The Hallows of Horsia 5

 

Objective

Plant the arcane flags around Shadowfell rifts to ward off the darkness
 
 

Observations

The barrier created by the arcane flags can hold back the darkness from the Shadowfell.
 
 
  Creatures from the Shadowfell may be entering our world through the voids like the one we saw near Fort Vegepath.
 
 
  Purple flame very bad.
 

Follow up

Hand Ralla and Valas the letter from the odd fellow.
  Check the vicinity of Ogden, as there may still be another Shadowfell rift that needs to be wardened off.
 

Preparation Details

Jacob provided us with 16 arcane flags with instructions on how to use them.
 

Operation Details

The morning began with a mission brief with Jacob. We were given 16 arcane flags that can create a barrier of sorts to contain the spreading of the Shadowfell.
 
 
  We were ordered to locate and ward off the edge of the darkness in two locations: The first location was close to where Fort Vegepath used to stand, and the second location was closer to Ogden.
 
 
  Alexander had a magical lantern that could reveal hidden creatures and objects, but as we got closer to the sources of darkness, the light would become more muted.
 
 
  The Shadowfell Rift near Vegepath:
  The source of darkness by Fort Vegepath was a void in the ground, roughly 60’ by 10’. As our party approached it, we were ambushed by two large frog like monsters that tried to swallow Luminos and Alexander. We defeated them and formed a barrier with the flags. The flags needed to be planted no more than 20’ apart, or the barrier may not operate successfully.
 
 
  When we tried to reposition one of the flags, we found that it was near impossible to pull out of the ground, as the magic seemed to secure them firmly into the ground once they were planted. When we tried to be more forceful, a wild magic surge erupted, causing harm to one of us. We recommend not tampering with them.
 
 
  We continued our mission towards Ogden, where we experienced a similar phenomena with the lantern.
  Dickens noticed a set of large feline tracks following us. We decided to ignore them and continued down the road.
  There was a crib surrounded by candles by the road, and Luminos sensed several malicious entities around our party. Alexander sent his cannon to nudge the crib, at which point we were assaulted by a panther like creature with tentacles. An undead baby floated out of the crib and was hostile towards us. It seemed to have a fear effect as well as a horrifying wail that would harm us if we were close. We learned that we could avoid some of these effects by averting our eyes when we fought it.
  In the end, we defeated the undead baby and two of the feline creatures.
 
 
  When the undead baby was defeated, the body vanished, leaving a ring of purple flame which Aujirgix seemed to know about and immediately ran as far away as he could. Luminos and Alexander were not able to react in time and were nearly engulfed by the purple flame circle when it rapidly expanded. Anything that fell within the perimeter of the purple flame seemed to have disappeared.
 
 
  Fortunately, no one was hurt, most likely because we were protected by the protective aura of Luminos, and the bond we had with Dickens.
 
 
  Luminos collected one of the candle holders that was next to the undead baby’s crib and noticed there was some writing on it that he could not comprehend. He packed it into his backpack.
 
 
  At the location where the baby disappeared, a dark glyph appeared and a shadowy haze seemed to flow out from it. We immediately planted flags to contain the shadow.
 
 
  It was then that an odd fellow appeared out of nowhere, with a letter addressed to Ralla and Vallas. He wanted to interact with the barrier, which Luminos prevented by interposing himself between the man and the barrier. The man would not reveal much about himself or the person who sent the letter, other than it was someone very rich who was from Lehigh. Apparently, Ralla has encountered this Shady fellow before.
 
 
  As it was getting late and we were low on flags, we decided to head back to the fort.