Bern

Somehow a bunch of fresh faces from the Glorious Blades joined us out here. How they found us I have no idea. Pretty sure I don’t know where I am at this point. But Rowen must have had something to do with it, since she wandered out of town muttering about ley lines about the same time. I let her go without comment. I don’t need ley lines, I need my arm fixed. I did ask Kiba if she brought my wardogs from camp. This was supposed to be a quick excursion to help u-Heury with his winter princess before a quick trip back to base to figure out a plan for the hag. Somehow we skipped the back to base part. She denied having the dogs. Oh well. They might have come in handy.

I ducked out to sell off the herbs we had collected without the new folks noticing, but Kiba tagged along and insisted I share the bounty. Meh. I did get about 50gp more than I expected from the same, so maybe having a pretty face along helped. She did seem to be playing with her knives a lot.

By the time I got back to the inn, the rest of the newbies were trying the local bogwog. Judging by ther green color, it wasn’t going well. I sat down for my own meal and passed out the bounty, which came to 90gp each for four of us. Two people didn’t want the money. Silly druids. Even sillier when he started talking to the locals in Mulch, their own dialect. But he found out there was some kind of ceremoney planned for the evening, if the local adventurers brought their fugitive back on time. HBe wrangled an invitation, but it wasn’t anything special aside from meeting another local group of adventurers.

We went to bed peacefully, and woke up to Ygnas screaming about a fire and elementals burning down the town.

Not suspicious at all, Ygnas.

Ygnas

New people from the guild joined us out here in the middle of nowhere. Backup, because they think we’ll need help with the hag. Probably will. The mosslings refused to have a comforting fire, so, doubly bereft, I rubbed the burning pinecone brand on my forehead that only I can see and muttered to myself about how to appease Zuul and get my powers back.

The druid heard the mosslings talk about a ritual, so we stood around the stone arch waiting. The elf thought there were magic runes on it. The acolyte cast detect magic, and bits glowed blue. He then made up a story to explain the glow. Bet the overgrowth covering the arch would burn easy. Then we could see the runes. Some adventurers brought a body back and the ritual was some boring reincarnation thing, so we all went to bed.

I had a dream that I could see the runes on the arch, and could read them. It was a spell to open a portal to the realm of fire elementals. I saw them burning everything and it was glorious. Even better, Zuul was pleased. I bolted upright. Well, this was going to piss off the locals. I snuck out and sat cross-legged in front of the arch. When the mosslings were gone, I cast the spell, and the portal opened. Fire elementals spilled out. Two mosslings saw, and I yelled that I tried to hold it but couldn’t and to tell everyone to run. Two elementals hung by me and I felt like I could control them. I didn’t want to annoy such beautiful creatures, so I bowed and told them to go play. They delightedly complied.

There was fire spreading everywhere. It was just as glorious as my dream. I reluctantly headed to the inn to make sure my companions got out. Probably rude to let them burn to death. Even if there is no higher honor for them then to be sacrifices for my God. If we say the blue glow was a sign of the portal opening, and I say I tried to hold it closed, we might not get lynched by the tiny plant people. Maybe.

Pish

You never know when you might need an Elf linguist, and so the Glorious Blades sent me to meet with an adventuring group. I think I totally impressed them by befriending (ok charming) the little moss man innkeeper and getting my room for free. Honestly their leafy bodies, obscure language, and devotion to group activity time really intrigues me. I tried the moon milk but passed on the globwob-which I think Bern the beefy and Kiba the Beastmaster tried. I spent a lot of the night with Hjug our druid water boy as he chatted up the locals speaking mulch.

There was a hubbub around the religious arches that had the whole town arriving and playing cosmic red rover I think. Domi had gone and watched one of their rituals so likely has a more detailed report. We waited until there weren’t eyes on us and I used my super generalizable ability to ‘Wilt’ to remove some growth and reveal some ancient language that we will check out later. I am really interested in the strange language and symbology and am going to prepare languages for the morning. We are already making smart, stealthy choices in this group and are working. Kiba and Yagnas stayed up a bit but the rest of us went to bed at a reasonable hour so we could check out the writing with a language spell first thing. It takes a wiz to get everyone on board with a plan. When you plan, there is a chance of things going how they should.

At 4 am Ygnas came in like an adventurer on fire (well kinda on the hellish nose) and shared the shrine was on fire ……..I immediately felt the need for a hasty evacuation