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Ulfnaar rushes in to support and protect Ater against the Chimera. Merisiel dashes in and attacks the Chimera and bits of mosaic tiles flies away from it. Linarril transforms into a gigantic white elk and charges the Chimera, but misses. The Chimera flies to the other side of the small room and breathes fire over the adventurers. Kelda stats to foam around her mouth, then she fearlessly rushes in and kills the magic beast and tiles of mosaic flies all over the room. There are two doors in the room, and one tunnel leading down. One door says “shortcut”, and the other is a huge bronze door with a relief of wizards on it, and it bulges very suspiciously.
The group decided to take the sloping tunnel, and Ater takes the lead. They have walked about half way down the tunnel, when Ater steps on a small metal plate in the floor and a distinct clicking sound is heard. A hatch opens in the ceiling at the beginning of the tunnel, just ahead of Linarril the white elk, Celthor and Merisiel, and a huge ball falls down and starts to roll. Everyone throws themselves close to the walls, except Ater, to levitates to the ceiling, out of reach from the ball. The ball is covered with skeletons and arms tries to grab the persons covering along the walls. Both Ulfnaar and Kelda was grabbed but successfully broke loose before they got carried away. After the ball disappeared out of sight, they all heard a bouncing sound, and some heavy machinery clatter from inside the walls.
The tunnel ends in a room with sarcophagus along the walls and a huge double door on one side, and a narrow passage, big enough for Spivvy, from where sunshine enters. A voice says “Show that you are worthy”.
Everyone started to think, and suddenly a strange noise was heard “Frrrr Gnrraar Pffsss Meeek Fprrurr”. After a few seconds it came again, and it sounded like it came from the Elk. Suddenly Linarril transformed back into his elven shape and said “Sorry, I forgot you don’t speak elk, you should bend forward in a humble position and hold your hands like you are holding a lamp with both your hands over your head”.
After this little ceremony, they opened the large double door, and in the room was a huge, about 12 feet tall man, sitting on throne, but it is a statue. A pile of things are laying in front of the throne. A voice speaks, and says: “To seek knowledge, you first pay tribute, or depart.”
They looked at the room, beautiful decorated with tiles in many colours, but it felt, like the other rooms, fake. Ameiko is sure it’s all an illusion and says: “Ater, can see through this, it looks and feels too good to be true.”
No, Ater replies, but I can sense magic. He holds a wand between two fingers, and continues: “It’s an ancient and very powerful magic in this room, the same kinds of magic as in every room in this place.”
Everyone adds something to the pile. Ulfnaar donates a handful of gold coins, and Ater puts a note on the pile, and when Merisiel asks him about it, he just replied, it’s a note with three secrets, three valuable secrets.
Ameiko and Merisiel checks the door leading out from this room. One of the door is very cold, and from behind the other door, voices are heard. They decide to take the door where the voices are heard. Behind the door is a staircase, leading downwards, and Merisiel looks down for a peek, and she tells Ater that there is a large table in the room beyond the stairs, and there are a bunch of devils talking there, looks like they are having a party. She’s just about to toss a dagger when Ater stops her hand, and he whispers to her “Stop it!”, and she does, for at least a few seconds. Ater says he wants to listen to them, and hear what they talk about, as he is fluent in the languages of the dark. Ater slowly moves down the stairs to hear better.
Ater listens, hmm, they talk about chess. One devils says - “OK, I took your pawn, and you will be checkmate in three moves”. Ater walks in and says in a loud voice: - “Stop this, you cannot play chess!”. The devils just look up and tell Ater to wait for his turn at the table.
Ater looks at the game and says “ok, that’s one way of doing it..” and the devils replies, “You will meet the winner, the stake is you soul.” Ater chats a little with the devils the waves for the rest to enter, and the rest of the party enters the room. Ater says: “They say they are on guard, but not what they are guarding.”
Ater speaks to them a little more, asks about Varam the white, and they are here to guard against anyone entering from the other door, but as the party came down the stairs, they are free to pass, so they do. When they exit, Merisiel mutters to herself: -”Ater stole a perfect opportunity for a good fight by talking us through, instead of killing them.”
The group enters a room with a large pool, and on the floor lies many dead cultists. A closer inspections shows that they seems to have been shot from a doorway to the right, with arrows that uses stone heads, shaped as the head of a cobra. Ater says Yuan-Ti, we’re in Serpent Hills, they are very common here. The pool is just 3 feet deep, and Ameiko pulls out a body from it, it has its throat cut, and no blood left in the body. Ater spots a small crack that leads from the pool to a small hole in the wall to the right. Ameiko opens the door, the a large room with a sarcophagus in the center, on a small platform, and braziers are burning in all four corners.
Walls are covered with fresques of the old gods of Netheral. Ater gets a feeling to leave it untouched, be the group enters, Merisiel is still pissed off from missing out on a good fight.
A voice speaks to the party: -”The Yuan-Tis has taken Varam the White through the portal, I will now open the portal for you.”.
Ater quickly replies - “No! Don’t!”
The voice of Diderous says: -”You are talking to Diderous the all knowing.”
Ater quickly replies: -”I came here to seek knowledge and wisdom and I have found none.”
The voice of Diderous replies: -”My librarian failed to protect my books.”
Ater insults Diderous, who now refuses to talk to Ater any more. Ameiko steps up and takes charge, and asks Diderous to open the portal for them, which he does.
The Portal opens and Ameiko says “Shhh, silent, they don’t know were’ coming...”, and a cave is visible, with a tunnel leading away to the right, and in the cave stands a group of Lizardmen. Ater, who was standing right where the portal was opened, panics and casts a fireball, which goes off with a large bang killing the group of Lizardmen, and the Ater says: -”Now they do.”
A long tunnel and loads of Lizardmen and Yuan-Ti, and a big battle on a slippery bridge led to the moment of truth for Ulfnaar. First Linarril turns into his Elk form, but slips on the bridge and almost falls off. Ater casts a whole library of protection spells and the arrows bounces off him like arrows hitting a castle wall.
Now Kelda charged with her huge two-handed sword, but slipped, and fell, and was sliding towards the edge of the bridge. Ulfnaar rushed to help her, reached out his hand, but instead of saving Kelda, both fell down into darkness, or not complete darkness, Ulfnaar’s glowing Chainmail proved useful.
Looking around, the cave under the bridge was moving, the walls was moving, the floor was moving, or was it. No, it wasn’t, it was snakes, hundreds of snakes, venomous snakes. Ulfnaar shouts - “Snakes! Why does it have to be snakes?”
