Episode 7:
Great Harvest 20th
Warm, Steady Rainfall starts in the evening, gentle breeze
Immersion: Sound of Laughter (who, knights errant, about current story)
-Survival 8-
Scene #48:
The next morning, we pack our gear and start heading out towards the main gate, when we overhear to of the King’s knights laughing about having to baby sit Princess Jenn and Prince Allard.
“Who would you rather watch? The snot nosed brat or the petulant little girl?” One of the men asks.
His fellow replies, “The girl of course! If I have to watch one of them, I’d rather have my eyes glued on that sweet thing!”
I notice Ronan stiffen and start towards the men. I put my hand on his shoulder, and head over myself, “Walls have ears friends, careful what you let them hear.”
Q: Do the men heed my warning? YES Q: Do they know who we are? EXCEPTIONAL YES
The first man starts to scowl, then seems to recognize us. “You are the ones who saved Princess Jenn from the ogres? My apologies. We meant no disrespect.”
I shrug my shoulders, “I am not part of the household you’ve sworn to defend.” Chastened, the two men cast their eyes downward as we pass them by.
We make our way out of the keep, then pass through town towards the gate
-No Encounter passing through town-
Suddenly, “Hold up!” Edwin darts into the Blue Tree alchemy shop, leaving the rest of us in the street. I shrug my shoulders and follow him inside, leaving the other two in the street. Edwin is talking to a surprisingly old looking elf woman, telling her that Ebonleaf sends his regards. I look over some of the goods for sale while they talk, and start picking out some things I might like.
“See something interesting?” the elf asks as I peruse the potions and poultices.
“I do indeed. Do you accept trades?” I ask as I pull the ivory box from the Broken Spire out of our community pack. She takes the object in her hands and admires it carefully.
“Where did you find this?” she asks. I tell her about the Broken Spire and show her the two potions we found inside. “Ah! A philter of love,” she chuckles, “and oil of slipperiness, to get you out of a tight spot.” And what would you like for the box, friends of Elbrath the Wise?”
I end up trading the box for four sunberry healing salves, a weak trollblood healing potion, some willowmoss poultices, and some fyre root tincture.
After this, Edwin and I rejoin our companions in the street and continue on our way out of town. with Edwin squinting in the morning sun.
-Morning Encounter-
On the road, we startle a bunch of rabbits, and Sylvia bags one with a quick shot from her bow. I quickly gut the thing and take it with us to properly cook for the evening’s dinner.
-Afternoon Encounter-
Later in the afternoon, we spot a group of halfling farmers cutting wheat in their fields. It’s a little amusing to watch, as from a distance, they look like a bunch of plump children.
“Why don’t halflings wear shoes?” Sylvia asks idly.
Squinting, Edwin explains, “They believe bare feet help them feel more akin to the earth in which they dig their homes. Some say that shoes also pull on the hair of their feet, which would be uncomfortable.”
I laugh, “Just remember, they NEVER wear shoes, so keep that in mind if a halfling pig farmer ever offers you a bottle of his homemade wine.” Ronan laughs, Sylvia gives me a mortified look. Edwin rolls his eyes.
-Evening Encounter-
As we cross some of the cut and fallow fields towards the forest edge, spotting herdsmen driving their sheep home, it begins to rain. I shake my head, “I was hoping to cook that rabbit.”
We are setting up tents when a squad of soldiers approaches us, “What are you doing out here? Instead of in the village?” I note they wear livery from Littleshir, but they are normal men.
“Surprised the uniforms fit you,” I joke.
Q: Is the guard amused? YES
The guard chuckles, “The king assigns men to watch over Littleshir. If you ever see a squad of halflings try to hold a shield wall against a cavalry charge, you’ll know why. But anyway, what are you doing out here?”
“King’s business, we need to investigate an old ruin not too far from here, but we’d like to reach it before the sun sets tomorrow, and the head start will be helpful. If you men are heading back to the village, take this rabbit. We caught it this morning and I’d hoped to cook it tonight, but we won’t get a fire to take in this weather.”
