AERUNEDAR and Beyond

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode X Ooltugula’s Portal part 4

from the journal of Velm Trueforger

From the darkness came Nightscale, who unlike the wild elf was completely at home in the water. Her great jaws clamped down on Saeita, and pain ripped through her. Claws raked in on either side; her breath clamored at the walls of her lungs. She could not see any sign whatsoever of Bronn, but she knew that to stay was death, and she made the only choice she had left. A second later she was with us, soaked and bloody.

She recounted what had happened, and before we could decide what to do next a hissing voice reached our ears from the direction of the river: “This isn’t over…” The very same words Bronn had shouted at her during the battle of Arglarllur Bridge.

“Nightscale,” said Van.

Roman Gemalee drew his bastard sword Swift. “What do we do?”

“We draw her out. In the river she’ll tear us to pieces.” Van nocked an arrow and gazed off toward the river in grim determination.

“She’ll tear us to pieces out here,” Cara replied, clutching Hathos’ drum.

“But out here we at least have a chance of doing the same to her,” said Van. He brought out the sack which still held the head of Yss-Fara, the troglodyte king in whose veins black dragon blood flowed. “A slight chance.”

We moved closer, and tied the head upon the dock in full view of Nightscale. Retreating a good fifty feet from the river’s edge, we readied our weapons.

“Nightscale,” Van shouted, “show yourself! We’ve killed your spawn and we’ll kill you as well!”

The rest of us chimed in, lost for a few moments in the joy of taunting certain death, freed from fretting. Then Nightscale emerged from the river, inspecting the severed head of her offspring with yellow eyes the size of torch flames. We fell silent.

“You have chosen death,” she hissed, and charged forward in a storm of buffeting wings and slashing claws.

In a moment Roman was snatched into her maw, the life crushed from him as he struck out with his sword. Van launched arrows, Saeita and I moved in to land a few blows, and Cara inspired our hearts to battle with the beat of the drum. But Nightscale flapped her batlike wings and soared back, landing in the river with a great splash, taking Roman with her.

There was no time for plans, only for Van to call out, “Be ready!” Nightscale emerged once again, this time coming straight toward me.

Everything vanished except for those two yellow eyes and great scaly darkness rushing at me. I raised samryn, ready to strike, but found myself clamped in those jaws of death. Pain flooded from my every pore.

Arrows soared from Van’s bow and found their mark; a keening cry of pain warbled past me and the dagger teeth embedded in my flesh and grinding against my bones. Through the haze of my own agony, I realize that now it is Nightscale who gives voice to pain. She makes her way back toward the river, carrying me with her. I know that I will die in those dark depths.

I called upon the strength of Clangeddin, and with a shout I pressed upon Nightscale’s jaws, intent on breaking open her deathgrip. The river’s edge grew closer. A bellow of pure suffering erupted from my mouth, and in that second the dragon’s grip slackened. I fell free.

And before she could escape, I swung my axe again and again into her writhing bulk. Saeita landed fist after fist, and many of Van’s arrows protruded from the scaly hide. A huge acrid exhalation roiled from her lungs, and there on the banks of the River of Slaughters Nightscale died.

We healed what wounds we could and piled into one of the longboats. The calm and dark river bore us downstream with cool insistence. No one spoke; we had discovered the acid-scarred bones of Roman and Bronn in the gullet of the beast.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode X Ooltugula’s Portal part 5

from the journal of Velm Trueforger


When I regained some sense of my surroundings, we were slipping quietly into a huge chamber just off the river–the former lair of Glamerdrung. Submerged at a depth of nearly thirty feet were strewn the riches of Aerunedar, looted by the Coil two hundred years ago. And perched atop an outcropping of stone was an enormous ziggurat decorated with shiny green mosaics–it was constructed in the shape of a titanic coiled snake, with a fanged maw open and inviting at the apex.

We moored the boat and climbed the steps. Within the snake’s mouth, a staircase corkscrewed down into the ziggurat, and descended beneath. Soon we found ourselves in an octagonal chamber inscribed with many runes, six levers upon the walls, and a pewter post at the center. In the top of the post was a space that seemed designed for the strange disk we had taken with the treasures of Selûne’s temple.

