Enola Yarn – blogpost 14

Valentine transforms herself to look like a Yuan-Ti to check whether people are up ahead. However, she refrains, because the Nagas don’t particularly like Yuan-Ti. Farryn goes off by himself, Valentine grabs Peythur and helps him to ascend Enola2. We discuss what to do: we need to kill the Naga to get the rod of influence that now controls the Drow in this area. We continue our way, looking for our enemy. Farryn is exploring some pathways. Valentine decides to impersonate a Bullywug instead of a Yuan-Ti, but she is spotted and caught as she moves away from us. She runs back and tells us she saw a Duergarr that told her this is the Arena of Excrutha and Serakath – the Naga overlords of the Slither Swamp. She can still see the Duergarr and shoots an eldridge blast to it, followed by Farryns’ molotov-cocktail and my firebolt.

We hear an ominous swooshing sound behind us and turn around… Two Nagas’ exit a dimension door and attack us! One Naga holds a wand in its tail and shoots lightning at us. It hits me! AAARGH, it hurts SO MUCH! Valentine sees how much the attack hurt me, polymorphs the Naga into a tortoise, and shouts NOT to hurt it. She runs towards it, grabs the wand, and throws it towards me. Astonished as I am for catching it, I drop it into the swamp. I look up and see a couple of Drow join the fight. Peythur casts a wall of fire to keep the Naga at bay. The tortoise starts walking and is trying to get away. At his turn, Farryn jumps into the swamp to find the wand.

The Drow knock Valentine out – she falls to the ground, and the tortoise transforms back again! Oh no! Peythur collects all his strength and pushes the Naga into the wall of fire. My three magic missiles help to disorient it a bit, but the Naga still attacks Peythur. I see his veins light up and color drain from his skin: Peythur almost faints, but just before that happens, the effect stops. He lets go of the Naga and heals Valentine.

Valentine ordered Enola2 to protect us, but unfortunately, our enemies kill her, I can see it from the distance. I decide to misty step to get to Valentine – knowing I’m not safer there than I was previously. I am happy to be near her again, but she casts darkness, and she disappears again. From the darkness, she tells me to hide, so I do.

Farryn yells: “The naga is dead!” I still hear a commotion, but cannot see anything. I yell to my party: “Where are you guys?” However, no one responds, so I stay put. After I hear a loud ‘QUACK’ from the darkness, I decide to follow the rock wall to get through the darkness. When I can see again, I see Peythur, Farryn, but also a Drow. The Drow is nearest, and right in my face, so startled, I use shocking grasp. After a couple of attacks, both Drow are dead.

Valentine lifts the darkness. I can see she is very sad after losing Enola2. I feel for her. Even though I did not like the snake sharing my name, she really was an addition to our party. We find a cave where we can rest. I set up a tiny hut while the party investigates the Duergarr we killed that died on his way to safety. Valentine finds an iron key, and Farryn a sigil of House Freth. In the cave, we find a chest – however, the key doesn’t fit. Farryn identifies with the chest and hears a voice: “go up north, but beware of the Hydra.”

We choose to rest and slice up the Naga afterward so they cannot respawn – hopefully.

After the rest, I don’t feel good, so I decided to stay behind. Peythur, Farryn, and Valentine go inspect the Nagas in the adjacent area. I study for a while and take a nap, waiting for the party to return. After a while, Farryn runs into the tiny hut. He is COMPLETELY stressed and quickly tells me what happened. As he starts to talk, my eyes grow bigger and bigger. I am shocked and afraid for Valentine and Peythur.

The Nagas' were inspected, and the party walked around a bit. They heard some rattling chains and found a Drow called Xirk Dezpeti'il, and freed him. Valentine was nice to him, but he stole from her and got away. Valentine totally flipped out and flew after him to catch him. Peythur followed as an Giant Owl and he was the one who found Xirk - he swept him up and caught him. Valentine caught up and stole his pouch as payback. They dropped the Drow on a pillar and left him there. The party found a mirror and as Farryn fixed it, they saw the Spider Queen Throne and got a really bad feeling, so they chose not to go through the portal. Peythur flew around with Farryn on his back and they found a Bullywug village inhabited by kids only. They flew on and ended up abbove a deep pool and found one really angry Bullywug on a shore. Farryn recognized a spot marked X, but did not see the Hydra. Perhaps the Bullywug killed it? They flew back to collect Valentine, Farryn mounts Grond, so Valentine could fly on Peythur. As they came back to the Bullywug, he started to croack very aggressively, so a fight starts. During the fight, smoke was released that caught Valentine and Peythur, and all attacks did not seem to do a thing to the Bullywug! Farryn fled because he could not do a thing and came to get Enola (me). The last thing he saw was both Valentine and Peythur knocked out on the ground...