Campaign Logs

Session 65 (1O): We’re Not Sorry Kitty, Played on the 1st of January 2020!   Party Member Dragomir Black; Vos Warlock, lvl 5 (Hats4Cats) Korak Flomhelm; Dwerren Cleric, lvl 5 (SlothSlow) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene "Nim" Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 5 (Summer) Robert "Rob Boss" Bossouri; Brecht Cleric, lvl 5 (Depraved Lunatic) Aubrae Trevelyan; Anuirean Paladin, lvl 4 (Zilarrezko) Saorise Auliffe; Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin, lvl 3 (Serephen)   Start of Log Heyyy. Right this is going to be a long one so I’ll try and get everything in here but your going to have to read the other logs because I might miss something.   Important information to all cohort members.   Aye well first something important for all Cohort members. During this mission, we retrieved an item of great power. This is a Brass lamp that has the ability to bring someone back from the dead no matter how long ago they passed on. I personally gave the Item to Leana Stillborne the Scarlett devil, for the council to hold onto when I arrived back at the Cohort.   I asked the group if they were ok with this and they agreed. They are many members who go out without Korak’s to keep em safe. So if a party member dies and you can bring them back to the council, you can ask them to use the last drop in the lamp. The lamp only has one use left mind and we don’t think you can create more.   Some choices are hard to make but the Kallanon seems to have a good idea when it comes to making the right one. He gave me a second chance so hoping I can return the favor to another. I mean I’m sure we could have gotten untold gold, riches or items of power for something like this but some things are more important than material stuff ya know... We do dangerous work and I don’t want to lose anyone else of the Cohort, especially after Solaria. I'm proud of everyone for agreeing to this.   Alright so the mission.   Right so this mission started in Ber Dairas. We planned to go back again the Temple of Evening. This temple has had so many problems, last time Rob died and he really was looking kind of worried again. The Red Witch was willing to give us access to the Ley Lines back at the palace. She didn’t know if we we’re all going to die again so that was good like. She must have some ability with being able to see the future because last time she knew one of us was going to die.   The first night as nice and peaceful with not much going on. I practiced trying to say Saorise name. Why is everyone’s name so difficult! On the second night Korak took the watch alone, he was really good though, spotted some goblins surrounding the camp. Although he was good at seeing em, he wasn’t too good at hitting em. I leave him for three weeks and he has gone all rusty on me. I’ll give him a prep talk after like.   Aubrae had been complaining she never has gotten paid for doing work at the Cohort. I think she is new and really doesn’t know how things work but I said she could have the gold from the crossbows if she sells em, even offered to pay the tax for her. I better pay that gold after writing up this log, almost forgot don't want to get in trouble like. She seemed happier knowing she was getting paid so increase the spirits among the party. I might be getting better at this leading thing.   We made it to the tower after three nights in total. As soon as we entered that cat was back. Nim became glamoured by it. Trying to chase it left and right. It first led her into an arrow trap for some reason although at the time we didn’t know why. Mamm had her by the shoulder to help pull her back. She only took one arrow but after that they stopped trying to follow the cat, well at first.   We moved towards where we knew the creature with the death ray was but as we got closer we saw some vomit smelling gas leaking from the door. Saosire said it was some kind of undead that we couldn’t see and only be able to kill with magic. I placed down an illusion of a small group of adventurers. My illusioned seemed real enough like and Aubrae said the creature was mixing in with the Illusion, she can sense these things or something. This is when the cat showed back up and roared at it with the sound of a lion, scaring it off. That freakin cat.   Nim started again trying to talk with the cat but this time the cat grab her and pulled her through the walls. She came back white as a sheet and looking frozen. She was saying she saw a chessboard and teapot on a table but something was there. Rob also got dragged also into a room full of treasure. Korak then wanted to follow but the cat left him stuck between the wall. This cat is weird like, bet Cordi would like it tho.   We moved in more this time recreating the sound of the cat to keep the poison undead thing away. I didn’t want to be getting into a fight we didn’t need to. As we moved deeper into the temple we got attacked by some of them undead mummy looking things. I told everyone not to get hit by em, they try and infect you with a disease. Korak and Mamm held the line why my Illusions soaked but some of the damage. Thanks to Leana Stillborne I was able to show em the flames which worked really well on em.   Korak and Mamm worked really well together but Rob is got frustrated and ended up in a bad position. I need to get him that book that going around the Cohort on Tactics. Really don’t want him dying again. At the end of the room we saw a bag that Korak picked up. Nim wanted the sweets but Korak kept hold of em. There were four beans but we going to have a better look at them later on in the Cohort. One of the walls in that room looked strange and as I pressed on it started to rotate around. This led us into a room full of Rugs, Gold, and treasure with a tomb in the middle. I'm pretty sure this place is a grave to someone. As people entered, I didn’t believe this was real, it looked too good to be true. Like we don’t just end up in a room full of gold and stuff. That doesn’t happen. As I looked closer at the room the gold began to move and the rugs twitched on the ground. The breathing, there was breathing in the tomb in the middle. I could hear it. Nim could as well and we started getting everyone out, it wasn’t an Illusion like I thought but it wasn’t what we were looking for. After we left nim started talking to the cat and she looked like she could understand it now. The cat was asking NIm why we were here because we weren’t thieves as we didn’t steal any of the gold. Nim told the cat we were after the brass lamp but and we needed it to help the Sultanas sister who was the real Sultana. The cat wanted Nim to promise to help the real queen, not the fake one. Queen Ahmose-Henutemipet. Nim agreed to help the cat but this is where the confusion got mixed in. Like Aubrae is a smart cookie and she picked up on what I was getting at, Korak was too busy playing with the freakin cat.   The cat gave us a Diamond it fetched to help with Stinky and Sticky. Pretty sure I knew who they were and I was going to have to put myself in front of stinky. The Cat got Korak stuck in the wall again and then showed us where Stink and Sticky was. We followed the cat, passed the monster crying over the corpse until we reached that smell again.   Aye Larmedylth's blessed and training has kept me safe up until this point and I was pretty sure the magic she had taught me would protect me, even to a death ray. Like this is dangerous but I couldnt ask anyone else to stand in front of it, knowing what it would do. I sent my illusion out in-front of the door and we saw the beam fire straight through em. Aye so no sugar there I was like. Standing in-front of a creature that could kill me with one shot waiting for it to happen. Never been so freakin scared in all my life and Korak and Mamm do this all the time! There out their minds like! Lucky the party killed that creature before it had a chance to do it again. Never been so grateful but that when the Clay golem looking thing came running at us. Korak pushed me out of the way and took the line with Mamm again. They listen to my words and started dodging but the thing doesn’t let you recover if it hits ya. It took some time but we defeated both of em, Rob was hitting like a truck, think getting killed to a creature really make him want to fight harder ya know. The tail of the smelly creature looked like it could be used to make a mace. So both Korak and Rob make sure to take it off. Kind of scary both of the priests seem to be expert butchers like.   After that we moved down through the room. The cat led us to an even bigger looking cat like creature, with wings and looked really intimidating. It was guarding the stairs to the top of the tower but wasn’t going to allow us to pass without a trail. I have never met a creature that even looked remotely like it. Some were calling it a Sphinx but I’ve never heard of it. This creature didn’t want to attack us but test us. With some kinda of game. We had to answer riddles it gave us. I’m so happy Nim and Soarise was there like they seem to know the answer every time even before I had time to think about it. Nim was talking to herself about the answer half the time. I almost messed one of em up by not understanding but was just able to work it out barely.   The creature almost gave us a heart attack at the end by raising it weapon but it was only to state that we had passed the test. We climbed up to the top of the tower where we found the brass lamp. The cat made Nim promise something and its eyes glowed red. I was giving looks to Korak and Aubrae hoping they would get the message. Nim took the lamp and we moved through the tome and she took a turn toward the tomb room.   Mamm stepped in at this point and tried to take the lamp from her but she tried to throw it to the freakin cat. Like Korak was able to catch the thing and I took it off him just as the building started to shake. Whatever was sleeping was awake and we soon was starting running. I cast my dragon wings and was getting the hell out of there as soon as possible, grabbing the lamp from Korak. We were running from the temple why piles of living gold and silver chased us across the sands. We got out of range and traveled for three days straight across the sands until we passed the river. Where we fell exhausted.   Once making camp Mamm snapped at Nim about her actions. However there was a strange mark on the hand of Soarise and Rob broke the tension. Once the group looked closer both Korak and Rob had also received a black Ankh. A curse mark with powerful divination magic bound into it. Korak was able to remove some of the magic and the Black Ankh with the power of Moradin from his skin but some of the magic was still there.   We waited outside the city, both Rob and Aubrae thought it was wise not to bring anyone marked inside the city wall. Especially as it was divination magic. Rob and Korak removed what they could but we had to spend the Diamond we got. Aubrae got to get a priestess from the temple of Laerme to come and removed the last one from Mamm. She also brought a cat with her as a gift to Nim. I was hoping to give the diamond to Aubrae as payment but guess the crossbows will have to do. Doubt she would want a bean.   The priestess was able to remove it and we got really lucky as the Sultana was holding court inside the city as we arrived. Back at the court, everyone was kicked out and we were escorted by the Sultana to where her sister, the real Sultana was being kept. We watched as she poured one drop of the lamp onto her head and she awoke. She was very weak and didn’t look in the best condition but she was awake. Upon releasing what her sister had done the real Sultana looked very worried.   We had woken up Queen Ahmose-Henutemipet and she will now be hunting us forever. Like the words “end of the earth was used”. But she isn’t revived so her power isnt at full but the lands to the west of Ber Dairas are extremely dangerous, like don’t go there unless you really have to and then think about going somewhere else.   However, she did say keeping a cat, which she named Raqiq her word for Fluffy, nearby helps to keep Queen Ahmose-Henutemipet at bay but she will really want the lamp. But. maybe we can use it to lure her away from her safe spot to defeat her at some point. Really going to have to find out what we are dealing with though. But the tower of evening is now off-limits to everyone who doesn’t want to die the most painful of deaths.   I did ask the Sultana if she would be willing to give us a boon, being able to gain leyline access forever. Given how now even entering the area is dangerous I don’t want to get attacked by the Queen without being able to protect myself. She was weak and said she would think about it and I would need to send a letter to her. Anyone on this mission really should do the same as these lands are going to be very difficult to stay alive in are what we did.   We left them to recover and visit one more individual from the city. I met this kitty kat lady by the name of Elishéva in the city last time I was here. She was alright and kind of help us find the Sultana last time, but wanted to do this temple break-in thin. She wanted us to get her the lamp for some reason as well but we really didn’t know why so I took the party to The Cats Cradle, a bar place she runs. Before leaving the Sultana told us she needed the lamp for her daughter who was being looked after at the …. The temple of Laerme. You know what want.. both of them had been affected by something very similar. I’m going to tell the Sultana she needs to speak with Elishéva and talk about the circumstances of both of these events and see if there is a connection. Anyways, some members were unsure but I did my best Kallanon impression about "The balance of all things" and they all seemed on board.  Elishéva daughter had been getting looked after by the temple of Larla and we doubt it would have been cheap. The lamp was able to cure her of whatever was effecting her but again she was really weak and wanted some time to rest.   Later on we spoke with her about the events and that there are members of the cohort who she is on good relations with. We told her how cats seem to keep the magic at bay and offered to send some of her kin to aid us and she would repay us in kind. I knew she was nice, plus Korak like fluffy things so ya know keep him happy like.   Right I think I got everything in here. O RIGHT, the curse. So we need to go to a place called the Tower of Morning for it is the sun to the moon of the other temple or something. Not really sure but apparently its has people living inside it and they should be able to help us. Tho the Red Witch did say something about a Omen at the tower of morning so not really sure if it ok. We know it is located in the area of Ariya two providences’ east of Binsada but whereabouts we need to find out. Alright I think I got everything like. Don’t go near the tower of evening. 

Session 67: Snake Through the Hart Cohort members present: Agatha Duskhart (Summer) Prudence Duskhart (Lena C) Ant (Seraphina Leaf) Cedrych (Adam B) Lindal (Michael H.) The events leading to the rescue of Dietric Wyvern, as dictated by Lindal Leagallow.   We all met up at the Cohort as normal.  Prudence explained that we were all there to help find out what happened to her twin sisters, Agatha, fiancé.  Though to look at them you’d not think they were twins.  Agatha is a normal Rjurik woman and Prudence is half woman half deer, yes I did say deer.  I really had trouble getting my head around this but they insisted and the others seemed to agree so, I went with it.  Apparently Agatha’s fiancé vanished a few weeks ago, and she is worried because he left his pet Wyvern or something.  All agreeing that this was an honourable quest we set off.  On the journey Agatha explained who she suspected of taking Dietric, her fiancé.  There were two suspects, the first, and most likely according to Agatha, was some snake patron Agatha was formerly connected to.  Something about having to take this snake being as patron to save Dietric.  Who was dying, or had died, because he gave Agatha his bloodline to stop her from dying too quickly or something.  I’m just a simple Cellweir  from a Monastery near the bogs in Hoeskal, all this is beyond me.  The second was a beholder that Prudence had fought that had declared it would make her pay, but that seemed the least likely of the two.              The journey was safe and we landed near the Wyvern estates.  The sisters had some sort of argument as we landed that ended up with Agatha in the water.  As it became clear she could not swim, Ant dived in to save her.  With my help he managed to pull her back onto the docks.  Once Ant and Agatha had dried we headed to the estate where we met Dietric’s older sister, Katherine Wyvern II, or Kath as I’m going to call her for the rest of this.  Kath from the start, was hostile toward Agatha.  She all but accused her of some plot to destroy the family.  It seems the Wyvern family’s mom had sacrificed her life for Dietric by giving him her bloodline even though she was so old it would kill her, after he had given away his bloodline to Agatha.  All this makes me glad I ain’t got a bloodline.  And now Dietric had vanished as well.  After swapping a few insults Kath allowed us to look around Dietric’s room.  As we did Agatha asked that if we discovered her letters to Dietric that we did not read them.  I told her that was not a problem as I can’t read.  Which was fortunate as while searching I found her letters, once I’d told her where they were I continued searching.  Cedrych discovered some scales on the floor, snake scales.  Agatha and Prudence were most interested in them, something to do with Agatha having been a snake lady for a time.  Any further talk about this was interrupted by a large snake bursting up out of the bed.  And by large I mean it covered the bed.  It attempted to attack Prudence, but missed, then turned on Ant and got a couple of blows in before the rest of us all charged over and cut it down.             While Ant seemed preoccupied with the snake, the rest of us continued to search and I found something written under a small table.  I could not read it of course, but it looked written in blood.  Calling Agatha over she and Prudence both read it.  I tell you it’s fascinating watching a deer get down on to the floor to look under a small table, made me think of dinner for some reason.  They both agreed that the writing was in Infernal and read ‘Traitor’.  This made Agatha sure that it was her former Patron who had taken him.  We went and told this to Kath, who was more interested in getting Agatha into a dress.  She now seemed even more suspicious of Agatha.  But, after helping her change she at least seemed to accept that Agatha was Agatha.  When Agatha did get to explain things to Kath, Kath was not pleased to put it mildly.  Blaming Agatha for everything, Kath would not even help by sending any guards with us to try and rescue her brother, nice!  We gathered some more supplies and headed out to where this Patron was.  For three days and two nights we travelled safely.  On the third night we were approached in the early morning by a strange creature with the body of a man but arms that were made up of many different snakes.  It hissed something in Infernal and there was a short conversation between it and the twins.  Which came down to it was from Agatha’s former patron and it wanted Agatha to go with it alone.  We all agreed that this was a bad idea and a fight started.  The thing showed itself to be a coward by first bringing a magical darkness down around it to hide it from us.  Of course, it could not hide itself from the gaze of Kirken, and the Storm God guided my javelin throw hitting the thing with such force that it lost control of its darkness and the spell faded.  With it visible now we all attacked.  Ant and Prudence striking mightily, while myself, Cedrych and Agatha assisted.  The thing did get in a few good blows against me, but my Stoutish resistance meant its poison was not as effective as the beast had hoped.  Now all but surrounded, and badly wounded the thing first teleported away then turned invisible as we all gave chase.  Prudence was able to use her keen eyesight to track it by the trail of blood it was leaving and she struck it down.  Now certain that her patron held Dietric, Agatha pushed us on. We reached an old Temple to Moradin, before we entered I told the group about my having Moradin’s favour just in case it might prove of use.  We followed Agatha as she knew where she was going, through the temple to a locked door.  Agatha had not thought to bring the key, but Cedrych thought he could unlock it with his thieves’ tools, and he was correct.  Continuing on down some stairs we reached another door and Cedrych again unlocked it only to find a figure on the other side.  A man, in full black armour with firey eyes.  He spoke slowly, like he was confused or something and told us to come with him to the mistress.  We followed and were led to the centre of the temple where we met two snakes, with the heads of people.  One looked fairly young, a child, the other looked a lot older.  The older one was, unsurprisingly, Agatha’s former Patron.  A nice bitch of a snake called Explitica Defilus.  Defilus confirmed that she had Dietich and that the whole thing had been to punish Agatha for breaking their bond.  Agatha explained that it had been by accident and not by design as Prudence had cast a spell on Agatha and removed the bond, along with turning Agatha from a snake woman back to normal.  All though I think I heard them say that they had once been Teiflings, so I’m not sure if being human was normal, but I may have misheard that bit.  By now I was completely confused with all the weird changes both Agatha and Prudence had gone through.  Defilus demanded that Agatha re-pledge herself to her, she also threatened Prudence, and then all of us, saying maybe we should all be made to swear to her.  To back this up she brought in a massive snake, it made the one on the bed look tiny.  As well as waking up a huge statute of Moradin that she now controlled.  Defilus gloating how easily she had destroyed the priests in the temple and corrupted the statue.  Feeling like I had to do something to try and help Agatha, while also thinking that as a favoured of Moradin I really should try to help free his statue.  I silently called on Moradin, clutching the symbol I now own as I did.  For a moment the statue seemed to move outside of Defilus’s control but she turned to stare at it and quickly brought it back under her control.  I was considering a mad dash toward the statue, intending on brandishing the symbol of Moradin and openly calling on him to take back control of his statue, and free his temple of the evil that had over taken it.  Before I could however Agatha made a deal to stay with Defilus and allow the nasty snake to do whatever she wanted to her.  Against our better wishes, and only because Agatha all but ordered us to, we began to leave. As we left the area Prudence was hanging back, and she explained that she had whispered to her sister to use a magic spell, Misty Step, to get away and then run to reach us.  While Cedrych pushed ahead, myself and Ant hung back with Prudence in case Agatha needed our help.  In the end she did not as she soon caught up with us, though she had again changed.  She was now around the age of 15-16 years old, when she had been in her early to mid-twenties before.  She said she would explain once we were out.  On the way out we met up with Deitrich who had been released by Defilus.  He told how he had been held, and tortured, for weeks by Defilus as punishment for Agatha.  Not sure how that works but hey.  Once we were on the road and camped a good day away from the temple Agatha explained.  Defilus had given her a choice, either Agatha, Prudence or Dietrich had to suffer the consequences of Agatha’s actions.  Agatha, honourably, chose herself.  She was then offered a choice between Monster or Youth and she chose youth.  Which first resulted in her being turned into a child snake like the one we had seen near Defilus, then back into her human form only several years younger, and with a number of snake scales on her arms.  This upset Prudence who left the camp followed by Agatha.  While they were gone Cedrych told how he did not trust Agatha, and that we should keep both eyes, and more on her.  I asked how we could keep more than both eyes on her but he did not explain.  As far as Cedrych was concerned the curse that had been put on Agatha was not much of one if it gave her youth.  Both Ant and myself tried to explain how it was less the physical effects and more the emotion one of having to pledge herself to a creature like Defilus, but Cedrych seemed not to grasp this.  Returning to the Wyvern estate we handed Deitrich back over to his sister who seemed at least pleased we had rescued him.  To our shock Agatha then handed back the engagement ring, breaking the engagement.  She then insisted that Deitrich take back his bloodline, something Kath was very willing to do.  What followed was a really freaky ritual where by Agatha had to cut her hand and bleed into a cup for Deitrich to drink while candle floated around them dripping hot wax on to them, then a white energy passed from Agatha to Deitrich.  Again, I am glad I don’t have any of this bloodline crap in me, it just seems way too freaky.  Dietrich seemed upset by all this, but after his ordeal he was in not real place to argue.  With this done we travelled back to the Cohort.  On the way the curse continued to effect Agatha as she lost another year of age, or at least physical age it seemed she was still mentally and emotionally the age she had been before. Arriving at the Cohort we followed as Agatha and Prudence went to speak to the Kallannon.  To say he was upset would be an understatement.  But, he did offer to aid Agatha in breaking this bond and releasing her from her curse.  This would involve Agatha dying so she could pledge herself to the Fate Weaver.  Kallannon cast a spell to block out Defilus’s control then brought in one of the other leaders of the Cohort, Lady Lianna.  The Lady explained that the curse might still have an effect on Agatha while her link to Defilus was removed.  Agatha said she understood.  Kallannon and Lady Lianna began to cast their spells, Prudence cast the spell she had used to first remove the link to Defilus.  Then Agatha drove a ritual black dagger into her own heart.  For several moments we waited unsure what would happen as Agatha was cocooned in a magical shield.  When it cracked open and released her she was alive, and free of Defilus’s control.  However the curse had affected her more, she now had the body of a girl of 10 or 11 years old.  Lady Lianna told Agatha to come speak to her about what it meant to now be pledged to the Fate Weaver and we were all told to give as detailed a report as we could by the Kallannon.  As we parted our ways Agatha gave myself, Ant, and Cedrych 100gp of her own money as thanks for assisting in rescuing Deitrich.  I said it was not needed as Cedrych had already persuaded Kath to provide a small reward, but Agatha insisted.  As he left Cedrych tried to ruffle Agatha’s hair as if she was a child, as he did this both I and Prudence stamped on his feet.  I have a feeling Prudence probably inflicted the greater pain, she is after all a deer.   I declare this to be a true recollection of the events. X Marked by Lindal’s hand.  

Session 67: Snake Through The Hart Present members Agatha (Summer) Prudence (Lena C) Ant (Seraphina Leaf) Cedrych (Adam B.) Lindal (Michael H.) I sent a letter to Dietric, but recieved a response, not from him, but from his sister Kathrine II Wyvern. She wrote that he had gone missing and asked if I had any idea where he could be. I suspected he might have been taken and not just left his home on his own, as his wyvern, Akka, was left behind. The first one I told was of course my sister, and when I told her I wanted to go to Trie to look for him, she insisted that we bring other members of the Cohort in case things were worse than we expected. We met up with the ones Prudence managed to recruit at the Cohort and then went off to Trie by boat. I was very annoyed with Prudence for making me get more people involved and teased her quite a bit during the journey. In response to that she pushed me in the water when we were on the docks. Ant pulled me up from the freezing water and I dried myself of with some magic before we made out way to the Wyvern estate. I announced us to the servants by the door and we met Kathrine, who absolutely hates me, insulted me and my sister. She even accused me of killing her mother and that maybe I was even behind Dietric’s disappearance. All to take over the Wyvern House. When she was done we were left to search the room. I warned everyone from reading any letters or notes they found, as they could be from me and I didn’t want anyone to snoop. Cedrych found snake scales that looked very much like the ones I used to have and they were attached to some skin, but not snake skin. Ant and Prudence found a whole snake in the bed. After killing it, it was clear that Defilus was behind this, probably as a punishment for breaking our bond. Lindal found text written under a table, it was in infernal, which both me and my sister knows. The text said ‘Traitor’. At this point we had gathered enough information for me to know that it was Defilus who had taken him, and I suspected we would find her down in the Temple of Moradin, where I first came in contact with her. I asked Katherine to send some of her people with us but she refused to so we went off on her own. Following the road we made it safely to the Crossroads before anything happened. A man approached us. His arms were snakes sticking out of his body and he spoke infernal. He was sent to get me, the traitor, as he called Prudence, thinking she was me. I told him that I would follow him without making a fuss if he let the party come with, he refused and we decided to just get rid of him. He used darkness, teleportation and invisibility, but he didn’t manage to get out of our grasp and Prudence smashed him down with her quarterstaff. We hid him in the bushes and moved on to the Temple. I barely remembered the way inside the cave, but with Prudence there we managed to find the door leading down to where we fought the goblins and where Dietric died. I had forgotten the key, but Cedrych made himself useful and managed to pick the lock. When we went down the stairs we ended up in front of another locked door, once again unlocked by Cedrych. On the other side of the door was a knight in black armour with red eyes shining through it’s helmet. I asked the knight to bring us to Defilus and he led us down two floors. The room we came into was lit up by purple flames lining the walls and the knight leads us up to a door. I ask him to open it and on the other side we see two giant snakes, one with a child’s head and one with a humanoid face. It was Defilus. She greeted me and introduced us all the a giant snake that came up behind us, keeping us from leaving, and a statue of Moradin that came to life and moved. She kept taunting us, threatening us. I asked her for Dietric and she said knew where he was. I asked for him back, but she was very, very angry with me. She demanded I entered her service again and I agreed to, I did everything to protect my sister from her. She told me to bow, which I did. Then she ordered me to get on my stomach, like a snake. I did that too. Anything for Prudence. She tried to make them serve her as well but I managed to talk my way into being the only one who had to stay. Prudence asked for permission to say goodbye and when she did she asked me if I could use my magic that made dark mist take me away a few feet. I watched them leave and then I tried to use my magic to follow, but she stopped me. She asked me what my favourite thing in life was, and I said my sister, Dietric and Emily. She then asked what Prudence’s favourite things in life were and I said myself and nature. Defilus then gave me a choice; who would pay for my actions of leaving her services in the first place? It was either me, Prudence or Dietric. I offered myself. She then asked me to pick a punichment, the curse of youth or monsters. I tried to figure out what they meant, and ended up picking monsters. She turned me into a horrible, scaley monster and when she saw my panic she asked if I regretted my choice. I really did and asked for the punichment of youth. She turned me into a young teenager and told me that the curse would repeated itself if I displeased her again. Then she let me go to my sister, as I had taken my punishment and entered her services again. I caught up with them and we ran! Defilus had told me that we would find Dietric on our way out and he was waiting for us outside the first locked door Cedrych had opened. He wore his armour, all but his helped and he looked very, very pained. Defilus had tortured him, only telling him it was because of me. He didn’t recognise me in the first place as he had no idea I was a human now, nor that I was about 15 years old. We retired to the Crossroads to rest for the night and I told the party what had happened after they left. Prudence got very upset and walked off. I followed her, having a heart to heart talk about the scary event. A couple of days later we were back at the Wyvern Estate with Dietric. Kathrine was pleased to have him back, but still hated me of course. I felt like I had done nothing but hurt Dietric at this point and return the ring he proposed with, the Wyvern signet ring. I also demand that he took back his bloodline that he had given to me and Katrine instructs me on how to do it. First I had to cut my hand with an obsidian dagger and let some of my blood into a cup. Dietric drank from the cup and candles started floating around is, wax dripping on us. It hurt, a lot. White energy left my mouth and went to Dietric. I felt weakened, but it was done. He was no longer connected to me, which meant he should be safe. In fact, the biggest reason for going back on the engagement, other than me now being a teen, was that I would do anything for Prudence, but not for him. Cedrych managed to convince Katherine to pay the party members that were not me and Prudence. During the travels to Trie and travels back to the Cohort Defilus spoke to me several times. She told me that my first mission was going to be to get her The Medusa. She scolded me for giving back the bloodline and asked me if I was ignoring my Mistress when I never responded to her. I just wanted to get to the Kallanon and ask him for help. I knew he had helped someone in a similar situation before. When we arrived I asked to speak in private so me and the party were taken to a private room where I retold the story from the very first point I went into Defilus services. He brought Leana Stillborn from the council could help me by performing a ritual that would require me to die. It would also most likely trigger the curse of youth again, making me even younger. I was so scared I would do anything to break the bond with Defilus. Leana gave me an obsidian dagger and told me to plunge it through my heart. Prudence offered to assist Leana Stillborn with her moonbeam spell. Leana and Prudence cast their spells and it was now my turn. I was so, so scared but I managed to plunge the dagger and when I woke up again I was clean of any bonds to Defilus, but I had a hint of fangs from being found to the Fate Weaver instead. Oh, and the curse had triggered again and I was 11 years old… The Kallanon wasn’t even sure if I would be able to stay with the Cohort but he told me I could go on missions as long as it was with my sister. I paid Ant, Cedrych and Lindal 100 gold pieces each for putting them in such a dangerous position. For anyone going to the Temple of Moradin again, please keep in mind that Explitica Defilus has taken over the temple and has control over many horrible creatures down there. She herself is a servant of Serpentine the Primordial. Defilus have snake priestesses serving her. She has previously asked me to get her Wound, the Orog battleaxe. The Medusa was a servant to her that escaped, and she wanted me to bring her back as well. That is all I remember of my former patron, but anyone intending to cross paths with her… well, you’re very stupid, but welcome to ask me questions.

Session 68: Exploring the Harrowmarsh, Found a Fey Prince Present members Orithar (Hats4Cats) Lvl 5 Ingund (Serephen) Lvl 3 Hedrin (SlothSlow) Lvl 5 Galena (Zilarrezko) Lvl 4 We arranged a meeting to go around the Harrowmarsh. Everyone in good spirits, Galena asked Orithar to lead. Didn’t make good impression last time, will try harder. Suggested going to the Cats Cradle and meeting up with Elisheva. Good lady, when I spoke with her last. She gave us drink and warned about a Queen moving. We had no plans go near a temple so gave it good distance. We asked for rumours that are traveling from the area. Storys of large green ogre in marsh. Been given favour of many fey. Annoying Fey, stupid sheep still makes too much noise. Take the tree of Soul to be its home. Party want to give it distance. Ironic. Elisheva has smugglers working in marsh but fey makes bad business. Cultist arrive in marsh, for what reason, do not know. Gelena likes idea of making coin however wasn’t interested in betting on fight. Hedrin joined in but picked wrong fighter. Gelena liked Abriana, The Red Devil. I never seen her fight but she wanted her writing on paper. Man running betting had men for hire. Price every high for one. Wasn’t impressed by skill. He was quick but lacked spark. Settled for man with short sword, full of air and didn’t take well to group named Malik. Gelena didn’t like Malik speaking with name at the start of sentence, Orithar did the same for laugh. Didn’t work. Hmm. Had to buy mule or travel to marsh would use all rations. First time sleep was quiet, Gelena wanted to use tent, however not suitable. Enjoy stars and drink. Second brough old women. Gelena thought it was Hag then Bee. Women did have honey but was also old. Could have been both. Ask her to join us at fire. Kept under eye. However old women are harmless, can cause no damage. Offered us honey that means we eat less next day. Didn’t know at the time. In morning gave old lady gave Gelena honey pot. She was leaving to go home and never gave us a name. Nice lady carries honey. Be Kind. Found way to serpent camp. Enjoyed company however their life is hard. Can relate, I have bad experience with humans however Cohort has been good, gives room for work. Chance to kill god with axe. Agreed with snake lady to take one of her sisters to cohort on the way home one was called Briseida the other Amara. Gelena liked Amara however only Hedrin not a fan. Didn’t want company during the night. Malik claim he too young.   After collecting boat make it to water. Went rowing around the marsh lands. On first day boat attack by alligators, Malik was instantly grabbed, unable to assist. Ripped to pieces before anyone could react. Must have been hanging over the edge, killed one of the alligators in return however they didn’t care. Just ate both of the dead. We came across some flowers, called Rafflesia flowers. They have smell of dead corpse and the pollen have been harvested already. Something in area like these flowers, I was unable to harvest them but they seem to move away from me. Like living thing knew. Track her flowers like something landed, took flower and moved on. We went looking for what it could be. During the next nights, Ingund hears loud buzzing around camp. They seem to be active during the night not day. Looking for flowers. He followed buzzing during day, found humanoid looking bee like creatures. Very Timid. Gelena understood them but could not speak. Bee lady gave her more honey for her to leave. Think these bees like the flower we found. Ingund left paper with writing on it, perfume with smell and picture with Cohort Symbol of eating honey. After we left hoping they would take what we left as trade for honey. She through bad idea to come without someone who can speak. I agree. Only lead to fight, no honour fighting bee lady. Went further north into marsh. Found small area, man in dark blue robes standing outside. Pull up and called Orithar a Green face fucker. Gelena placed bolt through his eye. Perfect response. Then found my favourite, demons. Four popped up, all looked angry, made of mouths and wanting fight. Was Happy. Sneaky mage however attack with lightning why we couldn’t see. Mage then looked ready to cast strong cold magic! Hedrin throw magic missiles in her shield, boy is young. Needs to learn how magic works. Lightning hurt but mage left her self open. Axe hit her well. One of Orithars best hit on stupid mage. However did not go straight down… she should have. Orithar got ready with special surprise around corner. Would have dealt same damage again but she didn’t cast cold magic. She took a dagger and robbed me of kill, Darvius would be laughing. However, this was her last resort now she another corpse. Her body burst open from inside, summoned a so called Fey Prince. One called Berstuc who fought alongside of Azrai during the war. He was Huge in size for a green man, with wide features holding large tree. Mage lady had spell book and staff. I saw an opening and took it grabbing book but tall man wasn’t happy. Chased after me for book that he was happy to have left on ground before. Strong fight with Fey Prince, used spell entangled, hit you with a log three times from range. He very strong physical ability however slow to move. He was able to absorb the demons around him. Gelena maded sure that two were killed before he could. Yet another fey that needs removing. Was able to run for a time but boat wouldn’t move. Unable to row to get away before he reached. I was able to break the plant around boat with brute force but boat still didn’t move. Prince grab me and I throw book away. Lucky, he went for book, finally was able to escape. Will return for princes head. On way back stopped at Snake lady house for her daughter. Took her back with us to the Cohort with us to speak with members about giving them shelter. Hope they understand that world doesn’t like them. Snake lady did say they have services to offer, warriors, magic users. These would be helpful. Stopped back at Cat's Cradle, spoke with  Elisheva that cultist spell caster and guard had been killed. Best not to mention Fey Prince. 

