24 Awakening 508

The party has made their way out of the catacombs of the temple and back into the large sanctuary area. It is late in the day and the party is wounded from their various fights with the ghouls. The party decides to head out of the sanctuary and camp outside of the temple. Lenoria channels energy from her goddess and heals the party of their wounds.

The night passes without incident.

25 Awakening 508

The following morning, it is noticed by Rhain and Lenoria that Alun is not looking at all well.

Rhain asks if the young man can continue. He says that he can. Kerra gives her brother a chastising look and asks “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I can keep on,” he says.

However, Lenoria determines that the cause of the problem is ghoul fever, brought on by the bite of one of those foul creatures in the catacombs. It is potentially fatal, and if he succumbs, he could become one of those creatures.

Alun and Rhain turn white with fear. Lenoria is rattled by the information she has brought to light, but Kerra brings up the fact that there must be some good gods in Tarsas if the evil temple they’ve been exploring was rooted out by them. The party decides to return to Imth to seek out a priest to heal him.

The party travels down the mountain trail into the foothills of the Et’tir Mountains. Late in the afternoon, the party finds itself about to enter an area between two foothills. Lenoria notices the glint of the setting sun off of metal at the top of one of the hills.

“There’s metal ahead of us on the hill ahead,” she says as she draws her morningstar. The rest of the party readies themselves as they hear the TWANG of a bowstrings coming from the hills. Alun is hit with an arrow, as is Lenoria.

Alun takes off running around the side of one of the hills. Kerra hustles forward to confront one of the archers on the rise, a hobgoblin. She decapitates her opponent in a mighty slash of her longsword. Kerra is shot with a longbow. Lenoria casts magic weapon on Rhain’s axe. Rhain hustles closer to the next archer, falling ten feet short of the other hobgoblin.

Alun darts between the hills. Kerra hustles to the next hobgoblin and attacks, missing the hob. Rhain moves forward to confront the hobgoblin and attacks, missing the hobgoblin as well. The hobgoblin drops his bow and draws a longsword, attacking Kerra and missing. Lenoria leads the mule towards the site of battle.

Alun sneaks behind the hobgoblin and stabs him hard with his short sword. Rhain attacks and misses. Kerra moves in and attacks, hitting him her longsword. Lenoria continues to lead the mule forward. The hobgoblin attempts to attack Kerra and misses as well.

Alun stabs the hobgoblin with his short sword and the creature falls. Rhain looks perturbed that he didn’t get slay the creature. Lenoria moves forward and channels energy from her goddess to heal the party, and in the process, causes the hobgoblin to rise once again. Rhain rushes forward to deliver a coup de grace to the dazed hobgoblin, severing his spine and slaying him once and for all.

The hobgoblins are looted of armor, weapons, and coin. Then Rhain decides to see if can track where these two hobgoblins came from. He finds a trail that leads deeper into the hills, away from the direction that the party is headed. They decide to abandon the trail and head to Imth, but to lay out the hobgoblin bodies to mark the trail.

They travel on for the rest of the day, camp for the night, and the night passes without incident.

26 Awakening 508

The party travels through the forest throughout the day. The trees are thick and close together, blocking much of the springtime sun.

Late that afternoon, as the party makes its last push before settling in to make camp, everyone hears a rustle in the underbrush as an angry boar emerges from the underbrush, approaching Rhain. The party makes ready with their weapons. Alun throws one of his daggers at the beast while the boar gores Rhain. Lenoria calls down a blessing from her goddess while Kerra lashes out with her longsword, injuring the fierce beast. Rhain deals a mighty blow to the creature, that by all accounts should have felled it, but the creature fights on.

Alun throws another dagger, misses the creature. Rhain then deals the creature another mighty blow, but fails to still the raging beast. The boar tries to gore Rhain again, but misses him. Lenoria touches Kerra to bestow a Bit of luck upon her, which was fortunate, as Kerra was able to finally kill the beast.

The party decides to go ahead and camp and butcher the boar for meat for the day.

The night passes without further incident.

27 Awakening 508

The next morning, Alun is decidedly worse. The party continues traveling for Imth, traversing through the forest. At the end of the day, Alun and Rhain hold up short, having heard a noise in the underbrush. The sound is near Lenoria, who did not hear. Rhain draws his axe and approaches the underbrush, investigating with it. He moves aside a branch and uncovers a dirty-faced dwarf. One side of his head is shaved.

“Come out of the brush,” Rhain says.

Emerging from the brush is a dirty-faced dwarf with one side of head shaved. His dirty clothes have obviously been caught on brambles and been torn. He is unarmed and wears no weapons.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he says in Tradespeak.

