After dispatching the goblins, Baz mysteriously ran off back towards the town. Presumably to visit his relatives.
The adventurers returned to town and handed over the bottles of well water to John the apothecary. In return the apothecary handed over 3 of the surplus bottles, which were distributed to Heidar, Mephitical and Axey.
They learned from John that Bard'mn had kicked a suspicious character out of the Inn.
[Gained 250 XP each]
They then departed and took their treasures to the Armourer and Weaponsmith, trying to have them identified. While Mephitical went to the Inn.
The workmans of the Armourer and Weaponsmith also reported that there was a strange man kicked out of the Inn, and that the elven family across the town could possibly identify the magical items they had aquired, as neither of them could identify magic.
The Armourer was haggled down in price by Heidar for a hide armour coat, in return for some hides when Heidar was able to provide them.
After learning this information the party returned to the Inn, where Mephitical was drunk.
Bard'mn told the heroes what he could about the strange person he kicked out:
The strange character was slightly less than a human in height and had a pirckley kind of look to his dark face that was hidden away in his cloak. The stranger was reportedly disturbing the locals in the bar asking them questions in what Bard'mn could only assume was some kind of elven.
Bard'mn also revealed a certain dislike for the elves across the town, as they were strange and always had some kind of happenings in their elven house - strange rays of light, explosion sounds etc.
He told the adventurers the elves names: Zulir the elder male, his wife Ela'rin and son Bilir
Together the heroes went to visit the elves across the town - Danetrix was the only one the male elf, Zulir took a liking to. He introduced the party and inquired as to whether the elf could identify the items they had pertained. While the elf was fiddling with them, Danetrix asked further questions, which revealed that Baz was infact a relative of theirs and that the was out in a back room "sleeping". It was all a bit strange.
Zulir told the party to leave the items with him so that he may identify them overnight, and that it would be free of charge, but he would appreciate some help with securing his trade route for ores and gems when the party was able.
Danetrix also inquired as to why his house was so battered, with holes in his roof. He explained that his line of work was likely to blow things up often, so he is always blasting holes in his house.
With that they left the elven house and returned to the Inn to sleep.
The party awoke to salted boa bacon and dwarven beer from Bergmenumenn that Bard'mn had prepared and then set off towards the forest first thinking that this would be the best place to obtain hide after Bard'mn had suggested that the wilds were dangerous and not worth the trouble for hide. Before leaving they went by the elves house to get their items.
The items were:
+1 Magic Staff
+1 Magic Longsword
+1 Magic Mace
+1 Magic Orb
+1 Magic Chainmail
+1 Magic Horn
Heidar took the the staff, Mephitical took the Orb, Axey took the Longsword, Danetrix took the Chainmail, Axey stored the Mace and his old sword for Baz and the Horn was put in one of the elves old potato sacks and left in the adventurers quarters in the Inn.
They than set off towards the forest.
When the adventurers reached the building that gumbo had been hung in Old Eastbrook, they noticed there was no goblin corpse and on the ground near where gumbo had been was a blue crackling aura of fading necrotic energy, with a fading symbols of a rams skull, reminiscent of Orcus:
The party stayed for a half hour to watch the aura dissipate, and as it did, the energy turned into what looked like a hand coming from the ground which made a grabbing motion and faded away into the ground.
Heidar decided that perhaps they should dig where the aura was to make sure nothing was there - so he went into one of the nearby buildings to look for materials to dig with. He found timber and stone... but also a map:
They were able to identify that it was depicting structures and natural layouts, but it was unclear if they were mountains, or ditches... and whether it was above or below ground. The party could identify the script on the map to be orcish, but not read it or understand it's use.
Once they had dug the hole deep enough, they stumbled across a strange glimmering blue ore, and hauled 6 of the roughly one pound stones each out of the ground back to the elf in town for a hopeful identification.