Q: Give us any grief? EXCEPTIONAL NO
The guards take the gift, “Thank you, and good luck!”
Edwin calls out, “Do you know anything about an old ruined tower called Morn about ten miles into the woods from here?”
Q: Do they? NO
The guards shake their heads, “No, we don’t venture into them, and we are on a rotation, so…nobody stationed in the village has been here for long.” Edwin nods his head as we retire to our tends as the rain picks up.
-Survival-6- Night Encounter-None anyway-
Great Harvest 21st
warm, clear skies, heavy wind
-Immersion, see something edible through a gap-
Scene #49:
In the morning, I hear a gasp outside, and looking through the flap of the tent, directly out front, there is a rather large snake! I quietly ready my bow, a tricky feat in the confines of a tent, and put arrow through the thing. Soon, it is skinned and roasting over a fire made from the little bit of dry wood we found beneath the nearby forest canopy.
“Why didn’t you shoot it?” I asked Sylvia as I cooked the snake.
“I was just…caught off guard?” She stammers.
I puzzle over that, “I’ve never known you to get caught flat footed before.”
“Well, snakes. You know. They…there’s something strange about them,” she winces.
“But not darkmantles, thankfully,” I nod.
She laughs as she helps the rest of the party pack our gear, then we all eat breakfast, and continue our journey
Morning Encounter-None-
Afternoon Encounter-Lesser Undead-Skeletons-
-Immersion-Conspicuously placed liquid–
Midafternoon, we are getting close to where Morn is shown on the map. Edwin has his cloak pulled up, though the sunlight doesn’t seem to bother him as much beneath the forest canopy. I am in the lead, Sylva follows behind, then Edwin and Ronan in the rear. I have an uneasy feeling, as we draw closer to Morn, and looking back, I notice Sylvia seems on edge as well. “There is something foul about this place,” I note. The girl nods. Edwin seems indifferent to my comment, as does Ronan, who cradles his crossbow in hand, looking around as he always does on patrol.
Suddenly, something rises from the stream! A skeletal figure whose garments have long since rusted or rotted away. Then another and a dozen more it seems!
I raise my bow and let loose, arrow going wide, then falling back from waterline, “Everyone get back!”. Sylvia does the same, but her arrow meets its mark, causing one of the fiends to stagger as bones fall from its ribcage. One charges at Ronan, but instea of using his crossbow, he drops it to the ground, raises his hammer, and oblterates the skeletal warrior with a mighty blow. Then he falls back towards us to intercept any closing undead. Edwin follows him, throwing a bolt of flame at one of the enemy as he does so. I shoot another one, then drop my bow for blades as they are closing too fast for us to outrun, but Ronan steps into the horde, smashing two more in quick succession, his hammer shattering bone and spraying it everywhere! The undead continue their rush, falling upon Ronan and I, but some get past and fall upon Edwin and Sylvia. She quickly slips free and places another arrow, while Ronan and I battle the main line. Two of the undead wounded inteh rush explode from Edwin’s arcane darts, and his wards flare up as fiends try to bring him down. The frenzed melee is over in moments though. Ronan takes several hits, but his armor holds true, suffering only minor bruises and scrapes. The rest of us come out unscathed, though Edwin’s magic is badly depleted.
Looking around at the carnage, Edwin observes, “We must be close.”
I agree, “But can we afford to explore further? It seems you used quite a bit of magic there.”
Edwin shrugs, “We will rest a bit first. It will be fine.”
I look over towards Ronan, he shrugs. Sylvia is staring wide eyed at the pile of shattered bones lying around, then her eyes narrow as she tries to spot anything on them worth salvaging. Suddenly, she smile, and pulls a chain up from the grounds, “I thought I saw something glinting in the sun, but…what kind of metal is this?” she puzzles, studying the necklace and the pendant hanging from it.
“Electrum, elven design, very old,” Edwin notes, accepting it from her hands. “The diamond in the center symbolizes the sun, of course. The script, “Beloved Everlasting, Beauty Unfading”.
