A Journal Bearing the Adventures of Pathfinders

Arastus 26th 4713



Draxthious

So yeah.  This happened.  

You know that study group I belonged to?  The one where instead of wanting my input, Blondie invited me just so I could make snacks for them?  Well, turns out all of us; Churchy, Rocky, Blondie, Brainy, and I were all invited to a wonderful little dive called the “Pigs Haunch”.  Rough place full of hard drinkers, weak alcohol, and morally scrupulous people.  I kind of like it.

Surprised as we were to find out we all had been invited (seriously, little cards mysteriously placed among our stuff?  Who does that anymore?) it was an even bigger surprise to find out that it was Kreighton Shane the Master of Scrolls himself who had called us.  The biggest surprise however was that instead of waiting for the next few months our initiation was going to be happening, well, now!  Something about promising recruits and opening new chapters and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention at that point in time.

Master Shane introduced us to an interesting little gal, one Janira Gavix.  She is, as it turns out, a recently inducted Pathfinder and she will be our guide for this trip as well as evaluating us on how well we do.  Remember friends, the three duties of the Pathfinder: Explore, Report, Cooperate.  Our task?  To explore and map some recently found inland caves.  What makes these caves interesting you ask?  Twice Ms Janira has noticed a Gillman entering the caves.  Yup, a Gillman.  Ok, I’m not sure exactly what a gillman is however I am sure it should be a water dwelling creature, not one that habituates in an inland cave.  The more peculiar thing?  Both times it was seen was on a full moon.  Guess what’s happening tomorrow night?  If you said “a full moon” then you win the prize.  There is no prize, I lied.

These caves are at the base of the Cortes Mountains, about a two day travel by foot (thankfully, horses still don’t trust me).  We should be arriving around sundown and are expected to start searching immediately.  An arbitrary condition probably meant to throw us off rhythm but what can you do.  These particular mountains however are in contestion between three interesting factions.  The centaurs control the lower lands surrounding the mountains (if horses don’t like me what will these guy do?).  These lands are apparently mostly forested regions and low plains.  Next we have the oh so friendly minataurs.  Seriously has there ever been a story about a friendly minataur?  These beasts control the middle ground, the rocky ledges and what not.  Last, certainly not least, are the peaks which are controlled by harpies.  So, I’m forced into agreement with Ms. Janira here, let’s hope we don’t run into any of the locals.

Our job here, our mission as it were, oh let’s be honest, our test, is to work together while exploring these caves, mapping them.  Find the gillman or presence of a or many gillmen.  Discover, if any, the significance of the caves.  No exact time limit is given, however I have a feeling if we take too long points will be deducted.  Ms. Janira states that her initiation lasted a couple months so it’s anyone’s guess how long “too long” is.

Before we started our journey our merry band of adventures split up and went to gather supplies.  Colin grabbed my travel bag from our room for me while I made arrangements for food stuffs.  Just because we’re roughing it doesn’t mean we have to eat poorly.

Time passes as it often does.  The end of the first day finds us camping at the base of the mountains.  It was a long and boring trip.  We saw nothing interesting, we did nothing interesting.  I have a tendancy to tell people I don’t want any more adventure, I’ve had enough.  By now I’m sure most people see right through me.  Give me something to do.  

The night was also boring.  Though I did get to cook breakfast.  

The next day however saw us entering a forest with trees so big around I couldn’t hug them and have my hands touch.  Big suckers too.  That however, wasn’t the most interesting thing.  Two wolves actually decided to ambush us.  Seriously, a party of five people and two wolves thought they would bring us down?

Elle and I took down one (her bombs are handy, not as elegant as my flame but powerful non the less).  The others took down the second one.  Ms. Janira did not take part in the actual combat however when Colin got hurt she attempted to heal him with a wand.  Turns out that Churchy is more like his father than he let us know.  The healing had the opposite effect, dropping the guy to his knees in pain.  Sorry Churchy, I hate to see you getting hurt but you should have told us.  Unless he didn’t know?  I’ll have to..no wait, he said he did know.   Yup, no one’s fault but your own.

Have you ever heard a minataur’s attack roar?  It’s down right intimidating and scary.  We had finally cleared the forest and the cave was in sight.  It was behind some vines but fairly easy to spot when Ms. Janira pointed it out to us.  Some (thankfully) large rocks dotted the landscape.  It was as we were approaching these rocks that we heard the roar.  Ms. Janira and I had the same thought and indeed ordered everyone to hide behind the rocks at the same time.  The beast stepped out from the treeline and by father’s dark blood this thing was huge.  

Ms. Janira, brave little halfling, gave us her pack and this final instruction.  Finish our job.  She then cast some spells and drew the creatures attention and sped off, faster than her little legs should have been able to carry her.  The beast followed.

Once clear the five of us entered the cave.  It was a tight fit at first, especially for Rocky.  Still we managed to make it in and after about twenty feet or so the passegway opened up to about ten feet wide.  Thirty feet after that it started to descend.  Five hundred and fifty feet after that! we noticed some strange glowing blue/green ish fungus on the walls.  Don’t ask, we found out it’s not edible.  All throughout our journey Penny and Elle were mapping while I was making chalk marks on the walls so as to help us not get lost.

We noticed two things as we were moving through.  Elle found some tracks that appeared to be webbed feet.  They were heading deeper into the cave.  The second thing?  The fungus started to take on shapes and patterns.  A closer inspection showed spirals and pentographs depicting marine animals.  It was impossible to accurately date them speculating their age about two to three hundred years.  Religious in nature?

Continuing on the path narrowed again and started twisting and turning.  After about a hundred or so feet we discovered, as the sides widened again, what appeared to be a ten by ten foot pit.  Closer inspection from the safety of the sides showed remains of a trap and a bundle of clothes in the bottom.

Colin climbs down like a spider monkey with a rope and investigates.  It was an amazing find, spectacular even.  It was (dramatic pause) normal clothes.  Colin seemed to like them however so I guess he gets a souvenir.

While Churchy was doing this Rocky was looking at the contents of Ms. Janira’s pack.  With the sisters help.  They were apparently inventorying it.

Once this was all done, and with much maneuvering and rope use, the five of us managed to cross the pit.  Of course a little ways past it we found a twelve foot long plank.  We moved it to where we could use it easily if we have to pass this way again in a hurry.

After continuing on for some way (still one path, seriously.  I’m kinda feeling foolish for using chalk to mark the ONLY way to go) the path opens to a large cavern.  All throughout the place on the walls, were these old weathered reliefs.

Turns out they were reliefs for Araton the now dead and or missing god that the bitch replaced.  It took some doing but a number of us were able to decipher some of them.

The one I was able to understand seemed to be “The Artist drawing murals on walls of impressive buildings”.  Turns out it was a passage from “History and Future of Humanity” which, as we all know (I didn’t) is the principal book of Araton.

Blondie was able to decipher one that showed “The Craftsman making shoes and pots and other movable goods.”  Much like the Artist I found, Craftsman is a guise or form of Araton.

Colin finds “The Farmer plowing four lanes in a field”.  Guess who the Farmer is.  

Brainy finds one that is interesting though, “A Tailor sewing a long cloth with many patterns wrapped around a city.”  The interesting thing?  It is apparently like a prophecy of Araton’s “When the fate of all peoples are woven together that will be humanity’s greatest strength.”

Unfortunately the rest of the murals were too weathered to make out.  Our best guesses at age make them probably over fourty seven hundred years old.

A neat fact about that?  Other than the worked reliefs, these are natural caves, not worked or made by hand.  Spooky.

After a couple hours searching this side of the cavern we moved on, crossing a large wooden bridge that spanned over a yawning chasm.  (I’ve always wanted to say “yawning chasm”)  Along the bridge were torches that held blue flame.  Pretty.

Crossing the bridge we found ourselves in the back half of this large cavern.  A tunnel to our left and right (East and West respectfully) exited the place.  In the back of the cavern was a large pool of water.  In the water stood a stalagmite with it’s top half shaved off.  On that was a model of Absolam covered in trinkets and knick knacks.

Also in the pool.  A gillman.  A quiet and not very forthcoming gillman.  Elle mostly, but to a lesser extent Penny and Colin attempted to communicate with the guy.  Apparent guy.   Not sure if this guy is deaf or just strange.  He appears to understand us by reading our lips.  Since Blondie spoke first she seems to be the one he focuses on the most.  He’s a quiet guy, doesn’t live here, doesn’t answer a lot of personal questions.  He visits, won’t answer about the moon or the cavern only stating that this time he’s been here a short time and has seen no one else.

While this is going on Brainy and Churchy study the model of Absolam.  It’s an older model, covered with trinkets and coins and such.  Some of these coins are worth probably two to three times more than today’s version.  Speculation is that they are probably very old.  A type of rock near the shore (is it still a shore if it’s a small underground pool?) were probably used to make a pigment that was used on some of the buildings in the model.  There are no apparent patterns to the layout of the colored buildings in relation to the city or each other.

Two hours later ( if you’re going to search do it right, take your time) revealed nothing in the center around the pool or to the west side.  The east side however had a partial boot print.  Unfortunately no matter how long we looked at it we couldn’t tell how long it had been there.  So we followed that path, seeming as it was the most interesting.  The tunnel turned south for a short ways before turning back east and opening up to a room or two.  

Elle, leading our little group since she is fairly knowledgeable about the makings and markings of traps, was the first to find the two skeletons.  As she was attempting to get her bombs out they attacked.  Quick for having no muscles.  It manages a claw or hand or boney thing into Elle who wisely retreates for now, moving behind us.  Colin reaches out and smashes one as two more making four in total fill the room.  The second one attempts to to hit me but misses so I do what I always do.  I lit it on fire and watched it turn to ash.  Rocky hid behind an outcropping in the wall, not out of fear but to hopefully ambush another skeleton as it moved to attack probably me.  The other two never got the chance as Elle finally managed to get her bomb out and used it to great effect.  The blast radius took out the last two.

A quick search of the room revealed a potion, a pearl, and a body.  We stowed away the potion and pearl.  The body was too old and decayed and ew, gnawed on to gain any information on.  While searching Elle finds a trapdoor in the north east corner of the room.  There is a passageway leading down.  Not finding any traps, we head out.

The path leads down ten feet or so before turning south and entering a small maze.  A maze.  Finally my marking the walls with chalk won’t be in vain. We are able to win through the maze (my wall markings) and continue on the path.

It is now that all of us are taken by surprise by Ms. Janira’s voice coming from somewhere up ahead, “As Gregora Voth successefully battled the wild beasts of the Mongwai expanse, so to shall I defeat you servent of Lamashtu”  Needless to say we hurried to help.

That hurry almost cost us though.  Completely blocking the passage was a nearly clear gelatinous cube, a living trap.  Not tough but not weak either.  However in this fight we discovered the dangers of throwing bombs.  Elle’s bomb blast radius hit Colin who had charged ahead to confront the creature.  After that mishap we continued on, hurrying to where we heard the screaming from.

Arodus 28th 4713

The oaths of our halfing guide drew us to a dire scene.  We came upon our expedition leader in the midst of a facing down a minotaur many times larger than herself.  Her bravery counted for nothing, however, as she was struck down by it's axe before we could provide any aid.  We tried to draw attention to ourselves to make the beast forget about finishing Janira off- with various taunts and Colin twirling his cape- and it did draw his attention away from the fallen halfling.  

A creek separated us from the raging beast, which gave us the advantage of a natural obstacle, as the minotaur was wielding an axe, and we had multiple weapons that could reach it from where we were.   This advantage was immediately surrendered as Draxious leapt across the creek- only to take a direct, near decapitating blow from the now-charging minotaur.    Colin tried to leap the stream to aid him, but his ungainly attempt to follow Draxious left him submerged-and maybe drowning.  Penny and Elle tried a safer and slower route-across a fallen log- to reach the fight and our fallen guide.  I judged my chances at leaping the stream as little better than Colin's, so I chose to sling stones at the beast to provide as much help to Draxious as I could, given that he was now facing it down alone.
Penny went to the aid of Janira, who yet lived, while Elle went to help Draxious with the minotaur.  After being hit with a bomb, a bullet, and set on fire, the creature ran into the wild, bringing us a victory of sorts.  Janira was impressed with our efforts and encouraged us to return to the cave to complete our mission, while she remained outside to keep mobile in case other minotaurs showed up- this was the second one she had met.

We returned to the cavern where the Gillman still lurked in the water, stoic and as unhelpful as before.  Moving on with our mission, we took the unexplored west tunnel.  We ran into our first trap at that point- a dart came out of nowhere, but it went wide.  We found the makers of the trap quickly- two short reptilian creatures.  They dropped their slings when we approached and one was able to stab Elle with a spear, but a few angry words from Colin had them running.  The man, though ungainly, can exude threat.  With the creatures gone, we were able to finish searching and mapping this part of the caves.

This left the Gillman's pool as one of the last areas to be examined.  Penny tried to negotiate with it without success for some time- he would not permit us in, claiming it was sacred.  I proposed that we may have to use force to accomplish our mission, but and this seemed to alarm Penny and spur her to greater oratorical heights.  With a bribe of the shirt that Colin had found in the pit, he finally agreed to let us look in the pool, provided we cleansed ourselves first.  After washing off the blood, Colin and I searched the pool.  We found a set of pearls inlaid on the pool floor, which he believed accounted for the purity of the pool water.  We also got a closer look at the painted sculpture of the city, which we thought was from an earlier time in the city's history.  
Rova 1 4713

Having completed our mission, we exited the cavern and met up with Janira.  The trek back to the city was uneventful, and our debriefing was scheduled the morning after our return.  Janira and Kreighton Shane convened us in the library for our briefing.  I still find his casual familiarity and coddling of recruits to be off putting…nothing like the discipline and distance Marcos Farabellus maintains during training.  Almost by unspoken consent, we looked to Penny to provide our briefing, and she did so fully, accurately, and breathlessly.  I hope that Shane considers her enthusiasm a quality of our group as a whole, even though not all of us are so demonstrative.  

After Penny finished relaying our findings and maps, Shane seemed quite satisfied with the report and told us we would have the decision regarding our Pathfinder agent status within three days. After selling a magical pearl we had found in the caves and splitting the what we received,  Draxious proposed we celebrate our impending graduation with an evening at "the Saucy Wench" a bar the he apparently has frequented and in the past and vouched for.  I half expected we might be in line for a dustup, but apparently this bar was a favorite of the watch, and little patron on patron violence occurred there.  Indeed, we had the opportunity for….group bonding…..  For once talk was not fully dedicated to the events of the day or the latest gossip, but upon the past and future.  The sisters were puzzling…one imbibed far more than a girl of her stature had a right to (and it showed) while the other completely abstained from the mead.  After listening to nonsense regarding the mating habits of fruit, I began to long for the solitude of my room.  Penny was apparently of a similar mind, as she wished to return to her library.  Draxious escorted her back, and the occasionally broken silence between Colin and myself ensured that we left not too long after the others.

I did receive the invitation I had been hoping for.  The personal missive from Zadrian was inspiring, and I hope it provides the meaning to my existence that I have been lacking for so many years.  It seems the others have been invited to other various factions and cliques within the society as well.  I very much hope that the varied allegiances do not put us at crossroads to one another.  I find this group to be highly effective, with complementary skills and compatible temperaments.  It would be disappointing to have that cohesion be shattered. Of course, our fate as a group is up to the Society to begin with.    I hope they see the value in keeping a team like this intact.  
We scheduled a return to the Saucy Wench the next day.  Apparently Draxious now works there?  The food is quite good, and tastes even better with his discount.

Rova 1st, 4713

Well, I'm in... the newest member of the Silver Crusade.  I think I owe Kashif twenty gold. I didn't think I'd fit in there, and he believed I had what it takes. Reading the letter I found hidden amongst my things makes me wonder if we were both right. It was from Ollystra Zadrian herself, retired paladin and founder of the Crusade herself. It seems she wasn't very certain of me, but with some persuasion from 'a few trusted advisers,' I'm in. However she doesn't care for my methods and it feels very... probationary. I'm not sure if Kashif was a personal adviser or not... if so, I may balk at paying the bet.

Regardless, I'll not let this preemptive scolding dampen my spirits, since the first line of the letter was 'Congratulations on your successful confirmation'. Considering I was still waiting the three days to find out if we'd passed or not... this is cause for celebration. At least personally. It is a secret society after all.

That was a bigger surprise of the night. It seems that Penny was snatched up by the Grand Lodge society. Frankly that doesn't surprise me at all, I suspect it will be a good fit for her. The others also seemed to have been recruited, though they are less inclined to admit to which society. Myself, I didn't even confirm that much. I suspect that will be my own personal status quo. 1) Secret Societies should be secret. As I haven't even gotten my Wayfinder yet, I see no reason to annoy my sponsors already.... and 2) While Lady Ollystra may have use for me, and I may have use for them, it doesn't sound like I want my name or my actions to ever lead back or impugn their good names. I'm not in this for the fame or bard tales... I don't need celebrity. I need allies. Their missions will undoubtedly be good deeds... and I'll see that they are done, but I make not guarantees about methods... Ideally everything will be fine. Regardless, the others were a little less discrete with their joy than I expected.

Now I will be wondering who is where....

Rova 2nd, 4716

And now I have my wayfinder. We have all been confirmed and are full fledged pathfinders. It feels good knowing that the last three years weren't a waste of time, and the prize is now in my hands. More important than the Wayfinder and the prestige... is advanced access to the library, and the free time to use it.

Finally!!!

Lamashan 2nd.

Well, that month went by in a flurry of late night reading and working the forges. When I'm not making a weapon, I'm here.The pathfinder Lodge has an extensive section on the histories of undead... but so far my pursuits have been futile. I've seen Penny and Drax around the library on various subjects, but there hasn't been much overlap.

I received another letter today. I'll admit I was a bit surprised by the date, perhaps I should come out into the fresh air a bit more. I personally found it a little insulting. We have a mission that I am not particularly pleased with. The letter insinuates that we are idle and need to get to work.. I do NOT consider myself to have been 'idle'. Worst yet... it's not even a REAL mission.  

Apparently they have turned the Red Redoubt into an obstacle course for new pathfinders. A place loaded with traps and a little prize at the end and probably a pat on the back... In other words, a waste of time.

I had never heard of the place, but apparently it has a bit of history. Penny, Pyraxis and I hit the library, while Elle and Drax started asking around town.  

Apparently, Karamoss was a Numerian mage; a 'machine mage' who constructed the Red Redoubt in a failed attempt to conquer the unconquered city... Numeria is interesting at least... More machine then magic if that makes any sense. He himself was mentioned to be part machine...

An interesting premise to be sure, however, any interest was immediately drained when our instructions point out that only a part of the castle was previously cleared and we were not to wander past any doors marked with a danger glyph. 3 red dots inside a triangle. So even the possibility of learning something new seems out.

Which, brings us back to this being nothing more then a game. Hopefully it won't take too long. The others however seemed to be fairly excited about this mission... real or otherwise.

The breach into the Redoubt was a large hole with ropes pitoned in place make the climb down easy. The room we ended in was made entirely of a reddish metal not so much rusty red.. as different. There were five doors leading out, with four of them marked 'danger'. making our decision childishly easy.

Elle searched for traps, and didn't find any, but there was a large puddle of red dye and multiple footprints around... indicating there was once a trap here.

The door was activated with a push button, and when it was pushed, the door slid UPWARDs. it only stayed open for a short time before slamming shut, and I tried it a few times to get the timing down right.

Elle and I took the lead as she has a special gift for spotting traps. Although not perfect. We approached an intersection with white X drawn on the ground. Just before two wicker walls full of pink dye slammed into me and Elle and ALMOST Pyraxis, but the big guy is a bit more quick on his feet then I would have given credit for. Elle and I were drenched in pink.

Not only was it a foolish game... it was one I had now essentially lost. Perhaps I wasn't giving it the amount of attention I should have, but if it had been a real danger, it would have ended badly for us.

The next room we came to had 3 chest full of shells, bricks and flint and a merchant scale. with a conch shell balanced against 'nothing'. Along with these There were a set of 'magic lips that spouted out a poem, obviously a test of some sort. Something indicating a key and a blade.

Once again, this test seemed to already be solved, and the key had opened the door. No blade was found.

We continued on, and came across something that changed the tone of everything. Drax had suspected from the ambiguous wording of the letter, that there may be pathfinders lost down here. As the traps weren't all properly set, it was a possibility. Following the path, we came across another white X, but this trap had apparently killed someone. A half-orc had been bashed on the head by a hammer wrapped in padding. I searched him for identification, while Elle examined his wounds.

The trap was not what had killed him. He had many other slashing wounds about him, which brought to my mind the missing blade from the other room. What I had discovered on the other hand, was that he had no wayfinder. he did have a mithral dagger that was quite valuable, however no wayfinder. So either he wasn't fully looted, or wasn't a pathfinder. Penny identified him through a mark as a Blood-Red Raider, a bandit group of some reknown.  However, it did meant that this game had gotten serious.

It didn't take us much farther before we entered a large room with a tiny chest against a wall. More interestingly, there were three bodies that had been hacked to bits, and some kind of construct over them trapped in a tanglefoot bag.

Elle was able to identify it not just as a construct, but a 'robot'. Not a term i'm familiar with, but apparently very big in Numeria. What followed was a fairly vicious battle and we almost lost Pyraxis, though not before he ripped off it's sword arm. Thankfully Penny was quick with Janira's wand. Elle's bombs did the most damage, though Pyraxis and I got a few good shots in. Unfortunately it was immune to fire, leaving Drax out in the cold.

The bodies were also members of the same bandit group as the half-orc. The chest contained a note containing congratulations, and instructions to return the amulet to prove we'd beaten the test. However there was no amulet.

I was... displeased. Four people had died down here because of this game, Pyraxis was too close for comfort. For NOTHING. I was willing to let it go at that and get my group out safely, but the others wanted to keep going into the lighted area where the wall had slid down. Hopefully to catch the villains.

Very well.

Just passed the wall, was  a circular room containing multiple more of these robot things, all inert. Next room up, there were some metallic beds, and a man and woman waiting in ambush. Or possibly fear. They were tough reads.

The man who we found was named Meleren and the woman Shakira and I did not get off on a good footing. I threatened them... they threatened me... We had them outnumbered... they obviously had some experience and nothing left to lose... I felt I was making progress, but Penny and Elle were not pleased with my exchange.

They claimed the amulet I demanded of them was simple tin, yet they earned it. I called them trespassers and thieves. I was willing to let them leave... but not with that amulet. I made a very persuasive argument I thought.

The girls however are much more diplomatic then I am. Much more tender-hearted too. Drax also pled for the way of peace, even offering himself as a hostage to disarm the hostilities... Elle promised to heal some of their wounds and pay them money for the prize... while Drax let himself be bound with a knife to his throat. Elle I felt was being reckless. Drax was just being stupid. We were dangerously low on healing, and I didn't want it wasted on bandits. I've traveled too many miles to  have anything but disdain for bandits. They may not be undead... but they are monsters who prey on the helpless just the same. In hindsight this may have been what Ollystra had meant by redeeming evil.

However, I had completely lost control at this point. We were on the edge, and with Drax in their clutches, I didn't see a way to stop them AND save him. It was best if I was just quiet for a moment, and ready to retaliate if things went badly.

I retook the mithral dagger from Pyraxis. I had a sinking suspicion that if they desired a souvenir so much, the dagger would work as well as the tin amulet. Which would have been a horrible trade on our part. But for the group, I was prepared.

It didn't seem necessary though. Elle gave them 5 gold and a healing potion for Shakira and they were much more amiable. They were still scared of the dungeon as they had lost all their allies, and wished us to walk them out. On the way to the entrance, the other chatted politely and even tried recruiting them into the Lodge... But it seems banditing from the innocent and helpless was too profitable. My words, not theirs, though the meaning was the same. I refrained from crushing their skulls. We parted well enough.

Having received the amulet, I was prepared to return to the lodge. We had completed the task before us, and were expressly forbidden from going past the 'danger' glyphs marking 'unexplored' areas. Pyraxis insisted that there was no glyph here and the 'spirit of the pathfinders' insisted we look around.

I see it as a loop hole at best. There was no glyph, but there was no door either. Had there been one, the door with the killer robot would have been surely glyphed.  What's really important is what the Venture-Captain thought. Whether we dismiss his instructions or the 'pathfinder spirit'... That could go either way. Which will he more upset about?

