AAR: [6H] We're Gonna Need a Bigger Montage (2020/07/28 at 23:00 GMT)

[Xzandrate]

From the writings of Moe'uhane, T'skrang Illusionist, 7th Circle, Messenger Rank 6

Rose has been very busy of late, quite the civic minded soul, and again he asked my assistance. We are headed to Wolf Ridge to determine how the village fell out of vision of Floranuus. We are attended by Azurea, Nez, Reyis, along with Fluffy and Sagarmatha.

The travel there is fairly straight forward, the roads become safer with each day as we reveal more of the world. When we arrive in Wolf Ridge however, it looks like the Scourge had occurred again. The earth was barren, the houses dishevelled, it was hard to believe that a town so close to Throal was in such a state. We approached the nearest home, uncertain of what we would find. Nez crept close and attempted to peer in. He returned and advised that it was dark, but he could make out two individuals. Azurea went forward in her good natured way and attempted to knock on the semblance of a door that was left, and then entered. There was a dwarven woman and her daughter in the corner cowering. They were obviously hungry, so Azurea offered them some of her rations, but the mother just wept for her to not hurt them. This town and it's people were obviously scarred. A rather curmudgeonly voice yelled for us to leave, and that it had twenty trained archers surrounding us. Azurea quickly recognized the fallacy of this statement, as there were not enough viable firing lanes for five archers, let alone twenty and called the man out on it. He still yelled to leave or he would us the one crossbow he did have. We wouldn't be scared off so easily. I suggested to Rose that if Floraanus sent us here, how would he want us to handle it? The plan was set, we would have a gathering, make food, create a fire, try and entice the people out so that we could learn more of them. Nez and Reyis went off to retrieve food, Azurea fetched some firewood. Rose attempted to repair the door of the home for the poor dwarven mother, while I attempted to plan where the fire would be and how much room we would have with a few handy glamours. Rose had a crossbow bolt shot at him, but it missed handily and helped hold a board he was working on in place.

Finally the marksman appeared, a dwarf leveled the crossbow at me as he inquired what we wanted and why we didn't leave. We shared that we were here to help, the people here had suffered from the raiders for Grakor and we were to slow in dealing with them, and even slower in repairing the damage they had done. He still wanted us gone, but as adept at the dwarven people are at negotiation, they do not have the tail for it; I convinced him that the quickest way to be rid of us, if that is what he truly wanted, was to let us do what we set out to do tonight, and after that he could be rid of us. He acquiesced and left with the very expected, keeping an eye on you comment. Telling that to an illusionist is really asking to be toyed with, but I felt this wasn't the appropriate time. Everyone returned and we started small squirrel soup with a small fire and began to tell stories. Eventually, perhaps out of pity, one of the villagers came forward, Lari, he then brought out his brother Dar'l. They offered to house us for the night and explained some of the situation in the village. They put us up in the remnants of the inn for the night, and we began to investigate in the morning. We found a mark on the back of the inn we stayed at, it appeared to be only weeks old, and horror corrupted. Rose attempted to remove the mark and was burned by it was he dropped it to the ground. Nez and Reyis found tracks in the area leading off to caves in the hills. Since the suspected culprit was that direction, we collected ourselves and headed out.

We could feel that we were being watched, or even hunted, and then our hunch proved all too correct. Large canine creatures leapt from cover, pinning a number of us to the ground. They were led by a strange looking t'skrang with a bow. Luckily for us, they mostly pinned casters, such as myself and Rose. Azurea and Nez were left to do their things with support from Reyis, Fluffy and Sagarmatha. The battle was long and drawn out, but we managed to over come the creatures and their master, but Sagarmatha fell during the fight. The cat may be a furious terror from the moment I met him, but he's always been loyal to Nez, so Rose did what he could to channel magic into the cat's body. A short time later his eyes opened. We all breathed a sigh of relief, and I could see a small tear in Nez's eye. We knew the true threat was inside the cave ahead, we tended to wounds with the cooling touch of Azurea and healed and fortified our bodies with a heroes feast.

