The Moon and the Moose

We reached Lonelywood without incident and met with Speaker Nimsy. We explained that we'd performed some jobs for Speaker Masthew and were here to help with their wild animal issue. Nimsy explained that a white moose was attacking loggers and hunters in the woods, made a big deal about how it was destroying the livelihood of the town and offered us 100 gold if we could do something about it.
 
I was going to haggle her up a bit, not much we were obviously going to do the job anyway but I know I could have pushed her up to 110 or 120 without much effort. Before I could say anything, Baradin agreed to the job - I swear if I hadn't already got the promise of 100 gold out of her he'd have offered to do it for free. I get it. He's a good person he wants to help people. I'm all for that... But we need to make a living as well and for this kind of dangerous work it's entirely reasonable. More money means better equipment and resources which means we can help more people.
 
Anyway... We stopped in at a local tavern, the loggers there confirmed what Speaker Nimsy told us but weren't really able to offer much more useful information so we headed out to one of the main logging sites where we were able to find a trail and start following it into the woods.
 
We had the interesting experience of meeting a tiny nature spirit, maybe a foot tall and looked kind of like a straw doll. To be fair we met it because it was playfully throwing pine cones at us, it certainly seemed friendly enough when I started caught it and threw it back. We didn't share a language but we managed to communicate well enough that I asked it about the moose and it led us to an odd clearing that seemed to be some sort of religious site - I thanked them with a gift of three ball bearings and a demonstration of juggling and it seems they liked the gift because they gave me a wooden button.
 
Onto the moose...
 
Baradin confirmed there was a lot of magic influencing this site, so we carefully checked the area and found a few interesting things.

A large "moon" dial with symbols depicting the phases of the moon.

A fire pit on a plinth in the centre of a small circular structure.

A stone sarcophagus with five short engraved pillars nearby.

Took some experimentation but since the sarcophagus had a depiction of the fire pit on it and the pillars had depictions of a twig, a pinecone, a feather, a hand and a flame. We deduced that we needed to burn those things in the fire pit and Lirin bravely volunteered to reach her hand into it (wrapped in cloth just in case but fortunately the flame didn't burn her). That seemed to unlock the sarcophagus which contained the mummified remains of an elf, an undead elf named Sarnar*. Despite the propaganda about mummies this one seemed to be helpful, followed our instructions and provided a lot of information about the site. Including some details about the moon dial.
 
Taking a look at the moon dial properly we discovered part of the wall had collapsed (or been broken down) to lead into a crypt. Making sure Baradin stayed back in his clanking armour I did a little snooping and discovered the white moose (as well as a bunch of other animals) within. Lirin's familiar Tatters also scouted out the area. Since we had reason to think that this was smarter than your average moose I decided to try reaching out with my gifts and sure enough I was able to communicate with him psychically.
 
The moose was clearly hostile to humans but after some cautious conversation I was able to discover that it had been magically awakened by one of the Frost Maiden's worshippers and forced to serve under the threat of loosing that enhanced intelligence. Fortunately I remember reading about this very spell, a variation of it played a part in the cult's experiments to create intelligant undead. To create me. I'm not a wizard but I know it's not a spell that has a duration or even one that a caster can end at will.
 
I explained this to Anthony and convinced him that he was being used and manipulated by the Frost Maiden, and that the humans of Lonelywood were just doing what they needed to do to survive in the Frost Maiden's winter. Though I doubt he will ever be a great friend to the humans, I was able to sway Anthony and he agreed to let us deal with the druid, Ravisin. She was within the crypt, resting behind one of the moon doors - so we waited for the appropriate time to confront her and were able to take her out of action pretty quickly. Seems she had also awakened a shrub to keep with her as a portable source of berries, how very decadent. We assured Russel that we weren't going to hurt him and took him back out to Anthony.
 
Now secure in the knowledge that his intelligence was permanent, Anthony agreed to stop attacking the humans, he even agreed to show himself to Speaker Nimsy the next day as proof that the aggression had come to an end.
 
* I confess it is reassuring that Baradin didn't immediately try to smite the mummy. I don't like to stereotype but I've found it necessary to assume the worst for self preservation - he seemed far more at ease with the idea of "not-evil" undead than I had expected.