Between the Toes of Giants
Northgate (mostly), 70 Winter 217
Astarael splits from the group to head south on her own. As she’s the most recognizable and the fastest of them, she thinks it safest for her to scout ahead alone to Portsmouth for Kelwin’s direction, leaving info for the party to find.
Everyone else heads north. Aloysius, checking the entrance of Rog Hodun, sees it aswarm with dozens of soldiers and patrols within the mountain. Vanja uses the River to fast travel the group within a day’s journey of Northgate. Ethan, Vanja, Sav and Warbler appear in the middle of a small Swan camp. Roux, Lumotu and the boy that was Bax are nowhere to be seen.
The remaining group defeats these Swans before they can go get more troops, and make it into Northgate. There they find the bodies of the Red Bandanas swinging on the Gallows; Sasha and Mikael, two of Vanja’s brothers, are there. In their forearms are carved the Jorungun runes for Skal, Aric, South.
They do various preparations to head South to reunite with Astarael and hopefully pursue Kelwin and Danica. Sav scouts her old hideaway and finds it largely cleared out; scouts the Swan headquarters, but attempting to get inside dispels the Eye; and finds out from contacts at the Observatory that the fragments falling from the Octurne were noticed.
- One went down in northern Jorung
- One in Isendel
- One in the East, in the Fading Woods
All this lines up with the deployment of various Painted Swan contingents.
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