On the mudflats under mist and drizzle, our heroes, including a pair of sailors who had been borrowed from a tavern, slogged towards land. The mud and sand reached Rajar’s knees and Berra’s thighs at times, leaving some people feeling a little miserable. Rajar shared beer. Berra was in the lead, scouting and using her spear to test the ground as they proceeded.

When they got to the harder sand, Irillo used his Find Enemies spell on Berra, extended to last an hour, so that the party would have warning of any potential threats. This indicated there was one enemy nearby, and maybe a smaller swarm of them. Rajar stormed forward to face the danger, brandishing his axe. There was a sudden disruption in the sand, which opened up to reveal a giant claw attached to a giant crab. The crab had difficulties finding prey as tiny as the Storm Bull, and though it made several attempts to clobber him, it failed. Rajar didn’t, and killed it with a single blow that cracked its shell. Much to his dismay, there wasn’t enough time to enjoy a fresh crab bake on the beach, and instead the party pressed on, examining and discarding a shack, but using the height from climbing up to its door level to spot a path through especially tall grass, which went over even Rajar’s head.

Berra pressed on, with the others following. When she found herself stuck and potentially sinking, she thrust her spear behind her for Varanis to catch hold of, and the Vingan and Storm Bull used it in an attempt to yank Berra from the mud. Alas. All they managed to do was yank the spear away from the Humakti. Rajar switched places with Varanis and stepped into the mud. He was able to pull Berra from the mud himself and then hauled himself out with the help of shields that Irillo had laid down, and the weapons and hands of the others. Berra found herself with only one sandal and surrounded by mud and sharp grasses. She had to fashion another from some of her padding and some leather straps.

Because Berra was missing a sandal and trying to adjust the new one as she made it, Varanis took the lead. Unfortunately, the Vingan got lost, and the party took a detour or two along the way.

Their journey was briefly interrupted by the arrival of a rather large and unfriendly python, while Berra was trying to ask Varanis why they were on the heading they were on. As it came in, warned by the spell, Berra called a warning from the rear of the group and tried to press forward. Irillo threw his axe at the speedy snake and missed. Rajar took a swing and a miss. Varanis did not miss, separating the snake’s head from its body with a single flaming blow. She also set some grass on fire, but it was wet and did little more than smoulder.

There was a brief conversation, where Berra pointed out that Varanis had gotten rather turned around. The surly Vingan surrendered her place as scout and Berra led the way, using Rajar as a look-out post as needed. This got them out of the grass and to scrubland and forest where there was a big rock they could use to climb on and look around.

They found the village and looked it over. Visibility was still slightly damp. There was a boat on the beach. Irillo sent the borrowed sailors down to take that offshore. His recast Find Enemies spell led them to a house containing a number of likely enemies. Berra and Irillo burst through one door, coming face to face with the sea-troll. Rajar knocked down the second door and entered with his axe swinging. Varanis, following Rajar, had a rather unfortunate encounter with a large chunk of timber. Her barely conscious body was tossed at Mellia’s feet outside the house. Rajar was hit with several multi-missiled daggers, none of which penetrated his armour. He made his opponent, somebody his size with a baulk of timber, considerably less pretty, and then hit him again when he was down.

Berra took a moment and then put her sword deep into the sea-troll’s body while Irillo disrupted it. They ran past, and Irillo kicked the door in. They found a room with barrels and other supplies, with people hiding behind the barrels, but just as Berra jumped onto them to try to strike behind, the room began to fill with smoke. She heard a woman’s voice say “oh crap”, but then the sound of the troll recovering in the previous room made the pair return. They could injure it, but it kept growing back. However, Berra’s sword was able to inflict magical damage thanks to her spells, so she lent it to Irillo to complete his vengeance on the thing that had killed Serzeen.

As the troll died, Berra and Irillo realised that nobody in the nearby room wanted to harm them any more. Berra looked out to find that the boat was being taken away, and the sailors were down and bleeding. There were three people – two men and a woman – and a human-sized bundle there.

To Nala, this had been an episode in which she drifted spiritually towards the island, sometimes getting ahead of the people there. She killed an undead or ghost spirit that had devoured what was probably the dying crab spirit. She saw the party kill a snake, from the spirit world. She talked to the rock they later stood on, which said the village ahead had been abandoned. She heard screaming. There was a lot of pained screaming.

