Pain in the Plains

We left White Moon Cove heading northwest toward the home of the Blood Eye Clan in the Temest Plains. We used the road and had to camp one night under the stars before we would arrive. It was a distinct change from the lands near teh GQE portal. Calm night and no real issues on our travels. Before we arrived at the Blood Eye Clan we came across a small group of “friendly” bandits. They wore black robes and were taking refuge in an old cabin. 

The leader of the group was named Hawkins a blonde man with tarot cards and spoke in mathmatics… strange to us but helpful. He had a second in command a black Tabaxi with a strange collar named Fawster. They requested us to get them food for some information a trade we found quite fair with us being a group of decent hunters and gatherers. We found them two deer and some berries and were rewarded with a tarot reading. 

1.  Temperance
2. Wheel of Fortune
3. Magician Arcanum

Hawkins told us some stuff I did not quite grasp, but i understood he spoke of horse people and a fight with gnolls and lastly a strong man with magical powers. He warned us to avoid the fights if we could since his “percentages” of us succeeding were low… but hey what is life without a little risk.  Gau traded what gold he had, his own armor and Paper Cuter (The Scimitar he lent me to kill origami creatures) for a suite of studded leather armor.  Fawster found this to be a fair trade and upgraded his weapons and a solid amount of gold. 

We left Hawkins and Fawster and made it to the Blood Eye Clan. On the outter walls we spotted these horse creatures. They called themselves Centaurs and their leader introduced himself as Khiron of the Wisehoof Clan. 

He told us they have had run ins with the gnolls since they had to leave the Ishah Plains for enviromental reasons. The lastest encounter the gnolls took their war banner. A Red Banner with the symbol of their tribe on it. We agreed to try and recover this for them and Khiron said he would send a young Centaur named Ferenzi with us to help guide us.

We left the following morning in search of the gnolls who stole the banner. Ferenzi lead us in the right direction and we ambushed some gnolls in some ancient ruins.  We used our stealth to have Gau make friends with their pet hyena and he kept it out of the fight for us as we rained arrows on the rest of the gnolls. We found some discarded instructions and tracks leading north. The instructions were to bring the banner to the Talos Dwarf. 

We followed the tracks and found a cave. We scouted that cave for an hour to make sure there were no patrols to catch us off gaurd. We entered and found the lone gnoll speaking to a dwarf who was surrounded by three mephits. A fire, water and earth one. We engaged the priest first and once he was dead we took top the gnoll. In the middle of the fight a man popped out his invisibility.

He must have been the “Magician Arcanum” from the reading and once he felt my bolt enter his chest he recast his invisibility spell and we did not hear from him again. The mephits we discovered exploded upon death so best to be away from them when you put them down. We recovered the banner and some treasure as well as an odd note.

This note was in a chest that had “REVERSER” sratched into the top of it. Scritch and Gau put together that the numbers in the note might be part of the common language alphabet and they began to break it down.  The numbers if taken in reverse read as “THIEVES CANT”. Some of us being skill in the tools of the trade but not the language decided we should return to WMC and find someone more in the buisness to read further. I have heard there is a birdman who is skilled in many languages maybe he can help. 

We woke up in the morning and headed back towards Blood Eye Encampment to return the War Banner. We encountered a strangfe fellow who was harvesting herbs in the plains, but also wanted some information.He told us his name was Rodgers and we offered to help if we could. He asked about that strange man from the Cave who spoke slyvan and ran away. We told him where we saw him and that he was with the gnolls, but ran after he was wounded. He rewarded our info with some herbs and told us the mans name is Mikhail “Miracle” Johnson. He also warned us he enjoys messing with people and is very smart about retreating. 

Ferenzi and Khiron were both pleased and it seems the AFK relations with the centaurs is positive for now at least with the Wisehoof Clan.