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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8083596" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p><span style="font-size: 15px"> Session 9: Falaggo, The Walking Man</span></p><p></p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion)</p><p>Mia - Firbolg Druid (Circle of the Land (Forest))</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>16 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 17) (immediately after)</p><p></p><p>It was early in the day -- we stepped to the mouth of the cave in time to see the sun rising in the east. Off to the north we could see a river, probably the Tulnod River, which runs into the Hochor River around Erlin. The cave we were in had clearly been unoccupied and disused for a long time -- the best guess we could make was that it had been empty for hundreds of years.</p><p></p><p>As is always a good idea when lost in the wilderness, we headed toward the river, with the plan to follow it downstream to the Hochor. At least then we’d be in a city and be able to figure out what we wanted to do.</p><p></p><p>Elderron expressed some dismay at the loss of the horses, left behind outside the giant amphitheater. Hopefully someone will come along to take care of White Horse, Comrade, Brown Horse2 and White Horse2.</p><p></p><p>We headed out of the cave along a fairly wide track, still in giant-scale, that went along the side of the mountain -- steeply up on one side and steeply down on the other (like driving in the mountains). The track had clearly not been used in a long time and had not been maintained. There were some boulders (rockfall from above) and scrubby vegetation fairly thickly in the track, making it difficult terrain. (Fortunately, Aldalómiel was able to guide us all through it.)</p><p></p><p>After a while we heard voices, multiple voices, arguing up ahead and saw a deep red splash on the road surrounding some sort of heap of mess. That resolved into the body of a mountain sheep surrounded by a large blood stain in the road. There were two giants, each with two heads, having a heated 4-way argument about who got to eat the dead mountain sheep. There was clearly no allegiance or fondness between any of the heads -- it was kind of a war of all against all.</p><p></p><p>We decided to fight them, because Elderron had heard of these things, ettins, and knew them to be evil. Also, while we thought we were way out in the wilderness far from any outpost of civilization, we could have been wrong and if we were, they would be a danger to people.</p><p></p><p>We split into two groups -- Vinya, Elama, and Aldalómiel snuck around on the mountain-goes-up side of the track and Marxine, Mia, and Elderron snuck around on the mountain-goes-down side of the track. The ettins were so busy arguing amongst themselves that they didn’t notice us until we had them completely surrounded.</p><p></p><p>Once we were all in position, with the ettins flanked on both sides, Aldalómiel fired an arrow at them but just missed. Vinya followed up with radiant sunbolts, hitting with two and firing one into a rock in the road. Then she dodged around behind a large rock outcropping. Elderron cast a Mind Spike on one of them, doing it a great deal of mental damage.</p><p></p><p>Somehow despite all of that, they continued arguing with one another.</p><p></p><p>Elama cast Shatter right on top of the poor dead sheep, scattering its remains in the blast of thunderous energy and also catching both of the ettins. Mia turned into a black bear and attacked, but not to great effect. (Mia spent the entire combat being disappointed by the black bear form. The war horse was a more impressive combatant.</p><p></p><p>Marxine, who’d been working on improving her foot speed, was able to rush in and attack the same one that Mia-bear was attacking. Aldalómiel took another shot, since there was no real reason for her to get into melee. Vinya, on the other hand, ran in and attacked one with her quarterstaff and a kick to the kneecap.</p><p></p><p>Elderron cast what looked like a magic missile spell, but we all saw that the darts were made of flame. Elama ran in with her long sword and Mia-bear attacked again.</p><p></p><p>Cool!</p><p></p><p>Eventually, the ettins twigged to the fact that they were under attack and got stopped arguing with one another. One of them got a hit on Elama with its big spiked club. She did her retaliatory strike, but the lightning bolts were really weak and didn’t do much damage. The other ettin got a good hit on Mia-bear -- it didn’t do quite enough damage to knock her back into being a firbolg. But it was close.</p><p></p><p>Marxine got in a really good hit. Aldalómiel cast hunter’s mark and then took a shot at the other one -- doing a tremendous amount of damage as the arrow went in through one ear, out the other side of that head, then lodged deeply into the other head. It dropped.</p><p></p><p>Vinya turned her attention to the other one, hitting it with the quarterstaff and a roundhouse kick to the other kneecap. Elderron, a bit away from the combat, moved closer and cast a firebolt on it. Elama hit it with her longsword.</p><p></p><p>None of that was enough to drop it, which was a pity, because it turned around and hit Marxine with its greataxe.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, Mia-bear was there and clawed it to death.</p><p></p><p>We contemplated the wreck of the mountain-sheep carcass for a moment, trying to determine if there was anything edible there.</p><p></p><p>Even as a bear, Mia turned her nose up at it.</p><p></p><p>We continued on our way -- we decided that none of us were badly hurt enough that we needed even a short rest.</p><p></p><p>After a few more hours of walking, we came around a corner of the mountain and the trail looked across a valley. On the other side of the valley was a cliff that clearly looked like a huge human face.</p><p></p><p>The trail began to switchback down that side of the mountain, so we got the opportunity to see the face from different angles -- Marxine noticed that from some angles it looked like a carved and weathered face. From other angles, it just looked like weathered stone.</p><p></p><p>When it looked like a carving, the style was clearly not the same as the Fey/Fomorian art in the cavern complexes we’d been in.</p><p></p><p>We decided to head in that direction when we got to the valley floor -- it took a few hours but we got to the base of the cliff. From that vantage point there was none of the perspective that allowed the face to be seen -- just uniquely weathered rocks.