CALMOND

On our way here we discovered a campsite with no one there, signs of struggle and stolen
horse.

4th legion in Calmond is the local militia, and they need boots.

There have been raids up north by the swamps, and there’s a missing man (Ardi Pratt) who is
an herbalist, a bit of a scoundrel, did not have a horse

Local Lord in Calmond not friendly towards the empire: he took a retinue to fight with the rebels
further south

Goddess Gaia officially “died” 800 years ago. Commented [1]: More like ~800 years ago. She is still
remembered as a founding member of the Imperial
We meet an old man sitting on a bench named Herte, who has a pet wild boar named Tusk. He Pantheon though.

complains that he has been bothered by an entourage of undead who want something from him.

Bart the Younger, a farmer and beekeeper, tells us of a raided campsite a half days travel north.
He also tells us of the URL (Earl) Fruit.

Bart the Elder lives in the north building

Tavin tells of his small hometown past Spine of the World. Participated in a short insurgency in
the lower province after raiders took their land and tried to destroy their culture. They managed
to take down the 5th and 7th legion with catapults, kilts, and bagpipes

So far we know the 5, 7, 8, 9 legions have been defeated

The 13th legion defeated Tavin’s rebellion

Edgar Easeworth is a druid who runs a temple. He needs some things from Ezzar and asks for
ingredients to make holy water, which can turn demons, bless things, and clean dirty items.

Bart The Elder is in charge of the town, loves cheese. The bees aren’t doing very well. He wants
the legionnaires on patrol to keep them out of town. The legionnaires start bar fights and are
bullies. Warns us of goblin heads on sticks in the forest, tells us to turn back if we see them.

We learn that travelers seem to be going missing

We learn that the local “village lunatic”, Lantesch, owned a horse, but we also don’t know if he is
missing.

We meet Emilia, a retired old woman who is a healer.

We investigate the campsite and find that the horse’s reins were cut, we find blood, and a lump
in the sleeping bag. The horse tracks point towards the west.

We meet our first displacer beast.

do battle with a large black dog with fiery eyes billowing smoke out if its mouth.

Arsten takes a critical hit in the face right in the beginning and goes down

We cut the dogs head off and investigate it. Its teeth are filed down and it has demonic energy,
but appears to be a magical creation.

We also find an arrow in a very mangled (human?) corpse. This arrow is gray and has a smoky
look, with symbols on it.

We find a letter from an Elias Vodek to Lord Lantesch.

We take back the dogs head and the corpse.

Emilia says she knows the deceased person, who is supposedly one of her suitors. He was on
his way to Calmond. She doesn’t tell us his name, and is obviously lying about them being
lovers.

Kishara shares that she was engaged before she lost her partner in a terrible accident.

Kishara tries to pickpocket Emilia.

We learn from Edgar that messengers are being killed and that the mail gets destroyed.

We learn the arrow is a smoke elemental arrow, indicating that the Barrier between planes
seems to be leaking. The Barrier separates this plane from the elemental (and other) planes.

Emilia administers first aid to Arsten. She calls him a little baby for flinching at the rubbing
alcohol she puts on his face.

Putting the holy water on the dog head makes it sizzle. This indicates the dog is actually a
demon and not a hellhound. We think it must have been summoned by someone.

We learn about a smoke elemental assassin with a metal mask made out of electron. Commented [2]: Electrum. An alloy of gold and silver.

We learn about the Scarlet Shard. They are the Emperor’s personal bodyguards, and are trying
to prevent uprisings by assassinating ringleaders.

We learn of aggressive and self-organizing wildlife.

Lord of Calmond helped the rebels, other Lords are legionnares.

Lantesch has a mansion in the swamps. He supposedly wears armor inside out. The mansion is
located north of Calmond past outlying farms.

The kidnapping of travelers is being blamed on the Scarlet Shard. Emilia is attempting to fix this
“misiniformation” locally. She doesn’t seem to believe the Scarlet Shard is involved.

Scarlet Shard goes after nobility, according to Emilia.

The group visits a tavern and Kishara attempts to convince Arsten and Ferdinand with a little
speech to put “honor and honesty” aside sometimes. She accidentally achieves the opposite by
starting her speech with “Your honor and honesty is so admirable…” and is interrupted by Tavin,
Arsten, and Ferdinand clinking glasses and toasting “TO HONOR AND HONESTY!”

We head out of Calmond to try to find Ardi Pratt and find that part of the forest appears to have
been mowed down by a larger swarm of ants recently.

Upon reaching the cave Ardi Pratt has been said to be visiting we find fresh footprints and well
disguised bear traps on the path.

Inside the cave we find a bloodied wolf with an arrow sticking out of it. There are books in the
cave, a dictionary for translating from Common to High Imperial, a journal, and books on the
Cults of the West Coast.

We heal the wolf and feed him some meat sticks. The wolf is wearing a necklace.

We find a small farm of URL fruits, which look like large seedless grapes.

There is a tunnel behind the garden. Inside we find a set of armor with a skeleton inside covered
in rust with an insignia of a white dove. Appears to be a very old Peace Guard soldier, the same
faction Arsten is in.

There is a perfect cube of Obsidian embedded in the floor with a handprint groove on top.
Kishara touched the cube but nothing happened.

Checking outside the cave we find someone moved the bear traps.

We learn about the Cult of Bolemia: less about disease, more about managing symptoms.
Monks invoke her power to counteract bad symptoms, keeping them in check but not getting rid
of them. Bolemia feeds off slow decay, and her temples are protected by word combination
locks.

There is a broken rope leading to the obsidian slab. Wolf is trying to get in.

We learn about Her Darkness: Chaos personified. Set of Agents of Chaos and Change. Led by
talking cat?
We learn about Archliches. Anavis collected souls and traded them to Hades in return for info
on how to become a god. Immortal enemy of Freya.

We leave the cave. We find a birch bark message demanding an URL fruit in a bear trap. We
leave an URL fruit. The message seems to have been sent by two people whom we briefly yell
at in the bushes.

Ardi Pratt’s notebook

: Documents how he found collapsed tunnel, started hearing whispers. Journal gets rambly. He
found a book written on elf skin, tried to find a way to open the slab, figured out the password
was in high imperial, and borrowed money to buy the dictionary. This is also why the
townspeople consider him a scoundrel, he owes them money.

Back in Calmond we hear a tavern bard tell of the “Advengers”, an adventuring group that
supposedly defeated a green dragon and got lots of gold.

Kishara haggles with the Inkeeper, Lucy, to get a special truffle. We intend to use it to find Tusk,
I think? We want to ask Herte questions.

Upon heading out of town again we discover Herte with two bleeding children, named Spring
and Summer. They were attacked by a puma. Herte disguises the children as potato sacks with
magic when entering the town to hide them from the guards in the guard tower.

Emilia treats the childrens’ wounds. Her house is filled with dried herbs, locked chests,
alchemical apparati.

The kids were supposedly hiding from Faeries with pale grey skin, white hair, and fancy clothes.
Grey Faeries are part of the Unseelie Court, and Holy Water does not affect them.

The kids were told by their mother to hide when the Faeries came. They live north of Calmond
on a farm.

The father left with Lord to fight with the rebels in the south.

Kishara lectures Arsten on how to withhold information.

We ask Bart the Elder about the temple cave. He tells us about octopus tentacle ruins,
catacombs, a throne room. He also tells us where the Artichoke family (kids family) lives. He
had legionnaires investigate the disappearance of the family.

We head back to the temple cave. Along the way the ant trail looks different, as though the ants
traveled through again, but in the other direction. There are boot tracks leading into the cave.
We open the slab using the password and descend into a dark room. The walls are covered in
frescoes of a lady covered in open sores. It smells like fungus, and there is a set of footprints
heading off into the tunnel. Wolfy travels with us.
We find a rotten door. Ferdinand kicks in the bottom. We hear clanking footsteps.

A skeleton soldier crouches down to look through the hole in the door. It shoots a rocket punch
at us.

The magic armor is immune to psychic damage.

We destroy the armored skeleton with bashing and eldritch blast.

The tunnel looks very damp, and seems to be flooded regularly.

After going through another door we find a room filled with water. It is octagonal, and we see
another door on the other side, which has blood on it. We manage to make it through the
flooded room to the other side. Upon passing through the door, another tunnel slopes upward
into another room.

We find a dead body with arrows sticking out of it. Wolfy whines next to it. The arrows appear to
be normal, not smoky.

There is a pedestal surrounded by black liquid. The altar itself is marble, and the pillar is
obsidian. A wooden statue, completely unrotted, of Bolemia sits atop it.

Ferdinand really wants to investigate the Bolemia carved statue but is convinced not to.

Kishara may have taken a small gold and silver object from the altar.

There is another door in the room, which we open. The dead body comes to life, and two
skeleton archers rise up out of the pool of black liquid and attack. Ferdinand cuts the body in
half.

A white and slimy creature attacks and is killed by Tavin, who insults it to death.

Kishara teaches Ferdinand to steal grave goods. Ferdinand now has a magic ring.

The corpse is bleeding black goop as blood. We are convinced it is Ardi Pratt and tie the two
halves together and bundle it up in a blanket.

We exit the way we came. Kishara falls in the water filled room and is sucked into the sinkhole,
Arsten dives after her. Ferdinand falls as well. All survive.

We escape the temple and return to Calmond. Wolfy follows us. Bart the Elder is not happy we
brought another body with us.

Emilia is upset that Herte is in Calmond, considers him a potentially dangerous rogue magician.

Herte is teaching Summer, the girl child, Dancing Lights.

We learn the legionnaires may have looted the Artichoke farmstead.

We learn Kishara has dealt with goblins before.

We learn Spring, the boy child, left his toy soldier at the house, and that the puma that attacked
them was bigger than a wolf, with red eyes and black fur, smelling like sulfur.

Arsten speaks with Wolfy and convinces the wolf to wear a lead. They go hunting together.

Olaf and Orion are dwarves. They offer us 1000 GP to retrieve their stolen shipment of goods,
which was stolen by two burly men with well-trained dogs. We decline because Orion refuses to
share more information.

We later discover a large group of young men in their General Store preparing to track down the
bandits. Bart the Younger is there as well, tasked to keep us from following the group. Orion
continues to be secretive. They leave towards the East.

We head north to the farmstead. We get Bart to abandon us by telling spooky stories.

We pass a murder of crows, who are cawing. Tavin kills 31 of them by putting them to sleep.
Ferdinand leaves an offering for the crows and encourages everyone to leave.

We find a burned down farm house. We wonder if legionnaires burnt it down out of anger at the
Artichoke family.

Legionnaires dug up fences.

Arsten steps into the burned out house and is attacked by the puma. We fight and defeat the
puma by cutting it in half.

We find the toy soldier. We are approached by a Halfling named Hilbert Softstep. He tells us
feathered bipeds ran away from the house heading northeast. These are raptors, feathered
dinosaurs ridden by Fae.

Hilbert says Bart the Elder did not offer assistance to Artichoke family, and that the fence posts
were dug up in search of gold. Artichokes didn’t have much money though.

Summer and Spring witnessed their mother Sonja being taken away by two pale faced men on
raptors. They took offense to being called elves.

The children have no family other than Sonja and their father down south.

Hilbert says game has been scarce due to large shadow beasts. Predators are acting more
aggressive. He tells of a Temple to Gaia in the east, an enchanted forest protected by spirits of
nature. He doesn’t know why someone would target Sonja or her children.
We learn Sonja was mistreated by her father as a child for not being a mage, and that she
harbors a deep distrust of magic for it.

We follow the trail of raptor tracks until we reach a forest of unnatural greenness. The path splits
in two and we start hearing tiny voices. We learn that the proper way for faeries to greet each
other is “I see you” and “I see you, too”. We meet a sprite with dragonfly wings, armed to the
teeth with little weapons.

Faeries have their own code of morals. They tell us to leave, this zone is an exclusion zone for
interplanar security, for the safety of all beings on this plane and others. They do not recognize
the authority of any gods except Oberon, who is King of the Fae, or an Archfae, or perhaps a
god they worship.

Sonja Artichoke was detained for questioning in an active investigation and is not in danger.
Shadowguard Scouts brought her in.

We learn incursions of demon animals have occurred in Oberon’s domain as well, and that
Lantesch is considered a traitor. Sonja is supposedly a witness to his location.

Lantesch is accused of high treason, assault on the winter court. He is a pure blood aristocrat
fae.

Arsten negotiates a contract with the fae to take over responsibility of Sonja. We return
with her to her farmstead.

Sonja’s father is a bigwig in the administration of the province north of this one. The toy soldier
was made by her husband.

The two elves that kidnapped Sonja said they were looking for the source of some kind of evil.

We return to Calmond. Emilia does not remember who Herte is, and that the children have been
staying with her for a whole week already. It seems she has been enchanted to forget.

We learn Lantesch was an expert in teleportation and was supposed to provide such services to
the Red Shard. He hates the Winter Court.

The Mask (electron guy) is supposedly killing messengers.

Emilia comes with us to track down Lantesch. We find some raptors and defeat them, but Emilia
is injured.

Upon reaching Lantesch’ manor, we see Shadowguard Scouts attacking him. Lantesch is very
upset to see Emilia.

Emilia tries to sweet talk the sprite seargent

Apple Blossom, the sprite who was traveling with us, gives Kishara some fairy dust as payment
We also get some coins with a tentacle on one side and a wheel on the other. Soul coins? The
coins give Ferdinand a flashback.

Lantesch complains that the Emperor gave him safe harbor and that Arsten as a peace guard
should honor that.

Emilia is distraught that Lantesch has been caught by the sprites and elves. He was her "asset".

We loot the dead raptors for meat.

We learn Athena has been warring with Fae for millenia, as she wants to claim the Fae Wilds as
hunting grounds. The followers of Athena may be involved with the demonic predators around.

Arsten secretly administers a poison to Lantesch at his wish, so that he will not be tortured by
the sprites and elves upon returning to their plane.

The faeries disappear with Lantesch, and Apple Blossom promises to leave us a message in
Calmond.

We head back to Calmond. Ferdinand shares his memories upon seeing the coin. He has a
memory of lying in a dark room and overhearing two warty old witchy women discussing soul
coins.

Sonja takes back custody of Spring. She refuses to accept Summer as her daughter because
Summer can do magic. The kids are both absolutely distraught at this.

We decide to stage a fight at the Tavern so Kishara can arrest us and take us into custody.
Tavin and Ferdinand throw boots at each other.

Kishara disguised as a soldier finds a captured Kobold in the legionnaire house. She learns of
his master, Epilon.

Tentacle coins have to do with necromancy and transmutation.

We follow the ant trail which leads to a kobold trail. We find three hanged men and two dire wolf
heads on pikes. We think these are the robbers the dwarves and the group of townspeople were
looking for.

We continue on and find a camp the townspeople and Orion made. There are dead bodies in
the camp. Ghouls show up and we fight them.

Continuing on we find a cave. In front of it is a big pile of human and goblin corpses. The goblin
corpses look bitten by ants. Close to the cave entrance are goblin heads on spikes. There is a
campfire with trash around it.

Orion and two other villagers are missing from the pile of bodies.
A kobold called Sobee falls out of a tree and gets slapped by another kobold for being useless.
Sobee takes up his post again. Ferdinand is hiding in the pile of corpses and manages to grab
Sobee, pulling him in, terrifying the kobold. Sobee begs for forgiveness for killing the goblins,
and mentions lunatic cultist ants. Ferdinand grabs him and runs away with the others.

Tavin sets off a trap while escaping but is quickly rescued.

Sobee says the Inventor put him on guard duty, and that Epilon is the Inventors boss. Inventor
has stolen treasure from Sobee and kobolds for Epilon. He says that the humans started
fighting each other out of greed, and that he used to work for cultists that kept dogs and cats.
Epilon is a big green dragon, who used the cultists ants to clear goblins out of the area. He
extorts people for money and steals cattle.

Kobolds can smell magic and have brought people to the cultists, who are kidnapping people
with magical abilities.

Returning to Calmond we find Summer with a small packed suitcase. We plan on escorting her
to Ezzar with Merchant Lucius so she can go to magic school.

Arsten and Ferdinand meet with Centurion of legionnaires and talk about the dead villagers,
ants, cult of Athena, kidnappings, Epilon. Epilon can make plants grow weird. Someone burned
down Lantesch's mansion.

Arsten receives an anonymous gift of some Elven boots.

We find Olaf and ask him where Orion is, telling about the hanged bandits and dead villagers.
Olaf is very angry Orion stiffed him on the money and ran away, and didn't know about the
kobolds or dragons. He is also now on the hook for the dead villagers.

Centurion makes Bart the Elder pay our tab for room and board.

We are given a letter to deliver to the 4th legion camps, to Tribune Jefrelot.

Edgar the town Druid warns us to stay away from the temples in Ezzar.

Emilia also has a letter for us to deliver to the library in Ezzar.

A small letter from Apple Blossom is found. The faeries are going to close the hole in the barrier
and attack the cultists.

As we leave for Ezzar, Arsten quickly heads back to the faerie Grove to confirm the message,
and speaks with Sonja at her farmhouse before catching up with us. He tries to convince her
that Summer is not at fault for being magical, but Sonja is still angry and upset about her
daughter learning magic.
Olaf is accompanying us to Ezzar to look for Orion. Ferdinand thinks he is cool and tries to
befriend him. We get news that 6th and 8th legions are cornered in the mountains, and that
rebels are coming over the border to raid towns.

Bandits stop our wagons and demand all our stuff. Olaf almost dies in the skirmish.

The bandits are Luarian rebels. We take all but a few of their weapons. Hennessy and Lucia are
the bosses of this group. Ferdinand seems to feel a kinship with Hennessy, who is basically a
fox walking around on two legs. We take Hennessy prisoner.

We pass a barn filled with Luarian infantrymen. Two of their horses were stolen from Imperial
mail carriers. Tavin accidentally summons some sort of spirit/ghost/entity named Balthasar.

Hennessy shares his philosophy with us. He wants democratically elected leadership instead of
the Emperor who is chosen by Mage Council. Non spellcasters are not as valued. His end goal
is not to kill the Emperor but to change public opinion.

We drop off Hennessy in jail basically but don't tell the legionnaires he is a Luari rebel since
then they would kill him. Summer says that Hennessy has a weird feel to his head, like when
Emilia was under the forget spell.

We find the 4th legion camps and Tribune Jafelot. We deliver the letter to her, she has very
fancy armor. She thanks us for telling her about the dead villagers, dragon Epilon. She says her
infantry is currently assembling and will take out cultists before taking care of Epilon. She says
that the Peace Guard has been run out of Ezzar by the clergy, and that the archbishop Enrico
Groda might be making a power grab.

We tell the Tribune that we found some Luari rebels pretending to be the 8th legion, and that the
Mask is killing messengers from Calmond, since apparently they haven't heard from the 8th
legion in a while.

We make it to Ezzar. We meet Tamara, gnome herbalist with a shop north of Central Square.

A priest is giving a passionate speech in front of the church about a shrine to Poseidon
somewhere in the forest?

We see Herte and eat seafood lunch with him at Magic Mikes. Ferdinand learns what an
octopus is.

There is a ship with large red panthers painted on sail at the docks. Kishara has a brother she
raced to the bottom of the ocean with.

We get school supplies for Summer. Tamara tells us that the temple acolytes fought with Peace
Guard and that the priests are putting on shows daily to recruit people and get more money.
We find the magic school and Summer gives them the letter of recommendation from Emilia.
Emilia was a former student. We learn we came in through the wrong door and that usually only
graduates can make it through. We have to find a patron to sponsor Summers education.

The mages at the school learn Kishara is a warlock and are absolutely horrified and terrified.

We are forcibly removed from wizarding school.

They kick us out. Arsten is also horrified. Ferdinand doesn't know or care what a warlock is and
defends Kishara from their attacks on her character. Tavin is pretty chill about it.

Kishara tells us about her people, who came to this plane when it was formed. Her ancestors
souls came from the dream plane and her soul is from there too. Not many of her people
survived. Her being a warlock is a life or death situation.

Herte hires us to get his stuff out of his cabin in the woods. It's near where the new temple to
Poseidon will be built.

We bring the letter from Emilia to the library. We are led by the librarian upstairs. We see a
painting of an oak in front of a waterfall. Behind this painted tapestry is a door. Behind the door
we meet a young man, the scribe mole we saw at the legionnaire camps.

We see a painting of what looks like Herte without his beard. We learn this painting is of King
Silverflame, Ridon Silverflame, a mythical figure who led the war against the peace guard.

Back downstairs in the library we meet Abraham Linaro and Iffim, who are very interested in
going to the archive we just returned from. We explain only that we had a letter and were then
escorted there.

Abraham and Iffim take us to their boss, Salazar Esteman, who is acting as a sort of hired
insurance for families who are being targeted by the Scarlet Shard. We manage to avoid a fight
with Salazar and his henchmen.

Ferdinand is betrayed by Abraham.

