Umber

After assassins and demons, hostile elves and townsfolk who were squirrels not just in their past life but in this one too, the party returns to the safety and sanity of King Yiss’ swamp, where lizardmen dance around glowing green beacons waiting for their god to descend. (sab)

A slashing sword, a crushing hammer, a hail of glowing missiles, and the battle that seemed to take an eternity is suddenly over. The heavy silence is broken only by the sobbing of a far-off villager. Even the normally hot-tempered, outspoken elves that have come to witness the results of your battle are awed into silence by the incredible carnage that surrounds them. One comrade dead and two lie unconscious; dozens of villagers, basically innocent but twisted by the evil force that was Dyson and Henwen, slaughtered. The disgusting demonic vines that infest Jake and Psydney’s bodies, sent into hibernation by the heroes’ near-death experiences, begin growing again just minutes after the battle’s end, until the champions are covered head to toe by sickly-green ropy growths that beat with a pulse all their own.
A terrible price to pay for victory.
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An excerpt from Frito’s diary, found after his less and less lamented death. (dj)

Yes, it is unusual for a person who engages in my profession to maintain a diary. Much of what I enter here is incriminating and revealing. Yet, I feel compelled. Not by vanity, as those who know me might suspect, rather by fear.

It is true…even I can know fear.
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In which the evil rogue learns that while a sense of consociation may have kept party members’ blades from his throat on more than one occasion, assassins don’t have quite that fraternal feeling. (dj, sab)

An account of the hitherto unknown fate of Frito, rogue turned assassin whose skills if not charm were missed by the party until the arrival of Jake, and who even in death continues to dog the party’s footsteps.

Two or three minutes after Tully goes into Dyson’s tower, she comes back out and stops a villager. “Hey Ben, have you seen our visitors?” she asks.
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