Tolman the Halfling returned from his scouting expedition in Rhackdalia and conveyed the bad news to the party. The party settled end, hearing distant booming drums and lamenting whines of instruments - a war dirge of the Wintergale Clan, echoing through the night.
That night, Elan the Ranger was wearing the ring of black ravens as a part of a science experiment (everyone had been trying on this ring). She did dream, and she dreamed that her feet were up to her ankles in a bog, and that she was lost and fearful. The swamp was all around her and dusk was descending. Far away in the distance, on the horizon with the setting sun, a cloud of black spots dotted the horizon - massive flocks (a "parliament") of ravens took to the skies. Something was coming ... she looked to her hands, and there was a thin silvery filament like a string. She tugged on it. Then she woke up.
During Tolman's watch, he received correspondence from Twyst:
Twyst says that she's taken residence in Shyn-Bhokerdown to await transport off of the island. She notes that the residence is paid through for the next two cycles and Tolman can get access to it if he wants; it's outside the main city and is safe there. He will have to bribe a local guard named Ghandia to receive the keys to the residence.
In the early morning of the 3rd of Bloom, Siegride could feel the seething anger and frustration from her deity and she sensed fear, paranoia, a threat.
The party awoke to the distant war horns blasting away to wake the armies and set them upon their tasks. Meanwhile, the party stirred and made way south towards Shyn-Bhokerdown and a possible way off of the island, making sure to avoid the major roads as Twyst had suggested. It was raining and uncomfortable. In their travels, they happened upon a caravan of 18 half-ogres with two worgs escorting 9 female human captives to Preen Pass. The party hung low and kept to the hills, watching the prisoners go by and took no action.
They descended from the hills and into the fens that border the city of Rhackdalia. It was a marshy climb. During the walk, the psuedo dragon, Dru, chatted with Ma'yah and communicated his backstory:
The pseudo dragon’s human “voice” and accent comes from his familiarity with the humans of Coastal Gaelwyn in the Erenlands. Dru spent much of his childhood - many hundreds of man years - growing up along the coastline in the forested regions, isolated from man. Man eventually came to the coast and established settlements. Dru didn’t approach man at first but eventually befriended the young. He appreciated the time that he had with those who’re young. The dreams, the adventures, the openheadedness. They seemed carefree and were pleasant company. When the young grew, though, man seemed to become preoccupied with the many facets of greed: greed of knowledge, money, possessions, magic. Greed became a central theme, one that would drive man to horrors and atrocities. Dru met a young woman who traveled to Pax Arcana. She was kind and brilliant, a wonder with a dagger and very skilled at the magical arts. She named me and called me Dru, and considered me a part of her family; their name was Thayne. We spent many wonderful, amazing years together. As the young woman grew older and became a teacher at Pax Arcana, she grew guilty. Admittedly, I was stricken with a wanderlust - spending decades of time in Pax Arcana wears on you. She passed along her familiar to a promising student: Naphid Kazeezee of Agamadar. Naphid wouldn’t have been Dru’s first choice as a companion but he felt obligated to Vanessa Thayne to see it through (the young woman). Naphid was power-hungry, a leach and a cheat; when he found the Eye of Kesh, he most certainly became mad. His journey for power lead him to Mines, or rather, he was encouraged to go there by some others - superiors.
During their talk, Dru encouraged Ma'yah to destroy the Eye, to throw it in a swamp, into a chasm, into the sea. Get rid of it, for her own sake. Ma'yah said that she would do so after she learned the Fly spell from her newly acquired spellbooks. "Promise?", Dru pressed. Ma'yah said that she promised. The pseudo dragon smiled.
Gorbash is looking mighty dwarvish. Like, rounder belly, fuller beard, and he wears his fancy new belt all of the time. He even holds an empty pipe for smoking. He gets along smashingly with Vongur and they chit-chat incessantly now about dwarf-things.
Tamroohk was noticing the life in all things and the interconnectedness of life in the soil, the rocks, the plants, and its permanence, even in the face of death and war.
Later in the evening, the party set up camp in the fens south of the City of Rhackdalia. They were reasonably safe although Elan found tracks of hunting parties of worgs and half-ogres about. They hunted, found snakes and nutria, cooked them, and made dinner.
Four refuges wandered into the camp seeking food and shelter. Two men, Bhakar and Louis, who were the property of a woman, Larissa, Daughter of Amandha, and Larissa's 11 year old son, Nakin. They were penniless and unarmed, famished, and looking for help. The party assisted, fed them, and encouraged them to come along on the journey to Shyn-Bhokerdown where they could be escorted to safety. Larissa said that she had planned on returning to Rhackdalia, but the party encouraged her not to as the place was under siege.
Larissa (who was the brains of this operation, apparently) had heard rumors of refugees fleeing to Shyn-Mherisan, the Dreaming City. She also said that they'd been in the fens for nearly 2 cycles now, waiting to return to Rhackdalia. She also said that Shyn-Foulweather's Magistrate had been murdered and was in complete chaos, and to not go there.
Meanwhile, Ma'yah fiddled with the Eye of Kesh, bringing it closer to her face, looking through it. She thought she could hold it close enough to see the forest around her in darkvision, seeing like the dwarves do. And as she intellectually knew that the device was undergoing an activation and she felt it heat up in her hands, she failed a Wisdom saving throw and brought it close to her forehead. It singed her there - burned her - just as Llew ran up and tried to shake the orb from her hand! It immediately bounced out into the darkness.