With the bronze disk in place, coruscating energies passed through the walls of the chamber. Before long we surmised, with Van’s prodding, that the picture on the disk itself was the key to pulling the levers in their correct order. When we had done so there was a flash of light, and a feeling of emptiness beneath the feet, and the lurch that hits one’s guts when falling from a great height. But we found ourselves standing in a nearly identical room. But this one had no pewter post; the disk clanged to the floor.

We moved down a tunnel, and found ourselves in a huge limestone cavern. A massive stone bridge had once spanned this cataract, but now the center of the span was collapsed into a small stream below. At the other end stood a forbidding portal carved from white marble.

At that moment we clearly heard Lady Tessaril Winter’s voice. “Well met,” she said pleasantly, “Meerschaulk will soon be free. Even if you win through to the end of the path you have begun…you will have lost. Can’t we talk about this, as we used to?” Van gave us a warning as he shook off the effects of charm magic.

Then she appeared, across the broken span. Her face was very much like that of Tessaril Winter, but where she had once had the fair and smooth skin of a Cormyrian noble, she now had grayish-green scales. Where she once had blonde hair as fine as spun flax, there now writhed and snapped a mass of hissing snakes. Where once she had a pair of shapely legs, her body now stretched into the form of a massive constrictor snake.

“You knew me as Lady Winter,” she hissed, “but my slaves call me Ooltugula. I must congratulate you for sparking the liberation of Eveningstar…be sure to hold close that pride as you perish.” From her snaky shortbow she fired volley after volley of poisoned arrows.

Saeita rushed forward to leap the gap, and with a gravelly crackle turned to solid stone before our eyes. Only Van, Caramip and myself remained. I hurled javelins across the gap, and Van’s arrows flew to the mark with stunning precision. We were no longer novices to be manipulated of disposed of at Lady Winter’s leisure. We were Selûne’s Champions.

Only now did she realize that it had been a fatal miscalculation to face us like this, even though only half of our number remained. A warbling cry of despair escaped her, and as she turned to flee through the portal Van felled her with a final shot from Stonegroan, the strongbow we had taken from Moradin’s Fane.

“Let’s go,” Van said, and I saw before me not the white-haired seventeen year-old who had begged to accompany me two months ago, but a hardened warrior. I knew then that I would follow him into the jaws of ten dragons if he but asked.

We climbed down one side of the fallen bridge, and up the other, and opened the marble portal.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode X Ooltugula’s Portal part 6

from the journal of Velm Trueforger

Within was the last chamber, its walls covered with green and scaly mosaics, pillars like trees rising to a ceiling covered with bas relief branches, and carvings of hideous snakes and serpent-like creatures. A foul stench, like spoiled incense, drifted in the air. Treasures and objects of art were strewn all about. Directly across the room stood a huge looking glass.

Cara crept across the silent chamber and peered into the mirror. The surface rippled like water. Instead of her own reflection, she saw a huge chamber. A giant marilith demon, each of her six arms bound by a bronze manacle and heavy chain, glowered at Cara in smoldering rage. It was Meerschaulk herself, waiting for the freedom the Sons of the Coil had promised long ago. Freedom that needed our blood to baptize.

In a burst of smoke and stinking brimstone, a hideous creature appeared in our midst, surrounded by mirror images of itself. It had the squawking head of a twisted and infernal vulture, massive black wings, and puckered skin that gave off a cloud of abyssal spores. Van and I launched into combat, while Cara crept close enough to bestow healing magics on us if we needed them.

Though the spores hooked into our skin and grew, bringing blinding pain, we fought as scions of Selûne should: with skill and valor. For the first time in our short careers, the enemy had no good luck, and blow after blow from its hooked claws and beak went astray, while nearly every one of ours struck true. The demon sank to the floor and dissolved into stinking greenish smoke, and was gone.

Beyond the mirror, Meerschaulk’s face contorted in rage. She stared at each of us, never to forget the faces of those who denied her freedom. Van strode forward and drew out the snake-killing rapier he had dubbed Ssslasher, and swung it in one titanic blow against the face of the magic portal shaped like a looking glass.

KA-CRASHHHH!!! Van was thrown from his feet. The surface of the mirror exploded in jagged cracks and fell smashed, and all that was left of Ssslasher was a burned and melted stub. The cry of Meerschaulk faded away into silence.

