Probably around midnight 5th of Highsun / very early AM 6th of Highsun

We’re still in the subterranean “city”

• John was able to determine that Kokkor’s sword was shadow magic
• John calls out Jermays’ name
  • Asks if the gloves are the item that we sought
• Raylek tries teleporting via shadows and is successful
• We try to track where Kokkor and Domico came from
  • Assume that they came down from the surface using the stairs in the store room
  • John peers into the disused store room
    • Cobwebs, some crates
  • In the store room we find a ladder that leads up to a trap door
    • John listens at the trap door, hears nothing
  • John opens the trap door and looks around
    • Appears to open into a small closet with some dry goods
• John enters the closet and looks into the adjacent kitchen, hears snoring
  • The house does not appear to be that of a wealthy family
• John attempts to sneak up to where the snoring is
  • After stumbling on the stairs, John continues ascending
  • Finds a middle aged man sleeping
• John wakes the home’s resident violently and sticks a sword in his face
  • Asks where Domico is, gets confused answer “Who’s Domico???”
• John throws the father into the son’s room and tells them to shut up and not leave the room until the next bell

We head off again to Domico’s place

• Streets are very, very quiet; occasionally spot folks carrying torches
• We arrive at Domico’s, Jester and Crown is still relatively full
• No guards in front of Domico’s
• We unlock the gate, using Domico’s keys, and enter
  • The damaged corner of the house has been repaired roughly, almost of hand molded stone
    • We unlock and open the door
  • John asks everyone to look to see if the defenses were replaced, Raylek notices something on the floor that appears a bit odd
    • It appears to be a rune
• Koogel helps us mud warp to the cellar so that we avoid the rune
  • As we search the house, Raylek notices a wrapped bundle on the counter in the kitchen
    • It contains a couple pieces of vellum
      • One is a description with notes:
        • 4’ glass sphere
        • Can see different lights with different colors
        • If you see anything behind us, get that, otherwise head south
      • One appears to be a map very similar to what John is working on, with some additional markings
    • Our group is aware that the sphere is supposed to be east of Port Charsis, along the coast
  • In the bedroom is a large leather case with clothing, nothing else
  • One horse in the stable
    • There is evidence that there were recently two horses
  • Servants’ quarters are empty

We head to the inn for the night

• Koogel thinks he learns something new about his sword
• Raylek made successful roll for his sword, but nothing new occurs to him at the moment
• We generally drink and go to sleep

The 6th of Highsun

John wakes up early

• The rest of us awaken later
• John asks John Tramm to finish the map today
  • Tramm agrees and John to pay 5 gold

The rest of us wake up

• Koogel notices three strange looking people with a shorter guy who has strange eyes
  • The smaller guy walks to the inn keeper asking for information about a glass ball or where to find one
    • Can find these guys at the dock, the Ton-tian ship with square sales
    • John calls shorty over, claiming he may have information
      • John tries to get free drinks out of the Tan-tian fellow: fails
• Koreloff heads out after the Ton-tian, asks why they’re interested
  • Dude says that his master is seeking this, only has rumors about it
    • Supposed to be glass
    • Supposed to be indestructible
• Brethen plans to head to the civic building and inquire about his parents
  • Civic building is a red brick, 3-story, well-built building
  • Raylek and Koreloff join him
  • Inquire about Tomas and Elreya Delaggo, slaves of Domico Trudeau
    • Phanos, the clerk, finds no paperwork filed recently by Domico
    • It would take a while to find the original paperwork from 15 years ago, if even possible
• Koogel finds an empty alley and tries conjuring up an earthen wall
  • It seems to grow up out of the earth, takes about one round to form
  • Finds he is unable to tear the wall down again
• We consider heading out to the docks when suddenly…

Jermays appears behind us

• Doesn’t know about the light sphere
• Acknowledges that Kokkor Hekkus is a very bad individual, and is most likely also seeking the artifacts
• We notice that all the activity around us has stopped… like time has stopped
• Jermays provides virtually no information, says that he can help us confirm artifacts if we have them with us

John plans to free Brethen’s parents

• Forges paperwork to free the parents
• Copies Domico’s look and puts on his clothes
• Heads down to the civic center
• Submits paperwork and pays 2 copper

The rest of the crew heads to the Ton-tian ship

• Several ballista visible through ports, catapults and ballista on bow and stern
• See one fellow in very bright, gold armor
• At the gangplank, we are stopped until someone who speaks our language arrives
  • We’re told that they will not take passengers
  • Offers a single gold coin for our information; we walk away
• We check with the harbor master, inquiring about eastbound ships
  • The Black Gull should be heading east soon
• John and Brethen return and find us
  • We board via the gangplank, encountering a couple of lazy sailors
  • Black Gull departs in 3 days, room for 8, 3 silvers for each horse and person
• We head to the Sailor’s Lair
  • We find Gator, the captain of the Black Gull
  • Gator confirms the price, John pays double for a private cabin
  • We must feed ourselves
• We purchase goods for our trip
  • Raylek picks up 2 barrels of beer
• John tries selling some stuff
  • The ceramic swords get 5 silver each
  • The skyship coins that John has turn out to be platinum
    • Jeweler recommends that John find a historian; jeweler cannot afford the coins

Back at the Portly Boatman

• Koogel discusses plans for getting Jizm Spazm onto the boat to destroy the masts
  • We ultimately design to have a water elemental break the rudder
• John retrieves his map
• We head to the docks
  • We arrange to load our stuff tonight
  • Raylek plans to start the destruction
• Raylek slips under water and unleashes Waterboy
  • Waterboy starts taking the rudder apart
  • We hear some shouting in Ton-tian
  • Waterboy completely breaks the water off
  • Raylek heads back to the shore, relatively far south of the Black Gull’s dock
• Someone steps up onto the deck of the Ton-tian ship
  • Has flaming sword and his armor is glowing
  • We hear a couple splashes, like someone jumping overboard
  • There is more shouting, and a number of men spill out onto the docks, looking about
  • Raylek heads into town and meanders through town back to the Portly Boatman, avoiding the shore
• The group returns to the inn
  • Brethen provides Raylek with some dry clothes
• On the way back to the Black Gull, some Ton-tian approach and try to interrogate us
  • John interrogates them right back
  • They have 3 ships, 2 of which are still at sea
  • Eshen Key is their master, has “sun armor”
  • No details about why they want the light sphere
  • We continue on our way to our ship

The 7th of Highsun

We awaken on the ship, ready to depart

• We see that there are already numerous carpenters working on the damaged ship
• Our captain says that we can leave a bit earlier, since we’re all here
  • A couple hours after we leave the dock, we pass a couple other Ton-tian ships
    • Appear to be anchored and are smaller and lighter armed
  • We get 10 days of training
  • Brethen notices that he has an easier time juggling his balls
  • Raylek gives a barrel of beer to the crew
• We arrive at University at about 1:00pm
  • The docks are outside of the city
  • City is protected by 40’ high walls, probably about 15’ thick
  • The main feature visible from outside of the walls is a tall kind of circular building
    • About 250’ diameter, and rises higher than the walls
• John seeks out Krismer, the harbor master
  • Inquires about small ships for hire to take us to the light sphere area
  • No dice, except for the ones that Krismer is playing with

The 17th of Highsun

We approach the University

• We are greeted by a guard at the gates
  • The guard recommends an inn called The Shining Hill
  • We are told that there are no guides
  • We are asked for our names:
    • John presents himself as Tom Arendal
    • Raylek presents himself as Frederick Shoales

We are allowed to enter

• The city and streets are very clean and well maintained
• Brethen discovers that there are a couple historians in town
  • Belver the Historian and Kalura
• We enter Belver’s shop and ask about the skyship coins
  • Belver finds the coins in a reference book
  • Claims that the coins are older than the god wars
  • These are Thinnesian coins (from the Thinnes empire)
  • Suggests that Kalura may be interested
• John asks about the light sphere area
  • Belver claims to have some books on that
  • States there is a lot of conjecture about it
    • May be a way to view constellations from a different angle, other ideas
    • May have been placed here when the gods died
  • Has existed as long as people remember
• John and Koreloff each pick up a book

We find Kalura’s place

• John shows her the skyship coin
  • She offers 8 gold, says it’s platinum but she could probably only sell it for 10
  • She says that for 20 coins, she’d go up to 200 gold for the lot
• John inquires if she has any magical items
  • She brings out a lightning ring and Koogel asks if it works
  • Koogel offers to be the target and Kalura shoots him
  • Koogel buys it and pays 2 skyship coins, 5 gold, and a pair of smoldering balls

We find a jeweler en route to the University

• Very nice looking place
• We are offered 20 gold per skyship coin

We start hitting all the jewelry shops along the way

• The offer of 20 is the highest price we get
• Raylek and John each sell 5 skyship coins for 20 apiece

Koreloff heads back to Belver

• Sells a coin for 25
• Picks up a book on the sunken city of Erlith

We stop at some potion shops

• Raylek picks up some healing potions
• John picks up linguistic potions

We stop at Stallor the Earth Mage

• The earth elemental butler brings out Stallor, a middle aged man, completely bald but looks to be in good shape
• Koogel gets a sinkhole and 2 earth power spells cast into his sword
  • Sinkhole = 18SE – Dig Earth 14’ radius
  • Earth Power spell = 20SE – Earth Power Sphere 4d MIN/ 18d Max

We head over to the University

• John inquires about evaluating magical items
  • We are told that is very pricey
  • We are brought to a room with a large metal table
  • Brethen’s balls
    • Suggested that throwing the balls may unleash the sorcery within them
    • They have some “enchanting ability”
      • Enables some kind of mesmerize ability
    • They have some sort of sage craft
      • Is able to “see” through the ball
  • Koreloff’s bow
    • Body mage craft
    • A “bit of” necromancy
      • Able to cause fear in undead for 10 points
  • Koreloff’s piece of airship lumber
    • Not magical
  • Raylek’s gloves
    • Body mage craft
    • Shadow magic
    • Prestidigitation
      • Able to store things in the glove
      • Finds a snake skin belt with snake head buckle that can turn into a snake
  • Raylek’s water sword
    • Water druidism
      • Can store water spells
  • Koogel’s sword
    • Earth druidism
  • Koogel’s lightning ring
    • Sorcery
      • Has limited uses: 20 uses left
      • Unsure if it can be recharged, not sure what the capacity is
• John inquires about the light sphere
  • Some strange device to the south of here
  • Different lights of different brightnesses in the sphere, haven’t seen the lights ever change
  • 30 lights primarily concentrated on one side of the sphere
    • There were 11 gods, not 30 as Koreloff was guessing
  • Was hovering over a ditch for a while after some folks tried digging out the “foundation”
    • Seems to be fixed in space and immovable, but not “planted” in the ground
  • The ruins to the southwest of University are the ruins of an old stronghold from hundreds of years ago

