On the trails of our heroes...

After a comfortable night in the safety of TrollAxe's fortified camp, our heroes woke up to a fresh morning, and a bustling crowd of lumbermen busy preparing their solid breakfast.

A short chat between TrollAxe and Auburn determined how the day would go: The adventurers will join the lumbermen in their walk to the cutting site, following them at a distance. Thus the group of 13 lumbermen left followed by our 4 companions. They did not expect to only be 6 to come back on that day.

Acane's ever fine perception spotted some ennemies early along trail. The goblins lay flat and hiding, obviously waiting for the groups to pass by. Acane would not give them the luxury of going back to their lair after whatever misdeed they could have done in the area. This group of goblins, mostly varmin, was easily slaughtered, except for a single Sharpshooter, whose moral was easy to break, but whose knowledge also proved easy to spend. Little did he know of anything interesting, but the adventurers still decided to drag him as hostage. Maybe the right questions would provide the right answers...

And on they went, thinking their day nearly over. Never did they expect what befell them: A horde of goblins, accompanied by a handful of Hobgoblin warmongers! Stunning was the cunning of these diminutive opponents as their trap sprung into action, capturing many lumbermen and cutting others from the group!

Desperate the fight seemed at first, and desperate indeed it was! Only with the help of the fierce Bunyan, and a bard friend of his, did they survive the encounter. With careful spells and a fair share of luck, they were able to defeat the goblins, and also kill the Hobgoblin Warcaster and its winged zombie, a Rotwing! Even though two hobgoblins did managed to escape, they were victorious, but at a high cost.

The broken lumbermen retreated toward their camp to care for the dead and dying. While our heroes, shaken and wounded, but alive, decided to rush headlong in hot pursuit of the surviving hobgoblins. But the goblinoids knowledge of the region surpassed the heroes' ability to track them. 

Searching the rest of their day, they did come accross a strange formation against the hills. A cavern. By the look of it, there was activities around it in the past days or hours.

What lurks in the darkness of the cavern, half hidden behind a tree trunk and rocks, remain to be seen...

The Forest camp of Bunyan TrollAxe

Daggerford has always been ruled by merchants.  The plots and schemes of these lords have never been to the liking of Bunyan Trollaxe. Not 5 years ago, Bunyan indebted without hope, strugling to make a living as a lumberman. Although poor, Trollaxe as always been respected or feared by all, because of his size and sheer brutal prowesses.  For this reason, the son of a rich ship builder trying to impress his dying father ( to gain his favors over his two broters ), decided the settled all of Bunyan debts and employ him for a project: Rid the forest hills of Troll Woods of enough varmin to establish a new lumbercamp, allowing them access to wood of excellent quality for cheap. Hateful of merchants, but even more hateful of his debts, Trollaxe accepted grudgingly. 

Handpicking the strongest and most fierce lumberman he knew, Trollaxe set to rid the woods of goblins, kobolds and such. He even managed along the way to cut a deal with elves inhabiting the woods, allowing him to cut the trees in exchange for his services. Using this deal, he forced the ship builder son to pay him handsomely as well as assuring his position at the head of the camp; the deal with the elves being only valid as long as Trollaxe was in charge.

Building fortified walls and towers, the lumber camp did not only turn out to be very profitable to both Bunyan and the ship builder, but is also reguarded as a strategic defense post by the Watch of Daggerford. Scouts from the city keep in touch every week. Work there is hard but rewarding and business is good.

That is, until recently. Occasional goblins sneaking in the woods turned into occasional warbands led by Hobgoblins. The lumbermen get ambushed almost everyday. For the last two months, this tranquil lumbercamp has seen more and more action. Not that Trollaxe is not happy to add to his long list of goblin victims, but dealing with Hobgoblins does worry the huge foreman.

