The Hyenas of the Forest

When Quercus had recovered sufficiently, we gathered to discuss our more immediate next steps. According to the treant, it would take several days to gather those that he was contemplating on calling, it is a rare occasion that such meetings are convoked. It was clear that we needed to return to Mirabar and settle our affairs there, speak with the Axe of Mirabar and convey Lord Neverember’s appeal as well as our report. However, for the there and then Quercus reiterated that the gnolls were the most recent symptom of whatever crept through the forest and were still occupying his own glade. He would be grateful for any support we would be willing to lend him with this, which we of course vigorously agreed to. Thus, accompanied by the shepherd of this forest we set off on the trail along the stream that we earlier had taken to reach Quercus. Before any of us could jump in to stop her, Nysqwen asked the striding treant if she would be able to hitch a ride amongst its densely woven branch-like limbs. There was no immediate response and for a few strides I feared that just after healing him, we had managed to greatly offend such an imposing creature. But my fears were snuffed when a barky arm wrapped around Nysqwen and accompanied by a brief, joyful shout lifted her onto what I can only describe as his shoulder.
We continued our trek until nightfall, when we settled down to make camp. Quercus seemed to have forgotten (although I am now getting the sneaking suspicion that he might share more of Grum’s at times impish character) that Nysqwen was still perched amidst his form and failed to lower the dragonborn to the ground before a regular soft creaking of wood heralded that he had fallen asleep. Thankfully, the thought of spending the night stuck in the branches of a treant seemed to only fill her with more excitement. As we prepared dinner, some changes that I had barely noticed throughout the day became more apparent. Wherever Quercus strode for the previous hours, s tiny bit of colour and vibrancy seemed to have returned to the plants around him. And now that he was fast asleep amongst the far younger trees and brushes, this vibrancy seemed to creep outward from our camp, almost as if a breath of fresh air was drawn by the tarred lungs of the forest for the first time in a very long time. As sleep took our camp barring the lone watcher whose shift it currently was, there was renewed vigour in the sounds of wildlife all around the camp and when it finally came to my own turn the calls of nightly predators and rustling of their escaping prey had almost returned to what I had somewhat grown accustomed to from our wanderings over the last almost four months.
Four months! It is hard to imagine a time now in which I would not have been able to turn to Kyla for advice in the puzzles that this world likes to fling at one every day or know that no matter what we cross paths with, there is a fierce glaive holding my back free as Nysqwen is so want to do. A time without the, though at times erratic, many different ways in which Teynos eases the trials and tribulations in our path with his light-hearted attitude and one or two well placed punches. And even the newly deepened friendship with Grum that seems to have grown to a trust that I hardly knew even within Cor. It seems like an eternity ago, that we have left Archie back with his old master, I hope the boy is keeping a stiff upper lip in the city, I cannot wait to return and share the many adventures we have had, respectively. But that also makes it almost six months now since Camp vanished. And there is still no sign of any explanation as to what happened to her or the others. I cannot lose sight of that task either! That is what friends are for, right? Hells, that is what knits this group together so tightly! To look out for one another, no matter the circumstances. Once we return to Neverwinter, Vivis, Dedash, Wolzira, Camp, I will not give up on you!
 
We continued our journey the next day, further following along the stream that had led us thus far. Throughout the passing hours, at several points the mocking, hysterical laughter of what we could only assume to be gnolls broke through the forest, keeping us on our toes. Teynos and Grum were in the lead, yet in their attempt of looking out for possible dangers, ambushes or whatever else might have lurked for us in the underbrush, Teynos seemed to prefer spending his time in the front riddling Grum with Questions about the forest and parkouring through some of the low-hanging brushes. Unfortunately, one of his dramatic landings swung him right into our dwarven leader’s back who had just stopped to look at something on the ground, causing Grum to stumble forward and much to all of our shock dropped through the forest floor into what we then saw to be a pit trap. Mere heartbeats from catastrophe, with a speed that he had rarely shown before, Teynos grabbed hold of Grum, or rather, his trailing beard, and managed to yank him backward, saving him from the hole that he just accidentally had pushed him into. For the continuation of our journey, Nysqwen tried to occupy Teynos with pointing out various mushrooms in the forest, while a visibly more frustrated Grum brushed of his clothes and continued his lead now with a few paces distance to potentially disruptive half-orcs.
