As Our Shadows Grow - Recaps

The Cast-Off Cave Story Tribute Site Forums Crew Present Captain Fabulous' The Monster Mash™ Rising (of the Runelords (Except Not Actually Related to Paizo's Adventure Path and Featuring No Runelords of Any Sort)): REVENGEANCE/REVERBIAGE/REVAMPUTATION, Special Definitive Deluxe Edition (Featuring Big King Mica, Puff the Magic Goblin & Wren from the Dreamgeons and Dreamgons Series), also known as As Our Shadows Grow: Anniversary Edition

Or: TCOCSTSFCPCF'sTMMtmR(otR(ENARtP'sAP&FNRoAS)):RRR(SDDE(FBKMPtMG&WftDaDS))akaAOSG:AE for short, a campaign starting in and around Andoran's Darkmoon Vale.

[Note: names of side characters may be missing or misspelled for ease of transcription. They'll be added later on, as most are already documented by Captain Fabulous himself. The names of some enemies encountered may also not be present but is simply due to being forgotten, and information on these missing species or cool, forgotten details of past battles would be appreciated.]

Main characters include:
★Mica★ - a blue kobold Sorcerer (with magic in her own race's bloodline) from the underground Truescale Clan, which lived there because of scary bullshit like ZOMBIE KOBOLDS, only for the clan's most recent king to move them higher up. She wasn't thrilled about this either. Was appointed to the leader's...personal entourage, left under mysterious circumstances extremely shortly afterwards (rumors contradict one another regarding what happened to the king's eye), and now hustles in Olfden (a heavily defended retirement town, not great for hustling). As the primary source of magic offense and mischief, she's crafty (in both senses of the word), powerful, and at times astonishingly courageous by anyone's standards.
★Puff★ (the Magic Goblin) - a goblin Bard hailing from Isger, a dwarven nation to the north. A self-taught hipster-musician who overcame some of his cultural disadvantages (and the underlying trauma of hailing from Isger as a goblin), he headed to the land of freedom and opportunity to make it big as a minstrel with his Goblin Sacktubes™ - and, um, didn't. Currently, he makes due. (Sometimes by eating garbage.) A bit simple and roguish, but even-tempered, sometimes surprisingly kind, and straightforwardly helpful as the team's source of support, social prowess, and secondary damage.
★Wren★ - a harpy Brawler born in a nameless village nestled in an offshoot of Darkmoon Vale, to a stony old dwarven farmer who apparently mistook her egg for a chicken's. Somehow wasn't killed, and grew up a rascal who was taught how to vaguely get along in society (often by that same grumbly dwarf, weird!). Having proven herself to be a capable laborer and hunter of monsters, she took some advice from her favorite villagers and traveled to Olfden for odd jobs (to repay kindnesses) and a positive reputation. Chirpy with an innate sense of justice, while also blunt and practical due to conflicted ideals, she provides physical beatdowns and deadly healing as a makeshift defense.

Secondary party members:
★Doorknob★ - a raven familiar, found in a hunting trap and rescued by the party, who was here too (believe it or not). Named after the contents of the special box acquired from the same witch who awakened him for Mica. Surprisingly earnest and optimistic, despite his rough accent and worrisome new circumstances, but ultimately went back to the witch after a system change and slight disuse (out of forgetting he was there more than scorn, though Wren hopes to be friends with him someday). The bravest boi in the entire campaign.
★Mushroom Friends★ - small, mobile, mostly-sentient mushrooms that grew from Puff's skin after drinking the Witch's mystery potion. Cute and helpful, they eventually left his suspicions. Though not very strong or capable, as they only possess tiny legs, the mushrooms are likely the most innocent and broadly likable creatures in the party's retinue. Also they can help him influence others with their spores sometimes! (And there may be more potential to them than is expected...)
★The Thing★ - a plant-based shapeshifter that lays (mostly) dormant within Wren after being reduced to ashes in a fight with the party, unable to assimilate her thanks to a blessing. She finds it Extremely Concerning but trusts the nymph queen who gave that blessing enough to drink extra water and get a bit more sun for its sake. Its abilities seem to manifest to aid her via trussing vines and roots in difficult fights, though the true extent of its influence over Wren's body is a worrisome unknown.

