#Misty Step? No. Arrow of Transposition. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gynandromorph · 4 months

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i respec'd uh-oh to be a bardadin -- pal 2/swords bard All Other Levels. she is severely lacking mobility in a way i feel deeply when my other melee character primarily throws for damage and my casters are obviously ranged. i don't mind that she has to get in enemies' faces; she just has no fucking way to do it. no misty step spell, no nothing. she can waste a whole turn using an arrow of transposition, but this brings up another problem with her build: she doesn't really use her bonus actions for anything except smites and jumps, and she has to be in-range to smite.

vengeance, her oath, gets misty step, but at level 7, which would deprive me of the magical secrets bards only get at level 10. the other reason i wanted to dip all the way into bard is because she ends up with more spell slots in general for smites. i tried a wizard and sorcerer multiclass, and iirc bard got me more slots because the sword bar gives me an extra attack without forcing me into 5 levels of paladin. the flourishes are nice; you can use a slashing flourish to hit 2 enemies at once, and the game allows you to apply divine smite to both of them.

technically, i could take misty step with magical secrets. if the scrolls weren't such a pain in the ass to find, it wouldn't be a huge deal. i usually jump for counterspell and haste, but i find myself not really casting haste much due to a stock of speed potions. counterspell + misty step is pretty underwhelming for magical secrets, especially because magical secrets is the ONLY way to unlock banishing smite -- a traditionally level 17 paladin spell. maybe i'll just suck it up and start remembering to chug glorious vaulting and flight potions and run banishing smite + counterspell lmao. i also handed her a bow that allows you to cast haste once every long rest, so she technically HAS access to haste already, on top of my twin hasting sorcerer and shadowheart.

i also tried warlock (i ended up opening my finished #feminism paladin file and respec'd her repeatedly to see what i had to work with, but there's no way to practice battle to test out builds) but i was really underwhelmed. even IF the extra attack from the pact weapon stacks with the extra attack from paladin, i don't even have enough spell slots to smite every hit for A SINGLE ROUND. i am firmly of the belief that the ENTIRE POINT of paladin is to do massive damage with smites. if i wanted to hit without smites, i would just play a fighter. on top of that, it has you then use your charisma modifier instead of your strength modifier with the pact weapon, which is like. can you show me the potions that set your charisma to 27 until long rest? hm?????? why would i want to use charisma for my melee damage when there are very abundant, massive buffs to strength even from act 1. and yeah i have to drink an elixir every morning but i have to rebind my pact weapon every morning anyway.

lae'zel, meanwhile, i spec'd into a throw build between frenzy barb, for the enraged throws and damage resistance, and rogue, for the extra bonus action. she would benefit from levels in fighter. it works great, i have no complaints. i miss battle master maneuvers, but i could give a couple of those to uh-oh through a feat.

jesster still a sorcerer primarily with a 2-level dip into warlock for the cantrip -- i really wasn't expecting much but it honestly fucks severely now that i have the potent robes and i think some other piece of equipment that adds charisma modifier to cantrips as well. they genuinely usually do more damage with eldritch blast than magic missile, the build they were designed for, but EB isn't out of place with the buffs for MM, and the 100% hit chance of MM is always welcome. it's a lot easier to roll with the punches even if i'm low on slots with a cantrip that can do SOME damage and it makes using haste a lot more viable. i ended up rarely if ever using darkness, so i removed it and swapped devil's sight for repelling blast. better to use a lv 2 slot on invisibility than darkness maybe.

shadowheart is the same. i'm thinking of dipping more into wizard for counterspell, which you can't find as a scroll. i would be sacrificing natural chain lightning, but it's easy enough to just. acquire a billion chain lightning scrolls -- better than spell slot chain lightning even, because you can do it multiple times. because the issue with honor mode is "whether you die or not" and not "how many enemies you can kill," i feel like counterspell is just. more important. it's Really Important to be able to instantly shut down an attack that might have shredded your entire party's HP down to 30% imo. that and shield which i've shoved on all of my party members except lae'zel.

#bg3 shitposting #long post

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ollifree · 8 months

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Misty Step for the prompts, uwu

based on a true story from vash's playthrough

"Jump!" Karlach called to Astarion.

"From this high up?" he scoffed. "Do you want to see me splattered everywhere?"

Vash rolled his eyes. "What, the almighty vampire god can't misty step twice in one day?"

"Don't be cute."

"Use one of the arrows of transposition, then."

"You have them!"

"Do I?" Vash checked his quiver, and sure enough. Taking one, he showed it to Astarion before chucking it into the rafters.

"Unbelievable," Shadowheart sighed.

#olli writes #vash #baulders gate 3 #bg3 #ask #atypicalacademic #thank you bby i love you 😘#how did you know just which one to send?

