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Two days to the west, follow the dry river bed until you reach the edge of the Withered Grove. That is what the Oracle told you. She told you many things, but this is the most pertinent to now. Following the once-river, now-road for two days was easy enough on the riding horses you'd each acquired for your travel. None were prime examples of their species but they moved a steady pace and asked for little food in return. Two days, a night spent camping and long stretches of uninterrupted riding left plenty of time to fill with words. How much could you have to say to these three strangers who the Oracle said could help you see your goal through? How much could you reveal?

The Withered Grove was bountiful once, a wetland amidst open plains if the tales are to be believed. It was well before your lifetimes that the change occurred, and rumors abound as to the cause. A god's wrath, an ecological twist of fate, the aftermath of warring sorcerers. What splays out before you as you draw near the edge is fetid bog and stagnant swamp, the smell wafting in the wind something sickly sweet like decaying fruit. Not far, the Oracle said, before you would see the tower of the witch. The witch who had long been her source of esoteric information and ancient prophecy. The witch who would surely be able to direct you each onto the next leg of your respective journeys. Also, sadly, the witch who had stopped returning the Oracles messages a month ago. The cause could be distraction, or something more severe. That is the task you collectively have been sent on, to determine the fate of the Witch of the Withered Grove.

If the worst be true and she is dead, collect the sending box that mirrors this one and place a message into it for me to read. My response will come the next day. Oh, and take this seeing stone. Things are often not what they seem in the Grove.

Hopes of that not being the case sink within you as you all leave the horses secured and stalk through the damp, clingy undergrowth. Avoiding areas of sinking mud and pockets of nauseating gas just below the surface, you all make your way deeper into the grove. The tower is not far, the sun still hours above the horizon when you draw near, but the scene does not bode well. You hear them before you see them, and you smell them soon after. Lizardfolk, but not the brawny warriors known to rule over the Floodplains of Nar'Yent. No, these are some stunted and degenerate offshoot with knotty joints linking their wiry limbs. Creatures build more for speed and stealth if you had to guess.

Getting close enough to hear them is easy with your group's skill in remaining unseen and navigating natural hazards. You all huddle down in a patch of tangled vines that cling to one of the closest sizable trees to the tower. It's still a good twenty feet from your hideaway to where the creatures have gathered, and that twenty feet offers little in the way of concealment, but their voices carry easily and while their dialect is accented heavily, it is close enough to the Vulgate tongue commonly used by travelers to decipher. You can count six moving about the tower's base. Two have set their axes to the door, makeshift weapons that seem to be scraps of armor hammered out into blade heads and strapped to thick, misshapen branches. Two others are trying to climb the side of the tower, finding no purchase in the smooth stone construction and snapping angrily at each other as their attempts fail.

"The shield may have fallen but that door barely registers our swings." The tallest of them stands near a cooking fire, speaking to the last who bears a feathered head dress and a heavy necklace of carved bone. There is a deference in the speaker's voice, born of respect or perhaps fear. "Are you sure the witch is dead? Her magics seem to hold." Feathered head dress stirs the contents of a heavy pot held over the fire with her hand despite thick plumes of steam indicating the content's temperature.

"If she were alive we'd have burned up at the treeline. So it has been for as long as our tales go back. No, she is gone and we simply have to work harder. I want the magics she hordes and I will not tolerate failure." Pulling her arm back, she drags her tongue across the brown-tinged liquid dripping off her scales. The wind shifts and brings the smell of boiling fish and root vegetable, some sort of stew, to you. Despite the scene, the meal does make your stomachs grumble and your mouths water.

"Perhaps we can dig? Tunnel below?" The taller lizardfolk seems uncertain as he gives voice to the idea. It is hard to imagine that the ground here would support such an endeavor, but the fact that the tower stands in this marsh at all is testament to some oddity in the terrain or construction. The tower was clearly taller once, but it now stops at three stories where the stonework is sheared clean through at an angle. Some sort of impact or perhaps an explosion from inside? The weathering there indicates whatever caused it happened long ago. At it's base, the circular structure is easily two hundred feet across, with only this double doors of heavy wood visible as an entry. The two lizardfolk by it continue raining blows, each hitting hard against the wood but leaving no cut or scratch to show progress.

Here are a few prompts that you might consider reflecting on in your post.

• On the trip, did your character open up about something they may now regret revealing?
• Have you developed any immediate impressions of your companions?
• Is there a rumor you have heard about the Withering Grove that you shared with the others?

Okay, let's start out with an Intelligence check from each of you. Basic task resolution states that your base DC for this is 12 if Intelligence is a prime attribute for you, 18 if it is not. The Challenge Level, which modifies the base, is +3 setting the DC here to 15 or 21. Whoever among you is carrying the seeing stone, let's say first one to call dibs, gets +10 to this particular roll. If you make it, check the spoiler below.

You can now flex your muscles a bit by trying out some of your abilities or converse on a plan. The lizardfolk seem very engaged in their tasks and are unlikely to notice you where you are unless you actively call attention to yourselves. Getting closer unnoticed will demand some form of sneakiness, though, as you don't have the benefit of darkness right now.

