D&D: Squelching Towards Victory

After a long, vacation-induced hiatus, last night we played D&D! Here's last time.

Rewind a bit, and we find Keenan, Zook, and Brébhin watching the others go out into the woods to track the brackish hounds. They go into the kitchen of Woodsedge Manor and find Eimile, the maid/housekeeper, washing dishes. They chat for a bit - Zook asks her if the master of the house, Íosac, is really as violent as he appears. Eimile says he's not really violent towards anyone here, though certainly he's gruff and has a bit of a temper. 

Keenan peeks out the kitchen door and muses that he thought he heard something, and Zook investigates, finding the front door ajar. There are dog footprints outside, and a trickle of blood. Just then, they hear footsteps on the stairs and see Aingeal, the little girl, coming downstairs. She says there's something wrong with her mother - "she won't wake up." Brébhin goes back up with her to investigate, while Zook and Keenan follow the tracks. 

The tracks loop around the house, and as they round a corner, they see two of the horrible brackish hounds slip into the kitchen! They hear Eimile and Mic (the groundskeeper, who'd joined her) scream, and they leap into action!

Keenan - after noting that a fireball probably isn't going to be a good idea - runs in a swings at a dog, calling up a shocking grasp, and misses (in what would be a pattern). Zook throws some magic missiles, but is unable to prevent the dogs from attacking and biting Mic. Once the missiles land, though, the dogs turn on Zook and Keenan, biting them and causing that horrible wound that bleeds continuously. 

The fight rages briefly, but then Zook sees Aingeal enter the kitchen. She grins a leering, horrible grin and snaps her fingers...and Zook blacks out. 

He comes to a moment later as his beard begins to burn. The kitchen is on fire and Keenan is dragging him outside. Keenan manages to cast a sleet storm into the kitchen to put out the fire, and then passes out from blood loss about the time the others come back.

Dara quickly casts a lesser restoration spell on Keenan to stop the bleeding, while the others check the ashes of the kitchen. They find Eimile, alive but burned and bleeding. Mic, however, did not survive. Aisling and Clara rush upstairs and find Brébhin guarding Bairbre, Aingeal's mother. She's bleeding from a hound bite and clearly dying, and Aingeal is nowhere to be seen. 

Dara and Brébhin manage to stabilize her until Dara can recover enough to cure her bite, and everyone compares notes. Brébhin says that a dog ran in and bit Bairbre, and then Aingeal started throwing magic missiles around and ran out. She then cast the sleep spell that felled Zook (but did not affect Keenan, of course, as he's half elf), and left with the dogs. 

The heroes figure that the hag - maybe Granny Snowmelt? - was impersonating Aingeal, but maybe someone in the household made a deal with her? Maybe Aingeal herself? Fearg points out that, based on what Hilde the swamp woman told them, hags reproduce by eating children, so that might be why she wanted Aingeal. 

They don't have all the details, but they know time is of the essence and they have a pretty good idea of where she's gone - back to the blood tree. The seven of them troop through the woods to the tree and, after a moment of discussion (mostly amounting to "ew, do we have to?") they dive in.

They resurface in a dank, slimy, underground chamber, complete with benches, a table, and a bed. As their eyes adjust to the dim light, they spot two truly horrible things. First, a massive lump of fur and flesh turns out to be a huge brackish hound, continually spawning more. And second, all the way at the other end of the room, they see a night hag with a pair of legs emerging from her mouth, kicking, as she swallows the child.

The adventurers spring into action, but are unable to prevent her from swallowing Aingeal! They can see her stomach moving, however, and figuring that Aingeal is still alive. Clara runs over and attacks, punching at the hag's head (trying to avoid the child in her belly), and the hag taunts her, saying the best they can do is retrieve the girl's corpse (Clara, not the best with comebacks, just yells "OK!"). Dara calls down a moonbeam on the birthing dog as two brackish hounds run over to them, biting at her and Aisling, and Keenan hurls a fireball at the monstrosity. It burns (not like it could dodge), but continues producing brackish hounds - three more wriggle out.

Fearg rages and charges at the hag, and Zook moves in on her and hits her with some magic missiles (but is wary that they can't kill the hag, not if they want any chance of saving Aingeal). Keenan follow him and reminds him that somewhere in the hag's robes is a hearthstone that allows her to shift into the Ethereal Plane, and they need to find that! And then he casts a haste on Zook.

Aisling throws a cloud of daggers into the birthing dog, and that plus a witch bolt from Brébhin and Dara's moonbeam kill it - it bursts into a pile of fur and goo. But four of the hounds still live!

The dogs continue to savage Dara, dropping her and chewing on her. Aisling takes a couple of bites, too, but stands her ground, and Brébhin throws spells at the beasts. Meanwhile, the fight against the hag continues. Zook zips over to her and rummages around in her robe, managing to find the hearthstone! Fearg draws back his hammer and Zook yells "No, big guy! Flat of the blade!" Fearg manages to snap out of the rage and strikes the hag, but pulls his punch.

"I'm unfazed here, too", she sneers, and starts to vanish. Zook remembers that Hilde said she could also shift into the Ethereal with a spell and tries to counter it...but fails. Granny fades away, but leaves behind Aingeal, cover in fluids best not dwelt upon. Clara throws a blanket over her and tries to reassure her.

"Hey, not done yet," yells Brébhin. The heroes run back over and take on the remaining hounds, Fearg hurling javelins and Zook and Keenan hurling spells. But then Aisling spots movement across the room in the bed. "There! In the bed!" she yells, and Brébhin throws all the magic missiles she can muster. 

The dead hag's hand flops out of the bed, and, taking no chances, Keenan blows it up with a fireball. Aisling throws some healing at Dara so that she doesn't die, and the heroes wade through the blood, holding the terrified Aingeal. 

They make it back to Woodsedge and Bairbre runs out to meet them. Aingeal breaks down crying again, and Bairbre holds and comforts her. "It's over, love," she says. "Done. Like rain that you slept through."

Íosac speaks to the heroes, and apologizes for his previous brusqueness. "I am, perhaps, too rough for the life I have," he says, "but don't think that I don't love it. Love them." Zook advises that this experience might soften him and push him to show that love, and he agrees. He also obviously gives them shelter ("and a bath?" asks Aisling). 

Once they have rested, they discuss their next moves. Aisling still wants to go south and retrieve her harp-lute, and they decide to make that their next journey. Zook muses, though, that their continual running afoul of demons might require them to break the boundaries of Abhaile, and see what lies beyond the borders. (Maybe not through the Enclave of Thorns, though; those guys are nuts.)

D&D: The Keeper of the Hounds

So last time, our heroes fought a couple of smelly swamp creatures and then moved on towards the home of an old lady who, they are told, can give them some info about hags. They finish crossing the lake and arrive at a hovel. An old woman sits in a chair outside, de-scaling a fish. They approach, and the bard introduces herself as Aisling Madabhon. The old woman says that her name is Hilde, and does a quick count. "If you want food, you'll need to catch more fish," she mutters.

That's not a big problem; the adventurers catch some dinner, Hilde cleans and cooks them (the fish, not the adventurers), and they settle in to talk about hags. Hilde actually is pretty knowledgeable on the subject. She tells them she knows of three types of hags - sea hags (but as she's never seen the sea, she doesn't know much about them), green hags (who prefer swamps and forests), and night hags (who are so evil they descended through the Feywild and wound up in the Hells). Night hags in particular love turning good to evil, and that kind of desecration might attract one, though of course that's hard to fake. The party tells her that Granny Snowmelt, their target, is a night hag, and Hilde commiserates. Night hags are hard to catch, because they can fade from the Material to the Ethereal at will. She does tell them, however, that they do so using a magical item called a heartstone, and if they can obtain that, then...well, then the hag can still go to the Ethereal, but needs to cast a spell to do it and they should be able to counter that?

They talk about how to get the stone away from the hag. They consider maybe a smaller being could help bring some lighter fingers (as the group doesn't have a rogue). Clara suggests asking a rat or some other animal? But how are they going to find the hag? Zook says that if they have some information he can use his augury spell to narrow it down, but they need a place to start. Hilde doesn't have a good way to do that, sadly, "but your idea about having Dara call up something to steal the stone maybe could work." Hilde also reveals that hags generally know one another, and if the heroes have already killed off four different hags (one night hag in the Glann Plateau, a green hag in Cian, and two more greens just recently) then maybe Granny Snowmelt is trying to find more friends...or make one. Hags reproduce by stealing and devouring human children, and then birthing new hags. 

Dara goes off into the swamp and calls a swamp rat, and asks if it would be willing to help. The rat says it would, potentially, though stealing things off of human (and human-sized) things tends to involve getting swatted and it doesn't like that. Also does this person have dogs? The rat's cousin was eaten by a dog. And there are dogs nearby, dead ones. But not dead.

Dara presses for a little more information, but all the rat knows is that these dogs are north and west, a journey of many miles, possibly years (but that's to a rat). As to the larger question, it's willing to consider the idea of stealing a thing off a hag, but it'll need a lot of food for that. It scampers off to consult its rat friends, and Dara goes back to the others.

She relates what the rat told her, and of course Zook is immediately concerned about these "dead-not-dead dogs." Clara agrees, but wonders whether pursuing this is going to get them in trouble with pixies (and Brébhin echoes this concern). In the end, though, they can't just let it go. They ask Hilde who lives in that direction, and she tells them that Woodsedge Estate is that way. It's a big house inhabited by a man named Íosac, his wife, and their child, but that's about all she knows.

In the morning, they set off, and though it takes most of the day, as evening falls they arrive at a large manor house. There's a gate out front (not a fence, just a gate), with the word "WOODSEDGE" on it. They see a woman picking berries off a bush and approach her, and she introduces herself as Eimile, the housekeeper. She's not as immediately welcoming as a lot of people they've met, however, and says that Master Íosac might not love having visitors (she also seems a bit frightened of him). 

