The Road to Lordahl

After our battle with Baird the Lich and his Ghouls, I learned of what had happened when I lost consciousness. Bran, Firinne, Garg, and Carl were finally able to bloody Baird and bring him near death. With his last breath, Baird decided that he would take everyone to the grave with him. He hurled an icy ball the floor, freezing himself to death and covering the ground with unnatural shards of ice. Bran, Firinne, Garg, and Carl were able to get through this difficult terrain and destroy the other Ghouls.

After a long sleep, we awoke to find ourselves surrounded by Animata. Now that we had broken in to Baird's lair, the Animata found a way in toward their final goal.

We make our way upstairs, where we found an old fountain. Next door, there was a stable, which had stalls laid out in a circle. We searched the stable and found a statuette of an ebony fly. Kale examined the statuette and told us that it was magical. We could use it to summon a flying mount.

In the ceiling above us was a hole where sunlight crept through. As we explored the rooms, more Animata collected around us. Caleb noted that they seemed to be going some place. Usually, he said, they are looking for something buried.

Kale suggested that we harvest the Animata and leave 1 or 2 to see what they would do. Tiny taught Kale the ritual of the feeder (from the book), and Kale proceeded to harvest most of the Animata.

Of the two remaining Animata, one skitterred away, and the other did not move. Kale poked the unmoving Animata, but it did not respond. We decided to follow the escaping Animata, who had wandered back to the hole that Bran dug.

The Animata led us back to the surface, where it proceeded to move quickly across the desert. We followed it during the day, and as it began to get dark, the Animata showed no signs of stopping.

"If it keeps going, we'll lose it," Caleb said. "We need to stop and rest for the night."

"Perhaps we could summon a Servitor Animata to follow it," suggested Kale. We got into a long discussion about how long the Servitor Animata should follow it and how we would know where the Servitor Animata was.

After some time arguing about this, Carlagnios began to growl impatiently (or perhaps that noise originated from his stomach). Kale finally suggested that we have the Servitor Animata follow the fleeing Animata until it stopped, at which point the Servitor Animata would return to us. We would then ask the Servitor Animata to lead us back to the point where the fleeing Animata stopped.

Kale proceeded to cast the ritual. "I am summoning a blue Servitor Animata," Kale declared. An Animata with an orange glow appeared before us. Kale didn't try to hide his annoyance. "A BLUE Animata," he declared, as he cast a glamor on the Animata to make it appear blue.

"Clarence," Kale said, addressing the now blue Servitor Animata. "You are to follow that Animata until it stops, and then you are to return to us." The blue Animata quickly sped after the fleeing Animata.

We made camp and slept until the next morning. Caleb suggested moving to higher ground to get a sense for where we were. He still wanted to find our way to the city of Lordahl, which Baird the Lich had mentioned earlier. Bran suggested riding the ebony fly to get a view of our location from the air. Caleb was concerned that "sky rats" might notice him up there, but we agreed that the risk was worth the information.

Bran summoned "Tim" (as he called it), mounted it, and took to the sky. From up there, he surveyed the area but could not see either of the Animata. He flew higher and was able to see more of the terrain around us. The lands were sometimes hilly, and sometimes not. There were swamps around us and, in the distance, a river.

Bran landed back on the ground and told us what he had seen. We spent the rest of the morning waiting for the return of the blue (orange) Servitor Animata.