Kelda and Ulfnaar attacked the snakes, and Ulfnaar used his father’s shield to protect Kelda from the snakes as she wear only soft armor and not steel armor like Ulfnaar, which protects better against snakes, as long as they don’t make their way inside the armour. The battle raging now both over and under the bridge. Linarril casts some spells to attack the snakes and the battle is not going very well on the bridge and Ater is pretty roughed up, and both Ameiko and Merisiel are being controlled by the Yuan-Ti, suddenly thinking that some of the members of the adventuring party are Yuan-Ti spies and tries to fight each other, but at last, the last Yuan-Ti retreats, and the battle of the bridge is over, but was it won? Kelda and Ulfnaar is still down there…
Ameiko jumps down to help Ulfnaar and Kelda and at last all the snakes are dead or has fled. They climb up with help of a rope, except Ameiko who just jumps up, and now a long struggle, so complicated and strange that Ulfnaar really has a problem grasping it all. Yuan-Tis continuously used mind control magic to make the members of the party hit each other, and snakes and Lizardmen keeps coming in wave after wave. Linnaril successfully this time, charges as the huge white Elk, and Ater seal off a room with a Wall of Fire, but the resources are really at an end now, both spells and bodies are exhausted to the limit.
But, we’re here for a reason, find Varam the White and bring him to justice, that is what the Wardens of the Jade came to do and that is what they will do.
After a long fight, Ater sees a huge Yuan-Ti transforming into his snake shape, and disappears through a hole in the wall of the room ahead. After some more fighting with snakes and Lizardmen and occasional Yuan-Ti, and later figuring out that “we took the scenic route”, the group came to a large room with statues and Yuan-Tis, and an altar in the center where a dwarf dressed in purple is laying down.
Ameiko speaks up: - “it looks like we came out on bad terms.”
A female Yuan-Ti replies: - “We make deal. You stop killing us and our babies and we give you the dwarf. Ok?”. Ameiko agrees.
The female Yuan-Ti continues: - “We have trapped his soul with a powerful spell. It will be released when you leave the valley and us in peace.
Ameiko says to Ulfnaar: - “Ulfnaar, can you carry him?”, and Ulfnaar tossed the dwarf over his shoulder like a sack of cabbage.
On the way back, when the group reached the room with the devils, and they see Varam the White, one of them points at him and say “But..”, but Ameiko snapped in before the devil could continue his sentence and said: - “You have been freed, so, carry on.”, and the devils disappeared.
After fetching the wyverns, the group started to travel back to Boareskyr Bridge and the tent camp town, and the two day trip was without any problems at all, it went almost too well.
Just around mid day, the group flew in over the tent town, and aimed to land the wyverns in a fenced area just outside. One of the wyverns grabbed a poor cow when landing, and Linarril gave the wyvern a harsh comment and went to pay off the farmer, handsomely.
So, the group decided to take the prisoner, Varam the White for safekeeping at the Paladins keep just outside the town. The paladins are there to guard the bridge, as the evil spirits from the death of Baal poisoned the river, and it’s still poisonous, thousand years later, and still cause trouble from time to time.
Suddenly, the birds went silent, everything stopped for a second, before the panic broke out. Dragon! Dragon! People were screaming in fear and started to run in every direction when a huge, black dragon suddenly appeared in the sky over tent town. Under the dragon cages where hanging, and the dragon came on low, and the cages were dropped, and fell to the ground. The cages opened up and out came dragon wings and other dragon cultists, and they aimed for the adventurers. The dragon continued towards the paladin keep and a huge demon appeared in front of the drawbridge. The dragon made a turn and and more demons appeared in the middle of the tent town, Ulfnaar and Kelda both got very frightened by the dragon and attacked the Mezzalot demons that tried to get to Varam the White.
The paladin keep door opened and a battle formation of the all time ready force marched out, to see the huge, 10 feet tall demon standing at the end of the bridge. The frontmost soldiers of the formation were the dwarven paladins, and the whole formation stopped when the dwarven leader said Hold! They waited, and then the dwarven leader gave a few commands and said Hold! The second part of the formation was trying to figure out when the holdup was, but they only heard Hold one again. Meanwhile, a fierce and deadly battle took place in tent town. Cultists and Demons were fighting with the adventurers, and the town watch was far from assembled to start to take any action.
While the Paradins were held up at the bridge from the keep, the battle raged all around, mostly around our brave heroes. The chaos of battle was all around, as the cultists and their demon friends hunted through tents and cutting down whoever stood in their way, Ater successfully stopped some of them with a well placed fireball, but it did some non repairable damage to the nearby tents. Ameiko and Merisiel fought together and took out a Mezzoloth and some of its cultist companions, and Ater used some spells to push a second wave of cultists that were outside the palisade wall away.
Ulfnaar and Kelda, both feeling rather uncomfortable by the dragon too on one the large Mezzoloth demons, with some help from Celthors bow, and constantly they had to dive for cover when black dragon kept breathing it’s deadly acid over the battlefield.
Celthor took a few shots at the dragon and hurt it a little, and so did Ater, and the dragon seemed to decide that the Wizard must die.
The Mezzoloth finally is sent back to whatever hell hole, literally, he came from, by a banishment spell cast by Ater. Ulfnaar and Kelda rushes to help Linarril and Merisiel, who suddenly got surrounded by a group of cultists, inside a poisonous gas cloud, one of Aters favourite spells, now used against his friends by the remaining Mezzoloth. Kelda and Ulfnaar takes on the Dragon Soul who almost kills Kelda with a mighty blow. The Dragon makes a flyby and breathes his deadly acid but Ulfnaar got his shield up just in time and only got some splatters. Kelda dived out of the way and into cover behind a wagon.
Linarril successfully heals Merisiel who had fainted from the gas cloud, but everyone are really badly hurt now. Ulfnaar had time to think “Where are the paladins?” before he had to duck the large dragon tail that came at him.
Nice read and illustration!
Thanks!
The dragon once more swept down and breathed its deadIy acid over the heroes. This time the dragon hit both Ulfnaar and Ameiko, and Ameiko falls to the ground, not just unconscious, but dead, stone dead.
Ater casts a fireball on the dragon, and the runs out of sight, having totally depleted his magic resources. The dragon lands and starts to attack the still standing heroes with his claws and tail, and Linnaril casts a blight spell on the dragon and the dragon starts to look hurt. Ulfnaar goes down, Celthor goes down, and so does Kelda, and Kelda is like Ameiko, dead, not just unconscious. Merisiel sneaks up and makes a sneak attack at the dragon and damages the dragon, but it slaps her with the tail and Merisiel goes down as well.
Linarril, changes into a huge Karibou, bends his head down, and fearlessly charges the dragon and hits him hard. The dragon, extend its wings, and slowly and hurt leave the scene of battle. Linarril looks around, sees the devastation and the fallen comrades where the dragon recently stood.
Linarril, still having his head ringing from the impact when he charged the dragon horns first, suddenly hear something from behind. He now remember hearing it while he fearlessly charged the dragon, but now it was closer. A mighty voice, shouting loud and clear “BY CLAAANGEEEEDIIIIINGS AXES!!! ATTACK!!!”. Linarril turns around and sees a dozen knights in shining armour with shields, swords and axes, charging in his direction, or the dragons direction, and stirring up a cloud of dust around them. Charging, in a perfect arrow formation, led by a mighty dwarf weiding two axes. Linarril realizes that it might not have been his brave charge that made the dragon turn away, but it maybe was the little nudge it needed.
