Session 12: Who Hunts the Hunters?

General Summary

Each member of the party spread out to investigate different sections of the Engeham farmstead. This was the first time an attack had been made when people more trained in tracking than the farmers had been present (even if they had managed to not hear it happen during the night). They discovered that it was only chickens taken, none of the Engeham sheep had been taken this time - Mrs Engeham had mentioned last time one of the lambs had). Otherwise the dry ground left no marks that could be tracked.
However, Zeth'rim spotted a chicken feather resting on a bush in the near distance on the forest's edge. The bush it rested on also appeared to have been forced through by something relatively large as it attempted to squeeze between the gap between the bush and tree next to it. Using Jraxler's mastery of the forest terrain and following the rough direct from the enclosure to this bush, the group travelled in a line occasionally spotting another dropped feather or disturbed bush that allowed them to believe they were tracking the culprit(s).
Hours passed, and the mountain Mon Olono loomed ever closer. It seemed whatever this was was heading in the mountain's direction. However, roughly half of the distance to the mountain, the party were successfully ambushed by a flock of harpies. Leo, instinctively moving to the side, away from the initial ambush, managed to position themselves under two, as of yet unrevealed, harpies and sustained significant damage as they were set upon by both.
One of the harpies began the harpy's song but only managed to charm Soldunn, who was engaged in battle with a completely different one of its kind at the time. His charming never became useful for the harpy. Eventually, as the numbers turned in the adventuring party's favour and with the harpies' initial surprise attack over, the harpies lost ground in the battle and succumbed one by one.
That being said, this was likely the groups sternest test to date. Jraxler's knowledge also confirmed that it was unlikely the harpies that were attacking the farmsteads, they'd just wandered into a separate trap. After some successful and some less than successful harpy part harvesting, the party continued on their tracking of the farmstead menace. They reached the point where the forest stopped roughly 100 feet from the base of the mountain with about half an hour of sunlight left. Using Leo's familiar, a silver pseudodragon called Frostbite, they scouted the area ahead of them. Frostbite spotted an opening in the rock roughly directly ahead of them. He also spotted a group of ogre that had seemingly passed this area recently and were walking away.
The party entered the cave entrance and followed the path down. The path seemed too direct to be natural, this was a man-made cave. Eventually, with the light behind them vanishing as the sun was setting outside, they reached the end of this path as it opened up into a chamber. Lighting up the chamber, they could see what looked like an abandoned camp, or it would have been abandoned had it not been for the bones of thoroughly cleaned up individuals that laid at the rear of the chamber. There were also nailed down boxes, perhaps whoever was using this were transporting these boxes, as when they managed to open one, all that was inside were fabrics and rations - basic supplies.
Keeping a firm watch on the entrance was Leo. However, the noise and the light had attracted the monsters they had been looking for and they appeared from holes in the wall either side of the entrance - the second time in a day the party had been surprised by monsters.

Report Date

18 Dec 2018