“Good, I don’t want any either,” Rhain say.

“If you can spare it, I can use some water,” the dwarf says.

“Why are you running around in the woods without water?” Rhain asks.

“I escaped a mining encampment in the mountains with just the clothes on my back,” the dwarf replies.

Lenoria offers the dwarf her water. He takes a pull off the skin and hands it back, saying “Thank you.”

“I have no love for the Tarsians,” Lenoria says.

Rhain asks her about that and Lenoria explains that her people have been at war with Tarsas before, that there’s a history between the peoples.

“If I’m ever in a position to do you a kindness, my name is Tannic Stonehaven,” the dwarf tells Lenoria.

Lenoria introduces herself. “Where do you come from originally, Tannic?”

" Originally, Khazak-Ur " the dwarf says.

“You just going to run through the forest, or are you going to run to a town?” Rhain asks.

“I’m going to run to the city and try to stowaway on a ship,” Tannic says.

“Stowaway?” Rhain says, incredulous.

“It’s not my favorite way to travel, but I’ve got to get out of here,” the dwarf says.

The party discusses trying to shave the dwarf’s head to throw off any suspicion that he’s a runaway slave. Tannic acquiesces and is thankful that they are willing to help.

“You do me much kindness. Thank you all.”

They also give him 25 gold pieces and 11 copper from the money they got off the hobgoblins. Alun seems to balk, but he is outvoted.

“Do you know anything about the Tarsian churches that are around here? We’re looking for one that can cure disease,” Lenoria asks.

“Cure disease?”

“Yes. Our friend here is sick.”

The dwarf takes a step back away from the group.

“It’s not that kind of disease,” Lenoria reassures him.

Tannic says, “There’s a huge temple to Praathi in the city.” Lenoria is able to identify that faith as the Queen of Dusk and Twilight, a goddess of the balance and neutrality. “There’s also a temple to Irthani.” Lenoria recalls that Irthani was the faith that cleared out the evil temple they were exploring.

They go to part ways with the dwarf when he brings up the fact that they are both heading to the city and suggests that they go together. At first the party balks, thinking that someone is hunting the dwarf. He says that he has seen no sign of hunters in three days. They decide that that is long enough and allow him to travel with them to Imth. He agrees to part ways with them before they go through the gates.

Lenoria asks him if he knows anything about mules and Tannic replies that he has had little experience with mules.

As this was getting toward the end of the day, the party decides to make camp. They also share food with Tannic.

The night passes without incident.

28 Awakening 508

Alun is still looking and feeling poorly, though Lenoria tried rousing him with a Bit of luck. He looks as bad as he did the day before.

The party and Tannic continue on through the forest a short while and emerge at the walled city of Imth. The pennants of gold with the scorpion emblazoned upon them snap in the breeze. They see a line of merchants and other folk waiting to get into the city.

The party gets in the line, parting ways with Tannic. When they get to the guards, one of them points at Alun and asks “What’s wrong with him?”

Lenoria steps in and says, “He’s always been sickly. He’s not as strong as you are.” The guard says “Very well.” They pay their gate fees. Another guard asks her “What about all this equipment on the mule? Are these goods for sale?” Lenoria says “It’s for back-up. My friend breaks a lot of weapons.” The guard eyes her suspiciously, but lets them pass without charging them duties on goods for sale. Finally, they’ve made it into the city.

Lenoria and the others all ask about for the temple of Irthani. Kerra manages to get someone to give them directions to the temple.

Following the directions, they arrive at an ancient building that has clearly seen better days. Out in front of the building is a stone statue of a Eudaimon, its stone weathered and worn.

The party go inside the temple. The edifice is supported by many stone columns. The columns bear many carvings and mosaics of Eudaimoni combatting Kakodaimoni in the sky and on the ground. Milling about are men and women with shaved heads wearing blue robes trimmed in green. One of the blue robed men approaches the party and says something in Tarsian. Rhain asks if he speaks Tradespeaks and the man nods.

“Our friend here is sick,” Rhain says.

“Oh?” the man, presumably a priest, says.

“Ghoul fever,” Rhain elaborates.

“Can one of your order fix that?” Lenoria asks.

“Forgive the indelicacy of the question, but usually there is the matter of a donation to the temple for the services rendered. Usually the donation would be a hundred and fifty gold.”

Lenoria looks to Alun and Kerra. Alun looks a bit more pale, but his sister nods in agreement.

“Okay then,” Lenoria says.

“Come with me, young man,” the priest says. Alun follows the priest. “If the rest of you will wait here in the sanctuary.”

“How long will this be?” Rhain asks.

