Fire and Ice 4

General Summary

3 Arodus 4713

With Rohkar dead, we began taking stock of the situation. One of the first tasks was finding Lady Argentea. Ten-Penny showed Cassy the location of the trap door to the cellar. Cassy went down and found Lady Argentea there, dirty and with some minor injuries, but otherwise alive and healthy. We then searched Rohkar's body, and amongst other items, we also found a holy symbol none of us could identify. However, it did indicate that Rohkar might not have been a necromancer, but rather a cleric. I don't entirely understand the difference, since he definitely did necromancer-type things, but I guess it comes down to the way he did them, or something like that. Despite wielding magic myself, I don't really understand magic. Maybe I should do something about that. Anyway, I digress... While all that was happening, Bronwyn went outside to round up the horses we had spooked with the fire. While there, the "boss" fey we had heard about, Izoze, spoke to her. Brownyn never actually saw the fey, just heard her. Izoze told her we would be wise to leave, and Bronwyn agreed that we would be. We were intending to go back to Heldren anyway (to take Lady Argentea back, heal up, and resupply), so it wasn't a lie. Brownyn just didn't bother to tell Izoze we were intending to come back. After Bronwyn returned inside and told us of her conversation, she and the others turned their attentions to tending to Valeria, who had been knocked unconscious during the fight. As I have really don't have any skill with tending wounds, I didn't take part. There were enough people crowded around Valeria anyway. I don't think there would have been room for me. Instead, I took the opportunity to search the Lodge. I went through every room on the first floor except the one Ten-Penny indicated was where the sick members of Rohkar's Raiders were. I successfully located Rohkar's stash of goods. There were several bits of jewellery and gems, a spyglass, and some magic scrolls. After around about an hour or so of tending from the others, Valeria woke up briefly. She used her own magical healing abilities to do a very small amount of healing of herself and the others before falling unconscious again. It was clear we were going to have to get her back to Heldren for help there. Before we could leave though, we wanted to see what we could do about the sick Raiders. However, as soon as we entered the room, they attacked us. Given their condition, it was a pretty foolish act on their part. There were four of them and two went down really quickly. The other two then surrendered. We left them locked in the room, gathered our stuff, and headed back to Heldren. It took a few hours to get back. As soon as we arrived, we went straight to the temple to get Elder Natharan's help with Valeria. There was also some concern those of us who had actually entered the room with the sick Raiders might have contracted what they had. Elder Natharan determined that Grinner and Ten-Penny had contracted the illness, so they stayed in the temple along with Valeria under the Elder's care. Elder Natharen was also able to identify Rohkar's symbol: Norgorber, a god I had only vaguely heard of before. Apparently, the god of lies, deception, and murder. The Elder wouldn't even touch the symbol. He knew what it was as soon as he saw it. Cassy promptly destroyed it.

4 Arodus 4713

We spent the day resting in town. Valeria was back to normal, and Elder Natharan declared Grinner free of the illness. However, Ten-Penny needed a bit more time to be fully free of it. Bronwyn spent much of the day making ammunition for the guns she, Grinner, Cassy, and Igmar carry. It seems a pretty involved process. Cassy asked Ten-Penny to join our group. She didn't actually consult the rest of us about that, but I wasn't bothered, and no one else seemed bothered either. Ten-Penny had proven herself a useful ally in a scrape, and the more we had on our side to go up against these fey, the better. Anyway, Ten-Penny agreed to join us.

5 Arodus 4713

We returned to the Lodge today. The surviving sick Raiders were gone. They had broken out of the room by breaking a window. Oh well. No loss there. We turned our attention to the upper floor, where there were still a couple of Rohkar's skeletons on guard. We defeated them without too much difficulty. There were only two rooms on the upper floor. The second was a storeroom where we found some more magical scrolls as well as some unidentified magical oils. There were some coins and gems and stuff too. However, the main thing we found was a fey--a sprite, I think--in a cage. We tried to talk to it, but the sprite was very rude, and refused to tell us anything. The sprite's response to Grinner asking his name was, "Fuck you," so Grinner decided to call him that. Grinner also decided to take the sprite as a pet. I know these fey are our enemies, but I'm not sure I agree with making a sentient creature a pet. Then again, Grinner is sentient and is kind of Cassy's pet, so I didn't say anything. Bronwyn did, though. She called him out on his treatment of the sprite (he was doing things like shaking the cage and tipping it over). They had a bit of an argument over that. We had found everything we could in the Lodge, so it was time to move on and cross the bridge over the gorge where Izoze had told Bronwyn it would not be wise of us to go. Unfortunately, the bridge, while sound, was not the sort that could hold a lot of weight. We had to leave Billy in the stables at the Lodge. (We also left Fuck You there, too, thank goodness.) Not long after crossing the bridge, we encountered some more skeletons. According to Ten-Penny, Rohkar liked turning dead bodies into skeletons, but he could only control so many at a time, so most of them he just left in the wilderness. We were bound to encounter more. Skeletons can be a bit of an annoyance to fight as they need weapons that smash and crush. Cutting and piercing weapons tend to slide off. Luckily, that's not a problem for my fire or for the guns, but they are really hard to hit. It's all that empty space between the bones and the fact they move fast. We took them out though. I think we're getting better at fighting them. Anyway, gotta go again. Back soon.

All the best,
Izzy.