Session 1-12: History is a Bear

General Summary

Year 116 on Firthtag the 19th day of Kalt

Somewhere North of Pearford. Carilius and Tycone make their way quickly on the stolen horses to the campsite from last night. the fire pit still smoldering a bit. They notice tracks all around and through the camp, It would appear that the campsite was found and searched since last night. Pushing away from the camp, the two turn and move toward the mountains. As they follow the mountain looking for a place to rest safely they see movement in the hills. Something or someone is following them and every once in awhile minor noises are made, like rocks falling. After a bit Tycone sees the source, a goblin. Tycone calls out to the goblin in Gak. A short conversation with the goblin is had. Tycone is looking for shelter to rest, claiming to be a great warrior and he is protecting the goblins from the road wardens who have been killing them. The goblins have had no issues with the wardens however the goblin tells of a bear which has been an issue. Tycone agrees to kill the bear to rescue the goblins and as such is escorted to the goblin encampment. In a second meeting at the village with the leader of the goblins Zrel and his advisor Klek; Tycone again tells of his warrior prowess and that he will vanquish the bear for them in exchange for shelter. The deal is struck. The Bear A goblin named Blazz escorts Tycone and Carilius further into the mountain along the river, after an hour or two the are up above the river fifty feet on a trail next to a cave. Inside is the home of Deadlock the Bear. Blazz, stays back as Tycone and Carilius move forward. Tycone belches out his flaming breath on the sleeping bear, alerting it to his presence, but not much else. The bear comes to life, it stands, rotates, and charges at Tycone. The bear is old and large, very large in fact, a good 12 feet from tip to stern; which has no noticeable effect. The massive black bear speeds up faster than a man could run, planting itself in front of Tycone and lets out a giant roar. Tycone tries to retaliate but his blow bounces off the thick hide of the beast of a bear. Standing up on its hind legs the bear towers over Tycone and paws at the large dragonborn as a cat with a mouse. Smack, Swipe, Bite. Tycone falls down. Carilius has seen Tycone fight a lot, but never has the big man been so dwarfed, and so quickly bested. As the bear tilts its head back to roar again, Carilius grabs Tycone's unconscious body and throws himself off the cliff dragging Tycone with him to the relative safety of the water below. Icy, Cold, Rushing water. A better option that the maw of the angry bear. Over the rushing of the water as Carilius attempts to keep Tycones head above water, and his own, he hears the laughter of the goblin Blazz still up on the cliff, following them as the water washes the two downstream. At least once Carilius loses the dragonborn for a cold second, as he struggles to make his way to the shore. A minute, two, no three later he finds land again under his feet and Carilius drags Tycone up onto the river's bank. A least a mile down from where he threw himself off the cliff. Carilius rushes to stabilize the dragonborn, but is unable to wake him, and being able to do nothing else, drags his friend slowly back to the goblins encampment. There Blazz tells the epic failure of a battle to all the goblins who enjoy a good laugh at Tycons expense. The leader Zrel has a runt of a goblin named Glegrut take Tycone back to a tent owned by Klek Skullgazer who patches him up for a rest. Carilius talks through Blazz who speaks limited Argosian for a short while with the goblins before he also turns in for a rest, paid for with the stolen horses the goblins agree to keep them safe while they rest. Back at the Undermill Pub Malor and Sodryn