3/28-29/1149 – The party has decided to leave Vallington and explore the world. They get ready to leave, say goodbyes. They learn rituals, particularly the raise dead ritual from the priests and enchant magic item ritual from Cofostos. Oswald makes an everburning torch as his first magic item. Yasmin tells them about the first young folks that left Vallington 16-17 years ago, never to be heard from again. It’s a little known fact, unlike the last visitor from the outside 21 years ago.
3/30/1149 – They leave Vallington and travel all day down the road they had traveled before which runs parallel to Unter’s Creek.
In the morning they find foot prints coming from Vallington and going back. They decide to do nothing and move on. That night, Yiska and Keyleth stay up. They discover that old man Hoster has been following them, muttering, going back and forth clutching the book to his chest. They bring him back to camp, but he doesn’t respond to their queries.
The next morning Hoster seems convinced that he will save them, and eats breakfast, clutching the book, and then head high, returns back to Vallington to “save the party”. They travel all day and reach a lake surrounded by swamps. The creek feeds into it. They encounter bullywugs, strange froglike creatures that are hostile and defeat them. The bullywug leader and his village come out to talk to the party. They say they are impressed, and tell the party that they must kill the lizardfolk in the flooded village ahead (the party identifies it as Fenton from their history lesssons) so they can move in. Or, if the party refuses, they will go upstream (which will take them to Vallington to be a problem there). The party agrees reluctantly, and carry on around the lake after seeing the road T-intersection. They intend to probably see what the lizardfolk are like and may play one group against the other. At the very least they will turn on the bullywugs because they sense the unnatural evil the bullywugs are.
They travel for a couple more hours and are ambushed by mud lashers and drowned undead villagers. The party defeats them after a long drawn out battle. The mud lashers get two massive hits on Grimald and he briefly goes down until he is healed by Oswald. They decide to continue on because of the 2-day deadline from the bullywugs. They reach the edge of the swamp and go in after finding that lizardfolk tracks go on the road remains (destroyed by the swamp). After a time, they are ambushed by poisonscale lizardfolk with the tattoo of a beholder on their chest. The fight is long and hard and the party several times becomes under the influence of a seed of madness when they kill a lizardfolk. They have to take an extended rest after this encounter, having found a safe spot inland a bit.
They get up the next morning and decide they have to push on as far as they can before they need to rest. After a few hours of travel, after the morning mist clears (4 hours), they reach Fenton, seeing the village rotting in the swamp and flooded by the lake. As they enter they spot the poorly hidden lizardfolk waiting in ambush and fight. Much like the previous fight, the resources of the party are strained keeping up with the healing even though the lizards miss a lot. When the party wins, they have used a lot more resources than they would like, but they press on down the main road. They spot an inn with the sign of the beholder painted on it, and inside they have a long drawn out fight with a priest and his subjects. This fight also takes almost all of their healing surges and they must take another extended rest, pushing their deadline. At the end of the fight, they pull out their best powers and finish the lizards. They get a nice belt and holy symbol and decide that they will cut the head off the priest and try to bluff the bullywugs about this being the leader and declaring success in clearing the village. As they leave the inn, they see larger buildings and know that they are probably missing a lot of lizardmen, but they will go on with their plan to keep the bullywugs away from Vallington. They leave and travel out back the way they came the rest of the day through the rain. Keyleth finds a suitable place to camp.
They travel the whole following day and reach the bullywug camp. They talk with the leader, and manage to convince him to give them 3 more days. He was a little difficult to convince. In fact, at one point Keyleth suggests making up a fake disease for Oswald, in common, right in front of the leader. The leader apparently understood common tongue and doesn’t like it. But they get the three days. They plan to take out the bullywug leader when they return with the lizard heads.
They return to the village after another couple of days of travel and go in and take the first left turn down the streets. Traveling a bit down the road, they see movement. The lizardfolk have set up an ambush. The party goes carefully down the road, slogging through the mud and the rain. Yiska starts circling around and surprises a lurker lizardfolk waiting to pounce from behind once the party is past. The fight begins, and the other lizards rush out to help. The mind powers of the aberrant god they worship do a lot to make the battle a tough one, but in the end, the party is victorious. They recover some coins, take a short rest, and then Keyleth checks for tracks, seeing that the majority of the tracks go down the road.
