Report: In the Shadow of Umberthrane

General Summary

This account summarizes the adventure of Robin, Jene, Stiks and Rune on their journey across the Empire in search of a potential ally: a dwarf woman known as Misiri the Missionary, daughter of the last Queen of Argenthrane, Gofa Chainbreaker. From what we know of her story, her motivations may be in line with those of the True faith of Celestine. Long thought dead, rumor has it that Misiri has recently been seen leaving Renvere with Umberthrane as her destination.

The party began its investigation with a cultural tour of the dwarven kingdom of Ferenthrane. The search yielded no information regarding Misiri, probably out of their abundance of caution and lack of local contacts. From there, entering the Empire without alerting the passage of Jene and Stiks was a challenge, but they managed to pull it off by entering the border town Monfalcone with some false documents provided by a new… "friend." This mysterious benefactor was Camille Aveline, a wealthy guild merchant of iced wines who will no doubt be calling on us to return the favor in the future.

The party made it through the Empire without much incident, stopping briefly for a visit to Jene and Robin's hometown, Kettletoft. Upon reaching the region of Umberthrane, however, things took a dangerous turn when they were ambushed by slaads and mind flayers. The party was nearly lost, but managed to walk away alive with broken spirits.

The following passage was scrawled on a tattered parchment that is stained with blood and smells faintly of alcohol. The neat, precise handwriting is at first recognizable as Robin's, but towards the end of the report the script grows increasingly sloppy and incoherent.

I have a long journey to recount after not having kept up with my journal, but I will do my best to keep it brief. Jene, Stiks, Rune and myself set out from Gravesend some weeks ago in pursuit of a rumor. It is a hare-brained mission really, but Stiks' research has not led us astray yet… I hope.

The rumor has it that a dwarf named Misiri was recently seen in Ferenthrane and was said to be heading to Umberthrane, for reasons unclear. How she is still *alive* after supposedly being executed on orders of The Emperor a decade ago is also unclear, but we have known the Church to tell greater lies in the past. Supposedly this Misiri was, or is, a zealot of Celestine - not the lies the Church tells but the TRUE Celestine. Like how Stiks and Jene teach us about. That's why Stiks, well, why *we* want to find her. She could be a powerful ally who might be able to connect us with resources, knowledge or other people who share in our cause.

And now here we are, on the other side of the continent, licking our wounds. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We stopped in Ferenthrane where apparently they believe that their God is a rock. Or was born from a rock? A big, nice rock boiling in hot dragon's blood. Apparently dragons exist, or existed, contrary to what the Empire teaches. Another lie? Ferenthrane was hospitable enough (if you can tolerate spicy food) but was otherwise uninformative… although now I am starting to wonder if we missed some things. Perhaps we should return there to see if there is more we could have dug up. We were tempted by an idea to vandalize the town with the words "MISIRI WAS RIGHT" somewhere public and stick around to observe the reception, and now I almost wish we'd gone through with it. Maybe we'd have learned something more to go off of.

Our first challenge was entering the Empire. Border guards require travelers to present identification and declare magic items. Jene and I have our passports, of course, but Jene's name brings too much attention from anyone who knows of his holy title… and missions of "heresy" need to be discreet. Plus, Stiks is still wanted in Renvere so it wouldn't do to have anyone hearing about where he is. Come to think of it, maybe we should have reported him leaving Renvere and just snuck him back in later… too late now.

Rune and I went ahead into the border town, checking in at the gate legally. Finding someone to help us acquire false identification proved tricky. To my surprise, the hunters and woodsfolk didn't want anything to do with trouble. Luckily we were pointed to the home of an influential merchant, our new… "friend", as she calls it. (Damn, what was her name again? I'll have to ask Sticks. That fool keeps a better journal.) Our benefactor saw through our fake names immediately, and we had to concede with sharing the truth of our identities to her. Not only was she able to deliver on our deal smoothly and without incident, she also provided us transportation by means of a boat that expedited much of our journey. The catch was that she asked for no payment - yet. She vaguely suggested that we might provide her a favor in the future, and that she will call on us when she has need. Unsettling, but we had no other options.