Session 65 (1O): The Queen's Cat Played on the 1st of January in the year 2020! Present: Dragomir Black; Vos Warlock, lvl 5 (Hats4Cats) Korak Flomhelm; Dwerren Cleric, lvl 5 (SlothSlow) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene "Nim" Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 5 (Summer) Robert "Rob Boss" Bossouri; Brecht Cleric, lvl 5 (Depraved Lunatic) Aubrae Trevelyan; Anuirean Paladin, lvl 4 (Zilarrezko) Saorise Auliffe; Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin, lvl 3 (Serephen) Locations: Ber Dairas, Binsada. Tower of Evening, Mermoune, Binsada. Me and Nim decided to accompany the mission to go back to the Tower of Evening, meeting up in the Cohort, quickly introducing ourselves to those who we hadn't met before. The only new face for myself was a young lady named Saorise. Poor girl had to hear every possible pronunciation of her name except the correct one. She seemed easily startled, but I was glad to see over the course of the mission, that she was a more than capable warrior. A great addition to the Cohort. We set off and arrived in Ber Dairas, getting access from the red witch to the 3rd circle of magic for our mages of various stripes. We left the city, and began moving through the desert. Our first day and night went by quietly, but on the second night, during Korak's watch, we were attached by a group of Goblins. While I couldn't put on my armour in time, they were dealt with very quickly. The Goblins were then buried and we finished our sleep and watches. The third night past by quietly, and on the fourth day, we made it to the tower. We moved into the tower, finding a strange cat that appeared magical. Nim tried to communicate with it, and we tried following it, however it just led us to a trap that fired arrows at Nim. If I'd known the cat did it deliberately, I swear that thing would be a fine paste. We moved on from the cat for now, and found ourselves in a room where all of a sudden, vomit-smelling gas started coming out from under a door. We moved out to avoid whatever it was while we mulled it over, before Saorise realised what it was, telling us to run and not try taking it on. She said it was some kind of invisible undead creature that only magic could effect. Fortunately, my hammer had been made temporarily magical by Korak. We decided to take it on anyway, Dragomir using a brilliant strategy to create illusions of four of us, and use them to distract our enemy. Aubrey then sensed that something undead had moved in among the illusions. At that point, the cat came up to the illusions, roared as if it were an impressive big cat, and Aubrey told us the undead had gone away. The cat went off through a wall. We moved forward, with the illusions of us in tow. We came across the cat again, and Nim tried to talk to the cat again, asking if it could show us the way. The cat then walked through a wall again, Nim chased after it in frustration, and then the cat came back out, bit Nim on the hand, and dragged her through the wall. I was, as you can imagine, distraught and terrified for her safety, screaming out for her. After about a minute, the cat brought Nim back through, who was paralyzed with fear. I held her and tried to calm her. She managed to say what she had seen; a room with some kind of ghost in it, as well as a table with a chessboard and a teapot. I made sure she was okay before we continued. Further on, Rob let the cat take him through another wall, he came back, describing a room full of treasures. Korak then tried letting the cat drag him through a wall, and it did, but only part-way, leaving him stuck in the wall. Korak gave the cat some food, and the cat freed him. Further in, a group of Mummy's attacked Drago's illusions. We moved into formation with me and Korak up front avoiding hits and the other's attacking them safely. We did really well, though Robert I think got frustrated and moved up to attack in melee. Fortunately, he didn't pay for this and we took them all down without much harm to ourselves. We moved through a revolving door in a wall, finding two more doors. Behind one, a room with a pile of gold, a pile of gems, a rug, and a sarcophagus. Several members of our unit could hear breathing coming from the sarcophagus. Drago was especially suspicious of the room, and Nim told me everything in the room was alive. We decided to leave the room alone, and not take any of the treasure inside. We opened the door, revealing another corridor. Before moving on, the cat started talking to Nim. The cat told her that because they didn't steal any of the treasure, the cat deemed us worthy. The cat asked Nim what we were here for, Nim said the brass lamp. The cat said that would be stealing. Nim told the cat that we needed the teapot to help the Sultana's sister, the real Sultana. Nim agreed that if we got the the lamp, we'd use it to resurrect what the cat called the 'original queen'; "Queen Ahmose-Henutemipet", who we believe was in the sarcophagus. I decided to wait until after the cat had helped us get the lamp before going back on helping this 'queen', not wanting to experience this cat or its master wrath until necessary. The cat also gave Nim a crystal to help us. This crystal could apparently bring us to life if needed to. Maybe a Revivify spell? Nim convinced Korak to let the cat take him through another wall so we could make progress. The cat pulled him through only partially again, leaving him stuck. The cat mewed as if it were laughing, then pulled him out. The cat told Nim we'd have to get past 'Stinky' and 'Sticky' to get to the lamp. We followed the cat to where they were. On the way, Nim told us all the truth about her age in order to get the cat to trust her more. Told me she's 13 years old and not 16. I still haven't talked about that with her properly. I hope she's okay. We found 'Stinky' and 'Sticky'. Stinky; A giant orange cat with a frightening beam that it shot out its mouth. It also absolutely stunk. Sticky; was I think referred to by the other as a clay golem. We managed to take them down with me and Korak once again taking their attacks. I was fine, but Korak was heavily drained by a nasty blow from the Golem. We continued following the cat into a room with a Sphinx. Nim and Drago were able to talk to it. It gave them a bunch of riddles and a mathematical problem. If we couldn't answer correctly, the Sphinx said we would all die. After much discussion and panic, we were able to answer them all correctly and were allowed past, with the Sphinx allowing us past. We went up some stairs and found a little platform with the lamp sitting on it. After five expeditions, we had finally found the Sultana's desired item. Now came the difficult part for me. I don't know how persuasive the cat was to Nim, but she had been taken in by the cat's wishes, and was intending to raise the queen. On the way to the room with the sarcophagus, when we as close as we could be to the exit without going into the 'queen's' room, I picked up Nim and told her and everyone else we were leaving, and not raising the queen. Nim was upset that I was 'making her lie' to the cat, and tried to throw the lamp to the cat, but Korak managed to catch it. The cat then said something to Nim, and the tower started shaking, and a wave of living treasure began to chase us through the corridor's of the tower. We all ran, and managed to get out, but had to keep running across the desert for three days before crossing el-Tasri river, which the sandstorm couldn't seem to cross. Once we made camp, I told Nim why I had to go against her wishes, why I couldn't risk letting that 'queen' be raised. She was upset, but she listens to me, and knows when I'm right. I will have another couple of chats with my daughter to make sure she learns what she did wrong. This will not happen again. You need not discipline her, I assure you. Please. On our way to Ber Dairas; I, Nim, Korak and Saorise were somehow marked with an image of a blank ankh cross. This mark seemed to be Queen Ahmose-Henutemipet tracking us. Korak and Robert removed the curse from Nim, Korak and Saorise, not having enough magic to rid me of my curse too. Aubrae went into Ber Dairas to find out where the Sultana was, as well as find a temple that could help me with the curse. She also bought a cat for Nim, which was nice of her. She came back, gave Nim the cat, told us the Sultana was in the city, which was fortunate, and that there was a temple that could me. Aubrae and Nim went and traded the crystal for someone to come and help, while I stayed outside to avoid the temple being targeted by our tracker. They brought a priest to me, and the priest removed my curse. After thanking the priest, we went to the Sultana and gave her the lamp. She went and poured a drop from the lamp onto her sister; the real Sultana, and she awakened. She thanked us for what we had done, though was worried about Queen Ahmose-Henutemipet being out for us, saying the queen would chase us down to the ends of the earth. The queen isn't fully powerful though as we didn't revive her. She then said that having a cat nearby helps keep her at bay, though she will be determined to get the lamp, as well as revenge on us. Nim asked the Sultana to name her new cat. She named her Raqiq, the word for fluffy in her language.  We asked if we could use the lamp to help the daughter of a woman named Elishéva, and she let us take the lamp. We went to the Cat's Cradle, found Elishéva, and she poured a drop from the lamp onto her daughter. It was quite an emotional moment, and a sense of relief overcame all of us. I and Nim hugged each other for quite a while, and everyone else started hugging too. It was a sweet moment. We've brought the lamp, with one final drop left, back to the Cohort. I believe it was given to Leana Stillborne, for the council to hold onto. I don't know what the council will wish to do with it, but given it can bring people back no matter how far gone, I have no doubt the council will give it a lot of thought. Mamm Bealdaartsdotter

Session 68 (Mission SPECIAL) - Bayou Travesty 03/01/2020 Participants Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) Hedrin Toadslayer, Dwerren Sorcerer (SlothSlow) Ingund Sheep-Seer, Human Barbarian/Fighter (Serephen) Orithar Trisk, Half-Orog Wizard (Hats4Cats) Hello cohorters. Here is my report from the latest expedition that i went on. What an adventure this was. Lots of discovery and experienced. So we went to explore a region called the harrowmarsh. Its just to the west of a country called binsada and south of a country called rohrmarch. Its a big swampy place where you kinda have to get around by using a little boat, theres not a lot of land that isnt under three or four feet of water. Which is weird for being right next to a load of desert and shrubland right? Im not a geographer. Its very pretty though. Swamps get a bad rap but i liked the place. Except for the bugs. And the crocodiles. So summary. The big stuff; Ottagrafs are not what i thought. Abriana is cool though. You can hire people at a tavern place called cats cradle in ber dairas to support expeditions. Anyone actually any good is gonna be really expensive though. There are creatures. Maybe fey. That are humanoids - like two legs, two arms, upright etc. but have features of bees - stripes, wings, bulgy bits etc. We met one travelling through the desert. It was disguised as normal old woman though. Was worried it was a hag. Might still be. But didn't hurt us. Also found a massive hive city place where there are loads of them. Cast a spell to understand them but couldn't speak back. Wanted us to leave. Gave us honey. There are also these big wet lizard things called crocodiles that live in harrowmarsh. They ate our hired help within a couple seconds. People already met the snake awnshegh people before but just thought i should mention they are super nice and very friendly. We brought one back for a while. Amara. Be nice. Theres a cult that worships a fey lord what sided with azrai in the great war in the harrowmarsh. Theyre bad news. Also that fey lord? Hes called Berstuc and is walking around the place. More detail stuff. We made our way to the city of berdairas to start with which is a big bustling place not far from a river that goes to the city. Good for trade. Went to this strange little underground pub place called cats cradle and met a woman who looked part cat called eliseva. She and orithar had met before and she gave us some advice about what we could find in the harrowmarsh. Told us that she had a network of people working in the area but they had gone quiet lately due to some cult that had taken up residence and making their work more difficult. She would be grateful if this cult couldnt hold things up as much. She also gave us a symbol for to identify us as friends with the non cult people there. A coin with a quarter cut out. Though she said some of them would not take kindly to that sign and she would also be grateful if those people werent around either. After that orithar wanted to have a look in on the fighting pit they had in the next room before we left. Was interesting. Watched one of the fights where some woman knocked some guy out cold. Orithar bet on her and made a stallion profit. Good for him. I wasnt so keen on gambling after losing that bet to hafr the other week. We were talking to the pit master after about whether any of of the people were for hire and he told us that the best fighter was a tiefling called abriana and we could get ottagraf from her. I asked what that was and ingund and hedrin didnt know so I was curious and paid the stallion for it. Thats a coin by the way not an actual horse. So abriana came over and talked to me for a bit and then started hugging me and stuff. I thought we was about to be lead off to a backroom at that point but instead she writes a short letter to me. In front of me. And gives me that. Weird. Im going to keep it though. She was nice and looked awesome. While I was getting on with that though Orithar negotiated to hire a guy to help us on our swamp adventure. He looked at the best guy they had in a little mock fight but didn't like the price of ten old imperial pieces per day. Cant blame him. We just wanted someone to hold some stuff and hold a line in a fight but leave any actual fighting to us so he went for the cheaper guy. He was a werid bloke. Malak. Spoke in the third person all the time, had a super high opinion of himself. I mean thats not a bad thing in itself. Im pretty confident in being great myself. But I dont say im the strongest dwerren ever or the fastest or even the prettiest, though im close on that one, unless im doing a bit for fun. He wasnt. He was always complaining too. He complained about letting the old lady stay in our camp when we were off travelling. Though I kind of agreed with him there. Ive met too many old ladies that are disguised spellcasters to be trustful of random old ladies that wont give their names turning up and offering food and stuff. I managed to get a look at her in the mythriall mirror thing I got from korak and yep she was illusioned. As i said in the summary, black and white stripes, wings, antenna and big old bee bum. Orithar didnt seem to mind, neither did ingund and hedrin so she stayed. Turned out to be ok in the end. Gave us special honey one does of which could keep you fed a whole day. Super useful for expeditions so that was good. Then we got to this fort place a couple miles off from the harrowmarsh border and malak complained more there. This is where the snake people awnshegh live he was scared of them or something. They were a bit scared too when we showed up but apparently a past group of cohort explorers met them and came to some agreement to look after a boat you need for going in the swamp. The woman on guard. Theyre all women by the way. She calmed down when she learned we were cohort. They like to exchange gifts there too. Which is also a big thing in binsada and other khinasi lands. So orithar gives over a mule he got back in the city as our groups gift to them and they like that. Hard to get food out where they live. Especially good meat. In exchange the matriarch says that her daughters will spend the night with us. Yes in the figurative sense. Amara suggested it she is one of the awensheghs and I had said her scales looked nice as we passed through the hall. Got a lot more than I expected out of that comment not that im complaining. So me and amara got to talking and she told me about how their people had come to the this place on the edge of desert because of being persecuted on account of who they is and that. And we had malak there complaining about us trusting them to prove it. They are isolated and so safe from getting attacked and driven out but its also a harsh place so they still need outside support to live. According to amara theyre hooked up into elishevas network down there her agents take shipments for em and in exchage they occasionally come out to do a bit of wetwork from time to time. Theyre good fighters and warriors as well as energetic hosts. I told her about the siren and how her country shelters people like well jerusha herself plus all them nice firbolgs. And about the cohort too as it sounds like we is in a similar line of work and that the cohort are always open to people the rest of the world turns away. Even mentioned that business with maddie the medusa. I wonder what happened to her. Heard all about her coming but never seen or heard of her since. Anyway she tells the matriarch who is pretty skeptical, and matriarch is their actual mum too not just metamorphical one so shes extra cautious. Does agree that one of them could go with us back to the cohort when we return to check it out and amara volunteers. I like her shes so adventurous and eager. You all better be right nice to her while shes staying with us. There was the feast after that. They cooked that mule up amazing let me tell you. So much spice dunno how they can afford it. Maybe its just so much cheaper down there in binsada. Ive been learning to cook lately and I cant wait to try making something like that myself. And speaking of trying stuff out. After the meal was the gift from the snake people. Malak was petrified and went outside. Hedrin too but me an ingund and orithar were alright. I mean I was a bit nervous. Itd been maybe a year i think at that point for me. Hard to find time when you is on the run for the black army of the dark lord and that. Dunno about the others though and never with another woman. Nevermind one that is part snake. How would that even work I thought. Well now I know and [ The rest of the passage has been redacted from the public record ] Come morning we was ready to leave. Maybe a bit reluctantly but we had adventuring to do cant be all fun i guess. Took a few hours to work the the stiffness out my muscles though so it was bad dragging the boat up the dunes for the last couple miles but we got there. Despite its name though got to say the harrowmarsh is right pretty. All the water glistening in the sun, the weird plants and trees and trees and trees. Sticking out the water. On little islands. The bugs was annoying but i dont think theyre used to dwerren so me an hedrin wasnt getting them too bad. What was bad was these things called crocodiles. Imagine a cross between a lizard and a timber and a bunch of angry saws. A whole bunch of em leapt at our boat at one point. Looked like it might go badly, but two of them got their mouths round malak and dragged him off into the water and tore him apart. So it did actually go badly for him. They didnt care so much about the rest of us at that point. Though we did at least kill one of theirs as revenge i guess. I used a spell to pick a bit of malak theyd missed up, was hoping theyd go for it while orithar was waiting and he could cut em up when they came for it but seems they was contented with our helper and their dead chum. Gave the piece a burial when we got to some more solid ground. Poor bloke. Things was mostly peaceful the next day as we headed north. Though we did come across this big area. What would call it. A glade? Garden? Thats what i put on the map anyway. Had these massive massive plants that i saw a drawing of in a herbology book once. Rafflesias or something. They look odd. Kind of pretty. But they absolutely stink bad. Really bad. Horribly bad. Literally like rotting corpses. Usually flowers and plants smell pretty or atleast nice so whatever god made these was having a joke. Gets billions of flys and that though. Must be heaven for spiders. Orithar and Ingung noticed that its pollen and nectar had been harvested very skillfully though and there was these weird tracks skittering all about the area but no indication of where they was coming from or where they were going. We had hoped to follow them and say hello to the natives or whatever but since we couldnt started moving on again. That night though at camp I heard this strange buzzing pass over our camp going westward, buzzing like a big insect. In the morning were all thinking of that old lady that was really a bee woman. She had said she was heading home or something according to ingund so suspect it might be here in harrowmarsh. Well if theyre friendly we figure be nice to make official contact and whatnot. And id at least like to know if theyre fey people or awnshegh people too. So we head west for a couple days and then on that second night I hear a lot of buzzing back and forth during the night on my watch. All either coming from or going to the south west. Tried sending up a few smoke signals near dawn to try and attract attention but no one lands and says hello so our party heads off to the southwest come morning. In just a few hours we come across this enormous weird structure like the walls of a city looming up around the trees but full of little entrances and there was a load of these women humanoid bees flying around it. They were not as friendly and welcoming as the snakes was and didnt seem to speak any of our languages. They werent exactly hostile by any way though. A guard one i would guess flew up to us. She had a bow and arrows but didnt look like she wanted to use it and started speaking to us. By the way like the snake people these bee people all seem to be women. Didnt see any bee boys while we were there. I could understand what the guard was saying though cos of my new magic but it doesn't let me talk back anything special. She was saying that we had to leave was very keen that we turn around and go. Saying it over and over. I tried to show them the honey that we had gotten before to show we could be friends. The guard came closer to examine it and then flew away. Just as we were debating what to do next another bee girl flew up. This one looked very frightened and didnt have weapons and that. She handed over a bucket of honey and then sped off super fast. I guess they thought it was a cheap price to pay to get rid of us? Seems like theyre quite peaceful then if theyd rather bribe us to go. We felt bad worrying them by sticking around and didnt want to push them so we rowed back up to a nearby island in the waters and made a big show of leaving something for them. Bottle of nice perfume donated by hedrin and a letter with writing in every language we knew plus drawings of the cohort arms and my sketch of our party and the bee girls exchanging gifts. No not like that. Mile or so off we made camp for the night. Heard a lot of them passing overhead again during the night as before. None of them came down to say hello or investigate. Dunno if they got our present and didnt like it or if it was ignored or they got it and just didnt know what to make of it. We decided to move on in the morning. Didnt want to frighten them if we couldnt speak to em. Come back with either a bee translator or a better language understanding spell. At this point we were quite near the estuary of the big asarwe river. Coudlnt come this close without having a look. So we looked. Very big and very wet. Lots of places were the river splits and makes islands. Thought wed have a scout around the biggest one. See if we could find any of elishevas people or atleast a good spot for ships to come in safely. What we found was cultists. Spotted a couple of boats parked up at the banks and a couple of guys in thse dark robes wandering about. People in thick dark robes in a hot humid swamp? Bad news for certain. We pulled in a hundred fifty feet south or so of them and at ingunds insistance had a chat to see if they actually were the cultists or not. They were the most unfriendly and inhospitable people in the whole harrowmarsh. Even the crocodiles were more polite i think. One of them runs down this weird staircase theyve cut into the ground. That must have taken a fuckload of work in this wet swampland. The other comes up and barks at orithar to leave. Has the nerve to say this is private land as if they had a bloody deed or whatever. Hedrin made me and himself invisible so he thinks its just this random half orog and his wife and their sheep I guess so even being super beligerant he doesnt make for his weapons. I had a quick skeg of the boats and stairs. Just fishing tackle in the boats and i hear footsteps and voices beyond the stairs but cant see in there. Also a lot of digging nearby. Orithar showed him the elisheva calling card and that got him mad. Well madder. And then he mentions this name. Berstuc. and talks in a weird language only orthiar understood. But it marked him out as cultist for sure. So I shot him. Complete surprise attack. Bolt sails right into his head and out the back. Perfect shot. One of my finest. Thing after that werent so fine though. Bunch of weird blue mouth plant monster demon things all burst out the ground where id seen them digging and attack us. Key to those things is that they arent half so bad they look. Not too hard to kill at all. Worst thing. Actually second worst thing was that some of those footsteps I was hearing wasnt down in their weird pit. It was some cult wizard or whatever also being invisible. She dropped a flipping lightning bolt on poor ingung and orithar. Ingund was pretty hurt but orithar was just mad. Ran up and nearly cuts the bitch right in half. Hedrin tries to finish her off with magic bolts but they get deflected by a defensive spell. My bolt cant get through it either and Ingund is facing off against those demon mouth plant things and cant get to her. Wish we could have cut her down but then the the worst thing happens. Get this. She stabs herself right in the hear with this weird dagger and chants and screams some weird shit. Then. Brace yourself. She inflates and fucking explodes. Yes. Literally. Blood, guts and weirdly moss goes flying everywhere. Standing in her place is this twelve foot green giant naked guy. Cohort meet berstuc. Berstuc meet cohort. He didnt like us. The demon mouth plant things didnt like him either. They stopped attacking us and started panicing. Berstuc absorbed one of them. I tried to kill off the others before he could. Orithar managed to get the spellcasters book and that made berstuc go from dislike to loathing. Chasing him down making the plantlife animate to entangle him and everything. We nearly got out of there with it thanks to hedrin make us go all quick with his magic. Probably would have if hadnt needed to still row the boat. Been completely stuck without it. But it let him saunter right up to us as we tried to steer off. He plucked orthiar into the air like he was nothing. He chucked the book over the things stupid green shoulders and then it lost interest in him and we made our getaway. What the hell is in that book I wanna know! I wonder if its like that skull book that made the worm over near grevesmuhl? Anyway. Thats pretty much the end of our adventure for this month. Tucked our tails between our legs and made our way back to binsada. Dropped the boat back off with the snake people and pick up amara their emmisary. Feel odd to keep saying snake people gotta find a better word i think. Sure amara has something they call themselves thats more suitable that we can learn. Then we headed back to berdairas and paid the bloodgilt for malak and elisheva helped us hide amara during our journey so no one would get spooked in the unsafe places. Then we got back here and to me writing this write up so thats the end.

Session 67 Mission Special: Snake Through The Hart Expedition Members  Agatha Duskhart; Rjurik Sorcerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) Ant; Dwerren Barbarian, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) Cedrych Brightbough; Sidhelien Rogue, lvl 3 (Adam B) Lindal Leagallow; Cellwair Barbarian, lvl 2 (Michael H) Report to the Kallanon and the Council. Written by Countess Prudence Duskhart. The following is a report to the Kallanon, and the Council Members of the Cohort Arcanum, on the matter of one ‘Explitica Defilus’ and the primordial ‘Serpentine’ that it serves. My twin sister Agatha Duskhart, came under the servitude of Explitica Defilus, under pressured circumstances. On the 14th of Haelynir 1524 HC a Cohort expedition to the Lost Temple of Moradin found itself in a bit of trouble. Dietric Wyvern had just recently proposed to my sister, and she had accepted the engagement. He was accompanying the group and fought valiantly as we took on hordes of vicious goblins. Regretfully he had lost his life in the attack, and none of our healing magics could save him, we were too late. According to my sister, a voice in her head told her that it would bring him back to life, all she had to do was pledge service. (For more details, see log titles ‘The Wyvern and the Roper’ and ‘Till Death Do Us Part’) This was the first time we had any contact with Explitica Defilus. We moved on to other matters, helped Medi Eirwen save her sister from the clutches of the Beholder in Morrendeep. Which is where Explitica Defilus called on my sister for her to bring The Medusa to that Temple of Moradin. This we did not do, feeling like it would be more beneficial to us to bring the Medusa back to the Cohort instead. (See log titled ‘The Eyes of Morrendeepest’ for more detail.) Then I, as I explored my own abilities granted and drawn from nature; and the feywild ever since I became an alseid, somehow managed to sever the connection between Agatha and Explitica Defilus with one of my spells. (Sidenote: This also turned my sister from an awnshegh to a human, and myself without any effect to my alseid form.) Agatha said that she could feel that Explitica Defilus was angry with her. (See the full log under ‘To Kill A Vrockingbird’) The following log details the events that immediately led up to us having to ask the Kallanon for help in fully and more permanently severing the bond between Agatha and her unhappy patron. My sister received a letter from Katherine II Wyvern, Agatha’s fiance Dietric had gone missing around a month ago. This was around the same time that I used a moonbeam to turn my sister back into a human, and to also break her bond with her patron. Suspecting that his disappearance was due to this we travelled to Trie, asking some members of the cohort we have not yet adventured before to aid and accompany us.  After arriving at the Wyvern estate with Katerine II herself greeting us, and after expressing her distaste against my sister’s engagement to her brother she showed us his bedroom. The group proceeded to search his room, which was in tussle after his suspected abduction. Agatha and Cedrych went to look at the closet while myself and Ant searched the bed. Lindal was looking over the desk. In the closet we found some snake scales similar to the ones that appeared on my sister’s arm after she pledged service, and disappeared when the bond was broken. The desk had all of my sister’s letters to Dietric. In the bed we found a large snake, about the size of five men.  Fighting the snake was quite alright, Ant landed a hefty blow, and the rest of us managed to pelt it until it was no more with relatively little damage done to us. We sweep the room once more, which is when Lindal finds a word written in blood on the underside of a table. The word is written in infernal; it says ‘TRAITOR’ After talking with Katherine II Wyvern again (besides her expressing her desire to break off the engagement) we tell her that we suspect where her brother has been taken and that we will head out and do our best to bring him back. We headed from Trie on the roads towards the Lost Temple of Moradin, where Agatha and myself as well believed that Explitica Defilus resided. During the fourth watch (Me and Agatha’s) our camp was approached by a servant of Defilus, a humanoid man who had snakelike, tentacles for arms. I woke our companions and called out to the creature in infernal, remembering that the word ‘traitor’ was also in infernal. My hopes of the creature understanding were confirmed when it talked back to me in infernal. After a brief exchange of words he tells us that he is here to take Agatha back to Defilus, without the rest of us going. I would not let my sister go out there alone, and I would much prefer to have my cohort family supporting us. I said to it that either all of us go, or none of us. It threatened us and we knew at once this would end in violence.  It cast a darkness on itself that shrouded Ant and Lindal as well. It then seemed to advance when Lindal threw a spear, managing to hit the creature and disturbing it’s concentration of the spell. Ant rushed up to it and then so did Lindal to hit it with their weapons. I tried to cast a spell, Moonbeam which seemed to work in removing Agatha’s connection, I was hoping it would do it with this one as well, but the creature had the capability to counterspell me. Then as the creature weakened it tried to run away, turning itself invisible. We gave chase, as I noticed the footprints and directed the others to where I saw them lead.  Ant and Cedrych attacked the general area, but didn’t hit it. And then I found where the footprints ended and could finish off the creature. After it was dead we went back to rest for the rest of the night. It took us four days to reach the Temple of Moradin. Knowing the way into the cave we descended down and found the door that leads into the actual temple. Having forgotten the key we relied on the handiwork of Cedrych who showed great skill in opening locked doors, even magical. Then we descended the stairs where Cedrych’s skills were needed again, and he masterfully picks the lock. The doors open to reveal a knight standing guard, his armour was black, and a helmet covered his face, but inside two glowing red eyes looked at us, and the top of its head had flames. Agatha tells it that we are here to see Explitica Defilus. The knight nods and leads us down two levels to a large open corridor with a humongous door. Then the door opened and behind it waiting for us were two snakes. One large snake, black and reddish scales, a fin like a cobra’s and the face of a humanoid. This was Explitica Defilus. Next to it a smaller, greenish snake, with the head of a six or seven year old child. Defilus addressed us, greeting Agatha. Defilus whistled and an even larger snake, bigger than any I’ve ever seen slithers out from one of the siderooms behind us, blocking our way out. It looked big enough to swallow me whole. She has us in her grasp. As if that wasn’t enough, she made the statue of Moradin in the room behind her come to life. The statue was the biggest mobile thing I have ever seen. I could probably stand in the palm of his hand comfortably. Though I believe it would have smashed me first. Explitica Defilus it seems has taken over the Temple to Moradin completely, gaining dominion over any of its possible denizens and defenders. She makes the statue smash a hole through the wall. When Agatha asked about Dietric she said that he wasn’t dead yet, and that she did know where he was. Defilus demands that we all pledge our undying loyalty to her, when my sister offered to sacrifice herself. She said to let me go in exchange. Defilus commanded my sister to kneel in front of her, and then to lay down on her stomach like a snake. She mused that Agatha would make a more fun pet. In a desperate attempt to not lose my sister completely to this foul creature I suggested that she might be more useful up and out in the field. Defilus slithered up to me, I could feel her breath on my face. Then she asked me how the bond was broken, and we told her that I had used the moon to do it. Defilus remarked that as long as I was there she couldn’t trust Agatha. Defilus says she’s feeling generous, so as long as Agatha agrees to be her pet; she’ll let the rest of us go free. Against all of my willpower, Agatha agrees. And I am not strong enough to say otherwise. I can’t do anything. Then we slowly turn to leave as Agatha ushers us out. I ask to say goodbye, promising to come back for her. When I hug my sister I whisper in her ear “Use your misty step, once we’re past the large snake, and then we run for it.” Then the rest of us turned the corner and we couldn’t see Agatha anymore. I walked as slowly as I could. Waiting to see her run up. About ten to fifteen minutes passed. No Agatha. Just when I was beginning to lose hope turn round and run back for her she comes running out. She looks fifteen years old. Quickly we made our way back out of the temple, only to find Dietric at the door. He was disheveled but otherwise looked relatively unhurt. We decided that we’d wait until we camped on our way back to Trie with Dietric to get the full story.  Back at the crossroads Agatha asked Dietric a few questions. He told us he was taken, and tortured for years as it felt to him. But other than that he doesn’t know much else. The poor man looked on the verge of breaking. Then it was Agatha’s turn to tell her story. She says after we left, she had indeed tried to misty step away but was stopped by Defilus, who paralised her. Then she asked Agatha what she cared for; like power of fame or money. Agatha said it was Me, Dietric and Emily. One of them had to be punished. Agatha picked herself. *There us a faint smudge on the page, as if some writing had been erased*  Explitica offered my sister two punishments . Monster or Youth. Agatha picked monster, after which Defilus turned her into a scaled monstrosity. She panicked, and Defilus asked if she regretted her choice, which Agatha told her she did. So she offered the other punishment instead. Defilus turned Agatha into a fifteen year old, telling her the curse will advance if she displeased her mistress again. Then she let her go. We took Dietric back to his estate, and returned him to her sister. Agatha ended the engagement, saying she had caused enough trouble for both of them. Dietric seemed saddened by this but respected her decision. Katherine II of course was delighted. Agatha also surrendered the bloodline Dietric gave her. Once the ceremony of investiture completed we took our leave. Agatha heard Defilus in her head, asking for The Medusa, but also angry that Agatha surrendered the bloodline. She de-aged another year. We rushed back to the Cohort and asked for a private audience with the Kallanon. The rest the Kallanon knows. My sister was saved from her bond with Defilus, and bound to the Fate Weaver instead, but not before the curse turned her eleven years old. She is not to adventure without me, remaining a member of the Cohort still. Note to Agatha I’m so sorry. You’ve always felt responsible. For what happened to us when we were children. But we’re not children anymore. You’ve nothing to feel bad for. It’s my turn to feel responsible. My turn to take care of you like you always took care of me. I couldn’t speak up against Defilus..I couldn’t find my voice. All I could do was beg for your life. Now I promise you this. We will find a way to turn you back to the beautiful albeit a bit gloomy woman you are. I’ll fix my mistake.

Session 67 (Special): Snake Through The Hart Played on the 2nd of January in the year 2020! Present: Agatha Duskhart; Rjurik Sorcerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) Ant; Dwerren Barbarian, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) Cedrych Brightbough; Sidhelien Rogue, lvl 3 (Adam B) Lindal Leagallow; Cellwair Barbarian, lvl 2 (Michael H) Locations: Trie, Westriet, Grevesmühl, Brechtür. Temple of Moridin, Nourne, Wolfgaard. Right, so we five met up with at the Cohort to talk about what we were doing on this mission. Agatha got us together to try and go find her missing fiance; Dietric Wyvern.  We arrived in Trie, and while getting off the boat, Agatha and Prudence got into a little sibling spat, and Prudence kicked Agatha off the pier. Quickly realised she couldn't swim, so I jumped in to get her out. She tried to pull her sister into the water as I lifted her out, but Prudence's back legs are pretty strong, so no revenge for Agatha. We headed to the Wyvern estate, and were brought up to Dietric's bedroom. Dietric's sister; Katherine II Wyvern, was very much not fond of her sister-in-law-to-be, Agatha. Insinuating that Agatha may have been responsible for her mother's death in a bid for power. A very serious accusation that didn't appear to be warranted from where I was standing, quite frankly. Anyway, Katherine left us to look through Dietric's bedroom to let us see if we could find anything.  We searched the room, finding some letters from Agatha to Dietric, as well as some snake scales. I and Prudence looked under the bed, and were surprised by a bloody great snake just popping out of the bed and attacking us. Dealt with the snake, though the sheets on the bed were very much ruined, if they weren't already. We continued searching, finding the word 'traitor' written in blood in the language infernal, underneath a small table. The Duskharts went off to talk more with Katherine II Wyvern, while I tied up the snake in the ruined sheets, while Cedrych just watched, which was weird. Hopefully made it easier on the servants, the poor sods. Also shaved off some of the snake skin, just in case I can think of a way to use it. After I was done with the snake, we rejoined Agatha and Prudence talking to Katherine, who continued to be hostile towards Agatha, clearly wanting her and her brothers engagement to be ended, and as soon as possible. We left the estate and began travelling towards where we reckoned Agatha's old patron was. The place Agatha first met this patron, a temple to Moridin to the east, near that massive worm thing's territory. On the third night of our journey, at Wyvern's pass, we were approached by a servant of Agatha's old patron. Agatha and Prudence talked to the armoured creature with snakes for hands, before returning to us, and telling us that the creature was here to take Agatha alone to her ex-patron. Prudence said that we either all go or not at all, which was very much what I was thinking too. We got ready to attack the creature, but it realised before we could strike, and attacked first, casting darkness over itself. Which I was not looking forward to having to deal with. Fortunately, Lindall quickly got a spear throw on the bastard and it lost its focus, its darkness buggering off. We all had a go at it, until it was on its last legs and tried to make a runner. Chased after it, but then it turned invisible. Thankfully, Prudence's keen eye was able to track it, and she dealt the final blow. We finished our rest at Wyvern's pass, and then moved on toward this temple of Moridin. On our fourth day's travel from Trie, we arrived at a cave, that further in, housed a door that we couldn't open. We, except for Cedrych, who very smoothly jigged open the door with ease and grace. It was quite a sight I must say. Went down the stairs the open door revealed to find another locked door. Cedrych worked his magic once more, opened the door to reveal a knight behind it, holding a torch, staring at us with glowing red eyes. Agatha told the knight we were here to meet Defilus. That's when I first heard her name. The knight took us to a large hall, lit with purple flaming torches. The door at the end of the hall opened, revealing two strange looking big snakes with humanoid heads, one of them being a child's. The adult head greeted Agatha cruelly. This was Explitica Defilus, and it indeed had Dietric here, and was torturing him. Defilus was angry at Agatha for breaking their connection as Patron and patronee. Asked how she did it, apparently Prudence was involved. Agatha and Defilus went back and forth, Agatha desperately try to find a solution to at least allow Prudence and Defilus freedom. Not putting much emphasis on getting Cedrych, Lindal and myself out, which bothered me a bit. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, considering how stressful the situation was. By this point, Defilus had brought forth another snake from behind us, as well as revealed it had taken over the temple to Moridin, and had control over the giant statue of Moridin, built to protect the temple. At one point, she demonstrated its strength to intimidate us. It was unfortunately successful. Defilus at first demanded all of our undying loyalty, if we were to survive, but Agatha managed to convince her to merely keep her and Dietric as a pet, and let us go. Defilus agreed. Unable to think of something else we could do, we one by one started to leave, leaving Agatha behind, though I did very much want to smack this Defilus in the face, but in the end, decided against it. What happened next to Agatha, was told to us later by her, but I'll write it here. Once we'd left the room, Agatha tried to misty step away from Defilus and leg it, but Defilus stopped her spell from going off. Defilus then asked her a number of questions, trying to figure out how best to punish her. At first the Defilus turned Agatha into a hideous monstrosity, but when Agatha said she didn't regret the punishment, Defilus changed the punishment to youth. Turning her into a 16 year old, and letting her run after us. She caught up with us, and of course we had questions at that point, but thought it best to just get away to safety, and ask questions then. As we stepped out of the temple, we found a weak, withered Dietric. Dietric understandably didn't recognize the younger, human Agatha. But did recognize Prudence, who assured him this was Agatha. He spoke of his torture, and of being told it was because of Agatha. We grabbed him, and went back to Wyvern's pass. Agatha told us what had happened to her, here, making Prudence walk off upset. Agatha followed to comfort her and they had an emotional talk on their own. Cedrych said he didn't buy Agatha's story, not thinking youth to be a punishment, but a boon. I tried to convince him that it was a matter of perspective, not knowing that Agatha had kept from us the full extent of her punishment. Which, again, I won't hold against her.  After resting, we set off for the Wyvern estate once more. We returned Dietric to his sister, who while pleased to see him, showed barely any gratitude to the rest of us. I mean it's not like we saved her brother's life or anything important like that. Not that I said any of this out loud or anything. Agatha returned her ring to Dietric, as well as return her bloodline that Dietric had given her. It was quite unpleasant. Cedrych, being who he is, managed to squeeze a bit of coin out of Katherine for the job we did. Dietric offered to have us for dinner, but Agatha was desperate to get out of there and return to the Cohort. On the ship back, we realised why. Agatha was getting younger. Upon getting back, we privately met with the Kallanon. Agatha told him everything that happened, and asked for a way to break Defilus influence on her, and end this curse. The attempt was startling, with the Kallanon, Prudence and another member of the council casting magics on Agatha, while she plunged an obsidian dagger into her own heart. Using force of will, she was able to rid herself of the curse, though not without reverse aging more, now looking somewhere between 8 and 14 years old. I can't tell very well with my Dwerren eyes the age of a young human. After everything had dialed down, Agatha thanked me, Cedrych and Lindal for our help, paying us quite a bit of gold for the trouble (100GP). So yeah, that was my first time meeting the infamous Duskharts. Those ladies sure know how to get into trouble. Needed a hug after this one, quite stressful indeed.

