Stories of Lore 23

The Igloo? Really man you too? Anyways, Aato is taking a look around for more clues on the undead. He has found other designs of interest, several of them are built with specialized roles that creates a variety of complications. We were already familiar with some sort of mage hunting variety but he reports also encountering a lumbering monster that’s near impossible to put down with conventional armaments. It was shot by siege weapons and didn’t seem to even notice, they team decided to run away from that one.

It seems quite clear that this is the remnants or stragglers of some sort of organized undead army. Likely created for a larger scale operation and what we’re encountering are just whatever was either left behind or managed to survive this long. Though I am curious as to what they are protecting or what they were supposed to invade.

The golem arrived, though that was quickly overshadowed evidently.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. The hunt for Maeng has taken some interesting turns. Chinami continues the investigation but returned to Okushiri as otherwise ordered. Though this lead to an interesting development, we discovered Maeng has actually passed through Okushiri itself on his journey before continuing southward. A few of the fisherman recognized the eccentric description Chinami provided. It is likely that Maeng is not fully aware of his abilities or their origin in ki specifically. Alosne does not use the art in a formally trained capacity and it is likely he did not even recognize he had found a land of similar warriors and just continued on his way.

I sent a message to Vasia to see if they had any clues of him passing through their lands as well. He was actually one of their princes for a short while, and apparently a popular one. Though the Katara keep their princes trapped within the city for safety due to their value, so he snuck out and decided he preferred being a free man compared to free wine, women, and an early death. So we could say he seems to have quite the adventurous spirit since he keeps passing through places he could have settled down and kept on going. Notably he visits every tavern in all these places, so we’ve gotten good at finding out where to ask around.

Our ship arrived in Melun and managed to trade the information of the latest tome we acquired with Melun for some insight into this “village on a lake within the mountain” business. Eliana told us of an old village that might match the description though it has fallen to ruin. The place was once known as Sangak and it found itself a nice place to hide by building into the crevice of a mountain that had a surprisingly spacious hollowed out interior. The mountain walls acted as a natural defense and bordered on a lake they could use to help sustain themselves, during the dying night this was one of the more successful surviving populations due to these factors. It’s location has been marked on the map with a green square.

It is quite easy to talk at the dragon. They are fully intelligent and can understand our language, they just don’t speak it in return. Something about slim forked tongues, a lack of lips, and their jaw shape interfering with pronunciation, or they just don’t like to. The dragon for the most part seems content to loaf about at the haven monastery so far, though it seems wary of most people. Except, oddly enough, Shime. She is the only one it shows no signs of being wary of, granted she doesn’t interact with it much. They are often found lurking about near each other. Or more accurately the dragon is near her and she is wary of it instead. The rest of the monks are perpetually confused and enamored to its presence. One of our druids at haven reports that the dragon has a perpetual caution towards us because of likely traumatic events for it. I’m guessing that means the fact that it met both Ansa and Ankathi.

Well we sent Alexandria to the gate but the forces we raised have to reach her from the capital, so here is hoping she can hold out that long. We tried to recruit from the closer areas but those settlements are so new that they don’t even have the population to fill the forces as needed.

I’ve told Ankathi she can help with making dragonborn. That’s been… a trip. We’re still making preparations on all of that. On that related topic, Ryo has been escorting the people of kirillo..krillo…so those people are almost here too. We’ll see what input they might have before we let Ankathi just do whatever she wants.

Nyssa made it over to that town Ryo discovered awhile back to investigate just how isolated they’ve managed to remain. For the large part the answer seems to be they just didn’t try hard enough. Though many places we’ve met since we started expanding seem to have that problem. What makes it stand out though is the size of it, its a fairly large city and should definitely have the resources necessary to explore a little more. They’re a little confused as Ryo was the first they’d seen in their recorded history since the dying night, but then he just up and left and now Nyssa came to fill his place.

As for why no one else has found them, seems to just be a roll of the dice. They’re a little far from Cayetano and we know they prefer to travel by boat, the mountainous coast line definitely shielded them from any explorers on that end. They are closest to Kirillin town but they were also locked in isolation due to a fear of the orcs. Then there is Melun who just…doesn’t go places.

On the orc front, word from the grapevine is that the orcs have also started pushing into the badlands with a massive army. Though they’re staying clear of the various citys in their way to force the warlords to either engage them in the open field or just let them go straight to Maji. Meanwhile those approaching us are finding things somewhat slow thanks to the druid shenanigans once again.