The Golden Elf and the Snake

After successfully clearing out the Goblin, Orc and Gnoll menace. The heroes figured the town's woes would be at an end. Everwater however was bustling with activity. The Heroes deeds had spread across the lands and many a would be adventurer had come to cut their teeth and create tales of treasure of their own. Marcus Gideon, Justicar of Malvernis had also come and was working his way through town encouraging the people to elect someone to represent them. Hamfist, fearing that the townsfolk would come under Thordor's rulership, began subverting his efforts and spreading rumors about his ulterior motives. The people, in awe of their small hero fighting for their town, elected Hamfist as sherrif on the spot, in return, he deputized all of the other Heroes. They poured much of the treasure they earned from their adventurers into the town's coffers to expand and improve the infrastructure of Everwater. Shortly after their efforts, Gamalin approached the heroes with a smirk on his face. They had done well, and he offered them a solution to Lady Blackthorn's lycanthropy problem.

To Seal the Shifting Heart
Gamalin led the party in a great rite to seal Lady Blackthorn's lycanthropy away. He explained that the seal would not lost forever, he sent the party into the forest to speak to a mysterious force of nature. Despite the party's constant questioning as to the nature of the "thing" or "things" they were seeking, the quirky druid insisted on being enagmatic. He also warned "Do not speak of me. Don't even mention me. It would make interactions... harder."

Orcs and Goblins and Wolves, Oh My!
The party headed in the direction Gamalin crypticly spoke of. Two days into their journey, the party spotted a small encampment just off the road. As the road was unknown to the party, Tairon decided to use his stealth tactics and take a closer look. The rest waited anxiously as they watched the swashbuckler slowly make his way towards what was ahead. Tairon spotted several Orcs ambling about the camp, he signaled his find to the rest of the party, and Erana bolted on her horse. Foolishly she rode straight into the fray, leaving Dondarian and Lady Blackthorn behind. She attempted to leap off of her horse and skewer one of the Orcs but caught her foot in one of the straps and landed face first into the dirt. Had it not been for Tairon and her struty steed's quick actions, Erana would have been quartered by the Orcs surrounding her. Dondarian tried his best to be of use in the battle, but he was far from the battle, and even with his heavy crossbow his arrows often sailed just off target. Erana did her best to vent her intense rage on the Orcs, but her swings were ineffective. Tairon and Tethlandryl her loyal Elven charger, made quick work of the few savage Orcs. Amongst the fallen, the party found a map drawn by the Orcs of the forest they were currently in. On the map three symbols were depected, "First Keep", "Big Keep" and "Orcs do not go here". The mark indicating where the Orcs should not go was a skull and crossbones, it also happened to be the rough area Gamalin wanted the group to go.

Wandering deeper into the wood headed towards the strange "entity", the party heard wolves and goblin calls in the distance. Deciding to lay a trap for them Lady Blackthron and Hamfist led the cart and the old nag pulling in straight through the wood, hoping to draw out the goblins. Erana and Tairon hid in the darkness about twenty feet behind the cart. The goblins came, and the party was prepared. Making quick work of the dozen or so goblins the party thought they had won the battle. Fifteen wolf rides charged in and turned the tide darkening the day for the heroes. With spell and sword, the heroes bravely fought off the fury of the wolves and their rides, but at the cost of their dear friend, Hamfist. Most of the goblins crowded around the cart when he offered them treasure in exchange for his life. He hid in Lady Balckthorn's enchanted chest, every goblin hand that tried to carry it out caused it to weight more. Everything finally broke when Tairon lept from a tree, landing on the top of the chest, breaking it, the cart underneith it, and unfortunately Hamfist as well.

Mourning the loss of their friend, but feeling the need to press further. The Heroes continues on towards the spot on the map marked "Orcs do not go". Lady Blackthorn's seal would not last forever, and the party wished her curse be handled before it became a problem once again.

Sir William the Peacemaker
The Heroes, saddened by the loss of their friend, sang no songs on their journey. They only felt the duty in their hearts to fulfill their task, and return Hamfist's body back to the town. They had wrapped him, and prepared his soul to move on, leaving him in a caern for the time being. The party's heads only came up once, to spot someone cresting a hill. With the sun blazing behind him a great armored man with a billowing red cape sat upon a might steed. He flew the colours of Malvernis and stood proudly upon the top of the hill. Once, pleasentries were passed, he identified himself as Sir William the Peacemaker, a Paladin of the Church. The group felt a little relieved as paladins of the church held no alliegence with either kingdom and thus their friendship with Vanessa Redstorm would not become a problem. "Gamelin sent me." He said. With a few bold words and a smile that would melt the coldest heart, he managed to win over the adventurers and convince them to allow him to join them on their travels.

Oracle
Ventureing deeper into the forest, the heroes finally met with the entity Gamelin spoke of. Oracle. It was a strange creature which spoke with four voices, one on the wind, a face in a tree, from a rock, and from a patch of flowers. Each voice seemed to be a slightly different personality. The voice on the wind passed jugdement and seemed a neutral personality, the flowers spoke with the voice of a child, and seemed to advocate for the party. The face in the tree spoke negatively of the party and thought their fate was already sealed. The rock only spoke of courage, as if that was the only thing that really mattered. In the end, the heroes would be tested. They were sent towards a looming mountain without a word, as if the trials would find the adventurers.

