Session Three:
Fandra's House
Magi Gellen
And so we meet the older halfling wizard, Magi Gellen, a professor in the Arcaneum. Gwyn explains their situation (and name drops Aroa Westlake to help to bend Gellen's ear), and he is happy to help ... in exchange for a task he would like the party to do.
He explains: there was a former wizard, Fandra Deepscythe, dwarf of the Deepscythe clan, who was unceremoniously discharged from the Arcaneum many decades ago. The reasons why, Gellen is unsure of, but they were sufficient enough for her to move out of Moorsward and settle in a small farm on the southeastern edge of Farmsward, in the neighborhood of Satelion.
One day, Fandra simply disappeared. No one knew she was gone until the taxman came to collect. When the taxes did not find their way to the treasury, the Constabulary was called, and when they eventually entered Fandra's home, they discovered several dead myconid and an infestation of fungi spores wafting through the air. They searched the home and did not find Fandra, but did find most of her belongings still intact, including a half-eaten, decaying meal on the dinner table.
The Constabulary opted to quarantine the building, as many of their ranks who had entered the home were coming down with a strange sickness days afterward. If an investigation was called on Fandra's disappearance, Gellen has not heard about it. Since then, Gellen explains, no one has entered the building, and it, and the farmland, has become long abandoned. Some in the nearby neighborhoods even think the house is now haunted.
Gellen believes that Fandra was researching “alternate travel methods,” among other things, and requests that the party seek out a tuning fork he thinks Fandra has, one that has possibly been imbued with magical properties (hence why he won't just have a blacksmith make one). After trying, and failing, to explain what a tuning fork is to Mark, Gellen expenses a couple Protection from Poison potions from Bertie, the gnomish potion master in the Arcaneum. The party bids him farewell and buys a couple more healing potions from Bertie before they depart.
The House & the Ankhegs
Once outside, the party debates whether to go to Fandra's home, or to talk to Minder Locke in the Clawed Palace. They opt to continue to Fandra's, and to do so today, as the longer they wait, the harder it will be to root out the yuan-ti. They take the elevator down to Farmsward and then travel around the bend, all the while watching their backs to see if they are being followed. It appears that they are not.
Fandra's home is on the edge of Satelion, the “edge of civilization,” where the line between Highhaven's safety and the chaos of the valley is blurred. The house is slightly disheveled and worn, but upright. The field around it is almost nonexistent. The party begins to investigate the perimeter; Mark notices the front door's lock and handle have been melted, presumably due to quarantine. The windows have all been shuttered, and the panes themselves are frosted over with some kind of web/spore gunk.
Mark decides to wildshape into a rat to climb up the chimney and crawl inside. As he is descending, however, Gwyn feels a slight rumble in the ground. Suddenly, two ankhegs appear! Battle ensues. Mark scrambles back up the chimney, before ending his wildshape. What he does not realize, however, is that the thatched roof is very old and rotten, and collapses under his new, sudden weight, plunging him into the house and kicking up a bunch of spore dust. So far, he is unfazed by the spores.
Annalyn, seeing Mark fall into the house, pries open the shutters of a nearby window with her sword, eventually breaking the glass so that he can aid in the fight. Gwyn, meanwhile, just goes buck wild with her magic surges. One surge causes her skin to turn transparent, revealing her grotesque musculature beneath (Mark at this point is SURE that he is high from the spores now); another causes a magical spear to suddenly appear in her hand, dealing maximum damage to the ankheg; while a third causes her to bark like a dog. It's a lot. In the end, Annalyn's sword, imbued with divine smite, deals most of the damage, while her Sentinel ability keeps the ankhegs from running off. The party is victorious!
With the ankhegs gone, the party is now able to begin exploring Fandra's house. (Who's house? Fandra's house!)
