Shadow Cat Den -- Part 1

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Faelin Amok the Rogue
• Lucinia the Twilight Cleric Tortle
• Nimrod the Vuman, a warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• Gaffy the Blue, a Vedalken Watcher Paladin
• Chumbawamba, the always loyal pet wonder warg
• Nimbat, Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat familiar
• Dormin, Nimrod's trusty shadow spirit
  
  

The party is currently at level 5. 

The Mission

Our band of intrepid bad deciders is journeying overland through woods and fens from the dwarven forge back to the library to resume their pursuit of the Orange Orchid Society.  Prior to the events described here, residents of the area had warned them this is a dangerous road section where recently many travelers had disappeared.  Consequently, our adventurers are on alert for anything.

Part 1: "There are snakes, Gaffy -- lots of giant nasty bloated snakes."

The party came upon a gurgling, easily fordable stream.  The more perceptive party members noticed a rustling of the bushes in a small oxbow on the other side of the stream.  Amok crossed the stream to investigate as nearly everyone else observed from the stream's safe side.  Nimbat flew above Amok to provide Nimrod an aerial view of Amok's explorations.

On the other side of the stream Amok found around five collections of giant snakes.  Every snake was contentedly sleeping on the warm sand, lazily basking under the baking sun and happily digesting the meals in their distended tummies. Their stomachs were so bloated, Amok and Nimrod separately wondered if these snakes were responsible for all of the missing travelers.

Amok decided killing the snakes was necessary for the public welfare.  So he set a brush fire that to burn them to death, hopefully engulfing them all in flame before they could wake up.  But all the snakes awoke as Amok ignited the first snake batch.  Then with amazing ferocity the snakes attacked the entire party -- even the people hiding many yards away across the stream.  This showed these were formidable snakes.  They were acting like they had learned from prior experience exactly how to respond.

Gaffy immediately charged across the stream into the center of snake beach.  Lucinia mounted Chumbawamba to bring the decanter of endless mud to Amok or Gaffy for use as a fire extinguisher.  But some of the surprisingly agile bloated serpents upset these plans by attacking Chumbawamba and Lucinia before they could enter the stream.  Some of the snakes injected their venom into Chumbawamba, causing her considerable pain as she tore them apart.

Nimrod was atop a nearby hillock where he fired off eldritch blasts at the snakes across the stream.  The snakes were amazingly tough.  The snakes thought not at all about self-preservation as they ruthlessly attacked the party without heeding their losses or the proximity of the ever-growing fire.

At one point only three groups of snakes were still alive.  But they every snake was swarming all over Gaffy's body.  Nimrod was afraid to aim his eldritch blasts so perilously close to Gaffy.  So instead, Nimrod viciously mocked them with "You will taste like chicken after we kill you".  While not being very damaging, this cutting remark seemed to partially demotivate the snakes.  Apparently, the eaters were sensitive about being the eaten.  Gaffy followed up with, "You made business deals with mongooses" as he unleashed a searing divine radiance upon all his slithery assailants.

In the end, the last surviving snake collective unfurled from Gaffy and fled eastward toward the undergrowth.  Amok gave chase and extirpated the snakes.

Amok dissected many of the snakes after the fight.  He found their last meals included a hind leg of a large black cat.  But the stomach contents could not explain the disappearances of recent travelers here.

The team made a one-hour meal of the snakes.  They did indeed taste like chicken.

Part 2: To Shout or Not to Shout, What Is the Question?

Our bad decision makers followed the trail north until they came upon a de-fleshed humanoid skull sitting upright in a little shrine on the trail side.  Nimrod the rune master studied the skull for ten minutes.  Then Nimrod relayed to the group that this was the skull of Baraxis.  The runes said the skull would grant one wish if they shouted it to the sky.  The group deliberated about whether this was a trap.  

Nimrod to the group: 

"To shout, or not to shout, that is the question: 

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of hastily considered unmuted wishes,
Or to just ignore this portent and move on?"

 Her holiness Lucinia opined:

"Devoutly must we wish. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life."

Amok the cunning and ever safety conscious weighed in:

"With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Gaffy the holy warrior philosopher concluded:

"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action."

Thus, being hopelessly undecided for now, our truly bad decision makers collectively sighed, shrugged, and walked away.  Perhaps they will return after other episodes have wizened them.

