05.01.22 - Flight of the Spiders

Mr. Snapping Branch asked to speak to us after we took some time to pick out our rewards for returning the missing Jerome. We met him in his study where he told us about the agreement between the Branches and Belcassels that has been agreed to for many generations. The Branches managed the business while the Belcassels have always created the creatures, but they were not always as good as they were now. He then told us about how, if we wanted there to be more people like me, they would be very nice and only make them if I agreed. I didn't know what to say so instead we asked about what was going on in Aaru’gala since that is where Marko said he was from. Mr. Branch told us that the wizard named Hogim had made the city into a clockwork machine due to his obsession with them, but he will kill anyone he thinks might be in his way to get what he wants. Then, he told us about how Corvex was a great evil blue dragon who had made the desert by opening a portal to the plane of air–which sounds like a very fun place to go–until the Great Tabaxi Empire and the ‘Saurans were able to get rid of him and bring back the greenness. We asked him about why the ‘Saurans thought Shadow Mother was a god, so he told us that there are probably other worlds where Pey must have been a god and accidentally came here before returning to his original world leaving behind this form of Pey.

After all of our questions, Mr Snapping Branch told us he had a favor to ask. He wanted to know if we would deal with a spider problem Mr. Belcassel had created; they were supposed to just be pest control for some other dangerous creatures until they escaped. Mr. Branch said we should find them at some large standing stones because magical mistakes seemed to like going there. We were also warned that there was a Weringnax there that would like to eat our magic, so we should be careful. In exchange, he said he would owe us a favor if we completed this task.

With that offer, we packed our things and headed towards the ferry to go to Purrgatory. The ferry was run by a very big lizard person named Ihruuk. He warned us that there was a lot of life in the river and we should be careful not to go in the water, but Shadow Mother wanted to take a bath so he jumped in anyways. When he hit the water it seemed like everything was normal and Mr. Ihruuk had been lying. That was until a whole bunch of fish with very pointy teeth came rushing after him. My whispers told me that they were called Peyranhas. After that, nobody left the ferry until it was time to drive the cart onto the road on the other side of the swamp.

Once we were off, we figured we would try to make it to the standing stones before dark. When we got there, the sun was setting on a shiny bronze statue of Shadow Mother holding his bone staff and a set of scales. While getting ready for bed, we saw a bolt of blue lightning go up into the sky and then come down into the statue. Then there was a blue lightning dude floating above us trying to hit us with lightning bolts. As soon as we had taken care of them, a big bronze dragon, saber tooth looking thing with butterfly wings jumped out and tried to eat us, but instead of it eating us it exploded. We then took a better look around and found some piles of bones we decided would be better to sleep next to than the statue.

Shadow Mother went to look closer at the statue while we moved camp, only to find it still had a bunch of lightning in it. He did find a switch to make it open, underneath there was lots of shiny treasure and an old map to somewhere called Aniwund. We had all settled in for the night, but the whispers told me that during Shadow Mother’s watch he found a baby version of the creature who exploded.