Journey to the Gold Mine

Rumor has it that there's gold to be found in the hills to the north east of town. Just have to head to the east side of the river and head north. Easy peasy right?
 
A heh, wrong!
 
So far we've encountered a couple of these awful ogre things that called us 'fresh meat'. They knocked out my new friend Feast, the surly dragonborn that's one day away from retirement or something like that. But the barbarian totally cleaved one of the them in twain. They had a little bit of coin on them but not much else. I also had to walk through swampy water in my new boots, absolutely gross.
 
THEN following the directions that I had we found the abbey, but it was filled with undead, like a big mama-jama freaking undead. The most baffling thing is that my friend Feast wants to go back. He said something about desecration and the temple being for a healing doctoring goddess or something. All I know is that they smelled terrible...but a story of redemption could make an epic story, or song...
 
AND THEN we skirted around the haunted abbey and continued to head north, we lost the river...BUT found this super peaceful lake with a little cabin next to it. So quaint! But there were these gross disgusting harpies who sang terrible songs at us. Dwyer seemed totally into it for a minute but he listened to my wise critique and realized that they were terrible signers. They did not appreciate my critiques...so we killed them. Well, we killed one of them...the other ran away.
 
But it was super sad though, because the harpies were eating the couple that was living in the house, they apparently fell victim to the harpies' terrible song. We stayed in the house that night and properly buried the bodies the next morning, I helped Feast do it. The wife kept a journal and I took it with me. There is something heartbreakingly sad about in the simple writings and mundane life that they led before it all ended horribly. I think I'm going to write a sad song about it...a song that will make people weep from the sheer sorrow of their tale.
 
But the journal also had notes about the mine in the forest to the north, so it does exist! Which is good news! But we were running low on supplies (and ability) so we decided to head back to Turnabout, armed with information about the surrounding area.
 
We headed south and found the road again and started heading back to town. But we found a gallows with two dead people hanging from it. Dwyer was really weirded out and upset by it and wanted to cut them down. So of course when we did that, Feast wanted to make sure they were properly buried. But while we were doing the whole burial thing, we were attacked by these weird undead dog things. Dwyer got eviscerated, and went down, Milo raged and killed one of the dogs and went crazy on the other one too. Feast healed Dwyer back up and he was pissed to he burned the dogs and the gallows that we stumbled across. We beat tracks immediately and made it back to town before 9pm. I performed in the tavern, earning my keep for shelter and food, but I can't stop thinking about the murdered husband and wife...and the tragedy of their demise...