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grailfinders · 4 years

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Fate and Phantasms #11: EMIYA

Today’s build on Fate and Phantasms is the surprisingly versatile swordsarcher EMIYA! He’s technically not a servant, but he looks polite so we’ll make him a build anyway. We have three goals for this build: you need to be able to throw all kinds of swords everywhere; you need to be able to enter spirit form for fast getaways; and you need to be passable with a bow and arrow. As usual, the build’s spreadsheet can be found here, and there’s a more detailed explanation for everything below the cut!

Race and Background

Emiya is a Human, but he’s not a normal servant, so we’ll take the variant option. This gives him +1 to Dexterity and Intelligence, proficiency in one skill of our choice, grab Survival, since it’s the closest thing the vanilla stat sheet has to cooking, and an extra feat, which will be Spell Sniper. This turns Archer into the Archest, doubling the range on spells with attack rolls, ignoring half and 3/4 cover on those attacks, and giving us a bonus cantrip. Grab Eldritch Blast. It has to use your charisma for the attack roll, but any spell that involves throwing a lot of projectiles around will work for you, as long as you remember to always call them swords.

Your background is a bit of a pickle. You were an orphan, but not alone, so you’re not an Urchin. You spent plenty of time perfecting your magic, but the most you can do is make swords, so you’re not a sage. In the end I had to throw my hands up and just say you’re a Far Traveler. You get proficiencies in Insight and Perception, and you also get to speak another language (like, say, English).

Stats

As usual, we’re using the standard arrary, but feel free to roll if you want. Just make sure your dex and wisdom are high enough to multiclass later. First, put your highest score into Intelligence. You have info on game mechanics that even we aren’t that clear on, and also you really need this. Next is Dexterity. You’re an archer, so it would be nice if you’re good at it. Follow that up with Charisma, then Wisdom. You’re Chaldea’s #1 mom for a reason, and we just need wisdom to be a 13. Next is Constitution, you’re an archer, so just try not to get hit too much. Finally Strength is your dump stat. Your muscles are impressive, but we needed other stats more.

Class Levels

1. Wizard 1: You may be an archer, but making things with your mind means we need magic and a lot of it. First level wizards gain a spell book and Arcane Recovery, letting you recover a number of spell slots on a short rest with a total level equal to or less than half your wizard level, and they all have to be below level 6.

You start with three cantrips and six 1st level spells, and can prepare a number of spells each day equal to your int mod and your wizard level (so right now 4). For your cantrips, grab Sword Burst (Swords out of nowhere, nice), Blade Ward (you’re... making swords to block physical attacks coming in?), and True Strike (Taking aim at a long distance target). For spells, grab Catapult (throwing existing swords at people), Ice Knife (Somebody’s had to have made a sword out of ice by now, right?), Jump and Longstrider (anime level movement), Mage Armor (you’ll probably die without it), and Magic Missile (more swords, and these can’t miss!). In case you couldn’t tell, a lot of the work for your kit is going to be more flavor based than anything. If we stuck with only spells that explicitly involved making and throwing swords, we couldn’t get much done. Fortunately, Unlimited Blade Works is well suited for this, as your DM can’t prove that flaming sword you just threw doesn’t exist in UBW.

2. Wizard 2: Second level wizards graduate from their chosen school of magic. Sadly, the School of Swords doesn’t exist (there’s the bladesingers and the bard’s college of swords, but neither of them are really what we’re after), so we’ll have to go with the next best thing, the School of Conjuration. As a conjurer, you become a Conjuration Savant, so copying conjuration spells into your spellbook costs half the time and money. You also learn Minor Conjuration, letting you spend an action to conjure a copy of any nonmagical object you’ve seen that would fit in a 3′ cube. The object is magical, glows, and only lasts for 1 hour or until it takes any damage. You can also only have one object at a time, so you can’t make Kanshou and Bakuya just yet.

For your spells, grab Expeditious Retreat and Shield for more movement and survivability options. You have Rho Aias bumping around in there, so it tracks.

3. Wizard 3: At third level, grab Cloud of Daggers and Misty Step. The former is an obvious choice, the latter counts as moving really fast, as long as you say “Nothing personnel, kid” afterwards.

4. Wizard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to beef up your Intelligence. Also grab Message as your cantrip, you’ll be away from the action most of the time and should try to stay in touch with your team. For spells, grab Invisibility to get closer to a true spirit form and Magic Weapon to improve what you can already conjure up.

5. Wizard 5: Grab Shadow Blade (weirdly not conjuration) for more sword-based fun, and also Summon Lesser Demons. The latter lets you summon 2-8 “swords” somewhere within 60′ of you. You don’t actually control these “swords”, so try not to get your teammates caught in the crossfire. The phb says to let your DM decide what gets summoned, but generally if you already have a stat block ready to go they’ll let you choose. I’ve attached stat blocks for some easily-flavored-as-living-swords demons (Dretch and Manes) in the spreadsheet.

6. Wizard 6: You gain Benign Transposition, letting you teleport as an action to any spot within 30′ of you, so long as anything in that spot is willing and small or medium size. You either teleport to that spot, or you and the willing creature swap places. You can only use this ability once per long rest, but it also recharges every time you cast a conjuration spell.

