Session 30 — 4 and 11 October 2026
Two fungal mounds rise beside the little hut, towering over Ruben. Professor Sharpbeak's missing mascots are supposed to be somewhere around Wiltroot Hall, on the Witherbloom campus. So far, the students have managed to collar an elemental and a pest, sending both back towards the island where they belong. Four mascots remain loose. These two creatures look considerably more interested in Ruben than in helping with the search.
“Dreams shape the world.” Ruben casts Sleep.
Neither mound falls asleep. Some distance away, the giant elks he previously put to sleep wake up instead. Ruben is still right beside the creatures, trying to reassure them that the students mean no harm.
Kroak approaches with a rather different solution. Their Inflict Wounds hurts the nearer mound, and they follow it with Putrefy, poisoning the creature. From the ledge, Lana commands the farther one to flee. Daiki directs a little black dragon of acid at the creature that remains.
The other mound retreats, but the poisoned one drives its giant tusk towards Ruben.
“History rejects this outcome.” Ruben casts Silvery Barbs.
History proves stubborn. The tusk pierces him, then drops him into the mud. Wounded and flat on the ground, Ruben feels distinctly unwell.
Lana looks quickly towards Daiki. They need to help Ruben, but someone also needs to keep fighting the thing that has just impaled him.
“Focus on that thing I can help.”
Daiki flies over to Ruben and casts Cure Wounds, restoring him and giving him another layer of magical protection. Then he turns back towards the mound with a giggle. The creature refuses to be impressed by that particular magic.
Lana fills her longsword with divine holy light, moves around the creature and finds her opening. She strikes, adding a Divine Smite. Kroak flies up with their own contribution.
“BAD MUSHROOM.”
Their Witch Bolt strikes the mound with lightning. It is visibly wounded now, and Kroak lands on its back.
Below them, Ruben lies on the damp forest floor, annoyed, hurt and grateful that his friends are here. He takes out his spellbook and opens it to page fourteen. If the creature will not sleep, perhaps it can be persuaded that it is surrounded by an enormous forest fire.
Ruben casts Phantasmal Force. The imaginary flames close in on the mound from every side, burning down towards its roots. Through his spellbook, Ruben sees the threads of reality and selects the one that will make the illusion take hold. The creature seems less troubled by the apparent fire than he expects, although the spell still hurts it.
He gets up and flies clear. Both mounds continue away, and the nearer one runs straight through the fire only it can see. Kroak goes with it, still perched on its back. Ruben catches the retreating creature with his talons as it passes beneath him.
The mounds leave. Neither has fallen, and the mascot hunt has gained a rather unusual ride.
The hut beside the encounter still needs searching. Lana uses the door; Daiki chooses the chimney, approaching from the other side in case a mascot is hiding inside. He drops into a mostly abandoned observation cabin with a few chairs and space for people to sit and take notes. There are signs that students use it, but Lana cannot find mascot tracks.
Ruben is recovering from the attack when they call him over. Daiki thinks they ought to put their heads together.
Kroak promptly puts their head against his.
Daiki likes the gesture, but he means they should work out where the remaining mascots might go. An inkling, a fractal and a spirit statue are still missing, as well as the sixth mascot Sharpbeak could not identify. Kroak suggests tempting them with something they like. Perhaps potatoes? Lana wonders whether a Silverquill inkling might be drawn to a debate.
“Maybe they will come to us when the quality of conversation goes up,” Ruben suggests, before flying up to look around.
What he finds is a boar on the far side of the path. It is chewing at flowers, but seems aggressive and confused. Daiki immediately wants to help. Lana has one request before he goes: if he angers it, he should please avoid bringing it straight back to the rest of them.
Daiki settles safely in a tree and watches. The boar tears at things without really eating. In the distance, the newly awakened elks are behaving much the same way.
He creates an illusion of himself on the path, complete with a little poof as it appears to land. The boar shakes, notices the figure and charges, trying to impale it. It runs straight through the illusion and comes out looking confused.