Part 3: The Murder of the Over-Crow

The merry band followed the trail a short distance north until they came upon a clearing surrounded by tall trees.  Many of these trees were filled with increasingly animated swarms of cawing crows.  The air was filled with a horrifying cacophony of increasingly hostile cawing from all directions around the party as the crow's overhead increasingly darkened the sky and land with their forms and shadows.

Then the group spied a strange unique crow in a tree on the far side of the clearing.  It had a pink fleshy brain-like mass atop its head.  The other crows seemed to be paying it deference.  Upon realizing our group could see it, this over-crow willed its scores of subjects to dive attack the party.

The crow swarms managed to hit Amok first.  Then Chumbawamba was hit.  The hits were reinforced by a magical effect that caused Amok and Chumbawamba to think they were crows after they failed their wisdom saving throws.  They were forced to ineffectually caw rather than fight until they passed their wisdom saving throws.

Lucinia targeted the over-crow with a moonbeam.  The injured over-crow responded by flying to a tree 30 feet west of Nimrod.  Nimrod teleported next to the over-crow up in its tree and attempted to grapple it.  Unfortunately, Nimrod was unable to grapple the over-crow before Lucinia's moonbeam killed it.  Nimrod was unable to revive it using 'spare the dying'.  Nimrod was very disappointed when the swarms of ordinary crows continued attacking even after the over-crow was dead.  Furthermore, Nimrod was disappointed that he was unable to befriend the over-crow to gain knowledge of the challenges remaining in the area.

With the over-crow dead Nimrod started eldritch blasting the crow swarms that were attacking Gaffy and Chumbawamba.  It was a shame the party had to destroy all the crows.

After the battle the team learned crows also taste like chicken.

Part 4: Stray Shadow Cats

The team crossed the creek from west to east again.  Suddenly 2 big black shadow cats jumped out of the tall grass at Amok and Nimrod.  One of them had a natural blur effect happening that made it hard to target.  

Nimrod turned himself and Amok invisible and they retreated across the creek. Gaffy and Lucinia, stalwart in their bravery, immediately engaged the beasts in battle. And from across the stream, Nimrod cast repelling bolts of pain upon the blurry cat as Amok fired crossbow bolts with deadly accuracy.

In the end, the shadow cats were felled, and the company emerged unscathed, save for a few scratches. Amok, skilled in the art of skinning, did take the pelts of the beasts, saying they could be fashioned into coats of blur.

The company knew that the shadow cats did hunt in prides of four to six, and so they prepared themselves for the next encounter. The road ahead was treacherous, but they were determined to face it with courage and strength.

Part 5: Fun(gus) on a Sunny Afternoon

The team ventured east and came upon a strangely rotted orc corpse.  It had 2000 gp and a battle axe.  The axe had the name "gworthaxe" carved into it.

The team ventured further up a ravine.  Gaffy was in the lead followed by Amok when they entered a weird mushroom patch.  Two fungal zombies rose up out of the tall red hued toad stools.  Nimrod shouted, "watch out for the fungus amongus".  But he was too late to help anyone evade the spore cone a zombie spewed at the group -- though Amok was able to uncannily dodge much of the damage.

Yet Nimrod, unfaltering, did unleash his hellish rebuke upon his assailant, "You dare to attack a servant of Kas, thou spawn of decay? The wrath of my patron shall smite thee, and the fires of the nether shall consume thee!" And with a mighty roar, much of the zombie's flesh was consumed by flame.

The team fought the two zombies, with Gaffy staying in close melee contact among the shrooms as the others used ranged attacks.  Nimrod's repelling blasts helped push these monsters back into their mushroom fairy circles.  But some members of the party took heavy damage when the first zombie to die exploded.

At the end, Nimrod could see Gaffy was close to death.  He readied himself and Nimbat to cast Spare the Dying upon Gaffy should Gaffy go down.  So when Gaffy did go down as foreseen, Nimbat selflessly dived in to stabilize Gaffy.  Unfortunately, the zombie struck down Nimbat as soon as Nimbat had completed its good deed.  Then the zombie exploded as Lucinia and Amok inflicted lethal damage upon it.  Lucinia then restored some health to Gaffy using a healing lotion.

Nimrod's pact magic slots were completely depleted at the end of that fight.  Though he was normally youthfully beautiful and energetic, his exhaustion left his hair white and ghostly.  His stature was now drooped over and his features had become gaunt and more angular.  He felt a strange aversion to the hot sun overhead, his canine teeth were strangely sharp, and he had a craving for salty beverages.  Though he took little damage, he requested the group take a rest.   He also hoped he might summon forth his faithful Nimbat once again.