Fifthmonth, Tenthday
The Road South
Hex 236.128
The adventurers backtrack to what they feel -- or perhaps, hope -- is a safe distance, and camp for the night. They are either correct or lucky and the night passes without incident.
Fifthmonth, Eleventhday
The Road South
Hex
The adventurers rise in the morning and continue south, skirting wide around the abandoned village. After about two hours on the road Newton notices his horse is getting skittish, and, casting his gaze about, he espies a half-dozen or so gre-furred wolves pacing the party, some hundred yards off the east. They do nothing other than keep abreast with the riders, and after ten minutes or so they melt back into the woods.
Just as they are beginning to think about setting up camp for the night the woods lighten and they come across a settlement in the process of being rebuilt. A score of workers are winding down the days' tasks as another dozen or so guards in chain and wearing the bright red of tabards of the Cardinal Baron watch the perimeter. "Ho there travelers!" calls one of the guards, "state your names and affiliations before advancing any further!"
The adventurers have reached the borders of the Scarlet Principality.
Fifthmonth, Eleventhday
Draea
Telemachus spends the entire day finishing the journal. The sun is low on the horizon by the time he finishes, but he learns the following facts, in addition to what he had previously gleaned:
*The Court of Over Sea and Under Stone is bounded to the East by a sparkling ocean, the domain of the Scaled Ones and the Court of Fins. To the West lies the Fructuous Forest, a vast wilderness of unclaimed woods inhabited by various wild Fae. To the South is the Swamp of Malignant Vapours, a desolate, blighted land of the Winter Court, and the North the mountains of Faery continue, ruled by Count Irviusre, the Granite Lord.
*The Court of Fins is littered with the wreckage of ships that have foundered over the centuries, and the Fae inhabitants have scavenged all manners of treasure from the debris. Occasionally a ship from the Mortal World will be blown off course and pierce the boundaries between the Realms, winding up at the bottom of the Ocean of the Scales.
*In the palace of Iltormarreth can be found a door carved from a single slab of walnut and inlaid with a web of mother-of-pearl. Those that know the correct patterns and proper words can trace a path upon the inlay, open the door, and travel to even more exotic locations than the Realms of Faery.