Sylvia scrunches her face and looks down at a nearby skull, “I beg to differ”, and adds it to my company pack.
A short distance past the pool, the air is thick with malice. But we spot signs of ancient elven habitations in the canopy, and on the ground the outline of what once may have been a tower, long collapsed and overgrown. The foundations of old outbuildings are also barely discernable if one knows what to look for.
-Perception 22-Survival 18-
It takes almost no time at all to find a concealed trap door that leads beneath the old tower. “Here it is,” I suggest. “Recently visited too, judging from the footprints nearby.”
Edwin nods, “Ladies first.” He gestures towards Sylvia who lights up her torch. I get ready to follow her down. Ronan, no longer winded, will be after me, then Edwin with another torch initially behind us.
–Ruins of Morn-Modified-
-Room 5 Trap encounter, Passive Perception spotted it-
We descend down some dark stairs, when Sylvia says, “Hold up a second!” then she kneels down, sets the torch on the ground beside her, then with her dagger pries up a loose flagstone, cutting something beneath it. “All clear” She adds, sheathing the blade and picking up the torch once more. We enter some sort of preparatory room with ancient stone tables against the wall, and a mosaic that seems to depict the heavens themselves, with white stars upon a night sky, swirls of blue and black between. The floor and tables are covered in dust. As we proceed, I see where there are a number of holes in the nearby walls, each likely filled with darts that would have rained down on us if not for Sylvia’s keen eyes. I tell her she did well. She smiles back at me.
-Room 11-Curse-
Proceeding deeper, we enter the next vault filled with a number of ancient sarcophagi, covered in dust, as is the floor. The four walls are adorned with a mural depicting the realms of fire, wind, earth and sea, but there are some strange symbols interwoven with the tile pattern I feel light headed. Ronan asks, “Did you all feel something strange just then?”
Edwin warns, “Don’t look at the walls, there are cursed symbols on them.”
“Maybe you should be up front?” Sylvia suggests, annoyed she didn’t recognize the danger. Edwin remains in the back.
-Room 2 Trap Encounter-Passive perception spotted it-
“Whoa, whoa! Hold up again,” Sylvia warns, spotting a tripwire nearly buried in the dust of the ancient tomb as we move into the next vault. Then she looks around and sees a cut out along much of the wall, “That would have gotten us all!” She takes a couple of spikes from my pack and wedges them into the slot, pinning in place a large blade that would have swept across the room had we tripped the wire. Nonetheless, we step over not only the first, but several other such triggers in the room. The room itself is lined with stone shelves, holding burial urns, hundreds of them. Each urn is marked in strange characters, but Edwin pauses to examine them, reciting some of the words, marked on each one. The ceiling above depicts the celestial realm. Scraping away the dust, I see the abyssal realm below us.
-Room 17-Empty, secret passage on DC 22 perception, Edwin Rolls 23-
Turning south we come to another room lined with ancient sarcophagi. Murals here depict a great forest realm, alive with activity. In the faded paint, you can see elves dwelling among the trees, and towers of ivory rising from the forest floor. It is all covered in dust though. But as we look around, Edwin points out, “This wall here. It has a seam.”
Sylvia smiles on inspecting it, and then with a push against a loose stone at the edge, the wall opens inward. “Whoa!” she mutters on seeing what’s inside, “Check this out!” Stepping through the door, we enter an ancient crypt with a single sarcophagus in the center, surrounded by gold candle sticks, two small chests, and guarded by ancient stone statues whose real armor and weapons have weakened from rot or decay.
Edwin looks around in frustration, noting the dust. “Dust, all through this tomb. Nobody has been here in centuries. This is a dead end.”
Sylvia opens one of the chests, “I don’t think so,” she giggles as she holds up a palm full of coins. “And these!” she shows us a fistful of gems.
“What’s in here?” Ronan asks, pushing aside the lid to the ancient sarcophagus.
I step back, raising my bow as…nothing but dust rises from the ancient resting place.
