Session 17 (02/11/2022)

## Day Thirteen, Morning

**Swage** makes his way back from picking up the fancy clothes he had commissioned. On his way, he spots a jeweler and stops in to see about selling the jewels the party has collected so far.

He opens the door and is astonished to see so many different gems scattered around the shop. There seems to be one for every shape and color that Swage knows, and even some he doesn’t.

The old man behind the counter slowly lifts his eyes when Swage enters and approaches the counter. Open closer inspection, Swage can see that the man’s eyes are bloodshot.

“I see you're open for business today.” Swage says

“I mean, that's what the sign says.” Says the man

“I don’t read so good.” Swage replies

“You’ve got a great vibe, it’s like hot but controlled.” The shop owner says.

“Thanks! You’ve got a good vibe too, makes me feel comfortable.” Swage says

“I feel like everyone should be like that man, just go with the flow. You know?” the man says

“That’s what I’m always saying.” Swage replies

“What have you got for me today, man?” the jeweler asks

Swage plops the sack of jewelry and gems on the counter.

“Whoa! Dude this is a treasure trove! Some of these are preem!” the shop owner says excitedly

“I’d like to get these appraised if that’s something you do here.” Swage says

“Oh yeah, man! I can totally do that for you, but it’ll take some time.” He says

“How long would you say? What’s your gut feeling?” Swage asks

“I’ll be honest with you man, some of these are just crap.” The man says. “I can tell you that you’ve got ten or fifteen that are worth some money, and the rest I’d buy in bulk.”

“What was your name again?” Swage asks

“Oh! It’s Chill. Chill Man.” Chill answers

“I’m Swage, man.” Swage replies

“Dude! That’s dope!” Chill says

Swage scoops all the gems back into the sack and places them in his pack. He wants to return later with his friends to make sure he doesn’t do anything they wouldn’t be okay with. On his way out, he spots some diamonds in the display case and takes a mental note of them.

Once he finishes breakfast, Kaz gathers his things and begins to look for the guardhouse. He finds it and fishes all the blueprints and notes out of his bag and begins to walk towards the guards who are moving some things around that look to have been delivered recently. A large Goliath seems to be the one calling the shots.

“Hey, last night my friends and I reported the bodies of a family we found in a house outside of town. We also found these plans, which appear to be for an assassination plot.” Kaz says approaching the other Goliath.

“EXCUSE ME!” he yells.

“IS THAT ANYWAY TO TALK TO ME SOLDIER?” he continues

Kaz, unable to put aside his dislike of other Goliaths, especially ones like this one ignores him. Instead, he walks straight up to him and drops all the papers at his feet, and turns and walks away. He makes it back to Estafador’s carriage.

Back at the carriage, Estafador begins to give Dove lessons on the Devil language, so Dove can speak with Waffles. She is able to learn a short poem, and some words/phrases as well. Estafador also explains that she should talk forcefully with any Devils she may encounter.

At this point, everyone has returned from their separate tasks and are gathered around the carriage.

“I found a jeweler.” Swage begins. “I don’t know what to do there. I need to find diamonds, and I have this bag of jewels to trade. I’m kind of scared. I don’t know anything about money.”

Finally, he says, “I need an adult.”

The party arrives back at the jeweler's shop and are able to trade their sack of jewelry for four diamonds and one hundred gold pieces. He also throws in a “cleansing crystal” on top of it all.

Dove approaches the counter next and asks if Chill has anything he’d be willing to trade for an Elven arrowhead she found at The Lake of Dreams.

“I don’t know what kind of stone this is made from, but do you have anything you’d trade it for?” Dove asks.

Chill takes the arrowhead and examines it closely, “This is made from jadestone, are you sure you want to trade it?”

“Of course!” Dove replies

Chill thinks for a second and he reaches under the counter and pulls out a large chunk of Mica, he holds it out to Dove, “How’s this? I’ll throw in a cleansing crystal for you too.”

“Thank you so much, I'm super excited!” Dove says taking the items

“That's totally chill. All right. Is there anything else I can help you guys with?” Chill asks

“Hey big guy back there, man. Uh, like I get it, but you don't have to be so grumpy you know. Like it's okay.” Chill says

“Can we get a cleansing crystal for him too?” Holly asks

“You know what he needs? He needs a meditation suite.” Chill says

“You know I do classes on the weekend bro; I’ve got poses you could go through.” He continues

“You should do it; it’d help your balance,” Holly says

“It’s not just balance dude like I can feel the anger radiating off of you and it's kind of harsh,” Chill says.

“You’ve got these cool mellow friends, but you, you’re like ARGH!” Chill says

“If I don’t get angry, we’d all be dead,” Kaz says

“So, are you so chill because of the crystals?” Swage asks

“Well, a little, but mostly it’s my religion, man.” Chill answers

“I’d like to hear more about that.” Swage says growing interested

“Well, it is pretty dope,” Chill says, “Like literally dope man.”

“I could give you some man if you want.” He says looking at Kaz

“Because you’re like here,” he says one hand held in the air, “But you should be down here,” he says, the other lower near the floor.