On the trail of our Heroes

After their battle against a lair of Kruthik, our heroes decided to search the lair thoroughly, and with reason!! They found a passage in the wall leading to a small chamber filled with larvas! Worse still, rotting amongs the coccoons were putrefied corpses of animals and humanoids, waiting to be food for the Kruthik youths. After taking care of that threat with his fiery Flame Cyclone, Aishar, helped by Auburn, went through the disgusting task of riffling the bodies. They founds remains of what they think were travellers. The fact that there was no trace of a Queen in the lair left Aburn worried. The group made a mental note to checkout along the coast, and keep a close eye on the Lighthouse, for hints of problems with Kruthiks in the future.

A night at the Lighthouse's inn, after a hard fight, proved very interesting as Auburn recounted the events of the day to the eager residents. He impressed them with their prowess and left a lasting reminder that if ever they saw or heard of something wrong, concerning Kruthik or undeads, they should try and contact them.

Our Heroes can now consider Selune's Eye Lighthouse as a refuge in case of needs, and a source of help and information, for they see wide at sea, and are always on the lookout for enemies in the area.

Leaving the Lighthouse, the heroes remembered that someone in Waterdeep was offering good money for chitinous parts of giant insects, so they went back to collect a good amount of that.  Then they were on their way to the trading city of Daggerford!

There they found no trail of the eladrin and Auburn was growing desperate, as their cold trail seem to have grow dead. Until a smart guard helpfully offered that Daggerford sends scouts to the various camps and villages they frequently deal with. Auburn only had to convince the grumpy and blasé Guard Captain Quinn Wilkes. Although usualy good at convincing the autorities, Captain Wilkes proved to be a tough one and Auburn barely got the best of him. So scouts were sent to Spearcove Fishing camp, Trollbark Lumbercamp and to a small and secret village of green elves only one of their scout knows about, and who often provide Daggerford with rumors of various threat around the woods.

The also wanted to go checkout where Cassandre had met with ghouls along the trades way, and so they spent the following day looking around the lands for signs, until they fell on a raging pack of wolves slaughtering a band of poor plain travelers.
Too late to save them our heroes still bested the beast, but not without troubles! The dire wolves proved fierce, and worse, three of the wolves were zombified! After the fight, picking up their trail was easy enough for Acane's trained eyes, and they followed the tracks to the wolves' lair.

Luck alone saved Aishar that day, as when he looked through the lair, he came in contact with a strange bag containing rotten meat. Even as he was looking into the bag, we started feeling something was wrong. Sick to his stomach and feverish, he destroyed the bad and its content with fire, and they left for Daggerford, were he spent the night to the care of Acane, and a priest of Amaunator. The following morning, he felt better but still a little weak. It seems he was stronger than the disease he contracted from that contaminated meat. But who contaminated those wolves?

That same day, they went back to see Quinn, as they were expecting the return of 2 of the 3 scouts. Turned out only one came back. Spearcover Fishing camp gave no news of undeath, but reported lizardfolks destroying their nets ans lines at night. No news from Trollbark Lumbercamp.

As no news does not mean good news, our heroes decided to go check for themselves and thus left Daggerford and headed southward, toward the camp, along small roads dug by the lumber carts and bulls. The travel was only a day of riding, and at night, they arrived at the camp, where they discussed to the largest man ever to walk these lands: Bunyan Trollaxe, or "Troll" as his men call him. The leader of the lumber camp.

Trollaxe confirmed that the scout indeed came to his camp and left soon after. His disappearance seemed to mean only one thing to Trollaxe: Goblins. They were having goblins problems in the past, but they were merely nuisances, until the big orange ones started showing up about 2 months ago. Recognizing those as Hobgoblins, our heroes figured there was more to it than mere coincidences. It seems every species along the swordcast were growing increasingly violent all of a sudden. Lizardfolks, then Kruthiks and now a new tribe of hobgoblins?

Of course they could all be unrelated, but could they afford to dismiss their only lead? So that night, they sleep in the safety of the lumbercamp spiked walls, and the day after, the 24th of Flamerule, the intend to accompany the lumber team to the cutting area, where they expect  a goblin ambush, as it happens frequently lately.