Slow Portal to China

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Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Slow Portal to China
GM: Rosemary Mansfield
Season: Autumn 810 wk
Night: Tues
Level: Medium
Location: My place in Avondale

Party


Employer
The Guild, on behalf of Baron Anastasius-Grendl of Elfenburg, is your primary employer. Other interested parties are the Merchant Guilds of Seagate, Midheim and Elfenburg, represented by Hegsteinn Smith (the guild weaponsmith/armourer); and the Alfheim Friendly Society, represented by Fritillaria Melegris.
Mission
To assist with the repair of the slow portal between the Guild and Elfenburg. Be prepared for swamp.
Pay
200 sp each per week
plus:
5000 sp each for successful repair
32 guineas (8064 sp) for successful recovery of two missing elven field scholars
A reducing reward from the merchants depending on how fast you repair the portal:
  • 4500 sp by 21 Fruit (grain harvest from Brastor)
  • 3000 sp by 30 Fruit (last years vintage ready to move from Midheim)
  • 2500 sp by 30 Harvest (apple harvest from Gracht)


Scribe Notes


1st Fruit

Well, when I found out that an adventure was going out to fix the slow portal, I just had to go on it to help. After all, I was on the adventure that broke it so, I felt a sense of obligation. So, I assembled in the meeting room and met my fellow adventurers.

Jay - A non-mage. He told us he fights a lot. He's a big male human in his mid thirties.

Nomad - An old 5' tall human male with a long blue beard and white whispy hair wearing find crimson silks and no obvious military gear. I thought he was a sage but he said he is an Ice Mage.

Pierre - 34" tall halfing with curly blond hair. He's an illusionist and cooks a lot.

Rowan - 6'1" tall red haired female elf binder carrying her eyeball staff.

And I'm Aurora. female blond haired fae/elf airmage.

After we introduced ourselves, a heavily built dwarf came in who introduced himself as Master Heggsteinn Smith (the Guild armourer/weaponsmith). Basically the Baron of Elfenburg wanted his portal fixed. It's not generally well known that it's a portable item, the item consisting of a pair of rune covered stones, each stone marking an end. These are shifted around to various places, depending on need, and are used to transport merchant trains quickly from one place to another. The item belongs to Elfenburg and is a family heirloom, gifted by the elves a long time ago.

Usually it takes three hours to traverse the portal but lately it has been varying between three minutes to 12 hours. Also, people have been dumped out of the portal in mid-transit and been dumped in various swamps, one near Elfenburg, the Ffenargh, or that nasty swamp north of Novadom. There has even been rumours of people going missing in transit. Already some elven scholars are overdue.

The Guild was paying us 5000 silvers + 200/week, Alfheim was paying 32 guineas (864sp) if we can find and rescue the missing scholars while the Merchant Guilds were paying 4500sp if we can fix it before the 21st of Fruit, 3000 if before the 30th and only 2500sp if it took us right into the month of Harvest. This was because there were deadlines to meet for various merchant trains to go through. Amelia Pendragon, an ex-guild member, was acting as a liason as well as Fritillaria Melegris from the Elven Friendly Society.

While I went and joined the queue for a Greater Enchantment (rank 12, spells and resistance), the others went to the library. There, they discovered that the Elven Friendly Society was based in the Alfheim University and they sent scholars out of field trips to various places. All of these scholars seemed to be of the nobility and none of them have caused any trouble. They then went to see an elderly woman at the Rune College, Hildy Rijiswjk, who had helped in the attempts to repair the portal. Unfortunately all the notes had gone north to Elfenburg. She was also bemoaning the lack of new Rune mage for the College.

  "Whittling, Reading and Writing" - Jay

Once I had picked up my Greater, and a Lesser (shorter and faster queue), we headed into Seagate towards the Elven Embassy where Fritillaria currently was. When we got there, we discovered that there was a party going on. We met up with a drunken ambassidor and there was the stink of Kurrf in the air. Fortunately a rather flustered Fritillaria was able to see us. She told us that there were two alumni missing who were now five days overdue. Both of them are male elves and their names are Betalu Ermani and his friend Welwitschia Senecio. She wasn't sure that they had even reached the portal but, as far as she knew, there had been no problems on the canals on the way there. Both of them should be together and neither of them are handy with weapons. She was able to obtain sketches for us and I was able to obtain a copy of the guide book that they were issued with, much of which is out of date.

We headed back to the guild where I spent 200 silvers for maps, especially suited for flying to Elfenburg. Then it was back to the Rune College. Usually the portals are exclusive i.e. everyone's trips are unique. So much for the theory of bandits lying in wait inside. There are no records of anyone loitering in the portal and, once someone is in the portal, no one else can enter. Plus it's not usual to be able to turn around and exit ... although we managed it the last time. We were also told that there was more detail seen in the portal. It was theorised that the realm that the portal was going through was in the process of 'becoming'.

The only thing we could think to do now was to go to Elfenburg ourselves ... and it was decided to go by portal, much to my misgivings ... especially after what happened last time. I decided to cast Fly spells on everyone, just in case we got dropped in a swamp. Also we stocked up on provisions and I obtained some really nice raspberry cordial for 20sp. Have to take some back to Ashesh.

The interior of the portal was different than the last time I remembered it. Last time it was a path surrounded by a grey mist. This time we could see more detail, i.e. the path was raised above a swamp. Still water and reeds beyond while faded into the mist. The path itself was eight foot wide and it was difficult to judge distances. I was attempting to measure the mana levels every thousand paces, using my fae sight, in case it varied. A high spike may indicate a aberration in the portal. However the level remained normal throughout. I also put a portal rock in my pocket to test the theory if material from the inside can be taken out.

A couple of hours in, and nothing unusual was detected. I was really hoping not to see any of those void creatures that had tried to eat Lizette. We did notice that the shape of the swamp had changed and that the light seemed to be coming from a different direction, as if there was a sun somewhere in the mist above. There was no north bump and we were having difficulty remember things we had seen before. However Nomad noticed a peculiar ripple in the water alongside that seemed to be pacing us. Something about it was niggling at me, as if it was something I had heard of but I couldn't quite remember. We switched to single file to stay as far away from the edges as possible.

Finally we popped out of the other end, emerging in a small, empty, stable. It was going to be dusk in ten minutes and the transit time seemed normal. The rock in my pocket had, not surprisingly, vanished. Outside, we could see the Elfenburg and the Pendragon flags. Amelia came out to meet us and, when asked about the two scholars, told us that they had entered the portal. She was rather concerned when we told her that they had not appeared on the other side. A place to stay had been prepared for us and we were invited to join her for dinner. I asked for the vegetarian option.