We talk to Olaf, who has been looking for Orion in the city. None of his business associates
here have heard from Orion in past two weeks. Olaf tells us that he can have someone perform
a tracking spell on Orion, but that we would need ghost ectoplasm in order to conduct the ritual.
We agree to try to learn more about ghosts so we can assist. There seems to be a ghost
problem in the cemetery.

We learn Summer’s grandfather is a Senator.

The Ezzar chapter of the Peace Guard has left after being kicked out by the clergy. Arsten’s
clan up north is also busy fighting the smoke demon creatures.
We learn that ghosts can drain life force by touching or looking at you, and that magic weapons
work better against them. Olaf has brought Holy Water for fighting the ghost. There is a man
named Marcus lost in the cemetery, which has ghosts AND undead. Tamara the Gnome
suggests that Freya-blessed oil is effective against ghosts. We learn how to collect ectoplasm.

An imperial princess is in Ezzar and is leaving to stop an undead in Clifford with a large
entourage of Peace Guards and soldiers.

Magic Mike mentions the tablet of Freya in her shrine/crypt can be fixed. It being broken is
cause of ghost problems.

The wizards asking for ectoplasm to perform the location spell are actually necromancers.

Visiting Tamara again, we buy more Holy Water, She suggests radiant damage is effective
against ghosts, and that they are immune to cold damage. She tells us that there are braziers of
oil in the temple that can be lit with a very hot flame that will bless the surrounding area when lit.
Ferdinand purchases an anti-ghost amulet.

In the cemetery we meet a woman named Jasmine wearing a red silk dress. She is from the
Everlife Club, the necromancers we heard about. One of the newer members apparently broke
a stone tablet while the Club was having a party in Freya’s temple. Ghost appeared and terrified
the club members, who all ran out or died. The temple has containment measures for the
undead - doors will close automatically, for example. Freya’s temple is keeping Daglolar the
Rotting contained. He is a servant of Anavis, the God of Undeath. Anubis, anuvis, anabis

We enter Freya’s temple.

and fight some zombies and find out lighting the braziers is an excellent way to get rid of them
pretty quickly.

We find a knapsack with a red potion inside. The healing potion has a beating heart inside.

We find Marcus! He is confused but alive.

We continue to fight zombies. The ghost materializes and possesses Olaf, who runs off.

Olaf dies.

Ferdinand chases after him and is confronted with Olaf’s dead body, surrounded by giant
spiders. While fighting the spiders Ferdinand becomes unconscious and transforms into a small
unconscious frog. Kishara and the rest of the party chase off the rest of the spiders and drag
Olaf’s body and Ferdinand’s stuff back to the beginning of the temple to rest in the light of the
brazier.

Olaf had a letter in his clothes bequeathing his enterprise to Ferdinand, and making him
executor of his will.
The unconscious frog wakes up and has 1 HP. This is Ferdinand. He now has darkvision which
he uses to help Arsten look around dark corners without alerting potential undead.

We fight another undead, a raging frog is pretty useless. We find a chest with a bunch of red
robes, bottles of wine, and whiskey. Ferdinand turns back into a human and feels an
overwhelming sense of danger, which Arsten can confirm.

Heading deeper into the temple we find Marcus, who seemingly ran off and triggered a booby
trap. We stabilize him and take him with us. He starts telling us about how great Enavis is, and
how we are destined to help Marcus enact Enavis’ will. He basically infiltrated the Everlife Club
to try to free Daglolar’s Ghost.

We meet some mercenaries deeper in the temple. Semelkin the Tiefling, Callista the Elf Archer,
and Boris the? Knight?

Marcus is incredibly annoying and summons some skeletons to fight the party. They are
however stuck in a deep pit and cannot reach us.

With the help of the three mercenaries we defeat Daglolar’s Ghost, collect ectoplasm, and leave
the temple through a secret staircase.

We plan to take the broken tablet pieces we collected in the temple to Freya’s Grove in Ezzar to
see if it can be fixed. We meet Jasmin at the outside of the temple and tell her of Marcus’
treachery.

We go back into the temple to retrieve Olaf’s body. He has been zombified. Ferdinand does not
want to fight him. The party banishes the decay from Olaf’s corpse, and we cremate him once
we exit the temple. Jasmine magically locks the door to the crypt.

We have an impromptu funeral for Olaf. A 3 eyed raven observes the proceedings. This is an
avatar of Odin. We now have a small urn with Olaf’s ashes and a piece of iron that used to be
his axe head.

At Freya’s Grove we hand over the tablet pieces to the druids. Arsten also found a book of
Freya in the temple, which he gives to the druids. Martin.

Frog experience with the druids.

Ferdinand has a flashback experience with the druids after explaining his frogness. The druids
explain that he seems to be under a dark curse, and that perhaps a night hag made me this way
and is watching me. Night hags trade souls in the form of coins, and Ferdinand now has a
human soul. Perhaps the night hags are turning animals into humans in order to get free souls?

We take Marcus to a Sir Aiden to get rid of him. Sir Aiden tells us a bit more about night hags.
We spend the night at his Peace Guard camp. Ferdinand carves a small frog.
We return to Ezzar. We give Tamara some of the ectoplasm, since it is valuable. Tamara is also
pretty emotional about Olaf’s death, and we drink to his life. With her help we identify the
beating heart potion as an elvish potion, which is described in a book she has with moving
pictures also created by the elves. Apparently the book has an anti-were-creature spell on it.

Ferdinand meets with Ira Ray, who is kind of like the boss of the Everlifers? He asks her some
questions about the ritual. Ira is confident about the ritual working, and describes it as a blissful
experience. Ferdinand asks her about Marcus. Marcus apparently brought the club items of
necromancy. He claimed to witness a way to bring undead back to full faculty. Ferdinand tells
her Marcus escaped (not that we left him with Peace Guard).

Later in the day we join the Everlifers for the ritual. It takes place in elven ruins with moon
symbols. There is an obsidian inlay in a stone beneath a large tree with a carving of a naked
drow woman, a good aligned goddess.

We participate in the ritual.

Kishara and Ferdinand see an apparition, an octopus woman with tentacles coming out beneath
a dress. She speaks to Kishara. The Everlifers also see this apparition (I think). The Tentacle Commented [3]: The Everlifers did see it BUT they
Woman tells Kishara the Club has never learned to draw wards while conducting rituals, were in trance so it is likely they don't even remember
or think it's part of the ritual
allowing for any magical entities to enter the space.

The Tentacle Woman vanishes, and small trees come to life and begin to become aggressive.
Kishara remains focused on the pendulum she is holding as part of the ritual, attempting to see
which way it swings on the map. Everyone else attempts to fight off these aggressive bushes,
and some of the Everlifers flee.

A magic tornado shows up which we also fight. Also some electrical balls. Out of the tornado a
silver raven figure is dropped, as well as a driftwood staff.

A literal angelic figure flies full speed into the ruins and yells at the Everlifers remaining. This
angelic figure turns out to be Herte. He says the staff is for Kishara.

Herte tells us Holy Water works against night hags. Herte now knows Ferdinand is a frog. He
also tells us that the “Weave” is not the same as the Great Barrier separating planes, and that
the “weave” is like his baby.

He also asks if we can still somehow help him move his furniture, except that now we should try
distracting the paladins from showing up to his cabin too early.

DURING THIS PART I WAS NOT PRESENT! BASICALLY TAVIN AND ARSTEN GO OFF ON
THEIR OWN TO FOLLOW THE PALADINS. KISHARA AND FERDINAND SEARCH FOR
ORION USING THEIR NEW INFO. THE FROG CARVING IS USED TO GET US THROUGH A
TOWN.
IN PROGRESS Commented [4]: Break between previous sessions and
current

Arsten and Tavin travel to distract the paladins heading towards the new temple of Poseidon.
On the way their horses stumble into a Bulette hole, but they manage to make the Bulette pup
fall asleep before it can call an alarm. They continue on and meet a shepherd and his dog,
Gawain and Whistle, who are attacked by demon dogs. Gawain is a magic user, and he and
whistle join Arsten and Tavin in the fight. Arsten cuts the lead demon dog’s head off, and the
others pop out of existence. They tell Gawain that they think the demon dogs are hunting down
magic users. They try to convince him to come with them since they think his life is in danger,
but he prefers to head back to civilization. Gawain heads off towards Ezzar.

Arsten and Tavin inspect the dead dog. It has horns on its head. They decide to take the paws
with them to show the paladins.

Kishara and Ferdinand travel by horse to the meeting place to meet with Arsten and Tavin. They
gallop across plains. Kishara’s horse stumbles into a Bulette hole and has its legs bitten off.
Kishara is trapped under her horse, and Ferdinand lets go of his to try and help her. Kishara
Misty Steps out from under the horse and chases down Ferdinand’s horse. Ferdinand kills the
screaming horse and leaves it to the Bulette, managing to salvage the saddle and bags before
running after Kishara. After managing to calm the horse with some carrot-flavored oats, they
continue on at a walk, making it to the edge of the woods.

Arsten and Tavin find signs of battle, fresh blood, fresh graves, horse hoof prints stampeding
away. Seems some paladins survived and rode their horses off southwest. Bloody drag marks
are too small to be armored paladins, may be from whoever attacked the paladins. Blood is
bright red, like draconic blood. Kobold blood?

Paladins are magic users, would explain why a large group of them were ambushed by cult of
Athena. There are more paw marks in the ground, from a large, six-legged cat? Multiple of
these. These prints are overlain by the horse hoof prints.

Tavin and Arsten come across dead horses, dogs, dead paladin bodies among roots of trees.
Bulk of paladins seem to still be alive. They decide to try to catch up with the rest of the paladins
instead of turning back.

Ferdinand and Kishara make it to the campsite. It seems to have been used a few days ago.
Ferdinand goes to water the horse by a nearby stream and meets a pixie, who is incensed that
Ferdinand answered with “I see you, too” without looking at her first. She eventually sees
Ferdinand isn’t a cultist and tells him there are lots of cultists in this area that the pixies are
trying to fight. She was waiting for “Honor and Honesty” to arrive and help. Ferdinand relays this
information to Kishara.
Kishara sees the campfires of the pilgrims in the distance. She also sees a few campfires in the
forest, and some shadowy large birds rising up and down from a campfire. They are streaky and
glint with metal. She shows this to Ferdinand. She makes Ferdinand and herself look
presentable since they expect to meet a pixie Sergeant.

Tavin and Arsten travel onward and start to smell sulfur, fresh sulfur. They see a large band of
kobolds walking in rank. They also hear dogs. They get attacked by demon dogs and kobolds.
They manage to barge right through the encounter but are followed by a large bird in the sky.

Tavin downs the bird with a sleeping spell. It wakes up upon hitting the ground and chases after
them both. Tavin insults the bird to death.

Kishara and Ferdinand see and hear a large group of kobolds and demon animals attack a
campfire of paladins. The shadowy birds are attacking the paladins, and the metal streaks are
clouds of arrows. We decide to leave a message for Tavin and Arsten, and leave with the horse
to see if we can help the paladins by the time we get there (a few hours).

Arsten and Tavin follow the tracks leading north through the forest as it gets darker. It’s a very
dark forest, with well spaced trees. They debate lighting a torch and making camp, as they
would be very visible. They light the torch. They hear horse hooves. They decide to check out
who it is. Tavin casts invisibility on Arsten and Arsten dismounts to sneak around and see if he
can find out who is in the forest with them.

Kishara spots a flickering flame in the distance barely illuminating the trees in the woods. It
looks as though someone tall is holding a torch moving slowly northward. We debate casting
Darkness and sneaking past. Kishara casts Darkness. Arsten stops five feet from the edge of
the darkness, not having recognized the figures he sees in the woods. The horse neighs but
does not panic, and Kishara and Ferdinand continue on.

Arsten recognizes their voices and calls out to them. Kishara dispels darkness and we reunite.
We hear someone crashing through bushes and draconic voices yelling. Kishara and Ferdinand
attempt to hide while Arsten scouts ahead.

Arsten sees a Halfling with red hair and yellow dress scrambling through the bushes. Behind the
Halfling Kobolds are yelling for her to stop and a roar can be heard.

The Halfling is running from a Displacer Beast and Kobolds. As she is running through the
forests the kobolds are slowly catching up to her. She saw a torch in the distance and ran
towards it.

Arsten runs up to what he believes to be a child and sees the Displacer Beast with two Kobolds
on its back. He shouts at them in Draconic to try and intimidate them. The Halfling (Holly) is
terrified by the invisible Arsten shouting in Draconic, and sprints over a small cliff towards
Tavin’s torch. The Displacer beast runs to follow Holly. The Kobolds throw a rock at her and
miss. They fire an arrow at her, which she catches and uses to cut the ropes binding her hands
together, then throws the arrow back at the archer Kobold.
Arsten throws a javelin at the shadow beast, and it solidifies into a cat with six legs and
tentacles. It immediately looks at Ferdinand when he ties off the horse behind a tree and tries to
whisper to Kishara. Kishara moves forward and shoots at the Displacer beast with purple
energy. Holly picks up a stick to use as a club, attacking the Kobold Ranger, breaking his nose.
The Displacer beast attacks her with its tentacles.

Arsten gets hit with his own javelin when it is thrown back at him.

Ferdinand rushes in. We all fight the shadow beast and the kobolds, killing the beast and one of
the kobolds. Arsten convinces the remaining kobold to surrender.

Holly was hunting down Archibald. Her parents gave her this quest, a personal quest. Archibald
wasn’t at the camp, but she knows where his previous location was.

Arsten and Kishara try to harvest some pieces of the demon cat and fail.

Tavin shares the information about the paladins he and Arsten learned with us as we decide
where to make camp. We decide to head towards the campsite Holly escaped from.

We see the paladins being attacked by beasts and kobolds on both sides, as well as birds from
above, as well as a large demonic figure commanding the kobolds and beasts. The demonic
figure is guarded by several cultists including an archer.

We are approached by a speaking seagull. It seems to know Kishara. It mentions that Morgana
would not like Kishara helping the paladins or the demons. It tells us of Dagen, a demon prince,
all tentacles and vile. Dagen’s worshippers kept bothering it. It basically gives us a quest to kill
some cultists at the beach so Kishara can loot them.

The large demonic creature is a Carpa Demon. The Kobolds and Shadow Beasts continue to
attack the paladins.

Kishara casts a cloud of darkness and takes Arsten with her to try to surprise the Carpa.
Kishara casts Shatter and breaks a bunch of stuff, including containers of blood which burst all
over the Carpa.

We fight Carpa Demon and the minions. Ferdinand tries to jump up a tree but is unsuccessful.
One of the fanatics summons a spiritual weapon, a flail, which is unusual for a cleric.

The Abyssal claws attack the paladins from all sides.

The Carpa Demon was using the blood he was drinking to control the abyssal claws and the
kobolds and the vultures.

Ferdinand goes down after being critically hit with Inflict Wounds as well as an arrow. He turns
into a frog.

Vultures start attacking us as well.

Holly stabs Carpa Demon in the Ass! Carpa Demon is bleeding black ooze blood, just like the
demon dogs.

Kishara Spares the Dying for Ferdinand.

Holly grabs into the hole in Carpa Demon and tears out its heart. As it dies, the cats disengage,
dashing back towards the temple. The paladins charge towards the kobolds, who run away. The
paladins that are left mostly collapse.

Kishara and Arsten collect some of the demon’s blood before it fully evaporates.

Holly looks for her stuff in the tents, and finds some loot too!

Tavin also looks for loot.

Arsten drops a health potion on Ferdinand, who revives with 1 HP.

Paladins had been fighting for hours, and are now stabilizing their remaining members. A few of
them are looking at us. Kishara approaches them to try and help stabilize, which they
begrudgingly allow.

Arsten tells them we are looking for Sir Simon. Sir Simon is however unconscious in a ditch.
Arsten offers them a potion of healing, which they accept. The paladins say they are still
expecting reinforcements. They are at half-power, having lost a quarter of their comrades in the
woods, and another in this battle.

We manage to stabilize most of their fallen comrades. With a bit of rest they’d be able to recover
to a size 3 unit.

We build a makeshift hospital using one of the kobold tents. The interim commander Squire
Bogomolov dumps hooch on Sir Simon’s face, which wakes him up. Arsten greets him and
introduces us all, including Ferdinand as Frog. Holly is introduced as the “Demon Slayer”.

Kishara Mage Hands over a chair for Sir Simon to sit on as we discuss the demon cats. Sir
Simon is not happy with Kishara’s “Heathen magic” as she cleans him up with prestidigitation.

Arsten tells Sir Simon about how the demon beasts are what brought our party together. He tells
him of beasts being found around Calmond.

Sir Simon mentions four adventurers that he was informed about, but thinks we can’t be them.
Supposedly they ran into some rebels on the road and brought news of rebel activity right next
to legion camp.

Arsten tells him we are these adventurers. Simon tells us the warnings of demon animals were
not taken seriously in Ezzar.

Sir Simon tells us double the number of paladins accompanied the pilgrims.
Tavin breaks it down. There is a temple somewhere west which contains a cult creating these
beasts, is involved with the kobolds. Tavin suggests the pilgrims return to Ezzar, someone take
care of temple, and then pilgrims can safely go.

Arsten tells Sir Simon that the kidnapped paladins (were dragged off by beasts) are likely to be
sacrificed to make more demon beasts.

Sir Simon tells us to bring this information to the bishop, who is the only one who has authority
to order paladins to attack cultists.

Arsten tells Sir Simon the cultists are servants of green dragon Epilon. He also mentions the
strange spiritual weapon, the Flail.

We learn about a minotaur with flails in both hands. Baphomet.

Kishara tells the party and Sir Simon that Brother Archibald has basically taken over the Cult of
Athena and is making the demon beasts, and that some of the cult has defected.

Ferdinand starts turning back into a human. Sir Simon is not enthused about this and casts
Detect Good and Evil, which lets him notice an Evil creature in the sky. He throws a dagger at it.
There is a hole in reality, with a warty face, looking down into something black and circular. The
dagger passes through the hole and grazes the face. The face loses concentration, and the hole
disappears.

Sir Simon plans to set up camp, double watch, spend the night. Then return to bishop, he needs
to hear all of this for himself. We are welcome to join the paladins, and tell the bishop ourselves.
Arsten will not be looked upon kindly by the bishop though.

Kishara calls Sir Simon a square. Sir Simon tries to determine if Kishara is a demon by smelling
her for sulfur.

Sir Simon admits that following the kidnapped paladins was already a rule broken, he should
have asked the Bishop’s permission anyway.

Sir Simon tells Kishara to be quiet, and she becomes very angry at him, telling him to never tell
her something like that.

Bogomolov helps us set up a tent. Kishara is very interested in Bogomolov’s shield.

Kishara and Holly start to set up a kobold tent to spend the night in.

Tavin and Ferdinand go back to get the horses and their kobold prisoner. We find lots of kobold
tracks and cut reins.

Vultures have flown away, body of beast land shark, among defeated Displacer beast dogs.
There appear to be multiple stages of power, dogs, cats, land shark (Bolette). Arsten tries to
collect something from them, but they evaporate.
Sir Simon puts out a patrol for the perimeter. We try to make the tent homey.

Kishara checks on Bogolov.

Kishara is angry with Arsten for wanting to be a paladin since Sir Simon was so rude to her.

Arsten reminds Kishara that Sir Simon was in charge of a bunch of men, and that some died,
and that he is really upset about that and that she reminded him of it. Kishara storms out of the
tent.

Ferdinand follows Arsten to sit by the fire and asks about the massive amount of damage he
took from Inflict Wounds. He also asks about the portal to the night hags, as well as how the
battle with Carpa Demon ended. Tavin and Holly join, and we have proper introductions. We
talk about eating insects.

Kishara is sneaking around. She speaks with a paladin named Adin, and shares the very fancy
wine she got in the Temple of Freya with him. Adin calls out Bogomolov to try the drink as well.
Bogomolov gets out some glasses. This is shared with us as well, around the fire.

Kishara convinces Bogomolov to play cards for something valuable. Bogomolov pulls out
Imperial Secret Service beads, and Kishara pulls out her own. Bogomolov pulled his off of some
sort of death cultist.

Kishara keeps needling Bogomolov for something worthy for a game of cards. She asks for t he
shield. Bogomolov says the shield is a Dionysus artifact.

Bogomolov agrees to play cards, with HIS cards, for the two bottles of ice wine against the
shield. The card edges are a bit frayed, but differently, so you can tell which cards are upside
down. They play cards. Kishara wins and gets the shield, but she gives him the bottle to be nice.
Arsten consoles Bogomolov.

We get a dream of Carpa Demon, telling us it will be back.

We get a long rest. Kishara cleans all of us with Prestidigitation. Kishara cleans Bogomolov and
gives him the shield so he can use it to make healing booze.

Arsten and Kishara talk about how the paladins are biased against Kishara. We discuss when to
lie.

Kishara tells of how we found Orion, who was rescued by cult of Athena splinter group. We tell
of how they separated from the rest of the cult, and how they are starting new jobs in Ezzar.

We head back towards Ezzar. As we pass by where the Peace Guard camp was, we see a
fresh carving on a tree. It is a symbol of a dove, and an arrow under it. It points the way we
came from.
We see people working on the wall, reinforcing it. Fortifying it for confrontation. We see the
cemetery, people passing back and forth to there from the northern gates. With carts.