</p><p></p><p>We walked around the base of the cliff looking for signs that people had been there. Also looking for a place to make camp because it was getting on toward sunset at that point. Mia found a bit of an overhang under the face -- not a cave but it did provide shelter from the elements. This overhang showed signs of having been used as a campsite before -- previous users had cleaned up well, but there were signs of a fire here and places where the soil had been tramped down. All the signs were old and human-scale, not giant scale. And there was no sign that it had been used as anything more than just a campsite -- there were no signs of ritual activity around.</p><p></p><p>Mia went out to look for firewood while Aldalómiel hunted for our dinner, then we settled down for a nice evening’s meal and relaxation with the fire. The moon was full, or nearly so, so the night was bright even away from the fire.</p><p></p><p>As people headed to their bedrolls, while the first watch got themselves settled, someone observed that if there were wolves around the area, at least they wouldn’t mew.</p><p></p><p>The night began quietly, but early in second watch, Elama, Elderron and Marxine saw a roiling patch of dense ground fog roll up the valley. It didn’t cause much alarm until it rolled into camp.</p><p></p><p>As the fog boiled around us, we heard all the sounds of war -- dragon roars, screams, giants yelling and making war cries. Those of us who were sleeping (or in trance) jolted awake as the clash of weapons and screams of the dying rang around us.</p><p></p><p>Then the fog rolled on over and away and the night was quiet again.</p><p></p><p>Elama, still rattled: And I said I was glad to be away from the creepy stuff.</p><p></p><p>We looked around and saw that while it had looked like fog, it hadn’t left any moisture behind.</p><p></p><p>Looking out from our shelter under the overhanging cliff face, we could see the “fog” as an amorphous cloud, about 15’ across, still rolling around the valley, without any aim or purpose.</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel, shaken, sensed to see if there were any dragonborn nearby, and sensed none.</p><p></p><p>While she did that, Elama gave Elderron guidance while he tried to think about whether he’d heard of anything like this before. After a moment of thinking Elderron and Mia both remembered that way way back before the Severance -- longer before the Severance than it was before the now - there was another cataclysm. It either was, or led to, a great war between the Giants and the Dragons. The huge, ferocious battles left marks on the land in the form of this cloud (and other things). We wondered if maybe the presence of the cloud had something to do with the full moon.</p><p></p><p>It occurred to us that the face in the cliff could have been a giant face.</p><p></p><p>We eventually went back to resting and the rest of the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>17 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 18)</p><p></p><p>Leaving our campsite in the morning, we found the trail that the previous campers had taken to get there and followed it down and away toward the river. It was not a very travelled trail -- our best guess was that people maybe used that overhang as a campsite one or two times a year. (So this was somewhere between an actual track and a game trail.) After we headed out the wind began to pick up and pick up and pick up until it was practically howling up the valley, though the sky was clear. It seemed perhaps a bit strange to Aldalómiel and Mia, but not unnatural.</p><p></p><p>Around noon-ish the track became more clearly an established trail. Shortly after that there were two rock-piles, one on either side of the trail, and some broken rocks across the trail. Marxine figured out that there was once a stone arch, probably human-sized, across the trail here. It collapsed more recently than the Fomorian cave complex was abandoned. Vinya picked up one of the rocks and looked at the under-side of it, where it had been protected from weathering, and saw that there were Elven carvings there. Not words, just Elven decorative motifs.</p><p></p><p>Once we have a firmer grip on where this place is, Vinya will want to mark it on a map so we can learn more about it. As we walked we talked about where we were -- we figured that we still had about a day’s travel to get to the little river that goes to the Hochor. Once we were at the river, we’d be on a proper road and possibly in more civilized territory.</p><p></p><p>Over the course of the day, the temperature dropped by a lot (close to 40 degrees) but the wind moderated, so the cold wasn’t blowing right through us. Clearly a cold front had come through.</p><p></p><p>As the day wore on, the trail began to look like a legitimate trail. Eventually, toward the end of the day we saw some wheel ruts in it. Which seemed a little weird because where would anyone be going in a cart out here? There’s nowhere to go.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, we eventually found a good place to make camp. Mia and Aldalómiel foraged for food and firewood again, bringing us back supplies to make a good stew and a warm camp. The moon was completely full and bright, lighting the area around us with bright light and stark shadows.</p><p></p><p>Most of the night passed, until early third watch. Aldalómiel had gone a bit away from camp (still clearly in sight, but far enough away to make it clear that she wanted to be alone). The rest of us saw a tall man, looking more or less human-ish, wearing dark woolen clothing with dark fur trim, heavy boots, and a small rucksack on his back. The boots looked like he’d walked a million miles in them, and the rucksack was so worn that it had practically shaped itself to his body.</p><p></p><p>He greeted the camp.</p><p></p><p>Vinya invited him to warm himself at our fire then, once he’d sat down, introduced herself and asked if he’d been traveling in the area long.</p><p></p><p>Man: I’ve spent a lot of time here, yes. My name is Falaggo</p><p></p><p>Vinya asked him about the face in the mountains while Mia put the stewpot back on the fire to warm it up for him. We also woke up Elderron and Elama.