Then the room began to tremble. Cracks ran across the floor. Scooping up what items of worth we could, we fled through the marble portal.

Out in the limestone cavern, great chunks of rock were falling from the ceiling to smash into the floor below. Barely keeping our feet, we scaled the other side of the bridge and I hefted the dead weight of Saeita’s petrified form.

“I’ve got her, “ I cried. “Go!”

Somehow we climbed the staircase to the top of the ziggurat, and as we descended toward the longboat a great lurch went through the steps. We all tumbled to the bottom, breaking off one of Saeita’s stony arms. No time to lament. Cara snatched up the arm and we all piled into the longboat, just in time to witness the ziggurat sinking, sinking, and abruptly plunging into the limestone cavern below with a roar of stone and water.

“Plant the poles!” Van shouted. The water filling Glamerdrung’s lair swirled into a momentary vortex as it followed the ziggurat down into the depths, sealing forever the portal to Meerschaulk’s other-dimensional prison. We managed to hold back the longboat as the water level crept steadily down the cavern walls.

Finally the boat came to rest upon the floor of the cavern, propped unsteadily upon tons and tons of treasure and coin. I looked upon the riches of Aerunedar, the statue in the shape of Saeita, Van and Cara looking pale and stricken. I thought of Bronn and Roman’s souls speeding toward their rest and wished them well.

And I thanked Clangeddin for guiding us. And Selûne too.

After two hundred years, Aerunedar was open to the dwarves again.
*** *** ***

Of course, we returned to Eveningstar with what coin and treasure we could manage, and it amounted to quite a fortune. Not that you’re interested in hearing such boasts. It was enough, at least, to allow me to build a small keep where the southeast gatehouse enters Aerunedar. Enough to establish a school of wizardry in Bronn’s honor and memory: the Spellforge. But first, I’ll lay Bronn Spellforger to rest in the Crystal caverns near our home at Thunderstone, as he wished. He is with Mystra now. Once my people have restored Saeita Neví, I’ll see that she returns to you.

And as for me? There is still work for the dwarves who would see Aerunedar rise to its former glory, and no living dwarf has seen more of that place than me. So I will return to Eveningstar, and I will join my Uncle Dorn and his Doomslayers for another trek into the reaches below.

To all you Champions of Selûne, I wish you luck. The rest of the world awaits your swords, and your will, and your wisdom. Do not forsake their need. The Eyes of the Moon and the Blade of the Axefather go with you, gladly.

Velm
Blood of Nor
Clan Trueforger
The Year of Wild Magic
1372 DR

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode XI A Winter in Eveningstar

As the first snows of winter fell on the town of Eveningstar, the Champions of Selune split apart. Velm was off to Thunderstone to lay Bronn to rest with the his kin, and then struck out to build a keep to protect Aerunedar, and the Spellforge, a college of magic in memory of his brother.

Sadly the priests could not re-animate the body of Saeita, and she was palced as a statue in the halls of Aerunedar as a tribute to its reclaimation.

As the snows began to clear, Van had returned from a pilgrimage to find Lordmage Ironcrest waiting for him. The new lord of Eveningstar needed Van's help to solve a mystery. It seemed that wild elves were attacking villagers deep within the Halluck forest. Van was charged to move east through Arabel to the forest and report back when he had solved this mystery.

Van needed help and he could not find any of his old companions, so he went to the local tavern to enlist talented adventurers in his quest. The inn was vacant though, with no merchants having entered the city yet. The inn keeper told him about a strange southerner staying on Old Teller's farm. Van set out to meet this stranger.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode XI A Winter in Eveningstar part 2

from On Sneaking and Spell Casting by Aoth Sepret

I was born in Mulhorand to a poor merchant by the name of Chathi Sepret, and my father was her husband, Mumed. I had two older brothers and they were the light in my father's eyes. He lavished them with gifts and praise. They were to be his successors, and per Mulhorundi law the third son is not entitled to receive inheritance. Instead of risking the money to raise me, they took the easy way out and left me with the clerics of Thoth is Skuld.

