[K54] 22 Oltaran, traveling south to Bionlear's Skull

It was a couple of hourse until Jack returned on the shields, laden with snow, by which time the rest of us had set up camp. He told us that he'd found a group of 6-8 walking dead on the road, originally heading towards us, but he went by and they turned in the other direction. When he caught up to the others on the road, he stayed in the shadows until one of them saw him, and they talked. Their party had three fires going, two tents, two people, and a kafke (who from Jack's description is Highelden, which is of concern), in addition to the odd hunting animals. The big, hooded Taal (who seemed to be the leader) told Jack that they were working for good, going to the center of the storm to fight it. Jack noticed that the animals didn't seem like regular animals, and May said that some blessed of the Mighty have the ability to conjure beasts, which is likely what these were. Jack told them we're going to Bionlear's Skull. We discussed whether we should change our plans given these other people know we're on the road, but decided not to move camps; it's unlikely that they'd come looking for us, while we'd have no more protection from the walking dead anywhere else. We did decide to have two people on watch at all times, and May or I would be on watch the whole night, being the claw users.

I checked everyone for spirits before we settled down, and it turned out that Hastvest had a darkness spirit in her. The Healer's power cast it out. When it emerged, the fire sputtered down to coals. The others were ready to fight, since so many spirits seem not to go away when cast out any more. We used torches and Thymelicksen's stars, and it was soon defeated.

We settled down for the evening. Cor and Jack made a shelter for drying clothes from all the wet snow we'd been having.

Cor and I were on watch just before the middle of the night. Jack had been practicing, then went out of the camp to pray. I saw something, then called to Cor and pointed as three walking dead drifted up near him. He yelled to the others and started fighting. I used the shields to go over the horses, and started to focus on using the claw to vanish one; there were too many for him to fight alone... especially when I realized it wasn't three, but four of them. I found out only later that another four had gone to the other side, heading for the back of the tent. Cor and Ragashor were in the thick of the fighting. Hastvest brought the horses out of the way of the battle. Jack and Thymelicksen were fighting, and May was in the tent when the walking dead started attacking it. Cor managed to lasso one that was attacking her, hauling it towards the fire. And I vanished one, to Thymelicksen and Ragashor's surprise, since they were about to fight it at the time. In the end, all the undead were defeated.

And then the first one had radiating ice stalactites come out of the ground around it. We rushed away from the camp as the others exploded the same way, riddling the area with spikes of ice. I'm so glad Hastvest got the horses out of the way in time.