After dinner, Amelia conducted us to a small room where the records are kept. There, she told us that one end of the portal had been to several places, including Tac, Brastor, Seagate, Grachstaff, Midheim, and Borovia. Some of these places may have records of who used it and if any anomalies/complaints were recorded, the rest - probably not. We started speculating if the portal was somehow locking on to previous exit points that were no longer used whnen travellers were ejected into the swamps. Certainly it had been in use for thousands of years. It had beeen made about 20,000 years ago, around the time of War of Tears, for use by the Urgatens leaving the, then, Arcadian Empire. They had portal hopped their way across the landscape finally leaving the non-elven retainers in what is now Elfenburg while the elves went on to Alfheim. The portal was left in Elfenburg with appointed gatekeepers. Als, all the swamps had magical aspects and the local one was poisonous. An injured caravan guard had been ejected into it a few months ago and had been rather sick for a while. He was still here and recovering from the effects.

2nd Fruit

After purification, breakfast, etc we did more researched and got more information from Amelia. There was a monastery in the Ffenargh as well as a town. We could get guides from there but we would need to be careful as some of the local inhabitents could be rather dangerous. It was said that they had swamp ghoul in their ancestory. Also there was a dead, or low mana zone in the area, dating bacj from where Caroc had transformed himself into a black dragon. He had since moved on to parts unknown. Also the elves had since put a canal for the swamp. Amelia would produce letters of introduction for the monastery.

Another swamp, near Carzala was called Swithin's Rough and was only a mile or so across. If our missing scholars had ended up there, or in the local swamp, they should have been found by now.

Amelia then went off to get the guard, Goodman Tanner while we continued speculating. From the description of the swamp in the portal, it seemed to be a warmer, more lowland swamp than what was around here, which seemed to be indicating either the Ffenargh or the one north of Novadom - both large and rather nasty places.

Amelia arrived a bit later on with Goodman Tanner. He had stopped near the edge of the path and something had pulled him off the path and he fell off into the swamp. He described it as having big pointy teeth, and green lizardly skin. Webbing was between the claws. He wasn't sure how far along the path he was but when he emerged from the water, the creature was gone and the area he had emerged from was a lot different from where he had fallen in. He had also noted some trees that were rooted in the swamp.

I was having some niggling thoughts about what the creature might have been. The closest thing that I could think of was a fossegrim although it must have been a large one. Maybe this portal was so old that fae magic was involved?


Anyway, we had the letter of introduction to the Lord High Baliff, Clavados, so it was decided that was where we would go first. We were told that the main town in the Ffenargh is called Eylea and that was where the monastary is. The seaport settlement is called Comptom by the Sea. The best way to get to the Ffenargh from here, is to follow the Baratary River down towards the sea. It flows straight into the Ffenargh.

So, that was what we did. It was cloud cover all the way but we flew above the cloud, in the sunlight and kept the peaks of the Dragonspine mountains behind us. Finally, just as the spell was about to run out, I recast them then we landed to get our bearings.

Once we descended below the clouds, we could see a valley containing farmland below with a few villages scattered about. We stopped for an hour before heading off again. The next landing spot was in more farmland, presumably the same valley plain, but the bordering hills were further apart. I was feeling really fatigued by now so I took a restorative ... and nearly passed out. Those off-planer ones were really strong, and tasted vile. Once I recovered, I took a healing potion while the others argued about the best method to heal me.

It was getting late evening by now so I decided to do a cloud ritual instead. Clouds can be more restful, well .. that's assuming the winds are in our favour. I had nearly finished the first attempt when some horsemen rode up. They were obviously hunters. One of them wanted to know what we were doing here. They were satisfied with our answers but warned us not to hunt any of the deer as they belonged to the local lord. We then asked them for directions to the river.

The next attempt got us a cloud. Once at the standard cloud height, I discovered that the prevailing wind was not in our favour so I summoned up a Mage Wind to keep us going. Plus it was really cold up here. Even the Resist Cold didn't help. Maybe this cloud was broken. Basically I had to attempt to stay awake all night as well.

3rd Fruit

Things seemed to be going rather well. We were above the cloud layer so the stars were shining bright. I was able to use them as navigation aids. After a while, I was steering the cloud towards the left star of a bright pair, as directed by a couple of pixies, while avoiding the flying ship, when I was suddenly prodded by Rowan. I had fallen asleep at the helm and the cloud was drifting way off course. I was still rather tired so it was decided to land the cloud and rest. By now, we estimated it was three in the morning.

The landing was very tricky. It was dark below the cloud layer and there was a river gorge in a forest below us. I had to dodge trees while bringing the cloud down. The only spot we could land was in the gorge by the river. It was then we noticed that the high water mark was above our heads and .. well .. it could have been raining upriver.

It was decided to climb up the cliff to a safe ledge. Pierre slipped and would have ended up in the river if I hadn't grabbed his leg. As it was, he hit his head on some rocks. Basically, that left us both stuck .. and I do not remember being helped up the rest of the way and onto the ledge.

The next thing I remembered was waking up with the sun reasonably high in the sky and it was getting rather cold. I soon found out why. For some reason, it had been decided to travel the rest of the way by boat and Nomad was in the process of making boats out of ice. He had first lowered the temperature to freeze the water in the still areas of the river then had made an ice igloo. He was attempting to bind and shape the ice when Rowan shaped some wood into boats then proceeded to put Nomad in a Bubble of Force.

Finally, between the two of them, we got a couple of boats. Other barges had already came down the river so we figured out it was navigatable all the way down. However, those guys looked like they really knew what they were doing and frankly, it looked rather terrifying. So we split up between the two boats. The other boat went around the big rock okay, but the one I was in, bounced off the rock, spun around a couple of times and took on water. I started bailing rapidly. Finally, by mid afternoon, we reached calmer water, much to my relief. A short while later, a boat passed us rowing upstream leaving us to wonder how they were going to get through all the white water we had just bounced through.

By 6 that evening, the valley sides had retreated further and reeds were growing along the side of the river. We pulled the boats in to shore.

