Saralas: Session 27

30 of Elesias. We are at the Elven tomb and looking at the mirror

• We go to look for the black cabin. We have no trouble finding the cabin thanks to the logger's mark on our map.
• The cabin is perched on the edge of a snowy gorge. A black lodge on the edge of a cliff, sitting on stilts. It appears utterly abandoned. Large snowdrifts pile up. Part of the cabin is hanging off the cliff, and it appears the land fell away. It appears the timbers are rotting and are in a dangerous condition.
• There are two entrances to the cabin to the south. Both off the rickety snow-covered walkway. It looks like the woodpile hasn't been used in about a month. I saw one set of tracks.
• The wooden outhouse is half-buried in snow. Korag finds a sack of discarded blueprints and the like, it looks like they were used for toilet paper. The blueprints seem to be to some sort of a machine.
• I call out for Macradeus, but there is no answer.
• Min goes to the south door, which doesn't seem locked. She knocks, and when no-one responds she opens it. Frost covers every surface of the abandoned workshop. The workshop contains a set of smith's tools and a set of tinker's tools, along with some twisted bits of metal. A bookshelf along the north wall has some harmless squirrels in it. There is no other door.
• Min heads towards the other door. She has to jump across a 5 foot gap, and makes her way to the other door. She knocks and enters, again.
• The room is filled with the smell of burnt wood and flesh, and wine. The walls are scorched black, including a table with a book on it, and the book. There is also a burned skeleton.
• Korag boosts me up to one of the windows on the east side. I tie a rope to a table I shoved over next to the window and toss it out the window.
• Karthos jumps in as a badger, then turns back into an elf. Suddenly the floor gives way beneath him. He just catches himself and pulls himself up. The area of the cabin above the cliff edge is dangerous. Min is small enough, but Karthos is too heavy. I am probably too heavy as well.
• Min looks to the northwest, there are wind barrels in the room, covered in frost.
• The next room has a little dead man, and some blueprints that look to be for a magical weather-changing device that looks a lot like the one that just shocked Karthos.
• Min keeps looking but she mostly finds a couple empty bedrooms. She finds a scroll, stained with soot but intact. It says "Macradeus, I've had enough of this cold. I'm heading back to 10 towns for a decent meal and a warm bed. Any tinker can see the Summer Star is a fool's errand. Might I suggest that _three_ is better than _two_.
• This implies three rings on the device, where we currently see two rings.
• Karthos points out that the rings are meant to moderate the magical energy that flows through the stone, to channel and control it.
• I gather the bones and carry them to Korag for respectful services.
• Rudra says the tracks belong to a Goliath werebear and doesn't want to follow the tracks
• We are very cautious (overcautious?) and don't touch the device again, instead recommending we talk to Copper back in Bryn Shandar.
• We rest at the inn, it's now the first of Elient.
• Back in Bryn Shandar we find Copper at the Temple of the Morning Lord. "Serves him right" she mutters. And she is not shocked.
• She emphatically states the machine is dangerous and will never work, but certainly he was a fool. She had suggested forging another ring to control the device, because she felt his calculations were of and it would generate more power than he predicted. She confirms the machine is meant to end the winter.
• She says the heart of the device is a magical stone which fell from the heavens. The rings are meant to warp and weave the magic into something like an enduring spell.
• Before we go anywhere else, we decide to stop by Bremen, as it is the last of the ten towns we have not visited. Bremen's harbor has frozen, requiring local fishers to haul boats across the ice to put them in the lake. ON the plus side, it doesn't flood any more.
• We go to the inn, run by Cora Molfoon, who treats us with fantastic customer service. Business is terrible, because of the winter. The speaker is Derglegruf Shailscar
• Also in the Tavern we see Wodna. She is next to Min. Suddenly they both disappear. I order a mead.
• Min enters the tavern, dripping wet and freezing. Wodna is nowhere to be seen.
• After making sure Min is OK, I go to explore the town.
• At the docks I see a stout humanoid, who stops me and waves me over. He seems to think I'm a fisherman. We dicker over the price of fish, 5 copper per trout?
• Another person comes up and yells at the guy "you're sending these innocent people to the death over a few fish?" They yell at each other for a while, and then the man stomps off.
• She says "I'm getting the feeling he doesn't like me very much"
• Some kind of creature has been seen in the lake, attacking fishing vessels. Boats in Bremen are the _only_ boats being attacked, and Tali walks to the docks to warn people away.
• Tali would like to understand the monster, as a researcher. He hands me a notebook, and asks us to please write down any information we can learn about the nature of this monster.