Please note that most of these summaries are based on adventures that are available for download on the internet. These summaries may contain spoilers about the content of those adventures.
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Session 30 Ead/Cin |
The Sea Witch part one (modified version of D&D adventure) |
| Brenna's adventurers explore the rest of Gungir's hall, finding his treasure room and the room in which Zilrus had imprisoned Gungir's nameless son. Gungir's mother and cook, Grunhilde, negotiates with Marcus for safe passage on behalf of herself, the surviving trolls, and her son's body, and the adventurers eventually allow them to leave. At the entry hall, Grunhilde warns the adventurers that Gungir will return and claim vengance on them. In response, Marcus taunts her with the news that they have already killed Zilrus. Grunhilde faints at the news, and is carried away by the surviving trolls. Brenna's adventurers stay at Gungir's hall overnight, then set out on the journey back to Bethra. They reach Bethra a fortnight after they first left for Zilrus' hall, and travel on for five days to reach the port of Hainen, where The Faithful Lady is waiting to take them back to Selentia. The journey back to the Glaive takes almost two months, as Captain Karla steers The Faithful Lady along the coast of Mercania and against the currents and prevailing winds. She does so because the quicker route would take them too close to the Island of Wyrd and the Witch-King. As they enter the Glaive, they frequently encounter Goblin raiding ships, more active than anyone can remember then being before. At the eastern end of the Glaive, near the border between Elmet and Wesland, Captian Karla has to anchor The Faithful Lady for the night because the lighthouse at Old Captain's Rock is not on. In the morning, they can see a pirate ship near the lighthouse. Cinder uses magic to explore the pirate ship, and discovers that it is crewed by trolls, not goblins. A huge water elemental heads towards The Faithful Lady from the lighthouse, damaging the ship's hull before Cinder can drive it away. It is followed by a second water elemental, which is also driven away. With Cinder's powerful magics mostly depleted, Brenna's adventurers decide to take the battle to the lighthouse once a third elemental appears. Cinder uses the last of her powerful spells to teleport the adventurers to the lighthouse, accidentally leaving Taliriana behind on The Faithful Lady. The elemental returns to the lighthouse to attack Brenna's adventurers, who manage to destroy it in battle. They enter the lighthouse, where they find and defeat three troll pirates in the first room. Spring to Early Summer 1395 AUC | |
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Session 31 Ead/Cin |
The Sea Witch part two (modified version of D&D adventure) |
| Brenna's adventurers continue into the lighthouse. They encounter and defeat another group of troll pirates, though Cinder's magical fire sets the oil cisterns of the lighthouse ablaze. At the summit of the lighthouse, the adventurers find the last group of troll pirates and the pirate captain, a hideous hag named Black Molly. Once the pirates are defeated, they find a large magic bowl filled with sea water, which they tip out. Brenna's adventurers go back into the lighthouse, where they find and rescue the lighthouse keepers and help them extinguish the fires before the lighthouse is ruined. No longer under attack by water elementals, The Faithful Lady easily accounts for the half-crewed pirate ship. The lighthouse keepers explain that the pirates were looking for information about a ship that sunk on the nearby rocks, and Marcus makes a preliminary investigation of the lighthouse's logs and diaries. Unable to identify the exact ship Black Molly was looking for, The Faithful Lady continues on to Wesland despite Marcus and Ulfgar's objections. Brenna's adventurers continue on with Arene and Agarathar to Manderley Hall, wher Lady Brenna is very pleased they successfully rescued her friend and directs them to rest for the summer. Marcus returns to the University of Merin and learns that there is a new professor of history, the young and popular Mendy Bader, who has been making luring his students away with her exciting lectures and who has a noble patron in Lord Iean Lonsdale. In response, he plans a revelatory lecture on the correct pronunciation of the dead language Qemor based on the information he learned from Lord Karvala. Jonyn visits the hall of the Order of the Rose for lessons on how to be a holy warrior of the True Faith. Most but not all of the Knights of the Order are away in the southwest helping hold off the Goblins invading Old Duneld, and Jonyn receives coaching from Knight-Lieutenant Katrin Heristal and Knight-Bachelor Osvaldo of Zwolle. Lady Mara Garan is also away in Elmet, where she is serving as an officer with an expeditionary force from Teran. She returns to Merin in mid-summer, shortly before the end of the year, and insists on acting as Marcus' patron for his public lecture instead of his employer, Lady Brenna. Three days before Marcus's lecture, Ulfgar meets a