Balms and Oils

Discovery, Exploration

After a strange encounter with a statue of Selune, the group encounters a group called the Caravan of the Maidan who offers them a stay the ruined village of Moonstone. The village has a wolf problem.

Session 58: Caravan of the Maiden
We open with spectral image of Selune rising above the statue. She is seen surrounded by three dark figures trying to fight them off. To which everyone but Brogg could see. Struck by an nightmarish image of the face behind the curtain, Vel loses concentration on the image, followed by Owl Sal who sees a rat, and then Tem who sees the same rat. Seeing a glowing statue, Broggs attention is caught as he and Eri see a vision of a supernova in the sky which rends the sky and earth below it. Eri is next to be ejected by the vision. Brogg continues to watch as he sees a first person view falling to what he realizes is pre-Behemith Cape Nescius into a crevasse and the depths of Quoth. In a true feat of acting Brogg maintains connection with the statue, whatever it is, as it attempts to show him something great through its glowing eyes. However, when he looks, he sees nothing but void. The whole party sees one last image of who they later find to be Sehanine Moonbow screaming over the Vathyc Sea off the coast of Cape Nescius, causing an enormous geyser and ending the vision.
  The party then meets an old man named Petris Finkle, a member of the Caravan of the Maidan, who saw the whole thing, claiming them as prophets of Selune. After a brief confusion resulting in Petris knocking Sal out of owl form, Petris asks them group to explain what they saw to their high priestess. On the way Eri badgered Petris with talking of Helm, to find out that he’s a one-god kind of guy. After arriving at Moonstone, a village that Vel previously knew to be abandoned, the group speaks with high priestess Vana who explains that they are a nomadic people partially by choice, and partially by the fact that they’ve been chased out of town by wolves several times. She tells them that the prefer to walk the light of Selune and help those in need instead of dealing with society and politics, but also seems to not remember the last time she heard of her goddess. After the party relays the rather ominous vision of the statue to her, she looks fearful and lost before hiding behind a wall of denial. She suggests the fight could have taken place during the Breach or even First War, and that Selune must be sending them a message. Sal goes on to suggest that Moander has returned, and Vel questions Vana about her concerned expression. Cornerd, she scoffs at Sals theory, and gets angry at Vels implication, sending them out. Despite Vel wanting to leave, the group decides to stay the night. The meet the locals, get lodging for them and their horses, and receive some food and meds from Petris and the others. With the expectation of Vel and Tem, that night you all woke up with sick on the floor of one of the houses being guarded by Petris. Outside Sal could vaguely hear the villagers talking.

Hearthbrook: Preistess, we must make leave before sunrise. I’ve heard stories of others in the area… bandits, mountain dwellers, whatever you call it… unsavory individuals that call this land home. Those travelers could be them, and if word gets back to their masses…
Killij: Those are just ghost stories Hearthbrook. This forest is full of them. Hell if I where you I’d be more afraid of the hags up north, then a bunch of blood bandits or whatever the hell you call them.
Darma: Enough you too. We have more important things to focus on, don’t you see? The lady has finally returned to us..
Vana: ….She has been testing us. All this time… Bandits or the like it matters not. She has sent us conduits, and they will not be leaving regardless. It is her will.
Killij: It’s just, I thought after Xerlina we wouldn’t have to…
Darma: We’re not eating the [describe who’s on the spit] for food my dear, this time its simply to absorb their divine essence. As for the others, we’ll merely grind them, and extract their essence into balms and oils. Through the skin is the best way to absorb her Silver ladies essence besides consuming it of course.
Vana: [silence] …You look troubled my dear. Be not afraid. Once you feel the warmth of the Moonmother, and we are all one with her once again you will understand.

You all find out they’re the wolves, and that what you ate probably wasn’t shwarma. Petris instructs you all to quiet down so the wolves won’t hear, but Eri proceeds to throw up in Sal’s face, causing him to yell out and alert the villagers. Vel looses and arrow into the Vana leaving his mark of Castigation, warning them all that their priestess will be hurt if she attacks, but the fight begins. Brogg and Eri breeze past the floundering Petris who turns into a warerat but is otherwise not a threat. Sal throws down a slow as the villagers transform into their respective were-beasts with the exception Killij who appears hesitant. Tem pops his defensive field, and shoots grease at the feet of the oncoming lychens.