They follow them and come up on a temple of Mac Lyr – a building built into the shape of a ship with a scallop shell, now covered in slime, moss, and vines, on the top. There are poles with the heads of victims on it, and the doors are painted with the sign of the beholder just like the chests of the lizardfolk. Keyleth spots that lookouts have noticed them and they will probably be ready. The party decides to move up, kick down the door, and charge in. The lizardfolk have set up a defensive line, with a beholder gauth hanging in the back near the altar. They spot some plate armor on the altar behind it. They rush in, triggering some readied actions, but after the first round, Keyleth has put a lot of deadly arrows through the crowd into the beholder, one lizardfolk has been killed, and the front line party members are prone on the ground. When the beholder joins the fight, he uses his telekinetic ray to draw Oswald into the room, into the reach of all the lizards. They take him down to unconscious. The beholder’s sleep ray works on Yiska and he is knocked out. Once Ironhand brings up Oswald, things turn around again after looking grim for yet another round. The beholder’s strategy works again, drawing Ironhand into the room and immobilizing him, but Oswald unleashes Foersyn’s ire and stuns the beholder. After that, he’s dead, and the party can deal with the lizardfolk. The aberrant manifestations of the lizards make things tough for a time, but in the end the party defeats the god of the lizardfolk and identifies the armor, counts the gold, but fails to detect any magic in the elven cloak that was also on the altar.
They leave the temple and look around a bit, but before they go more than a house towards the main road they are ambushed by the last of the fighting lizardfolk. The battle gets a little dicey with the aberration powers, but the healing wins the day and one by one the lizards go down. For once, the party ignored the casters who missed quite a few times, but also did a bit of ongoing poison to hurt them a bit. When the last lizard died, they ran back into the temple to take a short rest and heal up. They go out again and loot the bodies and notice that they are on the edge of town. They see the road going out of the town to the south and spot, despite the rain, a glow of yellow-orange, far-far to the south reflecting on the clouds.
They travel towards the lake and spot an alley. There, they see tracks of many feet, small and slow-dragging, moving out of the ally and towards the lake. They follow those and see in the distance that the lizards have left the village. They start heading back, after collecting tail tips, until they get back to a good camping spot.
The night passes without event and the party reaches level 6. They travel the whole day and arrive in the evening at the bullywug camp. They are escorted by the guards to the leader. They have their plan to ambush the chief in place with code words to set it off. They throw down the tails and the stalks and the chief blusters and interrogates them. They talk a bit about having succeeded on cleaning the village, but they then suddenly attack. The chief didn’t see it coming and the party gets a surprise round to buff up. Oswald puts up the damage resistance power and that is what kept this fight from being a defeat. The three bullywug mud lords are ignored by the party who focus (except for Keyleth) on the chief. Keyleth plays with the javelin-throwing skirmishers. The mud lords repeatedly throw down the area powers and get Oswald, Grimald, and Yiska dazed over and over again. If it wasn’t for the damage resistance, they would have died long ago. But the healing works, and the leader finally, eventually falls down, and the tide is turned. The skirmishers are taken care of as are the minions that the chief called in during the course of the fight. The last to fall are the mud lords and the clan of bullywugs breaks up in panic and scatters mostly in the direction of the lake (northwest). The party searches for loot and is disappointed to see that there is none.
They return to the ruined village of Fenton and take the southern road. They search for a marker to know if this village really was Fenton, but find nothing that hasn’t rotted away. They follow the river, giving the village the name New Fenton and the river Lurk River. They see the glow again tonight and speculate what could cause it.
The next day they reach the edge of a blight. The plant life just withers and dies in all directions ahead and to the sides of where they have come. They explore just a bit at the edge, then decide to go back and forage for the rest of the day to have supplies for when they get further in.
The following day they safely travel through the blighted land. At the end of the day they start to see smoke in the distance, the glowing is getting brighter. Later on, they come across gigantic boulders that have apparently been flung from a distance. There are furrows of earth where the boulders have landed. Towards the end of the day they have seen splits in the earth and are in a field of boulders. They camp. That night they are attacked, during first watch, by a geonid and carnage demons. They defeat them, learn a little about demons and camp again.