Dwarven trader named Bomfur Kildare at a bar to look at some precious magical items Bomfur wishes to sell. Ulfgar reaches into Bomfur's bag, touches something smooth and round, and wakes up two days later in a gutter without his magic ring. When he goes back to the bar, he is disturbed to learn that the barmaid now calls him "Tiger" and he has a suddenly-acquired reputation as a heavy tipper. Further investigations reveal that almost all of Ulfgar's money has been spent or invested, mostly in trust accounts assigned to the Garan estate. Ulfgar doesn't talk with any of his fellow adventurers about what's happened, but goes to Marcus' lecture in silence. The lecture hall is crowded with notables and academics, including Lady Brenna, Ganymede, Professor Mendy Bader, Lord Iean Lonsdale, Lady Anna Colombari, Sturt Tarrin, and a mixed group of humans and kattar from Batubatan. Unfortunately, Derrin Goslaren is not present, as he has not returned from the journey into Petkenak territory to return Yara to her family. Lady Mara goes to the podium to deliver the introductory speech in her capacity as Marcus' noble patron, and to Marcus' horror picks up a familiar-looking smooth spherical paperweight. After a brief pause in which she assesses her surroundings, Lady Mara gives a short speech that doesn't mention anything specific about the content of the coming lecture, and leaves quickly. Constrained to stay behind and give his lecture or risk his reputation being ruined, Marcus encourages the others to follow Lady Mara. Eadric, Jonyn and Ganymede follow her, and Eadric grapples with Lady Mara, who uses magic to disappear from his grasp. Early Summer to Summer 1395 AUC | |
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Session 32 Ead/Cin |
Return to Valour Hall |
| Concerned by Lady Mara's abduction, Marcus delivers his lecture with passion. The end result is greatly superior to his usual standard, and is well received. His reputation assured, Marcus mingles with the notables in the audience with the other adventurers collect their equipment and prepare to travel to Threehills Manor. At the manor, butler Tarant Oxbridge confirms that Lady Mara hasn't returned. While the domestic staff are putting crosses on the doors and sprinkling holy water in every room to ward off danger, the butler arranges for a work party to excavate Lord Anton's grave in the family cemetary. None of Brenna's adventurers are surprised to discover that his coffin is empty. They ride on to Valour Hall, where they find the main entrance has been filled in following Mara's excavation of the mound. Ulfgar begins to explore the side tunnels while Taliriana starts using magic to shrink the other adventurers in size so that they can fit in the tunnels. However, before everyone can enter, Ulfgar is confronted by Gaberk and Lord Anton Garan, both risen from the grave as revenants. Scattered and disorganised, Brenna's adventurers are forced to flee back outside the mound. They try to enter Valour Hall a third time by Cinder using magic to teleport them into the treasure chamber, and finally they succeed. A pack of shadow dogs and dog-headed men wielding greatswords try to stop them travelling further, but are overwhelmed. Brenna's adventurers find Lady Mara's unconscious body lying on the dias in the central burial chamber. Nothing they do can wake her, but using the sphere of transference successfully swaps her mind with Marcus. Lady Mara remembers being asked to rest on the dias by a handsome man and falling asleep, but nothing more. She and Marcus swap back using the sphere, and Marcus carries her body as the adventurers prepare to make their way to the side tunnels and leave Valour Hall. They are confronted by Gaberk and Lord Anton, whose unholy presence unnerves Taliriana and drives her back into the central part of the barrow, near the pit to hell. They other fight on, and Lord Anton uses magic to escape before the tide of battle turns decisively against him. Left behind, Gaberk rushes away and takes out a ring from a hiding spot among the debris in a side room. Gaberk tells Ulfgar that he can't have the ring, that it's his, and that he wants Ulfgar to give up his life again so that he can live. In the end, Marcus uses his reforged holy sword to destroy Gaberk and then split the ring in half. A black shadow rises from it, then dissipates. Ulfgar initially denies that the ring is his, but is tricked into admitting that it's his ring by Marcus. The others are not pleased that Ulfgar has been keeping secrets from them: Marcus confronts Ulfgar with the claim that Ulfgar was working with Gaberk and Lord Anton for money, while Jonyn tells Ulfgar that he doesn't think he can trust him anymore. Taliriana rejoins the others, having been found and reassured by Delen the lake-god of the island of Mawddath. When asked why the god would travel so far from Menarland to help her, Taliriana reponds that maybe he wanted to have sex with her again. In the brief discussion that follows, it turns out that Cinder has known the love of a fire-god. Having achieved what they set out to accomplish, Brenna's adventurers create a tunnel out of Valour Hall and return to Threehills Manor with Lady Mara's body. Summer 1395 AUC | |
