The Adventure Begins

I have been Travelling for the past two month’s now, and as I reached Stormhold I met an elf by the name of Oreth, who claims he is in company with Auldwell and his cohorts. Although this elf has a hint of malevelousness about him I could not discern any lies when he told me this nor when he told me Jorik Auldwell has passed. For the first time in years I felt real pain for someone I had never met. After a few minutes in quiet contemplation I asked Oreth to lead me to Stormhold. Despite Jorik’s Passing I know he was a beacon for Cayden’s followers who like me seek to rid the world of any evildoers who enslave and deal in human misery. I told Fang we would eat well tonight and drink a lot of wine and mead to honor a fallen hero of Cayden, on the morrow I will seek out Oreth’s company and ask to join them.

I woke up the following morning with a heavy head and a the fair maiden who shared my bed was leaving, smiling sheepishly. I winked and continued sleeping. Several hours later I finally rose and went down to the common room to get something to eat. After my late breakfast I asked for an audience with the company who runs Stormhold and was greeted by a handsome boy/man who wore upon his face an easy smile and played a tiny flute. Van der Vaeling is his name and he told me the companions had not yet returned from there latest escapade but that they would be coming home on the morrow. I decided to seek out Oreth who had shared with me mead and meat lastnight, Although he has an initial hard demeanor he is quite likeable and according to his own tales a fairly good marksman, I will have to ask him for a friendly competition of archery one day, but as he is telling the truth, i might be a little in over my head in such an endevour.

Two days later I was introduced to the Companions who run this settlement and by the looks of it are doing it compitently. Although, as I learned from a man last night ( i believe he called himself Gregor), that this little duchery has had a lot of troubles under this management and he often criticized the “government body” of this hamlet because of their lack of true leadership and their inability to deal with all manners of problems. Oddly enough I could not discern a lie in his statement, that is somewhat troubling. I understand his worries, I told him that this government is young and inexperienced and needs time to better themselves. The Stolen Lands are notorius for being wild and untamed and to establish a duchery or barony in such places is always risky and potentially dangerous and as citizens of such a bordertown it is ofcourse our duty to not only help as we can, but also to keep the body of government on it’s toes by criticizing them fairly and justly and if we do not want total anarchy on our hands we should always tread carefully. I am not sure how well Gregor took my statement but as I was paying for his drink at the time he didn’t dwell to long on the subject matter.

As I met the companions I was told of the heroic story of their fight and how Jorik was slain in a battle with a huge two headed Troll who got in two amazingly well placed hits and completely and effectively killed Jorik, who also did manage to wound it seriously. By the companions account i deducted that poor strategy was the ultimate factor in Auldwell’s death.

As I got to know the companions better and how they seem to operate this government I was able to identify that they are infact doing a decent job of managing it, despite the ramblings of Gregors that these guys were bumbling bafoons who did not know how to run this place.

The viscious plant growth and a Crazed Owlbear

Finally we headed out to travel and discover more of these lands. In a hilly area I saw a smoky veil and we decided to investigate. Upon arrival we discovered a large area of mudflats. In these mudflats a small field of rattlecap mushrooms grew, and the companions told me that they had been asked to gather some for a local woman. As we gathered the ‘shrooms I became aware of rumblings in the earth and suddenly a giant plant rose from the ground and tried to eat me. It would have been successful i’ve I hadn’t got in some decent hits, and Kraztor burned it with well placed fireballs and A shining beacon of light from Krolmnite’s palm finished it. I was left paralized for awhile but regained mobility soon afterwards. We finished our ’shroom picking and continued onwards to the south east we located an abandoned house wich could be put to use as a ferry station.

After we made camp and rested our journey continued. We came across a swath of destroyed grassbanks, and after examining the tracks it was apperant that a giant owlbear was running rampant, and it’s tracks led straight towards Stormhhold. We raced towards Stormhold and when we reached it we noticed along the path that something terrible had happened, crops had been ruined and people strewn about in their deaththroughs. In Stormhold the smith and mill had been laid to waist. and people were dazed after the attack. We swapped horses and kept going after the wild raging beast, but it was clear it had at least 12 hour headstart on us, but we still marched on and continued our hunt until we needed rest. The following morrow we followed the trail to a dark cave. We prepared ourself and I took a large swig of ale from my mug before we marched inside.

The Cave was large and from the first cave led three passages. We took the one directly opposite us and soon came face to face with a shambling mound. I put a Bane upon my falcata and followed in the wake of Gunnr the mighty dwarven fighter and together we hacked the mound to pieces. after we went in to the next set of cave me, Oreth and Revaner heard ominous footsteps and at our back we saw through the tunnel opening the Biggest Owlbear I have ever seen. I managed to charge it and attacked it, I got a heavy dose of clubbering from it and got separated for awhile when it’s huge paws dragged me out in to the larger cave, it punched me and threw me away like a raggedy doll. Kraztor blasted it with a fireball and Gunnr charged it. In a short while Gunnr, Oreth, Kraztor and Revaner finished it. I must remember to thank the Gnome cleric for his well placed heals.

As we continued to search the cave we went into a small tunnel, barely 5 ft. in height, I was forced to crouch low and was therefore in an uncomfortable position and missed the faulty floor we were traversing, so I and Gunnr went tumbling to a deep pit full of green, foul smelling ichor, it burned through metal and cloth so i grabbed my winter blanket and wiped myself up, alas gunnr didn’t have anything to adress that problem so his backpack and his belongings were ruined. Gunnr called to our companions to blast us with a Cold spell, but to our surprise Kraztor threw right in the smack of our faces a howling ball of fire. That finally drew the last bite out of this green slime and we were able to climb up.

As we continued to explore the cave we found a desicated corpse, wich cluthced a finely wrought longsword, wore a fine chainshirt, and carried an interesting ring made out of hair. We later found out it was made out of nymph hair and that beside the beneficial charm spell it contains an evil curse lies also within it.

When we came in to the last and biggest part of this cave complex our gaze was met by a gruesome sight, lots of mangled bodies and dead cubs. We also found a living cub, who was obviouslu malnourished and afraid. Oreth used his newly aquired ring and soothed the beast. Apperantly a man had gotten to his father and made him angry? Soon afterwards the cub seemed to loose control and we had to put it down. We were perplexed by his behaviour and our two arcane masters asked to study Oreth’s ring better. After some time they came to the conclusion that the ring had been cursed by it’s maker.

In search for answers Krolmnite took matters in his own hand and with his gods help was able to get some of the dead corpses to give us a bit of info. We gleened little but were able to find out that Erik is possibly the man that charmed the owlbears with these terrible effects. He works for himself and the ring was a gift from “The Green Lady”. after exhausting his gleaning spells and with the knowledge that the dead can only speak once each week we decided to finish our exploration round. That took about a week and despite excellent promise, all we discovered were hills and more hills. krolmnite, Oreth, Gunnr and I decided to venture again in the lair of the crazed (albeit dead) owlbear to try to glean some more info out of the corpses. Again we didn’t learn to much but that Erik ventured here to enslave the owlbears to wreak havoc upon the town of Stormhold and to loot and pillage the surrounding area.

Varnhold mysteries

While the four of us ventured again in the cavern, Revaner and Kraztor went back to Stormhold, there they tried to learn something of value about a “green lady” but were unsuccessful. When the four of us arrived an order had come from the Swordlords. They want us to Venture to the Varnhold and discover why they suddenly whent silent……