Ep. 18 Into the Gloaming Chapter 1

## Listen

Ep. 18 Into the Gloaming Chapter 1

—Dante Alighieri, *The Divine Comedy*

Dex, Beric, and Therudak start their trek to find the druids of the Eldeen Reaches. Depending on who you ask, Dex is either bestowed a wonderful gift or a horrible curse when he's bitten and transformed into a werebear.

## Synopsis

The players get to show off their new feats from leveling up to level 4: Beric takes Prodigy from *Unearthed Arcana*, with bumps up his Wisdom, gives proficiency in History, and finally allows one of the party members to know goblin; Therudak gets Savage Attacker, which lets him reroll damage dice on an attack with a melee weapon; Dex secures his position in Initiative by taking Alert, giving him a +5 to his initiative rolls, and creatures who are unseen won't get advantage on attack rolls. Dawn Light also gets a new ability to add extra radiant damage to melee attacks.

### Into the Eldeen Reaches

Beric, Therudak, and Dex are all still with the blacksmith in Xandrar, having just dropped off the Red Owl. They ask him if they'd have any chance of the druids from the Eldeen Reaches finding them there, but the woods aren't part of Breland and the druids are pretty consistent in staying out of the city. There's some debate whether to escort the Red Owl or find the druids, but eventually they agree to trust the Dark Lanterns, even though they're pretty certain from her attitude that she's going to escape somehow. Crast lets them know that he's going with her.

They cross the river and are officially in the Eldeen Reaches. The trees are immense, taller than anything they've ever seen. It's a little overwhelming, like when they first arrived in Sharn. As soon as they cross into the Towering Wood it becomes much darker than any usual forest; with the trees so high and so condensed, it's almost like it's nighttime.

Beric takes out one of their wands and casts Light on a fallen branch and hands it to Dex, who is the only one without darkvision. It still has its normal thirty feet of light, but the dim light around that is shortened to fifteen feet.

As they walk through the woods, they hear a rustling in the leaves and slow, methodical heavy footsteps. Dex calls out that they don't want any trouble, in the hopes that this is an intelligent being that will simply leave them alone. He gets a low growl in response and Beric summons Curse-Bringer. They move cautiously forward, hoping it will ignore them. After walking a few more steps they see an enlarged grizzly bear walk out onto the road, but it's a dark black with cold black eyes like a shark. It looks as if it's suffering from the same thing that happened to the goblins they fought in the Dhakaani Ruins. They're considering trying to get around it instead of fighting when they hear the same footsteps behind them.

*"Are you suggesting that midway through life's journeys we found ourselves in a dark wood?"
—Philip*
### Shadow Bears

Dex moves forward to attack the bear, saving his *Daylight* ability for later. Since he was out for some of the fight in the Faded Forest, Beric reminds him that when they killed the goblins shadows rose from their corpses and these bears will probably have to be killed with light. Taking his own advice, Beric lets Curse-Bringer dissolve and touches the amulet. A silver energy moves down his left arm and forms into a glowing silver bow, which he draws back and shoots at the bear. The bear howls in pain and is wreathed in silvery light.

The footsteps down the road get louder and faster, and another bear attacks Therudak from behind. It bites his arm, and he can feel a sort of corruption coming from the wound but his body's natural defenses fight it off. Something oozes out of the wound, almost like gooey liquefied shadow. The bear tries to get him with its claws also, but misses. Dak touches the purple gem on his armor and it starts to glow. He swings with the greatsword, but fumbles, hitting himself with both the sword and the *Divine Favor* his armor enchanted it with.

The bear wreathed in fire rushes past Dex, trying to get to Beric. Before he can make it the ribbonweave swings out and slices across its throat. The bear falls to the ground and without even breaking stride a the shadowy figure of a human comes out of the wound wreathed in the same fiery light, sprinting at Beric. The figure raises its hands and a greataxe appears. The axe swings right through Beric. No wound appears, but it feels like something is gone.

Dex spins around and sees the shadow on Beric and a bear looming over Dak. He makes a quick judgment call and runs to Dak, bringing his weapon up under the bear, hoping to daze the shadow if one falls out of him, too.

Beric backpedals as the ax passes through him and draws out Curse-Bringer, reaching out a hand as shadows start wreathing around the black blade, his *Hexblade's Curse* activated. He connects with the shadow and drops a spell slot for some extra damage, being a little freaked out by a shadowy ax passing through him. After he deals his damage he asks Curse-Bringer is it's okay to hit *these* guys, or are they not enemies of the light, either? He and the sword have a brief back and forth before Dex tells them to knock it off.

### America's Favorite Werebear

The bear standing over Therudak steps over the half-orc and heads for Dex. Dex gets a bite on the arm, taking some damage and failing his constitution save. From the bite he can feel a sort of corruption that his body tries to fight off, but something relents and on his arm originating from the wound his veins start turning black. The bear takes a couple of swipes at him with his claws and connects with one but fumbles the other. Meanwhile, the shadow fighting Beric attacks with the ax again, having the same effect of passing through but not feeling like it's connecting.