The dwarf leading the charge shouts: -”Not on my watch!” and rushes towards the body of Ameiko. He sees that she is mortally wounded, dead, beyond the powers of common healing, but he is not a common dwarf, far from, and Ameiko is one of his oldest friends among those who are not dwarves.
He dropped his weapons to the ground and sat down on his knees, and started to chant a soft hymn in the Dwarven tongue. A silvery light like a mighty beard began to flow down from his head, along his arms and down on Ameiko’s chest. When he heard that her heart started to beat again, and her lungs started to draw in air, he knew her spirit was back in her body, and her death had been revoked, she had been revivified by his powerful healing magic. When he knew she was back, he quickly used his mending spell to repair and clean her clothes, and he thought to himself: -”Ameiko should never have to wake up and look like this.”
Meanwhile Ater came out of his hiding place, where he hid watching the dragon burn in his last fireball, watching it fly away with it’s crippled right wing, almost crashing into the wall trying to be airborne.
While the dwarf brought Ameiko back to life, Linarril turn back into his normal form, and the other paladins used their magic to heal the other fallen heroes. Ameiko gasped, and opened her eyes, and when she saw who had brought her back from the dark land of death, she smiled and said loudly: -”Garnek my old and lovely dwarf! Thank you for coming to assist us, but what in the devil’s name kept you?” Garnek looked at her and replied in his short dwarven way: -”The devil your highness, the devil himself.”
When Ater saw Garnek, he raised an eyebrow, his visions from the future hadn’t showed him this. He shouted to Garnek: - “Garnek! Do you know what you got? Bad timing!” Garnek smiled when he heard the well known voice of the wittiest wizards for miles around. Ater started to attend to the wounded comrades. Linarril makes an observation: “The bad timing might be a result of those very short legs”, whoever Garnek is and then he joined Ater and the Paladins in taking care of the wounded.
And here are the Wyverns, placed outside the fence, but it looks like Notbat sees lunch. They are named by their main riders, but Linarril and Cethor has the main Wyvern resposibility as it's part of their job and training to handle animals. From left to right, Bitey, just landing, named by Spivvy and contreolled by Ater. Then we have Notbat, named and controlled by Merisiel, who needs to remind herself "it's not a bat", as she really dislikes bats. Then, still flying, we have Ember, named and controlled by Linarril, and last we have Wyrm, named and controlled by Celtor.
This is a little look at the present, while the story will soon take a leap forward and we will rejoin the brave Jade Wardens, except the missed, dissolved to non existence, lovely little spirit Spivvy, she will be missed. Not even the powrful spells by the clerics and paladins could restore her, as she was not from this plane, but was stuck here, and her spirit travelled fast.
Ulfnaar is brought back to consciousness by one of the Paladins. He looks around and the first thing he sees is Kelda, on the ground near him, grievous wounds and she had been bleeding out, the blood was still, she was dead. Ulfnaar sat down on his knees, clenched his fists and screamed “Noooooo! This is not fair! Kelda! Why? Why?”.
Garnek, who just had brought Ameiko back from the land of the dead, shouted back when he heard his old friend screaming in agony. “I will fix her up old mate, she will be as good as new, I promise!”, and rushed to the body of the young human lass he had never seen before, but most certainly seemed to someone his friend Ulfnaar cared about. Ulfnaar felt how sorrow and grief took a grip on him, started to drag him down into the darkness of despair.
Ameiko, who was on her feet by now, saw how sorrow was trying to grasp Ulfnaar. Being the born natural leader that she always had denied and always ignored, she did the only right thing, she called upon the deepest and strongest feeling deep inside Ulfnaars heart, loyalty and duty. She shouted in as loud voice her condition would allow her: “Ulfnaar, gather the Jade Wardens and get them into Bolo’s tent, I need to speak to you all. On the double!”
Ulfnaar at once snapped out of his misery and started to gather the group, and when he saw Kelda staggering with support by the short stocky Dwarf, it made his heart happy again. Ater started to gather Ameikos things and called for Linnaril to help him, as Garnek rather spent his powers to heal Kelda than mend Ameikos almost dissolved backpack. Well in the tent, Ater put Ameikos things behind the bar counter, on which Ameiko was standing. No one else were in the tent, not even Bolo was here, she might be in the back quarters though. Ater whispered something to Ameiko before he took his place, only Ulfnaar stood behind the counter, he was on duty now, his Captain has given him an order.
Ameiko started to talk:
-”I want you to know, that I here and now, dissolve any bonds, any promises or any dues you have to me. I cannot have on my conscience that if anything happens to any of you, it was because I ordered you to follow me. I want to know that you do this of your own free will. I you want to leave, you are free to go.”
Silence was so dense you you almost taste it, until Ulfnaar broke the silence: “You have my sword!”. Celthor said: “And my bow!”, and Garnek said “And my axes!”. The whole group agreed to follow Ameiko, the Wardens of the Jade were still team.
Ameiko then spoke again: - “Ater just told me some bad news, the warding box containing the Amatatsu seal was missing from my belongings, and, have anyone seem Varam the White since the battle began?”
Hopefully someday, this story gets assembled into a graphic novel. I realy like how the story changes direction with depth and complexity and the reader is never sure what will happen next. Just like in a game. There's a lot going on with the characters and their motivations. Occassionally there's a description, but only one image, and I'm thinking, it would be cool to have seen that angle of the story too.
Thanks FirstBastion!
The story twists and turns, and as it's an actual "game log", most things said and done are done in game by the players. The plots behind are masterfully vowen together by our DM Mattias, based from different ready to run adventures and campaigns that he change and mix together to add more depth to the story. Some real strange twists will soon happen (the coming part, starting today), is the result of a two and a half day mini con we have every year, called Runecon, as place I live in is named Runby as is an old Bronze age village, and the con is held at a friends house, just a five minute walk from me.
And I try to capture the single moment in one image, sometimes an important moment, sometimes just something that was fun.
Ater says:- “Last time I saw Mr White, he was securely tied to the back of Merisiels wyvern Notbat, but the wyverns were scattered all over the place when the dragon came, they are not best of friends, dragons and wyverns”.
Garnek said: -”Your Highn.. Ameiko, when I came for you, I saw a young boy, a little elven look with black hair, peasant clothes, a big red mark on his chest, and black eyes, almost raven black, and he was hunched over you. I just shouted I take over from here and he left in a hurry, but before I could heal you, I had to defend is with my shield as we were attacked by an unkindness of ravens, but I chased them away. I saw the strange elven boy walk away but I had other things on my mind.”
Ulfnaar remembers the red breasted raven from Brinewall Castle, this is becoming very spooky indeed.
