Once the din of battle is over, and the adventurers move to bury the plant monster’s victims, they notice their goblin friend has gone missing.
While debating whether they should continue on without the creature, they hear a yelp coming from deeper within the woods.
“Sounds like our goblin friend could use our help,” Wend says.
Ash groans and replies, “Why does it seem you and Vesper bring nothing but trouble?”
“Wasn’t your town already occupied when we arrived?” Wend retorts. “Blame the cultists, not Vesper and I.”
Yara quickly scouts the ground around the cart and finds some light tracks from the goblin.
The quintet plunges into the forest to rescue the goblin and soon find its tracks replaced with larger ones.
“It seems that plant monster was not alone,” Yara says. “These tracks are the same as the thing we encountered.”
Breaking out from the thick underbrush, the party wanders into a clearing. The heroes can see the remains of a gatehouse still stand, but the stones have been overtaken by vines and brush.
Beyond the gatehouse, the ground slopes upward into a small plateau, with the remains of a larger building still erect. In the center of the building, they see an arcane circle throbbing with power. The rune holds still more circles inside it, and in each of those is a strange-looking plant bud — five in total. Inside the pentagram, the plant’s form, lies the goblin, now entwined in vines and seemingly drawn into the earth.
Celia calls out with her arcane abilities, calling on her god to determine what manner of magic is before her. She can sense a bit of celestial magic, but nothing ominous.
Wend moves to enter the ruins, seeing no threat, but she is quickly confronted by several twig blights. The diminutive creatures are animated and get angry when she tries to move forward. Despite her blocked view, Wend can see that the plant buds are baby forms of the plant monster they fought.
She retreats from the blights and calms them before rejoining the party and informing them of her discovery.
“Oh great,” Ash says. “Why are there more of them now?”
Vesper comments that the plant monsters may be an invasive, territorial species. The blights may simply be bowing to what they perceive as a fellow defender.
Hearing moans coming from the goblin, Celia stomps forward, levies her spear, and cries, “Let him go!” at the twig blights. The small, wood creatures get agitated by the display, and more start to pop up from the brush.
“Proceed with caution. Blights can be dangerous in large numbers,” Yara says.
When Wend notices that the circle seems to give life to the buds and draws energy from the goblin, the decision is made, and the party rushes forth.
The five heroes are swarmed by the blights, seemingly without number no matter how many are broken to bits. Celia charges forward in hopes of getting to the goblin, as another plant monster rises from the ground and bashes her back.
Calling on the divine power of the forest, Wend scorches three blights with radiant energy. As she turns to the blight horde, she screams, “You want some more?!”
While the rest of the party battles through wave after wave of blights, Celia and the plant monster are locked in mortal combat. Eventually, Wend can make it to Celia’s side. Then she grabs onto the beast and unleashes the full force of her power—the energy courses through the plant fiend, causing it to blacken and rot.
While Celia is frightened at this display of raw power, she is invigorated to edge over the monster. She redoubles her attack to drive the plant back. Meanwhile, Wend moves to free the goblin from the rune circle and chops away at the vines holding it in place.
As Wend frees the goblin, Ash and Celia have the beast seemingly cornered. However, the monster then regrows some of its lost form and lashes out in a fury. Its savage attack is enough to knock Celia unconscious and beat Ash within an inch of his life.
Seeing her friends in danger, Yara drops her bow and engages the beast in single combat. She becomes a whirling dervish of death as she lashes out with her short swords. Little by little, she hacks away at the beast before it finally drops to pieces.
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Ash says in thanks to his ranger friend.
As Vesper and Wend heal the party, they take time to check on their goblin friend. It appears he is comatose and has lost much vitality. Once on her feet, Celia calls out to her god again, and it answers, breathing life back into the goblin.
Meanwhile, Wend and Yara investigates the metallic plant buds. The buds still writhe in anger at their meal being stolen.
“Are these plants dangerous?” Yara asks.
Wend is confident they are the offspring of the monsters.
“This is an invasive species,” she says. “We should destroy them before they take over your forest.”
She moves to uproot the buds but struggles with the first one. Celia steps in and pulls it free from the earth one-handed. After removing all the buds, the party watches in astonishment as all the buds wither and fall apart.
Soon after the last bud is uprooted, the ground around the arcane circle starts to rumble violently. A stone object begins to push through and eventually rises into the air, revealing itself to be a monolith of some kind. The strange pillar continues to rise until it floats in the air, about 10 feet above the adventurers. The monolith looks broken in some places, and at its core is a metallic blue sphere—the entire structure pulses with energy.
“We probably shouldn’t touch it, right guys? … I kinda want to touch it,” Yara says.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Ash responds. “We have a goblin we could test a theory out on!”
“I’ve tried all my scientific tests.. I’ll touch it,” Wend says. She feels energy coming from the pillar and gets flashes of images she can’t interpret.
Ash also sees strange visions when he touches the pillar. Eventually, all five arrange themselves around the post in the remains of the pentagram rune and touch the monolith together.
All five share the same vision. They see strange flashes, images of something they can barely comprehend. The heroes see pictures of tall metallic buildings, metal carts flying in the skies, and of a grand battle.
With nothing else to lose, the heroes try touching the goblin to the monolith. As Celia holds it up, the goblin snaps awake. It hisses at the monolith and yells, “Safeguard! Enemy! Safeguard!” When Yara asks what safeguard is, it says, “Master.”
The party attempts to tie a rope around the pillar to move it but to no avail. The monolith doesn’t budge an inch as it continues to float in the air. Giving up and exhausted, the quintet heads back to the cart, dragging the goblin with them.
Leaving the forest’s strangeness behind them, the heroes follow the path out of the woods and into the plains’ gently rolling hills. It doesn’t take them long to come to a fork in the road and spot a sign that says, “Pillow Sham Tavern.”
Following the strong scent of hot stew, they find a little rustic inn over the next hill. They can hear the bustle inside as travelers relax amidst the clatter of animals coming from the stables. The innkeeper greets the adventurers warmly and beckons them to pick a table.
On one side of the inn, peddlers or local tradespeople chat amiably as they sip their tankards of ale. On the other side, an old noble quietly eats a meal with a young lady as two nervous guards stand watch. In the corner, a cloaked woman sits alone, sipping a dark liquid from a wine glass.
Opting to sit on the inn’s quieter side, the party draws up seats near the nobles and the mysterious woman. Glancing in her direction, Wend and Yara see the woman’s forearms are covered in bandages.
It’s not long before a traveling jester comes up to the table, aiming to earn some coin. He teases the party for details about where they’re from before dropping hints he knows much about the area. Intrigued, Celia tosses him, five coppers.
The jester winks as he starts to juggle a multitude of multicolored balls. He glances toward the corner and whispers, “rumor has it that the nobles’ son isn’t their own. Some claim that he was kidnapped.”
With that, he prances off to the noisy side, and the barmaid brings the group several bowls of stew…
JesseFolk.com 