06.12.22 - Bearly in Business

We woke up to find Shadow Mother had a little version of the big bug cat that tried to eat us yesterday curled up with him. He told us that it’s name was Pew, so I gave it a flying lesson that did not go well. I only took him up a little so he could learn how to use his wings, but he almost crashed on the ground which isn't fun. After that, we noticed that there was some flickering web surrounding the area. Shadow Mother went to investigate but got stuck to the web and it shocked him like my lizards sometimes do. As soon as he got unstuck, some very big spiders floated into the clearing. They were using weird floating things, not wings like I use. Then there were a whole bunch of little spiders running around trying to eat the big spiders and one of our brown horses almost froze to death from the nasty floating spiders. But, we managed to save it and defeat all of the spiders. After our battle and some breakfast, we decided to continue towards Purrgatory to find the other Shadows, and on the way I wrote a letter to tell Jerome to tell Mr. Branch that we had taken care of the spider problem at Spiderhenge.

The closer we got to Purrgatory the more cat people we were meeting on the roads. One of them, Mr. Bounce, told us he was going to Bellcassel to sell his bags, but that we should be careful going to Purrgatory because something was wrong with the crowns so everything was under watch by the guards. He said there was a call for adventurers to visit the castle to deal with whatever was wrong. We bought some bags, one that Klaub turned into a nice bed for me, before continuing towards the city.

As the sun was going down, we came to a camp filled with merchants all heading to the city. We looked around before choosing the open spot next to the bear person’s wagons for the night. He was not very happy that we had parked next to him, but told us his name was Beartum anyways. Beartrum had big waggons filled with trees he said took him three months to bring to Purrgatory from the north. Klaub suggested we ask him for a bedtime story since he had come all this way. Mr. Beartrum did not seem happy, but he told us the story of the West Star, the toe of the great bear constellation, which was supposed to be the father of the bearfolk people himself. It was said that the old bear gods had made him into the sky. Our new friend told us his kids loved hearing this story and he can’t wait to head home to Bearella and the kids for the rest of the year before he needs to come back to Purrgatory. WHen we asked him where in the north he was from and where he got his trees he told us he lived in Savrex Hold way to the north of the ‘Sauran Empire where the bear folk people couldn’t be bothered by anyone.

The whispers told me that during the story Pew had gone off and discovered a hollow demon bust and a moist dull knife in one of the nearby wagons and brought them to Shadow Mother. He stashed those items away before we all went to bed and left Pew to watch in case anything bad happened in the camp.

We woke up in the middle of the night to chaos around the camp because Beartrum’s trees were on fire! We quickly got people together to move the wagons closer to the little spring and got the animals free. Klaub helped motivate people and we managed to put the fires out with only a little bit of damage to the trees. Looking at them, there was some sticky stuff that seemed very flammable and the whispers said there was no reason for a fire to start. So, we had to look around for who had started it, and that is when we saw that a shifty human dude we had seen was missing as well as an entire cart. Marko and I started running down the road towards Purrgatory to try to catch the dude and were met by a giant handsome eagle carrying Klaub.

His cart was not very fast so we were able to catch up without any issues, but the shifty dude was scared of us so he drove right into the ditch before hopping off of his cart and running across the field. I stopped him as Klaub came flying by and knocked him to the ground. From there, I sat on him and had him tell me everything he knew about the fire and what had happened, or else. He turned into a rat man like the ones in the sewers in Tanin, before telling me he knew nothing other than he was supposed to create a distraction at the camp so that no one, even adventurers, would see Moonfall Keep since it had started glowing. Then he was supposed to report back to the keep using the map I pulled from his pocket along with a letter.

The whispers told me that Marko had stopped at the cart and had smelled something horrible before passing out and Shadow Mother had flown after the creepy dude’s horses to bring them back. Shadow Mother managed to make the horses like him before returning to the cart to check on Marko. Klaub had also begun moving back towards the cart to check out the wreckage where he found Marko and pulled him out. All three of them came back towards where the little rat dude and I were talking.

Klaub took the letter we had found and told us it was the instructions given to the rat person about making a distraction so that the royals could be moved from the city to the keep without anyone noticing. It was signed by Sheriff DeMarco, and the rat person said the Cobblestone Guys were the people who had taken the royals and they were the sewer people under Purrgatory like the people we met in Tanin. Kalub asked if they had gotten all the royals, and he said they got everyone but the princess who was not where they had been told she would be. With that, we decided to take him back to the camp so we could take him to Purrgatory with us after breakfast.

We got back to camp and asked Beartrum what he wanted to do with the rat person and he asked that we take them to the city to face the court of law. As that was being discussed, Pey pulled out the demon bust and shattered it with a giant hammer in the middle of camp and a smokey blue demon dude came out of it. He was not very difficult to take care of, but as he died he told me, “It’s all Knit,” whatever that means.

So, we loaded up to head to Purrgatory. We approached the city where there was a long line of carts waiting to get into the city, but there was still enough room to pass them so we went forward calling out that Marko had arrived. At the gate, the guards stopped us and told us we had to wait in line like everyone else even after we told them who Marko was. We also told them about what had happened at the camp, so they tried to arrest us. Pey turned into a big bird and grabbed Chad, the spare horse, and Pew before taking off back towards the camp. The rest of us decided to drop our weapons and go to the palace for judgment before Princess Basket.