Session 12: Bloke on the Water (7/19/22)

Pulyana 26, 1423.

The PCs decide not to stop and rest, but to remove themselves from the Deepwood Barrows as quickly as possible. They trek towards the edge of the Tzarswald, seeing several spectral images marching through the hills as soldiers, or performing activities like camping. None of them pay close attention to our heroes as they march on. Nearing the woods' edge, they see smoke against the moonlight coming from due south, an area where there is known to be a D'Vryn camp. The group votes to check it out and then readjust their course before morning. At the camp, they indeed find a waning campfire, and the whole area has been trampled and ruined, though they find no corpses. Three sets of large quadrupedal tracks can be found throughout, and they actually seem to exit eastward towards the direction of Zolovny. Rucia finds a d'vryn fashioned, tassled purse and the PCs also find a red banner similar to the one they found rescuing Pavli.

The group treks on deep into the night hours, returning to the riverside where they encounter a small canoe with a few lanterns drifting on the Skorbi towards the west. The sole occupant is a blue-robed, shaven headed human with tattoos etched on his face, who waves a the party's hails but proceeds onward. As they near Zolovny, the PCs notice the tracks they are pursuing veer to the north, dipping back into the Tzarswald before continuing. They arrive back at the abandoned tents near the docks and the spellcasters fall immediately asleep, while Aldren and Bjork split watches until late the following morning/noon.

Pulyana 27, 1423.

The PCs spend the afternoon hours performing a large variety of errands and tasks. An hour is spent with Mockleg ritual casting identify for a half dozen of the group's items, including a cloak of arachnida and an amulet of the devout dedicated to St. Rictus. Rucia summons his first bonded steed, naming it Silvermane. Nebol'shoy visits the Bloombark Tabernacle and Old Shard to identify the mushrooms he and Bjork dug out of the caverns beneath the Barrows. The dwarf says they can be made into curative potions, and offers to to so for a trade (Taanka's teas). Bjork, Rucia and Mockleg set up a stall at the Fairground where they manage to hock off a bunch of the mended short blades they found pinning the skeleton down in the tomb, as well as some copper candle holders. There is some interest in their jaw of eyeballs when they meet Iev Gravelighter, but Rucia refuses to sell them at this juncture in time. Aldern visists Olena Sallowmoon at her family's campsite and digs up some information about the Brothers Dimm, and where they might be contacted (Arkany) and whom (Rembolt Fuddlemuzz).



As the hours darken, the PCs meet up once more at their tent. Rucia decides to give the eye a brief glimpse of the spectral lantern that Aldren is carrying, as if to taunt whoever is scrying through the remote eye the chance to come after them. Nebol'shoy attempts to cast blindness on the eye as the lantern is revealed, but it is unknown if the spell succeeded. Rucia decides to ride about and warn both the Ganelari family (where he is robbed) and Sallowmoon family (where he is greeted by Bhruno, a swarthy D'vryn bodyguard), but not until he's visisted the Soverat Stockage and then dragged Senior Lieutenant Strada out of the Many Veils to warn him of the potential impending dangers to Zolovny (both necromantic and bugbear). Rucia also 'enlists' Iev Gravelighter should the necromancers come to collec their eye. The death priest seems to know of the antagonists and dislikes them as they are not followers of his god, Shroud.

Bjork and Mockleg head off to the Flapping Salmon where they converse with captain Condor who tries to enlist them for his vessel to find the Lost Isle of Skorbi. He claims he needs 3,000 gold and some time to get his ship up and running. Mockleg decides to perform and transforms into Baron Bleshmyrk, enthralling the entire tavern with his fables, while Bjork offered some musical backup. The pair was a smashing success and raked in some silver and a half dozen free drinks from the crowd. Aldren and Nebol'shoy visit the Trawler's Union where they find they can commission the construction of a river barge for themselves, or can try and purchase The Slack Mallard from Condor and have that repaired. The PCs reconvene yet again, deciding they will travel to the nearby tower of Old Smite-eye and scope that out, so that they can return for Nebol'shoy's potions and to ward off any of the potential threats that they themselves might have stirred up...

PCs: Aldren, Bjork, Nebol'shoy, Rucia

NPCs

'Condor' Verkhovsky (human male): An elderly man appearing in his late 60s, bedecked in a dirty Skovian naval coat that has faded from deep blue to an ugly shade of gray. He’s balding on top, but has a wild shock of gray hair behind his ears, and wears a wool cap with a copper duck pin to keep out the cold. His nose is heavily weather-beaten, his eyes a little too close tougher, and he reeks of rotja and pipe-smoke. His boots are worn through, with toes peeking out in grimy wool socks, and he wears a cutlass and Shasta sheathed at his belt.

Iev Gravelighter (human male): An impossibly thin wisp of a man standing almost six feet tall, with a narrow, pale face, a long, sharp nose, and gray, dull eyes. He wears a sealed gray robe that hangs down to a pair of impressively clean, black boots, and it’s woven with a skeletal lattice pattern of interlocked bones. From his wrist hangs a silver chain, and at the end of that, a frosted lantern which glows a dull green-white. A black comb or feather above his left ear seems to help sweep a long mane of fine, jet black hair to the right of his head, below his shoulders.

Olena Sallowmoon (D'vryn female): A graceful middle-aged woman with a slender build and vulpine smile, she wears her graying hair in a topknot and a black leather vest over a billowing white shirt with silver threads. Her crafty brown eyes peek out from a face half-covered in fine pinpoint tattoos of animal shapes and lines of cursive text, and her bone-ringed fingers clasp the hilt of a fat saber with decorative owl-feathers slung from its pommel.

Sviit (D'vryn male): A small, dirty-cheeked boy with tussled black hair and thick eyebrows, he is gaunt and slippery and a known pickpocket working either individually or for his Ganelari people.

Arkany Map