Two players are missing, so today’s game will be a little odd. 

The cleric is going to set up the tower to properly burn after we killed the hags in it. The bard will study the book, in an attempt to translate it.

The paladin and the fighter went down the hill to talk to some ravens, and then into some ruins. There appear to be some giants guarding the ruins.

The ruins contain an altar, likely the altar of seasons.

The batten down the tower as best we can. The strange barrel of ichor is moved in front of the door.

The first two watches passed rather uneventfully, or so we thought. Turns out that the vampire lord snuck into the tower in the middle of the night, took one of the NPCs out of the tower, by turning her into a vampire.

In the morning, we loaded up the wagon and headed towards the nearest town. The elfadin decided to load the ichor barrel on the cart.

We ran into a skeletal knight along the road, riding on a skeletal horse. The knight wore an emblem of a silver dragon, and didn’t seem hostile, so we let it pass.

We reached a village, and when the guard’s questioned our intent, the bard broke into song, stories and even played the drums for the priestess to dance.

This almost worked, but the village has rules against the Vistani. So he explains that he’s an En Meda, rather than a Vistani; explaining the whole origin myths of the two peoples. This gets the party into the town.

We visited a stockyard, and after disturbing something large and feline sleeping inside a wagon, Twinblade got hired to perform guard duty.

A strange man followed us through the town, but we mostly ignored him.

In the cathedral, we were told to go find some bones. We visited the gravedigger, he told us that he’d been hired by the coffin maker. Visiting the coffin maker, we find out that there is a vampire nest upstairs.

The elfadin decided to head into the the house, to search for the bones. He manages to get upstairs, get the bones, and get out the window before the vampire spawn catch up with him. This is partially because of the Cat’s Grace he’s had cast on him.

They return the bones to the priest and quickly devise a plan. They’ll get a ladder from the stockyard and the bard will balance on top of it outside the window, while the elfadin holds the ladder. The bard will blow the windows open with thunder wave, then backflip away, while the sorcerer begin throwing flames into through the openings.

Getting the ladder is simple. While the merchant wants to charge more for the ladder, the bard points out that if he fails to kill the vampires, he’ll shortly become one and he’ll come back for the merchant.

This mostly worked. The sorcerer disappeared into puff of blue smoke after throwing the fireballs in through the open windows. And the vampires don’t scream when we burn down the building. The sherif, who the mercenary brought to the coffin maker’s house. This was not the best outcome, since he decided we were troublemakers, who had burnt down a house after murdering a citizen. But at least he didn’t arrest the party.

While returning the bones, we found that there was a bribe stashed in the bag.

At which point, we left the village through the northern exit. Noisily and obviously. And then we went through the woods, around to the western exit.

Arriving at the Vishtani camp, we found the missing priestess whipping some random guy for not doing his job. He’d lost the headman’s daughter. So a bargain was struck, we help them recover the girl, we get a treasure from the wagons.

The elfadin’s character explores the elven encampment that is around the outside the vishtani camp. He finds an elderly elf, who confirms that he probably came from the village, and was kidnapped from it, roughly 500 years ago, their time, and roughly a hundred years ago his time. The wear on the coins fit that story. The old elf wants us to visit the top of Mount Ghakkis with him. We have a mission into the bowels of Mount Ghakkis. And he shows the Bard the Map, so the Bard can now access the world map button. We also got confirmation that the road we were taking to the west to the druid’s hill was a good plan, though we may want to stop at a tower near a lake along the way.

During the break, the bard decides he needs a pair of banjos, so he can play dueling Banjos on his own, well, with mage hand anyways. 

The following morning, we meet with the fellow who had been whipped. He was appreciative of the healing word that had been cast on him. He led the party to where the girl had disappeared. With Owl’s Wisdom, the bard was able to determine the trail of the probable abductor. They led to a fisherman’s shack, and the fisherman had recently gone out into the lake, with a large sack.

Following him out into the lake, the bard pulls out his fishing gear, in an attempt to be nonchalant about the encounter, but the fisherman panics, and throws the bag of the side. So the bard casts Bull’s strength, and then dives into the water after the bag.

Under the water, ghostly apparitions appear, which terrify the bard. The rest of the party leaps into the water and dive towards the bag. The fighter is scared, and the paladin casts a quick spell to prevent fear, before diving in. Together they bring the girl up. The brute is pulled into the boat with a command and a charm.

Then heading back to the village, guards attempted to bring the party in for questioning, but a quick charm person convinces them that we aren’t the adventurers that they are looking for.

And then we return the girl to the village, earning a treasure in the process. We also brought back the villain, who will be punished by the priestess of pain for his attempted sacrifice.

While attempting to figure out what treasure to take, we accidentally summoned Kevin the sorcerer back. We were offered a delightful rug, for saving the girl.

We took the gold instead, and used it to buy horses.

We returned to the town, entering into the Inn for knowledge.

In the Inn, A man’s name, Kazan, up at a tower on a lake. Dangerous wards guard it.

We also learn of the weaknesses of the vampires, running water, sunlight and wooden stakes. They can’t enter a residence without permission from one of the occupants. They aren’t fond of sunlight. Resistances to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non magical.

We visited a few other places in town, but didn’t learn anything useful.

We rode back across to the river to pick up the boats, so we’d be able to search the shore tomorrow. We took the row boats down to the bridge. The next few days, we’d be able to search the north side of the lake. It took half a day to cross the lake, but we’ll be able to return to the encampment at night. The process is long and may be unwise.

We got timestopped by a strange wizard, and this resulted in us getting trapped on the wrong side of the lake. So we decided to anchor the boat in the river, hoping that the running water will protect us from the vampires.

During the night, we were attacked by a pack of dire wolves. Cutting the line, we managed to flow out towards the lake, slowly. It was a nasty fight, and people nearly died. The usage of colour spray to blind two of the wolves let us escape into the lake, and we managed to kill one of the wolves.