as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.

7am Sunday, 12 Arodus

This had been an exhausting night. But despite my heavy eyelids, there were still a couple of things we needed to deal with before we could rest.ta

It was Qatana, I think, who commented that Stoney-eye probably had become a draugr which, frankly, is not really a fixable problem. I’d never heard of them before but apparently he fit all the criteria: wet, slimy, foul smelling – although, come to think of it, a fair number of pubs may house this creature then …

Anyway, it was off to Fynn to bring him up to date on things, and then, because we are a curious lot, we spent time identifying the more interesting objects we’d picked up before finally resting.

[258] Snorri’s eye was actually an ioun stone, that would
protect one against the ravages of aging.
[259] the helm … just couldn’t figure it out. Had a faint
divination aura, and good alignment
[260] the 4 eggs were fragile smoke bombs; if broken, they each
provided 12 seconds of fog.
[261] 4 potions of Vanish

Even with our wand of identify, we couldn’t figure out the helm. Against some people’s advice, Qatana decided to put it on. Seemed to fit okay, and although we were concerned somebody might recognize it as Snorri’s if she wore it about town, she was unconcerned.

Anyway, blessed sleep. It was probably 8 or 9am by this time and I had no trouble falling asleep.

5pm Sunday, 12 Arodus

When I awoke, I felt so much better. I was a little surprised to find Qatana still alive, but apparently shortly after I laid down, Ivan had asked her nicely to remove the helm, and she did. So my concerns about harmful side effects were lessened.

Although it was late in the day now, it couldn’t be helped, and it was time to head to the temple to try to find Ook. I was still a bit suspicious about how she seemed to be leading us from conflict to conflict, but then I suppose when restoring a lost princess to her long vacant throne, this sort of thing is expected.

As we got into town, I noticed Kali take one of the many paper foldings she’d been practicing on – I think this one was a bird – and give it to a random person. They looked surprised, but then smiled at her.

And with that, we heard a noise from up ahead, where we expected the temple to be. Rounding the corner, we found debris, we found a prone body, and we found … two large earth elementals beating the temple into dust.

Well, I guess this struck a nerve with Kali – she immediately cast a giant water drop on one of the elementals. Now that sounds pretty useless, but you had to see it. The water completely surrounded the elemental, separating him from the ground and moistening him thoroughly. In effect, he became a blob of animated, angry mud that couldn’t direct itself anymore. It rendered it … completely harmless. With Kali’s control over the water drop, she moved the elemental out of our way and to a position it could not harm anybody or anything further.

About the same time, Radella glanced up and noticed a large raven with a red feather overhead. She quickly nocked an arrow and shot at it while the rest of us were dealing with the remaining elemental. She hit it, and it exploded into a mist and seemed to fade away. She kept one eye to the sky, but never saw it again.

Meanwhile, Sparna and I had sprung into action against the remaining elemental. I got the sense that a magic weapon might work better so I gave up the great sword in favor of the +1 longsword I had. Eventually, it becames I, Sparna, Ivan, Anavaru, and even (sigh) Qatana were beating on the elemental. If one hadn’t been effectively disabled, it could’ve been real ugly. As it was, Etayne and Qatana both had to step back and do a little healing, as the first elemental took some good chunks out of me and when the water drop expired, so did the second. They drew a fair amount of blood from Sparna too.

But when they were finally gone, we turned our attention back to the injured priest and the damaged temple. The priest had been included in some of Qatana’s and Etayne’s heals, and was greatful. When he found out, though, that we were there for Ook, he mentioned how she was safe, as she’d been put in a penitent’s cell at the rear of the temple.

But it became apparent that the elementals, for all their destruction, had been a distraction. The cell was broken, and Ook was gone. In her place remained only a large black feather, and a blowdart. Etayne recognized the poison on the dart as a paralyzing poison. It seemed she was important to somebody. Or maybe our attention had made her important to somebody.

In any case, she was now missing. It was either an elaborate attempt to push us in some direction, or she genuinely was a victim. My suspicions of her began to fade.

Qatana suggested, “Why not go to the RimeRunner’s Guild and just ask for a guide?” which was crazy, of course, since we were pretty sure they were behind making sure we didn’t find one. They would just, um, they would just, well, they’d have to, uh ..

It might just be crazy enough to work. What can they say?

