The Stalk (Date 1/7/27)

Measuring nearly ten feet in diameter at the point it broke the water, the giant trunk held aloft what appeared to be an enormous cat-tail covered in scuttling insects, each the size of a small dog. The bugs were spawning from cocoons along the surface of the stalk. As the strange plant grew at an alarming rate from the sea bed, and each cocoon broke the surface, it would burst open, releasing a fully-formed and aggressive bug. After some initial reluctance to rely on the power of Strom to hold them up on the surface of the water, the party attacked, discovering in the process, that while the creatures looked and moved like insects, they were in fact made of plant material. In the fight, one took off Hedge’s left ear with a lucky strike. Once the exposed creatures were defeated, Justice took to hacking down the stalk, finding it green and pulpy once the outer shell was breached.

Euwyn took this time to use his magics to explore the lakebed. There he found a pair of the drowned ones, humanoids with translucent skin, gills and webbed hands and feet. Their garb looked like fisherman’s gear which had been immersed in water for a decade. Euwyn tried to speak with them, but they only stared curiously keeping their distance until their master arrived. From out of the stygian depths came the stuff Malwanese nightmares, an impossibly long tentacle terminating in a cluster of suckers like dozens of tiny mouths, and – perhaps… a single eye? The prince swam desperately for the surface, certain he had imagined the eye, just as he must be imaging the buzzing lights that folded into the corners of the tower every day upon his waking there.

Justice and Hedge felled the exposed stalk, and as it toppled, the entire shoot crumbled to grey dust, quickly dissolving into the lake and vanishing. A flotilla of fishing vessels cheered at the great victory, having ventured out to see the heroes of Malwan in action. They paraded them home with shouts of impressed joy and gratitude.

Little could be done to restore Hedge’s lost ear. Eaten by the lake…. He commissioned Edgar and Lumi to build a new helm for him, incorporating a modified ear horn in hopes that it would restore some of his lost hearing.

Lexington and Giada were now two weeks gone.