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Are you my dad? Am I my OWN dad!? |
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| This article is about the episode from Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, The Forest of the Nightmare King (Dimension 20 LIVE). |
| For the article about the location within Spyre, see Sylvaire. |
The Forest of the Nightmare King is the seventeenth episode of Fantasy High: Sophomore Year.
Recap[]
"Last we left off we had a bit of a wild time. I think you guys will find that last time we were here, we had some really incredible stuff happen. All of our friends started in the Nine Hells and Riz Gukgak met his dad's spirit, Pok Gukgak, a saint, a celestial soul working for the Lower Planar Reconnaissance Task Force. He helped his dad and got some information crossed back and forth about the nature of Kalina and the Shadow Cat. And got decked out with a bunch of rad spy gear, which is extremely, extremely cool. We also had a bunch of fun with our guys coming back and getting to Arborly. We had a viral shrimp party, which has never happened in a game of D&D before."
"Fig, Riz, and Gorgug gave away all of their wealth, all of their currency. You called your bank and everything. And then they headed, into the Forest of the Nightmare King. As our intrepid heroes enter the Forest of the Nightmare King, they split up to search for the ingredients that Kristen would need to make a tincture to cure the Shadow Cat plague. Having collected two of the three ingredients, it seems that Sandra Lynn, Baxter, her griffin now, Ragh, vanished into the forest. Some horrifying magical fate befell Zaphriel in the hang van gem and Ayda Aguefort, and Tracker witnessed an illusory full moon, which would normally not do anything to a werewolf, but here in the Forest of Nightmare King where illusions are partially real, it was enough for her to transform."
"Kristen heroically casts Greater Restoration to remove the disease from Riz, and herself is suffering the horrifying attacks of Kalina, the Shadow Cat, who is partially real and therefore able to hurt Kristen. You guys are a quarter of a mile into the forest. You're not that far. You're a quarter mile into the forest. It is all difficult terrain here. So the briar wall is not far away from you, Arborly is not far away from you. You are each about 300 feet away from each other through thicket and trees and brambles, but you roughly know the direction that everybody is in. As Kristen is sustaining these attacks I'm going to need all of us to roll initiative."
Synopsis[]
The gang finds themselves in the Forest of the Nightmare King. They had split up to find the ingredients they needed to make the tincture to cure the sickness that allowed Kalina to see through them. Kristen and Riz are together, with Tracker having run away after being impacted by an illusory full moon, Gorgug and Fabian are together up in the trees, and Ragh has gone missing, and Fig and Adaine are together, while Ayda Aguefort and Sandra Lynn have gone missing. At this point, the group enters initiative order. Fabian communicates with the Hangman, to tell it to come to the Briar Wall, but to not enter the forest. Riz gives Kristen his signal flare gun and finds the final ingredient needed for the tincture and Gorgug starts running towards his party mates.
Kalina disappears from Kristen's view, and as she does, Sandra Lynn begins to fly into the clearing with a gremlin and directs Kristen to bite it-- but a natural 20 perception role reveals that this was an illusion and that Kalina was trying to get Kristen to bite Riz. Adaine casts fly on her and Fig, and Fig is able to fly far enough to meet up with Gorgug and Fabian. Kristen begins to run toward the exit, casts cure wounds, and shoots the flare. As the group is reunited, Kalina reappears to Kristen and threatens to kill her before they make it back to Arborly if they don't destroy their crystals and leave the photo on the forest floor, but Kristen yells for the group to run and ignores what Kalina was saying.
Fabian casts Heroism on Kristen to give her temporary hit points each round to blunt the effects of Kalina’s attacks. Fig catches up with Kristen, and Dimension Doors with her almost all of the way out of the forest. Kristen makes it out alive but takes significant damage and Kalina is stuck at the edge of the forest with a threatening, “Get you next time.” The rest of the Bad Kids also make it out without too much trouble due to Adine flying with Riz and Gorgug Jumping with Fabian.
The party then heads to the Tinkerer’s Hall to enlist help with making tinctures. Kristen quarantines herself by casting deafness on herself and laying in the Hangvan with her eyes closed overnight. She prays to “not knowing” and gets her spells back for the day.
With the help of the Tinkerer’s, Grogug and Riz are able to make six doses of the tincture. Meanwhile, Fig learns more about her bass and Gorgug gets a new Ax from the very grateful tinkerers. Gorgug is given a choice between an ax that has thunder properties and and one that has gravity properties. He picks the latter, which, among other things, gives him auto-crits on objects. Adaine works on her spell for Ayda.
The party cures Kristen with a dose of tincture then they upload the video of Kalina Riz took with his tie cam, and that video quickly goes viral as people try to figure out why some people can see the tabaxi in it and some can’t. Riz makes one of the potions into a tranq dart for Tracker.
Fig realizes that, now that she’s out of the forest, Ayda’s feather is glowing again. Using that connection, Adaine tries to Scry on Ayda and sees that she (along with Zathriel) are caught in a web with strands going into all of their face holes. Ayda’s eyes are clear because the fire of her eyes burn out the webs but she’s full on weeping. She’s also trying to use the bloody earring Fig gave her to teleport back to her.
The party decides to immediately head back into the forest. While they rest for the night Fig sees a vision of her younger self but disperses it with scathing words, she talks to her father in his gem and discuss the origins of the devils and that before they invented evil they were just rebellion, she has visions of the original fall from grace. They reach a temple with footprints leading inside. Adaine casts Locate Creature to search for her mother but finds she's beyond a thousand feet away. Riz investigates the temple and finds a dead unicorn filled with spider egg sacs, pointing at a portrait of a woman with a destroyed face. He also discovers a chamber with tomes related to the rituals performed there.
Adaine, with the help of these tomes, understands the nature of the four curses and their associated schools of magic: Illusion, Enchantment, Abjuration, and the last curse, which manipulates the forest paths based on the fear of those within. They realize illusions are more potent in this part of the forest, and any illusion magic can become real.
Kristen, examining the chapel, encounters a spiritual presence associated with the destroyed portrait. She communicates with it, expressing her resonance with the idea of praise through doubt. Suddenly, the unicorn skeleton attacks and seemingly kills Kristen. It then turns to Fabian and says "You should not have come here."
Locations[]
Featured Characters[]
The Bad Kids[]
New[]
Returning[]
- The Hangman
- Kalina
- Sandra Lynn Faeth
- Wretchrot
- Gilear Faeth
- Gnomish Tinkerers
- Boggy the Froggy
- Gorthalax the Insatiable
- The Great Unicorn