Session 10: Honey, I Shrunk The Party!

A Big Ol’ Beetle

 * CORNERIO APPEARS! He has been following invisibly and got caught up in the shrinking. Figaro - SATYR
 * The beetle attacks!!! Everyone tries to hide.
 * Vik shoots it. Vesun summons another giant beetle to fight it. Cornerio jumps up and hits in the leg, then Mogen critfails throwing an acid flask at him to catch (canon: bad accent in Gnomish saying “catch!”).
 * Beetle chomps the fuck out of the summoned bombardier beetle. Vik climbs up a blade of grass and shoots it in the wing. Everyone else fucks it up, Mogen knocks its leg underneath it.
 * Vik mercy kills it. The satyr, watching us from a flower, comes over and says he’ll plead to the Faerie King on our behalf to send us back. Other group: 1 human F with longer hair, 2 lizardfolk (medium sized), halfling - the people who summoned us here (Jana, Castor, Pollax, and Burhan). He picks up Vanesse (“collateral”). We need to get gifts for this festival: royal jelly, “Mantle of Luck Unbound” - get from mangrove tree area, other outsiders.
 * He says we’re aging at a strange rate… haste is of the essence.

A Puzzle &amp; A Friend

 * Vik starts leading them to mangrove trees. They see a bumblebee go overhead, Mogen tries to grapple it and fails. They argue whether to summon another mount. Cornerio leads them to an opening in a trunk. Semicircle of tiny mushrooms around it. Once we step over, vines block entrance
 * 3 Receptacles form: translucent spheres with “frozen lightning” in them.
 * Left = dark blue/black. Middle = red; right = golden yellow.
 * Cornerio runs up and touches the blue/black one. It’s stuck to him, apparently he can only talk when we’re talking. Mogen touches the yellow one, can only ask questions. Vesun has to say what he’s thinking.
 * Mogen thinks they’re made of dragonshards, maybe cursed forever??? Vik digs down and hits stone. Tries to bury the dragonshard.
 * ON stone: hole, dragon breathing fire, flower bursting from the ground, star.
 * Cornerio puts the black orb in the star hole, they get attacked by thorns. Then they put the right orbs in the right spots, the vines open. Cornerio and Tork are poisoned, but everyone is no longer cursed.
 * Spiral staircase in the tree. They hear “hello!” from nowhere a bunch. Then encounter something that looks like a human fused with a grasshopper. More appear. They make us a path (and speak in Sylvan). They pop in and out in front of us. Vik gives them food, they chitter gratefully? (Griggs?)
 * Clearing: half-woman with wings and serpent tail. Her name is Friga. We tell her Figaro sent us here, explain the ritual to her, she says it’s troubling. We tell her we want the mantle, she says she can trade something for it: fangs of a bitterleaf viper? But we convince her after mentioning Gatekeeper. We tell her we will find out what happened with the gatekeepers, promise to give it to Figaro. Mogen takes it (and has been insulting him).
 * Can reroll 1x/day.
 * She warns us Figaro is very proud. Play to his ego - proud of his songs.
 * She tells us not to lie to the Faerie King. He has a good sense of humor.
 * Says we’re IN The Gloaming (listed with Mabar)
 * She says she’ll try to warn us if she sees the other group.
 * Royal Jelly is an aphrodisiac.
 * When they leave the circle the door is covered by roots. They cover the orbs.

BEES

 * ON TO A HIVE. In a couple hours V finds an entrance to tunnels to a hive.
 * They encounter a guardian bee and Cornerio gets stung, bee dies because it’s a bee. Vik coats himself in bee stink.
 * They enter a cavern. “wax pots” of honey. Some of the team take honey. One path going up, one going down. They go down into a huge cavern with 4 bees.
 * Vik gives his armor to Sarienne to carry (32 on a hide roll).
 * They try to sneak by the bees. Mogen fucks it up. THEY ATTACK - Mogen and Sarienne get stung. Sarienne cuts a bee in half. Mogen fucks up a bee by turning its stinger in on itself, “Buy a girl a drink first!” Cornerio: “Hasta la BEEsta!” Vik keeps creeping forward.
 * Sarienne gets fucked up (2 HP!!), Tork gets knocked unconscious, Vesun takes a bee out of commission with clothing trickery. Cornerio jumps onto one of the bees flying around. Vesun drops his tangled bee and heals Tork.
 * V gets to path 7, sees nothing at sharp drop. Left: level, slight slope down; see other bees there. Goes down 4 and sees what he thinks is the queen, sneaks past her and finds honey pots. Queen notices, makes alarm noise, chases Vik out of the chamber. Flaps its wings and knocks down the small party members.
 * Two hostile other bees. Both go after Vik, one misses, one gets stuck. Tork shoots a scorching ray at the queen. Everyone hits it to death. Mogen murders it with a crossbow shot and says “HASTA LA BEE-STA.” 👎 They find larvae and jelly.
 * They use bee corpses to barricade themselves in and rest. Figaro shows up and asks for the stuff, they refuse to let him in so he melts the bees. Mogen asks him to play a song, he charms most of us.
 * Mogen has the cloak - she apparently fucked it up (ripped it to put wings on it). He says “you’ve made a huge mistake” and disappears.
 * Bees.