Special Short: Tongue Tied  SlothSlow- Korak Flomhelm (Mentor) Zilarrezko- Aubrae Trevelyan (Mentor) Serephen- Medi Erwen (Mentor) Raven/Kristen B- Brognir Bronzehelm Depraved- Shango Bayu     When first coming to the cohort I was not expecting the wild adventures I have gone on. From day one there were evil fishmen in line with The Beholder and a great fight in the town of Bleakholm, The Roc was created unfortunately, and we met a quaint family and a girl marked with the symbol of the beholder on her tongue. At the time I was a weak fledgling and could not do anything for the girl but leave them behind and promise to come back one day. Though over time and with my travels with Drago, Cordie, Shango, Darvious, and the others I have tested my metal and grown in Moradins light. A promise made could finally be fulfilled, so I gathered up a few of my past companions and new friends and made our way to Bleakholm.     Upon arrival we were met with friendly faces unlike before, the woman at the dock greeted us and exchanged some pleasantries and pointed us to Noevas bar. A familiar sight brought back the feeling of battle when I was first there, the poor unfortunate souls that had failed to protect still lie in the ground. We said our hellos to Noeva and the now older daughters Griselda and Gretchen who has the cursed tongue and is only able to speak Vos. I expressed my concern for the girls well being and told them of our plans to cure her affliction. I told them not to worry and that I would prepare precautions on the girl in case the worst was to come. We drank and regaled the family of our exploits since last meeting them and soon after were back to the more serious business. The island only held a magic level of two that we could access but there was the old church of Masela on the northern side of the island that we later found boosted holy magics by a circle.      With this information in hand I gave the girl a revival tattoo with the image of a trout in remembrance of her father. And we came with a plan to grab each one of her arms and legs to move her as quickly as possible to the church and remove the curse. We readied ourselves and dragged the poor girl into the magical zone and with her writhing in pain I cast an invocation to remove the curse from her. Thankfully she was cured and now able to speak her families tongue. Afterwards we all drank merrily in celebration and left in good hearts in a light mood. On our way home we were face to face with an awful monstrosity that called itself The Beholder it cackled and pointed some ire at Medi saying to stay out of its business and said it was going to kill us. I have a few things that have me on their short list but this thing is by far the most terrifying of them. It seems I need to ask Silver where I can find some allies who may aid me against attacks from these creatures... After this short trip turned manhunt we returned back to the Cohort where I need to start looking for friends in high places. 

Special Short: Tongue Tied Korak asked me to join him on a journey to Bleakholm, to fulfill a promise he had made to a family early in his adventuring career. Who am I to disagree to such a request? We travelled the Sea, looking for Bleakholm. Once we arrived, I was met with the fact that, like Aubrae had predicted, Bleakholm indeed was quite a bleak little place. Oh no matter, Korak has something important to do here and I was here to watch his back in case things went wrong. In the local Inn, which has an adorable sign hung up, we were greeted warmly by a woman named Noeva. She had two daughters, Griselda and Gretchen. Korak came here to free Gretchen of the cursed mark that was planted on her tongue, which made it so she was only able to speak Vos. Good thing that I- oh, Te- I mean, I forgot that Medi can also speak Vos. Dangit. I'll put my Vos to good use at some other point. Korak gave Gretchen a tatto which he could revive her if necessary. It's better safe to be sorry, but I had a hard time swallowing my worries. We rested for the night and checked out the church perimeter, if he would be able to cast spells of the 3rd circle of magic here and indeed, that was possible, right up at the church! Downside is, the closer the girl gets to the church, the more pain she seems to be in. We each grabbed one of her arms and legs and made haste toward the church to make the time spent in pain as short as possible for poor Gretchen. Korak cast his spell and removed the curse, after which Gretchen thanked him, not in Vos but in Brecht!  The idiot that I am, I expressed gratitude at the fact that this endeavor seemed to have a happy ending. We stayed for another night and then went back towards the Island of Fabrica. Remember the part where I mention that I'm an idiot? Well, I jinxed it, as darkness surrounded our ship on our way home. Some annoying voice decided to pipe in and spout some nonsense about how it doesn't like what Korak has been doing and that it's going to go after Teresa, T- Medi's sister. I couldn't hold myself back and spouted that that's just unbelievable. Seriously, the woman just recently got her sister back and now some Big Eyeball wants to take her away again?! Not on my watch. We exchange some back and forth, with me taking a while to calm my emotions. I just hope Medi will be alright. -Signed, Shango Bayu

Session 70: The Bees Knees. Attending Adventurers: -Cordelia "Cordie" Woodwytch, Cellwair "Wizard" ( Serephen ) -Brognir Bronzehelm, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian ( Ryan B ) -Salazar di Fioretti, Hannersidhe Bard ( Adam B ) -Darvius Alandre, Sidhelian Monk ( Darvius ) -Twili, Sidhelian Bard ( Link S. ) -Eirena Lightshadow, Rjurik Cleric/Warlock ( Depraved Lunatic ) We assembled at the Cohort Tavern to head back to the Village of Levoca. There was some unfinished business we needed to attend to, namely bringing down the Singing tree. It was still terrorizing the surrounding area, after we brought down the Hollow Man, so there was no time to waste. We spent a while discussing our strategy for this endeavor and trying to find out what this Scytheblade that Brognir took with him was capable of doing. Cordie and Salazar managed to identify it to some degree. -It is a magical weapon and will not rust like most other weapons brought to the Margreve. -It can lead one to the Singing tree. -Wooden constructs wielding it will return to life at midnight. -It weakens the life force of creatures it hits. We also found out that most properties of this weapon cease once the Singing Tree is destroyed, save for it's property of being magical. After learning a lot of it's properties, we decided it was wiser to bring it with us, even if simply for navigation purposes.  So we head off towards Torova Temylatin. On our journey, we witnessed the Roc attacking a trade ship. while I would really have liked to help them, I must admit that we weren't the party equipped to deal with this problem. Perhaps some other day. We decide not to intervene and continue our journey. On arrival, we begin following the Scythe towards the Singing Tree. Our travel speed was ridiculously fast though. It seemed like the Margreve itself wished to make our journey as smooth as possible, as roots and trees shifted away from us so we had a clear path. Quite the opposite to poor Lolgon's situation.  On our first night camping, Darvius, Cordie and I spotted an old woman approaching our camp, singing a beautiful tune. Salazar speaks to her for a moment and invites her to join us at our camp. We agree to have her share a night with us and give her some food. I don't know if it was a gesture of thanks, but she told us a few bits of information that were pretty valuable.  -To bring down the Singing Tree, all we had to do was give it a firm chop with The Harvester. I'm not certain if that implied that the tree would only fall to The Harvester, but that's another mystery I will never get behind, I'm afraid. -She shares with us that we can find the Mandrake Roots needed for a certain groups mission North of the Hag's Tooth Hills, I believe she mentioned that that is where the Sleepwalker Hills are. She warned us that it is  very dangerous there, so I'd advise the retrieval group to be well prepared for a hard time. -She also informs us of the presence of a hive of bees. Fey bees, if I understood it correctly. The bees possess honey, that can grant someone eternal youth.  There is a severe downside however, as the people that eat from the honey fall into a deep slumber from which they cannot awake naturally. A young girl named Lyla is imprisoned with the bees. She was and is a young girl that had eaten from the honey and has not returned ever since. She is supposed to have been trapped in there for 100 years now. The Granny Migori asks us to promise her that we will try to free Lyla and so we did, as a group. We continue to travel the next day, making incredible progress again, compared to our earlier endeavours. We set foot in Levoca. While I knew that our party must have been tired, the properties of the Scythe had me concerned. If the Hollow Man was indeed connected to the Singing Tree, what would stop him from trying to reawaken and grabbing the scythe? I was not ready to take any chances and convinced our party that we should take on the Singing Tree right then. So we had the Scythe lead us to the Singing tree. We engaged in combat, Brognir and I on it's West Flank, the rest on top of the cliff side. While I was in no way wavering in morale, I couldn't help myself but miss hearing Savas' battlecry as we engaged the tree. The fight was tougher than expected, as a Brognir swimming in a pool of acid and poison tried his best to strike the Singing Tree. Fighting in the Water proved to be a difficult feat for him so I tried my best to distract the tree, giving him and opening to strike true. The Tree however had quite some tricks up it's sleeve. It went and summoned a horde of Crabs, which quickly began swarming my companions and Brognir. Cordie managed to conjure a wall of thorns around Brognir, which blocked off the Crabs attacks. I conjured a bolt of force at one of the Crabs to get their attention. I told them to pick on someone their own size ( Sorry Brognir! ) and garnered their attention quickly. Now I was surrounded.  Praying to Kirken that I wouldn't have to face the consequences of my taunt, I had my calls answered by Brognir, as he finally struck true with the Scythe, cutting the Tree clean in half and causing the Crabs to dissipate. The surrounding area, which looked sick and wretched, was returned to it's natural state, with the pool of acid and poison becoming clean, crystal clear water. We returned to the chapel in Levoca, where we rested for the night, in the wake of our victory. The memories of our last encounter in this Chapel were still fresh and made me feel slightly restless. I read a letter that I had brought with me to put myself at ease, before I went and slept for the first time in quite a while. I didn't need to, but still, I just felt like sleeping that night. The next morning, we went to meet up with the unofficial village leader, a mother named Anna. We wanted to inform her that Levoca would not have to fear the Hollow Man or the Singing Tree any longer. We achieved that end of our goals, we also met a noble woman of a different settlement of this island, called Terelsa Garlook. She hails from Zobeck and seems to have come to Levoca after hearing of the Cohort's Exploits in the Area. She tells us of a client which requests honey mode of a rare purple flower called Effildawnan, which is supposed to restore youth. Since we are all capable of counting one and one together, we tell her that the honey could have unwanted side effects, but she didn't seem to mind it that much. Stating that she will pay very well for it, she left us a probably magic ring, that we should use to exchange it for honey. The bees are supposed to be located up North, which should mean that they are probably the same bees holding Lyla captive. As we wanted to head there anyway, we accepted the job, for which we were offered 350 pennings. Before we could be on our way, Anna intercepted us at the edge of Levoca and handed us a bone comb that has been passed down for generations of priests, as a thanks for our troubles. We decided that Salazar should be the one to have it, as he had gone through a lot of trouble to help the Levocan's. So we journey to the north, doing our best to navigate around the Hag's Tooth Hills, as we did not want any business with that. We continue travelling northward, until we hear a loud scream as we started to make camp. A Bearperson and her cub were attacked by a giant spieder. Said spider had already struck the Cub and paralysed it. We quickly intervened and killed the spider. I spoke a healing word to the Cub, which seemed to rejuvenate quite some of it's wounds, but I wasn't able to cure his paralysis with this. Thankfully, that wasn't necessary, Twili informed us that the paralysis should pass with time. We have a chat with the mother and learn that their names are Elsee and Obiah Barkcot, Elsee being the mothers name. We learned that their folk don't have many villages, but there is one called Ulchik Village on the River Agent. We should definitely pay a visit to that village sometime, but time was running short. If we tarried for too long, the captain of our ship would leave us behind, which would've been greatly unfortunate. We continue to travel northward, to hear another scream. The Margreve certainly is a dangerous place, with all of it's monsters and attacks. An Alseid woman was chased by something akin to an ogre. We fight it and knock it unconcious. Salazar said that we should stay our blade, as it was apologizing and surrendering. The ogre had me feel really bad for it. The Alseid asked us to kill it however, as it was hunting her, so Twili shot the Ogre in the end, putting it out of it's misery. The Alseid introduces herself as Frauleene. We ask her if she knew where Mandrake can be found and she tells us a similiar tale to what we've heard until now. They are found in the Sleepwalker Hills, a few days to the North-North-East of the location where we clashed with the Ogre. We also ask about the bees and are told that they live south from there, only a days march away. She leads us to the Queen's glade, a glade of Effildawnan flowers, where we spend the last bits of our free time to hopefully find the bees. Cordie had told us that we should most definitely smell the flowers, which would indicate that we should absolutely refrain from smelling these flowers. Poor Brognir was naive enough to go and smell the flowers. Looked like he had one hell of a trip. Apparently, Mynnir is capable of inducing something similiar with her breath. I don't know what to think about it, to be honest. If you honestly think the trip is worth it, knock yourselves out on sniffing these flowers. We stake the glade out for any signs of bees. Time was running short, so we couldn't afford to wait for too long. On our first day, there were no signs of bee activity. Made me worried already. Just as I wanted to suggest that we be on our way, one of the fey bee's showed up. As it saw us, it dashed off, but stopped in it's... tracks? Tailwind? Codie explains that we are friends and that we know about Lyla. We are lead to the beehive, where we are prompted to wait outside. Darvius decided that it would be wise to try and enter, but quickly scrapped this idea after seeing a light-skinned, lightly-sleeping and slightly ginormous bear inside the hive entrance. Soon enough a pretty sizable swarm of bees enter the tunnels of the hive, buzzing towards us. They came to a stop in front of us and sprung into formation, forming a female humanoid body, which spoke... buzzed to us in the local tongue, which Salazar thankfully spoke.  He explained that we are friends of Lyla, or so it was translated. The body of bees responded that we are not and wanted us gone in the same sentence, dissipating back into bees. We weren't that happy about leaving things unfinshed, but the waking groan of the bear gave us the necessary motivation to leave and return to our ship. With the Singing Tree dead, we our relationship with Levoca seems to be strongly bonded now. They will not have to suffer the horrors of the Singing Tree and the Hollow Man any longer, for which I am glad. I shall return at a later time perhaps, but for now, this is where we can close the chapter "Levoca" for now. -Signed, Eirena Lightshadow

Session 67: Servant of the Snake Objective: Locate Dietric Wyvern, fianceé of Agatha Duskheart Cohort Members: Agatha Duskhart Ant Prudence Duskhart Cedrych Brightbough Lindal Leagallow Day 1 - 20 miles. Disembarked Cohort ship at Trie. Agatha led party to Wyvern Estate. Received by Katherine II. Escorted to Dietric’s room. In shambles. Clear signs of struggle. Found green, snake-like scales. Discovered and exterminated large teal snake hiding underneath bed. Message written in infernal under table: traitor. Agatha suspects Explitica Defilus. Ex-Patron. Revenge? Consult staff: Dietric disappeared a month ago. Trail cold. Depart Trie for Temple of Moradin, following road. Quiet night. Day 2 - 20 miles - Day 3 - 20 miles Camped at Wyvern Pass. Humanoid approaches camp during fourth watch. Snakes for arms. Servant of Defilus. Demanded Agatha go with it, alone. Combat. Creature created darkness, countered magic. Creature sustained heavy damage. Attempted to flee. Gave chase. Went invisible. Followed blood trail. Destroyed creature. Day 4 - 20 miles Arrived at Temple of Moradin. Entered cave system. Headed East, then North. Locked door. Agatha forgot key. Lock bypassed with aplomb. Stairs down. Second locked door. Applied more aplomb. Armored humanoid, glowing eyes. Spoke to Agatha. Lead us down several stories to large vault. Creature opened vault door. Two snake like creatures with humanoid heads. One small, one large. Large one is Explitica Defilus, Primordial Servant. Small one is “Child”? Seemed protective. Sent child away. Colossal snake emerged behind us. Enormous statue of Moradin animated. Cohort severely outclassed. Agatha negotiated. Agreed to serve Explitica. We left. Shortly, Agatha caught up to us. Younger now. Claimed “Cursed with Youth”. Agatha likely compromised. Exited temple. Dietric found at entrance. Headed west. Camped for the night. Day 5+ Returned to Trie. Dropped Dietric off at Wyvern manor. Ritual performed to sever bloodline with Agatha. Engagement called off. Katherine gave reward. Returned to Cohort. Agatha younger still. Sought audience with Kallanon. Confessed to corruption by Defilus. Kallanon and Stillborn performed ritual to sever ties to Defilus, bound Agatha to Fateweaver.

Session 70: To Bee or not to Bee Attending Adventurers: -Cordelia "Cordie" Woodwytch, Cellwair "Wizard" ( Serephen ) -Brognir Bronzehelm, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian ( Ryan B ) -Salazar di Fioretti, Hannersidhe Bard ( Adam B ) -Darvius Alandre, Sidhelian Monk ( Darvius ) -Twili, Sidhelian Bard ( Link S. ) -Eirena Lightshadow, Rjurik Cleric/Warlock ( Depraved Lunatic )   Our group gathered at the Cohort, after introductions we decided that the Harvester, the former weapon of the Hallow Man needed to be identified. It was determined that the Harvester was a magical weapon, that was linked to the Hallow man and the Singing Tree. Though the diviners could not determine much else, besides the fact that as long as the Singing Tree existed it could bring the Hallow Man back at Midnight if he was holding the Scythe. It was voted that we would bring the Scythe with us after it’s handle was repaired. As we set sail, we spotted the Roc attacking a trade ship in the distance. The creature had grown to an enormous size. Hard to believe it is the same creature that I once spoke to and called little bird. There was unfortunately nothing we could do to save the trade ship. However, we did note that the Roc flew back to the south. When we arrived on the island, and I stepped off the boat, I was overcome with the strangest feeling. It was as if the island was welcoming me. I had heard the tales of the forest being alive, and it seems they were true.I could sense it making contact with me. We endeavored to let the Scythe guide us the first day. Impressively, we make excellent headway the forest itself seeming to part for us and making the journey easier. That night an old woman approaches our camp she speaks to Salazar in the strange language of the land. The name she gives is Granny Migori. She gave us information about the tree and that with the Scythe we could kill the tree with one chop. Additionally, she tells us we can find Mandrake north of the Hag’s tooth hills, where fey creatures live. She asked us if we traveled there to seek some bees who had captured someone named Lyla. The honey they make gives immortality but at the price of falling to a magical slumber. The group agreed to do what they could to help Lyla. We progressed to Levoca, and then headed directly to the Singing tree. The battle was tense as the stout Dwarf Brognir waded out in the pool of acidic poison. He took a few swings at the tree and missed. The tree tried to confuse us with magic, failing that it summoned a horde of mutant crabs to attack us. Cordie used her magic to summon a thorn wall around Brognir to protect him from the crabs. They swarmed us and we fought them off. However, Brognir’s final chop landed with a resounding crash as the tree came down destroying it and cleansing the pond of the acid and poison. We were victorious. We rest in Levoca that night the next morning Salazar meets with Anna, and we are also introduced to a noblewoman named Terelsa Garlook who came to seek us because of our deeds. She says she has a client that is after some of the honey the old woman in the woods told us about. She gave us a magic ring to trade for the honey. In addition, Anna gives Salazar a comb, some relic of the people of Levosa. We travel north that day towards the Hag’s tooth hills, we find towers of Salt and boiling water called the Salt towers. We encounter a bear person with a cub, the cub being assaulted by a spider. We intercede and slay the spider, the bear person’s name turns out to be Elsee and her cub is Obiah. They tell us about bearfolk villages on the River Argent called Ulchik. She offers us a scroll of animal friendship but we turn it down, figuring she may need it more than us. The next day we encounter an Alseid being attacked by a giant kin, perhaps an Ogre. We slay the Ogre and the alseid introduces herself as Frauleene. She tells us more about the land including that Mandrake can be found in the Sleepwalker Hills, and that the bees live south of that. She offers to take us to the Queen’s Glade where the flowers grow that the bees take pollen from. It turns out the flower’s pollen causes hallucinations. Cordelia up to her old pranks convinces Brognir to smell one of the flowers, he passes out. We wait a day, and eventually we see a Bee. It tries to flee but when we tell it we wish to meet Lyla, the bee leads us north to see her. When we reach the hive we are told we should wait outside, I peak my head in and see a very giant white bear. It begins to stir, and we wait outside. Then a large swarm of bees fly up to us and it begins to take the shape of a woman. Salazar speaks to it, but for once his words were not met well. She demands we leave and we hear the bear waking up. Our time growing short on the island, we decide to depart and leave this strange bee hive for a future date.   Signed, Darvius Alandre Adventurer of the Cohort, Carnifex Primera

Session 65 (1O): The Queen's Cat Present: Dragomir Black; Vos Warlock, lvl 5 (Hats4Cats) Korak Flomhelm; Dwerren Cleric, lvl 5 (SlothSlow) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene "Nim" Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 5 (Summer) Robert "Rob Boss" Bossouri; Brecht Cleric, lvl 5 (Depraved Lunatic) Aubrae Trevelyan; Anuirean Paladin, lvl 4 (Zilarrezko) Saorise Auliffe; Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin, lvl 3 (Serephen) Between Elisheva and the Sultana each character walks away with 600gp after taxes. The beans are labeled as important items. Monster XP 717XP Quest XP 750XP RP XP 200XP Exploration XP 0XP Log XP 250XP to Drago and Mamm Total XP 1,667XP to Korak, Nim, Robert, Aubrae, and Saorise 1,917XP to Drago and Mamm Renown, Fame, and Infamy 10 Infamy (Henutemipet), 10 Renown (Binsada), 10 Renown (Red Sands) for every party member. Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 67 (Special): Snake Through the Hart Present: Agatha Duskhart; Rjurik Sorcerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) Ant; Dwerren Barbarian, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) Cedrych Brightbough; Sidhelien Rogue, lvl 3 (Adam B) Lindal Leagallow; Cellwair Barbarian, lvl 2 (Michael H) Every member receives 20 old anuirean gold pieces tax free for rescuing Dietric. Monster XP 180XP Quest XP 300XP RP XP 300XP 50XP to Agatha Exploration XP 0XP Log XP 150XP to Cedrych, Ant 250XP to Agatha, Prudence, and Lindal Total XP 930XP to Cedrych, Ant 1,030XP to Prudence, and Lindal 1,080XP to Agatha Renown, Fame, and Infamy 2 Infamy (Explitica Defilus) for every party member. Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 68 (SPECIAL): Bayou Travesty Present: Orithar (Hats4Cats) Lvl 5 Ingund (Serephen) Lvl 3 Hedrin (SlothSlow) Lvl 5 Galena (Zilarrezko) Lvl 4 Monster XP 250XP per person Quest XP 100XP RP XP 100XP Exploration XP 200XP Log XP 150XP to Orithar 225XP to Galena Total XP 650XP to Ingund and Hedrin 800XP to Orithar 875XP to Galena Renown, Fame, and Infamy -5 Renown (Berstuc), +5 Renown (Serpentine Lamia), +1 Renown (Vespidian) for each party member except for Orithar who gets an additional -2 renown with Berstuc. Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 70 (1Z): To Bee or not to Bee Present: -Cordelia "Cordie" Woodwytch, Cellwair "Wizard" ( Serephen ) -Brognir Bronzehelm, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian ( Ryan B ) -Salazar di Fioretti, Hannersidhe Bard ( Adam B ) -Darvius Alandre, Sidhelian Monk ( Darvius ) -Twili, Sidhelian Bard ( Link S. ) -Eirena Lightshadow, Rjurik Cleric/Warlock ( Depraved Lunatic ) The party receive 500gp from The Cohort Arcanum for completing their mission! The Scrimshaw Comb is listed as an important item. Monster XP 405XP Quest XP 500XP RP XP 150XP Exploration XP 500XP Log XP 150XP to Darvius 225XP to Eirena Total XP 1,555XP to Serephen, Brognir, Salazar, Twili 1,705XP to Darvius 1,780XO to Eirena Renown, Fame, and Infamy +1 Renown (The Cohort Arcanum) +2 Status (Margreve) for every party member. Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not.

Little Drummer Boy Session 72 (Special Mission) Participants (Darvius) Darvius Alandre (Depraved Lunatic) Shango Bayu (Sere) Cordelia (Sloth) Korak Flomhelm (Hats) Dragomir (Adam) Salazar After a month in Lavoka immersing myself in their culture and getting to know the nature of the Margrave better I found myself briefly back at the Cohort to check on missions. Dragomir approached me saying that he wanted to travel back to the Margrave and explore the Hags tooth hills, and find the blood hag to discover if she served the Hag. He had gathered a decent party of experienced adventurers, so I agreed to accompany him on his quest. Salazar was given the drums we found in Sharpclaw’s cave months ago, and the comb he was given in Lavoka was identified. We traveled to Lavoka and met with Anna. Salazar spent some time asking her many questions about Granny Magori, herbs, and various other questions about the local area. I was able to catch a few of the words but the sentence structure of Midgardian still evades me. Soon we left the relative safety of Levoka and began our journey towards the Hags tooth hills. On the journey we encountered a pseudodragon, a creature aborted by the moon and rejected to live in the world. It seemed to be seeking a new master, it approached Cordie first them moved to Drago. It asked him several questions and gave him a point total after each answer, he mostly got negative points. Not finding a suitable master among us it flew off. I started to notice something strange going on with Salazar, but he claimed all was well as we continued to travel. As we approached the hills, we came on an immense pile of dung, and a huge track under the snow a two-legged creature with 4 claws on its feet, and a large tail. We decided to move around the hills and try and avoid the large creature. That night while on watch during my watch I spot some flashes of light in the direction of the hills. Then there was a flock of birds that flew off and the forest became unnaturally calm. However, nothing else came of this. The next day we travel towards the hills and come to a fresh river, and again we see some of the very large tracks. We also find swaths of where fire had melted the snow and trees around us in many directions. We circle the hills a bit more concerned with what we are seeing this mysterious creature can do. As we camp for the night suddenly, I am awoken from my nightly trance by an intense scream, I come out of my trance and see Salazar starting to flee into the trees. I leap into action and chase down Salazar, who seems to be under the effects of magical fear. I tackle him and put him into a harmless body lock, so he would not harm himself or me.  I am able to calm him down, as the rest of the party came up to us. At this point Korak reveals to us that he had used his holy power to turn undead. As it turns out the magical drums that he was given had put him under a curse. His heart would only beat while the drums were beating, when the drums were not beating, he seems to be undead of some nature. Concerned with the ramifications of using remove curse on him we decide to abandon our quest and head back towards Levoka. However, by the time we got back to Levoka Salazar had significantly calmed down, either because he no longer had to fear how we would react or because he was getting used to the unusual magic that had come over him. We talk to Anna about the creature we had almost encountered, she told us she had heard tales of a giant creature with  sink as black as night, and three dragon heads  that could regenerate the damage done to it, and if you cut off its head it would become a new monster. The Zmey. In some old stories salt was used against it, it also can fly but without wings. It uses water to ambush it’s prey. It seems Salazar’s curse had perhaps saved us from a sudden death. We decided that since Salazar seemed stable for now that we would explore and try to find other settlements that were near. As we left the town, we encountered a strange fey creature named Gryzvald. It speaks Sylvan and introduces itself as a guide who would give us information and lead us to anywhere we want to go in exchange for food. We learn that Incot Village and Wheedon Village were west from us, past which is Lost Heart’s Copse, in which exists many ghosts, which attack anyone who gets near. We also learn about Pineys; a race of bark like tree men with sap for blood. They are supposedly friendly. It says the Blood Mother has teamed up with the Zmey, and that she has many monsters and other creatures under her command, and that she is very powerful. Gryzvald leads us to Incot Village in exchange for more food and he also gives Cordie a mushroom, that if fed to a squirrel, the Squirrel will then fetch Gryzvald. Gryzvald however, does not enter the village with us out of fear of the wood wards. We encounter a group of bull men and speak to their chief Thagod. He tells us about the Braidwood to the west, where the Pineys live. He says that they are very pretty and that sometimes his people kidnap them for entertainment. At this point we travel north to see the Lost Heart Copse, but we do not enter. We discovered some useful information on our travels, but the only training and practice I received was with my flute. As we traveled through the Margrave often beating the drum to keep Salazar’s heart beating, we would trade off musical accompaniment, with our various musical instruments. Not my most harrowing adventure, but we did learn quite a bit about the Margrave and the strange creatures within it. Darvius Alandre Adventurer, Carnifex Primera of the Cohort

Session 72: To The Beat Of Your Own Drum (Special Mission) Expedition Members: Dragomir Black          - Level 6, Vos Warlock (Hats4Cats) Salazar di Fioretti      - Level 2, Hanner-sidhe Bard (Adam B.) Cordelia Woodwytch - Level 5, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Korak Flomhelm        - Level 5, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) Darvius Alandre        - Level 6, Sidhelien Monk (Darvius) Shango Bayu            - Level 5, Khinasi Monk (Depraved Lunatic) (It seems to have been incredibly difficult to tell which parts of Cordie’s account were true and which were false on account of how fantastical and nonsensical some of the facts actually were. Painstakingly, all of the falsities have been redacted though a couple of true facts may have been lost as well) The loud boy was looking for a group to go to The Margreve, said he read about the red hag-like creature, Blood Mother Margase and wanted to ask her things. I don’t think she’d answer his questions, and if she did she might answer them the same way I do. Still, it might have been funny to see if the forest disliked someone. There were a few in the group that had never been. Before we left, we did some magic stuff. Found out what things did. I gave the drum I had to the one with the feather hat, since he seemed interested in it. He also seemed interested in his new comb. Maybe I should get a comb. Feather-hat did a lot of chatting in Levoca. He said the wind lady we met is a druidess they call Baba Migori. She’s nice. I hope she gives me cookies some time. We also heard that some metals corrode slower here than others, like mithril, and that Lyla is supposed to be an old fable nobody believes anymore about a girl who went to dance with bees and turned into honey and trees. I wonder how many other old fables nobody believes that this Baba Migori knows. We went towards the hills, and a dragon flew at us out of nowhere. It tried to stare me down but I wasn’t spooked. Then it stared at feather-hat for a while, I think he broke under the pressure. It looked at a couple other people and then got bored of looking at people and went away. Feather-hat said that it was testing him and he failed with a lot of negative points. Either way there’s a dragon here now. A stare-y dragon. Along the way people tried playing music. Some of them were terrible. I was not terrible, because I actually knew how to play my instrument. Feather-hat started looking a bit funny and took me aside to chat. He said that he thought he was dead, sort of. His heart didn’t beat unless he beat the drum. So I took the drum and tried to keep it away from him. He didn’t die, probably because he’s already dead, so I didn’t think it was a problem. At least he didn’t have to worry about dying if he stopped. He was upset about this. He also didn’t tell anyone else, so I said to ask Coatrack about it if he was stressed. He didn’t. Near the hills we found a gigantic pile of dung, some people figured whatever left it ate meat. I spotted tracks, which was impressive for me because the tracks were way bigger than I am. They were two-leg tracks with 4 claws, and some swishy marks from a tail. Whatever it was headed towards the hills, so we did not go to the hills even though that’s the only reason loud boy came here. At night someone saw some flashes of light and thunder noise from West of us, where we think the tracks went. Naturally we went to go see the next day, because loud noises and flashes of light are too interesting to ignore. There was some melted snow that looked like it was in three cone shapes, and some more giant tracks that went to a river. Most people voted to leave this place and go do something else. I don’t remember seeing the tracks coming out of the river on the other side…. Maybe I just wasn’t close enough to notice them. We went around the hills, and got woken up in the night by feather-hat screaming and running away. Apparently he was undead now and Coatrack used some holy magic on him. The sidhelien brought him back and he told them everything. Some people suspected I knew this would happen and tricked him into accepting it. I think feather-hat believed in me, which is generally not the wise choice, and claimed I didn’t know about it. I took the drum and beat it for him so he wouldn’t be dead and we returned to Levoca. The villagers told us about another old fable that isn’t supposed to exist. A giant black creature with three dragon heads and tiny wings that are too small for it to fly, but that it flies with anyway, which can recover from damage quickly and any head you cut off will become a new monster. It’s called the Zmey. It hides in ponds and rivers and caves and jumps out to eat people. How something that size can hide is impressive, I’ll have to ask it sometime. Salt is its weakness.  We thought a lot about what to do, and decided to go find more people-villages to the South. One is a bunch of caravans that act like a village. On the way we reached part of the forest that was like a building with a roof and pillars more than outdoors. I wondered who lived there. It rained a lot but the road we found was dry still. Later on a friendly person greeted us on the road. Everyone was suspicious but he seemed nice. He said his name was Gryzvald and he offered to guide us to wherever we wanted to go, as long as we gave him food. I gave him food and he told us loads of stuff. We learned the location of Incot Village and Wheedon Village and the Braidwood and Lost Heart’s Copse. In Lost Heart’s Copse is an army of ghosts looking for stuff. In the Braidwood are Pineys, people made of wood that are very friendly and like friends. The Zmey is friends with the Blood Mother. She has lots of powerful friends and is very strong. She definitely won’t be answering loud boy’s questions. Gryzvald took us to Incot Village, and gave me a mushroom. If I feed it to a squirrel, the squirrel will find him and bring him to me again. The village itself was full of bull-people. They were going to enslave us, but the others played their instruments so badly that they changed their minds. They said they were being killed by ghosts, so maybe someone should help them with that. Chief Thagod said that the Pineys were very pretty, so they kidnap them sometimes, but they’d all escaped recently. Fair enough. We came back so that feather-hat could get cured of being dead if he wanted, but he seemed to be doing okay last I saw.

