Session 5- City Mice, Barrow Mice
Day 22- After a two week respite in Cedar Crossing, the party is familiarized with many of the locales and people in the town. The party spends the majority of its largesse from the adventure on horses, saddles, plate armor, resupply, and the hiring of retainers.The party spends several nights out in taverns, drinking and talking and meeting new folks. They meet The Red Hands, a local adventuring group that has some positive renown in the area. They say they have the secret to the legend of Haven, but are guarded about the details, save to say that they will soon depart for the Dyr Wood to locate and solve the riddle of Castle Haven once and for all. They also put out feelers to acquire some hirelings, and they end up hiring Lance, a teamster driver for the cart the party has purchased, Manuel, a local farm boy with wanderlust hired as a horse tender, his brother Mondius who fancies himself an archer, and LaSalle, a former soldier down on his luck. Malden also acquires a squire, bringing the total to new heads added to the party to five. The party also picks up a new rumor that the farm village of Orlane, to the east, is appearing to change somehow- some farms seem derelict, others understaffed, while the folks in town are much less friendly and less likely to talk with travelers. It could be just economics or a bad farm season, but it could be worth checking out.
Day 23- The party decides to continue to Sigyfel’s Tomb, to see how it has been distrubed as the paladin felt it was important. With a full complement of horses, a wagon, the much larger party sets out. Enjoying the greatly improved travel on roads and plains, the party makes it to the tomb without incident in just under a day. They set up camp in light cold rain, and observe the tomb site, at the base of a low hill is a round marble monument to Sigyfel, followed by a round copse of trees that in its day was probably very beautiful, now overgrown and dense. At the top of the hill sat a round barrow mound with a round stone door set in the base of the barrow mound. A scouting party headed out to observe in the waning moments of twilight just to check if there were enemies right inside the doorway. After creeping and peeking inside they found a set of stairs descending into the earth.
Day 24- after an uneventful night the party heads into the tomb. They carefully go down the stairs prodding for traps, coming to an antechamber and a locked door. Unable to pick it, Mandigor had to use his strength to crash through the door, but in bursting into the new room, triggered a scything blade trap and was struck quite badly. After regrouping the party sees an open room with doors to the north and south, the door to the north having a dagger stabbed into the wood. Being careful of both doors, the door with the dagger soon swung free and out piled 6 skeletons, and right when the party thought they could handle the skeletons, an evil looking cleric type and 3 orcs burst through the other door, trapping the party and engaging everyone in melee. Draden the magic user was made magically afraid, and was forced to flee, but the thief Thantas and others stood firm in melee while Belgium the cleric was able to turn the skeletons, and the evil cleric’s plans were foiled. They find a partial message clue on the cleric indicating he was being directed by another person to kidnap travelers. The party also finds the secret room containing an homage to Sigyfel in tapestries. They acquire some treasure there and some from the evil cleric.
Day 24- morning.
Session 6- Rest, Recovery, New Clues, New Directions
Day 24 morning- The party departs the tomb of Sigyfel with the guard/torch bearer LaSalle, who is in need of rest and recovery due to his near death experience. Low on spells, they decide to rest at the camp the remainder of the day and the evening. During the long rest, they make final assessments on the tomb, and determine that there are likely no more rooms or places they could have missed.
Day 25- The party elects to return to Cedar Crossing and secure lodging for 1 week of rest for LaSalle. When this promise pays out, it causes considerable improvement in morale amongst the hirelings. The horses allow the party to reach Cedar Crossing in one day, arriving in the evening after a long day of travel. That evening they secure lodging at the Bannister House, and talk up their encounter with the evil cleric with plans for kidnapping. They acquire a new rumor, and pique the interest of Sgt. Curtis of the town watch, who in turn arranges a meeting with the sheriff- “Big O” Lang to occur the next morning.
Day 26- After meeting that morn, He grills the party and obligates them to share the hard evidence of the cleric's letter, testing their trust and willingness to share information. He tells the party that this kidnapping activity is different from the low level banditry that is normal on the roads. It seems to be connected to a few locales along the road south out of Cedar Crossing. These kidnappers are reported to be tougher and better organized than usual bandits. The party visits the town bank, and deposits a large portion of their remaining treasure with Gary Mystalvision, Gnome banker. They then decide to investigate the road south out of town for any evidence of these kidnappers, and also discuss the possibility of continuing south towards New Haven in search of cultists outside of that town in response to a rumor Thantas’ brother Valinor told him about. Shortly along their trip they encounter a discarded ruined cart ditched off of a side path. It shows evidence of violence/attack, but it's unclear beyond that if there is any connection to the kidnappers. They travel ¾ of the way to New Haven and camp along the road.
Day 27- about 5 miles outside of New Haven, the party encounters a nearby hilltop just north of the road that has a ruined structure atop it. Leaving the hirelings to care for the horses, they elect to ascend the hill via a grassy gully that provides some degree of cover. Proceeding cautiously they disturb a sleeping giant gecko, and encourage it to flee with a 10' pole, sword strike, and a well placed foot fungus spell from Draden. If the party learns anything from their recent experiences, it is that adventuring parallels the experience of war in several ways. Sometimes you are faced with moments of intense mortal combat, where you and/or your close allies fall wounded or killed in an instant of combat. But sometimes, more often actually, adventuring, like war, is filled with long moments of traveling, waiting, resting, and mundane life chores. End session Day 27 afternoon.
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