Secondary characters (descriptions mainly written by Captain Fabulous) met along the way:
•Dragon King Merlokrep• runs the kobold Truescale Tribe. You thought he might be a nice guy once you got to know him, but he's not, really. Violence and power are the only things he cares for. He's a complete hunk, but still. He wanted to ensure that his children would inherit his sorcerous powers, so he selected another sorcerer to breed with. That's what passes for romance to him.
•Gavel Thuldrin Kreed• is the local leader of the Lumber Consortium in Falcon's Hollow, and essentially owns the town. Kreed abuses this position often and publicly. He denounces worship of Iomedae, goddess of justice, and does as he pleases with the town's populace. The man suffers from paranoia, too: at least four armed guards follow Kreed wherever he goes, with the exception of one afternoon when Puff and Crow saw him skulk off into the woods.
•Kabran Bloodeye• runs the Rouge Lady, a gambling hall which doubles as an illicit brothel, with a firm hand. It seems that he's recently run afoul of the law, or whatever passes for it in this town, just as Mica was to work for him.
•Sheriff Deldrin Baleson• of Falcon's Hollow leverages what little authority he's allowed to protect the citizens from Thuldrin and his cronies.
•Lady Cirthana Gensar• often asks for assistance from the other clergy of her faith in her quest to aid the endangered souls of Falcon's Hollow, but with the town being so close to the wild frontier, it's hard for the Iomedaean faith to survive. Not only that, but the Lumber Consortium openly denounces the faith. Lady Cirthana welcomed Wren with open arms, glad to have any help, no matter the source.
•Percival Doss• is the only permanent staff member of the Iomedean temple besides Cirthana. Percy has a strong belief in justice, but little patience or subtlety. He doesn't believe that the hearts and minds of Falcon's Hollow can be won over.
•Krodir "Crow" Adsel• is a lovable(?) scamp(?) whose main talent is getting into trouble. Obviously neglected by his parents and shunned by his peers, he finds dangerous and usually illegal ways to entertain himself. Crow's closest friend is a bigass rat that he named •Deathscar• (to intimidate predators and other rats). Deathscar seems to be pretty smart and a capable thief, which makes you wonder who's a bad influence on whom.
•Jeva• is an orphan who's been living in the forest ever since Elara's Halfway House burned down. She bears scars from Elara's abuse, and won't go back to Falcon's Hollow for fear of receiving the same treatment from others. Everything else about her remains an enigma, save that she has a wolfish enjoyment of seeing our adventurers' brutal victories over goblins, harpies, and innocent woodland critters.
•Edgrin Galesong• is a Bard who borders on ineffectual in combat, but serves as a decent healer and learned man. Nominal protector of the missing children from Falcon's Hollow.
•Kimi Eavewalker• appears to be the most driven and reckless of the silly children squad, which also includes •Mikra Jabbs•, •Savram Vade•, •Jurin Kreed• and •Colin Hebbradan•.
•Syntira• is the nymph queen of Darkmoon Vale's fey, who enlisted the help of the party with a pyromaniac goblin tribe and aided them in turn.
•Ambrosia• is Syntira's evil sister. A big fan of horror movies, it would seem.
 •Ofriz•, a giant/ogre(?) encountered searching for a wedding ring, is unlucky in love and often runs into the party for advice. His goal is to find a partner who he can romantically bite off heads with.
•Speedy Gonzalez•, a quickling(?) who occasionally advised the party in their trek through Darkmoon Vale and pointed them in the right direction, though somewhat unhelpfully.
•Other People I'll Write Down Later, Including Significant Kobolds, Dornk, and Others•

★Session 0.5★
Following a romantic character sheet finalization session:

•Mica and Puff attempt to con people at a bar in Olfden, a well-regulated town, beefing it *so hard* they inadvertently start a brawl, very narrowly escape it (Mica within an inch of her life, after blasting a ruffian through the inn's wall with Magic  Missile) using Fear, kill an assailant with Magic Missile in self-defense and get ordered out of town.
•Wren too, because fantasy racism, she just happened to be arriving for some ~~wine~~ tasty water (but at least she was paid first).
•After a strangely comical chase onto a passing caravan, the three start a loose association on the way out of the city to a lonely, slightly dangerous logging town named Falcon's Hollow.
•Upon arriving, they part ways. Puff fails to busk, Mica manages not to choke on the largest sausage in the land as an initiation test to her favored occupation, and Wren narrowly avoids signing a scary logging contract, securing modest work at the Iomedean temple instead.
•Oh, and the town has a festival because some adventurers came back with the cure to an illness!
•After either taking part or watching from the temple, the three all happen to decide to investigate reports of a missing child partway into the festival, meeting up and venturing off into the evening together.

