To the Wickerman Fest! At this point, a bit of a weird druid party sounds not bad, and besides, I bet there’s some good drink to be had. It’s held in the ruins of Scarlet Moon Hall, which is a bit East of that little town where we fought that damn giant water snake. Still can’t believe I almost drowned in the middle of a goddamn desert.

So, party with the sand hippies first. Then, head over to Feathergale to gather any extra support to rid Kled of those pesky Black Earth cultists. Feathergale seems pretty poorly staffed, so we may not get any support. But, if we do, I’m down for having some feathery meatshields. Plus if we return to Feathergale with less of their men, and they turn out to be some Cult of the Broken Winds, then there’ll be less to fight. Either way.

According to Bev, the location of this fest is unfamiliar territory to her – Quandril never raided there. It was off-limits. Hopefully, it’s off-limits because of some arbitrary reason, and not that it’s infested with umberhulks or something. That would suck.

So, we get to Burning Man Wickerman Fest, and druids being druids, the whole place is kind of a haze. I mean, part of it is bonfires, but another part … well, I kinda have the munchies. There’s a hill ahead, with the ruins of the Hall, and a giant giant made of wood, ready for burnination. Other smaller fires dot the landscape, and the one closest to us has some druids hanging out fireside. Arvos chats with them a bit, does some secret handshake thing which looks like some sort of gang handshake for Hell’s Grannies or something, and they give us all a warm welcome.

Apparently the festival ends tomorrow, and some “big deal” druid is going to give some speech, announcing Athus’ return to glory, or something like that ( #MakeAthusGreatAgain ) through some sort of cleansing. His name’s Flydragon or something lame like that. I bet he has small hands. Either way: looks like we came to the right place.

We move on past these druids. Arvos seems to like ’em well enough, but they kinda seem small-fry and I think we’ve gotten all the useful info out of them that we can. Man, these guys really like (to) smoke – it’s everywhere. Maybe someone should tell them it doesn’t make them look any more mystical? Doubt they’d believe it, but it’s worth a try.

One camp we come up to has a klar tied up, which is really weird for druids. Arvos decides to wildshape and scout ahead a bit while we stay back. Not exactly sure what he tried to do, but I know the result: raised voices and a fight breaking out. Yes. I charge in, and hit the first “druid” I come across. His robes, unlike the robes of the other druids have the fire rune () inscribed on them. The Cult of the Eternal Flame.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP.

Well, at least I don’t have a bunch of beard and hair to get singed off, because after Arvos straight up mauls the other, he ignites some sort of fireball, point-blank. OW. At least it hurt him more than it hurt me – he didn’t get up. And, I don’t know if it’s because I just got broiled, but this other guy seemed to blur. It’s the damndest thing. Didn’t have time to sit and reflect on it though – he got hit by the fire too, and in a last desperate attempt, he lights a fireball too. Know what was about to happen though, I was able to at least get out of the immediate blast area.

We decide to regroup, and I try to catch my breath, my now very hot breath. There’s another nearby camp, about 80ft up a cliff. We think about scaling it for half a second, before Kary’kill just flies on up. That … that’s a lot easier. He comes back, and tells us there’s a few guys up there, and the one that’s awake apparently has a “Silver Springs” accent – just what does that sound like? Like, trying to always inject how great slavery is into every sentence while gargling? I know that whole bit about pro-slavery isn’t an accent, but it still sounds dumb.

K goes to check with Bev (who’s guarding the Sand Witch) to see if he sounds familiar to her, and sure enough, he’s one of Jolly‘s guys. His name’s Sauruki and he’s been sent to spy on these apparent Fire Cultists. Maybe we can use that – we do have our armbands from Quandril, after all. K flies back up to the spy to get intel – ask for a “report”. It apparently worked – Sauruki thinks we’re on the same team. He doesn’t have much, but gives us some basic info on camp numbers, and which ones may be bad news.

While going over the new info and our options, Arvos says he saw eyes in the fire (didn’t we see the same in Freedom?), and K did too – he starts freaking out. It’s probably no longer a good idea to discuss sensitive topics around the fire. On the other hand, it may be a good way to spread misinformation.

Despite our better judgement, we decide to pay a visit to two of the “druids” that have been labeled as badasses. Guess what? They are, and we leave them the hell alone after a bit of back and forth.

Time for a new plan. We know that the others with Sauruki up on the cliff are fire converts. Enemies. We climb up to dispatch them quietly – three less future combatants. I feel a little bit guilty about taking these guys out in their sleep, but it had to be done, and I’d wager they’d have no problem doing the same to us if they’d learned the truth of who we are.

Session Date: 09/29/16 Prior Journal XP: 250, Session XP: 500, Total XP: 13,776
Title: Firewater – The Man with the Blurry Face