Here’s my GM notes which present the emergent story from our Karameikos campaign session #14, from last night. We had three players present after the climatic events of the previous session and, with three players missing, I decided to offer some roleplaying opportunities in the village of Vander’s Hollow. It felt good and I trust that the players enjoyed themselves. I’m not a great writer, so make of it what you will.

Aulus was the first to step outside in the pre-dawn hours of the 15^th Sviftmont. Stretching and breathing in the air, he saw the guard on the little path outside. Hefting his bag, Aulus walked past the man who looked at him with cautious contempt. Aulus figured he had noticed the badge of the taqx collector on his tunic and shrugged.

“Just going to wash up out at the well,” he told the guard as he strode confidently past. Ahead, he could see another soldier, spear and shield nervously clutched as he stood on the edge of the Green, the man clearly uncomfortable at the sight of the petrified villagers standing like statues on the grass. Aulus walked to the well and turned the handle to get himself water for washing.

Second outside was Galadrid, taking in the morning air and walking past the guard to look out over the Green. He could see Aulus, much clearer in the pale full moonlight. His head surveyed Vander’s Hollow, eyes sweeping for threats in the cool quiet of the morning. The hoot of an owl could be heard, startling the soldier on the Green who seemed to jump out of his skin.

Fyodor stepped out beside the elf and then turned towards the Heartwood Grove, silent but determined. As he strode across the Green, a figure appeared on the far side, hunched but moving surprisingly quickly. As she neared, Fyodor could see her more clearly under the moonlight. A diminutive, slightly stooped woman draped in heavily embroidered, faded wool shawls. Her face lined like a dried riverbed, but her eyes sharp and dark like polished stones.
“Father, may I speak with you?”

Galadrid’s eyes were distracted at that moment, the figure of another person approaching from the east. Perhaps a trapper, given his garb, clearly heading towards the elf. 
“Good morning,” said Galadrid.

The man was constantly looking over his shoulder toward the treeline. Speaking in a hushed, hurried tone, as if afraid the trees might overhear him, he told the Galadrid of his fear that the events in Vander’s Hollow had left the place cursed. He wanted the elf to accompany him on a survey of the perimeter, to ask if he would use his legendary senses to help the man know if there were still dark spirits and monsters coming to deliver on the curse.

And so it was that, one by one, these three men began their day. Fyodor being asked to help the elderly Oksana find a proper burial place for the petrified villagers. Galadrid walking the forest’s edge with Iancu, searching for clues as to the state of the curse upon the land. Aulus, washing his face and neck, trimming his beard, and then walking back to the Reeve’s House to reassemble the damaged Timberwright’s ledger and put all the documents in order.

It was a little before dawn, perhaps two hours later, that Galadrid sought out Fyodor, seen waiting on the Green for Oksana and then entering the old woman’s small house on the south-east side of the village. Inside, the old woman was speaking with the priest but immediately stopped and insisted the elf take the pride of place in the house: her old wooden rocking chair. Sinking to her knees before him, she was in awe of the ‘ancient one’. 

Speaking in hushed tones with Fyodor and Oksana, seeking a means to console the fearful trapper, Galadrid once more headed out into the dawn light to escort these two eastwards down the trail. Oksana has persuaded Fyodor to inter the bodies in an old barrow said to lie in the forest eastward. He thought he had seen the overgrown trail of which she spoke on his first circuit of the perimeter. 

Meanwhile, Aulus emerged from the Reeve’s House and began a search of the village for the petrified villagers. He counted six on the Green. At the timber mill, there were ten more. In the longhouse nearby he found four in their beds, slain by some violent force and then petrified. Aulus reflected on the ways in which the woodsmen had been annihilated, presumably by the Wood-wight. In the bunkhouse, her found yet four more still in their beds, petrified. Seeing Galadrid and Fyodor with some others, he decided to go and report his findings.

They followed the east trail a short distance, and then Oksana pointed out the overgrown trail. Taking out his axe, Aulus cut back the undergrowth and walked up the sloping narrow path northward, Fyodor behind him using his staff to knock aside stray branches. Galadrid held back a ways with the old woman and Iancu, the trapper. Closing his eyes, the elf was drawing on the mana of the wild and muttering words in his ancient Callarii tongue

From the undergrowth, a rabbit’s head appeared and was followed by its full body. Shy and with wide eyes, the creature moved on to the path, followed by two more appearing on the opposite side. Iancu gasped in wonder, habit making him reach for his sling before he stopped himself. The trapper watched as a fourth rabbit appeared on the path.

“Perhaps the animals know that the forest is healing now,” said Galadrid, quietly. Iancu stood in awe and muttered something about how true and wondrous it was to have a true elf calling on the creatures of the forest. The man visibly relaxed, letting go the tension he had been holding, and declaring that he would tell the others that the curse was lifted.

