Curiousity did not allow Clasti to cower under his blankets. He had moved carefully toward the pallisade to peer through a gap. With his spectacles, his vision was keen in the darkness, but Folly's light helped immensely. He let out a little squeal as the Horrid Mimic galloped into plain view.

There was little he could do. To use magic risked Sharn and Ullian as much as the beast.

Clatsi's brain spun like the clattering animatronic card catalogue at the Grand Repository of Knowledge and Opinions where he had studied some years before. Was this a unique beast, or did some lore of it reside in Clatsi's capacious memory?

17:11, Today: Clatsi Clatterstones rolled 13 using 1d20.  intelligence check for lore re: horrid mimic.

---

[Private to GM: Zeric, heavy sleeper that he is, is blissfully unaware of what transpires.  He dreams of running through the woods with a friendly bear.  He can somehow tell that it's a girl bear, and she likes him.

It's a weird dream.]

As planned, Ullian throws his daggers at the beast as it runs toward Sharn.

Contrary to plan, he misses both times.

19:49, Today: Ullian Greyheart rolled 15,2 using d20+3,d4.  Dagger 1.
19:50, Today: Ullian Greyheart rolled 10,3 using d20+3,d4.  Dagger 2.

Sharn slashes down and strikes the strange beast with her heavy bardiche. The blade rips through the beast's hide, slices open an angry bleeding wound on its left flank, causing the monster to yelp out in distress.

The beast scurries away from Sharn, obviously in a great amount of pain and limps away toward the cover of nearby brush, before darting out into the darkness again.

A moment later, the party sees a second pair of glowing red eyes in the distance, these much larger. Then, the second beast turns away and disappears into the night.

Several tense moments pass, but it appears the beasts have been driven off.

OOC: we're out of combat.

Ullian emerges and without comment retrieves his daggers.

"I guess I may as well start my watch," he says thereafter.

Corian watches from the safety afforded behind the palisade and is visibly shaken by the brief encounter, despite the fact the party emerged uninjured. He had already been on edge. Strange beasts crying in the night set him over it.

"If we should hear another crying child in the night, let them cry," he says to anyone within earshot.

A moment later he adds, "If it is a child, it serves them right for being out alone at night!"

Corian likely wouldn't be getting any quality sleep tonight. There was too much on his mind, encounters with strange predatory beasts the least of the them.
This message was last updated by the player at 13:07, Sun 17 Oct 2021.

"Oh, well done ... Sharon." The little gnome had to pause to get the half-orc's name. He really had barely spoken to her during their days on the road, but the adrenaline of the fight made him conversationally bold. "The mimicry of the voice is quite disconcerting. Linius' Natural History attributes such mimicry to the leucrotta - a chimera, truly, of stag, lion, and badger, and a swift runner despite the bodily incongruities. Did you see its mouth? Ridges of bone in place of teeth? If you noted oral ridges, that would reasonably confirm the identity of the beast."


By this time, Clatsi had settled back in under his blanket and removed his spectacles, which he held loosely in one hand in case of further interruptions of rest. He continued talking, but only to himself now. "The mimicry is quite horrid. I do hope we hear it no more tonight!"

Waiting for everyone to return to the safety of the shelter, Folly slams the gate shut and throws the bolt.

"Well that was unsettling."

As Ullian settles in to start his shift, the Dwarf turns to him.

"I can leave that light up, it should last about an hour, or I and terminate it now, do you have a preference?"

Once that had been determined and dealt with, the Dwarf returns to his bedroll.

---

[Private to GM: The bear was now smaller now, more like a badger, but still brown like a bear.  It was wearing a green scarf and leather boots on all four feet.  It made it difficult to eat the apple pie they were sharing.

He always had the weirdest dreams.]

Zeric manages to sleep through the entire ordeal, perhaps learning of the encounter when Ullie nudges him awake for his watch rotation. Then again, perhaps not.

In any event, Ullie and Zeric's watch pass uneventfully. A new day dawns. With it, four more days of travel before the party reaches its destination.

Corian is quite eager to set out with due haste and will not-so-subtly press for others to be quick about their morning rituals.

"We still have a ways to go yet and I would just as soon put as many miles between us and those beasts as we are able," he says.

Fortunately, there have been waystations conveniently placed along the road the entire way and there has yet to be an issue finding shelter. By all accounts, such waystations are located along the entire Tradeway, from Reme to Freegate.

The sky is blanketed in dark clouds indicating a high likelihood of rain at some point today.

"I can't believe you guys didn't wake me for that," Zeric said as he shouldered his pack.  Although, it hadn't sounded like it was more than they could handle.  The waystations made travel a lot easier.

"Just keep me in mind next time if you need a hand."

"Twas unusual, mightily. Clatsi seemed to know something about the beast. It's methods are very unsettling, I imagine it's child's cry has gotten more than a few unwary victims."