Session 75: Running The Gauntlet (Special Mission) Expedition Members: Orithar Trisk               - Level 5, Half-Orog Wizard (Hats4Cats) Galena Abanâthu       - Level 3/1, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) Medi Eirwen               - Level 5, Anuirean Ranger (Serephen) Hedrin Toadslayer      - Level 4, Dwerren Sorcerer (SlothSlow) Shlar Ohmste             - Level 3, Sidhelian Wizard (Michael H.) Brognir Bronzehelm   - Level 2/2, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian (Kristen B.) Rob Boss                    - Level 5, Brecht Cleric (Depraved Lunatic) This was my first mission back after a short hiatus. Orithar and Galena found me and told me that some bee people needed help and there were cultists to deal with, which sounded good enough for me. We discussed the mission, our tactics and preparations and set off ready to tackle the objectives. Arriving in Ber Dairas, Orithar went to chat with a contact, Elisheva, to see if any news had sprung up from the Harrowmarsh. He returned to tell us that not only had the mage his previous group thought they killed before been sighted around again but Elisheva herself had a proposition for our group. She had heard of a member of the magocracy of Binsada, Askalan Graydust, who had left on an expedition to a ruin known as Vael Turog and returned with plenty of magical items and artifacts. Sadly, all the nobles that bought from him died soon after of some arcane sickness. It seemed as though he had found a leystone and used it to create these magic items, though something was wrong with this one and he, too, perished from the plague. We were tasked with finding this place and looting it of its treasures and knowledge, though Elisheva would demand 50% of what we found for pointing us to it. She also offered us a bell which, when rung, would lead us to the leystone. Also they say that Askalan found something: an indigo star that fell from the heavens. Whatever this was, he didn’t return with it so it seems likely that it’d still be at the tower. Our group debated for a while, and accepted the offer, reasoning that we could handle out original mission another time. We made good time on our travel, following the bell on the second day we made it to the tower by nightfall. Along the way Rob and I spotted an ambush of goblins, but they fled as soon as they realised that did not have the element of surprise. We opted not to waste time chasing them down. Once at the tower, a structure of black stone with a grim, ominous look to it, we investigated the front door. Cold air was seeping from it, and our mages determined the door had powerful necromancy on it, it was not safe to touch without a key, though one could attempt to redirect the harmful energy and open the door anyway. Orithar and Shlar did so, and we saw a few arcane circles on the floor ahead. We opted to rest and prepare before going in, and the doors shut on their own. That night I had an unsettling dream. A strange room filled with tubes of glowing blue, and a strange, spinning obelisk covered in intricate runes on a circular dais. Looking up above I could see stars, but there was no hole in the roof to see them through. The night sky spread wider and wider, and in that sky I saw the shape of a dragon before waking up. Apparently Shlar and Galena had the same dream. I was reminded of the dream of eyes over a cemetery that we all had when we approached Morrendeep that first time. I prayed that this place wasn’t something similar. Galena directed us to search the area in the morning and I found a badly-hidden item: a black metal gauntlet with clawed fingers and some kind of writing on it. I took it back to the group and Orithar identified the word on the gauntlet as Infernal for “Power”. I figured this may be the ‘key’ that would open the door safely, saving the mages from having to risk the damage again, so I volunteered to test it. The gauntlet protected me from just touching the door, but when I tried to open it there was a dark shadow, cold and pain. I gave the gauntlet to Orithar and suggested that maybe the word must be spoken while touching the door. He tried this and the door opened safely. The magic potential inside the tower was 2/9, though Orithar looked like he was nearly blinded by trying to see it through the Laen Glass. In the entrance hall were three arcane circles, one blue, one pinkish and one further in that was green, but the magic was gone from it it seemed. We debated how to approach for a long time before Brognir put on the gauntlet and walked across the glyphs to no effect. As he crossed the hall though, a slimey ooze creature rose up from the third glyph and attacked. We made short work of it and, by passing the gauntlet back and forth, all crossed the hall. We did not test what happens if you stand on a circle without wearing the gauntlet. We then found a room with a yellow circle and some silvery panels of liquid, two broken. Each of them was labelled in Infernal: (from left to right, as you face into the room) Entryway, Commander's Quarters, Compression Chamber, Arcane Dampener, Arcane Dampener, Entry to Obelisk, Chamber of the Obelisk, Chamber of the Arcane Cell. I suggested that maybe it would let you see different parts of the tower if you told it which one you wanted to see. Orithar tried it and it worked, he looked into each of the rooms one by one, except the broken ones. Mostly he just described a bunch of tubes, bronze mechanisms and black spheres, it was a little hard to keep track of what was where, but two things really stood out: In the Commander’s Quarters was a bunch of parchments, and in the Chamber of the Arcane Cell was a large glass container, full of energy. Orithar saw something inside that place a hand against the glass as though trying to get out. Orithar went to the Commander’s Quarters, setting off a trap on the way. He retrieved a bunch of parchments, which he translated. I will include them at the end of this log entry. I didn’t really get much of it, but this Askalan guy had apparently removed some black spheres from cauldrons, which would make the obelisk in here spin faster and risk destroying the whole place. We continued deeper in, passing by a set of scary-looking double doors with two tiefling faces carved into them. I thought that might be the room with the obelisk, so we left it alone for the time being and continued. Further in we found some acidic pools, which Brognir lead us past but, as he did, a mossy creature rose up and attacked. I took some time to examine it, looking for weaknesses and strengths to inform the group. I deduced from its form, its movements and where it was that acid and cold likely wouldn’t harm it at all and, more troublingly, cutting weapons and lightning seemed as though they would not only not harm this thing, but also split it into multiple oozes! I warned the group and we launched our attack, with Brognir’s weapon and armour getting damaged by the acid. We took it down and passed through. The room beyond had some strange contraption with a bunch of different coloured pipes going in and out of it, which was spewing black lightning around the room. There was a glass container with a black sphere inside in the room, so Brognir went to get it while Shlar and Orithar protected him from the lightning. As he put it into the bronze thing it calmed down and stopped shooting lightning. I think we made this place a bit safer, but I’m really not sure. All of this arcane stuff is way more than I can get my head around. We then went back to the big double doors. They said something to Orithar who responded with the same word he said to open the main door. When he did the door shot fire and lightning at us at the same time, and even though I dodged the worst of it I was still knocked out cold. I woke up to Rob healing me. It was hard to focus through the pain but I could tell that other people were still down and dying, so I ran to Hedrin, the poor boy, and healed him. He had some bad scarring from the lightning, but he pulled through and we get everyone on their feet and opted to leave that place. We reported back to Elisheva and left the bell with her before returning home. Once home Orithat produced a spellbook to report in which he kept quiet about up until then. I'm certain he had reasons for not mentioning it before though I have no idea what they would be. Translated Notes: The power cell in which the fallen star now rests sends raw arcane energy into a pair of large brass cauldrons which mix it with a blue fluid. This fluid is sent into the central chamber where the fluid's energy causes a huge black obelisk to spin rapidly, drawing nearby dead ley lines to the Leystone. This spinning obelisk can use the Leystone's power to infuse magic into powerful magical artifacts, but the energy isn't entirely stable. Spheres of a black, arcane energy-absorbing metal kept within a pair of rooms can be placed in the large brass cauldrons. This draws arcane energy out of the pipelines and slows down the obelisk. Portions of the chamber were damaged hundreds of years ago when the entire Leystone was left active for too long. It melted the stone and killed many of the tieflings who worked within the Leystone. Askalan had to manually place the spheres in the cauldrons to reduce the speed of the obelisk or it might have destroyed the entire structure. He most recently took them out.

Session 72: We didn't miss a beat   Expedition Members: Dragomir Black     - Level 6, Vos Warlock (Hats4Cats) Salazar di Fioretti      - Level 2, Hanner-sidhe Bard (Adam B.) Cordelia Woodwytch - Level 5, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Korak Flomhelm        - Level 5, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) Darvius Alandre        - Level 6, Sidhelien Monk (Darvius) Shango Bayu            - Level 5, Khinasi Monk (Depraved Lunatic) Right well, this didn't go as planned. We all gathered in the halls of the Cohort. It was nice to enter a room and not did to introduce yourself to others around ya. Like we all knew who we were. Me and Korak were busy playing chess. He kept cheating by moving the pieces around the table. We all chatted and laughed for what literally was half an hour before we even got down to cohort business. Darvius was giving hairstyling tips and Codie gave Salazar a new comb and drum for some reason, guess his hair was getting messy. So I wanted to go fight this hag lady I heard about from the Margreve called Blood Mother Margase. I did my research! All the rumors we’re pointing that there way this spell caster over there with alright magic but nothing we wouldn't be able to handle. Like some of my research pointed to spells of the 4th circles and she was said to have a patron is a faraway land. So I was thinking that was The Hag, really don't think it is now tho. We got to the Margreve and got to say, it's really nice just to let ya wings out ya know. Salazar, never met him before, he knew everyone and started having a nice chat with the lady. I asked him if they were ok with magic but ya know they never seem to be. Koraks alright with it. So Baba Migori started freaking out like she never heard anyone inside her own head before. A well. We didn't waste too much time and headed off.  The journey was sooo much fun. We all had our instruments out and playing as we walked. Makes a nice change to “Quiet Drago!” that gets often spoken around here. Cordi was the worse by far.. Darvius a close second, kept blaming the pine needles. So our marching band headed down the road and before we knew it a small tiny dragon appears out of nowhere. This thing was kinda red but its eyes. They looked just like Larmedylth’s!  So, of course, I used all my magic to fly and talk to it but it really wasn't interested in me… went straight for Cordi. He flew in front of her face and was poking at her but she really didn't do anything. Didn't talk to it or nothing. Didn't even get Mynnir out to greet it! Turns out the little thing can talk inside ya head just like me but Cordi couldn't understand it. Don't think she got the smarts or something to be able to hear it. It chatted with Salazar and he was answering questions. “All of them”. “The one you have on you, at the time”. No idea what to but he said he didn't do very well. Something about points. It took one look at me and Darvius and disappeared. Really should be offended, like I'm not as mature as Salazar but I’m more mature than Cordi! Didn't even get its name. I mean it can't be good living out here like on your own.  I heard a story once when I was a kid. Before the stars were born, The Sun approached The Moon. As The Moon blocked the light from The Sun they bonded in a union. As the sunlight reached the surface of our world rocks formed on the surface of the moon. Over time and under The Suns light where they turned into eggs and Dragons were born. However, there was one rock that was smaller didn't grow. When it became an egg its size offended the moon and was cast down to the surface to live and be forever dependent on another.   Its a sad story like, being left on the outside I kinda get it. I wonder is Larmedylth knows anything about it? At least its name.  O yeah the mission, headed towards our target and found a huge pile of dung on the road. Really big so we went the other way. During the night we saw some lights going off but thought best to leave it alone. In the morning we saw the marks on the ground. Looked like three different jets of flames. I told everyone what Leana had said about not being scared of Cats but no one listened. It wasn't a lion! So they thought it best to take leave and head back. Just so everyone knows, we saw no creatures, no hag, and just some fire and there acting as if it was a Primordial.  As we were camping I heard Salazar crying because Korak made him run away. Turned out Cordi played another prank but this time caused Salazar heart to stop. I don't see how it was funny, Korak was holding his holy sign up preaching at him. Cordi said this wasn't one of her pranks but she lies about this all the time. Cordi kept playing the drum she gave him tho… so many she anti lying about this. She had to keep playing the drum to keep his heart beating. Korak confirmed the time of death as Salazar walked on. Apparently the monster we saw was called a Zmey, whatever that is. It can hide under the water so be careful near waters edge in that area. The villagers think its a dragon but I have never seen a dragon with more than one head so doubt it is like. It's under the control of the Blood mother. We debated having Korak remove the Curse but without knowing what would happen and Salazar not looking ill apart from his heart didn't think it was wise.  We did some light exploring around the area after. Found a strange looking creature named Gryzvald, ugly thing like. It can eat through ironwood and only cared about food. Did even give any useful information just what we already knew. This was why we were on a road that was dry why everywhere else was under constant rain. Cordi got on with it and it led us towards a village.  This cow looking people lived there, they looked strong but really dumb. It thought my illusion was a ghost. Tho they are having ghost issues around the area, didn't really have time to look into it.  We really didn't do anything but was nice just walking around playing music and chatting. Nice change of pace. We’re going to take Salazar home and get him looked at, someone at the cohort will be able to sort him out.

Session 71: Death in the Snow, (Mission 2b) Present: Agatha Duskhart, Rjurik mage (Summer) Prudence Duskhart, Alsied Druid (Lena C) Ant, Dwerren Barbarian (Seraphina Leaf) Aubrea Trevelyan, Anuriean Paladin (Zilarresko) Lindal Leagallow, Cellwair Barbarian (Michael H)   This is a proper account of the events as dictated by me, Lindal Leagallow.             We met up at the Cohort where Ant explained the situation.  The Cohort’s help had been asked for by the Thegna of Talinie, Thuriene Donalls.  She is the new Thegna, the previous one was her mother and died in what was believe to be a riding accident a few months previous.  But, the Thegna had recently got a letter from a crofter named Alver, he had written it for another crofter who had witness what had happened and the letter said that it had not been an accident.  The witness claimed that a man in priest like robes stepped out of the woods and struck down the previous Thegna with a cudgel, before retreating into the woods again.  Of course, this has the present Thegna concerned.  We all agreed that this needed looking into and headed by boat to Talinie.           As we approached the main hall we were intercepted by the High Priest of the Northern Imperial Temple who wanted to know why we were there.  Prudence told him we were here on business with the Thegna and it was up to her to tell him, not us.  During this conversation Agatha’s young appearance seemed to throw the priest.  Unsurprisingly he took her for a child, she does still look about eleven years old.  This upset Agatha who attempted to explain the situation but the priest seemed not to believe her, going so far as to hand her a sweet to calm her down.  Agatha seemed shocked by this, when it looked like she might not want the sweet I asked if I could have it and she said yes, so I ate it.  A nice peppermint sweet.           Entering the main hall Agatha again found that people were treating her as a child.  But, she began to realise this might have some uses, mainly in getting free food and sweets.  We approached the Thegna and introduced ourselves, she called us close to have a more private talk.  There she explained further about the letter, as well as her worries.  If her mother had been murdered then there was the possibility of it being a political assassination and maybe even an attempt to control who ruled the country, as it seemed her mother had information on one Aeric Beoruine.  She asked that we keep all the information secret, as what we might learn could be dangerous for not just us, but her and the Cohort as well.  She passed on the information that it seems that this Aeric Beoruine, is deathly allergic to wasp venom.  He carries some sort of magic item to protect him, but without it a single drop of venom could kill him.  I think I don’t need to say this, but will, this information should not be spread outside of the Cohort.  If it was known that we know, it might cause trouble with the Beoruine family.  She also said that Aeric has a low view of women, considering them lesser in rank and ability to men.  I found this a stupid idea, I know several woman who could quite easily defeat me if they wanted.  For instance either of the Duskhart twins.  (At this point Lindal mused that it might be a good idea for him to not tease Agatha about her altered age.  While I don’t think this was meant to be in the account he did not tell me to leave it out so I have kept it for fullness of detail)           When Prudence said we had been intercepted by the High Priest, the Thegna was concerned.  I got the feeling he was stepping outside his boundries.  The Thegna said we could use Agatha’s curse as a way to speak to him.  After all, a priest might know how to remove such a curse.  And while we were there we might snoop, and see if we could discover anything useful.  So we went to the temple to speak to the priest, while he examined Agatha the rest of us kept our eyes out to see if we could find anything suspicious.  It turned out that there was very little the priest could do for Agatha as the curse was no longer in effect, its damage had been done.  He did mention something about Ghosts, and some Fey berries that might help age Agatha again, but both came with the risk that she might be aged more than she might like.  When we left the temple Prudence told us that she had caught sight of one priest coming from a back room with a bloody rag in his hands.  The priest had thrown the rag onto the fire, where it had burned with a purple flame.  This indicates the blood belonged to someone with a bloodline power, more of this weird Bloodline stuff.  With this bit of information we decided to head to the area the old Thegna died and try to find this Alver who wrote the letter.           To say the villagers were suspicious of us is an understatement.  When we attempted to speak to them they became afraid and hostile.  Locking themselves in one of the houses, and accusing us of all being Awnshegh.  One of them attempted to escape but Aubrea stopped him.  After a brief conversation, during which Aubrea managed to calm the man down, we discovered that he was the person who had written the letter, only his name was Olivar, not Alver.  It seems his writing was as bad as mine, which is why I’m dictating this and not writing it.  Olivar said that he had written the latter for another of the villagers by the name Pyotr.  Olivar and Aubrea went to speak with this Pyotr.  To our surprise it seemed that the villagers had let Agatha into their house, believing she was in danger from us.  Little did they know that they had allowed one of the most dangerous of our number into their midst.  Ant, Aubrea and Agatha explained to the villagers that we were not Awnshegh, but were representatives of the Thegna here to investigate the death of her mother.  Pyotr told us that he had seen a man wearing an expensive looking red robe come out of the woods and strike down the old Thegna with a staff marked with the symbol of Aeric Beoruine.  As neither he, or the other villagers, could give us any more information we investigated around the area where the crime had taken place.           As we investigated Aubrea used her Paladin abilities to sense for undead, saying that maybe the old Thegna’s spirit might had been left behind.  It turns out Aubrea was correct as she sensed an undead spirit.  Prudence then caught sight of a figure hovering in the air about 5 feet off the ground, she could only see it because the wind was swirling around it.  Agatha attempted to touch the figure but could not, myself and Ant tried to speak to it in various languages, we thought we were not going to get a reply when Agatha gave an exclamation of distress and told us she could hear the ghost speaking in her mind.  The ghost was that of the old Thegna, who told us that she had been murdered by the High Priest of the Northern Imperial Temple, who’s name she said was Toaris Griene.  We were attempting to find more details when the ghost took control of Agatha’s body and began to march her through the village, saying she needed revenge on Toaris and intended on using Agatha to get it.  We attempted to stop her, which resulted in Agatha lashing out with her fists at Prudence and Ant, but with little effect.  Aubrea cast a spell that protected Agatha from Evil which cast out the Ghost.  So the Ghost attacked us, repeatedly attempting to possess different members of our group, including myself.  We managed to defeat her, by a mix of magic and divine power, which resulted in the Ghost dispersing into the beyond where all spirits go.  Again this had upset the villagers and we had to calm them down.           Now we knew the truth we all investigated the area around the murder site, hoping to discover anything of use.  The only thing we did discover was found by Ant, an expensive looking embroidered purse containing a large amount of money, 15 gold, 10 silver, and 9 copper.  Knowing that this was too much money for any villager to have, it was likely more money that the village as a whole might make in a year, we considered that this had something to do with the death of the Thegna.  After a brief, slightly heated discussion, the money was placed in a different bag and reburied while I kept hold of the bag it had been buried in, suspecting that this bag might be important.  At the least I thought it might have belonged to the Old Thegna and her daughter might like it returned for sentimental value.  Aubrea decided to speak to the person who was in charge of the building in which the money had been hidden.  She acted arrogantly toward him, which considering the feelings of the villagers, meant he responded the same.  When Aubrea pushed her questioning the man attempted to get away from her, at which point Aubrea attacked him.  First she punched him, then knocked him unconscious with her mace.  This, unsurprisingly, resulted in the villagers surrounding her and accusing her of assault.  Aubrea at first looked like she was about to fight the whole village, until Ant and myself intervened and persuaded her to stand down.           One of the villagers fetched the local guards who escorted us to speak to the Thegna.  There we explained what we had discovered, and had been told by the Ghost of the old Thegna.  Unfortunately we had no direct proof of what we said.  Agatha then remembered the bloody rag in the temple.  While this could not be the old Thegna’s blood as her bloodline had already been transferred to her daughter, it was of interest.  The Thegna said that she would look into this, and would then request the assistance of the Cohort in both this investigation and following up on anything discovered.  But, after Aubrea’s actions, she requested we left the country for now if only to calm the people.  As well as avoiding any suspicion the High Priest and Aeric might have.  Accepting this as a good idea we returned back to the Cohort.   I declare this to be a true account, by my recollection, Lindal Leagallow.

Session 75: Running The Gauntlet (Special Mission)   Expedition Members: Orithar Trisk           - Level 5, Half-Orog Wizard (Hats4Cats) Galena Abanâthu       - Level 3/1, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) Medi Eirwen           - Level 5, Anuirean Ranger (Serephen) Hedrin Toadslayer      - Level 4, Dwerren Sorcerer (SlothSlow) Shlar Ohmste             - Level 3, Sidhelian Wizard (Michael H.) Brognir Bronzehelm   - Level 2/2, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian (Kristen B.) Rob Boss               - Level 5, Brecht Cleric (Depraved Lunatic)   Plans change and this mission did too. Wanted to go see Fey Prince, show him axe. Others wanted to meet the Bee like creatures. Galena made a wise choice and asked me to go visit Elisheva, she knows good business. She had new information. The mage lady who I thought I had killed still lives. Now I know why he cared so much for the book. He wanted to give it back to her. Will make sure she says dead next time, less headache in the future. Smugglers still having issues due to cultists.  Elisheva told us a story about a magocracy of Binsada called Askalan Graydust. He was found with magic weapons, selling them in the city. However, no one knew the source. The weapons broke after some time and the users became weak from a plague, arcane plague. Before his death, we spoke of the location where he made the weapons. The ruin of Vael Turog which contains a Corrupted leystone was used in their making.  However, the leystone was being powered by something. The indigo star, something that fell from the heavens. Not from this world. We agreed to fifty percent split for our involvement. Gave us a bell to use, to find the location of the ruins.  The sands were kind. Easy travels. Few goblins attacked, left them alone. No point wasting time on small creatures. The next day we found a spire that rises out of the ground from Bell made from black stone in the middle of sands. The door was infused with magic. Me and Shlar we’re able to open without issue however runes we’re on the floor. Group didn't want to move forward.  Rested outside, some of us had strange dreams. We're in a chamber, tubes glowing with blue neon and magic, feeding into a spinning obelisk on a circular dais, marked with glyphs. Looking up we can see the night sky, as though there was a hole, but there was none. The sky grows and we see a dragon, but wake up. Shlar saw a different dragon not the astral plane maybe not from anywhere. Enjoyed break. Galena went searching and found Gauntlet with word for power wrote in Infernal. Most writing in place is in Infernal. Medi used glove to open door but couldn't speak words. I used glove with word “Pasyr”. Door opened.  Brognir walked over the glyph with gloves nothing happened so we moved forward. Came face to face with slime creature. Medi hit it hard enough to stop moving. Problem solved. We found a room with writing and mirror panels. It is room to watch other rooms. I saw all the rooms. The only two I didn't explore that I saw was one with two boxes and a blue orb floating around the area. The other was the room with a pink chamber that seems to be the source of the ruins.  After viewing rooms I move to the commander's quarters. Found more information that others have put in logs. I believe Askalan Graydust did something to it is important to note. Askalan had taken both the spheres out of the Cauldrons for some reason. Maybe to do with increasing the power of the weapons he was making. However if not fixed may cause the entire structure to collapse. We were able to fix one, however, wasn't able to fix the other. I hope the building is still there when we return.  The room to the north, had acid and another monster made from it. Destroyed the weapons of Brognir why he was fighting. However once dead we able to find one of the cauldrons and fixed it.  We then tried entering double doors but shadow figures asked for password which we didn't know. Both fire and lightning attacks, hedrin now has been scarred for life. Was close to losing everyone during the attack but luckily we made it out alive.  We were all close to death, so left as quick as possible. Gave the bell back to Elisheva and showed her Hedrin. Next week.

Session 73 (2D): Nim & Her Four Guardians Played on the 9th of January in the year 2020! Present: Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene "Nim" Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 5 (Summer) Zolis Ulmokina; Khinasi Fighter, lvl 4 (Lordgenome) Thorg Sabertooth; Half-Orog Barbarian, lvl 3 (Darvius) Berry Brambles; Firbolg Barbarian, lvl 2 (Lena C) Locations: Haes, Haesrien, Tournen. Croaker Norge, Haesrien, Tournen. We met in the Cohort to discuss the mission we were to undertake. It concerned the body of the First Duke of Tournen; Dalton Flaertes, known as The Sleeping Duke, due to his body after over a hundred years dead, still being in pristine condition, looking as if he's merely sleeping. The Duchess was offering gold to anyone who could uncover as to why The First Duke's body had not decayed since death. We headed to Haes where Duchess Laela Flaertes resides. The local language is Anuirean, so my smart Nim, as well as Thorg, were our translators, with Nim taking the lead. We reached outside Castle Haes, we approached the guards, showed them our Cohort badges and said we here at the Duchess' request. Nim had a long chat with one of the guards trying to find out information about the First Duke and his condition. The guard acknowledged there were many rumours as to what happened, but she personally believed that a witch by the name of Mad Maeve took out the duke's heart in a ritual of some kind, and that this is why his body was still so pristine. She believes the witch was in Croaker Norge. She also informed us of when the Duke died; in 1430 HC, just under a hundred years ago. A long, long time for a body not to decay. After a short wait, we were brought before the duchess, who was revealed to be the guard we were talking to before. She said she likes to talk to people without revealing her standing. Nim then asked her if she could speak in Sidhelien so we could all talk to her. She showed us the First Duke's body. She opened up his chest like a container, and showed he had no heart. If not for this, I would have just reckoned he was asleep. We agreed to investigate the theory she believed, concerning this Mad Maeve of Croaker Norge. Though she was insistent that there were many theories. The Duchess showed us some wonderful hospitality, providing dinner and a bed for each of us, though not everyone among us were entirely courteous in return. Hopefully she was not too offended by this. We left the castle and moved along the river northward. Our night while on the road passed by peacefully, and the following day we arrived at the town of Croaker Norge, named after a nearby gorge of the same name. We headed to the tavern for info, as well as food and drink. We asked the bard in the tavern for a song about the First Duke. She sang a dirge about Dalton and his lover, who turned out to be a witch, 'Mad Maeve' in disguise. Mad Maeve took Dalton's heart for her magics. After she was finished I asked if Mad Maeve was still around, and where she was. According to the bard, she never goes far from the Norge. She warned us not to go out at night, or we'll be attacked by her. We gave her a few gold between us for her song, then ate some food. Nim had some milk and looked so cute with her little mustache, made me giggle a bit. Berry's milk mustache was delightful as well. While eating we decided to scout the area during the day, and then head out at night to find this Maeve. Plans for the following day made, we rested for the night at the tavern. In the morning, on our way out of the tavern, a villager came up to us asking if we foreigners knew anything about the villagers going missing in the night. We assured him that we weren't involved and voiced interest in helping. He told us the ones who went missing all lived on the west side of the town, and that there were eight of them. We went there to investigate. I asked someone if they heard anything during the night. All they heard was a smash and then an eerie silence. We searched for tracks and found faint tracks of skeletons, slightly concealed by magic. We also found heavy set human tracks. The tracks led further west. We followed the tracks to a cave near the gorge. Just inside the cave were two large marble doors. My Sweets, Nim, opened the door with her nifty tools. In the first room were two statues and a pile of skeletons. We carefully moved forward to get a closer look at the skeletons, but my curious girl wandered off to look at one of the statues, and the skeletons arose, and advanced on us. Nim fortunately got out of trouble, but not before taking down one of the skeletons, my little warrior. We took the rest of them down quickly and moved up the stairs to a door. Nim was in the middle of unlocking it, when two purple flamed ghosts came through the door attack me and Nim. We managed to avoid their attacks and destroy them. Nim finished opening the door to reveal a room with eight cylindrical containers with people inside them. I figured these people were the eight villagers that had gone missing, and this was the case. Blood was coming out of the containers and running along thin indents in the floor. The blood poured into a drain in the center of the room. There was a weird animated Golem creature, it was going around the containers and shaking them. Each time one was shaken, we could hear wails of pain coming from inside them. The creature paid us no mind at first. Nim opened one of the containers, revealing hundreds of needles drawing blood out of the woman inside. The woman fell out onto the floor. I didn't realise until later that she was still alive at this point. The creature was startled by this, and charged at us to attack. During the fight, I stuck a meaty blow into its back, ripping it apart. A sinister, black energy poured out of it. When Thorg dealt the fatal blow, the energy all came out and took the form of some sort of shadowy ghostly monster, with golden beady eyes. It too attacked us, as well as killing the poor woman on the floor, turning her into one of the purple flamed ghosts from before. After a laborious melee, we took down the two ghosts. We moved to get the villagers out of the containers. Nim unlocked them one by one, as we held them up and fed them our healing potions. We had four potions, so the first four we opened, we managed to address their wounds quickly. An adult man and woman, and two children, a boy and girl. The fifth one we opened, I tried my best to stop the bleeding with my skill in medicine I picked up back in infantry. I managed to stabilise her and she joined the others. Nim was unable to unlock the two left, so Solis and Thorg tried to force them open. Unfortunately they were unable to, and the force they tried to open them with caused more pain to the people inside them, more blood pouring out from underneath. While trying to figure out a way we could save the remaining two villagers, Nim investigated the drain in the middle of the room where the blood was going. She jimmied it open to look inside, finding nothing but the blood. At that moment, the locked door at the end of the room opened, with a lot of skeletons as well as what I believe is referred to as a vampire spawn coming in. We decided to retreat to the sunlight to get a better vantage point, or flee if we needed to. We held the line at first though, so that the villagers we'd already got out could get out safely. Once the villagers were a distance away, we tried retreating, but were slowed down by the vampire spawn, as it was keen to grab hold of us to get a better opportunity to take a bite. We managed to get to the room with the statues, but the skeletons were able to knock Berry out. They might have killed him were it not for the vampire spawns orders to keep him alive for his blood. Zolis managed to get in and drag the unconscious Berry out. Just as we were about to get out, the vampire spawn got hold of Nim and bit her on the arm but Nim then managed to nimbly get herself out of trouble. Enraged at the spawn, I charged at it, grappled it and started dragging it towards the sunlight, striking it with my sword. I did have to drop my shield and wasn't able to get it back which was deeply upsetting, but I was too angry to care at the time. Fortunately, any shield of sentimental value of mine was lost a long time ago. The Spawn managed to squeeze out of my grasp before I got to the door though, and called for the aid of 'Lady Alkava. A woman, whom I suspect was a Vampire, appeared, taunting us as we left. Nim had dropped some holy water on the floor to use against the spawn, but I felt that this was time for us to flee, I picked up the bottle and ran out shutting the doors to the cave. It really saddens me that we had to leave the two remaining villagers behind. I hope the Cohort can come back and deal with this Vampire menace before more are taken. As we fled back to the town, the sun turned bright red, its light focused on the cave we'd just left. I have no idea what this entails, but it can't be good. We got back to the village intact. Berry was brought to, and was his usual smiley huggy self. We made our ways back to Haes and told the Duchess what had happened before heading off and setting sail back to Fabrica.