</p><p></p><p>He asked us where we’d come from and Vinya said that we’d come out of a cave in the mountains, having gotten there from somewhere else. He named the cave we were in near Tash, Feynon, and the cave we’d just walked out of. Since he clearly knew about the Fomorian caves, Vinya didn’t hesitate to tell him that we’d been after cultists with the Epiphany Machine and hoped to destroy it, but it had disappeared and the trail had lead only to the Fomorian complex near Tash.</p><p></p><p>Fallago: The Machine is why we kicked them out.</p><p></p><p>We figured out quickly that Fallago was a Fey and talking about the Fey kicking the Fomori out of the Feywild.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: Have you found anyone touched by the Machine here?</p><p>Falaggo: Not here. My cousin had problems up around Auriqua.</p><p>Vinya: How do we destroy the Machine?</p><p>Falaggo: I don’t have those secrets. My niece, Nicolana, might keep those.</p><p>Elderron: Is there more than one Machine?</p><p>Falaggo: No, there is only one, But it can be in more than one place.</p><p>Elderron: Where can we find your niece?</p><p>Falaggo: Generally, where people hide information.</p><p></p><p>Somewhere around here in the conversation, Fallago said that he is the Walking Man and we remembered the Elderron had mentioned him when we were talking about the Fey Nobles in the creepy cave complex. He’s maybe a second generation Fey Noble.</p><p></p><p>He also mentioned another niece who seems to specialize in public knowledge, where Nicolana seems to specialize in hidden information.</p><p></p><p>Mia: Is there anything you would like to know from us?</p><p>Falaggo: You came from Feynon and are going to Erlin. <<looking at Mia>> Erlin won’t know what to make of you. There aren’t really firbolgs in these parts. Sometimes the people of Erlin live up to their reputation for closed-mindedness. But then, sometimes they don’t -- after all, the mayor is a genasi.</p><p>Elderron: Are there any bad things around here? Monsters? Things that need killing?</p><p></p><p>Falaggo didn’t get a chance to answer that, because Aldalómiel, having returned to the camp, started talking to him in Sylvan. She told us later that she was describing someone who has disappeared and asking if he’d seen her.</p><p></p><p>Falaggo: Wherever she is, she’s not been on the roads where I’ve been. I will keep an eye out, though. If you ever want to find me, camp at a crossroads at the new moon or full moon.</p><p>Vinya: We’re not at a crossroads now…</p><p>Falaggo: No. But you were out here in the middle of winter. Your people don’t usually do that. I was curious.</p><p></p><p>Mia gave him a bowl of warm stew and he ate it, then he stood to make his farewells.</p><p></p><p>Elderron: How many days walk is it to Erlin from here?</p><p>Falaggo: Twelve days or so. Come morning, for you it will be six.</p><p>Vinya: I hope your travels are safe and pleasurable and that you see many beautiful things.</p><p></p><p>Then he left.</p><p></p><p>Elama, after we were sure he’d gone: Even when the Fey are nice, they’re creepy.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the night passed without incident, though even the people on watch dozed off toward the end of the night..</p><p></p><p></p><p>18 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 19)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, we woke up at a place where a little rutted trail entered a road along a river. Not at all the same place where we’d made camp.</p><p></p><p>We believed that this was the Tulnod River and began to walk following the river downstream. This road looked like it got a lot more travel -- it was still dirt, of course, but packed and maintained. The land around us was grassland and sagebrush. Occasionally we saw fences and ranch houses set far back from the road.</p><p></p><p>As it got close to sunset, we saw a ranch house relatively close to the road. There were cattle in pens and small pastures beyond it. We decided to knock on the door to see if they had any news. And also to ask if they minded us camping on our land.</p><p></p><p>When we knocked, we were greeted by the rancher. He didn’t have any news of Erlin for us at all, except some vague reference to some adventurers having gone there and there having been chaos. We asked if he had anything that we could help with -- spiders or wolves or monsters bothering his livestock and he didn’t have any particular problems.</p><p></p><p>He did offer us the use of his bunkhouse for the night, which we accepted gratefully. The bunkhouse was warm and had a wood stove in it and the night passed comfortably and well.</p><p></p><p></p><p>19 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 20)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, Elderron (at Vinya’s urging) used his prestidigitation cantrip to leave the bunkhouse a little cleaner than we found it. Then we headed out, leaving with a wave to the rancher as he headed out on a horse to tend to his cattle.</p><p></p><p>The road ran right alongside the river, with trees (like cottonwoods and other river-bottom trees) on the other side.</p><p></p><p>After a while we saw ahead of us a cart with four horses and some people walking alongside of it. About the time that we saw they were a band of hobgoblin, the wagon (a covered Conestoga-type wagon, as most are that we’ve seen) halted and one of the hobgoblins stepped forward. He made a show of taking his sword and handing it to one of the others next to him, then handing his javelins to another on the other side before walking toward us.</p><p></p><p>Elama handed her sword to Aldalómiel, then went forward to talk to him.</p><p></p><p>Lamie: Hail.</p><p>Hobgoblin: Hello.</p><p>Lamie: Where are you going?</p><p>Hobgoblin: We’ve done business in Erlin and are now heading home.</p><p></p><p>To the extent Elama could see into the cart, she saw nothing but normal cargo, such as they might have picked up on a supply run to the city.</p><p></p><p>Lamie: Is there anything up the road that we should be cautious of?</p><p>Hobgoblin: There’s a circle of standing stones. Don’t camp there -- the Korred are doing their dances. They’re earth fey and we’ve had problems with them before. They don’t like being watched.</p><p></p><p>Mia moved to one side to let them go by. Vinya moved to the other. Elderron checked out their horses with covetous eyes.</p><p></p><p>Lamie: Do you often go this way?</p><p>Hobgoblin: Every couple or three months.</p><p></p><p>With that we were all satisfied, even Elderron, and we stood to the side to let them go by. Hobgoblins tend to be evil, but these appeared to be part of the society and economy of the area and were going about blameless business.