H:RotG Chapter 5: Spore-Stifled Nightmares

Thrown into the heavy depths of the sea, our heroes are shaken by powerful nightmares, visions of personal horrors brought on by the roar of the fearsome Dragon-God, Balktan.

*===(( Original Nightmare Transcripts ))===*

**GANT**

You feel as if you’re floating… or, is it falling? In the distance, you see two massive shapes that you can’t quite make out- one midnight blue, riddled with eyes that never blink… and the other, a silver winged shape glowing with rage. They’re fighting… but what for?

The shapes come closer. Closer… closer… and when they hit you, you feel an indescribable despair slam into your gut with the force of two dozen sledgehammers. Everything goes black.

**T**

You are in a trance. But it isn’t calm, like it usually is… instead, it’s cold, smooth, as if you’ve been trapped by an impenetrable forcefield. There are no walls in this state of mind, and yet, you can feel them closing in on you. You smell the mingling scent of sap and spilled blood all around you. A vague shape appears in the distance… another plantfolk? It turns to look at you… and where a face would be, endless black vines writhe and lash about.

The vines come at you all at once. Everything goes black.

**RABI**

You’re in a field. It’s not the prettiest of fields- grass is scattered in dry patches, but mostly it’s all dust. There are no animals, no people, no sight of civilization for miles around. Just you, alone, with no food or water or means of defense. A cold sweat coats your body as you realize just how hungry you are right now.

Suddenly, a rumbling shakes you off of your feet. An earthquake? But it is brief, and after that many more short “earthquakes” follow. Boom… boom… boom… boom boom boom boom boom-! You see the source- a massive, humanoid figure, charging towards you from miles away. It seems to be holding some sort of whip made of what you can only assume is some other creature’s massive spine. The giant runs right up to you, and you see only for a second it’s face molded into a guilty grimace, before he reaches his leg back and kicks. Everything goes black.

**ROK**

You find yourself on the roof of a tower built of soot and stone. Around you, lava streams in great rivers… but something’s terribly, terribly wrong. The rivers of magma are littered with bodies. You see the faces of everyone you’ve ever helped, everyone you’ve ever considered a friend or even just a temporary ally.

Suddenly, diamonds start to fall from the sky. Soft first, like snow… but then, they become larger, and larger. They feel like hail, and then rocks, pelting your skin and bruising it dark. You fall to one knee and try to shield yourself as they tumble forth from the heavens. Before your vision goes black from being crushed by these massive white rocks, you see behind the curtain of white a massive maw, that roars before blasting you with a stream of red lava. Your vision goes red as your skin sears from the heat… and then, everything goes black.

**HYDRAN**

You’ve had this dream many times before. But never, never has it been as terrifying as this.

Instead of the ocean, you’re swimming in an endless abyss of tar. You can barely keep your head above the surface, and every second you sink deeper and deeper, as if something is pulling you in. The friend you always see in this dream, the merfolk woman with golden scales, lays on the surface as if it were stone, completely untouched by this anomaly… but she’s dying. Her scales are withering and shedding off, and blood pools beneath eyes that one glimmered with life and hope. She breathes, and holds her hand out to you… but it falls limp. And the tar absorbs you completely. Everything goes black.

*===(( End Nightmare Transcripts ))===*

The party awakens from their nightmares to a damp, rusty room. They hear the whirring of propellors and bellowing of steam vents, and the heavy scent of rusty wet iron is overwhelming. Dwarven shouts echo off the walls, though only one appears to be watching over the group themselves. Their things seem to have all been confiscated, and they’re each tied up tightly and separated from one another.

Things seem to be as dire as they could possibly get when a voice speaks out in the party’s minds, one that no one had expected. Kris Nifeton, the once-prisoner of the group, uses her magic to message the group. She, alongside several other elves, managed to escape the attack on Moore Bay, taking a refurbished submarine that one of them been working on to pursue the group’s kidnappers. She’s relieved that they’re still alive, and ensures them that if they can knock out their captors she can help them navigate to the nearest shore.

Gant and Hydran, using muscle and magic respectively, dispatch their would-be captors, leaving the submarine in a free fall. The foreign technology of the salt dwarves is confusing, convoluted, and janky. It takes a moment for the group to find their own parts of the ship to finagle, but with their sharp wits and quick actions, they’re able to save the ship from crashing and bring it to an unknown shore. Their weapons are recovered, but many of their other belongings (including their money) has been spirited away to who-knows-where.

Never had the land been as appealing to the group as they break open the hatch and flop onto the warm sand. Another ship beaches lazily next to them, allowing the waves to wash them fully ashore before its roof opens up. Out pops Kris, followed by a disgruntled Zor, and a flood of elves at varying levels of physical injury. The survivors of Moore Bay get straight to work burying the dead.

Taking a broader look at their surroundings, the party notices that the beach is fenced by a dense forest of mangroves. Beyond that looms an odd sight- a gigantic mushroom, reaching high above the forest’s roof. And even further beyond that, they spot a great pillar of smoke. It was still quite far away, but the Ashen Breach, their goal, was finally in sight.

After getting their bearings, the young Nifeton addressed the group, (kind of) apologizing for her actions and offering what little knowledge she has of where they’ve landed. The mushroom is known as **Bangaica-So**, and is renowned for exporting intense and valuable poisons. The shore itself a place called **Trinket Beach**, where many a curious bauble tends to wash up.

While contemplating their next move, the party happens upon one of these baubles: a figurine, no larger than a thumb, of a youthful sand elf playing a lute. Hydran claims it, sensing arcane energy flowing within. When the group discovers a bridge and begins heading down the path towards what they assume is a settlement, he excitedly throws the figurine at Kris. In a puff of magic smoke she turns into… a lute? It strums frantically at this before Hydran throws it at a nearby tree, returning Kris to normal and imprinting the vague shape of an instrument into the bark. The trinket was then stowed away to prevent any further chaos for the time being.

Eventually, the would-be caravan did reach a town- the humble village of **Groasblouk**, tucked away in the shadow of Bangaica-So. The natives, mostly orcish, were cautious of the beat-up foreigners, but some smooth talking assured them that they’re simply tired travelers down on their luck. They learned that there was another group of outsiders in town- a large caravan of foreigners from Kaiken, the **Olive Brooch**. There were so many that they had to make their own camp outside of the village itself. They had apparently not shown up because the Shining at all, but instead were there to research the towering fungus in a partnership with the mushroom’s caretakers, a guild called the **Roots of Venom**.

As the group searched for a place to rest, they happened upon a balding orc named **Silpin**. He introduced himself as a monk, and offered to heal the group’s aching bones with music and a meal. Eager to get some rest, and later to learn about the town and the nearby caravan, they followed him to the local temple.

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 TBD