Over the following hours, reaching past the furthest point that we previously had ventured upstream, the purification clasping to the surrounding thicket and choking the life out of the once-vibrant plant life grew more intense. The effect that Quercus’s presence appeared to have had on the forest yesterday seemed to struggle more and more against whatever darkness had taken residence in these woods. The swirling dark haze that had thinned ever since our first encounter with the treant by the evening grew dense enough that it seemed to almost swallow the last hours of daylight, leaving us in a murky, dampened and depressing atmosphere. Eventually, Grum was the first to call our intention to steadily more frequent and louder yelps and cackles that heralded the presence of gnolls in the not too far distance. Quercus confirmed that we were closing in on the glade that he formerly had called home.
As we came closer, upon Kyla’s suggestion I spun an undulating weave of the faintest of melodies to shield her and Nysqwen from any prying eyes and in their company split off from the others to round to the other side of the glade and hopefully take the fell beasts in a surprise pincer. We took care to keep away from the sounds that gave away the location of our foes and thus it was not until the last minute that we got an eye on the encampment that the creatures had constructed. There did not seem much in the way of a camp as one might expect from more civilised beings. A handful of tarps were lazily draped over wooden frames, shielding some indiscernible items, while on the side facing our way, a collection of large, but empty cages were posted at the perimeter. Outside of these bits and two fire pits in the centre of the camp, there was no built structures of any capacity. A good dozen of the twisted, humanoid hyenas were prowling around, some engaged in cackling conversations with one another. Similar to what we had encountered in our skirmishes, amongst them were some that were of almost human height with much broader shoulders as well as some with completely white fur that was only dulled by the muck that coated their exterior. Yet, the most imposing figure was one that towered over the others by possibly another head or two, idly twiddling with some sort of a morning star that had three dark balls dangling from what appeared to be invisible chains. As they spun through the air and caught some of the fire light, it became plain that they were crafted to resemble tiny skulls. Several savage creatures looking like vicious hounds strolled through the encampment, dodging a boot here and catching a morsel of flesh there. The entire camp looked chaotic, with the only unifying property the many, many spots of darkened stains on the ground. When we arrived, we just saw how two of the regular gnolls seemed to dump something from a cauldron into the stream that was flowing by the opposite site of the camp.
Before any of us had any more time to make any further investigations about our enemies, several huge shapes burst through the underbrush on the side at which we left our companions, as giant cockroaches sprawled forth and fell over some of the closest hounds. Nysqwen, Kyla and I used the moment of surprise to rush in, Nysqwen immediately darting for the giant gnoll, her glaive drawing half moons of dark red as it sliced through flesh and sinew. Instantaneously, the clashing of weapons, howling of combatants and cries of agony began filling the evening’s air with the painfully familiar chaos of a fight. I saw Kyla next to me shouting calls to the Raven Queen for aid and her magic enveloping several of the gnolls. I focussed on those that were slightly further away, desperately trying to stall them by filling their minds with illusions of twisting colours and disorienting sounds as Nysqwen got surrounded by more and more of the beasts. Vaguely, I could hear more than see Grum, Teynos and Quercus arrive through the forest, the dwarf soon veering into the skin of a giant elk whilst the others swung with staff and branch against the incoming foes. A sharp pain in my side twisted me around, losing any vision of my friends, as peering down, I saw two arrows protruding from my side, my shirt soaking up bright blood. Filled with panic, I could only watch Nysqwen sink to her knees under the relentless pounding of the flail of the presumed leader of the pack that seemed to hit her much harder than the small beads of the flail had any natural right to. She fought back to her feet, fending off the five other beasts that had crowded around her whilst slashing for the leader. Kyla sprinted towards her, surrounded by a darkly shimmering halo of spectral dark-feathered birds that hacked at any gnolls that dared come close enough. Two of the other gnolls had caught up to my position, desperately dodging and at times taking their attacks, I tried to think of any way to improve our odds, having lost sight of Grum and the others once more.
