Session 34 - Iwee Saves The Day!
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1489DR Marpenoth 28. End of session: 1489DR Uktar 03
Our "Heroes" finish their preparations in the town of Neverwinter, stocking up on supplies and honing their skills. Bryn reports that he has managed to arrange a contract to deliver some cargo to the island of Ruathym - this will enable him to get away from Neverwinter with some of the escaped pirates and carve out a new business. He offered to ferry the party to the Abbey Isle on the way.
After some discussion, the group decided to get Bryn to drop them off, then deliver his cargo and come back for them after about three days, where he would wait for a day or so for them to return to the ship and he would bring them back to Neverwinter.
Our "Heroes" took back to the sea - Derrick not at all impressed to be off of dry land once again, just as he was starting to forget the terrible sea-sickness that he suffers from. The trip to the Isle was uneventful and the group were dropped off as promised at the only place that a small rowboat could land, on the southern tip of Abbey Isle.
With Bryn's ship, "The Tired Adventurer", disappearing on the horizon to deliver his cargo, the party look around. The Isle seems to be surrounded by tall cliffs, and this small cove appears to give the only easy access onto the island. An obvious path leads between two hills and disappears into the barren sand dunes beyond.
At the near end of this path, almost covered by the drifting sands, Derrick finds the body of a young, female halfling. Parts of her flesh seem to have been torn off her body, but Derrick also spots deep cuts on her body, seemingly caused by bladed attacks. As Karoshi says a prayer over the body, Derrick rifles her tattered pockets, finding a small amount of gold, some radiant tokens, and a scrawled note that seems to consist of a strange combination of letters and numbers, and the words: "From the Big Rock". Other than the nearby tall cliffs, there seems to be no "big rock" that the note could refer to.
With no other options or paths, the group set off into the dunes. Iwee begins what is to become a very successful day for her, by managing to spot the trail into the dunes, as well as the path followed by the dead halfling, though neither path is easy to follow, and even moving in the loose sand is proving difficult. Iwee is also suspicious of possible traps that may have been left on the path, so she moves carefully and slowly, checking as she goes. The rest of the group follow, keeping their eyes open for any possible surprises.
After a number of hours of following the trail very slowly, Derrick, unsurprisingly, gets fed up and decides to head away from the path to climb a nearby tall dune to get a better view of their situation. The fact that the track so far has not been direct, but very winding, is concerning, but not enough to stop Derrick from breaking away on his own. The others reluctantly follow him, but at a distance.
Which makes it all the more dangerous for Derrick when, halfway up the dune, on his own, the sands around him begin to shift and four skeletons of crystal appear and attack!
Derrick is in trouble. The four crystal skeletons lay into him with swords. His friends start to run towards him, but they are too far away to reach him quickly. Derrick's health drains away from repeated attacks, including damage from shards of crystals that fly towards him every time he manages to hit one of the creatures. Iwee "helps" by managing to hypnotise two of the skeletons with a hypnotic pattern of lights, taking them out of the fight. Unfortunately the light display also hypnotises an easily-distracted Derrick too, and he is therefore even more exposed to the attacks from the other two skeletons.
Karoshi, surprising all around him at his new-found ability, quickly summons his celestial steed - a giant lizard used to walking on sand. The party take a short break from the potentially deadly battle to christen the new party member - duly named "Sully", before Karoshi on his trusty mount manages to reach Derrick before the skeletons take him down. He quickly rouses Derrick from his stupor to bring him back into the fight, though Derrick is still badly hurt.
Meanwhile Jaxii is trying to run over to get to Derrick and help. However, four more crystal skeletons rise up and attack - two taking on Jaxii and one each on Karoshi and Iwee. Things are looking grim.
And things begin to look even more grim when the group do finally manage to take down a skeleton. It stays down only for a short while before rising up again and rejoining the fight! The pulsating red crystals within their clear crystal ribcages seem to provide a clue to how to get them to stay down - the group eventually work out that these crystal "hearts" need to be taken out of the body when the skeletons are downed to prevent them from rising again.
Iwee makes very good use of her Bardic Inspiration to help those in trouble, and runs in to heal a very injured Derrick. Derrick's thunderwave spell is proving to be not very effective - the crystal skeletons seem to have tough constitutions. Iwee's steps up with her seemingly more useful shatter spell, and manages to take down two skeletons, destroying the crystal hearts in the process. With two of the skeletons still hypnotised, the group eventually manage to destroy all the skeletons, and remove their hearts, though Derrick has been badly beaten in the process.
After all that, the view from the top of the dune is not very helpful - just more dunes, though they do get a good fix on where they currently are in relation to the southern tip of the isle, and the cliffs on both sides.
The group return to the path and continue to follow it, thinking it is probably the safer option. Unfortunately, after a few hundred yards more, the path gets even harder to follow, and even Iwee loses the trail. The group have no idea where to go now, and decide to strike out to the north-west.
Almost inevitably they quickly encounter more of the crystal creatures, rising up from the sands. Armed with the fore-knowledge of the best way to tackle them, and the fact that the group is now together rather than hundreds of feet apart, they manage to do a better job with these ones. Karoshi begins by managing to turn three of them with his paladin skills before they even launch an attack. Another Shatter spell from Iwee takes care of another, and the little bard also makes good use of her Cutting Words and Hideous Laughter - she really is on a roll today! Punches and mace blows from the others eventually kill the remainder, though the party took more damage and burnt through more skills and spells in order to achieve this.
With five of the eight skeletons destroyed, and the other three seemingly having buried themselves in fear, the party quickly make their way back to where they lost the trail and think about what to do next. Feeling very battered and bruised, they are keen to rest a short while to recover. Whether this is a good or a bad decision remains to be seen. Progress has been slow. It is already mid-afternoon and they are still in the middle of the desert of dunes…