“Not long.”

Lenoria looks around and sees a wide range of folks in the service of Irthani, young and old, men and women.

After a relatively short amount of time, the priest returns with Alun in tow. Alun doesn’t look better, but the priest says that he will not succumb to the disease. Kerra hands the priest a small pouch of coin and says “Thank you.”

Rhain asks Alun if he feels any better. Alun says no, but that they explain to him that they removed the disease so that he would no longer succumb to its effects. Rhain thinks that maybe he was already healing from the disease and that the priests just took the money. Despite Rhain’s reservations, they decide to move on and let Lenoria diagnose the disease with her magic in the morning.

They move on to the marketplace to negotiate the sale of their goods. Lenoria negotiates the sales. They are not met by friendly merchants, but are not met with hostility either. The markets in Imth appear to be stable. They get a fair market price for their goods. They then split the proceeds with each other fairly and head to the Naked Shepherd to stay the night.

Phamea at the Naked Shepherd recognizes and welcomes the travelers. The Lanyons share a room and Lenoria and Rhain share a room. They all get baths and go down to the common room for a meal. After their meal, they retire to their rooms for the night.

29 Awakening 508

Alun looks a bit better. Rhain insists that the priests didn’t do anything and offers to get Kerra’s money back. She still wants to wait and see what Lenoria says. Lenoria prays over Alun to determine if he is diseased and determines that he is disease-free. He still doesn’t feel very well. He wants to rest another day before heading back to the temple.

They all pay for another day at the inn and chip in for the stabling of the mule. Alun and Kerra stay at the inn while Lenoria goes out to look for work. Rhain wanders the streets of the city, seeing what he can see and complaining to himself, as he doesn’t want to do “chump work”.

Lenoria gets some work as a transcriber of business texts from Sianaean to Tradespeak. She ends up getting five gold pieces for her trouble.

Rhain is walking down of the crowded, busy streets and hears one of the citizens call out in alarm. He is gesticulating in Rhain’s direction. Others start looking in Rhain’s direction. Rhain starts looking at them. The people looking in Rhain’s direction are looking hostile and the crowd is growing. Rhain turns and starts hustling away. As he turns a corner, he feels a hand on his shoulder. Rhain turns and sees a big man in laborer’s clothes. He says something to Rhain that he doesn’t understand.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, but back off,” Rhain says. The barbarian takes a few steps back.

Then the laborer says in Tradespeak “Did you take this man’s purse?”

“No.”

“He says you did.”

“He’s either mistaken or a liar. I stole nothing.”

The laborer says, “I believe you. But watch your step. Some people don’t like foreigners around here.”

“That would be everybody.”

Rhain turns and adds the incident to his litany of complaints as he wanders the city once more. He eventually makes his way back to the Naked Shepherd.

Lenoria pays for dinner and a pitcher of wine for everyone to enjoy. There is music playing in the background of the common room. Lenoria gets up and finds a dancing partner and dances on the floor. A few others follow suit. The bards follow with a lively tune. Lenoria’s dance partner has wears the braids and beads in his hair of a member of the merchant class. A pleasant evening is spent by all.

30 Awakening 508

Alun is feeling a bit better than yesterday and says that he is ready to go. Lenoria feels that he will probably be at a hundred percent by the time they get to the temple. Kerra says that she is for resting. Alun thinks that resting is costing the party too much and that he is ready to go. The party leaves the inn, with Phamea wishing them good journey, and heads for the mountains and the temple once again. They travel through the forest for the day and set up camp for the evening.

During the first watch, which is Alun’s, Rhain and Lenoria are awakened by the sound of Alun screaming “Spider!” Rhain moves into action and sees Alun being menaced by a giant man-sized spider perched in the branches of a tree above him. Rhain attacks the arachnid with a powerful attack, but the spider still stands. Alun stabs the spider with short sword and it falls out of the tree, dead. Lenoria lights up the trees and sees webbing but nothing else.

Rhain kicks Kerra awake. “Don’t worry, we got the spider. Go back asleep.”

Eventually, everyone goes back asleep and the night passes without further incident.

1 Growth 508

The party travels through the forest and camps that night. The night is quiet.

2 Growth 508

Traveling through the forest, the party encounters an old man looking for herbs. As the party approaches, he stops, watching the party warily. Rhain says “Hello, old man.” The man says, “Good morning.” The party moves on.

That night, the party makes camp and the night passes without incident.

3 Growth 508

Making their way through the forest still, the party hears the sounds of hooves clomping though the forest coming their direction. Lenoria takes the mule to one side and Rhain moves forward, taking up a defensive position, announcing that a horse is approaching. Alun and Kerra stand their ground and wait.

