The Missing Hunters Report

General Summary

Our heroes found themselves in their accomodations in The Golden Dove pondering the news that they have heard about the missing Petit Paix hunting parties. They spent their evening getting themselves ready to venture into the forest the next day.   As they rose for their adventuring day, the warm autumn morning greated them. The heroes ventured in the Petit Paix Forest. When they got to the forest they found the tracks of horeses in a game trail. Ursula Henneberg was able to follow the tracks to a small clearing. Stealthily moving about the forest outside the clearing, they found a man who appears to be a bandit and four of the missing hunters tied up. Resting against one of the tents was four bows and two muskets.   As they were watching Cote heard some rustling in the forest on the opposite side of the clearing. He threw a smooth flat stone across the clearing to try to distract the one bandit and it flew true. The stone bounce off of a tree trunk in a very fortuitous way and landed with a thunk. When it landed a man shouted out, "Ow, what was that?" Four men then came around the tents, three armed with muskets and one rubbing his head. The first man began to prepare food for them.   Henri Valois proposed to the party that they spit up, Ursula Henneberg and Cote DeTellier going around the back of the camp while Henri Valois and Erich Heinz Gustav entered the camp from the front. He proposed that he would try to talk to the bandits and find out what they were up to. The party decided that this was the right course of action.   As Cote and Ursula came around the back of the camp they realized that they were close to the tied up hunters. Henri and Erich stepped into the clearing and the three bandits with muskets raised them and pointed them at Henri and Erich. Henri began speaking to them and the lead bandit introduced himself as Stephan. They talked for a bit while Cote and Ursula quietly untied the hunters. They took the hunters to the weapons and armed them taking the muskets for themselves. Stephan revealed during the conversation that they had been feeding the hunters to a great beast which protected the cave where they were looking for an artifact which they needed to return to the leaders of Rüken Island in Eisen. They has folled the beast to Montaigne and were now exploring the ruins, but they needed to feed people to the beast in order to get by it.   Finally Stephan stated that Henri and Erich should leave because they were outnumbered. Henri, seeing his two friends pointing muskets and the hunters pointing bows, said "Are you sure?" A distinct strethching of a bow string came from behind the bandits. Stephan turned and was shocked to see the reinforcements. The bandits finally lowered their weapons and Cote collected them. Henri asked the hunters what they thought they should do and one of the hunters said, "We should kill them and get our revenge." Henri was not willing to let this happen and instead told the bandits that they would come with the Heroes and the hunters into the cave to slay the beast and look for thier artifact.   After a short negotiation the group travelled to the cave where the ruins layed. Some of our heroes deducted that thhis was not a natural cave at all and that it had been hewn from the stone on purpose. There were some incomprehensible runes scrawled upon the openning. As they examined the entrance they heard a roar. The bandits second guessed going back into the cave and the hunters stated that they just wanted to go home. HEnri and Erich convinced them that they should stay. In the first case so that they could find their artifact and in the second case because slaying this beast would mean a significant amount of meat available for them to bring back to the city.   Finally convinced, the group set up on a small cliff above the Drachen. The group openned a volley. The first shots deflected off of the armor of the great beast. Finally a shot made it through and staggered the monster. A second volley acccompanied Erich charging the beast. It was then that a shot rang out and struck true. This shot pierced the scales of the Drachen and travelled straight through the spine of the beast. When the smoke cleared it was Stephan who had fired the shot. The hunters quickly began breaking down the Drachen so that they could get the meat out of the cave. Henri examined some of the strange glowing stones in the wall. He took a few of them and pocketed them.   The heroes and the bandits continued into the cave where they encountered a pair of insets in the wall which had been worn smooth from friction. They noticed that ther was a pressure plate on the other side of the insets. They threw a few stones onto the plate and it didn't budge until Erich threw a large rock with strength onto the plate. When it depressed, a large stone door began to lower down in the insets. Each of the heroes made it underneath the door before it dropped. The bandits nearly did not make it, but Erich stood underneath the door and held it up long enough, straining their large muscles, long enough for them to get through. On the far side of the door Ursula found a series of seven rudy gemstones inset into the wall. She concluded that they must be some sort of code which will open the door again, but they needed the key.   The party continued into the ruins. They came to an ornately decorated cicular room with a pedestal with a on orb set on it. The orb was slightly inset into the pillar but was not fastened to it in any way. The orb was roughly 8 inches in diameter, and black with a swilring purple inside of it. The stone called out to Henri and when he tried to reach out for the orb Erich held him back to the point of tackling him to the ground. It then called out to Cote and Ursula tackled him to the ground. Finally, one of the bandits picked up the orb and seemed to have a short conversation with it finally putting it back saying the the orb was rude.   Ursula let Cote up seeing that the bandit was unharmed and allowed him to pick up the sphere. It spoke to Cote. It told him that its name is Amethyst. It asked how long it had been there and Cote answered at least 2,000 years. They had a pleasent short conversation. Once Cote was done with the orb Henri took it up. Henri discovered that Amethyst was a 'Logic Stone' which can be used to work our logic problems and troubles. It does not have knowledge of its own but can work out problems well. It is basically a sounding board that helps a person work through troubles.   Having placed the orb in his backpack Henri and his compaitriots continued further into the ruins. There was an exit on the far side of the round room which came to steep stairs. The party went down the stairs and found a room which was not crafter but appeared to be dig out of the stone, as if something had burrowed it out. At the back of that room they found a large stone which had a series of seven markings on it. Ursula wrote down these markings believing them to be the code needed to reopen the door at the begining of the hall. They also found a box at the base of the markings. Inside the box was a compass but where the needle would normally be there was a small Emerald gem. It rolled around the compass pointing at Stephan.   The party left the cave using the code that Ursula had written down. When they got to the mouth of the cave the only parts of the drachen remaining were the skeleton and offal. They left the cave and returned to their horses. They tied up the bandits and rode back to the city.   When they arrived back in town they went to see Annette Marbot, Marquess de Petit Paix in order to get her judgement. Henri suggested that if they were given a new life in Petit Paix they would not need to fear the agents of Rüken island. The Marquess agreed and allocated a home for each of them and sent a messanger to a fisherman that they would be coming to work for him. Henri and Erich took them to their houses to get settled in while Cote when to the local Explorer's Society library to try to get some answers about the artifacts.   A member of the Explorer's Society called Marie Lepin came with Cote to look at the artifacts. She reavealed that the compass was likely pointing at the most important person in the room. After talking to Marie, the party went back to the Golden Dove and cleaned up as well as realxing. Henri sent a messanger to request an audience with Annette.

Rewards Granted

One Advancement

Missions/Quests Completed

Into the Woods