In the shadow of the tree there are a bunch of centaurs that are minding their own business and pay little attention to us. They seem to be in a really bad shape: unhealed scars, sick looking, at least from the distance.
While we try to approach them, from two of the nearby smaller trees, some forest spirits appear, looking like dryads, shaking their perky breasts[2] in our direction.
After tough negotiations we are permitted to do our investigations near the old tree but only for one day and one night. Luckily for us there are cavelike entrances all around the Grandfather Tree, we manage to find a “U” shape metal full of electrum runes. Happy with our discovery we leave the place in no more than 20 hours avoiding a fight with the dryads or the centaurs. Sneaky us :)
With this great success we are determined to find at least one more artifact to help us in our quest so we head towards Stonestrand, another marked point on our pork skin map. We get more friendly with our Dragon bodyguard and as all friends do, we share a drink with her. Groin’s 99 degrees alcohol seems to be too strong for an inexperienced dragon, so Denisa will be knocked down by the booze. Soon enough we will find out that this was not the greatest idea we had, but nevertheless a funny one.
Sometime in the evening we reach our destination. A lonely tree is sitting on top of a hill, very suspicious. Usually when something is suspicious we engage as mighty adventurers we are. This time the cleric is very sharp in his senses and feels necromancy magic under the tree’s roots. Seems we are in the right place. As we approach the tree, the phantom of a necromancer will appear and scares us almost to death. Every time we kill a phantom another one appears doing the same scary scream all over again.
Usually aging is not a big problem in this fantastic world, so Ren has no concerns when he fails his ability check that will age him 1d4 times 10 years, all in all he is only 21 years old, some aging can do him good. “When you roll you better roll big” someone said, so he rolls his d4 and what do you think? It’s a 4, GG Ren you are now 61 years old. We don’t give up on this artifact yet, another phantom → another fight → another scary scream → another fail check by Ren. Roll for aging: “When you roll you better roll big” someone said earlier, so Ren rolls again his d4, everybody screams with joy another big roll 4 again.[3]
Ren you are now 101 years old, at least you did not disappoint with the rolls.
Before midnight we fight 4 phantoms and defeat them all only aging 90 years as a team, 80 years Ren and 10 years Szivem. The phantoms stop appearing for some reason so we start digging the site with our weapons because we have no digging tools with us, also no Dragon because she is still drunk, a Dragon would have been so helpful at digging but our funny and not so smart decision on getting her drunk seems to count now.
Hours pass and once we pass the midnight another phantom appears, this time Ren has no years to give so we run from the battle with the intention on coming back in the morning. The next day the Dragon will wake up and with new forces we go fight the necromancer’s phantom again. Not disappointing at all the phantom manages to also age the Dragon about 20-30 years, the existing writings are not very clear this time as 20 or 30 years for a dragon are not something we really care about (so we think).
We again defeat all foes and start digging again, this time we have a dragon digging for us so in a few minutes she comes back with the loot. A giant skull that we take to our ship.
As I said before we don’t care about the dragon aging 20-30 years, I couldn’t be more wrong as it seems the dragon needs his hibernation time or at least a long sleep as all dragons do once in a while. She falls asleep on the ship and off we go to the next artifact. Again with no dragon to help us in our quest.
The next destination is called One stone, and what do you think we find there? Of course a big stone. We inspect the stone and while we do that the earth tumbles and out it comes a man riding a big insect.
We manage to fight the man and the insect off, killing them both[4]. We sense a new threat in the distance[5] so we rush in to tie the stone to the ship and try to lift it up. The sleeping dragon aboard the ship and this stone are too heavy to be lifted together… 20-30 year aging on a dragon is no problem you say?
Extreme decision is made: we throw off all the food and drinks from the ship, ALL THE DRINKS !!! In order to take off with the ship. At least we have a cleric with us that can conjure tasteless food and fresh water so we don’t starve.
Still a sad day to live by: ALL THOSE DRINKS...
[1] Again, her name is... you know what, nevermind.
[2] Indeed.
[3] And here I thought that this encounter will be too easy. Just one CR6 monster. A couple of special abilities. No big deal.
[4] I love it that nobody even thought of questioning whether they had any reason to come there at that specific time. These are simple people. They see enemies, they kill them.
[5] A barbarian horde, coming fast from the treeline.
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