Calling All Gatherers!

Elmertonians!

 It’s me, Baxter! I bid you a fond beginning to autumn, and hope that it comes with cooler temperatures, breathtaking foliage, and delicious pumpkin spiced coffee from Aces. (Please?)

aloeAs much as I’d like to spend the entirety of this announcement endlessly gushing about the glories of pumpkin spiced coffee, alas, I have business to conduct. During the heat of the summer months, I embarked on an expedition to gather some of the rarer components located throughout Irvanshire. While on the trail of a kaleidoscope of butterflies, I was brought close to Elmerton and, to my amazement, found what appeared to be components so ancient that they hadn’t been seen in eons!

My working theory is that some sort of time-disruption, caused by the Evernight Forest, may have brought seeds, spores, and stones into the era of today, causing these primordial components to appear! In addition to this, it seems is if, when transcending time through the Evernight, small collections of what I can only guess is the essence of the Evernight, as they appear to have coalesced into small, bead-like stones of the deepest blues and purples, appear nearby them. I can only guess that, as these time disruptions occur, more of these components will be left throughout your town. However, please do not attempt to gather these components unless you have specifically learned how to Gather Components- they are fragile and I need these intact. Crushed components are not great for anything.

I’ll tell you what. IPotion-2-icon plan on being in town around noon on Fortuneday to get some pumpkin spiced coffee, and will gladly pay you 4 silver nobles for every three primordial components you give me at that time. If you wish to sell me some in an amount NOT divisible by three, I will pay you 1 noble, instead.  It is my full intention to take these mysterious substances and study them, in hopes of unlocking mysteries related to not only alchemy and toxicology, but the history of each of the components and theories on how each component manages to grant the properties it does. Anyone seeking to discuss such things should seek me out at this time as well, so we may correspond in the future.

Yours in Cheesemaking and Romping Around In the Woods,

 Baratraxar “Baxter” Humboldt

The Evernight in the Boneyard

The Sacred Boneyard of Aegus the Emancipator. Sounds grand, doesn’t it? Well, after having heard about this place being debated about for the last few moons and after having had a particularly vivid dream about it, I decided to go see it in person. I spent a week or so getting to the Bay of Murmurs and then, because its location wasn’t precisely specified, it took me another few days to actually find it (about 35 miles SSW of Battlekeep- not quite on the shore as I was led to believe). I was a little surprised to actually find it (and now owe my guildmate 2 gold for losing our bet), but there it was- almost exactly as I saw it in my dream.

I entered through the ornate gateway and immediately I was overcome with a sense of peace and tranquility. It was in that graveyard that I faced the awesome Sacred nature of Death in all its purity. I walked among the gravestones for a few hours (it is that big!), some of which were hundreds or even thousands of years old, and contemplated what it meant to be here and alive amongst these hushed and peaceful bodies.

Darkness came more quickly than I was expecting and I found myself unable to find my way to the exit. I walked further and eventually it became so dark that I could see absolutely nothing. I’m afraid I lost my head a little and began to run carefully down what seemed like a path.

After an indeterminate amount of time, things began to get a little lighter and my pounding heart started to slow down to near normal. I looked around and found myself in a part of the graveyard that… well, just didn’t make sense. In fact, as I continued my search, I found that I was in an entirely different place. It was warmer and wooded, and the smell of the air was different. Additionally, the dozen or so gravestones in the area were not surrounded by a stone wall or any sort of gate. After wandering for a bit more I met a man named Byron who told me that I was in the town of Elmerton- a small township in the Fiddlehead Hills- over 600 miles from where I had been. He tried to reassure me over a cup of strange tea made over a modest campfire that this was not entirely unexpected and that he had been working with another man to create a pathway through the Evernight Forest (Yes, you read that correctly: The Evernight Forest) and that it looked as though one had been tentatively established- even if it did bring a bit of the other side through. “Oops!” he said in a tone that barely masked his glee.

I was unnerved to say the least and didn’t wait around to hear much more. I thanked Byron for the tea and took my leave that day to head back home. It seems, then, that this peaceful graveyard exists simultaneously in two different places and that all this has to do with the Evernight Forest and a strange bearded man and his unknown accomplice. The next time I go searching for legendary sites or people, please remind me not to.