Session 4 - Lorger's Thicket

We arrived into Kard, a small village, potentially a farming village? The only place that looked like a tavern/inn was The Dancing Bear. Inside, the most prominent feature was a large plastered billboard on the wall which had 200 or so names listed on it with 50 or so of them crossed out that's titled Lorger's Ledger. Hazel Thernlaw, a middle aged woman who owns and runs The Dancing Bear told us that Lorger is the name of a bear in the outskirts of town. Hazel mentioned some passing adventurers have said Lorger could be a Dire Bear, but those are thought to have been extinct for years. Hazel also explained that the ledger is a list of names of people who have attempted to fell the bear by putting 5 gold into a prize pot, the names crossed out were the ones who died. The pot was initially set up as a joke but it's now been 3 years since and no one has managed to defeat Lorger.
 
We decide to ponder our decision on if we'll partake in Lorger's Ledger. We head to our respective rooms and go to sleep for the night. I wake up in a long strange white/gray corridor with a sharp left at the end. I see the others with me, but they don't acknowledge me at all. I decide to push to the sharp left of the corridor. Immediately after the left there is a 60 foot long corridor with a stone door at the end but the corridor is filled in a thick poisonous gas. I stick my hand out and focus on my elemental gift and manage to absorb the poison in the middle which creates a path for me to walk through. I get to the stone door, which has smoke detailing on it, seemingly referencing my elemental gift and a phrase "A double edged sword can be the deadliest weapon". I invoke the power into the door and I end up in a circular room that is chequered in white and green. In front of me I witness matter coalesce, condense and swirl as a green and blue serpent that drips mist and liquid from it's body appears in front of me and attacks. The battle was luckily fairly simple for me as it didn't manage to get a hit on me. As I defeat the beast, a door behind where I appeared from opens up into another much larger circular room with a familiar sight in the middle of swirling lights and stars, as well as my new friends coming out of the different doors in the room, 9 in total, 4 remained shut with no one coming from them. We touch the swirling lights which changes to match each of our elemental gifts.
As we touch it, we all share a vision of large purple eyes filled with stays and we all hear a voice say "Purpose, chosen, trust" followed by waking up in The Dancing Bear.
 
In the morning we decide we'll partake in the ledger and we deposited 5 gold each into the pot and made our way to Lorger's Thicket. We arrive at a large cave and see a large bear resting outside. Without thinking we set up my bear trap and lured it over to us. As we were about to defeat, we heard a loud, guttural roar from the cave, followed by a much larger bear, confirming our stupidity in not confirming Lorger. We had a long and gruesome battle with Lorger where Malaphor was knocked unconscious, we managed to finally defeat the monstrous beast.
 
We entered the cave on the off chance there would be any left over treasure from previous adventurers. The cave itself branched off to the left and right, in the left side of the cave I found 15 gold, 1 potion of greater healing and a incredible well made shortbow.
 
We salvaged 2 of Lorger's paws, his head and some pelt. As we arrived back in Kard, the people were impressed, amazed and incredible happy we managed to kill Lorger. We gave Hazel a large portion of the pelt to use as a rug, and Lorger's head to hang up. We had another nights rest and the next morning we purchased a large carriage and draft horse for 50 gold, a deal we were given for being victorious the day before and made our way to Pentareach.
 
After a long and uneventful 8 hour journey where we talked about a potential group name (Gruff's Fellowship and Titans Bane) we find ourselves on the outskirts of Pentareach's walls and join the queue to enter Pentareach. In the queue to Pentareach, I notice Alistan Preen standing talking to some people within the city walls.