Janfeng Forest and The Kodama

Back in Baldur's Gate at the keep of The Order Of The Obsidian Dagger, the newly self-appointed leader of The Order is Onthar Frume. He has sent word out to various senior members of the Order. He assembles an eclectic group of The Order's soldiers and they begin to arrive at the keep.

Onthar greets the soldiers of The Order in the Great Hall in the keep. There is Maddox a virtuous paladin knight, his armor polished to a shine. An intriguing looking female genasi rogue, Araxie Pearl, stands, with a slight inebriated wobble. A massive, quarter ton clay golum strides into the room, but he hides his features behind a massive cowled robe, named E-102gamma (named after the experiment that created it). And finally, a slight half-elf female, Vadania, stands proudly in her cleric robes.

Track Them Down

Onthar tells them that he is tasking them with a mission to assist him in fixing a grave mistake he has made. He tells them of hiring a group of outsiders whom he thought were up to the task of investigating The Order. He had worried that The Order was succumbing to corruption and wanted it ferreted out. He had given them too much free reign. He goes on, with a grave look, telling them that this group abused their powers and killed and robbed prodigiously. They are even suspected in the death of The Order Of The Obsidian Dagger's previous leader, Ondine.

Other investigators, as well as the group in question, had traced some of the city's corruption to a group of thieves and assassins who called themselves 'The Children Of Gwynt'.  But the group apparently insisted on abusing their power further and worked their way into Ondine's tower, killing him and several soldiers. They briefly tried to convince Onthar that Ondine was behind the whole corruption but when pressed for evidence they fled, killing a couple of soldiers of The Order in their escape.

The Order finally tracked them down to a mansion in the upper city, belonging to a noble of some growing influence, a young woman named Lady Stehlen. Once The Order gained access to the mansion they found Lady Stehlen, her servants and much of her belongings gone. This vile group is suspected of killing or abducting Lady Stehlen and stealing much of her household.

The assembled group is charged with bringing these individuals to justice. He hands them a handful of parchment scrolls. They are charcoal sketchings of each of the suspects, along with their names: Yeva Abramovich; Azalea; Oor; Artemis; Searaphina. If they are attacked they must defend their lives, so retrieving the bodies will do as much justice as Onthar desires. BUT....Onthar stresses that there is one among them that is not to be harmed.

A young myconid, going by the nickname, Stool, is not to be harmed. He must, in fact, be returned to Onthar. They are deep and close friends. He worries for Stool's life and his innocence.

Onthar, finally standing as the meeting draws to a close, tells them that they will have to travel by portal to Ondine's tower, where they believe the fugitive group has fled to. There they have used a powerful portal to travel. Where that powerful portal links to is unknown. Hence they have assembled a group with various skills, backgrounds and abilities for this mission.

The group is ushered along by an old mage, who introduces himself as Levi Titanbrow. He leads them to a large room with four large alcoves. Within each alcove is a large fountain. Levi explains that the entrance to the top of Ondine's tower has been blocked somehow and they must teleport into the tower via these fountain portals. When they are ready the simply step into the water. The group first has to get ready, Maddox must call to him the rest of his retinue as well as his horses. E-102gamma, asks for any magical items that would be useful.  Levi tells gamma he will look for what he can with such short notice and find the spell that will enlarge the fountain to accommodate the party including the horses.

Soon Levi returns with a few items which the group divies up and the group, horses and all step into the fountain's pool.

They are instantly transported to the top of Ondine's tower. The room is large and mostly barren. Several large blood stains and streaks as well as smashed furniture and bones littered around the room attest to some gruesome happening. The group steps into the portal circle and makes their best attempt at activating the teleportation portal. White light engulfs them and immediately they find themselves high in the mountains, surrounded by clouds....with the partner portal circle below them but 20 feet over. Below them is 30 foot drop to the mountainside.



On Top Of Ol' Janfeng

Several of the group are able to land nimbly without much effort and scramble back up the mountain to the portal but Maddox, not the most nimble of paladins, crashes to the earth and rolls until rocks block his further tumble down the mountain. Eventually they all make it back up the mountain to the top where the large teleportation circle is carved in the rock.