The next room was huge. An octagonal room with a table and plinth in the center, surrounded by buttons and levers of bronze. And flaming skeletons. Nothing I've ever seen before, they were both burning and electrical, and when they hit they did both kind of damage. Drax did well against them as now HE was immune to the attacks. Which is good since they charged and surrounded him. His nature served him well.

I however was not immune. Elle dropped three and I crushed the fourth. Drax seems sure there is someone else here acting against us. Someone opening walls and releasing the robots and monsters... I'm not as sure. I've known places to just be dangerous on there own. Still, I have no issue with erring on the side of caution. I'd rather expect an enemy and not find one then the other way around.

As we searched the area around.. the whole place started shuddering violently with bells ringing noisily. A sign seemed to light up with the notice.

WARNING

Deployment Carousel halted between positions.
Carousel must be realigned to access exit from security sublevel
Manual realignment systems: Offline
Holographic Controls: functional
Holographic interface apparatus not detected in vicinity

Holographic interface apparatus Last logged in monitor room to access atmosphere controls for atmospheric nullification.

I can't count on one hand the words  I do not recognize there. I suspect it is some kind of cypher... perhaps a letter substitution.

(Entry coming... sometime...)

-the delinquent journalist

10-16-4713

So we as we were approaching Lady Darkana’s Major Domo we decided to discuss how best to question them about the incident.  Slavers being what they are I suggested putting the fear of fire into them.  Seriously I’d be great at it.  However that idea was placed on the “back burner” (pun intended I’m sure) in favor of being “tactful.”

We decide to hold off on asking about the scrying itself and instead focus on the slave.  Who was she, where was she from, and was it known that she was Lady Silvania Demora’s servant.  I’ll use the word servant, sounds better than “slave” even if that is what she is.

It takes us about an hour to move through the Ascended Court which is the mid eastern part of the city near the outer area.  It was about noon by the time we found the place.  Or should I say palace.  Eight foot field stone walls surround the mansion.  More blooming flowers and plants than I could count cover the lands.  A lion fountain greets us from his pond in the front of the building.  More money than necessary and still they feel the need for slaves.  I will never understand people.

A nameless servant greets us at the door and Miss Penny requests to speak with the Major Domo.  The servant (not calling them slaves) ushers us into a lavish parlor filled with over stuffed couches and chairs the color of a bright cloudless sky.  

After a few minutes of resting in lavish luxury, we are approached by a stern looking and all too tall woman who introduces herself as (honestly, I wasn’t paying attention, so we’ll just call her MD for Major Domo.)

This lady is brash and abrupt with us, ready to dismiss us immediately until someone mentions Lady Darkana’s name.  Then she was all to ready to help, proving once again that it’s not what you know but who.  Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

As our resident “people person” (I have a tendency to make people uneasy, Colin intimidates them even without trying, Rocky is a huge rock guy, and Elle is….Elle) we let Penny do the talking.  

Without going into too much detail on the conversation itself;

The slave’s name is Atleg, she is a young female with black hair and dusky skin,
She’s been with this house for about three weeks,
She was acquired by a solicitor named Silvics Salvatus,
SS gets them from a trader named Majub Mahdi who owns a buisness in Misery Row named “Mahdi’s Chattel” (side note, burn that building.)

Elle now speaks up, talking to Atleg (who is very proper to everyone who addresses her) and Atleg states she was only with Mahdi for about a week before being selected for service. (Sounds better than “bought”)  She originally was from Sudak (way to the south) where she became indebted after her buisiness failed.  She was trying to be a chef.  Honestly I think the gods are taunting me these days.  Anyway, she says she’s only been here (Absolam) about a month.  She denies any contact with anyone other than the slavers and the household here.  

A side note, Atleg seems to be upset that she is being questioned.

Lady Sivalinia told Atleg about the scrying sensor.  

After the party in question they have had Atleg sequestered.  Cause that’s fair, punish someone for something beyond their control.  Have I mentioned I hate these people?

Clarified by the MD, all clothing and accouterments are brand new the night of the party. Besides the scrying incident there was nothing else unusual about the night.  MD also requests to be kept appraised of the situation should we learn anything.  If I have my say, she will learn nothing and like it.

Since the solicitor is on the way to the future charred business we decide to stop there first.  Salvatos is a proper looking middle aged man with no outstanding features.  His shop however….It’s on the ground floor of a two story building in the Coins district and features prominately displayed the “Red Letter” symbol of Asmodeaus.  Slaves and demon gods.  I swear the so called divine figures are laughing at me.

Salvatos, barely looking up from his legal documents, brushes us aside with some jargon about “legal matters” and refuses to answer our questions.  At least until Penny mentions Lady Darkana’s name.  Then he’s all too happy to talk to us.  You can’t hear it on paper but I’m sighing dramatically.

Long story somewhat shorter, he simply chose Atleg because she looked “exotic” and “had spirit.”  That’s it.  I swear this trip here was only to taunt me with Asmodeaus’ symbol.  Moving on.

So we head to Misery Row, and aptly named place.  Once again I’m reminded to be “civil.”

So as we look for Mahdi’s Chattel we pass elevated row after elevated row of slaves.  Slaves everywhere.  Perhaps I did need (and still do) need that reminder about being civil.

We approach the place we’re looking for, a many windowed store front, however a window and the door are broken and there is a closed sign out front.  Entering it seems to be pleasantly decorated however the eastern side is messy and appears to be in the process of being remolded. In the back is a statue of a strange monkey demon thing.  

As we enter I think I hear something in the back of the building, or in layman’s terms, the next room.  So we enter and are greeted with a surprise.  Inside this sparesly decorated room are four people.  One, a tall half-orc, is holding who we assume (I do at least) to be Mahdi up to the wall by his collar.  The other two look like your run of the mill thugs of the human variety armed with shortswords and daggers.  The half orc you ask? He’s got a greatsword.  Colin, he’s all yours.

Before we can explain that we didn’t mean to interrupt their shake down of this “fine gentleman” they attack us.  I’d go into greater detail about the fight but all you need to know is, we won and I couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a house.  So before I go all emo, moving on.

Penny and Elle, bless their hearts, coddle and sweet talk the bastard slaver.  I may have muttered a threat backed up by fire.  Needless to say my unintentional good guard/bad guard act worked and Mahdi will talk to them….provided I am in another room.  

Then the heartless (word redacted for those of nicer morals than I) demands payment for his information.  I am still not allowed to threaten him and even mentioning the solicitors name does nothing to drop the exorbitant price.  Until Colin threatens him, then he willingly gives up his information.  So in other words it’s okay with the half vampire does it, not okay when the half demon does it.

Though it may be my fault, I might, just might mind you, be too enthusiastic about burning him.  I guess we’ll never know.

Again, long story shorter, Atleg was sold by Captain Waheda Warwick of the vessal “At Sea”.  These particular slavers from down south come by rarely, have distinctive yellow sails common to the Okeno Pirates from the Quatepesh Asama regions, he is expecting another shipment tonight, no expressed interest in Atleg before or after her sale to the solicitor (two thousand gold, the price of a life these days) and apparently she was chosen after one perusal.  That was a mouthful, or rather a paperful.

While the questioning is going on Pyraxis does the logical thing and searches the thugs bodies, finding some tid bits here and there.  I don’t know what all he found other than around ten gold.  

After the questioning we leave and the group STILL won’t let me burn the guy’s shop down.  Honestly what is with people these days.

We then decide to head to the docks (after dropping off the half orc and his buddies near a guard post).  Per Penny’s suggestion we plan on talking to the “At Sea” crew to find out the information about Aglet’s point of origin.

The Harbor Master is a cute little female halfling.  Elle chats her up and she is more than happy to help us in our endeavors.  By that I mean she checks the log books and finds nothing marked for “At Sea” for today.  We were however, able to find something for one month ago.  What was that we found?  “At Sea” was flagged as being wanted for skipping out and refusing to pay taxes on their merchandise (which I tell myself isn’t slaves but food stuffs for the poor).  

So we decide to eat something (we’ve been running around all day.  Have you ever heard a rock man’s stomach grumble?  Sounds like a mini avalanche.)  While grabbing said bite and drink, we debate whether or not to take what we have to Lady Darkana.  Penny says we should, since we found out where Atleg came from and that’s what we were tasked with doing.

Pyraxis sounds the opposing viewpoint stating we should wait and investigate the ship.  Pyraxis’ opinion wins and we head back to the Harbor Master’s to wait.

We wait.  And wait.  Then, just make things different, we wait some more.

Finally, Pyraxis hears of a ship named “Kat Season” coming in and heading over to dock fourty nine.  A name which sounds suspiciously familiar.  He tells Elle about it and Elle decides to wake the rest of us up.  Waiting makes one tired alright?

So we head to the numbered dock and wait there.  Sure enough, right around midnight, a ship with a hastily painted “K son” on their name comes into the slip.

As the ship moors itself, a human man and two gnolls of undertimined gender are visible by the railing. Penny starts to ask the guy about Captain Warwick and the fellow lies.  He lies so badly a deaf turtle could tell.  

So Colin and I do what we do best.  We go to start our version of “talking” and head toward the plank leading up and into the boat.

Date:  17 Lamashan, 4713
Location:  Absalom

Hours of sleep at Harbormaster’s Grange surprisingly restful.  Woken after midnight when Pyraxis hears of a curiously named ship ready to dock and identifies it as potentially the slaver we’re seeking.  kAT SEAson.  Dock 49.

Ship in question had white sails furled (not yellow to identify them as from Okeno) and freshly painted moniker ‘KAT SEASON’ on the side of the bow.  Easy disguise and convincing enough for an overworked harbormaster, but not convincing enough to fool the Wayfarer Vanguard!!!

Two gnolls and human on deck to greet us.  I shouldn’t have been surprised to see gnolls on board considering the ship’s home port of Katapesh.  The Chronicles written by Venture-Captain Aurora Steelbloom – the few I’ve read so far, have made mention of the high population of gnolls in the nation, the danger they pose and even their participation in the slave trade.  Their language must be a difficult one to master with all the barks and snarls, but the first mate managed admirably and I couldn’t help but be impressed with his skill.  Note:  Add to list of more impractical languages to study.

First mate lied profusely and poorly regarding the true nature of his captain and the true name of her ship.  Taunts leveled on both sides and combat was nearly engaged before permission to board was garnered from the guard.

Colin threatened from gangplank while Elle ran for the guards.  A few spears were launched but as soon as they realized the guards were on their way, the crew began readying the ship for departure.  The first mate threw a tanglefoot bag at Colin, temporarily rooting him to the gangplank.

Engaged the first mate in a conversation regarding shipping.  Before leaving Magnimar for Absalom, I had done some study on the subject and spoke with him regarding the ancient teachings of Hesiod, the philosopher merchant turned pirate.  I have oft wondered since, if his views on the idiocy of hauling all of one’s fortunes aboard ship, was perhaps the root of the ‘buried pirate treasure’ so assumed in most children’s tales.  He had no answer for this so I moved on to piracy.  Specifically the ruse de guerre.  I suggested a possible method of maximizing the effectiveness of the ship’s disguise at sea (lower case), using more than merely sail alteration and painting a few extra letters on the side of the ship.   These being regularly used ploy among raiders, they have surely lost some of their effectiveness.  I asked if he had considered attempting to lure an intended target ship within boarding range, by employing the aid of a sister vessel – a fellow pirate.  One ship could be disguised as an Andoran pirate hunter, flying the proper colors and whatnot, while the other could retain the yellow sails and disguise itself to appear as if it had been a pirate vessel taken as a prize by the Andorans.  He seemed fascinated enough to postpone both attack and attempts at departure until the guards arrived.

Meanwhile, Colin had escaped from the tanglefoot bag and was attempting to frighten the gnolls away from the mooring lines which they were attempting to untie.  A human, two other gnolls and some sort of squat, toothy hound came up from below decks.

The guards then arrived, along with Elle, and demanded that the pirates cease and desist their attempt to flee.  Their only response was to continue about the process, so the lead guard gave us permission to board and asked to keep the death toll to a minimum.

Gangplanks really should come equipped with handrails. . . perhaps collapsible.  Something that could be easily folded up and stowed.  I understand that most seafarers wouldn’t think twice about crossing the narrow board, but for passenger ships it could prove useful.  Note:  Might be some coin to be made in the construction and sale of such an amenity.

In spite of the motion of the sea, the breeze and the narrow crossing, I am convinced we would have been fine if the second human aboard the ship hadn’t cast a Grease spell upon the gangplank.

Elle bombed a hole in their line allowing the rest of us and three of the guards to carefully pick our way across the treacherous gangplank, board and engage the pirates.  My sister slipped and fell on her backside, but kept a firm grip on the board, avoiding a midnight dip in the Inner Sea.  At least at that point.

First time interacting with actual pirates.  Note:  Remember to ask the others about their impressions, as they have more experience with such things than do I.  At first, they seemed not nearly as glamorous as the stories would lead us to believe, but then Captain Waheeda came up from below decks with pistol in hand and battleaxe strapped across her back.  I promptly changed my mind.  If there are not tales written about this woman there should be.  Beautiful and deadly. . . emphasis on deadly.

A right scuffle ensued.  Two of the three guards that boarded with us were killed before the end of it and Colin and I came closer than I am comfortable detailing.  Note:  Look into the pros and cons of heavier – namely metal – armor.

In the midst of battle, the gnolls and first mate managed to unfurl the sails and the ship started moving.  Gangplank shifts and falls from dock and so does Elle, still clutching at the board.  She was thankfully unharmed and was helped onto the dock by the two guards who had not boarded.

Killed a man today.  The first mate.  Circumstances required me to take a more direct roll in the altercation and frankly I’m not skilled enough to know how to knock someone out with a spear.   Something to work on.  I think I was as surprised as the pirate when the spear struck home.  I thought I might be more shocked by taking a life, but when it’s between them and myself or my companions, I guess I’m just too pragmatic for histrionics.  The two gunshot wounds however. . . there were some histrionics there I’ll admit.  Not sure I want to get used to this pain thing, though Pyraxis assures me it gets easier.  A successful mission is doubtless worth a little temporary pain.  I’ll do well to remember that.

With no one steering her, the ship’s stern crashes into dock as she attempts to depart.  This allowed Elle and the two guards on dock to board as we were finishing up the fracas.  Once the nasty troll-dog-thing was put down, Captain Waheeda was the last of the assailants and only then attempted to flee .  Tanglefoot bags are quite handy in a pinch!  Surrounded and rooted to the deck, she finally surrendered to authorities, but not before leveling a parting shot in my direction.  She really was quite something. . .  Once the burning agony in my shoulder subsides, I’m sure could give an even more glowing report of the woman.

Colin found a key on the body of the first mate and went down below deck to check out the rest of the ship.  We stayed to question the captain which proved fruitless.  Every word was a lie.  That’ll be a job for the arbiter.

Six more guards came to make the official arrest.  The captain was turned over to the guard and carted off.  Colin then came up with three more humans whom he said were crewmates that refused to work with Waheeda, so we allowed them to be on their way.
Colin also found scraps of parchment that he salvaged from a hasty attempt by the captain to burn the evidence.  Not much left of anything, but a piece of a letter that bears a signature.  Muhlia.  Significance unknown.

We have more than fulfilled the mission requirements and will speak with Lady Darchana after some rest.

Mission elements for further research:
Angazhan -  specifically related to Bekyar tribe of southern Garund
Trollhound – origins, kinship and association with better known trollish species, natural habitat, Bloodfire fever and its remedies
Okeno – history, specifically of piracy, slave trade, known hunting routes
Watermelon – Fruit or vegetable?
Gangplanks – necessary improvements


***

Date:  17 Lamashan, 4713
Location:  Absalom

Wayfarer Vanguard reported to Lady Darchana.  Lovely woman.  Intimidating.  She seemed pleased by our investigation and proclaimed it a job well done.  It appeared she recognized the name Muhlia from the scrap of parchment but didn’t divulge any further information for our benefit.  As much as I wanted to know more, I didn’t want to ask and provoke her ire.  After thanking us, we were dismissed to return to the Lodge.

Returned to Venture-Captain Valsin.  On our way into the office, a gnome was just exiting and spoke briefly with Colin saying, “I didn’t know you were Pathfinders.”  At the time I thought little of it, considering what he does in his own time is surely his own business.  Later we found out that the gnome and the three humans Colin brought up from the hold of the At Sea were actually slaves.  This made a good deal more sense, for we were expecting them to have slaves aboard.  I understand why he felt the necessity to lie about it with the guards around but I’m glad he told us the truth today.  Job well done.  Hopefully some trust was built there.

Venture-Captain Valsin read us a note from Lady Darchana stating we had all done a great service to Absalom and that she hoped to one day call upon us again!  That felt good.   The Venture-Captain was very pleased.  He had spoken with the masters and they all agree we should continue as a pathfinder group!  And more news. . .  We are being sent to Magnimar, where a new lodge is to begin!  Home!  I can’t wait to introduce my companions to my mother!  The others seemed. . .less enthused about the change of venue.  Note:  Be sure to inquire as to why.

Before we are to be sent to Magnimar however, there is one more mission we are to attend.  More good news!  We’re sailing to the Mwangi!  Venture-Captain Valsin told us that he received word from a friend of the Society – someone by the name of Aya Allahe, informing that a venture-captain has gone missing!  Nieford Sharrowsmith.  She has called for aid and all the pathfinders in the region are busy with arguably the greatest archeological find in the modern era.  It’s up to us!

Tomorrow we leave for the Mwangi.  One month at sea.  We will let off at Bloodcove and follow the river up to the village of Nantambu.  Once there we are to speak with Aya Allahe and she will give us additional details.

Our costs are covered for the voyage, but once we reach Bloodcove, we will be on our own.  Note:  Pick up map of the region and further supplies for a jungle expedition.

Once we are finished with the Mwangi mission, we will be sailing directly to Magnimar to report to Sheila Heidmarch for our new assignments.

Mission elements for further research:
Sailing – navigation, rigging techniques, nautical terminology, avoiding the scurvy
Venture-Captain Nieford Sharrowsmith – exploits, allies, enemies
Mwangi Expanse – Bloodcove, Nantambu, jungle diseases, local tribes, particularly nasty flora and fauna of the Mwangi, how to not die

18th of Lamashan - We spent the day prior to our departure from Absalom researching our new theater of operations, learning the hazards and threats that we would face in the Mwangi Jungle. We used what resources we had accumulated from our prior ventures to buy equipment to face these dangers, and I was able to obtain a wand to heal wounds using a system of credit that Pathfinders get by successfully completing missions. As compensation goes, I have seen far worse arrangements. Penny bought everyone matching hats that would protect against insects, as well as an alchemical concoction. I find her enthusiasm and optimism novel- it is a marked contrast to the routine drudgery and despair I had been surrounded by for so many years. I regret that she had to take a life so early in her own and I hope that does not change her outlook. I will try to shield her from such trauma in the future preserve that precious outlook as long as possible.

Colin and I are in agreement that sailing is an unpleasant if necessary form of conveyance. His reluctance stems from a shipwreck he survived earlier in his life- that is understandable. When the others pressed me about my misgivings, I found it harder to articulate my distaste. I’m sure it has everything to do with my parentage.

The thirty day to Bloodcove were unpleasant for other reasons as well. Several of the other thought that sharing personal stories would be a good way to pass the time. Over the course of the trip Elle told us about her strong reluctance to travel to Magnimar, a destination in our future. Apparently, she had attempted to murder a former paramour there, and she believed she would still be notorious. I would not have thought that a cool and measured intellect such as herself would give into such passions, but she also told us that she can lose control, and Penny told us that during one of their shared watches Elle had begun making vague threats which greatly upset her.

We arrived in Bloodcove, which we had been told was a major Aspis base of operations. I questioned why they allowed a Pathfinder lodge of any size in their sphere, but apparently the sole Pathfinder present took care not to get in their way. We met with Fenn and found out what she knew. She told us the best way to reach Natumbo (following the river on foot). Sharrowsmith, our “quarry”, did not tell her much about his plans. We were advised to keep hydrated and watch for hippos, and we set out for Natumbo on the 18th of Neth.

The journey took 16 days, and we arrived on the 4th of Kuthona. The Venture Captain of the Pathfinder lodge there told us that while Sharrowsmith had started a business there, he never lost the Pathfinder spirit, and with his legacy on his mind, organized a new expedition months ago. After he was deemed lost, she went through his private notes and found a rubbing of a puzzle, and old dwarven writings. She thought he might be somewhere in the Bandu Hills. She sent messages to Fort Bandu, a mining outpost in the area, but the Praetor would not communicate with her, insisting she come in person. He only said cryptically that Sharrowsmith had already “done enough damage”. She claimed he was very knowledgeable about jungle survival, and warned us of ghoul activity in the hills.

We set out for Fort Bandu on her behalf on the 5th of Kuthon. The journey was uneventful, and the area was home to numerous small mining operations, all the fort as their hub. We arrived at the fort to a nearly hostile reception- the soldiers were clearly displeased at our presence. We eventually got an audience with Praetor Syllian, but we were not alone. An Aspis agent was present as well, and we soon found out why. Apparently, the Praetor believed that Sharrowsmith had done something that greatly angered the local kobold tribes, and they had been attacking mining operations in the area, causing numerous deaths. The Aspis agent, Amerisonus Valecost, implied that to let us pursue Sharrowsmith and set things right would only further inflame the situation. Penny and Elle put forth our case as best they can, but I believe they shook the Praetor’s faith by admitting our relative inexperience. Not all truths need to be presented front and center. Still, after much deliberation their words swayed the Praetor enough that he was willing to give us a chance to set things right, much to the disgust of the Aspis.

The Praetor then told us Sharrowsmith was last seen heading east to Goldcrown Mining, and they had heard nothing from that operation for over a week, which was unusual. Penny and Elle asked me to speak to some dwarven miners in the fort regarding the rubbing Sharrowsmith had left, but they did not recognize the names of the city or mountain in the passage.

We set out for the Goldcrown site, 20 miles away, and arrived the 21st of Kuthona. When were were in the vicinity, we were set upon by two ghoul dogs. After Elle threw a bomb at them, Colin and I were able to dispatch them. We heard cries in the distance and quickly investigated. At the camp, we heard several voices coming from a shed, and found three men barricaded inside. They had been locked inside for over a week after a kobold raiding party had attacked their camp. Apparently ten miners had been taken captive. These survivors were in rough shape, but they were able to tell us they did not know why the kobolds had attacked, as the miners had been in the area for quite some time and had no interaction with the kobolds. Apparently, they had attacked about a day and a half after Sharrowsmith had departed the camp. Truly the timing does not look good. We buried the bodies using the mining tools and I believe we may escort the survivors back to the Fort.

21st Kuthona 4713

Rescuing the miners that we could and sending them back to Fort Bandu we continued on to the east. The hills and jungle climate is hotter than I expected. Maybe not so much hotter than the desert, but definitely more humid. The warm weather gear and netted hats were put to excellent use.

Our target was fifteen miles east of the Gold Crown Mining operations. Our map puts that at a location called the Valley of Broken Blood. Pleasant sounding name, i’m sure there will be no danger whatsoever.

If we even get there.

As we treked through pathless wilderness I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. A large cat sporting various spots on it was stalking us. I quickly retreated to our rear to engage it with my bow, but it was FAST. Before i could even nock an arrow, it covered 100 feet easily and was on me with teeth and claws. I got one hit on it, and Elle was quick with a bomb killing it fast. Nobody recognized the species of creature it was. I may have to do a little more research on it later.

That evening we arrived at an ancient valley at least 300 feet deep. We were certain what we sought was at the bottom so after some discussion we tied each other together with a rope. The girls weren’t too keen on the idea, but the rest had more of a ‘if one falls, we all fall.’ Mentality. Or perhaps a belief that with me on one end and Praxis on the other we could prevent any disasters. Either way…

The trek down wasn’t that dangerous working together and as we descended we found more and more bits of ruins scattered about. The valley obviously was once a city of some sort, and a large monolith at the bottom confirmed our and Sharrowsmith’s suspicions…. This was once a dwarven home of Ashkurhall.

Penny was perhaps too excited, but with some effort we were able to distract her from doing rubbings of every scratches we passed and focus more on the 2 dozen kobolds and their 10 human prisoners that left tracks through the area.

Fortunately there was more tree cover here, yet not ‘too’ much. It really seemed a perfect mesh of our vision capabilities. Except when it’s necessary. The jungle here was most disconcerting. We could tell we weren't’ alone. Yips and growls seemed to come from all directions. If I had to guess i would say at least two dozen… maybe even two score of the reptilian creatures were all around us… hiding… waiting….but they didn’t attack.

