Captain McNair brought his keelboat, the Red Queen, up to the south bank of the
Red River about a half-days walk to the settlement of Stump's Landing. The party disembarked, and continued overland towards the small village.
Entering the village, Almalexia played a duet with a buck-toothed banjo-playing youth on the porch of the "Jump'n Frog" inn/tavern. This attracted many of the locals to watch.
Cressidien noticed one of the onlookers paying particular attention to the party-members who were
not playing, and noted that she beared a familar resemblance to the other Haskills. The young woman left town quickly, and Cressidien was able to stealthily follow her.
Most of the party went into the inn and enjoyed the house specialty, frog legs, in this case from a giant frog. They liked the taste, but were unable to deduce the "secret recipe", though they suspect that it includes bacon grease.
Val took his horse to the blacksmith/stable and talked the owner, Timmy. When asked about recent events, Timmy told Val about a "ghost ship" that floated from upstream past the town. He said it was a flatboat/barge with no one onboard. The uppper decking had been torn to shreds, and all the cargo was missing. Timmy said that no name was found painted on the boat, but that most such boats are unnamed, and simply sold for scrap lumber in Westport.
Cressidien was able to trail the fleeing woman into the hills to the southwest. She led him to a narrow, hard-to-spot cleft in a rock cliff that led to a narrow canyon. Cressidien followed this until it opened into a small valley with a number of scattered farmsteads. Cressidien then returned to the rest of the party at the inn.
While he was gone, Almalexia and Val had combined their musical talents to entice a few of locals to dance. However, their dancing ability did not rise to Almalexia's fey standards.
The party left the inn before dawn (and thus missed a hot breakfast), and followed Cressidien to the hidden path through the cliff. While stealthily navigating the narrow, 15 foot deep canyon, they were surprised by an equally-stealthy party of Haskills coming the opposite direction, led by
"Black Bart" Haskill.
After a short battle, they were able to subdue Bart and two of his rleatives, the other Haskills running off to "warn Paw" about the intruders. Several of the Haskills displayed the ability to cast spells (or other spell-like effects) without any obvious verbal or somatic spell components. We also learned that Val's horse can teleport! But can also trip and fall, nearly crushing friendly dwarves.
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