Two days to the west, follow the dry river bed until you reach the edge of the Withered Grove. That is what the Oracle told you. She told you many things, but this is the most pertinent to now. Following the once-river, now-road for two days was easy enough on the riding horses you'd each acquired for your travel. None were prime examples of their species but they moved a steady pace and asked for little food in return. Two days, a night spent camping and long stretches of uninterrupted riding left plenty of time to fill with words. How much could you have to say to these three strangers who the Oracle said could help you see your goal through? How much could you reveal?

The Withered Grove was bountiful once, a wetland amidst open plains if the tales are to be believed. It was well before your lifetimes that the change occurred, and rumors abound as to the cause. A god's wrath, an ecological twist of fate, the aftermath of warring sorcerers. What splays out before you as you draw near the edge is fetid bog and stagnant swamp, the smell wafting in the wind something sickly sweet like decaying fruit. Not far, the Oracle said, before you would see the tower of the witch. The witch who had long been her source of esoteric information and ancient prophecy. The witch who would surely be able to direct you each onto the next leg of your respective journeys. Also, sadly, the witch who had stopped returning the Oracles messages a month ago. The cause could be distraction, or something more severe. That is the task you collectively have been sent on, to determine the fate of the Witch of the Withered Grove.

If the worst be true and she is dead, collect the sending box that mirrors this one and place a message into it for me to read. My response will come the next day. Oh, and take this seeing stone. Things are often not what they seem in the Grove.

Hopes of that not being the case sink within you as you all leave the horses secured and stalk through the damp, clingy undergrowth. Avoiding areas of sinking mud and pockets of nauseating gas just below the surface, you all make your way deeper into the grove. The tower is not far, the sun still hours above the horizon when you draw near, but the scene does not bode well. You hear them before you see them, and you smell them soon after. Lizardfolk, but not the brawny warriors known to rule over the Floodplains of Nar'Yent. No, these are some stunted and degenerate offshoot with knotty joints linking their wiry limbs. Creatures build more for speed and stealth if you had to guess.

Getting close enough to hear them is easy with your group's skill in remaining unseen and navigating natural hazards. You all huddle down in a patch of tangled vines that cling to one of the closest sizable trees to the tower. It's still a good twenty feet from your hideaway to where the creatures have gathered, and that twenty feet offers little in the way of concealment, but their voices carry easily and while their dialect is accented heavily, it is close enough to the Vulgate tongue commonly used by travelers to decipher. You can count six moving about the tower's base. Two have set their axes to the door, makeshift weapons that seem to be scraps of armor hammered out into blade heads and strapped to thick, misshapen branches. Two others are trying to climb the side of the tower, finding no purchase in the smooth stone construction and snapping angrily at each other as their attempts fail.

"The shield may have fallen but that door barely registers our swings." The tallest of them stands near a cooking fire, speaking to the last who bears a feathered head dress and a heavy necklace of carved bone. There is a deference in the speaker's voice, born of respect or perhaps fear. "Are you sure the witch is dead? Her magics seem to hold." Feathered head dress stirs the contents of a heavy pot held over the fire with her hand despite thick plumes of steam indicating the content's temperature.

"If she were alive we'd have burned up at the treeline. So it has been for as long as our tales go back. No, she is gone and we simply have to work harder. I want the magics she hordes and I will not tolerate failure." Pulling her arm back, she drags her tongue across the brown-tinged liquid dripping off her scales. The wind shifts and brings the smell of boiling fish and root vegetable, some sort of stew, to you. Despite the scene, the meal does make your stomachs grumble and your mouths water.

"Perhaps we can dig? Tunnel below?" The taller lizardfolk seems uncertain as he gives voice to the idea. It is hard to imagine that the ground here would support such an endeavor, but the fact that the tower stands in this marsh at all is testament to some oddity in the terrain or construction. The tower was clearly taller once, but it now stops at three stories where the stonework is sheared clean through at an angle. Some sort of impact or perhaps an explosion from inside? The weathering there indicates whatever caused it happened long ago. At it's base, the circular structure is easily two hundred feet across, with only this double doors of heavy wood visible as an entry. The two lizardfolk by it continue raining blows, each hitting hard against the wood but leaving no cut or scratch to show progress.

Here are a few prompts that you might consider reflecting on in your post.

• On the trip, did your character open up about something they may now regret revealing?
• Have you developed any immediate impressions of your companions?
• Is there a rumor you have heard about the Withering Grove that you shared with the others?

Okay, let's start out with an Intelligence check from each of you. Basic task resolution states that your base DC for this is 12 if Intelligence is a prime attribute for you, 18 if it is not. The Challenge Level, which modifies the base, is +3 setting the DC here to 15 or 21. Whoever among you is carrying the seeing stone, let's say first one to call dibs, gets +10 to this particular roll. If you make it, check the spoiler below.

You can now flex your muscles a bit by trying out some of your abilities or converse on a plan. The lizardfolk seem very engaged in their tasks and are unlikely to notice you where you are unless you actively call attention to yourselves. Getting closer unnoticed will demand some form of sneakiness, though, as you don't have the benefit of darkness right now.