About forty minutes into the jungle we came across a clearing. Many ruins dotted the area with columns and shaped walls further verifying it’s dwarven architecture. The tracks were difficult to follow here so the others had time to examine the carvings. There were some plants we could see with bright yellow colors… exactly the type that we were warned may be dangerous. We decided to give them a wide berth. Oddly, Penny identified them to be Hearteater Blossoms. A plant not normally from this part of the world… but more from what was once Sarkoris… now the Worldwound. Their presence here is a mystery… but they are known to devour cadavers… Still a wide berth all around.

Not only to that but there was a second strange species of plant here. A vine that held strange flowers with skeletal faces on the petals. None of us were familiar this species… but anything with skeletal faces on the petals can’t be good.

A scream from Penny caught my attention. Apparently under one of these collapsed columns was a skeleton. It seemed inanimate, but i was proud of the way Elle lept up and smashed the skull ‘just to be sure’. She’s a fast learner.

I wish we could tell more about the skeleton. As it was buried under the stone… my instinct is that it was here when the buildings collapsed. But with the time involved and the lack of any physical evidence indicating fall of the city versus fall of the wall… that gives us no real clues. Other then it wasn’t Sharrowsmith’s body.

Shortly after, we made a much more gruesome discovery. This clearing was covered in old bones… Humanoids mostly, but still rather disturbing. Then we saw something else. A body that still had flesh on it near one of the skull petal vines. I moved toward it, but Elle was quicker than I. However, as soon as she was inside 10 feet of it, she collapsed to the ground.

I was closest to her, so i dashed in and pulled her to safety. Moments later some winged creature swooped through the trees to attack Praxis. I didn’t notice right away, but the vines were creeping towards us. Then i passed out.

I came to with the sound of an explosion and Penny’s flag jabbing me in the rib. The vine was right on top of me! I grabbed my silver sickle and sliced it’s… flowers off. Not a phrase i thought i would right. Yay Pathfinder adventures!!

I’m guessing the explosion took care of the flying thing… but i was still a little fuzzy from the… pollen maybe? Whatever it did to make us both pass out. Dangerous hunting tool for a plant.

The man we found was in fact one of the ten prisoners. Apparently he walked through last night with the rest and woke up now. The plants seemed to have knocked him out, and the kobols abandoned him to his fate. He had no interest in going further to rescue his allies and face his captors again, nor did he wish to travel the jungle alone… so we helped him on top of a wall and he promised to wait for us.

As we continued on we found an old bridge over a very deep ravine. There were four dwarven statues at each corner in various disrepair. One on our side still had a well crafted spear that Penny claimed and switched her flag over to. Another on the other had a well made hammer. Too nice not to hold on to at least for now.

Elle did a cursory look for traps and found none, then went to help her sister with the statue, while I crossed the bridge. The next part was a little fuzzy. I sprung a noose trap and went flipping into the air. As soon as i was in the air, two black panther shaped things attacked. I used a sickle to cut myself free and landed hard. Then I was pounced on with teeth and claws and lost consciousness.

When I awoke, Penny had my new wand and a scared look on her face. I think i was worse off than i thought. Unfortunately the fight wasn’t over yet. Pyraxus had taken care of the one eating me… but the second one still there.

Once it tore its own face off its skull I was able to recognize what they were. Krenshar I believe. A horrifying hunting cat that instills fear in its victims. Unless they are of the Wayfarer Vanguard. That one died soon after.

As we traveled deeper into the ruins there were more than a few carvings on the pillars. Dwarven architecture seemed to be given over to kobold sensibilities. Though it should be noted that the dwarves and the kobolds both seem to depict a golden dragon. I for one do not feel prepared to face a dragon.

Eventually we found a few intact walls  with a blood soaked altar made of an anvil. Torag may be my guess but we didn’t have time to examine it. Inside the ruined chambers were a LOT of bones. Mostly humanoid but a few wyvernish too. More importantly, four Kobolds and the other nine human prisoners being painted with red and yellow patterns.

We had implied to those at Fort Bandu we would try to be diplomatic… not make any more trouble between men and reptiles… and we did try. However human sacrifice put us in an unpleasant situation. We all wanted to save the people and nobody was going to walk away and let it happen. Elle and Penny called out to them in their own language, but our mere presence enraged them more. Or perhaps they said something insulting… I don’t speak kobold. They seemed confident in their translations so I think the human-killers just don’t talk to humans.

The battle was fierce. Individually they weren’t very tough. However as Praxis charged the ones nearest the captives the battle was joined all around. Entirely all around. Four kobolds turned to six, and six turned to ten, and while most were red, one particularly imposing one was a green color. He started directing the others into flanking maneuvers and the battle got rather dangerous.

The green leader seemed to focus heavily on me and took some of my best shots. Fortunately Penny used my wand to keep me standing and he had no one. I won that battle of Attrition. When all was said and done, the hostages were understandably eager to get out of there, but we still wanted to find Sharrowsmith.

On that, our mission wasn’t as successful as i had hoped. When even an experienced Pathfinder goes missing for multiple months in the jungle, it doesn’t bode well. The others seemed to believe it a rescue mission, but I feared our mission would be to determine what had happened to him. The pack with the Glyph of the Open Road next to the altar regrettably answered that. Searching inside we found his notes. The last one was as follows;

“The dwarves who inhabited what i now know as Ashkurnhall frequently depict a great beast they simply call the “golden Guardian,” a winged monstrosity that often appears in an antagonistic role yet occasionally accompanies symbolism more befitting a revered figure in dwarven lore. My initial hypothesis is that this guardian was a sacred destroyer and may even be responsible for Ashkurnhall’s eventual abandonment.

The Original occupants of this site put great stock in a curious orb that the carvings suggest shoot beams of light-likely someone in the Grand Lodge better versed in dwarven art could clarify the point-and causes the guardian beast discomfort and forces it to bow to their will  (or writhe in pain… cursed erosion). The carving ends with a dwarf delivering this orb to an amphibian people called krirurik, and the lack of the more recent inscriptions suggest this may have been one of the society’s final acts.

I recognize the name Krinirik from my voyage south through the Mwangi Expanse. No doubt old Sylien could help me track it down, but i would rather not impose on him again. This orb seems important for anyone exploring these ruins, and i shall set off for it after completing my survey of a few more structures here.”

We searched as quickly as we could through the piles of bones, but couldn’t make a definitive identification. In time we made the choice that the living hostages outweighed fining Sharrowsmith’s remains.

It was a restless night, but the Kobolds did not pursue.


22nd of Kuthona

Date:  22 Kuthona, 4713
Location:  Gold Crown Mining Camp, Bandu Hills, Mwangi Expanse

Uneventful day of travel.  Arrived at Gold Crown camp this evening with all ten unabducted miners in tow and in relative good health.  They are exhausted from their ordeal, so we chose to take watches and rest here for the evening.  

Reading through Sharrowsmith’s journal has been an enjoyable if somewhat illicit activity.  I’ve learned a good deal about the man himself through his writing – how he operates, his joy and passion for new discovery.  I look forward to meeting the Venture-Captain!  After we rescue him he may even forgive me for snooping through his things. . .

Mission elements for further research:
Dwarven history - Search for Sky, ancient artwork
Kobold religions – patterns of sacrifice
Artifacts used to control/influence draconic creatures.

Questions for contemplation:
If this orb could affect the ‘Golden Guardian’, who is presumably of a draconic nature, would it be able to similarly affect kobolds which are also draconic?  


***


Date: 23 Kuthona, 4713
Location:  Fort Bandu, Bandu Hills, Mwangi Expanse

Miners all returned safely to the fort.  Thomlin and Timm, two of the more eloquent of the men joined us in our meeting with Praetor Sylien.  

I’m glad the miners were rescued and we had something to show for our efforts thus far besides a handful of dead kobolds.  Turns my stomach to think that grumpy Aspis fellow might have been right about our negotiating abilities. . .  There is hope however, as this orb mentioned in the journal will surely change matters in our favor!

The Praetor listened to the whole story rather stoically.  He didn’t take it poorly, as I’d feared, but was able to shed some light on where the next leg of our journey will take us.  The Krihirik are a tribe of grippli which exists on the eastern edge of the Kaava Lands.  He marked their village on my map.  It is a three day journey through the hills and into the jungle.  When asked if he had a contact among the Krihirik, the Praetor mentioned a trader named Gellick who happened to have just left yesterday from Fort Bandu to return home!  Some bad news.  Troubling news. . . .  Amersanus Valacosti also happened to have left Fort Bandu shortly after Gellick and in the same direction.   Very unlikely to be coincidence.  Aspis are not to be trusted.  

He also believes that our dispatching of those kobolds and their green-scaled leader will only put a temporary pause in their attacks against the Fort and those mining camps surrounding it.  This comes as no real surprise after hearing all those growls and yips in the Valley of Broken Blood.  There are many. . .many more out there!

Pyraxis was able to tell us a bit about the grippli.  Race of intelligent, primitive tree frogs.  Like to trade for metals.  Eat giant insects and fruit.

Frog people.  Repeat.  FROG.  PEOPLE.   Enthusiasm poorly contained.

We are spending the evening in Fort Bandu.  Drax made dinner, which was I suspect was rations flavored with some sort of herbs, but he has a gift with these things.  After dinner, I spoke with anyone who would listen regarding the rescue of the miners, but only a few were willing to speak with a Pathfinder after recent events.  I hope our actions here will go some way to repairing the damage done – justified or not, by Sharrowsmith’s exploits in the area.

Mission elements for further research:
Grippli – society, cultural traditions, how to make friends….BEST friends, forever and ever!  <3 <3 <3

Questions for contemplation:
What interest do the Aspis have in Gellick and/or the Krihirik?


***


Date:  27 Kuthona, 4713
Location:  Krihirik village, Kaava Lands, Mwangi Expanse

Made the journey from Fort Bandu to the Krihirik village in two and a half days.  Only notable foes encountered were the oppressive heat and the biting insects.  Mesh hats proved their effectiveness for those of us who don’t light the bugs on fire the moment they make contact.  

Ten miles into the jungle we came upon the tree village, quite precisely where the Praetor had labeled our map.  The dense trees held the huts and rickety rope bridges about twenty feet from the ground, and there was a good deal of movement we could see above us as the inhabitants hopped about their business.  Some were looking at metal weapons and armor and I wished at that point that we hadn’t sold all of our gear before leaving Fort Bandu.  This didn’t become an issue however, because as it happened, we did have something they wanted.

A blue and brown skinned grippli leaped over to us and welcomed us to the village.  During introductions, he revealed himself as the Gellick we sought and we inquired about the ancient dwarves who had left an orb with his people for safe keeping.  We were then taken up into the village, where he led us to a large dwelling hanging over a small pond.    Therein we were met by three more grippli, these of greatly advanced age – like fifty or something, who were examining the weapons that Gellick had traded for in Fort Bandu.

The three grippli were the tribal elders.  Mother Bogwynne, the Lorekeeper and Chief Elder, Finyik, the Huntmaster, and Diblop, the Chief Brew Mistress and Miracle Worker

Mother Bogwynne (sketched in margin)  

The elders know of the guardian, but only generalities.  They know it has been around for millennia and they know that the orb is a weapon to be used against it, but they would say no more about the matter unless we first proved ourselves able to address a particular problem they are having.

The Krihirik are few in number and have found themselves hemmed in by enemies on all sides.  Most prominently the hated lizard folk.  They sought to trade weapon for weapon.  If we were to bring them back one or more eggs – dinosaur eggs, from a specific nest already located, than they would provide us the weapon we seek.  The Orb of Ashkurhall ™.  These eggs would be raised as guard dinosaurs for their tribe.  Effective.  All the more reason to create a bond of forever friendship with these friendly froggies!  I wonder if calling them froggies would be offensive. . . .  Likely so.

There was of course, a catch.  More than just the whole ‘raid-the-dinosaur-nest’ thing.  The Aspis were at the village yesterday also seeking the orb.  Wait, what?!  That blew my mind. . .  The grippli gave them the same chance they gave us.  Eggs for orb.  We had to beat them to it if we had any hope of solving the dilemma in the Bandu Hills!  There were nine agents and one panther in their party and they had a healthy lead on us.  Even so, the Aspis swine didn’t stand a chance against the Wayfarer Vanguard!

Finyik the Huntmaster marked the nest on our map.  Located in an area called Deepblood Ridge, it would only take us two to three hours to reach.  We left immediately.  No time to waste!

Thanks to Colin and our wayfinders, we managed not to get lost in the thick foliage.  Also discovered were the tracks of six humanoids heading in our same direction.  Six?  What happened to the other three?

About four miles from the village we came to the Deepblood Ravine.  Aptly named.  Soooo aptly named.  With Pyraxis’ help we used ropes and tree roots to scramble the one hundred feet to the bottom of the ravine.  I blame myself for not recognizing that the massive, shaggy-barked trees that aided us on our descent, boasted a defense against would-be-damaging creatures.  By the time we reached the bottom, we were all coated with a foul-smelling, oily substance.  Apart from the stank and potentially alerting our enemies to our presence, it was harmless.  Thankfully.

It was about another half mile to the nest.  The path we were following was obscured by fallen trees and hanging vines which made for difficult travel, but it soon opened up into a natural trail about five feet wide.  At that point we were able to spot ahead of us, a humanoid body that was swarming with stinging ants.  

Subsonic Vermin Manipulator was put to good use!  It had taken me a solid week of fiddling to deduct the password, which is drawn on the screen with one finger to unlock the device for play.  The password is a symbol.  Single-toothed gear within a triangle.  The previous owner must have been a follower of Brigh, a relatively obscure goddess of invention and clockworks, who is represented by the gear.  The triangle represents the nation of Numeria.  I’m embarrassed that it took me so long. . .

I kept the ants at bay with some fancy keyboard work, while the others examined the body.  He had a few items of use on him but most interesting was a note found within a secret compartment upon his belt.

Jace,
I have had enough of your games.  Cheating at dice is one thing, but gambling away our wages. . . that I will not forget.  No more idle jobs for you.  This time you go into the jungle with the others.  Bring back the eggs or face my displeasure.  I will not bother reporting to Zaril this time – if you fail I will let your fellow agents take care of you in whatever manner they see fit.  And you will not soon see a bit of coin until the talisman is in my hands.

The Wayfarer Vanguard is a much more friendly group than that to which this poor sod found himself a member. .  .

When I approached the body, I recognized the plant by which the body was lying.  A bullhorn acacia plant.  This relative of the more commonly known – and much larger acacia thorn trees, has the nasty advantage of having developed a symbiotic relationship with stinging ants which actually live within the hollow spines of the plant.  When a creature brushes the spines, it alerts the swarms of ants and really the creature has very little chance of survival after that.  Not a good way to go.

We moved on quickly, and I let the ants return to their grisly meal.  They’d earned it, I supposed.  The nest was not far ahead on the trail.  Some of the eggs had been broken, but six of them remained intact.  They were large – oblong and about one and a half feet in length.  Fortunately, the shells were tough for there would soon be some jostling.  Some short distance away we spotted the dead body of a very large dinosaur.  Three-toed.  LOTS of long teeth.  Huge head and tiny arms.  Momma perhaps?  Seems she’d been brought down by a group of lizard men, judging by the half-eaten, leather clad body we saw lying not far from her.  We never did get in a good look, so details here are sketchy.  

We were headed over to the nest to load up the eggs when three lizardfolk stepped out from behind two ancient stone plinths nearby, and attacked us.  These were handily dealt by the combined might of my comrades, and we set our attentions back to egg gathering.  I stashed one of the eggs in my pack and was pulling out some parchment to get in a few rubbings of the runes I noticed on the stone plinths, when. . .the jungle went silent.  The ground started to shake.   We heard screams and a teeth-rattling roar just before an enormous dinosaur came charging out of the jungle following six humanoids, all running right toward us!

We bolted.  All eggs were secure, all rubbings forgotten.  Now there was just the matter of living.  The dinosaur, which was of the same type as the dead one near the nest, snatched up one of the slower men in its crushing teeth, and killed him instantly before chucking the body off into the jungle.  We only had to run faster than the Aspis agents. . .  

Scrambling through the foliage, the creature again roared most fearsomely, spurring us on with ever-increasing speed.   Drax led us around a huge boulder while our rivals tried to climb over unsuccessfully.  One of their men screeched in a most girly fashion as the dinosaur nearly trampled him.  No mockery there.  Simply stating facts.  If ever there was a reason for screaming out in a girly fashion, that was it!

While the rock slowed us down, the dinosaur stepped right over it and lunged at us, massive jaws snapping perilously near, but Pyraxis leaped at it with a spinning kick and struck it in the snout!  Let me repeat.  Pyraxis.  Kicked the dinosaur.  In the snout.  I have neither seen nor read of anything so daring in all of my days, and what I lack in days I certainly make up for in voracious reading!  The dinosaur reeled back – hurt, surprised, it was hard to tell, but it paused just long enough for us to get out ahead of it a bit.  

A stream came up next.  The fish thrashing about within were easily identified as piranha, and while it is reported that they are harmless unless there is blood in the water, Colin was already bleeding from the lizardfolk fight and gods love him, he is simply no good around water.  Swimming across wasn’t an option, but I was convinced we could jump across it so I surged forward to lead the way.  Wayfarer Vanguard flag streaming out behind me, I safely leaped over to the other bank and the others seemed inspired by the glittering symbolism and likewise made it across as we continued our flight from certain death.  This point was accentuated as another scream was cut short behind us when one of the Aspis fellows was bitten in two.

We were neck and neck with the agents by this point.  One of them tried to use vines to swing across a  large pit, but Colin found us an easier path through the ravine that wouldn’t entail us falling into large holes and becoming dino snacks.  Pyraxis led the way with his broad frame and blazed a trail through the dense undergrowth as we neared the ravine wall.  The Aspis were there too and we traded a few hasty blows as we fought to stay ahead of the toothy monster, but from there we split.  The three agents still alive slipped off into the undergrowth as we shot up the ravine wall with the assistance of the stinky tree roots.  I have never in my life moved so quickly!  We had the dinosaur’s full attention at that point and it snapped at us as we climbed but we managed to stay just out of reach.

At the top of the ravine, only a moment was spared to catch our breath and check to be sure the dino eggs hadn’t become dino omelettes during our escape.  All was well, so we made haste for the Krihirik village.

We were not the first ones there.  The place had been ransacked.  No grippli could be seen hopping about.  No corpses either, for which I was grateful, but there was yelling coming from the elders’ hut.  We stashed the eggs safely amidst the foliage on the outskirts of the village and moved in to deal with this new threat!  

A panther came out of nowhere and attacked Drax as two Aspis agents stepped out from behind trees with their bows.  Two more men would soon emerge from the village above and added to the hail of arrows, while a fifth man – Kaleem, their leader as we would later find out, emerged briefly to cast Faerie Fire upon Drax and me.  Bloody battle ensued.  The healing wand came in terribly handy. . .  

As things began to slowly turn against the Aspis, Kaleem emerged again with Finyik, the ancient Huntmaster in tow, and a dagger to his throat!  He demanded we lower our weapons or he would kill the elder.  Drax stepped up with his hands in the air and declared that we would honor Finyik’s sacrifice while Colin took quick aim and struck Kaleem in the neck.  The agent grabbed his bloodied throat and the elderly grippli took the moment of distraction to launch himself off the rope bridge and into the safety of the small pond below!

Colin, Drax and I worked to set the ladder back up so we could get in to the elders’ hut, but Pyraxis simply scaled the tree and burst through the hut wall to get at Kaleem.  It wasn’t long thereafter that the remaining Aspis were put down.  One of them that had been using a bow, I happened to recognize as a member of the group that was fleeing the dinosaur.  He’d gotten here first to warn his superior. . .

The other two elders, Mother Bogwynne and Diplop were still in the hut and unharmed.  They told us at this point that it was Kaleem whom they had made the deal with and he’d just come back in a hurry, demanding the orb in spite of having no eggs.

We brought up all six eggs that we recovered, although Drax greatly wished to keep one.   I think he realized that raising an enormous meat-eating dinosaur in Magnimar might be problematic.  The Krihirik were quite pleased.  The Brew Mistress then brought out an egg-shaped mass of dry clay about the size of a melon.  It is smooth and decorated with linear patterns, plant imprints and a design depicting mountains beneath dozens of stars.

Mother Bogwynne told us that a thousand years ago, their people welcomed the dwarven refugees as neighbors in the Bandu Hills.  Later the dwarves would return again, this time to deliver to them the talisman for safekeeping, and then the survivors left.

The talisman, she relayed, can defeat the golden beast that haunts Ashkurhall, but it must be unsealed in the presence of the beast or the power will be wasted or cause catastrophe!  Based on the linear patterns, which form a type of ancient arcane dwarven language, we were able to determine that we must shatter the clay to reveal the talisman inside when the time comes.

Kindly, the Krihirik have allowed us to stay the evening in one of the empty huts, and have provided us a most excellent meal of fruits.  In spite of our exhaustion, we will maintain a watch tonight.  Lizardmen, dinosaurs and the Aspis Consortium dog our steps and will surely haunt my dreams.

Mission elements for further research:
Dinosaurs – specifically the type we narrowly escaped.  Big head.  Big teeth.  Tiny arms.
Dwarves – evidence of dwarven migration out of the Bandu Hills.  Where did the survivors of Ashkurhall go?

Questions for contemplation:
How the hells did the Aspis know of the orb??  Did they abduct Sharrowsmith and torture him for information on this new find?  I am quite convinced they have him and have planned to get him to use the orb for them so that they might acquire the treasure that this ‘golden guardian’ is hording.  He is alive.  I know it!

Where did that snake, Amersanus get off to?  They must have a base nearby.  Perhaps where they are holding the Venture-Captain?  We will deal first with the kobolds and the guardian, but I harbor no illusions that we have seen the last of the Aspis.  Not when there are riches to be had!

1-1-4714

Happy New Year!

We’ve been travelling in this gods forsaken jungle (I’ve always wanted to use that line.) for five days now. It was late afternoon when we finally arrived at the ruins of Ashkurhall.

And, thankfully, right where we left it was the bloody alter to Torag and the stairs leading down into the dark dark abyss. Ok, not an abyss but still dark. Thankfully all of us can see in the dark. And the Penny lights her everburning torch reminding me that actually, NOT all of us can see in the dark.

We pass by the bloody and chewed on corpses and Miss Penny attempts to identify what kind of creature ate them. Dragon or dragon like. Oh goody.

So following our usual order we descend into the darkness lit only by one torch. After travelling for oh say around sixty feet or so we reach the bottom. We see a moderate sized corridor in front of us with a second passegway leading out in the middle of the south wall. Flanking the new passageway are a couple dwarven statues. Rust colored (or rusted, whatever) doors are placed in the south wall on the opposite sides of the dwarf statues. The poor statues have had red ichor antelope skulls painted on them. Kobolds, am I right?


We check the eastern door in the south wall (from here on out, even if I don’t mention it, Colin checks every door we try for traps. He’s dedicated like that.) The room is good sized but empty except for some rock detrius in the south eastern corner. Middle of the south wall and middle of the west wall hold doors in them.

We back out and head to the western door on the far side of the dwarf statue. This room is also good sized but the south wall is pretty much missing. A small section of the south wall near the eastern side is intact however the south part of the eastern wall is also missing. This place has definitely seen better days. Middle of the eastern wall is a door.

Interestingly Penny realizes that this wall was knocked over intentionally.

We check the room…..You know what…..this is going to get very boring, very fast. I’ll include a sketch later of the place but we really wandered around a lot finding nothing. Mostly nothing. I’ll make a notification of what we did find.

One room, to the east of where we were, Colin enters (see sketch) and starts to fall into a trap as the floor gives away. He is able to stop himself thankfully as the hole was filled with downward facing blades designed to make removing oneself very very painful. The rest of the room? Empty.

So we stepped out into that corridor (the one heading south between the two dwarf statues) via a door in this room’s east wall. Well, Colin steps out and quickly ducks a crossbow bolt fired by a kobold who stepped out of the southern most hallway at the end of this passageway. Colin doing what he does, charged forward and when he turned the corner to chase the kobold, was immediately shot in the back by another kobold. Clever girl….or guy, I really can’t tell with these things.

Penny, giving an inspirational oratory, gives chase after the second one while Colin and Pyraxis charge after the first.

