October 28th, 2023

Mare, Ignis 5th, 1194 (Continued)

We continue our search of the premises– finding a library focused on ancient cults and savage rituals, another related to astronomy, astrology, and eldritch knowledge, and a third with books on torture, mental illness, and old gods. Rupman looks genuinely horrified by this asylum.

We clear the ground floor and begin exploring the basement. We find a row of cells, the first of which is empty, containing only blood and filth. The second has a morlock and a small passage that the morlock moves into. The third has a man named Ploog, who asks us for help and says he was captured recently and lobotomized. The fourth has a large emaciated, unconscious man. At the end of the hall we find a room with a chaos beast and kill it. Rupman confirms that it is not what they summoned.

In a laboratory we find a small blue person performing an autopsy on a lunatic. After a quick battle, he surrenders to Graynor, as if he knows Madri must accept. Sigmund uses a spell to communicate with this creature, finding out that he is a derro and wants to return to the undercity. Crove made a deal with the derro to provide him bodies to autopsy in exchange for unmolested travel through the undercity. We try to make a similar deal in exchange for his life. He says he will bring it up to the chief and asks for our names to provide to his chief for our safe passage. Sigmund gives the derro a fake name, Ian Goodfellow. Ty’s not sure why Sigmund gave another name, so she follows his lead and gives the name Mackenzie.

We encounter Crove and kill him. While fighting Crove, it sounds as if something very large is moving towards us. The beast breaks through the ceiling and attacks us. During the fight with the beast, Sigmund casts spiritual weapon, which manifests as a chakram, the favored weapon of Avarra. It’s a horrid battle, but we prevail.

Crove has a holy symbol with the same image as that blood pattern that we saw yesterday. Among his belongings is a crude map of the undercity; it looks as if he was exploring it.

We try to drag the beast out, but it’s too heavy, so we just take the head to show the mayor. Mayor Heggry is happy to hear that we have dealt with his problem and awards us the remainder of our payment. He informs us that Hyve was killed by the beast after we left him in the custody of the guards; that makes Rupman the only surviving member of this group.

Mayor Heggry ponders Rupman’s punishment and we vouch that he was cooperative in our investigation and assisted us. We return his bonded ring and he’ll get his spellbook after Ralzer spends a few days copying some spells from it. We’ll spend a couple days resting and selling loot.

October 14th, 2023

Vita, Ignis 4th, 1194 (Continued)

We try to interrogate Rupman, but he only talks to Graynor at first, ignoring everyone else. He begs for help against that monster and says that it’s a spawn of the Dark Tapestry and will become more powerful if it kills him. They performed a ritual to drain its power this morning, which will be restored if it kills the others. Their goal was to control it, but it was too strong. We agree to unbind him and take him to the other scenes to determine if any of the bodies are his accomplices. We need to find out if this beast can track them somehow.

The only other body he can ID is Glem Baskerwhel, who is the other corpse that was found with Marshan. He says that Crove would be at his asylum, and Hyve stays at an abandoned church; neither of these locations have been attacked.

We devise a plan of having the town criers proclaim that an individual has been apprehended and is being kept at a specific location, in an effort to lure it into an ambush. We consult with the mayor about our plan and possible collateral damage and find out that there has been another attack. According to witnesses, it is now invisible. Some townsfolk have begun to riot.

It’s getting really late, so while the town criers are doing their part of our plan, we will be resting at our ambush location. During rest Sigmund uses some magic to read the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which looks to be a working spellbook as well. There are some warnings to summoning a creature, just like Rupman talked about.

Night passes.

Mare, Ignis 5th, 1194

The beast attacked Rupman’s vat warehouse during the night. We head to the abandoned church, which is identified as being dedicated to Eliaz. There is a comprehensive collection of Blackstone history books here and a trap door that leads down to some natural cavern system.

In the cavern we are ambushed by Hyve and he snipes Rupman, then grenades him, nearly killing him. He gives us a really long chase, but we finally capture him after his fungus creatures knock him unconcious. Amongst the fungus there is an intact skeleton with a guard uniform and a magic mithral longsword. The area looks as if Hyve was using it to make, and maybe test, poisons. We drop off Hyve at the nearest guard post and ask about the mithral sword; it belongs to Sgt. Eldreen and is enchanted with aberration bane.