For your spells, grab Nondetection to conceal your presence and Melf’s Minute Meteors (again, weirdly not conjuration) to create and fire several broken phantasms over the course of a couple turns.

7. Wizard 7: Grab Stone Shape to make swords that will actually last, and Conjure Minor Elementals to create more living “swords”. These will listen to you, at least! Like before, you can make 1-8 “swords” that will obey your commands. Like with the demons, I’ve included some likely candidates for you to use in the spreadsheet.

8. Ranger 1: Despite being an Archer, you haven’t had proficiency in a bow and arrow yet, so let’s fix that. We’re using the Class Feature Variants UA for some of this level. As a 1st level ranger, you gain proficiencies with Light and Medium Armor, shields, simple and martial weapons, and one skill from their list. Grab Stealth to make combat an even bigger pain for your enemies. You gain a Favored Enemy, giving you advantage on checks to track and remember information about a group of creatures. As a Counter Guardian, Beasts are a pretty good choice for you to pick. You also become a Deft Explorer, grabbing the Roving option which increases your walking speed by 5′ and gives you a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walk speed. You don’t need to worry about melee combat when you’re faster than everyone else.

9. Ranger 2: You gain another bit of spellcasting as a ranger, but you’ll have to check the multiclassing table to figure out how many spell slots you’ll have. Grab Hail of Thorns (A flurry of shots in that general direction) and Hunter’s Mark (just really, really hating that guy in particular). You also get a fighting style, Archery, which gives you +2 on all attack rolls made with ranged weapons. Sadly, saying every spell you cast is a sword doesn’t count.

10. Wizard 8: Use your Ability Score Improvement to grab the Sharpshooter feat. This lets you fire a bow at long range without disadvantage, ignore half and 3/4 cover, and take a 5 point deficit to your attack roll in exchange for a 10 point bonus on damage. Ideally, your opponent should be somewhere in the next zipcode when you engage them.

For spells, grab Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere for more shield action and Greater Invisibility to get closer to your spirit form.

11. Wizard 9: Grab Conjure Elemental for one big “sword” that will follow your orders. Just try not to lose concentration until next level, or it might start swinging at you. As with the other summoning spells, some good picks for swordifying are in the spreadsheet. Also grab Telekinesis to get finer control when you throw swords around.

12. Wizard 10: You learn Focused Conjuration, making it impossible for you to lose concentration due to damage when focusing on conjuration spells. Grab Green Flame Blade as your cantrip this level. You probably will never use it, but it does have blade in the name so it can’t be all bad. Also grab Creation to make swords that can last a bit longer than the ones made by Minor Conjuration. Also, grab Animate Objects so you can perform Triple Crane Wings from 500′ away.

13. Wizard 11: Grab Sunbeam to make some Swords of Revealing Light that will ruin the day of anything within 60′ of you. Also grab Legend Lore. With this many legendary weapons rattling around inside you, you’ve probably gotten pretty good at figuring them out.

14. Wizard 12: Use your Ability Score Improvement to max out Intelligence, and grab Melf’s Acid Arrow- I mean sword- and Tongues to make sure everyone knows how cool your chant is.

15. Wizard 13: Grab Crown of Stars to put more finesse behind your Swords of Revealing Light, and Etherealness to reach a true spirit form.

16. Wizard 14: You now have Durable Summons. Any creature you make with a conjuration spell starts with 30 extra hit points. Sadly this only really effects your demonic and elemental “swords”. Grab Prismatic Spray to launch eight different elemental swords at once, and Plane Shift to drag your enemies into Unlimited Blade Works if they get too close. You haven’t made Unlimited Blade Works yet, but you’ll get there.

17. Wizard 15: Grab the spells Demiplane to start making your own pocket dimensions filled with swords. Each casting of Demiplane makes a door to a 30′ cube room that can hold anything that can fit in it. Each cast can either make a new room or connect to a room you have already made, or even one made by someone else if you know of it. Also grab Counterspell. You have Rule Breaker in UBW, so chuck one at a wizard if they start getting too uppity.

18. Wizard 16: Use your last Ability Score Improvement to become Resilient in Dexterity. You have plenty of movement options to avoid physical combat, but a fireball is still an issue. Now you have a better shot at surviving a spell or two. Grab Mighty Fortress to relive the Gudaguda days, and Flame Arrows/swords to give your bow attacks a bit more variety.

19. Wizard 17: Grab Wish to win the Holy Grail, and Meteor Swarm to launch some supercharged Broken Phantasms.

20. Wizard 18: For your last level, grab Prismatic Wall and Invulnerability to make some shields worthy of the name Rho Aias. You also gain Spell Mastery, letting you cast a first and second level spell at will for no cost, as long as they’re prepared. I’d suggest picking Shield and Ice Knife so you can use the former constantly and the latter to recharge your teleportation in a pinch, but you can always change them later, so it’s not a huge deal.