In the morning they travel further, the landscape becoming more and more desolate and broken with great cracks in the ground. They are traveling through strewn boulders and spot shardstorm vortices zooming across the landscape. But none attack yet. Until they reach a large boulder and magma hurlers crawl up to start throwing balls of magma. Two shardstorm vortices also zoom in to do some damage at the same time, setting up the ambush. Then, a young blazewyrm swoops up from behind the boulder. The worst combatants turn out to be the vortices. While the blazewyrm looks badass, it doesn’t do as much to them. The healing keeps abreast of the damage done to Grimald who has his lucky resist fire shield, which is perfect for this environment. They defeat them handily after the daily powers are broken out. They investigate the lava pool they find behind the boulder and contemplate it being a portal to the elemental planes.
Now beyond the boulder they hear a roar which grows louder as they travel. The glow is really close. There is a mountain of rock into which the river, which they had still been paralleling since leaving New Fenton, plunges. The road circles around and down dropping a hundred feet. Beyond is what seems to be the end of the world. Grimald goes to the edge and sees a haze of smoke that falls into roiling flames and darker smoke. He surmises it might be a gate to the elemental planes. The river had also come out of a box canyon just to the west of the road and plunges over the edge to turn into mist. They speculate more about the Great Cataclysm and what happened here. How something might have done this intentionally to destroy the world.
They found some kobold tracks going into the canyon and decide to go investigate. They find a waterfall in a box canyon with towers of rock, some natural archways and lots of shadows. They see caves 70, 80, and 50 feet above the canyon floor. In those caves are kobold slingers who pelt them with rocks until the party retreats. They realize that they have no chance to climb those walls, even though they are somewhat doable. They think about taking an extended rest and then trying to enter the caves through the back where the river plunges into the rock. Keyleth finds them a passable place to rest for the night, and they are undisturbed.
In the morning, after some discussion, they aren’t particularly interested in exploring the canyon. Grimald and Ironhand are all for just ignoring it and going on. Keyleth and Yiska want to go in. So they scout the river and Keyleth thinks that there might be a way inside on the opposite shore. Ironhand is the only sure swimmer so he takes off his armor and gets across. They use a rope to get the rest across and carefully follow the river into the hillside. After a bit, the air gap disappears and they will have to submerge to go further. Again, they almost turn back when Keyleth spots some light and claw marks in the water. So again Ironhand swims forward with a rope. He goes for about 45 feet and is able to surface again, into a cavern. And there are kobolds here. They use slings and because he has no armor, he is a sitting duck. He pulls urgently on the rope and the rest of the company attempts to swim with varying success. Most fail, and it takes them several rounds to join the fray. Fortunately, the kobolds are a minor threat, and despite reinforcements being called in, the party is victorious. One slinger got away and Yiska, understanding draconic, heard him calling to allies. Fortunately, the allies in question take time to set up an ambush so the party gets a breather.
So rested, they move on, having to climb in places because of how uneven the floor is. There are rope ladders for the kobolds to use, but in at least one place, the ladder has been pulled up so the party can’t follow. They come to a camp area and face off with some tougher kobolds. The slingers use glue-pots to immobilize the party on several occasions and it is a great success from the kobold’s viewpoint. The healing kobold is able to use his big heal only once before the party gangs up on him and is killed. There are two dragonkin sentries in this battle, and when the first one dies there is a rumbling and vibration as something stirs further in the caverns. The second one is the last one in the combat, and he attempts to run away. Yiska, however, anxious and able to use his fantastic shifting powers, chases him down exactly to the ledge where a red dragon and his allies have reached. There is no time to rest, but reaching an objective has reinvigorated the party slightly.
The ledge provides quite a tactical advantage to the dragon since he can fly. He does so, breathing and landing to double attack Yiska, getting him and Grimald in the initial breath blast. A caster kobold also creates a zone of fire. He stays up on the ledge so there is the potential for him to cause great havoc down there. The dragon really should have blocked the ladder, or the kobolds should have pulled it up at least. By the time the party has arrived, the dragon has nearly killed Yiska, who went up after the caster – discovering that there are two more dragonkin defenders also up there, and the dragon has used his frightful presence to stun three of the party. Fortunately, the healing power of the party is formidable, and the refreshing made a huge difference. Towards the end of the fight, Ironhand lay at death’s door and it was up to Oswald to bring him back from the brink. The party had used almost all of their healing by the time the dragon was finally slain. Killing the dragonkin channeler early made a big difference.
