Bob (Yorden), Mike (Messerbad), and Tim (Laerynth) are the only players in attendance. Chris is out for the day, and Doug has (from Tim) is giving up.
It is currently the 853rd year of Abbatine, Wet Season, 143rd day of the year. The day happens to be Friday.
Pawnbroker leaves Paiden to investigate the frozen Yierdo dwarf body he learned fell from the sky last session. He'll continue on this until Chris returns to the group.
The characters venture to the Translators' Guild to speak to Pawag Akowa. When the characters meet with him, he is using a curative (made by Tellwae the Mixer) for his skin condition. Pawag agrees to try and find a magician willing to teach them the Cure Disease spell, though he points out that Kobus Akowa is influential (third brother to the Patriarch) and there is a certain risk in this for him. Also, though there are a few magicians affiliated with the Translators' Guild who know Cure Disease, he points out that many of them will be unwilling to help the characters simply due to their recent problems with Kobus Akowa (the magicians don't particularly want to make him upset either).
The characters promise to get some of the skin curative Pawag is using in exchange for his help. Yorden hopes that there will be some among the materials he took from Tellwae's shop, but finds that there is none. Also, he doesn't know how the preparation is made.
This turns out to be one of the several loose ends the characters leave when they depart Paiden abruptly.
Tellwae's sons Gaddas (the moneycounter) and Kaporgo (the magician) visit Yorden to demand that he plead for Tellwae's release. They are not very happy (understandably), and essentially place the blame for Tellwae's current problems squarely upon Yorden's shoulders. Yorden protests his own blamelessness in the matter and suggests that it was actually all Tellwae's fault. Gaddas and Kaporgo are not particularly sympathetic to this view and stomp off.
The other characters tell Laerynth about Turgen Three-Tooth. While Yorden spies upon Tellwae's house and deals with Pawag Akowa, he decides to figure out who the Jhokkada in the city are. His method is to watch Turgen Three-Tooth and see who he associates with.
He spends three days watching, and sees several members of Matok's faction hanging around with Turgen. He also sees an argument between Turgen and one of Sabasso's men, and lip-reads the following words: "Matok", "that damned creature", "Sabasso." After the argument, he follows Sabasso's man up to the Turgosk Gate. Sabasso's man leaves the city, and Laerynth does not follow him.
Yorden makes another trip to Tellwae's House. His intention is to drug the family with sleeping draught (again) and then sneak in to steal the recipe for Tellwae's skin curative. He finds that they have acquired a hunder to guard the house. He drugs it, then sneaks some sleeping draught into a bottle of liqueur used to produce a fruit pastry dessert he has already seen made twice at the house. He leaves without being discovered.
Yorden returns to the house daily for several days thereafter, watching at night to try and determine if the family has consumed any of his drugged liqueur. Two or three nights after he starts, he finds the lights on and hears the sounds of conversation. Intrigued, he waits until he sees people leaving at the front of the house. Tellwae's two sons are bidding a group of four humans good-bye. All four look like mean customers. Yorden tracks them to the White Houga inn, assuming that they are probably assassins hired to kill either the characters or Lembey Abbas.
The four tough-looking strangers are mercenaries Gaddas and Kaporgo have hired to try and rescue Tellwae from the Abbas Family plantation downslope. They are all very skilled, certainly able to overpower the Abbas Family plantation guards if they have to. Their typical stats are: ST 12, DX 14, IQ 11, HT 11, with Toughness (DR 1), and weapon skills of 14. They consist of:
All of them should be at least 120 point characters. They act with the sort of paranoia normally associated with player characters.
Yorden becomes quickly convinced that the four strangers are likely to have been hired to kill the characters. He tells Messerbad and Laerynth this, and they decide that the only solution is a pre-emptive strike. All three of them arrange a complicated strike on the strangers' room at the White Houga, ignoring the lethal impression the strangers left with the doorman when they checked in (Yorden was reading the man's mind).
The attack is a total disaster. The strangers had their door and window Magelocked, with a Watchdog spell outside both the door and the window. They were alerted to the characters' presence the instant they arrived. While Yorden tried (and failed) to open the window with both lockpick and Lockmaster, the magician threw Mass Sleep through the door to strike down Messerbad (Laerynth was able to shrug the spell off effortlessly). The swordmaster then burst through the door and inflicted desperate damage upon Laerynth before taking a blow himself and withdrawing to be healed.
In the end, the characters crawled off to lick their wounds, convinced that they had to leave the city post-haste.
After their failed attack, the characters have a brief meeting with Lembey Abbas. They tell him about the four strangers, and offer the theory that they have been hired to rescue Tellwae. Lembey thanks them and says that he'll move Tellwae to Hegger (to insure that she remains captive). The characters make their own plea that Tellwae should be released, and Lembey refuses in no uncertain terms, noting that the new tax has already cost the Abbas Family 20,000 challock. "You can come back and talk to me about releasing Tellwae when you have 20,000 challock." The characters decide that because Lembey still likes them, they won't press the issue.
The characters also think about telling Tellwae's sons that their mother is being moved to Hegger, but discard the idea on the premise that this information probably wouldn't endear them to them.
The characters leave Paiden, intending to go to Hegger. They take no provisions, but use Messerbad's plant magic to grow themselves food every night. They leave on the 152nd.
Halfway to Trail, the characters find an adapoi dying of the Weeping Plague. Messerbad tries to speak to it, but it can't say much. Yorden (out of hand) shoots it with his crossbow, then Laerynth (who knows he is immune to disease) drags it off the trail. Everyone else makes a HT roll to avoid contracting the disease, but Laerynth gets some of the (infected) phlegm on his hands.
