The Imminent Doom

The Imminent Doom is a period in Arath starting in 1521. It is mainly marked by the war between the biggest realms the Democracy of Cahemelle, the Dwarven Republic, the Thanate Empire, the Orcish Diarchy and the Draconian League.

In the centre of this period of war an unlikely group finds its way together. These are the stories of this groups adventures. Though if you want to read what else unfolded during the time and what they might have kick started in other places of Arath then you might want to read the Backstory of The Imminent Doom.

Prologue

The players are drafted into the armies of the Dwarven Republic and the Democracy of Cahemelle.

On the Sea

The rain is pouring down. The winds blow colds and all around you are cursing dwarves, gnomes as well as other races. “The elves have us cursed. They know of our intentions and called the rains to stop us.” Next to Aluwyn curses. They were sent by the Gnome Academy to support the dwarven engineering corps. The corps is trying hard to free the ballista and catapults from the mud they are stuck in.

Hand over to Aluwyn

The wind catches strong in the sails and whips the waves high. Porof's sits in the crows nest with his trusty weapon and a bottle of grog. He hears the shanties from his sailor comrades down below. They were hired to bring Cahemelle to the shore. An easy task, no fighting was to be involved. The coastline slowly comes into sight.

Hand over to Porof

Varis is glad that he is not stuck in a big trading vessel, most of his men are hanging over the railing, seasick from the high waves. He is sitting still in his place, uncomfortable wearing his polished and shiny plate armour of the protectors. He is wetting his arrows, making sure that the fletching looks nice and clears the nock with a dagger.

Perception role from Porof

They now start to see each other, preparing the spells and siege crafts and getting ready to land or repel the landing.

The Approach

During the approach, Porof will get pushed into fighting with the elves, as they are attacked. At least that is what the elven commander on his ship is saying.

Varis ship gets hit, he is forced to drop his plate armour and heavy shield, to swim the rest of the way to shore.

Aluwyn has to contempt with a continuous barrage of magical spells cast against their position.

The Landing

As Varis lands on the shores, he has nothing but his quiver and bow and his undergarments. He strips a dead Militiaman from his armour and picks up his rapier.

Aluwyn has to dodge an incoming fireball and rolls down the hill onto the battlefield.

Porof’s longboat lands ashore uncontested and can disembark all its soldiers under heavy arrow fire.

Recap

After a tough and indecisive skirmish between the Democracy of Cahemelle and Dwarven Republic, the party emerges still living.

Porof expertly avoided the elves to hide in the crows nest, as he did not want to join the battle. This plan did not work so well as the ship landed he got flung into a bunch of elves, which break his fall. He still tries to stay out of combat, desperate to play injured he thinks he uses his glaive as a crutch, but everyone else would think he walks like a wizard with a staff. During the skirmish, he keeps on praising his weapon and cuts down a few of the dwarves.

The platoon Captain Alloro takes care of his weapons and ready his platoon to disembark. But a neighbouring ship loses some of its oars and rams his transport. He loses most of his heavy gear and must make sure he makes it to the land. Swimming with all his might and dexterity he makes it to the shore soaking wet, seaweed hanging on him and quite pissed of. He calls back his weapons with his magic. This sight scares some of the younger dwarves and they run away. He tries to organise the troops as good as he can, and even inspires the commanding brigadier to charge into the last dwarves that stand.

Aluwyn is an enlisted gnome from the academy, meant to bolster the ranks of the dwarven engineering corps. She had a crash course in dwarven siege machinery and is now in charge of a little group of gnomes to man a 10m wide ballista. One of her crew is a little gnome, that is a little craven. Her position got shot at and she tumbles onto the battlefield, where she tries her best to help out the faltering dwarven phalanx. This does not end well for her, as she gets knocked out by a dwarven shield-bearer, who first shoots then asks questions. The only reason she is still alive is that the little gnome pulled her to the side of the battlefield.

After the skirmish, the elven captain and the human sailor captured the gnome engineer and make their way inland away from the red coloured beach.

New Lands

Aluwyn und Porof (Passive Perception), they might notice that Alloro has been visited in his mind.

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As the group travels the near lands they find some Tiefling Thugs harassing a young noble-looking man, who is trying to defend himself.

This man is called Reimar, he is trying to make a name for himself by serving his dwarven lords in the battle. He will tell them where his father's hold is and promises them a good reward for his rescue and escort back there.

On their way to Marymar they might encounter some Bandits or Dire Wolfs.

First Home

As they help or choose not to, Reimar they will find their way to his father's mansion. He is the Governor of the local region (Dostrait) and serves the Dwarven Republic. He has some smaller issues with trolls, taxes, bandits, dire wolfs and will ask them to help him out. The village (Marymar), near to the mansion, has some trouble with the battle. Bandits extorting them, and monsters pressuring them. Almost all able fighting men have been drafted there.

Proving their Steel

The Governor of Dostrait will not listen to them or his son for long, as he is a very busy man and must not be disturbed by his failure of a son, maybe he is more useful in domestic situations.

After a while, Reimar will come back and ask them for help for one more time. He will tell them what they want to, they did save his hide. He is tasked to clear the coast of the Sea Hag and the crawling Sea Spawn. As some tinkerer has found a way to extract salt from the sea water. This sounds all a little shady to him, he is not the brightest torch on the porch.

Recap

The rest gave the three survivors some time to calm down. Still, Alloro does not trust the little Gnome Aluwyn and casts a mysterious ritual on them. She does not allow that without a fight and draws the attention of a little disoriented Kylin, she had a tough time during the battle of yesterday and has been washed up on the shore. But she was not the only one listening to a ranger noticed them and investigated the scene. Yet only Kylin decided to show herself.

She quickly recognised Porof, as her old mate she used to sail with. So she joins the group. They soon take off west to find a village Kylin knows about. During the first few minutes of their travel, they hear a dwarvish war horn. Only Aluwyn knows that it means that everyone has to get ready to march. Scared of it they up their pace to be ahead of them, though later they figure out that the horn was not triggered by them.

As they rested from the morning of their fast walk they hear fighting close by. They find a tall strong and fierce looking man is standing alone against four opponents. He wields his battleaxe in his full plate armour and knows how to defend himself. Still, the group and Ruven decide to help him. The fighting is fierce and Kylin impresses the defender quite a bit. Now that the group meets Ruven and get to know Reimar, the son of the local governor. He leads them to Marymar the capital of Dostrait. Marymar is nothing more than a big poor village on the coast and it is apparent that they have little what could interest any of the big countries. The village itself is getting a palisade build and all the buildings except one are build of wood.

At the gates, Porof meets an old guard that might know his father from old fights down in the Darkwoods. He tells him to wait for him in the Tavern of the Old Lass Inn, but he never shows up. The governor's mansion is the only stone building in the village and contains quite a collection of old weapons. Unlike like the village or the countryside the governor has everything a heart desires. They meet this governor and his two advisers a slim man holding a big book and a fat one, which takes little care of his hygiene. The governor seems to have some use for this odd group, so he invites them to a feast and offers them a contract for a little problem of his. He also gives them living quarters in his mansion for them to rest. During the wait time, the group sets out to visit the Old Lass Inn, where Aluwyn gives her best to have the worst performance of her life. All while Alloro learns that there are no boats he can rent, buy or steal for a journey home.

Alloro is the first of the group to join the feast and tries to get some information out of the governor. Later all but Porof joins the feast as well. They learn little, except for a Dire Wolf, that troubles the Direward Village. After the governor leaves the feast Alloro organises a drinking competition between the fat adviser Ralf and Aluwyn, which she wins because of her hesitation to drink fast.

The next morning Alloro tries to gather more information and hears about a missing boy, the help needed on the fields, the troubles of the Sea Hag they are hired to take care off and that a smart man wants to make salt out of water. He is disappointed not to hear more and returns to their room.

During that time Kylin starts looking for Porof, as he did not return to their quarters. She looks for him in the Old Lass Inn where she finds out that he drunk three guards and two dwarves under the table. After that, he left the inn with a girl called Berta to swim in the sea. She meets him perfectly fine on his way back to the village.

The Sea Hags Lair

Alloro and Ruven have to roll a stealth check to see how good their disguise is for this session.

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After attending a feast in their honour the group has agreed to kill a Sea Hag. This will result in Reimar telling them of his father's plan to liberate Dostrait and introduces them to the man who plans to make salt out of water, Rigalis. He is a mad tinkerer that tries many different things in his workshop.

The Cave

As they travel north they will find a cave at the shore that gets flooded by night. Outside of the cave they find 4 Sea Spawn crawling around looking for some food. After they have defeated them they can enter the cave where they find a Sea Hag taking care of two of her spawn.

The Ship Wreck

After they have killed the monsters a kid runs up to them and thanks them for rescuing him. He tells them that further in the cave is a shipwreck in which he hid. As they investigate the wreck they find:

• 1 Bag of Holding
  • 2 Potion of Healing (2d4 + 2)
  • 1 Small Barrel of old Whiskey
• 100 Gold Pieces
• 2 Platinum Pieces (DC 25)

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Recap

A map of what the group thinks their surrounding looks like, after session 3.

After a healthy breakfast the group set out to find the Sea Hag, they are tasked to kill. Aluwyn stays behind to cure her hangover, as she had way too much to drink.

Though first Lin had to stop by the Old Lass Inn to refill her flask, there she learns about a few things that are going on through out the province. A child is missing, a Dire Wolf is plaguing the Village of Direward and a mad man is trying to make salt out of water.

After that quick pit stop she joins the group and they start walking north. On the northern gate a guard is very impressed and shows great respect to Porof, because of his feat last night. Still they carry on further north. While walking up they find a isolated hut, from which a loud explosion comes from. While they try to check it out they only find a frighted alchemist, which tries everything to get rid of them.

Finally reaching the Sea Hag's lair they try to sneak closer, but on the wide open beach they are easily spotted by the Sea Spawn in front of the cave. The fighting is fiece but quick. Shortly after they enter the cave and find it too dark for the two humans. So they light a torch. Entering the cave they find a old modding boat, which Lin tries to ignite but fails, Alloro freezes it, to show how casting is done. Frustrated Lin casts lighting Bolt on it to prove that she can cast good spells too, this has great effect as they hear a painful bubbly scream from behind the scream, the fighting begins. The Sea Hag poses a little challenge to the group but still they surpass the worst and win the fight.

While searching for loot they find an unconscious child in the wrack, which they used as target practice before. They revive it and carry it out, while Alloro continuous to search the cave. He finds a Bag of Holding and some gold coins.

Tax Evasion?

Now that the coast is clear the salt production can start.

Meeting Rigalis

After the group victoriously returns and the group gets their pay they get shaken off by the governor. As they leave the mansion, Reimar approaches them and asks them to follow him.

He leads them to the hut outside of the palisades, north of the village. Where they meet Rigalis. A mad tinkerer that currently works on making salt out of water. He believes that this would make Dostrait rich and a nicer place. If he does not blow it up, as in his cellar he has many tones of gunpowder, crafted by the command of the governor.

The Council Meeting

After the governor has consulted with his council, including the crocked man. He orders the group back to him. As they come to him he tells them that he needs the taxes to be collected from the other villages. He offers 10% of the collected taxes as payment for the group.

Recap

After the group meets up again Reimar introduces them to Rigalis. As they approach he is again experimenting with explosives and gases, that was a smelly welcome, which puts off Alloro and Porof turn back to rest in the village. As they see the inventor and alchemist they discover that he has a whole room full with black powder. After some time he Rigalis warms up to Aluwyn and he gifts her his old tinkering kit. As a little reward she shows him how to make fireworks with salt and black powder.

After some time they created five rockets. Very excited they must try them out, so the take a short walk towards the sea shore. After launching the first rocket it becomes clear that the black powder is not ordinary, as it explodes with a might and a deafening sound the group. But Rigalis is so excited that he had to fire the other ones as well, this caused tumult in the village, as they think they are under attack. The last rocket did launch and explodes right at the beach, leaving a little pond where it once stood.

The next day, they meet the governor and his new metal machines guards. He pays them for their complete task and asks them to go out and collect the taxes from the other two villages. The group agrees and sets off south to Direward. On their way they discuss how they want to ditch the task and leaving Dostrait behind. Soon they see the Direwoods, which frightens some of the group and to keep them self save they almost start a forest fire (as some are rather trigger happy with their spells).

A Fightfull Day

The village of Direward is rather small. With many residential huts and a central marketplace. Soon the group finds their way to this place and see a temple, a grain storage and two other buildings stand out. The tavern and the mayors hut.

After entering the tavern they find some humans and dwarves in a pup brawl. This annoys Porof as the inn keep refuses to give out food and drink until the brawl has finished. So he takes part in it breaking it up and then challenges the oldest of the dwarves. After a hard and honourable fight Porof wins the encounter and earns the respect of the other dwaves.

After entering the tavern Aluwyn recognises the dwarves as part of the Engineering Corp and tells the elves to hide in the forest.

The next day the non elves meet with the mayor they learn about the the Direwolf and the situation in Dostrait, the ongoing rebellion and his dislike to the situation. At least one of the two must be finished off.

After the meeting the group went shopping and met up at the edge of the woods. From where they went to the pasture, where the last life stock has been slaughtered by a Direwolf. Ruven finds out that this was not done by a Direwolf but by a Worg and follows the tracks to their camp.

Hoping not to fight to many goblins at once they sneaked around the camp taking out the goblins one by one. This works fine the first time. But fails miserably as they trigger a trap and alarm all of the surrounding goblins. The fight goes well in the beginning until two massive Hobgobilns join the frey. But seeing their friends being slaughtered they retreat to fight another day.

At Deaths Door

The group found a crudely drawn map in the goblin camp.

With the party just calming down after the encounter with the goblins, they found them self enchanted by wonderful music. All of them except of their hearty sorceress fall victim to the enchanting music. But there was no time, the world turned and the colours of the forest mixed and blurred, ore bright colours are added to the mix. As the world stopped spinning they find them self in the Realm of Milil.

Only now they realise the death of their companion Varis Alloro. In front of them stands a ghostly elvish woman, she looks sad and in grief, Varis recognises his sister Aurae Alloro. She takes a step and a deep breath and in elvish she resides a poem, that moves almost every heart. And there the elven lord now stands realising his own death.

Not giving the group time to adjust to the new situation Milil steps forward and offers them the task to save the World from evil from the west. After some hesitation they agree and are gifted with some magical items and a Direwolf Pup for Ruven. After getting these parting gifts they find them self on their last battlefield.

Advancing to the goblin camp they hear fighting. As they sneak closer, they find the dwarves taking care of the last of the goblins. They find out that they are planning to go west, to fight the goblin hoards that live in the mountains there. So the two groups agreed to join forces for the march west.

Going back to Direward they seek out the Major to tell him about their Goblin hunt and to receive their pay. But he was busy at that late hour and the Guard did not allow them to pass. Until they persuaded him that the matter was urgent. So the group, with the exception of Porof, march in on Putin having fun with two rather young girls. Unimpressed the group tells him about the goblins and asks for pay. Also they told him about their plan not to collect taxes for the Governor and head south. On these news Putin changed his mind and told them what trouble this would put him in. If they left here without finishing their task he will suffer from it. So he asked the group to come back the next day, that is when Aluwyn decided to play her charm and join the next rumble with Putin and the girls.

The next morning Varis left early to burn his wagon full of charcoal to summon his familiar. While the others enjoy a hearty breakfast at the tavern. All but Porof, he seeks out the smith to fix his newly found Hobgoblin Armour to his size. On his way back he finds the Tavern surrounded by a number of armed men and soon finds himself arrested and shoved into the tavern, where he finds most of his friends arguing with Putin. As the argument gets more heated he shoves back one man and closes the door behind himself.

A new Friend

Dimly is the room lit and the air is filled with tension, all one can hear is the heavy pant of Porof holding the door shut best he can. The rest of the party, except Alloro, stand there ready to fight the mayor of Direward. He stands just centimetres away from Lin his weapons ready, just like her. Ale flowing down a beard and dripping on the table and the table manners of hungry dwarves interrupt the silence. Annoyed of the shouting and threats of death the oldest of the dwarves, Havarast Stoneaxes stands up and tries to calm the emotions. But Putin and Lin are determined to fight and only escalate the situation more, by casting spells and throwing insults. Never the less, Havarast manages to calm the situation and negotiates a deal, where the group is bound to his and his men by the Brother Oath and they will take care of the task, the group does not want to honour to finish.

Unaware of the trouble inside the village, Alloro is casting a ritual to find his familiar again. But he is interrupted by some guards, that ask him to follow them to the village centre. Though on their way they find his companions escorted by a much larger force. As they are escorted out of the village they are then told never to return or face certain death. The group cares little about this threat and wants to continue their travels, but the group will not let them, as they are still to swear the oath. Most of the group do not hesitate, Ruven is hesitant to do so as he fears the pain of the burning coal and Alloro outright refuses to swear it as he had no say in the matter and he has other oaths to up hold. In the end he is almost forced to take it under protest.

Trusting their new brothers little the dwarves decided that Havarast will join the group and scout ahead west. While the other dwarves finish the business. They are to meet in two weeks time at the eastern goblin mountains.

Without any more delay the party is eager to get some distance between them and Direward, so they set out west. After a days travel they find the ferry dock and book passage over to the other side of the river Bland. The young fery man called Lubin tells them about the dwarven city in the south. Having some free time and little interest of inland cities Lin insects her new horn. As she blows the horn the ferry picks up speed and the clouds start to take a shape.

The clouds form an elven head with a smug smile on his lips. No one but Alloro recognises him as Varos Valorien, as the clouds completely form his head his voice sunders over the river and he proclaims in elvish: "Condo Varis Alloro, Orriansonye Aravaeson, Hestonil e Orthalos Cinta Othao Dostrait, here by you are banished of the lands of Cahemelle and your live is forfeit, every elve is ordered to kill you on sight! You are stripped of your ranks and titles and are dismissed of the Protectors of the Sea." As the last word is spoken the head vanishes and the clouds turn back to normal. Soon after they reach the other side of the river.

They travel fast west as they could and only started to rest once the first sun has set. As they build their camp Alloro claims that the head must be connected to the horn and to prove he blows the horn as hard as he can, the up coming fog disorients Ruven as he was chasing after his Dire Wolf pup Ryo I of Direwoods. But the horn blow was answered by another horn far in the distance. Uneasy about the horn blow they settle for the night with guards for every hour.

In that night Alloro stands watch alone, he takes care of his bow and thinks of the things that happened that day. But movement catches his eye. He investigates and soon two arrows fly past him, he runs to the first tent and wakes everyone in it. Not knowing who their enemy is they grab their weapons to fight. Porof thinks he grabs his javelins, only to find his trusty glaive in his hands. While the others fight Aluwyn tries to wake up the other two Havarast and Lin but she miserably fails as the two of them are currently in a snoring contest. As she leaves frustrated she sees that the first enemy, a Hobgoblin, already lies slain on the floor. Getting ready to strike down the second one a flash of lightning and a loud thunder breaks through the night and the second enemy is incinerated. Surprised of what just happened they now see Havarast in full birthday suite, double axe swinging and mighty beard waving like a banner running towards the now dead enemies. And behind them they only see a foot slipping into the tent and soon after they hear a very proud snore.

Nightmares and Fiends

One of the creatures Porof bested with ease

After the nightly ambush, the group wakes up and as Ruven goes to check on his trap, he finds a freshwater stream nearby. Everybody fills up their waterskins, the camp is broken down and the group is on their merry way. The slain Hobgoblins are left for the animals, after being searched thoroughly and relieved of some silver coins.

After the group has been walking for a while, Havarast notices a suspicious raven seemingly following them. Kylin decides to shoot a fire bolt at it. This causes the bird to dive into the high grass and transform into a rat. This rat proceeds to bite Porof in the foot. Kylin enlarges Porof roughly to the size of a troll while he tries to shake off the now tiny rat. The creature transforms again, this time into a spider that climbs on Porof shoulder, only to get taken out by a magic missile shot by Kylin. As the creature lays on the ground, dying, it transforms once more to an ugly, red being, before vanishing into thin air.

The group walks on, pretty shook from this experience and sets up camp in the evening.

At dawn after an event less night, a pitch black mare with burning mane emerges from a suddenly appearing portal in the middle of a camp and attacks Alloro. It is slain with combined effort from the group, but only after injuring Alloro and reacting to a hurled insult from Aluwyn, in abysmal. This fact shows that this mare is a fiend, originating from the depths of hell.

Havarast now remembers a childhood-story about how this woods are cursed and lone travellers often disappeared without a trace. Indeed, both elves feel that the forest all around them are corrupted and deeply disturbed. This becomes clear again when Ryo suddenly dashes off into the woods, so Ruven has to chase after him.

Following Ruven, Aluwyn and Havarast make the acquaintance with yet another shapeshifter-creature. While catching his dire wolf, Ruven discovers the entrance of a cave, from which shines a light.

After conferring, it is decided to explore this cave. Once inside, the group is attacked by a creature with a seemingly alive beard that can also attack its opponents. Shortly after engaging this creature, it is joined by a second of his kind. Both were split in half by Porof and his almighty glaive, over which he seems to lose control more and more.

Exploring the cave a bit more, they find two furious caged water hags. Their prison ward is a more powerful, evil hag that engages the group in a drawn out battle and also seems to be behind the shapeshifters that plagued the group before. She calls more of her shapeshifting servants, ultimately causing Ryo to go down. Havarast, after exchanging hits with the hag, is being cut down as well, but Aluwyn heals him quickly afterwards. Ruven in turn manages to stabilise the condition of his dire wolf.

