Session 10 (11/05/2021)

## Day Five, Late Evening

**After** leaving Chrono’s workshop, the group hurries back into Estafador’s carriage, eager to be on their way. Kaz climbs into the driver’s box with Estafador taking the first watch of this leg of the journey. The first eight hours pass uneventfully, the only thing Kaz sees are some strange bird-like creatures flying over the forest. He pays these no mind but keeps his eyes open for anything more pressing.

The inside of the carriage is quite a bit bigger on the inside than the outside. There is room for seven bunks, a desk, and a large circular sitting area in the middle. Pele looks around the cabin and finds a set of clothes that look like they may belong to a guard. Swage takes notice and says, “He’s naked somewhere.” “He’s still in here somewhere,” Holly says jokingly. Inside the pockets Pele finds a hand braided bracelet that she places around her ankle and a couple of gold pieces that she pockets.

Esha, Swage, Pele and Dove all climb into bunks and begin to fall asleep. Swage’s legs dangle off the end of the bed, and he asks Estafador, “Do you need to sleep?” Estafador replies, “I do require ‘rest’, but I don’t need sleep like you and your friends.” Gary crawls under the desk, the closest he can get to the enclosed places he prefers to sleep and falls asleep as well.

## Day Six, Morning

Holly takes over both the driving and watch positions from Kaz and Estafador, Dove joins him upfront. Holly notices what seems to be a campfire off in the distance but decides to ignore it. “Why bother them?” he says to himself. Dove starts to grow bored during the watch and takes some small pleasure in smacking Holly with her tail periodically. Inside the carriage, Kaz and Estafador sleep while the others begin to stir.

Swage takes over for the third watch, but he does so alone, and his mind begins to wander. He’s able to keep the skeletal horses on the path but doesn’t notice the mound of snow in the road. The carriage hits and begins to tip, but quickly rights itself. Swage attempts to calm the horses, but they already seem calm and ignore him entirely. Swage asks the group if they can see what was hit, and Esha says that it looks like a pile of snow with some cloth sticking out of it. After hearing this, Swage brings the carriage to a swift halt.

Kaz rolls out of his bunk and hits the floor, he sits up rubbing his head. He sees Pele and Esha getting ready to exit the carriage and investigate and decides to go with them. Once they reach the mound of snow Kaz brushes off the snow to reveal a human man. Kaz picks up the man by the back of the shirt and shakes off the rest of the snow, the body is frozen stiff with a huge wound in his stomach. Pele tries to warm up the man in the hopes that he may still be alive, but this just causes the wound to begin to ooze.

Kaz carries the body over to Swage, in the hopes that the cleric may be able to determine if they are still alive or what may have killed them. Upon seeing the body Swage says, “Kaz what did you do?!? You shook him loose! I saw you!” Kaz replies, “I did shake him, but you definitely ran him over first.” Swage determines that the man was dead before being ran over by the carriage.

Holly looks over the body for some sort of identification, but Estafador is the one that points out his cloak clasp. It is shaped like a set of scales, with one side holding gold bars and the other side holding goods. Holly recognizes it as a symbol for a merchant guild known as the Ham Hocks. They deal in food goods and come from a town on the west coast. Holly pockets the cloak clasp.

Swage begins to search for footprints and notices that the man seemed to be coming from the direction that the group is heading. Holly searches where the man was found and notices that there is no blood trail leading to it. The group begins to debate whether they should bring the body with them or not, and they finally decide to bring it with them to the next town. Estafador offers to put the body in his “home” and says that he can bring it back later, but the group seems uncomfortable with the idea and turns him down.

## Day Six, Early Evening

The group return to the carriage, with Pele sitting upfront with Estafador. Farther down the road they come upon the scene of a battle. One carriage blocks the road while another lays on its side next to the road. The bodies of dead humanoids and horses lie scattered around the battlefield. Some of the bodies are missing their legs, a fact that Kaz discovers after pulling a half-buried body out of the snow. Kaz and Holly both try and determine what caused the attack. Kaz doesn’t recognize anything; Holly has heard tales of different creatures but isn’t sure what it could be. Dove quickly flips through her Demonomicon but doesn’t find anything relevant.

