Entry 15: The Tournament
It’s been a little over a week since my last entry, but the time has been relatively pleasant. Oslo summoned me back to his castle for a report. I made sure to bring the dragon lineage scroll with me. He decided that the best course of action was to find the family to whom it belonged. Then, with an arcane ritual, he sent it directly to them. I am glad that we won’t have to be worrying about that.
We spent another couple of days working around the castle. He managed to make an unholy mess of his lab but he wouldn’t tell me what he was working on. I told him of what was going on and he seemed impressed (and a bit concerned). I asked him for a little assistance with communicating back and forth so I could be more prepared when I transported. He gave me a ring that would allow for communication, but with only one charge. He also added the warning that I shouldn’t waste the magic and I assured him I wouldn’t.
One evening, in the middle of the night, Oslo woke me up and told me that he wanted me to go to my group and retrieve a bugbear liver that one had found. I was excited to be meeting up with my new friends again, but I was a little worried that he was keeping such close tabs on them. He let me get dressed and collect my things before meeting me in the summoning chamber. I teleported there and found the group sitting around a table at a tavern in Westbrook. After explaining what I was after, Shane gave me the package, which happened to be an owlbear liver; not bugbear. Twenty minutes later, Oslo teleported me back.
He seemed unconcerned about the difference between anatomical ingredients when I handed him the package. Before he sent me back for longer, I told him about my concern over the time difference. When I arrived there, it was in the afternoon. To help, he gave me a scroll containing a spell that would give me a full night’s sleep. I may need to invest in a wand that can produce the extremely useful effect.
I was teleported back again and I fought down a wave of nausea from the disruption. Teleporting such a long distance three times in less than an hour was not easy. I checked in with the others and found that the tournament had already begun. Shane and Lily had made friends with a pair of old knights who were being given extremely low odds at winning the jousting. After the first round, it was revealed that they were actually highly skilled. In fact, one of them, Sir Maximillian had never been defeated. The odds shifted dramatically but luckily, Lily had already placed her bets.
While the wide range of tournaments was interesting, what I was more interested in was finding out more information about the region – especially the towns which had gone “missing”. I recognized a ranger who had been the winner of the competition at the fair and asked him about the towns. He had just been in the town of Bennit to the southwest and confirmed that everyone was gone. Plague signs were left on the road in and out of town, but when he checked, there were no bodies. He did spot a very large set of wagon tracks but the tracks simply disappeared outside of town. He had been travelling in the barony to the south and he heard of similar things happening there.
We stayed through the remainder of the tournament and collected a nice sum of coin. The knights had planned to through their matches as they had bet against themselves. Sir Wheat was in desperate need of money to get cured of a magical affliction. The coin from the tournament would have been the last that they needed. Instead, we gave them the money and Lily collected a tidy sum from their winnings.
Fasa had encouraged the Regent to include an Arts day for the tournament and it seemed quite successful. I took first place in the Bardic storytelling completion with a tale I spun of a bumbling warrior with a heart of gold that travelled the land doing good, though sometimes misguided deeds. I received a beautifully bound book and iron-tipped quill. As soon as I finish this, I will spend the evening writing down the tale with which I won the tournament: The Chronicles of Bolt Ironhuge.
As the tournament came to a close, the Regent was extremely pleased. It brought in over two thousand gold and helped to cement a more solid relationship with the surrounding Baronies. The new guardsmen were settling in with their duties and talk of re-opening the trade routes was well underway. Clerics were moving out into the communities as well and the Regent was even in talks with a group of Druids to move into the region.
However, he had heard of the rumors of plague striking the smaller towns and was quite concerned. Many of these places were off the main routes and until regular patrols could be set up, the guardsmen couldn’t be spared to investigate. So of course, we offered our services. We’re heading back to Spearrow in the morning to gather our things and be on our way.
Entry 16: The Disappearing Town
After checking in at Spearrow, we retrieved our gear and our horses from Fennic’s stables (a room we hadn’t seen before). The wizard’s poor horse was doing well after its long bout of isolation and near starvation. Even though he was an enchanted beast, we left him with plenty of food to speed his recovery. Checking the map, Shane planned out our route: East to the river and then south so we could stop off at Riverton; continuing on to Cottage Corner and then West to Bennit.
We made good time and arrived at Riverton in the late afternoon on our third day of travelling. Or at least, we arrived where Riverton should have been. We walked toward a large clearing that corresponded to the location where we expected to find the town, but there was nothing there: except something seemed … off.
We heard water from the river lapping against wood, like boats or a dock, but there was nothing there. Leaves drifting in the wind danced around as if being diverted by unseen buildings. There were animals that we could hear, but not see. Moving carefully, we approached the clearing and discovered something large and wood: a house. Continuing on, we felt our way to what appeared to be a fountain in the center of an invisible town. We could hear the water gurgling and splashing. Shane out a cup into the water and took a drink. When he looked back at us we all got a shock. The bottom half of his jaw and everything down his neck and chest had vanished! After seeing what happened, Shane got into the fountain itself and completely disappeared.
As soon as he did, he found that he could SEE everything. The houses, the shops, the animals were all visible, but only to him. He wandered around the town to determine what had happened. The buildings were empty, often with belongings and even money still inside. Eventually it became clear what caused the problem. There was a blackened crater (with an equally blackened skeleton) in the place of what I assumed to be an Alchemy shop. An experiment must have gone horribly wrong and the result left the town completely invisible and must have permanently altered the ground water that fed the fountain.
This begs the question (well, a few of them actually): what happened to all the townspeople? Are they invisible? Is the enchantment permanent? Having solved the mystery of why Riverton is gone, we decided to be on our way. Shane is confident that we will reach Cottage Corner tomorrow evening but I must say, hearing his voice coming from thin air is very disconcerting.
