Meet 114, Adv 7, 3/7/20

This was the wind down meeting after many many days in the Terror Dungeon. One of the players said that it feels like PTSD sometimes. So we had some chance to get back to town, but before that we tripped to the other group still in Erylond and wind time back a bit to see what they were up to get involved in some Dwarvish / Orcish racism.

There is an underlying story that hte group has had a chance to only scratch but I am sure that as they keep going through the adventures, more will become apparent and there will be some "ah ha!" moments

Write up follows:

The group made the long slow trip through the foot and a half of snow back to Erylond, both Darius and Rhygar manning the sleighs for the ride. It took the better part of 13 hours to make the trip and the party was pretty exhausted for the effort. The gate guards gave us a bit of grief and we were checked over by a visiting priest to check for contagions before we were cleared and allowed to enter.

We arrived at the house @ the early hours of Icemonth the 5th and woke up the rest of the group who wanted to know what all the noise was…

As for the other group, we rewound time a bit and started the clock 6 days earlier when half the group went off the Bork Keep. There were still lots of work to be done around the house and the party split their time between looking for employment, checking in at the GRSAG, and home repairs. As the days were going on, Grygmiir had found some friendship with a local bowyer, and even though there was no work the dwarven ranger, his advice and knowledge was welcomed by the proprietor and the patrons.

When Eoghan came to visit one day and replace a few of the clothyard shafts, they had noticed a well dressed dwarven warrior had come in. Sporting a windlass flatbow and a commanding presence, he was looking for a number of “ripper” bolts (flanged and bladed) for some of his hunts and got to talking with the locals, including Gryg and Eoghan.

When the conversation meandered about and was realized they were adventurers who regularly plumped the Terror Dungeon, Kangar Gorokson, was interested in talking with them and invited them to a local dwarven/gnomish popular pub called the Rusty Barrel.

From there they talked about the Randari Ympyr and the great war and the delicate peace we have now as well as the privations of strife and the orcish people. And then the conversation turned racist. Seems Kangar is from Gorok and the Mountain Dwarves have long memories and intense hatred for the orcish people. Gryg and Eoghan kept it neutral in their responses but Kangar took their comments in the best light possible and it was understood that they agreed with him.

He invited his companion, Tannock, another Mountain Dwarf, over and the two of them gave the party members their pitch. Five years ago, an Odinian Seer in Gorok had a vision that Black Orcs, the original ruling class and now slain Randari empire orcs long gone, MIGHT have been seen once again in the Terror Dungeon. And the Gorokian Dwarves want to make sure that these horrible trouble makers never get the chance to escape and return to the surface.

And they were willing to pay 50 CROWNS for a pair of Black Orc tusks. Now, no one has seen such orcs, and for 5 years they’ve been approaching adventuring groups again and again about this. But they truly believe is a possibility and want to make sure that Gryg and Eoghan are aware of it they are willing to pay and pay well.

We thanked Tannock and Kangar for the drinks and made our way out and then took a circuitous route back to the house where the guilt set in on seeing Barb working in the kitchen on dinner, and Thon doing house repairs on a sticky door to the pantry. Both of orcish descent.

Once the rest of the group was together we talked about what we had learned and the group agreed it was time to go to Julian the Sage and see if we could get some questions answered. So we were knocking on his door @ 9:30 in the morning and then spent an hour bending his ear and getting some questions asked. A few times he had a longer explanation to tell but the party had a number of their questions answered.

As for the idea of Black Orcs, he said it’s a theory and had been approached 5 years ago by the Gorokian contingent about it. There have been zero proof of it to today, but as Julian was want to say – It’s a theory and theories can be neither proven nor disproven easily and until either happens, should be entertained as “possible”.

So the group was woken up on the morning of the 5th where we let in the other party, shared some information for a bit, and then we all went to sleep, giving Menaria and Silk the option to sleep here as well.

On the next day we awoke, ate breakfast, and then caught up with one another in broad strokes on how things had been going. About 3 or 4 of the party members were going to the guilds to train and we were mapping out who would be heading back to the Keep. We paid off Menaria and Silk and committed them to the next foray – the two of them agreeing and happy to make the trip. We agreed to meet up with them in 3 days on the 9th at 8 in the morning where Brading, Barb, Thalin, Dizzy, Gryg, Eoghan, and Thon would make the trip to Bork Keep.

We hit the GRSAG and started making what purchases we needed to in adventuring gear and decided that the party that had come back from the Terror Dungeon had some more questions to make to Julian so we would do that tomorrow.