Session 16+17, we'll say, finally caught up

We traveled off ta Wembdel, a decent sized town, lookin' fer history n' work. We found out again that we'd been gone under tha ocean for over a year or so, n' folks din't have much idea nor concern 'bout what had happened in Rosebay. Now, maybe I'm just more curious than' most folks, but I was purty s'prised that most folks din't seem to mind it none. They apparently were rebuildin' n' Rosebay n' we considered headin' down there, but its quite a trip. So instead we decided to ask 'round 'bout the Dark Rider.

My memory ain't so good, either we bumped into a feller named Sorn who took us to the Magistrate first, or we found the Magistrate by rec'mendation n' saw Sorn there, but we met 'im at similar times. The magistrate feller had information on the Dark Rider. Sorn's some sorta oracle, says he's been followin' the Dark Rider for a long time. Tall feller, with tattoos o' them time clocks with sand in 'em. Them tattoos light up when he's castin' spells. Kinda weird at first, but mostly in'neresting.

Anyhow, this magistrate feller said he had some good information for us, but he wanted a favor first. Course. After we grilled him a bit ta somewhat validate he had valuable information n' askin' where he may have heard this information from, we agreed to do his favor. Turns out, he's got this big ole' plot o' land n' there's some bandits in the woods o' it n' there's some skum, evil fish folk, livin' down by his lake.

Now, I ain't one for property. If ye can't carry it on yer back or if it can't come with yer herd o' goats, then it aint worth it. But other folks aint like that.

That reminds me, a story about goats, as I forgot 'bout it in my last journal entry! There was a goat inside them undead caves, I aint got no idea from where, but he had some sorta lamp round his neck. This goat feller followed us 'round them caves the whole time, n' when Rayden nearly died his soul somehow got trapped in that thurr soul lamp. Zuzmo smashed the lamp n' saved the spirits o' Rayden n' the goat. I still ain't got no idea what he was doin' there. End o' side story.

Property. I aint one for it, but this magistrate feller wanted us to clear it out. So we went off.

First, we were in some thick woods, so Zuzmo went scamperin' up a tree to see where we waz in relations to the rest o' the forest n' this magistrate feller's mansion, which he was buildin' off in the distance. Unfortunately, some large spider types had set up camp round this spot. Sorn showed us he was a bit of a marksman, Zuzmo reminded us that he can summon lightning tridents to fight, Clount showed some agile prowess, n' the rest of us tried our best to help though we din't help all that much.

After awhile we found a camp, a big ole' camp, but only one feller was in it. He was a singer o' sorts. Sorn n' I snuck around the perimeter, but there wasn't anyone creepin' out there. The feller in the camp was a pretty smooth liar, sayin' that he was just travelin' through, but his story din't quite add up. When I told him I thought as much, he turned himself invisible with a bardic spell. We started pokin' round the camp n' found that one o' them trees had a big ole ladder disguised in the side of it.

So Zuzmo scampered on up the tree, bout 60 feet or so, n' found there was an openin' in the platform. He said he was comin' up, bein' the nice feller that he is. The three fellers on tha' platform weren't so nice. They shot at Zuzmo, hurtin' him decently. I could tell Zuzmo was considerin' doin' somethin' brave, but he was up there all by his'self, n' I hollered fer him to come down. He's a tough lil' orc, or goblin, or whatever, but he ain't one for battlin' three big fellers with bows when he's already hurt. When he came on down the tree, bleedin' n' hurtin' I got purty upset. I like Zuzmo.

So I hollered up that this was their last chance to give up. I waited, n' no response. So I drank one o' my new tricks - invisibility potion, n' I had Mr. Clount follow me up that tree.

Now, imagine you're one of three fellers, you've all got your bows pointed at n' entrance in yer lil tree fort. Suddenly, a half-orc appears outta nowhere, cause he's shoving yer' friend off a 60' platform to the forest floor below, n' he draws a big ole' greataxe from his back n' comes chargin' you. Now, dontcha reckon that maybe when his friend comes poppin' outta that hole you WERE coverin' until you dropped your bow cause o' that angry orc, that MAYBE you'd drop yer weapons n' beg for mercy? These fellers weren't much in'nerested in that. So two took a trip to the forest floor, n' the other got cut up purty badly. To be fair, they did manage ta sink a few painful arrows n' blows into me, but I think I mostly had the leg up in that exchange.