★Session 1.5★
Let’s rewind and slow down a bit.

•Wren meets the priestess of the Iomedean temple, Lady Cirthana, and her assistant Percy. Learning that virtual ruler Thuldrin Kreed is discouraging worship there, she's nonetheless grateful to be offered a humble job helping with the chores, and accepts (after a surprisingly awkward handshake). Her appearance scares off a potential worshiper, and so she is lent a nice, huge robe to help with the impression she gives, promising to ~~beat up~~ work against the man who nearly had her lifelong “employment” in return.
•Mica proves her potential and is accepted into the brothel, but after chatting up an experienced and unfortunate woman named Ralla Hebbradan about the consequences of work there, her new boss is arrested and everyone else leaves (Ralla to check up on her younger brother, Colin), though she’s sure to take the lockbox before she follows suit. Along the way, she learns that the lumber consortium is engaging in (and supporting) shady business such as that of the dumb fellow named Kabran Bloodeye, who mistreated his workers and got himself arrested.
•Puff still busks unsuccessfully. He’s approached by an edgy tween named Crow, who talks with him and persuades the goblin into crawling under a dock together with the promise of money. There, he meets an experienced and intense criminal: Deathscar the rat, Crow's best friend. Together they decide to rob a house/shop for fun and profit, though Puff runs into Thuldrin Kreed under strange circumstances along the way (leaving the shop, unguarded and with a wooden figurine, through the back door - Puff bamboozles the man regarding his own condition for safety). He plays his sacktubes to mask the rhythmic breaking of the lock, then distracts the store owner with a winding conversation about her art, fairies, superstition and other such things. Deathscar successfully nips 2 GP from the till, and they make their exit.
•Adventurers arrive with the cure to black rot, and the town celebrates. Mica and Puff meet up in the crowd (the former hassling the latter for the 1 GP she sniffed on him), Crow meets her, and things seem fairly well until Mica's former coworker hysterically proclaims her brother to be missing, with 5 others. Crow recognizes this as a communal dare (to visit a burned-down orphanage) gone wrong, and urges the two to save the children, believing them to be in danger.
•Wren, though disinterested in the large crowds and drink of the celebration, catches wind of the scenario and acquires the priestess’ aid in going to help them, though Lady Cirthana herself is unable to leave the city. Puff and Mica meet up with Wren once more, and as they plan to head into the woods, they’re given a potion of healing as a gift for safety.
•They make their way to the orphanage, and after breaking into the cellar discover wolfsbane (which Mica can’t help but consume some of), two silver daggers and a corpse. They track down an abandoned campsite, and follow a trail of cast-off kobold scales to a wild, emaciated girl named Jeva, a former resident of the orphanage. With some food from Wren, they enlist her help in finding the children, believed to be captured by kobold zombies. (Wren spends an unnecessary amount of time dramatically crushing a squirrel into the ground and brutalizing its corpse as a snack later, fulfilling the contract with her Dreamgeons and Dreamgons self.)
•The trail grows worrisome with whispers. They find a kobold zombie, which Mica recognizes as a former clan official and zaps on instinct. They are surrounded by dwarven spirits, however, who begin to lead the zombie away, leaving Mica temporarily unable to cast. Wren, sensing trouble, pursues and (apparently) scissor-kicks the zombie into dust, while Mica ineffectually throws a silver dagger straight through one of the spirits. Puff, however, manages to Charm another spirit into leaving his friends be. They salute, stalking off into the night, and despite Wren risking the group with noisy hunting and careless mistakes, he manages to break camp, ending their pursuit for the night.

★Session 2★
The party learn their shortcomings as adventurers.