Holly continues to investigate the area but doesn’t find any tracks. He does find many holes with a few that seem to burrow down into the earth. Thinking quickly, he dons his newly acquired “Sonar Goggles”. Once on, he can see the origin point of sounds and can see anything that those vibrations pass through. He can see something moving under the earth and notices that whatever it is, it is very large. Soon after, the rest of the group feels a tremor and sees the earth bulge as something moves underneath. Holly says, “The problem is under the ground.” This warning causes Esha to climb on top of one of the carts and Pele to join her using her new boots. She loses her footing on the landing and hurts herself a bit.

Swage and Holly both freeze and do their best not to move at all. Pele sends a warning to Estafador using her new cantrip “Message”. Estafador intrigued by a mortal being able to psychically communicate yells back as loud as he can, “WANT ME TO STOP?” This causes the shapes underground to start heading in his direction. In hopes of distracting them, Swage hurls a steel ingot into the forest, this causes the shapes to stop and for one to break away and head for it.

A giant worm bursts from the ground in the location of ingot. Holly tries to warn the group using hand signals and mouthing the words that there are at least three worms, two big ones and one small one. This movement, even though very miniscule, is enough for the giant worm to pick up on and start heading his direction. Although Kaz hasn’t seen anything yet, he knows that whatever is circling them underground is very large. He begins to shake with anticipation which causes the worm to head towards him. Holly draws his daggers and prepares to defend himself should anything appear near him, Pele activates her Elven Chain Ring, casting Mage Armor on herself. Seeing this, Esha eases her scimitar out of its sheath. Swage whispers a quick prayer to Gond, and blesses himself, Kaz, and Pele.

The giant worm erupts from the ground directly behind Kaz. He slowly turns to look up at it and smiles, letting the rage overtake him. Two smaller worms appear as well, one near Holly and the other about thirty feet behind Kaz. The second the one appears near Holly; he throws both daggers and draws first blood.

Kaz lets himself slip even deeper into his rage and beings to frenzy. He takes a mighty swing at the huge creature, dealing it a mighty blow with his massive maul. Holly notices a weakness in the way the smaller worm fights and exploits it and deals another blow to the smaller worm. Esha expends some of her magical energy and casts Chill Touch, as the magical fingers reach out towards the creature it slips back underground and the fingers close around nothing. The worm emerges from the earth again and attempts to bite Swage, but he is able to deflect the blow with his shield. Pele gathers fire into her hands and casts Burning Hands on the giant worm. It hits, but the creature doesn’t seem fazed by the attack.

Pele begins to play the war drum she brought with her from her homeland and says to Kaz, “BEAT IT DOWN!” Kaz feels the bardic magic inspire him even through his rage. The smaller worm throws its body at Holly and smashes into him causing some damage. Swage begins to fumble with his necklaces and finds the Bone Tooth Necklace among them, “Time to fight with Tooth and Nail,” he says and then blows on the bear whistle. Tooth and Nail appear next to each of the smaller worms, deep growls escaping their throats. Swage then summons and attacks with his spiritual weapon, the glowing orange spectral anvil raises into the air but misses the worm when it comes crashing down.

Kaz takes two more mighty swings at the giant worm and readies himself for a counterattack. The worm moves with extreme speed biting Kaz, though his rage and Goliath heritage help mitigate most of the damage the attack still hurts. Holly swings at the worm he is locked in combat with but misses, he attacks again with his second weapon and scores a hit. Esha moves into attack the worm with Swage and cuts into it using her scimitar. The worm enraged by the damage bites Esha doing damage to the hybrid. Pele again gathers fire into her hands and shoots it at the giant worm. Her spell goes haywire, causing her to be temporarily blinded by the smoke and heat. She cries out to Swage, still banging her drum, “Keep doing what you’re doing!” Swage feels inspired by this odd battle cry.

The worm again attacks Holly and deals him another blow. In retaliation, Swage launches a guiding bolt at the worm attacking his friend and scores a direct hit. He then turns his attention back to the worm closest to him and slams his spiritual anvil into it. The worm nearest Holly is torn into by Tooth’s razor-sharp claws, it almost looks like the bear was attempting to climb it. It turns and runs towards the last remaining small worm. It attacks it by taking a large bite out of its side dropping the chunk of worm meat to the ground. Nail attacks next, biting another chunk out of the worm and then swiping at it with its claws.

