Avatars
Characters
What Happened
A Chance Meeting?
After a hungry angry giantess chases a small dragon-kin past a hiding halfling into a bandit ambush, as a young confused half-elf is guided to aid someone in peril by a strange shape-changing yellow-skinned man who recently whisked the crossbreed from his razed hometown, the party meets as they nurse their wounds. Feng then guides the party back to Cormire where Gyanne the ice princess pays the city entry tax, as the halfling has a chance encounter with an apparently wealthy blind old man who needed assistance picking up a spilled purse. Once within the city walls, Geffin notices the elaborate market with many curiosities, but follows Feng to a small hut.
As they approached the small round hut that seemed to rise up from the earth seamlessly and has a strangely green grass thatched roof. Grass that somehow yet seemed alive. They noticed the hut being surrounded by lush green grass in a ring of various trees each seemingly older than the city they reside in. A couple of the party members noticed a large raven atop the hut, keenly eyeing the group approaching. Within the ring of trees smelled musky and earthy like a well watered garden. Inside the hut seemed larger than possible from the outside appearance. The interior of the hut smelled strongly of teas and spices, but not unpleasantly so.
In the center of the floor of the hut sat an ancient woman, the color of the earth with flighty white hair and eyes the color of the ocean which seemed to fluctuate between the green of the pirated Salton seas of the south and the dark brooding blue of the untamed freezing depths of the far northwest. She emanated magical power in an aura previously unseen by the mages of the party. Feng, having previously met the woman knows her as Eingana, but knows little else.
Upon the parties arrival she spoke. "Welcome, all of you. I'll not mince words and weave tales as my time is soon to pass. I've gathered you here in hope that I could sway you. I hope to sway you to the greater good so you can hopefully reach your potential, as I have."
As she says this she moves one of her hands from her lap, to her chest and Geffin noticed countless strands apparently running from her fingers down into the ground where they apparently vanish into the worn dirt floor. They seemed to shimmer for moments then fade as if never there. Geffin, somehow you maintain vision of one of the strands as he was staring in wide-eyed amazement, he noticed two additional things. One, was that it seemed the strand he could still see hanging from her hand dipped only slightly to the ground before arching upwards directly at him and connecting to hi chest. The second thing he noticed as you look to his left and right to see if the others in the room had similar ties is that the pleasant aroma had changed slightly to smell more earthy and planty, similar to the smell outside.
Eingana continued, drawing the party's attention, like an irresistible force of nature. "It is possible I will soon be replaced. It is possible we are on the brink of another cataclysm. You each have a role to play, and a very important role it can be."
She shuddered violently and more of the party could momentarily see the strands shimmering and as the shudder passed each person in the room felt a coolness deep within them, not simply a physical chill, but something more, something powerful and afflicting what feels like the very core of his/her being. Along with this shudder some felt a sadness, "My end is coming, as is your beginning. Some of you have already begun as others have ended. I drew you here from afar (pointing to Feng) with the hope that you can help them define themselves and choose their correct paths. There will be others who choose separate paths. There will be others who choose opposing paths."
Again she shuddered and again they felt the cold weakening sadness deep within. Some faltered and dropped to their knees.
"I had hoped there would be more of you. I had hoped for more time. I've drawn this out too long. I suspected it unfair to challenge the fates, but it is what we (she points around the room and glares shrewdly at each visitor) must do, lest we act only as pawns in their games."
Some in the party felt her great sorrow and great pain.
"Ceraph, you seek your father and adventure. You seek your past and your future. Sadly, you must choose. I can tell you only that he went in your place to another meeting such as this.
Gyanna, your journey will be like no other your race has ever experienced. Through trial and error you will learn to find what you seek, and what others seek."
Eingana shuddered again, so violently that she sagged down to support herself on her hands. "Geffin, you must follow that which guides you. Do not second guess yourself as the consequences could be veery undesirable."
Again Eingana shuddered immensely, the suffering she felt apparent on her face and almost palpable, even to the ice princess. As the final shudder subsided, she opened her ancient leathery eye-lids to reveal her eyes, now the darkest blue of the distant horizon on a moonless night, which then faded to a cloudy cataract gray as her final words were
"I'm sorry my children. Never lose hope."
When she faded, the mysterious spiderwebish sinews from her fingers fell to glittering dust which fell only slightly before whisking off out one of the windows.
Leaving Cormire?
After leaving the hut of Eingana, the party went to the Cormire market. Geffin tried to dance and critically failed and fell off of the cabbage stand. Gyanne having her pride hurt by such a botched display, took to the makeshift stage and danced and sang to the market goers merriment while Geffin worked the crowd, pan-handling, while Tomwise lap-slapped and a nearby lute salesman closed up shop to play along.
After realizing the people were focusing primarily on her, Gyanne hurried out of the market to a dark alley slum-bar to get away and have some alone time as well as to get an ale and some meat in to her gullet. The rest of the party was convening at the Gray Dog Inn, when Feng was approached by two of Cormires red-garbed guards. The guards were ordered to escort Feng out of the city walls. Feng talked the guards into letting him discuss the matter with one Matthew Alebroad, self-proclaimed adviser and overseer of the city’s militia. While Ceraph and the hobbits took the long way to the inn, Feng negotiated with Alebroad and Gyanne killed some barflys after they refused to give her information for free. She did so with a small knife and a bestial pounce. Eventually, the giantess, half-elf and hobbits met up outside the Gray Dog in and followed Feng to ‘the place where they met’, dubbed Bandit Rock by the party. Feng had negotiated with Alebroad to take up the bandit’s post in their place in order to investigate the possibility of a greater criminal conspiracy in or around Cormire. Part of the negotiation was that Alebroad would send some faux travelers past the rock to supply Feng and his group while playing up the ruse that they were actually bandits. After a near-combat situation with a small family passing the rock, it turned out that the ‘contact’ sent was one Balkar The Golden, whom Gyanne was seeking for information regarding a great white cat which she pursues. He shared some stomach stew with the party before departing off to the west to investigate rumors of a large dragon-kin harassing the locals due to the recent perishing of a younger kin…that killed by Gyanne in the first session.
Other notes:
- Feng began to tattoo a great cat on Gyanne.
- Guards were Lucas and Thug #2 under the command of Captain Dixmak
Preliminary Notes from Night 3
As Balkar The Golden traveled west from Bandit's Rock, the group grew weary; the exhaust of their most recent interactions, the overwhelming feeling of something larger than the individual... should they follow him? This hunter? Tom Wise began to doubt the need to continue on and instead, suggested to Geffin to head back to their homelands. Feng, listening to the concerns of Mr. Wise spoke up. "Mr. Wise, when someone makes a choice, they must stick to that choice," he explained. "Besides, the dragon may indeed end up at the shire!" At this news, Tom Wise became very distraught. Almost suddenly his position changed, and he was again prepared to see the party to their ultimate glory, a chance to save the Shire.
The group decided to trudge along, heading west in the full moonlight. Feng was familiar with the area and gave the party a target, a town called Serenton. As they marched towards the River Serenflow, they felt a drop down in elevation.
"To the north is the Silver Range, and we'll be arriving to Serenton in several days, perhaps. We should look for houses or villages to ask about our hunter," Feng encouraged the group along.
Geffin hesitated, "But, Master Feng, we'll alarm them!" It was no secret that the group looked peculiar: a talking canine, two halflings, a mysterious knight, and a woman with proportions unusual for human. Geffin's concern resonated through the group as the reality of their current position came to light.