Meanwhile, Porofs mighty weapon developed a mind of its own and tries its best to corrupt Porof to go into a blood rage. Porof only narrowly keeps control over his body as his friends fight for their lives against both the hag and her shapeshifting servants.

The Cursed Treasure

The fight continues and the party is badly injured. But in the end, they managed to defeat the nighthag which is now unconscious. Aluwyn puts the hag in manacles and Kylin is already picturing herself how she is going to wring everything out of the hag. Aluwyn is extinguishing the five candles on top of the skulls one by one, each flame shortly growing before finally dying. Only two candles are left, but the moment Aluwyn tries to extinguish the second last one, it disappears; the same happens with the last one. Havarast who is currently sitting on top of the hag, suddenly falls to the ground.

Just after everyone’s heart skipped a beat, the hag reappears with her bloodcurdling laugh, unscathed and with two goblins. The goblins both equipped with gruesome blades and hiding their faces behind long hoods start attacking Porof and Aluwyn. Both are not able to withstand the assault and go down. Alloro and Kylin are dealing heavy blows but the goblins don’t seem to care, as they feel fear nor pain. Ruven strikes with both his blades and pierces one of the goblins skull, dealing a devastating blow. Aluwyn who is bleeding out musters her last strength and manages to stand up, save Porof from certain death, and throw an insult at the last goblin, so devastating that the worm in its eye turns back in shame and eats the brain.

The party can finally rest.

Alloro and Kylin are now trying to get the other two Hags inside the cages to talk. One is unable to speak because of her missing tongue, the other one despite being tortured by Kylin, is only willing to cooperate if she is guaranteed her freedom. Kylin promises to release her, but only when the party is going to leave themselves. Further inspecting the cave, Kylin finds a button in a small hole inside the wall which opens to another room, filled with mountains of gold and gems.

Meanwhile Ruven and Alloro are outside hunting for food. Ruven is playing a game of “can Alloro spot me”. After shooting a buck Ruven asks Alloro about the head in the sky. Alloro explains that he has been framed by a rival family, banished from his homeland and is kill on sight for all elves.

Back in the cave Kylin and Aluwyn have learnt that the treasure is probably cursed, as Aluwyn had a bad feeling while touching it. Kylin finds a weird bottle with storm clouds and a ship inside. She recognizes the ship as the legendary "Devilsfall" a ship that is knows by every sailor, even though most don’t believe in those fairy tales. Aluwyn goes to wake up Porof but tries to touch his glaive. Porof suddenly sitting up, having blue instead of his normal brown eyes, seems different. Aluwyn is scared by Porof's weird behaviour and casts charm on him. The person controlling Porof's body introduces itself as Suffering. After regaining control, Porof explains how Suffering is talking to him and wants him to go east to the lake.

Ruven and Alloro finally return from their successful hunt with enough meat for days. The group has set up watch shifts and tries to catch some rest. In the middle of the night a man with his head in his lap, riding a dark horse arrives at the cave. The mysterious man does not show any signs of hostility and says that he is looking for something for his captain. The man is oblivious of the fact that his head is not on top of his neck.

< a lot of head puns later >

Kylin returns into the cave to wake up Porof, who is the only one that is still asleep. Kylin quickly closes the secret door and hides the button. The party finds out that the man is called Jack and served on the Devilsfall. Jack enters the cave and quickly finds the secret button but is confused why he could not find his ship among the treasures.

Kylin and Aluwyn argue about what to do with the ship that Kylin pocketed. Kylin wants to keep the legendary ship but Aluwyn wants to return it. Porof butts in and proposes to return the ship so Jack owes the party a favour. After Kylin hands the ship to Porof he goes to Jack and shows it to him. Jack announces that the one who finds the Devilsfall, shall be its captain, making Porof the new captain of the Devilsfall. The group decides to use the ship to intercept their dwarven brothers in Marymar.

The following roles have been assigned to/picked by the party members:

• First Mate: Kylin
• Navigator: Marco
• Gunner: Havarast
• Crow’s nest: Ruven
• Captain: Porof
• Quartermaster: Jack

Running in Circles

After an uneventful night the group, except Alloro who is still sleeping, starts to discuss about their plan again, and conclude that they will the lake first. Kylin wants to test the reaction of one of the hags to the cursed treasure, so she throws a gem at the cage which somehow gives the hag the power to rip the cage open. She laughs and flees from the cave.

Kylin concludes that the treasure’s curse cannot be that bad, puts on a shiny ring and fills her pockets with gold. Ruven starts cooking the remaining bunny and gives its skin to Havarast while waiting for Alloro to stop his meditation. Aluwyn still wants to experiment with the treasure and puts on a glove to touch the treasure. A warm feeling crawls into her arm, and she wants someone else to give the treasure to the remaining hag. Jack starts filling up a bag with gold and throws a coin to Aluwyn who then directly throws it to the hag. The hag seems to not be affected at all and inspects the coin. She starts to turn from blue to pale and back. She also mentions that she does not need money while scarying Aluwyn.

Alloro wakes up and first asks why they changed the plan again. Porof explains it and then lets Alloro inspect his glaive. It seems to be some sort of host for a soul of a female.

After another discussion about the second sea hag they decide to keep their word and let her free. Porof tries to break the cage but fails. Havarast wants to have a go at the cage as well and gets pushed back by some force when he tries to break it. Alloro inspects the cage and realizes that there are runes all over it. He destroys one of them with his sword, which starts to glow magically while cutting. This allows Havarast to finally SMASH the cage.

The sea hag holds her word as well and tells the group about the treasure. It does not seem to be cursed, but marked with a location spell. If the group steals the treasure the hag will probably follow them and try to get it back. After harassing some members of the group, the sea hag finally leaves.

After a long discussion guided by greed they split up the treasure between the members who have touched it. Havarast is asked to inspect the gems to be able to take the most valuable with them. He instinctively grabs the gem presented to him, making him affected as well. Aluwyn empties out her bag of gold, which Alloro tries to avoid by jumping around. They replace all the gold with the most valuable gems.

Finally, they start their journey to the lake, passing by a burnt down tree. They walk a day’s worth of distance and then set up their camp. After a failed attempt to train Ryo and Havarast laughing about it they go to sleep. During the second watch something big seems to build up on the horizon. It collapses immediately after the sound of a big explosion.

The next morning there still is a visible dust cloud in the east. They continue their travels to the west. Alloro and Ruven were teaching Porof how to navigate on land which after a while turned into Alloro and Havarast arguing about mountains vs hills.

In the evening Aluwyn tries to find out more about the treasure’s curse by identifying Kylin's ring, and is somehow able to cure her by using a stone she found in the night hag’s lair. She decides to check out everyone in one of the tents in a pretty rapey manner. She does not find anything on Alloro, Havarast and Ruven.

She then moves on to check out Porof and his glaive, which turns out to be harder than expected. She tries to touch his glaive which starts to glow, lighting up the whole tent. Porof puts his glaive outside of the tent, but somehow is not able to. He thinks he did but he did not and gets pretty pissed about everything. Aluwyn decides to inspect Porof first, but he struggles to get his shirt off with his glaive in his hand. He gets more and more pissed and accidentally cuts a hole in the tent. Aluwyn finally gets to inspect him, but his glaive starts glowing again slowly taking over his whole arm. Aluwyn charms Porof as she thinks it’s the only way to get him to put his glaive outside. The whole process repeats and he still has his glaive in his hand. The people around the tent are visibly confused. Aluwyn tries to inspect him again, ignoring the glow and the force which pushes her back. An ethereal halfling woman start to grow out of Porof. Aluwyn tries to touch the ethereal woman but gets pushed back hard. At this point the whole group interferes and Havarast tries to hold down the ethereal woman. Aluwyn shifts into the ethereal plane and asks the woman what’s wrong, to which she replied “get off of me”. Aluwyn then shifts back and gets hit by the woman’s ethereal glaive. The woman then pushes back Havarast and gets back into Porof, who is still pissed. The woman’s last words mentioned that the group was going for the wrong lake, and that the correct one is further to the west. “On the other side of the lake, across the tundra, across two rivers and the last hill”.

The group expect for Porof discussed the situation and decided to change the plan again and go north to the mountain chain, waiting for their brothers.

A Leap Into the Ocean

Waking up the next day the party realize that Aluwyn has gone missing. Deciding to go looking for her and go hunting at the same time the two humans and the two elves split up in different directions. They agreed on meeting up again within an hour. Kylin tries to make the hunting a competition starts a bet, that the elves do not seem to take to seriously. Porof and Kylin find in the north a lot of rabbit holes. The two humans split up and cover as many holes as possible. Kylin fires a series of magic missile to kill 3 rabbits while Porof almost scores a home run by kicking a rabbit over a large distance.

Meanwhile Alloro and Ruvencome across some tracks that later get identified as warg tracks. Upon this discovery the returned back to camp which has been guarded so far by Havarast. After relaying the threat and agreeing to immediately head to the beach the party gets ready to leave. Lin is still quick to point out that the humans won this round of hunting making the score 1:0 to the humans. Regarding Aluwyn disappearance the party agrees that she either will meet up at the beach or she will find her own way.

The Devilsfall

At the beach the party meet up again with the dwarves. Swiftly the three sailors Alloro,Porof and Lin jump into the ocean and swim out for about 500 ft. The dwarves just watch on in amusement of how crazy they are. Once far enough out Porof opens up the bottle. After a brief second the ship slowly pushes itself magically through the opening of the bottle with numerous thunderclouds. Once the boat is fully afloat the sailors board the ship where Linand Alloro immediately get assaulted by a monkey. After inspecting the ship and anchoring the rest of the party get picked up from the beach. On the ship the group decide on spending a day anchored to teach the inexperienced in the hopes of having an easier journey to the land of the goblins.

The Dust Cloud

After Alloro goes for a swim in the morning (and makes a habit of it as the group stays anchored), the sailors try to teach the dwarves the basics of sailing. While Torebol, Numnum and Hardel learn rather quickly, Havarast and Maruk have a hard time because they are too busy puking over the reeling. Ruven has a few herbs that would remedy the puking, but he is reluctant to hand them over, which leads to Havarast puking in his hammock at night. Due to Aluwyn missing, Havarast gets ‚promoted‘ to engineer.

In the evening, everybody goes swimming and it ends in a water fight between the dwarves and the rest of the crew. After Kylin casts enlarge on Porof, this fight ends rather quickly though.

On the way to the village north of Marymar, the group encounters a big dust-cloud, probably coming from what used to be Marymar. They sail around it and arrive at the village some three days later. As they are sailing under no flag, the group is met with distrust and the major of the village, Eastwatch, refuses to trade with them. However, he agrees to trade if they escort a messenger, the 15 year old Eggbert, to Direward. Leopold, the major, tells the group that Marymar one day rose into the sky before plummeting down on the ground again. A few days later, a black ship with undead creatures landed on the beach and raided the village. All messengers sent to Direward never returned, therefore we should escort Eggbert.

While the group waits on the beach for the travel-preparations to Direward to finish, Eggbert invites Alloro to show him part of the path they would be travelling. Havarast decides to join them. The boy suddenly attacks Alloro with a dagger. Havarast swings his battle axe, but the ‚boy‘ seems to be resistant to all his efforts and transforms into a cat-like creature. On the other hand, Alloro with his magic sword does not seem to have this problem. The creature charms Alloro into attacking Havarast, but the spell vanishes after Havarast hits Alloro once. Due to Havarast axe not making any damage, he decides to incapacitate and gag the creature while Alloro fights him with his magic sword. The claws of the creature almost kill both of them, making Havarast unconscious. Alloro just barely manages to kill it with a spell after it turned invisible and tried to run away.

After the rest of the group finds their badly wounded companions and they are returning to the village, Leopold denies knowing anything about these creatures, but he is clearly horrified. Also, Eggbert was with him at all times, so the attacking creature could not have been Eggbert. After taking everything from the creature, including two vials, two daggers and a handwritten note, it is buried. The group returns to the ship for the night, where Havarast regains his consciousness again. Jack can shed light on the ominous note the creature had on him and informs the group that it was most likey a Rakshasa and the note is a death-note. This note usually has a name on it and the Rakshasa will not rest until either itself or the creature whos' name is written on the note is dead.

During the night, neither Alloro nor Havarast can get any rest, because they have horrible nightmares. This will continue in the following nights as well, leaving them exhausted and not rested in the morning.

The next morning, the group and Eggbert start their journey towards Direward. While they are talking to Eggbert, he mentions that Rigalis, whom the group met before in Marymar, is now a refugee from there, but Eggbert hasn't seen him for several days now. The closer the group gets to the dust cloud surrounding what used to be Marymar, the deader the nature gets. During the night watches, the group spots humanoid figures walking around in the dust, but they‘re never getting any closer to their camp.

Once the group is nearing the dust cloud, Havarast notices that the cloud seems to expand, and not for natural reasons.

The group gets swallowed by the cloud soon after and all the light sources they have prepared (a fire, several torches and several magic light orbs) die and the visibility is very poor. The only light source seemingly unimpressed by the dust is an elvish light Porof has on him.

The humanoid figures spotted earlier, now approach them. Their movement is stiff and slow. The group assumes they are zombies and attack them. The battle is won quickly and with little damage taken. Though they are still lost in the dust cloud with no sense of direction and wander around in it, seemingly aimlessly searching for Direward. The only reason they don‘t lose themselves is because they have tied themselves together with a long rope.

The Source of the Cloud

The party was still trapped inside the dustcloud, their vision limited to only a few meters, no way to tell north from south and limited food and water. Any fire they try to make gets slowly extinguished by the dust, the only thing keeping the darkness away are Kylin's dancing lights. After drifting around for countless hours, the party decides to rest. While everyone is sleeping, Porof hears how more of the previous encountered creatures walk into the camp. The creatures seem to ignore Porof whose loudest noise is his heartbeat. Havarast is less subtle in his approach and uses his greataxe to make quick work of the first creature he sees. As the combat sounds seem to leave the camp, Porof checks the rope that was supposed to connect the party members, just to realize that Havarast's end has been cut. Now everyone is awake but there is nothing the party can do. They only find a few dismembered creatures with blue skin, long nails and teeth.

The rest of the night passes eventless.

On the next day, the party finds that the dust is less dense in one direction. Following this direction, the party arrives at a steep cliff. Hesitating but after seeing that the dust is less dense downwards the party descends into the unknown. The theory emerges that this crater, which was not on any map, might be where Marymar used to be. Arriving at the bottom the party sees a familiar crooked man, Wormtongue. He seems to be chanting something, only Ruven or Alloro, (not sure anymore) recognized the language as black speech. Wormtongue does not make a welcoming impression and talks about his master Blaidd Drwg. Kylin and Porof try to play it cool and walk away from this but Wormtongue has other plans. A large spherical creature with a large eye in the middle and four tentacles growing out of it rises from the dust and attacks the party. Wormtongue turns away from the party and walks through a portal that opens in front of him. Ruven proclaims that the portal must lead to a place in the far west by how the other side looks. Alloro and Kylin unleash a barrage of brutal attacks on the creature but it does not seem to feel pain. Hit by a beam from one of the tentacles Porof runs from the creature, towards Eggbert and throws him on the ground. Alloro is chopping off one tentacle after another but before the last tentacle has been cut a bright beam hits him and reduces him to a pile of ash. After finishing off the creatures the party gathers around the pile of ash that used to be Alloro. Porof collects Alloro's ashes inside the bottle of the Devilsfall. Next to where the portal was the party finds six bodies, 3 elves with green, blue and yellow robes, a human in purple, a dragonborn in gray garment and a gnome wearing something that looks similar to what Aluwyn wore. The dragonborn is the only alive, even though barely. In his dying breaths he wispers: “I’m sorry for it”. The bodies show signs of torture, but the cause of death seems to be exhaustion. With Wormtongue’s disappearing the dustcloud also started to settle. Now finally being able to see, the party can make out that they are indeed inside a crater. After burning the Beholder’s body, the party leaves the crater westwards where they find the sea where they put up camp. Ruven playing with Ryo manages to teach him how to [disengage] from combat.

During the first guard shift Eggbert wakes up the group claiming to have spotted a wolf. Porof takes out a javelin and throws his glaive, missing the wolf by a few meters. After further inspection the wolf looks more like a sheep. As the sheep approaches the party it starts turning into a human. The human introduces himself as Astreus, a traveller and spellcaster. Astreus carries a rusty greatclub and a sling with stones. Astreus explains to Porof that the stones are magical and after a disbelieving look promptly demonstrates them and convinces him that they really contain magic. Astreus also displays his magic skills showing the party that he can handle himself in combat. Together with Astreus the party follows the path to Direward. Except for the ferry station missing, Porof being visible unsettled by Direwoods and Ruven spending the evening teaching Ryo, nothing noteworty happens before the party arrives at Direward.

With their banishment in mind the party wants to send Astreus with Eggbert so they don’t have to enter Direward, but seeing it completely deserted they enter anyway to further investigate what is going on. As the party visits the tavern, they get confronted by a small group of warriors whose leader calls himself Rasputin. Rasputin tells the party that warforged attacked the village and Putin died an honourable death protecting the villagers who fled into the forest. Rasputin wants to talk to Eggbert alone and tells the party to wait in the tavern in the meantime. Astreus turns into a rat after he enters the tavern and tries to eavesdrop on Rasputin, but a guard throws his javelin at him as he leaves the tavern and turns him right back into his human form. Astreus explains that he only wanted to find a barn to make himself comfortable.

The Party Forks Up

Druid (Astreus) wants to stay in Direward to fill up potions. Porof argues that they should leave now to return to the village with Eggbert for the message.

They agree to help the Druid find his ingredients.

When they leave the tavern, Havarast bolts into the tavern, apparently being chased by a Bugbear (Fork). The bear is accompanied by a mechanical panda with spoons for ears. Astreus casts growing spiky plants out of the floor around Havarast and the Bugbear. Havarast tries to tackle Astreus but hilariously fails.

Havarast and Fork are being chased by weird tentacle beard creatures.

As the group is reunited, a third creature bursts into the tavern through the backdoor. It is all chained up and is wielding two chains. Meanwhile, two of the bearded devils are breaking through the door despite the effort of Porof. Ruven kills the chain devil with two arrows (they break).

After the group finally killed the two devils and the chained devil, yet another big ass, 18ft creature appears and attacks Kylin, almost killing her, while she‘s floating outside the tavern.

She teleports back to the tavern and they unanimously decide to get the fuck out of there. Fork teleports the whole group (and Eggbert) to the Shadowfell.

Thanks to a magic coin Fork got from his mentor, the group manages to return to the material plane again, inside a halfling‘s hut. The halfling woman apparently remembers fork (both think Balthasar, Forks mentor, is either a wanker or a piss-wizard). After a bit, Fork remembers that the woman was an old friend of his mentor, Bree.

Apparently, the coin that brought the group there is linked to a coin Bree has in her possession. By chance, Bree lives in Eastbreak, the village where they set off with Eggbert. Eggbert is pretty shaken from this ordeal.

Bree asks the group to hitch a hike from the group. Ruven (quite unsucessfully) tries to convince the major of Eastbreak that they fulfilled their side of the contract and they should trade with them.

Bree interrupts the argument and asks the group to wait inside the hut while she discusses something with the major. The group notices some magic happening happening and when Havarast tries to retrieve his Great Axe he left outside, they notice Bree trashing the village guard. Afterwards, she vanishes.

The major agreed to restock the groups supplies and while the group waits for the supplies on the beach, a dwarven soldier approaches Havarast and respectfully addresses him as a captain. Havarast, taking aback from this unexpected sign of respect considering his rather unhonourable ‚discharge‘ from the army, fucks up this encounter in every way humanly (or, dwarvenly) possible. The soldier tells Havarast to just get outta here and take Bree with them.

Heading for new Shores

Note by the transcriber: Those pages have been exposed to fluids and cannot be recovered. Sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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After leaving Bree’s house the group heads towards the ship. On their way the group splits up, Kylin, Ruven and Astreus head straight to the ship, while Porof and Havarast want to check out Eastbreak. Havarast and Porof get stopped by a small group of battle-hardened looking dwarves. The one leading the group acts condescending towards Havarast and Porof, Havarast sends Porof away and tells him that he will handle this himself. The dwarf who is Havarast’s nephew is asking him to rescue his sister who got abducted by goblins and Havarast replies that he was going to kill all those goblins either way and he will keep an eye open for her. Meanwhile Kylin, Astreus and Ruven board the Devilsfall, finding hungry and displeased dwarves that have been waiting for a good meal for quite some time now, expecting a much sooner return of the group. Kylin decides to serve some of the expensive alcohol they still have in the barrel and hand out good gold to appease the crew.

After Havarast and Porof have caught up with the group, the major arrives with a pie his wife baked to thank the adventurers. The adventurers tell the major everything that happened, what happened to Marymar, how they lost Alloro, what caused the dust cloud, how Direward got raided and about the encounter with the demonic gigantic creature. Ruven and Kylin make a quick shopping trip and return with some herbs and a flute.

After some more drinking and feasting, Porof asks for a moment of silence, to commemorate their fallen comrade Alloro. After holding a short speech Porof puts Alloros ashes on a plank together with an elven charm that shines a light to guide Alloro in the dark. Before leaving their view, a small cloud in the shape of Alloro rises from the sea and bids the group a last farewell. The new crew member Astreus is given the role of the ship’s medic.

