Warhammer Quest: The Sylvan Epic

[TomB]

There IS that...

 

[Spiderman]

Dorgath makes a mental note to tuck in his beard next time and to make an appointment to visit the Dwarf Temple Valaya to rid him of the memories of being probed and fondled. In the meantime, since the Beasts tried to take advantage of him without wining and dining him first, Dorgath attack Beast #5 first and then whoever's closest after that.

 

[rokapoke]

Tomas, riding the high of his extreme success with the Freeze! spell in his last round of combat, casts the spell again on the beasts. His targeting priority is farthest to nearest.

 

[turgy22]

Dorgath charges past "Lumpy" and readies a big attack with his axe, but trips over his own beard. He must spend the rest of the turn recovering his footing, during which time enemies get +2 to hit him.

Will Throg need to roll to prevent himself from laughing uncontrollably at Dorgath's misfortune instead of attacking?

 

[Mooseman]

Carrow continues to ignite the beasts.

 

[Oversoul]

-Dorgath's Lifestone of Ashraz restores 2 of his Wounds (20/21).
-The fire arrow on Beast of Nurgle #5 sputters out.
-The fire arrow on Beast of Nurgle #6 continues to burn (3 damage).
-Tomas casts Freeze! on the daemons that are not already encased in ice, dealing 2 damage to each.
-Kelgar fails to bless anything.
-Carrow shoots his last remaining fire arrow into Beast of Nurgle #5 (2 damage).
-Carrow switches to Arrows of Sure Flight and trips up badly while firing, but the name of those arrows rings true and it strikes Beast of Nurgle #6 (3 damage).
-Revaethan uses his Woven Mist. He has 5 combined Move and Attacks for the turn.
-Revaethan swings wide.
-Revaethan slices Beast of Nurgle #6 (1 damage).
-Revaethan dices Beast of Nurgle #6 (2 damage).
-Revaethan cuts Beast of Nurgle #6 to ribbons.
-Throg swings his axe clumsily at Beast of Nurgle #5.
-Throg can't stop laughing at Dorgath, and barely even bothers to swing his axe a second time. It misses.
-Throg misses his bite attack.
-Throg slashes Beast of Nurgle #5 with a claw attack, but the daemon is resilient enough that the minor cut doesn't really do anything.
-Throg kicks, but the daemon moves out of the way with surprising speed for something so bulky.
-Throg fails to hypnotize anything.
-Throg shoots Beast of Nurgle #5 with his ice missile, trapping it for one whole turn.
-Lumpy thaws out.
-Dorgath clobbers Lumpy (12 damage).
-Dorgath hacks at Lumpy, but the daemon evades his attack.
-Dorgath kicks at Lumpy, but is too slow.
-Ty slips in and finishes the job with his fist spike.
-Kelgar taps into his Ring of Jade for a wave of healing energy that restores the Wounds of Ty, Throg, and Revaethan.
-Kelgar collects 50 gold for his healing efforts! Praise Sigmar.
-The Slime Trail deals 1 damage to all of the Warriors except Carrow and Tomas.

 

[Oversoul]

The last daemon thaws out, but it has already been surrounded and is immediately met with a simultaneous barrage of magic, axes, swords, and a hammer. The party moves out of the way of the noxious slime trail, which begins dissipating. At first, nothing else seems to be happening. The elven woman is still suspended in the column of bright light. Revaethan shouts...

"Jekaena!"

She looks down, then the column of light flickers out. Jekaena falls straight down into the middle of the fountain. She splashes around, gasping, and climbs out, tumbling to the floor. She stammers...

"Cold, cold cold...water?"

She lifts herself back up to the edge of the fountain, then dips forward, her body hanging over the edge of the fountain, and gulps up copious amounts of water.

 

[Spiderman]

Dorgath waits until she's done drinking.

"So elf, what happened here? Are there any more greenskins or chaos beasts left?"

 

[Oversoul]

"I don't know. More will come eventually. It doesn't matter anymore. We have to evacuate all of Talsyn if we can. All of Athel Loren..."

Revaethan returns Jekaena's enchanted walking cane.

"Jekaena, we can't evacuate the entire nation. We have to stay and fight. We'll beat this invasion."
"You don't understand. It's not just the invasion. The forest itself shall be used against us. Nowhere will be safe. I tried to stop it, but I failed."
"You mean about the book?"
"I looked everywhere! It's gone. I suppose it was stolen long before I was ever born."
"But we have it."
"Revaethan, you found the book?"
"Ah, no. Carrow here did."
"Let me see!"

 

[Spiderman]

Dorgath prods Carrow to give the book to Jekaena (yeah, I know Mooseman's not on until later, but just playing along )

 

[turgy22]

Throg will observe a moment of silence for Lumpy.

 

[rokapoke]

Tomas attempts to cast Lifebringer to heal the wounded members of the party. Thanks, Slime Trail!

 

[Mooseman]

"Isn't this the book I'm supposed be attuned to or something, the Sylvan Epic," Carrow queries? " But Lord Cael did say that I just have to stand around or something."
"Can you do the ritual or procedure?"

 

[Oversoul]

Well, I tried to post on Friday and it didn't stick. Let's try again...

"Lord Cael? Oh, I know what he meant. Technically, I should be able to heal the Heart of Welhallas with minimal materials if I can get there soon enough. You see..."

Jekaena launches into a rapid-fire effusion of mystical terminology that is more than a little difficult to follow...

