After traveling for a few hours, Ahlonna and Zenig spotted a thin plume of smoke to the west; the ranger corps figured it was from a medium-sized fire about a mile away. Zenig went invisible and flew off for a closer look.
He found a charred circle in the grass, about 60' radius, that seemed to be from some sort of grass fire. Zenig flew lower to get a better look and saw a lot of either stakes or spears stuck into the groud. There was a pyre still burning in the center of the circle, and it appeared to the be remnant of a much larger fire.
The grass around the circle was about 4' tall, so he buzzed a clump of it and found a few people crouching in the grass. They heard him go by and drew bows but couldn't target him. Zenig performed the same maneuver elsewhere in the circle and found another cluster of people and horses. And he did it again, this time finding another pair of horses lying in the grass. A shrill bird sound came from the grass. Zenig made some noise and brushed some grass near the NW edge of the circle to make a false trail; a burst of arrows came his way, and he left the scene.
Zenig reported back and the party spent some time deciding what to do. They eventually decided the would-be amushers would probably send scouts out to locate the party, so they'd try hiding and capturing the scouts when they showed. The party began hearing various animal sounds, which Ahlonna and Meldrim recognized as noises bandits use when coordinating an ambush. They couldn't get a fix on the sources (Stealth vs. Sense in the tall grass is hard on the Sensers), so Beeel decided a more active approach was called for. Zenig (who was still invis) flew around to look for bandits, Meldrim and Thorongil stay put and hid, and the others moved off a ways.
Meldrim heard and then spotted a scout (guy with shortbow in leather armor and dirty clothes, doing tracking-type stuff like checking out horse dung) sneaking into the area where the party had just been. Meldrim shot him with a paralytic arrow and tied him up.
Nearby, Zenig swooped down on someone in the grass (and missed). As various party members converged on the area (except Ahlonna, who'd heard Meldrim's activity and was moving to check it out), Zenig's target stood up, blew a whistle, and started screaming about harpies. A longbow archer popped out of the grass and fired at Zenig and sounded a retreat (with instructions to "meet at the nest"). More PCs arrived on the scene.
- Whistler:
- "Harpy! Knight! Halfling! Elf! We're being attacked by... I SURRENDER!"
- Archer:
- "Biggs! For crying out loud, you haven't even taken damage yet."
- Whistler:
- "I don't care, I surrender anyway! I SURRENDER!"
Thorongil started doing subdual damage on the archer, who realized he was outmatched and also surrendered. Some distance away, a woman in a green jumpsuit floated up out of the grass and prepared to quaff a potion, but Ahlonna and Meldrim, who'd been stalking her, shattered the potion bottle with sling stones, and she also surrendered. A bit less than half a mile away, about a dozen horses and riders rose out of the grass and got the hell out of there.
- Whistler:
- "THEY CAN'T LEAVE US BEHIND! THEY SAID WE STAND TOGETHER, WE FALL TOGETHER. THIS ISN'T FAIR!"
- Beeel:
- "Who said that?"
- Lorcan:
- "Someone who was smart enough not to believe it."
When the surrendered folks started asking who the leader was, Ahlonna pointed to Lorcan, who introduced himself as "Lorcan Saxe-Marek, Cardinal-Archbishop of Nuket in Sheepy Magna and Missionary of Wom." The woman in the jumpsuit said she was Asquif, a flute-player (though her name turned out to be Vajan), and the panicking whistler was her younger brother Biggs (who couldn't remember Vajan's alias). The archer and the scout never gave names, though the archer admitted to being from the Circular City.
The ensuing conversation was pretty muddy, but eventually (with some prodding from Meldrim, who'd gotten an esense lock on the archer [and on Biggs, who really was the moron he acted like]), something resembling a story came together. Some time ago, this group had started taking some sort of action against the followers of the Face of Chaos (Vajan claimed to be scared of taking on the Face, while the archer considered it to be a noble quest). Shortly afterword, a kensai named Shatru joined up, after trouncing all their best fighters. Nobody spilled anything about what the group had been doing with respect to the Face (the archer even kept it out of his surface thoughts), but it had been enough to attract attention. The day before their encounter with the party, Shatru passed on a rumor about a group of goblins escorting a big treasure, so they went out after it, leaving Shatru and some new recruits to guard their camp. Turned out there was no treasure, and when they got back, Shatru was gone and everyone else has been turned into zombies (who they'd killed and then burned in the fire Zenig saw). The archer suspected that Korda had coordinated the attack -- one of the guard dogs was found was a black arrow, Korda's signature, in its carcass.
- Vajan:
- "Truth to tell, we are very fortunate that you came upon us. It is clear that you are Heroes, and that we will be safe with you."