I follow Penny since I do not want her alone, specially without knowing how many of these things there are. Churchy and Rocky can handle themselves.

Penny hits the creature as it attempts to back over some rocks strewn about the floor of the room it retreated to (southeastern most room for those paying attention, through a door in the south wall) and I am able to finish it off with a well placed fwoosh (burning fireball for the win)

Colin and Pyraxis, after missing horribly as the creature ducks between them and runs, chase the lizard down all the way back to the stairs. Where, finally, Colin shoots it with his bow dropping it dead.

Combat finished we continued to search the place before trying the double doors at the western end of the southern hallway. (See Sketch) Only two things of interest, the first being that in the middle room on the eastern wall the ceiling was collapsed covering a door in the northern side of the room. If anyone had opened the door from the other side they would have been buried. A crude but effective trap.

The second thing was a satchel. Found in the first room we entered (eastern door by the original dwarven statue) but never searched. Figures.

Inside the satchel, which was buried with care to protect it’s contents and marked with the symbol of the Open Road, was a journal of Sharrowsmith (remember him, the guy we’re looking for?) and a couple wands and a couple vials. Penny (there is a reason I call her Brainy) was able to identify the wands, one of healing and one of restoration. Both very useful.

Back at the double doors at the south western side of the south hallway, we found twelve leather straps hanging on the north wall. Just hanging there, not attached to anything. Just there. Kobolds are weird.

Pushing through the doors we enter into a large square area, about seventy feet wide by seventy feet long. Rooms approximately twenty five feet by twenty five feet sit in the interior evenly placed apart (see sketch). To the west there are two doors in the first room square followed by a passageway to the north. Further west is blocked by rubble, lots and lots of rubble. North of here is a passageway up past the two sets of square rooms with a passageway leading west in the middle and at the end. In the middle of this overly large room is a fountain of what appears to be a learned dwarf (holding a book and staff) that has been defaced. No I mean the kobolds removed the statues face and now water is shooting out of where the eyes had been. On the book is a runic carving I can just barely make out.

“Home is far behind. Our kin are scattered to the four winds, but we endure.”

Noting the rooms in order, first room straight ahead south west from entrance doors was tiny, smelled like crap (poop) and had what appeared to be a chew toy for a large, what I assumed to be, cat like creature. A backpack filled with straw that had obviously been chewed on. Oh goody.

At this point in time, apparently following Sherrowsmith’s example, Colin leaves us quickly to hide a bottle of stone to flesh. He forgot however to tell us where he hid it. Thanks buddy.

The next room westward was a bunk room. Six dwarf sized beds covered in animal furs fill the room. Remains of a dice game litter the floor. Weapons are piled up in the corner. Most of those are old and rusty. Most. Colin finds one that is obviously magical and has the initial N.S. inscribed on the hilt. This longsword apparently belongs to our missing pathfinder however since he’s not using it, Colin may as well. Since he is the only one of the group that actually uses swords.

I just realized how strange of a group we are.

Churchy opens the door to the north in this room and we step out near the statue of the dwarf dude. In this passageway running east to west in the middle of the eastern side is another “statue” of a human female apparently running in fear away from the dwarf looking back over her shoulder in terror. Either the creators of this place had a strange sense of decoration or there is something in here that turns people to stone. Again, thanks for hiding that bottle without telling us where Colin.

Another note of the new “statue”. She appears to be, or at least has the symbol of, Aspis group.

Backtracking a bit we head to the passageway in the middle of the south side. The room to the west has a door in the middle so we enter that. Long story short? It’s burial chamber with three dead kobolds in it being prepared for eternal rest. Weird.

Heading back to the fountain we enter the room to the north west (immediately NW of it, see sketch). This room is filled with stone furniture (which Pyraxis actually finds comfortable, I asked) and a door in the middle of the southern wall. In the north west corner of the room is a large stone pillar covered in symbols of dragons and ancient dwarven script. Know who reads ancient dwarven script? Pyraxis. The pillar seems to be recording of dwarven lives and death dates. Unfortunately as the pillar reads on the dates get closer and closer together. Meaning they are dieing off at a fairly young age and quickly.

Back out of that room and into the final room to the east with the door on the other side of the human “statue”. The room is filled with bits of metal and bone carvings hanging from the ceiling and on shelves carved into the walls. In the far back corner is a statue of a small winged and horned creature but we can’t recognize it.

So, the hallway to the north is blocked off by rubble, the hallway to the south is blocked by rubble, that leaves the passageway leading west in the middle of the area by the fountain. As we approach the western wall there is a growl from the south side. A large growl.

So after hiding (we brave adventures, but we ain’t stupid) we come up with an idea for a distraction. Retrieving the chew toy, we stick a dead kobold into it. Colin, barely glancing at the six legged lizard creature, tosses the enhanced toy behind it. Creature lunges southward after it and we rush to the north, finally entering through the double doors and closing them behind us.

Safety? Ha ha ha ha ha.

We are in an amazingly large room supported by six pillars, three on this side and three on the eastern side. In the middle, only accessable by a walled in stairway to our immediate right, is an elevated platform in the shape of a giant hammer. On top of this platform near the northern edge an alter. Standing on this alter is a giant dragon like humanoid creature with wings, horns, and golden armor. On the ground beneath the elevated dias are five kobolds fervantly bowing and appearing to worship the statue. Which then proceeds to come alive.

I won’t embarress ourselves by recounting the fight with the what we now know as a gargoyle, suffice to say if Penny hadn’t shattered the clay orb freeing the tailsman of Ashkurhall, we would be meat smears on a wall.

The kobolds leave us to check on their pet, the lizard like thing, to make sure we didn’t actually hurt it.

The gargoyle decides to test us by having us translate the murals on top of the alter. Says if we can do that then he will know we are “true friends of Ashkurhall.”

Fun times.

The first mural (out of ten) shows a dwarf in a cave looking up and shielding her eyes with a hand. We have no idea what it means. Great start. Thankfully Penny is able to bluff her way past it and GG (golden guardian. Just….don’t actually call him GG, he doesn’t like it. AT ALL!!!) GG buys it.

Second mural shows fireballs with long trailing streaks descending from the sky. Penny actually recognizes it as the time in history when fireballs from the sky crashed into Numaria.

Third mural shows two dwarves locked in battle. One dwarf has long braided hair, the other one is bald. Apparently dark dwarves called draugar, dreugar, something like that, exist and besides being slavers, hate all other life especially other dwarves.

Fourth mural shows four complex symbols on the four points of the compass tilted slightly to the right. Colin notices that the symbol at the South end of the compass is the same as the symbol for Ashkurhall.

Fifth mural shows rolling hills of dark gray rock soil dotted with veins of gold while a vine covered in lavendar flowers crushes a large lizard like a constricting serpent.

Sixth mural is a map with many rooms, some crude and others more skillfully carved and richer on detail. Colin realizes that this is a representation of Askhurhall with the parts added later having more detail as the construction grew.

The seventh mural shows a dwarf with eyes cast to the ground and a hand clutching it’s chest. This one is showing that the dwarves are getting sick, fatally so.

The eighth mural shows a demon like creature with horns and wings. Penny puts the peices together and realizes that this (and GG) is a gargoyle, creatures of stone that eventually take on the appearance of their surroundings and guard them fervantly.

The ninth mural shows a grippli. Just a grippli.

The final mural shows a dwarf with weapons and armor made of stone and wood covered in symbol tattoos with bright feathers laced into his beard. This is a Taralu, a tribe of jungle dwarves in the city of Kibwe who worship totems and ancestors.

With that, GG finally trusts us and thus tells us the story of how this place came to be.

Short version (seriously for a rock creature [no offense Rocky] that guy would go on forever)

Long ago and far away the dwarves built a near perfect society, then the fireballs from the sky came. Dwarves searched the ruins and discovered many great things however most important was the “sky key”

Dark times followed this with the deurger (dark dwarves) attacking. The good dwarves retreated with the king and his personal guard staying to hold the line and give the others time to get away. The king took the “sky key” and split it into five parts giving one to Sigram and her three siblings and keeping one for himself.

The dwarves travelled far but the hardships caused friction in the large tribe, the siblings split up and went their seperate ways each taking some of the larger tribe with them.
Sigram’s dwarves finally found this place, discovering gold and founding Ashkurhall. Which is when GG arrived and after some time found he actually liked the dwarves and living here with them.

However an illness overcomes the dwarves, killing off large numbers of the tribe. To protect themselves they decide to leave GG in charge of the city itself, give their part of the “sky key” to the grippli and make up a story to deter others from coming in. Kobolds, not being social with other races, didn’t hear the story and so moved in.

The dwarves left to join their cousins in the east jungle and never returned.

A sad tale to be sure. Penny negotiates with GG a sort of peace treaty between the kobolds and the humans and GG agrees to let some people come in to preserve the history of Ashkurhall.

Peace reigned, nothing else happened.

Ok, that’s a lie. I was awesome. Penny and I kicked some serious……

Sorry.

At this point in time the kobolds returned in fright running from four Aspis members, three thugs armed with bows and a chick with a torch and a scorpion whip.

Penny inspires us and since we are still on the alter, moves towards the stairs. I make a mad dash for them. Pyraxis takes the short cut and jumps off the edge. Fifteen feet straight down. Colin shoots his bow at one of them, grazing him. The whip lady moves closer to the wall by the stairs while the two of the bow men shoot and miss both Colin and myself. The remaining thug drops his bow and charges Rocky but misses.

Penny attempts to copy Rocky, stepping off the edge however her landing was not so gracefull. (that’s a polite way of saying she face planted). The bowman who shot at me suddenly found himself on fire as I blasted him. Pyraxis disarms the guy in front of him and attempts to kick him, but misses as the guy grabs a sap and attempts to smack Pyraxis. He missed. Colin moves right to the edge of the alter and shoots at the whip lady but misses. The burning bow man hits me with an arrow, ow, while the one shooting at Colin misses. Whip lady moves up the stairs towards me, hitting me with that scorpion whip. Again, ow.

Penny, before standing, heals Pyraxis. Then she stands. I finish off the one that I lit on fire before moving away from the stairs toward the alter while Rocky finishes off the guy with the sap. The big guy then moves toward the other bowman who shoots Pyraxis hitting him with a glancing shot. Colin shoots at and grazes the last bowman while the whip lady moves up the stairs.

Penny heals herself as I jump down next to her. Pyraxis charges the last bowman, hitting him hard while Colin charges the stairs to confront the whip lady. The whip lady who then hits Colin with a torch. Meanwhile the last bowman drops his bow, draws a sword and uses it to smack Rocky.

Penny heals me up a bit while I move closer to, and throwing fire at, the last bowman, killing him. Pyraxis waits at the stairs for the whip lady, thinking to trap her between himself and Colin, who gives the lady a good hit with “his” new sword. At this time another person suddenly appears and before anyone can say anything, uses his spear to stab Pyraxis in the back. With new guy come two more bowmen, shooting and hitting both me and Pyraxis while whip lady again hits Colin with the torch, hard enough to drop my friend.

What just happened? Weren’t we winning just like six seconds ago?

Penny moves up behind me, healing me some while I blast one of the bowmen with fire. Pyraxis attempts to nail the new guy but misses. New guy is quick. Quick enough to move around Rocky before stabbing him, and dropping him. I have no idea what the whip lady is doing, but the two remaining bow men miss both Penny and I.

How did we go from outnumbering the enemy and sure victory to being outnumbered and hard pressed?

You know the sarcastic saying “you throw like a girl”? Unfortunately Penny personifies that. She attempted to throw a bag of marbles at the new guy, hoping to delay his movement (maybe even if we were lucky, drop him to his butt). The wind up, the throw….and the bag barely leaves her hand before it drops to the ground directly in front of her hindering no one. Luck favor the girl, she’s a literal inspiration to us all but she can not throw. I finish off the bowman I hit earlier while the other shoots at me and misses. New guy moves around the marbles and stabs at Penny, hitting her.

Penny steps back and heals herself while I miss a fireblast at the last bowman who does not miss when he shoots Penny. Bastard. Whip lady comes down the stairs and hits me with a torch, obviously thinking since it dropped Colin it would drop me too. It didn’t. It hurt, but it didn’t drop me. The new guy side steps the marbles again and swings at Penny, thankfully missing her. If she were to drop, I would not last long.

Penny draws out a wand, using it to heal herself while I blast the last bowman, catching him on fire. He immediately stops what ever he was doing and puts out the blaze. New guy and Whip Lady swing at Penny and I respectively, both hitting, new guy with his spear and whip lady with her torch.

This is getting painful and desperate.

Penny heals me a bit and steps back while I follow, using my tail to bring out of healing potion which I quickly down. Accurate as ever, New Guy and Whip Lady follow us, hitting us each again. The bowman, now not on fire, shoots at Penny, grazing her.

Penny steps back (notice all the stepping back she and I have been doing? There is a reason for that.) and heals herself while I give the Whip lady a point blank shot of fire dropping her hard. New Guy is unable to keep up with Penny’s movement and misses her with his spear while I get an arrow in the shoulder from the bowman.

Remember how I mentioned that we were stepping back all the time? Well, now there is a large gap between us, the enemies, and the path to Pyraxis. Understand? No? Well how about after I tell you that Penny now has (and takes advantage of) a clear path to Pyraxis allowing her to start treatment? Oh now it makes sense? Yeah, while she ran I gave covering fire towards the last bowman, hitting and dropping him. New guy, understandably angry, misses a swing at me.

Penny finishes healing a bit of Pyraxis and then heads for the stairs to see about Colin. New guy ducks a blast of fire from me and a sling stone from Rocky while sidestepping me and then stabbing me in the ribs. Ow.

Penny finishes climbing the stairs to Colin and starts to work on him while I step back, again using me tail to get a healing potion out. Pyraxis bounces a rock off of New Guy’s head. New guy then charges Pyraxis, hitting him hard with his spear.

This guy is strong, fast, and ruthless.

Penny finally finds Colin’s special wand and heals him with it before starting back down the stairs. I miss another fire blast on the agile little sucker while Rocky turtles up into a complete defensive posture. Colin stands up and heals himself a bit more. New guy is unable to get his spear to penetrate Pyraxis’ defense.

Penny, astoundingly brave, rushes to Rocky’s side and heals him, drawing a hard hit from New Guy in the process who, while hitting Penny manages to duck another fire blast. Thankfully Colin was able to get him in the side with his bow.

Penny steps back, actually taunting the spear weilding maniac, who again manages to duck a blast of fire. Pyraxis continues to defend himself (for understandable reasons, that spear has already dropped him once, one more hit and it could again.) Colin misses his bow shot on the guy who then has the audacity to stab the taunting Penny, dropping her hard.

So apparently watching Penny drop was the inspiration I needed. I blast the spear guy hard, dropping him and lighting his corpse on fire. Colin moves to Penny and heals her as Pyraxis stands up.

It’s all over but the crying and the looting. So after taking stock of ourselves, making sure we’re alright, we start to loot the bodies of the Aspis agents.

After the events that transpired after the Aspis agents stormed the chamber, many of the reservations and doubts I had held about the martial prowess of my adventuring comrades has been put to rest. As the second wave of agents stormed the chamber we were in, the last thing I was as the spear penetrated my back and exited my torso was Colin lying unconscious on the stairs, and Penny and Drax surrounded and on their own. I believed in the second or two before I passed out that our run of luck had finally come to an end, and I hoped that they would be granted quick deaths.

When I came too with Penny bringing me back, it felt like a new lease on life. We had pulled a victory out of what looked like sure death. Penny later described in great detail on how they were able to turn the tide, and now my confidence in our future is higher than it has ever been.

After killing the Aspis agents, the kobolds became substantially more cooperative with us. They said they knew where Sharrowsmith was, and took us to a piece of the complex that had caved in from the ceiling. With foreboding hearts we set to digging, and gradually uncovered his remains. Though the body was not identifiable, we did find a wayfinder with the inscription "NS" on it. Penny spoke the guardian and the kobolds and said other groups like us, "friends of the dwarves" would probably be visiting to inspect the caves, and would show the proper respect.
We started back to Ft. Bandu with Sharrowsmith's remains on the 2nd of Abadius and arrived on the 6th. We visited the Praetor and told him generally what transpired, without going into too much detail. We did assure him that the kobold raids had come to an end. I managed to sell off most of the Aspis equipment we had appropriated and we left with much heavier purses than we arrived with.

As we made to depart the Fort on the 7th of Abadius, Colin broached the idea of visiting Savith Yhe, the newly discovered ancient city that had been the talk of many of the Pathfinders at the Grand Lodge. Though I saw the appeal of the idea, the fact that we happened to be on the same continent did not seem a justifiable reason to depart from our general orders. Penny agreed with me, while naturally Drax's curiousity led him to side with Colin. Once again, the tie breaking vote rested with Elle, and though she initially sided with those who wished to follow the spirit of the orders we had received as newly ordained Pathfinders, she too threw caution to the wind and voted for Savith Yhe. Penny and I were initially resigned to follow the will of the group, but Penny brightly did some research before set out and found that we would be travelling half the way across the continent through ghoul infested terrain. This was able to sway the others to reconsider, though not after I had purchased twice the amount of rations we would now be needing.

We resumed our initial plan and headed back to Natumbmu, a 15 day journey. We arrived back on the 24th of Abadius and returned Sharrowsmith's body to his business partner at Sharrowsmith exports. She seemed sad and remarked that he "died as he would have wished." While I personally would not find being buried under a ton of Earth to be very unpleasant, I doubt the same could be said of him. We returned Sharrowsmith's journal to her as well. Penny inadvertently let slip the fact that we possessed a portion of the Sky Key, earning some winces from the others, but we quickly found out that Ambrus Valsin has teams of far more experienced Pathfinders searching for the pieces of this Key. It could be the "Key" to raising our standing among the Pathfinders. Heh heh. Penny suggested we stay for Sharrowsmith's funeral, and indeed said a few words about his last expedition.

We departed the 24th of Abadis and arrived in Bloodcove on the 12th of Calistria. We found the ship to Magnimar departs on the 14th, and would cost the exorbitant sum of 144 gold per passenger for transport. Luckily we had not spent our windfall from the Aspis and were able to pay the princely sum.

We arrived in Magnimar the 16th of Pharast. We traversed through the city, which while quite large still lacked the awesome scale of Absalom. We were greeted by a folksy, salt of the earth guard named Elbrylius at the entrance to our new base of operations, Heidmarch Manor. He invited us in and we stumbled upon our new Venture Captiain, Sheila Heidmarch, in the midst of a meeting with the famed Darklands explorer Koriah Azmeren, whom Penny was most excited to meet. She had just returned with a Thassilonian artifact she had dug up. The Venture Captain, seeking to test our scholarly mettle, took us to the room housing the artifact and challenged us to defeat the puzzle that would open it. She then left us to attend to Koriah, promising to check in shortly.

The curio, a "Paradox Box" was a stone coffer with magical locks. Koriah had left some of her initial notes on the device as a starting point for our efforts. Penny translated some of the inscriptions on the box, and Drax was able to move letters around to spell the word "Cruel". The others speculated that some rearrangement of the word might be the key to opening it, and after pondering for a few moments I recalled the a somewhat obscure term I had once heard a magistrate use in reference to some scalawag's ill-gotten gains…"filthy lucre". After the others had tried out several words and realizing there did not seem to be consequences for failed attempts, I spelled out that possibility. It surprisingly did do the trick and the box opened! Unfortunately it seemed to trigger a trap, as two highly mischievous creatures sprung out, determined to do as much damage to our new host's library as they could. We managed to dispatch one and get the other under control before they were able to destroy more than a handful of books and a chair. The box itself contained a ring, some garnets, and a silver dagger. Korian and Heidmarch returned a few minutes later, quite impressed with our success. Heidemarch granted us the contents of the box, as she considered it far more interesting.

With her guest now departed, we were officially welcomed to our new home. We have a very cozy outbuilding to ourselves. It remains to be seen how that will work out… we had more space in the Absalom dormitories. At least the amenities are free, as I verified that this lodge will provide three squares a day. We went to our first dinner that evening and met a Kellid named Joadrick who was staying at the lodge as well. Penny made small talk with him and found out that he was not a Pathfinder, and that his stop here was mainly a waypoint enroute to visit the Shoanti.
Penny and Elle went to visit their families who lived in the city, while I inspected the new grounds. I know not how Colin and Drax spent their first night.

17th Pharast 4714

Breakfast came early today… I’m not certain how often I’ll partake of this free meal, but it’s our first real day here, so I’ll be friendly. Besides, after breakfast I’m hoping the girls will show me around this place. It’s a bit large to just wander… at least the first day, especially when we already know some locals.

Well, breakfast was interesting… I’m not sure how good of an impression we made with the new Venture Captain. There was entirely too much talk of burning people… and murder in general, much the chagrin of Penelope and Pyraxis amongst myself. In true Vanguard fashion, we took a vote and made it perfectly clear that should stupidity or evil cause someone to murder innocent people… the rest of were in no way obligated to help them out of their inevitable hanging.

It’s official. Penny wrote it down. We’re not THAT kind of group.

The venture captain however, seemed to take the discussion without raising an eyebrow. Apparently she takes quite seriously the clause about ‘no fighting over a disagreement of morality’... of in other words, she’s met some Murder-hobo’s before. Hopefully we can convince her we don’t fall into that camp.

After breakfast, the girls did indeed offer us a tour of their city. Drax joined in but Pyraxus opted out.He seemed to have an agenda of his own and agreed to meet back here for dinner.

It was entertaining to say the least. We started with the Founder’s Archive. Penny was excited to show off Magnimar’s large library. I have little doubt that she had spent a great deal of time here… and would again in the future. I tried to see the bright side of it all. It wasn’t Absalom’s library… but it was large, and apparently the city pushed for learning, so there were more than a few old texts here. It bears looking into. I’ll be spending some time here myself.

We spent a few hours there trying to research the Sky-key. We found nothing new. That doesn’t bode well for my studies…

Next, the Quink family tour continued. Penny wanted to visit her father’s grave in the Cenotaph. Elle on the other hand did not. This was near where she had her ‘encounter’. She went in to encourage Penny, I went in to support them both. Drax was dismissive of the apparent ‘boons’ the location was able to give. It seems praying at certain places here reach the god’s ears a bit better than others. Drax however scoffed at praying to any god. I’m a bit more pragmatic. There were many patrols by Pharasman priests… indicating that the undead was an issue, and that it was well in hand.

There was a time i almost became a Pharasman… I still approve of their church, but it just wasn’t a strong fit for me. Too much focus on simply the dead and i had no interest in the midwife duties. Still, give the right circumstances, i consider them allies in my fight and may whisper a prayer her way. Not today though. Elle’s worries had me on edge, and my eyes were darting around looking for anything out of place. I still wish to investigate her case… but her memories were very spotty at best and it’s been over 30 years. I’ll have to take alternate routes to discover what became of Havi..

Next, we visited ‘Our Ladies of Blessed Waters’. Apparently a large garden near the center of the city. It was quite peaceful and pleasant and where Papa Quink met Elle’s mother. Which of course brought up a peculiar conversation.

Somehow the conversation turned to people who may or may not become romantically involved with her mother. It was humorous, for I never had any intentions… nor do i think Drax did. Though with him it’s hard to tell sometimes. She was also from Kyonin and occasionally Greengold, so the question came up as to whether I had met her before…

A question I wasn’t prepared for, or really had an answer for… After all, Greengold was where I met Llyndrathyl, but I didn’t exactly meet her walking through the gate or dock as it were. After some discussion, it was determined with a very high amount of certainty that I was not Elle’s father and had probably never met her mother. It was a bit of a relief. When I talk of the past coming to haunt me… i’m usually more literal.

There were more than a few promises not to flirt with her mother, though apparently she would undoubtedly flirt with us… it was a very, very strange conversation… and she in turn decided that she didn’t want to introduce us today. It was probably for the best. The more she talked the more awkward it would eventually be.

She did however re-introduced me to her mentor. Telwin Ni’Tessine. An old man that kind of shocked me. The last I had seen him, he was barely a boy. Kymil would be proud I think. It was a quick visit, but I promised to meet him again soon. I find I take some pleasure in seeing the descendants of old friends. Even if they’re gone, their lives still mattered. The ripples keep going.

For lunch, we traveled the Bazaar of Sails. It’s where Penny’s mother works selling her inks. It was a pleasant enough meeting.

