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