Session 4: Long Way to Track a Lost Roy Report

General Summary

Rested, magically prepared, and ready for adventure, the group prepared to set out on their journey. Before they could leave, however, a halfling woman stopped them.
Roy? Where have you been? You still owe me, I won't let you go without giving me what you owe. Roy denied any debt, or even knowing the woman, who proceeded to claim Roy was father of her child, and missing now almost 28 years. Roy, insistent, tried to run away and she struck out at him to keep him in place, then called for the guard to help her keep him long enough to hear her out. Roy continued seeking to run away, and a minor combat ensued, Roy and Kaalam received minor injuries, and Quirico almost tried to burn down the home of an innocent resident nearby, merely damaging the roofing with oil instead. Eventually, Roy was made to sleep, magically, and everyone was brought into the inn to hear the case. Roy remained supremely obstinate and refused anything other than unconditional release, charging all and sundry with corruption and other crimes of authority. The mayor and local priest tried to achieve a compromise, to find if Roy had suffered some mental harm or injury, but Roy refused even the healing help of a priest of The Source. Eventually, the woman, Carinia, turned away, convinced this was merely deliberate rejection wrapped in a lie, and said Nevermind. Roy, your debt is forgiven, you may go and do anything you wish. I hope your corpse rots in the mountains. She turned and, with her son who had joined them quietly a short time before, left the inn. The priest told Roy Goodbye, old friend, You have rejected a treasure most men would kill to have. I hope that, when you drink yourself to death in some forlorn place, that The Source will have mercy and show you the truth of what you lost. and also departed. The mayor, Penrose, sent the guardsmen and militia away, after releasing Roy, and drew Roisin aside to discuss matters of state.

Regathered outside, the group made their way out of town quickly, then hitched the mice to their magical cart, and rested in the back for a while as the mice drew the wagon form of the cart along. Tireless, the party traveled in the cart for a good distance, then walked through the night. Undaunted, and with the magic renewed, they continued for another day and night before reaching the foothills of the Korth Wall mountains. They renewed the magic yet again, after a stern warning from Roy not to do so a fourth time without a day to rest. They then proceeded on foot into the mountains, choosing to take an apparent shortcut meant for those afoot, rather than the longer, but gentler, wagon road. Well into the upper foothills, the party stumbled across three bodies in the road, all dead for some time, one with a massive chest wound, and the other two with no wound or other discernable cause for death. Rather than pass by, the group chose to burn the bodies, and spend an hour using magical fire to do so, generating a massive column of smoke, but leaving only skeletons of thoroughly charred bones. During this time Roy asked his familiar, Copper, to fly around and look for dangers in the area; Copper saw strange humanoids to the East, giant two-headed humanoid creatures to the West, and bandits to the South. Copper also saw a group of diverse humanoids working together to pile up rocks in a mountain valley, but that seemed, while strange, not to be a threat. Once the bodies burned to bones and ash, Quirico elected to kick the remains to the side of the road, and the party rushed on, a few minutes before the first group of creatures attracted by the smoke came to investigate. Copper elected to hide in the trees and watch the area for a while. The humanoids and bandits met, and fought over the dusty ground, some bandits fell, but the odd humanoids were defeated and all were killed. The Bandits were binding wounds when the two-headed gigantic creatures arrived, killed the remaining bandits, and sat there in the clearing to eat the flesh of those they killed. One of the gigantic creatures ate one of the strange humanoids, but became violently ill and threw the remains aside. Copper reported on this and returned to Roy's side. The party traveled all through the day high into the mountains, sometimes on precarious thin trails in the side of a cliff face, other times in broad mountain valleys. Nightfall found them between two difficult sections in a small space suitable for a camp. The group set up a paper shelter and prepared to rest the night. During the night Trysor saw a man and boy walking blindly in the night up the trail. They might have passed by unaware, but when Trysor woke Roy and Kaalam in the silence of the night, the noise those two made drew attention, and the man and boy stumbled over to the shelter and beat on it for a bit before returning to their travel on the lonely mountain trail.

The party awoke in the morning, well refreshed, and made their way into the mountains without the magical tirelessness, to avoid side effects from overuse. They lost the path at one point, in the late afternoon shadows, but managed to find the path again in a small narrow rift in which there lay a mountain pond fed from underground sources. Seeing the path ahead, but with some mild climbing needed, Trysor transfomed to a giant spider, and Kaalam and others forged ahead toward the path. At that moment Kaalam noticed a strange greenish orb ahead, with many eyes on stalks, and warned the group of the danger.