Tryska's Journal

After finding her way into the headquarters of the Tempest Brother's expeditionary company Tryska Bjorndottyr decided she should start recording her experiences in the hopes of her adventures one day becoming tales worthy of retelling by the skalds of her homeland.

Since Tryska isn't organized enough to separate it into different entries or actually apply dates, the entries will be listed by dates of the sessions, or the monthly downtimes.

Kiss of Ice (6/2/2024)

FINALLY! After months they've shipped us all out, and I've finally been able to go out on an adventure! And by the elders what an adventure it was. I had been sent out with a few other members of the company, an elf, an aasimar, a construct, a tiefling, a dwarf, and a halfling. It had been an excursion from the Tempest Brother's waystation to Xender City to find any possible threats to the merchants and caravans that would one day be traveling the route. The first part of the trip was rather bland, we all took turns playing lookout. During my shifts I'd turn into a leopard and scout ahead of the group. between my shifts I'd just slumber in the back of the cart to recharge my magic.

Halfway along the path while resting for the night, a bestial howl echoed through the forest and when we went to investigate to see if it was a possible threat to the future caravan route we encountered a massive reptile that the others referred to a a "T-Rex" slain and shredded and half covered in frost as if some magic was involved.

We didn't catch sign of any other threats until a few days further along the road, where some poor beast was in even worse shape than the T-Rex. Following the trail of it's killer led us to a mighty Yeti much like those in the tales of the elders from back home. Shifting into the form of a Bremish Saber I charged into battle, facing the monstrosity head on, claw to claw, and with the support of the others we slew the beast, and as I prepared to harvest the spoils of our victory... It froze solid, as if magic within it suddenly broke free, entombing the body to spite us... I was hoping to add it to my pile of pelts...

Knowing that such a beast had no right to be here, we followed it's tracks trying to find where it came from, and stumbled across a massive dome of solid ice with a large crack in the side that the yeti apparently had come from. Upon entry, it was as if I had been teleported back home. A thick sheet of snow coating the ground, the tropical plants native to the area were frozen solid and scattered through the frozen forest were statues of ice in the shape of multiple humanoids and native creatures that we soon realized were once living creatures.

Continuing to the center of the dome, we discovered a large frozen tree with a portal in the center of it, as well as a Dyrad who appeared to have been corrupted by the magical winter claiming the location. The winter had driven her mad, and accompanied by a small pack of Winter Wolves she attacked us, whipping the unnatural weather into a blizzard that all but blinded us. It was a brutal battle with the wolves on the front lines while she vanished into the blizzard only to reappear and blast us with more magic before vanishing again... I did my best to follow my nose to track her down, moving through the blizzard, barely able to see my own paws on the snow in front of me... Until I finally found her, and with one final bite I sunk my teeth into her, and could taste her corrupted blood on my tongue as I bit her in two... Only to be blindsided by a vision alongside the rest of the party.

The grove had been warm and full of life. Dryads scattered throughout tending to the land and caring for the wild creatures. A ranger carrying an odd crown looking artefact on his hip resting beside a tree... And then suddenly there was a surge of magic, the same surge that rippled through the world when the Tempest Brothers slew the demon Mother. The artefact on the Ranger's hip activated, and suddenly there was a hole in the fabric of the world, centered right in the center of the giant tree, and waves of freezing cold began rippling into our plane.

It was then that we heard the horn echoing out of the rift. The dwarf emerged from the rift, telling us of a giant approaching, and the horn had awoken an massive, ancient white dragon... And we elected to flee, knowing we were no match for such a creature... And after this the rest of the trip was bland, with nothing of note worth mentioning.

Necromancer lair (6/25/24)

Been a few weeks since the last mission... I'm not exactly proud of how this one went... But every hero has their moments of weakness right?

We'd been gathered by one of the main members of the company named Paul. It'd been myself, a plasmoid named Iris, a planeswalking paladin named Ghargux, the same elf from the last mission, Karma, and a newer member that I didn't get his name... and now it's too late anyway. My memory's fuzzy about this mission... I remember we were sent to investigate these large stone obelisks... There were words... Names... On the sides... The ground underneath them looked raised, uneven from the rest of the ground... I was curious and dug my claws into the ground by one of them... And a ghostly hand shot up out of the ground and grabbed me. It was so cold... And that's all I remembered... It was cold... And then I was swinging at the others, unable to control my own body... Multiple ghosts had risen from the other obelisks... Attacking the others... I remember the smell of blood as the new member fell and began bleeding out... And by the time i regained control of myself, the battle was mostly over and the new member was already dead.

