Winter Quarters

“Winter Quarters”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 62
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Gloriana Honeypot Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Hook Mountain Clanhold" "Kaer Maga"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter having finished their mission the heroes settle for the winter.

Winter Quarters

We returned to Whitewillow and brought with us the whole corpse of Lamatar. The wetlands were still as dark and scary as the last time. When we got there we met the ghost of Myriana once more. She took the body of her defeated undead lover and did some strange magical ritual around it. At the end of it her own undead existence ended and she died for real while Lamatar was reborn as a centaur. I forgot to ask her if the hags were her sisters

We returned to Turtleback Ferry. It seemed as some dark shadow had been lifted and although Shimmerglens still was an awful place it didn't seem as bad anymore. Once we were back we realized that all problems had been solved and our task was finished. We only needed to go back to Magnimar to tell the mayor. Early the next morning we set out. It was a cold winterly day, but the trip was uneventful.

When we got back I settled in the Foxglove townhouse and showed Kaven around. Once more I was reminded of the lack of kitchen in it. We were all summoned to go to see the mayor and he thanked us and payed the reward he had promised. I was formally made baroness in a big ceremony and the Foxglove family honor was restored. I'm not sure what that means. I guess that if it has anything to do with what people think of us with that name I'm not sure that was fully true. At least not if you asked around on the countryside next to the Foxglove manor. A party was held to introduce me to the other nobility in Magnimar. It was very formal and not as much fun as I had hoped. There were a lot of parties we were invited to and I went to most, at least at first. The high society parties tended to get boring, and when I wanted to make them more fun Gloriana told me that was no way to behave and stopped me. I thought that it would almost be a less thrilling winter going to parties than when I lived on the streets of Magnimar. Instead I returned to Turtleback Ferry to announce me being baroness of Hook Mountain. Velicia and Honeypot joined me and Kaven on the trip. When I got there, the small town was covered in lots of snow. Sure we get snow in Magnimar too, but never that much. Velicia left for a trip in the wilds and Honeypot left for Whitewillow. I only stayed a couple of days. Enough to talk to Maelin Shreed and name him as my stand in. He wasn't as thrilled as I thought he would be, but he will do the job well, I think. Probably better than me at least. I visited Fort Rannick but I found it too cold to stay there for long.

In search of a milder winter I left the mountain and went to Foxglove manor. I was joined by Velicia who was on her way to Sandpoint. I stayed there a few days putting off returning to that haunted house. I tried to hire an new keeper, but after the fate of the last one it wasn't very easy. Kaven and I continued on to Foxglove Manor. We tried to repair it enough to survive the winter. We also closed up the entrances to the caves below. Velicia helped some when she passed by on her trips. We often joined her on the trips and visited both Sandpoint and Magnimar, but I stayed most of the winter on the countryside.

It was a beautiful spring day when Velicia gathered the group again. A bank wanted to hire us to get something back that had been stolen. We met with a woman from the bank that turned out to be some kind of religious sect worshiping wealth, and she told us that somebody had broke into their vault by paralyzing the guards and had stolen a sword and some money. The sword was a priceless artifact they kept for a client and was the burning sword of lust. They had heard that we had learned a lot about the sihedron star and the runelords of anger and lust. She suggested that the sword had something to do with that. She also said that they knew who had stolen it. She was called Tirana. They had used magic to find out where she had gone an located her to Kaer Maga.