Skin Trade alt

Menolly's Diary Part 8 - Skin Trade

Entry one

• Day 1 and 2 of Fruit 808

I think this is the first time I've arrived at a Guilding Meeting with an idea of where I'm going for the next few months. Wow. Such an interesting concept of being able to look ahead and plan. I had heard that the Isles were having some problems with that nasty plague thing and as I had already been thinking of going back to help the city we had freed, this seemed like the obvious choice to make.

Meeting up in the guild office room to meet our employer, I brought along my babies in case I could bring them along. But sadly just Belle is with me this time. The dogs are just too big for me to carry and I haven't quite got the knack of showing them how to fly yet. Maybe next time. They are staying over at the Strecker's Farm to do some more dog training with that nice Master Bowgone WormRider. I miss them already.

Anyway, there were a bunch of others there. I hadn't meet any of them which is very exciting. We have 3 ladies on the party, and 4 gentlemen. The ladies are Victoria (who is a warrior with lots of weapons), Morgan (who is an ork but has been disguised as a human by the portal thingy. She is a healer but fights a lot too), me. And the gentlemen are Phaeton (another healer and sun mage), Haann (who is a satyr but didn't start this way, very odd. He's a mind mage too. And the guild guards told us to make sure he keeps his pants on... very curious), Cher (who is a Suarime which I've never seen before. He's a binder and a nice one. He also has this wee lizard friend traveling with him called Hutch who is a scribber. He has this wee cute slate and writer and Cher says whatever he writes goes to the Dragon on Oz. How interesting, haven't seen many lizard people apart from Sooty's salamanders) and Everan. (notes added into the margin) Everan, human, male, with the reddest hair I've ever seen. Been on the Isles for ages helping out.

These people have been out on Guild jobs a lot as they were very quick to share info and organise who would do what and what skills people can do. I feel a bit under skilled compared with some of these people. I hope I can keep up.

Our guide and job hirer is supposed to be Everan, but he had been delayed so sent a chap called Civerous to guide us to our first meeting with Everan. Basically there is another plague, very similar to the last one that was caused by those nasty items, in a city called Setagen. And before they realised it was a plague and quarantined the city 3 ships left with cargo for other cities. They closed down the city, and sent 3 other ships after the first ships. But now all 6 are missing. Our job is to find out about the plague and stop it, and find the missing ships. (note added in margin) 2 ships originally went to ports in the Western Kingdoms, 1 ship to Kinlu. (then Western is crossed out and Eastern added.

The plague is similar to the other one in that the symptoms are the same, and the slow but steady deterioration of the victims. Some have died, not many but it's on the increase. What's different this time is that the curse keeps getting renewed, even after it's been removed and had the damage healed. It seems each month, on the full moon, a wave of this plague/curse flows from the north to cover the city area. And people who might have previously been healed can become recursed. But it only seems to be infecting any who were in the city when the first plague/curse arrived. All the healers who have travelled to help the city haven't succumbed to it, like how some did last time. A local namer has been able to work out that the source is to the north, but as the city is to the south of the isle, everything is pretty much north. The next full moon is in 18 days or so. This wave of infections has been going on for 3 months now, and every wave infects slightly more and more people. The healers are beginning to feel the pinch a bit. (note added into margin) Date started: Beltane. First Wave: 28th Meadow. Second wave: 26th Heat. Third wave: 24th Breeze. Next wave: 21st Fruit. (extra note added further down margin) Seems my understanding of Folksprach wasn't so good. The Full moon was actually the New Moon.

Seems rather dire really. I hope we can live up to finding what's going on here. Anyway Civerous also had our payment for the mission already. He handed us these odd ceramic jar things which were in two pieces and told us that these items go around your heart to help aid in resurrection. A bit dire but maybe these will be needed before the job is done. I so hope not, as if that's the case Belle could be very much in danger.

Rightio, once we got all the low down from Civerous, we spent some time preparing gear to meet that evening. I dropped off my babies and told them to behave. Bought a few essentials and I organised some protection for Belle as I'm worried about those nasty people who interfered with our investigations last time and all those nasty area spells they threw at us. She's only little. Packed for the stinky hot jungles again and meet up with the others. Civerous had organised bat wings for us to fly to the portal. We had 2 young looking novices cast them and they did very well. Off we went and we mostly landed ok. I yet again hit one of the pine trees branches on the way down and had a rough landing. Luckily Belle wasn't hurt but my injuries stung a bit. That is until that nice healing orc Asath chap from the portal used one of those weird metal spikes again. At least I was prepared this time, the others didn't believe me much when they saw me being carted off by him. But all fixed now. Must practise that landing some more if I get time.

Through the tunnels to the ork village, and then onto the portal. Morgan seemed rather take with Asath. The portal entrance had been changed a bit, and Asath mentioned that it had some added features since last time. And when we popped through Morgan became more human in appearance, which caused her some discomfort. But better than then being killed by angry villagers I reckon. Would have been very useful on the last trip, Kilgoth wouldn't have had to had that thing cast on him by the dragon. Back to the endless tunnels of the dwarves, and Civerous was our guide this time. Still can't work out some of the turns and twists. We went to also see Chaaff which was cool. I had collected some nice seashells for him when I was walking around under the water on the last job. Found some interesting ones which I presented to him, so I hope he liked them. Chaaff was very interested in Haan, something to do with how Haan is organised (being pacted to that chap I wont name) and so had a chat to him in the back room. Hope it wasn't painful for Haan.