We head over to the asylum; inside we are greeted by patients, strapped in jackets, rolling around the ground and screaming. Orderlies then begin to assault us and we retaliate. In a small room attached to the kitchen is a narrow hole that has faint gurgling and shuffling noises coming from it. The hole smells really bad and Sigmund tosses a lit object down into it; it falls far and lands in water, sinking out of sight.

October 8th, 2023

Iustitia, Ignis 2nd, 1194

In the early morning an Advocate Destroyer of Avarra comes bearing gifts for our journey. He said that the goddess told them last night to make these scrolls for us. We then hit the road.

Mors, Ignis 3rd, 1194

While traveling we all suddenly feel a strange sensation and Luna becomes spooked. The scenery starts to shift, looking similar to when Ty would go ethereal. Approaching us on the road are six debauched ones on foot, another nine are riding ostrich-ish birds with green plumage; Ralzer identifies these are degraded ones (Planes 30), a large creature that looks like a cross between a scorpion, a lizard, and a human, and a large, blue-skinned creature wearing purple and black robes (Uunas‘ colors). The latter has a presence that exudes command. They don’t notice us at all and march in the direction that we came from. The vision lasts about 30 seconds before settling back to reality. Ty hops ethereal to see if she can find the platoon, but finds no evidence. Could this perhaps been a vision of the past or future?

Vita, Ignis 4th, 1194

While approaching Crestfall we hear a town crier proclaiming a search for heroes and to go to the Crown Manor. According to the guard, a great beast burst out of a house and then escaped a few hours ago in a district called the Slipper Market. The creature is described as a writhing mass of tentacles. The town is really tightly packed with buildings and only guards are outside in the streets.

We head to the Crown Manor and meet Vanton Heggry, the mayor. The mayor explains that this creature came up from below, burst through a building, killed some people, and then descended again. It has since repeated this a few more times in the city. The beast emerges from sinkholes that are coated in a foul smelling slime. Judging by the description Ralzer thinks it could be a chaos beast. Mayor Heggry gives us 1,500gp up front to help with this problem.

We visit the first site– the home of Marshan, a retired adventurer. One of the victims looks as if he was rung out like a wet towel; Marshan is not amongst the dead. Ralzer inspects the building; it, along with much of the city, is made out of midden stone, a cheaper stone alternative. On the side of the building opposite of Marshan’s home is what looks like a spiral blood pattern. The pattern seems similar to Dark Tapestry imagery and portals. Sigmund believes it could be related to a specific outer god. Inside the ruined house is a nauseating smell of wet fur, moist air and decay. There is a modest book collection here with subjects on astronomy and Crestfall history. We descend into the basement.

The basement is not typical– it contains several sarcophagi and a stuck stone door, which we are unable to breach. The slime trail leads to an 800ft. descending stairway that eventually leads to a moldy, moist cavern. A ghoul, Yarresh, is guarding two bodies near an altar surrounded by barren trees. On the altar is a book that the ghoul won’t let us near. Ty sneaks a look at the title, “Pnakotic Manuscripts”. According to Ralzer, the book is about conjuration and portals, gods and magic of old cults, and was originally written in Aklo. The book could hold valuable information. On closer inspection, both of the bodies are without blood. Graynor doesn’t want to engage in any quest to help this ghoul and get that book, so we end up killing him swiftly and take his magic ring, too.

The book has some inscriptions on the front page in Aklo and underneath are five signatures:

Sulm Marshan
Glem Baskerwhel
Waldur Crove
Arlend Hyve
Rupman Myre

Judging by the handwriting, the rest of the notes in the book are by Waldur.

Upon taking a closer look at the trees, Sigmund believes they were grown with necromancy magic. They are also decorated with bone fetish charms. Down one tunnel we find some recently (within a year) installed iron bars. We find a campsite with books and notes written in Aklo, which we take. We then return to the surface, bringing the two human corpses.