There was something else. Something I felt stirring inside me that I had for so long managed to suppress that boiled hotter than I had consciously felt in several tendays. A burning rage and inexplicable, cold hatred for those that were opposing us, mixed with darker thoughts, almost more subconscious feelings than reasoned ideas, that even now I dare not write into these lines. Never before had this turmoil grown to that extent when I would have been at any conscious state of mind. And worst of it all – it promised power. A way out of this. Only half thinking I ignored the gnolls currently slashing at my heels entirely and ran towards Nysqwen and the bundle of attackers around her. As I reached them and saw the deep gashes and visible signs of broken bones on my friend, the only palpable thing that seemed to fill my mind was a searing desire to punish. Without fully realising I uttered a phrase in the damned language I so wished to forget every hour I was practicing my elvish with Kyla. Then everything vanished from view. A sourceless, all engulfing darkness swallowed everything around me, obscuring myself, my friends and everything else around us from any and all eyes that might have been upon us. Yet the renewed sensation of pain, as the jaws of one of the foes I ran away from clasped around my shoulder almost immediately fizzled the effect. The all-consuming rage still at the forefront of my mind, I ripped the wand from my belt and almost at random discharged nearly all its energy into the surrounding gnolls. But the overwhelming number of our enemies was too large. More and more slashes I felt ripping into my chest until the world was swallowed by darkness once more. The last thing I saw was Kyla and Nysqwen, possibly the two strongest people I knew, go to the ground next to me, their eyes hazed with the same veil I could feel drift in front of my own. I did not even feel my broken body hit the ground anymore.
 
The next thing I can remember is glancing up into the face of a somewhat frazzled Grum, who, leaning back, reassured me that it was over. A mixture of relief and guilt washed over me, as my first thought was the realisation that against my fears there was no further continuation of whatever-it-was that seemed to have taken hold of me in the final moments in battle to lead me into another hellscape as I had been exposed to before. Followed by the second thought of self-scolding for that being my first thought as I realised that I still couldn’t see Nysqwen and Kyla. Thankfully, a hasty gaze around revealed them, battered, bruised but alive, sitting slumped down on the felled tree that the gnolls seemingly had used as a bench in their camp. Grum told me that after we fell, the remaining hyenas were beaten enough to not offer too much resistance any more to Teynos, Quercus and himself, leading to a quick end to the battle. According to the treant, this was the main pack that had befallen the forest, promising a more peaceful night from here on out.
Hobbling over to Nysqwen and Kyla, they confirmed that they were all right, Grum’s healing magic had reached the three of us just in time to prevent anything worse. Together, we proceeded collecting what bits of value we could find in the camp and otherwise eradicating its foul traces as much as we could. Teynos carried over the cauldron that the gnolls had tempered with at the stream and presented us with a sickly dark brown ooze of which only a tiny bit remained at the bottom of the vessel. It’s oily appearance reminded us of the stream itself and thus possibly had something to do with its pollution, although none of us could fathom what it actually was the gnolls had been doing or why they were here. We decided to bring some of this substance back with us to Mirabar to have examined by someone smarter than us and repurposed one of the jars in which Nysqwen still carried around the mayonnaise that Archie had made many tendays ago. It had turned to something almost as rotten as the stuff we were now filling the jar with and I had to compose myself and suppress some fierce retching when I opened the jar, before I could clean it out properly. In the meantime, the others gathered a number of trinkets and baubles from crates that the gnolls must have garnered from travellers or stolen somewhere else, indicating that either we were not the first in this place or they had come from somewhere where people liked small statuettes, crates with gems and coins. Amongst the treasures were two larger medallions that were stamped with the emblem of the Highfield family, that Grum recognised, as well as, much to my delight, a scroll that seemed to bear instructions to a far more powerful translocation spell than the one I had used to dive after Nysqwen in the mountains. Yet the main object that we all eventually gathered around was the flail that had caused Nysqwen, Kyla, and as I learned then, Grum as well great agony in the previous skirmish. As it lay there on the forest floor, the bone handle looked almost inconspicuous with the skull-like heads loosely lying on the ground. Kyla was able to determine that it was surrounded by some sort of a magical aura but could not narrow down what kind of magic it might be, other than something dark. Teynos was the first to dare to lift the handle of the weapon upon which bands of dark energy appeared once more, dragging the ominous skulls behind as the weapon seemed to come to life once more as soon as he laid a hand on it. Shocked, he dropped it immediately and we all decided that this was nothing to be played with and to manoeuvre it as carefully as possible into our bag of holding, yet another item for someone with more knowledge of the occult to take a look at.
