Betwixt the Planes

and

Justin as the DM

"**Betwixt the Planes**" is the third episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra.

The newly formed group finish up a nice, quick meal of mushrooms harvested from the surrounding shack and continue their way down the gloomy, mushroom riddled jungle road towards the so-called Rotwallow Tower.

## Episode Synopsis

#### **Previously on Tales from Del'nasra**

*Having become snagged in the canopy of this jungle this now larger group made up of three smaller groups quickly made their way out of the wicker basket of the hot air balloon and found themselves looking at what seemed like an otherworldly jungle of dark, gloomy mushrooms glowing a dark purple and black. You all found a sign lying off the side of the road which indicated the road you were about to follow led to something called Rotwallow Tower.*

*You followed the road and came upon a towering jade statue of a strange dragon-like creature determined to be a Jabberwock, and with the head of an archfey placed in an offering bowl at the base. This head belongs to Lord Oberon and after a tense exchange, learned that Hoper may have served Oberon in some capacity. As for the jabberwock it was discovered that various members of the group had recent run ins with and Vonkar and Grin mentioning that this creature was responsible for the crash of the continent’s most prized airship, The Whisper in which the pair of them along with The Creep were passengers on during the attack, which was curious since the official story was that no survivors were found in the crater it left behind. Doe and Torger also had a run in with the jabberwock at the bottom of Godbringer’s Ravine where they found a clutch of eggs, which confused those with knowledge of this creature through stories and the lore since no one has ever seen a young jabberwock nor eggs since the Jabberwock returns to life a set amount of years after death.The path eventually led towards an abandoned shack where inside was a crumpled up note mentioning that someone had been teleported into this shack about five years ago, and upon searching the shack discovered that an elderly woman had died in the bed and the shack became overgrown with mold and fungus. During this investigation, a strange lullaby being sung in Sylvan was heard, and the source was a strange creature resembling Grin but the size of a black bear and covered in grotesque holes weeping a black, milk-like fluid where sprites like Grin lived.The creature was quickly killed and after scavenging the creature for parts, you all sat down for a nice hot stew made by Leek utilizing the mushrooms growing all over the shack, including the ones growing on the dead woman and you all had a conversation about how you all learned to do what you had just shown off. After your meal and a short rest, you left the shack and made your way down the road towards what the sign called, Rotwallow Tower.*

#### The Episode

The group continues their walk down the dirt road within the Jungle of Spores, headed towards Rotwallow Tower. While on the walk, realizing that Doe was quiet during the previous meal and conversations, Grin asked them where they learned to do what they could. Doe explained that it just happens and the group had a bit of a discussion about innate things such as breathing which Doe likened how they can do what they do, not knowing exactly how they could.

During these discussions, the group talked about things they couldn't do. Grin explained they couldn't swim, and Torger mentioned he couldn't fail his city, but when questioned about it, he said "I can get real itty bitty" and then shrunk himself with *Enlarge/Reduce*. While shrunk, it was discovered that Torger and Grin sound similar. Continuing the walk, Grin sent The Creep forward to scout ahead while Antyr sent Endylus up in the air to look around and also scout ahead.

After twenty minutes on this road, it began to curve deeper into the jungle and Endylus revealed that they could see the tower up ahead, and would take roughly half an hour to reach. Antyr relayed this information to the group, and de-summoned Endylus, and the group continued on down the road there was a weird sort of magical shift in the air, causing both Leek and Doe to swap places while the former was happily eating some bugs. Grin chose to look around to see if anyone was casting spells nearby, and didn't see anything with a natural 20 on a Perception Check for a 21.

The rest of the walk was uneventful, and the group came across a bog where a tower sat on a muddy island reachable by a small, mossy rowboat that was docked nearby while the jungle road continued onward deeper into the jungle getting narrower as it went. The tower was one-hundred feet tall and covered in vines and mushrooms. The group discussed if this tower was worth going into, or if they could just turn around and head back and relay this information to Sir Arthur.

After deliberation, Grin flew up to try and learned that the tower was the epicentre of this jungle. He also discovered that the jungle road only went for another mile before hitting the border of this jungle and back into the original environment that was displaced. During these discussions, Vonkar started digging a hole in the dirt with a shovel, and discovered that after about two-feet deep it went from the current terrain into deep, deep water, which was most likely Lake Shadowmer. Torger explained that this was similar to their home, mentioning that their home was built on top of a frozen lake and that you could see things frozen beneath the ice.

The group decided that going into the tower was the best bet, since they were sent here to investigate, so Grin went invisible. As he did, a shower of sparks exploded out of The Creep draining him of a spell slot. They all gathered into the rowboat which began to move of its own accord towards the tower and all felt like they were being watched, but directly down below the surface of the water. Antyr tried gathering a specimen of the bog's water, but their vial kept coming out of the water empty and dry.

