DavesGaming

As we were preparing to set out again for Dorn’s Deep, a barbarian shaman presented himself to us. He needed our help.

Lonelywood is the newest of the ten towns, it is also small and remote. The tribes were united under the banner of a chieftain named Wylfdene, who had died. And recently returned claiming he’d been united with the spirit of Jerrod to lead the tribes.
None of this sat right with Hjollder, he sensed something was wrong and evil. And he’d had a vision that *WE* would help him sort this out.
Of course we agreed to help.

Looking around us, well it was a small town. We decided it would be easy enough to talk to most folks in a short time and see what all they knew.

Yeah, scammed by a child. Hailee Dunn seemed to think this was great fun to give passers by a heart attack. After a mad dash to her family home, we discovered she had no brother. The talk we had with her father was illuminating. We learned some about tensions with the gathering barbarians. And a little about his business making barrels (!).
We walked back out to Hailee and convinced her we were here to help the town, but she needed to stay safe with her father.

He confirmed the presence of the gathering barbarian tribes, but knew little about their motives.

He was friendly, in a greasy salesman sort of way. He confirmed a Ten Towns representative had recently gone to investigate the barbarian encampment, but had not returned. That sounded ominous. We got a good location of the camp here, a good eight hour hike. We would set out in the morning.

Next up, The Whistling Gallows Inn was the largest building in town. And the only inn. This figured to be a good source of information, and our final stop for the night.

Fortunately, Psyche quickly took pity on the poor *drunk* woman. We learned she was Ambere Dunn, the mother of young Hailee we just met a little bit ago. Ambere is not the first person we’ve met who does not seem to enjoy life in the frozen north. Psyche is amazing! In five minutes she had the woman agree to run back home to stay with her husband.
She forgave me *for doing nothing wrong* just as quickly!

He entertained us all with the tragic story of how he’d talked himself into exile, seeking a perfect ice rose.
We also talked with a dwarven warrior who had an ugly encounter with some barbarians. They do seem to be looking for trouble.

The next morning we set off for the barbarian camp.

We convinced them soon enough to give us an audience with Wylfdene.

Hjollder was there, he spoke up about his vision we were needed here. But his lack of clarity on “how” got him banished. We were dismissed.

Just outside the guards surrounded us. I’m pretty sure slaughtering a dozen of their warriors was not our best option. We convinced them to give us a chance to track down Hjollder and see if we could learn more about what was going on.

We learned Hjollder had been sent to “Burial Island”, which for us would accessable by boat from Lonelywood.

We helped him secure the boat. Then Moya seemed to have some luck calming his nerves, with a promise we would quickly return.

Actually he demanded we leave. Unfortunately we needed to learn more about the defilement and find Hjollder!
The barbarian dead on the island were really not happy with us being here.

We found Hjollder. Perhaps more importantly we found Wyldene’s tomb. It had been desecrated by some sort of large beast. Hjollder guessed this was the source of corruption, and it did NOT seem Jerrod’s spirit was involved. Something darker.
He directed us to the Gloomfrost Mountains to seek out a Seer.

That’s further north.

It was a long and frozen journey.

But not today.

Deep in the caves we met a dwarven smith. That is clearly not an expected find! The man was blind, and an absolute master of his craft. A smith of ice.

And found the Seer. She suggested we give a mirror of ice to Wylfdene. I’ve rarely seen the whole lot of us quiet before. But this was an odd command. After a moment, I think we all knew we’d been given our answer.

Wylfdene was not greatly amused by the gift of a mirror. He made some rude comments about the sort of man who would use a mirror. I looked in it first, and I must admit I had little confidence in this game.

Or not Wylfdene. He said something about it diminishing his majesty?

Some of the barbarians, appropriately the Tribe of the Wyrm, knew exactly what “Wylfdene” had been. The other tribes joined with us in destroying the wicked traitors.
This became a large battle across much of the Barbarian encampment and took us quite some time.
Hjollder presneted himself at the camp, and said he had learned the dragon was Icasaract. A great wyrm that had terrorized these lands long ago. The barbarians would assemble their ships and head to the island where the dragon had lived. We needed to get back to Lonelywood, and we would return.

We drove it off, but we learned this was Emmerich the woodsman. This was the source of his troubled dreams. A mage in town, the innkeeper Kieran, had an amulet that could suppress the changes. Not a cure, but a treatment for Emmerich. Much better than having to kill the man!

If his tale is true, he can return home and marry his beloved. That’s the ending to his story we’ll believe.

Finally, we got a good night’s sleep in the warm room. The best rooms. We earned it!

In the morning, exiting the inn, we had an unpleasent encounter.

I could plainly sense his evil. And I didn’t like him at all! I told him there were no mages in this town and he should leave.

And she had our back. He had a team in hiding. I’ll take my team any day. We eliminated the troublemankers.
Checking back in the inn, yeah they were after Kieran. I don’t need to know his whole history, he’d done good by us and good by Emmerich. And for now he was safe.

Unfortunately that left our spellcasters a little spent. So we decided to spend another night at the inn.

He came across as a troublemaker. And he wanted to talk to us.

*****

Its funny to me that the single largest experience/quest reward of the entire game (I think its even bigger than any one reward in the BG Saga too!), is the reward for giving the ice rose to Murdaugh. As soon as I did I had six (!) level ups to do for my team.

Another curiousity. Hobart is alternately called a dwarf and a halfling. I sort of split the difference, I did him as a soft pleasure loving dwarf.