Into the Tangled Woods, with a stop on the way...

After the meeting a Windson'g broke up we all went our separate ways and met back at the Tower the following morning to head out on our mission to root the bandits out of the tangled forest. On the road we came across a rare sight, the Royal Mounted patrols. Since the Great Wars there are truly no many patrols which have probably led to the uprising in banditry, but kind of surprisingly not much of an increase in good ol' fashioned raiding.... We learned that the patrol had just wiped out a bandit crew a bit down the road comprised of humans, goblins and orcs. Kind of an odd mix if you ask me. A short while later, we came across the bandits rotting on the side of the road with heads on pikes. Max the Cleric decided that it would be best to provide a cremation for the raiders which he performed his ceremony over and we moved on and spent the night at a small fishing village near by. Max again performed rituals for the outbound fishing crews and suggested they establish a public shrine to aid in their hauls. Purchased some rations from the previous days catch that I gladly paid lots extra for to establish some good will and open up avenues for later support. After leaving the village Brigid (also known as Short Stack) continued to lead us to the Tangled Forest and got us to the entry point discovered by a previous crew sent by Windsong. While Brigid searched the area and found quite a few tracks including wagons, I talked with Vicparin and inquired about his monastic training and asked for a demo. He had probably been in the saddle too long as I was not very impressed based on watching many street fights back in Town to be named later, but his talents would soon become evident in an upcoming negotiation with a group of bandits. After spending a day surveying this area with the only not "normal" event being my hearing of guttural howls we decided to move further into the Tangled Forest led of course by Short Stack. As we entered the rough pathway I used my Mage Hang to Carry an arrow ahead of us to help alert for any ambushes. A little while later Brigid and I heard some conversations going on the turned out to be a party of goblins. They were a bit spooked and launched arrows at the mage hand which alerted the rest of our group to their presence (4 Spear men and 2 Archers). The group quickly advanced with the Dwarves, Max and Vic moving forward to melee while Brigid and I staid in back launching arrows and spells at the goblins. I concentrated my attacks on the archers to help prevent melee fighters from being picked off. After dispatching the goblins with only a minor wound to Vic, the dwarves instituted a Tossed by Dwarves contest to see who could launch the goblins the furthest into the woods to help prevent alerting future possible patrols to our presence (Valrick happened to best Krigger this time). We continued to wind our way through the twisting paths still finding tracks of various use and even at one point discovering some webbed prints that Brigid was not able to identify. We primarily followed the tracks with wagons sign until spending the night in a "dead" end section of the woods. During my watch I heard some human voices to the North of us which we decided to investigate in the morning. As we wound our way following the paths we felt most likely to lead to the source of the voices we heard the previous night, Brigid scouted ahead and worked back to us to report what she had discovered. As she was relaying her find Max decided to move on ahead which expeditiously brought the attention of our party to the bandits I alluded to earlier. With the bandits shouting out alerts, the party rushed forward to engage sort of fearing for the safety of our Cleric. Upon coming around the corner we saw a makeshift fortification with two towers and wooden ramparts getting ready to attack Max. The group again jumped into action with myself, Brigid and this time Max staying in support while the Dwarves and Vic rushed into melee. During this part of the scrum Vic did one of the most amazing moves I've seen to date. An arrow was headed straight for his head when he snatched it out of the air, spun around and launched it back at the archer impaling him with his own arrow! As the bandits started to drop we advanced with minor injuries and engaged the apparent leader and some additional members of his shoddy company. At one point I was able to use Maximillian's Earthen Grasp spell to squeeze and hold one of the bandits who was later knocked unconscious to be interrogated soon. Thus ended a very busy day....