Run 1 - 20210202

report: portal, 'magical field, tower on an island in that magical field. causeway that runs up to the field and up to the island. guardhouse that looms over the causeway between the shore and the magical forcefield.'

decide to go through portal and investigate this

jamwno - goliath fighter, 'Caleb'

sarah - halfling warlock, 'Nyla'

jlwfnord - shifter monk/doctor, 'Dr. Castle'

dexter - human paladin, 'Riann Chadwick'

cassie - tabaxi artificer, 'D.va'

portal opens on top of a hill, there's a path through a thicket, switchback down the hill, to a crossroads. causeway starts at the crossroads.

we go through the portal; hill is as described. two suns in sky, hot and clear conditions.

plants on the hillside, glossy green leaves, oily. i take a look at this with survival. some of the plants have ripe, small orange fruits; some have unripe green fruits. also, in some places there are scorch marks and old ash, burn marks on the cobblestones of the path (which is densely covered by this growth)

plants are semi-translucent and contain oil (orange is ready to go oil) and seeds. i think if the sun hits these just right, it'd set off this entire field of burnglobe plants.

we notice that there are sounds of fighting, approaching along the road towards the crossroad. screams, shouting. getting closer. We head down the path and we can see a group of 'taller folks being chased by some smaller folks' - taller folks are elves, smaller folks are goblins. 

at the first switchback the burnglobe foliage is covering the entire path and dr. castle spots something moving in the underbrush; calls it out to the party, walks past, gets attacked by vines; vines miss. castle has the revelation that these plants probably actually enjoy being on fire. d.va sneaks past. caleb decides 'fuck this' and decides to go straight down the hill instead of going along the switchbacks, and jumps gracefully down the hill. grabs a pair of hand axes, jump off, uses the hand axes to brake his descent as he goes down the hillside. Gets covered in flammable oil from this. Nyla continues along the switchback stealthily; Chad decides to jump down the hill after Caleb. Nyla gets swiped at by a plant, but the plant is extremely pathetic and doesn't manage to hit her.

Elves get to the guardhouse and start shooting from the towers. Goblins raise shields and start falling back. Some of them notice us. Caleb and Dr. Castle are making it down to the crossroads. Goblins yell out in accented Krask "Watch out for the plants!"

"Why are you attacking the elves?"

"These fuckin lifestealers took my grandma's spoon! Besides, why would you let lifestealers live anyways?"

"Lifestealers" - after the collapse, some people, in order to maintain their connection with the longevity of their ancestors, ate the life force of other people. These Goblins are claiming that the Elf-like people are lifestealers. When someone siphons magical energy out of you, it can transform you - into anything, but in this case maybe goblins.

Then Caleb gets shot by one of these fuckers in the moat house so I guess now we're going to go fuck them up.

We go try to hide behind the goblin shields to prep for dealing with these life stealers.

Water runs alongside the road, there's an embankment, 20' from the road to the water.

We ask the goblins if they want to help kill life stealers. They decline but want to pay us for each life stealer we kill, so that's fine. They warn us about the eye wasps. Apparently eye wasps come out of people's eyes when they die around here. That's not fucking gross at all.

We want to get to the tower and the life stealers have taken the gate house, so we're gonna have to go take it. 

Arrow slits appear to only be on the first floor. No slits on second floor or third floor. Almost no land around outside of moathouse. Water runs up to edges of it. 

60' from edge of moathouse to edge of land, we're roughly 80' to side of that. 

D.va sprints all the way to the gatehouse in one round. Castle runs to the crossroads and sort of expects to be catching arrows; Chad and Caleb follow slightly slower, Nyla wants to ride Caleb.

Lifestealers shoot at Castle; Castle slaps an arrow out of the air. D.va notices that she's walked herself into a moat house murder zone, surrounded by portcullises and murder holes and arrow slits. Everyone runs closer; Castle runs in and tries to open the one door in the murder zone; door crunches slightly but doesn't open (implying the door is barred but not locked, maybe). Caleb and Chad move forward a bit more. 

Caleb blocks an arrow heading towards Nyla (on his back). Nyla fires a few eldritch blasts at the arrow slit that shot at her, missing. Castle preps a crowbar for Caleb to run into and pop the door, while D.va preps to attack anything behind it. Caleb slams the door open and D.va shoots one of the people inside with some weapon mounted on her magical artificer armor.

The life stealer elves have filed teeth, so, not really someone i want to be super friends with. Chad runs in and hacks at one of them, badly, and then rams the butt of his halberd through their torso while screaming "PROFIT! INVISIBLE HAAAAAAAAND!" D.va shoots another bolt of lightning in, Nyla finishes them off with a blast of force.

Caleb remembers that 11 of these folks ran in, so we've got 9 left to polish off.