Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Eight of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Claws of rusted iron slide aside off the shield blessed of Olweje, but alas the foe is swift and cunning as it is cruel, the other claw reaches out unde the shield and strikes the grieve just above the knee, cutting through iron as though it were leather and slicing into the flesh below. Rather than simply rip and tear it grabs your leg and throws you to the ground with bone-jarring force

You take 9 Damage
You are prone

If you are to be a thorn in the thing's foot then so be it, as it. As it starts to lunge over you you raise Durendal in an arc that severs one of the thick curling tentacles sending he end flying and charred . As its unnatural eye turns to look at your with inscrutable purpose all that lights in it is flame. The beast burns as though it had been dipped in whale oil, its thrashing casting globe of burning inchor though the room. One of them strikes you in the face, adding the flesh pain to the aches in your bones.

"For Verley and for Saint Nicholas!" you call out as Inge's ice flashes unearthly white, too bright to be any natural color and slams into the thing's head.

The strange women, the husk as she had been called by the hunters meanwhile throws herself upon the burning beast arms wide as though embracing a lover, though there are tears in her eyes.

Bone shatters and reforms, flesh warps and shifts, but before you can see what fresh horror can rise from the pyre Esha's spell is cast upon the air again true. You feel it in your mind... and you feel also that you do not have much longer to kill this thing. Pushing Odorin aside you spring yo your feet and stab with Durendal point first.

You're trying to kill a man not skewer a roast on a spit, the cutting remark of the old master of arms at Verley when you were a boy rises to the surface of your thoughts, but this is not a man. You slice open unnatural flesh and carve open veins with blood all too red, you slice tendons and carve into an opening cage of ribs.

A whistling by your ear is the only mark of another dart from the hunter, another that finds its mark, then finally, mercifully the mass of distended flesh shudders and is still but for the crackling of the flames. Then the boy Odorin throws himself on it as though wanting to immolate himself along with his would-be bride

"Do someth..." before you can even get the words out Esha had spoken again a spell of slumber and the boy goes limps as you pull him away from the flames.

What do you do next?

[] Stay at Odorin's side when he wakes, you hope the Fellowship's alliance will be strengthened by what transpired by this ordeal (House Koire Reward)

[] Go with the hunters to check on the unnatural pair's possessions and learn more about them (Hunter Reward)

OOC: And done. About the vote, you will get some rewards and recognition from the option you do not pick, but the main thrust of it will depend on what you pay the most attention to over the next few hours. House Koire is in shambles again and the hunters are quick to leave now that their job is done so both of them will remember who you stuck with in the aftermath.

Ninth of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

You are not sure what you had been expecting out of Odorin when we woke, maybe he like Tom would not remember how his mind had been twisted. Or maybe Tom just doesn't want to talk about it, the part of you that had learned to read people to a frightful degree noted. Perhaps the boy would be angry or scared, the servants had certainly been enough of both once the fires had been pout out and the word had gone out that there had been no plague only enchantment. The nobles of the Old City y are not inclined to take the word of 'glorified rat chasers' when it comes to keeping safe and keeping clean their blood and kin.

What you had not expected was a sudden gasp, a look lost and confused as a man lost at sea though he was in his own bedroom, the morning sunlight playing over the old red and green tapestry, its gold thread faded, or more likely unwound by some desperate ancestor. "She said he loved me... she said... it all happened didn't it. She was a monster and I was the fool, I was worse than that, I was food."

"Love isn't always what the bards sing of," Esha cuts in. "Love can be greedy, love can be selfish, love can be cruel. One might love the reflection of himself in another's eyes, another might love not what the other person is but what they might become, as clay is molded to the potter's wheel. Perhaps the lady loved a dream and shared it with you."

"She was..." his fist tightened into the sheets. "She was a monster, she was that thing."

"And what pray makes you think that monsters cannot dream and hope and love even?" the sorceress continues, but you can see Odorin does not get the point.

"The best lies are the ones with an ounce of truth to them," you interject. "She was trying to get away from her own shadow if I understand the accounts of Enil and the rest of the hunters. A doomed attempt, but one no less sincere for it."

There are tears gleaming in the corner of Odorin's eyes, but they make older not younger.

"Once more I find myself in your debt, once more undone, the head of a disgraced house. My fellows will not break bread and take salt with me for fear of plague and gossips whispering at corners have been fed a year's worth of rumors. But what reward I can give I shall. Name your reward and you shall have it."

[] The remains and effects of the traveler, perhaps they will help you understand more about the specter what now haunts Wayfarer's Respite and if not Zaia's account that her power felt more like Antonio's than any other magician you have met is fascinating

[] The land you had come here to buy, though its estrangement so soon after the last patch might add to House Koire's poor reputation

[] A prize in gold and silver, the house's fortunes had turned a little before this and unlike land gold can be handed off in secret (+6,000 Golden Icari)

[] Write in

OOC: Next up after this will be the next turn update.