1st Rova 18 - Errrrrr Jabber whaty?!?

Whilst the majority of the kingdom recovers Vaneer sits down again for another commune.

The commune proved of little help other than the fact that the group would now have to seek out the queen in her realm with Briar.

The skies above Wyvernshore are beautiful and clear but every 10 to 20 minutes the clap of Thunder could be heard.

As the day progressed the claps got louder and quicker in interval till early afternoon when there was an almighty clap of thunder followed by a green flash as all of a sudden the fabric between the two realms appeared to rip open allowing the fearsome and legendary Jabberwocky to come through insight of Wyvernshore.

To be continued......

31st Arodus 18 - Well that was surprisingly Easy?!?

The capital is still all morning awaiting for something to happen, then in the early afternoon an explosion of twisted trees and ugly fungi appear to the north of the capital.

Shortly after its appearance the noise of an army could be heard coming from the growth explosion.

The group let loose a combination of spells including Plant Growth, Entangle, Earth Quake, Blade Barrier, Walls of Fire, Thorn and Prismatic, Fireballs and Cone of Cold against the oncoming forces which allowed the forces of Dragonmere to engage and defeat the remaining foes with little casualties.

Just as the Growth starts to wilt away all could see a ghostly image of a black tower in the distance fading out of sight.

The Kingdom of Dragonmere celebrated it's victory.

29th Arodus 18 - The Final is Coming

Vaneer starts the day by casting another commune which tells him that the next bloom will happen in two days time BUT it will be the final bloom which will appear several miles outside the capital to the North and would consist of an army sized force.

On hearing this news, Otto sends the orders to assemble the Kingdoms army at Wyvernshore before teleporting the group back to the capital so they can plan and prepare.

28th Arodus 18 - Minotaur Orgy made what!!

As evening approached the weather turn sour and started to pour down, however it took a moment for the group to realise that the rain wasn't actually rain but worms falling from the sky.

Shortly a voice echoed across the sky “RISE! COMBINE! CONQUER!”.

As a creature resembling a cross between a Bear, Dragon and Chain Devil (Thrasfyr) appeared before the group.

Vaneer casts Barkskin and a quickened Shield of Faith,

Satinder casts True Strike on Boss,

Otto casts a quickened haste followed by a cone of cold which fails to connect,

Boss shoots at the creature and hits twice but the creature takes no damage,

Thrasfyr unleashes it's breath weapon getting all but Miro and Otto before lashing out at Natalia and hitting hard,

Natalia shifts into the form of an Earth Elemental and sinks into the ground,

Bob attacks the creature and hits twice dealing little damage,

Hugo attacks the creature and hits,

Miro attempts to attack but fails to land any blows,

Vaneer casts a Mass Cure Serious followed by a quickened Seering light which fails to hit,

Satinder casts another True Strike on Boss,

Otto casts another Cone of Cold followed by a quickened Ray of Enfeeblement, both fail,

Boss shoots and hits,

Thrasfyr lets out another breath weapon hitting all except Miro and Otto followed by attacking everyone with its chains knocking out Satinder, Boss and Hugo,

Natalia casts finger of death which deals a good amount of damage,

Miro attempts a feint and manages to land a blow on the creature,

Otto casts a cone of cold which makes its way past the creatures defences and kills it,

Otto casts Disintegrate to ensure the creature stays dead.

Vaneer heals like heck.

The group rests

27th Arodus 18 - To Drelev!

The group gather some provisions whilst gaining the aid of Satinder they then teleport to Drelev ahead of the forthcoming Bloom.

26th Arodus 18 - Thawing the Tomb

With the new information in hand, Otto teleports the group back to the tombstone where they unleash all their capabilities or lack of against the monolith which eventually crumbles before them.

With the bloom taken care off the weather on the mountain appeared to settle after another green flash signally to Otto that it would be fine to teleport the group back home where they rest.

25th Arodus 18 - Looking Ahead

The group wake to find no new news of events nor blooms awaiting for them and the eggheads at the royal library have had no luck in finding any information regarding the frosted tombstone.

Vaneer settles down to commune with Erastil for some guidance on events happening and to come.

The cleric eventually emerges and divulges that there is a bloom still active, which is the giant tombstone that can only be ended by destroying it. Once the tombstone is destroyed the next bloom would occur near Drelev in 4 days time which would be a creature of notable size that is vulnerable to cold attacks.

24th Arodus 18 - When books go bad....again!

As the group wake they are told of reports of coming into Varnhold about children near the capital are going missing along with sightings of a strange machine roaming the fields around the Wyvernshore.

Otto quickly teleports the group back to the capital.

