07: EVERYONE GIVES ORIS A REASON TO PANIC. A LOT.

* **Back on the ranch, the area around the Mossenleaf Stag is sprouting small, white flowers (Himeblooms) that Tarlenheim knows have healing properties.**

* + **Oris knows which ones to pick. They pick 17 doses of super potent flowers, 19 doses of semi-potent flowers.**
	+ **Wabu takes some soil from under the Himeblooms.**
* **We all get back in swanboat and wish our way to shadowy vail. We dock, leaving Fina and Wildfire to guard the boat/horses while we proceed on foot.**

* + **Everything is spoopy and we’re all pretty sure we’re gonna get lost. Except Tarlenheim–he seems to know what’s going on. LUMINOUS CATERPILLARS APPEAR IN PRETTY COLORS. Wabu picks up a glowy purple caterpillar and puts it in a jar for light when he notices three sets of eyes deeper in the trees.**
	+ **Tarlenheim and Durk notice that there are now 23 other sets of eyes, all silent.**
	+ **Durk edges close to Wabu, and creates lightning in his mouth, which lights up the area around him. The eyes seem to get larger as if curious? The creatures move silently, as no noises are heard.**
	+ **We continue to move along, and then we all pass by and as Durk brings up the rear. He notices the party pass a critter, which he kneels down next to and holds out a hand. The critter gives him a mushroom so he gives it a Himebloom in return. The critter rubs mushroom top all over Durk’s hand. Durk, confused, rubs the flower on the critter’s face. The critter’s weird mouth earthwormy tentacles wrap around the flower as 4 of the other critters loom around him curiously.**
	+ **A second, scrappier looking critter emerges carrying and eating a human hand with a gold ring on it. The mushroom critter (who we now realize was seasoning Durk for tasting) pounces on Durk. ZOOGS. Durk blasts ‘em with lightning mouth, toasting 5 of ‘em, and snatches up the human hand (SHINY), pulls the ring off, and tosses the hand by the wayside.**
	+ **The eyes of the other beasties surrounding the clearing blink out and you hear their (still pretty silent) expeditious retreat.**
	+ **Kang puts a mushroom in his mouth (no effects, yet). Oris loudly laments coming in the first place. Tarlenheim picks a few more.**
	+ **As the party spends too much time deciding what to do next and looking at the ring Durk found, a chill wind blows and a super creepy cold fog surrounds us. A creepy humanoid spirit/shadow appears from behind the tree, lamenting the death of its “children” (the Zoogs). Kang runs away 170 feet, totally spooked. “KANG” Tarlenheim yells to no avail. Oris is none too pleased at Kang’s departure.**
	+ **The rest of the group clumps up and sticks together. Weapons are drawn, spells are readied. Lantern light sweeps in front of Tarlenheim, and after a couple of lantern passes, eyes appear in the darkness. Oris yips! Everyone looks, and the lantern lights the OMG scary spirit leaning out behind the tree.**
	+ **It slithers forward and the burned bodies of the dead zoogs fall from its misty arms. As it stops, it’s hair slithers forward towards the group ominously.**
* **Tarlenheim rushes forward with double rapier to slash at the creeping hair, doing some minor damage (noncorporeal).**

* + **Scary spirit slashes down out at Tarlenheim with its claws; the skin on his chest suffers necrotic damage, starting the wound to fester immediately. The second swing misses Tarlenheim, and it falls over, catching itself with its hair.**
	+ **Oris casts dragonbreath on himself, and blasts the shit outta dat ghost lady.**
	+ **Durk snaps into a rage, summoning his ancestral guardians. He crits with a greataxe, doing an amazing 19 points of damage….It is held together with only an inch of flesh left as its insides explode out the back. It...it wasn’t pretty.**
	+ **Wabu shoots sacred flame in ghost lady’s remains of a face. Like Yoda, but  100% more horrifying.**
	+ **Oris is violently ill.**
* **Kang bursts back into the clearing, yelling and slashing his axe wildly only to find the battle very over. Durk won’t clink axes anymore. :( Kang is sad.**

* + **Tarlenheim suffers -3 max HP from necrotic damage until next long rest.**
* **Casper the friendly ghosts points us deeper into the woods, presumably towards the spirit’s lair.**

* + **We come across a broken down small hut, and Oris grabs Tarlenheim’s lantern & crawls in. About 7 feet of crawling, Oris notices the cellar lined with skulls and dead bodies. A nest of rotten clothes with glinting gold and 3 baby zoogs.**
	+ **Loot (Oris): potion of climbing, potion of healing, potion of see invisibility; scroll of gaseous form, scroll of beast sense (in ivory tube); a bunch of coins (including one historical gold piece).**
	+ **Oris passes the three baby Zoog up to the party. Durk takes the fattest zoog (Flopsy), Tarlenheim takes another (Mopsy), Oris takes the third (Cottontail). Kang is sad to not have one but he was a coward so he deserves it and maybe someone will want to bring it by his menagerie of freedom soon.**
* **TO THE OUTCROPPING!**

