Episode 3

## Episode 3: The Wampus Cat

* The party begins by relaxing during the day after the series of exhausting encounters that came before. Rogg sharpens his axes, Keegan practices her magic, and Clancy "lounges menacingly". When night comes, Clancy and Keegan take the first two watches - nothing bad happens even though Keegan is only paying attention to her book. Rogg on the third watch however sees a strange bedraggled crow that is lurking near the party. He gives it a scrap of meat and it flys away.
* Rogg wakes Clay and Keegan up after his watch - Clay freaks out and jumps and Keegan instinctively pulls a knife on Rogg before realizing its him. Rogg congratulates them on their quick reflexes.
* Clancy and Emmett find the trail of the wampus cat we were following. The party follows them through the silent, eerie desert. The party hears a rustling sound and follows it to its source - an older orcish woman named Rhaaza Blackthorn.
* The woman tells the party that they "shouldn't be here" and shushes them down when they try to speak. She explains that there is a large snake named Old Chua. She also explains that there is a hag that lives nearby named Rotten Roslynn and the party suspects that its the same as the "Muriel" we were searching for. Rhaaza offers to either take us around or through Chua's hunting grounds and the party decides to go straight on through to save time. Rhaaza casts Pass Without Trace on the party. They head into Chua's hunting grounds, relatively silent except for Emmett's jangling armor. As we walk, Rhaaza points out where Chua is at one point, the snake being absolutely enormous, with 'fangs the size of trees'.
* We see a vulture chewing on a corpse a bit away, with a pile of stuff next to it. Clancy and Rogg go to investigate. They get 30 gold and some rope, and attempt to get a set of bracers out of the beak of the vulture. The rest of the party watches Clancy and Rogg in confusion as Clancy tries to scare the bird into dropping the bracers. It works and the vulture lets out a large caw that echoes ominously through the canyon, alerting Old Chua of our presence.
* The party scrambles and tries to hide, but Keegan's talking alerts the snake to her presence. She breaks and runs and the party follows. Thankfully, Emmett notices a small cavern off to one side of the canyon and the party ducks inside. The snake pounds the outside of the cave opening a few times and then retreats outside of the vision of those inside. After ten minutes of waiting, Rogg uses Keegan's mirror to check the outside of the cave, and sees that the snake is waiting outside for them. Keegan and Emmett use illusions and toll the dead to slightly injure the snake and bring it up by the mouth of the cave. Rogg stabs it in its eye. It hides again and Rogg sneaks out of the cave and leads the rest of the gang out.
* The party travels out of Old Chua's hunting grounds, but is met with a steep stone cliff face. With varying degrees of ease, the party climbs the cliff, with help from Rogg and his rope.
* Rhaaza offers to let the party stay at her house, and we agree to go there to rest and talk about what's going on. She takes us to her home, a small rickety place with a fence of thorns and a bee house. She has a large pet warg named Greyhowl who she introduces us to.
* She explains that she has spent most of her life trying to discover a way to close the Edict of Fire and heal the land, but she has been unsuccessful and lately has lost faith in her goal.
* "Khorus has broken the world and its living on a limited time frame I think, a long one, but one with a discernable end."
* She explains that the Edict of Fire is a portal to the plane of fire. The portal is one way, with fire coming out and nothing going in. The world will eventually be overtaken by the elemental energy that bleeds out of it. "Given enough time it will slowly bake this world and turn it into that - a barren charred wasteland. You will not live to see the effects of it in the long term - so no one really cares."
* Keegan explains Shiloh's situation, and tells her that Shiloh is thirteen years old.
* Rhaaza tells the party that if that's the case, then Shiloh is likely doomed and that they should head back to town and abandon their goal. Apparently if a girl is kidnapped by a hag at age 13, the child is likely in the process of becoming a hag herself. Legend says the pure part of the child's soul is lost somewhere in the feywild. A "soul mirror" or the lighter half of a girl's soul is trapped in the feywild, and the child is replaced with a changeling.
* Clancy and Emmett discuss the proper way to deal with hags - Clancy suggests immediate violence and Emmett says that doing so would have terrible consequences. Rogg asks Rhaaza whether or not she knows the way to the Feywild and she says she does know where a fey crossing is. According to legend, if a changeling and its soul mirror are reunited before the soul mirror is destroyed, then the two will neutralize each other and the process of hag transformation might be stopped.
* Emmett expresses that he is EXTREMELY uncomfortable at the idea of meddling in hag business. His experience with hags was very negative. When asked what his experience with hags was he refused to say. He claimed that getting involved with this was just going to make things worse. Clancy called him a murderer for being a member of the Astaran Order, but beyond that a coward for refusing to help a little a girl. Clay immediately punches Clancy in the face and says "Never call him a coward again!" as he draws his gun at points it at the bloodhunter. Clancy replies by saying "You're a fucking bully, pulling your gun out like it's your dick." Rogg manages to get the two to stop fighting by reminding them of more pressing issues in a very rousing speech, saying that "The world is bigger! You need to act bigger!"
* Emmett and Clay break apart from the group to discuss whether or not they are going to stay with the group. Emmett clearly has baggage about this situation, but Clay tries to persuade him that staying is the best course of action, telling him that they can only run from their problems for so long.
* Rhaaza convinces the rest of the group to not go into the feywild until they had actually confirmed that the girl was alive and in the process of becoming a hag. Clay says that he won't force Emmett to come. The party discusses fate and what might have brought them together. They discuss Warren Cadhill, who is apparently Rhaaza's nephew, and get Rhaaza up to speed on his illness.
* Rhaaza feeds her animals and Emmett finally agrees to come along with the party. Rhaaza mentioned that the hag is known for preying on newlyweds.
* The party finds the trail of the wampus cat once more. On the way, the party runs across a strange spire with elven markings along it and a wolfs head carved at the top. It turns out to be a shrine to Vargkaras. Clancy prays there for a moment, and is quietly given a blessing that increases his movespeed. Keegan asks Clancy what he saw there, and he replied "Some old ghosts" which lead to considerable confusion amongst the party as Keegan and Clay assumed he was referring to actual ghosts. When Rogg explained that he meant 'ancestors', Keegan and Clay continued to be confused, wondering why an elf pillar would have the ancestors of a human man (hint: Clancy's not human but the party doesn't know it yet.) Rhaaza tells Clancy that any metaphors are going to go over the heads of these idiots and everyone, including the idiots, agrees about that.
* Clancy explains that not only the elves worshipped Vargkaras, and Keegan admits that worship is a strange thing. Rhaaza asks Keegan why her hair is on fire, and Keegan replies by saying that its hard to explain - "a blessing or a curse of the fire goddess, however you see it."
* In the distance, towards the mountains, the party hears a desperate yowling meow. This turns out to be Sabrina, Shiloh's pet cat. Emmett rescues her from the tree and immediately befriends her. There is a brief but funny discussion about what to do with the cat before the group just sets her down and follows her. She leads the group towards a structure in the distance - a hut perched precariously at the top of a cliff, a weird spire on another small cliff. In between there is a little hut.