The dragon was slain finally by Yiska and the party was victorious. They take a short rest, and then try to find the dragon’s lair. Sharp eyes lead them west into a chamber with very uneven ground but an opening in the roof that the dragon could use to get in and out. There they find a pile of gold, a magic fullblade, jar of steam, and a healer’s brooch. Oswald also notices 300gp of rare earths that can be used for arcane rituals. They sleep.
In the morning they explore the rest of the caverns. They discover the bodies of week old dead kobolds and finally surmise that the dragon only showed up recently to subjugate the kobolds. They find the kobold’s camp and see a crude drawing there depicting a battle between two wizards where magical blasts open up a chasm. They think that one might be dragonborn and the other tiefling, but the artistry is very crude to be sure. Knowledge history lets them think that this might be something related to insane wizards at the time of the Great Cataclysm. They find the way out with a rope ladder down into the canyon and wander down to the chasm. They consult their map and their knowledge of history to see where rumors might be about large ancient cities. They know there is one to the north, and possibly something smaller to the south. They elect to travel along the edge of the chasm to the east. When night falls, they camp 100 feet away from the chasm. In the night, a cadre of demons led by a bloodseep demon attack the party. Keyleth is unable to awaken, so it is up to the four of them to fight them off. Yiska fortunately heard the demons try to hide and awakened everyone else. They start moving out into the shadows where they see a large creature trying unsuccessfully to hide.
It is a barlgura, and it reveals itself and charges when the party is close enough. One by one other demons show up, the last being the leader and finally the lurker who had hid in the shadows, circling around. It has a power that lets it teleport away with an enemy and it uses it to steal away Oswald, so he is unable to help the rest of the party. It is up to Ironhand to keep Grimald up while Yiska tries to chase down the teleporting creature with Oswald. Oswald has to heal himself repeatedly as the creature flays him. Potent powers start coming out and soon Oswald is unconscious, kept only alive by healing potions administered just in time for him to sustain powers. A canoloth was also particularly devastating with its dazing attack, as was the bloodseep who has an aura which does damage. The bloodseep didn’t get to do much healing, but what he did was effective. In the end, all powers were used, and Oswald and Ironhand were both unconscious with none or little healing left. The only two up, Yiska and Grimald finally take down the last Gnaw demon as it tried to fly away to the chasm. They move off several hundred yards and try to rest. Nothing else attacks them.
They wake up the following morning recovered from their ordeal and head east along the chasm, a safe distance from the edge. However, they are more powerful now from all that they have experienced. Grimald also has attracted a book imp familiar, who declares that Grimald needs his help. His name is Tzoposis, granted by Grimald. He is mostly insubstantial when in passive mode. After a couple of hours they see a storm of dust, lightning and fire at the edge of the chasm. They decide to avoid it and start circling north. They realize that there are elemental creatures in the area of storm. They talk about communicating with them, but change their minds. They reach the northern edge and head east, and then back south as they have circled all the way around the chasm. However, on this side some elementals have noticed them and come out to attack. There is a mix of elementals and they realize that it is unnatural to have elementals mixed up like this.
There is a fight, during which one windstriker becomes quite annoying as it chooses its foe and moves around quickly to get in and out of the battle. However, after a drawn out battle, the elementals are destroyed. They move on. Reaching the chasm edge again and continuing east. After a couple of hours, towards evening, they see that the quality of the chasm has changed. Instead of fire there is now steam rising out, causing the edges of the chasm to be mucky and swampy. They can also see through the steam and smoke that there is another side of the chasm and it is getting nearer. They are reaching the eastern edge of it. However, they spot a crystal set in the mud very close to the chasm edge (40 feet). They go investigate and Keyleth spots some creatures hiding in the mud. He also notices that an area of steam and fire motes is also a creature. He tries to shoot them and misses. More combat follows. Keyleth is defeated by the scorchwind phantom when in dispersed form because it is immune to attacks. In fact, the phantom is the last to go down because it keeps using that power to be immune while it recharges its main attack. The crystal is the first to die because Yiska makes his way around the gorgon mud (unknowingly) to get to it. The mud lashers use their mud balls to slow and immobilize everyone and they withdraw into the mud. At one point Yiska was blind and to scatter the group so the scorchwind couldn’t hit too many of them, he ran in the direction of the chasm and almost fell in. But he caught himself at the last moment. They find a storm shield and some gems where the crystal was and then move off to camp.
