Loot the Weresharks!

The Captain and Dennis gather all their stuff, and Dennis notices that in the pond there are a bunch of childish drawings of shields that the baby weresharks made, and a note saying “To use in case the scary necromancer finds us.” The drawings are magical, and will work as a scroll of Shield. There are 12 of them. Then they hear the noise of a party in the distance. More Lycanthropes! The crusade continues! We march!

It turned out to be Louie having a party with a bunch of hedgehogs. Most disappointing. Anyway, we hang around there for a while until we notice that Raymond is missing. The party goes in search of him, and finds him atop a burial mound of dead hedgehogs, summoning their spirits back so that Blackrazor can devour them. Just wholesome mucking about, really.

The Captain investigates the construct that Louie and the Hedgehogs killed, and Dennis takes the most interesting bits to give to Rusty. The hedgehogs tell us that the Necromancer hangs around near Conyberry. We consider heading straight off, but decide instead to head back to town to get cured of lycanthropy.

That pixie wasn’t a liar?

Esmerelda confirms that lycanthrope hearts can be used to make a lycanthropy cure, but it’s something that only Vistani can do, so Rusty can’t learn it. Racist. Anyway, she whips up 2 cures, which The Captain and Dennis then drink. She mentions that they can also be used to create Protection from Lycanthropy potions, and we have a heap of hearts left over, so we get her to whip some up. We end up with 3 doses.

A beneficent dream

Chatting to the Toymaker, he had a prophetic dream. There is some rando called Vilgax who demands that we deliver an obelisk fragment to him at the Old Owl Well in 3 days, or he will send his Lieutenant Aurumvorax with an invasion force to destroy the town. Obviously we’re not doing that, but we think it wise to learn more about these obelisk fragment macguffins, and ask around. Apparently, there are 4 of them, which, when joined back together, form a diamond. They work together to create the safe space of the Sword Coast in the horror of Bluetspur. One fragment is in the Town Hall of Phandelver. Another is in Icewind Dale. The third is in Chult, and nobody knows where the fourth one is. It is believed that Vilgax will need 2 fragments to perform the rite to drag the Sword Coast back into Bluetspur.

We need information! After a short rest, we head to Conyberry, where Agatha the Banshee is said to reside. Rusty and Esmerelda remain in town, fortifying the Town Hall and Inn, and moving the locals and the Revallians into the ship. There are ~300 of them, Rusty can move 7 people every 12 seconds, so moving all of them will take a bit under 9 minutes.

It’s Agatha

The Captain, Dennis, Louie and Raymond walk through the woods and find a cottage nestled inside a bower of trees. As we enter, the air grows cold, and a spectral elf appears. She says: “Foolish Mortals! Do you not know it is death to seek me out?”

The Captain brusquely replies “We heard you have answers. We’re adventurers. What do you want?” This throws her off her game a little - she was expecting more back and forth, but apparently decides she likes the direct approach. She tells us of an abomination, a tree made of flesh and body parts, that is invading her forest. If we kill it for her, she will give us the answers we seek.

Tree-stomping

We go in search of an abomination. It’s bloody stealthy, because none of us saw it and it gets a surprise round on everyone. It misses everyone except Raymond, who it damages and impales (grapples). Now normal combat begins - The Captain wins initiative (because of course he does), then Dennis, then Louie and Raymond. The Captain does a sneak attack for a respectable 40 HP.

Then, it was Dennis’ turn. He opens by punching it and it fails its save vs Stunning. Emboldened by how easy that was, Dennis then stabs it with his paralysis poison, and it fails its save against that too. Nice! Dennis still has 3 flurry of blows left, and he switches to his spear, loaded up with Demon’s Screech. As the tree is paralyzed, every hit is a critical, so each hit does 1d8+1d4+4d10+58 damage. Dennis unloads more than 200HP of damage, killing it with an attack to spare.

Silence descends on the forest once more. The party all looks at Dennis, who has the grace to look sheepish and mutter something like “..maybe that poison is a bit OP”.

Agatha, again

We return to Agatha, who is a bit surprised we are back so early. She answers The Captain’s cleverly worded question, and we find out the following:

1. Vilgax does not yet have any fragments.
2. There is a fragment in the Town Hall of Phaldelver (we knew that, but points for being comprehensive).
3. The fragment in Icewind Dale is under the dead body of Avietrace, a White Dragon that was killed by The Forganage, and adventuring crew/orphanage team that fucked that place up a while back.
4. In Chult, one fragment is in the possession of Madam Macadarhrrk.
5. The last fragment is in the treasure horde of Xanathar in Skullport.

At this point, The Captain gives Dennis a Ring of Spell Storing, charged up with 5 castings of Invisibility. In return, Dennis gives him his Deck of Throwing Cards.

Agatha comes along

The Captain talks to Agatha for a while. The party has determined that the next job is to deal with that necromancer, but The Captain puts in a huge amount of effort trying to convince Agatha to come. Eventually, she agrees, when The Captain tells her he heard that the Necromancer had killed Dan, her deceased husband.

The return of (worse) Scott

Ethan goes all out to rekindle the feel of every other time anyone fought that necromancer. There were zombies everywhere, and one of them actually was Dan! Who knew, right? The zombies were, as is customary, auto-homing and explosive. Walking through the terrain gave exhaustion, because why not? Lair actions (homing zombies) went off after every turn, and did terrifying damage! Benjy was summoned, but we were on to those sort of tricks so averted our gaze, and it didn’t work. The necromancer himself was hiding, so Agatha had nothing that could do anything - but she could sense where the necromancer was, and went in that direction.

For some reason, when you killed the zombies, they actually died. That was weird. Maybe Banshee aura suppresses Undead Fortitude?

Anyway, the Banshee wailed, the necromancer died, and we ended the combat with the traditional screaming match about rules. It was very nostalgic! A good time was had by all, except Zoe who was a bit confused by everything.

For our superhuman forbearance in putting up with the second coming of (worse) Scott, we leveled up!

Huzzah!

In the aftermath, a god appears in the sky and performs a consenting nerf of Dennis’ Demon Screech poison, converting it to Widow’s Kiss Mk 2.