Daiki returns to report. Perhaps something magical is affecting the animals. Kroak wonders about the black goop they have encountered before, and Lana bends towards them so they can, quite literally this time, put their heads together. They compare the behaviour with the frogs affected by Eldritch Balm. The aggression is familiar, but the boar has no glowing red eyes, and there is no trace of the substance. These seem to be ordinary animals under some other influence.
Kroak feels they should help. All this stress and anger cannot be good for the flavour of the meat.
Lana has other reasons for helping, and a practical problem. Everyone else can fly. If the animals charge, she will be left standing in the middle of them.
Ruben offers his giant fly. It has a saddle, and he can direct it to carry her alongside him. The offer briefly gets lost in an argument about what the fly is called. Lana hears Yusuf, then UFOs, before the conversation arrives at Youfool. She likes that considerably.
The ride is smooth. The saddle is soft, the wings keep the fly hovering, and Lana joins the others above the ground. She is very happy with the supposedly stupid creature that lets her fly.
Daiki lands near the boar and opens his arms, asking it to calm down. It begins to charge, then shakes its head and veers aside at the last moment. Kroak tosses it a potato to eat. The boar almost dives nose-first into it and mostly destroys it instead. That is further evidence, as far as Kroak is concerned, that something is wrong.
Daiki searches where it has been wandering. The tracks show erratic movement in and out of the water and through the plants, but no cause for its distress. Kroak tries to recognise a magical aura and notices something unfamiliar in the air. A faint blanket of energy lies across this part of Witherbloom. Perhaps it is also why the mascots are running wild.
Ruben begins the ritual for Detect Magic. Daiki approaches the boar again and touches it. Iridescent energy pulses from his hands as he casts Lesser Restoration. For a moment, the animal becomes lucid. It looks around, then runs north.
Daiki notices that the fungal creatures also left in that direction. Ruben suggests they try going south instead. Daiki would like to help the elks too, but follows the others.
Wiltroot Hall stands in the middle of the area, a huge hollowed-out tree reaching more than a hundred feet into the air. From her new mount, Lana gets a good view of its surrounding huts and walkways, but nothing that explains the disturbance. Inside, the spacious classroom is empty. There is no professor to ask.
Lana proposes searching for the source like a childhood game of hot and cold: follow the feeling as it grows stronger. Kroak thinks she is hot. That is not quite the game Lana means. Ruben is trying to concentrate on his ritual, and the clarification does little to help. When Daiki moves towards another hut, the feeling stays the same, but he finds someone inside: Javenesh, whom they know from the Bow's End Tavern. He is talking to a pool of water.
This hut has no chimney. Daiki knocks, is invited in and finds Javenesh standing by a little well filled to the brim with clear water. Javenesh asks Daiki to wait while he continues his negotiation. He only wants some water. Surely the water can be all right with that?
Daiki checks that Javenesh is feeling well, then picks up a nearby cup and scoops some water himself. It flows straight out of the cup and back into the well.
“You've not asked,” a voice says in his mind.
“So, can my friend here please have some water? He is quite parched and he could use some water. Please.”
A face rises out of the water.
“Sure.”
The water weird thanks Daiki for asking so nicely and asks his name: “Is he a Witherbloom student?” No, he is Daiki. The creature dips back into the well, and Javenesh fills his waterskin, thanking Daiki for the help.
Daiki explains that he is also looking for mascots. Has Javenesh seen any?
“Don't move.”
Behind Daiki, a tiny fractal mascot is coiling on the ground. He has a collar ready and offers it as a little cloak to keep his new friend warm and cosy. The fractal moves back cautiously, watching him, then allows him close enough to fasten the collar around its snaky neck. As soon as it is on, the mascot heads north. Daiki comes outside with a thumbs-up. Three recovered.