Two days to the west, follow the dry river bed until you reach the edge of the Withered Grove. That is what the Oracle told you. She told you many things, but this is the most pertinent to now. Following the once-river, now-road for two days was easy enough on the riding horses you'd each acquired for your travel. None were prime examples of their species but they moved a steady pace and asked for little food in return. Two days, a night spent camping and long stretches of uninterrupted riding left plenty of time to fill with words. How much could you have to say to these three strangers who the Oracle said could help you see your goal through? How much could you reveal?

The Withered Grove was bountiful once, a wetland amidst open plains if the tales are to be believed. It was well before your lifetimes that the change occurred, and rumors abound as to the cause. A god's wrath, an ecological twist of fate, the aftermath of warring sorcerers. What splays out before you as you draw near the edge is fetid bog and stagnant swamp, the smell wafting in the wind something sickly sweet like decaying fruit. Not far, the Oracle said, before you would see the tower of the witch. The witch who had long been her source of esoteric information and ancient prophecy. The witch who would surely be able to direct you each onto the next leg of your respective journeys. Also, sadly, the witch who had stopped returning the Oracles messages a month ago. The cause could be distraction, or something more severe. That is the task you collectively have been sent on, to determine the fate of the Witch of the Withered Grove.

If the worst be true and she is dead, collect the sending box that mirrors this one and place a message into it for me to read. My response will come the next day. Oh, and take this seeing stone. Things are often not what they seem in the Grove.

Hopes of that not being the case sink within you as you all leave the horses secured and stalk through the damp, clingy undergrowth. Avoiding areas of sinking mud and pockets of nauseating gas just below the surface, you all make your way deeper into the grove. The tower is not far, the sun still hours above the horizon when you draw near, but the scene does not bode well. You hear them before you see them, and you smell them soon after. Lizardfolk, but not the brawny warriors known to rule over the Floodplains of Nar'Yent. No, these are some stunted and degenerate offshoot with knotty joints linking their wiry limbs. Creatures build more for speed and stealth if you had to guess.

Getting close enough to hear them is easy with your group's skill in remaining unseen and navigating natural hazards. You all huddle down in a patch of tangled vines that cling to one of the closest sizable trees to the tower. It's still a good twenty feet from your hideaway to where the creatures have gathered, and that twenty feet offers little in the way of concealment, but their voices carry easily and while their dialect is accented heavily, it is close enough to the Vulgate tongue commonly used by travelers to decipher. You can count six moving about the tower's base. Two have set their axes to the door, makeshift weapons that seem to be scraps of armor hammered out into blade heads and strapped to thick, misshapen branches. Two others are trying to climb the side of the tower, finding no purchase in the smooth stone construction and snapping angrily at each other as their attempts fail.

"The shield may have fallen but that door barely registers our swings." The tallest of them stands near a cooking fire, speaking to the last who bears a feathered head dress and a heavy necklace of carved bone. There is a deference in the speaker's voice, born of respect or perhaps fear. "Are you sure the witch is dead? Her magics seem to hold." Feathered head dress stirs the contents of a heavy pot held over the fire with her hand despite thick plumes of steam indicating the content's temperature.

"If she were alive we'd have burned up at the treeline. So it has been for as long as our tales go back. No, she is gone and we simply have to work harder. I want the magics she hordes and I will not tolerate failure." Pulling her arm back, she drags her tongue across the brown-tinged liquid dripping off her scales. The wind shifts and brings the smell of boiling fish and root vegetable, some sort of stew, to you. Despite the scene, the meal does make your stomachs grumble and your mouths water.

"Perhaps we can dig? Tunnel below?" The taller lizardfolk seems uncertain as he gives voice to the idea. It is hard to imagine that the ground here would support such an endeavor, but the fact that the tower stands in this marsh at all is testament to some oddity in the terrain or construction. The tower was clearly taller once, but it now stops at three stories where the stonework is sheared clean through at an angle. Some sort of impact or perhaps an explosion from inside? The weathering there indicates whatever caused it happened long ago. At it's base, the circular structure is easily two hundred feet across, with only this double doors of heavy wood visible as an entry. The two lizardfolk by it continue raining blows, each hitting hard against the wood but leaving no cut or scratch to show progress.

Here are a few prompts that you might consider reflecting on in your post.

• On the trip, did your character open up about something they may now regret revealing?
• Have you developed any immediate impressions of your companions?
• Is there a rumor you have heard about the Withering Grove that you shared with the others?

Okay, let's start out with an Intelligence check from each of you. Basic task resolution states that your base DC for this is 12 if Intelligence is a prime attribute for you, 18 if it is not. The Challenge Level, which modifies the base, is +3 setting the DC here to 15 or 21. Whoever among you is carrying the seeing stone, let's say first one to call dibs, gets +10 to this particular roll. If you make it, check the spoiler below.

You can now flex your muscles a bit by trying out some of your abilities or converse on a plan. The lizardfolk seem very engaged in their tasks and are unlikely to notice you where you are unless you actively call attention to yourselves. Getting closer unnoticed will demand some form of sneakiness, though, as you don't have the benefit of darkness right now.