Chapter 1-8: Reidoth

General Summary

The party were in Thundertree, licking their wounds after the fight with the creatures last week. They took a short rest, and Clootie played them a soothing ditty on her kazoo while they healed up. They then decided to explore - Ramas and Ryoko (in tiger form) sneaked around the ruined building. Aetilius flew up and perched on the wall. From his vantage point he could tell the majority of the buildings in the village were ruined and the roofs had largely disintegrated. A notable exception was the cottage in the corner, which seemed in a pretty good state. The group sneaked over towards the building. Ryoko noticed they the vegetation seemed healthier around this structure, and the unnatural atmosphere was less. Ramas searched the empty cottage ruin and found a merchant's stash, which he pocketed. Clootie decided to wander across between all the sneaking people, and alerted another eight of the creatures which the party had fought the previous week. Miaug managed to snipe one from her tree. As another moved to attack Ryoko, a large silver lion leapt out if the undergrowth, catching it in midair and crushing it in its jaws. The lion then leapt into the rest of the group of creatures and detonated in a blast of sunlight, obliterating the creatures and transforming back into Reidoth the Druid. He invited you into his watch, and offered you tea. He then sat there a little confused as the party proceeded to ask odd questions and yell over each other. He's unused to spending much time around other people, preferring to spend most of his time in the wild. He agrees to tell you the location of Cragmaw Castle, having no love for the goblins, and marks it on your map. He also tells you a little of the fate of Thundertree, and how the Shadowfell infection spread around 25 years ago, and led to the village being overrun and abandoned. He periodically comes up to check the ruin, and to destroy any shadow creatures which may have come through. This time he's noticed that the taint has gotten worse, and is spreading. He's also been made aware that a young green dragon has moved into the ruined tower. As a druid, he'd usually leave the creature be, but if it stays here it'll likely become infected by the darkness and become more dangerous. He asks you to move the dragon out of the area, while he tries to investigate the source of the taint. Clootie then asks him if she can touch his beard, and calls him a wizard. Offended by this, he transforms her into a ferret. The party then jabbers at his again for a while, asking other strange questions and favours. He gets tired of this, transforms Clootie back, and asks them to leave. On the way out, he asks Ryoko (as a fellow druid) for her staff, which he carves additional runes into and embues with mystical thorns.
The party then investigates the apothecary shop, which had been run by Mira Delmar's family. In it, Ramas found the golden emerald necklace Mira had mentioned. The group then made their way to the ruined general store, which was surrounded by a massive spiders web. The group made an unusually tactical plan, and researched giant spiders. They arranged themselves in an ambush, and then Ramas (eventually) managed to torch the web with a firebolt. This drew the spiders out into the trap. The party fought them. At one point, Clootie drank her Invisibility Potion and tried to sneak up behind one, completely ignoring the research the group had done which warned her that spiders don't need to see creatures within 10ft and can sense movement and vibrations. This led to get being savaged and poisoned by the monster. The group managed to bring down the first spider. Clootie climbed up onto the remaining spiders back, riding it like a wild horse. This distracted it, allowing Ryoko to crush it's face with her staff, catching the gnome as she leap of the crumpled beast. The group then decided to rest up for a moment before facing the dragon