Tairn

Play date: June 6th, 2006

1531.8.8 - Early Afternoon
Traver moves the camp east by 1/2 a mile. Traver scouts northeast, finds nothing, and returns listening for the sounds of his friends. He hears them talking and paces off the distance to camp (about 130 feet). He warns against making too much noise. Ash and Traver return to the hobgoblins, decapitate four of them and place their heads on the glaives as a warning. Varendë, Keddick and Jack rest. Once Traver returns, Keddick requests that he help him learn Goblin. They start rudimentary lessons.

Keddick sends Del to watch northeast of camp (130 feet or so). During the afternoon, Varendë notices a flash of color in the trees, but then it is gone. All is quiet. An hour into Ash’s watch he hears a fiddle start to play a jig. He is compelled to begin dancing. The music wakes Traver, but he resists the enchantment. The music is coming from north of the camp a short distance. He wakes Jack who also resists the enchantment. He then wakes Varendë who is overcome with the urge to join Ash in his midnight capering. Traver wakes Keddick and as he Keddick observes the two elves, he voluntarily decides to join in the dance.

Traver moves east and circles north and west to try to sneak up on the fiddler. The elves and wizard continue their dancing. Keddick whispers a few things to Jack and calls Del to fly back. Traver eventually pinpoints the location he thinks the music is coming from less than 20 feet from the fire. He still can’t see anything. After several minutes, Keddick decides that there is no impending attack. He quits dancing, but the elves continue. Traver has moved his search to larger circles around the camp. As Keddick stops dancing and speaks to Jack, the fire explodes and all but Keddick are blinded. High pitched laughter is heard moving away. Everyone seems comfortable it was a benign “prank” and more night passes. Ash trances and Varendë takes over the lone watch. In the morning, several people note a brace of hares lying near the fire. Traver helps Jack dress one and get it started cooking.

1531.8.9 - Early morning
Ash and Traver move back to the hobgoblin bodies to discover that they are gone without a trace. The location is sure in their minds and signs of the previous day’s scuffle is apparent. They return to camp. Everyone but Varendë eats roasted rabbit.

Early afternoon
Tiera comes out of the woods. She compliments the party on the well hidden camp. She asks about the scuffle on the lake shore. She is told of the episode in the night and the fight with the hobgoblins. She identifies the night fiddler and the leaver of rabbits as one in the same - a Grig, a tiny Fey. She says that she and Jerim have staked out the hobgoblin lair. Jerim sent her to fetch them. She looks tired from a long day that started early, but she says they must get back as soon as they can. She leads everyone east after they have broken camp. After three hours of travel, he strength is flagging. She settles down to sleep for a few hours. Ash wakes her near sundown. She says she needs to sleep a little longer. She wakes after dark and leads them all on a bit slowly for a few hours. She stops everyone, tells them to wait, and heads off on her own. She returns in a half hour or so to tell that Jerim has left to get Lord Plythe’s men. She looks to be better rested then she was when she left. He will be back as soon as possible, but the heavily armored men move slowly. She backtracks with the group back the way they came to put some distance between their camp and the lair. Everyone settles in for the night.

1531.8.10 - Morning
Tiera intends to go watch the hobgoblin camp. She tells of two possible entrances in copses of trees that they have seen hobgoblins disappear or appear from unexpectedly. Varendë and Traver accomany her. She moves quietly once she is approaching the lair, crouches and then lays down on a ridge. Traver and Varendë join her and she points out the trees they believe hide entrances to an underground area.

A bit before Noon
Two hobgoblins and two goblins come out of the far set of trees (about eighty feet from the closer of the two sets). Traver uses his spyglass to watch them. The two goblins are carrying some sort of buckets on poles across their shoulders. The buckets hold garbage, and the goblins dump them somewhere north before returning unladen to the trees. The trio continues to watch. Lake in the day, a group of six hobgoblins appear in the east dragging a human prisoner tied at the hands behind them. They enter the near copse and disappear. Traver suggests she track them to see where they came from. She does so until the sun comes down, but they just find a trail leading away. The threesome return to the original camp and arrive around 8pm. They discuss the prisoner and decide to investigate with the entire party in the morning. The night passes uneventfully.

1531.8.11 A few hours after daybreak, everyone moves out and approaches the ridge near the hobgoblin lair. Keddick makes Varendë invisible, he runs to the near copse of trees, and searches it for a minute. He discovers a carefully concealed trapdoor under an old stump. He jogs back to the ridge. Everyone waits. Eventually, two hobgoblins and two goblins exit and head north. After a few minutes, everyone circles to the west to catch their trail. Tiera picks it up and leads them north. Several people spot the hobgoblin party as they spot the party. They run and everyone gives chase. Keddick catches on hobgoblin that breaks right by virture of a “Pell Mell Chase” spell. He kills him with a scorching ray. Traver catches on that breaks to the left and takes him with a javelin in the back. Varendë and Jack don’t close the gap with the two goblins; one slips away and Varendë takes the other in the back with an incredible long distance shot. Everyone is scattered, but they eventually rejoin at the spot where they first noticed the hobgoblins coming back.