Four days later, the characters arrive at Trail (and pay the one challock entry fee). They talk to Mikhail, and take a room (for 5 challock). Messerbad talks to Vobit, the current healer. Vobit is a fat, alcoholic oorthoi who lives in a hut on the outskirts of town. His hut is decorated with racks upon which rotting animal carcasses.
Meanwhile, Yorden and Laerynth get a room at the Third Pascullo Inn. Yorden then seeks out the nicest inn in town for gaming. He finds it in the Red Tree. He wins some money, and meets Teffys, a professional gambler from Three Stones Ford. He tells Teffys that his name is actually Larrai.
The characters end up staying in Trail for all of the Low Wet Season and High Dry Season. Messerbad negotiates with Vobit to teach him all the spells necessary to learn Cure Disease, in exchange for filling Vobit's duties for the two half-seasons.
Yorden sets up a simple alchemist's shop under the name Larrai. He rents some land from Loorie the Cooper, a youda recommended by Mikhail Woodman. A house Loorie owned had recently burned to the ground, and Yorden rents the lot from him for 100 challock (for two half-seasons) and 5 challock (for Loorie's sons to clear away the burnt wood). Yorden then buys a large tent for 25 challock (very nice, with interior dividers and a laceable door) and set up shop. Over the two seasons, Yorden clears about 3 challock per day, plus a bit on the side from his gambling activities. He also has a chance to attempt two elixirs, and successfully makes 10 doses of Hermes (stealth) elixir.
Laerynth gets a job from Mikhail as a town guard, on Messerbad's recommendation that he is a mean hand with his sword. He is paid room, board, and 2 challock per day, plus whatever he skims from town fines (which works out to an average to 3 challock per day).
The characters finish their activities. Laerynth gets an extra experience point to put into Old Youden, plus 450 challock from his job. Yorden gained an extra point of Alchemist, and gained 3 challock per day from his business (less the 105 challock rent he paid). He also manufactured 10 doses of Hermes (stealth) elixir. Messerbad learned the Test Food, Decay, Sterilize and Cure Disease spells, but didn't gain any additional points.
The characters purchase one pascullo and a cart for 230 challock and a tub of pascullo linament from the local pascullo dealer. The cost is split unevenly among Yorden, Messerbad and Laerynth.
The characters depart from Trail on the first day of the Low Hot Season. It takes the characters six days to get to Seitha. They find Cheide fairly much as they would expect, and swiftly depart for Ubele, intending to stop there only briefly.
On the road to Ubele, they spy a large column of smoke roughly where Ubele lies. Soon after, they encounter a group of about 30 human refugees escorted by four warriors armed Seitha-fashion with axes and shields. The characters spend some time healing the wounded among the refugees, and listen to the guards' tale of a terrible assault upon Ubele by Vlad's men. The guards say that Vlad's men rode upon huge worms, and that folk died when the worms breathed. Of the three castles watching over Ubele, two fell very quickly and the guard didn't think the third would last long. He knows that the Baron of Ubele and his entire household were killed by the poison of the worms. He also claims that the Count Meles of Ubele and his men managed to kill one of the worms by collapsing a tower upon it. He doesn't know if the Count managed to survive the encounter. The guard says that Vlad has since gone off towards Seitha Hold (messengers have already been sent warning of his approach), and will be there within two days.
The characters are not particularly pleased by this news, and decide to travel somewhat downslope of Ubele, bypassing the place. In particular, they decide to take a route that does not take them between Ubele and Seitha Hold.
Fairly close to Ubele, the characters come upon a series of large tracks of matted grass, apparently where the worms passed by. While examining these, they heard the sounds of many feet approaching from the direction of Ubele. Messerbad and Laerynth hide in trees, while Yorden simply squats down in the tall grasses with a loaded crossbow.
Soon enough, a gang of some 50 deyrey come over the hills, heavily laden with an array of stuff. They look at the characters' pascullo and wagon with greedy eyes, and are on the verge of simply walking off with them when Yorden emerges and challenges them. He has a conversation with the neuter in charge of the group, one Tundley of Taba Hive, which lies two days downslope. Tundley tries to trade Yorden's pascullo for a suit of armor (the torso still in it) and a battle-axe, obviously taken from the ruins of Ubele. Tundley's speech makes it clear that the Queen of Taba Hive has negotiated with Vlad for permission to loot Ubele in the wake of his attack. Yorden manages to avoid dealing with Tundley by the skin of his teeth, and bids the deyrey good-bye. The characters have a clear impression that Tundley would have been perfectly happy to eat Yorden alive.
After their encounter with the Taba Hive deyrey, the characters are lit with greed at the prospect of plunder just lying around for the taking in the ruins of Ubele, even if it puts them at risk of encountering massive numbers of deyrey. They conceal their wagon and pascullo (through the expedient of feeding the creature massive amounts of sleeping draught, practically all that Yorden had remaining), then venture towards Ubele in the night.
Soon enough, they find a huge bonfire, surrounded by perhaps 300 deyrey (including two drones). Various forms of loot and plunder lie scattered around the area, as well as several bound human prisoners. The characters skirt around the camp, leaving the humans to whatever sticky fate the Taba Queen has in store for them, and approach one of Ubele's overlooking castles.
The session draws to a close with the characters looking up at the ruined form of the Jadestone Castle. Each character gained four experience points, in addition to the various bonus points gained during the characters' time in Trail. Pawnbroker gained one experience point for his troubles.