Tom, overcome by his new sense of duty, jumped his thoughts to his future task. "If we're going to slay a dragon, shouldn't I have a sword?" Gyanne remembered the knife that had pierced her back in the bar fight earlier that day, a knife she was intent on using in the future. "I'll give you my knife if you'll swear your allegiance to me," she bargained. "Um, I'll have to think about that..." Discouraged, Tom Wise wasn't sure what to do. Ceraph, noticing the forlorn hobbit offered one of his knives for Tom Wise to use as a sword. Tom was overjoyed.
They meandered through the the wheat fields until Gyanne found horse prints in the soil. The soil was lumpy and still new from tilling, with small crops just now beginning to sprout. Geffin spotted a farmhouse off in the distance after an hour of Tom Wise's complaining. Feng suggested that Geffin go up to the house and ask on our behalf, suggesting a financial payment would be a good idea. The farmhouse was old and shabby, there was an overhang with various farm supplies. There was no smoke from the chimney, but a very dim light inside somewhere. A sign of life.
[Knock] grumble grumble from inside... Geffin startled, "was that a bear??" He put his ear to the door and heard lumbered breathing. The door swung open from the light pressure.
Geffing looked in to see a candle near a bed with a very heavyset human-shape. "Hi, we're travellers on an epic quest. and we're hear to ask you for help!" He approaches the bed as the group watched from the doorway. Near the bed he saw money, and the room smelled of brandy.
Suddenly a loud clatter interrupted the silence of the night. Tomwise had knocked something off the table- a Tomahawk!
"HUH?!" a man in stained overalls, big and hairy sat up from his slumber, heavy from too much drinking. Geffin nervously stepped back, "so sorry to disturb you..." "Chidren! IN MY HOUSE?!" The man grabbed hatchet from the floor where it had fallen.
The halflings were pushed outside by the man as the door slammed shut behind them. "Well, he's terribly rude! And upset," Tomwise noticed. "Maybe I should try again? He thought we were children!" Geffin asked.
Feng waved them over, urging them to remain quiet. Tomwise was the first to speak up. "He's got much money! Much more money that I've known a farmer to have..."
The group approached the door again. He answered, and Gyanne asked if he would provide lodging for her and her two children. He said no and slammed the door in their faces.
Gyanne rapped on the door a little more forcefully. The man swung open door, only this time wearing a breastplate, a helmet with face shield, a shield and his tomahawk. He warned them to leave. Gyanne readied her spear and in response, the farmer attacked.
FIGHT
he attacks, Ceraph sweeps Tomwise up from his panicked flee and sets him down, runs up towards door Feng runs towards door to prepare to cast Sleep on the man.
Man attacks GYanne and cuts her in the arm, right as Feng casts Sleep on the man. The man resists. Ceraph attacks the man and severely maims his foot, causing him to collapse. Gyanne stabs him in the face part, but does not kill him. Feng runs in, grapples the man and tries to grab his arm. Ceraph dives over and grabs the man's arm but misses and smacks his hands on the floors, causing 2 pts of damage.
Meanwhile, Geffin shouts: She's a fiercesome warrior, please! mr. Farmer, please surrender!
feng again tries to grapple,but he dodges. Ceraph jumps to grappel as well.
Gyanne shouts: ENOUGH!!! and successfully impales his bicep, trapping his tomahawk arm against the floor. the Man drops his tomahawk and all frenzy comes to a halt. Feng looks towards Ceraph to begin to assess his wounds; he reached over to feel ceraph's corps and noticed something very very different
Ceraph collapses, aghast and barely conscious.
Feng sits next to Ceraph, and begins to assess what's happenieng. Tom Wise is still outside,
Feng: Cyanne! Address that man's wounds! G: Are you serious? Absolutely not. I'm going to kill him. She begins to lean down to deliver him a final blow.
Geffin: Please Mistress Gyanne, he can do no more harm!! Geffin latches onto her arm.
She stands up and pulls the spear out of his arm, begrudgingly, as if to symbolize capitulation. She then sits on his breastplate to watch what is happening to Ceraph. He's unconscious and bleeding profusely.
Feng lights his hat via a spell. We hardly understand what has happened to Ceraph. Gyanne leans over and whispers in his ear: I'll keep you alive now, only so that I may kiill you later!" She dresses the torso wound and stops the bleeding. Feng heals him the rest of the way, then goes back to Ceraph.
SKILL: Ceraph is SANDMAN
F: let us rest tonight. Leave this man's belongings alone, Gyanne!
Everyone is exhausted, geffin can't find his backpack, the money is also gone, Geffin can't find anything.
F: Mr. Geffin, we'll ask the man fo ryour backpack in the morning. In the meantime, you can use one of Gyanne's winter garments to keep yourself warm.
Feng wakes up every hour to heal the Man and Cereph
MORNING
Everyone wakes up. They untie him Geffin asks where his bag is The man wants to be untied. He calls Gyanne an ogre. She punches him in the arm wound. He turns pale FENg: GYANNE! stop at once. he heals the wound and the man is pretty well healed He tells Geffin where the bag is. THey find his money and a potion, which he finally reveals to Feng that it's a flight potion.
Geffin goes to look for chickens. He finds a large horse in the back, an unfriendly but not unfriendly horse. there is a saddle nearby.
OUthouse beyond the house, there is a chicken coup where there are chickens around. Geffin approaches them, enters the coup and pulls a few eggs off the nests. Some have been ther a while, and some eggs have quasi-fetii. Geffin notices the eggs haven't been picked in a while.
G: oh, he's going to have some chicks soon!
G goes back inside, hits the outhouse. He sees something light colored down the hole... G: Hm, that is curious.... what would be white, in the bottom of an outhouse. looks fleshy.
G: Hello! what ar eyou doing down there? oh.. what could that be... oh, a knee... why might that be there..... Geffin recoils G: TW let's bring these eggs in
the party cinches up there stuff. Ceraph replaced the plank of wood and went to collect the gear.
Geffin handed him the eggs and asked TW to get the stove started. Geffin leads Ceraph to the Outhouse, that stinks really bad. Ceraph peers down and sees only a dark hole.
G: Can you maybe get rid of these boards and maybe you we can see better?
C grabs the rake and opens a hold
C: hm... what is this? it looks like someone threw something down there. G: I'm afraid it looks like the knee.. even the hindquarters of a man.
C: ugh, ok.... [dig dig dig down in the outhouse] UGH! oh god,
Geffin climbs to the top of the outhouse and pries the roofing boards back
Feng is prepared to leave, sees the stuff just sitting out front, and things something strange
C fishes around with the rake in there, pulls on the "knee" and a foot with a boot pops up C: Geffin, I think you might be right, buddy. We got a boot.
G: is there a foot in the boot?
C: oh my. yes. I think this is the farmer!
G: the farmer?
Gyanne and Feng are approaching, mumbling about where Ceraph and Geffin could have gone. Gyanne smells Ceraph and Geffin and SHIT from behind the house. Received ADV: Discriminatory Smell
Feng arrives, looks down with his light hat: F: oh my... C: there's a foot F: let's get out.
Man stumbles around the corner, Geffin talks to the man, the man grabs his shoulder and tries to grapple them. Geffin dodges, the man throws his bag at hims then runs for his horse.
At htis same moment, Gyanne smells the man, Ceraph and Feng see him. Ceraph breaks out in a dead run towards the horse as Feng says: we should not let the man have his horse!
Gyanne began to ready her crossbow. Feng began to run towards the Man, yelling: we should not kill him! We have questions.
The party runs toward him, Feng saw a potion in his hand, the flight potion he knew about, and jumped up, and grappled the man unsuccessfully.
Gyanne stepped and aimed her crossbow, she lobbed a shot that whirled past his ear, without even a splinter to her enemy.
Feng jumped on the man, held him and attempted to throw his body against the wall.