- Biggs:
- "Wait! I thought we are supposed to try to escape?"
- Archer's surface thought:
- "I should have shot Biggs..."
According to the archer, the Face of Chaos came from the desert on a "mission of destruction" with a pile of insane followers, and said Face is based in the same ruins Meldrim's sources indicated. The followers had dice they'd roll, trying to get "lucky numbers" to give them power on dangerous missions; the archer didn't believe these actually did anything, but it didn't have the aura of an informed opinion. ("Everyone knows you can't get anything that way.")
Vajan noted that there was a druid called Jute associated with the Face. But she'd also heard from Shatru that Tiger was an unsung hero of the people who was the only real chance to stop the Face -- "Reformed from his dark roots, he has taken refuge with the druids and gathered boons that unleashed the powerful hidden animal energies within." -- so some of her information seems less than entirely reliable.
Meanwhile, Ahlonna went out and snagged the would-be ambushers' horses. Vajan had named hers Asmodeus, and she wasn't happy to see it being so friendly to Ahlonna...and Thorongil...and Frankel. When asked, Vajan said she'd received the horse as a gift.
- Ahlonna:
- "I'd rather ride Brandobaris than Asmodeus anyways."
- Vajan:
- "Brandobaris? Hmph. Asmodeus is way more powerful."
- Ahlonna:
- "Who's Asmodeus?"
- Vajan:
- "Asmodeus is the God of Rulership. He's the King of All the Gods."
- Ahlonna:
- "Ah, some human deity."
- Vajan:
- "No, I think Asmodeus is the king of all of the deities. Even Brandobaris has to pay homage to Asmodeus."
- Ahlonna:
- "Oh yes, I think I've heard of Asmodeus. You should hear the story of how Brandobaris stole his rod. It loses something in the translation to common though..."
- Biggs:
- "Brandobaris is a cool god. He steals all kinds of stuff. One day, I'm going to go adventuring with Brandobaris."
- Matt:
- "Maybe he is now." :)
Zenig came back from another scouting flight, causing Biggs to freak, babble about getting charmed and level-drained by the harpy's kiss (especially frightening for a poor first-level NPC), warn Zenig not to start singing, and blow frantically on his whistle.
- Beeel:
- "You like that whistle, don't you."
- Biggs:
- "It's magical."
- Beeel:
- "It magically annoys people?"
- Biggs:
- "It's Magic. I traded my magic axe for it so it must be very powerful. Oh please, let me go! I don't want to become a harpy!"
- Beeel:
- "If you don't stop blowing your magical whistle, I'm going to have to take it away from you. Forever."
- Frankel:
- "I can teach you how not to become a harpy. But you will have to apply yourself. First, you must strive intently to become a good person... You must not run from fear... You must accept what you don't understand... And if I tell you that this is a friend of ours and NOT A HARPY!!!!! you have to believe me. Okay?"
- Zenig:
- "What's a harpy?"
The scout mentioned that most of the tracks from the attack on the band's camp led south, but some of them led north. They'd been waiting to see if Korda was going to circle back for the rest of them, and now he was worried about her catching up with them. Meldrim thought it might be worth taking a shot at Korda, but since nobody had any sort of plan for handling Korda's return, the party decide to move to a small wood the scout knew to plan their next move. (The scout had been there a few days previously to retrieve some items he'd cached there; he said there had been some goblins there but the area had been cleaned out.) The archer asked around for healing (he claimed to be down to 3hp) but didn't get any.
- Lorcan:
- "What does the whistle do, anyway?"
- Biggs:
- "It's magic. It's a whistle of wishing."
- Lorcan:
- "And what have you been wishing for?"
- Biggs:
- "Well, I was kind of wishing that we'd be rescued by that really powerful and strong and brave and exciting priestess from that Keep out West, and that I'd be able to join her forces and she would see that I'm a hero."
- Vajan:
- "What are you babbling about, Biggs?"
- Biggs:
- "It was a private wish."
- Archer:
- "That's the maniac who brought the Cuthbert back, you moron. She's the cause of this whole mess."
- Lorcan:
- "So, what do you conclude about the whistle?"
- Biggs:
- "It has a long activation time?"
After an eventful few hours, the party reached a clump of about 20 trees nestled among some hills, complete with spring. The rangers went in to scout, Meldrim and Ahlonna were vigilant, and the archer positioned himself to provide covering fire. Zenig saw a greenish humanoid dart into the trees as they approached. The rangers found a troll footprint in the mud by the stream, along with a dead boar. The boar had been shot with an arrow that seemed familiar to Thorongil; something had also taken a bite out of it, but its meat appeared tainted.