I received a better education from theses kindhearted clerics than I would have in my parent’s household. They taught me the basics of magic and the tenets of their faith, which I picked up. To this day every spell I cast was a prayer to Thoth. My childhood was spent in this educational environment, and I learned a great deal. I also was given the pleasure of traveling between Skuld and the great city of Gheldaneth. Gheldaneth is the center of learning in Mulhorund and the location of the main temple to Thoth. I spent approximately half of each year from the time I was three until I turned fifteen in this great city.

When I turned fifteen the priests recognized that I had amazingly fast hands, and started to use me to infiltrate the cults of the interloper god, Mask. I grew to hate this god more than I loved my own. For a year my days were spent sleeping and my nights were devoted to breaking into buildings and listening to conversations.

The next year brought a profound change in my life. I was enlisted as a scout for the army as they invaded Unther. After a few months I left the army and borded a ship bound for Sembia. I had seen enough war and I grew sick of seeing slaves forced to fight and die for their captors.

In Sembia I took a job as a scout for a merchant who ran goods into Cormyr. One day we were taking a load to Eveningstar when the caravan was attacked and my employer killed. I was out scouting when the attack came. When I returned to the caravan it was in flames. I took what little I could salvage and looked for a place to stay. I came upon a farmhouse and the owner was kind enough to lodge me for the night. The next day it snowed. I had never seen snow before and it frightened me. We do not have such things in my homeland. I ended up renting one of the farmer’s sheds for the winter. I spent my days reading my spellbook and practicing incantations that I knew.

The snows eventually cleared and a young man with white hair came knocking on my door. He asked me if I would be interested in scouting for him on a quest. The following weeks would change my life…

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
----Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Episode XII Promises to Keep

Characters: Aoth Sepret (human Rgr 1/Rog 3/Wiz 3), Kaemris Tencoin (human Clr 6/Aus 1), Lenet cor Tarak (genasi Ftr 3/Sor 3), Van Dyksun (human Rgr 3/Rog 2/Clr 2)

from the journal of Kaemris Tencoin

16th of Ches, 1373 DR, Year of Rogue Dragons

Strange and wonderful things have always happened at the Fortunate Minotaur. Take today’s events for example:

As soon as the pair of travelers entered my taproom, I took interest in them. They claimed that they were seeking traveling swordarms for a journey into the forests east of Arabel.

Yet they looked more like a pair of boys. An unlikely pair, at that.

Boys who’d had their share of battles, of course–each bore a few blade scars–but for all that still young men. I put the polite and gangly white-haired archer at eighteen, and the other at just that or slightly less, perhaps seventeen. He was a forthright Southron with skin the color of rich tea and concentric circles etched into his forehead.

They took a table and ordered–as I recall–the mutton, with ale. The white-hair, who said his name was Van Dyksun, made it plain that he was touched by Selûne’s grace. He bore the crescent and Tear on a fine silver chain round his neck.

The other introduced himself as Aoth Sepret, the first part of which is pronounced like “Out.” He is Mulhorandi. Curious. They stayed for hours and hours by the hearth, drinking ale. They drank, and I drank with them from time to time, until finally Van commenced to speak about what he called their “mission.”

“We’re on a mission,” explained the white-hair amiably, “and we’re on an adventure to Hullack Forest.”

“An adventure, is it?”

“Well, that is…we’re keeping it under our hats.”

“Ah. A secret mission then. With what aim?”

“To put an end to these caravan raids. They say wild elves are to blame.”

Amazing! Two weeks ago the genasi, Lenet cor Tarak, arrives, and now this.

When they discovered my devotion to the Lady Who Smiles they urged me to join them. I protested that I was only an innkeeper, and had no interest in running pell-mell across the countryside, but no amount of excuses could deter them.

Finally I agreed that when morning came I would go with them. Even if it is just to see to their safety I’ll join them, but I admit I am also curious to know if wild elves are to blame. Whenever I have met them in my travels, the green elves have been shy, perhaps a little skittish at times, but never violent. Something is definitely amiss.

I told them that we’d also be taking Lenet along. She is the tiefling I mentioned earlier: a fire genasi from the Lake of Steam. She was, I told them, staying in this very inn. She seemed a competent warrior, with the strong scent of the arcane about her, her hair always wind-blown despite the stillness of the air. “Now isn’t that lucky?” I asked them.

