Session 16: A Group of Weird Strangers
General Summary
As the sun reached it's summit the party headed north along the road again, this time towards the farmstead of Cavil Torkson. Once there they first run into his brother, Karil, who does not seem to have held onto all of his marbles. They eventually get directed into the main farmhouse where they meet Cavil, a frail man showing the signs of his age but with a mind as sharp and nimble as it ever was. He gave them the run down of what happened a few weeks past, explaining how on four consecutive nights handfuls of his sheep apparently disappeared without a trace and neither scent or sight of them could be found in the surrounding hills. He sent them to talk to Felton, the red-haired hand who had been on watch the first night and the one he had put in charge of the searches after. Felton tried to give them all the information he could, but unfortunately there just wasn't any evidence that had been found. He showed them to the pen where the sheep were the first night and then directed them towards where they were grazing at the moment, but not before telling the party about how everyone knew it was the orcs rumoured to be around these parts who had done it using their dark magic. When the party found the flock Karu went forward to use his magical talents to commune with them, but not before a few warning stones were slung in his general direction. The two young boys charged with protecting the flock were defensive at first, unsure of these bizarre strangers, but were eventually talked down by the party. Unfortunately some bad timing and overly broadcast gestures by Karu alerted the boys to the party's use of magic and suddenly the slings were spinning faster and the stones were aimed true. The party shoulder the blows from the young boys, trying to convince them of their good intentions while also giving Karu some time to commune with the sheep. Through his talk he learnt firstly that grass was good and secondly, and much more importantly, that the sheep that had vanished had actually woken up and walked away by themselves without a sound, pushing through the spaces in the fence. With this new information, and with stones bouncing of their mail, they left the flock and returned to the farmstead. They investigated the pen and found grooves in the underside of the fence, seemingly made by the rams horns as they pushed under, which confirmed what they had just learnt. Unfortunately apart from this they could not find any more clues or tracks as to where the sheep at gone, with the multitude of similar markings around the farm making them impossible to isolate. So they decided to head back to the sapling groove to set a trap for whatever was doing this. As they were leaving Astrelh's attention was drawn to an ethereal tug on his neck, turning his head just in time to see a crop of flaming hair head back around the building. Pursuing after it he confronted Felton who admitted to watching them leave but otherwise remained quite and aloof. Through words and persuasion the party cracked his shell and he revealed to them the sight of the missing sheep's remains not fifty yards from where they had been searching before, evidence he had not divulged earlier for fear of loosing his job for not noticing whatever killed them so close by. The remains of the sheep were strewn around a small patch in the boggy brush, skins and bones hanging from the heather and thorns. They had been ripped and crushed, with all the meat taken off of them, then thrown into small, messy piles. Karu and Iza notices that a lot of the bones had long deep groves cut into them, by tooth or knife they could not tell, and that the wool was discoloured and brittle as if it had been washed in acid. Furthermore the small patch had been pressed smooth by whatever had been there, the wet mud now in a series of shallow, irregular bowls, and that a series of sheep tracks led up to the edge of the smoothed ground and then turned in the same spot as if they had been waiting there. Felton was still determined that this had been the work of the barbaric orcs. Armed with this new knowledge, the party set out to find the truth of the apparent orc tracks they had heard of, heading east to the river where they had been apparently spotted. With skill and luck Karu managed to find a single pair of foreign tracks set deep into the boggy mud not far from the river bank. The party followed them upstream and noticed both the odd structure of the bare feet that had made the tracks and that it was in fact four tracks, each one placing their feet in the exact spot as the last. The tracks led along the river the ford, crossing there before heading downriver on the far bank. The party continued, involving Karu loosing his footing in the water and being temporarily swept downstream, following the tracks as they left the river bank and entered into a woods where they promptly split into four different directions. Picking the middle left Karu turned into his wolf form and attempted to follow the scent trail but stumbled into a skunk which sprayed him all over, blocking his sense of smell completely. So the rest of the party attempted to follow the visual trail, very slowly progressing through the woods. They walked the trees for a number of miles, their pace eating away at the hours left in the day, during which the other three tracks seemed to rejoin the one they were on. As the sun started to dip away and the breeze shifting direction towards them, the party suddenly heard a number of low voices ahead of them.
Session Log - Astrelh
Day 15 After having been at the lumberer’s without much to show for it except a tale of weird tentacles, which we couldn’t find. We decide that we might have better luck at the local sheep farm where there had been several sheep missing. We made it to the farm and got in contact with the older gentleman who seemed to run the place. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much to tell us, except that maybe one of the farm boys who had been there when it happened might know something. The boy was named Felton and it didn’t take long till we met him, he said he didn’t have much to tell us but was strangely insistent on it being orcs who had done it. After not getting much, we had him lead us to the fence where the sheep had gone from in the hope that we would find some clues. Once again, we where left non the wiser about the whole situation. We decided that it would be more fruitful to go to the herd and have Karu speak with the sheep to see if they knew anything, despite the risk of using magic which Stimple had told us of. As soon as we got close, we where shot with stones by the two boys who were protecting the herd. We had no interest in starting a fight with the boys and so we made a deal that Karu could come closer and look at the sheep. Unfortunately, despite his great skill with nature he is not the most subtle of people and his usage of magic was seen by the two boys. This made the whole situation much more difficult, but Karu managed to communicate with the sheep, and I don’t have many worries about the boys as I hardly believe that they will be seen as anymore than a couple of boys who overreacted to a group of weird strangers. The sheep’s information was not very useful except him telling us that the missing sheep had only walked away rather than being forcefully taken. We made it back to the enclosure and found the spot at which the sheep had escaped but not much else. Once we returned to the farm, I saw Felton being suspicious around us and after a bit of convincing, he took us to a hiding place not far from the enclosure. There we found the remnants of the missing sheep. Later we managed to find a set of tracks which we, with a few setbacks, managed to follow until we started hearing voices ahead of us…