The guards inform us that there as been another monster encounter in the city and IDs one of the bodies as Marshan. We head to the newest beast emergence, the home of Oliver Barker (deceased). There is a similar hole in the house with slime up top, but nothing below. Based on the damage around the area of the hole, Ralzer doesn’t believe it went this way. Using a bit of the slime, we try to have Luna track its scent.

Luna leads us to the docks before losing the scent. We ask the guards about the other names in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and he recognizes Rupman, who has a place close to the docks where he makes midden stone. Inside are disgusting vats of fuming filth manned by undead workers. The zombies and an old, drunk arcane spellcaster assaults us. We destroy the zombies and subdue the drunk old man, whom the guard IDs as Rupman.

August 19th, 2023

Vita, Draconnes 13th, 1194

While selling stuff in Rivershade we try to check on the prisoners that we released, Geradil and Courana, but have no luck. There are quite a few traders in town and Graynor asks around about information on the two set items that we found. The Blade of Harmony, part of the shield set, is part of someone’s collection in Ironwald Downs. Ralzer makes some bullets and Sigmund starts teaching Luna a new trick. We will leave for Ironwald Downs in the morning.

Mare, Draconnes 21st, 1194

We get a sending from Nadal first thing in the morning — “We found more information on the calendar that could be related to our situation. Are you available to investigate?”

We arrive in Ironwald Downs around noon and visit the Temple of The Inevitable Order. Nadal looks overworked and we fill him in on what we have learned since our last meeting. He is not aware of any Bethany Swan. While the Calendar will take much time to fully investigate, it is suggesting that there is, or will be, activity in the city of Crestfall, which is about 11 days away. According to the Calendar, there is a cult to a Great Old One there, which are similar to, if not related to, the Outer Gods. Crestfall has a history with these cults. Nadal tells us that Laern Zolerii has the Blade of Harmony; he’s an abjurist that Graynor has worked with before and is part of the Magic Circle, a collection of spellcasters. Nadal also mentions that sendings have not always been working properly as of late.

After our visit with Nadal we pay a visit to Laern Zolerii. He and Graynor catch up and Laern will sell him the sword at a discount if we perform a job for him. He has a business installing security and would like our help in testing some defenses, which should only take a few hours tomorrow morning.

Terra, Draconnes 22nd, 1194

We meet with Laern in the morning and test his security system in an illusion simulation and earn a discount purchase for the sword.

Ralzer will be crafting for the rest of the day, Graynor and Sigmund are finishing shopping, and Ty will be reading in the library. After their shopping spree, Graynor and Sigmund separately look into Bethany Swan and if “The Oracle” is a person. They find out that Bethany Swan is an advisor to the royal family of Jasper and is a human divine caster. We can’t, however, determine how she knows Ty or how she knows that Ty has that book. Here  are the people that know that Ty has her dangerous book: Nadal, Tharivol, Mikail, and Expounder Victoria.

Forte, Draconnes 23rd, 1194

Before we leave for Crestfall, we talk to Nadal and Laern. Nadal will send word ahead of us to the Inevitable Order in Crestfall and we ask him to look into Bethany; which god does she worship? Laern is nor familiar with the other set items belonging to the Helm of the Warlord. He does point out that the helm has the maker mark of Godo and that other Godo pieces are located at the Salamanca, a sorcery school run by devils. He’s not sure where the school is located and Ralzer thinks that the bit about the devils may be just a rumor.

We leave for Cresftfall, which will take about 11 days, including a stop at Sigmund’s hometown of Delanshire.

Bellum, Ignis 1st, 1194

We arrive in Delanshire and Sigmund and Ralzer visit the Well of Knowledge. In addition to the normal Sustainers (Avarra’s forbidden knowledge sect) that look after the well, there are also Destroyers (Avarra’s death sect) guarding it. Sigmund uses the well to talk to his grandmother. Ralzer wants to get a sample of the water, but is denied.