They ask about the dogs, and she confirms that they come out at night, horrible things that bleed continuously. Mic, the butler, has started calling them "brackish hounds," and they don't seem to die. Also, one of them bit Aingeal, the master's daughter, and she is sick and bedridden, and the wound will not stop bleeding. 

She leads the adventurers to the manor house and sneaks them in the kitchen door. She tells Mic to make them some tea and she goes to see if the master will let them in. They heard yelling from another room, and Mic mentions that the master has something of a temper. He also tells them that he's hit the hounds with his sling and the master stabbed one with a pitchfork, but they are resilient and vicious, and little Aingeal seems to be fading. The heroes offer Dara's help, and Eimile returns, looking frightened and chastened. She apologizes for the master not receiving them, but says that she'll bring Dara up to Aingeal's room.

She leads Dara up a back staircase to a bedroom, where a child of about seven lies on a bad. The smell knocks Dara back - it smells like a wound gone septic. Aingeall looks pale and sick, and a wound on her arm has already soaked through the bandage. Eimile goes to change it, and Dara looks at it - it's bleeding freely, bright red blood like a fresh wound, but the edges of the bite marks are going black. 

Dara casts a spell to detect disease or poison, but senses nothing. Maybe a magical effect that acts like a disease, but isn't? She casts a dispel magic on the girl, and she shrieks in pain, but no change to the wound. Dara tries again, focusing her magic, but Aingeal only cries about again. Defeated, Dara heads downstairs to talk to the others. On the way out, she meets Bairbre, Aingeal's mother, who is much more pleasant than her husband, it seems. She thanks Dara for her help and begs her to cure her daughter.

Meanwhile, the others are in the kitchen with Mic. They ask about the dogs and when they usually show up, and he says it's typically after dark. And just a moment later, they hear baying from outside. "That's them." 

"All right, then," says Clara, and the six of them head outside. Aisling activates her driftglobe and sends sunlight over the area, and they hear yips and paws running away. "Doesn't look like they'll show themselves with that on them," says Keenan, and Aisling turns it off, but keeps it close, figuring it'll be a good way to weaken them if need be. Fearg charges out into the clearing and bellows a challenge, and the dogs respond!

WOOF WOOF MOTHERFUCKERS

They charge from the trees, horrible things with mangy fur sloughing off of their bodies and diseased, frothy mouths, and all of them bleed continuously. Aisling throws a cloud of daggers at one and Dara, emerging from the kitchen just as things get started, calls down a moonbeam on it. Zook takes a more aggressive approach, and hurls a fireball into the trees. The flames light up the area and they see the dog that Aisling and Dara hit explode into a ball of blood and ash. A bunch run out and surround Fearg, biting and tearing flesh. Brébhin hurls a tiny ball of lightning at one of them, but a couple run up on her, and a couple more charge at Keenan and Zook (but their teeth miss the mark).

Fearg lashes out and whacks one with his hammer (but I could not make a roll for him to save my life, or his). Aisling unleashes magic missiles, Brébhin strikes with her sword, and Clara runs out into the midst of the dogs and starts punching them to death. Keenan fries one with a firebolt, and within a moment all ten of them are just fur, bone, and blood. 

Brébhin and Fearg have both sustained bites, and their bites are bleeding continuously. Dara casts a lesser restoration on both of them and the wounds clot and start to close, so apparently whatever illness these monsters carry can be cured. Dara rests and meditates, recovering her magic, and then heads upstairs to Aingeal. 

After promising that this spell won't hurt, she casts a lesser restoration, and Aingeal's wound starts to improve. But she wails that she saw her father talking to the dogs - "He is the keeper of the hounds!" And then she passes out.

Dara heads back downstairs and tells the others. Zook is perfectly happy to take the fucker's head now (figuring that even if he's not "the keeper of the hounds," he's an abusive piece of shit), but cooler heads prevail, at least for the moment. Aisling and Clara ask Mic to see Íosac, and with some hesitation, he leads them to the master's study. It's full of stuffed animals (like, trophies, not stuffies), and Íosac himself, a large, broad man, sits in front of a fire sipping something from a goblet. Mic announces them, and Íosac receives them, if stiffly.

Íosac isn't exactly rude, but he's by no means polite, either. He does, however, ask if they're the ones that helped his daughter, and then says that apparently some thanks are in order. Clara feels that there's a real note of concern in his voice, too. Aisling asks about what Aingeal said, and Íosac says that he has no idea why she would say that - he's never spoken to the hounds and certainly isn't their keeper. Aisling asks if he'd be willing to help hunt them, then, and he says that he's tried, but their constant bleeding makes them hard to track. Aisling presses the issue, and he agrees and excuses himself to prepare.

Aisling asks Mic what "preparations" he might be making, and Mic assumes he's putting his armor on. She asks why he has armor, and Mic isn't sure. Actually, Mic isn't exactly sure where Íosac is from. From his accent, maybe south, around Fiadh, but it'd have to be one of the outlying villages. He knows that Bairbre is from Cian, anyway. 

Íosac emerges wearing leather armor, and orders Mic to fetch his bow. The adventurers make ready to go; Keenan, Zook, and Brébhin stay behind, in case more dogs show up (and Zook doesn't much trust himself around Íosac anyway). They head out into the forests and track the hounds using their pawprints and blood trails, and some hours later, find themselves deeper in the forest at the root of a huge, dead tree. 

At the base of the tree is a hollow with a shallow pool of blood, and there are paw prints near the entrance. This seems to be where the brackish hounds came from. They talk about burning it, though Íosac is concerned about more forest fires (he wasn't thrilled about the goddamned fireball in his backyard). They talk a bit more, and then Aisling notices something floating in the blood at the back of the pool. She goes to fish it out with her sword, but Íosac stops her ("don't sully that blade") and uses an arrow. Aisling magically cleans it, and discovers it's a length of blue ribbon. Íosac looks shocked. "I gave that to my daughter," he says. "It was tying her hair back." The others ask how it got out here, and Íosac shakes his head. "You don't understand. It was tying her hair back today. I saw it."

He turns and starts heading back to the house, and the others follow, figuring they can burn this evil tree later. As they approach the house, though, they hear someone calling out in pain. It sounds like Keenan!

(Next time, we rewind and find out what happened at the house. It was ugly.)

D&D: The Smelly Swamp-Camel

When last we left our heroes, they had made a promise to the Fey that they were going to hunt down and kill Granny Snowmelt the night hag, just as soon as they left the village of Osclaimid. That in mind, they head east, and the ground gets softer and swampier, until eventually they're walking on a bridge made of wood and rope through the muck of the swamp. 

They eventually come to a homestead where a couple of young children are sitting by the water's edge fishing (as they watch, one of the kids pulls up a chunk of mud that wriggles, and then washes it off to reveal something like a bug but with big claws - the kids call it a "crayfish"). They ask if there's a village elder or someone nearby, and one of the kids turns around and yells "MA!"

A woman emerges from the house and greets them. They ask about Belle's family, and she points them down another bridge. They trundle off through the swamp and arrive at a similar house. A woman in a thin shirt is hanging laundry, and covers herself when she sees the adventures. She called up to the house "Rue! Toss me one of your shirts, please!" and another woman throws a shirt out the window, and then comes to join them.

Turns out that Rue is Belle's older's sister, and the other woman is Rue's wife, Issa. The heroes break the news to Rue as gently as they can, and Zook is sure to inform her that Belle died a hero, protecting her friends and protecting a village from demons. Issa goes to get "the girls," and Rue thanks the heroes. She tells them a little more about Osclaimid - "Osclaimid" is a collective name for the villages and homesteads out here in the swamp, all connected by bridges. Everyone is welcome, provided you don't harm people, buildings, or bridges. She also mentions that sometimes a creature or a disaster destroys something, and then they cut the bridges to that area and let it go. The swamp takes, sometimes.

Issa returns with two girls and they tell them about their aunt. They process, it's hard, and then when things calm down a little Aisling takes the little ones to the water so they can show her how to fish for crayfish (which of course Aisling has never seen). Rue goes over a couple of bridges with a few of the heroes to see her brothers, Yan and Tom, and give them the bad news, and Issa asks Rue to see if they've heard from her cousin Treasa. 

They go deeper into the swamp and find a pair of men doing repairs on a house and arguing about nails. Rue calls them over and tells them what happened; Yan stomps off behind his house and Zook correctly guesses that he never really approved of Belle going off to adventure, anyway. Rue also mentions that the last time Belle was home ("you remember," whispers Keenan to Zook, "we told you, we fought that snake-grow-many-heads-thing"), Yan was away and missed her.

Rue asks if they've heard from Treasa, and they haven't. Rue isn't worried necessarily, figures they'll send a chain ("chain?" "yeah, not much paper here, so there's someone in every village who can remember messages and run to the next village and relay it. If you want your message to get there intact, keep it simple"). Zook offers to look in on her, but Clara wisely points out that it'd be better to wait for morning. Rue agrees - you don't want to be out in the swamp at night.

The heroes all go back to Rue and Issa's house to eat - a stew of mushrooms, crayfish, other fish, frog's legs, roots and so on. Aisling plays some music on her lute and in the distance, someone plays the tune back. "That's how we stay connected," says Issa. "You play, someone answers. Lets us know they're out there." Everyone beds down - half the heroes stay with Rue and Issa, while the other half stay on Tom and Yan's land in the tiny hut. The next morning, they head into the swamp to find what the sisters refer to as the "Irlan Homestead." Issa says that, to her knowledge, that should consist of her sister Treasa, Treasa's husband, his parents, and another woman that Issa thinks might be Treasa's husband's aunt? 

The heroes all cross their fingers and head into the swamp, but as they approach the homestead, it's clear that something is horrible wrong. The building has been smashed in - one wall is demolished, and the back corner of the place has completely collapsed. As they cross the final bridge, too, they smell something unholy. Dara sniffs and figures that the stench is moving - there's something out there.

They also find bodies - a man and a woman in the rubble, another woman towards the back of the building, two more women (one elderly) in a crushed boat on the water side, and Dara finds a man with a crude war pick against the back of the house. The pick is bloodstained and stinks; he stabbed something before he died. All of the bodies look a bit nibbled by swamp rats, but their wounds are from something big and blunt, like a mace. 

