On my way back from running errands I spotted a member of the Guild giving me a signal to report in. I swung by the Guild offices to see what they wanted and was pleasantly surprised. It seemed that Bernina and I had been doing well enough that they’d decided it was worth their while to teach us some new stuff. They said it would take a few weeks, so I informed the rest of the group that we’d be busy for a bit. Chicot also wandered off about this time, probably for the same reason. Anyway, we got to work right away. I spent the first week doing some physical training and combat work, at the end of which I felt a bit more comfortable in battle. I would have been happier if I could wear armor, but at least I wasn’t going to collapse the first time and orc scratched me now.
I spent the second week working on locks and traps, but at the end I still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of what ‘Vinnie’ was trying to show me, so he had me stick around another week to make sure I had it down. He showed me some really nifty tricks with a lockpick, I’m sure they’ll be useful. He also gave me some more advanced information on how traps are constructed, so I’ll have a better shot at disarming them without losing any fingers.
After training I met up with Bernina again and we went in search of the rest of the group. While we were busy with Guild matters, lots of other stuff had been going on. Rumors of this filtered back to us in the Guild barracks, and by keeping our ears open we picked up some of what our party had been up to. The High Priest of Sylvania was trying to throw out the current mayor and take his place. Glug had picked an argument with him in the town square, saying that hiding in town wasn’t going to fix the problem, and that Fortuna was in favor of the more direct approach of going after the cultists. He then bragged about how many cultists we had taken out already. So now they knew who we were, if they hadn’t already. They also apparently met with the mayor and managed to get some sponsorship for our activities. The mayor was interested in looking effective, so he wanted an answer about what happened to the missing caravan. He was willing to loan us some horses to aid our quest to find it. Naturally we took him up on this, and left as soon as we all completed training.
Since we were now on horseback travel was much swifter, but we were all quite saddle-sore. None of us had done much riding but we’d learned enough of the basics to keep the horses pointed in the right direction. The first day we made the river that crosses the road north of Groat, and camp there for the night. Fortunately, it passed uneventfully, as we were all pretty tired from our first long ride.
The second day we reached the crossroads where we had been attacked before. Other than seeing a herd of llamas things were pretty quiet.
I was glad we spent the night where we did, because less than half an hour into the next days ride towards Basimar we found the caravan. Or should I say what was left of it. The destruction was pretty total. Charred body littered the ground, and the burned out hulks of wagons lay decaying in the sun. Even now, over a month after this must have happened, the smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. A few ravens flapped sickeningly about the remains, but I doubt they found much that even they could eat. We searched the bodies for clues of what or who might have done this, but without much success. One thing that we noticed was that the throats of the guards seemed to have been ripped out with huge claws. I found a sword that looked identifiable and decided to lay our “friend” John to rest. I pretended to recognize the blade, and fooled Chicot into believing his “friend” was dead. This motivated him to hunt the killers, and will hopefully keep the subject closed until the charm wears off. We took a few items to show the mayor on our return as evidence of the caravan’s demise, and debated what to do next. We could return now with the information we had, but it wouldn’t really help the mayor’s cause as much as we’d like. On the other hand if we went on and died, nobody would know. Chicot, thanks to my line, was all for going on, and in the end that what we did. Chicot surveyed the perimeter of the battle and found the trail of the attackers leading towards the hills to the South. With some trepidation we decided to follow.
The path wandered across the plains and then up into the hills. Near the base of the hills we found a place to hobble the horses and leave them behind. None of us can fight on horseback, and the trails we were taking weren’t designed for horses anyway. Hopefully they will be there when we get back!
Later that day we heard a party approaching us. We quickly got off the trail but we couldn’t get out of sight. A band of eleven orcs came into view, saw us, and immediately charged. We got off a few arrows but they all went wild. As the band approached I let fly my sleep spell, which dropped four of them right away. Unfortunately I got slammed pretty hard as a result. The orcs were armed with gauntlets that had razor sharp blades attached, and one of them tried to turn me into julienne fries. I decided that retreating and using my bow was the smart move, as my shredded robes fluttered away. Meanwhile Neu Gai, Bernina, Glug, and Chicot proceeded to mow down the rest. It was really weird though, because there was this other voice going “Ow! Hey stop that. That hurts!” during the battle. And then Neu Gai started yelling at his sword. Oh boy. Aslan must have done some weird stuff to it, because now it talks. And it doesn’t like fighting. This is going to be really interesting.
The last guy decided to make a break for it, and we gave chase. I was the only one who could catch up, the rest of the party was just holding steady. I tried several times to tackle the orc, but I couldn’t stop him. After getting slammed into the ground several times, I got tired of bleeding everywhere and gave up. The orc was yelling for help by this time, and I was worried we’d run into a trap. Glug healed me a bit, and we took off down the trail, back to our horses and up the road towards Basimar a ways. We hung out there and regrouped, and then the next day we headed back up the trail again.
Surprisingly, we had an uneventful trip. No orc traps, no orcs, nothing. Eventually, fairly far into the hills we heard barking. Chicot slipped ahead to scout, and reported that over the next rise was a small valley with caves into the cliff on one side. Guarding the entrance to the caves were two mean looking dogs. No orcs were in sight. We decided to take out the dogs with some meat and sleep poison that Bernina had brought. A quick climb above the caves to drop the meat and they were zonked. I felt a little bad about killing them, but I didn’t want them to wake up and attack us as we staggered out injured from some battle in the cave.
We decided to explore the right cave entrance first. The tunnel, which turned out to be an old mine shaft, went forward sixty or seventy feet and then branched. The left fork led to an empty room, so we tried the right fork. This branch twisted and turned a bit and then split again. The right branch led to a flooded room, so we the other way. We found a room filled with strange moss which I decided against investigating, a hall with loud frog sounds coming down it (ditto), and a cave with growling sounds that we decided to check out. I thought it might be more guard dogs. Nope. More like guard skunks! Very large guard skunks! Neu Gai got blasted full in the face and was knocked out by the smell, the rest of us were merely gagging painfully. We grabbed Neu Gai and beat a hasty retreat back outside. The fresh air helped a lot and we were able to revive him.
We all stank horribly so we found a stream and washed in shifts. Neu Gai’s armor will never be the same though. The chain is okay, but be under layer will probably have to go. We all were still kind of smelly, but we decided to go ahead and check out the other tunnel. We followed the right wall past several branchings, and entered a fairly large room. We then heard a sound like rolling rocks from the exit on the far side of the room. Thinking it was a boulder trap, we retreated uphill the way we had come. It didn’t do us any good, though, because these boulders could roll uphill at will. They seemed to have some rudimentary intelligence that allowed them to track us, turn corners, and attack by attempting to roll over us. We spread out a bit and started whacking at them, which didn’t make Neu Gai’s sword very happy. “Hey, rocks are hard!” I think Neu Gai has decided to dub the sword “Griper,” and I can see why. The rocks weren’t terribly effective, and could be bashed to pieces with one or two blows, but Bernina got pegged once before we smashed them all. After healing her we continued on down the passage they had emerged from, and came to a door.
On to Journal Seven