Session 76: The Morning Suns (Special Mission) Expedition Members: Saorise Auliffe             - Level 3/1, Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin (Serephen) Cedrych Brightbough  - Level 3, Sidhelien Rogue (Adam B.) Valravan                      - Level 1, Rjurik Wizard (Kristen B.) Theodoric Davenport  - Level 2, Sidhewair Fighter (Ryan F.) Vincent Heron             - Level 1, Anuirean Fighter (Simon D.) I dunno what to put in this log thing really, but I’ll try and remember the important bits in case it helps someone. I gathered a bunch of people up to help me. I’ve been jumping at shadows ever since I got told that that mummy queen was gonna hunt me to the ends of the world so she can get resurrected by killing me, so I figured I had to do something. I remember someone saying the Tower of Morning in Ariya was linked to the tower the queen used as her tomb, so I thought they might have answers. We travelled far, far South to the province Ariya and started our search in the city of Ariya. It was a wonderful city, but I didn’t speak the language so I couldn’t really enjoy it too much. We found a nice drinking place called The Stubborn Camel, near the docks. Vincent got us some drinks and started asking about the Tower of Morning. I discovered that ale tastes really gross. The Tower was used as part of the palace right there in the city it turned out! The Amir (their sort of king according to Valravan), Gerad ibn Farid el-Arrasi lives there (Gerad, son of Farid, of house Arrasi. I think Valravan said this part like three times but I didn’t want to interrupt him to tell him he’d said it already….). It was in the old city though, which only “proper” people were allowed in, and I’m definitely not proper people. We could get in if we found some noble or powerful merchant to sponsor us, so we went looking. We went to the East side of town, closer to the old city, and found a real fancy inn called The Misty Queen. Valravan showed off a ring he had on and told them that he was a powerful court mage. I wouldn’t have known! …. I hope he doesn’t read this. I paid for us to have some rooms and the innkeeper pointed us to a bathhouse. She seemed very insistent on it, I guess proper people don’t smell bad so we figured it was a good idea to blend in and maybe find someone rich to help us. We went down the road to The Syren’s Bosom. This place was really odd, it was very nice and high-class-looking, but there was stuff going on that I thought only happened in shady parts of towns! I guess the culture here is very different…. Or maybe I was just ignorant. Anyway, I paid for people to get in so we could wash and find people to talk to. I tried chatting with some of the ladies on my side of the baths but they were all so regal and important-looking, especially compared to me, I didn’t know how to connect. When we came out though it turned out Theo had made friends with a man called Hassan ibn Gerad el-Arrasi, the prince himself! He said we should come to the old city to party with him, and to tell the guards we were there for “Hassan’s Morning Suns” so they’d let us in. We went back to the inn and on the way Vincent and Cedrych had a shooting competition. Both of them were amazing! Cedrych lost his focus and missed the target one time, but I felt way better about having such competent, strong people around me to help after I’d seen what they could do. The food at the inn was some of the best I’ve ever eaten too, it really helped me forget about my problems, if only for a little bit. In the morning I remembered that we’d need a gift for the prince, cause that’s the custom in their lands. We were talking about wines and silks and stuff until I remembered I’d been given one of the magic beans from the Tower of Evening. When I suggested that, everyone thought it was a great idea, so we headed to the old city. Sure enough the guards actually let us in and we made it into the palace. The palace itself was stunning. They throne room had lion heads all over the walls, and the throne itself was made of hundreds of bright, sparkling gems! Everyone was dancing and drinking and having a good time. I presented our gift to the prince and he was nearly insulted by the bean until he heard it was magic. He planted it in the palace gardens to test it and it grew immediately into a thorny plant with a nest in it, that had 5 weird, colourful eggs. The prince had some ragged-looking guy come to confirm that this was magic and not a hallucination. He wanted to serve the eggs to his guests but I didn’t know if that was a good idea, since we didn’t know what might happen. Theo offered to try one and find out. He said it made him feel wiser afterwards, so the prince had the rest pickled to send as gifts to other kings and queens. He gave us a case full of different coloured magic potions in return. We asked to see his father or the court wizard, but they were both away, and he was stuck on partying. I got a bit frustrated and eventually blurted out the story of why I was there. He got serious for a minute, and told me to go and see Adara bint Reshoud, some kind of oracle or seer, in a different part of the palace. We found Adara gazing into a big pond filled with these pretty-looking fish. She looked about my age, but something about her made her seem way older. She said she knew we would come, and knew who we were, and knew why we were there. She called me a sacrifice. I got to ask about the queen, and how to not get killed, or how to put a stop to her. None of it is very easy. She said the queen can’t be sealed up again the way she was before, if she’s going to be stopped it’s gotta be for good. To do that we’d need some Black Book. She said the Fate Weaver gifted it to those that watch over dead, and it has in it the names of everyone that’s ever died, and that it’s on The Isle of Ghosts, past the Green-eyed Monster and that going there is basically suicide. I was a bit disheartened, but at least we knew something more now and some other people are planning to go to this Isle of Ghosts at some point so hopefully they can find this book as well. In the meantime Adara suggested keeping a normal cat with me and hiding, since the queen didn’t have an easy way to find us after we removed the marks. Except that she knew that we’d come to the Tower of Morning somehow, Adara said that she would come to ask her about me in 3 days, and that she was already in the city! I almost fled right there, but Adara teleported away and left a cat with me. I didn’t get a chance to thank her, but she probably already knows. I was on edge for the rest of our time in the city, we went to a coffee house and picked up rumors about work in the area. We found out that the Amir and his wizard went up North to deal with some trouble being caused by the Red Kings of Aftani, who don’t sound like very nice people, but they’re rich (Valravan rambled off a bunch of their names, but I didn’t really catch them. I might ask him to tell me them again so I can include them), on the advice from the oracle, Adara. Also, a bunch of dust goblins had been causing trouble for traders on the roads, and the others seemed excited to go and deal with them. So we got directed to the guard barracks to speak with the Junior Deputy Assistant Vizier, who had a very long name, I wasn’t in the best state for these talks. He offered us 150 gold stallions to clear out the goblins, and told us they’d been active east of Hara Dag, a caravansary North of the city. We travelled North, and met a rich caravaneer at a caravansary on the way. He had amazing-looking horses, and really beautiful wagons. He offered to let us ride with him since we were planning to fight the goblins, and that if we managed to deal with it he would reward us if we found him on the road again. He introduced himself as Madi the Quick, Guildmaster of the Gold and said he tends to travel the road from Ariya city to Aftani. Travelling with him we made it all the way to Hara Dag in one day! We travelled East a couple of days before we came across a fort. Cedrych snuck about and found a hole in the wall we could get in through. Inside was this really weird looking mole creature that looked like it had just eaten most of a giant worm. We managed to kill it, but them some goblins appeared on raised parts across from us and started shooting. There were a lot of bolts, and a lot of weird noises coming from the darkness up ahead, but Cedrych yelled out that Valravan fell and I knew I could help, so I ran over and healed him. I tried calling people to get into a building we could see, but before I could follow the others in a gate opened and a whole big group of goblins poured out, followed by a really mean looking one shouting orders. At that point I got spooked and fled, the others followed and we made it out without getting killed. Cedrych said that a bunch of those mole creatures were fighting a big group of giant worms. I dunno which were on the goblin’s side, but it was too dark and too much for us. So we returned home. Red Kings: Ghada al-Du’ali, Sultana of Aftane  Umar al-Thaqafi, Sultan of Adaba  Yazid al-Hakam, Sultan of Shoufal  Turiye min Saida, Sultan, and Guildermaster of the Brotherhood of Khet  Taril Herad, Sultan, and Hierarch of the Chosen of Khirdai  Bedoureg, Sultan, and Wizard of Ber Tarva  Arlando el-Adaba, Sultan, and the Red Herald

Session 72: Without Skipping a Beat Expedition Members: Dragomir Black     - Level 6, Vos Warlock (Hats4Cats) Salazar di Fioretti      - Level 2, Hanner-sidhe Bard (Adam B.) Cordelia Woodwytch - Level 5, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Korak Flomhelm        - Level 5, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) Darvius Alandre        - Level 6, Sidhelien Monk (Darvius) Shango Bayu            - Level 5, Khinasi Monk (Depraved Lunatic)     Running up to this mission all Drago has been talking about is The Hag and trying to deal a blow to her and while I admire his optimism the boy seems to be overestimating himself and underestimating his enemies. News from the Margreve of Blood Mother Margase a hag in the area who gets her power from a faraway power. Drago thinks this is from the one known as The Hag in our lands and wanted to find more information about their ties. We spoke to the one named Salazar and asked him to join our party, he has made ties with the locals recently and would be invaluable we would find out later. Close friends came to our aid in Darvius, Shango, and Cordie. Always good to have those ones around, good company and handy in a fight. We set a date to meet and gathered together in the hall and all enjoyed each others company.     We spent the moment to shoot the crap so to say, Drago cheated in chess telling me I could not move anything and just watch (I still knocked over his King though hah!). Shango and Darvius were admiring each other hair. Cordie identified some items for Salazar, one comb that was gifted to him by the priestess? for defeating the singing tree and the small drum we got in Sharpclaws cave. Had a bad feeling about that item when I saw it, was beating on its own and when I blasted it the thing set its self back up and played again. Turns out I was correct on that one, something next to some sacrifice table moving on its own can never be good. We said our hellos and introduced ourselves to Salazar and set off to the island. The journey was uncomfortable but we made it without too much problem.      I left my hammer at home and upon arrival felt the strain upon my metal, the lands do not care for iron very much. The blessing of Moradin pushed back the rot from touching my armor. We made our way to Lovoka and found that Salazar had indeed made friends with all the locals, speaking to the priestess of the area about someone named Granny Magori and found the task given by this woman was told that she is actually a local druid often giving gifts to the locals. Stories of the girl trapped by the bees were told as fairy tails and some information on local herbs were gain from this woman as well. After getting the information we headed for our destination of the hags tooth hills, thankfully its not too hard to walk towards a mountain.      During our journey the others started playing music and tutting along merrily playing their instruments Drago actually played pretty well while some of the others were pretty horrid to listen too. I would not recommend letting Darvius play the flute in your presence, seems punching things has made his hands go stiff. On our journey a small red psudodragon I think one of the others called it flew down and started talking to the others in their minds seeing if they were worthy of becoming its master. Salazar apparently did not do so well in its test and was brushed off as were the others. Annoyed with us it flew off not to be seen again, Drago seemed disappointed by this and really wanted to make friends with the creature. There will always be more critters to make friends with, they seem to be quite attracted to our parties.      The next day we headed out towards the mountain and continued on our mission, I was getting an ere feeling about this time. Large tracks were being found the size of four of us and with the description of the Blood Mother being able to pull the blood from your body she was no pushover. Youth think they are invincible and it is unfortunate it is so hard to drill into them the need of caution. We found a massive pile of dung filled with bits and pieces of people and beast alike. If something excretes four to eight times the size of you imagine the size of the creature, Drago did not seem to get this and wanted to stay near the hill for another day. In the night flashes of light were seen in the horizon and we decided in the morning to seek it out. What we found was the marks of fire in the snow turned to ice. Massive jets of flame had to been made to create this. Seemed like lines originating from three sources which was quite strange. Most of us wised up after searching the side of the mountain and head back to Lovoka.      We spoke of this creature to the priestess and asked if there was something they knew of it. Apparently there was a monster called the Zmey that had three heads the ability to fly and would stalk the water. This creature was only in their lore as fairy tale and was considered quite the legendary monster and under the control of the Blood Mother. If we had bumped into that thing none of us would be alive still. We felt a new task was needed and so we headed out in search of other towns in the area that we may make contact with. After some good rest we left in the morning to some unkown area of the Margreve.      In the night during our travels Salazar came to me telling me of how his heart no longer beats without striking the drum and seemed quite restless the past few nights and obsessed with the thing. He feared he might be undead so I thought the quickest way to test this was to use my holy symbol to revoke undead and see if it did anything. I will admit I did not expect anything to happen and should have told my intention to him. The turning actually worked on him and he ran off into the darkness screaming bloody murder waking up the entire group.... At this point there was really no hiding his affliction from the others and so we discussed what would be best to do. The recommendation of removing the curse came up but I feared it would just break the link to the drum and his heart would no longer beat on its own so we decided to leave it for another day.      We explored further south for a few days not really encountering much aside from strange rain when it should have been snowing and a road that went from east to west. We decided to follow this road along and found a creature named Gryzvald who claimed to know the lands well and would take us places for the price of food. Its voice was a little grating but it was friendly enough despite is appearance. In the morning we headed out and with the assistance of Gryzvald found a small village named Incot. We bode him our fairwells as the wards of the area work well against him. Cordie was given a mushroom to summon him again for assistance.      These townspeople of Incot Village were some strange oxen like men who even for someone who did not speak the language were quite simple in speech and brutish. Apparently they like taking in the local Pineys (People made of wood and that bleed sap) and enslaving them because they are pretty and will sing for them. The ones in their captivity recently escaped thankfully and he was thinking about enslaving us for entertainment. Salazar talked our way out of it but honestly getting rid of these creatures who do not think less about enslavement would be no loss to the world. We had been there for quite some time and worried the boat would not be there much longer so we headed back home without so much as a fight to hinder us. A welcome change to be sure. 

Session 77 (2A): There Shall be Blood Expedition Members: Thugnuck Ironwall ( Nightmarestag ) Sithric Grimhildsson ( Depraved Lunatic ) Fenris Nathair ( Hats4Cats ) Location : Innishiere Being my first entry, I shall do my best to record the events as they happened. Being new to the Cohort Arcanum, Thugnuck was anxious to embark on his first mission.  Upon meeting the other two members at the inn, it was decided to embark to Innishiere to answer their request for members to assist. Thugnuck met Sithric and Fenris and made their acquaintances. It was expressed by Fenris that there was concern about the circumstances of the request and the well-being of the citizens of the area. The group decided it was best to ask some questions and see if there was any chance to find some allies to assist the land. Upon arrival, the group was granted an audience with the Fairie King,  Ivelious Nailo, and his daughter,  Princess Niobhe, the Faire Princess. Fenris asked the Fairie King what provoked the attacks and the reply was that nothing was done to provoke. All the borders had been closed after the attacks until the conspirator had been found. The North, West, and East borders were then opened, but the South stayed closed due to the attacks from the Bugs (Toskule?). It was assumed that there was a chance the bugs had make a treaty with at least one of the neighboring nations in order for the bugs to focus their attacks upon Innishiere. It was requested that the bugs either be eliminated or enticed into attacking the other nations rather than Innishiere. It was also communicated that when the armies marched south to defend that border, the other 3 nations attacked and claimed land, so the Fairie King sent his armies back north in response and the bugs renewed their attacks in the south. We took our leave and decided to ask the citizens what they had heard or how they felt about the current situation. I met a shopkeeper named, Raenisa Qingella, who owned a general store. While purchasing waterskins in preparation for our trip into the southern deserts, Raenisa expressed concerns about the recent troop movement by their leader. It seemed common sense to the citizens that an attack would happen as soon as the strength on the borders has decreased. I relayed this to my new friends and we decided to see if we could ask any of the nobility for advice and help. With Fenris's help, I was able to get word out that we were open to discussions about current events in the south and the safety of the Innishiere nation. By Moradin's blessing, we were contacted by Tarathiel Greenleaf, stating that his mother, Lyra Greenleaf would like to meet with us.  In this meeting, Fenris relayed the events of the recent glorious and valiant battle had with a Primordial of flaming wings. Lyra was pleased with the story and opened up to us. She told us of a forgotten ritual that could bring the land to life and to the defense of the nation...but the cost of which would be high as it would need the sacrifice of a powerful caster and one that had to be tied to the lands there. She agreed to try and set-up a meeting between the Fairie Princess and our small group. While we waited, I decided I needed to wet my lips and rub elbows with the natives of the country...so I naturally hit one of the local drinking establishments.  There, I met a kind and friendly fletcher named Voron Magrora. He owns a shop called Voron's Wares which I suggest any Cohort members visit when they pass through those lands! He passed onto me, over drinks, that the recent expedition to eliminate the bugs had found the members at the hive of the beings. They encountered the queen there and were slaughtered. He mentioned any further expeditions there would basically be suicide runs. I returned to my group and passed on the information the next morning. That morning, we were also given a summons to meet with the Fairie Princess. In the meeting, we passed on the plan of awakening the land to protect the nation. The downside to the plan would be that the Fairie King would have to put the lives of his citizens above his own life. She said she would think upon the plan and would contact us again. When were again summoned, she informed us that she had spoken to her father and that he agreed the lives of his citizens was above that of his own life. We escorted the two of them and Lyra Greenleaf to a site in the south of the city. Lyra cleared and opened the door which we all proceeded through. We encountered a nymph after we entered which Lyra spoke to and gained us passed further in. We approached a door which had one handprint up high and one down low. Fenris and I proceeded up to the door and placed our hands on the door. We exchanged the work for friendship in our native tongue to each other and then spoke the exchanged word at the same time. The portal opened and we proceeded inside. The interior was finely crafted Dwerren and Sidhelien design...mixed together as one. This was clear that the two races have had a very long and intertwined relationship that might predate currently known scope. I would suggest more research and exploration into this. We found the area of sacrifice and Lyra prepped the Fairie Princess in the process. While she did this, the three of us examined a door that had a recent (50-100 years old) mural painted on it of The Vampire. We carefully proceeded and found numerous cells that were empty, but had dried blood in them. We did encounter 2 cells with an undead dwerren in one and an undead Sidhelien in the other across from it. When the light hit, the shadows that were behind the creatures did not match the creatures themselves. I have attached a sketch of said creatures on a separate page. Further in we found a sarcophagus with blood around it. On top of it, there were three rings that could be moved and a keyhole in the center. Worried that we would not be able to handle what might be inside, I have made a drawing of the top and attached it on a second page of this report. There was also another side room with a cauldron of blood and a exquisite goblet next to it. As we neared the room, the blood took a sweet and delightful taste to our palettes, so we quickly backtracked and left the area alone. Upon returning, the Fairie King was in place for the sacrifice. The Fairie Princess spoke an ancient tongue then used an obsidian dagger through the heart of her father. As the blood was let out, the land answered her summons and the trees came to the defense of the nation.  Ivelious Nailo gave his life as a hero to save his nation from their invaders and should be sang in great praise. His valiant and noble action saved the lives of thousands of his citizens that would have been lost in a bloody war. After the proper mourning time, we were summoned to the Royal audience chamber to meet the Fairie Princess. She declared to all that the three of us were  honorary hanner sidhe (Sidhe Friend). She gave Sithric and I the option to become Hanner Sidhe! While a great honor to bestow upon me, I can not turn my back on my Dwerren kin, so I humbly and kindly declined. Sithric graciously accepted and began the transformation. She also presented with the cloak her father had worn, which she had crafted into 4 different cloaks: Cloak of the North, East, South, and West. We took three of them, I taking the one of the West, while she kept the Cloak of the South for herself. After celebrating the life of the Fairie King, we returned back home.

Session 77 (2A): A Hero’s Sacrifice  Expedition Members: Thugnuck Ironwall ( Nightmarestag ) Sithric Grimhildsson ( Depraved Lunatic ) Fenris Nathair ( Hats4Cats ) It pains me to write the following but I do so with a joyful heart. The Lands of Innishire can rest from winter's winds and look forward to a new blossom that is brought in from the spring. The lands have had a post requesting aid from the Cohort however the bad blood between the Sidhelien and Human crossed inside the Cohort Walls onto the Board of Fate. None of the humans inside the Cohort seem to care about the events that have transpired in the lands over the past months. These lands had gone from peace to war and the Sidhelien looked to be removed forever. I will forever be in debt to the two members who aided. Sithric bares the heart of a true Sidhelien and Thugnuck is a shining example of his kin. These two members of the COhort where the only ones to answer my call to aid Innishire. As we arrived at the Cohort of Innishire King Ivelious Nailo we were greeted with a large fanfare not fitting our arrival. In truth, I did not know what we could truly do. When Faerie King Nailo spoke we were told of his resend problems, how the human invaded his lands, somehow broken the barriers of old. How the Tosculi, a race of insect creatures had been raiding the lands yet he moved his whole army to deal with the threat. He was kind to provide supplies but I felt he was not truly honest in his report to us. The lack of information on the Tosculi and how all three human provinces have been so successful in attacking the lands after years of being able to repeal them was never truly explained. The king wanted us to parley with the creatures and provided methods to do so but other members inside the court were not pleased with this idea. His daughter, Princess Niobhe did not believe they could be talked with would rather have them killed. She wished for the return of the Gheallie Sidhe. For those who don't know, this is the hunt of the Sidhelien, where humans and others would be hunted and removed. We left the court heavy-hearted with supplies and camels but a clear way to move forward. I did not believe the King’s idea was that of sound mind and was unwilling to move Cohort members to their death for such folly. We all took a different approach, Thug went to speak with the merchants and get their opinion. I tried to speak with my kin who were in service to the King’s armed forces. We did not get much but the people of the lands were confused by The Faerie King’s actions of late. I thought it best to put out the word the Cohort was staying in an Inn to the local nobles and were willing to hear the words of any who have an opinion on how to solve the problems Innishire faced. During the night a man approaches our room, Tarathel Greenleaf, son of Lyra Greenleaf asked for our audience with his mother. She was an old Sidhelien who could remember before the war of the gods, although claimed to be twenty-two to Thug. She believes Princess Niobhe had the right attitude and agreed with her longing towards the Gheallie Sidhe. She spoke of an old temple that Sidhelien and Dwerren built long ago when relations were better. The temple is one of old Druidic Blood magic and is directly connected through the earth to the roots of the forest’s trees. The only one who attuned to lands, trained in high magic and is connected to the people of Innishire could awaken the trees themselves from their slumber. The cost would be death, and there is only one who could pay the cost, The Faerie King. We could trick him, lies but we took the dangerous route. We spoke with his daughter, Princess Niobhe. In private we asked which one her father cared for most, himself or his people. We were honest and was not happy about what we offered but this wasn't our choice. We had found a solution, grim that it was. What we offered was enough to have us killed on sight. There was a good reason Lyra Greenleaf did not wish to bring this idea to Princess Niobhe herself and if it wasn't for the words of Thug I believe this story may have had a different ending.  That night back in the room we toasted with Sidhelien wine and waiting for the guards or a messenger. When we received a message from  Princess Niobhe summoning us to the court we feared the worst. To our shock, we found the Faerie king unconscious and in the arms of Princess Niobhe. We fetched Lyra Greenleaf and headed to the temple.  This old druidic temple was built from both Dwerren and Sidhelien hands, it bared the marking of old relations that no longer see the light of day. The temple was covered in leaves that looked like lava that didn't burn and was protected by a spirit that rose from the leaves. Lyra Greenleaf spoke within and it disappeared. The doors of the temple did not have a key but two hand prints indented into the door with a saying. Both me and Thug placed our hands and spoke the word for friends in each other's languages to open the door.  Inside the room, Lyra Greenleaf spoke with Princess Niobhe on how to proform the rituals. We explored the temple, found a pot full blood that smelled inviting… Two creatures that were behind cages, they tried to swing at us as we passed but lucky their cold hands did not hit. We also found a box with a puzzle around the edge and a key in the middle. We did not try and touch it given the pressure we were already under and the fact human footprints have been recently in the area. We watched the ritual as Princess Niobhe killed her father with a dagger through the heart. As his blood brought the forest to life Niobhe turned to the corner in tears. What she had done had hurt her more than any wound in battle could. We tried her best to console her but only time could help her. We agreed that the story will be the King willingly gave himself for his people and every member of the Cohort should follow this story. He was a hero to his people one who was willing to give everything he had to save them.  We left the temple and waited to be summoned. Lyra Greenleaf spoke with us first, thanking us for all that we had done. After we arrived at the Royal Audience chamber and meet with the new Fairie Princess. She could have taken the title Faerie Queen but took one more respectfully. She had taken her father to a cloak of the four winds and offered us a corner each. Sithric took the north cloak, Thug took the western, I took the eastern and she took the southern.  She declared that we all take the title Sidhe Friend and Sithric is currently working toward becoming a Hanner Sidhe! After celebrating the life of the Fairie King, we returned back home.

Session 76: The Morning Suns (Special Mission) Expedition Members: Saorise Auliffe             - Level 3/1, Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin (Serephen) Cedrych Brightbough  - Level 3, Sidhelien Rogue (Adam B.) Valravan                      - Level 1, Rjurik Wizard (Kristen B.) Theodoric Davenport  - Level 2, Sidhewair Fighter (Ryan F.) Vincent Heron             - Level 1, Anuirean Fighter (Simon D.) OOC:( first time attempting a log so bare with me lol)      we get to town and go to the bar I was asleep so i am not to sure what was said there than we went to the inn and got expensive rooms and was told to go to the siren bathhouse where I may have had my with some of the girls at the brothel. I found a man named Hassan ibn Gerad el-Arras  to which we were invited to his party that we accidentally was late to but for for that. we decided to go and have a shoot off between cedrych and vincent which vincent won. We gave hasan a magic seed for a party gift that ended up sprouting magical eggs of which i ate and became wiser. hassan gave us potions of the color of Green, Teal, Purple, Blue, Red, Orange in return for the seed. hassan has the eggs stored and is pickling them which i think in my head isn't a wise idea. I  drink in the corner with hassan while the rest of the party went and tried to get more information. After the party pulled me from the fun of the party with hassan we discussed what they went over with the oracle lady i seem to still not know the name of but essentially was told that the mummy lady was in the town and was going to try and get to saorise to I guess sacrafice her.     We than decided to try and take on a mission to fight these sand goblins to the north which almost resulted in my demise. we had gotten a ride with a one man caravan and he offered us a ride in return for protection which we all agreed upon he had also offered us a magic item if we could prove we defeated the sand goblins. so we traveled north with the caravan for a day and than we parted ways. we decided to head east and attempted to let the old man lead the way but he led us in circles on the first day and we made little to no distance. a few days later we come across a cave where we think we hear the goblins in side this cavern thing. we go and investigate it to find this ugly monster eating a worm . We decided to engage it and so the fight ensued. that ugly monster almost killed me, we than got ambushed but goblins so i took shelter in the room  to the right. We got overwhelmed by the sheer numbers advantage the goblins had and decided our best course of action was to live another day. so we all ran for our lives and thankfully non of us had fallen. We decided after that it was time to go back to the cohort and think about a better strategy for another day .

Session 77: A Hero's Sacrifice ( 2A ) Cohort Members attending: Fenris Nathair ( Hats4Cats ) Thugnuck Ironwall ( Nightmarestag ) Sithric Grimhildsson ( Depraved Lunatic ) The log arrives at the Cohort via Letter, as Sithric is currently in Innishiere, undertaking the ritual of the Sidhe Friend.  Fenris, Thug and I had assembled at the Cohort to speak of the task ahead. Fenris explained to us that the situation in Innishiere seemed incredibly troublesome and asked us for our motivations of coming here. Certainly, gold is nice and all, but family is supposed to help one another, right? So I tell him exactly that, I help him, he helps me and I can't expect others to help me if I don't help them first.  We decided that we would have to ask the local populace about the general opinion about the Faerie King's  recent actions and to gain some sort of positive reputation with the populace, so we could aid the lands of Innishiere.  So we travel to Innishiere, directly to the capital. In our audience with the Faerie King, I was clearly not a welcome sight, seeing as humans were the ones betraying their trust. I made myself small and tried not to pipe up unless prompted, but the whole situation made me incredibly anxious. I was glad I had brought Yarrow with me, as she was able to keep me off edge. Nonetheless, it was hard to keep track of the conversation, but I think it was mentioned that the Faerie King wishes of us that we get the Tosculi to cease raiding Innishiere and raid the other nations. We were handed a scroll of "Tongues", a spell that let's us communicate with the Tosculi, I presume. I was then adressed by the Faerie King personally and asked where my allegiances lie. Feeling the pressure of a mountain on top of me, I broke into a stutter and replied that they lie with my family, the Cohort. He didn't seem to understand at first and asked who my family was, to which I again replied with the Cohort. "The Cohort is thine family. Thou shalt never betray it." The Cohort is the only family I have after all... Seemingly satisfied with the answer, we are lent a few camels for easier travel through the desert. After answering a few more questions, we leave. Thug and I were told to be wary, lest "something happen to us." Didn't make me feel safe at all. Atleast Fenris and Thug had my back. Oh, and Yarrow of course. Fenris and Thug speak to the local citizens about the general opinion about Innishiere's current situation. I refrain from speaking to anyone on my own initiative, as I was clearly not welcome here. From what Fenris and Thug told me, I could conclude that: -Most Sidhelian here would like to go out and reignite the flame of "Gheallie Sidhe", the Hunt of Elves, which involved the slaughter of all non-elves. -They aren't fond of the Faerie King's less agressive methods of defense. Instead of just slaughtering the intruders, he puts up barriers, which has the local populace confused. -They think that it is common sense that if you focus all your forces on one point, that other kingdoms will exploit the border weakness to assault you. Even I could get behind that concept. Fenris also managed to gain a local nobles attention. She goes by the name of Lyra Greenleaf and her son had approached him to gain a meeting with him. I was already partially thinking about staying at the inn, lest my presence gives us a disadvantage. But I was allowed to be there, if I were to stay silent. We had a long talk with the lady. About how she is unhappy with the Faerie King's recent course of action, how she liked the attitude of her daughter more and so on. The time came where we began discussing about a way to save Innishiere. It involved a sacrifice of a mighty magician, who is loved by the land.  There is only one person that met that description in Innishiere, the Faerie King, Ivellious Nailo. We had to find out wether the man would put his life or his people above all else. So we had an audience with Princess Niobhe arranged. I stayed behind in the inn this time. The princess didn't seem to like me anyway, so I didn't want to burden Thug and Fenris even further. I got to spent some working on a project of mine and taught Yarrow how to give her paw. It's some small comfort in a country that would probably have me hung on sight if I weren't from the Cohort... but I guess they have their reasons. I won't hold it against them. Grudges won't help anyone. The Audience seemed to be a success, if you can call it that. Fenris and Thug had a hard time formulating their words, as it was an incredibly hard thing to ask of the kings own daughter. I still cannot imagine what must've gone through Princess Niobhe's head, but the burden of what was to come must have weighed heavily on her. What am I saying, I am certain it is still nightmare fuel for the poor girl.. woman? Lady? I am still unsure about how Sidhelian years work. I was told she is quite young for a Sidhelian though. Does that make me a baby Hanner Sidhe? Argh, I digress. The next day we are called to meet Princess Niobhe. I was explicitly told to be there as well, to my surprise, so we heed the call and go back to the palace. We were brought to the empty throneroom, where the Faerie King was leaning over a table, unconcious. An apple with a bite taken out of it was next to his hand. Princess Niobhe had arranged for him to be carried to the temple. We quickly assembled Lyra and Tarathiel Greenleaf, so Princess Niobhe and the Faerie King could be escorted to the temple. Not a lot of words were spoken. I was still a human after all, so I decided I won't speak unless necessary, while all the others decided to join me in silence. This task certainly wasn't a good thing to bear with, all in all. We enter the temple grounds, where we are greeted with a fey spirit, a dryad as I later learned. Lyra Greenleaf spoke with it for a moment and it vanished. We move past and stop at a mural, which must've been built by Sidhelian and Dwerren of old. The runes atop it were written in an ancient language and read "Easy to lose, hard to make. Say the word and you may enter." I immidiately came up with two suggestions, but only piped up after a minute of guesswork, still intimidated by the fact that these people could have offed me any moment if I were to disrespect them. Friendship seemed to be the answer. What we didn't immidiately get was that Fenris had to say it in Karamhul and Thug in Sidhelian. Once we got that, the doors opened for us.  Inside were marvels of architecture. These things were created long before humans walked the lands of Cerilia. So atleast half a dozen centuries. Probably more. However, I had spotted some troubling tracks. 3 pairs of them, 1 leading outside and inside, the rest only inside a corridor closed off by a mural of a human, surrounded by bats, chained to the moon. I informed the rest of this strange phenomenon. Lyra needed some time to prepare Princess Niobhe, so we explored the corridor behind the mural.  Going deeper I noticed that these footprints must have been very fresh, compared to the architecture surrounding it. Fenris found a cauldron of blood, that smelled almost alluring. It gave me the creeps. Anyhow, we travelled the rest of the corridors and found two undead creatures, who tried to claw at us. A seemingly Sidhelian and a seemingly Dwerren, bony pair of undead. Their shadow's seemed off thought, like they didn't match their actual bodies. We also discover a sarcophagus of some description. It had a keyhole and a puzzle on top of it. For our safety, we decided against tampering with it.  After our exploration, we return to the others and investigated the pool of blood below the ritual place. Although it didn't seem like there was a drainage leading anywhere, it was still worrisome enough that we had to check before continuing. So we step back and let Princess Niobhe conduct the ritual. She stabbed a dagger made of Teine Glainne, or obsidian for the uninitiated, through the Faerie King's chest. He sunk into the pool of blood and we heard the forest above our heads come to life. The Princess ran into a corner and broke into tears. I didn't have a father, but even I could understand the immense pain that she must be going through right now. Fenris and Thug went over to comfort her. I wanted to say something too, but held myself back, I wouldn't want to offend her, especially not when she had just endured something this harsh. We return to Adwyth Tallagh. The trees, even those that wouldn't usually won't become orange in autumn, had taken up their autumn cloaks. The people in the streets were weeping in unison. They had probably known the meaning of this already. We leave Princess Niobhe at the Castle and reassemble with the Greanleaf family one last time. Fenris and Thug did the talking, as always, I kept quiet. She agreed to aid Princess Niobhe in these hard times and thanked us for our work. We talked about Innishiere's future, now that Princess Niobhe would become the Faerie Queen of Innishiere. We learn here that, as a tribute to the Faerie King, she would not claim that title and named herself the Faerie Princess instead. A sign of great humility. We are invited the next day to the Throneroom. I was incredibly nervous, since it was full of Sidhelian. I didn't want to die, after all the exploits with Fenris and Thug. I still wanted to spend more time in the Cohort as well. With my family. Much to my surprise, the Faerie Princess herself gave us the title of "Sidhefriend", even to me! What's more, she offered us all a piece of the Faerie King's Cloak of the 4 Winds. She had it split in 4, one for each direction. I was allowed to take the Northern one, Fenris the Eastern, Thug the Western and the Faerie Princess Niobhe took the Southern one. We were also invited  to partake in the ritual of Sidhefriend, which could make me and Thug a Hanner Sidhe. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I think I even had tears running down my cheeks. All these days of having to watch my back around every corner... All these years in Kopingdal, where I didn't belong to anywhere and anyone. And now, I was not only part of the Cohort, but I was also invited to become a welcome friend and part of Innishiere? Thug declined the offer to become a Hanner Sidhe, which was understandable, as he probably was incredibly proud of his Dwerren heritage. As for me... well, I'm sending this log to the Island of Fabrica via letter, so I believe I have accepted to partake in the ritual. We take part in the rest of the celbration in honor of the Faerie King Ivellious Nailo. Fenris was staying in Innishiere too, so we waved Thug goodbye and I told him to keep my spot at the Cohort warm. Ever since, I've been working hard to become a Hanner Sidhe.  All things considered, I am glad that I came with Fenris and Thug. I didn't do much but offer moral support... but hey, family helps one another. -Signed, Sithric Grimhildsson

Session 71 (2B): The Pale Ghost by Agatha Duskhart Present Cohort Members Agatha (Summer) Prudence (Lena C) Ant (Seraphina Leaf) Aubrae (Zilarrezko) Lindal (Michael H) The mission was to help the Thegna of Talinie investigate her mother’s death. She had just received word from some illiterate farmer, or crafter, that her mother had not died from falling off her horse, but had been murdered by a man dressed like a priest. We travelled to Talinie to meet with the Thegna known as Thuriene Donalls, but got approached by the High Priest on our way. He wanted to know our business with the Thegna, but of course we didn’t tell. He thought I was a child, which I suppose I am on the outside, but I was completely stunned when he treated me like one, giving me a little sweet. Then we finally meet with the Thegna and she told us that her mother had just come up on some very sensitive information concerning a man from the Boeruine family and that that information could have led to her demise. As the assassin was dressed like a priest we decided to visit the temple first. The Thegna was concerned with my curse when I finally managed to explain to her that I am in fact 23 years old and not a child. She suggested we visit the High Priest for him to have a look at it and sends a letter with us. This would make it much easier to investigate, having an actual purpose to be there. When we were in the temple, talking to the High Priest who is very keen on helping me revert the curse, Prudence spotted something suspicious. In the back of the room a man brought out some bloody rags that he threw into fire and the flames turned purple. This, Prudence explained, is what happens when you burn blood that has bloodline. Everything pointed towards that someone in the temple could be the murderer but we needed proof. We went to a town outside the city to try to find this farmer, or crafter, that the letter had come from. The villagers didn’t receive us well at all, thinking we were all awnshegh, never seen a halfling before and thought Prudence would eat children, me in this case. They ran into a house and locked the door, refusing to listen to us. One of them, Alvar, the man who had written the letter for the witness ran out of the house and fainted when Aubrae used magic to make him stop. While they talked to the man, who’s name was actually Olivar, I decided to inspect the house everyone was hiding in to see if I could get them to come out. I decided to play along and pretend to be the child they thought I was. I knocked on the door, telling them I had managed to escape from the demons they were so afraid of and a woman let me in. When inside I tried to convince them that we were not dangerous but the woman just put me down in a pile of hay to rest. Meanwhile, Aubrae had managed to calm Olivar enough to find out who he wrote the letter for, which was a man named Pyotr. Olivar got his friends to open the door for the rest of the party and come outside. With all misunderstandings cleared we managed to ask them about what they had seen. The old Thegna had indeed been murdered by a man wearing expensive looking red robes who smashed her head in before he retreated into the forest. We went there to investigate when Aubrae stumbled upon the presence of something undead about where the old Thegna had been murdered. Prudence saw the figure of a woman in the air, like a ghost and I tried to touch it. Nothing happened at first, but after a while I heard a woman’s voice in my head. It was the old Thegna, Astrid Donalls. She confirmed that she had been murdered by the High Priest and that she wants revenge. She took control of me, and even thought I was still clear in the head and could talk, she controlled my body, making me hit several of the other party members. Aubrae saved me by using magic to cast her out. I was however feeling awful and Prudence and I walked back to Saddie’s and I was allowed to rest in there. My sweet sister sang me a lullaby. While we were in the house the rest of the party made a terrible scene outside, hitting some villager who had been acting very suspicious and tried to escape. They ended up getting arrested and we were all taken to the Thegna. They weren’t punished and we retold out findings to her. Not yet having proof enough to arrest the High Priest we were told to leave for now, to make it easier to calm down the villagers after the incident. She said would contact the Cohort for help when it was time to continue the investigation.