Again, Kaz bellows and swings and hits the giant worm twice more, seemingly making no progress. It appears as if he could keep this up all day however and would probably enjoy it. The giant worm rears back and blasts Esha, Kaz, Swage and both bears with its icy breath. Swage gets his shield up just in time, but the other four are hit by the full force of the blast. Holly moves quickly and hides inside one of the damaged carts. From his hiding spot, he throws both daggers into the giant worm, embedding them firmly in its hide.

Feeling the cold cut into her, Esha can tell she is hurt badly. She moves away from the combat and summons her healing spirit in the shape of a giant hawk. The healing magic sprinkles down and lands on her, rejuvenating the wounded druid. The smaller worm attempts to bite Swage a second time, but in its wounded state it is easily knocked away by the massive firbolg.

A magic orb appears in Pele’s hand and launches itself at the giant worm, but narrowly misses its target. Tapping into her sorcerer powers, Pele casts Tasha’s Mind Whip. The worm is hit by this spell but seems to shrug off most of the damage and suffers no ill effects because of it. Swage again drops his spiritual weapon on the smaller worm but misses. He then launches a guiding bolt at the giant worm and misses that as well. The mental connection to Tooth and Nail is spreading his focus thin.

Tooth and Nail continue to bite and claw at the worm. Nail misses its bite, but its claws find purchase and rip open and kill the last small worm. Nail then closes in on the giant worm, blood still fresh on its paws. Kaz, sensing that the giant worm is close to death, swings twice more but still doesn’t manage to fell the beast. The worm responds to this continued onslaught by wrapping Kaz up like a boa constrictor stopping him from attacking further. Holly takes this opportunity to run up the coils of the worm and retrieve his daggers. He leaps off, plunging them into the beast’s sides and sliding down, tearing it open as he falls.

Esha, seeing her goliath friend taking the worst of the beating this fight, sends her giant hawk to heal him. Pele casts another fire bolt and strikes the monstrosity but does little damage. Swage, having dealt with the smaller worms now turns his attention to the big one. He drops his anvil into the beast’s mouth and then forces it down its throat with a well-placed powered up guiding bolt, killing the creature.

The giant worm, choking and writhing with the radiant energy coursing through its body, falls at the goliath’s feet with a crash. Swage sees the rage still seething in his friend’s eyes and yells, “Sorry, Kaz!”

“I do all the work, everyone else gets all the credit!” Kaz replies, the rage beginning to subside.

As the rest of the party begins to search the area for the spoils of victory, Swage takes a knee in the snow and calls over Tooth and Nail. He presses his forehead to each bear in turn as Esha’s healing hawk circles overhead, before all three animal spirits dissipate and return to their home planes.

Pele and Esha investigate the overturned carriage and find 100 gold pieces, 600 silver pieces, and 700 copper pieces to add to the party loot. Among the remains of one of the human bodies, Esha finds a set of sundered scale mail armor, a shattered longsword, and a nice pair of leather boots. She gives the scraps of metal to Swage, and Pele takes the boots to add to her growing shoe collection. Pele also finds a sack of dried meat, a few jars of pickled vegetables, and some cooking utensils and spices. She tosses the meat to Kaz and starts to snack on the pickled vegetables.

Kaz begins to tear into the smaller worms, looking for anything of value. He finds a well-balanced handaxe in one of the bodies, and a surprisingly intact stringed instrument in the other. Remembering Pele’s new bardic inspiration goading him on this battle, he brings the instrument to her. He then uses his new handaxe to rip into the body of the large worm and finds an intricately designed crossbow with an attached tray filled with bolts.

Swage walks around the scene and kicks open a few of the crates. The first one contains a bunch of clothing, with a particularly well-crafted tunic catching his eye. He activates his innate firbolg ability to detect magic and sees a glow emanating from the tunic, then notices that the handaxe and crossbow similarly exhibit magical properties. Hearing a discordant strum of notes and a yelp, he turns and sees Pele attempting to play her new bandore. To his eyes, the instrument is shimmering with a mysterious magical aura. Pele recoils and says, “I didn’t think I was that bad!”

