Campaign Logs

Session 33 (1N): More Rats! Played on the 20th of November in the year 2019! Present: Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 4 (Seraphina Leaf) Portia Folkor; Anuirean Fighter, lvl 4 (Lena C) Teresa Eirwen; Anuirean Ranger, lvl 4 (Serephen) Nimogene 'Nim' Thistlewit; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 3 (Summer) Zolis Ulmokina; Khinasi Fighter, lvl 3 (Lordgenome) Galena Aban â thu; Dwerren Rogue, lvl 2 (Zilarrezko) Members of the cohort, I included, went to Hollin ǥ holmen to try and deal with the Ratmen plaguing the city. On arrival, I spoke to the guards - being the only one of our party who spoke Rjuven - to update us on the situation in the sewers. They told us that the situation hadn't got worse, but it was no better either. We decided to go to a number of different sewer entrances and thin their numbers before tackling the task of taking down the Ratking. Just inside the first sewer entrance we went down, we found a room with three Ratmen waiting to ambush us, fortunately I took the brunt of their initial attack, leading to a relatively easy victory, though not without casualties, which I'll write about in a bit. While looking around we found several chests, some of which contained some money detailed below. We also, found a map, that suddenly came to life, and started to smother and asphyxiate poor Teresa. After a struggle, we managed to get the map off Teresa and slay it. Teresa was injured, but still capable. On further investigation in the area, we found three cells, each with tied up prisoners inside. The prisoners all had wounds stitched up. It looked like they had had some kind of invasive surgery done on them by the Ratmen, most likely some kind of torture or experiment. We ran and got some guards to take the prisoners to safety. Earlier, during the fight with the Ratmen, I was struck by one of their blades. I thought nothing of it at first, just another flesh wound I thought. However while the prisoners were being taken by the guards, I started coughing up blood, feeling weary, and could barely stand. I stubbornly tried my hardest to put on a brave face, but to no avail. My comrades, worried for me, said we should leave and try to deal with my ailment before continuing. I am very grateful to them that they didn't entertain my pleas of continuing regardless. My attempt at selflessness could have put them in danger, and I must make full efforts to avoid this behavior in the future. The last thing I want is to put my people in danger, least of all my 'Sweets'. We went to an apothecary to try and get some help with my ailment. They provided a concoction that might be able to help, though the lady did say that if it didn't work, I would probably die. When we told her we were from the Cohort, she gave the concoction free of charge, as well as beds for us all for the night, also free of charge. I drank the drink, and tried to sleep it off. Unfortunately, in the morning, I was far worse than I had been before. Again, in my ill stupor, I insisted we continue with our mission. I later found out this lack of concern for my own well-being, deeply upset a member of the party. I won't say who, as it was a very personal and upsetting conversation I had with them. To emphasize this to myself, I'll write it once more. I must ensure this doesn't ever happen again. My pride, in this regard, is immaterial. We went to the King's castle to see if he could be of any help. He was a huge help last time we came, preventing one of our party from turning into one of the Ratmen, so we hoped he could provide similar help this time. Unfortunately, he was not in the city. I can't recall where he had gone, I was not able to think clearly, but we were told he was five days travel away. I asked if there were any royal healers left in the castle, and as fortune would have it, there was. We were directed to the courtyard where Archdruid Hjorvaalm was. He told me that I could choose between trying the same concoction again, or, 'be reborn again'. I decided to take the risk of merely trying the concoction again. Oh, I hope I made the right choice. After another night sleeping off the drink, I awoke, feeling much better. The illness had past, but had been replaced with a rat's tail, rat's ears, and grey hair replacing my proud red. Given my stubbornness, I of course tried to play it down after my initial open shock. My plain features being outdone by my ugly ears and tail. Please, Gods, let this not be for forever. Having now recovered, we were all keen to deal with some more rats. Not soon after going down another sewer entrance, we heard a woman screaming. Running to the source of the screams, we saw her, surrounded by swarms of rats. We moved in to save her, but it was too late. Before we could reach her, she herself has transformed into one of the Ratmen and started attacking us with her Spellcraft. To my great shame, during the fight, she managed to get inside my head with her magic, commanding me to 'betray'. So I did. I turned, and fired my crossbow at Nim. She was fortunately able to avoid my bolt with ease. After the spell had worn off, I continued the fight, while trying to avoid eye contact with Nim, so ashamed I was. We swiftly dealt with the Spellcaster and the swarms after that. Once the fight was over, I - overcome with emotion - threw my sword and shield down and marched out to be on my own. Nim followed me and comforted me, letting me know she didn't blame me for what the mage made me do. She's so quick to forgive. I put her in danger, and that's all that mattered to me in that moment. But Nim can make me feel strong and tall with her sweetness, no matter how low I am, and managed to calm me down while drying my tears. I don't know what I'd do without her. As we rejoined the rest of the group, lovely Portia brought me sword and shield. Portia has heard of my involvement at 'The Battle of Traitor's Demise' and seems very fond of me because of it. She's very eager to prove herself, hopefully not too eager. Lastly, before we headed off, I went to get my crossbow; the one I fired at Nim with. Couldn't handle being reminded of that as long as I had it, so threw it in a nearby firepit. We moved on, first finding a storage for cheese, nearby. We had many plans for what to do with it, but ultimately decided to just leave it. Though Nim did spit on it as we left. We searched some more rooms, finally coming across a chest.  Galena could see that it rigged to set off something when opened, so we all stood back as she tried to un-rig it. Unfortunately, Galena was struck by a lightning spell emanating from the chest. We aided her, getting her away from the chest. Nim then tried having a go at un-rigging the trap, and was thankfully, successful. Inside the chest, on a red cushion, was an egg, with a hole in it, about half a foot wide. Nim identified it as an Astral Dragon egg, that could hold a heck of a lot of things inside it, while the egg remains the same weight. Very useful. I recommended Nim get to keep it as she struggles so with carrying her belongings. The rest of the group were pretty much in agreement I think, but  we didn't have long to think on it, as we could hear a very large amount of footsteps coming our way. Reckoned it were 20 Ratmen approaching us. We decided against facing them for now, and made our way out of the sewer, after setting the armory we were in on fire. [OOC gold talk just in case: 3 light crossbows: 75gp. 3 studded leather: 135gp. =210 gp. Divided by half =105. +294 Currency. =399 Total. =359.1 After Tax. =59.85 Six-Person Share.]

SESSION 35 - Rusty Ventures (1V) 23rd of November 2019 Participants; Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter (Zilarrezko) Drake Darkwood, Human Sorcerer (Zilarrezko Hedrin, Dwerren Sorcerer (SlothSlow Phage, Human Cleric (Raven) Siegfried Morton, Human Cleric (Hats4Cats) Silas, Human Rogue (Skinsump) - Drop-In, Left early Field Report on the Expedition to Daikhar-Zhigun Submitted to Duty Sergeant, Grand Hall of the Cohort Arcanum Report prepared by Diesa Gemfire, Assistant Investigator of the Cohort Our company assembled as usual at the Halls of Cohort to go over the request of King Kallen Pickbiter of Daikhar-Zhigun. As my family lived in that realm and I have visited before as part of the caravan network I took the lead on the expedition. Given the metal-consuming nature of the creatures described in the mission I suggested we outfit ourselves with wooden shields and take spare weapons as a precaution and afterwards we departed by ship to the 'Dwarfhame'. After an uneventful voyage we landed at the Daikhar docks and proceeded overland to the mountain gates and then along deep roads to the city of Zhigun. The Dwerren of Daikhar-Zhigun are polite but quite cautious of outsiders. Though given a look at their neighbours its hard to blame them. There is the scum of Rhzlev to the south, chaotic Rjurik raiders and rapacious Gnolls to the east and noth. Only the Brecht realm of Grevesmuhl where I was born offers them any peace, and even then that is shaky thanks to the efforts of the Black Ice trading company. Being members of the Cohort we were given a more friendly welcome and im sure having a member of a native clan helped too. After enetering the city our company was granted access to the King's Hall where Kallen Pickbiter himself received us and gave us more information on the matter at hand. Recently Zhigun has entered a new expansion phase and their miners broke into an expansive new cavern system as they dug new passages. Hours after doing so the first of the creatures appeared, swarming out of the new cavern and overwhelming the surprised Dwerren, they broke into the forge areas nearby before the defenders rallied and managed to push them back. The creatures are described as insect-like, chitnous and being in size similar to Dwerren or Humans. They possess some strange power to cause iron and steel to rust within moments which ruins the heavy armor and weapons that the Dwerren rely on. Once the metal has been corroded this way they can consume it like food. For this reason we've taken to calling them 'Rust Monsters'. Although we were also told they are not averse to eating meat as apparantly this was the fate of some of the Dwerren lost in the initial attacks. Following the meeting with the King we visited the forges and spoke to some of the smiths there that had witnessed and fought. We learned from one woman that individually the creatures were not particularly fearsome or hard to kill it was only by their numbers and strange ability that they posed a threat to the Dwerren. There had also been a second swarm attack about a week following the first, occuring almost immediatley after the forges had been restored to full operation. Hedrin suspected the smelting might be attracting them in such a frenzy. There may be something to this, in 'the wild' they would be unlikely to encounter much pure iron, only base ores. So much concentrated and in such purity could carry far to their senses and is perhaps irresistable for them. Having learned what we could the company was granted temporary access by the King's head mage Kodmac Windarm to the local Mebhaighl, allowing our spellcasters to use magics beyond that of a cantrip. However we were also issued with a warning not to use any magic at all within the city itself, excepting in the case of defending it from assault. After this we ventured into the new excavations to see what we could learn of the rust monsters first hand, attached is a rough sketch map of where we explored. Our first encounter with the rust monsters came beyond the first spider pit I have labled by the stairs. A group of eight of them emerged from the tunnel to the east, they did not seem particularly aggressive at first but they were interested enough in us to follow. We moved back to the stair side of the pit to split their numbers and as they came along they charged with surprising speed and started to surround a couple of our number. Shortly into the fight the pit earned the name we gave it as an absolutely enormous spider emerged from there and began biting the rust monsters. They immediately broke off from us and tried to flee but five or six ended up dead to our efforts or the spider. The spider seemed to be singlemindedly concerned with the rust monsters and made no aggressive move towards ourselves at that point and the Dwerren tesified that they had never encountered it when they were in the caverns. It might be linked to the shadow world however. I sent my familiar into the pit the day after our first encounter to see how deep it went, as Baharaditana has excellent darkvision and is capable of being quite stealthy. However after only ten feet it encountered magical darkness it was unable to penetrate and came back up. Hedrin speculated that a 'natural' or 'permanent' area of magical darkness might represent a some kind of passage or portal to the shadow realm. When Drake threw a rope down into the pit, thinking to climb down to check the spider did show some aggresion as it sprang out to attack. Rather than fight it however we pulled back to the stairs in good order and it did not give chase, slinking back down into the pit instead. So it seems that this creature is mostly quite content to dwell in its hole if left alone, and there are no rust monsters to hunt. A useful obstacle I think for those corroding beasts. Perhaps why they only appear in swarms when attracted by the forges? Only then are there enough numbers for them to 'break through'? My familiar did spot another pit to the west, but we never confirmed whether this too was inhabited. During our initial investigation we also found curious humanoid bodies of a people we had never encountered before, wrapped in webbing near the pit. When we reurned on our second day of explorations siegfried identified a trail of them along with the rust monsters in the area. We decided to investigate these first rather and so found a hidden door not too far away. Activating a switch a passageway was revealed, quite loudly, and one of the 'natives' came out. They cast a spell that allowed us to communicate and took us to their came to meet their leader who we learned was called Oona. These people call themselves the Githzerai. They claim to have been a race of Sidhe that were once banished into the spirit world by their kin for some transgression beyond remembering. However like the Cellwair and Sidhewair they fled back into the world when the spirit realm was tainted by shadow known as the Cold Rider. Ominously, though I'm not sure I believe it, they claim that this Cold Rider is somehow Azrai. That he was not killed at Deismaar as the human's Old Gods were, but just 'broken', and that there are minions of him out there seeking to somehow restore him. Oona also recounted a story from her ancestors that her people in the ancient past had had dealings with the 'Primordial Hunters' of the Cohort Arcanum. They certainly seemed to recognise our symbology. Claiming that thousands of the Githzerai died, or 'were sacrificed' to seal one of the ancient beings away. Atleast the current generation seems not to bear ourselves any ill will due to this story. They even seemed downright friendly given the circumstances and were happy to tell us their secret to dealing with the rust monsters of the caverns. Silver. A metal they do seem to have trouble with. I tried to trade with them for one of their silver weapons but they had no use for gold and lived self sufficiently. They do have a taste for our rations however, their food comes only from mushrooms and what passes for 'game' in the caverns, so dried fruits, nuts, beef jerky and vegetables proved very compelling. Sadly I was unable to get a shipment past the spider pit. As useful an obstacle as that creature is versus the rust monsters, I hope it chokes on that food. Finally we decided to bring a representative from the Githzerai up to meet the Dwerren and establish relations between the two people. A githzerai woman called Alina was appointed to accompany us, said to be trained in both sword and magical arts and able to cast their spell of translation. Incidentally, these Githzerai seem to either have a way to tap leylines without the permission of the area's regent, or have access to a parralel mebhaighl to that of Daikhar-Zhigun. The meeting with the King could have gone better, could have gone worse too. He was initially suspicious of these strange lost sidhelien and wanted to have them removed to the surface even against their wishes, however as they had offered their secret against the rust monsters he seemed to be more amenable to the idea of working together with them and would consult his advisors. Personally I think it's about time for Daikhar-Zhigun to make some allies of its neighbours, cooperation between my people and theirs would make clearing the new caverns much easier and exploitation of its resources more profitable. Until the conclusion of the Kingdom's policy determination we decided to leave the matter for now, equipping our patrons with the information we had discovered so far and returning to the Coohort to await further developments.

SESSION 35 - Rusty Ventures (1V) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter (Zilarrezko) Drake Darkwood, Human Sorcerer (Zilarrezko Hedrin, Dwerren Sorcerer (SlothSlow Phage, Human Cleric (Raven) Siegfried Morton, Human Cleric (Hats4Cats) Phage field report on her journey to Dwerren lands I Phage meet up with a call to go to the Dwerren lands of Daikhar Zhigan to meet with the King Kallen Pickbiter. Who was asking for help in dealing with bugs like monsters that has been rusting and eating their iron. I meet with two dwerren, A fighter Diesa and a sorcerer Hedrin. Then two other humans Drake the sorcerer and the old cleric Siegfried. There was another but I forgot about him and he went missing in the adventure. We arrived at the Dwerren hold with no issues and we meet with King Kallen Pickbiter very quickly. Diesa spoke with the king and translated to us. He told us that the dwerren opened up a new cavern with their recent expansion to grow the city. Since then these rust bugs have been attacking the dwerren and their iron supplies. They are orange in color and they travel in swarms. I have seen them first hand.  The king had given access for us to use higher magics in his domain and granted us some iron bits to be used for bait for the Rust monster we started to name them. For the magics, We had power for three days and strict rules were placed on us in the city. We then left to gather information on what the dwerren knew about our foe and the cavern we were going to explore. They told us they had no map and not much useful information was given to us about the layout of the new expansion. What they told us about the bugs, that they had hard shells and can cause iron to rust. Even hitting them can cause it to rust. They are not fearsome as an individual. The problem is that they tend to swarm and surround a foe.  When we entered the new expansion it looked like a natural cavern with a large hole in the middle of it. The hole was dark and we could not see the bottom of it. The party took interest in the hole and we did spot claw marks on the side of the deep hole. We decided to venture deeper in and found three dead bodies that were in some sort of spider like webbing. The creature skin were yellow and none of us have never seen or heard of a creatures like these.  Further down were we saw the bodies we found a fork in the cavern and coming from the north eastern passage a swarm of rust monsters were heading at us. Seeing that they outnumbered us nine to six. We decided to fall back and fight them near the giant hole. That is were the sawm split to move around the hole and to engage us. They are fast little bug and we did not learn to much info on the bugs fighting abilities. Due to the fact that none of them really attacked us. But we did attack them and they are not too hard to hit and are not too tough to take out. A few hits can kill one of them.  The problem was that out of the hole came out a giant spider. The spider attacked the small bugs and was eating them. It did not pay us much mind as the battle raged on. With the party and the spider the rust monster only escape barely. That is when the spider looked like it was going to turn on us. Seeing how it easily could have taken out one of these bugs with one hit. We disengaged and fled back to the city to recover from the fight and to plan for a better way to tackle the cavern and how to handle the spider. This was when we lost track of our sixth party member.  When we returned to explore again in the morning we spent some time to study the spider hole. We came to the conclusion that the hole is a portal to the Shadow realm. This has given me some interest I wont lie. A natural gate to the shadow realm so close to a dwerren fortress can be useful for studies of the shadow world. But the spider would need to be defeated first. Drake threw in a rope to take a better look down the hole but right as he did that the spider came out of the hole and we fled it. So be careful around the hole as the spider can attack any moment near it. We snuck past the hole and went back to the fork in the cavern. We saw the bug tracks heading north east and then we saw humanoid tracks heading north west. Curious about these strange yellow humanoids we went north west to explore. Not to far we found a hidden button and upon pressing it opened up to a hidden passage. There we found one of these yellow humanoids. It cast a spell to speak in our minds and asked us why we were here. We told it the truth and asked it what this new species called it self. It told us they call themselves as the Githzerai. It then told us to follow him, Which we did. We found deeper in the hidden passage a Githzerai camp. There we meet their leader and elder Oona. She told us that they were once a race of Sidhe that was banished into the shadow world by their kin. This was a very very long time ago and they had lost alot of knowledge to help us with some of our questions. They fled to where they are now because the shadow world became the home of Azrai/ The Cold Rider. They claim them to be the same being. They must be crazy to think that Azrai is still alive and that anyone would want to restore the God.  They also claimed that the Cohort Arcanum should not be trusted by them. But they were ok in interacting with us. They claim that once we betray the Githzarai and let many die for us to seal away a Primordial. They say this is very old information and that they had no proof of this, only stories. It could be possible but I think it is twisted in a way to make us look in a bad light. They did tell us about the weakness of the rust bugs. Which is silver which they had silvered weapons. We tried to trade with them but they did not want nothing but food and to trade with them food they would want a great sum of food. Which I think its not a good trade and if they would not want to even trade with them then what is the point in even trying. But the party still wanted to do something with these strange people. They convinced one of them to come back with us to talk to King Pickbiter. The Githzarai seemed to think that this new Dwerren expansion was an invasion of their lands and they would be hostile. The party did calm them down on that idea. We also learned that they know of a way to tap into the magic of the land without the Dwerren permission. They did not wish to share this information with us.  They sent a young Githzerai woman named Alina to make contact with the Dwerren people. King Pickbiter did not like meeting this woman and knew instantly that these people were that of the Sidhe and they were from the Shadow world. He did not trust her and I think we should trust the king judgement on this matter. The only thing they have that is useful was the knowledge of silver harming the rust monsters. Seeing that they don’t want to really trade and that they seem to see the dwerren as hostile and that we only set with them a truce at the moment. Not only the fact that they are being hunted by the Cold Rider which would put anyone protecting them in danger too.  I think we should not help these Githzerai. They are shady people. They do not trust the Cohort and the Dwerren. They have nothing to trade and do not want anything from us. They can also put people in danger from unknown enemies if we do help them. I think the Dwerren first opinion of them was the right call. We do not need to kill them or anything like that. We can just relocate them so they are not in the Dwerren expansion. This is not their original home also. I do not mind setting up another meeting with these people. Locating a new home for them and then transporting them to this new place if we are to come with an agreement. That is what I think of this matter. Phage

Session 36: Flumf is good at Dying. Hats4Cats  - Drago Depraved Lunatic  -  Shango Serephen - Cordelia SlothSlow - Korak Darvius  - Darvius Streetwolf  - Ingram Link S. – Hunter The group gathered at the Cohort Arcanum at the call of Korak our mission to discover the location of the burning tree and take a branch from it. Then to take this branch to the fey who could restore the barrier that was destroyed by a Red Dragon on a previous Cohort mission. After a brief discussion about the mission we headed out on boat for Kopingdal. There we traveled towards the Tarlhass mountains. I did discover at the beginning of this mission that Cordelia had taken the creature I had freed in the Bleak Holm dungeon Flumf as her familiar… It was just as annoying as I remember it. It never stops talking, I soon found myself ranging a bit away from the group as we traveled. On the third night of our travel we were awoken to the sounds of many creatures landing around us. A herd of Pegasi had flown in with several young. They looked quite injured and malnourished. We soon discovered from Cordelia that the creatures had been driven away from their homes by the Troll Sharpclaw. They also told us that the troll had the burning Tree within it’s lair. The pegasi agreed to fly us closer to the trolls lair in the morning. At this point we started to devise our plan. First, we discovered a good location to set up an ambush against the troll. We found a cliff side with many winding paths up the mountain and began setting up barricades, caltrops, and logs to roll down on top of Sharp claw as he ascended towards us. We also spent some time looking for a safe way down the mountain besides the path we discovered, and we found one as an exit plan. We spend five days preparing, on the fifth day Drago’s familiar spotted Sharpclaw heading towards us. My first task was to release the first set of logs onto Sharpclaw hopefully injuring him and cutting off his escape. I waited down the cliff side as the troll charged up, it moved incredibly quickly. However, as he came within range I cut the rope and the logs piled down on top of him as he ran up the cliff. His blood splattered all over the ground and he was nearly knocked off his feet as the logs crashed into him. The group above started firing ranged attacks at him as I scrambled up the rope towards them. Sharpclaw ran and hid against the cliff face biding his time as he regenerated his wounds. Eventually he started charging up towards us again. We had a second set of logs prepared. However, Sharpclaw figured out our plan and began climbing up the cliff face. Soon he was before us, and the first one on the front lines was Flumf! Indeed, Flumf is good at dying as Sharpclaw breathed flame out of his mouth incinerating Flumf. Soon he was right on top of several of our group. We continued to fire arrows and magical spells at him, Korak enchanted my bow then charged into fight him as well as Ingram. The battle was intense, and Ingram took a nasty bite from Sharpclaw. We watched in horror as Sharpclaw’s acidic bite popped one of Ingram’s eyeballs and he fell dying from the assault. However, then we had a breakthrough Drago’s magical blast hit Sharpclaw with magic that drained his life force, and his regenerating stopped! Quickly, we resumed the attacks and with arrows fired from Hunter and Myself the beast was finally slayed! We did not waste much time, decapitating the beast and healing Ingram as much as we could. Unfortunately, his eye was lost perhaps permanently. We began rushing down the mountain Korak had drank his potion of fire resistance in anticipation of Sharpclaw breathing on him and he only had an hour of it before it ran out. The dwarf was certainly not the fastest among us but he was the most determined. As all of us lost our endurance racing down the mountain Korak pressed onward…. Later when we finally caught up to him, he was sitting in the trolls cave severely burned but holding a piece of the burning tree in his hand. The now ever burning branch illuminated more in the Troll’s cave as piles of gold gems and items were discovered. Including, a great sword, a shield, and a spear. We gathered up all the items and explored the rest of the cave, though making sure to stay clear of the burning tree. There was also a stone altar circled with a magical circle, and two other circles, one of the circles had a magical drum that was animated by magic to play on its own. Cordelia claimed the drum. At this point we resolved to return to Kopingdal with the Troll’s head. The journey to find the Fey would have to await another day. On the way back we were attacked by creatures with many eyes and vicious mouths. They seemed to be put together by dozens of goblin bodies and some type of foul magic. Thankfully, they moved extremely slow and we were able to bring them down at range. There were four of them, and their voices worked their way into your mind trying to break your sanity. Though none of us succumbed to the madness.   At the King’s Court we were greeted as Heroes, and we feasted with the King and his men. Cordelia told a story about us defeating Sharpclaw from the backs of the Pegasi… I am starting to learn she has a habit of making up wild stories, and reflavoring the truth. With one mission complete, and part of the second done. We decided to return to the Cohort victorious. Having defeated an extremely powerful foe, and becoming one step closer to restoring the damage done to the Cohort’s reputation in the land. 

Session 36: Floof's Big Week Expedition Members Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats, Mentor) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S.) Ingram - Rjurik Fighter, level 1 (Streetwolf) Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 4 (SlothSlow, Mentor) Cordie - Cellwair Warlock, level 3 (Serephen, Mentor) Key items obtained: Branch from burning tree - currently held by Korak (As per usual, large chunks of Cordelia's log have been redacted due to being blatantly false or fantastical.) Another mission, supposedly easy. The others were all tense as we gathered up for it. The dwerren and the masked human were at the centre of it, but they didn't fight, so I got bored. I called upon my new companion Floof. Some of the others in the room seemed to have met him before. They were not happy to see him, but he seemed happy to be there so it all balanced out. The mission as it stood was to go searching for a special tree that would burst into flames when someone got close and take a branch from it so that we could go to the Feywild and meet The Fey, Fiele. I really couldn't pass up an opportunity to meet someone like that. We took a boat to one of the Rjurik territories. The young human started asking about a fire bird and the powerful troll that had been sighted around this area, but the other brushed off his concerns. I compared tattoos with him. His did not come from The Kraken. He has an appreciation for good hats, maybe one day he'll have a hat of his own. It won't be as good as mine though. ( written as though by a noodly tentacle appendage: FLOOF WAS HELPFUL. FLOOF WAS VERY QUIET FOR SLEEP. FLOOF IS GOOD AT BEING QUIET. YES.) One of the nights we were travelling the people on watch woke everyone up in a hurry. Some creatures landed near the camp and came over to investigate. They were horses with wings, someone called them Pegasi, a lot of smaller ones and one huge one. The young human offered to talk to them, but he didn't actually say anything so I think he might have lied about being able to talk to them. I talked to them instead. The one I spoke to was called Me, and it was very helpful ( FLOOF WAS ALSO HELPFUL. YES). They explained that they were here looking for food because they had been chased away from their normal territory by a mean troll that hurt them. They also told me that the troll had the fire tree in its cave, and that if it were fought inside the cave it would be practically immortal. I asked them if they would give us a ride closer to the troll's cave which they agreed to. The others wanted me to ask them to help us in the fight, which the pegasi did not want to do. I didn't blame them, I wouldn't help us if I were them. I was really sleepy at that point so I just told the others what they wanted to hear and then went back to bed. The next day we flew all the way over to a rocky mountain trail near the troll's cave. The others set to work preparing a plan for traps and fortifications and other such stuff, I just went and gathered food, which was more fun. Near the end of the planning and building and digging the young human said that his invisible friend had spotted the troll coming our way. So the fight was on slightly earlier than we thought. The troll was real smart, it naturally healed from wounds, and so it hid behind cliffs as it came up at us, taking moments to heal off the damage our ranged attacks and traps were doing. As it got near the top it waited for a good moment and then climbed up with surprising speed, avoiding half of our traps  (FLOOF WAS HELPFUL. FLOOF DIED. FLOOF IS GOOD AT DYING. YES. VERY GOOD AT DYING). Once it was among us it started trying to tear people apart, the big human got his eye bitten out, but it turns out that the trolls regeneration failed after being afflicted by necrotic damage. The young human had a spell similar to my witchy hex, so both of us were able to apply that sort of damage, and in the end it got killed for good. The dwerren took its head to scare away the goblins back at the cave and then immediately took off running. Turns out he had a potion that would let him resist fire, and he drank it when the troll reached us. I don't think that was smart, but maybe he just likes taking big risks, who am I to judge? We ran all the way there, but only the dwerren made it without stopping. When we caught up to him he told us that he got the branch. Maybe he did, or maybe he just found a stick on the way and singed himself to make us think he did. He doesn't seem much like me, so he probably didn't do that. We gathered up a whole bunch of gold and gems and stuff, as well as a magic drum. It plays itself. If I found more I could start a band with just one person. We sat down to summon Floof again (FLOOF WAS VERY HAPPY TO BE BACK.)  and then we headed back to the king of this area to tell him we killed the troll, for even more gold. On the way we were ambushed by some floating things that looked like a mess of corrupted flesh and goblin bits. Kind of like that big worm monster, only smaller and slower and much less dangerous. We stayed out of their reach and shot them all down. (FLOOF WAS ORDERED TO PANIC. FLOOF IS VERY GOOD AT PANICKING. YES. FLOOF DID GOOD.) Eventually we made it to the city, the guards let us see the king when we told them why we were there. The king probably wouldn't have believed us if we didn't have the head. He bet that nobody from the Cohort could do it. We showed him. I recounted an entirely accurate account of the events for him. He believed me and we all got to party. We had to return to the Cohort to report on the events, so I did not get to travel to the Feywild on this outing, but next time...

Session 36: Flumf is good at Dying. Expedition Members Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S.) Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 4 (SlothSlow, Mentor) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Cordie - Cellwair Warlock, level 3 (Serephen, Mentor) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats, Mentor) Ingram - Rjurik Fighter, level 1 (Ross a.k.a. Streetwolf) Excerpt taken from Ingram Alrikson’s letters to his parents.  ...It was really awkward. Usually, we’d meet in a tavern and have a round of drinks while discussing the mission. This time, we met in a large, dimly lit room. Hunter, the person that Korak looked like he was going to kill last month, joined us. Mom, Dad, you know from my previous letters - I’m not well-versed in situations like that. Weapons and armour are easy. You just hit them until they bend to your will. In this situation, there was nothing to hit, no fire to stoke. I just stood there. Well, that’s not entirely true. I heard the rumour that Hunter may join us, so I made your famous spelt cookies, Mom. I recall they made me feel better when I was a kid and I thought they’d help. They turned out a bit burned and I was too nervous to even mention them, so they just stayed in my pack.  Anyway, Korak led the mission again. We talked about protocols when dealing with the Firebird we saw last month and how speaking to it about our mission was tantamount to treason, the details of what we were looking for, and introductions of new members. Of specific interest was Cordie, a fellow Cohort member, and her familiar Floof. I still don’t know what the familiar was, but they looked and sounded like a sweet creature wrapped in a nightmare. Thankfully, we started on fairly quickly and soon after, we were on a boat back to Kopingdal.  We left Kopingdal and traveled through the southern forests to the mountains of Tarlhass. As we entered the mountain range, Darvius was able to sense the aura of the area, saying that it was reasonably powerful. I could study all my life and I wouldn’t be able to breathe and feel magic like he seems to be able to. The night before we began to explore the mountain range again, we were set upon by pegasi, led by one very large Pegasus. We were in awe of their grace and majesty - and disturbed by the injuries that they had suffered. Cordie seemed to have some sort of connection to them and was able to talk with the large Pegasus, who referred to themselves as “Me”. Me shared that their usual grazing areas was being occupied by a troll, who we immediately assumed was Sharpclaw - the one mentioned on the Cohort mission boards. The Pegasi continued to share that the Drachenwood tree we were looking for was in fact, in Sharpclaw’s cave. We offered to take care of them for the night and to rid the area of Sharpclaw if they could fly us nearby the troll’s cave. They agreed and we settled in that evening with the pegasi. I can’t describe how sweet these pegasi were and how furious I was at the creature that could harm them. I offered them the cookies I baked and they were kind enough to eat them.  In the morning, with the help of the pegasi, we flew to the troll’s cave. I can’t explain the feeling. I have a hard time running fast without tripping over my big legs, but this. It felt like we were part of the wind and the pegasi were the lords of speed. When I close my eye, I can still see the land below, dotted with the small tops of massive trees.  The preparation was grueling. We had discussed at length how to deal with Sharpclaw. Since it was rumoured to heal from fire and acid and would fling the bodies of the dead, it was a necessary conversation. We decided on building a course of sorts that would force Sharpclaw down the path that was advantageous to us. Over the next 6 days, we built barricades and laid traps while others gathered food and kept watch. We were almost complete, but on the last day of building, Sharpclaw appeared. He was a large monstrousity and it looked like he would be able to speak the tongue of the giant-folk, but I couldn’t tell whether it had intelligence or operated from pure instinct. Our makeshift structures seemed to effectively maneuver Sharpclaw around while our ranged combatants attacked. The coward hid and seemed to return from hiding stronger than before. Out of frustration, I cursed at him in Giant and he spoke in return! I was shocked and it made me take a moment of pause realizing we weren’t just dealing with a beast. On the path up, we were able to trigger one major trap and slammed a heap of about 30 feet logs against him. Eventually, Sharpclaw made his way up. I am not yet a ranged combatant. I am not yet a tactician. What I am the proud son of a Pine Guard and an honoured smith. So I ran up to Sharpclaw hoping that the armour I build would protect me so that I could protect my companions, knowing it likely wasn't enough. I was right and I ready for the strength of his bite. I found myself in deep darkness. The left side of my face was burning, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t see. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn I heard the voice of Vani and Erik calling me to rest. Before I could entertain the thought, my sight was restored - or at least partially. I was surrounded by companions and brought back up to my feet. The burning wasn’t stopping and I was told that the Sharpclaw’s acid had taken my eye. It was a lot to take in, but there was no time. In rapid fashion, we decapitated the brute and ran towards his cave. Korak had used some sort of potion to help with the fire that the Drachenwood used to defend itself and time was running out.  We burst ahead, but we all couldn’t keep up with Korak’s conviction. My wound was brutally painful, so I needed a moment. When we arrived at the cave, there was Korak standing - charred from head to toe, his beard missing about 9 inches off the end. And he was holding a branch from the Drachenwood tree. When you told me stories of past heroes, Dad, I cherished them hoping to be them one day. I didn’t realize I’d be surrounded by them or be a witness to the actions of one. Anyway, it was amazing and I was drained. I sat with Cordie as she read a book while the others explored the cave. They discovered a magic circle that seemed to be related to some ritualistic sacrifices. We found a shield, a greatsword, and a spear that looked notable while Cordie found a set of magical drums that seemed to create music on their own accord. There was also a set of bone dice, perhaps once owned by the goblins rumoured to have occupied the now abandoned cavern.  We made our way back to Kopingdal to let the King know of Sharpclaw’s demise. On the 4th day back, we were set upon by 4 atrocities - monsters that looked to be comprised of body parts from decaying goblins. Their bodies were covered in eyes and mouths and made a terrible sound. Thankfully, due to their slow nature, we were able to deal with them. The more troubling questions were where did they come from and why did they attack us? We returned to Kopingdal without further issues and shared the news (and the decapitated head of Sharpclaw) with the King. He celebrated us graciously and we spent the remainder of the day feasting and resting. It’s difficult to think about what to do next. Without my left eye, it’ll be challenging to go out again and to literally see the danger coming. Though, I can’t just hold up at the forge for the rest of my days. I need to adjust and make a way through this darkness. And I will. Somehow. Maybe I’ll make myself a batch of those cookies first. Erik knows I could use them.  With honour,  Ingram Alrikson, associate of the Cohort Arcanum and member of the Smiths’ Guild. 

