Part One - Back into them there hills!

[This part of the story will make more sense once you read the missing pages of the previous week]

After escaping The Sign of The Iron Buttock and relocating to the salubrious establishment known as the Mistress and Crop (M&C), our party hired two rooms and hid out in them for the night.

Bear [Ian] and Dexter [Jamie] slumped onto their beds in a marmalading state while the remainder set up watches (just in case) and tried to get some rest. In one room were Gillard [Kevin], Debbie [Steven], and Myrtle [Andrew], while in the other room were Oliver [Jeff], Tu [Shane], Ouzo [Darryl], Scuttle [Chris], and the two marmalading fighters.

Apart from the boisterous noises from the common room downstairs as the busty serving wenches hurried orders around the patrons and other noises from the private rooms as the various mistresses swung their crops into tender flesh, the night passed relatively peacefully!

In the morning the common room was buzzing with the news that two Halfling bodies were found scattered in the streets overnight. I say scattered because they had literally been torn apart and scattered!

“Shite” muttered Scuttle [Chris], “they likely be your cousins Gillard!”

“Let’s just stay indoors today” stated Gillard [Kevin].

“What about that 6-day escort job to the mines?” queried Oliver [Jeff].

Oliver [Jeff] and Tu [Shane] were promptly dispatched to the mining office to accept the commission and organise bringing the wagon of slaves to the M&C to collect the rest of the party, on the down-low of course. Eight slaves to be safely delivered to the “nearby” mining camp in the foothills of the Oble Ranges, with the empty slave wagon returned in good working order. Two hundred gold pieces per surviving party member (on a pro rata basis if all the slaves do not survive).

“Surviving party member?” queried Ouzo [Darryl], “that doesn’t seem … fair”

Oliver [Jeff] and Tu [Shane] spread a tarpaulin over the slave cage and rumbled up to the rear of the M&C just after breakfast. The tarpaulin extended over the cage and the back deck of the wagon with just enough space for two nervous Halflings (and others) to “shelter” under as Tu [Shane] drove the wagon on through the town, out through the Battle Gate, then off the main road and onto the lessor travelled track heading off towards the mine. The relatively flat plains stretched out ahead of us with the foothills of the Oble Ranges barely visible in the hazy far distance.

“No one appears to be following us at least” noted Myrtle [Andrew] who was peering back along the track towards Tolulene. “Actually, there is no one around anywhere.” she stated.

Scuttle [Chris] showed our image of the missing girl Zara (our original commission in Tolulene – locate the missing daughter of a prominent family, and part of the reason to take the escort job and check out these particular slaves). There were two female Humans in the slave cage, along with two Gnomes and four male Humans. One of the females recognised Zara! She said that she and Zara had both worked at the Slavers Lookout, until she had been sold to the slavers for upsetting the owner.

One of the other slaves in the cage was a small and loquacious Goblin name Dubull. He babbled away at Debbie [Steven] about his wonderful and extremely useful skills at repairing flutes, cooking, fighting, spotting Kobolds, and everything else under the sun.

“Uu be veery bootiful” he said, and repeatedly demanded “Uu shood be leetting me oot!”

Debbie [Steven] didn’t seem to pay any attention, or even notice his repetitive comments!

“Three days travelling”, noted Ouzo [Darryl], “what could possibly go wrong?”

Nothing much it seemed initially. The first day and night passed uneventfully, as did most of the second day. The track entered the foothills and we gradually gained altitude throughout the day. We had been warned of goblinoid “activities” in the area, so we were on full alert.

Except for Debbie [Steven] who sat on the rear of the wagon staring out into the countryside while playing her flute, and occasionally flicking her hair back out of her eyes.

Around mid‑afternoon on that second day our keen lookouts spotted a large shape crumpled up on the ground just beside the track some hundreds of yards ahead. The party immediately sprang into its well-rehearsed cautious scout mode with Ouzo [Darryl] skulking off to the right through the low scrub, Scuttle [Chris] mirroring him on the left, and Gillard [Kevin] striding openly up the track towards the shape. The wagon and the rest of the party waited back to see what would happen.

“Ouzo doesn’t seem to be skulking well today” noted Myrtle [Andrew], pointing over towards the right where Ouzo [Darryl] could be seen (and heard) blundering forwards through the scrub.

Being ultra-cautious, Ouzo [Darryl] drew his bow and shot an arrow into the shape.

“Dead” he yelled out, “got to be safe to approach. But I’ll keep an eye out for anything else!”

