Vanera's letter to his mother, Spring 454

Dearest Mother,

I realize it has been over two years since I last wrote to you. That was unintentional. Due to some strange happenings, I was lost to the world for two years, parted even from me dear Talarja. I am glad to say that we are reunited once more, and we are expecting! Though it is still early on, the midwife suspects that Talarja is carrying twins. I was shocked by the news but am incredibly happy about it.

I hope you, Father, and my sisters are well. I do miss you all very much. Do write and tell me how you all are. Vitherai must be old enough now that you are thinking about her marriage.

I am sure you are wanting to know how Anaris fairs. She does not fair well. I hesitate to even burden you with this knowledge. I am very worried about her. Her looks have changed. You would not even be able to recognize her, dear Mother. I have tried talking to her, but you know how she can be. Thankfully, she has sought help and is taking action to remedy her ways. But she has been saying the strangest things, and it is about these things that I desire answers from you.

Anaris tells me that we are illegitimate, or that she is at least illegitimate. I would not believe her that either you or father would have done something so dishonorable. She says it was upon finding out that she left home. Mother, if this is true then tell me. Am I not really a son of the Kjavabo family? I think once upon a time knowing that I was not truly a son of the Kjavabo family would have ruined me, but after having parted under less than good circumstances I would not be surprised if you and Father have disinherited me and cut me off from your lives altogether, and I may have not been an excepted son all this time.

Do know that I love and miss you all. Talarja sends her love as well.

Vanera

P.S. Do not hesitate to send name suggestions. We will need two, after all. 

Session 52: Fishermen Raving

When last we left our heroes... As Anaris was getting her marching orders concerning a pilgrimage by which she might possibly lessen the stain of corruption on her soul, the rest of the party was discussing matters with Palfeinan, the scholar of Cheykor. Palfeinan had spent a good deal of time considering the fragment which Vanera had found in the Serpent Temple and translated. The fragment seemed to reference Orusen, one of the legendary forefathers of the Amborian people, but it had several features which Palfeinan found to be idiosyncratic:

• Although it mentions Orusen, it seems to reference a hitherto unattested legend (at least in the knowledge of the loremasters of Sencankarr) about him, that he received the Anvil of Lanenomen as a bride-price and sailed south to the Leopard Isles on a great floating city, similar to those which the Njeitbori use.
• Considering the stories the Companions had told him about the Anvil of Lanenomen and the strange, if still-not-understood fate of their old companion, the Njeitbori Orusen, Palfeinan has proposed the following theory: What if the song that the Swan-maiden sang to the Companions during their adventures "back in time" indicated that the soul of Orusen had been planted in the ancient tower and had grown up to become the tree that had been missing when they awoke from their long sleep, and which Anaris had prevented from being wounded by stepping in front of Mawish's spear? Although many of the connections are still unclear, Palfeinan proposes that the poetic fragment Vanera unearthed may point to Orusen's having somehow survived the Tower, and carried the Anvil of Lanenomen away to the Leopard Isles. If so, it is vital that the Companions retrieve the Anvil before someone else does.

Since all ways now seemed to lead to the Leopard Isles, the companions spent the next few days rigging the Venture Capitalism for a sea voyage (which included picking up a couple of extra companions: a Well Priestess named Artana and Neras, a Njeitbori archer and sailor [played by Grace and Daniel Stephenson, respectively]. Additionally, they picked up Thoranrai, whose memories have been spotty since she was rescued from the serpent temple. She agreed to accompany the party, hoping the sea air and her old homeland (currently undergoing civil unrest which the Companions all, in their own way, helped to foment) would do her good. Talarja, Vanera's wife, also accompanied the heroes. As soon as the feast of Orusen was past, the companions began the month-long voyage which would take them to almost the very southern edge of the Amborian Sea.