We are asked at the gates for our identification board. Holly doesn’t have one. Kishara
improvises that Holly is her daughter. We make it to the inn we had rooms in.

Holly’s mothers name is Lily, father’s name is Finbar. She lost them two or three days ago.

Ferdinand gets a letter that was sent to Calmond first. It has a missive from Ethel Minkfoot, and
a note from Emilia Bronze in Calmond.

Holly tells us she used to be part of the cult of Athena, but her parents and her decided it was
bad since Archibald started to create displacer beasts and had to leave. She got separated from
her parents two days ago. She was captured by the kobolds before she could meet with them.

She is very worried about her parents. Kishara explains about how the Cult of Athena refugees
are looking for jobs in Ezzar, and how she wants to help them. Tavin and Arsten make fun of
Kishara for being charitable.

Ferdinand tells them that the letter tells him he is being looked for by a teleporting merchant
woman, and a hobgoblin. The party tells him about how hobgoblins can be a serious threat.

The innkeeper’s name is Johnnie Cash. Holly is so excited to have her own room at the inn, with
a door, and a bed, and a mattress.

Tavin throws at pillow at her. She uses a ki point to catch it and throw it back at him.

Tavin goes to buy a second crossbow, ballbearings and some wood so Ferdinand can carve a
fake ID for Holly. Ferdinand sends a letter to Ethel.

Arsten goes to visit Tamara the gnome with Kishara. Tamara’s face is all purple and bandaged.
She doesn’t want to talk about it. Tamara's face is very bruised and purple, and she mentions
that Kishara's order had some problems, as the original owner of the item didn't want to part
with it.... she had to renegotiate the price. Tamara provides a wrapped item to Kishara. Kishara
pays extra since she appreciates the “trouble” for her request.

Tamara returns Pika to Arsten and Kishara. Tamara asks to look at some of the spells Tamara
has for sale. Arsten shows Tamara the demon blood. Tamara is pretty surprised by this, but
agrees to make species specific poison out of it for 100 GP. Arsten asks about preserving the
trophy. She charges him 10 GP for some preserving fluid. Kishara hypes up the Ice Wine to
Tamara to sell it to her. Tamara doesn’t accept it.

Tavin goes shopping.

Kishara and Arsten visit Magic Mike’s stall. She tries to ask if he might have some jobs for some
people. He doesn’t, but Robinson, another one of Kishara’s friends, has some jobs as stage
hands. Kishara thinks this is a good idea (for the Splinter Group refugees). The theater is just up
North, in the back alleys next to the work house, where the poor laborers in the city live. Arsten
and Kishara get some seafood with a Friends and Family discount.

Everyone meets back up at the Tavern. We argue a bit about whether all of us should visit the
Splinter Group.

We head South. At the docks we see white sailed ship of Imperial construction, as well as a
streamlined ship with Red Panther sails. The secret exit to the outside of the city is under the
docks at the start of the pier. Kishara sees a pair of guards and folks unloading goods from the
Red Panther ship. An officer of some sort stands at the top of the gangplank giving orders, looks
vaguely familiar.

We hear a crash above us as we descend, of some boxes having been dropped. A human voice
starts berating a dwarf.

We follow the pipes. The sounds of the city fall away. We reach the tannery. We continue
through the corridor. We see some cubic bricks under water, a bit smaller than a foot on each
side. There are two holes in the wall. The hole is longer than the cube shape would suggest.
There are gears in the ends of the holes. Holly tries to move the gears, by standing on a
crouching Ferdinand’s shoulders. Tavin scares Holly while she attempts to move the gears and
she punches him in the face. Tavin now has a greasy nose.

Kishara inspects the gears. We decide we need the cubic bricks. Ferdinand pulls out the cubes.
They have different symbols on them. Tulip, tree, grass, fish, waterfall. The waterfall cube is
scratched up and has wear and tear. Ferdinand remembers that a tapestry in the library
depicted a waterfall and an oak tree. We put the waterfall and tree cubes into the holes. The
wall rises. There is a red Scarlet Shard glow at the edges of the cubes.

We see a corridor with alcoves. Ferdinand ducks down as three sharp darts whizz out of the
wall. He scatters his bag of ball bearings in front of him.

Kishara uses Prestidigitation to mark the pressure plates, and takes notes for future reference
so we don’t step on them. Ferdinand tries to collect his ball bearings. He gets distracted by
Tavin’s puns and Holly’s laughter and slips on his own bearings. Tavin gets hit by a dagger and
takes poison damage, but says he is fine.

Kishara clears a safe path, we make our way to the end of the corridor.

The next room has carvings on the walls depicting life at court. Throne room with people
standing guard around an empty throne, down either wall there are crowds of courtiers with
papers and small crowns and fancy wardrobe.

We find a door. Freddy is behind the door, he recognizes my voice. He opens the door and
Ferdinand points at Holly. Holly rushes through the door and gives Freddy the Hunter a big hug.
Holly asks him about her parents. Freddy says that they were guarding the rear, and that they
are probably still back at the temple, and that Archibald has them. “We were going to go back
for them but he let loose his dogs on us, we barely made it out alive.”

Freddy thinks he’s going to use Holly’s parents to make more beasts.

Tavin explains his history of Captain status to Freddy, who is suspicious of his military
status.Tavin tells him how his rebellion defeated two legions.

Freddy’s father served with the Elven Scouts that fought with Tavin.

Freddy figures out Arsten is Peace Guard. He is very suspicious. Holly vouches for Arsten,
saying he saved her life.

We are lead through a turn in the corridor. There is a wall hanging with the oak and the
waterfall.

There is a firepit, circle of chairs, cultists eating bread. Some leave as we enter the room. Piles
of stacked wood along walls, more wall-hangings. Opening in ceiling leads to the well for the
tannery, but it is actually a ventilation shaft for this place.

We discuss going to the Temple to get Holly’s parents. Freddy tells us that Archibald is making
more displacer beasts, demon dogs, and demons proper.

Freddy tells Holly her parents know she can take care of herself. Emotional moment.

Holly didn’t manage to get the amulet and had to escape, and wasn’t successful in her mission.

Freddy and Arsten have a tense discussion. Freddy asks Arsten to pray with him to prove his
words. Arsten agrees. Freddy pricks his finger with a knife over the fire, and passes the knife to
Arsten. Arsten does the same.

Holly also pricks her finger and sacrifices blood to the fire. This is their mealtime blessing.

Freddy then trusts that Arsten is unlikely to start hunting those that have offered him hospitality.

Archibald has surrounded himself with die-hard fanatics.

Freddy and the Splinter group were sent to Ezzar to start a new temple to Athena. The priest
that met them there, however, didn’t worship Athena, but Baphomet. They were tricked,
basically.

The amulet around Archibald’s neck lets him control the demons, we think. It certainly lets him
make more of them. Archibald drains life force of people to power the rituals to create beasts.

Archibald still has around 70 supporters, kobolds, demon dogs, displacer beasts, and actual
demons. The blood the Carpa Demon was drinking, we don’t know what it was. Archibald was
getting shipments on a weekly basis, but we don’t know what it was. Life essence to create,
blood to control? Archibald doesn’t need blood to order them around though.

Kobolds talked about a separate entrance somewhere else. Kobolds themselves were scared of
the place.

A bunch of oversized butterflies snuck into the living quarters and attacked the cultists.
Archibald tasked people with fighting them off, gates weren’t well guarded, and the Splinter
group tried to escape, that’s when Holly’s parents got captured.

Sage retells legend of feud between Athena and Baphoment. He managed to corner and
consume one of her Avatars. Thus he’s been able to fool some of her followers into thinking he
is Athena. In the process he pissed off Athena and they’ve been slugging it out in the Faewilds
for a while.

Butterflies were poisoning people left and right, vicious.

Archibald is creating beasts to aid Baphomet against Athena? Potential idea.

We get a map of the temple.

Our allies against displacer beasts: paladins, butterflies, legion? Peace Guard?

Legion is gone. Arsten thinks they went south towards Luar.

Some of the rebels can fight. Some are wounded.

Peace Guard camp near Ezzar, Sir Aiden. Freddy is scared of the Peace Guard, and doesn’t
really want to collaborate with them to fight against the cultists.

We are skeptical of the Bishop’s caring for the paladins enough to rescue them from the
Cultists.

Bishops in Luar are also pretty horrible, that’s why tribes joined rebellion. They tried forcing the
Luari people to worship the entire Imperial pantheon of gods.

Arsten heals some of the Splinter groups.

Astra poked her nose where it didn’t belong. When goblins sold them the place they left a few
traps up. She found a big heavy door and wanted to see what was behind it. The rags stuffed
under it.. She pulled one out, a bunch of green smoke came out and poisoned her.

She was part of Archibald’s inner circle. She was convinced to become a warlock of Baphomet,
once she ran away she lost her powers. She thinks the crates were full of food, the ones
Archibald got on a regular basis. She says Archibald had his inner circle cut themselves while
they were worshipping Athena, he collected blood from the offerings. Cuts healed suspiciously
quickly.
We compliment Astra.

Tavin and Arsten heal up the Splinter group members as much as they can.

Kishara, Holly, and Ferdinand check out the green smoke door. Kishara uses Mage Hand to pull
out a rag. A cloud of green dust spreads out onto the floor. Kishara takes the rag and shows it to
Arsten for his inspection. It irritates mucous membranes.

Arsten breathes in and sneezes, Kishara uses Mage Hand to prevent him from sneezing on the
dust. The powder is very fine but Arsten manages to collect some of it.

Rich green carpet, tables with papers on them, dissembled apparati, on the carpet there is a
figure in fetal position. Greenish fluid. Desiccated body. Area around it covered in thin layer of
green dust. There is a curved shard of glass next to the figure, close to the door. A hand mirror
on one of the tables.

The rags were pushed under the door from the outside. Perhaps the green powder was thrown
into the room with the person, the door shut on them.

Kishara mage hands the mirror and uses it to check out the keyhole to try to get a look at it. A
rod floats in the air. She tries moving the rod, twisting it. However, the rod does not move.
Immovable Rod. She finds the button to make it move again.

We got a free Immovable Rod. Kishara is THRILLED. We open the door. Tables with books,
quills, dissembled apparatus, dead person is wearing pretty nice robes. Looks like expensive
clothing.

Long hair, well maintained beard. He vomited before he died. Dessicated.

There is a chalk circle underneath the carpet. Magic ritual?

Tavin pats down the body and finds a piece of vellum sewn to the inside of the jacket. It is a
letter to Alexander Pannin, written in high imperial, explains the contract in which he is hired to
locate something that has been causing interference in the magical landscape. We wonder
whether summoning the smoke beasts would have caused this, but not sure since the
interference has been going on for months.

Arsten says it sounds like a bigger problem with the Barrier being broken or thin. He also
remembers that Sir Aiden talked about teleportation network not working around Ezzar.
Apparatus on table looks rather complicated, crystal in center of apparatus looks familiar.

Kishara recognizes this crystal. She takes it. She reminds us of the letter about Lantesch,
saying he should fix certain things. She thinks the crystal looks eerily familiar to what was
described in the letter. “Maintenance of certain apparatus, predecessor of Lantesch retired,
Scarlet Shard has need of immediate services, bring with you such tools as you need”... but the
handwriting does not match.
Kishara’s shoulder starts glowing as she has the stone in her hand. Where she is from, this
stone is abundant. For her people it’s a very important part of their culture. They are called
“somnum”, in the market they can be used for teleportation.

Kishara ended up in a ship transporting this kind of crystal, and many other places, where
teleportation crystals were required.

The books in the room are about teleportation, on theory of the weave, or on locusomancy,
magic for finding things and people.

Ferdinand opens the notebook. Reads like the first draft of a textbook. First chapters written
easily for anyone to understand, about locusomancy. Picks apart locate object spell.

Becomes more technical. In later chapters melted brass is mentioned, as part of teleportation
magic. Chapter isn’t finished yet. Diagram for some sort of device that has a teleportation crystal
in it, description implies it is used for tracing recent or ongoing teleportation events. One
component is a piece of brass.

Small open fireplace, no place for smoke to go. Several table with alembics and cobwebs, two
burning lanterns, flame hasn’t gone out. As soon as we remove it from the wall, the light
extinguishes.

Kishara detects an arcane power source behind the walls. Brick wall, bricks are pretty big.
Mounting for lantern screwed into wall. Kishara unscrews it, finds a small recess in wall. Within
there is a bunch of metal fittings, blood red crystal like found in the tomb of that thing. The metal
conducts magical energy of the crystal to the lamp. Crystal is the power source.

Kishara touches the crystal with a tool, and it lights up.

A magic hand appears below the stick Kishara uses to poke the crystal, and prevents it from
moving. The hand appears to store energy.

Tavin insults the crystal.

Lantern normal, stone charged with light spell.

Kishara takes the lanterns anyways.

We argue over whether to report the body or take it with us or leave it.

Why was this place abandoned by the Scarlet Shard? It had been found and raided by
opposition?

Device used to find disturbances in field that allows teleportation. This device isn’t finished.
Notes say quadruglation, at least three devices for whatever ritual thing this thing is involved in.

Archibald or Epilon really don’t want this device to be finished…

Arsten investigates the poison even more. He learns the poison powder was likely heat treated
in some way. This stuff required serious alchemical equipment to do. Unless Kobolds developed
full alchemy lab, they wouldn’t have been able to use it. Pretty rare chemicals, exotic things,
unlikely Kobolds could get them.

Who poisoned this wizard? And how did they?

Immovable rod was on the inside. Hole isn’t big enough to get the rod inside…?

Someone pushed the poison through the hole. He barricaded the door with the rod.

The wizard is human. He himself is Alexander Pannin, his profession is locusomancer, he is

from upper province on upper province. He is part of a noble family. There is a heraldry sign
engraved by his last name.

Emilia mentioned an assassin with an electrum mask.

The chalk circle: wizard was in the middle of a ritual, didn’t have time to finish it.

Strings point to Elias Vodik if we want to learn more.

Kishara compliments Arsten, we tease her about it.

Freddy sees magical paraphernalia, dead body. We tell him who it is, and that he’s involved with
Scarlet Shard.

We explain that there are two groups who know about the location of this safe house.

We ask about the electrum mask assassin, but Freddy doesn’t know about it. He wouldn’t be
surprised if Archibald kept such murderous company.

We ask about the kobold transaction for getting access to this safe house. They paid some
kobolds off for use of the hideout.

We try to figure out how to get rid of the body. We decide to bury it with rocks.

We do a basic crude burial ceremony, with some strong alcohol.

Kishara checks up on Astra before we leave.

Kishara makes a swimming pool of ocean water. Kishara and Ferdinand jump in. Ferdinand
actually hates the salt water.

The kids love it and jump in.

Kishara does Dancing Lights, with little figures of Summer appearing above the water.

The sage woman is unhappy with the tiny ocean and yells at Kishara.
Tavin talks to Freddy. Their main priority is getting better shelter than this, where the kobolds
won’t sell them out. Find stable job, find place to live, then if an opportunity presents itself to free
their friends who are still captured in Archibald’s temple they want to do that.

We talk to Freddy about Holly’s parents. Her father was good at martial arts.

If we can find a way to get the Splinter Cult arms and training, they could help us fight Archibald.

Athena is the patron deity of the Splinter Cult’s tribe. Freddy has an eyepatch. He thinks
crossbows are clunky and loud.

Kishara’s Staff rises up out of the lake, sucks all the water out of it, and the ocean disappears.

How are Athena and Gaia’s interactions? They were on opposite sides of a war between the
pantheons. Gaia supposedly died in that war. Freya doesn’t interfere with Athena as long as she
doesn’t overhunt.

Ezzar Druids and Ezzar Priests don’t seem to get along. Worth a try to ask Druids for help with
the Splinter Cult.

We debate whether to barricade the tannery entrance to the shelter, to prevent smoke dogs
from coming for the Splinter Cult.

We say goodbye to Holly and Freddy and head back out into sewers. We notice a bunch of
muddy tracks heading the way we came in. We see that somebody followed us, stopped at the
inner door, then went back. The tracks appear to belong to a small person, about Holly’s side.
Not Kobold tracks. Best Guess this was a dwarf. But they knew where the traps were. But didn’t
hide their tracks.

There was a large noise as we entered a sewer and someone was cursing a dwarf up and
down. Dockworker? Scarlet Shard?

Freddy is worried about this. We decide to spend the night with them to help protect.

We close the outer brick door and the inner door. We immovable rod the mechanism so it can’t
open.

We wake up to the sounds of roosters. Freddy is pacing around the room. He is mumbling about
needing to find a place to move everyone to, and quickly. He doesn’t seem to have slept much.

Freddy and the Sage discuss with Arsten and Tavin how to proceed. They wanted to blend into
the city, general populace.

Arsten suggests asking the Druids of Freya in the city for assistance, Freddy says they have no
quarrel with the druids. They could also go to the Denir Province, which is far away. There is
also a forest about 5 miles north with a small town, and Freddy is most excited about potentially
moving there.
The Sage attempts to convince all the Splinter Cult members to be excited about moving back
into the forest. A few are not so happy about it.

We make plans to get supplies for the Splinter Group.

We explore a side room. Rusty grate with screws and claw marks. Kobold marks? Old though.

We drop Holly down the hole with a rope. It looks like a sewer. She explores and finds a grate
above her, and uses her magic rope to climb up to look through it. Rich part of town. She goes
back down and keeps exploring downstream. She finds a small alcove. She knocks on the door,
and hears squeaks that sound like rats.

Upstream she encounters turns. She finds a grate that looks like prison bars, behind which
water appears to be welling up from underground.

Archibald is technically directly allied with the Luari rebels. Tribesfolk politics are diverging from
the goals of the nobility that started the rebellion in the first place. Allies at war though.

Part of the Luari rebellion is in a demon cult apparently.

Pika the pseudodragon was listening to this explanation…..

Smashed runes in the hideout. Empty barrels in the storage room. Various other household
items. Kishara takes four horseshoes and some nails.

Tavin tries to figure out what destroyed the runes and what they were. Someone was very
thorough, symbols themselves are typical of teleportation device. One symbol looks like the one
on Lantesch’s chest. Two omega symbols. The place appears to have been trapped at some
point, signs of old traps.

They find a torture chamber. Kishara and Tavin find a swarm of rats. They kill them and now the
Splinter Cult has a meat source for lunch :) They also find a healing kit.

Arsten, Holly, and Ferdinand sneak back outside through the sewers. On the docks everything
is busy, we can hear boxes being carried. Red Panther ship is still there. Billy and Gretchen are
with us.

Guards on the ship notice us again, but don’t do anything.

As we get onto the dock, we see well-armored thugs. Church symbology emblazoned on their
shoulders. One is clearly way too big to be a human, a goliath. They look at us very closely, but
shake their heads.

We go shopping. Tamara is happy to see us and wants to chat. She analyzes the poison Arsten
collected. Ferdinand introduces Holly as his sister. She tells us Magic Mike would know how to
get a poison like this. We learn Mike has a mansion.
Emerald dust and mychinid spores, with necromantic magic. It was a very expensive poison.

She tells us Church had change in management, elected a new Archbishop, Enrico Gruda.

Stonemasons are now doing something graveyard instead of city walls. We tell her Jasmine
was sort of involved with that, and that we met her on the way to fight the Ghost. We give her a
letter from Kishara, she gives us a letter back.

Gretchen and Billy have ordered a cart with horses for later tonight. Saws, axes, rations, etc.

As we head back down to the sewers, the same two church boys are watching the docks. They
look at us, then say “Not her”.

We head back in. Astra hands us dead cooked rats.

Arsten hands Kishara her note. Would there be a reason that the Imperial Inquisition is looking
for Kishara?

Imperial Inquisition is tied to royalty. They’re only supposed to go after priests.

Archibald sometimes got letters, complaining about Enrico Gruda. We try to figure out who the
church boys were looking for. It could be Kishara, it could be Astra. We are super worried about
collusion between Archibald and Enrico Gruda, and that Astra is a witness to Archibald’s crimes.
So we are worried Astra is being hunted.

Why is Enrico financing the cult of Athena? Is he working for Luari rebellion? Is he also working
for demon?

Enrico supplying Archibald’s sect in the forest.

Dockworkers having lot of trouble. Someone is taking out Scarlet Shard.

Kishara confesses that she might have happened to be in a certain sort of business that might
have involved Mike in some position. Ok yes, he was a very good contact in her days of
business, if you need something exotic in the magic spectrum, then he’s your guy. Remember
the teleportation crystals? These are teleportation crystals, this is what allows teleportation
magic to work. She might have happened to be involved in that trade some time ago, year and a
half ago.

Kishara hands Ferdinand a note for talking to faeries.

We plan to evacuate the Splinter Cult to a safe forest place northwest.

Astra and Sage sneak out through sewers. They want to get Athena’s blessing for the journey
they are about to take. Arsten recommends a separate entrance through the tannery district, so
that the inquisitors don’t see Astra.
Kishara and Holly have a short emotional moment. Kishara has visions? Her aunt can carve
wood well and says it speaks to her? Ferdinand carves a blob.

