A Canine Investigation for Griffeth Holter

2nd of Brynholm, 28 AoR - The adventure was successfully completed by Korae, Hellsemere, Spark, Daisy, and Theo.

General Summary

We all met in the guild and left to go and meet with Griffeth Holter. Korae brought flowers and a candle as is customary in his lands to help console Griffeth. He appeared to be a hunter with a bow on his wall and several animal hides and antlers scattered about his house. His living quarters were slightly messy but not in disarray. We wanted to know if he was going mad and we determined that as a peasant he could have seen anything in the forest that could have seemed odd and thought it a demon. He posted the notice about three weeks ago and it has gone unanswered. He did not want folks heading that way for their own protection. Only other thing he knows of out there is bandits. He asked if we were going to go out that way before giving us information. Knowing he was distressed, we told him we wanted to keep people away from that area and any details he could provide would help us in doing so.
He began to recount his story to us and gave us some good information. Hes patrolled these forests for years but never seen anything like the creature he saw. He was out a few weeks ago with his dog Humphrey who would always alert him when things were nearby. They were out further than normal due to game being driven away by the expansion of the town. He heard an eerie shriek in the dark of the night. All night Humphrey whimpered and whined and in the early morning, he ran east. Griffeth tracked him as far as he could east but he encountered a creature with fiery eyes in the morning fog. He ran as fast as he could and felt guilty about leaving Humphrey behind, but he was halfway back to town when that guilt hit him. He thinks the creature was on two legs, but he is not sure. He said that further east he found a large remnant of a camp that looked like it had been deserted for days. There were plenty of humanoid footprints and blood was found around the campsite. He says he was probably further east of Camris.
We left the house and questioned if we would get paid for this and if the quest was worth the effort. Theo advocated that the best treasure was helping others but his pet Voron disagreed, saying it's always nice to get paid. Daisy agreed with this and we concluded that should we find any treasure we would divide it evenly among ourselves.
Eventually we left the town and started on the road northeast towards Camris. We started into the Nikle Woodlands and began our search for the camp led by Daisy and Spark. We all agreed that it sounds and smells gorgeous in the woods, and that it was nice to get out of town. Theo told us that he came from a temple that focused on the balance of nature rather than worshipping a deity and that this was definitely his vibe. We walked for the better part of a day making small conversation and taking in “the bounty of nature” before Helsimir saw an unnatural formation that appeared to be manmade. We found the remnants of a campfire and several tent spots where there could have been many people staying, but it would have been a few days ago at least. Daisy, as a past-mercenary, identifies the camp as possibly mercenary. The ground appeared to be saturated with blood and small smatterings are found and people could have died here. As it got late, we went north a bit and setup camp in a small meadow and decided to start fresh at first light.
During the third watch, we started to hear sounds in the night that appeared to be odd. Korae quickly doused the campfire and woke Helsimir. They both saw a creature approaching with its guts hanging out with two others right behind it. Korae quickly awoke everyone by shouting “The demon is here!" We fought a zombie and two skeletons and arose victorious, though we sustained some heavy wounds. The skeleton had a very distinct mark carved into its skull that we took note of. The zombie was orcish but the skeletons were humanoids.
Skeleton marking:

The next day we continued east where we found another corpse and followed a trail of blood. This led deeper into the forest where we found a small pile of stones and a dark cave entrance. We found another corpse in the entrance and it was covered in blood. We entered and found a collapsed tunnel, and two other passageways. We went deeper down one and found a large brazier with a faded fiery symbol on it. We encountered another zombie eating a corpse. We tried to stealthily kill the zombie but we failed to kill it quickly and it made noise that drew the attention of two more skeletons. As we were fighting, we heard loud lumbering footsteps from deeper in the dungeon. We closed a set of iron doors but it didn't hold for long and we came face to face with a zombie ogre. We eventually killed the beast but daisy was nearly killed in the process. Luckily the medical knowledge of Theo was able to stabilize daisy and we continued to explore the dungeon.
We found that a half-eaten corpse had a scimitar and leather armor on it. We also found some cylindrical jars on some shelves that contained ashes. We found a large statue that had been destroyed or defaced by something with an inscription that said “Give what is necessary to the fire, or the fire will consume” and it had a large offering chest in front of it. The statue had a nameplate under it but it had faded. We found a chest with rags of some once fancy clothes. Helsimir triggered a fiery rune trap but was able to dodge out of the way before finding a pathway of bloody footprints and a body crumpled on the floor. This person was well dressed with blonde hair. A knife was sticking out of his neck. There was also a pedestal that could have held or displayed some sort of artifact or treasure but it was empty. We found a parcel with a piece of paper in it that appeared to be some sort of treasure map.
The treasure map had a note in draconic on the back reading, “This is the map you wanted. I'm done with this ancient ruins business Lyran, we're even now. Every day it gets more dangerous and I'll not do it again for all of the gold in Zaviorth's domain. The blue diamonds are elven ruins that you should be familiar with. The red ones though belonged to the empire Zyndril used to talk of. Pre-cataclysm stuff. The one on the bottom left appears to be an old burial ground. The one in the upper left seems to have been lost to time with no sightings as far as the NEU has been here, while the one on the right apparently was shut up years ago after explorers - including the union's - kept dying trying to explore it. The map sucks I know, but this is the best I could do before I would have gotten caught. You'll figure it out. Keep an eye on your wizard friend, he has a nasty look about him.”
All throughout the dungeon we found flamelike symbols but we weren't sure what these were or what the represented. We found several ancient scrolls and a golden medallion with the flamelike symbol as well.
Fire symbol:

The scrolls had a bunch of names and urn numbers, giving us the indication that this was a crypt of some sort. All of them, based on Helsimir's historical knowledge, were very important politically. The scrolls talked about an Emperor who commanded certain things tobe done with ashes of certain individuals and the notes depict a hatred towards this emperor by many. The Emperors name was Rogald Den Vexer. He was the leader of the vexen empire that arose after the fall of the elves but was made forgotten by its own people. The emperor was a powerful sorcerer, but his people overthrew him and destroyed the capitol of the vexen empire when the first cataclysm destroyed all magic.
Once everything had been explored, we left the crypt and started to head back when we saw some deep footprints that went north away from this place. Whatever it was, it was big enough to knock down a tree, so we did not pursue it any further.
On our way back to Amalite, we called out for Humphrey but we never were able to find the dog or his remains.
Daisy recovered and we made it back to Amalite safely without any further things to report.

Report Date

09 Jan 2021