Well, you’ll want to know something about me, I suppose, since this journal is, after all, a record of my journey to Hullack Forest. I am Kaemris Tencoin, of the Tencoins of Arabel, son of Danaan. Although I have traveled the lands all around Arabel–and fought the Grodd army at Hangman’s Court during the Ghazneth War–I am currently an innkeeper, helping my father, mother and sisters to run our family inn, the Fortunate Minotaur.

Recently I was inducted into the diplomatic and military Order of Auspicians, but only after I was lucky (and hearty) enough to survive the test of Tyche’s Blood. The poisonous draught sickened me for a night and a day, but it did not kill. By the Lady’s grace, of course.

Danaan Tencoin is prone to long silences these days, and is frequently away at Immersea bartering for supplies in the lake markets. This is particularly difficult time for my father–we heard recently that my Uncle Ulodrin was killed in the Haunted Halls last summer. Ulodrin was a traveling cleric of Tymora, like me, and my family is unlikely to take the news well that I am once again setting off on my own journey.

Selûne is waning…it will be dark on the trail. I sleep with Tymora’s grace within me.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode XII Promises to Keep part 2

from the journal of Kaemris Tencoin

17th of Ches

We set out on horseback this morning: Aoth, Lenet, Van and myself.

My mother sobbed, and my father just wished me all the luck in Tymora’s Chalice and turned away. My sisters, accustomed only to the drudgery of running an inn, watched me go with joyful smiles and tears streaming down their cheeks. It was difficult to tell if they were more saddened or envious at my leaving.

We’ve been riding a full day, but not yet reached Hullack. My companions were impressed with my fashionable Cloak’s ability to produce food and sugared tea, I must say, and even more impressed when the miraculous garment shook out into a one-person tent at dusk. Truly my most prized possession, it is.

We set turns and begin a long, chilly spring night’s rest. I’m resting in the tent as I write, but I’ll have to turn down the lantern and sleep soon. Then the everburning torch will have to keep away the gloom for the rest of the night. Call it a fault, if you will, but I can’t stand the dark. It absolutely knocks the wits out of me; sets my skin to shivering. I sleep now with Tymora’s light in my dreams.

18th of Ches

Around midday we crossed the Immersea River at Selvereth’s Ford. Two stony banks crowded close, spanned by a stout wooden bridge, while a roil of blue water tumbled over the falls just downriver. We took a meal in a shady grove just east of the Immersea, and I listened to starlings quarreling loudly in the boughs of nearby elms.

My companions and I have traveled all through the day, and now that it is twilight and once everyone has had enough of riding we find ourselves a high pasture in which to camp and keep watch over the road. We are camped among pines near the road, which has become little more than a cart track. I’ve gotten to know the others a little better, learning for instance that Aoth left Mulhorand to work as a caravan guard, and that Van was one of Selûne’s Champions, who had only last fall reopened the way to the lost dwarven city of Aerunedar.

I’ve learned that we are agents the Lord Mage Ironcrest of Eveningstar; that he is the impetus behind Van and Aoth’s journey to Arabel, and our journey to Hullack. Tymora’s fortune shall ride beside us.

19th of Ches

At dusk we reached the fringes of Hullack Forest, and made our way into the trees to make camp. Cloaked and crouching, Aoth crept away and fairly vanished into the shadows. We waited astride our horses in the thickening twilight, breathing in brisk white puffs.

Aoth appeared at our side. “Spiders,” he said, “and webs.” He poked a thumb in the direction from which he had sneaked.

We could have moved on, got out of there quick–but we all paused too long. We looked around at each other, questioning, while the moment of leaving crept away, and it seemed to me as if we had all arrived at the same conclusion without speaking a word: we weren’t going to let a few arachnids get between us and our mission.

They came scuttling out of the pines: great hairy black and brown spiders with colorful markings. They struck me as more of a nuisance than a real threat, but our group tactics could use some work. Must remember to work on that with my companions.

Van’s bow, Stonegroan, sent deadly arrows to the eight-legged mark. Lenet and Aoth moved to hack at the spiders with blades, while I summoned a spirit of the earth from a nearby hillside. At the price of a few painful stings, we crushed the spiders in short order.

