When last left our heroes, they had sought out the wise woman Glenis in her wooded home with the hopes that she might be able to cure Drogar of whatever plague he was inflicted with and perhaps learn of a cure for all so infected. The old hag’s home was found and she was more than a little on the difficult side of dealing with. Eventually, she agreed to heal Drogar in exchange for his sight.
This write up is from Todd.
There are potential spoilers below the break for the adventures, “The Crucible of Freya,” from Necromancer Games (although a heavily modified version) and there are also elements of Goodman Games, “Legacy of the Savage Kings.”
Drogar screams, inside the cave, followed by Glennis’ cackling. After a few minutes Glennis emerges from her cave, something in her hand. It is a pair of small eyes. She throws them at their feet.
She says, “the dwarf will live, but his eyes are not good enough to safe the lives of the people of the glen. Does someone else wish to give me their eyes?”
The group look at each other, not sure what to do. Glennis raises her new staff in the air and starts counting, “one…two…”
Romulus raises his hand, then remembers the witch is blind. “I will do it,” he says. As he starts towards the cave entrance, Glennis stops him.
“The eyes of an oath-breaker are not good enough!” says Glennis. Staff in the air, she starts counting again. Clarissa volunteers.
Clarissa follows the old witch in to the cave. Inside the cave, away from the entrance, Glennis tells Clarissa to sit down, and then asks if she would like some tea. Clarissa looks a bit confused. Glennis says, “appearances must be kept up to keep away the uninvited visitors.”
Drogar is sitting on a stump, off to the side of the cave. On his lap sits a very large toad. around him on the floor are many normal size toads. The large toad is staring at Drogar, In to Drogar’s eyes.
Glennis asks Clarissa, “what can I do to help?” Clarissa starts asking questions. Mostly, Glennis’ response is, “that is not the right question, or that is the wrong kind of question.” This goes on for some time, clearly frustrating Clarissa.
Eventually, Clarissa stumbles upon the right question. (Which I do not recall what is was.) Glennis tells Clarissa that what is happening can be stopped by a way other than going to the temple fountain.
During the questioning, Glennis would get up and rub the stem of a mushroom on the table. The mushroom would emit an ear piercing scream. Then Glennis would cackle loudly.
The group outside got concerned. Hannil would not let anyone near the cave entrance.
The curse, known as The Blight, can be stopped when the head of Tamede is reunited with his remaining body. Tamede is the demon of rot and corruption, and maybe vultures. Tamede’s avatar was slain during the Wars with the Lich King. His bones are the source of the ore used to make the metal that spreads the curse. Bringing his head back to his body will end the curse, according to legend.
At this point, Clarissa asks if the others can come into the cave. Glennis agrees but with an exception. The oath-breaker, the priest of the Twelve may not enter. Romulus stays outside as the others go in to the cave. Hannil stands in the entrance.
Glennis say there is a book that was stolen from her, that might help the quest. It was stolen by the Hanger, a band of golins. Their warren is under a large tree, to which Hannil knew the location.
It is decided that Hannil will still lead the group to the temple and the fountain, so that everybody can be healed of the curse. Especially Drogar, since he only had a few days before the corruption completely consumed his body.
Hannil leads the group to within a mile of the temple. Brynn and Shory go ahead to scout. The two entrances are blocked high with log barricades. Around the back, Brynn climbs a wall and sees sleeping goblins and dogs. At some other places, she sees some lean-to’s against some walls. She does spot a pair of feet that are larger that goblin feet.
Brynn and Shory return to the others and explain the situation. The group advances to the tree line near the temple. They spend some time devising a plan. Though there seem to be many goblins near the back of the temple, which is near the secret door to the fountain, there were still questions about the area near the front of the temple.
Brynn and Shory head out to scout the front area of the temple. They find a few sentries, goblins and dogs. The log barricades, though stacked high,inside of the temple grounds had ramps leading up to the top logs. The front scouted, Brynn and Shory moved to the side entrance to check it out. As Brynn was climbing the wall, she dislodged a large rock. The rock bounced and clattered into the keep. A sleeping dog woke and looked around, seeing Brynn on top of the wall.
And that, of course, was an excellent spot to stop for the night. 😉
A few points of clarification…
Glenis (and daHeadRat) did make it pretty clear that it wasn’t that she wasn’t willing to answer the questions being asked but that she couldn’t (and not because she didn’t know the answers). The right question was something along the lines of what is the source of the metal (the answer was Tamede) and then she seemed free to answer questions without problem. Hmmm…I wonder what that was all about (hint: daHeadRat is fond of the Fae). 😉
Pretty much all of Clarissa’s questioning was along the lines of how to cure or stop the disease from spreading. In Glenis’ defense, she did try to steer Clarissa’s line of questioning as much as she could by asking the “right” kind of question about the tea the two were sharing.
Glenis did confide that the waters of the healing fountain at the ruined temple could cure the disease and there wasn’t much else that could. However, she did point out one issue with using the temple to heal those that were sick…what would happen when those responsible for spreading the disease found out about the temple?
Tamede, the source of the Blight, is a demon of rot and corruption (and, as Glenis put it, “vultures, I believe”). He was summoned by Vyskandr the Lich King during the wars that Vyskandr fought against the peoples of the world, including the elves of Conallglen. Tamede was defeated during these wars when he was decapitated by one of the elves of the glen wielding the Glen Blades.
Although Tamede was not “killed” by the elf, its body on this plane was slain. Apparently a gigantic creature of some sort, it left no shortage of remains for the production of the metal being used to spread the Blight. It only takes a small amount mixed with other metal to create the contagious stuff.
Glenis also noted that this wasn’t the first time that the Blight had been spread. Others had done so previously in history.
The stolen book that Glenis mentioned was an elvish history of the Lich King and the war fought. She thought that it might hold some clue to the location of the battle where Tamede fell or perhaps some other useful information regarding the demon. The Hangers (the goblin band) had stolen it and many other books over the years. She feared that they had probably destroyed the book.
When everyone (except, of course, Romulus the Oathbreaker) was inside the cave, Glenis did offer tea. Everyone accepted and drank the tea. Bryn was the last to leave the cave when the party headed off for the ruined temple. Glenis stopped her on the way out and whispered to her, “Hospitality is not freely given in the old ways.” Hmm…I wonder what that was all about.