We did have an interesting chat to Chaaff about fae and elves though. It seems Victoria was here previously too, and helped rescue a dead elfs spirit. And that the spirit had a sister who was the last elf in the Isles, but she is now missing/dead too. The resuced one is all better now, and somewhere else. The now missing one was the termite shaman, which means something big happened... (maybe related to the curse?) And it was mentioned there are no fae and no elves on the Isles, apart from us who visit. Seems like someone or something has been purposely getting rid of them, but to what end I don't know. Makes me feel a bit conspicuous.

After chatting to him, through the tunnels and rune sticks and more tunnels and more rune sticks and we ended up at the underground dwarven city. We were given food and drink and lodgings and told they would transport us to south of Batibati where we would need to go to meet up with Everan. We worked out a basic map of the area with them, which I will try to add to as we travel, and decided since we had been awake and traveling for quite some time that we would sleep/rest and try to reset our body clocks with the times here.

Entry Two

• Day 3 of Fruit 808

More tunnels before our guide led us out into the jungle. Yup, hot and sweltering, didn't miss it. Belle likes it better than the cold tunnels and I don't blame her. We head through into some rice paddies, obviously we are close to people. We come to a path and head along that for a bit until we get near a swamp. Civerous leads us to a secluded covered area overlooking the swamp and you could see guard towers every mile or so. This area is controversial atm and it seems they really don't want anything to come out of the swamp. Fair enough. We have to go into the swamp as that is where we have a meeting to attend. So we decide stealth is better and Phaeton and I Unseen the party and head into the swamp. Belle had to follow on foot be herself, which was a bit scary, but once we got passed the guards they weren't too worried about the water tracks heading into the swamp so she climbed back on then. Must work out if I can find a spell or skill that lets me carry her while we are both unseen, that doesn't trigger off since we are touching each other. Must be a way...

Into the swamp and we were seeing huge termite mounds everywhere. We eventually came to this island area out of the swamp which was fenced off by hedges of trees and bushes and were meet by Everan, and a small dwarvish boy. Here Everan told us all the information he had gathered about the curse and disease.

The dwarf Gruselig was also introduced to us as the new termite shaman, which means the missing one is definitely dead, I hope her spirit or death isn't mixed up with this curse thing. She went missing before the curse started, so maybe she was nabbed for some evil ritual thing from that nasty blood college that I have problems pronouncing and even spelling...

We discussed many things including plans for how we should attempt working out how this plague is working etc. The plague, the city, the college, the cities trading businesses and a number of factors that could make enemies were discussed at length. Trying to get our heads around how and why all this nasty plague is happening. We discuss possible plans, whether we go after the ships, or after the source first. Much discussion. We even discussed that big nasty Spider demon/shaman thing from the last time I was here. It seems Victoria had a run in with part of it on her first adventure here, which makes things way more complicated. It's like there is this huge big plan, but we are only seeing small snippets of it.

Haan reads us the poem from the dragon as well. It was on some very old parchment, but Chaaff didn't say whether it's to do with this problem or something else. I'll try and copy it when I get a chance so I can think about it some more.

All through our discussions the dwarf shaman was doing something weird, I've never actually seen feelers on a humanoid before. He had these insect like feelers come out of his head and he kept using them on people when their backs were turned. Freaked out Morgan a bit. Was most curious.

We came to the realisation that we need to get more information and the best place would be the city. So we head off through the swamp in that direction, on the back of this huge termite leant to us by the dwarf. Phaeton then casts lots of big glowing wings on us so we can fly south but in the middle of casting them he did something odd and ended up drinking the swamp. Maybe one of the spells went wonky but it did make us look at the swamp area a bit more closely. And it seems there are parts of the swamp which are slightly more magical than others. The water in this spot has magical qualities, not as strong as a waters of healing or anything, but it does help. I imagine the mud used as a compress would help healing wounds too. Most intriguing. I must pay closer attention to the land around us.

Anyway, off we flew towards the city. We decided landing far enough away from the city so we can remove them was in order as the inhabitants of these isles don't like magic very much, at least all the showing obvious stuff. A bit like the Paradise folks, all very covert and "just lucky" sort of thing. I landed a lot better this time, not falling into the waters of the coastal bit we used as a landing strip. The coast is also not very forgiving, not surprising since we are in volcanic area and the beach is all volcanic glasses and rocks. Not that comfy a landing.

We heading towards the city but ended up varing off towards the quarantine camp outside instead. We wandered in (not much security) and meet up with some of the people in charge. They assigned us somewhere to stay the night, with the plan of looking at the victims in the morning to get a better understanding of the plague. The hammock beds are comfy enough.

