Date: 12/01/04

XP Awarded: 1,837 (to 3rd level characters), 1,725 (to 4th level characters)

Start: Citadel Felbarr

Fei has been locked up with his books since the party arrived at the citadel with the prisoners. After a day of interrogating Shymra and the captured cultist, Theodar composes a message to Sundabar with the information he’s found. Celowin has a dwarven smith clean up the sword he’s got. Kai leaves the citadel to spend time in the nearby Rauvin foothills, preferring to not stay in the dark, cool, faintly smelly fortress.

On the second day of the party’s stay at the citadel, Theodar and Celowin received a visit from a gold dwarf who gave his name only as Peldor. Theodar was able to tell that he was from the Goldhand clan. Peldor seemed very interested in details of the party’s excursion to the Cold Tower, but did not seem to be friends of Cardus’. The party gave him information about the keep and he left with his retinue.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, and the party left Citadel Felbarr for Beorunna’s Well. The previous day had been rainy, and the party found some tracks crossing the trail that looked like they may have been made by ogres. No ogres were sighted, and the party made camp in the stately trees on the side of the trail.

That night, after the humans went to sleep, Celowin heard some movement in the nearby trees. He swiftly awoke the humans and went to hide himself, but before he could find a good hiding place, a group of goblins charged into the camp, including two riding worgs. A goblin spellcaster tried to cast sleep on Fei, but the elf shrugged off the magic and cast a sleep spell of his own on the goblins swarming Kai. The goblin spellcaster returned with a web spell, trapping Kai and Fei in a mass of sticky strands along with the rest of the goblin foot soldiers. Meanwhile, Theodar and Celowin had their hands full with the goblin worg-riders. Fei escaped from the web and used fire magic on the goblin and worg attacking Celowin, causing their attention to be shifted to the mage. Tripped up by the worg, Fei was laying on the ground under the huge wolf when Celowin succeeded in distracting its attention long enough for Fei to crawl behind a tree. Kai was busy dispatching the goblins near him inside the webbed area, and Theodar was holding his own against the mounted goblin. The goblin spellcaster crept closer and tried to cast a command spell on Theodar, but it did not work. Fei continued to use fire magics against the worg and goblin attacking Celowin, and the goblin fell. The worg tried to flee, but was cut down by Celowin as it turned. Theodar brought down the worg he was fighting, but the goblin continued to fight on. Sensing the tide of the battle having turned, the goblin spellcaster fled into the forest, and the final goblin fell to Theodar’s blows.

The next morning the party continued down the trail through the fog-shrouded forest, meeting an Argent Legion patrol led by Beltram Sharpspear escorting a merchant caravan from Beorunna’s Well. Later on, Kai spotted a wounded brown bear before the party stumbled into it, and the adventurers quickly out rode the creature. Just before making camp, the travelers found a fork in the trail and took the left branch upon Kai’s recommendation. He warned the group that they would traveling near the Night Trees, and that they were not to enter that forest under any conditions.

With the forest opening up into patches of trees and the rough terrain of the Rauvin foothills turning to the rolling hills of the Moonlands, travel picked up. While making good time down the trail, the group spotted what looked like an ogre in a nearby stand of duskwoods. Smaller creatures that appeared to be barbarians or orcs appeared alongside it, but they took no notice of the party. Intrigued, the adventurers moved closer and found a group of well-camouflaged orcs and barbarians watching them, though they did not stray from the arms of the dark, thickly-clustered duskwood stand. Circumnavigating the stand did not reveal anything, but did allow the group to ride closer to peer inside its depths, where they could faintly see the ogre chopping or digging something. After further observations, Kai was able to determine that the humanoids were some kind of plant hybrid, and agreed that they should be exterminated. The party approached the duskwood stand, and the plant-orcs and plant-barbarians rushed out to attack. Before any of them could be brought down, the ogre rushed from the woods and engaged in combat, critically wounding Theodar’s mount. Theodar was able to heal the mount, but still took a tumble as the mount collapsed. The other adventurers broke off and rode back a distance, but Theodar had to contend with the longspear-wielding orcs as well as the ogre. He managed to get back on his horse just as Kai cast a spell to create a thick cloud of fog that obscured the battlefield, allowing Theodar to escape. The ogre charged out of the fog bank to attack Kai, wounding his horse badly, but Theodar rode past the ogre with his lance, fatally wounding him. Two of the plant-orcs came out of the fog bank but were quickly taken down by Celowin’s arrows and Fei’s magic. As Theodar rode around the fog bank, he noticed a large mass of vines and creepers covered with potently fragrant yellow and purple flowers creeping out from the duskwood stand. Though Celowin’s arrows didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the thing, Fei’s fire magics burned it badly, and it was soon retreating into the deep murk of the duskwood stand. Theodar approached a little too closely while guarding Fei, and the plant aimed one of the strange yellow-purple flowers at him, releasing a stream of pollen. Theodar resisted the effects of the heady fragrance, and the plant creature was destroyed by Kai’s summoned fire elemental. Searching the rest of the duskwood grove, the party found a large hole where the creeper had uprooted itself, containing a large pile of rusting and ruined equipment. Some of the items looked like they had recently been added to the pile, and Celowin found a collection of magical arrows and a potion.