Warriors of the Empire of the Sun: XI

Fairly short session. Our potential replacement for the X-37 player ended up with a run of RL preventing him from being able to join in. 

They brought Marshal's body to the Emerald Oracle and paid the hag her fee for raising him. I had decided that the level loss would be represented by a permanent negative level penalty (can be removed with the likes of wish), that will go away one at a time with a natural level up (~5450gp was her charge). Meanwhile, Tow brought over his equipment piecemeal via his teleporatation and spent time relaxing at the capital until they rode back there (two weeks long). There was a message left to Marshal by Sarou, but the player didn't seem to pay attention (the other two players did), so he won't discover the contents until later. 

Upon returning to the capital of the Empire, they run into Sarou. He had been keeping an ear on the ground and noticed that there have been more than a few peculiar assassination jobs lately. The victims are of random lots in life, the only unifying factor is that they had a single organ of their body expertly excised. No possession would be taken, only killed such that the organ wouldn't be damaged, and then removed post-mortem. The party couldn't get the interest up, and instead looked for a mission from their superior. 

While there, they get to go through a short ceremony and are given Imperial medals for their actions in routing the orcish horde of the Hungering Maw. Ensured of their status as first tier nobles in the Empire (second tier nobles are one step relatives). 

Their prior superior officier turned out to be dead from one of the attacks from the Blackened Grove. Their new one is named Bunarti, a blonde, beardless dwarf with a Led accent, wearing black & gold cloth. He told them that part of their recent advantage in power was absorbing the Mushroom Kingdom into the fold. Their mission was to find out why or how the Blackened Grove was able to convince the native myconids to accept the alliance, as their culture makes subjugation or even aidful alliance difficult. 

The border between the Blackened Grove, while relatively open for travellers, was guarded to prevent egress of the nobility from the Empire of the Sun (read: adventurers). From what they could figure out, they would be suspect for being nobility if they stood out for weirdness or be noticed for their particular combat prowess (Sense Motive to see how good they are in a fight if they ever do something violent) and would likely be subject to cursory magic item scans (adventurers light up like holiday trees). Main roads would be the obviously guarded route, and the Blackened Grove was known for its druids, so moving through the forest beyond the roads would be equally bad when none in the party are familiar with moving through the woods. 

After half an hour, they decided to take a boat from Star Cove, captained by a 3rd level warrior aquatic elf (former privateer of another kingdom). The Mushroom Kingdom's on the southern coast of the continent, about 320 miles west of Star Cove. The kingdom is a cold marsh that is like a cross between World of Warcraft's Zangarmarsh and the fungal forest in Nausica of the Valley of the Wind. 

While moving along the coast, they can only find a single port, which consists of two seaweed ladened docks near three rundown and seemingly abandoned shanties. For safety, they send Tow out on reconnaisance, so he casts invisibility and begins to teleport around 

At one point, he teleports atop one of the roofs, which collapses beneath him. Falling inside, he lands inside a pool of stagnant saltwater and sees a bit of movement below him in the pool. Before he can react properly (lost initiative), he finds himself grappled and pummelled with subdual damage unto unconsciousness (never able to make the Concentration checks). 

The rest of the party sits for fifteen minutes before getting worried and docking to looking for Tow; unsure of exactly where he went because they couldn't tell if he fell through the bit of roof that collapsed in (as he had been invisible at the time). When they check the inside, they notice an open pit of stagnant water filled with seaweed at the center of the shantie, below the open hole. One other building also has an open pit, and all of them are filled with mold and bits are growing over with moss, the signs of civilzation being shelves of hollowed out mushrooms filled with various herbs. 

They decided that Tow likely fell in and never came out, so Cast takes off his armor, ties himself to a fair bit of rope, and dives in. After a few rounds of looking around, he finds and goes down a tunnel to the side, popping up a hole. Inside are seven more humanoid looking skum that seem to be using a seaweed base, Tow in a corner unconscious. The creatures don't seem to speak his language, so he attempts to mime that he wants the tiefling, and they seem to mime that they don't want to give him up. He pauses for a round, then jerks at the rope as he dives for Tow to grab him. The whole lot of skum begin to bite and claw at him, attempting to subdue him at first as he starts getting dragged back into the water (holding Tows mouth/nose shut to prevent water getting in). About 10' from the surface, the skum did enough damage to knock Cast unconscious and then cut the rope. At which point, they swiftly dragged both bodies back to their lair, leaving Marshal with a surprised look and cut rope. 

There's some time deliberating by Marshal with Tenoc as to what to do, because he's no idea what's going on below to cause all this, and his defensive capability is severely compromised without the armor (and very much not swimming with it on). After awhile, they realize that the captain is a sea elf who's likely fast enough to quick check and get back before getting caught. Reluctantly, Marshal allows this and gets the basic gist of what's where. From the lay of the land, he figures out that he can likely walk down the tunnel and climb up to the hole while wearing his armor. At which point, he does so and ends up killing most of them on the way due to their surprisingly weak battle prowess. After half an hour, Tow and Cast awaken (sleeping spores were used), and they search through the room to find a secret passage. Further down the tunnel, they reach the exit and find themselves in a fungal forest with myconids working the 'fields' within sight.