After a short matter of time they were riding out into the countryside and it didn't take them long to notice off in the distance a pair of mechanical legs about 100ft tall which ended at a base of a castle that was walking slowly through the fields towards the capital. Miro then remembers that he has seen this castle before as his skin turns pale, the walking castle is the exact spitting image of the dragons castle from the storybook realm that they visited long ago.

Otto flies up to the castle and then quickly flies back down to teleport the rest of the group into the castles courtyard, as they arrive they see the blue dragon Zassrion with his patchwork skin of dragonscales and human skin, a fey female with a harlequin mask, a cage full of children and the “Paladin” (Algan) waiting for them.

Before anything could happen the group fail to notice that standing next to Zassrion was a small girl whom he gave an evil grin and pushed her over the edge to plummet 100ft to the ground below.

“Queen Narrissa has released us from our story world prison to wreck havok on yours” the dragon hissed,

The Harlequin uses a Dirge of Doom on the group,

Hugo attempts to attack the Paladin and hits,

Miro stabs the Paladin and hits hard,

Paladin uses his 'Smite Mortal' ability on Miro,

Otto teleports below the falling girl and cast featherfall on her as she passes,

Boss attacks the Harlequin and hits,

Vaneer heals Miro and a quickened Shield of faith on himself,

Natalia cast finger of death on the Harlequin and hits but fails to kill her,

Bob chews at the Paladin but misses to get through the armour,

Dragon uses his fearful presence which affects none and then releases his lightening breath weapon hitting Vaneer, Hugo, Miro and Bob,

Harlequin plays some music but nothing happens,

Miro attacks the paladin and hits,

Hugo attacks the paladin and hits,

Paladin heals himself quickly and then attacks Miro but misses,

Otto returns near the Harlequin and casts finger of death at which causes her to drop to the ground followed by a quickened fireball slung at the dragon which also hits,

Boss shoots at the dragon and hits,

Natalia casts flamestrike at the dragon,

Vaneer kills the paladin and promptly tea bags him in mockery,

Dragon goes invisible,

Miro goes invisible,

Hugo attempts to shoot at the dragon but misses,

Otto prepares to cast Prismatic wall should the dragon suddenly appear,

Boss tries to rescue the children from the cage,

Vaneer casts a quickened bark skin before using a healing burst,

Natalia casts flamestrike and takes a guess at the dragon's location to just clip one of its wings,

Bob chews the paladins testicles,

Dragon appears and attempts to use its breath weapon on the children only to be blocked by Otto's prismatic wall,

Miro shoots at the dragon and hits,

Hugo uses his rod of razors at the dragon and hits,

Otto casts cone of cold at the dragon,

Boss shoots 3 arrows at the dragon, all three find their mark and deals the final blow to the winged creature.

As the dragon dies it becomes apparent that the castle on legs is starting to loose its stability so the group quickly uses the abilities of Natalia's Air elemental form to get the children down off the platform safely and lead them back home safely unharmed.

The group retire after a heroic day.

23rd Arodus 18 - A Giant Confusion

The group are awake early ahead of the anticipated time of the bloom and notice that the mountain to the east appeared to have a large and fast snowfall where the rest of the mountains in the area currently have no snow falling.

As they approach the mountain the find themselves in a mini blizzard which contains noticeably large giant like footprints.

Natalia scouts ahead in the air and soon returns that she could make out what she believed to be a number of Giants ahead of them.

The group approach but keep their distance to allow Otto to cast confusion on the 4 Giants which affects 3.

The remaining giant spots Otto, Natalia, Boss and Hugo.

Miro shoots his bow at the now approaching Giant and hits,

Hugo uses his Rod of Razors at the approaching Giant,

Bob rushes into attack into attack and hits multiple times,

Natalia summons a fire elemental and sets it to attack the giant,

Vaneer casts flamestrike on the giant which kills it,

The confused giants set about attacking each other until only one is left which is easily dispatched by the group.

The group then soon realises that none of the giants could have been the boss so Natalia communes with nature and senses 3 more foes further up the mountain, one of which is vastly stronger than the other 2.

As the group make their way up the mountain they start to pass a scattering of odd looking gravestones and soon notice 3 figures 30ft away standing near a 30ft tall gravestone made of ice.

They also notice that the largest of the giants has 4 arms instead of the standard 2.

Otto attempts to cast confusion on the giants followed by a quickened fireball,

Boss shoots at the giants and hits,

Miro shoots at the boss and hits,

Hugo also shoots at 4 arms and hits multiple times,

The Giant Boss rages towards Vaneer and attacks 4 times only to hit the cleric twice,

Vaneer casts Firestorm on the defensive over the giants,

Natalia also casts firestorm,

Bob races into attack the boss and hits,

The smaller Giants kill each other,

Otto casts a quickened Haste followed by a fireball,

Boss shoots at the giant boss and hits multiple times killing the 4 armed assailant.