Turns out the nearby mountain had been the secret lair of a necromancer... And... That's pretty much all I can remember... That, and I had gotten a satchel of these interesting little fuzzy trinkets that can transform into animals.

Vampiric Lizards (June Downtime)

The beasts in this damn land are so bizarre... In between missions I've been spending the majority of my time hunting for furs and meat... The waystation's messhall is almost always serving soup or stew... and I can only stand liquid meals for so long... I need actual meat... steaks... Some venison now and then... But the game has been so sparse. Deer are few and far between, and the few I've found lately have been bled dry... Nothing but desiccated husks... Squirrels and rabbits can only satisfy you for so long... And as I was hunting for larger game, the predators came for me.

A pair of creatures, about as tall as the average humanoid... Their teeth razors dripping with blood... But the worst part was their eyes... Soulless voids of bloodlust... And in their depths, horrors of death... Thousands of terrified screams echoing through the jungle as they're hunted and painfully slain... And then the image of a white dragonborn in black and gold robes looming over the beasts before opening is mouth and biting down on their necks.

It was unsettling to say the least... The vision putting a damper on my hunger for venison as the unnatural fear washed over me... But I stood strong, roaring back at them, proving that I am the alpha predator of these woods... And the point seemed to get through their simple reptilian minds as they turned tail and fled. Beasts that dangerous couldn't be allowed to roam freely. It was only a matter of time before they became brave enough to start attacking the caravans and hunting parties... I tracked them through the forest, the scent of blood and scales easy to follow through the early morning mist up until I reached a cliff falling into the distance... I'd assumed they climbed down and was about to start climbing down myself when the mist began to coalesce into the beasts that I'm positive weren't there moments before...

Then they attacked... I'd been able to hold my own for a while, keeping the beasts at bay and managing to land a few solid blows but... The wounds seemed to heal rapidly, and they fought as if they could never tire... While I'm not as lucky... every time I'd swing at one, the other would dart around to slash at my sabertooth form's flank... and it was only a matter of time before they forced me to revert to my humanoid form... I tried to feint and put some distance between us so I could shift into a combat form again... Only for the second raptor to dart behind me and bite down into my shoulder... and by the elders did it frakking hurt... It was as if the heat was sucked from my veins for the few moments before a slash of my claws to it's throat caused it to release me, allowing me to transform into a moose and flee... And for some reason they chose not to follow... So I've been trying to take care of this damn wound, one of the other druids in the camp, Wiggler attempted to heal it but not even magic seems to be doing the job... So for now I just have to keep wrapping it, and just hope the bleeding stops eventually... It's not like I'm going to bleed out, it's just seriously inconvenient...

Echoes Beneath (7/2/2024)

Another job, this time we were hired by an artefact collector from Xender. They sent a Kinder named Dimi to act as their middle man and tasked us with investigating a reported haunting in a nearby town called Ymbtrymman that supposedly had something to do with the artefact. My companions on this mission were quite interesting.... First was a half orc who referred to himself as Dr. Weedus... But I thought Doctors were supposed to be intelligent? This man definitely thought with his blade more than his head... As well as a human I'd never met before name Baulder, who called himself "The Boulder" and the two of them claimed they were "The heavyweight champions of Amusa" whatever that means... Also with us were tiefling named Amaris, an avian Bard named Finny, and a half-elf rogue called Hummer.

Upon reaching the village, we questioned some of the locals, learning that a thief had been stealing portraits from all the houses in the village, which definitely came across as odd, after all why would anybody steal family portraits? We were trying to look into the newest family to move into the village when Dr Weedus insisted we enter the sewers below the town - which of course was the most likely place for a thief's hideout, but we had been hoping to investigate more... But as he barreled in we couldn't really let him go by himself and followed suit.