Meanwhile, Ruben's ritual identifies the disturbance: necrotic magic, sapping the life from everything and everyone here. He flies higher to find its boundary.
At three hundred feet, he is still inside it.
He returns to Kroak with a problem much larger than the mascot job. Ruben would still rather find the missing creatures, then leave the professors to investigate the drain. Surely they do not want this happening either.
“I'm enrolled into Witherbloom, that kind of feels like my problem,” Kroak replies.
They have to spend time on this campus. Finishing Sharpbeak's errand will not make the life-sapping energy go away. Their examination suggests a draining ritual, perhaps an experiment covering as much ground as possible. Kroak worries that someone is collecting all that energy to build a huge bomb. Lana wonders whether the person who wrote a warning through the mirror is involved. Neither connection is established, but Kroak wants the source to take priority.
When Daiki joins them, Kroak congratulates him on the fractal and explains their suspicion that several spellcasters are combining their magic to extend its reach. Daiki has someone they can ask about the disturbance: the water weird. They will need to ask nicely.
The creature raises its head when they return. Daiki asks its name.
“It's secret.”
“Oh. Hello, Secret.”
Secret feels the draining energy too and would very much like them to fix it. Daiki explains that they are also secretly recovering Sharpbeak's lost mascots, then realises he has told the water weird. Secret agrees to keep quiet. It dislikes the faculty, who want it gone, and asks them to keep its hiding place secret in return.
As for the source, Secret presumes magic. It does not come from inside this hut. Another pulse should arrive soon, making them feel worse for a little while. It has been happening regularly, with a little bit of time in between.
“That's a lot of little bits,” Daiki says.
“Maybe you can call it a lottle bit.”
Kroak braces against the fountain. They wait. Nothing happens at first, then the water shakes and a pulse washes over them.
Daiki and Kroak feel it bite into them, leaving them sluggish whether they walk or fly. Lana, Ruben and the giant fly withstand it. Ruben tries to trace its direction. One pulse does not give him enough information to pinpoint the source, but he feels it coming from somewhere to the south.
Secret cannot supply a useful interval before the next one. Time is relative, and it has no watch. It declines to come along; this little hut is safe and the water is fresh.
Kroak leaves it a potato. Secret throws it straight out of the pool.
“Do not spoil the water.”
The students leave their new acquaintance and head south. Lana and Ruben notice two slimy mounds of vegetation below them. These look different from the fungal creatures they fought earlier. Ruben pokes one with Mage Hand.
The plants rise, tangled together into an enormous creature.
“I am disturbed,” it gurgles.
At first it cannot reach anyone overhead. Daiki is struggling to keep up, and the sluggish feeling reminds him of a time he would rather not repeat. Lana offers him a place on the fly.
Ruben addresses the mound, asking whether it too is troubled by the necrotic pulses. The answer is a large boulder, hurled straight at him. It strikes away the extra protection Daiki gave him.
“Manners. Manners.”
Daiki tells the creature to leave Ruben alone and sends a fiery little dragon into it. Ruben adds an imagined burning against its skin as he flies away. Lana follows on Youfool, but her Sacred Flame fails to hurt the mound. She catches up to check that Ruben is all right; he is very glad of Daiki's protective magic. Kroak climbs higher too, slowed by the pulse and frustrated that so much of their magic requires getting close.
The mound follows and throws another boulder. Ruben dodges it. Daiki answers with a fiery red dragon head that bursts against the plants, while Ruben conjures a stream of radiant lava above the creature's heads. Lana's next Sacred Flame fares no better than the first. One head remains fixed on Ruben; the other twists towards Daiki and sends a rock flying at him.
The boulder breaks around Daiki's magical protection. He flies higher, insults the mound and adds a psychic giggle. Ruben follows with magic that makes it imagine the misery of being bullied. Slime and pus spill from its body. Lana switches to her javelin, directing Youfool closer to throw it before backing away. The weapon stays stuck in the mound, slowing it. Kroak launches a branch from a rocky outcrop into the creature with Catapult.