Pros: You have a lot of long ranged attack options, with plenty of damage types to pick from. If any enemies do get close to you, you can always teleport away.

Cons: You have very, very, very low health. If you get surprised or run out of teleportation, a solid crit can be a serious threat to you. Also, you only have ranged attacks, meaning your usefulness is inversely proportional to how far away you can stay from the enemy. Open fields? very powerful. Cramped caves? Much less so. A lot of your spells need concentration too, so you can’t summon too many swords on your enemies at once.

#fgo #fate grand order #dnd #EMIYA #Fate and Phantasms

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friendshipcampaign · 4 years

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Session Recap 7/21/19: Osteo-Pour-osis

That night, as Ditto was keeping watch inside the inn, she heard the pouring rain outside let up a bit, only to be replaced by the sound of clattering. When she looked outside to see if it was now hailing, she discovered that it was actually a great number of tiny bones falling from the sky like rain or snow. She woke up Amaranth, who suggested they wake up Erwyn, saying it might be something “on the portal-y side of things,” and Ditto agreed. One awoken, Erwyn also agreed that it was likely connected to the Abyssal breach, but he wasn’t sure if it was a real danger or just unnerving.

The rain of bones was short, but as it slowed Ditto noticed some of the bones starting to coalesce into a larger mass and head towards the inn stables. She and Amaranth agreed they should rouse everyone at that point. Amaranth raced to the boys’ room to shake Kriv awake and told him to speak to Volfred right away.

“Hey bud, you okay?” Kriv used his telepathic link to ask sleepily.

“Ah, Krivo, I may be in need of assistance,” the goat replied.

Kriv surged awake at that and started racing downstairs. The others dashed after him. Kriv and Erwyn reached the back door first, but it was locked, so Amaranth picked it open to let them in. As she worked, she saw bones starting to pour into the stables through a metal lattice. Voski was the next to make it downstairs, having converted her glamoured armor back from its night-time form, followed by Ditto. Soon, everyone was inside the stable, but the bones were pouring in and starting to actively threaten Volfred and the other stable inhabitants: two horses and a fat pony.

Volfred called out to Kriv telepathically even as the bones overwhelmed him, saying, “Krivo, be brave.”

Erwyn fired his divine arrow bearing Corellon’s symbol into the mass of bones, hoping it would slow them. There was an explosion of silvery light, and some of them retreated. He followed up with another shot using his usual non-magical ammunition. Amaranth attacked with her swords before jumping back and disengaging to avoid getting swarmed herself. Voski, who hadn’t actually believed Ditto when she’d mentioned moving bones, ran back inside to bang on the inn’s front desk counter, shouting about an attack on the stables. Ben ran over shortly, looking distraught at the circumstances. As she moved back towards the others, she also cast Locate Object on Tenny’s cloak to confirm that the child was still safe upstairs.

Ditto called out to Volfred before using Benign Transposition to swap places with him -- landing herself in the middle of the swarm of bones instead. The goat was already unconscious. Kriv screamed in anger and shot his lightning breath at the bones, though it seemed not to have much effect. At that point the swarm was starting to swirl and attack Ditto.

Voski felt her Locate Object signal moving as Tenny seemed to start heading downstairs, then hesitate. Back in the stable, Erwyn fired more arrows into the bone mass before conjuring a Healing Spirit centered on Volfred (in the form of a goat, as he was a bit too panicked to be all that creative). Amaranth tried to cut her way into the bones but failed to land any more hits. Voski waded in the bare minimum distance necessary to reach the tiefling and cast Freedom of Movement on her.

“I hate this,” she said, inspiring Amaranth.

Ben called for everyone to get inside and opened the doors to let the animals flee in as well. Ditto, able to see snatches of the stable interior through the bones due to the others’ attacks, was able to Misty Step out of the swarm and into the hayloft. After Erwyn’s Healing Spirit restored some health to him, Volfred lumbered up to his feet. Seeing his goat was okay, Kriv called out to him.

“Very dramatic!” he called out.

“It felt apropos,” Volfred said.

Kriv called out to Ben, asking if he thought his door could handle an onslaught of bones. He then grabbed his holy symbol, using Turn the Unholy to drive the bones away so that everyone could make their retreat back into the inn. Everyone made it inside before Ben shut the door -- except for one of the horses, which had already been consumed.

Ben immediately ran to check on the windows. Erwyn moved his Healing Spirit over to Volfred again, then Ditto, so they could heal up some more inside. Kriv hugged his steed tightly. Volfred nuzzled him back and asked Kriv to thank Ditto for him.

“She is very brave, and very foolish,” the goat observed.

The pony and the remaining horse seemed very distressed by the circumstances, so Erwyn cast Speak With Animals to try to calm them down. As he did so, he accidentally triggered a wild magic surge. A silver-hued tree with nine completely different fruits growing on it sprouted up out of the floorboards behind him. The fat pony asked if he’d grown them food and wandered over to chomp on one of the fruits, seeming strangely calmed by this development. Another flower grew back where the fruit that was eaten had been.