Ameiko says: -”I got a bad feeling about this, but we need to take a short rest, we’ve just been through the toughest battle, and two of us, myself included, just had a visit to the land of the dead, a place I hope none of us will have to visit in a long time.”
Ameiko shouts to Bolo, who apparently was close enough: -”Bolo, bring us some strengthening food and beverages, we need to go soon, but we need to eat and drink or we won’t do any good.” After a quick but healthy and quickening meal, Garnek shows Celthor where he last saw the boy, and Celthor found some tracks that ended at the palisade, with a few raven feathers left on the ground.
The rest of the group spread out to search for the wyverns, and they find them, and Linarril takes care of the wounded ones. Ater finds some ropes that has been abraded, Varam the White was gone.
The wyverns were all caught and brought to a nearby fenced area, then Celthor started to follow the tracks that he guess came from Varam the White. It was an easy tracking as Varam the White apparently was wounded and bleeding, and his movement was not careful at all. After thirty minutes or so, the group came to a low hill and the tracks led upwards, and when they came to the top, they saw something down in the valley below that was very different, and something they had never seen before, at least not most of them.
I the valley below, was a huge ship, in the air, with a huge red balloon over it. The ship was flying, but a giant was holding it down by holding one of its skids with both hands. On the ship Varam the White was standing, and he was screaming and shouting “Let me go!”.
Ameiko, who was really tense now, shouted that first to the ship wins and dashed off like one of Cethors arrows, and she tried to parkour up the back of the giant, but fell down the first time, but she tried again and climbed up on the rather surprised giant. Ater, said, ok, challenge accepted, and teleported aboard the ship, saying “I won!”, then he pointed at the rather surprised Varam the White telling him to give up, or he would be fried. Ulfnaar tried to shoot down the red balloon with two arrows, but they just went all the way through.
Varam the White turned to attack Ater, failing to see Ameiko, who roundhouse kicked Varam the White, throwing him off the ship, and the crack when he hit the ground sounded bad. Celthor shoot arrows at the giant, and Ulfnaar rushed and attacked the giant with his sword. Garnek decided to heal Varam the White with a spell, as all this and then he dies, not a good ending at all, nothing the bards would sing about. Ater told Ameiko to stay on the ship while he tried to figure out how it worked. Varam the White, now healed by a ranged healing spell from Garnek, started to run, and Garnek shouted: - “Hold it right there!” and used a hold spell on Varam the White, which worked. The purple dressed dwarf stood like a funny looking statue. The giant released his grip of the skid to fight Ulfnaar. Ulfnaar and Celthor took care of the giant, with the help of Ameiko who of course didn’t listen to Ater and jumped down on the giant from the ship, leaving Ater alone on a ship he did not know how to control, steadily going upwards.
This is a little spoiler of what took me so long and what I've been working on since we played that part.
Ater finally figured out how the ship worked while drifting away in the sky, and successfully landed it without any mishaps. Ameiko and Celthor ties once again up Varam the White, before Garnek releases the spell, and Mr White spit curses once again. Celthor asks Ulfnaar if he understands ships, and Ulfnaar replies: -”Yes, and navigation in the air must be the same as navigation on the open sea, the stars will guide you.”
Merisiel fell in love with the crows nest on top of the red balloon, and spent most her time there. Ulfnaar helps Garnek to climb up and seal the holes his arrows had made in the balloon using his mending magic, after Alter has explained how it works, but all Ulfnaar and Garnek got was hot air, flying, neither of them did get any of the rest. While fixing the holes, they found out that the balloon was sewed from red dragon skin, very resistant to fire.
Varam the White is locked into one of the rooms below, and Ater found letters and notes in what seems to be the Captain’s quarters, very interesting reading. Ater summons the group for a quick briefing, again.
Ater speaks: -”The fire, or heat, that controls the ships altitude is driven by a fire elemental trapped inside a copper furnace, the altitude is controlled by a valve. The speed forward is created by that spinning thing on the back of the ship, a propeller I think they call it. The propeller is driven by a trapped air elemental, and you have a lever to increase or decrease the speed. The wheel, yes, it works as a wheel on a large commercial sailing ship, but instead of a rudder, the propeller is rotated.”
Most of what he said passed way over the head of most of the group. They picked up the wyverns, and they wyverns sat resting on the skids while the ship flew through the air. Ulfnaar hadn’t felt so much at peace in a long time, back on a ship, and Kelda seemed to enjoy it too. Ameiko was appointed Captain of the ship, and Ulfnaar first mate and first navigator. Kelda was appointed second navigator. The ship was named Miriam, after the poor scout they rescued back in the hunters lodge.
From time to time, the wyvern riders took out the wyverns on a flight, like a formation flight, where the rider rode the first wyvern, and the other three followed,
Ater reads through the papers and letters in the Captain's quarters. The ship came to Borsky bridge with six dragonwings to meet someone called Frothine. The mission was to meet up and kill the Heir of Amatatsu, Ameiko. The Dragon Cult has contacts in Luskan, someone named Wode, a shapeshifter, who can turn into a black raven. It was one of Wode’s scouts who found the Heir of Amatatsu, The mission was also to take the seal of Amatatsu to Luskan. So, Ater and Ameiko decide that we go to Luskan, but first we head to Waterdeep to drop of Varam the White at the Council of Waterdeep.
Ulfnaar sings “It’s a long long way to Waterdeep, it’s a long way to go”. Waterdeep, according to Ater’s calculations is about a week and a day away, then another week to Luskan. The weather is heading for fall, but there are still some warm days but the nights are getting colder. Up among the clouds the weather is really cold and everyone has put on warm winter clothing.
Merisiel, as usual acting lookout while not finding new and dangerous ways to climb up and down the ropes. On the fifth day, suddenly Merisiel sees a huge shape among the clouds. It’s a dark shape, probably a dragon, light coloured. Merisiel now has good practice of her daunting stunt when she almost flies down from the crow’s nest shouting “Dragon! Dragon! Deploy the wyverns!”. Ater had the wyvern watch so he jumps up on Bitey and calls the other wyverns to follow. Ulfnaar is enjoying the cold as his magical Helmet keeps him warm, so while the others wear pelts and warm coats, Ulfnaar walks around with a bare chest, smiling.
They see it now, and Ulfnaar readies the harpoon ballista in the aft. It’s a sliver dragon, and Ameiko and Celthor both says: “No shooting, it’s a friend!”. The dragon comes closer and hovers just outside the ship, and then is given permission to come onboard by Captain Ameiko.
The dragon starts to speak: -”My name is Dalanyrr, I am a dragon girl, who are you little folks?”
The group replied almost as one voice: -”We are the Wardens of the Jade and sworn enemies of the dragon cult.”
Dalanyrr’s eyes sparkles of joy in the morning sun when she hears that. She tells the group: -”Dragons gather at the Well of Dragons, which lies to the east, far from the sword coast, chromatic dragons, followers of Tiamat. May Bahamut protect us! “.