“I down right now!” Kaz says growing irritated, “I can show you what it looks like when I’m not down.” He continues.

Dove reaches up and places a hand on Kaz’s should hoping to keep her friend calm.

“This is me chill right now, if I wasn’t able to get angry and stay angry, we’d all have been dead before we even got here,” Kaz says taking a step toward the counter.

“I’m not saying anger isn’t important, but you’ve got to be able to switch it off.” Chill replies

“This is me switched off! Do you want to see it switched on?” Kaz says taking another step

Realizing what is about to happen, Dove grabs her friend’s hand and begins to pull him towards the door.

“I’m just going to take my friend outside.” She says to Chill

“Kaz, come outside and look at this Mica I traded for!” Dove says

She pulls him out through the door, leaving Swage and Holly inside the shop. Chill explains a bit more of his religion and gives Holly and Swage some of its sacrament to use and share. The group makes their way back to the carriage and climbs in, Kaz taking the first turn driving.

As they approach the gate they are stopped by a guard, “Are you leaving town? If so, be careful, we’ve got some news about a giant frog terrorizing some people along the road.”

Kaz smiles inwardly at the thought of a giant enemy to fight, but keeps his cool and simply says, “Thank you for the warning.” As he continues through the gate.

## Day Fourteen

The first leg of the trip is uneventful, as are the next two which are covered by Swage and then Holly.

## Day Fifteen, Morning

In the morning Kaz takes over again and is forced to stop since a large portion of the road is washed out. He wakes his friends and explains the situation and they all begin to brainstorm what to do.

After some investigating Dove can see the washout appeared to be caused by something dragging itself across the road. Claw marks on the side seem to show that something was pulling itself along the ground across the road.

Dove goes back to tell Swage and Kaz about the trail she found, but Holly decides to go ahead of the group. A little way down the path, he finds a sign that reads “Gods Graveyard Ahead”. The group catches up with Holly and they continue deeper into the swamp.

## Day Fifteen, Afternoon

The trail winds its way through the swamp with small bridges crossing over the water. Holly continues to move ahead, and at the end of the trail, he spots some small huts. He quickly hides in some nearby bushes and sees a few small bipedal frog creatures.

As the rest of the party approaches Swage uses the spyglass to get a better look at the small village. He says he can see three children a purple, red, and green one.

“Children?” Kaz says raising an eyebrow

“Yeah, children.” Swage replies

With that Kaz straps, his maul to his back, and begins to make his way towards the village. A swamp is no place for children he thinks, maybe they need help.

As he approaches the bridge, he gets a better look at what Swage had seen.

“These aren’t children Swage!” Kaz says over his shoulder

“They aren’t? They looked like children to me. I haven’t seen many kids though, the only child I remember meeting was Timmy.” Swage says

Kaz turns back to the frog-like creature, a Grung, he thinks to himself and raises his hands to show he means no harm.

“We need some help.” He says, “The road was washed out and our carriage can’t go any further.”

In reply to the green Grung cocks its head to the side and croaks at him.

“Can you help us?” he asks again, and again the reply is the same.

Swage approaches from behind Kaz, his hands raised as well and tries to ask himself. He gets a very similar response. He attempts to draw a picture in the mud showing the path, the main road, and the washout. The Grung seems to understand the picture and begins to walk toward the back of the village beckoning Swage, Dove, and Kaz to follow. Holly stays behind hidden in the bushes.

They approach a wall with a large doorway set into it, there doesn’t appear to be a door of any kind, however. The Grung begins to croak again and points to the opening urging the group to go inside. Kaz peeks his head around the corner and doesn’t see anything, and the Grung croaks and points some more. Finally, Kaz, mimicking the Grung, does the same and the Grung appears to shrug and heads inside.

Kaz follows right behind it and not long after so do Swage and Dove. Once they enter the open area, they step into ankle-deep water and are greeted with the site of an ancient battle. A gigantic cyclopean skull sets in one corner of the area, and the bones of a gigantic hand grasp a gigantic sword with a giant glowing gem set into it that illuminates the area. The sword is so rusted and corroded bits crumble off at the slightest touch.

The Grung points from Kaz to the giant skull and urges Kaz and Swage to approach. Upon closer inspection of the skull, Swage sees runes carved into the teeth of the skull. He is able to decipher them as strength, sky, valor, and death. Looking into the skull, Swage sees two large yellow objects suspended in the air.

Kaz reaches out and places his hand on the tooth that says “strength” and then steps inside of the massive skull. Once inside, he sinks up to his waist in the mud and he looks up to see a giant frog. Kaz raises both of his hands in a gesture of peace and says, “Hello.”

The large creature slowly opens its eyes and lets out an extremely loud croaking noise. Some bats fly out of the skull and the frog flicks its tongue out and grabs a few, pulling them back into its mouth. It lets out another croak, this one loud enough for Holly to hear outside of the village.

Realizing that fighting the creature inside the skull isn’t going to be a good idea, Kaz slowly backs out of the skull and readies himself for combat.

