After having Thora cast various spells on Safranna such that we could cover a great distance quickly, we have found ourselves in a swamp. I actually find myself missing the jungle now. Something I did not think likely at all.
The one benefit to being in this swamp is that I can now cast fire spells without fear of starting a fire.
-
Our rest was interrupted by Zim shouting a warning. We were attacked by what looked like the swamp itself. It was a large mass of twigs, and various other bits of debris commonly found in the swamp. It stood taller than Roland.
Thinking to deal it a swift death I lightning bolted the thing, but unfortunately it appears to feed off of lightning. t virtually doubled in size. cannot think why it can feed off of lightning. It seems most unlikely that a creature that lives in a swamp, presumably underwater, is ever exposed to lightning. Whoever created such a creature is surely not sensible. I can imagine them finding sugared curry a good idea. Stupid.
It did not take long to learn that the creature is also immune to both ice and fire. Fortunately magic missiles did succeed, as did swords, and to a lesser extent arrows. It appears the creature tries to grasp it's victim, and pull it in towards its body. Presumably to absorb the victim, or some such. The creature showed remarkable ability to mould it's body. When one of its "arms" was chopped off, it quickly "grew" another.
We did not succeed in killing it. It fled.
Gurzurk commented later that it is known as a Shambling Mound. I have kept part of one, in case it could be used as spell components at a later date.
We travelled around today, looking for trouble, but found none. However, trouble, also known as Shambling Mound, found us whilst we were sleeping. This time there was also a glowing ball of light which was helping the shambling mound. Al'Alin cast a protection from evil 10' radius, which they were unable to penetrate.
Today we decided to track the shambling mound that attacked last night. Given that Thora can use that rune to track creatures, it was trivial to find it. I'll have to remember to get some form of magical protection from such a tracking method. I really don't like the idea that someone can so effortlessly follow me. I'll have to enquire with that mage in Sundsvalle regarding the cost.
We did not really battle the creature. Both Lani and Zim simultaneously charmed the creature. Subsequently, Xeris had a chat with it. Seems that plants and vegetables, that sort of stuff, are related to dryads. In the case of this shambling mound, they are about as related as we are to orcs.
The shambling mound was ordered to kill us by a creature called Scorch Bark. Scorch Bark, which is presumably the tree we are after, created the shambling mound, along with nine others. Scorch Bark's other allies include four of those glowing things, and about a dozen humanoids that can project missiles from their bodies. Scorch Bark resides in some pool of water. The charmed shambling mound can lead us there. It's about a day and a half away.
So, not only have the remains of the sundered man corrupted an otherwise normal tree, that corrupted tree is able to create creatures such as these shambling mounds. Really very impressive. One day, I would like to be that powerful. For now though, I'll content myself with being alive, rather than scattered as ashes in seven different locations.
Hmm. I wonder if the name "Scorch Bark" implies that it is immune to fire, or susceptible to fire. Find out soon enough.
We have decided to cease travelling earlier than usual. This seems wisest since it probably isn't a good idea to arrive at Scorch Barks's lair just as the sun is setting.
We had a bit of a chat about Kazerabet, Talib's (ex) wife. She has apparently had a few husbands, but tends to have to kill them after a while, as they go insane, presumably because practicing necromancy is dangerous, not because she's a hard person to get along with. I wonder if she then animated her dead husbands corpses?
Apparently, she and Talib were happy together, which is why she left them. Her opinion is that practicing necromancy is difficult when one is happy. Of course, I always thought that the idea of being married to someone was to seek happiness. Furthermore, what's the point of practicing necromancy if you cannot be happy? I can understand how she would consider necromancy to be more important than happiness. Since I don't practice necromancy, I don't have to worry about a conflict of interest. Besides, she's wrong. Intelligence should not be influenced by the state of mind of the subject. Perhaps dedication could be, but one merely has to have sufficient self control. She should have viewed the "happiness being an impediment" as more of a challenge, rather than something to avoid. I don't know why anyone would want to practice necromancy anyway. Stupid.
Kazerabet and Talib moved into the ruined city we found. It was apparently as we found it, when they moved there. They came across the city whilst looking for some Talisman. Apparently, Kazerabet has been looking for some Talisman for a long time, but has had no luck so far. They animated the buried corpses that they found in the place. No-one expects necromancers to respect the dead, I suppose. I suppose that the building could have been abondoned when Talib and Kazerabet had a falling out.
Much of this information Tsaz found in the book they wrote (the one on necromancy). Apparently, Tsaz was only allowed to view the forward.
