Exploring the Iron Chain Praire - 03/06/20

Myslef Victor Vic Smith accompanied by my compatriots Aegon Silverhands and Lauthok had decided to explore the west planes of Xadkha, we followed the coast to the west eventually approaching the monster cave. The party took a quick look in to the cave, it was full of skelly slugs and was an awful place to be, after pushing in some it was decided that we should leave this terrible place and move on. Past the monster cave was more tall grasslands as far as the eye could see, we kept following the coast west pushing further west then suddenly 2 massive elk charged past us, they were wounded and scared.

As the Elk left 4 tiny blue men ruthlessly attacked me and Lauthok with out warning, the vile creatures then darted away in the brush, using his quick wit Lauthok struck one of them and I in a panic caste a powerful spell of sleep to nullify the attacker, as the spell did deal with the blue man it sadly also made Lauthok sleep as well. This was a massive mistake on my part as it greatly weakened us in desperation I sang a song of inspiration to Aegon, Aegon lit up the other retches with a magical spell to mark those little bastards up (they were very hard to hit you see). We were ready for the little guys but then three Satyr's arrived, one playing the pan flute, and archers and a brawler, the first one attacks Lauthok and wakes him up just as the one playing the flute cast a sleep spell on Aegon, the battle is a mess and thing don't look good that's when I notice one of those blue bastards is tying my shoelaces together, completely immobilizing me, as Lauthok hacks at the one foolish enough to challenge him I curse at Aegon for falling asleep jolting him awake, and I play a inspiring song for Lauthok and hopped behind him for cover just in time for a arrow to strike me then those blue pricks tried to push me over twice.

Aegon was done with this rabble and cast a spell of entailment on two of the Satyr then I defend the one playing the music causing him to be unable to play his music, Lauthok continued to hack the Satyr who dare challenged him and Aegon use his power's to strike the defend Satyr who was desperately trying to play his flute, the little blue men ran away in to the brush 2 of the 3 Satyr's were done for the last one started to run away but then I charmed the last Satyr and had him stay. His name was Tremble Hoof, he was a creature of the Fey and he knew many thing like how the wall has separated all planes of existence from Xadkha including time and space, this make Xadkha a special place as the wall separated it completely from the real world making Xadkha “not real” in a sense.

He would also elaborate on the queen of the winter court who in-fact is a pretender, it turns out she was just the biggest fey in that side of the wall and took over under a false identity to instill fear and loyalty to her subjects, in fact the real queen of the winter court on our side of the wall is much more powerful and would be very unhappy with what is going on in Xadkha, that's not to say the pretender queen is weak, she is an extremely dangerous fey just not as dangerous as she clams. Along with that he also told me that the fey wilds in Xadkha are not like the fey wilds in the real world, when fey die in Xadkha they do not come back as they were but must start as the lowest life form that the fey can inhabit and work there way up loosing there memories and personality in the process, all large fey that we kill are lost forever in a sense. To grow there existing fey in to larger fey they need to feed them the souls of mortals as they are cut off from the real spirit wilds, this exposes a great weakness in the courts ability to send powerful fey at us and there need of mortals to fall for there deceptions and die in there grasp.

A few last things of note only mortals can pass thru the wall, and the little blue guys are called Quicklings and they were once elves who kept showing up to the court late when called and were cursed to be small blue and extremely fast also if held still for a few moments there hearts will explode (this was tested and proven). At this point the charm was almost over and we wanted to save Tremble Hoof, we suggested he leave with us to Geistholm but he reminded us he can not pass the wall, then me and Aegon told him he could join the Plip and be free from the queen of the winter court but sadly as we started elaborating on how he can join the Plip it was clear this was information the queen wanted and he started trying to excuse him self to deliver the information to her, sadly and with much remorse I started cutting him down, Lauthok joined in like he was reading my mind and knew what needed to happen. Tremble Hoof lay there dying as Aegon tried to save him and stop what he saw as madness but it was to late and Tremble Hoof was going to die, Aegon promised to return him to the spirit wilds in Xadkha so he can live again even if it is as a lower life form. Then it was over, Tremble Foot expired in Aegon's hands, I had killed some one I came to like and all because I said to much, I nearly brought destruction on to the Plip with my carelessness.

We moved on northwest towards some trees in the brush, we took a short rest to gather our selves for any other encounter and push on, we saw black smoke rising from a camp near a lake and river, as we approached we saw a fighting arena surrounded by orcs. Two were fighting and one was clearly winning, as the bigger of the two started hacking his opponent to pieces they started cheering in mass, we looked around to see large beast of burden near by, to big to be handled by anything less then a full bread orc and to wild as well. A larger orc emerged from the main tent dragging a large wicker dragon statue with red gem eyes, this orc was different he has symbols carved in to his flesh and his face was off some how but I could not quite put my finger on it, the winner of the fight approached the statue with reverence and crawled to his knees and bowed to the statue as if worshiping a god. The leader orc said some words to the winner and then left back in to the tent with the statue in tow, a few moments latter the winner got up from his bow and shouted commands to the rest of the camp. This was more then the 3 of use could handle and we started to head back to town, before leaving we noted that the orcs seem to eat and drink form the lake, there may be a connection there but for now this place should be avoided at all cost.