Along the road we ran into some people from the Guild. They wanted to know more about our involvement with the Castellos Thanos situation. Caithyra explained a sanitized version and rumors started to spread that we are Diplomatic problem solvers.
In Portus Sylvaris:
Vasuki heard a rumor: Selendris ruins - people who camp near there wake up speaking a language they've never known.
Caithyra heard a rumor: A fancy elf came through asking about curses and dragons. Then she left for Faelithorn. Dark hair with reddish undertones, moved as if she was always aware of where the shadows were. Dressed well but practically, clothes that 'cost more than my house.' She asked questions like she knew the answers and was testing whether we did.
Kaluulah heard a rumor: there's monsters running Castellos Thanos now, 'good monsters' if you can believe it.
Cantus heard a rumor: loggers found a circle of dead trees around a stone altar in the forest to the south. Guild told them to stay away but some fool probably went back.
Linnolaithe heard a rumor: ravens have been following the lumber caravans, black ones with weird markings.
Kurt heard a rumor: they say the hags in the deep forests are calling their children home, three young women from Portus Sylvaris went missing last month.
Caithyra and Cantus are able to track down the families of the girls.
Family One: retired barbarian dad is pissed off, mom is upset (Nyrelle, the one with long brown hair, third picture)
Family Two: Velsha's dad answers, lumberjack guy (Velsha is the one with short black hair, middle picture). pretty neutral to her being a changeling, expects a wedding invitation...
Family Three: Maerla is the old lady's granddaughter (Maerla is the drow, first picture). "shell come home when shes ready"
We rest for the night in town and then head toward the Selendris ruins.
What we know about the Selendris Ruins -
The Selendris ruins are well-known to locals. Foresters, hunters, and River Selendris bargemen all avoid a particular clearing about four miles off the main road. The "curse" has been documented for at least a century. Nobody has died from it, but it unsettles people badly.
The Selendris Forest is old-growth, and certain areas are known to sit on ley line intersections. Flora near ley lines grows larger, lives longer, and sometimes develops faintly luminescent properties. If the clearing matches that description, there's definitely something magical beneath the soil.
Ley line intersections were deliberately chosen as building sites by pre-Cataclysm civilizations. If there are ruins at a ley line nexus in the Selendris Forest, they're almost certainly from before the Nihilith invasion — possibly thousands of years old.
The symptoms described — waking up speaking unknown languages — don't match any known curse pattern. Curses inflict harm or compulsion. This sounds more like resonance contamination — prolonged exposure to a powerful magical source causing sympathetic effects. It's not hostile; it's ambient.
We find an altar with recesses, and 9 waystones that fit into the recesses. After placing the stones in the correct pattern on the altar, a light shines from the altar to the obelisk "The way is remembered." A vault opens up and we find a pendant carved with the waystone runes. It is a Wayfinder's Tongue, lets you understand any heard language (the messages intent). It also guides the wearer to nearby waystones, and can be activated once per day for 'True Speech.' The party then mines a bunch of the ley-magic crystals (21).
We arrive at Kastellos Tharos, and Grimshank invites us to stay for dinner. We learn that things have been going very well, Grimshank has embraced different view of the world, and Threnarra is pregnant.