Session 71 (2B): The Pale Ghost by Agatha Duskhart Expedition Members: Agatha (Summer) Prudence (Lena C) Ant (Seraphina Leaf) Aubrae (Zilarrezko) Lindal (Michael H) A dwerren of the Cohort called Ant called together and elected to take the lead of a group answering the call of the Thegna of Talinie; to investigate the death of her mother. The story was she fell from her horse, but witnesses claimed that the Thegna was murdered.  Along with this request the Thegna enclosed a copy of a letter she recieved that read thus:  "Your Hiness      I am only a croftr and not hi and lurned like yoo I got my friend Alver to rite this lettr I hope yoo can reed it      I saw the thayn ridin that day I was tendin sheep on the hill      I saw hergo ovr the fens she did not fall lik thay say she came down fine but thin a big man drest lik a preest cam at her frum the trees pulld her off the hors and hit her witih a malet and she was ded.      If the find me or Alver they wil kil us so I cant say mor but she did not di like thay say that is all.a LOYAL croftr" Deciding that because I spoke the language and hold the title of Countess in the land of Anuire I somehow ended up the initial spokesperson. Before we entered to our meeting with the Thegna we were called aside by the high priest of the Northern Imperial Temple of Haelyn asking what our business is. Not wanting to betray the Thegna’s trust I told him that it was up to the Thegna to involve him on matters that concerned him.  We go in to meet with the Thegna next; and she tells us that her late mother had information about Aeric Boeruine, and warned that it was this information that most likely got her mother killed. Being suspicious of the high priest from the start we decided to pay him a visit in the temple under the guise of curing my sister’s recent age reversion curse. I mostly stepped back and watched the other priests, keeping an eye on anything I found suspicious. One of the priests brought out a rag from a backroom that had blood on it, and threw it into the fire which then sparked and smoked purple. I knew at once this indicated it had bloodline. Putting the information aside we decided to head out to the farmlands to look for the author of the letter. All the villagers ran in fear at the sight of me believing me to be awnshegh. Which I am not anymore. Instead of trying to convince a bunch of thick headed villagers however I decided to talk to the only other ones who might have seen something, and were not afraid of me: the sheep.  After my ritual completes I can understand and talk to the cute little sheep. He introduced himself as ‘Black Sheep’ because his wool was black, and after a bit of a talk he told me he saw the lady fall from her ‘big sheep’ (horse) and another big man in wool clothing came up and hit her over the head and she died. The man headed into the forest afterwards. I thanked Black Sheep and gave him some dried fruits from my bag. Agatha used her new childish self to trick her way into the scared villager’s hut and talk with them. Outside the rest of the party was talking to Olivar, a man who had tried to run for help and that we caught. Aubrae managed to convince him that there was no threat and to tell the other villagers that the party was there to help. A man named Pyotr explained to us what he saw, and that it was the Thegna getting murdered by a man in an expensive looking red robe. This matched Black Sheep’s account as well. The party decided to head for the forest in case we come across anything more permanent that the killer might have come across or rested at or left anything, and not far from where the Thegna died, Aubrae casts her divine sense in the area to sense any undead, and in the trees I notice the air moving around a female figure. It was the ghost of the murdered Thegna, and she talked to my sister in her head.  The ghost starts puppeteering my sister, wanting to use her for her revenge which I nor the party approved of. The ghost exclaimed that her murderer was the High Priest and that he needed to die. Aubrae expelled the ghost from Agatha and we fought it until it moved on to rest forever. I saw how tired my sister had gotten from that. Being suddenly 11 and possessed by a ghost must be tiring for her, and so we went back to the small villager’s house, where I lay her down in the hay to rest and sang her a lullaby. What happened next I do not know, for it happened while I was taking care of my sister, the other logs however should have an account of it. We come out of the hut to see Aubrae at a standoff with the villagers, which ends in a meeting with the Thegna again who tells us to let the situation cool off before attempting to investigate further.

Session 71 (2B): The Pale Ghost Present: Agatha Duskhart, Rjurik mage (Summer) Prudence Duskhart, Alsied Druid (Lena C) Ant, Dwerren Barbarian (Seraphina Leaf) Aubrae Trevelyan, Anuriean Paladin (Zilarresko) Lindal Leagallow, Cellwair Barbarian (Michael H) The Thegna rewards the party with 1,000 golds. Monster XP 50XP Quest XP 500XP RP XP 300XP Exploration XP 100XP Log XP 150XP to Agatha, Prudence 200XP to Lindal Total XP 950XP to Ant, Aubrae 1,100XP to Agatha and Prudence 1,150XP to Lindal Renown, Fame, and Infamy 3 Renown (Talinie) Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 72 (SPECIAL): To the Beat of Your Own Drum Present: Dragomir Black          - Level 6, Vos Warlock (Hats4Cats) Salazar di Fioretti      - Level 2, Hanner-sidhe Bard (Adam B.) Cordelia Woodwytch - Level 5, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Korak Flomhelm        - Level 5, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) Darvius Alandre        - Level 6, Sidhelien Monk (Darvius) Shango Bayu            - Level 5, Khinasi Monk (Depraved Lunatic) Monster XP 0XP Quest XP 25XP RP XP 350XP Exploration XP 550XP Log XP 150XP to Darvius, Cordie, Drago, and Korak Total XP 925XP to Shango, and Salazar 1,075XP to Darvius, Cordie, Drago, and Korak Renown, Fame, and Infamy N/A Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 73 (2D): Nim and Her Four Guardians Present: Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene "Nim" Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 5 (Summer) Zolis Ulmokina; Khinasi Fighter, lvl 4 (Lordgenome) Thorg Sabertooth; Half-Orog Barbarian, lvl 3 (Darvius) Berry Brambles; Firbolg Barbarian, lvl 2 (Lena C) The party are given a reward from the Duchess of 500 old Anuirean gold pieces. Monster XP 445XP Quest XP 150XP RP XP 100XP Exploration XP 100XP Log XP 150XP to Mamm Total XP 795XP to Nim, Zolis, Thorg, Berry 945XP to Mamm Renown, Fame, and Infamy 3 Renown (Tuornen) Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not.

Session 75 (SPECIAL): Running the Gauntlet Present: Orithar Trisk           - Level 5, Half-Orog Wizard (Hats4Cats) Galena Abanâthu       - Level 3/1, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) Medi Eirwen           - Level 5, Anuirean Ranger (Serephen) Hedrin Toadslayer      - Level 4, Dwerren Sorcerer (SlothSlow) Shlar Ohmste             - Level 3, Sidhelian Wizard (Michael H.) Brognir Bronzehelm   - Level 2/2, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian (Kristen B.) Rob Boss               - Level 5, Brecht Cleric (Depraved Lunatic) Elisheva rewards each party member with 150 golden stallions. Monster XP 125XP Quest XP 100XP RP XP 300XP Exploration XP 200XP Log XP 150XP to Orithar, and Medi Total XP 725XP to Galena, Hedrin, Shlar, Brognir, and Rob 875XP to Orithar and Medi Renown, Fame, and Infamy 3 Renown (Red Sands) Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 76 (SPECIAL): The Morning Suns Present: Saorise Auliffe             - Level 3/1, Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin (Serephen) Cedrych Brightbough  - Level 3, Sidhelien Rogue (Adam B.) Valravan                      - Level 1, Rjurik Wizard (Kristen B.) Theodoric Davenport  - Level 2, Sidhewair Fighter (Ryan F.) Vincent Heron             - Level 1, Anuirean Fighter (Simon D.) Monster XP 30XP Quest XP 350XP RP XP 300XP Exploration XP 100XP Log XP 50XP to Theodoric 200X to Saorise Total XP 780XP to Cedrych, Valravan, and Vincent 830XP to Theodoric 980XP to Saorise Renown, Fame, and Infamy 5 Renown (Ariya) Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not. Session 77 (2A): There Shall be Blood Present: Thugnuck Ironwall ( Nightmarestag ) Sithric Grimhildsson ( Depraved Lunatic ) Fenris Nathair ( Hats4Cats ) The party saved the sidhelien kingdom of Innishiere. Every member is granted the title of 'Mellon Sidhe' or 'Elven Friend' in the common tongue. Every member of the party is granted 500 golden leaves for their efforts from Faerie Princess Niobhe. Lady Lyra Greenleaf grants them each a fine camel complete with barding. This is all in addition to their important cloaks that they received during the session. The party are all granted the right to become hanner sidhe if they aren't already a true member of the elves. Monster XP 50XP Quest XP 750XP RP XP 350XP Exploration XP 50XP Log XP 200XP to Thugnuck, Sithric, and Fenris Total XP 1,400XP to Thugnuck, Sithric, and Fenris Renown, Fame, and Infamy Every member of the party is granted 10 points of Renown (Innishiere) except for Fenris who gets 9 as he spent one during the session. Every member of the party receives 2 Fame (Sidhelien) Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Other Notes Congrats to those of you gaining a level up! You can find full information on leveling up here . Remember it takes 24 days (or more if multiclassing) to level up! This is one week in real world time. Also keep in mind players are free to play in more than one session each real world week, but their characters are not.

Session 79 2D: Blood for Blood Present: Darvius Alandre: Sidhelien Monk lvl6 (Darvius) Mamm Bealdaatsdotter; Rjurik Fighter lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, Lvl 5 (Summer) Aubrae Trevelyan; Anirean Paladin, lvl 4 (Zilarrezko) Berry Brambles; Firbolg Barbarian, lvl 3 (Lena C) Thugnuck Ironwall; Dwerren Fighter; lvl 2 (Leon K)   Our party gathered at the Cohort Arcanum to discuss the mission that has been called, a group of undead including a rumored vampire had been troubling the small town of Croaker Norge. A team had been sent to there in the winter to investigate the cause of one of their former King’s bodies not deteriorating after death. However, while doing so they had uncovered a secret lair of a vampire near a large crevasse. We departed to Haes to speak to the Duchess and learn of any further developments. However, the Duchess was not there she was out dealing with rebels in her lands. We endeavor to travel towards Croaker’s Norge. The first night we are camping on my watch we hear something moving up through the woods. I stir the camp and stalking out of the woods is a Sidhelien with horns on her head from unshae blood. We later learn her name to be Arlayna the Man Eater. She demands that we hand over all our belongings or die. Naturally, we refuse when I tell her that she has the option to flee herself she says we do not understand she has 8 Sidhelien with her and all of them are on Gheallie Sidhe, and all the humans with us die or give up their belongings she will let the rest of us depart unharmed. I am unsure which of my companions reacted first, but a fight began. The arrows came swiftly out of the darkness towards our camp. Dropping the Dwarf with us Thugnuck quickly. I reacted swiftly to help remove him and draw him to cover he was given a healing potion. I saw Mamm charge out in her small clothes with only her sword and shield she soon became the target of arrows as well, but she is a fierce warrior. Soon Nim, little deadly Nim began darting through the shadows attacking the elves. Knowing that we had to draw them in closer I used the druidcraft magic from Rayna’s spear to extinguish the fire. It worked! However, the humans in our groups were at a serious disadvantage still because they could not see. As the Sidhelien drew closer, I put the lights back on. In the end, four of them fell to our blades and just as I had their leader in my sights as she was focused with deadly intent on killing Nim and Mamm, tragedy struck the brave and fierce Mamm took an arrow deep in the heart. I only had seconds to decide, attack the leader or save Mamm. I of course chose to save Mamm, the unshae elf would live to fight another day. At this point I saw lights coming in the distance, as I gave Mamm a potion. I once again extinguished the light and called out. “How many more eternal lives will end this day! Cease this foolishness! Do not throw away any more of your people’s lives.” We waited several moments as the silence of the forest deepened. Then from no where a Sidhewair named Gadvick Sightseer appeared. He said he had created the light of the torches as an illusion and he was glad he had scared them off. He was a bounty hunter hired by the Duchess to hunt down the Sidhelien. He soon departed saying he had hunting to do. I began to gather the bodies, preparing them for their last rites to travel into the after life. On the elves we found that they had extremely valuable equipment. This was split amongst our group the remainder to be sold to others in the cohort. In the morning, we saw the elven bodies laid to rest on funeral pyres. I shed a tear for their fallen lives. They were not always like this, and now their lives were cut short too soon because of their folly. That day we would find ourselves in Croaker Norge. We uncover that the town had been under harassment by wolves and bats in the night, but other than that no attacks. We discover that the Duchess had sent five knights into the cave to deal with the vampires, and none of them had returned. We travel to the cave, and it is once again locked Nim and I work on the lock together and eventually we manage to unlock it. Within we find a large pile of Skeletons those who had been here before reveal to me that the pile had grown. As the group approaches the pile it comes to life in a whirling mass of bones flying through the air.  It swiftly assaults us, and we begin to fight against it. The battle was intense the bones picked up people into the air holding them there and using them as shields to protect itself. One by one the bones were attacked and beaten back, we were all battered and bloody by the end of the fight, and Aubrae nearly died but she was returned by a healing potion. Fearing the necromancer would use the bones once again we took the bones out of the crypt and back to village there we destroyed them buried and consecrated the land. The next day our wounds tended we traveled towards Fort Black Hill and meet with the Duchess Laela Flaertes. We reveal to the duchess about the Sidhelien we faced. She revealed the name of the elven leader; Arlayna. We tell her we thinned their numbers; she was pleased with this. She is also pleased at our destroying of the undead monstrosity. She says she will dedicate more resources to stopping the vampire and protecting the town.

Session 80-  The Cold Hard Truth Present Thorg Sabertooth: Half-Orog Barbarian lvl 4 (Darvius) Valravan; Rjurik Wizard lvl 2 (Kristen B.) Dwarven Cleric (pregen) (Leon K) What is the cold hard truth? I will tell you the group I traveled with on this mission had little backbone, and now the White Dragon Nasaadi is released once again on the world. How did this happen? I will tell you. Ant was at first joining us on this mission, but he got home sick and left, complaining something about missing his birthday. When we arrived at the city of Endier we traveled to meet with the head of the merchants guilds that had hired us. He gave us license to investigate the city and arrest thieves and vagabonds. Our investigations lasted almost a week. We talked to Temples, Guards, and High Born families. We even posed Valravan as a wealthy wizard, which actually worked but the thief stole his gold without us even noticing. We decided the best action was to just stake out the city at night. We did so several days, eventually we spot a pickpocket! A young girl with clawed hands, we follow her, and she did not notice us. We traveled through the sewers to a cave filled with ice as we followed her in we witnessed her placing gold on a frozen altar, around the room was piles of treasure. The air thick with cold. Then she walked over and sat next to a giant egg. Obviously, a dragon. The girl herself had white scales on her arms. We approached the girl and tried to speak with her, she hid behind the egg. As the dwarven cleric approached he slipped and fell on the ice and the egg hatched and the Dragon Nasaadi was reborn into the world. The two fools I was with wanted to make friends with a Dragon that the Cohort had slain and sealed here! I said I would only let the Dragon leaved if it gave a blood oath not to attack the human villages again. It refused, trying to buy me off with gold. You see it had sucked up its entire hoard and was spitting out coins trying to buy me off. I refused, the two I was with kept talking about helping it escape the city. I was having none of it. I made a plan to let it leave it’s lair and attack it. However, the creature sensed my motivation and the cavern began to shake and shards of ice fell down all around me. I lept into action attacking the Dragon with my axe, I got two solid blows on it. However, the cowards I was with would not engage the beast they stood back and watched my conflict. I swung my axe over and over as shards of ice fell about me, the Dragon breathed on me twice I could feel my blood freezing but I was well in my battle fury now. The small child slashing at me with her claws, and still my companions did nothing. One last swing of my axe and suddenly all went black. When I awoke the cowards stood around me saying they had done all the could! Bah. They went to report what happened and I went to the docks. They tried to speak with me on the boat, but my fury was still strong. We had the chance to defeat a dragon before it grew once again in might and strength, and their cowardice stopped that opportunity. Still I have new scars and new strength for this encounter, and my axe is still sharp. I will one day find this Dragon and slay it. I am Thorg Sabertooth, and my blood is strong.

Session 81 - The Battle of Frogs' End (Mission 1X) 17/01/2020 Present Brognir Bronzehelm, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian (Kristen B) Cedrych Brightbough, Sidhelien Rogue (Adam B) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter/Wizard (Zilarrezko) - [Late due to internet outage and technical issues] Fenris Narthir, Sidhelien Barbarian/Druid (Hats4Cats) Lindal Leagallows, Cellwair Barbarian (Michael H) Robert Bossouri, Human Cleric (Depraved Lunatic) Vincent Heron, Human Fighter (Simon D) Field Report on the Battle of Frogs' End - First Turn of Spring in the 1525th year since Deismaar Report prepared by Diesa Gemfire My report will lack the initial details of this expedition. Though I had written correspondance to the Cohort during organisation a bad squall across Black Ice bay delayed my transport and I was unabled to rendezvous with the company until days later. I understand that during that period the company found that the Kingdom of Daikhar-Zhigun was preparing its army to face the Froghemoth monstrosity and they began reconnaissance on the enemy forces. They learned that the destruction of surface infrastructure by the creature and its minions had lessened the suppression of Source in the domain. The Froghemoth had then fed off the mebhaighl, growing in size and strength and cementing its control over the lesser frogs. The friendly fey entity posssed by Associate Narthir known as 'Primefanie the Frog' was unable to use its influence over the enemy's minions to anywhere near the effectiveness that it had been able to during early winter. The company also learned that the Froghemoth was immune to the effects of both mundane and magical fire and that it lightning had a peculiar effect, though what that effect was they were unable to determine. When I arrived in Zhigun the company had returned from their successful scouting operation and were being tested by the First Hammer, Vobrouck Steelsunder, to ascertain whether it was worth extending magical enhancements to them for the upcoming battle. Associates Narthir and Leagallows were automatically accepted due to their status as 'Chosen', earned during the aforementioned expedition during the first turn of winter. The others were expected to face the First Hammer's champion in a trial of combat. Only associate Bronzehelm managed to earn the satisfaction of the First Hammer in these bouts. When I joined the company I was also given the opportunity to prove being worthy which I am pleased to say I passed. The champion certainly hit hard and I came away with some bruises but I hit harder still and gained the edge with arcane talents. After this there was an evening of revelry in the halls of Zhigun before last prepartions were made and then the march on the Froghemoth began. King Kallen's army consisted of ten batallions of well armed Dwerren footmen along with a battalion of battle-priests, another of war-mages and a third being himself and his personal retinue. The Froghemoth's forces were much harder to categorise, and were simply an innumerable mass of hopping evil toads of varying sizes that were called to defend the creature. The King and his generals maneuvered into a dry shallow valley where the lay of the terrain naturally funneled the mass of the enemy towards our lines. Double ranks of footmen spread through the valley floor, with the support and command at the rear. The Froghemoth made no attempt to counter the maneuver or redirect its forces and simply had its minions to charge, or hop, straight at the Dwerren. This was advantageous for our side as the enemy lacked any form of ranged weapons and our ranks therefore freely opened up on them with volleys of crossbow fire. Drawing back after each one to open up space for further volleys. The frogs moved faster than the Dwerren host could however and so the distance was eventually closed but it cost the frog horde about half their number just to get into melee. The cost was also then borne heavily by the Dwerren front rank. Switching out the heavy arbalests the army favoured back to shield and hammer and axe was not performed quickly and smoothly enough. Though Bronzehelm bravely and singly countercharged the enemy to provide some relief, many Dwerren were still caught out when the charge hit the lines. Combined with the enemy frogs creating a magical explosion when they die or suicide, they devastated the forward battallions. Three of which melted in the first minutes. Two more battalions shattered as we thinned the rest of the horde to nothing. Ending such a deadly horde of magical monstrosities was a great achievement but it did not finish the battle for the Froghemoth now entered the fray itself with about half of our army left unfit for battle. Its hard to even describe such a thing as it was, the beast having grown to be over a hundred feet tall. While vaguely toad shaped it had only two squat towerlike legs and where the other two should be on a normal frog or toad were instead vast tentacles as thick as great oaks and quick as any whips. It had a multitude of great eyes and a mouth that could swallow a fort whole, out of which it projected a tongue like a deadly titan flail. Two more battalions were broken by its first attack. Bronzehelm and Leagallows charged at it again while Brightbough and Heron peppered it with missile fire. Bossouri galloped across the lines to heal our comrades while Narthir had maneuvered himself around the flank of the monstrosity and took the form of a giant spider to climb onto the creature's head and attack it there. Following suit I used magic to hurl vials of acid at its eyes, managing to destroy one of them. This earned its ire temporarily and it tried to drive me mad with some of its strange shadow realm magicks. I was able to persevere which made it more angry, but Bronzehelm caught its tenacular reprisal deftly. Still the mad creature pressed on at us though and with a devasting tongue lash broke the three remaining battalions of footmen leaving the only units still in effective order the command and support. Then as the battle reached the end of the first hour the King himself was struck a blow by a tentacle and thrown across the field. Though by this time the Froghemoth was looking weary it began to look like a rout might happen for the remaining Dwerren on the field and seeing the King be struck. I was just about able to rally the men and woman with a battlefield appeal when the King took another blow and went down. Heron took up the banner though, shaming those thinking of retreat into continueing the fight and the priests were able to heal the King. The Froghemoth made Heron pay with a near deadly strike that brought him low and with Bossouri already taken out by a similar one earlier it seemed bleak for him. Yet Narthir jumped down the creature's tongue, transforming into a giant hyena and clutched the banner high again. Perhaps a little in bad taste given the gnollish connotations but undoubtably effective. This opened up an opportunity to me, as the froghemoth leaned down towards the hyena-narthir I was able to strike through one of its devastated eyes and finally put down the foe at last. Immediately the body began to dissolve and evaporate returning to its otherworldy home. Defeated but not destroyed. As the legends and chronicles tell us it will return from the shadow realm within three generations. Perhaps we can devise a more permanent solution for it with the time we have won.

Session 81 - The Battle of Frogs' End (Mission 1X) 17/01/2020   Present Brognir Bronzehelm, Dwerren Fighter/Barbarian (Kristen B) Cedrych Brightbough, Sidhelien Rogue (Adam B) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter/Wizard (Zilarrezko) - [Late due to internet outage and technical issues] Fenris Narthir, Sidhelien Barbarian/Druid (Hats4Cats) Lindal Leagallows, Cellwair Barbarian (Michael H) Robert Bossouri, Human Cleric (Depraved Lunatic) Vincent Heron, Human Fighter (Simon D)   My report will try and contain all the necessary details for the Cohort Arcanum. The mission was led by one Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren by birth, that had persuaded myself and others that the Dwerren were in need of assistance with the creature that had still been plaguing their lands. However the Gemfire was absent from the meeting room, I don’t know why she believes she can abstain from the mission that she organised, therefore I took it upon myself to lead the group.  We had very little knowledge and planned for direct combat with the creature. Brognir took too the high old chain of command like a duck to water. I can see how our people had a strong relationship in the past. With that order settle, we headed out to the kingdom of Daikhar-Zhigun. I had brought my friend Primefanie as we were hoping her effect over the frogs like last time could lead to a trump card during the battle.  Once we arrived the Dwerren spoke of an army they had amassed to fight the Froghemoth. To our surprise, our timing couldn’t have been better. Why fight alone when you have the strength of an army behind your back. I personally believe Miss Gemfire knew beforehand and neglected to inform us of such important information however as she was noticeability absent we made the best of the situation and spoke with the ruler Kallen Pickbiter.  He was happy to see us again and just as surprised about our timing as we were. The meeting went and we agreed to fight the creature with his forces but we’re going to scout the beast first. The creature was easy to track as it had engorged itself to the size of a mountain. To our disappointment, Primefanie’s influence had come to an end and the frogs no longer seemed interested in her calming aura. In fact, they were moving in sync and did not look to have free will at all. The Froghenmoth had grown the leyline in the area outside of the Dwerrens control, we placed this down for the reason Primefanie’s aura had ended and we headed back to the Dwerren stronghold.  After informing King Pickbiter we went to see the Dwerren priest. I am not one for the gods but the magic upon my weapon sees a blessing I do not wish to fight without. I and Lindal as Mordain Chosen we’re granted gifts however others had to prove themselves to the First Hammer Vobrouck Steelsunder in a test of might. Only Brognir showed the strength required to be granted the blessing of Moradin. It was at this time a one Miss Gemfire took it upon herself to finally arrive. Tardiness is a tait I do not take kindly to but... as the battle had yet to start I was thankful for her arrival. She proved herself to the priest well enough and we headed to the Dwerren watering holes to refresh ourselves.  The battle was long and hard fourth. I can’t match the words wrote by Miss Gemfire however I will state the key moments of the battle. We began with arrow fire into the small frog units. We thinned the mass numbers with ease. Both Vincent and Cedrych kept back during the whole of the fighting, taking careful aim and fire against the giant beast.  Brognir and Lindal both charged into wave after wave of frog spawn. Lindal tried dueling one, that just blew up in his face, not sure that he was expecting. Brognir baited mass amounts of frogs to explode on his body. Whether this act was a genius battle tactic, balanced by knowing the upper limits of your physical ability against your enemies’ aggression or just a Dwerren charging blindly head first without thinking, only Brognir will know. Robert Bossouri saved many lives that day and I have to admit, seeing a human priest trying to heal the reluctant and suborn Dwerren was amusing. For myself I took point. I climbed up the Frognmoth, 150 feet in the air. The view was quite something. The tiny frogs on the battlefield came from slits across the creature’s skin. For all of the battle, I slashed and cut at all five of its eyes but the creature kept healing faster than my blade could swing. No one else joined me as they were content fighting its toes. The Dwerren maybe stong fighters but not the smartest.   Miss Gemfire really laid into the creature. A big target isn’t hard to miss and a Warhammer loves a big target. She got its attention often during the battle and at one point I believe was talking to it in a demonic voice. She claimed the glory of the finishing strike. This was a problem that attacked the Dwerren, fought by the Dwerren, so only fitting it was a Dwerren that sent the creature back to the void in which it came. She even gave me time to slide down the beast before turning it into a pool of acid.  Not many of the Dwerren were left after the battle but the king still lived. Their realm will be weak after the battle. I stayed and helped with the task of clearing the battlefield before the smell of death attracts something the Dwerren of  Daikhar-Zhigun are too few to face. 

Session 79 (2D): Gheallie Sidhe Or: How To Stop The Cohort Dealing With Vampires Played on the 16th of January in the year 2020! Present: Darvius Alandre; Sidhelien Monk, lvl 6 (Darvius) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 5 (Summer) Aubrae Trevelyan; Anuirean Paladin, lvl 4 (Zilarrezko) Berry Brambles; Firbolg Barbarian, lvl 3 (Lena C) Thugnuck Ironwall; Dwerren Fighter, lvl 2 (Leon K) Locations: Haes, Haestien, Tuornen. Croaker's Norge, Haesrien, Tuornen. Black Hill Fort, Monsedge, Tuornen.   We met at the Cohort to discuss our intention to go back to Croaker Norge to deal with the vampire threat looming over the town. We bought some healing potions, bottles of holy water and silver weapons in preparation for dealing with the vampires. Before leaving for Haes, I gave Nim the bow I had been working on for quite a while, and she was delighted. I'm sure she'll strike true with it. We went to Haes to ask the Duchess some questions, but unfortunately she wasn't there, having gone north to deal with rebels in Fox Run. So we headed to Croaker Norge, aiming to get the information we wanted from the locals. We left Haes for Croaker Norge, stopping for the night on the way there. Unfortunately, during the night, we were accosted by a group of Sidhelien who were on a hunt they called Gheallie Sidhe. They demanded we hand over our belongings so that they'd spare the non-humans among us. Darvius tried to plead with them, being a fellow Sidhelien and not wanting to hurt his kin if he could avoid it, but they weren't listening. They weren't going to be swayed.  Nim was the first to attack, and at first things were going okay even though I hadn't had enough time to don my armour, but things took a turn when the Sidhelien crept back into the dark, outside of the vision of even our darkvision having members. Darvius put out our campfire so that they couldn't see us either, though it did mean I, Aubrae and Berry couldn't see anything. Us being in total darkness did draw out the Sidhelien though, and once they were close enough, Darvius turned the light on again. However we couldn't take all the Sidhelien down before they sneaked off into the dark again, and by this point, many of us had been downed and had had to be revived by healing potions, which we had now run out of. Things didn't look good, as Darvius put the campfire out again so we could hide. Losing hope, I worried for our chances of survival, but then, torchlight seemed to approach from the north towards us, prompting the remaining Sidhelien to flee. A Sidhewair named Gadvick Sightseer appeared. Said the light was his illusion and that he was glad it worked in scaring off the Sidhelien. He left, saying he had some Sidhelien hunting to do. We gathered the four bodies of the dead Sidhelien for Darvius, as he wanted to give them last rites in the morning. We searched their bodies and found a number of items; 4 Mythriall Chain Shirts, 4 well made Ironwood Shortbows, 4 well made Shortswords, 4 daggers, 51 Arrows, 43 Golden Flowers and 41 Silver Leaves. Berry took one of the chain shirts, as did I, so that I could wear it during the night, so I can avoid being in fights without any armour. Berry, Thugnuck & Aubrae took a Shortbow and some arrows each, and Nim took one of the swords and the rest of the arrows. The rest we shall sell and divvy up the money made between us. In the morning, we burned the Sidhelien's bodies, before making our way to Croaker's Norge. We arrived to find out that the town was being hounded by wolves and bats, that were attacking anyone out at night. Given the difficult fight we were in with the Sidhelien the previous night, we opted to spend the week recuperating while making sure the town safe for the duration. While there, we found out that the Duchess had sent five knights into the vampire cave to deal with them, but none of them had come back out. After our week of rest, we made our way to the cave. Nim unlocked the marble doors for us to discover that the skeleton pile just inside had grown in size since the last time we were here. We approached the pile cautiously. To make sure we weren't sneaked up on by these Skeletons, I struck the pile to gauge a response. I got one. The pile became a swirling swarm of bones, grabbing three of us and using us as a shield from attacks. In the fight, Aubrae was knocked out, with Nim managing to grab Aubrae's healing potion and feeding it to her. Aubrae managed to get out of trouble as I finished off the swarm. We dragged the bones out, fearing that the necromancer that created this thing, would be able to repair the bones. We took the bones to be buried, after smashing them to smaller pieces, to further prevent them being used by a necromancer again. Aubrae gave the remains last rites. We rested for the night, I having full intention of going back in, however in the morning, my comrades expressed concern for going back in, Darvius in particular saying we probably weren't capable of dealing with whatever was inside. This frustrated me, as I believed we were capable, and voiced this frustration with the party at their late decision to not do what we set out to do. This upset Aubrae, taking offense at my words, believing I was calling her cowardly. I snapped at her, which I now regret. I still wanted to go in, but knowing I needed them with me to get the job done, relented to instead go further north to Black Hill Fort to meet the Duchess. When we were just outside Black Hill, I apologised to Aubrae and the others for having a go at them, and conceded that not going in there was probably the right decision. Though I am still determined to go back and do right by the people affected by these vampires. Just, when we are more prepared. We met Duchess Laela Flaertes at Black Hill Fort. We told her that we had faced Sidhelien hunting for humans on her land, which she was displeased with, though she was happy to hear that Gadvick Sightseer was doing his job of hunting them down. She also praised us for taking down four of them, and later compensated us for doing so. She also told us the name of the expert archer that led them; Arlayna, The Man Eater, and that she had very much earned that name. We told her of the bone creature we had faced, and of her five knights that had not returned from the cave. She said she will need to dedicate more resources to deal with the problem, a wise thing to do. After giving Nim some unsweetened chocolate, we made our way back to Haes to get our boat back to the Cohort. Before leaving I managed to sweeten the chocolate so that my Sweets could enjoy her treat thoroughly. A sweet ending to a sour trip. Mamm Bealdaartsdotter

Session 82 - The Indigo Star (Mission SPECIAL) 18/01/2020 Present Bellasaar, Hadrachen Ranger (Link S) Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) - Late due to human error Jaidiele Sylis, Sidhelien Ranger (Ryan F) Orithar Trisk, Half-Orog Wizoo (Hats4Cats) Saorise Auliffe, Human Sorcerer/Paladin (Serephen) Sithric Grimhildsson, Half-Human Fighter (Depaved Lunotic) Not much in the mood for writing now but guess i have to while its still a bit fresh. Main stuff then. Went back to that weird leystone place in binsada at behest of elisheva. Best read the report what poor orithar wrote on that from last month if you isnt already familiar. Did not go well and we lost some good people. Got there fine though. Saw some nice stuff on the way that ill add on the end. So we go in using the gauntlet and once again see the same melted awnshegh walled corridors and weird magical glyphs on the floor. Last time we mussed about throwing the gauntlet back and forth but this time i brought some mules to send across and see what happens. Felt a little bad about it but natural philosophy required it. Good for the mules the glyphs do nothing. Not sure why. Maybe they ran out of power over the centuries. Maybe askalan put them there as a trick to scare off intruders. Not important now. Went into the commanders quarters first where askalan made his little lair and make a very thorough search this time. Pouring through the guys notes found some exta entries that was missed last time. Two words just on there own. Ignite and infuse. Given the note outside had the word power in the same manner we assumed they was passwords and was right. Confused at first though since the big doors that nearly killed us last time only said 'speak the word'. We didnt go back to that door first though we went in the corridor north of the commanders room that we had not explored. It lead to another room where there was some strange metal boxes and a living ball of lightning. That thing was nasty. Declared it would kill all intruders and then went inside and took over orithar. Cast lightning bolts from him. He managed to regain control and push the thing out and we attacked it. Thing was hard to hit and even worse immune to anything but magic and even then still resisted fire and stuff. Orithar fought it well good though, smashing it with spells and a magic glass sword and eventually it died i guess. We were pretty beat and weary from that fight. Specially orithar but poked around a bit more. We knew from the notes that the place was unstable cos of the arcane dampner machines not being on. Wed fixed one last time we were there but were yet to find the second. It wasnt in the room with the lightning ball. The metal boxes just made some weird steam that fascinated poor bellasaar for a while. There was another door further in though but when we approached it there was a weird supernatural chill wind coming off it that seemed like a necromantic ward. We found the reason for two potential passwords from the notes. I thought it might be infuse but bellasaar bless him tried ignite. He got necromancied. Opened the door though. Inside it was an arcane dampner thing like the other one. This one werent broken and weird though so just needed a lift up to put the sphere in the brass thing and it worked. After that we went outside to make camp and rest. Having a nice recover before going back in in the morning. It was bright and sunny. As you expect for the desert but it was not a good morning. Went to the big doors to the obelisk chamber place. Went up with the glove said infuse in infernal and it opened all up. Impressive room very   tall. Spinning obelisk. Weird shadow moving around the top. When we looked at it we saw stars like night sky. It was then i realised i was wrong. Wasnt a dragon trapped in the tube from my vision that needed letting out so it could be nice and good. The void dragon was in here. It ignored us though. For a short while. Searching around we didnt find any magic items and stuff like elisheva said but there was another door at the far side. Arcane cell. Went in and just like the vision big purple glass tube thing and something puts a hand out on it. Not a fan of seeing things locked up me. Neither was orithar. We ran up to it. Tried to talk through the glass. Nothing. Smashed it open and this naked kid falls out. Maybe five or six if it was human but it was not. Sorsha said it was a celestiel and it had weird long limbs. Purple eyes and skin. Bald. No nethers. Even still askalan was a sick bastard trapping this poor thing in there and doing his magics on it. Orithar put his cloak round the kid and carried it. Tried offering food and water but it werent interested. Then when we got out the chamber and was passing by the obelisk again voidy shows itself proper. This dragon was not like laremdalith the kind or the other little dragons i met. This thing was a cold nasty bastard. It demanded we give it the kid so it could eat it and be powerful or something. I was scared out my mind but orithar got mad and told it to go fuck itself and for us to get out. Sorsha had to pull me away cos i couldnt move. The dragon opened its mouth and this weird energy filled the air around orithar. Kid tried to get in the way but orithar shoved it back and took the hit. The dragon magic flung him up at the ceiling and then back down. He. I guess atleast he died quick. Stone just the sound was awful. Bellasaar picked up the kid after that and ran to the door handing them over to sorsha. He blocked the dragon. For a moment. There was another sound. Sorsha told me to run. I did. Closing the doors behind us the tieflings on the walls even came along to hold them shut and everyone else made it out. Kid in tow. After a few hours running though we stopped from exhaustion to camp. Out of nowhere the kid pulls out some obsidian dagger and plunges it into its chest and literally rips its fucking heart out. I couldnt believe it. Then it sort of went into its heart which dropped to the sand turning to stone. I have no idea why or what and I was pissed as hell that wed lost two people protecting the kid for it to just kill itself. Some power in this heart stone for sure though. No way it was going to elisheva. Brought the heart back here for the brass to examine. Did stop off in berdairas. I was maybe a bit sullen and shouted at elisheva about there being no treasure just a maniacal murderous dragon that killed two of our people. Gave her the glove and told her the passwords and said she could try taking the place herself. The wierd bell charm was on bellasaar though so its still in there. Came home after that. Other notes. Dragon Bath house - Before we left for the leystone there was a new guest in cats cradle. A strange pudgy dragon about the size of a big housecat they called cidro. Spoke basarji and draconic. Elisheva said he was good luck. He and orithar had a drinking competition. Orithar lost but he was kinda impressive. Cidro said. The little dragon invited us to a bathhouse ran by a friend and we decided it would be nice to try it. He lead us to a oasis about twenty miles south of the city. Really nice place ran by a dragon called Sami. Shes about the size of a person but frilly in a pretty way and four legged. Dont think they can shapechange. She gave us food and drink. Very hospitable. Likes things to be a certain way. The bathhouse is open to all she said though they dont get many humans and dwerren and sidhelien. They do get occaisional lamia and vespidian though as well as other awnshegh and dragons. Sami speaks basarji and draconic. No karamhul or sidhelien. There is a dragon that frequents there that speaks sidhelien call aisha. She is a candle dragon. Eats candles. Glows. Also nice. Currently travelling with sorsha though. Also is samis daughter. Void Dragon - Bad news. Legend is it can make all dragons mortal. Its appearence is supposed to herald the end of all life. Hopefully an exageration. Sami says unlike all the other dragons which was made by the sun and the moon this one was made by a whole lot of stars making something called a black hole which the void dragon came out of. The one we saw looked young for a true dragon. Was smaller than laremdalith when i saw her anyone. Still horrifyingly powerful though. Maybe some of the top heros should go back and put it down before it grows even more.

