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Current Affairs Log: Silhar, 1640 New Era

1st of Silhar

The four adventurers ran -- or rather swam -- into each other quite literally in the gloom off the coast of Carragyn. After much suspicious waving around of tridents and threats of poking, they decided to travel together, and to visit Carrannon, a curious land-dweller ruin.

Upon arriving at the cliffs where the gloom met the shallows, they discovered a band of koalinth who were menacing a small whale, having frightened it into backing into a shallow cave. They rushed in to help, and dispatched the marauders with relative ease.

Ara was wounded to unconsciousness during the fight, but fortunately was saved from bleeding to death by Kya. Milaena felled several foes with single blows of her trident. The whale, encouraged by the arrival of the rescue party, employed the Tail Slap of Doom and managed to turn two of its assailants into damp smears on the face of the cliff. Marthia failed to control the urge to enter blood frenzy, and ate most of one koalinth's shoulder before realising that the battle was over and everyone was staring.

Ara connected the dots first, unsurprisingly, and confirmed her suspicions by feeling for ridges behind Marthia's ears. Kya recalled the significant facts shortly afterwards, and cast light in front of Marthia. With Ara still right there. Two pairs of nictating membranes blinked in unison.

Kya then hid behind Milaena, gibbering about sea devils. Fortunately the tense situation was defused somewhat when nobody made any further hostile moves.

Then Mommy Whale arrived, was much relieved to find her offspring safe, and decided to reward the party with information about some treasure buried in Carrannon's ruins. (In order to explain the location, she had to describe, in excruciating detail, the appearance of the bizarre and unnatural land-dwelling mammal known as a "cat".)

The party swam on towards Carrannon. As night was falling, they encountered a small, excitable merfolk boy named Chiro who led them back to his village, Tarlina, with the promise of lodging. They spent the night in a seaweed bed nearby, with the grudging permission of Chiro's mother.

2nd of Silhar

The party reached Carrannon and began the search for the treasure. They were interrupted by the attack of a mutant male kelpie. It had disguised itself as a handsome young drowning man and turned on the charm. Ara and Milaena were fooled, and approached close enough to be caught by the kelpie's flailing seaweed tentacles - which wrapped themselves around their gills and began to choke them. There was much flailing and fumbling, and everyone nearly died, but fortunately the menace was eventually killed. And chopped up into weeny pieces, which was a shame since a wizard would have paid for an intact carcass.

The adventurers then located the correct statue and, after much digging, uncovered a small box containing four rings. The purpose of the rings is as yet unknown, although one of them is suspected to enhance the wearer's awareness in some way.

Then they went to the Happy Badger Inn, a disreputable island establishment where various sea- and land-dwelling creatures partake of alcohol while gawking at each other and attempting to find temporary employment. The party sampled the wares and chatted to some of the local wizards and mercenaries. Ara arranged to find out more about Cadarin, and a tentative deal was struck to exchange the little magic-shielded box for a set of four gill-moistening collars (to be worn on land).

Then they met Fingers the Morkoth, who informed them of a moray eel that was terrorising a nearby merfolk village, Firina. Apparently none of the established mercenaries considered the task manly enough for them. The party agreed to take care of the problem in exchange for some healing potions from Fingers.

They arrived at the eel's hideout, and began to argue about the best way to entice the beast out of its lair. Awoken by the annoying vibrations, the eel quietly slipped into the surrounding seaweed and lunged for them.

It mauled Kya slightly, but was soon dispatched. Unfortunately, Marthia lost the battle against blood frenzy and took quite a few bites out of it before realising that eels are generally not very hygienic creatures.

The villagers asked the party to take care of another little problem - a drowned man that had made himself at home in a nearby cave. They spent the night in the village.

3rd of Silhar

The following morning, they easily defeated the undead menace.

On the way back to the Happy Badger Inn, they came across a fight between a merman and his four koalinth mercenaries and a band of koalinth raiders.

They were attacked by the raiders and fought them off. The entire band was killed, and the merman and his surviving two thugs were making firm moves to leave when the party noticed that he had a sahuagin hatchling in a bag.