Swage looks away from the large yellow eyes staring out from the darkness of the giant skull’s gaping mouth and reaches his gauntleted hand out to touch the rune for “strength” on one of the giant’s teeth. Just before he makes contact, a thick, sticky appendage shoots out from the darkness of the skull and slams into his armored chest, knocking the wind out of him and quickly constricting around his torso. The incredible strength of the froghemoth yanks Swage’s heavy form past the skull’s teeth and brings him face to face with the large amphibian. In a panicked attempt at intimidation, the firbolg draws on his innate magic to alter the appearance of his face, merging his two eyes into one large eye, and screams in the creature’s face.

Holly crouches in the reeds outside, and on hearing the thundering croak resonate from the room ahead, dashes past the tribe of Grungs and towards his friends. He takes a glance around and quickly understands the moniker “God’s Graveyard”. The dwarf pulls out his daggers and steels his nerves.

Swage manages to pull a steel ingot from his backpack and tosses it deep into the froghemoth’s throat, then traces a glowing holy sigil in the air as he prays to the Gearsmith for the heat of the forge. The ingot begins to glow white-hot just before it slips down the creature’s gullet alongside three struggling bats, sizzling all the way.

Nearby, Kaz sniffs the air and says, “Smells really good, whatever you’re cooking in there!”. Swage turns back incredulously towards the Grung who led them in here and yells, “What the hell?!”

Dove springs up onto a large rock and peers into the darkness of the skull. She can make out Swage in his red plate armor and the large amphibian just beyond. Hissing out a new word she learned from Estafador, she places her Hunter’s Mark on the creature and looses three arrows in quick succession. Two of them bounce harmlessly off the creature’s thick hide, but one finds purchase in the inflated vocal sac and nearly pops it like a bubble.

The froghemoth rears back in anger and pulls Swage into its maw, chomping down hard on the Firbolg’s midsection. He grunts weakly on the edge of consciousness as he slides down the creature’s throat, “Really glad we came here, guys…”

Kaz rushes up to the creature in a fit of rage and wrestles its mouth open, reaching deep inside for Swage. The two grasp forearms and Kaz strains mightily but loses his grip on account of the acidic saliva.

Infuriated, he grabs his vicious maul and brings it crashing down on one of the creature’s large, webbed feet.

The small Grung edges into view of the battle and looses an arrow, but it deflects harmlessly off one of the giant skull’s teeth. Dove calls back to Holly, “Kaz and Swage are in there with some monster!”

Holly pulls out a small, frosted vial filled with a bright blue liquid, rushes up to the giant skull, and tosses it inside. The vial shatters against the creature's hide and explodes in a freezing blast.

Swage focuses on his connection to the steel ingot and flares the remaining heat of the spell into it. His mind flits back to a dream he had in the carriage the night before, and he calls on all his will to summon his Spirit Guardians. Dozens of tiny clockwork red dragons materialize in the creature’s gut around him. Some of them are ridden by miniature clockwork Swages that occasionally chirp out, “Gond will provide!”, as the dragons begin spitting gouts of flame. Big Swage grits his teeth and yells, “Spit me up, you son of a bitch!”.

Dove draws back her glacial bow from her position on the rock and expertly sinks two more freezing arrows deep into the creature’s stomach. The large amphibian croaks as one of the arrows hit a large organ, its stomach filling with bile. Swage’s feet become submerged in the stomach acid, and he nearly loses consciousness.

The froghemoth’s thick tongue lashes out again towards Kaz and slaps him wetly across the face. It attempts to bind him, but the goliath deftly spins out of the way, only to be left within reach of the rows of razor-sharp teeth. It scores a raking bite across one of Kaz’s arms.

Kaz bellows in the creature’s face and wrestles its mouth open once again. He reaches in deep and manages to grab onto Swage’s plate armor, but his land loses grip again in the bubbling bile. Kaz reaches back for his maul and brings it arcing down with a sickening squelch on one of the large yellow eyes.

The lone Grung unsuccessfully shoots another arrow towards the battle.

Holly reaches for his magic brooch and clocks it over to the “enlarge” position. His short-form doubles in size and he uses the new perspective to pick up on a few of the creature’s weak points.

Inside the darkness of the creature’s stomach, Swage manages to find one of his healing potions and carefully pours it into his mouth. Bolstered by the surge of relief and fed up with this whole situation, he wills the clockwork red dragons into a frenzied vortex around him, their sharpened, blade-like wings rending open flesh and hide. He reaches out his other hand and offers a final prayer to Gond as necrotic tendrils begin arcing from his outstretched fingers.

The rest of the party watches as the froghemoth fills its vocal sac for a death croak, so full and strained that Dove’s earlier lodged arrow causes it to burst with a loud POP. The creature’s slimy yellow and green hide begins to slough off as the whirlwind of fire-spewing spirit guardians emerges from inside, leaving Swage standing amongst the viscera with a healing potion to his lips and necrotic energy dancing over his hand.

He wipes his mouth and nods to the group. “Gond will provide”. His spirit guardians echo that sentiment in a chorus of overlapping tinny voices.