Voski and Amaranth went looking for Tenny and found her crouched halfway down the stairs, hugging Tiktik. She’d been frightened when the party ran downstairs. They coaxed her down to join the others. Ben returned with his brother and asked about the mysterious tree that had suddenly grown in his inn, nervous that it was potentially demonic. Voski asked Kriv what he thought and when he used a Divine Sense and reported that it seemed to be fine, she turned to Ben, saying, “You can trust him; he’s a paladin.”

Ben thanked the party, and particularly Kriv, for dealing with the situation. He asked if he should make some kind of an offering to his god as thanks. Kriv commented that he felt like it was really more between him and his deity personally, and Ben added that was alright, but that these days he still liked to know he and the city were in someone’s good graces.

On inspection, the fruit tree was growing a mango, an apple, a small fuzzy fruit like a rambutan that none of the party recognized, and a pomegranate, among other things. Some of the party members selected fruits to eat. Erwyn was not particularly adventurous and took an apple, but Ditto picked the weird fruit on principle, and Amaranth doubtfully inspected the pomegranate. Voski, selecting a mango, explained to her that it was a fruit one had to break into and rob, and the tiefling excitedly went at it with her knife. Erwyn also picked a bunch of grapes and handed them to Tenny, asking if she wanted them. She was hesitant, but after he bit into his own fruit first to try to prove it was safe she accepted the grapes readily.

As everyone retreated to their rooms again, Amaranth scolded Ditto for putting herself in harm’s way with her teleporting. The wizard reassured her that she’d had a plan to get out, but Amaranth commented that she worried one day it wouldn’t work how Ditto wanted it to. Ditto commented that she had waded into the bones too, but Amaranth countered that she’d only been going in after Ditto. The two promised each other they would try to take care of themselves. Amaranth offered her some of her pomegranate, saying she liked how much the fruit looked like blood.

Before going back to bed himself, Kriv visited the girls’ room and scooped Ditto up in a tight hug. She quietly asked him if he was okay. He said he was alright, though he’d been worried at first. On his way out, Voski thwacked him a little with her tail and asked if Volfred was okay. He said he thought so, and she offered him a slice of mango, which he accepted a little confusedly. He then went into the boys’ room and wrapped Erwyn up in a similar strong hug.

During Amaranth and Erwyn’s watches later that night, both of them could hear some of the bones swirling in swarms near the inn, but none approached the fervor or danger of earlier. In the morning, when the party headed downstairs, there were new fruits already ripening on the tree. Ben was consuming an entire tankard of coffee. He asked if anyone else wanted some and Erwyn declined, saying it made him very anxious. Voski said she’d have his.

The party retreated to the boys’ room to talk about their plans. They decided they would keep Volfred -- whom they had snuck upstairs the previous night -- in the demiplane for now in order to keep him safe. There was also some discussion of how likely it was there were more people in the city possessed in a similar manner to Tenny, or if the demon that had possessed her might have found another host. They decided to talk to the child herself to see if they could learn anything from her, and also ask about why she had Quest’s dagger.

Amaranth spoke to Tenny first when the party joined her again. She asked her about the dagger, saying that it had a twin somewhere in the city. Tenny said she knew, because she’d seen it, but the person carrying the blade hadn’t thrown that one. Amaranth asked her to describe the person and Tenny gave a description of Quest, down to the clothes the party knew she’d been wearing the day she went missing. Tenny said she’d watched from a hiding spot nearby as Quest was stopped by some of the mercenaries that enforced curfew in the city. She described a band lead by an orc man wearing armor with a wyvern engraved on the breastplate, and an actual wyvern keeping pace with the group up on the roofs. They had caught Quest after curfew, and while she shouted that someone had kept her waiting and she was heading back now, they wouldn’t listen. She’d fought against them but lost after a short struggle, then threw the ice dagger as they dragged her away to the workhouse.

Tenny seemed to think the group would be mad that she’d just watched, but Amaranth assured her it was the opposite -- that the little girl had given them some critically important information. Voski asked her if she knew where the workhouse was, and Tenny said there were two now, since one had been constructed near the old bridge for people taken in to help clean up in the exclusion zone after the disaster.

Amaranth then knelt down in front of Tenny and asked her if she knew who gave her the mark on her arm. Tenny said she didn’t remember, and angrily rubbed at it. When Tenny then asked if she was safe from the demons now, Amaranth got up to discreetly ask Erwyn if he thought they’d be able to track her from the mark on her arm. He said he thought it was most likely just a mark left behind from the possession, rather than any individual demon’s brand, and thought she would likely be safe.

While the two of them spoke, Ditto distracted Tenny’s attention and asked about her mom, whom Tenny had mentioned losing track of. She explained that after the disaster, the baths had closed and her mother had lost her job, so she went to the workhouse to do labor for them when they could no longer pay rent at the place they’d been staying. She said it was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks, but it had been a month now and her mother hadn’t come back. She added that it was dangerous for tieflings to go to the workhouse these days. Apparently, they weren’t coming back.