4th Fruit

It was decided to fly again so Rowan left a note on the boats stating that they were magically created and when they would expire. We then took off flying just below the cloud layer, which was starting to look thinner. The sun was shining through small gaps. Below was more villages and arable land. The population density looked to be a bit higher down here. Finally we saw a biggish town ahead so we landed and walked in. According to our maps we were somewhere in the SW corner of Bowcourt, around 30 miles from Ormond. Vallon I think. Here, we discovered we could get a boat service down the river to Eylea. The Baratary joined up with the Montrachet River at the major junction ten to twenty miles down further. Also, no one had seen any elves about since High Summer. Well .. I knew it was a long shot but it was worth a go.

It was easy to get comfortable rooms at an inn for the night. Baths were available for those who wanted it. I was listening to the news, thinking that there may be stuff for the Times in it. One that did peak my interest was the one about the hedge witch in Ormond that had a bunch of over zealous church knights descend upon her. I can just see the headline now. '"Wichcraft not inherantly evil"' says Bishop. Presumably that was Bishop Barston of Ormond. There was also news about Alfheim, much of which was highly exaggerated and some was just plain wrong. For instance, it was daffodils, not lillies.

5th Fruit

Next morning, after getting fresh bread and cheese, we were on another boat along with a hired boat driver. We knew when we reached the junction when we noticed two shades of brown water where the Baratary and the Montrachet met. That was just after lunch. An hour later we could see the horizon stretching out ahead and, as we got closer, we could see the water flowing into reeds. This was the start of the Ffenargh.

Finally we reached Eylea and headed for the vestary. We showed the clerk the letter of introduction and we were conveyed into the presence of the Lord High Baliff.

Basically he told us that they could arrange to send messages around to see if anyone had seen our missing elves. However, he wanted us to do something for him and the SAG was the second on his list to fetch. The first were the Church Knights as they don't cost money. The problem was a hydra in the ruins of the manor that had belonged to the last Lord of Lorge. They wanted to resettle the area as there was a quite bit of dry land there but the hydra was proving a nuisense so they wanted it eliminated. I was curious if there were any high mana spots that could have affected the portal that our elves could have dropped into but Clavados didn't answer. He was adamant that we deal with the hydra first.

So, after he left, we discussed strategy. I wanted to shoot it from range until it died from that. Other ideas such as trapping it in walls of ice or subjecting it to knockout gas were also suggested. One thing we were told not to do was to wreck what was left of the manor. Basically they wanted us to leave it the same way we found it.


6th Fruit

A punt and punter had been provided and we headed off down the river towards the location of the manor. From what I could remember from old records, the hydra had been the pet of the late Lord's wife who had been a bit out of her tree. She had been killed by the revenant Lord Lorge but the hydra was still out there. After a while, the river curved eastwards. We saw lots of birds and I was entertaining myself listening to birdcalls, identifying them, and trying to imitate them. Some were locals but others, such as the terns and petrals, were resting here while on their long migration routes.

After a few hours, we left the river and the boatman took us through the swamp, very quietly. It was about an hour before noon when we arrived in the area of the mansion. I tried scrying for it with my crystal ball but had a bit of trouble finding it. Fortunately, our boatman knew where it was and soon we were hiding behind reeds observing what was left. I also put the crystal ball view in a position so we could look down on the manor.

The manor itself was rectangular in shape although the platform it sat on was octagonal. One tower had completely collapsed and a corner had been taken out by a fallen tree. The other one was still intact. Apart from the corner, and a third of the roof, the rest of the building looked in pretty good shape. The platform itself sat of a hump of land that rose two yards off the water. There were also some holes in the platform itself.

Rowan possessed a flying starling golem and scouted the house. Most of the interior was in disrepair and suffering from neglect. At first, there was no sign of the hydra, but then she saw three snake heads peering out from around a door. From what we could determine, it was nesting in the master bedroom.

We headed off the boat and onto land. While Nomad, and Jay scouted ahead, Pierre and I went up a nearby tree. Meanwhile Rowan started creating clay golems. Initally the hydra was in the house but then we lost sight of it. Just then, Pierre spotted some sort of magical darkness hiding underneath the fallen willow tree. It seemed too small for magical darkness, probably something like a shadow cloak. Was this hydra magical? Or was there something else out there?

As Nomad and Jay continued, I stayed up the tree ready to give them covering arrow fire, at least until they moved out of sight around the building. Pierre slid down and joined them then, as they rounded the corner, I slipped down to join them. Meanwhile the first golem was advancing while Rowan created another.

We got closer. Finally we found the hydra as it started slithering out from under the willow branches. It also had a wraithcloak on, which was rather unexpected. I maneuvred to a better firing position while Jay also got his bow out. Meanwhile the golems were piling into it. Nomad was trying to freeze the area around it. I lost three arrows in the swamp before I started hitting it with good, solid hits. Some of Jay's shots were bouncing off. Must have a tough skin. Meanwhile it was busy turning golems into goo but Rowen was creating them as fast as they were destroyed. Jay then noticed one of the nine heads was behaving oddly as if it was a spellcaster, or maybe directing the others. Nomad was trying to freeze it while Pierre dropped a Counterspell on the area we were on before using Flashes of Light. I think the first one made me miss the fourth shot but the second attempt definately blinded it. Meanwhile the golems were piling on, including a wooden one.


This was taking a while though so Jay and Nomad went into melee while I suddenly remembered a spell I should have cast earlier. So I grabbed my remaining arrows, discovering where Jay had been getting arrows from, i.e. my quiver. Oh well .... So I cast an arrow flight spell on the remaining ones. That was then I noticed the owl circling nearby. I was thinknig that was a bit odd when I was distracted by a bright flash of light. Eylor had launched a lightning bolt at the hydra. It was stunned and Nomad took the opportunity to lop off, and send a head flying, with his glaive. The hydra tried to retreat and the rest of the party went after it, right off the edge of the platform.

Meanwhile I was watching that owl which was circling the area and hooting. Jay wanted it shot down but I wasn't sure, so I cast a Speak with Avians. To my surprise, it turned out that the owl was calling out to the hydra, asking if it was alright. So I shot at it, slicing it near one wing. The owl took off.

The hydra was attemptng to retreat into the water but Rowan put a wall in it's way. It didn't last much longer after that, in fact, it didn't stand a chance.

While the others were taking the hydra apart, I flew up looking for the owl. It had a nest in one of the towers but, when I looked, it wasn't there.

I couldn't see it but, since it seemed to be the only owl in the area, I decided to summon it. It took a while but, after I landed back on the platform, an owl was wobbling it's way towards us. By the way it was flying, I was sure it was the one I had hit.