Koogel sells 5 skyship coins for 15 gold apiece

Continuing the 1st of Highsun (evening)

John proposes that we rest for the night and then head off to the camping army

• John heads off to the woods in search of Wolfie
  • The same wolf shows up
  • John tells him to meet us in the morning, north of town
• The rest of the crew enjoys ales at the Portly Boatman for a bit, followed by some time training
• Brethen sees a municipal notice with 2 silver reward for info on an attack in the city
  • Recognizes that this is a reward for John and Koogel and removes the note
• Brethen now notices an older notice about some criminals freeing slaves and removes this notice, as well

The 2nd of Highsun
Weather is cooler by about 10 degrees

Brethen acquires his horse and supplies, and we head off

• After about a half hour, Koreloff spots a lone wolf
  • John prevents Koreloff from shooting it
• John lets out a wolf whistle and instructs Wolfie to lead us
• After an uneventful day, we set up a camp
  • We set up watch order and decide to not build a fire tonight
• While changing watch, Koreloff and Koogel hear horses off in the distance
  • Seems to be possibly a quarter mile off, guessing 2 or 3 horses
  • Sound is from the northwest and starting to fade… they appear to be heading away
  • Koreloff and Koogel decide to head off on foot toward the horses, without bothering to wake anyone else

The 3rd of Highsun
Weather is about the same as yesterday

Koogel and Koreloff inform us about the horses and leaving the camp completely unprotected as they investigated

• John strongly urges them to not do that again

John commands Wolfie to lead us to the encampment

• After a bit, we notice camp fires
• Raylek and Koreloff use spyglasses to check it out
  • Notice a single, plain red penant

Koreloff and Raylek head off to reconnoiter with Wolfie following

• We take horses but come up from behind the hills, trying to stay out of sight
• We notice that the penant is on a tent
• We ascend the hill on foot
  • The penant is atop a large tent, possibly 50’ across
  • The style of dress / armor indicates men from the horse clans in the Wildmare Plains
    • These are nomadic wanderers, and this appears to be a mix of different clans
    • We’re guessing 8 to 10 different factions in this army, most of which we don’t recognize
    • One small section has dark tents and appears to be segregated and different from the rest
  • It’s pretty obvious that the army has arrived from the east
    • Raylek knows that there’s a wide pass through the mountains, probably the path the army took
  • There’s possibly two thousand people here
    • Majority are fair skinned, lighter hair, armored
  • The horse clans appear to have some sentries patrolling the immediate area
  • Some other areas also have sentries tending to their immediate space
  • There doesn’t appear to be anyone monitoring the broader area
  • Koreloff notices a couple individuals in stocks
  • There are some people down there with an unusual dark, kind of greyish complexion
  • The hodge podge of tents and such to the north appears to have traders and merchants
• We head back to collect the rest of the group

We head out around the west to approach the camp followers on the north side

• Brethen is familiar with the Tan-tian people to some degree and some of the people to the south (darker)
  • The people in our area are light skinned, kind of Mediterranean looking
  • These people are mostly lighter complected than those in our area
  • Nobody knows about the grey skins
• We arrive by the camp followers and set up our camp
  • General gossip doesn’t provide any real insight
  • The merchants / people seem happy
• Brethen discovers that Domico was seen here about a week ago, hanging with the big wigs at the big tent
• Raylek talks with someone from the horse clans
  • The lighter skinned people are from Ulrich’s area… called something like “Agger…”
  • The horse clans are following for promises of money and power
• Raylek notices someone moving toward the center area, about 7’ tall, black armor with heavy spikes
  • Dressed like the guy we encountered who had the mage hounds
  • The people in the center area part for him to pass
• Raylek speaks with one of the Russwagge people
  • Advises Raylek to stay away from the tall guy; the dude’s apparently a badass who’s with Ulrich
  • Eskus is farther northeast, Aggerlandia is far north
  • After Ulrich took over Dulrich castle, he told them he’d be heading across the world
  • The grey people were picked up around Eskus but they’re not from there
• John wanders about asking if his service is needed
  • Notices 3 of the tall badasses; they’re all completely covered in armor, which seems strange
  • Sees a tent with 5 skeletons standing guard in front of it
• Brethen tries catching the ear of someone in the center area with his fine playing

We collect and share our gathered intelligence

• John is aware of the Ordean Isles to the east, and east of that is Ton-tian
• John knows that about 500 years ago, some raiders from Aggerlandia invaded northern Cenerthan
  • Aggerlandians are war-like people
• John heard that just after the god wars, Eskus would trade with towns on eastern coast of Cenerthan

Koogel approaches the center area to inquire about Domico and the tribute

• Koreloff follows as Koogel’s guard
• Discovers that Domico supposedly left camp 2 days ago, headed back to Port Charsis
• Koogel is informed that tribute was received and Port Charsis will not be attacked
  • The “accountant” is not Aggerlandian, but may be Eskusian
  • Mage Rathberry (the “accountant”) writes a receipt on Koogel’s letter of introduction
    • Mage Rathberry is not armored, slight of build, older man, blue robe, balding
  • Ulrich’s army should be leaving in about a week or so
• Koogel heads back to our camp
  • Raylek hears the name “Mage Rathberry” and tells the story of the mage and the stolen round jewel

We plan to head out in the morning

• Night is uneventful

The 4th of Highsun
The weather is slightly warmer

We pack up very early and head out

• A day and a half to return, but for once we don’t have anyone trying to kill us
• Trip is uneventful

The afternoon of the 5th of Highsun
After a rainy morning, it’s now clear weather

We arrive at Port Charsis

• The group arrives at Leder’s
  • Raylek stays outside with the horses
  • John explains to Jimick that Domico did make the payment, Port Charsis is safe
    • Domico has supposedly returned to Port Charsis
    • Jimick says he’ll check with the council regarding the Domico situation
  • Jimick brings out 45 gold for the group
  • Jimick mentions that the council is still looking for us, a couple of us in particular
  • John asks about the supposed emissary of Ulrich in town, states the army to move out in a week
    • Jimick says he’ll inquire about that
  • John asks if anyone came into town late on the 3rd or on the 4th
    • Jimick says he’ll see if he sees anyone new in town

We head out to Domico’s on horseback

• As we’re heading across one of the bridges, Raylek notices that his water sword is missing
  • Raylek discovers that he can sense the general direction of it
  • Raylek directs the team to the sword, which seems to be under the ground

We enter Carsus Weapons, a small shop

• The shop is very near to where the sword seems to be
• This doesn’t appear to be the right place; the shop owner probably has nothing to do with the sword

We decide to mud warp to search for underground passages

• John and Koreloff will guard the alley while Brethen plays to distract any onlookers
• Raylek and Koogel start descending through the cobblestone
  • About 40 feet down, they both fall in the darkness
    • Landed in the darkness on a hard surface, the air is humid and smells rancid
    • Koogel lights a torch and we see a wet uneven surface
    • In front of them is half of a masonry wall, another wall is off to the left
  • The sword seems to be on our level, but off in the distance a bit
• Koogel pops back up to the surface and retrieves the rest of the crew

We’re all down in the dark passages under the maze

• Raylek leads in the direction of the sword
  • We traverse through the cave ins
• Koogel notices a splashing sound coming from behind us
  • John doesn’t see anything coming after us yet
• We traverse through some rubble and find another open area
  • John and Brethen hear a noise to the south of us
    • John sees some things that look humanoid but not human… scaly even
• We engage the creatures
  • John hurls a ball of energy at the creatures and pounds two of the beasts
  • Now that Brethen can see them, he recognizes the creatures as “deep ones”
    • These are legendary creatures that typically attack ships in the sea
    • The ones charging us are wielding swords
  • Koreloff hits the leader with an arrow, which is shrugged off
  • Raylek carves the leader with the Shortsword of Cruelty
  • John tosses an energy ball at the ceiling… curses
  • Koreloff fires another arrow into the leader, and a second one into Raylek’s back
  • Raylek, after pulling an arrow out of his back, takes another slice of the leader
  • Koreloff gets a solid hit on the leader, after Raylek takes another hit
  • Koogel whiffs so badly that he’s fazed
  • Koreloff gets an awesome shot on the leader and then breaks his bowstring
  • John gets in the final shot on the leader and scales disintegrate as the beast is knocked to the floor
• We begin laying into the grunts
  • Raylek gets in a solid hit
• John shouts out that there are two armed men behind us
  • We hear a raspy voice from that hall, “I didn’t expect to find someone else here… mind if we join you?”
• The last of the creatures is dispatched by a pair of excellent hits by Koreloff
• Koogel recognizes Kokkor Hekkus as one of the “adventurers” in the hall
  • Domico is standing behind him
  • Kokkor asks if we will be moving on; Koogel responds “You’re gonna die!!!”
• Koogel puts up his earth armor and charges Kokkor
  • Koreloff gets a couple solid hits on Domico
  • Kokkor makes some movement and a sphere of darkness envelopes the corridor
    • Koogel hears Kokkor move away
  • Koreloff gets two exceptional hits through the darkness and takes out Domico
  • Koogel attempts to grapple with Kokkor
    • Kokkor disappears and the black sphere of darkness dissipates
  • We strip the valuables and weapons from the dead and head off
    • Raylek notices that the swords from the “deep ones” seem to be some kind of ceramic
• Raylek finds a small pile of old stuff: dolls, rusty daggers, etc.
  • Finds his sword and a pair of pristine gloves
    • The gloves a very thin, light leather
    • Raylek tries on the gloves, which fit perfectly
• We continue searching this subterranean city
  • To the south, we find a lake that partially covers the buildings
    • There is an opening that seems to lead to the sea
  • In the area where we encountered Kokkor and Domico, we find a door to a storage area
    • This seems to lead to the surface
  • John identifies that the gloves enable teleport via shadows
  • Raylek seems to notice that he’s more perceptive and has had an easier time climbing lately

A bit past midnight on the 30th of Summertide
John heads to the Frothy Leprechaun to discuss the message

• Bumps into Koreloff, describes message and need to gather the crew
• Meet up with Koogel and Raylek, ask where Brethen is
• John looks for Brethen and easily finds him, hiding like a black cat on a snowbank
• Our group heads out to Leder’s, which is locked up at this time of night
• John insists on trying to wake this fine fellow in the middle of the night, eventually guard answers
• Jimick eventually arrives, dressed in studded armor with a sword
  • Jimick was asked by other folks what happened to Domico
  • Seems that Domico was asked by counsel to bring ransom to the army
  • Domico hasn’t been seen since, nor have his guards (about 2-1/2 weeks)
    • Jimick responds to question about the rune in Domico’s doorway, says it’s not uncommon thing to do
  • We are offered a job to find out what happened to Domico
  • The counsel was the group that inquired of Jimick about Domico
  • Jimick currently knows nothing about Domico’s departure, his party, or which direction he headed
  • Jimick provides us with a gold each to help us get started