THe man begins to levitate, two yards above the ground, awkward and legs akimbo. Gyanne ran and jumped on the man, smashing him into the side of the hut, both bodies huddled into the ground.
THe man is badly injured, and Gyanne is more than pleased with the affects of her new skill. In a rush, Feng implores Gyanne and the rest of the group to spare this man's life so that we may ask him crucial questions. Gyanne is less than willing to listen to Feng, although she understands his meanings.
Feng meditates to see what can be done about this. Meanwhile, Ceraph and Geffin spend some time to look for more bodies in the latrine. making some kind of pulley/lever thing with Ceraph's body, they find only a farmer, with a hatchet wound in the chest.
G: ok! I've got a hold of him! Pull us up!
Reeking of shit and decomposition, Geffin smells awful and is wollowing in the bottom of the out house.
G: it seems that was the only thing down there.... perhaps the rest of the family went to a neighboring farm.
Ceraph begins thinking of one-room home with a family... small house... He realized that the house they were in did not likely house a farm family. He finished bobbing the hobbit and brought him up.
Feng approached the scene, shit-covered body and a shit-covered Geffin, limbs sprawled out, dripping with a pudding-like substance.
Feng vomits
Geffin: I should rather like a trip to the lake! TW: me too! [tom is wearing G's hat]
Ceraph and Geffin head to the lake on the horse, while the rest stay here and wait for the team.
As Ceraph was getting the horse saddled, he noticed the saddlebags were full. He grabbed the things out of them.
Lake 60 mil across, 20 mi. long. They arrive there at lunch time.
Gyanne goes hunting, sets up a fire, cooks up some coneys. over a fire
Interlude
Feng had Gyanne help him bind the bearded man to the bed before she was fed up with the shapeshifter's lecturing and stormed off to go hunting. The Hengyoki then worked some healing magics on the man and meditated for a while before waking the man and interrogating him.
Feng using his shape-shifting abilities and the bearded man’s assumption that Feng is a wizard of great power, intimidated the man into revealing that he and the owner of the house had some cross words, when the bearded man asked for a place to stay some two days past. The bearded man had been drinking a lot and stated he sometimes makes rash decisions when in such a state. He didn’t know what to do after accidentally killing the man, so he hid the body. ... Ceraph sat and looked contemplatively at the large indignant beast which carried he and the two halflings to the lake. He was at first wondering what adventures the mighty steed had been in with the large bearded man, whom only hours ago whistled for this horse to carry the assumed outlaw and murderer away into relative freedom and safety once again. Ceraph sifted through bits and pieces of tales of adventure and awe which he’d heard from his father’s side at the smithy. As he recalled the stories of visitors and friends of his lost father, he realized his recent few days smacked quite ringingly of adventure.
He’d heard tales of wizards casting amazing spells. He’d seen the strange little man turn into a wolf and back multiple times and make his funny hat glow as the wick of a lit candle, but with no flame. He’d heard of different races from different kingdoms, dwarves, elves like his mother, and even giants. Now he traveled with what many would call a giant and two tiny men…he assumed them not dwarves at least not as he’s heard of them, as they had none of the rugged qualities attached. Hobbits they have identified themselves.
He shook his head thinking of the wild dream last night of having his chest cleft by the bearded man and falling to the ground heavy and solid. Ceraph thought to himself that the sound as his body collapsed to the floorboards will haunt him eternally. It sounded as though someone had dropped a bag of dried clay and sands from his homeland. The clay and sands they would mix with water to anchor horse posts as though they were set in stone. The dull thump was not of his bones and flesh cracking, but of his body, which seemed to have changed, landing somehow painlessly. The wound was nowhere to be found. The half-elf opened his shirt and checked again, just in case.
Just as he was wondering if the whole thing; duelling with the goblin, the out of place old woman, the amazing group with which he traveled, was all a dream, he turned to watch as one of the wet naked little men ran towards him shouting something about a boat. ...
The naked hobbits were splashing around in the afternoon sun near a wonderful picnic spot on the shore of lake Cormire. It was a wonderful little grassy bowl, one side of which fell into the lake with a nice soft soil beach, while surrounding the perimeter of the bowl were loose trees with tall narrow trunks and wide-arching branches full of bright green leaves.
After Geffin had plodded out to his ribs in the soft mud beneath the water, he removed the filth from the mornings events from his body as Tomwise giggled and splashed like a small child. Geffin realized that somehow he knew that Tomwise felt very much as a small child. Geffin knew that his companion was thoroughly enjoying himself, just as he knew that most of the last few days, Tomwise has been quite frightened or even horrified through their travel.
As Geffin considered whether or not his destiny, great and revealing as it would be would require Tomwise to stay at his side, he dipped under the water for a final rinse of his hair. As he went to stand straight and shake his head like a dog out of a stream, his head came in contact quite unenjoyably with a very solid object.
It seemed that a rowboat with a single paddle had somehow snuck up on Geffin during his bath and floated over him as he dunked his head. As he was assessing the situation, Tomwise noticed and exclaimed, “Geffin, how wonderful! You’ve found a boat! I must tell Master Ceraph!”
The naked hobbit then ran on up the grass towards where the half-elf sat on a stone and stared at the large horse. Geffin then began to drag the boat to the shore, thinking of what a dreadful experience it would be to travel on a boat across the water. Bathing is one thing, to simply trust your life to a few boards is completely another.
After Geffin had beached the boat and was approaching his pile of wet clothes laying out in the sun to dry, he heard a terrifying roar, which sounded like nothing he’d ever heard. He froze in his tracks, staring at his damp hat. By the time Geffin had unfrozen and turned around, he saw the horse fallen over and burnt in a smoldering patch of scorched earth, Ceraph nowhere to be seen and naked Tomwise huddled next to the stone slowly rocking back and forth.
Geffin knew Tomwise was not only horrified, but terribly hurt. After having wrapped Tomwise’s charred and gnarled left hand in a wet shirt and calming the poor hobbit down, Geffin gathered the waterskin and some food from the saddlebags and they ate quickly away from the charred and dead horse.
As they ate, Geffin got broken pieces between sobs and bites of what transpired moments before. As he was telling Ceraph of the boat, there was a horrible shrieking noise. Tomwise had barely seen it, a great white beast flying overhead before it rained fire upon them. Tomwise tried to step behind Ceraph but the horse reared and hit Ceraph who seemed to fall into the ground as the burning stinking blaze overwhelmed him. He thinks Ceraph drew a sword, but then was hit by the horse, and was probably burnt horribly as was the horse, before falling into the ground. "Geffin," sobbed Tomwise, "he fell into the ground at my feet. INTO the ground. I...I don't know what happened. Ooooh my hand does so hurt and I can't move the fingers."
Then, picking up one of Ceraph’s finely crafted swords, all which apparently remained of the warrior, the two damp, somewhat distraught halflings made haste to the north.
We resume with the Hobbits trotting back to the farmhouse at dusk as Feng has just crouched opposite the small fire from the giantess as she gnaws the last greasy morsels of meat from the bones of the rabbits she hunted and cooked through the late afternoon.
Disappearances and Dragon Hunting
Feng tried to heal Tomwise's scorched ruins of a hand and left him fainted with a scarred stump. Geffin gathered and went through the bearded man's belongings and the party decided to stay the night in the farmhouse. In the morning, Gyanne killed the Bearded man while Geffin slept, dreaming of the Mercuric order.
Geffin awoke and made breakfast which he offered the dead bearded man as Feng explained to him the man was perished.
Gyanne took the bearded man's bracers and the party buried the corpse before marching south to search for Ceraph.
After searching for Ceraph and Feng surmising the he'd become one with the earth, Geffin climbed a tree to look for sign of the dragon.
After some looking out while discussions about taking Tomwise back to the shire occur, the dragon is spotted over the lake, then burning a boat.
