Bean, Meerda, and Redolf, oh my!

Osha and Alleraia have weird dreams while sleeping at the Inn and are awakened by the loud noises coming from downstairs in the tavern. There is a rowdy group of card players, including Ned who Osha previously played cards with. There is a fat Dwarf smoking a cigar. Toblin flags us over asking about what happened at the fortress and to Pip. Osha explains about everything that has happened. She asks Toblin if he knows about the GULTHIAS tree. Toblin motions towards a gnome playing cards and says there have been more dragon sightings on the TRIBOAR.
 
Osha and Alleraia walk over to the table with the card players. Osha hollers to Ned. The cigar smoking gnome jumps on the table raging about the dragons. Osha asks about the dragon sighting. Osha decides to gamble with a coin flip for a cigar and wins a free cigar from the gnome who is named BEAN. He says there was a huge forest fire in the NEVERWINTER WOOD. He also tells us that the dragon they saw was WHITE. He directs us to ask his druid friend REDOLF
LF and MEERDA with the Lords Alliance who are staying with KAYLEEN who is staying with Adabra about tree or plant questions.
 
Osha puts her foot in her mouth and insults druids to Alleraia, and the more she rambles the worse she makes it, so she finally gives up and wants to head to the barn. Ned stops Osha and flags her over and asks if she passes the sleeping boar to see if we can figure out what is going on. GRISTA the owner hasn't been seen and no patrons are going there. Osha says we'll look into it.
 
Headed to Adabra's barn looking for the druids. Droop is in the corner sleeping peacefully, but there is a small white weasel sniffing around his throat. From out of the corner a halfling man runs out of the shadows yelling at them. Instantaneously we start hearing a friendly voice in our heads coming from the weasel. Alleraia inquires about the GULTHIAS tree and finds out it is in the EASTERN SIDE OF NEVERWINTER FOREST for 8 years, deep in the forest. Alleraia inquires about the forest fire and finds out it was on the opposite side of the forest from the GULTHIAS tree. Osha offers to help rid the Neverwinter wood of the nasty Gulthias tree if the druids would help us join up with our party in gnomenguard. Meerda suggests BEAN and SILDAR from the Lord's Alliance may be useful on our quest to Gnomenguard. So we head back to the Inn to find them and ask for their help.
 
Osha sits down at the table with BEAN and begins to negotiate about getting an escort and finds out they are investigating the disappearance of YARNO ALBRICK a wizard from the Lord's Alliance and GUNDREN the dwarf who Harbin had asked us about. Bean says he will ask his boss Sildar if he can come with us to Gnomenguard. Bean returns back after about 30 minutes. Bean says his boss says he can accompany us to Gnomenguard. The trio walks out of the Inn and back to Adabra's to get the druids and make their way to Gnomenguard. After getting everyone together they head out into the night to meet up with the rest of their party .
 
BACK TO THE OTHER PARTY
 
Having just finished a group of 4 Orcs, Caldae is pursuing the Captain of the orcs who had taken her friend BEARTHOLOMEW. The orc has made his way across the otherside of the waterfall pool, and blows a horn. The gnome captives disperse and flee in all directions. Siegrane decides to go explore the caves more. Baby Hands and his friends charge out of the cave towards the sound of the horn . Caldae is in Giant Hyena form and grabs a chunk of giant mushroom with her teeth and drops it in front of Beartolomew trying to encourage him to follow her, and then she gives a gentle head bump of affection. Bear eats the mushroom and seems content. Caldae tries to gesture to him to follow her back to the cave. She grabs more mushroom to entice him. Bear slowly meanders in the direction Caldae indicated, but then is distracted by the mushrooms and decides to go eat them directly. Caldae, frustrated, joins him in eating mushrooms. After eating a green mushroom, she backs away toward the cave entrance, but then suddenly notices that the water seems to be getting more shallow, and it is because the mushroom has caused her to grow to twice her size! Looking at Bear, she finds that Bear has turned rainbow colors and is floating in the air, very confused. She watches as Bear slowly drifts away, and in a panic she tries to jump and grab him from floating away. She carries him, floating from her mouth, over to the caves. As she does this, a loud thudding noise can be heard coming from the forest, and suddenly a fat, slimy, stinky, giant Ogre and 4 orcs emerge from the woods. They have been summoned by the orc horn blowing. Two more orcs appear from a cave entrance on the far side of the pool, and they are carrying a large metal cylindrical object with a glowing center. Several more orcs of leadership level come walking out behind the entourage carrying the beacon.
 
