Candlemere Expedition
Before the Crossing
Kairos did her research first. The island in the Candlemere had been given to the Kellids some two thousand years ago. A tower stood at its center, its origins mostly lost. What remained were darker stories: Yog-Sothoth, a patron of time and dimensional travel, was said to dwell there, and cults devoted to him sacrificed visitors.
On 1 Rova 4710 the party reached the shore. The lake stretched about six kilometers across. There was no boat, only a rotten ferry and fallen trees that something other than lightning had knocked down. The piers at the old ferry landing had held up.
Munguk
Djacques found a hill giant sitting on a tree trunk, crying over an empty bottle. His name was Munguk. Hargulka had been mean to him: Munguk had tried to join his army and been turned away without even an audience. Two bottles of vintage wine later, Munguk was hugging Djacques and telling him everything—a forgotten, collapsed keep, a lizardfolk village in the area, and where he’d last seen Hargulka. He handed over a map of the Stolen Lands.
Kairos brought him water flavored like Blue Wolfberry wine and got a hug too. Munguk dragged tree trunks together with his bare hands while the party tied, rigged and bound them into a raft. He spent the night at their camp.
The Manticores
Something hit the camp in the dark. A manticore dove at Leonardo and pinned him to the ground with tail spikes, and then a second one appeared. Djacques sang Haste and Courageous Anthem, Amiri threw javelins, and Kairos dragged the first one out of the sky with Tangle Vine. It launched itself straight back up.
Leonardo wrapped the first manticore’s wings in Kairos’s bolas when it swooped low, and Kairos Spellstruck it dead. The second snatched Djacques out of Weiß’s saddle and climbed, biting and clawing. Kairos emptied her Wand of Force Barrage into it, then set it alight with Ignition. It fell—straight onto Weiß and the dying Djacques.
Nearby, the party learned, lay a Boggard village. Hannis Drelev had sent settlers into the region, and the Boggards were on the edge of civil war.
The Island
On 2 Rova the party launched the raft through reeds and green scum and tied off at a crumbling pier. A Shambler lunged from the undergrowth the moment Leonardo stepped ashore; he and Amiri chopped it apart. Crates by the pier held a potion of swimming, 15 gold and a garnet.
Wisps drifted over the marsh toward the tower. Leonardo found glyphs of Yog-Sothoth carved into walls across the island.
The Tower
The tower filled Leonardo with dread, and Kairos sensed high-level magic in it. A Will-o’-Wisp rose behind Weiß, struck, and went invisible. Kairos read a scroll of See the Unseen, Djacques hit it with Force Barrage, and Leonardo finished it.
Under a stone inside lay Thirst, a bloodletting kukri that does double damage to humans if it has killed one in the last day.
Below, a cellar served as an altar to Yog-Sothoth. The altar read “We are those who stand at the threshold,” but Leonardo saw the basin said something else: “We are the thresholders.” Djacques picked up the ancient coins scattered on the floor with an eyebrow pincette. Kairos found traces of a Meteor spell from millennia ago, tied to stories of Yog-Sothoth fighting Pharasma.
The Depths
In a chamber of runed archways, Shadows attacked. They stole Leonardo’s shadow and left him badly weakened. Kairos dodged their grasp and cut them down with Spinning Staff. Past them, a secret tunnel led to a decayed armory with an Everburning Torch, a Wand of Grim Tendrils, and a bronze canister of Dust of Appearance.
Next came a towering statue of stone orbs with fire burning inside. Kairos touched it with Telekinetic Hand, and it woke up. It grabbed her and dunked her in its brazier. Djacques’s summoned swans finished it off.
In the lowest chamber, beneath an icon of Pharasma with shadows burned into the stone, a black-purple mass held a ring. The mass was Gibbering Mouthers. Their babble confused Kairos for a moment, and one swallowed Leonardo whole. He tore his way out, and Kairos finished it with a critical Spellstrike. Inside was the Ring-of-Negative-Energy-Resistance, bearing Pharasma’s symbol. Kairos took it.