The party marched hard to the east back to Cormire, where they purchased an inn and entertainment for Tomwise and passage back to the Shire and they purchased themselves a cart and a horse to pull it, then continued on out the south gate where they met up with Feng who avoided breaching the city walls. while in the city, Gyanne was approached by a man who introduced himself as Piers Shaden of the Mercuric Order and he mentioned to the giantess that they hoped to study her unique abilities. She couldn't be bothered.
The party then road along the south shore of the lake until encountering a wagoneer escorting three plague victims from Serenton, where he reported that a third of the city was under quarantine. After some debate, Feng dazed the man and attempted to cure disease on the three victims before sending him on his way to Cormire. The man said he was to deliver the plague-bearers to the Mercuric Order to be studied.
The following night as the three intrepid dragon hunters sat around the campfire, Gyanne had a sense that something bad was about to happen. No sooner had they kicked dirt over the flames, thrown Feng's glowing hat beneath a bedroll, and scurried near the trees before a Dragon landed in their campsite.
Dragon you say? No pets allowed.
One day out from Cormire, the party is visited at the tail end of their campfire by a most unsuspected guest. The dragon converses briefly with the party. After smelling out Geffin, whom the beast could not see and trading half-challenges with Geyanne, Feng sends the two off to get firewood while he continues to parlay with the great serpent. He learned that the quarantine in Serenton is threatening the entire city and that the dragon is some sort of sentinel from the coast to the mountains, before it flew off to eat some deer it smelled on the breeze.
That night Geffin dreamt of the Mercuric order and the next day on the road, Feng fashioned himself a leash. They approached Cormire at dusk with Feng in wolf form riding leashed in the wagon.
Geffin dropped the giantess and wolf at the mighty library of Cormire then he proceeded on to the Prancing Pony or was it the Pretty Parrot Inn where he purchased a stall for the wagon and mare as well as two rooms for the night before sidling up next to one Stephon where he learned of the BloodGhost syndicate among many other tall tales.
After Gyanne got scolded by an assumed hot librarian about having pets in the library, she let Feng scamper back out of the library to settle his conscience while waiting beside a statue of a gryphon. She then proceeded to wander into the library and sit and began sharpening her knife. After noticing she had unintentionally relocated an old man, studying nearby she convinced him to help her do research on a fabled large white cat. She later learned that the old man was named Gregorian Periwinkle and was indeed a scholar in Cormire and was at least a hobbyist of the fantastic and mythical.
After Geffin picked up the giantess and wolf from the library, they went back to the inn where Geffin purchased some meat loaf to give Feng in the upstairs room while he introduced Geyanne to his new friend Stephon. Stephon was at the time meeting two hooded figures, whom Geffin and Geyanne later learned were known as Rathos and Taliki supposedly of the BloodGhost Syndicate.
Five sort of conversed about a job Stephon thought Geffin and his uber warrior giantess may be cut out for. Geffin took it to be the daring rescue of someone wrongly imprisoned against his/her will, but a decision was forthcoming as they had to consult their third party member.
After consulting with Feng, Geffin talked to the bar tender to get some character reference on Stephon, then in the morning the party met with Stephon alone in the inn and perhaps stumbled into accepting the job. Stephon left them with a pouch of 10 gold, a map, and the name Archibald Belvadere. Mr. Belvadere is the prisoner they are to rescue before the following morning when he's to be executed.
The party decided to disguise Feng and return to the library to see if they could identify anything from the map and gather more information. They paid for the inn another day and Geffin went shopping and came back to the inn to tailor Feng the outfit of a dandy before they set off for the great library of Cormire.
Under Their Noses
After some research in the library, Feng gathers that the map from Stephon doesn't appear to be directing them to the Cormire prison which resides near the south gate, but rather northward. He also surmises that the map is of sewer tunnels. He also spends some time finding out what he can about Gyanne's fabled Onza.
The party finds one of the two mapped grates, behind a church and Feng uses his foggy recollection of magic to unlock the inhibiting padlock, much to Geffin's amazement. After a quick look beneath it is decided that Geffin will traverse the sewage alone, paying close attention to being sneaky, while Feng and Gyanne will attempt to target an above-ground locale matching the map.
After a couple of hours in the tunnels, using Feng's glowing hat as a shield of light, peering and listening at every opportunity, Geffin found a grate into what he assumed to be Terg's Saloon, where one lady of the night named Roxy would be plying her trade and where a patron named Brad was being quite rude to the serving girl. Meanwhile, Feng and Gyanne purchased some supplies. Geffin's curiosity getting the best of him has him sneak up into the bathroom of the establishment after slipping and falling into the mire and muck below. He then exited the saloon to serendipitously encounter Feng and Gyanne wandering down a side street
They all then entered the saloon and ate, while Geffin tried to acquire information from the local patrons and workers, including the oblivious cook, Schmeld, and the bartender, Tommy. Feng tries his hand at gambling with some local patrons and also attempts a subtle inquiry about a prisoner at the saloon before Gyanne goes into the bathroom and kicks in a locked door.
Behind the door, the party finds a meeting room, where Feng gathers some documents and Gyanne acquired a mace and mashed a bugbear bouncer, Sergei, over the head. They then continued into the storage cellar of the saloon where they found an iron reinforced door, which Feng again unlocked with his mind before combat ensued between another bugbear and Gyanne. In this room were three beds, a small table, an Archibald Belvadere, and a small dark cloaked man who tried to escape but was enthralled by the shape-changing mage before being broken in two by a giantess-wielded mace.
The Breakout
Gyanne’s dream:
In the gray foggy forest of your dream, you are tracking the great white Onza. This is the first time you've found it in your dreams since leaving your homeland. It is nearly within range of your bow, but instead of your bow, you carry a balancing scale. As the Onza passes behind a tree, a fair-skinned dark haired woman emerges from the other side. Her voice permeates your mind.
"What you seek is held by the evil masked Manshoon in the city on the coast."
The trees about you fade and the the pale-skinned dark-haired girl is enveloped in a gray hanging fog, which you march through, perhaps to seek further information from the woman. Just as you enter the cold and clammy fog, it clears to show a room full of bed-ridden people, one nearby having a coughing fit draws your attention. As you look upon the man, he takes his bloody mucus covered hand from his boil covered face and looks at you despairingly. You notice then that all in the room seem to have such boils and their hair seems to be missing in clumps, leaving raw patches of exposed flesh. You then hear the woman's voice again from behind you...
"His dark arts poison the city and must be stopped."
You turn quickly to again gain sight of the speaker, but all that is revealed is the strange gray fog, again surrounding you and removing you from the room of putrid disease.
Again the voice in your head, "Only a goddess of the hunt such as yourself can find such a crafty mage and stop the darkness he exudes."
As you rush ahead toward where you assume the voice is coming from you awaken with a start.
The Half-elf
Silence.
Darkness.
Ceraph initially assumed he was dead. The dragon he had hunted with the unlikely party he'd found himself cast into by the fates, had found him and burned him to death next to the naked hobbit and cast him into the void beyond life. He screamed. At first he thought his throat dry, but then he realized his entire body felt dry. No, not dry, different. He couldn't feel his heartbeat, he wasn't breathing.
Fear.
Darkness.
Complete silence.
Anger.
Darkness.
He tried screaming again. He tried moving and felt pinned, crushed on all sides by heavy immovable darkness. But Ceraph felt it. After some time, Ceraph thought because he felt, that he couldn't be dead. He then remembered the shock and the suprise in the faces of his friends and his own awe that there was no wound on his chest after the bearded man in the farmer's house had felled him. He remembered Feng murmuring something about earth. Ceraph remembered feeling his own chest when Feng was tending to the mysterious axe wound. His flesh was cold and grainy. It wasn't flesh, but earth.