About three weeks into their journey, Tengelbur found himself with a mutiny on his hands: five of his crew, Njeitbori sailors all of them, attempted to lure him up onto the deck and murder him, after one of them had captured Thoranrai, carving a series of strange, staring, blinking eyes into her skin in order to cast fell sorceries upon the crew. Thanks to the light of the Polestar which shone around Atarna, the companions were able to fight their way in a grueling hand-to-hand battle towards the bow of the ship (except for Anaris and Tanurendal, who spent most of the battle overboard), eventually killing the ritualist and his associates. Just before he died, the sorcery said, "You will not stop us. We have heard the prophecies of Orusen, and we know who you are. They will not come to pass. They will not--" and then he fell with Tanurendal's arrow in his throat. With the sorcerer dead, the eyes on Thoranrai's body faded to ugly cuts, but Tengelbur was left puzzled at this betrayal at the hands of men who had worked for him for several years.

Sessions 47-51: The Temple of the Serpents

When last we left our heroes...

Session 47: Pressing the old woman, more closely, the companions at last managed to ring the truth, or at least part of it, out of them: the old woman Yenara, and the much younger woman--scarce more than a girl--Aryanyan had been pursued by the Gaunt Men across the North for quite some time. They had knowledge of the Gaunt Men and Nalshbori who had taken over Kor-Paurja, at first ostensibly because they'd been fleeing from it. Apparently, an old beggar Yuralesh, who another company had encountered in sessions 33-34) had betrayed the village to the Nalshbori, letting them into the stockade. Later, it would be revealed that Yenara and Aryanyan were actually headed back in that direction, as there was something near the village that the old woman wanted. What was more, they revealed that they knew about the "key" that Peibo had spoken of; what was more, they knew why the Gaunt Men had been capturing young women: it seemed that some young woman or other either was the key, or at least knew the location of the key, and for that reason they were being captured. With Yenara's help, the companions attempted to sneak into the village of Kor-Paurja by a back way, hopefully liberating it, but they botched an attempt to sneak past a Nalshbori patrol and were overwhelmed, falling unconscious one by one (with Tengelbur falling last, and only after a prolonged duel with the Nalshbori commander, before which he had felled three of the enemy with his own hand). Yenara and Aryanyan had vanished into the countryside long before the battle was over. When the companions awoke, they found themselves in an ancient subterranean temple, about to be sacrificed by being burned alive in a great brass pan, while the Serpent Woman of legend officiated from her carven throne.

Session 48: Just as they were about to be sacrificed, the companions were freed by one of their Nalshbori guards, who turned out to be Peibo in disguise. Another one was revealed to be Aryanyan, who began firing arrows into the guards and gaunt men surrounding the Serpent Woman's throne, while Peibo freed the others and engaged the Gaunt Men, telling the companions to run. For the most part, the companions chose instead to stand and fight (sans their weapons), leading to Tengelbur falling unconscious again, horribly wounded as he attempted to strike down the Serpent Woman herself and was in turn overwhelmed by two Nalshbori of the Sea Scorpion clan. With a flaming sword in hand, Peibo managed to fell the Gaunt Men and lead the companions (including an unconscious Tengelbur) to an adjacent room, an armory, in which the companions barricaded themselves and tended to their wounded.

Session 49: Having found weapons and armor (including some items of ancient, even magical provenance) in the armory, the companions re-armed themselves and located a secret passageway that allowed them to slip down into the lower level of the temple. Moving through several sacristy rooms full of horrors (including a strange sacrificial knife that Anaris kept for herself, and a coffin used to drain the blood from living victims), the entered the main throne room of the temple, where they found eighteen young woman unconscious, seemingly comatose, under the effects of some spell. They were on the verge of waking these when Aryanyan and Peibo revealed that coming back to rescue the companions (who had been captive for something like two weeks or more before they were awakened for the sacrifice) had only been part of their reason for coming to the serpent temple -- they were also here to locate something, perhaps a scroll or tablet, which Yenara and Peibo believed might hold the key to finding the tomb of the Stone-king that the Serpent Lady was seeking for. The companions agreed to help find the table, then try to find some way to awaken the maidens and flee the temple.