The next day they round the corner of the chasm after a couple hours. Then travel two more days without event. They then run into some rock formations and as they round such a one they come across some demons feasting on one of their own. The battle is long and drawn out and for a while each character goes bloodied every round and is healed right after. Grimald almost dies, having gone unconscious, but is revived by Oswald’s consecrated ground.
The next day they travel far and reach a dry river bed, at which they turn south. They see green on the horizon and as they sun sets they see clearly that it is forest. They reach the edge of the forest the next day and enter it. It is dense, but they see the remnants of the road and the dry river bed. They figure the growth of the trees are about 50 years old, meaning it has been that long since this road was used. After a while, there are no signs of the chasm and blasted land and they are deep in the forest. It seems much like the forest around their village. Then towards the end of the day they spot a cave on a small rise. They go to investigate and spot some unusual plants and ambush drakes hiding. Combat begins and a bear charges out of the cave. The fight goes easily for the party and after a short rest they see that the cave is just a shallow depression, good for the bear. They use it to rest for the night.
The next morning, they continue on down the old road, using the growth of the forest as an indicator of where to go. The road departs from the stream bed after a couple of hours and they continue on the road. Then, late in the afternoon, Keyleth spots some figures hiding in the bushes. The figures then step out – it is Lord Kalfrin, his wife, and three guards (though at first it is just 1 – the other two manage to hide well enough behind the party). Lord Kalfrin is an eladrin minor noble in the summer queen’s court. He speaks only elven to Keyleth and openly insults the humans knowing they can’t understand him. There aren’t too many questions at first except “where are you going?”, “South.” “Where are you going?”, “Hunting.” He does however, invite them to his lodge for a meal, and perhaps if the conversation is interesting enough, to stay the night. The party doesn’t want to but Keyleth says sure and off they go. The rest of the humans (and shifter) are suspicious, but they go along with Keyleth. After a time, they realize they are approaching a thin area of the world where the Feywild is close. They cross over and the party totally balks. The lord tries to reassure them that they will be able to get back, that it will last until morning. Keyleth again leads them on and again they go along with him. They do notice that once in the Feywild, the Lord leads them on an unnecessarily circuitous route, which really raises their suspicions more. They reach a beautiful glade (the whole Feywild of course at twilight is beautiful) in which is a tiny ramshackle hut. They go to it and open the door and gesture the party in. Keyleth is a bit more trusting and goes in but both Ironhand and Grimald refuse. Grimald is remembering from his lore that eating with the fey and going into their homes is a bad thing, even though most of that is fairy tales. The three guards go inside and the lord leads them into a grand hall where there is an owlbear sleeping before a fire. There are balconies, and a huge table laden with food. Ironhand does come in but Grimald stays outside. The doors are kept open, and the Lord shrugs and says that a plate will be brought for Grimald. He and his wife sit at the ends of the table and dig in. Only Yiska Keyleth and Oswald eat. Ironhand refuses.
The conversation is not too successful at first. The party learns that the Lord has a theory that the planes of existence are moving about like unpiloted ships crashing into one another. There are weak spots and things appearing, like the goblin fortress, all the time. They know this already from their own experiences but are interested to have it confirmed from another source. They try to learn more about the Fey Summer Court, but the lord doesn’t tell them much.
