After some deliberation. The group decides to send Oira to scout the settlement that is close by. Marcus makes him invisible for a short time and Oira flies off. What he discovers is a small village of humans. The group decides to send in a few people to see if they can gather any information. Cloud, Vega, Oira and Willie (invisible to everyone) head into the village. They are greeted by several humand, who look at Vega and Oira in utter fascination. After speaking with some if them, they learn that none of the villagers have ever seen a Dwarf or Saurial before. Finally the leader of the town arrives, who is no less fascinated by the three. Cloud attempts to ask questions of Ryce, the leader, but doesn’t get many good answers. It seems that Ryce and the villagers worship the God of Lost Knowledge. Ryce eagerly asks for knowledge to sacrifice to his god, but Cloud, Vega, and Oira think better of the idea and leave. Willie, on the other hand, uses a stick to write in the dirt “This Planet is in the Habol-Sphere” before he too leaves.
Once back with the others, they discuss the fact that they got no real useful information and decide on a quicker course of traversing the forest. They decide that they will make short Teleport hops in lieu of walking/flying in the forest. Cloud, who doesn’t have those spells memorized for the day, begins his preparations to swap out spells so they can travel. The process of swapping out spells takes an hour for the caster involved. After about 45 minutes though, the forest comes alive and grapples half of the group.
Marcus and Tchau sprint away from the group and rise up into the air to get out of range of the living trees and bushes, and Tchau raises a ring of fire around the rest of the group. Something attacks Cloud, and thanks to a contingency spell, Cloud gets teleported into the air, out of harms way (for now). As the others try to escape from the plants and trees that have snared them, Tree-like beings walk through the circle of flame and begin attacking. These tree creatures attack viciously and almost kill Shando who ends up getting swallowed in the process. Vega and Byron fight back, to little effect at first. Cloud unleashes some mighty lightning.
Marcus, surveying the tumult from above, decides he has had enough. He enacts one of his most powerful spells, Magic manager. Once the spell is cast, time seems to slow down, his reflexes heightened. Marcus surveys the crowd and picks out his target, one of the trees that has just severely hurt and eaten one of his companions. Marcus fires off one, two, three, four, five lesser orbs of acid. The first one splatters against the tree and the monster cries out in pain. It then gets hit with two more and half of the monster dissolves away and it falls to the ground dead. The last two balls of acid, he directs to another of the creatures. More lightning from cloud and Shando (who decides to remain hidden in the carcass of the slain tree monster for cover) damage the creatures again and again. Byron Enlarges himself and charges on of the tree creatures. With his shield and sword, Byron completely decimates one of the creatures. The creatures try to close off the fighting on the ground from those raining destruction on them from above by having the trees knit branches and foliage together. Cloud will have none of that though, and casts a Gust of Wind spell to make an opening for Tchau, Marcus, and himself to see and act through. Tchau casts one of his potent fire spells and launches it at the Tree monsters. The tree monsters, who had not been burnt by any of the fire or lightning at this point, erupt into flame. Tchaus flames consume one of the tree monsters and the rest quickly surrender.
The tree monsters have never encountered a group of beings like this before. They ask if the group are ‘Immortals’ and after hesitating only a second, the group answers “Yes”. The group questions the Tree Monsters and learn that the desert they are looking for is far to the west past the mountains. The group question the Tree Monsters about the mountains and what, if any, dangers they might encounter. The Tree Monsters tell them that the mountains are called the Xorn mountains. The group quickly surmises that there is probably a good reasons the mountains are so named and plan on planning accordingly when they reach them. The group asks the tree creatures how they found them in the first place. The tree creatures tell the group that the human, Ryce, told them they were in the forest and where to look. The group plans on revisiting Ryces kindness once their mission is complete.
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