Entry Three

• Day 4 of Fruit 808

After breakfast we went to have a look at the victims of the plague. Phaeton and Morgan were mainly interested in what it looks and feels like, and there were many people rather badly affected by this nasty thing. We got to talk to the healers and we found out that apart from people getting reinfected, those people who have been cured already seem to come down with the plague worse the second time round. Like they can't fight it was well as before, and there were some rather nasty cases. Phaeton and Morgan offered to help, but the healers advised about complete cures, understandable. It's like the plague uses up the bodies ability to fight, and so second infections take over so much easier.

While they were helping where they could, I had a look around, looking at things auras. It seems the animals and plants don't seem to carry the taint, but you can very faintly catch it on the people infected, but it is so very small and fine a thing that you miss spotting it most of the time. While looking around I also found traces of the spell, impacting on things, which is very odd. It gives the feel like something splashed onto an object, with the top most surfaces with the impact on it, but the undersides without it. I grabbed a few samples, maybe I can get someone to look closer at this effect.

We said our goodbyes and headed into the city. Security on the gates was a bit better, but since Everan has been here before, it wasn't too hard getting into the city. We went in search of the ship namer that Everan had been talking to, and found her on her ship in port. We ended up sharing information on what small things we had discovered, and she told us about what she'd found out over the time. She is the one who has been working on a triangulation of where the source is coming from, to the north. She also described how on one of the previous full moons she was divinating the plague and ended up seeing a silvery web of threads, starting at people in the city and leading away towards the north. She checked it again the following full moon and also noticed that during that small instant of midnight during the full moon, the threads are a lot stronger, so she could see them. The rest of the time they are so faint they are undetectable. And how the threads pulsated with the person's heart beat, and the pulsating ran along the thread towards the north.

This does mean that the wave of the curse that impacts each month is charging something, and yes, something from the person is being drawn away and reduced. Obviously it's what helps the body fight the infection. But what is it that's being drawn away? And to what purpose? If this is something from that nasty blood magic thing, they could be using the stuff to power something even nastier. The namer also mentioned that she saw a bright flash or spot in the city, so maybe we can find where the spell impacts. Maybe there is a focus that they are using to target the spell. Tomorrow we will go explore the city, looking for impacts and try to triangulate the spot. Then she can try divining spots. We find a nice inn, who loves our business, and set up base.

Entry Four

• Day 5 of Fruit 808

We spend the day looking at the aura's of objects, static ones, around the city. Even though we are there on a "job" we still have to be careful. After a good part of the day is finished, we work out using the way the marks impact, that the centre of the triangulation of the impacts is a 4 to 8 block radius in the city, around the bath house and the temple to the Bali.

After making a list of possible sites we could get divinated by whats-her-name at a later time, we explore the impact zone a bit more.

Looking closer at the area, Phaeton says he notices a white light above the roof of the temple. A white shining light except it has this nasty black looking spiraling taint thread to it. It's about 25ft up above the roof. It seems Everan remembers seeing something like this elsewhere, something about a temple spirit.

Meanwhile I had carefully wandered around the bath house, checking for impacts. I even found a way onto the top and confirmed there was impact signs, as if the impact was directly above the house. When I came to see the others they told me about the shrine light and possible spirit. And then Everan tries to interact with the shrine spirit and as he touches the spirit, he gets thrust away from the shrine by about 5 feet, and falls unconscious. Then silly Haan, forgets that people around here don't like magic or signs of it, does this weird thing and tries to see what's up with Everan, and gets blasted 40 ft into the air and dropped like a stone, also unconscious. By this time the locals are scurrying away from us yelling things like "witch", and looking like they want to lynch us.

We grab the downed people and move back into the city, hiding among the buildings, and trying to bring the 2 unconscious back to the land of the walking. Everan comes round not too long afterwards, just seemed exhausted. But Haan comes out of it eventually with a splitting headache. I offer to help him but it seems nothing we can do, magical or healable, will get rid of the headache. He will just have to live with it for a while longer. Most intriguing.

We hole up in the docks area while we wait out the locals. Everan described what he felt when he touched the temple spirit. It was like a maelstrom of madness and pain, many voices screaming in pain. It was probably the overload of these senses that made him black out. When Haan tried to connect with Everan to make him move, he also hit this, which is why he also was affected. Both have also mentioned they still have ringing in the ears, but instead of it being a buzzing or just a random noise, they can hear screaming.

We eventually head back to the empty Inn which we have taken over as our base. We spent some time discussing what's been happening. Many topics appeared over the evening including the Calimar, the plague, Dragons, metamorphs and the poem Haan got.

From what they were saying the Metamorphs were originally on these isles, and someone (Fae?) turned up and kicked them out. The metamorphs being long living are still around. However Fae have been slowly dying off and now there are very few left in the Isles. There was talk about the expedition Victoria when on, retrieving the spirit of one of the fae. Maybe this is all about some big fight between the metamorphs and the fae... but maybe the metamorphs are just a different sort of fae. Interesting thought.