I spent most the afternoon questioning where I could get some work at a decent forge. I still have some treasure, but if I intend to keep myself in weapons and gear, I’m going to need to get back to work. It sounds like there are a few hoops to jump through, and we hadn’t visited that part of town yet… but again, no real hurry.

There was a surprise waiting for us when we returned home. It seemed Pyraxus had been busy. He stumbled upon a goblin trying to rob us blind and had an elaborate chase through the streets. On one hand… I had hoped we’d be able to settle in a bit more quietly and subtly before bringing attention to ourselves… on the other, Penny waves a glitter flag.

Elle revealed a seething hatred I was previously unaware of. She despises goblins. A LOT. We once again had a discussion on who and why we should smash skulls in. Penny spoke in it’s own language, and Pyraxis had worked hard to keep it alive already… Drax of course wanted to burn it… but apparently they worship fire, so it loved him… Myself, i was fairly ambivalent. I’d not dealt much with goblins, and where I’m from our ‘vermin’ are much more terrifying variety. Elle wanted them dead with the fervor i usually reserve for skeletons and zombies. Pyraxis and Penny believed it was sentient and had language skills and desires… and should be treated with some civility.

I’m torn. On this occasion I side with life. Should the same argument be used to spare a vampire or lich… I’m still going to try to eradicate it. Elle went to inform Lady Heidmarch about the infestation and removed herself from the equation. Probably for the best.

Through a variety of intimidation, diplomacy, and pickle bribes… it was revealed that “Ekkie” was trying to join some goblin gang “Nightsoil Marauders” in the undercity. She had been told to retrieve ‘shinies’ that were essentially Wayfinders. She had taken our neighbor’s already. When I went to return it, he still wasn’t back yet. I’ll deal with that later.

Ekkie agreed to lead us back to the undercity where she was to meet Versh Vosh and his dangly hat… I suspect there will be plenty of extermination to make Elle happy here. We fashioned a crude leash and walked the goblin through town. There were many angry, disgusted stares as we passed, but Pyraxis loudly proclaimed ‘Aspis Business’ much to our delight. The flag probably hurt the ploy, but who knows. Ekkie led us to a slaughterhouse and we talked our way into the sewer. Nobody seems to want goblins on their property. Elle is certainly not alone in her opinion.

We spent over 45 minutes in the sewer. It was truly disgusting, and I’ll be burning these boots later… or I’ll let Drax do it. He’ll enjoy it more. Still,I remember a conversation years ago about latrine duty not being nearly as bad as what we’d face on missions… Nailed that.

In time we saw a goblin stick it’s head out of a tunnel, and Ekkie confirm that’s where the gang met. The tunnel had 4 goblins, one who died and the other three bolting. Elle noticed a trap, but triggered it in the disarm attempt and fell 10’ near a Slime mold. The hall was cramped, so I attempted to cross the edge and attack from the rear, but fell in with her. Pyraxis soon followed, albeit more gracefully. Between the two of us, we made short work of the slime.

The next few rooms showed us a glimpse into goblin life. Filthy disgusting pillows attached to a hallway. Not sure what to do with that… it went a ways… we’ll probably have to explore it later. Another room full of thieves training. Mannequins with bells on them and junk for weapons… the next room… was strange. As much as Elle despises them, and consider them lesser than herself… There were four of them in there hurling fire like any alchemist I’ve seen, and she was quick to claim the formula book afterwards… Yes, we survived… Yes they did not… I caught on fire a lot…

Behind the alchemist lab, was a large map of Magnimar… clear enough to recognize it at least… On fire. Hopefully this is just a dream of theirs and not a plan in motion…

Date:  17th of Pharast, 4714
Location:  Sewers beneath Lowcleft District, Magnimar, Varisia

The map, though crude, was easily recognizable by the coastline and Irespan as Magnimar --  a Magnimar on fire, with smoke pouring from the buildings and littered with dead horses and dogs.  I thought the last was a nice touch, what with the x’s over their eyes.  These goblins certainly have dreams big enough to fill those enormous heads of theirs!

We followed a corridor into a room with large sewer pipes running higgledy piggledy all about; coming up from the floor and diving down in again like some sort of sea monsters.  (I still harbor some sourness about not seeing an actual sea monster after two whole months at sea!  They must exist, they must!)  

The area was humid and particularly rank.  A deep channel split the room – its only crossing, a wooden plank littered with caltrops spanning the ten foot distance.  Across the channel stood two goblin guards with horse choppers, and the dangly-hat goblin that Ekkie mentioned.  Versevosh.  Dudded up in full motley.

I threatened the toothy jester with writing his name in my “book of souls” if he didn’t take us to his leader, but he just threatened to burn my book.  BURN MY BOOK!  BLASPHEMY!  He loosed a litany of ridicule and mockery against us which completely undermined the confidence I was attempting to instill in my comrades!  Needless to say, I was not his biggest fan.

The two goblin guards were killed quickly, but Versevosh escaped for a time after he cast a spell to grease the crossing plank.  It really is amazing the amount of trouble we’ve had with greased planks in our short time as Wayfarer Vanguards!  Colin, Elle and I each slipped on the grease even though we were trying very carefully to make our way across, but my sister happened to be the most unlucky and fell into the river of . . .  let’s call it excrement.  After that experience, I don’t think any motivational speech in the world would’ve been able to pull her from the antipathy that clung to her as closely as that stench for the rest of the evening.  Elle hates it when things are not neat and clean and orderly.  In that moment, she was none of those things and I think she may have died a little inside. . .

We continued on, making our way down the hall through which Versevosh disappeared, while Elle washed off with some donated wineskins.

Down one particularly long tunnel we found the not-so-secret side of a secret door which led back into the main sewage tunnel.   This door is distinctly marked with an ‘S’ on the adjoined map.  Not wishing to get too off track, we returned to the Marauders’ complex and continued our exploration.  We were set upon by a goblin dog and a duskhound, but no others assaulted us until we reached what I’ll call the “throne room”.  

Two rows of pillars ran the length of the chamber, with a makeshift throne created from the remnants of an unfortunate statue, whose original form was smashed beyond recognition.  Annoying.  Could that have been some sort of temple to the deity of defecation?  The god of guano?  Perhaps the totem  of tinkle?  The world may never know.  

Versevosh was there again spewing his vile humor.  I have always wondered how some get so much pleasure from ridiculing others.  Perhaps it makes them feel bigger – more powerful, than the object of their malicious attentions.  I’ll admit. . . he was good at his job.  He was not alone however.  A bugbear (another first for me!) was the apparent leader of this merry little band of Marauders!    Her name – as we were to later learn, was Inoklar, and she was fearsome indeed!  Fearsome and devastatingly skilled with her halberd. . .  On top of that, three more goblin guards jumped out of the shadows to join the fray!  Elle and Drax dealt with them handily while Colin and Pyraxis faced off against the largest foe.  It was a difficult fight.  Both Colin and Pyraxis fell in the ensuing battle, but they were both brought back from the brink and came on strong to aid us in winning the day.  

So the question of “who” was answered, but there was still the “what” and “why” to determine.  After we patched ourselves up and bickered a bit about whether Inoklar was male or female, we continued on through the complex to search for those answers.  They were not long in coming.

In what was clearly the bugbear’s quarters, we found a chest full of emblems and tokens from familiar organizations:  the small, black scale figurine of the Nightscale Gang, Varisian scarves and knives of the Sczarni, an ornamental star of Desna from the Gallowed Gang, a broken klar of a Shoanti gang and a golden Aspis Consortium badge.  Beneath all of this was a sheet of paper scrawled with notes of Inoklar’s history and plans for the future.

In the past, Inoklar was a lieutenant and enforcer for one of Riddleport’s top crime lords.  Their affiliation ended poorly when this crime lord put out a kill hit on her because someone she killed was connected to the city’s overlords.  Inoklar escaped Riddleport and lived in the hinterlands of Varisia for a time before moving into the Magnimar sewers with her goblin buddies.

She wanted to start wars between Magnimar’s criminal elements in order to weaken them so that the Nightsoil Marauders could take over as the primary corruption of the city.  A frighteningly intelligent plan really.  Note to self:  do not underestimate bugbears.  Neither their brawn nor their brains!

To wrap up our business in the sewers, we sent Ekkie off safely (with Plarg in tow) after Drax spoke with her about creating a goblin spy network to work as informants for us in exchange for the fiery favors she so adores.  I’m glad for what we were able to accomplish by listening to her story.  It seems that important information can be found in the most unlikely of places!

We returned to the lodge to wash and burn all of our clothing, content in the knowledge that the Wayfarer Vanguard had done good work today and saved Magnimar from a great deal of trouble.

Mission elements for further research:

Gangplanks, again – mundane or magical.  Magical may be best in order to avoid additional encumbrance.



***

Date:  18th of Pharast, 4714
Location:  Pathfinder Lodge, Magnimar, Varisia

This morning after breakfast we turned over all the mission information to Venture Captain Sheila Heidmarch, who commended us for a job well done and for turning the goblin Ekkie to our side.  She will be sure to get the emblems of the different crime organizations into the hands of the powers that be so that any trouble brewing from the stolen tokens could be headed off at the pass.  

We went our separate ways this afternoon to seek out employment.  Pyraxis had previously secured a position at the Gilded Cage and is seeking to get involved in some matches at Serpent’s Run.  Elle is working at Telwynn’s herbalist shop, Colin found a place at a blacksmith shop in the Marches district and Drax will be cooking at an inn and tavern in the Vista district.  I went to the Founder’s Archive and managed an appointment with Madam Irba Demerios, whom I’ve indirectly worked for before.  The woman terrifies me.  Even so, she offered me my old job back – well that, and doing some cataloging work, with the understanding that I could not be counted upon indefinitely due to my membership with the Pathfinders.  That was a weight off my shoulders!  

After dinner at the Lodge, I finished my notes regarding the Sky Key and our Ashkurhall adventure to be sent to Venture Captain Valsin.  Also detailed was the fall of Neiford Sharrowsmith and the interference of the Aspis Consortium who are likely seeking out these Sky keys as well.  I gave it to Venture Captain Heidmarch to be sent along with the key, but also sent out a second copy to him this evening with a note stating Heidmarch’s current possession of the key and her intent to send it to Absalom.  This key seems very important and a catalyst for even further discovery!  If something were to happen to it between here and there, I want Valsin to know the chain of custody.


***


Date:  20th of Pharast, 4714
Location:  Pathfinder Lodge, Magnimar, Varisia

Today Colin took me along to visit the Pharasmans at the Cenotaph to inquire as to the undead creature that killed Elle’s friend all those years ago.  I am not entirely sure why he wanted me there, but perhaps being half-vampire makes him a little twitchy around Pharasma’s clergy and with me being entirely non-threatening, I might put their suspicions more at ease.  Whatever his intention, trouble never arose.  Instead, he asked them about any records of ghosts or wraith-like undead that may have been haunting the area thirty years ago.  They had little information to relay.  Of course there are old legends of such things but nothing concrete and if there was something down there thirty years ago, the clerics would have taken care of it by now.  These priests have little to no experience with actual undead in the area and mainly patrol to keep others (namely necromantic types) from creeping around among the peaceful dead.

I’m not sure either Colin or Elle are satisfied with that answer, but the issue seems to have been put to rest for now.  Pun intended.

Elements for further research:

Monument Boons – Capital District

2 - 4 - 4714

A strange occurrence happened. We were all summoned to our Venture-Captain without strange notes hiding in our shoes. Not sure I can get used to this.

Miss Sheila’s office, immaculate as ever, comfortably sat the five of us (six counting Sheila herself). She has a favor for us. Now, here I will, as she did before me, stress that this is not a Pathfinder specific task. There is nothing official here. It is just as she put it, a favor to her.

Obviously we agreed.

She would not go into detail on her own (so yes, we agreed blindly. Optimistic much?) so we had to find out all the details from our contact, a young lady named Jeminda, who happens to be a low rank bookkeeper for the city. We were to meet her at a tavern called “Drunken Dog” in the Odellia district. I’m sorry to say I’m not familiar with that particular establishment. Turns out visiting all the bars in a town this size is harder than it sounds.

At the appointed time of five in the afternoon our group had already been inside for about a half an hour. Some of us nursing our drinks. Through the front door comes a young woman, human, apparently in her twenties with dark hair and matching the description of Jeminda that Sheila had given us. So after she gets seated, we saunter over.

We introduce ourselves as friends of Sheila and as we sit down, she starts to explain her “issue”. Her word, not mine. Issue. Understatement or overstatement. Only time will tell.

She is the record keeper for the city recording the taxes brought in by outlaying cities and towns for the dubious “protection” afforded by Magnimar’s military. You can’t tell, but I’m shrugging.

Turns out that a small town up the way (north east to be precise, a short, at least compared to the boat ride here, ride up and away.) Well, for a very long time now this town named Ravenmore hasn’t paid their taxes. Fifteen years to be exact.

No we are not being hired to be thugs for the city. Yes we all thought that at first too.

Turns out that since it’s such a small town the city’s tax collectors simply forgot it was there. You heard me. A tax collector forgot about a community. Some places get all the luck, right? Well, after fifteen years of not collecting, with interest of course, Ravenmore owes five hundred coins.

But Draxthious, you handsome devil (pun intended of course), why didn’t she send a local tax collector up there to get it. Turns out she did, her brother in law, or former BiL. After his wife died he apparently hit the drink (alcohol not the ocean) pretty hard and made a ruin of his life. A couple years ago he hit rock bottom and came to her begging for help getting his life back together. So she made the alcoholic a tax collector.

Elias, the BiL, has been working productively since then and she sent him. Aproximately two weeks ago she received a letter from him via the town of Goldura, which is on the way, that he should be back in about a week and expected no problems. The problem though is he never showed up.

So our mission, should we choose to accept it, is two fold. One, find out about the tax money and they can pay it (if not or if has already been paid that is fine too) and two, find Elias. Notice how the money is the first objective?

So, with an official seal, an offer of two hundred gold each (yes I know that equals much more than the amount owed but apparently it’s the principal of the thing, and a description of Elias (short, stocky, of Ulfen descent, with red hair and ugly as sin. Her words), we started out. Ok, we waited till the morning since we hadn’t even gotten our supplies yet. Morning ahoy.

Skip ahead a few days.

11 - 4 - 4714

Goldura, a small town of middling importance (though important enough to not be forgotten by the tax collectors). A stop to resupply and nothing else. Except, well, Penny. Brainy found out that Elias had been here on his way to the town of Ravenmore (even found the room he slept in) but had not come back.

Well, turns out we are on the right track. Go team.

Skipping a few more days as travel really consisted of ate trail rations and walked a lot of miles. Cept for the storm, that caused muddy roads and delayed up about a day.

18 - 4 - 4714

People are weird. Very very weird.

To get into Ravenmore you have to use a ferry to cross a river. Not so unusual. As we were approaching we hear this small voice call out,

“Applesauce, come here boy.”

A rustling from the bushes produces the largest mosquito I have ever seen. It bursts forth (responding to Elle calling “Applesauce” herself) and flies directly onto her arm, apparently burying it probiscus (that’s the long nose blood sucker thing) into her deeply as she screams.

Well, we all react but being closest to her Penny flashes out with her spear and skewers the bug, killing it instantly. Yay? No yay. No sooner was the thing dead than a young human boy of maybe seven years, steps out of the bush following Applesauce, his pet. Yes, you heard me, the mosquito of unusual size (m.o.u.s.’s) was his pet.

People are weird.

Elle attempted to either calm the now crying boy or taunt him. I honestly didn’t hear what she said, but the boy cried harder grabbing and running off to the ferry with the dead bug.

The ferry man saw what happened, and told us that pet killers would have to wait until he came back to ride across. (He then proceeded to have lunch while we waited). While waiting Elle informed us that the bug never actually tried to hurt her. Which means we all over reacted to an actual harmless (?) pet. Oops.

So, we finally get across (for a reasonable fee surprisingly, not over charged or price gouged) and, well, the whole town is giving us the stink eye.

Granted these people are country bumbkins down to their bones but still. It was a bug. People are weird.

So, quick tour, the town of roughly one hundred and fifty people, and starting from the right as we enter, Elizna’s Weaving. Next is a starkly empty town trading post. Across the street is a burned out two story church of undetermined faith. I do smirk at that hoping it’s Iomedea.

The rest of the town is fair grounds up north, a weird alter statue thing to the north east, and a comparatively large house upon the hill and farms. Lots and lots of farms.

So, while asking for directions to the town mayor, and being chiefly ignored, a slightly elder man approaches us from the east. Actually talks with us proper like. Country folk can be so cute when trying to be civilized.

Seriously though, the man was a wealth of information, thankfully. Elias was here, not now and he was last seen with the mayor at the mayor’s house but he left and the man does not know where.

The church (which is apparently still used) is to Dawntreader. When Penny mentions the name Desna the man gives her a look almost like he is expecting her to be struck down for her arrogance. Penny however is perfectly fine and is not suffering divine retribution. Yay.
Tonight is starting of the “Founder’s Festival”. A celebration of the town’s founding with games, drinks, and feasts. I’m may or may not be starting to like this town, we’ll see if we are invited to these drinks…...and feasts…..but mostly drinks.

Elle gets directions to the mayor’s house and we start out. Ontop of a hill to the east is a two story in the front, one story in the back, with a slanted roof, stone building. Castle of Mayor. Now I wonder if he ever secretly calls it that.

Outside the house is a very large burly man who scowls at us (and would probably like to bury us in his garden to fertilize his plants) He very brusquely tells us the mayor isn’t seeing anyone and we should leave. However right then a tall man wearing nicer than your average clothes for the part of the country, steps out from the house.

This fellow (the actual mayor) greets us warmly and is more than happy to both talk with us and extend us an invitation to both stay at his place and to come to the festival tonight.

So, it turns out that Elias was here, he was paid, then he left. Elias stayed over night (one night) while the town gathered the money and the next morning he was on his way. Rumor has it he took the money and made for Riddleport. Unfortunately for Elias with his past that actually sounds plausable. Especially when the mayor tosses out that he saw Elias looking longingly at the alcohol.

Mayor knows of no bandits or thugs in the area, however local superstition states that there is a “Water Wolf” that lives the river and eats animals and small people who get too close. He’s never seen it but he does know of farm animals that have gone missing.

Elle confesses for the group about the bug killing the the Mayor identifies the creature as a Stirge. Apparently lots of people around here have one as a pet.

By and large we agree to “lay low” at the Mayor’s place until the party and said Mayor takes his leave of us to finish up some business he has in town before the festival starts. He will be back to get us when it’s time for the fun to begin.

After we leave we discuss as a group our impressions so far. Colin, ever better judge of character than I, believes that the Mayor is hiding something. Not necessarily lying, just hiding.

Also, where did a town this size get the money together in one night, and how come the townspeople (based on the one who would talk to us) not know what Elias was doing in town?

While waiting in said Mayor’s place, we discovered which room Elias was in. How did we come to this astounding find? What amazing deductive reasoning did we use? We asked the Mayor. He was in one of the rooms upstairs, by the stairs.

It was in this room however we found our first unusual clue type thing. A piece of paper with one side containing the official request for the tax money and the other side a quickly drawn map of the town. On this map four buildings were circled. Weavers, the Trading Post, The Ferry, and Mayor’s house. A riddle wrapped in a mystery.

Penny, brainy one that she is, heads for the Mayor’s sitting room to look at the books. Lots (not really) of books. However there she finds a stack of rubbings in which appear to be ancient Thassalonian. At which point she scampers (actually physically scampering, it’s quite impressive.) to her room with a curious Colin on her heels.

Here I should mention that we’ve seen throughout the town either plainly or made into a totem of some kind, a particular leaf called a Feyleaf. It has a number of uses including but not limited to being a hallucinogen. Puzzling? Maybe. Or maybe the town just likes to get drugged up. People are weird. (I should, in all honestly, admit that I would not be against attempting this hallucinogenic effect myself.)

Elle steps out the front door and like a true Wayfarer Vanguard, ignores the stares of the grumpy gardener. Here she gets a better look at that altar thing I mentioned earlier. Surrounded by black river stone in an ampitheater style setting was a wicker figure with ugly features and wings. None of us are able to place the figure.

This is when Penny calls us up to her room where she had deciphered some of the rubbings. They describe a Thassalonian being, a Rune Lord, named Glouder, God of parasites and stagnation. Lovely fellow. However even our resident Brainy is, when it was pointed out to her, able to figure out what the ugly wicker man was.

So we decide to ask the Mayor. He says it is the Dreamtender and it will not get burned. Those totems or effigies rather, are symbols of the Dreamtender that are burned at night. Some of them are made out of Feyleaf which can cause euphoric bliss.

We talk amongst ourselves as we now, for time as it is wont to do, passed, and we are now heading with the Mayor to the festival. The Mayor is surprised at how open we our with our conversations, maybe even going so far as to find it “respectable”. His words, honestly.

Apparently Elias was not as open and indeed seemed very guarded.

So….have you ever been to a traveling carnaval? This entire festival was like that. Tents and games, drinks and foods. The only thing missing were the scammers trying to sell over priced useless trinkets to gullible rubes.

The whole town, yes everyone that could see, were now greeting us with smiles and warm welcomes. And no, they weren’t on drugs, we checked. Well, our resident chemical expert checked and let’s face, we (or at least I, but I suspect everyone) trusts Elle’s opinion.
So, in the spirit of the festival, we decide to partake of the fun. Penny and Elle immediately volunteer for the three legged race. The rest of us were completely prepared to cheer them on. However the girls had other ideas. After taunting us (and getting the townspeople in on it) they finally managed to get Colin and I to agree to running it as well.

My boy and I kicked their arses. Seriously, we dominated. We had one hiccup when Colin tripped, but we were able to recover amazingly and we won. Penny and Elle came in third. Out of four. At least they didn’t lose completely.

Our prize for winning? We now get to sit at the Mayor’s table for the feast tonight. I’m hoping that means first choice of food and drink. Anyone else having bad premonitions of being Feyleaf poisoned?

18th Gozran 4714



Three legged race over and won, the festival seemed to flow out into different directions. I was a bit concerned when I saw a small bonfire being built and people leaping over it like fools. Elderly and children alike were leaping over the fire. When they were finished, the fire was made larger and everyone else got in line.

Naturally Penelope raced to join in line. I tried to talk her out of it… to no avail. Elle decided that instead of trying to protect her sister… she’d join her in the foolish activity. The villagers were delighted and tried to get myself and Pyraxis involved… but we refused. Failure results in pain or death… success gains nothing. When I see threats all around, I don’t take extra risks.

They called it the ‘Dreamers Leap’, and is some sort of ritualistic purification ceremony… I’m as pure as I’m going to get tonight.

To their credit, the girls cleared the flame marvelously without a single singed hair.

Next, we saw a large covered cart led to a circle of stones. Apparently this is where the raven fights would be conducted. We questioned a villager about the sport, as I had never seen ravens fight. Chickens yes… that’s common enough in the darker alleys I’ve traveled, but not ravens. Elle did not seem impressed that at least with chickens we were able to eat the losers. I described it as eating a warrior fallen in combat… she said the pecking would bruise and bloody the meat…

Which led to some awkward silences…

Before the fights, there was a starknife throwing contest. I entered, because I like weapons. The winner would get to sit at the head table, and I had already won that prize, so maybe my heart wasn’t in it. Regardless, I was the only Wayfairer Vanguard eliminated in the first round. In my defense, the weapons were absolute garbage. Ancient.. Rusted… slightly dented in places. For a weaponsmith such as myself, there were useless. Even so, my own throw was pretty pitiful.

The others did well with the 20’ target, as did one villager. Him I’ll kep an eye on in case things go south here… The 60’ target proved more than the starknives could handle it seemed. Even the villager failed horribly as did the others... As such, there was nobody left to go to the farthest target, they redid the 60’. Once again everyone failed… except Penny. She stuck the target quite admirably. We may have to look into getting her a well balanced starknife and see how she does with that!

Throughout the day, we pieced together the story behind the tournament. Apparently the founder Iola Kriegler, presumably the ancestor of the current mayor, was a priestess of Desna trying to stop a blight on the village. She received a dream vision.. Went on a quest… and when she came back these festivals started… I suspect that these rusted old knives where the same ones she once wielded. I still have issues with a religious ceremony that is so… disdainful of the deity?! Her favored weapons, her church, no priests…. Everything was left to rot, yet they act like they are honoring her. Makes sense if they are worshipping this Glaunder, which we all seem to agree on, but I’m curious how many KNOW they are not worshipping Desna anymore?

