Location: South of Rilan on an oxbow of the River Galanus

Date: Lan the 19th-24th, 1334 Avard

Characters: Chimes, Hiko, Toox, Roland, Jasper

Despite a weather delay, the Golden Lance finally made it back up to Rilan on the 22nd of Rilan, with a brief stopover in Avath.

The stopover in Avath earned the Black Feather Troupe a permanent welcome with their usual performances. The tightrope act by Toox was wonderful and welcome, and would have been a good act all by itself, but she was followed by Chimes' singing and stringed instruments – a performance that absolutely wowed the crowd.

As soon as they arrived in Rilan, they visited the Silver Gauntlet shop in the hopes of finding new magical items to purchase with their recently found wealth. After a quick perusal, Roland stepped out to resummon his celestial mount, Burst. Just like the last time, Burst used the nearest hot fire to be summoned from – only this time, he returned with wings!

The troupe then returned to the Black Feather Fort to find new vines climbing the walls, and very lax security despite hiring guards. The troupe split up to accomplish several tasks, with Hiko checking in on Eingrim – followed later by Chimes.

Eingrim appeared to have fallen into a rabbit hole. He had been acting strangely since his death and resurrection, taking up alchemy and the tinkerer trade, among other odd interests. At first, it seemed related to his duties as a physician, but Hiko and then Chimes became worried that he was going insane.

The chalkboard in the basement workshop was filled with random drawings, arcane formulas, and a list of odds and ends that made no sense in relation to one another:

warforged pit
Navy map
werewolves - Rilan
demons - Kashin
arcanogen
wild mages
Teras ruins
Takanal south ruins
gryphon egg / aerie
river trolls
missing mage books
changeling speech
kenku bones
where's my hand?
summoning stones

When Hiko reported success in obtaining a Navy map of the areas west of Rakore – where the lost continent showed up on the older, ancient maps – Eingrim marked through the 'Navy map'.

When Hiko mentioned helping an imprisoned angel at the ruins, Eingrim marked through 'Teras ruins'. Eingrim was interested in the 'angel prison' and the angel, disappointed there were no angel bones to work with, and fascinated by the small obelisk that Hiko brought back in his enchanted chest. The obelisk was about two feet tall and made of the same marble and workmanship as the other statues the troupe had seen in the ruins. The carvings on the obelisk were oddly disturbing – of vampires and other undead killing and butchering elves. There was an inscription on the obelisk in a lost language, but the spell comprehend languages let them read the writing: “In the 5th year of King Halbert, the elven slaves did rebel against our lord; He gave unto his warriors the gift of the undead vampires to slay the rebel elves; they did tremble at his might and fled; all hail King Halbert.”

Eingrim added 'King Halbert elves' to his chalkboard list.

In the interim, Eingrim had a request for the troupe that was not a high priority, but it was a concern. Several tomanths had made it to the Soul Smithy temple asking for help. The attending priests had described tooth marks the size of knives. All of the information had, of course, come through word-of-mouth, so there was the possibility of misinterpretation. The common tongue was not easy for tomanths, on top of that. Despite that, Eingrim had pressed for as many details as he could get.

The tomanths described the attack as happening several miles south of even the Black Feather Fort, near an oxbow lake with a tall rock that had a 'blasted' tree. If whatever creature was there presented a threat to either the fort, or the locals, then Eingrim was responsible as the local lord.

The team spent an extra day prepping, and then set out on the morning of the 24th of Lan. Hiko and Chimes rode their faithful Clyde, while Toox rode Barry instead of Balteest. Between Roland's sense of the land and Hiko's memorization of the maps, they found the most likely oxbow. Roland tentatively flew around the lake on Burst, while Chimes searched from the ground.

They found a tall rock with a dead tree on the north side of the lake, and assumed that it could be the 'blasted' tree the tomanths described. A chilly rain set in, limiting visibility to only a hundred feet or so.

While waiting near the lake, they were attacked – by a skeletal plesiosaur. The plesiosaur attack Burst and tried to drag him into the water, but Hiko used his growing arcane powers to turn the pegasus into a great white shark. Toox flew above the battle with her enchanted boots, while Roland ran along the surface of the water using his enchanted boots.

Behind the plesiosaur came an undead troll. The plesiosaur was dealt with as swiftly as possible, but the troll proved a bit more troublesome. Rather than face it entirely in the water, Burst pushed the troll towards the shore, where Jasper's bear Alabaster helped drag it partially out of the water. From there, the rest of the troupe could bring their full attacks to 'bear'.

Hiko used a fireball against the troll, which Chimes inadvertently copied into a burst of necromatic energies. Despite that, and despite several pulses of necromatic energy that stole their health and gave it to the troll, they managed to defeat it relatively quickly. The undead river troll exploded in death energies that hurt them – and black diamonds.

Hiko figured that a large black diamond must have absorbed a lot of necromantic energies during the War of the Undead. The river troll and the plesiosaur were likely trapped in the oxbow, unable to leave the isolated waters.

Date: SEP2020

DM's Notes: Dinner was a pork chop stew. We started a bit later than we would have liked, as Caileb had to work. The moment he was off work, however, he was chomping at the bit to play – only we had to wait a bit as SOMEONE had things to do (cough, cough, DM).

Reference: Campaign X
Previous Episode: Xs2e26
Next Episode: Xs2e28

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