*"If you kill America's favorite changeling and I have to roll another character…"
"How many hitpoints you have left?"
—Jeff and Eric*
The black veins start traveling up Dex's neck, and his eyes flash black it fades away. His face starts morphing into something animalistic and grows fur, while his muscles get bigger. He's turned into a lycanthrope; a werebear, to be specific. Therudak, on the ground near Dex sees all this happen clearly and calls out to Beric that something's going on with Dex. Dex downs a potion, and being aware only that he got hit, felt bad, and now feels great, takes a swing at the bear.

Beric presses a hand to his chest and with a flash of the amulet recovers some much needed hitpoints. Staying true to the round of health recovery, Therudak stands up and drains his own potion. The shadow in front of Beric swings his greataxe and does some damage, and Dex hits the bear in front of him in the gut. Beric pivots and swings with Curse-Bringer, but fumbles and gives the bear the perfect opportunity for an attack.

Therudak is highly upset about not being able to hit the bear, but being fully capable of knocking himself down, and angrily swings his greatsword, once again missing. He uses his *Second Wind* to regain some health. Beric just managed to stay on his feet after the bear's next attack, and he grabs Curse-Bringer, concentrating. A silver fire wreaths around the sword, but his hit misses. Dak once again aims for the bear, this time making contact and the sword slices into its haunches and out steps a shadow as the corpse falls in front of Dex.

The shadow's axe passes through Beric, and the last reserve of willpower he has to keep fighting fades and his eyes shut as he crumples to the ground. Dex, knowing Beric wasn't doing too good, spins to check on him and sees his shadowy shape laying on the ground. He takes his ribbonweave and attacks the shadow near Beric, and it fades a little bit, like parts of it are whisping away in the wind. The shadow near Dak summons his own greataxe and hits Dak with it.

### Healing from the druids

Incomprehensible muttering is heard from the woods in a language Dex and Dak don't understand, and suddenly Beric takes a sharp intake of breath and his eyes fly open. The shadow near Therudak takes advantage of Dex's distraction and attacks him, and this time it's Dex on the ground. Beric sits up, forming Curse-Bringer as he does. The blade forms itself into the shadow, sucking in the space around it and imploding the figure as it screams.

More muttering is heard from the woods and Dex is suddenly awake. He rolls over, climbs to his knees, and cracks his neck. When he touches his face he feels the fur and can feel in his body something is different. Beric is staring at him in horror and Dex just mutters, *"…what?"*

Meanwhile, Therudak's sword is still glowing from his *Divine Favor*, and he attacks the shadow with it. It doesn't die but parts of it are whisping away and it looks bad. Dex stands up, looking around and seeing only the one shadow left and hits it with his ribbonweave. Beric rushes past Dex, quickly telling him they need to talk in a minute, and hits the shadow. Curse-Bringer laughs as the shadow dies.

### *"You've heard of the Lycanthropic Purge?"*

The battle finally over, Dex falls onto his back, breathing heavily. It was a hard fight and he's hurt and sad. Beric looks into the woods and asks who healed him, but gets no response. Dex looks up and, not moving from the ground, asks Therudak what he meant when he said he changed. Dak's answer is not to his standard, so Beric tells him he's contracted lycanthropy. Dex is unphased. He feels great, is there a downside? Beric explains about the lycanthropic purge that the Church of the Silver Flame led, and that sometimes the change will come when you don't want it to and you'll lose control of yourself. Dex goes back to looking like Lyle and just comments that he does a lot of changing, so this isn't bothering him. The two have a short back and forth, but neither of them are convinced of the other's reasonings.

*I'm Jeff, and I'm a bear.
—Jeff*
End of episode.
## Locations

* Xandrar, Breland
* Towering Wood, The Eldeen Reaches

## Spells

* **Beric**
	+ Guiding Bolt
	+ Light
* **Therudak**
	+ Divine Favor

## Quotes

"I'll try not to kill you…slowly."
"No, you're not evil."
"Oh, no. Philip's face thing, that Philip's face just did."
"Oh, I know what just happened."
"Am I a puppet now?
"No, you've got lycanthropy."
"I'm a *werewolf*?
"Were*bear*.
*—Philip, Eric, and Jeff*

"Yeah, and I attacked you while you were in the bathroom and it missed also so you can just calm down."
"Don't tell the people that I had to go pee."
[Whispering] "They'll discover we're human!"
*—Eric, Jeff, and Philip*

[Curse-Bringer groans contentedly]
"Stop that! Stop it! We'll get along way better if you don't make creepy noises while I'm trying to fight."
[Curse-Bringer groans creepier]
"Not okay! That is not cool! I will stop using this sword immediately."
*—Curse-Bringer and Beric/Philip*

"I got bear clawed, and not in the cool pastry way."
*—Jeff*

## Trivia

* The party goes up to level 4.
* Dex is turned into a werebear after failing his Constitution save against a shadow werebear.