Bob (Yorden), Mike (Messerbad), Chris (Pawnbroker), Tim (Laerynthe) and Ray (several characters, see below) all show up.
The characters reunited with Elfest of Hegger in Three Stones Ford and decided to head back down Abbatine's Great River to Paiden along their new trade route. It is currently the beginning of the High Wet Season in the year 854.
The characters decide to give the safe passage given them by the Senior Drones of Mother's Hill to Ihrren Veka. In exchange, he agrees that they will always have free passage on any Veka- or Abbas-Family sponsored boat down Abbatine's Great River.
Several of the characters are also interested in learning spells from the College of Sorcery in Hegger. To this end, Yorden prevails upon Elfest of Hegger to give them a letter of recommendation (item #49).
Before Elfest departs, Pawnbroker convinced Elfest to acquire a few improvements to his flatboat: a few mantelets (to protect against attacks from any creatures like the Weaver from the characters' last trip upriver) and a place to hide Messerbad from the eyes of the deyrey.
The journey downriver is (relatively) peaceful. Along the way, Lukar departs the group at Mother's Hill to take the place of the minstrel the characters freed in their last visit. He joins the deyrey of his own free will, as a guest of Chalbon.
Since the characters left him on the banks of the Yodai River, Tolodio Abbas and his crew of turgosk have been very busy. Their settlement, now called Riverside, has grown to about fifteen wooden buildings surrounded by a palisade wall. When the characters arrived, Elfest's goods were offloaded onto thirty pascullo and (per their agreement), Tolodio paid the characters 150 challock (five per pascullo).
Elfest's party and the characters left Riverside only a day or so after arriving, about two weeks into the High Wet Season. The rain fell constantly, drenching the group and filling the trail with mud ten centimeters deep. The journey from Riverside to Paiden, which should take only about five days, took ten.
The characters entered Paiden through the Turgosk Gate along with the rest of Elfest's people. Elfest negotiated a "bulk rate" with the gate guards, so the characters only paid one challock each to enter. The whole process was quite rapid, as the guards were just as wet and miserable as the travelers.
The characters returned to their home to find the roof leaking, but everything else normal. Pawnbroker spent fifty challock getting the roof fixed. Yorden invited Elfest to stay with them. Elfest politely declined, preferring to stay with the rest of his people. He did, however, agree to have dinner with the characters.
The characters spent the remainder of the High Wet Season engaged in a variety of projects. Unsurprisingly, most of this time the weather was damp, and rain was common. Their projects included:
The group was also joined by Danwe Veka, Ray's new character. Danwe is a (relatively) low-ranked member of the Veka Family. He brought with him Kezzek, his turgosk bodyguard (150 point character).
The characters had previously agreed with the Dellemoi adapoi that they would clear out the ruins of the Eater's fortress in exchange for the land to establish Riverside. Towards the end of the High Wet Season, they started to prepare for the expedition.
The characters purchased a number of unusual items to aid them in the task of eliminating the twisted birds. These items include:
Altogether, the materials the characters purchased came to a price of 1185 challock. They turned their list over to Danwe, who proceeded to apply his negotiating skills to the problem and reduce the cost to only 966 challock.
Laerynthe manufactured both of the poisons from the materials that Danwe purchased in the last few weeks of the High Wet Season. Pawnbroker and Yorden arranged for the manufacture and purchase of the other items. The characters also broke their protective netting out of storage.
Most of the journey to the Eater's fortress was uneventful, up until the characters drew within visual range of the place. The forest plants and animals were all visibly twisted and deranged. Bushes scuttled out of the characters' path, and the trees showed strange and disturbing features. A small lizard puffed itself up and spat a toxic blot at Laerynthe before it vanished into the trees. After a couple of unpleasant encounters with hostile plant life, the characters solved the problem in a very simple manner: Messerbad used Wither Plant spells to wipe out everything in the characters' path.
The characters found the Eater's Fortress to be much like it was when they last saw it, though somewhat more dilapidated. The cistern that had been full of red liquid before was now collapsed and empty, and all the ground between the cistern and the river was stained a faint reddish color.
The characters determined very swiftly that there was some kind of vine in the courtyard that was both quite hard to see and that dragged whatever it could catch towards the cistern. They decided to avoid dealing with it directly and retreated to the gate house, where they learned that something resembling a huge animate marshmallow was living in the basement jail. After Laerynthe was almost enveloped and killed by the thing in the basement, the characters left it alone as well and spent the next five days killing the birds. By the end, they had expended almost all of their crossbow bolts, they had used most of their poison, and they had killed almost a thousand birds. The remaining survivors showed little inclination to approach them.
With the birds removed, the characters turned their attention to the vines in the courtyard. Looking from the top of the gate house, the characters determined that while they should be able to see the bottom of the cistern, but couldn't. Based on pieces of vines severed while rescuing each other from the creature, the characters determined that whatever was hiding in the cistern was probably a plant, so Yorden threw Flight on Messerbad and sent him over to throw a huge Wither Plant on it. Yorden didn't even manage to get there to cast the spell: he suddenly became quite ill as he flew over the cistern, and only barely managed to flutter back to the gate house.
Faced with this new threat, Yorden, Messerbad, Pawnbroker, and Laerynthe all decided to creep across the courtyard, chopping and withering the vines as they came nearby. This task was made somewhat difficult by the fact that the vines were invisible, but Laerynthe and Pawnbroker swiftly became skilled at estimating their position. Finally, Messerbad got within range and threw his huge (8-hex radius) Wither Plant, killing the plant creature. As the vine creature died, it became visible. The thing filled the entire cistern (explaining the fact that the walls had collapsed), and had sent it's vines all across the courtyard, above the walls, and across the gate house.
After dealing with the vine creature, the characters rested for a night and moved to the problem of the creature in the basement. One abortive assault convinced the characters that the creature filled practically all of the basement room, and that it was nastier than they might have originally imagined. Laerynthe and Messerbad were engulfed momentarily, and suffered nasty acid burns. However, the creature proved to dislike fire, and retreated in the face of torches wielded by Pawnbroker and Yorden, and Messerbad's Flame Jet.
The second assault was more successful than the first, but still didn't manage to slay the creature. The characters thought about several plans to burn the creature out, but elected to wait until after they could prepare better.
After abandoning the assault on the thing in the basement, the characters moved to the main building. They first noticed that the ruins of a Stone Man (half the torso, one arm, the head) had been hung in the doorway. Pawnbroker's amulet indicated that four intelligent creatures (other than the characters) were in the area. With this knowledge, the curtains were drawn for the week.
Each character (Pawnbroker, Messerbad, Laerynthe, Yorden, Danwe) received 3 experience points for the session.