- GM’s note: A week’s break as I hit the wall and needed a break. And now we return to what happened after the Fourth Sacrifice. The three sisters of the Good Omen Inn have been revealed as servants of the Crawler and have apparently fled Tyland Mill, presumably heading for the Gorge and the hidden city of Nyrath.
This session covers a full week of activity as Grant and Ethan were quite busy.
Day 28 - Moonday – 13th Day of Rainmoot (Spring)
- The next morning Ethan decides to search the rest of the Undercity beneath Tyland Mill and he locates the secret chambers where the three priestesses operated from. They left in a hurry and there are some gold and possessions left behind. He then turns his attention to the River Caverns and looks over them again but all is as it was. The Lurkers have not returned.
- Meanwhile, Grant decides to interrogate Rannik. Rannik proves a difficult nut to crack and Grant ends up using Umbra to break down his resolve as the day wears on. Rannik confirms that Lord Korab hired him to kill Lady Marian but he also tries to bargain for his freedom with the lure of treasure. Rannik claims to be the son of the Red Fox, a legendary dwarven thief whose treasure has never been found. Rannik has been holed up at Fort Ghost (in the north), a place that is said to be both cursed and haunted. His father left him riddles to find his lost treasure and he claims to have both the map and one of two the lenses to read the map, but the other lens is probably in his surviving brother’s possession. Grant has one of the lens because Rannik had it on him when he was captured, but the map is supposed to be in Fort Ghost.
- Rannik hates his brother Otto as he was betrayed by his kin twenty years ago and sentenced to the prison at Kaavaros for his crimes. Rannik had been following in his father’s footsteps when he was betrayed. He plans to avenge himself on Otto.
- Rannik tries to persuade Grant that he will not be able to find the map without him, but Grant remains unconvinced.
- In the afternoon, Ethan reaches the Old Temple and descends to the lower level. He finds the shrine to Beethania and opens a secret cavity in the statue’s base, which reveals a dagger with an elaborate hilt called Heartbreaker. It is a faerie weapon and is one of the few things that can harm Lord Wynterlyr – this is the weapon that Beethania cut her husband’s face with.
- He then turns his attention to Wynterlyr’s shrine, which is still heavily defaced by black moss. He considers cleansing it using Eidolon but decides to leave it for another day.
- The evening is spent at the Good Omen Inn. Salthia is trying to run the place, and some of the locals and Ingmar’s dwarves are helping her. Grant and Ethan talk, and Ethan says that he plans to leave in the morning.
Day 29 - Towerday – 14th Day of Rainmoot (Spring)
- Just before dawn, Ethan rides south for Beethania’s Shrine in order to recover a segment of ring that Grant previously saw there. He is riding ‘Pigeon’, one of the captured Steel Eagles’ horses. Beethania to him that one of the ring segments had been recovered but she never said which segment so Ethan isn’t sure if the segment is still at the Shrine or not, so he journeys there to be sure.
- Grant goes to talk with Lady Marian and shares the information that he has gathered from Rannik. Marian is not surprised that Lord Korab sent the assassin – it’s the second time that he’s tried to remove her. Grant suggests that he remove Korab (have him die in his sleep) and recover most of the money that is in Korab’s treasury so that the Steel Eagles will be forced to seek other employment. Marian is a little concerned that the Steel Eagles may turn to banditry (or even sack Stonebridge) but she also notes that the King would probably send some of his army to Tyland Woods if the Steel Eagles went that far. In the end, Grant convinces her to support his plan.
- Grant asks for some help from Alfrin, Parth and Ingmar. Alfrin agrees to head to the Weeping Castle by boat with Parth and two of his dwarves onboard. It will take them more than a day to get there so they set off quickly.
- Grant then begins to analyse Rannik’s poisons and decides to use some of them against Lord Korab.
- Ethan reaches Beethania’s shrine in the late afternoon. Her statue is there, gorgeous and lifelike, but there is no sign of the ring fragment. He finds tracks heading north back towards Tyland Mill – it looks like the tracks of a boy or girl. He decides that it is too late to press on and decides to stay the night.
