Session #8: “Let’s split up!”

April 2, 2946 After arriving in the valley south of the road, the Party noticed a group a people milling around at its southern end. Moving forward to investigate, Fosco and Skari saw several humans seemingly picking on each other with anther tried to calm them down. As they bickered, they moved west and towards the road, Men Celduin.  Deciding to push on through the night to catch the bandits under cover of darkness. Azkhala stayed behind at the rough camp. The Party noticed lights in a central tower, and a moderate sized keep. Fosco and Hauz took a look at the northern town near where a stream seemed to have collapsed the outer wall. Skari and Radril swung around the back of the keep and approached the southern tower. As they crept forward, Skari and Radril noticed odd bird-like noises coming from the tower and moved forward to investigate. To the south, Hauz and Fosco simply made a mess of things sliding down the back of the stream and making enough noise to alert the bandits in the central tower. Thinking he’d duck out of the way, Fosco and Hauz ducked into the northern tower only to be attacked by a huge eel-like monster that promptly swallowed the little hobbit. And, the bandits were just outside the door. Luckily, Radril and Skari also began failing their Stealth rolls to the point where the investigating bandits were drawn away from Fosco and Hauz. This gave them just enough time to defeat the creature and then move into a flanking position. That was just in time to see Radril using her Fighter’s Fork to pitch one of the bandits off the wall into a pile of human wreckage. And to see Skari run through the bird’s tower, sending the strange creatures flying. In the end, the bandits were defeated, and one Leesh was captured. Unfortunately, the Party found out that they were not bandits. They were followers of a tribal leader named Ulda. Ulda had come to the keep because he had leanred that Borthand (the new Easterling leader) was looking for something there, something of power.  Leesh reluctantly agreed to take Fosco to see his leader. Lookin yup at the keep, Fosco saw a shadowy figure backlit by a flickering flame up on the third floor. Was that Ulda?  As he did so, Radril and the others stepped into the central tower. There, Radril immediately saw something of interest on the wall...