Party
- Bran — Dwarf Barbarian (Dave)
- Deanna — Human Paladin (Myk)
- Slyvestor III — Halfling Warlock/Rogue (Bear)
- Tenoch — Lizardfolk Druid/Barbarian (Gaz)
Adventure
As the party pack up their camp Slyvestor plays his lute and sings tales of his misbegotten youth and stealing food from the kitchen of the Ettin’s Den.
On the road to Catch’s village they notice three humanoids are hunting the strange obsidian wildebeest in the stone-tree forest that borders the road. After failing in their attempt to sneak by Bran walks up and greets them shouting “you’d better not try and hit us”. One of the humanoids recoils from the dwarf and all three clutch their weapons as they watch the party continue on down the road.
Heading into the stone-tree forest the party see signs of a camp site in the distant. Five short and gangly humanoids with white skin, broad noses and huge bat-like ears are making merry. Tenoch is able to understand their tongue as a form of orcish and the party are invited to join them at camp. The travellers are heading to the Sombrent encampment, a safe haven for those who oppose the Duergar and Drow who dominate the region.
Bran has a friendly duel with one of the creatures, easily knocking them out of the fighting circle he marked out. Tenoch steps into the ring next and bests Bran and after some initial reluctance Deanna steps up to face Tenoch, who is ultimately named the champion.
The party camp with their new-found friends and in this happy environment are easily able to shake their Gloam Despair. As they awake the next morning the travellers are gone and the party resume their journey.
Arriving at the village the heroes begin to plan how best to enter and to what means. They consider storming the gatehouse in an attempt to free the villagers and a plan is formed to send Stuart (Slyvestor’s rat familiar) into the gatehouse for reconnaissance. As Slyvestor sneaks near the stone-tree forest’s edge to recover his friend the shadowy dog of the permiter patrol detects his scent and heads over to investigate. Under duress Slyvestor isn’t sufficiently stealthy to escape and the shadow dog appears in front of him, leaping atop him and taking a bite.
Slyvestor enacts a Hellish Rebuke and his companions hurry in to finish off the creature. Unfortunately the patrolling guard who handled the dogs must have heard the commotion and the party continue to fail in their attempts to be stealthy.
Reacting swiftly Tenoch shifts into the form of a wolf and attacks the patrol guard carrying a signal horn. The Duergar grows large but is still no match for the party. His ally turns invisible in an attempt to flee but Tenoch uses his Druidic magic to illuminate the creature with Faerie Fire and the party vanquish it before it can escape. Somehow they managed to avoid raising the alarm!
Feeling confident they continue to debate storming the gatehouse, but ultimately decide it’s a risky move. Whilst it appears lightly manned they have no idea how quickly reinforcements might arrive nor what impact vanquishing the present guard might have on the villagers. Instead they scale the wall and head inside. Catch is very happy to see them and thought them lost in Austerea, the Dark City. Discussion with Catch reveals they were gone 8 days in the Gloam for their 2 days on the material plane.
The party are taken to the village elder and his shaman and share that they believe something is causing the worlds to mix and that they hope to fix that. But first they must tackle the Abductor. And they still hope to free the villagers.
After some discussion the party are loaned some magical artefacts by the villalge — the village’s signal lantern, so that they can see in the Abductor’s caverns, and a cold-iron spike to prevent the Abductor from plane shifting to escape. Catch is to travel with them and scout out their world, to determine whether it could provide a suitable refuge for the villagers, whilst Irlock and Tamtam prepare the villagers for the possibility of a migration.
With their items and ally the heroes leave the village and escape out of range of the guard, readying themselves for the adventures ahead.