Screaming, Ma'yah went obsessively after it, clamoring through the soil and grass, trying to find the orb. Telepathically, Dru asked, "Why not just leave it?" The pseudo dragon tried to convince Ma'yah to leave it lost. Stop looking for it. But she couldn't. Eventually, she found it again, and the pseudo dragon looked on in skeptical sadness.
Otherwise, the night went by uneventfully. In the distance, they could hear the beating of the war drums and whale of the lamenting dirge. Nobody else experienced any bad dreams. Meanwhile, Tolman received another message from Twyst in the diary of correspondence:
Twyst says that the fish in Shyn-Bhokerdown (it’s a type of banded rudderfish they call a krooper around here) tastes like salty shit on salty crackers that had been soaking in a vat of salt water before being served with a handful of salt. It’s the most hideous thing.
In the morning, the party woke early and made it to Lightwood Forest. There, the ground firmed up and there was more game to hunt. However, there was also signs of war: four refugee human males were strung up, their wrists nailed to trees, their bodies skinned and left to bleed out. Their meat was harvested. Sheer cruelty. Siegride and Tamroohk lowered the bodies and constructed shallow graves, performed some last rites, and the party pressed on.
At camp, the party set up rounds for watches. During a later watch with Elan and Gorbash, Vongur - apparently inspired by the recent atrocity - told a story:
“You know, the Dwarves aren’t the only race that lives high in the Spine. Southeast of Pax Krull, in a range called Caster’s Peaks. Around there, clans of Hobgoblins toil and make their livin’ terrorizing the nomads of Tarkesh … those are wandering men of the mountains and hills. The hobgoblins are spiteful, angry, cruel creatures. We Dwarves have been fighten’ them off of our mountains for generations. Anyway, one day while walkin’ about Caster’s Peaks (I was on an errand of mercy, helpin’ to deliver needed medicinals to a snow-packed region where a nomadic tribe found themselves but their scouts couldn’t transverse, so they begged me .. pleaded with me … to take their herbs and oils and ointments out there to their men-folk) … oh, well, anyway, listen: those hobby’s had taken the men and strung ‘em up, just like those human men we saw on the trees! They were bleedin’ them out. But what was worse was this: they were tellin’ them all kinds of stories, demoralizing them, tellin’ them that they were going to raid their camps and gut their children and women, so that the last dying thoughts they had were of those terrible images. Those hobby’s - they were playin’ with the men’s minds! Torturing them, sure, but from within, you see? Making them squirm under their fiction. Their imagination made up on the most terrible of fates for the ones they loved. That was worse than any cut, any burn, they could ever do to their bodies. So when I came across ‘em, and I saw what those Hobby’s were doin’ to ‘em, I went into a furious battle-rage! I crippled their legs with my crossbow; then I crushed their feet and hobbled their ankles with my hammer; then I severed their forearms with my battle axe; but I kep’em alive. Yup. I bandaged up their arms with turnicuts. And they were unable to walk. They had to .. crawl, and I suspect, could only pick things up with their mouth and tongues. You ever crawled down from a mountainside, son? You ever tried to eat the soil, the rocks, the worms? Just to stay alive? Heh heh - Those Hobgoblins had what was comin’ to ‘em. And I saved four of em, I did. Brought them with me to tribe. They threw me a big dinner. I … oh. Anyway.”
After that, the consensus in the party was that Vongur was an evil dwarf lord who had been trapped in this amulet and it's up to the party to make sure he never escapes. Anyway ...
Elan and Gorbash were so moved by the story that they rolled terrible Perception checks, allowing 4 Worgs to creep up on the camp for a surprise attack! The rest of the party was called-to-arms, and everyone was unarmored!
The 4 Worg Team was incredibly vicious scoring multiple crits against the party. They were rolling pretty well throughout the melee. Worgs are intelligent creatures and were conversing amongst each other, shouting observations to approaching group of half-ogres, and taunting the party.
After the surprise, on the 1st round, Dru the pseudo dragon stepped back into the shadows, away from Ma'yah, and his scales turned black as to camouflage himself. Ma'yah first thought he was fleeing the scene and left her again. Just then, he reappered on one of the Worgs, and attempted to stab the Worg with his stinger tail! Unfortunately, Dru rolled a 1 and missed the attempt. Meanwhile, the Worg screamed at an approaching half-ogre taking up the rear, to get this thing off of his back. The half-ogre attacked Dru and Dru look life-ending damage, and his bloody little body fell to the ground.
Meanwhile, the party fought on. Also on the first round, a half-ogre started blowing a horn to attract attention to their findings ... quickly, that horn-blowing half-ogre was dispatched, and Tolman picked up the horn and ran with it into the woods (dragging it really as the horn was nearly as big as Tolman!) and he would stop to blow it as to provide a distraction and look as if the hunting party was giving chase.
It took five rounds to dispatch their assailants and there was a lot of blood lost inbetween. The Worgs munched on the refugees that the party had taken in and reduced them to zero HP. Siegride was reduced to 0 HP once, and others were very close. Eventually though, they made it through.
Still, Dru's body laid un-aided for four rounds. Ma'yah went to the pseudo dragon and found his still body ... dead. Gone was Dru Thayne: the brave little dragon who liked to listen to the dreams of small children. Sadness.
And that's where we left off, on the night of the 4th of Bloom, Rose: 47!
R
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