"Getting a little tired of being a harbinger of grim tidings," muses Zook. "Maybe you're in the wrong business," Clara suggests, but agrees that bringing this kind of news does wear you down. Brébhin, not the biggest fan of this kind of thing anyway, offers to go back and inform Yan and Tom, and casts longstrider to quicken the journey. As just as she's leaving, the attack comes!

Two creatures burst out of the water, one by the smashed-up boat where Zook and Fearg and pulling bodies out, and one by where Dara is standing! The creatures are huge, bigger than horses, with long necks and tails that end in massive lumps of bone...like a mace.

This, but smellier

One of them glares at Zook...and his heart stops. He collapses, and Clara runs over and punches the thing. Keenan grabs Zook and pulls him out of harm's way, and Aisling throws healing magic at him to revive him. Fearg flies into rage and swings on the monster, and Dara calls up a flame blade and strikes the other one. It swings its tail and hits her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. 

The first monster swings its tail and it goes whistling over Clara's head. Keenan rolls up his sleeves, gauges distance, and hurls a fireball into the swamp. It explodes and they see a tree fall, but the fire roils up and catches both creatures. Zook follows his lead and throws another, and the creatures scream and try to move. One submerges and is gone, but Fearg catches the other with his war hammer and kills it. 

The heroes all take a breath, and then regret it because this thing smells even worse dead. Brébhin returns with villagers (and more arrive shortly thereafter, because they saw the explosions), and some of the older folks remember stories of the "catoblepas," a swamp-dwelling monster that can crush a man's head with its tail or kill with a single glance! ("Confirmed," coughs Zook.) They pull the bodies from the wreckage into the house and burn the place, and Fearg and some of the able-bodies men shove the dead monster into the swamp. 

Everyone falls back to their homes and the villagers cut the bridges to the Irlan Homestead. Tom says that, in future, if someone wants to build there, they can replace the bridges and make that place part of Osclaimid again, but for now, the swamp can have it. The other villagers return home, and everyone goes back to Tom and Yan's house to rest. They build a fire and show them how to roast chunks of swamp root, peeled and soaked in a sweet sap, so that these "marsh mallows" get toasted and sugar. They also discuss what to do about the other catoblepas.

They aren't sure why the monsters attacked in the first place, but the heroes are worried that the other one might come back - they did kill its companion (maybe mate?). They decide to try and lure it. Aisling does her best impression of the catoblepas' loud mooing call, and gets a response. The call gets closer, and then the thing burst out of the swamp!

But the heroes are ready. Aisling gives it a snootful of magic missile, and Brébhin, Keenan, and Zook follow suit. It glares at Aisling, but she knows to look away, and Dara calls down lightning on it. As the flash of lightning fades, Clara leaps between Fearg and Aisling and kicks the thing in the head, snapping its neck!

Fearg calls the brothers over to shove the thing into the swamp, and Aisling casts a spell to cleanse them ("this smell lingers," grumbles Fearg, "my teeth and lungs are lined with the scum of it"). The heroes bed down for the night.

In the morning, they ask the brothers where they might learn about a hag - maybe there's someone in Osclaimid who's had some experience with them? They mention an old woman that leaves on the edge of the village; she's not a hag, but is "cantankerous," according to Tom. They'll have to take a boat to get to her, but the brothers point them where to go.

They find the boat, and the first batch of them gets on (it's not big enough to hold all seven of them). As they're rowing off, they hear tittering from the trees. Aisling asks if there are pixies there, and after some initial fuckery ("no pixies here!"), one flitters down. They're just making sure that, now that they're leaving Osclaimid, they're fulfilling their oath. Aisling says that they are, they're working on tracking down Granny Snowmelt. The pixie nods and flutters off, and the characters continue their hunt.

D&D: Gathering of the Haggalos

Last night was D&D, so here's last time, on with the haggin'!

Our heroes find themselves in a clearing surrounded by three hags. Two of them they recognize from the battle in Cian. The third, another green hag, they haven't seen before, but surmise she might be the one whose house they burned and who enchanted Brébhinn a long time ago. 

Brébhinn confirms it, staring the hag down. This, then, is Missy Rot. She reaches back into the circle of adventurers. "Someone give me a weapon? Preferably something light and sharp?"

Aisling hands Brébhinn her sword, and the elf spins it expertly. "Good," she whispers, and flings a little ball of lighting at the hag. 

She misses, but the battle is joined! Aisling starts playing her drum, hoping to counter any enchantments that the hags might lay on them. Keenan flings a firebolt at the night hag (and misses, which would become a theme for all of the NPCs). Fearg flies into rage and charges the other green hag - Sally, if the heroes remember right. He lashes out with his war hammer, but misses (see?), and Sally points a bony finger at him. "You just hold still," she snarls, and Fearg's muscles lock up.

Missy starts pulling magic together, but Zook was waiting for this, and counters the spell. Clara does what she does best - she runs at Missy and punches her repeatedly. Dara takes a more preventative approach - she casts a hold spell on both Missy and the night hag. Missy shakes it off, but the night hag does not.

Brébhinn charges at Missy and slashes at her, but can't land a solid blow, even with Missy stunned from Clara's attacks (in fairness, she's badly out of practice). Missy vanishes and then reappears behind Dara and slashes at her. Aisling gives up on the countercharm (the hags don't seem to be using that kind of magic anyway) and throws a cloud of daggers on the paralyzed night hag, and Zook counters another lightning spell from one of the green hags. Fearg shakes off the hold spell, but so does the night hag!

Zook tries to call up a bunch of magic missiles, but one of the hags counters it ("see how you like it, gnome!"). Sally pulls the "turn invisible and then claw the hell out of someone" tries, but then manages to set herself up to throw lightning and Zook can no longer counter it. A lighting bolt rips through Zook, Keenan, and Fearg, but they manage to remain standing!

Clara, however, isn't so lucky - two rounds of magic missiles from the night hag fell her. Dara throws some healing magic at her and Zook and Keenan lock eyes, nod, and turn their attention back to Sally. Zook hits her with a witch bolt, crackling energy coruscating over her wrinkly form, and Keenan lines up his shot and unleashes burning hands. Sally screams and falls, burning, and the heroes feel the hags' magic fade slightly - with one of them dead, the coven is broken.

And they seem to know it, because Missy turns back towards the night hag and screeches "to the hells with this, Granny!" She vanishes, and the heroes turn their attention to the night hag. 

The night hag hasn't gotten to be this old by taking on fights like this, though. "I'll see you," she says, and fades into the Ethereal. 

The heroes all take some breaths, and Brébhinn hands the sword back to Aisling (who casts mending to clean it). The sky fades from bruise-purple to blue, the trees change from the ugly, fibrous things to...well, trees, and they notice a piebald vulture-like bird sitting on a branch change into a tiny person with wings! The pixie is holding what looks like a human eyeball, pointing at them, and as they watch it gives a nervous smile, shrugs, and starts to fly away.

Aisling starts reading a spell, but Zook is faster. He flings a magic missile at it, and in an instant nothing is left of the pixie but a bloody smear and a single wing. The eye rolls to the ground, and Zook picks it up. Dara shudders, and shares a look with Brébhinn; both of them just felt someone walk over their grave. What is this eye?

It looks human, maybe dipped in lacquer or resin. Zook remembers that hag covens will sometimes make these things, allowing them to see whatever the eye sees, and that they have some vulnerability through them, but isn't sure if it still works, since they killed one of the coven. Aisling takes the eye in her hand ("ew") and casts identify, learning that destroying it will harm the hags. 

That's all the heroes need to hear! They put the eyeball on the ground and Fearg hits it with his hammer. The heroes immediately hear a screech from the trees, and see Missy Rot stumble out of the woods, blinded. Zook and Aisling throw magic missiles at her, and she falls dead. Brébhinn takes her head, just to be sure ("sorry, you'll need to clean this again"). 

Figuring that they need a rest before moving on to Osclaimid, the heroes start walking, and soon find a clearing with a big boulder. They sit in its shade, make a fire, rest, and then start moving on, hoping to reach Osclaimid before dark.

But after several hours of walking, they emerge into the same clearing. "Did we go in circles?" Dara wonders, but she knows the land well enough to know they haven't. They've walked straight and they should have left the forest and made it into the wetlands of the east, but here they are. Is "Granny" still screwing with them? Or is something else wrong?

Aisling plays a welcoming song, hoping to draw out whatever it is that is messing with them, and as she finishes, the bushes part. A silhouette of a person no bigger than a gnome stands there, and asks if he is, indeed, welcome. "If you mean us no harm, for we mean you none," says Aisling. 

"Oh," says the figure, "we're past that, I'm afraid. But if I am welcome, I shall enter your camp."

"You're welcome, then," says Aisling, and an exact duplicate of Zook steps forward and sits at their fire. 

He asks for food and drink, and they give him bread and water. He takes it, but is clearly a little disappointed. "What stories, then, have you?" he asks. "I wish to hear stories of the Feywild." 

Aisling plays the song of the elf-maiden who lost her feeling and wandered the woods, since it's on everyone's mind. The not-Zook nods. "A good story, well told," he says. "What else?"

Zook stands up. "I heard a story about a band of adventurers who went looking for some missing babes, and found them sleeping in a field of flowers, enchanted and dreaming of the Feywild. The adventurers argued about whether to wake them and bring them home, or to leave them in blissful sleep. They wound up fighting over it, but eventually decided to bring the babes home." 

The not-Zook nods again. "Yes, I know that story. Good, well done." He sits forward expectantly. 

Clara clears her throat. "Well, I remember we used to tell stories about a maiden who was wed to a man much older than she was. And she went picking flowers to avoid her new husband, and she found herself in the Feywild, and she stayed there for the day but when she went home, fifteen years had passed! She saw her younger sister, now a woman, and she rushed home hoping her husband had died, but there he was, even older but still alive. And then the next day, she went picking flowers again, hoping to find the Feywild and come back another fifteen years later when he'd surely be dead. And I heard two different versions of this story, one where she the faeries took her away and just kept her and one where she kept looking every day but never found them, and the old man lived another twenty years!"

