As recorded by Gnorcia:
Lhoss was determined to complete some thief training before traveling to Hochoch. While she was busy preparing for another day of practice and study, the rest of us decided to give up a little sleep and head back to the edge of the Dim Forest at night to see if we could attract and destroy the remaining ghouls that had been harassing farmers in the area.
I tried to convince the others to distract the druid, Niki, so I could kill a small animal and use the blood to attract the ghouls, but she quickly figured out my plan (Jack the cat was probably listening) and put a stop to it. With a big sigh, Feno pulled out a dagger and pricked his finger, dripping and flinging his own blood on everything as we entered the forest. The night was descending quickly and it was mere minutes before we sensed something evil coming toward us from the northwest. It was indeed a pack of ghouls with something even more sinister leading it.
Fear spread across our small group of heroes. I scrambled up a tree and Kyro followed suit. Armatzi and Niki stationed themselves behind the gnarled tree trunks and prepared to attack, but Feno and Chalkboi set themselves in the middle of the path, weapons ready. The ghouls ran straight for the bleeding Feno and only one noticed Armatzi, swiping at him as it passed. Before he was hit, the cleric managed to cast his turn undead spell on the pack's dark leader and called out, aghast at the creature's evil, fishy stench, "It's a ghast!" Jack took one sniff and dove into Niki's backpack.
The rest of us used arrows and darts to attack from a distance, doing some small damage to the horrid creatures. Armatzi cast turn undead again and one ghoul was feared back down the path into the forest, but it wasn't enough to stop Chalkboi from being hit by another. He was immediately frozen by the ghoul's paralytic poison. Feno swiped through one as the rest of us continued our barrage of darts and arrows. Fortunately no one was hit by friendly fire and the injured ghouls screamed horribly as thick blood poured from their wounds.
Once more, Armatzi cast turn undead and the remaining ghouls turned to run. Kyro and I jumped down to help with the chase as Niki cast an entanglement spell, trapping the remaining ghouls in vines. The ghast, however, was merely slowed by the vines and Armatzi determined to destroy it himself. Running around the edge of the entanglement, he scrambled against the forest's thick brush and branches. He even attempted to throw rocks at the ghast, as if somehow he could slow it further.
Feno thought to skip over the entanglement as he attacked a trapped ghast, but got his feet caught in the spell's twining vines. Niki casually strolled right through the vines and smacked down that ghoul, then headed for the last one that was screaming angrily and pawing at the darts sticking out of its rubbery head. Those were my darts and I wanted them back so I leaped over the vines and onto the ghoul's back, but slipped and fell into the mass of greenery. Niki then finished off the final ghoul just as Armatzi and the ghast reached the same point at the vines' perimeter.
Realizing there wasn't time to swing his hammer, Armatzi reached out with the power of the Gauntlet of St. Cuthbert and blasted the ghast with holy light. It crumbled at his feet and even Chalkboi managed to let out a cheer as the paralysis wore off and the vines soon retreated.
Exhausted and covered in the stench of ghouls, we retrieved what darts and arrows we could and headed back to Orlane, stopping only to leave a note on the door at Hans' farmhouse, telling him the ghouls were defeated.
We spent the rest of the week and the next happily enjoying our time with no undead creatures to battle and a joyful summer festival to celebrate. We were a bit too free with our coin and just as freely listened to the tales of too many drunken townsfolk.
Her training complete, Lhoss joined in the celebration and was warned by the townspeople to take great care to avoid altars because they were very dangerous. Armatzi was told to seek the pools in the barrowmaze for safety, and warned that the mutated creatures there would enslave humans. Feno heard that the entrances to the barrowmaze were trapped, while another dismissed the entirety of it, claiming the barrows were just mounded graves and the rest was all folk tales.
I plied stories from a few more folks, learning that they had heard of piles of magical items in the southern crypts, that a powerful evil warrior and his band used the barrowmaze as their hideout, and the oft-repeated story of an elven maiden recently freed from the barrowmaze. I also heard of runic tablets that would curse all who read them, but Niki was told that some runic tablets contain information and not just curses. We nodded and considered our own experiences with runic tablets both helpful and dangerous.
Chalkboi used his story of being paralyzed by ghasts to start conversations with several people who then warned him that tribes of humans live in the barrowmaze along with mutated people who were guarding powerful treasures, and the same story of a powerful evil warrior hiding there with his band. He also had his story dismissed by someone who, again, claimed it was all hogwash and the barrows were nothing but a valley full of old graves.
As the celebrations were winding down on the last day, we gathered together for a meal in the tavern when a short, hooded figure with a long nose poking out from its hood entered the room. It sniffed, then headed straight for our table. We immediately noticed that it smelled more-than-faintly of fish, but this time fish-loving Jack was not afraid and came out to sniff at the hem of its heavy cloak. The creature squawked quietly at the cat and pushed back its hood, revealing a beaked figure in black and white.
"Zraith at your service!" it said. "I have been sent from my brethren in the south to find a cleric known as Armatzi."
All heads turned to Armatzi, who was earnestly breaking up chunks of meat and vegetables in his stew. Sensing the group's silence, he lifted his eyes and recognized the figure before him as a penguin holding a staff in one flipper. Unruffled by the strange welcome, the waddling bird had nothing but attention for Armatzi, and quickly explained that his clan from the south had been experiencing strange visions and sent him as a missionary.
"I am here to accompany you on your journeys for one month," it finished with a snap of its beak, holding its head up at attention. Armatzi paused, then nodded and went back to his stew. We all laughed and welcomed the odd little bird to our party.
The following day, Niki bought a bedroll and Feno borrowed one from Hilja as we packed up our belongings and set out for Hochoch. We stopped to spend the first night with Hans and his family, celebrating the defeat of the ghouls. Days later, on the evening of day four of Reaping (or day four of the elven month of Goldfields, for those who don't know better) at the beginning of high summer, we arrived at Hochoch, exhausted and tired of eating dry rations. We followed the scent of roasting beef and soon found ourselves at the Swift Coin Inn, where we dined on braised beef, soup, and bread, before securing rooms and turning in for a more-comfortable sleep in real beds.
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