osrrealms

Nottanis Shortly before we left the rebel camp, a young man named Gareth asked to join our group. He felt that leaving in our company might give him a better chance of escaping whatever curse held Meagre’s Reach in thrall. We agreed, having no real reason not to allow it, and set off at dawn. Despite the dire warnings and Gareth’s presence, we had no problem departing the area, and made our way to the manse of Ygraine.

Nottanis We didn’t make it back tomorrow, or the next day. We dragged our coin, poorly hidden, past a traveling caravan; we paid extortion money to a gargoyle with two mossy statues; we suffered through blood rain and invisible hail and the worst cold I’ve ever had. We did finally make it to town, where absolutely everyone wanted to know what we had in the urns. We did notice a few details in town.

Bern Selaena managed to get us an update: the Princess was overjoyed to hear that her True Love yet lived and sought her embrace, but insisted on seeing the ring before actually doing anything. So we tried to arrange another distraction. The guests kept demanding new and obscure dishes (everything from roast swan to pizza rolls) and sending the waitstaff – us – down to the kitchens to get it.

Nottanis Rather than return to town immediately, we investigated some of the nearby barrows. While we walked, Rowen had the bright idea to put on the wight-making necklace we found in order to “make sure we kept her safe”. I’m not sure where she got this obviously bad idea but she should stop listening to them. The first had a simple porticullis guarding the entrance, and no skull on top.

Nottanis We traveled further down the road, meeting a knight by the name of Richard the Lionhearted and his single merry (and weirdly mossy) dwarf. We discussed the road in both directions, and the dwarf inquired about peculiar mushrooms. Richard mentioned that there was someone already looking into the weirdness of time around the town of Meagre’s Reach, and advised us not to stay there long lest we be caught up in the time distortion ourselves.

Nottanis Rowen had the idea to take a walk into the Dolemwood to follow some sort of ley line she supposedly can see in the sky. I could use a walk in the woods, so I agreed to come along, and apparently Morin was bored too. We wandered into the woods and spend a lovely night by the Dark Mirror Lake. A swan boat was collecting dreams. We stopped by the manse of lady Ygraine the next morning, meeting three nobles on the way.

Bern We returned to Westkeep for a few days to heal, sealing the tomb again on the way out. On the trip back, we noticed a strange tree shaped like a gigantic foot, and a flock of hawk-deer hybrids. We avoided both. In Westkeep, I passed on the news about the gnome and his grain to the local priest. Seleana volunteered to look for herbs to help our recovery, and I went hunting to help pay for her room at the inn in return.

Bern I had been putting this damn arm problem off long enough. I got the Glorious Blades back together in Westwood, planning to explore the Dolmenwood and make contact with a fae who might be able to fix my arm… somehow. It wasn’t as well planned as I’d like but I was out of ideas and so were the local churches. Oscar offered me the shield he had been using, a huge piece of twisted iron that I was surprised he could even lift, much less fight with.

We made our way back to Thatchem on birdback. The wizards of matwoob were willing to buy what we managed to recover, and expressed some dismay at our description of the current occupants of “their” tower. They did offer us a magical staff that would enable us to climb to the floating island via a stairway to heaven for future trips. Elvinia agreed to take charge of that on behalf of the group.

As soon as we stepped foot into the room below, a magical mouth appeared, shouting a word in some language none of us knew. It was obviously some kind of alarm. We hurried explored to the west, finding a staircase down and another alarm. We opened the door to the south just as some kind of creature entered the room, from the other staircase. With horror I recognized it from the tales of fellow guards: an armadillo with twin antenna, otherwise known as a rust monster.