As our adventure began one new face and one old were in the wilderness to the West of the Paddleboat. Zanareous and Wendy witnessed a massive BOOM on the horizon, the second one in the last two weeks! Zan had been hunting for clues about his dead or missing husband. He had only discovered that the Wolf Brigade were involved somehow. He met with the cheery bubbly Wendollyn Frothmeiler, a gnome who served “The Diety” and some really good baked goods.
Zan and Wendy agreed to travel together. Especially since it had been some time since either had spent time with other survivors since the blast. Zan and Wendy spotted an odd boat traveling up the frozen river and hailed it to stop. Ra’Cheep and the others welcomed them aboard. Wendy and Zan met the crew of the Pumpernickel, a colorful group to say the least! There were several spectral ducks, a living rose bush/person, a few cats, a dog, a goat, but the people turned out to be quite fascinating as well. Zan met with Xyphos who used to be a member of the Wolf Brigade, the two caught up about Casius Arum, the Prince of Hernfell, and the leader of the infamous Wolf Brigade. The two agreed to find and kill Casius. He is a dangerous man and can’t be allowed to rule the nation or gain any more power. Wendy met Phineous and it became immediately apparent that Phineous was not on good terms with his people. It’s entirely possible that he is on the run for something that happened in his home country.
After traveling for a short way upstream the crew spotted smoke on the horizon, just beyond the western bank of the river! Pibble, Ra’Cheep, and Zan decided to investigate. They found a small town of survivors that seemed to have gained new leadership recently because it seems that their local noble family had vanished underground at the time of the blast and no one had heard from them in around two weeks. Our heroes met the locals and did some shopping. The local herbalist had a few interesting items but she also wanted to make use of Ra’Cheep’s skills of speaking to the dead. While they were communing Ra’Cheep had a sudden vision of one of his people very nearby somewhere under the earth. Weak. In pain. And slowly beginning to make their way toward the spirit world. In an effort to preserve them Ra’Cheep immediately demanded to be shown how to get underground in this town. The locals assured him that the only place below ground that they knew of was the bunker that the nobles had disappeared into so many days ago.
Pibble and Zan found a very stout vault door and eventually a vent that led into the bunker. The vent was a chimney spewing smoke and was impossible to pass through without dealing with the smoke first. Zan pushed a large amount of dirt into the chimney to smother the flames below, after crawling down the chimney the group found a lavish bunker that smelled of death. They were attacked by a wild woman in armor that they managed to knock out and hand to the villagers outside. After exploring the bunker further the group found strange traps, a troll, and finally a lonely creepy wizard in the deepest part of the bunker. He invited the adventurers to play chess with him, Pibble and Zan flanked behind Ra’Cheep as he sat down to play. Ra’Cheep began asking questions of the strange wizard and suddenly flipped the chess board and cast a spell, which the wizard countered and then dazed Pibble and Zan with a spell. Ra’Cheep attempted to battle the wizard alone, but also fell to a spell a few moments later. Zan and Pibble broke free from their spell bound stasis and were able to kill the wizard. Ra’Cheep found a male Aarakocra from his village named Pra’Kreen who was in very bad shape. Pra’Kreen’s wings had been removed and he was very sick and frail. The heroes retreated from the bunker and returned to the ship eager to regroup with their friends and return Pra’Kreen to his sister on board the boat.
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