August 12th, 2023

Forte, Draconnes 9th, 1194 (Continued)

While resting up in the posh room, we overhear some duergar moving in the halls discussing a problem that needs to be taken care of. When we ask them about it they accuse us of releasing something. Apparently their camp has been recently assaulted. We follow them to their camp. They ask us if we found a portal in the sinkhole, saying that a “demon” attacked them and they tracked it back to that portal. The demon is a female humanoid, about seven feet tall with purple-blue skin. She was repelled, but not killed. They want us to close the portal and Sigmund asks for payment for this service. They refuse and tell us to leave. During the argument between the duergar and Sigmund a door opens and a heavily armed duergar emerges. He tells the others to stop and, “tell the dragon our contract is over, we’re leaving”.

While the dwarves are prepping to leave and we are discussing our next steps, a door opens and three gray, six-legged canine creatures emerge from seemingly out of nowhere and attack us. They are accompanied by a slender gray skinned humanoid. These could be a void walker and void hounds. The void walker is knocked unconscious by Ralzer and we kill the hounds, then begin securing the area with a temporary truce with the duergar. Ralzer wants to let the void walker go so he can magically spy on it later. Before we let our prisoner awaken we decide to visit the portal again.

We settle on rebuilding the wall to block the portal and collapse part of the room and the entrance; spending most of the day plugging the portal. Afterwards, we attempt to interrogate the void walker prisoner. He blocks our perception of him and then teleports away.

Bellum, Draconnes 10th, 1194

We continue exploring the duergar area and find a library. Sigmund finds two Investigator Vale novels and keeps them to himself. On the floor is a summoning circle carved into the ground. It was once filled with mithril, but has been stripped; we take the flecks of mithril that are left behind. In the kitchen we find an animated table and learn that if we tell the animated guards to stand down in dwarven, they will obey.

Sigmund wants to speak to Kaarghaz of the stink lizards to warn them of this demon lady. Kaarghaz is aware of her and invites us to visit if we are in the area again.

Before we leave the dwarven hold we check on our sinkhole barricade and it looks as if something has tried digging through it and Sigmund spots some bipedal hoofprints in the area. We camp in the area hoping to catch whatever is doing this and we find our seven foot tall purple-ish lady in the area with the stars on the ceiling. Ralzer believes she is a rare kind of demon, a Debauched One (the planes check: 30) and we engage in conversation.

She describes herself as a tourist and asks if we know anything about the stars in this room. She informs us that they are the constellations of Kaajh’Kaalbh (hearing this name out loud causes us great pain; she is unaffected); he is also known as The Void. The constellations are a copy of the sky where he is from, or once was as he moves around. She tells us that saying his name can alter reality. She was most recently visiting a rather large void world, the one we found down here, but that she was not the one digging into that wall.

She explains that if The Void was called here, there would be signs as he approached. Plants would grow wild, natural growth will look like the entangle spell, and normal animals would have trouble sleeping due to too much energy. Magic would also be altered, it would be more difficult to concentrate on spells, caster levels would be reduced, and wild magic would start to happen. The tentacles are his creation, their presence indicates that he was, indeed, called. When asked how we stop him coming here, she suggests that we interrupt the call.

Regarding the Rite of Six Shadows, she says that if someone completed that ritual it is not a good sign. It can contact a greater demon, turn a mortal into a demon, or turn a demon into a greater demon. We bid our farewells and Graynor is concerned of what she will do once she starts “touring”.

We will now begin our journey back to Ironwald Downs. Three days travel back to Rivershade and a day there selling our loot.

July 29th, 2023

Terra, Dracones 8th, 1194

There’s a room that’s filled three feet deep with brackish water. In the back corner is the skeleton of an orc and some magic potions. Submerged in the water is an orrery, astrolabe, telescope, lots of miscellaneous astronomy tools, and some nice buoys. There’s something hidden behind the wall that starts emitting a pale purple light when Ralzer tries to manipulate the orifice. With Ralzer’s direction we are able to safely excavate around the light, which looks to be a portal.

After some testing, we enter to the portal and find it very similar to the void realm that Graynor visited. The landscape is mostly just sand dunes, but the area is all in grayscale with a purple hue. We see a colossal manta ray-ish creature flying around and come across a field of jellyfish.