Aloise stayed for the discussion, adding what insights she had about the local area. We arranged to meet her the following day, to talk to the Kinsin at the temple about what Everan found

Entry Five

• Day 6 of Fruit 808

We rose with the dawn today and headed to the bath-house to meet with Aloise. The bath-house is rather nice, with hot pools through to cold pools. They come from a hot spring that bubbles from below the ground. Possibly to do with the local volcanoes.

Aloise had talked to the Kinsin already, and they have consented to meet with us, and given her permission to look at the temple. They are concerned about the tainted temple spirit, and they have sent a runner to the Bali about it.

Morgan and Phaeton stay with Aloise while we head out of town to go visit the bone yard of the plague victims. Everan wanted to talk to them about whether they could sense the taint in the temple spirit. The rest of us travel with him. It's not far from the city walls, and outside of the impact zone.

The locals put their dead on top of a wooden platform, and eventually the natural elements remove the dead tissue and the bones are collected and places into a special building. So to get closer to the bodies, Everan had to climb up onto the wooden platform to ask questions. He asked a bunch of questions and shared with us the answers he got. Apparently spirits here can communicate with each other. In fact they have a collective grouping, and other areas also have collective groupings. And they can communicate with other groupings, but it's harder to do. They can't see the lines coming out of the living, all the spirits are apparently well, they have no feeling of being pulled towards something else.

Although this is interesting we realised if they were corrupted, they might not know the difference. So we need to also talk to some older spirits. So we headed off to the older bone yard. Everan asked similar questions there and got some similar answers. Then he did some sitting down ritual thing and came away with special answers to special questions he got to ask.

Question one was asking if they had awareness of attack/corruption of the collective.

Answer: Always the soul is part of a greater thing both in Life and Death.

Question two was about any concept of source/direction or where it is coming from. Meaning the plague and curse.

Answer: All corruption comes from within though with external influence.

Question three was about any concept of who or what is the cause of the plague and curse.

Answer: That which makes us greater than ourselves.

Question four was about timeframe of the attack/issue. Does it coincide with Beltane?

Answer: Many months has the rotten core of blood influences the power of many.

Question five was how can we help them?

Answer: Demons have no place upon the isles and the greater fae must remain bound.

Question six was how can they help us?

Answer: We are always here you must just ask the correct questions.

All very cryptic, so while we are thinking about the answers we head back into town to meet up with the others to see what they have found out. The divination of the crystals in the Bali statue (3, 1 in each head) showed Aloise 2 things. One was that the crystals are part of a ritual for storing of souls, powering some sort of spell (binding?) and the bad thing being that there is also a malign ritual now attacking the original binding spell. It was described as the first spell is a lattice and the second one is attempting to create a break in part of the lattice.

She picked the crystals instead of the temple and spirit as one of the things she was told when she arrived was that the Kinsin have noticed the crystals are not the original ones, they have been switched.

After more questioning it was worked out that the crystals have probably been changed in the last year or two years, but no-one remembers anything odd. Plus the Kinsin get swapped around a lot. The first soul to impact on the "storing" part of the ritual was 18 months ago, so the crystal has been active since that far back. Just not sure if it's been here that long.

The old crystals being diamond-y in shape, the new ones being like a kite in shape. (a couple of sketches of crystal shapes)

Much discussion and theorizing happens. We all get horribly confused, well at least I did, so we went for lunch and a drink instead. Questions like who are they greater fae? Which demons are meddling, who bound the fae, why where they bound? Souls traveling through the crystals to do what?

Aloise mentioned that while doing the divinate she could see the thread again. Maybe with more souls powering it, it makes it more visible. We come to 1 theory that since the souls travel through the crystal, it makes it an entity of a sort. And the curse was just targeted at the temple, being the centre of the city and a good targeting spot. The curse has somehow affected the crystal, since it's designed to impact on entities from this location, and that could be what is causing the corruption.

Phaeton, Aloise and others then spend some time triangulating the north location and work out the power thread will run through, so we can work out where we next need to visit. One of the places we put on the list is Vidall's bone yard. It then works out that the power thread actually runs through Vidalls so he's definitely on the visiting list. We also plan to visit some of the loca temples to see if their crystals have been changed or had stuff impact on it. And also visiting the Bali in their big temple is on the list.

Everan decides he needs more answers so we head back to talk to the spirits. He asks more questions, and get more cryptic answers.

Question One Who bound the greater fae and when?

Such questions are beyond the ken of Mortal Spirits.

Question Two Do you form part of the binding?

I am part of a greater binding, of fae I cannot confirm but I am a minor player in the great work.

Question Three What will happen if the binding is broken?

That which is bound will return to the mortal realms and the play will be over and the stage destroyed.

Question Four Are what we know as Metomorphs part of the Fae?

Beings of an age they are but cousins at best.

Question Five Are other collectives being 'maligned'?

A great work is planned but the stage is yet to be set.

Question Six Which ones(collectives)?

Many are the towns and villages that will be involved before the curtain falls.

We then fly north-ish and stop into a couple of villages and check their temples and crystals. Nothing. We do get to see what the original crystals are supposed to look like. We then carry on north and head for Vidall's.