Ceraph thought about Gyanne, the cold cruel and beautiful giantess and how she'd recently been able to leap through the air like a grasshopper. How Feng was testing her, pushing her abilities. Feng knew something. Ceraph remembered watching as the bearded man tried to grab the halfling, Geffin, who was already walking beside the man chatting with him. The man was patting Geffin on the back, yet somehow Geffin evaded the man's desperate grasp. Ceraph had grappled Tomwise, like a child, so easy to handle. He tried to shake the confusion from his head, and felt that maybe it'd moved slightly before feeling the crushing darkness. He tried again but to no avail. He remembered the tax before reentering the city and Geffin admitting having no money, then running off for moments to return with a gold coin. He knew not what fortune blessed the wee man, but the gods smiled upon him. Ceraph had seen Feng send the halflings to the farmhouse, to use their honest childlike appearance to persuade the people to allow the group a roof over their heads and perhaps some of their food. Feng knew something. The old man, himself, could turn into a wolf, heal open wounds in moments with his hands. A wizard, indeed.
For some time, Ceraph replayed the last few days in his mind, which seemed to be working quiite well unlike his body, which seemed to him as still as stone. He had so many questions. He thought that the look on the old dog-man's face was that of surprise when he'd opened Ceraph's shirt. So, perhaps the old man didn't know everything...or did he?
A twitch. Just as when he tried to shake his head, Ceraph tried to look skyward as if the answers would be in the stars, which would magically appear in the utter blackness around him. He twitched. Somehow he'd overcome the crushing oblivion around him. He tried again to force his arms upward. Nothing. Not only did his arms not move, but there was no familiar strain of muscles bunching and stretching, pulling and pushing to perform their routine motions of movement against the resistance of the heavy black.
Ceraph roared more than screamed at his frustration.
Silence.
Darkness.
Weight.
Ceraph fought it, he pushed, pulled, spasmed, kicked and even bit at it. All to no avail. He struggled for what seemed an eternity.
Finally, he relaxed. He again wondered if this was the damnation of death to a half-breed soul lost between the heavens of men and elves. His hand clasped. It wasn't a forceful or desperate maneuver. It was just his emotion taking form. But he felt it happen, sort of instinctively. He tried calmly turning his head toward his hand, perhaps there was some change. Some light in the darkness. No. But he was able to turn his head, sort of. As he did so, rather that forcing his skull and flesh through the darkness, he felt as though he were one with it. That rather than his head turning within the crushing weight of the darkness, he turned through the darkness and for a moment, felt no head, no form, just moving through the darkness.
He focused on that feeling. On that one-ness with the darkness. With some time spent, perhaps seconds, perhaps eons, he found he could move freely, as if suspended in the darkness from all sides, but he could assume any posture and have it held. This excited Ceraph. Was he breaking the rules? Was he dead and refusing to rest silently, motionlessly. Was he a spirit choosing to haunt and terrify the living, rather than sleeping soundly in the darkness beyond life? Perhaps.
Excitement.
Motion.
Darkness.
Silence.
Motion!
Ceraph began forcing parts of his being to resist the darkness while allowing others to pass through it, instead of squirming and writhing in place or with no direction, he began to motivate towards what he felt was upwards, out of the darkness to where he'd fallen. It was an arduous, time-consuming, frustrating task, but Ceraph eventually got a handle on it and the motions became routine. Although occasionally he encountered something he could not traverse through and had to navigate around. He found eventually, he could simply form his body around some of those obstacles, rather than taking the time to maneuver about them. Eventually, Ceraph emerged. Light, although not quite as he remembered it. He forced himself to emerge from the darkness, from the ground, from the earth. Things seemed wavy and moving was still not natural, it was still restricted.
Was this what it was to be a ghost, Ceraph thought. No, wait...a fish, Ceraph saw a fish float by him. He saw it. He looked over his body, it seemed normal, if a little dark and naked, but his vision wasn't clear. He began to tread along the ground, over plants, beneath what he assumed was water, but he could not see the surface. Ceraph became comfortable marching beneath the sea and even a little excited that he didn't need to breath, what an inconvenience that would be. Moments after those thoughts, feeling free and almost as though he could run if only the water weren't so heavy, Ceraph felt another change. He became lighter, his hand as he looked at it smoothed and his flesh lightened to a recognizable tone. Had he come back from the dead? He gasped.
Water.
Choking.
Can't swim.
Running.
Bounding.
Panic.
He couldn't help but cough, inhaling water.
Fighting for life, and not to breath, Ceraph failed and felt his lungs filling with water as he struggled to reach a surface and air. Just as his vision faded to black, he felt the cold of the water against his skin change and his body cooled, he felt that now familiar, heaviness. He opened his eyes as he hit the bottom again. As he hit the earth. No heartbeat. No breathing.
Earth.
He marched. He emerged. Shortly after exiting the water, he again turned from earth to flesh and coughed out a lungful of water. Breathing was painful, yet refreshing. It was nearly dark. He was in trees along a shoreline, not completely unfamiliar.
Ceraph had no idea of how long he was within the disorienting smothering darkness of the earth. He was feverishly hungry, cold, naked and tired. After gathering some pine cones and dead-fall, he dried off and warmed his body by a small fire while getting his bearings and thinking through his next plan of action. Standing on the shore of the lake, he could see the city lights, nothing but a dull orange glow along the shore, far to his left. Judging from the distance, he decided that he would search for the halflings and the horse, and perhaps make for the farmhouse at daybreak.
As the evening breeze chilled him and he wandered the shore of the lake looking for the clearing where he'd last seen the halflings, he fished his memories for the moments before he sunk into the ground. He recalled thinking about the seemingly battle-hardened steed before turning to look upon one of the halflings, Tomwise, running towards him naked and gleefully shouting something about a boat. Then his mind was pierced by a terrifying sound, he hardly had time to draw his blade, before seeing the great bone-colored beast cast a shadow over him, then fire. Pain and fire. With the memory, his right side again felt the searing boiling pain which he experienced for only an instant. He remembers a single breath richly full of of seared flesh and hair before the heavy cold feeling again overtook him, as it did when the bearded man cleft his chest. The cold heavy feeling was then followed by silence and darkness.
Silence.
Darkness.
"* * *
He found the clearing and the dead horse, picked over by carrion. The smell was partially what helped him find it as he was about to turn back and comb the shore the other direction. The horse wasn't nearly bones, so he hadn't been gone long. That was good.
The boat was still lodged on the shore-side. The saddlebags were gone and there was no sign of the hobbits. Also, no burial mounds, so Ceraph nodded at that. While inspecting the burnt grass and horse, he noted where he was standing before being incinerated and hit by the rearing steed. He noticed a spot of brown in the blackened soil. He dug at it a bit and eventually found it to be the toe of one of his boots. Pulling his boot free seemed quite the challenge as it seemed to be filled with earth. At first Ceraph thought that strange. Then he focused and pushed his hand into the ground. The earth only gave slightly before he couldn't force his hand any deeper without pain. He focused on the feeling of one-ness with the earth and his hand moved through the earth. He felt obstructions and reached up to his shoulder into the ground and wrapped his hand about what felt like the familiar handle of one of his father's blades, but was unable to pull it free easily, again feeling trapped within the weight of the earth, or at least the blade was.