- Biggs:
- "HEY GUYS! IS THERE A PROBLEM?"
- Lorcan:
- "Biggs, if you don't be quiet, I shall be VERY ANGRY."
- Biggs:
- "Monsters don't speak common."
- Meldrim:
- "Biggs, the monsters don't have to understand what you're saying. If they hear your voice, they know you're here, so they can come and eat you."
- Biggs:
- "Hmm. I guess that makes sense. They wouldn't have to know what I was saying to know it was me..."
- Lorcan:
- "You're not behaving like a hero. A hero is patient while his friends do their jobs. Everyone has a role to play."
- Biggs makes a loud squawky bird call.
- Vajan:
- "What are you doing, Biggs?"
- Biggs:
- "I was pretending to be a talking bird. Now the heroes down there are safe again. They just think I'm a talking bird. Pretty clever, eh?"
- Meldrim:
- "Monsters eat talking birds too. Monsters eat just about anything that makes loud noises."
- Beeel:
- "You know, part of being a hero is knowing when to fight, and when to remain peaceful; knowing when to charge, and when to retreat; knowing when to speak, and when to shut the fuck up."
- Biggs:
- "I'm very lucky to be getting all this advice. I'll be a hero in no time."
- Beeel:
- "Great. Now is a time to shut the fuck up."
The rangers entered the small wood and came to a large oak tree at its center. Frankel and Zenig each spotted a (different) troll hidden in the tree, while Thorongil spotted that the tree was a very old, very dead, and probably poisoned treant. Thor found the expected troll tracks, plus partially hidden tracks of a soft-booted person with some knowledge of tracks and how to cover them; there was also a 4'-wide burrow leading down into the treant's roots. Oddly, the trolls watched the rangers poke around but took no action.
Ahlonna took a quick ride toward the forest, saw a troll hiding near where the rangers had entered, and reported back to Lorcan and Beeel. This troll was also doing the passive observer thing. The scout was surprised, since he hadn't come across any trolls the day before when he was picking up stuff from his cache. (In retrospect, they were probably there keeping a low profile, and the scout didn't see them.) Vajan wanted Lorcan to fireball the trolls, Meldrim pointed out the dangers of druidic revenge, and Beeel decided to deal with the trolls now and worry about how they got there later. Beeel advanced toward the edge of the forest, Ahlonna readied some oil, and Lorcan, Meldrim, and the archer closed to comfortable bow/wand range.
Meanwhile, the rangers (using Frankel to interpret) were engaging the trolls in conversation, generally getting across their lack of hostile intent and offering to help with whatever problem was going on.
- Troll 1: [all conversation in trollish]
- "One day, we will catch up with you, and eat you. But not today."
- Troll 2: [chuckling]
- "Today is your lucky day."
- Frankel: [no longer translating]
- "We ask what is wrong and you respond with threats?"
- Troll 1:
- "We are not threatening... just promising future pain."
- Frankel:
- "We seek she who has poisoned you. Where went she?"
- Troll 1: [laughing]
- "Poisoned? I think not."
- Trool 2:
- "Are you leaving this place now?"
- Beeel: [w.c., shouting from outside the grove]
- "There's a troll watching silently from the trees above where you went into the forest."
- [Sounds of a troll yelling...]
- Beeel: [w.c.]
- "Now it's charging us, so we'll kill it."
- Frankel:
- "Oh, bloody hell!"
Frankel broke off the conversation and moved out toward Beeel.
- Troll 1:
- "And don't come back!"
- Frankel:
- "Why? You don't want me for supper anymore? Lost a taste for centaur? Become vegetarian?"
- Troll 2:
- "Your insults sting us, but we are under orders not to move. We will take care of you someday, horsey boy."
Outside, Beeel was parrying, the archers were firing, Ahlonna was chucking flasks of oil, and Lorcan was discovering that his wand does a single electric arc with no save. Frankel arrived and ignited the oil-soaked troll with his fire knife, earning a rant from the troll about being "Jagrmund's finest daughter" and a flurry of incoming attacks. The troll was dropped without major incident, but while everyone's attention was focused on the combat, Vajan, Biggs, and the scout snuck off.
Back in the wood, one of the trolls decided that since there was a fight going on, chewing on Zenig wouldn't really violate its orders; Zenig flew into the trees for a pre-emptive charging coutnerstrike with Eluna, and a ranger vs. troll melee started as the home team's roster swelled to half a dozen.
All of the local trolls turned out to have max hit points, and while Thorongil was able to hold his own against a pair of them, Zenig was getting mauled in his treetop duel. Frankel and Beeel got back to the central tree just in time to see Zenig go weekly from a troll hit and die after falling from his branch.