Siegrane opens a door in a tunnel and finds several kegs lined against the walls, and also several large BARREL CRABS amongst a group of flailing and panicking gnomes. Siegrane gets inside one of the barrel crabs and tries to figure out how to operate it. He yells at the gnomes and tries to get one of them to show him how to use it, but they are much too frightened. Marcus Baby Hands gives orders to his troops to spread out and arm themselves with their crossbows. Caldae shoves Bear into a tunnel so he doesn't float away. Then the battle begins.
 
Caldae charges at the group of orcs holding the Beacon and tries to wrestle it away from them. Unfortunately, she is unable to get to them quickly enough, as they are up on a cliff. The orcs continue to move away from the area taking the beacon with them. Siegrane emerges from the cave awkwardly driving the barrel crab. Pip joins Marcus and his crew and shoots an arrow at the hands of the orcs carrying the beacon, managing to impale one of the orcs in the hand, but the orc just shrugs the pain off and continues walking with the arrow sticking out of his hand.
 
Next, the 10 foot tall, 700 pound ogre, who is holding a giant femur bone as a weapon, stomps towards the party chucking a large boulder at the group using his massive sling. The boulder crashes into the side of the cliff. Pip is mildly injured and Howdore is knocked unconcious. Marcus rushes to the side of one of his female bodyguards who was hit directly by the boulder and checks for a pulse, only to find she is sadly dead. He turns and aims his crossbow at the ogre, he tells Maxwell and Ryder to stay back. After realizing he is too far away from the Ogre to get a good shot. One orc notices a gnome hiding in the bushes and grabs her by the hair dragging her along with the group carrying the beacon.
 
Caldae is still in pursuit of the beacon group and continues to try to retrieve the beacon. One of the orcs stabs at her with a spear and causes her 11 damage. Siegrane scrambles down the cliff, having abandoned the barrel crab. He gets to Howdore's side, and finds him in terrible shape. He feeds him a potion of greater healing jolting him awake and healing him for 17 damage. Pip seeing Howdore is now back in the fight, turns in fury aiming his bow at the Ogre catching him in the shoulder with enough force to knock him back a bit and causing 12 damage. The ogre takes his attention off Caldae to see who shot him. Howdore having just woken up sees the Ogre for the first time, and notices the similarities between himself and the Ogre. He grunts angrily at the Ogre.
 
The ogre lobs another boulder in the direction of Baby Hands and Pip. Howdore manages to avoid being hit by the boulder as it just barely misses hitting him in his Goliath testicles. Marcus steps out of the way of the debris, and Pip nearly falls down the cliff face as the boulder crushes the ground he was standing on. Marcus deftly navigates down the cliff into the pool below, taking cover behind another boulder and then making his way behind a giant mushroom. He raises his crossbow to take a shot, but the bolt falls short of the ogres large clawed feet. Marcus calls up to his comrades and tells them to stay away from the edge of the cliff. Siegrane points at the giant mushrooms and yells to Howdore to eat a mushroom. Howdore waddles to the mushrooms and grabs a mushroom and eats it, but nothing seems to happen. Howdore then takes cover behind a large rock.
 