Meanwhile, the others had been counting heads ... and there was one missing. Plus there was a bit on the hydra body that seemed to have had something attached recently. Had a part of the hydra got away to spawn a new one? Nomad picked up the head he had severed with the intent of extracting the poison. Meanwhile, Jay discovered the hard way, that the hydra was carrying a disease.

I questioned the owl. It knew the hydra from the time it was an owlet, about 20 years ago, and the two of them shared the territory. The hydra's name was Bryon. Also, it had the ability to take on a humanoid form. Rowan detected an enchantment on the owl that told her that the owl was actually a familiar and had a far sensing ability. So, with Eylor's help, we rendered the owl unconscious.

We then searched the house. We found bits of jewellry with the house crest of Myrkfast Hall on it. The same crest was on the manor's record books. There was also a collection of woman's clothing, a desk, scrolls, amd books. Some of the scrolls had marks on them indicating that the hydra had been trying to write, even though it had no manipulative appendages. Must have been using a mouth. The books told us that Bryon was the squire of this household and Jay recognised the family name as being one of a powerful Aladarian family.

Night finally fell as we examined the evidence.

7th Fruit

Both Jay and I had tended to the owl and I has hoping it would survive the night. Unfortunately, it didn't. So we preserved the body for later divination. All the important books were packed for shipment to the monastory and we headed back to the city, presumably by the scenic route, arriving there by mid afternoon.

Once there, we were conducted to the baliff. Runners were out and the first lot had arrived back with no news. The next lot were expected back this evening and the remainder by tomorrow evening. So we were debriefed telling our story to a scribe. I'm afraid I got a little too desceiptive but, all the salient facts should be in there - somewhere.

We then saw Father Zebulon, the local abbot. He went through our report, all twelve pages of it, then asked us some questions. He also told us that Bryon had been fostered to the Myrkfast family and had been a squire but had gone missing before the murder. The body was never found and it was presumed he had drowned. We also discovered that a party of four adventurer types, including one mage, had come in from the swamp around two and a half months ago and had taken a boat out of town. They hadn't mentioned any oddities but it was now assumed that they had also found themselves unexpectedly in the swamp.

We had a few hours to spare and Nomad wanted to see a leatherworker. So I went as well. I also wanted see if I could get new arrows. I was able to get some rather interesting feathers and some shafts which I planned to make one end pointy. Maybe with my arrow flight spell, they might be good enough until I can get proper arrow heads. Nomad arranged to get his hydra head preserved while I obtained some soft leathers suitable for clothing including a rather interesting looking fish scale. The scraps of sharkskin I got I'll probably use for cleaning weapons and such. Certainly too rough to wear. All in all I spent nearly 10 silvers on stuff.

By the time we got back, the next wave of runners had arrived, literally a wave, as they were trainee water mages who used wave riding. One of them had news that a stranger had been found in the swamp. Currently he was very ill, rambling incoherently in a strange language, and couldn't be moved. A healer had been requested. Jay had some healing skills so we offered to have a look. Besides, there was a very strong possibility it was one of the missing elves. Certainly the date of apperance was about right.

  "You can't spell elementalist without mental" - Jay

I made a mental note to learn Whispering Wind when I got back, as it would have been useful to send a message back here. I guess I have been neglecting my own College. Anyway, we flew out, along with our water mage guide. He was a bit diorientated at first but soon we were speeding along in the right direction. About half an hour later we were at the outlying village. They also had need of a healer as one of the young girls, Sasha, had "something odd in the head". Jay promised to have a look on the way back.

A punt was borrowed and, with the assistance of a mage current, we headed off towards the house where the stranger was being tended. When we got there, we were told that he had been found, unconscious, with his foot stuck in a fish trap. Sure enough the patient was an elf who had fallen prey to some sort of disease. Fortunately Jay was able to do something about it and the elf lapsed into a healing sleep. We spent the night either in the punts (the house had one as well) or on the veranda.

8th Fruit

Jay had established there was nothing wrong with the woman's treatment but we were told that the elf was showing no signs of a disease when he had been found. Maybe he had been incubating something, or he had caught something recently. Hoever, by the morning, he was a bit more coherent. Yes he was one of the missing two scholars, to be specific, Welwitschia. There had been no sign of anyone else. We let him rest while we went out to investigate the area.

The lady of the house took us out on her rounds which included the fish trap. When we got there, I noticed that there was some sort of magical 'rip' in the area, like where a fairy circle would be. Could another portal path be somehow intersecting the portal? I would have through that was impossible. We searched the immediate area and anywhere a body could be washed up but there was no sign of the other scholar. There was also talk of putting up a marker in case someone else fell out and landed here.

While we waited for Welwitschia to recover, we spent the afternoon weed harvesting.

Finally we were able to talk to him. He told that they had been attacked by a giant creature that sounded, to me, like an overgrown fossegrim and it may have been the same one that attacked the guard. They had seen a ripple in the water following them and, when they went to see what it was, it attacked and chased them. Welwitschia had stumbled and fallen off the path and his friend had been right behind him. We wondered if he had fallen off in a different place, yards could have translated to miles. But then, how had the giant fossegrim got there. Was it actually living in the portal space or was it reaching into it from another faerie plane? And could that be where the other scholar was?

The woman told us that they had seen a fossegrim in the swamp, about ten miles from here and fifteen years ago. They had been hunted down killed with the help of the Church.

Finally we were able to head back to the village. Jay examined the girl and discovered she was deaf. Hopefully the church healers can fix it.


9th Fruit

It took us all morning to get back to town. On the way back we questioned Welwitschia again. He was sounding a bit more coherent but I wondered how much of that was pure politeness. However the swamp he had seen in the portal was one that was full with trees, oaks etc, which was nothing like what we had seen. They also noticed something following them, a humanoid creature, about the size of a halfling paddling along on a raft. From what they could make out through the mists, it looked like a clothed halfling. They had then stopped for lunch, having planned to do so anyway, and noticed that, at one point, the mists had thinned a bit, revealing more colour ... and that was when the oversized fossegrim launched itself at them. I started wondering if the portal mists more more like the fae ethereal and he launched into a really detailed technical discussion, accompanied by lots of questions. I had to give up but one thing he did say was that it was possible that the portal used to act like the illusionist's maze spell but was now acting like the fae ethereal. I had to give up attempting to translate.