The not-Zook smiles. "I prefer the second one," he says, "that sounds more like the Feywild." He looks expectantly at Dara. 

"I don't know if I know any stories about the Feywild," she says, "but when I was young I used to dream of being a beast, of running in the woods and following my senses, and everything was bright and vivid." 

The not-Zook seems to understand, but doesn't smile. He looks at the others. 

"I don't know any Feywild stories," says Fearg. 

"I was such a story," says Brébhinn, "so I don't have much to add to Aisling's."

"Oh, I've got one!" says Keenan, excitedly. He proceeds to tell the story of how the party learned of Breasel, who killed a treant (whereupon the not-Zook's placid expression cracks, just a little, and he seems momentarily angry) and made it into weapons, but they took the weapons to the site of the treant's death, and there a banshee-like creature erupted from the stump and cursed Breasel, turning him into a fomorian! And then they killed it, burning it and letting the house fall on it.

The not-Zook nods. "Good. Justice was done." He stands and stretches. "Well, I thank you for your welcome and your stories. Have a good night." He walks out of the camp, but the heroes hear animal sounds from the trees and feel a distinct sense of dread. 

"Is this because we killed that pixie?" muses Zook, and suddenly the trees come alive with chatter. The not-Zook appears again, sitting on a branch. 

"THERE! YOU ALL HEARD IT! I HEARD THEM SAY IT!" He points a stubby finger at Zook. "You murdered Fallow Spark in cold blood!"

"He was helping the hags," replies Zook, but the unseen faeries assemblages murmurs in a distinctly incredulous way. 

"He was ensorcelled! Enslaved with magic and spider-silk! A simple thing for any of you," the not-Zook gestures at the spellcasters, "to dispel, and yet you brutally slew him instead!"

Zook tries to plead his case, but Clara nudges him. "Don't think we're debating our way out of this," she says. 

"What can we do?" says Aisling. 

"What if we kill the last hag?" says Dara.

The not-Zook lights up. "Yes, if you were to kill the very last hag-"

"No, no!" cries Aisling. "The last hag that we were fighting just now, the one they called 'Granny.'"

The not-Zook snaps his fingers. "Damn. I suppose you do know your Feywild stories." He looks up at the trees. "What do you think? Should we allow this as recompense?"

The unseen faeries don't seem convinced, but then a familiar voice rings out. "I know these adventurers," she says. "They're not bad people. We should let them do this." They look up and see Perclan, the pixie they met months ago who told them that Zook's father, Zeb, was dead.

The not-Zook nods. "All right, Perclan," he says. "You will find and kill-"

"Wait," says Aisling. "There is something we have to do first. We're going to Osclaimid to inform the family of our companion of her death."

"You've promised this?" says not-Zook. Aisling nods. "All right. When you leave Osclaimid, you will find and kill the night hag called Granny Snowmelt." The heroes agree. "Done." A crack of thunder and a flash of lightning, and then the trees are eerily silent. 

"I guess I'm traveling with you a while longer," says Brébhinn. 

"Yeah, sorry about that," says Aisling. "At least you get to kill another hag."

Brébhinn nods. The party decides they'd like to travel through the night and get the hell out of this clearing. They break the forest line near dawn, and can see the wetlands in the distance. Osclaimid awaits.

D&D: Walking Anti-Hagward

The adventurers are heading east to Osclaimid (still). Having left the burning body of a big ol' formorian, Zook still warty and ugly from its curse, they trudge on.

They stop for the night as the terrain becomes woodsier; it'll be forested for a while and then get swampy, they think. Everyone beds down to sleep, other than Dara, of course, who meditates quietly. After a couple of hours, she spots someone walking in the woods, a tall, elegant, luminous, elf woman. 

Dara turns into a squirrel and follows, and sees that the woman is walking slowly and aimlessly through the forest. She doesn't look hurt or scared, or really much of anything. Dara turns back into her natural form and gets in front of her, asking if she needs help. The woman walks around her without changing expression, and keeps walking. Dara follows, and the woman leads her deeper into the woods. She's out of sight of the camp when the luminosity around the elf peels off into three distinct glowy blobs of light. The float over to her, and release magical energy, stunning Dara and nearly knocking her down.

Not fancying her chances against three whatever-these-ares, Dara runs. The lights follow, and they're much fast than she is, but she manages to get within sight of the camp and yell for help. One of the lights gets close enough to zap her, but she remains standing.

But the yell worked! Zook and Keenan wake up, and rouse the others. Fearg slowly picks himself up, and not for the first time Aisling worries about him - he normally leaps up and grabs a weapon when there's danger. But she doesn't have time to worry about that right now. She charges into battle and flings magic missiles at the glowy lights, and Fearg runs up and hurls a javelin...but misses and hits Dara. Zook pops up behind Aisling and wiggles his wand of magic missiles, striking the lights, and they all three vanish. 

Fearg walks up to Dara and apologizes ("this is why I should stick to hitting things with my pick"). They all head back to the camp and Dara explains what happened. Aisling identifies the lights as will-o-the-wisps, evil little spirits that prey on lone travelers. Maybe they made the elf woman as an illusion? But in the legends, that's not what they do, they just lure people into bogs or off cliffs and then eat their souls. 

The adventurers decide they should follow the elf woman. Zook and Fearg, both suffering from some kind of curse, go back to the camp to sleep, while the others track down the elf maiden. They find that when they stop her physically, she patiently waits until someone lets her go and then keeps walking. She isn't going in a consistent direction, though, just walking in the woods. In the end they decide to walk her back to the camp. 

When they get close, she sets off the alarm spell that Zook cast. Zook starts, and Fearg, again, just groans and rolls over. Everyone beds down, though Dara finds she has to stay up and keep an eye on the elf, otherwise she'll just stand up and wander away.

In the morning, they make a more concerted effort to communicate. Aisling also remembers a story that Dara told them when they were in a tavern in Fiadh a long time ago, about an elf maiden who drank a potion hoping to numb the pain of betrayal and wound up feeling nothing, wandering the forest forever ("where'd you hear that story?" "I thought I made it up, I don't know, I was drunk"). Aisling plays a song, and the elf very briefly acknowledges her and points off into the woods. The adventurers decide to head in that direction and see what they find.

After most of a day's travel, they find something. A group of trees has grown together in the rough shape of a hut, and there's even a door at the front. Aisling walks up and knocks; no answer. She tries the door, and then feels a drop of drool from above.

A bunch of tentacles ending in eyeballs appear, attach to a big fleshy body with a nasty, fanged maw! Clara wastes no time; she leaps up into the tree and punches the damn thing. It snaps at her, and then aims eyestalks at her and Aisling. Clara shakes off whatever it tries to do, but Aisling suddenly feels confused, unsure what to do. She looks around for a target, and fires her crossbow at Keenan. Fortunately, she misses ("what the hells, Aisling?" "I DON'T KNOW!"). Dara calls down a moonbeam on the creature and it sizzles, and Zook hastes Clara. It turns out not to matter much; Clara picks her shot and punches straight into the monster's immense eyeball ("ew, eye-juice"). It slumps dead, and Clara jumps down. Keenan hands Aisling's crossbow bolt back ("lose this?").

They check the door; it's locked. Aisling tries to pick it, but can't; she doesn't really have the right tools. Fearg offers to kick it down, and though they're still worried about traps, they all get behind him. He kicks the door right off the hinges, but breaks his ankle in the process ("could I trouble you for a healing word, love?"). 

The heroes investigate the hut, and they pretty much immediately make it as a hag's lair. For one thing there's a batch of stew on the fire that smells...foul. Zook stirs it and sees fingers ("yep, it's people stew, urgp"). There are a baker's dozen potion bottles around, all labeled with flowery titles - "Angelic Rancor." "Anarchy Water." "Impulse."

Zook searches the room carefully and finds a small, boring, wooden box on a low shelf. He opens it, and a milky-white flash of light zooms out and flows into the elf-maiden's nose. She gasps, and the light comes back to her eyes. "Oh...I'm still here?"

"Not 'still,' I think," says Aisling. "What's your name?"

The elf says her name is Brébhinn, and she doesn't have much memory of wandering in the woods. The characters want to hear her story, but don't want to hang out here. Aisling advocates burning this place down, potions and all, but Keenan doesn't want to leave them here - what if they're useful? "Nothing good comes from hags," Aisling reminds him. 

Keenan grabs a random potion - "Azer's Tears" - and checks it for color, viscosity, and scent. "Potion of fire-breathing," he says. "Drink it and you breathe fire, like a dragon. BROOSH." The others asks if he's sure, and he says that there's really only three ways to know what a potion does: make it yourself, drink it, or cast a spell to identify it. In the end they decide to throw all thirteen potions in their bag of holding and blow the place up.

Zook and Keenan both throw a fireball into the hut and leave it burning. They travel on, and make camp at sunset, just as the ground is starting to get softer. On the way, Brébhinn tells them her story:

"I had a lover, Piaras. One day he went out hunting, and I followed to bring him wine and food. But I found him...with someone. People always said I felt too deeply, and I did, and I ran into the woods and eventually I found that hut. The hag, Missy Rot, answered, but of course she looked like a kindly old lady. I told her I wanted to stop feeling this pain. 'If I fade away, let me fade away,' I said...and she gave me a potion, and that's the last I remember."

Clara gives her a couple of historical references and they figure she's been wandering in the woods for sixty years or so. On the plus side, for an elf that's not too much? But on the minus side, that hag is most assuredly going to be a problem. The same hag the characters fought in Cian? It's hard to know. Aisling asks Zook to cast his tiny hut spell so that they rest without being disturbed, and they all bed down.

In the morning, Aisling wakes to find Fearg in the corner stretching. "You seem more yourself," she says. Fearg agrees - he's not slept well since they left Cian, and he's had disturbing dreams. The heroes are immediately reminded of Zook's experience with the night hag's curse, and note that they fought three hags back in Cian. They killed one, but two escaped, and if they've met up with Missy Rot, they may have formed a coven and becoming much more dangerous.