Vonkar decided to stick his hand in the water feeling that it was incredibly cold and saw that the "feeling of being watched" was coming from hundreds upon hundreds of bodies of elf-like fey creatures floating face-up with their eyes open just under the surface of the water. Each of these fey were wearing colourful armour and appeared like some sort of soldiers and Torger mentioned it was more like home than he thought. Upon closer inspection, the corpses directly beneath the boat were pushing it along towards the tower.

The boat eventually landed on the muddy island where the tower was set. The tower appeared devoid of windows and the front door was marked by a symbol of a dead willow tree and flanked by two black crystal balls. Deciding to check the ground again, Vonkar began to dig while on the muddy island, the shovel struck into the chest of one of the elf-like fey corpses floating beneath the surface of the bog, while this occurred Antyr cast *Discern (Identify)* on one of the crystal balls and learned they're affected by *Aganazzar's Scorcher*, while Grin cast *Light* on The Creep.

Antyr explained that the crystal balls most likely functioned as some form of trap, explaining that they didn't have the capabilities to dispel the crystal balls. Grin asked everyone to go around the tower while they made The Creep mess with the door, just in case. Before this happened, Torger and Grin had a side conversation where Torger asked why he didn't just get rid of The Creep if he was so bad, but Grin explained that he was charged with either punishing The Creep or being in charge of The Creep until he turned into a good person and the pair of them would be released.

As the conversation winded down the group took up safe positions around the sides of the tower, while The Creep attempted to open the front door while Antyr sent Endylus up into the sky to keep watch. The Creep slammed into the door, discovering it was locked, with Grin urging him to hit the door harder. The Creep attempted to break down the door, but rolled an 8 on the Athletics Check which caused an audible thud and for the crystal balls to flare with fire and send an Aganazzar's Scorcher towards The Creep. He rolled a natural 1 on his Dexterity Saving Throw and took 24 fire damage from the trap, which caused the door to unlock.

The party rounded back to the front of the tower to find The Creep lying on the ground, smelling like charcoal but still alive as his wounds began to close and heal, and the group headed into the tower to continue their investigation. As soon as they entered they found themselves inside the tower, which didn't seem to match the outer-dimensions, with the interior being far larger than the tower's outside. They were in a grand opening hall covered in ensnaring roots with doors, and a staircase rising to the second floor. On the walls were portraits of various landscapes seemingly denoting certain domains within the Feywild.

They quickly began exploring the tower's interior looking for any form of information regarding this jungle's strange and sudden appearance in the Material Plane. It was in here that they discovered a strange trophy room full of mounted heads of weird creatures, familiar creatures and humanoid heads. The room was also littered with glass cases filled with full body taxidermy specimens of creatures and people, most notably a man and his son playing catch with the head of a gnome. Moving out of this room, they moved across the entry hall and found a study filled with dusty books and an ancient map of Del'nasra written in faded red ink which Vonkar deduced had all of the ley-lines drawn and labeled on the map numbering in the tens of thousands. A good portion of these ley-lines were also marked with red dots, like branching convergence points where numerous ley-lines seemed to intersect, including Lake Shadowmer where this jungle the group were investigating had manifested a little over a month ago.

The group took they map, and Hopper decided to head upstairs, restless and impatient about the investigation and determined to discover who had killed King Oberon, while the others watched Antyr and Torger leg wrestle in the middle of the study. Antyr, won the wrestling match and caused Torger to tattoo yet another creature onto his body, this time in the form of a potoo bird resembling Endylus. They heard Hopper heading upstairs and decided to follow, and while investigating the second floor, Antyr discovered a bed chamber which had a journal sitting on a desk written in Sylvan. The journal detailed something about a machine called the Orbis Ancora (including sketches of the machine) and was built to anchor pieces of the planes of existence known as The Scattering into the Material Plane, and that this jungle was most likely anchored here by such a device. However, while attempting to open the desk, Antyr triggered a trap within the desk, causing the whole thing to explode and destroy much of the room in an explosion rigged with dynamite and alchemist's fire.

Worried that someone may have heard the explosion, the group waited but nobody arrived so they pushed forward, discovering another grotesque room filled with jade crystals holding the dissected remains of humanoids, with the group deducing these bodies were the fuel source for the Orbis Ancora. They chose to ignore this room, and passed through a mossy archway and onto a glowing dais which brought them into a large circular chamber of roots and cracked stone, and in the center of the room was the Orbis Ancora, powered and humming with a quiet intensity. Everyone began examining the chamber for any means on how to turn the machine off, but came up with nothing and also learned that they were stuck. While examing the machine, Vonkar got snagged in the root system running all over the machine that transported the "fuel" which was blood to the glass sphere at the top. Torger attempted to help him out, and while this was happening, a voice spoke from above, demanding to know who disturbed their rest before a colossal mass of sewn together limbs came crashing down from the ceiling.