We head back to our rooms for the night

• John inquires if anyone wants to try breaking into Domico’s estate during daylight
• We plan to do so after a little rest

The morning of Summertide Festival Day
A bit warm today with a light drizzle
Today is Freedom Day

• Koreloff inquires about the day, gathering at the slave market for the emancipation lottery
  • Brethen has submitted his parents names for the last couple years
• Supposedly, there is a carnival of some sort arriving tomorrow

We start out for Domico’s

• We try to identify which buildings are part of Domico’s estate
• Guards are at the courtyard gate, facing toward the street and watching traffic
• Our plan: walk around to “back” (riverside) and Koogel will move us through the earth into the courtyard
  • We successfully get to where we want in the courtyard
  • Koogel learns that he moves at half speed through stone
• Koogel enters the building and begins searching the inside of Domico’s place
  • Nothing of interest in the cellar
  • Nobody in the kitchen or parlor
• Koogel opens the stable doors to let us inside
  • We find no signs that anyone has been here for the past couple weeks
  • Up stairs leads to hallway with 3 doors
    • We enter library, find nothing in his desk
      • Variety of general books, but no specific area of interest is indicated
    • We enter the guest room, appears unused for months
    • We enter a large bedroom with large bed, lamp, a couple paintings
      • Wardrobe, nightstand are empty, no personal effects in this room
• Koogel mud warps to enter an adjacent building
  • Raylek follows after the outside door is opened
  • Building is slave quarters, cleaned out
• Koogel starts checking out adjacent buildings that are likely not Domico’s
  • One appears to be occupied, woman probably cooking, probably a residence
  • Other has stacks of vellum in the cellar
    • We recall that this is a bookstore
• It’s pretty obvious that Domico had planned an extended leave, probably not coming back

We head off to the slave market for the festivities

• We listen to the gossip, but nothing noteworthy
• Guards begin showing up in advance of the counsel members
• Eventually, about 10 guards are there when a very well dressed man and woman arrive
  • Ahmkin Coinick (slaver whose warehouse we invaded) and Anund Kott (counsel woman)
  • 5 names called, but none are Brethen’s parents
    • One new free man is one of the guards on stage (Beshrek Sayon)
    • One of the freed folks is seemingly not excited about his freedom
      • Seems concerned about getting employment
• We head back to the inn and practice our training

Later that night

• John hears a wolf howl
  • Treks out to meet wolfie
  • Wolfie says, “I found your mass of tasty two-legs,” points and indicates a “day cycle” distance
  • Wolfie somehow conveys that there are probably thousands in the army
• Koogel practices seduction, Brethen plays a bar, the others kick back and relax

The morning of the 1st of Highsun
Cloudy and showers most of the day
John inquires about the carnival

• Weather may not cooperate, but they should have a freak show and possibly a light show
• Will probably set up on the outskirts of the north end of west side of town
• On our way, a group has gathered around a magician performing something more than simple sleight of hand

We enter the carnival

• A number of attractions
  • Dwarves, man without arms / legs, eyeless fortune teller
  • Swordplay contest with 15 silver purse
    • Koogel obviously plans to participate
• Koogel discovers that the carnival came up from the south but had been in the east
  • They have not heard of Kokkor Hekkus
• There is a walled off area in the center of the carnival area, John shimmies under
  • In the nicest tent, John searches papers in a desk
    • Finds map of area
    • Finds plans to head farther northwest to Silvestress and back up to coast
  • Searching another tent, finds hammocks and chests
  • Searching a third tent, finds someone lying in hammock with another hammock empty
  • John exits, undiscovered
• We hear a scream from the center of the carnival
  • Someone almost fell on the tightrope
• Raylek discovers that they had heard of “problems” to the north (while they were at University)
  • Feuersberg had been sacked, so they stuck to the south
  • The conflict is probably still going on, and it is probable that it was Ulrich’s group
• Koogel is up for his sword contest
  • Koogel smacks down some local smartass with delusions of grandeur
  • With 2nd contestant, Koogel swings wildly at the air, fumbles and ends up stunned, losing the match

After we depart

• Raylek fails in getting any intel about Domico’s departure
• John goes to stock up for our trip at All Your Needs General Store
  • John notices a woman arguing with a man who has several burly men with him
    • Argus claims that he owns her building, she claims he’s lying
    • John, of course, sticks his nose into this, demands to see Argus’ copy of the contract
• Not surprisingly, John incites a conflict with Argus, the thief of buildings
  • Koogel whacks Joseph the guard, who fails to return attack
  • John clocks Argus in the head with his staff
  • Koogel easily takes out Joseph, taunts the other guards
  • Argus whips the horses, John attempts to pull Argus from the wagon as it starts off
    • John fails, Argus gets away
  • The woman provides a description of Argus’ home
• John and Koogel divert to Bercy’s General Store to avoid any investigation of their recent conflict
• On their way back, they stop by Argus’ house and look inside
  • Notice one of the guards from the encounter, the downed guard lying on a table
  • Coming down the back alley, they find another entrance with a dog tied up
• They mud warp into the cellar, enter the man’s home
  • Clumsily making his way through the house, John is stopped by a guard
  • Predictably, battle ensues
  • Koogel takes down a guard as the other warns Argus to escape
  • Koogel races up the stairs to find Argus
  • John scares the last guard into throwing his weapon and retreating from the house
  • Koogel chases Argus, who carries a leather portfolio, across the roof of an adjacent building
  • After Argus jumps to the ground, Koogel attempts to leap on top of him
    • Koogel crushes Argus to the ground, rendering him unconscious
    • Koogel grabs the leather satchel and purse from Argus’ inanimate body, fails in his attempt to climb back up
    • Koogel almost fails again, even with John’s assistance in climbing to the roof
  • Koogel finds 10 silver and 3 copper in the purse
• John and Koogel attempt to exit the same way they entered
  • They take a roundabout route back to the inn to avoid all the points of chaos they’ve initiated

Back at the Portly Boatman

• John orders two ales for himself and divides up the contracts for us to review
  • We find a contract for Shane Dormont to pay back 100 gold by working at rate of 10 / year
    • Includes clause for Potions Aplenty store, stating that the possession will revert to heir
  • John asks Brethen to give the contract to Jimick, so that he could deliver it to Miss Dormont

Continuing the 29th of Summertide
John suggests we begin checking out sleazy taverns, looking for Krek

• Koreloff suddenly recalls an area in Port Charsis known as “the maze”
• John changes his mind and we’re now heading toward the maze
  • En route, John seeks out an “intelligent street urchin”
    • Inquires about the maze, asks for guidance and info on the maze
    • John fails, but pays a copper to the kid anyway
• We arrive at the northern outskirts of the maze
  • Buildings are sparse and very poor construction
• We turn south to enter the maze
  • Buildings become more dense, lots of people sitting around / doing nothing
  • Old woman (Agha) asks for a handout
    • John introduces himself as Jake and asks about missing children
    • Is told that children go missing all the time, likely taken by or sold to the slavers
    • She directs us to Drey, a boy in his early teens
  • John pays Drey’s mother a farthing for his services as our guide
• We wander through the maze… very poor, low class, dilapidated
• John stands watch while the rest of us enter a tavern
  • 11 customers in small groups, lower class, they notice us when we enter
  • Koogel doesn’t get any info on Kokkor Hekkus
  • There is an army a couple days out to the northeast, supposedly a warlord from the east
• We decide to head to the higher class area and John pays Drey
• We find The Noble Queen and Cup, a tavern
  • Nice looking, wooden building, single story, brightly lit with oil lamps, some private tables
  • Customers have fairly fine clothes and we again stand out from the others
  • John inquires where he could learn more about the history of Port Charsis
    • John Tramm, a scribe, may have information; he is up the street to the right
  • John is informed about the army
    • Army has been paid a fee or ransom to leave the town alone
    • Lord Ulrich appears to be the leader of this army, should be gone within a couple weeks
  • Raylek notices that the musician on the stage appears strangely familiar
  • Before we leave, John catches the attention of the musician

We meet Brethen

• We introduce ourselves to Brethen, the musician
• We discuss our quest and the artifacts that we’re seeking
• Brethen states that he doesn’t know Kokkor, but he does know slavers who might have info
• We head off to meet John Tramm
  • Small building, at a desk is a middle aged, lanky man in spectacles
  • Tramm isn’t aware of any labyrinth in Port Charsis
  • Tramm has maps of Cenerthan (this continent)
    • We’re familiar with about a quarter of the continent on the northern end
  • Prior to Port Charsis, the city of Pythas was here
  • We contract for a copy of the map of Cenerthan, John to come back to help
• Brethen leads us to The Portly Boatman, where we plan to stay the night
  • We check in and board our fine steeds for the evening
  • John heads out after dinner to try calling wolves
    • Gets wolf, commands it to find army to northeast and then come back with lupine intel

The 30th of Summertide
We, with the exception of John, head out to check the markets and find spy glasses

• The glass blower directs us to a shop that assembles the scopes for which he makes the lenses
• We head to Bercy’s General Store and get a decent deal on a pair of spy glasses
• We change clothes and begin heading toward the dock
  • We hear a commotion behind us, and see a pair of horse pulling a cart, barrelling down the street
  • A small child has fallen in the street and is the path of the horses
  • Brethen runs and pulls the child out of the way
  • We are thanked profusely by the guy who let the wagon o’ booze get away
  • We change into our new clothes
• At the inn, two men ask for Brethen on behalf of Deetz, the kid that Brethen saved
  • We are led to Leder’s General Store
  • We are each given a silver for the act
  • Deetz’ father also offers “help” if we ever need it
    • Brethen asks for any information related to Kokkor Hekkus
    • Any information related to the standing army outside town
    • Information about Domico and how to assist a couple of enslaved folks
• We get to the docks and Brethen starts trying to get information
  • Dock master doesn’t recognize Kokkor Hekkus and not much info on Domico
• We head back to collect John

Heading out to The Jester and Crown

• We sit in the third floor, scoping out Domico’s place
  • Less traffic than Brethen is accustomed to seeing
• We plan to incite a reaction to better assess the situation
  • Koogel goes under gate into the courtyard and summons an earth elemental, then exits the courtyard
  • Jizm Spazm smashes the door rather quickly, then we see a bright flash as he walks through the broken door
  • Jizm Spazm begins smashing the foundation
  • Within 5 minutes the street guards have returned
  • One of the guards takes a keyring and opens the gate and they attack Jizm Spazm
  • The guards take down Jizm Spazm, but the building has taken a lot of damage
  • No one ever came out of the buildings
• More guards return and take a statement from Brethen, who uses an alias
• John collects a letter intended for Brethen
  • “Found that I need your help. Involves one of the people I was asked to look into” – Jimick Shores
• Brethen, Koogel and Raylek take turns watching the Frothy Leprechaun to look for Brethen’s alias
  • Brethen stays across the street

