Road to Hyperborea, Chapter Two

Resting
Thursday, May 17th, 988 AD

Dorn and Shara come back from berry picking and view the carnage that flaming beards have wrought. Dorn mans up and takes watch all night long so that relatively unhurt mages can get spells and everyone else can rest.

Everyday Encounters
Friday, May 18th, 988 AD

We heal up and rest for most of the day. During our resting, a large black dog comes running up from the south. Shara quickly casts Speak With Animals. The dog stands up on his hind legs and introduces itself as Managarm.

Managarm: Saur tells me you're friends of his?
Thalia: Of course.
Managamr: Then it should be okay to give you this information. I am an agent of the Fullness and I keep track of troublemakers. My sector is the Northlands and it's usually a quiet sector, but now, I'm smelling a lot of trouble.
Anna: Like what?
Managarm: Lord Evelake is running around with a Viking, up to no good. He normally just broods in his castle, but he went down south for some reason.
Shara: We hate that guy. He beat us up for no reason, though we didn't see any Viking.
Managarm: Ah, you know of him. Do you also know of Lilith? She used to be locked up in Kebnekaise some time ago, but she was released.
Reynaldo: Yeah, we know the idiots who did that.
Managarm: And before the mountain exploded, I smelled Throk and Atigat's scents in there.
Jean-Claude: Wait, Throk!? The real Throk? I thought he was the fire in the East?
Managarm: He is, and Atigat is from the land of Hind. And that's not all. The giants are getting a lot more aggressive and there is a man wearing black beetle armor and he doesn't even know who Kunefsa is.
Shara: Wait, who?
Managarm: Kunefsa, the shapeshifter who can become a woman or a giant black beetle. She's a friend of Evelake's. And speaking of shapeshifters, Kutavuonae aka 'Six-Phases' is messing around with reindeer carcasses again.
Reynaldo: That guy's a dick.
Jean-Claude: That's how he was able to fly away. He just changed shape.
Managarm: Like I said, this is normally a quiet sector, but with all this movement of troublemakers, I'm afraid of what's happening. My only job, really, is to avoid large amounts of people getting hurt.

We decide to tell him about the Octopuses and Tailed People.

Managarm: The only tailed people I know are the Holder Folk around this area, also called the Kadnika, but they only have ox tails. Regardless, I'll let my superiors know about this.
Edward: Can't you do anything?
Managarm: I'm sorry, I speak only for the shadow, not the thing that casts it.

Before he left, he gave us some more information: Udrez Kudrez's killer smelled of dead things and pickles; the protectors of the Everbloom are tow giants named Thorgrim and Thorgrima; a Loen Lanketa is a Finnish shaman who falls into a trance and sends his spirit out, and that sounds a lot like those guys that attacked us by pulling spells out of Edward's head; and that Psalm 93 is being defaced in many Bibles across the north.

He bids us farewell and heads back down south. We continue resting for another two hours until a baby ghost starts noshing on Anna's neck. At first, Anna is unsure of what to do, as it is a child, but the others quickly attack the undead, and even Anna joins in. Edward finally turns it.

We continue trying to rest, but then a nine-foot tall old man hobbles over to us, using a large two-handed sword as a cane. He's got a bunch of swords tied to himself with willow twigs over his overlarge cloak covering most of his body. He plops down about ten feet away and introduces himself as Starkath.

to be continued...

Outside the Everbloom
Saturday, May 19th, 988 AD

to be continued...

Death of a Dream
Sunday, May 20th, 988 AD

to be continued...

End of Chapter Two