It didn't take long at all for us to be accosted. A handful of fighters who after being defeated shattered like glass.. It wasn't until after fighting a couple of them that I realized they bore a disturbing resemblance to the townsfolk who reported their portraits had been stolen. Fearing the worst, I had expected the glass people to be linked to the townsfolk above ground in some way, and if we killed the duplicates we'd kill the townsfolk... So in the hopes of disabling whatever the relic was I bolted ahead in leopard form, trying to get into a back room where the artefact was likely being kept... Unfortunately the further I charged in, the more enemies appeared... And upon breaking into the back room there was a massive brass dragonborn standing guard... Over a large mirror against the back wall, with a pile of paintings and portraits in front of it... A cloaked figure removed a tarp from one of the paintings, and out of the mirror walked a tiefling. The rest of the fight was a blur... Finny managed to set the mirror down while the rest of us fought off the mirror doppelgangers, before somebody, I don't remember who, managed to light the portraits on fire, breaking whatever spell created the mirror creatures and they all faded away... At this point, Dimi came down into the sewers and took the mirror away.

The Trade Route (7/21/2024)

Yet another job that wasn't quite the exciting exploration as I had hoped as we set out, but at least there was some excitement in the end. We were approached by a man named Gumptor Flynn about setting up a trade route with a local clan of Kobolds we later learned lived in a crashed air ship... Ten days of very little action, just scouting and mapping... Marking a path, documenting threats, so on and so forth. About halfway through we came across a massive crater where stories say a meteor had crashed to the earth, and now it's populated by Wyverns... I'd tried to convince the others to help me kill one so we could see what they taste like - I've learned the lizards around here have such a different taste to the average mammal... Shame we don't have many reptiles back home... Two days of travel to get around the crater, and then another day before something finally happened... I group of Manticores decided to ambush us, one of which seemed to be some kind of freakish hybrid... But they died all the same - they taste terrible by the way. Completely inedible... They'd apparently been ambushing merchants and travelers through the area, and their lair had a decent amount of gold and magical items in it... Not long after looting their den we came across a party of hunting Kobolds and then the Kobold village for a free teleport back to the waystation.

Frozen Heist (7/27/2024)

This mission made up for the boring trade mission. It began with an explosion on the outskirts of our territory around the way station, a fire giant and frost giant were locked in combat with the fire giant quickly coming out the victor. Looming over the corpse of the frost giant we were informed that she was a mighty Lieutenant of Mammon known as "The Golden Hellion". She had been sent by her Master Kalzivach to search for an item called the Ring of Winter's Wrath, and that Mammon has been trying to find a way into our realm but is being prevented by the fire giants... in hindsight, helping an Archdevil find a way into our realm was probably a terrible idea, but at this exact moment he had been offering a ceasefire and temporary alliance against the frost giants... So we were to break into the Frost Giant's primary fortress and steal the relic that they'd been using to keep the devils and fire giants out.

The team for the infiltration was myself, Finny and Gargux, as well as a few newer members I hadn't met before - a rogue named Karma and two males, Jennings and Morten. We had multiple targets during the heist; a Hag's eye, the giants' battle plans, the actual relic... And to incapacitate the Winter Wolves the giants had slain so that they wouldn't pursue us... I decided I'd go a step further with this task.

The plan was to split into three teams. Karma and I split off to handle the wolves, Jennings and Morten were a distraction to keep the hag and the prince distracted, pretending we were looking for an alliance "to save ourselves" and then Finny and Ghargux were to infiltrate the treasury to steal a coin that unlocked the vault containing the relic.

