Branwen begins to hum Bird’s Song, the Marmot is watching her attentively. She draws Gale. We all witness a darkening around her, like a cloud went in front of the sun. A ghostly flock of ravens swarms around her. The party is not terrified, as they are familiar with Branwen, and she’s warned them that this could happen. But this would scare the pants off of most folks.
As this happens, Storr wants to jump down behind the Marmot, near the cave mouth, while the Marmot is distracted.
The pine marten CAWS like a corvid would. One of the ravens flies over to him. The ravens swirl around all of us›, and we disappear into blackness. We hear the 5 tones we’ve heard before. Low voices, growing into a crash loud noise. We almost feel like we don’t exist in space, just blackness and sound. We roll CON saving throws. Krambler stays conscious, the rest of us pass out. The elements form around Krambler, and we all wake up in a woodland. (Silas is humanoid again)
We hear birds singing in the trees.
It does not feel like the same place we just were at. No mound, no cave, no singing.
We attempt to find higher ground, but end up in the same spot as we started. Confirmed by Balz’s favored landscape.
Silas suggests maybe we ride some eagles, which everyone hates.
Branwen plays Cricket’s Lullaby on the flute (dirty 20 perf roll), with the intention of “soothing the earth”, convincing it that we are on board with the song. The party finds itself entirely convinced that we should make camp RIGHT HERE in this forest.
We do.
We wake and try to walk again with the idea that we’ve learned our lesson. And yet, we end up back in the same place.
Silas communes with nature with the intention of located the bear. The bear and the mound is both very close and also inaccessible and locked away. The space around us is confusing as to how it’s laid out. It seems non-euclidean, we’re touching things that we shouldn’t in that way. We feel a web of personality that stretches around us, but can’t quite pinpoint what is is or means. In a way, this a forest that seems natural, but also seems like the dial’s up to 11.
Bran pulls out the boneflute and plays the bird song on it. The scene changes, not transported, but it’s night. We hear a rustling, and a huge black bear with a tasteful autumnal cape appears.
WE FIGHT
- Our rolls are terrible. A 6 starts.
- On its turn, the bear HOWLS. One claw swipe at Storr, another at Kramb, a chomp at Silas, all hits,
- Balthazar is highly effective between two attacks, sneak attack, colossus slayer and Hunter’s Mark.
- On its next turn it roars out a CONE OF BLACKNESS. K takes 32 DAMAGE. K goes down.
- Branwen manages to shove the bear off the cliff finally! With Thunder!
- Bear on bear violence takes him down, and he collapses into a shadowy heap, leaving Silas with a foul taste in his mouth.
We felt a presence of evil to the bst of our knowledge. This was bad, unnatural. Something was not right. We wouldn’t necessarily equate this to a black water situation.