The air is cool and damp and night will soon fall. They search around the top of the plateau and find that the portal's arcanic symbols which empower the teleportation spell have been at least in parts, chiseled out. Someone has attempted to mar the portal. While it obviously still works, the scarring of the runes has made the portal dangerous.

The group is also able to find an old path which leads down the mountain. They follow it along until they come to a bridge crossing a deep chasm. On the near side of the bridge they witness two giant mountain goats grazing. In the small grass covered landing before the bridge the group notes massive amounts of blood and gore. There would seem to be a massive slaughter of several giant mountain goats recently. The group inspects the area and deduce that the slaughter probably occurred no more than two weeks ago.

Emotionally Scarred Goats

Maddox approaches one of the giant mountain goats. He casts speak with animals and his mind enters that of the goat. He asks the goat if they have seen people that look like this, concentrating and producing a mental picture of each of the fugitives. The goat's horror is obvious. Maddox receives a mental image of several horrific demons, who slightly resemble the characters Maddox concentrated on. These demented demons spout fire and lightning and hack mercilessly at the goats brothers and sisters. The death and horror color the entire vision of the goat which Maddox sees. The demon characters rejoice and cavort in the killing.

Then when the goats herder and caretaker, a small hermit of a man and in the vision wreathed in a glowing holy white light, arrives to save his flock, the demons descend on him while he attempts to placate the demons. The vision is horrific and saddening. The goat pleads with Maddox, "food?". Maddox reaches down and grabs a tuft of green  grass and feeds it to the goat.

The fugitives have been here.

The group spends the night in a small foul smelling cave. Carcasses of goats litter the cave floor in here too. They also find the body of the hermit from Maddox's conversation with the goat.  His body, sliced open and crushed, lies face down in a small stream of water.

In the morning the group makes their way slowly down the mountainside and eventually come to the thick forest which surrounds the mountain for several miles. Inside the forest, under the canopy of leaves the forest is dark and quiet. No signs of animals. No bird song. Just the sound of the wind through the trees. The group travels until it becomes to dark to continue. They find themselves a slightly open area to rest.

The Kodama Of Janfeng

As the group sits there, Araxie notices something odd sitting on a branch a few feet away. It is a small white creature whose soft white body has a head which watches here and bobs and twists in a very odd fashion. As she quietly notifies the rest of the group she notices another and then another. The creatures try to gesture to them and eventually Araxie gets up and follows them.



Feeding The Widow Creeper
2,950 XP + (4,950 /2) XP

The creatures lead the group, with Araxie in front towards a cave. Araxie tries to speak with the little creatures but they do not answer. Suddenly, with the sound of cracking branches, a huge spider-like creature emerges from the cave and grasps at Araxie. Vines shoot out of it's mouth and the genasi is tightly gripped in the vines, thorns piercing her skin.

The others are quick to respond and rain down spells and weapon strikes against the wooden creature. The Widow Creeper takes the hits, as bits of its body splinter and break off. But it still holds on to Araxie. It draws Araxie closer and it's fangs bite down and pierce Araxie's head and it begins to feed on the fluid and matter within.

The small spirit-like creatures do not seem to respond to this. They simply watch and begin to approach different members of the party. One of the little creatures touches Maddox's horse and the horse screams in pain and dies. Araxie tries to  communicate with the creatures and finds that the creatures, who communicate more through feelings and images than words, are simply trying to feed one of the forest's creatures because it is hungry.

Emploring the creatures that this group doesn't want to die and that they are on a important mission, the little creatures retreat and blink out of sight. Soon enough the widow creeper succumbing to the groups skills is finally trampled by Maddox's summoned war horse and becomes little more than kindling.

Sword In The Shell

After a long rest the group continues to travel through the forest, until they come across what looks to be a turtle lying face down among some bushes. What stands out about the turtle is that is has a large long sword sticking out of it's shell.

Maddox approaches cautiously and grabs and pulls at the sword. He is barely able to step back in time to avoid the swinging foot of the turtle as it turns and swings it's leg in a kick towards Maddox's face.

It stops. Smiles and says in a slow old voice, "What do you want with my sword?"