Zook drops the spell and they prepare to move, but the terrain is different now. The trees are bigger and more imposing, and the sky is a sickly bruise-purple. "This," says Fearg, drawing his pick, "is what I've been dreaming about."

They hear cackling from the woods. "I see you, Brébhinn. Now you're running with thieves and vandals?"

"Yes," says a voice from another side of the clearing. "And they killed my sister."

"Show yourselves," says Zook, and the night hag steps out of the woods. 

"Oh, yes," she says. "One bright morning changes all things." 

D&D: Shopping and House-Cleaning

Last night we played D&D. Whew, hadn't run a game in two weeks, was starting to get the shakes. Here's last time.

After laying their friend Belle to rest in the flowery village, our heroes head south back to the city of Cian. They need to return their rented horses, and they want to touch base about Silé's disappearance (here). They discover that Silé's companions found a group of grey, humanoid monsters in the sewers of Cian and purged them before they could get on with whatever evil they were doing (in a no doubt exciting tie-in comic), but still no sign of their friend. Clara posits that she's probably on another plane of existence by now.

The heroes prepare for their departure, readying gear, replenishing provisions, that kind of thing. Dara catches Fearg sitting outside the Lute's Echo sharpening his ax (that is, Shol, the possessed ax), and asks if the ax is still talking. Fearg says it is, reminding him that Breasel, the man that killed the treant used to make the weapons Shol and Ros, still lives and maybe he could correct that. Dara suggests that carrying that ax around is long-term unwise, and they should find a way to put the treant's soul to rest.

Fearg notes that killing Breasel would do it, but Dara isn't cool with murdering an old man in cold blood (Fearg doesn't look at it that way, but does recognize that the optics are bad at least). He notes that he has visions of a place a little ways south of Cian - not a forest, but a copse of trees near a meadow - that he suspects to be where the treant Sholeros' body lies. Maybe there it could find some peace. It's not really on the way to where they were headed (east, to Osclaimid, Belle's home), but it's not terribly far out of the way, either. Dara suggests this to the others and they agree to the detour, once they're ready to head out.

Aisling decides that she'd like a mildly magical weapon, too, since they seem to keep fighting demons. Darragh Bumpshadow refers to her another gnome, name of Fregnap, who sells magic weapons. Aisling and Zook go to his store and he shows them his wares - all the weapons on racks on the walls, each with a little placard telling its story (since most of these weapons were at one point in the hands of adventurers). He shows her a short sword, taken out by an adventurer and then returned by another adventurer who found the first one's remains. Aisling checks the weight and, after a brief period of haggling, buys it. 

She also asks about a weapon for Fearg, since if he gives up Shol he'll need something magical. Fregnap has a couple of options - mauls, axes, hammers - but Aisling figures she'll need to bring Fearg in to choose.

Zooks asks after a wand of magic missiles, and Fregnap says he doesn't sell wands, but Darragh would know someone that does. But maybe this interesting dagger?

He shows Zook a dagger with a frost spell bound into it - when it tastes blood, it releases the magic. Problem is that the hilt carries the magic, too, so if you're holding it when you stab something you'll freeze your hand. Thick glove - or, like, throwing the dagger - should handle that. Zook buys it for Keenan, and they check in with Darragh on where they might find a wand.

Darragh leads them (Zook and Keenan) to a house in the city, knocks on the door, and an very large man answers. "She in?" Darragh asks. "IN," grumbles the man, and leads them to a staircase. 

They descend to a basement that looks more like a tailor's shop than anything - large swaths of leather and fabric draped over tables, spools of thread, but also wands set on racks. The person in the basement is seated with her back to them when they enter, and pulls a cowl up over shock-white hair. The woman - Yesanith - listens to Zook's request for a wand so that he doesn't have to use up his spells for the day throwing magic missiles. She does have one, and asks if he wishes to pay with coin. He does, and she quotes a price that he feels is a little unreasonable, but Zook has no particular skill for haggling. He tells her that he'll need to check with his companions and get back to her.

He and Keenan, and Keenan shudders - the woman makes him uncomfortable. He can't quite explain why, but she has a weird skin tone; gray, almost purple. Zook shrugs, he's never seen a purple human before, but no reason it couldn't happen. Keenan reflects that tieflings are sometimes purple, and they never saw the front of her head. Maybe she has horns.

Anyway, Zook collects Aisling and they head back to Yesanith's place. Aisling haggles her price down a bit, and they drop by Fregnap and buy Fearg a war-hammer with an enchantment - just a little magic, enough to inconvenience demons, nothin' fancy. Aisling also stops by a bank in Cian and leaves much of their remaining money there (we decided that the bank in Cian doesn't pay out interest, they just keep your money if you wind up dead). With all of that finished, they pack up and head south to the final resting place of Sholeros. 

They travel for a couple of days, passing by the village where Breasel lives (but not stopping, figuring that it's safer not to let Shol get that close). As the terrain starts to get a little woodsier, they see a copse of trees on the edge of a meadow. "There," says Fearg.

Getting closer, they see that there are a couple of fallen trunks, some living trees, and a stump. Dara digs around the stump's roots and finds that it has toes. "You don't see that every day," she notes. The stumps also doesn't have rings the way a tree should, instead it has something that looks like bone structure. They seem to have found the dismembered corpse of Sholeros. 

They decide to "plant" the weapons near the stump, so that perhaps a tree can eventually grow up around them. Dara does the honors, being careful not to touch both weapons at once. As soon as they're planted, though, a chill wind blow in from the west, and a banshee-like apparition appears. In a shrill cackle, it says "as blackens the moon, so blackens the flesh of the one that committed this crime, Breasel the treant-killer, be as you've always been!" 

Clara and Aisling try to engage the spirit in conversation, but it ignores them - it's fuzzy and indistinct, anyway. It vanishes, and the heroes wonder if they're just witnessed a curse. They initially figure Breasel can go fuck himself if he's cursed, but Keenan points out that sometimes "curse" means "become a werewolf and eat everyone," so they figure they'd better check it out. Dara notes that tomorrow night is the new moon, so if they camp for the night and travel through tomorrow, they'll get to Breasel's village around sundown.

And indeed, the next night, as the sun sets, they approach Breasel's house. The door is open, but no light shines within. Aisling activates her driftglobe and enters, and sees something move under a threadbare blanket in the corner. "Breasel? You there?"

"No...light." The voice is growly and thick. "What...happen."

Aisling douses the light. The figure under the blanket stands up. Breasel has changed, or is changing - his flesh is grey and lumpy, his eyes have gone pus-yellow, one ear is far too big, his hands hand lower and scrape the ground. The heroes note that he resembles legends of "fomorians," hateful, cursed creatures of the feywild, only those things are giants. 

The heroes back up. Breasel stands, and they realize he's taller than he was. He reaches up and smashes a fist through the roof, bringing back a rat. He bites it in half, and mutters, "Bloody and raw, but I swear it is sweet..." and then fixes his gaze on the adventurers. 

They ready themselves, but Breasel suddenly grows huge, smashing through the house and knocking it down to rubble. Everyone except Fearg gets out; Aisling sees the rubble fall on top of him. They aren't immediately worried. If anyone can survive a house falling on his head, it's Fearg.

Dara calls down a moonbeam on the monster, and Breasel glares at her. She feels elfshot tear through her mind, and her flesh grows grey and warty, her eyes turning the same pus-yellow as Breasel's. Clara runs in and punches the thing, kicking in its knee and dropping it prone. 

Zook and Keenan get a better angle on the rubble, avoiding where they think Fearg fell, and both hurl fireballs! The remains of the house explode into an inferno, and Breasel roars, clambering to his feet as his stringy hair catches alight. Aisling, meanwhile, digs at the rubble and finds Fearg's hand (still attached, don't worry) and starts pulling. He pushes the beams off himself and pulls himself out of the debris, and glares at Zook. 

The giant picks up a beam from the house and smacks Clara with it, and aims another glare at Zook. He, took, feels pain in his mind and his left arm grows swollen and lumpy as his flesh decays. Keenan grabs him and pulls him back as Zook hurls magic missiles new wand, and Dara fries the giant with her moonbeam again. Aisling summons up her worst magic and casts a cloud of daggers right in the middle of the monster. The daggers emerge from his chest, tearing him apart, and Breasel collapses, dead, as the villagers run up to help.

They take Zook and Dara to a healer, who admits she has never seen this shit before and advises sleeping on it. In the morning, Dara wakes next to a pile of grey slime; apparently she sloughed off the cursed flesh as she rested. Zook isn't so lucky, but it might be that he's just taking longer to get over it. A restoration spell from Dara doesn't seem to do much, either; he's just gonna have to wait it out.

Aisling notices, too, that Fearg seems peaked. She asks and learns that he's slept fitfully the last couple of nights. She feels something on him - not a spell, not a curse, but something. Dara wonders if it might not be Shol lashing out at not killing Breasel sooner, and Fearg shrugs. He doesn't remember dreaming of Shol or Ros or the treant's body, but then he rarely remembers his dreams.

The heroes pack up and start heading east, bringing sad tidings to Osclaimid, and carrying with them some burdens from their recent adventures... 

D&D: Belle is Laid to Rest

Tragedy last night in the land of Abhaile. Here's last time.

Our heroes have won their battle against the demon-horses. The villagers start to emerge, beginning with a strongly-built older gent, clearly a village leader of some kind. He approaches the characters and introduces himself as Uilliam, and thanks them for their assistance. A moment later, a young teen boy arrives with a basket of fruits and nuts harvested from the are. The adventurers thank them and start to shake off the aches and wounds from battle. 

