September 20, 2026
31 Thelkhastix (End of Spring)
The Torchbearers barricaded the door to the hag’s quarters, preferring their chances in the gallery, and rested for some hours to allow the casters to recoup their spells.
Their rest was cut short when several long serpents appeared in the windows of the gallery and began tapping with their snouts. Each serpent looked similar enough to the others that Vira deduced they were the heads of a single creature.
Reluctant to fight a hydra, they set out in search of the froskurrpadde. They found a bestiary in the hag’s library that identified this as an ambush predator, a sort of bipedal apelike amphibian that grabs a creature in its crushing jaws and flees to swallow and digest it in peace.
Brandt must have died within seconds of his scream being cut off.
They returned to the first level, passed the first side chamber where the icicle piercers had attacked, and proceeded to the next side passage.
A faint light issued from the chamber. Anticipating further fey ghostlights, they tossed a grenado into the cave. When it went off, they heard a great creature with slapping feet sprint away down a deeper passage.
In the cave, they found several clusters of bone like owl pellets. The glow came from one of these; prying it free, they found their magic lantern. In the pellet, along with the bones of several animals and a rukkator, they found a human skeleton. They assembled it in a sack and took it back for burial.
4th Crelmynth (Early summer)
Back at the lair, the Torchbearers had a long war council. They spoke of the need to secure land grants for the other members of the party, and of provisioning Vira’s lair against the winter (still far away, but the evacuation had forced them to abandon the spring’s crops and it was impossible to farm in the mountains.)
Ormar also raised a great stone and carved this oath upon it, which they each signed:
The torchbearers and their descendant realms swear not to raise arms against each other and their held realms. Should one turn to darkness, their evil will be verified by a paladin of the hanging sword, so the rest will avenge or end the evil.