•Despite their lack of a tent, the group rests without trouble, as Jeva is given Wren's bedroll. They continue down the trail the next morning, only for most of the party save Wren to be ensnared by a single harpy's song and led away into the brush.
•Wren marks the path, chases after them, finds them in a clearing with ensnared lumberjacks, chats up the harpy with a comparison of hunting successes and a note of strange philosophy long enough to break the song (giving Jeva a chance to hide), then tries to sucker punch her. Puff breaks out with combat and the harpy resumes her song before escaping straight up, Mica climbs a tree to get closer in her charm, and Puff smacks the harpy with a rock while Wren follows in pursuit but fails to grapple her. Puff helps Mica come to her senses with money while the harpy kicks her hard, confidently attempts to grapple her back, but fails so miserably that she loses balance and is easily sent hurtling towards the earth for an instant KO (Wren finishes the job, and learns a valuable lesson about careless flight). They’re paid a healthy sum of gold by the grateful lumberjacks in the area, get a neat bird feather token off of the harpy, and head on their merry way:
•A trail on which Wren attempts to free a crow raven and gets a javelin for her efforts, narrowly staying conscious as they are ambushed by goblins. Puff tries and fails to stab one with his rapier while Mica is decisively downed by the archer after heavily wounding the hobgoblin Wren starts to attack. Puff charms the goblin attacking him and suggests he help Mica, which only makes her condition worse. Wren easily dispatches the hobgoblin and heals her with the potion they were given, and Mica takes the opportunity to obliterate the archer with magic in turn. The charmed goblin, while distraught, is convinced by Puff to leaves with the archer's body, and the hobgoblin is summarily looted for, among various other goodies, a healer's kit.
•The party rests for a half hour, during which Wren tries and (critically) fails to treat their wounds with the kit, and they decide to follow the goblin's lead to see a witch who could potentially heal the bird used as  bait (and themselves).

★Session 3★ (witchy business, ogre/giant affair)
The Wacky Sitcom Episode

•In the hut they find an inert corpse, which nonetheless appears to allow them passage by having the door "open" (read: fall apart at Wren's knock) for them, and the witch magically (and rather grotesquely) presents the trio with contracts. Puff blithely buys a mysterious box in exchange for drinking a mystery potion (it turns out to contain a doorknob) and Mica takes up the healed bird as her familiar (once the two get over their heavy, and understandable, distrust of the area), while Wren trades some wolfsbane for enough vitality to continue on. Doorknob realizes the horrors of newfound magical sentience, but bravely pushes through!
•They attempt to make their way further along the trail to the missing children, but fail a bunch of navigation checks and become lost, eventually encountering a giant(?) searching amongst a river. With some hesitation (but Wren being forceful as usual), they speak with him and learn he'd lost his wedding ring consorting with ogres.
•The team spends some time faffing about helping him in exchange for directions/information on the zombie kobolds' whereabouts, and he eventually comes to a resolution with the ogres (binding him to bring them gold in equivalence to the returned ring), thanks to the party's insistence. He tells them to head uphill, following the stream, as that would lead to the warren entrance, and they part ways amiably. The party makes their way there to spend the night, preparing to enter the next morning with Jeva waiting outside. (Level 2 🎉)

★Session 4★
The dangers of Mica's old home make themselves clear.

•The infiltration begins bright and early with Mica successfully convincing the kobold workers at the entrance of the mine that she'd returned with two captures on royal business. They make their way past without a fight after Puff and Wren provide a mock battle for entertainment (where she can't help but nick him for 1 damage, to his eternal dismay).
•After finding an inscription Wren translates to reveal the kobold lair as a former dwarven mine (and her childhood as somewhat dubious), they quickly run into a gelatinous cube which gives the three a run for their money. Wren has difficulty attacking while engulfed without being hurt, and Mica accidentally shocks the others with the cube's material as a conductor. It finally meets its end, leaving the explorers fairly bloody and worn out, the latter of which is remedied somewhat by Mica *borrowing* a fantastic trinket off of a sleeping gnome-revealed-kobold: a Hat of Disguise.

★Session 5★
Continuing on, the party starts closing in on their objectives.