Session 33: Mamm-a-rat (1N) 20th of November 2019 Participants Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue (Zilarrezko) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter, Human Fighter (Seraphina Leaf) Nim Thistlewit, Sidhewair Rogue (Summer) Portia Folkor, Human Fighter (Lena C) Teresa Eirwen, Human Ranger (Serephen) Zolis Ulmokina, Human Fighter (Lordgenome) Hello dearest reader! It is I again, Galena, your most humblest of authors. And this is my report on the expedition that I went on. It was to the city of Hollingholen in the country of Stjordvik. So I joined up with this bunch to kill some troublesome rats. Seems simple enough right? Easy money. Well apparantly not because some of these had been there before and didnt get it done. Seems some of the rats is magic and some of them are people-rats and theres a also big massive king rat in the sewers that rules them and likes parties and cannibalism. Turns people into rat people and then eats them. Nasty. That'll teach me to skip past logs before signing up. Anyways so we get on the boat and head off on a long sea voyage to get to Hollingmolen. Wasn't eventful but was really interesting. If you like seagulls. Which I do not. Once in the city the group went up to the castle and shouted up at the guards on the gate for a while. Well Mamm did. Being Rjuven herself she was the only one of us that spoke the local lingo. They said that things were pretty much in a state of stalemate in the great War of the Rat. Although I say the city is losing on the attrition front, we couldn't find a single cheese shop that hadn't closed down. Zolis was beside himself. After that we had strategy meeting. Based on the events of the last group the Ratking was pretty strong and probably only getting stronger as he feeds on his minions and stuff and they had a strong concentration of forces around the sewers under the Palace, also Ratking's lair. Plan then? We pop down in the other sewer areas, kill whatever ratty forces we find and pull out before reinforcements arrive and then keep doing this to wear 'em down. Genius right? I thought so. My idea after all. First attempt goes pretty well too. We drop down, shuffle along and find a door. Nim sees a rat guy in there so we open it. There's a fight with manueavering, dramatic misses, satisfying hits and all that and like half a minute later there's a group of dead ratmen at our feet. 3 Prisoners freed and handed over to the guard and chests full of coins to cart up. Also a map that tried to eat Teresa's face off. Most bizarre fucking thing I'd ever seen, they said it was a mimic. Dead now. Only other thing from that escapade was Mamm got a nick off one of the Ratties blades, it didn't seem serious at first but oh stones were we wrong there, turned out to be one of the worst poisons I'd ever heard of. She starts coughing up blood sos we put off fighting for the day and head to a nice inn to rest up. Apparantly the Cohort are well liked and we got a free suite, complete with baths! I hant ever had a proper actual bath with hot water like that before and it was so good. Why don't we got baths like that here? Thats what I want to know. Oh right, logs. The poison or whatever wasn't shifting even after a nice meal and a bath so we went out looking for a healer in town and got directed to some midwife. This old lady makes some nasty smelling concoction and tells Mamm to drink it down and sleep then either it works or it dont and she'll die. She sleeps and it dont. I've had a few bad mornings but that one ranks up there. They said something similar happened to the last group. Cordie apparantly got poisoned, though they didn't mention all the sweating and bleeding Mamm was doing. It was the King of Stjordvik what cured her, by squeezing a pimple until a whole copy of her popped out? So weird. Wish I'd seen it. Was hoping I'd get to see it again with Mamm but we went all the way up to the castle and the King had gone off on some diplomatic thingy and it would take near a week to catch up to him. Time we dint have. Luckily the guards said we could go see their Archdruid, a half-giant guy they called a Firbolg. His name was Hjorvaalm and he was from the Lands of the Siren, I guess Firbolgs hang out there? He gave Mamm another concoction. Thankfully after drinking it and having a nice sleep she woke up pretty much better. Except her hair had gone grey. And she'd grown a tail. And her ears had turned all ratty. Ratking is really determined to transform Hollingfolen's people into rats I guess. Guess we stopped it early here and Mamm was more than ready to get a bit of revenge so after a two-day delay we charged back down into a new section of the sewers. Barely a minute in though we falls into some kind of trap. Hear screaming up ahead in some chamber and spot a woman laying on the floor all helpless like surrounded by these swarms of rats. Normal-ish rats. Not ran people. Zolis and Portia rush in and the woman turns out to be a rat woman in disguise and sets her swarms on 'em. Oldest bloody trick in the book that. Really should have spotted it. So we fight. Let me tell you, this was a close one. Poor Zolis nearly gets eaten to the bone. The rat woman casts some sort of spell that took control of Mamm a second. Then I shoot the bitch right trough the neck. Rats were easier to finish off with their spellslinger dead then. We find a weird black writing tentacle thing on her though. Seems super nasty. Teresa drops it in a flask of holy water and it actually screamed I think. Meanwhile Mamm had a little bit of crisis since that control spell made her attack Nim. No one blamed her though, we all saw it was a spell. Guess the woman was already dealing with a lot what with the whole rat ear thing going on. Poor woman, wish I could do something nice for her. Anyway after the fight we take anything good and non tentacly off the ratwoman and poke around. We find a whole underground military complex down there. Barracks, common rooms, weapon sheds, archery ranges and crates of cheese packed to the rafters, all left empty like a little army had gone off on patrol. Really need to get back and take that cheese. With all the cheese shops closed we could make a fortune, corner Hollingtolen's dairy market! Getting ahead of myself though. Also find a right impressive looking chest thats locked up tight. Got a bit of a shock trying to open it 90% of the way, letting Nim get it the rest of the way. Inside there's this weird shiny glittering egg-shell thing. Weighs a ton for an egg shell and has a slot about half a foot wide that lets you put things in. Funny thing is, you can keep fitting stuff in it forever and it never gets full or weights any more. Think she called it Astral Dragon's egg. Neat trinket for sure. Before we can find any more interesting stuff to steal we hear the occupants coming back. Maybe twenty or thirty of 'em. So we sets their armory and beds on fire and then flees back up to the city. Think everyone had enough then, plus I needed to comb my hair something awful since it was all sticking up from the lightning chest. And that's that one.

Session 36: Floof + Troll = Dead Floof Cast: Darvius (Darvius) Shango (Lunatic) Drago (Hats4Cats, Mentor) Hunter (Link S) Ingram (Streetwolf) Korak (SlothSlow, Mentor) Cordie (Serephen, Mentor)   Written by Hunter Layton   I’ve gotten beaten, scarred, and knocked out multiple times since Urkenhame was destroyed. I’m also certain I was cursed. Yes, “was”. This mission was very successful. Slightly unrelated note, DAMN IT FLOOF, that is all. On to the mission!   We met in one of the larger rooms in the Cohort. Korak, thankfully, took charge of the group, before Drago could claim it… They were not, what’s the best word? “thrilled” to see me. Our mission? To find and collect a tree branch…..probably doesn’t sound that great out of context, but it’s specifically a branch from a tree that lives in the Troll’s cave and sets itself on fire when someone gets close to it. Yes, it is that troll, Sharpclaw. Granted we didn’t know where the tree was initially, and we all wanted it not to be in the troll’s cave.   As we were travelling, we had a rather interesting encounter in the night. A….flock? of pegasi decided to investigate our camp. They were forced out of their homeland by Sharpclaw and some were injured. We did what we could, using some of our rations to feed them and Korak using some of healing magic. These majestic creatures must be protected!   As a return gift, they let us ride them to the mountain range, cutting our travel time from several days to a few hours. We decided rather than facing Sharpclaw in his liar, we decided to build traps on the side of a mountain which included basic wooden barricades, log traps, and a group of archers. We would have also had some pits, but he decided to find us one day before we were ready. Thankfully we had scouts in place and saw him coming.   We made do with what we had but couldn’t stop him completely from getting up the mountain. Apparently, he knew how to climb. Ingram had an eye bitten off and Korak had to his use fire resistance potion early. We immediately began to charge towards the empty cave. I tripped on an unexpected hole, but they kept on without me…I do better in the forest anyways.   When I had caught back up, Korak had managed to get the branch we needed, and we found the gold hordes that Sharpclaw keep “hidden”. Somehow, Sharpclaw was performing some necromancy with his goblin “friends” and a self-playing drum. There was an extra bedroll hidden in the caverns, and I’m almost positive there’s someone else who was teaching Sharpclaw necromancy or controlled him somehow? Regardless, we got out and went to the city to turn in Sharpclaw’s head.   On the road back to civilization, a group of four balls of floating flesh and eyeballs found us. We could see the various goblin bodies that had formed the flesh balls poking out of the “creatures” mouth. We made quick work of them and continued on our way the next morning.   Once we got to our destination, we had a feast and took our reward home to divide up amongst each of us. Cordie apparently told we fought from the backs of the peagasi; that is false, but makes for a great story. To any druids or healers reading this, please go back and find them, I do not want anyone else to suffer – especially by my hands. I will personally like to ask to allow me to join on the next expedition and find the Fey? Wait, what did I miss? I need to read the logs…

Session 36: Flumf is good at Dying Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats, Mentor) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S.) Ingram - Rjurik Fighter, level 1 (Ross a.k.a. Streetwolf) Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 4 (SlothSlow, Mentor) Cordie - Cellwair Wizard, level 3 (Serephen, Mentor)  Items of Note: Burning Branch from Tree. A two-handed sword, Shield & Spear. 5 Vails of Trolls Blood. Gems. Bone Dice. Magic Drum, Magic Crystal for Focus.  Right, so we all were grouped in the Cohort. Everyone seemed on edge. Not sure why like, well I know why Hunter and Korak were looking at each other. Hunter was drunk, never seen him turn up drunk for a mission before. It reminds me of Shango. Well reminds me of Korak but he a Dwarren so it's not the same, I'm pretty sure it does different things to them. There were giving each other the eye, I know why like but Korak wasn't burning the chair he sat in, sooo.. until that sets fire I'm anti going to worry about it. We also had Darvius there. He's got a reputation for being really skilled around this place, never traveled with him yet tho. We also had Ingram, traveled with him once and he was able to stop some people killing me cause I talked in their head, I hope that won't happen again. There was also a girl with a big hat, wouldn't let me try it on tho, and she never takes it off. Guessing she got a really pointy head. Like I pyramid under that thing. She nice, likes to play with her words that one. Her familiar is weird, tentacle gas thing? It anti boring tho so that's good. We sobered Hunter off during the trip over and started off heading straight out towards the mountains, think Shango might still be giving him some drink from his wooden jar thing but I didn't say anything. When we reached the mountains we ran into these Bird horses. Looked dead soft, Korak was acting like a baby over them. Feeding em and stroking em. Hugging em. I mean, he really has a soft spot for fluffy things like, might start to bring a Rabbit with me on missions encase Korak gets all sad about Drachenward, he got a big heart ya know but doesn't want people to know about it. We told em about the Cohort and how its got loads of food. You see Cordi was able to talk to them and I wasn't even able to do that! I going to have to learn what that spell that was so I can. She told the horses that the Cohort has loads of food. They not been able to eat because of Sharpclaw. He has been taking all the food and some of the little ones looked hurt. Strange tho, in the morning they looked much better. I'm not saying Korak healed them during the night why he was on watch but he did like. I can tell how he was grinning at them in the morning. He thinks we can't see thought his beard. They offered to take us to the Troll but said the fire tree was in his cave, that's why no one can kill him.  They gave us a lift, flying is amazing! I can't wait to learn how to do it. I'm never going to stop! Why flying Shango and Hunter searched for a good spot to fight the Troll. They found a really good mountainside with loads of steep hills and valleys. They both have a really good eye for these things. Darvius started telling us how we need to defend the area to make it harder for the creature to get us. We had people building traps, ropes to escape, back up plans and even digging. We were going at this for 5 ish day until the troll Sharpclaw came up. Guess he saw what we were doing cause he didn't look pleased. Lucky Aryella was scouting for me. She spotted him a mile away.  The battle was fun, Ingram lost an eye to it when Sharpclaw almost bite him in half. Poor guy still looked like he hasn't improved at all. Must be a slow learner. Hunter so scary with a bow ya know, he even hit the Troll when in full cover. Darvius lived up to his reputation and Korak was just pissed. I think in both ways? Felt sorry for Shango spent all his time at a log trap and didn't get to use it. Cordie seems like she's a really good wizard, she got a book and hat and does cool looking blasting spell and talks to animals. Really hope she will teach me that animal spell, I know I'm going to a buy a big hat and then she will have to teach me.  I don't know why but Korak used his potion during the fight, one given to him to protect him from the magic fire so he could get the tree branch. He had to run off right after the fight so it didnt run out, I couldn't keep up at all. When I got to the cave his hair was burnt and had a stick that was on fire. We found the tree inside didn't go near it tho. We found loads of stuff in the cave. Piles and Piles of gold and gems. Like HUGE PILES. The cohort is going to tax us. We found a sword and shield and spear. Think I listed most things. Cordi used the time to cast a spell on the troll's head to stop it rotting. Told me she was able to learn it from a book from the Cohort but didn't say which one it is. I mean, if its the book I wanted to look at I doubt she be able to walk around with it, Il check the logs once I'm done. I wonder if they would let me look at it.  On the way back we got attacked by some really slow-moving monsters. I'm not sure what they were doing but glad I didn't get close. They didn't seem too friendly. We killed em and didn't really stay around for long. When back we took the trolls head to the king man about the area. He was happy like, gave us a huge reward and feast. Aye nice be outside the wall of the Cohort than the cells. Called me Drago the Silver in honor of working for us. Hope she don't mind like, doubt she will. 

Session 36: Floofs Big Week Present Adventurers: Korak Flomhelm ( SlothSlow ) Darvius ( Darvius ) Hunter Layton ( Link S. ) Ingram Alrikson ( Ross ) Dragomir the Silver/Black ( Hats4Cats ) Cordelia Woodwytch ( Serephen ) Shango Bayu ( Lunatic ) Short Summary: -We traveled to Kopingdal. -We encountered a herd of Pegasi, which where chased away by Sharpclaw -Sharpclaw is assumed to possess atleast a branch of the Drachentree -Spent a few days setting up a battlefield -Sharpclaw arrived during last bits of construction -Sharpclaw falls. -We collect the branch and some Items. -We were attacked on our way back by eldritch horrors. Full description: We gathered at the Cohort Arcanum tavern. I gotta say, the situation started off tense. If looks could kill, Hunter would've died enough times to be reborn as an insect. I also met one of the cutest beings in the entire world. Floof. A lot of people were displeased when he appeared, but I love him already. But I digress. We set off after briefly discussing our objective for this trip. After arriving at Kopingdal, we went straight for the Tarlhass Mountains.After two days of travel, Darvius and I noticed the arrival of a group of Pegasi. We woke the other up and socialised with the creatures for a moment. Cordie and Drago attempted to talk to their presumable pack leader, as that was one big winged horse. The former managed to converse with the animals, which lead to us learning that the Drachentree we were looking for was indeed in Sharpclaw's den. The creatures were chased out of their usual hunting grounds, which explained their injuries. One of them let me pet it while feeding it. Quite an experience. The next day we rode the Pegasi towards Sharpclaw's den, after which they took to the skies. We spent an amount time planning how we were going to approach Sharpclaw.After finding a suitable slope for an ambush, we started setting up exactly that; an ambush. Ingram brought logs, Korak created the tools for the job, Cordelia looked for food, Drago and Hunter were on scouting duty and Darvius and I started on the construction. We had logs set up, to roll down upon Sharpclaw, also barricades and caltrops to slow his advance.  As we started to dig holes in front of easy to scale walls, Sharpclaw made his appearance prematurely. So we got into formation to face him. This was primarily a war of attrition, as we rained projectiles down upon him, while he regenerated. He managed to dodge all of our barricades and caltrops and with that, also the logs I had prepared to cut loose. Oh well, we finished him off quickly once he was on our height, as Drago and Cordie managed to stop him from regenerating. Even I got to do something, as my ranged capabilities are more than lacking... I should probably learn archery from someone at some point.  After we cut off his head to present later, we made a run towards the Drachentree, before Korak's additional fire resistance fades. He was the only one who made it though, he was unrelenting. We found a sacrificial altar, probably the one Sharpclaw got so much power from. We found Korak singed and mostly safe with a glowing branch in his hand. Probably the Branch we fought Sharpclaw for. We got some gold, some gems and a few magical items. One that stood out was a drum that was beating itself. Weird. On our way back, we were ambushed by some fleshy, disgusting amalgamation of goblins of several types. Probably got squished together by something through Sharpclaw. We put the poor beasts to rest and continued our journey towards Kopingdal, to present Sharpclaw's head to the King. At his thronehall, we were met with a very surprised king, who hadn't expected that the Cohort would be able to fix their troll problem. Better even, he BET against us! Tsk tsk. Cordie told our story of beating Sharpclaw... albeit, a bit exaggerated. With lots of artistical expression. We were then promptly invited to feast with the king. All in all, a successful endeavor. Let's hope that we can fix the relationships with Urkenhame very soon! -Signed, Shango Bayu

Session 36: Goof Of a Floof Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats, Mentor) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S.) Ingram - Rjurik Fighter, level 1 (Streetwolf) Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 4 (SlothSlow, Mentor) Cordie - Cellwair Warlock, level 3 (Serephen, Mentor) Objects in (...) are only written in the version sent back home to his people.      This will be my second outing to make amends with the people of Drachenward. To my surprise many members came to my call this time, my guess is the promise of meeting The Fey lured many curious minds into the cause. I do hope I am just overthinking things and that these members truly wanted to help the cause. (While I waited one by one my companions filtered into the room and took there seats with not much idle chat. Drago, a strange boy recently removed of some evil came to my aid. The boy I have grown fond of and have stock in making sure he takes the path of light and strays away from committing foolish deeds. Ingram, a seemingly simple man who has a kindness about him, very careful in his actions but I am unsure of his combat ability just yet as that creature never gave the man a chance to help. Cordie, a tricky one, she has potential but spins tall tales more outlandish than ole Goatsbreath and the familiar she carries with her is damn annoying. Shango, the man has his quirks but is indeed a good fighter, if he learns how to fight with the rest of the group effectively he will be a fierce ally. Darvius, the man is quite skilled and knowledgeable from what I have seen so far he will certainly make a good ally. Lastly there is Hunter... he is the reason I am in this mess to begin with, lying to his comrades and his foolish actions caused the deaths of many innocents. Even still he is a skilled fighter and seems to be looking for redemption, I just wonder if it is too late, the people of Urkenhame will do what they will.) Those reading the other logs from this mission and the ones from our last will know why the situation was tense between me and another. I would have swapped words with him if the sorry state he arrived in did not put me off of it. If he truly wishes to repent and try to correct his actions so be it. Before heading out we went through and let it be known what information we had about the wood and where we would be searching for it. Kopingdal port then to the Tarlhass mountains were our destination and only took us a few uneventful days to get there, though I nearly wanted to jump ship to avoid that "Floofs" annoyances.      The king was not too happy last time we went there for any business other than the troll so we decided to just move on from the city without really bothering anyone since last time the information we got was not the most interesting. We traveled southwest for a few days uneventfully making our way to the mountain range that the caves were laying inside of. During one night we were resting and were happened upon by some beautiful white winged horses called pegasi. Did you know that if you scratch the area where their neck meets their rib-cage they quite enjoy it? Oh and also inside of the ridges of the jaw I can't imagine them being able to get to those areas very easily on their own so I took one into my lap to make sure it was taken care of. Cordie meanwhile weaved a spell and was talking to the big one (she can be tricky but I have to admit the information gathered here was detrimental to our victory so the girl has my thanks and it seems like it would be quite nice to speak to animals. ) She learned that the troll had hurt these poor creatures and that the Drachenwood was in the cave. To thank the creatures I gave them medical treatment during my shift and healed them in the morning. They gave us a ride while I scouted out the area for an encampment to hold our fight against this creature Sharpclaw. The ride was quite amazing only second to when Silver carried us, it is hard to be quite as majestic as a dragon but anyways. We found our defensive location and began to plan and work.     We made a great plan of falling logs and traps for our foe to have to face in order to reach us, it would take us six days in order to complete these encampments. Myself, Ingram, Shango, and Darvius all aiding in construction while Cordie did well at finding food. Drago and Hunter were on the lookout for enemies, after five days of work Dragos new little familiar spotted Sharpclaw on its way. We steeled ourselves to ambush this creature and did so successfully, the massive set of logs dislocated one of its arms and looked like it hurt quite a bit. To our dismay though this creatures arm shifted back into position and it continued its assault. We barraged it with arrows (Though I do not want to admit it on the public logs Hunter did quite well at damaging this creature and making it think twice about rushing us.) and it eventually decided to hide and do things a little smarter. It worked its way up the cliff and eventually got to Floof, the thing died instantly though I was not too saddened by the small moment of quiet I got by its demise. The creature did waste some of its time attacking the thing though and we were able to get some extra shots in. It climbed up the side of the cliff and was ready to assualt Cordie who stood about 1/20th this things size wisely ran away. Poor Ingram was bit in the head and had his eye burned out by acid, I hope to fix this issue for him one day. After a barrage of arrows and hits Drago used some magic on him from the necromancy school and we learned that this shut down its healing factor! Until then this creature would instantly heal anything we did to it. Once this trait was gone it did not take much more for us to kill the creature.      We were all ready to sit there and celebrate but I had used the potion of fire resistance and the clock was ticking on its usefulness. We all made a mad dash to the cave and the others started to fall behind, my determination to make it and do this deed pushed me onward. I arrived to the cave barely able to breath. I noticed some strange drums beating, nothing in this cave could be good of nature so I blasted them away. I searched the cave and just noticed piles of junk and some evil looking sacrificial mound. I pressed further into the cave and saw some treasure, it was nice and all but I needed to press onward and find the tree. I did not need to look much further until I found it. The tree was quite beautiful but I knew of its danger. I steeled my resolve and pushed into the heat the thing blasting me with vicious heat before I grabbed a branch off of it and again it intense heat struck me. I fear that without all the boons I had gotten from the Kalanon, Queen Freya, and during the Festival feast I would not be here writing this log. Though my beard did pay quite a price in its length. We decided we were all beaten badly enough and scooped up the treasure the creature had left behind and headed out from the cave. Cordie grabbed those evil drums and decided to take them with.     After leaving the cave we headed back to Kopingdal with our bounty in hand. The first night we got peaceful rest and I was able to tend to some of my burns and we continued onward. During our journey some foul amalgamation of goblin body parts set upon us. we were surrounded by them and I feared the worst. But then the most amazing thing happened, everyone focused on a single target. These creatures were slow and as long as you did not get near them they could not do anything to us. And so we eventually picked them apart at range. We gave the "creatures" a burial by fire so that they no longer taint the land. When we got back to the city we arrived victorious and Cordie spun a tall tail of us riding on pegasi and attacking the creature from the sky. We were treated as heroes and had a marvelous feast with the trolls head being the centerpiece for our merriment. This adventure was quite successful and I wish my other companions well in their journeys and may The Fey smile upon us. 

Festival: The Gathering of the Hunt Present: Darvius (Darvius) Mamm (Seraphina Leaf) Agatha (Summer) Prudence (Lena C.) Teresa (Serephen) Diesa (Zilarrezko) Fenris (Hats4Cats) Agatha receives of a diamond of the morning star for her placement in the Mage's Dual. This diamond can be used to restore one 1st level spell slot per day. Alternatively it can be shattered, instantly restoring all of your spell slots of 3rd level or lower. However when used in this fashion it is permanently destroyed. Prudence receives Incense of the Huntress. These special incense are used by hunters when chasing down very important prey. When burned these incense double your overland movement as well as the overland movement of up to 4 of your companions for one day. Note that this item has no effect on in combat movement, only overland (10 uses). Teresa receives 3 glainne arrows as well as a good quality longbow. Mamm receives a great quality longsword. Diesa receives a fine khinasi stallion complete with chainmail barding. Monster XP N/A Quest XP N/A RP XP Everyone who attended the session receives 500XP for great RP! Exploration XP N/A Log XP Everyone who wrote a log receives 150XP! Total XP 650XP Renown, Fame, and Infamy Agatha, Prudence, Teresa, Mamm, and Diesa each receive 10 points of renown with Roesone. Additionally Agatha, Prudence, and Diesa each receive 1 point of fame in Anuire. Teresa and Mamm receive 2 points of fame instead. Darvius, Tarkus, Fenris, and Korak each receive 1 point of infamy in Roesone for humiliating the lady Angelwing. Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Additionally each player receives an extra 0.1 bronze passes for their great RP, and a fun session! 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 33 (1N): More Rats! Present: Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 4 (Seraphina Leaf) Portia Folkor; Anuirean Fighter, lvl 4 (Lena C) Teresa Eirwen; Anuirean Ranger, lvl 4 (Serephen) Nimogene 'Nim' Thistlewit; Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 3 (Summer) Zolis Ulmokina; Khinasi Fighter, lvl 3 (Lordgenome) Galena Aban â thu; Dwerren Rogue, lvl 2 (Zilarrezko) The King gives the party 300 golds (after taxes) for their efforts. This comes out to 50 golds per person, or 25gp per person. Monster XP 105XP for monsters Quest XP 100XP for vanquishing some of the rats, stealing some of their supplies, and burning part of their hideout. RP XP 150XP for great RP! Exploration XP 0XP Log XP 150XP to Mamm, and Galena for great logs! Bonus XP 300XP for having to end the session early Total XP 655XP to Portia, Teresa, Nim, and Zolis 805XP to Mamm and Galena Renown, Fame, and Infamy +5 Renown in Stjordvik 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 34 (1O): A Mage's Nightmare Present: Jannis (Physh) Rob Boss (Depraved Lunatic) Brognir Bronzehelm (Ryan B.) Orithar Trisk (Hats4Cats) Monster XP 50XP for surviving. Quest XP 100XP for exploring more of the tower. RP XP 150XP for great RP Exploration XP 50XP to Orithar for updating the map. Log XP 150XP to Orithar, and Brognir 175XP to Jannis Total XP 300XP to Rob Boss 450XP to Brognir 475XP to Jannis 500XP to Orithar Renown, Fame, and Infamy N/A (balanced out considering what happened with the guards).. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 35 (1V): Rusty Ventures Present: Diesa Gemfire (Zilarrezko) Drake Darkwood (Link S.) Hedrin (SlothSlow) Phage (Ryan B.) Siegfried (Hats4Cats) The party are awarded with 200 golden hammers (after tax) for bringing back information pertaining to the cavern, and making progress on the mission (40gh or 20gp per person). Monster XP 40XP per person for defeating some of the rust monsters. Quest XP 200XP per person for mission progress RP XP 150XP for great RP! Exploration XP 50XP per person for discovering more of the cavern. 50XP to Diesa for the map! Log XP 175XP to Diesa, and Phage for great logs! Total XP 440XP to Drake, Hedrin, and Siegfried 615XP to Phage 665XP to Diesa Renown, Fame, and Infamy 1 Renown (Githzerai), and 5 Renown (Daikhar Zhigun) per person. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 36 (1U/1M): Floof's Big Week Present: Drago (Hats4Cats) Shango (Depraved Lunatic) Cordelia (Serephen) Korak (SlothSlow) Darvius (Darvius) Ingram (Streetwolf) Hunter (Link S.) The party are awarded with 2,000 golds from King Uldviik Varrigsson of Hjolvar (1,800 golds after taxes). The Council of The Cohort Arcanum also rewards Drago, Shango, Cordie, Darvius, and Ingram with 50gp each. In addition inside of Sharpclaw's cave the party found 476 golds, 535 pots (the currency), and 893 traveler's coins (429g, 482p, 804tc after taxes). The party also found a ruby worth 25gp, a diamond worth 50gp, a saphire worth 33gp, and an opal worth 12gp (not taxed yet). Finally the group found a Greatsword, a spear, a drum, and a set of bone dice. The Greatsword is of good quality. The set of bone dice, the spear, and the drum are all important items as labeled by The Kallanon. The branch that Korak retrieved is also labeled as an important item. It functions as an everburning torch in addition to its other value. Monster XP 485XP per person for defeating Sharpclaw, and the monstrosities you found out in the woods. Quest XP 500XP per person for completing mission 1M 215XP per person for making progress on mission 1U RP XP 150XP per person for great RP! Exploration XP N/A Log XP 150XP to Darvius, Cordie, Ingram, Hunter, Drago, Shango, and Korak Total XP 1,500XP to everyone (everyone wrote a log!) Renown, Fame, and Infamy +3 Fame (Rjurik), +20 Renown (Hjolvar), +10 Renown (Hjolvar Pegasi), and +1 Renown (The Cohort Arcanum) for everyone. Passes Each player receives 0.1 Bronze Passes (When you get to 1 you receive 1 full Bronze Pass). Korak (Sloth) receives one silver pass for risking his life to retrieve the branch! 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here.

Session 37 (SPECIAL) - Morrendeeper 27/11/2019 Participants; Agatha Duskhart, Awenshegh Sorceror/Warlock (Summerr) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter/Wizard (Zilarrezkko) Mamm Bealdaartsdottir, Humon Fighter (Seraphina Leaf) Predance Duskhart, Alseid Druid (Lena) Teresa Eirwen, Human Ranger (Serephen) Halie Thistledown, Human Champion (NPC) Field Report on the Expedition to Morrendeep Submitted to the Duty Sergeant, Grand Hall of the Cohort Arcana Report Prepared by Diesa Gemfire, Assistant Investigator of the Cohort Relevant Previous Log Entries for this expedition; #024 Since the previous attempt on Morrendeep Teresa and I have been training and preparing for another venture into that lost city. The others of our previous expedition were unavaible however, having departed for other issues. In their stead though the Duskhart sisters and Mamm answered our call. We were also joined by another Knight of Roesone, Lady Halie Thistledown, one of Baroness Marlae Roesone's retinue. The Baroness being an aquitance of both our team and Teresa's sister offered her support to recover her. Sadly we did not find Teresa's missing sister but we made more progress in exploring and learning the situation there. Firstly it is confirmed that the 'statues' in the corridors and rooms are indeed Dwerren that have been petrfied by some foul magic. Secondly this magic has been perpetrated by a creature that Prudence identified as 'the Medusa'. In appearence the Medusa resembles an attactive human or sidhelien woman but her 'hair' is made of living serpents and her gaze has the power to turn people to stone. How or why she has made this lost city of Dwerren her lair is unknown but it seems that she has. She also has the power to animate these petrified statues of her victims when in her presense and command them. In defending ourselves against these statues we regretably had to destroy many of them so I fear those ones may never be recovered. The others however could perhaps be restored if we can find a way to break the Medusa's curse. This is something we will begin looking into with urgency not only for the Dwerren but this may well be the fate of Teresa's sister and the other Cohort members that went missing in that place. Attached is a map made to the best of my recollection. According to examinations by Laen Glass the strength of the Mebhaighl in The Promontory and around the Khurinlach is 2/5, however within Morrendeep itself the connection is much stronger, 5/9. Who or what in there has taken the Regency of the city? The Medusa is a likely answer given the power we have seen her weild. However I am still convinced that there is some involvement with the Beholder, quite what that is however remains a mystery to me. The skeletons we encountered in the Archer Overlook marked by the entrance on the bottom of the map were still present from our last encounter. Happily however, while they are deadly to the unprepared, they are extremely simple, perhaps even more so than the ones I encountered in Coullabhie. When we entered from the lock Teresa conjured her Danciing Lights in a vaguely humanoid shape on the water ahead of us and the skeletal archers mindlessly poured their fire into it for over a minute before stopping. Out of caution Agatha cloaked us in magical darkness before we proceeded to row forward. We later learned that they stopped firing only because they had ran out of arrows rather than realising that they had been tricked as Teresa did the same just outside the arrow slits of the place marked Guard Room. When the arrows stopped we could still hear their bows twanging as the skeletons tried to keep shooting the humanoid shaped light. Examining them, the skeletons were Dwerren. Possibly former residents of the city? Were they rasied by the Medusa or something else? Another question. They were not difficult to destroy. Our company also recovered a number of adamantine weapons from the guard room. Near the Guard Room and the entrance Overlook there are strange caverns carved out of the rock. A small number of broken statues were seen in there as well as a pit and two passages leading off southeastwards. We did not explore this area much further. Could the pit here be a sappers tunnel to the one by isolated keep section on the other side of the entrance chamber? If so this would be useful to establish on a future expedition. While the skeletons are not as a great a threat the canal waters do hide much more dangerous predators. Near the docks we encountered a truly enormous water beast called a Crocodile. The passage from the docks to the rest of the complex goes through an open area near the water and the beast attempted to attack and drag one of us into the water as we passed. Teresa's quick thinking with a fog cloud to blind it and illusions to distract it managed to prevent it from causing any harm this time but being able to bypass such creatures would be helpful. Lessening the amount of time any company needs to spend here in a vulnerable rowboat or near the waters is a good idea. North of the guard room is a shrine. Three pillars on either side of the room flanking a grimy dais of some sort in the middle of the room. An unsettling statue of a humanoid face occupies the north wall of the chamber. It has two glowing red jewels set in the eyes. Likely some sort of strange magics are at work in this room. Teresa spied a number of humanoid, and specifically human, tracks in the dust on the floor. The tracks all came and stood on the dais and then left the room. We declined to follow suit. The other creature we encountered, if it can even be called a creature, was on the northern of the two bridges on the map. It came out from the westward passage, as the Medusa herself later did. It was almost impossible to see until it got close and Teresa alerted us. The thing was a transluscent cube made of some kind of highly acidic gelatin. A Gelatinous Cube. The acid was so strong it nearly ruined even the adamantine warhammer that Mamm struck it with. The thing moves slowly but is capable of rapidly engulfing creatures close to it. It can also extend strange prehensile appendages from its body to attack with. It can be burnt by fire but the best way to deal with it seems to be to stay back and pepper it with ranged attacks. Enough hits seem to cause it to lose cohension and collapse into a noxious puddle. Try not to step in it. During the fight with this gelatinous cube our company deployed the Thunderwave spell. It was not long after this that the Medusa made her appearence and set the petrfied statues against us. It is possible that the loudness of the spell is what alerted her to our presense. If so, attempting to keep quiet as much as possible should be a priority in future expeditions. The number of statues in the corridors and rooms of Morrendeep is quite considerable and forced us to retreat. The company must have fought against twenty to thirty at once as we treid to escape and may well have been overwhelmed without Prudence's powerful magical trampling able to knock and break so many. Once clear of Morrendeep we composed a letter to Overthane Grimm. Due to the political situation in Baruk-Azhik however we kept it light on details and our identities and simply explaining that members of the cohort had found Morrendeep and encountered the Medusa as well as her ability to petrify and command victims.