* Keegan scouts ahead and sees the shed is labelled with a wooden hut labelled "grimalkin". She checks for danger, and finding none gestures for the party to move forward. Emmett and Clay still linger back but the rest move forward. Keegan checks out the shed, it reeks of sickly sweetness much as Warren Cadhills' wounded arm did, and otherwise appears to be some sort of giant doghouse.
* Clancy circles around the area and begins to climb up one of the rock formations towards the large pillar, but is interrupted when he runs directly into the invisible form of the wampus cat/displacer beast. The creature slashes him with its tentacles
* Clancy activates his hybrid transformation, his face warping to a reptillian form with long snake-like fangs with a sharp hiss.
* Rogg rushes up in a barbarian rage. Rhaaza casts Barkskin and Keegan rushes in and casts Produce Flame. Keegan points at the cat and says "What The Hell?" and then points at Clancy's creepy snake face and says "What The Hell?" Emmett disassociates.
* The cat tries to run, Rogg and Clancy miss their attacks of opportunity. Clay kisses Emmett on the cheek and says "cover me" before running towards the cat, shooting eldritch blast, but he misses and is still a fair distance away. Clancy uses his Crimson rite and his claws and teeth begin to flame, he slashes his claws through the creature. Rogg reckless attacks the creature and hits with his hand axes and Keegan rushes in and hits it with a Booming Blade attack. Emmett moves closer to the fight and casts Bless on himself and Clay.
* A strange wound along the back of the cat opens up in place none of the party hit, bubbling black tar. The goo coalesces across the creatures body and white pustules form. Its tentacles begin to drip an off-white liquid that sizzles when it hits the sand. It tries to hit Keegan and Rogg, but only hits Rogg, doing piercing and acid damage.
* Clay uses an eldritch blast to hit the cat. Clancy slays the creature slashes it and then bites it across its face with his firey fangs and rips its throat open, killing it.
* Rogg asks Clancy if the snake face is his real face, and Clancy replies "It's *a* face. Its not necessarily any more my real face than the other one is." His features slowly return to those the party is more familiar with. The party prepares to continue on.

The episode ends with the party stepping onto the first mesa to continue their quest into the hut of the hag.

No Chat Log for Episode 3

<- Back Next ->