Sessions 28 to 33

Session 33 - Magic aunty

In the Black Goat Wood, the wolves attacked but after a ferocious battle you drove them off.

Meanwhile on the way back to Xalter the party encountered a group of hunters looking for the other party. You said that you had not seen them.

On getting back to Xalter, Tida told you that the Lonesome Bachelor had returned. He was violating the laws and eating fishermen. The struggling fishermen had set up a rough camp on the backs of one of the crocodile gates. Fishermen still in the citadel had been dying of some sort of plague. Decius Sunsword, the Aquilonian, had closed the gates to the upper citadel. Nobody had seen Queen Vania since. He said that Aunty Saty might know more about the crocodile.

Ogolorph Windshaper had had his arm bitten off by the Lonesome Bachelor. Mina healed the arm. Ogolorph was grateful but strangely reticent about launching another hunt for the crocodile. He saw the party's suggestion that they could kill the crocodile as some sort of challenge to his status as master hunter.

Aunty Saty gave you the story of the Lonesome Bachelor and suggested that Ogolorph and others had started worshipping him as a god. She said that the Lonesome Bachelor lived in the old ruins up a tributary on the other side of the lake. She then sold you many odd items, including the wartiest of toads and 3 weird cloaks.

Session 32 - Stoned

Our hardened adventurers set out from Xalter on a mission to locate Queen Vania's lost son and find the pilgrimage to Valar's Winter Palace.

Hazel settled down in the pig herders crude encampment, hoping the tentacles in the jagged palisade would keep her safe.

The rest of the party pushed on deeper into the Black Goat Wood. You came across a huge standing stone covered in brambles. As Barratt investigated the stone, he was grabbed by a zombie rising from the ground. The zombies chanted that living creatures must not approach the stone of law. You dispatched them but not before Dan took a blackening wound.

Alice burned away the brambles with a fireball. You found a strange stone underneath, cracked but held together with metal bands. From certain angles a dusky flame could be seen burning in the centre of the stone. You tried many methods of healing and damaging the stone. You figured out that the metal bands could be pried off with a great deal of effort.

Eventually you headed back to Pesithoe, the dryad. She told you the drunes had corrupted the ley lines and diverted them into a huge circle of standing stones. The stones prevented fairy creatures from entering the circle.

The party plunged back across the boundary into the twisted forest beyond the stones only to hear the howling of wolves.

Session 31 - Of men and dryads

In the Black Goat Wood you chanced upon Pesithoe, a dying dryad. Her tree was chopped down by woodsmen. She asked you to take revenge on the woodsmen. At the woodsmen's encampment you found them to be starving pig farmers, escaped from Izabra.

The palisade around the encampment was infested with fibrous tentacles, preventing the pig farmers from leaving. Dan persuaded Burhelm, the leader of the pig farmers, that they should leave the forest if they gave them gold. Hazel cast a shield spell, protecting the party from the blows of the tentacles. Barratt broke down the gate of the palisade in a mighty assault. Most of the pig farmers and their pigs made it out.

Dan suggested that the dead were to be turned into potions, which upset the pig farmers. The rest of the party tried to diffuse the tensions until Hazel shot Burhelm in the chest. The pig farmers ran away.

Session 30 - On the road again

After purchasing horses in Izabra, you hit the road with some of the party heading back to Xalter and some heading into the Black Goat Wood in search of Prince Yalvan.

The Black Goat Wood was curiously warm. It seemed like spring had started there.

The party heading south ran into an Aquilonian patrol on the road. A short conversation between Mina and the Captain somehow got out of hand and swords were drawn. Wolves and bears were summoned. All the Aquilonians died.

Session 29 - Is that a shadow I see before me?

The shadow crawled up out of the pit. Fortunately Hazel's shield spell prevented any lasting damage and you dispatched it in short order. The tunnel came out in a hovel in the Fish and Pig Town near Eram's house.

Maevis went to visit Canutia again and she asked her to look out for Yalvan for her. She confided in her that she thought Yalvan was going mad and had been consorting with Caliadne the nymph. She was convinced that Prince Yalvan had been taken by Annen Sone to Fort Vulgar in the Black Goat Wood.

Billy got his armour from Brebeald the Smith.

A young lad recognised Barratt in the street and started attracting attention. Mina sent him on his way with an inspiring speech.

They caught up with Wealda the warden of the citadel and convinced him to cover for them. Numerious and Auriga fled the city once Numerious sobered up and realised who he killed.

Alice and Mina went to Wene the Librarian's. She advised them to go to Elean the merchant's to sell the crown.

It turned out that Elean had been corresponding with King Yalaring Monsterslayer. She was shocked by the news of the death of the king, that Valar's heart had been split into pieces and that the party had disrupted a major ritual in the Ruins of Kupchak.

She said that if the party were ever in Yaryg, they were to look up Sige a cousin of King Yalaring and Eomald a captain in the Yaryg Guard.

She showed you the last disturbing letter that King Yalaring wrote to her.

Session 28 - It's not a wishing well

The party searched the alcove at the back of the sacrificial chamber. You were assaulted by four lurching zombies. Barratt and Moe lead the charge started laying waste to the slow creatures. Helmund, a dark priest of the Bloody Tongue, tried to come up from under the altar to assist but was hacked down in a hail of blows by Dan who was on a mission of murder.

An impasse was reached on the stairway, with nobody looking too keen to fight. Dan took cheeky advantage and slaughtered a guard causing another to turn tail and flee down the stairs. When the remaining two guards realised they were surrounded, they accepted Van Petrol's offer of surrender.

A whole bunch of grisly remains wrapped in bear fur was discovered in the alcove. Amongst the remains several magic items were discovered, including a Sceptre of Valar, a summoning bowl, a small cloak fashioned from sprite wings, a grey metal head band and a mask carved into the likeness of the Bloody Tongued God.

The well was opened revealing an amorphous wormlike creature with many faces. Dan tried to interrogate one of the captives by dangling him over the well. The man wouldn't talk so Dan dropped him. He was consumed by the creature but his shadow was not. His shadow is climbing up out of the pit towards you.