Hey, guess what? Your brothers are dead
Our second session, follows our new group of acquaintances as they scout through the swamp in search of Bol'bara. They get a lead from a map and finally have a destination.
Session 2
It's time to start traveling through the Brokenveil Marsh. Because the size of the marsh is quite enormous, our group has to check each mile for our pace and navigation skills. So of course, we get lost on our first roll. Briya and Malthio talk about tail mutilation. The swamp is deep and difficult terrain. Finally, we find our way to some sort of bone yard that has a goliath-sized skeleton in the distance that is so large we originally thought it was distant mountains. Briya wants to talk to local animals and casts speak with animals to talk to a turtle. Unfortunately, the turtle knows nothing and immediately gets us lost.
At this point, it’s 7pm and the sun is setting. The group decides to find or make shelter. We luckily discover a small, elevated plot of land that’s not great, but it’ll do for the night. Prophet somehow summons sticks and other bedding that are brought to him by some sort of invisible creatures or some kind of magic. Most of the group is skeptical, thinking it's obviously a scam, but we don’t really know what’s going on. He even lays on thick the conversion to his religion toward Morgid, and actually seems to make some inroads.
As we awoke, the group needed to roll constitution saves, but aren't sure why. Perhaps something in the marsh is taxing. Prophet in the morning helps us find our way again. However, upon entering a clearing, we are surrounded by 4 crocodiles. We kill them handily and continue on our way during the second day of exploration.
We're immediately lost again, and then somehow “The light of the Luxon” seems to have saved us. Prophet is really ratcheting up the proselytizing and being... annoying. However, some seem to start to believe in him, especially Mint. Upon finding our way, we locate, and decide to go toward, a small tower. It has a ground-level doorway with multiple windows higher up. Prophet is able to determine that this tower is so old that it's pre-Calamity, as in at least a thousand or more years old. Maltheo, Briya, and Kra'naelen decide to try and enter stealthily.
One, then two, then three spiders show up. We’re able to charm one and kill another. The third one is “somewhere” above us. Lots of poison flying around and also some restraining going on. Though, finally, we're able to kill the last spider, and take a short rest in the cleared-out tower. The poison wears off and we have 23 hours of charm spider remaining. There's a chest that contains lots of ruined papers and “pipes” made of bone. It's some sort of archaic panflute. Briya decides to hold onto them, due to her proficiency in that particular instrument. Maltheo wants to extract a spider’s poison gland, and is able to retrieve the equivalent of a small vial of small spider venom.
Making our way to the top floor has us find two dead soldiers from the Kryn; perhaps ranger-type infantry. One of them has magic armor, and a Kryn blade that is very katana-style. The one without armor has two things: There’s a silver signet ring with a special symbol, worth around 20gp, and a rolled-up piece of parchment. It’s a map with notes! It seems these Kryn scouts were trying to find Empire soldiers. “Fort Venture?” is labeled on the map tentatively, possibly a destination for us to find. From this vantage point, we see there’s also a bit of a "glow" west-north-west, about 8 miles away.
Only then do we notice that Morgid has disappeared, seemingly having been scared of the spiders.