Turns out these fellers had n' entire tree village up there with ropes connectin' amongst all them platforms. Most o' them had a death wish, but there were three fellers who were wise enough to actually agree to leave. We found out from them that their village was burnt down to make room fer some barracks o' some sort. Now, I ain't think thats right, but I aint livin' in these lands neither. Back in Suuldra, that would never fly with folks, but folks wouldn't live along no public road, neither. So we told these fellers that we felt sorry for 'em, but lootin' n' plunderin' wasn't really the appropriate way to win any kind o' hearts over.

There was some more folks, n' one was this woman 'zerker type who hit pretty hard. I went ta fight her, n' she took me out pretty quickly. Fortunately, by the time I went down, the rest o' my friends had scared off or beat up most o' the other fellers round there, n' were able to save me n' eventually overwhelm. She sure packed a wallop though. I'm still achin' a day later.

Havin' dispersed most o' them bandits, we found 'nother rope ladder headin' down n' spotted a cage to take shelter n' for the night. There was a feller there with some wolves, n' he was some sort o' wild feller who'd been livin' out here for awhile, but he was nice 'nuff, so we talked to him about the land n' about the skum where the lake was. He pointed us in the right direction, n' we were off on our merry way.

Session 14-15ish

So wurr in this cavern n' we hear tha whistlin' n' singin' o' some big dumb feller. We prep ourselves for a fight, n' this big ole' ogre comes barrellin' round the corner with a minin' cart. He wuldn't fixin' fer a fight, so we set ta askin' him where we are. Turns out wurr in some sorta minin' camp. Suprise, suprise.

Well he takes us out them tunnels. I'm speculatin' 'bout why Aurora chose to drop us off here, I 'member we were all asked where we wanted to go "home" to. I reckon none o' us chose a tunnel un'nerneath the earth, so I ain't zactly sure what the confusion was 'bout there.

There's some dwarf feller who runs the camp, n' they got a punch more ogre types helpin' 'em out. I dun remember his name as its been a long time since we were there but he was a nice 'nuff feller. He pegged us fer adventurin' types n' asked us if we wanted to help him wit' a problem. Turns out one o' his humans n' a pair o ogres found some sort o' den of the dead un'ner the earth. The ogres took to callin' em "Unpunchables". One o' em fellers tried to punch a spectre o' sorts, n' it drained the life from him. The second ogre took to runnin', and the human, who you'd 'spect to be smarter than an ogre, took it upon his'self to go 'vestigating the situation. He managed ta' get away, but when we spoke ta him, he wuldn't in any real kind o' shape.

So fer some gold, and for the tin can paladin's conscience, we agreed ta take the work. I set about askin' if these fellers had any kind o' silver bars, and I proceeded to make some holy water vials, which the Tin Can Paladin blessed his'self. That felt like a wise decision, I reckon we'd have a bit o' trouble with an Unpunchable ourselves.

So we go ta this cavern, n' sure enough, this smoky ghostly figure comes flyin' outta the walls. He turnt' Rayden's blood cold n' sucked out a lot o' his strength. Fortunately, we had all sorts o' Holy Water ta throw in the critters face. Zuzmo also learned a new trick, where he summoned a trident spear o' sorts n' set about stabbin' folks with it. Since it was magic, it seemed to do the trick pretty well, n' it sliced through armor like it wuldn't nothin'.

We musta stumbled inta some sort o' burial ground as there were a few more shadowy critters, n' lots o' skeletons. Some o' them skeletons were TOUGH buggers. N' one o' the rooms there was an undead necromancer o' sorts. He had some strange shrine thing, after detectin' it for magic, we decided the right call was to pick it up n' throw it against the wall. So that broke. Other than that, I used my new trick to go invisible n' scout ahead, gettin' the drop on a few critters. We also found a trapped corridor leading to some sort o' ancient tomb, but we culdn't really tell what it was fer. Fer the traps, Ipmerk n' I did our classic "Ipmerk finds em', I take em' apart" maneuver. I ain't much good for findin' traps, but got a good hand for takin' em apart.

After collectin' our bounty n' havin' done our good deed, we waited a few days to rest up n' then departed back to civilization. Turns out, we were somewhere in the Northern part o' Dorius, which is where our adventures started in the first place. Mebe that's what Aurora meant by home...

