Session 3

Uh oh there's a monster in the cave

## No Moss, Bad Touch

After some dissuasion on what the party’s goals were. The party invited Tofu, our new Tortle friend, to join **The Birch Bitches.** The party reentered the cave they fought the mosslings to fight the beast they had heard rumors of. A narrow side passage was discovered and Tofu morphed into a creepy ass spider and when in. Initially, Tofu only found rotting bodies cover in a moss like mass that covered parts of the walls and ceiling. After seeing a sadly recently past humanoid women, Madame Voila enter through the crack to try and identify the remains. El and Ssera followed into the narrow crack in the cave, when Tofu was surprised by the moss’ aggressive touching. While the quick skirmish lead to some grievous injures, Tofu was able to incinerate the grabby moss with moon light. The cramp tunnels caused mobility problems **The Birch Bitches** wouldn’t learn from.

## The Rise and Fall of Phil the Mossling

As the Birch Bitches venture further into the cave, they spot the mossling Gloom on the lookout tower, as well as another mossling and some giant mushroom creature. They also notice that the bridge across the raging river has been taken down, leaving no apparent way across. Zephyr disguises himself as a mossling ("Phil"), and pretends to have captured the other members of the party in an attempt to trick the mosslings to let them cross the river. After some questioning, Gloom brings forth Rasheek to come and verify "Phil"'s claims. However, he is able to see through the rouse and combat beings.

Krell leaps onto the top of the giant mushroom creature, and he, El, and Arbor are able to fell it. The rest manage to make it across due to Ssera's water manipulating.

After dispatching all of the creatures (except for Gloom and Rasheek, who fled), the group decided to take a short rest along the river bank. While the Birch Bitches rested, Tofu traveled ahead. There, he saw a mossling petting a large rat, as well as sensed a dark magical presence. He then returned to the group.

## Into the Cave...

After their rest, the Birch Bitches traveled on. Along the way, the found crates holding several items: rotting food, a magic dagger infused with the venom of a zanskran viper, and 200gp, 37sp, 14cp. Voila takes the dagger, while the money found is poured into Tofu's shell for storage.

Going forward, Krell sees the mossling with the rat and kills him, leaving the rat to mourn the death of his mossling owner.

We continued onward until coming to a point where the river had calmed and we needed to swim across. Zephyr rides on Tofu's back, only for Tofu to dump him in the water. Once across, all the magic wielders feel the gross magical feeling of the same dark energy that Tofu sensed earlier. It is identified as being necromancy as well as some trace elements of transmutation magic.

## Kevar

We enter a chamber of polished stone lit by old raised braziers. In the opposite end of the room there is an altar inscribed with symbols matching those on Krell and Arbor. Above the alter hangs a large mirror, in which we see our corpses and a large monstrous being looking out. Standing over the alter is a humanoid with a feline head and a purple gem embedded in his skin, bent over and muttering.

Catching the attention of the humanoid, he turns and reveals himself to be named Kevar. He said he had no memory as to how long he has been at this altar, he does not know what any of the runes mean, and that the "withered hand" controls him. Kevar is always hungry, and says that "the man" brings him flesh so he can feed. Kevar could not be reasoned with, and a fight ensues.

After a very brief combat encounter, Kevar is defeated without much effort (foreshadowing...). Tofu walks up to the mirror behind the altar. We can see that the figure in the mirror is eating reflections of our own corpses. Staring. Watching. It then comes forward and taps the reflection, causing a ripple effect. After the ripple, the creature is gone. Before anyone can react, Tofu smashes the mirror with his staff. In that instant, Tofu vanishes; blinks from our perception. While the rest of the Birch Bitches scramble to look for Tofu, Voila studies the altar and notes the runes.

## Oh Shit!

After several minutes, Tofu suddenly reappears - now holding a small hammer and his own magic mirror that it appears he shattered.

"Hey. I recommend you guys run" - Tofu

With that, the dismembered corpse of Kevar writhes and starts to knit itself back together. It then rises, and dashes from the room. When we follow, we see in the hallway as Kevar's body beings to warp and expand until it becomes the monster we saw in the mirror.

## Indiana Jones

After we defeat the mysterious monster, the Birch Bitches hear a rumble as the caverns begin to collapse. We all start to haul ass. Krell rips the giant crystal from the body of the creature, but it is so massive that he has to disguard it in order to run from the cave in.

As we run, we find Rasheek and Gloom. Rasheek tries to fight us, but we ain't got time for that shit. Gloom runs ahead of us, also fleeing the collapsing tunnel. Ssera uses an action to still the raging waters so the party can cross more easily, as opposed to dashing like she could have. This put her further behind the rest of the party.

The Birch Bitches are able to make it mostly out of the cave, but at the last stretch Krell and Ssera get hit by falling boulders. While initially they are able to shake it off, Ssera eventually falls behind and gets buried and trapped under the rubble. After several heart wrenching moments where the strongest of the group try to frantically dig out her body, El is able to eventually pull Ssera's body free and Tofu uses his last healing spell to breath live into her and save her.