Tavin, Sage, and Astra make it into the city with their new ID cards. They enter. Sage buys
some candles to offer to Athena, takes Astra by the hand, they light one candle in front of
Poseidon’s statue, say a brief prayer. Athena’s statue, light another candle, mutter something,
then look up at the statue. They visit multiple statues to hide their true purpose. Ornate marble,
solid walls, one wing houses dormitories and work spaces. One houses infirmary, charity work.

They see a painter in lavish clothes, with paint on his face, walking into the temple. He is
dragging a large rectangle draped in red cloth. Priest greets him by name. He is carrying a
portrait of the Archbishop Enrico Gruda.

Gruda had been asking for this painting before he left with the pilgrims. The priest removes the
red cloth cover. Tavin admires the painting like the others around him. Extravagant, but not too
lavish for the position. The face is recognizable to Tavin, who met this person back in his
mercenary days. He was hired to train a noble’s retinue. The guide who led them around is now
Archbishop Gruda. Guide led them right into the middle of the swamps, where Tavin was
ambushed by a bunch of bandits, guide joined them and forced the retinue and Tavin to give up
their weapons.

Astra and Sage finish, they leave the way they came. On the way through the city, Astra is
approached by a stray cat. It is black with gray stripes. Astra falls in love with it and promptly
picks it up and decides to take it with her. Tavin convinces her not to.

They leave the city. A guard strikes up conversation with Tavin, who asks for news from the
south. Tavin also mentions the temple to Poseidon being built. The guard is sure the governor
will sort out the weird situation with stonemasons in the graveyard. Countess Munhausen, aka
Jasmine’s aunt, was the noble who put them up to this. Tavin informs the guard of the larger
scope of the demon animal infestation.

When they return to the hideout, Tavin tells us he should have used his chance to kill the now
Archbishop when he had it. And about Countess Munhausen. We don’t know how he made it to
the top. His name was Peter the Knife.

Who is giving Peter the Knife and Archibald the support to achieve their goals?

What is the missing link? How did the war in Ezzar start? Official story is that it was nobles
fighting nobles.

Green dragons delight in causing general chaos in whatever land they reside in, even if it
doesn’t directly benefit them. The will try to convince, persuade, fool, just to cause general
mayhem. Epilon also used to be in the Swamp Province, and Tavin has told stories about that…

Kishara thinks another player is involved.

Tavin puts Holly to sleep because she is asking too many questions.

We discuss the cat.

Holly steals Tavin’s bagpipes once she wakes up and dunks them in the sewer. Then she puts
them back in his bag without him noticing.

After we all rest, night falls and we prepare to leave. Astra is loading provisions into the wagon.

Tavin goes out to look for cat tracks. Kishara cleans up Tavin’s bagpipes.

Kishara and Ferdinand help to move the cart, Kishara casts Darkness to hide us.

Arsten goes out to confront the tall person that has been walking nearby. His skin is kind of
blue, looks a lot like the goliath that was on the docks. But Arsten has no real good frame of
reference. Goliaths come from hilly country, same areas as Halflings. Mostly tribesman who live
far from cities.

The goliath tries the doorhandle that leads into the hideout. A bunch of spikes come out of the
lock and injure his hand. He grumbles about needing a cleric, heads back towards main gates.

Goliath asks Arsten about the white haired lady. He figures out Arsten knows about her. He tells
Arsten to come with him to talk to a cleric, Mullen, a dwarf.

Arsten refuses politely and offers to help with the Goliath’s hand. The goliath accepts. He
managed to get hit with a poison trap. Arsten lifts the poison, but the goliath insists on taking
Arsten to Brother Mullen.

All the Splinter Cultists get to the cart. Tavin and Kishara stay with the cart. Ferdinand and Holly
leave to try and find Arsten.

They find a dwarf with a gleaming tooth made out of a gem, and a human. The human has a
mace as a weapon, very well groomed. Human seems to be pestering dwarf. Human was other
person with Goliath at docks.

Ferdinand throws a rock to distract them, but misses. They see him and Ferdinand runs away.
Holly remains hidden.

Arsten agrees to speak with cleric Molen. Dwarf and Human approach them, Human walking
backwards to deflect any projectiles.

Mullen grumbles about hooligans throwing rocks at peaceful clerics in the street.

The Goliath’s name is Elar, and he gets chewed out by the dwarf, Molen Gemtooth, for not
bringing Astra.
Holly recognizes Elar.

Molen recognizes Arsten. Molen introduces himself as a cleric with the church guards.
Essentially they want a divine artifact that the white haired woman was last seen in possession
of.

Church paladins had this divine shield previously, Squire Solomon. Arsten explains that he
gambled away his shield.

Elar says the shield wasn’t his to gamble. They want to ascertain the safety of the shield.

Arsten mentions Kishara’s name, and promises to try and help steer the artifact back into the
care of the church. Divine artifact made by Dionysus himself. They don’t want it to be under
demonic influence.

Arsten tells them he is from Mossborough, that he has things to do before meeting with Kishara
again. They seem to trust him, think he’s fine people, bow, thank him for helping return their
artifact.

Solomon was chosen by Dionysus himself to have the shield, essentially. Elar says there is
always divine guidance so that the shield goes towards someone of honor.

Molen gives Arsten a hug. Holly sees that is was not just a casual hug, but had some nefarious?
Intent? Holly notices Molen mumble something and read a scroll, which he reads and it turns
into dust.

Molen turns around to Elar, points towards the city, meanwhile grabs the human and tells him to
crouch down the road.

Holly and Ferdinand start running after the dwarf and the human. Arsten catches Holly, and
Ferdinand is hit with a powerful sleeping spell and crumples right to the ground.

Holly is convinced Ferdinand is dead. Arsten wakes him up and prevents him from going off
after the dwarf and human.

The dwarf and human run away in a different direction.

Holly tells Arsten that Molen cast a spell on him, he tries to use detect magic to figure out what
has happened to him. Kishara seems to have a bunch of magical items.

Arsten talks to Kishara about the shield. He tells her she will need to convince them in order to
keep it. Kishara says she really needs this shield.

The cart is traveling through dim light countryside, almost full moon, clouds.
Kishara: “I can’t go into many specifics about this, because I’m not sure how this will turn out in
the end. If you ever have trusted me with your life … I really need the shield. Not because it is
pretty or something I wanted. This is important.”

Arsten tells her he promised to help guide the shield back, but that he trusts her with the shield
for now.

We continue along. Arsten and Kishara check out the cemetery as the cart passes it to see
what’s going on. There is a small encampment set up in the cemetery, with small cloth tents.
Some people are up there, there is singing coming from the cemetery, a drinking song. Kishara
has heard it before, it’s a vulgar song popular in the shadier pubs.

They attempt to sneak towards the camp. It’s a mix of humans, dwarves, and one elf. The elf is
Callista the Elf Archer. She was from the dockworker’s union. She knew the enforcer we met
after the library. Abraham’s boss, Salazar Estiman.

The crypt they’re working on has a bunch of scaffolding inside and out, the doors are open.
Seems like they were doing something to it. Arsten and Kishara decide not to interact with the
folks or investigate the crypt further.

They remember that Jasmine’s Aunt is funding this work… Arsten thought it was to fix the
damage they did, not make more…

Instead of speculating, they head back to the party. They think they might check back with the
dockworker’s union, Jasmine, see how the progress is going. Why are they pushing into the
crypt…?

They rejoin the party. There is a path to the left, among the river, which is a 50 foot drop. On the
other side is a pine covered slope, the canyon is on the other side. Arsten knows this is a
popular bandit ambush spot.

Arsten, Kishara, Scratchy the bat go ahead. Scratchy, as Kishara’s familiar, scouts ahead,
Kishara can use his senses. Scratchy detects something square and flattish up ahead, in the
trees, smaller than the cart. Three platforms.

Scratchy and Holly investigate the platforms together. Arsten accompanies them. Scratchy
grabs onto the logs of the farthest platform. All he hears is cicada chirping from below in the
canyon. He can detect something tubular and feathery, with straight branches on it with his
echolocation. It’s literally a barrel full of arrows. It smells similar to Tavin and Ferdinand
(human).

Platform under which Holly is standing also has a similar shape on it, but thinner. There is a
name scratched into the tree. “Jason’s Hide, Stay Away”.
Holly climbs her magic rope onto the platform. It doesn’t seem terribly well made, but is holding
her weight fine. There is a nail hammered into the tree with a small leather tube hanging from a
strap. Too small for arrows, has a leather cap at both ends. It’s pretty light.

Holly takes off the cap, some pieces of paper inside. She takes it with her.

Scratchy goes off to fly and catch one of the arrows so Kishara can inspect it. It’s a crudely
made arrow.

Ferdinand hears a rustling noise coming from the cart. A small fluffy creature falls down next to
the cart. It is a small orange cat, with white stripes. The cat introduces itself as Master Whiskers,
and tells Ferdinand it is here to find Astra, since she is a warlock and needs a patron. Ferdinand
brings him back to the Splinter Cult and introduces him to them, telling them he likes his ears
scratched.

Scratchy brings back an arrow and drops it at Kishara’s feet.

The scouts continue to scout. They find remnants of a camp a few weeks old.

They return and Holly coos over the cat. Master Whiskers looks at the flying bat hungrily,
Kishara swears at him.

Holly grabs Master Whiskers as he attempts to jump towards Kishara and her bat.

Kishara prepares an eldritch blast, but it whooshes out of her hands when Master Whiskers
looks at her. “That’s not a normal cat, who found it?”

Kishara starts casting a spell/ritual. She tells Tavin to watch the cat and protect her bat. “I was
conjuring an Eldritch Blast -!”

Tavin calms her down, but secretly agrees that the cat is not normal via Message.

Arsten tells the Splinter Cult about the huts. Holly mentions she found a container with paper in
it.

Tavin: we should move on.

The cat stops struggling in Holly’s grasp. Holly does not let go. Kishara gets the leather pouch
with Mage Hand and opens it. She takes out the sheets of paper and inspects them. A scroll
covered in arcane writing, one of Heroism, one of Magic Weapon. She gives Heroism scroll to
Tavin. She gives Magic Weapon scroll to Arsten.

Holly demands an apology from Tavin. She does not get one. As she stomps away she gets a
small message “How badly do you want him to apologize?” from Master Whiskers.

Arsten can tell there is a celestial resonance in the cat, but the cat is not a celestial.
Holly tells the cat she would like Tavin to apologize. Tavin feels a magical urge to apologize to
Holly. He is compelled to approach Holly, a word rings in his head “Apologize”. Master
Whisker’s tail droops when Tavin resists the urge, and tells Holly “Sorry”.

We continue with the cart. It rolls through the forest. We discuss why spell scrolls were in a
crudely made hunters hide. We exit the forest and we travel through more farmland. Canyonlike
riverbed slowly rises towards level of road.

Road leads past small village, canyon runs straight between road and village. Bridge, Tavern.
Playing dominoes through the night, drinking beer. One is wearing heavy chainmail.

We decide to detour to avoid them, and Kishara casts darkness to hide the wagon from sight.

Arsten jokes that the cat could make us more silent, he asks Holly if he should. Only if you want.
He doesn.t

Ferdinand talks to Astra. She’s worried that Master Whiskers revealed himself, wasn’t part of
the plan. She asks Ferdinand for help catching a live mouse. He agrees. Kishara notices that
Astra has no problems maneuvering in Darkness and seems to be able to see outside it.

We pass the village without being noticed. There is a banner hanging on the outside of the
tavern. Green banner, white hawk on a green background.

These are worn in the guild halls in Ezzar, but what it means Tavin doesn’t know.

Ferdinand and Astra sneak away to catch a few live mice. She uses eldritch blast, looks like
black goo, shiny, black, liquidy. Baphomet’s eldritch blast is fiery.

Kishara notices us out in the grass.

Ferdinand and Astra continue to look for mice after they caught a small bird. Eventually they find
a mouse and return to the cart.

Astra asks Holly if Master Whiskers has eaten yet, Holly says no sadly. She wakes up Master
Whiskers so he is gently disturbed from his sleep.

Tavin talks to Freddy about the magical cat and Arsten. Freddy “Magical cats aren’t my
department. There is enough trouble getting these people to safety”

They talk to Sage instead. They tell her they think the cat is magical. “Yeah, probably. You were
there, I told Astra we don’t need any stray cats.”

Arsten says the cat is somehow divine, somehow otherworldly. Not like a god or an angel, not
exactly mortal.

We pass a road sign, we are entering the property of Bannock. Red stag head on a shield.
Baron Soros of Bannog
This is an independent barony. Vessel of the governor directly. We think that the Splinter Cult
can live on his lands undetected without asking permission.

We go off road. Arsten leads us, and just past sunrise we make it to the ford, a cattle ford, used
by the local farmers semi regularly. We cross the river.

Since sun is rising we need a place to hide, we head into the forest just as the sun is rising.
Freddie finds a decent clearing to set up camp, they start unpacking. Master Whiskers runs into
the bushes to do cat things.

Arsten asks Holly and Astra to accompany him to his village. Astra agrees to accompany him,
as Sage is too old, and Freddie is too scared.

Tavin seems distracted, Kishara offers him some whisky and the opportunity to talk, but he
declines. He does share his drink with everyone in the party plus Astra. Kishara shares hers as
well.

Holly lies and says Kishara’s drink is better, then tries to figure out what the recipe is for each of
the drinks. She can sort of figure out Tavin’s drink. Finding good moss to filter it through is
expensive.

She wants to accompany Arsten to Mossborough so she can recreate the drink.

We take a long rest and wake up at around 3 pm. Ferdinand has the feeling of being watched,
and starts throwing javelins up into the sky. One disappears into the portal and cuts the night
hag on the forehead. She disappears again almost instantly after.

A hand appears from the portal and drops a large vial, bright red foaming. Arsten and Kishara
dodge away, Holly and Ferdinand attempt to catch it.

Ferdinand catches the bottle, but some of the liquid splashes onto his hand. He takes 1d4 fire
damage from Alchemist’s Fire.

The hag swears in Infernal and the portal shuts.

Ferdinand’s hand is still on fire. Kishara takes a cork from a vial of Healing Potion and stops up
the potion of Alchemist’s Fire.

Arsten pats down Ferdinand and puts out the fire on his hand.

Kishara: “Hag knows the location of the cultist, if they’re tied together somehow, that’s probably
gonna be bad down the line.”

We decide to all go to Mossborough, Arsten’s village.

Arsten is super at home, he is turning into a bunny, hopping from place to place. Holly almost
falls into the swamp. Arsten tells about his village, a giant willow grows in the middle.
Tavin tells us he is missing his home too. Kishara used to have an old friend who told her that
home is where the heart is. Tavin feels responsible for the destruction of his home, since he led
the rebellion that led to the Empire takeover of his home province.

Kishara reassures him the Empire would not have been kind no matter what he did. She says
she respects that he fought for what he thought was right.

Kishara: when we lost little Thomas, one of my crew, we had this tradition. She pours out a little
bit of her alcohol: this is for your people.

Astra drops some blood in the water for the dead. Arsten tells her to be careful with blood, and
points at his alligator bone armor.

Arsten is happy to share his home with us.

Everyone comforts Holly since she misses her parents who are still prisoners to Archibald.

Ferdinand picks her up and carries her on his shoulders. Tavin casts Invisibility on Ferdinand so
Holly looks like she’s floating.

We reach Mossborough. Tarak asks about Holly floating. Ferdinand greets Tarkak. Tarkak
thinks the master sorcerer should take a look at this. Nagrax is the master sorcerer.

Nagrax takes a look at the floating Halfling and keeps chewing down on his sugar stick.

Tavin dispells Invisibility. Arsten apologizes and says Ferdinand is hunted by a great evil, and
that he hopes Mossborough can protect him.

We enter Hall of Magic to speak with Nagrax about the night hag situation.

Saddlebags with Imperial insignia, helmet with a big red plume and a big shield. Nagrax says
there are some officers from the legion to pester Arkal about them sending reinforcements to
the legion.

Arsten thinks this is a terrible idea. Arkal tries to convince them that by imperial decree that the
legion can’t recruit soldiers from Mossborough.

Hall of Magic is covered in runes, multiple bookshelves all over the place, big tables with
alchemy supplies scattered around them, doubles as an alchemy lab, study hall, school.

Ferdinand is motioned into a carved magic circle. Ferdinand explains his frogginess and his
night hagginess. Nagrax doesn’t really believe this. Interplanar portals stable enough for travel?
Barrier must be getting really thin… Ferdinand mentions soul coins the night hags were talking
about, Arsten shows one.

Nagrax expects necromancers to have the soul coins, not a Peace Guard like Arsten. Arkal will
be very interested to hear that.
Nagrax: Are those still charged? He runs his finger along the edge. There are ridges here, there
is a soul inside… the creation of these things is a punishment. These coins are the currency of
the Wheel. The Wheel is a city outside of this plane, not sure where or what it’s useful for.

Nagrax says that what we are saying does not make much sense. If those portals go to another
plane, the hags live in Hades… if the portals lead there, then they shouldn’t be permeable to
things like javelins. Also hags must have permanent residence on this plane if Ferdinand
escaped from their house.

Night hag can track where Ferdinand is at will then.

Magic circle is set to fiends since night hags are fiends.

Kishara asks about a way to protect Ferdinand from being tracked. Elves of old could make
such things to block detection and tracking magic for their spies and scouts. Similar in effect to
boots Arsten is wearing, but tuned for magic rather than sound. Way beyond Nagrax’ abilities,
high magic.

Nagrax has a ritual that might be able to prevent detection for 1 hour. Kishara asks for it and
Nagrax says she looks funny for a wizard, but allows her to look at it.

Second level spell that disrupts, Inverted Pass Without a Trace, Weave Dampener. Duration,
each creature has +10 bonus to dex stealth checks and can’t be tracked by magical means.
Takes special inks and has a cost. This would handle the Ferdinand tracking problem at least
while ritual is cast on him.

Nagrax offers to do first one himself, to protect village from being scryed on while Ferdinand is
there. Hall of Magic is however warded.

Nagrax is a sorcerer, not a wizard, his magic is kind of unusual as well.

Lecture of the Wheel. City in Astral Plane, Astra’s ears perk up. Mainly a trade hub, famous for
facilitating trade between creatures and races typically hostile to each other. Demons and devils
trade slaves and souls there. Fae trade wood and resources. Travel occurs through permanent
portals. None of the big ones to the material plane survive, the few that do are protected by
great barrier. All the nasty customers can’t make their way here. Some enterprising mages go
out there in search of forbidden knowledge, in particular because the Wheel has one of the most
complete libraries known to the imperial wizards. Soul coins are currency, magical item in their
own right, souls within can recharge certain magical items.

These things might not contain actual souls, but just the energy OF a soul. Essence of a being.
Process for extracting this is rather destructive. Magistrate who rules the Wheel uses creation of
the Soul Coins as a form of punishment. Capital punishment. After soul is extracted, the
perpetrator loses all individual will, without a soul they have no free will. They become law
enforcement. Most of the trade is slaves. The Wheel might be a strange place with nasty
customs but it is ruled by strict laws. If you want to use portal there you need permission from
peace guard, but the magistrate doesn’t need a visa for you to visit. You might need a passport
to leave.

Magistrate is not necessarily a person. Books aren’t clear on it. Could be an invented gods.

It is THE repository of knowledge, not only arcane but historical.

Hag seems to be on our plane. Some sort of tracking spell could be used to track the hag. Find
Person, she should be within vicinity. We could try acquiring some of her blood next time.

Hags have been doing soul coin business a lot longer than the wheel has. Doing this out of
Hades, not the wheel. Had a monopoly on it for a long time.

It’s the Peace Guard’s job to prevent Hag interference with this plane.

Arsten is a pretty good companion says Kishara.

We are invited to dinner. Arsten wants to avoid the recruiter so they don’t see a group of fresh
recruitable people.

Nagrax walks around Ferdinand for 10 minutes and mumbles to himself. He casts the
nondetection spell on ferdinand.

Kakira is the arch-druid of the Mosborough.

The Dragonborn are bronzeish, greenish, black. As we are led forwards we are lead to normal
tavern, filled with dragonborn. We attract weird looks because we are humans. We get a fish
stew mixed with local herbs and some seaweed.

Holly tries to figure out the recipe.

Kakira has white scales, older than any dragonborn has business to be. Barroth is Arsten’s
actual teacher.

We get a few strange glances from village councilmembers.

Governor is requesting troops from legion to protect city from rebellion. Arkal is arguing that they
are technically a vassal, but only in name. By Imperial deed the only troops they are supposed
to provide are to the peace guard. Peace Guard has decided not to get involved in the conflict.

The legionnaire raises issue that Luari are raiding villages out by border. Barroth assures him
the southern detachment of the peace guard is dealing with that as they speak.

