of Āhua town Mantzur is still attacked by bloodhawks. Karfel Goltolrah is offering 100gp/person to deal with the bloodhawks.
- The orchards in Haven are still experiencing rowdy trees. These are owned by Plumblossom family.
- Some discussion ensued about these uninteresting sounding tasks.
- Hikawera wanted to know, "HOW exactly do trees end up rowdy?" Arnari shrugged. "Plants don't always behave like plants."
- Manu asked, "Are any of these time-sensitive?" Arnari hesitated. "Well," she began. Manu went on, "Kobolds keep coming, bloodhawks keep coming." Arnari said "None have a deadline, but should be soon."
- Dryali ventured, "Kobolds have clans; start killing them, make things worse." Arnari agreed, "Probably there will be a followon [to this one]."
- Hikawera said, almost to himself, "Maybe the bloodhawks are of more interest to The Paladin." Kaelani interjected, "Perhaps; Āhua & Ua get along."
- Hikawera asked petulantly, "Will we have to talk to Fui Fui? He's annoying." Arnari said, "You can turn it in here…" as Dryali interrupted, "He was annoying!" Hikawera asked, "Is Mantzur closer?" and Dryali chimed in "Bloodhawks are likely to be able to be resolved."
- Arnari was finally able to finish: "Fui Fui has done some recon. Found an encampment and was… too stoned to remember where."
- The room exploded in discussion.
- Manu's voice cut through the conversation, with his odd accent. "We should do the rowdy trees, just to find out about this. Before the opportunity to learn about it goes away." Everyone considered this aspect of it, and agreed.
Travel to Haven
TLDR
The Freelancers rent a mule & cart for their mission, and have an uneventful trip to Haven, arriving at noon.
- Haven is 4 days away via the road on a cart.
- The party rented a mule and a cart for 5sp/day from Rainer Flamehide (male Fire sagani). He warned the party they'd pay for mule & cart if there were damages!
- The mule's name is Cloudy.
- Uneventful travel to Cliffgate. Stayed at The Sleepy Dog Inn. Jenny Hopsail is the innkeeper. 5sp bed/meal/stable the mule.
- Taproom mostly empty, not much ground travel right now, everyone in the ports.
- Manu kept changing his stew flavors with prestidigitation. He was still trippin' he knew how to cast it.
- Uneventful travel to Haven, much to the GM's disappointment. Got there 3rd day out of Cliffgate, at roughly noon.
Talk to the client, Bertana
TLDR
The party of Freelancers visit Bertana Plumblossom, a female Mikumwes halfling, who had requested the contract from the Freelancers Guild. She explains that her workers have been attacked by active shrubs which actively chase them off. She also suggests lodging for the night at The Local Flavour.
- Went to the home of Bertana Plumblossom (female Mikumwes halfling). She was happy Freelancers have come, and told a tale that the orchards are SE of town and go back into the hills. It was the orchards at the edge which have rowdy trees.
- Dryali confirmed, "At the forest edge?" Bertana said "Yes."
- Kaelani asked, "How does this happen? Trees are… throwing fruit?"
- Bertana explained more in depth: "Shrubs from the hills have moved in, and assault the orchard workers. This has been happening in apple orchards - every so often a shrub has chased them out." She added, "The first time, I did not believe the workers. The third time, I saw it myself. The shrub slashed with its branches."
- Manu asked, "Trees or shrubs?" Bertana glanced to the side, then said "I might have exaggerated. Shrubs" and Manu declared to the others, "Less interesting! I've seen rowdy shrubs!"
- Manu turned back to Bertana. "How many at a time?" She replied, "Two or three, but have seen them multiple times. Cannot be sure it's the same [two or three]."
- Kaelani pointed out, "It's been across 4 orchards." Bertana said "Yes, kind of a big area." Dryali asked, "Not a humanoid in disguise?" and Hikawera muttered "you think" but Bertana replied, "Saw for myself, is shrubs."
- Hikawera became more intrigued. "A common shrub for the area?" Bertana's patience was phenomenal. "Yes, look like normal shrubs, but occasionally slashy."
- Kaelani asked, "Any angry druids?" Bertana said "We have good relations with the Children of Āhua, but they are not close."
- Manu asked, "How long have the orchards been here? These trees do not seem new." Bertana told him, "Generations, but these are not new orchards. Occasionally we expand into the forest, but not these [orchards]."
- Manu muttered, as an aside, "She doesn't know if druids are angry." Dryali thought he'd give it a try.
