We woke up on the morning after we made it back to Greenmoot.
Skeld spent the night alone in his shelter and we noticed that within the Greenmoot it is covered by glowing runes.
The Jarl said that we needed to rebuild but before we can do anything else, we need to repay Stonecraw. He said he would help us in exchange for us helping him, so now it’s time for us to live up to that. The Jarl said that the 6 of us seem to work well together so she would ask that we help him.
Stonecraw was wandering around the camp looking at everyone and everything.
Sigurd went to talk to him and asked how we could help him. He said we need to go north to the lakes, ice and godsmouth. He tried to give instructions and told Sigurd that swords need to obey him because he’s a staff. He finally agreed that he will talk to Erfidi and Erfidi can give the instructions.
Skeld reached out with a Sending to Eirikr in the Stag clan. “Greenmoot repelled attack, but severely damaged. Boar clan needs lumber and building supplies. Please send help, won’t surviven winter without. Petition King. Send ale.“
Eirikr sent back “What? Skeld? Is Erfidi ok? Attacked by who? Was it the wolf clan? How many were there? Did you kill wolf clan members? Is there…“
Skeld sent back “Erfidi is FINE……Attacked by Korsca. Third of clan dead. All buildings destroyed or damaged. Korsca surrendered. Silk witch attacked with Pijack. Safe for now.“
Eirikr sent back “I’m very sorry to hear that, Skeld. Getting building supplies for the Boar Clan will be a challenge and finding someone willing to send…“
Jarl Agatha hoped Eirikr could do something to help us, but we needed to get going to help Stonecraw. She said she has something to help us. She pulled out Luo, her squirrel familiar. By taking him with us, we’d be able to communicate with her while we’re gone.
Skeld identified the Stein we took from Pijack and learned that it can be turned into any drinking vessel within reason and another motion will fill it up with any alcohol.
We headed out with Stonecraw. By nightfall we had been in the Gnarlrune for about an hour. We heard some occasional animal noises, but nothing unusual.
Skeld made his hut for the night and sent another message to Eirikr, “These messages only send 25 words either way, limited 2 per day. On mission for Boar clan. Be back to Greenmoot in a week.”
During Erfidi’s and Thorkatla’s watches, a couple dire boars/boars snuffled by, but didn’t seem aggressive.
Stonecraw stank up the building all night because of eating foods he isn’t too used to. He wandered off into the woods muttering something about looking for fish. He went down to the river and jumped in, came back up a couple minutes later with 3 fish. He sat there and ate them one after another. Sigurd followed to guard him. Once he was done, they came back to the group.
Nothing happened over the rest of the night.
We headed back out in the morning. It’s the farthest we’ve been into the Gnarlrune forest and we’re starting to see just how large it is. Bronin started to appreciate just how many trees there are with the arcane writings.
Eirikr sent back that he would try to help, but it will be complicated. He may have to trade favors and we may have to help with the repayment of those favors.
About halfway through the day, we came across a river. We noticed that a lot of the lesser foliage was disturbed. (Possibly from the horde Korsca heading north.) Plenty of Korsca footprints were around.
Erfidi jumped and flew across the river, Thorkatla tightroped across a rope that we strung across, most of the others waded, but Bronin half drowned in the water. After we got him out (with much ridiculousness), we kept moving.
As we were walking along, Stonecraw walked up next to Bronin, but seemed to have trouble being close to him. He called him a lightning thief and said he is a strong staff. He pointed to Erfidi and says Stormwitch staff, you have filled her eggs? He said strong staff plus strong staff means strong staff children. Strong need to be stronger.
Bronin asked if he has a staff or club at home and Stonecraw said that there are no staffs left, just Stonecraw. Maybe more staffs will come in his next clutch.
Bronin said that he wanted to learn more about their culture and Stonecraw said that if we help save godsmouth, then we can learn. He hopes that we can save some, one was destroyed, but maybe 1 or 2 left.
Bronin asked if there is anything else he can tell us about the Cobalt crusade and he said they look like Korsca, but not Korsca. They are all lightning thiefs and they are all bigger than Stonecraw. (He’s about 8 and a half feet tall nose to tail, but he usually hunches over and is about 5 and a half feet tall).
He said that the Korsca lived in homes created by godsmouth. The Cobalt crusade has destroyed the godsmouth and destroyed the Korsca homes.
About midafternoon, Luo took a diversion from the path and headed off at a slant angle, chirping as he went. We came upon a cluster of pine trees. These are the first trees in the forest we’ve seen that are not gnarled wood. We saw some other smaller trees past them that are also straight and tall.
As we stepped into the cluster of trees, we saw that it was a ring around a clearing about 30 feet in diameter with colorful flowers and vines inside the clearing and wrapped around the trees. The center of the clearing was soft grass. Luo started pulling berries off vines.
Stonecraw said the place was not natural, that there was magic there. It seemed to be an area of peace and calmness but we could hear the trees kind of crackling and popping even though there was no wind.
Stonecraw started to eat the berries too and said they were tasty. Balian, of course, started gorging himself on berries.
Thorkatla climbed up one of the pine trees, but she started slipping and one of the branches looped around and helped her up (groping her butt). Skeld and Erfidi both climbed the trees too, but no one saw anything worrisome.
