Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

A Voice from the Water

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Getting ready to leave to investigate where the lantern was lost at first light the party began by looking for the orphans which Mayor Talia suggested. As the party set out to find Amal and Jessa in the village but try as they may they fail. It isn’t until they leave the village that it becomes evident why.

She stumbles toward the party, eyes wide and barely recognizing them before she collapses at their feet. Her legs are cut and bruised from the sharp reeds and river rocks, her dress streaked with mud. Panting, she tries to speak, but no words come. She only points, downriver toward the lake.

After a few moments of being unable to communicate she beckons for them to follow her and rushes back the way she came, her body obviously tired but her will driving her onwards. Steep slick rocks, wet moss, ancient stones beneath and thick mud line the rivers edge where the current had begun to shift in the endless rapid twists and turns that it took towards the lake. Across the river and around them children and their parents solemnly placed offerings to the river to appease it and let the flowers, fruit and more drift down the river before the current dragged it under.

The party reach the waters edge of the lake after convincing Jessa that she needed to rest when her body began to give into exhaustion. As they followed the directions from the mute Jessa they stumbled across what looked like a small raft that had been dragged ashore. Jessa pointed and indicated that she was on the boat in the middle of the lake when something went wrong.

Amal. Something had gone wrong with her brother.

Searching the rivers edge and even deeper for some time they were unable to find anything of significance except for one of the shoes he wore, sodden and floating near the edge of the lake bank. But as they turned to give the bad news to Jessa she excitedly gestured towards the lake. Amal emerged from the riverbank just before dusk, clothes soaked, one bare foot silent on the stone and gravel of the lakes edge. In his hand, the silver key, still wrapped in a single silver reed that had made the lantern. The Key, a relic made from silver wood, pulsed faintly in time with his breath as he walked forward, his eyes glazed and un focused even when Jessa embraced him. When he finally spoke, it is not with his voice but something else; dark, wet and ancient.

‘It rises with the moon. It will claim its tribute and the debt be settled.’ The words carried something behind them; a second tone, distant and echoing with a soft thunderous roar, as if the river itself were speaking through him. Then muttering the same phrase over and over again he began to walk towards the village once more. Birds did not call as he passed and even a bear appeared and before even considering the young boy a snack it retreated with the rank scent of fear clutching at its fur.

It was like even the wind held still as the boy walked, the rivers current calming before reversing and starting to flow in the direction that he walked. The party remember something that Elder Rinn hesitantly mentioned to them. The key was meant for keeping a lock sealed rather than releasing the Binding.

As Amal entered the village several villagers went quiet and still, Elder Rinn went white as a ghost before collapsing to the ground confirming what the rest of the village dared not say aloud.

The River spirit was free and had broken its banks to walk amongst Riverfall.

Word spreads quickly. Amal, silent since the river wandered the edge of the wheatfields and orchards, the key clutched to his chest as the moonlight glistened of his still soaked clothes.

The townsfolk begin to fracture, some whisper of sacrifices while others speak of fleeing. And through the eyes of a lost boy the river watches it all.

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