There is much discussing things on the fly, including me mentioning how Vidall exchanged some blood with people on my party and they got weird abilities. Cher and Haan find this Blood Magic things very odd, and made me think some more too. I wonder if it's got anything to do with that weird blood magic, or just a coincidence.

We arrive at night and spend the night at Sir Kits house.

Entry Six

• Day 7 of Fruit 808

We went to visit Vidall in the morning. He looked just like a hatch but bigger when we arrived, which was very curious. But quickly changed forms again and we greeted him and mentioned we had some information he might be interested in.

We spent some time going over what we had learnt so far, some of our theories and some of the questions we are looking to answer.

He tells us we don't have the whole picture and that there has been another attack happening at the same time. Dream attacks. He knows of these attacks against his brother, Romash who lives in the volcano in Setagen. He's the red dragon. Vidall mentions that one of the people on the isles who could do this are the Children of the Rift (those horrible nasty undead who use children's corpses to attack people, the ones from the spider cave)

Also the orcs have moved south, heading into Devils Claw, which is an area not far from Setagen. Maybe they are setting up a staging area to attack Setagen. What better way to weaken the forces of a city, plague it, attack their religious protections, attack the local dragon who might also intervene and bring in nasty big forces that are rather brutal.

The big question then is who is organising all these as they don't work together usually. And saying that they all might be coincidences, yeah like that's it. I think there is a bigger nasty getting these others to do certain jobs, they just don't get to see the bigger picture. Except we are now finding these pieces to a big puzzle and they don't make a pretty picture at the moment.

So, we have some options of where we can go to ask more questions. We could go and try talking to the orcs, maybe we can reverse the effects on Morgan and she can sweet talk them. However there was the comment we might have to rescue her from herself if she gets sidetracked. We could talk to Lord Erendale (who is apparently the Shaman of Death on the isles, go figures) or the Shaman of Life, who might have noticed things about the spirit trails. She lives by the Blue Lake, however she has this aging effect on people when they get close. Not so bad for me, and some of the other longer living, but for the humans and Bella, this is a problem. Vidall offers an exchange to blood with Phaeton, Everan and Morgan to protect them from aging. Everan and Morgan have no problems but Phaeton ended up screaming and collapsing on the floor.

While fixing Phaeton, or at least helping him become conscious again I asked Haan and Everan if the ringing/screaming in their ears had stopped. They said it had but Vidall was interested. We relayed what had happened and the effect and he perks up looking interested and decides he is heading to Setagen. He offers us a lift, but since we will be going in the other direction we decline. We mention Aloise to him, as he may want to discuss her divinations of the temple. He then changes into this beautiful green dragon and flew off. Wow, I've seen his dragon form now. Very cool. Before he left he lent us a little tiny boat about the size of an earring or charm. If you get it wet, it enlarges to the size of a boat. When you pull it out of the water and let it dry, it shrinks back to earring size. Neat!

Anyway, Everan decides that since we are here we might as well see if the spirits in the boneyard know anything different to the other spirits we have been talking to. He asks mostly the same sort of questions he asked at the last place. He got mostly the same sort of answers back. Asked if they knew of any corruption in the spirit realm - Corruption is everywhere. Has anyone attacked them, no. Only one gave something interesting. He asked how much of the spirits was fae spirits. Answer: Part fae are we that recide within the halls of knowledge. Fae is both a state of mind and a state of soul and we are neither.

So after that we head to the two temples near the Lakes of Remorse to check their crystals. Yes there are some, they are like the other village temples we have been to. We check for corruption, didn't find any. We then travel back to the dwarven pagoda portal, to travel back to the dwarves. They are our fastest way of getting to both the Bali temple and the Blue Lake.

We arrive in the dwarven caverns and find their current council members. We explain all we have found out so far, as it may impact on them. We discuss with them the insect shamans. It seems the cockroach shaman I meet last time hasn't been seen for a while, and there was a break up between 2 of the shamans. Maybe he is just staying away, or he could be missing. We plan to see if we can track him down. I might need to go cockroach hunting.

We get invited to a special celebration, and anniversary of the formation of the dwarven council. It's a very lavish meal. We talked to the dwarves and they told us a bit of the history of the event. It's to do with how they came to this place to mine the gold, some of them found the crystal chamber and made camp near it. It seems this broke the dwarves into 2 groups, these and those near the crystals. Over a hundred years of so those near the crystals had become tainted, or damaged by the crystals, and discovered by Mr nasty pants and partially enslaved/made to work for him. The dwarves over here found out and set about rescuing them, they got some guild help for this too.. That's the mission Victoria was on, I don't know much about it, I'll have to read the scribe notes when I get back to Guild. Anyway, the locals are now helping rehabilitate the tainted dwarves, which is ever so nice.

We get lead through a bunch more tunnels and portals and we end up popping out in the jungle spot by the beginning of the brook like last time. We walk through the jungle for a bit, following the brook until it gets bigger. Then we pop the boat into the river and float down towards the Bali temple.