#session recap

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friendshipcampaign · 6 years

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Session Recap 4/28/18

Voski asked Amaranth if she saw anything, and Amaranth replied “Yeah, giant tentacle thing headed towards us. Warn the others! I’m going to attack it.”

As she charged at the creature, some of the teeth and tentacles started to materialize on the Material Plane as well. She struck the creature twice with her blades, causing it to let out an ear-splitting shriek. Voski whirled around and used her lightning breath on the creature, scooted away from it as soon as her attack hit.

It was then that every single one of the creature’s horrible mouths descended on Amaranth, knocking her unconscious with the force of the attack. It gripped her in its teeth, and began to fly away. Kriv dashed forward, clutching his holy symbol, and used the platinum scale to heal her at a distance, at least bringing her back to consciousness. But she remained gripped in its mouths. Erwyn then fired two arrows at the creature that both hit, with the little flashes of silver energy that usually accompanied his attacks.

Ditto, however, decided that the most important thing was getting Amaranth out of the creature’s clutches. She used her Benign Transposition ability to switch places with her, landing the tiny gnome in the monster’s mouths and the tiefling on the group behind Kriv. As soon as Amaranth figured out what had happened, she shouted “You idiot!” and chucked her dagger at the creature. Voski followed the attack up by centering a Shatter spell on it, away from where Ditto was so that it wouldn’t harm her.

The single, large head, which still wasn’t visible to everyone on the ground, then attacked Ditto, seriously injuring her. She only managed to hang on due to the vitality that Kriv had imbued in her earlier with his Aid spell. Seeing the creature attack her friend, Amaranth channeled her rage into a Hellish Rebuke that injured it further. Kriv followed Voski’s lead and also hit it with his lightning breath, and Erwyn managed to sink two more arrows into it.

Ditto used Misty Step to get out of the creatures mouths before it could attack her again, appearing on the ground again a little behind Kriv. She then crouched down on the ground and used Minor Illusion to create a little lump of grass to hide behind, knowing that she was in fairly bad condition and probably would do best to stay out of the fray until someone was able to heal her.

Seeing how effective it had been the first time, and with Ditto now safely out of the way, Voski cast Shatter on it again. Once the spell had taken effect, she then turned to Erwyn, trying to inspire him, and said “Shoot it down!”

At this point, the creature was beginning to fly away and Kriv headed over to Ditto and used his healing kit on her. Erwyn, however mentioned not wanting this thing to sneak up on them again and narrowed his eyes. He fired two more arrows at it, both of which struck true, and the creature plummeted to the ground, dead and fully visible.

With the combat over, Amaranth headed over to Ditto and shouted “Don’t ever do that again!” before hugging her tightly. Ditto softly assured her that she was alright, and Kriv had even healed her up.

While Voski contacted Auntie to inform her that they’d taken the creature down, Amaranth headed over to the creature’s carcass to retrieve her dagger. Once everyone was gather together again, Erwyn brought up a concern of his -- with the path they’d planned on taking, they had never been supposed to go through a marsh. He pointed out that the island must have shifted. Some possible alternate routes to keep them on-track to arrive at the entrance were discussed, but they decided to keep heading the direction they’d planned to see if they could figure out the pattern better.

The next area they entered through the fog was a full marshland, not the brackish seaside one they had previously been in. With the ground particularly difficult to traverse, Ditto hopped into Voski’s backpack. Erwyn also struggled quite a lot with keeping up the pace, but tried to push forward for as long as he could before several party members gave him pointed glances. Sound ashamed, he then ask if Kriv would help him get on top of Volfred.

As they walked, they spotted some strangely spherical bushes, which put everyone on guard and they decided to ignore them. They also came across some mushrooms that Kriv was able to identify as a hallucinogenic kind called basidrond. He stopped to gather some of them, covering his snout, and put them in his herbalism kit. When Voski raised an eyebrow and asked him what he was doing, he claimed that “They can sell for good money.”

The next time they stepped through the fog, not having had any major encounters, they felt that odd shifting feeling that had occurred once before. The environment on the other side was a bit of wetland that very quickly transitioned into a bright turquoise ocean. It was also much warmer than the areas they’d walked through thus far.

Noting that this area seemed to be closer to the tropical environments, implying the outer ring was shifting as well, Voski contacted Auntie again to ask her if the lair entrances at least were stationary. She confirmed that they were. She also gave Voski a little more information on the lair, telling her that there might be some treasure inside that they would be free to take if they wanted.

Knowing that they would only have one hex to go, everyone figured they should probably still follow on their intended path. The problem was that those areas were now ocean. Erwyn pointed out that they -- or at least he -- definitely wouldn’t be able to swim the whole way to get there. It seemed like an impossible obstacle to get where they needed to go, and no one was keen on the idea of camping somewhere for the night if the terrain could shift around them.

