We’ve Got Big News, and Nobody Cares (Storm King’s Thunder #6)

In a burst of contrariness, we begin our journey north by heading south. Our reasoning is that we’ll need to stop by a town to pick up some cold-weather gear and more rations, and all the towns are south and west. We made our way to Rivermoot and met an old-timer (Old Nard) who told us a tale of Mithril Hall, where giants and dwarfs battled in past ages.

We then advanced to Nesmé, which turned out to be a whole lot less populated than we expected, because it’s a ruin (this is why you always ask about the next town in the last town. Whoops). But Nesmé was not totally unpopulated: a party of a couple dozen mercenaries were gathered there, and they spoke of hunting fire giants (Svela snuck in and overheard them). Since we thought the mercs would not be too discerning in their choice of giants, and we didn’t want Harshnag to have to fight unnecessarily, we carved a wide berth around the town (riding ON the river, thanks to a cork-spell by Bardalph).

The next town on the path is Morbryn’s Shield, and this place has a weird vibe. Leaving Harshnag safely in cover, we got to the provisions place, where the owner, Farnath, seemed nervous and a little scared. He explained that a few weeks ago, a band of mercenaries led by a guy named Orbath showed up to “clean up the giant problem”, but instead they sort of took over and are low-key jackbooting around. They apparently do intend to go into the Evermoors and hunt some giants, but they haven’t gone yet. Now normally, we’d be pretty interested in righting wrongs and putting the smack down on some jerks who are taking over towns without asking first. BUT, we’ve got bigger fish to fry and we don’t want to be distracted from our purpose. We got out of town before encountering any of Orbath’s guards. We made it safely to Yartar the next day.

Nestra Rutharall, the Waterbaron of Yartar (like a mayor), was a little snooty and didn’t seem to care much that we brought news of wandering mercenaries. We got rooms at the same inn we stayed at before (Harshnag is camping outside town), and asked around for Harthal, the son of Harthos Zymorven who stole the giant-killing axe, who maybe lives in Yartar. However, no one had heard of him for free, and we didn’t care 500 gold to learn from the halfling Yeep (a thieves guild member in good standing) where Harthal might be. We decided that it made more sense to move forward with our quest. We told Harshnag to travel directly to Mirabar, where we would meet him just east of town. We intend to use the portals to go directly there. We purchased cold-weather gear and some rations, so we’re good to go.

Thus, we made our way to the villa where the mage Kobals manages the portal. Having sold our horses (who can’t use the portal), we gathered in the circle and were magically transported to a stable loft in Miramar. A dwarf named Zasbar met us there and told us to come on down….welcome to Mirabar!