This session was run on April 17, 2023.
For this session, we took a look at what happened to Uggmar and Creng after they went through the portal beneath the barrows. Creng went through first.
The goblin looked around his new surroundings to find that he was standing beneath the open night sky. The stars were unfamiliar and three moons hung overhead; one red, one silver, and one blue. He was standing on top of a hill that was part of a line of hills stretching as far as he could see in the dark. To one side, he saw a forrested valley below him, to the other he saw a slope down to a vast plain of what appeared to be glass. He could hear a female voice, crying out in orcish, coming from the valley. It sounded like she was in pain.
Crend made his way down the slope to the plain and saw that the glass that covered it was black like obsidian. He reached out to touch it and, despite not feeling any heat radiating from it, it burned his fingers on contact.
As Creng was investigating the plain below, Uggmar arrived at the top of the hill. After a brief look around, he saw Creng and called out to him to come back up the hill. Once the goblin had rejoined him, Uggmar decided to investigate the sounds of orcish distress coming from the valley below.
The two quietly made their way through the woods until they saw a small clearing. In the center of the clearing, a female orc was chained to a rock and covered in blood. She had long cuts and bruises that indicated she had been subjected to torture. Her torturer was a bald woman with dark skin, pointed elf-like ears, and powerful looking legs. Seven males (they would later learn that these beings were called deodanths), also dark skinned and bald, were guarding several other prisoners tied to trees.
The prisoners were a tigress-like woman (Iaross the Khai-Zirin), a wolf-like man (Drex the wolfling), a mantis with a blue carapace (Ich'Tik the phraint), and an imposing bear man (Yazur the Padha-Hha). Uggmar decided that their best bet was to slip around the clearing and cut the other prisoners free.
As they made their way through the trees, Creng stepped on a squirrel and drew the attention of one of the deodanth guards. Uggmar took advantage of this unplanned distraction to cut Yazur and Drex free. With the first two prisoners freed, a fight broke out in the clearing. Yazur charged after the woman torturing the orc, who slit the orcs throat and fled to the south. Drex engaged the other guards while Uggmar focused on freeing the rest of the prisoners. Creng and the deodanth guard continued to stalk each other in the woods to the east.
Yazur caught the fleeing woman only to learn that she was a magic user when she began flining magic missiles at him. He withdrew to help the others, who were outnumbered, and the mage got away. Once all of the prisoners had been freed, they were able to defeat the remaining deodanth guards and capture one.
As they were looting the corpses, Uggmar and Creng felt a wave of disgust emenating from the rock. Creng suggested removing the dead orc from the rock. The freed prisoners explained that she was Felina, the captain of their mercenary band. They had travelled to this continent, Archaela, from their home country of Arduin in order to find work amongst the warring city states. Their ship was wrecked, by the combination of a bad storm and a giant, three-headed turtle, as they drew close to land. They had been captured by the deodanths, who they assumed were attached to one of the factions, when they washed up on shore. The deodanths had marched them westward through the forest for a couple of days, stopping to torture them at night. They felt that, at this point, the torture was only for the deodanths' amusement.
The removed Felina and Uggmar and Creng felt a sense of relief coming from the rock. The two described these feelings to the rest of the group and they began experimenting with the rock by rolling it around. The rock seemed content to be rolled to Uggmar and Creng.
They tried interrogating their deodanth prisoner, but executed him when he was unwilling to reveal anything. They decided that it would be best to make their way back to the coast. Uggmar and Creng explained that they had come through a portal, the others told them that there were many portals in their homeland of Arduin. Perhaps Uggmar and Creng could find a ship back in one of the city states and the others could find work.
They walked east through the day and camped for the night. In the morning, they awoke to find that the rock from the clearing had somehow appeared right outside their camp.
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