- That evening, Grant wracks his brains as to what could go wrong. He starts to doubt the plan. But just after dark, his missing deputies Puke, Rein and Gareth return from their long absence. They had followed the missing cattle but were captured by Red’s men. When Red and his men were pardoned, they were set free. Grant is very happy with this as he was worried that he was leaving Tyland Mill poorly protected. He celebrates with them at the Good Omen Inn and spends the night with Salthia.
Day 30 - Wineday – 15th Day of Rainmoot (Spring)
- Grant rises early and heads north for the Weeping Castle. He leaves early enough that he doesn’t see or smell the smoke rising from Theod’s stead to the south.
- In the morning Ethan heads north, tracking the individual who found a fragment of Wynterlyr’s ring. The tracks are joined by animal tracks (either a sheep or a goat), suggesting that the boy (or girl) may have been searching for missing stock.
- About an hour into the journey he smells the smoke from Theod’s farmstead and he races north. After two hours of hard riding, he arrives and finds that Theod and his family have recently come under attack by a band of goblins. Goblins aren’t normally hostile and the farmers are in shock that goblins would attack them like this. They staged an attack on one side whilst a small group of them broke into the compound – Theod’s son Galen is missing. The goblins took him.
- Ethan doesn’t know if Galen is the boy who found Wynterlyr’s ring, but it doesn’t matter. A small hunting party is already pursuing the goblins and Ethan decides to follow and join them. He leaves his horse behind, lightens his load and begins running through the forest.
- It is mid-afternoon when Ethan catches the others. They are still trailing the goblins but have not caught them yet. The group continue their pursuit but the goblins reach the Hexenhoof Mine first before Ethan and the hunters can intercept them.
- The hunters talk about what to do – there certainly seem to be a lot of the goblins. Ethan finally says that he wants to talk to them and he enters the Hexenhoof Mine alone.
- The goblins are surprised to see him but do not feel threatened by one man. When Ethan explains that he wants to talk to their ‘chief’, he is assigned an escort and led into the mine. The lighting inside is poor or almost non-existent but Ethan can see well enough. There is a whole goblin village in the old dwarven mine. Over a hundred of them, including old goblins, females and children.
- Ethan waits a little while before the King will see him. The King is a corpulent goblin with beady eyes. Ethan explains that he is seeking Theod’s son and the King proves to be unusually reasonable. The conversation is pleasant, the King offers to return the missing child and Ethan offers some gold to thank the King for his generosity.
- Ethan leaves with Galen, wondering how it could possibly be so easy. While escorting Galen back to the other hunters, he asks Galen if he recovered the ring fragment from Beethania’s Shrine. Galen confirms that he had the fragment, and that it somehow merged with his hand. He did not know what to do, so he consulted with Grandmother Nuna (the best healer in Tyland Woods) but still they had no answers. He explains that one of the goblins was able to take the piece of ring from his flesh without making any wound. He didn’t understand what they were saying but he was pretty sure that they had a piece of the ring as well.
- The hunters are pleased to see Galen and they return to Theod’s stead. Ethan decides to stay – he figures that if the goblins have two of the three parts of the ring, then they will probably leave at some point to find the third part.
- Late in the evening, Grant reaches the Old Oak near the Weeping Castle. He looks around it and finds that it is one of Red’s old stashes. (He finds a small amount of treasure and some supplies hidden in the tree) He then decides to rest until the wee hours of the morning.
Day 31 - Thunderday – 16th Day of Rainmoot (Spring)
- In the middle of the night, Grant goes to the Weeping Castle. By now, clouds have drifted overhead and a soft rain is failing. In nightbird form, he approaches Korab’s chambers through one of the arrowslit windows and finds Lord Korab fast asleep and alone. He uses some of Rannik’s poison to kill him while he sleeps and then he goes to Korab’s treasure room.
- Grant decides to bundle up almost all of the treasure into a number of small sacks and then drops them out of the window one-by-one into the muddy river bank. He leaves enough treasure to keep the Steel Eagles paid for about a week but takes everything else. He then recovers the small sacks from the river bank and makes his way to Alfrin’s moored boat. Parth, Alfrin and the two dwarves are surprised to see Grant. Grant stashes the loot and Alfrin quickly begins poling downstream.
