This Could Get Dicey

Ellis is on the ground to start this one as everyone is reckoning with the fact that a crow just flew through him. Not only that, he’s still beat up from the fight with the golem and plant matter in the woods. Ellis is panicking, so Emil reaches down and reveals a bit of healing abilities, using an ability called Cross Pollination to help Ellis feel better. 

Calm and collected, but still freaked out, Ellis isn’t noticing any lingering effects for now, so the group pushes on. They take a path off the beaten trail as they head back towards Mistfall, their bounty of this weird plant wrapped up safely in a box in the wagon. They choose to make camp in the woods with Lü’mis staying up to keep watch and Ellis and Emil rotating to help out. 

They decide to have a decoy plant in the likely scenario Elizabeth shows up again to stop them from bringing this plant back to Mistfall. They get a cutting of the plant, stuff it into a backpack and wrap it up, then tie it under their wagon for safekeeping. This is a super clever plan! Look at our little adventurers go!

Ellis is really jumpy during their watch, regularly rubbing and checking on the spot where, you know, a spectral or magical crow flew through him? He thinks he hears a crow even, but he and Lü find no evidence of it. Eventually he goes to sleep, waking up Emil in his place to join Lü’mis on watch. 

Lü’mis and Emil’s concentration lapses. While they are trying to keep watch, they both go into a stupor, experiencing different phenomena. Lü’mis goes to a truly dark place, remembering relationships of the past and feeling caught in an endless swimming. He can’t breathe, he’s stuck. He’s failed someone he cared about. He sees himself swimming in the golden eye of the crow, and he’s feeling mortal for the first time in centuries. 

Emil sees people he loves, people depending on him, and he’s transformed entirely into a tree. He’s a horrific version of the wooden roots his hands turn into, and he’s lost everything as his tree form is inhabited by the crow and his limbs are all ripped from the ground as tree roots. Emil and Lü’mis both take a point of exhaustion from this experience. 

Meanwhile, Ellis’ rest is interrupted by a visit from a feathered human-sized creature with the same golden eyes as the crow he shot. It sits, perched on a tree before him. Its feathers are black, its wings heavy, and it is almost dripping blackness. They have a little chat. 

In this talk, Ellis is shown Emil and Lü’mis heaving and having trouble breathing. The crow figure offers to help them if Ellis will say “yes” to accepting their help. The crow wants Ellis to make a deal now. Right now. “Just say ‘yes’”, the crow encourages. 

The crow is able to have a similarly breathlessness effect on Ellis, and seems to have some control over this vision or visit that Ellis is experiencing. The crow is putting pressure on Ellis and he’s cracking, he wants his friends to be okay, and he’s unable to see another way to help his friends, and – 

“Yes”. Ellis agrees to this deal. The crow figure thanks Ellis and disappears. 

This is enough to make the group freak the hell out, and they pack up camp to get out of dodge. Emil and Lü’mis are exhausted still from this experience, but none of them can make any sense of it. Nobody’s knowledge of gods or arcana helps fill in the gaps here as they set up camp after an entire day of hard, exhausting travel, this intensely strange experience fresh on their brains.