Nez left Sagarmatha outside to heal, and we snuck into the cave and began searching for the true foe. Nez was in front and as he rounded a corner, he stood quickly in a start. He quickly cried that there were atleast four of them and ran out of sight. By the time I got to round the corner, there were in fact five of the, but four were clustered very nicely. The flames of the phantom fireball were less effective than they should have been, the belief of fire in this damp cave was, in fact, dampened. Some of these creatures were like those we faced in the city of Trayckid, causing the magic around us to burst upon us. Others crawled up the walls and around our front lines. Rose took the brunt of the anti-magical rays, while they then focused on Reyis. The clambering creatures beat Rose into unconsciousness and we slowly pushed them back. Rays, spirits, claws, fireballs, and shadowed blades filled this small chamber for a couple minutes, and in the end we stood victorious. We returned to the town, and found that the dwarft Van Houten was nowhere to be found, but many of the townsfolk felt a sense of relief. We inquired into who would like to leave this city and who would like to remain behind. Those who were looking to re-locate were brought to Throal on a caravan of Flying Carpets. I returned to help reclaim Wolf Ridge where I could, mostly assisting with transport of goods and qualified help for the next week. It is a small start, but each night everyone opened a little bit more and eventually the revelry of Floranuus saw a return.

[Xzandrate]

**As the magic flows across the page the words come into view**

A questor of Floranuus was drawn to investigate the status of Wolf's Ridge

Faction: Wolf's Ridge
Brief: Small town outside Throal
Status: Ravaged by raids from Grakor cultists, never fully recovered
Notable Actors:
Lari, Innkeeper
Dar'l, Inkeeper Brother
Dar'l, Innkeepr Brother
Van Houten, miller
Nica, candle maker's widow
Ben Pearce, former medic

After Action Report: The town was apparently over run by Grakor raiders, in the aftermath of the Liberation of Grakor, the surrounding towns that were impacted, and may have had rogue cultists take refuge in, have not been properly attended to. These people lived a fate nearly as bad as the Scourge and fell prey to appetites of a horror. The questor and his contingent eliminated the questor and one of the marked individuals within the town. However it is recommended that resources be spent to restore this town and plant informants within and extend the network to verify the state of other nearby settlements. Work for a better Barsaive is only relevant if all of Barsaie is bettered because of it.


Reporting Senior Agent: Bearded Dragon

**The words vanish as the magic dissipates**

[Jexel]

The Written Histories of Nez and Sagarmatha

Rose came to me about the survivors of Wolf Ridge who were trying to rebuild their home. He was requested by Floranus so he grabbed Reyis, myself, Azurea & Moe.

When we came upon Wolf Ridge we found it to be in total disrepair. The few survivors from the assault by the raggok cultists. I feel forever guilty about having a part in settling those cultists in the first place.

We hear some noises from one of the houses and I try to sneak around the house after Rose tells me that the area is highly tainted with pockets of corruption. After seeing two figures Rose decided to knock and then open the door. We open and the family is terrified of us. The other villagers that we briefly see are in ragged shape with clothes and their hair falling out.

A spokesman from the Wolf Ridge declares that he has two dozen bowmen on us and we need to leave. We decided to help the town. Rose decided to bring a celebration to the town. Moe convinced the spokesman to allow us to stay. Rose worked on some houses. Reyis and I go out to hunt for some food.

Larry and his brother Darryl along with Vanhouten came out to greet us. We left the food and followed them to the lodging they provided. He warned us about the first house we came upon and said the matron of the house was distraught since the death of the candlemaker. Even so, due to the corruption we set up watches.

Azurea stated that she heard something at night and when we explored the next morning we saw a glyph burned into the side of the house. Reyis looked at it and saw that it looks like a slightly off glyph of scrying. It seems like it was a type of Horror mark that tainted the house.

We were able to follow some tracks from the house east towards the mountains. As we were tracking a T’Skrang and some large canines laid a trap for us. They came out vicious and hard and it was a tough fight. We got ambushed hard and took major hits at the beginning including Sagarmatha which took a devastating blow from the giant dog. The T’skrang was shooting us with his bow. After we started to get the situation under control the dog got a lucky hit on Sagarmatha and knocked him out. I screamed in pain and as I was about to turn onto the T’skrang he fell down and yelled in arcane tongues and knocked us down. They used that to retreat and we healed up and headed into the cave. Sagarmatha was against it but I convinced him to stay outside the cave.

As we explored the cave we came upon these Horror Monstrosities that were described as Erhlgren but they looked different from each other. Sagarmatha and I do not like Horrors.

The battle was too long and I took multiple wounds. At the end of the fight I was fighting off losing consciousness.

We came back and the boy had a mark on his chest that his dad “Van” made him put there. This town was in very bad shape, but hopefully it can now begin a proper rebuilding.