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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheBard" data-source="post: 50695" data-attributes="member: 2821">Episode 5: Shadow of Delenach Mor, or Zacarra's Third HorseCharacters Ingolf Egilson (Bard 1/Rogue 3) - Keith Martin Aoelif Snorrisdottir (Ranger 1/Fianna 3) - Jess HannaZaccara (Fighter 4) - Jon Hanna Martaine (Rogue 1/Templar 3) - Sean Holland Nicasia Xerecian (Rogue 1/Sorcerer 3) - Laura Holland Time Elapsed: 4/1 — 4/20/495 A.I. Background After their relative triumph's at Arleta's Well, the group decided to act on the Dumbrani Princess' offer as soon as possible, and so elected to journey back to the human city of Tavia for provisions and supplies before heading off to the Dumbrani highlands to try their hand at mountain climbing. The trip back to the city was short and uneventful. Business in the city had slowed with the end of Saint Petronella's feast and fair, and thus there was ample space available at the Bad Pony, where the party once again took up residence.SummaryOver the next few days each member of the group tended to his or her personal business. Aoelif seemed content to spend her time escorting Ingolf about the city and he was happy for the company of his own folk. Ingolf elected to convert some gemstones taken from the athach's lair into coin. As he had no guild connections, the only member of the jeweler's guild present in Tavia wanted to charge him a usurious twenty percent surcharge! Ingolf declined this offer and instead sought out the dekkalfar (dwarf) merchant he'd met on the road weeks earlier, who he'd heard was still in town. This dwarf, Oskar, was happy to exchange some gold coin for Ingolf's gems at a much more agreeable rate of exchange. That done, Ingolf procured himself a horse, as well as a second animal to bear his luggage, (a choice that would prove fortuitous as it turned out) and went about making preparations for a mountain climb somewhere in the Cimbri kingdom of the Dumbrani. Martaine met with Father Photus, the head of the church orphanage, who provided him with a small sleeping cell and an offer of lessons in the Rolgulkan tongue in exchange for Martaine's offer to teach the arts of illumination and calligraphy to some of the orphans. While at the orphanage, Martaine also briefly met Baroness Galla, who was present making a very public gift from the baronial coffers for which Father Photus was deeply grateful. Martaine related tot he good father his need to travel for a fortnight before beginning his classes to which the kindly cleric agreed.Zaccara, by happenstance, encountered the "Lady" Zlata, the ogress consort to Lord Vihar. Cormac, the Cimbri innkeeper, reported that she seemed strangely taken with the scruffy human warrior, and went so far as to buy him a rather pricey bottle of wine. Ingolf noted sourly that he'd not offered to share it, but made no inquiries to Zaccara about the meeting.Nicasia was somewhat scarce during the few days the group was in Tavia, as she seemed to enjoy exploring the town further. She did join the others for dinner with their errant friend Theodorus, who'd not accompanied them into faerie. He was interested to hear the story of the athach's death. For his part, he'd been wined and dined by the Tavian nobility for several days. Everyone, it seemed, was eager for news from the capital, and he had the most recent gossip. He declined the group's offer to join their next foray into faerie but avowed he'd see them all when they returned.Once the spoils of the athach's lair were divided, Zaccara bought a fine horse and the rest of the group made other purchases. Finally, after four nights in the city, the set out for the Dumbrani lands, five adventurous companions and seven animals including Martaine's mule and Ingolf's packhorse. The were bound for a small village known as Phelan in the Dumbrani highlands, not far from the Vale of Thunder and the Rolgulkan border. Phelan was the settlement closest to Delenach Mor, the "Mountain of Lightning" they intended to climb. It wasn't long before they were riding through foothills and even higher mountains as the worked their way deeper into faerie. A few days into the trip Martaine noticed one morning that the crossroads they'd camped near the night before was a crossroads no longer – the path that crossed seemed to have vanished in the night! Although the humans were a tad unnerved by this, Ingolf simply remarked that it must not have been an often used path to have disappeared like that and seemed to think nothing of it. Later that day they came across some barefoot tracks in the mud along the side of the trail. Aoelif identified them as goblin footprints and Martaine suggested the might be escaped slaves. No one in the group had much love of slavery or slavers and this discovery was a bit troubling.Not an hour later, Ingolf spied the glint of metal in the sunshine just over the crest of a large boulder alongside the path. He said simply in a low voice "Ambush" as he turned his mount off the road and into the forest. A voice called out loudly in Rolgulkan, demanding to speak with the group. Ingolf called out telling the voice to speak on. Near the boulder he spied an armored bugbear, largest of goblinkind. The bugbear claimed to be looking for escaped slaves, and Ingolf avowed that he'd seen no sign of them. The bugbear called him a liar, Ingolf called him a dirty slaver bastard, and Zaccara strung his bow while Aoelif drew steel. Martaine tried to translate the exchange for Nicasia and Zaccara's benefit, but only seemed to understand the