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Session 33 Ead/Cin |
Into the Forsaken Temple's Crypt part one (modified version of D&D adventure) |
| At Threehills Manor, Marcus discovers that his kiss wakes Lady Mara from her enchanted slumber. She remembers that the handsome man wanted her help getting access to the University. Lady Brenna and the other adventurers question Ulfgar about his apparent complicity in Lord Anton's scheme. While Ulfgar eventually convinces them that he wasn't a knowing or willing accomplice, he also admits that Tholgrim Whitebeard's ring has been exercising a strong influence on him and that he concealed a letter from the Witch-King to Black Molly that they thought he had destroyed. When asked why he hadn't told them about these things earlier, Ulfgar's defence is that he thought he could control the ring, he planned to sell the ring once he felt he could no longer control it, and he planned to extort money from the Witch-King for completing Black Molly's mission. Cinder is able to use magic to read Black Molly's letter, but it now warns the reader that the Witch-King knows his ring has been broken and that he will destroy those responsible. Unable to place her full trust in Ulfgar but unwilling to dismiss him from service in case he poses a danger to them, Lady Brenna has a powerful spell cast on Ulfgar that will bestow a terrible curse on him if he harms his friends or innocents through inaction, deceit, or omission. The curse is bound and contained in a gold circlet placed on Ulfgar's head, which cannot be removed for a year and a day. Lady Brenna promises Ulfgar that after that time, the spell will lapse and he can keep the gold circlet. Lady Brenna also initiates investigations into Bomfur Kildare's current location and what has happened to all of Ulfgar's savings. After a little time, she learns that Bomfur has fled into the forests of northern Kevland and that most of Ulfgar's money went to the Garan estate, with the exception of a substantial sum given to Kilnred, seneschal of Castle Glissom in Dirkholme, where King Dirk retired two years ago to live out his last days in monastic discipline. Taliriana comes to agree with the others that Delen the lake-god probably didn't visit Valour Hall just to reassure her, and that it is more likely someone pretending to be Delen. Cinder uses magic to search for Lord Anton, finding him once in a stone-walled room talking with a Goblin in Dakkandi, which she doesn't understand. After that time, Cinder cannot find Lord Anton again, as he appears to have taken precautions against such magic. Lady Mara arranges to visit friends at a grander and more secure estate for the immediate future. Meanwhile, there has been a great earthquake throughout the kingdoms surrounding the Coradian Sea. Gitano Mirandola sends word to Lady Brenna that the Kostas brothers in northern Emphidor have sent him word of a sealed door revealed by the recent earthquake in one of the abandoned ancient cities. Lady Brenna sends her adventurers north to Navyn, where Gitano has arranged a letter of introduction to the Kostas brothers and passage to Mursinos in Emphidor. From Emphidor, they travel north towards the Emphidian Ranges to the village of Peliene. Vasily and Gregor Kostas welcome all of them except Taliriana and Cinder into their home, but do allow the two women to stay in their barn. In the morning, Vasily guides Brenna's adventurers and his herd of goats to one of the long-abandoned and overgrown cities of marble, where he shows them the newly revealed door and takes his herd off to graze elsewhere in the ruins. The adventurers easily open the door, which is covered with Cabbandari inscriptions of such antiquity that Taliriana can't make them out and Marcus can deduce only part of their meaning. What he can translate suggests that something is buried or trapped within, and that this was once a place of power. Inside the door, they find and destoy two rune-covered statues that guard the first chamber. Summer to Late Summer 1396 AUC | |
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Session 34 Ead/Cin |
Into the Forsaken Temple's Crypt part two (modified version of D&D adventure) |
| The adventurers continue on into the second chamber, where six mummified male elves guard a mummified female elf. The six male elves confront the adventurers and are destroyed, while the female elf is incinerated before she can rise. Behind her sarcophagus they find a secret door that leads to a chamber dominated by eight massive pillars, each fashioned into the shape of a fey creature. Beyond that chamber is a corridor along which blood flows down two shallow depressions in the floor, and across the depressions another chamber. Taliriana is badly shaken by the blood, as she suddenly remembers from a past life that the depressions should be filled with purifying water because they mark the boundary-line for the most sacred parts of an ancient elven temple, a mythal. The adventurers find another mummified female elf in the next chamber, and incinerate her before she can rise. At