Session 38 (SPECIAL) - Lost in Translation 28/11/2091 Participants; Ant, Dwerren Barbarian (Seraphina Leaf) Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue (Zilarrezko) Lolgon Shoulgen (SlothSlow) Nim Thistlewick (Summer) Portia Folkor (Lean C) Orithar Trisk/Fenris Nathair (Hats4Cats) Hello again friends! Its your favouritest log authorator galena. Here again to give you another tale of high adventure, herring do and grand intrigues! Just joking none of that happened. There was a coutroom drama though and a magical curse. But let's start at the begining shall we. So. Last time I went out on an adventure it was to kill some rats over in the city of hollingkolen. Only they ent ordinary rats right, well some of them are. But others are like half-rat half-people types. And they have these poisons that give you the rat plague. The rat plague is bad. It kills you and it turns you into a rat-person. Twice members of the cohort has got it when fighting them. Luckily they got cured. Mostly. When I was there it was done by this big furry bloke called archdruid hjorvaal and he was a firbolg who had come from the siren's realm. Sos I posted up a request for people to come with me and visit there thinking that if they've got these cures they may have something to stop the disease in the first place. Ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure and all that right? They do say that I think. Got the group together. Good lot I think, got nim who knows some good tricks. Portia and ant who can fight. Lolgon who has got a flying griffin which is pretty and has big claws. Also this half-orog bloke called orithar who says he's a powerful wizard. Also was the only one of us that spoken the local language. He spoke the language for like two minutes when we got off the boat and got himself arrested. I told you there'd be a courtroom drama. You see weird squeeky bloke in posh clothes came squawking down the docks when gara, that's the griffin bird, stepped off the boat. I cant say what they were saying cos like I said, only orthiar spoke rjuven. Plus I was interested in a knife-fight going on in the warehouse next to us. Didnt have time to make a bet cos the guard came up and escorted us off to the siren's palace. Lots of white marble, gilt edges and stuff, very pretty but too clean. Like youre not actually supposed to live in it. We waited in side room with a nice handsome knight who spoke Brecht. Apparantly orithar was accused of trying to bribe the posh bloke. His name is lord ledgerman by the way, the posh bloke, not the handsome knight. Never got his name unfrotunately. Orithar claims that ledgerman asked to be bribed. He said the same thing in the court and then they cast this circle of truth spell on him after that he admitted it though. I'm getting that second hand though, the trial was in rjuven. Mostly. The siren doesnt speak. She is super pretty. Like awesomely so and has these great big wings too which are weird but in a good weird. But they say her voice kills those that hears it. So she writes stuff down or makes gestures with her hands. A little bit like some forms of the cant. Anyway after orithar confesses to the court they drag him off and start talking about what theyll sentence him with. We get given a chance to address the court to speak for him. Some of them also speaks brecht and the siren knows it even if she cant say stuff in it. Tried to explain that we was there on like a mission of mercy to help out with the whole rat plague and speak to the firbolgs and that to show he wasnt really so bad. They bought it well enough but you wouldn't know it from the sentence. Two months in prison for attempted bribery. But thats down from six at least. Great start eh? Our translator thrown in prison. What else could we do after that but go to the pub. Found a good place called the wild rooster in. Right nice it was, owner is a good bloke too. Spoke sidhelien and had a wide selection of drinks. Also pointed us in the direction of this great translator called laura. She speaks ten languages, including karamhul, giant and draconic. She's usually very nice but also called me ugly I think. But she's dumb and weak so whatever. Oh also fenris nathair was there. Apparantly captain laila heard about the shit orithat got into and let the elf out the hold so he could replace him. In the end we didn't need the help but it was a nice thought. I should buy her a drink next time shes in port on fabrica. Carousing and translator hiring done with we got back on track in the morning. Laura knew where the main settlement of firbolgs was and it was near a full days walk out from port helen, the siren's capital. I wonder why its called after helen. That wasnt the sirens real name. Dont think the dusk man was called helen. Anyway on the journey we had an encounter with an hag! We didnt know at first, she appeared as a little old lady fishing by the river. Was really interested in nim, asking her to stay and keep her company. Spoke sidhelien and said she was called margrit. Laura ran off as soon as she saw the woman. After that we decided to follow soot wheresupon the woman turned into a monster and tried to curse nim before dissapearing. Totally weird. Oh right, it turned out that she was interested in nim cos she had a doll that had magic on it. It was given her by the barkeep we met before. He dint know it were cursed of course cos he was so nice but that means the witch hag thing has been up to stuff in the city. Im getting ahead of myself now though. So after running from the hag we find ourselves in the town of noran. This is the main settlement of firbolgs in the sirens realm. Full of them. Very picture-like place, right pretty. They have a mad woman too call dakrana. I thought maybe there was something special about her since shes always begging for coins and stuff but just keeps them under a rock. Seems she just has the mind of a magpie kind of. Laura took us to the mayor of the place, man called dolren. He listened to howcome we wanted to meet them and told us that we could maybe see their special druid, a lady called miayra, if we gave her something interesting. He felt some magic from the doll. The one i mentioned before. He sensed some kind of magic on it. This is how we got to finding out it was cursed. Sort of cursed. Fenris did a spell on it and found it had diviner magic on it, the spying kind. Before that meeting with the druid though we had to wait a couple of days doing odd jobs around noran. Guess the mayor had to wait a while for the druid to come back and get his message or something. I made some beer but they didn't appreciate proper dwerren brewing. Dint do too bad with fixing their traps and that though for the pests and stuff. When we did finally meet druid miayra she told us that the hag we had met was an agent of the hag, the big hag. One that owns a country. She destroyed the doll in weird pink fire ball thing. Took a lot out of her. Must have been really powerful. Had to lean on me and portia for a bit to get her breath back. She spoke really weird too and limped a lot but those were both the way she had been before breaking the doll. We asked her if she could write a letter to the siren explaining about the hag business since we thought that might be important. Miayra went all out on the letter. Ripped a bit of bark off a tree and used her very own blood to write with. Metal. No mistaking this letter. We also talked about the whole rat plague. She said she did have a way to stop the rat plague from ever taking hold in a person but that it would only last a short time so shed have to be there to do it. I asked if she could teach this trick to other people and she said she could teach it to other druids. Fenris is a druid, he learned it from Prudence the deer lady. But fenris is too crap to learn the trick. But prudence could learn it according to miarya. But she dint want to come back with us, said prudence would have to go there as she couldnt leave the firbolgs. Not what id hoped but better than nothing innit. She also said she could send some young firbolgs off to the cohort to tell us about firbolg magics or something. I guess they liked my stories and that and wanted to be all adventuring and that. Oh yeah, they told us some cool stories too. Portia wrote them all down, have to ask her for a copy later. Ok so thats about it. After that we went back to port helen to see the siren again and tell her all about the hag stuff. She was right pleased wed found this stuff out but also sort of sad. They made such a big deal about their realm being all safe and peaceful and nice. Knew it were a bit bollocks. Only a bit though I guess. I were hoping theyd be grateful enough to let us take orithar back but they didnt like us asking too much about that. Did sort of hint that if we performed a great deed, like for example killing the hag what infiltrated the city and tried to curse nim, then they might see their way to letting the guy out. So thats a nice task for someone else to do. Not me though. I dont want to get cursed with ugly. The End - Galena.

Session 37: (Mission Special) - Morrendeeper Expediton Members: Agatha Duskhart, Awenshegh Sorceror/Warlock (Summerr) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter/Wizard (Zilarrezkko) Mamm Bealdaartsdottir, Human Fighter (Seraphina Leaf) Predance Duskhart, Alseid Druid (Lena) Teresa Eirwen, Human Ranger (Serephen) Halie Thistledown, Human Champion (NPC) A while back, I made a promise to Teresa. Me and Agatha both did. She was looking for her sister, who went missing. Teresa has been a good friend to me. I trust her. And I know how important sisters are. I wouldn’t know what to do without mine. She had tracked her sister to a place called Morrendeep. It was apparently some ancient dwerren fortress in the ground. The dwerren dug too deep and somehow opened a portal to the Shadow Realm. This made the place very dangerous, and any attempts from the dwerren to retake the place have not gone well. I believe, around a thousand men went down there not to be heard from again. A bad sign to say the least, but as I said I trust Teresa, I trust every other member of the party. I feel I have grown so close with them over my stay at the Cohort. Teresa and Diesa, Mamm they could be my sisters as well now.  To start us off, Teresa informed us that she had asked the Baroness of Roesone for any aid she could lend, and so we travelled to Proudglaive. She sent one of her knights with us, a certain Lady Halie Thistledown. The Baroness was also kind in giving us a few healing potions to take. Once that was settled we set off towards Baruk-Azikh and the Kurinlach which is were Morrendeep was found. The boatride was very uncomfortable to say the least. I felt like I would fall in any second, hooves and boats do not go together. I was made for the forest, not the water. My companions knew how to enter the lost city and the boat was lowered in some old dwerren mechanism. Once inside Teresa informed us that the last time they were in Morrendeep they got assaulted by arrows from the right side, and summoned her dancing lights to demonstrate. Indeed arrows kept flying until they just stopped. Agatha shielded us with her darkness as we made our way through. Eager to leave the boat I rowed with earnest and indeed Agatha soon guided us into a dock. With Mamm and Lady Halie at the front, closely followed by Agatha as our eyes in the darkness of the old halls we moved forwards. A large crocodile assaulted us not long after we left the boat, jumping out of the water with incredible speed and power. I’ve never seen one that big. Teresa was quick on her feet and cast a fog cloud to blind the creature and allow us to pass by it. I’m glad. I did not want to have to fight that thing. Our exploration of the corridors lead us to the guardpost where the arrows had come from, and we dispatched the skeletons inside. I hereby conclude that I do not like tight and small spaces. And the less said about that, the better. We kept moving on, running into another guard post with some more skeletons. I was reminded of the time we set a trap for the things in Coullabie, and how much has happened since then.  The party found some adamantine war hammers, and Mamm and Diesa took one to fight with, saying how much better they were than their regular weapons. We moved on once more to find a strange altar, a face in the darkness with red eyes. None of us knew what it was for and we didn’t feel lucky enough to find out.  Teresa found tracks, and we decided to follow them when this large cube made of gelatin attacked us. Me and Mamm almost got engulfed by the thing, we managed to squeeze out the other side. It was a strange feeling I do not want to experience again. After a while it was reduced to a puddle from our attacks. However the noise of the battle seemed to have attracted the attention of a powerful being that made its lair in Morrendeep. I recognised the woman, with snakes as her hair and seductive figure as the awnshegh known as ‘The Medusa’. I heard stories, her gaze as well as simply looking at her could turn you into her stony servant. I believe she used to be Anuirean, but I am unsure how she became such a being. All the statues around us started to spring to life, and in fear of being overwhelmed we retreated. I trampled a lot of them, finally getting some good use out of my hooves. The party practically fought our way out, saved by Agatha’s darkness again as it shielded us.  We didn’t find Teresa’s sister, but we made good progress in finding out what actually resides in Morrendeep. And that is halfway there. I pray nothing foul has befallen her. And I know I will not rest until I see the siblings reunited. The next time Teresa calls us together I know I will help her. Sisters are important after all.

Session 37: Morrendeeper Expedition Members Agatha Duskhart (Summer) Diesa Gemfire (Zilarrezko) Prudence Duskhart (Lena C) Teresa Eirwen (Serephen) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter (Seraphina Leaf) Teresa Eirwen wanted to return to Morrendeep where she had ventured before with another group to find her sister. They didn’t manage to find her. Teresa had talked to the Baroness of Roesone who had offered to assist in the search so first we went home… Why did we even go to the Cohort in the first place just to return home to Roesone? Anyway, she offered to send one of her knights, Lady Halie Thistledown, with us for support. She also gifted us some healing potions, four in all and one of them was a greater healing potion. Then we were off. Having trouble with casting spells before we made sure to check the leylines this time and Morrendeep had magic reaching all the way to the ninth circle. The little spyglass Diesa brought really came in handy. We had to go into Morrendeep by boat and it was a really funny sight, seeing Prudence try to squeeze into that little rowboat. Last time they had been attacked just as they entered, from the right and Teresa tested to see if the attackers were still there with her magic light. Right away arrows came shooting at the light. We decided to hide in darkness that Prudence cast on my quarterstaff. My trained and work to dive deeper into the powers Defilus gave me made me able to see through any darkness as if it was just normal light. I guided the group to the docks a bit further in from where we went on foot. I had seen statues and skeletons on the way and when I dropped the darkness so did the rest. There were statues looking like frightened and terrified dwerren. Walking along the water a crocodile suddenly jumped up at us but we managed to escape thanks to Teresa’s cloud of fog. Morrendeep was full of different corridors to walk down and there were more of the dwerren statues everywhere we went. Eventually we found the room where the attackers from the first room had shot from. It was skeletons, quite a few, but we easily finished them. Diesa recognised the coat of arms of Clan Greybeard on the skeletons, and more skeletons we would find. In another room with murder holes we found more of them and defeated those as well. There was a weapons rack with a few hammers on them, four warhammers and a greathammer. Diesa says they’re made of Adamantine and this much heavier and much more valuable. We brought them with us, Diesa decided to use the greathammer and Mamm a warhammer. As we left the room through another door we found another long corridor and decided to open a few doors. In one of the rooms was a red eyes statue with a platform in the middle and according to Teresa humanoid tracks were entering and leaving the room. Could it be her sister? Heading the other way in that corridor we came across a bridge where many, many of the dwerren statues were standing. This is when the strangest creature ever attacked us. It was like a big transparent pudding that came gliding towards us and when Mamm hit it with her new hammer it damaged it pretty bad. At one point it even sucked a few off us in and spat us out on the other side. In the end we defeated it and started making our way through the rows and statues. I went first, only to stand face to face with a beautiful woman with serpent hair. Prudence charged across, knocking over several of the statues and calls out that the woman is the Medusa. It was time to run. The statues started rumbling and coming to life, but Prudence charged again and took down a few more. I hurried after and used the shadows to slow the statues and cover our path from the bow Medusa used. We made it out, but without Teresa’s sister so we’ll have to go back.

Session 39 - Toad Times. Adventurer's from the Cohort: Hedrin ( SlothSlow ) Shlar Ohmste ( warwolf1969 ) Shifty ( Ryan B. ) Lord Robert Bossouri, Housecarl of Urkenhame ( Depraved Lunatic ) Adventurer's attending outside of the Cohort: -A dwarven cleric, who joined us for a few days. ( Ryan B. ) . Important Discoveries: -Location of a giant, eldritch froglike monster Our Group assembled at the Cohort Tavern. One of the members that wished to join had to leave on short notice, but another member filled in. I briefed the group again on our mission and checked that everyone is prepared for the coming trial. We traveled to the King's court without further ado. After the last group was unable to fix the bug problem, he seemed to be in a sour mood. We got permission to cast magic and ventured into the deeps. The spider in the big hole at the entrance didn't bother with us, even though our attempts at stealth were anything but successful.  One of our companions had been to this place before and was interested in checking up on some Sidhelien people that live down there. The door did not open however, so we continued on into the cave. It didn't take long for our party to be attacked by a Piercer, severely injuring Shlar. While I mended most of his immediate wounds, his leg's seem to be permanently damaged from this attack. After suffering this grand a blow, we retreated and decided to explore in the immediate area instead.  About a days travel later, we happened upon an abandoned farmstead. The air surrounding it felt really upsetting. Dead horses and bloodstans were close by. Something definitely was up. We explored the fields, without any kind of danger approaching us. We split, Shlar and I moving into one building. We found more blood and bones inside. We went upside, where we found a small Dwerren girl under a bed, talking about frogs being scary. Shortly after, Shlar and I heard a commotion outside, a horde of frogs had burst from the Stables, which attacked Shifty and Hedrin.  Shlar and I joined the fray and fought the frogs. They were of scarlet colour and could explode on will, as it appears. They are immune to their own explosions, still getting launched by those, still. They will only explode if they deem it opportune. Shifty ran inside the buildings to bait them away and succumbed to his wounds before I was able to reach him. After dodging the frogs, they went into a well nearby. I grabbed the Dwerren girl and we made a run for it. While running, we saw a giant, eldritch froglike demon from the Shadowlands, which was chasing us for a bit, but stopped at the farmstead to destroy it instead. We had to leave Shifty's body. After reporting this incident to the King of Daikar Zhigun, we went down to the caves once again, to speak with the Sidhelien again. Like last time, we were met with silence. A dwarven guard, appointed to us during our time in Daikar Zhigun, offered to go at the wall with his pick, which made the Sidhelien's presumed leader inside open the door, begrudingly. We held a conversation, about how they were in there first and were disturbed by the Dwerren. How the Cohort "disturbs" the natural order, by standing for order. Pah. They offered to "show us how to attain true power", but we all naturally declined. After taking our leave, Hedrin went to the forges again and we set out, to explore a little more. In the night, we were ambushed by hyenas. While we made short work of them as a group, Hedrin was the most valuable fighter, his idea of putting a lot of them to sleep made this battle ridiulously easy. Once we rested up, we went on by the shores, to locate additonal landing ports. We found a small little hut however, two Vos were living in their. While the language barrier was a problem at first, the woman knew Low Brecht and we told them of the stories regarding the eldritch, giant frog monster. They seemed horrified. Maybe they will have their leader send some reinforcements to Daikar Zhigun! Afterwards, we went back towards our first landing port and returned to the Cohort, with no further casualties. -Signed, Lord Robert Bossouri, Housecarl of Urkenhame

Session 37 - Morrendeeper Expediton Members: Agatha Duskhart, Awenshegh Sorceror/Warlock (Summer - Mentor) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter/Wizard (Zilarrezko - Mentor) Mamm Bealdaartsdottir, Human Fighter (Seraphina Leaf - Mentor) Prudence Duskhart, Alseid Druid (Lena - Mentor) Teresa Eirwen, Human Ranger (Serephen - Mentor) Halie Thistledown, Human Champion (NPC - Not a mentor) I finally went back. Half my mind has been screaming at me to return, begging me to go at the earliest possible moment. The other half has been terrified, convinced that I can't do it, that I should just stay away and live. I've managed to stay away until I've become stronger, more prepared, so the fear can't hold me away. I was accompanied by Diesa, Prudence, Agatha and Mamm. I know they promised that they'd come with me before, but again I was surprised to see them turn up. I explained the situation, the plan and that I had requested aid from Baroness Roseone. We set off for Proudglaive. The Baroness greeted us warmly, and I repeated my request, explaining about Morrendeep, my sister and our mission. She considered for a while, before offering to send one of her knights, Halie Thistledown, as well as a few healing potions. That she was able to spare this much for me even after the things Roseone has suffered recently was an incredible blessing. Halie seemed to be a very capable warrior, with a preference for heavy armour and a heavy weapon. After finishing up our business in Roseone, we set off for Baruk-Azhik. We didn't stop off at the Dwerren settlement this time, instead heading right for the ruin. The boat trip was a little more unsteady this time with Prudence aboard, I'm not sure how well Alseids can swim, I hoped that we wouldn't have to find out. As we descended and the doors opened, I used one of the new tricks I'd learned specifically for this place: I conjured magic lights in the shape of a person, and had them float into the room. Arrows pelted the light for a while and eventually stopped. Prudence cast a spell of darkness over us and Agatha steered us to a safe dock. How she can see in that magic dark is beyond me, but she has a few abilities like that and I'm thankful for it here. To be so attuned to the dark in a place where there's almost nothing else... It was a great comfort to have her there. From what I recall we rowed straight forward for a while until Agatha said that we were up against a stone statue in a circular room. We turned right and rowed down another hall to a dock. There were more of those statues in this area, the ones that seemed like people turned to stone. I caught a glimpse of movement in the water, just in time to warn everyone away from the edge as a massive crocodile struck, lightning-fast, snapping at one of the statues before sinking below the water again. We tried to sneak out of the room, but it heard us and rose up to attack. I refused to let this thing hurt anyone, to interrupt out exploration and slow us down. I recalled how my fog spell had saved me against Bone Breaker, and cast it over the crocodile. As everyone started to move away, I used an illusion spell to trick the beast into thinking one of us was behind it in the water. It fell for it and we escaped. Exploring through the ruin we found some tunnels that looked more like breaks in the earth than hallways. I wasn't sure what to make of them and so opted to avoid them. We found the room overlooking the entrance and destroyed the skeletons which had shot at us before, hopefully leaving it safer to get in in future. We ran into another room with archer slits in the walls, and I tricked the skeletons inside into wasting all of their arrows on my dancing lights again, before moving in to destroy them. We found a number of hammers which Diesa identified as being adamantine. Very tough, very heavy and incredibly expensive. Mamm and Diesa equipped themselves and we pressed on. At least those should provide decent payment to everyone for risking themselves so much on my account. We located a room with some sort of statue face, with glowing red eyes. Unsure of what to think of it, I checked to see if my sister had come by this way. I did find some signs of passage, a small group, a mix of human and non-human, perhaps the Cohort group that she had come in to locate? They had entered the room, stood on the dais and then left and moved West, across a bridge. Some of the party were curious about the room, but I opted against messing around with it. Whatever it was it certainly wasn't Dwerren in origin, which meant that it was almost certainly placed by the creatures that had made their home here. We headed West, towards a bridge covered in a small army of nearly 30 stone statues. As we were discussing whether or not to cross this bridge, I caught the sight of the air rippling. A creature was approaching us! Some sort of massive cube, jiggling and rippling. It was clear in colour, making it hard to notice as it crept up on us. It was highly acidic, even able to damage Mamm's hammer, but we destroyed it. It had wiped the floor of the tracks I'd been hoping to follow however, though I at least had a direction to go in. As Agatha slipped her way forward between the statues another creature appeared. I barely glimpsed her as she slithered into view. Serpent-like, with writhing hair and a human or sidhelien torso. Prudence identified her as The Medusa, a creature of legend. The first creature we'd encountered in here which seemed intelligent, capable of speech. I demanded to know where my sister was, she seemed not to know, or not to care. Part of me considered asking further, describing her, maybe even bargaining with this creature to have her back, but the risks were far too high as the army of statues rumbled to life and bore down upon us. I looked around at the others, realising how much I valued each of them as friends, and I made the decision to call on them to fall back and retreat. I couldn't bear the thought of them dying, even as my heart broke under the strain of having to tear myself away from this place a second time. We fought a desperate retreat. Prudence informed us that The Medusa could turn people to stone with just a look, and I saw the bow in her hands. Agatha used her darkness magic and I threw out another cloud of fog to obscure and slow her as we all fled. The statues we had passed on the way in blocked our exit, but we managed to destroy them quickly enough to secure our escape. I was quiet as we left. If my sister had encountered The Medusa it was possible that she was petrified, not dead. That thought carried enough hope to terrify me. Lady Halie returned to Roseone. I was glad that she escaped unharmed. Her presence was a comfort and I thank the Baroness for sending her with us. I was also relieved that none of my friends had suffered any grievous injuries or losses. I wasn't thinking about making friends when I joined the Cohort, but for these I can't think of them as anything less. I pray to all of the gods that I never have to choose between them or my sister.

Session 37 (Special): Morrendeeper Played on the 27th of November in the year 2019! Present: • Agatha Duskhart; Awnshegh Sorcerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) • Diesa Gemfire; Dwerren Fighter/Wizard, lvl 5 (Zilarrezko) • Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) • Teresa Eirwen; Anuirean Ranger, lvl 5 (Serephen) • Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 4 (Seraphina Leaf) A while ago, shortly after the last time we went to  Hollin ǥ holmen , I and Teresa had an emotional discussion, where I promised I would join her whenever she ventured into Morrendeep to look for any sign of her sister. So, when Teresa asked if I would go, I didn't have to think. I as well as Diesa, Agatha and Prudence accompanied Teresa on her search. All who had entered Morrendeep in recent times had not returned, with one exception; the previous group Teresa took there, though they were still unable to find Teresa's sister. Before heading to Morrendeep, we went to talk with the Baroness of Roesone, whom we asked for any aid she could provide. She sent a knight of hers; Lady Halie Thistledown to accompany us, as well as give us some healing potions. We split the four healing potions - one of them greater - among the party. We made our journey to Morrendeep. Upon arrival, the mages of the group checked the leylines to find an extraordinary amount of magic in Morrendeep. I do not understand magic very well myself, but hopefully the others will go into more detail. We moved forward in our boat using the cover of 'Darkness'. The 'Darkness' managed to thwart any creature's attempt to hit us through their murder holes, and we got much further into Morrendeep than the last group very quickly, though only Agatha could see anything. I must say, it's very difficult to row a boat in pitch black. Fortunately Agatha guided us well, and we managed to find a dock. We got onto dry land and began searching through the corridors. We came across some stone statues of Dwerren, with scared looks on the statue's face. We suspected they were Dwerren that had been frozen in stone, which was revealed to be true by what we saw later.  As we were making our way through these statues alongside the water we just rowed through, a very big Crocodile lunged out at us. Teresa managed to obscure it sight with a spell, allowing us to make an escape. The Crocodile was then distracted by an illusion one of the mages made, and jumped back into the water, luckily, not coming back up to chase us again. We moved down some more corridors, finding two rooms with a bunch of walking skeletons in. We slayed the skeletons in both rooms. In the first room, Diesa recognised the coat of arms of Clan Greybeard on the skeletons. In the second of these rooms we found some really nice Adamantine weapons; four Warhammers and a Greathammer. Diesa grabbed the Greathammer, and I took one of the Warhammers to better deal with the Skelly's. I gave my longsword to Agatha to hold; as the extra weight would have slowed me down, and she had plenty of room left in her pack. In another room, we found a statue with red eyes, with a platform in the middle of the room. We also found humanoid track leading out of the room and towards a bridge over the water. We decided to leave the red eyed statue alone, at least for now, as we felt the tracks were more important, being our only lead of any living thing in this place thus far. We go to cross the bridge, but are confronted by a large cube moving towards us. Not knowing this cube's nature, I tried attacking it with my newly acquired hammer. Unfortunately, the blow I dealt led to the hammer being damaged by whatever that thing was made of. Acid, maybe? We managed to narrowly avoid being engulfed by the cube, and took it down. I asked politely if I could trade my now damaged hammer for one of the others and everybody seemed okay with that. I offered to pay for the damages to the hammer (though I don't know how I'd afford it, they're quite pricey) but everyone said that was unnecessary. The bridge had a dense collection of the Dwerren statues on it that we had to squeeze through. As we were squeezing through, however, a door ahead opened, and out came a woman, wielding a bow, with snakes for hair. As she came out of the room, the statues started to rumble, and begun moving to attack us. Prudence charged through a large number of them in quick succession, trampling a lot of them. Prudence then yelled that this woman was 'the Medusa' and not to look at her. She then charged back to us, trampling some more of the statues. We began our retreat. The statues following, though slowed down by Agatha and Prudence's spells. Our path out was blocked by more statues, but we managed to dispose of them before the other statues, or the Medusa caught up. As we ran, we heard arrows flying towards us. Thankfully, none of them hit, thanks to Agatha's 'Darkness'. We managed to escape Morrendeep safely, thank goodness. But with Teresa's sister still lost, we will have to return when we can. We said farewell to Lady Halie and thanked her for her help. On our way back, Diesa wrote and sent a letter to Overthane Grimm anonymously, detailing the fate of the Dwerren, frozen in Morrendeep. [1 Good Quality Adamantine Greathammer given to Diesa Gemfire 1 Good Quality Adamantine Warhammer given to Mamm Bealdaartsdotter 2 Good Quality Adamantine Warhammer 1 Adamantine Warhammer (already sold to Korak)]

Session 39: Rust bugs and Exploding Toads (Mission 1V) My first mission for the Cohort did not go as well as I would have hoped.  Our small group met up at the Cohort Inn.  Apart from myself, Shlar Ohmste, we had a young human male named Hedrin, a Human noble named Sir Robert, and a human rogue named Shifty who was shifty by name and appearance.  Being a noble Sir Robert immediately assumed he would be our leader.  Myself, and the others, not wanting the responsibility, allowed this.  Sir Robert’s first job as leader was to lead us into meeting the Dwerren King.  It appeared that we were not the first group from the Cohort to attempt dealing with these bugs.  The previous group were, it seemed, less than successful.  As the king was upset by this failure.  He was also dismissive of our small group.  We believed that we were capable of completing this mission.  As the saying goes, pride cometh before a fall.              Getting permission to use magic within their lands.  (Honestly how did they expect us to help them if they stopped us from using our powers I cannot fathom)? We set out into the tunnels.  Hedrin had been part of the previous group and informed us to be careful of the spider living in a large hole in the tunnel ahead.  Somehow we managed to avoid waking the spider, as we were not very quiet moving past its hole.  Hedrin suggested visiting a group of shadow Sedhelien who lived in the tunnels that the previous group had encountered.  I was up for this, shadow Sedhelien sounded interesting to me.  Unfortunately it appeared they were either not available, or did not want to meet us, as they did not answer when Hedrin pressed what I supposed was a bell or equivalent.  The door he said they lived behind remained closed and locked to us.  We waited for about ten minutes with no sign of them.              With the shadow Sedhelien not wanting to speak to us we continued with our mission.  Shifty and Sir Robert were both able to find tracks of the bugs.  They also discovered tracks of a different creature.  One with three claws that appeared to be able to burrow into the earth.  As a group we decided to ignore these tracks and continue following the bugs.  Soon we spotted the body of one of the bugs, apparently smashed through the head.  I moved to investigate, interested in finding out how exactly the bug died.  Unfortunately I discovered directly in person as what I, and all of us, had believed to be a Stalactite dropped from the roof onto my legs inflicting serious injury to me.  I was knocked unconscious from this blow, which shattered my leg.  Sir Robert used healing magic on me after my companions had defeated the creature.  It turned out to be something called a ‘Piercer’ a creature I had never heard of before.  Concerned about encountering more of these Piercers we decided to exit the tunnels and instead explore the lands in the area to see if we could help deal with any of the raiding packs of Gnolls.             We did not discover any Gnolls, but we did find a farm stead that showed signs of having been attacked.  The door to the house had been blown opened.  Sir Robert and myself entered the house at first finding only bloody remains.  Just as we were about to leave, thinking there were no survivors, we discovered a Dwerren child hiding under a bed.  Sir Robert told me she was whimpering about dangerous toads.  Just then we heard sounds from outside, Hedrin and Shifty calling out about danger followed by a loud explosion.  Telling the girl to remain hidden we ran outside to find a large number of red toads moving from the stables towards us.  These toads exploded when killed, but apparently only when they chose to do so.  Which they did whenever they were able to injure us, or when it allowed them to fling their fellow toads in our direction.  Oh yeah, it seemed they were immune to their own explosion damage as well.  Faced with this large number of threats, and with our magic restricted by the Dwerren holding the magical ley lines, we did the only thing we could think of, we fled.  Well, all except for Shifty who for reasons we will never know decided to run into the house and attempting to use the remains of the door to keep the toads out.  This of course failed and we heard Shifty fall to the attacks of the toads that flowed into the house after him.  Just as it seemed we would have to run for our lives the toads all headed toward the nearby well, called by a louder croaking sound.  Sir Robert and myself took this opportunity to rescue the Dwerren girl before we left the farm.  As we did we saw the source of that loud croak, a terrifyingly large toad creature with a number of tentacles coming from its body.              Returning to the Dwerren King we informed him of what we encountered at the farm.  He obviously knew what it was we had encountered, saying that his ancestors had dealt with it numerous times in the past.  We were allowed back into the tunnels, though this time with a Dwerren guard as an escourt.  Hedrin again led us to the doorway to the shadow Sedhelien’s caves.  Again they did not answer his attempts to contact them.  Not until our Dwerren escourt threatened to break down their door.  This led to one of them opening the door though she would not allow the Dwerren inside it.  Hedrin enquired about how they were, and was told they were fine but were concerned about the Dwerren knowing of their existence.  The female speaking to us explained that they were carrying out some plan that should kill most if not all of the rust bugs.  She also said that her people knew of the Cohort and said it was bad for going against the natural order, which she said was chaos.  When nature was allowed to follow it’s normal path the strong survived and the weak were culled.  She offered to teach those of us who wished to stay the truth of this, as well as the power we might learn from this.  I was tempted, the idea of learning new power appealing to me.  But, my vow to my Master about working in the Cohort prevented me from accepting the offer.  Which it turns out, was a good thing as the Dwerren King had the tunnels blocked shortly after we left.             Returning to the outside we headed toward the coast, hoping to find a port that we could arrange transport from for the Cohort.  We had a small encounter with a pack of Hyena’s, but were able to easily dispatch them.  Thanks mostly to Hedrin who managed to put more than half of them asleep.  We did not discover a port, but did find a small hut occupied by a family of Vos.  They were friendly toward us, and it appeared they too knew of the strange huge toad creature, promising to send news of it to the surrounding people.  We decided that our mission had failed, and rather than risk wandering around and running into greater dangers we would return to the Cohort.  So ended my first adventure with the Cohort and it was more dangerous and terrifying that the excitement and thrills I had expected.  Still I shall endeavour to join in another mission in the near future to follow the directive given me by my Master to assist the Cohort to the best of my abilities.   Shlar Ohmste