The next day, Porof now also in charge of navigation besides training the dwarves and her regular duties as first mate is staring to take longer and longer shifts, and the steadily decreasing reserve of alcohol does not make the situation any better. A weird devil in a suit appears on the ship and introduces himself as Salarus, a businessman who could not care less about the Devilsfall and is only in for the money. Not many trusting him, the crew declines his offers but keeps his “businesscard” just in case. Salarus says that whenever they need him they can call him with it, but he’s not a mercenary. He also informs the crew that there is a bounty on their heads, which leads to some banter.

• Havarast 2500 gold
• Porof 1000 gold
• Ruven 800 gold
• Kylin 600 gold

After seeing Porof going away from the group and starting to talk to himself, Astreus tries eavesdrop on him. He hears how Porof is talking to someone while holding his glaive, making a deal that for one hour she can do what she wants but won’t require any more praising. After this strange encounter, Porof starts exercising and jumping around, climbing the mast and other weird stuff. Astreus going back to his hobby continues brewing potions under deck.

After a few days of traveling westwards Ruven calls “Land ahead”, in front of a huge cliff the ship stops, and the adventurers leave to climb the big wall. Havarast is all to eager to finally set foot on land again and leads the climb. Arriving at the top Ruven finds some goblin tracks and off goes Porof in the direction Ruven was pointing. The charge is stopped by an arrow flying towards the group from the brushes and six goblins standing in front of Porof requesting them to pay toll. Porof avoids paying any toll by cutting them down in one single swoop of his glaive. Kylin shoots a firebolt in the brush from where the arrow came flying, and Havarast quickly charges into the brush. Further following the tracks and leaving a bloody trail behind the adventurers arrive at a cave with even more goblins.

Gobblin' up them Enemies

Note by the transcriber: I vaguely remember them entering some cave?

As they spot the first hobgoblins, they start to attack them like animals while being escorted by a group of crocodiles. The hobgoblins form a strong shield wall with tower shields that can't be broken. Porof, the hero he is, jumps right over it, ignoring the danger of being enclosed by a shield wall with the enemy. Shortly after Porof drops to 0hp the crocodiles are able to bash through the wall, leaving a small opening in the middle. The party kills two of the goblins, forcing the rest to flee. Havarast charges after them, running straight onto the bridge the goblins just lit on fire. He crashes through it into the stream below that leads out of the cave. He run then runs back to the group, straight through the magical spikes laid down just moments before by Ruven.

After a discussion as usual they decide to follow through with their genial plan to observe the cave for the following hours. They leave the cave in the direction they came from, making a huge circle around the entrance to the other side, all while hiding their tracks. But the plan did not yield the results they expected. After a whole day and night of observing they conclude that the entrance will probably not be used anymore in the near future. As their goal seems to be on the top of the mountain anyways, they decide to walk back in direction of their brothers, the rest of the dwarves, and look for another way up the hill.

On the way back Porof tells Kylin to tell Porof that they were ambushed by the goblins. Finally reunited with the dwarves they decide to race to the top of the next hill where the smoke seems to come from. Astreus transforms into a warhorse and offers to Kylin to take her with him on his back. She thankfully accepts but struggles a little bit without a saddle. Porof gives Suffering 20 more minutes of taking over time, to beat the rest in the race, in exchange for 20 less minutes the next day. (which was kinda dumb from the start if you ask me, you can’t beat a warhorse).

On top of the hill Astreus, the winner of the race, is the first one to catch sight of an unknown village. A village inhabited by goblins and dwarves, seemingly built in the last few years out of wood and strongly defended. The rest of the group arrives out of breath on the top as well, and after a short rest they decide to talk with one of the guards first, before killing everyone.

Refugee’s Village

The group I joined is more aggressive then I expected. They seem to hate goblins especially. Know we stand in front of a simple camp with many goblin villagers. What could go wrong?

The camp is protected with a simple wooden wall and the entrance is missing a gate. It seems they don’t like new comers but let us in after we offer our help. After we enter the camp our alcoholics realise there is no bar. But at least they have a barrack with alcohol.

Our first goal is to talk to the leader of this refugee camp. He reigns from an old impressive Temple. After a short discussion with the guards in front of the temple we were granted entrance. The leader is called captain whit the name Stort. Clearly, he has rage issue.

I tried to calm him down whit a spell, but Kylin stopped me but still I am not sure way. After an unpleasant discussion Stort agreed to give us an opportunity to earn his trust.

The first quest we earned was to kill a Goblin King scout camp. We sneak up to the camp and tried to kill them whit my wolf. The goal was to make it look like a normal wolf attack and lets hope it worked. On the way to the scout camp we meet some other scouts. It’s looks like they are on our sit so we let them go.

Information’s we acquired from our new hopefully allays. The Goblin King has 5 armies:

1. The King's Guard
2. Bluct the Merciless
3. Preed the Sneaky. The scout camp we wiped out was a part of his army.
4. Xurt the Fearless
5. Glin the Tactician

Forging Aliances

The attack on the goblins was a complete success all thanks to little Ryo covering up for either Porofs or Havarst oversight. After having to urge the group on to keep up the disguise of a wolf attack.

Without any issues we made it back to the rebel camp. There we offered to help on an urgent issue of getting supplies. So as quickly as possible we pack up and head north with a friendly warning that the canyon is ideal for ambushes.

Within the same day we arrive at said canyon the stupidest asset of the group i.e. Porofs weapon decides to pick a fight with a griffin and some harpies fainting in the process and keeping here track record of victories near zero. I swear once I get the chance I will throw her into a damn volcano someday. Either way after saving the two brutes arses we decide to climb the small canyon to sleep for the night. Funny how they all struggled to get up that small cliff. Even took the good boi up the mountain with me without a sweat.

Shinies

After barely surviving again, I hear Kylins words in my head.

Your glaive threatened me! It wasn’t an ambush, you she massacred those goblins! You will die if this continues!

Suffering is a strong weapon, and I thought if I gave her some freedom, we could become a team. Maybe I must become stronger, I can’t let Suffering command me around. I tell everyone about Suffering, about the lake in the west and about our deal. I don’t want to leave Suffering here, but I must show her that this cannot continue.

“I want to put Suffering in the magical bag, can you help me with that? She can control my body and will try to stop me.”

Everyone gathers around, Kylin holds open the magical bag and I try to put Suffering into it. As expected, a familiar voice speaks in my head and my body freezes up. Havarast and Kylin grab Suffering. I tell Suffering that after what she did, she needs a timeout and should reconsider her actions. She asks me, if I didn’t want to know about my father, but I call it a bluff. Suffering she blames everyone else for what happened and even promises me power, she seems to know me even less than I thought. With one last pull Havarast and Kylin separate me from Suffering. The voice goes silent and I can move again.

Havarast seems different, his expression changed to pure terror. He holds Suffering and it looks like he is offering her to me. Havarast is my brother and I don’t know what she is doing to him. I also start having doubts, how does she know about my father? I never told her about him. I try to take Suffering back, but Kylin stops me with one of her spells. Astreus, Ruven and Kylin start discussing what to do and decide on knocking out Havarast and letting Astreus put Suffering in the bag. I tried to resist Kylin’s magic, but they seem to have a plan and now I shall be the one to trust them. With one precise hit Astreus knocks out Havarast and they manage to put Suffering in the magical bag.

We can’t stay here forever, so I carry Havarast. We continue our journey to the supply trader. After a long march we finally arrive at a cave and our kobold companion confirms that this is the right entrance. After 40 minutes of walking through the narrow cave we arrive at a hall with many kobolds. They Are captivated by Kylins dancing lights and after some haggling where Kylin gives them her diamond and some parts of the cursed treasure, a kobold leads us to a large hall with mountains of weapons. They tell us about another entrance where they can’t go anymore, and we promise them to clear it. From the mountains of weapons, I fetch a greatsword for Astreus, a scimitar for Ruven, and another greatsword, three daggers and a halbert for myself. All those weapons look in dire need of maintenance but have a silvery shine. I also get a bow with some ordinary arrows and Ruven promises me to help me with technique.

Kylin buys a magical ring and puts it on instantly.

Ruven tries to teach Ryo [help].

The kobold leads us to a vertical tunnel filled with cobwebs and Astreus turns into a spider and descends into the darkness below.

Astreus encounters multiple spiders and the deeper he goes the larger they are. The larger ones appear to be intelligent and whisper about a queen. Astreus bails and makes his way back to the surface. On his way up he casually eats some of the smaller spiders. This turns out to have been a grave mistake, as he now isn’t the only spider crawling up.

The Lair of the Spider Queen

And again, the humans decide to go heads first into a situation without any plan. I see Astreus in his spider form crawling out of the shaft, followed by masses of spiders eager to paralyse and kill us. They try to fight off some of them, but each dead spider gets replaced by ten new ones. After all those stupid situations in the past few weeks, this one breaks the straw. I can even hear bigger spiders further away… That’s a no thanks for me, I don’t see myself dead on a cavern floor.

I try to hide Ryo and myself and leave the cave. Where do I go to now? The whole region should be explored, especially the peaks to see further into the western lands. But first I need to return to the Democracy to find the Alloro family and return what is left of Varis. I kind of feel bad for leaving the dwarves behind, but hey, they decided to adventure with some out of control humans.

Astreus causes an area on the ground to grow spikes, many spiders crawling through drop dead. He hands out some of his magic pebbles to Havarast and Porof. They throw them at full force while Kylin casts her usual favourites. Kylin wants to collapse the shaft but before the whole proceeding is thoroughly discussed through Astreus creates a moonbeam which kills most of the spiders crawling up. One of the bigger spiders that made its way through throws a web on all the party members, restraining them on the spot. The attack and kill some more spiders, Astreus calls for help, Porof and Havarast rush to help and Porof steals the kill. They both rush again, this time to the last spider and Havarast can secure a kill for himself as well.

They inspect the cave and the shaft, no spider is left, finally silence. They spend the night (if It even really is night) in the smaller cave before entering the shaft, for security reasons. Next morning, well rested and with a fresh portion of curious and stupid Kylin casts mage armour onto herself and jumps down the shaft. Well rested and with a fresh portion of courageous and stupid Porof jumps straight after her, trying to save thy lady. Well rested and with a shitload of spells Astreus transforms himself into a spider again and jumps onto Porof just before he jumps. Followed by the climbing Havarast they all arrive down in the shaft, ready with dancing lights to explore the Spider Queens Lair. After not too long they find something moving entangled in spider webs.

Where am I? Who are these people? Why is my mouth so dry? I try to open my eyes and only see three bright spheres around me. “Let’s kill him anyways” I hear. Finally, my eyes adapt to the light and I see four strangers around me. I tell them about the research I did, how I got into this cave, and how I do not work with the spiders. The female human tells me about the cave and asks me if I have a map of them. I look for my spellbook, its still around my torso, but I only find a map of the region. How long have I been in here? I need to observe the stars to find out as soon as possible.

They introduce themselves as Porof, Kylin, Astreus and Havarast, the last one being the dwarf who wanted to kill me just minutes earlier. Why is he so aggressive, where does all this hate come from? They say that they will find an exit out of the cave, so following them for now is probably the best decision.

We go through some tunnels, and while the Dwarf geeks out about the different stones used the spiderwebs on the walls get thicker every few steps. On our way we find more spider snack bags, supposedly this is how I looked only some time ago. The brave soldiers cut them all open, but sadly nothing could be saved. Among the other victims no mutations could be found, which could mean that they do not eat other creatures with mutations.

Kylin starts burning away the spider webs on the wall, and many burnt small spiders fall out. Astreus starts eating them as snacks, joined by Havarast. We make our way into a bigger cave, and Kylin and I start blasting away to burn all the spiderwebs. Suddenly the Queen announces herself in elvish and tells us to leave. But we must stay and kill her, else I will never get to investigate how this mutation happened.

Porof tries to talk to her about the weather, Havarast somehow tries to get into her pants and I try to get to the root of it all. How did she get this way? “My family did this” she says. I must follow this clue if nothing else comes out of this. Then she shows herself in all her glory, upper body of a drow, lower body of a spider. A true queen of a mutant. I shall propose to index her as “queen mutant”. Some smaller mutations number 7 show up behind us and before we can do anything they start to attack.

With one mighty spell the Spider Queen instantly paralyzes Havarast, Kylin and Porof. Havarast can free himself from the effects immediately, but the rest isn’t that lucky. In the corner of my eyes I see Porof as he hits the floor. Kylin is the next one to fall, still paralyzed. Then one of these number 7 things bites me straight into the leg…

Astreus and Havarast, now in a helpless situation, continue fighting. With the help of Astreus’ wolfs and Havarast’s burning rage they can decimate the spiders pretty decently. Havarast has some weirdly sexual exchanges with the Spider Queen, including her biting off one of his nipples. At that moment Porof comes back from the dead and cleans up the rest of the spiders. The Spider Queen climbs to the top of the cave out of Havarast’s reach, finally fleeing from the cave.

Escape the Lair of the Spider Queen and the Army of Xuart

We pocked the Spider Queen! We need to do something about it, but first wee need to rest. We try to escape through the entrance we came from. But the ground is wet? It wasn’t wet before! Havarast as careful as he is tries the water and realises it was a stupid idea. His tongue gets numb. So we call it Num-Num water. This water is clearly not natural. So we search another exit.

Whit no choice left we go back where we fought the Spider Queen. We need to find an exit. We start to inspect the 6 exits from the cave. Havarast tells us this is an old Dwarfen fort. I actually do not care but maybe we find an exit with this information. Note: A strange spider. When you use spells on the Spider it grows. Good for plug and collapse caves.

As it always is the case dwarfs have different rooms whit different usages. Luckily for us they were named (Barracks, Rich, Posh, Throne room, slums and the entrance). This cave had as well an fresh are connection but not all of us could climb as god as a spider or file like Darfin.

After an unnecessary discussion, we just need to take a direction, we chose to go in the direction of the barracks. We walked and walked always in direction of the barracks until we found a way without a name. We hoped it’s an exit and it was.

Finally we took our long-needed rest. In the morning the other decided to go out of the cave but I know we pocked the spider so the spider is going to change it’s behaviour. It could attack the village or the kobold hideout. But I know we did this. We need to fix it.

I have to say it was a good decision to go back to the camp. Then without us the village would have been destroyed. With out hesitation we fought of the Goblin King’s men. I think it was the army of Xurt. We then had 2 options to give the final blow to Xurt army or kill the spiders. For me it is clear we need to fight the spider, then walls are useless agents spiders and so we decided.

Other things that happened:

• Kylin and Porof tried to fight Xurt but it looks like he is very strong. The just barely escaped.
• Kylin threw all weapons in the bag of holding on the ground. Including Porof’s glaive.
• Porof saved the live of the guard caption so he offered his live in return.
• We Call us "Infernal Storm"

After the battle we met up with the king of this Refugee Camp. He was great full and gave us 2 options to kill Xurt or the Spider Queen. Clearly, we chose the bigger threat the Spider Queen. Meanwhile Porof searched for his glaive and he found it. I don’t understand how he could touch that glaive again? But he did. The glaive offered him information about his father and tried to deceive us but I know whit this glaive comes nothing god. That is not even the worst part it seems like the glaive got more power. Maybe by the reduced distance to it’s lacked?

Spinning of Plans

Porof returns with his glaive in his hands and Suffering is having control over his body. After arguing with Suffering, where she couldn't rub two bitchy brain cells together to realise that a compromise might actually benefit us all she surprisingly puts herself into the bag. Good for her, as had she of carried on I would have made sure she either spends some horrific months by her self or have killed that selfish, presumptuous whore.

After a night of celebrating our victory we decide on securing the supply rout through the mountains by exterminating the Spider Queen. So we head back to the caves and finding out along the way that there is also a slave shipment near coming by in a couple of days. I guess we will have a lot to do in the next couple of days. Luckily I no longer have to take on multiple responsibilities as a week or so ago as we are no longer on the ship and the Bitch will not take Porofs body and just be a pile of useless shit that will get herself killed.

The Parting of Porof and the Huge Fucking Thing

As we had decided to deal with the Spider Queen first (who still owes me my nipple), we stopped for the night at the entrance to the cave-system. However, we had an unexpected visitor; a small goblin by the name Tabberit brought us a message from Xurt the Fearless - He challenged Porof to a duel (and didn't even have the courage or courtesy to show up himself). Porof was suspiciously delighted with the prospect of this duel, as he put it 'causing some collateral'. Despite several, probably unsuccessful, appeals to his honour and honesty and the sacredness of a duel, I am not convinced that he will not die while trying to murder an entire Goblin-battalion by himself. At least he didn't take this cursed blade with him. Thanks to this I now have two beautifully silvered greatswords, as our Druid so foolishly decided to pick up the cursed blade instead.

Anyway, so we made our way into the caves to confront the spider-queen. Instead of directly heading towards the center-cavern where the last battle with the queen and her underlings, we decided to go through the barracks. Before us stood a marvellously crafted dwarven-gate, a true pinnacle of dwarven craftsmanship. Sadly, it was completely breached by what must have been an enormous battering ram of a dimension that is completely unheard of. Considering these caverns are overrun with huge spiders, it could very well have been an extraordinarily big spider. This suspicion was confirmed later on, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. As we followed a big hole in the wall, we stumbled upon an old mass and armoury. The armoury was stocked full with excellently made dwarven-steel weapons, but time has not been kind to them, so we let them be. Instead, we climbed up the stairs of the barracks. At all times, we were swarmed by hundreds upon hundreds of spiders. Astreus tried to keep them at bay by casting spiked vines, but that did not hinder them in any meaningful way. Instead I hacked my way up the stairs through spiders and vines alike.

On the second level of the barracks, I was met with spiders too big to reasonably handle. That's when we heard it - THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. We had found the aforementioned 'extraordinarily big spider'. It was around 9 ft tall and thrice as long. With loud 'THUMP' sounds, it crawled towards us and was soon met with fire and flames from the spell casters in our party. It apparently did not care that much and kept getting nearer. Once in reasonable range, Kylin had the bright idea to teleport herself and me on the back of that damn thing. That worked well for about 3/4 of a second, until the spider reared up and I fell back to the ground floor again. Luckily I was too angry already to care that much. While I mercilessly hacked away at the hind legs of the cursed creature (with varying success rates), Astreus, Kylin and Darfin bombarded it with flames, stones and lightning.

Astreus soon fell victim to a bite of the spider and was paralysed and later unconscious. Meanwhile, Kylin and a shrilly screaming Darfin kept on weakening the spider, until I was finally able to deliver a last, devastating blow to split the fucker's head open. Was a damn mess but well worth it. While Darfin was oddly curious about all kinds of fluids of the creature and Kylin tended to Astreus, I had not seen enough spider-blood yet and took off after the - now fleeing - smaller spiders. Afterwards we all took a well-deserved rest in the now cleared second story of the barracks.

Xurt's Challenge

The goblin leads me further east, into the forest. It’s taking quiet some time and the goblin seems afraid of something. After seeing nothing but trees for hours, a body dangling from a tree disturbs the scenery. The corpse is too small to be human, too slim for a dwarf and it bears the insignia of the rebels. My first guess would be that it’s Xurts doing. The goblin vehemently denies that this was done by Xurt’s men. I ask him if there is someone else inhabiting the lands besides Xurts minions and the rebels. The goblin denies this again, but as Lin would have said, something is fishy. I won’t take his lies anymore and remind him that the person he should be most afraid of here is me. While pinning him down and trying to squeeze some answers out of him, an arrow digs into my skin and two more graze me. Before running for cover I grab the traitor at his throat and hold him up as a shield, trying to make out where and how many enemies there are. I notice three, one with heavy steps coming straight at me and two trying to encircle me. The next arrow flying at me ends the goblins life and I quickly dispose of him. A short fight ensues with multiple goblins shooting each other. I let the one that looks like their leader live, to get some answer. Who sent them and why does he want me dead? Where is their camp? But before I can get any answers, a group of hooded, also small creatures appears. At least this time they don’t try to shoot me and try talking instead. I’ve been betrayed enough and demand to see their face. A young-looking halfling woman reveals her face and tells me that my party needs me. They promise to interrogate the hobgoblin for me and one of them leads me back to the cave. Not having Lin or a tinderbox, it takes some time and effort to light a torch. Following loud noises and rumbling, I descend into the dark.

We Should Never Have Come Here

After following combat noises and rumbling in this dark hell, I finally see light and hear familiar voices. The group is taking a short rest and tending to their wounds. Darfin is taking samples from all the spider specimen. The spiders are clearly not normal, with malformed shells. Darfin proceeds to cut up the spiders and extract their poison, not sure where to put it he first uses a cooking pot. [[Havarast Stoneaxes|Havarast]] strolls around the cantine and barracks but returns before he gets lost or attacked in these giant halls. after Havarast returns, Lin tries to clean him with a spell but it hass no effect. Lin and Havarast spot me in the dark and approach me, first prepared to fight but a bit more friendly after recognizing me. Meanwhile Astreus pulls out some odd vessels and helps Darfin safely contain the poison. Lin and Astreus still suspect me of being Suffering and demand Porof back, but I deny everything.

Havarast starts leading the group down the maze, stopping at every intersection to read the signs and taking the path towards the throneroom. We arrive at a room that looks like some battle took place a long time ago, with makeshift barricades out of wooden furniture. After breaking down the rotten wood we enter a giant stonehall with several cobwebs, fallen over pillars, statues of dwarves and a large throne. Havarast identifies one of the statues as Dane Ingotfeet who lived 500-600 years ago. Lin and Darfin start burning down the spider nests and killing all the spiders escaping. Every time a nest goes ablaze we hear a rumble in the distance. I approach the throne and Havarast follows me.