Continuing the afternoon of the 11th of Summertide
On our way to Port Charsis

• We retrieve our horses
• We get about 10 miles and make camp
  • The night is uneventful

We resume our journey on the 12th of Summertide

• Koreloff is somewhat familiar with this area, as he’s travelled it previously
  • Koreloff tells about an area that supposedly has a nest of giant spiders

About 4 days into our journey, we reach the edge of the forest

• We decide to skirt around the woods
• It is now the 16th of Summertide

The 19th of Summertide

• We make camp
• On John Smith’s watch, he discovers a couple of recently killed bodies
• John leads us to the corpses
  • Raylek thinks the slash wounds seem familiar, but he can’t really place them
    • Wounds appear to be thin, sword wounds
  • Each has a sword nearby, longsword and bastard sword
  • Clothes appear to be worn, torn, ragged
  • One has a coin purse with a silver and 3 coppers
• Koogel believes he sees motion to the west
  • John sees 3 creatures crawling on the ground, believes he’s seen these before
  • About 70 feet away
  • Humanoid, crawling on all fours
• They attack!!!
  • Koogel is attacked immediately and paralyzed
  • Koreloff backs up and gets in a good hit, fazing the creature
  • Raylek blasts a frostbolt into a rock; the rock shrugs it off, the intended target doesn’t even notice
  • John is attacked, hit, and paralyzed
  • Koreloff destroys the one that Raylek has been picking at
  • Raylek freezes a clump of damp grass near the creature attacking John
  • Koreloff is hit and paralyzed, and is then viciously attacked in his chest
  • John comes to and hits a creature, followed by a water elemental on the same beast
  • Finally, the last creature is dispatched
• John searches the dead creatures; finds nothing
• Koreloff cuts off 24 fingertips from the creatures to fashion into arrow tips
• Koreloff learns that he can shoot arrows at people to heal them
• The remainder of the night was uneventful

The 20th of Summertide
Temperature has dropped to the 60’s
We resume our trip southward

• Travel and camping are uneventful

The 21st of Summertide
Raining on and off throughout the day
Continuing southward

• Travel is uneventful
• Nothing unusual during the night

The 22nd of Summertide
Still heading south

• A few hours before setting up camp, we notice spots of darkness appear around us
  • A few of the blobs appear to grow somewhat
  • John determines that they appear to shadow but not shadow magic
  • One of the spots about 20’ away grows to about 10’ across, some shadowy “thing” floats through
• Koreloff directs us the hell out of here
  • The elemental dashes toward John as we depart
  • We hear a cracking sound and John takes some damage
    • John doesn’t have physical pain, but feels something wrenching at his soul
  • John declares that we will stand and fight
  • Raylek is attacked, seriously injured and stunned
• Battle ensues
  • Jizm Spazm, Koogel’s earth elemental, is summoned and directed to attack
  • There are a few good hits on the shadow elemental thing
  • The shadow jumps back into the “hole” whence it came, and hangs out there
  • The “holes” continue growing and some connect; we see what appears to be a shadow landscape through the holes
  • John believes we are seeing the shadow plane and that these are creatures from that plane
  • This seems to be a planar breach, like we encountered previously with the water plane
  • John calls a retreat and everyone runs off, leaving the still-stunned Raylek behind
• Koogel returns for Raylek, and helps him get onto his horse and return to the group
• After about 5 minutes of riding, we escape from the planar breach region
• We make camp
  • The night is uneventful, as is the next day

The 24th of Summertide
The rain has stopped; it is windy and in the 60’s
Continuing south

• John and Raylek notice some movement to the south
  • A person and 4 mid-sized animals
  • John makes out an armored man mounted on a horse, accompanied by 4 very large dogs
  • They are approaching us, very directly
  • The interloper’s aggressive advance incites us to attack

We engage the dark-armored stranger and his curs

• Koreloff gets a hit on the stranger
  • The horseman stops about 100’ away; the dogs continue on
• The 4 dogs stop immediately in front of us, ready to attack
  • John notices that the dogs all have purple eyes, froth and saliva also appear purple
• Raylek gets a couple of excellent hits on the dog in front of him
• Koreloff gets an incredible hit and instantly kills one of the dogs
• The horseman makes some motion and a dark disc appears behind him
• Raylek destroys the dog that confronted him
• The horseman emits a sharp, piercing whistle and rides into the disc behind him
  • After a few more hits on the dogs, the dogs retreat to the portal disc
  • Jizm Spazm chases the horseman and jumps into the portal after him before the portal disappears
• Koreloff believes the dogs may have been something called mage hounds
  • Supposedly used to hunt down mages

We continue on

• The rest of the travel and the night are uneventful
• Koreloff manufactures arrow tips out of his ghoul fingers

The 25th of Summertide
We head off again

• We make it to the ford
• We decide to camp before crossing
  • Koreloff pricks himself with a ghoul arrow to test the efficacy of the invention
    • Koreloff verifies that they work, but they are weaker than they were before
  • The night is quiet

The 26th of Summertide
Temperature in the 60’s and cloudy
We cross the ford and continue south

• Later in the afternoon, we crest a hill and see a figure
  • Heading south, about a half mile in the distance
  • Appears to be a man with a backpack, using a walking stick
  • Looks weary and is taking deliberate steps
  • Wearing worn clothes, wide-brimmed hat
• We increase our pace to catch up with the man
  • We call out, he turns to us, surveys us
  • His face is weathered, perhaps in his 40’s
  • He drops to his knees and greets us: “You’ve arrived!”
  • He explains that he’s seen us in his dreams, and that someone has taken his wife
  • He claims that in his dreams, we helped him
  • He is Kahlem, wife is Ehala
• Kahlem’s story
  • A couple weeks ago, he was out foraging for food
  • He returned and his wife and wagon were gone
  • He’s tracked them here, seems they’re heading to Port Charsis
  • A couple days after the event, he had a dream of the 4 of us helping him
  • He comes from Garren’s Well to the west, up the river
  • They were leaving the area, because Ehala had a vision
• John checks Kahlem and lets him onto John’s horse
• We continue on until dusk
• We make camp
  • Koreloff continues making his special ghoul finger projectiles

The 27th of Summertide
We continue on with Kahlem

• Kahlem and Koogel speak about dreams
• Kahlem preaches about how everyone is fated to do something, blah, blah, blah
• Travel is easy, we see nothing unusual

The 29th of Summertide
We are almost to Port Charsis

• We notice some sparse buildings / farm houses, still no real “road”

We arrive at the city

• Buildings are built on top of each other
  • Construction appears to be shoddy
• We notice that many people wear tattoos of symbols on the right side of their faces
  • Kahlem believes these are to represent what the slaves’ jobs are
  • More than half in the northern part of town have the tattoos, are poorly dressed
• We begin meandering through the town, looking for the slave market
  • We don’t notice any obvious inns
  • Some shops have a shingle hung out, many are residences or unmarked
  • Farther south on west side, people are dressed in a similar style
    • Appears to be frequented by sailor and dock workers
    • We ask about the slave market, are told it’s on the east side
• We head to the east side
  • Buildings still stacked on top of each other, but appear to be better built
  • We see what appear to be street guards patrolling
  • We find the slave market, John inquires about Ehala, tells scribes to look for her
• We investigate the one warehouse
  • A fishmonger states that Ahmkin owns the warehouse
  • John tries looking into the windows
    • Inside of the warehouse has cages along the walls, 6 slaves and a couple of guards
    • John calls inside and asks about Ehala
    • The guard tells John to piss off and lets the window cover slam shut
• We check out a second warehouse
  • It’s a little more rundown than the first
  • John opens a side door and walks in
  • There are a few rows of cages inside
    • John begins walking down the rows of slave cages
    • Someone approaches John, points out where Ehala may be
    • The guy describes the 2 men who brought Ehala in
      • Stringy long brown hair, big nose
      • Shaved head, scars over left eyebrow
      • One was named Krek
  • John demands that the woman be released; guard refuses
    • Koreloff pokes the guard with an arrow, and the guard is paralyzed
    • We release Ehala, bind the guard and place him in the cage
  • John decides to release a number of the other slaves to create commotion
• We follow the river back up to the edge of town
  • No one bothers us, we get out of town

Continuing the 2nd of Summertide
We begin our march back to the mines

• John continues reviewing the new book of spells that Raylek gave to him
  • Believes the book is for one of the elemental classes
  • (John has another temple we need to investigate to the south)
• Koreloff searches for pieces of the airship that could be used for a bow
  • With Raylek and Koogel, we find two pieces of the airship
    • 4′ × 6″ × 1″, and 6″ × 6″ × 1″
• We arrive at the mine around noon on the 5th of Summertide
  • We enter through the doors that were left slightly ajar
  • John speaks with some mining dude
• We decide to head out toward Farmer Warner’s place to pick up our horses

The evening of the 6th of Summertide
We arrive at Warner’s, and he sees us approaching

• Greets us and offers to put us up for the night
  • They butcher a pig and feed us well

The 7th of Summertide
We collect our horses and head off to Amete’s Hope

• We arrive in the evening
• Koogel’s papers have expired, so he needs to resubmit his paperwork
• John sells the 3 extra horses, get a gold for each horse, 2 silver each for tack
  • 76 silver, 50 copper for each of us
• Raylek and Koreloff head to Paradise Inn
• John and Koogel head to the government building
  • John sponsors Koogel and they get his probational citizenship in order
  • John prepares his report for his contact at Spirits Inn, and Koogel departs

John speaks with Stanzi at Spirits Inn

• Passes his notes to Stanzi, finds out that a “boss” is here waiting to meet John and his party
• John heads up alone, walks into the room
  • The doorway appears to be a portal to a large mansion-like interior
  • John is greeted and told that “the boss” will be down shortly
  • A small man approaches
    • Perhaps 4’ or less, with old, gnarled cane, dressed in fine clothes
    • Asks where John’s “friends” are; they need to be involved

Meanwhile…

• Koogel and Raylek head to the blacksmith, get rid of a shortsword and get two scabbards for daggers
• They also pick up some healing potions and a couple torches

We collect at Paradise Inn, wait for Koreloff to arrive

• John asks us if Koogel and Raylek are ready to start off on a potentially perilous journey
• The 4 of us enter into the “fancy room” at Spirits Inn
• The short, hunched over fellow from John’s prior visit comes down to meet us
  • Introduces himself as “Jermays”
  • Hops up spryly onto a stool, thanks us for collecting 3 of the artifacts
    • 2 swords and a bow (we lost the orb that was the 4th artifact)
    • Says that he told Malar that we could do it (known as The Grey Lady)
    • Refers to John Smith as “Rook”