Session 38 (Special): Lost in Translation Played on the 28th of November in the year 2019! Present: • Nimomgene "Nim" Thistlewit: Sidhewair Rogue, lvl 4 (Summer) • Portia Folkor: Anuirean Fighter, lvl 4 (Lena C) • Ant: Dwerren Barbarian, lvl 3 (Seraphina Leaf) • Galena Abanâthu: Dwerren Rogue, lvl 3 (Zilarrezko) • Lolgon Shulgun: Sidhewair Fighter, lvl 3 (Slothslow) • Fenris Nathair: Sidhelien Barbarian, lvl 2 (Hats4Cats) [Joined after Orithar had been imprisoned] • Orithar Trisk: Half-Orog Wizard, lvl 4 (Hats4Cats) [Was imprisoned shortly after getting off the boat] Right, so, Galena got a group of us together to try and explore the Siren's realm in search of Firbolgs, and hopefully get some counter agents to the rat transformation poison thingy, that's been a big problem in  Hollin ǥ holmen . On our voyage there, bloody great Kraken tentacle came up and waved to us as we passed. Freaked me out of my pissin' boots. 'Parently some of the others had met this Kraken before and got into its good graces by pointing it towards its stolen treasure. While this weirded me out a little (hard to do), I didn't let it ruin the voyage for me. Flying over the ocean fills me with a joy and calm that I've never had on land in any shape or form. So we got off the boat at Port Helen, and were shouted at by the dockmaster, a man named Lord Ledgerman. In the local language; Rjuven, Ledgerman told us Lolgon's Griffin would be shot by the city guard if he didn't have a permit. Orithar, being the only one of us who spoke Rjuven, tried to diffuse the situation. Unfortunately, he did so by trying to bribe Ledgerman to let the Griffin in. Orithar insists he doesn't understand what he did wrong, so I'm recommending he get a tutor to teach him the difference between bribery and paying for a license. Orithar was arrested, and we were all brought in front of the Siren to see Orithar in court. The Siren herself doesn't speak, and apparently if she did, anyone who heard her would die. Bit intimidating to say the least. Fortunately there was someone else there to speak on her behalf. Everyone was speaking Rjuven, so it was a bit boring. Luckily, Portia thought so too, striking up a conversation with me about that Battle of Traitor's Demise. She seems to know a lot about it and was very enthusiastic about it. Once the case was over, we were told that Orithar confessed to bribery in the zone of truth. Though he claimed later when we visited him in his cell that he didn't. I don't think he's gonna learn any lesson from his sentence. Before he was sentenced we were brought forward to speak on his behalf. We told them why we were here, and that he was a good man, trying to help people. The other's seem to know him better, so, hopefully, that's true. It seemed to work somewhat, as the sentence was apparently a bit lenient for the crime: He will be released on the 1st of Keltier, so about two months. Buggered, having lost our translator, we decided to go to the Wild Rooster Inn & Tavern. We met up with Fenris there, and got in a round of drinks, while talking to the barman. We all got whiskey, except Nim, who tried some blue milk. Lovely stuff. But no one else seems to like it. Ah well. The barman, thinking Nim was a small child, went back and got her a little straw doll in a purple dress. She thanked him for the gift and started playing with it. The barman then introduced us to a translator; Laura, who can speak 10 languages. Impressive stuff. We hired her, and agreed to meet up and head off tomorrow. Portia and I ordered some Hunter's stew after she asked me if I wanted some, and we went and ate it at a small table while the others enjoyed their drink. We continued our conversation from earlier about the battle, with her enjoyable enthusiasm still present. I also talked a little bit about my love of the ocean and why I love sailing on her so much. Portia seemed genuinely interested, which was sweet. Almost told her about my necklace, but I didn't wanna darken the mood. Was enjoying her company too much to be a downer. The following day, we moved out of Port Helen, heading to the Firbolgs land. We struggled at first to find the right path, which slowed our progress. On our journey, we met an old woman at her campfire who said her name was Margaret. Laura seemed scared of her and went off ahead. The rest of us quickly decided to also decline her offer of hospitality. As we were walking away, however, this 'Margaret' had turned into some kind of beast or fiend or something, and tried to get into Nim's head. But then dissapeared when the rest of us turned to look. Nim seemed fine though, rooting around the woman's stuff in no time the little scamp. In this old woman's rucksack, Nim found some men's clothes, which I presumed meant she'd attacked some unlucky sod. We caught up with Laura. She told us she was surprised we were still alive, and that an old woman on her own out here, is usually an omen or servant of The Hag. Definitely need to be more careful about that from now on. Some time after that, we approached Noran Village; inhabited by Firbolgs. We went up to a villager with our translator, and asked them if there were any healers here, which they said there was, by the name of Miayra. However, we were also told we'd have to talk to Mayor Dorlen if we wanted to meet with her. As we moved to find the Mayor, a poor woman called Dakrana came over to us. Laura said she was begging for coin, and had something wrong with her head. She advised us to ignore her. Advice which some of us, swiftly ignored. Galena gave the woman a gold coin. The woman clutched it, and then went back to her campfire, took a stone out of the fireplace, revealing a large pile of coins in a hole. She put her new coin in and put the stone back, rubbing her hands with glee. We met with the mayor, we told him about the rat problem in Hollinǥholmen, and asked if their town's druid could help out. The mayor told us that the druid would want something in exchange. He went to Nim, saying she had something tied to the magic of this land. Nim got out the straw doll the Wild Rooster  bartender gave her, and the mayor confirmed that would be a fitting exchange. The mayor then asked us to help out around town while we wait for the druid to get back to us, in exchange for free room and board. Between all of us, we helped out with some brewing, fishing, setting up mousetraps, moving carts, and tended to some animals. This was sufficient that they gave us some rooms for the couple of days we were there. Galena at one point, took the translator back to Dakrana to try and get some information about her, but couldn't get though to her. Gave her a few more coins and gave up. We met with the druid. She wanted Nim's new doll so she could destroy it. She lit a fire behind her. She said the doll was connected to the 'hag' and that the hag was using it to spy. She put the doll on the fire, forming a pink sphere around the fire that shone intensely. The druid struggled to control the flames, but after a few minutes, the pink sphere dissipated.  The Druid, after getting her breath back, told us that she had a spell that could temporarily protect against the rat infection. Galena asked if she could come to the Cohort to help for a while, and the Druid said no. Galena then asked if she could teach someone else to use the spell. The druid said could, but only to another druid powerful enough to cast it. But we'd have to them here to learn.Bit out of the way, but could be done. The druid after some persuasion, offered to send some Firbolgs to the Cohort to help in these matters. The Druid then talked about the Hag again, and how she can enter the Siren's domain, something the Siren would very much want to know about. Galena asked the druid to write down this information and sign it. The druid then offered us to fill a flask each of some water from a pool of water. She said it was blessed, which might come in handy at some point. We came back to Port Helen, and gave the letter to the Siren. We tried implying that because we'd done this, maybe a certain someone could be let off the hook. It was then implied back to us, that the only chance we had of maybe getting Orithar out early, was if we killed the Hag. Though I don't think we'd be able to organize that before the end of his sentence anyway. I'll see what the others think later. We visited Orithar in his cell again before stopping by the Wild Rooster Inn & Tavern again, and had a little chat to the Bartender who gave Nim the doll. He seemed genuinely remorseful when we tell him the doll was cursed, so we didn't get him in trouble. We then ate, drank and slept at the inn, before setting serene sail back to the Cohort the next morning.

Session 40:  I Smell A Rat... (1N) Expedition Members: Eirena Lightshadow Drake Darkwood Savas Al-Hadar Phage Gundle Oddlong Nubby Oddling As told by Savas Al-Hadar: "As always, my tale begins at the Cohort Arcanum...  a crisp autumn day blessed by the sun.  The cold winds blowing over Black Ice Bay a stark contrast to the warm dry breezes of my home.  In a side room, a bit too far from the fireplace for my taste, I met my expedition companions to discuss the task at hand.  I slowly sipped my chai as Eirena filled us in on the mission, a request by King Varri Haraldsson to deal with a plague of rat-like humanoids infesting Hollingholmen.  Several Cohort parties had already made attempts to resolve the issue... they managed to contain the threat, but it was still present. We endured a long and cold ship voyage to the city...  Nubby insisted on filling every waking moment with discussions on the wonders and uses of... potatoes.  He incessantly discussed every variation of how to prepare and serve potatoes.  Potato pies, potato pancakes, scalloped potatoes, potato salad, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, potato soup, potato stew, potato rolls, charred potatoes, potato sandwich, potato nuggets, potato hummus, roasted potatoes, potato cakes, potato galettes, smoked potatoes, potato quiche, hashed potatoes, potato croquettes... Just when we thought he was finally done talking about potatoes, he started in with the types of potatoes...  Kiergard Gold Potatoes, Purple Pachalinn Potatoes, Auklund Russet Potatoes, Westwold Potatoes, Crimson Bliss Potatoes, Seamist Blue Potatoes, Djafra Gold Potatoes, Purple Rjurik Potatoes...  Thankfully, we made landfall before he could finish opining on the benefits and qualities of each type. Upon our arrival, we immediately made our way to the halls of King Varri.  They were amidst a grand feast... something I initially thought was a special occasion, but later came to realize was an every day occurrence.  The King himself proved to be a rather hedonistic, self-centered, and rather aloof individual, more concerned about emptying his plate and wineglass than addressing the looming threat to his city.  Hiring the cohort to deal with the issue so he didn't have to made more sense after meeting him.  His wife appeared to be exasperated with him.  I wondered if this was because of a recent change in behavior, or if the King had always been this way. After enjoying a night of feasting at the King's behest, we made our way into the sewers of the city, were the ratlings had been reported by previous Cohort expeditions.  Taking a tunnel to the West, we were quickly set upon by humanoid rats wielding daggers.  They came flying out of multiple rooms along the corridor.  We made quick work of them, felling all but one who jumped into the dank slurry of the sewers and disappeared from sight.  We headed back East briefly to explore a set of stairs.  They led to a corridor lined with barracks... all empty, and the crates within long drained of their contents.  A final short set of stairs led to a dias at the end of the hall.  Again, empty crates littered the floor, as well as a table with several documents lying on it.  Unable to read the missives, we began heading back West... but as the party got further away, Gundle touched the documents and they revealed itself to be a mimic lying in wait!  The beast almost immediately enveloped Gundle's face with its pseudopod, trapping and choking him.  The party attacked as I raced down the corridor to join the fray.  I was able to strike the beast from a distance with my guiding bolt, and several others harmed it enough to free Grundle.  Nubby immediately threw a sack over the appendage, and we finished the creature off without further complications. Continuing West, we found a set of stairs to the south that led into a larger room.  We tried our best to quietly move down the stairs, but the jangling of my armor alerted the ratmen inside.  It was a large barracks room containing almost a score of ratlings, weaker than the ones we had fought previously, but dangerous in their number.  I bellowed out a prayer to Khindai as a prepared myself for battle.  Nubby, Drake, Grundle and Phage immediately began to retreat up the stairs while Eirena and I got swarmed by the beasts.  I summoned a spiritual scimitar to fight alongside me as Eirena used her sword and magic against them. Phage held her place on the stairs as Nubby, Drake and Grundel continued to retreat... cowards! Through the magic of Phage and Eirena, they were able to moderately damage a large number of them.  With some of them marked by faerie fire, I was able to cut down multiple foes, slashing them with my kilij, and chopping them with my spiritual sword.  I was a whirlwind as I blocked their strikes, and retaliated in turn.  Eirena, a more stalwart companion and fighter than I originally anticipated, held her ground as we stood back to back against the horde.  Some managed to slip by and attack Phage who did her best to hold them off, while Nubby, Drake and Grundle cowered in the back, only popping out long enough to strike from a safe distance and then disappear back into cover. It was then that Drake cast a magical darkness over Eirena and I.  The witch could see through the darkness, though I could not.  She pulled me towards the edge as I continued to strike and fell enemies even though I could not see.  The darkness proved troublesome for the ratmen, who despite their keen senses, were not as successful as I in landing their blows.  Though we were gaining the upper hand and it looked as if we would win the day, the others at the top of the stairs started calling out to retreat... reporting a large band of creatures coming from the West to join the fray.  Slaying more of the lesser ratlings as we escaped the darkness, Eirena and I made our way up the stairs.  Drake was on the northern side of the passage, over a makeshift bridge, while the rest of the party made their way along the southern path.  Someone threw down oil and set it alight on the southern bank, but it failed to deter the rat creatures, who simply jumped into the sludge and climbed back up on the other side.  Slaying a creature as I ran across the bridge, I joined Drake to engage more of the lesser ratlings in melee combat. We had finally cleared enough of them to start making their escape when a dozen or so of the larger ratlings arrived bearing chainmail and crossbows.  We set about to flee, but as a group, the formation of ratmen targeted me, and I fell where I stood under a volley of blunted bolts.  I saw the boots of Drake flee towards the East as my head hit the ground and everything went dark. I drifted in and out of consciousness...  how long, I don't know.  One moment there would be nothing, the next pain as rat creatures nibbled on my flesh.  I remember seeing a horror...  the Rat King himself, I guess.  Some sort of golem made of rats, and sinew, and bone, swirling in a maelstrom of evil.  He came daily, as far as I could remember.  I fought back with every ounce of my being against the invasion of my body, but after a few days, my defenses were breached. I awoke in a cell, alone, restrained by rope.  I started to struggle against the bindings when I heard someone approach.  The door opened and the Rat King entered, attended by a pair of the ratlings.  While the lesser creatures freed me from my bonds, the Rat King commanded me to rise.  I went to rub my wrists where they had burned from the struggles with the rope only to see fur covered paws.  I looked down and saw that I had been transformed into one of the very creatures I had been battling against... yet somehow, Khirdai be blessed, I had kept my wits.  It was clear that the Rat King thought me fully transformed, and not wanting to give away my advantage, I went through the motions of following his commands.  After surveying the work and approving of my new form, the Rat King commanded me to patrol the Western Halls.  I nodded my head, collected my gear, and headed out.  I managed to find a posting in an area by myself, and when the time was right, made my way back up to the surface, putting on my gloves and pulling my hood low over my face to hide my new visage. I found the group in a side room within the palace, the guards having let me past after recognizing my clothing and gear...  praise Khirdai that they did not require me to lower my hood!  Once safely in the room with the door shut, I revealed my plight.  Eirena seemed genuinely happy to see me, with other members of the group seemingly more interested in relaxing and joining the King in his indulgences than immediately addressing the threat at large.  While the party feasted and partied above, I went back down into the depths of the sewers, rejoining my post and serving along the ratlings.  Every chance I got, I wandered the halls, mapping out the locations, taking note of where the Rat King traveled and where he was most vulnerable. Returning to the surface at the end of the week, I brought back the intelligence I had gathered.  The ratmen had dug a tunnel out of the sewers, a tunnel that originated right in the Rat King's throne room.  A passage to the south led to a guardroom about 200 feet away.  The throne room was were the Rat King was the least guarded, and was the best place for us to strike.  We sought, and gained, an audience with the Queen, who relayed to us that there had been no recent changes in the King's demeanor or behavior... this was just the man that he was.  Several members of the group tried to convince the Queen that we should create a distraction while the King's Army dealt with the Rat King.  I, on the other hand, petitioned for the opposite.  I suggested that we take him down quickly, or find a way to block/collapse the passages to the guardroom to give us more time to deal with the rat golem, but others started talking about collapsing the castle itself on top of the Rat King's head!  Needless to say this option was not well received by the Queen, nor did we have any means of making it happen.  In the end, it appeared that there was likely no help coming from the local government. The conversation did not get us any closer to a final solution for the problem.  The party returned to their feasting among the locals, while I returned again to the dank sewers to resume my post and avert suspicion of my true nature among the rats.  My only hope is that the next band of adventurer's sent by the Cohort be of a more stout and braver stock than these...  except Eirena.  I hoped she would return to fight by my side at least one more time."

Session 41: Fey Trip (1U) Expedition Members: Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 5 (SlothSlow - Mentor) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats - Mentor) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Brognir - Dwerren Fighter, level 1 (Ryan B) Cordelia - Cellwair Warlock, level 4 (Serephen - Mentor) (Unusually, Cordie's submission for this mission required no redactions or edits) Korak called people together to go fix Urkenhame, he agreed to bring me along if I promised not to mess things up since he needed someone who could speak the language. I will not be agreeing to this ever again. Korak said that he knew the rough area we had to go to find the portal, some of the others wanted an exact location even though we didn't have one. We went to Wierech to start looking for the portal. The others wanted to ask the local lord if they knew where it was. I didn't think he would. The guards apparently said it'd take weeks before he'd talk to us, so they gave up on that. A woman only a little taller than me, with a hat made of straw came from the keep. She said hi, and that the fey forest was in trouble. The Gorgon is messing with them and cursing the forest. She told us to head West. Her name was Tina Swiftfoot. She complimented my hat. We went West into the forest. We passed through an area with no animals at all. Then we found the animals again, turned out we went past the bad part. I suggested asking an animal to point us the right way, but the others thought climbing a mountain would be better. I asked a bird anyway when we came back down, but since we already knew where to go it wasn't helpful. We found a stone archway in the dead part of the forest. Some alseids came out and asked why we were there. Korak explained it and they told us how to find The Fey. Find a creature to have dinner with, sit at its table but don't eat anything and just get a blue fox that'd show us the way. They also said the feywild would be dangerous since the forest on this side was cursed. Through the portal everything was gross and poisonous. We walked past some sick-looking pools and some thing popped up to attack us. We got rid of them easy. Then later we found a river with a body in it. Drago poked her and she got up to attack everyone. She made things quiet, wrapped people up with her hair and dragged them in. She kissed most of the boys, they didn't seem to enjoy it. We dealt with her and followed the river upstream. Eventually we found a nicer part of the forest, and a weird creature with eyes on its hands and not its face invited us to dinner. There were lots of tables, full of weird creatures eating. We got sat down and it gave us all interesting things, anything we asked for. It offered me some very magical-looking soup, and a bottle that said "Drink me". I really wanted to know what would happen if I drank it, but I also really wanted to meet The Fey, and I don't think I could have if I was stuck here eating forever. I think everyone else had similar thoughts, and eventually it gave us the blue fox and sat in a huff. The fox ran off, and we followed it. The fox led us to a very pretty grove, with an amazing looking person in the centre. Drago cast a spell to let him understand languages, and I spoke to the person. I asked if she was Fhiele, and she said yes. I started doing the thing Korak and the others do when they meet a local lord or king or whatever, explaining who we were, but that just seemed to bore her, so really I should have just acted the way I normally do. She was a lot of fun, and gave us what we needed to fix the magic barrier. I wanted to ask her things, I wanted to be like her, I wanted to stay longer, I wanted a lot of things, but Drago upset her. She got angry and made a portal and told us all to leave. The portal put us in front of a big silver dragon. The others spoke with it a lot, it took the things it needed and flew off. Then Korak and Hunter spoke to the queen, and she sent us to Urkenhame to speak to the dragon again. The dragon was flying around this city making it all fix itself, she ate Hunter and spit out a dragon-person in his place. Everyone was real happy and excited. I spoke to the dragon later. She knew a lot, but I didn't really like some of the things she said. Still, it was nice of her to answer my questions. I don't really know what to do now.

Session 41 (1U): Tangled in the Fey Expedition Members: Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 5 (SlothSlow - Mentor) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats - Mentor) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Brognir - Dwerren Fighter, level 1 (Ryan B) Cordelia - Cellwair Warlock, level 4 (Serephen - Mentor) Written by Bellasaar (Previously Hunter) Korak gathered us into one of the large meeting rooms. Everyone actually seemed eager to continue to work together to fix Urkenhame. We needed to get to the Feywild but needed to know where the portal waited. We sailed to Aulbruun. Almost immediately, I knew we should have just kept moving and tried to find it on our own as the guards said everyone in the court was unable to see anyone for a week. As we're getting ready to leave, a halfling, Tina Swiftfoot, found us. Cordie managed to get at least a general location of where we need to go. We set out immediately.  Tina had warned us the Gorgon was inflicting a disease upon the forest and the feywild by extension. Our first night, it was dead silent. Thankfully once we started to travel again, everything seemed to return to normal. We had decided to go up the side of a mountain some to try and spot the location we needed to head towards. We arrived the next day to the dead wood. In the middle was the archway portal and an army of Alsaids. They were cautious of us but offered us advice to get the blue fox along with a warning to not take any food from the table of a fey. Korak used the burning branch and opened the portal. We quickly went through to find the feywild was also infected with zombie like creatures. We quickly dispatched those that resisted Korak's ability to make them flee. Continuing on, we found a poisoned river with a corpse floating along. Drago decided to poke the supposed corpse with a mage hand.....Can we start calling him Drago the idiot? The corpse immediately jumped alive and used her hair to tangle most of our party. She seemed to have an ability to drain a person's strength with a kiss. We quickly dispatched her. Continuing on, we found the fey troll and the blue fox. We were offered anything we wanted, but thankfully none of us took anything but the blue fox. Which immediately jumped and went ran off in a seemingly random direction. We followed to find Fhiele. Cordie and Drago began to speak to...her? During the talk, Fhiele decided to partially turn Cordie into a rabbit and Drago's arm into snakes. They were mostly turned back and we were given the organs of a dyrad to bring back to Silver to restore Urkenhame. We were given a portal straight to them. Once we got to the people of Urkenhame, I apologized for my previous actions and accepted any punishment that they deemed worthy. Silver decided to give me a rebirth into a silver dragonborn and renamed me Bellasaar. (Going to be some paperwork to get that fixed in the Cohort...) With the organs of the dryad eaten by Silver, Urkenhame was magically rebuilt. We rested for a week and helped around the city. Now...to fulfill an oath

Session 40: I smell a Rat... Attending Adventurers: -Savas Al Hadar ( Physh ) -Drake Darkwood ( Link S. ) -Phage ( Ryan B. ) -Gundle Oddlong ( SlothSlow ) -Nubby Oddling ( Hats4Cats ) -Eirena Lightshadow ( Depraved Lunatic ) After a fair time of briefing and introductions in the Cohort Tavern, we departed towards Hollingholmen, to deal with a rat plague several parties before us had already attended to. I took it upon me to lead this mission.  During our journey, our companion Nubby... blessed us with his vast knowledge of potatoes, which I will not be detailing further, as the sheer information pool would be enough to fill a log on its own. Once we arrived at Hollingholmen, we made no delay and travelled to the castle and the halls of King Varri Haraldsson. Apparently, they were amidst a grand feast, a peculiar sight, if one considers the danger that lurks below the city.  King Varri made it very clear that he was not worried about the rat problem at all, which lead me to assume that the plague was not as bad as the logs made it out to be. We introduced ourselves with a story to the King. While my backstory is anything but interesting, he already seemed displeased enough, so I told him about my deadly fight against the Kobold's of the Spiderfell, especially mentioning the Swobold that nearly tore us all apart. While the King seemed happy to hear an exciting story, his wife seemed upset with his behaviour. I can't put my finger on it, but I don't think that both of these individual's are fully sane in control of themselves. After enjoying the feast for the night, where neither Gundle nor Nubby seemed assed bothered enough to not drink too much, we ventured forward into the sewers. One part of it atleast. Once we were below the surface, we had the option to go west, deeper into the sewers, or east, towards the less sewers looking place. We began our travels westward, getting ambushed by humanoid rats in leather armor. I was worried most about Savas, who had gone quite a distance ahead of the group, but he was seemingly made of iron, barely even scoffing at the ambush. The group made quick work of them, while I  failed to be any reasonable asset in this fight. Nonetheless, everyone was unhurt and we could venture onward... is what I'd have suggested, but the party wanted to go eastward, to scour out the not-so-sewery part of this underground.  We discorvered that, unsurprisingly, all the crates and beds had been emptied, but some papers were left at the far end of the corridor. I quickly glanced over it, but didn't think that it was important enough to bring it with us. So we departed for the western way...  However, Gundle seemed to intrigued by the papers and wanted to take it with him. As soon as he poked it Savas, Phage and I dashed back to help him free himself of the mimic. I remembered reading about it in the logs, but totally forgot during the moment. We freed Gundle of the papery menace and ventured on, deeper into the sewers.  We happened upon a set of stairs that led southward into what seemed to be the ratmens barracks. Knowing that I am bad at moving stealthily, I stayed higher up on the stairs, as to not alert the ratmen.  Eirena's usually neat handwriting starts to get slightly shaky after this part. The part of the group that went downstairs however was noisy enough for the sleeping ratmen to awake. Which would've been okay, as they were still waking up. Savas however yelled out a warcry, which definitely woke up more than the small but numerous rats. We had to brace for impact though at this point. Originally, we had a pretty sustainable formation, it didn't take long for all expect Savas and I to break formation and run upwards like frightened hen. At least Phage stood her ground behind us, commendable, seeing as the other three were too scared to hold their ground. I began to cast Kirken's might upon these ratlings, to push them away and heavily damage them from Savas and I, so we could get into a better position. These nimble little bastards creatures however would have none of it and shrugged off most of the damage I dealt. Savas, however, was like a flurry of steel cutting down rat after rat. Knowing that he would not leave me by myself getting swarmed by these beasts was like a rallying cry to me, after which I left my spellcraft for later and began taking up my own arms. The beasts had us surrounded and things looked grim for us, as I heard that Drake was going to cast magical darkness into the corridor to secure an escape. I screamed out for him to place it over Savas and myself, as I was able to see through such darkness, while I doubted that the ratmen were just as fortunate. Once the area got dark, I grabbed Savas by the arm and dragged him to a more favourable position for us, while we began to cull the hordes of ratmen more efficiently. Savas, who I don't believe could see in the dark, was an unstoppable force, still slaying ratmen after ratmen even in pitch-black darkness. What an amazing fighter... My amazement was cut short by the appearance of the soldiers of the ratmen, fully dressed in armor and weaponry. I yelled for all of us to retreat and brought Savas out of the darkness, so he could see his escape route. Using up the last of my advanced magical powers to have the fallen Phage stand back up, we made our way to the northern end of the sewers. Savas cut down the remaining of the ratmen, who were blocking our escape route and it seemed like we all would make it out alive. For some useless reason, Nubby insisted on cutting off Savas and I by lighting oil poured on the ground on fire. What he and I failed to realize in the heat of the moment however, was that the rats are apt swimmers, so the only thing that burning oil did was cut off Savas' escape route. While I desperately tried to cut down the rats blocking our path and blast the ones that were blocking off Savas, the ratmen soldiers arrived, Savas being the only one in their vision.  I could do nothing but watch as he was shot down. I knew just the spell that could've saved him. I knew the spell, I remember preparing it in such a case, but I couldn't cast it. I couldn't cast it because I wasted my powers failing at blasting away the ratmen. As Savas was dragged away, I could do nothing but watch as they chanted "One of Us". Once we got out of the sewer, we returned to the kings halls. After being denied relevant aid to go down once more and save Savas, I accepted the groups' request to rest for a week to replenish our magic I didn't spent too long in King Varri's halls and quickly retreated into a room granted to us by the king. The rest of the log is written in her usual handwriting, however, it is clear that the ink in the following passage is fresher than the ink in the above passage. Our group was resting up and feasting with the king. Not wanting to further worry anyone, I joined in on the indulgence, which made my failings a bit more bearable. Nubby went on about how potatoes were one of the best things in the world, Gundle practiced playing his instruments and I think Phage and Drake were warming up to the group, even though their overall behavior hadn't changed. I couldn't stop myself from thinking about ways to get Savas out of the sewer, however, it seems my prayers had been heard... albeit, not exactly how I expected them to be heard. Savas made it out of the sewers. I could've jumped for joy, as he approached us, but I manged to hold myself back. We went to a place where we would likely be undisturbed to talk about his findings and his current status. We found out that unlike Drake, who had been bitten by the ratkin and only partially transformed into a ratkin, he had undergone a full transformation. He met the rat king, who believed Savas was a complete vessel to his will now. Apparently, it is like a golem made of rats. We went ahead and used his newfound form to start mapping out the halls the rats, while the rest of the group used the remaining time to rest up. I would have loved to be of assistance during this time, but there wasn't anything I could've done to help out, so I bid my time and replenished my powers. At the end of the week, we gathered with Savas to see what he found out. Apparently, the rats had dug out a tunnel that led directly outside, originating in the Rat King's throne room. Going south from there was a guard room, approximately 200 feet away. We deducted that the throneroom would be the best place to strike, as it was there that he was the least guarded.  We got an audience with the Queen, who informed us that the King's aloof behaviour towards this looming threat has not been a recent development. It's just how he were.    I seriously wonder sometime how people like h    We talked about a plan on how to approach this new information. A good chunk of the party said that we should create a distraction in the sewers while the King's army dealt with the Rat King. Savas was in favor of the opposite, having the army create a distraction while we quickly brought down the Rat King. He elaborated on his plan, even looking for a way to block the passage to the guard room, to buy us additional time. But somehow, the conversation derailed and the party discussed bringing down the castle on top of the throne room, even though we know that the Rat King isn't always there? To keep it short, we failed to come to and agreement and help from the government seemed like a silly dream.  Our group returned to their business, if we can even call it that. Gundle and Nubby ventured around the Castle grounds, Drake and Phage were preparing to leave for the Cohort and I was following their example. My heart still feels heavy when I think about Savas in the Sewers. I hope he can keep the ruse of him being an obedient servant up long enough until I return. Because I will come back here. And hopefully, I will bring with me companions that are more willing to take a beating than my last ones. -Signed, Eirena Lightshadow

Session 40: I smell a Rat Phage ( Ryan B. ) Drake Darkwood ( Link S. ) Gundle Oddlong ( SlothSlow ) Nubby Oddling ( Hats4Cats ) Savas Al Hadar ( Physh ) Eirena Lightshadow ( Depraved Lunatic ) Report from Phage from Sehnir 5th to Sehnir 17th 1524. I begin this report with the meeting in the Cohort base. Our leader for the mission was a Eirena Lightshadow who filled us in on the current mission. We were to Hollingholmen and meet with King Varri Haraldsson. He has a rat problem and the last crew from the Cohort did not complete the contract. We got filled in from the report from the last crew. We then planned our journey there. We finally got to the city port after a few days on a boat. Nubby was on and on about potatoes and how he can make a good dish with them. He only gave me a raw potato that I could not eat without getting sick. It was a good thing I brought my own rations for the trip. We set off to find the king and get permission to enter the sewers and to also get access to the magic in the area. But when we got there the king was having a feast. Music was being played and Gundle made his way to the musicians. The rest of us approached the king's table where we introduced ourselves and our mission. The king was not to worried about the threat and asked us all to join him in the feast. He asked us about ourselves and talked on and on about things that upset his queen who excluded herself from the feast. After feasting for the day and spending the night in the palace we prepared for our mission in the morning. We knew we needed to enter in of the sewer entrances and we studied a city map. We decided to go to the one in Narwhal street. The sewers were way nicer then what I thought we were going to enter. It also had alot of light down there. So much for having so many torches. We headed west and one of the party members rushed ahead and triggered an ambush the ratman had set up for intruders. They busted down the doors and we defend ourselves in the fight. We made short work of the ratmen. The rooms were mostly empty but we did find some studded leather, daggers and light crossbow. I took one of the studded leather to better protect myself seeing that the rats can attack at anytime. We then headed to the east hall and the rooms were empty as well until we got to the far end and up the stairs. There we found a table and papers on it. The two Oddlings brothers went to look at the papers and that was when Gundle was attacked by a Mimic. I tried to help them by attacking the creature with my magic but they were not having an effect on it. The two brothers took a beating of the monster but did end up killing it. Seeing that the east was a dead end of this part of the sewers we went back west and deeper into the sewers. We found more rooms further west but a staircase that lead far down. Following the staircase we came across a barracks of sleeping ratmen. It seemed like 20 plus rats and me and Nubby decided to try to sneak ahead but a miscommunication must have happened because the whole group went in for the kill and the rats awoke to the noise of the loud party.  Eirena and Savas held their ground as the rest of the party went to regroup. The problem was they kept moving and running further away from the fight. Knowing that if we dont stand our ground at some point the rats would catch up to us or we will be run out of the sewers. So I stopped and stood my ground so they can hit the rats from afar. I was able to see that Eirena and Savas were totally surrounded by the enemy. Still they fought bravely and honorably. Several rats did get past them and flanked me. I fought to my best but at some point I did black out from the pain of the ratmen stabs.  From what I gathered from the party when I was out. Savas and Eirena had a tough fight down below. Things at one point was not looking up for them but they slowly turned the tides with magics and skills. The rats that attacked me were mopped up soon after I went down. The caster Drake used his magics to cast a darkness spell that did turn the tide of the battle for us. Eirena was able to see through the darkness and Savas had no trouble to keep fighting in it, Blinding the ratmen they were fighting.Nubby and Gundle threw daggers at the enemies keeping themselves safe. I still am surprised that Eirena healed me and got me to my feet. She has gained my respect if anything and I hope one day I would not have to return the favor.  We thought we had the fight and that we were going to win. But our hopes were cut short when Savas and Eirena were yelling for our retreat. The Ratmen had an army of heavily armed rats and they outnumbered us and also had a spell caster with them. Seeing that I was tired, hurt and out of spells. I fell back with the rest of the party but some of the ratmen we were still fighting did not flee but gave chase making our escape difficult. The party was split on two parts of the sewers. Nubby and gundle blocked one path with an oil and light it to try to slow the rats down. Our path was the more safe route. Savas and Drake on the other hand. They still had three rats attacking them and slowing them down. We tried on the other side to help them. Me and Nubby taking one out without a problem with my cursed magic. But when we thought they might make it out the armored rats arrived and shot Savas down with blunted crossbow bolts. He went down and the ratmen shouted. “One of us.” over and over again. Drake kept running and was able to get to safety as the rat spell caster filled the sewer with a thick fog. But the rest of us were able to leave the sewers. We returned to the king’s hall once we got out of the sewers to report how badly the rats forces are. The king having yet another feast greeted us as if his city did not have an army of ratmen under it threatening his power of rule. He still seemed not to worry about the problem and invited us to feast and to stay in his palace until we recovered ourselves. The party decided to try to make the king take the problem more seriously by talking to the queen. We meet with her and the baby prince. They came up with a plan to safely hide the queen and the baby and to lie to the king about the ratmen taking his family away to send in an army with us the next assault we made. The Queen told us the plan would not work because the king would not send an army or even himself after her and the prince. This king is either incompetent or just a high born fool that thinks that nobody can hurt him. The next few days Drake started to grow rat like ears and a rat tail. He was bitten by the rat men like I was but unlike me the bite started to change him. He still seemed more like himself instead for his new craving for cheese. Savas did meet with the party three days later. Covered up in dark robes he meet with us in a secluded area to reveal that he was now a Ratman. But unlike the others down in the sewers he still had his mind and his free will. The other Rats were enslaved by the will of this Rat king. Savas had fooled the Ratking to believe he was enslaved like the others. He spent the last few days waiting for his time to escape. He used that time to gather intel for the Cohort. He amazed me by his bravery in battle and his will to not give up when things were looking down.  He told us that the ratmen had many sewers bunkers in the city. That they are taking people from the surface and replenishing their numbers with them. They can multiply their numbers at a scary rate and I fear that the Cohort will not find this mission to be an easy one to tackle.  A few of the important things Savas told us about are the head figures of the Ratmen. The Ratking tends to be in the sewers under the castle and is never alone. He tends to have some ratmen guarding him. Then there is the spellcaster, Who is a problem because he can still cast spells even though the king is not giving it access to the magic in the area. The worse thing he told us about is this giant rat ogre like monster down there. I have not seen it but he said it is giant and tough. Another useful information Savas told us is that the rats had dug out a tunnel from the Ratking throne room to the outside.  Knowing we could not tackle this mission with what we got and this new information. We rested up and returned back to the Cohort. Savas decided to stay behind and gather more information for the Cohort.  Phage