As they discussed their options, some sleek, black, seal-like heads popped up in the water, watching them. When he noticed them, Kriv shouted out “Can you speak Common? Or are you animals?” -- causing them all to start loudly barking at him. He then turned to Erwyn and asked if he could talk to the creatures, like he was sometimes able to. Erwyn nodded, saying he could give it a try, then headed down to the shore to try to speak with the creatures.

All of them were very enthusiastic, if possibly a little childish. When Erwyn asked them if they knew of any ways to get across the ocean, they started chattering about someone they called “island friend” that could be able to help. Erwyn at first misunderstood and thought they were referring to Auntie Eyren, but it became clear that they were actually talking about a very large creature. He asked if they could bring the creature here, and they agreed -- on the condition that he play with them afterwards.

Erwyn returned to the others and told them the seal creatures were possibly getting someone who could help. While they all waited, the party took the opportunity to rest and clean up a bit using Amaranth’s magic soap to get rid of the muck from the marshes. Voski played a little sea shanty on her lute as they rested, and Amaranth, recognizing it, sat next to her as they looked out over the sea, humming along next to her.

After a while, a small island started to come into view. It turned out to be a massive turtle, but couldn’t get through the shallow water near the shore, but the excited seal creatures did, and Erwyn went back down and cast his spell to talk to them again. They excitedly encouraged him to go talk to their friend. He looked back at the others for a second, indicating what he was about to do, then headed out into the water.

Erwyn explained the situation to the turtle, making sure to tell it that they didn’t want to impress upon it and weren’t demanding anything. The creature communicated via telepathic feelings (which were largely overwhelming to Erwyn in their immensity), and sent him one asking who he and his group were. It seemed afraid. Explaining that they were here to help Auntie try to fix the plane.

The turtle then sent Erwyn visions, of a large community of creatures like it, then of humanoids arriving in ships, of them mistreating and hunting the large turtles, and of this one barely escaping. Erwyn apologized that something so awful had happened to it, but that he and his companions wouldn’t do anything to hurt it. He also quietly admitted to it that he’d had to run away from some terrible things himself. He then asked the turtle if there was anything they could do to prove to it that they were there to help.

There was a long pause as the creature seemed to consider it, appearing to think very slowly. Erwyn was beginning to have trouble staying afloat -- he didn’t generally have the stamina to tread water for this long, but especially not on a day where he’d been so exhausted. Eventually, the turtle indicated he should place a hand on its head. As soon as he did so, he could feel the turtle entering his mind -- not maliciously, but completely, to the point that it felt like it now knew everything about him. But after the presence receded, it indicated to him that it agreed to help them.

Before talking to everyone else, Erwyn flopped down on the shore, entirely worn out. Eventually (still lying on the ground) he informed the party that they had a ride. He also told them that the turtle had been very nervous about helping them and he hoped they would be very gentle with it.

Amaranth asked if they needed to do something for the seals and Erwyn tiredly said he would need a moment before giving them what he’d offered. She gave him a look and said someone else could probably do it -- in fact, Ditto had made a little ball using Minor Conjuration and had been playing with them already, and Voski had tossed them some dried fish from her rations. This seemed like it was enough to satisfy them.

Kriv was the first to get on top of the turtle and assisted everyone else in getting on, though Erwyn, still very tired, lagged behind a little. It began to swim in the direction they needed, and everyone took the opportunity to rest -- Kriv even pulled out his bedroll and napped a little. Ditto continued to play with the seal creatures, who were swimming alongside them, and also chatted with a lizard.

They passed through another line of fog, and saw a strange distortion in the center of the ocean in this area. The turtle asked if this was where they were headed to and Erwyn said it probably was. He thanked it once more, and the large creature sent him back a telepathic feeling of warmth.

Everyone dove down into the water, with Ditto dismissing Tiktik so that they didn’t have to worry about their wings getting wet. After only a short while, they no longer found themselves in water -- just oddly suspended above a visible hatch. Voski sent a message to Auntie Eyren to ask her how to open the hatch. She followed her instructions and stuck the token she’d been given into the carved stone in the middle of it. Unfortunately, the hag was quite a lot stronger than any of the party members, and it turned out she’d neglected to mention it would be very heavy to lift. Voski couldn’t manage to get it open, and it took Kriv taking a crack at it with her help to manage it.

The tunnel inside was very dark, but everyone hopped in. They debated for a little while how they were going to get the heavy hatch closed -- Ditto suggested using her rhymer’s ring to cast the spell “Gravitate” instead of “Levitate” but it was vetoed due to seeming like it would be unpredictable and possibly not good enough a rhyme. Eventually, Erwyn pointed out that it might actually be best to leave it open since these hatches would probably be very hard to open from the inside as well, and they didn’t want to get trapped.

Kriv put on his blindsense scarf and Voski did the same with her goggles of the night. She spotted a large hole in the floor that seemed to be where they needed to go, and cast Feather Fall on herself, Amaranth, Erwyn, Volfred, and Kriv on the count of three so they could get down. Ditto and Tiktik (who’d been summoned back) followed them, flying.