- "What's the most recent expansion into the forest?" Dryali asked. "These are all older," Bertana insisted. "The expansion is not near here." Dryali recruited his patience. "Who else has orchards?" "2-3 other families, but they are not southeast of the town," Bertana told him.
- Hikawera shifted the topic. "How long ago did these attacks start?" Bertana looked at him. "....problems," he corrected. "Last eighth," Bertana told him.
- Manu asked, "How seriously have people been injured?" Bertana said, "Serious scratches, but… people run away. If they had not run away, dunno what would happen."
- Bertana looked at the patient mule. "I'm not sure what you want to do with regards to lodging."
- "Oh!" Hikawera exclaimed. "Is there any time….?"
- Bertana answered, "not particularly."
- Dryali speculated, "What if we stayed in the orchard, could you care for the mule..."?"
- Hikawera was not down with this idea. "I like real beds!"
- Bertana said, "You can stay at The Local Flavour; they will also stable the mule. Innkeeper Jocelyn will take care of you."
The Battle with Plants
TLDR
The Freelancers investigate the edges of the Plumblossom apple orchards, and find the shrubs in question. Hikawera antagonizes the shrubs with produce flame, and a battle between humanoid and shrub ensues. In the end, an ambulatory beech tree appears, doing its best to whomp Kaelani, but it too is defeated.
- Jocelyn Firetooth, the innkeeper, was a male Mikumwes halfling, and did take care of them. After securing rooms for the night and seeing the mule was stabled etc, the party headed out to the nearest affected orchard.
- Nothing was weird, but it did look like the ground was disturbed.
- Hikawera started to produce flame at the end of one of his fingers, holding it close to the shrubs as he walked by, to check out if the shrub flunched.
- The disturbed earth looked like someone had pulled up roots from the ground. This went in a path to the next orchard over. There was only one set of this and not really any footprints.
- Dryali wondered if he should run detect magic. "Not yet"
- They followed the trail of disturbed earth to a shrub in the next orchard. Hikawera set one of its leaves on fire. It didn't like that and started slashing with its branches, just like Bertana described!
- Manu cast ray of frost at it.
- Dryali tried to grab the shrub and uproot it. This failed of course. He carefully interposed his shield so the slashing branches neither scratched his face nor the goggles thereon.
- Hikawera burned the shrub to a crisp. Dryali jumped away before he too was on fire. Shrub was dead. So much for learning about rowdy trees.
- Dryali cussed out Hikawera. "What are you doing?!" Hikawera was unphased. "I took care of the problem."
- On cue, a bunch of nearby shrubs started moving menacingly.
- Kaelani cast thunderous smite, swung his rain stick at the nearest moving shrub, missing. He swung so hard, though, he fell on his ass, and sheepishly got back up.
- <Narrator voice>: David rolled a 1
- All the shrubs tried to whip people with the branches.
- The one Kaelani missed also missed him.
- Two whip at Hikawera and miss.
- Two whip at Dryali, and one hits him.
- The last one whips Manu.
- Manu cast chill touch, causing a creepy hand to appear and do something to a shrub that it didn't like at all.
- Dryali asked Hikawera if he had any rope (he didn't). Perhaps prepping snare with no rope was a bad idea. He tried and failed to pull up the shrub attacking him.
- Hikawera moved back, causing one of the shrubs to whip him. Then he laid down the thunderwave just beyond Dryali. 2 shrubs were blown apart, and 1 had half its leaves blows off, fluttering down to the ground.
- Hikawera then gave Kaelani bardic inspiration. Kaelani was so inspired, he repeated his performance, swung and miss and fell on his ass and got back up.
- <Narrator voice>: That's David's second 1 in a row.
- The remaining shrubs tried to whip people with branches.
- The two on Kaelani missed.
- The one Dryali is still holding missed.
- Two attacked Manu and miss.
- Holy shit a 15' tree started moving to join in the fun. Looked like a beech tree.
- Manu used ray of frost to kill one of the shrubs attacking him. He shifted to the other side of the remaining shrub… away from the tree.
- Dryali disengaged from the shrub he'd been holding and moved to be in hand crossbow range of the big tree.
- Hikawera tried to slash the shrub Dryali just disengaged from, but whiffed it.
- Kaelani finally smacked one of the shrubs with his rain stick, triggering a thunderclap. The shrub was mostly blown apart, and its leaves were joining those of its fellows, fluttering to the ground in all directions. A couple branches were left.
- The tree moved 20' closer to the party.
- The two remaining shrubs attacked. One hit Hikawera, the other missed Manu.