Uilliam tells them that yesterday, a man in robes rode into this village, called Rí Na Bláthanna. They thought he was an adventurer at first, but then realized he was covered in blood. When they approached, he cast some kind of spell and blew them all backwards with a thundering crack, and then raised up a stone tablet and said something that they couldn't hear. His horse became that obscene creature with the saddle half-merged in its flesh, and it galloped around and infected all the other horses in the village. The villagers had been holed up in the lodge since, keeping the monsters back but trapped. The man ran off to the north, up into the hills. 

The heroes go and round up their own horses, and then stay the night, and Uilliam arranges for some hot water to wash off the horse goop. They learn that the village grows flowers on the hills, as well as fruits and nuts, and herds sheep. In the morning the villagers provide breakfast and the heroes mount up - Uilliam's grandson has brushed and tacked their horses. Zook and Aisling have a quick conversation, and then Aisling gives the boy a small bag of gold so that they can start to replace their horses. The boy, overwhelmed, hugs her and thanks her tearfully. He tells them that the village grows flowers and brings them to Cian, and the hills around the village looked really beautiful, "before the otherness came." Dara casts a spell to repair the damage the demon horses did to the flowers, and the heroes set out.

The terrain gets rocky and difficult pretty quickly, so Dara turns into a goat to scout ahead, figuring that even if the wizard sees her, he's unlikely to suspect a goat. She spots him sitting on a flat plateau with a big, rocky outcropping above it, just staring out over the valleys. But as she watches, a huge insect-like creature with a long, sharp proboscis crawls out of a hole in the rock. 

This, but bigger than a person

Dara knows that the others are riding up, and figures it's better to get a shot in quickly. As soon as the others are in sight, she changes back to elf form and calls down lightning on the bug! 

Lightning crackles down and strikes it. It buzzes its wings angrily, and to Dara's horror, two more of them crawl out of the rock. The battle is joined, but right away the heroes realize that they are in danger. The first bug swoops down and skewers Dara with its proboscis, draining the life from her. She remains conscious, but acutely aware of how close to death she suddenly is. 

The others ride into the area. Zook, riding up, hurls a fireball at the area where the wizard was standing and catches him and two of the bugs. He hears a yelp of pain and the wizard runs back into the cave. Zook also notes that while the fire does burn the bugs, it kind of sluices off their chitin a little more readily than it should - definitely creatures of demonic origin. Dara, realizing that the others are going to take a bit to get here, turns into a panther and bites at the bug attacking her.

Clara leaps from her horse and runs for the rock face, thinking she'll climb up and get to the wizard before he sees her. Zook, noting her intent, casts haste to speed her up. Fearg rides up the hill, and then jumps off and rages, charging up to the creature trying to eat Dara and whacking it with Shol, his magic ax. 

The other two zoom down towards the other group. Belle hits one with an arrow, but it lands on her horse in front of her and stabs her, drinking her blood. The third one attacks Keenan, and Zook watches in horror as Keenan's skin becomes taught. Keenan panics a bit ("TOO BIG BUGS") and hurls a spell at one of them, shrinking it to about the size of a person, which is still far too big, but better.

Aisling throws some healing at Keenan, and beats on her drum to inspire the others. Clara scampers up the rock and sees the wizard at the back of the cave, nowhere to go. She runs up to him and pummels him into unconsciousness, and quickly ties him up, figuring they'll want to interrogate him later. She turns and runs out of the cave, but things aren't going well.

These bugs can take a frightening amount of punishment - Fearg strikes with his ax, Dara sinks panther-fangs, Aisling fires crossbow bolts and Zook throws magic missiles around. But they aren't able to get the one on Belle's horse away, and it stabs her through the chest. She collapses off her horse and falls to the ground, unmoving. Aisling leaps off her horse and tries to heal her, but her skin remains pale and bluish. She is gone.

Another of the bugs stabs Fearg, and he falls and slides down the hill. The third buzzes its wings, and Zook falls unconscious from the noise. But Clara leaps off the rock and pummels one of them, and Aisling throws a healing word at Fearg and he awakens. He charges up the hill and rages again, cutting one of the bugs in half!

The fight suddenly seems winnable! Dara calls down a moonbeam onto a bug, while Keenan smacks the other and shocks it. It tries to stab Zook, but his lingering shield spell protects him, and the others weaken it until Fearg gets down the hill. He strikes with Shol, and cleaves it in two. Meanwhile, Clara punches the last one, burning her hand on Dara's moonbeam but crushing its head. The fight is over...

...but Belle is beyond help. Clara tells them that Pól is up on the plateau, and Fearg wipes the goo from his ax. Aisling says that they need to question him, but Fearg makes it clear that he's not walking away from this. 

Dara, Clara, and Aisling climb up the hill (Dara quaffs a potion of mind reading she'll been saving). They find Pól trying to get free, but they put a stop to that - Dara calls up a shillelagh and he calms. They ask him about the tablet and why he did all this. He says that the tablet showed him horrible and beautiful things, and let him call on blessings he never imagined. Dara peers into his head and sees an undercurrent of black murder, but no possession, no magical influence. Clara asks when this all happened, and he claims that these demonic entities have been here in Abhaile forever. "Why should we deny the truth?" he asks, and the murder in his brain grows engorged. 

Dara looks closer, and she realizes something truly disquieting. Something made him like this, but not magically. If Pól were a stream in the forest, something didn't alter the content of the water, it changed the course of the stream, which is just as weird as it sounds. The three of them press him a little more about his motives, what he was hoping to accomplish, here, what truths he learned from the tablet. He claims he used it to make contact with entities from the Nine Hells, and seems unafraid and unconcerned. "It's worth it," he says. "It's divine."

At this point Fearg climbs into the cave. He walks to Aisling and cups her cheek with his hand. "I love you," he says, "but I need you to leave the cave and go back down the hill." Aisling nods, and she, Dara, and Clara leave. They tell each other that there's no point in letting him live, even if Fearg could be convinced.

They hear Fearg's cry of rage behind them, and then a series of blows, starting with the ax hitting flesh and eventually changing to the ax hitting rock. Fearg emerged, covered in blood, but the ax oddly clean. 

Keenan, meanwhile, tells the others that he and Fearg need to go to Belle's home village of Osclaimid. He says that he can't ask them to go along, but Zook says that as far as he's concerned, they're all the same party at this point. Aisling asks if they're taking Belle back there, but Keenan laughs and says she hated her home village. Dara suggests laying her to rest in Rí na Bláthanna, and Keenan says she'd like that - on a hill, able to see for miles, is where she'd want to stay.

The heroes retrieve their horses and ride in silence back to the village. Uilliam comes out to meet them again, but his face falls when he sees the empty horse and Fearg carrying a body. He is, of course, quite willing to let them bury her on the nearby burial hill, and at sunrise the next day, the six of them gather around her fresh grave.

Keenan starts, and explains that his mother was a witch, and his village decided she was evil and drove the two of them away. They traveled east and met up with Belle, and found a nice little town for his mom to live in. But then he and Belle met Losh, the bard, and the three of them traveled north but met Fearg coming out of the north. They didn't want to go further north since Fearg had just come from there, Belle was from the east, Keenan from the west, so they headed into central Abhaile until they met a group of adventures losing a fight to an ogre. Keenan says that Belle was quiet, but competent. He says that she's the one who was likely to know things that were helpful, whereas he tends to know things that aren't helpful.  

Zook agrees - with Belle being competent, anyway. She was stoic, but a skilled ranger and clearly had the same regard for others and desire to do right that brings any adventurer into this. Dara notes that as an outdoorsy sort of person who generally keeps things inside, she felt some kinship with Belle.

Aisling does not offer a eulogy, but instead sings a funeral song common to her region. The heroes stand around the grave for a moment, listening to her song, and then quietly walk back down the hill. Keenan carries Belle's bow and boots to return to her family in Osclaimid. 

D&D: Bad Horses

Go ahead, sing it, get it out of your system. Here's last time.

Our heroes rent some horses (not bad ones) and head out after Pól, the wizard apprentice who apparently murdered their friend Luch and fled with the Madoc Tablet. He's got a two-day head start, but that's no problem for Belle. Tracking turns out to be not difficult anyway, as he mainly sticks to the road. He seems to be heading north, and of course as the characters travel, the terrain gets hillier. 

They ride their horses hard, but not hard enough to hurt or overstress them. After a day and some change, they arrive at the foot of a hill on the top of which is a village. The hillside is covered in flowers, but Zook notes that there are furrows in the flowers, like paths maybe? But they seem irregular. Weird.

The adventurers ride to the top of the hill, and see a few houses and a larger, central building - maybe a communal kitchen. They also see a dead horse lying on the ground, a bunch of arrows sticking out of it. No people are evident, and there's a general air of dread. 

Dara, who's been just galloping along as a horse herself, changes back into elf form. Aisling hops down off her horse and calls out, and someone opens a shuttered window in the main building and sticks his head out. He asks after their horses, and Aisling says they're fine. The man says that the horses here are infected.

Aisling doesn't have time to ask what he means - a group of horses charge them! Four of them are ugly, green-grey things with running sores and wild looks in their eyes, but the fifth is even worse. Its mouth is distended into a vicious maw, its big chompy teeth cracked into pointed fangs. It is wearing a saddle, but the saddle seems to have melded with its flesh. Aisling smacks her horse on the butt and sends it away - if this condition is infected, she doesn't want her horse getting it. Fearg, Keenan, and Clara follow suit.

The infected horses slam into the characters! Clara, Aisling, Dara, and Fearg all take hooves to the noggin, and all but Aisling are knocked to the ground. A fifth horse charges Belle and kicks at her, but she keeps control of her own mount and isn't as badly rattled. Zook throws a firebolt at the "leader" horse, but the fire just licks around it harmlessly. "Demons," he mutters.

Clara gets up and scampers to a rooftop, taking a breath to regain her composure (and a Second Wind). Dara stands up and calls down a moonbeam on the leader horse, and Aisling follows that up with a cloud of daggers. Fearg picks himself up and rages, lashing out with his ax, and Belle dismounts and starts shooting arrows. The horses lash out - the main one biting at Zook, but its teeth stopped by his shield spell. Clara leaps back into the fray, trying to land on a horse, but misses and lands next to it. She shrugs and punches the beast in the head, knocking it down.