They tried to stop them from leaving (discovering that the bag also contained three sahuagin eggs), got attacked and killed both the merman and one of the thugs. The remaining thug tried to flee, unwisely making a grab for the baby. It latched onto his arm and almost gnawed him to death. He eventually threw down his weapon and begged for help.

After interrogating him (he didn't know much), the party healed him, removed the baby and let him run away.

They returned to the inn with the sleeping hatchling and eggs packed into seaweed bags with some fish, and have a long-term plan to take them to Ara's home in Zalhan.

4th of Silhar

After waking up nice and early in the morning, the party were dismayed to discover that their little carnivorous charge was not in its bag. Or in fact in the room.

Meanwhile, in the room next door, a young half-elven ranger named Llilia was rudely awakened by the world's ugliest baby chomping down on her ankle. She threw it outside.

It was retrieved by Kya, but not before drawing attention from various onlookers with its wails. Llilia went to the party to complain, and to demand an explanation as to why they were harbouring sahuagin young. Ara offered a much abridged and censored version of the story. Llilia now almost certainly considers the others to be a bunch of dodgy fruitcakes, especially since Milaena bears the tattoo of the violent and generally unpleasant Sea Lion clan.

Milaena went upstairs to get a drink, and saw the previous day's surviving koalinth mercenary be accosted by a mysterious, scarred half-elven stranger and leave with him.

Meanwhile, the old elven mercenary Vaerlas hired the party (including Llilia, who happened still to be there) to deliver a small package to the elven city of Firillantar in exchange for five green pearls each. The party decided to stop by Ara's home village on the way to drop off the eggs and hatchling. Llilia has not yet been told about Ara and Marthia's heritage, and is thus understandably confused, currently theorising that Ara hails from some bizarre isolationist enclave of Varelai-worshipping elves (although why they would want to raise sahuagin babies remains unclear). It is likely that things will fall into place very soon.

A short distance away from the inn, the party were confronted by the mysterious half-elf, who demanded the return of his property - generously offering to leave them with one egg and the hatchling. (The party had realised by this point that an egg of a sentient creature is the main material component required for any spell that brings people back from the dead.)

Ara recognised the holy symbol around the stranger's neck to be that of her own god, Cadarin, and asked him to tell her Cadarin's dogma. She also realised that he was probably nearly ten times more powerful a cleric than she was, and wisely decided to hand over two eggs. Thus death, doom and severe injury was avoided and the party carried on towards Zalhan.

Later...

On the first night of camping in the wilderness, Kya got his arm trapped in a giant clam, and rapidly passed out from the pain. The others managed to free him and poke it to death, and inside found a black pearl and the sad little skeleton of a merfolk child.

5th of Silhar

By the second night they had reached Firillantar Forest. Shortly after setting up camp they came across a hag. Ara was badly affected by the hag's horrific appearance, and was drained of all her strength. The others managed to kill the hag, and were then attacked by the hag's merrow minion. Milaena ran away, Arae involuntarily bobbed downstream, Llilia climbed a tree and whipped out her crossbow, and Kya and Marthia bravely stood their ground. After a brief scuffle (during which the merrow threw its massive spear at Llilia and missed, injuring a tree instead), the merrow was also killed, by simultaneous blows from Milaena (who had decided to come back) and a hamadryad (which had been summoned to the scene by the screams of the dryad from the injured tree). The hamadryad tended to the dryad while the party debated what to do about Arae's unfortunate condition. When asked for help, the hamadryad directed the party to a healer in an elven village further into the forest.

6th of Silhar

On the third night the party reached the small grey-elven village of Quelshan, which is picturesquely constructed high up in the very tall trees. An old healer returned Arae nearly to full health. Then the elves figured out where the party was headed - and rather frostily instructed them to spend the night outside.

7th of Silhar

On the fourth night the party reached the mountains. They found a nice cave to sleep in. Unfortunately it was filled with zombies. Fortunately they were wussy little zombies who all cowered before Kya's clerical might while being chopped into bits by the rest of the party.

8th of Silhar

On the fifth night, the party reached Zalhan. Arae was happily re-united with some of her family, and not-so-happily reunited with some (her mother threw a fit and refused to come out of her smithy for the duration of the party's stay). The travellers had a look at the nice shiny weapons in Arae's father's workshop - Kya bought a spear, Llilia bought some crossbow bolts and Milaena plans to buy a trident on the way back. Then they were shown the preserved skin of a strange dark-skinned elf - apparently a group of them had raided the village a short while back.

