Session 032

## A Return to the Fey Wood

**Age of the Wolf, Year 5, Summer, Laelun Toil 3 days 1-10 --- Autumn, Aerlun Toil 1, day 1**

*The party speaks with a valkyrie, and Heida returns from places unknown. They learn of a new potential enemy and return to the Freehold for a short time. On the way, they encounter the remains of Ornolf the hermit. A decision is made to head south along the river Varde, and find out what happened in Raendale, as they have heard rumors of a battle. On their way, they encounter a wicked fey creature, and Esbjorn is faced with a difficult choice.*

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## Player Characters Involved

* Nygäär the Dark the Fey Blooded Rogue/Fighter/Dualist played by Dana
* Esbjörn Sigvardson the Giant Blooded Barbarian/Cleric/Surtr's Chosen played by Greg
* Brydd Hjarta the Jörmung Human Sorcerer/Marshal/Sand Shaper/Incantator played by Jason
* Heiða the Seer the Dökkálfar Blooded Dread Necromancer played by Justin

## The Valkyrie and the Seer

With the battle done, the party caught their breath and turned their attention towards the warrior woman who had fought beside them in their battle against Hel's minions. The party introduced themselves to what they realized was in fact a valkyrie by the name of Afkarr. The servant of Odin had no idea how she had come to be tied to the ash tree, let alone how she could have possibly fallen into the hands of what she viewed as the foolish and misguided mortals who worshipped Hel. As the party discussed the battle, with Afkarr taking pains to destroy the dragon skeleton at their feet, another member of the party returned.

Heida had left abruptly, and the party was shocked when she reappeared in such a strange time and place. Esbjorn's servant Droog advised his master to kill her at once since her arrival at the heels of a battle with servants of Hel seemed like too much of a coincidence to the quasit. Quieting his servant down, Esbjorn and the others welcomed the seer back into their midst. She responded bruskly when Nygaar had asked her where she'd been and despite appearing to recognize Afkaar, her explanation to the confused valkyrie as to how the seer recognized her was equally brusk. After a time, when Afkarr had by turns intrigued Brydd, insulted Ebjorn, and marked Nygaar as a future einherjar (even promising to take his soul to Valhalla herself) a strange thunder cloud appeared above her head. With a massive lightning bolt, the valkyrie disappeared, presumably back to the halls of Valhalla from which she had come. With that Heida walked curiously through the site and seemed to pay some amount of respect to her fallen allies. Esbjorn questioned Heida away from the group and the seer had indicated she watched the battle but remained neutral as to avoid killing followers of her faith. Quietly she had also confided in Esbjorn that her vision showed their deaths if she told them why she was leaving, but that a close friend of hers was dying and that she had to visit her to perform her death rites.

## A Mixin Maiden and the Helskor Ruins

The party next turned to the girl they saved from sacrifice, who they learned was named Tola Eriksdottir. After some initial rough handling by Nygaar, and some efforts by Brydd to calm and console her, she had settled down to eat and drink around the party's black-fire pit. Filthy and petrified, the girl eventually told her story. It seemed she (and the other young women who sadly did not survive) had been seized by the followers of the Hel cult, based outside of Seagate (the Mixin capital). It seemed these cultists, who had twisted the teachings of the elders and worshipped Hel, were led by a strange foreigner known as Crua, who the cultists referred to as "the witch queen."

This Crua had loaded the girls that had been kidnapped onto a ghastly longship made of toe and fingernails and crossed the channel to drop them off for the ceremony. Tola went on to explain that the Hel priestesses’ goal was to slay and enslave all the people of Seron and that Crua was not affiliated with the Umbrian invaders, although she was an Umbrian. Puzzled by this strange information, the party turned to Heida, who was not overly helpful and claimed to know nothing about this Hel cult. Ultimately, the party decided to bring Tola along with them and leave her at the Freehold. Next, they examined the ruins nearby.

What they found, after careful study (and a bird's eye view by Droog) were some more ruins similar to Raen's Arm Rings. These particular ruins were in the shape of death shoes, also known as Helskor, shoes worn by those who wished to travel safely across the veil to the other side after death. The heroes realized that these ruins, with the right magical scroll, might be claimed as yet another powerful weapon. Unfortunately, the search of the dead priestesses yielded no such scroll. Feeling they had done all they could, the party gathered up Tola and their bounty from the battle and traveled back to the Freehold.

