Scout the Grblin camp near Marshfork

Dryali and Tahu, ever restless, talked to Arnari about interesting missions.  Her list for just the two of them was

• House Aldous is still looking for hippogryph eggs
• The Children of Āhua in Mantzur were still getting attacked by mean dryads.
• You could try again to track down Jamie

Arnari hesitated.  "There's Marshfork… but it's just the two of you.  You could search for the grblin camp."

Tahu had Questions on Marshfork.  Perhaps only one:  "What is the ultimate goal?"  Arnari was matter-of-fact in her answer.. "A, find the camp; B, wipe them out; C, find their headquarters; D, wipe them out."

Tahu loved this!  "Okay, let's do that!"  Dryali was more cautious:  "This will need more people, will you supply us with sending stones?"  Arnari's thinking was way ahead of Dryali.  "I'll send a team after you.  They can meet up with you in Marshfork once you are back from scouting.

"When you get there, talk to Casimir Lightforger, the Mayor of Marshfork."

They left Arnari and took thought as to their travel arrangements.  Dryali wanted to go to one of the markets or to Dock District, and perhaps offer to guard a wagon or caravan heading back to Marshfork.  Tahu was of the opinion that would be slower.  They decided to just go there; the 5 days they had to camp near the road, Dryali would use the alarm spell, so they wouldn't need to set a watch.

It was an ambitious schedule, walking to Marshfork in 8 days, assuming nothing would interfere, but nothing did; the alarm wasn't even triggered.  The last night on the road before Marshfork, their rest was disturbed by wolf howls.  The next morning, after an hour on the road, they found wolf tracks pacing the road...2, maybe 3 wolves.

When they arrived in Marshfork, they got rooms at The Cantankerous Goose inn, which was doing brisk business because of the cross-skylith trade, including that between Hindmarsh and Stormhaven.  They sought out Casimir Lightforger, a male human, who invited them to dine with him and his wife, Estril.   "Eat with me, and we'll discuss business."

The Mayor told Tahu and Dryali he'd pay for their stay at the inn for the duration.  Then they discussed the circumstances.  Grblins on wolves, the Mayor said, were coming from the north, between the Brother rivers.  They were attacking travellers on the road both east and west of Marshfork proper.

In response to Tahu's and Dryali's questions, he told them they'd not seen any badges on the grblins, but the town guard hadn't killed any, either.  The town guard, he explained, was not a robust enough force to defend the town and the nearby roads.

The next morning, they picked up some fishing tackle, with an extra, shorter pole for Dryali, for 1gp and 2sp, and headed north along the western bank of the Big Brother river.  Unfortunately, Duquesne had run into a fairly large weather system and it was poor fishing weather, windy with the rain spitting into their faces.  That didn't seem to deter fishermen on boats in the middle of the river.

As they headed north, they saw scattered groves of trees, and low hills in the distance.  Well, Dryali couldn't see a damned thing with the rain constantly screwing up his dark goggles.  But after about half the day had gone by, Tahu found wolf tracks, which didn't really go to the water's edge; clearly keeping out of sight of the fishing boats.

They started following the tracks, although Dryali could barely see anything with this rain.  He was cross, as it had flattened his normally spiky hair.  Tahu was not having these problems at all <narrator voice:  because Casey rolled a nat 20> and his hair remained perfect, as usual.

Towards the end of the day, they thought maybe they were getting close, and decided to ford the Big Brother river for their camp, so it was between them and any established grblin camp.  The river was only 3' deep at this point, which was still above Dryali's waist; but when he got to the other side, he saw more wolf tracks, heading south from the ford.

They found a reasonably sheltered place a bit north and away from the river, and camped with no fire.  Dryali set alarm again, but with only mental notification.  It did not go off, but they were awakened twice by wolf howls.  Many were to their west, and later, some were to their south.  They realized they did not know, if grblins were nocturnal.

By the next morning rain had stopped, and they headed back to the ford; but from 100 feet away, they saw a pair of giant badgers on the river!  Not in the mood for a gratuitous fight with wildlife, they waited.  After 10-20 minutes, the badgers washed their faces, and waddled off.