•Further beyond the barracks with its relinquished treasure, the party see more kobolds assailing a mildly unimpressive halfling/human bard and his ward, one of the missing children (likely Kimi, who did her best to help in the fight). This time they forego trickery and take down the group with their usual lightning, rocks and claws, ensuring no kobold escapes and earning both their captives and themselves some rest in a nearby closet. (The grateful bard, part of an adventuring party that had been overtaken, binds their wounds with Wren's healer's kit.)
•Kimi explains that the other children had been separated, and details how many were left on that floor. In a nearby room, after convincing Kimi and Edgrin to stay behind, the party finds a crowd of rattling skeletons and one rightfully terrified child. Happily, these skeletons don't actually cause them any harm, as Wren demonstrates, though her uncharacteristic rudeness to said terrified child compels Puff to come along and coax him back properly. They return the child to his friend and the bard before continuing on to find the rest. (Level 3 🎉)

★Session 6★
A werewolf encounter is quickly overshadowed by the mines' undead.

•Wren, Mica and Puff debate about the best way to return to the entrance, only to find that all of the kobolds there had been slaughtered quite messily with a trail of blood leading outside. They investigate, noticing that Jeva is gone, and learn the reason for this when she accosts them in her werewolf form. They panic slightly, but drive her into the woods quickly, hustling back inside.
•Exploring other paths from the entrance, they come across a room with a decrepit kobold on a table and a ghoul, which they manage to dispatch. [I want to say without incident, but it's possible Mica took some sort of debuff from it.]
•When they do track down another child in the forge area, however, a much more fearsome enemy makes its presence known. The three are forced into battle with a chained, flaming, spiked undead creature, perhaps a spirit of a long-dead dwarf, accompanied by a hellhound. The big bad sad mad lad proves extremely resilient, wielding its spiked chain to great effect, and though Wren remembers a dwarven fairy tale detailing the creature's weakness to having its chain removed, she's unable to do so before succumbing to the strain of her wounds, the heat, and the piercing damage. Puff heals her with a potion while helping to take down the hellhound and keep the long fight running smoothly, while Mica not only puts up the greatest offense with her magic, but proves instrumental to ending the encounter with her courage.
•Kimi, a kindred spirit who recklessly comes to the scene to help, either sparks or outright gives an idea to lead the creature into a trap which Mica is well aware of, and she successfully coaxes the flaming figure onto an elevator to the lower floor, which collapses under its weight and sends it careening out of sight.
•After scolding/thanking Kimi, they rescue one of the children from the forge room and regroup, seeking a place to rest.

★Session 7★ (tenuous rest, negotiations, descent, bad sad mad lad no more, deception, mayhem)
Regrouping with the kobolds, Mica finally confronts her king in unexpected fashion.

•That place turns out to be the same closet they'd made use of earlier, where Edgrin helps bind their wounds and watch over the group of scared, exhausted children as night passes. The next day, the party sets out once more and they encounter a group of kobolds planning rebellion against their king. Mica negotiates with them and they agree to join forces for a coup, as the kobolds also report that the flaming spiked figure wasn't yet vanquished and now terrorizing the lower floor.
•Going down by an alternate passage, the group narrowly escapes the terrors of The Bad Room (though a hapless kobold or two is lost to the unknown), and they find their flaming nemesis. This time Wren is much more sure of herself, and after a short skirmish she secures both her revenge and its flaming spiked chain, finally destroying it.
•In a side room leading to the king's warren, the group finds a trapped monster amongst the crates [possibly impaled on a weapon, maybe the cold iron fauchard?], and Wren opts to set it free. It leaves peacefully, revealing a pair of enchanted handwraps on the floor (which Wren opts to wrap around her taloned feet for extra comfort in the rocky environment, obliviously receiving a +1 bonus to unarmed strikes), as well as a few smaller treasures for Puff and Mica.
•At last, Mica puts her plan into action as they approach Merlokrep: she uses her Hat of Disguise to emulate him, waltzing in to declare herself the true king and denounce the tyrant among his crowd as the imposter when he returns from his quarters. A brawl breaks out in which Puff almost instantly silences Dragon King Merlokrep to lend credence to Mica's claim, effectively crippling his spellcasting, while she engages him with her magic missiles, lightning and magical claws, Wren runs into the back corridors to stop the clan's ritual sacrifices and rescue the last child, Merlokrep swings his Manfeller furiously and the kobold crowd cheers and whoops.