While we are floating Phaeton sat down and then just disappeared, poof... We pulled over to the bank to try and work out what had happened and then poof, he was back. Much yelling, questioning etc and we work out he was meditating and praying to his goddess, but ended up popping into a room where Chaff (in human form) had a wee chat reminding that his goddess didn't really have power here so praying will get an engaged message, or popping in to see him. If I'd thought of it, that's exactly what Sir Kit did when we were here. Makes for an interesting way of getting in touch with the dragons in a hurray if something happens. Well, if it works I guess. Everyone has been praying to their gods but not to the dragons themselves.

We arrived at the harbor as dusk was setting.

Entry Seven

• Day 8 of Fruit 808

The boat is really cool. We pulled it out of the water last night and then this morning it took us ages to find it cause it was so small. We think we should tie something to it so it's easier to find it next time.

We headed up the hill of stairs to the Bali temple. The guards are still as spooky as before, standing still along the top of the walls, with their huge bows at the ready. We are meet at the gate and asked our business. We ask to speak to the Bali Kensin and get shown through to an area to wait. We get to see all the warriors practising their unarmed movements and some of the group practise with them. It's very quiet and serious, and they seem to be more than human in their abilities. We eventually get lead off to meet with one of the advisors.

Greetings happen and we get down to business. We bring up the crystals in the statue in Setagen and how we are concerned about its state. He reacts to our comments and firmly denies that there are crystals in the statues. This is rather odd, and he takes us to the large statue in the main temple and gets one of his acolytes to jump up to the top of the 20ft statue to check. And there isn't one.

Dumbing up, we get shown to an area we can rest in, and we discuss this new development. We use the crystal balls to check the top of the statue to confirm their findings. There isn't one, as there is no bracket in the top of the statue like the ones in the smaller temples. But looking through the crystals someone spots the white light spirit line. It comes from a concealed area in the woodwork of one of the close by door frame arches in the temple.

We talk some more about what we are going to do now, and we decide to hang around some more until we get to see the Bali Kensin. We each have a wander around, looking and doing different things. Victoria did some martial training, Phaeton sketched places around the area, Everan got permission to look at books and scrolls in the small library, others just relaxed. I went back into the temple to look at the story panels, and to quietly DA the crystal in the archway. Phaeton also had a look and we worked out it's magical, has soul storage and amplification on it, and it's alignment is good.

I then spent some time relaxing under a tree with Belle, feeding her yummy fruit. In talking to Everan afterwards, one of the books in the library was a copy of "The Book" that the prophet wrote, and it includes a story about creation. It talks about animals walking like people, and a mist, and how there was a big fight, and eventually the land was left for the true believers. Some of it made the story panels make more sense, but I'd like to know more about the sides who were doing the fighting.

The warriors were training in the open areas of the temple again. More of the yelling philosophy at your partner that I remember seeing last time, not that I can understand what they are saying very well. Plus there were some practising unarmed training, following through movements and kicks and things like I've seen Victoria do in the mornings, some sort of practise thing. Plus there were some practising archery with those huge bows. They can shoot a rather long distance.

Eventually we are gathered together for an audience with the Bali Kinsin. He is the same person as I last meet. We had decided beforehand we would just discuss some of what we know, not the crystals or dragons or fae. Just things like the plague, and the orcs and see where we go from there. So we sit around and Everan fills in the Bali Kinsin about how the Orcs that disappeared after the war have been seen nearby Setagen, and how we are concerned they are there to attack the city. We work out that if there were about 30 warriors left over from the war, which was 4 years ago, that there could be 100 now, plus all the extra camp followers. That is quite a few. He is very interested in this issue and says he will investigate.

We also discuss how we are on the trail of the plague and ask for assistance. He offers us a seal for showing at temples if we are in need, so the temples can help.

Phaeton and I look into the Bali Kinsin and his guards auras and discover he has some sort of magic in effect, some sort of physical enhancement, but we can't seem to get any information on a college or cause. Maybe it's a quasi magical effect, I wonder if living in close proximity to the crystal in the temple, and praying in the temple on such a regular occurrence as they do, if it has any effect on them like it effected the dwarfs. I know the dwarfs were in contact with untuned crystal, and the temple crystal is tuned. I wonder if there is more in this temple in places we haven't seen.

We are then invited to the evening meal, which is a light meal of rice, stir fry type meat and vegetables and these flat bread things. You put the rice and things in the bread and roll it up like a tube, and then eat it all together. Saves on the dishes, and are rather tasty. It seems the acolytes have a game of trying to steal tidbits out of others rolls as they are rolling them up. Which is all very fast and accurate. Most intriguing.

We were lead back to our resting room and plan to stay the night.

Entry Eight

• Day 9 of Fruit 808

Our sleep is rather disturbed as it seems the temple prays every two hours, and so rings a bell to bring everyone together throughout the night. However I woke feeling refreshed like I'd had an excellent sleep, which is very odd given all the bells and waking. I check myself out to make sure I'm not under any influence and start checking the others but they laugh at me so I stop. Just seems all wrong. Maybe there is more to this place than meets the eye.

We work out we need to head off the river way, so after saying our farewells we head through the temple fields towards the jungle. There are many game trails heading into the jungle and Morgan takes the lead. We continue in a way looking for a suitable site to cast flying from.

