Leads Are Running Thin...

The morning dawns with the group hustling away from the last 3 remaining orcs. At any minute, the entangle spell “woods woman” cast will wear off and they will be free again. After stomping around through the woods for a few minutes, the party is safely away from the remaining orcs. As dawn brightens behind the clouds, soon a heavy rain begins to pour down from the sky all around the group. After waiting a few minutes, Kiper tries to pick up the orcs trail so that we may track them to their base camp or stronghold. However, Kiper has no luck following the trail as the torrential downpours start to wash away the tracks left behind by the orcs. The woods woman stoops down and starts making squeaking noises. The group realizes that she is talking to a small woodland creature. After a moment she returns. It seems as though she has used this small creature to ascertain the direction in which the orcs headed. She advises that she will be moving quickly and we’d have trouble keeping up. Woods woman heads off alone in search of the orcs.

The group and Kiper decide to continue tracking Maxim, the shape shifting young boy. Having taken the form of a bear, the group must subdue him without using force or any weapons. We all have nets, provided by Kiper. After approximately 3 hours of tracking the bear, Kiper notices some prints and suddenly, a bear comes storming toward us from the thick of the woods! Nanoc throws his net perfectly and in one single graceful motion, the bear has the net all around it. However, the net doesn’t entirely stop the bear from its charge. At that second, Rosencrantz begins casting “web.” Suddenly, a burst of web flies into the trees, completely tying the bear up in it’s sticky tangle of webs. The bear continues to struggle against the webbing. Kiper then approaches the boy and starts talking to him in an attempt to calm him down. It works. Kiper then asks Aurien if he can heal the boy as he was wounded. Aurien complies. Turns out that the orcs that had ambushed us that morning had attacked the boy while he was in bear form. Kiper remarks that the strange part is that normally, no one can do any damage to the boy while in bear form unless they have either magic weapons or silver weapons. A strange incident indeed. The group then decides to head back to Kipers farm to stay the night. Once back at Kipers, the boy morphs back into human form. Aurien then prepares one of the best meals we’ve ever had. The group holes up for the night in preparation of heading back to Milbourne the following morning.

The next morning, the group gets our mounts and heads back over to Milbourne to speak with Gayrold. The party heads directly to Gayrolds house as they enter town. We knock, he invites us into his house. We alert him to the new developments we’ve heard since the last time we spoke. Gayrold has no new information for us. Gayrold then proceeds to write some notes down on a piece of paper and then makes a call out to a crow who flys in and sits directly on his shoulder. He places the note into it’s beak and the bird flies away. Ultimately, he was sending a note to a woman named “Shiraz” who may have some information to help us out. He asks that we check back with him after more correspondence is received. The party then decides to check out the smith to check on Rosencrantz’s gauntlet. However, it won’t be ready until the end of the week. Once that is complete, the party follows Aurien to the local temple to see if they have any new developments. Sadly enough, they have no new developments to report. While gallivanting around town, we catch word that Andlin wants to speak to us. The party decides to head over to the Baron of Mutton to speak with him.

When we arrive at the Baron of Mutton, we see Andlin and Bartholomew, speaking. He sees us and we head over to speak to him. Very excitedly, he asks if we have any more information or if we’ve found Jaleneth. Again, we tell him no new developments on our end. While at the Baron of Mutton, a gentleman comes up to us. Having heard of us around town Thompson thought we may be able to help him. With all the kidnappings and stories of orcs running in the woods outside of town, he wants to hire protection for his barge he is having head to Thurmaster. Seeing as how we need to head to Thurmaster anyway, we decide to take the job. However, we need to ask Gayrold a bit more about Count Palfrey first. We tell Thompson to sit tight and we’ll be back shortly. The party proceeds back to Gayrolds house. While at Gayrolds for the second time, we question him about Count Palfrey. He provides little useful information. So the group heads back to the Baron of Mutton and get Thompson so we can start moving this barge down the river.

The group boards the barge which is parked on the river, near the half built bridge. The party boards the vessel with our mounts and Rowyn’s wardog, Grrrrrrr. The ride is uneventful and we get to Thurmaster without incident. Since Thompson didn’t really trust us, he left our payment with Gayrold back in Milbourne. [jackass] Now in Thurmaster, the group decides to head over to Tausters tower to collect payment for delivering a message to Kiper. The party heads over to Tausters and knocks on the door and Tauster answers. The group provides Tauster with the proof that the message was delivered and Tauster proceeds to go through his drawers to secure payment for the party. Now 15 gold richer, the group proceeds to question Tauster as to what he knows with regards to Count Palfrey. All he knows is that he is the ruler of the lands surrounding us and he is pretty tight with his “wallet” in terms of municipal construction and such. By now it’s approximately 7:30PM and the group decides to head over to Count Palfrey’s castle to see if he has any other information regarding the kidnappings that have been taking place as of late.

