Nalkris meet up with old friends, Khora and Oogway, and with some new friends, Piper, Snoog and Reb
Reb is a tired old man, but says we can rely on him to take the blows in the front, hitting them back hard with his sword
Khora, as usual the blueskinned merfolk girl with armor made of bone, has her new mechanical pup with her.
Piper clad in leather and carrying many blades “Is going out on adventure with her sister” (who is that?)
Oogway is still a skinny kid and always ready
Snog is a heavy figure of an orc and greeted us all with a grunt
Jerrick, one of the majors henchman had come down, looking for a group of adventures to go and search out a disturbance to the north, that was reported to him by a peasant from up there.
Oogway voluntereed to be our scout for food, and I’d keep watch for incoming danger, and Khora reluctantly agreed to lead group, insisting on keeping Piper as her second in command.
Jerrick further instructed there had been a black mist up there and someone had even seen an undead coming out the mist.
On further questions, he said the description matched the lesser undead of a Zombie, so we heroically set forth to rid the world of this wrongful existance.
We travelled up the north, making camp at the evening up on a little hill with a 2 feet high stone wall around it, an unfinished fortification someone had built in a time long passed, but it worked fine for a good fortification for us for the night.
Oogway and Khora went foraging and hunting, and caught a rabbit and found some mushrooms for us, but Reb managed to burn the rabbit over the fire, but no big deal, I had already eaten a ration, as my stomach had started rumbling before we finished setting up camp
In the night I had watch with Reb and shortly into it, we heard the sound of some creature dropping what sounded like pots and pans a bit away, but out of sight.
Piper suggested a prayer of thanks in the morning and wanted me, as a holy man, to lead it, so I lead a prayer to our Queen.
“Almighty Raven Queen, whomst guard over life and death, seperating the realms of existance, keeping undeath at bay to spare the living and breathing, thank you for the blessing of a unmolested night of sleep, we humbly continue serving your purpose, as well as our mortal coils allow, to take us into your embrace upon death. Amen.”
– Prayed said by me that morning
We meet 2 hobgoblin merchant, or mercenaries, travelling and guarding to old ladies with an broken down cart on the road, and they warned us of an uprooted tree blocking the road a bit further on.
We went to investigate and it was indeed bandits blocking the road, and we only saw one, trying to teach him a lesson, another was discovered and as we was attacking them, a bunch of small stone creatures came out of nowhere and was trying to hit us with electric jolts, one hit me, and it hurt. I heard Snoog dismiss one jolt as tickling, but I think it was painful.
Avarace helped me and I started striking them with the tip of my dagger, as 5 of them was surrounding me, horrible vile little creatures.
Found strongbox that had the creatures in it earlier, with elven writing on box saying “elemental core” and parchment inside, but the message was cut off abruptly:
“Safeguard these cores they are worth several thousand gold each, the command word it obbit to activate and stobbit to deactivate them. make sure they reach..”
The recoverable text on the parchment in Elvish
The one bandit that survived and we took prisoner, informed us that his friend Frank was the one with the idea to attack us and he was now sorry and regretted going along with it, and was scared to go back to Ruined Oak where they hailed from, because the boss man who Frank owed money would maybe take a finger or toe of him.
Frank was the one who found the box.
We let him go, with a goodberry, 5 copper and a days ration for the road, making sure he was able to fend for himself, and a earfull of advice for how to live his life from now on and to run if he encountered danger on the road, and then we let him head to White Moon Cove.
We almost reached the point where the black mist should be when light faded on the 2nd day
During the evening, we feasted on a mighty boar captured by Ooogway and Snoog, and it was delicious and filling.
The night passed uneventful except for distance thundering in the middle of the night, fortunately the rains even passed us and we didnt get soaked.
Next day we almost immediately found the black mist we heard about, rising a few feet up, not really obscuring the area, almost looked like the smoke left by a smoke, and we continued approached, and we noticed a trail leading up to a small rise.
Inside, by a small little stream of water, we found a stone alter, around it was 4 zombies and on the alter was 4 humanoid shapes seemingly trapped in a web like a spider web. We quickly started dispatching the zombies, and out from the web-cocoons, emerged some ghoulish creatures, breaking free as we got on the alter, the webbing fading away and started looking at us with drool dripping from their dirty foul jaws.
During the battle, Khora and Oogway got heavily wounded and paralyzed and an acolyte appeared to try to stop us as well, but we emerged victorious without the loss of any comrades.
Searching through them, we found a pouch on the acolyte, containing coin and spell components and a note
“Hold the Alter til I return. I have left enough servants so there is no excuse, Death is the reward for failure. I will return when I know more about Headiki’s secret.”
Signed by Tsaran
Piper informed me there is a rumor Realla has been mistaken for a demon, which is ironic as she is not from a family of demonic blood.
Snoog was able, during a short rest we took to recover afterwards, to tell that this used to be a religious site, and found on the center dias, a kinda marred symbol, which used to be a symbol to Lathander, but someone had obviously tried to deface it.
We found tracks from someone perhaps invisible sneaking away and found another pouch, as we searched for tracks. I could not read the new note, as the language was unfamiliar to me, but nobody else could read it either, so we took it with us back to town in Khora’s bag
Saw lights during my watch, and had Avarace check out the approaching lights, and it looked like a bunch of farmers carrying pitforks and torches. I approached, had Avarace sit by Snoog while I did, so he could peek him and wake him, should this turn hostile.
The lead farmer introduced himself as Hortoker. He was leading a bunch of villagers to go deal with the undead problem and they all became very reliefed and filled with joy hearing we had taken care of the problem.
They couldnt take the hardshiops their families was facing and had not heard from Asker whom they had sent to White Moon Cove.
Told them how Jerrick had taken the request serious and they need not worry. They happily turned around and returned home to be safe, many of them looked like they had not wanted to go out in the first place
Hortoker came with a bunch of villagers Send Asker to White Moon Cove, and now they figured they had to take things into their own hand, hardships on their families.
We continued on and made a stop by the Blood Eye Clan’s camp the next day, and they heard about our actions and was happy with what we had done, and they gave us accommidations and fed us, and we feasted like kings for a short while before returning safely to White Moon Cove.