Marthia decided to hang around in Zalhan for a bit, and donated her ring to Llilia.

In the evening, Arae used the party's black pearl to gain further insight into the nature of the magical rings.

9th of Silhar

The party set off towards Firillantar in the morning. At sunset, they encountered a battle between two ships on the surface - a small merchant vessels carrying migrant labourers and a goblin longship. Variously inspired by the terrified cries of the passengers (Arae and Kya), the cuteness of the half-elven cleric on the merchant ship (Llilia) and presumably the promise of a good fight (Milaena), the party launched an assault on the goblins.

A short while later, the crew of both ships was dead, two feeble commoners who had rushed the goblins were dead, and the cute cleric was nearly dead but very happy, as he had scored a longship. The party got the goblins' money, and an everburning torch.

10th of Silhar

In the morning, Milaena unwisely ate an unidentified fruit off a tree in the forest (the party had run out of food and were unable to find any fish). She turned into a porpoise. The party made its way to a nearby merfolk village, Verlina, to seek help. The horrified villagers explained to them that this part of the forest was warped by wild magic and that it was an extremely bad idea to eat anything one couldn't identify. The local healer gave Milaena a magical potion brewed from another odd tree. She returned to her normal form, but became extremely ill as a result of the toxic properties of the brew. Kya tried some magical healing, and the party stayed the night in the somewhat smelly hut of some hunters. The elder of the village asked them to keep an eye out on their travels for a young girl from the village who had recently run off.

11th of Silhar

The next morning it was discovered that Mileana had an odd silvery streak in her hair. The party set off on their journey again, and slept in the forest.

12th of Silhar

On the following day they passed another merfolk village, Chirina - they were driven away from it by some decidedly unfriendly Orca clan merfolk waving crossbows. When questioned about the girl from Verlina, they evasively replied that she had been in their village for a while before running off with some of their things.

At night, four opportunistic thugs from the village tried to rob the travellers as they slept. A fight broke out. Kya tried to cast command on one of the bandits - making his head explode. It was at this point that the party realised that the wild magic zone was having a strange effect on their spells. At the end of the fight two thugs were dead, one was a dolphin and one had surrendered in terror. Under duress, he swore that their story about the girl was true. The party then allowed him to run away.

13th of Silhar

Travelling onwards through the forest, the party heard a loud scream from up ahead. They went to investigate and found, under a tree, the rapidly cooling body of an emaciated young woman with a flower tattooed on her forehead - bleeding from the ears, holding a fruit from the tree and surrounded by small dead fish. They hurriedly left.

Later on they encountered a grove of suspiciously happy, singing people dancing around a large tree - all very thin and with flowers tattooed on their foreads. They were offered some of the purple flowers from the tree to eat (they politely refused) and were told about how wonderful the Flower Queen was. They were invited to stay in the grove until evening, so that they could meet the Flower Queen (they accepted, having recognised the girl from Verlina among them). Kya distracted them from offering further dodgy foodstuffs with a recitation of the party's adventures. The girl from Verlina excitedly told them that she had been chosen to become one with the Flower Queen and all her brothers and sisters in that evening's ceremony.

In the evening, the Flower Queen was revealed to be the (obviously mutated) dryad of the great tree. The party also rapidly realised that the small band of cultists survived mostly on regular cannibalism - and this time the girl from Verlina was dinner. Kya interrupted the sacrifice, was charmed into eating a flower and thus fell under the dryad's thrall - fortunately this led him to cast aid on her, which left her covered in painful boils. A brief, but exciting battle broke out - the pathetic cultists were completely useless, the girl from Verlina was knocked unconscious, the dryad was turned into an albino and grew a tail, and she was eventually killed. After the dryad's death all the cultists began to suffer from horrible withdrawal symptoms, and the party was able to leave unmolested, with the girl.