Though his attacks are brutal, Puff and Mica prove more than a match without his sorcerous powers to contend with, the former greasing his axe to temporarily steal it and the latter keeping up a steady blitz of attacks while proclaiming her obvious superiority to the crowd. Meanwhile, Wren deals with and eventually runs from the king's elite guard, passes by his main concubine in the clan's treasure room, and finds the tribe's sagest and most senile kobold preparing the ritual. Though he combats her with spells, and she's briefly blinded by his color spray, she manages to send the old man to his final resting place, rescuing both the final child and an even older man, this one a human wizard who had been part of Edgrin's adventuring company. All three manage to make their escape despite Wren flubbing the handling of the child, and they find Mica and Puff overpowering King Merlokrep despite his silence wearing off. Finishing off her superior at last, Mica also opts to tear his heart out with her claws and bite into it before claiming his crown.
•The fighting doesn't immediately end as one of Mica's kobold allies, who had hoped to have the crown for himself, exposes her disguise and attempts to take the throne by force. After a short but intense battle, he is defeated by the party, and they stand victorious. [This conflict may have happened at the start of the next session, I'm not sure.]

★Session 8★ (combat over, Big King Mica begins her reign of Mother Base, politics, children roundup and celebration, heading off, wolves and Jeva purification, triumphant return, reunions and bar offer, nary a drink, Wren Ruins Everything (Mica helps), escape)
The party meets their zenith and nadir.

•Mica, having proven herself the mightiest, declares herself the clan's new leader, and for lack of precedent gives herself a new title, Big King. She begins her reign over "Mother Base" by outlawing the sacrifice of other races and allowing a hedonistic feast, while delegating some of her power to a select few other kobolds while she's away.
•The party foregoes celebrating themselves to round up the children and other adventurers, and they all head on the trail back to Falcon's Hollow. Along the way, they're accosted by wolves and a familiar werewolf. Though she snarls her need for solitude(/food) and inability to trust or be helped, the party refuses to kill or escape her this time, instead convincing her to accept their last stock of wolfsbane while fighting off the rest of the wolves. Jeva is seemingly cured of her lycantrophy, and reluctantly agrees to return to civilization with them.
•Having received an earlier message from Wren's bird feather token, Lady Cirthana and the town as a whole are ready for them, and both the adventurers and missing children are welcomed back enthusiastically. Puff, Mica and Wren are offered a free meal at the bar and spend some time talking with their respective friends in town, and Wren sells some of the equipment found in the mines before they all meet up at said bar for a celebratory dinner with Crow (invited by Puff, of course).
•Before they even receive their drinks, however, they're set upon by Thuldrin Kreed, who thanks them for their service and asks for their continued support as adventurers, citing a lack of charity on the part of past heroes who'd left the town shortly after bringing back the cure. Wren, disastrously, asks him to stop oppressing the Iomedean temple in return.

Kreed grows increasingly angry at this suggestion and her unconcerned impudence as she explains her moral standpoint to him. He refuses and asks Mica to shut her up, assuming her to be the leader, and rather than be cowed, the Big King takes up defense of Wren and mouths off to the town's tyrant. Having reached the end of his terribly limited patience, Kreed flips their table and casually announces a bounty on their heads as he leaves, which the seedier bar patrons creep up to claim. Wren coolly asks if they'd still get their drinks.
•Naturally, they don't. As Crow escapes into the night, the party defends themselves from the assailants and Mica intimidates the crowd into letting them walk. Their troubles don't end when they're outside, however, as unseen crossbowmen in the dark start firing on them. As they frantically make their escape from yet another town, Wren briefly considers seeking refuge in the temple but fears risking Lady Cirthana's life, and so they escape far out of the gates, leaving Falcon's Hollow as exhausted fugitives from injustice less than a day after returning as heroes.