- Dawn breaks. The day passes slowly. Grant relaxes on the boat. Ethan watches over the Hexenhoof Mine for signs of the goblins’ departure. After a while, Ethan gets a feeling – he can sense the presence of another Warden. Whoever it is, it is not someone that Ethan recognises. Judging this an important development, Ethan uses an Icon to contact Grant and tells him. He also mentions that he has felt Umbral magic being used, far away in the East – perhaps in Nyrath.
- It is late in the day, well after dark, that Alfrin’s boat returns to Tyland Mill. Grant takes the money and stashes it, then reports what has happened to Lady Marian.
- It is pitch dark when a group of goblins leave the Hexenhoof mine and Ethan can tell that this is no ordinary patrol as he can sense the magic that one of them is carrying. He decides to follow them.
Day 32 - Fireday – 17th Day of Rainmoot (Spring)
- Ethan follows the goblins as far as the Dusker River, where they make camp for the night. They are not aware of his pursuit.
- Grant considers his next steps and decides to head to Fort Ghost. He doesn’t think there is sufficient time to get to Stone Bridge and back, but Fort Ghost is only a day’s travel away. He is briefly delayed when he finds some lost livestock and has to return them, but he still reaches Fort Ghost by nightfall. He knows that Fort Ghost is said to be both cursed and haunted and he decides to camp a few miles away.
(GM’s note - Unknown to both Grant and Ethan, but for the benefit of the readers, Lord Korab’s lover Acaratina and her twisted brother Twistle discover that Lord Korab is dead. Acaratina knows that Lord Korab wears the key to the treasury around his neck and she uses the key to access the treasure. There they discover that the gold reserves are practically gone. This is a big shock to Twistle as he knew of a secret door into the treasury and it was not this depleted when he last looked. The two realise that they’ll likely be killed when Raktor Stoneface finds out, so they decide to rob what is left and flee. They successfully gather the transportable remaining loot, arrange for two horses to be saddled and then head south)
Day 33 - Swordsday – 18th Day of Rainmoot (Spring)
- Swordsday is a cool sunny day. Grant approaches Fort Ghost cautiously. He finds many traps, and a group of pale-faced goblins who believe that Rannik has stolen ‘their souls’. At last Grant finds Rannik’s hidden chambers and Grant cannot believe his eyes. Rannik has a bed with proper pillows. Not one of those cots with straw – an actual comfortable bed. Grant recovers the map of Tyland Woods that Rannik spoke of, and judges it too late to head back to Tyland Mill so he falls asleep on the bed.
- The goblins cross the Dusker River with Ethan in pursuit. They make their way north, avoiding the Weeping Castle and reaching a strange section of forest where there is a lingering mist. The goblins wait until nightfall and in the moonlight, the ruins of an old city – the city of Veltigar appears. Ethan has felt this sort of transition before – this is a place where the veil between the real world and the faerie world is thin.
* Sourced from Google Images. The Ruins of Veltigar
- The goblins are led by a tough looking female. She commands her kin to search the ruins, and she quickly finds her target – a shadow beast that has absorbed the third fragment of the ring. The goblins slay the beast but before they can claim their prize, another faction arrives. It is one of the Priestesses of the Crawler with two dozen Lurkers. In a strange voice that sounds nothing like Nadia, Sylvia or Irina, the Priestess directs the goblins to hand over the fragments of Wynterlyr’s ring.
- At this point all hell breaks loose. Goblins fight Lurkers and Ethan tries to take the ring amidst the confusion. The female goblin briefly has all three parts of the ring, but it is seized by a strange creature who bounds away in large frog-like hops and disappears into the thick fog. Ethan charges after the hopping creature and they quickly leave the battle behind them. Ethan loses all sense of direction but he manages to catch and pin-down the long-legged faerie and take the ring from him. The frog-like faerie seems very annoyed and gives a loud hooting sound as Ethan flees with the ring. In the distance, Ethan can hear the baying of faerie hounds.
- Calming himself, Ethan dons the ring and uses a spell of mental invisibility to quietly walk away. He spies the occasional dark shape rushing by him but he escapes unscathed. He was not expecting this as Ethan’s invisibility has traditionally failed to prevent bloodhounds from finding him – but for reasons unknown (at this time), it works.
- Unfortunately, Ethan has no idea where he is and no idea how to return to the ruins of Veltigar. His Wayfinding appears to be useless. He is completely lost in the faerie realm.
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