Sigurd settled down in the grass and it made a comfortable bed and pillows of sorts for him to lounge on.
Luo came back over to us and he fidgeted around in the grass and it cleared away to leave a patch of plain dirt. He went back up one of the trees, grabbed a stick and came back and sat in front of us for a few moments. He then started writing in the dirt with the stick. He asked if we arrived. This seemed to be Jarl Agatha speaking to us through Luo. Skeld explained that we had arrived in the grove and what we were seeing there. She said good and do you need anything. Sigurd asked if this is a good place to rest and she said yes, it is safe. She told us to continue following Stonecraw and she’ll contact us again in the morning. Things are the same in Greenmoot. She told us that a handful of berries is a full days meal and we can take some, but they’ll only last for a day.
We kept watch, but nothing happened through the night.
We woke up in the morning and the trees were still groaning and creaking a bit and Luo was chittering up in the trees. He did not come with us when we left the grove.
Stonecraw was bouncing around trying to get us all going, he seemed to be bouncing on his toes, excited and was muttering about saving the godsmouths.
We start heading toward a straight shot of plains, heading north and a little east. Our Laurelsong map seemed to be more or less accurate so far.
Thorkatla saw some animals and birds, but nothing unusual. We walked all day and stopped for the evening, though Stonecraw was sad we had to stop to rest.
During Erfidi’s shift, she was looking up at the moon and she saw a dark shadow crossing in front of the moon. Seemed to be about 100-200 feet up and maybe had the shape of wings. About 15 minutes later, she saw it pass again.
Thorkatla didn’t see it during her watch, but Skeld saw it during his watch and it seemed to be much closer than Erfidi described. Nothing else happened through the night.
As we started walking in the morning, the map seemed to be less and less accurate. Bronin modified our map as we went to try to make it more accurate. We walked all day again and prepared to make camp as nightfall came. Stonecraw seems to be getting somewhat concerned as we continued throughout the day.
Skeld sent super secret messages that no one else knew about.
Sigurd saw something flying over again that definitely had wings. Seemed to be about the size of the wagon.
The next morning, we got moving again. Sigurd mentioned the flying beings at night to Stonecraw and asked him if he knew anything about them. He said crows, hawks, owls and said that some of them can be very large and they do eat Korscas.
We start seeing some forest on the east side, but mostly we’re still in the plains. As the sun starts setting, Stonecraw said we would arrive at the lake the next day.
Shadows were seen in the sky again. During Thorkatla’s watch, she saw the shape and recognized that it was a very large owl. It disappeared into the trees and a couple stags appeared, running out of the trees. The owl dove down toward them, illuminated and split into two owls, picking them both up and flying away with them.
The next morning, Stonecraw was anxious to get moving. After about an hour, we got to a crest where we could see a large amount of landscape below us. A couple miles ahead, we saw a very large body of water. The lake was crowned with a layer of fog, getting thicker in the middle to the point where we couldn’t see the far side of the lake. What we could see, piercing the top of the fog, was a white point. Next to it, slightly smaller, we saw another pointed shape, tilted to the side. Stonecraw saw this and started getting flustered saying that they’ve destroyed the second one, we must go save the third.
He took off toward the lake and only Balian and Thorkatla were able to keep up with him. He got to the water and said that he would bring a boat and jumped in.
As Thorkatla and Balian were waiting for him, they saw a shape approaching the shore. It was a boat that had a type of mast in the middle. Tied to the cross of the mast, was a Korsca that had been split from torso to groin and his skin pinned back and all his organs emptied and sliced decoratively and pinned back to his skin.
Stonecraw was on board the boat and said this is what the Cobalt crusade does to the Korsca. Skeld cut the body down and asked Stonecraw what they do with the bodies and he said they let the water have them so he let it slide down into the water.
We all started helping to paddle the boat. After about 20 minutes, we suddenly emerged from the fog to see an iceberg sitting in the lake, even though the lake water was perfectly warm. We could also see that the tilted shape was another iceberg that was tilted on its side and was melting into the water, causing the fog.
On the other side of the lake, we could see that there were 100s more of these rafts with dead Korscas on the masts.
Stonecraw said that the godshead is inside the iceberg. That the iceberg keeps things cold even in the warm lake water and the Korscas like the cold. He jumped off the boat and started following a path into the iceberg. We all followed him.
As we started getting deeper into the iceberg, we could hear a chinking noise, sounding like something was trying to chisel through the ice. Stonecraw got to a large doorway and started creeping up to look around the corner. He said there was only one and we are strong and could take him.
We walked into an enormous chamber, which seemed larger than it should have been from the outside. The back half of it was solid ice, but we could see through it. Frozen in the ice was an enormous skeleton. Some kind of reptilian creature with its jaws open. Standing where there was not ice, was an individual with a spear that has a sword blade attached at the end and he was using it to slice at the ice. He was reptilian, with cobalt blue scales, probably 7 to 7 and a half feet tall. His face and body had additional tendrils and crenelations and fins.
His mouth was full of sharp teeth and he was wearing exquisite armor. The only person who has seen anything close to the intricacy of this armor was Balian and this looked like something that put even dwarven plate to shame.
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