Session 1-02: Been there, done Rat

General Summary

Year 116 on Kuntag the 9th day of Kalt, Sometime after Aband
The night watch performed by the dragonborn, tiefling and half-elf guide was long and cold. More so for a tiefling unused to the wilds of the world. After tossing and turning and spending most of the night with a rock jabbing him, he heads into town at first light to get some real sleep. Year 116 on Arbeitag the 10th day of Kalt, Taga
The rest of the group also awoke early to start the day into the caverns, and are joined by the follower of Morr’s companion, the female half elf archer. Together they forge ahead into the cavern. The dragonborn leads the way into a crossfire ambush. As the archers of the party and the skaven archer's exchange fire, a few members take minor damage. The group takes out the left side ambush group, leaving the right side with the dragon born trading blows. On a final swing the dragonborn and the skaven hit together, a hand axe buried deep into the skaven’s shoulder and a short sword in the gut of the dragonborn. They crumple into each other, dragonborn on top. Aid from the half-elf archer and disciple of Shallya comes quick and he is stabilized and moved into a side cavern to get a quick rest. The group goes further through the warren finding it unoccupied, except for a cart with three dead bodies, and a skeleton on a table. The follower of Morr gives the bodies a quick prayer when shifting light down a yet unexplored path, reveals movement to the half-elf guide. The party quickly douses its light source and lie in wait for three more skaven coming back with a second, empty, cart. While the ambush is successful, the third skaven retreated out of the cavern into the woods. Giving chase the half-elf archer is oblivious to a glyph on the floor. She triggers a magical protection trap and suffers a minor injury as she tries to exit and give chase of the skaven coward. The party tracks the path of the fleeing skaven. The skaven attempted to follow the same path as the cart that had come into the cavern a short while ago. The half-elven contingent, however, was not fooled. They followed the path of the fleeing skaven until it turned down toward the river. The river had iced over recently, and the elven archer and guide made it across with little worries, however, the follower of Morr put a leg through the ice sheet on the crossing. Both the human and dragonborn, who outweighed any two of the half-elves together did not feel it was a good idea to cross here. The party split, with the three half-elves following the trail into the woods on the north bank of the river. The dragon born and disciple continued to follow the cart tracks to they hoped would be a bridge over the river. Three half-elves, make a whole? Following the path of the skaven through the woods for another half hour, the group comes upon a clearing. The archer and guide see a glint of metal high up in a tree on the other side. As they scramble sideways to outflank the glint and get a better vantage point; a crossbow bolt tears through the wind to embed itself in the follower of Morr. The archer and guide return fire and both strike true of the skaven in a tree. The skaven now reassessing its odds, leaps out of the tree into another tree nocking snow from branches and disappears. Causing the group to slow up and apply caution to avoid another ambush. Tracking in the snow is advantaged, to say the least, and a blood drop stands out even better. The group follows true and is lead to the mouth of another cave. The sign’s of life near the cave show at least eight different tracks of other skaven making this area home recently. More than an hour after splitting the archer agrees to go back and try to relocate the rest of the group; while the guide and follower camp out the entrance. A dragonborn and a short human! Walking and following the trail made by the cart, the dragonborn and human find themselves emerging from the woods onto a trail heading east-west. The cart came from the west, so they follow along the road for about a half hour, when they find a road sign for Deep Bank a town up the road. They also press on, realizing that the road has now left the river behind as it travels through the pine forest. Another hour and they come across a traveler, with horse and wagon. Quick pleasantries are exchanged as he keeps the horse edged away from the dragonborn. Revealed are two things, first of which is that he is heading to the Dead Raven with a shipment of ale. Secondly the only other visitor he has seen this trip was a Large 6-point Buck. They strolled further yet until the carts tracks pull away from the path and heads south into the woods. Keeping with the cart, it stops a few hundred feet off the path in a denser grove of trees. And the Skaven footprints showed coming and going on foot into the grove. They push deeper into the thicket and find where several body sized imprints were left in the snow. Looking at the footprints in the snow, a few things are noticed. First, the Skaven footprints came into this area and left four times. Each of these times the led to an area that the body sized imprint was found. Second, the very large set of tracks entered from the other side of the thicket, these were larger than a human would leave. That track walked along the line of the bodies and seemed to have a staff or crutch of some kind. Third, when the large set of tracks left, the for body sized imprints all had tracks leaving with the large footsteps. These last four tracks drug their feet a bit, making a much more noticeable trail in the snow. The dragon born and the human fall back from the grove to the road, where a while later they met up with the Archer. Having a hard time with language, they head back to the river. The merging of minds As the Archer retraces her steps back to the river, they find the water had warmed to the point the river was now flowing dead center. It was also around this time the other half-elves had backtracked due to the lateness of the day to the river as well. Without an easy way to cross the river, the guide indicated back in the direction of pine grove there was a bridge. Both groups on disparaging banks walk back toward the town and find the bridge. They complete the short walk from there to town and go back to the Dead Raven tavern as the sun starts to set for the day. It is here that they make introductions of the three groups formally having worked and traveled together the last few days. The guide being able to speak Elven Sylvan tongue with the other half-elves, the Argosian language with the Dragonborn and Human, and Draconic with the Tiefling and Dragonborn. Thus, they learned each other’s names. As the night comes in, the group broke up to go to bed. All except Hellah the Archer who was intrigued by the noblewoman. Hellah went to the bar and ordered another drink. She then sat far enough away, but within a strained ear, from the noblewoman's table to listen and observer her from afar.