Hobgoblins approach from all directions holding giant tower shields and blocking every entrance. We see multiple large spiders coming from a shaft in the ceiling. An enraged Spider Queen starts shooting us and targeting Lin . While the spiders are still at the ceiling I grab the dwarven crown and put it on my head. Havarast had it and charges me, even tho I try to stop him, there is no stopping this furious dwarf. He takes me down and the crown goes flying towards one of the large spiders. A fight ensues and Lin goes down multiple times. Astreus summons multiple large reptiles, Darfin torches the spiders. But all our efforts are not enough, and after Astreus is hurt too badly and the creatures disappear, he also loses consciousness. After being hit by a full volley, I also go down with a large puddle of blood forming around me. Darfin uses his last energy to create a shield to stop the incoming arrows but can't hold this for long and goes down. Astreus body starts moving again and runs over to my unconscious body to grab the bow and shoots the Spider Queen in a last effort attempt to help Havarast, but another volley drops him with large bleeding wounds. Havarast takes one last shot at the Spider Queen before even he can't hold up anymore and collapses.

The not so Great Escape and Parting of Friends

With a very bad headache I wake up to hear goblins making a massive row. I am in a very small cage with Darfin who is still unconscious. Biding my time for an opportune moment I look around but don’t make out anything aside from the front of rows of partying goblins having Astreus, Havarast and Porofs dead corpse hung up on poles. The goblins are showing around their fallen and captured enemies. Later Darfin wakes up and points out, that the goblins are from Xurt and Glin. We arrive at the remains of the rebel camp. Apparently, they have been overrun and burnt down. The night we spent restless, constantly being poked awake by the vermin goblins. The next day the procession goes on. Around mid-day the goblins get ambushed by a big group of dwarves being led by Havarast and my dwarven brethren. They make quick work of the goblins causing them to flee. Torebol opens the cage letting us two mages out to help fight a little, even though the battle is won. One of the vermin fleeing I shot in the head, just as he was thinking he was safe from the battle.

After the battle the dwarves and I start digging the graves for Astreus, Havarast and Porof in silence. Meanwhile Darfin finds all of our stuff in the cart holding the prisoners cage. There we choose weapons to be laid out to the fallen members of the party. Due to dwarven custom there is initial thought of what was the last weapon Astreus used and whether that was the glaive. In hopes of finding either Porofs soul or be able to confront Suffering I grab the glaive. Surprisingly Astreus resides in the glaive. After some talk he explains he wants a human, halfling or elven body that is reasonably strong. I did not know he was the picky. After Darfin checking that it is actually Astreus in the glaive we are updated on what happened in the last few days by Hardel, the eldest and current leader of the group. Firstly, the spiders are being sealed into the mountain as a precaution. Secondly, Blucts men joined Xurt, which explains why Xurt still has so many men.

Wiscas joins in later on the discussion to try and find out where the remaining rebels could hide out. I suggest that we could hide on the ship and use it to resupply and gather allies before lancing a full-scale invasion. While he relays this to his people, Darfin and I have another idea of giving Astreus a body, by handing a dead body the glaive. After some persuasion and establishing that I Kylin have great taste in good looking men we find a suitable vessel for Astreus.

We then head back to the graves and commence with the burial. Astreus meanwhile takes his own body and buries it himself in the woods. While putting dirt over the dead bodies the dwarves said words describing the person they were burying.

To Havarast I said: Best drinking buddy, warrior and creepy

To Porof I said: Naive, kindhearted and loyal

Later everyone said a couple of words to each fallen comrade. These were mine to Porof: You were always a loyal and good friend to me, who I could rely on. Sometimes you were to kindhearted for your own good, giving some people evenen to many second chances. I hope you are in a peaceful place, worthy of your kind nature.

These were the words given to Havarast: You were always the creepy ass drunk uncle who everyone loves. Hope we get to do another drinking contest sometime in whatever happy place you are right now.

Darfin meditates and prays. I never considered him to be religious person but I guess experiences make even scholars religious. After paying respect to the dead we all head to the ship, which was considered for all as a good idea. On the way Hardel mentions that the dwarves would nominate me being the captain, which caught me off guard due to what has transpired in the last couple of days. At the cliff Numnum throws down a ladder to climb down the rock safely. Astreus and Maruk go ahead with the dwarf riding Astreus in an undead lizard form to warn Jack that a bunch of new people are coming while I make sure everyone gets down safely.

Finally she Captain

Late into the evening the last person arrives at the ship. Kylin immediately tells the remaining crew about the death of Captain Porof. What anyone failed to mention is the undead handyman Jack and his Monkey Rafiki, but Astreus and Kylin seem to trust them. As second in command Kylin takes over the captains’ duties and organizes a crew with the remaining members of the rebels and tells Astreus to serve whiskey to everyone. She assigns me to be the new navigator of the ship, which turns out to be trickier than expected without any maps or star charts.

While everyone settles in on the ship I try to feel if there is any magic around. The Ship in general seems to be affected by illusion or necromancy magic, maybe both. Strange. I must find out more about this Ship if I ever get the chance to. The next day I witness a great spectacle, the vote for the new captain of the Devilsfall, in which I even get to vote myself.

After about a week of journey we arrive at Mighttown. I never visited the Darnach Islet before, so I am curious to see as much as possible during our stay. While we’re making our way to our first destination, the Lusty Maiden, a weird looking creature pops out of a cloud of coloured smoke. With a broken elvish he introduces himself as Oratos Orof, and tells me about his origin, the great city of Mithrendain. Can this really be true? Are the myths and legends more than the imagination of some old storyteller?

I offered to take him to the academy to be examined, but he refused. Why do I always have to be this straightforward when excited? I must work on that for sure. On the other hand, he didn’t decline my offer to get some tea, which is nice. While entering the Lusty Maiden we realized that its door tells the customer what they will get. I expect some cheap magical effect, as my order was totally off from what I desired.

The salad looking man finally tells us more about his past activity as an attorney and how he got into our plane with a coinflip. Kylin pays some boy to go and announce that Captain Kylin is hiring a crew for the Devilsfall. As we’re getting to know each other over a meal more and more people arrive, following the recruitment call, waiting for Kylin to finish eating. I take this as the cue to leave them do the business while strolling around a little. I find a tailor which can craft a robe for me in dragonborn tradition, which I am very excited to try on when he’s done.

We meet up sometime in the afternoon in front of the "town hall", which is a gross understatement. The building looks like a factory and is big as a palace. Kylin arrives with Oratos, Astreus and the dwarves while everyone stares and makes way for her. We enter the labyrinth of a building and arrive at the meeting room of the Council of the Seven Captains. The seven captains sit around the room, each one with their personal bodyguard.

• Arokshax of the Sea Trader Clans, Dragonborn with Dragonborn bodyguards
• Teolgrag of the Whiskey Traders, Dragonborn with Goliath bodyguards
• Ondas of the Sea Snakes, Dragonborn with Warforge bodyguard
• Bompec of the Night Crawlers, Gnome with Goblin and Skeleton bodyguards
• Hogan of the Horders, Human with Warforge bodyguard
• Tavia of the Southern Sailors, Human with Human (female) bodyguards
• Grey Beard of the Land Rats, Dwarf with Dwarf bodyguards

Ondas seems to dislike Kylin and especially the Devilsfall returning to Mighttown. He insults Kylin hard, but she can keep her temper down. Shortly thereafter the captains break out into a shouting match, it seems to be over a vote on something. Unsurprisingly the dwarves join in on the shouting match. I hear so many new insults that I must start writing some of them down. I overhear Kylin telling Oratos about the Devilsfall, some of which is news to me as well.

The grey dragonborn guard who already let us in finally enters the room and ensures order. Tavia wants to use the Devilsfall to protect her fleet, and Teolgrag even offers to let the Devilsfall sail under his banner. Hogan on the other hand proposes to destroy the ship. Arokshax seems to be fine with the Devilsfall, but does not want Tavia to get the advantage of having the ship under her. It seems like this tightly pulled gordian knot of interests can never be resolved. Lin finally loses her human temper and causes a full brawl to break out. I wouldn’t be surprised if many plebs in this city would pay to be able to witness a council meeting as majestic as this one.

The grey dragonborn now asks us to leave again until after the vote. As we leave and get served tea we can still hear the captains "discuss" their business. Kylin proposes to sail under our own flag, which seems to be a bad decision at first. With that many choices and resources we would probably be better off with the support of one of the captains. We are finally let back in to hear them announce the votes: Arokshax, Teaolgrag, Tavia and Grey Beard voted yay, Ondas, Bompec and Hogan voted nay. The whole room looks kind of destroyed, the captains’ clothes are ripped, destroyed weapons plaster the floor.

Sadly, we are expected to leave before even more trouble starts, to sign off a form for a flag design. We are led through the corridors of the town hall until we arrive in a massive library. I only have eyes for the books nicely put away in the shelfs while the rest of the party decides on the flag. So much knowledge is stored in this building, I can almost feel its energy. I ask the librarian to show me where they keep books about magic ships, and after some time of exploring the different wings of the library he shows me the sections for myths, ships and legends.

Ondas stays in the library for a while as well but leaves soon thereafter. On his way back he discovers a portal leading directly onto the ship of Teolgrag, who is enjoying a meal with his goliaths. Teolgrag tells him that every captain has his own portal on their ship, which allows them to meet in minutes.

The next day Kylin and Ondas go out to buy some maps and star charts. When they return to the ship, they are informed that the barrel of whiskey just vanished. They ask around, but no one seems to have seen anything. Jack noticed the missing barrel early in the morning while getting his morning whiskey.

I stay at the library and look over the backs of all the books on the shelves. There is no daylight here in this building. I cast light every hour to count the time and not damage my eyes. When I find a book that sounds like it could contain something about the Devilsfall I take it out and flip through it. After some quick meditation in the empty library halls I continue my search.

Around the morning hours my stomach began to growl. I still didn't find anything of importance (?), but I decided that it was time to leave and get something to eat. After I was thrown out by the keeper (??) I see the inner circle of the crew of the Devilsfall on the streets in front of the town hall. I do not intend to return to the ship just yet, and none of them are interested in getting something to eat, so our paths part again. I eat some dragonborn brunch, stroll around the city and admire the architecture and busy port atmosphere, getting my new robe on the way back.

As I return to the ship Lin is standing at the border of the pier, looking for the barrel of whiskey in the water. Maybe someone threw it overboard during the night?

New Allies and a Cold War

As I stand on deck trying to find where the barrel of whiseky could have gone, a wierd creature jumps out of the water claiming to have overheared us talking about a lost barrel. This creature seems to be made out of water and calls himself Strennun. He says he saw a couple of armored guys carrying a barrel of deck. I for one think its was Hogans warforge trying to teach me a lesson. We will see about that. Astreus points out that he for some reason has gotten around to finding a new body. After trying to probe Strennuns body he seems to be stuck in the glaive for now. I decide to try and sell of the glaive to a fisherman nearby to offer Astreus a chance. The first fisherman proved to be too poor to bi interested but by dropping the glaive and leaching of his gentlemanlies nature we had him in our small trap. Strennun leads the way to where he saw the barrel beeing brought to.

We come accross a crossing where there is a blacksmith. We ask him for some information, but he proves to be hiding something. Before trying to get the information out of him the hard way, Oratos tries to charm him. This proves unfruitful and Astreus resorts to his trick with the glaives. Thanks to this neat little trick he finds out that we must head further up the street. On another crossing we find a tavern where a lot of people seem to be partieing. The owner of the bar tells us that Hogan buying drinks for everyone in this bar. I guess he is celebrating the barrel but that idiot should have specified which drinks. So we ask for around and with some inquiries get in to cellar for some further tasting. Here we grab a bottle of elven wine worth a lot and small barrel of my families whisky. This should teach Hogan a valuable lesson.

As we cant find our barrel anywhere we head further up the road towards the dwarves. On the way there we come accross a group of dragonborns from Ondases crew. They are talking about beeing late to stealing a barrel but we decide to let them go after. I also give them a hint there there is free alcohol in a tavern. Hogan is really going to regret his generosity in the morning.

We arrive later at the dwarven settlement of Greybeard, where we are invited by the stewart. After a great feast and some small talk we come down to business. I ask him whether he has heared anything of a robbery which he declines, but offers to keep his ears open in case he does hear anything. Furthermore, we discuss the fate of the dwarves from Havarasts company. On this matter the stewart couldnt help us due to tradition. On a final note I offerd my hadn of friendship towards Greybeard and his crew to gein a couple of close allies at least. This gesture should be past on by the stewart later on. As part of the gracious hospitality of the dwarves Strennun and I stay in and sleep at the dwarves place. The others leave to sleep on the ship. Astreus sleeps with the blacksmiths wife as he still posses his body.

The next morning Strennun and I head back to the ship after a hearty breakfast sponsored by the dwarves. In the morning I also looked at the logs to find a very hatefull message from Hogan. I guess he got the message that he should be carefull messing with us.. Arriving on the ship we get ready to prpare everything to set sail in two days. Meanwhile Astreus looks for yet another body. I am slowly thinking he may actually be a woman, judging by how often he changes bodies.

Of Ghosts and Returning Barrels

How everyone sees themselves:

• Astreus - friendly forest watcher
• Darfin - courageous wise stylish
• Kylin - loyal leader sincere -> (good leader harsh but empathic, honest to a fault)
• Strennun - adventurous excitable stubborn
• Oratos - sophisticated careful just

Despite the unstable "bed" I could get a goodnights rest. After greeting the sun on deck something strange happened. Darfin tried to leave the ship over the planks just to turn around as soon as he set a foot on land. From the way how he abruptly returned it was clear that something wasn't right. Darfin casts "detect magic" and finds out that a magical aura is surrounding the ship, the spells seems to belong to the school of conjuration. What followed was an entertaining episode of our weird fellow Strennun jumping into the water and climbing back up, just to jump into the water and climb back up again and again. As the captain and Astreus join us a young human looking girl sits on one of the masts and smiles in our direction. To us asking her what business she has and what here name is she just giggles and presents us with a riddle.

To all things and men I appertain, and yet by some am shunned and distained. Fondle me and ogle me til you're insane, but no blow can harm me, cause me pain. Children delight in me, elders take fright. Fair maids rejoice and spin. Cry and I weep, yawn and I sleep. Smile, and I shal grin.

What am I?

Strennun talkes the first guess, saying "joy". After uttering the words the girls looks very unamused and we hear a scream and see how one of our crewmembers collapses and slowly dries up and disperses into thin air.

Right after four individuals appear on deck.

• An old chubby lady who Strennun greets as Margareth.

• An elf, well dressed and at least as old as Darfin.

• A human man with dark skin who seems to be recognized by everyone but me.

• And my old friend Antares who was my mentor at the academy in Mithrendain.

Did I drink yesterday? How did Antares make it here? Darfin still thinking about the riddle talks to himself and says the word "future". The girl without a name takes this as a guess and another one of our crewmates dies. Furiously Kylin starts bombarding the girl with several spells but to no avail, everything passes right through her. Astreus summons eight sheeps with the hopes that they could act as sacrificial lambs shall we guess wrong again.

Before Anyone blurts out another guess I take out a paper and something to write and gather everyone. After another wrong guess by Strennun "water", Kylin finally solves the riddle with "reflection". It was clear that this was the right guess because the four people and the girl disappeared again.

Still upset Lyn takes us aside in the captains cabin and gives out orders. Darfin and I get a budget to buy various components and also some uncut gems to sell. kylin seems to insist that we sell it at a profit, but I was never in a situation where I had to worry about money enough to even attempt to haggle ... I'll try my best.

After visiting Three separate gem shops, one with an arrogant prick of a dwarf and the other two either unskilled or cheap, Darfin and I try our luck at the market instead. A Fat halfling with greasy long hair makes invites us and we make a deal after declining his offer for wine. I could not make a profit but at least we got the market price.

Afterwards I accompany Darfin who buys a pearl and a horn, something he needs for his spells he says. With all our tasks accomplished we head to the townhall where the library was. I already have a bad feeling recalling how I got lost the last time I tried to find around without a guide. But Darfin has a smart idea and we start placing small paper flakes on the ground to lead us back to the exit in case we get stuck. This seems to work until we arrive at a three way intersection where already one paper piece was placed, pointing right at the wall.

While I was scared that we might not find an exit very soon Darfin calmly casts a spell and proclaims that the walls are magical with protection, illusion and summoning magic (abjuration, illusion, conjuration). Not wanting to sit idle we try to backtrack until the papertrail can't help us anymore. Fortunately we find the exit after walking around for what felt like an eternity (probably around two hours).

Disappointed we return to the docks where we are greeted with loud noise and goliath guards that block our way to the ship. We managed to convice them to let us pass and make our way onto the ship, everyone already gathered in the captains quarter. Tealgrog gives an apology to Kylin, also in the name of five of the seven captains.

What was taken was given back, the dwarves want a certain ones head and the guards that stopped Darfin and me shall be whipped.

Why Will the Ded not Stay Ded?

It was evening and I (Editor's Note: 'I' is Strennun) went for my evening swim like every day. I tried to catch som fish or at least find a prety perl, but I could not do it becaus I was to slow.

(Editor's Note: While Strennun was unsuccessfully trying to find pearls by turning over random stones on the sea bed, Oratos went to Captain Nelson to inquire about the crew's future plans (both financial and generally). While Captain Nelson assured the scholar that she absolutely and definitely knew what she was doing, he remained doubtful that a cursed ghostship and its crew can survive by normal trade and mercenary. He kept those doubts to himself)

When I came back the ship was having a parti. People were feling good even tho there was a creepy flying girl here in the morning killing people.

The next morning the Kaptan ordered us to set sail. I could not se very much becaus it was so goddam fogy. But Oratos looked like a summer day. He was very colorful and had flowers in his hair. I wish I had flowers in my hair but I only have algae.

After a bit, I and the rest of the important people of the crew were caled into the Kaptains Cabin. Kylin said that Darfin saw people who died yesterday. They did not now that they were dead and said they were fine.

Kylin shot a seagul that was standing on the ship and we put it in a chest. The next day the ded seagul was alive again and attacked Kylin. I cut its head of with my sword. We put the ded seagul back in the chest and the next day it was still ded.

Oratos came up to the crows nest with me and plaid his flute veri bad. I told him to pleas stop and he started writing on some paper but I could not read it. Becaus it was so goddam fogy I could not see veri much but it cleared up during the day. Then I could se more, like mountains in the distanse.

The next day after the ded seagul was stil ded we got a ded crew member into the kaptains cabin and asked him som stuff (Editor's note: The dead crew mate was Luther, a human previously hired by Kylin and Oratos in a hole in the wall dive bar. His skin was horribly dried up and stretched unnaturally over his bones. He looked constantly tired and there was no spark in his eyes anymore. He was literally but a shell of his former self). He sed he stil needs to eat drink and slep and he feels fine. He can remember his parents from dragonite island but has no remember of the creepy flying girl two days ago where he died. Oratos asks him if he fels pain and he says yes and says 'ouch' when he pinches him. But it looked more like he was not realy hurt but felt like he was suposed to be hurt because he was pinched so he said 'ouch'. We told him tat this was just a monthly checkup but I do not think he belives us.

This whole ded alive thing got Darfin exited and he wants to do experiments with other crew mates to kil them and see if they stay alive. Kylin is against this becaus if ther is a chance that being ded is not being ded, people wil do reckles stuff to get them killed. I agree with the kaptain. They argue for a bit befor Oratos gets an alive crew mate into the kabin. (Editor's note: Fogot the guy's name and stupdily didn't write it down, but he's the officer of combat). He says that it is not a problem that the ded do not stay ded becaus that is part of the ship and the crew nows that and does not care. We ask him if he wants to not be ded if he dies and he says he does not now but needs to think about it for a bit but wil tell the kaptain when he nows. We say ok and he can go.

After some more days wher I sit on the crows nest and wave at other ships we arriv at a place wher the rest of the group was alredy but I do not now it. it is some kind of rebel camp and we make our way to the camp. (Editor's Note: The crew decided to try to find a better landing place than the cliff of last time and found a natural harbor on the other side of the mountain. They now need to either cross the harpy-canyon or the spider-queen lair to get to the rebel camp).

New Camp New Me

At last, we arrive at the natural harbour north of the Mountain Chain in the Dwarven Republic. We go to shore with most of the crew, to set up a temporary camp at the coast before heading deeper into the land. From afar I see a group of small creatures approaching us. Through my familiar I see a group of Kobolds, the bigger ones with drums, all chanting and dancing while walking straight in our direction. Strangely enough some of them are spewing fire. In this instance Oratos asks me telepathically if there is something he should know. I am very confused, as I have no idea what he could be thinking about. I never met these kobolds, even if I was in the mountain for probably longer than them.

As the kobolds arrive the captain takes over the conversation in Draconic. She translates to us that the kobolds killed the spiders and that the mountain got hotter than it used to. What could be the reason for this, and is the Spider Queen still alive? The kobolds invite us to their caves, and happily we accept. After a quick visit back on the ship to resupply and organize the leftover crew of the ship we head out with the kobolds towards the mountains. The crew is left behind for us to find out if the caves seem fit to build up a fortified camp.

On the way there we discuss about the possibility to drink Strennun if need be. The though experiment gets interrupted by Strennun; he indeed can create water himself. Interesting, now the only thing left is to find out if we could drink him when dead.