Emerging from the trees ahead, they see a half-orc leading a horse. He is wearing a breastplate and wielding a great axe. With him is a hooded figure with a nocked long composite bow and a rapier at his side. A third figure follows close behind, a lady elf with taloned claws for hands. She wears a longsword at her side.

The half-orc assess the party, motions for the two with him to halt and says, “Ho, ho. What do we have here?”

“We’re travelers. What’s it to you?” Lenoria says, belligerently.

He chuckles. “You have spirit, woman.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s on the mule?” he asks.

“Our belongings. What’s on your horse?” Lenoria asks.

“Usually me, if I wasn’t in this gods-forsaken forest,” he replies.

“The forest makes it slightly tricky, doesn’t it?” Lenoria says. “Been a lot of spiders around here. I don’t know if you’ve run into any. Watch the trees at night. That’s my advice to you, my friend. And for hobgoblins too.”

“You talk a lot, woman,” the half-orc says.

“That’s because you’re not saying anything, my friend. It makes us nervous what your intentions are.”

“Then I’ll make it simple for you. Why don’t I take that mule off your hands and then we’ll be on our way.”

“Aren’t you cute. I don’t think so,” Lenoria says.

Rhain throws his axe at the elf with claws for hands, hitting her with the hurled weapon and then runs for her. This throws the rest of the party into combat mode and everyone begins to attack.

Alun throws a dagger into the man with a bow. Lenoria touches Alun and gives him a “bit of luck” and then casts Copycat on herself. Kerra then steps up to the half-orc and attacks him. The half-orc then swings on Kerra with his greataxe and hits her mightily. The man with the bow then fires on Rhain and hits. The elf then murmurs something and touches herself. Rhain then moves in to trip the elf, but fails.

The half-orc attacks Kerra again with his greataxe and misses. The bowman fires and misses. The elf utters a word and casts a spell, pointing at Rhain, Rhain takes the opportunity to attack the spellcaster with his fists, but misses. The sorceress gets her spell off and Rhain feels momentarily shaken to the core with fear. Alun throws another dagger and strikes the bowman. Rhain attempts to trip her again, and succeeds despite his fear, making her prone. Lenoria then moves away from the archer and casts cure light wounds on Kerra. Kerra then attacks the half-orc, dealing a critical hit on the leader of the other party and knocks him back.

Rhain attacks the prone elf on the ground with his mace, fumbling his attack and hurting himself in the process. Kerra pursues her enemy, the half-orc, and attacks, hitting him with her longsword. Alun loses his grip on his weapon. Lenoria moves in and gives Rhain a “bit of luck”. The half-orc attacks Kerra and misses. The bowman fires at Alun and misses. The clawed elf then attempts to attack Rhain with her claws. Rhain takes the opportunity to make a strike with his mace. She misses with her claws.

The half-orc smashes himself in the head with his greataxe. The bowman hits Alun with his bow. The elf rises from her prone position, which Rhain takes advantage of to strike her again with his mace. He feels the crack her skull as she falls. Lenoria casts Copycat on herself and then Bless on the group. Kerra then attacks the half-orc again. Alun moves up on the hooded bowman and attacks him with his short sword. Rhain moves and attacks, flanking the half-orc. The half-orc falls.

The bowman starts backing away from Alun. Alun and Kerra take the opportunity to attack. Kerra misses, but Alun hits. The bowman is holding himself and staggering, and he says “Take your mule and go!”

Alun moves up and attacks, but misses the man. Rhain attacks with his light mace and fells the man. Rhain coup de graces all of the party members to make sure they don’t get back up. Lenoria collects the mule while Rhain reveals the bowman’s face as that of a male half-elf. He begins to strip their bodies.

The half-orc was wearing a masterwork breastplate, was wielding a masterwork greataxe, had a sap tucked into his belt, was wearing a gold necklace around his neck, had a pouch of 124 gold pieces, and a pouch with 3 vials. The bowman had a masterwork composite longbow (not set to strength), a rapier, masterwork studded leather, quiver with 15 arrows, a pouch with 73 gold pieces and 4 vials (2 of which appear to be the same thing). He also wears a hooded cloak along with standard adventurer’s clothes. The clawed elf wears a masterwork longsword. She has a pouch with 10 gold pieces. She has a pouch with two vials and a scroll case tucked into her belt with three scrolls in it. The riding horse has bit, bridle, saddle, two saddle bags, 30 days of trail rations, 3 water skins, and 4 javelins.

Lenoria attempts to detect magic on the various goods they find, detecting magic from each of the vials and the scrolls.