006 – Freyasday the 26th of Skerpla

It is an uneventful night and we all sleep well. Shaw seems to be more tired than usual and wishes to sleep in so we leave him in the camp and we leave Tibor with him.

Thorgrim senses something off nearby and he lands on the fireplace. He and Johnathan investigate and find a room behind it. They find a bundle of things with bones intertwined it looks like the shape of a claw. Something about this object is disconcerting. It was clearly placed here deliberately. I recognise this as a Druidic curse. This curse brings death and destruction and may have brought the Ankhegs. It appears that the brickwork had been dug out with a dagger or something and not a long time ago, perhaps a month or so before the camp was evacuated.

I destroy it. I untie the string in a specific way to undo the curse and then burn the remains of the twigs with Johnathan’s torch and it bursts into a green flame. I think we should seek out the druids nearby to see if they are behind this and why. We as Tibor if she has had any interactions with druids of a negative nature. She says that they did have some strange occurrences a few weeks before the place became unsafe. They saw large boars that appeared to be watching them.

We decide to clear out the remainder of the caves to ensure that all of the Ankhegs are gone. We make our way down and find that while we do not see any signs of life, all of the dead Ankhegs and all the traces of eggs are gone. Clearly something is still down here. We make our way to the collapsed mineshaft and work hard to clear the cave-in.

We work for some time but there is too much work here and I become concerned that the entrance that we have not fully explored may contain some creature or other. We turn to return to the entrance to see another large gelatinous ooze coming up behind us. We quickly dispatch it thanks to my spells well before it can even reach us. Thorgrim manages to salvage a few coins and bits and pieces from the corpse. We head back to the entrance and explore the remainder of the tunnels up there. These tunnels loop back on each other and there is really nothing down there. We head back inside to have a thorough look at the stream again to look for gems. I could not find any more gems but I did find an entrance out to the river.

We set out to leave the camp. Before we leave, we find Tibor’s pack and horses and we check the other smaller camps where we see strong evidence of eruption holes from the Ankhegs. I take a closer look at the markings on the ground and I see finger marks from the victims as well as scrapings from the Ankhegs. We seems to have identified at least 3 seperate incursions by the Ankhegs and I am concerned that we have not yet found all of the Ankhegs. Though the curse left by the druids that had drawn them here is no more and with the queen gone, hopefully any remaining Ankhegs will move on. We search for the horses to pull Tibor’s wagon. They seem to have been frightened off by the Ankhegs.

I see a pig following us and I think it is the same pig that I spoke to the last time. I turn to ask it if there was anything wrong. The pig looks uneasy, I say to it “remember, friends” and I gesture to myself. It runs away and I realise that this is a different pig.

As we travel along, I keep seeing pigs in the distance following us. We arrive and set up camp. The first watch is uneventful and then I take on a long watch. I see another boar and I speak to it. It takes a little bit of time to assure it that I am safe.

I ask them to speak to the druids after they tell me that I am okay but the others are unwelcome. I leave the group with no one on watch because I dare not wake them and annoy the boars. I am assorted by the boars and eventually reach a clearing. There is a a cairn. I am told to wait and I do so.

I look around and I realise that I am in a place that has been designated by a Druid to be a meeting place as well as occasional place of worship. A large boar approaches me and transforms into a half-orc man. He tells me that Talos has made the druids the guardians of this place and they are here to evoke that right

The man says he is Latos Ilsidian the last of the anchorites first among Talos. They are the last of the people of Talos who has opened a portal for them to this land to escape their enemies and be safe. The place they come from is red as opposed to blue and green like our world and with 4 moons instead of the 2 we have.

The idea I have is that These people might live on Paget’s land solving all the problems for everyone.

I return to the camp they are safe and we discuss the plan. We speak to Paget who wants to meet these people. He says that there is a shrine just north of the loggers camp on his land. We plan to use the three days that we have to take Tibor back to the logging camp and hopefully get them to move out. After which we will meet the shapeshifters back at the camp site and take them to the meeting place on Paget’s land for them to meet face to face and hopefully we can get them to come to an agreement.

We make our way to the logging camp with boars following us. I have sent a message through them as well that we will be back in time to meet their leader within the 3 days.