I see dead things

I just wanted to sleep but everything was still a mess and somebody needed to help settle things down.

Ain’t nobody mending these peace talks, but at least we have this assassin we knocked down in the fight. Obegard cast a spell to butter up the guy and we got lots of interesting info, but nothing that was an end—just lots more paths to be followed.

It seems they were hired by some Northrog, but the thing that really concerned me was that one of the groups had captured a dwarf and were heading for the Broken Plains of Sarakia.

It was clear the bad guys had gone so there was no point keeping the place locked down and we suggested they could open the gates again at daybreak. We were gonna need someone to do some serious tracking and it’s certainly not my strong suit. We were given some names amongst the elves and I could feel my skin tighten, but help is help.

Ili was sick as a dog, or so she said—I think she just wanted to get to bed. We went to the grove and checked out the three guys whose names we had. Malakar gave the big thumbs down to the first two, saying that Ili wouldn’t work with them, so we picked elf number three.

I hope we had everything done, because it was seriously sleepy-bye time and we went back to our rooms to Z-up. But then we found out that they’d taken Son of Clouds to the temple and we went to look in on him and then decided to sleep there.

The next morning we healed up Son of Clouds some more and were getting ready to go when we were summoned back to the keep. There were a bunch of humans talking, and we got lots of scary intel—assassins had hit all over the Free Kingdoms and almost all the leaders were dead, which meant there wasn’t any help coming for the dwarves any time soon.

They didn’t really have much of a plan so I was pleased when they confirmed the plan to follow the trail since I hoped that would eventually lead us to the captive dwarf.

The elves had seemed bemused that we would venture into the Myreth Forest and we soon found out why. We found a clearing with a rock mound in it—the trail led straight to the front of it but the entrance was caved in. I heard some noises and snuck around to one side and almost walked into a huge bear—much bigger than any of the ones I’d seen underground.

Like that wouldn’t have been bad enough, but this thing was just a skeleton. Only it was still moving. There was no way I was gonna fight this thing—my sword would just rattle around between the bones without hitting anything important.

There were more skeletons on the other side of the clearing but they weren’t nearly so bad, and Obegard pretty much spelled them to death.

The bear was much worse and it dropped Son of Clouds before we could take it out. Our elf guide just slipped back into the trees and provided no help. You have to admire someone that understands the value of survival.

There was nothing interesting here and we followed a trail out the other side of the clearing. The elf said it looked like they were dragging something and I figured this was the group we wanted.

We walked for days through the woods before breaking cover on the Broken Plains. There was a small town in sight but with the tracks heading straight in we weren’t too sure about paying them a visit.

Obegard said he had a spell to check the place out but when we told him we thought it was a great idea he went and perched on the crest within plain sight of the town to spend 10 minutes doing his ritual. Man I’d love to have him on a mission. Send him in the front, I go round the back, ... I could clean out the place while the inhabitants take care of him.

I wasn’t surprised when some dude came up from the town to find out what we were doing here. He was friendly enough and told us about the nasties that had come through the day before with a dwarven prisoner in tow. The town herbalist had offered to heal the dwarf and had been beaten as a reward for her offer, and then the strangers had taken what they wanted and left.

We talked to a few locals but they didn’t have much to add, so we reprovisioned and went on our way. More days across really unfriendly terrain and then we hit a cliff where they’d clearly gone up.

With the dwarf in tow we’d been gaining ground and the guys wanted me to volunteer to be first up to make sure things were safe and drop the rope we saw at the top. Hahahahaha. I don’t know why they think I should have been able to climb it—these upworlders have like twice my reach and are way stronger than me.

Son of Clouds manned up and before long we were all scooting up the rope. More or less. Malakar had to take off his shell to be able to get up even with the rope, and Obegard couldn’t even manage that—we had to haul him up. Hmmm. Maybe the baddies had the same problem, and that’s why the rope was up the top of the cliff.

At the top there were the broken remains of a blue marble road. Obegard said it was really old. Man, you have to admire the talent involved in that analysis.

We followed the blue marble road until we spotted a monastery or something. It was disused but we saw some movement in the arrow slits. I hope they have some ale because I’m kind of dry after all this walking.