Rolgulkan word for "bastard." The tone, however, was unmistakable. Zaccara and Ingolf both let fly arrows and moved through the forest towards the would-be ambushers. Aoelif, in proper fianna fashion, just charged towards the closest visible bugbear while Martaine and Nicasia made hasty passes through the air to summon magical aid. Zaccara and Aoelif were the first to meet the enemy, whereupon Aoelif discovered to her dismay that there were a few more of them than first seemed apparent – and the others had crossbows, with which they quickly peppered her with bolts. Wounded but undaunted, she leapt to engage and found herself dueling a sword-wielding slaver atop the boulder from which they'd mean to ambush the group. Zaccara and Martaine quickly joined the fight as well, Martaine slaying stone dead his first opponent with a massive blow from his warhammer. Ingolf and Nicasia peppered any visible targets with arrows and magic. The fighting was intense but brief, and by the time Ingolf dropped his bow and drew sword to engage it was all but over, the survivors having turned tail and run. Their leader tried to do likewise, but Zaccara sprinted after him and slammed into the goblin from behind flinging him to the ground. He quickly surrendered.The slaver lead the group to the remainder of his slave coffle, four pitiful, scrawny goblins. Ingolf gave them a bit of food and their freedom, warning them not to trouble the local Cimbri. The ran off after delivering a few choice kicks to their former captor. After that, the bugbear told them where his loot could be recovered and laughed at Ingolf for having given the keys to his strongbox to the freed goblins. His laugh quickly turned sour when Ingolf demonstrated how little he needed a key to open a lock. Finally they told the bugbear he'd best make tracks back to Rolgulka and turned him loose, though his chances of surviving the trip unarmed and wounded seemed slight.That afternoon, the group finally came across the Cimbri village of Phelan. In exchange for a few silvers they had a hayrick to sleep in and several mugs each of good new beer. Two of the local Cimbri warriors took an interest in their story regarding the slavers and Aoelif joined them to hunt for any others nearby. They found nothing but a few tracks, all headed away from the Dumbrani lands. The locals seemed somewhat amused by the group's stated intention to climb Delenach Mor, and regarded the willow branch story as something of an old wive's tale. They warned the group that the mountain was a dangerous place, closely tied to the Unseelie fae. They also suggested that the group would do well to seek out an elderly bard named Uwen. Local legend claimed he'd once been a famous harper, but had lost his voice many years ago to one of the leanan sidhe (a sort of faerie vampire.) His house could be found near the base of the mountain. The stone the group sought was a bit harder to reach, being well above the tree line. The next morning the group rode through the forest in the direction indicated by the Cimbri. Ingolf was playing a tune on a tin whistle when a low voice from above remarked simply "That was nice." No one in the group could see anyone or anything nearby, until Aoelif noticed that a large spruce at the edge of the clearing seemed to be looking at them. No one was sure what this creature was, exactly, but it admonished them not to cut any living tree in the forest and pointed them towards Uwen's stone hut. Apparently the tree had once enjoyed hearing the old bard play. Uwen's hut, it turned out, was easy to find – but deserted. Of the bard there was no sign, but he'd seemingly left in a hurry, not even bothering to take his meat from off the spit over the fire, which was long since burned out. There was a jagged hole in the thatch roof and Ingolf found a few alchemical reagents in the ruin of the hut's interior. Nicasia examined them and said that it seemed as if he was trying to concoct some sort of antitoxin from locally available herbs. Aoelif examined the jagged hole in the roof but couldn't make much of it, and even the thatch that had been ripped out was missing. She returned to ask the spruce tree if it had seen anything unusual. The old tree offered that a shadow had passed over the forest from time to time, but it had never looked up to see the source. Everyone found this news to be most troubling. Delenach Mor was turning out to be more dangerous than any of them had guessed.The made camp under the eaves of the forest that night. Though it was cold, they made no fire, fearful of what might see it as well as not wanting to anger the strange talking spruce. The pre-dawn light was showing in the east and Ingolf and Zaccara were standing watch together when they both heard an odd thrumming, followed by a leathery snapping noise from above. Before either of them could raise the alarm, the sudden screaming of a terrified horse woke the other sleeping members of the group. Ingolf and Zaccara raced towards the horses in time to see a huge reptilian shape crush one of them to the ground. It was winged and covered in greyish scales, at least 30 feet from its snout to the tip of its serpentine tail, with which it was repeatedly striking the terrified horse. Both man and elf alike froze at the sight, and after a moment the creature rose heavily and with difficulty beat its massive wings, bearing the corpse of the horse – Zaccara's own, they later discovered – into the air. After rounding up the other horses, which took several hours, the group took stock of the situation. It was at least a day's climb to the