Chapter 4 - Session 6

Into the Mist

Events and Actions

With the Stone Men's camp secured, Mani took the lead in interrogating the surviving prisoners through Batu Batu's translation. The raiders admitted only that a sandstorm had delayed their arrival. Asked directly about a large black rock, they allowed only that they knew of "powerful carved cut stone" somewhere in the region — vague, but enough to suggest the totem the party sought was real and nearby. More useful was their rough-paper map, crude compared to the skin-bound Gildenhome map but clear enough to show the river, the village, and the raiders' home near a range of hills far to the north — a three-week journey for a people numbering in the hundreds. Mani kept the map for the party's own use. When he demanded payment for further answers, the only "gold" he had to hand was a scavenged jawbone with a gold tooth still lodged in it; the prisoner wanted none of it and asked for information instead. Much of the questioning dwelt on the raiders' uniformly pointed ears, so unlike the Islanders'; a medical inspection found no sign of deliberate mutilation, suggesting the ears were simply an inborn trait of the Stone Men. When Mani held up Knick Nab's own pointed ears for comparison, the prisoner insisted they were wrong somehow — too light, not a proper Stone Man's — leaving open whether Knick Nab shares some deeper kinship with the raiders or merely a passing resemblance. Pressed on what dangers lay in the region, the prisoners described a venomous, long-tailed creature that lived beneath the desert sand near wherever they harvested something they called "the spice," and warned that a bank of mist further upriver would confuse and disorient anyone who entered it — a warning the party would soon test for themselves. With the prisoners offering little else, the party argued at length over their fate — a real split between those pushing to execute the helpless captives and those unwilling to do so — before a vote settled it: release all three unarmed, with a camel apiece, their own gathered food, and a warning never to return to the village.

Before letting them go, Mani made a show of invoking the Mother and Father over the prisoners, having them chant his own name back to him as the first blessing of a faith he was more or less inventing on the spot. As the three departed, Cosimo — under cover of prayer — cast a facade illusion on himself, taking on the terrifying red-skinned, horned, winged shape of a cambion, seized one of the raiders, and warned that he would devour the man's soul should he ever return. The apparition worked: all three fled for the dunes at speed, one glancing back once before disappearing over the horizon.

With camp secured, the party turned to the dead and to the finger-fruit trees nearby. The raiders, it turned out, had been quietly chopping their firewood from a large, long-dead finger-fruit trunk lying at the center of camp rather than risking a living one; a chunk of its wood proved unremarkable under close inspection — flexible but mediocre firewood, with no scream or blood when cut and no notable taste or nutrition — though one softened, rot-spalted piece seemed promising enough that Riu set it aside for a future prosthetic. They stripped enough clothing from the fallen raiders to outfit the whole group, gathered a stock of firewood and root, then turned to a nearby living finger-fruit tree to run their experiment: feeding it all seven raider bodies one at a time showed that a faint chittering sound preceded each strike, that many separate grasping bunches worked independently across the canopy — so the tree could not easily be overfed — and that its fruit carried true seeds, ruling out any thought that it was some deliberately cultivated, seedless strain. Riu experimented with burning root to test its numbing smoke on Leela's wounded leg, finding it a far more potent painkiller than simply chewing the root, while Knick Nab and a couple of others chewed root themselves on the chance it revealed something unusual about the tree, with Werner abstaining as an unaffected control; nothing came of it this time.

Overnight, on watch with Salter, Werner spotted one of the released raiders lingering some two hundred feet from camp near a tethered camel just before dawn. Noddy sent Pocket to confirm it, then stripped, cast an unseen spell on himself, and crept close enough to put the man to sleep, succeeding on his second attempt after his first casting went unnoticed but failed to work. Once captured and roused, the prisoner explained he had lingered out of religious fascination with the party's gods. Rather than kill him, Mani pressed a rifle to his forehead and charged him with becoming the first priest of the Mother and Father — tasked with building a shrine, keeping a candle burning for the moon by day and a large red candle for the sun by night, and awaiting the promised arrival of Cosimo, "blessed of the sun and moon" — before sending him off again. The party debated afterward whether inadvertently founding a religion in territory the Southern navy was moving to occupy might complicate their disguise as ordinary travelers.