</p><p></p><p>We continued on our way. After a few hours, we saw the stone circle the hobgoblin had mentioned about a hundred yards off the side of the road. It was evening, but not yet night and the moon hadn’t risen, so Aldalómiel and Vinya went to look at it. The circle was made of 10’ tall stones, standing (just single standing stones, not trilithons like at Stonehenge). The stones were carved with stylized decorations with a Fey look to them -- trees and weather and stylized animals. We didn’t see any footprints inside the circle, but could see that the ground inside was packed very densely, as though many feet had trodden on it.</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel and Vinya went back to the others and we continued on our way for about another hour or hour and a half to get well past the circle. There we made camp and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>20 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 21)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, we got back on our way. Not too long after we got started, we were surprised by three vaguely leonine winged things, but with human-like faces, up in the air (3 manticores). When they spotted us they flew close, circling in the air a distance away from us, and let loose with a volley of iron spikes from their massively spiked tails.</p><p></p><p>Their first volley was at Aldalómiel and Marxine, both of whom were hit for a little bit of damage. Then, while we were still reacting to them being there, they fired again. The second volley they’d gotten the range getter and both Aldalómiel and Marxine were hit pretty hard.</p><p></p><p>They held their position up in the air, not coming low enough for any of the melee fighters to attack them.</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel put her hunter’s mark on one hit it squarely with her longbow for a lot of damage.</p><p></p><p>Vinya moved toward them, taking a position as close as she could get to underneath one, and took a defensive stance.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Come down and get me, you wankers.</p><p></p><p>Marxine moved to where she could throw one of her handaxes at the one over the grassland (rather than throwing it into the river) but couldn’t get there. So she moved and dashed and got right up underneath it. Then she got her second wind. Elderron cast magic missile on one of them.</p><p></p><p>Mia cast moonbeam on one of them that was about 15’ up, but out over the river. Elama cast a spiritual weapon on the other one that was out over the river, hitting it with a lightning bolt from spiritual storm cloud, then she too began to dodge.</p><p></p><p>One of them landed to attack Marxine, bless it, and then missed with all of its attacks. The other two attacked Vinya and Elama from the air and both of them missed because they had started dodging.</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel moved off the road into the trees and underbrush, then took a shot at the one that was attacking Marxine, dropping it. </p><p></p><p>Vinya moved up as close as possible and used her radiant sunbolts to shoot at the one that had attacked her -- summoning her ki to get more bolts to fire. Marxine moved so that she could throw a hand axe -- aiming at the wing of the one that Vinya had just shot. She hit its wing and did damage, but not quite enough to knock it out of the air. Elderron cast Mind Spike on the same one -- it wobbled in the air but was able to catch itself and stay airborne. Mia moved her moonbeam back onto it.</p><p></p><p>Elama moved her thundercloud toward the other one, then cast guiding bolt on it, doing damage and leaving it sparkling with an energy that would make it easier to hit.</p><p></p><p>The one that Vinya, Marxine, Elderron and Mia had been focusing on started to fly away -- moving as fast as it could.</p><p></p><p>The other one shot tail-spikes at Elama, getting a critical hit. It then began to move away as well, though it looked like it was doing more of a fighting retreat than the pure flight of the other one.</p><p></p><p>Vinya pulled out her bow and took a shot at the one that Elama had cast guiding bolt on.</p><p></p><p>Marxine, seeing nothing around in range, went to find her axe. Mia moved the moonbeam closer to the one still fighting, but couldn’t get all the way there.</p><p></p><p>Mia: There’s a moonbeam coming for you!</p><p></p><p>Lamie cast a sacred flame at the retreating manticore before both of them flew away. Aldalómiel took a shot, hitting one solidly, but not solidly enough to knock it out of the air.</p><p></p><p>Lamie: And stay gone!</p><p></p><p>Aldalómiel got one last shot at the more wounded one and killed it -- we saw it fall out of the sky and plummet to the ground, but the other one got away.</p><p></p><p>While Mia was checking to see who needed to be healed (Aldalómiel had taken the most damage), Vinya and Elama were searching the bodies (including the one that fell a couple hundred feet from the road). Neither of them had any treasure, but they collected the tail spikes, ultimately harvesting about 30 from the two manticores.</p><p></p><p>We went back on our way and the rest of the day and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>21 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 22)</p><p></p><p>The next morning we headed out on our way again. After a few hours, we noticed that the river and the road were both looking bigger and more travelled. We also saw the occasional cart, but aside from normal greetings, we didn’t interact with them much. We didn’t see much travel in the river -- though there were a few very small boats (like rowboats and canoes) because this river is not navigable for larger vessels than that.</p><p></p><p>At about mid-day we arrived at an actual settlement -- a small town called Traddons. There was an inn with a tavern, a general stores, etc. Marxine, Aldalómiel, and Elderron went to the general store for a bit of shopping -- picking up arrows and other very general supplies. Elderron, who had never stopped missing the horses (or at least having a ride), asked if there were any in town for sale.</p><p></p><p>Shopkeeper: No horses for sale. We need them all.</p><p></p><p>Elderron’s disappointment continues.</p><p></p><p>Mia, Elama, and Vinya went to the tavern to talk to people and get a sense of what was going on.</p><p></p><p>Elama: We saw some hobgoblins on the road.