Hezeroth the talking cat started to teach Rovan more magic, and wanted to be escorted to “Castle Stormwing”, some bit to the east. We were quite prepared to do that for the little fella, but then we heard disturbing rumors, and one of them stated that Morgansfort itself had been attacked by a warband of orcs.

Well, Morgansfort being easterly-ish it was only a small detour from bringing the cat to Stormwing, so we spoke to it and it/he assented. And so we found ourselves in front of a completely fine Morgansfort – the rumor had been bullshit – and got taxed 10% for our trouble.

Well, now that we were already here we spoke to Father Thelbain the cleric and told him about our adventure with the necromancer, and about the undead and weird creatures still present there. He was worried, but could not decipher the runes the necromant had used on his altar. So he sent us to the wizard Palamides.From him we learned that there were multiple such sites in these forests, and he was always on the lookout for them, mainly because he was seeking a particular magic wand that was supposed to be hidden in one of them – but not in ours: He was describing something like vampires as the owners of that vault.

Both of these elders knew Stormwing not as a castle but rather as a village out 4 days east. Barbarian land there, weird customs, even weirder religions. Hunters, fighters, even druids who try to mislead good people. Best to stay away, they said. But adventurers do not listen to such talk.

Expedition Time

We bought Rations and a donkey to carry whatever we didn’t want to shoulder, and we called the donkey Tom, after Tomandy the tax-collecting bailiff.

We also paid our tab in the Inn: Loryn the Innkeep collected 15 gold each.

So we see, money sifts away through our fingers like fine sand.

Early morning after a night of rain we set out, going south before the road would turn east. We met some fellow adventurers on the way, loaded with treasure, and eyeing us in turn to judge how rich we may have hit it.
So not the brightest guys, given that we were just coming from Morgansfort, not from an expedition.

An elf cleric called Nubi Gulnar, an Elf mage called Ebe Alcaldes, a silent spearman called Chambers, and a leader called Lacayan, probably a thief.

Bad news, those people explained that their wealth came from wiping out a bunch of kobolds. We must assume that would have been our little allies on the island. Bummer, but there’s no way yet to get spilt milk back into the bottle. As a tiny way of civilized revenge, Darion did not warn them about the taxes in Morgansfort and spoke over his comrades when they steered toward that topic.

The other adventuring party was oddly interested in maps and claimed that eastwards there were lots of old ruins and castles, with nobody knowing where they came from and who built them, or what they were called. Stormwing was a village, a castle might be close or might not be.

Stalkers in the Night

We camped off the road at night, and at one point heard 2 people walking around looking for something in the darkness. We wondered how to find out more, so we asked Hezeroth the cat to check that out: as a natural sneaker he had the best chances to scout without trouble.

And yet, trouble came: We heard wild noises of agony in the distance, and then Hezeroth came back and said the two had run into a bear.

Come morning we found them, ripped to shreds, and looted their longbow+10 arrows for Darion, knives,  tools, 32 silver, a lantern, shovels. Oddly, Vaeva didn’t find any bear tracks. We discussed it and thought about druids, who are reputed to turn freely between human and animal forms.

Under the Bridge

Going on we finally crossed the river to go east. Under the bridge was dark, creepy cave full of broken bones and with a stink to turn a gnoll’s stomach. Three skinned animals dangled from hooks under the bridge too… we decided to go on a bit quicker.

Loneforge

And so we came to Loneforge, a small village at a large lake, with palisades and fishing-focused, and one community house with a carved wooden throne smack in the center. The people don’t like much: neither strangers nor the big city, neither barbarians or druids nor animals or basically anything that wasn’t born and raised right there.

Most of all they don’t like Stormwing, where we are headed. They knew of castles, but felt that nobody should go to any of them. Best to never leave home.

And yet, they allowed us to stay for a bit when we said we were drawing a map and putting their place on it.

The leader, Skelf, oddly claimed to be born with Barbarian blood, even though he didn’t like them. The villagers didn’t believe it anyway, so no harm done. Except to his 15-year-old son Harold, who had been struck down by a sickness or curse after the visit of a shaman or druid here in town, where he was treated poorly and left in anger.