So, Ceraph pulled out his arm and began to dig with a tree branch. As he dug, he wished he could just pull the sword out or he wished he'd had a shovel. The digging was just moving so slowly and the dirt kept tumbling back into the hole. As Ceraph was reaching his point of frustration as he sat back on his haunches staring at the hole, he realized the soil wasn't falling into the hole, but out of it. As he focused on it, it moved faster and he moved his hand in a pushing motion in front of his chest and the soil moved where he willed it. His head pounded and he felt dizzy, but the dirt moved as he willed it without him having to touch it. He moved soil off of his other boot and pants before having to stop and rest. He found it terribly exhausting, but after putting on his pants and boots and resting for a while, looking at the starts twinkling above, Ceraph dug out his scabbard and sword with the stick, before moving more of the soil with his mind or will, or whatever it was that allowed him this control. After excavating everything he could find, his charred clothes, both scabbards yet only a single sword, he wandered into the woods far enough he could no longer smell the dead horse and slept.
Late the next morning, Ceraph awakened stiff from the cold. He wore his charred belt and singed pants. There wasn't enough remaining of his shirt, but there was enough of his cloak left he draped it over his shoulders and went back to the burn site and searched for tracks. After some time, he determined that multiple individuals, including one large footprint, likely Gyanne he surmised, marched west from the site. He decided not to journey north to the farmhouse, but rather to continue west along the shore back to Cormire and seek out his former companions there.
As the evening of the following day crept over the lands, Ceraph was leaving the shanty town outside Cormire for Bandit Rock, where he'd originally met the giantess and hobbit, when following the seemingly haphazard orders of the old man. He knew not where else to go in this land so far from anything he knew. He had no money with which to re-enter Cormire. He knew no one and was reluctant to speak with many of the beggars and degenerates of the outskirts, as some seemed to suffer a horrible ailment boiling their skin and causing their hair to slough off. Though his attire seemed to keep the street urchins from begging or pilfering him for coin, those afflicted individuals screamed in agony or otherwise made the area inhospitable to Ceraph.
Getting Away
Gyanne broke Archibald's chains, then the party killed another bugbear and scared off a knife-throwing gambler before Geffin and Archibald fled through the bathroom sewer grate and Feng and Gyanne left through Terg's tavern. Feng and Gyanne traveled over rooftops as the halfling and knight fled through sewer tunnels. Eventually, the party reconvened and cleaned up at the Pretty Parrot.
Archibald had Geffin deliver a hand-written message to General Connery of the Red Guard of Cormire, which he gave to patrolling guards.
Geffin notified Archibald of his execution, which Archibald then insisted on visiting a barracks and inquiring as to the nature of said execution.
At the Barracks
Followed in by a nervous young guard into the barracks, the party interrupted a conversation between Colonel Grigarry and Captain Diksmak. Archibald introduced himself and began to inquire as to his scheduled execution. Upon the confusion of the red guard, Geffin immediately introduced himself and began spouting forth much of the parties recent activities, encounters and amazing feats. Diksmak was perturbed at the interruption and demanded respect. Grigarry vetoed Diksmak's disrespect and clarified a few things between the hobbit and the knight, while the dismayed guard, old wolf and giantess listened in. Grigarry paid accute attention to mention of the bugbears and the BloodGhost Syndicate, as well as the mention of a dragon nearby, and the plague in Serenton. He knew nothing of the message sent to general Connery or of Archibald's execution or armor, when questioned on those topics. After some scratching of his chin he asked the party to wait while he gathered some information before putting them back out on the street where one of them was to be exectued. The party was then led into a room in the barracks where there was a large rectangular oaken table and two chairs. They were brought a third chair. Gyanne did not like the door being locked on the small room with but one small barred window. Feng calmed her. They waited. After a few hours, Grigarry returned with two other guards. He explained that Gyanne was to be escorted out of the city for what he coyly called criminal mischief and for cohorting with a known cursed rogue mage. He said he had no record of any executions and Archibald, Geffin and the dog were to go free. He also advised Gyanne to steer clear of the wizard as the mages guild of Cormire said that the wizard carries a most hienous curse. With that he tells Archibald where the merchant who supposedly had his gear lives and the party was released in the early evening, with Gyanne being escorted by two men in red plate mail to the north gate and the rest of the party standing on the curb watching her saunter off.
Recovery, Wrestling, Robbery and Running
Gyanne was escorted out of the north gates and swaggered onto bandit rock as Feng and Geffin asked her to await them there at either dusk or dawn of the next two days. There she encountered Ceraph who explained to her his adventure in the earth and displayed his earthmelding ability to her amazed eyes.
The hobbit, hengyoki, and knight went to find Archibald's armor at a merchant's home, where after very politely demanding his stolen goods be returned and being denied by a reasonable merchant, Sir Belvadere challenged a champion of the merchant's choosing in non-lethal combat for the armor against 1000gp of hard labor.
Feng and Geffin went to the Pretty Parrot Inn to find Stephon who had left the halfling a note directing him to Pier 27 to collect the rest of their bounty for a job done. At the pier they crossed paths with a brutish bugbear bouncer before Geffin had a panic attack on the pier trying to cross the board-walk onto a docked boat where Stephon apparently awaited.
Geffin pried what information about Rathos and Archibald from Stephon that he could before they collected the remaining 10 gp and turned down boat passage to Serenton and the sea beyond. Archibald exercised and mentally prepared in their room at the Pretty Parrot while this business was attended to.
The next morning, Feng and Geffin went to collect the giantess while Archibald went to the predefined duel location.
The party was reunited with the lost half-elf.
Ceraph and Geffin went to get Archibald while Feng and Gyanne traveled around the south side of the city to await the party 600 paces south of the shanty-town.
Archibald lost the duel watched by the cheering half-elf and hobbit, as Geffin rallied the small crowd which both bolstered the weary knight and enraged his mighty scarred foe.
Ceraph and Geffin deposited Archibald on the couch of a nearby inn after Ceraph did what he could to heal the warrior's physical wounds, but not his damaged pride. The two racial adventurers then went to buy supplies and encountered a rude store-keep and the aforementioned merchant's assistant with what was assumed to be Archibald's armor, while Geffin horribly tried to persuade the shop keep to discount some cloth armor for Ceraph.
Leaving the shop empty handed, littered, and with sour words, the two returned to Archibald to devise a plan to simply take back his stolen armor. Archibald Belvadere, being broken of spirit, succumbed to the mischievous hobbit's scheme and a plan to steal back the wrongly possessed armor was hatched.
Geffin ran to tell Feng. Ceraph and Sir Belvadere went to the store.
Armed robbery ensued. Geffin, the cloaked and magically masked giantess and the old man raced into town. Savage sword blows were dealt. A door was smashed in by a flying giantess. Healing was dealt. Relic armor was taken. A cart full of a surly lot hastily left the south gates of Cormire.
Archibald reunited with his sword and armor seemed to have some of the fire of his spirit back and was determined to again journey to the southeast and report to his order. He bid the party farewell.
Gyanne was stubbornly sticking to the path illuminated by her dream and was going to Serenton to find the masked mage and her Onza, while Feng urged the party to follow Archibald and learn from the elves of Sezri'Al.
On the first day to Serenton, Feng healed the grievously wounded half-elf.
On the second day, Geffin dreamt of the strange masked Manshoon.
On the remaining eight days of the journey, Feng practiced and plumbed the depths of his foggy mind to recall his former knowledge of illusions, Ceraph was brought up to speed on what the party had done and who this knightly Belvadere was from Geffin's silver tongue as Feng attempted to teach the stubborn giantess patience and the hobbit of his own powerful abilities.
The party journeyed to Serenton. The city was under quarantine with plague victims confined within the city walls and refugees without. They visited a hospital tent and some Serentonian Guards before learning that Manshoon's mansion lay to the south of the city near the swampy coast, where he had a large vineyard that is rumored to mysteriously harvest itself in the moonlight.
