Day 5 — Tea dispute settled
Chapter summary
Section titled “Chapter summary”A royal breakfast, a necromancer’s tower, and an archaeological mystery end with Oro’s abduction.
Connections
Section titled “Connections”Session notes
Section titled “Session notes”A new day dawns, although the light barely manages to penetrate through the jungle. The guard invites us to have breakfast with the queen. We hastily make tea while Ryuto complains that tea is a careful endeavor which shouldn’t be rushed. Meanwhile, Punx accuses Ryuto of overboiling the tea leaves
Punx’ tea comes out really well compared to Ryuto’s technique. The water in this place has the right composition and PH for the tea. We follow the guard for breakfast.
The children seem rather impatient, the queen is Killipella, and her children are Ranghi and Oro. Ranghi and Oro are happy to accept our tea while Killipella looks suspiciously. We must first eat and then talk. The two children bring breakfast, with generous portions of rocket deer, lathered in butter served with candied beets. We don’t know what Mr. Ryuto eats.
Punx praises the food even though he tries to be amenable, they are very suspicious of him. The queen is suspicious about our talking to her children. Our offer to help with the Boggarts is intriguing. The queen wants to know our real purpose here. We’re here to trade, we say. She doesn’t welcome our help.
She is willing to let us do one service. There used to be a burial ground between the village and the coast but it has been taken by a necromancer. We should go take them out so the burial ground is accessible again. They don’t have the resources to fight both the boggarts and the necromancers. The boggarts are to the north.
Ronghi is trying to communicate with us. The necromancer does not wish to be disturbed and came to the village to warn about it. Some guards spoke to the necromancer and they are somewhere around. We offer that if we take out this necromancer maybe we can negotiate. The queen partially agrees.
We’ve made progress in her stance. We’re on our way over. We go meet with Lagos on of the guards who’s had contact with the necromancer. Lagos and his three sisters tried to challenge this newcomer and he showed them what was behind his bravado. Lagos does not remember what happened. They approached his camp outside the burial grounds and next thing he knew he was bruised and tied up. Mouth gagged and put in sacks. There was many of them but there was a foul stench. Then Lagos and his sisters were deposited in town. Lagosi, Lagosana and Lagosora. They scouted his camp, he is alone there. That’s why they didn’t attack in the back and instead went directly.
Ronghi comes out the tent and says it’s a suicide mission. She says that the Boggarts are the real issues and the burial ground is a minor inconvenience. Ronghi is very concerned and he is one of the sea brethren, said to come from the bottom of the ocean. The alth silers, they walk on water and land. In water they take more of a fishlike form.
Punx wants to show Ronghi his boat. Don Gregorio comes to join us. We tell him our mission and he is concerned. We ask Don Gregorio about the Alth Silers. He thinks we’re going on a wild goose hunt. He wants us to make shop nearby outside the village instead of confront the queen. Don Gregorio thinks that the villagers are not so unified. We don’t know if there’s talk of unhappiness, there might grumblings that war is not going well. The queen was not chief.
Punx and Ryuto trade barbs about tea. Pachinko thinks that the necromancer might be friendly. We get blessing come from Pachinko.
We have received a blessing from the lord of light. Lagos is going to lead the way. We follow. We safely traverse the woods as we’re being guided. There’s a building atop of the hill where the necromancer is supposed to reside. We practice some breathing techniques beforehand.
The dirt has been disturbed. We’re being attacked, there’s skeletons and zombies coming out of the ground.
Zombie drops a fancy looking axe and there’s some vermin coming out.
We manage to fight the zombies and suffer great losses but manage to survive and head to the door of the necromancer.
We threaten the necromancer and he establishes a truce. The necromancer is scared. He is Olthanxos, from under the sea. He is angry that we approached his tower unannounced and we broke his door.
Olthanxos claims that the tower is from his people and that’s why he is there. He asks us to let him leave in peace. Once again a tea-off happens and Punx wins as the tea of choice.
The era of the resurgence has not come or perhaps the flood is to come. Olthanxos is unsure about the tumult. He hastily takes some of his belongings and goes away. The digging was mostly done by his skeleton crew and he was digging down the tower for an archaeological survey. We loot rations and then bury the rest of the bodies. There’s a gleaming axe which Oona tries to bury but Pachinko is eyeing it. However, everyone realizes that it’s the dead king’s axe so we leave it be. We tell Lagos a bit of what happened.
We sleep without armor and set up watches. Nothing happens in the night.
We return to the village and the village is in a panic. Oro has been abducted by the Boggarts. Punx has been stricken by the blood agu. The true thing that’s keeping foreigners out of the elephant isles. The symptoms are a strange fever in which one moment you feel freezing and then burning.