After a 20 minute ride north from Thurmaster, the group arrives at Count Palfrey’s castle. We knock on the door. A young, 18 year old boy answers the door. The group explains why we are here and the boy invites us inside to speak with the Count. After coming down a long hallway, we are led into Count Palfrey’s study. The Count is sitting there reading a book. He looks up, places a bookmark in the page where he left off and closes the book. We speak with the Count regarding the local kidnappings. Turns out that Count Palfrey has been getting his information from both Gayrold and Kiper. He was just notified today of the issue(s) at hand. Count Palfrey also advises us of some “cursed keep” near the “half cut hills” that some hired soldiers had found. They did not enter it though. Then it happens…. While asking Count Palfrey is he knows of this “orc crest,” Aurien then spins a web of fabricated fabrications as to where we came across the “crest.” Catching Aurien in a lie, the Count gets quite angry and says he cannot trust us. He then calls for the guards and after offering us quarters for the night, decides to kick us out. The group, completely disenfranchised, heads back to Thurmaster for the night. Remembering the bug ridden beds, the party decides to camp in the woods right outside of town. The following morning, the party thinks it would be best to go and visit Kiper once again. The party mounts our horses and heads west to Kipers farm.

After some travel, we arrive at Kipers farm. He has no new information with regards to the kidnappings and no word back yet from the “woods woman.” He suggests heading back to Milbourne to speak with Gayrold again. [To see if Shiraz has responded back to him yet.] Before leaving, the group tells Kiper of what happened at Count Palfrey’s. We ask if he can possible smooth things over. He will do his best. The party then mounts our steeds and head over to Milbourne once again.

Some travel later and during early afternoon, the group enters Milbourne. Upon entering Milbourne, there is a large commotion in the center of town. The party heads over to see what is brewing. Turns out there is an auction that is ending. A family, who lives west of here near the patch work hills, is auctioning off their farm and belongings. Turns out that their usually fertile farm land has been having swamp land take over the normally fertile farming land and they don’t know why. The party heads over to Gayrolds house.

Arriving at Gayrolds house, the party finds Gayrold sitting on his front porch. While asking Gayrold about Shiraz […and not hearing back yet….] another gentleman named Silas comes running up to us. He introduces himself and advises us that his boss Darius, the town’s richest man, wants to hire us for some work. The party bids farewell to Gayrold and follow Silas to the mansion in town.

Silas leads us into Darius’s house. We sit down and Darius comes into the room. He advises us that some of his farm lands are having a swamp over run them. The land is normally fertile and has been for quite some time. However, lately, the swamp has been over running everything. He hired a diviner to see what was going on and found out, at a steep price, that some kind of magic [not bad magic] is causing the area to flood and the swamp to grow more and more. He wants us to investigate more. If we can solve the case in less than 2 weeks he’ll give us 1000 gold ontop of the 50 gold that he is already paying us. The group decides to head west to the “swampy farm.” On the way west, we come across some road leading south. We’ll investigate more into that later on.

After some travel, the party arrives at the “Deadfast farm.” The font door is locked as are the windows. Going around back, Rowyn finds the back door locked. She then picks the lock and hears a click. She opens the back door. The party heads inside to check things out. Everything in the house appears normal on both floors of the house. The group locks the back door and heads over to the barn. Locked. Cant get into it. We then investigate around the swampy area. No real tell tale signs. We decide to head back to Darius’s house to ask a few more questions. Arriving at Darius’s we ask about the patch work hills. Sprawling large hilly area. He also advises us of some small town south where that south road we passed heads to. The town is called Harleton. A long time ago there was a huge war with Orcs and Goblins in the hills. That’s about all the information he passes on. The group heads west and then takes the road south to Harleton.

Approximately 20 minutes later, the group arrives in Harleton. This is another small shantee town that is smaller than Milbourne and Thurmaster. Arriving in town, we see that to the south are the patchwork hills. The hills look patchy with growth at different stages. There are also steps that look man made carved into some of the hill sides. The party heads over to the tavern, the pitcher and pitch fork. We head inside.

Sitting down at the bar we notice that no patrons make eye contact. So we speak with the bartender who asks why we’re there. We give him little information and he suggests that we should speak to the farm hands who work the patch work hills and follow the edge of the mire. Erol’s idea sounds like a good one and the next morning the party will head out into the patch work hills.

This is where we left off.