09: WHY WON’T THIS ELF DIE, DAMNIT

* **Elf shoots Durk in the chest with two magic-infused arrows, but Durk’s scaly hide grants him resistance. He is not dead…but he’s not looking great. Kang finishes him off with a bolt of lightning and a good ol’ slashy-slash.**

* + **He ded and we’re looting his body: Boots of Elvenkind, Cloak of Elvenkind, Elven Chain, Oathbow, Bracers of Archery. Durk suggests stripping him naked, making everyone else feel awkward.**
* **We proceed back into the woods from which the Elf came, Tarlenheim leading the way. Kang (with Fina on his shoulders) fails to disable a tripwire, but Tarlenheim manages to thwart a pit trap. Durk notices the forest has changed into Angry Forest around us, and Kang begins to see it, too. (Fina and Tarlenheim don’t see the Angry Forest).**

* + **Kang takes over the lead, taking an arrow to the chest as two Elves come out of the forest. Fina casts Mage Armor, which doesn’t do anything for Kang, so he tosses her in the air a la Bring It On…but does trigger both Elves (Han and Greedo) to fire on her (Han shot first). They miss! She magic missiles those motherfuckers in the face with SPIRIT FINGERS.**
	+ **Tarlenheim stabs Greedo (female) twice while singing EVERYZING IST AWEZOME EVERYZING IST KUL VHEN YOU AHH PAHT OF A TEEM. She bleeds out, Tarantino-style. IT’S AN AMBUSH!**
	+ **We continue to fight the scouting party (6 total). They either die or run away.**
	+ **Expeditious retreat back to the swan boat.**
* **We swan boat our way back home, long resting to regain HP and attuning Oathbows as needed. The party unloads from the boat (all PCs, all horses, Wun-Wun). We return to Tulgeywood Manor, leaving Wun-Wun to hang out at the end of the nearby road.**

* + **The Earl is so pleased. He summons servants, minstrels, bards, etc. to prepare an epic feast, inviting the nobility. We eat a Hero’s Feast and gain 2d10 temporary hit points for 24 hours. We snooze overnight (Durk, Wun-Wun, and Kang partying it up in the forest and/or getting hammered and punching each other for fun/playing dropkick), and the next day…**
	+ **His wife, a magically beautiful Nymph/Fey woman, grants us all medals and the rewards promised in a ceremony full of pomp and circumstance.**

* + - **Kang - A gilded scroll that is a deed of land, presenting me with a farm in Westfell Fields (a tremendously fancy document, covered in gold leaf, lots of calligraphy, many signatures); is inheritable; kept in a beautiful scroll tube**
		- **Oris - A letter of recommendation to the abbot, signed atop a beautiful little tripod table and in front of the audience and sealed with freshly-heated wax; tucked safely into a leather envelope**
		- **Tarlenheim - In an ornately carved box, Barrowraiser. The knight (in full armor, decked out with melee weapons) who delivers the box and Barrowraiser always stands between the Earl and his wife and Barrowraiser (largely as a matter of ceremony).**
		- **Durk, who was not present to negotiate initial rewards, requests armor. Kang whispers over the shoulder “…for which to better serve you! For which to better serve you!” The Earl solicits the craftsmen at the ceremony to make great armor for Durk, at the Earl’s cost.**
	+ **The Earl bestows Tarlenheim with the title of SHERIFF OF WESTFELL. He is presented with Special Rites that detail this (see link).**
	+ **Everyone receives 400 GP (except Kang, who asks to keep Miri the warhorse instead) and levels up.**

**RETCON ALERT RETCON ALERT RETCON ALERT 2/23**

* **As the ceremony winds down, AN UNINVITED GUEST makes a loud entrance through the giant double doors, blowing open as if by a great wind. Nearby townsfolk have their hats blown off, wigs knocked askew, etc. The room begins to smell like a harsh, cold, unforgiving winter.**

* + **A hunched figure slides across the room, his/her form wrapped in heavy black furs and wearing a witchy headpieces made of twisted black branches and carrying a gnarled black wooden staff. He/she speaks in a voice that makes our teeth grind and pierces our ears: “You’re having too good of a time, let me come in and ruin it for you because I am a terrible party pooper.”**
	+ **A crooked hand holder a smelly censer points to the seal of the Earl, then smashes the butt of his/her staff into the seal (sounds like lighting and thunder striking simultaneously) and lays a curse upon us.  A heavy gray smoke begins to pour out of the censer.**

