Episode 1: Burnt Bridges

(Written entirely in Celestial)
 
I am happy to say that my new friends were wise enough to see how bad Revenant House was. I had made excuses in the past, but the choices they had made cleared my eyes. While we did the right thing by sabotaging Revenant House, stealing their horses, burning the bridge behind us and evacuating that poor village I’m afraid it’s left us in a pickle. They are a powerful mercenary band and we are, well... not. I trust in The World and must keep my eye out for the subtle things that will keep us safe.
 
We’ve made our ways through the hill country. It’s summer, and mild compared to home. It will be amazing to see how cold it gets and see snow for the first time, that isn’t on a mountain peak.
 
Our food is getting low, but as a team we’re doing pretty well on provisions. Next time I’ll aid them. I keep forgetting my skills as an herbalist will help me find edible plants. I’m used to using those skills back at the monastery working the herb gardens and creating poultices, not so much in the wild.
 
We saw Thostrath in the distance, a menacing figure and one of Revenant House. I’m hoping it was a coincidence and not that he’s one of the Revenant House tracking us. His reputation is cold and deadly and if he got to close we wouldn’t last very long, even without his goontourage. But Khaia guided us and I think he didn’t notice us. He’s a red tiefling warrior, if memory fails me in the future.
 
We ran into a gnome hunter today, Nef says his name was Azzer and he bought a deer leg off him. He tried to trick me out of the little money I have. The others spoke up to help. My mind had been on other things and I had almost fell for it. I’m hoping it was a joke. If not, we should have left him with Revenant House. I’m going to choose to think the best of Nef!
 
Anyway, Azzer was very paranoid. As the day wore on, he wasn’t the only one.
 
We arrived at a small villlage and Skathor had to do all the talking. It’s not his strong suit, but I’ve been told this area is mostly human and dwarven and the rest of us look a bit off-putting to the villagers. I know I come off... odd, even amongst my people, so I am glad to let him do it. But even with Skathor being a dwarf and all, they were still hostile and paranoid from how Skathor tells it. Weird!
 
I’ve not seen any signs in these last weeks. It makes me wonder have I missed a sign? When we make it to Far Falls, I’ll have to go over my notes again.
 
In the end we made it to the Green Door Tavern. It has a green door. Right? It was modest and there were these scared families there. It’s weird. It’s getting later and I’m getting sleepy in my hammock. The families don’t seem to want go to sleep and seem all shifty. I wonder what’s going on.
 
As I became sleepy two men burst in, one of their arms was melted! It was horrible. I was glad Skathor is blessed by The Struck Tower. His holy magics healed it the best he could.
 
The weirdness came to light and children and animals have been disappearing at night. The two men tracked their missing child to an abandoned fort. Skathor volunteered to help. Everyone but Nef agreed to help. He is a problem, I am hoping we will be a good influence on him.
 
Anyway, that’s not that important. We set out to track down the monster when this black oily goop nearly fell upon Theren from above outside the Tavern!