The Raven fights were interesting… though honestly, I didn’t see much training. The birds seemed fairly evenly matched and the fights decided by lucky chance. My first choice bird won and then was eliminated, causing me to break even. Second choice, a rough looking bird named Grizzle lived up to his name though. I walked away from that with a couple of silver. Weak bets, but we’re also here for 15 years of tax money… so best not be greedy.

The last of the games was a greased pig wrestling. Elle would have none of it. I had no interest either… Again, I had already won my place at the table. Pyraxis was just pleased to see a more… physical contest. Penny seems up for anything.

I was a bit torn on this one. On one i hand like to see Pyraxis succeed at what he’s good at… on the other, that would put all of us at the winning table except Elle and I didn’t want her on her own…. The situation worked itself out though.

Penny and Pyraxis fought over that pig… I heard the name ‘Bacon’ being tossed around… It was rather amusing seeing them slip and slide through the mud. The commoners loved it more than we did, Apparently seeing outsiders embarrass themselves is a fun time for them. Pyraxis ALMOST won… but Penny (in the true spirit of the game,) was able to tackle him and rip the pig away. In the end it was the commoner in the pit with them that got the pin, but that separates our group in acceptable terms….

Then things got weird…The pig keeled over and died. Legs sprouted out of the stomach. Large plant appendages sprouted from the top… it started to hover… It was like nothing i’ve ever seen before.

I let fly an arrow that was on mark… but it bounced off doing no damage that I could see. Pyraxis fought the thing… I charged in with my sword, still minimal damage… Elle was bombing… but the pig thing was durable and STRONG. We didn’t know what it was… worse, we didn’t know what hurt it. Its bite seemed to create a festering mass of plants in the wound that entangled Pyraxis. It flew around in a circle, yanking its leash from the ground and flew off into the distance.

Naturally, we were quite upset by this monstrosity… and the crowd was quite shocked too. However, unlike us, they got over it quickly. When we questioned… most persistently, we were told that this happens sometimes.

Yes… “That happens sometimes”… I intently wanted to punch the hick in the face. I have been around… this does NOT happen sometime. It is not meant to happen anywhere!!! The more we pushed they more they tried to brush our concerns off.. There is a curse or something here that I’ve never seen or heard of before… but sometimes the bad magic gets into the plants and animals… ‘It happens’... Then the people round up some volunteers and track them down and take of it… no biggie.

REALLY want to punch someone right now, and we are all in agreement not to eat anything that came out of the ground here. Which only became more difficult since the dinner was starting.

The dinner was something right out of a nightmare. They had vegetables, and pork, and bread and some kind of unidentifiable pupae, some giant tick legs that were smoked and boiled… and a stirge sack prepared like some kind of blood sausage. Penny was with me and Drax on the raised winners table with the pig catcher. The horror in our eyes wasn’t easily disguised, and I thought Penny was going to be violently ill a few times. We took some food… She more then I. Nothing that skitters was going to touch my plate… not that I ate anything. There were some pushing of things around, and the occasional wide movement causing something to land on the ground.

I was questioned about my lack of appetite, but think I deflected that with an excuse about too much sun and too much exertion. We tried to distract with questions about this insane festival, their religion, and of course… the flying pig monster.

In what I suspect was a counter-attack to our deflection… He stood up and announced it was time to ‘tell the story’, or something of that effect. The three potential Founder’s Day Queens came forth and told the story of Ravenmoor. Each told a part in perfect harmony as if they had practiced before.

Short version was written above, and they filled in a lot of the holes. Ravenmoor was a product of Chelish colonization like Magnimar and Korvosa… though didn’t prosper as well obviously, (I find it interesting that they are supposed to pay taxes to Magnimar now.) In the early years there was a blight on the land that ravaged the crops. Iola Kriegler went on a vision quest.. Found something in the Churlwood. She discovered some ritual that promised safety and prosperity and established the monthly festival.

Yes… monthly. That was a strange piece of information that feels… off, but I’m not sure why yet.

A rather pretty girl named Shel Lepesku, daughter of the traders, is named the Queen of the festival. I don’t understand the significance, but her parents and she seemed rather pleased, so there is a chance I suppose that she isn’t destined.

Penny raised the question of the rubbings she had discovered. She was rather coy about it, and didn’t acknowledge being able to read them. The mayor acknowledged them and claimed that someone had found them and turned them in… he didn’t know much about them, or where they were from… I was a bit distracted unfortunately since I noticed that Elle had left the table and Pyraxis was off to follow her. I suspect they have a lead or wish to use the distraction of the party to investigate in private. I was determined to buy as much time as possible.

The mayor spoke in a way that Penny didn’t believe about the origins of the rubbings… but exactly where he lied is a little fuzzy right now.

We did find out a list of business’ that Krieger supposedly collected the taxes from. Interestingly, only two of them matched the list of circled places on Elias’ map.

With the ending of the dinner, our friends rejoined us and we were invited back to the mayor’s. According to Elle, they searched the weavers and the ferryman’s place and found nothing unusual… no money, no records..

She also questioned about the Queen concept. Apparently it is quite common for the queens to leave town afterward, and never return. They leave to follow their dreams. Now THAT to me screams sacrifice. They say ‘leave to follow dreams.’ What I hear is ‘Never seen again.’


Things that don’t make sense to me.

1.How can a village this small lose 12 of their pretty young women every year. That is a battle of attrition a society this small couldn’t handle

2.Why would a society losing young women by the cartful be so hateful of outsiders… especially when they bring in new young ladies like Elle and Penny?

3.Who is involved? Is the entire village involved in it? Just a few?

4.Is the mayor involved? He must be… but some of the things he says sound sincere.

5.WHAT was the ritual?? The purification leap was meant to be explained later… but nothing has happened. Very anticlimactic. Somehow I can’t picture this Dreamtender providing prosperity and peace if they wrestle a pig… there has to be more.

6.Why would a place that is successfully completing their festivals, as they claim they are, still suffer from flying pig monsters!!!

We’ve agreed that whatever happens has to happen tonight. That is the nature of ritual. If the rules say that blood happens on the full moon… then it has to be the night of the full moon. End of story. If not completed, the ritual fails. Apparently it never fails here. We believe it will center on the young queen and plan to stake out her place tonight to rescue her.

Not to say we also aren’t concerned about the mayor… When we return to our rooms, we all stay in one room with the window open. I’m not sure how strong this flay leaf is… but no chances. His effigies weren’t burned yet, so our senses are on high alert.

A bit before midnight Elle hears someone on the stairs and alerts us quietly. It seems the mayor has come to kill us in our sleep… or drug us first… or something nefarious. Fortunately we are not caught unaware.

I heard gentle knocking a few doors down, that eventually got closer. I motioned to play sleeping… if he thinks we’re asleep then he’ll leave and we can go about our business. Surprisingly though, I heard a voice i did not expect whispering on the other side. Shel… the Queen we wanted to protect!

I opened the door a crack, and she addressed me with a plea for help. She claimed it was common for the queen to leave town and wanted to come with me. I asked if she was afraid of something and she said no… but there was deception there. While not entirely opposed to being sought out by pretty ladies… showing up this late for a talk like this? Just to go with us tomorrow? When she could have easily asked at the festival itself? This is ridiculously suspicious.

I opened the door wider to invite her in and when she saw everyone else there, she panicked. She said it was a mistake and she should leave, then scurried away down the stairs. We gave chase… but still unsure of her motives, we did so quietly. Penny threw a rope out the window, and we climbed down while Elle used her featherfall ring. It was a full moon, so even those without nightvision had decent visibility and we chased her down the path away from the manor.

As we passed two houses a group of Stirges attacked. Everyone got attacked but me, though there was another just waiting. The others looked weakened from blood loss, but still fighting. I killed one as I ran, trusting them to take of the others and rushed to cut off Shel, still not sure if she was bait or needing rescue. That was made clear soon enough..

She dodged around me calling out ‘He’s coming!!!’... He indicating me. When two figures in robes and giant mosquito masks came out of the darkness with sickles, it was clear. She was setting me up. Now… I’m not 100% certain whether they wanted me personally… or whoever opened the first door. At the moment I’m choosing to be flattered… and angry. One swipe from my sword dropped the one on my left with a girlish scream. The other, a man called out ‘Anya’. The name of Shel’s mother the tanner. Things were becoming clear now.

The others had taken care of the bugs and rushed up as Saul fell to the ground to try to save his wife, and Shel came back from the distance. I was furious. Penny helped stabilize the woman, while I intimidated Saul. Between him and Shel it was revealed they felt I was here to take her place. The queen is meant to be sacrificed… but this time we had arrived and I was ‘fated’ to replace her… I made it clear that was not the case. They acted like my refusal was the same as murdering their daughter. Saul wept that he was sorry to Anya and reached for his sickle… I kicked him in the face… Hard.

I’m not certain if he meant to attack me… Anya… his daughter? Cultists aren’t often logical. If we won’t submit, I suspected he was about to complete the ritual with one of them… I still kicked him in the face. Shel dove for her mother’s sickle, and I slammed her with the hilt of my sword knocking her out. Penny took a swing with the spear and knocked out Saul.

Now we have three unconscious cultists… and I’m ready to rip out someone’s heart and show it to them. We started to drag them back to the Manor. It was time to have a chat with the Mayor.

We took our three captives, all now unconscious after taking a boot from Colin, back to the Mayor's manor. We intended to question the mayor and attempt to extract the truth from the lies he had been feeding us. I thought perhaps the best course would be to take him into custody immediately and depart the city while everyone slept, presenting at least some of the guilty parties to the authorities in Magnimar. We deposited our shackled prisoners in the manor's sitting room, and then Colin kicked in the doors to both bedrooms. Both were empty-the mayor was not present, and we speculated he might be at the site of the ritual that Colin had been slated to be sacrifice for. A search of the rooms revealed a loose floorboard in one, which we crowbarred open. We found a stash of over 700 gold, some potions, and a silver signet ring, that Elle said was a badge of sorts for Magnimarian government officials. Penny also found a quilt that told a story of the founding of Ravenmoor, and book called "The Kriegler Book" that had many different authors. Penny thumbed through it and pronounced it quite scattered and hard to parse.

The guest bedroom had a strange funk about it, and we found that underneath a quilt, the bed sheets were soaked in some kind of non-human bodily excretion. Colin identified it as the blood of a faceless stalker. We have no idea how this fits into the conspiracy that we thought we were finally getting a grasp of. Some more searching by Elle yielded a discovery of both poison and antitoxin. We decided to error on the side of caution, and we all decided to take a dose of the antitoxin before we left the manor.

We headed to the arena where the Wicker man was kept, ready for a brawl, but found it empty. Rather than going door to door in the town, we headed back to the manor and Colin woke the girl that tried to have him take her place. Though she was initially defiant, Colin got her talking. She said the ritual had been performed many times before, and that they were meeting tonight "at the Chenoweth place." Colin knocked her out again, and after identifying where that was, we headed out again.

The house was in a sizable yard, all situated within an improbably tall cornfield with only two paths in or out. A scarecrow that was in the yard finally acted in a predictable fashion, and came to life to attack us. Its unnatural movements were almost hypnotizing for a few moments, and during that time Colin was fairly well shredded by its tri-scythe hands. I was jostled into action when Elle threw a bomb point blank into Colin's head- I was sure there had to be a hole in his skull, given the impact I felt over a yard away. I managed to trip the creature while Penny saved Colin's life, and eventually we took the thing down, after Elle threw a few more bombs that were more accurate without Colin in the way.

We decided to make sure the yard was clear before entering the house, and circled around to the back. A trio of bizarre humanoid hybrid creatures lurched out of the barn at us, with various pieces of animal parts attached to them, such as rhino and deer legs and insectoid arms. Colin scored a massive hit on one, nearly cutting it in half, and was promptly outdone by Penny, who thrust her spear straight through another's head. After dispatching them, we found some magical items in the barn, and an emaciated hand hanging on a string and pearl. We also found a regular mace with a symbol of Magnimar, of the type that was usually assigned to tax collectors for protection.

We saw some movement in a dense vegetable garden behind the house, sounding like an animal rustling in it. We gave it a wide berth and made sure the rest of the yard was clear, and then prepared to enter the house. After noticing a candle flickering in the window, I decided I would enter through the side (Elle joined me), while Penny and Colin entered from the front door. Though the side door did not exist yet, I determined that could quickly be remedied due to the weak and rotted construction. Though I did create that entry very quickly, the floor inside gave way to the basement, but I was able to pull back at the last second. As Penny and Colin had timed their entry to coincide with mine, we heard the sounds of combat coming from the inside, and we circled around to help. The cultists were no more formidable than the ones from the town, and they quickly went down when a flask from Elle showered them, along with Penny and Colin, in liquid fire. Penny found a quilt in the room that depicted a tumored humanoid circling a captive, preparing for a sacrifice. The room also contained a human-sized cage.

The next room in the house contained one of the slime like creatures of the ilk that Elle had fallen into the pit with back in the sewers of Magnimar. We were able to dispatch this one a bit easier, as it did not have the advantage of surprise.

We moved into the next room, and Colin was instantly covered in webbing. A man-sized spider creature on the ceiling had doused him, and then cast a spell to put Elle to sleep. It then dawned on me that as we hurled various projectiles at it, that it was acting in a purely defensive posture! As the incident progressed we had continued hurting it while it did no harm to any of us! Finally it pleaded with me to stop the others from hurting it, and I attempted to get the others to stand down. Irritatingly I was completely disregarded, so I had to take matters into my own hands by divesting Colin of his sword and Penny of her spear.

Finally, Penny alertly took a step back to look at the situation and came around to my way of thinking. Colin and Elle, (whom Colin had awoken) still stubbornly insisted on killing the creature, which during all of this time had not hurt any of us! Finally, when Colin had tried to backhand Penny when she got in his way (and missed), I realized that battle lust was consuming him. I escorted him out of the room like I would take a hooligan out of a bar, and told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to cool down. Penny tried to reason with her sister, but got of course got nowhere with her unstable, violent sibling.

I then tried to pull Elle out of the room, but while my attention was diverted, Colin darted back in and got a very brutal hit on the poor creature. It realized it had to flee for its life, but before it turned invisible and fled, it showed its benevolence by giving us a very helpful warning: "It is imperative you keep them from the cornfields to the North, for their own safety!"

After the creature was gone some bickering ensued- they could not be reasoned with and would not acknowledge the creature meant no harm. But tempers cooled and we got back to the task at hand, or so I thought. We went to the next room and saw a set of earthen steps leading down. In the basement, we found webs and countless dead insects-clearly what the creature was feeding on, quite harmless!- and a human sized sculpture of an insectoid creature made of corn husks, rags, and bones, and 3 shovels caked with earth. The "sculpture" was realized to be an accurate depiction of Glaunder, the god of parasites. Fearing the worst, we picked up the shovels and started digging,and uncovered a body that while decayed, was recognizable as our errant tax collector. The body was grotesquely stuffed with corn husks and dead stirges. If only those two had not driven the hapless spider creature away, it probably would have been able to tell us exactly who did this to him!

Penny and I then argued we had more than enough evidence to present to the authorities in Magnimar, and we should heed the friendly warning we had been given about the North cornfield. Colin would have none of it and picked up Penny and started toward the stairs, announcing his intention to take us to that cornfield. I asked Colin to reconsider as I picked them both up and moved them off the stairs. Unfortunately Elle picked that time to dart past me (I will have to figure out how to stop that!) and ran up the stairs. Penny, still being hoisted by Colin, yelled for me to stop her sister.

Knowing that Elle was vastly faster than me, my only chance was to cut her off. As I charged up the stairs, I knew Colin would not be able to stop me, as Penny had somehow gotten him in a headlock. Elle had to head to the South door of the building, and run around the house to get to the Northern path to the cornfield. I saw that I could beat her there by simply making my own exit to the North, and did so. I could have cut her off, too…. had my exit not immediately placed me in the center of the vegetable garden we bypassed before- which housed their stirge huts. I was force to call for aid as it was clear those beasts would be all over me in seconds, and to his credit Colin was there immediately to help. They managed to suck a fair degree of blood out of me, to the extent where I was really missing it. The second we dispatched the last one, Elle took off for the Northern path, letting us know exactly where she was heading, and this time there did not appear to be any way to stop her from heading toward whatever terrible thing was waiting.

18th Gozran 4714, perhaps 19th now…

Well, with Pyraxis and Penny turned against us, I found myself in an awkward position. Once the stirges were dealt with, I thought Pyraxis was going to start another fight, but he thanked me for the assist. Interestingly, whatever that Aranea did to him, he still thought he was doing best by us. When Elle continued her race to the cornfield, I seized on an opportunity.

I yelled out to Pyraxis that we had to catch her, then raced after her into the cornfield. Our friend seemed rather happy that I had come to his way of thinking and came after us. It was tricky once we got inside. Elle had a head start, and Pyraxis is rather slow on his feet. Also, it wasn’t so much a field as it was a maze… I shouted out the directions that Elle went for Pyraxis to keep up, while I tried not to lose her. This could backfire if the Aranea was still in here, but I’d rather have him by our side, then just Elle and I try to deal with this cult alone.

Penny I did not see again after we got out of the house. I suspect she either went back to the Mayor’s house, tracked Drax, or fled my grappling. That spider messed with her mind too, but since we’re headed to the heart of the danger, I’ll keep any concern at the back of my mind.

Elle found the first of the threats. A veritable wall of mosquitos. That was bad. I’m not really great against swarms, and she seemed prepped for a tanglefoot bag instead of fire, probably for Pyraxis if he got too close. They swarmed her and as she fled back to me. Pyraxis used this opportunity to catch up and try to convince us to leave. He may actually have a point. Between the stirges and battling allies, I was starting to be concerned about our combat prowess for this mission.

Elle accepted some wand healing, and raced back the way we came, choosing a different direction in the maze. In hindsight, I believe at least most of these paths would lead us to the center, but it felt like a gamble at the time. Up ahead I heard combat and rustling in the corn and came upon Elle in combat with a faceless stalker.

I don’t know where the stalker fits in… The blood stuff I found definitely indicated that the stalker was dead… So either he was raised or there are two of them. Maybe more? Are all the cultists shapeshifters?? Details for later i guess…

This fight wasn’t too bad… I mean, Elle set us on fire. She was quick to apologize, but I’m already running through a training regiment for her when/if we get home. Pyraxis put those claws of his to work and disarmed a drastically superior sickle compared to what we’ve seen in town. However, it was still formidable with its fist/claws… But not enough. Elle threw a tanglefoot at it, and then more fire. This time I was out of the way, and Pyraxis’ armor protected him. The stalker however, died on it’s feet.

Elle informed us that when it attacked her, for a moment it looked like Leonard Kreigler… the surly guy in the mayor’s fields that hated Drax. Apparently at least claiming to be the mayor's brother. Something I hadn't connected earlier. His Sickle was magical, though none here could identify it. We healed up and continued on. Pyraxis seemed to believe we had come too far to turn back safely at this point… overriding whatever magic had messed up his priorities earlier. The entire maze buzzed incessantly, and occasionally we could hear an undertone of human voices chanting. It was quite disconcerting, but helped steer us through the maze.

Soon we found the center and what waited there stopped me cold. Mayor Andretti Kriegler in full robe between two bonfires and in front of a creepy altar. Surrounding him was eight cultists stripped down inside the cornfields, with mosquitoes swarming over their entire bodies… with only the faces showing free. My skin crawled just to think about it, and I felt VERY outnumbered. Fortunately, they were quite lost in their chanting and not strictly speaking combatants.

Worse yet, Kriegler seemed so very pleased to see us. Me specifically. In my mind, we had killed his people, stopped his cultists and fought his monsters… In his mind, we were right where he wanted me to be. He wasn’t entirely wrong…

He started talking about all the great things I was fated to do for this village. How it would be heroic of me to volunteer for this and he spoke about it like there was no other realistic choice to be made… everything was so… simple for him. The man was truly insane. Elle tried to help in the discussion… Constantly informing him that I was no good… cursed… with damned blood. Kriegler was fine with that, even excited about my participation. It was nice that she was trying to help… but ouch. It started to get awkward after a while.

Pyraxis started by charging the mayor and I’m glad he did. Just as I was about to follow suit, Elle was bitten by the Aranea. She seemed to shrug off its poison, but this was not a fight I wanted Pyraxis to see. I don’t know if he still considered her to be a friend… but I would rather kill it before that conversation comes up. I can’t fight EVERYONE at once.

A lot of what follows I did not notice myself, but heard about after. The spider was all the battle I could handle for a while, while Pyraxis had his massive hands full with Kriegler. Apparently, he had cast a sanctuary spell on himself which did not work against Pyraxis, however it did against Elle.

Kriegler had some nasty spells at his disposal, and I know there was at least lightning blasts and a floating spear… I’m guessing some kind of spiritual weapon. Elle could not attack Kriegler, but she could heal Pyraxis and throw fire at one of the stationary cultists. If nothing else it woke him from his trance as the mosquitoes burned up like fireflies. Then the nude cultist charged Elle, but Pyraxis… broke him before he got past. Finally he beat Kriegler to death.

Elle turned to help me with the spider, but I think she feared setting me on fire more, so proceeded to heal me, and I finished that. Thankfully, I didn’t need to explain myself, because the spell was broken and Pyraxis realized what had happened. I assume the same thing happened with Penny wherever she was.

As I was trying to decided what to do with the cultists, leaning toward coup de grace… Kriegler’s body started convulsing. Knowing the monstrosity of the flying pig monster, Pyraxis began stomping the mayor’s head to paste, but it didn’t help. The body dead, the monster erupted from his torso. The cultists screamed in horror and fled through the corn to safety.

It is difficult to describe… it reminded me of some kind of cross between a mosquito and a flea, but big as a man. It had wings, but seemed to hop everywhere, and it’s proboscis was entirely too long. I identified it as a Blightspawn. Supposedly some unique lesser creature of Ghlaunder. Worse yet, it needed magic to damage it effectively, and I had the only magic sword in hand. Pyraxis was carrying the unidentified magic sickle but had it stashed with the rest of the gear and couldn’t dig it out before the spawn was grappling him and biting him senseless. I took a moment out of stabbing it to cast a spell on Pyraxis, causing him to hit with magical energy. Honestly, it’s been a long time since I cast that spell… usually I need to use my spells for healing myself. Still, he is more likely to kill it with his multiple attacks then I am with my one. After this long night, speed was a factor.

The blightspawn was terrible fight. Pyraxis and I were beating on it with all we could, while Elle was wielding a wand in each hand trying to keep us standing.. But that didn’t go so well. Before long, the poison pumping into Pyraxis brought him low and it turned itself on me. I got in a good hit or two, but in the end, I fell too.

What I heard afterwards, was that Elle backed away and led it from our unconscious forms and bombed it to death. The way it died, she said it didn’t take much, but that battle could have gone another way very easily. After it was dead. She started healing. I woke with a throbbing headache but counted myself lucky. Pyraxis didn’t wake at all. What limited healing skills we had between us said that his physical wounds were healed enough… but that poison kept him dead to the world.

This was an unpleasant situation. We believed that Penny had some neutralizing poison potions, but still wasn’t sure where she was. Between the two of us, we got Pyraxis back to the houses, and found a wheelbarrow. Next came the surreal part of the night. We wandered around the town searching for something to deal with the poison. We found two empty houses which in our mind meant ‘cultist’ and searched. We found some more of that blue poison from earlier.. But nothing to cure it. Elle wanted to search every house we passed whether there was people sleeping in it or not… but I kept her on task. While I believe the worst of the night was behind us… and these villagers weren’t exactly combat trained… I really had no desire to fight an angry mob all at once.

So with Elle and our wheelbarrow we made our way to the Trader’s. We know they were cultists, but once again came up empty. Unfortunately this doesn’t bode well for Pyraxis. He isn’t getting worse… hopefully he’ll be able to fight of the poison with time. Time we didn’t want to spend in Ravensmoor.

I disliked leaving without Drax or Penny, but having been all over this town, we weren't’ sure what else we could do. I took a dagger and carved some Pathfinder runes in multiple, high profile places about town. As backwater as this place is, I’m fairly confident that only Penny and Drax will recognize Pathfinder code. The code was simple enough. Danger. Flee. Regroup. Followed by the direction we’d be going back to Wolf’s Ear. Then we loaded Pyraxis and gear and wheelbarrow into a stolen wagon and horse and rode out of town.