🎉End of Season 1: The Monster Mash🎉

💕Captain Fabulous and players Alfa, Luna and Polar entertain a system change now that the shortcomings of the Pathfinder 2e Playtest start to become apparent, and so they work out a switch to Pathfinder 1e.
💚Alfa switches from mostly ki-less Monk utilizing Tiger Stance to an unarmed, feral-flavored Verdant Grappler Brawler (an archetype which was initially proposed to be flavored using harpy magic but happened to fit planned events), and has to be assured once again that playing to character by incurring Kreed's disfavor didn't Ruin Everything Forever.
💜Luna goes from the playtest Dragon bloodline to Kobold bloodline and engages in a long flirtation period with wordcasting, which she ultimately decides against requesting. Mica remains at the same level with the same general casting ability, but the difference in scaling causes her to revert from being able to cast 3rd level spells to 2nd level spells.
💛Polar confronts the inherent weirdness of Puff while deciding that he'll remain ~~chungy~~ a vanilla Bard (though this leaves him with less spellcasting potential than Mica). He loses his more occult spells, but does gain an impressive mastery of skills compared to his former self, and a little more martial competence.

🎉Season 2: Phantom Pains🎉

★Session 9★ (message, sleepless rest, good ogre(?) boy (Ofriz) desires stinky partner, kobold fortune, lackadaisy king and violent bird friend, cursed crown fails to be destroyed)

...eerie shadow figures begin to surround the group when they sleep (lowering Mica's Wisdom when she attempts to push through them), and Mica learns that she alone can now see a ghostly rendition of Merlokrep, who explains that the shadows are previous owners of her new cursed crown (in between taunting and bantering with her).

★Session 10★ (three pursuits (management, building fireworks, weird dark side kobold), Doorknob and mushroom friend leave, nymph queen, stray pyro, flailing, burning entrance, communication and capture, dumb plan with Dornk, smackdown, concerning mist, diplomacy, Syntira spills all (three curses), breaking up kobolds, kid cliffhanger(kidhanger)) (Level 4 🎉)

★Session 11★ (prying lips and ending lives, task force coming to kill kobolds, trap management (lightning, kobold fare, explosives), immediately off the rails, Puff and Wren swoop in, misfire, change of heart (Varossa joins), scouting, ambush, skirmish)

★Session 12★ (quick patch - up, regroup and loot, moody gravedigging/kobold orders (kobolders)/truly awful pep talk, plans drawn, travel to safe camp, splitting ways, Ofriz seeks self - improvement, spooky trees and gremlins, catch, haul and hold (:3c))

★Session 13★ (Warnings of fey corruption, boogie through the swamp, grimstalker (tenebrous curse juice), kappa, Wren falls for a mimic, mysterious loot)
A short session no less fraught with danger.

•The group continues traveling through the seemingly endless forest.

★Session 14★ (speedy speed pond, *oh no the queen*, oh okay the queen (mariachi, Wren can't communicate, appropriate healing), We Complain About Varossa for Three Hours and Make Fab Sad, Vreggma's loot is saved, dancin' in the rain, dyin' in the rain (Puff cleaves a dude in two))(Level 5 🎉)

★Session 15★ (healing potion, one last cryptic warning (rest in peace Speedy Gonzalez), endless forest and Ambrosia encounter, revelations (Wren is Okay), offer to work together,  escalation, Doorknob and Mushroom Boy Are Cooler Than The Entire Party, escape, reentering Olfden (Zany "joins"), downtime (Puff gets an upgrade, Mica establishes trade, Wren gets religious, crafting))

...Ambrosia definitely makes a cool reference to the party's fate As Their Shadows Grow.

★Session 16★(quiet guy joins and Varossa explains her plans (pirates!), more downtime (Puff gets a shakedown, Mica finalizes trade and informs her tribe, Wren gets kicked out of the library too late to keep her from learning and identifies the staff), werewolf and victim death, hilariously suspicious healer lady joins, sacktube upgrade received/patent dispute, carriage out of town (bonding??), potions at the inn (awful alchemist joins), arrival at a town)

★Session 17★(scoping the shipyard, buying supplies/working the ships, planning to board and steal, Varossa gathers allies, Puff gets really lucky and secures Awesome McCool's party work, Winging It (fancy outfits, performance, small talk (Mica's background in Acave, Wren as Puff's manager), sabotage, fire, evacuation, takeover (sleep bomb, sandbag/Mica does the Pirate Thing), breakaway and chase, vanish, charm person, takeover 2 electric boogaloo (rowboats necessary, grappling), recruitment, Mica's genius anchor drop), getaway, rendezvous, Pirate Level)