As the curiosity comes slowly over my I insist on Kylin asking the kobolds if they can confirm the death of the Spider Queen. They can indeed not, so she is probably hiding somewhere deeper in the mountain. We get closer to the mountain and the floor gets warmer with each minute. I cast detect magic to see if there is some magic nonsense going on, but only recognise that the kobolds have some kind of evocation magic in their lungs. The kobolds tell us that the fire breathing started some days after the big fight.

At the evening we arrive at the caves, which are uncomfortably hot. I cast ray of frost, but magic seems to have no influence on the heat. We decide to stay the night in the caves and get the rest of the crew the next day, to move the camp into the caves. Hopefully, we can find some cooler parts of the cave system, as Strennun seems to be struggling with his body fluids.

The next day we get the rest of the crew as planned. As we organise the further steps, I get the impression that not everyone understands the importance of finding the source of the heat. It does not seem to be natural as there were no tremors or visible magma sources, and every unnatural explanation I can imagine is more terrifying than the other. After some convincing luckily the others agree on finding the source of the heat. We instruct the crew to set up the camp in a cooler part of the caves, and for some to go find food and resources, and make our way into the mountain, in direction of the heat.

Surely enough after seven times casting light, we encounter some small spiders. I dissect one of them, they do not have the same magical effects as some of the others we saw had. Although they were not influenced by fire in the slightest and spew fire themselves, so they must have mutated naturally. I draw the cross section of some of the organs into my spellbook. They look shabbier than some older ones I already drew. Strange.

During the fight Oratos threw his torch in the middle of the room and fell back behind the rest. He seems to be overwhelmed by the brutality of the fight, as if it were one of the first physical confrontations he ever took part in.

We set up our camp for a rest, to be fit for more spiders the next morning. During the night there are some small spiders watching us from the distance. The Spider Queen probably already knows we are coming for her.

Firery Curiosity

After warm night we pack up and head deeper into the mountain. Every step we take the cave gets warmer and warmer until suddenly, nothing happened. I takes us another while until we finally hear a commotion and working up ahead. We approach stealthily and spy a bizarre scenario unfolding in front of us. In front of us lies a massive ravine. Along each side kobolds and humans are working, prying gem stones from the rock. These slaves are being driven by those thorny bearded devils that have already attacked us in the past. Down in the deep lay the most terrifying thing in the whole cave. A scaly red dragon. Some feet away from him was another devil talking with the dragon while devils and kobolds are transporting the dragons loot to a new destination.

Among the slaves is Gurt who we guided to the caves only a week or two ago. He seems slightly in distress and when approached with some telekinesis by Oratos he got confused an way to when looking for the source of the communication. Gurt got swiftly punished for getting distracted and talking and we just about could stay hidden.

Sneaking closer we start to hear what the devil and the dragon are talking about. The devil is trying to persuade the dragon to help their cause and hunt down a ship they are hunting. The dragon on the other hand is not to convinced and cannot be bothered by the politics of the devils. The conversation seems to almost escalate until the devil backs off. It seems though the devil is still convinced he will be able to persuade the dragon to form some kind of alliance.

Most of us are in agreement that an alliance between the two factions is suboptimal. After a long discussion we come up with the following fool proof plan: Oratos will fly in invisible and imitate a conversation between two devils, who let slip that they are stealing the dragons loot. Afterwards we will see whether the slaves could be helped to escape or not.

And now it’s go time. We prepare the spells and Oratos disappears. The plan seems to be working perfectly. Then suddenly the dragon starts thrashing and killing a bunch of devils. PERFECT. But wait why is Oartos visible. And why is the dragon now following him to us. OH SHIT. RUN. I make sure everyone gets moving and that Oratos gets in the cave safely which is too small for the dragon. RIGHT EVERYTHING IS READY. NOW RUN. We run and are suddenly overwhelmed by some searing heat.

The Turtle and the Tragic Tale of the Lost Tub

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What the (participating) party members do to wind down after a stressful day:

- Strennun: Go for a swim, sit on the seafloor, and watch the sea life

- Kylin: Drinking a good Whiskey and relax in her hammock

- Oratos: Meditate or play some music (He's not very good at both, according to him, but that doesn't bother him)

---

I (Strennun) was the last of the group to enter the cave and therefore leading while running away from the heat. It was unbearably hot and then suddenly it wasn't. I don't know how, but all of a sudden I am floating in the pitch dark sea. It was - as I said - pitch dark and kind of freezing, especially after the singeing heat from before.

While easily breathing through my gills and looking around, I noticed a wall in front of me that seemed to be moving with the waves. Until I floated nearer to investigate and noticed that the wall was not moving with the waves, but rather in a pattern that would suggest a breathing being of truly gargantuan size. That's when I heard The Voice again in my head. The Voice that had spoken to me once before, when I was on that pirate ship, and told me that "my time would come".

It kindly informed me that it had saved me and my friends from the dragon, but expects a service from me/us in return. Apparently, there is a "Big, Fat Green Heretic" walking around in our surrounding that has been slaughtering devout followers of the Dragon Turtle and must therefore be slaughtered itself. I of course could not (and frankly, did not want to) deny it that request. We were to kill the heretic within the next seven days, or we'd all die a slow death by drowning (which is less than pleasant, as I assume. Not that I'd know, as I have not had the unpleasant experience of actively drowning).

After reassuring the Dragon Turtle that we'd dutifully carry out our new mission, I was dropped back into the cave, where I just sat there, wonderfully soaked to the gills, while my compatriots were bone-dry but still coughing up salt-water. I informed them of our new benefactor who has given us the not-at-all optional quest to go kill a big fat green heretic within the next seven days (until May 26.). While their brains were still catching up to their bodies, I heard faint fighting noises coming from ahead of us, where the entry to the cave lies. That meant that we were effectively trapped between a dragon lair and a fight going on (Note by Editor: The characters were all dropped into the cave with no spell slots, no class/racial feature slots and 1 (one) HP - fighting was pretty much out of the question). After a debate, we decided to sneak back to the cave to check if the dragon was still there. While coming up with this truly brilliant solution, the fighting has shifted around us to the very cave we meant to check out. So back there we went and were rather surprised to find our own crew - aided by two fuckin huge Goliaths - slaughtering bearded devils. We of course jumped in to help (by 'jumped in' I mean 'kept in the background and shot passing devils with Eldritch Blasts') and the battle quickly turned to our favour. After the last devil was slain, we noticed that the Goliaths only fought one-handed and were carrying kegs of some sorts under the other arm. They found a portal in the cave-wall where the Dragon most likely escaped through. The kegs were apparently bombs of some sort and it made an earth (and cave) shattering BOOOOOM, as the cave-entry and portal caved in and rendered unusable, much to the delight of the Goliaths. They happily informed Kylin, that Rigalis was waiting upstairs for us.

Even though the slaves were tirelessly carrying away the dragon's hoard, there was still a sizeable amount of treasure left (and by 'sizeable' I mean 'Ho boy, none of us would ever need to work a day in our lives anymore and then some, if we took all of that'). We all tried our best to carry the remaining treasure up to the surface, but only managed to pack a small portion of it. I mean it was still a fuckton of money, but it was not even close to everything. Kylin asked the leader of the figthers (Editor's note: who's name I totally forgot...) how they got down here. Apparently, this Rigalis guy told them that we were in trouble and sent them down in the cave to help us.

On the way to the surface, I was deep in theological thoughts, as all my beliefs were suddenly more than just beliefs and more like proofs. That also lead to an argument/discussion with Oratos, as he and Kylin wanted to know more about this mysterious Dragon Turtle that saved all our lives and now demanded one in return.

Once back at the surface, I got to meet this Rigalis. He is an... interesting character for sure. Very enthusiastic certainly. He excitedly greeted me like an old friend and wanted to know how I made the colourful fireworks back in Marymar. Kylin then helpfully interjected that I was not Aluwyn (whoever that is) but Strennun. Rigalis was momentarily confused but not any less excited to meet me. The same went on for Oratos. After the introductions were made, he was very curious how the explosion went down. Kylin had to describe it to him into the most minutiae details, but in the end, he accused her of lying because it couldn't have been as awesome as she described. He truly is an exceptional and weird person... a person that Kylin apparently already knows from earlier.

---

The story of Rigalis of Marymar

Rigalis was in the basement of his hut in the outskirts of Marymar, as his two Goliath bodyguards came in, demanding he came with them. Begrudgingly, he followed them outside and through a portal to another dimension. They returned to this plane just in time to see the second biggest explosion Rigalis has ever seen in his life, as Marymar went up in a cloud of dust. According to the Goliaths, he then created another portal to come here and send the crew of the Devil's Fall to help us.

---

Kylin - semi-successfully - tried to convince Rigalis (who's VERY fond of explosives of all sorts, and I mean about as fond as I am about water). However, she can convince his Goliath-guards to just start moving his laboratory into an outside space and the camp helps building him a makeshift-hut there as well. In return, Rigalis provides her with some 'experimental' explosives. However, he can't really remember what they do or what their area of effect is...

By now, it is pretty clear that the 'Big Fat Green Heretic' that the Dragon Turtle was mentioning is most likely the Goblin King that the party was meaning to get rid of anyway, so now we just had to take the more direct approach of the whole thing. Its lair is about two or three days march away from the current camp, so it should be doable within the allotted time (if it isn't the Goblin King, we'll have ridden the world of horrible creature and then die heroically flopping around like dead fish while we all drown to death in its throne room).

We gathered together a group of volunteers to help us behead the Goblin King and planned on marching off the next morning. A group was quickly cobbled together, consisting of us, the Dwarves and the few rebels of the rebel camp that we added to the crew a few days back.

The next morning, everyone was rudely awoken by repeated BOOOMS that sounded as if the world was about to end. As it turned out, Rigalis was 'testing' out explosives. Oratos went over to give him a piece of his mind. As they were talking, something strange happened with Rigalis. The old, hunched over, crazy scientist suddenly stood taller, the wild look in his eyes was gone and he spoke clearer than ever before. He handed Oratos a coin of his homeland and urged him to "never forget your roots" despite Oratos' protests. The spook ended as quickly as it began and as Rigalis was back at his mad scientist-self, he did not seem to remember the interaction he just had with Oratos.

I went back to sleep as the BOOM-ing ended and woke up about 1h later when the camp was being packed up. A very nice, wooden tub had been given to me and filled with wonderfully wet and fresh water. I slept like a king in there, and now came the time where I wanted to take it with me to slay the Goblin King. This was about to be an exhausting mission and I wanted a good night’s rest at the end of the day. But oh, woe me! I could not even lift the empty tub, let alone the full one to take it with me! I tried dragging it, but that did not work either. Next, I asked one of the big Goliaths of Rigalis if he might want to help me with this? But he didn't really seem to care, or even understand me. Kylin was not very understanding of my needs either and straight up refused to let three of the volunteers help me carrying the tub. Unbelievably unreasonable of her if you ask me. I mean with four people, we could have easily carried the tub with us and water we would probably have found along the way. But no, the captain would not allow me this little token of luxury for a good night’s rest and I had to leave good ol' Bessy (as I named the tub) behind. It was a tragic good-bye, and many tears were shed on both sides. I commandeered a soldier to take good care of her and hope for his sake that she is in good hands...

Anyway, off we went and managed to march through the mines under the mountains in the remaining daylight. When we came out in the valley, the sun had already set, and it was high time to set up camp (without my trusty Bessy...). That's when we noticed the forest. The Kobolds had described the trees as 'carrying weird fruit'. As is turned out, this 'weird fruit' were hanged people! The captain gave clear orders that nobody was to come near the forest and we all went to sleep after assigning watches. I took the first watch and nothing of importance happened. Oratos apparently saw some strange shapes moving in the hanged-man-forest, but it did not attack us, so the captain ordered to let it be.

Morning came and we broke off camp. I was bone-dry, which also impacted my mood. There was a stream literally a few meters away, but it was too far away for me to sneak off an have a lil plunge. Whenever I tried, I was found and reprimanded by a guard... Guess I'll have to walk with dry skin today and hope for rain. As we entered the woods, the people around me were shocked to discover that the people were not simply hanged, but flayed and hung up as banners. They did not die a pretty death. Even worse: They were all local people that stayed behind after the party had 'liberated' a Rebel camp a few weeks ago, before I joined them. They knew all these people and are now quarrelling with themselves, believing they could have saved these people from this terrible fate, had they just stayed longer....

Where Goblins go to Sleep

What the (participating) party members don't want to talk about:

• Strennun: His time in the 'services' of the pirates
• Oratos: How to return to my homelands
• Darfin: Unimportant topics of a common person

I started this morning by preparing some important spells, which I might have to use. As I finished, I saw Oratos cleaning his sword. There are elven runes in a dialect I don't speak written all over it. With my magic abilities I was able to decipher "you meet your end in justice". Oratos told me that it's a henchman's blade of his family business, which he was born into.

Oratos further explained his plans to Kylin, while I packed up my stuff to ready up. While the spell was still active, I read the words on the parchment with the copy of Oratos' coin. It read the city Mithrendain, where Oratos is from, and the name of its ruler.

During all this Strennun ran to the stream nearby to take a bath. He was observed by goblin rangers from afar, which he noticed through the bushes. He followed them until he caught up with the first one and tried to get some information out of him. When this proofed to be impossible and the goblin took out his club, he melted the goblin to paste with a quick flash.

We noticed a flash from the forest, but it couldn't possibly be Rigalis, as there was no boom. I sent out my familiar and through its eyes I saw Strennun chasing some goblins through the woods. Me and Oratos decide to follow Strennun, while Kylin and Astreus stay with the rest of the crew and march west towards the Goblin King. We reached him after a short run through the forest, talking into the bushes. He seemed stressed out by the fact that we must fight the Goblin King or accept our fate as spirits in the afterlife. In his own words he was "trying to get a goblin to take him to the Goblin King".

Through my dear hawk I saw some more goblins running away southwards, so we decided to follow them. My hawk lost track of them at some point, as we arrived at some magical tree. Strennun tried to lean onto it, and fell through a hidden door in the tree, down a staircase into some tunnel. We decided to inspect the tunnels further and came across a goblin sitting at the top of a ladder. Strennun pulled him down, and it fell past us two stories deep. We followed it down another level, and Oratos decided to heal it. What a waste, such a creature doesn't really deserve kindness.

Oratos was able to convince the goblin to tell us about the tunnel system and how they use it to communicate. It even accepted to show us through the tunnels towards its master, Preed the Sneaky, the warchief of the goblin rangers. On the way there it told us about what they did to the poor people hanging in the woods. To my pleasure I saw in Oratos face that he regretted healing this evil creature. They have no scientific value anyways, as they have never been observed mutating.

The goblin told us about the Spider Queen as well, and I was excited to hear that they have an alliance with her and were in contact with her a week ago. Maybe she is still alive then? Hopefully she is still alive. We continued to follow the goblins lead until we reached the rangers quarters. There we had to wait at the warchiefs tents door long enough to elaborate a plan: We are mercenaries who want to sell super-secret bombs to the Goblin King so he can eliminate the crazy ladie's army easily. To not be recognized by Kylins crew we need Preed's help to sneak into the Goblin Kings fortress to be able to talk with him about our offer.

The goblins around us seemed not impressed, they continued their usual business with no interruption. We were let into the tent by one of Preed's guards, and Oratos started the negotiations. Sadly, he ignored the plan to its full potential and started improvising. This turned out to be not as successful as we wanted to, so I had to take over. I introduced myself as some mysterious lord, who wants to travel in secrecy. Therefore, I employed two jesters to act as puppets and play the role of the lord, but this time the jester seemed to be too stupid for his job.

I explained our plans to the warchief, but he didn't seem to trust us. I offered him one of the bombs to use and told him that it might destroy the whole mountain. As it was a bluff, I thought that he's not stupid enough to actually use it. He studied the bomb a little too long, so I thought I would use my ability to see into the future for him to be too stupid to call my bluff. It seemed to work a little to well, because he turned out to be too stupid to not use the bomb as well. He threw it outside the tent, and it blew apart parts of the tent and many goblins as well.

As the warchief still didn't trust us I tried to tell him about the "reason" we were in Kylin's entourage. Streenun's patience was apparently running low, so he started blasting at him. After a weird fight and coming back from the dead through Oratos' help multiple times we succeeded in killing Preed. We searched the tent and left with 60 of the latest reports, which were in a cabinet at the back of the tent. On the way out we noticed that every goblin has already left, probably after hearing the explosion and the death of their leader.

Outside of the tunnels we decided to take a short rest, to identify the rest of the bombs, and read some of the reports. These reports mentioned every own and enemy troop movement, including many reports on us and the crew. To my disappointment there were no recent reports about the Spider Queen, but still worthful information. Apparently, the only army left between us and the Goblin King was Bluct's, all the others are stationed more to the east.

The remaining bombs turned out to be the following:

• Purple Stick: Creates a portal
• Yellow Stick: Not magical
• Red Ball: Stuns people

No idea where this portal will lead us to, but if we must use it, we also must trust Rigalis.

Light? Lightningballs!

After Darfin, Strennun and I reunited with Kylin and the crew we could rest for the remainder of the night. With salt in my mouth and water in my lungs I woke up in my tent, a grim reminder that we only have four more days.

Together with Wiscas as our Advisor Kylin, Darfin and I discuss how to proceed from now on. The Intel we gathered in the spy caves makes it clear that we must act swift to avoid pulling in the war chiefs. The final plan is that the former rebels under Wiscas' lead split into two groups of 5 and scout ahead trying to clear a path, while the rest of us strike at the heart of the goblin kingdom. We will give Wiscas half a day head start.

After Wiscas' two parties left Darfin investigated the magical weapons. He concluded the following:

• Purple Stick: Opens portal to another dimension.
• Yellow Stick: Ball of fire.
• Red Ball: Stuns people.

Miss Nelson also checks out her captain’s logbook finding two notes from the other captains:

Greybeard: Go to a dwarven town upriver from Marymar (RIP) and fetch something for him

Tealgrog: One of Hogans ships needs an accident, it is located on the northwest coast, leave no survivors, you can keep whatever you loot.

After traveling further west we reached the ruins of the rebel camp. Only rubble, ashes and the corpses of the rebellion leaders are left, nothing survived. We press on westward until Darfin interrupts us and tells us that he noticed some goblin scouts. We prepare an ambush to kill most and capture one for questioning. I volunteer to be the decoy. After waiting for the goblins to come close enough for the trap to snap I stumble out of the brushes. They immediately draw their weapons, but it all means nothing as a bright light burns them to crisp in front of my eyes. If it wasn’t for me crouching on the ground, I would have met the same fate. A shocked Kylinn runs towards me and apologizes for almost killing me. I leave out a snarky remark and get away from her.

Darfin uses his bird for scouting and spots smoke coming from one of the northers watchtowers, so we decide to use that attention to strike in the south. Using the shadow of the storm approaching from east we strike the tower camp from three sides. Kylinn, Darfin and I approach the tower just walking towards it. After asking for food, shelter from the frost and the crazy lady, Kylinn just blows up the gate. When we finish the approaching line of shieldmen and archers we find the camp burning and dead goblins piles. On top of the big tower, we spot someone looking like a leader. Darfin casts a fly spell on me, and I make my way up the burning building. Not being able to understand the language of the creature I offer my hand to save him, but I misjudged me feeling weightless and something I would have to hold feeling the same. I tried stepping into his way, even Kylinn tries to catch him. In the end the Goblin and I fall straight towards the fire and only thanks to Darfin who pushes me aside I don’t land in the flames. The screams of the Goblin felt like they would travel across continents.

There is nothing to be done here anymore, after a short party of the dwarves and Kylin we continue westwards.

An Unexpected Dinner with Consequences

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Noticeable Scars of the party-members

• Kylin: The entirety of her left arm is scarred in the form of a lightning forking it's way down her arm, including her hand. It is tied to her lightning-powers and she received it when she was struck by lightning at sea
• Orof: Being the scholar he is, he stayed in the relatively safe confinements of his city up until joining up with the party, so he does not have any noticeable scars
• Darfin: Same as Orof
• Strennun: Being the son of a renowned shipbuilder comes with certain experiences of shipbuilding. Strennun - being rather clumsy - has cut and hit himself more than he can count (which is, admittedly, not too high)

---

I woke up with sea-taste in my mouth and went to go lok for a bath to get rid of that taste. I found a pond and had a happy bath. When I came back, my friends were gone. They forgot about me and moved on. I se smoke on the horizon and think "that is probably them" and start walking towards it.

After some walking and some more walking I find them around a burning tower [The tower the party burned down and killed the leader in the last session]. It was raining so that was good. I am happy when it rains. So much water it feels nice.

Together with my friends we decide to go to the Goblin King now so we don’t die of drowning by the Dragon Turtle. A discussion breaks out if we want to stay in the wonderful wet forest or keep walking to some dry caves. Luckily we stay in the forest because the caves are too far away and it is already late. I have first watch with a dwarf. We don’t talk much and I wake Oratos.