Scorch Bark's lair literally reeked of evil. It was misty, and dark inside an impenetrable hemisphere of vegetation, where Scorch Bark clearly lived. There was a single entrance to the place. There was a battle, of course. The most rtoublesome creatures were the glowing balls of light. There attacks are electical, and they are very hard to hit. But, after a few walls of fire, some summoned gelatinous cubes, a protection from evil 10' radius, and some anti-plant shell or some such, it really wasn't that hard to deal with everything there.
So now we are left with a big (very dead - in fact it was undead) tree, with no idea how to find out where the ashes are, if there are ashes, or if they are absorbed by the tree. No-one has an axe, except for some (ornamental) thing that Gurzurk has.
Gurzurk did descover that the whole tree is evil. No surprise there. About the best idea that we can figure is to have Lani conjure many creatures in the hope that some of them will be able to disect the tree beter than we can. It is about 20' high, so we'll probably need more than a single ornamental axe.
Lani managed to summon some bettle like creatures, which broke the tree up into about two or three foot long chunks. No sign of any box that might contain ashes. Furthermore, some location spells cast by Gurzurk have also revealed nothing. It seems increasingly likely that the ashes were absorbed by the tree, or that this tree has nothing to do with the ashes. The latter seems less likely to be the case.
We shall rest and try again on the morrow.
After several more creatures were conjured, we have managed to split the small logs in two, to no avail. I also performed some sendings to Talib, but he knows of no way in which we can verify this is related to the sundered man.
When parts of the tree are burned, their ashes still detect as evil.
As we play around with this tree, the Thyatian soldiers look on, quietly. I wonder if they realise they are being so very obvious by not asking questions about what we are doing? Probably not.
Actually, I had an interesting chat with Leo and Zim about how the pieces of the Sundered Man are warded against magic that tries to determine their location. The topic was raised as some people wanted to get Leo to find out if we have what we wanted (which, in the end, we decided not to do - too risky). The warding is not placed on the pieces individually. Rather, it is placed on everything (the entire universe). Even though this would involve astronomical power (from my perspective), to a god it is unlikely to have been that difficult. I find this a touch scary. I really hope the rules are not broken. More so than ever before now.
We also talked about the nature of gods, and such. Apparently the gods Morgan and Lighthaft, being new, are not very powerful. I suppose a god is said to be a god if they have worshippers and priests. I expect that some immortals are probably more powerful than weak gods such as Morgan and Lighthaft. Of course, they would be weak relative to other gods, not to mortals.
Zim wondered the method by which priests were granted spels. Are they granted the power to channel their own spell, or the ability to tap into their gods power? Leo does not know the answer to this. There would be several issues associated with this. Granting the ability for the priest to tap into their own source of power would be easier on the god, since it would be a one off thing. Having priests tap the gods own power would presumably be more tireing to the deity (although probably only about as tiring as, say, lifting a piece of paper). But, one can only make guesses at this subject area. Besides, as noted by Leo, granting spells is (according to him anyway) not a big deal. Immortals could rgant spells if they felt like it. Mortals can, in a limited sense, do so now as well. Mortals really are less than ants to gods...
At any rate, we eventually decided that we may as well assume that the tree could now be considered a piece of the Sundered Man. Either that, or there is now one less piece in circulation. We argued for a while about what to do with it. Lani wanted to convert it to a staff, whee we could hide it in plain sight, and always know where it was. After a vote, it was decided that we would not do this. The plan had some merits, in particular hiding it in plain sight, but also had some failings, such as how we could convert a whole tree to a staff (or wagon, or whatever), whether it may corrupt the party, and, now that I think about it, what would happen if we came across another piece of the sundered man?
We eventually decided to teleport first to the Thyatian colony, to drop off the Thyatian soldiers, and for some people to fly the plane back, and then teleport on to Sundsvalle. In Sundsvalle we have decided to bury the pieces, in concrete, under the city. Gurzurk can do this easily. We won't even have to dig great mounds out of the earth, and the authorities shouldn't notice us. Anyone else who wants to get the pieces would first have to know that they were in Sundsvall. Once there, they'd probably try finding ashes, not tree parts. They can't do divinations about where it is, as it is protected by a warding. If they do find (generally) where it is, they'd have to start diging it out. Something the authorities would probably object to. Since Sundsvall is rather important to Alphatia, we expect that the authorities ca probably look after their city pretty well.
Just in case, we figured we should have a pretext for rushing to Sundsvall. So we asked Leo "Where is Lani's tutor", to which the answer was, of course, Sundsvall. If anyone was listenng, well, good for them.
Amazingly, no-one disagreed with this plan. No other plans were suggested which seemed viable.
The only probelm with the plan is if Gurzurk dies. That wouldn't be good. Well, I imagine he doesn't want to die anytime soon...
I guess I'll be made to memorise more sending's now. Finally, we'll be back in civilisation soon.