Skelf hated druids for this evil deed and reviled their faith, even though he himself believed in “the 100 spirits” instead of a proper pantheon.

Well, that’s the deep country, whaddayaknow.

Our clerics were not able to help Harold, who showed all the telltale signs of curse & possession and had to be tied down so he wouldn’t hurt himself or others. Bad business, and we wanted to help, so we planned to check with stronger spells the next day.

Adelyn

We stayed in the longhouse and invited the villagers to a fish-BBQ to get to know them. But they had enough fish themselves and didn’t trust our strange ways.

Only one person in the village was more open-minded and talked to us a lot: a smart widow called Adelyn. From her we learned much: The creepy cave belonged to a spooky horror story called “The Old River Woman” who supposedly eats at night, and eats everything she can get that has eyes.

Farmer Pieter had seen something like a Devil.

And Harold often yells a weird name, Jezgotha.

Stormwing is an isolated Barbarian place east of here, with no road going there, but Adelyn promised to connect us to a skilled hunter who could lead us at least most of the way.

Hezeroth

Darion asked the cat about that name, Jezgotha, and the cat said that was a bad name and, perfectly in synch with the local villagers sentiment, that it was best to stay far away from that name and anything associated with it. Hez was slowly getting impatient and wanted to get to that castle where he was summoned.

Darion invited him to the healing attempt in the morning, hoping that the insight and wisdom of the cat may be a boon.

Apoqulis cast Detect Evil, and thus found definitive proof that Harold was not sick, but cursed, and cursed by something way stronger than we could handle.

He also saw that Hez didn’t really look like a cat. It’s real aspect was that of a fell beast right out of a horror story. And as Apo looked at the “cat”, it returned his gaze coolly, and spoke up, right there in the open, and told him. “Don’t try anything or I’ll kill everyone here.”

After this perplexing statement the cat turned around and walked out like… like a cat.

Darion called after it: “Don’t go far, maybe we’ll need your advice!”

It said: “No worries, I’ll be close as always.”

And then it was gone.

Apoqulis tried another spell: Protection from Evil, to maybe lock the possessing spirit out.

It failed, and he got a powerful sending reverberating right in his brain: “You priest will suffer.”

Get help!

So we have bitten off something.

Potentially three very high level creatures from extraneous dimensions: Hez, Jez, and that Devil (if Jez and the Devil are different entities), plus a Boogeywoman under the bridge, and all of them clustered together here in this godsforsaken backwater nobody place. Potentially three of them headed for the same castle? For what?

Potentially all summoned by either one uber-powerful, or three competing, or (more worrying) three cooperating(?) summoners of considerable strength. What was going on? A magical creature contest a la “There can be only one?” in some sort of bloody Pokémon Arena? Or someone trying to dominate the world who starts to build an Army of Darkenesse here in the deep country of all places?

No kitty

Looking for Hez proved futile: The kitty-cat had made itself scarce for now and didn’t react to Darion rattling catnip in the hope to keep Hez as an ally, even though the clerics and elf were weirded out to their limits by the secret identity of our little purring comrade.

Why: the clerics think the cat is evil and has ripped those poor bastards in the wood apart for sport. While Darion thinks the cat might just come from the wrong dimension and had to take those seekers out because they noticed him, possibly saw him in his true form due to their own magics.

Anyway… this cannot be cleared up musing around the coffee table, it will take deeds to reveal everyone’s true heart.

A future, opaque

Next time we will take two boats and quickly travel back to Morgansfort to get Father Thelbain, hoping that he may be strong enough to break the possession on Harold.

And then we will have to deal with the fallout, when Jez comes knocking.

Will this pretty little campaign slip into a cruel Splatterpunk-fest?

Or will good old buddy Hezeroth stand by our side to protect Loneforge and its hapless fishermen? Is Adelyn simply a widow or is there more to her as well? Why is a devil walking these muddy roads when he could reap mightier harvest up north in the cities?

All this, and much more, will soon be revealed, when our story continues……… in Morgansfort.