Legionnaire gets very frustrated and says the emperor will hear of this. Arsten coughs and says
he has news from the south, Barroth looks frustrated.
Arsten brings up the Hennessy situation. The legionnaire gets upset and promises to settle the
score threateningly. Barroth is not scared by this. He has the writ of establishment of the village
on his side. Officer storms out in anger to his horse, who is completely asleep as Tavin has cast
Sleep on it.

Officer spends 30 mins getting his horse up while swearing at everyone and everything.

Arsten makes his report to patriarch. “Your statement about needing forces elsewhere is not
overstated. I have been here once before telling about Epilon and the Kobolds, now I will give a
new update, starting with the battle that we had with the Imperial paladins in the woods. The
roaming beasts are turning into an organized army under the rule of a Carpa demon, under rule
of Archibald, Athena cultist Baphomet worshipper etc.”

Arsten accompanies Patriarch to Hall of War. Arsten has never been inside the war room. He is
very excited to be there. He wants to take the party with him, Barroth is unsure.

Arsten explains the cultist situation in the war room. He explains that Astra and Holly have
insider info on the cults, helped others escape.

Paladins got half butchered by army already. Archbishop Gruda might be helping Archibald in
undermining, seem to be working together in some way to destabilizing the Imperium.

Patriarch is unhappy about this news. Are the Splinter Cult still a threat? Arsten explains they
are not a threat. But they are hunted by the demon beasts and the Imperial clergy at the
moment. Without your permission I relocated them to the lands of Baron Soros.

Patriarch seems to think Baron Soros would accept the Luari living in his lands as long as they
introduce themselves.

Arsten mentions Freddy offered to fight against the Baphomet cult to rescue their own people.
Barroth doesn’t want former cultists fighting with him. Archal counters that they cannot afford to
send allies away. Situation of demon beasts must be dealt with immediately.

Peace Guard monastery, village defenders will assist Sir Aiden.

Arsten mentions the night hags. They are turning animals into humans for some reasons.
Building an army thinks Patriarch. Arsten thinks we can convince the paladins (Sir Bakur), to not
trust Archbishop Gruda.

Sir Aiden had written a report saying Sir Bakur was excommunicated.

Winter court is raiding cultists for some reason?

Astra is nervous about talking to the Patriarch. She doesn’t want to be blamed for the actions of
the cult.
Archkal is a trustworthy person and wants to take down the Baphomet cult. Arsten was making
a plan to combine forces and spring Holly’s parents and the other captives before Archibald can
notice.

Kishara is happy Sir Bakur was excommunicated, a new ally in her eyes.

Arsten thinks pilgrims are sacrificial piece.

Arsten leads party to archery field behind Hall of War. 4 leaders of town there. Valsoria, leader
of hatchery, is not there. Nagrax is there.

Arsten presents Holly and Astra, Tavin, Ferdinand, and Kishara to the elders.

Archkal, the patriarch, asks for our information. The druid, Kakira, is staring at Astra and Holly.
Holly is eating soup and ignoring this. Astra is being polite and courteous. Holly gets elbowed by
Kishara, who drops some soup, and causes a scene.

The elders look between Tavin and Holly for a bit. Arsten asks Holly and Astra how they came
to Archibald and how they escaped. Holly realized at some point due to Astra that something
was off, they started planning the escape. Her parents asked her to sneak into Archibald’s study
to steal something from him. She failed at this. As she was escaping since she had triggered
some traps, got captured by kobolds and never made it to the rendezvous point.

The elders don’t quite believe Holly to be competent.

Astra tells her story and fills in the gaps much more eloquently. Astra gets defensive about how
“cultishly” they worshipped Athena, doesn’t mention the blood sacrifices for food.

Archkal says this is no worse than the Mystery Cults going on inside the clergy themselves.

Arsten has plan to have small team infiltrating the cult to rescue prisoners by distracting main
forces and drawing them away.

Kishara talks to Kakira. You have the connection to nature and stuff like that. Do you have
connection to fae? Anybody who says they have a connection to fae are liars or don’t know
what they’re talking about.

Kakira says faeries are bastions of good.

They are in contact with IScamore. It is a gate? Rumors of a portal to the Wheel there.

Archkal doesn’t mind fairies as allies, but after that he wants them to leave.

Arsten mentions the problem with teleportation and that it might be an intentional effort. Seems
like a member of Scarlet Shard who was working on the issue was assassinated with expensive
toxin.
Trouble in the north. Didn’t Sir Aiden tell Arsten about the mordrones in the North. Sentient
Machines, small, halfling sized, organized. Not natives to this realm. Made and live in Mechanis,
plane of pure Order. Arsten forgot to tell us about that Sr Aiden mentioned that Mordrones
are appearing in the north. When they do appear it means that change is about to
happen

Peace Guard is spread too thin.

Was an incursion of mordrones in the west as well before a big war.

Meeting point in two day’s time at Imperial outpost.

Contact Herte? Check out graveyard? See who can join us from the Splinter Cultists to help
transport rescued prisoners?

Rumor is Arsten won’t be wearing his alligator armor much longer. Sir Aiden wanted to keep it a
surprise… Arsten is going to get his full paladin armor! Just promise to act surprised when Sir
Aiden brings it out.

Astra buys some rations for herself. Arsten leads us back towards the refugee camp. He tells
Holly and Astra that Baron Soros is welcoming Luari refugees, so they can bring the news to
Freddy and the Sage so they can properly introduce themselves.

Sun setting by time we reach cultist encampment. Seems like a rabbit tore holes into Sage’s
pantaloons while they hung up to dry.

Freddy does not want to involve authorities and continue to hide. Sage is worried about what
happens when they are discovered.

Long rest. Day 6 of time of Flowers. Skies overcast. Kishara’s bat found some rat droppings
after Kishara sent him off hunting.

Archibald just likes to send army out on own, Arsten plans to use Peace Guard to distract the
shadow beasts.

Sir Boros was excommunicated because he wanted to get the pilgrims out of harm’s way.

Arsten with paladins, Kishara with Mike and Summer?

It is the day after Daglolgar’s Seal was supposed to be repaired.

Cultists debating what to bring to Bannog to present themselves to the Baron. We accompany
them. Market Square, crowd seems to be angry. Complaints centered on some sort of vermin
getting into everyone’s stockpiles. Clamoring for Baron to do something about it. Baron will see
everyone in order of the line.
Sage walks off into the crowd. Sage is chatting with three long-winded elderly ladies, about all
the local gossip.

Kishara thinks we can clear this crowd. “We are a section of the Peace Guard commissioned
specifically to fight these rodents.”

Arsten recommends a slightly less lying approach.

Holly tries to hide next to people to eavesdrop on their conversations. She hears that the
rodents chewed a dog-sized hole into someone’s carrot storage.

Fences being chewed through, chickens escaping, complaints about prize pumpkins being
eaten out in the fields. Going on for about a week. They don’t consider this to be natural.

Multiple damage reports. Something about the size of a small dog, maybe a chihuahua.
Something burrowing or chewing through walls. People found small round droppings near grain
stores. One eyewitness saw something small white and very very fast. Sounds a lot like rabbit
droppings. Ferdinand thinks this could be due to Baphomet cultist influence on animals, similar
to strange bheaviour of ants.

Fine silks person exits Baron building. Has parchment, hammer, nails. Nails parchment to door.
Proclamation from Baron Soros that he is aware of the issue and is working on it. He has
already dispatched messengers to post bounties in nearby villages looking for a good vermin
extermination troupe to deal with this problem. Asking villagers to be patient and not break down
his doors.

Half of crowd starts throwing half eaten carrots at bureaucrat. Arsten helps protect the
bureaucrat from the crowd by using his Peace Guard status.

Arsten is allowed to speak with Baron Soros. Kishara pretends to be a bard. They go to speak
with Soros along with Freddie.

Tavin peels away to do some investigating. He strolls through town, finds dilapidated Tavern.
Lively debate about who is going to show up next to deal with rodent problem. Black Standard,
different merc company, some proper exterminators like the Baron promised. Lots of folks don’t
think exterminators are going to do the trick. They think it is something bigger. Timeline
coincides with an adventuring party passing about 2 months ago. Holes started appearing in
supplies. Tavin introduces himself, they judge him for being an adventure boy. He asks about
that adventuring party and offers to buy a round to win their trust.

Adventurers would come, talk to Soros, then return from their adventure bruised up and sick.
Some are buried in local cemetery. They also spoke with the soothsayer often.

The villagers advise against Tavin staying here for long. There is a ruin in the forest on other
side of river. Adventurers were following tale of treasure in some sort of book.
Tavin plays some music and gains two fans!

Ferdinand finds some fresh rabbit droppings. Sage got herself invited to somebodys house. She
is trying to see one of the break in sites.

The old ladies give Ferdinand weird looks until Sage tells them he is her overprotective nephew.
Ferdinand is taksed with milking the cow and other household tasks. Ferdinand feels
comfortable hanging out with old ladies and doing their chores. He and Sage get fed. The
rabbits have bit through fences and walls, mostly the fresh produce, leeks and carrots have
been bitten into if not completely eaten. The ladies tell him that mostly it happens at night, there
are these big white flashes of a wild animal. Bunch of gray rabbits in prairies, has steadily
increased in recent times.

White thing is way too fast to be trapped. Traps don’t work on this animal, regular rabbits can be
trapped.

Ladies complain about hunters being louts and not good hunters. Lords Old Huntsman died not
a year ago. Hasn’t hired any professional since.

Kishara and Arsten and Freddie walk into main hall. Benches and tables along a long fireplace
in middle, raised dias and table on it perpendicular to everything else. A voluminous if not overly
fat man sitting sideways on a chair munching on garlic bread.

Arsten presents the refugees that petition for Soros’ good grace. Freddie says there are about
50 of them. They are hunters and trappers and the like. The lord scratches his chin.

Soros could use a good hunter. He asks Freddie how he would trap a way. Freddie calmly
describes a few typical rope traps. Soros promises to hire Freddie as his personal huntsman
and his people can stay at the hunting lodge if they manage to take care of the rodent problem.

Conditions are that : Freddie would act as a sort of Elderman for his refugees, and in case of
war they are obliged to provide troops for the Lord. They will be allowed to hunt and sell skins
on village market, but there is a tax on goods they must pay to the lord. This all hinges on them
being able to resolve rabbit problem.

Kishara asks the lord for documents the refugees can use to prove their status.

Soros is hiring refugees to test their skill. If we adventurers are to help them, then what proof do
I have that they are as great hunters as they claim to be.

Arsten mentions the Beast attacks, Soros has heard of them.

Secretary with paperwork. Freddie reads the paperwork, and is surprised by the contents. It
seems too good to be true. He signs the contract. Deal would make Freddie minor nobility.
Kishara sings Freddie’s praises.
Holly takes notes on Kishara’s diplomacy.

Sage rejoins the party, she gets slightly jealous about Freddie’s deal, but realizes it’s good for
the group. They were given almost free reign over forest.

Sage and Freddie leave. We share intel. Tavin suggests we explore the ruins. Something in
forest is influencing animals. Nexus causing animal problems in the area?

Freddie says the ants were enchanted by Archibald’s lot. They enchanted the ant queen.

Sage has heard stories of Athena using albino animals as messengers. White stag, white
goose. Doesn’t seem to be a smokebeast, so maybe not caused by cultists.

Amulet on Archibald’s neck is center of all ceremonies. Using that to summon vile spirits or
control them somehow.

Section of ground where soil changes color and elevation changes. Path winds around.
Perimeter studded with metallic trees, all angles and sharp points. Ground has either been
salted or otherwise influenced, only very short grass grows here. Path leads to little cave, it is
dark inside. Walls made of smooth rock, as though intentional. Old bed of a chariot is there.
Looks like someone tried to steal a tree? Campfire has obviously been made here previously.
We don’t feel anything divine here, except for Kishara’s shield. Basalt cliff face seems to be
damping some sort of magic maybe.

Scratchy finds a flat metal bed contraption, mesh of iron beams that have severely rusted.
Looks like bed of a cart. Fairly uneven. Scratchy sweeps around to see if there is any movement
of people. Ground littered with detritus, bones, rotting vegetation. Rodent sized bones. Pieces of
fresh but rotting vegetation. Few leaves of cabbage. Small doors to right and left.

Scratchy finds a human sized statue of sharp angles, convinced it’s made out of ice. Hollow
echolocation feel. He fits through the hole in one of the doors and enters through it. Accuy
Cairn. Finds bedding of some sort, bones on floor.

Two ears pop out of bedding and are tracking Scratchy's flight. Scratchy hauls ass out the door.

We see two white ears emerge in cave. Sleep spell seems to land on it, ears disappear back
into hidey hole it came from.

Arsten decides to speak to the rabbit. We get ready to fry the rabbit in case it turns violent.

They find some bones of a human among the rabbit’s bedding. They also find a dragonborn
skull. They find a yellow sheet of parchment. Familiar symbol. Plaques on the wall. Not very
popular sun god. Rays are depicted as important, not the sun itself. Might be some sort of
temple? Or used to be. The symbol on it is a sun symbol (aka radioactive trefoil).
Arsten picks up the parchment. Scribbles in language he doesn’t recognize. Looks exactly like
a sticky note. Arsten attempts to speak in rabbit, no response. Hiding or escaped through one of
the walls.

Unknown metals, weird materials, potentially not of this world.

Arsten checks out door to the right. Sun god symbols painted very big on the doors (radioactive
trefoil). Arsten divine senses the place again. He tries to open the door. Divine senses click like
a Geiger counter.

There is a large statue. This seems to be a mechanical contraption in the shape of an oversized
human, with the wrong proportions.

Scratches finds a book shaped objects. The golem reacts to the flying thing. “Living entity
detected”. “Existence in this area inadvisable, leave immediately”.

“Intelligent entities detected”

Arsten asks where the golem is from. “Archmage Biddy laboratories. This area is prohibitively
dangerous to life. All intelligent life forms are required to leave.”

Biddy is Orion’s ancestor.

Ferdinand reminds the others that other adventurers that have been burned and made sick by
visiting this place.

Holly hears a psst in her head. Master Whiskers is in the trees above her. He asks about a big
green thing in the cave. Master Whiskers says he will have Astra deal with it.

The parchment is not in dwarven. The lettering is symbols we haven’t encountered before.
Certainly a language, but not one anyone is familiar with.

Golem with bubbles of magic, hoses in and out of it.

“As we were packing up 524 for the night, a lady walked into the site. Survellance footage
shows her walking right through the site's closed vault door. The D-class who spotted her
escorted her in and was found chatting with her over tea and biscuits by Dr. Grim. Even after a
reprimand the D-class insisted that she's harmless and that he couldn't stop her if he wanted to
anyway.

The new subject uppears to be a friendly, polite woman of indeterminate age and race. Her
features are discribed differently by each member of staff who have interacted with her. All
subject properties appear consistent with a new, female, instance of SCP-343, hereby labeled
SCP-342-2.

During an interview with Dr. Grim subject revelead that she is here to take posession of the site
and transport it to her "domain". Subject claims that she has obtained "all the appropriate
permissions" from the "local powers that be" even though no indications of such have come
from the O5 counsil or the regional government. Subject recommended a prompt evacuation
unless we want to "come on a one way ride" with the site.

Contact with other sites could not be established to report the situation and request a
containment team.

Subject was later found engraving a landscape on the cental support column of waste storage
area B and seemend distressed that personel were still on site. She promised to find us
someting to eat after she is done.

Engineering staff dispatched to inspect the wiring to the communication antennae reported that
half of the antenna is missing and that the site is not in ████ anymore. SCP-342-2 is nowhere
to be found. Quiet unlike itself, SCP-524 is growing increasingly agressive. We are placing it
into the suspended animation chamber originally intended for transport. The bateries won't last
forever though, so Dr. Grim recomends placing it into a waste storage area to compensate for
when they do.

Site water and power reserves are running low. If we stay here waiting for SCP-342-2 to return,
we will die. And I, for one am not about to drink the water form the containment areas. So we
are heading out into the surrounding wilderness to try and find potable water. Some locals have
been spotted looking at the perimeter from affar. It might be good to contact them and see if
they know where we are.”

Arsten: this lab is still somehow foreign, alien. The language sounded weird. Coming from a
domain, permissions. Possibly something out of this world.

Kishara is wondering about the waste they are talking about.

Arsten travels to visit Freddie and tell him about the ruins. He tells him of the sun god curse, the
alchemical golem, the rabbit, etc. Tells him to be careful around the ruins. Freddie plans on
making a bunch of traps.

We head off towards the paladins now.

We find a bustling camp at end of woods. Reinforcements from everywhere they could call in
favors. Pretty disorganized. Mostly heavy armor. Mossborough people haven’t joined yet. Major
force is still north of the fingers. Southern part of chapter is still fighting Luari raids.

We also find Boros/Boris! He has old Peace Guard stuff.

Arsten tells him Archkal will join as soon as they can.

Boris tells Arsten he’s done very well, and that it’s time for Arsten’s oath.
Arsten accepts with honor and honesty. Arsten swears on his Peace Guard emblem to protect
his fellow man, care for fellow peace guards, honor his commanders, etc. Sir Aiden expects him
at Dawn for the ceremony. He needs to get properly prepared and purified.

Arsten leaves. Holly and Kishara practice cards to clean the paladins out of their money.
Kishara is doing a great job being a bad influence.

Paladins don’t actually drink too much.

Sir Boris is seeing what’s about to go on, warns Sir Aiden about how Kishara beat Squire
Bogomolov and how she cannot be trusted at card games.

Tavin talks to the dragonborn, ask them about Arsten.

Tavin tells a rousing storey about Arsten fighting smoke beasts and being awesome, attempts to
charm paladins.

Ferdinand carves a little rabbit.

Holly and Kishara play dice games against the paladins. Holly is really getting into the groove.

They do super well, and our professional poker playing career starts here.

Sir Bakur is shaking his head , telling his soldiers he warned them.

Arsten gets knighted, gets called Sir, gets a suit of armor.

Long rest , 7th of flowers.

Gruda decided that sir bokor lost most of his men and thus excommunicated him, as well for
opposing authority.

Tavin asks Sir Bokor about his confrontation with Gruda. Act of a spoiled kid not getting their
way.

Did Gruda do this intentionally to expose the pilgrims to the beasts? …

Arsten vowed to protect the people of this land. Arsten wants to stay true to his word. He thinks
this would be mostly for Sir Aiden. He thinks the story of how the current bishop rose to power is
very suspicious. He thinks its best not to let the other side know you’re on to them.

Might be a way to convince Sir Bokor’s men to join us in the fight, if not the whole Temple
Guard. He wants to keep it a secret from Sir Bokor for now.

Fortifications being built around main entrance or cult building, fortified wooden camp outside,
paladins couldn’t get close to it. Beasts patrolling.
We head off to Ezzar.

We meet a group of warriors wearing the green livery with black hawk embroidered on it, same
livery seen in town on way to Bannog.Private army? Before they reach Ezzar they split off and
head south.

The guard at the gate to Ezzar tells us he is on the lookout for an axe murderer who attacked
clergy in the middle of the night. We are encouraged to lock up the axe in the tavern.

We banter about the best way to hide the axe. Ferdinand wraps an extra dress of Ksihara’s
around the blade of the axe. Ferdinand drops off the axe at the tavern.

Arsten is given another letter by the innkeeper, apparently given by a kid off the street. In very
fancy writing. No seal or stamp on the letter.

We banter about whether a sword or axe needs a personal name. Ferdinand is convinced it
doesnt and everyone else ribs on him for it.

The letter is from the bank.

We have a bit of a tiff about Kishara Tavin and Holly gambling money away from the paladins.

We see some of the rough and tumble men of the dockworker’s union standing outside the
bank. They are covertly looking up any people entering and exiting. Extra protection for the
bank.

Fancy stone bank, multiple clerks at tables behind glass barriers. Armed security within bank
sitting on chairs. Professional suits.

We are greeted by a young elf in a frock. Dunrik and Deustia Bank. Arsten reads off the number
of our deposit box, 308. We don’t have a key for it yet. The teller is a bit flustered as this is not
typical bank procedure.

Plush, padded leather couches, fluffy carpet, a single chair sitting at the table. Bank manager
greets us warmly. Asks which one of us is Arsten. Arsten is asked to stand in the middle of the
room.

Arsten is identified, and signs some paperwork. The room is warded. The manager leaves.
Ferdinand pets the carpet. It’s softer than a lot of beds.

Kishara mentions that this room is perfect for Ferdinand since he cant be spied on by hags
here.

The bank manager’s name is Daustia. He brings us the lockbox.

We inspect the contents of the lockbox after Daustia leaves. Untreated clay representing a
bearded humanoid, in its hands holding a wand. Whoever made this was a bad sculptor.
Kishara casts identify on the sculpture. Arsten identifies the carpet. Ferdinand makes a carpet
angel. The carpet is made out of rare fungus that grows in the underdark. Rare export, pretty
hard to get.

The horses were put in the other stables, not the one we took them from. We can easily fix that.
One of the horses got eaten unfortunately.

wand of fireball + clay golem attuned to someone we don't know of

Lets the controller talk through it.