Ater has now landed the wyverns and asks if she knows Frothine. Dalanyrr frowns, “That beast!”. She tells us she has no wish to fight Frothine as he is ten times as old as she, she is only twenty summers old. She wishes the group good luck and we might meet again, then she flies away into the clouds, waving goodbye. The journey to Waterdeep continues...
The Jade Wardens continue to waterdeep and three days later they finally arrive. First they stop at a village outside, to park the wyverns. A farmer gets a handsome sum of gold to provide food for them during the stay, then they continue to the city of Waterdeep, and land in the water outside the docks. Varam the White is very tightly tied up and Ulfnaar carries him on his shoulder, walking side by side with Garnek, that has a Hold Dwarf spell ready, just in case. They also have a detachment of the City Guards with them, and the rest of the Jade Wardens of course, butr Garnek and Ulfnaar are enjoying this part so much. Everytime Varam the White make even a tiny movement, Ulfnaar spanks him saying “Stay still I said!”.
The group is met my Harper, in the little side room in the council. There are lots of guards on duty today. Here they meet Lady Silverhand, Lord Neverender and another woman. Good work on the capture of Varam the White. We have reports about disturbances in the Mighty Forest, but King Melandrash says he can handle it. The groupd told about the meeting with Dalanyrr the Silverdragon. We also learn that Makath Dareth of the Arcane Brotherhood of Luskan is missing. She is the greatest expert on dragons and the drakhorn.
Lord Neverender speaks: “Our mission is now to unite the factions of the Sword coast to assemble a united force, to be able to make a large scale attack upon the dragon cultists at the Well of the Dragons. Oh, I almost forgot, you will be compensated for your efforts capturing Varam the White.”
He fetches a small chest. Ameiko tries to deny the money but Ater steps in and stop her. Ameiko says: “We will travel to Luskan to search for Makath and follow up some other leads as well. We hope you can unite the fractions of the Sword coast to form an alliance and cooperate against the dragon cultists.”
Ameiko also asks about the chamber of commerce archives. The third women is introduced as Lady Eliah. The group learn that the Harper’s contact in Luskan is the tavern hostess at the Cutlass. They decide rent rooms at the Yawning Portal here in Waterdeep and do some shopping and leave tomorrow morning for Luskan.
During the shopping round, in a shop, Ulfnaar sees a merchant who is selling the book Volo’s Guide To Monsters. Ulfnaar says that he is writing a book himself. The merchant, who introduce himself as Volo the Magnificent , looks very interested, and says that he is a publisher of books, and he would very much like to publish the book Ulfnaar is writing, Ulfnaar scratches his head, and says, yeah, how much will you pay for it?
Volo replies, I give you 30 pieces of gold up front for it. Ulfnaar hands over the first chapter, the only part of his scribbles that he has written a little more clean, to Volo. On the first page you can read The adventures of Ulfnaar the Northlander.
Ulfnaar leaves and they go to a tavern to eat and drink and then the group heads back to the ship, through the winding streets of Waterdeep. On the way, the group pass a store with a huge shopping window. The sign reads “Blightfield’s Exotics”, and the window is not a window, it is a magic force field.
A smaller sign reads “The best potions in the city”. The group enters, Ater leading the way. I the ceiling, a huge stuffed crocodile hangs. Ater mumbles something and looks around, and the says: -”Ok, I’ve seen enough, let’s go back to the ship now”. On the way back he says that everything in the store was fake. The mother of all trinket shops, a tourist trap .
The group fly the ship back to the farm where the wyverns were left and is met by the farmer with a bandaged leg, he was bitten by a wyvern, bitey.
The ship heads for Luskan, and Ulfnaar spend his free time the following three days to scribble down chapter two in his book. Easy money he thought, easy money,
On the way Kelda tells the group about Luskan, as she originally comes from Luskan, before she went out raiding with one of the ship. Luskan is a city of Northlanders, it’s ruled by the ships, the Luskan name for the families or businesses that control the city.
Three days later, the ship is landed a little south of the city. They leave Kelda to watch the ship and the wyverns, and the rest of the group enter through the south gate. They find the Tavern named The Cutlass, and see a good looking woman wearing a typical tavern wench outfit. Mirabelle Ater says, and secretly shows her his Harper sign. Garnek orders the strongest ale they have, and starts to choke. Linarril takes one too, and starts to cough too. Ulfnaar has to thy it, yes, this is really good, bring me another one! Merisiel says “Garnek, you are such a wimp!”. She orders one, drinks it up, and falls asleep.
Ater introduce Ameiko to Mirabelle. We get tables on the balcony, to get some privacy. Ameiko asks about the merchant Finn Sweval, who bought the Amatatsu swor in the dreams the group had in the Brinewall castle, many months ago.
She then asks about Wode, and there are rumors of a guild with a raven as a symbol, only shadows in the night, Rumours of ravens, murdered persons and one black raven feather on the pillow. No information about Maketh.
The group learned that a high ranking captain recently died, one of the jarls under Zuldiak. Zuldiak has been raiding the seas to the south. The group learn even more about the ships of Luskan, who is who and who fights who. The captain’s name was Snorri Stoneeye, the mad reaver, and he died an unusual death here in Luskan, he died a natural death. from age. A funeral, ship barrow, will be held in a few days.
Merisiel wakes up and goes to watch someone doing card tricks, which cost a gold coin, but after each trick she steals the coin back and asks for another trick, she does that over and over again.
Merisiel drinks more beer, and Ameiko walks away alone to talk to Finn Sweval, Ulfnaar follow as a bodyguard. Being a Northlander in Luskan makes you blend in pretty well, and there are also a few Sho people here, like Ameiko. Ulfnaar knows the town and knows which streets to avoid and which groups to stay away from to avoid trouble and bloodshed. On the way Ameiko tells Ulfnaar what she’s learned so far about Finn. He is a successful merchant who deals in amber and whale oil. He has a well known collection of old Sho antiques. There are lot of Sho people in Luskan because of the trade route called the Northern snow route, which leads to Sho.
Finn lives in a longhouse with a largepit in one end and a table with two benches in front of it. Speaking with Finn was Ameiko’s job, Ulfnaar just listened.
Ameiko says: - “My name ios Ameiko Kajitsu, you did business with my grandfather.”
When Finn hears that, he says “Kajitsu? But it was just three weeks go, I was the victim of a robbery.” And he points at the wall. On the wall there is a sword holder, but no sword.
He continues: - “We had business together, about fifty or sixty years ago, I haven’t heard that name in a very long time. Rokuru, your grandfather, needed my help. I had made a fortune as a merchant over the Northern snow road, and there he comes, Rokuru, with his family, and the winter had already started. He didn’t want the money I offered him, so I bought the sword to be able to give him money. he was such a man of honor and principles. Time as passed and I haven’t thought much about, but three weeks ago, when I was out in town for an errand, masked men dressed in black, entered my house, killed one of my servants and wounded another. One of the men was a head taller than the rest. I reported it to the city watch, but nothing have happened.”