Zulir was able to identify them as a common magical reagent for enchanting and offered to turn them into Residuum. He started to break down one of the rocks to confirm that he could and asked everyone to look away. A large green surge of light blew around him and the house.
The heroes left the elven house back towards the forest. When they hit the crossroads west of the ruins of Old Eastbrook, they noted that the signpost had "Westbrook" pointing west down the road and "Northbrook" pointing north up the other road. Just shy of the crossroads was the edge of the forest.
They noticed that there were large cobwebs all over the trees - and a half skeleton resting against some rocks near a tree. They took what they could from the skeleton. Axey took some bones noting they "May be handy" and Heidar followed suite taking it's skull. Mephitical took one of the skeletons hands then noticed some barrels behind a tree and decided to open them.
Two large rat swarms surrounded the party. Through lots of lighting, hacking and slashing the party dealt with all the rats. Heidar took some of the rats and tied them around his belt after Mephitical gutted them.
Danetrix and Axey then opened the other barrels and four rat swarms poured out over the party.
Through the same means the party singed and slashed the rats apart - tying more of them off around Heidar's belt.
The loud squeels of the rats echoed through the forest.
The party slowly moved forward and as Danetrix stepped on a patch of leaves between some trees - suddenly a beartrap snapped up out of the forest floor around his leg. Heidar managed to break the jaws free with his Mage Hand while the others struggled to help Danetrix get free.
As they looked further north they saw a cave opening and slowly moved forward - all of a sudden four rat swarms, and four Kobolds spilled out - one Kobold looked slightly larger and better armoured than the rest.
The party slowly drew them out into the middle of the forest creating a small wall of corpses. As the last of the smaller Kobolds fell, the larger one which kept skirting around trees yelled out something in a tongue no-one could understand.
All of a sudden a bellow was heard from the cave and a massive orc on a massive dire boar came romping out of the cave [Orc: Level 8 Elite Brute Leader, Boar: Level 8 Brute].
Luckily during the fight, Axey had put up a Frost of Letherna - so the party could kite the large orc around the forest. Through much taunting from Axey and massive blasts of magic from Mephitical, Heidar and Danetrix the orc was massively damaged and the boar was killed.
Letting forth a bellowing roar, the orc cheiftain regained much of his former strength and health than began on a rampage dealing some massive damage to both Danetrix and Axey.
As the party finally bloodied him up for the second time, more orcs spilled from the cave.
Concentrated blasts burned the orcs down fast before they could start to cleave chunks from the party members.
Through some double tanking from Danetrix and Axey the orc was burned down to near death, and in the final bout of battle Axey challenged the orc, only to fall to his axe, a hit which instantly killed the paladin.
Before the orc could charge anyone else, final blows from the party made the giant greenskin topple over.
The party gutted the boar and skinned what they could from it, gathering it up with the spoils they could from the bodies.
Axey's body was carried back with the rest of the items with haste to John the apothecary, in hopes that he could perform a ritual to preserve Axeys body. John could perform the ritual of gentle repose, allowing the party 5 months to find a way to bring Axey back, before his body and soul were eternally unbound.
They left their new items with the elf, Zulir asking him to identify them - to which he replied that he can over the course of a day or two, and that he needed more time to break the stones into Residuum.
The party also took the hides to the armourer, who was overjoyed with the huge quantity of leather he could make. He offered the party 5 gold pieces per person, or armour in exchange for their tremendous boon to his business.
Heidar took the gold, whilst the others said they would be back for some armour crafting later.
Mournfully, the heroes entered Bard'mn's bar and let him know the news, to which they all drank to Axey's memory, getting drunk and turning in to rest.
The spoils of the encounter:
Experience:
- 3150 XP each [Enough to level to 4 with 400 left over] (Total XP 4150ea)
Currency:
- 69gp
Armoury:
- Magic Crossbow
- Spear
- Magic Greataxe
- Book
- Magic Helmet
- Magic Chainmail
- Sword
- Axe
- 3 x Daggers