Search for the Shard Knights (Mission)

### Location(s)

The Whispering Wood (Orientas), Putrid Hollow (Orientas), The Marker, Fjarrano, Dead Island

### Party

Avos Vareth, Kenneth of Brutmyr, Fenric Entoris, Moryn Glastig, Theodwin, Wilavor Vande

"Avos, Kay, Fenric, Moryn, Theodwin and myself left in the morning, heading South to search for the Shard Knights. We took the row boat and made the journey rowing all the way down to the Orc camp. As we got close, we beached the boat and walked towards the camp seeking shelter for the night, and possibly some information. Unfortunately, we were confronted a little ways away from the camp by a party of several Orcs, lead by one male named Lucruse.

He told us that Zarkhad had been felled by one of the chosen warriors, named Kuruzintal. She was still alive, however the pact she made with us had been forgotten, and no longer gave us protection. The Orc party forced us to turn back, so we made our way back to the coast and kept traveling South for the remainder of the day.

We rowed across a cove to avoid moving through more of the Orc land, and encountered a couple large crocodiles about halfway across, as well as a strange floating lantern in the water. Kay was able to scare away the crocodiles with a very life-like illusion of another, bigger crocodile, and we investigated the lantern. However, just like all the rest of the lanterns that we’ve seemed to discover around here, it kept moving away from us as we got closer to it. Eventually we gave up and continued on our way. When we reached the tip of the cove we had been traversing, we saw a winged figure fluttering about at the top of the nearby cliffs, right by a crumbling tower of some kind. The creature clearly had leathery wings and was about humanoid shape and size, but we couldn’t make out anymore than that.

From this area we could see a far off island, about 10 miles away off the tip of the peninsula we were standing on, and another 10ish miles past that was another island. The peninsula itself was a swampy forest, with marshy land and no good place to sleep restfully. We had also discovered some interesting tracks, which belonged to a monstrosity known as a Froghemoth. However we needed to rest, so we bedded down in the swamp for the night. During my watch, I was attacked by one of these creatures. It latched onto me with its tongue, dragged me to its mouth, and swallowed me whole. The rest of the fight was a blur, but I passed out at least twice, nearly died, and was finally rescued through the combined efforts of both Avos and Moryn. We did kill the fucking thing though.

The rest of the night passed without incident luckily, and we continued on in the morning. After most of a day of travel we found the opening of the chasm, and a rocky outcropping in the middle of the entrance. It was also bordered by the two other islands we had seen previously, and the other massive island called Captensum. We rowed out to the rocks and discovered the carving of a skeleton on the front of it, facing into the chasm. Avos teleported to the top, and found a small basin, likely a firepit, and stone chairs carved from the rock. We used the rest of the day water walking, thanks to Moryn, the 5ish miles to Captensum.

The land there was obviously touched by magic. The dirt had traces of all schools of magic in it, and the water was blackened by something. It was also another marshland, but it was absolutely teeming with life. Theodwin had Sarah Finley investigate the nearby area, and she discovered a stone snakehead structure. We needed to sleep however, so we bunkered down in the boat for the night. Once again, we were attacked by a group of 3 Yuan-Ti. Two of them had snakes for heads, but human bodies otherwise, and the other had snakes for arms, with a human body. They were clearly insane, and offered to let us buy our lives with gifts or shows of magic. At first we obliged, and eventually ran out of patience and killed them fairly easy. After the fight we finished our rest, and got the hell out of Captensum right away. We made our way back to the rocky outcropping to rest for the day, as we were all exhausted from the lack of good sleep, and needed a day to rest and recover. In the meantime, Theodwin and Kay sent their familiars out to the surrounding areas to search for anything interesting.

As the day went on however, the weather got worse. Eventually during the night a massive storm started up, and lightning struck down close to us. We realized that maybe standing on a 70ft tall rock in the middle of an ocean, while covered in metal was a bad idea, and jumped off into the choppy waters. I was, however, struck by lightning before I jumped. Avos stayed up at the top to attempt to point us in the right direction, as we hoisted Moryn out of the water in order to cast water walk. During one of these casts the boat we had pulled up onto the stone outcropping came flying off, nearly killing a few of us, and shattering in the process. After a few failed attempts at casting the spell due to the power of the storm, he was successful, and we looked up as Avos got struck by lightning as well. We then all preceded to make our way in the direction we thought the mainland was, and after about 6 hours of walking through the storm we hit an island.

We finished the long rest just fine, but in the morning discovered the beach was filled with corpses, all lying in the sand. We also encountered a massive construct of some kind, with spikes all over its back, collecting the corpses along the beach. It saw us and attacked, but with the combination of my spells and Fenric’s arrows we took it down fairly quickly. It is worth noting that the thing summoned 4 spectres at the start of the fight, which was unexpected. After the fight we stayed on the island to rest a bit, and wait for Sarah Finley to determine our exact location since we were clearly not on an island we had been on before. As night approached again, we started to hear horrible necromantic chanting coming from the woods, with words filled with “Blood” and “Death”. Uneased, we made our way out onto the water using water walk, and stayed there for the night. As the night passed, we saw all the corpses on the beach stand up and begin to walk around, as well as numerous additional bodies come from the woods. The huge construct also came back to life eventually, and went back about its business.

Luckily nothing attacked us out on the water, and the morning eventually came. Once Sarah Finley reported back to us, we knew we were on once of the small islands to the south of the chasm, which we had seen earlier. So we walked on the water back to the mainland, and made our way back to the Last Chance without any further trouble."

*―Wilavor Vande's adventure log*