My head was still spinning from all of that philosophical stuff as we reached Eylea and spoke to the baliff. No other reports had come in and he was rather confident that most of the Ffenargh had been covered.

10th Fruit

Cloud travel to Seagate. It was going to be a long trip.

11th Fruit

Finally landed in the Guild landing area just after dawn. I was feeling rather tired having been up all night and being fed that awful black stuff Jay likes. I think he called it cafe or something. We then took Welwitschia to the embassy where Fritillaria was very pleased to see him. While the others decided what to do next, I crashed in the Air College.

During their investigations, they discovered that hydras are immortal but are rather helpless when reduced to one head. The preserved body of the owl was divinated and discovered to have been a familiar ever since it was an owlet. The bits of the hydra we had brought back were also divinated and it was discovered that it had originally been a human but turned into a hydra by the use of ritual magic. The human had come from Aladar, he was male and had volunteered for the ritual. The ritual had been performed by a woman and a hydra was involved. Why anyone would voluntarily transform into a hydra was really strange, at least in my opinion, and probably we'll never find out why but it was fairly obvious who was involved.

After my nap, I went to replenish my stock of arrowheads and found the others discussing plans to have a picnic in the portal in the hopes of being attacked by the fossegrim. I was getting the strange feeling I was going to be bait, or was it Nomad? Basically the plan involved picnic baskets, blankets with adhesion on them and disguise illusions.

12th Fruit

So it was disguise illusions all around to make us more ... rustic Jay called it. I was just in my three point sleepwear armour, suitably disguised. Thank all the elven gods for that talent I got. Even with that I was still nervous. Nomad was looking more like some sort of country yokel while Jay had managed to transform into a horse. Well, at least that was a handy place to carry the packs, long bow and arrows. I even put a fae glamour on me to make me look more appealing as fossegrim lunch.

The interior of the portal looked really different this time. The path was still there but on one side was a flat and reedy swamp, like we had seen before, but the other side was forested, presumably like what the elven scholars had seen. Both sides quickly disappeared into fog. Nomad was tossing rocks into the water, and proved that the trees weren't illusions when a rock bounced off one.

We loitered every so often and, on one of those breaks, Pierre caught a glimpse of the 'halfling' figure on a raft briefly among the trees. He also said that the fog had appeared to thin a bit, revealing some colour before rolling back in and making everything grey again. I put an Enchant Mortal spell on him so he could see fae glamours as well ... just in case.

A bit later on we could hear, again from the forest side, what sounded like an insect hum. And, then there was another flash of green before it went grey again. Pierre was speculating it was illusionary fog, the 13th fog he said. Maybe he had been listening to Sir Christopher too much.

We stopped again for our picnic. Just then the mists parted and .... (to be continued ... same fae time .. same fae channel)


(When we last left our intrepid adventurers, the mists had parted revealing .... and now .. the conclusion) ... a waft of warm, moist air as well as a small green creature leapt out at us. It sank it's teeth into my leg and attempted to drag me back with it into the water. Pierre grabbed me while I drew my dagger and plunged it into the path intending to hang on tight. Meanwhile Nomad froze the water behind it and Rowan cast the spells to animate the picnic blanket to send it wriggling after the fossegrim. She also rendered it sticky as well. I was trying to kick at the fossegrim in an attempt to dislodge it but, in this case, resistance was futile. Still, with the help of Pierre and Jay (still in horse form) I wasn't being pulled down the slope anymore. In fact, they managed to drag me back up to where we had started. I did grab the dagger and attempt to stab the fossegrim but it was obviously clear I needed to practise using a dagger as well as unarmed combat. That was when the blanket attacked as well, wrapping me and the fossegrim in a sticky coating. I did manage to get a good strike in with my dagger, before I was immobilised, stunning the fossegrim.

It took a bit longer but soon a rather battered fossegrim and I were extracted from the blanket. I tried questioning it, since it did seem to understand a smattering of pixie. I got the impression that there was more than one of them in the area and if we didn't let it go, the Lords would get us. (I had originally thought it said Hordes. Nomad reckoned that was close enough). Meanwhile Pierre attempted to get a plant sample from the other side of the portal before it closed but slipped and fell through as it closed.

We finally convinced the fossegrim that it was in it's best interests to help us. So, in pidgin-pixie we asked the fossegrim to reopen the portal and take us to where it came from. It did, but it wasn't quite the same area. It was decided to go through. So we held hands, with the fossegrim on a rope lead, and stepped through (to where we later discovered was MiddleMarch.

Somehow, we got seperated. Rowan and Nomad weren't with us when we came through. However, we did find Pierre, sitting on an illusionary crocodile. This realm seemed more colourful, more real, plus the mana level - at least to Pierre and myself - was very high. Pierre climbed a tree but all he could see was more trees and birds. He also saw somwe interesting mists halfway up the taller trees. I flew up into the air, in the hope Rowan was also flying up here or Nomad had managed to create a mile high iceberg. No sign of either but it was definately a sea of trees in all directions. Several species of birds flew up here, including may raptors. It took me a little while to find the hole I had flew out of but soon I feather falled to a landing and reported.

The fossegrim was wanting to go in a particular direction so we decided to follow it. We did find it's lair but there was no sign that an elven scholar had been here.

  Aurora on eating fish - "Um. It's all those little bones, I'd rather have someone else take them out"
  Jay - "That sounds more like laziness than vegetarianism"

As we progressed, I decided to play the second most popular song in Seagate, on my flute, in case Rowan or Nomad heard it. (The most popular one is rather rude and it's rather mean to the Duke). I then noticed that, what we had originally thought were flying insects was a very small species of fae, (Willow-wisps we found out later) and they were harmonising along with the music. Once I realised what was going on, I tried questioning them to find out what direction we should go but that started an argument about east and west. Asking them to "take us to your leader" also resulted about an argument about who was the leader. They did agree that, when Pierre dropped an illusion on me to make me look like a big one of them, was that I was the wrong shade of green and needed to stand in the sun a lot more.

However, a short while later, a halfling sized creature paddled up to us in a boat. It had olive coloured skin and wore clothes with feathers in them. Apparently we were being looked for as she recognised us as the "lost big-uns". Their species are called fenlings and, after she fed our rather miserable and hungry fossegrim, we let it go and followed her back to her village. Two hours later, we got there, and found Nomad surrounded by a horde of fenling children. Rowan was resting nearby.