I have faith that our allies will be able to cross the river, or use the rope.. Or even take the long way around… so I actually got a deep, if petty, satisfaction with taking the ferry and leaving it on the opposite side of the river bank.

As long as the night had been, we didn’t make it far down the road. Maybe an hour or so before exhaustion overtook us. I blame those blood sucking stirges. We pulled to the side of the road, with regrettably little camouflage and hoped the townsfolk weren’t chasing us. Just before dawn we started on our way again. The others had not joined up yet. By the time we arrived in Wolf’s Ear, Pyraxis had woken up, but still spoke mostly gibberish. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought him kicked in the head by a horse. The poison definitely had an effect on his mental facilities.

Still, we had a discussion about what to do about Magnimar. My intention had been to return the tax money to our employer as instructed, but Pyraxis had a different viewpoint. The money in that chest we found was not technically ‘tax money’. It was loot. Loot from someone trying to murder us. It was not as if Elias had actually collected the money for actual taxes any more than we had. Cult rituals and gourd stuffing interrupted any actual money changing hands. I did not feel right about claiming that as our own… other than what was left over of course, but either the poison or his near death experience jaded our friend somewhat. On the plus side… if the taxes were not paid, they may well send the army next time to root out the problem. I’m hoping they send them anyway.

On the other hand though… I reminded him that this mission was a personal favor for Jaminda and by extension Venture Captain Sheila. What we lost in gold would be made up for in good will. He found that idea quite acceptable and that ended that discussion.


24th Gozran 4714

We spent an extra day or so in Wolf’s Ear, and blessedly our allies arrived. The group was whole once again. I was glad to see them, especially Penny. I had been making some headway working with ‘The Book of Kriegler’ yet she was a better linguist then I. With her help and another four days, we able to decipher what was going on. The book filled in a few holes to our story.

The story as told to us at the festival, was mostly rooted in truth. It went back about 120 years with Iola finding the temple and the druids and trying to cure the blight… but there was a price to pay. The Spawn of Ghlaunder needed a safe place to incubate and that was inside her body. When she died… this responsibility passed on to her heirs. She was officially a priest of Ghlaunder at this point, no surprises there. To the town however, she was still tricking them into thinking she was Desnan and her miracles and harvest supported her cause. The Kriegler line continued with the spawn passing from one to another and the rituals getting further ingrained and further removed from true Desnan until the villagers didn’t know where one ended the next began.

Whenever a particularly astute villager grew suspicious…. He was taken care of. The cult grew as certain accepting families were drawn in, but it seems that most of the village was left in the dark. Until Andretti Kriegler. It appears that the man was sterile. This put the whole cult into jeopardy as it meant the end of the Kriegler line. The mayor received vision of what this meant, and apparently Ghlaunder was not the type of deity to accept excuses. If Andretti failed to produce an heir, his soul would be left to suffer eternal torment.

I don’t know how exactly or what exactly was going to happen, but it seems the blood sacrifices were something new, with a desired purpose to ‘fix’ Andretti’s problems. The murdering was somehow supposed to produce him an heir. It appears there was some concern of population dwindling, (as we had suspected) so when Elias arrived, the mayor cited visions that this would help him. Kriegler was also counting on the loss of the tax collector to bring forth more people to investigate… who he also intended to kill. The whole plan was written right here, and it nearly played out exactly as he expected. Elias killed one of the faceless stalkers in defense, but was ultimately sacrificed. It appears from what I read, that these two were the same druids that Iola met in the Churlwoods, and had been cultivating the family line. I wonder how the loss of one… and now both would have affect the cult? It appears that Faceless stalkers have lifetimes at least as long as mine.

The only question I still had was where the Spider fit in… after some discussion, it seemed she was a shapeshifter… and that meant she was the weaver in the circled map.


2nd of Desnus 4714

We arrived back in Sandpoint and decided to take a few days rest. Pyraxis was nearly back to his old self, but considering how we were literally at each other’s throats. I liked the idea for just a short break. Penny had shown interest in stopping back and seeing her father’s old haunts and some Thassalonian markers, and it was pleasant and educational.

There is a bar there with a fish in terribly murky water. Apparently there is a contest to see if you can drink the water. A white haired dwarf warned me off it. Apparently he’d only seen one person actually drink it without getting violently ill and he may have wistfully indicated that she’d cheated somehow. I suspect there is more to the story, but he doesn’t elaborate. Penny spoke with this dwarf for some time with great gusto. It seemed he knew her father first hand and had a few amusing anecdotes involving rescuing him from a deck of Harrow card and how he’d get lost in his studies and forget to feed himself.

I certainly see some family resemblances amongst these Quinks.


8th of Desnus 4714

We arrive back in Magnimar but we don’t get to rest long. We told our story to Jaminda Amikee, turned over the money and went home. Canayven Heidmarch was waiting for us. Apparently we would not be letting moss grow on us… One night is all we got. We left again the next day.

It seems Sheila has left already to the Fenwall Mountains and wants to meet us there at a cabin. We have time to some shopping, but we’ll have a map waiting for us the next day. A package arrived from Jaminda containing the 500g 'taxes' she returned to us and notice that the Desnans were sending missionaries to Ravensmoor. Personally I was hoping an army... Hopefully without any Krieglers left, they will be safe.

30 - Desna - 4714

After travelling for some time, around what I would guess to be noonish, we arrived at Sheila’s cabin in the Fenwall Mtns. A simple cottage, very rustic. I’d prefer to be in the city but oh well.

We enter the cabin and find Miss Sheila standing by a window gazing forlornly outside. Well maybe not forlornly, but at least wistfully. She bids us enter and introduces the fellow strapped to the bed. Yes strapped, tied down, chained, etc.

“This is Kalkamedes.”

Short version? Every night for the last several weeks Kal enters a deep sleep and starts to wander. Always in the same direction no matter the obstacle. He will go around trees, through swamps and straight off cliffs. He will attack anyone who attempts to stop him from moving but will not pursue if they stop, well, stopping him.

No one has any idea where he is going. Magic cannot cure him nor figure out exactly what is happening. After quite a few restless nights the poor guy is exhausted. Even when he’s “awake” he’s not awake. So to help the guy (Sheila’s objective since apparently people have been saying Pathfinders don’t take care of their own) it has been decided that we will let Kal wander. Under guard of course. Whose guard you ask? Why, the Wayfarer Vanguard of course. (You can’t see it, but I am totally making the finger signs.) We will follow, offering what protection we can, and while doing so hopefully figure out where he is going and why he is being forced to go there.

However since it is noonish, we’ve got some time before Kal starts to wander. So we search the place, looking for clues, things of interest that might help, that kind of stuff. Well, I had an ulterior motive but I’ll leave that for now.
In his (Kal) desk we find a parchment with ink stains on it. The appearance of the ink stains seems to be bleed off, as if something was drawn or copied on a paper set above this one.

In the closet we find travelling clothes and boots. No notes inside the boots. I’m beginning to think that the Pathfinder way of note giving was simply something done in Absalom.

Now inside the stove (what? We’re thorough.) we find a partial burned and crumpled picture (perhaps the one that the last note was under?). This picture has trees in the foreground, a forest surrounding a temple like place in the middle ground, and mountains in the background. No clue what it means. Also in the stove we find a lever. Pulling said lever opens a catch that reveals a hidden compartment on the other side of the room under some barrels. Score.

Inside the compartment we find a locked (not for long) metal chest. Inside the chest (which is long and thin) we find a cracked along the length of the blade longsword (score), an elixer, a dried gourd containing a liquid, a mithril flask containing a liquid, and a set of bracers. Now, want to guess which items were magical. If you said all of them then you win a cookie. I’ll bake them next time I’m near a stove. One without a lever leading to treasures.

The sword is important, it is also a magical mithril sword that can give allies a slight advantage in hitting enemies. Cause you know, magic. The bracers are an unarmored combatants way of giving themselves magical like armor. The gourd liquid is a potion of healing, the flask is a potion that allows one to hide their presence from undead (When Colin found that out he made it a strong point to let us know he could still see us. I wonder if he knows how potions work.) We were not able to figure out what the elixer was.

I volunteer to carry the sword (I said it was important didn’t I)

Wait, why was I volunteered to dress Kal in his travelling clothes. I know the girls can’t do it but….ok, where did Rocky and Churchy go. Son of a billy goat.

Ok, time passes and dusk falls and lo and behold, Kal attempts to leave. This time, instead of being restrained, he is let free and we’re off. Slowly. Apparently shuffling is the only speed a mind lost Kal can do.

North we head, watching as Kal trips on rocks, not letting it bother him even though he now has a severe sprain or broken ankle. Ouch. We heal the guy and continue on.

Even later we approach a slight bog overgrown with thick brambles with long sharp thorns. I attempt to burn a path through but it’s slow going. Kal manages to slip past Colin, Pyraxis, and Elle. A shuffling zombie like figure gets past the three of them. I’d facepalm but I’m busy trying to burn thick vegitation. Did I mention it was slow going? Well, a tanglefoot bag on Kal, some blade use by Colin, fire by me and Elle, and finally we get a path straight through the brambles.

Kal’s legs look like shredded meat. So another healing on the shuffler.

Suddenly, a wild direction change appears. After heading north we are now heading west. It’s a change, although a confusing one. We had been told initially that Kal only went one direction. Oh well.

Hours later (and many more miles. Ok, two miles.) we find a swamp made deeper by recent heavy rains. In case we can’t get him around the swamp, remember this guy only goes straight, Elle and I fill air bladders, both ours and the groups so Kal won’t drown. The others attempt to drag and wrestle Kal around the swamp on a dryer path.

Kal is strong, giving Pyraxis some good hits and at one point in time even throwing both Colin and Pyraxis off of him.

Long story short, we are bruised (Well, Pyraxis and Colin are) but we finally get Kal around the swamp. Which, upon seeing us take Kal’s punches and not retaliating the sword on my back speaks to the group.

I said it was important didn’t I. You didn’t believe me, but here it is. A talking, sentient sword. Boom. (Also, it was important for another reason for Elle and I and thankfully we were able to get what we needed.)

Gaiman, the sword’s name, is grateful to us. He also explained that just before all this started they got near a black ediface but didn’t go in. I’m reminded of the picture (the burned and crumpled one) we got from the stove.

Oh hey, a ravine in front of us, too large to jump over and with no bridge or end in sight. Nothing happened, and we got past it ok.

Honestly, Elle and I didn’t fall off while trying to climb down and pull Colin with us. Pyraxis, our rock guy totally didn’t fall after us while Kal slowly floated down while wearing Elle’s ring of feather fall. We completely didn’t exhaust our healing supplies trying to keep ourselves alive as we had one climbing mishap after the other resulting in multiple falling related injuries while Kal climbed up the other side making it look easy. Really, we totally did not let Kal wander away while we were stuck at the bottom of the ravine causing us to nearly sprint after the guy when we finally made it up. Totally cleared that thing with no problems. That’s my story and yes, I am sticking to it.

(I will admit to enjoying myself while carrying a shrunken Elle on my back as I traversed up the wall. Felt like a dashing hero type character in one of those Ulstanvian novels. Ulsanvian isn’t a word? Are you sure? Ok, well you know what I mean.)

So we finally catch up to Kal (whom we did not let wander ahead of us, remember) just as he’s about to be attacked by a bear. If Kal didn’t have bad luck the poor guy wouldn’t have any luck at all.

So there is Kal, standing in a berry patch. Also, there is a bear standing in a berry patch. So we do what any good bodyguards would do. We attack the bear while Kal passes by harmlessly. Only we weren’t so lucky. The bear hugged Elle and proceeded to eat her. Thankfully she passed out probably from the pain. So I lit the beast on fire while Colin eviscerates it.

We heal up Elle as best we can and hurry after Kal. This is going to be a very very long night.

Date:  30th of Desnus, 4714
Location:  Fenwall Mountains, Varisia

Kalkamedes pressed on relentlessly making proper cartography difficult.  I must have been lagging behind a bit too far while trying to sketch in a stony outcropping which concealed the entrance to some sort of cave, because I completely missed the whole battle with the bear. . .  By the time I reached the team, it was only in time to aid in patching up wounds.  Awkward.  So, I had to resort to shorthand until we found a bit of downtime.  

Our charge turned north for a time and led us through a six bandit ambush.  They weren’t trying to kill us as we later discovered, just knock us out and take our stuff.  This was not communicated ahead of time however, and we were not equipped with saps.  Four of them ended up dead, one fled and one was knocked unconscious.  Him, we dragged along with us.

Kalkamedes turned northwest.  We traveled for about two hours in that direction when we finally saw the Black Edifice rising out of the trees.  The whole thing was crafted out of smooth black onyx, with no sigils or markings but on the archway framing the entrance.  The keystone was inscribed with a seven pointed star.  THASSILONIAN RUINS!!!!!   There wasn’t much time for squealing and dancing what with Kalkamedes still moving forward, but I multitasked while translating the weathered script along either side of the archway.

”Enter the Black Edifice, locus of the thrallkeepers, servants of the Runelord of Sloth.”

I started squealing again.  It could not be helped.  While we entered inside, I started filtering through any information I may have gleaned about the Runelord of Sloth and found it to be sadly lacking.  

Down a set of stairs we found a room which on one side stood the statue of a robed, elderly man holding a golden wand, and on the other was a low, onyx dais before a set of huge iron doors.

Oh, and there was a skunk the size of a horse.  My sister, who was leading the way while checking for traps, took the full spray to the face – and mouth.  She’s been through so very much over the past months. . .  It was her bomb that killed the beast, so I hope that functioned as some sort of recompense.  

The afore mentioned statue bore a Thassilonian inscription which read, ”Those that would dare believe they are strong enough to oppose us shall learn that their strength is their weakness and our weaknesses are our very strengths.”

After taking a closer look at the onyx dais and the golden wand that the statue held pointing toward the doors, it was determined that they were magical.  The former was a Dias of Transkinesis.  The strong are made weak and the weak made strong.  The latter, a wand of Ray of Enfeeblement.   We determined that if we used the wand on ourselves we may be able to push open the heavy iron doors which Kalkamedes was railing on ineffectively.  Elle and I managed it after some wanding, but even so, those doors were difficult to open.  Brute force isn’t something we’re used to wielding, but Colin talked us through and we ended up flat on our faces, weak as mewling infants on the other side of those doors.

The others pushed ahead with Kalkamedes while we struggled along behind for a few moments before the magic wore off.  Down the adjoining hall was found a cage in the form of a demon head hanging over a shaft.  Levers controlled the cage’s ascent and descent.   Kalkamedes wormed his way out of Pyraxis’ attempt to hold him back, and he walked into the cage and turned around with his hands clasped behind his back as if waiting patiently.  Curious.

It took two trips but all of us were able to arrive at the lower level without incident.  Kalkamedes, Pyraxis and Drax descended first, with Elle, Colin and I joining shortly thereafter.  Our sleepwalking friend began wandering again as soon as the cage touched the floor.

The rooms on this level were lit magically with an eerie green light.  The walls, roughly hewn, were decorated with large shards of jagged metal jutting out at various angles, which only added to make for a very inhospitable atmosphere for any goodly being to find comfortable.  

Furthermore, we found two summoning circles -- concentric rings of differing colored dull metals.  In the first ring we met a gnome who claimed to have been put there by the thrallkeepers who built the Black Edifice and fed off his fey energies.  He wished to be free of the circle but could not escape on his own.  A brief study of the circle showed that it was meant to contain outsiders only.  A gnome should not have been trapped by such a device.

In the second circle we found what looked to be a half-dead and unconscious elf, whom the gnome named as Suliana, sounding surprised that she was still alive.  Kalkamedes finally stopped his wandering at the edge of the elf’s circle.  He simply stopped and stood there as if that was his destination all along.

We didn’t have time to ponder it then and there, for once the “gnome” realized we were suspicious of him and would not be freeing him from his prison, he called out down the cavern for someone or something named Ilvaster.

The creature named Ilvaster, whom we met shortly thereafter, was a black, zombie dragon about the size of a man, who rose from a dark and stagnant pool deeper into the cavern.  Colin and I were nearby investigating when it emerged with two disembodied, crawling hands as companions!  The team made relatively short work of the lot of them in spite of the initial scare and the near strangulation of Colin

When we returned victorious to the trapped gnome, he finally showed his true identity.  A glabrezu!  It must have been summoned by the thrallkeepers – at least that part of his story was true.  Drax took the brunt of the demon’s ire and had to suffer through the threats leveled against him both verbally and mentally.  The beast was so far beyond our capabilities that we could do nothing about him at the moment.

We went back to the second circle and Drax recognized the elf as a gael, some sort of planar elf -- a goodly creature which could indeed be trapped by that particular magic.  We scuffed the circle and pulled her out still unconscious.
Before heading back, Colin checked the bottom of Ilvaster’s pool for treasure and came up with his arms full of valuable items and some magic to boot!  

Kalkamedes was at this point more pliable and he followed after us as we took Suliana outside of the Black Edifice with us to rest.  After a few healing spells, the gael woke and identified herself as Suliana the Luminescent.  The glabrezu is called Koth’vaul and she was sent to destroy him!  Her first salvo apparently didn’t go as well as hoped and she was defeated.  When she suffered and fell, her subconscious called out to nearby beings for aid.  Kalkamedes.  Unfortunately Suliana was not the only being that could speak to minds, and the glabrezu reached out too, in an attempt to free himself and thwart her chance at rescue.  This mixing of signals damaged our charge’s mind.  She assured us that with a bit of rest she would be able to heal herself and Kalkamedes before going back in and finishing her mission to destroy Koth’vaul.  We were all ready for a rest.

Elements for further research:
Brush up on Runelord of Sloth, preferred school of magic, location of known ruins, etc.

Date:  31st of Desnus, 4714
Location:  The Black Edifice, Fenwall Mountains, Varisia

When we finally woke it was nearly high sun.  Suliana, true to her word, healed Kalkamedes, grabbed a great sword which materialized on her back, and strode into the Edifice casting spell upon powerful spell, in preparation for her battle with the demon.  She was an impressive sight and I only wish she would have allowed us to watch the battle, but we would have been a hindrance to her as the demon would’ve undoubtedly used us against her.  

Until she returned we busied ourselves as best we could.  Kalkamedes still slept, but the bandit was awake and Colin grilled him on details of his companions while I spent the time making a more accurate and detailed map of our journey to these ruins.

It was hours before Suliana emerged bloodied but victorious.  The threat in the bowels of the Black Edifice had been neutralized.  Apparently this is what she does for a living, and I have a new hero!  The gael then thoughtfully Teleported us back to Kalkamedes’ cabin, sparing us a grueling and treacherous climb up a cliff face.

Venture Captain Heidmarch was there awaiting us and we filled her in about our finds and exploits in the wilds.  Kalkamedes finally woke in the late evening and she explained the details of what had happened to him, which he took surprisingly well.  He had been mapping the entire mountain range and seeking out Thassilonian ruins.  

We wrapped up a bit of business.  His sentient sword was returned to him, much to Drax’s sorrow, and Pyraxis talked to the man privately for a few minutes after which he seemed . . .encouraged.  I gave him a copy of my map to the Black Edifice so he might update his own.  It was after midnight when we said our goodbyes and then our Venture Captain, ever prepared, used a scroll to Teleport us back to Magnimar.

Elements for further research:
How to remove giant skunk stink.
Origins and rarity of transmuting ioun stones.

After we teleported back to the Pathfinder compound, Elle immediately set about assembling her tomato fruit bath, with Drax's assistance. After soaking for some time, the odor was neutralized to a tolerable level. We were very glad she knew what to do after being fouled by hideous odors. She is becoming quite an authority in that area.

We had some down time we spent in various ways over the next two weeks. I scheduled some training with some gladiators at the Serpent's Run, learning techniques that sacrificed some of the power behind my strikes in favor of defensive maneuvers. Most of the others spent times in their respective side jobs, but Penny launched herself into the library in a fervor after she realized the Ioun stone Colin was using was a relic of Thassilon. We saw her only at dinner daily, and such was her enthusiasm that she actually drew Elle to help her research.
She found references to a hidden library in "Jorgenfist" that her father apparently had visited, and that it was or still is a stronghold of giants. After determining the approximate location of the library, we decided as a group to attempt to investigate after Penny made clear the implications and importance of the knowledge that might be uncovered. We just had to make sure we had Heidmarch's blessing, as the round trip travel time alone was estimated at about 72 days, a huge commitment.

Fortunately, Heidmarch had no hesitation in allowing the expedition, as long as we competed a mission on behalf of the Pathfinders along the way. Over a year ago a Pathfinder team had participated in a contest in Tian Xia and won a powerful magical prize, a tapestry that led to an extra dimensional space, that had the potential to greatly speed travel to new areas. However, Apsis agents had been in some way interfering with the tapestry's function, apparently appearing in places they had no business being. An investigation revealed that they had been getting aid from someone that helped them get a secondary entrance into the tapestry. A silver- ranked Aspis agent in Riddleport named Vaydin Jenk had been identified as being responsible for this effort. He had requested a special unit of Apsis agents to handle some problems and negotiations he was having with that other party. That special unit would never been showing up however, as we were handed their bronze badges and instructed to impersonate this task force and make sure the relationship between Jenk and this third party was irrepairably damaged. We were to keep casualties to a minimum, never reveal our identities, and given a contact to…contact…once we had completed our mission.

We decided that Colin was the best person among us to assume the identity of Thestil Silvertongue, and during the very quick sail to Riddleport we each constructed alternate identities. After arrival, we headed to the newly purchased Aspis base of operations in the city, a 3 story building called the Barracuda Cartage. We steeled ourselves for a moment at the gate, reminded ourselves that Colin was now to be treated as our leader, and entered. We were directed to Jenk's office by some Aspis scum.

Vaydin Jenk was a silver agent in his upper 40s who dressed like a merchant prince. After Colin identified us as the agents he sent for, he accepted us on our word and laid out the task for the evening. Apparently, several local temples had taken loans from the Aspis recently, and these loans were now due. None of the temples had made arrangements to pay back the loans, but the Jenk had identified a magical item that each of these temples possessed that he would take in fulfillment of the loan. He had dispatched messages to the temples informing them of what we required, and our task was simply to go pick them up. He reminded us that coercive methods were allowed, as we were collecting a legitimate debt. The temples we were collect from represented Calistria, Besmara, and most unfortunately, Cayden. Drax expressed his disdain for all of those temples, and I told him, based on my experience, that he might not mind the temple to Cayden.

We decided to head to the Caydenite temple first. The Publican House resembled a rowdy tavern much more than a temple. Much carousing and levity was taking place, but without the undercurrent of hostility and aggression like so many of the places I had worked. We spotted our first target, a battered mug, placed in a position of prominence above the bar. The barkeeper directed our inquiry about payment to Arlando Roaf, a huge, bearlike man. He informed us that there had been a mixup and that the mug was now being offered as a prize in a drinking contest, which we could participate in if we wished. Normally I would take that answer as a slap in the face, as a mockery of our efforts- but given the reputation of the Caydenites, I fully believed that this was something that could have happened without any ulterior motives of dodging a debt. There was no discussion of taking the mug by force- it was obvious we wouldn't succeed, only earning a moderate to severe beating for our efforts.

Roaf explained the rules of the contest to us- we had a choice of objects to lift and a choice of the number of drinks to balance on that object. The heavier the object and the more numerous the drinks, the higher our score. We all chose to participate, and there were two other participants as well, both imposing looking fellows who drew raucous cheers. On Roaf's mark, we all strove to lift our chosen burdens. I heard something very bad happen to Colin's back almost immediately. The girls could not get their stools up, and I underestimated the weight of the solid oak table and couldn't get it above my head. Only Drax among us succeeded in lifting his burden, and did so without spilling a drop! Our competition also failed in this round, leaving Drax the sole victor. Quite unexpected, but his victory was loudly lauded by Roaf, who started feeding him ale. Drax of course chose the mug as his prize, and he quickly learned much about Cayden's teachings in the short time we remained there, and ended up being surprisingly positive about the faith.

We headed to the temple of Calistria next to retrieve the dagger. We were propositioned by numerous temple courtesans, but kept our eyes on the prize and asked to see the Priestess, a tiefling by the name of Sharaff Omponyoday, She gave us a counter offer of a night of debauchery on the house in exchange for the settlement of the debt. Colin diplomatically refused, and though the contempt coming off the Priestess was palpable, she released the dagger to us.