They continued to talk, Ameiko asked about Wode, but Finn didn’t recognize the name at all. Finn continued: -”Swishen was a strange sword, I never used it, it felt wrong, like it didn’t want me to use it. But I want to do business with you. Here in Luskan, if someone does someone else wrong, it means retaliation and compensation. As no retaliation and compensation has been offered to me, I do have the privilege of revenge, blood revenge as we call it here in the North. The deal is, if you carry out the blood revenge, Swishen is yours. The only clue I have is this golden armring, it was found in one of the rooms. It is very special as it has lion heads. Before my wounded servant died, the last thing he said was Paying the Lions due.”
While Ameiko and Ulfnaar is talking with Finn, Ater and and most of the group is out looking for clues and taverns, and suddenly Ater bumps into his cousin Alba. Alba says “The only Ater I know is dead”, and Ater replies “You listed to my advice and left in time!”, then they both hug each other, it ten years ago they last saw each other they both thought everyone else died that night.
Alba is barkeeper at One Eyes Jack’s, a place much more calm and posh than the Cutlass, and on their way there, they meet Ameiko and Ulfnaar coming back from Finn. Ulfnaar, Ameiko and a now mysteriously sober Merisiel heads out to the Blood Islands to have a little chat with the city watch about the reported armed robbery and murder.
Garnek chats and drinks with a strange nobleman at One Eyed Jack’s, named Zandor Zord, about a man who can sail the northern passage. The man is Ulf Gormundr and is a friend of Alba. Ulf is a Northlander, like Ulfnaar, and he wears a Winter wolf cloak from a Winter wolf he killed with his bare hands. A couple of hours later, they are all together and can share information. Everyone has been out gathering information, and they plot thickens when the names comes up on the table.
Ulfnaar knows Ulf Gormundr, the famous guide that can take a ship through the Northern Passage. The black raven is a mar of evil, probably connected to Goti Runecaster. Silent whispers of myth surrounds the name of that evil wizard. Suddenly Ater whispers, are we all sure what our task at hand is? Ulfnaar replies without hesitation “blood revenge”. The jade Wardens have a small war council and a plan is formed, to ship the ship that Aswig has his own agenda and is a murderer. We do not want to end up in a war with the ships, because that is nothing we can handle. We will try to spy on the long house where Aswig is holding a wake for the dead Snorri Stoneeye. But as everyone knows, a plan, no matter how well designed, will fail at the first contact with the enemy.
The large viking building where the wake was held was surrounded by a ring of poles, like a fence with no fence, just the posts. Merisiel sneaked up to them and Ater used a spell to stop the apparently magical fence to stop working, at least between two posts.
What started with Merisiel sneaking through an open door, through the great hall, out through a door on the other side and up on the roof, quickly turned into a brutal fight. it started as Ameiko and Ater took the kitchen entrance and found two rather drunk men having a go at one of the kitchen maids. Ameiko, Ater and Ulfnaar took care of that and promised to set the slaves, or tralls as the Northmen calls them free when this was all over. She also asked about the sword, and found out that it had been here. In the great hall, it was a carnage, specially as Merisiel dash in and out of the shadows killing, and when the battle went tough, Linnaril jumped down through the smoke hole in the roof and turned into a giant black bear, that scared a few. The target was to find Aswig and his wife, Hewa the witch, but getting through to their quarters was easier said than done, dozens of drunken northmen thought differently.
After a while, which felt like a long night, most of the enemies were down, and Aswig too, and Hewa surrendered. Ulfnaar and Garnek tied them up, and Garnek cast revivify on Aswig as Ater wanted to interrogate him, which would be difficult if we was dead, and impolite too if he proved to be innocent.
Ameiko helps the tralls to be free and also learns a little about their masters. The sword was as they said here, but was picked up by the Rime Runners, which have some business with Aswig. There are usually lots of ravens around Hewa.
Three hours later the group was back at the ship, Ater interrogates Aswig, uses a charm spell and Aswig talks and talks, but during the interrogation, when he mentions Zorborg, the head of the Rime Runners, Ater sees a curse. Garnek casts a remove curse, but too weak and too late and Aswig dies, but with the information, Ater is now convinced that Aswig and Hewa are innocent. The real enemies are Goti, Wade and the head of Rime Runners, Zorborg. Zorgborg has been very successful. Aswig worked for Zorborg, Goti works for Zorborg, and Wade is Goti’s familiar. Zorborg is no longer in Luskan, after a day of asking around, the group finally learns that she has a castle outside the city, and that she has huge powers.
North east of Luskan is an abandoned castle, owned by the former Captain, the recently passed Snorri Stoneeye owned it, and it’s now used by the Rime Runners. The castle lies with a steep cliff on one side, and is hard to enter, but the group found a bunch of Dragon Cultist fly suits on the ship. Merisiel thinks it’s a perfect idea, no one will expect invaders to come flying down like flying squirrels. When did a good idea work?
The strike team that went down to the castle was Ater, Linarril, Ulfnaar, Ameiko and Celthor. Flying like a squirrel was quite more difficult that it looked, specially without any previous training. The group did not land together but was scattered on towers and rooftops. After some difficulties, they successfully got together, and started to slowly fight their way down through one of the towers. The resistance of birdmen and and other monstrosities proved that this was the right place, not the typical employees of a trading corporation.
After finally coming down to the ground floor, they see some kind of laboratory carved out of the stone. In the laboratory is a large glass cage with a body of a Northlander inside, and it was moving, but did not rook very well. Ater quickly said: -”Stay away from that!” Looking closely, the glass cage was filled with huge wasps, that was crawling under the skin of the body, almost making it moving.
In laboratory is a small door, and Celthor opens the door and looks inside. He sees a dead body, but something is hiding deeper in this dungeon cell. Linarril throws in a water skin. The person gulps some water then whispers thank you. Ater helps him out and cast presitogation on him to clean him up and then Linarril casts a water spell on him and says “welcome to the roving dungeon spa”. The person introduce himself as Lute Haggersly, he is on the Rime Runners board, hired CEO of the Rime Runners. He voted against Zorborg and was abducted on the road by Goti Runecaster and brought here. It is Goti who is experimenting in the laboratory, creating his hell wasps. Lute says that there are monsters in the castle and that Zorborg herself is a monster, a shape changer. Ater has figured out that the kitchen entry is a good way out. Ameiko uses her hairpin of disguise and turns herself into Thormond, one of Zorborgs thugs that we had met before), and walks into the kitchen pretending to be drunk and angry and chases the staff out the kitchen door, and locks it from the inside. We tell Lute to stay in the kitchen until we come back, we just have a little unfinished business with Zorborg to take care of first. It won’t take long at all.