I finally asked Cher to cast the stone spell on Bella, I am really worried about the effects of the Life Shaman (Garserril is her name) on her. Briar coped ok when we passed through the area that aged him, but it was only a minor area, adding 6 months on him. Aparantly the Life Shaman's effects are much more faster aging. Everan yells at me, as he thought we had already done it. Not sure how he worked that out, since Bella has been travelling on me in plain sight since we arrived here. I guess I was being a wee bit selfish and not wanting to do it too soon. I like Bella's company and I want her to experience as much of the jungle life as she can while we are here. It is where she is from, and if we is to make an informed decision of where she wanted to live when she's grown up, I want her to have some idea of this place. Luckily we have some time while we prepare, and Cher's ritual is successful. I now have a Bella statue in my backpack. I hope I don't crash land from flying. I cast a number of spells on people, and then we were off flying.

From above the jungle canopy we could make out the lakes in a distance, so we headed off in that direction. The closer we got, the more details we could see of the lakes. And one piece of scenery we didn't quite know about, which was a huge waterfall. It seems to go almost 350ft up into the air, but the water flows the wrong way. It flows up... very odd. The area we are traveling through is full of ravines, and cliffs, and a plateau. It takes some time to find a suitable flat area to land, and we see more wonders, like the blue lake, which has a river flowing into it, from downstream. The water goes the wrong way here too.

The best place to land was near the river. There were some spectacular landings, perfect examples of how to do it right, and then there were some of how not to do it. I was one of those, but luckily I didn't land badly enough to damage anything I was wearing or carrying. Rolling to protect a statue is rather tricky. I must practise some more flying when I get back to the guild.

We pop the earring boat, and travel around a bit. We head up the river to the lake, and travel around the edge looking for where the Life Shaman might be. We find a village as we travel around, and pull in to see if they know of where we seek. The village come out to meet us, and a representative comes forward and places a bunch of bananas on the ground in front of us. Everan picks them up, and then their representatives get a bit agitated and argue amongst themselves. We eventually get invited into the village and they begin bringing out food. Obviously a custom of greeting people. The others bring out drink, and they change and seem much happier now. It seems we should have given them some food too, when they gave us the bananas. But everyone seems happy, there was a feast with some dancing and music.

Everan spends some time during the feast talking to the head village person to find out if they know where Gazaroll lives. They don't recognise the name, but when asked about a shaman, we get introduced to a strange chap with tattoos on his face, and a feather through the nose. We ask about strange areas on the lake, he mention a couple of places you shouldn't visit. The waterfall is one, and another is an area where the water boils. Phaeton's aura reading showed he was from some sort of runic college, but not what we are looking for. Our translator seems to be the only one who leaves the village, with his smattering of Folksprach, as he takes herbs down the river to sell for the village.

We decide to stay with the village for tonight. Hatch seems to interest the children, and he has a small following as he draws the village onto his tablet. People seem curious of Hann, and Morgan did some healing which has awed her in the villages eyes. I like the peaceful quiet of the village, they seem like nice folks. I already miss Bella, but it's probably safer this way.

Entry Nine

• Day 10 of Fruit 808

As we left the village this morning, the villagers gave us gifts of food and herbs. If I get time I'd like to learn more about herbs, as I've seen wonders happen when people skilled in their uses get a chance to work with them. Something to think about when I have time to spare at the guild. We were waved off, and quickly we headed in the direction of where they told us not to go, the boiling water. And in fact the water does boil. The temperature rose quickly, with no cold water life to be seen for ages. We decided not to risk the magical boat too far, and pulled in to pull boat out of the water. A caterpillar had been brought along for the trip, and as soon as it started changing into a cocoon very quickly we knew we were heading in the right area. Victoria hadn't been protected against aging, and we used her as a sort of gauge. It started being just a few hours in a minute, but the closer we got the centre point, it increased to days in a minute. Eventually we found a cave, as we entered the cave the aging increased to a month a minute. We moved around the corner of the cave into an open cavern and the aging increased more.

Victoria stayed briefly, enough to greet the lady who was also Erelheine, before heading outside away from the cave to stop her aging so fast. The rest greet and talk to the lady. The cavern we are in is circular and she stands in the centre in a flowing white dress. We talk to her about our travels and what we know and discuss the plague. She says the plague hurts her, and indicated a blood stain on her dress edge. It seems whatever is happening to the isles, also happens to her. She knows about the death of the other lady Shaman, and reveals the heart area of her dress which shows death, blood and a great weeping sore. If it was a clean death, it shouldn't show that, so there is much more here. We ask if she can tell the direction and nature of the death that caused this. She indicated it would take a day to meditate on this, so we say we will camp nearby and come back the following day.

We left and headed as far away as we could, to help reduce the aging on Victoria. It seems in just that short a span of walking in and out again, Victoria has aged a couple of years. We set up camp and waited out the night. During the watches in the evening, Victoria and Everan see an ancient lady leave the cave, and walk into the boiling water. And after a time, an infant crawls out of the water and heads back into the cave. It seems she relives a lifetime in just one day.

