Session 5 Recap

Having finished the goblin lair and returned to town heroes, the PC’s set off for Prosser. One of Sinruth’s letters indicated an upcoming meeting in the nearby woods. The adventurers found the village to be small, quiet & dull. The farmers and tavern goers knew little of crime, but were quite superstitious about the woods. If nothing else, they gave the impression it was a dangerous place to go.

Following up on a lead, they questioned a teenager about a goblin sighting. This led to the NE woods. After hours of searching, the only thing they could come up with was a druid grove. Thinking this was the most likely meeting place, they returned to Brindol to exchange info with Councilor Troy. Troy had made some progress on locating the slavers, but didn’t quite have enough to act on. So the PC’s returned to the druid grove to crash a party.

They spent an entire day preparing for their guests. A pit trap was dug; snares were set; and the woodsier types helped camouflage and hide the party. Then they waited… and waited. It was nearly midnight before the horses were heard coming up the western path, straight towards the snares. Two horses were entangled in the rope traps, throwing their riders, and the fight was on.

The thugs (Lucien men?) went down easy or ran. The other three proved a little tougher, particularly the priest of Orcus. He calmly waded into battle with his 2 bodyguards, barking orders and rasping threats. He called down curses upon the adventurers and beat on Toradin repeatedly with his skull-capped rod. Eventually the heroes won through though. The wights were put down one by one, then everyone focused on the priest until he was subdued.

The peaceful grove (nature god according to Toradin) awoke with thunder and wind when the evil priest was brought within. A voice in Seregdur’s head questioned their intent. And things settled down when the evil priest was removed and died. The ambush provided the group with horses and six more unmarked crates of weapons.

With no Lucien and no apparent leads to Lucien, the adventurers moved on. They crossed the woods to the Elven monolith. Thom determined that it was an ancient portal, but wasn’t sure where it went or how to activate it. Seregdur vaguely remembered a similar structure back in his childhood forest. They pressed on to Dauth, the horse breeding town west of the Haunted Woods.

The village seemed much like Prosser until the middle of the night. Lucien agents had located the party and identified them as a threat. 6 thugs bungled an early morning attack. Four turned out to be battle fodder, dead in the hall. The remaining two turned out to be werewolves. One died after biting Rathos (who did not contract lycanthropy), and the other was released after questioning.

The hauntings in the NW woods are a ruse to conceal one of Lucien’s hideouts. There are some two dozen thugs, a few more werewolves, and some normal wolves there. The snitch could not give any useful info on Lucien or his where abouts. Most of this information was shared with the Dauth sheriff the next morning. Thom was also able to procure a sturdy riding horse from a nearby ranch.