Session 53: Trip to Wynsumheord

General Summary

Archi has hidden the egg in his Bag of Holding and goes through to Wynsumheord, persuading the guards that he is going there on personal business. He tells them that to alert Magnar, Arne, Timble and any others if he doesn't return within a day.

After a while, Rikard hears about this and has been told to keep an eye on Archi, partly to protect Eschbach and partly Archi himself.

Checking on Arne first, the latter wants a few more hours in bed. So Rikard leaves and gets Timble who has been checking out his new cloak before getting some sleep. Both get together and goes to get Arne out of bed to follow Magnar. All know Archi is likely to get into trouble on his own.

Travelling through, Archi makes his way into the forest and goes in the direction of the nearby lake. He leaves marks to show where he has gone, and is shown where he needs to go with the help of a little girl.

Arne, Timble and Rikard come through quickly and link up with Archi, and they make their way to a clearing. Timble also warns the guards about Archi having the egg and shouldn't be allowed to travel alone here, as you never know what might happen.

Getting close to night the group camp down, with Rikard starting a fire, and they feel that the shadows are too long, and a brightly coloured raven flying above. When Archi is asleep, and Rikard too, Timble is on watch and sees the raven lands and goes up to Archi.

It starts to poke at Archi's Bag of Holding eventually getting it off him. At the same time, a being comes walking out of the forest, and the rest are woken up. Archi grabs his bag, and Rikard gets his greataxe handy.

The being introduces himself as Quade, and the bird is called Kora. He is a Dwarf-Elf, and can help Archi, if a bird called Nook from another Dwarf-Elf called Pyket. Archi agrees but nobody trusts him. They sleep till morning and Quade goes off, returning when everyone is up.

He points to the mountains in the distance beyond the forest saying Pyket lives in that direction.

The party starts travelling through the forest and comes across a clearing with different peoples, and Rikard talks to a local man in heavy armour and taller than himself. Turns out he is called Jedrik and knows of Pyket and warns that both Dwarf-Elves aren't to be trusted.

Following the directions the party arrives at the base of the mountain and quickly finds the entrance. They have been told by Jedrik that some of the tunnels are large enough for all of us to walk in. Going in Timble leads the way, and comes across the right tunnel with a strong tough door in the way.

Timble can't get past it, and Archi is willing to reduce the door in size to move it. Rikard instead picks the lock and they continue in. Behind the door, there is a bed and other clutter where Pyket lives. Sitting in a birdcage, is Nook. The group was told by Quade that Nook is the husband of Kora and he wanted both reunited. Nook is rough round the edges and seems to dislike if not hate Kora & Quade.

Quickly taking the birdcage, Rikard and the rest find an alternative way out to the other side of the mountain. The group had heard Pyket coming back in.

Choosing the quickest way round over the mountainside instead of the longer easier route round the base.

Making it down, the group makes it back and Quade appears shortly after. Archi reads Quade's mind and knows he is not to be trusted. Quade gets to go and get the rare hardened wood that he wants. The birds have been put into a sub-dimension by Archi to stop Quade trying to pull a fast one.

During this, Pyket catches up and Timble hides behind him. Pyket tries to intimidate everyone with Rikard turning the table. Pyket tells them that Quade will trick them first chance he gets and all he wants is Nook back who is not Kora's husband. Archi gets the key for Nook's cage and chain releasing the bird, not before it effectively attacks him on the way out. Timble had captured Kora in one of his old cloaks eventually removing it and replacing Nook with her.

Quade returns with an axe made out of a diamond-like substance and says he has borrowed it from some associates. Working out that Quade ain't going to bring a log of the rare wood himself, Archi persuades him to show where one of the trees is. Led there, they let him go with Kora in the birdcage, and they get the promise that he will deliver the items needed to fashion the wood into a shield.

Rikard chops the tree down getting a good sturdy log out of it for Archi, and the latter uses Reduce and Tensor's Floating Disk to bring the log through to Eschbach.

One of the group asks why Quade didn't get the axe back, and Rikard replies that why would we hand it back? After all he probably got it in less than ideal circumstances and likely the owners will punish him for it when he doesn't return it. It's also better that happens than the group doing it.

Timble also remarks to the guards that Quade is due to come through at some stage to leave off the items needed to make a sjield out of the wood and to alert Archi at the very least.