Session 82 (Special Mission) - Void Dragon & The Indigo Star  --------------- Present: Bellasaar, Hadrachen Ranger (Link S) Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) - Late due to human error Jaidiele Sylis, Sidhelien Ranger (Ryan F) Orithar Trisk, Half-Orog Wizoo (Hats4Cats) Saorise Auliffe, Human Sorcerer/Paladin (Serephen) Sithric Grimhildsson, Half-Human Fighter (Lunatic) The Cohort is not a family, we are not here to be friends, to laugh and have fun. Other members don’t understand this, we follow the Fate Weaver web of purpose. We have taken an oath of blood for principle. When members fail in duty, others suffer. We have seen this before where cowards flee, blame fate, take the easy way out for sake of their own skin. Keeping their fingernails clean. Hope example of others is a valuable lesson of what being in the Cohort means. Mission started with no one wanting to take lead. Members not willing to step up to the plate. Will lead again but expected better from other members, willing to teach them to lead but can’t force horses to drink. Rumors of Void Dragons floating around Cohort walls, A dragon from a different world, that removes the morality from its kind and bringer of the end of the world.  The sands of Binsada greeted us on arrival, the Sultana gave access to magic for Cohort members to conduct mission though doesn’t want to be making this a regular occurrence. Moved to Cat’s Cradle, Elisheva still had the bell we required. In bar got in a drinking contest with a small green fat lizard by the name of Cidro. Don’t ask how the little bastard won. Cost me good coin. Mhmmm Brognir might get on well with it. Cidro offered to take us to hot spring as a thank-you. My head still pounding from drinking the night before, believe to be a good idea. We hired a zoo, Six camels and 3 Mules, one was Haylee she made friends with the other mules.   Arrived at hotspring, the water looked good. Smelled salty and very good in cold desert night, Greeted by owner one Sami, another dragon. Three in total, the Beer Dragon, Candle Dragon and the Spa Dragon. Saorise made good friends with candle one giving it candles to eat. Sami made good food and enjoyed a relaxing night under Desert Stars, never been treated so nicely in a place, was very unused to such treatment. Not sure how to react. Heard stories of birth, dragons made from sun and moon but when many suns clashed the Void dragon was created. Little dragons believe they are unwanted results, not true dragons, this why they don’t grow. Painful subject to them, best not to ask.  In morning we headed back to the location of the Indigo Star. Took longer than we like but made it in one piece. We began searching the build, runes of the floor were tricks to stop men entering. In-room we found words of “Ignite & Infuse”. Next room strange blue electrical creature. It entered into my body and tried to take control. The creature was immune to all other damage but magical. Force and Lightning didn’t work at all, Fire didn’t work well only cold, holy and magical weapons hit home which we didn’t have many of. Had to go to extreme measures. Using magical glass weapons to cut and even that wasn’t enough. I had to use much of my magical ability to finally kill the ball of energy. Moving into room found a door that opened to another chamber. We placed the sphere back into the machine and the build started to calm.  We used the password on the door and moved into the main room where the weapons were forged. I believed they were placed on the altar and magical energy transferred to the weapon. We could see the night sky, others were getting scared but thought nothing of it. We found a chamber inside. I broke the glass freeing the creature of its bondage. Inside was a strange child, age of Five but strange, No gender. Arms touched the ground and was giving a strange aura of the heavens. I wrapped the child in my Vrock Cloak and placed it on my back.  As we left the room the night sky descended to the floor. It stood on a machine that was tearing its feet and legs apart into smoke but the dragon didn’t seem to mind as it reforged itself. It spoke to other members, what it said I do not know but everyone looked afraid. Was told it wanted to eat the child, the child of power one forged from stars. A child that was pure magic. The dragon had waited for someone to free it and now was here to claim it.  I refused. No mere dragon demands from Cohort, Nor will I be responsible for the dragon of Void gaining power that would bring the end of the world. I made my stand clear, to fight is an Orog’s way. My kind need to learn when our lust for conflict is a boon. Gave other members the option to leave, the fate weaver will judge your soul. The dragon was too quick and created a vortex of the stars, The child stood out in front attempting to soak the breath, protecting myself in the process. Mhmm, wouldn’t be able to show my face around the Cohort if rumour said a child stood in front of death as I coward behind it. I pushed child clean out of the way towards Bellasaar. Not sure what happened next, felt heavy, really heavy as though rocks crushing lungs, then light. Also a feather no lighter. Weightless. Mhmm calming. Fucking Dragon. 

Session 83.  Not a Bee Pun (Mission 1Z) Present: Eirena Lightshadown (Depraved Lunatic) Salazar de Fioretti (Adam B.) Dragomir the Black (Hats4cats) Cordie Woodwytch (Serephen) Korak Flomhelm (Slothslow) Shlar Ohmste (Michael H), myself.               Another exciting and dangerous trip to the Margreve.   We all met up in the Cohort as usual.   Cordie taking the leadership, and explaining about the mission.   Which was primarily to go get a ring from the villagers, which we were then to deliver to some giant bees in order to rescue a girl named Lila.   The trip to the village was quiet and we arrived safely.   Salazar spoke to the old lady in the village, getting the ring of her as well as checking everything was fine with the village.   As all appeared good we set out in the direction of the Queen’s Glade and the bees.   On route we would be passing by the home of one of the Bearfolk, a woman named Elsee.   Having heard of these Bearfolk from my previous visit I was fascinated to see one in person.   As we approached her home we heard mysterious, and unnerving music coming from behind us.   Looking around we saw a herd of what appeared to be Unicorns following us, though none of us had ever heard of Unicorns making such music.   Finding this a little unnerving we decided to investigate, Cordie sending her familiar Floof to take a look.   She reported that through Floof’s eyes she saw not Unicorns but spears of darkness, then Floof did his usual trick and was killed.   Certain members of the group attempted to intimidate these Unicorns by playing music.   I will not embarrassed them by naming which ones as what they managed could only barely be classed as music, and then only because it involved musical instruments.   It was no surprised when this ‘music’ had no effect on the Unicorns.   We decided to carry on to Elsee’s home, hoping to find refuge there.                 Elsee was most concerned when she saw what was following us, calling them Shadavar.   They were dangerous but we should be save in her home.   Feeling secure we settled down for the night but were woken by Cordie, as something was climbing up the tree that held Elsee’s house.   Investigating we discovered a strange cat with a purple tuft of fur on the end of its long tale.   Cordie spoke to it in Silvan and discovered that it was a Kot Bayun, then informed us that it was trying to decide which of us to eat.   Just as she said this the Kot Bayun began to chant a spell.   Korak immediately cast silence to stop it.   Just as we were about to launch into the attack the strange Unicorns reappeared galloping toward us.   The Kot Bayun instantly attempted to flee, saying we were on our own.   What followed is confused for me as the Shadavar can create a magical darkness, so I saw nothing of the fight that followed.   All I know is that I was kicked in the head by one of the Shadavar, and that I was able to use my Blood ability to push Drago, who was able to see through the darkness, to repeatedly attack the creatures.   The Shadavar have some ability to cause a person to be frozen in place with their singing, which I gather effected some of our number.   My Sidhelien blood helped me to resist this.   After a short, and for me confusing fight, the two Shadavar were struck down.                 Apparently the Kot Bayun had attempted to assist in the fight, and seemed to be now neutral toward us.   In that it no long wished to eat any of us, but was not our ally.   It and Cordie made a deal whereby the Kot Bayun got the carcases of the two death Shadavar to eat and it would heal one of us of a curse or injury.   As myself and Salazar were the two people with such conditions it came down to us.   When the Kot informed Salazar that it could not be certain of removing his curse he graciously agreed to give me this gift.   Of the group only Drago seemed to disagree with this deal, become obnoxious about it and almost paranoid that the Kot wanted the carcases for some underhanded reason.   The Kot was true to it’s word and healed my leg from the injury I have carried since my first Cohort mission.   I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be able to walk properly without that constant pain. It then took the bodies away, while Drago continued to mutter his complaints about it becoming very insulting toward Cordie.                   Elsee was grateful to us for protecting her and her child and after finishing our rest we headed out in the direction Cordie and Salazar thought the Queen’s Glade was.   After a day’s walk it became clear we were slightly lost, as in our guides were not certain we were going in the correct direction.   Rather than continue to blindly wander it was decided to try contacting the local wildlife, as Cordie has the magical spell to speak with the animals.   After a short search a squirrel was discovered who gave us directions to the Glade.   Korak thanked it with nuts and we headed in the direction given, by the next day we were at the Glade.   As we approached we saw a field of flowers, Cordie had warned us to be careful not to smell this flowers.   However, in our haste we forgot that it was Spring and the air was full of the pollen.   This pollen has a hallucinogenic property which resulted in Cordie turning herself invisible to hide from a monster the rest of us could not see, while Korak danced with Mynir.   As for myself it felt like I was walking on soft cushions or clouds, a most interesting and slightly agreeable feeling.   Those of us not badly affected by the pollen spotted a strange sight, a young girl dancing with a swarm of bees.   Drago approached her but she vanished, possible driven off by his abrasive manner.   After about a minute or so Cordie and Korak recovered from their high and we continued onto the hive.                 We were first met by a large bear, which informed Cordie that we were allowed inside as long as we did not cause trouble.   Carefully we entered to be greeted by a figure made up of hundreds of Bees.   This spoke to Salazar in Midguardian, I feel if I am to return to this place I might need to learn this language.   The Bee figure told Salazar that we could not barter for the honey as it was for the fey, and it warned us not to eat the honey as it would have bad effects on our minds.   Salazar said that he got the idea that Lila is somewhere inside the hive and wanted to be rescued.   So the group decided to push on, ignoring the Bee’s instructions to leave.   The resulted in a journey through the hive, we encountered a few Giant Bees on our way who attempted to stop us, but we were too strong for them.   There were also a number of hidden pits, one of which had been set up as a trap with Giant Bee singers positioned facing upward.   The hive was full of smaller hives, with untold numbers of normal bees working within.   I am glad these did not attack us as it could have been fatal.   After a short while we discovered a small tunnel that led up into the tree in which this hive was placed.   I climbed up to investigate and saw that it was a egg chamber, with a Queen Bee inside.   Cordie then climbed up, with myself escorting her in case of trouble.   She again used her druidic skills to speak with the queen, discovering where Lila was being held.                 We pushed on and soon came to a large cavern.   On a bed, with a number of normal bees climbing all over her, was a young girl of around twelve years old, which we assumed was Lila.   Another of the figures made up of Bee’s attempted to stop us from entering but Salazar used suggestion upon it to make it allow us.   Then the real Queen Bee appeared, the size of a horse.   A Bee as big as a horse, not a sight designed to make to feel comfortable as it floats toward you.   This Queen demanded to know why we were there.   Cordie first negotiated with it for honey, offering it the ring as payment.   Once this was agreed, Cordie asked to take Lila away.   The Queen seemed upset by this but bargained for two magical beans we were carrying.   To get the one Cordie had to persuade Drago, who was again most obnoxious about it.   Demanding that she gave him her hat for a week, when she agreed, after all it is only a hat, Drago stated that he had been teasing her and only wanted to see if she would.   The Queen was satisfied with this and agreed to allow us to remove Lila.   Next Cordie inquired how we might wake Lila, more negotiating took place which resulted in the Queen been given a Mithril shield as payment, the Queen then saying that Lila would naturally wake up in a week.   Drago was angered by this but Cordie and myself were amused.   The Queen it seemed was both astute and had a sense of humour.   As part of this deal she gave Cordie a Honey Lamp which would tell the Bear to allow us to leave.   The lamp also will burn continually unless broken.   Should the lamp be broken and the honey within eaten it would give the devourer darkvision for a week and a day.   We decided to sell this lamp to the Cohort for general use as needed.                   Leaving the hive we returned to the village.   The villagers were shocked to see us returning with Lila, the story about her was a local legend and to see us return with the girl from the legend.   Salazar decided to remain behind to assist in helping Lila reintegrate within the village while the rest of us returned to the Cohort successful and with new and fascinating tales to tell.

Session 78 (Special/2E): Let’s Do The Age Warp Again. Those Present: Agatha Duskhart; Rjurik Sorcerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) Medi Eirwen; Anuirean Ranger, lvl 5 (Serephen) Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) Zolis Ulmokina; Khinasi Fighter, lvl 4 (Lordgenome) Skag Polavich; Vos Rogue, lvl 2 (Seraphina Leaf) Vyurakas Arrhuriluas; Hadrachen Sorcerer, lvl 1 (Leon K) Me and Agatha had called together a group of Cohort adventurers with a more personal purpose in mind. We wanted to go and scout the Spiderfell, for several reasons. Firstly we wanted to see if we can find our more about and potentially meet Agatha’s and the Cohort’s Patron the Fate Weaver. And secondly to scout on the masses of orogs that assaulted the lands of Roesone in summertime, for they are still a menace that should be kept informed upon. We decided to go and talk to the Baroness Marlae Roesone, as the orogs are right on the border of her lands, and we thought if anyone wanted to keep tabs on them it would be her.  We arrive to find that the castle is being set up for a celebration. Which confused us greatly, I have not been informed of any such occasion. The Baroness was delighted to see us, it has been a long time since we met, and after a quick catch up on things that have happened since she explained that the celebration was for the return of her wife, Noeva. When she walked in all well and alive I swear my heart seemed to want to explode. I thought I was dreaming. I was among the few that saw her perish at the hands of the Traitor. She had called in a few favours with the Impregnable Heart of Haelyn, and they returned her to life. This warmed my heart. To see them reunited. As it turned out there was a posting on the mission board from the Baroness; wanting a group from the Cohort to provide security for the occasion, and after finding out that the Spiderfell might be a little too dangerous for the current party we quickly took it upon ourselves to do it. The Baroness seemed delighted. We retreated to the private room behind the throne to discuss the details.  We ask her if there is anyone in particular to look out for and she says she can’t think of anyone but she’s concerned that those unhappy with the marriage still would have ill intent. Throughout the conversation the Baroness keeps making an appeal to adopt my sister Agatha, seeing as she’s eleven years old now. Seeing as Agatha didn’t want to get adopted, I said no, and told her that if anyone it would be me. She offered to get us papers to arrange that right away. This made me feel very awkward. I didn’t know if Agatha actually wanted to be adopted at all, or if I should just let the matter go or if I should say she should instead be adopted by the Baroness...We asked for time, and the Baroness said there was no rush, and that it was up to us. So we said we’d give her an answer at the party which was still about six days away. Then we went back out to mingle with the nobles of the Baroness’ court, keeping an eye out on anyone who seemed suspicious and reading their lips from afar. It seemed I had picked up the talent quite well when I turned human, (as a side note I have felt much more perceptive since then.) A conversation between four nobles revealed some talk that both me and Medi found to be of a nature that could give us a potential lead. Lady Angelwing and a few other nobles were mentioning how the Baroness Consort’s ex husband went mad with grief when he learned of what had happened to her. So mad that he killed their children and then himself. Such a violent death was sure to cause spirits or ghosts to want vengeance.  This seemed like the best lead we were going to get, and so we decided to take some horses and ride out to Gravesford where this ex-husband lived. On our way we stopped at a small roadside village and asked if they had heard anything. Not much new information was gained and in the early morning we set out again. On our arrival we noticed a bulletin, that invited us to Pinna’s Potion Shop, and the party agreed that if there was anything unusual in the town she might be the woman to know.  Outside of the establishment we see a strange tree, with pepper like fruits growing on it, it had leaves and bark that was nothing like I’ve ever seen in the forests here. Clearly it had come from the feywild. I could somehow sense it. Pinna greeted us with some recognition. At least Medi and me, Agatha had changed way too much since then but Pinna was the woman we saved from Bonebreaker Dorokor. She greeted us and caught us up on what she has been doing. She explained to us where the tree had come from, and that she was distilling the fruit to make random aging potions. This was very interesting, and in certain ways tempting to us. It could mean Agatha regains some of her lost years, but she could also end up even younger. I didn’t let her drink any of the potions. I didn’t want to take that risk. But my companions all tasted of it happily. Zolis wouldn’t have minded getting younger, but he aged a few years. Then Medi tried and she became 5 years younger! She goes and tells Skag, who runs into the shop excitedly. He drinks three of the potions! All three aged him about two years. He seemed disappointed and left, only to return looking seven years younger. He had eaten a pepper. Coming back to focus on our mission after the distraction we asked Pinna if she knew anything of the Consort’s ex-family, and their deaths, and the wizard woman said that she didn’t really, but that they left, not died. This was a suspicious detail, and after asking for directions we made our way to the house where they used to live, only to find it swept clean. There was no evidence of any forced entry, or fight or blood or anything. It looked like they had simply packed up and left. The party split up a bit, to look for clues individually, in case one of us missed something. I remembered that I have the means to see if there were traces of magic around the house. There were none, but as I walked around the outside of the house I began picking up a faint aura. It was coming from a pen with chickens. There was a small flicker of a creature, and then it was gone again. I tried conversing with the chickens to ask them, if they knew anything or have seen anything since their pen is right close to the house. They were not much help, they confirmed that the family moved out, with some haste. Then Agatha spots that one of the chickens is behaving strangely, and says hello to it in Sylvan. The chicken answers and the two of us start conversing. It tells us that it’s name is Cinnamon. Then it turned Agatha into a chicken! Whatever this thing was had magic powerful enough to just turn her into poultry. I asked it to turn her back, immediately. I did not want a chicken for a sister. Then it said why should it? I frantically looked around in my saddlebags for something interesting to give it, fey like interesting things. I ended up plucking a feather from my Vrock cloak and giving it over. Cinnamon transformed into a vrock right in front of my eyes! Luckily the transformation didn’t last long and afterwards my sister was herself again. She quickly ran off, but I had some questions left so I talked with it for a little while.  I asked Cinnamon if he knew what happened to the people in the house and he told me he saw men in armour and arms (as described and identified from the Ghoried family) come and take them over the spider river, towards their lands. The father and the children. I paid the pixie a silver piece and hurried to gather the group. After consoling Agatha about her experiences in shapeshifting I bought her some chocolate and seeing as Medi’s armour was by then re-fitted to her new 15 year old self the party headed back to Proudglaive to the Baroness’ party. As we start talking to the Baroness and her Consort about our findings I notice, in the back by one of the windows an invisible force approach. I called it out to my fellow party members, and then charged at it with my quarterstaff ready and imbued with the essence of nature itself. Since I engaged it, the thing stayed in one place, which made it easier for my friends to try and shoot at it, until the Baroness cast a shower of glittering lights, that outlined it which made it even easier to hit for all of us. It landed a few meaty blows, with incredible speed. It had been a while since I was that hurt, but I trust in myself and my companions to kill this thing before I got seriously injured. After landing a few hefty blows myself Medi managed to slay the thing with an arrow. The hadrachen Vyurakas and Agatha both identified the creature as an Invisible Stalker, an elemental creature that is created by binding a soul and that in it’s creation a primordial is definitely involved. Afterwards we checked on everyone to see if they were okay, and a couple of priests came after they were alerted to a ghost. We were grateful for their healing, but we had not said it was a ghost, to anyone, it seemed whomever wanted the Baroness Consort, and even maybe should I dare to say it the Baroness herself dead was whispering into different ears.  Since I was the only one who noticed the creature I stayed with Noeva in the backroom as she calmed down and collected herself, while my companions went back out to see if they could find among the guests the villain that weaves a web of lies against the Baroness and her Consort.  I heard the party danced. Some quite well. I hope they had fun. To any cohort member attempting to follow up on our mission: Please I implore you, as a Countess of the Baroness’s court I feel I have a responsibility towards this matter, and instead of you heading out on your own I wish to ask of you this favour; don’t. Instead if you know you could help, wait and ask me, I know I can’t solve this on my own and your aid would be greatly appreciated. 

Session 82 (Special Mission) - Void Dragon & The Indigo Star  --------------- Present: Orithar (Hats4Cats) Bellasaar (Link S.) Jaidiele (Ryan F.) Sithric (Depraved Lunatic) Saorise (Serephen) Galena (Zilarrezko) I feel so terrible while writing this.  So I went in to this mission totally in the dark about the possible consequences. When we all first met not one of us seemed to want to lead the party. But finally Orithar stepped up and took the lead. We set off to Binsada once we arrived we first went to the leader to ask for permission to use magic and was granted access for two weeks. After that we decided to head to a pub called the Cat’s Cradle where I sat there in wait of information for I did not speak the native tongue of that land. As we were sitting there this weird fat lizard decided to take a sip of Orithars ale. He went to get another ale in which the lizard proceeds to follow him. The lizard I could understand when he spoke in his draconic tongue. Orithar had challenged the lizard to a drinking challenge and failed to win but I believe built him a small bond with the lizard. After that day we all went to sleep and the lizard said he would take us to a hot spring. (we decided to hire a zoo, but I had also brought haylee.) The next day we made it to the hot spring where we met two half dragons one was considered the spa dragon, and the other was the candle dragon. Apparently the “lizard in the bar was also a half dragon.” I relaxed in the spring while everyone was doing their own thing but eventually my stomach got the best of me so I went to the spa dragon and decided to entertain her hospitality and tried her chicken stew like thing of which tasted very magnificent. Eventually the rest of the party came over and joined. I eventually called it a night and went into the tented area and meditated till the next day which seemed to turn into a nightmare! The next day we take off to head towards the location of the indigo star. We had finally arrived and got things settled for us to attempt to go in but first we decided to let the two mules attempt to go in first because we had no idea what the runes could possibly do so we did not want to risk our own life haylee was not fond of this and rightfully so. Thankfully the runes did nothing to our knowledge. We decided to first go into the first door where  galena searched for some passwords for a door I hadn't seen yet. After a bit of searching, they had found a possible password that translated into ignite and infuse. After that we decided to head to the next door of which reeked of necrotic wind but being stubborn adventurers Orithar decided to open the door and seemed to take a lot of damage from the wind. We travel down this hall to which we find two more doors that had no necrotic wind under than but we found a weird glowing ball thing. Bellasaar decided to toss an arrow next to it which seemed to aggravate the ball of energy. We first attempted to hit it with a normal arrow to no avail it seemed that only magic attacks could affect it. I decided to try and get cover behind the doors because I felt like I was in the way. The ball of energy went inside of Orithar and seemed to have taken control of him, he seemed to have walked out towards where Saorise and I  were standing and sent a lighting strike our way. That was the most painful feeling I had ever felt in my life, I pulled out a potion to try and subdue the pain, and then the ball of energy came out of Orithar and Saorise  wanted to try to attack it so I distracted it but Saorise  ended up missing her attack. Eventually we defeated the ball of energy and stuck in on some vent in the room of which it came.  We finally got to two doors that seemed to be asking for a password in which we tried the two we had found in the native language it was found in. the doors opened up to a room with a giant spinning machine , and the ceiling was very dark and  had what seemed to be vast stars on it. We decided to ignore it and went in to the next room where we found this tank that had what seemed to be a celestial in it. We decided to break it open and free the celestial to our surprise it looked like a child no older than 5 or 6 years of age. It seemed that the child did not speak any of our tongue. Orithar decided to carry the child and as we started to exit the machine had stopped in the other room and a dragon that looked like space had landed on top of it. It spoke in draconic stating it wanted to eat the child and it was none of our business to know why he wanted to do so. I tried to tell Orithar but he did not want to give in and told us, “If you do not wish to fight THAN LEAVE” of which I did frightened of this dragon of void I took my leave …. Which I still regret as I write this. While I sat and waited for the rest ready to leave I had noticed that bellasaar and Orithar were not with the group. But the child was as we rode off to escape this dragon of Void the child looked up into the sky and disappeared leaving what seemed to be a star in its place. Sithric was uncontrollably crying about what he had witnessed and I was torn from my decision to run. We went back to the cohort to inform them of what had just happened than I went home with my head low and in a dark place.

Session 78 (Special/2E): Age Potions and Fey Chickens Present Members: Agatha Duskhart (Summer) Prudence Duskhart (Lena C) Medi Eirwen (Serephen) Zolis Ulmokina (Lordgenome) Skag Polavich (Seraphina Leaf) Vyurakas Arrhuriluas (Leon K) For this mission we planned to go to Spiderfell and investigate a few things. First, we wanted to see if we could find the Fate Weaver and then we wanted to check up on the orogs that had previously attacked Roesone. Also, there were rumours about a dragon there. In the end we didn’t even go to Spiderfell. First we travelled to Roesone to speak to the Baroness and ask her about what she knew of Spiderfell. She told us it was a very dangerous place. There was indeed a dragon, Raythu, Bringer of Death. He has not been seen in years and we would do better not angering him. She was not sure about the orogs, they were probably in Spiderfell but she didn’t keep track of them when they were out of her lands. Lastly, she told us about The Spider. It was not the Fate Weaver but another spider who could find us easily through all the smaller spiders in Spiderfell and would get to us in no time. Learning all this we decided against going there, seeing as it would must certainly kill us.  Lucky for us the Baroness had posted another mission on the board that none of us had seen. She wanted the Cohort to send people to act as security for her party. This was also when we found out that Noeva, the wife of the Baroness was brought back to life. She was very keen on adopting me… Back to the mission, we asked the Baroness if there was anyone in particular that she wanted us to keep an eye on but she said no. In the end we walked out into the throne room and mingled. The following part is written in a very different handwriting. I met Marrie. She was very kind. We played tag. It was fun. The rest of the log is written on a new piece of paper. The party mingled and was told a rumour, or the truth, that the consort’s previous husband had gone mad and killed their children and himself and that it could have led to them turning into vengeful spirits. We decided to act preemptively and go to Gravesford, the Consort’s previous home, to investigate this story. When we arrived in the town we noticed a message on a bulletin board advertising Pinna’s Shop. We decided to visit, as a potion maker was more likely to know about anything strange and arcane going on in the town. When we visited her I asked for an aging potion and she had one, or several, just not finished. It would be a gamble to drink it and no matter how tempted I was I just couldn’t. Some others did and went both up and down in age. Medi turned noticeably smaller. Prudence was given a potion that was a bit more stable and kept it for a time I might want to try it out. We continued to the house where the Consort’s family had lived and close by it me and Prudence found some chickens. She tried to talk to them in her forest language but only got chicken noises back from them. Then I tried Sylvan and one chicken responded. When I asked if she had seen anything strange she pointed me out, and then Prudence and Vyurakas. She was rather stupid. Then she turned me into a chicken! As soon as I was a human again and ran and hid. Skag found me and tried to comfort me, then Prudence came to and we all returned to the Baroness. Prudence told me that the chicken had seen someone take the family away from their house. Back in Proudglaive we reported this to the Baroness. While in that private room Prudence saw something by the window. It was identified as an invisible stalker, created by binding a soul of a servant of a primordial. We protected the Baroness and her consort and managed to kill the stalker. Seemed the Baroness had been right to call for protection even if she didn’t suspect anyone in particular. Oh, and I was adopted in the end, but not by the Baroness and her Consort, but by Prudence, thus becoming her heir. It doesn’t mean she can boss me around however!

Session 78: Whispers on The Wind (2E) Expedition Members: Prudence Duskhart - Level 5, Alseid Druid (Lena C.) Agatha Duskhart - Level 3/2, Rjurik Sorcerer/Warlock (Summer) Medi Eirwen - Level 5, Anuirean Ranger (Serephen) Skag Polavich          - Level 2, Vos Rogue (Seraphina Leaf) Zolis Ulmokina - Level 4, Khinasi Fighter (Lordgenome) Vyurakas          - Level 1, Hadrachen Sorcerer (Leon K.) I answered a call from my old friends Prudence and Agatha. I’d been keeping up with some of their recent exploits so I was aware they’d been through some changes. It was still strange to see how much (and in some ways how little) they’d changed. They were concerned about Roseone, and wanted to scout out the Spiderfell for dangers. I owe a lot of my earlier opportunities and successes to Baroness Roseone, and so I was more than happy to help out. We started out by heading to Proudglaive to meet up with the Baroness herself, after I suggested we ask her what she knows of the forest and its threats, especially since we only had vague ideas ourselves. When we got there it looked like they were setting up for a festival or a party. Not to the scale of the Gathering of the Hunt, but definitely something important was happening. And when we saw the Baroness we learned what it was: her wife had been restored to life! After everything they’d been through, and how involved we’d been in in those events I was overwhelmed with joy, and obviously the Baroness was as well. Not everyone was, as she explained, she’d put a request in to the Cohort asking for security for the upcoming party. She assumed that was why we were there… We asked her a few things about the Spiderfell, and she told us The Green Dragon, Raythu, Bringer of Death does indeed live there, though he hasn’t been seen or heard from in years. The Spider also lives there, a monstrous creature with the upper half of a woman and the lower half of a spider. The Spiderfell is full of her webs, so she will know as soon as you enter and can track your movements easily. She is also incredibly powerful, and if she wanted to, could kill us all for trespassing without much effort. The orogs themselves live there too, though they have not been seen or heard from since the battle. The Baroness and her Consort were enthralled by Agatha’s new appearance, even offering to adopt her. Prudence was clearly uncomfortable with this, and with having to decide on something like this out of the blue. I think she wanted guardianship of her sister herself, if anyone would have it. After our talks we mingled with the court for a while, trying to pick up a lead on anyone who might be more likely than others to try and cause trouble at the party with some scheme or other. I spoke with Tanya Angelwing, figuring she’d know of something like that since she seemed aware of what might happen at the battle of traitor’s demise, and having noticed her gossiping with some other nobles about how the gods may not be so pleased with the Baroness’ union. The only thing of note that she shared with me was that the Consort’s ex-husband had recently gone mad, killed his children and then himself. Such a death reminded her of the story of the Green-Eyed Monster, who even now lives on in undeath, lashing out at anyone who crosses her path, and she was concerned at the possibility of such a spirit being risen from this event. I shared this with the party, and we agreed to ride to Gravesford, where the Consort’s husband had lived, to investigate. If a spirit had been created the people there surely would be the first to notice anything odd. On the way we picked up rumors that Pinna, in Gravesford, had recently created a new batch of potions, but that was the only strange news reaching the surrounding villages. We decided to stop in and see Pinna, with her arcane background she would likely be one of the best placed to know about something like an evil spirit rising. Outside her shop was a tree that apparently came from the Feywild, with colourful peppers growing on it. Pinna herself seemed in good spirits, and happily recognised us as the people who had helped her before, after her ordeal at the hands of Bonebreaker. She proudly showed off her newest potions: Potions of Aging. She explained that they aren’t yet perfect, and so they may make you older or younger by an uncertain amount. She offered us each a free sample and I figured it might help her research to try it…. Zolis drank his hoping to restore some youth but ended up becoming even older. I tried mine and shrank down a bit, to about 15! No chance of even attempting to pass off as my sister now, even if I wanted to. I told Skag what had happened, and he was so excited to try it that he practically fell out of the tree he’d been hiding in, drank three potions in a row and then one of the peppers from the tree. All in all he ended up only slightly younger than he was before, but a lot less scarred. His voice seemed less rough, and he practically cried with happiness at his new state. Meanwhile Prudence had a difficult time convincing Agatha not to drink any, in case she became any younger and could not adventure with her anymore. Pinna seemed to have no knowledge of a murder-suicide occurring in town, and none of the townsfolk we asked seemed to either. They did tell us that the Consort’s husband and children had vanished in the night recently, with no traces. Suspecting some conspiracy at work, we went to investigate the house. We found no signs of a struggle, it appeared as though they had moved out, though many things were left behind. Having not found anything concrete I went to have my armour refitted, as it had been annoying me while searching for clues. I guess I grew up a fair bit in the past 5 years for my armour to be that loose on me. After I came back from the refitting Prudence explained that they had found a Pixie, disguised as a chicken, that had played some tricks on them. It had also told them that some men had taken that family away in a carriage and gone North. By the description, they sounded like men of Lord Ghoried. We rode back to Proudglaive at once to inform the Baroness of our findings. When we arrived we immediately saw the Baroness and her Consort in a private room and attempted to explain what we had found. I think the mention of her old family was hurtful for poor Noeva, but they needed to be aware of the potential threat. As we were talking, Prudence became alerted to one of the windows and called our attention to an invisible creature, sneaking in on the wind. We defended the Baroness and her wife successfully, which relieved me. I don’t ever want to have to witness a scene like that of Traitor’s Demise ever again. As we were calming down, the priests burst into the room, claiming that Lord Ghoried informed them that a vengeful undead spirit had attacked, despite nobody having confirmed this. Agatha in fact seemed to have identified it as an Invisible Stalker, an elemental creature created by binding the soul of a Primordial servant to the wind itself.  After quashing that rumor Prudence stayed with the Consort to comfort her and protect her in case another such creature appeared. She was very effective in combat against it, and was quick to spot it despite its unseen nature. The rest of us mingled in with the court again, keeping an eye out for suspicious behaviour. Lord Ghoried certainly seemed active, chatting with many different nobles. I myself went to chat with him, introducing myself as the sister of the great heroine Teresa Eirwen, and implying that I wished to achieve greatness like her, asking to work with him to help both of us. I figured that it may give us slightly more of a rapport when we return to investigate Lord Ghoried properly. The Baroness expressed that she would almost certainly be sending another mission to the Board of Fate to delve further into this, and as the Ghoried family appears to have ties to a Primordial we, the Cohort, will definitely answer her call.