14th of Silhar

On the following day, Kya noticed the ghostly image of a distant elven city in the trees. He decided to investigate, and began to approach the increasingly clear apparition, with the rest of the party following behind him. They eventually arrived on the outskirts of a city which seemed to be a bizarre relic of the past - locathah slaves were working the fields under the supervision of merfolk overseers while heavily armoured elves patrolled the inner city wall.

In a friendly and open manner, Kya attracted the attention of the city guard, who sent a small contingent to investigate the intruders. When they began to interrogate the party in a paranoid and threatening manner, Milaena decided that it would be a good time to flee and dragged Kya away. The party fled into the forest, only to find themselves abruptly approaching the city from the other side.

Having determined that it was impossible for them to leave the area, the players decided to enter the city in search of answers. Kya's knowledge of history told them that it was almost certainly Damirintal, a legendary city believed to have become detached from time and space during the Great War as a result of magical fallout.

Arae played the part of an elven noblewoman, while Milaena and Llilia became bodyguards, the girl Jain posed as a maid and Kya, who stuck out like a sore thumb, hid in a large basket of fruit.

They narrowly escaped capture by the city guard with the help of some rebels working for the people's Temple. They were directed to the temple along a path through the catacombs beneath the city, where they encountered - and slew - three vicious carrion crawlers.

At the temple the city's unfortunate situation was explained to them: from their gods, the priests had found out that the city had been severed from the fabric of the world, and was now almost entirely inaccessible and inescapable. It had been established that for every day that passes in the city, ten days go past in the outside world. Leithwen, the Lady of the city, had apparently gone mad, was refusing to acknowledge the truth, and had been running an oppressive regime for a few hundred years. Anyone professing belief in the Separation was arrested and publically executed.

The party was offered an alliance with a city wizard who was working against the Lady and apparently had a plan for getting out. They agreed.

The wizard, Alathrin, explained that the most recent previous visitor from the outside was a wizard named Caerlyn who had deliberately set out to find the city, and had prepared a spell which would show him the convoluted path through the forest that would take him home once he had found it. However, he had been unprepared for the political climate inside, and was rapidly captured and put in jail. Alathrin convinced the Lady that Caerlyn's knowledge of "foreign" magic made him too valuable to execute, and persuaded her to allow him to study the intruder. Since then, he had been assembling the components for a ritual which would briefly disrupt the magical wards on Caerlyn's prison, allowing him to escape.

The only components outstanding were: dragonfish poison (which they had been laboriously extracting from ancient spines acquired from Dragonfish Clan locathah, but which Llilia had plenty of in her new dragonfish crossbow bolts), the blood of a predator (Arae revealed to a horrified Alathrin that she wasn't what she seemed to be), and the flower of the whispering plant (a weed, the last surviving specimen of which grew in the Lady's garden).

Alathrin gave the group mundane and magical disguises, and promised a rapid plan to acquire the final ingredient.

The second day in Damirintal

The following morning, the cunning plan was revealed. The Lady had two weaknesses: music and horticulture. Kya (in a grey elven disguise) would be introduced to the Lady as a talented new performer by the small group of sirines whose intense claustrophobia had led them to join Alathrin's conspiracy. He would entertain the Lady while Arae, posing as an amateur botanist from the Temple of the Moon Sisters, searched the garden for the whispering plant (one of the sirines told the party that one of the trees in the garden housed a dryad who could possibly be helpful). Then the sirines would cause a distraction while the party fled to the nearby dungeons and defended the cells until Alathrin completed the ritual.

Everything went relatively smoothly. After promising the slightly deranged dryad that she would plant her seed in a nice place outside, Arae found out where the plant grew and gathered a sample. The sirines' idea of a distraction was to cause a civil war by assassinating the lady (or at least reducing her to imbecility). The fleeing adventurers managed to intimidate a small contingent of soldiers to run away without putting up a fight, and eventually, after a long and bloody battle in the dungeons which left almost everyone unconscious, Alathrin freed Caerlyn and the group of conspirators made a successful mad dash out of the city.

Caerlyn took Alathrin, his elven aides and an arbitrary family of merfolk peasants with him to Cadarintal. The sirines told everyone in no uncertain terms how sick they were of their company, and scattered to the four corners of the gloriously uninhabited forest. The players resumed their journey to Firillantar.

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