Session 7

After the fight from last session the party is standing on the deck of the ship, a pile of dust and ashes blowing in the wind, where the snake used to be. The debris of the broken hatch laying scattered around the ship, covered in vines, like long tentacles trying to drag the ship down. The water is rising as the tide is coming back in.

Seila is looking up at the ship and yells to the party to hurry up and get back on her boat. Paeris noticed that there is something different about these vines, something seems to be augmenting their growth; but he is unable to determine if it is something natural in origin or unnatural.

As Seila climbs down the ship and back onto her own boat, Cassian follows her like a loyal dog. The rest of the party following soon after. As Rowan climbs down the mast, one of the handles breaks and he falls flat on the deck of the ship. He is left breathless as the air is forced from his lungs and he takes 1 damage. After he stands up and is feeling really week, like if suffering from a cold. Plaman sighs and goes back to help him as Felix mutters to himself “damn rookies”…

Felix turns away and heads for Seila’s boat, taking one last look at the footprints in the sand. The footprints are becoming hard to see, with the rising water, but it seems they are not being washed away by the waves.

Plaman drags Rowan down the deck of the ship towards Seila’s boat. It seems Rowan is getting weaker by the minute. He tries standing up but his knees are weak; arms are heavy. There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti Plaman takes one final look down the cargo hold and sees nothing but dark, muddy water down there; nothing remarkable. Before leaving he spits down the hole.

Felix, still intrigued by the footprints, pushes his fingers into the mud, seeing that his own imprint doesn’t wash away either. It feels like normal mud and doesn’t notice anything strange about it, so he stands up and runs to Seila’s boat as well.

Cassian asks Seila if there is a reason why she is in such a hurry to leave this place. She replies: “This shouldn’t be moving here, the old magic should contain them… Mama Gretle should know more about this, she is the village elder.”

Paeris takes one last look at the ship and the vines growing all over it. It is clear people lived on the ship for a while after it ran aground, there is clear wear on the vines, from people walking over them and climbing down. Yet it is clear that whoever lived here left from one day to the next, possibly leaving the footprints in the mud. The vines grew all over the ship, but seemed to have avoided the hatch.

Cassian uses a mental message to tell the rest of the party that Seila isn’t intending on going back to the city. Seila sees him doing some kind of action, upon which Cassian tells her he told the rest of the party to hurry… He feels a sudden compulsion grip him and before he knows it he is holding the tooth in his hands again. The tooth seems to be pul;ling him in the same direction as the footprints are going.

Plaman asks why Cassian is holding the tooth, he says it is nice to just hold. Seila pushes off the boat and the wood creaks as the boat gets going. Seila steers the boat down one of the many streams, a different one than the one we came down initially. She walks up to Rowan and whispers something in his ear and walks back to her usual spot at the back of the boat and takes control again. Seila continues pushing the boat down the stream, further down the delta and further away from where we came.

Rowan is feeling sicker by the minute. Paeris asks Seila if she has a pot or something to prepare medicine in, before she can answer, Plaman hands him a vaguely bowl-shaped stone. Paeris takes the stone, adds the fever-herb and grinds them down and mixes them with some water. Making a fever potion to the best of his knowledge, producing something that would probably, most likely, work to reduce the fever, maybe.

Paeris takes the improvised potion and feeds it to Rowan as his eyes roll back and he falls into a deep slumber. Cassian pours a potion of healing into his mouth, healing him for 7 points.

Rowan continues sleeping deeply, when he starts to move, like a fever dream. It seems he is fighting something in his dreams. Cassian attempts to send him a mental message, saying “Wake up dude!”. The message arrives in Rowan’s dream, echoing through his mind, but he forgets it immediately, and stays asleep. Plaman slaps him, trying to wake him up, but underestimating his own strength, Plaman deals 1 point of damage to Rowan.

Seila is confused at the actions of the party and just stares of into the distance ahead of them. After a little while she gets a worried look on her face, right after thunder can be heard in the distance. We all prepare to take a long rest.

Paeris is writing in his journal, Cassian is preparing one of his fancy rations and the entire party has dinner, except for Rowan who is still sleeping deeply. Cassian looks over and says it reminds him of his daughters. Felix is meditating, he calms and clears his mind as he goes over his newly acquired abilities.

Plaman is fiddling with the orb he found, he feels a connection with the orb. As he focusses on the orb and starts atuning to it, the orb starts floating and glowing. Plaman learns the “blinding light” spell and immediately starts using it as a disco light, flashing through all the colours.

And like that the party goes to sleep for the night.

Cassian stares into the night wistfully and asks Seila if she needs a nap. She seems to look backwards, behind the boat, quite often. She seems worried about something that could be following them. Seila looks genuinely worried and keeps looking over her shoulder, as if she is trying to escape something. She grabs her necklace and holds it so tight, her knuckles turn white.

After a long silence, she seems to relax a little bit and asks Cassian about the tooth and says that it is not yet finished. Cassian offers her the tooth, Seila chuckles and says she doesn’t want it. She is trying to gauge is Cassian knows what she is talking about. Cassian finally ask Seila if she knows where the tooth came from, and what mouth specifically. Seila says he should ask Mama Gretle about this…

As the night falls and the sky turns dark, it starts raining. Seila has a waterproof fabric, covering the centre of the boat, made from the skin of a rare creature, local to the area. The sky to the south lights up with streaks of white and purple light. Despite the lighting to the south, there is no thunder. The water around the boat goes completely flat and completely black. The little stars still peaking through the clouds, disappear as well, just like the faint moonlight. The only light coming from the frequent flashes of lighting.