Another rock misses Daiki. Without a sound or visible gesture, he strikes the mound with radiant fire and renews his protective magic. Ruben makes it relive that attack.
The mound falls to its knees in the water, then comes apart into ordinary foliage, roots and mushrooms.
Ruben flies over to Lana with his spellbook. In the back, he keeps a ledger of their kills; he adds another mark beside his own name. Lana gives him an appreciative clap, although she points out the contradiction between saying the tally does not matter and finding it cool. Ruben admits that annoying the others is also part of the pleasure, winks and flies over to Kroak.
They are already on their hands and knees, sorting through the remains. Edible but disgusting mushrooms go over their shoulder. Insufficiently poisonous ones follow. Kroak takes out their harvesting tools, clears through the mess and sticks Lana's recovered javelin into the ground behind them.
The materials have lost their magical properties. Something else, however, crawls out of the mound: a spirit statue mascot.
Ruben is delighted. He flies down with a collar and introduces himself as a fellow Lorehold student, saying he would love to talk later. He hugs the statue and fastens the collar. A blessing settles over him in return, the Counsel of the Past. The mascot heads north.
Four collared, two still missing.
Ruben searches where the mound had stood but finds no other treasure or useful clue. It seems to have left no trail of earlier movement. Daiki has a more immediate concern: he still feels terribly slow, and his own magic is wearing thin.
Lana examines him with Kroak's help. Kroak tips him partly sideways, asks him to stick out his tongue and lifts an eyelid while Daiki flutters to stay upright. It does not look like poison. Lana cannot find a way to cure the ailment.
Kroak has another idea. They produce a viscous blue-silver liquid, still partly separated, and shake it thoroughly.
“Alright, quickly drink this.”
Daiki trusts his friends and takes it. Anything to feel faster again. Soon he can flutter around much more easily. Kroak asks how it tastes. It was meant to taste like toothpaste; Daiki thinks it tastes rather like quicksilver.
Kroak checks whether he still has the same number of horns. Any other strange changes to his body? Ruben asks whether they are experimenting on their dormmates again.
“It's pretty safe, I think. See, it works. He's not dead.”
The tonic will last an hour. Lana collects her javelin, shakes the mess off it and climbs back onto You Fool. Kroak walks, still slowed, as they continue towards another cabin.
A giant scorpion is badly concealed inside.
“Oh, more venom.” Kroak wants to harvest this one. The venom they collected before was excellent, and they would like more.
Before they have finished explaining, Lana has her javelin ready and throws it towards the scorpion's head. Daiki points out that he could have made it laugh while they collected the poison. The attack is already under way.
The javelin finds its target through the hut's cover and slows the scorpion. Ruben tries to make it imagine the disappointment of failing to impress passing students, but the spell does not take. Kroak flies up and prepares Witch Bolt for the moment it comes outside.
The scorpion demolishes the hut. As the building falls apart and the creature smashes out, Kroak strikes it with lightning.
Daiki comes lower, within reach. One claw misses; the other closes around him. The tail follows, but the sting misses even while he is caught. Lana calls down that she will descend from the fly to help him surround it.
Before she can do so, another creature bursts out of the ground behind Ruben. It shifts position and spits a line of acid at him and Lana.
Ruben avoids the worst of it. Lana does not. Already hurt, she is now badly wounded, still twenty-five feet above the ground on Youfool. The fly takes acid too, but stays aloft. A protective Mythal activates around Ruben, making him a little more robust.
Daiki is still in the scorpion's claw. He has a terrible joke ready.
“You shouldn't be so crabby.”
Somehow, the scorpion finds him very funny. It falls helplessly to the ground, laughing uncontrollably, and releases him.
Daiki flies up and north. Lana's plan to surround it will have to wait. He turns his attention towards the creature that has just spat acid at his friends.