Then, the poison in the food kicks in. Of the three who ate, only Yiska and Oswald feel the effects. The trap is sprung and the lord and lady leap to the attack. The guards, archers, all come out through doors on the balcony and start lighting everyone up. The owlbear also awakes on the lord’s command. Once the fight starts in earnest, it quickly becomes clear that the party is in serious trouble. The archers keeping using their area attack and getting several party members at once and knocking them prone doing lots of damage. The lady escapes to the balcony with fey step after a couple of rounds of using her blinding and immobilize attacks. The lord issues his fey challenge on Ironhand to do him damage when he doesn’t attack the lord, but Ironhand always wanted to attack the lord anyway. Things change however when the owlbear gets Ironhand in flank. The bear claws and bites Ironhand to unconsciousness. And the Lord moves away to do other things, going after Yiska and then later in the fight to protect his lady, and then to kill Oswald. Especially when Oswalds puts up both of his best powers – the damage reduction and the consecrated ground healing. It was necessary though because the archers were focusing fire and hitting everyone again and again. They ignored the owlbear at first but he was just doing too much damage. There were rounds when Ironhand went down then came back up because of the healing from the consecrated ground. Yiska climbed on the balcony once and then the lady teleported him down again. The archers started targeting Oswald towards the end of the fight, but it was too late by that point. They had riddled Keyleth with arrows and blasted the party with eldritch blasts to the point where healing was all but gone, but then the bad guys started dropping and the fight was over.
The building then started disintegrating after their short rest. They looted mundane armor and weapons and then noticed that something wasn’t right. The door out of the building wasn’t opening easily and then the building started rumbling and coming apart with flashes of arcane energy. They dodged the falling ceiling, searched around to find the loot. The key they found on the Lord wouldn’t work on the door so they figure it must be for a chest. They search the whole building and finally find a secret panel after they get through the two more crumbling doors. Oswald uses his arcana knowledge and they push the secret panel open to retrieve the chest, then get outside.
There they take a rest and identify the magic items. Keyleth finds an endless quiver, Ironhand a circlet of indomitability, and Oswald antipathy gloves. They then try to make their way back home. They travel a bit through the forest using Keyleth’s nature and perception skills but discover they are going in circles. They try again and only come back to where they started. They then realize there are fey spirits impeding their progress and outwit them with nature orienteering, some bluffing and finally intimidate. Some stealth also helps. The arcane fellows then push the party through the veil and get back home. They are exhausted after their ordeal.
They travel for two more days and come across an old battlefield. There they find an old battleaxe head with a raised relief of entwining dragons. They figure it to be a symbol of New Draconia. They also find a ruined tower filled with dragonborn bodies and graffiti – “Death to New Draconia! All hail Butard.” They are attacked by undead, an ooze, a greenvise vine, and a swarm of spiders. The fight takes all their resources and Ironhand spends much of it nearly dead and entangled by the vine. The spiders also cause much trouble with their aura. In the end, they are victorious but must rest.
They look in the morning at the bodies but see that there is nothing of import here and move on. They move further into the battlefield and after a time the road they are on returns to the creek bed. They are on a slight rise and they can see down into an area that used to be a village. The road crosses the river through a ford and on the other side are many buildings. But as they get closer they see that most of the buildings bear scorch marks and acid burns. They rightly surmise that dragons could be involved. They go down the main road for a bit and then take the first branch off to the right, circling around to the northwest. Halfway along the road they see that while most of the buildings are just a bit of foundation, one larger building, probably an inn, remains with some walls made of field stone. Most strange, however, is the glowing green fungus on the walls. They identify it as being somewhat otherworldly and connected to aberrations. They go inside carefully, knowing that spending any time here would be dangerous, but a quick look should be okay. They find the wine cellar, but there is nothing in it. The building holds no surprises. They continue on and see ahead at an intersection with a main road a dark purple necrotic glow and they hear a voice incanting words of power in a ritual.
They arrive just in time for the ritual to finish and a bone mongrel dracolich rises in a circle of candles burning purple flames. The dracolich sees them and its master orders it and a dragon shell to attack. The undead dragonborn direguard who created them is a caster and he comes in last. The dragons charge the party and do fair amounts of damage. Especially when they both breathe and catch the party in both breaths at once. It is only after Oswald puts up the moment of glory and the party has the damage resistance that the fight turns back in the party’s favor. The undead dragonborn makes some comments about needing the dragon undead for the fight but doesn’t answer any of the party’s questions. In the end he tries to escape but is chased down and shot full of arrows to be defeated by the party. The bone mongrel was destroyed first and the dragon shell was the last to fall. The party loots some money and gems, two from the bone mongrel’s eyes, and some potions. They take a couple of short rests.
