Date: 8:30 PM 7/31/2004 Game date: Pel was out doing a morning scout the day after the attack of the horror contructs. He noticed that something just felt wrong and began to scan the horizon. A few peaks to the SSW there appears to be a large flying fortress surrounded by several airships. There appears to be a Great Dragon attacking the fortress. The dragon is larger than the airships. The battle appears to be a day and a half flight away. =-=-=-=-= Shivaro is up and chasing a frog. Marsell was woken up by the frog that Shivaro had lost. Doyle has begun a bonfire, with Kosca assisting, in prep for the Fire Heal Ritual. Those who need spend recovery tests to heal wounds. Vopanis and Pel. Raggnor and Marsell notice Pel is not present. Raggnor and Masell decide to go hunting. Vopanis gets up and performs his karma ritual and a small end of his tail falls off as normal. Raggnor discovers something in the bushes which takes off down a hole. Raggnor sticks his hand down the hole after the creature and manages to grab it. Raggnor recognizes the creature as edible, snaps it's neck and bags it. Marsell sees something come up out of a hole and identifies it as some kind of groundhog. Marsell manages to skewer the poor hapless creature with an arrow. Marsell stumbles across Shivaro who says, "Mine!", and hides something in her hands Marsell says, "ooohh-kay" and points her in the direction of Raggnor. Shivaro continues to roll in the mud. Raggnor and Marsell return to camp three hours later with food. Raggnor begis cooking the food up. Pel returns from his morning scout and relays the info re: the flying fortress to the group. Raggnor manages to cook up a rather tasty dish of vole. Discussion ensues on Pels news. Thoughts of obtaining a damaged airship are discussed. Pel finishes his meal and pipes his varkas over for some food. The group strikes camp and heads west. Pel, flying aboard his varkas, hears thunder akin to cannons in the distance. An arrow flies past Pel who banks and dives for cover. Another arrow streaks out of the bushes and strikes Raggnor The arrow shot at Silvara missed. The group is facing 3 orcs, 2 elves and a human Initiative. The foes appear to be 100yds out Raggnor charges the most heavily armed foe - an orc just to the right of center of the semicircle facing us. Kosca sprinted up close and personal to the group. Doyle moved halfway to the group and threw a black fireball at two of the foes to the left of center a human and an elf. Shivaro using her sling hit one of the cadaver men in the head Vopanis shot, however, takes a foe in the chest, causing him to take a step back. Silvara sprints up to the 3rd orc and with a snicker-snack annoyed he heck out of it. Corlon shot the cadaver man in front of him with earth darts Marsells shot goes wide of her target. The foes attack The one that Kosca frenzied and jumped up to his feet. The cadaver man that Silvara attacked rakes her and does no damage The cadaver man that Raggnor "boo'ed" attacks and is severly - "Discouraged" Pel moves up 75 yds on his varkas and Battle Shouts. New Initiative Kosca smacks the cadaver man twice and it just went to pieces... Corlon shot the cadaver man in front of him with earth darts Doyle Air Danced, Tiger Sprung, Gliding Stride and down strikes and Second Attack... the two cadaver men dropped... Shivaro using her sling hit one of the cadaver men in the head Raggnor smacks the cadaver man in front of him with a halberd and splits him in two. Pel casts Root Trap and entangles the last cadaver man. Marsell shot the entangled cadaver man with an arrow. Volpanis followed Marsell's shot with his own and finished off the cadaver man. Pel grabs some height and scouts around for anything else moving/other threats. Corlon begins taking samples of the cadaver mans flesh. Discussion ensues re: how far the cadaver men can wander from the horror that created them. Doyle was able to determine that a horror has passed though here but has not made a home in the area. Marsell contributes that the stronger a horror-construct is the farther it can wander awat. Doyle has found a week old, gutted by cadaver men claws, dead body Raggnor sends Pel ahead to check out the village we were headed to. Pel, using his Air Whisper knack, tells Raggnor that there is a fire in the village 5 miles ahead Discussion re: cremating the bodies. Marsell argues to cremate the dead bodies and Raggnor wants to move out. Marsell and Doyle agree to stay behind and toss the bodies on the fire and join up with the rest of the group. Pel gets close enough to see 8 burning buildings a few smaller burning items on the other side of a small river. There is a pier in the river and a thundra beast moving on it's own without a rider near the pier. Pel flies back to get close enough to the party and lets Raggnor know what he saw. Pel flies back to the village and takes up position in a tree on the opposite side of the river from the village. Silvara, Corlon, Volpanis, and Raggnor arrive and head into the village. Pel takes flight and joins the group. We find a building w/ an impact crater from a fire cannon shot from an