This creature was made up of sewn together arms and legs into a massive mound of grey flesh, with a long craning, wrinkled neck at the end of which sat the head of a smiling, drooling, disgusting looking old woman with thousands of needle like teeth. This was the guardian mentioned in the journal they had found earlier, named Grandmother Stitch.

#### After the Break

As Grandmother Stitch dropped from the ceiling, the group immediately began fighting her, sensing that she was bad news, especially regarding the journal entry they found in regards to her. As soon as things began, Antyr cast *Frolic (Kinetic Jaunt)* which seemed to trigger a surge of unstable magic that was suffusing the region, and for the next seven days everything in the region was capable of casting *Dancing Lights* and threw a *Hoarfrost Beam (Ray of Frost)* towards the abomination, but the attack missed unfortunately.

Grandmother Stitch immediately went for two Craning Bite attacks towards Torger and Vonkar while yelling "Get away from the machine, you...meals!" causing her neck to extend and stretch and bite into Vonkar and swallow him whole, with everyone being able to see him slide down her throat. The second bite on Torger missed and instead slammed into the floor, swallowing some stone in the process. While being swallowed, Vonkar used his Giant's Might feature and grew to ten-feet tall inside her stomach, pushing up against the "rubbery skin" and becoming very visible to everyone else and went to punch her while inside, but missed due her stretchy, rubbery skin.

Torger started stabbing at her with his shortsword and as the blade plunged into her, it caused the sores covering her body to erupt and spray caustic, acidic pus onto him for minor damage. He then followed it up with an unarmed strike, the first connecting which caused Vonkar to feel the effects from the punch from inside. As Torger finished wailing on Grandmother Stitch she launched a long, stretchy arm towards Antyr and pulled them fifteen-feet closer to her.

The Creep used a telekinetic shove and pulled her five-feet closer towards him, with Vonkar also feeling the shift from inside. She went to bite Torger again, but missed and chewed up more of the floor. Hopper picked up a piece of chewed up debris on the floor and cast *Catapult* towards Grandmother Stitch, hitting her with the debris. This triggered another unstable magical surge, causing a burst of lightning to arc between Leek and Hopper taking some minor lightning damage, with Hopper then getting right up on Grandmother Stitch.

Doe poked their head around the corner of one of the pillars and vast Vicious Mockery, telling Grandmother Stitch "I don't think you need any more morsels of food over there!" Grandmother Stitch failed her Wisdom save and took some psychic damage while Doe went back to standing behind the pillar and away from view.

While this is all occurring and seeing his friends being hurt and eaten, Leek briefly gives into his anger where his eyes begin to spark with purple flames, but he shakes it off returning to his happy, child-like self, but for a moment those that could see him saw a brief flicker of something malevolent. He yelled towards Grandmother Stitch, "You hurt my friends, I'm gonna hurt you, you big old butt head!" and raced towards her, exploding in a ball of purple flame and wild-shaped into a water buffalo, but missed while attempting to gore her.

Grin fired a shot from his shortbow towards Grandmother Stitch, hitting her with an arrow and causing a spray of caustic pus to spray out onto Torger, Leek, Hopper and The Creep. Everyone exchanges blows throughout the fight with Grandmother Stitch, with things getting pretty dire for Vonkar as he begins to slowly get digested inside the stomach, but with another surge of magic he's encased in a Resilient Sphere and promptly regurgitated.

Eventually, Doe, desperate with what to do, rushed up towards Grandmother Stitch and swung their rapier, and dealt the killing blow by running her through with their rapier and opening the wound up wider with their tongue, causing one final spray of acidic pus, and while she died, Grandmother Stitch collapsed backwards trying to protect the Orbis Ancora and destroyed it in the process, and as it was destroyed this whole jungle and tower were sucked through a pinprick sized hole to where they came from, while everyone plunged into the heart of Lake Shadowmer, eight miles from the nearest shore.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
	+ Endylus
* Doe
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Leek
* The Creep
	+ Grin
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Mentioned

* Auntie Gothel
* Colony of Dread & Sorrow
* Duskreaper Aelinor
* Evelyn the Molar Witch
* Fateweaver
* The Faust and the Furious
* Grundle
* Kastagar, Architect of Sorrowed Gloom
* King Shutterspine
* Lord Bramblethorn
* Marrowgut
* Queen of Air & Darkness
* Rattle
* Vorpalon, Predator of the Seelie Court

## Quotations

* **Doe:** (casting *Vicious Mockery* after Grandmother Stitch called Torger a tasty morsel) I don't think you need any more morsels of food over there!

## Trivia

* The name 'Orbis Ancora' is Latin and roughly translates to world anchor.