Session 10

Date Played: September 1, 2000

Gromdain, 16^th of Vatermont 1,000 A.C.

Chow-Lin memorized: sleep, magic missile, light

Eric memorized: speak with animals (x2), entangle (x2), faerie fire, barkskin, cure light wounds (x2)

The party decided to set out north and map the forest region some more. Their ultimate goal was to contact the elves in the region and see how they fared during the orc attack. Once the party was fully provisioned with food, they met with Maribor and Torino, the two men from Radlebb Keep who would continue to assist them in the orc’s lair. The party set out sometime in the early morning and followed the road about 7 miles before cutting north to the tree line of the Radlebb Wood. Following the tree line, they located a marker ribbon and continued to map along the south edge of the Wood for the rest of the day. Luckily there were no encounters this day.

Tserdain, 17^th of Vatermont 1,000 A.C.

Traveling north into the woods, the party mapped for an entire day before camping. The watch order was: 1) Chow-Lin and Maribor, 2) Markus and Torino, and 3) Eric and his animal friends.

Moldain, 18^th of Vatermont, 1,000 A.C.

During the second watch, early in the morning, Markus and Torino were almost surprised by a large wolf. It was apparently hunting them and kept stalking closer to the camp. When it got into Markus’ field of infravision and he got a good glimpse of the size of it, he told Torino to wake the others. Markus got a good crossbow shot on the wolf before it closed the gap and attacked. The rest of the party was slow to waken, but soon it was Eric and Markus against the giant wolf. Markus was holding his own, but barely. He matched the wolf’s attacks with his own, but the beast was able to take him down with only three sharp blows and bites. Chow-Lin blasted the wolf with a magic missile and Eric and Torino finished it off. In the light of a lantern, Eric examined the wolf and noted that it was still alive. After confirming that it was NOT a lycanthrope, he put the beast out of its misery. However, despite the healing granted him by Eric, Markus was in no shape to fight or do anything else, and probably wouldn’t be for the rest of the week.

The party broke camp that morning, after packing up and re-memorizing spells, and continued to map further to the north. Markus was being helped along by Torino. He had all his gear placed on the mule in order to keep up with the faster moving, healthy party. By late evening the party started entering hilly forestland, just a few miles north of the forest axis. Here they felt as though they were being watched. Eric decided to stop here and make a temporary camp to find out who exactly was doing the watching. Luckily, the party was being spied upon by a group of elves. An elven scout named Falrym spoke with the party and then invited them to Deep Hollow to speak with the Elders.

In Deep Hollow, Markus was taken to see the healer, Elegian, who was a cleric of the elven god Ilsundal. With a night’s rest and some elven healing salve, Markus was good as new. The others spent the night at Falrym’s dwelling, as there are no inns in elven villages.

DUNGEON MASTER'S NOTE: The elves manufactured a version of Keoghtom's Ointment from the sap of their Tree of Life (a D&D reference). These were Calarii elves and thus related to Eric's mother, one of the reasons for their friendliness and swift acceptance. The elves are otherwise skeptical about the others in the party, despite Markus' obviously elven heritage.

Nytdain, 19^th of Vatermont, 1,000 A.C.

The elves took the party to see the village Elders, namely Damryth Treewarden and his two assistants, Valziria and Tambrelar. The party explained its reason for being in the elven portion of the Radlebb Wood and asked how the elves had made out against the orcs. Damryth explained that the orcs were forced back with very few elven casualties, but with serious losses on the orcish side. The war chief of the Zotaz orc clan, Bruzarr, was not slain and managed to pull his troops back.

The party offered up the location of the orc lair to the elves. They seemed very interested, yet cautious. Damryth will bring this news to the other Elders in the neighboring villages. When he returns, he will likely supply the party with some provisions and even some elves to help in their quest.