Kobold Forest

We set out early in the morning, following the river at easily several times the speed of our last venture. Although I didn't particularly care for it, the others seem quite heartened by the remnants of the dragon Gorm cooked up for us last night - well, that's what you get for trying to eat people, isn't it! Before long we find more black stuff coating the rocks on the river bank, residue of the same poison we're looking for, and likely there was quite a lot of it for it to have lasted this long.
 
When we reach the hunting cabin, we notice more residue at the end of the dock, as well as a few barrels with residue in their bottoms. Unfortunately, no sign of the culprit is to be found. Since they must have either come up the river or on land, and the river would have taken them straight through Braudavik, we decide to follow the easiest route they could have gone on land by, taking path east and across the river.
 
There's some pieces of meteorite that Mikkil's fairly excited to harvest for metal, but still no sign of the vandal. We decide that there's not much else we can hope to accomplish wandering around without an actual trail, and as we're quite near the suspected-kobold forest we decide to go check that out.
 
As we near, we hear a brief scream before it's cut off suddenly like a door being closed between us. We move forward slowly and cautiously, though we have to make some noise hacking through the brush to make a path for ourselves. The kobolds don't seem to be too observant though, and we still manage to sneak up on them except for Mikkil. They're scared of a troll in the area, and Mikkil too when they first see him, assuming he's someone they already know. Svenya steps forward quickly and convinces them we mean no harm, and they tell us they're scared of the people of Braudavik. They have a new master they're trying to feed, and that's the reason they were stealing our sheep - or at least, they think they have a new master. None of them have actually seem them, but one says they saw a shadow of something flying over them. Anyhow, They're in the forests now trying to get the various teleportation gates to work, since they don't want to pass near Braudavik, and on one side of us is the ocean, and on the other is "some crazy priest."
 
Well, if they won't bother us again, we may as well help them and try to get the gates working. The one we walked under just before meeting them is missing it's top, and has runes engraved all about it. On the sides is written in Celestial: "As time moves, so it creates. Lessons learned and the ways of fate. I am each one, yet still more. All you've known, seen and done before." We suspect "moments" is the answer, but there doesn't seem to be any way for it to be input. On the top, what little remains reads simply "in" in Giant. There's another arch a bit further in, this one in tact and with kobolds crawling all over it trying to activate it. The first two we met were friendly enough, though the rest took some convincing to let us help them, being rather eager to get in a fight with their new dragon scale shields. On this second arch arch there are no words in giant but a slot for a crystal at the top and the riddle "What's dead half the year, and lives the rest. What dances without music, and breathes without breath?" The answer is likely leaves, but again there isn't a clear way to input the answer, as stuffing leaves into the receptacle has no apparent effect.
 
We decide to keep exploring the forest, hoping to find some sort of key around. Close by is a very strange clearing. Within the clearing the grass whips about violently as if in the midst of a storm, while just outside it there's not a breeze to be felt. Well, not more than I usually feel, that is. Not only does the grass keep whipping about, but when Svenya steps into the clearing, the wind seems to stamp down a symbol - the one used for evocation magic. So, I use some evocation magic and make a little person, sitting on a log in the clearing, yet the spell doesn't seem entirely under my control. It soon duplicates itself, another one in rainbow appearing, hugging the first person so joyfully I swear I could almost hear them laughing.
 
The grass stops rippling until Svenya takes another step into the clearing, where the same thing starts happening again, but this time it stamps down some sort of musical symbol. Svenya tries playing a little tune on her lyre, but must have done something wrong, as the ground goes and swallows up Mikkil, the person furthest into the clearing. She tries again, and the same thing only happens to her, before Gorm comes and uses magic to play just the right note, and Mikkil gets spat back out. Next there's the symbol for necromancy, and Gorm sends a surge of necromantic energy into the ground, causing it to release Svenya.
 
We gingerly take anther few steps into the clearing with no further effects, whatever ward that was placed here apparently being sated. The log aforementioned is hollow, with enchantment runes inside of it that may have had something to do it. There's two more paths out of this clearing, with one leading to an area with two wyverns and an ogre, the other leading to a hallway like area before connecting to another part of the same. If we're going to find anything useful in this forest, we're going to have to find a around them or through them...