At the top of the narrow, overgrown pathway, Aulus spied the mound of the barrow Oksana had told them about. In the side of the mound there was a steep depression hollowed into the hillside. The air here smelled strongly of damp earth and animal musk. A massive, circular stone slab, pale in the morning light, sealed the barrow entrance. The bottom third of the stone had sunken deep into the muddy hillside over the centuries. Scattered across the depression were the cracked, marrow-sucked bones of small deer.

Fyodor stepped up beside him, muttering a incantation to the Immortals to give him clearer sight under the moon. Turning his head to the right he saw, in a patch of ferns some 20 yards to the right of the barrow, the unmistakable brown furry form of a bear sleeping. Galadrid approached from behind them and Aulus asked if the elf might be able to lay some arrows into the beast should it wake. Drawing his estoc, the man stood in surprise as Galadrid simply stalked forward, hands empty, and came silently to within a yard of the beast. The elf was speaking mystic words.

The bear opened its eyes lazily, its muzzle sniffing at the elf and then laying its snout to nuzzle at Galadrid’s boot. Slowly, the elf reached forward and scratched the bear behind its ears. There was a moment of genuine peace as Aulus and Fyodor could not quite believe their eyes, watching the bear roll over and Galadrid pet it like it was a common hound. Slowly, the elf asked the bear to follow him a distance off and the creature obeyed.

Looking at the heavy rounded stone, easily 6 feet across and 2 feet deep, Aulus knew that it would be too heavy to shift alone. Even with all the strength of the group, he doubted they could shift it. Options flowed through his mind.

“Perhaps a lever,” said Fyodor but Aulus shook his head: “Valens.”

As the taxman headed back to the village, Fyodor brushed the moss and debris from the stone’s circular inscription: “Here rests Vorn. He walked with Zirchev. Let the heavy earth keep him, and the rowan ward his sleep.”

It didn’t take to long to walk back to Vander’s Hollow and rouse the dwarf wizard, along with Aleksandr and Lukas. Despite all the protestations, Aulus brought them to the barrow. On the way, he explained Fyodor’s intent to inter the petrified villagers in an ancient burial place as requested by Oksana. On arrival, Valens cast his magic and moved the earth from beneath the stone to either side. Galadrid joined them all and they rolled open the tomb.

Stepping into the gloom within, Lukas lighting his lantern, Fyodor led them into the barrow. Beyond the stone lay a short, downward-sloping earthen tunnel leading into the hillside, a steady spiral in towards the centre. The walls were shored up by ancient, petrified timber. The ceiling was a dense, tangled mat of pale, thick tree roots that had broken through the earth above. The air was remarkably dry, preserving a thick layer of fine, grey dust on the floor. At the end of the twenty-foot passage was a simple archway leading into a wider chamber.

The tunnel opened into a circular, domed burial chamber. In the centre sat a raised dais of packed earth. Upon it lay a skeleton draped in the rotting, faded remnants of leather armour. The bones were undisturbed; its hands folded respectfully over its chest. Surrounding the dais is ample, cleared floor space. Under the skeletal hands, Fyodor noticed a circular bronze disk about the size of a dinner plate, Traladaran lettering peaking from beneath the grey dust atop it. Leaning in, Fyodor blew away the dust and tilted his head to read the inscription: “North of the waters of lost sleep, where the cold stream kisses the iron hill. The Maker’s hammer waits behind the falling veil, beneath the roots of the sleeping oak that bears the golden egg.”

Aulus appraised the chamber and, pulling out some knotted rope, began to make measurements across, estimating whether the space would take the 24 petrified bodies. Satisfied that it would, he informed the others as Fyodor began to investigate the four bronze bowls upon the floor at the edge of the burial chamber – one at each of the cardinal points of the compass – that were filled with blackened dust. Of course: ancient mint and rowan bark.

They spent the rest of the day moving the bodies, carrying them with care as the whole village gathered to watch and help. One by one, the petrified remains were interred in the barrow. The service was brief, a respectful blending of Fyodor’s liturgy and Oksana’s old traditional ritual from the Traladaran old ways. It was with restraint and patience that the Thyatian priest balanced the canons of the Church with a respectful allowance for superstitious nonsense.

In the end, as the sun dipped and the full moon rose again, they rolled the stone in place and the whole community returned to Vander’s Hollow. Only Lukas’ mumbled complaints about wasting a day dealing with pixie dust and old wive’s tales threatened to spoil the atmosphere of the burial’s aftermath. Returning to the Reeve’s House to rest, the party knew that come the morrow they would be heading east to Penhaligon. 

Game on!