19 Gizmel 816

Trap planning day

Atticus’ Adventures, Journal entry 2

It was a long exhausting day for all of us, spending the whole day setting traps all around The Inkwell Tree, foraging to gather resources for ammunition, collecting and directing our troops in preparation for the attack of the Yuan-ti. We had Ghor, Mix and Song of Paradise on our side as well as the goblin residents of the tree. To load the goblins’ slingshots with something more effective than rocks and pebbles, Mix and I set out into the woods to find some special berries with acidic and igniting properties, as well as some viscous, very flammable tar. Mix looked at me with much concern in his eyes. Not because of the attack, but because of my plans to blaze. And sure I get it, we are in a lush jungle after all. But we are desperate here, we work with what we can get. We’ll try to minimize collateral damage, but snakes are vicious.

Aelin and Raven focussed on setting traps around The Inkwell Tree, digging many pitfalls in tactical spots, such as clearings where the Yuan-ti would most likely come from and the entrances of the tree. They even set up a bulldozing trap with huge treelogs rolled up a ramp. They tested it too, which was definetly on purpose. It worked.

Since I suspected that those snakes were going after Albuca, I made sure to set a trap with tar and acid in front of her room and gave her a weapon to defend herself with. She sure… swung it around. We made sure Ghor was guarding her too. I gave her a tip to make the room entirely dark so the enemies wouldn’t see her, but later I realized those fuckers can see in the dark. Oops.

After sparring a little with Song and training the goblins, everyone sat on their station. We spent the night waiting for the Yuan-ti to strike, but we didn’t have to wait for long. The attack commenced once the clock strook midnight. Our traps worked excellently, slowing down many of them as they tried to crawl their way out of the pits. The goblins did great work launching the bags of tar and igniting them with berries, they were real assets. But man, Mix and his strange bitey goblin ghost powers carried us hard. The manic cackling made it seem he was enjoying it even! Song was a true hero as well, perservering while bloodied and struck down after fighting so fiercely. It was a close one, but he survived. Guy’s like actually unmoved by death, it’s freaky. Admirable, but freaky.

After fighting off the Yuan-ti minions, Axe man eventually showed his cowardly face, cradled by the statue we saw back in the dungeon. As their troops went down in numbers, he didn’t stand a chance against us. As he attempted to retreat, it was all over for him. Raven was very satisfied, even though I stole their last blow. Just know I strook him in spirit of you. And besides, you got his way too expensive cool axe. We got to watch the goblins devourer his corpse too. Very environmentally friendly, like nature intended.

To thank Song for risking his life for us, I gave him a ride back to Rootgrow as per his request. He wouldn’t take anything else I had to offer, what a guy. We arrived at Rootgrow’s brewery on the 22nd, run by the tabaxi I now know is called Plume in Smoke. He was kind enough to look at our wares, telling us about them and even trading with us.

We showed him the burnt wood amulet and the snake forward facing amulet, and learned about The Divine Wars and how a god with a scythe took out all the snake-like people. I only know of two gods with scythes, namely Lyrus the god of death, and The Grainborn the goddess of harvest. I am assuming it was Lyrus, given that he’s older and well… about death. But Plume could not confirm this for me.

When showing him the vial of dried golden blood, he recognized it as either fey or celestial blood and told us about its insanely powerful magical properties. A resource that the Yuan-ti has been gathering a lot. Raven suspected that they may want to free or revive a powerful entity who they might worship, though it’s unknown to us who this could be.

With Plume’s bookshelf and a few words from Lutea, we found out that the dryad’s trees play an important role in protecting the towns. We are unsure how exactly that works though. Dryads come in two forms, either as a manifestation of the tree or as a fiendish prisoner. Titania, queen of the summer court, also known as the seelie, has an alliance with The Dawnmother. There’s also the winter court or the unseelie. Lutea has a purpose, but has no idea why she was put there.

We are unsure where to take our investigation from here - there’s lots we found out but many pieces of the puzzle are still missing. Who are Ushkil and Glycon? What makes the dryad’s trees so important to the town’s protection? What god slayed all the snakes with their scythe and why? What are the Yuan-ti planning to do with the blood of the dryads? Who do they worship? Are they freeing prisoners from their tree-cells by cutting them down? What more do we need to know about the fey courts? What is their alliance with The Dawnmother? Why were the dryads put there? There’s just so much we don’t know.

We plan to visit the tavern later today, 22nd, and gather what rumors have been going around lately, maybe that could give us some direction.