Session 54: Days 21-27 of Planting: Rumors and Rest Before Return to Action

Our weary band of adventurers spent a week in Orlane recovering and bolstering their spirits. Lhoss especially needed to recover from the fear that is instilled by the horrors of the Barrowmaze. As many of the group have formed trusted friendships with townsfolk, they were able to pick up several snippets of information and rumors, including:

• There is a rumor that there are mutated people in the Barrowmaze that enslave humans. There are also undead encroaching on the mist and farmland nearest to the tombs.
• We have been fortunate to be able to travel back and forth between Orlane and the Barrowmaze, since we have learned travel is nearly impossible during the seasons of late fall to early spring. Being on the brink of the season of Violets, even frequent travel should not be too difficult.
• Allen Clayborne expressed his great surprise and distress at learning that we regularly sleep (or attempt to sleep) in the Barrowmaze itself. He warned us that it is far too dangerous a place to spend the night. We balked at traveling 8 hours each way every day, but Allen and his wife informed us that there is a more direct path we could take that would cut the hike down to 4 hours.
• Dorian Llewelyn informed us that through his scouting and adventuring he heard of an elven maiden who had been freed from the Barrowmaze and returned to her clan. We have not encountered other noble adventurers in the tombs, but it is good to hear of others who seem to be engaged in a similar righteous cause.
• We heard a rumor from the land of Furyondy (a great kingdom to the West) that the prince has been kidnapped. The lore is that the lands of Furyondy, Verbobonc, and Veluna (whose people worship St. Cuthbert) banded together and combined armies to defeat the vile temple of Elemental Evil. But it appears that the temple was not destroyed and something was left behind. There is talk that the capture of Furyondy's prince is a counterstrike.
• Whisperings of a strange organizing of hill, stone, frost and fire giants. It is highly unusual for giants of different sorts to work together. There are stories of these giants raiding lands in the West.
• We hear more details about Nerul, the evil presence we have seen represented so much in the Barrowmaze. Apparently, Nerul was previously defeated by his two sons, Set and Orcus. Their followers, the acolytes of Orcus and the necromancers of Set, are bitter enemies who are centered in the Barrowmaze. There is a reward for information about these two groups.
• Lastly, Aramaziti had a possibly prophetic dream that the goblin we most recently encountered in the tomb has moved...

So our group of Ronan, Calbach, Gnorcia, Aramaziti, Adalean, Tatania, Arnd, and Lhoss stocked up on supplies and departed Orlane early on a clear summer morning, day 27 of Planting. 

Allen Clayborne led the group out of town and pointed out the new path we should take. It was clear that we would need to do a fair amount of bushwhacking, so we made a hasty trip back to buy two machetes. Rotating the lead so no two persons get overly exhausted, we spent 5-6 hours cutting through brush. Within another two hours, we were at the outskirts of the Dim Forest, 500 yards from where we had previously descended into the tombs. While this first trip took 8 hours, we can tell future travels will be much shorter.

Returning to the gloom of the Barrowmaze, the party retraced its steps to the place Gnorcia was poisoned. Armaziti suggested we look to see if his dream was true. In fact, the goblin was no longer posted in front of the door. Piercing the unnerving silence that is generally observed, we heard the sounds of battle coming from behind the door. Eager to see if we could lend a hand to what we hoped would be another group of adventurers, we all pressed forward. What we saw was a puzzling sight.

We came up behind a group that seemed to be led by a cross-bred orc. Gnorcia's query of "do you need help?" was met with an annoyed grunt. The group was facing off against combatants that included some zombies, so at first the thought was to fold into their ranks and aid them in the attack. But Armaziti quickly and keenly identified one side as cultists of Set while the other side were followers of Orcus. They were both our enemies! There were already casualties on both sides, but we were in the enviable position of being able to backstab the acolytes of Orcus and lob attacks at the necromancers of Set all while they battled each other. The battle did not take long once we set ourselves to our task. Both enemy groups were quickly defeated with Lhoss falling to a vicious attack from the zombies. She was restored by Aramaziti, but suffered an injury to her right hand that will continue to hamper her in attacks going forward.

Looting of the corpses produced some coins, a spell book, a chain with a skull symbol, and some various, unimpressive armaments. The bodies were tossed into a deep pit that was already the final resting place for some other poor souls. The group decided to retreat to the room of Polis to heal and rememorize spells.