====== Chapter 10: Frog Legs for Dinner ======

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Early in the morning, as the Isha and her cousins chowed down on pancakes prior to heading out east, a knock at the door revealed the Innkeeper who had a package in tow. It was extremely heavy and noticably warm to the touch. Isha took it from him, thanked him, and brought it to the table. The note was from [[exalted:sidereals:marianne|Marianne]]. Something about in times of darkness, use these to light the way.

Isha opened the package.  Inside were four heavy boxes each containing identical amulets, chains made of orichalcum, the feature what appeared to be a nut made of smokey quartz with a spark of life inside. Isha held hers up and pocketed it. The others put theirs on around their necks. Rath mentioned something about empowered essence so Isha put hers on as well instead. She could feel it too. But what was inside this stone? And the chain, the manufacturing was exquisite. These must be worth a fortune.

Fifteen minutes later, they set out on their way. Rathimund summoned a great wind and flew them all down river like a tornado. They made great time, and stopped at a town for the night. While walking into town, they noticed wanted posters on the postings board in the main square of the town. Rough pictures that sort of looked like them. The others were bothered and went to measures to disguise themselves some, but Isha figured they wouldn't be bothered, and if they were, it would be at their adversaries' own folly.

And she was right. No one recognized any of them despite the fact that the others now looked creepy and she went out of her way to socialize with the locals. No one noticed, no big deal.

The next day was much the same. Flying in the tornado, staying in a town, talking to people. Fewer wanted posters though. In fact, none of them. They were out of the search radius of the fake empress. Kinda nice, she thought.

Four days later, of basically the same thing, they arrived in the area that the manse should be. Should've been. Rathimund indicated from Berrel's notes that it looked like a temple with large columns. Grant commented that the river was flooded way outside the banks, and everyone groaned as they realized the manse was probably underwater.

Grant checked it out, and his assessment implied that this was a recent development. Houses beneath the water were recently abandoned. Someone had dammed the river downstream. The group gathered their things up and headed south to investigate.

Poking around about an hour south of the manse, a dam was discovered in about a town of 300 ... people. Green, fish-people. Not odd for the area, but Isha was still not used to seeing non-human looking humans. After some observation, it was determined that their primary industry was fishing and that the dam was probably built to promote that.

So what to do? Really, this was Rathimund's new manse, so the group decided to leave it up to him to dictate their course of action. Rathimund elected to try and work with these villagers to have as little impact as possible on their lives and livelihood while gaining access to the manse for at least the couple of hours needed to complete the ritual. Since it was nearing dark, they decided to wait until the next day before confronting anyone.

In the morning, the group wandered into town and were directed to the village elder's house. They spoke with him, explained the situation, gave him a choice or left it open to suggestions about how to work with them so that both groups could accomplish the goals they needed to. The village elder said he needed to discuss with the village after everyone came in from working and could provide an answer the next day. They were put up in some guy's house during the day but later camped outside town where they'd stayed the previous evening.

In the middle of the night, they were attacked by swarms of frogs. Then a gigantic frog came... some minor god. Ah, now it made sense. The river had been dammed because a frog god had taken over the manse and needed it submerged so he could live in it and soak up its power. These people were followers of this frog god.

Well, there was little choice left.

The four dragon-blessed took up arms and defeated the nasty army of slimy frogs, defeated the frog-god, several of the towns people who'd decided to or had been tasked to get involved and... the rest ran away.

The next day they found the village deserted. Rathimund set up shop and summoned a few earth elementals to clear out the dam. And over the course of a few days, the artificial lake drained and the water level lowered until the manse was accessible. Rathimund entered, performed the ritual, and claimed it for his own.

While Rathimund and his elementals cleaned up the manse and reconfigured it to his liking, the others made plans to hit up the next manse, just north of here in what appeared to be a lone mountain.