Session 82: The Indigo Star (Special Mission) Expedition Members: Orithar Trisk - Level 5, Half-Orog Wizard (Hats4Cats) Saorise Auliffe           - Level 3/1, Anuirean Sorcerer/Paladin (Serephen) Bellasaar           - Level 5, Hadrachen Ranger (Link S.) Jaidiele Sylis - Level 3, Sidhelien Ranger (Ryan F.) Sithric Grimhildsson - Level 4, Hanner-Sidhe Fighter (Depraved Lunatic) Galena Aban â thu - Level 3/1, Dwerren Rogue/Bard (Zilarrezko) I had to sign up for another mission, I just hoped it wasn’t as dangerous as the one to the Tower of Evening. It was so much worse. This mission was being lead by a half-orog, Orithar. He called half the group useless, but seemed to praise the fact that I could use magic. I really wasn’t sure what to make of him at the time. I still amn’t. He wanted us to return to a tower he’d been to to stop it from exploding and maybe learn some magical secrets. If it exploded it could spread an arcane plague which would kill lots of people. I should have asked where this tower was, cause it turned out we were heading back to Binsada! I realised that one way too late… Thankfully I’d brought Kira with me. We stopped off in Ber Dairas, and Orithar requested access to the ley lines for himself from the Sultana. She’s looking better now, but I don’t think she’s fully recovered. He told her we were there to investigate the mummy queen, and we needed the access to defend ourselves. She agreed. Then we went back to the Cat’s Cradle. Elisheva seemed to be doing well, but a lizard popped out of someone’s mug and started drinking other people’s ale. I asked Elisheva about it and she said that his name was Cidro, and that it was good luck to find him in your tavern. Also he claimed to be a dragon. Cidro kept trying to mooch drinks off people until Orithar challenged him to a drinking contest, which he actually lost after a while. I dunno how they can both drink so much of that stuff… Cidro took a liking to our group and invited us to a bathhouse run by a friend of his. We bought a bunch of camels and mules to travel quickly and Cidro lead us South-West-ish to an oasis. We got there by evening, but could see a bright light by the oasis. It was a small waxy-looking dragon, giving off light. There was another, a blue dragon with fins across its body. The bathhouse dragon was Sami, and the candle dragon was Aisha. They owed Cidro a favour and so we were allowed to stay there for free! It was really nice, Sami was very hospitable. Aisha asked for candles, which I had. She ate them and gave off much brighter light. The water was lovely, Sami helped dry us off, and the food was so, so good. I really want to go there again! Sami said that all three of them were mistakes with nowhere to go. I don’t think they’re mistakes… I think they’re all really cool… But I guess I relate to them feeling that way. Anyways we ate and drank and chatted into the night. Sami even agreed to let Aisha come with me, so she could lead me back to her if I asked. Though I need to feed her lots of candles, and make sure nothing happens to her or Sami would be angry. They told us some stuff about the Void Dragon, and how it was a legend that could supposedly take away the immortality of dragons and bring all life to an end. I really hoped something like that didn’t exist. In the morning we all saddled up and tried to make our way North to the tower. We got a bit lost and it took us a whole extra day to get there. The place itself looked really creepy. Made of black stone, with lots of hard, sharp-looking edges and carvings of awnshegh all over the place… Galena and Orithar seemed to know their way around, and so they lead us down a hallway to a creepy door. Orithar tried to open it but got some of his life force drained just for that! On the other side was a weird ball of lightning. Bellasaar threw an arrow at it and it started attacking. It went inside Orithar and made him spit lightning at all of us, even Aisha got hurt a bit by it. Even after Orithar spit it out nobody seemed to be able to hurt it except for him and me, so I tried my best to get rid of it so it couldn’t hurt Aisha again, and eventually we won, but it was really tough. We had to leave and rest up for a night before going back in. We found a room with a big noisy thing, Galena picked up an orb and put it inside the metal thing and it quietened down. After that we went through to the main room. It had two huge awnshegh faces on it, and Galena managed to open it safely. Inside was a big spinning thing, an obelisk. We looked up on the ceiling and saw stars… but there wasn’t a hole in the roof… and it was daytime. The obelisk had a dark cloud over it, I tried to sense if there was anything off about it, but I couldn’t. Bellasaar tried to sense by attuning to nature or something. He said there were all sorts of things within a mile of him, like an abberration, an undead, a dragon, a fey, a fiend and an undead. I hoped they were close to a mile away. In the next room, there was a big pink sphere with something inside that we couldn’t see. I tried to sense this and it felt celestial. I told everyone this and they broke it open. Some… thing came out. It looked the size of a 5 year old, but with long, weird arms and glowing purple eyes. It didn’t speak any language, but we thought this might be the thing that fell from the sky that Orithar was talking about before. We wrapped it in a cloak and went to head back to the Cohort, see if they could figure out what it was and what to do with it. As it got close to the obelisk though, a dragon appeared. A not nice dragon. This thing was way bigger than Aisha, and it looked like it was a hole in the world, through which I could see the night sky, just stars and darkness. As soon as it appeared almost everyone got paralysed with fear. I would have been too, but Aisha was scared, and I had to keep her safe. The dragon, which was the Void Dragon, said it wanted The Indigo Star. It said that it would become part of something greater, and that we could all leave if we handed it over. Orithar got really angry and yelled at everyone to leave, I told Aisha to go and wait by the camels, and that if we didn’t come out she should go back to the bathhouse. Galena wouldn’t, couldn’t move, she was stuck so I had to run in and get her out. Once everyone else was out, Orithar tried to cast a spell… but he wasn’t fast enough. It breathed at him. The star tried to get in the way but he shoved it aside and took the hit himself. He got flung into the air and… fell. The dragon turned on the star, saying that nobody was in its way anymore, when Bellasaar ran over and grabbed it. He carried it to the door and got snapped at by the dragon on the way. I saw what he was trying to do… If the dragon got the star it’d probably become really powerful. It could take away the immortality of Sami and Aisha and Cidro and destroy them, destroy everyone…. I didn’t want that to happen. I ran over and grabbed the star from Bellasaar. As I turned and started running I saw him behind me. He turned and spread out his arms to block the door, stop the dragon coming through. I flew round the corner and heard him cry out in pain before the dragon came around the corner after me. He gave his life to slow it down just a few seconds… I’ve never been so scared in my life. I slammed a door behind me, and all the carved awnshegh started moving, pressing at the door, holding it shut. The dragon started slamming against it and raging, I heard it as I ran to the camels, grabbed one and those of us that made it out sprinted into the desert. On the way the star transformed itself from a child form into some kind of sphere. The dragon didn’t catch up to us or find us. Nobody knew what to do, everyone was just at a loss. Sithric broke down completely, I don’t think he’d seen anyone die before. He said that it was different than monsters because they were family. I thought a lot about family on the way home… The Cohort says we’re all family, but what kind of family sends family into these kinds of places to die? Is that what family is? Is family a mother and father that care more about what the church’s wants than about keeping their child? Is family a bunch of priests that send their faithful to war for their own glory and status? If not, then I don’t think I’ve ever experienced family. I think the closest I’ve felt to what it should be was seeing the rejected dragons banding together since they didn’t have a home anywhere else. Maybe the Cohort can be like that sometimes, I’m not sure. I’m happy calling Aisha family for now, if she’s okay with that. I just don’t want anyone else to die.

Session 83: Not a Bee Pun (Mission 1Z) Expedition Members: Cordelia Woodwytch - Level 5, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Salazar di Fioretti - Level 4, Hanner-Sidhe Bard (Adam B.) Eirena Lightshadow - Level 1/4, Rjurik Cleric/Warlock (Depraved Lunatic) Dragomir Black - Level 6, Vos Warlock (Hats4Cats) Shlar Ohmste           - Level 4, Sidhelien Wizard (Michael H.) Korak Flomhelm - Level 6, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) This was my first mission leading. It was very successful. Victory for Cordie. I gathered people to go to the Margreve. We promised the wind witch that we’d save the girl who became bees, swore on it. The loud one thought he was leading, he’s terrible at leading. People thought I was terrible at leading too, but they followed. They didn’t have too many questions, so we went to Levoca. Salazar did the thing he does where he talks to the village people. He said things had been quiet recently. We got the ring for the bees and started trying to find them again. People didn’t think I knew the way, but they followed anyway. I did not lead them to the Hag’s Tooth Hills. I lead them to some unicorns. I think they heard about all our music playing from last month and wanted to join in. They were really bad at singing along, like they weren’t even trying. I sent Floof to investigate them. Darkness appeared and Floof died. Nobody wanted to pet them, not even Korak. The loud one fired a warning shot at them but they didn’t attack or go away. So we went to see the bearperson who we met before. She said that those unicorns were called Shadavar, and they follow people wanting to eat them, but they normally don’t attack unless they think they can win. So really they should never have attacked us. In the night we heard some rustling outside. I woke people up. There was nothing there, but something. A cat spoke to me, said we were intriguing, I said it was intriguing, we were getting along fine. I asked why it was creeping around, it said it was debating which of us would be best to eat. Korak shut it up before it could cast any magic, but then the unicorns tried to attack us. They thought they could win, and the cat thought so too. It tried to run. Everything was darkness. I asked the cat if it wanted to help, it said it would in exchange for a favour. It tried to help but failed, so it left and said not to die. I wouldn’t disappoint it. There was a lot of noise and singing and darkness. Then there was no darkness, and no singing and no noise. The cat came back, asked if it could have the shadavar. I said yes, the loud one said no, the cat said it could heal somebody. Shlar’s broken leg became not broken, he was pleased. Korak took some bits from the shadavar and the cat took the rest. Kot Bayun was what the bearperson called it, she didn’t like it much. I liked it. We carried on trying to find the Queen’s Glade, took us a while. The white alseid lead us there last time. It’s harder to remember a way you haven’t lead yourself. So we stopped and asked a squirrel for directions. It was very helpful, but didn’t want to be Korak’s friend. We found the glade, I suggested we stop and smell the flowers. Nobody trusted me for some reason so we all went together. Then the monster appeared while everybody was laughing and having a good time. I’m glad they couldn’t see it, they wouldn’t have been having fun if they did. Thankfully it didn’t find me and it went away. They don’t trust me then they follow me anyway and end up having a good time. This is the way of Cordie. We tried to stop a bee and talk to it, but they were too busy for us, so we went straight to the hive. The bear was awake this time, so I asked him if we could go in. He said only fey could go in. I’m going to become more fey and come back here just to show him. Mynnir was allowed in. We were allowed in when I said Lyla, but we were told not to cause trouble. We caused trouble almost immediately. Mynnir was talking to the bees-person in Sylvan, but it wouldn’t give her any honey. I tried to talk in Sylvan and it ignored me and spoke Midgardian. Everyone in that hive was so rude. Salazar talked, but it said we should go away. Everyone else wanted to go, but Salazar thought we should go further in anyway, so I did. I almost fell in honey, then some bees came and stung me. The bear at the entrance blocked the way out because we caused trouble. He said we’d die. Everyone else really, really wanted to fight the bear and leave, but Cordie was leader. I lead them deeper into the hive. Past bees, and honey, and bees, and honey, and honey bees, and bee honey. There was a bee I thought was the queen, but she ignored me until I made myself fey. Then she told me Lyla was on the main floor of the hive, then she ignored me again. Another rude bee. We eventually found a bigger room. A bed with a girl on it, with bees on her, sleeping. Then the biggest bee ever appeared and spoke. This one was actually nice. She said I was intriguing and interesting. I said she was interesting and intriguing. We traded the ring for some honey for the people in the city. I asked to trade for Lyla, Korak suggested some magic beans him and the loud one had. I asked for the other bean, he didn’t want to give it. He wanted to wear my hat. A cruel request, from one not worthy of such a hat, but Cordie is the best leader. He didn’t want my hat, he tricked me. Suits me, it would have looked stupid on him anyway. We traded beans for Lyla. Korak traded a shield for something we could have found out easily anyway, and the bee queen gave us a lantern to get past the bear. I liked that bee. We went back to the village. They were all amazed. They thought Lyla was a legend, didn’t exist. The wind witch knew, they should have trusted her. Nobody ever trusts witches even though we know good secrets. The village people were happy, the wind witch was happy, the Margreve was happy, the party were happy, the Cohort were happy, the cat was happy, the city person was happy. Leading isn’t that hard.

Session 83: Bee Pun Cordelia Woodwytch - Serephen Salazar di Fioretti - Adam Eirena Lightshadow - Depraved Lunatic Dragomir Black - Hats4Cats Shlar Ohmste - Michael B Korak Flomhelm - SlothSlow We began, as we have of late, in the village of Levoca. Spring in the Margreve had brought new life to the village. The farmers were tilling their fields and sowing their crops. People seemed to be in good spirits as the memory of the Hollow Man melted away like the winter snow. Our objective was to return to the Fey Bee Hive to find and rescue Lyla and to trade for some fey honey on behalf of Lady Terelsa Garlook of Zobek. We exchanged pleasantries with Anna, and procured the magic ring that was to serve as the price for the transaction. Setting out to the North West, we were careful to give the Hag’s Tooth Hills a wide berth. Nonetheless, we came across some very large stools, similar in size to those we attributed to the Zmei on our previous outing. Even at a distance of twenty or so miles, Drago insisted that we were not giving the Hills enough space. After seeing evidence of the Zmei this far into the woods, perhaps he was right. On the second day, once again made excellent time. The Margreve itself seemed to aid our travel, and Miss Cordie has become quite adept at navigating it. As we passed near the Salt Pillars, some of the more keen-eyed members of the group noticed what appeared to be a pair of Unicorns following us. They were singing a most discordant melody that everyone found quite unnerving. Despite our best efforts to communicate with them or ward them off, they continued to follow us at a distance. We were close to the home of Elsee, the bearfolk whose son we had rescued a few months back, so we decided to pay her a visit. She told us that the things that were following us were not unicorns at all but rather evil fey creatures called Shadhavar. Elsee explained that they typically don’t go out of their way to look for a fight, but may strike if an opportunity presented itself. Well present itself it did. During the last watch, the group heard something rustling in the branches above Elsee’s home. The creature eventually revealed itself and spoke with Cordie and Korak in Sylvan. It was a large cat-like beast with a strange tail that we would later learn was called a Kot Bayun. The parley must have gone afoul, for it wasn’t long before we were coming to blows. We had the beast on the ropes when we heard the cacophonous chorus of the Shadhavar again, and in the chaos the Kot Bayun. They charged the group, sheathed in spheres of pure darkness. I must confess that I was of little use during the battle that ensued; something about the melody these beasts wove left me dumbfounded. But the group was made of sterner stuff, and after a hard-fought battle, both of the Shadhavar had fallen. It was then that the Kot Bayun reappeared. It offered us an exchange; if we were to give it the fallen corpses of the Shadhavar, it would use its healing powers to remove one curse or ailment in exchange. If my heart could beat, it would be racing at the thought of being rid of the curse this drum had brought me, but it is still unknown what may happen to me. Instead, true to its word, the Kot Bayun healed Shlar of a chronic injury he had been living with. The next morning, we apologized to Elsee for bringing such danger to her doorstep. She was gracious, as always, and we said our goodbyes. We headed further north and east but became disoriented. Eventually, Miss Cordie managed to ask a squirrel for directions. It informed us that the Queen’s Glade was west of us by quite a ways, so we set off in that direction. The Queen’s Glade was buzzing with activity, in stark contrast to our last visit at the end of Winter. The fey bees, each nearly as large as a man we languidly bumbling from flower to flower. The Effildawnan were beginning to blossom and bloom, and we stepped in for a closer look. Above the droning of wings, I could clearly hear that one of the bees was actually singing the Briary Bush , an old Brecht drinking song. I struck up the tune on my viol to join it in harmony, in hopes that we may build some cameraderie. But the bees were silent to our requests in both Sylvan and Midgardian. After dallying in the Queen’s Glade, we struck out north to the hive proper. Once again, we were met by a massive bear, freshly awoken from his winter’s hibernation. Miss Cordie spoke with him in her way and managed to secure access for us into the hive. It wasn’t long before the strange swarm-given-human-shape creature appeared. Both Miss Cordie and I attempted to reason with it, and Mynnir even attempted to trade on our behalf. But the creature insisted that we were not fey, and that it would not let us see Lyla or give us the fey honey. With that declaration, it dispersed. The others wanted to turn back, but I knew something was not right. I could feel that Lyla was here and that she wanted to be saved. With nothing directly barring us from going further into the hive, we pressed on. We had only made it a few steps or so when Miss Cordie nearly fell through the floor into a vat of sticky honey. Like a flash, two of the large fey bees attacked her, and the bear stepped in behind to cut off our retreat. I did not wish to fight these creatures, but they left us no choice. The Cohort made short work of the bees, and the bear seemed unable or unwilling to enter the hive to give chase. Down the labyrinthine corridors of the hive we went, with traps and false-floors at every turn. Another bee ambush was quickly thwarted, and we continued even deeper. Cordie found a hidden room with what seemed to be the Queen Bee in it, laying eggs. But this one, like all the others save the guards, was largely disinterested in us. Further and further we went, with the humming of the hive getting louder and louder. At the end of a long narrow corridor, the walls opened into a large chamber. Before we could enter, the swarm-given-human-shaper appeared again, barring our path. This time, her shape had changed to give the appearance of an imposing, armored woman with a long sword. All composed entirely of bees, naturally. Keen to avoid any more fighting, I attempted to charm the bee knight, suggesting that we were friends of her and Lyla and that she would let us enter the chamber and leave. Unharmed. To my surprise, it worked. The cloud dispersed and we saw her at last. Lying on a waxy bed was a small human girl, no more than twelve: Lyla. She was slumbering peacefully. There was a noise from an adjoining chamber and a massive bee-like creature appeared. This one seemed much more keen to negotiate. After bartering some magic items, it agreed to let us leave with Lyla. It also gladly accepted Lady Garlook’s ring in exchange for a jar of the purple fey honey. Finally, it fashioned an odd lamp out of honeycomb and ironwood. With our prizes in hand, we left the hive without further bloodshed and made our way back to Levoca.

Session 83: Not a Bee Pun (Mission 1Z) Expedition Members: Cordelia Woodwytch  - Level 5, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Salazar di Fioretti   - Level 4, Hanner-Sidhe Bard (Adam B.) Eirena Lightshadow   - Level 1/4, Rjurik Cleric/Warlock (Depraved Lunatic) Dragomir Black   - Level 6, Vos Warlock (Hats4Cats) Shlar Ohmste    - Level 4, Sidhelien Wizard (Michael H.) Korak Flomhelm   - Level 6, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) I’ve beeen on some unbeelievable badly ran mission like but this one has to bee near the top of the list. If you want a really detailed report go read someone elses because I have seen they already gave em to Scriptkeeper Melvin. Cordi is so strict and by the book. All I was looking forward to was planting this magic bean in the magic wood and seeing what happened. But no fun bean, no wondering in random places. We didn’t even see one Dragon! So ya might as well stop reading this now… Well one good thing happened. We started in Margreve, like always it’s nice to cast magic at will there but really feels like dull. Its just trees. I made an effort to collect anything Presphine might like for her shop but we will have to see if any of it is useful, Cordi was super strick always talking about “the mission” “the mission”. She didn’t even let Myrnir come out and play. We could have had five full days of races but noooo, forward march! Think we headed northeast and found the tracks of the dragon creature. I would have loved to see if but quickly got told to marched the other way.  Right so with the interesting dragon left behind, we did run into these creatures called Shadavar but like didn’t know that’s what they were at the time. They just looked like unicorns but singing really strange music., well from afar once ya got close it didn’t look like one at all. Korak didn’t want to go towards them he getting all scared nowadays, Cordi didn’t want anyone to do anything but play music over their music. I fired a warning shot cause Cordi said but they really didn’t care. They followed us for the rest of the day until we made it to a bear house. Like bear lady lives in a tree, she was really nice and had a son.  Problem was a cat thing walked up, Kot Bayun and wanted to eat someone, don’t know why you tell the people you going to eat that you will eat them but guess it wasn’t used to its prey being able to fight back. I gave it a couple of hits but ran away as soon as it heard the Shadavar heading towards us. These things were strange apparently people couldn’t see, but Leana’s training paid off and wasn’t an issue. I made us to protect the child and bear lady and to wake them up when danger is around.  After we killed the Shadavar, which looked like horses really. Kinda wish we didn’t kill em, hmm wonder what they wanted. Probs food. Really should just carry huge amounts of food around. Anyways the cat things came back and wanted the bodies… Food again. It did a nice trick and cured Shlar of his leg in exchange for the bodies. Cordi seems happy to hand em over, at least the thing will be fed for some time. Don’t know why we didn’t kill it, when it gets hungry again it’s just going to kill the bear lady. Not like anyone will listen. So we made it to flowers and Cordi and Salazar started acting weird. I saw a lady dancing in the air with bee’s and I really wanted to join her so like course I go fly up but she was having none of it. Think it was a spirit, nice one like shame she didn’t stick around. Far too many bees around tho. However in the distance why I was in the air I could see strange pixie-like dust far to the north. Wonder what that place looks like. Ya know what, wonder if I can get others to come and go check it out. Looked way better than a bee nest.  Right so after the flowers we finally get to the bee nest and make the whole thing angry somehow. I don’t know, I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying. The bees didnt like us being in there and we had to kill a few of them. They stopped attack soon after and moved our way inside. Found a broach, I liked it. So found more bee’ing these one were trying to be a person. I really didn’t get any of this.  In the end, we found this lady sleeping, why the bee had a sleeping lady next to a queen bee is beyond me. They really didn’t even care about letting her go. However, the big queen bee wanted something so instead of giving up her things like a good leader she took my magic bean and gave it to the queen. Did make her squirm for it tho. Won’t write it up like but nice to play a trick on a trickster. So this is the mission of how I don’t have a magic bean anymore and will never get to see what it did or didn’t do. Felt a wave of fire come over me from Leana’s training but I let the feeling go. Cordi then continued to give more of other people’s stuff away to the bee queen. Korak’s new shield was the next poor guy already broke. Sigh.. I’ll let him off his debt no point in keeping him broke otherwise he going to lose weight. Maybe that’s why he scared now might be losing muscle under that armor. Hmm, I’ll buy him some food.  So we leave and made it back with the sleeping lady to the small town, beanless. She has no family and is really old and probs going to have a really hard time understanding anything. So we left her there with no one she knows. I dont know why everyone was so happy, hope Presphine like the stuff I got her tho.

Session 82: The Indigo Star ( SPECIAL ) Cohort Members attending: -Bellasaar ( Link S. ) -Orithar Trisk ( Hats4Cats ) -Galena Abanâthu ( Zilzarrezko ) -Jaidiele Sylis ( Ryan F. ) -Saorise Auliffe ( Serephen ) -Sithric Grimhildsson ( Depraved Lunatic ) Orithar and Galena had led a group of Cohort Members to a spire in the area of Binsada. As they had unfinished business to attend to, I decided to sign up to the mission, to help in any way I can. I remembered Orithar from the mission with the king who wanted his queen escorted somewhere. He seemed more agitated this time than last time. Called us useless or all, won't hold it against him though. Bellasaar, Jaidiele and I were all archers, which he didn't seem to appreciate as much. Oh well, I can take up a melee spot as well, atleast, which seemed to "unlower" his opinion of me slightly. I think. Anyway, we move to Ber Dairas, where the Sultana resides sometimes . We got leyline access for our spellcasters by telling her we were looking into the case with the mummy queen. Saorise was one of the people affected by the mummys curse, which probably made our ruse pretty believable. We got access and went on. We talked to Elisheva in the Cat's Cradle, a tabaxi woman who seems to be the head of the local... gang, I believe. We talked about the mission and a well built lizard popped out of my mug. We exchanged a moment of looks and I let it have my drink, as I didn't wish to drink it if lizards pop out of it.  It is explained to us that the lizard was called Cidro and was supposed to bring good luck to bars it visited. I wish it gave some good luck to guests as well. Oh and he's a dragon apparently. Orithar tried to take Cidro on in a drinking contest. While Orithar was definitely doing pretty good, Cidro beat him in the end tho. Bellasaar mentioned that he would size us up before he has to carry our limp bodies around. I didn't expect the first limp body for him to carry around to be Orithar's though. It appears that the drinking contest had Cidro take an interest in us, so he promised to bring us to a bathhouse that was a lot of bath but not really a house. Orithar was really hungover, so the day of rest really served him well.  We arrived at an oasis run by two similiarly small dragons, Aisha and Sami. Sami was the owner of the oasis, while Aisha was it's living lamp, it appears. They owed Cidro a favor it seems, so we were allowed to eat, bathe and sleep there free of charge. And I must say, it was a great experience. The water was hot, but really comfortable. Everyone seemed to be at ease there, so that was nice as well. We were even dried off by Sami. She seems really motherlike and all. Well, Aisha is her daughter, so that's that I suppose. We all got to learn about the three small dragons. They said they were mistakes with nowhere to go. My heart stung hearing that. I knew exactly how they must've felt before finding eachother... please pay Sami's bathhouse a visit, I'm certain she'll welcome the money for her hoard! We also asked about the Void Dragon that supposedly came to Galena in her dream when resting next to the spire. According to Sami, it was a legend that will turn the cerilian dragons mortal and destroy all life. Well... I hope the legends are wrong. We continue our travels the next day and eventually arrive at our destination, this eerie looking spire in the middle of the desert. Made out of black stone and such. Orithar and Galena led us inside. They've already been here, so they probably knew where they had to step, where not and whatnot. They led us down a hallway that was previously unexplored. Orithar tried opening the door, but that alone seemed to tax him. Probably a magical trap. Just a second later, we see a ball of lightning behind the door, which zapped toward us. Bellasaar threw an arrow at him, which prompted the ball to attack us.  It took hold of Orithar and made him spew lightning at us. Our group had sadly positioned in such a way that it pierced through most of them. Orithar and Saorise seemed to be the only ones that were able to harm it. I tried my best to help Saorise  and Orithar hit by distracting it and creating openings for them to strike. We eventually brought it down, but Orithar was badly wounded. It cost him his precious longsword as well, it seems. I feel a bit bad that I couldn't be of more use, but I guess I will just have to fix that on my own.  After resting for a night, we ventured deeper into that room where we were attacked. There were some big cubes with pinkish smoke coming out of it. Further in was a door that led to a room with a round thing that emitted an annoying sound. Galena tossed an orb inside of it, which made it quiet. Next we went through to the corridor leading to the main room of this spire. The door with the two awnshegh in front of it was safely opened by Galena and we went inside to see a black, incredibly fast spinning obelisk. On the roof of the room were the night sky and the stars. It was midday though, which made this phenomenon unusual and very creepy. Bellasaar and Saorise tried to sense if there were creatures nearby. Saorise didn't sense anything and Bellasaar told us that there were all sorts of creatures within a mile of us, so that didn't help much as well. We carry on to the next room, where a purple sphere, which had tubes of purple liquid attached to it, was located. Some sort of Celestial, according to Saorise, was pressing it's hand against the inside of the sphere. Orithar broke it open with his greataxe and a Thing came out. It looked like a 5 year old, atleast from size. It had very long arms though, it's skin was kind of purplish and it's eyes glowed weirdly. We theorize that this might be the thing that fell from the sky that Orithar had mentioned before, so we wrap it in a cloak and move to get out of this spire and back to the Cohort. I had hoped that it would like it there and learn to speak, but this hope was cut short by the entrance of a dragon made of void and stars. The Void Dragon, I assume. The dragon talked to those of us who spoke Draconic and demanded that we hand over the Child. Jadiele and Bellasaar conveyed the conversation to us. Orithar had made it clear that there will be no handing over of children this day. I was too shocked with fright to be of any reasonable assistance. I stumbled over my own words, stuttering. It took me a while to get a grasp, but even in this state, I was able to understand that Orithar had a plan. Or I assumed so. Everyone but him and Bellasaar left the room. As he was about to cast a spell, the Void Dragon spewed it's breath on him. The Thing tried to block the attack for him, but Orithar tossed the small figure aside, taking the attack, obliterated into pieces. I have no more words at this point, so I make a run for it into the first corridor. It all happened in a blink. Galena and Saorise came running out, Jaidiele was already the first one out. Saorise gave me the Child and I ran to our mounts, grabbed Yarrow and we rode off quickly. Bellasaar and Orithar have not made it, however.  On our way back, the child stabbed itself in the chest, transforming into a black spherelike thing. I couldn't handle it at that moment and broke down. Losing Bellasaar and Orithar while being absolutely powerless was a rough gutpunch and this was a suplex to top it off. I had never seen actual people die. Even less people that I actually cared for... it all was too much for me at that moment. Saorise and Galena helped me snap out of it and we returned to the Cohort. 

Session 80-  The Cold Hard Truth Present Thorg Sabertooth: Half-Orog Barbarian lvl 4 (Darvius) Valravan; Rjurik Wizard lvl 2 (Kristen B.) Dwarven Cleric (pregen) (Leon K) (will be created as Knuckles) Aye, I'll try to get this down best as I can. We headed to the city of Endier. When we got there, we met the merchants guild to discuss the contract. We secured a license to apprehend anyone stealing from the citizens of the city to try and end the problems. We questioned numerous citizens and I developed a relationship with the Dwerren community there. We took almost a week or questioning and doing stakeout before we finally caught a break. We noticed a little girl (around 12ish years old). She was picking pockets in the bazaar area. We were able to stealthfully follow her to a sewer access point. She was able to lift the manhole cover alone, so we knew we were dealing with something other than a normal little girl. We were able to slip into the sewers quietly and follow her to a strange cave. I'll break away from my report here to express my extreme concern about the compartmentalization happening here. Below I'll explain what we found and the events following our discovery...but apparently the Cohort had sealed a powerful creature here and failed to inform us of this or the situation/intents in doing so. This information would have been vital in knowing what we should have done as a group rather than causing in-fighting between us and possibly ruining ties to each other. With that said... As we followed the girl, we found a strange, icy, magical cave. We watched the girl, who had white scaly arms and clawed hands, deposit the stolen loot on a platform with lots of stolen goods laying around the area. The girl proceeded into a back area of the cavern where an icy patch sat in the center with an icy egg in the center of that. We attempted to approach the girl and communicate with her. Unfortunately, I slipped on the ice and cracked it. The crack ran to the egg and it hatches, causing a young white dragon to emerge. Through talking to the dragon, we learned it was the reborn Nasaadi! We attempted to negotiate with the reborn dragon. Nasaadi wanted to leave the area and return to the area it had inhabited before being killed. Thorg wanted to kill the newborn immediately. I could not, in good conscious, kill something on site that had done nothing wrong. Nasaadi might have done things in her past life, but, from what I remember, she didn't take aggressive actions until her domain was invaded upon by expanding civilizations. Thorg wanted her to promise to not attack in retribution which it wouldn't do. I tried to get her to agree to opening negotiations with surrounding peoples before taking actions, to which she agreed to maybe do. I also will be sending a report to my kin as they would be a neutral party to help be litigation between parties. After sucking up its horde, the dragon tried to leave the cave. Thorg planned to attack outside of the lair, so Nasaadi attacked first before leaving the cave. I still could not reconcile attacking as others in the party had planned to attack and Nasaadi acted in self-defense. Thorg was brave and strong. He was able to cause significant damage, but the dragon was too strong. The dragon was able to drop parts of the ceiling that incapacitated Valraven in one hit, so I knew I'd be of no use as I was busy healing my companions. Thorg might now agree with my actions, but I ensured he was able to fight another day after Nasaadi knocked him unconscious. The dragon then left the caves and sewer. We proceeded back up top. Thorg went to wait for us while we relayed our findings to the leaders of the city. They were appreciative of our efforts in eliminating the situation from the city...and they were the ones that informed us the Cohort had sealed Nasaadi's egg below. I accept full responsibility and any discipline that will occur from this mission. I performed with the best of intents with the extremely lacking info that was provided and available. Knuckles

Session 79 2D: Blood for Blood Present: Darvius Alandre: Sidhelien Monk lvl6 (Darvius) Mamm Bealdaatsdotter; Rjurik Fighter lvl 5 (Seraphina Leaf) Nimogene Mammsdotter; Sidhewair Rogue, Lvl 5 (Summer) Aubrae Trevelyan; Anirean Paladin, lvl 4 (Zilarrezko) Berry Brambles; Firbolg Barbarian, lvl 3 (Lena C) Thugnuck Ironwall; Dwerren Fighter; lvl 2 (Leon K)   We gathered  to discuss the mission. It was passed along that a group of undead were near Croaker Norge. A previous team had been sent on the mission for the king's body and had discovered the cave with the undead. We departed to Haes and spoke to a representative of the Duchess since the Duchess was dealing with rebels up north. We headed towards Croaker’s Norge. The first night we were ambushed by Sidhelien, one with horns on their head from unshae blood. We learned her name to be Arlayna, the Man Eater. They demanded we hand over our goods or die. We refused that and they offered to let us live if the humans gave their equipment up as they were on a Gheallie Sidhe. We, of course, stood by our Cohort members and still refused. That's when the cowards attacked. I'm ashamed to say I don't know most of the fight as I fell within seconds of engagement. The cowards loosed a round of arrows that I couldn't stand against. Fortunately, I believe I took the full focus at the beginning and gave me party a chance to prepare their defenses. One of dem was able to bring me back from the brink of death and I spent the rest of the fight finding cover and not wanting to waste the spells of me party. After a waggly fingered Sidhewair wizard, Gadvick Sightseer, drove them cowards off, we gave those we killed a burning funeral. While they might have been cowards, they at least fell in battle and they deserved as much. We split the items dem elves had on them and decided to sell the left overs to other Cohort members. We then traveled to the cave where we found a massive pile of bones within the first room. As the party went to smash the skellies, they swarmed up and attacked. We took a beating from the swarm but were able to smash dem damned creatures back to the afterlife where they belong. We then drug the blasted things back to the village where we grinded them to powder and gave them a proper burial instead of leaving them for a necromancer to use again. We traveled towards Fort Black Hill the next day and meet with the Duchess Laela Flaertes. We told her about the Sidhelien so close and on her lands. She revealed the name of the elven leader; Arlayna. We also told her about the cave and the blasted monstosity within. She informed us she had sent 5 knights that way and they never returned. She appreciated our work and agreed that more forces would be needed to eliminate the cave issues.