Kishara can only read the first art of the letter, the rest is in a script she can’t read. Herte is a
smidge disappointed as we didn’t return the horses, but if we return them we can get some of
the money back.

We are not supposed to mention Herte in front of the shield of Dinysus.

Kishara gives Arsten the clay golem.

We plan on going to Tamara for some things made for battle.

Arsten and Holly will return the hroses, Ferdinand will talk to the druids, Kishara will talk to
Magic Mike. Tavin gets a little bit of downtime.

Arsten and Holly return the horses. The stablekeeper is very upset that Bessie was killed, and
that only three horses are returning instead of four. He bans Arsten, Tavin, Ferdinand, and
Kishara from ever getting horses from Imperial stables. The manager reverses this.

Ferdinand visits druids. Drids are performing some sort of ritual praising Mother Nature. Martin
speaks with Ferdinand. Martin explains that they are pacifists. Martin says some of his
apprentices have been speaking with forest spirits being forced out of eastern woods by
displacer beasts. They are scattered to other larger woods. There is a unicorn near Guidbury.

Dmitri, another druid, met a dryad somewhere. Halfway to Archibald there is a forest with a
dryad, facing highway and landshark plains. It fled there from the swamps around Calmond.
Dmitri managed to find it. They like flutes and lutes. Meeting a dryad in person can be quite
dangerous.

The unicorns are sort of the opposite of dryads. They need someone pure of heart.

Dmitri is the apprentice Loremaster. Ferdinand leaves with Dmitri and a bunch of apprentice
Healers.

Kishara goes to speak to Magic Mike. She sees someone in green livery speaking with Mike.
She feels a strange presence from the man, not unlike the presence of her kin back home. The
feeling passes very quickly as he walks by you.
Countess MunchausenService.

Kishara mentions the smoke creatures to Magic Mike. They banter a bit. She mentions the
teleportation crystals gig is no longer working. Other deliveries might get delayed by these
beasts attacking, probably not good for his side business. She asks for his roguish help. We
don’t really have enough money for his options. He gives her a card for the Dockworker’s Union
member Donald Duck.

Kishara and Arsten visit the Dockworker’s Union. Kishara is looking for a really puffy cloud for
paralyzing a lot of people. Some sort of gas or ingestible item. They buy some ingesitible poison
that will give people indigestion.

Arsten picks up the demon blood from Tamara.

We all meet at the Tavern. We discuss the Dryad situation as well. Holly thinks the dryad could
be useful in defeating Archibald. Kishara and Holly decide to speak to her.

We leave Ezzar, no one challenges us.

Ferdinand feels the night hags watching, and sees some green fire in the forest. Kishara casts
the hide spell. Ferdinand starts throwing rocks at the sky, but finds no portals.

A few things produce green flames. Could be a flame skull, a magical undead evil familiar.
Seems like the leaves with singed by green flame.

We cross the river gorge, pass the empty legion camp, start heading down south along highway
towards dryads forest. We reach it at about 5:00 PM.

Kishara and Holly enter the forest to speak to the Dryad. They find a clearing with fresh buds
and flowers out of season, get the same feeling as in the grove where she first met the fae.
They speak their intentions of sharing information about the person responsible for displacing
the dryad into the air. A gazelle exits the forest and nibbles the grass, but ignores them. A bird
alights among Holly’s hair and tries to mak e a nest.

Kishara uses a stick to draw the symbol of the fae when she found the fae on the top of the hill
before the battle with the carpa demon.

A goat standing on its hind legs, with the upper body of a dwarf with a lute. He is confused by
them talking about the fae. Kishara explains why they want to talk to the dryad to him. The satyr
is best friends with the dryad and will give them an audience with her if they give him a kiss.

Kishara blows him a kiss.

He leads them into the woods to a very young oak in a clay pot. “Here she is! In all her glory”
Kishara and Holly meet the Dryad.

They are instructed to lay their gifts at her feet. They have a bit of a fight with the little goat man.
Wind blows across the clearing. The goat man says the dryad wants to hear them speak.

Kishara tells the dryad, through the goat man, that they know who is destroying the forest with
displacer beasts.

Kishara insults the satyr some more and he threatens to leave. Kishara gives him a kiss. He
keeps translating. The dryad throws branches at the satyr when doesn’t like what he has to say.

Satyr calls the dryad “Drydie”.

Kishara asks for them to contact the pixies so they can help us distract the cultists.

Drydie is upset about the ants attacking the fae, Kishara explains its Archibald’s fault.

We need the pixies because they can give us a better view and idea of the temple, might have a
good way in and how to approach the temple.

One of the bushes uproots itself, and twirls itself into a tiny little blight.

We get a battle unit of blights.

Near the temple there are already pixie patrols.

The dryad instructs the satyr to accompany them as well, for translating. Kishara quickly
accepts this offer and names him “Horny”.

We head towards ShadowGuard camp.

If we stay out here, the moment the sun sets we will all get cut down. So we press on into the
forest. The ground begins to tremble, sound of stampede of hooves. We climb trees, Horny
disappears into a tree. The blights start climbing the trees. A horde of 6 legged beasts starts
tearing through their ranks, followed by a land shark, trampling after them.

Fight against two displacer beasts with Horny and Blights.

Disorganized Blight formation attempting to climb trees. Bulette snout emerges out of the
ground, its eyes are glowing red. It crashes into a tree, knocking it down as Arsten and
Ferdinand stud it with javelins. In the ensuing melee, several trees are set on fire. As Arsten
smites one of the displacer beasts, a demonic presence seems to briefly exit the body of the
beast.
After the fight we are healed a bit by the druids.
We find kobold sized saddlebags. 8 gemstones, each worth 50 gp. Bags contain 300 gp total.
Potion of Superior Healing, 8d4 + 8. Potion of Invulnerability, for one minute resist all damage. A
fourth level spell scroll.

We head further out after collecting ourselves. We feel like something is stalking us, but keeping
at a distance. We’re not sure what it is.

Tavin flexes on Horny the satyr with his bagpipes. Horny retaliates with his pan pipes.

We reach the Shadowguard encampment and fight some ants and kobolds before
entering.

A raptor sniffs at Holly’s collapsed body, Tavin throws a meatstick at it and completely disorients
it.
Appleblossom flies out to see us, confused. She is excited that we have come and brought
reinforcements. She organizes a quick foraging mission as we settle in with the Druid healers.
We have taken 3 kobolds hostage. We have around 50 of the Blights left.
Appleblossom tells us of their failed attack on the cultist compound, as well as of the Abyssal
Fire Breathing hounds that seem to be particularly effective against Fae. They have an excellent
sense of smell.
Holly tells her story of trying to steal the amulet that Archibald uses for his rituals. Appleblossom
becomes very suspicious of Holly for knowing Astra, the warlock who used to live with the
cultists.
We strategize about how best to attack the compound. We decide to poison their water supply.
Appleblossom turns Arsten into a halfdragon to intimidate the kobolds we captured. He turns
into a beautiful blue fairy dragon with the power of suggestion.

We drag a kobold into the woods to try and convince him that Epilon (through Arsten) is upset
with Archibald and that the kobold should poison the water supply.

Arsten terrifies the kobold with illusions and his dragon form. He gets some information and
makes the kobold poison the cultists water supply.

As Arsten returns to the camp, he hears the howling of what is probably Abyssal Hounds in the
far distance.

The Inventor is the leader for part of a Kobold Tribe. Smart, crafty, authoritative.
The Inventor communicates with Epilon through Kobold messengers.
The kobolds were sent to look for Archibald’s treasure of gold and magical artifacts.
Location of prisoners changes all the time.
Someone keeps entering and exiting the temple in a shower of sparks with new prisoners, some
tied up, some in cultist robes.
We think there is some sort of teleportation thing going on at the temple, which we are very
worried about, since technically all the teleportation circles are broken? Connection to Lantesch
or Crimson Shard?

We get the golem to help us. It says we will receive help from two entities, Feldspar and
Hematite, the next day at noon.
Paladins, Blights, Shadowguard Archers, two War Golems, Druids.

We wonder if we can use the teleportation circle to get reinforcements from the faewilds, or to
rescue the prisoners.

We decide to take some pixies with us.

We send a messenger bird to Sir Aiden. The bird seeks out the person.
Long rest.

Thorn and Rose are two pixies accompanying us, staying in our backpacks.
Ferdinand braids Holly’s hair to help disguise her.

The PeaceGuards and the war golems make their move.

The party sneaks to the back entrance of the building

. and sees a lot of Kobold tracks.

We can see into the tunnel. It is barricaded with sharpened stakes, connected to a grid, sort of
like the ones that fairies used to block their camp.

Small square room, kobold tied upside down attached to a ring in the ceiling, attached to a
counterweight.

Scratchy flies into the tunnel, finds a group of kobolds who are responsible for protecting the
clutch of eggs, and the treasure for Epilon.

We call out into the cave the code word “TACO” and they properly answer with
“Chrysanthemum”. We get attacked by a small group of kobolds.
They don’t believe we’re on the side of Epilon. They throw slingshots at us. We murder them bc
they aren’t listening to our lies of working for Epilon.

We free Stabby and have him show us the traps as we enter the Kobold warren. The Kobolds
drag their eggs into the distance.

Stabby gets almost incinerated by an Abyssal hound. Tavin shoots it with anti-dog arrows.
Holly sneaks off through a tunnel and finds two cultists, who recognize her.
The hound breathes fire at Arsten. He gets charred.
The cultists try to grab Holly, she screams and manages not to get grabbed.
Tavin rushes in, but Holly whacks him between the legs and kicks him in the face.
Arsten rushes in.
Kishara rushes in.
There’s an old teleportation circle on the ground behind Harris.

The battle rages outside. The Shadowguard archers take out some of the Abyssal Claws.

Kishara accidentally hits Arsten with an Eldritch Blast. He gets knocked out by the cultist.
The cultists get knocked out, Holly steals their coin purses.

Ferdinand kills a cultist. Another cultist sets some Demon Dogs loose, but Kishara locks them
back in their cages.

3 more cultists show up. We engage with them. Holly finds her father among the prisoners,
chained to a wall, looking a decade older than when she last saw him.

Stabby fights courageously alongside us.

Holly punches a woman into mist.

We find some odd potions, gold, keys to free the prisoners. We let the pixies hang out together
at the Teleportation Circle.

We end up having to fight the dogs. We take them out, Holly briefly attempts diplomacy in
Abyssal. Stabby fights valiantly alongside us.

The teleporter. Thorn activates it with a crystal.

Holly reunites with her father. Three rituals had been done on him. He is confused by Arsten,
the Peace Guard paladin, being Holly’s friend.
The whole ritual for making all the beasts, they used all of their magical abilities. They drained
them of spell slots and life force to fuel creation of beasts. Something larger, 3 groups of
prisoners being drained, systematically. Fire big fire bad fire burns fire heals. He doesn’t know
about the teleportation circles. We tell them we helped Freddy and the others escape.

We decide to disable the teleportation circle and escort the prisoners out of the cave.

A red mist rises.

We beat up a Carpa Demon after taking some potions. Ferdinand pummels through some
Bruisers and Hounds. We break into Archibald’s room.

We break into the main room and take on Carpa Demons, Archers, and Archibald.
Kishara floods the room.
Holly throws a bottle of Holy Water into the room, and it hits the Carpa Demon. It attacks her.
Archibald yelps offstage, the prisoners ooh and ahh.
Arsten and Tavin take potshots at the Fire Demon from the safety of the side room.
The Fire Demon goes for Kishara, the source of the flood. It attacks the spider trying to make off
with her limp body.
Holly hides in the water from the Carpa Demon. Tavin blasts a fireball.

The prisoners throw trash at the floating cultist, knocking him off the floating platform. Ferdinand
cuts the Carpa Demon in half and is accosted by a Hellhound and a Bruiser. The Hellhound
summons more Hellhounds, and we hear more prisoners, the paladin prisoners.

The Spiders travel into the ethereal plane, Tavin finally downs the floating cultist archer, Holly’s
mother rushes to her unconscious daughter’s body. Arsten uses the magic shield to wake
Kishara up with divine moonshine.

Kishara blasts away the chains, the spectral tentacle blocks the door behind which the panicked
cultists are streaming into a room from outside, covered in puke. Danny, one of the rescued
paladins, asks us to show the way out. Kishara is the savior of the paladins, the “Good Witch of
the North”.
Arsten shields Ferdinand from arrows and heals him.

We rescue the paladins. We run. Holly Arsten and Kishara loot Archibald’s room.

We escape with the prisoners and run into the pixies. They ask us where thorn and rose are,
and when we return to find them the teleportation circle is empty. Thorn and Rose are gone, and
so is the body that they were experimenting with. There is also a teleportation circle on the
ceiling.

There used to be a culture out in a plane far far away that built teleportation circles like this.
They could teleport to different planes and astral spheres.
Teleportation not linked to physical plane - ethereal?
You know when your god tore the faewilds in half? When they created your material planes it
detached parts of the surrounding planes with it . Fae and elves were really upset for a long
time because we couldn’t go back to their own heaven. Their religious connection with their
gods was severed because of this.
This completely contradicts what Arsten has learned about religious history.
Portals like this were created by an unknown race, but to Appleblossom they are mythological.

Library of the Wheel can tell us more. We don’t really want to go to the Wheel though.

One mountain in the Northern Fingers collapses. (Freddie and the others knocked down rabbit
mountain).
We rest at the Fae camp.
We crash into our tent. People are playing music, Horny is there playing his lute, the paladin
prisoners are standing outside looking at this musical bedlam with grilling meat.
Kishara, Tavin, and Arsten go to the party while Ferdinand and Holly try to sleep.

Tracks of remaining cultists heading off into woods to the East. Archers weren’t in a position to
mount a pursuit.

Appleblossom says the Peace Guard has already taken credit for closing the portal. She calls
them “moving shields” for her archers.

Tavin shares that he thinks this isn’t just a cultist. He thinks the Archbishop in Ezzar is
responsible for this.

“Just like the last time Odin tried to invade the wheel, the clergy didn’t support his army “
Appleblossom is skeptical that Archbishop is a traitor to the clergy, but believes that the clergy is
cool with sending demon dogs to the faewilds.

Appleblossom hopes that Rose and Thorn reform in the FAe Wilds eventually if something
happened to them? They can reform?
Appleblossom asks them to fill out a form with the evidence of Archbishop Gruda being involved
in the demon dogs. Tells us to contact her Embassy through Iscamore. The ambassadors name
is ??? If we reach out to our ambassador on the wheel they should make contact.

Appleblossom cannot confirm or deny the existence of Speaking Stones, which Kishara asks
about. She tells us to talk to our resident fae, perhaps the dryad whom the blights served. She
did talk to the Fae and warned the Fae that we and the Blights were coming. The Blights have
all returned to Drydie.

There is a commotion at the entrance of the barricades.

A boar rides into camp. Two pixie sized figures covered in feathers and tar sit upon it.

Kishara makes fun of Arsten for being an uptight paladin.

Thorn tells of being kidnapped by an evil old wizard. “We were trying to break the teleportation
circle. All of a sudden we’re in a cave surrounded by golems, they take us up to this wizard
fellow, long white beard, angry beard, sitting on a freakishly carved wooden throne. Lots of
pictures of himself. Berated them for trying to destroy a key piece of arcane architecture. The
golems dunked us in tar and feathers before letting us go.” IS THIS HERTE?!?!?!
Floating mountains surrounded by clouds.

Piggie is the boar, charmed by Rose so they didn’t have to walk.

Floating mountains surrounded by clouds.

Herte? Dressed in rags sitting on a nice carved wooden throne, in the middle of what seems like
a throne room.

Kishara uses her wine to try and remove the feathers and the tar. Rose tries to pinch some off,
since it seems resistant to magic as well.

Necklace Kishara pulled off the necromancer now has three beads on it, at the bottom of the
bag. Each one is a charge to summon a skeleton or a zombie. “Animate Dead”. It charges
every other day? REVIEW

Necromancy isn’t illegal, but it is socially taboo.

Tavin talks to the paladins we rescued. They walked into an ambush. They were scouting ahead
for the pilgrims walking to the place where Archbishop wanted to build a temple to Poseidon.

He introduces them to Kishara, she approaches them elegantly.

There is some amused flirting and then they decide to play strip poker??

One of the soldiers is naked.

Horny unscrews one of his horns? Removes it from his head?
Kishara takes off her boots and her shoulder armor.

Arsten wakes Ferdinand to see this. He is very confused by this human mating ritual.
Tavin casts light on the naked soldier’s asses so they can find their way in the dark.

Ferdinand and Arsten are told by Tavin what this whole thing was about.
Tavin shares relationship advice, love advice.

We wake up after our rest. The paladins have leaves over their crotches.

Kishara has premonition dreams. Like fortune telling. Legends of her people.
Stabby walks up to our party. He asks about the big green dragon. Arsten admits he doesn’t
know where the big green dragon is.

He asks what the name of their collaboration is. “Lean, Mean, Green, Fighting Machines”.

He goes around stealing knife blades.

Tavin helps Arsten with his paperwork, reporting the battle to the peace guard.

Thorn and Rose think they were in the elementary plane of air. Tavin and Holly tell them to
beware of geese. They decide geese would be wonderful creatures for the pixies to mount.
Arsten goes to speak with the paladins.
Astra is there with two others cultists and an upset white bunny. The Peaace Guards don’t want
to let them into the cultist cavern.
The Dionysus paladins are still naked. Sir Aidan is bemused by their state.

Sir Aidan tells about the hell portal that they fought. He wants to show a good image to the Fae,
of being strong, so they don’t get the wrong idea.

Arsten shows him his report.

Astra grabs Sir Aidan because she wants to go into the cavern.

The plague of bannog is here. The rabbit. The abomination. Sir Aidan casts divine sense and
kicks Astra and the cultists out, because of this horrible monstrosity. He literally distorts the
weave. Cierra feeds the rabbit a pebble.
Arsten asks Astra why Astra wanted to get into the caverns with the rabbit.

They brought Walter to help them find Archibald.

Astra mentions Master Whiskers. She wants a piece of rock, decorative rock. For Mr Whiskers.
Arsten would really not like Astra to be caught by the paladins doing something weird in the
caverns.
Astra heads into the caverns and then sneaks back out the way she came in.
Arsten tells Sir Aiden about the potential link between Archibald and Archbishop Gruda.

By the time our leave is over Nagrax will be able to tell us more. Sir Aidan tells us we deserve
rest, also an inquisitor is coming to town to sort out these things. Arsten gets us double shares
of loot from Sir Aidan.

We figure out that Master Whiskers can talk and is maybe Astra’s new patron.
We learn that Walter can eat magic, and we briefly contemplate throwing Walter at the night hag
to defeat her.
Cat. Cult. Magic. Human Skin Covered Book Arsten picked up in first session. He finds a
description of the cult of Her Darkness, led by a high priest who is a magical cat.

We have an argument about whether covering a book with human skin is moral.

…
War with Luari is going badly. City seiging gave up before legionnares arrived. Luari have good
operations in north of province of Ezzar. City Guard is on edge bc of this. More patrols in street
because of this.
We decide to loot the rest of the cultist caverns if we can.
Epilon says “there was this bunch of humans, came into his swamp back in the swamp
province, said a bunch of things about the local lord wanting him gone, they made a deal, that’s
how we ended up helping the humans in these caves”
Epilon is Shrek???

Stabby has a spear onto which he plans to carve things. Ferdinand loves this.
We find a large urn with acid? In it? A trap, hanging from the ceiling.
Ferdinand jumps onto a ledge and finds a set of self-healing clothing.
We think there’s a slime in the urn.
Kishara used to be a Crystal Transporter, obviously using ships. Not entirely a pirate, maybe.
Kishara and Ferdinand find some gold pearls and healing potions.
Stabby helps us navigate the traps.
Kishara animates a dead skeleton. Mr. Clunky.
We squeeze through some corridors and find a human sized cocoon wrapped in spider silk.
Arsten tries to cut the cocoon free, it drops on the ground. Ferdinand catches it and then gets
stuck to it. The figure inside seems to be liquified.
Tavin hits a fireball at a spider that attacks Holly.
Ferdinand saws open the cocoon. Black green oozing liquid flows over the floor. The robes
appeared to have belonged to Archibald. He also has a cool thorn amulet.
We find a latrine and an old storage room covered in dust. We fight a room full of spiders.
We burn the leftover webs and eggs and loot the room.

We chill in Ezzar for two weeks.

Archibald hat a magic amulet that allows tiny things to pass to four other planes. It is set to the
Abyss. Abyss, Mechanus, Limbo, and Astral. Only 3mm wide things can pass through the portal.
Sound travels through this permanent portal. We switch it to Mechanus and hear ticking. We switch
it to Astral and hear nothing.

Kishara looks through the hole. Sees a ceiling among rows and rows of bookshelves. The amulet
has partners in the other planes.

We pour some wax over the hole to prevent other planes from hearing us.
Can we cast a spell through the hole?