Folly had finished his ablutions with haste, and was breaking fast similarly.

"I fear it may have succeeded in some odd fashion last night however, Zeric. It made no serious attempt to engage, and after if fled there was a second set of red glowing eyes, watching us. I fear we are expected, and those we are approaching our scouting our mettle."

This statement visibly rattles Corian and he responds with a short outburst. "Can we please just get a move on? We've delayed too long already!"

Sensing the awkwardness of his outburst, he attempts to take off its edge by adding, "I'm sorry...I didn't sleep well last night and just want to get to Fairhill as quickly as we might."

Clatsi collected his things, well-dried now but infused with a campfire smell. He looked around carefully. "One moment, Corian. It pays to triple-check to ensure we leave nothing behind. We don't want to misplace ... anything important." He gave the young wizard a meaningful look.

As they got started, Clatsi was happy enough to share with Zeric all he knew of the horrid mimics. For a few moments, that at least took his mind off the impending weather.

Corian clenches his jaw, exhales through his nose, and shakes his head slowly from left to right. The gnome was something else.

"Yes. Yes. Right," he replies while shouldering his meager pack in preparation to hit the road. "Already done," and he pats the folds of his robes for emphasis and assurance to his persistent travel companion.

After the quick encounter, Sharn had stood quite still as the creature turned and disappeared into the darkness.  Slowly, she wiped the blade into the earth, to clear most of the blood from it before returning and sleeping the rest of the night.

Though she had almost no experience in real fighting, her training had worked.  What she felt in those moments before and after that brief encounter, she could hardly process.  Fear battling with confidence, but something more, something she did not expect.

The party sets out from the waystation and is on the road yet again.
The hours pass on as they make steady progress toward their destination. Fortunately, the skies remain grey and overcast but outside of a few light showers throughout the day, it is a much drier travel day than the preceding days.

***

In any event, the adventurers complete another day’s travel and settle into their waystation campsite for the night.
As the sun drops below the horizon and the fire dims, Corian asks the party to gather. Before tonight, the young wizard has always rebuffed questions, saying he will speak further when they were far from prying eyes and ears in Bard’s Gate. It appears that time has come.

“As I told you all in the Starving Stirge, I am to explore Eralion’s Tower, or whatever’s left of it, but,” he sighs, “I have not been entirely forthcoming about how I came to find the wizard’s amulet.
Corian proceeds to weave a tale covering the following points:

• During the final days of his tutelage as wizard’s apprentice, Corian and his master traveled to the library of Feriblan the Mad in the city of Bard’s Gate

• Corian was never pleased to go on these trips due to his distaste for Feriblan’s apprentice, Vortigern, and his loathsome raven familiar, Talon

• Feriblan’s library is quite large, and he usually managed to avoid encounters with Vortigern and Talon by keeping a low profile

• On one such occasion, Corian found a hidden corner of the library where he perused mundane documents while waiting for his master to conclude his business with Feriblan

• While waiting, Corian absent-mindedly fiddled with a clasp on he back of a small reading stand, causing a secret compartment to open

• Inside the secret compartment, Corian found a bound piece of parchment and an item wrapped in silk cloth

• Compelled to do so, Corian looked about to see if anyone was looking, and when convinced none had, he slipped both into the folds of his robe.

“Later that day, in the secrecy of my inn room, I opened both,” he says while retrieving a rolled-up parchment and the wizard’s amulet he previously allowed the party to briefly glimpse.

”If you would indulge me, perhaps our purpose shall become clear,” he says before reading the letter for the benefit of those unlearned in their letters.

My Dear Feriblan –
I must confess to you—my closest friend—that I was not entirely truthful with you at our last meeting. I feel compelled now to tell you of it, as this may be the last time I write with mortal hands. Do you recall our discussion some months past regarding liches and how users of the arcane arts might achieve that state? I must admit to you that the topic for me was not entirely scholarly, as I led you to believe. And for that I am sorry.

I know that you, my friend, have gazed into darkness in the name of knowledge. That is why I sought your learned counsel. For I too have gazed into darkness. And like you, I found knowledge— knowledge beyond imagining. From the demon-lord Orcus I have wrested the secret to lichdom, and I plan to move beyond scholarly talk and bring myself immortality. Imagine it, my friend! An eternity to study the arts, to master arcane power!

As I pen these words I have arrayed before me unguents and phials, instruments, and tomes, all necessary for my transformation, save only one—an arcane phylactery of elaborate design. The ingredients for that item will bring me once again to your city. By the time you read this letter, I shall have retrieved the necessary items and shall be on my way back to my keep.

Yet, as I begin to prepare my mind for my wondrous fate, my thoughts turn to you, my oldest friend. Accompanying this missive there is a small silk pouch. In that pouch is an amulet—an amulet I have created for you. I know of your thirst for knowledge. With this amulet, you will have access to my keep where I shall reside in immortality. If you wish to learn that which I have learned, you may visit me.