“What a peculiar crown. Elven,” Edwin notes peering into the sarcophagus and seeing an armored skeleton within, then examining the coins and the candlesticks, “all elven.” He begins chanting, and after some time, he instructs us, “Take the crown, the armor, the blade, the ring and…” he reaches in and with a smile, cradles an ancient wand in his hand. “This!” his eyes light up. “This is a treasure.”
We do as instructed, with Sylvia collecting the gems and coins, bagging everything up that we can carry. Our packs soon filled with gold and silver coins from a bygone age.
I carefully rearrange the bones of the dead man, then drape my cloak over him for decency and with Ronan’s help, push the stone lid back in the place. “Sorry for this, but the living have more use for such treasures than the dead,” I say as we exit the way we came.
On climbing up the stairs and back up to the surface, we are immediately attacked by Children of the Serpent! Several of them rush at Sylvia, and she is ducking and dodging, but slips away from them with several cuts to her arms, her foes running into me as I drop my bow and draw steel. Another rushes at Edwin, but his attack is a clumsy one. Two others pile on Ronan, but he seems unconcerned. The leader of the coven summons some sort of mystical weapon behind Ronan.
The initial shock of the ambush passing, Ronan smashes the skull of one his assailants, the nearly headless corpse crumpling to the ground in a sickening thud, as Edwin grabs hold of the man attacking him. With a load crack, the man false back, convulsing as lightning seems to course through his body. I dispatch the first man to have reached me, but still have two more to deal with. The leader points towards me and mutters something I cannot discern, but it seems to have no effect. Then Sylvia’s arrow flies past her head, and she looks a little unnerved. The fight continues, a swirl of melee as I slowly cut down the men surrounding me. Edwin hurls several arcane bolts at that cult leader who seems focused on trying to curse me somehow. His second salvo brings the woman down. Ronan takes several hits but cannot put down his last foe until I arrive and put a blade in the villains back.
Looking around, we check them all, but they fought to the death. We collect their serpent pendants and check for valuables. They carried nothing but their weapons.
“Warm welcome,” I mutter as I kick one of the corpses. “Dump them in the ruin. They can join the rest of the dead.”
After doing this, we moved a few miles from the ruin, and then set camp near a pleasant stream.
-Survival-6- check for Encounters-No Encounter-Camp Event-Discuss future plans-
As we sit around the fire eating dinner, we discuss what to do when we return to Firth. “Can we sell that elven crown?” Sylvia asks.
Edwin nods, “It is an interesting relic, but I see no reason to keep it. We could perhaps give it to the king, but it is an elven relic, perhaps Shirra might buy it on behalf of her people. I am certain she is their agent in Firth, observing the community on their behalf.”
Ronan examines the suit of mail we found, “Do you think…” he removes his armor and tries it on
Q: Does the armor fit? YES
The warrior smiles, “Lightweight too! Elven made?”
“And enchanted,” nods Edwin, then glancing towards me “As is the blade.” I check it out, and nod appreciatively.
“And this is another magic ring?” Sylvia asks excitedly. Edwin nods as she eagerly places it on the opposite hand from the first one.
Great Harvest 22nd
Pleasant-Clear-Skies-No Rain
Immersion-See something written or carved that stirs a memory
Scene #50:
As we pack our gear in the morning, I notice some carvings in the trees nearby. Only faded a bit, maybe a month or two old, it is a pair of names. Lovers no doubt. I smile, remembering having once done the same with Lydia. A girl from my village. My mood sours and I blink away the tears as I recall her fate. The reason I first started hunting men instead of deer.
“What’s wrong?” Sylvia asks, then looks at the tree. I shake my head, leaving her confused. Ronan realizes what I saw and puts a hand on my shoulder. Then we finish breaking camp and begin our trek back home.
-Morning Encounter-Patrol
Emerging from the woods, we start crossing the cut fields back towards the main road. We spot the same patrol from Littleshir as we encountered a few days earlier.
“What ho!” the sergeant hails us, “Did you accomplish the King’s task?”