Jermays explains some stuff

• There are elementals and planes
• About a millennium ago, the gods were killed
• There are beings beyond the gods, like Jermays and The Grey Lady
• There are forces in contention: law and chaos
• Jermays and The Grey Lady are trying to keep things in balance
  • Explains the need for balance
  • The planes: shadow, dream, blood, earth, water, air, fire, others?
• Raylek’s sword:
  • Can morph into different edged weapon shapes
  • Should allow me to breathe underwater, and may allow others to, as well (with practice or concentration)
  • Some offensive ability related to water
  • May assist in controlling elementals related to water
• Koogel’s sword:
  • Enable one to survive under earth (if not natural environment)
  • Some defensive ability related to earth
  • Similar features to Raylek’s
• Koreloff’s void bow:
  • It is its own quiver (has a void space for storing arrows)
  • It is The Life Bow – works against undeath, protects against undead attacks
• Jermays hands out rings of balance
  • They work under gloves or on any appendage
  • Should provide some limited protection against the powers of Chaos and Law
• Koogel inquires about his dream related to the “maze”
  • Jermays considers Port Charsis to be maze-like
• Jermays trades an ENORMOUS book for the two that John (Rook) brought

We depart

• John opens the door again quickly to see if the mansion is still there; it is not
• John heads back home to read
• Koogel decides to follow Koreloff and learn fletching
• Raylek heads back to Paradise Inn

The morning of the 8th of Summertide
Upper 60’s, and a bit of a southwest wind

John meets us at Paradise Inn for our journey

• We head out on a road that leads to the south
• After travelling a while, we find a hill that appears to provide sufficient cover
• We camp for the night; night is uneventful

The evening of the 9th of Summertide
We are approaching the swamp: plants changing, smell of the swamp wafts through the air

• We find a camping site, protected from the elements by the roots of a tree
• During Koogel’s shift, something comes at him from behind, out of the darkness
  • What feels like a claw slashes across his neck
  • It appears somewhat humanoid, but emaciated, pale, jagged teeth, long fingernails
  • John notices 2 other creatures that are hanging back a bit
  • Koreloff gets a nice hit on one of them
  • Koogel accesses the defensive powers of his sword, slate-like armor plates form around him
  • These ghoulish creatures are surprisingly quick
  • Koreloff critically hits again, and the monster crumbles to the ground
  • John gets in a powerful hit, as the beast viciously attacks him
  • The last creature runs off to the west
• The remainder of the night is restful (for those who don’t have nightmares of these creatures)

The morning of the 10th of Summertide
The temperature climbs to the 80’s, still a wind from the south

We head off through the swamp

• Raylek concentrates on the water powers of the sword
  • Shoots frostbolt (2 points)
  • Able to generate 10 gallons of water (1 point)
• Koogel summons an earth elemental
  • The elemental shows us the firmest route to our destination
• We make camp in the swamp
  • Raylek and Koogel cut reeds and build beds
• The night appears to have been uneventful

The morning of the 11th of Summertide
Weather has cooled ever so slightly

The swamp is starting to get more soupy

• We see what appear to be ruins a couple hundred feet out
• Koreloff believes he saw movement at about head height near one of the walls
• As we enter the outskirts of the ruins, we see a humanoid figure dash across the ruins eastward
  • Rough skin, long, jutting jaw, reeds strapped to it like clothing, 3’ long tail
• Raylek and Koogel climb up a wall for a better perspective
  • There may be a reed shelter toward the east, but nothing too interesting
• We begin searching through the ruins
• After about 20 minutes we hear a knock-like noise from the east
  • We turn toward it and see something mostly human with rough, scaly skin
  • John greets it and it responds, asks what we’re doing here
  • The native’s eyes appear to be slitted, not like human eyes
  • The native strongly discourages us from investigating the ruins

We decide to head out, and proceed back in through the water

• Raylek confers the ability to breathe underwater to the others and we swim in the last half mile (3 points / hr)
• It’s hard to see through the murky water
• We get to some underwater ruins
  • Smaller buildings, in slightly better condition than above the surface
  • Koreloff feels something swim past him
  • We notice an alligator, and it attacks Raylek
    • Despite being encumbered in the water, we slaughter the beast
  • We resume searching. but don’t seem to find anything
• Raylek tries reconnoitering the ruins
  • Is spotted by a lizard, and Raylek retreats quickly
  • Koreloff buries an arrow in the lizard’s belly
  • Lizard retreats into the ruins

We make toward the ruins and prepare for war

• Raylek guts the injured lizard
• John notices an open area with a statue on a pedestal – this may be our target
• We continue battling the man-gators, as new ones join the fray
  • Koreloff is kicking ass relentlessly, as the rest of us miss almost constantly
  • We eventually take down the 5 man-gators

We investigate the shrine with the stone statue

• Statue is very worn, appears to have had a sword and shield
  • Humanoid figure, was posed in battle action stance
• John removes the moss-like thing draping down from the head of the statue
  • Appears to be some kind of skin with a hood sewn into it
  • John puts the hood on, it settles “into” him and is no longer visible to us
  • John determines that the hood allows him to change his appearance to look like someone else

We start off to retrieve our horses

• Koreloff determines that his bow can provide healing

The 26th of Summerbloom

• A rainy day.

It seems that we’ll need tools for the climb to the “sky ship”

• John assesses if we can make the climb
• We get some spikes and a hammer and rope
• Some crampons might be helpful, but we’d likely have to contract for a blacksmith to make them

Koogel announces that he had a dream and spoke with his ancestors

• Received advice that his “rival can be found in the mazes of the city to the south”
  • Could be Amete’s Hope or any other city south of us
  • It is not the city of Kutz
• Koogel inquires of the miners if any of them know of “mazes” in any cities around here (they do not)

We begin our trek

• Cannot find an obvious “easy path” to start
• The first 20% goes pretty well, despite a light drizzle
  • Drizzle seems to decrease as we climb higher
• We start off on our next leg pretty strong, but then Koreloff slips and pulls the rest of us down
  • We take some damage and curse Koreloff
  • We start up again, a little slower this time
  • Koogel looks up at the “boat” and it appears to be in more than one piece
    • He also notices “mistiness,” which he believes is probably fog
  • We decided to rest for a bit

The 27th of Summerbloom

• It’s still raining a bit and the wind has picked up a bit

We resume our ascent

• We switch up positions to put Koreloff in 2nd to last position and begin climbing
  • We proceed exceptionally well after a good rest
• Beginning the 4th leg
  • Koreloff starts falling, pulls down John, who pulls down Raylek
    • Koogel manages to prevent us from falling too far
  • We need to camp again so that John can recover
• We gaze up at the air ship
  • See front end of ship, perhaps 50’ wide
  • The mist appears to be more “active” than a normal fog, swirling about visibly
• We rest for the remainder of the day

The 28th of Summerbloom

We start off again in pursuit of the ship

• The final leg gets off to a rough start
  • Koreloff starts to slip, but manages to catch himself on a rock
• We finally arrive at the top and are about 50’ from the ship
• The boat seems to be in relatively good condition, aside from cracks
  • 3-masted ship, but all masts broken leaving only stubs
  • Front and rear halves are separated by about 40’
  • Ship appears to be almost 200’ long
  • We see what appears to be something “misty” moving in and out of the ship
    • Cannot tell if it’s just fog or mist in the breeze or water elementals
    • We feel like these are some sort of elemental beings

Koreloff approaches closer, trying to be stealthy

• Hiding among boulders and rocks, he scouts out the area
• Sees jets of water shooting about between two entities
  • At least one appears to be a water elemental, the other looks a bit different
  • They appear to be fighting or dancing
• There appear to be at least 8 entities visible

Raylek hikes to the back of the ship

• The ass end of the ship is sitting over a natural depression in the mountain
  • In the bottom of the basin, there is water
• All the elemental-type creatures appear to be along the breach, none at the rear

Raylek, Koreloff and Koogel climb up to the top of the aft deck

• We see no elementals, nor remains of the crew
• Koreloff points out that the sides of the ship were smooth wood, no signs of barnacles
• The wood also appears to be very new looking with no signs of decay
  • Is this ship newly crashed here
  • Is this ship somehow protected by magic?

Meanwhile… John decides to approach the elementals, unbeknownst to the rest of us

• An elemental spots John and stops
• A visible gust of wind / mist emanates from the elemental and barely misses John
• John quickly retreats and tries to summon an elemental
  • The elemental follows John
  • Koreloff notices John running away and being followed
  • A stream of water shoots from the elemental that doesn’t follow and hits the follower
  • A black fire elemental appears, John commands it to destroy any creature John points at
  • The elemental attacking John is the one that looks different from a normal water elemental
• Koreloff attempts to shoot at the funky elemental that’s after John
  • He hits, it seems really pissed and flies straight to Koreloff REALLY fast
• John begins returning to the ship with his black fire elemental friend
• Raylek jumps in to help Koreloff, hits the “air” elemental with minimal damage
• A water elemental attacks John’s elemental, but misses
• Koreloff gets in another hit and the elemental disappears into thin air
• A water elemental arrives, following the black fire elemental
  • Black fire sees his target is gone and returns down the stairs
  • We engage the water elemental, who decides that Raylek is a fine target
    • Koreloff manages to kill the water elemental that’s trying to down Raylek
• John points out another target for his elemental and wanders off to explore the ship
  • Doesn’t notice anything recognizable as cargo, equipment, etc.
  • Notices a small stream of water moving from ceiling to floor in one area
  • On the next higher deck, it appears to be all cabins
  • Next higher deck also appears to be cabins
  • Moves on to the room on the poop deck
    • Atop a bench in the room is an old, slightly corroded bronze instrument
    • There is also an uncorroded metal ring with an aqua jewel or stone in the middle
• Koogel dramatically misses and bangs his sword against the deck, damaging the sword
  • The deck where the sword struck is virtually undamaged
• We take out the last of the elementals that came up for us and try to not get the attention of the others below

We begin to explore the ship

• John has been unable to do anything with the two pieces of equipment in the room
• We head down to the next level down and explore
  • All furnishings and equipment are generally decayed into near dust
  • We find some silver-colored coins that we don’t recognize (Koreloff takes 33 of them)
  • We find two necklaces and a ring (gold)
• Next floor below has smaller rooms and no window
  • Rooms are all similar, except for one
  • Other room has water streaming out from under a door
    • Koogel opens the door and floor is covered in water
    • Lying next to the former bed is a dagger with some strange coloring
      • Raylek takes dagger, but cannot determine if it is magic
    • We notice that the water level appears to be dropping
    • We notice the top edge of a container in the corner as the water continue to drop
    • Koogel picks up the chest
      • An ornate box with mother of pearl inlay with clam or oyster and sea creatures
      • No visible hinges and some invisible lock
• Another level down is more lower class rooms
  • Nothing of interest, except for water leaking through seams from above
• Lowest level is storage
  • Everything is only debris
  • The water settles down into a puddle in the corner of the boat
  • We wonder if the water is leaking out and filling the basin under the boat