In the end it turned out that there was nothing else to be worried about. A large feathered and furry creature with huge claws, large round eyes with long and extended eye‑ridges, with a nasty beak was lying dead beside the track. Nothing appeared to be nearby, apart from a significant number of quite large arrows buried in the creature’s flesh and scatted around the vicinity. And tracks, lots of strange tracks, tracks we hadn’t seen before.

“This” stated Myrtle [Andrew] “is an Owl‑Bear. It’s very good that it’s dead already, because these things are very nasty and very tough when they are alive!”

“And these are not Human arrows” stated Gillard [Kevin], “except Ouzo’s one!”

“And these are not Human tracks” stated Tu [Shane], pointing at a flurry of about 8-9 sets of five‑toed tracks which led away off the track and up into hills.

Everyone looked around nervously, except Debbie [Steven], who was playing her flute.

“No need to be worried” commented Tu [Shane], “they look to be about two days old, which ties in with that body, which looks about two days dead.”

“What body?” asked Debbie [Steven] looking up from her flute.

Tu [Shane] efficiently removed the claws and beak from the creature, storing them carefully into his backpack, and we moved on.

As it was getting close to the end of the day, we started to look for a good place to park up for the night. And we soon spotted what was obviously the overnight waystation, a partially fortified camp site on an elevated rise with some low stone walls and stunted tress providing partial cover from the elements, and anything else that might be wandering around after dark! We forfeited the campfire for security and hoped to be un-noticed overnight. But we definitely set up our standard three watches for the night, with teams of both perceptive and night-sighted party members in each watch.

Sometime in the middle of the middle watch, a blood curling scream cut through the darkness. Everyone who was sleeping was jolted into wakefulness, adrenaline pumping. Except Debbie [Steven] who snored on in a most attractive way, making her quiet “night music”.

“That sounded like a female scream” whispered Myrtle [Andrew], “from over that way somewhere”

We were all peering off into the darkness when another terrifying scream echoed down from higher up in the hills. The scream went on and on, wavering in intensity, until it faded away into a bubbling gurgle. Silence descended as we all fingered our weapons and crouched nervously down behind our measly cover.

Some minutes later there was yet another series of pained screams, slowly fading away to loud whimpers that got quieter and quieter until nothing more could be heard.

“Male that time” whispered Myrtle [Andrew], “anyone want to go check it out?”

Scuttle [Chris] and Ouzo [Darryl] looked at each other with wide eyes and shook their heads.

“No point” stated Ouzo [Darryl], “we would either find nothing, or find something that we don’t want to find at night!” Everyone else agreed, and we all cowered quietly till the morning. Except Debbie [Steven] who hadn’t even woken!

It was a clear and bright day at First Light, and after a cold breakfast the scouting team of Scuttle [Chris], Tu [Shane], and Gillard [Kevin] boldly, but cautiously, headed off into the hills towards where the nightly screams had appeared to originate. After about 30 minutes they returned with an amazing tale of discovery.

“A thin thread of smoke issuing from one of two caves at the base of a small rocky cliff, at the head of a narrow valley.” reported Scuttle [Chris]. “We crept into the smoking cave where we found the remains of two Humans, one male and one female, both sliced apart and eaten alive. There were about eight sleeping Orcs with two others standing watch. I silently “backstabbed” one while Gillard [Kevin] stealthily took out the other, then Tu [Shane] executed an elven whirlwind killing spree amongst the sleeping creatures until they were all lying in pools of spreading grey blood. We recovered two glowing swords and so many bags of gold and gems you wouldn’t believe!”

“Wow, really?” asked Myrtle [Andrew].

“Nope” laughed Scuttle [Chris], “just that first bit about the two caves. Then we scarpered!”

After a brief discussion we decided to move quietly on, hoping that the bright light of Real would preclude any Goblinoid encounters, and we would safely find the next overnight camp before dark.

After only one hour of travel though, we saw two overturned wagons ahead of us, just off the side of the track. Although everything seemed quiet, we stopped our own wagon while the scout team of Scuttle [Chris], Ouzo [Darryl] and Gillard [Kevin] cautiously moved forward to reconnoitre to scene.

 

They soon returned to report that all was indeed quiet. But that two slave wagons had been ambushed on the road about two-three weeks prior. The slave cages had been busted open, and there was no sign of any bodies, slaves or guards. But there was again quite a number of broken arrows scattered around the area, just like the arrows we had found with the Owl‑Bear body.

“It’s those damn miners” moaned Ouzo [Darryl], “they’ve totally set us up, the bastards. I knew we should never have taken this job”