Session, like, adunno lets call it 11-13

So we're on these big ole' beach shores inside a bubble un'ner the ocean. There's this big ole' stone structure risin' outta the ground that we reckon is some sort o' temple to Aurora. At the entrance is this stone feller who has some answers to questions but he aint to bright or nothin', bein' around for a millenia and not having much of a conception of mortality or what happened. There's also this lil buzzin' fairy that was pretty excited to see us. The stone feller tells us this temple is a challenge, and we aint got nowhere else to go so we head in.

Problem is gett'n in the door there's some sort o' frogs eatin' food puzzle. Well after way too long we figure it out n' head inside where we are attacked by these strange fellers who always appear to be healin'. Turns out it's some sort o' illusion, Zuzmo runs over to this big ole mirror and looks through the backside and can tell us which o' the three fellers is real- as the other ones are fake, but they sure hurt like real folk.

Then there was a room with this strange ole' case o' eyeballs that were watchin' us hangin' from the ceiling. The tiles on the floor had letters on 'em n' I recognized n' a second that they spelled out AURORA if you walked across n' a certain pattern. That kept em' creepy eyeballs n' their cases.

Then there was another room where there was this strange chest where you could make a ladder, n' we had to put a certain number o ladders down on the pillars to get out. That was in'nerestin as well.

Then we went inta a room where there was all sorts o' poop n' trash spread out cross the room. Hidin' in em' trash piles were these deformed goblin lookin' fellers with pin-sized heads. They were vicious lil' buggers but pretty weak. Zuzmo wanted to be friends at first, but they hit Tourniquet, das Zuzmo's frog feller, with a sling n' Zuzmo went all wild eyed and started helpin' me skewer these fellers. Meanwhile, the rest o' our party was chasin' these fellers up stairs til they found like, the king snotling who was a pretty tough feller. I snuck up the other way and trapped the king between our group, n' we made short work o' him after that. Roundin' the corner, we saw this big ole' green blob lady thas clearly the mother o' the hive. She seemed kinda defenseless like, so we just decided to let her stay with the three lil runts that were defendin' her.

Behind the snot king there was a big ole door with two keyholes. We had one from the Snot King, but not the other so we backtracked in the temple. We entered this big ol'e oval room, n' the further in it we stepped, the more it looked like some big ole' arena. There were spectators n' everything. We knew it was an illusion o' sorts, but one o' our arena opponents was the Blue Wizard feller that's been showin' up. The feller who's been wakin' the Dark Rider. So we decided that it was 'bout time to have a go at 'im and his crew. After givin' him a right proper stompin', the room turned back into a regular oval room, but we got another one o' them keys.

We took a rest, which was wise, cause the challenge behind the big door was a big ole' doozy.

Inside the room was this epic three story place with waterfalls fallin' n' between the floors. There were undead everywhere and two large blue gargoyles that looked mean n' tough. Cross the room were these fellers that looked zactly like us and everytime we moved, they moved in the direct opposite direction. So, we got this situation where I'd be fightin' skeletons on my side of this big room, n' on the other side there'd be my reflection fightin' either nothin' or other dumb skeletons that came to fight 'im.

Now hoppin' in dem' waterfalls or endin' on the corners n' havin' someone flip a switch would cause you to go upside down. There were big ole' spikes on the floor n' ceilin, so you din't want to fall. In the middle there were these statues, 4 o' em' with holes in their mouths like the keys we had.

We split up. I drank some rage juice n' went on a skeleton murderin' rampage. Zuzmo ran off with Tourniquet to try n' place them keys in the statues mouths. Rayden ran off to challenge one o'em gargoyles. Ipmerk was shootin' all sorts o fellers that came at im', with Clount defendin'.

It was chaos.

I din't have too much trouble, but Rayden was really strugglin' gainst the gargoyle who he culdn't seem to hurt much. Clount was doin' all right but the second gargoyle was throwin' ice spears at im' n' he started to suffer. Zuzmo was mostly runnin' round doin' his business but Tourniquet was body checkin' skeletons off the edge to their deaths. Erry'time Zuzmo stuck one o em' keys in the statues them gargoyles lost some o' their luster.

Rayden, Clount, n' Ipmerk, who had taken the biggest beatin', were just barely holdin' up when I came back down to em'. I had finished off a handful o skeletons n' the rest were chasin' Zuzmo n' Tourniquet around on the bottom somewhere. By the time I circled back ta the group, the Gargoyle's had lost their luster. We tore 'em up, but I gotta admit, it was pretty close for us.

Then, just like that, we woke up in a cave.