* + **It’s a cliff! We’re gonna have to do some climbing. Kang takes the rope from Oris, and falls, not once, twice (this one critical failure, he tried extra hard that time), but three times. “IT’S YOUR MESS NOW DURK.” Then Durk deftly scampers up the side of the cliff. Kang sulks moodily.**
	+ **Durk ties the rope around the beautiful white tree, throwing it over the side of the cliff to the rest of the party below. We all ascend to see a forest to the east, plains next to the forest, a stonehenge-like structure with runes all over it, and the white tree surrounded by some rocks. Tarlenheim and Kang investigate the tree with Durk. Wabu investigates the runes.**
	+ **The tree appears to be made up of a variety of different types of tree, a thick abundance of leaves, with thick and very slightly bumpy branches (not like traditional bark) that are an organic off-white color. There appear to be no roots; it’s like the tree was laser-cut at the base of the trunk and placed on a perfectly flat surface. Tarlenheim begins to climb.**
	+ **Oris hoofs it for Wabu as Tarlenheim begins to climb the Tree of Very Bad Decisions.**

* + - **The runes are beautifully and artistically designed. Wabu recognizes the runes to be that of a viking people. The stones are at least a century old. Oris recognizes certain symbols that universally indicate magic (like numbers in our world). He recognizes that the vikings built this structure as a teleportation circle. Writing appears to reveal that a ritual could be cast with as many people as there are stones and an hour’s time, which is some advanced magic for a “primitive” culture.**
		- **Oris rats out Tarlenheim to Wabu. Oris shouts “LUNATIC IN A TREE!” to which Wabu responds, “Oh goodness.”**
* **Tarlenheim climbs the tree, risking life and limb (ba dum tss). He discovers that our world’s normal sun is setting to the east, but there is also a second sun in the western part of the sky. He climbs back down, to go converse with the group at the rocks.**
* **Kang decides to climb up the tree to see the second sun for himself. While gleefully climbing up the tree, Kang disappears behind the trunk. Kang and Durk yell back and forth sounding like a vast distance is between them.**

* + **Kang continues to climb, and pulls himself up past a branch where it then becomes a different tree, as if in a different location, and sees a slender short girl walking confused and gracefully up the branch towards him.**
	+ **Kang makes a successful wisdom roll! And mutters “Suck it Durk” down below the branch. The girl speaks gibberish to Kang, and then he starts to catch every third word or so. Words like, “great (big) path” and “landmass”**
	+ **Kang tries to communicate friend and lost. (The girls eyes are still freaking Kang out. He doesn’t like messing with this stuff).**
	+ **The girl thinks, then swiftly sticks out her hand, which Kang immediately shakes with vigor.**
	+ **The girl invades Kang’s personal space and lifts Kang up easily with surreal ease. Bowl, sun, spear, and pelt are the words that Kang picks up.**
* **Tarlenheim catches the group up about the two suns, and Oris freaks out as he figures the implications. Akupara tells Wabu “It’s still on” and he immediately meanders into the middle of stonehenge. Durk sprints towards Wabu, passing Tarlenheim. Oris continues to shout “GET THE TURTLE! GET THE TURTLE!” Tarlenheim pivots to follow Durk, moving towards Oris and Wabu.**

* + **Just as the (real) sun hit the horizon, a giant, endless geyser of water shoots straight up into space in exactly the diameter of stonehenge. Wabu is starting to become hazy and fuzzy at the center of this geyser and feels lighter, the force of the water pushing upwards on his heavy limbs. Motes begin floating out of the ground. Wabu looks out of the water to see Durk sprinting across the field, tailed closely by Tarlenheim (skirts hiked up around his thighs to aide in running), and Oris gesturing frantically and shouting incoherently.**
	+ **The sun continues to set and the runes on the stones begin to glow. As the sun set behinds the white tree, Oris notices the tree is outlined in a golden light and fringed with a silver lining. The tree is getting hazier. She can discern the hazy silhouettes of Kang and something that looks like a child balanced on a tree limb.**
	+ **Durk jumps into the magical geyser and enjoys some weightless shenanigans. Tarlenheim tosses a rope into the geyser.**
	+ **Kang notices the second sun through the tree branches, and sees the tree becoming transparent. The girls walks determinedly away, and Kang follows. He looks back, and the tree is completely transparent, and the boat, river, and outcropping are gone. The girl gets to the end, then jumps off, lands, then looks back eagerly for Kang. Kang doesn’t take long to decide to follow, and jumps off the tree, landing next to the girl. There are several more children with varying facial expressions.**
	+ **The tree behind is now fully solid, and white with a face on the tree. The eyes are closed. Kang investigates the face. Blinding light shoots from the tree face’s orifices, and blasts Kang’s mind. Just a crazy amount of power coursing around Kang, and with God-like essence, shouting that Kang shouldn’t be there! Kang doesn’t get it & waves. The light suddenly ends, and the world fades back to Kang, where the children are now close to Kang. Kang waves at the children not knowing what else to do.**
	+ **The children try to teach Kang words through example, and Kang touches the rock and then himself. This causes them to stir and talk amongst themselves.**
	+ **Kang finally gets the language lesson, and he learns tree, rock, friend, and the children learn Kang’s name, and finally lead Kang away from the tree with the children.**
	+ **The tree light fades, and the tree is fully solid once again. The sun is almost set.**
* **Tarlenheim continues to shout for Wabu/Durk to take the rope. Durk grabs Wabu with one hand and the rope with the other. Tarlenheim pulls the rope just as Wabu’s feet begin to leave the group. Durk yanks back on the rope, ripping the rope from Tarlenheim’s hands. Durk and Wabu disappear the moment the last milimenter of the sun disappears below the horizon.**

* + **The only sound left on the outcropping is Oris having a panic attack.**
* **Durk and Wabu teleport to a viking great hall and meet 30 ft tall viking with a giant hammer, two ravens, and a giant wolf dog. It’s Odin, y’all. Welcome to Valhalla.**