- Manu hit the shrub with ray of frost. It withered a little, but was not dead.
- Dryali was watching that tree. Unsure what was powering it, he called out, "What is your problem?!" in Primordial. The tree was indifferent to this. Dryali pulled out his infused hand crossbow and shot it.
- Hikawera incinerated the shrub that was attacking him.
- Kaelani smashed the remaining branches on the shrub attacking him with his rain stick.
- The one remaining shrub attacked Manu and missed.
- Kaelani cast thunderous smite, swung his rain stick at the nearest moving shrub, missing. He swung so hard, though, he fell on his ass, and sheepishly got back up.
- At this point, the tree joined in the fighting.
- The tree moved up to Kaelani and tried to whomp him with a branch, but Kaelani cleverly redirected it into the ground using his rain stick.
- Manu almost destroyed his shrub this time. Dryali shot it from his infused hand crossbow and the magical bolt blew the shrub apart.
- Hikawera cast produce flame, and threw it at the tree.
- Kaelani stepped up to the tree, and smacked it with his rain stick, to no noticeable effect. For its part, the tree again failed to whomp Kaelani with a branch.
- Manu hit the tree with ray of frost.
- Dryali was of the mind that the party had forgotten why they took this mission, not to destroy local flora but to figure out why it was behaving like fauna. He cast detect magic.
- The tree has the faintest whisp of transmutation magic.
- The now-dead shrubs also had faint echoes of it.
- Hikawera cast produce flame, and failed to throw it at the tree. Instead he lit his own hair on fire, and spent some time trying to put it out.
- <Narrator voice>: so, Lore rolled a 1.
- Kaelani also failed to hit the tree with his rain stick, and the tree failed to hit him back. Fail all around.
- Manu again hit the tree with ray of frost.
- Dryali found a nearby large-ish rock, and cast catapult, using the rock to smack into the tree. This was largely ineffective. He should have stuck with magic xbow bolts.
- Hikawera invoked vicious mockery: "I don't care if you're the root of our problems, you need to leaf us alone!"
- The GM takes psychic damage
- Tree failed its save
- Kaelani cast smite and hit the tree, frustrated with this strange battle. Roll 20! Tree started to droop.
- Manu hit his own toes with ray of frost.
- <Narrator voice>: it was Matt's turn to roll a 1.
- Dryali struck a heroic pose as he fired from his infused hand xbow. Roll 20!
- Hikawera cast produce flame, and threw it at the tree.
- Kaelani hits the tree again, for no damage worth noting. The tree, however, also roll 20 and whomped Kaelani.
- Manu cast chill touch. A skeletal hand appeared next to the tree, scratching down the bark. It turned dead and fell off. That was the end of the tree.
Looking for clues
TLDR
Since the Freelancers have killed all the "rowdy" plants, they look for more clues as to why. They find nothing.
- Dryali still had his detect magic going, so he walked up to the now dead tree, but nothing new was to be seen.
- Manu ran up to one of the still-burning shrubs to try to warm up his frostbitten toes.
- Hikawera tried to look for other movement in the area, but saw none.
- The tree really did just look like a common beech tree. Dryali climbed it. Finally, he pulled out a daggar, and cut a couple lengths of its branches for later.
- The party decided to continue looking at all the orchards. In the next one, they found the disturbed earth "shrub trails" again, going back towards the prior orchard. There were similar shrubs here, but no movement when Hikawera tried the fire thing again.
- In the last orchard, there wasn't a lot either. No tracks, other than two very old ones Dryali noted.
- The Daystar was low in the sky, so they headed back to the tavern.
The tavern
TLDR
A visit to the tavern is intended to reveal what event predicated the rowdy trees, but instead Manu gets so drunk the other Freelancers prank him.
- The party was of the mind, that this could not really be random event. Surely the orchard owners had invited the ire of something. Town gossip would surely reveal the truth of it.
- The Local Flavour was full of orchard workers at this hour. The party spread out.
- Hikawera started making bets? [notes are unclear.]
- Dryali talked to Jocelyn. "Pretty quiet…" They discussed the impact to local travel of the Pembroke conjunction. The innkeeper noted that travel to Stormhaven was really busy in the leadup to it.
- Manu talked to the barkeep, Reagan (male Mikumwes halfling). "Maybe you should have music, or magic, to attract local custom!" he declared. The barkeep gave him a strange look, not that Manu would notice someone giving him a strange look. "Um, this is most of the locals." Manu declared he liked his drink so much! The barkeep told him it was pear cider. Manu declared, "Yum, you should sell!"