With the perishing of the gnolls, the dark mist that was looming amongst the branches of the woods around us had noticeably diminished, giving way to the last bits of sunlight that fell through half-withered branches. Yet it did not vanish fully. There still was something deeper at works in this place, something almost like an alien will or entity that refused to be defeated just so easily. To distract myself maybe more than for the activity itself, I spent the next hour or so helping Kyla collect the bodies of the fallen gnolls and hounds and adding them to a funeral pyre. It never fails to astound me with what level of respect the woman treats the mortal remains of slain foes, regardless of how fierce a battle it was that needed to be won to get to that position. In treating all the bodies, I noticed an intricate tattoo covering the chest of the leading gnoll, depicting the flail that we had just carefully lowered into the bag by virtue of a piece of cloth as to avoid touching it again. Something about that image itched something in my brain, some old tails about something demonic, related to gnolls, of one of the many, many tales that were told to children that refuse to go to sleep at the time dictated by their parents. One of those tales that would keep the targeted child in bed but would render every thought of sleep mute with blood frozen in their little veins…
The rest of the evening was spent pitching our camp slightly off the glade where I once more weaved the protective melodical dome around us to shield us from any unwanted gazes, beings or weather. And upon drawing a quick sketch of the tattoo that would not quite leave my thoughts into my notes, I followed everyone but the watch-duty-taking Grum to sleep.
 
During breakfast on the following day, Kyla took another look at the ichor we had collected from the cauldron that was poured into the river. She determined that it seemed to have some sort of dark celestial character to its essence but still eluded any further pinning down. Following some deliberation with the rest of us, she then proceeded to kneel in prayer to her goddess to ask for further guidance on how to heal this blighted forest. Thankfully we were prepared this time and thus did not immediately freak out when she collapsed where she knelt, with suddenly entirely black, pupil-less eyes peering towards the sky. She came to a moment later and just repeated a phrase she had heard in her communion to “destroy the shadow that became matter”. None of us knew anything to do with this at that time and for now it therefore is added to the long list of questions we need to find someone with answers to. Finally, she took a second glance at the flail. With a brief rite, she explained she would attempt to remove any curse that might be set upon the item. Thus, placing the required components around the weapon she bade us all to take a step back as she began chanting her incantation. Nothing seemed to happen. Slightly irritated, she inspected the handle once more but eventually just said that if there was any such bewitchment on the item, it should be gone now and that beyond that it would need someone else’s expertise. With this final measure taken, it was time for us to leave and after a heartfelt goodbye we found ourselves back on our mounts on the trail towards the city. Grum was staying behind for a while as he said he had some other bits to discuss with Quercus, but eventually caught up to us, with the promise that we this time would return after just a few days.
When we settled down for a break just after noon, we saw a swift shade gliding through some of the grass at the outskirt of the forest towards our group. Soon enough we found ourselves in the presence of an almost four-foot-long weasel that curiously eyed us and even more so the bits of fruit and dried sausages we were passing around. I will never quite understand how it is possible for something so big to look quite so cute, but we could not resist long before we had to share some of our lunch with the imposing rodent. Nysqwen once more put on her intensely concentrating face as she had done the other morning with the birds, and before long was involved in a seemingly animated conversation with the weasel that she afterwards led us know went by Wissel. Apparently, it had a huge family that were all starving, and maybe more to satisfy Nysqwen’s pleas than that of our guest, we ended up sending it off with a good chunk of our remaining rations. I suppose it can’t hurt to be on good standing with the local fauna, but somehow, I have a feeling that this might just be the beginning of a lot of food that would go right past our mouths.
 
We reached Mirabar just a few hours before dusk. As our final stop for the evening before heading back to the Red Barrel, we decided to report with the local branch of the Lords’ Alliance to ask for a meeting to tell tale of what we had to report from Neverwinter and the Sword Coast. Grum lead us towards the massive, square Hall of the Alliance, central in the city and not far off from the seat of the Council of Mirabar. Trotting along the many colourful crests of the cities that the Alliance extended their arm to, displayed along the wall of the Hall, we drew our horses to a halt and were granted entrance upon Nysqwen presenting her Alliance emblem to the two guards posted outside. We stepped into a large hall, its walls draped with tapestries telling tales of the factions glorious achievements and headed to a counter at the opposite end where we were told that we would be seen at the following afternoon.
With this accomplished, we have now retreated back to the inn we spent our first night in the city in and after enjoying some of the local Rockbrew although it did not quite reach what we were so used to from Grum’s own batches. With time to spend until the council of Quercus and his allies has assembled, I expect tomorrow to be a manic day of exploring this new city properly for the first time and tackling some of the tasks we came here to accomplish. Although it fills me with joy, having seen Grum reunited with his old, recovering companion, I am weary of the true source of whatever has taken hold of the Lurkwood. And I cannot quite shake the unsettling memories of whatever came over me during our close fight with the gnolls. Something is stirring in Faerûn and I am not keen of finding out what when it fully arises.