Something strange happened about then. Well, it didn’t start out strange – Qatana said she heard a voice inside her head. (It was strange to hear her admit it.) But it turns out the voice was real. It was the helm.

The helm was alive.

“I was summoned as a familiar, but my master died,” said the helm. Its name was Helgarval. “I come from the plane of Elysius. I have been following an evil plot. I remember everything I see and hear.

“You are walking into a plot,” it continued. “Ani of the Five Storms are active in Kalsgard. There is an organization named the Frozen Shadows that carries out assassinations, and the RimeRunners are only a front for them. But most of the RimeRunners may not realize the extent of their involvement. Snorri was trapped in this somewhat unwittingly, although by no means innocently. He contracted a bad case of undeath. Asvig was a minor ruffian; Helva too. There was a sword that StoneEye talked about sending to the HQ of the Frozen Shadow.”

“The head of the RR guild is Silverscore, who has as a familiar a large black raven with a red feather.”

This tied together a few loose ends for us.

He had hesitated to reveal himself until he could discern if we were good or evil, but he’d obviously concluded we were good enough. He would help us find where the evil lurked, and bring light.

We went to the RR headquarters, but the plan quickly morphed into a more subtle plan. The guild office was closed by this time, so Radella and Ivan were going to try to sneak into the RR guild office and see what they could learn. Meanwhile, I, Anavaru, and Sparna went to a nearby pub to pass the time; Etayne chose to wait outside.

While there, there was a little excitement. An Ulfin guy stumbled up to the pub and Etayne engaged him in conversation. Turns out he was convinced that there were three people inside responsible for the death of his best hound, and it was clear that he was describing us. Etayne recalled that moments before he’d been talking to a dark figure and guessed (correctly) that this was an attempt to cause trouble for us.

As the man entered, he was loudly declaring wereguild for his dog. He walked up to us and accused us, in a beer-breath sort of way, of killing his dog. Other patrons paused to watch this play out.

I looked at him and said loudly, “Man I am glad to see you here! You are sure hard to find!” The man looked a bit confused and then repeated his demand for retribution. “I KNOW!” I replied. “You’d have to be crazy not to, right?” and took another sip of my beer.

More patrons put down their mug to watch this interesting drama.

The man looked a bit confused, and then said, “So, then, that’s what I’m here for!” And I said, “I can totally believe that. Can I help you with that?” “Well you’re the one that kilt him!” he roared. “Oh, no,” I replied. “That was the guy in here before; that’s who I thought you were talking about. Tell you what, let’s go find him together. I can’t believe somebody would kill a dog for no reason at all.” The blurry eyes and slurring mouth paused again and tried to regain control of the situation. “But …”

And then Sparna spoiled my fun by grabbing some gold from his pack, giving it to the man, and saying, “there, get another dog.” He looked at the gold, looked at me, looked at the people, and mumbled, “well, that’s what I was sayin.” And wandered off.

“We don’t want the trouble,” said Sparna to me.

“Really, it would have been no trouble at all for me to help him resolve it,” I said mildly.

Meanwhile, we learned later that Radella and Ivan had actually found Ook imprisoned, managed to free her, AND ransacked the headquarters, recovering both gold and records in the process. From the records we learned that Snorri had sold his family home, Raven’s Crag, to the guild three years earlier. Ook confirmed that she’d heard voices saying that where they were going to take her.

Other records in the ledger confirmed that the guild had rented the boat that attacked us. Another entry detailed a contract to retrieve a “Tien antique” from a particular address that we recognized as Fynn’s.

Large amounts of money had gone to Raven’s Crag, including a “Tien antique” acquired by Thorburg Silverscore.

So it seems that will be our next goal/target/destination.

One other odd thing of note occurred. When Koya was introduced to Helgarval, she gently said, “You have a strange shape.” And Helgarval polymorphed into a small cherub for a while. Koya and Spivey and Helgarval seemed to have a private conversation for a while, but in the end, Helgarval resumed form as a helm.

Moonday, 13 Arodus

Kelda was able to find a bit more information for us about Ravenscrag. It is high up in the rocky crags south of Kalsgard. Only birds and crazy people go there, it is said. “Word is,” she said, “it had a new owner in the last couple of years. Some say it’s haunted.”

Yes indeed.