Others aren't so lucky, however. The horse Clara knocked gets back up and kicks her into unconsciousness, and then rears up and continues kicking! Fearg and Dara are likewise downed. Aisling throws a healing word at Dara, figuring that she can then heal the others, and shoots a horse with her crossbow. Keenan reaches out and smacks a horse on the snoot ("BAD HORSE"), and casts a shocking grasp spell, and Zook throws magic missiles around. The leader horse falls dead, but the others are still alive and kickin', literally!

Belle surveys the battlefield and sees the horse kicking Clara to death, and puts an arrow in its head, killing it. Aisling notes that Fearg is down and yells a healing spell at him, and he gets up and rages again, chopping madly at a horse, while Keenan fires crossbow bolts (he's realized that his offensive spells basically all involve fire, which doesn't seem to work on these things). The heroes manage to keep themselves alive and conscious long enough to fell the horses, one by one, and soon they all lay dead.

As for what infected them (and, indeed, what's become of their own horses), we'll find that out next time! 

D&D: Fog at the Party

D&D once again! Here's last time.

Our heroes spend a few days in Cian doing their various things. Clara meditates with the city monks and learns about how they view city life as having its own pulse and vibe, and she gets it, but it's not for her. Zook takes some gold from the group's collection and scribes a bunch of the scrolls he's collected into his spellbook, and helps Silé to do the same. Dara visits the library and reads up on treants, looking for a way to help Shol and Ros rest. She learns, unfortunately, that what Breasel essentially did was murder a thinking, living being and put its soul into weapons - the only way to help them "rest" is probably to burn them. Is that appropriate, like putting down a monster? Dara isn't sure.

Aisling, however, has machinations within machinations, and a few days later they are revealed - she's throwing a party! She rents out the courtyard behind the Lute's Echo, pays some junior bards from the Bard's College to come and play music and do some decorative magic, and makes sure the ale and wine flow freely. 

Midway through the party, she gets up on the stage and thanks everyone for coming, and then hops down and finds her party, one by one, to give them gifts and thank them for their contributions on their adventures.

She gives Dara a pair of hair-sticks with birds on the top. She gives Clara a pair of Boots of Elvenkind, which make her stealthy and silent. She gives Zook a new scroll case, and Belle a new quiver, both decorated and embossed professionally. She gives Keenan a fancy new hat.

And to Fearg, she gives the ring she commissioned from Darragh Bumpshadow, a ring with two hands holding a heart that carries a bit of magic; it will keep him warm. She calls it a "ring of heart-warming." 

The party continues, quantities of wine are consumed, Clara eats too many tarts...and then suddenly, the entire courtyard is enveloped in fog. Someone yells out "Is this part of the party?" Aisling confirms it is not, and Zook can tell just by looking around that this fog is magical. Belle backs up and jumps up on the wall that separates the courtyard from the stables, but the fog is higher than that. She jumps back onto the stable roof and can see the "borders" - the fog pretty much just covers the courtyard, as she can see the street, but no clue what's causing it.

Aisling and others start trying to get people towards the inn doors, and people are nervous, but no real danger seems evident...but then there's a loud cackle, and Keenan cries out in pain and stumbles against Zook. "Something stabbed me!" 

Aisling pokes her head into the inn and sees that it's free of fog. She sees Buach, the proprietor, and tells him to summon the guards. He agrees and runs off...a little too frightened for a famous adventurer, Aisling thinks, but she doesn't have time to deal with that now. 

Dara dispels the fog magic, but only half of the courtyard is de-fogged; apparently two spells were cast. Most of the partygoers are now visible, though a lot of them have headed for the street (including Silé's party and Séadna, the former Sworn). No one is wearing their armor or carries a weapon, which is making folks nervous. Belle remains on top of the stables, acting as lookout, though she notes that she doesn't have her bow. 

Fearg is trying to guide an old lady into the building, and she snaps at him, "You keep away, you little lovesick puppy!" She taps him on the forehead and Fearg melts into a little dog! The woman, too, changes - she becomes taller and uglier, her claws elongate. The adventurers gasp - they know a hag when they see one. But that's not what stabbed Keenan.

Another hag steps out of the fog, cackling evilly! Clara scampers over and punches her, stunning her (which might well have made the difference in this battle). 

The battle is joined! Dara hits the hag with a moonbeam, and she loses concentration and Fearg regains his form. He rages and punches at the hag, but without his weapon there's only so much he can do. Zook throws magic missiles and Keenan casts burning hands, but the just growls, backs up (ignoring Fearg's punches), and throws lightning at them!

Well, she tries. Zook counters the spell, but it's much more effortful than it should be. He realizes that one hag is drawing power from the other, and had that lightning hit them, there's no telling how much damage it would have done. He throws some scorching rays at the hag, but misses and only succeeds in setting the building on fire.

"Wasn't me this time!" yells Keenan. Aisling rummages around in her bag of holding (which she was using to hold presents) and pulls out Shol. She hands the axe to Fearg, whose eyes light up with manic rage and he charges the hag, slicing at her.

"A LITTLE HELP HERE, SALLY," yells the hag, but Sally is otherwise occupied, getting halfling-punched. Aisling and Zook pepper her with magic missiles, and Keenan mutters "Sorry, big guy" and casts a sleet storm, extinguishing the fire and dousing the hag in ice (also Fearg, but he doesn't seem to care). 

The heroes fell the hag, and the remaining one, Sally, screams "NO! ANN! You all weren't supposed to do that!" She vanishes into the Ethereal Plane, the fog finally falls (revealing Darragh curled up in a ball, trying to avoid getting hit), and the heroes breathe. Belle emerges from a door with her bow ("OK, I'm here- oh, dammit"). 

They hear battle sounds from the street, but they end a second later. Séadna comes around the corner and tells Aisling that there was a third hag, but he and the other adventurers fought her off. Naoise, the elf rogue who runs with Silé, arrives rubbing his jaw, and asks if anyone has seen his wizard. The heroes look around, but Silé is nowhere to be found.

Zook grabs something from her room and gives it to Maeve to sniff, but there are too many smells and she's not sure what to do. Dara casts a spell and instructs her, and Maeve picks up Silé's scent and leads them behind the stable. As she does, she starts growling, and tells them she smells fire and bad smoke - the sometimes-winged lady they've fought before. The heroes guess that what Maeve means is Nymnixia, the succubus.  

Maeve leads them to a hole behind the stables that leads into the sewers, but at that point she can't smell Silé anymore (or Nymnixia, for that matter). The heroes gear up and return, where they find Silé's party ready to head down. They're prepared to go on their own, but the heroes insist (and Aisling feels perhaps a little responsible). They enter the sewers and spend hours searching, but Maeve can't get a trail. All they find is a phrase carved in Abyssal on the wall: "If you hesitate, the getting is gone."

They aren't sure what to make of this; Zook feels it means they need to press on, but they don't really have anywhere to press on to. They head back to the inn, dejected, and wash off the stink. All they can do is bed down for the night.

In the morning, they reconvene and decide to go and ask someone at the Wizard's College for help. First, though, Aisling shares her suspicions about Buach, and asks him if he has any knowledge of hags or succubi. He doesn't, but Clara notes that he's hiding something. He's not lying, really, but he's not telling them something important. 

Most of them go to the Wizard's College, but Dara stays behind. She turns into a mouse and follows Buach throughout his day, eventually winding up in his office. He's got a lute over his desk and a sword crossed with a shillelagh on the wall, but when she looks at them closely, she realizes the sword has no nicks - it's brand new. 

Meanwhile, the heroes go to the College and ask for help with hags. The apprentice they talk to tells them there's a wizard name Idé who is expert in all things feywild, but she's not here at the moment. What about succubi, then? Best one to talk to about fiends is Luch, who of course they know. She sends them up to his office, but they find it locked.

They knock, but there's no answer. Aisling tells Fearg to kick it in, and he tries, but then staggers back in pain ("magic," he mutters). They call the apprentice, and she tells them that the doors has been closed up with an arcane lock spell, but she can easily find a wizard to open it with a knock. Once she does, they open the door to Luch's rooms...and find them in disarray.

Everything is knocked over or smashed. Luch himself lies up against a wall, his throat slashed. They find a wizard's robe in the corner, covered in blood; someone stood in front of Luch and cut his throat. His collection of tiny mice are scattered on the floor, and the characters assume his stuff has been plundered.

They aren't sure what all he kept in here, but they search anyway, and determine that one thing is particular is definitely missing: the tablet that contained the contract between Madoc and Orcus. But why steal that? Luch himself said that it was devoid of power since it was broken. The heroes theorize that it might be the third signatory, the one Luch called "the Witness," trying to cover his tracks. 

Investigation reveals that the wizard that owned the robe is one Pól, and he's missing. He's never been known to have a predilection for demonic things before, but he's gone now.

The heroes reconvene and share everything with Dara, and she tells them about Buach. They decide they can't just let that go, not given their history with inn proprietors, so Aisling, Fearg, and Clara take Buach into his office and confront him.

With some prodding (and Fearg glowering menacingly), he tells them the truth. He's not Buach the Bard. Buach was his twin brother; he's called Lugh. He and his brother lived outside of Cian after coming south from the mountains, and Buach fell in with the Bard's College while he just worked and lived in obscurity. And then Buach went away on an adventure and never returned, and Lugh took his place and opened the Lute's Echo. 

This is what happens to adventurers, says Lugh. They go away, they retire to remote villages, or they get eaten by something. The heroes nod, and agree not to blow Lugh's cover (he's trading on his brother's name, yes, but he's not hurting anyone and the inn is really nice). He's not a doppelganger, anyway.

The adventurers decide to pursue Pól and make him answer for what he did to Luch. Belle points out that he has a two-day head start, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem - not like the guy is subtle. The heroes prepare to leave, and Dara glances as Shol, currently strapped across Fearg's back. 

"Remember", it whispers to her...  

D&D: Run, Fearg, Run!

Hey Nonny Nonny! Here's last time.