---

• Oratos and Numnum have a discussion why dwarves dig/mine, even though the material could be mined much easier and more efficiently with magic. Numnum then explains that dwarves don't see mining/digging as a nuisance but that it is 'in their blood'. Oratos does definitely not get that point.
• Kylin had watch together with Maruk and they got absolutely knackered off a drinking game while reminiscing about the fight they had the day before
• Darfin shares his watch with Torebol. Tobrbuld talks about his past as a woodcutter and reckons which trees he could easily fell how quickly while looking around in the forest. Darfin tries to persuade him to learn magic, without avail

---

The next morning it doesn’t rain as much anymore - sad. We move on towards the Goblin King and get to teh end of the forest in the evening. Not much happens. I have first watch again with some dwarf. I climb a tree and can see a glow of probably the goblin King city in the South-South-West. I tell the dwarf and ask him if he wants to see but he doesn’t want to because he could fall off the tree and hurt himself befor the battel tomorow. Silly. I stay in the tree and wake Kylin by throwing pinecones at her. It takes a lot of cones befor I finaly hit her and she wakes up. She tries to hit me with the pinecones but doesn’t know where I am. I sleep in the tree.

---

• Kylin and Maruk discuss their plans after the Goblin King. Kylin will party for a week or so and then maybe go back to her old life, sailing the seas. Maruk could imagine joining her, but doesn't want to confirm anything just yet.
• Darfin sends out his familiar to the Goblin King settlement. It is a repurposed Dwarven city, but in a miserable state. He can see 50 goblins marching towards the 'palace' and returns. Darfin then again tries to convince Torebol to learn magic

---

On the next day, we leave the forest and go out on the hot rock. We try to find some hidden entrance. Darfin and Oratos do some magic to try and find it and Oratos finds something in the end. We enter the cave. It is dark but I don’t care because I can see in the dark. Kylin can’t so she makes some lights with magic. We find some goblins - according to the dwarves it’s a goblin training camp or something. The cave is also no cave but a dwarven mine. We sneak past the goblins (which was not hard because they were very loud). The dwarves then split up from us and will do a distraction in about 1h so we can kill the Goblin King with no annoying other goblins.

We continue in the cave/dwarven thingy and get to a stair. A hooded figure says hello to us and seems to know Kylin. Kylin thinks to know the person too, something happened in the past (It was Heimrod, whom Kylin knows from the annihilation of Marymar - he also sent the Beholder after them). He invites us to a dinner. The goblin king is also there. He was really fat and ugly. I wanted to shoot him with my energy blast but I suddenly didn’t want to do that anymore (everybody apart from Kylin got charmed by Heimrod and 'suggested' to order and eat dinner). We can order some good food from the goblin kings cook. I had calamari and fish. it was really nice. The Goblin King was sleeping until now but now wakes up. Heimrod disappears through a portal (Kylin attempts to counterspell the portal but gets counterspelled herself, using her own spellslot). The goblin king yells at us that we stole his power "Without you, I'd still be in power" he yells and then runs away. I run after him but suddenly don’t want to but instead hurt my friends (wearing 'Crown of Madness'). I attack Kylin and Oratos. We run around in dark hallways with moving walls and get split up. I spend some time at a pond with nice grass and moss before being transported back to the dark hallways. I still try to kill Kylin until Kylin slaps me and I don’t want to kill her anymore. We can’t get to Oratos and Darfin because of the moving walls. Oratos and Darfin find a crypt and also find the Goblin King after some running around. Oratos kills it very easily and Kylin and I catch up with them after some while. Darfin is already cuting open the fat king and doing science. I cut of his head - the kings not Darfins - and pack it in. We go check out the crypt Darfin and Oratos found and find the Kings cook there. He tells us the dead dude is Holdred Okaram, a dwarven king who died protecting the dwarven city from goblins that came from the north. Now the hour of our dwarves has passed and we hear them making noise. We go up to them to tell them we killed the goblin king. I can’t wait to show them his head!

The End of an Era

Strennun is the first to rush up the stairs, with the goblin kings head in his arms. We hear fighting and walk towards the noise. The dwarves are fighting in a corridor from the top of some stairs, where they built improvised defences out of wood. Torebol suddenly falls down into the masses of goblins, and the other dwarves jump after him. We hear a horn blowing, and suddenly the whole corridor is covered in mist. Could it be Wiscas?

"Come out of the mists and look at your dead king" I scream, as there is no reason to fight any longer. Some goblins emerge out of the mists and stop in their tracks. Meanwhile Kylin still happily blasts fireballs into the turmoil. All this seems to not have the effect I hoped for. Strennun, in a moment of clarity, teleports into the middle of the mists as they start to dissolve. He proclaims "the king is dead" in a loud voice. Thankfully the last fighting goblins surrender.

The dwarves are still standing in a circle around Torebol, they look really stressed. They don’t listen to reason, so Kylin tries to just walk past them. Thankfully she realizes in the last moment that they are not joking around and stops her foolish approach. I tell Maruk that he is the king of the mountain now, and the fighting is over. Maruk seemingly hasn’t had enough bloodshed and walks towards some of the goblins. Strennun and Orof step in front of him to reason with him and calm him down. We all realize that Torebol hasn’t made it through the battle, therefore Maruk demands a shield to carry him.

I’ve read about dwarven funerals already, and I share my knowledge with the rest of the party. Many sources describe them as "the more the merrier”, with a huge feast afterwards. We all follow the dwarves and the whole procession. On the way we meet Wiscas, and thankfully he already ordered his rebels to look after the captured goblins. We tell all the other people we meet on the way to follow the procession as well.

After a thirty-minute walk we arrive outside in a small clearing in the forest. Without a word the dwarves start digging and cutting down wood to build a mausoleum for Torebol. We are asked by Maruk to do the death watch, and I get handed a spear. During the watch I try to quietly speak with Orof about possible solutions for the goblin problem. In all the conflicts I ever read about the only real and permanent solution seems to be the eradication of one of the conflicting parties, but Orof doesn’t really seem to like this idea. We conclude that we surely should talk with the whole crew before the feast starts. Strennun breaks the silence after some time by asking "what exactly are we protecting against?". None of the books I read discussed this in detail, and no one else seems to know any answers, so I just tell him that he probably doesn’t want to know. The rest of the watch I spend lost in thoughts, not really protecting anything.

After the mausoleum is built, we head back to the fortress. On the way there I bring the reconstruction of the dwarven kingdom to the attention of the crew, but no one else seems to be interested in such topics now. I ask Orof about his thoughts, and he tells me that its probably not the moment to talk politics right now. In front of the fortress the goblin kings head chef and his helpers already set up a feast for everyone. One of the servers asks everyone what they want to drink. "This is a special occasion" I think to myself, and I order some alcohol, the first I’ve ever drunk since over three hundred years.

As everyone is served, I hold a speech, as it is appropriate for a dwarven feast. I speak a toast on Torebol, as he would have had the potential to become a great magic user. The dwarves were ecstatic by my speech, and I tried to drink the whole cup of alcohol.

What I didn’t know was that the "alcohol" was a whole cup of whiskey. I should have asked some of the others what to order, but now it was too late to back down. I tried to finish the whole cup but started coughing hysterically midway through. I can only remember parts of the rest of the evening, but those were some good parts.

Strennun started betting on some guys which started fighting around the tables. After the fight he got up to congratulate the winner, as he won him five gold. And like this the crew all went their different ways to experience the atmosphere of a dwarven feast.

I meet a group of elder dwarves who seem to share intellectual interests with me. We start talking about dark dwarves and the like. I ask them if they are interested in some fine elven pipeweed and they all joined in. And like this my pipe started its journey around a whole group of elder dwarves.

In the meantime, Strennun meets a sober Kylin, which cannot be true as she is known to drink heavily once the alcohol is brought out. He confronts her but cannot wrap his head around what is happening. He calls over Orof to ask for help. The sober Kylin persists that it’s her, and that she just tolerates whiskey better than the rest. Orof calls me over to help them with the confusion.

I look around the circle of dwarves to see where my pipe is currently at, but I’s still making the round. As this pipe is a family heirloom, I cannot leave it behind unobserved.

Orof and Strennun still argue with the sober Kylin. Suddenly Strennun shortly sees another Kylin walking around the masses of people. Orof calls me over again.

This time it seems to be important, and thankfully the pipe reached me again. I excuse myself and stumble towards the rest of the crew. They explain the issue to me, and a simple question pops into my head: "Have I ever talked over you, Kylin?". The sober Kylin answers with a no, which immediately reassures Strennun’s claim that this cannot be the real Kylin. Without a second thought I blast her with some missiles, and a whole fight ensues. In hindsight this hasn’t been the best decision, but at least it was one. The sober Kylin turns out to be a Rakshasa disguised as Kylin. It turns invisible and runs away. I try to follow it and bomb it down with even more missiles. I chase it through the whole crowd until it finally crashes down at the ground.

Meanwhile Orof and Strennun face another problem: A second Wiscas seems to have turned up during the fight. They tell some guards to surround them with their shields. Both claim to be the real Wiscas.

As I return, they once again ask the wisest member of the crew to solve the problem. I ask them what their magic weapon is enhanced with.

• (Fake) Wiscas: It puts blisters on my enemies
• (Real) Wiscas: It helps to kill my enemies easily

Sadly, this isn’t an indication of the fake Wiscas, as I have no Idea what the sword does, as I haven’t identified it yet. To be honest I was only interested in getting to know what it does, but my thought wasn’t thought out till the end. Thankfully Orof casts detect magic and identifies the fake Wiscas. Before telling everyone, he orders the guards to hold them both tight, so that the fake one cannot turn invisible and run away in the same manner sober Kylin did. After this is done Orof tells everyone which one is fake, and the guards let go of the real Wiscas. Without second thought he gets up and kills the fake Wiscas, ignoring our pleas to let him live for later interrogation. I cast some fireworks into the sky to distract all everyone around who was watching, and the feast continues.

Meanwhile Orof searches the dead Rakshasa and finds four pages of information.

The next morning, I get waken up by Oratos. He tells me he tried to wake everyone else, but I was the only one who didn’t just continue sleeping. We search for the goblin chef and order him to cook something for us, while we wait for the others to wake up.

Sometime around the evening the rest of the party awakes, and they all have a bad hangover. They start drinking a conter-beer, while Orof is reading the papers he found the previous evening. Kylin doesn’t remember anything of the previous evening and starts Strennun explaining it to her. Orof and I go to have a look for the dwarves, to finally have a talk about the future of the fortress and a solution to the goblin problem. On the way we find Wiscas and inform him as well about the meeting we’re planning to have, and that he should join us at our tents as well. We find the dwarves outside the fortress in a small river, still asleep.

In the meantime Kylin and Wiscas talk about the crew and what is going to happen. Wiscas offers to handle the political struggle in the mountain.

Back at the fortress we start the first meeting of the dwarven council. Or at least that is what I would have hoped for. I ask the dwarves about the dead dwarven king, whose tomb we found, and if some of them want to claim heritage. I ask about the remaining goblin forces (3 armies and the kings guard, which fled during the battle). Strennun asks if the dwarves plan on ruling the fortress. All these questions go unanswered. Maruk seems to be hungover as well, and only shares with us that he wishes to eat Strennun.

I remember again why I didn’t drink alcohol for such a long time. As this meeting is not as productive as I planned it to be I finally ask my final question: "What is the dwarven republic’s plan with the fortress?"

The Explosive 'Stealth' Mission

After a fun night of parties, ale and food the fun people of the crew woke up to a massive hangover and rested for another day. That following day we were met by Wiscas and a female dwarf clad in used armour. She introduced herself as Grenna Stoneaxes and as the late Havarasts cousin. She announces that she would take over the Mines until Torvall Sotnaxis, the head of the Stoneaxes Clan arrives. As thanks for our exquisite services in helping reclaim the mines she leads us down into a library. Already entering I am fully aware we will lose Darfin for at least a few days for him to skim through here. The thing though she wanted to show us was a jug that keeps on replenishing whatever contents the holder desires. For now Strennun holds the jug and is misusing it for salt water. Like there would be so much better stuff to do with it. Like Whiskey, rum, ale, beer, grog.... Either way Grenne shows us also a round symbol carving in the floor which is apparently a teleportation circle. Darfin takes immediate notes, so that we could return when we wished. Curiously I also try and take a mental note. Who knows, maybe I can use it too.

As predicted we leave the library without Darfin, as he will catch up later. On our way out, we meet a shadowy figure who introduces themselves as Belari. Belari resemble a lot like the elves we know. just a little darker and a wuss when it comes to sunlight. Belari is in the search of a weird stone that will empower his family. In return for us helping him find this strange sun stone he promises the aid of his family if we need any. As we started packing up our camp we hear the horns of the dwarves blow as they prepare to eradicate the goblins of this area. As we were tipped that the stone may be in the eastern slave pits we offer a final crusade for the cute new leader of the dwarves.

After a couple of days travel we arrive at the slave pits and split up with the rest of our troupe before nearing the entrance of the cave. At the entrance are a handful of goblins with big shields. After a few spells it seems that the shields are even more potent than the talismans that we found and that they can absorb more powerful spells. Through some improvisation and loud intimidation, we scare them of the premises and make our way into the caves. At first the caves seem completely abandoned. Further in though we find a bizarre fight between the goblins and hobgoblins fighting slaves and devils. After some inspection of the battlefield we notice some tents heavily guarded by some goblins and in a corner some devils holding the ritual. We guessed that the stone would be with the tents, but whenever devils are involved trouble follows. To be able to handle both these headaches we split ourselves into two teams, team stoner and team horny. The stoner team comprising of Strennun and Belari head to the tents while team horny head to the ritual. Stoner team would signal with some darkness that they have completed that task while team horny would signal with a firework.

Team Stoner managed to sneak up to the guarding goblins until they got spotted. Out of panic the fought but were not making headway. So in desperation Strennun made it dark. Which coincidentally was the signal. With that help though the manage to get to the tent.

Meanwhile team horny sneak their way to close enough to the ritual to be able to blast them with two lightning balls tearing them apart and leaving the cultist bloody but alive. The ritual was cancelled. But the devils started looking for who was targeting their blood ritual. We sneakily make our way back to then entrance while Orof does the signal.

Stoner team frantically search the tent while being closely followed by goblins. Belari locates it and shows it to Strennun. Strennun not quite trusting the new guy on the block (which is very understandable) snatches the sun stone and turns invisible to head to the meeting point where they meet up with team horny.

As everyone meets up at the cave entrance Belari and Strennun start fighting over the stone. Meanwhile something has caught my eye. The ritual has started. Those damn stubborn devils. I guess that means it is round 2 for team horny. So Orof and I head back to the fight and force ourselves through the fighting. With a well-timed attack the dream team kills all the devils holding the ritual aside from one lucky one. I guess he won the lottery today. But this also means that the devils finally have found us, as we turn around to face to grinning devils. It seems though they were to focus on their potential pay day which gave us the chance for our grand escape. As Orof promised me he had a way to escape I decide to kill the last devil that held the failed ritual to take flight (pun intended) and fly towards the exit. Meanwhile Orof baits the two to charge at him and disappears and reappears closer to the exit in a shower of petals. The chase is on. I soar through the sky raining missiles down on goblins and devils while flying over their heads. Half a minute later we meat up back at the cave exit with the two still bickering. We also had another problem. Five devils were hot on our tails with money and blood on their minds. So naturally we run into the forest with Strennun taking pot shots at them on the way whittling them down.

After this exciting endeavour Belari leaves us while we set up camp to recover ourselves from a job well done. I mean sure it could have gone more silently. And sure, the devils know that we are around and can collect on their bounty. But hey, after all that my bounty better be much higher now.

Heading for New Shores

How nice Darfin must have it right now, sitting comfortably and quiet in the library. I imagine him drinking some tea, probably with that brackish goblin water. - Oratos

Darfin learns about how the Stoneaxes clan ruled over this valley, the gold they found and the great cataclysm that happened 1000 years ago. Unlike the other Dwarven Kingdoms the Stoneaxes did not participate in the republic and held their isolation policies until the fall of the kingdom 200 years ago, when it was overwhelmed by the force of the goblins and the destructive power of a dragon.

Heavily breathing Strennun, Miss Nelson and I return to the cave where we scheduled to meet up with the rebels. After returning to the large room, we find some of the rebels fighting the devils who have now defeated the hobgoblins. After things turn sour for the rebels, Miss Nelson and Strennun help the remaining slaves with cover fire to escape the cave. Not many make it, but as a last resort Miss Nelson collapses the cave with a loud thunder. At the basecamp Darfin finds Rigalis flying while his two brutes hold the rope that secures him to the ground.

We meet up with Darfin to take the shorter route through the mountain, where we find kobolds carrying the remains of what Darfin describes as the remains of the spider queen. After trading the Kobolds some of our rations for a part of the spider queen we continue our way through the mountain. We take a short rest while Darfin inspects the spider queen’s limb. Sitting atop his chest Darfin makes several observations: There was a magical liquid inside the limb that seems to be responsible for the transformation forced by transmutation magic, but the magic was vanishing quickly.

Meanwhile Strennun has a mythical experience in which he is submerged, following a twinkle at the bottom of the sea. The twinkle is coming from a glass panel that protects a grave from the water, a dwarven tombstone that has weird crystallizations around it.

After resting we are informed that the kobolds want to claim the dragon’s gold because we found it in their mountain. Miss Nelson challenges the leader of the Kobolds to a duel and the Kobolds accept. After missing the first punch I try to demoralize the Kobold’s leader but weave more magic than expected into my insult and instantly knock out the Kobold. The Kobolds call me out for foul game and start tossing stones at me. It was not my smooth tongue getting me out of this situation but Miss Nelsons pragmatic thinking. A lighting-ball later we run out of the cave. The Kobolds are shadowing us but we arrive at the Devilsfall without further incidents.

Jack welcomes us. There was a mutiny because of food shortages and the halflings called Baldar lost his hand for it. Jack was also able to make major reconstructions to the ship's interior. The captains quarters now have a wooden vitrine filled with booze and even a distillery, Strennuns room now has a pool and an exit through the ships wall, Darfins room has several shelves, a dissecting table and his mysterious chest. And mine has a desk and a whetstone. After setting sail, I commission wooden trainings weapons from Jack and announce a tournament for the hole that Wiscas left. We also learn from Darfins bird that Strennuns vision was real and the dwarven grave really has crystallized.

The tournament proceeds and we have several contenders:

• A tiny fat gnome with patchy hair wearing a sailor suit.
• A hairy dwarf wearing shorts, a shield and having half of this beard missing.
• A red dragonborn showing off a goatee wearing a chest belt.
• A human with curly hair, moustache, well dressed and "French".

The Dragonborn wins and we have our new combat officer: Ninmar.

The next morning, we reach the river triangle and fog makes it hard to navigate. A female voice ensnares anyone hearing it, and people start jumping the ship. After seeing miss Nelson jump into the water, Strennun calls me and Darfin. We resist the call and Strennun saves the people while I steer the ship. Darfin flies towards the voice and returns after silencing it for good.

Following the river, we see corpses walking on the east coast. Shortly after we arrive in Durnkuldir.

A new friend??

Overnight, Darfin asks Jack to throw his ominous closed crate overboard he has kept a secret from the whole crew.

After the thing with the ugly mermaids and the other creepy undeds we made our way up the river Bland. I went out for a morning swim and saw that they are building a big bridge over the river. That river is at least three shiplengs wide and it looks like dey want to make it at least one shiphight high! Captain Nelson blows her horn to make the ship go faster and the dwarven city blows their horn to say that dey hear us. Shortly after de bridge, two smaller boats are coming abord our ship. Dey say deyre of clan Oak-Flayer and ask if deres anything on the ship that's not supposed to get into the city. I dunno if ded people who are not ded fall under dat category, so I just say nothing. After de dwarves leave, we go to the port of de dwarven city wit the complicated name (Durnkuldir) and de portmaster tries to scam money out of us like dey always do. I thought that was only with pirates but apparently dats also wit normal ships. Oratos tries to reason wit the portmaster but in the end he still pays 80 GP for four days. That means.... a lot of gold per day!

The city of Durnkuldir consists of three rings:

• Outermost ring: Markets and trading
• Middle ring: Industry and manufacturing
• Innermost ring: Residential area of the nobles

(Additionally, there's the port and the slums for the non-nobility 'residential area')

In dese four days we stay here, Kylin tells Jack to stock up de ship and deyre also trying to get more people to join the crew. But also, we need to get a package for som important dwarf we met in the city under de mountain (Greybeard).

Firstly, we go to the 'Lusty Maiden' to get a drink and mebbe find some men to join de crew. There we find somebody we didn't expect: The pale elf who wanted us to steal de red sunstone! ([Belari Tolval|Belari]]). He sits in a table with a dwarf who's about as wide as he or she?? is tall! Apparently, it's a woman and she introduces herself as Kella the Square. Turns out Belari and Kella are up to join de crew, but Oratos wants to fight Kella to see how good she can fight. Dat should be fun! I find some people to bet because deres no way dis dwarf can beat our Oratos! ...

Okey so dis dwarf beat the shit out of Oratos and I lost 15 silver coins! She didn't even need de wooden sord Oratos gave to her! just straight up slapped the hell out of him!

Kylin didn't even get to see dis fight because she was outside wit the barmaid who sliped him a note when we were ordering out drinks. De note was in dwarven so I had to read it to her and it said 'are you the one Greybeard sent? meet me outside in 15min'. Outside she gives him anoter note - of course in dwarven again! - wit an address and to go there at 8pm. I cannot really read the address because reading is not my strongest thing - but swimming is!. Luckily Kella wants to join de crew so she can read the note and tell Kylin the address.

It was only lunchtime then, so we went shopping. Darfin tries to get a good robe but it's too expensive for him, so he gets the second-best one that's only about half the price. I get helth potions and captain Nelson too. Kella gets a hammer and Oratos gets some nice shortswords because he somehow doesn't want to use his rely big sword he always carries around with him.