spewing waterfall where they expected to find the standing stone they sought. The horses might make the trip up, but if the wyvern reappeared, racing pell-mell down the mountainside on the back of a panicked horse did not seem like a good idea to anyone, and the only trained warhorse in the group was Zaccara's – currently wyvern food. As to fighting the beast, they had little desire to do so, though if it came down to it the group did have one potion of Neutralize Poison. Finally the decision was taken to leave the horses below and make haste to finish the errand they'd come for.The climb proved easier than it first seemed to be, and a short distance up the mountain they came across a corpse which seemed likely to be that of Uwen. He'd been stung by the wyvern but had escaped and hidden before he was overcome by the beast's venom. On the body they found a single vial of alchemical antitoxin which they took. Although they kept their eyes skyward much of the day, there was no sign of the wyvern. The waterfall where they expected to find the stone was easy enough to see, and to hear when it couldn't be seen, and late in the day the group finally approached their goal. The water sprung from the side of the mountain and flowed a short distance before plunging off a 40 foot cliff in the first of several falls before it made its way to the valley below. In the middle of the stream was a standing stone and several moss covered and spray-slick stones were set in the stream, making a line from the near bank to the base of the stone. The whole scene fairly proclaimed it's fae origins, and Aoelif and Ingolf realized that it was not a Cimbri site at all, but an Alfar holy place. Ingolf at first tried a little simple magic to touch one of the willow branches they'd brought to the stone, but as soon as he did so there was a crack of lightning above and the spell suddenly ended! Ingolf watched as the rushing water quickly swept the branch over the falls onto the rocks below. Aoelif offered to cross the stones with the bundle of willow wands, and so a rope was made fast around her waist, with the brawny Zaccara anchoring it while Martaine, Nicasia and Ingolf kept a wary watch skywards, with crossbows and slings in hand. Aoelif reached the stone with ease, and noticed the lightning bolt and hammer runes carved into it. She touched each of the 5 remaining willow branches to the rock, and each time she did so there was the crack of lightning in the sky followed by thunder. When she turned to make her way back, though, she slipped and fell into the rushing current. Zaccara leaned back hard on the rope and just at that moment everyone heard the same low thrumming noise Ingolf and Zaccara had heard the night before. With a leathery flap the wyvern descended from the clouds close overhead and dove directly towards Zaccara. He gave a last heave pulling Aoelif towards him and threw himself flat to the ground as the wyvern raced past, raking out with its talons as it did so. They narrowly missed, and as the creature climbed back into the air, Martaine, Nicasia and Ingolf all let fly with their weapons, several found the mark. Aoelif scrambled for her javelins and Zaccara unslung his shield and drew his sword, bracing to meet the creature's next attack. As soon as the wyvern was upon them again, the entire group let fly once more, Martaine with his sling, Ingolf his bow, Aoelif her javelin and Nicasia, as ever, with a volley of magic missiles. Zaccara dealt the thing a massive blow with his sword as it once more narrowly missed him with a rake of its claws. At that point Martaine called out for the blessing of Logos, whereas Ingolf decided that this was as good a time as any to recount the names of alfar warriors from ages past who'd done battle with the dragons. The wyvern dove again, and Zaccara dodged its claws again, but this time in settled in front of Ingolf, who scrambled to get clear of the beast as quickly as he could. As he did so it lashed out with its massive jaws and dealt the elf a brutal blow. He had wits enough to fire a last arrow, however, and it sunk deep – deep enough, in fact, to drop the already wounded beast. Zaccara leapt forth at once and hewed the creature's head from the serpentine neck.With that, the group made their way back down as far as the tree line and camped. The next day, they decided to seek out the wyvern's lair before descending. Aoelif spotted a small cave and they cautiously entered, but no further foes were to be found. They did find the remains of a few of the creature's other victims, including an ogre from Rolgulka who was wearing a small black stone bearing the emblem of the dead Unseelie king Balor. Zaccara took a great interest in this for some reason and so Ingolf gave it to him. They also recovered a modest treasure from the corpses and a damaged strongbox that looked to have been snatched along with the mule that had borne it. On the way back down the mountain, they stopped long enough to bury the body of Uwen, and Ingolf asked Martaine why he insisted on saying the human last rites over the body of the Cimbri bard. Ingolf was a little put off by Martaine's insistence that even the faerie are the children of Logos but they didn't argue for long. Finally the group packed up and headed back to Phelan, Zaccara riding on Ingolf's pack horse.Notable Quote: (Zaccara and Ingolf debate the disposition of 20,000 copper pieces.)I: "We should leave this behind for.."Z: "...Logos."I: "Thor!"Z: Logos!"I: "Thor..."Z: ...and his father, Logos."</blockquote>

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