Sigmund attempts cast detect magic. The spell doesn’t work, but he gets temporary some HP. Ralzer tries to cast a spell and it works normally. Sigmund tries to cast detect magic again, this time he creates a lot of grease. Through experimentation we determine that spell, spell-like, and spell completion do not always function normally; supernatural abilities do not seem to be altered.

We leave the void realm and discuss our options, settling on talking with the duergar. The duergar will let us explore their area,  with an escort through some of it, for a fee of 400gp. Ghared mentions an area that is infested with undead and another area with a dragon in an underground lake. The undead area has an orc wight and an allip.

We begin to explore the undead area first. One of the doors that lead there has a warning written in Orc, “Beyond this door the Maker of Death is chained. May he gnaw on his own hate until the sun dies and all things end.” We ignore the warning and enter. Inside we find the orc wight and two ogre skeletons, which we destroy. Down the hall we encounter a room full of dwarven skeletons, easily dispatched by Graynor. The hall opens to a larger room and we find, and destroy, the allip. The allip looked as if it might have been a priest in its prior life.

Most of the rooms here look to have already been looted. One room, which has not been looted, has an animated rug protecting it. Based on the personal effects we find inside, the room belonged to Arundel, a priest that traveled with Durgeddin. After Durgeddin died, Arundel started to create undead from the bodies to defend the fortress. His journal details his descent into madness. We rest in this room.

Forte, Dracones 9th, 1194

We delay our exploration to wait for Graynor to recover from the negative level he received from the wight. While waiting, Ralzer finds out that he is diseased with the Shakes. We spend the day recovering.

July 22nd, 2023

Vita, Dracones 6th, 1194 (Continued)

We make camp in the grick’s den.

Mare, Dracones 7th, 1194

We find a white scaled lizard the size of a horse chained to the wall in a hard to access part of the cavern. Sigmund calms it down long enough for Ty to unlock its shackles. It then tries to run away with Sigmund. Sigmund delivers the killing blow, while grappled, with his revenge knife.

We encounter another group of smelly lizard people. Their area has enough food to sustain a tribe for a significant amount of time. Nearby we find their warren and attempt to communicate and ask about the dwarves. They claim that duergar are not in their warren and ask us to leave. Sigmund wants to negotiate safe travel through their territory and is directed to ask their leader, Kaarghaz. Kaarghaz agrees to not attack us, if we leave his people alone.

We take the stairs down, which are behind a very difficult to unlock door. They lead to a very polished stone worked area. We can hear some faint hammering in the distance. Someone is warning us to leave, but we can’t see them. For 400gp they will grant us safe passage–we pay. Three duergar appear as if they were invisible. Ghared is the duergar that is talking with us. We ask her about star maps and prophecies and she directs us to a place they call the Sinkhole. Ghared and the other two are using this area because of the good forge that Durgeddin left behind. No one else has been here asking questions, so no Tolm. We sell her some of our loot and Ralzer buys some black powder. We bid our goodbyes and head to the Sinkhole.

In a disgusting store room is a gray ooze. In The Lord of the God Kings, the sequel to The Wickedly Weaved Webs, the duergar used a gray ooze in a stone bird bath as an enhanced interrogation technique. The cabal leader, Brezel Largith, wants the summoning incantation for the demon Legiticus the Unceasing and has captured Leera Turnsin, an elven maiden and expert in demonology. Investigator Vale needs to rescue her before Brezel succeeds.

In another area Ty and Graynor feel a similar sensation wot when Ty when ethereal near the calendar and when Graynor visited the Void Realm. The ceiling in the area has some star mapping on it and Sigmund copies it. Sigmund believes these stars are not from this planet’s sky, nor are they the same from Tolm’s ceiling. Ty goes ethereal and sees the same shimmering effect as he did near the calendar. It’s confined to a smaller area; she can see the borders. Her book glows brighter. While we are leaving, what looks like three small arcane tentacles and another pale yellow tentacle with white suction cups filled with tiny tentacles attack us. When we kill them they disappear slowly.

Afterwards, we camp and identify magic items.