</p><p>Tavernkeeper: Yeah. They go through a few times a year. They have a village up in the mountains.</p><p>Vinya: Do you have any news from Erlin?</p><p>Tavernkeeper: Not really. Except that there has been some chaos in town to do with some adventurers that went through recently.</p><p>Vinya: Well, we’re not like that.</p><p>Tavernkeeper: That’s good.</p><p>Vinya and Mia: Are there any problems in town that we can maybe help with? We’ve helped a town with spiders. We’ve protected people from cultists.</p><p>Tavernkeeper: No, it’s really quiet around here.</p><p></p><p>We were slightly disappointed by that answer, but it didn’t stop us from taking a room in the inn and making plans to stay the night.</p><p></p><p>We stayed in the tavern drinking and relaxing and taking advantage of not being on the road for a change. It had been 11 days since the last time we slept in beds.</p><p></p><p>The night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>22 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 23)</p><p></p><p>We will begin here next time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8083596, member: 7016699"] [SIZE=4] Session 9: Falaggo, The Walking Man[/SIZE] Dramatis Personae: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave) Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine Deepfoot - Dwarf Fighter (Champion) Mia - Firbolg Druid (Circle of the Land (Forest)) GM - Everyone Else 16 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 17) (immediately after) It was early in the day -- we stepped to the mouth of the cave in time to see the sun rising in the east. Off to the north we could see a river, probably the Tulnod River, which runs into the Hochor River around Erlin. The cave we were in had clearly been unoccupied and disused for a long time -- the best guess we could make was that it had been empty for hundreds of years. As is always a good idea when lost in the wilderness, we headed toward the river, with the plan to follow it downstream to the Hochor. At least then we’d be in a city and be able to figure out what we wanted to do. Elderron expressed some dismay at the loss of the horses, left behind outside the giant amphitheater. Hopefully someone will come along to take care of White Horse, Comrade, Brown Horse2 and White Horse2. We headed out of the cave along a fairly wide track, still in giant-scale, that went along the side of the mountain -- steeply up on one side and steeply down on the other (like driving in the mountains). The track had clearly not been used in a long time and had not been maintained. There were some boulders (rockfall from above) and scrubby vegetation fairly thickly in the track, making it difficult terrain. (Fortunately, Aldalómiel was able to guide us all through it.) After a while we heard voices, multiple voices, arguing up ahead and saw a deep red splash on the road surrounding some sort of heap of mess. That resolved into the body of a mountain sheep surrounded by a large blood stain in the road. There were two giants, each with two heads, having a heated 4-way argument about who got to eat the dead mountain sheep. There was clearly no allegiance or fondness between any of the heads -- it was kind of a war of all against all. We decided to fight them, because Elderron had heard of these things, ettins, and knew them to be evil. Also, while we thought we were way out in the wilderness far from any outpost of civilization, we could have been wrong and if we were, they would be a danger to people. We split into two groups -- Vinya, Elama, and Aldalómiel snuck around on the mountain-goes-up side of the track and Marxine, Mia, and Elderron snuck around on the mountain-goes-down side of the track. The ettins were so busy arguing amongst themselves that they didn’t notice us until we had them completely surrounded. Once we were all in position, with the ettins flanked on both sides, Aldalómiel fired an arrow at them but just missed. Vinya followed up with radiant sunbolts, hitting with two and firing one into a rock in the road. Then she dodged around behind a large rock outcropping. Elderron cast a Mind Spike on one of them, doing it a great deal of mental damage. Somehow despite all of that, they continued arguing with one another. Elama cast Shatter right on top of the poor dead sheep, scattering its remains in the blast of thunderous energy and also catching both of the ettins. Mia turned into a black bear and attacked, but not to great effect. (Mia spent the entire combat being disappointed by the black bear form. The war horse was a more impressive combatant. Marxine, who’d been working on improving her foot speed, was able to rush in and attack the same one that Mia-bear was attacking. Aldalómiel took another shot, since there was no real reason for her to get into melee. Vinya, on the other hand, ran in and attacked one with her quarterstaff and a kick to the kneecap. Elderron cast what looked like a magic missile spell, but we all saw that the darts were made of flame. Elama ran in with her long sword and Mia-bear attacked again. Cool! Eventually, the ettins twigged to the fact that they were under attack and got stopped arguing with one another. One of them got a hit on Elama with its big spiked club. She did her retaliatory strike, but the lightning bolts were really weak and didn’t do much damage. The other ettin got a good hit on Mia-bear -- it didn’t do quite enough damage to knock her back into being a firbolg. But it was close. Marxine got in a really good hit. Aldalómiel cast hunter’s mark and then took a shot at the other one -- doing a tremendous amount of damage as the arrow went in through one ear, out the other side of that head, then lodged deeply into the other head. It dropped. Vinya turned her attention to the other one, hitting it with the quarterstaff and a roundhouse kick to the other kneecap. Elderron, a bit away from the combat, moved closer and cast a firebolt on it. Elama hit it with her longsword. None of that was enough to drop it, which was a pity, because it turned around and hit Marxine with its greataxe. Fortunately, Mia-bear was there and clawed it to death. We contemplated the wreck of the mountain-sheep carcass for a moment, trying to determine if there was anything edible there. Even as a bear, Mia turned her nose up at it. We continued on our way -- we decided that none of us were badly hurt enough that we needed even a short rest. After a few more hours of walking, we came around a corner of the mountain and the trail looked across a valley. On the other side