Darcsen’s Dream Journal Entry 3

A continuation of our descent into madness


5
5 points

Date unknown, Location: South of Goblin Town, Time since Awakening: 36 hrs

Seravin had gathered a map from sometime before I met up with the rest of the orphans. It was a magical map that he was slowly adding to over time. From it we determined that the witches were probably from the 'Witches Circle' to the south. We had a choice of two routes, we chose the direct shot, even though that brought us through some nasty sounding woods.

We kept an eye out as we advanced, our small party in the front, along with Brenda and Socks, the other 14 witches trailing behind us. We stopped at a clearing along the way that had some form of Romani wagon train. It was eerie because of the lack of people, despite looking like it could accommodate a large party with its three large wagons and a refuse pit that appeared to have been recently used. Chicago and Seravin started poking at the trash pit and discovered six fresh corpses within, the mushrooms also in there visibly growing over the corpses. Seravin stepped away shortly after, then came back stating he found another corpse in the woods in traditional romani garb. He had lifted the fancy bracers with the arrow motif on them from the corpse, though we didn't discover that until later.

Timmy found a large tent with a strange water pipe and cushions all over the floor. He decided it would be a good idea to start puffing from the mouthpiece of the pipe and unceremoniously fell asleep. I gently lifted the amulet from around his neck and changed him back into his Goliath form. From there Chicago and myself started investigating the wagons, the first was stuck shut. It was clear why after opening it. A charnel house greeted us, at least from the smell and blood scattered everywhere. There were no bodies, but the blood could not have come from only a single person.

The next wagon was open and had an enormous mushroom, almost as big as Timmy's Goliath form, spewing spores into the air. I was hit by them as soon as the door was opened and dropped like a rock. Apparently Chicago woke Timmy after I passed out and got him to pull me into the pillow tent, after which he pulled his amulet from me and put it back on. Chicago destroyed the mushroom. Nanfoodle started looking for magic and discovered some in the corpse pile. Timmy went diving in and passed out due to the mushroom spores. I was woken, and upon discovering Timmy face down in the trash pile tried to pull him out. I was also dropped by the spores, leading to a daisy chain of our comrades pulling us out. When Timmy and I were awoken Timmy discovered a strange chakram in his hand.

He threw it at Chicago, only for the man to catch it. It had magic runes on it and caused him to go blank for a bit. We then heard screaming in the distance in a language only Chicago seemed to understand. He explained it was a call for help in the Romani tongue and started leading us to help whomever it was calling.

We instructed Socks and Brenda to look after the other witches as we headed off. After moving through the woods for a half hour we came across a river flowing swiftly to the west. Across the way in another clearing we saw seven small mushroom men with gray skin standing at the points of a star surrounded by a circle. Shrugging, we all crossed the river, myself easier than the others due to my scalie nature. Something in that water, which I now realize was much brighter and clearer than a normal river running through the wild, got to all of us, knocking us all out, all except Timmy, who, experienced a strange darkness and the feeling of cold.

When we came to, and Timmy got his senses back, we discovered we had been invited to a tea party, hosted by a fairy. An enormous table was set for 10 places, with a large platter of food at one end, and five skeletons already sitting in place. The fairy invited us to join the party, and not knowing what else she could want we asked when the party would end.

"When all the food is gone of course!" A strange bell sounded, leading to the fairy excusing herself. Timmy tried throwing the food on the platter into the surrounding woods, which worked. But after he put it back on the table it refilled itself. This was disheartening to say the least. After taking our seats, unsure of how powerful the fairy was and whether we should be worried, she returned with a five more of her friends.

She grew worried that not everyone would have a place to sit, whereupon we all gladly stepped away from the table letting the fairies slip into the open spots. Shortly after they started eating and talking about inane topics a crashing came from the forest nearby. An enormous Carrion Crawler emerged, and set itself upon one of the skeletons sitting at the table. The fairies screamed and scattered as we leapt into action. Against the five of us it did not last long, I'm not even sure if any of us were injured in the fight.

Chicago and the others started standing around the table and asking questions while I was pondering the words of the fairies. Chicago discovered that his Chakram was inscribed with the Mystery of the Inward Facing Circle. The others started eating the food presented. As I pondered more I started realizing that everything was false. Their posturing, the food, the expressions they were giving the group. Then I realized something even worse. The only one I trusted to pull themselves out of the illusion was Chicago…

I started moving to everyone else telling them it was all a lie, but none of them were able to listen. So I did the only thing I could. I flipped the table. With the table on the ground everyone was freed from the spell leading to an excited shout from myself. "I told you the only way to end a party was to flip a table!"

With the spell broken we found out we were surrounded by mushroom men and corpses being controlled by mushrooms. That fight was rougher, but we were still able to hold our own, just using most of our resources. At that point we started hearing the screaming of the Romani man once more. Chicago, wanting no other distractions, immediately charged off, and being faster than the rest of us, was quickly out of sight.

We caught up to him after he had reached the screaming man. The man was twenty feet in the air, and Chicago had stopped about 30 feet from where he would land. They spoke together in a language I didn't understand before Chicago threw his Chakram at the rope holding the man up, cutting him down. We discovered that his Chakram returned to his hand after being thrown. We also discovered the man had been set up as a trap. When he hit the ground, which had looked soft from a distance, he started screaming.

A cage of pointed bones burst from the ground for twenty feet in every direction, engulfing the man as the ground around him opened up in tiny hungry mouths. They started consuming the Romani man alive, all of us too stunned to do anything. From the spot he hit more mouths started expanding outward, grinding and chewing anything in their way until they reached the edge of the bone cage. When there was nothing left the mouths disappeared and the cage retracted back into the earth.

After being dumbstruck for a while we knew there was nothing we could do. We tried to find our way back to Socks and Brenda but became hopelessly lost in the woods. Lost in the right direction, because the next thing we saw was the Lord of all Mushrooms, standing much taller than Timmy's Other form, with a fairy queen(?), bride (?) at its side.


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