Before we left to claim Rathimund's new manse, the innkeeper came by to say a package had been left for us from Marianne. Inside the box were 4 orichalcum necklaces, one for each of us, which the note from Marianne said we should use these to light the way in times of darkness.
Sure, why not. I put it on, and felt a little power- Rathimund explained later that in addition to whatever mysterious function Marianne alluded to, it allowed us to store essence in it to be used as a reserve. Something quite useful indeed.
And with that, we were off, riding down river on a tornado of Rathimund's creation. The trip down to his new manse was largely uneventful. One of the towns we stopped at, we saw wanted posters of ourselves, which gave us slight pause. But it was obvious those posters had been there for months, alongside dozens of other newly declared Anathema, prolly of other Orphans. As long as we kept a low profile, we were most likely not going to be recognized from the posters.
When we finally arrived at where Rath's manse was supposed to be, we found only river. After taking a quick swim, I determined the river had risen recently, and there were lots of abandoned structures underneath the water, including Rath's manse. It being underwater was fine defensively, it would make it harder to find, but he couldn't do the ritual to claim it while it was submerged. We followed the stream to a dam- apparently someone had dammed up the river and build a village close by.
We decided to talk to the villagers to try and find a solution satisfactory to all parties. The others asked if we could temporarily get rid of the dam and offer to help them put it up later. The village elder said he would discuss it with his people, and until then we could wait at the campsite outside of town. And wait we did- their answer came in the form of an attempted ambush. Several mutant frogs attacked us, along with some villagers who tossed spears at us. We made short work of the frogs, and I managed to kill some of the spear chuckers before they fled.
Since Rath was flaring, we thought we should go see the villagers and show them the folly of trying to back stab us. However, the village seemed abandoned. As we approached a call from some docks, a giant frog shot out of the water, and tried to land on us and crush us. It belched giant mosquitoes at us, which also attacked. We fought back with sword and arrow, trying to strike hard as the amphibian had some sort of regenerative property. Finally though, as Rath hacked it up with his spirit sword, I called for my arrows to ring true. I fired one last volley, each arrow felling a mosquito, and my last, which I infused with fire and poison, struck the monster right between the eyes, and it finally died.
With the threat gone, we destroyed the dam. After the river had subsided, Rathimund performed the ritual to claim the manse.