Back to Stormhaven
Stormbolt awoke refreshed in his gold mine home. The party had returned from their shopping trip to the city, passed through Oleg’s, and stopped for the night at the gold mine. They continued on the journey and returned to Stormhaven.
The city seemed to be doing well. An orphanage was built in their absence. Froing checked on the shrine and discovered that Jhod Kavken, the cleric of Erastil, had just left. Stormbolt flew after him and summoned back him back to the city to restore Froing to full strength.
They learned that a group of bards came to Stormhaven and performed Elvish death metal in the square. This attracted unsavory a lot of spectators who spent a lot of money in town and caused some minor mayhem.
Froing’s minion inspected the stable and found it was in good condition.
Mission to Sootscale
K’rek drilled the local militia before returning to the Sootscale village with Aeldred, Lucee, and her minion Harli. K’rek spent two days drilling the kobolds for the army, while Aeldred extolled the virtues of joining the Kingdom of Stormhaven, and Lucee promoted the worship of Erastil.
A Petition to the King
Froing interviewed the adepts at the shrine for potential clerics, but none were ready yet. He went to the new orphanage and found it to be well run.
Stormbolt held court in the square. The ombudsman reported that the concert generated some noise complaints and unrest related to drunken rowdiness. Stormbolt pledged to build a jail.
A gentleman came to petition the King. The man was reasonably clean and appeared to be a reasonably prosperous farmer. His name was Loy Rezbin. He had heard that the tatzlwyrms had been removed from the Skunk River ford. The farmer suggesting starting a village there. Stormbolt agreed to discuss the proposal with his council of advisors and pledged to solicit his council when appropriate.
The party agreed that setting up a village at the crossing was of strategic importance to the Kingdom, though the farming potential was low. A charter was drawn up to grant Rezbin authority to establish a village called Tatzylford at that site by the first snows.
Exploring by Boat
Having purchased a folding boat in Restov, the party traveled down the river toward the nixie grove. They mapped out the other side of the river and continued up the Skunk River. They stopped at the Tatzylford site and verified that farming there was unlikely.
The party continued upriver and explored the region on the west bank. When the crossed to the east bank, they found it to be an unpleasant, buggy, mire. In the distance, a pair of dilapidated stone buildings in the midst of the bog.
Stormbolt flew Lucee toward the structures for her to Detect Evil. As the approached, a frog-being signaled to them. Stormbolt landed a short distance from it. The creature held up his hands, revealing that one was mangled.
Stormbolt attempted to ascertain what had happened to it, but they only managed very elementary communication. Lucee laid hands and healed his. Then the rest of the party arrived across the bog.
Froing cast Comprehend Languages and to understand what it was saying, but they could not get it to speak in its native tongue. Lucee approached the structure, and the boggard followed. Inside the structure was a larger, slime-covered frog-being, who went to attack Lucee, but first one told it that they were friends, and Froing could then understand him.
K’rek realized that the larger being was the smaller one’s mount. He made a check of the perimeter and determined that there were no beings present. The boggard asked by they were there in his empire. It agreed to let the party camp in the other building and to pass through its territory. It offered to assist in the future, if they could communicate with it.
Froing and Oostend explored the immediate surroundings, but did not find any evidence of what the structures were or when they were built. The boggard had destroyed any archaeological evidence in the site with his renovations.
They made camp for the night, but only the sound of wolves in the distance disturbed them. Nothing approached the swamp. In the morning they explored the area around the bog. They continued on and explored the region to the south of the frog pond.