August 23, 2026
22nd Dulthila
The two figures cautiously advanced and traded blows with Alwin and Magrun. Alwin was cut by one of their sawtoothed blades, and the wound bled unnaturally.
Hilda hit them with a shatter. One of the creatures was now grievously wounded. It fell back and began to cast a spell, while its fellow lunged forward.
Its first blow struck deep into Hilda’s side. The return stroke of its serrated blade cut her in half.
Another salvo from the party’s archers “killed” the creature that was casting, its body melting away into a shower of sparks. The party struck at the remaining creature, and it took severe wounds. It retreated deeper into the dungeon.
The party extracted from the dungeon, returning across the mountain, down the face, and through the range to Vira’s lair.
27th Dulthila
In the lair, the party recuperated. They wrapped Hilda’s body in a black-edged shroud marked with Vira’s sign: a field ciel, a flame or within a lantern or within an ouroboros argent. They burned her body on a pyre, and sank treasure in a nearby pond as a votive offering.
Gunter memorialized Brandt after the fashion of the Roadwardens, raising an empty cairn with a plain wooden pole bearing Brandt’s initials at the head.
3rd Thelkhastix
Viraesse Swallowtail took the field with the rest of the Torchbearers. United again, in presence and in purpose, they set out again to the mountain, to complete the mission against the eyrie and to purge the evil from the ice cave.