★Session 18★(introductory training (Wren barely learns the rigging, Puff sorts boxes and finds Ratboy Genius (Donkim), Mica does a sad job hauling stuff with Horemheb), various explorations (Wren talks with Cobb and recommends a meal, Puff learns more about Ratboy, Mica makes herself useful(?) cooking), landing at Westcrown (Wren gets a stargazing friend in Belina))

★Session 19★(Puff smuggles Ratboy Genius out in a bag of holding, Mica goes clothes shopping, Wren buys spice; Puff learns he's just the unluckiest boy, Mica takes Selica on a date (and gets smashed), ?Puff has a toot-off with The Boy?, Mica invades the PFS, Wren decides to go somewhere with Belina)

★Session 20★(Mica talks with Varossa and gets a tagalong, Puff learns he's the unluckiest being on the planet and goes home to cry, Wren goes on a friend-date and encounters the mushroom apocalypse, Mica makes a gift for Selica, Wren and Belina take one last little trip, Wren recovers from sickness with some support, setting off from Westcrown)

★Session 21★(creepy encounter with PF guy, everyone doing their jobs (Puff harmonizes!), pirate encounter with lizardboy and squid, through the hurricane, landing at shanty, celebration?? (tattoos), secret plan, not so secret plan, retribution)
(Level 6 🎉)

★Session 22★(the one where people moved on and they spoke to a dragon for the rights to dive for the first piece, also sharks)

★Session 23★(the one with the shadows and card game)

★Session 23.5★(more card games and some ~loot~)

★Session 24★(the one with Bastion, landing on the island, monkey person murder and a monastery)

★Session 25★(the one with the end of the monastery fight, unsuccessful search and sea fey fight)
(Level 7 🎉)

★Session 26★(hippocampi travel, ship confrontation, ruin/revenge delving, fighting some sentinels or something and Vancid?, cool team pose)

★Session 27★(stumbling out of the cool team pose (exploration, shinies, insects, mummies?, mushrooms, that one weird impersonator))

★Session 28★(lost ship, the ancient captain and mushroom host, Varossa in a bubble what will she say, ~awesome hidden treasure~)

★Session 29★(haul back, ultimatums, change of leadership, arrival in port peril (what did we do here again? just learn about free captains and the like?))

★Session 30★(free captain trials (balance, manipulation, combat))

★Session 31★(afterparty, Wren takes dance classes, Mica becomes a hobo leylord for Vocaloid charity, Puff tries to break into the library and is saved by his babs, good deeds for fey coins)

★Session 32★(regroup and recover, book hunt (blowout), let into the library, blind brawl, casual reading, in for questioning)

★Session 33★(debrief, review the options, Mica grabs the guy (and gets a cute magic envelope from Sorica, who informs her she won't last in prison), more talk, Jaspin makes a decision, goodbye to dance with an emerald bird, sail to Oyster Cay, seedy shroom folk, coven info at the bar)

★Session 34★(outie, Jiona intercepts, a request for help, examination, debating the abduction, outie 2 the adventure home (Wren airlifts Mahiri, Puff and Mica escort to shore, Jiona messes up her disguise, blind chase))
(Level 8 🎉)

★Session 35★(healing her mom, conversation, directions up the river, teaming up with moose boy, mosquites, the mushroomy land of og (hag trail?))

★Session 36★(shadow encounter, ambush and refusal (The Great Pony Crime))

Sessions Spent At Each Level
Level 1: 3-4 (3.5? (the first two are odd))
Level 2: 2
Level 3: 5
Level 4: 4
Level 5: 7
Level 6: 4
Level 7: 9
Level 8: 2 so far!

Record the point around Lv 6 or 7 when Mica shifted into Shadow Bloodline. (Seems it was Session 25, the sea fey fight.)
Puff became a Duettist on Session 34, after nearly losing his boys.
Wren debuted as a Battle Dancer the same session after learning from instructors.