Just got out of the most intense D&D session. Was going to work on my author's notes for 7ToA, but I need to get this down while it's still fresh.

The one hag escaped via a Secret Tunnel in a pond. We looted the hag's hut for many things. The elven bladesinger was traumatized by an eyeball. But then we heard the sound of dozens of shambling vine creatures approaching. We escaped by diving into the pond. The half-orc moon druid used Shape Water to make a breathing bubble. 

We followed the tunnel to a river, where we took a long rest, but my paladin was plagued by bad dreams and unable to recover hit dice or spell slots. I was at full health, but my max HP was reduced temporarily. Down to one spell slot, and one point of lay-on-hands.

Come morning, we ate a honey ham, then set the rest of the ruined ham on fire in a viking funeral. A crocodile came up, possibly attracted by the honey ham, and nearly mauled the barbarian. We escaped, tracked the hag and the source of the corruption in the forest to a cave. 

The bladesinger cast invisibility on self and scouted ahead, though without the moon-druid-as-spider in pocket. It'd be safer if he was the only one, he reasoned. 

Yet one of the hags detected him through the invisibility. He dropped the spell and tried to talk his way out of a hag coven instead of misty stepping out of there. Promised all sorts of things - a wand of smiles, a fucking jar of (holy) dirt... 



The hags didn't bite.

The DM didn't expect this to happen. He hadn't a battlemap prepared, so he had to do a grid doodle of a cave. Didn't matter, because what followed was fuckin intense. 

The bladesinger rolled low on his initiative and got paralyzed by Hold Person. But we didn't leave him behind. The moon druid wild-shaped hyena to drag his immobile ass out of there. I used my vengeance paladin's absolute last spell slot to cast Protection from Good or Evil (or Fey) on the hyena so they'd be able to withstand all the hags' AOEs long enough to dash out. 

We ran. And even so, we were that close to losing the bladesinger. Or the tiefling barbarian, when she went in to back the moon druid up. We were so close to a TPK. 

Made it out of the cave. My paladin grabbed the bladesinger by the shoulders and absolutely unleashed it - you piece of shit, what were you thinking? - followed by the world's tightest hug-grapple.

The bladesinger said, but I told you guys to run.  

My paladin said something along the lines of, run? we don't leave our people behind. And if you have a death wish - well. Then you can meet it at the end of my glaive, and not at the hands of some hags. I threw the gauntlet down.

We're gonna duel next time we all get downtime. 

All sounds fine, yeah? But I felt the same way as the first time I played through the Trespasser DLC, when it was 2AM, and I'd beaten the final boss by the skin of my teeth, but a very important conversation with the god who had put this all in motion was still to come. And also, I was sort of yelling for the last bit of roleplay during that session. Hope I didn't blow out anyone's headphones.

The session ended an hour ago. Apologized, was assured that a bit of enthusiastic RP is ok. Yet my heart is still pounding. Hands are still sweaty. Still feel slightly sick. I think I need to get out more. Or, at least roleplay a little bit further away from the heart. 

Yeah. I'll do that. Heh. 

Gotta get my heart rate down enough to sleep. Been a lot of (non d&d) things on mind lately, having a hard time sleeping to start with. Think a few ebook chapters'll do it.