Goin' to Gofinath

Expedition

The Sapphire Oath travel through the countryside at a brisk pace to get to Anrand Glad before their quarry but are made quarry themselves.

Heading out one day before their exile officially began, the companions did not waste time. Zith would occasionally summon a flock of seagulls to scout the land around them to help ensure the safety of their voyage. The traveling day was broken up to accommodate Ravel's Wild-shapes but full days were taken without forced marching. The nights they remained protected in Zith's Tiny Hut dome.
  Through the nights, the companions continued their fireside chats now that they were out of the city once more. Marduk and Ravel commiserated the absence of Thunderhoof. Beatle sang his song “Thunderhoof” as a homage to the beast. When asked by Ravel about his private moment with Jedingo, Beatle re-shared with the party (newly for Zith) the story of his parents and hope that the flautist might have a lead for him in the future. Questioning Zith on if he had anyone or thing he missed, the gnome denied that he did not look back on home longingly. He had left the family's cartography business wanting more and he was finding it. In return, Zith showed interest in what brought Marduk into the civilized world.
  The majority of the Sapphire Oath's journey went smoothly. The companions made amazing time their strategy of mixing cartographic and druidic knowledge. That combination along with the familiars sent out to scan the countryside for danger worked wonders for their voyage. They only came across a single point of conflict near the end of their journey.
  Around noon on their penultimate day of traversing the wilds, the companions found themselves traveling up a dry creek bed through a denser part of the wilderness. Ahead, they started to hear deeper growls mixed with the stomping of paws. A massive badger covered in bony ridges, joint-spikes and protrusions doing it's territory behaviors was found further up. While Zith was already calculating the lost time for backing out of the creek and letting it be, Ravel was attuning herself with nature to speak to the dire badger.
  The beast hissed and spit at her, yelling for the party to leave it's territory. It new that they and all of the other “bare-skins” meant it ill will. It had been told. Ravel cooed for information about who had been talking to the dire badger and taking its land. The beast claimed that a “fur-grower” had told them that outsiders with ill intent would be coming. While Zith maintained that this was not necessarily something the party needed to waste time on, it was discussed that the party's accelerated pace at least earned them the time to look into this further. If necessary, they could abandon the issue if further investigation showed it to be too time consuming.
  Ravel assured the badger that they wanted to help and that it should show the party to where this fur-grower was. The livid creature continued to stop the ground and proceed up the creek backwards with a constant flow of territorial smack-talk that only Ravel could understand.
  As the companions followed the dire badger, Ravel started to notice more of its tracks in the general area... and then more tracks than it likely made on it own. After a few more moments of it's retreat-stomping puffery, the creek creek bed became a flood of movement and dust. A handful of other dire badgers burst from bushes and holes as a section of dry creek bed erupted upward. A dire bear roared from it's ambush-alcove as the smack-talking badger squealed the equivalent of, “Gotcha Fooo That's Our Fur Grower!”
  With a small horde of dire beasts, the companion's rationality over-road their surprise and patience. Zith used his mastery over true names to attempt to extract the name of the dire bear on the chance it had one. Miraculously, the gnome learned that the badger's name was Ukurim Bludkin and he used that name to better center a fireball. The flames erupted upon the hardly beast as well as almost completely toasting two of the badgers. The original badger was among the two and he would end up fleeing the battlefield mortally wounded to hide in a hollow log.
  Following this opener, Marduk moved in to finish off the newer of the scorched badgers and move on to a second. Ravel cast out a small frostbite at the bear which Beatle would iterate on. Having study the sleet storm that had been summoned at the Galeborn attack on the Hall of Justice, he reiterated it's effects here with a rendition of Cold as Ice (he is a Foreigner to these lands after all). The sleet storm toppled and disorientated the dire bear and most half of the remaining badgers, slowing their approach while the party dealt with the problems one by one. This became even more important as a massive snake cascaded over a ridge to join the fray. Marduk noted the oddity of a giant snake working with the carnivores.
  Ravel conjured in a a flaming sphere to work through the remaining visible badgers with Marduk as Zith and Beatle took the snake's attention. After the bear broke through the edge of the snowstorm, Beatle would switch his concentration to maintain a mischief upon the battlefield. The dire bear blundered forward with a roar so loud and forceful that it frazzled Marduk and completely threw Ravel tumbling and dropping her flaming sphere.
  Zith misty stepped away from the snake to recenter himself in the group leaving Beatle and Ravel to deal with the snake as Marduk fully focused on the bear. Glaive swings carved and plunged into the creature. The wounds showed muscle but did not bleed. A final chop across the neck caused the head to tumble backwards as the body tore apart and disintegrated around a shamanistic half-orc that stood within. The dire beast had been a wild-shape and nothing more.
  Ukurim called out in rage against the party, claiming that the Galeborn would bring all the elements against them. The Half-Orc stepped back from Marduk which brought a devastating blow across his body. As Ukurim did so, he incanted a fear dweomer that took hold of Beatle and Ravel. Marduk withstood ardently with his own surety of slaying the beast and now the man while Zith's gnomish ancestry ward the spell for him. Ukurim then took the form of a vulture to fly away in retreat. He did not fly fast enough.
  Zith conjured a phantasm for the druid to imaging a sea creature tearing through reality above and dropping onto the vulture. The psychic attack broke the druids mind and he dropped his wild-shape The half-orc plummeted to the ground in a heap. As the companions fought on, Ukurim made his final decision. Stepping forward with his phantasm in pursuit, the druid gather a mass of dark lightning into his hands before erupting it all around him to hit the phantasm, Marduk, and Zith. In slaying himself, he did massive damage to Marduk. The phantasm only dropped because Zith did as well.
  Fortunately the large snake gave up on the conflict with the controlling druid dead. Marduk and Ravel turned their attention to Zith and his recuperation. The party gathered themselves for recuperation knowing they still had a few hours left of travel for the day. During this time, Zith went to the half-orc's corpse to search it for anything important. Prominently, the Sigil of the Galeborn was a secondary icon placed over a pelt and feather amulet that revealed it's magic under Zith's incantations. The Wildling's Roar Amulet had been the reason for the druids ability to incant a thunder wave while in bear form. The transferable magics were limited in tier but the item would still be extremely potent in Ravel's Possession.
  The companion's would continue their journey another two nights camping in the tiny hunt in the wilderness before hitting the trade road. Rather than turning south towards the nearby Anrand Glad, they instead turned north to hope to intercept Syvis Shaphyra. They would continue north until their midday break. It was during this break that they would see a trio of slender riders on horseback approaching their position. Recognizing the elven diplomat, Beatle stood by the road to hail him while the others stayed at rest.