The party then went to the mansion just after sunset. The Mansion of Manshoon was backlit by the bright moon partially hidden behind long wispy clouds. The locked gate creaked open itself after Geffin called out. The ominous mansion lay silent ahead of the party with its dark windows. They walked closer before knocking upon a door which creaked open the maw of the eerie building, exposing the dark and dusty cob-web-ridden interior. Seemingly out of nowhere an old pale bald butler appeared with a dimly flickering candle. He led the group through a sitting room decorated with a giant cave bear and a large black cat unlike any seen by the party, bigger than even the mutts of the slums outside Cormire. The party was seated at a lavish large banquet table where Feng cast a light spell on a coin for the hobbit as they awaited the return of the butler and/or the requested Manshoon.
Swampwalking
2.5 hours out of Serenton, party rides ½ hour north then turned off the trail into a meadow where they rested. Feng found poison, assumed from Manshoohn's wine, and cured it. Party rested while Gyanne found berries and leaves and Ceraph polished Clover.
While eating poorly cooked rabbit meat, Feng read Manshoon’s journal. - Manshoon believes plague is sign from the gods that senate gets what they deserve - he has Froyd collecting corpses from Serenton and delivering to swamp - Manshoon has a boat moored past swamps where bodies are taken once processed - Hunter has captured Onza - he has proven himself still useful. Onza not cooperative. Forced through scientific means using chemicals and assumed poisons to cooperate so that Manshoon can harvest it’s whiskers as components for another experiment.
Party discussed.
Party left the wagon and ventured west 45 min to the coast then south along coast.
Traveled south along coast until early afternoon.
Into swamps.
About 4 pm the party crossed a raft trail. Gyanne reconned to the coast and saw a moored ship in the distance (no sails).
Gyanne returned around 5pm and the party headed inland.
1 hour later the party encountered giant spider webs surrounding a strange cleared hill where plagued bodies were stashed in a tree hollow
1 hour after, after bodies were searched, a glove was found, poison was extracted and taken in a spider leg
½ hour was spent watching clearing.
1 hour back to where Feng pissed on a tree and Gyanne memorized the smell.
1 hour back north to Clover.
Watches were posted throughout the night.
Next day, north to fork in trail, then westward toward mansion.
Gyanne shot scarecrow in the head before they breached the vineyard at noon.
The party is now crossing the lawn and gardens to the mansion…some 150 yards out.
Manshoon's Demise
The party approached the mansion as Geffin bolstered their courage and reaffirmed their purpose of stopping the evil dark wizard of his unnatural use of corpses and of liberating the great onza from it's prison in the tower.
Geffin and Gyanne leapt to the roof and Geffin up and into the tower as Feng and Ceraph knocked violently on the back door of the mansion. Manshoon answered and a heated debate as to the purpose and nature of his actions between he Hengioki, the half-elf and the necromancer ensued as the halfling attempted to break out the giant cat.
Upon having his stolen journal thrown to the ground by the angry Feng, Manshoon magically swept the book into the mansion and slammed the doors behind the short-tempered shape-changer, locking an unsuspecting Ceraph outside. A judo duel erupted while Ceraph pried the doors open with his knife and Gyanne fell off of the roof holding a rope attached to bars of the onza's cage.
By the time Ceraph had pried open the back door, Feng had bitten the mask off of Manshoon who had magically paralyzed the wolf man's leg before being put into an enchanted slumber, while Geffin consoled the great caged cat after it's cage had been unhinged and slammed violently into the wall and Gyanne kicked in the front doors of the mansion.
Manshoon was looted by the wizard and warrior then, wrapped in a rug while party members tried their strength against the bars of the onza's magic cage.
Feng eventually found a key in Manshoon's magical bracers, which opened the cage. Geffin raided the kitchen cabinets while Gyanne was to be carrying the unconscious Manshoon into the tower to lock him in the magic cage that once held the Onza.
She decided to stomp his head into the stairs on her way up, despite Ceraph's half-hearted pleas and questions. When Manshoon awoke and began casting spells, Ceraph helped Gyanne dispatch him by slashing through the rug into his torso as Gyanne repeatedly speared his gory bloody and broken face. The giantess and half-elf then folded the corpse into the magical golden cage in the top of the tower.
Gyanne napped with the onza while Geffin made some unpleasant soup, Feng meditated and Ceraph roamed the mansion seeking the creepy butler. As Geffin was distributing his soup, a cry for help came from the startled half-elf as he battled another giant spider in the green-house off the west end of the mansion. Feng and Gyanne arrived just as Ceraph slayed the monster.
Set's Daughter and the Green Man
The party awoke in Manshoon's mansion and explored the basement. Gyanne jumped down and apparently feinted, which distressed Ceraph who yelled for help. Geffin and Feng came running and Geffin tumbled down the shaft and loaded the giantess onto the pulley elevator after noticing a zombie abomination in a cage. Geffin couldn't resist poking around a bit more, so Ceraph came down to ensure his safety while Feng healed the fallen giantess.
Geffin examined mutilated bodies and took another of Manshoon's journals before the caged monstrosity saw Ceraph and began destroying the cage, eventually freeing itself just as the hobbit and half-elf raised themselves out of reach on the elevator.
Leaving Ceraph with the Onza at the edge of the swamp, the party marched back into the swamp, Geffin atop Gyanne's shoulders seeking the violet lotus as directed by the Onza, as where it grew they could find a guide for the great cat to go home as his life-force waned. Deep in the swamp, the party found the violet lotus vines growing about other plants and were accosted by a super-giant black snake who grasped Gyanne, Geffin dove from her shoulders to pierce it's great eye, Feng froze the serpents neck in a giant ring of ice, as Geffin climbed the beast towards it's head, Gyanne broke free and leapt burying her knife to the hilt in its skull, killing the daughter of Set and burying the poor cheery halfling beneath it's great mass.
Gyanne took it's two 7” fangs and snooped out the creatures lair where she smashed an egg before Feng stopped her and they collected the single white egg among many black and returned to the horse, half-elf and Onza at dusk.
Upon the Onza's guidance, Feng and Geffin cut open the great white egg and removed the pup albino serpent placing it around the Onza's neck. The Onza then rose and bounded over the mesa edge and slipped out of existence before it dropped into the swamp.
The party returned to the mansion, where Geffin gave gyanne a sponge bath and they ransacked the place.
Late at night around 11:30 Geffin gave feng two blue potions
The next morning, Geffin made oatmeal which he used to do some fortune telling and Feng read about alchemy in one of Manshoon's books.
Almost at lunch time the party went back into swamp to scavenge some scales from the great serpent for armor.
While Gyanne and Ceraph harvested scales for armor Feng and Geffin moved deeper into the swamp, coming across the green man, a creaking, groaning laborious creature, nature incarnate, as old as time, as young as spring. He advised the party visit the Serenton to find others, like them.
The party then journeyed back to Clover, and returned to the wagon just north of vineyard along the coast at mid afternoon. Gyanne smelled something or someone and found tracks. One booted man that day or the day before had been at the site. They shrugged it off as none of their gear appeared disturbed.
They rode towards Serenton and stopped about four hours away from the city. Gyanne hunted and Geffin made stew while Feng read more about Alchemy and Ceraph wored on crafting scales of Set’s daughter into a breastplate and possibly grieves.
Chasing the flame
The party ate then rode to Serenton, stopping some 500 yards out at midnight. They then decided to get a vantage and watch guard movements while Gyanne smelled smoke, death and refugee camps.
They then approached a roving guard and sought out lieutenant Dildonius of the Serentonian Guards.
Geffin convinced a guard named Slader to take them to the resting Dildonius.
Dildonius was convinced to let them help by Feng and Geffin and he smuggled the party into Serenton in the long blue cloaks of the Serentonian guards.