After searching the bodies and prying out the black gems the dragons had for eyes, they head towards the center of town. Keyleth had found some bone tracks going that way. They reach the town square and find it to be filled with dragon bones. Several adult dragon bodies, including what they think are gold, silver, red, and white can be seen. Most have the green fungus on them but three have been cleaned off. Those three also have black gems for eyes and animate to attack. This fight is much harder than the last because the bone mongrel dracoliches use their breath weapons a lot more frequently since there are three of them. The party also conveniently clumps up and the dracoliches also used their horrid presence at least once to push the party together. A set up and score type of maneuver that occurs at least twice. If not for the consecrated ground, the party would have been wiped out with perhaps only Keyleth escaping. By the end of the battle, the party is out of healing and is barely alive. It looked like Ironhand might die for real, but a luck saves him. Spent, they recover the dragon eye gems, a bag of more gems that hadn’t been used yet and then they go down the road to spend the night in one of the ruins.
They had seen that the road leaving the square heading toward the river has more bodies and bones on it. That night they see a strange green glow from that direction, but they are undisturbed. Even when the strange mist that Oswald identifies as aberrant in nature creeps around.
They go down to investigate the glow the next day, finding all the bones spanning the road to indicate that the dragons got their asses kicked by something. They see up ahead the only intact building, round and temple-like but not any they recognize. It is covered in the fungus. They go up the steps and enter the building, made of stone completely intact. The doors were open revealing a round chamber with eight pillars and an altar in the center. There are the remains of old pews set in a circle surrounding the altar. When they get all in, they are attacked by a grell and 4 gricks who slither down the pillars. The gricks swarm around Grimald while the grell waited one round to pounce on Keyleth from the shadows. Keyleth manages to escape so the grell goes after Oswald. Through most of the fight, the grell had Oswald grabbed and was stunning him with his poisonous bite. Eventually, however, the party was once again victorious.
They see that the altar in the middle is also shaped like a lectern and there was probably a book of some kind on it. They notice that the stone can move and they recover a cache of old ritual components, a couple of expensive gems and a pair of magical gloves. They start scraping at the fungus on the walls to reveal mosaics. Keyleth gets a good idea and uses the jar of steam to help clear the growth away. They expose an interesting looking mural. Six men fighting demons in front of a black gate. They try to recognize any of the depicted men and Grimald identifies a heraldric shield on an armed warrior to be Blukhorel, a minor family with a curse from far up north. The rest are wearing leather armor and robes, one an evoker. They spend the rest of the afternoon here and uncover another mosaic. This one showing people fighting devils in a burning house in a city. They look at the crowd gathering to see if there are any indications of what city it might be and spot some blue cloaks and a jester. They do see that one of the men fighting the demons has horrible burns and is calling forth a maw of chaos to consume the demons.
The third mosaic shows a city at the top, and below it deep in the earth is a cavern where 6 men battle demons while standing on a great map. Part of the map looks like a dragon claw clutching a jewel that shines brightly as depicted in the mural. The heroes: a priest in armor holding a banner with the symbol of Baldrin, a plain dressed man with a burned face, the same as in the previous mural, a knight with a leaping panther on his shield (Mielik’s symbol) and a hawk flying over his shoulder, a warrior in full plate, a paladin of Hysor, that same from the first mural, and a wizard in simple brown robes looking more scholarly than heroic.
They aren’t sure if these six men are being worshipped or if this is some kind of recruiting station or what. They are determined to stay and uncover the rest for more clues before leaving the ruins.
In the predawn, they are attacked by a group of undead. Two corpse vampires, two moon wraiths and a flameskull. The wraiths manage to get their attacks on the whole party, but it doesn’t matter. The party makes pretty quick work of the undead. The sun rises on a new day.
They return to the temple and back to removing fungus. The fourth mural shows a sky full of dragons, breath weapons unleashing fury on a great city. The architecture and heraldry are unclear what it is. Riding one of the lead dragons is the knight with the Mielik shield. He looks bedraggled and older. It’s unclear if his expression is fury, wailing, weeping, or what. But he is clearly evoking strong emotions. Is he goading the dragons on or screaming at them in horror?
