Session 10

The night before we left for Woodgate, I was visited by our shark-toothed grinning friend in my dreams. It seemed he was waiting for me, and I have to admit, I was wondering when I would see him again.
 
As we talked, he said he is now without employment. It seemed they didn't bother holding his position for him during the two hundred years he was chained in the depths of the ruins. It seems that while he was part of this fey court, he was forbidden to collect power directly, but now that he is free, or rather without employment, he is able to do as he pleases.
 
In exchange for helping him gather the psychic energy he needs, he's offering me a sizable fraction of the fountain of power.
 
I should have hesitated or asked if we could talk about this later as I needed time to think about it, or Hells, had been afraid of him, but I accepted the offer. It seems I can't resist an offer being made to me by a strange, creepy man, and I foolishly accept the deal. He says that for now, all I need to do is gather energy for him; those are his only terms. It seems fair to me, and things may change over time as our relationship and friendship grow. He also might need help dealing with ex-compatriots and seeing the errors in their ways.
 
In exchange for gathering the psychic energy, he's giving me power — power that I might be able to use to go after Wyrm.
 
The more energy I send him, the more power he gives, and he says that his word binds him and that he's a beneficient friend to have. To collect this energy, he gave me a beautiful blue rapier (he pulled it from the gaping black abyss that is beyond his grinning smile, but that's something I can look beyond). The scabbard is finely detailed with blue leather, and the rapier's guard is a wrap of thorny bines that lead to a dark grey, almost black blade.
 
Once shopping and the various things that needed to be done around town had concluded, it was time to meet up with the caravan at the city's northern gate and make our way to Woodgate.
 
Rigby, the caravan leader, greets us as we converge with them, adding Chael's cart to the end of the caravan, and he comments that there have been a lot of goblins on the road lately. They have even run into some, so it's good that we are coming along with how we care for goblins.
 
By the time we leave, it is midday, and the journey to Woodgate was relatively uneventful initially. We came across one of those rasp shrines we've been to during our travels and offered some respects and tithings to whatever protects these roads.
 
As the day began to dim and the town was on the horizon, Ashton noticed some moving brush and went to investigate, as we didn't think it wise to leave anything dangerous lurking so close to a well-used road. He believed they were those plant creatures we had encountered for the alchemists, and as we got the jump on them, thwarting their surprise attack by tossing a torch at them. It ignited one of the creatures and sent the others fleeing into the woods.
 
Continuing our adventure towards town, we stumbled upon a gruesome sight with several bodies in the middle of the road with blood everywhere. Before us were several felled goblinoid creatures and more plant creatures that seemed to be putting their tendrils into the corpses and drinking their blood.
 
Knowing they can do this, I will be cautious from now on when fighting them.
 
With these creatures and this sight before us, we engaged as there was no way around them, and again, it wouldn't be wise to leave such danger on a well-traveled road. From what we could see, all of the creatures were desiccated. The sight made me extremely uneasy — or perhaps it was the general unease from the area I felt as there were several invisible creatures besides the plant creatures around us.
 
Ghostly apparitions emerge from the bodies of the hobgoblins, one of which almost mortally wounds Arlanval, but we manage to take care of them with teamwork.
 
Upon closer inspection, the faces of the bodies look horrified, as they must have been in their last moments before death claimed them. Black veins course through their bodies as they have been tainted by whatever has done this to them.
 
In some frenzy or fit of rage — that isn't the right word, but whatever strong emotion he was feeling — Chael started mercilessly attacking the corpses of the hobgoblins. They crumble beneath the weight of his hammer. After turning the second one into dust, he seems to calm down. Both Harper and Chael heal some of Arlandval's wounds, but it would seem the creature that attacked him did more than just physical damage.
 
As I began moving the bodies out of the middle of the road, I noticed that each one was missing body parts — one an arm, another a leg, one its facial extremities. All distinct parts that the other one had. I wish I had looked at the others before Chael beat them into dust to see what they were missing, but according to Mara, the one closest to her was missing its eye. Knowing this and the familiarity of it left me feeling uneasy and deeply bothered as this reminded me greatly of the cult activities.
 
Whatever had done this to them was undoubtedly harvesting them for something. The wounds were too clean and precise for anything else.
 
After a few more hours of traveling, we finally made it to Woodgate and immediately headed to the town's inn, The Sleeping Rose. After eating local food to fill our bellies, we discussed what we would do for the next three days while the caravan was in town and followed it back to Twin River. I took a few of the jobs from the job board and brought the most interesting to the group.
 
Someone needs help with logging.
Another needs help to take care of a rasp problem.
And another needed someone to hunt and take care of a large saber breast.
 
Seeing an opportunity, Chael speaks with the rasps, gathering information about the white one the job was discussing. He also asks about the rasps of the area in general and their encampment deep in the woods. Once he is finished chatting with the rasps, he moves on to the orcs.
 
The inn has no proper rooms, so I didn't hesitate to curl up around the hearth and enjoy the warmth. Before I could fall asleep, Harper took an interest in the rose given to me by Droman, and I allowed him to investigate it.