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