Stanorr found Lucas in town as expected, but Pyre mysteriously vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared. Before embarking, Lucas was sure to inform the rest of the group what was up, and to follow in secret.
Stanorr lead Lucas- I mean Baron von Baronson from Barrington – to a clearing where Larrach was practicing his… whatever the hell he does.
Lucas quickly realized that like every other person he’s met in this area, even Larrach is a moron. Larrach was supposed to capture a few missionaries… the “Delegation of Mirabar”, but failed, and now he’s out here playing jacks in the woods. He knows nothing, but the people further off in the hills would know more. After that, Larrach ran into a tree head first, and fell down in great pain.
Some great and all-powerful leader.
Well, yet another dead end of idiots. Larrach was dispatched pretty easily, and they found some strange currency from a town called Mirabar. And here I thought copper, silver, gold, and platinum was the language everyone spoke.
Harby locked Larrach away, and sent them on their way with Larmon Greenboot, a sheep farmer, who lead the heroes to a couple gravesites in the Sumber Hills.
There wasn’t much found in these gravesites, but it’s clear that where they need to go is further in the hills.
Next on their adventure, they were ambushed by a couple people, but this time there seemed to be another cult at work… A cult involving some guys who like wearing bird beak masks…
This ambush was dealt with rather quickly after Faetra transformed into a dire wolf. The first guy got eaten, and the next guy got his arms and legs torn off to be left with the cute nickname of “torso boy” for the rest of his 5 minutes of life. Damn Faetra, you scary!
After moving through the Sighing Valley, they happened upon a gryphon nest, with 2 gryphons basking in the sunlight. They perked up when the heroes arrived, and immediately started their attack. They were going for one person, Titus, and he knew it.
How? Why? Well… see… Titus is on a horse. And… um… apparently gryphons love to eat horses… of course, everyone knows that!
The heroes fought against volley after volley of these beasts flying in to attack them, and Kink had had enough. Using his Dwarven intuition and his trained monk patience (read: anger and impulsive thinking) he decided to burn their home nest. Yeah, that’s what happens. You attack the heroes for no reason, then Kink burns your goddamn house down.
This gave the heroes enough time to escape.
Soon, they happened upon a guard post, inhabited by two eaglemen…
This guard post overlooked a keep off in the distance. There was one eagleman at the top, making sure no more brutes came from the keep, and another eagleman at the bottom, keeping things sane on the ground level.
The heroes approached cautiously, but discovered the eaglemen were not their enemy. They introduced themselves – Delta, the eagleman at the top, is a few eggs short of an omelette, and Akron, the brains of the operation, who just had sex on Lonely Island.
Yes I’m well aware I was grasping at straws in order to make that joke work, but that’s the first thing that popped into my head when I heard “Akron”, ok? Shut up and enjoy the song!
Yet another exposition dump happened here, so allow me to summarize. Remember those brute assholes with tree-sized logs that give Lucas stick envy? They’re members of the “cult of black earth”. And the guys they met recently with the bird masks? They’re part of the “cult of howling hatred”. There’s a tentative truce between these two cults, but for what purpose, nobody knows.
The keep, it seems, will have the answers they seek.
So the heroes decide to spend the night in the guard tower. The next morning, they find that Delta fell asleep during guard duty, and bad things happened. There are signs of a struggle… and Kink is now missing.
Stay tuned for the next episode… shit’s about to get real.