In the webs, we found a very large cocoon. Driven by morbid curiosity, I suppose, we sliced it free and caused it to burst open. Liquified flesh, bones and a few random coins spilled out the unfortunate creature. Quite repulsive, truthfully. I say creature, because I wasn't sure it was humanoid; the bones were elongated and almost birdlike–perhaps those of a wild elf. A clue…or an omen? Tymora is inscrutable in this. Perhaps tomorrow I will petition more forcefully to know what our fate might hold…

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode XII Promises to Keep part 3

from the journal of Kaemris Tencoin

20th of Ches

These woods are unnaturally still. No more bird songs or chattering squirrels. We have seen no deer or bears, no elk or even field mice. I flew up above the canopy of trees to look for landmarks, and thought I spied a wide hill in the distance, an enormous stony horse etched into its grassy slope.

Later we discovered a caravan cart, and the decaying bodies of those who accompanied it. A terrible scene of destruction. We tended to burials and blessings as efficiently as possible, and began a thorough search of the area.

Tracks were few in number, almost nonexistent. It was as though the forest itself had fired the arrows that stuck out of the bodies, one in each, all of them killed with precision. The horses were all gone. In fact, nothing had been taken from the caravan cart but food. The rest of the goods–some of them quite valuable–were untouched. If the wild elves are starving, then their rampage begins to make more sense. But what could anger them enough to bring on slaughters like this one? I don’t understand.

Once we had surveyed the situation, I attempted to divine what action we might take to track down and locate the assailants responsible. Still the Lady gives no answer. We place ourselves in fate’s hands, and trust to the Luck of the Lady. It is all we can do.

21st of Ches

I write this entry with a heavy heart, at the farmhouse of Tarbee, the man who was kind enough to invite us into his home on this dark and miserable night. It was misty and dripping, cold and utterly silent, for the entire journey today. Then things grew worse.

We were surprised to find a halfling sprinting toward us, screaming in terror, “He’s after me! He’s after me! Don’t let him kill me, please!”

An armored horseman thundered into view, flickering like eldritch mist, looming like a black cloud over the Tallfellow’s shoulder. It raised a sword, coming forward much faster than we could reach the poor halfling and save his life. With a choked squeak the small one collapsed under the falling blade.

On it came, the insubstantial and yet all-too-solid horseman. I commanded it, in Tymora’s name, to flee this place and never again return to plague my sight. It was, shall we say, completely unimpressed. Van and Aoth moved to fight the grim visage, but it reared and fled.

I conjured a spirit of fire to cut off escape, and we ran to stop the fleeing highwayman, but he sped away on rapid hoofbeats. The dead halfling lay crumpled in the mud, pockets full of acorns.

Just around the bend we found two more corpses, and a cart filled with empty food sacks. Curiouser still.

I intone a prayer to Our Smiling Lady, humbly requesting a sparrow who could deliver a message to Eveningstar. It took quite a long time, much longer than usual, for the tiny brown bird to arrive. When it did I tied a message to its leg:

Lord Mage Ironcrest,

Terrible events have overtaken Hullack Forest
Famine plagues the land
Please send what relief you can.

Yours truly,
Kaemris Tencoin, Journeyman of the Order of Auspicians
companion to Aoth Spret, Lenet cor Tarak, and Van Dyksun.

I will patiently and faithfully await a reply.

From the sound of it, Van Dyksun and Tanasha, the farmer’s malnourished yet ravishing daughter, have finished their dalliance for this evening. Ah…young love. In the midst of misfortune it lives on. I think I will keep the lamp lit tonight; best to be safe in a strange farmhouse. By Tymora’s grace.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

Episode XII Promises to Keep part 4

from the journal of Kaemris Tencoin

22nd of Ches

This morning I spoke to the dead halfling. He could tell me nothing of the horseman or the wild elves that we do not already know. And the acorns in his pocket were only meant to be food. That eliminates entire hierarchies of theories regarding the seeming curse that has fallen over Hullack, driving away wild game and shriveling Tarbee’s crops.

We departed Tarbee’s house early, with the intact caravan carts in tow, headed for the village of Ossington. The weather is still wet and cold, an oppressive mist filling the valleys and groves of the forest.

