(G618 28/02/2026 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP) EVL11

(G618 28/02/2026 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP) EVL11

[The undead cleric of Umberlee known as Salt's Wake has signed up with an expedition to Jundarwood along with his new chum Korinth, a sellsword. They are now well into the forest. Rollo keeps an eye on them.]

DAY 729 30th Alturiak (Feb) 

They broke camp in the morning and continued east into the heart of the Jundarwood. The going was slower, the forest darker. Bozor scouted ahead.

I got a little too close at one point. I was in the form of a black fox. Korinth saw me and pointed me out to Egnol. He said just to ignore me, but Korinth did mention that a black fox was a beast of ill omen, which is right enough, although in this case I had already done them a favour in the morning and set a false trail for the Children of the Final Dawn to follow.

Bozor came back west to meet them. He warned that there were swarms of biting bugs ahead. 'We'll be plagued by blood-sucking insects for a days travel in that direction,' he warned.

Forward was the only direction though so on they went. Old Salty, being dead, was untroubled by the bugs, but Korinth had a hard time of it. He cut two eye holes in a bag and put it over his head, but if anything that made things worse as they got inside and could not be swatted away.

The stopped for lunch and the porters gratefully dropped all the baggage on the ground and flopped down beside it. One of them flopped harder than the others and it turned out she was dead, bled dry by the insects!

The other three porters were too weak to go on and Bozor was knackered, so they lit fires and burned leaves to make smoke, which did a good job of keeping the bugs away, if you didn't mind inhaling smoke. They camped for two hours.

Salty wanted to raise the porter from the dead, but everyone else was dead set against it. Her name was Bekka and she had been a jolly sort of middle-aged lady and everyone wanted her left to rest in peace. He did it anyway.

Korinth searched her bags, but then Salty stripped her naked, cut her skin to make her remaining blood run and then marched her into an area where the bugs were at  their thickest. The bugs went into a frenzy, and horrible as it was, it did sort of work and allow them to break camp and make their way east again.

By three o'clock they were all starting to suffer again, so Egnol ordered another stop and they lit the smoky fires again. He also ordered Salty to put some clothes on the blighted remains of poor Bekka.

Korinth tried some things to ease his suffering, such as caking his armour in mud. None of it worked.

After an hour or so they continued on until a porter dropped to his knees and said he couldn't go on. Egnol ordered the fires lit again. The next time they set off they carried smoking torches, which helped a bit.

I had been following along in the form of a honey badger, so pretty much unbothered by the insects. It was clear to me that this plague of bugs was being controlled by something or someone. Salty came to the edge of the camp to stroke his chin and ponder his next acts of evil and I looked up at him in the bushes. He didn't see me and I risked coughing out a bark that could maybe have sounded like "look for a nest!".

Salty went back to the others and said, 'I think these beasties are coming  from somewhere or being controlled by someone! Let's skulk around and see  what we can see!'

It was nearly ten o'clock by now, but it was a good idea. He and Korinth snuck out of the smoke filled camp and saw a light in the distance between the trees. They followed it, but then lost it. After looking around they deduced that the bugs were drifting in from a particular direction so they went that way. Suddenly an ettercap leapt out of the trees and attacked! It went for Bekka first, but she was undead so its poison had no effect.

Five more ettercaps attacked, including a shaman who was controlling the clouds of bugs. Salty summoned some undead to hold them back and Korinth shot at the shaman. They killed the ettercaps one by one in a desperate struggle in the gloomy forest. The shaman called in a giant spider to help
but the lads were able to kill it as well. I was very upset at Salty for his treatment of Bekka and kind of wished he'd die (properly!) but he was too skilled at marshalling his undead forces and handy with his mace too.

When the shaman finally fell, the bugs dissipated. Salty animated the dead giant spider and rode it back to camp. He made quite a startling entrance.


DAY 730 1st Ches (March)

The broke camp in the morning. The bugs were gone, much to everyone's relief, but they still had to suffer the company of Old Salty who rode his undead giant spider like he was the king in a royal procession.

By now they could see the imposing Tower of Klonis looming up out of the forest, every so often visible through the dense tree cover. There was evidence of undead in this area. Flitting through the shadows were the remains of ancient elves - skeletons, zombies and the God's knew what else. Egnol told them all to leave these undead alone. As long as they were not attacked, the undead of this region were not hostile.

They were in the outskirts of Tyfellia, the ruins of this once great elven city could be seen poking out of the ground here and there. As they continued the ruins were better preserved, with some of the dwellings almost wholly intact under their covers of ivy vines.

Egnol explained what they were going to do next:
'I want to recover an artifact called the Jundarstone. We are going to have to split the party now as its location can only be accessed if certain actions are taken elsewhere. Bozor will lead a section to the ruins of the Academy of Mages and reactivate the Sphere of Galzatric. Bozor knows what to do. We think, we hope, that this will allow the deactivation of the defences that protect the Jundarstone - but only for about a day. I will lead the second section and it will be our job to enter the Tyfellia Solis  Reliquary to find the Jundarstone.'

He didn't tell them what he planned to do with the Jundarstone once he had it and no one asked. Most likely they were thinking of all the other treasure that might be held in the Reliquary. 

Anyway, Egnol's plan went into action in the afternoon. I followed the second section. They headed further into the city. There were undead flitting among the ruins but they kept out of the way of the party. Egnol followed a folded up map he had made of the area until they arrived at the Reliquary.

I didn't follow them, but from my investigations I can piece together what  happened next. The main building of the Reliquary was in ruins and stripped of anything of value - it was the deep cellars where they were head. They met no opposition until they entered the vault of the Jundarstone. 

Every corridor, door and room of this massive vault had once been home to the treasures  of Tyfellia, but now most of them were broken and worthless. Thick cobwebs coated  everything and had to be pushed aside to make progress.

There were undead lurking everywhere, so Egnol and Wrunas remained at the entrance to cover their rear, while Old Salty and Korinth ventured further in.

In the first chamber they were attacked by skeletons and giant spiders. Once these  were dealt with Salty raised one of the huge ones as an undead minion. There were  steps leading up into another big vault and looking through the doorway they saw a  large suit of elven armour standing in the centre of the room. They avoided that, and back down the stairs they followed a corridor to the west where another, smaller, suit  of armour stood against the wall.

As they approached, it came to life and attacked. Salty sent forth his undead host and in the ensuing battle Bekka was rendered properly dead again. As they poked at the armour, a group of ettercaps attacked from a room in the west. The heroes killed two of them, but the other two ran off. Our friendly tomb raiders caught their breath for a moment and then pushed on.