 

[Oversoul]

What Dorgath hears: Mostly an overload of magical jargon, but the dwarf listens for details that actually mean anything familiar to him. It sounds like Jekaena is saying that Lord Cael's assessment was partially correct, but incomplete. With the high priestess of Talsyn slain, it falls to her acolytes to perform the necessary magic to heal the Heart of Welhallas. It would take a whole group of them and they'd need Carrow to be present for the ritual, but she thinks that even then they might fail. But Jekaena is from Welhallas herself and also has training that the priestesses do not, so she believes that she could accomplish on her own what the whole group of them could not. Even if the priestesses could transfer the bond between Carrow and the book to another elf of Welhallas (Jekaena thinks that they are not skilled enough to do so), they also might not be able to actually find a suitable elf. Part of the problem seems to be that Welhallas itself is inaccessible due to something that Jekaena calls "Cythral" (but Dorgath isn't sure what that is, although it sounds like a thing rather than a person) and most of the elves who are from Welhallas are either dead (an assassination campaign?), are unsuitable (too old?) or haven't been located.

 

[Oversoul]

What Kelgar hears: Needlessly complex explanations of the elven magic involved in this mess. Jekaena is enthusiastic, but speaks too rapidly and uses too much technical terminology. Kelgar notices a similarity between Jekaena's description of her plan to heal the Heart of Welhallas and the spells depicted in the journal that the party found hidden in the secret chamber, but from the other end: she's trying to restore the Heart and the author of the journal is trying to steal its power. These elves seem to be in over their heads and they are going to need Sigmar's light if they're to survive the trials ahead.

 

[Oversoul]

What Throg hears: Blah, blah, blah. I'm a stupid elf. I sure do talk a lot. Words, words, words. Elf, elf, elf. I am skinny and puny. I am slow and have to use a cane to walk. I wouldn't last five minutes in the Chaos Lands. Talk, talk, talk. Blah, blah, blah. I'm an elf.

 

[Oversoul]

What Tyresius hears: A whole lot of magical mumbo-jumbo. Ty briefly wonders whether the water in the fountain is a potion of loquacity or something. Also, he's pretty sure that she's infatuated with Carrow. If that elf plays his cards right, why, well—oh, she's still talking. The delay in time between when Fall changes to Winter in different lands? What does that have to do with any of this? Triangles? What? Is she serious? Ty could have sworn that she just said the word, "triangles" in there somewhere...

 

[Oversoul]

What Tomas hears: Jekaena is extremely knowledgeable, but is bad at explanations. She rushes through concepts of esoteric Asrai mysticism without realizing that her audience had no idea what she is talking about. To make matters worse, she suddenly breaks from rushing through everything to attempt to explain some concepts, often very simple ones, in different ways, because she is focusing her attention on Carrow and Revaethan (the elves, of course) and both of them seem to have been the first ones to zone out. She looks to them for confirmation that her explanations are understood, but they seem to be wholly unaware of their surroundings. Tomas is the only one who understands half of what Jekaena is talking about. He gathers the following...

• The Heart of Welhallas has a connection to all wood elves, but that connection is strongest for the families who historically tended the magical tree and lived in proximity to it. Jekaena is unusual in that she is from one of the families with a strong connection to the tree, but she also spent most of her life studying magic in another location, the Moonspring Glades. Because of her unique background, she was hand-picked by the high priestess of the Grove of Eternity for special training. But both of them were missing key aspects of magic, especially pertaining to the Heart of Welhallas and other ancient, important trees. This was because the book "The Sylvan Epic" was missing and the archival copies of it were incomplete.
• The priestesses aren't as advanced as their leader was, so repairing the Heart for them requires a coordinated effort in which the magical energies are distributed between them the whole time. Jekaena considers this approach to be unsafe and unreliable, because they'd have to magically grasp the entirety of the power of the Heart at once, so if one of them faltered, the priestess could lose her grip and the Heart could be damaged even more. Jekaena is proficient enough in manipulation of magical energies to move her focus into bits of the power source and make fine adjustments, like a technician disassembling a complicated contraption, repairing the damaged components, and reassembling the whole thing.
• The mages of the Moonspring Glades have some individuals capable of more powerful magic than Jekaena, but none of them were trained by the priestesses, so they're unsuitable for this work.
• The priestesses are from other realms and few of them have a strong connection to the Heart of Welhallas.
• Carrow's ancestors were from Welhallas. Jekaena suspects that either his was the family that historically tended the tree directly, or Carrow just by chance has an unusually strong connection to it. Either way, this made it easy for the enchantment on the book to bind itself to Carrow. Healing the tree requires access to the connection between it and the wood elves. The book is the key to this, and it is already attuned to Carrow in particular, so it won't work with just any wood elf. But because Jekaena's connection to the Heart is also very strong and because she is skilled in magic, she believes that she could attune the book to herself, if necessary.
• Welhallas has been in a state of siege due to the encroachment of the Wildwood. Reaching the tree could be difficult, but Jekaena has knowledge of the area and believes that it can be done.
• All of this is somewhat time-sensitive, but Jekaena can only speculate on how much. She isn't sure just how damaged the tree is or what is happening in Welhallas.

 

[Oversoul]

What Carrow hears: At first, Carrow follows along well enough. But several seconds in, Jekaena points out a passage in the book while showing how it works. Carrow sees the words, ancient poetry about the forest, and becomes swept away in visions of other times. The book seems to be taking him on a tour of the history of the land, going all the way back to a time before elves had ever lived here...