We explore the front of the ship

• Bottom is more cargo, again nothing of interest is left
• The rest of the front of the boat also has nothing of interest

We return to the bridge and confirm there is no interaction between the equipment and dagger or box

• Raylek starts seriously examining the box
  • Finds the secret pressure points / studs to press, hears click
  • Top now lifts off, revealing a book
    • Book is in excellent condition
    • Raylek removes book and opens, contains scribbles that are unintelligible to him
• We look out from the top of the boat and see no masts anywhere on the mountain

Koogel checks out the masthead

• Female who appears to have wings
• Sculpture is out of wood, but appears very smooth

Figuring out what we’re going to do…

• Raylek determines that his dagger can be willed into different shapes
• The water elementals are all gone, and the air elementals appear to have moved off
• John determines that he can transfer Spell Energy into the jewel
  • Despite transferring the energy, John is still unable to execute any commands
  • The stone seems to have a slight inner light now
  • John adds more energy and it gets a little brighter
    • John commands it to rise up and we feel a rumbling
  • John adds more power and commands it to turn starboard
    • We are tossed as the ship turns about 10 degrees
  • John commands it forward and it moves forward harshly until it hits rocks and the back tips up
  • John commands it up and the portion of the ship we’re on lifts up over 20 feet
    • No commands appear to affect the front of the ship
• John backs up the boat and parks it on a level area
  • John starts resting up
  • The rest of us decide to just shoot the breeze and relax

During the night

• Koreloff notices that on his watch, the “vibration” from the ship stops
  • The “control stone” is completely dim now
• No other significant events during the night
• Koogel doesn’t remember any dreams of his ancestors

The morning of the 29th of Summerbloom

• Temperature has dropped about 10 degrees, but still drizzling

We decide to head out on the boat

• John has to fill up the crystal with more energy
• We raise up about 25 feet and head out over the edge
  • When the back of the ship clears the cliff, the ship instantly drops about 80 feet to the next ridge
  • John tries to raise the ship, but it crashes hard on the rocks below
    • John is unconscious and breaks his left arm
    • Koogle gives John a healing potion
  • The ship is perched on a rocky ledge
• John is unable to raise the boat more than about 50’
• John levitates the boat back up the ridge so that everyone can climb back onto the mountain
• Raylek concocts a crazy plan to try to separate the “control jewel” from the boat
  • Raylek and Koogle chop the control box free and return to the mountain
• John tries recharging the device and levitating Koogle and then a backpack
  • Neither works and it seems that this would only work on a boat that is specially built and connected to it

We decide to search the area for a day or two

• No hints as to how the air ship got up here
• We make it to the river (about 200’ across)
  • We find a place to ford the river
• We find a larger forested area consisting of pine trees
• During our travels, we’ve hiked down to where we have only about 4000’ to climb down

The morning of the 1st of Summertide

• The rain has stopped, partly cloudy and mid seventies

We decide to continue heading west in the direction of the gently sloping grade

• Uneventful day, we see birds, small animals and occasionally a mountain ram

The morning of the 2nd of Summertide

• Mid seventies, partly cloudy and light breeze

We attempt our decent of 3000’ feet

• Raylek leads the way down
  • First leg goes very well
• Raylek gets off to a rough start on the second leg, and eventually Koreloff slips
  • John manages to save Koreloff’s ass
  • John saves Koogle’s ass, too
• Raylek has another rough start for third leg and John loses footing
  • Koreloff saves him
  • We survive!
• Seems to be about 3 days travel to get back to the mine

The 18th of Summerbloom
Warmed up quite a bit, low 80’s, cloudy and windy

John’s knowledge of the Earth Temple:

• City of Gremen was northern-most outpost of an empire that existed around the time of the god killings
• East of the outpost was a large boulder on a hill, beneath which was a “temple” for the god Enki
  • He was the god of earth and strength, per John
• Doesn’t know exactly where the Earth Temple is, expects it is about 50 miles away
  The rumors we’d heard when we returned to Amete’s Hope:
• Reports of riders passing within the last couple of days; they were “glowing”
  • Folks believe that someone was drinking when they “saw” the riders
• Some miners claim to have seen a strange thing like a “ship” in the mountains
  • Looked like the ruins / parts of a wooden sea faring ship maybe 1 to 1.5 miles up in the rocks
  • John believes is possible that this is remains of a “sky ship”
  • Also possible that during the god killings, some tidal wave may have pushed a sea ship up there
    We return to Jerinoo’s shop
• Jerinoo gives Raylek the cleaned up sword, much improved
• Koreloff inquires about his new armor
  • Jerinoo taps it with hammer & chisel, weighs it
  • It seems lighter and stronger than regular chainmail, should serve us well
    We pick up our equipment
• Metal shovel, a few wooden shovels
• Raylek collects horse, tack
• Meet at the gate and depart
  Heading out on an eastward road in pursuit of the Earth Temple
• We encounter a merchant whose cart is stuck in the mud, he flags us down
  • John and Koreloff scan the area, evaluating possible ambush
  • John introduces himself to Dominic (merchant), who explains that his cart is stuck in a rut
  • We free him from the rut and receive some potatoes in return
  • Dominic tells us about “Warner”, whose son & daughter (Ava and John) were kidnapped
    • Warner has the next farm over
  • Dominic hasn’t seen any strange lights at night
• We arrive at Warner’s farm
  • Warner’s wife (Cyndi) sees us, calls out to Warner
  • Warner, an older man, steps out of the field to greet us
  • Warner explains that his two oldest children crossed the road in search of wild berries, never returned
    • The next morning, Warner found signs of a struggle, but no idea what happened
    • Ava about 11, John about 17; describes both
  • Warner hasn’t seen “the lights”
  • John pulls Warner aside and quietly asks him if they had any “special powers”; apparently not
  • We speak with Cyndi and don’t get any new information
• We head over to where Warner saw the “signs of a struggle”
  • Definite signs of a struggle: horses had been milling about, tore up the area a bit
    • About 4 horses, probably no more than 4 people
  • No obvious signs of blood, but the area is really dug up like the horses were charging in circles
  • Horses headed off to the south, trail is easy to follow
    We head southward, following the trail of abducted children
• Relatively easy to track, we follow the trail up to some hills
• We see some ruins in the hills and notice smoke coming from the ruins
  • We’re about 3/4 mile out, we move in closer to bottom of the hill
• The tracks head straight up the hill toward the ruins
• We tie up our horses and Raylek leads the party up the hill, very stealthily
  • Raylek sees a tent, something resembling a wooden cage, and 4 horses
  • Koreloff hears a conversation, sounds like men
  • Raylek lowers a rope to the others, so they can climb more quietly
    • Koogel and John ascend and pause near the tree
• Koreloff crawls through the grass, closer to the ruins
• Raylek, in full stealth mode, trips on a rock; we hear weapons being drawn
• The 3 men appear to be slavers, will trade the children for gold
  • Do not appear to be affiliated with Ulrich
  • The fourth man finally approaches and shoots at Koreloff, but misses
• Raylek attacks the slaver assaulting John
  • Gets an excellent hit, but does minimal damage; hits John with his off-hand sword
• The battle continues
  • Koreloff hits a guy in the nuts and stuns him
  • The fourth guy jumps on a horse and runs off before we can stop him
  • Koogel binds the last surviving slaver so that we can question him
• Koreloff revives the children, releases them from the cage
  • These are obviously Ava and John
  • John gives them physical examinations, they seem to be in decent shape
• We interrogate the survivor (Abel)
  • Abel says they were going to take the children to slavers down south
  • He does not know Kokkor Hekkus, much to Koogel’s dismay
  • The abduction was a crime of opportunity, these children were not targeted
  • Claims to not know about mysterious lights / figures in the night
• We search the campsite
  • 3 horses, bedrolls in tents, dried meat, 3 sets of saddles and tack
  • 7 silver, 35 copper
    We head back to Farmer Warner with the children and horses
• Warner thanks us profusely
• Warner offers to board the horses for us, but can’t afford to buy them
  We depart again in search of The Earth Temple
• We travel as far as we can in the few hours of daylight that are left
• We camp just off the road
• Night is uneventful, only wildlife noises
• We pack up early and prepare for an early departure
  On the road again – The 19th of Summerbloom
• After about 3 hours, the road runs out and we continue through the forest
• Koreloff knows that nobody lives in these forests, but the wildlife is more dangerous
• John knows of an area between here and the river that is a low magic area
  • More difficult for casting, possibly slower recover of magic powers
  • We hit this spot after about an hour or so
• We notice a “mistiness” that springs up as we approach the river
  • Affecting our visibility a bit, seems very localized
  • Koogel notices that some of this seems to coalesce into some kind of form
    • Two of them, becoming gradually more humanoid
    • Koreloff believes they’re water elementals
  • The water elementals are moving, but not necessarily toward us
  • We deviate a bit south to avoid them; they don’t seem to take notice of us
    • Koogel notices a total of about 5 of them before we leave the area
    • Koreloff knows that sometimes there is a reduced threshold between the planes and these things can “bleed over”
• We reach the ford and cross the river (about 300’ across)
• We resume heading north along the river
• John notices a person on horseback bolt from a copse of trees
  • Riding north along the river, about 3/4 to 1 mile ahead
  • Appears to have weapons
  • John is feeling particularly youthful and brash, and he decides we will pursue
  • The retreating rider is pushing his horse hard and sees us following him
  • Chase for 15 – 20 minutes, and then we see smoke rising in the distance (1 to 1.5 miles off)
  • After a couple more minutes, we see log cabins come into view
    • Smoke is coming from chimneys
    • Koreloff believes this is a community of bandits and such
    • About 4 buildings of 30′ × 40′ size
• About a dozen people emerge, 5 with bows get on horses
  • John decides to ride up closer, we’re about 600’ apart
    • John waves to them, no response
  • We approach closer and John speaks with them
    • They claim no knowledge of “the boulder on a hill”
  • We bid them farewell and head south
• Koogel tries to summon his ancestors in his dreams, but is unsuccessful
• We finally camp for the night, which is uneventful
  The next day, we continue on – The 20th of Summerbloom
• We eventually come upon some unusual 2′ × 2′ paving stones in a small patch
  • We find a couple more small patches of these stones
  • We believe that there may have once been a road through here
• We continue following the “road” northeast, and find more pieces of the ancient road
• We camp for the night
  • Raylek notices abnormal woods sounds, noises coming from deep in the forest to the west
    • Like brush moving occasionally, knocking of wood
    • Raylek rouses John, who sees a very large creature in the distance, looking toward us
      • Large mandibles and eight legs
  • The Creature walks into the clearing
    • It turns quickly toward John, shoots webbing at him, misses
  • Johns hurls a sphere of blackfire, but misses
  • The spider creature is drawn to Koogel, tries to eat him, misses
  • Raylek gets a hit on one shot, but armor prevent much damage
  • John fails on another blackfire attack
  • We finally start firing on all cylinders, get some hits in
  • The spider retreats, climbing into the trees
    • Raylek and Koreloff notice it running off into the deeper woods, leaping tree to tree
• The rest of the night is less exciting
  The next day – The 21st of Summberbloom
• We continue northeast, following the road
• We eventually come upon the remains of some sort of settlement around noon
  • 6 pieces of foundation where structures used to stand; the road ends
• We search the area, but find nothing except the foundations and some rubble-like ruins
• Raylek climbs a tree, looking to the east for a boulder; finds only trees
• Continue east through the woods
• Around evening, we come upon a hill with a fairly large (30’ diameter) boulder on top
• Koreloff doesn’t believe he sees any tracks or indication of activity within the last month or so
• It’s getting dark, but we decide to push on and search for an entrance
  • No obvious sign of entry
  • Eventually find what appear to be large stone doors, but blocked by brush and a large tree
    • We chop down the tree and clear the brush to open the doors
      Entering the temple
• The doors have carvings of hills and a single large mountain; we pull them open
• We light a torch and Koogel and Raylek enter
  • Hallway as wide as the door, leading to downward stairs after about 15’
  • No signs of air movement in here, we don’t notice any sounds
  • Walls have a “natural appearance” as though cut from stone
  • At the bottom of the stairs, 80′ × 100′ room
    • Floor of interlocking cobblestone, same inlaid mosaic as on the doors
    • Large basins at sides of the room, figures in niches behind the basins
    • Large circular dais at the end with an altar
• Koogel approaches the one basin
  • Filled with gravel of different sizes
  • 8’ tall human form carved from stone
• The other basin is filled with dried, cracked mud
  • The form behind this basin appears to be more mud-like
• Koreloff checks out the altar, but nothing is on it
  • 10′ × 10′ outline on the floor behind the altar, appears to be cut into the stone
  • The alcove appears to be naturally formed, although it can’t be
  • The stone in the outline of the floor is very solid when pushed on
• We open the door opposed the collapsed hallway
  • Moves very smoothly, opens into another room
  • We see a circle cut into the stone floor
  • Koogel approaches the circle, is hit by an earth power bolt
    • It seems to have emanated from a glyph on the ground
    • The glyph is a runic symbol for earth power
  • There appears to be a cut around the circle, with a large pentagram in the middle
    • John believes this is a form of summoning circle
  • In the corners of the pentagram we find small cup-like things, about 1 inch across
    • Have faceted voids, like they’re designed to receive a specific faceted item
  • Koreloff notices a ring on the floor
    • Simple ring with simple, greenish earth stone
  • John knows that earth stones are measured in “magnitude,” which is tied to the size of the stone
    • The ring would be probably a 3 magnitude
    • The faceted stones that fit in the cups are larger, probably 4 magnitude
  • Raylek sees a faceted inset in the edge of the altar
    • Koogel places the ring into the inset on the altar
    • The 10′ × 10′ cut-out starts slowly dropping
    • We all hop onto the cut-out
      The elevator descends about 80’ to 100’
• We are greeted by a hallway bathed in a dim green light emanating from crystal structures in walls and ceiling
  • We notice no glyphs on the floor
  • 3 doors at the end of the hallway
    • Left door has carving of earth rune hovering in front of robed figures
    • Right door has carving of mud spring with erupting “mud cysts”
    • Door at end has carving with only the earth symbol
• Koogel opens the middle door with the earth rune
  • 40’ diameter, roughly circular room with what used to be bookshelves built into the walls
    • Old, worn, decayed books on the shelves
    • As soon as you pick up a book, it disintegrates; none appear to be readable
  • A single door interrupts the bookshelves on the far side of the room
• Koogel opens the door into a corridor that slopes downward
  • Walls and floor are slick with water
  • No runes on floor or walls
  • Corridor meanders in somewhat of an S-curve
  • We come upon a room containing a platform with a sword atop
    • Two statues on either end of the long room, one stone and one mud
  • Koogel approaches the sword, and hears noises as the statues animate
    • Koogel grabs the sword, and it morphs into a longsword
  • The mud elemental moves toward us
    • Raylek attempts to strike it, but misses. And then critically misses; is fazed for 3 rounds
  • Koogel wills the magic sword to be a bastard sword and it transforms
    • He still misses
• We begin retreating down the hallway
  • “Muddy” steps into a wall and then steps out of the wall farther down the hall
    • Muddy whacks Koreloff
  • Battle continues… what the hell are we doing here???
    • Stoner and Muddy are both beating on Koreloff obsessively
  • We decide to head back to the room for more space
  • Raylek triumphantly destroys the stone elemental!
  • Koreloff gets in the final shot on Muddy, who melts into a puddle of lifeless mud
    We head back down the hallway
• Koogel opens one of the doors in the hallway
  • Opens into “natural formed” hallway that branches
    • We find no runes on the floor or walls
  • We continue into a medium sized room with a stone slab on a pedestal
    • Raylek opens drawer in the pedestal, which contains some threads
    • Raylek pulls out the rotted garment and finds two earth stones beneath, which he takes
      • One is about the size of the stone in the ring, the other is larger
  • The next room over, we find another pedestal, nothing in drawer
  • The 2nd room has small book that is in better condition than the others we’ve seen
    • Book has fold-out page, John recognizes it as a spell book of earth words
  • The 3rd room has another pedestal but nothing of interest
• Koogel open the other door in the hallway
  • Opens into a room which is partially filled with mud
  • We find nothing
    We head back to the library
• We search but find nothing of interest
• Some bits of information about earth god, but the books crumble as we try to read them
  We decide to get the hell out of here before we’re out of torch
• We find another ring socket that activates the elevator, and we ascend
• We extinguish the torch and head back out into the night
• We head north for about an hour and then camp
  • The night is uneventful
    The following morning, we begin our return – The 22nd of Summerbloom
• Weather is comfortable
• We decide to head toward the mine in order to check out the rumor of the “sky ship”
  We arrive at the mine on the evening of the 25th of Summerbloom
• John Smith announces himself at the entrance to the fort-like community
  • We eventually get some response and are admitted
  • There are a couple of logs cabins and tents inside
• John asks if someone can carry a map back to Amete’s Hope, due to the discovery of bandit encampment
  • The next wagon to Amete’s Hope leaves in a couple days
• We sleep here for the night

