The Hellbenders were heading back to the Grim Glee Jubilee after having found the first fairytale and as they closed in, a strangle little gnome-like fella came hurrying to them.
He introduced himself as Snuggles, the cousin of Sniff the ticket attendant the heroes had met when they first came to the Jubilee.
He apologised for being late and explained he had been asked by Sniff to give the heroes some Healing Shrooms for their battles ahead, but had fallen asleep and only reached them now.
Thorga, battled from the fight with the Troll, quickly ate his Healing Shroom, while Kaari and Pestilence saved theirs for another day.
Snuggles rushed back while the heroes slowly made their way to the entrance of Jubilee.
Where’s Thorga?
At the entrance Sniff was curious why only two had returned and suddenly Kaari and Pestilence realised Thorga had collapsed behind them.
The rushed to him and found their dwarven comrade looking drained and grey and to make matters worse, he looked increasingly more hollow, drained and grey.
Kaari quickly cast Lesser Restoration to cure him of any poison, but to no avail. She instead healed him which gave him some energy and life back, not much but enough for him to be able to walk.
By the time they got to Chief Chester Nihilus and the Lady Clown, Thorga was in a bad shape again looking but a shadow of his former self.
Unfortunately the arch fey could not help him as he was cursed. Furthermore the curse was strong that it either had to be lifted by the curser or nullified by killing the curser.
Fortunately, the Lady Clown Celestia had an idea and told them to hurry Thorga to Morgana Gloomsoul, a traveling mystic who she believed was in town. With no time to waste, Kaari and Pestilence dragged the now unconscious Thorga to the healer.
An uncommon curse
They easily found Morgana, who was an old withered large woman. She was very curious about Thorga’s condition as she had never seen a curse administered by a mushroom.
She would do what she could, but could not promise to cure Thorga so encouraged the heroes to hunt down the curser.
They left Thorga with Morgana to find Snuggles.
Tired and confused
The heroes found Snuggles sleeping at home.
He was puzzled by their appearance in his tent, but tried to keep it polite by offering tea.
But he claimed he had never seen the heroes before other than from afar.
A montage
DM notes, A lot happened in quick succession and I don’t quite remember in what order so here is a summary:
- Heroes went back to Morgana only to find she was gone. Only sign of her having ever been there was some stick figures on the ground that mad fallen of her wagon.
- Heroes went back to where they had met Snuggles to find a piece of mushroom Thorga had eaten. They did and furthermore they found a stick figure similar to those from Morgana’s wagon.
- Back at Snuggles the heroes threaten him to spill the beans, but other than him telling them where to find the local healers, they didn’t get any other info out of the scared little fey creature.
- They noticed mushroom recidue on his fingers and forced him to lick them after which he started looking ill.
- They left him to die in his tent as they ran to the healers, where they showed the remaining mushroom and as the healers identified the curse and started an antidote.
- Poor little Snuggles came crawling in just in time for the healers to make an antidote.
- As Snuggles recovered he became more and more confused as to what had happened to him. His memory from the last 24hrs were gone and he started to realise that Morgana had some how manipulated him. Getting more and more frustrated he kept repeating “that bitch!”.
On Morgana’s trail
Kaari spoke to the plants around the site where Morgana had been parked and they all pointed in the same direction.
She then asked a large black owl for help, that simply left leaving the heroes with a nagging feeling that it might be in league with Morgana, but just as they had reach peak panic, the owl came back with directions to Morgana’s camp.
Soon the party found Morgana in the moonlit forest. She was chanting foul ancient words around a big cauldron with other unfamiliar gravely male voices mixed in.
While the heroes were spying the camp, they heard heavy footprint coming from their left and Kaari cast Pass Without Trace on them just in time for two angry Redcap sentinels to walk past leaving a stench of blood from their bloodsoaked hats.
There was no time left, they had to go.
Fiiiiiight!
As they snuck up on the unholy scene, Pestilence noticed Thorga was on his last breath. (DM note: I rolled a 1 on the D4 countdown dice).
He quickly jumped to action and cast Blight to suck the life force out of Morgana basically giving the witch some of her own medicine!
To add insult to injury, the damage from the Blight was so serious that Morgana’s concentration on sucking life from Thorga was stopped.
And the fight was on.
The Redcap watch in the tower called his comrades back from the forest (DM note: I rolled a 2 on that D4 timer dice) and ran down to join the fight.
Kaari growled “Bitch Witch” and fired her powerful SunOath bow at the Hag pilling on hefty damage to the Blight injury.
Morgana, having recovered from the ambush, rushed to Pestilence to give him a Crushing Hug cracking the ribs on the Tabaxi, but Pestilence kept calm.
The hag having rushed into close combat played straight into Pestilence’s cunning plan and he calmly sent the Hag to sleep with Eye Bite spell.
The Redcap rushed at the Ranger, but Kaari easily avoided his iron booted kick and ran over to decapitate the sleeping Hag.
The Redcap seeing his boss dead, fled into the forest.
Fire in the forest
The battle was over… or so the heroes thought.
A huge fiery explosion erupted in the forest and agonising screams of the Redcaps could be heard.
Out of the smoke stepped Snuggles holding two bottle bombs in his hands and a big cigar in his mouth to light the homemade explosives.
The battle was truly over and the heroes got Thorga on his feet and together with Snuggles they headed back to the Grim Glee Jubilee for some well deserved rest.