We are in the dungeon and looking at the door Astra closed with a sour expression, exclaiming there
were zombies behind the door.
Arsten collects some of the paralyzing spider venom.
Ferdinand opens the door and meets a talking skeleton. The skeleton is guarding this place with his
colleagues. His name is Fenix, and he is fairly short. He is mopping the mess left by previous
adventurers.
Fenix says Udderog compelled him to clean the floor. Dwarven name, not really a name we’re
familiar with.
Fashions must have changed over past two hundred years he says.
The bloody mess comes from the demon cultists.
Balduin is another skeleton/zombie.
A heavily armored creature covered in rusty metal armor with big shiny dove on its chest.
They guard this place, one of them is a Peace Guard member.
They were put there 200 years ago to guard a bone of the world. Archmage Bidi hired them to do
this. Bones of the World are divine artifacts that the gods used to create the world. They are anchors
that keep all the bits and pieces in place relative to each other.
We are the fourth incursion they’ve had to deal with in a month. First, the kobolds. Next the cultists.
Next the strange rabbit (hole chewed under stone door).
May Walter rest in piece? They destroyed the rabbit?
The Wraith killed Walter. The Wraith is also a guardian of this place, when something really annoying
happens.
They say night hags aren’t their main concern.
Did Skeleton Pete scan that rabbit after the Wraith was done with it? No. It is not a creation of
Archmage Bidi, but from another world.
Fenix grows agitated at the hearing of “that cat”. “The old enemy is back”.
Pete scans us. Holly glows red when scanned, because she met the orange cat.
“The Chaotic Ones fur does not remove easily once he’s marked you”.
You don’t mean that this cat is the high priestess of the Cult of Chaos…. “Yes it is.”
Cat has marked Holly for some reason. He is trying to assemble followers right now.
They can’t allow one marked by the Cat to be in such close proximity to the Bone of the World.
The writing on the door “Bad Juju ate Sobby”
The rabbit is only minorly contaminated with Cat.
The Cat wants to destroy the weir, wear, weeyur.
The guarding of the bones “We guard this place against Her Stripes”.
How do we fight the cat? Swing of the mace.
We leave them a set of dice and leave them.
Arcane marks on Hollys robes, she wants to throw them away.
Bidi partially lichified these skeletons.
HEr Darkness didn’t want to support white peace. Odin tried to assassinate her and set himself up as
main god. She gets her power from the bones of the world. God of Chaos, amorphous blob of dust.
She wants her power back.

We leave.
The reason that Kishara joined us has led her to today. “A while back her brother and her were part
of a mercantile navy expedition boat, were tasked with trading of teleportation crystals. The thing is,
on the surface, people really didn’t know they were selling artifacts, was a bit of a cover story. Their
rivals, the red panthers, which we have seen in port. Took notice of them because Kishara had more
permits. Red Panthers planned ambush and Kishara was with her brother in the ship. Her brother is
hanging from a thread. Kishara screamed to the sky for help, a mysterious creature appeared out of
the water, very elegant, extremely big. She felt like a tiny pebble. The creature spoke to her and was
hanging a golden thread out of her brother’s last breath. “I’m holding the last breathe for your brother
to save him. I would like to help you. But I need something in return. Take my power and help me
gather some artifacts. The shield needs to be taken to a place and offered to this creature. If we
value life and family at least a little bit. I know you haven’t seen much of me and I’ve been guarded,
the life of my brother is more important to me than anything in the world.”
Holly and Kishara hug and are both crying.
Kishara wanted to gain our trust and have us help her.
Ferdinand hugs them too.
We all hug.
Tavin doesn’t want to help, but won’t stop her.
Her brother’s name is Vakiri?
Kishara shows us a portrait of her and her brother.
We head towards wherever the the shield needs to be sacrificed.
Imperial Courier passes us. We recognize the courier. Tavin casts sleep on him. And he falls.
Holly grabs his horse.
He is one of Henessy’s people who attacked us when we were with summer.
He runs this route all the time.
Tavin puts him to sleep, dumps invisibility on him, drags him into the ditch. We take his missives.
He has a few dispatches. Some are regular mail, some are encoded correspondence. Some match
papers we recovered from temple we just left. Archibald was receiving messages from one of the
people who wrote this message. It’s in code.
We decide to copy down the coded message and cast hunters mark on him and carefully wake him
up again. We let him recover. Courier is heading to Ezzar.
Tavin drops sleep on him again and we decide to help this poor guy David to a tavern.
We reach the tavern at sundown and leave David there, the horse is in the stables.
We get put up in the loft of the stables. The courier’s horse is down below us.
Arsten tries to meditate on the shield issue, to see if Dionysus has an opinion on his shield being
sacrificed.
Tavin and Arsten are awake when the courier sneaks into the stables to get his horse.
They follow the courier and Holly keeps watch.
Stabby finds them and accompanies them. The courier leaves his horse and heads to a stone ruin.
There is a hooded lantern, the courier is lit. They are speaking quietly to someone.
“Your mistress will know how to decode the paperwork, and should know the origin as well.” “Not
everyone is happy with Imperial rule in the Imperial Capital”.
Arsten is invisible. They can tell someone went past the alarm spell. They can’t find Arsten though.
There is a large armored person with them.
“Someone tracked you, courier. Did anyone see you going out? I think your cover is blown.”
“There was that group of adventurers with a green dragonborn”.
The three people split up.
We wonder whether the mistress is Madame Bronze.
Madame Bronze was retired for incompetence… so probably not a large enough fish in the pond to
try to take on sharks.
Vakiri is in limbo
Morgana which is the lady helping Kishara, gave her a vision of the party. Bc Kishara’s soul doesn’t
belong here, it’s from the plane of dreams. Humans decided to allocate their souls, that’s where her
people come from. Morgana requires someone with a soul not from this plane. Morgana wears a
mask to cover her face. Elegantly dressed. Morgana might not keep Kishara on her good side.

We reach paladin camp at noon. Sir Aiden and Master Nagrax both discussing recent events. Arsten
tells them about the Bone of the World in the crypt connected to the temple, and their ancient
guardians. “The project of Archmage Bidi?” They complain that the Bones of the World are heresy,
they don’t believe they are the backbone of the world. Nagrax doesn’t seem to know much about
Morgana.
We discuss alternatives to sacrificing the shield. Herte could maybe help?
Code Nagrax cracked: multiple people corresponding with Archibald. Two different codes. Still using
code names to hide real identities. Honorifics, at least one seems to be an Ezzarian Noble, under the
code name Mistress. Made a deal with Archibald to support him with materials and supplies, after
he raises sizeable contingent of beasts as a private army. Archibald kept postponing date of
delivering beast army. Mistress wanted to turn him over to the peace guard herself.
As final way of appeasing her, she sent him a request (Code name Dagger. Maybe Peter the Knife?
Archbishop Gruda?) to handle a troublesome group of paladins. Archibald could use these paladins
to create more beasts.
Implication that the Inquisitor is on the way, made plans to deal with him somehow. They refer to
somebody with the code name Mask who would take care of the Inquisitor. Assassin near Calmond
who hunted Scarlet Shard messengers. With electrum Mask?
Peace Guard kicked out of city. If Archbishop is involved, could organize Kick Out.
They refer to something called coven. Set of times and dates associated with it. Matched timetable
from the teleportation circle in the cult building. The memos go back a few months, back to time
first reports of predatory animals appearing around calmond.
Instructions on when teleportation network is safe to use. Arranged for a schedule to use the
network exclusively. Are running interference to deny use of teleportation circle to everyone else.
Mostly updates on progress of war, coming right out of Luari Council of Tribes, the body set up as
their interim Parliament. One member named Hightree, their minister of foreign affairs.
Kishara casts a spell of non-detection on the shield.
We spend some time here while Nagrax decodes the encoded letter we stole from David.
Kishara plays dice and once again charms some paladins.
Letter from David: Hightree passing on Info from “the Duke” somewhere in the Capital. Informing
“Mistress” that the Dukes plans are already in motion, thanks to her and the coven, the inevitables
have reached the capitol. After being briefed they are proving to be more eager than originally
expected. Things are about to get heated here at the capitol.
“Inevitables” don’t sound terribly good. Divine arbiters of law and order. Shouldn’t be doing
something in this plane… basically if somebody is trying to violate laws of universe, these guys show
up. Why somebody is trying to bring them into the capitol of the Empire in the Imperial heartland,
and we haven’t heard anything about the person they are targeted.
Somebody seems to be messing with forces, like teleportation network. Whatever coven is
responsible for messing with teleportation circles is also responsible for the the inevitables. The
Everlife club? We think they are not smart enough to do this.
Holly picks some poison mushrooms and gives one to Arsten.
We have some jokes . We decide to try and contact Summer to talk to Herte through her.
Ferdinand and Holly get to the Magic School. Castle on a peninsula. Mistress of Novices Hermione
Lagnode.
We wait for Summer.
Secret rooms under lighthouse where the teachers go at strange times and strange days to do
strange magic? Could this correspond with the dates and times of the teleportation circle
interference? Summer contacts Herte who is very interested in teleportation and also whatever it is
the teachers were doing.

Herte pops up to speak with Tavin and Kishara.

They climb through a little portal drop to the stone floor. Alchemy equipment, books, storage house.
Closed wooden door leading out of the room. Herte sits on a crate. Kishara casts nondetection spell.
Kishara shows him the Shield of Dionysus. Herte casts Darkness on the room. Herte is upset that
she brought this thing so close to him.
Herte finds a tiny box that could fit in the palm of his hand. He opens it and a larger chest appears
on the ground. They lock the shield in the chest, a pocket dimension.
Kishara tells Herte about who gave her her powers.
Herte calls Morgana dramatic. Herte and Morgana are divorced. It was a messy breakup.
Kishara tells him about Vakiri. Kishara asks him for information about Morgana.
Morgana is doing an altar conversion? Herte calls it good. Not for Kishara, but for him. History
between Morgana and Poseidon. Tentacles bit and not being able to step on land irritated her to no
end. Herte told her about ways to get around that inconvenience. Trying to become a goddess
herself might be the next best step to get out of her predicament.
Is the shield the only artifact she needs to achieve her goals? Not to achieve full godhood, but it’s a
step in the right direction. Morgana can’t be that far away though. Few hundred miles.

Gold thread is soul magic.

Vakiri is half of her soul. But would Vakiri want to be resurrected?
Ever since Gaiae died he had a big change of heart.
Herte doesn’t want his name popping up on Dinysus radar so Zeus won’t hear about him.
Kishara tells him about the teleportation circle interruptions, hands the schedule to Herte. He finds it
most useful.
Kishara refuses to tell him some politically charged stuff though.
Kishara tells Herte she trusts him.
Tavin says “basically everyone is in on the conspiracy lol”. Luari rebels, some people in Ezzar, some
people in the capitol.
Herte has tried scrying to find out what’s going on here. The bits he can see are not good. Era-Ending
not good.
Kishara says that the Inevitables seem to be marching on the Capitol. Herte says he wishes it were
true.
Herte gifts some spell scrolls to Kishara and Tavin. Alarm, Waterwalk, Cloud of Daggers, Shatter.
Not the first time someone uses Herte’s advice to cause a mess in the world.
Herte knows quite a lot of what we know from the letters.
Maybe we can put on a party for Dionysus and he will allow us to sacrifice the shield.
Dionysus wanted to send someone to talk to us?

We start planning a big party.

Kishara gets Magic Mike to provide entertainment and food trucks, Ferdinand gets a priest to bless
the ceremony in the name of Dionysus and carves a punch bowl, Tavin goes looking for mushrooms
and gets attacked by a spider.

The party: Horny is there with a menagerie of fae animals, we have security from the Black Standard,
Magic Mike is there, we have good wine, we have magic beer, we have super expensive wine, a priest
proclaiming the feast in honor of Dionysus above the carved bowl and fancy wine. Alternate universe
Gallio shows up and is very shy and French.

The Pearl singer shows up, she decides the incense is not bad, she starts hobnobbing with richer
crowd. Half the city council showed up.
Abraham is there, so is Salazar. Ferdinand wants to fight Abraham in the pit. They do and Ferdinand
wins!
Stabby brings five hobgoblins, one of them wants to fight Ferdinand. He is very insistent on taking
Ferdinand with him if they can defeat Ferdinand in battle. They are green.
Ferdinand convinces them to drink magic beer first. And tell of their exploits. Pirates, abandoned
castle. We try to have a bragging competition.
The hobgoblins cannot be dissuaded and we roll intitative. Tavin tried to cast Calm Emotions on
them and it didn’t work.

We try to appeal to their honor and it doesn’t work either. Tavin casts Fireball and immediately
passes out, but takes two hobgoblins with him. The leader, BogBog, yells “Plan F!”. Holly hits BogBog
and he passes out. Plan F involves torches being thrown from the forest onto the fabric roofs of the
food trucks.
Stabby is trying to stabilize Tavin and does more harm than good.
Some ogres show up and join the fight.
MMore hobgoblins show up with longbows.
Tamara uses her fireworks to try and attack the ogres.

Kishara leaves the party so she can use her magic, Stabby tries to assist her but is not particularly
effective. Holly and Ferdinand do some stabbing.

Kishara summons her Tentacle friend to attack an ogre.

Arsten convinces the last ogre to surrender.

Tavin brings us our weapons but it’s kind of too late.
Ferdinand and Kishara pursue the fleeing hobgoblins.
The hobgoblins mention something abt someone called Rambles.
Tavin shoots the shit with Ufsalin the Hulk and gets hammered.

Kishara Holly and Ferdinand run down the last hobgoblins.

Stabby is invited to drink with Tavin and Ufsalin the Hulk.
Two hobgoblins get away.

BokBok, although dead, is somehow escaping.

The shield absorbed the fine wine, indicating that Dionysus was pleased.
Some party goers return. The priest guarantees that Dionysus liked the party 120%, but forgot who
Dionysus.
One of the party goers turns into a potted plant. Holly waters it with booze.
Arsten has a drinking party with Ufsalin. Tavin casts Enlarge on Arsten so that they can have a
proper drinking party.
They both immediately get hammered.
Arsten drinks so much that Tavin becomes poisoned for an hour.
Ufsalin wins the drinking contest because Arsten passes out.
Temple Guardsmen show up to party. This is the priest Arsten was trying to find Kishara and the
Shield.

They offer us a way out of the sea witches predicament.

Kishara casts a protection spell so no one can spy on us.
They offer us a replica shield, essentially. It’s a pretty good replica and they can track where the
magic goes. If we manage to get any part of Vakiri’s body to a Dionysus temple, he has promised a
resurrection.
Molen Gemtooth is the temple guardsmen leader.

Kishara accepts the deal.

She hugs us all and then toasts to Vakiri.

While manacled, NifNif the hobgoblin rolls wildmagic and is transformed into a young half orc girl,
then turns into a sheep.

We find a magical? Sheep at the edge of the woods. The manacles are still closed. There is a
hobgoblin set of ashes.

Holly wakes up to see a half orc girl, 13 years old, with her hands and feet tied together. She tries to
cover her with a blanket.
Arsten is surprised that a minor is here at the party, and asks the Black Standard mercenaries about
whether they let any minors into the party. They did not. He asks them to take a look at the child.
Horny has a anti-hangover cure for Arsten.

Ferdinand starts checking on party guests that stayed the night to make sure they’re okay. Holly
starts cleaning up the wreckage of the party.
Half orc girl says something about “Is it time to march yet boss?” “why are you calling me child,
boss?”
Kishara wakes her up.
Half orc girl now has green hands, is horrified. Accuses us of turning her into a half orc girl. She is
upset he is not orange.
Kishara sits her down after she changes into some clothes and tries to put on a barrel as armor
because Hobgoblins always wear armor.
Kishara explains what happened to Nif Nif. “The point is that you’re a child now and people are going
to see you like a child. I’ve known people like you in my time. You’re strong and independent, but a
child is not. So, I would suggest to stick with us for better odds of survival. A child won’t survive long
enough on her own.”
Nif Nif knows Ferdinand is a frog.
“Once a frog, always a frog. Rambles wanted him recovered.”
Rambles is Nif Nif’s employer. “She wants him back. The frog escaped.”

We start arguing with Nif Nif about what she’s going to do now that she’s in the body of a child. Nif
Nif wants to turn back into a hobgoblin, and Ferdinand says maybe Rambles can provide a true
transmutation. Nif Nif decides to join our party since Nif Nif essentially has no better options.
Arsten finds Magic Mike puking his guts into the river and does some healing with lay on hands. He
doesn’t seem to have alcohol poisoning.

Plan was kidnap Ferdinand and portal him back to Rambles. Bok Bok has the plans for the portal?

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Arsten and Holly try to follow the Black Standard mercenaries to see if they also got sick from eating
the same spider leg that Magic Mike ate. They are not sick.
A horse with two riders approaches Arsten and Holly. Arsten recognizes the girl as Summer.
Summer waves to Arsten. The male rider behind her is concerned. Summer jumps off the horse and
gives Arsten a big hug. The rider is no longer trying to get his sword.
Shaggy is the rider, studying to be a vallant? Galant? Battle Mage in training. Wearing a cuirass
trimmed in bright green, rich enough to be a noble of some sort.
Summer is 8.
Our common friend thought it was best for Summer to get out of the city. Something happened in
the capital. The news has reached the city and everyone is on edge. Imperial palace got attacked.
Governor in Ezzar is very worried. Lots of uncertainty around the city.
Shaggy tries to fill in as well.

Summer is excited to see the party until she sees an area of burnt out magic. She runs towards the
whack a mole station that got hit by lightning.

Summer does some sort of magic to heal the burnt out magic, ruining the weave. There was a huge
tear in the weave right here. “Kishara should have been able to see or feel it at least.”
Summer heals the weave with an intricate hand pattern, the wild magic area slowly shrinks. Kishara
tries to imitate what she is doing. Whatever she’s doing isn’t wizard or sorceress, more like a cleric
spell…

Summer heals the weave.

Summer goes to meet Nif Nif. She introduces herself and then asks why Kishara wanted her to meet
Nif Nif.

Summer learns that Nif Nif is a hobgoblin. She essentially is here to be a detective to try and figure
out the Nif Nif situation, says Kishara.
Summer got word that stuff had been going wrong here with the weave, she thought she’d drop by
and help us fix stuff.

Nif Nif says something about a job that fell through and he ended up like this. Summer does her best
to listen and wheedle info out of him. His clan was doing merc work for the stick people against the
empire, left the plain looking for other work after the stick people were subjugated? He fell into
company of mercenary outfit of fellow hobgoblins, last job led them here to bring back an escaped
frog (Ferdinand).
The intel didn’t say that we had spells as high level as Tavin’s fireball. Somehow we found and
pacified a kobold.

Summer asks if we know of a safe place to keep her and Shaggy for a while since they’re not safe in
the city. Arsten suggests she stay with his people.

Tavin is acting strange after having almost died yesterday. He says after dying and being resigned to
his fate he felt a connection to Dionysus? Epiphany of some sort?

We ext the camp, pass by Ezzar, pass by cemetery, noise catches our attention. Column of
legionnaires head south the way we came from.

Shaggy says they are attacking Nina Munchausen?

As we go along Summer experiments on Tavin and Nif Nif, since they both have the same “magical
smell”. She tries to teach them a cantrip. Tavin and Nif Nif both produce a small flame in their hands.
Nif Nif looks very skeptical. Her flame is much smaller than Tavin’s, but the moment after she
produces a flame, she plops out of existence. 6 seconds later she pops back into existence, looking
very confused.
“Stars all around, nothing to breathe.”
Summer says “were you in the astral plane???”
Nif Nif looks scared. Kishara half hugs her and mentally asks Summer what is happening.
“I think both of you have become sorcerers, but Nif Nif is a wild magic sorcerer, and Tavin I don’t
know”.
Tavin says “Dionysus told me he would teach me to do something to take care of fireball effects”
“To clean up the mess next time he fireballs something,” He creates a cube of rain.
Legionnaire try to take the villa Munchhausen by force. An animated cloud of smoke fights the
legionnaires? Might be some sort of elemental creature.
Legionnaires get their asses kicked, basic training recruits essentially run away.

Summer Nif Nif Shaggy and Stabby stay at Mossborough.

Summer tries to convince Nif Nif to learn sorcerey, magic. Tavin gives Nif Nif advice, that the
soldiering life isn’t the only life, despite it being the hobgoblin way.

We go south pas Ezzar, has considerably more smoke coming up from it, battlefield round villa is
cleaned up. We do not investigate further.
We head into Jagged Forest. Known for some nastier than usual wildlife, trees near coast are
leafless and broken by storms. One giant cliff face that drops into the ocean. We have to go through
quite a bit of the forest.

Arsten smells fresh blood, something up front is feeding on fresh kill. A dead elk is being eaten up in
the distance. A salamander is eating it, changing colors and hissing. Three more salamander-like
shapes, they scatter behind cover. They are kind of like chameleons. They can change color to
match the bark and the trees.
TAvin throws them a meat stick. The salamander takes it but still hisses.
We try to go around them and give them more space.