Continuing the 15th of Summerbloom

The three of us are gathered around the monastery

• Weather is cool and foggy… visibility of about a mile to a mile and a half
• Raylek notices someone approaching
  • Tall, thin, brown beard, wearing a cloak, appears to be carrying a blade and bow
  • Waves at Raylek, who informs John
  • John doesn’t recognize him, so we draw weapons and approach the interloper
    Koreloff Sagitta greets John, seems to know him
• John now remembers him as an occasional visitor to Ametes’ Hope, a trapper or something
• John asks why he’s here
• Koreloff says that he was sent by “the crooked man”
• Was asked to provide “an update” and assist with the monastery quest
  • Koreloff arrived earlier (about a month ago) and saw 3 men arrive at monastery a few weeks prior
    • They wrote some stuff on paper
    • Shortly thereafter one man ran off
  • Last night, 4 men and a woman arrived on horseback
  • He later saw some strange flashes of lights
  • The new visitors appear to be aggressive and “protective”
• John mentions Koogel’s strange dreams
  • Koogel mentions some brief highlights of his dreams
    The four of us return to the monastery
• Near the courtyard entrance, we see hoof prints in the mud and the rusted remains of a gate inside
• This used to be a monastery for the war god, now abandoned since shortly after the fall of the gods
• Koreloff climbs the wall to view the guard, doesn’t recognize the guard
  • Guard wearing dark, unadorned tabard, helmet
  • Guard is half-heartedly keeping watch, but more interested in activities down the stairs
    John decides that we’re going to try to subdue the guard
• Raylek grabs a snake and gets in place by horses, others get in place
• Raylek throws the snake on a horse, the horses become agitated and stomp the snake
  • The guard yells at the horses, but isn’t too concerned
• Raylek attempts a coyote bark, rather poorly
  • Guard calls down stairs that he’s going to check something out, heads toward horses “with a purpose”
  • John hits guard with a crossbow, Raylek cuts him with a shortsword, the guard takes a beating from all
  • John tells him to surrender and drop his weapon
• We notice skeletons rising from piles of rubble on the ground, two have shortswords
  • Koreloff gets a fantastic whiff while attempting to hit one of the skeletons
  • Arrows don’t seem effective, especially when they’re shot this poorly
• Koogel and Koreloff see two figures coming up the stairs slowly
  • Koreloff recognizes them as two of the guys that never left the monastery, but they appear to be undead now
  • A woman between the zombies seems to be unfazed by all the undead
    • Calls to Koogel: “That’s my horse, if you don’t mind.”
• Two skeletons flank the battered guard and attack Raylek
• Woman throws bluish-black energy toward Koogel, but it flashes past him as it misses
  • John believes the woman is using necromancy magic
• Near John, a small ball of blackish fire expands into a vaguely humanoid fire-like creature
  • John commands the elemental to attack those who are attacking John
• The battered guard is heading toward the horses
• As Koogel is being attacked, he notices three more guards rising from the stairs
  • The woman has a large, smokey-grey gemstone that she’s using to cast spells
  • She casts a small, darkish-blue sphere that expands to about 5 feet as it flies over his head
  • She commands the guards to “just kill him!”
• Raylek decides to runs after the guard, and switches from shortsword to bow
  • The black elemental has obliterated the skeleton by John and attacked one that was after Raylek
  • Koogel retreats from his situation and attempts to tackle the running guard
    • Koogel stumbles and falls prone several feet from the guard
• The woman attacks Koogel again, and misses again
  • She calls to her group, “Let’s just get out of here.”
• Raylek takes out the guard leading the horses to the woman
  • The other guards bring one horse to her, help her mount
  • She spurs the horse and quickly retreats toward a breach in the wall
  • Raylek notices that the crystal she has looks very similar to a reddish crystal he’s seen previously
• Battle continues… we aren’t showing all that well
  • Two guards are mounted and retreating after the bitch
  • Koogel is on horseback chasing after the bitch
• Koreloff gets a good hit on the last mounted guard, prevents him from retreating immediately
  • After taking some damage, the guard spurs his horse and takes off
• Eventually, we take out the last of the skeletons and zombies
  • Koogel returns about the time that we wrap up the last of the bad guys
    • Claims that they were heading north
      We gather up the “bodies”
• Koogel retrieves the guard from the other side of the river
• Raylek binds the two guards
  We begin interrogating a guard (Lewin) that John revived
• “”/campaigns/laslos-land-of-the-dead-gods/characters/lady-death-artissa" class=“wiki-content-link”>Lady Artissa said we had to come here to get something."
  • None of us know of Lady Artissa
• Claims that she got the artifact from the tombs
  • A “crystal globe,” which was the smokey crystal she was using against us
• Guard was working for Lord Ulrich, who has a large horde heading this way
  • Not sure where Lord Ulrich is from
  • Claims that Lord Ulrich is coming here to conquer this land
  • Supposedly he is currently in the vicinity of Boneburn Desert (about 500 miles away)
    • Koreloff claims there is only one pass through desert, unless they go south
• Claims that Artissa was only interested in this single item in the area
• Artissa performed some magic to prevent the skeletons that arose from attacking her party
• They went down to the bottom of the stairs and didn’t search anywhere else
  • She seemed to know exactly where to go
    We search the bodies
• Zombies have money purses
  • 5 silver, 23 copper
• Guards have
  • 35 silver total
  • 2 longswords
• About 3 weeks worth of rations on each of the two horses
  • Also 2 bed rolls total
    We head toward the tomb
• We take the guards with and try to find a room in which to secure them
• Koreloff tracks where Artissa and her crew went
• At the bottom, we find an alcove with a small platform that has a small circular void in the dust
• Off of the landing is a corridor on either side
  • Corridor on right has several hallways coming off
    • One has room containing numerous sarcophagi / crypts
      • We take an ornamental sword that we find
  • Both corridors have similar rooms and layout
    • Most rooms contain only ancient sarcophagi
    • We find chainmail in excellent condition, unlike the rest of the rotted equipment
    • We also find a ring in remarkable shape, probably magic, has rune for “armor” on it
      We depart for Amete’s Hope
• The next couple of days are foggy, but relatively warm and uneventful

