Road to Kebnegard, Chapter Fifteen

Resting and Traveling
Tuesday, February 28th, 988 AD

We rest until nightfall and then heal up. We continue traveling towards the Gulf of Finland during the night.

Monsters and the First Signs of the Grandmother
Wednesday, February 29th, 988 AD

After midnight, and Ovinik (a Fire Demon) starts to follow us. We decide, since we're still pretty beat up, to run towards the river instead of fighting the Ovinik, but the speedy little elemental catches up to us. Jean-Claude and Reynaldo try to stall it, but it almost kills Reynaldo. The rest of the party comes back and Ivan and Jean-Claude kill it pretty easily, and we all feel a little ridiculous for running. We continue towards the river and come across a riverbank settlement that has a lot of cow corpses just lying haphazardly around.

We decide to walk along the river to a place where the river is frozen and we can walk across, but someone shouts, "Who goes there?" in Russian. Nicolae tries to Sleep them, but instead they shoot arrows at us. Ivan rushes into their midst and knocks the captain out. All but three men turn and flee. Ivan invites those that remain to try and hit him. When they fail, Ivan suggests they talk instead.

They tell us that the Grandmother came through and ate all their cows. Then the next day, two people on black horses came and took the heads of the village elder and a strapping young man. The woman, who introduced herself as the Duchess Anna Ivanovna, did all the talking and introduced her companion as Wolkwo the Ill-Rigger. We tell the townsfolk that that was not the Duchess, but a shape-changer.

We follow Baba Yaga's trail for an hour and then rest. We heal during the middle of the day and then rest some more. It starts to snow really heavily and then turns into a blizzard. We build two small caves in the snow.

During the second watch, four snow-white ladies with razor sharp claws surprise Anna, Thalia, Stepanova, and Ivan, taking them all down just as Ivan throws a light stone out of their cave so that the others can come and help them. As the fight continues, Jean-Claude and Conrad go down followed later by Wong and Nicolae, leaving Edward alone with one woman, after one is killed and the other two wander off badly hurt. A magically pumped-up Edward kills the last woman and piled everybody else up like corkwood into one cave. Since we need heals after resting, Isabela watches while we all rest.

Resting and Tracking the Grandmother
Thursday, March 1st, 988 AD

We rest after moving because of sniffing wolves. We heal again during midday and then rest again. A lynx starts to dig around near us. Reynaldo uses his Axe and burrows through the snow, popping up behind the lynx. It starts to speak in Russian, so Reynaldo goes and gets Ivan, who tells the lynx that the meat it's smelling belongs to him. The lynx apologizes and goes on its way. We finish resting and follow Baba Yaga's trail, much to Ivan's chagrin.

The party finds a fishing village and Jean-Claude and Nicolae polymorph themselves and pretend to be Norse merchants. They find out that Baba Yaga had been in their town and then headed north into the swamp past their fishing lake.

Anna asks her God if we should go into the swamp after Baba Yaga, and God responds that there will be great danger in the swamp, and that the Grandmother may not even help us if we do find her.

End Chapter Fifteen
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Next: Road to Kebnegard, Chapter Sixteen