“Red herring,” I reply, “The foe we sought was not in the ruins, but we skirmished them anyway. What news have you?”
-check the last few days of farmland encounters for the patrol and..-Q: Did it take anything? EXCEPTIONAL NO
The sergeant tells us, “There was a puma around yesterday. A couple of the village dogs scared it off, but still, we don’t like the things this close to the village. They’re big enough to carry a human child, so pretty much anyone in Littleshir could fall prey.”
I nod, sharing the guard’s concerns, “Perhaps the crown could stage a hunt for the beast?”
The guard shrugs, “Not likely. Not with goblins afoot in the woods, but if you are going to see the king, you might suggest it on the village’s behalf.” I nod in agreement.
-Afternoon-No Encounter-Discussion topic-Experience-
We continue our journey home. Sylvia walks beside me, “So how did you learn to fight so well? I know you grew up making bows, and I guess that means you’d better know how to shoot one, but your hand to hand style, with a blade in each hand. How did you learn that?”
I shrug, “A scout captain, Reginald, taught me. It took awhile, but he could tell my speed was greater than my strength, and he argues two blades are always better than one.”
“So what about that longsword you wear over your shoulders? I’ve never seen you draw it,” She continues.
“Took it from the first bandit I killed. A real bastard, he was. Took his head with it. At first, I carried in case the fighting got close. Now I just carry because…I don’t see the need to leave it behind. Besides, Ronan might need it,” I shrug.
“So now that you have that elven blade, are you going to carry three short blades, a long blade, two daggers, a longbow and a quiver full of arrows?” Sylvia teases.
I laugh, “Sounds a bit excessive, no? Tell you what. You can have one of my shortblades. I’ll teach you how to use it when we are in town.”
She nods eagerly, “I remember when you lent me one a few weeks ago. It was different, but I like the better reach, and it certainly hits heavier than my knives.”
-Evening-Something reflective in the grass-
In the waning sunlight, as Edwin finally starts to feel comfortable lifting his hood, I notice something shiny in the grass by the road. I kneel down and pick it up.
“What is… a mirror?” Sylvia asks. I nod, and put it in my pack. “Why is it here?” she asks.
“Likely, signaling.” I nod towards the city up ahead. “I suspect one could signal a person in the keep from here. Maybe we should keep an eye out for strange flashes of light during the day.” Sylvia looks back and forth from the two positions, and agrees.
We arrive at the city gates after dark, but are quickly beckoned inside, and head up towards the keep.
-No Encounter- Q: Are we fed? YES Topic-Flaws-
Returning home, we quickly visit the kitchen to see if there is any food left from dinner, piling a couple of plates with bread, leftover roast, a baked apple to split, and some sugared yams and beets. We also grab a couple of bottles of cheap wine. We sit together in Edwin’s room, where we quickly sate ourselves, and discover the wine is not as weak as we expected.
“You know what your problem is?” Edwin tips his cup towards me, “You care too much about people. Not that I object, mind you, being a person myself, but it is likely to get you killed one of these days! And you, Ronan, you lack ambition! If you were smart, you would have taken a commission in the King’s Guard. Easy coin, and much safer than tagging along with the likes of me!” Edwin slurs his words a bit. Then he turns towards Sylvia, “And you…you’re just trouble. And you can’t ever be anything but since you have no education, no legit trade. Perhaps…perhaps falling in with me is the best thing that has ever happened to you! Or ever will.” Edwin leans back.
I pat his shoulders, “I think perhaps you’ve had enough, friend.”
“See! Care too much,” Edwin hiccups.
Ronan shakes his head, “Can’t hold his liquor. Stupid kid.”
“I am a very smart man!” Edwin objects, lifting the cup once more.
Sylvia pouts, “I’m not stupid. And I’m not just trouble. I can learn. I can be useful.”
I pat her shoulder, “You can be great. We’ll teach you how. And no, you are far from stupid.”
The bottles dry, our bellies full, we each retire to our own room, blow out the lamps and go to sleep.
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