Trouble on the Gale's Teeth (Session 9) - Emmanir 19, 888 F.S.

North of Degarn's Fort
The leader of the captive bad guys says that they meet Garrin on a ship south of Fopasado off of a point on the beach. We travel toward Fopasado, head south of town, and lo and behold, there are three ships seen flying the standard of the sword with the crescent moon. We dress up in the garb of the slave traders that we waylaid and plan to meet up with members of the ships and spin them a story that we were waylaid and lost our shipment of captives.

West Coast of Hronn, South of Fopasado
After a little while, a boat is lowered from one of the ships and sets to shore. There is a woman and six men. We talk with the lady, whose name is Red Frances. She’s horked that her “booty” (i.e., slaves) aren’t here. We tell her that we are in the process of recovering the lost wagon and slaves, and will deliver the goods as promised. Frances sends two of her men with us; they aren’t very friendly. After some suspicious questioning by her thugs as to who our captain is, Estenel replies with “Priamo”. The thugs go back to Frances’ boat and talk with her. Estenel heads back to speak with Frances to see if he can gain more information from them. She has her men draw steel on Estenel, says that she does not believe we work on Priamo’s ship, and takes custody of Estenel. Meanwhile, the rest of the party is back at the wagon, which is 120 yards off of the coast.

A short fight ensues. The fight ends. More discussion with Frances, who says, “If you’re with Pri­amo’s crew, let’s go talk with him now.” We decide to call her bluff: Estenel, Sophia, Teverius, and Keeramet travel out to the ship with Red Frances. Frances sends a carrier pigeon to a nearby ship. A little later, a small boat makes its way from the other ship to Red Frances’ ship. Two people come aboard, one of them (wearing a white cloak) actually flies aboard. They come with Frances to the stern of the ship where Frances says, “Something’s messed up with this transaction; these guys don’t even know who their captain is, and in the end they say it’s you. Do you know these guys?” Priamo says, “Well, they don’t look like anyone I know, but they’re wearing the uniforms.” Upon hearing this, Sophia passes out and Tevarius pukes due to the extreme dread of the situation. The woman pulls back her cloak and demands from Estenel, “Who do you work for and why are you here?” After hemming and hawing for a while, the woman casts a spell on Estenel which drops him to the deck in pain. Estenel then yells out, “Ybilaron! He sent us here to stop the attacks on his bor­derlands!”

Meanwhile, Yukon has set the sails of the ship on fire. Estenel casts Garble on the woman. Seeing their mage no longer able to talk/cast straight, the thugs in the room on the ship draw steel. Estenel grabs hold of the woman, telling the sailors to back off. Priamo runs like a little girl out of the cabin. Red Frances and her two thugs draw steel. Combat ensues.

In the end, Red Frances and the mage with the cloak are unconscious. The party uses them as barter to get off the ship. The sailors allow us to leave given that we leave Frances there. We get on a boat and head to shore with the mage. We gag and bind her. When she wakes up, we interrogate her. What we find out is: she works for someone with a “higher purpose”, they sell slaves in return for “favors” that are desired by her master. She said that she sometimes works with Ididerac. The party then deliberated for some time as to what should be done with her. After batting around ideas of “kill her”, “entomb her”, “bring her back to Degarn’s Fort”, Estenel got tired of the debate and killed her. A magical gem, a magical staff, and a cloak were taken from her person.

The Black Dawn (Session 8) - Emmanir 14, 888 F.S.

North of Schnorking
The city of Schnorking sends 3000 men north toward Gurdikar to see if they can take it back. This force is led by Lord Hallibank. The party travels along with the troops. They send a dispatch of 50 scouts ahead to see what is in Gurdikar, Laendersberg, and Stahl. Gurdikar is leveled, as was Laendersberg. Lord Hallibank retakes Stahl and sets up a base of operation there. Stahl is still fairly intact. However, the invading forces appear to have retreated back to the north.

Lord Hallibank sends a detachment north to seek out this invading army. The party goes along with them. The party breaks off to head over to Degarn’s Keep. Estenel finds the rock where Flick had entombed his man-at-arms. Flick un-entombs his man-at-arms. Yukon cures his Goblin Fever.

Flick then notices, a quarter mile in the distance, a dust cloud being raised by wagons heading west away from us. Flick sees that they are carrying shields with a marking of a sword through a crescent moon on a field of blue and black. These appear to be the same people who had kidnapped the water sprite. We decide to follow them until they set up camp, and then investigate them under the cover of night.

Night falls. The wagons make camp. We watch the camp. After they get done eating, they get a couple people out of the wagons, hand them swords, and force them to fight to the death. The guards hoot and holler, exchange their bets, then put the victor back into the wagon, and toss the corpse outside their camp.

We make a plan to assault the camp, using the wagons full of hostages as a diversion. Flick heads to the wagons and begins to release the hostages. A few seconds later, the rest of us approach the camp to take the guards. We get to within 200 yards of the camp, when Flick hears one of the wolfen alert the captain, who says, “Yeah, I see ‘em.” Apparently, the party’s presence has been discovered. Two of the wolfen go toward the picket line of horses and a few of the others begin to snuff the fire out. Meanwhile, Flick picks the lock on the door of one of the wagons. Yukon uncorks a fireball on some of the guards. Unfortunately, it torches one of the wagons with captives inside. Mayhem ensues.

In the end, the party prevails. We tie up the captain of the thugs, heal him (he passed out during battle), awaken him, and question him. He says they’re coming from Gurdikar with the slaves. The wolfen have the heraldry of the snowflake. The humans have the heraldry of the Black Dawn. They have a ship to the west called the Gale’s Teeth. One of the pirates (humans) says that their leader, Red Francis, sells the slaves to Stormbrother Garrin. One of the other pirate leaders that also makes runs to Hronn for slaves is a man by the name of Priamo, who sails the Flying Tiger. They also tell of a third pirate by the name of Captain Preetu who runs slaves. The wolfen says that Ididerac is now in the Frozen Citadel. They tell that they will most likely meet up with Stormbrother Garrin on this shipment of slaves due to its size. When they meet up with Garrin, it is outside of the town of Fopasado (the seaside village where the port is located).

The party decides to continue heading west on the wagon’s timetable, with the hopes of catching up with Stormbrother Garrin.