Along the way we discovered a ring of stones just off the road, which we later learned was called The Chapel. Each of the stones was devoted to a god, nine in all, including Silvanus, Kelemvor, Mielikki, Selûne, and Tymora herself: all the neutral gods of travelers and forests. A woman called Henwen, who has madness shining in her black eyes and wields some sort of necromantic staff, acts as caretaker. We could make little of her mad pronouncements, but I fear we will have to return there at some point.

And now, although I am loathe to do it, I must recount the ambush we suffered at Ossington. The village itself is surrounded by standing stones (ninety-one in an outer circle, standing 30 feet high) and twenty-eight in the inner circle (each 20 feet tall). There are three "trilithons" in the center of the inner circle, each made of two 30-foot-tall uprights with a lintel-stone bridging the dozen or so feet between them. The stones have something carved into them, but we have not yet deciphered the script, to my knowledge.

We were met by the starving and pitiful villagers of Ossington. They begged us for food, but we had little to offer. Elder Murdows identified the bodies and the carts we drew into town, and told us more about their misfortune, and their hunger. The villagers were unable to till the soil because of the continuing attacks by elves and the horseman. A local bard called the Cuckoo strummed a few mournful chords on his lute.

About the mysterious horseman: Murdows said that when he first rode into Ossington, he seemed as real as I, and the villagers welcomed him. He was visiting the five ancient ruins of this area (The Chapel (tended by Mad Henwen), the Circles (which surround the village of Ossington), the Secret Keepers, the Old Barrow, and the Red Horse). But when the horseman reappeared, he simply silently and swiftly attacked the surprised townfolk.

It happened so quickly, we hardly knew how to react.

A single arrow buried itself in Elder Murdow’s heart. He collapsed with shocked eyes, and an enormous owl swept into the courtyard, along with other birds, to attack. Villagers and their children screamed and ran pell-mell about the courtyard. With arrows and crossbows we drove off the birds and dispelled the summoned owl, causing a villager held in its claws to fall to his death. A death which weighs heavily with me, since I was more or less the cause.

The Cuckoo finished strumming his lute with a final haunting chord, having spent the entire time inspiring us to greater effort with his song.

There was something very wrong with how we handled the situation; by killing and driving off forest creatures, we may have done irreparable harm to our chances a reaching a diplomatic solution for this clash between wild elves and humans. We will see what develops on that front.

The peasants, who had before been standing in the open, were now cowering in their doorways, their eyes pleading with us from afar for food. We met Dyson and Tully then, a pair of semi-retired adventurers wounded from recent battles with the horseman. They claim that the horseman is allied with the wild elves, who mean to eliminate Ossington.

Something tells me that were we to ask them, the wild elves would claim that Ossington is in league with the horseman, and together they have conspired to chase away all the creatures of the forest. The elves, no doubt, believe they are fighting for their very lives and ancestral home. In short, whatever curse has befallen this forest has caused a tragic misunderstanding between two peoples.

The horseman holds the answer, along with those five places Elder Murdows spoke of. We continue our search tomorrow morning. For now, I must brighten the room with magical torchlight and sleep. We will discover answers to this riddle tomorrow, by Tymora’s grace.

 

[Mahiro Satsu]

“My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the Year.”
--Robert Frost: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Episode XIII Into the Woods

Characters: Aoth Sepret (human Rgr 1/Rog 3/Wiz 3), Artemus Thornwind (Human Drd 7), Kaemris “Danger” Tencoin (human Clr 6/Aus 1), Lenet cor Tarak (genasi Ftr 3/Sor 3), Van Dyksun (human Rgr 3/Rog 2/Clr 2)

From the Journal of Aoth Sepret

23rd of Ches, Year of Rogue Dragons

We have decided to look for the wild elves that we suspect ambushed the village yesterday. I wish to find them and enact justice upon theses murderous savages, but Kaemris has cautioned me about jumping to conclusions. Sadly we have no definitive clues as to their whereabouts. All we know is that they live to the west of Ossington. Arrangements were made for our horses to be guarded by Tully and Dyson while we were not in the village; they warned us to return soon else they be eaten by the starving villagers.

