Gaming

We crossed the pit, finding a T intersection with two more doors. Between us, we listened to them all. We heard voices behind one; someone was chanting. Stria opened the one next to it, just a crack, and closed it quickly. She whispered that there were more Vol cultists there, discussing how to get past some monster obstacle. Behind the third door, yet more dragon cultists. There were no obvious valuables or reasons to reveal our presence, so we left.

I pulled myself to the top of the plateau just as Seleana was promising the ravens we had brought food. Just in time, too; one of them had given the druid a nasty peck on the shoulder that nearly tore her arm off. I laid the seed out according to the directions, while Selaena made silly caw caw noises. I can’t criticize too much, I’ll be doing the same thing later.

After bringing Ygnas back, and getting her settled in at the tavern to recover, we reported to the wizards at the tower of the leaning goose. They were so excited by the report that they proposed an immediate return to Highfell, this time on the backs of giant ravens. The wizards claimed to possess a kind of magical birdseed that would allow us to befriend them, for a period of months at least.

By the time I caught up with the old man and his cart, darkness had fallen. We exchanged pleasantries and agreed to be allies for the night in case of trouble. We both went to bed, hoping to hear my friends catching up, but I drifted off. I woke to Rowen poking me with a stick. The rest of the group had found horses somewhere and caught up. I didn’t want to ask where they got the horses, for fear I wouldn’t like the answer, but I least I wouldn’t have to make the journey to Thatchem alone.

Faran Magebane The next morning, we explored further, finding a large room with a central pedastel. The pedastel was surrounded by stone pillars, and had a stone structure in the center, covered with sockets as if gems had once been held there. One large gem remained, remarkably similar to the one the earth elemental had dropped. The rest claimed this was a something-something we were supposed to clense to stop the dessert wizard.

We traveled northeast for hours, doffing our armor to make better time for Ygnas’ sake. To be honest northeast was the only real choice for miles. Mountains blocked the north and south, ands to the wet were salt plains. At least in grasslands there would be a chance of water and game, not to mention civilization. Eventually we came across a road, with diverging pathways northeast, northwest, and southeast. We chose northeast again, passing through a forest.

The grinding noise came from the two statues in the hallway. An expected they had animated. As we heard their footsteps stomping towards us, I gave Morin my large sacks and a torch, telling her to stuff anything valuable from the secret room into the sacks as fast as she could while u-Heury and I tried to deal with the statues. u-Heury set himself up by the door, planning to hold it closed as long as possible.

Faran Magebane We met with the wererats, and despite my best efforts to provoke a fight, ended up with an agreement in principle to mutually defend the city with the deep gnomes. However, the agreement hinged on our group tracking down the source of the ooze and slime invasion nearby. Information from the wererats indicated the pudding invasion had a leader; Speaker for Puddings, or Oozemaster, or God of Slime, or something.

The last two rats fell or fled as we tore apart their nest, finding a few gold coins in the process, but with that Denara’s blessing faded away. We deferred searching the rest of the nest immediately, though we did make an effort to block the hole to the outside to prevent (or at least delay) reentry. We chose to investigate the secret door in the back of the chamber.

We had landed in thick forest, so u-Heury climbed a tree to look around. He saw a few flying creatures in the distance and the cloest way out of the forest to the northeast. We headed in that direction, briefly interrupted by a harpy that didn’t seem interested in us. The harpy eventually flew off, asnd we made it out of the forest and approached one of several towers. Ygnas recognized the emblem above the tower entrance as belonging to Kelguumer, a wizard famed for his interest in insects.