Hook:
Returning to Witchlight and seeing what you find
064 - 260128 - Field Notes
Date:
446 PC, Highflare 50-53
Players:
Loot:
item 1 [claimed by]
item 2 [claimed by]
After Actions:
Keres:
Hi Steve, hope you're enjoying your cauldron of tea and so sorry about the late letter from Witchlight, didn't even realize I misplaced that. We spoke to one of their representatives about visiting, "Grief" she's called, and its an accurate name so don't question it. Candy, Dev, Die-Anna, and I ended up on the trek over there.
I know you wanted to know the profitability of this place, and before any conquesting happens, there's a fever around here that's a serious problem. "Axil", our angsty guide (with a lemur tailed cat named Scamp), gave us masks to protect against it. It comes with the fog, and it gets worse during Ashfall. He also pelted some of us with acorns, don't know what we did to deserve that. The "Myreblad Fever" comes with symptoms of cough, then rosacea before a wet, racking cough leads to death.
One of the elders I met with, a Drow named Sera Mossbound, told us the fog carrying the fever came when she was a child. 239 years ago. So far, they know nothing about a cure, but they could be keeping their cards close. How does a deadly sickness like that keep killing for so long? They've also kept the same calendar system, so it's E7, plan on bringing back whatever books we can on this.
Grief met us at the market, she's a tall Tiefling with a taller hat, seems to hate her job in greeting us. They use "chits" as currency, a wooden token that we bought some goods with. We plan on bringing back a Stryder/(Strider?), a raptor dinosaur that looks useful if we want to travel out longer distances.Candy and Die-Anna are dead set on buying one from a gnome named "Denzy", after trading Die-Anna's wardrobe ring. We also attempted to exchange our goods for more chits, but some odd old man didn't want legitimate goods, he wants girly mags. His name is "Buckins", stay the hells away from him. He licks your wares to assess their worth. I don't think he's all together in that head of his.
Going to continue learning and report back later. Peace out.
Dev:
The summer heat is finally starting to break, Soph, and the first hint of Ashfall is in the air. Everyone has set about repairs and renovations on the buildings they've chosen in Sifren. Merry has chosen to set up their tea business in an old pastry shop. They've got a pile of dirt behind the counter that they're using for a stress relief mat, which looks out of place but also makes perfect sense for a sentient tea bush. The place is clearly a work in progress, but it is showing potential. I'm proud of them.
While I was visiting Merry, I ran into Keres, Die-Anna and Candy who also came into their shop. Merry asked us to bring a cauldron of tea to Steve, and to ask him to send them help with the renovations. (Candy helpfully suggested pink wallpaper.)
As we brought the tea to Steve's office, Keres confessed that she just found the letter the Witchlight elders gave us three weeks ago. When we finally did give Steve the letter, he flipped out. We made him look bad because there's a whole village of people he didn't know anything about, blah, blah, blah...
We offered to go back to get more information for him, but he doesn't trust us enough. Keres tried to convince him, but he didn't seem to be buying it at first. Then he changed his mind - we could go, but we needed to demonstrate ways that the Banner could profit. (I gather that most of the stuff we've been finding is not whatever the higher-ups had in mind when they started our little expedition.)
So we had the okay from our side to go, but we still needed to obtain permission from Witchlight. Keres used a scroll to let them know we wanted to come and learn more about the village, but they didn't seem interested in talking to us. Eventually, the speaker relented and allowed us to visit their market as long as we stayed masked and remained under supervision. The catch? We had two days to get there, and our previous trips to the village took longer than that.
We made our preparations - Candy and Keres left their regular armor behind and borrowed some leather gear from Sarna to avoid offending our hosts. For some reason, the leather was dyed fuchsia. Candy loved it... Keres, not so much. We asked Eda if she wanted to come with us, but she just asked us to bring her books. We stopped by the commissary and Cook gave us a tray of blondies to trade.
We headed out, and we were making good progress at first. When we reached the forest, the path we had been following had gotten washed out in the recent rain and it slowed us down a little bit. Die-Anna was the first to notice that we were being watched from above.
A young half-elf with short-cropped purple hair came down out of a tree and whistled. A lemur-tailed cat jumped down after him. He introduced himself as Axil, our guide from Witchlight, and the cat was called Scamp. Axil told us he'd drop nuts to mark a path for us, but he clearly didn't want to be anywhere near us. He left masks for us to put on and warned us to steer clear of mushrooms and purple fuzz before returning to the treetops.
Axil led us along a direct path, but every so often he'd throw an acorn at my head if I fell too far behind. I successfully dodged most of them. When it was time to stop for the night, Axil led us to a cave with drinkable water and promised that the Good Neighbors would leave us alone.
Hook:
The second half of Field Notes, the question of how the group secures a dino raptor is as yet unanswered.
071 - 260323 - Dino Wrangling
Date:
446 PC, Highflare 53-55
Players:
Loot:
Strider named Bubblegum [Candy]
Copies of various contract scrolls [given to Eda]
After Actions:
Report to Steve
Highflare 55
Scouts Keres Di Y'syll, Die-Anna, Candy Rosenberry and I returned from Witchlight with a strider – a feathered lizard mount that we’ve seen the denizens of Witchlight use to good effect for scouting patrols and which may be suitable for use in a calvary unit. Scout Rosenberry secured an apprenticeship with a dwarf named Herren from Witchlight to learn how to ride and care for striders and she should be able to pass this knowledge along to other members of the Banner if we can secure more of the creatures.
We also brought back more information about the Mireblight Fever. It usually starts with a cough, then rosacea that spreads. It progresses to a wet, racking cough and eventually death. Although our hosts said that no one survives once they get sick, I believe they may not have been entirely truthful and there might have been rare exceptions.
The fever is a non-magical disease, but it may be of planar origin. Current theory favors water or air as the source. There have been three major outbreaks of Mireblight Fever in Witchlight’s recorded history, which goes back to around 250 PC. The first was around 415 PC, though there were likely some unconfirmed cases going back to 413 PC. The most recent was 15 years ago.
Scout Di Y’syll and I copied some contract scrolls detailing agreements between Witchlight residents and their Good Neighbors, which we turned over to Scholar Eda Hearthstone for further study.
Scout Dev