The party wakes up covered in mushrooms. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!
But they did have a long rest, so they are refreshed.
Callie, Bec, and Freki realize the mushrooms aren’t real—just psychic residue from the attack in the Feywild.
Sartus and Bec dispel Oz and Cal’s effects. Oz is convinced the mushrooms were mentally real, and he has some psychic damage. Cal is just fatigued.
Callie heals Oz with cure wounds at level 2 for 10 HP restoration. But she takes 5 damage from a weird feeling of being STABBED IN THE SOUL BY PURE DEATH AND EVIL.
Bec thinks the mushroom face woman is some legendary creature… not a fey creature… but she can’t put her finger on it. Neither can Callie.
The party realizes that outside of their magical protective hut, real (presumably evil) mushrooms have overgrown everything—even including the hut’s walls and ceiling. It’s a good thing the tiny hut has a floor too, or who knows what would have happened to the party while they slept!
The agents spend some time trying to decide how to proceed without getting near the mushrooms, which seem to be emitting some kind of highly poisonous spores. They clear away the mushrooms on the hut’s roof, shoot a grappling arrow up to the forest canopy above them, and proceed to climb and/or float their way up into the treetops, safe from the carpet of mushroom death.
Surveying the area around them, while discussing how to proceed from there, Freki’s ravens report that someone is closing in on their position. After a short while, a tiny mushroom man riding a poodle moth comes into view!
After being berated by the creature for riling up the mushrooms, the agents try to explain the situation. Vondal is on the same wavelength with the mushroom druid, who they learn is named Enoki, and his moth companion is Cornelius. Enoki and Cornelius fly down to the center of the mushroom field, and the cranky little man begins shouting at the mushrooms and bludgeoning them with his staff, which causes them to recede one by one. After a little while, the agents complain that this approach is going to take forever, and the group arrives at a solution: Enoki can lead a ritual to calm all the mushrooms at once, with the help of the SPI agents.
Callie, Bec, Vondal, and Sartus work to aid Enoki. Sartus continues to seem strangely ill at ease in this natural setting, and he isn’t too helpful… but the others are.
As the ritual nears completion, Cal receives a sending from Tybalt:
- Tybalt: We found the Book on the forest floor. Was this your doing? The Tree’s getting worse. The queen is deathly ill. What do you know?
- Cal: Book not us. Tree has passages bored in. Queen infected by mushroom woman. Freki accidentally decapitated Queen in Feywild. Ritualing with Enoki now. Please advise.
Tybalt sends to Cal again:
- Tybalt: Warforged searching area near Book. I will gather more intel and get back to you when I know more. More urgency now. Keep me apprised.
Just as Cal receives this message, the ritual is complete; Enoki exhales an enormous sigh of relief as a massive number of spores shoot from his cap, which cover everything and send all the mushrooms away. “They won’t act up again for a while. I need a nap…” and he collapses.
- Cal: Group casting with Enoki. Will explore passages afterward. Will update with pertinent information. SO MANY SPORES! Mushroom problem resolved.
GM’s note: How and why did Enoki find the SPI agents where he did? Because that’s where the trail of mycelial corruption led: to ground zero. He didn’t bother explaining this, of course…
The agents let Enoki sleep it off while they discuss the situation. They debate whether to return to the surface to meet up with Tybalt and the Warforged, but ultimately decide to continue on their journey to rescue the Fruit of Life from the Tree before it falls victim to the Book’s dark magic.
The agents wake up Enoki and learn that he is familiar with the Fruit of Life, and claims to know where it is. The way he speaks, the party starts to think Enoki might be really old—maybe thousands of years old. Vondal sweet-talks Enoki into guiding them to the Fruit.
They follow Enoki for several hours. With Freki’s survival skills and everyone’s vigilance, they are able to proceed up the Tree without any major incidents.
Until…
They hear a buzzing sound in the distance. It grows increasinly loud, and after a few minutes a small swarm of locusts comes into view. It seems to be heading for an area just ahead of the party. They reorient themselves into a defensive position as the locusts keep moving, settle into the trunk 50 feet in front of the party, and coelesce into a bipedal shape.
The being speaks in a droning mass of sound: “We are Eixam (ee-SHAHM), and we have come to help.”