Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Elient 24/25 - Undead Wolves and the Town of Fornlar

Elient 24

Mayo Vurnor Leng, who I don’t particularly trust ever since he pumped me for information on my father, sent The Band of the Hand to see the Green Druids located a days ride northeast of the Wolf Hills, stating that the town of Fornlar was about half way to the Druids. Heading north-east after the noonday sun we had an uneventful day until just about dusk when we came upon a massive loan wolf tearing away at a humanoid corpse. We quickly rallied and launched an attack against the beast, but during the combat we discovered that the damnable wolf was not only fairly powerful, but was also some type of undead beast!

The wolf had protruding gray flesh where the fur was torn away and stark white eyes. Each successful attack by the wolf required great resistance against paralysis, which fortunately I possess as I was struck multiple times by the beast and severely injured. The battle was bloody and swift and victorious

Further exploration of the beast revealed a platinum collar with strange runes. The humanoid corpse was that of an unlucky elf making his way to Fornlar with a backpack full of vellum. As it was dusk, we rested alongside the road and camped for the night.

Elient 25

During the early dawn watch, Beldak spotted two more massive wolves - one approaching from the north and the other from the south, trying to flank the Band. During the melee Chrissy was badly wounded twice and paralyzed. Perhaps I should have gone to her aid, rather than Beldak’s, but he was cut off from the party and along and Chrissy had the rest of the Band to help her out. If she had been killed that decision probably would have been very difficult to live with, but I’ll never know.

The remainder of the journey into Fornlar was uneventful. The hamlet of Fornlar sits along a main merchant road set near a forest and some low-lying hills. There's not much there other than some homes, the magistrate's tower, and the Cloak and Candle Inn which was pointed out by the local town guardsmen as the best place in town. I made sure that everyone in town know my and my father’s names. Having the landed gentry visit is a good “in” when I need to speak with senior town officials. And after speaking with some of the locals, it was obvious that I needed to speak with Sheriff Olson about the wolves. The Sheriff offered the band a sum of 5gp for each wolf head provided and gave them 15gp for their earlier efforts.

Fashioned out of large logs, the Cloak and Candle is a nice enough place run by Melic. The ale is decent, which is high praise for such an out-of-the-way place. Rumors gathered at the inn seamed to follow three patterns about Wolf Hills - ancient tombs, strange wolves, and a mad man in black robes.

We were approached by 2 people - a young energetic Galton who sold us a map to treasure-filled caves along with his services to help us get there; and a more stoic young man named Badiel who tells the story of an evil necromancer named Stugon who killed his father and was last seen in this town about 10 years ago. Badiel told us that he has scrimped and saved and has enough gold to pay each member 100gp for the capture of Stugon. Additionally, 500gp can be collected at Waterdeep.

I was unsure. Now that the Band is becoming more powerful, we must be wary of people who send us off to capture/kill other people. We must be vigilant to ensure that we are going after evil people, and not being used by evil people. I corroborated his story with Sheriff Olson who admitted that Stugon was seen in town about 10 years ago, and that they searched for him among the hills but was never found (he assumed the wolves got him, which is a strategic error on his part…I would have expected better from the Sheriff). He suggested that we check out these caves and if we were to kill some wolves on the way, he would double our reward to 10gp per wolf head (including the 3 we already had killed).

The Band proceeded back to the inn for the night.