The group then set about to investigate the area paying particular attention to the large glass like tombstone which contained the names of everyone in the land and kingdom.

But despite their combined knowledge the group could not figure out the purpose of the mammoth like tombstone so Otto decides to teleport to nearby Varnhold leaving Natalia to fly there whilst the rest of the group walk back arriving late evening.

22nd Arodus 18 - Talon's Ahoy!

In the late afternoon, Otto teleport's the group to the Talon Peeks in Varnhold where the group set up camp for the evening ahead of the coming Bloom.

21st Arodus 18 - Might Morphin' Turtle

In the morning there are no reports waiting for the group, the only thing of any concern is that Michael one of the cities children went missing during the night of nightmares.

The town guard have had no luck in locating the child and his sister insists that he was turned into her new pet turtle.

When the sister was questioned over why she thought her turtle was her brother she responded with that she had a dream that she wanted a pet turtle and then when she woke the next morning there was a turtle in her brothers bed and her brother was nowhere to be seen.

After some investigation Natalia realises that the “turtle” has a magical aura similar to that of a baleful polymorph spell.

Otto casts dispel magic on the turtle which then suddenly turns into a young child.

Meanwhile, back at the castle Vaneer is communing with the great Erastil in hopes to gain insight to the next bloom. The cleric discovers that the next bloom would be in 2 days time, near Varnhold, multiple frost giants and would happen in the early hours of the morning.

The group rest

20th Arodus 18 - Smokin Weeds

The group aren't long awake when reports of large overgrown patches of vegetation in Pitax.

Otto teleports the group to the abandoned grounds of the Rushlight Tournament near Pitax.

As the group take in their surroundings they soon noticed that a hill not too far in the distance appears to be largely overgrown so they agree to head towards it where they soon find giant brambles.

Natalia uses her Druidic abilities to talk to the plants in the area to see if she could obtain from them a reason for their sudden growth spurt. The answer she received “We're going to take over the world” was of little help as the plants then lashed out at the Druid.

Vaneer casts a Blade barrier into the overgrowth which clears a path that begins to grow back as soon as the spell finishes.

As the overgrowth reaches about halfway in its regeneration a low pitched rumbling noise could be heard approaching from within the jungle of growth when an enormous Lizard looking creature made of plants emerges into the pathway and roars at the group.

Boss shoots at the creature and hits,

Otto rummages through his pockets in preparation,

Vaneer casts Control plants which takes affect,

Miro throws an flask of alchemists fire at the creature and hits,

Natalia casts flame strike at the create and hits,

Hugo uses his rod of razors on the creature,

Natalia casts firestorm over the creature,

Bob attacks and hits,

Otto casts Mirror image,

Boss throws an flask of alchemists fire at the creature and hits,

The creature moves into the Brambles and then suddenly appears behind the group,

Creature unleashes a breath weapon over the group,

Otto casts Fireball,

Boss shoots at the creature,

Vaneer casts a quicken Prayer followed by a Mass Cure Critical,

Miro throws another flask of Alchemists fire,

Hugo uses his Rod of Razor which misses,

Bob attacks again and hits,

Natalia casts an Anti-Gravity spell,

Creature escapes the affects of the Anti-Gravity spell and summons 3 shambling mounds,

Mound attacks Miro and misses,

Mound attacks Natalia and misses,

Mound attacks Otto and takes out one of his images,

Otto casts Fireball,

Vaneer casts command plants on the shambling mounds and tells them to 'Sod Off!',

Shambling mounds – sod off,

Miro throws another flask of Alchemists fire at the creature,

Hugo shoots at the creature and misses,

Natalia casts flame strike on the creature which turns it into a pile of burning compost.

As the creature burns away, the overgrowth vegetation begins to wither away into green smoke.

Vaneer heals the group up before Otto teleports the group home.

Upon their return Queen Margo informs her husband that whilst the group were in Pitax she entertained a visitor to the kingdom.

A 'painted lady', an evil witch like from the children's fairy tales with a large nose , bony fingers and hunched back. The witch took tea with the queen and was pleasant, her only purpose was to offer the kingdom the opportunity to hand the sword Briar over one last time in exchange for the kingdoms safety in the upcoming invasion.

The group unanimously agree that they wouldn't strike that deal and retire for the night.

19th Arodus 18 - The final squawk

Miro wakes to find himself surrounded by solid earth and standing above him looking down at him through the hole is the rest of the group, each of them holding a shovel and a creepy looking tree was looming behind them with a raven sitting among its branches.