Session 50: Fighting their way through the temple complex (in which some kind of a civil war seemed now to be raging between the Nalshbori on the one hand, and Gaunt Men and Arjagbori servants of the Serpent Woman on the other--why this was happening, the companions never learned), the companions made their way to the Serpent Woman's private quarters, where they discovered a whole cache of scrolls and tablets. Taking all of these, they fought their way back to the throne room and sought for some way to awaken the sleeping women. Thanks to Vanera's keen intuition, they realized that the sleep of the maidens was connected to the huge orbs of red amber which made up the eyes of the two stone serpents coiled around the empty throne at the far end of the room. After some unsuccessful attempts to approach and destroy them, the companions managed to pry them loose--Anaris keeping two of the orbs for herself (despite the protests of the party) and Tanurendal meanwhile secretly keeping a third, which he hid in his gear when the rest of the companions were not looking. Awakening the girls, the companions fled from the temple complex -- which, with the spell of the Stone Serpents broken, was beginning to collapse. They fought their way through the Arjagbori guarding the door, losing two or three of the young women to falling rocks in the process, but made it out with the majority of them safely to the surface world. From there, they did what they could to return the girls to their families, taking the rest (including Thoranrai from the other company) back to Cheykor.

Session 51: Back in Chekor, Vanera found his worst fears unfounded: Talarja had waited patiently for him, and had kept herself busy learning the work of an amber-cutter in the meanwhile. After a joyful reunion with friends and loved ones, the companions took a long-needed and well-earned rest, taking their seasonal undertakings:

• Tanurendal integrated the red amber into his moorland bow, augmenting its power in combat--but has begun to suffer from evil dreams as a result.
• Vanera spent his downtime trying to decode the tablets taken from the Serpent Woman's lair. In addition to a map which he believes will allow him to safely navigate the Serth Hatama and find the Tomb of the Stone-king, he also found a strange inscription on an ancient clay table, now mostly broken.*
• Tengelbur spent his seasonal undertaking tending to his shipping business, which unfortunately seems to have lost a bit of money in his absence.
• Reiana searched for answers regarding the Nalshbori incursions on the West side of the Cheyth, and managed to locate their landing spot -- as well as the information that in the following season (Spring 454), the river would be too flooded to cross at that point, meaning that Nalshbori would be totally cut off from escape or reinforcements and as such could probably be dispatched with a small force.
• Anaris' fate has taken the strangest turn, as a number of her deeds together with the corrupted items she had accumulated in the Serpent Temple had... changed her for the worst. In addition to random fits of animalistic behavior, in which she would throw off her clothes and eat grass like an ox, her weight increased by some 300% as she became more and more anti-social, passing the time by hunting down deserts from the River Legions and turning them in for bounty.

As winter came to its end and Spring began to thaw the North, the companions staged an intervention for Anaris and Tanurendal, confronting them both (but especially Anaris) about the choices which had led to their corruption. Finally humbled and scared of what was happening to her, Anaris went (and/or was taken by Tengelbur) to see the Well Priestess, who (after Anaris handed over the Red Amber and the evil sacrificial knife that she had kept) assigned her a pilgrimage to a small unknown isle in the Leopard Archipelago. There, the Priestess told her, if her repentance was genuine, she might find healing. The rest of the companions, meanwhile, argued with Tanurendal about his bow while Vanera debated whether or not he should go off adventuring again -- his wife, as he had recently learned, was pregnant with twins...

* THE INSCRIPTION WHICH VANERA DECIPHERED:

Orusena, first of fathers,

Out of bloodshed, out of warfare,

First of fathers brought an anvil,

Brought a bride-price for his daughter,

Brought a gift of Lanenomen

When the tides of blood were flowing

Over Northlands, when the thunder

Fled from heavy stroke of hammer.

Orusena brought the anvil,

Brought the bride-price, fleeing danger,

Then he took a mighty forest,

Built a city on the waters.

That fair town upon the waters

Orusena sailed to islands

Fleeing battle on the Moorlands.

To the Isles he brought the anvil.