Entry 17: A Town That Should Be Empty but Isn’t and Another That Shouldn’t but Is
We did manage to reach Cottage Corner as the sun was getting low on the horizon. The place was nothing more than a collection of small houses: no shops, no taverns, and no stables. That was the first thing that seemed odd. There were also no crops or livestock, yet there were many flowers planted around the dwellings. The old man that came to greet us seemed pleasant enough and though there was no place to say, there was a clearing nearby where travelers were welcome to camp. There was even a fire pit and surrounded by carved wooden chairs. It looks inviting but something was just not right.
The man wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t tell what was wrong with him exactly, but he was obviously some form of undead. The stillness of the place set off more warning bells and after discussing quietly with the rest of the group, we decided to move on, quickly. Our horses were tired and so were we, but we reached Bennit in the middle of the night, passing by the red alchemical lights on the outskirts of town. The place was completely deserted. Even though it was late, (or early in the morning depending on how you look at it) there were no signs of life: no candles in the windows, no livestock shuffling in stables, no smoke from chimneys in the air. On the main road, we did find large wagon tracks, 14 paces apart and very deep. The weather hadn’t been harsh enough to wash away such distinctive tracks.
We went to the temple first and in the cleric’s room there were signs of a struggle on the bed but no blood. The priest’s mace was still at the bedside, though it was knocked over. A greenish substance was smeared on the pillow but none of us to identify it. A small house belonging to a ranger was the only building showing damage, smashed windows. We spotted more of the green stains on the door frame and the windows and but other than the broken glass, there was nothing damaged inside. Lily did find some armor and weapons that would work for her so likely, the ranger was a Halfling. She noted that all of houses and buildings were missing high-value small items like jewelry and gems. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. We also realized that the green stains were from Ether, a powerful chemical used to render a person unconscious.
The Sherriff’s office was very suspicious to me. No Ether, no signs of a struggle at all and the manacles were missing, but the building we found with the most significant damage was the Baker’s shop. Scuff marks, spilled flour and a broken rolling pin covered in blood all showed that the man put up a fight. The clothing in the man’s living quarters upstairs were for an obviously large and powerfully built person, rivaling even Shane. There were also patches of heavy leather stitched into the shoulders of many of his shirts.
The reason for that became obvious with the discovery of owl pellets on top of the cabinets. There was a skylight in the shop and when Shane made an owl call, a large white bird flew in. I suggested we keep it with us in case we can find a spellcaster that could speak with animals. Lily befriended the owl with Shane’s guidance (and food). The only other thing out of place was a bottle of olive oil left on the counter. Shane said it was out of place for what a baker would have been working on. Then I noticed the label, written in Zakharan!
A flash of inspiration struck me: Slavers! From my homeland – somehow they had come here and were striking remote villages. The wagon they used was likely enchanted since there were no horse tracks and the wagon tracks seemed to disappear outside of the town. It probably shrinks just like the wagon that Fennic created for Iudor and since Fennic did travel in Zakhara, he probably learned that enchantment there.
Seeing nothing else of interest and realizing that the only other town nearby was Crossing Dust, we decided to press on and made it to the town in the morning. We were all exhausted but the urgency of catching up to these slavers weighed on us. Crossing Dust was untouched and after looking around, it became obvious why. It was thriving town at the crossroads of two major trade routes. There were three temples and a wizard in residence, a lovely Elven lass named Heratha.
We took the opportunity to have Shane’s condition checked out. He was still invisible and the enchantment was showing no sign of wearing off on its own. She was bewildered by the magic but was confident that she could break it. Unfortunately, the components needed were quite pricey and difficult to come by. We could take the time to go back to our headquarters to retrieve the gold but we decided it was more important to track down the slavers.
Asking Heratha about the caravan and showing her an image of the style of wagons from my homeland, she knew what we spoke of. They had come through town a number of times over the last few months. The wagons were well-guarded and led by a large, red-haired man by the name of Dannigal Firesky. I recognized the name as Giantish which made us quite concerned. She confirmed that some very recent travelers from the south confirmed that the town of Qualm was deserted and had plague markers in place. She knew that the only person of any power was a druid that lived the region. The town had no formal temple.
She also told us that the last time the caravan had come through was about a week ago and they traveled north, in the direction of Spearrow! I used Oswald’s message ring and contacted Grusk in order to warn him. He seemed confused and had seen nothing like the caravan I described. Feeling foolish that I had used the only charge for false alarm, I still told him to be wary of any wagons. After that, we secured rooms and collapsed in exhaustion. When we awoke, Shane was gone – not just invisible as usual, but actually absent. Before we could become too concerned, he returned and told us that he had found the trail that the caravan’s had used.
Collecting our gear again, we set off to follow the trail that Shane had found. It led us to an unmarked road through the woods to the Northwest of our current home. The area corresponded to a location that Fennic had marked as the “Cave of Madness”. There were more than a dozen guards, all dressed in Zakharan attire, guarding the cave entrance. As there were only four of us, we decided to go secure aid from Spearrow and Westbrook.
And we were quite successful. Besides ourselves and Grusk (and his worg Jessica, of course) we enlisted 14 newly-assigned guardsmen from the Regent in Westbrook. We also got the assistance of six knights still there after the tournament, the archer who told me about Bennit’s trouble, one of the Halfling knights, two Clerics from the temple (along with some more healing potions), a highly skilled rogue that Lily had met, and a young Paladin named Strom who Sheila recommended that we contact.
Tomorrow morning, we ride toward the caves to see what awaits.
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