They agreed it had been a hard day and they should probably camp for the night before heading further into the tunnels. Voski cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut around them all and they settled in for the night, even though it was a bit early for sleep. Kriv used his holy symbol again to heal Amaranth a little more as everyone sat around in the soft glow of the shelter and nibbled on their rations.

As everyone relaxed, Voski asked Amaranth out-of-the-blue if she would teach her some Infernal swear words. When Amaranth asked her why she wanted to know them, Voski just replied that it had been a long day. Amaranth passed Voski her flask and told her she’d be happy to teach her (probably especially after Erwyn had declined her offer to learn some well over a month ago when they’d chatted in Infernal back on the Kraken’s Beak).

Ditto wandered over to Kriv and asked him what he thought about the spell “Finer Illusion” as a substitute for Minor Illusion using the rhymer’s ring, but he was skeptical and asked what it would even do. Quietly, Erwyn, who was getting very sleepy and was leaning up against Volfred next to Kriv, mumbled something about it not really being grammatically correct either.

Amaranth complimented Voski’s ability to pick up on Infernal words, saying “You picked that up quickly!” -- to which Voski replied “I had an excellent teacher, with a vast vocabulary.”

Everyone eventually settled in to rest (sleep, in all cases but Erwyn’s), but they were all woken up partway through the night by Ditto sitting bolt upright and shouting “From beyond death, from beyond life, from beyond this plane, I will rise!” before lying back down and starting to go back to sleep. Kriv whacked her in the side of the head. When everyone else responded like they weren’t shocked at this, he asked if it was something that had been going on for a while. Everyone else said it was, although when Erwyn mentioned he was fairly certain what was going on, Voski asked him to please share that with the rest of them. He explained the beholder situation, though he admitted he didn’t know how dangerous or harmless it actually was, he’d just heard rumors about this sort of thing happening to people who’d been around dead beholders. Voski commented that if this was a recorded thing, there were probably people who’d cured it -- or tried to -- and that they should really look into that.

After the incident, everyone was able to fall back asleep or into their trance and things passed uneventfully. This is, at least until Erwyn, who was the first up as usual, noticed something odd while keeping watch. The hut had disappeared, having been cast a bit early in the evening, and he was able to hear some shuffling noises and catch glimpses of something ephemeral and swirling, though only ever in the corner of his eye. Nervous, he gently shook Kriv awake and explained what he’d seen. The paladin agreed that it was probably reasonable to wake the others, so they did, explaining the situation.

No one else was able to spot anything, but they agreed it might be best to end their rest and move onward throughout the tunnels and into one of the three in front of them. Voski contacted Auntie Eyren to ask if there was one in particular that would take them where they needed to go. She said that they should all lead to the center, so the party didn’t need to worry about that. Voski alse asked if she was sure there wasn’t anything else down here, explaining what Erwyn claimed to have seen. Auntie asked if they’d left the hatch open, and when Voski replied “It’s very heavy, ma’am,” the hag told her something must have gotten in from outside while they slept.

Finished asking questions, Voski asked Erwyn if he’d seen anything come in from behind them while he kept watch. He replied, seeming confused, that he was almost certain he hadn’t and that this thing hadn’t really seemed like a sea creature. He did also say, however, ears drooping a bit, that he could have just been imagining things.

Before they set out, Kriv used his Divine Sense to check the area and registered a faint undead presence. It seemed to be strongest near the leftmost tunnel, so everyone agreed they would take the one on the far right. The paladin also made sure to cast Aid on Amaranth, Ditto, and Erwyn again since it had proven so important the day before.

As everyone packed up, Erwyn, Kriv, and Amaranth all realized that they couldn’t seem to find some of their things. It was as if they had vanished overnight. They shrugged it off though, and everyone headed down the tunnel to the right.

Kriv and Erwyn were brining up the rear, along with Volfred, due to the elf still seeming very tired (if maybe a little better than yesterday). Partway into their journey, however, both of them were overcome with the feeling that there was something incredibly important behind them, and they had to try to get to it. They both turned around dashing back through the tunnel. The others heard the noise of them setting off and called out to them, asking what was going on, but they didn’t respond and wouldn’t stop for anything. Volfred bleated loudly at the party women, encouraging them to follow him as he chased after the boys.

Kriv and Erwyn eventually disappeared around a corner that no one had noticed to the right. When Ditto reached the same wall, she quickly marked it with an arrow of colorful ink in the direction they’d originally been headed, so that they wouldn’t risk getting lost. She then continued the pursuit with Amaranth, Voski, and Volfred, but they didn’t manage to catch Kriv and Erwyn before they both fell into a hole in the cavern floor that sealed itself shut as soon as they passed through it.

The boys found themselves in a cavern, where Kriv, having finally come to his senses, noticed a translucent, smoky creature with a beaked face, tentacles, and hypnotic patterns swirling across its skin and shell -- that Erwyn was still headed towards.

#session recap

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