Rowan and Nomad had already paid their respects to the local Lord and Lady and it seemed reasonable that we should do the same as soon as we could. After all, it's traditional, and polite. Besides, visitors are supposed to, otherwise they're fair game for the local fossegrim. The local lord and lady are a pair of nixies who live in a cavern network underwater. They had already informed the other two that they needed to go to the Highlands and walk the Paths in order to return to Alusia. Mind you, here, the highlands might just be a higher patch of ground out of the water and nothing like the rugged highlands of Caledonia.

The afternoon was spent entertining the fenlings with magic and music. Pierre and I were playing flute duets along with magical light accompament, as well as watching the children play with the little fae with some sort of cats cradle. We then spent the night in the fenling village and the night was still, warm and damp. Sleep was fitfall and I was so tempted to set up a cool breeze but decided not to in case something went wrong. Plus there was all the buzzing of those insect fey although, at times, it was harmonious.

13th Fruit

The next morning, we went to pay our respects to the local Lord and Lady, which involved waterbreathing and swimming down to their caverns. A gift was traditional so we told stories. I told the one about the missing scholar who was lost off the magic path but they didn't seem too impressed. Jay's story was much better. Maybe I should have sung the Ballad of Carlson's Switch. Still, they seemed satisfied with our efforts and shared some of their own lore. We told them about the portal and the Lady suggested that they should throw their old broken toys away. I suspect that's not going to go down too well. My impression was that this was an old and stable Court and it may look docile but it seemed more UnSeelie aligned than Seelie.

Finally we said our farewells and prepared for a journey to the Highlands.


It must have been sometime after lunch by the time we got going. The fenling kept up a constant stream of mostly unintalligable chatter as we progressed along. We did however determine that it's name was Flutter. Names for fenlings are the names for sounds. Which meant that they weren't really being insulting to the one they were calling 'Drip'.

A couple of hours later we reached an area where there was more rock than water, finally reaching a patch of land with a wharf jutting out into the water. The boats here were in good condition and we followed the fenling up the slope towards the higher ground. On the way up the path, we passed two kobolds going in the other direction. At the top was a plateau with a kobold village on it. Seemed to be more a village of artisans and traders than farmers though. The path continued on into the forest. We continued on and finally reached the center of a ring of silver birch trees, a perfect place to stop and set up a fairy ring.

So that's what I did. However, getting the others the appropriate enchantment to walk the path was a tad more difficult. I got it done but at one point I felt like I was being tickled and then there were the hiccups I had trouble getting rid of (for the record, I was spontaneously hiccuping for the rest of the day). We then stepped into the circle and walked the silver path through the fae mists until we reached an intersection. I took the path that felt more like that would take us to Alusia and we finally came out in another fairy circle.

This was in a conifer forest and it was early winter. Nomad took a step forward and promptly fell over. Something had tied his shoelaces together. There was the sound of a giggle. I caught flashes of movement and snatches of pixie so I addressed them in pixie and coaxed the pixies out. A short conversation later, and we had a direction to find the 'bigguns'.

I had no idea where we were but the rest of the party were fairly sure that the range of mountains in the distance was the Dragonspines, which meant we were somewhere in the Western Kingdoms. At least we were on Alusia ... hopefully our one and not one of the Alternate Alusias I had read about. It was late so we camped further up the mountain slope.

14 Fruit

It was a very bad night. Cold, raining, utterly miserable. After a fitful sleep we prepared to fly out. Got into the air and flew above the cloud layer, heading south. Finally we recognised something through gaps in the clouds, the Barratskye River, a bit north of the spot where the rapids started. So we turned around and headed for Elfenburgh. As soon as we landed, we headed straight to the nearest pub for a hot drink.

Once we had warmed up a bit, and feeling a bit more alive, we headed up to the keep to report to Amelia. Pierre mentioned something about the Duke of Fire, something to do with Gracht. Amelia said she would look into it. We told her what had happened, and she then suggested that we return to Seagate and help arrange to move the portal stone to Brastor for the grain shipment. We should also research a list of fae realms and magical swamps on Alusia. That was when I realised that we had arrived near D'arbres in Newcourt which had several fae courts. I really must learn more of Alusian geography.

Amelia prepared a letter to the merchants and arranged for us to take their representative down to Seagate to move the portal stone. We got our rooms at the keep. I spent the afternoon studying maps.

15th Fruit

It was still raining heavily. The representative arrived, a man called Nixon, wearing leather armour and carrying a sword. He's the grain buyer's rep. My first attempt of summoning the cloud made me go blind. Fortunately the next one worked and my sight returned a bit before that.

16th Fruit

It was a two day flight to Seagate and the others were taking turns keeping me awake - Jay's black bitter tasting stuff for instance. It was nine in the evening on the second day when we finally landed in the Guild courtyard. As soon as we checked in we were debriefed and divinated by Guild Security. I think I fell asleep during the divinations. Also, a letter was waiting for Rowan.

17th Fruit

The letter had come from Welwitschia, who was still at the Elven Embassy, and much of it was on portal theory. Much of it mentioned a theory of 'corelling' a portal by using special stones to shield the portal from incursions by other portals. Basically the stones had to be laid at crossing points. So we went over to the elven embassy to see him and ended up having the meeting in the garden gazebo. Apparently the entire embassy stank of kirrf, and I suspect it's not because of fumigation. It was a bit breezy until I calmed the area. He told us we'd need anchor stones which are made from refined warpstone. You don't want to touch the unrefined warpstones as wierd things can happen. Also he believed we may have to fix one end of the portal. Somehow I suspect that's not going to go down well with some people.

As for warpstone, there's a place on the plane of Purple that has some. On Alusia there's Kheledgundu which is rumoured to be a good source for spider silk as well. (If some turns up I might acquire it.) There's also a place in Terranova, associated with a demonic emperor and there may be a spot in the Ffenargh, probably where Caroc was. I guess I'm going to be doing some library research in the next few days. He was going to check up with his contacts but wouldn't expect any news back until the equinox on the 15th of next month.

When we got back to the Guild, we were told that it had been 'suggested' that we accompany the grain shipment on the 21st - just in case. So, that's what we did. Nothing untoward happened though. Since we then had 16 odd days to wait, I decided to get better at my spells




During our training break we went through the portal with the wine shipment. On this trip, one side looked like flooded plains with grassy islands and birds flying overhead. Some of the islands had cows on them. The other side stayed misty although there was a hint of a small piece of deep water. There was forest surrounding and a hint of mountains in the background. It felt of highlands which reminded me of Caledonia.