the end of the corridor, they find a brass head on the wall through which the blood flows. The brass head gnaws Marcus' hand when he explores it, and Marcus locks the jaws so they can't close on him another time. Unable to find a way through, Marcus checks along the walls of the corridor, finding another secret door into a new set of chambers. Inside, they find a group of three red-haired elves, two women and one man. One of the women introduces herself as Eiryn and speaks on behalf of her group. Eiryn explains that she and her companions, Surya and Turin, have studied this place for some time using magic, as they are looking for an elf who they believe is trapped here. However, their magic didn't warn them of the presence of two clay statues blocking the way onwards, and the statues have already killed one of her companions, Ellowyn. Eiryn asks for the adventurer's help defeating the statues, and while suspicious they agree to cooperate. Forewarned, Brenna's adventurers deal swiftly with the two clay elves. The chamber beyond contains a female elf bound with a golden rope and armed with sword and bow. Late Summer 1396 AUC | |
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Session 35 Ead/Cin |
Into the Forsaken Temple's Crypt part three (modified version of D&D adventure) |
| On seeing the bound elf, Eiryn wants to free her straightaway, but the adventurers refuse to act hastily. Eadric spots Surya releasing a rat, which moves towards the chamber and the bound elf. He shoots past Surya and Eiryn at the rat, precipitating a fierce battle. As the fight proceeds, The rat gnaws through the golden rope and frees the bound woman, whose frightening presence terrifies Marcus. When he talks to her, the woman rants that she is Amaltheia and cares only for vengeance on men, particularly Orith. Her bow agrees with her, whispering "Orith must die!" at irregular intervals. Fortunately, the woman doesn't know what a human is and doesn't seem to want to take her vengeance on Marcus. Meanwhile, Eiryn's cloak creates spiderwebs that trap all the adventurers except Eadric with the woman, and Eadric seriously wounds Turin, who passes out. After the webs are burned down by Ulfgar's dagger and Cinder's beams of flame, Jonyn kills Surya before she can kill Eadric. Eiryn is seriously wounded and passes out before she can flee. As she walks towards the next chamber, Amaltheia's frightening presence paralyses Jonyn and Cinder. However, she stops to kill the unconscious Turin, who she calls "Orith", with one shot from her bow. Eadric takes the opportunity to shoot her in the chest four times, but all she does is walk past him. Marcus succeeds in angering her by mocking her weakness in succumbing to Orith's charms, giving Eadric the opportunity to kill her with a well-aimed arrow. The adventurers strip Amaltheia, Eiryn, Surya and Turin of their possessions before returning to the surface with the bodies of the three red-haired elves. Vasily greets them, but is troubled that they have killed two of the "kindly ones" and plan to interrogate a third. He takes his herd of goats away for an hour or two, so that the "kindly ones" won't come after him for vengeance. Jonyn buries Surya and Turin while Eadric trusses Eiryn. Taliriana uses magic to heal the worst of Eiryn's wounds, and Cinder threatens Eiryn with torture and death to make her cooperative. Eiryn explains that Orith Torellen was her grandfather, and that his love affair with Amaltheia corrupted the mythal. In response, the other elves of the mythal cursed Amaltheia with unnatural life and bound her for eternity within the mythal. Eiryn claims she wanted to free Amaltheia because Amaltheia knew her grandfather. Eiryn bargains for her ransom, offering Cinder her spider-cloak, but only receives in exchange her life, one healing potion, and Turin's longsword. She also tries to bargain for Amaltheia's whispering bow, and Marcus gives her Gitano Mirandola's details in Navyn as a contact point for future negotiations once she returns home. Marcus continues to talk with Eiryn as she leaves the group, and Eiryn convinces him that she has little chance of surviving the inevitable werewolf attacks during the long journey home on foot without her enchanted silvered rapier. In response, Marcus tells the others he's going to give Eiryn back her own sword. Cinder is infuriated, claiming Eiryn promised Marcus his life if he betrayed them, and insisting he explain how he's going to stop Eiryn stabbing them all in the back one by one. However, Taliriana and Jonyn side with Marcus, and Ulfgar eventually sides with him too when Taliriana points out Lady Brenna won't give him any extra money because they brought back an extra sword. Marcus takes Eiryn's rapier to her, for which she is grateful. She asks him to keep not just her belongings and Amaltheia's whispering bow for ransom, but also Surya and Turin's belongings in case their kin wish to ransom them. Vasily returns well after Eiryn leaves, and guides the adventurers back to the Kostas household. Rather than sleep again in the barn, Cinder teleports herself and Taliriana back to Merin for the night. Late Summer 1396 AUC |