Chapter 13 - Exterminators
Days 28-30
Recognizing one of the mysterious figures as an Empire agentby the name of Mihaly Kassak, Trykaar caught his attention and inquired as to the reason for his being in this remote village. Mihaly revealed that he and his companions were in the area to round up any nobles who might be witholding their personal troops from the defence of Wasteward. After exchanging news with Mihaly, the party retired for the night.
The next morning brought rain, but the party continued their journey. The road had more traffic than in the previous days, most of it being peasants with their meagre personal possessions. Stopping one who Lajos recognized, they discovered that the locals were fleeing Genasi raiding parties that had struck communities near the frontier. The rain finally let up later in the day, and the party gladly retired to a warm inn for the night.
Once again, they were not the only guests of the inn; also in the common room was a strange man, huddled in his cloak and startling at the slightest noise or motion. Approaching him, the party found a man who was clearly on the edge of sanity, telling strange tales of spending 20 years studying magic at an dark elven temple deep underground before escaping at the loss of some part of himself. Indeed, some part of himself did appear absent, as was evidenced by the fact that he did not have a shadow, even though he stood solidly before them. The party did their best to ease his paranoia of being chased by elves, with most of the party choosing to spend the night in the barn, watching over him. In the middle of the night, his feverish dreams caused him to startle awake, blasting the roof of the barn with streams of eldritch fire. After some calming words from Leandrie, he managed to fall back into a fitful sleep. In the morning, he took his leave, saying that he was headed for the capital, to get as far away from the Feywilds as possible.
Lajos promised that another half day's travel would bring them to his village, and he wasn't wrong. After a couple of hours, the party turned off of the trade road onto a smaller local path. After passing through one village that had recently suffered a Genasi raid, they finally arrived at the scene of the kidnapping. After questioning the villagers, it became clear that the kidnapping had indeed taken place, eight days before. Overnight, most of the village's children and a small number of young women had disappeared, along with an elf who had stopped in the village overnight. A search party of local men had set out the next morning and they too had disappeared. Wasting no time, the party set out on the trail of the kidnappers and their pursuers. Blixhaven was able to find a faint trail leading northwest from the village, which they followed until dusk. Nightfall saw them at a small collection of peasant huts, hidden away in a remote vale. Approaching the huts, the adventurers discovered the impoverished residents huddled in squalor. Leandrie did what he could to ease their suffering and assuage their fears before the party made camp for the night in an abandoned hut.
The next morning, Blixhaven once again sought out the tracks of their quarry. He found some tracks leading southward, over a narrow path that proved too difficult for Jrak's cart to maneuvre. Deciding to abandon the cart and all but two horses, the party sent them with Lajos to keep in his village. These new tracks soon faded out, and Blix realized that he had been mistaken, causing the party to backtrack to where they had started the morning.
Finally on what appeared to be the right track, the party made their way northwestward until they were once again on the trade road. From there, the tracks appeared to go northward to the old highway. At the highway, the tracks appeared to lead westward, along the old, infrequently used stretch of raised roadbed leading into the Wastes. As they proceeded westward, the tracks were lost once again, but Blixhaven eventually found a trail leading northward into the Feywilds. At that point, the party decided to rest for the night, and set up a camp in a protected stand of trees.
Midway through the first watch, movement in the trees caught Jrak's attention. Before he could react, an innocent-looking vine that had hitherto been wrapped int he branches of a nearby tree suddenly flew into motion, striking in his direction. The tough plant wrapped itself around him, inserting sharp spines into chinks in his armour, and began to constrict. His cries alerted the other members, but they awoke only to find that the groundcover was coming alive, entangling them where they slept or stood. Only Leandrie was saved from this, as he was standing guard on the far side of the camp. As the others attempted to fight their way free, Jrak fought the vine, his maul pulping its main tendrils against the tree. Finally, Blixhaven was able to fight free of the entangling vegetation and put an arrow through the tendril lashing Jrak, severing it and killing the plant.
The next day, the party decided that they should take a side trip to check on the warmage Mor Gordonyi, who was searching for the antimatic orb at the abandoned watchtower. Knowing that the watchtower was located south of the highway, they continued their journey westward until they spotted it. Making their way across the intervening terrain, the scouting Blix and Neela came across the tower on a ridge, with sentries keeping guard nearby. As Neela stole closer to the tower, a guard spotted her and fired a crossbow bolt at her in warning. When she identified herself, she was brought to the tower to speak with the warmage. After assuaging the mage that they were friends from Wasteward, Blixhaven was brought forward and they awaited the rest of the party. But before they could arrive, disaster struck. A rumbling shook the ground and a cloud of dust emerged fromt he tower.
The warmage's workers had been busy digging a pit beneath the tower, believing that the antimagic orb had been buried there. However, an unstable wall of earth had now caved in, burying many of them. The party quickly set to work helping extract those workers who were only half-buried. The task became more urgent when the trapped workers began to complain of the feeling of painful bites to their legs and feet. As they were extracted, small round bite marks could be seen on their skin. After all the visible men were extracted, work began on uncovering the men who had been totally buried. When these men were uncovered after several hours, they were dead and their bodies had been partially eaten by the creatures, which noone had yet been able to identify.
Their excavation efforts did reveal signs of small burrowing animals, and further digging finally revealed a larger burrow, wide enough for the party to explore. The sound of scittering creatures could be heard in the distance. What they found beneath the tower was a maze of burrows. Neela set out to explore, eventually discovering a large central chamber while twice escaping as sections of tunnel gave way beneath her weight. Peering into the central chamber, Neela saw a large rodent-like animal surrounded by her young, and a faintly glowing orb laying on the floor. The mother creature immediate reared on its hind legs to attack her. The creature's attack was soon followed by a large number of smaller creatures, the offspring of the large beast, who swarmed the party, emerging from small holes around them in the tunnels. Neela fought bravely against the mother creature, buying time for the arrival of Jrak, who crashed into the room on his head, falling from an overhead tunnel. The battle was tense for a moment as Neela went down, but a healing spell from Leandrie brought her back to her feet and Jrak finally finished off the creature. Once all were safe, they recovered the orb and found a passage that lead out to the slope beneath the tower.
Ecstatic to have finally recovered the orb, Mor Gordonyi immediately commenced preparations to leave the next day, while the party prepared to resume their quest to recover the kidnapped villagers. The warmage warned them that he had lost several men to a Genasi raiding party just days before, and they had last been seen retreating to the northwest.
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