15th Harvest

Back at the Guild, we finished our training break then headed out in the direction if D'Arbres on the trail of some warpstone. It was generally agreed that we should get it on plane, as taking stuff that warps magic through a magical portal was generally considered a bad idea.

Our first stop was Elfenburgh where we went to see Amelia. Since we may have to visit the fae courts there, it was decided we should bring gifts, and Amelia's daffodil potions seemed to be a good idea. They have the effect of allowing a user to relive a pleasent memory. No one had any idea of the effect on fae so .. guess who got to be the test subject. It was a very pleasent memory and I began to wonder how addictive this stuff might be. I ended up purchasing two potions at 50sp each.

We flew off towards D'Arbres. Definately getting to know the Barretskye River and the surrounding area. D'arbres turned out to be a a small village in the foothills of the Dragonspine mountains. There's a stone wall between the village and the forest, the mill, the new blacksmiths on the site of the old church, a new small church and a small lake at the foothills. Nomad wondered if this was the lake we saw in the portal. The really odd thing was the large boathouse by the small lake. Of course, it was raining.

It was lunchtime by this time and there were not many people about. We also knew that not many people here spoke common. Instead the local language was La Lange. However there was a good chance that the local reeve did, so that's were we went.

The house was two story with rambling roses growing around and over it. There was a bellpull nearby but that was the town's alarm system so we knocked on the door instead.

We were greeted by someone who was rather surprised to see us, especially when he discovered that we were from the Guild. Guild parties had been here before but, usually, they were sent here to solve a local problem. We explained our presense and was told that yes, there was an elf here who had arrived at the turn of the season and he had been sent to Elfenburgh. However, he had arrived back six days later asking for as as much writing equipment as he could get. He then left, muttering something about arches.

So we flew down to Merrivale, the next village down. The idea was to fly relatively low so we could see if there was any signs of an elf. No elf, but what we did see a few miles down the road was what appeared to be a model village that was half scale and made out of stone. Could this have been Sir Christopher's handiwork?

Finally arrived at Merrivale where we were told that no elf had arrived here. It was late so we decided to stay overnight.

16th Harvest

Next day we decided to walk all the way back to D'Arbres. Still raining. The road paralleled the stream up towards the Dragonspines and initially went through farmland. Past lunchtime we hit forest, about half an hour past the last farmhouse and soon entered the D'Arbres woods proper. The rain was causing the stream to swell and flow over sections of the path.

Finally we could see the model village we saw from the air. Here, the stream had been diverted. We decided to explore the village and noticed that someone had grafittied the buildings with elven writing. The really curious structure we found was the six foot tall eggcup on a plinth.

We poked around the village, which seemed to be to have been built for brownies or something and found a figure snoring in the boathouse, which was the only habitable building. It turned out to be the other missing elf, Betalu Ermani. When we woke him up, he demanded all my supply of writing equipment so he could transcribe all his notes about the architeture of this place. He had a lot of comments to make about it, most of them being criticism of how bad it was. So I ended up following him about holding a light while he expounded on everything that had been done wrong.

17th Harvest

Betalu was still going at it the next day and insisted on completing the job before he would let us take him back to the elven embassy at Seagate. I was getting rather fed up by now and was really thinking of doing GBH if he didn't shut up. Instead, when he stepped into the next building, I cast Knockout gas in the interior, beating Rowan to the draw, since she had been planning something similar. Instead, she then pretrified the scholar before itemising the resulting statue. I then summoned a cloud and we flew back to Elfenburgh and took the portal to Seagate, wheeling the statue in a hand cart. It was an hour after dark by the time we arrived at the embassy where Rowan restored the elf while we waited in a nearby pub.




18th Harvest

Next day it was back to Elfenburgh, in search for the location of any dwarven settlements and possibly the location of Kheledgudu. They definately remembered dwarves in the area a few decades ago, either behind D'Arbres or around Newcourt. So our next stop was Newcourt where we were told that there had been a lot of surveying in the Dragonspines nearby so they could rule out at least half the potential area as a dwarven enclave. So we started surveying the area from the air looking for anything suspicious that might indicate a high mana zone or dwarven activity.

22th Harvest

Four days later we found a piece of roadway a days travel from D'Arbres. There could be a tailing nearby, which indicated mining, and another trail leading off. So we landed. The area was normal mana and part of it had been levelled. A decade old abandoned small mineshaft was nearby. The track went south and the road went inland, up into the mountains. So we followed the road up to the treeline then it followed the ridges along the mountainside. By late afternoon we found the remains of a waystation hut, being a small stone building. The roof had fallen in, but the application of a few taupaulins fixed that problem. We spent the night. Nothing unusual happened although we could hear the sounds of goats.

23rd Harvest

When I was woken up the next morning for purification, it was noticed that Nomad had been bitten by something causing a slow bleeder. The bite looked like it had been caused by a large insect. I was quite sure it didn't happen on my watch. For some reason, the goats came under suspicion as being vampiric, so Pierre went invisible and snuck out to check them over. They looked like wild goats but, on closer inspection, it was concluded that they had been domesticated at some stage but were now unmaintained. A raptor then flew over, startling them and scattering them all over the place.

Nomad's wound was dealt to, we had breakfast, then continued on the road. About midmorning we reached a pool that had stonework around it. Also there seemed twice as much water flowing out of it than was going in so we concluded that there was an underground spring. The water was fresh but bitterly cold so we took the oppotunity to fill the waterskins.

Finally we entered a gully with a sheer cliff on one side and a shale slope on the other. Really good ambush territory I was thinking to myself as we entered it. However, much to my relief, nothing attacked us and soon we encountered a couple of un-marked stone doors. One of them was ajar and we soon discovered there was a flock of large bats inside that were sleeping. Definately larger than fruit bats and we were starting to realise that it may have been one of them that had bitten Nomad last night. There was also a slight, sand filled, depression on the floor which Pierre concluded was some sort of trap. There were also scrape marks on the ground which seemed to indicate that some creature had passed through but it had suddenly veered to one side. Maybe it got hit by the trap. So Pierre created an illusionary bear to scout ahead but nothing was triggered. Maybe, if it was a trap, it wasn't working any more.

So we entered ourselves, through this chamber and past the next set of doors, finally ending up in a chamber that had pillars, ropes, pulleys and capstans in it. There was a ladder going up and a hole in the floor which was divided into sections. One had a ladder going down - cold iron of course, another had ropes going down into the depths, and the third had small pipes descending. Pierre and Jay went up the ladder and found their way up to some sort of watch room.

