Session 06: Hunger and Pies

The party picked their rooms in the League hall and offered a room for Thormod Gudasson for the night, though they kept a watchful eye over him as the night passed. Bolvaic had a look around the hall during the night, discovering that a number of the trophies were a bit exaggerated on their plaques. He also asked Reginald for information about the sculptor of the statue of Wendall Wallace.   In the morning, Reginald made breakfast before everyone set off. Thormod ravenously devoured his meal as if he was starving. Still not trusting Thormod, the group set off with him as he began to lead them to the port, a journey that he said would take them five days to make on foot.   Thormod tried to relate to Levi, calling upon their common Northlander heritage, but Levi remained a bit distant to Thormod, despite his attempts. However, Levi did hear Thormod reciting a verse in Rytham, the language of the Northlanders under his breath as if it was some sort of prayer. It was a verse that he repeated to himself quietly several times during their travels. The verse was:   The first gift is hunger.
It is His blessing.
It is our call to bring death.
The second gift is death.
Death proves our strength.
Death purges our fear.
The third gift is fear;
We fear that we will fail him.
We fear the onset of hunger.
  Thormod led the party east across the Wildthorn River and along the path through the Tiverminster Woods. The party eventually made camp for the first night just outside of Duke Greyhall’s territory. Illevaere and Bovaic scouted the area and found a boar to bring back to cook at the fire. During the first watch, Rieta heard whispers in the dark in a language that she could not recognize. However, she tried to remember what was being said phonetically to see if any others in the party were able to understand it after she woke them.   Ilbryen recognized what Rieta had remembered as being in the Sylvan tongue. Rieta’s phonetic recitation was not exact, but Ilbryen was able to make out some of it, at least. The conversation seemed to be about “cooking” and “food” and “appleplum”. The party began to consider that it was allies of Thormod since the talk seemed to be related to food.   The party decided to break camp then, in the wee hours of the night and pick up their journey from there. After a bit of travel along the road, Levi noticed that the wolf cubs that had “adopted” him turned and started off into the woods, bounding playfully as if they had noticed something. Levi and Tertius were the first to follow. Within a few steps into the forest, Tertius and all three wolf cubs dropped, falling immediately asleep. Rieta recognized the effects as being similar to her own sleep spell and Illeveare cast detect magic and found auras of illusion magic near the sleeping bodies. One of the sleeping wolves began to get pulled by something unseen, but it was quickly stopped. The party woke Tertius and the wolf cubs and started to return to the road.   Bolvaic had remained at the road watching over Thormod while the others followed the wolf cubs. As he started to move, he found that his boot straps were bound together. The party began to continue along the path.   It was not much further when Bolvaic and Thormod, walking at the front of the party, smelled the distinctive scent of baked apples. Thormod rushed into the forest to find the source. There, in the middle of the forest, was an apple pie which Thormod immediately began to ravenously devour. Rieta ordered him to stop eating, but he did not and she cast a sleep spell to stop him. Also caught up in the effect of the sleep spell were two pixies who became visible once they fell asleep.   The party restrained the diminutive pixies and began to interrogate them. They discovered that they had stolen the pie from Eastbridge and were bringing it in tribute to the great wyrm Faerie Dragon named “Wishes Appleplum”. They have been stealing pies from town for a while now, and the party tried to convince them to barter, trade, or pay for the pies instead of stealing them. The party realized that this was likely the source of the pies being stolen from Meabh Mhic Cailin who left a notice at one of the taverns in town, offering a reward for information on the culprit stealing her pies. Their plan was to abduct one of the party members and have them cook pies for Appleplum so that they no longer had to steal pies from town.   Ultimately, however, the party determined that the pixies were not a threat and released them, hoping that they would strike a bargain with the baker in the town, or possibly with Illevaere’s sister who is also a baker.   The party continued along the road and Thormod led them off of the main road and along a lesser used path that led deeper into the woods. He claimed that it was the way they had to go. Bolvaic noticed canine paw prints along the lesser traveled road and the party reluctantly continued to follow Thormod.