RECAP: 5th Avengers, 11-1-20
We decide to head out to see Jaru, the druid, who we had been told was acting strangely. We arrive at his grove, finding a man dressed similarly to Geth near a simple domicile.
Jaru welcomes us to his home with respect to our different faiths and the balance of all creation. Balyx cuts right to the chase and asks about the elementals. Jaru says he has not noticed anything unusual about them recently. Balyx tells his story about being attacked by the fire elemental, and Jaru goes on about the nature of summoning elementals and who they serve when brought to this plane.
Geth asks Jaru if he had been involved driving the last time the Temple of Elemental Evil had been vanquished. He replies that he had. Some of the party members notice a smell from a ritual recently completed. Caela investigates the spring in the grove, and Jaru notices, offering her a drink, but Caela asks for a glass to drink out of. Jaru invites us into his home, and Balyx and Geth follow him in while Jarry and Caela remain outside. Jarry casts Detect Magic, to no effect, while Caela notices something off in the bushes. Jaru says he was not expecting company, and retrieves a cup for Caela. Geth and Balyx follow Jaru out.
Geth notices that one of Jaru’s hands is moving in a strange way.
Caela’s owl perceives three humans in the grove, transmitting the information back to her via Beast Sense. Jaru melts away, changing forms and attacking Balyx, walloping him with one of two arms as cultists attack from the woods. Ending beast sense, Caela announces what she sees and jumps towards the woods. Caela misses two arrows and an owl strike on the doppelganger. On Caela’s advice, Jarry launches a fireball into the woods at the approximate location indicated. Geth calls down Moonbeam upon the doppelganger, who appears to see it coming, and who wallops Geth, now in the form of a dire wolf. Balyx heals himself using Lay On Hands, and a cultist walks out of the blaze and casts Hold Person on Caela. Jarry gets hit in the shoulder with an arrow from behind. Caela makes her save to free herself from paralysis and strikes the cultist with her hammer twice, sending the cultist to his grave.
A wizard and a fighter appear, and they cause some trouble. Jarry immobilizes the fighter with Web and asks him if the beast is his, and the fighter winks. The doppelganger whacks Geth again with both arms, and the wizard knocks him out of Wild Shape with a volley of Magic Missile. Balyx, pulling out all the stops, calls upon the power of his god to smite the doppelganger, sending it crumpling to a heap on the ground. Jarry is struck by another arrow, but the fighter cannot free himself from the web. Caela misses her attacks, and Jarry relishes in the fear in the fighter’s eyes as he incinerates him with a fireball.
As Geth pounces upon the wizard, she is enveloped in a silvery mist and is gone.
The cultists have nothing of value. The townspeople show up, armed with shovels and buckets to put out the fires, forming a line and bucket brigade and extinguishing the fires. Elmo is drunk and outraged at the state of things. Inside the home of Jaru, we find a hidden compartment with Jaru’s clothing and personal effects. Clearly, Jaru has been done away with and replaced with a doppelganger. The cultist who escaped the conflagration has just enough of him left to identify him with the former Temple of Elemental Evil. Geth sees standing just on the edge of the creek, just out of sight, sees a brown bear just sort of watching.