He tries his best to escape but each time he got closer to the surface the ground seemed to magically extend away from him, eventually but some pure stroke of luck (though Miro would say skill) the Halfling manages to throw himself forward and back flips out of the hole to only land in the tree. Wasting no time Miro takes a swing at the Raven but only finds that his blade becomes lodged into the tree as he loses his balance which causes him to fall back into his grave as the Raven flies off laughing.

Miro suddenly awakes with a start to find his cot is sinking into the ground and manages to jump out of it in time before he is devoured by the courtyard floor.

….Meanwhile

Natalia suddenly finds herself at sea aboard a trade ship during heavy storms, up in the crow’s nest she could see a black bird of some sort. Before the druid could figure out what her plan of action was a mass of black tentacles erupted from under the water and attacked the ship. Not allowing herself to be distracted from the attack Natalia quickly took the form of an Air elemental and rushed to the crow’s nest to attack the bird causing it to suddenly explode as everything around her disappears.

Instantly all at once the rest of the group awake to the loud shriveled squawk that echoed around the Castle as a Colossal sized Raven appeared in the sky.

Otto casts a quickened Haste over the group followed by a disintegrate which fails to have any effect on the Night Raven,

Boss Shoots but misses,

Vaneer brings down a FireStorm but the spell does little to no damage to the creature,

Night Raven begins to swoop towards the group,

Miro flies towards the creature in hopes to out flank it but deals little damage to the creature,

Hugo attempts to mimick Miro’s actions but only ends up repeating the halfling’s results,

Natalia casts a spell <lvl7 – 3d6 dmg) and hits,

Otto attempts to cast “Hold Monster” but the spell fails to hold followed by a quickened Fireball which finds its target,

Boss attempts to shoot at the approaching Bird and finds his target with success,

Vaneer casts Destruction at the Night Raven and deals some damage,

The Night Raven attacks Miro as it flies through the group and gores the rogue,

Miro attempts the feint the creature and lands a good blow,

Hugo unleashes his Rod of Razors, showering the Raven in numerous blades with most finding its target,

Natalia starts casting a spell,

Bob wanting to join the action attempts to find a tree to climb to gain height,

Otto casts Ray of Enfeeblement which hits followed by a quickened chain lightening which causes the Night Raven to come crashing into the city destroying the royal mint to Miro’s horror!

Otto finishes the job by casting disintegrate on the creature whilst Vaneer sets to work healing Miro’s wounds.

The group tired and weary finally head home to rest knowing that their dreams are now safe once again.

18th Arodus 18 - The Nightmare Discovered

Otto awakes to find the morning light starting to creep over the horizon and then notices that none of the group are in their beds, the king gets up and searches the castle from top to bottom but finds no one and nothing.

As he wonders what is happening Otto gazes through one of the castles windows and looks over the city of Wyvernshore, again nothing seems out of sort with the city except the early morning sky contained an heavy hint of grey among it. Otto then decided to walk into the city to see if his comrades could be found there, as he walked through the streets he began to notice that a lot of the cities greenery had become either shriveled or dried up.

Eventually he spots what appears to be a hunched over figure in the distance, as he walks closer it soon becomes apparent that the figure isn’t moving and then still upon closer proximity Otto notices that the figure is a rather convincing stone carving of Miro!

Then his eyes catch sight of another figure, this one looked like Natalia. Then he spotted one of Vaneer and a local baker, Otto checks out the nearby stone masons shop only to find it devoid of any material except that of a statue of a child. He approaches the statue and places his hand on the head only to find it crumble to dust under his touch.

As the last speck of dust settles to the ground Otto notices a large Rook nearby which calls at him before flying off.

Suddenly, without any warning Otto finds himself back in his cot only to find that the ground around him has begun to churn as he starts to sink into it. His arcane training instantly tells him that he is suffering the effects of an imprisonment spell and just manages to work his way out as his cot is dragged underground. With his comrades still nowhere to be seen he begins to shout.

Shortly afterwards the rest of the group appear back at the rest spot and explain to Otto about the Miro v Miro fight and that Otto couldn’t be woken no matter how hard they tried. Otto then explains about the experience he had with the Rook leading the group to decide that they need to understand what is happening in more detail.

<Insert Research Montage>

The group after a few hours soon stumble across an old fable story book that details a folk lore about a spoon stealing Crow which turned out to be a living spell and upon deeper reflection they all remember that each of their dreams in one form or another contained a Crow/Raven/Rook.

Natalia then remembered that when she was a child of rumors of a fey legend known as the “Night Rook” which was an extremely large black Raven whose flapping wings bring nightmares to all and that it could only be either be defeated in combat or scared aware by those brave enough to face it’s terrors.

The group decide that they should again attempt to sleep in close proximity tonight in hopes that they can all be part of the same dream or to at least confront their harasser, so they rest for the rest of the day and gather just as the sun sets over the castle.