Session 59: Battle at Moonstone
The fight raged on as the Caravan and Crack Rack closed in on each other. Sal’s slow severely stifled their attacks, but they managed to surround Brogg, and begin raining down claw and bites. Eri charged into battle next tearing down the former milf Pornthip, and reducing her to a husk, into front of her lover, Jorb. Tem and Debo barreled through Lichens deflecting and absorbing hits left and right, taking virtually no damage, and dolling out several punches to the back of the head. As more and more lichens swarmed into Moonstone, Vel fended the concentrating Sal off from the hordes with in a series of lightening and frost charged scimitar and bow attacks, particularly drawing the ire of noted angry wereboar, Wimp Qub. Between the combination of Eri’s heathenistic form and the horrific words of an old man whose soul has been living in Debo, Priestess Vana began to lose heart began to retreat. Having sustained the many attacks from the lichens, Brogg broke free of the slowed beasts, tossed his chair to the Priestess, and kicked it into her in true face-wrecker fashion. Her last words, heard only to Brogg “I see… nothing.” A small victory, but even with the death of the priestess and foundering of Petris and Killij, lichens swarm from all directions.

Session 60: Surrender at Moonstone
As the fright drew to a close, both sides were badly injured. Finally succeeding in getting through to someone, Killij stopped Darma from attacking Brogg and Eri. This gave Brogg the footing he needed to finish Hearthbrook via hitting him like a baseball as Ogrekind swing up into his chair. This seemed to spell the end of the fight, as Darma’s surrender led to any remaining werewolves following suit. However, Vel wasn’t finished and struck again. Darma fell backwards, telling everyone to call him off but to no avail, as Vel stabbed her through.
  The battle ended as the party stopped him from also going after Killij, but another fight broke out with Vel, Killij, and all the others on different sides. Vel claimed they all should die for what they did, but the others argued that they had already surrendered. Killij tries to tell them they weren’t always like this, but Vel remains resolute. Tem finds a bunch of Moonstone jewelery, as well as, the escaped Steve, the werewolf, acclaimed to be the “worst of them all” by his clan, and brought him out of sight to “let him go.” Sal couldn’t hear any of this, on account of his loud piss. Trying to find footing Killij tells Vel that she disagreed with him, but she would have done the same thing, to a resounding “WHO ASKED?”
  Later that night, Tem decides to use his braciole to find the deed to the Crack Rack, which guides him back through the caverns of the Crack Rack basement, and into a small crevasse where the body of Louie Pots lies, down below him into the darkness, a scattering of items out of a bag, one of which is being the deed.

  Session 61: Full Moon
  The next morning Killij tells Vel he can’t force them to change who they are against their will. Vel offers Killij the option to keep her lichenthropy, and he could connect her to the Chimeric Order, where she could to good instead of evil. To this she seems receptive. Sal suggests to Tem that maybe they should ditch the E4 tracking chip, but Tem explains to Sal that they could scry on them if they wanted anyway.
  After a long but efficient journey to the mountains, Vel takes them up a winding route adjacent to a small creak, but not before blindfolding the werewolves. The group then arduously coerced/forced their horses through a small pond, traversed a cave, and made camp in a narrow verdant valley. Vel had Sal message Ripely, “Hey Randall it’s the crack rack, we think we have the thing to solve your problem, well send it in the mail what’s your address?” Ripley replies stating he resides in the Granite District of Oseta, and that he can pick up packages from a tavern named Smuggler’s respite. Sal sent out a second message, this time to Mammi, “Special Mission: Deed found in tunnels. Find bowtie door, crevice above, past corpse, 50 foot drop, scary dog, sing silver bells, De Rien to pacify.” Mammi replies, “Hello dearie, Will excavate tunnels, business is booming!” Brogg decides to use his braciole to find Bung Bung, where he sees Bung Bung ambling through the Moonlit Vale with a Locatha following behind saying he can find his new friends and they can go back home. Eri gives daughters Lament to Vel, and very insistently asks him to read it to figure out what it means.
  That night a full moon arises overhead, transforming the Caravan members, and Brogg into a werebear. Killij ran away back to the cave, and hid. Petris turned into a rat, but stopped himself from attacking Vel. Werewolf 4 turned but with full control (nat 20 wis save). Sal polymorphed Brogg into a turtle, and brought him out of the moonlight. As he changed back to his normal form, Sal and Tem swung ineffectively, to realize he is his old self again. They decide its best to stay in the cave for the night. Werewolf 4 snuck out during the night (nat20), and attacked Horseradish for her bones. Everyone heads out of the cave in the morning to find Werewolf 4 gnawing on Horseradishe’s bones. Leaving their horses to graze in the valley, the group ascends the steps to Meinheld the next day.