Session 41: Reborn in Silver Fire Expedition Members: Korak - Dwerren Cleric, level 5 (SlothSlow - Mentor) Drago - Vos Warlock, level 3 (Hats4Cats - Mentor) Hunter - Brecht Ranger, level 4 (Link S) Shango - Khinasi Monk, level 4 (Lunatic) Darvius - Sidhelien Monk, level 5 (Darvius) Brognir - Dwerren Fighter, level 1 (Ryan B) Cordelia - Cellwair Warlock, level 4 (Serephen - Mentor)   The group met once again in the Cohort Arcanum discussing the final leg of our journey to restore Urkenhame. Many of us have been on this journey for the last few months. Through trial and tribulation, we have triumphed so far. The next leg of our journey was to take us into the chaotic fey wilds. We sail from the Cohort Arcanum towards the city of Aulbruun. We attempted to make contact with the king or someone with information on the Fey woods nearby. However, to make an appointment it would take at least a week. However, a halfling woman Tina Swiftfoot, comes out and appraises us. She speaks with Cordelia. I can not understand most of their conversation. However, Cordelia tells us that the woods nearby are being assaulted by the Gorgon and corrupted. The alsaids in the forest protect a ruins and standing stones that lead into the fey wild. As we travel into the forest the land becomes devoid of all life eventually the very trees themselves rot and become lifeless. When we get to the center we are greeted by a group of Alsaids, we explain our mission and show them the magical branch of fire that Korak carries. The Alsaid tells us that the fey wild is corrupted by the Gorgon and we will be in great danger. She also tells us that to find Fhiele we must recover a blue fox who is owned by a Fae. She tells us we must sit at his dinner table, but not eat anything no matter the temptation to do so. We must only ask for the fox. With this knowledge we travel into the fey wild as Korak raises the branch magical energy surrounds the stone arch before us. When we enter the fey wild the corruption is everywhere and the land is poisoned and diseased. It is not long after our entrance into the fey wild that undead monstrosities emerge from the corrupted pools around us. As they charge in Korak raises his holy symbol and many of them begin fleeing in fear. The others we engage, I dart between them with my Rayna’s spear, it’s magical energy cutting deeply into them destroying the ones I engage. Eventually, the battle is won and we press on. As we journey on we see the form of a woman floating in the corrupted green river. Drago sends out his mage hand to touch it…. As it springs to life it’s hair long and animated. The hair from the undead woman lashes out and tries to drag some of us into the pool. As she does so she gives kisses that drain the physical strength from those she kisses. Rayna’s spear does damage her, but she has mutated ki and I am unable to stun her. She casts auras of silence around my companions inhibiting the spell casters. It is a harrowing fight and most of my strength is drained. Thankfully, I do not rely on strength to fight. Still I know that if she is able to kiss me twice my life force will be totally drained. I retreat and swarm her with arrows, my strength drained I can barely move. Thankfully, my ki is strong and I am able to escape her grasp. Cordelia gets the final blow on the monstrosity just as she is about to lay another foul kiss on Korak, perhaps slaying him. Beaten down but not defeated we press on out of the corruption. Eventually finding the location of the large feast we were told about by the Alsaids. There a fey creature leads us past several tables filled with all manner of tempting treats, as we sit down at the table it brings us to. It begins to tempt us with all manner of things, for myself it offered me fruit and juice that hinted at unlimited power to unlock the ki within myself. Still, I know that such power does not come quickly, and I was able to focus my mind and refuse. Stating I only wished the blue fox that hovered next to him in a bright blue bubble-like aura. The temptations continued, and the creature became frustrated with us as we refused each one. Eventually it smacked the table in frustration and gave us the fox. As Hunter touched the fox it darted off and we gave chase into the fey wild. Eventually it lead us to a glade there we found Fhiele the fey. Cordelia and Drago, the only two who could speak with her the rest of us watched as they spoke in the mysterious tongue. Many strange things happened as the conversation continued. Drago’s arm was turned into a snake, Cordelia was turned into a rabbit, then back into a person with rabbit ears. One of the Dryads came over to the fey and it ripped out her insides and handed them to Cordelia. The fey seemed a furious for some reason, but she opened a portal and we all hurriedly entered the portal. Suddenly, we were before the great silver Dragon Larmedylth the kind. Korak tells the Dragon that we have done as she asked and traveled to the fey wilds and returned with the means to restore Urkenhame. The silver Dragon asks hunter what he has done to redeem himself, he replies with something. She calls him a liar and says that his fate will be left to the Queen. She devours the entrails of the Dryad and magical energy surrounds her as she flies off. Korak and Hunter go to speak with the Queen. The Queen turns around and says that hunter must seek the Dragon again for his punishment… We travel outside the city of Urkenhame were we see the silver dragon flying around using it’s magic to rebuild the city stones fly up and replace themselves, sheep seem to grow out of the ground. Life springs anew! The Dragon lands before us, and Hunter presents himself to the Dragon for judgement. The Dragon rears back it’s mouth descending on hunter swallowing him whole. Then an egg is regurgitated out of the Dragon’s mouth, and a creature hatches out of the egg. Half man half dragon, she calls it Bellasaar we discover that the Dragonborn is hunter reborn and renaimed. Larmedylth tells us that this is his punishment that he is now bound to her and must go out into the world and fight against evil and aid the helpless. With this she flies us into the city on her back and we witness more of the city rebuilding. We remain in the city for a week as it comes back to full life, aiding where we can. Shango and I ask about building a monastery within the city the Queen agrees, but we must fund the cost. Eventually, some of us return to the Cohort others remain behind in the city to aid it further…. Another mission complete…. Darvius Alandre.

Session 41: (Urkenhame) It's not easy growing sheep. Brognir (Ryan B) Korak (SlothSlow) Drago (Hats4Cats) Shango (Lunatic) Cordelia (Serephen) Hunter (Link S) Darvius (Darvius) Report written from Brognir Bronzhelm on his great first adventure to the Fey and back again Like any mission I arrived to meet with the other members of the Cohort to go over the mission. I was growing bored and needed to go out and see more of this world. I heard about a screw up some of the other members of the Cohort did and that they were trying to make it right. The mission would be hard and dangerous. It sounded like they needed my help indeed. The mission was simple. Find a way into the Fey, Then find the Fey queen and get her to fix this whatever magic that they broke in Urkenhame. So we took a boat to Aulbuurn but when we got there we tried to speak with some of the nobles there. We did not have a meeting and it would have been weeks to see them without one. They would not let us see any of em unless we had a meeting appointment. So note to self, Make sure you have a meeting with nobles ahead of time if you are going to Aulbruun.  We were about to leave to try and hope we find a way into it ourselves when we were stopped by a halfling woman named Tina Swiftfoot. Tina told us about a location of standing stones to look for but warned us of the dangers. That the Gorgon was infecting the land with a disease that this world and the fey are corrupted. We thanked her and left. We spent a few days and nights in the wilderness. At one point the land all around us was dead as winter. Nothing lived in the land. We made our way through and found more healthy land and a mountain.Thinking we gone to far we headed back around but soon found what we were searching for. We found the archway and a dozen Alsaids guarding it. Luckly they spoke Sidhelien, So we all could understand. We told em about our quest and they told us about the task we must do once we entered the Fey through the Archway gate.  They told us to find this Fey fellow and to sit with him at a feast table. We were to not take anything from the table. I was not to eat or drink anything. Me little dwerren heart dropped. Not know how many days in the Fey we will be. I started to eat as fast as I could me rations. It made me tummy hurt for a few hours. Should have used more of me smart dwerren head I should. But we thank em and went through the gate. We had no way of returning but we would have to find our own way out. When we got to the other side we found an infected bog that was cursed by the Gorgon. We found some Fey Rune in the center of it and it seemed to be infecting the area around us. Not knowing how to properly fix it we left it behind. We should come back and try to undo the evil we left behind. We were also ambushed by the undead that sprang from the water but they were no match of me and my party. We took short work of em and moved onward. Then Drago found a dead body in a river. We were still in the infected lands and he got the good idea to poke it with some magics. I dont blame the lad. I would have done it also but the thing was not dead. It moved to us but always staying in the water. It made the area around us got silent and none of us could hear. We went to attack it as it hair sprang out and lashed onto our dear laddy Drago and started to drag him to her. At one point I saw her kissed him and I don't think it was meant to be a pleasant one. She grabbed onto Korak or other good looking Dwerren of the group and onto Darvius. Me and Shango tried to hack away her hair that had our friends tied up in it. She was trying to kiss them all and suck the strength out of em. She got a good one on Korak and he felt it the rest of the journey. But in the end the she hag was back to sleeping with the fey fishes.  We went up stream and found a more healthy looking fey environment and soon after we found a few Fey having a feast at many tables. We found the one we were suppose to meet and sat at his table. He offered us many things and we all had a hard time trying to resists the things he offered us. Even though I ate before I meet him even me belly rumbled. If he offered me some good olde dwerren ale I would have failed our task. But we all did resits and we got the blue fox that led us to the Fey queen Fhiele and her court I was guessing. I could not understand what she was saying but I offered her a gift of a keg of some dwerren ale. I am sure she does not get out and to try our wonderful dwerren ale so I thought it a great gift for future dwerren that see her.  We had no clue what was happening as Cordie and Drago interacted with Fhiele. At one point the Fey called forth a plant woman and took all of her innards out and handed them to Cordie. She gave them to one of us to hold onto. They Fey did strange things to Drago and Cordie. Turning Drago arm at one point into a snake and then choking it to death and his arm turned somewhat to normal. Cordie she turned into a cute bunny and when she returned to her humanoid shape she had bunny like ears and a tail.  Then we were told by Drago to run. A portal opened up behind us as the Fey grew very angry. I felt some pity looking upon her and I wish I could have stayed and interacted with this sad looking woman. I could have given her a smile and a good drinking partner. But we all listened to lad warning and went through the portal.  The other side we found an encampment and a giant silver dragon.Larmedyth, the kind. We were near Urkenhame and Drago seemed to know Larmedyth well. She seemed made at the dwarf Korak and Hunter. But we offered up the ever burning branch and the dryad guts. The dragon at it and grew more powerful. She thanked us and flew away as Hunter and Korak went to meet with the queen. But it did not take long before they returned to us and we traveled with em back to the city. Were we found Larmedyth growing building and sheep. Yeah I know what I said but trust me she was doing that.  She then meet with us and they all had a chat with the silver dragon. The out of nowhere when Hunter was talking to her trying to get her to see he felt sorry for what he did, she ate him. I drew me weapon. Dragon or not I won't let a party member get eaten. The others held me back as Larmedyth choked up a silver egg and out of the egg came a man dragon. I guess it was Hunter but Larmedyth said that the old Hunter is dead and he was now Bellasaar and that this new form is a new life and a curse for him. The rest of the party talked to the silver dragon. I think Drago wanted to learn some magic from it. I went to comfort this new Bellasaar. Not sure if he noticed. We then spent a week in Urkenhame to help out the people. I repaired tools and made some new weapons for the guards there. But at the end we all journeyed back to the Cohort.  So there me grand tale. I was happy to help Bellasaar and Korak right the wrong they did. They are not bad people if they knew what they did was wrong and wanted to make a difference. Glad they were able to do what they did. Now I am off to find more adventure if this Ingund and her blasted sheep don't kill me first. Brognir Bronzehelm

Session 41: Reborn in Silver Fire Present Adventurers: Korak Flomhelm ( SlothSlow ) Darvius Alandre ( Darvius ) Bellasaar, formerly Hunter Layton ( Link S. ) Dragomir the Black ( Hats4Cats ) Cordelia Woodwytch ( Serephen ) Brognir Bronzehelm ( Ryan B. ) Shango Bayu ( Depraved Lunatic ) Short Summary: -We find the portal to the Feywild. -We are assaulted by various corrupted creatures. -We sit down at a table with alluring temptations. -We attain the blue fox which leads us to the Fey. -Cordie and Drago converse with the Fey. -The Fey gives us the materials necessary for the restoration of Urkenhame's Barrier. -Urkenhame is rebuilt and reborn. Full Description: We depart towards Aulbruun, the location closest towards our destination. We've brought most of the same people, replaced Ingram with Brognir, but that's fine. The Landgraf of the City was busy and would not meet us without an appointment. Luckily, a halfling woman called Tina Swiftfoot noticed us and spoke to us for a moment and Cordie spoke to her. She gave us all the information we needed without the need for an appointment, so that's pretty neat. She mentioned that the Gorgon had tainted the lands and was probing troublesome to the Alseid's. We were to find a dead forest with a big set of standing stones in its midst. We climbed a mountain to find it and I must say, the view was pretty stunning. Nonetheless, we had no time to waste and found the aforementioned place rather quickly, departing towards it hastily. It wouldn't take long until we arrived at the standing stones, where we were greeted by the presumable Alseids. Looked familiar to that one Alseid that's Countess of Abbatour. Prudence I think. They war us that the Fey Wilds might be just as sick as the surrounding forest, because of the influence of the Gorgon. We are also told that a creature that owns the Blue Fox will invite us to dinner and to not drink or eat anything. The Blue Fox will then lead us to the Fey. We enter the portal to the Feywild. The Sight we were greeted with however is none that I'd have associated with a place that calls itself the Feywild. I imagined it to be more colourful. Then again, we were told that parts of it were corrupted. As soon as we took some steps though, we were greeted by a group of monstrosities, looking extremely similiar to the ones that I fought on our first mission. We dealt with them quickly, as Korak unleashed something that striked fear into quite a lot of them, which were then easily dealth with.  We continue on to follow a river northwards, following a trail towards what we could hope to assume would be the place we are looking for. We saw a corpse floating in the river. I was quick to suggest not to tamper with it, but Drago, as he is a very curious kid, couldn't stop himself from poking it with his magehand. Naturally, the corpse rose and started attacking us with its hair. Surprisingly well kempt though, considering that she was treating it very rough, lashing out at us and all. She even pulled in the other to give them an good old smooch. Turns out it's not that good of a smooch, Darvius and Korak looked like they were pretty drained from it. Perhaps it's that good though? I wouldn't know, I was busy punching the corpse and blocking it's hair. Once we dealt with that, we moved on, following the river northward. We arrive upon a much more colourful place, with a big variety of creatures inside of it, of which I could assume that most of it were fey. One creature with peculiar eyes and bright skin approached us and beckoned us to the table, where a big blue orb was located, containing a blue fox. I could feel the grumbling of my stomach as we approached the richly decked out table, but I had steeled my resolve to such needs beforehand. The Creature took turns handing everyone something they seemed to deeply desire, although I made no sense of it. The toughest part was resisting the temptation to drink from the wine it offered to me. It smelled so good. Like no wine I've ever drank before. Darvius reminded me of our mission however and I managed to pull through. I am very curious as to what the wine would've tasted like though. Once we resist long enough for the creature to grow frustrated enough to hand us the Blue Fox we get up and follow it deeper into the feywild, where a flowerlike creature awaited us. It's dress seemed like a red flower and it's skin was as green as the grass beneath it. Naturally though, we weren't able to speak to it. The exception being Cordie and Dragomir, as they seemed to atleast understand her. What followed were several minutes of us watching them chat and watching the surroundings. The most strange happenings were unfolding and at some point, the Fey eviscerated one of the dryads travelling through the Feywilds and took out her organs for us to carry. I have no Idea why, but I guess I had to roll with it. The other fey creatures looked frightened like hell though, so I guess this isn't a normal occurence? She also transformed Drago's arm into a snake, strangled the snake to return his arm to normal and turned Cordie into a halfling rabbit. Once transformed back, she retained her Rabbit tails and ears. The Fey grew angry all of a sudden, even becoming red. I have no clue why, but she just opened a portal and we hurried through it. We found ourselves back at the people of Urkenhame's recluse, to our suprise. Larmedylth the Kind was sitting upon its walls and we quickly handed her the organs of the dryad, thinking she'd know what to do with it. She apparently did, as she quickly took off, leaving Korak's and Hunter's judgement to Queen Freya Drachen. Apparently, Korak was fine and Hunter was to be judged by Larmedylth yet again. So we went on towards Urkenhame. Once we arrived there, we were greeted by a hard working Larmedylth, who was already looking to judge Hunter alright. He seemed humble enough to be forgiven, as Larmedylth swallowed him whole and had him reborn as Bellasaar, a Dragonborn close to her form. We rested up in Urkenhame and assisted in its rebuilding. Darvius and I secured us a sweet spot for a monastery close by, provided we'd have the funds. And all in all, I think the relation between urkenhame and the Cohort are now fixed. -Signed, Shango Bayu

Session 41: Reborn in Silver Fire Present Adventurers: Korak Flomhelm ( SlothSlow ) Darvius Alandre ( Darvius ) Bellasaar, formerly Hunter Layton ( Link S. ) Dragomir the Black ( Hats4Cats ) Cordelia Woodwytch ( Serephen ) Brognir Bronzehelm ( Ryan B. ) Shango Bayu ( Depraved Lunatic )   Alright, I know this is late but I've got a good reason, promise! We rebuilt Urkenhame barrier! You won't believe how hard Silver makes ya work. We started getting over to Aulbruun. This place is where some of the Brecht and Anuirean both think they should be in charge or something like that. It's due to the fighting they keep having as there between both sides. We went to try to see a guy called Longraft. I think he is in charge, don't call em a baroness tho that's an Anuriean term and will just piss em off. He was too busy and you have to get a meeting if you want to see em. However, we saw a halfer women call Tina Swiftfood. Her and Cordi got along really well. Like really well, like couldn't understand em but when ya see em smiling like that you can tell. She told us about the forest was having issues cause the Gorgon placed some curse on the land turning it black and dead. We walked West from Aulbruun, was a nice trip. Didn't get attacked, makes a change, you won't believe how dangerous it can be just walking ya known. We walked through an area that was quiet. Like not a thing was around, no insects or animals, nothing. We went up the side of a mountain and after a night's sleep, we could see the black forest area from up high. When we got closer we saw the fey portal but there were a lot of Alsaids there. like more than 10 of em. Didn't look happy to see us, don't know much about em expect... I'm pretty sure I've seen one of their kind back at the Corhort. There were trying to remove the corruption around the land. This was all at the stone  We went into the gate thanks to Korak show em the branch. They warned us about a creature in the fey and not to eat their food. Inside we got attacked by... i dont know what they were but they just ran away from Korak. The guy is scary when fighting. We found the source of the corruption. A magic stone that was tapping into the leyline, doing some crazy magic like to it. No one wanted me to destroy it. They thought it could cause something bad to happen. I think something bad is already happening but got told we need to focus on the mission at hand. The first thing when I got back was to tell the Alsaid about it in the Cohort. I got lucky and found her in the hall, thought I was going to have to leave a message. Anyways we headed north after leaving the stone alone. Found a body floating in the water. I cast mage hand and poked it to check it was alright. The thing came to life and grabbed me with its hair and started pulling me in. I couldn't hear a thing the creature did something weird. Then it kissed me, didn't just kiss me tho got Darvius and Korak. I mean Darvius was really weak in the knees after that. It was a tough fight alright but Cordi got some good shots on it and we were able to kill it. Pretty sure if it wasn't for Brognir and Shago I would have died. I can't believe that was my first kiss! We found a strange creature with loads of friends all around different tables. Like it came up and offered us all something different. Power, shadows for Hunter. Korak saw a way of undoing what he did. We all just sat there chanting something about a fox. I forgot why we were there as the food looked so good. After some time and the creature getting more annoyed, he put the Fox on the table next to a vial. Korak said he knew what he was offering, the ability to bring back any creature from death, even a god. He got some will power that one. We took the fox and followed it to the fey.  After a while we reached the feywild and saw Fhiele, the fey. She was odd, only Cordi could understand her. I cast a spell to understand her and ended up in the shadow realm for a short period. Something weird happened to magic when you're there. It doesn't work like normal. Fhiele was strange, like she only really seemed to care for stuff that entertained her. We tried our best but she got bored so easily and I don't know, I think she was sad. Like none of her friends around her wanted to talk to her. I even asked a few but they didn't want to, said it was too dangerous. Apparently she was once human and due to the Gorgon killing the Fey, she took her place as the new fey. Apparently her old friends are all dead so no wonder shes alone. She killed a dryad for the parts we need for silver. She took everything from it and it died. She turned Cordi into a bunny and my arm into a snake. Like the snake was fun for a bit but got boring fast. She killed it but my arm still has scales on it. After that we left really quick, she wasn't happy with me. Probs best if I don't see her again. Well not without a way making things feel very different. To anyone who sees her, she doesn't think like normal. She just wants change, doesn't really seem to care how she goes about it. She made a portal for us to leave and we were back in front of Silver before I knew it. Cordi lost her hat in the portal, shame I liked that hat. Silver was happy with the parts from the Dyraid and didn't seem to concern about how to go about using em. She just ate them right up. Silver is so cool. She flew straight off. Hunter and Korak had a talk with the queen why we talked about the Fey. After we marched back to Urkenhame. Silver was rebuilding everything, buildings, roads, hay piles, even the sheep and cows. The villager was moving stuff back in, I helped with looking after the children.  Hunter was told to see silver, apparently, the queen was going to ask Silver on the matter of Hunter burning the city down. Well Silver ate him and turned him into a small silver dragon thing. She said it was a curse but I can't see how like. He looks freak in awesome, way better than that boring man in a hood. Like he got claws and scales. I'm pretty sure the air was freezing around his mouth as well. Silver said he had been reborn and now he was called Bella.   After everything was done, I approached Silver asking if she would be willing to help me out. I know the cohort thinks I'm not strong, I don't know what this Fate weaver is but it feels like I'm just getting handouts. Like the first lady I met. I asked Silver if she could teach me a way of making my own magic, ya know like the dragons do. She thinks I talk too much probs right. I reckon I can be quieter why learning. O yeah, we even got to fly on her back. Imagine if you can fly like silver, how awesome would that would be. 

Session 37 (SPECIAL): Morrendeeper Present: Agatha Duskhart (Summer) Diesa Gemfire (Zilarrezko) Mamm Bealdaarstdottir (Seraphina Leaf) Prudence Duskhart (Lena) Teresa Eirwen (Serephen) Halie Thistledown (NPC) The party are free to keep the healing potions that were gifted to them. Monster XP 329XP for surviving the threats of Morrendeep Quest XP 150XP for making it further into the depths of Morrendeep RP XP 125XP for great RP! Exploration XP 50XP for exploring deeper into Morrendeep 100XP to Diesa for mapping it. Log XP 150XP to Diesa, Prudence, Agatha, Teresa, and Mamm Total XP 804XP to Prudence, Agatha, Teresa, and Mamm 904XP to Diesa Renown, Fame, and Infamy Each character gets one additional renown with The Cohort Arcanum. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 38 (SPECIAL): Lost in Translation Present: Ant (Seraphina Leaf) Galena Abanathu (Zilarrazko) Lolgon Shoulgen (SlothSlow) Nim Thistlewick (Summer) Portia Folkor (Lena C.) Orithar Trisk/Fenris Nathair (Hats4Cats) Each member of the party (except for Orithar) is awarded with 600 pots (20gp) for the information they brought to The Siren. Firbolg are UNLOCKED. Monster XP 52XP for surviving the encounter with the old woman. Quest XP 50XP for unlocking Firbolg RP XP 200XP for wonderful RP! Exploration XP 50XP for exploring the realm of The Siren. Log XP 150XP to Galena, and Ant Total XP 176XP to Orithar and Fenris 352XP to Nim, Portia, and Lolgon 502XP to Galena and Ant Renown, Fame, and Infamy Every character receives 5 Renown (The SIren), except for Orithar who receives 1 Infamy (The Siren) instead. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 39 (1V): Toad Times Present: Hedrin (SlothSLow) Shlar Ohmste (Warwolf 1969) Shifty (Ryan B.)[Deceased] Robert Bossouri (Depraved Lunatic) King Kallen Pickbiter rewards the party with 400 golden hammers for alerting them of the return of the Froghemoth as well as the information on the Gith. Monster XP 94XP per person for monsters Quest XP 250XP for solving? the problem with the rust monsters. RP XP 125XP for great RP! Exploration XP 50XP for discovering The Froghemoth. Log XP 150XP to Robert, and Shlar (Please submit complete logs with a list of adventurers, and the mission number in the future). Total XP 519XP toHedrin, and Shifty (Ryan's next character) 669XP to Robert and Shlar Renown, Fame, and Infamy 7 Renown (Daikhar Zhigun), and 5 Infamy (Gith) 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 40 (1N): I Smell a Rat Present: Savas Al Hadar (Physh) Drake Darkwood (Link S.) Phage (Ryan B.) Gundle Oddlong (SlothSlow) Nubby Oddling (Hats4Cats) Eirena Lightshadow (Depraved Lunatic) King Varri Haraldsson awards the party with 480 golds for their progress on dealing with the rat situation. Monster XP 275XP per person for killing rats. Quest XP 200XP for making progress on eliminating the rats, and culling some of their numbers. RP XP 125XP for great RP! Exploration XP 50XP for finding the secret tunnel into the sewers. Log XP 200XP to Eirena, Phage and Savas for great logs (please include mission numbers on your logs in the future). Total XP 650XP to  Drake, Gundle, and Nubby 850XP to Eirena, Phage, and Savas Renown, Fame, and Infamy Each member of the party receives 10 renown (Stjordvik) for their efforts. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 41 (1U): Reborn in Silver Fire Present: Korak (SlothSlow) Drago (Hats4Cats) Hunter (Link S.) Shango (Depraved Lunatic) Darvius (Darvius) Brognir (Ryan B.) Cordelia (Serephen) Everyone in the group except for Hunter (now known as Bellasaar) receives 100gp from The Cohort tax free.  The Mammoth Warrior once again begins his hunt. He has vowed to find and kill Siegfried, and Roland who made no attempts to make ammends for their crimes against Urkenhame! Monster XP 242XP for defeating monsters. Quest XP 500XP per person for completing the quest! RP XP 250XP per person for epic RP! Exploration XP 50XP for discovering the portal to the Fey Wilds! Log XP 150XP to Shango, Cordie, Hunter (Bellasaar), and Darvius 175XP to Dragomir, and Brognir. Total XP 1,042XP to Korak 1,192XP to Shango, Cordie, Hunter (Bellasaar), and Darvius. 1,217XP to Dragomir, and Brognir Renown, Fame, and Infamy Korak, and Hunter (Bellasaar) lose all of their Infamy in Drachenward. They both restore 2 of their renown with The Cohort Arcanum. Everyone else receives 5 fame (Drachenward), 20 Renown (Drachenward), and 3 Renown (The Cohort Arcanum). 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here.

Session 44: Fire Bird and Feuding Families. (Mission 1s, and 1j) Those Present: Shango (Deprived Lunatic) Jasta (Ryan F) Hedrin (Sloth) Brognir (Ryan B.) Shlar (Michael H) And Teresa (Serephen) for the second part of the session. First off I will say that none of us are actively responsible for the releasing of the Primordial.  We were Unwilling Victims .  Acting upon pain of death.  With that out of the way I will explain how events transpired.     We met in the Cohort tavern, Hedrin agreeing to be out leader.  There was a brief discussion about what we intended to do.  As far as I was aware we had met up to go investigate a fire bird.  However Shango seemed to believe that would be too dangerous a task for us.  The group discussed this but ultimately we chose to continue.  Our intentions were never to engage with the bird, this was simply information gathering and spying.  We nearly never made it, as while sailing to Hjolvarian we spotted the Roc flying nearby.  For several terrifying minutes everyone on board watched as a bird as large as our ship flew past.  Fortune smiled on us as either the Roc did not see us, or considered us not worth investigating.  After our scare we continued to our landing at Kopoingdal.  From there we headed into the forest moving to where the bird was last seen.  For three days we travelled without incident.  Unfortunately our luck did not hold as on the third night myself and Hedrin were on watch when Hedrin spotted what looked like a fiery bird flying toward our camp.  We woke our companions and the consensus was to try and get away before the bird got to us.  In this we failed, as the bird flew faster than we expected landing in the middle of our camp.  It engaged us in conversation, inquiring as to what we were doing.  We told it we were just passing through, and were members of the Cohort.  At which point it became very interested and demanded we travel with it to aid it in freeing it's mistress.  When asked what would happen if we said no the bird simply told us it would kill us, burning us alive.  It was pointed out that we could not then help it to which the bird said that bringing us back to life would be a easy task for it.  With the suggestion that it would kill us, carry our bodies to where it wanted us to be, then resurrect us to make us perform it's wishes.     Reluctantly, under the duress of dying, we were forced to travel with the bird.  During our travels we attempted to interrogate it for any useful information we might obtain.  We discovered that the creatures name was Sofaria and it was a she.  She was a creature of pure magic, a Mebhigel.  Her light seemed to dim during the day, but we could not tell if this was a weakness or just a natural event.  Though she did tells us that she was growing more powerful everyday.  We suggested that in that case she could let us go, as she would soon be powerful enough to free her mistress on her own, but she seemed inpatient to release her mistress.  Her mistress turned out to be Solaria one of the Primordial Gods.  Early on the second day of our journey a massive spider suddenly approached our group.  When I say massive, I will expand on this by saying the spider was eating a Giant as it approached, obviously intending on having us as dessert. We attempted to flee, while launching ineffectual attacks toward it.  Sofaria was unconcerned by this spider, flying up and watching us as we scurred like frightened rats.  Eventually Shango begged Sofaria to save his companions at it was obvious to all that the only one of us who could outrun the spider was him.  Sofaria made him swear an oath that we would come with her without making any more attempts at fleeing or stalling.  He agreed and Sofaria showed why she had no fear of the spider by simply ordering it away, naming it Cesseri and indicating that she controlled it and others like it.  Afterward Hedrin told us he had twisted his magic to summon the Spider, a magic eater, in the hopes it would injure or kill Sofaria.  Finding out that she fed them, and as such had control of such creatures was concerning.  With the agreement Shango had given we continued to travel with Sofaria until we reached a old Cohort temple.  Sofaria directed us to enter, Brognir simply stepped inside with opened the door and Sofaria flew in thanking us for opening the door and saying we were now free to go.  Brognir wanted to follow her, he hoped that if there were defenses within the temple they would give us a chance to derail her plans.  There was some disagreement on this, Hedrin wanting to head straight back to tell the Cohort what had happened, Brognir agreed but not until after we had attempted to disrupt Sofaria's mission.  I pointed out that any defenses that could challenge Sofaria would almost certaining be so powerful as to kill all of us and then no one would warn the Cohort until it was way too late.  Reluctantly Brognir finally agreed to return straight back to the Cohort.     The council was, hostile toward us when we informed them of what had transpired.  One member even going so far as to say we should be executed on the spot.  I bit my tongue to not argue that we were forced into our actions under duress.  A person threatened with, painful, death is generally forgiven if they act in a way not normal or legal.  The Kallanon said no to the execution suggestion.  Though he did make it clear that he expected us to assist when the cohort on mass faced up to Solaria.  Which apparently was what was needed.  Personally I think this is unwarranted pressure upon us.  For the majority of our group such an action would almost certainly result in our death.  So to say we should consider it as a command to join in was unfair.  Saying that when the call to arms is called I will be signing up, while I do not consider this to be directly my, or any of ours, fault, Solaria is a major threat and as such needs to be dealt with.  That itself would have been enough of an incentive for most on our group, without the extra demand of our involvement.     With the council informed we decided to attempt to retrieve our reputations, as well as improve our skills, by performing another mission.  On this we were joined by Teresa Eirwin.  Who seemed not to be put off by our recent misadventure.  Shango reminded us about the mission he had suggested at the start, how a Vos Princess: Chessa, wanted the Cohorts assistance in making certain she became ruler over her sister.  It was all to do with belief in the old Vos ways and the new, between Torva or Nova.  Chessa is a follower of Nova, the new ways, while her Mother and Sister are followers of Torva, the old ways.  We sailed to the city of Rzhlevskyy to meet this Princess.  She came to us in a tavern and explained that this was simply put an assassination job.  She wanted her sister to, Mara, as she put it, ' Go for a swim ', and if her mother went with her the Chessa would be even more pleased.  This made some of us, myself included, a little uncertain.  Jasta simply refused to be part of any underhanded assassination attempt.  But, it appeared, he was fine with us challenging or enraging Chessa's sister into a fight.  The group decided that some surveillance was needed first, to see what bodyguards the sister had, her patterns etc.  Shango, Jasta and Brognir went to the Black Wolf inn, where we had been told the sister drank, while myself, Hedrin and Teresa remained waiting for news.  The idea being that Jasta, being a Vos, would make contact with the Mara and find if there was any way of causing her to initiate a fight.  A couple of hours later they returned in an distressed state saying that Jasta had spoken to Mara who had then stormed our taking some guards with her.  Hedrin cast a Zone of Truth spell to try and prove that Jasta was not lying when he declared he had not said anything to Mara about our mission.  This deceleration was shown to be a lie when first Chessa stormed in with guards threatening to hang us for telling Mara of her plans, then Mara, their parents and a group of guards arrived to arrest Chessa.  We immediately jump to our defense, and to assist Chessa, thereby proving our loyalty to her in this.  A vicious fight ensued.  Mara and her guard storming into the inn where we were staying.  Brognir and Shango helped hold the door so that the enemy were restricted into a killing zone.  Hedrin cast a spell that enlarges a couple of Chessa's guard which helped tip the tide in our favour.  Jasta had indicated he was not willing to take part in this fight, then processed to betray us by attacking myself.  Shocked by this betrayal of a fellow Cohort member I retreated behind the bar intending of striking Jasta down.  Hedrin got to him first putting him down then moving over and pummling Jasta until he was dead.  The fight going badly for Mara she attempted to retreat but was stopped by Brognir, Shango and some of Chessa's guard.  Leaving Hedrin to finish of Jasta myself and Terease moved outside to assist in finishing off Mara as well as the sister's parents.      With everyone in her family, except for herself, dead, Chessa was happy knowing it meant she would now take the throne.  Plus it had been a very public fight, which she hoped would help prove that the old ways were not best.  Honestly I don't know if that is what will happened, but we did our job and got paid.  Hedrin was upset by Jasta's betrayal and Teresa attempted to console him.  Myself I was just happy to have survived the fight.  With our purses heavier with coin we returned to the Cohort to rest, and take in what had happened to us over the past many days.

