WRITTEN RECAP
Eldoria — Episode 12: Collision Point
Episode Twelve begins with the Old Dudes observing a group of giant hyenas eating a bear and debating a deceptively simple question.
Do we have to fight them?
The animals have not attacked anybody. They are behaving like animals. Even Jay points out that they are essentially having lunch.
The party's ranger is offered the perfect opportunity to defend the natural order.
Instead, the Old Dudes decide to attack.
At the next recap, Zewor will be branded the “anti-ranger” for failing to stop the slaughter of innocent wildlife.
The defense is that the hyenas were giant.
And therefore probably evil.
This is not a particularly strong legal argument, but the hyenas do not get a hearing.
The fight is quick compared with what comes later, and the party continues west looking for the real objective: lizardfolk carrying the same black ichor they encountered at the Jade Fang shrine.
They find them.
This time the Old Dudes are not trying to steal an artifact or escape an entire temple. They need a sample of the substance corrupting the creatures, which means they have to get close enough to defeat them and then collect the ichor without contaminating or destroying it.
The lizardfolk are tougher than expected and accompanied by giant reptiles. The battle spreads through the woods as the party is forced to deal with multiple enemies at once.
Wenende goes down.
Other characters take heavy damage as well.
Zewor spends enough time using terrain for protection that the table begins accusing him of hiding behind trees whenever anything dangerous happens. There is a proposal that next time he disappears behind one, everybody else should hide too and refuse to tell him where they went.
Fars uses Hideous Laughter to take lizardfolk out of the fight temporarily. Garth Maul and the Goliath front line carve through the creatures in melee. Crossbow bolts and spells come from the rear. At one point a giant lizard loses its head to a massive scimitar strike.
The fight is messy, but the party survives.
More importantly, they finally obtain the black ichor samples they came for.
The victory pushes the group to fifth level, leading to the traditional D&D celebration where everybody stops adventuring for a while and stares at character sheets trying to work out what new buttons they have.
New spells are discussed. Hit points are rolled. Class features appear. Nobody is entirely certain whether all the automation is working correctly.
Eventually the Old Dudes remember that they are still standing in the wilderness carrying samples of a mysterious necromantic-looking fluid.
They return east.
Stonebridge is recovering from Borthog's occupation, and help from Shade Karn has begun arriving. The party continues to the Ruby City and brings the ichor to Oma Val at Moss and Myrr.
Val takes them to the Umbra Lysum to meet an archivist named Arthias Erda, who studies natural and alchemical phenomena.
Arthias examines the substance and gives an answer that is useful but unsettling.
The ichor appears to be a necromantic-alchemical reagent used to alter or strengthen living bodies. It is not simply poison. It is part of a process.
Val accepts the explanation and prepares to leave.
As the party follows, Arthias quietly stops Fars.
His expression says more than the official explanation did.
Not while she is around.
He cannot explain yet, but he makes it clear that something about Val — or the investigation surrounding her — is wrong.
The Old Dudes leave the Umbra Lysum with the answer they came for and a much worse question in its place.
The black ichor transforms bodies.
Somebody in Shade Karn knows more about it than they are admitting.
And the conspiracy involving Gregor, Lyra and Havroth is only days away from whatever “Turn the bell. Cut the rope.” is supposed to trigger.
Episode Twelve ends at the collision point between the campaign's two biggest mysteries.
The black ichor is no longer just a monster problem.
The political conspiracy is no longer just politics.
And Arthias has quietly warned the party that the people helping them investigate may not all be on the same side.