Saralas: Session 48

A note is scribbled in the margins: "Gonna punch these dudes for never coming up with any ideas that aren't just "oh we can't actually do anything! Something bad might happen!""

20th Elesias, morning

• The party votes to head to Good Mead. By which route?
• They decide to head overland, rather than going by road, to save time.
• We travel for a while through the morning, and stop to rest around midday. Two chwingas appear on a rock outside of our lunch spot.
• Min offers them berries. They are happy and eat the berries, and bless her with CHR+6 until the end of the day. And can charm any creature within 30 feet.
• Karthos notices a stone gargoyle perched in a tree nearby.
• We decide to press through the night towards Goodmead.
• Coming to the crossroads we find the area littered with corpses. Karthos goes to investigate.
• It appears to be a group traveling from town to town. We see a badly damaged wagon containing ordinary goods and cargo. The bodies have been ripped apart.
• Looks fairly recent, footprints and blood everywhere.
• Looks humanoid, the bodies look like they were ripped apart by bare hands. I think it likely it was coldlight walkers. It looks like they may have come from Easthaven.
• Min pickpockets them and finds some gold and a scrimshaw dolphin. I pretend I didn't see it.
• Min recommends we burn the bodies. We gather the corpses and light the wagon on fire. As this is happening, the wagon explodes with red and green and blue sparks flying every which way. The wagon was apparently filled with gunpowder.
• The explosion echoes and the fireball can be seen from miles away.
• Min uses her charming ways to convince the dogs it's time to go, and we coast into Goodmead.
• It is very late, almost the morning.
• We head to the abandoned shrine to Tempus. The shrine is mostly empty, except a body covered in a blanket.
• The body is of a very large man in his 40s. He has been stabbed 3 times in the chest which appears to be how he died. It looks recent.
• We make camp here, intending to talk with the townsfolk in the day.
• Karthos and I head to the mead hall to introduce ourselves. The town speaker was killed by a Verbeeg and they will be having an election soon to determine a new speaker? Two locals have emerged as contenders, one is a red-bearded shield-dwarf logger named Shandar. Another is a woman related to the town's founders and who works to make the barrels.
• The winter weather has diminished the output of the bees, which makes it harder to get enough honey to make mead. To make matters worse, a Verbeeg has stolen their mead casks and killed their speaker with a spear.
• What would they offer if we help? All the mead we could drink. Karthos asks if they could also talk us up.
• Karthos and I have some mead before we leave.
• We meet up with Bearwin who was in the bathroom, we head back to the others. Min notices that Bun has a necklace with a green gem. While she watches, Bun starts levitating. He seems quite proud of the necklace.
• Resda asks Bun where he got the necklace. He climbs down the chain and hides in Min's pocket.
• While we're picking up the trail a figure runs out of the woods carrying animal traps. One is carrying a panicked fox. The man is in a panic and he came upon a most grisly scene. 5 members of Good Mead's militia, skulls and chests stoved in.
• We recall that these men were killed by an ogre. We decide to head straight for the caves. We make our way in and kill the Verbeeg.
• In the cave we find the sheep and two of the three missing barrels of mead.
• We find and kill the ogre.
• This is the place where Karthos and Min got cursed when they robbed a grave.
• Bun floats out over to the corner of the room. Looking in the corner of the room Min spots a basket. She looks in the basket, and finds 3 gold, a translucent pink moss agate worth 10 gold, a healer's kit, a hunting trap, and a small rabbit skin bag containing some item.
• The bag contains 10 silver sling stones.
• Karthos goes over to charm the bear so he can look at the statue. The bear is not charmed, and he leaves. As he clears the hallway, the bear runs out into the wilderness.
• He prays to Silvanus. While praying he senses an aura of magic from the statue.
• I wander over and ask what he's trying to do. He says he wants to bring the statue up from out of the ice. I express skepticism and step back, leaning against the wall and watch.
• Karthos completes his prayer, and leaves mushrooms as an offering.
• He bottles some of the water.
• Bun floats towards the tomb. "It's cursed, Min." Bun keeps squeaking. He seems very upset.
• We gather the two barrels of mead and animals.
• As we leave, we see a female Verbeeg heading to the cave. "Dugh!" she shouts in common, "You home!" "He is not home" Karthos says.
• She attacks, but we defeat her.
• Min finds the basket the woman was carrying. It was filled with very strange metal fragments she has never seen before.
• Karthos believes it is Illitihid metal, from a weapon of some sort. Maybe it's worth something.
• We make our way back to town. The townsfolk are happy to see the stolen mead returned.
• We are offered mead and dinner.
• A middle-aged woman approaches Resda and introducer herself. She is Olivessa, a cask maker. She does not want Shandar to be speaker, and asks if Resda is interested.
• Resda is not interested. We explain why any member of our party would be a bad speaker.
• She says Shander has only lived in town for a couple of years, and is known as a bully. He only has his own interests in hand.
• Wodna informs us that Shandar is the lackey of the speaker of Targos. He's trying to annex the town of Good Mead.
• I ask her about Leigh&Co technology, a box that creates a house.