Down to Cotill

My report will find Knight Captain Dawes after near catastrophe, both for ourselves and our mission. We thank Pelor for his strength and guidance through these murky waters.

Our long-absent magician Sanji teleported to our location and sought our aid to defend his tower from gorgons, wicked snake-haired demon women that we have had some interaction with before. Unfortunately, we were in no position to render immediate aid. We started planning how to get back to Horizon to defeat this evil. Sanji teleported away. What a powerful but strange man.

We rested and allowed our scribes to work at copying the material from the library for our mission and discussed how to free the scribe from Candie's captivity. I wanted to put the might of Pelor to the test and win his freedom through combat but I frankly did not trust Candie to abide by any agreement that we made and could not risk putting myself so completely in his power.

An investigator from the mainland found us, one that we had agreed to aid during his stay on the island under the condition that there were no moral conflicts. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that he was not only seeking to capture escaped slaves, but it appeared that he was chasing the slaves that we had recently liberated and settled in Horizon. I declined our party's aid on the grounds of moral objection to slavery and resisted soft pressure from the Prince to relent.

Sanji needed our help and we were just tooling around the island waiting on scribes, so we chartered passage back to Bonevale to defend the domain. The investigator, Jimmy Smallcod, insisted on joining us. I gently suggested that that would be a bad idea and that the travel is extremely dangerous but he would not budge. It would spell his doom, but not by Zimon's hand, praise be to Pelor. 

After paying to have the finished copies shipped to us in Bonevale, we departed. Not a dozen miles out of port, our ship was overtaken by pirates. The captain of our ship was nervous but Jimmy suggested he could handle the situation. Once in parley range, it turned out Jimmy and the pirate captain knew each other and had some previous history of a thwarted mutiny, exile on an island, tragic pirate things. The pirate demanded we tie up Jimmy and hand him over which of course I refused. If the pirate wanted him he could take him in a fair duel. I guaranteed the legitimacy of the fight and over came the pirate to our deck.

It was a short thing, Jimmy not up to the task and the gods favoring the pirate. Jimmy lost his head and his gear, the pirate departed without further bloodshed, and we continued on our way. Fr. Cassian made sure that all present witnessed the circumstances of the investigator's death so that we could not be wrongfully accused. He prepared the body to be delivered home once our voyage was complete.

Somehow a piper from the pirate ship had found his way on deck and been left behind. He proved his worth when a Titan rose from the sea during a sudden storm and demanded satisfaction for our trespass into his domain. Garth the Bard sang such a beautiful hymn to Pelor that the Titan was convinced of our noble purpose and left off his harassment. We fished a few cast aways out of the waves during our travels and had such a strange encounter with rocs that I can barely put it to parchment without confusion.

An adult and young roc approached the rear of the ship from out of the sun, seemingly sent by Pelor himself, before wheeling and cawing their mighty caws. The youth landed on the rear of the ship and the adult flew away. He seemed to have an affinity for me personally, allowing me near. He was also clearly intelligent but we could not seem to fixate on a useful pantomime to communicate. I named him Sam the Regal and he stayed with us all the way to Horizon.

We warned Sheriff Kai Lan about Sam and he seemed fine with the roc's presence as long as he did not start eating people or elves. I think Sam is a noble creature who would never unless in self-defense. Our party rushed to Sanji's tower only to learn that he had never arrived!

Aunt B, the wizard henchwoman in Zimon's employ, suggested that had the teleport gone wrong he could be off target or even lost to the ether. Fortunately, we were able to rifle his things and find a scroll of locate object which we used to find his artifact crown. It was underground! This did not bode well for Sanji.

Work crews dug him out in about a day and a half, or what was left of him, his remains horribly mangled by magically appearing in solid earth. We collected what we could and rushed to Bonevale to contract a high enough level priest to bring him back to life. We spared no expense, especially since it was Sanji's treasury paying for the endeavor, and after some time and a few castings Sanji was restored. He bore markings and signs of Pelor's direct intervention, marking him as blessed with his second chance, and would require quite a long convalescence to recover from his ordeal.

We were unable to locate the gorgons, losing their trail some distance to the west, and spent some time searching the territory adjacent to Sanji's tower. We discovered a pair of mountain men named Yogi and Smokey who we presented with the reality of the situation. We were going to settle these lands soon and they could get on board or not, at their risk. We established that they would maintain the territory and scout out dangerous monsters in exchange for allowing the space to remain wild. Like a national park. June expressed interest in this decision and we left it at that.

Knight Paladin Percival
Lord of Horizon
Horizon