Caldae Hyena finally catches up with the orcs with the Beacon and this time is able to manage to yank it out of their grasp. The orcs begin yelling that they need to get the beacon back. The orcs attack Caldae stabbing at her legs and throat. One orc lands a blow in Caldae's upper chest causing 13 damage. Caldae turns and charges back towards her group and away from the orcs. Marcus orders his men to cover the Hyena/Caldae because they must keep the cylinder at all costs. Pip attempts to come down the cliff and join the rest of the party, but falls into the bushes taking 3 damage. He painfully stands up and tries to shoot one of the orcs, but misses. The Lord's alliance body guards take a shot at the ogre and one of them lands a shot dealing 10 damage. The ogre picks up another large rock and lobs it in the direction of the cliff crushing the Lord's Alliance dwarf's legs pinning him to the cliffside. Marcus takes another shot at the Ogre, catching him in the arm causing 4 damage. He then attempts to climb up the cliff to help his dwarven comrade Maxwell, who is pinned beneath a boulder.
 
Caldae continues her retreat with the beacon. She climbs up the cliff near where Maxwell is. Beartolomew comes flying out of the tunnel and Caldae is no longer able to control him with animal handling, so he climbs down the cliff and wanders away. Marcus calls out to the party that they should all retreat back up the cliff face and back into the caves. The Lord's Alliance people work together to free Maxwell from the boulder and drag him into the caves. The ogre reaches down and picks up another boulder chucking it at the group up on the cliff wlith deadly accuracy. Pip, Marcus, and Ryder manage to jump out of the way of the boulder, unfortunately Maxwell takes the full force of the boulder killing him dead and also destroys the bridge.
 
Marcus throws a rope down the cliff to help Howdore get up the cliff and join them, before going to the tunnel entrance to start moving everyone into the caves. Howdore clambers up the cliff and joins his party. The orcs reach the waterfall pool and begin surrounding the island, while some of them pull out long bows and shoot at whoever they can see up on the cliff. Two arrows hit Howdore in the back of his thigh dealing him 12 damage and Caldae is also hit for 8 damage. Howdore uses his special endurance ability to completely shrug off the damage. Meanwhile, Caldae returns to her normal Giant Hyena size and can no longer manage to carry the heavy beacon. She tries to roll it over to Siegrane who is inside one of the barrel crabs, but it is too big to fit. They manage to get Howdore to pick it up and carry it.
 
Ryder tries to shoot one of the orcs, but slips and makes a sloppy shot that ends up hitting Beartolomew who becomes enraged and turns to see orcs near him that he quickly takes out his anger on, shredding one of them in seconds. Meanwhile the rest of the party continues it's retreat into the caves. The ogre throws one more boulder at them as Howdore and Caldae bring up the rear of the retreat. The boulder crushes Caldae as she pushes Howdore out of the way into the cave. The damage causes Caldae to drop out of Hyena form as her little halfling body hurls towards Marcus knocking them both to the ground. Caldae is badly injured, taking 12 damage to her halfling form. Marcus gets up and grabs Caldae by the shirt dragging her into the cave and asks Howdore to pick up the cylinder again.
 
As the party tries to get their wits about them, two familiar voices come from out of the shadows. Dibbledap and Fiddlestop call the party to follow them to safety. The party follows the gnomes into the pantry and on through to a warehouse room filled with ale kegs and have wooden vats that go all the way to the ceiling. Dabbledop opens one of the grain storage bins and uncovers a secret door that leads into a secret passage way. The party follows, with Marcus bringing up the rear making sure that everyone makes it safely. Siegrane sobs as he has to leave his barrel crab behind. In the hallway the party can now hear the orcs pursuing them, and Dabbledop closes the secret door behind them. The party slowly makes their way down the cramped passageway. Eventually the party emerges in a magical stream that has a shimmering magical rainbow tree in the center of it. The party is mesmerized by the beauty and serenity of the stream and tree.
 
Several other gnomes have taken shelter here. Siegrane is gathering the gnomes around him to form a plan. Dabbledob informs them that the real beacon is actually this rainbow tree and that the metal cyclinder is actually a worthless piece of junk.