Thanks to our benefactor's loaned resources, we made good time on our journey. We followed the river south for a quick stop in Kettletoft, the town where Jene and I hail from. It was nice to see the old Goose Pole is still standing on the more pagan side of town. It was a surprisingly pleasant reminder of the rowdier days of my youth, which I have for so long kept buried. I doubt even Jene knows much about that part of my history, even though he was raised in the same small town; my sister would have made sure of that. No need to dredge up old family embarrassments.

We took care to be discreet in Kettletoft and found our way to the Dark family home without being recognized by anyone. Our unexpected visit was quite a surprise for my dear sister Nettie, but she was overjoyed to see her prodigal son again and even expressed warm regards for my presence. He's clearly all she talks about to anyone with an ear, so we were adamant on emphasizing the confidentiality of our visit and that Jene was on a "secret mission of the Church." Bless my sister's intentions, but I've no doubt that word of that "secret mission" would have made its way around the town by the end of the week. We decided not to stop at Kettletoft on the return journey, just in case.

Being careful to avoid the Imperial City and Lumifort, where we had heard rumors of military movements, we traveled to East to Duskstone before entering the Smokey Mountains. The residents of Duskstone were weary and unhelpful; they laughed at our hopes of finding Umberthrane and warned of vague dangers that befall any who venture into the Smokey Mountains at night. Supposedly, no one survives a night out there. We rolled our eyes naively, and managed to find some hunters who would house us at their game camp on the outskirts of the wilderness and escorted us a half day's journey into the mountains before they had to turn back.

The Smokey Mountains are a bare and desolate landscape where the game is scrawny and the hunters are scrawnier. Our daytime explorations were uneventful, but on the first night keeping watch we saw a campfire in the distance. From afar we could make out three figures who were dancing and singing jovially around their fire. We stayed quiet and watched cautiously from our safe distance, waiting to see what dangers would befall the careless party. But none came, and the night passed in peace.

The next morning, we set out to investigate the remains of the strangers' campsite and learn what we could of them. We found no signs of disturbance, only the footprints of the previous night's inhabitants. We moved on, and saw nothing else that day.

On the second night, we saw the strangers' campfire again in the distance. They were laughing and joking and generally having a better time than we were. We discussed going over to greet them, but worried that we would startle them into running away or raising their arms. So we came upon a better plan: out-party them, and they will come to us out of their own curiosity and with their own intentions. And so we piled the firewood high and we partied. We sang, we danced, some of us drank. Stiks even did a hand-stand. Honestly it was quite fun; I can't remember the last time I partied like that.

Our plan worked. Their fire was doused, and a short while later we were approached by three dwarves. Dwarves! We were so excited that we didn't even notice the strangeness of their names or dress. It wasn't until afterwards that we realized the dwarves we were seeing were ones that we had previously met, hundreds of miles to the West in Renvere.

They were polite and joined us in our feigned merriment. To my frustration but not my surprise, they were more interested in drinking than talking, so we got very little information from them. I think they said something about hunting a unicorn (ask Stiks about the unicorn, he had a whole theory about that. That man has a theory about everything.). Surely we would get more from them afterwards, perhaps in the morning over our shared hangovers. If only.

After a while our two groups decided to settle down for sleep, although I don't think any of us really planned on sleeping with the strangers among us. Two of the dwarves offered to take first watch, and Jene insisted on joining them. They weren't alone for more than two minutes before the bastards jumped my nephew. The strangers shed their dwarf illusions and appeared in their true forms: two ugly, horrid Slaads and a Mind Flayer.

To be completely honest, I have hazy little memory of that fight. I recall waking up in a muddy puddle of my own blood at least twice (thrice..?), one of those times next to Jene. I don't think my mind is ever going to shake the image of Jene's body being weilded as a weapon against his own friends by the Slaad who picked him up as handily as it might heft a club.

My and my nephew's lives were squarely in the hands of our companions. We've come to close scrapes before, but never have I felt so close to death, to losing him… so helpless. So weak. So cold. The others didn't fare much better, but at least we survived. For a moment, I really thought we were all fucked.

I don't want to talk about it any more. I want to leave this horrible place.

-Scribed by Robin Foster

Adventuring Patry: Demirkan Rune, Robin Foster, Stiks, Jene Dark
Date: 11DEC22

Report Date

09 Jan 2023