17 July 2004
In between sessions, the party confirmed that the ghosts were put to rest by the turning of the land back into an orphanage.
Tang Zhen rejoined the party.
Kawg showed up in half-elf form. He had another erand for us. If everything goes well, half of the debt will be considered paid. There were a series of murders that started as a larsony on the southern coast (city of Systara). A keysmith (the one doing the killing) is looking for a magical key (not necessarily for a door). The keysmith left a decalaration of challenge to be caught. Roteb, chief of the guards for Systara, would have a copy of the note. Erwyn Berlekamp is the name of the keysmith. Average rate of murders is 1/week. One person per town.
Roteb could give us an exact copy of the challenge and could tell us exactly what has been stolen so far.
We made it down to Caer Cefn. Lynstrom talked with many of the sailors. A boat would arrive the next day which would be headed towrads Systara.
We safely arrived in Systara. We searched for Roteb. After talking with a couple of the guards, we managed to avoid getting into a battle and found out the location of Roteb.
Roleb gave us some background: "Our forests don't generally sleep well at night, and sometimes the day". They had not been able to break the code at all. The code left by Erwyn was found in the area where the map was stolen from (he had signed a note which was with the code).
Items stolen:
We headed to Zanadyr, needed to talk with Icela (matriarch of the city). We all got the "heebee-geebees" from the forest. We made it to the Zanadyr. Icela was more than willing to give us help. The man in Zanadyr who was killed was known as "the albino". He was a kind of a loner. He died of blood loss. Someone had removed the front of his nose. It was a jagged "rip" which almost looked like teeth marks. No one could really recognize the pattern other than to know that it wasn't human mouth pattern. When the authorities went to his place, they found a piece of paper which was in the shape of paper men (7 of them) holding hands (accordian style?). Jester found a secret niche in the albino's house. The nitch was empty.
After Zanadyr we headed to Eli Farez. (3-hour long & creepy trip.) We received a warm reception from Lladitor who is Roteb's brother. He seems like a very nice person, similar in appearance with Roteb but MUCH more friendly. One of the town's staple "wise-old-men" was caned to death in the center of town. No one saw it happen. They think it was a cane since the note here was shaped like candy canes (6 of them) next to one another instead of people. He was not missing any body parts. Lladitor offered to put us up for the night (they didn't offer to pay for ale). While in the tavern a traveler came barging in looking for "the party with the obnoxious dagger and the buffooon". He gave us a copy of the note left in Launport (recent murder)(this one in the shape of question marks (5 of them).
We then went to Launport, the person killed there was the recluse from the top of the hill. He was killed by being dropped from a tremendous height. This man had a potion of invisibility.
We assumed that the keysmith would follow the coast so we decided to head to Debulys. Dunbarton decided to head on to Thenateles. While we were travelling we were attacked by a manticore.
After the battle (2 FUCKING manticores) we made it to Debulys. We went to the leader of the guard, Seward. He was aware that murders had been happening and that there was a risk of them coming to Debulys.
DeLyra leveled (and grew wings) while we were talking to Seward.