• Day 11 of Fruit 808

We headed back after a quick breakfast to see if she had any further information for us. Victoria came in briefly and gave her a gift, before heading back out again. From what she has found out, the ritual to kill the other shaman involved great pain, powered in some way by demonic forces, and demonic at the source. It involves sacrificing people to power the ritual, and it seems to come from Northwest of here. It's all the information she could find out. She also gives us a gift to help us, a ball of light hits us and enters us. She says it's a ball of life to help with vitality, and we will know how to use it when we need it. Very cryptic, but I guess if you live a lifetime each day you can be a bit cryptic.

We head off from the Life Shaman and discuss what our options are now. We could head back to investigate the orcs, or follow the lines of plague power stuff to try and triangulate where it comes from.

It is decided to head back to Setagen and see if there is any new information from Eloise and Vidall's visit. And then head off to investigate the Orcs. We head to the nearest dwarven tunnels and portals, to get us to Setagen. We have to fly part of the way and find a convenient cliff to take off from. That works really well, but the landing isn't so good and I clipped a branch on the way down and face planted myself in the dirt. At least not on my back, Bella is still safe. We wander the tunnels and come out at the closest spot to Setagen. We pull out the earring boat again and pop her into the water. We paddle and pole around the coast to the city, make the harbor and head to our inn for the night.

Entry Ten

• Day 12 of Fruit 808

After a very interesting and tasty breakfast of rice and fruit and goats milk, we head to the harbor master to warn about the orcs. We pop into see Aloise and share what information we have gathered. Yes, Vidall did come visit her, a nice elderly elven gent. Only think of note was the day after we left the city, all the local monks left, just vanished. The monks who came to Setagen to help with the plague are still here, but none of the original locals are. How very odd. We warn Eloise about the Orcs, and we decide we will all go visit the Governor to update him of what we have found out, and the Orc problem.

We headed up to the Governor's mansion, and seek an audience. He sees us pretty promptly and we get down to business of filling him in on everything we have found out. The Orcs are a concerning matter and he gets someone to go do something with the winds to find out what they can find out. We share info while this is happening. The governor is a nice enough chap, seems genuinely concerned for his people, which is always a good thing in a leader. He's a young enough chap, with a good eye for clothes. He has some interesting guards and companions though. One of the chaps with him today, well lets just say there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him at all, if you saw him in a crowd, you would have forgotten all about him. Spy perhaps, would make a good choice. And he seems to be protected somehow, as when Phaeton and i both looked into his aura, all we get was "green or blue". Now that is a weird reading, no short or long lived sentient, not even a human reading, just green or blue. Very odd indeed.

Eventually the winds person, a nice young lady, comes in and whispers to the governor. It seems there is something very odd down where the orcs are. It seems there are 6 ships sitting tied up on the coast near the Dragon's Claws. Could it be the 6 missing boats? So we offer to go check them out, and the governor organises to give us wind walking and flying so we can travel fast down to the Dragon's Claw.

We windwalk out along the coast, and when they run out the flying kicks in and we head north. We come up to an estuary where a river comes from the land. The boats are parked along the river part. We land nearby without being seen, we make everyone unseen and fly in for a closer look at the boats. There is no one on them, they are empty of people. They seem to be tied up fine, but it all screams TRAP to me. Someone spots smoke further inland up river, so we fly inland a bit to have a closer look. We eventually make out an Orc party, moving slowly through the jungle. Seems they are moving in the direction of the ships, so someone has left the ships here specifically for the Orcs to use. Very odd. The Orc party is quite big, maybe a couple of hundred, with females and litters of young. Using that as a gauge for how fast they can move, we work out it will probably be a couple of weeks or so to get to the ships. Gives us a time frame to deal with the boats.

We head back and start checking out the area. Phaeton and I check aura's all over the beach, and then look at the boats before setting foot anywhere on them. Cher even goes under water to have a look under the ships, and finds 2 strips of cleared hull on each ship. Like the ship was picked up or carried with something rubbing along those 2 parts of the ship. To think what would be big enough to move something ship size, it's rather scary to think of what's going on here.

We found some very odd wards on the ships. In fact we found them very well warded and protected. And both ends, centered on the top of the anchor chains was the same ward. One of those nasty icky blood-thingy college spells best described as Flash Storm. It was set to trigger if anything non Orc climbed up the chains.

The second ward which was right in the middle of the ship was different, it was also one of this icky college spells but was something like The Skeletons of Society. The ward is a 15ft sphere and is some sort of transformation and animation spell. Basically the whole ship is covered in a ward of some description, so t get rid of them off all the 6 ships is going to take some time.

Morgan goes up to have a look on the ships, seeing as she is Orc, and can get through the wards. She notices blood drops on the boat, seem ritualistic in the way they have fallen on the wood. Maybe part of this Skeletons of Society ward. The blood is human.

We made camp tonight on the beach, and plan to fly back to Setagen tomorrow to share what we have found with the Governor.

Entry Eleven

• Day 13 of Fruit 808