- Manu decided the barkeep was the key to finding out the gossip, and continued to hang out at the bar, soaking up info and ciders. The barkeep liked that Manu was spending his coin. So Manu extracted quite a bit of information from this as he got more and more drunk.
- The barkeep talked about how pretty a town Haven is, nice people
- The pear cider comes from a local distillery, he knows someone there
- He noted the orchard owners pay their workers well; the orchards are profitable, and so the bar is profitable
- Each orchard produces a different fruit, but mostly it's apples vs pears.
- He could get Manu a deal at the distillery
- By this time Manu is drunk and hasn't really gotten any info from the barkeep that is helpful for the rowdy trees. But Hikawera noticed, and cast disguise self to look like Reagan. He's still a little big but tried to hunch down as much as he could, and circulated at the edge of Manu's peripheral vision.
- Manu did a sloppy doubletake, and asked the barkeep if he had a cousin or something? Hikawera told the barkeep in a stage whisper, "I'm messing with him; play along."
- The barkeep told Manu, "No." Hikawera dropped the disguise self.
- Hikawera got the name of the barkeep's contact at the distillery, and decided to herd Manu up to the rooms.
- Long rest.
- Dryali → Level 3!
- Hikawera → Level 2!
Following up
TLDR
Lacking information, the Freelancers return to Bertana. She is happy with the destruction of the shrubs and pays the fee of 100gp each. However she also has no further information on events that could have caused the plant life to attack. They stop at a local distillery and Manu acquires 2 barrels of pear cider, which they bring back to Cliffshadow. Manu sells one barrel to Freelancers Tavern for 50% profit. On hearing their report, Arnari declares the bloodhawks mission urgent.
- The next morning, Dryali swung by the general store, and picked up 50' of silk rope for 10gp - he was still unhappy about lack of rope the day before - and some woodcarver's tools for 1gp, thinking he wanted to use them on the branches he'd cut.
- The party decided to give Bertana a progress report, so headed back to her house.
- Bertana was happy and gave everyone 100gp each.
- The party straight up asked her about known enemies. Although it sounded a little weird, tiny halfling with that kind of enemies.
- Bertana explained the Plumblossoms were on good standing with the rest of the town.
- Children of Āhua in forest were OK relations as well.
- She paused, then asked "Do you know where these came from?"
- The group shrugged. "Normal shrubs. They were from the orchards." Dryali clarified: "The edges." Kaelani said, "Seemed to be normal trees, not fruit trees."
- Bertana relaxed. "That's good!"
- Manu asked, "Are there any rejected marriage proposals, etc?" This confused Bertana, who started tracing out the extended halfling fambly. Hikawera uncharacteristically took this at face value.
- <narrator voice>: Lore rolled a 1
- Bertana wondered if there was something weird from Haven Hills, which caused Manu to probe all over again about Children of Āhua. But he didn't get to find out much because at that point the GM had to update her pixelbook.
- Manu suggested the party checkout the Haven Hills. Bertana pointed out, "Taking a cart into the forest is bad! There are no roads."
- Manu said, "We've been paid, maybe not go into the forest."
- Kaelani suggested, "We could go to Cliffshadow, drop off the cart, maybe visit the bloodhawks."
- Hikawera had a similar thought. "Go back and have Freelancers dealing with bloodhawks, then talk to Children of Āhua about this."
- Frustrated, the party thanked Bertana and took their leave. "If more show up, tell Arnari!" Dryali admonished her. "The shrubs are easily dealt with using fire," Manu told her. "The tree, though, is very scary!"
- As they walked back to the cart, Hikawera asked Kaelani, "What do you do when it rains?" He replied, "Take off the helmet and hat and let the rain wash over me."
- They went to distillery, and Manu bought two barrels of pear cider. Good thing there was a cart!
- The trip back to Cliffshadow was entirely uneventful.
- After Dryali got everyone a glass of ice wine, reported back to Arnari, who upon receiving the tale and 10% of the gold, was very much wondering about the origin of the tree.
- Dryali noted he'd detected transmutation magic on it.
- "Sounds like an Awakened Tree," Arnari said. "This is not a thing that is easy to do. Perhaps, helping out the Children of Āhua is more urgent than I thought."
- Manu reacted, "With the bloodhawks?"
- Arnari explained, "The bloodhawks have interfered with normal communications; it is a bit harder to get a courier through."
- Manu sold 1 barrel of the pear cider to Freelancers' Tavern for 50% profit.
Loot
- Mission pay: 100gp each (10% to Freelancers)
Log Entry Type
Storyline