Session 42 Mission Special: Broken Hart. Expedition Members: Prudence Duskhart (Lena C) Agatha Duskhart (Summer) Cordelia Woodwytch (Serephen) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter (Seraphina Leaf) Diesa Gemfire (Zilarrezko) Fenris Nathair (Hats4Cats) So when we set out from the Cohort, we had clear ideas of why we were leaving. It was to sell some adamantine hammers, and then to go see the alseids. I have had some questions. And I just wanted to know what I was, who I was. To see more of my kind. Cordie, a halfling woman, with bunny ears had recently encountered them and even been to the feywild, meeting the fey personally. I asked her if she would accompany me to meet them again and that way we could both find some answers. We headed to Daikar-Zhigun. Diesa had suggested that the city might want the hammers since she found adamantine to be in high demand in general in the area. We arrived at the gates and after a brief exchange with the guards we were let in. Diesa headed straight for the forges, to hopefully get the hammers authenticated. The smith shook Diesa off, and she looked quite upset. We headed to the market instead. We found a weapon merchant and after some negotiations she offered us 4,000 Golden Hammers per hammer. Diesa knew they were worth more, so we decided to try our luck with the royal armourer, see if they would pay us a better price. After talking to General Gotgrad Grayfoot who offered us the same price. Diesa felt like selling it to the king’s army was more appropriate. The general paid us in platinum, which was easier to carry, but still very heavy.  It was getting late as we concluded our business and so we decided to camp outside the city somewhere, both me and Fenris wanting to sleep under the sky, feeling like the underground nature of the city to be too claustrophobic. In the night, the party was attacked by a group of about ten toads. Which as we found out the painful way exploded when killed. They ganged up on poor Cordie. I picked her up and took her out of the fight just in time, as my companions dealt with them. After the battle I took a look at one of them but could only discern that they were more intelligent than they should be, and it was Agatha who found out it was something from the shadow world controlling them. The party was eager to leave the next morning. We caught the ship back to the island of Fabrica and the Cohort Halls, feeling it safer to deposit the large amount of money we got for the hammers. Then my stomach started to turn. With the hammers dealt with we could finally head for the alseids. I was so nervous. What will they think of me? What would I think of them? The whole boat ride I felt just a bit more seasick than normal.  We arrived in the city of Aulbrunn at around midday, and there was talk of staying the night, but I urged us to go. I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted to meet them, needed to at that point. Cordie, Mamm and me led the way and in just under two days we made it. We passed by a tree, and my gut feelings told me that a great corruption is set deep within it, something evil was inside this tree. It had great wounds overflowing with sap, bleeding. I wanted to help. Really wanted to help the tree, I felt it was my duty somehow. But I had no idea how to, or even where to begin. We would ask the alseids. Then I spotted them, the standing stones. The ones guarded by my kind. I felt my heart in my throat. Sweet Cordie, she offered to talk first, greeting the alseid that approached us to talk, having met before. Then Cordie mentioned me and the alseid stopped her, pulled me forwards and urged me to speak for my own self.  I asked how my transformation worked, I asked how many of us there are, I asked how connected we are to the feywild, I asked if like them I had three hearts, I asked how I could use my druidic magic in special ways now that I am an alseid, I asked what the moon had to do with who I am, I asked… Some of the answers I received only stirred more questions within me. I was told that I am still a child, she called me baby sister. I was told that we are quite rare as a species, that none of us were technically ‘born’ an alseid. I was told that it would be quite some time before I could have ‘children’ of my own, that it was some time before I grew three hearts. I was told that the ceremony I performed only worked because the two I married were entwined by the threads of their fates. I was told that the moon indeed has power we can harness but that I would have to find out on my own. I was told I had to learn a lot of things on my own. I was told… Then Cordie got to ask her questions. She was talking about sending messages to the Fey, Fiele. And something about the Nightwalker. I’m not sure, I didn’t really listen. My head was filled with all the things I was told, and all the things I now knew. My head spins just thinking about it now. And then. *the handwriting from this point onwards is much more rugged and raw looking* Then Agatha spoke up. She had a question, which she has not told me before. She asked the alseid if there was any way of turning back. Turning back? It was something I had never considered. She wanted me to turn back. Go back to how I was before, when I had two legs, and my horns were different, and my ears. Why would she want me to turn back? I thought we had talked about it the first time I transformed, I explained to her why I did it and she seemed to be okay with it. She said it was fine. She said it was my choice. And I chose. I chose to transform I chose to become an alseid. For her. I did it for her. We have always been freaks, the two of us, it’s what got us thrown out into the forest in the first place when we were children. Anywhere we went we were shunned and looked down upon. I remember the time I had to drag Agatha away as they threw stones at us. All we wanted was a bite to eat..And I thought that by transforming I could draw the attention away from her. If people were looking at me then they might not look at her. They would hate me and hate her less. *There are stains on the page that have been hastily wiped away, smearing some of the ink; but it’s still all legible.* And then the whole thing in Roesone happened. People there adored and loved me and I suddenly didn’t know what to do with myself. I was showered with gifts and love and adoration. And I hated myself for it. I still hate myself for it. My only solace about that is that their love also extended to her. And then she goes and asks if there is a way to turn me back. After all that happened, after we were given a home she wanted me to turn back! *The rest of the page is crinkled*   I needed a minute to collect myself, and walked a ways away from the group. Cordie followed me and we had a little talk. She’s very sweet. Helped me calm down, and we returned to the group. The party asked if we should try and cleanse that sick tree we came across. I told them how I felt about it, that I felt it was my duty. But I also told them that it was not my place to ask them to throw caution to the wind, and endanger their lives. We followed the alseid’s advice and let it be, electing to explore instead.  On the first evening, when I took my watch with Agatha, I confronted her about it. I asked her why she thought I should turn back, and she seemed to think it should be natural for me to want to. That I should be looking for a way. That I shouldn’t accept what I have become. Then Agatha being herself made some remark and called it a day. She can be such an *the next word is scratched out* No. No let’s not get carried away. I slept by Cordie’s hat that night while she slept on the other side of the camp, closer to Mamm. Our rest was interrupted however when a monstrous creature approached us. It was large with the body of a wolf, wiry hair and a long neck ending in the face of a man; not a wolf. It cried out miserably, and several of my companions seemed shaken by its howl. I noticed how close it came to my sister and I shouted for her to get out of the way as I charged towards it. I imbued my quarterstaff with the fey’s blessing and attacked it. Diesa shouted that only magical attacks and silvered weapons would hurt it. I could see Mamm next to me, urging me on and I felt this surge of inspiration. I don’t even remember how many times I managed to hit it. I just remember how tired I felt afterwards. How much my legs were shaking, and how much harder it felt to breathe. But I couldn’t let Agatha see that. She was unhurt, thankfully. Morning couldn’t come soon enough. The way back was silent and heavy with tension. I avoided my sister. On the boat ride too, she hid in her darkness. I wish she saw it my way. 

Session 44: Firebird and Feuding Families ( 1S and 1J ) Present Adventurers: Shlar Ohmste ( Michael H. ) Jasta Stanley ( Ryan F. ) Hedrin ( SlothSlow ) Brognir Bronzehelm ( Ryan B. ) Shango Bayu ( Depraved Lunatic ) Later on: Teresa Eirwen ( Serephen ) Short Summary: -We went to Hjolvar to scout out the fire bird -It happened upon us and we couldn't escape anymore, as we were threatened with death and revival -We tried to scare it off by attracting a magiceater, which was controlled by the bird after all -I begged for the life of my companions, sealing our fate -We let the bird inside the temple -We report this to the council -Travel to Vos lands to help Lady Chessa take the throne -We are betrayed by Jasta who told Lady Chessa's sister -Combat ensues, we slay the royal family for Lady Chessa Full Description: There usually is a certain kind of flow to Shango's handwriting, like every letter was bound to lead into the next letter. However, in this log his handwriting seems sort of stiff and rigid. We assembled at the Cohort Tavern, to rebrief ourselves with the mission. As I realised that most of my companions weren't as wizened by battle as I had hoped, I suggested that we take on another mission, but I was ultimately overvoted. So we travel to Hjolvar. Without tallying for too long, we marched straight onward towards the structure in which Solaria was contained, to gather intel on the bird. We travelled a few days without much issue, however, my guts were telling me that something wasn't right. But I wasn't going to let my companions to themselves, while I ran for it, so I tried to ignore it and pressed on. Turns out my guts were right, as the fire bird happened upon us during the night. As we couldn't outrun it, we stayed put and tried to figure out what to do once it arrived. We were demanded to come with it to free it's master, Solaria. Reading up on previous logs, there was no way that anyone save for myself could've made it out of there alive. And even myself escaping would involve quite some luck. We travelled with it for a while, learning more about the bird, which is called Sofaria by the way. We learned that water has a distaste for it. The bird also seems to be rather wiry, however, trying to grapple it could be sufficiently tough already, as it is literally on fire the whole time. It does not need to sleep or eat or drink. Someone in our group had a daring plan, trying to summon a magiceater so maybe the fire bird would be scared off. What we didn't expect was that the local magiceaters are somewhat under it's control, so it was clear that the bird was neither scared nor worried. I could've outrunned the spider without much issue, however, all four of my companion's were not as lucky. Thus, I begged of the bird that it would save my companions, in exchange for us following it without further interference. The bird shooed the magiceater away and we followed it to the place where Solaria is sealed. What followed happened rather quickly. Brognir accidently opened the gate to the temple and the bird flew in, telling us that we could leave now. I couldn't even realise what happened as it went by so quickly. We then made haste to return back to the Cohort to report this incident quickly. While some of the council seemed furious, it was reassuring to see the Kallanon keep such a clear head during all this. Maybe there is a chance for us to redeem ourselves. The following passage seems to be more in line with how Shango's writing usually looks. A few days later, we set off towards the city of Rzhlevskyy, to aid Princess Chessa in convincing her mother that she should be the next heir. Teresa Eirwen joined us on this mission, which was great as any helping hand was welcome at this point. And my goodness, those were some helping hands later on, as she was translating quite a big portion of the conversation in there. We travelled by boat to a rather charming city. Even though the waters looked green, it was such an uncommon hue of green that I couldn't help but find it beautiful. We were quickly briefed about the customs around here and how the Vos people are torn between the Nona, the followers of the new ways, and Torva, followers of the older ways. While I'm pretty sure that traditions have their merits, one should always allow change to shape their point of view, like the wind changes its path when it meets obstacles.  Anyhow, we learn at this point that our companion Jasta was a follower of the old ways. We told him that he could stay out of the business in case he felt too conflicted, but he said that he would help his current family, the Cohort. Oh boy, were we fooled. Afterwards we held a conversation with a very sympathetic guard and I handed him a gold coin to show our support of the new ways, which earned us a smile. We traversed to a small inn where we were... warmly welcomed. The owner even went as far as to kick out the earlier residents of the rooms so we could take the rooms up. Sure, I guess. I think they had some bad experience with Cohort members before. Or love us. It wasn't long into the night as we all noticed a knocking pattern, which, as we soon learned, belonged to Lady Chessa herself. And my goodness a lady she is. When she entered, I was relatively dumbfounded. I thought such beauty was a tale of myths and legends. The way she carried herself, the flowing, long blonde hair- well, let us carry on.  We were briefed about the mission and what our goal was. She said that she wanted her sister "to go swim for a bit" and that it would be appreciated if we made her mother do the same. While taken aback by this pretty obvious task of assassination, we agreed to help her, as having someone that is of the Nona ways at the top of the Vos would be more beneficial to the Cohort than one of the Torva ways. We believed that having someone of Lady Chessa left shortly after, after which we discussed how we are going to approach this. We decided that the best course of actions was that we stake out the other Inn of this town, where Lady Chessa's sister is a regular at. Brognir, Jasta and I would stake it out, while Teresa, Hedrin and Shlar waited at the other one, in case she were to go to that inn for a change.  When the next day arrived, Jasta, Brognir and I went to the "Black Wolf" inn, so we can start staking it out. Now that I think about it, it was stupid of us to have someone that believes in Torva do the talking, but we now know better. After Jasta spoke with Lady Chessa's sister, she stormed off and we quickly returned to the inn we slept in.  We tried to get Jasta to tell us what he told her, but it seemed like he was lying, so Hedrin tried to make him tell us the truth by using a Zone of truth. What really gave him away was how much he resisted submitting to the zone, meaning he had something to hide. We were going to learn what exactly he said soon enough, as a familiar knocking pattern happened at the door. Lady Chessa came storming in, exclaiming that we should all be hung. I gotta say, she's pretty charming when angry. After we settled that we were still on her side, save for Jasta who retreated to a wall inside the main room, Lady Chessa's sister and her parents came for us. Looks like self defense was how we were going to solve this mission.  Brognir and I went to the door and readied ourselves for the inevitable fight, blocking our assailants from coming in. What I did not anticipate however was the ferocity that Lady Chessa's sister fought with, as she gave Brognir and I a fierce blow, that would've let any ordinary man crumbling. I was healed right after by Lady Chessa, telling me to not disappoint her. I gotta say, I wouldn't like to disappoint that pretty a face.  This was more a battle of attrition than an outright slaughter, as we took our merry time whittling Lady Chessa's sister down. Hedrin enlarged two of Lady Chessa's Henchman, which provided invaluable to blocking off our enemies from entering the tavern. Unexpectedly though, Jasta betrayed us and started attacking Hedrin and Shlar, betraying his oath to the Cohort. While I would've loved to return to my comrades to aid them in taking down the traitor, one of the big guys thought so too, so I danced to a new position to block off our enemies from funneling inside. While things were looking daunting at first, Lady Chessa's sister was starting to bleed and we struck down a few of her henchmen, while her parents ran off. The tides were turning, especially when the unbearable sister ran away to regain her composure. I tried following here, but one of her henchman gave me a nasty gnash on the back while I followed. I managed to assist in surrounding her, so she couldn't escape, however her axe caught me and everything went black for me. When I woke up, Lady Chessa's enemies and parents were slain and I woke up to Teresa healing my wounds. This girl is a blessing , I tell you. We got up from our battle and reassembled. Teresa comforted Hedrin, who seemed to have an episode as I learned that he stomped Jasta's head in himself. Well, all in all, atleast one of our missions was a success. Know I have to wait and prepare myself for the call in arms. I have so much to keep living for, but I must give my all towards resealing Solaria. I really hope that I won't have to make use of my last will, hehe. If i make it out of that battle though, I am so going to be visiting Rzhlevskyy to impress Lady Chessa. -Signed, Shango Bayu, the probably forsaken

Session 42: (SPECIAL) Broken Hart Expedition Members Prudence Duskhart - Alseid Druid, level 5 (Lena C) Agatha Duskhart - Awnsheigh Sorcerer/Warlock, level 3/2 (Summer) Cordelia Woodwytch - Cellwair Warlock, level 4 (Serephen) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter - Rjurik Fighter, level 4 (Seraphina Leaf) Diesa Gemfire - Dwerren Fighter/Wizard, level 4/1 (Zilarrezko) Fenris Nathair - Sidhelien Barbarian/Druid, level 1/1 (Hats4Cats) (The large redacted sections seem to have returned in Cordie’s latest report, much to the fact checker’s annoyance) While I was searching books for useful stuff I found one of those deer people, in the Cohort of all places. She wasn’t like the others, wanted to join my research, but she was too busy. She seemed friendly though, I decided to help her anyway. Told her about the others I’d met and said I would lead her there. She had questions, like I had questions before and like I still had questions after going to that place. I wanted to go back too, so it worked for us both. She said that someone offered to help her get to the Feywild once, and offered to take me. She didn’t even add the “if you help me do something” part on the end, which I really wasn’t expecting.  She let me know when they were going. Her and some people she knew were going somewhere to sell some stuff to someone, I wasn’t really paying attention at that point. They made sure I knew that I wouldn’t get any of the gold from them doing so. I wasn’t expecting to get paid to not help them sell adamantine hammers to dwerren in Daikhar-Zhigun, but it was still nice to have that re-affirmed for me. We went there and ended up in probably the most boring place I’ve ever seen. I didn’t understand the language but everyone was about as dour and dull as the stone they lived in. The dwerren leading the group spoke to like three whole people, though it might have been the same person three times in different places (I can’t be certain), and eventually sold the hammers for a whole bunch of money. We opted not to stay the night there, the alseid was very upset being in the underground place, and went back to the interesting surface land to camp out. The hattent that Korak made for me turned out to not be toad-proof. I was woken up in the night by being bit and exploded almost to death. The alseid snatched me up and let me ride her a safe distance from the croaking horde and even gave me a potion to drink. She’s very soft, I didn’t drink her potion. Eventually we exploded them all. The dark-haired one threw one at a rock and it blew up. She said the toads were being controlled by something from the Shadow Realm. That’s probably why they were super smart, they bit the ones that fell unconscious to blow them up instead of let them be useless. The dwerren went back to tell the other dwerren that there were frogs near them, even though I said that they probably already knew. Turns out they already knew. It’s nice to know that even when I wasn’t up to saying things that probably weren’t true, people still mistrusted me enough to ignore me. After that we went back to the Cohort so the others could drop off their surely hard-earned money that I had no intention of stealing, and then caught a boat to Aulbrunn. I shared some things I learned with the alseid about alseids, since she didn’t seem to know much about herself. I don’t really know much about cellwair though, difference is she actually cared about finding out. Turns out she’s only a baby alseid. She looked nervous, but she was too eager to go to wait around in Aulbrunn so we set off about midday. I told the group how to get there and we all went that direction. It’s a good thing I didn’t just make up a random direction. On the way, the dwerren decided to ask me a question. I didn’t want to answer it, so I summoned Floof to answer for me. The others didn’t seem to like Floof at all. They said he was creepy, like some of the humans used to say I was creepy back when I was alone. The alseid seemed to like Floof. I guess she likes weird people that nobody else likes. We made real good time, but when we got closer we found a really weird-looking tree. The alseid said it looked hurt and sick. I told them that The Gorgon was doing things to infect that forest and that it had been bleeding through into the Feywild. She didn’t know how to fix it and said we should ask the other alseids about it. On the way, when we were getting close to the stone archway, I offered to help her. She looked scared. I asked if she wanted me to speak first and tell them why we came, she said yes. I figured she was scared of saying the wrong thing, I say lots of wrong things so it was an easy sacrifice for me to do that. I went up and started trying to introduce her, Prudence, but the alseids shut me up and said she should speak for herself. I never promised anyone not to jeapordise this mission, but I chose not to talk back anyway, and so Prudence had to step up. She stepped up okay I thought, and asked lots of questions. She got answers to most of them, but I think she still was confused a bit. She could have asked for more, but she told them quite firmly that I came for help too, and they turned to me for my questions. I didn’t think the alseids would have the answers I wanted, and they didn’t, but they had the answers I needed. Answers and perspective. I wouldn’t have thought to ask them, but Prudence thought of me and threw that opportunity at me very suddenly. She went off on her own afterwards though, while the others thought about questions they wanted to ask. I thought I recognised the look on her face. It was my face after I went to the Feywild. I thought she was a bit like me then, so I told her a story about where I came from. It may or may not have been true. Prudence has someone who’s like her, or she was, but now they’re less like each other and she doesn’t know who else is like her now. I think she thinks she’s like me in a way, or I’m like her in a way, or both. Maybe that’s helpful to her. Maybe that’s helpful to me. Some of the helpful things the alseids said: The sick trees are infected by demons from the Shadow Realm, set there by The Gorgon. You can extract the corrupted sap to try and purify the tree, but that releases the demon. The demons are real strong, the grown-up alseids have purified a bunch of trees, but it’s challenging even for them. The alseids have the power to open the Feywild portal by themselves, without a fancy burning branch but it’s very difficult for them so they’d only do it if it was really, really important. They also have a way of sending messages to Fiele, but they’d only do that if they thought it was important too. I asked them to send a message for me, but they said it wasn’t important enough. If we purified one of the trees, they’d consider it. They said that the corrupting demons were very strong, and they thought that we would probably die or by changed if we tried to fight one, so we decided not to. We tried to camp out in a sick-looking part of the forest and some evil wolf monster attacked. It had an entirely not-okay neck and a person-face. It howled in a really unnatural way and a few people got frightened of it. The dwerren told everyone that only magic and silver would hurt it. I had plenty of one of those things, I’ll not reveal which. Prudence ran to help the dark-haired one, told her to run. She looked really scared, she was turning to run without waiting for a good opportunity to do so. This person was important to Prudence, so I helped by making her invisible so she could run away and be safe. Once she was safe, Prudence practically smashed the monster to pieces with the others helping her. Even baby alseids are scary strong. It melted into the ground, laughing a weird laugh. The others didn’t think it was dead, but it probably wasn’t going to attack again until morning. The dwerren said it likely wouldn’t come out in daylight, turns out we were safe enough to finish resting and head back. Lots of the others looked really upset on the way back. I didn’t know what to do about that, maybe they’ll find someone to say or do the right thing to help with it, like Prudence did for me. I don’t know what having a friend is like, but maybe it’s something like this.

Session 45: How to Aggravate Dragons, The Undead & The Hag By Drago Expedition Members – Custom Mission Dragomir The Black - Leader – (Hats4Cats) Korak – (SlothSlow) Galena Abanâthu – (Zilarrezko) Rob Boss – (Deprived Lunatic) Phage – (Ryan B) Bella  - (Link S) Hafr – (Shane N)   Aye, well this was my first mission leading! Korak didn’t think it wise and wanted to Co lead but you know what, I’m ready! I got everything together so we could go deal with the monster creature we found at the top of Mount Acorn. Like I know its strong but we got so much stronger since last time and now I know that thing used to just be adventures like us, well they not like us but… I don’t know, we need to do something. Feel bad knowing they made the same mistake I almost did. I made sure everyone knew all the information we had like, on the mountain, around it, and the creature we were going off to fight. We first stopped at Urkenhame and got advice from Silver. She didn’t have a problem with what I was planning, said something about underestimating the Hag but I don’t even think the Hag will be there. We know the Hag has joined up with red but like what are the odds she going to be sitting on the mountain, in a keep. Silv… Larmendylth, Ya know she doesn’t like the name Silver, called me blonde but I kind of like it, especially compared to the other things people call me. Hafr got a history lesson from her about his father, mother.. them, Nyskira. I think that makes Silver his Aunt or something. I know Red is her brother, going to have to make a family tree about it. Dragons are not like us, they are not just a girl or boy ya know. They change it up and were around way before the first human. I wonder if they had a human form before humans existed, will need to ask Silver this. Ooo I got to show Silver my new wings, but she didn’t want to race, also asked if she were able to teach me how to get into Ley lines so I can always cast em but she doesn’t think I’m mature enough for it. We got information that Hag and her minions can be seen with a mirror made from Mithril, polished to a mirror finish, common knowledge. We went and saw the queen and asked her if she had any spare, tough ask but she really lush ya know. I can see why Silver Larmendylth really liked her. Really went out of her way to get some for us, I think she has a soft spot for Korak, he so blind though, doesn’t even notice. Wonder if I can set em up somehow. Going to drop a hint to her about Korak liking fluffy animals. With our new mirror, we headed out in the morning. On our first night, I woke up in the morning to a small guest in our camp. Mynnir, think she some kind of fey dragon. Small like, Galena gave her some wine. Pretty sure I got replaced as the party leader that morning. We took her back to Silver Larmendylth, first checking it was ok to bring a Fey into Urkenhame, really got to be careful with fey creatures. We left her there as we didn’t think it was wise keeping her with us given were we’re going. Bella kept wrapping her up and Galena kept on stealing her. Korak looked ready to go to war over her and well I did try and race her… ya know as Larmendylth didn’t want to, but the wine Galena gave her was too strong. Promised I’ll race her when I got back to Urkenhame. As long as she free to fly and do what she wants, I’m cool with it. Ya know its now getting really cold out, everyone needs to be taking tents. I was freezing and couldn’t sleep, so had to share Robs. Right so after getting distracted again and teaching our new friend, Mynnir how to count, Ooo almost forgot, she can burp glitter and make you laugh, how awesome is that! Right with that done we finally went to Mount Arcon. On the way over we saw Gnolls again heading southwest towards Haarlik, they are really starting to spread around, if they're back we’re going to have to do something about it. I have not forgotten Urkenhame originally wanted help with them due to raids. From the news I kept hearing it seems like their winning against the people in Hjorig. We also found a bunch of bloody rags and bits like something had torn whatever the person was apart but we were in too much of a rush. We cut through Hjorig where someone wanted a toll, I thought it best not to start a fight over 35 gold and Korak just payed them so we could move on. The Hags domain is always quiet, to quiet. So after all this time, we got to the top of the mountain. It was different though, right first there was a bighorn that the blow when we entered. Second, there still loads of corpses and we started fighting em and the big pile. There was also a magic-user at the backfiring spells at Korak. You don’t have access to above 2 nd Circle magic why your there. That fight was really tough and went on for ages. Then an army of Kobalt’s turned up with a giant one leading em. We lost count of how many Kobalts and Zombies we killed, after a very long battle we looked about to win. The Swolbold was dead, the corpse pile was dead, almost all the zombies were dead but then we heard a roar. Like not a normal Roar, like the world itself was splitting with anger, so loud we didn’t know the direction it was coming from. Pretty sure that was Red.. Aragnak. We didn’t kill the magic-user, think it was the Hag's minion, holding the place down. Well at this point we ran the best we could and made sure to take all the time we needed so we didn’t get killed. Took us ages to get back to the city like. Mynnir was waiting and I got my race! Think it was a draw, hard to tell, winning isn’t important it’s the fun of it. Ya know what, we didn’t get to raid the keep but we did kill that monster that was there, and really slowed down the Kobalt’s raiding, I hope. So ya know what I’m calling it a mission successful. 

Session 42 (Special): Broken Hart Played on the 4th of December in the year 2019! Present: Agatha Duskhart; Awnshegh Socerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) Diesa Gemfire; Dwerren Fighter, lvl 5 (Zilarrezko) Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) Cordelia "Cordie" Woodwytch; Cellwair Warlock, lvl 4 (Serephen) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 4 (Seraphina Leaf) Fenris Nathair; Sidhelien Barbarian/Druid, lvl 3 (Hats4Cats) We set out from the Cohort with two tasks ahead of us. Firstly, go and sell the two Adamantine warhammers we recently acquired in Morrendeep. Secondly, go and visit the recently discovered Alseid so Prudence and Cordie could ask them some questions. We set sail, and after a few days arrived in the city of Zhigun. A merchant told us of a war breaking out between the Dwerren and a race of Toad. We went to a smith to try and get verification that our hammers were Adamantine. The smith said he wouldn't do shit for us, annoying Diesa quite a bit. She cussed him out in Sidheilen, don't know if he could understand, though the tone probably gave Diesa away. We then decided to just go to the market and try to sell them. We found a merchant who Diesa managed to haggle her way to getting an offer of 8000 Gold Hammers (4000GP) for both hammers. We then went to the great hall to see if we could get a better deal from the army. We got an equal offer of 8000 golden hammers from General Gotgrad Grayfoot. We took his offer, and they paid in Platinum pieces. Some of the party wished to camp outside, as they felt uncomfortable within the stone walls of the city. We camped not far from the city gate. During the night we were attacked by ten exploding toads. Unfortunately I was asleep when they attacked so I couldn't don my armour, but I still fought. These toads only exploded once dead, so I thought it best to merely knock them out. However, the toads that were knocked out were bitten by the other toads, killing them, making them explode. This was a display of uncharacteristic intelligence on the toads part, we all thought after we had dealt with all of them. We made our way back to the Cohort to drop off the Platinum from the selling of the Hammers. Kind of gutted I'm not getting a share of the money, as there's a lot of it, but it's fair. My share is my new Hammer. We then took a boat to Aulbrunn to find the Alseid. Upon reaching the coast, we didn't dilly dally, as we eager to get to the Alseid, particularly Prudence. The first day when uneventfully, though the following morning we woke to find a tentacled creature now accompanying Cordie, named Floof. Floof was an odd character, but pleasant enough company. Though I did worry at first if Floof would be a bit loud and maybe give us away to some foe, but that didn't happen, so that's good. As we got closer and closer to the Fey portal where we meeting the Alseid, the land became more and more desolate, like it had been corrupted by something. Further along we found a tree that looked like the source of what had corrupted the land. Cordie said this being here meant the Alseid were most likely in trouble. That The Gorgon was spreading some kind of decay, like what had happened to this tree. Prudence said the tree was wounded, and that the wounds were what was making the land so desolate. Not knowing what to do with the tree, we moved on to the Alseid's guarding the fey portal. Cordie introduced Prudence to the Alseid. Prudence asked a few questions concerning the Alseid and specifically her own Alseid nature.  Prudence then invited Cordie to ask some questions of her own. Cordelia asked some questions about the Nightwalker. This topic seemed to be what has upset her so, though I may be wrong. Cordie then asked if the Alseid could send a message to someone named Fiele. The Alseid said that to send a message to the fey, it would have to be very important, and that Cordie's message wasn't important enough. Cordie asked if we cured one of the trees, would they send the message for her. They said they would.  Agatha then asked a quick question whether Prudence could be turned back from an Alseid. I think this upset Prudence and the two were quite distant for the rest of our journey. Prudence went off on her own, but Cordie followed and they had a little chat. Cordie had not been her usual eccentric self throughout this, and the answers she had gotten to her questions didn't seem to help, but bother her and Prudence looked a little better after their talk together. We discussed if we would go take on the tree, which we told would be very dangerous. We decided against facing whatever demon was inside the tree, but decided to do a bit of exploring of the area before heading back to the Cohort. We moved westward, not finding anything of note. We camped for the night, and during mine and Diesa's watch, were attacked by a giant wolf, but with a man's face, it was strange. Fortunately I had my armour on this time. The creature managed to put a spell on a few of us, causing them to run away. Diesa managed to recognize it, and yelled out that only magic or silver weapons could harm it, which was frustrating as I had neither. However, Prudence had her magic-imbued quarterstaff. So, I stood alongside her, making as many openings as I could for her to attack. It worked, she almost took it down on her own, though other members of the group helped as well. The creature melted into the ground but continued to laugh as it did. We reckoned it was still alive. The following morning we were exhausted and decided to make our way back to the Cohort. We got back to the docks at Aulbrunn. Before getting onto the ship, I and Diesa had a talk about her future in the Cohort. I tried my best to put any doubts she had about herself into perspective. I hope I got through, she is a wonderful warrior. The boat ride back was pretty gloomy. Everyone for one reason or another were in low spirits. I'd like to finish this log on a more positive note. This info, though I know it doesn't concern the mission, or the Cohort's higher ups particularly, it does concern its members, and it happened just after I arrived back at the Guild Hall. I ran into Nimogene Thistlewit, and had a little chat about my past. It got real emotional and one thing led to another, and, basically, I now intend to adopt Nimogene. As many in the Cohort are aware, I and Nimogene Thistlewit have become very close over the past months since we both joined at roughly the same time. I've been told by some that our relationship has raised their spirits when they see us together. Considering the morale of many in the Cohort, particularly those who took out the mission above, I hope you'll keep this in the record, as I hope to see it make some of our members smile, as dear Frederick Giles did when he was still around. I will, however, understand if this last section is removed. Maam Bealdaartsdotter

Session 42 - Operation Deerhammer (Mission SPECIAL) 04/12/2019 Participants; Agatha Duskhart, Awnshegh Sorcerer (Summer) Cordelia Woodwytch, Cellwair Warlock (Serephen) Diesa Gemfire, Dwerren Fighter/Wizard (Zilarrezko) Fenris Nathair, Sidhelien Barbarian/Druid (Hats4Cats) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter, Human Fighter (Serephena) Prudence Duskhart, Alseid Druid (Lena C) Notes for Cohort Not a whole lot to report from my expeditions this week, but here are some notes that might be relevant; Myself and some cohort associattes were recently in Daikhar-Zhigun to trade adamantine arms. The Twin-Citadels are gearing up for war against the Froghemoth, persuant to Board of Fate Request 1X. Expect prices for arms, armor and other materiel to rise if purchasing. Also if purchasing, recommend arms merchant Haznudeth Berylrock who can be found in the south-west of the central market. Avoid the forges unless absolutely nessecary though they are a grand sight. We met General Gotgrad Grayfoot who purchased our adamantine for the royal armoury. He seems very decent and courteous. As General probably up to date on all military matters. Recommend liasing with him to future expeditions looking to fight in the war against the frogs, may have suggestions on how best to deploy a specialist cohort team. After spending the day in Zhigun our company opted to make camp on the surface as members had found the underground stone chambers uncomfortable. Unfortunately during the night, despite only being within less than an hour's travel of Zhigun's surface gates, we were assailed by Froghemoth forces. A troop of about ten of the creatures quitely snuck into our camp attacking associates Cordelia and Fenris in their rest. When we counter attacked slain toads exploded with deadly magical energy, which they suffer no effect from but knockback while doing further damage to us. After this Fenris attempted to engage the enemy non-lethally, knocking the frogs unconscious instead of killing them. The remaining conscious frogs responded to this by slaying their own, biting the sleeping ones until they died and forcing them to explode. A ruthless cunning they should not possess. Nevertheless the company managed to prevail and destory our attackers. After completing our rest we reported the location of the incident to the local authorities before departing. Our next destination was Aulbrunn on the other side of the Krakennauricht, we made dock there and proceeded inland to the province of Wasser's Reach to seek out the Alseids. According to Cordelia who had been there previously they were inhabiting an area of woodland around a stone arch that, given the right key, is a portal to the feywild. This area is also under some sort of assualt by the Gorgon which has drained the life from the land for miles around. The Alseids say that they and the fey have already defeated the Gorgon's scheme in the area but the timescale to undo the effects is on the order of years or decades, which for them is not that long at all. Adventurers wishing to earn their favour however could aid them in accelerating this process by findind trees that have been infested with demons, drawing out and defeating them. Be warned however, this is challenging even for teams of fully grown Alseid at the height of their powers and should not be attempted lightly. Members of the company also conversed with the Alseid on matters of import to them personally which are not relevant to the wider cohort and so not included in these notes. Concluding these discussions we began our return journey. We ran out of daylight before making it out of the dead wood area and were forced to make camp there. Some form of demonic creature was attracted to our camp in the predawn hours. A distrubing creature that had a wolf-like body but an unnaturally long neck and an almost human face that laughed almost constantly. Only damage from spells, enchanted or silver weapons could effectively harm something like that. It also could make a howling scream that dredges up the deepest fears and cause panic. Our company managed to subdue it, mostly thanks to Prudence who bravely faced it head-on and beat it to powder with her enchanted staff. Sadly it will no doubt reform itself in the near-future so long as the area remains corrupted. With dawn's light we continued our travel and made it out safely.