They also disturbed several hundred bats doing it, and looking at the guano, we concluded they subsisted on a mostly liquid diet. Yep - vampire bats.

When they got back, it was feather falls all around and Pierre descended the ladder. The rest of us then floated down the hole. We could hear the sound of running water below but we finally ended up in a tunnel. There was signs that rail tracks for the ore carts had been here but they were now gone.

The next level down was some sort of control room with levers, wires, bells and diagrams - all completely incomprehensible. There was a window into a large cavern containing the huge turning noisy mill wheel that would have powered the place if the clutch was engaged - whatever that meant but that was how the party mechanicians described it.

The next two levels were dead ends but the residual quartz in the walls made us wonder what they were mining here. Gold? Copper? It was getting warmer as we descended and soon we found a wooden box in a shaft. We also saw the same claw and drag marks we had seen on top.

  "I'll believe you, you're an elf, you know about bugs" - Jay to Rowan

We were wondering if the marks had been caused by some sort of underground crab as the marks indicated it was going sideways. The airflow was coming from behind us as we progressed, which seemed a little odd to me. A little later on the roof opened up into a cavern, within which we could see little stone buildings. There was definately something living down here. That was confirmed when these creatures advanced upon us - dwarves crossed with crabs with pincers, spindly legs and small heads. Yep - definately warpstone down here.




It was all quiet down here. Rowan tried talking to the creatures in dwarven but there was no response. Just as I was casting a Blending in order to remain inconspicuous, they attacked. Jay was hit several times and brought down so they dragged him off. My attempts at shooting at them were rather ineffective i.e. I kept missing. So I moved to a defensive position to cast Arrow Flight when I was attacked and rendered unconscious. Meanwhile Pierre was on the roof of a nearby building preparing a spell while Rowan was creating golems to hold the line against the attacking horde.

  "He's going to a-pierre" as Pierre became visible

I regained conscousness a bit later on, thanks to Eyelor and Rowan, and ducked through a hole into a nearby building. I took some4 potshots at the crabdwarfs then followed Rowan and the again invisible Pierre down a corridor following the blood trail left by Jay. Pierre caught up with Jay and managed to get a healing potion down him, just in time. Meanwhile I passed a door and got beaten up by a retreating crabdwarf who was being set upon by Rowan's golem, Bear. At the same time Rowan was encountering resistance of her own.

I managed to snap out of my stunned state and headed off down the corridor to help Rowan out. She, and a motionless Bear, was being beset by three of them so I drew my claymore and charged into one of them. I managed to score a good hit, avoided being hit a couple of time, before being rendered unconscious again. However, in that time, Rowan had managed to get Bear moving again while Eyelor helped her render a couple of the other ones temporarily disabled. A recovered Jay and Pierre also started their attack.

It seemed like ages but it was only a few minutes later that we finally prevailed. There were obviously more levels and more dwarfcrabs about and it was also more obvious that we didn't have the resources to deal with them. But we did find enough symbology to indicate that this was indeed the location of the Tomb of Ahriman. So we retreated back to the surface, picking up Nomad on the way, and flew back to Elfenbugh

24th Harvest

Spent the entire day being debriefed by Amelia as to the layout of the dwarven complex and it's location. Her plan was to organise a strike force in a few months to get the warpstone. We wouldn't get our full pay but we would get a substantial portion as there was now enough information to render the portal safe for passage - as long as everyone who used it followed the rules.

26th Harvest

Finally arrived back at the Guild.

People

Elves of The Alfheim Friendly Society

Fritillaria Melegris
Betalu Ermani, of the Architecture Facheberich.
Welwitschia Senecio, of the Architecture Facheberich. Specialty is Entrances

Ffenargh

Father Zebulon, Abbot in Eylea
Clarados, Lord High Baliff of Eylea and Steward of Myrkfast
Byron, hydra and maybe Byron Schaefer


Library Researches

(may contain some speculations)

Sources for Warpstone

Kyanite appears to have similar properties and may also be useful. It is usually found in the islands of Insel der Freiheit. Rashak used some to power the Dark Circle so there may be some at Masada.

Other magical crystals, which may have similar effects could be found on the plane of Khoras or possibly on Luna on or near the Sea of Tranquility where the ancient civilisation was experimenting with travel to the stars. However, this may be a substance called orichalcum which may not be suitable for this purpose as it is more of a magical storage than a warping.

Fae Realms on Alusia

Other fae planes known are:

  • Asheth - accessed through fae circles, and ruled by Lord Dramus
  • Tir'Na'Nog - accessed through a cave portal near the village of Cottingley in Brastor. Cottingley was wiped out by the Dark Circle.
  • Lyonesse - accessed through a fae circle near the location of Cottingley and a secret portal in Silverstream located in Ranke

Calendar

Autumn Calendar

  Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
Lugnasad
Fruit (4)
  1 Guild Meeting Dinner with Amelia 2 Morning in Elfenbugh then flying Air Auroa 3 Boating 4 Flying in to Town 5 By Hired boat to Keep 6 Fight the Hydra
7 Found an Elf 8 Healing Elf 9 Return to Abby 10 Return to Seagate 11 Return Elf and plan 12 Enter Portal 13 Return to Alusua
14 Elfenburgh 15 Fly Air Aurora 16 Arrive Seagate 17 Talk to specialists 18 Library research 19 Library research 20 Leave to escort grain shipment
21 Escort grain shipment 22   23 Back at Guild - start training 24   25   26   27  
28   29   30 Day off - escort wine shipment  
Harvest (5)
  1   2   3   4  
5   6   7   8   9   10   11  
12   13   14 End training 15 Equinox Get news, go to D'Arbres and Merivale 16 Return to Darbres - find Elf 17 Seagate Autumn Fair - Return Elf to Seagate 18 Seagate Autumn Fair - Head to Elfenburgh and Newcourt. Start aerial survey of Dragonspines
19 Harvest Moon 20   21   22 Find evidence of mining in Dragonspines 23 Find dwarven settlement - descend into depths, have fight with crabdwarfs 24 Debriefed by Amelia 25  
26 Return to Seagate. 27   28   29 Michaelmas 30 3rd deadline  
Vintage(6)
  1   2  
3   4   5   6   7   8   9  
10   11   12   13   14   15   16  
17 Blood Moon 18   19   20   21   22   23  
24   25   26   27   28   29   30 Beerfest