The characters have recently slain the Drinker of Tears and made the acquaintance of Speaker Hydelai of the Hybenee Clan. They have resolved to loot the Drinker's lair on Lacoder Island. The group is currently composed of Pawnbroker, Yorden, Laerynthe, and Messerbad.
Before leaving, Yorden took a scale from the Drinker's hide. Messerbad took her head, after Pawnbroker severed it with his war axe. Speaker Hydelai has the rest of the body away to be mulched. The characters then sleep, having not slept for about 24 hours previous. As the night goes on, the characters are often disturbed by the moaning sounds of mourning adapoi.
In the morning, Messerbad manages to heal some of Laerynthe's wounds, despite his near-incredible magical resistance. The characters stay with the Hybenee Clan for the day. In return for their deeds, the adapoi provide the characters with a celebratory feast. Then, after sundown Yorden heals 8 more points of Laerynthe's wounds.
The characters build a small (navigable) raft and a collection of torches over the next two days. Their plan is to construct the raft slightly upriver of Lacoder Island, then drift over to it. Pawnbroker's skills are used on the raft, and to find a tree producing large quantities of pitch (enough for 50 torches plus an additional five liters). The characters leave with:
The characters decided to put ashore midway between the Far Outpost and the Cirdo Hive ruins, near the hills. They first traveled to the top of the highest hill they could find to take a look at the island's geography. They found that the only fires visible were at the oorthoi village, and that there were a lot of wild hunder running around the hills. Yorden also noticed a series of small, deep triangular tracks. They were not large, but deep enough to suggest that they were made by quite a large animal.
The second stop was the Far Outpost, a largely demolished collection of deyrey mounds. The group encountered a pack of wild hunder running through the ruins, and took shelter in the largest of the mounds to avoid them (after shooting three with crossbows). They spent some time in the mound, in an upper chamber, then elected to try looking through the lower reaches of the mound. There they encountered several black-shelled creatures with eight limbs and terrible mandibles. Their first warning was a discarded shell. The second was a meeting in the darkness. They took refuge once again in the upper mound, then emerged from the mound once again almost a day later.
After emerging from the Far Outpost, the characters decided to use the remaining daylight to travel to the oorthoi village and present the head of the Drinker of Tears to them. Their reception there was distinctly cool. Moments after they docked at the oorthoi's dock (where four sleek boats equipped with both oars and sail were also docked), they were met with a series of arrows fired from slit windows within the village. They got little in the way of positive response from the oorthoi, though smart comments or disrespectful attitudes were met by arrows that never really managed to hit anyone. In part this was due to the fact that the oorthoi are not good shots, and in part it was due to the oorthoi's poor vision in the daylight.
The characters told the oorthoi about the death of the Drinker, then stole one of their boats. They decided very quickly to keep it: it was much nicer than the ramshackle raft they arrived on.
The characters knew from the oorthoi village that the Drinker lived in the Queen's Mound in what used to be Cirdo Hive. They quickly determined that the chitinous creatures were not the Drinker's former pets, as two of them lay dead in the outer chambers of the mound. In the central chamber of the mound, the characters found the Drinker's quarters. They also found a stacked pile of deyrey skulls, including the skull of a queen. Valuable items uncovered included:
After looting the Drinker's quarters, the characters decided to explore the rest of the mound, looking for something left behind by the warriors from Mother's Hill when they sacked the place. Laerynthe had a brief run-in with a stone guardian left behind by the deyrey, probably the children of the Queen of Cirdo Hive. It was dispatched readily.
Some searching convinced the characters that the place had been sacked, until they reached the ruins of the nursery. The characters were led there by the iron amulet; Messerbad noticed that it had started to become warmer as the characters descended into the lower depths of the Queen's Mound. The place was a horrorshow, full of the rotted remains of hundreds of deyrey eggs. It also held the Altarstone (described above; item #42).
The iron amulet finally led the characters to a sealed chamber holding two more stone guardians and a stone cradle holding the egg of a deyrey queen wrapped in a blanket. Laerynthe was the first to see the egg, and responded almost instantly by cutting it in half. The other characters were divided as to whether this was a good or bad thing, except for Messerbad who considered it an unmitigated good thing.
After finishing with the nursery, the characters returned to the Murdertree Forest and the Hybenee Clan lands.
After the characters returned to the Hybenee lands, they entered into negotiation with Speaker Hydelai. They wanted his agreement that the adapoi of the Murdertree Forest would not attack or otherwise interfere with human trade down Abbatine's Great River. His general position was that there was little difference between the humans and the deyrey, and that the adapoi had enough with the deyrey around. He suggested that he might be generous if the characters could get the humans of Hegger to destroy Mother's Hill. The characters responded by offering the Hybenee Clan the use of Lacoder Island. The final agreement was to set up a human outpost on the site of the ruins of Cirdo Hive, and let the Hybenee Clan use the rest of the island. The human settlement would be required to do it's agriculture on the river side closest to Mother's Hill, guaranteeing that the deyrey and the humans would ever be at each other's throats. In return, the adapoi would not interfere with human travel.
The characters reached the city of Kashaad after traveling another day or so down the Ganbell offshoot of Abbatine's Great River. For most of the journey, the trees of the Murdertree Forest clustered thickly along either bank. For some of it, Ganbell Clansmen fired arrows with serrated metal heads at the characters. However, the range was great enough that even the composite bows the Ganbell were using could not reliably reach the characters' barge.
The first sign that something different was approaching was a dead zone about 100 meters wide on the downslope (Ganbell) side of the river. Beyond this zone, the terrain was covered in pleasant meadowland, interspersed with hedgerows and small copses. Though there were some fields and farmland visible, very few residents were visible. Finally, the characters spotted the city of Kashaad proper, a huge stone construction built up the side of an isolated mountain. A few moments later, they saw two slate-blue-skinned soldiers dressed in typical Kashaad fashion riding upon huge spiders. The soldiers motioned to them and spoke incomprehensibly, then returned to the city.
The group followed them at some delay, passing through the main gates of Kashaad alone. After some delay, they were met by a resident who showed them into a large, comfortable townhouse that seemed a mix of opulence and neglect (beautiful furnishings, but dust everywhere). The characters waited there for several days (part of which was spent retrieving Messerbad from the wilderness where he had hidden), and were eventually met by an incredibly aged "Elder" who spoke with Pawnbroker in True Speech. The outcome of the conversation was unclear at best, but the Elder promised to return later.
The city looks to be about the same size as Paiden, possibly a bit larger, but few inhabitants were visible on the streets. The buildings are stone, and detailed with statuary almost as intricate as deyrey work. The streets proper are cobbled. Both Messerbad and Yorden were struck by an unusual feeling as they walked through the lands around Kashaad. Messerbad found it reassuring, while Yorden found it disquieting. In both cases, they guessed that the area is High Mana, that spells cost one less energy to cast, and that all casting rolls are at +1.