Something is rotten in the state of the legions

General Summary

After the exciting fight, we move a little further away and finish sleeping for the night. Travel was fairly boring until we got to a clearing with some number of dead bodies in it. We skirted around the edge watching for any movement trying to figure out when the fight happened when Lili happened upon a fox. “I’ll try speaking to it,” she said as she cast a spell. “What happened here?” “My food, not yours!” The fox answered. “Give me food!” “That’s okay, it’s your food,” Lili soothed, “We just want to know what it is.” “It’s food. It was moving, and now it’s not.” the fox snarled. “I don’t think, we’re going to get anything out of this fox,” Lili said. I wandered a bit closer and saw a collection of orc bodies, as everyone headed closer we heard the sound of fighting and children screaming. Because it is obviously wrong to leave a child in terror, we headed towards the screaming to emerge in a clearing of orc women and children being slaughtered by legionnaires.

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF THE LEGIONS

Cap yelled and the stream moved to separate some of the legionnaires from the children, and he marched over to the closest soldier and said, “Take me to your centurion!” The soldier didn’t respond verbally, but he did push Cap out of the way and I vaguely heard Cap say something about red. Then the soldier in front of me cut a child in half. To be honest, I didn’t really care what color they bled or if they wore a red dress or whatever else red might mean, but I did have a problem with them attacking children. I shifted into a wolf and attacked the nearest set of them. As they fell I noticed they smelled corrupted. A tiger appeared beside Milli and she shot the nearest “soldiers,” and Lili threw spell after spell at them. Honestly, it all blurred together as we fought through the soldiers trying to kill the children. Finally, the soldiers all fell, and we stopped to examine them. They were not soldiers. They might have been once, but these creatures had long stopped being humans before we started this fight. “Where are your soldiers?” Cap asked. “Our men are dealing with the Dracul creatures. They have increased their attacks and pushed into our lands. Why did your legions attack us?” the woman demanded as she tried to hide the children behind her. “These weren’t legions,” I said showing her the face of the creature I’d killed. “Ghouls,” she spat. “The legions rode out because orcs have been attacking our settlements recently, do you know anything about that?” I asked. “We have been fighting the Draculs and their creatures.” she said cautiously, “We have not had time to go raiding.” “I think the undead are trying to get us fighting,” Lili said, and she recounted the weapon the other orc group had recovered, “Can we escort you somewhere safe?” The women conferred and agreed to let us escort them, as we walked Cap asked if they knew anything about leaf mold oil, and the woman looked confused. “Leaf mold oil? I know nothing of the oil, but we rub the leaves on our skin before fighting the undead. It’s like,” she paused searching for the right term, “poison ivy to them. It makes them itch and they don’t like it. It helps protect us.” Cap looked between us excitedly, “Where is it? How can we get it?” “It’s everywhere,” she said. “We grow it near our villages to keep the undead away. It grows all over.” Cap fell back whispering to Milli about gathering plants and using a spell to narrow down the location further and how to best pick large amounts of the plant. “We will stop here,” the woman said. “The children are tired, and this is safe.” She gestured towards the cliff face near us, and I looked up. Carved into the wall were small buildings about the size of homes. “Who lived there?” Cap asked. “Brownshirts climb up and talk to spirits sometimes. We leave them be,” she shrugged. “After a little bit, they would leave again.” “I’m going up,” I said. I shifted into a squirrel and climbed up the wall looking around as I did. Lili floated up and we lowered a rope for Cap and Milli to climb up after us. Cap wandered into the biggest “cave,” it had been carved out to make it a bit more official, and there were extra openings, but it still felt like a cave. “This is consecrated to the Creator,” he said. “I”m going to spend the night here in meditation and communion with the Creator.” “I’ll do that too,” Lili said. “Maybe I’ll come to understand my new Patron better.” “Well, I’m going to sleep,” I said. “You enjoy not sleeping.”

WHAT THEY TOLD ME ABOUT THEIR NIGHTS

Cap spent the night attempting to understand his shield better. As he explains it, from time to time he needs to spend time on consecrated ground to help his shield work better. That night he had a vision of a hand of light writing on the wall. This is what he told me it wrote. Many puppeteers, some ancient come into play Intro, if not heard a tragedy, army of South must return home blade must raise ancient evil one piece must be made There may have been more to it, but that’s what I caught when he was telling it to me. Meanwhile, Lili talked to her patron, but it was more like a weird waking dream. She was sitting near a riverbank with her feet dangling and an old man in rough work clothes. I’m personally picturing one of those guys who sits at the tavern and for the cost of an ale tells you about the one that got away. Well, this guy just starts fishing next to her. “Who are you?” Lili asked. “I chose you, and rejected him.’ “That’s a good question for all of us. Who are you?” “I don’t know.” “You are what you choose to be,” and he cast again. The line landed and bobbed in the water. “I didn’t choose that. It was evil and wrong. I don’t want to be that.” “There was anger in your soul or you couldn’t have found that patron.” “I made peace with myself, and am trying to heal others now. What do I do now?” Lili asked looking over at him. “The hard part,” he said playing with the line, “is knowing what is right.” He glanced sideways at Lili. “All things are choices. Choose who you will be.” Lili pondered that for a moment, “I’ll help.” “Helping others is good.” Then she “woke up.” Or as much as a person who doesn’t sleep can wake up.

Report Date

21 Dec 2021