The party then judged the ground ahead too boggy for the camels and left them behind, spending a full, miserable day forcing their longboat through the swamp at the river's headwaters, wading waist-deep and picking off leeches as they went. They camped for the night on a small islet further on, marked by an unfamiliar palm-like tree bearing hard wooden nuts, before continuing the next morning past a stretch of river where small hippo-like animals and large, armoured reptiles lounged harmlessly along the banks. There, they spotted three small, pygmy-like figures watching from a distance, better-dressed and seemingly more civilized than the feral pygmies encountered on Bitterroot Isle; hailing them in Islander, Elvish, Common, and the Sand tongue got no response, and the figures retreated into the brush. Ahead, the river gave way to waterlogged ground, with a larger body of water visible beyond it already shrouded in mist; sending Pocket aloft for a look confirmed there was no way around it. The party searched the wet ground for burrows like the ones the pygmies had dug on Bitterroot Isle, found none, and spent a grueling four hours portaging their boat and gear roughly a mile across it. On the far side they reached the lake proper and were confronted by its wall of dense, unnatural mist. There, they spotted more of the small watching figures along its shores and glimpsed one paddling a boat before it vanished into the fog; further hails again went unanswered.

With Mani's senses indicating their objective lay through the mist, the party first spent about an hour tracing the shoreline to look for a way around, catching further glimpses of the small watching figures along the banks, including what looked like a boat slipping away into the fog, but found no gap. Convinced there was no way around it, they warded themselves with a protective spell, lit a lantern against the gloom, and sailed straight in. They immediately experienced its magical, disorienting effects: several of the party lost their bearings entirely despite their usually reliable senses of direction, though Knick Nab held a steady line at the tiller — even as he thought at one point that he glimpsed three boats trailing them through the fog — and one member's detect illusion spell confirmed the mist was no mere trick of the light but some genuine, unnatural phenomenon. After some time, their boat ran aground on the beach of a large, unseen island within the mist, visibility reduced to barely twenty feet in every direction. Knick Nab, whose eyes usually pierce ordinary darkness without trouble, found this fog defeated that gift entirely; he chewed a piece of root hoping it might sharpen his senses against whatever magic was at work, but it made no difference. Another member levitated above the mist with a spyglass to try to get their bearings, but found nothing but fog in every direction before the spell ran out and they had to come back down. Convinced the totem was inland, the party built a fire on the beach as a landmark, lashed themselves together with a rope, and left Leela and Salter behind with the boat — tying Salter to it as well in case the mist's confusion led him to wander off — along with a written note telling them to wait, feed the fire, and stay put. They brought Batu Batu along as translator and ventured into the disorienting fog, sounding off by name every few minutes and logging their steps and turns to keep from losing each other entirely. Even lashed together, Knick Nab and Batu Batu began drifting off in different directions as they walked; the party pushed onward, becoming increasingly confused and lost, until the session ended with them finding themselves surrounded by carnivorous finger-fruit trees.

NPCs & Creatures

Stone Men prisoners: Three surviving raiders, interrogated and then released unarmed with a camel and provisions each. One lingered near camp overnight, was recaptured, and was sent off a second time charged with becoming a priest of the Mother and Father awaiting Cosimo's promised arrival.
Cosimo's Cambion Illusion: A terrifying red-skinned, horned, winged facade Cosimo cast on himself to threaten a departing prisoner and drive all three raiders into a panicked flight.
Batu Batu: Translated during the interrogation of the Stone Men prisoners and later accompanied the party inland as their only means of speaking with anyone they might encounter.
Salter: Stood watch with Werner overnight and, along with Leela, remained behind to guard the boat once the party moved inland into the mist.
Leela: Still recovering from her leg wound, she was the subject of Riu's root-smoke experiment and later stayed with the boat rather than press on into the mist.
Pygmies: Small, elusive figures dressed in earth-toned clothing, first observed watching the party from a distance along the river, then again from the shores of the lake and from a boat. They appeared more civilized than the pygmies encountered previously on Bitterroot Isle and retreated whenever hailed.
Creatures: The party observed various creatures in and around the lake, including small hippo-like animals and large, armored reptiles, none of which were aggressive.

