We reconvene on the aftermath of last session’s battle. Zanvyn and Hurld (one of the other casters that was being trained) were both hit by the acid. Hurld died, but Zanvin might be alive, he dived into the water as soon as he got hit by the acid.
Mollie’s group seemed to make it through ok. Gudrun is alive and was helping the more injured.
Jarl Agatha goes over to the water and reaches in and drags Zanvin out. His face was severely injured by the acid. The Jarl and Skeld are able to heal him but he is left scarred. Erfidi dug a pit for burning the bodies of the 35 people that died. The Boar clan is left with about 60 members. Sif lived, but Jarnsaxa did not. Largell survived. Fulrigg was wounded, but survived.
Jarl Agatha found a small flat bowl and starts picking up nuts and fruit and put them on top of it and then places it on one of the bridges across the moat and looks across it. She says it is an offering of sort. Erfidi comes up to her and sees a critter coming across toward the bridge. It is a small white squirrel named Luo that has been the Jarl’s companion for decades that has been watching the forest for the Korsca. She is able to enter his consciousness from far away.
Kilbe and Pijack still haven’t come back. We know there was another group of Korsca but they didn’t come this way. In the morning we’ll start looking for Kilbe, Pijack, and Jokul (he chose not to come down from the Halcyon Rift). Skeld makes his magic hut for the party and Mollie to sleep in and we bring the spell caster in to it and keep him tied up.
In the morning we take the spell caster down to the Deep Forum to see the Jarl. He asks for his Staff. We realize that he is not actually asking for his staff, he is describing himself as a staff. He says Staff speaks, club does not listen. He seems to consider melee fighters as clubs, spellcasters as staffs, and nonfighters as sticks. He says that the only Korsca left are sticks. His name is Stonecraw.
He says that it was not a “Kobold Crusade” but a “Cobalt Crusade”. The attackers are apparently like them, some type of lizardmen, but not Korsca. They took the “Godsmouths?” from the Korsca so the Korsca wanted to try to take the Gnarlwood (“Blue Woods”) from the Boar clan.
He says the big beasts were the children of Gormuda and there are no more of them. The Cobalt crusade has killed them. We explain everything we’ve learned from him to Jarl Agatha. He tells her that they kill Korsca, slice Korsca, and paint Korsca and makes motions of something slicing open his belly and painting across his chest and abdomen.
He says that the sticks have gone north, but there is no blue woods, no fish and it is very cold so there will be no peace. The Jarl asks him if he would help us if we went to learn about the Cobalt Crusade. He says that if man helps Korsca, he will help man. He casts a spell to heal Zanvin’s skin.
Stonecraw notices Sigurd and sniffs him and calls him a sword and seems to have the same respect as he does for spellcasters. He sniffs Bronin and calls him a staff then he gets disturbed and calls him a lightning thief and holds his staff between him and Bronin. He says that the Cobalt crusade is full of lightning thiefs. Bronin takes out his runestone and Stonecraw says stolen lightning. He calls magic for a magic hand and points at Skeld and says the hand is from godsmouth then points at Bronin and says the lightning is stolen.
The Jarl says she will take Stonecraw up and see what he can do. She has asked us to go north and check on Jokul then head back south and join Astril on the search for Kilbe and Pijack. Mollie will stay behind and help defend Greenmoot. As we headed north, it wasn’t hard to see the path that the Korsca army had taken. There are a large amount of dead Skinks along the path, with lash markings matching the damage that Mollie’s spells do.
At midmorning we come across Jokul’s area and it is a mess. 30 yard radius of all of his stuff spread all over. We find him dead, with his body severed in half. Bronin searches for his runestone and doesn’t find it. He does find a little girl (about Mollie’s age) naked under a pile of pelts. We wake her and she says rope, get the rope. Skeld finds the rope and follows it to a pack that has clothes and Jokul’s runestone. The clothes fit her perfectly and once she puts the runestone on, we learn that it is Jokul.
He says he has never told anyone, but he has had 7 lifetimes so far and at some point he dies and comes back as a small child of the opposite sex. In this life, she will be called Oksana. She says she ages quickly at first, so she should be about 21 in the middle of the winter, then the aging slows to normal. She thinks she’s supposed to stay here, but it’s ok for us to tell the Jarl about her as she had already made the decision to let it be known what she is. She says to let the Jarl know to send her whatever she needs done and she’ll take care of it.
Erfidi warns her about what we’ve learned from Stonecraw and she decides to come with us back to Greenmoot to see if there was anything she could do to help.
When we arrive back in Greenmoot, we explain about Jokul to the Jarl and head out to look for Kilbe, Pijack and Astril.
Sigurd explains to us that he was in the personal guard of the last Jarl of the Raven clan. His family is somewhat well known/noble in the Raven clan and has served as personal guards to the Jarls for generations. When the old Jarl passed and his daughter took over, he did not like the way she was not taking the responsibility of the Jarl position seriously. When she saved a giant and took his pledge as her bodyguard, he couldn’t support this as the Raven clan has always had animosity toward the giants. He left the Raven clan and came to join the Boar clan. His mother is still with the Raven clan.
As we headed south, we found some foot prints that seemed to be Astril’s. We try to follow them. We find a wagon right next to the river and in danger of falling in. Thorkatla sneaks up and thinks Kilbe is slumped over in the wagon. Sigurd and Thorkatla recognize the wagon as a Raven clan style. Kilbe and Astril are tied up on the wagon and not responsive to Skeld’s messages. Pijack is lying on the grass next to the wagon, drinking and muttering a song.
Bronin tries to hold person on Pijack but it seems to fail. Thorkatla and Sigurd head toward Pijack. Balian heads toward the wagon. Skeld, Erfidi and Bronin hang back. As they get closer, they see that he’s occasionally taking a sip of beer and muttering songs to himself. He sees Sigurd and says “Ah, Sigurd”, sings his song again and goes non-responsive.
Balian tries to loosen the ropes on Kilbe, and he can’t undo any of the ropes or gags. He mimes pointing away from the river. Balian picks him up and he gets frantic. A woman appears about 50 yards away, behind Erfidi, Bronin and Skeld, in whispy flowing clothes. She’s carrying a stick with a bright red cloth on it (Silk). She has elaborately coiled and braided hair with a flower in her hair. She quietly says begin and Pijack starts the fight. They both seem to be monks, though of different styles. Extremely fast, redirecting attacks, huge amounts of damage and dodge.
She and Pijack beat all of us to a pulp and leave Erfidi barely alive, and knock Sigurd unconscious. All magic users are tied up and put in the wagon, then she throws Astril out of the wagon. Pijack calls her mistress and is obviously in on this kidnapping plan. He says that we didn’t bring the girl with us and she says that since he said her power comes from someone else, they can’t use her. She takes Balian’s ring and says “This is not for them” and puts it in her robe. She then goes off on her own and tells Pijack she will meet him at the Bone sea.
Pijack then hitched two horses to the cart and took Erfidi, Bronin, Kilbe, and Skeld off into the woods. When Sigurd, Balian, Thorkatla, and Astril wake up, it’s dark. They see the cart tracks go off to the south. Astril said Kilbe had told her some stories about the Silk Witches and that no one ever got away from them. They took a rest for the night to recover.
The next morning they head back to Greenmoot to seek help from the Jarl. They explained to her what happened. She asked where the others were taken. They said that they saw the cart tracks going south but since they were unconscious they did not know for sure if both the silk witch and Pijack went south. She realizes that Pijack came to Tarentol hearing we were there and he must be a scout for this silk witch.
For next week, me, Mark, and Dan will be playing other Boar clan members in the rescue mission.
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