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Runtime	Break start
3h 54m	2h 21m

Episode 16: Visions of Shadow & Stone

Last we left off, our adventurers had made their way to Castle Torch, borne aloft over the skies of Helvar by the eagle Altradler in a sky carriage taken from the druids of the Schongarten. Your allies in that elder of the Circle of Seasons, Amadah (as well as the druids of the Circle of Stone, the Circle of the Hunt) accompanied through a massive fight across the sky between spirits of the dead and the weather itself (lightning called down by Hannan, elven druid, in the form of a mighty hawk).
Flying through the night, you arrived outside of Castle Torch in Gerwyn in the far east of Helvar (quite close to the beginning of the Barrowdell, a land cursed by the destruction of a god).
In Castle Torch, you discovered many former paramours of one Julien Davinos. You spoke to on Captain Luca Phaedron (who discovered there in the room with you at the top of this palisade castle that the Barrowguard, including young Alogar, had been sent out with Head Ranger Bierza Kagrikovolek into the Eternal Night) given a missive by Petra and Ryah Tachonis that was told to Dame Gaya Seremai was a missive from the Revolutionary Council. So a little bit of confusion and muddling between the authority of the Sundered Houses and that of the Barrowguard and its proper authority in the Revolutionary Council atop the Grey Tower in Dol-Makjar.
Dame Gaya seemed dishonored and ashamed (did not tell her commanding officer where the command had actually come from) and was relieved of her position and placed under the command of Occtis Tachonis.
You also parted ways here with the Lady Aranessa Royce who bid you all a fond farewell as she headed north with the half-orc knight Sir Tonweld Kerzingblad (who journeyed north with her to find what fate had befallen the Golden Orchard, the seat of House Royce).
We also had a lovely point of connection in the night between Vaelus and Occtis flying aloft over the skies. And beautiful parting words between Aranessa and Thaisha (her sister still, who knows that you now go seek her nephew, your son, Alogar Fang, out there somewhere in the wastes). Also an accomplished drinker which you also didn’t like hearing about.
Your horses spur now forward from Castle Torch towards the Shadowlight Waypoint (an area that is held by the Circle of Ancients, Thaisha’s order of druids). We return now to Helvar in the world of Aramán as your horses speed in the direction of a cursed land in which you must not travel, yet will.
As you approach the Shadowlight Waypoint on horseback, you see that thin band of nighttime sky that hugs the horizon. It stays thin for quite a while until suddenly you can feel the road bending. There’s a moment where you enter into a sunset. Sunset comes fast. Rather than the sun moving suddenly into the western sky, you actually see that the sun begins to fade or peel north. It moves as you are traveling (with each step of the horse, the sun, almost in that way where at the end of the day the sun seems to move so rapidly that you can almost watch it moving with the naked eye, where there’s enough humidity that looking directly at the sun no longer hurts your eyes). Traveling on horseback, the sun moves almost as swift as if you were tracing your finger in the movement of an arm towards the north, and you hear the busy noise of a campsite up ahead. The sun moves almost to the part of the horizon it would be if you were in the far arctic or sub-arctic reaches of a planet. That in other words, it hugs a hemisphere as though the equator has moved farther away from where you are.
You look out, see torchlight, hear loud, gregarious voices work. There are some wagons being packed. You look and see a druidic encampment. This place is filled with canvas tents, but also, you see that there are less supplies than you would imagine for an encampment of some 200-strong. There is a massive banquet table piled high with Kahadi fruit and produce. There’s open food resting out in the center of the campsite. There are a large number of wild animals here (some that can be considered perhaps Wildshaped druids, others that seem to be companions) and a number of orcish paladins. You would recognize these, Thaisha (and probably Julien as well from serving in combat), as members of the Order of Roses.
Towards the front of the camp directing one of the wagons, is a tall, broad-shouldered, handsome orcish paladin. He has a few levels of scruff or facial hair, a very thick mustache, little bit of a goatee that’s grown in, and then a five o’clock shadow where he would normally shave. Shaggy black hair, pointed green ears. He is wearing a set of full plate mail that is constructed partially of Dol-Makjar steel, but also partially of wood. The plates that are set into it cover the central areas of the wood, but around the edge of the plates, there is painted wood where they’re set in. It looks incredibly light on his body as he’s wearing it. Where the wood touches his skin, you see moss grows into his body, and there are small snow-white blossoms that run throughout the joints (he looks like he is truly wearing a shirt and breeches of moss under the armor). You also see that his halberd has a thick wooden haft that you can see is green with life (living wood that grows into the head of the halberd). Only the very outer cutting edge and the top spikes are made of steel. The rest of the weapon seems to be made of living wood. He’s got a big flower tucked behind his ear (as many of the paladins here see to be decorated or adorned with flowers). Unlike one that is being kept or suddenly wilting, the flower actually extends past his ear, twined through his hair with roots growing into the moss that is set into the breastplate of his wooden and steel armor.
You look over as you approach. You see he’s directing some of his order towards a set of wagons. There are these enormous ridge-horned water buffalo that are pulling these large caravan carriages. He turns around to see your approach, and you recognize this as Sir Obzaz Claw. He turns around to behold you approaching, looks over and says,

“Sir Davinos, do we have some word from Castle Torch?”