We began this episode with a conclusion to the meeting with Tulgan Rasque. We reconfirmed that Tulgan showed a number of physical similarities to Rhea, and additionally arranged a “test” of Pyotr’s skills - intimidate the local guard captain so he would stop poking his nose into Tulgan’s business.

From there, we moved over to Lysta. We spent time recapping the vision we had hinted at at the end of Season 2 Episode 2 - she had seen, in a campfire, a woman standing on a cliff overlooking a town. The woman read names off of a list one by one, then thanked them for their sacrifice before an unkindness of ravens flew out from behind her toward the town. Unfortunately, Ethren and Lysta were unable to determine, from the contents of the vision and a map on hand where the ritual might have taken place.

Later, Lysta and Ethren returned home. They spent a long time - several weeks - reacquainting themselves with life in the Shywood Forest, the druids, and the elves. They shared tales of their adventures, and enjoyed some of the luxuries Rellinvas had to offer. Ultimately, though, they - along with the elders - decided that the best course of action was to have Lysta leave again. The story of their vision in the fire bode poorly, and the elder druids feared another calamity was on the horizon.

So, Lysta and Ethren packed up once again, and headed back out into the broader world - feeling somewhat refreshed by their stay, but ultimately with great responsibility once again resting on their shoulders.

Meanwhile, we switched back to Bottom Bay. Those who stayed behind had been making headway on their various downtime tasks. In particular, Pyotr had been scoping out the captain of the guard, and had ascertained a bit about his life. He had kids, he and his wife were in a somewhat unhappy marriage that seemed mostly for show, and so on. We left deciding what to actually do about that to later.

In the meantime we spent the rest of the session on the town’s Emptying the Barrel ritual. See: Whenever new folk come to town for a while - either adventurers looking for a place to stay for a few moons, or just new arrivals looking to lay down roots - the local community gets to know these people by bringing out a barrel of alcohol and throwing a big “getting to know you” party. Tales are swapped, bonds formed, and roots set. It’d be an exhausting process to go over all the stories told, so I’ll just say it’s about 51 minutes in on this VoD or around 1:12:00 on the edited YouTube VoD, if you want to watch a bunch of people RP-ing drinking irresponsible amounts of alcohol for a solid 40 minutes