After a few weeks of hanging around the Areonaut Club, I finally got my chance to prove myself to them. Over a year ago there was a rumour of a crashed airship from the Orichalcum Wars somewhere to the north. The group sent to explore had to back off when they encountered Rock Worms and now interest had built up enough to fund a new expedition, this time formed of Journeyman adepts.
I jumped at the chance, joining four of the original five to go back to seek this airship. The group was Jael, Sandrin, Vlolkir, Xeviouz, and me. Maybe not the flashiest party I had been with, but solid frontliners all around. The location was in the mountains north of the Serpent, so we made for Sosanopa, which is now looking much better than the last time I was there, and paid to be ferried across the river.
The journey to the mountains was much quicker than expected, as Sandrin found an excellent path. For once I actually took the role of lookout, while Jael took care of food. As we started to climb into the mountains we noticed the ground shifting around us and suddenly three Rock Worms attacked us, the smaller one went for Sandrin and another went for Jael, the third made the mistake of trying to take down Xeviouz and was quickly dispatched. We took care of the two remaining ones without too much trouble. Jael made some comment about these Rock Worms were not like the one that had driven them off the first time, that one had some kind of fire aura.
After the fight I had the first chance to put my physician training to the test and managed to help, it was quite gratifying to be able to contribute to the group outside of combat and cooking. After a couple of hours of rest and another two hours of walking we got to the site, some large rocks and wooden debris.
Without any better options we decided to start a systematic search around the area which extends into the next morning until Sandrin found the remains of a troll village. As we gathered to examine the area I thought back to what I know of my people's history, I believe that it was in the territory of the Lightning Fang moot. A short while later my wanderings brought me to a cave that led to a small kaer, probably where the village had taken refuge. Sadly all evidence pointed to the kaer having been breached, still I made sure to arm myself with an Improvised Trollish Trap Detector ripped from a nearby tree. While I do not have Dvarim's skills in crafting these it served well enough as we explored the ruins.
The only real danger ended up being a pair of Jehuthras and several Dread Centipedes, but we were all alert enough to notice the tell tale webs and avoid another ambush. The Jehuthras proved to be more aggravating than dangerous as they bogged us down with ice cold webbing and separated us with iron walls, the centipedes did more damage as they opportunistically targeted it us while we were dealing with the horrors. After the fight I once again tried to help people with their wounds, but I still needed more training to be truly effective.
Deeper into the kaer we came to a large chamber where an almost intact drakkar was waiting for us. Jael and Sandrin figure out that this was close to the surface and probably under a peculiar barrow mound we had seen earlier. Sandrin was also of the opinion that with sufficient maintenance this proud and beautiful ship would fly again. Just before leaving I copied down the trollish runes of the ship name for translation, since at that time I could not yet read my people's tongue.
A scholar in Throal was willing to translate the name for me: Arngeir, the wolf that chased the moon.Statistics:Posted by sigfriedmcwild — Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:55 am
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