The group moves to the great hall, and here things doesn’t really go as planned. Zorbogs thugs comes running and Ulfnaar fights them and is swarmed by almost a dozen men. But that is not the real problem, the real problem is the ninjas sneaking around, in black dresses, using poisonous shurikens. They attacks from the shadows and from the beams on the ceiling, deadly shurikens hits. Ameiko falls, Celthor falls, and when Ulfnaar finally took down the last of the berserkers he also fell. Ater teleports to Linnarl, gives him a portion of healing, then they hurried away to the kitchen door. On the way out, Ater casts a Scrying Eye spell, he picks out one of his eyes and let it fly down to see what happens with the fallen comrades. When the has passed the glass cage, just before they closed inner door to the kitchen, Ater cast a magic missile on the glass cage, shattering the glass, muttering -”That will keep those ninjas busy for a while.”
Lute looked shocked when only Ater and Linarril entered the kitchen, and Ater just said: -“Come on, we need to go to the ship and plan a rescue operation.”
Ater opened the kitchen back door, and saw the confused staff and guards standing there out in the cold. He cast a fireball that Linarril followed up with a call lightning, and then they rushed by the smoking crater on the back to the ship. Ater’s scrying eye carefully following the route down to the dungeon where the ninjas and some more thugs took the captured heroes. The thought of Ameiko, Ulfnaar and Celthor being captured by the person who put someone inside that glass cage together with hell wasps was not very calming. Now, they needed to plan a rescue operation.
Back on the ship, there is need for rest, a night’s sleep to get the survivors back in business, and for those who are to embark on the rescue mission.
Ater is still concerned about Kelda. Ulfnaar brought it up a few days ago, after he saw Kelda sneak out from the ship in the middle of the night and come back a few hours later with blood on her hands and blood spatters on her face, and her sword being in a particularly good mood. The dark rings around her eyes, her sudden mood swings, and no, it’s not that, it’s something more. Ater knows he has to deal with it later, but right now, Keldas fighting ability and sword is most needed if they want to rescue their missing comrades before they are turned into lab rats by the evil Goti Runecaster.
After the sleeps while keeping watch with his remote eye. seeing the ninjas are having a bit of a trouble fighting the wasps, which is good, one of them, apparently wounded from the fight with the group, dies from the wasp stings. Ater thinks for himself, fight poison with poison, nice idea.
Before dawn, the ship, now officially named Dragonfly, once again heads for the castle. This time the approach will be a bit less spectacular. Merisiel jumps down on the tower and moors the ship with a rope. The rescue party slides down the rope, Kelda first, then Linarril, Garnek, Ater and last comes Lute, the Rime Runners CEO who decided that he wants to be part of the rescue operation as he has a word or two to say to Zorborg, and those words are not of the friendly kind.
Ater guides the way as he has seen it, and it goes down through a secret door into a deep staircase and then down to some by the group unexplored tunnels. They follow a tunnel that leads to a open cavern with a waterfall on one side, a stream in the middle and a small alcove with a door on the other side. Ater, curious as always, uses a spell for a short range teleportation, misty step, and suddenly stands on the alcove. On the doorstep was some strange device, a metal canister in a chain, filled with some alcoholic smelling liquid. Merisiel and Kelda get over the stream that is not very deep, and Ater opens the door. A small room filled with debris, rotten crates and is overgrown with fungi, and there is a small well in the far end of the room.
Merisiel sees a leather cloak hanging on the wall as the room is very dimly lit. She moves, and suddenly the cloak opens up and tries to catch Merisiel, and Merisiel dashes into a corner shaking with fear, mumbling: - “Bat! bat! bat!”. Kelda was just looking down the well and sees a sword down there. Her sword, Hazadrim, used detect magic and suddenly she feels an urge to kill the sword in the well. Ater realizes the problem and uses a command spell and commands Kelda to carry Merisiel to Garnek, who just crossed the stream. Kelda obeys, unwillingly, then Ater orders Kelda to stay with Garnek. Garnek gives Merisiel some blessings, while Ater swings the holy water sprinkler, the strange item found on the doorstep, around to keep the evil leather coat monsters at bay as they seemed to dislike to be sprinkled with whatever was in the canister. Merisiel comes back, strips down to her underwear and climb down the well to pick up the sword. Ater quickly hides the sword in his bag of holding. Ater only needed one quick look at the sword, yes, it is the Amatatsu sword, the Swishen, or Suishen, depending on if you spelling in Common or Sho.
The group continues the route Ater has seen, and Ater says that ahead is a small stream, and there is a plank on the other side, and a small bell that you ring and a troll comes and puts the plank over the stream. Merisiel gets all white in the face the second time today. “Bell? Did you say Bell?”
The group get rid of some trolls, and find a large room with what seems to be a squeaky floor, Merisiel detected it and the group carefully moved along the side of the room, fighting room by room, silently, as Garnek cast silence to prevent any noise from a fight to reach anyone else and wake an alarm. The were some confusion, misunderstandings and the normal chaos, but after some good tactical decisions and hard fighting, the group reached the next tunnel down. The group got a little separated, Kelda. Merisiel and Garnek where spearing and chased a half troll down a spiral staircase while the other half ended up fighting Zombies. A Stinking Cloud spell from the half troll split the group in two, one half on each side of the Zombies and stinking cloud. Kelda, Merisiel and Garnek came up on a pair huge bronze statues, standing on each side of a large door. The bronze statues disagreed with the idea of Merisiel unlocking the door and a quite hard fight emerged from it. At the same time, on the upper floor, Lute, Ater and Linarril was fighting Zombies and the half troll that magically appeared there, even though the other half of the group chased it down the stairs. Lute were using his Bardic inspiration, but as he is a corporate bard, there were no songs about heroes or great deeds, he instead shouted: - “Well done Linarril, the company needs more employees like you!”. And when Ater used Scorching Rays to prevent the troll from regenerating and accidently destroyed a chair and some wall tapestries, Lute shouted: - “Careful, do not destroy Rime Runners assets, I will deduct that from your salary!”
When the fighting was over, and Ater, Linarril and Lute finally reached Kelda, Merisiel and Garnek, who happily showed the killed statues, Ater put both his hands on his for head and shouted:
- “You imbecile fools! What have you done? Those guardians were worth a fortune, and I mean a huge fortune. We could have sold them and bought a fine estate with a huge library in Baldur’s gate with the gold!”
Lute screams: - “Those are corporate properties of the Rime Runners and you will be held responsible for any damage you did to them. I mean it!”
Kelda just stood in silence, her eyes darker than ever, and Merisiel pouted like a little girl, and Garnek just said: - “Opps, sorry Ater, but why the heck are you always late?”
Behind the door was a room packed with chests with gold and silver bars, all marked with Rime Runners seal. But Merisiel missed the trap on the door, and everyone got burned. Lute screams: -”I’m to rich and important to get fried like chicken! And this gold is property of Rime Runners, leave it!”
