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Dunmari Frontier - Session 105

The Cave of the Talking Bats: in which the party navigates elemental dangers

Featuring: Seeker, Delwath, Kenzo, Wellby
In Taelgar: May 16, 1749 DR
On Earth: Tuesday Aug 20, 2024
Awakened Jungle

The Dunmar Fellowship battles chaos elementals in a cave and learns of the jungle’s disturbance from talking bats, leading them to Canopy.

Session Info

Summary

  • The Dunmar Fellowship investigates a cave complex near the Sea of Storms, encountering strange elemental disturbances in a large cavern.
  • The party battles several elemental creatures, ultimately defeating them with coordinated attacks.
  • Delwath communicates with frightened, emaciated fruit bats hiding from the elementals, learning of the jade piece’s past location.
  • Following a young bat named Pip, the party finds a fallen tree but no jade; Kenzo senses the source of jungle chaos to the east.
  • Traveling east on Vindristjarna, the party arrives at Canopy, a tree surrounded by chaotic vines, and prepares for combat.

Timeline

  • May 16, 1749 DR, late afternoon: Explore the cave of talking bats. Navigate through chaotic elemental dangers, fight and kill chaos elementals. Speak with talking fruit bats. Learn about Canopy. Visit site where the bat Pip found the last piece of jade.
  • May 16, 1749 DR, early evening: Decide to travel east in Vindristjarna towards Canopy. Arrive after an hour’s journey as the sun sets, scout and find a tangled mass of thorns around the tree known as Canopy or Eldest. Prepare to fight.

Narrative

Our session begins aboard the airship Vindristjarna, floating above the jungle coastline near the Sea of Storms, above a cliff in which a small cave can be seen, the last known location of the final Jade Piece of Rai’s Hand. Scouting, Kenzo senses a variety of minds across the jungle, including scared creatures in the cave; Wellby, luring in a vulture and using it to scout, find a large tree entangled with thorny vines to the east.

Deciding to investigate the caves first, the party departs Vindristjarna and enters the cave complex. The entrance is wide but low, and the interior is overgrown with vines and rubble. The party follows a passage deeper into the cliffs, until reaching a place where the floor drops away into a large cavern below. After a little scouting, the cavern seems to be filled with strange elemental disturbances: strange rippling on the floor, blurry patches in the air, water that seems to hiss as it falls. Deciding to avoid touching anything, the party uses Fly to navigate safely, with Seeker creating a stone apparatus to divert the water and allow passage to the next tunnel.

Shortly, the the party enters another large cavern with a sloped floor leading to a pool of strange mud with sharp borders. They are confronted by several elemental creatures: an air-ape clumped with stone, a whirlwind of mud and lightning, and two fire lizards surrounded by ice. Combat begins with Wellby shooting the air-earth elemental, dealing significant damage, and the party engages with spells and attacks. The elementals retaliate with restraining wind and a lightning storm. As the battle rages, Wellby identifies bats trying to escape, which do not seem ordinary. Delwath breaks from the fight to try to speak with them, learning they speak Elvish and fear the elementals. The elementals are gradually defeated through coordinated attacks, with Kenzo finishing the last elemental. The party is left in darkness, with Delwath conversing with confused bats.

The fruit bats, having never encountered humanoids, are confused by speaking creatures that look nothing like the animals and plants of the jungle. Delwath reassures them, asking if any are hurt and if they need help, and offering food, noting their emaciation. Relaxing and allowing Delwath to approach, the bats lead the party to a large space where dozens of emaciated bats cluster, hiding from the elementals. An older bat, Echo, confronts Delwath, but is reassured by the food provided; the rest of the bats relax as food is passed around. Asked about the jade, Echo reveals it was seen months ago by a younger bat, Pip, who found it while exploring.

Leaving Echo to distribute food, the party follows Pip to the location where she found the jade, beneath the roots of a fallen tree. Nothing of interest remains to be found here, but Kenzo’s sense of the jungle, and conversations with the plants around, suggest that the source of whatever chaos is disrupting the jungle is to the east, where Canopy, the Eldest, lives. Canopy, it is said, remembers learning to speak, and might be able to tell the party more of this jungle and perhaps the jade. It was only a few weeks ago, around the first of the month, that Canopy was surrounded by the chaotic vines that now bind them.

The party takes Vindristjarna east, reaching the grove in which Canopy is growing in a few hours. Brief scouting reveals a circle of trees, with writhing vines clustered around some kind of hard wooden knot, surrounding the largest tree in the center, which must be Canopy. Wellby, scouting, is attacked by the vines, when he gets within 30 feet, restraining him. Fortunately, Wellby is skilled at escape and manages to flee out of range.

The session ends as the party prepares to face the vines and thorns in combat.