After the stormy night, dawn finally breaks as it stopped raining, Seila didn’t sleep, Rowan finally wakes up again, sweaty and feeling really confused; speaking of hearing strange messages and seeing bright flashes of colours. Must have been the wind and not at all Plaman playing around with his new fancy orb… But it is clear he is starting to feel better. He feels like forgotten memories have been rekindled.

Rowan asks what the f*ck happened, saying he saw flashing lights… Paeris tries convincing Rowan he owes him 50GP as they played poker last night. Paeris fails in convincing him… Cassian tells Rowan he also owes him 50GP for the healing potion he used; Cassian succeeds in convincing however.

The boat turns around a bend and the first signs of civilization, after the party left Carvenport, become visible. There are cages hanging in the swells of the water, the last cage containing an animal, not unlike an eel, thrashing around.

Cassian uses mage hand, to open the cage and bring the fish onto the boat, Seila disapproves visibly… Cassian ends up throwing the fish into a basket on the boat.

Drums can be heard in the distance, as the party turns another bend in the stream, a small village comes into view, the view is mounted almost entirely on stilts in the water. Seila sighs in relief as the village becomes visible.

The village itself is built partially on a bank, but mostly in the water, there is a large stone circle in the centre of the village, surrounded by more houses and huts, all with intricately decorated shutters. One of the houses, however, has completely blank shutters. Near the stone circle is one house, clearly larger than the rest.

As Seila steers the boat into the village, there are hundreds of candles floating around in the water. A child is sitting on the last mooring pole, catching the party’s attention as they enter Mothmouth village. The air is filled with smoke from wood fires, yet a sweet incense smells hang in the air.

Seila moors the boat, in the small harbour; strangely nobody comes to greet them. All the villagers are gathered in the stone circle, for some kind of celebration, as they can be heard signing. They sing in a strange language, it appears to be an older version of the Mothmouth dialect the party heard Seila speaking earlier.

As soon as the boat is tied to the mooring pole, Seila steps off and heads for the stone circle in the middle of the village. Cassian does the typical tourist thing, where he pretends he is familiar with the local customs and starts singing along as best as he can. While a good imitation, it is clear he doesn’t know the actual lyrics.

Plaman doesn’t trust the walkways as they are moving under his weight and the waves. Felix is weary of the people and looking around for anything suspicious. The people seem to ignore the party, they seem to be preoccupied with the celebrations. Besides it is not that uncommon to have five strangers on the docks. The party is following Seila to the stone circle, Cassian still pretending he is one of the locals.

As the party gets closer to the city centre, people are walking around with plates. There are children around playing and Plaman tries luring them with chicken legs… While Plaman does that, the party blocks one of the passageways, the villagers push us aside, so that they can walk past, Giving the party a clear look of the villagers. They are mostly human, but have distinct animal features; More hair, longer teeth and a little taller and stronger than the average human.

Making it to the stone circle, there are a lot of people talking, singing and eating, tending to the fire, children running around. Seila can be seen entering the larger house at the edge of the circle. Plaman accepts another plate of food. On one side of the circle there are large bowls of food, that nobody seems to be touching.

On the opposite side of the circle and young girl is sitting, with bare feet, tapping along to the music, but singing a different song to what everyone else is singing. Rowan recognises the song, he doesn’t know where he heard it before, but he feels the lyrics coming back to him.

Rowan asks a passerby about the song the girl is singing. He finds a woman, who says that the girl is always singing that song, continuing to say that the girl is crazy. The woman says she doesn’t know what the girl is singing or why she is singing it. Rowan walks up to the little girl and asks her about the song she is singing, but she ignores him. He touches her shoulder to get her attention, but she stands up and walks away. Rowan sings the song with her, but there is no reaction.

Felix follows the party to the circle, but got fed up with Cassian pretending to fit in and went back to the docks, looking out over the water. He sees the house with the blank shutters, the spot on his chest goes cold and the feeling goes away after a little while. Having his curiosity peaked, Felix decides to go investigate the house.

The house being on the west side of the village. All the other houses have their shutters carved, this house has had its carvings sanded away. The closer Felix goes to this house, the more the spot on his chest starts feeling cold. Standing in front of the door, he feels a cold draft coming through the cracks in the door. He decides to knock on the door, but gets no response. He knocks, louder this time, and the door creaks open. Looking inside, Felix can see that the house is clean and tidy, the bed is made, but there is nothing identifying inside; no personal belongings whatsoever. The house is completely devoid of ano personality. Felix walks inside and sits down, meditating. As he calms and clears his mind, he feels himself connecting to something more, this house is like a deep scar on the village. All the other houses have personality and character. This place has had it forcibly stripped, and left in place as a reminder, or a lesson even. The house speaks to Felix deeply.

Cassian looks for the oldest woman he can see and walks up to her, assuming that it must be Mama Gretle, Seila is talking to a different old woman, she seems distressed. Cassian walks up to Seila and her companion, keeping a respectful distance.

Plaman feels something strangely religious around this stone circle and the village. Like generations before have worshipped here, he does not know what exactly, but he presumes a devine being. He puts his fingers in on of the bowls of food and tastes it.

The people walking around hand us plates with food, Paeris receives a plate with something emitting a faint green glow. Not trying to be disrespectful, he takes a bite and immediately feels a jolt of energy going through his body, like doing cocaine, meth and more all at once. He feels very hyper, but unfortunately the effects fade after a few seconds, leaving him with a terrible headache for a few moments afterwards… He decides he will stuck with the mushrooms he usually finds in the forest.

Looking closer at the candles, they have some sort of resin on them, this resin is the source of the incense smell in the air. Seila introduces the party to Mama Gretle, who thanks her for bringing us, even though it is not much…