It turned out that the screaming was probably the old Wyter of the village, broken in the physical and spirit worlds. Nala cast Heal on it, but was unable to help it. Then she saw the people escaping, and chased after the boat, appearing in the physical world as a spirit to ignite the oars and attack the woman⁴probably Elanka Merelt directly. Elanka lost that fight.

Berra managed to put an arrow into the boat from long range, probably hitting one of the escaping oarsmen in the arm, but not being able to stop them.

“Who am I missing?” – GM
“We’re missing a big chunk of Serzeen, and all of Lenta. Could save some time.” – Berra

“Still protesting that we are classified as Russia.” – Finnish GM on Discord

“Do people want me to pull out as well, for video?” – Rajar
…
“No!!!” – People catching up a moment later.

“If nothing else, the ability to stare Truth in the face and ignore it is a Storm Bull thing.” – Rajar

“Berra. It gets to be about knee deep. For Rajar…” – GM

“IT’S NOT TO THE WAIST! IT’S JUST MID-THIGH, OK!” – Berra

“What did you get?” – GM
“What do I need?” – Irillo
“What did you get?” – GM
“Oh, never mind. 90.” – Irillo
“No, that is not enough.” – GM smiling joyfully

“This must be a new one for you. The claw goes above your head.” – GM
stares – Rajar
“It has trouble getting that low.” – GM

“Great axe. 2D6 2, I believe…” – Rajar
“Oh, what a sweet delicate weapon.” – Irillo

“Do you reckon we should bring some of this back for Salid?” – Berra
(We could clean up on the seafood market) o . – Irillo

“Don’t eat the thing you don’t know isn’t poisoned.” – Berra
“But but but but but.” – Rajar

“There might be someone in the shack I need to set on fire.” – Varanis, coming around to Nala’s way of thinking

“Ready a throwing axe.” – Irillo
“I like my back!” – Berra

“It has Detect Undead.” – GM
“That’s really weird. Was it walking around the world looking for its mother?” – Nala

“You don’t sense Chaos.” – GM
“Hang fire, GM. He MIGHT sense Chaos. There just isn’t any here.” – Berra

“And it’s not like the Issarian’s Rune magic is good for anything anyway, so he might as well use it.” – Berra
glare – Irillo

“Great axe as a pulling device.” – Rajar
“Is that a euphemism for..” Nala….
“Varanis can take a grip on that shaft.” – GM, innocently

“What is Berra’s size again?” – GM
“Shut up.” – Berra
“What is it?” – GM
mutters “11.” – Berra

“Insight Snake? Or inside snake, if you wait long enough.” – GM

“I can roll on animal lore… I cannot roll on animal lore…” – Varanis

“Wait, this grass is taller than Rajar?” – Berra
“Yes.” – GM
“But not taller than Rajar AND Berra?” – Berra
“I see where you’re going. Get on my shoulders!” – Rajar

“I want to see a drawing of Berra on Rajar, steering him by the helmet. Please?” – Varanis
“Never.” – Berra

“So, instead of coming from the path to the upper right-hand side of the sketch…” – GM, despairingly

“Let’s go and find out if there are enemies there. Fortunately, we’ll find out at about extreme bowshot.” – Berra

“I want to point with my mouse all the time…” – GM on a computer elsewhere

“Well if you must bring a dagger to …” – Berra typing
“Just like Garin. Bringing a dagger to an axe fight.” – Irillo speaking
“Damn you.” – Berra

“I have armour there.” – Varanis
“Ou… 16 points.” – GM
“I don’t have that much armour there.” – Varanis

“You are surprised to look at someone at roughly eye level.” – GM
“OK, spit in their face and keep going.” – Rajar
“Classy as always.” – GM

“I’ll kick the next door open then.” – Irillo
“Do you want me to do-” – Berra
“No.” – Irillo

“So you drop him. He’s not pretty any more.” – GM
“Smack him in the head again.” – Rajar

“We can’t go into the smoky room anyhow. If you want to go around to the fight feel free. I’ll keep this thing here. It might be the thing that killed Serzeen.” – Berra
“I’ll go for a called shot to the head.” – Irillo