June 7, 2026
4th Dulthila
Just west of the Eisenfluss
The Torchbearers turned west, paralleling the old stone causeway but remaining out of sight of it. They found a likely spot to sabotage it: a shallow, marshy depression it crossed on a low causeway. Here, they fashioned shovels and made ready to plant their explosives.
But another had already claimed the space beneath the bridge. A mystic troll awoke and charmed Hilda. Following her cue, the Torchbearers had a polite conversation with the troll, agreeing that it would be very rude to blow up someone’s home. They negotiated for a while, and the troll eventually claimed that it would vacate the bridge if they brought it a great feast. It told them that it had heard rumors of a large herd across the river to the south.
The Torchbearers began moving south. The charm wore off, and Hilda convinced the others that the troll was actually an evil trickster. They decided not to make a deal with it, but to continue south and investigate the herds themselves.
They crossed the Eisenfluss and reentered the territory of the Empire.
5th Dulthila
Marching south, the Torchbearers climbed a gentle rise before the foothills of the Queen’s Mountains. In the afternoon, they came to a fence dotted with signs bearing the image of a skull. Beneath the skulls were written, in magical writing, the words “DANGER OF DEATH – Weapons testing in progress.”
Heeding the warning, they spent the rest of the day skirting the fence, hoping to find some clue outside the danger zone.
6th Dulthila
The Torchbearers continued to circle the fence, even as a savory smell, as of something baking in an oven, arose from within it.
At about noon, the ground began to shake. Gunter, a one-time cattle rustler, recognized the signs of a stampede. The Torchbearers drew themselves out of the way, and a panicked herd of dairy cows charged from within the zone, trampling the fence to escape.
The Torchbearers decided that they must, before all was said and done, enter the zone to investigate.
In the center, they came upon a large cottage with a wizard tower rising from one corner. A large upstairs window had been blown out from within, and a heavy trail led across the garden before disappearing in the trampled area around the dairy barn.
The Torchbearers eased in through the front door, which was unlocked. The mud in the mudroom rose into a small earth elemental, which attacked them. Alwin suspected that some kind of magical discharge was allowing trapped spirits to escape into objects, and there might be more unexpected enemies ahead.
They made their way upstairs and into the room with the broken window. There, they found evidence that something larger than a man had broken out of a brick oven, charged through a steel trolley, and crashed through the wall surrounding the window.
As the wall had collapsed, it had buried a small figure, its polished wooden clogs sticking out of a rubble pile. The Torchbearers pulled free a dwarf wearing a red pointed cap. He coughed awake, grabbed Hilda’s lapels, and gasped, “Water was a disharmonious humor! The weapon is berserk! It seeks-” and fainted away.
Carrying the dwarf, they tried to escape from the house. Going back the way they came, they encountered an animate skeleton, wired together and still dragging the stand from which it had hung as an anatomical model. Exiting the stairwell, they saw three large lizards on the wall, which hissed at them and opened their mouths in threat.
Backing away, they checked another door, which opened on a menagerie. A swarm of escaped white rats charged the door; they retreated back upstairs, opening both doors at the last possible moment to set the lizards and rats against each other.
At a loss, they broke down the door to another room, which proved to be a library. As they entered, a pallid marble bust above the chamber door animated and demanded a password. When they could not provide it, the security system tried to lock them inside; but, as they had already knocked the door down, this consisted of its swinging the empty hinges into the doorframe and sliding the bolt out into empty air.
Finally, they followed the path the Weapon had taken out through the window and across the garden. As they departed, they saw a pale figure moving beyond the milking shed.
Reaching a safe distance from the manse, they revived the dwarf, whose name was Filgrim. He blustered, but agreed to let them help him retrieve the weapon, under the condition that they not look directly at it, as his work was classified by the authority, he said, of his wife. The Torchbearers pretended to agree.
They would need to return to the house and collect an item that would allow Filgrim to control the Weapon. This proceeded without issue until, again, they tried to exit the house. They heard a large creature moving through the hall, and Filgrim began to chew the tip of his cap. The creature was the reanimated corpse of his greatest fishing trophy: a morkoth, a horse-sized creature with the front half of a toothed fish, the rear half of an octopus, and the claws of a lobster.
The Torchbearers slew the creature and left the house. Tracking the Weapon, they came upon its trail and ambushed it in the hills: a large golem made of cheese. Gunter threw Filgrim onto its head, where he inserted a key that allowed him to regain control.
7th Dulthila
Filgrim had not received word of the orc invasion. He insisted they wait until late morning to evacuate his wife, Philmien, as well.
Sure enough, she arrived, an elf wise-one on a broom of flying. The two of them disabled the golem and revived it with an animating spirit of earth. They packed their belongings onto the golem’s back, and the party set out to the south, hoping to rejoin Vira in the mountains.