Then the wind changes, and then a bear roars after catching out scent.
The salamanders can shoot lightning bolts out of their mouths at the bear. They challenge each
other for the elk.
We essentially try to leave them to it.
The salamanders and the bear fight.
We’re unsure what killed the elk. The bear makes a run for it.
We know there is odd fauna here.
The altar described to Kishara is somewhere on the cliffs among the coast.
We try following a stream towards the coast.
Turns into salt water marsh.
Rivulet runs deeper into forest away from marsh? Going uphill?
WE follow Arsten. We tread carefully.
We move deeper into swamp.
Island of Vines and flowers, seems like a good solid spot to stand on until we look closer and
notice that the area around has the reeds bent away from it.
Arsten tells us to stay away from it.
Arsten and Tavin can see some vines come out from the island and stretch towards us under
the water.
The whole island is a living creature. Face is a mound of moving vines and sharp edged thorns
in place of teeth. We move away from it, it moves slowly after us.
This thing is a shambling mound! Giant carnivorous plant.
We continue to the cliffs, washed out rocks, undergrowth right up to cliff edge.
There is a rising cliff with some figures moving on top of it. Three layers to the cliff, lower layer
with cleared space, higher plateau with people, top smaller one with a single person. Table or
something flat and stony next to the person and a statue behind that.

We were told we were looking for an abandoned altar… Morgana told Kishara in the past that
Kishara needs to go to this forestry area south of ezzar… this is the place where the shrine
should be.

We tie ourselves together so we don’t fall off a cliff with 100 feet of rope. Jagged rocks at
bottom of cliff.
We continue along cliff face as land turns outwards into sea.
We find a path, a trail, with fresh footprints.
Webbed feet heading into forest. Not particularly heavy. Kind of like very large frog feet? With
five toes.
Humanoid tracks with boots heading towards cliff.
Arsten sneaks ahead with Holly to figure out who the footprints belong to.

3 Kuar Toa, green aquatic humanoids, with sticks and pincers at the end of the sticks on the
bottom of the cliff. Above on the cliff, figure dressed in priest robes standing on the middle
platform, talking to them and looking up to a priestess dressed in seashells and seaweed,
bearing a staff covered in corals with a giant snail shell at the top. Dark crown made out of
malformed octopus of some sort. Looks like its still alive.
Statue of what looks like a rough depiction of Poseidon? Priestess stands between two torches?
Kuar Toa are overly religious, especially valued worshippers by multiple temples. When Kuar
Toa die, weird shit happens. Wild magic?
Priestess might not be fully human, skin too pale to be human.
Priestess seems to be sacrificing something small and furry.
Whole area has been blessed by something celestial.
Arsten and Holly return and inform us.
Kishara says she doesn’t really have a connection to Poseidon at all.
Were they consecrating the area to Poseidon? Some sort of animal sacrifice?
If we don’t interrupt this ritual, Kishara thinks we might get into trouble. Once the place is
consecrated it probably has more power than before.
Not enough Kuar Toa to account for tracks toward forest.
We decide to set up an ambush camp to wait out the ritual, so we can use the temple/altar after
they are done.
We find Owlbear scat.
We find another uphill flowing stream. Not celestial, some light magic in and around the stream
though… transmutation with a hint of conjuration. (Teleportation, treatment with planes)
We follow the stream. We climb up hill. Surroundings are more and more overgrown as we rise.
At top of hill, stream leads into middle, not to cliffs. Lake about 100 feet wide, surrounded by
dense rose bushes… multiple streams flowing into it uphill. Old ruined building on shore of lake
side. Looks like solid walls with cracks, damaged beyond recognition. May not have ever had a
roof. Stone reminds us of the stone of the den that Walter lived in. Giant stone box with gaping
entryway.
Lake is clear with no plants or fish in it?
Owlbear tracks near water, we lose them.
Holly rolls around in mud on the shore.
Structure reminds us of walter cave. No metal trees.
Kishara and Tavin are at the cliff edge. They see a small group of greenish frog being marching
up coast on road we took ourselves. They can barely catch sight of them.
Densely wooded around lake. Hard time seeing more than 30 feet in front of us.
Group has multiple animals they bring to the temple. Bovines, chickens, slowly being passed up
the cliff for more animal sacrifices.
Ruins: basically a bunch of ceiling pieces that collapsed with rebar sticking out of them. Metal
table and some sort of chair that got squashed and flattened. Remains of chair, pile of bones. In
the hand of the bones is a silver coin rested on the thumb.
It’s a large silver coin, edges look very uniform, much better quality coin than the hammer
stamped stuff.
Manufactured to exact specifications.
Shapewise it’s close to a soul coin, doesn’t have the same pattern on it. Sitting heads up, heads
depict face of some man.
This place is still in one piece partially, partially abandoned nest, browned feathers scattered
around it. Owlbear.
On the ceiling above the owlbear nest something is mounted to the ceiling. Looks like an oblong
box with a piece of glass in the front. Chain? Wire going back into the ceiling.
Coin is very magical. Nothing else is. Very strongly divination and conjuration magic.
Lake is very strongly conjuration magic.
We poke the coin with a stick.
Profile human face, other side is geometric shape. Matches place where Walter lived.
Crushing injury seemed to kill this person. Pretty sure it was a female adult.
Arsten picks up the coin and smells it. Smells like silver. He flips the coin, it lands edgewise on
his hand.

More fishfolk near temple. Ones that were in the forest have returned. Seem to be chanting.
Sounds more or less like bubbling. They do their ritual until the sun sets.
Tavin makes an area of vegetation flammable to prepare for a potential ambush.
Rosebushes everywhere except streams. Young willow tree, just a sprout, is poisonous.
Unusually thick thorns around roses.
The group finishes up and packs their things. They descend into the sea., except for the
humanoids.
We head down to the temple cliff. Clear sky. Calm sea.
Arsten investigates the darkness and finds a sleeping salamander. He speaks to the
Salamander. The salamander is sleeping still.
Salamander is not happy with Arsten going up to the temple. It tells him not to bring more
people. Priestess will come back in the morning when the sun is up.
Arsten feeds the salamander a Spider Leg.
We try to figure out how to get rid of the salamanders.
We use prestidigitation to make the meatsticks smell like fresh elk. Arsten makes a wounded elk
noise.
It seems to work?
Tavin uses some magic to make the bonfire burst into flames. Salamander shaped outline on
the tip of the cliff.
Tavin uses some fire magic to set a salamander on fire.
We fight the salamanders who can turn their skin into colors that match their surroundings
We drive off the salamanders.
We make our way up to the temple.
There is a small chest.

Kishara uses aquamarine dust to cast sigils into the air.

howling and screaming things from the seas, sounds of thunder and rain, smell of saltwater in
the air. The waves of the ocean start to splash up onto the rocks.
Sea grows upset at the whole situation.
Up the stairs, the priestess and her crown of eyes and tentacles walks up with a seashell staff.
Large chitinous monstrosities crawl after her. Not bothered by taking the stairs, climb straight up
the cliffs.
Tavin notices them and casts Bless on us.
Priestess spots killed Chazamander in the bush. She yells at us. Arsten tries to explain that
we’re saving a soul.
We insult Poseidon’s Priestess.
She summons a paladin to arrest Kishara for being a heretic.
Ferdinand grapples a lobster.
Holly punches the Priestess in the face. Walls of water erupt from the ground and block the
impacts of her fists and staff except for a few.
Holly gets reduced in size as the Priestess defends herself.
Ferdinand gets tug of warred by two lobsters.
Tavin destroys the priestess’s water shield, Holly makeshifts wolverine claws and punches the
priestess.
Arsten knocks out the priestess and lets the paladin leave with her unconscious body.
Kishara is almost done with the ritual and the waves grow ever higher, aquamarine dust rises
into the air in the shape of tentacles. Kishara floats up in the air and her eyes glow white but she
is in Darkness.
Ferdinand manages to slip free and the lobsters attack Holly instead.
The lobsters notice the priestess blood trail and then start following it.
The priestess and the paladin are swept away by the ocean waves as Kishara continues
chanting.
Spectral figure of Morgana materializes behind Kishara.
Purple light emanates from Kishara, she glows purple shimmer, the light goes up and dyes her
hair and eyes purple, purple tentacle spectacle!
Then e verything stops! The sea furious lapping, the stones, the wind whistling. Kishara drops to
the ground. The statue of Poseidon crumbles into a bunch of gravel.
Spectral Morgana stands behind Kishara with a big smile.
“Good work little one, you’ve made me so proud.” She sighs. She looks at the shield with all of
its magical properties drained out onto the altar. “Thank you my dear” I am much closer to
helping your brother.
The rest of us see in the distance, something like a very big island is rising out of the water,
surface covered in hexagonal thing, it is a dragon turtle. It looks pissed. Giant territorial kaijus
that eat ships and other dragon turtles and krakens.
Kishara screams abt the dragon turtle.
Morgana rubs her tentacles together and gets ready to fight the dragon turtle.
Morgana dives into the water, reassembles the statue into a statue of herself.
Overgrown kraken vs really angry snapping turtle.!!
Morgana slaps the turtle, turtle snaps off the tentacle.
The priestess is awake among the stones, she is aghast, her world is broken.
Tavin puts the priestess to sleep.
Morgana bitch slaps the turtle and then drags it underwater. Morgana wins out over the turtle.
Lightning bolt strikes the center of the water.
Seas calm down.
No trace of much of anything..
Morgana’s statue happily stands where poseidon’s stood.
The statue makes a slight movement.
We kind of realize that Morgana isn’t super planning on bringing back Kishara’s brother.
A strand of Kishara’s hair is now purple.
Tavin writes a message aka “odin was here” and draws a mustache on morgana’s statue. Tavin
leaves a level one fireball spell in a magic red gem and offers it to dionysus, god of random
bullshittery.

We leave Morgana’s new altar.

We head up to the weird building at the top of the hill (with the dangerously clear lake and
owlbear scat) to spend the rest of the night.
We notice halfway up the hill, we notice freshly cut vegetation… some sort of trailblazing? Lots
of footprints? Tree branches facing water cut, plus a trail.
Nailed boots… about 10 people. 3 wolflike tracks.
Faint smell of sulfur.
Demon dog wolf tracks.
Kishara: “If they wanted to find us, they’re really good at tracking… how could they miss us?
With our whole spectacle?”
We should probably find out what they’re looking for.
Kishara sends out Scratchy to scout ahead, using her eyes. He checks out the cliffsides,
eventually finds a cave, but from the sounds of it there is an owlcat outside of it.
Deeper in the cave there are other bats sleeping.
Some boens.
Scratchy notices a small puddle of water on the ground, near a corpse. He is thirsty and heads
for a drink. His fangs hit on something cold and hard and sharp. He gets a small cut on his
tongue.
He flies out of the cave stealthily, avoiding the owlbear.
We propose to sneak into the cave and make a campfire there.
We argue about the morality of that and decide against it.
We decide to sleep /rest in some trees.
We camouflage with mud and … owlbear feces.
Arsten is invisible for one hour. He sets a fake trail.
We settle in among the trees.
With all the branches we broke getting here, if a tracker found this spot they will find us. Nothing
we can do about it.
We need eight hours of rest. We are in a creepy dark jagged forest.
Kishara hears a low moan coming from somewhere up the hill from the direction of the lake.
Sounds sort of like a whale, but it’s not a whale.
Louder moan, lots of creaking trees.
It quiets down after a minute, followed by a loud splash.
Nothing else happens. We wake up at late morning.
Tavin tries to photosynthesize.
We find some blood.
The footprints seem to have gathered around the edge.
Eventually the cultists walked into the lake and disappeared.
Whirlpool going into the depth of the ocean is a portal???
Tavin fires a meat stick into the lake. It bobs up back to the surface and slowly falls apart.
Arsten takes a sample of the water.
Strong aura of conjuration magic in the lake.
Arsten says it reminds him of the holy oil of Freya, only burning while it was in a vessel.
Kishara flings a spell at the lake, and when it hits, it looks like the lake absorbs it. For a brief
moment there are ripples and the lake changes color to be slightly purplish from the spell,
through the surface Ferdinand can see an alien sky.
The alien sky has a sunrise, color of sky is all wrong. Instead of oranges and blues in a typical
sunrise, there is a lot more green. I also see clouds. Lots of vegetation similar to the ones that
surround us here.
We think its a lake connected to another lake.
The meatstick is gone.
Ferdinand wants to get in there. Arsten does not want this.
We draw a smiley face on a branch, tie a rope around it, swing it into the lake.
Nothing happens.
Kishara throws two eldritch blasts at the lake.
Once again, alien sky image with trees and green sky. Very briefly we see the stone’branch
arcs, second ray hits surface, stone plops back into our side.
Magical item sword stabs lake, it gets wet. Nothing happens.
Arsten thinks the peace guard should know about the portal.
We try to send a big rock tied to a rope through the lake portal.
Firebolt whips through the surface and rocks sails out the other side, view turns back to our
lake. The rope is nicely cut.
We decide to head back to Ezzar. Tavin promises it wasn’t him that caused Ezzar to be
smoking when we left.
We hear a noise from the Altar.
We decide against checking it out.
.We head to Sir Aiden’s camp.
Name tag on his chest and sandals. Teenager, 17. He’s on the road, looking in our direction.
We approach him, he greets us. “Äre you lot the honor and honesty group?”
His name is Dave. He has a message for Tavin.
“You have a collect message delivered via Hermes mobility services. Pay the cost and receive
the message. Sender is explicitly private with our deluxe package. Price is a little bit of
advertisement.” He holds a small wooden plaque that Tavin has to wear to advertise Hermes
delivery service. Has to wear it for three days.
Tavin tries to bribe him. It doesn’t work.
Magic item of divine origin. Thick and lousy with enchantments. Charm person kind of magic.
Tavin declines to accept the collect message.
One of the ways to mark someone for early retirement, gift them something (like a new hat).
We reach Sir Aidens camp.
Small force left behind. Not many others.
Sir Aiden’s second in command asks to see where the lake door is. “What’s this about the
Poseidon Altar not being a poseidon altar anymore??? Why were you in Jagged Woods??”
“It would look like someone took the altar…. And then the cultists disappeared into the lake.”
“How can I talk to the temple about this??”
Arsten tells about the hat of the Poseidon priestess. “Yeah that’s the high priestess under the
sea. I think the current one is Emilia, something starting with an E. I didn’t mix a lot with the Sea
Folk, rumor is she’s Poseidon’s bastard daughter.”
(And Holly punched her unconscious….)
Green sunrise sky is a portal to the Faewild. Sir Aiden’s second wants to send someone there to
check.
We don’t think the Fae are collaborating with the Cultists of Baphomet. Perhaps they are
targeting the Faewilds??
He will send a dispatch to Whitehall. He thinks something’s not right on Mount Celestia (Mt.
Olympus).
“That would explain the tentacle monster in the sea. Big tall lady with tentacles beating the hell
out of a dragon turtle”
“I think I need a vacation. Morgana probably owns the chunk of the ocean by the coast now…”
“It’s probably good for the shipping industry… but the temple is going to go nuts when they find
out.”
“Tere were some legionaries attacking a local lord.”
“What happened in Ezzar recently?”
“Nothing good. Basically the governor took it in his head to arrest one of the powerful nobles,
Countess Nina Munchhausen. Big Raven on the green background. He tried to arrest her,
failed, people started yelling tyranny, Countess called in her feudal friends, they are now sieging
the governors castle from inside the city, half of the noble’s quarter was burnt down. SW part of
city is a warzone.”
“Charges of treason that were never proven, accusations of working with the cultists, something
about stealing necromantic artifacts, collaboration with the rebels in Luar.”
She essentially seemed ready for this… she probably knew the governor was out to get her? At
the moment she holds the city, within the week the Inquisitor will be arriving.”
Temple paladins could be helping her defend the city.
So: governor is under attack but we need to get in contact with the clergy of Dionysus. We could
send a message with a courier.
We ask about news from Guidbury, haven’t gotten word back from the paladins that were sent
that direction last, if we remember the whole horde of demonic beasts that was patrolling around
the underground temple? That lot has been spotted in that general direction… that’s why the
province’s peace guard is there. Unconfirmed reports of strange beasts hunting the
legionnaires, stealing their supply and horses.

We decide to head to Guidbury. There is also an altar to Dionysus there.

Holly sends a letter to her parents. She also visits the smith, an old man. He tests her
enchanted darts and offers to make her wolverine claws.
Tavin tries to negotiate the price down for her, and Holly tells him about how she killed cultists
for the darts. He gets freaked out and raises the price. Holly shows him the Carpa demon heart.
He ends up agreeing to make her the wolverine claws after some chat about design and colors
and send them to Nagrax (I think) if we don’t pick them up.
One of Arsten’s friends is located in Guidbury, a dragonborn hunter he had a crush on.
We buy some meat sticks for our future negotiations with hunting creatures.
Arsten puts on his new and better armor.
We head south. We get some horses from a tavern (4).
As we pass turnoff to Calmond we hear cawing of birds coming from an evergreen. Flutter of
black wings of crows.
Tavin is suspicious but we continue on. 15 minutes later we hear the fluttering of wings from
direction of Calmond. Big flock of crows.
Ferdinand urges the horses to gallop.
We realize there are four larger creatures flying behind them bedecked in discarded armor. 4
harpies.
Unusual that the harpies are far away from mountains like this.
We outrun the crows. We cross a bridge over a river and reach another tavern belonging to
imperial courier service.
Nice clean room with beds, window into rear courtyard, nice white sheets, goosedown feather
pillows. Warm mashed potatoes with chicken wings.
Ferdinand shares a room with the gnome merchant. Steven is delivering livestock to Calmond.
Wild geese for Edgar. Very strange. First time they’ve asked for wild geese.
We chat about transporting geese.
Kishara cleans Holly up with Prestidigitation. Holly is thankful and gives Kishara a hug. Kishara
flees. There is an altercation with some guards who come up to see what the commotion is
about.
Arsten takes a hot bath.
We are woken up by sounds of geese as their wagon is being driven out of the stables. Arsten
and Tavin are scared awake and briefly search for enemies.
We eat breakfast and continue onward toward Guidbury.
We reach Guidbury at 8 pm. Right before then we reach a fresh graveyard.
A dozen graves, smell of decay. Slight hint of sulfur. Patch of dried out trees right behind the
fresh graveyard.
Scattered chewed on pile of death hounds. Demon dogs. Several arrow holes inside them.
Clearly done by more than one person.
Graves have inscriptions. Culturally some of them are local, some of them are more northern,
mix of human and giant names. Ferdinand recognizes one or two family names. 12 graves.
Calmond had watchtowers, Guidbury is sprawling, lowbuilt, barely connected, no obvious
defenses. There are some barricades around central market square. In the main square there is
a small market, a small inn, tavern, merchant stalls are empty.
We enter the inn, no performers, piano seems to have moving keys on its own, some sort of fast
quiet melody. Worn down barkeeps serving locals sitting at the bar. Third of table are busy with
farmers and other local folks. Group dressed in armor with weapons, engaged in lively
discussion. Most of them are humans, some goliaths. In the back there is a blue dragonborn.
Arsten recognizes the dragonborn and essentially runs towards the table. He is super excited
his crest goes bananas. Tavin blessed him in the name of Dionysus.
“Shandra?!”
“Arsten? What are you doing here? This is my assignment.”
Arsten came here on a mission, but also they said that you guys might take some
reinforcements, kindly…
“Uh… is your troupe with you?”
“Yeah! They’re over there!”
We drag a table over there and join them. Shandra sighs.
Shandra introduces him to the rest of the knights. Shandra congratulates him on being a paladin
now. “No longer the little lookout kid then. Welcome to the big leagues.”
Arsten introduces us. “Did you call Holly a demon slayer?” She is impressed with Holly.
Xiandra and her group WinterWolves company, lead by Captain Morgan, Scourge of the North.
Foreign mercenaries. In town for a job, hired by external benefactor to protect unicorns that
recently moved into the forest.
“Damned dogs are still hunting our quarry, bunch of them tried to attack the village on the way”.
“Villagers were certainly thankful enough for it”.
Rumors of demon dogs coming from way further south than where we are.
Arsten describes a leader , similar to demon dogs, but larger.
Winterwolves have maps of area spread out.
We have nachos in Guidbury.
Xiandra and Captain Morgan show us the map and talk about monster tracks and where they
think the demon dogs are going next. Two kids disappeared playing out in forest…. Trying to
find them is the next priority for the group.
Part of woods are not passable, some sort of magic barrier that confuses you? Could be
unicorn?
We wonder whether the cultists are trying to repower by chasing magical kids again.
Ferdinand asks about the altar to Dionysus.
A couple of decades ago, infestation of giant rats in the wine cellars. Hired group of adventurers
take care of it, idiot escaped magic student came in and started throwing around spells. Only
thing preventing bloodbath was divine intervention. The adventurers had a cleric with them who
turned to their patron god, some sort of miracle happened, all of them came back out with giant
rat corpses, mage in chains. Cleric celebrated great victory convinced the rest of the party to
spend their reward money to build shrine to Dionysus in the basement.
Tavin and Captain Morgan toast to Dionysus.
Winterwolves have beef with the Black Standard. Bc black standard took job in calmond as
hired protection that Winterwolves wanted.