Session 9 - The Riese Set Free
General Summary
The Riese head back to their camp to pack, and they leave that evening as they have night vision. The party (except Totengraber) leaves with them but follows at a polite distance using what dim light they can make.
The Riese relish their new freedom. They move quickly, carouse, and kill a deer which they start to roast. Bertrand the knight enters their camp with a proposal. Would they let the party join their camp so that they can exchange tales? The Reise accept, but the cost is one mark per person, which Betrand pays.
The Reise are friendly in their way. That is, they constantly deride the party, but they do allow the party to eat their venison, and they don’t try to kill the party. When asked to share a story, a Riese tells the story of a Riese named Nadak who was bound to the land with his clan. The people who bound them with this magic had promised them eternal paradise, but really they were enslaved. The Riese got a stone which freed them.
One of the Reise asks Belak about themselves. Belak explains they lived in the forest, but the wolves showed up, so they went to town. The townfolk fed them and got them to make shoes. The Riese would like to keep Belak with them. He can make them shoes, and he knows how to steal cows.
Chlothar tries to participate, but he is unwell. The burns on his face are swollen and oozing pus. He is barely able to converse let alone try to read the book again, so he suggests the party return to the manor in the morning so that he can recover. All agree.
Chlothar survives the night, and in the morning Bertrand casts a healing spell on him which restores enough of his health that he can travel back to the manor. He warns Mutti Gunde, the grand dame of the clan, about the importance of the book and asks her where he can find her. She says they are headed to Silberbad, the first town on the other side of the border. Chlothar and Klein passed through it on their way to the village and are familiar with it. They will try to meet the Reise there after the party has convalesced.
They reach the village without incident, but all is not well. Brother Matthias has been rousing the villagers against the Reise, and many in the village distrust both Klein and Totengraber. But Klein is still the lord of the village, so he tells Matthias to find a new priest for the village. Matthias heads out of the village to find one.
The party spends a week in the village, speaking with Ferdinand, gathering provisions, and honing their skills. At last, they head out to Silberbad to meet the Riese.
The party reaches the village of Dünkelsburg, but it seems strange.
Klein and Chlothar had been through this village just two weeks prior, and there had been people here, but now it is all but abandoned.
The party had seen a person dressed all in white walking ahead of them on the road into town. Though they never caught up with the person, they followed closely enough to notice them enter a large house in the center of town. Betrand sensed evil from the place.
During Belak’s watch, a woman in white cloak picking flowers attracts their attention by singing. The party wakes and hears, “Open your door my valentine and let me in so we can spend some time together.”
The party decides to leave her alone, and Bertrand detects that she is both undead and powerful. Klein detects a decaying miasma near the ground in several places around our camp.
We look in the big building in the center of town. Through a window, we see a room that has been ransacked.
Deciding not to tempt fate, the party leaves the village after setting several central buildings on fire, and heads to Silberbad.
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