airborn platform. The group begins looking around... Raggnor hears some faint crying and a dog barking and takes off jogging in that direction Pel hears the dog barking and sees Raggnor jogging off and follows at height to keep an eye on things... Volpanis and Shivaro swim across the river, Doyle and Marsell fly across... Raggnor finds the crying and dog barking coming from a well in the taverns yard. Raggnor sheds his armor and begins climbing down the well. The child crying is calling for it's father and the dogs barking is echoing. Raggnor gets to the bottom and finds a dog swimming around in the pool. Raggnor grabs the dock, calls out to Corlon, "Corlon, catch!" and throws the dog up and out of the well. Looking carefully around Raggnor discovers a windling girl child. In windling, Raggnor attempts to sooth the child and get her out of the well. The child knows "uncle" Trond and with a little coaxing manages to get the child out of the well. Pel takes the child under his wing and wraps his spare cloak around her. Raggnor states we need to find tracks out of here and tasks Pel with watching after the child. Doyle begins checking the houses and finds bodies. After a brief discussion Pel finds that the child had a human father and mother is missing. Pel discovers that the child has taffy on her hands and leaves sticky marks on everything she touches. Pel decides to call her "Taffy" which she likes. He manages to get her on the varkas and goes looking for the tracks and such that Raggnor needs. Doyle finds that a mother grandmother and child that had been broken into and a line of tracks leading to a depression in the earth where the tracks ended. It appears that the slavers led the villagers to the airship and took off. Pel finds the standard tracks for a trading post, the tracks of an elf and the dead body of a troll. Pel relays this to Raggnor. Raggnor looks over the airship depression and discovers that it's about a day old and the ship was a Theran drakkar. The troll is wearing the uniform of a Theran marine. There are also tracks here of an Obsidiman whose tracks stayed in the vicinity of the shop. Raggnor suggests that we use the necklace Taffy holds to finds her father with the Direction Arrow talent Marsell has. As we're talking Taffy into this we find out that the Therans had taken the children in the village. Taffy's father Samuel Shootingstar and Trond Crunch along with Samuels new wife had gone after the Therans to get the children back. We also find out that Trond's son had been taken. Marsell slits the palm of her hand and uses life magic to extend the range of the Direction Arrow. From this we discover that Taffy's father is outside of 6 miles. When Marsell hands the necklace back to Taffy she finds her hand and arm sticky with taffy. In Taffy's other hand we find a coin of Elemental Coin of Earth. It seems that there was a horse tied up at the inn that Taffy liberated the coin from - though she swears she took it from behind the ear of her dog. Taffy states the horse asked to be untied so it could go eat the grass. Pel manages to track the horse and discovered it 2 miles out. Pel and Taffy lead it bac kto the rest of the group. In it's saddle bags are mages robes, 1 tome, 3 vials one of them a smelly potion and a bag of bones The horse belonged to a traveler who stopped @ the inn. Also found are: A bag of money is found with the mark of King Neddon the 3rd of the Dwarven kingdom on it, bags of bones, a journal written in Theran, a selection maps, which Pel snags to study. Corlon ID's the smelly vial as a poison but not what type. Pel looks it over and states it's not a windling poison Doyle manages to identify the poison as an strong ingested sedative. Raggnor looks over the journal and discovers the owner was from Narlanth. Silvara states that Narlanth is the Theran House of Mages. Raggnor, using Thread Sight, manages to discover that the journal is a pattern item and the 1st Key Knowledge - the owners name: Joeth Drawne, who was a Horror Stalker/Nethermancer. Raggnor weaves a thread to the journal. Pel examines the maps and discovers they show various parts of Parlainth. They are drawn with different hands, even the same map seems to be drawn by several people. Pel examines the maps to see if they are pattern items - they aren't. He looks at it via Astral Sensetive Sight - nothing seen. Doyle examines the grimoir and discovers it is a pattern item. He discovers the name of the Owner: Joeth Drawne and the paper is creana and the cover and binding is crocodile skin. Discussion ensues on how Doyle and Marsell died - by dragon fire in Thera. Raggnor mentions that all they have to do to get his axe back was to ask the dragon for it. Marsell doesn't like that idea. She has a 'thing' about dragons... Discussion ensues re: how Raggnor and Silvara died and Marsell's role in it. Corlon states, "Pel, we're traveling with dead people." Raggnor mentions that they aren't undead, they're either dead or alive but technically they aren't undead... Corlon states, "Pel, we're traveling with people who kill each other." General discussion... Everyone earns 600 LP