July 15th, 2023

Mors, Dracones 5th, 1194 (Continued)

We find a secret door that looks as if the orcs didn’t know about it; it leads to a barracks. Down the hall there is a double door with a bloody human skull staked to it. Inside is Zeltron, an ogre divine caster who bears the holy symbol of Thrax–Thrax is the god of hate, malice, and madness. We kill Zeltron and camp in the barracks.

Vita, Dracones 6th, 1194

We find a pair of prisoners from Rivershade, Geradil and Courana; whom we release after making sure the area is secured. Beyond a barricaded hallway we encounter four stirges and a large set of stairs going down. In what looks like a shabby office we find a secret door that leads back to the main area. Sigmund tracks three individuals using this secret passage to escape within the last day or so.

We take the stairs down, which lead to a large, natural cavern system. There are a lot of stirges down here. In a room with yellow mold are two dwarf skeletons, one has a glowing bastard sword with a maker’s mark on it. We burn down the mold and take the sword.

Luna smells something she doesn’t like and soon after we all discover the awful smell. It turns out to belongs to some hiding lizard people. They have a pet bear and Ralzer obliterates its with a scorching ray and the lizard people go down shortly after.

While exploring Ty spots a grick ambush. Gricks are ambush predator aberrations. In The Sundered Carapace some gricks are living in a decayed corpse of an enormous creature that Investigator Vale is exploring. He encounters a pair of them slowly consuming an enlarged parasite.

July 8th, 2023

Terra, Tempus 24th, 1194 (Continued)

We buy and sell stuff, then we will meet with Nadal. Outside of the Inevitable Order there are Madri guards turning people away. Robert, another Madri knight, recognizes us and lets us in. It turns out that there has been a portal that opened in the basement that has water coming out of it.

We meet with Nadal, who says that the portal is theorized to be a gate to the plane of water. The gate, which is currently believed to be a random, natural occurrence, showed up about a day and a half ago. We catch him up on what we’ve been doing–he takes notes this time.

We ask about the sending that never got delievered and he informs us that, in it, he asked how we were and asked about the Nissan Calendar. This doesn’t seem to be unusual and we still can’t determine why it didn’t work.

We discuss the “intro prophecy”, which is hard to understand completely as some of it is vague.

Strange light dances across the landscape. (Spell gorging, our purple haze.)
Animals behaving preternaturally.
A bear-leader inexplicably vanishes.
A moonstruck brigand tells unimaginable tales. (Dodd.)
An astrologer found abhorrently mutilated. (Valeria, 7 months ago.)
A mountain collapses. (The Red Mountains, 5 months ago.)

We ask about the babau and determine that it could be some sort of ritual. No one at this temple is very well versed in demonology and Nadal suggests we ask at the Parish of Everlasting Knowledge before delving into the Order’s vast library.

We visit the flooded basement and Sigmund and Ralzer both take samples of the water. Ralzer goes through the portal and finds it to be dark and wet. The portal on the material plane is horizontal and on the other side it’s at a 45 degree angle.

Ty and Ralzer get a reference letter from Nadal and head to the Parish of Everlasting Knowledge to ask about the babau ritual. Mikail hears that there is a request from a halfling and a tiefling, who have a letter from Nadal, and decides to meet with us. Since this is Mikail, we go over more information than just the ritual. Arcane tentacles are rare enough that not much is known; however, Mikail is also an avid reader of Investigator Vale and much of this is discussed.

Regarding the babau, there is a ritual called The Rite of the Six Shadows, in which each babau represents an aspect of darkness: obscurity, desolation, corruption, terror, betrayal, and demise. The ritual requires babau that are more powerful than normal. The ritual’s purpose is to communicate with powerful entities and open a gate to the Shadow Realm. Mikail believes that the ritual could have been used to communicate with a specific, powerful entity and then convince it to come to this plane.

Ty asks Mikail why he thinks Angelique is still silent. Mikail does, indeed, believe Angelique is still silent, but only Angelique. He goes on to explain about the Days of Reckoning.

