The latest session was a bit undermanned with both Angelo's and Thrallmar's players not being able to attend the game, but we did what we could with the players we got.
Roster for the session thus only included:
Blue, a lvl.1 magic-user, and his charmed follower Dylan.
Claude, a lvl.1 fighter.
The party picked up from where we last left off, having recovered some goods from a corpse impaled upon a tree branch several metres up in the air.
Since this encounter was mostly handled last session, the party decided to now change course towards the perceived middle point of the hex map.
Going forwards, the greens of the spruces that were now blocking most of the light from shining all the way down to the ground level were starting to thin out, and soon they started seeing thin and delicate white strands running between and along the brances. Spider webs.
Spider Territory
By the looks of it the webs continued and got more dense deeper into the area, and occasionally these beautifully aquamarine pinecone-sized spiders could be seen scurrying around the webbings and the ground.
Blue and Claude did the only logical thing that someone who's wandered into spider-inhabited area would and tried to hunt down these spiders to increase the rations available for the group in the case the spiders would prove edible. After taking some time to gather up and kill some spiders the two decided to head back the way they had come as they didn't want to push any further towards the spider territory.
This backtracking however did not quite go as planned. The further back they tried to go the denser and denser the forest got up to the point that the trees were practically huddled together close enough that advancing any further would have required chopping them down.
Weighing their options, Blue suggested trying to latch their grappling hook up on one of the large pine trees in order to climb up and get a better look at the surrounding terrain.
Claude climbing up helped the two map out the rough shapes of some of the nearby terrain features, including the spider's nest that was much larger than they had initially anticipated. They also noted down a rough location of a clear patch in the forest north west of their location and some sort of rise in the terrain towards east. There was seemingly no end to the forest when looking eastwards.
After Claude got down from his vantage point the party decided to rather head north towards where they would have ended up had they not changed their course since their path back was blocked.
Wolves?
What ended up interrupting their trek northward was happening upon four wolves laying on the ground, dead. Making this even more peculiar was the fact that the wolves seemed as if they were wearing deer skins. Either that or someone had adorned them with the skins after their death.
Stepping up to inspect the the corpses, a faint rustling could be heard somewhere further away, concealed by the trees and lack of light.
Checking the corpses they seemed to have died of puncture wounds not unlike bite marks or those inflicted by large nails or a dagger. Suspecting a spider attack the party wanted to take a better look at the wounds to look for traces of spider venom or corrosion, but nothing of such nature could be found. Inspecting the mouths of these wolves indicated that they had likely been fighting something with blood and small pieces of flesh lodged between their teeth, and looking around the surrounding terrain the amount of tracks and disturbed bushes supported this theory.
More rustling from the distant woods reminded the two that there was something else going on here than simply the wolves and Blue chose to cast Light where he had heard the sound.
What could be seen were the backs of a deer and some sort of naked human with the upper part of a crow running away from the sudden source of light on all fours.
Deciding to keep moving, the party headed deeper into the forest.
Other Happenings
The exploration went without too many setbacks for the last few hours of the day. Happening upon a field of strange oily moss growing around some tall pines from around which their bark had been peeled off and runes had been carved upon their pale, bare trunks.
Wanting a rubbing made of the runes of the trunks for studying them later, candle wax was employed to plug Claude's nose as he carefully walked into the mossy field, spores shooting up from the moss on every step.
After acquiring a rubbing of some of the runes they heard more noises coming again from somewhere beyond their vision. They tried calling out to whatever was making the noise but all they got back was few sharp barks.
Blue sacrificed one of his rations, tossing it somewhere between the woods where this barking had come from and a little later a less hostile set of barks could be heard.
Seeing as the sun was setting down, they decided to make camp for the night.
The Following Day
The night passed almost pleasantly without any incidents, and the party was back to exploring the woods.
Heading deeper still they party came upon a grove of pines blocking out the sun in it's entirety, leaving nothing but shades of grey to be perceived. Off in the distance a cliff-face running from north to south with a large vertical crack in it like the opening of a scabbard.
Approaching this crack revealed it to be a cave heading deeper into the rock face, and lighting a lantern revealed glittering pile of chunks of gold at the end into which Claude shot an arrow to make sure it wasn't any sort of illusion or trick of the light.
What ensued upon the arrow hitting the pile of gold was the party realising that it wasn't so much a pile of gold as chunks of gold wrapped almost like a cocoon over the lower half of a giant larva as the creature started to slowly writhe around and click it's jaws.
