Journal Entry 6

Aeric Lebeda – Journal Entry 6

Sadly, I’ve lost track of what day it currently is. The past couple of weeks have been rather busy. Anna and myself headed back to Oleg’s to get Father Jhod and take him to the Temple of the Elk. On our way thru the ford at the river we encountered a troll. For some reason Anna decided to engage it briefly before following me fleeing from it. From all the stories I’ve heard, trolls are rather dangerous, if we were going to fight one, I would really rather with had more people with us.

We reached Oleg’s after 4 days and found that Oleg’s cousin Piotr had arrived. Piotr is the engineer we had requested. Also our waterproof ponchos arrived along with a replacement pony for Jonah. When we mentioned the lost temple to Father Jhod, he was already to get up and travel even though it was nighttime. We convinced him to wait until morning. We also discovered that while Jonah’s fever has broken, the lad has not yet woken up. Svetlana agrees to keep watch over him. We lent Piotr our duplicate map of the area (the one we are preparing for the mayor of Restov) so he can travel around and see some of the lay of the land. We put him on retainer so that he would hopefully still be around when we return with the rest of the group. We also offloaded a large amount of bandit gear, including Kressle’s head to Oleg and thus receiving the reward for suppressing bandits. I also picked up a number of potions of cure light wounds from Oleg’s since we had exhausted a number of ours during the past adventures. The return trip to the Temple of the Elk was uneventful and allowed me time to prepare a few more potions of cure light wounds.

We arrived with Father Jhod at the Temple, and he was overjoyed to see it. It did look much better than previously and I suspect that Maladan had done most of the work as Tomaz doesn’t like to do boring stuff. I passed out the potions of healing to Maladan and Tomaz (since I had already given Anna hers). Maladan dumped his out and filled it with water from pool. I was quite indignant about this, does the man have no idea how much those things cost? However I did come to realize that he wasn’t doing it from malice, he had just been left alone with Tomaz for 8 days… by himself, it would make anyone a bit loopy. Plus Maladan had filled his waterskin, his helmet, all the available cooking pots and some other crudely made bowls with the water. I suspect that Maladan will be soon back to his gruff self when we get him back out fighting bandits. Although I do see the attraction of staying at the Temple, it is very restful and peaceful here.

Leaving the Temple was quite difficult for Maladan and we scouted to the north. We found a lumber camp and what appears to be the lumberjack crushed under a number of logs. The cuts on the bindings indicate that it might have been the small fey creatures we had previously encountered. We buried the poor soul. We also found the start of a river! Obviously feed by an underground spring it was a good discovery so that we have another way around the river other than the ford. Heading to the southwest towards the hot springs that the fey creatures had mentioned we found it, it was very warm and foggy. Stripping down we clambered into the hot springs to soak. It was very relaxing, and somewhat distracting as we watched Anna, she is a very attractive woman. Our relaxation wasn’t to last though. We were attacked by giant frogs! They lashed out and both Anna and myself, I managed to break free and dash for shore as did Maladan. Tomaz cast magic to try and scare the frogs away. Anna was saved from being dragged into the reeds as Maladan’s aim with Erastil’s guidance pierced thru the fog and struck the frog truly. Anna made it to shore safely, but her appearance caused me to miss the actions of the remaining frog. Maladan sent a flaming arrow out to try and expand our limited visibility, however it seems he struck a pocket of explosive gas, which caused the whole area to start filling up with gas. After dispatching the last frog we fled into the prevailing winds and set up a new camp.

In the morning as we continued our exploration we realized that the hot springs are the start of another river, albeit a slow muddy river. Traveling south along the river, we found some abandoned stone buildings; at least we thought they were abandoned until we discovered that there was a boggard (frog-man) and his pet (a saber-toothed frog). With his broken common we decided that communication with it would be difficult at best. I did manage to whip up an extract that allowed me to understand the creature, who sounds much more intelligent in his native language. We may have to come back here when we are better able to speak with it.

Traveling to the east we encounter what seems like a small cave, until a nasty looking boar comes charging out of it. Tuskgutter! Maladan receives a devastating blow, in fact we fear for his life (if only he hadn’t dumped out those potions of healing!). After some considerable and dangerous fighting (I managed to light myself on fire) we managed to kill Tuskgutter and decapitate him.

Pushing further east we encounter the same river that the bandits have a ford on. This part of the river has a small bridge, which we decide not to cross at this time. Heading south we find Fangberries in between too large hills. However the Fangberries are not alone. They have small spiders (Chew Spiders) living in amongst the bushes. We collect some berries before small swarms of spiders come out and attack both Tomaz and Anna. For once they are both happy to be lit on fire as my bombs drive back the spiders. With some assistance Maladan collects the remaining berries we need without disturbing any more spiders. I take a couple of samples of these spiders. They could prove useful for my research.