Session 45 - The Cute, the Bad and the Dead (Mission SPECIAL) 07/12/2019 Participants; Bellasaar, Hadrachen Ranger (Link S) Dragomir Black, Human Warlock (Hats4Cats) Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue (Zilarrezko) Hafr, Hadrachen Ranger (Shane N) Korak Flomhelm, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) Phage, Human Cleric (Ryan B.) Robert Bossouri, Human Cleric (Depraved Lunatic) Hello cohorterers. I been on another adventure this month with a bunch of others that i heard was going after the hag of kordan what is the enemy of the siren. This was a right learning experience i will tell you that much. On the way to attack this hag first we went all around the continent to a town called urkenham. It looks a bit naff since its all just log cabins and thatch and that but it does have a dragon. So I learnt that dragons arent all nasty big evil dumb monsters cos we met the nice smart pretty one there who is called laremdalith. Some call her silver on account of her scales being all shiny and silver but she doesnt seem to like that. It wasnt the first time cohort had met her but it was my first time. Also met the tiniest sweetest little dragon, i mean little like cat sized little too, called mynnir. Phage said mynnir was a fearie dragon which meant she was a fey rather than an actual dragon but she looked like a dragon and did dragon things even though she was so super small and also the the dragon people spoke to her in dragon language which she also spoke so as far as im concerned shes a real and nice dragon. Not like that the one in that spiderwood place in anwar who really is nasty and horrible and stuff is related to laremdalith. All the dragons are she said. Which is weird isnt it and all the dragon people like hafr and bellasaar we have is like also relatives of them. So hafr is the silver dragons nephew, wow. He didnt seem to be that excited about it. She also said his mum was a dragon called nyskira and nyskira and other dragons arent like fixed in being girls or boys or something like that. Not really sure how that works but magic probably. Another thing that laremdalith told us was that the hags that work for the hag are called the sisters of the coven. They are old bad fey or something. Older than the hag herself. You can spoil a hags disguise by using a mirror of polished mithril. Apparantly anything reflected in a mirror like that will show its true form. I wonder what else that works on. Will have to experiment if korak stops hogging the mirror that the queen gave him the metal for for finding hags. She also mentioned that she knew the siren when the siren was kashika forsli or something instead of jerusha fjoldan which is right weird because i seen a painting of kashika here now that i got back and the siren i know is like a bird lady and not a snake lady like in the picture. The other thing that i learned about dragons is there is the biggest and worst and meanest one in drachenward called anorak the red. He showed up just as we were winning the battle against the dead at the fort place they called rapid retreat. Well we retreated rapidly then. So that was the main reason we went on the adventure by the way to take that fort. It is in the hags lands and they said theyd been there before to get a book or something and it was full of zombies and and a big pile of zombies all melded together but it was otherwise abandonned and hopefully choked full of treasure. It took a while to get there going through the forests of drachenward and we passed a little bit through some other place called hjorig. Oh right get this three people tried to rob us and the rest of the party just let them. I think that was dumb, not everyone passing through could be loaded cohort adventureres like these lot were and no normal person is ever going to see five andu gold pieces at once in their life most likely so now theyre fucked if those three go round again. Anyway theres a path that goes up the mountain. Which is good because climbing that thing normally when its getting on for winter would be horrible. When we got up to the top where the castle was it was weirdly dark which the others said was normal. Like theres a curse of permanent dusk or something even when the sun is shing. What wasnt normal is that there was a horn that blew big and louder than almost any id ever heard as soon as we stepped on the bridge. When we got through the gate all these dead corpses. The zombies. Slowly shuffled towards us. Then Bellasaar shot two of them and they shuffled a whole lot faster at us. Zombies are easy to hit but they keep not dying when they should. I'd brought silver bolts cos i heard theyre good against bad stuff but when I shot a zombie right through the neck with one it got right back up. Some of them you hit just right or hard enough they stay down for good. I stopped using the silvered bolts after that first one. Maybe theyll come in handy later. Soon after the fight started the big melded pile of zombies shuffled up throwing massive spikes and stink clouds and stuff it was awful but it also eat loads of the zombies attacking us. This was good since it meant less stuff attacking us but bad because it undid a lot of the damage we gave it. Korak and Rob and Phage are all those special types of priests that use god magic though and the big pile really did not enjoy getting radianted. Then after that things got a bit worse cos more new things were there this time. A massive load of kobolds were at the castle. Drago said something about kobolds and a henry that was working for the hag. Guess they started using the castle. They also had some spell caster. I never once got to see em though. Whoever it was stayed in the darkness beyond my sight and threw spells at korak and put fog clouds on the wall where i was shooting stuff from which was annoying. One of the kobolds was really big. Like cow size big and it came at us with all its little friends when we finally blew up the big corpse pile. It nearly squeezed korak to death but eventually we killed it too. At that point i think if wed only had time we could have overrun the rest of the kobolds, even the stronger shield carrying ones and then smushed that spell caster and taken the place. Yay. Unfortunately thats when the red anorak turned up and the others pretty much peed themselves. It was a scary roar to be fair. It even terrified the kobolds and they were on its side. So we ran away. Killed a lot of stuff but didnt get much loot. Oh well it was interesting. I got to meet some nice dragons and learn some stuff and some of it might be useful to the siren back in port hellen so ill probably go back there soon. Oh. One last thing. Mammoths. Imagine a giant fluffy square mouse that is twenty foot tall and has tusks the size of an orog. Not the size of an orogs tusks. The size of a whole orog. I saw a man turn himself into one with magic cos the queen told him too. And he said there was lots of natural ones of them in drachenward. Go see them if you are there.

Session 43 (Mission 1 W) : Shell Game Present: Darvius Alandre : Sidhelien Monk, lvl 5 (Darvius) Ant; Dwerren Barbarian lvl 3 (Seraphina Leaf) Portia Folkor; Anuirean Fighter, lvl 3 (Lena C) Devamora Jadeguard; Dwerren Cleric, lvl 2 (Serephen) Lynette Gwenevy; Anuirean Cleric, lvl 1 (Summer) Left at mid way point Marlmo; Goblin Druid lvl 1(Shane N.) Theq Ferro; Firbolg Cleric, lvl 1 (Lordgenome) We set forth from the Cohort towards the City of Illien. Once there we set forth to meet with Rogr Aglondier, Count of Illien. He did not have much information other than the direction to the town of Aenier, where most of the crabs had attacked. He also agreed to give us access to the ley line magic of the area. Our first night on the road we were attacked by a group of crabs. Most of the crabs were simple enough to deal  with. However, one among them a white crab that looked like it was a skeleton was more difficult. I managed to knock it down, and pummel it with my mace lightening crackling all over it’s carapace. However, when the battle was concluded I knew something was wrong. I was overcome with shivers, and I started to see forms moving about just outside my vision. The disease is called Ghost shivers. We agreed it was best to head back to town and try to find a cure for the disease. I remained outside of town so as not to infect anyone else with the sickness. When the group returned they brought a priest of the sea god. They donated 180 gold crowns to the temple, and I was deemed  “Worthy” of a cure. Do not get me wrong I am grateful to no longer have the disease, and to have survived a disease that has likely claimed the lives of others in the past. However, this is evidence that the churches of the world are not true servants of their gods but of their own greed and personal agendas. This has no relevance on the mission, other than my own observation. Once cured of the disease we once again traveled down the coast. During the night once again we were awoken by a sound, but this time it was beautiful singing. As several Syrens came to the beach we readied ourselves uncertain of their intentions. Ant went forth to talk to them in a strange language of the sea. It sounds like a lot of clicks and whistles. The Syrens wished to mate with me, for this price they would exchange information with us about the crabs. I agreed. During the evening the Syrens told me about their people, and their conflict with the crabs and how their Queen Kashika had declared war on the Syrens. I do wonder if this Kashika is the same as the one who was part of the first council of the Cohort?  I asked them if they would return to Kashika and ask her to halt their hunting of the crabs, and we would help to negotiate a peace between their people. They said it would take some time to reach her, but yes they would do so. One of them gave me one of their shining scales as proof of our encounter, and their favor. The Syrens also told me about the Queen of the Crabs and that the crabs made home on the isle of Tamle. In the next two days, we reached Aenier. Unfortunately, we were not greeted with a kind welcome. I should not be surprised as we were traveling with a Goblin. I do make the suggestion that our new Goblin brothers try to stick to missions that do not involve travel into civilized lands. Indeed, his presence and even that of our Furlbog companion caused quite a stir. We did speak to the town mayor, who while hostile did release us back into the town when we convinced him we were from the Cohort. However, none of the towns people would aid us. Until a woman approached us, and offered to aid our group. She escorted us into a building and led us to a trap door, she told us to go down the trap door and help would be found below. Foolishly, we went down the trap door and soon we heard the tell tale sounds of the trap door being locked and sealed. We now found ourselves in some type of fishing cavern under the city with no way out except by swimming. After some brief exploration we swam out of the cavern. We did see some crabs, but swiftly they were skewered by a passing Syren and we were unmolested.  We agree to head back to the main city, and speak to the king to try and get a ship to the isle of the crabs. The second night of our journey we are once again awoken in the night. The Queen of Crabs has come ashore. Ant begins to negotiate with her once again in the strange tongue of the seas. We offer some advice. I was not privy to the words they spoke, and at several moments it seemed as if the Queen was about to attack us. However, in the end she retreated into the sea. She said she would take all her crabs to crab island, but we would have to find a way to feed her people. Ant had agreed. When we returned to the Capital city of Illian the count once again greets us. We tell him of our encounters and the temporary peace that has been negotiated. However, he has a different plan… Since the crabs are all now located in one place he would send his navy to destroy them. Not the solution we had desired, or wanted. However, not seeing any way to convince him otherwise we go to the temple of the sea to see if we can enlist their aid in convincing the Count of another course of action. The Priest of the temple agrees with the Count that the crabs should be destroyed. Ant and many of the party are distressed. Not finding any other recourse, we travel back to the Cohort. On the travel we hear word that the navy of Illian had destroyed the crabs. Ant was furious, but there was nothing to do for it. The mission was complete, and perhaps we have made contact with an old ally of the Cohort. Perhaps more good will come from this mission than we know. Darvius Alandre Assistant to the Cohort

Session 43 (1W): Take Out The 'O' In 'Count' Played on the 5th of December in the year 2019! Present: Darvius Alandre; Sidhelien Monk, lvl 5 (Darvius) Ant; Dwerren Barbarian, lvl 3 (Seraphina Leaf) Portia Folkor; Anuirean Fighter, lvl 3 (Lena C) Devamora Jadeguard; Dwerren Cleric, lvl 2 (Serephen) Lynette Gwenevy; Anuirean Cleric, lvl 1 (Summer) [Left halfway through the session] Marlmo; Goblin Druid, lvl 1 (Shane N) Theq Ferro; Firbolg Cleric, lvl 1 (Lordgenome) Right then! Here's what fucking happened. So we got this mission to go and deal with some Crabs. All I heard was that they attacking people in a town called Aenier, making a habit of overrunning the village. I thought we were merely going to be dealing with an infestation of crabs. Boy, was I wrong! Anyway, we'd organised a group to go in. More than half of us were first timers with the Cohort, so I, Portia and Darvius made sure to keep an eye out on them. Among them was a Goblin and a Firbolg, which I have no problem with, but it didn't occur to us that other people would have a problem. We docked into the city of Illien, and went to meet the Count of Illien; Rogr Aglondier. Well Portia and Darvius did. The rest of us couldn't speak any Anuirean. At this point he seemed somewhat decent I guess, he allowed our mages access to level 2 magic with the leylines. We soon left to journey to the town of Aenier. On the first night of our journey we were attacked by a group of crabs, and though we were able to defeat the crabs, the crabs did manage to afflict Darvius with a disease called White Ghost Shivers. We decided to go back to the city to get his affliction fixed before moving onward. Portia, Lynette and I went into the city to try and find help, while the others stayed with Darvius outside. We first visited the temple of Haelyn. They didn't help as their God apparently deemed Darvius unworthy of aid. We then tried a temple of Nesirie. Portia got the cleric of the temple to agree to cure Darvius of his shivers, after a donation to the temple of course. After Darvius had been cured, we spent the night in the city to get as much daylight on the first leg of our journey. During our first night back on the road, we were visited by four sea Syrens. At first we didn't know they could speak Sidheilen so I was speaking to them in Aquan, acting as translator which was a bit awkward. Especially seeming as they were asking for a night with a male Human or Sidheilen. Darvius being the only one who fit the bill. At first we politely said no, and they were accepting, and were in the middle of leaving, when one of my companions told me to ask them if they knew anything about the Crab infestation. They said they did, but would only divulge said information if they got to spend a night with a male Human or Sidheilen. Darvius agreed in exchange for the information. While Darvius was having his fun, the rest of the party asked how in the bloody hell I knew how to speak Aquan. I told them the story of when The Silver Compass sank, and the rest of the crew were killed, while I was saved by some weird sea creature I couldn't see in the dark water. The creature spoke to me as it took me to land, and ever since then I could talk the language. I think that's what happened. Anyway, that's the story I told. Once I'd said that the crew had sank and died, Marlmo, the clueless fuck, said they mustn't have been very good boatmen. I got angry and started shouting him down, but Portia and Devamora managed to calm me down. When Darvius came back from his little trip. He told us that he'd discovered that the Queen of Crabs and her people were being driven back and onto the land by Queen Kashika of the Syrens. Which if I'm not mistaken, is the name of one of the founding members of the Cohort. Surely cannot be the same Syren, right? Darvius told us the Queen of Crabs was currently on the Isle of Tamle. Darvius asked the Syrens to go back to their queen to try and organize a peace treaty and find a place for the Crabs to live in the sea. The Syrens gave Darvius a shimmering scale to prove that had made contact with them. The following morning we discovered that Lynette had left and hadn't told us why. Was a shame, she was sweet. We continued onward and reached the town of Aenier. We moved towards the dock to try and hire a boat to take us to the Isle of Tamle, but before we could do anything we were stopped by a woman who started shouting at us. Turns out she and a lot of others in the town had a problem with us bringing in a Goblin and a Firblog, especially the Goblin. We asked to see whoever was in charge in this town and were brought before the mayor in the inn. Portia and Darvius managed to convince the mayor to allow us to go around the town. But once we left the inn, everyone who we approached ran away from us, Locking their doors and windows. After a while of me getting frustrated, we were approached by a woman who said they could help us. Eager for any bloody help we could find, we went with her. We were led through a house into a back room down a hatch-door. Once we'd all climbed down the ladder, the hatch-door was shut. We heard furniture scraping across wood. Not our proudest moment. We found ourselves in a cave with two paths out, both leading to water. After a little examination, I figured this cave would fill up with water at high tide. So let it be put on record that citizens of the shithole town known as Aenier, tried to drown members of the Cohort Arcanum, the twatting gits. We checked down one of the paths, saw some Crabs up ahead, but they fled. Later saw a Syren appear and kill one of the Crabs, then the Syren swam away. I decided to swim up ahead and see where this tunnel led. Went down till I could resurface and found myself back at the docks. I went back down and beckoned the others to follow. The party all reached the docks, but some had to leave belongings behind in order to swim. So I went back down and brought all their stuff through. Couldn't protect the rations from getting wet, and any paper was ruined, but at least we were out. We decided to give up trying to get a boat in this town, so we decided to head back to Illien to get a boat from there. On the road back to the city, while resting for the night, we were visited by a gigantic Crab and a large number of smaller but still big crabs. The gigantic Crab, was the Queen of Crabs. The others tried talking to her, getting no response, until I greeted her in Aquan, where upon I began my role as diplomat with the sea once again.  She first asked why we had attacked her children. I believed she was referencing when Darvius was afflicted with the Shivers. I said it was a misunderstanding, and that we merely defended ourselves, and meant no harm to her children now that we understood the situation. That our intention now, was to bring an end to the war between the Crabs and the Syrens by negotiating a peace treaty. Initially she was angry we would think of talking to her enemy, but then I emphasized that many of her children would perish even if she were victorious in a war. That the only way to save her children would be to agree to a peace treaty, and somehow learn to coexist. This seemed to work. I humbly asked the Queen if she would consider moving to a different area temporarily while the peace treaty was worked over to lessen casualties. She asked how long it would take. I had to ask my companions, they reckoned about a month. I told her it would take one lunar cycle, and she got very angry, demanding to know why I insult her so. The next few moments were a blur for me, but I somehow made my apology and explanation hit, as the Queen then agreed to retreat to Crab Isle while the peace treaty was being sorted, on the condition that food be sent to the isle, so they may survive while there. She then returned to the sea, not having harmed any of us. Just to remind you. Just as a quick aside, I'm astounded I was able to play the role diplomat at all. Please do not think I'd be good in a diplomatic role because of this. I made many mistakes that an expert wouldn't have. The only thing on my side was honesty. Which I guess most diplomats don't have, isn't that right? Now. We needed someone who could send enough food to the Crabs. We didn't think we could get back to Cohort in time to organize it from there. The only thing we could think to do was ask the Count of Illien; Rogr Aglondier, if he would, in order to prevent a lot of deaths, send food to Crab Isle. Instead, he, now knowing where the Crabs all were gathered, decided to just send his navy in to kill all of the Crabs. Now. Quite frankly, I am glad I can't speak Anuirean. Because if I had been present when he said this, and could understand him, I would have killed him in a blind fit of rage. Fortunately for myself, I am not rotting in a jail cell, though it does mean he's still alive, which is a bit of a pisser. I hope the sea swallows him whole. We went to the temple of Nesirie to try and see if we could get the Syrens to warn the Crabs, but the priest we talked to seemed to agree with the Count. How could a priest for the Goddess of the Sea herself be so damn wrong. There was nothing I could do. The mission was complete. We headed back to the docks to find a ship to take us back to the Cohort. On the way back I and Portia had some friendly spars to try and distract ourselves, but alas for myself, we got word that the Crabs had been destroyed by the Counts Navy. All I could do the rest of the sea journey was mourn and prey. Now I know none of you gives a shit what I have to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. I want it to be known that I, a lowly Dwerren sailor without a clan, could reason with The Queen of Crabs, but the lowly ruler of a city couldn't be reasoned with for anything. That she on good faith, agreed to end a war peacefully, and was slaughtered for it. While he, with such brazen disruption of a peace treaty, will be no doubt treated as a fucking tactical genius or some horseshit. She was beastly, but still a majestic and proud sea creature, and was not worthy of such slaughter. And let me fucking guess. The Cohort won't see anything wrong with what the Count did, cause he's the fucking Human, and she was just a Crab. "Crabs? Fuck em! Let em eat shit, who cares if they agreed to peace, just kill em all, who cares?!' I'll have to hear nonsense like that come out of the mouths of a bunch of loudmouth lickspittle lilly-livered landlubber limpdicks, for the next few months, won't I? No one will ever care that we wiped a sentient race from this area, cause it's just a sea creature. Who cares if it felt anguish and pain for its children, it's ours to dominate just because. The more peaceful it is, the better. Fuck all of you. Job's done. Ant.

Session 42: Hammers, Alseids and Sisters Expedition Members Agatha Duskhart (Summer) Diesa Gemfire (Zilarrezko) Prudence Duskhart (Lena C) Cordelia Woodwytch (Serephen) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter (Seraphina Leaf) Fenris Nathair (Hats4Cats) Our plan for the excursion was to sell the hammers we found in Morrendeep and then visit the Alseids another party from the Cohort had run into. Prudence really wanted to meet them.  We began with travelling to Daikar-Zhigun where Diesa said adamantine, which was the material the hammers were made of, was in high demand. First Diesa wanted to visit a smith to get a certificate of some kind, proving that the hammers were good adamantine hammers, in case we would run into trouble on the way. The smith must have been very rude as Diesa cursed and stomped off. We made our way to the market to find a weapons merchant and again Diesa took the lead. She managed to get us a deal of 4000 Golden Hammers per hammer, which would be 4000 Gold Pieces for both. They were worth more so we decided to look further, even went as far as to the King’s armoury. On our way to the Great Hall we passed a praying man. Diesa talked to him and he turned out to be a General. He offered us the same gold for the hammers and we took the offer, getting paid in a pouch of 400 Platinum Pieces. It was too late to travel so we decided to rest, but outside of the city, above ground where most of us would be a little bit more comfortable. During the night we were attacked by… frogs? They were very strange, exploding as they died and that explosion apparently hurt. Cordelia was almost taken out by them. The frogs Mamm knocked unconscious were not out of the fight as their awake friends bit them to make them explode. We killed them, saving one sleeping one for research. It seemed they were not working on their own, but a more intelligent being was behind it. On our way to the Alseids we decided to make a quick stop at the Cohort to drop of our earnings. Then we were off again. We travelled by boat to Aulbrunn where the Alseids had been spotted by other members of the Cohort. The lands became more desolate the closer we came to the Fey portal. Cordie summoned some sort of small tentacle monster she referred to as Floof. I find that name very misleading and the creature very disturbing. I kept away from it. On our way we passed a sick tree and debated whether to investigate further or leave it. I suggested we moved on to the Alseids and let them deal with it, or tell us how to do it. The rest of the log is written in much sharper letters and the paper is even pierced in some places. We finally reached the portal and met the Alseids, meaning Prudence could ask all of her questions. Then Cordie asked a few too, but when I asked a question that was not okay. All I wanted to do was to find out if my sister could turn back to normal if she wanted to, and I had a feeling she did, so we could be the same again, but no… The rest of the log seems to be written another day as the letters is back to her normal handwriting. Deciding against helping the tree we explored westwards and once again we were attacked during the night. It was a giant wolf looking creature, but it’s neck was long and it’s face was… hideous. Diesa told us, or rather shouted at us, to only attack it with magic or silver. Prudence took it out almost completely on her own. We fought it for a while before it ran away, and that was the end of our excursion.

Session 46: Trouble with Tosculi (Mission 1T) Cohort Roster: Varis Sylvaranth (Link S.) Rvannun Derevo (Shane) Eirena Lightshadow (Depraved Lunatic) Jannis "Jani" the Red (Physh) Cedrych Brightbough (Adam) Day 1. Journeyed overland to Adwyth Tallagh in Innishiere for audience with Lord Nailo. Confirmed Tosculi raids being staged from Taravan Wastes. Targeting townsfolk, pets, and livestock. Was surprisingly stingy with details of Tosculi raids; pray he's more forthcoming with bounty. Eirena granted access to use magic within Innishiere. Rvannun had seen raids first hand. Provided additional intelligence on Tosculi. Raiding parties of 5-20 Drones + Warriors. Warriors can fly, paralyzing sting. Very dangerous. Do not engage warriors. Do not engage elites. Do not  engage Queens. Raiders abduct victims alive and implant with eggs. Process usually lethal. Departed Adwyth Tallagh, headed south east to Hyarmen Sadh, Rvannun's village. Camped on route. Spotted six insectoid creatures while ranging during watch. Raised alarm. Tosculi Drones. Small (Halfling sized). Employed group tactics to swarm and overwhelm. Blunted crossbow bolts and weapons. Intent on taking captives alive. I managed to evade, but ultimately overwhelmed and knocked out. Rest of fight hazy, but managed to land a few shots. Collected all six drone heads for bounty. Corpses smelled ghastly. Day 2. Changed plans. Followed drone tracks south-south-west to edge of Wastes. Lost trail in shifting sand, tracking will be difficult. Marched east along forest's edge, hoping to intercept Innishiere border patrol. No trace found. Camped in tree cover. Large worm burrowed out of sand and attacked during watch. Blood crystallized on weapons, blunting them. Creature secreted acid as part of its bite. Also attempted to constrict targets. Worm downed with minimal losses. Crystallized blood can be heated to restore weapons. No permanent damage. Some blood collected as sample. Day 3. Reached Hyarmen Sadh. Met Selphie, local contact of Rvannun. Village had been raided six or seven times. Seemingly at random. Day and night. Locals offered minimal assistance, again. Selphie offered to turn in drone head bounty on our behalf. I proposed allowing someone to be abducted by Tosculi to aid in tracking, but party unwilling to get hands dirty. Settled on livestock or pet instead. Rvannun's mother hosted and fed party for the night. Day 4. Purchased sheep to use as bait. Named her Bella. Returned to forest edge to set honey-pot trap for Tosculi. Varis and Jannis camped near sheep with campfire. Others stayed further back to observe. Tosculi raiders arrived at night again. Larger creatures this time, threatened Jannis. Warriors? Stung sheep. Likely paralyzed for several hours. Jannis attempted to parley. Creatures unintelligible, but used basic gestures. Wanted Jannis and Varis to surrender. Jannis bluffed, suggesting Tosculi were outnumbered. Tosculi unphased, but eventually spotted Eirena and withdrew. Dragged sheep off to the south. Drag marks easy to follow, but abruptly ended. Multiple Tosculi carry sheep while flying? Next time, bring more/larger bait. Impeding flight necessary for tracking. Conversely, track drones. Jannis overly concerned with negotiating with Tosculi. Has history with them. Warrants additional investigation. Day 5. Ill equipped for long-term incursion into Taravan Wastes; need much larger water supply on future expeditions . Supplement via magical means? Journeyed into wastes, south west, for half-day. Managed to spot large totem half buried in sand. Tosculi carving. Climbed and managed to spot another Totem four miles due west. Reached second totem and was able to spot two more: one west, one west-south-west. Always four miles apart. Marked locations on map. Likely some means of wayfinding for Tosculi; four miles is upper limit of visibility. Follow totems to Tosculi settlement? Day 6.  Returned to Lord Nailo to debrief. Disclosed drone bounty and totems. Has made no military incursions into Taravan Wastes; taking time to mobilize army. Human allies to the East offered assistance, but so far no action. Would be worth consulting with allies to gather additional intelligence. - C

Session 46: Trouble with Tosculi ( Mission 1T ) Attending Adventurers: -Varis Sylvaranth ( Link S. ) -Rvânnun Derevo ( Shane N. ) -Jannis "Jani" the Red ( Physh ) -Cedrych Brightbough ( Adam ) -Eirena Lightshadow ( Depraved Lunatic ) We assembled at the Cohort Tavern and began a small mission briefing. I brought up the results of my research; the Tosculi usually act in hives with queens in the center of their civilization. While it is not a good idea to assault their hive's hearts to attack their queen, sufficiently culling their numbers will prevent them from further attacking that region. Regarding the Tosculi, they are intelligent creatures. While their "Grunts", hovering oversized mosquitos, are aggressive and probably don't respond to communication, their drones, warriors, elites and queens are probably of atleast basic intelligence. The warriors, elites and queens are also extremely dangerous and should under no circumstances be engaged alone. Even though the Faerie King requests you not to attempt to reason with them, do not cut them down simply because they are Tosculi. They are not bloodthirsty monsters. We travel to Innishiere for an audience with Faerie King Ivellious Nailo. We learned that the Tosculi troubling his lands and people come from the Taravan Wastes. They target the townsfolk, pets and livestock alike. He was surprisingly hestitant about the information, but it may simply be because of lack of such. Permission to use magic must be granted by the Faerie King, otherwise only casting Cantrips is possible. Our companion Rvânnun hailed from a town from the South Deeps called Hyarmen Sadh. He witnessed the Tosculi raids first hand, the above information regarding the Tosculi are from his knowledge on the subject. He also informed us that the raiders abduct their victims and implant them with eggs. The hatching of these eggs is lethal under most circumstances. During the night of our first day, we were attacked by six insectoid creatures that we assumed to be "Grunts". They try to use their small size and large numbers to overwhelm their targets and carry blunted crossbows, which would lead to abduction without timely intervention. We manage to defeat the group with minimal damage however.  During our next day, we decide to change our plans of travelling to Hyarmen Sadh and attempt to follow the tracks that the "Grunts" could have left. The tracks end when approaching the Taravan wastes, however.  We spend some time trying to find a border patrol of Innishiere's Elven Knights, however they were nowhere to be soon. I am afraid that the Faerie King is hiding essential information from us regarding the Tosculi raids. Do not question him about it, but I just want to put this thought here. It is for the safety of the Cohort members. During dawn we were attacked by a sandworm. While it was troubling to begin with, we dealt with it quickly and collected some of it's blood in a vial. One of Janni's weapon got it's blood on it and it crystallized, however heat managed to melt it away. We reached Hyarmen Sadh towards the end of our day. A local guard of the town called Selphie gave us some sparse information, but not much we didn't know already. We learned that the town got raidedd 6 times already and that the Tosculi seem to raid at random. During Daylight and night. Cedrych proposed that we have someone abducted to follow them, but I wouldn't want to take that risk, no matter how safe it may be. We reached the conclusion that we would go through with the plan but replace the townsfolk with a sheep we bought. Lovely creature, I named her Bella. Even got her a nice little bell. We set up an ambush and had the Tosculi approach us. They were warriors probably, as they were considerably bigger, more colourful and most of all, more intelligent. Varis and Jani, who camped beside the campfire for the ambush, were gestured to surrender. Jani bluffed about our numbers, suggesting that the Tosculi were outnumbered. While they didn't believe him at first, they seemed to have spotted me, so they withdrew, as Jani's bluff was a major success. For the next day, we went out to try and follow the Tosculi. Our biggest obstacle was a lack of water, so we could only afford a short expedition. We have found large totems though, 4 of them. We believe that there are more of them and that they encircle some sort of boundary or serve as landmarks. They are all 4 miles apart, which suggests that there is a certain pattern to them. This should be a focus in the next expedition that travels on this mission. We then returned to the Faerie King to disclose our intel and bounties. We learned that their neighbours were mobilizing aid, however assembling an army with enough supplies should take it's merry time and his lordship does not seemed troubled at all. Reminds me of King Varri, actually. Give me conniptions. That is all. -Signed, Eirena Lightshadow

