Gostragine 10th, 989 IaC
- Merja received her gifts from Kel and Ilryn for her birthday
- Late in the evening on the 11th, Merja and Steve met with the Iron as he tried to communicate some point to them
- Not quite understanding his intent, but at the least understanding his urgency, the two followed the Iron out to the back yard
- The Iron stabbed a peculiar rod of metal into the group and clasped Merja's hand as she grabbed Steve's, and the three flew off into the sky as a bolt of lightning
- The group flew over Atherdale to the east, arriving at the base of the Dancing Peaks after many hours of travel
Gostragine 11th, 989 IaC
- The Iron, Merja, and Steve marched up into the Peaks, passing through Unknown rather violently
- The three made their way through the mountain pass, encountering some beasts under the thrall of the Green Hand along the way
- The three arrived at the chasm where the other Cursebusters were recovering after their own encounter with the Green Hand
- The party investigated the battlefield as Steve identified the dropped eyeball staff as Unknown
- Steve learned the staff had been crafted by the druid Anathen Millheart, who had been killed by a member of the Claw of Arali, his sister, most likely Eliza Millheart
- As the group got some rest, Lambchop attuned to Tensight, seeing the following locations in addition to the eye in the chasm:
- One looking over the Ruins of Eberid
- One located above the canopy of the Scratchwood by the road, not far from the Weirren Outpost
- One located in a dark stone room lit only by eerie purple candles, filled with various scrolls and books
- A large balgura corpse was dissected and hung upon the wall
- It appeared to be a laboratory of some sort
- One was blinded, and Lambchop discovered this to be his own eye in his chest
- The giant eagle flew down and dropped off Connor Bramblemoon, tired of carrying him around
- As he didn't have a name, Merja gave him the name Percius
- Percius began leading the group down the path again to his "big bruddy"
- The group arrived at the eagles' cave, and entered its mouth as the air seemed to pull and push around them
- The party came to meet the giant beast Great Old Tallon, who warned them of a great danger, but would not reveal it to those he didn't yet trust
- Steve and Caedali identified Tallon as likely being an old relic from the Age of Dragons known as a Host
- Tallon tasked the Cursebusters with clearing out the temple of Hatatch in the mountain pass, as its blockage was affecting the ecosystem of the mountains
- The group decided to take a rest for the night, tuckered from their fight with the Green Hand
- Lambchop and Merja slept in Percius' nest, while the others chose to stay under Steve's Tiny Hut
- Patty flew off and caught a mouth for Kel, feeding it to her and causing her to catch a disease
- Merja dreamed of a remote volcano island, and discovered her old mentor Pelema trapped within the volcano itself
- Merja promised to find her and release her, but her time was cut short
Gostragine 12th, 989 IaC
- The party headed out to the temple, though the Iron stayed to keep watch over the eagle cave
- Caedali used her healing powers to cure Kel's disease
- Journeying through the mountain, Connor was distracted by some plant life while making efforts to make himself useful
- Connor consumed some flowers he incorrectly identified as edible, and began to petrify as he had eaten some poisonous stonelilies
- Caedali was further forced to tax her powers to heal Connor's poisoning
- The party eventually arrived at Dancing Rock, and began to look around
- Steve surmised the temple had not been in use for a great many years, though the doors and gates had recently been moved
- Kel identified some sort of mausoleum where a number of coffins appeared to contain some former priests of the temple
- In an attempt to open one of the locked doors, Kel shoved Connor through a small window so that he could open it from the other side
- However, Connor soon disappeared around a corner and let out a yelp
- The group entered the temple with force, discovering Connor stuck in a door after Lambchop busted it open
- Steve, Merja and Ilryn investigated the coffins, discovering that the protective wards upon them had been disturbed, with the source of the disturbance coming from the central altar of the temple
- The door to the next room was crafted from a thick stone, and seemed to open outwards, though the handle had been broken off
- The group went looking for a key that did not exist
- Ilryn tried blasting it but the door was too thick
- Merja watered the door
- Kel tried to fix the door handle by smashing it with a hammer
- Connor tried to use the spell Mending on the handle but the spell backfired and hurt him
- The group decided the door was impervious and impossible to open from the first side
- The party circled around to the gates of the main building, and shoved Connor through the window in order to have him open the door
- Connor got distracted when he saw a corpse in the room, and rushed to "assist"
- His presence disrupted the warbling magic in the room as the symbol of the Green Hand appeared on the central altar
- Great elementals of earth rose to fight off both Connor and the group waiting outside
- The party fought the elementals, making desperate attempts to keep Connor alive
- Cora immediately Misty Stepped through the iron gates to Connor's side, using her healing to bring his back up
- As Lambchop rushed to save the useless little halfling, Kel, Ilryn and Merja engaged the elemental outside
- Connor, conscious again after being bludgeoned into unconsciousness, theorized that the altar was the source of the magic (no shit)