Locations

The Raider Camp: The Stone Men's camp at the swamp's edge, where the party interrogated and released their prisoners and conducted their experiments on the finger-fruit tree before moving on.
The Swamp: A difficult, marshy region at the source of the river that took the party a full day to navigate by boat, forcing them to abandon their camels and wade through leech-infested water.
The Palm Islet: A small island in the calmer waters beyond the swamp, notable for an unfamiliar palm-like tree bearing hard wooden nuts, where the party made camp for a second night.
The Lake of Mist: A large lake reached after a grueling mile-long portage from the swamp, dominated by a wall of thick, magical mist that causes confusion and disorientation. Small pygmy-like figures were spotted watching from its shores and from a boat before vanishing into the fog.
The Misty Isle: A large, foliage-rich island located within the mist, where visibility drops to barely twenty feet. The party landed on its shore and began exploring inland.

Conflicts

The party split sharply over the fate of their surviving prisoners, with proposals ranging from outright execution to maiming them (severing Achilles tendons) to prevent pursuit; Werner, a whaler used to killing beasts rather than bound men, refused outright to cut a prisoner's throat himself. A vote ultimately settled on release.
The session's conflicts were otherwise primarily environmental and magical. The party contended with the difficult terrain of the swamp — including a leech-infested wade — and the mile-long portage, briefly debated skirting the mist's edge by boat instead of sailing straight through it, and ultimately grappled with the mist's magical disorientation itself.
Releasing a captured Stone Man as a self-declared priest of the party's gods raised concerns about complicating their cover in Southern-watched territory.

Learnings and Discussions

The Stone Men's crude map confirmed their raiding party had come roughly three weeks from a home in the hills to the north, a settlement of hundreds, and that they had been delayed en route by a sandstorm.
The Stone Men's uniformly pointed ears appear to be a natural trait rather than the result of mutilation.
Burning the numbing root produces a far stronger analgesic smoke than simply chewing it, effective enough to visibly ease Leela's pain; chewing it produced no other unusual effect for anyone who tried, including Knick Nab, who had built up some tolerance to it already.
The party recalled that chewing the numbing root had once let them see through the smuggler A'Wood's illusion to his true elven form, and wondered whether it might reveal something similarly hidden about the finger-fruit tree or the mist; it revealed nothing either time.
The finger-fruit trees can be fed many bodies without any apparent limit, warn with a chittering sound just before they strike, and bear true seeds — ruling out the idea that they might be some deliberately cultivated, seedless strain.
The party recalled that the Church of the Two had once moved against a population of similar pygmies and their native root on a nearby island, deeming them blasphemous, which leaves open how thoroughly that campaign actually succeeded given what they have now found here.
The prisoners warned of a venomous, long-tailed creature living beneath the desert sand, near wherever they harvest something they called "the spice" — claws and a stinger were about all the language barrier let them convey.
The prisoners also warned that a bank of mist upriver causes confusion and getting lost — a warning that proved accurate once the party reached it themselves.
The party reasoned that the Southern Navy's presence at the village is likely tied to trading for the finger fruit as rations, a real advantage for their fleet, while the origin of the mysterious air mages remains unknown — troubling, since their home island is believed to have already been destroyed.
The mist is not a natural phenomenon and has a powerful, magical disorienting effect that can overcome even the party's enhanced senses of direction.
The party confirmed through Mani's attunement that they are very close to the totem they are seeking.

Items Gained

The Stone Men's rough-paper map of the desert, taken from the prisoners, marking the river, the village, and the raiders' home to the north.
Clothing stripped from the fallen Stone Men, enough to outfit the entire party.
A supply of firewood and freshly gathered root.
A handful of finger-fruit seeds, collected out of curiosity.
A sample of unusually spalted finger-fruit wood, set aside for its potential use in prosthetics.

Items Lost

The three camels and the weapons captured from the Stone Men raiders in the previous session were returned to the surviving prisoners as a condition of their release.