In de evening we go to the address and Kylin knocks, but nobody opens. We read de note again and Kella sais that you have to knock in a special pattern for them to open. Kylin knocks in that pattern, and someone looks out to look at you and den opens a lot of locks before letting us in.

We get lead into a common room with some chairs and one big chair with a probably important dwarf in it. He tells us something about a lost package from the brother of Greybeard that we should get back. Dude with the package is in the inner circle and we get payd for bringing it back. To get us in more easier, Darfin gets some fancy democrats robe with the Democracys insignias on em. Probably fake but it might get us in the inner circle so who cares.

Apparently, the guy is called Wernan Axethain and is some high up in the northern army. Also, there are fifteen guards posted around the house so sneking in could be difficult. But anyway, details are a bit woozi because someone gave me a mug and I thought it was beer and necked it. But it was Whisky and I got wasted instead.

Back on the ship, Darfin wants us to tell something about some weird experiment he has done. Apparently if you die while on the ship, you die (big surprise...) but if you die on the ship, you get unded. He tried that with some animals or so and now wants to do the same with persons to see if they com back to life.

Kella and I go to the local thieves guild to maybe find someone to take this hard job off us (Editor's Note: Misunderstanding, they were sent out to gather information on the house and Wernan that might make the job easier). We find them in some underground cave and thers a shady half-elf that says he do it for 900GP. Thats a lot of money. We say that we meet at the rugged inn later to discuss details. We go back to the crew and tell the news. Apparently I have not understod that correctly and we only needed to get information. We meet up at the inn and tell the guy we are not interested. Kylin gives me 20GP to give to him 'for his troubles'. Guy wants more and I have to pay him another 20GP from my own money. Asshole.

Meanwhile, Darfin lets his familiar case the house. It's a nice house with five stories and surrounded by a garden, which is regularly patrolled by guards. The second and third floor also have balconies, which have their own posted guard. The garden provides a lot of cover due to a multitude of shrubberies in the gardens.

Afterwards, the rest of the group checks out the inner circle themselves. Naturally they get held up at the gate and Oratos tries to defuse the situation by asking for restaurant recommendations and then excusing himself to eat there. In the end, Darfin uses his fake robes to get the guards to let them in under the pretence that the others of the group would really love to take a look at the citadel. There's a lot of guards from the city-guard patrolling the entirety of the inner circle and you could get additionally, private security for your house if you think you need it, but it's mostly net needed anyway. Darfin talks to some people in a little park and finds out theat the Orcs are currently marching again, so the northern army has moved out to meet them. As our guy is the general of said northern army, he's out as well - as are most of the residents in the inner circle. Either to get to safety pre-emptively or because they're marching with the northern army. Mokhed Mindbuckler, a very eager dwarf and scribe for the nobility of the city, also invites Darfin to a gala-dinner at the citadel at the end of this week.

Meanwhile, Oratos is enjoying a nice dinner and looking for a new chef for the ship. Sadly, all the 'good' chefs don't want to work in a ship-kitchen, but he gets a recommendation to look for Rashesh, as he might be interested in the Gig.

After we meet on the ship again, the others tell of what they saw in the inner circle. We decide to try and get in through the sewers. Belari and I will go and try and find a way. We go into the sewers and almost get lost sometimes but find a way and an exit that exits right next to the house. Then we go back and almost get lost again but Belari uses Breadcrumbs or something to help us keep track. Smart idea.

And who are you?

The second morning in Durnkuldir we wake up to Strennun leaving for important business. He did no tell us where he went, nor why and for how long. As we plan on spending the next days in crowded areas around the city I believe it is best to come up with a safe word for occasional confusions with Rakshasas and other impostors. As a group we come up with a question and answer system, pretty clever thing: The first person asks: "How is the dwarf?" and the second person answers with "round". This is a reference to Kella, who is pretty square. On the other note I really hope the captain and the other crewmembers are right with their judgment to trust them into the inner circle.

We enjoy our breakfast which our new chef Rashesh cooked for us with the spiciest spices in the known world. I remind the crew that we talked about bringing dead people on the ship, and some low life humanoid to kill aboard. The still seem to agree with those ideas, so hopefully we can arrange something during the break in.

Suddenly we hear a loud commotion on the upper decks. The captain asks Ninmar, the new combat officer, to bring her the loudest two. They talk about monsters in the sewers and if they exist or not. Hopefully there is something magical going on, I will be pretty disappointed if not. By the advice of Orof the captain punishes them by taking them with us on our mission into the mansion of general Wernan Axethain. I loudly exclaim that I find it to be a bad Idea, but get ignored nonetheless.

Sometime later we enter the sewers lead by Belari, who more or less remembers the way he took with Strennun the day before to exit directly into the generals estate. I magically make the noses of the punished guys smell like flowers so I don’t have to hear them complain all the time. Guided by Kylins and my light we make it through the long and twisted channels of the sewers.

Halfway through we encounter some tentacles in the walls, which attack us straight away. Out of the walls comes a monster made out entirely of biodegradable material. Something like a plant, but not really. Sadly it gets blasted away before I can really have a look at it. The remains however do not seem to be magical or mutated at all, so if this creature was magical at all its magic died with it. I guess we should be on the lookout for similar creatures further into the sewers.

After we gather ourself again we send the scared to death, already punished enough crewmembers back and continue further into the sewers. Finally we arrive at some ropes which Strennun and Belari left behind the day before, to climb up into the estate. We exit through an entrance in the gardens, and do our best to sneak into the estate without being noticed. As I exist as the last one I cannot make out anyone else, they seem to be hiding well enough for not even me noticing them. As a distraction I cast the illusion of a greased pig running around through the gardens.

I see the others sneaking towards the door, and decide to do the same. We all get inside, and Kella kills the first guard we meet without hesitation. Orof seems to be disguised as a gardener of the estate. We make our way downstairs into the cellars. The other crewmates kill another three guards with excessive force, and Belari picks open a massive stone door in our way. Behind it is a staircase which we descend quickly as it sounds like more guards are arriving behind us.

We arrive in a small chamber full of books, with a dwarf in a wheelchair named Ozmock in the center. Seems like the package we are taking back with us is another living being. He asks us to take as many of the books as we can with us, which I can totally understand. I try to search the books for the ones which seem to be the most important of them all, as Kylin get Orof which stayed behind to hold the door as long as he can. We leave with Ozmock and some of his books through a secret door, which leads us through a different part of the sewers than we went through just some minutes before. Orof leaves the rake he used to disguise himself with behind, and funnily enough we hear one of the guards stepping on it.

In the outer circle we leave the sewers again, and split up to finish the mission. Orof and I push Ozmock back to the ship, as the rest fetches the punished crewmembers from the other entrance to meet back at the ship. Sadly during the whole mission, we forgot to follow our experiment with the ship, which means we need to find some other humanoids to bring back to the ship to experiment with.

A devilish surprise

After bringing back the ekhem... "package" to the ship we gathered on the top deck to discuss the next steps. All of a sudden, a silhouette emerged from the water and jumped onboard. It was Strennun! Wet and fishy as always. When we were busy with them dwarves, he went (swam?) around taking care of turtle hunters. I wonder where he found them as I have not seen any turtles around. While Oratos went to prepare some "statements", we went under the deck together with Ozmock to see our new rooms. Khela got a very nice room she seemed to like and then we went to my new room where absolutely nothing happened and I was not scared of a monkey.

Some time later, Darfin continued rambling about his experiments and finding low level humanoids to experiment on. While finding low humanoids shouldn't be a problem - what with all the dwarves in the city - we were distracted by a misterious figure that introduced itself as Shomal. He wished to join our crew so we let him tag along. We went through a round of introductions on our way to a tavern. Since we grew tired of the Lusty Maid, we decided to give another one a try and ended up approaching the Mermaid's Flair. The new tavern however seemed to be in the middle of a brawl as indicated by all the furniture being thrown out of the window, so Captain advised we continue our search. The only person happy with the outcome was Strennun, who intercepted a fine chair and promptly took it with him.

During our journey through the port we passed places with names such as the Naughty Nymph, the Captain's Daughter, the Busty Barmaid or the Hole Drillers (must be a mining supplies shop) and ended up in the Rustic Meat - an ordinary-looking port tavern, which, unlike the others, stood up to its name. After a round of ale - or, in Darfin's case, a cup of tea - Shomal and Khela engaged in a friendly fight that ended up in a decisive win for her. We asked the barmaid about the rumours and the news about the brake-in to the Axethane's house were indeed the talk of the town. We convinced the barmaid that the burglars were actually humans and gave her fake descriptions. Before we went back to the ship, Shomal explained that he is chased by a Fiend, which adds another enemy following our crew with malicious intents. At least the what's-left-of-the-drow-guild that swore to find me seem to have lost my trail...

Next morning on the ship, yet another new visitor arrived. He wore a purple dress, had a long tail and introduced himself as an acquirer of certain goods - later I was told his name is Salarus. He also offered Darfin a scroll of waterbreathing demanding an outraging sum of two-and-a-half thousand gold pieces for it! And the Captain agreed! After a rather uneventful day spent on shopping and wandering around the city, we finally set sail.

The journey started off with a storm. Half of the crew fell overboard and the raging sea almost claimed me and Khela! Luckily Strennun rushed to save us. After another foggy day, we noticed a ship ahead of us. Its flag showed the human empire colours and it started slowly changing the course to avoid us. Strennun grabbed an axe and jumped overboard to scout the ship and, after a considerable amount of time, returned without the axe. The ship proceeded to sink and our Captain agreed to shelter its crew - we even got Strennun to go back to the soon-to-be wreck and salvage some barrels. Two more days passed without much happening - although the Captain seemed a bit more weary than usual.

On the ninth night, just as I was expecting that nothing bad would happen, we were woken up by a huge racket coming from the Captain's room. As it turned out, the devils appeared on the deck and the Captain was stabbed with a dagger in her sleep! I wonder how they made it past the keen eyes of our night watch. Khela was first on the deck and, before the bearded devils knew it, started slapping. As I made it to the deck, I saw the Captain flying high above, casting her spells. Others also kept their distance and hurled magic projectiles at the intruders - with the obvious exception of our slapping monk, who was hard at work in the front line. "Who are you?! What do you want from us?!" the crew members shouted in many languages, some of them I never heard before, yet no answer came. We quickly dispatched the foes but as the last one dropped on the wooden deck, they rose again! It must have been the ship's curse keeping them alive!

We started the battle anew, soon seeing how the devils loose their strength. I kept shooting arrows, I saw Strennun and Shomal casting their projectiles. One of the devils was incapacitated by the Captain. "Drown them!" shouted Darfin as he cast the water breathing spell on us. He grabbed the immobilized beast and dragged it underwater. Khela caught the remaining two - by now either dead again or dying - and jumped into the water, holding them tight, shrieking "fish me out!". Strennun jumped after them to drag the beasts to the seabed. As the deck emptied out, I followed the Captain to he room to calm my nerves - she took a bottle of fine whisky and offered me a glass. A moment later, Shalom and Khela joined. Khela needed healing very badly and I was amazed how the Captain simply poured a healing potion into her drink and got her into shape.

A moment later, the rest of the crewmembers joined us, telling us that the devils are gone for good. We decided to get some rest but I could not get much sleep the entire night. The sun is rising so hopefully we investigate the unexpected visit during the day...

The ass-kicking from Hell

Okay listen up losers because shit went down.

As we were cleaning ourselves up after the battle and figuring out what THE HELL just happened, something new had to come up of course. I was lying on the floor of the Captain’s office and holding on to my healing whiskey for dear life as I heard Oratos calling everyone from the lower deck that Ozmock disappeared. Super weird. Belari and Kylin went to the lower deck to help him out and I barely crawled behind them (not my proudest moment, I admit). Darfin’s room, where Ozmock should be, was messy, full of books fallen off shelves. In the middle, there was Ozmock’s empty wheelchair.

Darfin also showed up, all wet from drowning the devils and covered in seaweed, and he got immediately pissed about the books being messy. He’s supposed to be so smart and all but somehow, he couldn’t explain how Ozmock could have disappeared from his room. Apparently, Steve and Jason (aka The Two Idiots) were responsible for him but turns out they were napping. Like I said – idiots. While going through the mess in Darfin’s room, we found a mysterious scroll in a language that none of us knew or even ever saw. Some books were also missing – the ones that Darfin and Ozmock went through last while doing their research. Belari also noticed weird burnt markings on the walls and the ceiling, forming a huge ring. Darfin didn’t detect any magic left in the room, but at least from the notes scattered around the floor he found out that Ozmock’s research was mostly focused on jumping to other planes. All in all, there were more questions than answers, so we summoned Salarus – maybe he could help us decode the scroll at least. Based on the night’s events, we also decided to reorganize the crew. From now on there will be teams specialized in different tasks: sails, shifts, helping in the kitchen and cleaning. The last one will go to The Two Idiots with hope that they’ll do the least damage there. We also finally noticed that Shomal and Strennun were nowhere to be found. Whoops.

In the morning, Belari came up to the deck and saw our ship looking like a casino full of tieflings playing games and gambling. He woke up Kylin and everyone assembled on deck to meet Salarus. Creepy as he was, he turned out quite helpful. The scroll was an order to kidnap Ozmock, not a ransom note like we suspected. The order came from Sinbar – an ambitious warlord from the first layer of the Nine Hells. He apparently somehow survived 20 years in the Nine Hells already, so that’s hella impressive (HELLa - get it?). Salarus offered to help us get to Sinbar (that is, to ACTUAL HELL) and, more importantly, back to the ship in one piece. The deal was: we pay 900 GP per person and for that we get a 3-day-long trip to hell. After 3 days exactly, we either show up in the predetermined spot to be taken back to our ship, or we’re on our own. Sounded super dangerous, I was hyped.

First though, we did some extra research and asked a million questions. Turns out that time in the Nine Hells passes differently than here – having stayed in Nine Hells for 3 days, we’d be back to the ship only 3 hours after we had left. Sinbar had a team of about 60 people. Why he kidnapped Ozmock was unclear – it may have been a trap. In the meantime, we also discovered that Shomal was there all along – he can shapeshift and right now he looked exactly like Jack! Really cool, I gotta admit. If I could shapeshift, I would make myself a little bit more evenly square. Strennun was still missing but we all assumed he was just still in the water - once he gets in, he’s impossible to drag out.

And so, we got ready and formed a plan. We had to choose to either find and attack the transport moving Ozmock to Sinbar’s camp, or to ambush the camp directly. We went with the second option and boy, were we wrong.

We arrived in a field of knee-high grass, totally not what I imagined the Nine Hells to be. In the distance we could see 2 massive groups charging at each other to battle, which was awesome. We started walking away from the sun, in the direction of Sinbar’s camp. Getting there took us the rest of the day and when we arrived by the camp, it was night and we started investigating. The camp was build right next to a huge stone wall. The other 3 sides of the camp were protected by a palisade. We decided to burn out a hole in the palisade, right by the stone wall and sneak through it. Inside, there was a row of small buildings going all around the camp by the palisade. In the middle of the camp we saw 3 huge Blue Dudes that were keeping watch. On the stone wall there was an opening into a cave of some sort.

Darfin and Shomal became invisible and started investigating the houses but didn’t find Ozmock in any of them. Just some of Sinbar’s people, unaware of our presence. At first, we tried to be all sneaky about this ambush and carefully headed along the stone wall towards the cave opening. Unfortunately, one of the Blue Dudes noticed us, so I obviously started slappin’ like there's no tomorrow. Darfin immediately joined with his spells, and I heard Belari’s arrows flying by my ear. I heard some teleport cracks and I saw Shomal and Kylin appearing in the cave opening. I think I also saw Oratos still trying to sneak into the cave thanks to the commotion. The Blue Dudes were proper opponents and I won’t lie, we were getting our asses kicked big time. They were hitting us with those massive rays of cold and were wounding many of us at once. We managed to kill one Blue Dude but that wasn’t enough. As much shooting, slapping and casting as we did, we couldn’t stand a chance. We were slowly backing into the cave opening, only to be wiped unconscious by one last cold blow.

Just before I blacked out, I saw Oratos, Belari and Shomal lying on the ground beside me. They were so beat up I don’t think they’ll come out of this alive. Kylin was wounded and lying just behind me, I think.

I saw a blurry shape of Darfin still standing and screaming “Come at meeeee” but I think the remaining Blue Dudes vanished?

Maybe I’m hallucinating.

I just gotta close my eyes for just one second.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF:

Oratos, my favorite sparing buddy

Belari, who was not at all afraid of the monkey

Shomal, who was very handsome, no matter what shape he took

Blue Devils, Bushes and Ambushes

Strennun while trying to enter the Devilsfall from below, sees the keel of another ship close by. Leaving a trail of puddles, he walks up to the main deck where he is greeted by a nervous crew and one of the great captains (Teolgrog) steering the ship. Skipping any unnecessary detail, Teolgrog explains what is about to happen.

The others are in hell and we will get them out of there.

One of the Goaliths surrounding Teolgrog grabs Jason, holds him against the helm and slits his throat. Teolgrog grabs the bloody wheel and spins it left and right, causing the ship to roll from side to side.

after one last roll
Strennuns lungs fill with water
one pleasant feeling

Darfin, resting in the forest near the devil camp hears a loud crackling followed by thunder.

The Devilsfall shoots out of the water in the small pond next to the Devil's camp. Jack and some undead crewmates jump off the ship and Teolgrog with his guards follow by boat. Strennun, faster than anyone jumps off the boat and runs towards the Devil camp's gate.

In The forrest, the survivors recovered at a rate only possible in this place, and the decision is made to check out the thunder. Coming out of the woods the party spots the devilsfall which is taking up almost the whole pond. They also spot Strennun near the gate who is now running towards the group. Ozmock's whereabouts are still unknown so leaving is not an option. Votes are cast and raiding the camp (Jack, Strennun, Kylinn) wins over setting up an ambush (Square, Darfin)

Before any buildings are burnt down, Strennung turns invisible and scouts out the camp. Using all his fingers he counts 30 devils and zero Ozmocks. With this knowledge Strennun changes his vote to ambush.

During my last hunt I broke the shaft of my spear so all I got left is my trusty shield. The road outside the forest is leading to a camp so maybe I can catch some lone wanderer and get a new weapon. I tie the shield to my back, push the wolf hide down my face and look for a good ambush spot.

A long time goes by until I see something moving in the distance, I silently swear as I spot multiple creatures. Just one of them getting away might mean trouble so I slow down my breath, and try to let them pass. The group is lead by a blue devil, quiet short compared to those I've seen before and lacking the horns. Following the devil are a humand and a dwarf. They stop and the devil throws something at my bush, has it spotted me? I resist throwing it back, maybe it was just a fluke. IMRID AMRAD URSUL, the devil is approaching me. As the devil grabs into my bush I pull it in and try to disable it. It's weak but just when I feel like I can subdue it, something bright pierces my skin, and the tall human attacks me with magic. After I lost hold of the devil the human seems willing to talk, but the devil still keeps hitting me. I'm not good with words but not having seen anything non-demonic and even willing to talk, I try my best. Apparently they know a way out of here, but for an insane price. Nevertheless I offer my service expecting to work for a long time. The dwarf is still skeptical of my skills. At least I will get to see my home again.

*bullying occurs, additional waterskin is aquired*

My first assignment will be to help in an ambush on some devil slavers, nice. We ended the battle without major resistance and having saved a young dwarf and an orcish woman called Brovara. The group has some scary fighter and even the orc killed some devils. Afte the fight I lead them to the battlegrounds where they claim their "exit" is located. It's far so we spend one more night in the forrest, hopefully my last night in these lands. The hill near the battlegrounds indeed has changed, there is now a colorful tent looking like it doesn't belong here. A Devil awaits us and pleasantries are exchanged, I try to keep to myself.

Debt to Salarus: 2700 GP

When we leave the tent we arrive on a ship. After being introduced to the important people, Jack and Square organise a tournament and with tournament I mean, a fight between Brovara and me. The winner gets to fight Square. We both get wooden weapons and a circle forms around us. Comfortably dodging all attacks of Brovara who is unsuccessfully hiding behind her shield. I get in some hits, but then she tells me to surrender, and so I do. I'm confused but won't protest. Square instead of fighting just Brovara, tries to punch both of us but with some weird open handed attacks but fails miserably. Later I'm lead to a room and the elf asks me to participate in some magical ritual. Brovara and I will be asked questions to prove that we are not some devil followers.

Some gained insight ..

Brovara: Hates Orcs for theirs frequent raids on her homelands. Protected her people from evil and local orc raiders had tales about her. She was part of an order that she left over disagreements of it being to passive. She also got a book from the monastery.

Roftag: Seeing off my parents after leaving my village. Delivering packages for the academy. The crater where the academy is located. Loud explosions in the background.

Of Talking Chairs, Slapping Squares and Crunchy Lizard Lairs

Question: What subject do you avoid talking about?

• Brovara: Family
• Square: What happens in the mines
• Roftag: Politics
• Strennun: His period of inservitude
• Kylinn: Family

---

While we are sailing in the foggy sea, our dude in the crow‘s nest shouts out that there is another ship. Soon after we hear the horn they use to tell us that they are where they are. Because we can still not see them, the Captain sends me out to investigate. I swom over to the other ship and am surprised. The ship is entirely made out of metal! it is also very big! Has a lot of oars and also a big ram that they probably use to ram other ships. When I watch into the ship, I see dwarves rowing. I swim back to the Captain and tell her what I saw. The Captain decides to also blow the horn to confirm our existence.

