Run 3: The Thing in the Woods

Soladain, Thaumon 7

Golstag’s caravan leaves town at sunrise, their preparation interrupting the sleep of everyone except Varis (who habitually rises before sunrise to complete his morning prayers). Glares are exchanged on both sides, especially when Golstag is spotted with his half-ogre henchmen. The half-ogre Bronte has both hands bound in tight chord as the caravan leaves town.

The steel-haired gatekeeper, Sabine, joins the group for breakfast. She has some concerns about the enchantment that provokes the attack on the party – Dubricus has informed her that the spell was likely cast immediately prior to the half-ogres attack, throwing suspicion on locals and guests at the inn. There is some consternation when Shadarael reveals that both he and Elarian are capable of such magic, but Sabine concedes that it’s unlikely that either are behind the attack.

The group is later joined by Dubricus D’Amberville, who informs them that the tracker Cobb will be arriving in the keep later that morning. The group is offered 25 gp a piece for information about what the monster in the woods may be, and another 25 gp each if they bring proof that the threat is neutralised. Dubricus also distributes croissants from his magic sack of baked goods, which goes remarkably well with Shadarael’s coffee.

The morning passes with the group gathering supplies, and they meet Cobb at the Green Man just prior to lunch. Cobb’s a big man with a bushy beard and a sour smell, obviously more at home in the wilderness than in town. He brushes off honorific’s when Elariah calls him Master Cobb, but he’s infallibly polite to her in return after noting she comes “from fancy stock.”

Cobb starts drinking as soon as they leave the keep, but he’s a competent guide who shaves nearly an hour off the journey with his short-cuts. He also warns the group of some of the dangers that lie south of river – a group of beastmen that were forced from caves of chaos years back, and a clan of lizardfolk that haunt the swamps a little further east. Both are dangerous, but only the beastmen range north of the river and they’re usually hesitant to attack unless they have superior numbers.

Tracking the mysterious creature that attacked the Alchemist’s caravan isn’t possible; lots of people have contaminated the site of the battle and there are a trio of beastmen obscuring the creatures tracks and laying a false trail. The latter isn’t properly discovered until the group relocates to Tarlach’s fishing hole, setting off a discussion about the best way to deal with the problem.

Shadarael advocates an ambush near the ford the beastmen use to cross the Whistling River (Cobb refuses to use this plan, suggesting it puts them too close to the beastmen territory and reinforcements). The others plan to follow the false trail until another option presents itself. Eventually the group settles on finding a campsite and taking the lay of the land from a treetop, figuring they may get lucky and spot a campfire.

Luck is with them on this front: they spot a smoke trail and a tiny flare of light three miles to the north, located below a ridgeline that’s shaped like a vulture’s head.

Elariah also hears the sound of something crying piteously on the breeze that’s far closer. Varlis investigates this immediately, on the off chance that it’s someone in need of help. It turns out to be a goblin caught in a beastman snare after following the false trail Cobb noted earlier. The goblin is unable to reach its dropped weapons, nor free itself from its predicament, so it settles for marking not-really-threatening faces at the group.

No-one speaks goblin, nor do they feel the need to free a warped creature of chaos, so the party ignores its comical attempts at intimidation and retreats into the shadowy gloom of the undergrowth under the assumption that the goblin’s cries will draw the beastmen who set the trap.

The sun sets and the night sets in, leaving things close to pitch-black in the thick undergrowth of the forest. The beastmen approach their captive in stealth, gutting the goblin before anyone realises they’ve arrived, but the darkness also protects the heroes from detection. A quick plan is hatched – Elariah starts casting sleep in a whispered voice and Varis lights the lantern at the last possible moment to allow her to target the spell. Both beastmen succumb and are quickly dispatched by Varis’ glaive.

The beastmen are painted with distinctive markings, something Elariah recognises as part of the holy rite used when a warrior is sent to confront a blasphemous or unholy threat to the tribe. The dead beastmen were observers and assistance to a single, more powerful hunter who would track and slay the blasphemy in single combat. Cobb finds tracks leading back to the ritual site the final beastmen is busy chanting and blooding himself in preparation for the hunt. His ritual is stopped by the party’s approach, then by his quick death at the hands of Veris’ glaive. His body is looted for a necklace made of polished teeth, a trio of magic fetishes (cat’s grace, bull’s strength, and one other), and 5 bloodroot arrows.

After realising that the campfire they saw from the lookout wasn’t connected to the beastmen, the group finally return to their chosen campsite and sleep.

Lunadain, Thaumon 7

The party finds the mysterious beasts spore close to the site where they fought the last beastman, the trail easy to follow now that the beastman hunting party aren’t hiding it. Cobb explains that it seems similar to the kind of prints he’d expect from a beastman, but the gait is wrong and it seems somewhat heavier.

The trail is followed for much of the day, with the group cornering the creature in a narrow gully. From a distance it resembles a tall, heavyset beastman with two heads. When it charges, they also discover that it’s undead and seemingly impervious to arrow fire. This doesn’t matter much; Shadarael and Veris hammer it with magic missiles, glaive strikes and a holy smite which make short work of the fast-moving zombie.

Elariah’s research has unearthed news of something that’s meant to resemble the undead creature – a two-headed mutant beastman known as the Bradba, hated by the single-headed kind – but given that they discover that the second head has been sewn onto the corpse by a skilled embalmer and there’s a distinctive holy symbol burnt into its shoulder (a stylized skull, half black and half white) it’s assumed that this is the work of a skilled necromancer.

A litter is formed to cart the corpse back to Dubricus, but while the team is working Cobb notes that the zombie seems to have been heading to the campsite they saw at Vulture point. The decision is made to investigate, and the party sets off…