Later, our heroes arrive at the shack belonging to the druid, and see lights inside, but no actual sign of life... inside. Outside, they are attacked by a shambling mound, nearly killing the bard.
The party went inside the hut, finding a few useful items, including some books. After some reading, they discovered that there was a "lost" village a day's travel away.
The bard notices something shiny by the well-- a silver amulet. She opens it to discover pictures of herself and an unknown man. The smith's mark is that of an old elven silversmith. The group continues through the ruins of the town, including the Harpy's Nest inn, behind which they find a skull (and later, the rest of the body). The bard convinces it to speak one last time. It utters "Watch the walls." The heroes find what appears to be the mayor's house and find another skeleton, many partially burned books, and more questions about what happened to Cottering.
Before night falls, the group visits a tower at the edge of town. They find a room on the top level that had manacles and a few magic items in a well-hidden safe.
During the night, the group watches (but thankfully can't hear) the "people" of Cottering emerge from the buildings: they are all shadows. They move between the town well and move in and out of the other buildings. When the wizard's shelter ends an hour or so before dawn, the party is not bothered by the shadows even though the feeling of dread returns. They can hear whispers rising up from the town though. The bard recognizes the "prayers" in Aklo to a "Nameless King."
The shadows are gone by sunrise, and our heroes descend from the tower to investigate further. They find trapdoors in debris in several buildings.Soon, the party discovers an intricate web of tunnels underneath Cottering. Our heroes eventually stumble into a room in which tattered yellow robes line one wall. The bard notices a symbol on one that indicates these belong to the cult of the Yellow King. There is a muffled shriek from the cavern next to the one half the party is in. The heroes quickly reunite to fight off two shadows. Weakened, the party quickly (and less carefully) begins a desperate search to find a way through the tunnels under Cottering, while keeping ahead of any further ambushes by the shadows they are sure lurk there. They pass through rooms with altars and statues, and many walls with murals depicting cities on lakes....
Shadows swarmed out of it and passed their resting place. After a few hours, the party decided to examine it and could see what appeared to be a colorless landscape within. The wizard noticed a symbol and the party recalled seeing it in Carrion Hill. The heroes felt an urge to go through the portal while the shadows were out, and found themselves in a colorless Cottering. After talking to a few townsfolk, they determined that this Cottering was the "lost" one from 4621 AR; 95 years from the Cottering on the other side of the portal. They did learn that Crove had been seen recently and planned to follow him to the Waitley farm.Later the party searched the Waitley farm and found that something unspeakable had recently been in residence, and they discovered a cracked altar on the hill above the farm. They immediately turned back to get to Cottering. Upon arriving, they discovered there was no one there. So, they checked the tunnels below the town. Black ichor was smeared in the passages, and they encountered more shadows....
Later, as the bard continues to have a bad time of it, our heroes head back to Cottering and find a tunnel below a trap door in the servants' quarters, thanks to Divv's detailed maps of future-Cottering. There is a room below the quarters that have 120 human(oid) skulls, all showing human teeth marks on them, facing an obelisk in the center of the room. The bard has worse time of it as she has to have a 6-second conversation with each skull. Most just scream, but one does ask for protection from "the unholy black eyes." One skull also helps find an opening in the top of the obelisk containing twenty-four obsidian around a dark gem. The obsidian had probably been in a specific arrangement before the skull landed on them. The party also noticed that there had been a ring of powdered silver around the obelisk (Lishum helped himself to that), and the obelisk itself had some sort of fading necromatic magic aura.
Afterwards, the party followed the wizard's map again and came to an altar room they'd found their silver gate-key in in the future Cottering. They went in and found another in the same place. While they were deciding what to do with both keys, they noticed the keys were mirror images of each other, and that they fit together. Snap....
Yes, the bard is aware she is writing in two different tenses, compounded by the fact that none of us can read her handwriting and the party teeters between timelines.
Yes, Kristin tutored English in college. Stop judging me. Her. Whatever.