stay out to talk with Griffin while Sypha, Rave, and Hella retreat back to Sypha's room. Sypha tells Hellah she has a plan to allow Hellah to look around a bit in town, without breaking the house arrest that they are under. With that Sypha turns Hellah invisible. "This lasts for an hour, so be back prior to that." Sypha, however, complains of being unwell and says she is going to turn in. Raven perches on the footboard of the bed keeping watch as Hellah leaves. Hellah slips out the side door of the pub and starts poking around. First the stables and then nearby buildings. Nothing seems out of place and no sign of the road wardens lurking nearby. As she looks for a new target to search, Hellah hears the dogs start barking again. Looking out Hellah sees a couple of road wardens riding into town, this time its the leader of the road wardens Garth, wearing his antlered helm, with one other. While he dismounts his horse in front of the pub, Hellah sneaks back through the stables, and into the pub. Still, invisible Hellah makes it into the room, before the wardens. She sees Garth is forced to bend his head to enter the Undermill Pub not taking of the helm, which would be the polite thing to do. Garth scans the room as his eyes adjust to the lower lighting level, and sees Sodryn and Malor, at a nearby table. His eyes focus on Sodryn whom he had an altercation with four days back along with her companion a dragonborn. Then Garth sees Griffin looking him down. Garth and Griffin meet at the bar, away from Sodryn and Malor. Hellah slips up to eavesdrop on their conversation while she is still invisible. Garth and Griffin get into a small debate on jurisdiction over the outsiders. Garth claims these are known accomplices of the "Dragon Man" that is wanted in connection with the death of two of his wardens just outside of the Hamlet proper but at a farm governed by Pearford. Griffin holds that they have already been put on arrest for crimes of trespassing and vandalism and are awaiting an arbitrator from Pine Grove to settle these matters. Griffin would be happy to include the road wardens case into the mix as soon as the Arbitor arrives from Pine Grove in a few days. As Garth could produce no hard evidence of the Dragon Mans guilt, at this time to Griffin; nor was the Dragon Man even here, Garth was rebutted and forced to stand down. Garth ended the conversation stating that two of his men are following the trail of the Dragon Man and his ally an Imp. That they will have them in custody soon; Then the truth will come out. With that the road warden turns to storm out, stopping to bed low through the doorway to get his antlered helmet out again. After the horse bore Garth out of the hamlet, Griffin stood to leave giving Malor and Sodryn a final warning. "Stay put until I can sort this out, I can not protect you outside." He then left for another unknown business matter. Hellah, after the spell wears off, joins Malor and Sodryn as they try to figure out their next steps. Votes seem to fall mainly on waiting until evening to see if the bell tolls again, if the town is again ensorcelled, they can continue to investigate uninhibited by the house arrest. That afternoon, back at the Undermill Pub The four women and Malor make their way back to the pub's main room. During dinner, Hellah strikes up a conversation in Gak with the Orc Cook, Atznox. Nox, however, had food to prep and dishes to clean so had to go. Hellah offers to help Nox clean the dishes and goes with him, back to the kitchen to talk. Nox and Hellah cook and clean together as Hellah asks him about how he came to the valley, his time in the army, and the battle of five years ago. The battle of Pearford where the army of the orc warlord meet the human resistance and wiped each other out. The following was learned over the next hour or two:

Nox was the cook for the Orc and Goblin Warband.
Nox did not fight in the battle, he was a cook and stayed back behind.
The Orc in charge of the Warband was named Woggug SkullCrusher.
Roni took him in after the battle, let him cook for her.
Nox really like Roni and protects her, as well as cooks for her.
The Warlord Woggug SkullCrusher rode a bear, called Deadlock.
That Woggug, never came home from the battle, but his bear did, still saddled.
Woggug had a sword with a green gem in the hilt, he did not see if it was on the bear.
Deadlock and Nox got along okay, but only because he feed scraps to Deadlock.
Some of the goblins from the battle live north of Pearford.
A few of the goblins fought, but many were in camp with Nox.
The goblins have complained about Deadlock to him, they may know how to find him.
One goblin Blazz sells him meat almost every day, mostly rabbit.
Today Blazz did not come by.
Last night someone broke into his kitchen and trashed the place.
Tonight Noz is setting a trap, if they come back today.
This town did not like him at first, or the goblins.
They (the town) like his cooking, so now like him.
Some of the old farmers in the town fought in the battle.
One of them, he not know which one killed his Warboss.
He is not sure of who did kill the Warboss, but Roni would know.

Hellah finished up with helping Nox and found Roni tending the bar. Hellah asked some additional questions of Roni:

There were three Heros of the Battle of Pearford five years ago.
The first is Hayden Nevin, who was said to have killed the Orc Warlord.
Hayden does not come into town anymore, after the battle his wife Doris got sick and died.
Hayden lives on the far northern edge of the town near the mountains.
Since his Wife died Nevin stopped farming his land; and only takes visits from his war buddies Fin and Jasper.
The second is Fin Jackman, who was said to have kept the Orc's bear busy, so Nevin could kill the Orc Warlord.
Fin lives to the south of the Hamlet about half an hour away.
The Third was named Jasper Foster, the battle took place on his farm just southwest of town.
Jasper's son Lukas died, trying to fight beside his dad in the same battle. The Orc Warlord cut him down with his sword in front of Jasper.
The dead orcs of the battle were burned to remove them from the land, Jaspers old farm was destroyed in the battle, a new one was built by the villagers of the hamlet closer to the house.
Jasper's wife Nena died last year, she had gotten sick.
Jasper died yesterday night and was interred today. He is survived by his daughter Jasmine.

Nightfall in the Pub Malor watched from the second-floor windows. The time of night that the bell rang yesterday was fast approaching. Looking out he had visibility of a lot of the countryside. On a hill to the northeast of the Hamlet motion caught his eye. There a man wearing robes and four road wardens on horseback met. It was too far away to hear, or tell what they talked about. The cloaked figure starts walking around the hilltop, arms making arcane like gestures as he moved, while the wardens sat upon there steeds. As the cloaked figure finished his movement some 10 minutes later, Malor felt the odd sensation of a planer gateway nearby. Then there was a ghostly siege engine atop the hill. Big like a trebuchet, but inside the frame was not a throwing arm, but it instead held suspended a giant bell. Hellah recalled a story from the early war of a giant bell that was weaponized and used to besiege cities. It had however been destroyed decades ago. That aside, the focus returned on the figure in the robes atop the hill. The robed figure hit the bell with a large maul sending the toll of the bell across the valley. The horsemen and there mounts seem to not care about the bells sound. the cloaked figure, however, starts more arcane gestures and dances around the bell some more, twirling with the maul in a whirling dervish sort of way. At the end of about fifteen minutes, he strikes the siege bell twice more. A blast of light shoots up from the earth under the bell; As if a great light was underground below the hill and the hill had been ripped asunder by the bells tolling. As the bright light intensifies and the crack seems to grow larger, smoke or fog pours up changing how the lights dance on the siege engine from below. Then one, two... three and four steaks of ghostly energy fly up out of the crack as if escaping hell itself. They twist and rotate in an unlucky widdershins direction, they spin down into the fog and are lost from sight. This is enough to get the group moving. As they come downstairs and into the Pub, they find it empty of any people, the front door open. Movement is seen on the street as zombie-like residents of the hamlet move past the door. The group enters the kitchen. Disarming a trap of flour propped over the door, they head out the back. Upon looking out the group makes out the fog cloud on top of the hill, and walking out of the fog a number of lights, like would be seen from a lantern bobbing around moving away from the hill. The group drops down the bank of the river and heads south until the reach the backside of the Hamlet. Then cut out over the farm fields with intent to make their way to the north, to find Nevin's farm. The path out of Pearford Trying to avoid anyone looking for the group, they stealth past a barn to hide from some of the lantern lights moving across the fields. Then with no warning, the group is attacked by an electrical discharge of some kind. Then two floating orbs of light appear in front of the group. One of the electrical charges hits Sodryn the other Sypha. The group retaliates fighting off their odd orb enemy. Sypha is hurt from the attacks and Raven leaps to action, no weapon at hand she simply makes hissing and beastly noises at the orb of light as if trying to scare off a wild dog. The orb lashes out at Raven, a view would see the electrical charge arching as it running up and down her body. The damage too great the arc jumps to Sypha as Raven poofs into a smoke form. Then the Raven, a bird once more fly's circles around the orb as the battle continues. Within a few seconds more, the group stabs life from the first orb. Shortly after they do the same to the last orb. Sypha looking really rough sits down on the ground with all the grace of an orc. The bird form of Raven lands on the Djimbe that her human form had been carrying before the battle. The robe Raven was wearing is also in a heap on the ground where she was struck down. End of Session...