Once in the city, Gyanne was almost sickened by the stench of death, someone made rag masks peppered with fragrant tea for the party to wear to aid with the foul air.
Geffin and Gyanne sought refugees in an inn where they procured ale, brandy and pickled sausages. The party then found a burning building and when investigated found a living flame within, which they chased across rooftops with Gyanne giving the closest pursuit by bounding onto a building then attempting to dive into a second building through a window following the flame. After catching the flame which roared ‘Leave me be’, Ceraph tried to grapple it then Feng doused it with conjured snow, leaving only a spirit-broken boy in the steam and smoke. After healing Ceraphs wounds, the party got the boy to reveal that his family and friends were killed by the plague and he planned to destroy everything in vengeance. The party also learned of another man, known as Tobias, whom the boy showed the party where he’d last encountered. The party then somehow tracked the man to a mansion in the upper class part of town.
Excitement in Serenton
After confronting Tobias Steen at his mansion and learning that he only wanted to be left alone, the party all felt very ill, and the flaming boy again burst into a blazing effigy and fled to a nearby building setting it ablaze. Geffin followed to do what he could to soothe the child and Ceraph followed to do what he could to save Geffin. Geffin found a rotting plague victim within the burning building and his stomach turned fiercely. As Ceraph carried the retching halfling out from the inferno, Gyanne ran in and up to the second floor, where she vaulted, launching herself through the burning roof of the building beneath the fire throwing child. She had intended to stop him from continuing to torch Tobias' home. It worked and the flame boy fled deeper into the city while Gyanne crashed to the street below and Ceraph crashed through a window of Tobias' home to rescue/capture him from the burning mansion.
Having Tobias removed from the house, Geffin and Ceraph followed him toward the pier, trying to talk him first into joining their leagues, then to just travel and roam spreading plague in small doses rather than wiping out entire civilizations. Tobias was not convinced that he was, as the halfling proposed, a god of pestilence or that Ceraph was a god either, until Ceraph moved the earth beneath his feet, raising himself on a earthen pedestal through the cobble-stone streets. When Tobias still refused to back down, Ceraph felt he had no choice but to slay the wickedly selfish man. Upon harm, Tobias dissipated into a thick brown-green smog and drifted past Ceraph and Geffin, leaving them both incapacitatedly ill.
While the half-elf and hobbit chased Tobias, Feng and Gyanne had given chase to the boy, after Feng healed the giantess from her smashing through burning timber, then crashing to a cobble-stoned street some thirty feet below. While giving chase, the pair came across a burning dress store, where they decided to dress Gyanne in such a way to attract a young boys fancy. Having done so, Gyanne eventually talked the boy down from the blazing rooftops of Serenton and the three then found the others retching where Tobias had left them.
The party then went about robbing banks in Serenton to find the inheritance Steen had mentioned hoping they could use that as leverage to ply him to their will. During their search, Ceraph learned that he could turn stone to earth, Gyanne acquired a magical hammer which Feng assumed belonged to a clerical warrior and the Steen Axe, and Ceraph no wears the Steen family magical armor, which is a dark blue tint, with a black symbol of a long-tailed bat or perhaps a wyvern embossed on the breastplate.
The party then decided to give chase and a boat was found, but Feng was not certain that he could easily man a ship single handedly. Luckily, Geffin found a smaller single-sailed dingy lashed to the side of the ship and they took that up the river toward Cormire, leaving the boy to defend the city in his recently pilfered armor in case Tobias was to return.
Up the Serenflow
Feng managed to get the dingy moving upstream with the aid of Ceraph and Gyanne at oar. Geffin cowered beneath a bench while Feng magically enhanced the warriors' stamina.
There was a brief altercation with Serentonian Guards as the party exited the city and refused to dock their boat for inspection and Gyanne was shot by one of the many crossbow bolts hurtling at them as they pressed onward.
Eventually, Feng was exhausted as were the rowers and the boat was beached and food was prepared. While all except Geffin slept soundly obtaining some much-needed rest, the hobbit heard something on the horizon and awoke Feng. Feng then signaled down the [[dragon] known by the party as the sentinel.
The great wurm complained of not being allowed to burn the plague from Serenton as he was being stayed off by Belkar and some other hunters. Feng and Geffin explained to the sentinel that the plague emanated from Tobias who they believed was traveling ahead of them on the river. Feng then gave the dragon the Steen family buckler, taken from a Serentonian bank and sent him to convince the plague-bearer to stop one way or another.
The next morning the party discussed the midnight visit, with Ceraph leery of cohorting with a dragon. The group then decided the dragon was more likely to be capable of catching Tobias than they were and they turned back westward and sought out the hunters.
Having found a turbaned watcher in the woods, Geffin snuck up to the sneezing desert dweller, then ran back to report to the group waiting off in the tall grasses. The party then all approached, triggering swinging-log booby traps as they invaded the hunters camp, where Gyanne killed two men before Belkar arrived. He mentioned that the hunters were sent from the far southeast. He said he wasn't necessarily trying to kill the sentinel, just that he was tasked with preventing it from destroying Serenton. He then sped the party away before things got more complicated. That night as they camped near their boat by the river, the Onza again appeared and spoke with the party...
Great things are afoot my friends. There is one like you, the chosen, who can open paths between worlds. It is rumored that she is conspiring with dark forces and may be bringing them here, to your land.
There are also others, gathering forces far to the south and the east, claiming to make a paradise in the desert for all who will follow them. Allies of mine suspect foul play.
I do not know what role you are all to play in this, but I suspect you have one.
As you have aided me, I will aid you, at least for a bit.
Then there was a rustling off in the distance and the Onza's ears perked. He barked for everyone to arm themselves. As strange nightmarish hounds bounded from the darkness...
Grrrrmmm...(the Onza nodded toward the creatures) These are some of her outworld beasts. She must have somehow known I was there and had them follow me. This does not bode well.
After a grim battle with the large scaled hounds and the faceless blade-handed warriors that followed them, the party was left tending their wounds, pondering their next moves after the advice of the Onza.
- Ceraph wonders about his father, recalling that Eingana mentioned that he took his sons place in another meeting, such as that first strange encounter with the old woman and the shape-shifter. - Gyanne wonders what to do now that she has found the beast she hunted and it seems far more powerful and god-like than she assumed when she set out on a quest to make a shawl from it's pelt. Also, the creature seems to have traveled from another world to warn them of something and was followed by horrifying monsters that left the giantess stunned when they approached. - Feng ponders the information delivered by the Onza, as well as the Green man recommending restoring balance. Something Feng seems to seek sometimes without even knowing it. He thinks on the Belkar protecting the dead city from the dragon who is being hunted by easterners while hunting the man known as Tobias Steen. He thinks on his role, as he doesn't seem empowered or chosen as those around him. He recalls the woman some of his allies have mentioned seeing in their dreams. He recalls the Mercuric Order in Cormire and their desire to study Gyanne, which reminds him of his altercation with the martially educated thaumatologist, [Manshoon] who sought the fabled [Eye of Krazz] held by the Order. The Order, which resides in Cormire, the city that also houses the bugbear ridden BloodGhost syndicate. The city where Feng is seen as cursed and a threat to their so-called peace. The city being approached by a noxious cloud of a wickedly selfish man who carries with him a lethal and indiscriminate disease. - Geffin is simply marveled at his marvelous adventure and smiles happily that he gets to be a witness to such an epic tale with such incredible companions who are obviously core threads in the grand tapestry. He smiles knowing that he is on an unknown quest that will undoubtedly lead to perhaps a world altering climax that will leave a great and indescribable mosaic of fate once the pieces fall into place and he hopes that he'll be allowed to continue to observe unobtrusively while the grand scheme is played out.