of the valley was a cliff that clearly looked like a huge human face. The trail began to switchback down that side of the mountain, so we got the opportunity to see the face from different angles -- Marxine noticed that from some angles it looked like a carved and weathered face. From other angles, it just looked like weathered stone. When it looked like a carving, the style was clearly not the same as the Fey/Fomorian art in the cavern complexes we’d been in. We decided to head in that direction when we got to the valley floor -- it took a few hours but we got to the base of the cliff. From that vantage point there was none of the perspective that allowed the face to be seen -- just uniquely weathered rocks. We walked around the base of the cliff looking for signs that people had been there. Also looking for a place to make camp because it was getting on toward sunset at that point. Mia found a bit of an overhang under the face -- not a cave but it did provide shelter from the elements. This overhang showed signs of having been used as a campsite before -- previous users had cleaned up well, but there were signs of a fire here and places where the soil had been tramped down. All the signs were old and human-scale, not giant scale. And there was no sign that it had been used as anything more than just a campsite -- there were no signs of ritual activity around. Mia went out to look for firewood while Aldalómiel hunted for our dinner, then we settled down for a nice evening’s meal and relaxation with the fire. The moon was full, or nearly so, so the night was bright even away from the fire. As people headed to their bedrolls, while the first watch got themselves settled, someone observed that if there were wolves around the area, at least they wouldn’t mew. The night began quietly, but early in second watch, Elama, Elderron and Marxine saw a roiling patch of dense ground fog roll up the valley. It didn’t cause much alarm until it rolled into camp. As the fog boiled around us, we heard all the sounds of war -- dragon roars, screams, giants yelling and making war cries. Those of us who were sleeping (or in trance) jolted awake as the clash of weapons and screams of the dying rang around us. Then the fog rolled on over and away and the night was quiet again. Elama, still rattled: And I said I was glad to be away from the creepy stuff. We looked around and saw that while it had looked like fog, it hadn’t left any moisture behind. Looking out from our shelter under the overhanging cliff face, we could see the “fog” as an amorphous cloud, about 15’ across, still rolling around the valley, without any aim or purpose. Aldalómiel, shaken, sensed to see if there were any dragonborn nearby, and sensed none. While she did that, Elama gave Elderron guidance while he tried to think about whether he’d heard of anything like this before. After a moment of thinking Elderron and Mia both remembered that way way back before the Severance -- longer before the Severance than it was before the now - there was another cataclysm. It either was, or led to, a great war between the Giants and the Dragons. The huge, ferocious battles left marks on the land in the form of this cloud (and other things). We wondered if maybe the presence of the cloud had something to do with the full moon. It occurred to us that the face in the cliff could have been a giant face. We eventually went back to resting and the rest of the night passed without incident. 17 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 18) Leaving our campsite in the morning, we found the trail that the previous campers had taken to get there and followed it down and away toward the river. It was not a very travelled trail -- our best guess was that people maybe used that overhang as a campsite one or two times a year. (So this was somewhere between an actual track and a game trail.) After we headed out the wind began to pick up and pick up and pick up until it was practically howling up the valley, though the sky was clear. It seemed perhaps a bit strange to Aldalómiel and Mia, but not unnatural. Around noon-ish the track became more clearly an established trail. Shortly after that there were two rock-piles, one on either side of the trail, and some broken rocks across the trail. Marxine figured out that there was once a stone arch, probably human-sized, across the trail here. It collapsed more recently than the Fomorian cave complex was abandoned. Vinya picked up one of the rocks and looked at the under-side of it, where it had been protected from weathering, and saw that there were Elven carvings there. Not words, just Elven decorative motifs. Once we have a firmer grip on where this place is, Vinya will want to mark it on a map so we can learn more about it. As we walked we talked about where we were -- we figured that we still had about a day’s travel to get to the little river that goes to the Hochor. Once we were at the river, we’d be on a proper road and possibly in more civilized territory. Over the course of the day, the temperature dropped by a lot (close to 40 degrees) but the wind moderated, so the cold wasn’t blowing right through us. Clearly a cold front had come through. As the day wore on, the trail began to look like a legitimate trail. Eventually, toward the end of the day we saw some wheel ruts in it. Which seemed a little weird because where would anyone be going in a cart out here? There’s nowhere to go. Anyway, we eventually found a good place to make camp. Mia and Aldalómiel foraged for food and firewood again, bringing us back supplies to make a good stew and a warm camp. The moon was completely full and bright, lighting the area around us with bright light and stark shadows. Most of the night passed, until early third watch. Aldalómiel had gone a bit away from camp (still clearly in sight, but far enough away to make it clear that she wanted to be alone). The rest of us saw a tall man, looking more or less human-ish, wearing dark woolen clothing with dark fur trim, heavy boots, and a small rucksack on his back. The boots looked like he’d walked a million miles in them, and the rucksack was so worn that it had practically shaped itself to his body. He greeted the camp. Vinya invited him to warm himself at our fire then, once he’d sat down, introduced herself and asked if he’d been traveling in the area long. Man: I’ve spent a lot of time here, yes. My name is Falaggo Vinya asked him about the face in the mountains while Mia put the stewpot back on the fire to warm it up for