* + - **Everyone in a 30ft radius loses 7HP and begins to shrivel and necrotically die a little. Green energy rips out of their bodies and rushes into Fina’s toro.**
		- **Fina feels a vile power growing within her torso and gains 49 temporary HP. Fina’s skin begins to blacken like a corpse. (Imagine you have a nuclear reactor in your torso that feels full of energy but is also poisoning you from the inside with radiation.)**
		- **Kang feels 3 pains in his back, one at each scapula and one at the base of the spine (Kang got a tramp stamp No Tarlenheim, I did not). At these points of pain, three baseball-sized, rock-hard protrusions grow. Over the next 8 days, I will grow a stubby fleshy vestigial tail and wings unless I cut ‘em off for 3d6 damage.**
		- **All of Tarlenheim’s thoughts shatter and split and explodes into a murder of crows, who begin to fly chaotically into the rafter and beams. They cry in confusion and terror. He cannot concentrate because he is now 100 tiny brains with 100 different freaked out bird perspectives. He will probably go insane until he gets his willpower together.**
		- **Out of the back of Durk’s head comes an insane, malformed version of his own face (think Quirrell/Voldemort from Harry Potter).**
	+ **The Countess (Earl’s wife) cries out and (essentially) apparates and disappears. She peaced out. The Earl begins to glow faintly gold for a brief second, but the glow fades. He looks fine/safe, but is clearly very stressed out. He points at her and screams to command his guard, “Kill her!”**

* + - **Yeomen and knights rush forward to attack, but he/she whips up his/her staff and smacks it on the ground–a wave of force causes a minor earthquake.**
		- **We all roll Dex/Con save. Tarlenheim: “Ahhm, I haf been turned eento crows do I haf to roll?”**

* + - * **We all pass the dex save, but the knights/guards are all blasted back 10 ft and land prone.**
			* **Some of us pass the con save, only taking 5 damage. The yeomen are hella dead, but the knights are still alive.**
			* **The marble floor shatters like glass and jagged rocks burst out of the floor, forming a 30 foot diameter patch of sharp rock (difficult terrain).**
* **IT’S A FIGHT, Y’ALL.**

* + **He/she whips her censor around, the smoke forming into an aura of slashing scimitars (sword burst + blade ward combo spell).**
	+ **The 2 knights stand up from prone.**
	+ **Durk throws a javelin. Fina spidey-web’s the he/she. Tarlenheim gets it back together and is no longer crows and flings some daggers (but misses). Kang rages, buffs his homies, and rushes in (missing both attacks).**
	+ **He/she cuts herself out of web. He/she does an ice spell, an ice shard shoots from her hand, hits Knag, and then explodes. The two knights get the frost burst, and the metal freezes and exposed flesh takes damage.**
	+ **Fina blasts her with lightning. Durk smashes her in the face with an axe. Tarlenheim screamings to the crowd and demands a rapier, catching it in mid-air and rushing in! He can’t deflect the swordcircle, and also loses his knife. Kang axes her in the wrist, causing the censer to rip out of her hand. Kang runs toward it and boots it across the room, well out of her reach (while shouting “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH IT!”) The knights run in and slashyslashslash.**
	+ **He/she casts a hex at Fina and she starts turning into a toad. IN A MOMENT OF ANTIGRAVITY AMAZING BEAUTY & THE BEAST DRAG QUEEN REALNESS, golden light begins to shine out of Fina’s body. She levitates, her body sheds off the green toadfleshy skin, and her whole body stretches and expands to become A BEAUTIFUL FAERIE CHANGELING MAGICAL SIZE 0 FIVE FOOT TWELVE RUNWAY MODEL GISELE BUNDCHEN ENCHANTRESS WOMAN WITH DRAGONFLY WINGS. Fina’s lightning bolts dissipate. She flings a ball of fire at he/she; the creature saves (at advantage) against any magical effect, supernatural power, or spell cast on it at all period from a faerie (which Fina now is). But the ball of fire knocks away his/her magical illusion…to reveal A NIGHT HAG! He/she is now officially a she.**
	+ **Tarlenheim calls for Barrowraiser, which the Earl tosses to him. He catches it, but his attacks both miss. Kang double-axes.**
	+ **The Earls call for a halt before his knights can engage this turn. He descends from his plinth, a glamour encompassing him. A spectral crown appears around his head and the spectral wings glimmer behind him. “Sestra Yaga, I know you!” As he speaks her name, she shrieks and spits. HIM: “How dare you bring your unseely filth into this right and honorable seely court?” HER (shriek-howling with seven voices at the same time): “WE WILL MOUNT YOUR HEAD ON BLOODY SPEARS OUTSIDE OF YOUR PALACE GATES. I WILL WATCH AS CROWS PECK OUT YOUR EYES AND YOUR VILLAGE IS RAZED TO WASTE.” He makes to banish her, she insists she cannot be commanded and reveals herself as the Handmaid of Malice, he stumbles at recognition of her power and then banishes her. As she is leaving, “THE KING OF PAIN SHALL HEAR OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. CURSED YOU SHALL BE.” She collapses in upon herself and disappears out of this world (into the ethereal plane).**
* **Fina reconciles her newfound beauty. The Earl is sad about his floor, but explains Fina is a changeling and she has to get used to it PDQ.**

* + **So many questions: Is she a princess now? Is she immortal? Who are her parents? What will happen to the Earl’s floor? Are we sure we’re getting paid enough for this? Can we all get a nap?**
* **The Earl drops his glamour and goes back to being Earl.**
* **Wabu says Durk needs to go to Stonegate Abbey to have Voldemort removed from the back of his head. Wabu checks out the censer but knows nothing, so (naturally) Durk puts it in his backpack.**