29th of Eleint, 1492 (Sunset) After the quick stop into the Dragon Barrows, the party returns to Kia who was setting up camp for the evening, rain starting to drizzle and build as Kia got a fire going. After a round of healing and getting ready to rest, the party beds down for the night. As the night advances, Kia feels a pulsing pain course from the bite in her shoulder. She uses her cleric energy to soothe the pain, focussing on the moment as a cloud started to form in her mind. Concentrating, she shakes herself out of this cloud and resists whatever effects may have attempted to take her that night, falling asleep soon after. The next night, however, it got worse, as she felt a powerful force course through her, making her drop to her knees while holding the wound. She sees herself start to slowly change, and she focuses hard through that cloud in her mind, maintaining herself she manages to resist it once more while the others look on in worry. They keep a closer eye on her the next night, but as the night passes she managed to get through the worst of it. Naisys taking note of the phase of the moon currently shifting to a waning gibbous from the full moon. The following nights, Kia and the others breathe a sigh of relief as whatever ailed her has passed, and they can focus on the task at hand, helping Xanth with his orc problem. With little to go on, they leave their wagon and horses in Xanth's care as they head out towards the swirling thunder clouds. Along the way, they find a clearing with a single black pointed spire in the middle, a burnt pine tree stands tall in the middle of this clearing, completely branchless. The party cautiously approaches and find several of these familiar twig dolls at the base of this tree, the chests bulging a bit more than the last ones, some hanging off splintered char wood from the tree, the others resting on the base beside the tree. Briar investigates one of these dolls, hearing a faint heartbeat coming from within. Casting identify on the doll, he finds that this is some tribalistic transmutation magic tying the doll with a live, still beating pigs heart, to the tree. He can see the magic reaches throughout the entire clearing through the roots of this tree. Naisys takes a knife and she stabs one of the dolls, killing the heart within. Suddenly, they felt the roots shift and shoot around them, and before they could be made trapped in these roots and vines they manage to escape before the trap snapped closed on them, all but Alatar who couldn't slip away fast enough. Quickly freeing him, the party backs away from this tree, leaving the clearing and Briar shoots a fireball at the dolls, lighting them on fire and popping the hearts within. The entire clearing shoots the vines and roots up to snatch anything and everything within this clearing, but nothing was to be grabbed, and the vegetation flops over onto the ground. About an hour in, the siblings are stopped by a patrolling group of orcs standing across a gorge. A half-orc tribal appears from behind these orcs, staring down the siblings before he casts bless on a few of his orcs and orders an attack. The party springs into action, rushing across the gorge as they were hit with strikes of lightning from the half-orc. Briar, not happy he lost his concentration from the strike, throws a fireball at the band of orcs, causing a massive magical explosion at the patrol party, killing off all but the half-orc. Most of the siblings surround this half-orc, who in a last-ditch attempt to run tries to blow the party backward with a thunderwave. It wasn't enough as Naisys outsped the half-orc, stabbing it several times to make sure he didn't survive with his fortitude. The party presses on, Briar raising himself a small team of undead orcs and half-orc, he finds a potion of greater healing on him, his final payback for the lighting. After a short time, they made their way to the Circle of Thunder, stone pillars rose up on the top of this hill, holding a stone slab up in the air to form a henge. There, they find two more half-orcs performing a ritual with little twig blights dancing about. The party spreads out to flank the half-orcs on all sides, before they launch an attack on this ritual. Yet again, Brair is knocked with lightning and his concentration was broken, thwarting his plan to use a festering ghoul to cause poisons to the creatures as the party rushes in. So, he launches another fireball at the ritual, killing all the blights and leaving just the two half-orcs to fend for themselves. The final blow was struck by the undead orcs, turned against the half-orcs, as the final half-orc stares into the eyes of what was once his brother, before the life leaves his body. As the breath leaves the half-orc, the thunder crashes loudly above the group, lightning arching out violently from the darkening clouds before a large bolt of lightning strikes the center of the henge. Once the group was able to see once again, their ears ringing, they see standing in the center was a gigantic beast, a lightning boar that Briar recognized as the pet boar of Talos himself, Gorthok the Thunderboar. The party themselves having completed the ritual, as the final half-orc counted as a sacrifice. Now, they have to contend with the wrath of the thundergod's pet boar. Session End 2nd of Marpenoth, 1492 (HighSun)