Well over a millenia ago there was an event called the Days of Reckoning in which several deities broke sacred laws and died at each others hands. As history tells it, T’llax, the god of blades and the hunt, selected Axmir, the god of pillaging and war, as his prey. Eliaz, the god of laws and retribution, caught wind of this and decided to interpose himself in the matter. As it is one of the most sacred of laws to not directly harm another deity, he also requested assistance from Angelique and Xas’yg, the goddess of creation and energy.

T’llax was swift in his murder of Axmir and sought refuge with Veranna, the goddess of imprisonment, torture and tyranny. Veranna refused to give up the Hunter to Angelique and his companions, stating that he was now her prisoner and would deal with him herself. This did not please the trio and infuriated Eliaz that anyone would so boldly oppose Angelique that he struck out at Veranna. T’llax knew that any judgement cast upon him from either side now would not be in his favor and attempted to flee, maiming Angelique in the process.

It is well known that a wound caused by the blades of T’llax is nearly impossible to heal, even if inflicted upon such that of a god. Eliaz, whose judgment was clouded by his outrage, was dispatched by Veranna who then fled into her realm to recover while Xas’yg tended to the mortally wounded Angelique. The goddess was able to take the wound into herself, thus saving Angelique at the cost of her own life.

Angelique was eventually able to apprehend T’llax and judged him worthy of death, which he immediately carried out himself. The god of truth, however, could see some threads cast into this scenario by another source. Angelique stormed into the domain of Barnabas, convinced that he had more than a small hand in the start of this.

Bewildered that such an accusation would be made at him, Barnabas pleaded his innocence to the god of justice and suggested that blame lay with Leto. With Leto being most fickle, the two decided to invite him to a conference with Avarra. The conference is said to have lasted about a hundred years and the details of what happened in it are unknown, other than that the gods involved spoke to no one else and granted no spells during that time.

As the gods came back, it never felt as though Angelique returned. Mikail believes Angelique’s righteousness could have imposed a self exile on himself, and someone wanted to step in as a placeholder until he returns.

Graynor visits the Temple of Salvation to talk to his CO Guardian Dora and Sigmund joins him. Dora believes it is time for Graynor to be promoted to Defender. Graynor gets some new regalia and goes shopping for matching accouterments.

After meeting back up, Graynor decides to let Dora know about the site of the babau ritual and its possible dangers.

Tomorrow Ralzer will be enhancing his gun and making cold iron bullets. Then, we will begin our trip to the Gannet Mountains, following Tolm’s directions.

Bellum, Tempus 26th, 1194

It will take about 6.25 days of travel.

Mare, Tempus 30th, 1194

Ty gets a sending: “Beware the encroaching shadows. Consult the Oracle. Unlock the secrets within the tome. Act now, for time grows short.” – Bethany Swan. She responds with, “Speak clearly. I do not suffer for riddles from strangers”.

Ty takes another look at her book, and it is now nearly all of the Architects language. Sigmund takes a crack at translating it; he feels a little ill, but is able to learn a few things. There’s a ritual about calling an outer god, and creating a beacon that could attract it. The Mindstone Dagger can be used as a short-cut for completing this ritual. He also finds a name in the book that he instinctively feels should not be said aloud, Kaajh’Kaalbh.

Terra, Dracones 1st, 1194

This is the Spring Equinox.

Bellum, Dracones 3rd, 1194

We are approaching the small town of Rivershade and Ralzer says we are another 2 days or so from our destination.

Mors, Dracones 5th, 1194

We find one of the geological markers that is mentioned in our directions, so the entrance should be nearby. We see some smoke and investigate. We follow the path and it leads to what looks like an orc camp. Sigmund overhears them talking about Zeltron and we try to establish communication. They attack and we end up killing almost 20 of them as we battle our way into the fortress.

June 10th, 2023

Bellum, Comitatus 28th, 1194 (Continued)

We continue our discussion with Tharivol about the recent events. Tharivol believes that the living topiary in the area outside could be evidence of a druid grove or an entrance to the Fey realm. He is also concerned that the spellgorging area is so large.