- Steve cast Polymorph on one of the elementals, turning it into a rat
- The rat elemental climbed up Cora's leg as she continually protected Connor
- Kel took heavy damage as more elementals rose to fight the group
- Lambchop used his hammer to immediately smash some of the elementals, busted open a wall, and was eventually led by Steve to destroy the altar at the center to assure no more elementals rose
- The party was attacked relentlessly, and few of their strikes seemed to be effective
- Both Kel and Connor took powerful blows, nearing death multiple times
- Connor managed to finally make himself useful by knocking over a statue and toppling an elemental with it, though it ruined attacks from Steve and Ilryn
- Eventually, aided by their arcane healing, the group managed to fight off the elementals, barely emerging victorious (apart from Steve, who took no damage)
- Connor heard a voice through the door that sounded like it was struggling, but the party decided to take an hour to rest instead of immediately investigating
- The group looked at the corpse in the center of the room, with Steve discerning she had recently been killed
- He found little more than a token of the Claw on her person
- After an hour, the party discovered that a half orc had been restrained in an adjacent room with thick vines
- Merja spoke to her with Message, learning that she was a member of the Claw of Arali
- Steve began using his mage hand to fill a number of ceremonial bowls within the side room with dirt as Merja used the Iron Commander to shape the iron bars of the temple into a large hammer, which she gave to Lambchop
- Steve's efforts opened the doors just as Merja completed her spell
- The group looked at the corpse in the center of the room, with Steve discerning she had recently been killed
- The party freed the orc, who introduced herself as Unknown, a member of the Claw of Arali from Luvensor
- Ratagh asked the party a few questions about their job and Cloverhall, stating that she was sent from Luvensor to fix the problems in the pass
- She claimed to have been accosted by the Green Hand in the morning of the 12th
- The group informed her about the death of her partner, and she went to go investigate
- Ratagh looked around the temple and found her partner, propping her up against the wall
- After gathering some information, Ratagh reintroduced herself as Detective Mindbreaker, a high ranking guild agent sent to observe Atherdale in the wake of ongoing rumors regarding Cloverhall and Anise Taranil
- Detective Mindbreaker approached her partner and pressed a cube against her, folding her up into a small metal sheet
- She began observing the party, and decided to travel with them as they were heading in the same direction
- Ratagh asked the party a few questions about their job and Cloverhall, stating that she was sent from Luvensor to fix the problems in the pass
- The group filled a second set of bowls with soil to open up the inner sanctum of the temple
- A large stone monolith arose from an altar in the sanctum, and a steady voice vibrated from it, addressing the party
- The voice revealed itself to be the god Hatatch, and was thankful towards the party for undoing the chaos the Green Hand had wrought
- He offered a special boon to the party as a reward, which was accepted by Caedali, Steve, and Merja
- Hatatch did not extend this boon to Lambchop as he disliked the relic, Dustmaker, that he carried and had utilized
- The party headed back to the eagle cave to meet with Tallon again
- Tallon thanked the group for their work in clearing out the temple
- He communicated a grave prophecy that he had seen in the hopes that the group would assist him in preventing it
- The prophecy read, "A great giant, given new life by tools buried deep in the earth, will rise to lead a death march and destroy the demiurge of imprisoned flame. From its corpse will emerge the man of a thousand minds to wreak an untold agony. Beware the witch of ash."
- He also told the party that Erigor's true name was Bylnivassarasy’vornias
- The group asked Tallon various questions, to which he gave vague and somewhat unrelated answers
- Tallon told Caedali that she might have to make a choice between herself and the rest of the world, claiming that the "witches lie to the north"
- After telling Ilryn that a "great serpent with an onyx heart" lay below the Dancing Peaks when she asked about treasure, Tallon also claimed that she "carried a shield she cannot see, to protect her from who she cannot know"
- Tallon warned Merja that her mentor hid the truth, and again, that the "witches lie to the north"
- The party began asking Tallon a bunch of petty and unrelated questions, and soon the old god grew tired of the banter and tried "to sleep"
- The party exited the caves and began to make their way down the mountains, with Detective Mindbreaker, the Iron, and Connor in tow
- The group spent a night on the mountain road huddled up inside Steve's Tiny Hut
Gostragine 13th, 989 IaC
- The group continued down the mountain, eventually coming to Unknown again and meeting with Agnar Shagswell, though they quickly moved on to Unknown
- The party left the mountains, and traveled for a bit on the road before both Kel and Ilryn felt an odd stillness in the air
- The group saw figures looking down from the rocky outcrops around the road
- Soon, the form of the Left Hand appeared out of a conflagration of green flame, tearing open rifts of whispering miasmic energy into the earth both ahead of an behind the party
- The Green Hand stepped out of a nearby tree, commanding a legion of beasts down upon the party as some members of the Dark Embers prepared strange arcana