Our heroes awakened in Cian and go about their errands. They briefly discuss splitting up, but pretty much everyone wants to be present for all the things, so they all seven of them troop off together. Fearg says that the battle-ax they found, the one that calls itself Shol, identified the man who bought the pick (the axe's "love") as a Sworn named Séadna. Of course, he was a Sworn decades ago, so he might be dead by now.

First stop: The magical trinket shop of Darragh Bumpshadow. Darragh welcomes them warmly (she'd better, they saved her life last time they were here). Aisling pulls out some of the stuff they've acquired on their travels for appraisal. 

Gold rings set with bloodstones, a silver necklace set with a bloodstone, these are nice pieces, but not magical or otherwise interesting, and Darragh buys them (figuring she'll enchant them and them flip them). The bronze crown that they found in Madoc's Keep, though, has some historical significance - Darragh says that the Sworn, the hand-picked royal guards, used to wear these about 50 years ago. She doesn't see any markings to indicate who might have owned it, but Aisling figures someone in the Sworn might want it just for historical reasons.

The carved statue of the dragon-person baffles Darragh, though. She can't figure out the material - too heavy and smooth to be bone, and Zook's suggestion that it's a dragon's tooth makes sense, but she thinks the texture is wrong (though freely admits she has very limited experience with dragon teeth). She suggests they check with the Wizard's College.

The gold-woven vestments, though, she can identify. She has Dara cast a moonbeam spell on it, and there on the inside is an insignia that only Dara can see. She reproduces it for Darragh, and she identifies it as the mark of Aindrias, an elf and metalworker who used to live and work in Cian. Last Darragh heard, he'd moved up into a mountain village near a gold mine. The heroes decide to hold on to the vestments - if their travels take them up that way, maybe they'll find him!

That's all they have for Darragh, except that Aisling commissions a ring with two hands holding a heart, and asks it be enchanted to make the wearer warm and cozy, warding off cold. She agrees and tells Aisling to come back tomorrow and they can talk pricing, and the heroes move on to their next stop!

That stop happens to be the Wizard's College! They are admitted to see Luch, the wizard that they spoke with about demons and such things last time they were here. He takes them to his offices, strewn with books and magical trinkets, and a shelf of little mouse figurines ("oh," he says when they ask, "my name - Luch - means 'mouse' in some dialects, so, you know"). 

They show him the statue, and he casts a spell on it to identify the material, and then excitedly shows them a picture of an immense beast with huge ears, a skinny tail, but a weird, long, hose-like protuberance on its face and enormous tusks! This creature, various called an "olyphant" or a "pachyderm" is the source of the material, called "ivory." Dara isn't happy about harvesting such materials from an animal, and Luch admits he isn't sure whether you have to kill it to take the ivory. Not much is known about these creatures; they live far out in the western badlands. 

As for what the statue depicts, Luch shows them pictures (in a different book) of "dragonborn," offspring of dragons and humans. (Clara: "...how?" Aisling: "Dragons can shapeshift in a lot of stories." Keenan: "Gods, I hope so.") 

From there, they move on to the contract between Orcus and Madoc. Luch reads it over and comes to the same conclusion they did, that Madoc was a revenant and the contract extended his year-long "unlifespan" as long as he stayed in the keep. But, also like the adventurers, Luch is fascinated by the third signatory, the "Witness," who signed with a mark and a cryptic phrase: "I won't lie if there's something to be gained." He asks that they leave the contract with him for further study, and they agree - since it's void, it's not likely to be dangerous. 

Finally, Aisling and Zook both show Luch some trinkets they've been carrying. Aisling produces a book that won't accept writing; anything she writes in it fades immediately. Luch says it's a prank, a book enchanted to mess with wizards. It must be old, because when it was new, the magic wouldn't kick in immediately, it would wait until someone had written for a while and then fade. He casts a spell and breaks the enchantment, so now at least Aisling has a blank book. 

Zook shows him a small cube, weighing only an ounce, of a material he can't identify. He found it in the robes of the wizard who died near his village, the one whose spellbook he took up when he became an adventurer. Luch casts the same identification spell on it, but then winces in pain, and his nose starts to bleed! He says that he cannot identify the stuff, but only knows for sure that it's not alive. Zook apologizes, and Luch says to keep him appraised if they figure it out. 

The heroes take their leave, and head to Armorer's Row to try and unload the breastplate they found. They find a blacksmith with an oddly green skin tone and large teeth, who examines the armor and says that it's made of mithral - pretty rare! As none of them can wear it (rather, Belle could, but she doesn't want to), they work out a trade. The smith, Peadar, will make some new armors for Belle and Aisling in exchange for the breastplate (he'll also pay a bit of gold for it, and he's still coming out well ahead). 

And then on to the library! They do a bit of historical research and find that every Sworn has a book dedicated to their exploits. Some of them are blacked out (because sometimes Sworn go bad), but they find Séadna's and learn that he's still alive and living in Cian. They dig up his address, and decide to head there.

Séadna lives on the third floor of his building, and rather than have a whole mob of people go up, Fearg and Aisling go. They knock, and an old fella with a leathery look and a missing ear answers. He confirms that he's Séadna, and they can see the pick hanging over his mantle. 

They make a bit of small talk, and Aisling shows him the crown. He says that some Sworn carved their names into their crowns, but the inside of this one has been worn smooth. He also says the practice of wearing them fell out of favor because of the relative ease of casting heat metal. 

Séadna confirms that he bought the pick from a man named Breasel some 50 years ago and it served him well in his career. He agrees to sell it - it's magical so he takes 20 gold for it, which is considerably less than the heroes have kicking around. He hands it to Fearg...and Fearg immediately goes dead in the eyes, runs forward and out the door, and leaps off the balcony!

Aisling follows, and sees that Fearg has landed on the next building and keeps running. She yells for the others (who were grabbing a snack at a cafe on the corner), and they spring into action! 

Clara and Belle just parkour their way up the side of the building to chase them. Keenan, not an athlete at the best of times, casts haste on Zook and Clara. Zook jumps on Maeve and has her start taking the stairs up to the roof, while Dara turns into a cat and climbs up that way. Aisling and Keenan stay on the ground and start trying to get ahead of him.

Clara, of course, is the one that catches up with him. She runs up and tries to get him to stop, but he ignores her. Muttering a quick "sorry!" she strikes him, stunning him, and then pulls the pick from his hand. Fearg immediately snaps out of it.

He says that he just kind of went away when he grabbed the pick, but his goal was very clear: Kill Breasel. He knew where he was going, though it's vague without the presence in his head - out in the countryside somewhere. Dara takes up the axe and talks with Shol some more, and Shol tells her the truth - it and Ros were once Sholeros, a treant, and Breasel murdered him and turned his body into the two hafts for the weapons. Split forever and rendered into this form, Shol wants nothing but vengeance. Dara tries to convince it that it could carry on in some other form, but Shol thinks of itself as dead, wanting only to kill its killer.

Dara relays this to the others. Fearg and Zook aren't necessarily opposed - treants are living, sentient beings, and if this guy murdered one then he might deserve it. The others aren't so keen on murder, however. They decide to find Breasel and see what he has to say. 

They go back to Peadar and ask if he knows him, and he calls his mom out, a gruff, broad human woman. She confirms that she knows Breasel - talented woodworker and weaponsmith, from the south, used to sell goods in Cian, kind of a dick. She says that he retired to one of the villages around the city, but isn't sure exactly where. She says he's the kind of guy who'd find a bird's nest and eat all the eggs, just no respect for nature. 

The heroes talk about what to do, but eventually decide to let Zook hold the weapons and then follow him; he's not as fast as Fearg and they figure he won't be as dangerous because he won't be able to cast spells while holding the weapons. He takes up both the axe and the pick and zoom! He's off!

The others keep up as best they can, but Zook doesn't tire and soon it's just Belle and Dara keeping pace. Dara grabs his wrist with a thorn whip to try and yank the pick away, but he keeps his grip and strikes her with the axe! Dara realizes he's much stronger with these weapons in his hands. She casts entangle, but he tears right out.

Belle puts a dart in his shoulder, and when that doesn't work, yells for Dara to let him go and puts an arrow in his shoulder. And still Zook runs! By this time, though, Aisling has caught up, and throws a sleep spell at him. Zook collapses, and everyone takes a rest.

Zook wakes up and his legs are killing him (plus he's wounded; Belle apologizes, but Zook is understanding). They ask around since they've drawn some notice, and they're told that Breseal lives in a cottage just down the way. They find him, an old, grumpy man, sitting outside a cottage, smoking.

Breasel initially denies ever killing a treant, but when Clara mentions the axe buried in a rib cage, his eyes get wide and he grudgingly confesses. He brought the weapons to Cian and got in a brawl over a woman with a man named Conchúr, and killed him with the axe. He buried his body (and the axe) in a lot that was meant to be built over, but apparently that didn't happen. He expresses no remorse for anything he did, and while he never quite cops to killing the treant, he does say tell the heroes where he got the wood he used to make these weapons. It's a few days walk from where they are. 

Breasel tells them he's got one foot in the grave anyway - they want to kill him for something he doesn't remember doing 50 years ago? Go ahead. Shol is all for it (and in fact pushes so hard to possess whoever is holding it that Dara plunks both weapons into the bag of holding Aisling is carrying). The heroes are all set to start walking, but Keenan reminds them they have other irons in the fire in Cian. They decide to head back to the city and get their ducks in a row before doing anything. 

They get back to the Lute's Echo just after nightfall, and go the heck to bed (Zook's quads are killing him). They have plans for the morning - Aisling needs to go back and see Darragh Bumpshadow and Peadar the armorer. Clara is going to find the city monks and do some meditating, maybe learn how to cope better with crowds. Zook needs to transcribe some spells into his book, which is time consuming. He figures he'll invite Silé to join him and maybe pay for her materials. Dara intends to hit the library again to learn more about treants, and maybe try to figure out how to put Shol and Ros to rest without killing anyone.

Next time - further adventures in Cian!