Ty uses her ability, Empty Body, to see what this room looks like on the Ethereal plane. Normally things would look shadowy; however, in this room things have a color shimmer, like the aurora borealis, and time seems to move slower. While there, Ty feels as if something is alerted to her presence and attempts some kind of mind effect, but is resisted. She feels something similar later, like an attempted to hasten her. The calendar is much brighter here and looks as if it was stored under the floor at some point. A large translucent blue tentacle with pink suckers emerges from the ceiling and moves towards Ty, then her Empty Body ends. It could have been an arcane tentacle, which never have been proven to exist. They are resistant to arcane magic and can remove magical effects on creatures they hit. Investigator Vale theorized their existence in The Stranded Prisoner, during a conversation with his adversary, Artorious Balen. Graynor says that the time feeling was similar to what he felt when he was in a void realm.

We discuss our next moves and settle on investigating the spellgorging area while traveling back to Ironwald Downs. Tharivol advises us to not dilly-dally and don’t listen to Fey invitations or enter any portals.

Iustitia, Comitatus 29th, 1194

We exit the Cave of Unreasonable Ice and our horses are nowhere to be seen. We begin the long trip to Ironwald Downs.

Mors, Comitatus 30th, 1194

We find our horses grazing and reclaim them to bear the burden of our travels.

Mors, Tempus 14th, 1194

We encounter the spellgorging plants about a day earlier than expected. If this is the same instance as before, which was about two miles long, then it has grown to be about 20 miles. We attempt to find the center of the spellgorging and notice that it’s an irregular shape–locating the point of origin will be difficult. Within the infected area, we find patches of normal plant life; the pattern of it could be root-like or tendrils.

Vita, Tempus 15th, 1194

We continue our survey, recollecting that we have seen no kind of fauna at all in this area, and the growth is getting thicker.

At night our camp is attacked by a plague boar, a magical pig that carries the Black Plague–is this the result of the spellgorging?

Mare, Tempus 16th, 1194

We find a copse of large, humanoid-shaped trees, which begin to move as we approach. Sigmund recognizes them as grove guardians, but beneath their bark is a pale violet light that is not typical of them. They can’t communicate verbally with us and aren’t aggressive, so we try alternative methods. Ty shows them Tolm’s mask and they become aggressive, so she makes an impressive display of dropping and heel stomping it. They are upset at the mask and also stomp on it. Sigmund pantomimes until he establishes a general understanding with the guardians, and Graynor attempts to lay on hands one of them with the violet light, but there is feedback that hurts them both. We eventually get a direction as to where Tolm’s grove may have been, which is not in the same direction we are going, but it’s something.

We leave in the direction the grove guardians gave us. About an hour later we find a run down shack. Inside are some gardening notes that appear to be in Tolm’s handwriting.

We continue looking for the source of the spellgorging until it’s time to make camp.

Terra, Tempus 17th, 1194

We come across an area where the plants are exceptionally large and four mandragora attack us. Mandragora are created with demon blood and are very annoying. Just a little farther we find a big tree that has an emaciated form of a babau nailed to its trunk. Babau are demons that are used as assassins. Ralzer mentions that demons like this should have disappeared back to the Abyss after dying, which means this one must have come here by other means. There are some other nearby large trees, six in total, that also have babau nailed to them; this could be part of some macabre ritual. We collect the bodies and burn them. Nearby, Ralzer finds a summoning circle that seems to be very old and he guesses it’s been broken for several months. This could have been used to get the babau here.

We start making our way back to Ironwald Downs.

Bellum, Tempus 19th, 1194

Ralzer has the Black Plague.

Mors, Tempus, 21st, 1194

Ralzer shakes off his disease, but now Luna is showing signs of it.

Mare, Tempus 23rd, 1194

We arrive at Ironwald Downs with Luna still suffering from the plague, so we can’t bring her in.

Terra, Tempus 24th, 1194

Sigmund callously suggests reaching out to the Church of the Land (Eda) for help with cure Luna of her disease instead of the Temple of Salvation (Madri), because it will be a little cheaper. Graynor finds this rationale insulting and Sigmund is oblivious to his faux pas. Ty is sent on an errand to fetch a healer from the church and Graynor accompanies her, just so he can roll his eyes at another faith and irritate Sigmund. It takes several attempts from two priests, but the disease is expelled.