It however was no match for it's small and nimble adversaries as they pelted it with arrows and sling bullets, and just after the creature had gathered enough momentum to separate itself from the back wall of this small cavern against which it had been resting it collapsed dead with gross white puss driping from the many arrow wounds.
The next hour was spent trying to pull the body of this giant larva out of the cave where it had died as it was blocking the looting process being stuck there.
Apart from the chunks of gold used to built what had perhaps been a defensive layer around the creature's body, a gold vein could be seen glimmering at the back of the cave. The party stuffed their packs, sacks, pockets and whatever else they could move the gold in and prepared to head back to Talen.
The Way Back
Backtracking the way they had come to where the oily moss had been found and further back to to wolf bodies wearing deer skins, Angelo was asked to cast Detect Magic to determine wether the skins were magical or not, which they totally were so they too got stuffed into the packs to be taken back to the village.
Continuing to head back they happened upon a somewhat clear patch of the woods where most of the plantlife was dead and the trees themselved had died still standing. Black handprints dragged along the dead trees, looking almost as if they'd been burned there. This devastation continued in two ways, and judging from the handprints it was heading deeper into the forest from some outer part.
After a short discussion on how to proceed, it was decided that the party would follow along the way this trail seemed to have been coming from.
What they arrived upon was a large open and dead field with more dead but still standing trees. Far off in the distance the edge of a sudden drop into some sort of a valley could be seen.
The party decided to keep heading out of the forest rather than investigating further. On their way out they ran into some sort of a cave entrance much akin to a badger hole but only large enough for them to walk in, the area surrounding the entrance was picked clean of any fallen leaves or twigs and looked almost tended to.
Still of the mind to get out of the forest with their treasure and the daylight slowly running out on them they kept pushing on, ever closer to the village sitting by the edge of the forest.
As it was getting closer to night time they found themselves at another large opening, only this one was filled with stones of irregular shapes and the size of a small baby or a man's head in what was almost like an imitiation of human farmland, like someone was trying to farm rocks here.
With the sun now rapidly sinking beneath the horizon they set up camp next to the field.
Nightly Encounter
It was on Angelo's and Thrallmar's watch that Thrallmar noticed several low silhouettes silently creeping towards the camp over the rocky field, clearly trying to stay as close to the ground as they could. The dwarf did the one thing he does best and let out a shot at them, waking the rest of the camp in doing so.
What ensued was a frantic combat of teeth and claws against bows, steel and magic as these figures started charging the campsite.
Blue got off a Light spell on one of the assailants which gave everyone a good look of what they were about to fight as the light revealed four wolves running at them on their hind legs, two of them wearing patchwork skins of humans that ended up in large crow heads, one of them had a deer skin with it's antlers still there draped over it's back and the last one was wearing the pelt of another wolf over it's back like some sort of grotesque cloack.
The party got few hits in with their bows and sligs as the wolves charged forwards through the barren field with no cover to be found.
As they got closer Blue set up a way for everyone to climb up a tree to safety with his grappling hook and was the first up there along with Thrallmar who had had no means of attacking as the wolves had advanced on the party since his one pistol shot had been spent.
In the ensuing melee Angelo got bitten badly and fell to the ground unconscious, Dylan died while trying to help Claude fend off several of the wolves which he was somehow managing with the help of Blue's Light spell blinding all but one of them.
Eventually the wolves got pushed back as the only one not blinded decided that it was too wounded to continue and let out a loud howl before running away on all fours, but not before absolutely trashing Claude's leg, forcing him to defy death.
The other three blinded wolves still scrambling about trying to make their retreat, the party quickly packed the camp while avoiding them and decided to leg it out of there.
The Aftermath
After getting out of the deeper part of the forest it again opened up to a mixed woodland with trees growing considerably less dense. The group had no idea where the witch's house from where they had entered into this denser woods despite the children's warnings was in relation to yourselves.
With packs, pockets and hands filled with gold they struggled out of the forest despite Claude's mangled foot and having to help Angelo to hobble forwards.
In this sorry state, the journey back to Talen was one of wandering the forest somewhat aimlessly, having only the vague direction of the nearby village to go by.
Towards the latter half of a third day spend limping back through the less dangerous parts of the forest, the party finally pushed their way out of the treeline and to the already familiar sight of the small and peaceful village of Talen.
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