Category:Episode 8

Keth, Kriv, Harold, Rickard, Thom, Cadence, Saeleyr, Frosk Well, Wik, Wellington, Weave, Wellby Goodbarrel, Faelund, Marteyr

Thursday 19th August 1574
The episode begins the morning after our teams adventure through the Frosk Well. Over breakfast Rickard offers an apology to the team, explaining more about the reasons behind taking Thom to the Marteyan capitol Faelund. Thoms mothers ancestor was said to be cursed by a powerful elf mage, where one child of each generation would wield destructive power. The family would do all they could to contain that childs power, including extreme cases of isolation or even imprisonment. When Thom first showed signs of having this power about a year ago, Rickard refused to offer his son to his widows family and instead decided to take him to the fabled university where Thom would learn to control his power. "The whole thing is a tangled up mess"

The last comment triggers Cadences memory, and she realizes that the strange phenomenon in the lower levels of the Frosk Well must have been one of the rare knots, a strange place of magic. Living in such close proximity to the knot must be what caused the amphibious population to become so massive. If Wiks followers knew about this, who knows what sort of terrible things they could accomplish with that source of power.

The crew decide there next plan of action is to head to Wellington as quickly as they can and try to get ahead of Wik before he can alert his allies putting a mark on our adventurers. The day of travel otherwise goes uneventfully.

Friday 20th August 1574
In the afternoons travel the group see in the distance a strange gathering of men, circled around a carved wooden manticore. They tell the party that they are in celebration as today is the anniversary of the legendary 'Bear Hands' who heroically defeated one of the beasts in battle. They burn a figure of the creature every year to honor his memory.

Saturday 21st August 1574
An uneventful day of travel, they decide to press on for a few extra hours and arrive in Wellington late that night. They find rooms at the Goodbarrel and retire for the night.

Sunday 22nd August 1574
The team head off in the morning and get on the road toward Faelund. A short distance out of Wellington they come across a worn down outpost where two men, Bazza and Fil tell the party about their troubles with a beast damaging their crop land. Keth recognizes the mens description to be an Ankheg, and believes the party could take care of the beasts and be back on the road within a couple hours with the benefit of some extra coin.

Keth, Kriv, Cadence, Harold and Fil follow the upturned earth trail toward the creatures nest. The team begin scouting around the nest but quickly begin to feel the telling vibrations of two burrowing beasts beneath their feet.

"Dive, it's below us" Harold yells as he rolls off to his left as the huge creature bursts from beneath the earth. The creature comes up incredibly fast, it's body is designed for ambushing it's prey from below, and it gets a vicious bite around Harolds mid section that critically punctures into his intestines. The acid burns through the wound into his blood, quickly moving up to his heart and brain and robbing him of his last breath of life.

In a ravenous frenzy, Keth damages one of the pair with a flurry of successive axe blows, managing to take the first down but not before taking a heavy blow himself. Cadence targets the second with a dissonant harmony that penetrates it's mind and forces it to flee. Keth lands an incredible blow as it drops its guard, before Kriv cuts it off with a burning fist of fire that kills the creature that stole their friends life.

Keth destroys the Ankheg eggs and lashes out, hacking at the corpse of one of the subterranean monsters. They take Harolds covered body back to Rickard, who becomes inconsolable in grief. They lend a cart and get their pay from the two farmers and take Harolds body to the Abbey back in Wellington.

Monday 23rd August 1574
The group wake up early in the morning at The Goodbarrel, and head off to say their final words to Harold.