Our last stop was the Fishbowl, the temple to Besmara. Approaching it, we heard cries of a young girl in distress, and so entered quickly to see what was the matter. Entering the temple we saw several dead priests and three lobsterish creatures, all moved in a hostile fashion upon us immediately. We managed to slay the creatures and liberated a man and his daughter, who may have been up for sacrificed to those creatures. We bade them to leave and retrieved the cap without any resistance, as no living beings were left in the temple.

Returning to the Barracuda, Jenks was pleased with our success, and bid us take these items to his contact. He gave us the location of the save house, the Seven Needles tattoo parlor. We proceeded there and entered after hours. A quick search found a secret door into underground chambers. Elle picked the lock and we moved to explore. Almost immediately a "trap" of sorts was revealed, and I was the only one looking in the direction of the creature which looked very much like the thing the kobolds had kept as a pet that turned one to stone. I felt my limbs seize up and found my reflexes greatly hampered as my stony joints calcified much more than usual.

19th of Sarenith 4714

I’ll admit I’m not overly fond of this mission. Sneaking around, pretending to be someone else… pretending to be evil agents of the Aspis consortium. I find it distasteful. That’s not to say I won’t do it. I’ve been known to cross a few personal lines if it meant the greater good. I suppose there’s no surprise that the Silver Crusade didn’t find anything noble to attach to this quest. Probably for the best. This ruse will go better without the extra distractions.

We entered a large room with two tables. My guess would be a dining hall of sorts. There was a shipping crate on one of the tables full of finely carved dolls. They were serpentine with wings and involved the Thassalonian star. As we are infiltrating a cult of Lissala. I am going on an assumption that this is their deity. None in our group could confirm that however.

To the north there was the sound of chanting, therefore we decided it best to scout out the area to the south first. We were treading a dangerous line here. Somehow we were to turn these two groups against each other and preferably get out alive. It was hard to know at what point we switch from diplomatic Aspis to… whatever else would burn bridges.

The first room we found was apparently some kind of meditation chamber with multiple cots spread around. With a little searching we able uncover a magical prayer bead. Could be useful. If the Aspis Consortium arrived with a mission of peace, and proceeded to rob everything that wasn’t nailed down… I imagine that would color their relationship a little.

Next we found two small rooms with food supplies… perhaps we could poison them too? Perhaps this is why I don’t like to pretend to be evil? Some things may come too easily. Regardless… back to the mission.

The number of cots gave me some confidence that we could fight our way out if we needed to… but the next room dashed that. Near to 30 bunk beds set around with magically trapped chests attached. The skill to disarm and even locate these magical traps were beyond us. Elle had a chance to get lucky with a few of them… but the majority of the time it resulted in flaming bursts scorching anyone near the chests. Myself and Penny were outside the radius, but even Pyraxis’ flameproof armor or Drax's infernal nature didn’t fully protect them.

At this point my position as ‘boss’ was stretched beyond credibility. I completely lost control of the Vanguard. Elle was insistent that she could defeat the traps, and while I tried to be supportive, she was getting very burned… Drax is usually protective of the girls, but for some reason he also wanted the chests all open. In their defense, the first two we opened were pretty nice. We found a magic wand that stops pain… and a note that implicated the Lissalans as the the other party involved with the back door to the tapestry, that Venture-Captain Heidmarch wanted us to confirm. Now, thankfully after we had already looted and burned, we knew we were to sabotage as much of this relationship as we could… provided we could all escape.

Elle drank some concoction… and got… strange. More so than usual.

She seemed almost giddy to hurl herself into every chest she could… and Drax seemed to race her to the fire. Penny wasn’t pleased by the suicidal antics and both of us pled with them to stop. After many more attempts, We were able to finally drag Elle back to the door. Drax upset that more wasn’t burning, went and torched their food stuffs. A bit better than poison, even if not as effective…

I’m not sure what happened there. Penny confided that when Elle drinks a specific… thing, she gets a little crazy. Drax however hadn’t drank anything. I was leaning toward some magical effect from tripping the traps… but again, I can’t confirm. Pyraxis seemed fine.

Once the temper tantrums had abated… we continued our search. Following the last hallway, I walked in on some kind of operation theater or torture chamber… or both. Looked like both. Three men were face down on cots, with their backs simply shredded. Two men were standing there as I walked in. Things went immediately south as he told me to leave or else. I introduced myself as bearing gifts from the Aspis’ and he didn’t seem impressed. He reached for a weapon and made it clear that I did not belong there and to leave. Not wanting to cross that line so soon… I complied.

Back in the dining room we saw a poorly closed secret door that lead to a stairway up. I listened to the trapdoor it lead to, and i could hear horses and feet… It sounds like it leads to the streets above. This is useful knowledge if we need to flee and don’t feel like passing the basilisk again. I do so love having an exit strategy.

Finally we turned toward the chanting. Elle was still acting weird… and Drax was pushing for the exploding chests. Now… in his minor defense, fire doesn’t seem to hurt him much. However, in this case, he WAS getting burned. I don’t know if that thought was a novelty to him or if he just want to take that risk for Elle… but the logic just wasn’t there. I was truly starting to get concerned about the success of this mission.

The next room consisted of a large statue, similar to the dolls we had found, and an iron barred gate to the west leading toward the chanting. Elle… squealed with delight at the statue and proclaimed it a construct and threw a bomb at it. I noticed no difference but was sure to keep an eye on it. The noise however brought a cultist to the gate at least.

Assuming the role of ‘boss’ again. I proceeded in a contest of words with the cultist. I introduced myself and informed him that we had gifts for the Lashmistress. He wasn’t impressed. She was in the process of a service and was not to be disturbed. He opened the gate and insisted on taking the gifts himself. I feigned insult to dealing with an underling and implied that this would harm their relationship with the Aspis, I was cold and threatening and confident…. All the things I assumed that Thestil would be. When others spoke out of turn I was quick to shut them up under threat of reprisal. It was actually a little fun. But not as much fun as what came next.

The man in the robes wasn’t so easily intimidated… and we were here to ruin the Aspis’ name anyway… So once he threatened to have us flayed (an all too realistic threat after the last room we were in…) I felt it best ‘in character’ to punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Thestil apparently doesn’t take lip from underlings.

On the plus side, I got to punch him in the face. On the down side… that activated the guardian statue. The others tried to destroy it, with Drax actually getting through its fire resistance and Elle’s construct bombs hitting it (and not me) squarely. I tried my best to pound the cultist into submission, but he was able to force the gate closed and step back. I used my Tri-point to reach through the bars and stab him. Between the face punching and the side stabbing, he fell. Hopefully I didn’t kill him.

The statue seemed to take offense at me, and the rest of that fight is a blur. I was dropped unconscious by stone fists. I awoke to a destroyed statue and a concerned Elle standing above me. Which led to a couple of questions. As I didn’t heal myself and my wand was untouched, how did I awaken? Elle denied doing anything, but it sounded more childish than I was used to… though maybe that was the blows to the head. We healed up as well as we could and Elle unlocked the gate.

Here we reached another impasse. The cultist was in fact still alive, so we tied him up to tell the tale of the dishonorable Aspis hoodlums… but there was still all that chanting and the Lashmistress. Ironically, Drax seems the quietest of us all, so he went to scout out what we would be dealing with if we went further. I didn’t like his report.

At least twenty cultists and their priestess. That’s a lot on any day… approximately 4 or 5 to one, but Elle was out of bombs and we’d used up many resources already. We withdrew to discuss our options. I locked the gate behind us and double locked them with my manacles just to be safe.

Penny was against retreat. She felt, and I didn’t disagree, that it felt wrong to leave that last chapel unexplored. To leave that many enemies behind us. I however didn’t want to start a fight we couldn’t win. Pyraxis reminded us that our mission was to turn them on Aspis… but not to kill them. They needed to be a sufficient threat to the Aspis Consortium or this was all a waste. That settled the matter. Even if we somehow could defeat the whole lot of them, I didn’t think we could do it nonlethally.

As a consolation prize, we decided to go back to the chests. They were a bit smarter this time around, using long weapons to pry open the chest, but Elle still burned a few times… Worse yet, the early chests held the best stuff. Mundane clothes was all that was stored. Definitely not worth the damage done… though it was nice to burn up some Lissalan stuff.

Finally we decided to rough up the torturers. We entered the room fists swinging. They had a snake… Elle was bitten and took some poison, the torturers had some kind of darkness spell.. It was fast and brutal. Pyraxis smashed one of them a bit harder than he intended, and he died. The snake was also killed. I consider that to be within the acceptable parameters of ‘minimal death toll’.

There was talk of writing a warning in the dead man’s blood… but that was deemed a bit extreme. Typically our goals are more concrete. Get in, Kill the monsters. Get the info. Get out. This mission of manipulating a group’s ‘feelings’? It’s much harder to determine when enough was enough. Some thought we should take everything… some thought that everyone needed to be physically assaulted… Finally we agreed that the Lissalans and the Aspis should not be partnering anytime soon and chose to leave. As one added touch, I tore off Drax’s borrowed Aspis badge and put it in the dead man’s hand. This should verify that it was indeed actual Aspis with actual legitimate badges that shouldn’t be so easy to dismiss. Unsure if the Basilisk trap had reset, we blindfolded ourselves and crept past it safely.

On our way to the Golden Coin where we were to meet our contact, we proceeded to sell off everything looted from the temple while prominently displaying our remaining Aspis badges. At this time of the morning, only the black market was open… and surely they recognized it for what it was.

I suspect we were all tired at that point. It had been a long night of running around. Technically we had gone against four temples tonight and made enemies of probably three… maybe two if Besmara’s doesn’t mind a little dead looting.

Pirate goddess may not! Still… Long night even by my standards. Arriving at the Inn we weren't’ sure who to look for. A wizard named Zander who we would know… wasn’t a great description. Approached by a half-orc that I assumed was the bouncer we were led to a back room to wait, and with a snide insult transformed himself into young man.

Tensions were high at this point, and Zander is not a pleasant man. He is rather confident of his own worth and extremely dismissive towards ours. Worse yet, the sense I got from him told me he may not be wrong. I noticed he had Ioun stones implanted in his neck. Something that Penny had told us was lost to ancient Thassilon. Not something a mundane wizard would have access to. Elle was flirtatious with him and he even seemed immune and dismissive of that as well. Drax took offense at his insults towards Elle and the group as a whole, and I did all I could to prevent another fiery encounter tonight. We delivered our report to him, and he seemed satisfied with the knowledge that it was indeed the Lissalans that had the back door to the tapestry. Finally he gave us a new message from our Venture Captain.

This is a little more our style. It seems there is a pirate attacking and murdering scholars. The ‘law’ says that nobody can attack a ship flying the Riddleport flag, which it appears this one does. However it doesn’t stop Alejia Netrav from attacking incoming ships.

In a few days, a ship called Topaz Titan is scheduled to arrive bearing a pathfinder scholar named Hirako Gurukaza will arrive, and we need to stop the pirates before it’s too late. Interestingly, this seems to be a more land-based pirate fighting, something I greatly prefer to ship combat.



20th of Sarenth 4714

Penny was knocking on our door bright and early this morning to round Pyraxis and me for breakfast. She was in much higher mood this morning, after Zander had twisted her emotions to an awkward state. Both Zander and Penny seemed in agreement that she needed a good night’s rest. Drax and Elle were late to the table having apparently went for a walk that morning.

There was one other issue to deal with before we got started. As much as I liked a good old fashioned ‘noble cause’ again (which naturally meant the Crusade left me another note) but We had made quite a noise last night. Sadly our group isn’t best at keeping low profile. Something about a dhampir, tiefling, and oread makes us stand out. Best case scenario, the three of us are wearing heavy cloaks. Both options tend to draw eyes. Now we would undoubtedly have the Aspis Consortium looking for us and probably the Lissala cult as well. I really hoped we’d be leaving this morning.

To offset matters, The girls are changing their hair again, and I decided to jump in on that action. I know my silvery white hair is like a beacon. With something a little more subtle, perhaps I can pass for a full human. Then we only have two cloaks. It seems the quickest and easiest is black… so all three of us are now black haired.

We traveled to the Wharf section and inquired at the harbormaster. Penny both charmed and bribed her way to questionable results. The Topaz Titan was expected in two days… and nobody else had inquired about it. Not bad information for a dock section this large, but nothing illuminating either.

Next we tried a really dirty bar, doing unusual amount of business for 9 in the morning. The perfect place to find information. Elle flirted with the bartender and came back with the name of a Pesh dealer. I was suspicious after last night’s antics… but her explanation that pirates may be involved with drug smuggling was a actually a very good idea.

The next lead we discovered involved employment opportunities operating out of a derelict building towards the edge of Eastside. Something about this sounds very promising…

6-22-4714

Ye gods this place smells.

So, we think we found where the building is that “lots of strange looking things have been carried into.” A two story warehouse in which holes in the walls have been boarded up (which is not unusual in this area, lots of the buildings here are abandoned or at least in need of lots of repair.)

How did we find the building you ask? Well, racial profiling aside, we started on the east side and scanned for “lookouts” or people acting like such. Low and behold, we found a half orc doing just that, watching a certain two story building surrounded by three story buildings. He was doing a great job of hiding from that building, just not from anyone else.

So we decide to secretly watch the watcher. Well, most of us secretly. Pyraxis bored holes into the guy with his stare. He wisely flees. Penny and Elle (the least threatening of us band of merry monsters) start after him but lose him when he ducks down a couple alley ways.

Once all together again we decide to try and see into the suspected warehouse by breaking into one of the buildings next to it and looking through the windows. Have I mentioned that all windows on these buildings are up near the top of the buildings? That means that we will be looking into a two story building from a three story building.

Short version, we do. Elle breaks us in, we find a spot to climb up boxes, split into groups to share windows, even break a few walls to get a better vantage point. It was all for nothing, the suspected building was completely empty. Nah, I’m just teasing.

What we can see is boxes and barrels, at least three guys standing and talking casually while a woman is tied up against the back wall (back from our perspective, I believe it is the east side of the building.) She appears to be wearing nice looking clothes however she has also been beaten.

Yeah, no questions now, we’re going in. After some discussion and debate we decide to go with my plan of Pyraxis makes noise outside the building while an invisible Colin sneaks in when they open the only door to come investigate. A much better plan than going in through the roof. I’m sure I would be ok at landing but….yeah, not so sure about the others. Well, maybe Penny, she seems nimble for a kid her age. Anyway.

So we carry out our genius plan. And the bad guys ignore completely the noise outside the building. Completely ignore it. Ok, plan B.

I hate plan B.

Penny knocks on the door and when they open the peep slot to see out she attempts to sell them cupcakes. Cup. Cakes. As one could expect, they weren’t interested and didn’t open the door.

Plan C.

Pyraxis attempts to make a hole in the wall with his portable ram timing his strikes with Penny’s knocking. I’d say a comedy of errors but…..well, it worked. He made a hole in a weakened spot on the wall and Colin, still invisible, is able to sneak in.

While Colin is sneaking his way past the five (two more than three) thugs the rest of us head into the building to confront them.

The fight is brief, brutal, and bloody. At least on their end. Two of the five surrender, and to be fair I did give a third a chance. When he moved to attack me, I burned him alive. Should have given up. You can’t tell, but I’m shrugging right now.

So, when the noise outside started they moved their prisoner, hiding her in a crate. We find her and free her while the pirates explain that they are working for Alija the pirate queen type lady we were sent to find.

The lady we freed is Iatha Oedricius, and after some healing and some water, she is able to answer our questions. She is a Thassalonian scholar that had come in on a ship called Starfire out of Manduran. Her vessel was taken by Alija’s pirates in a mutiny and simultanious attack combination. Apparently some pirates get work aboard these ships and when the time comes, take over the ship making the attack much easier.

They then beat her mercilessly at put her on a ship called “Lionfish”, scuttled Starfire outside of Karlsgaard, and took Iatha here. Alija is gone at the moment but they are expecting her back within a couple days. It seems that the Lionfish is the only way to get to her.

Iatha was brought here to study the Cypher gate and Penny hypothasises that Alija (or is it Aleja?) is looking for certain information which is why Iatha was kept alive.

After looking for and not finding Iatha’s things, I escort her to a place of safety. While I’m gone, Pyraxis takes one of the two remaining pirates (we, for some reason, agreed to let them go as long as they promised not to be bad anymore and leave town. Seriously Elle? You can’t see it but I’m rolling my eyes right now.) Anyway, Pyraxis takes one of the pirates to show him where the Lionfish is. On the way they are ambushed by the half orc we saw earlier. Cept now he has a bunch of friends. Instead of explaining the situation, Rocky lets them think he is a pirate with Aleja(?) cause you know, secrets.

Shortened version, Pyraxis wins, bad guys knocked out, our pirate knocked out, and Pyraxis finds the ship we need. What do you want from me, I wasn’t there to see the fight, this is the best you get.


So, we all make it to the docks together, steal a rowboat, make it across the lake (Rocky can row like a devil. Is that an ironic statement coming from me?) On the maroon colored ship of Alija’s there are lights and what appears to be people running around.

Pyraxis attempts to silently toss a grapple hook up the wall, side, port, what is the nautical term for a ships side? Anyway, he fails.

Combat ensues and miracle of miracles (given our track record of climbing) everyone make it up the rope onto the boat. Combat this time is marred by the prescence of an enemy alchemist. An enemy Grippli alchemist. Happy to through bombs at us however, so he’s gotta go. Que happy squeeling from Elle. The fight is short and firery, just the way I like it. This time howver I didn’t get burned. Seriously, what was up with those chests?

Elle, gloriously happy, finds the enemy alchemy book and lo and behold, we have a ship. As thoughts fly through my head as to what we could do with a ship, the others remind me that we need a crew to pilot drive or whatever you do with a ship.

While exploring the vessel, we find below decks some rations and repair supplies. We find a navigation tool and a fancy looking hook hand. And, (you can’t see but I’m doing a happy dance) five barrels of rum. Glorious rum that fits nicely in my new drinking mug.

Elle and I (probably not the best choice for this but hey) stay with the rum…..I mean, ship. We stay with the ship. The others go and look for someone to crew our new boat. Rumor has it they found someone.

Date:  23rd of Sarenith, 4714
Location:  Riddleport, Varisia


Our hired captain, Smulworts Gultrock, navigated us effortlessly to the predetermined meeting point marked on the map from the first mate’s quarters.  A small, isolated island chain was our destination, the ‘X’ marking a natural cavern in the side of one of the island’s mountains.

Inside we found the Topaz Titan, already berthed within.  That was a bit of a surprise and it wouldn’t be the last.  Gultrock anchored the Lionfish in a nearby – but out of sight area of the cavern and we took the dingy to the Topaz Titan.  The Tian vessel was completely devoid of crew and stripped of supplies.  There were however, some foreboding stains that alerted us to the fact that what happened here was not a bloodless mutiny.  We had to continue on and hope that Hirako Gurukaza was still among the living.

We considered having the Topaz Titan moved to another location to prevent any attempt of escape, but Gultrock wanted no part of it until the pirates were handled.  We didn’t pay them to fight for our cause and I could hardly blame her for her declination.  Crippling the ship was also suggested, but the idea discarded after talking to the hired captain.  In hindsight, if we had managed to accomplish such action, it might have cost us lives.  

Once we made it to onto the rocky bank to have a look around, three dogs behind a barred tunnel detected our presence, spoiling any chance for a stealthy approach, so when we found Captain Alejia and her crew in a nearby cavern, she was waiting for us -- holding her cutlass to Hirako’s throat.  We were clearly not who she expected, nor when she expected them, and she demanded that we let her and her crew pass to their stolen vessel and then she’d allow Hirako to go free.   This put the Wayfarer Vanguard in a bit of a predicament.   It seemed to me that she was being truthful in her statement and in spite of my companions’ thoughts to the contrary, I’m a pretty decent judge of character.  Even so.  She’s a pirate.  Lying and murder is like – her job.  

Our mission was only to see that the Tian scholar was brought safely to the cyphermages, so in order to ensure that the already badly battered Hirako didn’t die on the spot, we stood to the side as instructed and let them exit the cavern with Hirako – still threatened – in tow.  The Topaz Titan was out of my line of sight for a few moments so when Pyraxis handed Drax a potion of invisibility, I wasn’t able to see what happened next.  

We heard the pirates moving onto the ship and then a blast of fire.  By the time the rest of us ran in to see, the ship’s sails were smoldering  and Drax was on top of Hirako like the shell of a turtle, getting blasted with not one…not two…but three magic missiles.  At the same time!  Warning bells were going off in my head as we moved in to handle the escalating situation.

The ship was retreating as the two crew members took to the oars.  Once they were out of range, Hirako was relatively safe after some healing but my companions….not so much, as Pyraxis, Colin and Elle (after making a stupendous leap into the dingy) moved off in pursuit.  I called out my concerns as to the magical prowess of the captain, and I will choose to believe that they kept my warning in the back of their minds as they rowed onward.  When they were within range of the vessel, Colin managed to snag it with a grappling bolt from his crossbow and both he and Elle attempted to climb the veritable tightrope onto the ship but fell into the sea due to the difficult grip and the motion of the waves.  At that Pyraxis cut our losses and the rope to go to rescue our two compatriots who were working to keep their heads above water.  

They were none too pleased when they returned to shore.  None.  Too.  Pleased.  I did my best to keep the relief and pleasure from my features however, for not only did we successfully complete our mission but we managed to all escape with our lives from a very dangerous situation indeed!

After putting down the half-starved dogs – who had survived partially on human remains as judging by the bone piles, we finished exploring the area.  Drax and Elle were particularly interested in a couple of large cages found in the cavern with the dogs.  They offered no explanation for their mutual obsession but I suspect they were given orders to retrieve them as I had been tasked with finding the tome Diresome Kretchens.  Furthermore, no one asked questions as to their purpose as Colin and Pyraxis helped them load the cages aboard the Lionfish.

On the way back to Riddleport, I had time to speak at length with our rescued scholar who revealed that he was brought in by the cyphermages because of his specialty of study, namely runes, gates and extradimensional spaces.  To consider where the Cyphergate may lead is a tantalizing thought indeed!  I can’t wait to read more about their findings on the subject!  Considering his specialization, I asked him about how one might go about finding a “back door” into an extradimensional space – the trouble with the Tian tapestry fresh in my mind.  He explained that it was not impossible but quite difficult as one would have to find the exact location of the desired extradimensional space and there are a near infinite amount of them.  He claimed it is likely one would have to bring in a higher being to divine the correct location.  Interesting information!

We arrived in Riddleport very late in the evening, with an agreement from Gultrock to purchase the commandeered Lionfish from us for 4700 gold upon the morrow.  


Elements for further research:  

Magically collapsible gangplanks with railings still proving a necessity.  Price still proving prohibitive.  Line up a skilled carpenter and a caster able to Fabricate upon return to Magnimar in case our fortunes change for the better.

Best ways to cripple a ship

Lissala



Questions for contemplation:

Why is a cult of the formerly dead/MIA goddess Lissala involved in this business with the Hao Jin Tapestry?  Did the Aspis agents use them or did they use the Aspis?

Date:  24th of Sarenith, 4714
Location:  Riddleport, Varisia


Newly be-shipped Captain Smulworts Gultrock paid us for the Lionfish which she intends on refitting into a spectacular fishing vessel.  Good on her.  Everyone leaves happy.

Hirako was eager to finally reach his destination after a well deserved and peaceful night sleep, and we happily escorted him to the cyphermages.  In return for our services, they will allow each of us to call upon them for aid when researching in Riddleport.  One time only of course – let’s not get crazy here!  If it were otherwise I might consider transferring to the local lodge!  Seriously…cyphermages….  I feel as if I could make friends there.

OOC:  Debt of Cyphers Boon - One use per character.  When researching a subject in Riddleport, gain a +2 bonus to a Knowledge Arcana or Linguistics roll

We spent the remainder of the day selling various sundry items from our recent exploits and purchasing necessary equipment.  Pyraxis bought himself a pair of shiny new boots that should prove a great boon in combat!  We were also able to determine a route to Jorgenfist.  Four days to Rodrick’s Cove, then eight to the Storval Stair (ICANNOTEVENWAITTOSEETHAT!!!).  From the Stair, it’s only seven and a half days through the mountains to Jorgenfist (!!!!!!!!!!!).


Elements for further research:  

Learn to speak giant.  That’s about the only thing my father told me about the fortress, and it pains me to think I hadn’t the foresight to learn this language yet.  I hope they speak the common tongue or we’ll be reduced to writing out our introductions with a bit of magic!  Awkward.  Possibly deadly. . .