The last mural shows a group of heroes, most the same as the previous mural except the man with the Mielik shield is missing. In his place is a rough-looking barbarian. The minor knight is also gone, replaced by a priest of Duath. They are on flying phantom horses, riding through mountains to a large peak wreathed in fog. In fact the whole area they are riding towards is nothing but fog. One last detail, the plain looking wizard in robes is shown riding last in the line and he now has a devil's tail and horns and is grinning evilly.
They speculate a little while about these heroes, recognizing one as Eldrin, the great villain from history. They surmise that they might be in the area of the dragons based on who built this building and history.
The next day they explore some more and as they reach the southern edge of the village, they come across a pack of foulspawn feasting on a deer carcass. They attack. The foulspawn manglers with four arms and daggers manage to flank ironhand and take him down from full health to unconscious in one round. The party panics and lets loose a bit, but the fight is really not too challenging. In the end, they take down the foulspawn and decide that they have finished exploring the village. They continue south all day and the next without incident. Water from small streams and creeks feeds the main river and by the end of the day there is water in the bottom of the formerly dry stream bed.
The next day they come upon a ruined town, a familiar sight by now. However, they also see that some newer buildings have been constructed, and some of the growth has been cleared. There is a makeshift wooden wall about six feet high, made from logs, around the newer area. They see a wide river, first river they’ve ever seen, into which the stream bed empties. The farmland and pastures surrounding the village have people and animals. There is smoke rising. They talk about scouting stealthily and decide against it because if they are caught, then it puts them in a suspicious position. They approach. Guards see them and gesture to other guards, who run out and herd the people from the fields in. The guard tries to stall the party and get their intentions. The party acts friendly and they are waved to the west gate. They are met by a halfling captain named Virdikin Huntley. They talk for a few moments outside and then he decides to trust them and opens the gates. They talk as they walk to an inn called the Frisky Goat after the captain learns that they will probably stay overnight at the least.
At the Fristy Goat, they sit down with Virdikin, a half-elf priest of Myrcon named Yurl Ivey, and Xanthran, a dragonborn smith. They learn that this settlement, Krenson, is only 3 years old. The residents are made up almost entirely of people who left a nearby town called Lachen disobeying the teachings of the dominant church in that town, The Church of the Book. This is a religion that no one in the party had heard of before. This Church teaches that Travel is Cursed. That one must stay in to be safe. One must never go out. The people here are mistfits, renegades. There are a lot of halflings, half-orcs, tieflings, and dragonborn. They have some trade with Lachen still, but it is on the down-low. Mostly on the river Aare (the name of the big river they saw coming in). This is the first visit they have had with overland visitors.
The party talks a bit about their travels from Vallington to here, in particular the Jade Fortress and its goblins, the chasm of fire, the swamps, their encounters with Fey creatures and so on. By the end of the evening, their guard escort is drinking and talking and partying with the party who have been starving for drink and cooked meat. They go to bed late.
The next morning they wake up hungover and the innkeeper, Georgia Howell doesn’t let them have alcohol first thing. They hear a commotion outside and going out they learn that several guards have been killed and four wounded in a raid that occurred last night after their partying.
Since the party mentioned goblins almost as one of the first topics of conversation, there is some suspicion that they are linked to the goblin attack that killed the guards. The party, after a bit, are talked to by the captain who can’t afford to send men after the raiders. Especially not with the deaths they just had. The party offers to go help, for free almost, but the captain insists on fair compensation, being a halfling. They talk to one of the surviving guards, the chandler Bill, about what he saw and learn a good deal about what they’ll be facing. The party sets out and Keyleth easily finds the tracks.
The tracks lead a way into the forest and eventually up to a game trail to a small hill with an overhang. There they meet the orc chief, hobgoblin chief, two ogres, and hobgoblin hand of Gaal and engage. The party uses their best powers without restraint and the fight turns into a slaughter. They recover some gold, equipment and a pair of boots.
They return back and get paid. They talk with Huntley and determine that Lachen is their next step. Even though Virdikun and almost everyone else they talk to warns them about going to Lachen, they decide to go. Virdikun leaves to make arrangements to smuggle them in.