Session 44: Firebird Mistake and The Battle Of Two Sisters (1S and 1J Brognir (Ryan B) Jasta (Ryan F) Shango (Deprived Lunatic) Hedrin (Sloth) Shlar (Michael H) Later: Teresa (Serephen) Report of Brognir Bronzehelm of the incident of Mission 1S and what happen and why Jasta died in mission 1J. Like any mission we all meet in the Cohort tavern and to discuss what mission we would like to do for the Cohort. We decided to go track down the fire bird who was allied to a primordial and to gather info on it so a more ready party can take care of it. Hedrin then lead us. While sailing to Hjolvarian we spotted a giant bird. I ask if that was our target but I was informed that this was the monster known as the Roc. Largest bird I have ever seen. But we did make port and not knowing too much of the local language we decided to head out and start trying to find this blasted bird. A couple of nights after we left the city and were traveling to find the target I was awoken to the party panicking about a fire like bird coming to our camp. I grabbed my things and tried to flee and regroup later with the party but the bird got to us to fast. It did not kill us but greeted us. We decided to talk to it and stale it and hopefully do our task to get info. It told us that we were to come with her and see her mistress. Hedrin asked it if we decided not to go if we were free to do so. She told us we can try but she would burn us to ashes and then bring us back and force us anyways. So we followed it to find a way to escape. I decided to play nice to the bird who is calling herself Sofaria. I asked about herself to gather intel about her and when we did escape we would have things to report back on. Sofaria did not want us to take forever to get to where we were going so she cast some spell on us to make us move way to fast for me legs to go. What I learned about her was that she is made out of pure magic and that if she wanted to you can touch her without getting hurt by her flames. That every day she grows in power. Water has a distaste for her. That she can reborn creatures in fire. Her mistress was also no other then Solaria and that she wanted her free sooner than later. Along the way Hedrin thought of a plan in secret and casted magic like crazy without anyone noticing. It frightened us when a Giant Spider larger than all the trees and with a dead giant in its mouth came at us. We all thought we were going to die when Sofaria told the spider to leave and she would feed it magic later. The bird has the power to control other monsters in the area and probably stronger than the giant spider was. Shango did plea for Sofaria to not let the spider eat the rest of us and she only agreed if we all would follow her without  trying to escape. She needed us to help her mistress to escape and that after which we were free to go. We all agreed we were not going to help her in any way to let the primordial out. But when we reached the old Cohort temple she told us to follow and started to make her way to the front door. I followed to keep her occupied while me friends talked about what to do. But when I got close to the temple door it opened and she thanked us for our assistance and we were free to go. We did not understand what she meant but it dawned on us she only wanted us to help her get into the temple.  I wanted to follow her deeper into the temple to learn more about how she was going to free her master and possibly find a way to stop her. My companions did not agree with my idea and wanted to warn the cohort as fast as they can and alive as the threat that she would just kill us in there was to high. When we left the sky behind us turned red as if fire was at a distance. Sofaria was fast at work. So we headed back to the Cohort and meet with the council. I told them of our mission and what we learned. Then I told them of our failure and the threat at hand. Some of the council wanted to deal with us right then and there and to brand us as traitors. My heart broke to think me to betray the Cohort. If I could I would die to fix my mistake and to prove those words wrong. They decided to hold our trial after they resealed Solaria avatar and deal with Sofaria. I decided I would go and if need be die to stop this avatar and to save this world. I hope the council can see that we did not attend all this to happen and wanted to do good by just gathering the information the cohort needed to stop Sofaria plans.  We then decided it was best to not stay at the Cohort base. To show we mean to do what was best for the cohort and to improve ourselves for the upcoming battle. We decided to take on another mission and we picked up another member for help and one that can speak Vos. The woman that came with us was Teresa and the mission was to help a Vos noblewoman show that she should be heir and not her younger sister who believed in the old ways and that this new way was the right choice. The party agreed we should go and meet with this princess Chessa and so we left to the city of Rzhleskyy. IT did not take us long talking to locals and exploring the city to find an inn. The owner of the inn were very polite to the members of the cohort and feed us well and made sure we had plenty to drink. During our stay princess Chessa came to tell us of our mission. She tried to make her sister Mara out to be a monster and that the old ways Torva was wrong. I can see the fighting spirit in this old ways and the pride some might have in it. But the new ways this nova was better for the cohort and the surrounding area for the long run for peace. She told us that her mother and father were that of torva as well and that her mother and sister needed to be removed. Using the phase “For them to go for a long swim.” That did not sit right for me as I am no assassin and Chessa told us that if the cohort did this that she would be friends to us. She left giving us a bag of 150gp in it to help our minds. We then talked about what we should do. Jasta then told us that he was a follower of Torva. But we reminded him of his oath of brotherhood to the cohort. Knowing that me and Jasta did not agree with being assassins. We decided we need to meet and see Mara to get a better understanding on what we should do.  So the next day Shasta because he spoke Vos, Shango and myself went to a Torva bar where Mara tends to be spotted at. Not long waiting she showed up and we told Shasta to go tell her we wanted to meet someone like her and to drink with her. When Shasta went and spoke to her soon after Mara left in anger and when we asked Shasta as to what happen he told us she was offended to drink with outsiders. Something was wrong with the statement. If that was the case her character that Chessa told us about, she should have came at us to pick a fight then to storm away. So we went back to the inn to inform the party. The party felt that Shasta betrayed them and when he would not answer our questioning Hedrin cast a zone of truth to get him to tell us. Soon after Chessa and her loyal followers came in to punish us for betraying her and telling her sister Everything. We then knew Shasta did betray us and tried to make Chessa see we did not try to betray her and set her up when we heard Mara outside the in with armed guards and her parents to arrest Chessa and us for her plans. I asked Chessa if this was public enough of a place to overthrow her sister remembering the night before that the more people that knew the better. She agreed and said if we fight with us she would forgive us. So we ready ourselves for combat and made our plans on how to win. During the fight Jasta joined Mara side and attacked Hedrin. He died in the fight as we were the victors. Chessa then thanked us and gave out reward. This was good enough for her to take the throne and we then returned home.

Session 46 (Mission 1T):  "Come on you apes, you wanna live forever?" Expedition Members:  Eirena Lightshadow (Party Leader) Jannis the Red Rvannun Derevo Varis Sylvaranth Cedrych Brightbough Jani settled in to his usual spot in the Arcanum's common room, near the window where he could watch the fall leaves change color and drift lazily to the ground.  It was the first time in quite some while he was able to sit down and write a mission log where he didn't have an arm in a sling or bruises all over his body.  Taking a pull from his mug of ale, he set it to the side as he produced his writing kit and put quill to parchment. "The mission started as most do, in the halls of the Arcanum where I met my fellow expedition members.  Aside from Eirena, the rest of the party were all greenhorns...  something that concerned me going in.  As usual, I let someone else take the lead on the expedition...  while I've mastered tactics and strategy, I'm no leader.  Thankfully, Eirena was up to the task.  The mission was simple:  Innisheiere was being invaded by raiding parties of Tosculi, an insect like race I had encountered previously in the Binsadan desert near the Harrowmarsh.  The behavior baffled me, as my previous encounter with them was a peaceful one.  Was this a rogue community of Tosculi that was more warlike than what I had met before, or was the group I met the exception to the rule?  Had the Sidhelien done something - intentionally or not - to provoke the Tosculi?  Regardless, the King was offering a bounty on the heads of the Tosculi, as well as for any rescued Sidhelien. We traveled to the Innisheiere to meet with the Fairy King, a rather pretentious and arrogant little Sidhelien who made it well known his bigotry towards humans, despite the fact that he was asking our group - which contained two humans - for help.  I let Eirena do the majority of the talking lest I slip and cause a diplomatic incident responding to the self-centered little prick.  The only positive note of our visit to his stronghold was the beauty of their architecture.  The buildings were made of a purple stone, shimmering with magic, and blended into the surrounding environment.  It was a stark contrast, the ethereal and welcoming feel of the city compared to the rancid acidity of the city's leader.  We got no answers to my questions about the origin of the conflict, though based upon the Fairy King's demeanor, I had my suspicions. We left the town immediately, traveling for half a day through the wooded hills to make camp by the river.  Being as we were in the middle of the kingdom, the night passed uneventfully and we all managed to get a good night's rest.  The second night we camped, closer to the southern border, was a different story.  During the second watch, we were set upon by a group of Tosculi drones.  The weakest of the race, they were still formidable considering their pack tactics, the lack of experience of my comrades, and the fact that I was fighting wearing nothing but my underclothes and a shield.  Several of my comrades fell, but were quickly seen to by Eirena.  I led the group to cut down the patrol, and as the last one turned to run, I sliced off one of it's wings, Cedrych got in a shot from his bow, and Eirena finished it by blasting it to literal pieces with an eldritch bolt.  We collected their heads for the bounty, which I stuck in my sack. By the third day we made it to the border where the lush forest abruptly changed to hot sandy dunes, typical of the Khinasi lands.  We made camp at the border, and during our third watch, we were set upon by a large sand worm that burst from the ground.  It had a venomous bite, and its blood crystallized on our weapons, reducing their effectiveness.  We made quick work of the worm, however, and I was able to burn the blood off my spear before it could permanently corrode the tip. We decided to head East at that point, towards the home village of Rvannun.  We made it to Hyarmen Sadh (Sidhelien meaning "South Glade") without issue and checked in with the local guard barracks.  Rvannun saw one of his friends there, a Sidhelien lass named Selphie.  He inquired about the location of any of the Sidhelien knights that were patrolling the area, hoping to glean some more information on recent attacks and intelligence on the Tosculi.  She mentioned that a group of them had headed west, so we decided to head that way." Jani paused a moment as a fetching young woman approached to refill his mug.  She had soft brown hair cut just above her shoulders, and slightly visible freckles across her impish nose.  Jani smiled as she poured.  Her name was...  Selma?  He'd seen her countless times before, but he never really noticed her until now.  He caught himself staring, and quickly averted his gaze, blushing.  He cleared his throat and went back to his work as she scurried off to the next customer. "Now, the business about the sheep..."  Jani let out a visible sigh as he shook his head.  "Someone (I believe it was Cedrych, but it was hard to remember faces with names since everyone was new to me) suggested one of the Sidhelien as bait for the Tosculi.  Some of the party agreed, some (specifically Eirena) disagreed.  After a few moments of debating I finally spoke up and put my foot down, that there would be no using any Sidhelien in such a manner.  After that, several of the party members decided it would be a good idea to purchase a sheep to use as bait.  Considering the Tosculi were allegedly carting off prisoners, I didn't see much use in it, but as I didn't have to contribute to the purchase, I let it slide.  After the purchase was complete, and some idiot named the damned thing 'Bella', we headed to Rvannun's house (or more to the point, his mother's house) to spend the night. In the morning, we headed west.  After marching a full day without any Tosculi sightings, we made camp.  Another discussion was made about not lighting a campfire, but I pointed out that if we were trying to lure in the Tosculi, we needed to be as obvious as possible, thus we built a small bonfire.  Another suggestion which I disagreed with was to have the sheep tethered to a stake near the fire and for everyone else to hide.  My experience with the Tosculi showed them to be an intelligent race, and I pointed out the folly of that idea.  There was no way that they'd walk into such an obvious trap.  Despite not coming to an overall agreement, I simply laid my bedroll out next to the fire while everyone else hid...  with the exception of Varis, that is, who took up post alongside me by the fire. It wasn't long into my watch before Varis heard noises coming from the south.  I got up nonchalantly and approached the goat, talking out loud and asking the goat if she wanted some water.  While doing so, I spied about 5 Toscoli hiding among the trees and shrubs.  These, however, were no drones... perhaps they were the warriors we had heard about.  Fearsome fighters who were easily the equivalent of two Sidhelien knights.  After signaling the group as to how many there were, I slowly approached the band of raiders.  As I set my spear down upon the ground, one of them - their leader I assumed - came forward.  We slowly made our way closer, finally stopping about 10' apart.  Though we could not speak each other's language, we were able to communicate a few basic concepts.  I initially offered the sheep to them as a gift.  The Tosculi responded by demanding our surrender.  I initially refused, and indicated that while they could see two of us by the fire, we had another six (yes, I lied) companions out of sight.  The Tosculi, believing that it was only the two of us again demanded our surrender.  I dropped to one knee to indicate compliance, but he demanded we lay flat upon the ground.  I laid down, but as I did so, I once again claimed that our party was eight in number, not two.  Luckily for us, one of the Tosculi spotted Eirena in the tree.  After relaying this information to their leader, the head Tosculi seemed to believe my bluff.  Taking the sheep with them, they slowly pulled back and retreated from view.  After everyone finished donning their armor and turning down camp, we quickly made after them, following their tracks all the way back to the waste.  We reached a point where it appeared the Tosculi took flight, and that was where the trail ended." Jani took as sip of his ale and looked about, hoping to catch another glance of Selma.  She was nowhere to be seen, however, having disappeared to the kitchen, or possibly finished her shift for the day.  Sighing, he continued writing. "The party was low on water making any forays into the deep waste a fatal undertaking.  Instead we decided to travel in the last direction the Tosculi headed for a half day, and then head back to the succor of the forest.  About eight miles in, we found a large wooden totem, about half the height of one of Innisheiere's trees.  It was carved to look like one of the Tosculi.  One of the party quickly scrambled to the top and was able to see another totem approximately 4 miles to the west.  After marking our map, we traveled to the second site, and from the vantage point at the top of that totem, we saw two more... one 4 miles to the west, another 4 miles to the southwest.  Having reached the limit of what we could travel in the waste on our water supply, we returned to the forest and made our way back to the Fairy King to report the intelligence we gathered as well as claim the bounty we earned. I would like to go back and investigate further.  I am still not convinced the Tosculi are bloodthirsty raiders by nature, and feel there must be some driving force behind the recent attacks.  I want to get to the bottom of this to resolve the issue peacefully if possible, rather than the Arcanum simply sending hordes of bounty hunters interested in nothing more than collecting Tosculi heads for gold. It is clear to me that the answer lies in the desert with the Tosculi.  The next expedition needs two things to be successful in this endeavor:  An ample supply of water and food with pack animals to haul them, and a highly skilled linguist or mage capable of translating languages to enable communication between us and the Tosculi.  I only hope that I can be part of that next venture."

Session 45: Finding of Mynnir & Mt Acorn. Dragomir The Black - Leader – (Hats4Cats) Korak – (SlothSlow) Galena Abanâthu – (Zilarrezko) Rob Boss – (Deprived Lunatic) Phage – (Ryan B) Bella  - (Link S) Hafr – (Shane N)                           Phage report on the mission into Urkenhame and MT Acorn I heard Drago was putting together a mission to go scout and clear one of the Hags strongholds on top Mt Acron. That the undead and her minions was there. Seeing how this could help me and aid my master I decided I needed to tag along. For what secrets to the dark arts might be found there and better understand by myself.  When we got to Urkenhame we were met by The Silver Dragon Larmedalith. Drago and Bellasaar seemed to know her well and spent some time talking to her. We then meet the Queen of the land and spent the night with her.She offered us a Mithril Mirror to see the Hag true form if we found her. We left the next day and one day out of the journey at night on my watch I heard something going through Korak sack. It was some small dragon getting into his food. I was not sure what else it took so I got it to come to me and woke the two dragonborn so they could understand it. What we found out it was some kind of Fey Dragon. The party did not want to leave the poor thing out in the wilderness or take it to danger with us so we headed back to the city so Larmedalith could watch after it for us.  We then spent many days to get to our location. We spotted gnolls scouting the area. A dead man that was torn but no tracks around the area. We then meet with barbarians who wanted us to pay a toll. I did not want to waste the time to get into a fight so I paid the barbarians off and we went on our way.  When we were making our way up the mountain fog soon came and then utter darkness. We were told to not have any light and so I was blind by what was happening. Under my feet were stone and wood of a bridge and then a castle. When approaching the castle a loud horn blew. We knew they knew we were coming. We spent minutes traveling the darkness and soon we spotted something. They talked about how to start the fight and that many undead were coming. Then someone let loose an arrow and the fight begins. I turned on my lantern so that those that could not see in the dark like myself can help fight. I only need one hand to cast my magics. The clerics and Drago stayed down below as the other in our party climb the walls and fought above. The zombies were not a problem but the mass ball of them were. It gathered up the zombies to become stronger and shot bone spears at us. Korak held the front the whole fight with me and Rob supporting him and making sure he did not fall. Rob was able to get the last blow on the undead mass when an army of Kobolds then came out to finish us off. Drago knew that the kobolds were of Red he called the dragon and that they were allies of the hag and would defend the fort. They had a Swolbold as their leader and it went after Korak who still was holding the front. I knew Korak could not hold for long so I weakened the Swolbold but some hag magic then made it bigger. The kobolds which they had many, If I were to guess I say 30 plus. But they ran past to try to take me out so the Swolbold can be Swol again. Even in his weaken form the Swolbold took Korak out but he gave us enough time that we were able to kill it. Drago help me with the ones that tried to end me. Rob got Korak back up and we thought we were going to win. Then we heard the sky roar. It was so loud it sounded like thunder all around us. The dragon that Drago calls Red was there and he was not happy with us. We luckily escaped and headed back to Urkenhame. The Fey Dragon who name was Mynnir went to Rob as we left to head back to the Cohort. I was sad that we were not able to loot the fort on Mt Acorn. But I will return to get my spoils. We did do some good though. The Hag and Red lost two strong guardians and minions. They know that the Cohort can strike a blow at them. Phage

Session 42 (SPECIAL): Broken Hart Present: Agatha Duskhart; Awnshegh Socerer/Warlock, lvl 5 (Summer) Diesa Gemfire; Dwerren Fighter, lvl 5 (Zilarrezko) Prudence Duskhart; Alseid Druid, lvl 5 (Lena C) Cordelia "Cordie" Woodwytch; Cellwair Warlock, lvl 4 (Serephen) Mamm Bealdaartsdotter; Rjurik Fighter, lvl 4 (Seraphina Leaf) Fenris Nathair; Sidhelien Barbarian/Druid, lvl 3 (Hats4Cats) Monster XP 133XP for monsters. Quest XP 250XP RP XP 500XP for amazing RP! Exploration XP 0XP Log XP 150XP to Diesa, Cordie, Mamm, and Agatha 200XP to Prudence Total XP 883XP to Fenris 1,033XP to Diesa, Cordie, Mamm, and Agatha 1,083XP to Prudence Renown, Fame, and Infamy +2 Renown with Daikhar Zhigun for everyone. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 43 (1W): Shell Game Present: Darvius Alandre; Sidhelien Monk, lvl 5 (Darvius) Ant; Dwerren Barbarian, lvl 3 (Seraphina Leaf) Portia Folkor; Anuirean Fighter, lvl 3 (Lena C) Devamora Jadeguard; Dwerren Cleric, lvl 2 (Serephen) Lynette Gwenevy; Anuirean Cleric, lvl 1 (Summer) [Left halfway through the session] Marlmo; Goblin Druid, lvl 1 (Shane N) Theq Ferro; Firbolg Cleric, lvl 1 (Lordgenome) The Count of Illien, Rogr Aglondier awards the party with 1,500 golden crowns for putting an end to the evil crabs! Monster XP 14XP per person Quest XP 500XP for completing the quest! RP XP 100XP for good RP! Exploration XP 50XP for discovering the island. Log XP 150XP to Darvius, 200XP for Ant Total XP 332XP to Lynette 664XP to Portia, Devamora, Marlmo, and Theq 814XP to Darvius 864XP to Ant Renown, Fame, and Infamy 5 Renown (Illien) for everyone! Passes Each player except for Summer 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 44 (1S and 1J): Fire Bird and Feuding Families Present: Shlar Ohmste ( Michael H. ) Jasta Stanley ( Ryan F. ) [Deceased] Hedrin ( SlothSlow ) Brognir Bronzehelm ( Ryan B. ) Shango Bayu ( Depraved Lunatic ) Later on: Teresa Eirwen ( Serephen ) The Tsarina awards the surviving members of the party with 1,500 great grivnas for their assistance! Every member of the party who survived he receives 4 Bloodline (Vorynn) points, and 1 Bloodline (Azrai) point. Depending on your current bloodline score you may need to roll to see if you get a new ability. Monster XP 168XP for killing Mara, her parents, and their retinue. Quest XP 500XP RP XP 50XP Exploration XP 0XP Log XP 150XP to Brognir, Shlar, and Shango Total XP 718XP to Teresa, Hedrin, and Jasta (for your next character) 868XP to Brognir, Shlar, and Shango Renown, Fame, and Infamy Everyone in the group except for Teresa receives -8 Renown (The Cohort Arcanum). Everyone in the group receives 3 Infamy (Torva), 10 Renown (Rzlev), 1 Fame (Vosgaard), 3 Fame (Nona) Passes Each player except for Ryan F. 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 45 (SPECIAL): The Cute, the Bad, and the Dead Present: Bellasaar, Hadrachen Ranger (Link S) Dragomir Black, Human Warlock (Hats4Cats) Galena Abanâthu, Dwerren Rogue (Zilarrezko) Hafr, Hadrachen Ranger (Shane N) Korak Flomhelm, Dwerren Cleric (SlothSlow) Phage, Human Cleric (Ryan B.) Robert Bossouri, Human Cleric (Depraved Lunatic) Monster XP 642XP for defeating the evil at The Rapid Retreat Castle. Quest XP 350XP for defeating the corpse mound. RP XP 100XP for good RP Exploration XP 0XP Log XP 150XP to Phage, Dragomir, and Galena. Total XP 1,092XP to Bellasaar, Hafr, Korak, and Robert. 1,242XP to Phage, Dragomir, and Galena. Renown, Fame, and Infamy Every member of the party receives +1 Renown (The Cohort Arcanum), +5 Infamy (The Hag), +1 Infamy (The Red Dragon), +1 Fame (Rjurik), and +1 Fame (Brecht) 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here. Session 46 (1T): Trouble with Tosculi Present: Varis Sylvaranth (Link S.) Rvannun Derevo (Shane) Eirena Lightshadow (Depraved Lunatic) Jannis "Jani" the Red (Physh) Cedrych Brightbough (Adam) The party receive 300 golden flowers for bringing in the bug heads. They also receive 300 golden flowers for bringing in useful information. Totaling up to 600 golden flowers. Monster XP 130XP for monsters Quest XP 100XP for finding new information on the Tosculi RP XP 100XP for good RP Exploration XP 100XP for discovering the Tosculi totems. 100XP to Cedrych for an excellent map Log XP 150XP to Cedrych, and Eirena 175XP to Janni Total XP 430XP to Varis, and Rvannun 580XP to Eirena 605XP to Janni 680XP to Cedrych Renown, Fame, and Infamy The party receive 2 points of renown (Innishiere) 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. You can find the weekly downtime thread to start your level up here.

Session 51 (Mission 1N):  Ratvas Finds His Courage Expedition Members: Eirena Lightshadow Savas Al-Hadar Siegfried Morton Cordelia Woodwytch Hafr Phage Tiny Steve the Barbarian Savas sat in his private quarters in the halls of the Cohort Arcanum.  His inkwell positioned next to a steaming cup of chai on his small writing desk, a platter of various cheeses on a side table nearby.  He reached up to scratch the side of his nose... and missed.  Frowning, he re-positioned his finger and relieved the itch.  It was taking some time getting used to be back in his normal form.  Not all of the lingering effects of his transformation into a ratman were as annoying...  his penchant for cheese was something new that he did not mind as much.  Taking up his wooden stylus, he began to record the events of his most recent expedition. "Every day the sewers were becoming more comfortable, more familiar.  I still maintained command of my faculties, but with the passing of each new day the fight became harder.  I do not know how much longer I could have held on, and because of my sweet Eirena, I did not have to find out.  As promised, she returned for me, bringing a small army of cohort companions along with her.  I knew she would not let me down... that fierce northern warrior with the pale hair. We met in a tavern to discuss the intelligence I had gathered on the Rat King and his holdings, and to devise a plan of attack.  After some discussion, we solidified our strategy and made our way to the King's hall to seek permission to access the region's ley lines.  Much to my surprise, and suspicion, the King seemed eager to assist us... a severe contrast to his earlier cavalier behavior regarding the plague infesting his city.  Though some of us questioned his motives, we nonetheless accepted his offer to join us while his guard attacked the ratlings from other sewer access points. We quickly moved through the tunnel the ratlings had dug towards the throne room, the King himself quietly and expertly eliminating several ratling patrols with his longbow.  We burst into the throne room and immediately engaged with the Rat King who was alone in the chamber, the echoes of battle between the ratlings and the city guardsmen ringing through the halls.  The Rat King stood up from his throne, hundreds of tiny rats rushing forward and joining his twisted body and dramatically increasing his size.  Tiny Steve boldly rushed in to take the Rat King head on, while the rest of the group unleashed magic and arrows from a distance.  My brave Eirena soon joined the melee alongside Tiny Steve.  As the Rat King unleashed a rapid succession of powerful blows, small swarms of rats divested themselves from his body and attacked us.  The tide began to turn when Phage used the power of her deity to make the Rat King susceptible to holy power and I struck him with a powerful bolt of holy energy.  Tiny Steve went down...  he got up after some assistance from one of the priests, but then went down a second time, never to move again.  We struck several more powerful blows and the Rat King was finally brought down by a wytch's blast from Cordie.  After tending to the wounded, we looked around a bit.  I found a bedroom directly off the throne room and discovered naught but a bed, desk with some blurred maps, and a globe.  Siegfried entered and examined the maps...  I thought better of it, but didn't say anything.  How likely would it be that it would be another mimic? Highly likely, as it turns out.  The damn thing almost killed Siegfried, cutting off his air supply.  We barely managed to bring the creature down before the old priest expired.  Any hope of searching for treasure or loot in the maze of tunnels was cut short by the arrival of the city guard.  They claimed all recovered goods and coin in the name of the king... fair, considering most of it had come from his coffers anyway.  We gathered Tiny Steve's corpse and made our way back to the city, taking time to give him a proper warrior's burial.  We took to the King's hall to join the feast.  I moved quickly to ensure I would get a seat next to Eirena.  The King went on with his banal banter, but all I could do was watch the light bounce and flicker across Eirena's pale skin.  How could something so fair and delicate be so fierce and strong?  I looked down at my hands... my normal, human hands.  I just stared at them for what seemed like an eternity, trying to marshal courage that came so easily to me in battle.  Finally, as Eirena looked away towards another part of the room, a reached over and laid my hand next to hers, barely touching.  I almost flinched and pulled it back, but I steeled myself and kept it there as I took a sip of wine from my glass with my other hand. Suddenly, I felt Eirena's hand take mine.  We said nothing, not a single word was spoken, but we held each other's hands for the rest of the night. With the danger to the city averted, we decided to spend some time exploring the surrounding countryside.  For some reason, the group stuck to the main roads...  I wanted to go off the beaten path, much more likely to find challenges and battle that way!  But I stayed with the group, as it gave me an opportunity to spend more time with Eirena.  We passed some knights escorting some high-born prisoners...  members of a group called "The Beauty", not sure what that was.  After a few days of quiet travel along the roads, I was awoken by one of my companions on watch that a small mammoth was approaching the camp.  I immediately got up and positioned myself between the mammoth and the group.  It began to walk around the tents towards Siegfried.  I dashed around the other side, but when I caught up to it, it was no longer a mammoth, but a large hulking man with a great axe! The brute claimed he had a bounty on Siegfried and I immediately drew my sword in defense of him.  The group tried to talk to him, Siegfried told him that he was not guilty of what the warrior was claiming, but when it became obvious the mammoth man would not listen, I raised my kilij in defense of my companion.  Not all of our number were as loyal, some of them hesitating to come to his aid.  Hafr, the cowardly fool, even demanded coin to come to his defense.  The battle was not long, as we were clearly outmatched.  In the end, Siegfried - who we fought desperately to keep alive during the mimic attack - lay dead, beheaded.  I was barely able to stand after suffering the onslaught of the mammoth warrior.  Taking his trophy, the priest's head, he disappeared into the night while we sat back and licked our wounds.  As a final insult, we had to keep Hafr from stealing from Siegfried's corpse!  We discussed what to do next, and someone mentioned Siegfried was a priest of a sea god.  I suggested we take him back to the harbor and bury him at sea.  Even the King came to the funeral to see off one of his city's heroes. The next day, we boarded a ship back to the Arcanum.  I was glad to be leaving that city behind me... the dank sewers, the narcissistic King...  I would not miss any of it.  But I would not have missed any of it either, for that is where I got to hold Eirena's hand for an evening."

Session 51 :  To Kill a King ( Mission 1N ) Attending Adventurers: -Savas Al-Hadar ( Physh ) -Siegfried Morton ( Hats4Cats ) -Cordelia Woodwytch ( Serephen ) -Hafr ( Red13aron ) -Phage ( Raven ) -Tiny Steve the Barbarian ( JuicyLemons ) -Eirena Lightshadow ( Depraved Lunatic ) As promised, I returned to Savas with members that could handle themselves.  We gathered at a tavern in Hollingholmen to discuss intel that Savas had gathered during his time in the sewers.  I was just glad he was still alive, after the letter I received a while back. We have then reiterated the plan that he had brought up the last time I was here. This time around, the group was agreeing to the plan, so we fleshed it out and moved to the King's halls, to receive permissions to tap into the ley lines. We approached the King and his announcer or something halted us, asking our names. I gave them our names, but he was insistent that Tiny Steve shall be named Steven. We went with it and approached King Varri, who was busy feasting as usual. I think he even grew a belly. He allowed us to tap into the ley lines and, much to our, or atleast my surprise, offered to join us and attack with his army on the other side. I was taken aback by the sudden change in attitude and discussed with our group. We decided that it would be better to have King Varri in our assault against the Rat King. I get nudged by Savas, who told me that we should be a bit wary. I decide to listen on the corridor for the night.  The night went by silently. Listening was quite the boring task, but better be safe than sorry. Atleast it gave me some time to think about the task we were tackling tomorrow. The next day, we quickly assembled and move through the tunnels dug by the ratmen. King Varri was an excellent Marksman, it appears, as he silently took out 4 of them in a row. Colour me impressed. Once inside the throneroom, we began our assault on the Ratking. Tiny Steve and I entered the fray in melee. There is no denying Tiny Steve's bravery and boldness, however, I still find myself wishing that Savas had joined me in the fray like last time. While Steve and I held on for quite some time, we found ourselves overwhelmed by the Ratking's flurry of blows. As it's last blow hit me heavily on the head, all I remember of the fight was a hazy mess, if anything. From what my companions told me though, Phage had dealt a great blow to the Ratking and the tides turned.  I did not witness the Ratking's fall. However, I awoke to the warm touch of Savas' hands, bringing me back to the living through his healing magic. I wanted to thank him, but seeing him transform back into his former form, I was rendered speechless. I thank the gods for freeing him of the curse that had plagued him for moons. I got up and helped the party investigate the things left behind by the Ratking. We entered a small bedroom of sorts, with some interesting papers. One of which was particularly similiar to a monstrous map that we had fought the first time we came here. As I called out for Siegfried not to touch it, it was already too late. The Old Man had awoken the beast from it's slumber. We struggled to get it off the old priest, who had nearly passed away in the process,  tearing it off it's face twice. Savas quickly struck it down and Siegfried was safe for now.  Because of our struggle with the mimic, we lost any chance to attain some loot for ourselves. To be fair, most of it belonged to the King anyway, but still, a few gold pieces would've been... well, we are getting a reward for this mission, who am I to complain. We brought back Tiny Steve's corpse to the city for him to receive the burial he deserved. His death saddens me, but atleast he died with honor. May Kirken welcome him in his halls of heroes. We joined the King for a toast. We humored him, but my mind was full with anything but the tales of the rat king. My thoughts became even more of a mess when Savas took a place beside me. I was glad, but couldn't muster up anything to say. I wanted to tell him I'm glad he survived, about the letter, but the words got stuck in my throat. So I sat silently, trying to be content with his presence. However, he offered me a hand. The same hand that swung it's sword with fierce fury next to me, when all others had left. The same hand that brought me back from the haziness of unconciousness. I was told actions tell more than words, so I did not hestitate to take hold of his warm hand. I wish that evening could've lasted forever. With our expedition not lasting as long as I had expected, we had quite some free time on our hands, which we decided to spend adventuring. We stuck to the main roads at first, so we could quickly get away from the city. Savas was keen on getting of the main road, as no battle would await us on the road. It was good to see that his battle vigor had returned to him.  We passed some knights escorting prisoners. Probably nobles. They were allegedly part of an ensemble of people called "The Beauty". I believe to have heard about that group once, but I'm not certain.  In the night, during Siegfried's watch, we spotted a tiny mammoth, wandering straight to our camp. I had read the logs and heard the announcement that the Mammoth Warrior was looking for Siegfried and someone called Roland. I exclaimed for Siegfried to run, but the Mammoth Warrior had already approached him. I knew that these warriors are one of the strongest in my homeland. While I wished that I could've helped Siegfried, unless he got some trick up his sleeve I believe he was done for. I tried to stay the hand of my companions, but atleast Savas, Phage and Hafr where keen on defending. Not wishing to let them go into battle alone, I too entered the melee. Cordelia turned Siegfried invisible, the Mammoth was unphased by this however and ended Siegfried's life then and there. The fight ended when Cordelia turned the Mammoth Warrior invisible and he took off with Siegfrieds head, claiming his bounty had been claimed. All I could do was stare at the headless corpse in silence. I whispered a small prayer and we went back to Hollinghelmen, so he could be laid to rest in the sea, as he was a cleric of Narikja. King Varri attended the funeral as well. Our group returned to the Island of Fabrica the next day. This time, bringing Savas with us. I am very glad that he didn't succumb to the Ratking and was able to hold his own until I came back for him. I don't know what I would've done if I were too late. -Signed, Eirena Lightshadow