## The Death of Ornolf

The party decided to camp nearby the hut of Ornolf the hermit, to see what had become of their old, but yet to be openly hostile, enemy. In the morning, Esbjorn sent Droog to scout out the hut, and the party contemplated destroying the ally of the frost giants once and for all. Droog reported nothing but destruction, and the heroes went to investigate for themselves:

*As you once again clamber through the foothills of the mountains, you follow the steep and muddy path that leads to the site of Ornolf’s hut. What you find is shocking; a number of badly mangled corpses, clearly torn limb from limb, are strewn upon the rocky ground. Even Ornolf’s goats are dead, smashed to a bloody pulp, and partially buried under the ruins of the collapsed cave. The small hut that once stood here is flattened, and it takes a while for you to recognize one of the corpses as the erstwhile hermit. The other bodies look like Joten-kind, a pair of frost giants badly beaten and torn apart. You see the pulsing blue light of a bracer adorning one of the hermit’s forearms, but his other arm is nowhere to be found. His filthy bedraggled head is caved in, and his neck is hanging at a grotesque angle.*

 It seemed Ornolf was no more. A check by Brydd of the ground revealed some interesting tracks; large footprints that could only have been made by something massive and heavy. The party deduced that Steinvordur, Heida's erstwhile companion, had beaten them to the hermit's lair. Heida reached across the veil to speak to the hermit and found that their deductions were correct. It seemed the stone giant Menja was wasting no time in enacting her vengeance against her enemies, both the frost giants and the fire giants alike. Claiming Ornolf's bracer, which acted as a spell of protection, the party rooted around the remains and destruction but found nothing else of value. They moved on, secure in the knowledge that at least this enemy was no more.

## A Quick Stop at the Freehold

The party reached the Freehold with no major issues, and Nygaar was happy as always to see his young ward Arlow. The boy was being trained well, and even took a turn at the forges of the master dwarven craftsman Hermon. While Esbjorn and Hermon greeted each other warmly over the forge, Nygaar put the Harii horses he had bought into Arlow's care, instructing the boy to breed them. Meanwhile, Heida sought out Helva the Shrew but quickly learned that the former green druid lawspeaker and wizardess was nowhere to be found. The party then went to consult with Kettel.

Kettel informed the party of a rumor of battle that had taken place in Raendale and informed them that Helva had gone to "tend to the forest or some such nonsense." The party was free and loose with their coin, feasting the villagers of the Freehold once more. With Kettel's permission, the Mixin maiden Tola was put under the care of the matronly merchant Inga Frothidottir. The party rested overnight and then set off, determined to head south to Raendale on their way to Wulfling lands, following the waterways.

## Huldrekall, the Verdant Prince

The party followed the Varde river south, retracing the steps of their earlier journey at the beginning of summer. They made their way quickly, and soon reached the outskirts of the fey wood, nearby the destroyed town of Visby. It was the first day of autumn, and a leisurely days travel led them to a strange encounter:

*As you travel along the river, the sky continues to darken. As you make ready to camp, ominous thunder begins to boom high above you, and a cold drizzle begins to fall. The evening is clear and cool, and the river is moving swiftly. You hear the sounds of women’s laughter echoing through the thick forest here, from what direction it is difficult to judge. The forest seems to take on a sinister aspect as if the trees themselves are watching you. The male members of the party hear their names being gently whispered on the wind as if a lovely maiden is calling out to them seductively. The leaves of the trees move strangely as if the wind is blowing fiercely even though the actual wind is barely perceptible. As you listen, the rain and thunder intensify, and flashes of sporadic lightning light up the darkening sky.*

 Within moments, three strange and beautiful creatures made their way out of the thick forest. Their delicate features were much like a female elf’s, though their flesh was like bark or fine wood, and their hair was like a canopy of leaves that changed color with the seasons. Targeting the male party members, the dryads attempted to lure them deeper into the forest, using their magical powers of suggestion to implore Esbjorn, Nygaar, and Brydd to come to meet their master. Nygaar and Brydd were able to shake off these magical attempts, yet Esbjorn quickly fell under their spell and proceeded to march into the underbrush. Fortunately, Heida recognized what was happening, and sent her ghostly visage Imra Artoris to meld into Esbjorn's body and block the source of this mental manipulation. At that, the dryads stepped into trees and disappeared.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the encounter, as a giant eighty-foot tall tree came to life in front of the party, and they were suddenly and unexpectedly trapped in a wall of thorns many feet thick. Brydd used his sand shape ability to escape the thorns, taking damage in the process, but the rest of the party remained entangled in the barbed and tangled brush bearing needle-sharp thorns. High above them, a strange voice called out to them from the trees. Identifying himself as Huldrekall (the prince of the forest) this strange fey creature called out to Esbjorn specifically.

As Esbjorn saw a flash of red fur behind the fey being, he grimaced in fury at his predicament. Huldrekall called out, saying that Esbjorn was responsible for befouling a sacred ceremony of the great god Freyr and that he needed to make recompense. Huldrekall asked him if he would yield, and enter a sacred oath bond with him in order to set the accounts aright. It was either fight or yield and venture forth to the Boar's Wood and retrieve Gullinbursti’s harness within one hundred days to fulfill the bond. In exchange, Huldrekall offered Esbjorn one night to lay with a demi-goddess, the famed daughter of Freya known as Gersemi. As Esbjorn's rage threatened to bubble to the surface, he looked about in fury. The choice was a difficult one; work with his deific foes and claim a demi-goddess for his bed, or perhaps get himself and his companions slain by this powerful elvish being...

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