Two Birds, One Stone

and

Justin as the DM

"**Two Birds, One Stone**" is the twelfth episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

The Fonkey Casuals have set out from the City of Embers with purpose towards a nearby lake known as The Marrowdeeps to investigate the region’s leyline convergence in the hopes of finding the stained glass sword from Hopper’s vision.

## Episode Synopsis

#### The Episode

The party made their way down the road in the back of Vonkar's wagon as they headed towards their destination of Tanbrook. While they travelled, Grin started playing their accordion and attempted at getting the group to pitch in to make a song. A few members contributed while the others were in their own little world.

A little ways into their journey they encountered the freshly killed remains of a triceratops sprawled across the road and being picked at by vultures. Antyr scared the vultures off by killing one of them with a *Hoarfrost Beam*, and the party drew closer and realized they'd have to find a way to move the corpse as it was blocking the road. It was determined that the triceratops was killed by a large predatory animal that didn't attempt to eat the triceratops and that the bite was mostly territorial and not hunting behaviour. They also found a trail of blood coming from the west that determined where the triceratops had come from.

Grin cut into the corpse without any real purpose, while Antyr collected the blood that had been oozing out while Vonkar used *Enlarge* and pulled the corpse off the road while breaking off a horn for Antyr. They all hopped back into the wagon and continued onward and after another couple of hours of travel came across a massive ravine as far as the eye could see within a wooden bridge extending across devoid of any railings.

Doe and Torger recognized the area as Godbringer's Ravine, a place where they had crossed in a wagon train on the way to the City of Embers before they met the rest of the party. Deciding they'd need to be safe while crossing, Vonkar told Cornelius to cross as safely as possible as the trek across would take about three hours. At about the halfway point, Torger explained that the last time he and Doe had crossed the bridge the pair of them had jumped off the bridge and into the ravine and after having been egged on by Antyr, Torger leapt into the ravine and falling into the cloud of mist about 200-feet down. Concerned their friend had died in the fall, Antyr cast Message on Torger and received only silence in return. With the combination of yelling for Torger, the party seemed to disturb two large predatory pterasaurs known as quetzalcoatlus which flew out from the ravine and attacked.

Realizing he was out of range from doing any sizable impact, and not wanting to potentially collapse the bridge by increasing his size and weight, Vonkar threw a pot at one of them and clocked it in the head, while Cornelius screamed out of fear the entire time while pulling the wagon along the bridge. With a combination of abilities and teamwork, Torger was teleported by Antyr in front of one of the quetzalcoatlus and stunned it with an eye-jab causing it to fall and knock the other one out of the sky, while the stunned quetzalcoatlus fell to its death in the ravine, with Hopper killing the remaining one with their crossbow.

After dealing with the pterasaurs, the party reached the other side of Godbringer's Ravine and prepared to set up camp with Doe casting Tiny Hut in the back of the wagon, while Torger and Antyr shared first watch. They didn't notice anything of import during the watch, but Torger could hear what sounded like a large pack of hyenas down in the ravine feasting on something which was presumed to be the dead quetzalcoatlus. The rest of the night went without issue and everyone slept peacefully until morning.

#### After the Break

Everyone awoke the following morning bright and early from the sounds of the jungle. After quickly getting ready and setting Cornelius up for another day of travel, the party pushed ahead further down the road, passing by other travellers as they went. It was turning out to be quite the uncomfortably humid day and after a few hours there was a bit of reprieve as a cool wind passed through the area which dropped the temperature around twenty degrees, and at the same time the jungle grew completely silent.

Concerned they may be in danger, Vonkar told Cornelius to move slower while everyone had their heads on a swivel. Around this time, they all noticed an overgrown foot trail about thirty feet to the left of the road and it seemed to be where this cool breeze was coming from. Grin went invisible and scouted the trail for about ten minutes and noticed it grew colder and that the foot trail was designed to be concealed. They returned to the wagon and told everyone what they had discovered with everyone deciding to check the trail out, while Leek stayed behind to keep an eye on Cornelius and the wagon. Leek wild-shaped into a panda bear, while the party magically put the words "1 gp and hug the bear" on the side of the wagon.

The remaining members of the party followed the foot trail for about half an hour and the sounds of the jungle slowly returned while the temperature began to get even cooler, down to almost single digits which was strange for this humid jungle environment. Eventually, the road came to a jet-black stone obelisk that was about 30-feet tall and had numerous gouges taken out of it. Hopper approached the obelisk and noticed that a phrase had been carved into the eastern-face of the obelisk which said:

> “The master of this stone shall wield time's passing at their bidding, carve off a piece of stone, and place it upon the altar within the Marrow Hall, there you shall be made worthy.”
>
> The hidden obelisk in the jungle.

Hopper then placed a hand upon the obelisk and casting *Identify*, learning that when a piece of carved off from the obelisk it would summon something.

Noticing that these gouges in the obelisk were clearly from people carving them off, Grin swung their sword at the obelisk and carved off a sizable chunk that ws about fist-sized. As they did so, the ghost of a heavily mutilated boy floated out from the obelisk and immediately became hostile. Vonkar, having some knowledge on what ghosts can do to people, ran off to hide behind a tree as he was most susceptible to dying of old age in such an encounter while the rest of the party tangled with the ghost.

Hopper and Doe attempted to communicate with the ghost, but the attempts seemed hopeless and it was made more difficult by the Silence spell that Torger had cast around the ghost. The fight with the ghost was tough, with it proving to be resilient to most the party's attacks, including a coconut being thrown from Vonkar's position. Seeking to frighten the party, the ghost began spewing out vast amounts of insects which caused Hopper to become frightened and age twenty years, now making them 48 years old.

Eventually, with combined efforts and Torger having stunned the ghost, it was defeated by Grin and its essence seemed to enter the piece of stone that was carved from the obelisk. Deciding that they had seemingly investigated the area, they all made their way back to the wagon while Hopper complained about their aching knees and how they now looked like their father in law. As they all arrived back at the wagon they saw a departing halfling family giving Leek in his panda shape hugs, and Leek reverted back to his true form and revealed that they had made 310 silver from all the hugging, so not exactly covering the cost of 1 gp as advertised.

Realizing they had about seven-and a half hours remaining before they'd arrive in Tanbrook, the party got back into the wagon and went on their way while discussing the possibility of looking for someone there to restore Hopper's age as they had only twenty-four hours before the change became permanent.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
* Doe
* Grin
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Leek
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Mentioned

* The Archmaw
* The Ashheart
* The Creep