him. We also woke up Elderron and Elama. He asked us where we’d come from and Vinya said that we’d come out of a cave in the mountains, having gotten there from somewhere else. He named the cave we were in near Tash, Feynon, and the cave we’d just walked out of. Since he clearly knew about the Fomorian caves, Vinya didn’t hesitate to tell him that we’d been after cultists with the Epiphany Machine and hoped to destroy it, but it had disappeared and the trail had lead only to the Fomorian complex near Tash. Fallago: The Machine is why we kicked them out. We figured out quickly that Fallago was a Fey and talking about the Fey kicking the Fomori out of the Feywild. Elderron: Have you found anyone touched by the Machine here? Falaggo: Not here. My cousin had problems up around Auriqua. Vinya: How do we destroy the Machine? Falaggo: I don’t have those secrets. My niece, Nicolana, might keep those. Elderron: Is there more than one Machine? Falaggo: No, there is only one, But it can be in more than one place. Elderron: Where can we find your niece? Falaggo: Generally, where people hide information. Somewhere around here in the conversation, Fallago said that he is the Walking Man and we remembered the Elderron had mentioned him when we were talking about the Fey Nobles in the creepy cave complex. He’s maybe a second generation Fey Noble. He also mentioned another niece who seems to specialize in public knowledge, where Nicolana seems to specialize in hidden information. Mia: Is there anything you would like to know from us? Falaggo: You came from Feynon and are going to Erlin. <<looking at Mia>> Erlin won’t know what to make of you. There aren’t really firbolgs in these parts. Sometimes the people of Erlin live up to their reputation for closed-mindedness. But then, sometimes they don’t -- after all, the mayor is a genasi. Elderron: Are there any bad things around here? Monsters? Things that need killing? Falaggo didn’t get a chance to answer that, because Aldalómiel, having returned to the camp, started talking to him in Sylvan. She told us later that she was describing someone who has disappeared and asking if he’d seen her. Falaggo: Wherever she is, she’s not been on the roads where I’ve been. I will keep an eye out, though. If you ever want to find me, camp at a crossroads at the new moon or full moon. Vinya: We’re not at a crossroads now… Falaggo: No. But you were out here in the middle of winter. Your people don’t usually do that. I was curious. Mia gave him a bowl of warm stew and he ate it, then he stood to make his farewells. Elderron: How many days walk is it to Erlin from here? Falaggo: Twelve days or so. Come morning, for you it will be six. Vinya: I hope your travels are safe and pleasurable and that you see many beautiful things. Then he left. Elama, after we were sure he’d gone: Even when the Fey are nice, they’re creepy. The rest of the night passed without incident, though even the people on watch dozed off toward the end of the night.. 18 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 19) The next morning, we woke up at a place where a little rutted trail entered a road along a river. Not at all the same place where we’d made camp. We believed that this was the Tulnod River and began to walk following the river downstream. This road looked like it got a lot more travel -- it was still dirt, of course, but packed and maintained. The land around us was grassland and sagebrush. Occasionally we saw fences and ranch houses set far back from the road. As it got close to sunset, we saw a ranch house relatively close to the road. There were cattle in pens and small pastures beyond it. We decided to knock on the door to see if they had any news. And also to ask if they minded us camping on our land. When we knocked, we were greeted by the rancher. He didn’t have any news of Erlin for us at all, except some vague reference to some adventurers having gone there and there having been chaos. We asked if he had anything that we could help with -- spiders or wolves or monsters bothering his livestock and he didn’t have any particular problems. He did offer us the use of his bunkhouse for the night, which we accepted gratefully. The bunkhouse was warm and had a wood stove in it and the night passed comfortably and well. 19 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 20) The next morning, Elderron (at Vinya’s urging) used his prestidigitation cantrip to leave the bunkhouse a little cleaner than we found it. Then we headed out, leaving with a wave to the rancher as he headed out on a horse to tend to his cattle. The road ran right alongside the river, with trees (like cottonwoods and other river-bottom trees) on the other side. After a while we saw ahead of us a cart with four horses and some people walking alongside of it. About the time that we saw they were a band of hobgoblin, the wagon (a covered Conestoga-type wagon, as most are that we’ve seen) halted and one of the hobgoblins stepped forward. He made a show of taking his sword and handing it to one of the others next to him, then handing his javelins to another on the other side before walking toward us. Elama handed her sword to Aldalómiel, then went forward to talk to him. Lamie: Hail. Hobgoblin: Hello. Lamie: Where are you going? Hobgoblin: We’ve done business in Erlin and are now heading home. To the extent Elama could see into the cart, she saw nothing but normal cargo, such as they might have picked up on a supply run to the city. Lamie: Is there anything up the road that we should be cautious of? Hobgoblin: There’s a circle of standing stones. Don’t camp there -- the Korred are doing their dances. They’re earth fey and we’ve had problems with them before. They don’t like being watched. Mia moved to one side to let them go by. Vinya moved to the other. Elderron checked out their horses with covetous eyes. Lamie: Do you often go this way? Hobgoblin: Every couple or three months. With that we were all satisfied, even Elderron, and we stood to the side to let them go by. Hobgoblins tend to be evil, but these appeared to be part of the society and economy of the area and were going about blameless business. We continued on our way. After a few hours, we saw the stone circle the hobgoblin had mentioned about a hundred yards off the side of the road. It was evening, but not yet night and the moon hadn’t risen, so Aldalómiel and Vinya went to look at it. The circle was made of 10’ tall stones, standing (just single standing stones, not trilithons like at Stonehenge). The stones were carved with stylized decorations with a Fey look to them -- trees and weather and stylized animals. We didn’t see any footprints inside the circle, but could see that the ground inside was packed very densely, as though many feet had trodden on it. Aldalómiel and Vinya went back to the others and we continued on our way for about another hour or hour and a half to get well past the circle. There we made camp and the night passed without incident. 