A few hours before noon, the party set out in a west-by-north-westerly direction through the woods. I assumed my position half a dozen paces in front of the party. I enjoy the solitude I have at the point position, and I know my stealth keeps me protected much better than the company of my noisy companions. The woods we then walked through were tamer, almost reasonable, and I began to doubt our leader’s decision to leave the horses in town. The quiet was deafening, however; not a creature stirred, nor bird twittered in the branches above us. Ever since entering this forest some days ago, I have not seen or heard the presence of another living creature. Sometimes I fear that I have come to the end of the earth, and the hells lay beyond the next tree line.

The silence was broken an hour into our trek, when the thunderous sound of hoof beats was heard, approaching quickly. A fear of unnatural power descended upon us and I attempted to flee into the woods. I do not remember much for the next few moments, just the desire to put as much distance between me and that sound as soon as humanly possible. The following description is based on the tale my companions spun around the campfire that night.

After I fled into the woods, Van spotted the source of the noise. Beyond the closest trees came the specter of the Horseman atop his demon steed. With the sound of stone on stone, Van put his mighty bow, Stonegroan, to work by placing two arrows into the phantom. Kaemris called upon his goddess to calm Lenet, who was also taken by the horror. “Do not fear, for Tymora protects us,” he told her, and she became calm again. As the horseman closed upon them, Van continued to put Stonegroan to work and Kaemris said a prayer to his goddess. Lent lunged forward, drawing her sword, but the horseman charged past her trying to end the painful stings of Van’s bow. The demon steed’s hooves smashed into Vans head as he retreated, dropping his bow and brandishing his sword. Kaemris remained cool headed and struck flint on steel to call forth a fire elemental. The horse’s hooves continued to rain down on Van, but he managed to strike a mighty blow against the rider, dissipating the otherworldly being.

Then the ground underneath the horse exploded with twisting vines that entangled its legs. Now on fire from the elemental’s flames and held by the mysterious vines, the horse panicked and tried to flee. Van’s swordarm, having felled its rider, now cut at the beast. A ball of flame appeared underneath the horse scorching it further. Hemmed in by flame and steel, the horse, fueled by fear, broke free of its bonds and fled, while the hunter now became the hunted. Seeking escape, the horse's hoof sank through Kaemris who said afterwards that it felt as if a corruption had tugged at his soul.

Around this time I came to my senses. I was not far from the fighting; I could hear Kaemris shrieking not far away. But I was in the middle of about fifty dead elves, a massacre site. I couldn't spend time looking at this, running to aid my companions, following the sound of Kaemris’s voice. I let fly an arrow from my longbow when I could see the melee, but I do not know if I hit or not. From my niche I could see the burning horse with Van and Lenet swinging their swords, each strike passing through the insubstantial horse. Kaemris began to swell in size, apparently fueled by divine power. But the horse succumbed to the flames in the end, I suppose, for it disappeared.

The source of the mysterious undergrowth and the flaming sphere emerged from the undergrowth a moment later. His name was Artemus Thornwind, and he was a Druid of the northern god Silvanus. Turns out that he was studying plants on the outskirts of the forest when he saw a sparrow fly past. Having not seen a living creature in a few days he called to it and learned of our mission, for it was the sparrow that was to give Lord Ironcrest Kaemris’s message. Artemus desires to return the forest to its natural order, and believes that we can help him. He has seen a number of devious traps about the forest and has identified them as the work of wild elves. I realized I would have to be careful to help my friends avoid these inconveniences.

I directed the party to the site of the massacre. My initial assumption that they were elves cannot be confirmed; the bodies are too far rotted. We searched the bodies for a time looking for clues, but found none. Van, who was searching the perimeter, could not find any tracks. This is not surprising for the bodies have been here for weeks and it rained a few days ago.

(Reader’s note: the following four pages are filled with notes about the placement of bodies, diagrams of the site, and hypotheses on escape avenues. All of it is over technical and quite boring. We have left them out for your reading enjoyment.)

We finished our investigation and I climbed a tree looking for landmarks so we could gauge our progress. I saw a squirrel creature with cat ears on my way up the tree and called out to my friends, "A living thing!" Sadly, it ran, hopping from branch to branch at the sound of my voice. In the distance, approximately three miles away, I could see the site known as red horse hill, its clay surface easily visible from my high perch. About half a mile away I saw a structure. I looked as if trees had been bent over to create a home of sorts. Thinking it may be a part of the Grugach community we set out for it.