Session 74

Nottanis

Seasons passed. I had greenleaf tea with Selaena on the regular, after a chance meeting in the woods outside Eastdale. She was talking to the farm cows, which I found charmingly naive. (What could they possibly say that would be interesting?) Turns out they actually did have something interesting, complaining about giant frogs eating their friends. Maybe we will look into that later.

Yes, about that, she talked me into getting up off my log in the forest to actually make a difference in the world. The tales she told – second or third hand, about the exploits of her friends Ygnis, Oscar, Bern, Feverborne, and u-Heury – caught my interest, and I signed up with the Glorious Blades. Of course, I immediately wandered off for a few months. It’s going to take some getting used to, working with humans and their ticking life-clocks on the regular. I suppose I can understand their frustration by remembering the time I pestered my father to teach me how to use a sword. It took him nearly 30 years to get around to it!

Rumors suggested Bern was still ignoring his withered arm. That idiot should see a healer. He trained his dogs instead, and apparently they are all actually useful. Maybe we’ll see them in action soon.

Feverborne came to me for advice on herbal teas, since we have similarly poor constitutions. I shared my recipes, and I hope they helped. He gave me a few to try as well. Apparantly he was digging through the captured items over the last few year and made arrangements to investigate and sell some of them. Turns out, if you fill the ruby chalice with the blood of a humanoid and drink it, there is a significant healing effect. That will come in handy where goblins and orcs are plentiful foes. He mentioned a significant windfall from selling a necklace with some kind of curse. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite us.

Ygnas

I started learning the fire language. It’s really hard. It’s going to take a long time. But it’s so beautiful! I travelled near Helix and met some followers of Zuul. There is a barrow in Helix with followers, and others I could convert. The followers I met asked for news, and I told them about the portal. They were most appreciative. They said there were rumors of more elemental portals north in a floating city. I could go to another town in the north and get more information on the floating city.

Since I was there, I stopped by Threshold, and met up with the rest of the Blades. Stria has taken up residency in Threshold, and was frowning mightily into a flagon of ale trying to think up a nickname for herself, since she’s already wanted and all, and will only get more wanted as she kills more people. In between her mental gymnastics, Stria had the ruby necklace researched, and that one was a doozy. Stole people’s souls and turned them into wights. She promptly dumped it on Feverborne to sell in a pawnshop. Here. In Threshold. This’ll be exciting. Not only is Stria convinced that the gibbering mouther is loose in the library, but now there’s a wight-making necklace in town. Yay. Somebody didn’t think that one through. Lyrian had spent her time doing exercises trying to be more nimble on her feet and such. Selaena was, of course, wandering around the woods somewhere.

She did, however, send a friend of hers, a scruffy looking elf. There was also a new face - an Ygg paladin. I have my holy symbol safely hidden in town, as always. Waiting to take his measure. We’re probably not going to be friends. He is a former rat catcher, before he got his calling, so maybe he’ll be useful in the sewers. We did promise the kid we’d try to stop the child-poaching wererats down there. Bern had three dogs with him now. He gets annoyed when I pet them, because they’re in training or something. Oscar looked pale and had lost weight. He still frowned at me whenever I got caught up in the flames in the fireplace, though. There’s probably a form for daydreaming that he thinks I should fill out.

We were discussing where to head off to. Nobody had a destination, so I, thinking of the floating city and the portals, suggested north. Everyone agreed, so, north it is. I feel Zuul’s hand in making this happen.