Kelda takes three steps towards Lute, looks down at the short, tiny man and says: -”No, it belongs to the Jade Wardens” Lute shrugs, lift his hands in a gesture of please don’t hurt me and backs off, mumbling excuses. In the vault were also the belongings of the lost group members Ulfnaar, Ameiko and Celthor, plus some other gear belonging to some unknown person. Ater finds a few bottles of very fine wine and some expensive saké from Sho. The group went up the stairs again for some healing, the room no longer crowded with zombies looked like a good place for Linarril to set his healing spirit out. Everyone was in need of some refreshing healing.
The group continue the search for the captured comrades, and enters a strange large almost round room, with a very high ceiling, about 40 feet high. There is a waterfall on one wall leading down to a raised pool in the center of the room, about five feet from the ground, A narrow ledge along the wall on beside the waterfall about ten feet , and an alcove on another wall, about twenty feet from the ground. The floor itself is filled with beautiful oriental screens, forming a maze.
In the alcove, there is a huge bed, where a naked couple is sitting. Merisiel dashes into the maze of screens, sees a ninja ready to assassinate anyone entering the maze, but Merisiel spots the assassin first and assassinates the assassin. The almost naked woman, which Lute identifies as Zorborg, casts a spell and starts to fly. The man jumps into a ninja dress and disappears among the screens. Lute points at Kelda and says: - “Work smarter, not harder” and casts a Haste spell on Kelda. Kelda, now moving at the speed of a Gepard, rushes into the screen maze brutally smashing the screen and stumbles upon two ninjas and slays them both instantly. She keeps rushing around smashing and turning screens over. The theme music suddenly turns into the “Theme of Benny Hill”
Lute points at Zorborg and uses his vicious mockery: -”You are a shame for the Rime Runners, your wallet is as open as your pants”. Linarril casts a tidal wave on Zorborg. Kelda climbs up to Zorborg and attacks her. Lute keep mocking her: -”Take that! You are on the board just because of preferential treatment!”.
Zorborg casts a Cone of cold and Lute yells: -”That’s below my paygrade!”. Linarril casts blight on Zorborg, and then Kelda moves in and slays Zorborg, and she feels a very strange feeling. Lute shouts to the dying Zorborg: -”Consider yourself outsourced!”
Now a little quiz for those who have followed the adventures of Ulfnaar.
As Ulfnaar, Ameiko and Celtor are all captured, and the player who plays Garnek has went back home across the atlantic ocean, can anyone guess which of the players who normally play Ameiko and Celthor that now during this rescue mission play Garnek and Lute? I do play Kelda, and I usually do when both Kelda and Ulfnaar is in the adventure together, but the other two? Any takers? I admit that DM sometimes takes control over Kelda, which can be quite fun, as it's hard to play the Ulfnaar - Kelda interactions all by yourself.
Zorborg has been killed, or outsourced back to hell as Lute put it, and Suishen has been recovered, but where are the lost comrades? There is a small door in the far end of the big room, and it leads to a corridor with cells, prison cells. There is a fog coming from one of the cells, and Celthor sees a strange beast in the fog. In one of the cells are the lost comrades, alive but very beaten, and Garnek and Linarril heal then up enough so they can move by themselves and put on their gear. Celthor does not have enough skills with animals or beats, so Linarril enters the foggy room, to try to befriend the Winterwolf. As he cannot speak wolf today, Linarril wildshape into a dire wolf, and now he speak with the wolf as wolf speaks, with growls and howls. The Wolf is a she, and her name is Skygnie. Ater wonder what is happening when he hear growling and howling from the foggy room.
The gear that didn’t belong to any of the group members belong to Ulf Gormundr, who also was a captive in the prison. Ulf and Ulfnaar has been talking and Ulf decides to join the group and help them in the upcoming expedition to the northern ice passage to Sho.
After some persuasion from Linarril, Skygnie decides to follow him as a friend and animal companion, and come to the ship, and Celthor decides to not put his winter wolf coat on for a while.
Back on the ship, the group takes a very long rest, heals, and everyone feels more powerful and skillful than ever before. Ulfnaar, who has been thinking in and out for months on his big choice in life, decided to take the route as a defender of good and exterminator of evil. He has changed, changed a lot, since he joined the group, and now, he is ready to become a Paladin. Ulfnaar decided he needs a full makeover and he started to train even harder, and everyone else also spend many our practicing new talents. He had already bought some new clothes, inspired by the writer and former adventurer Volo. He put on his new clothes, and then he started to wonder how his book was coming along.
Ameiko is training with Suishen as often as she could, and for her using an edge weapon when she was used to fight her hands or staffs, using Suishen was far easier than she imagined. Ulfnaar spend some time with Ameiko training together. It’s dangerous to train with real weapons, but it’s a dangerous world out there and it uses real weapons. You need to train with the real deal if you don’t want to end up too early in a song by a bard in a tavern.
Note: From here on DM takes back the control of Kelda...
Now, to the important matter at hand, what to do with Kelda? Ater, Garnek and Linarril are now convinced that the sword, the evil Hazarim, has taken control over Kelda, and when the demon Zorborg was slain, Kelda was even more under control, with a powerful curse. A plan is devised to save Kelda. Ater creates a magic circle on the upper deck close the the steering wheel. Ulfnaar will call up Kelda on deck, where Garnek cast Hold Person on Kelda to make it possible to take the sword, then Ater cast levitate on the sword and transport it into the magic circle, while Linarril cast Greater Restoration on Kelda to remove the curse. When everyone is in position, Ulfnaar goes down to fetch Kelda, who is in a bad mood, as usual.
It all happens very fast, and before Kelda knew what happened, she was held and curse was removed. Kelda fainted and fell down on the deck, but Ulfnaar caught her before she slammed in the deck planks. Ater hid the sword inside his bag of holding. Putting two very powerful magical sword of opposite views of the world inside a bag of holding that is an opening to a extra dimensional space, would be too much of an experiment even for the always knowledge hungry Ater, so that's why Ameiko already has the Suishen, but has been carefully hiding it from Kelda.
Ulfnaar slung the fainted Kelda over his shoulder, and carried her down to her cabin and put her down in her bed and made it as comfortable for her as possible. Her dark rings around her eyes had gone away, and she looked peaceful now, her old self. Ulfnaar had prepared his part, so as soon as Kelda woke up and asked what happened, he told her that she had been under a curse, and Kelda could vaguely remember it. Kelda asked where her sword was, and Ulfnaar told her that it was gone. Kelda looked at Ulfnaar, and Ulfnaar said I have something for you, and gave Kelda a nice magic viking longsword.
Kelda looked at the sword, took it and tossed in the cabin floor, then she grabbed Ulfnaar and pulled him down into her bed and kissed him. Ulfnaar had time to think, she do like me, before Kelda quickly removed his tunic.