The person-shaped lump lying still in the bed was an icy blue sculpture. Face frozen in a painful grimace, was Verla Pelk the shopkeeper. Nothing stuck out to our adventurers as exactly matching the frozen statue of Ergon, but they weren’t dissimilar either.
They searched the rest of Pelk’s shop, finding a strange sack that seemed to be a portal to a pocket dimension, and recovered some magic dust and gold from inside of it. Otherwise, they didn’t find anything of note in the house itself. It seemed that Pelk’s had been thoroughly ransacked already.
Larkin read through the ledger.
Pelk had bought some healing potions in the last few weeks, and more interestingly, a couple of months ago Ergon had sold her some goods. This had been noted right before the big break-in and right after his last Eiselcross expedition.
Without much more to do at Pelk’s, the adventurers followed their only remaining lead, and headed to the other side of town to where a dwarf named Tulgi lived in a hunter’s hut. At first, she refused to speak with them, but Chadrae was able to persuade her, insisting they meant no harm and could help her. At the last second, Larkin scattered the magic dust from the mysterious sack and watched her Glassblades companion, whom they had nicknamed “Lindy”, disappear just before following Chadrae and the others through the doorway.
As they entered the hut, an overwhelming heat hit them.
Tulgi, led them to the sitting room where a large fire burned. Her wild red hair and disheveled look was in stark contrast to the bulbous blue veins jutting out from her neck and face. The dwarf was wrapped in layers of scarves and a thick overcoat, obscuring what they only imagined was the affliction spanning the rest of her body.
The strangers made introductions, including an elf named Gill who was presumably one of Tulgi’s guards, and whom Chadrae recognized as one of the hooded figures from Pelk’s. Our adventurers explained their journey in Palebank so far: their investigation of this mysterious affliction and commitment to rooting out the source. Tulgi started to open up, and then Lindy popped up in the living room, no longer invisible and startled Tulgi’s two wolves nearby.
Diffusing the tension, Xavi began to divulge his belief in the purpose of their chance meeting, “we are all here for a reason! We will find you a cure.” he promised.
Trust finally gained, or maybe it was desperation, Tulgi eventually told her story.
It had been her and her sister Hulil, who had broken in to Pelk’s 2 months ago.
They worked for the Uttolots, an influential family from Shadycreek Run. The Uttolots had recently gotten wind that something from Eiselcross had been recovered and brought back to Palebank. They believed artifacts from the long ago fallen arcane city were worth more than their weight in gold and would send their mercenaries to recover such objects.
Tulgi and Hulil were tasked to recover the entire haul from Pelk’s. Once obtained, Hulil took it to a “warehouse” at Croaker Cave, where she supposedly was now. Along with 10-15 more Uttolot mercenaries and their large, trained, humanoid “frogs”. But, Hulil was sick too.
Recalling the list of items from Pelk’s ledger, Xavi noticed the dagger on Tulgi’s belt. It resembled the one listed as part of Pelk’s inventory from Ergon. They decided it may be a good idea to bring the weapon with them and make sure it didn’t pose any dangers.
Tulgi confirmed healing potions had no effect, and when pressed more about the contents stolen from Pelks’s she recalled the two cracked, glass vials. With Tulgi unable to provide any additional information, Xavi asked if he could try one more thing. “This will only take, about, 10 minutes.” and he sat down on the floor setting up for a ritual spell to detect poison or disease.
As the spell completed, Xavi felt a pulse from Tulgi, but whatever ailed her, it was nothing he could identify. Extending his consciousness, all he could glean was that it seemed arcane in nature, and, strange… almost as if it had it’s own malicious intent.
So they had another breadcrumb and a location to explore next. Croaker Cave.
The group stocked up on rations and headed north west of Palebank, on a 1 1/2 day’s journey to the cave. Gill decided to go with them too, for a healthy price of 3 gold per day.
The way there was across an expansive icy desert. Snow whipped at their faces and all they could see was the frigid sea on one side and dunes off in the distance the other way. As the sun began to disappear past the horizon and Exandria’s two moons rose in the night sky, the party found a stone archway to set up and rest for the night.
With the excitement of the day coming to a close, Xavi began to tell his companions of Sehanine the Moon Weaver, and how he had been waiting for a sign since being sent here.
Everyone made their preparations for the night. Scarlette quietly slid away from the group for a few minutes, and Xavi walked a little ways away to speak a silent prayer.
One moment, the primary moon Catha was it’s expected crescent in the dark night sky, stars sparkling brightly around it. The next it filled Xavi’s vision, bright and full and beautiful. And then, she spoke.
A familiar, gentle voice reverberated through his consciousness.
Reminding Xavi of how he found her in the first place, how it wasn’t about purpose or destiny, but his will for others to live out their lives. Sehanine, the Moon Weaver, as she had done many times before, urged Xavi to carve his own path. She then helped him reach deep into his memory, scraps of information from the Divergence came to him in a sudden and fluid pattern.
How gods used to walk the earth, both good and evil. The mortals, advancing their own kinds of magic, eventually becoming as powerful as some gods. The floating city of Aeor, arcane marvel, created weapons to fight and destroy gods. And it fell from the sky, launching society into darkness as the mortals’ arrogance grew out of control.
Clarity came to him as he understood the greater meaning behind his spell earlier that day. This sickness was beyond the Moon Weaver’s sight, as if made to avoid the eyes of the divine. With a strong sense of duty, Xavi hardened his resolve to find the source and, hopefully, the cure for this disease. Sehanine allowed him to drift back to consciousness with a final thought left in his mind, “so pious…you’ll learn.”
One by one, they all drifted in to various stages of sleep.
But before the first morning’s light peeked above the horizon, Larkin sounded the alarm during her 3rd and final watch of the night.
A large white wolf edged closer and closer to their camp, as it’s kin slowly circled them from further out. It eyed Larkin, silhouetted against the crescent moon, and let out a howl into the night…