20 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 21) The next morning, we got back on our way. Not too long after we got started, we were surprised by three vaguely leonine winged things, but with human-like faces, up in the air (3 manticores). When they spotted us they flew close, circling in the air a distance away from us, and let loose with a volley of iron spikes from their massively spiked tails. Their first volley was at Aldalómiel and Marxine, both of whom were hit for a little bit of damage. Then, while we were still reacting to them being there, they fired again. The second volley they’d gotten the range getter and both Aldalómiel and Marxine were hit pretty hard. They held their position up in the air, not coming low enough for any of the melee fighters to attack them. Aldalómiel put her hunter’s mark on one hit it squarely with her longbow for a lot of damage. Vinya moved toward them, taking a position as close as she could get to underneath one, and took a defensive stance. Vinya: Come down and get me, you wankers. Marxine moved to where she could throw one of her handaxes at the one over the grassland (rather than throwing it into the river) but couldn’t get there. So she moved and dashed and got right up underneath it. Then she got her second wind. Elderron cast magic missile on one of them. Mia cast moonbeam on one of them that was about 15’ up, but out over the river. Elama cast a spiritual weapon on the other one that was out over the river, hitting it with a lightning bolt from spiritual storm cloud, then she too began to dodge. One of them landed to attack Marxine, bless it, and then missed with all of its attacks. The other two attacked Vinya and Elama from the air and both of them missed because they had started dodging. Aldalómiel moved off the road into the trees and underbrush, then took a shot at the one that was attacking Marxine, dropping it. Vinya moved up as close as possible and used her radiant sunbolts to shoot at the one that had attacked her -- summoning her ki to get more bolts to fire. Marxine moved so that she could throw a hand axe -- aiming at the wing of the one that Vinya had just shot. She hit its wing and did damage, but not quite enough to knock it out of the air. Elderron cast Mind Spike on the same one -- it wobbled in the air but was able to catch itself and stay airborne. Mia moved her moonbeam back onto it. Elama moved her thundercloud toward the other one, then cast guiding bolt on it, doing damage and leaving it sparkling with an energy that would make it easier to hit. The one that Vinya, Marxine, Elderron and Mia had been focusing on started to fly away -- moving as fast as it could. The other one shot tail-spikes at Elama, getting a critical hit. It then began to move away as well, though it looked like it was doing more of a fighting retreat than the pure flight of the other one. Vinya pulled out her bow and took a shot at the one that Elama had cast guiding bolt on. Marxine, seeing nothing around in range, went to find her axe. Mia moved the moonbeam closer to the one still fighting, but couldn’t get all the way there. Mia: There’s a moonbeam coming for you! Lamie cast a sacred flame at the retreating manticore before both of them flew away. Aldalómiel took a shot, hitting one solidly, but not solidly enough to knock it out of the air. Lamie: And stay gone! Aldalómiel got one last shot at the more wounded one and killed it -- we saw it fall out of the sky and plummet to the ground, but the other one got away. While Mia was checking to see who needed to be healed (Aldalómiel had taken the most damage), Vinya and Elama were searching the bodies (including the one that fell a couple hundred feet from the road). Neither of them had any treasure, but they collected the tail spikes, ultimately harvesting about 30 from the two manticores. We went back on our way and the rest of the day and the night passed without incident. 21 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 22) The next morning we headed out on our way again. After a few hours, we noticed that the river and the road were both looking bigger and more travelled. We also saw the occasional cart, but aside from normal greetings, we didn’t interact with them much. We didn’t see much travel in the river -- though there were a few very small boats (like rowboats and canoes) because this river is not navigable for larger vessels than that. At about mid-day we arrived at an actual settlement -- a small town called Traddons. There was an inn with a tavern, a general stores, etc. Marxine, Aldalómiel, and Elderron went to the general store for a bit of shopping -- picking up arrows and other very general supplies. Elderron, who had never stopped missing the horses (or at least having a ride), asked if there were any in town for sale. Shopkeeper: No horses for sale. We need them all. Elderron’s disappointment continues. Mia, Elama, and Vinya went to the tavern to talk to people and get a sense of what was going on. Elama: We saw some hobgoblins on the road. Tavernkeeper: Yeah. They go through a few times a year. They have a village up in the mountains. Vinya: Do you have any news from Erlin? Tavernkeeper: Not really. Except that there has been some chaos in town to do with some adventurers that went through recently. Vinya: Well, we’re not like that. Tavernkeeper: That’s good. Vinya and Mia: Are there any problems in town that we can maybe help with? We’ve helped a town with spiders. We’ve protected people from cultists. Tavernkeeper: No, it’s really quiet around here. We were slightly disappointed by that answer, but it didn’t stop us from taking a room in the inn and making plans to stay the night. We stayed in the tavern drinking and relaxing and taking advantage of not being on the road for a change. It had been 11 days since the last time we slept in beds. The night passed without incident. 22 Marroin 749 (Campaign day 23) We will begin here next time. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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