Ruins of Azlant Gameplay I

Jax sighs. "Of course the plants are trying to kill us. Any idea how far out we'd have to be from the plants to stay out of danger?"

"A typical yellow musk creeper can spray pollen up to 30 feet," Amissa says, "although if it has any zombies under its control, obviously it'll be able to attack us from farther away than that. The leechroots will need to touch us to be dangerous, but they average about twelve feet across. Depending on how much blood they have access to, they can grow significantly larger."

"Let's just watch our step, then," Kaimana concludes. "Thanks for the warning," he adds, not sharing that he was totally about to go just make his way, and carefully sets out.

The party begins to cautiously move forward, with Jax leading the way. As they step through the undergrowth, Jax freezes, raising a hand to point at a patch of blood-red vines. "Leechvine," he warns. "Don't touch it. It'll try to drag you into the vines and drain your blood."

The party continues onwards cautiously, to be met by four corpses, with blood red vines growing through their bodies, making them move and lurch towards the living humanoids in search of blood.

Kaimana assumes the worst, lets out a battle cry, and swings his sword, only to find the corpses aren't quite so menacing as that and fall in one stroke. It doesn't take long for his sword, Jax's suddenly large bites and talons, and a spell from Amissa to take them all down. The group takes a moment before pressing on.

The next stretch of the forest is littered with skeletal remains. Rib cages, skulls, and grasping limbs are entwined with deep red vines and bone-white roots, some covered in black moss and concealed by lush scarlet vegetation.

The party hears shouting, in a language no one recognizes, coming from a tall creature, with a rough, green hide, and aquatic features, entangled in vines off the main path.

Thinking the tall creature could be an ally, Kaimana notices a leechroot vine in their path and goes to yank it out before anyone else can act. It takes him a couple of tries, at which point the root tries to attack him. It misses, and his sword swings true to cut the root to pieces.

Seeing Kaimana has dealt with the leechroot, Jax moves to free the creature, tearing the vines away from its bloodied flesh.

The scrag slowly staggers to its feet once Jax frees it, saying more in the language no one understands.

Aisha shakes her head and tilts it to the side, trying to communicate that she doesn't understand, then eyes the scrag's wounds and Jax's. She raises her left hand peacefully while her right procures the healing wand, then taps it to Jax and mends his wounds with it. Next she gestures it at the scrag while asking "May I?" She knows it can't understand, but she hopes her gentle, friendly tone will get the message across.

The skrag nods, holding it's hands open and at its side to show no hostile intent.

Aisha can see the scrag's wounds closing themselves, but as a show of good faith she applies a spell from the wand to it as well, watching its wounds close at only a marginally faster rate than they do naturally from it.

The skrag takes off a necklace from around its neck, offering it to Aisha. The necklace appears to be the same as the one worn and owned by the sahuagin.

Aisha gratefully accepts the necklace with a smile and a deep nod, examining the necklace carefully before placing it around her own neck, commenting to the others, "We should take a good look at this when we get back."

The party and the skrag part ways. Deeper into the forest, ancient trees loom twenty feet overhead, their dense foliage allowing little illumination to spill down onto the forest floor. The ground is mostly bare of vegetation here, and the crumbling remains of ancient stone walls and toppled pillars indicate the presence of civilization at some point in the ancient past. Some of the trees here grow up and around partially intact stone structures, while others seem to erupt forth from the stones themselves. Two large heaps of vegetation, dead leaves, branches, and stones are assembled into an enormous nest lightly spackled with dried gore.

Kaimana peeks in the nest. ”Think I’m seeing hair and feathers too,” he comments. ”Wonder what from....”

Jax's eyes begin to wander from the nest toward the ground surrounding it. He walks forward, then crouches near to the nest. "Tracks here." He announces.

Amissa leans down and looks at the feathers and hair, then looks at the tracks. "Perytons," she says after a moment. "At least two. They're basically stags with wolf heads, hawk wings, and talons. They keep the antlers, too. They possess roughly human-level intelligence, and primarily prefer to hunt humanoids. They tend to be fairly isolationist, but females may end up forming small familial flocks composed solely of females and fledglings." She looks up at the party. "Additionally, I would expect them to return to the nest any moment now."

Kaimana tilts his head. ”If they’re intelligent, can we talk to them instead of fighting them?” he asks, though he’s mostly still trying to actually picture what this creature would look like.

"No." Amissa shakes her head. "They're vicious, and they see us as food. Males will present potential mates with still-beating hearts to try to win their affections."

”Well that’s an image,” Kaimana mutters, wincing. ”We’d probably better deal with them, then. Wonder if we have time to set a trap of some sort...”

Placeholder for Peryton fight. We find loot after: while searching the peryton nest discovers the belongings of those creatures killed by the perytons, tucked away and out of sight, along with the picked-clean bones of four sahuagin. The hidden treasures include a suit of masterwork chainmail, a masterwork greatsword, a potion of protection from chaos, a scroll of acid arrow, and a scroll of summon monster II.

At the center of the Bleeding Forest, a massive, bone-white tree rises up above the dense vegetation below. The tree stands nearly sixty feet tall and measures ten feet around at its base. Desiccated animal carcasses hang in its sagging, willowy branches, and the skeletons of hundreds of animals and humanoid creatures litter the forest floor around it. Below the tree, the ground is crisscrossed with a blood-red webbing of thorny vines.

As they approach the tree, Aisha and Amissa cast a few spells to make sure everyone is ready. Kaimana reaches around himself to make sure his shield is still up, and he does find the barrier ready.

When close enough, the battle starts. Kaimana and Jax each charge a zombie, Kaimana ducking an attack from the tree as he does so. The zombies fall quickly, and Amissa flings magic missiles and acid at the tree. The tree, however, doesn’t wait idle, and sprays pollen at Kaimana. He finds himself unable to do anything but stand and wait for the tree to latch onto him. Amissa, seeing the problem, opens a pit under Kaimana to take him out of the tree’s reach for the moment.

Jax and Amissa continue to strike down zombies and Jax approaches the tree, as Aisha lends supportive magic where she can. The impacted Kaimana tries to climb out of the pit to let the tree reach him, though he’s aware enough of what’s going on to be furious at his body for listening to the pollen instead of him.

As Jax goes to attack the tree, the tree sprays more pollen and takes Jax’s mind. He stands still as the tree reaches for his head and begins to drain him, Amissa and Aisha frantically doing what they can. Kaimana finally climbs out of the pit, and just in time, the pollen’s hold on him wears off. He takes his sword and shouts angrily as he swings at the tree. The first slash cuts pretty deeply into the tree, but the second is even more devastating, rending a huge gash with a torrent of red sap oozing forth from the terrible wound. Shortly thereafter, the tree ceases to move, all its attached vines starting to wither and die.

Kaimana catches his breath for a moment, then turns to Jax, still standing but looking a little vacant. ”Hey, you okay?” he asks, also looking to Aisha.

Aisha shakes her head, planting her hands on his shoulders and casting a slow spell. ”His brain was nearly turned to paste. I’ve got it.” After about half a minute of healing, she draws back. ”That should do it. It’s good you broke free when you did, Kaimana.”

As the clouds clear from Jax's vision and mind, he slowly becomes aware of how the area has changed, as well as a piercing headache he was now suffering. "What happened after the spores knocked me out?" He asks, rubbing his forehead.