We had been told to poison the wolves... But they were such majestic creatures, living in such squalid conditions... Beaten and whipped into compliance... I know father always looked down on how soft hearted I could be when it came to animals... but dammit this was unacceptable... And I decided to make them an asset. We snuck to the kennels, and I pretended to be a newly recruited beast tamer, using my magic to be able to speak with the wolves as I feigned a show of beating it into compliance while not harming them to gain their trust so I could get closer to the matriarch of the pack, a massive she-wolf... And I promised to free her young so long as she provided us a distraction to be able to get into the vault... I summoned a pack of badgers to burrow an escape tunnel through the wall of thick, solid ice before becoming a winter wolf myself and helping the she wolf to kill the frost giant in charge of the kennels before she and her two oldest pups charged into the fortress to deal as much damage as she could as I moved to meet up with the other two groups at the vault... Where I was informed they had only gotten the key to the vault, not the battle plans or the eye... So I decided that as the fastest in the party I should be able to run up, grab both, and bolt out... Which is exactly what Finny and I did. We split off from the party and went back up to the next floor, breaking into the Hag's private quarters where finny grabbed her eye and I summoned another pack of badgers to burrow through the ice again to the prince's quarters... The other team was breaking into the vault during this time, managing to grab the relic around the same time as I had broken through to the prince's quarters and grabbed the plans before turning into a moose, allowing Finny to climb on my back before I fled... A brief encounter with a giant stalling us just long enough for the hag to attempt to capture Finny... But we were lucky and she missed, and we disappeared into the forest, having completed our mission.

The Hunter and the Ring. (4/10/2024)

The battle plans we stole from the giants revealed a lot... Most importantly being that the giants had tracked down The Ring of Winter's Wrath... And it was up to us to beat them to it. Thanks to the previous mission Lieutenant Ahza had shared some information with us, and a blessing from her Master to aid us in recovering the relic... a ranger named Harrow Grimfold was hiding in the Luggland Mountains to keep the ring hidden, and the giants' most skilled hunter was hot - or i guess it would be cold in this case - on his trail. 22, Thordon, Wiggler, Ronin Ghargux and I boarded an airship and set out as soon as we could. Thanks to having three druids and a barbarian in charge of navigating through the wilderness we made damned good time, easily reaching the ranger before the giant's hunter did... Only to learn that he was Frakking insane. He had been protecting the ring for so long that it had driven him mad. We tried as best we could to convince him to give us the ring... And then Wiggler used a sleep spell to knock him out so we could take it.. And as we were about to get him loaded up and head back to the airship, the hunter finally caught up to us... He and his frost salamanders took us by surprise. Being the most dangerous target he went for me first... Nearly killing me with his volley of arrows and his mammoth mount as he charged into the camp. If it weren't for Wiggler and 22 healing me with their magic I wouldn't be here to share this story... They closed my wounds and brought me back to consciousness just in time to hear the roar of the ancient dragon echoing through the mountain range... Somehow the hunter had managed to call for reinforcements and the Ancient White Dragon Ysildre was rapidly closing on our location... We fought like the beasts of Hel, slaughtering the hunter and his salamanders... Frost giants tried to climb up the cliff to get to us, only to get knocked off or thrown back down to their deaths... All the while the wingbeats of the dragon drew closer... and closer...

At last we slew the hunter, recovered the ring, and were trying to flee... And then the dragon landed... She was massive, could have easily eaten the mammoth we had just slew in only a few bites... We sent Ghargux away with the ring, telling him to run as fast as he could as Thordon stood against the beast... I... I had been wounded too badly and couldn't stand against her... My priority had been protecting wiggler, who was on death's door at that moment... But she ignored us, instead pursuing the ring... And for some reason after she took it, she let us live... And we intend to make her regret it...

The Letter Home (prelude to hunting Ysildra)

We lost the ring. The giants had the chance to freeze the world but another group managed to stop them, and claimed the prince, Ysildra's son's, head. Our honor has been stained... My own with cowardice... I was going to take Wiggler and run... all I cared about was getting him out alive when Ysildra landed... But now we have friends in high places providing us with extra weaponry. We have taken the time to plan. We have her son's head....

I have just finished my final preparations for the hunt. I will be leaving this journal behind with a letter to two of my closest friends in this camp, an ooze named Iris, and a witchwolf named Eavan... If I do not return from this hunt, I request that this journal one day finds it's way home... So my father and tribe know I died a glorious death.

Father, I hope this message has one day reached you... I'm sorry I wasn't the son you had wanted me to be. I always wanted to do nothing more than make you proud, but I needed to do it as myself, not as the son you wrongly viewed me as.

My name is Tryska Bjorndottyr, proud daughter of chieftain Bjorn Fellhand of the Herlidyr. Druid and chosen of the Spirit of the Mother Saber, and gods willing, soon to be Slayer of the Mother in Ivory.

But if not, I want you to know that as I prepare for what may be my final battle, my thoughts are of home, and you Father.