Dryali and Tahu approached the river cautiously, peering at the other side to see what could be seen, which was nothing.  They crossed the ford again, and were rewarded by 4-5 sets of paw prints leading away.  They followed these tracks and came upon the camp in short order.

Tahu had to correct Dryali as they both tried to sneak up to the camp to get the lay of it, but they succeeded in doing so without alerting either the 2 grblins or the sleeping wolf therein.  The camp was in a bunch of trees, with a fire pit dug into the center.  Blankets and bedrolls were scattered about, and there was a flattened part which was clearly meant for the wolves.  The camp only had 1 tent.

The camp had three entrances.  The one Dryali and Tahu were hidden at came from the southeast, and appeared to be the most heavily travelled wrt ingress & egress into the camp.  The least travelled one came from the southwest, and the widest one exited northward.

They concluded the northward path would lead to the grblins' home <narrator voice: because BOTH Casey and Shari rolled a nat 20> and decided they'd learned enough about the camp; they should follow the road north.

After carefully circling the grblin camp to leave its inhabitants none the wiser, Tahu and Dryali took off up the northward road.  Dryali, happy to be able to see and have relatively dry clothes, was in front.

After about half an hour, the path turned eastward, and they encountered a pair of angry elk!  Tahu ran to a tree and climbed it.  Dryali also ran to a tree, but found it too great a challenge to climb, with Duquesne's heavier gravity.  He did his best to hide instead <narrator voice: and Shari rolled a nat 20 for Dryali stealth!  A miracle!>.

The elks saw Tahu and rammed his tree!  Tahu shot one with his light crossbow, yelling, "Leave me alone!"  Dryali tried to climb his tree again but still failed <narrator voice: with disadvantage, Shari rolled a nat 20 and a nat 1> so he cast dancing lights further down the road, in both elks' field of view.

The unhurt elk charged the dancing lights.  The elk Tahu had shot, rammed his tree again.  Tahu shot and killed it.   Dryali finally managed to climb his tree, and moved the dancing lights further away, so the elk charged them again.  This was a fun game, so he kept it up til the elk got bored and wandered off.

Well, now they had a whole elk.  Tahu skinned and butchered it as best he was able, with Dryali providing what guidance he could.  They packed out as much of the meat as possible, as that was better eating than rations.

They followed the path for the rest of the day, and were in the hills before they made camp.  They had a fire this time, and barbeque elk, yum.  They rationalized they'd not encountered any grblins, so it would be fine.

The next day they followed the path even deeper into the hills, but encountered no fauna.  In the afternoon, they emerged from the trees to see the path lead up to a giant leafy tree, with a cave at its roots.  Taking care to stay far away, they scouted around the tree to the east.

Behind the tree, about 100' north of it, was a significant gully in the ground.  Peering over the edge, they saw a stream in the bottom, 100' below; and closer to the tree, a rickety rope bridge crossing the gully. 

They saw no guards, nor wolves; but did see plenty of wolf tracks.  "This seems like what we were looking for," Tahu said.  Dryali agreed, but noted, "The gully seems to go far; we're not sure how extensive this is," indicating the bridge.

Tahu was startled:  "You want to go inside the tree?!"  Dryali told him, "No; I want to see if there's another entrance, maybe on the other side of the gully."

They poked around some more, but the gully was wide and long.  Tahu decided to stealth closer to the tree, but did not feel right going closer than 100'.

They decided to head straight south from the tree to Marshfork, and not stick with the trail, since that would be far shorter.  They put some distance between themselves and the tree before camp.

The next day they continued, keeping eyes open for any more angry elk or unfriendly giant badgers, but they only saw a lone elk, which was not angry.  <narrator voice: and Shari rolled a nat 20 on perception>  On the final day before Marshfork, Dryali saw a giant badger hole that Tahu almost stepped in, and stopped him.  <narrator voice: and Shari rolled a nat 20 on perception, and Casey rolled a 1>

It was after dark when they got to Marshfork, on the eve of the Fulcrum holiday.  Meurig had arrived just a short while earlier, and was at The Cantankerous Goose.

Despite the festival eve, Casimir was happy to see them, and hear their intelligence on the grblin locations.  He paid them each 100gp for their effort, and directed them to a local leatherworker for the elkskin.  It was still in good shape, and the leatherworker paid 20gp for it.

• Tahu → lvl4!