The Plot Thickens...

The morning began with the party splitting up in Milbourne. As noted from last session, J-Love was “kidnapped” from her room that previous night. Rowyn and Nanoc traveled through town to pay a visit to Naftan to procure her war dog, meanwhile the rest of the party stayed behind in The Baron of Mutton to question inn patrons and staff alike.

While at Naftans, Rowyn picks out her wardog and fails her animal handling check. [chuckle] after securing the transaction, we proceeded to question Naftan since he was the one who was acting suspicious and then suggested the Baron of Mutton as the place to make our quarters. After some hard-nosed questioning, we decided that Naftan hadn’t given us any reason to be suspicious. His words were “there are 2 inns in town and the baron of mutton is the better of the two.” So Rowyn and Nanoc wrapped up and headed back to the inn to rejoin the rest of the party.

Meanwhile, “The Legend of Baggar Vance” was up in Tilverton looking for the “half day heroes.” After some asking around and locating us through word of mouth, Vance caught a ride with a local merchant brigade, serving as their protection. Soon after, Vance landed in Milbourne.

Meanwhile […back at the bat cave…] Rosencrantz and Aurien were going about questioning any remaining inn patrons and inn workers. After some talk with Gayrold, they decided to go and question J-Love’s father “H-Dog.” Once they found “H-Dog,” he promptly gave them as much information as possible with regards to his daughter J-Love and her mentor, Tauster. [Again, who comes up with this stuff?] Turns out that H-Dizzle wasn’t very happy when he found out that his daughter was practicing the “magic arts.” [To Rosencrantz’s dismay] For no real reason aside from he isn’t into it very much. He had no real information regarding Tauster Streudel. So we may as well see for ourselves aye?

By this time, Rowyn and Nanoc were heading back to the Baron of Mutton. “The Legend of Baggar Vance” was also in town looking for the “half day mulligans.” Coincidentally, the party meets up at the Baron of Mutton. Vance proceeds to explain what happened to him during the keep raid a few days back and why he mysteriously disappeared. [Can anyone say Oh what a goose I am?] After exchanging pleasantries, the party decides to head over to Thurmaster to seek out this Tauster. But before hitting the bricks, some business needed to be tended to.

Aurien went to the local temple to try and enlist some help [Meanwhile, Vance is asking if the guards are seasonal of not…. =p] from the local clergy. They said they would assist in any way possible and would keep an eye out for anything strange. At the same time, the rest of the party hits the bazaar to try and secure a gauntlet for our stud mage Rosencrantz. After getting fitted we see that it may take some time for the gauntlet to be finished. The group meets back up in town and decides to head over to Thurmaster to deliver the chest to Tauster and question him. [good cop, bad cop]

About halfway to our destination, the group passes a farm in the middle-of-nowhere. There are farmers working in the fields. [Eyeing them suspiciously after last sessions ambush….] The party decides to investigate more on the way back from “grilling Tauster.” After some more travel, the party arrives in Thurmaster. A shabby, small shantee-type town to say the least. “The legend of Bagger Vance” once again inquires to the guards at the front gate how the security is at this particular place. The guards also point us in the direction of Tausters tower in the south end of town. The party makes a “b-line” to Tausters. Next to the tower is a small home. The group proceeds to knock on the door. An old man answers the door. We ask if he is indeed Tasuter. He is. We explain that we’re here to deliver a chest from the gentleman in Tilverton. Rosencrantz proceeds to give Tasuter the note explaining who we are and who sent us. [I forget the blokes name…] Taster greets us and Nanoc then passes him the chest. Tauster takes the chest and then walks over to the tower, goes inside. He then comes out and hastily locks the door. With our business complete, Tauster invites us into his house for payment. The group enters his house.

Tauster then proceeds to give the group a slip of paper that denotes we are supposed to be paid by the town “squire.” The party decides its best to wait until morning to deal with payment. IN the meantime, Tasuter and the party head over to the local watering hole for some drinks, food and “grilling.”

At the tavern, Tauster gets questioned by the party. He doesn’t provide any worthwhile information sans that he last saw J-Love gathering herbs outside of town and that there is a ranger who lives in a farm outside of Thurmaster who may have seen her and if not, he may be able to help us track her. The group decides to hole up for the night [Stay away from that mutton!] and reconvene in the morning.

The following morning, the group heads over to the squires place to get payment for services rendered. [People need to start paying up front!] The squire pays us our sum(s) of monies and we also ask around some more about the kidnappings. Again, no real information worth noting, unless I forgot something….

The party decides to exit Thurmaster and go look for this ranger. After a few hours of travel, the party arrives at that farm that we had passed initially on the way to see Tasuter. The group stops and goes to ask for the person who owns the farm. We explain to “Aragon The Ranger,” [my precious…] asking if he knew the whereabouts of J-Love and explained that she had been kidnapped the previous night from the Baron of Mutton. R-dizzle [short for the Ranger’s name which I have no recollection of…] agrees to assist us in the tracking of J-Love.

The group readies ourselves and R-Dog explains that he thinks it wise to leave the horses and Rowyn’s new war dog behind at the farm where they will be looked after by his staff. The group agrees. We stable our horses and leave “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr” [Rowyn’s wardog’s name] behind and head out in the search for J-Love. R-dog suggests we take a boat in order to cut out some travel time. Done.

The party boards R-Dizzle’s boat and begins our excursion to locate the missing magi. After some travel we disembark the vessel and start to move on foot. R-dog is working on tracking J-Love from her last known location. The trail is pretty much cold and he has had no luck in tracking her any further. Obviously, we knew that J-Love’s last location was the Baron of Mutton in Milbourne. But any leads we can follow at this point is taken.

While walking through the woods, the party comes across a strange looking woman who is accompanied by two wolves. Needless to say I think it was a good call to leave “Grrrrrrrrr” behind at this point. Meanwhile Nanoc is going through his blood lust withdrawals due to no fighting and all talking thus far in our adventure.

R-dog asks the party to hang back while he goes and speaks to this mystery woman. It seems as though he knows her. After a bit of time, R-dizzle comes back and informs us of what just happened with this conversation with the strange “woods woman.” It seems as though a small boy, who both the woods woman and R-Dog both know seems to have disappeared and/or run away from home. One small catch though, the boy is s shape shifter and has taken the form of a wolf. Needless to say, we can’t do much damage to him to subdue him. R-Dog then pulls out some nets from his pack and suggests we use these to subdue the boy. We agree. The woods woman also joins the party so now we are a party of seven. The group continues to plug along throughout the day into the night tracking this “wolf boy” to no avail. We decide that it is best to make camp and start fresh in the morning. The group sets watch and heads into slumber land.

During Nanoc’s watch, he heads something and the wolves start growling. Nanoc sees some shapes in the night but it is to dark and day hasn’t broken yet so only shapeless figures appear. Nanoc proceeds to wake up the party and a fight ensues. Turns out we are surrounded by approximately 8 - 10 orcs! [Finally!!]

The archers start to fire on the party and the rest of the orc infantry start charging toward the parties camp site. Melee ensues. “Woods woman” casts entangle and ties up 3 of the orcs. Meanwhile, the rest of the party attacks the rest of the remaining orcs. [I don’t remember many details of the fight specifically.] After some time of fighting, the group kills all the orcs except for the remaining three orcs.

As a group we made a decision to let the entangle spell run out and then track the orcs back to where ever they were sent from.