Dm: Tater
Players: Emerion/Stitches/Nalkris/Depthcaller/Lysing
This island is full of surprises! After my last excursion out beyond the city walls I thought nothing could suprise me but I could not have been further from the truth. Having sat around for to long I decided to join a group going out to explore and see what ther was to discover. A familiar face was among the grip Stitches, who was along for my first trip, as well as a few new faces Nalkris,Depthcaller, and Lysing. As we set out I somehow got slotted as the Leader, still not used to being around others often I was not sure about how well I would do but continued ahead reguardless. Most of our first day out was uneventful and I spent most of that day watching our surroundings and learning the terrain as best as possible. As the day wore on we made our was a fair few miles Southeast before anything interesting happened. We were just starting to decide where to camp when I experienced a flash of blinding white light that blanketed all of my senses, then what seemed to me an instant later everything was back as it had been…… Except all the blood. Most of our group in fact were covered and dotted with the blood, apparently we had all experienced the same sensation and none could remember as to how we had blood let alone what i was from. Night setting in we decided to camp relatively close by to avoid exausting ourselves although that turned out to be a bad idea. As we set camp to eat and rest, all seemed calm and quiet, I had kept watch on our trip mentally marking landmarks and observing the terrain still unfamiliar with this strange land. The first of our night watch consisted of Depthcaller and Lysing who encountered no issues then I was the next to watch, most of my watch went by quietly and without issue though near the end i heard a noise and turned to see ……. A moving puddle of what appeared to be blood. As this was the first time I had even encountered such a thing I had no idea how to respond, I readied my weapon and tried to keep a slight distance as it approached me. Just before i struck out of instinct I experienced a familiar flash of white and as reality came to me once more the blood was gone, I stood alone and there was no sign of anything nearby. Completely stumped I kept on edge and finished my watch alerting Nalkris to the experience, and went to sleep with weapon still in hand. I was awoken by Nalkris yelling and jumped awake pulling out my shortbow on instinct, and was dismayed to see a small group of bloody skeletons making their way towards our camp, I took aim and fired at the first one available but having just woken up my aim was off and I missed. One of the skeletons rushed me and with surprising strength attacked me heavily, I could hear the sound of my companions fighting all around me as another skeleton rushed me and as they both attacked my world went black. I had a briefe moment where everything came back and before I could so much as stand the skeletons attacked again. An unknown amount of time later I was awakened and revived as I stood I could see what was left of the skeletons that attacked us, they were just dry old bones on the ground with no signs of the blood that had coated them. I heard from the others nearly all of our party had fallen and we were sure to be killed when in a white flash the bones fell limp to the ground and they rushed to heal the injured. Feeling very foolish and as if i had nearly killed my whole party we decided to finish the night there before leaving the next morning at first light, we made our way more south and came across an odd statue of some kind. It had no real markings or any language on it just two daggers roughly five feet in size in front of it. Lysing discovered that one of them moved and seemed to have something to do with a hidden mechanism so I rushed and pulled the other and a small opening appeared in the statue that hid a pouch containing what appeared to be a potion of some kind. As we left the tower we experienced another flash of light and once we came to a number of us were covered in blood once again with no visable explanation. Irritated and on edge we decided to put distance between us and that area so we began to head west and came across a river where we bathed the gore off of ourselves and readied to make camp once again. We settled in and throughout most of the night we had no issues and I experienced nothing personally, come morning Nalkris informed us that he was visited by a mobile puddle of what looked like blood, it approached him and he says he experienced a flash of light and it disappeared just like before, however Nalkris had a familiar who told him through their connection that what had appeared to him as blood the familiar seen as a man, a man by account of this creature we had encountered before…. The night we were attacked. With this new imformation creating more questions than answers we decided to put as much distance as possible and hurriedly made way to the bridge that crossed over to lands further west. As we approached the bridge a group of roughly eight vagabonds (some described as recently clad) blocked passage and demanded all we had as a ‘toll’. I decided to try to talk our way across by alerting these miscreants that we were being pursued by something far worse than them and with more luck than I thought I possesed it worked and we were allowed passage without issue, probably the single time i was useful during this outing sadly. We had scarcely made it a mile or so when we heard the sound of men screaming, as the brave heros we are we made the only option our conscious would allow and we left them to their fate as we made all haste to escape this mysterious foe. Some miles down the road just before we made camp for the night we came across a group of adventurers on horseback, we informed them of the danger at the bridge which they brushed off confident in their abilities just as we heard running, turning I seen one of the vagabonds running for his life in our direction. He then begged for our protection but i did not trust him at all, we allowed him to stay with us but I bound his hands as a precaution, the adventurers then left and went their own way towards the bridge. We made camp with our unexpected plus one and we settled in for the night I myself on edge and jumpy, a few hours into the night I was awoken by an incredible explosion and debris and flame rained upon me, the very sky itself raining fire and rock down upon us. We all bolted running full tilt to escape the chaos all around us. After some time and all of us feeling quite exausted the storm calmed itself and we camped for what remained of the night, the next morning we continues west trying to keep away from our unknown pursuer. We came across what looked like a large building in the distance that some of us decided to explore however as we made our way towards it Neval (our plus one) flat refused to walk towards it even with the threat of Depthcaller near him he turned and ran in fear. As we approached the building it became apparent that this was near mansion size and becoming consumed by the woods behind it, odd sounds and disembodied voices began to seep from the building that set a cold in my bones that i had no desire to face. The group decided to leave this place far behind and return to town, as we made our way back we encountered one of the members of the adventurers we had met the night before was walking dazed and directionless. He recalled nothing about meeting us and nothing about his group or surprisingly enough his own name, we brought this nameless man with us and continued our way to Ruined Oak. We camped out on the bridge and seen no sign of the bandits or adventurers beside an abandoned campsite, my watch went by quietly however once again I was awoken by sounds of shouting just in time to see something jump off the side of the bridge. Nalkris informed us this entity had been taking the form of all of our party and mimicking our speach for Gods knows what reasons and so he had attacked it. That being said we rushed to Ruined Oak and were glad to be sitting behind city walls once again.
This island is incredibly confusing and full of odd creatures and experiences. This last expedition has left me with an incredible amount of questions and a slight trepidation about what lurks out in these lands. I intend to have the nameless man seen by a healer and see if his memory could shed some light on this mystery. In all this is one adventure i will NEVER forget…….. I think.
Emerion Frostweld.