Long have others of our kind called you “mad.” It is I whom they will now call mad. But I do not care for their appellations. Let them say what they will. I have won something far greater than words— I have won immortality, and with it, power. I shall share that knowledge with you, my friend. Visit me soon. Gaze into the darkness again.
— Eralion

Corian pauses a moment to allow any questions, before relaying the following additional information:

• On a later visit to Feriblan, after he had finished his apprenticeship, Corian asked about the mad wizard about Eralion

• Feriblan insisted Eralion was nowhere near powerful enough to become a lich and the fool had likely perished while pursuing mastery of dark arts

• Feriblan claimed Eralion once possessed a powerful staff and failed to return valuable magical tracts and spell books he had borrowed

“I was reluctant to speak of these things, not out of lack of trust in you, but because on several occasions before we departed Bard’s Gate, I could have sworn I saw that damned bird, Talon, following my movements throughout the city!”

He explains he wanted to put as much distance from Bard’s Gate, and Vortigern, as possible and fears Talon may have observed his actions in the library. He last saw Talon the night before the party departed Bard’s Gate, but believe he gave the bird the slip.

“There you have it,” he says, relieved to have the secret out in the open, even if it means angering his companions.

"Gad, a Lich? You might as well have hired as us food for such a creature, for that is all we shall become if we enter the tower and he had indeed succeeded in his efforts."

"Are Liches bad?" Zeric asked, unphased by the revelations of their journey's architect.

It still seemed like the same plan as they'd been following.  They just needed to keep an eye out for a big black bird.

"Yes, quite bad," Clatterstones confirmed. "Fortunately, we have it on the good authority of Feriblan the Mad that Eralion lacked the power to achieve his ill-advised descent!" He removed his spectacles and polished the lenses thoughtfully. "It's the staff and the purloined arcane tracts that we seek. Is it not so, Corian? 'Twould be folly to launch an escapade against a lich. I surmise the worst that we will face is the reviled apprentice, Vortigern, and his reviled bird. Creatures such as they would be not above trailing us and, when we have completed our chosen task, attempting to despoil us of our spoils."

Clatsi put back on his cleaned spectacles. Through a cracked lens his eye appeared strange and bulbous. He gave the gathered company a serious look. "We must be wary and watchful. Above all, we must safeguard the amulet. After all, it does have a history of changing hands without consent of the owner."

Clatsi Clatterstones was a reasonably young gnome, not much more than a century on this earth, and he had several such centuries before him, if no ill-fate awaited him. The thought of an eternity to explore dark, arcane Truths carried little appeal for him. To one so young, the difference between five centuries and eternity was negligible.

It had crossed his mind, though, that his view might change as he reached the other end of his long life.

"You know," Ullian says thoughtfully. "It could be professional jealousy that caused Feriblan to discount Eralion.  And it could be that even if he failed on what he attempted Aralion accomplished something just as bad."

A standard class A(1.7)b Dwarfish Grunt of Disdain^TM emanated from Master Stonethroat.

"The Greyheart has a point, and I too hesitate to consider the opinion of one known as The Mad as evidence that our destination is automatically Lich-Free, Master Clatterstones."

He pulled his cloak tight, and gather warmth from the fire as best he could, though not all the shivers he felt were from the impending fall of night.

"Whatever was watching on as your "Leucrtia' beast, or whatever you called it, lured us out in the night, implies that there is some intelligence attending to our approach. While the Orc's blow no doubt drew blood, it did not, in and of itself save the day I must suspect. Whatever this is, be it full Lich, or Ullian's something-almost-as-bad, it is hoping to lure us closer. "
This message was last edited by the player at 21:39, Tue 19 Oct 2021.

Corian is quick to defray any talk suggesting Eralion may have been successful in his quest to transform into a lich.

"Feriblan may be eccentric and exercise poor judgment when choosing apprentices, but he most certainly would know a fellow wizard's power," he reasons.

"If Eralion had been successful, does it make sense his tower would have most recently occupied by the Iron Circle and before that, orcs of all things?" he asks rhetorically.

Turning toward Clatsi, "He has the right of it. I am most concerned about Vortigern at this point. If he knows, or even suspects, I found something that might allow me to recover Eralion's magical treasure, he will seek to oppose me. A very petty man, that one."

He glances back in the direction of Bard's Gate before turning his attention to his companions.

"So that amulet is Feriblan's stolen property?  I can see where he might have a problem with that, not sure his apprentice has any claim on it though.  I think if a Lich exists there, it would known."

"I didn't steal it. I found it. Besides, it's more like than not Feriblan doesn't even know it existed, or at the very least, has long since forgotten about it," Corian quickly deflects Sharn's comment

"And...Eralion has been dead for a long time..." he adds in an attempt to further reinforce his claim, though he even he realizes it's dubious at best.