The dwarves are part of Greybeard's crew and the Captain of their ship, Throngel, comes on our ship to steer it into the hideout. I try to stay with the other ship to see if they do something fucky. But our ship is much faster and we soon leave them behind. When we leave them behind, I return to our ship and tell the Captain.

In the hideout we meet Greybeard, who gladly takes Ozmock in and shows him his library. Apparently Ozmock doesn‘t even know him? He also takes Darfin with him. We then go to eat dinner with him. The Captain also gets 4 Health Potions and an antidote for petrification from him. Square then also gets gloves of slapping from him. Roff cries for some reason (he tells Square that. this whole athmosphere with ale, laughter and meat reminds him of home, of better times.).

Greybeard then asks us to check out a vineyard that he bought where people disappeared. Even though he cried, Greybeard offers Rof a free pick of weapon from his smithy, so he and Bro bugger off. I spend a beautiful night in the hideout‘s hot springs. (Meanwhile, Kylinn goes back to the ship and unsuccessfully tries to reach Salarus) It‘s been a long time since I slept that good!! The next day we set off to the vineyard. When we get there, there are a lot of beautiful statues but Square says that they‘re weird because the stone is very young in some and very old in others. They were also dragged here. We check out the house and the door locks behind us. Weird. We check out a room and the door also slams shut behind us.

Brovara punches through a window but it is not a window but just an illusion. I check if the chair in the corner is also an illusion by lightly stabbing it with my rapier. It comes to life and yells at me for doing that. It‘s called Sulla and it‘s an asshole. I also punch through the ‚window‘ but not like Brovara. I get grabbed by a ghostly hand and pulled out of the window! The person grabbing me is a ghostly woman who tries to enter me??. The window I got pulled through suddenly moves away. I sprint towards the window and jump back into the room. The ghost follows me and also jumps into the room. Then it possesses Rof. Square then beats the ghost out of Rof again, but also beats Rof by doing so. Then she also beats the ghost out of the ghost. Meanwhile, Bro takes Sulla, the talking chair and tries to throw it out of the window but it keeps hanging on and bites Bro! Bro then gets pulled out of the Window as well - with the chair. Square jumps after them and grabs the chair. She absolutely YEETS the chair behind her further into the void and Bro and Square run back to the room.

I try to open door but it‘s still locked. I look through the keyhole and something looks back?! I stab the eye with my rapier and the whole room shakes, the wardrobe opens and we get thrown into a cave that opens behind the wardrobe.

We walk around in the cave down there and get attacked by two basiliks. We easily kill them - even before I got a hit in! That one time when I took out my anger on the dead beast, it fell on me and almost squished me to death! We also take some venom of the beasts because Darfin would probably kill us if we didn‘t. We also take some Basilisk-eggs with us.

When we get back out of the cave, the chair that Square is there. It must have climbed back into the window. It keeps arguing with me and the others because we don‘t want to take it with us. It claims that it was a Godlike creature once and even says that it knows my old one! If this is true and it tells the turtle that I have treated the chair badly I am very afraid! In the end we lock it in the room and I put Gertrude - my other trusty (non-talking!!) chair under the door-handle so the annoying thing is trapped. We then explore the rest of the house. There is a kitchen with a lot of mold and two - non-talking - stools. There is also a library with two armchairs that also don‘t talk. But the talking chair yelled from the other room when I stabbed it. We ask it if it is a hive-mind and it says no. The last room is an empty room with broken stairs to the upstairs. Brovara helps Rof and Kylinn up and they say that it‘s just storage.

Square really wants to take the chair with her for whatever reason. We argue some more and then in the end Square takes it with her. The chair claims that it was transformed to the chair by adventurers some… a long time ago (roughly 1300 years). I can‘t even blame them, I would have done the same.

The chair also says that the house is haunted by the daughter of the owner of the vineyard that owned the thing before greybeard bought it. That owner used the basilisks to turn competitors to stone before he died as well. The daughter then dragged all the unwelcome visitors that were turned to stone into the street before the house to tell all other potential visitors to fuck off… charming. Kylinn nukes the house to be sure that nothing cursed stays behind - we‘re taking the only cursed item with us.

Back at Greybeard‘s, we get a dinner again and Kylinn asks for a new, additional ship. Greybeard says he might be able to get one but not right now. After another night in the heavenly hot springs we get on the boat and just leave a skeleton-crew behind for the potential new ship. Kylinn goes with Greybeard to some boring council meeting and we‘re waiting for Darfin to get his ass out of the library so we can leave.

High Treason?

"This library is majestic", I think to myself, as I hear a familiar voice from behind. "Professor, we should move the ship to Mighttown", Jack says. "I haven't even started reading the good stuff yet, and they already want to leave? I don't even remember how long I've been in here...". "You're the next in line after Captain Nelson in seniority, as the first mate sadly passed away." he says. I do not like this, as responsibility might interfere with my research, so we compromise to meet up with the rest of the officers outside.

We all agree on letting Jack leave with the crew to Mighttown in the shadows of the night, while we travel there by foot the next day. Brovara tells me about some books he got for me, and a magical talking chair they found. I follow her onto the ship to get the books, which sadly turn out to be worthless fiction and a travelling guide to the Darnach Islet. We all meet up at Squares room to have a look at the magic chair they were talking about. Strangely there is no chair to be found, but a bed that radiates transmutation magic. The bed tells us that it is an elder who is over ten thousand years old. It tells me that it survived the Cataclysm and has many stories to tell about it. Sadly it gets offended by the others' stupid questions, and stops talking to us.

In that moment Jack comes around yelling orders at Brovara and Rof to start working the ship. As we still have a lot of traumata to go through as a group, I tell him that they will join us by foot on the way to Mighttown. As we leave the ship I tell the others abouts the talking furniture study room at the University for Health and Destruction in Alse Edhil, where I did my professorship. I invite them all to join me for a tour of the university if we ever go there, which hopefully we can sometime in the future. Someone proposed that we could bring the elder chair there, but I remind them that we should be in good spirits with the elder. If it is released by us or some other influence, we should not be on the list of its enemies. As I go to sleep I skim through the travel guide as my bedtime reading.

The next day we meet at the great hall with Greybeard's relatives, namely his brother TODO and Ozmock. Rof eats a lot of cheese, and even asks for more to take on the journey. Ozmock asks me about the books I was given, but I have to disappoint him because they are worthless for our research. I left them in my room, if he wants to read them. I announce our departure and we leave for our trek.

On the way to Mighttown I tell the others about the importance of announcing one's departure, as they were all confused about the formality. Rof tells me that in dwarven culture you just stay until you get kicked out, which is a new and interesting concept for me. But what if you must leave? Hmmm… I talk with Strennun about his family and he tells me about his father's business, and that he left because he didn't want to take the business over. He's not a numbers guy, therefore he doesn't see himself leading a business. I tell him that he can employ someone to do the numbers, and just do the managing himself, but he seems to not be confident in his own abilities.

As we get closer to Mighttown more and more carts with injured people cross our way, looking like they are fleeing from something. Rof asks a limping injured dwarf what's happening, and he tells us that Hogan's and Ondas' people united to fight with Teolgrag's people in the middle of Mighttown, which is strictly against the councils rules. Yet we don't really know who started the fighting. I release my hawk, and see many people fighting around the town hall, as well as people trying to storm the Devilsfall. We try to discuss a plan on what to do now, as Square announces that Kylin made her first mate. I'm disappointed that I wasn't askes, but also relieved that the burden is not on me anymore. She asks me if we both want to be ½ mate, but I decline her offer thankfully.

We enter the city on Square's command and try to fight our way to the town hall. On the way there a strange voice whispers "come here" from the dark, but as we have other things to do we ignore it. Strennun steps on a magic landmine, and almost gets ripped into pieces by it. To continue safely I try to detect other mines on our way. Strennun gets stopped by a saber around the corner. "Who are you aligned with?" they ask us, and we tell them "with Captain Nelson". The people around the corner tell us that they are with Teolgrag and that the others started the fight. Teolgrog arrived with his whole armada, which is pretty provocative, so we don't know who is really to blame here. Anyways they show us a safe path to get to the townhall through private houses and over roofs.

As we exit to the street again shambling mound appears out of the blue, and we destroy it with ease. We pass some barricades and hear the strange voice again. It turns out to be a combat healer, aligned with Teolgrag who heals us before we continue any further. Arriving at the town hall we see some people defending the main entrance, while others are attacking it in great numbers.

Might we finally get out of this Town?

I hate splitting up with my team. We really should have stayed together in the first place. And yet, as we approached the town square of Mighttown, Strennun and Kella stayed behind. I didn't catch why, had to pay attention instead. Moments later, I found myself alone with Darfin and Roftag, staring at the town hall. There was a barricade built in front of it. A couple of brutes roaming around. Kylin was trapped inside the building.

Town Map of Mighttown

We went with a smart plan. First, break into a house. Despite my kicking, the door wouldn't budge. Luckily, Roftag pried it open, and we got in. The owners must have left in a hurry... Second, find something that goes on a barricade. Me and Rof grabbed a table, Darfin found a tiny chair. I admit the old elf is not too keen on real, muscle work. Third, pretend to be one of Hogan's oafs. We walked out with the furniture and moved towards the blockade. It could have worked but we botched it.

On our way to the barricade the pirates started shouting at us. They ordered us to stop. Suddenly, I heard springs or other mechanisms and Darfin got launched into the air! Those buggers trapped the entire square! The impact threw me and Roftag on the floor. The guards were as confused as we were. One of them picked me up. Rof continued dragging the table, Darfin moved towards the guards muttering something. They've caught on to our ruse. As one of them shot at us, I noticed Darfin's fingers starting to glow. I reached for my old, reliable Morningstar and Roftag grabbed the table firmly, poised for a swing...

As I later learned, Kylin did not fare much better. She attended the Council of the Captains. Nasty buggers, some of them captain. Especially Hogan and Ondas, whose thugs were demolishing the defenseless city... So, Kylin arrived with Greybeard. They entered via a long tunnel leading from the hideout. She said the atmosphere was tense. Whispers, angry looks, captains checking their journals. Then, an unexpected guest entered. It was Wormtongue - a nasty, sneaky chap. He offers to form an alliance. He wants to rob ships, steal booty, and raid innocent people. Captain rejected the offer straight away - a good call. The rest wanted to think about it. She talked with Ondas, the annoying brute. She also approached Tavia - new scar on her face - and advised to ignore the Wormtongue. The Council voted and the votes are split. Hogan declared a war among the captains - a BAD call. Kylin smells a trap and proceeds to the main entrance. Just in time too...

Outside of the town hall, things looked rough. As I smashed one of the guards, he burst into flames. Moments later, a fire elemental appeared in his place. In the distance, I heard a shriek. Darfin held a palm to a guards's face, hands blazing with power. The guard did not stand a chance. Next to me, Roftag swung a table into another guard, smashing him to the ground. The eyes on the wolf's head he was wearing seemed to gleam. Then, we were engulfed by fire - another trap, I guess. Darfin ran away, I ran towards the fountain, Rof fell on the cobblestones. I jumped into the fountain and tried to extinguish his pelt. The elemental chased after us and dealed a crushing blow to Rof. And then, suddenly, silence.

I've seen everyone moving, SEEN them shouting, but the sound was... gone. There was no time to dwell on that. I grabbed the elemental and dived into a fountain with him. The water changed into vapour. it should have sizzled but it... didn't. I saw fiery rays hurled at the guards - they came from Darfin's hands. Then I noticed the town hall doors swung open. It was Kylin! She started flying, seemed to be dodging something. Then she cast spell after spell, almost blinding me with the intensity. The dying guards were tossed around, crashing into the building. Back in the square's center I parried and deflected everything they threw at me. Not the first time my shield saved my ass. Wish Kella was here, she would have loved the brawl. Two more spells from Darfin and the guards were gone. One of them fled. May he live to tell a tale about our crew!

The temple of Mighttown

I picked up Rof - maybe there was still hope for him. Darfin said he read about a temple in the trade district in the traveller's guide. Good that he actually reads books. The streets seemed deserted and fights in the distance quieter. We navigated the city with no issues. The temple was gigantic, with a steep roof. There were two statues in front. I did not recognize them, probably local gods. We were almost let in by an elf. Almost, because Kylin was not. The elf said she would desecrate the holy ground. Reminded me of my monastery, 'desecration' and 'holy' were words used to excuse many otherwise stupid actions. The master of the temple said Rof is dead. He demanded an incredible amount of money. Twenty-five thousand gold. Of course, we didn't have that with us. Darfin bargained and managed to increase the price to thirty thousand gold. AND he agreed! Hope he knows what he's doing. The resurrection ritual began, Darfin made for the ship to fetch the money. The chanting was... eerie and soothing. I decided to stay and rest at the temple.

Kylin and Darfin soon came back with the money. All shook up. They were met on the ship by Salarus. The ship was full of his servants. He protected the ship during our adventure in the city. Was a good idea for the captain to summon him. Not everything went as planned though. Jason, dubbed one of the bubbling idiots, lost his life. Pity, I started to like him... Captain and the old elf brought the money with them. Thousands of gold! I dare not ask where they found it or if it was real. The ritual ended soon, and we saw Rof. He was alive! He is charred, burnt and blistered and I have killed orcs who looked less ugly. But he is back with us, the lucky bastard. Darfin started arguing with one of the elves. Something about theory, nothing I'd care about, so I just took Rof to the Devilsfall.

Back on the ship, Salarus demanded 1200 gold for the protection fee. Sly little devil. The captain made a request to see the creator of the ship. Salarus was more than happy to fulfil the wish and demanded another 1500 gold pieces to find out! Wherever the money comes from, I hope it never runs out. Darfin offered us all some damn good tea. As we drank it, we were reminded about the little girl, who we promised to bring to safety. I hope at least Square and Strennun remembered about her...

Getting Ballast

Soooo this is a tale of how we lied to a kid saying we’d come back for it. And then turned out we didn’t really lie and we actually came back for it, argh.

So anyway, the Captain and Rof insisted that we go and we did. Took us like 20 minutes of *trying* to walk stealthily (as in: most of us were actually stealthy and Brovara and the Captain did their best). The way there was kinda tricky because of all the traps we had to avoid – luckily Strennun was leading, and he managed to notice most of them (except for one time when he got distracted and got tossed back, hilarious). Rof dodged one more trap, Darfin tried tapping cobblestones with his staff and that also worked pretty well. We had to climb over a barricade, avoided a tentacle monster, yada yada yada... We finally reached the house where we left the kid. It was probably scared and would hide somewhere if it heard any noise, so Strennun brilliantly kicked open the door extra loudly so it’s EASIER to find it. With a bit of a hustle, we found the little fucker (still wouldn’t tell us its name) and started wondering what to do with it. After a small debate we chose to take the kid to the ship rather than to the church. Luckily, the way back was uneventful (except for finding some loser to slap for no reason, that was fun).

When we got to the ship, it turned out that the way out of the city by water was blocked and that our rudder was broken, so we couldn’t sail out right away. Strennun took a swim to maybe steal some other ship’s rudder. Instead, he discovered that underwater there’s a whole bunch of humanoids all around him. He tried to distract them with noise but got caught by the ankle by *something* instead – he got out but there was no stealing the rudder. We’d have to wait 2 days to fix it, so we kept ourselves busy.

The Captain wrote to other captains in the log. She asked Teolgrag and Tavia for any news on the water blockade and asked Greybeard how we can help in the city. Darfin went looking for Sulla on the lower deck and Rof and Strennun had a sweet, slightly awkward conversation (“You’re just half devil”) where they decided on cease-fire. I myself figured that the kid (which we named Mighty Ballast btw) may not be as much of a waste of space as I thought. I decided to teach it how to fight and I gotta say, it’s a quick learner. At some point we even used Steve as a moving target. Best. Idea. Ever.

During the night nothing happened. I wondered if Darfin was successful at finding Sulla. Maybe he found him in his cabin and they talked all night? Maybe Sulla told him how he was a war god on the defending side of a huge war long, long ago? That his brother was killed and Sulla himself was one of the first to die? And maybe he said he had some unfinished business with our gods and wants revenge? Maybe Sulla gave Darfin a quest to find his old temple, which is so old that cannot be found on any existing map? Maybe he told him of tales that are so old and so horrid that no man can or will talk about it and only some oldest elves can remember these events? Who knows, or maybe he just snored all night over some book. The next day he just told us he couldn’t find Sulla.

In the morning the crew had a training session to learn that if someone dies, their body has to be brought on board asap. Nimar makes a pretty good instructor, he even threw someone overboard for practice. This also opened a whole debate if everyone even wants to be brought back so Darfin and Captain had a looong discussion and finally decided to make a survey among the crew if they prefer to die-die or become-a-zombie-die.

The Captain got the responses from other captains: Teolgrag seemed concerned about the water blockade. Tavia wrote “knock-knock”, so we responded with “Who’s there?”. This joke better have a killer punchline. I feel like we’ve been waiting for her response for like a month. Most importantly, Greybeard asked us for help. He said he needed us to find the people that are hiding in the many buildings in the city. This meant one thing: FIGHT!

We went to the city and decided to lure the fuckers out of the buildings by creating an illusion of Hogan calling them to battle. This worked perfectly and we lured out around 17 people. With the Captain’s thunders, my slaps, Rof throwing pebbles and Brovara slicing through people like butter, we quickly ended up with a neat pile of corpses in somebody’s carrot garden.

And we thought that would be all – and then a corpse fell through some building’s window. Strennun attacked whoever was inside and Brovara entered to investigate. She found a soon-to-be corpse on the ground. They whispered “Controool” and died. A very random ending to a very random day. And we still haven’t finished Tavia’s joke.

Light the way

The fight was fought quick and effectively. To our flank Rof and I spot a platoon of Greybeards men making their way to our battlefield. One of their scouts mention that there is a metallic beast running rampage in the Trade district, which has killed quite a few dwarves. I decided to offer our help in dealing with the beast after we have cought our breaths here. During our small rest Kella and Brovara finished what will surely become a tourist attraction; the Corpse Garden.

Tavia: Knock, Knock

Me: Whos there?

After the rest we make our way to the Trade district. There we find a bunch of people building up a barricade and lead by Lieutenant Greg who seems to be quite over his head and can not give us any hints on what this beast is. Turns out though it was a mechanical bull that made kebabs out of dwarves on a weekday and petrified unfortunates on the weekends. During the fight Kella got hit by the petrifying gas and got turned to stone. Luckily I had a potion of antipetrification on me and could reverse the effect immediately. We carve up the body, extract a phial of the gas and manage to sever the head of the torso. The head will either be a fine decoration on my wall or a nice device to break through hulls of Hogans ships.

On our way back we head by a Boxing school to pick up some items for Kella and Ballast. Additianally we made two further detors to the blacksmith and the armorer. After some brief shopping we finally make it back to the ship.

Tavia: Misses

Me: Misses who?

Once on the ship I find Salurus has paid us a visit while we were gone and delivered on my request. On my table lies a small bean with a note from Salurus. With this vision I had a weird vision. First I felt like I was suddenly drowning, to suddenly see the whole continent surrounded by 6 figures. One of the I recognize as Milin. That weird bard that the horny gnome was on about a couple of months ago. Another was just a guy with a musket. Then a Goliath with two clubs, similar to the clubs from Teolgrugs guards. Then a human with a long-sword, a woman in an elegant dress and long red hair and finally the Fairy like bitch that killed 3 of my men. I wish I could have killed her right there. But the vision changed to show me these figures fighting large creatures. The fight concludes with a Turtle like creature fleeing into the sea while another hides in the mountains. Then a new fight breaks out. But this one is between men, dwarves, elves and other races. This war was accompanied by a voice saying: "See what they have done. See what they created. Help me destroy them. Liberate them off this world that is suffering. Will you be my Champion?".

As the Fairy bitch is anyway going to die I feel what is there to loose. I accept the offer. In that moment I get the feeling of being buried alive. I fight against it. I dig and dig and dig. And then break the surface, to find myself in a graveyard with a bunch of candles. I go through looking at the individual graves. I find Porofs grave and Alluros, both with a warm lit candle. Then I find Jasons grave, Orofs grave and a bunch of others that I recognize. All cold. No light. No candle. The voice comes again:"Guide these people."

I wake up and look around. I am back in my office. Next to me on the floor lies Darfin for some reason and some chalk runes. I check that he is alive and wake him. As soon as he stirs he starts screaming in panic until he calms down. Once he has calmed down from his nightmare I call in a meeting to discuss the matters I saw. Maybe someone knows something of these gods that Milin and the others belong to. And maybe Strennun can help us with his knowledge on giant turtles. Darfin explains how the gods can be split in the old and the new gods. This probably means that the new gods overthrew the old gods letting some random children to take over.

Throughout the conversation Darfin and the others offer their opinions to help us find a plan. The discussion went on about the chair and Dafin voicing his suspicion that the chair could be and old god. I dont know if Darfin was still suffering from his Nightmare but he suddenly turns some advice into an attack, claiming its ridiculous that women and I could be a captain. Thats the first time I had to call my trusted friends and council in order. I call Darfin to stay after the meeting, to give him a chance to explain his wording. He still seemed off.

After dismissing him I go out on deck to cool of and to enjoy the morning sea breeze. I look down at my log book to read:

Tavia: Ms. Breakthrough

which was accompanied by a crash of wood splintering afar and a bunch of confused men screaming.