3 spots still open , little recap from session 1 MORNING AT THE FORD & BELL Morning broke over Oxholme, warm light spilling across the fields as the village stirred into its usual rhythm. At the Ford & Bell, Tolan Greer had breakfast laid out for Tam and Wynne Hollis — eggs, taters, bread, bacon, and sausage filling the tavern with the smell of a working morning. The children ate together at a table near the hearth. Tam, quieter than his sister, looked up mid-bite and admitted softly that he missed his mother and father. Wynne reassured him at once — they were coming back, weren't they, Mr. Tolan? — and Tolan obliged with a steady nod, though the worry in his own face didn't fully disappear. Sela Vane, the village herbalist, echoed the reassurance from nearby, her voice a little too bright to be entirely convincing even to herself. Elswyth moved quietly through the room as well, drawing the usual curious glances that followed her wherever she went in Oxholme — elf blood was a rare enough sight here that people still noticed. Mirabelle Wells arrived that morning to place a supply order with Tolan, as she did most mornings, and quickly picked up on the rumors already spreading through the village: something had happened to the Hollis parents, and the children were here, safe but shaken. Recognizing Tam and Wynne — she had delivered them both herself, years before — Mirabelle didn't hesitate. Sela pulled her aside to relay what little was known: strange creatures had entered the house in the dark hours before dawn, and Joss Talbot, the young farmhand who'd been staying in the barn, had grabbed the children and ridden hard for the village, arriving that evening. A search party under Halfdan had already set out south into the forest sometime in the night. Mirabelle immediately resolved to go after them. Sela, worried, urged her not to go alone — and it was in that moment that Cassian Valemyr, who had overheard the exchange from a nearby table, stepped in and offered to help. The two had a brief, quiet moment of connection over breakfast with the children — Mirabelle reassuring Tam that "the whole gang" was already looking, Cassian mostly listening and observing, still new enough to Oxholme that most of this was unfamiliar to him. THE RIDE SOUTH Tolan went looking for horses and came back with only one — an older mare named Betsy, most of the village's horses already committed to the trading season's wagon and caravan work toward Kaldenmoor. Mirabelle took the reins with Cassian riding behind her, and the pair set off south at a hard pace, pushing Betsy through the morning. Along the way, Mirabelle scanned the passing farmhouses for anything out of place, but found nothing unusual — whatever had happened, it seemed contained to the Hollis homestead alone. After a demanding ride — Betsy, against expectation, held up remarkably well — the pair reached the house. The homestead looked ordinary from outside, aside from a shattered door, forced outward off its hinges. Inside, nothing appeared disturbed except the parents' bedroom, where the sheets were rumpled and a hunter's knife lay dropped near the threshold — the kind of blade common to farm households, used as much for skinning game as for defense. Cassian quietly cast Detect Magic while Mirabelle watched him with growing suspicion, but the ritual turned up nothing. Stepping back outside, Cassian felt a distinct, nagging sense of being watched, though nothing was visible. Calling for Rex, the family dog, drew a response — but not from Rex. A group of hunters emerged from the tall grass and brush around the property: Harken Wolfe, recognizable to both Cassian and Mirabelle, along with his companions Rowan, Sable, Bricker, and one more. Harken explained he'd come to investigate after hearing rumors from Joss at the Pitch Camps, and that Halfdan's group had already picked up a trail heading south into Thornreach and the Vargwood. He invited Mirabelle and Cassian to join the search, and the combined group set off, tracking the trail deeper into the forest. MEANWHILE, DEEPER IN THE FOREST Well ahead of them, Halfdan's party — Halfdan, Jakka, Efron, and Citala — had spent the morning recovering from their earlier fight with the owlbear. Citala carved a token from a piece of the tree she'd damaged in the fight, binding a raven feather to it with twine. After a short rest, the group pressed on, with Rex leading the way. Efron, worried about losing the group in the thickening trees, coaxed Rex back on track with a bit of jerky and some patient handling. The deeper they went, the more the forest unsettled them — unnaturally silent, with no birds, no insects, no signs of life at all. At a creek crossing, Rex lost the trail entirely at a large standing rock, circling and whining without direction. Investigation revealed a faint patch of clear, numbing slime near the base of the rock, alongside a subtle, unnaturally smooth divot in the stone's surface — worn in a way nothing else on the rock matched. The party speculated about spiders, burrowing predators, and worse, testing the rock physically without success — nothing about it gave way. THE WOLF PACK The quiet was broken when five dire wolves emerged from the surrounding brush, circling the group with reddened eyes. Citala's attempt to negotiate for peace failed outright, and combat began. Rex proved surprisingly formidable, landing a critical hit that killed one wolf outright. Citala's moonbeam dropped two more with a single well-placed cast, while Halfdan, wounded from the fight, was protected by a timely Healing Word from Citala. Jakka fought bare-handed, downing one wolf with a solid combination of strikes. Efron, sniping from hiding, and Cassian — who by coincidence had arrived at the very same rock with Mirabelle and Harken's group — both landed telling blows as well. By the end, four wolves lay unconscious (spared deliberately at Citala's insistence) and one fled, wounded, deeper into the trees. REUNION AT THE ROCK With the two groups now reunited at the rock, Harken and his hunters examined the strange slime and the worn spot on the stone alongside Halfdan's party. Cassian secretly cast Detect Magic again and picked up a distinct conjuration aura — evidence of an opening or gateway rather than an ongoing effect. Rather than reveal his own magic outright, he quietly passed the information to Mirabelle, who chose to present it herself, using Thaumaturgy to make her eyes glow and declaring, publicly, that the stone had been used for teleportation. This drew immediate, startled attention from Rowan and Sable, along with genuine astonishment from Harken, who noted that teleportation magic was rare enough that he'd only ever heard of it practiced in places like Riverstar or Solstice Keep — nowhere near Kaldmark. Bricker, one of Harken's hunters, used the moment to launch into an impassioned theory that the goddess Eshuall was punishing the region for cutting into the forest, framing the missing Hollis parents as the first of a coming reckoning. His claims drew sharp pushback from both Citala and Jakka, and open hostility from Halfdan, who made clear his low opinion of Bricker's theology. Rowan eventually pulled Bricker away to defuse the argument. Further investigation by Citala and Cassian confirmed the same conclusion: the smooth divot was residual conjuration magic, not an active, sustained gateway — someone had cast a spell here, likely to escape, rather than built a permanent passage. SPLITTING PATHS With no way to follow the trail further and no known caster nearby capable of tracing or replicating such magic, Harken made the call to press forward into the forest with his own hunters, while Halfdan's group remained behind to search the immediate area for anything further. Mirabelle chose to stay with Efron's group rather than continue on with Harken. As the session closed, Efron — having just learned that seemingly everyone around him could use magic in some form — wrestled openly with feeling left out, comforted in turn by Jakka, Citala, and Mirabelle, while Halfdan offered a gruffer, more cautionary take on magic's danger in the wrong hands. Cassian, for his part, revealed only that his own abilities were something he was born with, deflecting further questions about where exactly he came from.