Swage kicks open another crate, jewelry spilling forth into the snow. “Jackpot!”

He gathers the assortment of jewelry into a sack. Reaching into the shadows of the crate, his hands close around a fist-sized gem and he pulls it out for a closer look. Even without the magical glow indicative of evocation magic, the large gem seems to smolder with an inner fire. He stands and walks over to Pele, handing the glowing gem to the Fire Genasi. “Be careful with this, its magic is yet to be discovered.”

Pele sets down the bandore and takes the large red gem in her hands. Peering into its depths, she can see a small flame flicker to life and feels like its attempting to communicate with her. She casts comprehend languages but doesn’t hear anything coming from the gem. On a suggestion from Swage, Pele says to the gem in primordial, “Good evening.” The inner fire blazes in response and the gem warms in her hands.

Swage walks back over to the corpse of the large worm and thinks back to how difficult it was to pierce its scaled hide. He calls Kaz over as the possibilities for crafting start to coalesce in his mind. The two begin to carefully dissect the body and manage to extract 6 intact scales that are stony and extremely cold to the touch. Kaz moves over to the beast’s mouth and yanks out two huge fangs, his muscles straining with the effort. Stowing them away and wiping off his hands, the goliath then pulls out his magical compass and drops a pin at their current location for future reference.

“Is it OK for me to come out now?” Estafador questions from the nearby carriage. Pele affirms and informs the Archivist that he doesn’t need to reply so loudly to her message spell next time.

Swage turns on his flashlight and unsuccessfully searches the surrounding area for his steel ingot he threw to distract the worms. He silently laments the lost material.

Pele asks Kaz to pull the dead merchant from the roof of Estafador’s carriage so that they can leave him here at the scene of the attack.

“Do you need those bodies?” asks the Archivist.

“You can have ‘em.” replies Esha.

“NO. They died fighting and we should leave them here.” Kaz quickly retorts.

The demon clarifies, “No, not the humans… the worms.”

“Oh, yeah. You can have the horses too!” Pele exclaims.

Swage asks, “Can you turn these horses in to more… horses?”

Estafador nods and smiles wickedly as he tears open a large jet-black portal in the empty air next to him. With difficulty, he drags the dead horses and the two smaller worms into his pocket dimension. Pele looks into the portal and sees what appears to be a dark castle perched on a large rock, surrounded by mist and fog. The skeletal remains of the bodies inside begin to grow flesh and their eyes briefly glow green before fading to black as they start to make their way towards the castle. Pele looks at the portal through the spyglass and doesn’t see anything at all. She describes what she sees to the group.

“Gary’s play place… sounds great.” Swage adds sarcastically.

“It’s just a place of solitude where I can go if anyone is trying to kill me. Sort of a home away from home.” the Archivist clarifies.

“Is that why you’re here, because someone tried to kill you?” Pele asks.

“No, I was summoned here, remember?”

“Oh, right. So… if Zertis dies… you’ll be free?” asks Pele, uncertainly.

“In theory, yes.”

“So, are you free now?”

“Nope.” replies Estafador simply.

Swage asks, “Do you have a sense of where he is, since you are connected to him in some way?”

“I know he’s on the Material Plane… sort of… kind of?” the demon appears to be thinking it over.

Swage continues, “He said he had more bodies… I assume back where we left him.”

“No, he wasn’t there. I would have totally known that... at least I think I would have. Nah, he’s not there.” The Archivist thinks for a moment. “I’m not bound to him, but he summoned me and never dismissed me.”

“I believe there is a spell… way above my current ability… that will allow you to shift to a different plane. Would that work?” Pele asks.

“Yes!” Estafador exclaims. “I once talked to a wizard about it, but when he found out what I was, he screamed and ran away. Something about trying to take his soul… you know.”

“If I ever learn the spell, I’ll be happy to help you out as you’ve helped us.” assures Pele.

“That would be most appreciated!”

Swage is still confused. “And where is it you’re trying to return?”

“Oh, back to hell.” states the demon matter-of-factly. He looks back at the firbolg, “Where did you think I was trying to go?”

“I wasn’t trying to make an assumption.” Swage says.

“Not the Celestial Plane, mind you. That place is bad juju for me. They don’t like me up there.” Estafador says.