We arrive at Ametes’ Hope — Evening of the 17th of Summerbloom

We go to sell our booty

• We get 3 silver, 50 copper for the ornamental sword
• Jerinoo, the blacksmith, evaluates our swords
  • 6 silver for both longswords and the crappy shortsword
  • 7 silver for the chainmail
  • Raylek negotiates to have Jerinoo’s apprentice work through the night to clean up his “new” shortsword by morning
• We separate, plan to start out for the Earth Temple tomorrow
  Raylek heads back to Paradise Inn
• Greets everyone, tells Seamus that he’ll be heading out again the next day
  John heads to Spirits
• Passes along info about the quest, Lord Ulrich and Lady Artissa
• Stanzi mentions that Lord Ulrich sounds familiar
  • He’s heard rumors that Ulrich may cause us trouble, may have other motives
• Stanzi says there seems to be a lot of activity around locations that have magic items, probably what Ulrich’s people are seeking
  Koreloff seeks out Klintos
• Explains the adventure, asks about Artissa
• Klintos says that things are going to heat up soon
• Plan was to help collect some of these artifacts in order to support the cause
  Raylek buys himself a horse, saddle and tack, to pick up in the morning

Planning to head out to the Earth Temple the following day

Starting off… the 10th of Summerbloom

• Koogel and Telore arrive at the gates of Amete’s Hope shortly before noon
  • Had joined about 5 days prior before heading through mountains
  • Gate is closed, with a couple guards standing outside; guards greet them
  • Given two week “visa” and must find sponsor by then or must leave
  • They enter the city of Amete’s Hope
• Koogel and Telore visit shop of John Smith, greeted gruffly
  • Documents them and is paid, directs them to the office
  • Suggests Paradise Inn as a good place to stay
• Koogel and Telore head toward West Gate
  • Pass a crater-like area of scorched earth en route
  • Lots of guards patrol the streets; they are asked by guards for papers
  • In center town, some very nice stone homes and the government building
  • Gov’t. scribe, Benard, informs that Sebastian Scrivner was another scribe in town who “moved on” recently
  • At the garrison, Koogel sees 4 guards in studded leather with shortswords
    • Inquires about employment in the garrison
    • Is informed that the captain would have someone vouch for him if he’s needed
    • Sounds like they don’t need anyone immediately
• They arrive at the old Scrivner’s place
  • Looks fine, good condition, long thin window about 6’ up
  • Empty inside, properly cleaned out like he moved out
  • Guard accosts them, informs that Scrivener moved about about 1-1/2 months ago
    John decides to head out to Paradise Inn after lunch and 2 silvers of business for the day
• Sees Telore and Koogel outside the Graveyard Gate en route
• Meets Seamus at the Inn, immediately orders an ale
  Koogel and Telore arrive
• Ask Seamus for a room, 2 coppers a night or 3 for a double room
• They take separate rooms, because they don’t want to look like a couple of fags
• John greets them, invites them to sit and orders 4 ales
• Raylek brings out the ales, is also offered a seat
  John explains that he’s obtained a map and needs some assistance
• Offers sponsorship for one, and a good word to assist in sponsorship for another
• An old monastery is the subject of this quest
• Speaks with Seamus to arrange for Raylek’s absence
• Tells us to meet with him at his shop 2 hours after daybreak
  John heads out
• Gets an ale at Spirits Inn and speaks with Stanzi
  • Asks if there’s been “any word”, but none
  • Explains about a couple of new people and asks for information about them
• Finishes ale, heads to apple orchard and then to gov’t scribes
  • Speaks with Benard and asks about Koogel and Telore
  • Mentions that he’ll be out, so Benard and other scribe will cover scribe work
    Later that evening…
• Telore notices that someone at another table appears to be observing his table
  • Middle aged guy, wearing leather jerkin, no visible weapons, sitting alone facing the table
  • Calls Raylek over and asks about the mysterious dude; never seen him before, isn’t drinking much
  • Koogel walks past the guy and scopes him out
    • Wearing ring on left hand: silver, gold triangle-shaped emblem
  • Mysterious guy gets up and heads upstairs to his room
  • Raylek reports back with room and that he recently checked into a larger room
• John does some research and goes to bed
• Raylek continues working until close
• Telore and Koogel eventually go to bed

The next morning — 11th of Summerbloom

• John finds a note stating “see your contact”, which he destroys
  • Heads out to Spirit Inn
  • Stanzi provides a note: suggestion to check out the Earth Temple
• Raylek meets up with the other two
  • Koogel explains a weird dream about his ancestors telling him that his vengeance lies in the earth
  • We meet up with John
• At John’s place
  • Koogel explains about the destruction of his ancestors by Kokkor Hekkus
  • An earlier dream about a “shadow person” or something
  • Dream last night that he must avenge his family, and a strong feeling about the earth
  • John shows a map of the monastery to the west
  • Koogel describes the mysterious fellow from the inn and his ring
    • At John’s request, the 3 of us head back to the inn to check on the guy
• At the inn Koogel and Telore stop by the door and listen through the wall next to the guy
  • Telore hears a door open, someone asks, “Who’s out there?” and door closes again
  • Hears some creaking of the floor
• John checks with Stanzi to inquire about the guy, nothing
• John checks with guards, is told that the guy was asking about someone
  • Doesn’t know the guy’s name, only had a description who he was seeking
    • Looking for middle-aged guy with bow, cloak
• John checks with Benard, asks about the guy
  • Arrived shortly before John showed up yesterday, planning to stay a couple days
  • Guy inquired about someone of specific description: matches Telore almost exactly
  • John makes haste to Paradise Inn
• John arrives and commands Telore outside
  • John plays some intimidation and demands to know why the guy is after Telore
  • John demands to know Telore’s connection to the Seren Ilchor
• John explains to Raylek and Koogel that he no longer trusts Telore
  • Mysterious guy is here for Telore
  • Telore is dangerous to us if he’s in with them
• The guy comes down with a satchel, appears to be checking out, says that he may be coming back
  • Notices John, stops for a moment
  • John cracks the door open to watch as the guy walks into town
• We follow the guy
  • He walks up the street, looking around a lot
• The guy meets Telore at an intersection, says, “You! Stop!”
  • Telore says, “If you accost me again, we will duel,” drawing the attention of two guards
  • The guy casts a spell and hits Telore with a fireball, knocking him out
  • Raylek yells, “Hey! He just killed that guy! Stop him!” and ducks for cover
  • Koogel runs toward the guy, drops a sword for Raylek
  • Koogel attacks with longsword and hits
  • Guy throws huge fireball at the two of us and the guards
    • Raylek takes huge amount of damage
  • Koogel and Raylek both run after him, attack and miss
  • John raises his staff and acts like he’s going to do something, but stutters and seems dazed
  • The guy runs off and another couple guards yell at him to stop
  • Koogel and Raylek run after and both gets in hits, knock him out
• Raylek slips the ring off the guy’s hand without the guards noticing
  • Ring has inscription: Power, Obedience, Domination
• The guy’s papers say he is “Jamie” from Ramanthe
• We head to the government building, Telore follows
  • John speaks with Phineas (guard bookkeeper) about Jamie, and if we can attend interrogation
  • John orders food and ale for the guards
• The guards attempt to force feed Jamie herbal tea to inhibit magic usage
  • Jamie is bound in a chair, resisting
  • Captain Tagge starts interrogating Jamie
    • Jamie states Telore killed a Seren Ilchor and took his ring
• Koogel coaxes a recommendation out of Captain Tagge for sponsorship

The next morning of our departure — 12th of Summerbloom

• We head out on the ferry, stop at the inn and ask about hazards
  • No news of bandits, but some wolves
• We make our way, stay out of the deep woods
  • Evening passes uneventfully

Another day — 13th of Summerbloom

• Easy travel, raining most of the day, otherwise uneventful
• Make camp
  • Halfway through Raylek’s watch, hear snuffling and noises in brush
  • Wolf attacks Koogel as he finished putting his armor on
  • Wolf attacks Raylek, but misses
  • Koogel attacks wolf, but misses
  • Raylek gets a powerful hit on the wolf as a third wolf enters the fray
  • John misses with a crossbow against the wolf that attacked him, as a fourth wolf joins
  • The wolves sense that we’re tougher than their teeth can handle, and they retreat

The following morning — 14th of Summerbloom

• Continue heading west, through mixed light rain and occasional showers
  • Can move through or around the forest; we go around
• We eventually can see the monastery, about an hour away
  • We decide to camp and reach the edifice in the morning
• On Raylek’s watch, there is galloping of horses, he wakes John
  • John uses darksight to spot 4 or 5 mounted horses, headed toward monastery
  • Others are roused and informed of the parade o’ horses
    We pack up camp and head out — 15th of Summerbloom
• After about a half hour of travel, we ascend a ridge and can see the monastery
  • We see a couple flashes of pale blue light emanating from inside the monastery
• Raylek heads out stealthily as the advance recon scout
  • Reaches walls, scouts area, checks inside through breaches
    • Horses tied inside, only see the head of one guy

• Calling it an evening