“Night night smite smite.” teases Pele.

“Speaking of smite… I once met a Paladin. He was… rather mean, actually.” The demon recalls.

Pele says, “A lot of the time, Paladins, depending on who they serve, only see in black and white, no gray."

“There is so much gray,” Estafador claims, looking to Swage. “You agree, right?”

Swage points to his charcoal skin, “Look at me… all gray.”

As the conversation winds down, the Archivist closes his portal, and the party starts to cover up any signs of their tracks here at the gruesome sight. Swage, Kaz, and Pele walk over to the overturned carriage blocking the road. The two half giants attempt to move it out of the way, but almost pull a few muscles as they realize that the cart is frozen to the ground. “Little torch, a little help?” Swage asks Pele through a grimace of pain.

“No problem!” The Fire Genasi produces flame and starts to thaw out the ice with her dancing lights providing illumination as darkness falls.

“On three,” directs Kaz, and with Swage’s help they manage to flip the carriage out of the road.

## Day Six, Late Evening

Dove grabs a few keepsakes from among the wreckage as the party makes their way back to Estafador’s carriage. Gary climbs into the driver’s box with the demon and the two begin to have a deep conversation about the meaning of death as the undead horses start to pull the carriage down the road. Kaz immediately falls asleep in one of the bunks while Swage lays out the newly acquired magic items on the center table and prepares his identifying ritual.

Esha takes a seat near a side window and stares outside at the slowly passing trees, listening to Gary and Estafador’s conversation. She then remembers her Glove of the Grim Fandango and decides to gift it to Pele.

Swage concentrates on the items and identifies them one by one. The Instrument of the Bards, allowing the user to cast a set of spells through its magic once per day. The Elemental Gem, which can be used only one time to summon a fire elemental to fight by their side. The Repeating Crossbow, seemingly a strict upgrade to the Firbolg’s current ranged weapon. The handaxe has no exotic magic properties but seems to be unimaginably sharp and well made. The Tunic of Mending, an elegant traveler’s outfit that will magically repair itself if damaged. The ritual complete, Swage leans back on the circular couch and rests his eyes for a few moments. When he opens his eyes and glances out the back window, he can see four familiar blue flames keeping pace with the carriage, roughly fifty yards back.

“We’ve got company! Can those horses go any faster?” Swage communicates the impending threat to the team.

Pele climbs up to the top of the carriage and sits down facing the trailing flameskulls, producing flame to keep herself warm. She keeps an eye on them for a while before rethinking her decision and returning to the interior of the carriage.

As Kaz starts to slumber, he finds himself in the cold, standing in the entrance of a gigantic cave. Peering past the stalactites and stalagmites, he swears he can see the far wall of this cavernous mountain move. As his eyes begin to adjust, he sees an enormous horned head emerge from that wall, towering above him at a dizzying height. A face that gives him pause.

“What are you doing, young one?” the creature asks in an impossibly deep voice.

“That’s a good question. I fell asleep in the back of a carriage.” Kaz replies.

“Don’t play games with me!” the voice booms, shaking the ice from the nearby stalagmites. “Are you not of my blood?”

“If I knew who you were, I might be able to answer that.” the goliath stubbornly responds.

“DO NOT KNOW WHO I AM?!”

The entity’s anger washes over Kaz like a wave, but he stands his ground. “You sound familiar, but I don’t recognize you.”

“You’ve never heard of… KAVAKI?!” rumbles the gigantic creature, leaning further forward and allowing the low light to reveal a set of huge horns rising from its head.

“Thaaat rings a bell.”

“As it should, young one! You were not able to protect your tribe. Here, you can’t even protect your friends… from a worm. Where is the anger? The PASSION?!”

“I thought I was pretty angry. I did a lot of damage to that worm!”

Smirking and leaning back into the wall, the entity continues. “Use this time to perfect it. When you have done so, we shall meet again. Not like this, but in person. Be gone.”

The vision fades and Kaz remains asleep in the carriage.

Swage continues to keep an eye on the flaming skulls and pulls out his waterskin. Over the course of an hour, he prepares a ceremony and takes a pinch of silver shavings, slowly adding them to the water while praying to Gond for his blessing. He can only hope that the holy water will extinguish those flames for good, this time.