To get to the mountain, the party merely had to follow an old road that still had not become too overgrown. Between them and the mountain, lay First Keep, and Big Keep.



The Chosen is Tested
The party carefully made their way along the road towards first keep. About two days journey from their first road block, Tairon's careful ears alerted the party to a group on the road, heading towards them. Erana thought quickly and cast one of her unique spells upon the entire party, masking them as Orcs! The party was able to stand at the side of the road and get a good glimpse at the number of Orcs heading their way. A good thirty were marching in neat ranks, but several of them seemed bigger, and one was just huge with hulking muscles that carried a tree trunk for a weapon. In an act of courage, or foolishness, Erana and Sir William led the charge. Slinging spells the bladesinger webbed about a third of the Orcs, their neat ranks made them perfect targets for her magical sticky strands. The Orcs were we very well trained platoon, and their leader, the massive tree-weilding hulk bellowed out orders with military precision. Were it not for the luck of a few well places spells by Erana, the powerful healing magics of Lady Blackthorn, the selfless courage of Sir William, and the well placed killing blows of Tairon, the party would not have survived that day. The Orcs brought Tairon, and both Erana and Sir William's steeds to near death, but death would have no one that day. Few of the Orcs scattered, but the party managed to find on the body of the dead leader a pendant, depecting a Medusae. It was looking more and more like this was what was organizing the gobliniods in this area. The party moved on past the site of the battle, to find a good place to rest. In the morning, Erana had a bold idea.

First Keep
In the morning, Erana noticed that the party had not healed from the wounds from the battle the day earlier. She convinced them that it was a better idea that they rest, and they she head onto First Keep alone, using her magical invisibility spell. She thought that by also using Comprehend Languages she would be able to get good intelligence on what they faced. As always, when she had her moments of brilliance the party agreed. Sir William suggessted she remember an extra invisibility spell if she could, should the first one fail and she need to escape quickly. Erana cast her invisibility spell and ventured towards the keep, hoping she was not on a suicide mission.

First Keep was a broken down old stoney structure, in a state of great disrepair. Much of the walls and towers were cumbled and rendered useless. Still she could see two Orcs occupying the two forward towers, lazily keeping watch. Erana slipped though the gaping hole in one of the walls, and waited outside the door leading to the keep. She knew that at some point a filthy Orc would open the door and give her easy access. Once securely inside, she made her way to the inner chambers, mentally mapping out her path to remember an easy escape and to relay any intel to her comerades. Using her light touch, she was able to cast a comprehend language spell and discren the Orc's plans. While listening in on a conversation between another hulking Orc and several larger of the breed, Erana found out that they were indeed working for a Medusae, she had ordered them to capture the party for some nefarious reason and had specifcally insisted that they capture Erana alive. The elf, spurned on by the idea of being hunted decided to venture into the bowls of the keep, to see if she could cause some mischief. Below, was the barracks of the Orcs, adn their common room. Erana found all of their bows, neatly placed in open closets, ready to go. She carefully cut each of the bowstrings about halfway through so it would give way under pressure. Erana was also fortunate to find a large cask of mysterious liquid, it was placed in a careful position and resembled the poison the Orcs had used on the party earlier. Erena decided to fill all twenty of her vials to take back to the camp with her. Fight fire with fire she thought. Returning to the common room, she noticed a large keg of Grog, and that the Orcs were drinking heavily from it. With deft hands, she opened eighteen vials, and dropped them one-by-one into the huge keg, poisoning the foul Orc grog. She counted about seventy Orcs in all, with several of the larger breed, and one hulk. Hopefully they would drink heavily tonight.

Erana silently slipped back to the heroes encampent and informed the party of the numbers they would be up against and that she had carried out some sabotage. The party decided that they would carry out their attack very late that night. Erana cast her remaining Invisibility spell upon Tairon, and recieved a refreshing Nap spell from Lady Balckthorn. They would attack that night, and they would be at full strength.

The Assault of First Keep
The adventurers, emboldened by their plan and the assurance that their enemy would have no chance once the mysterious Medeusan poison worked it's way into the Orcs, made their way to First Keep. Erana and Tairon were magically rendered invisible and thus moved ahead of the group to cause some sort of mayhem. The bulk of the party were told that if they spotted significant commorion, or a body dropping out of one of the guard towers, that would be their sign to charge. Invisible, Tairon and Erana made quick work of the makeshift wooden towers which had been added on by the Orcs. Both fell with an alarming crash onto the trees below, sending the Orcs on watch tumbling to their doom. Sir William and DonDarian rode The Trinity in through the front doors of the keep. The Orcs were waiting in ambush. Numbering much more than anticipated, bolstered with an extra chosen in the ranks and four of the mysterious snake women the adventurers were facing insurmountable odds. The battle waged well into the night, heroic deeds gave the heroes hope of victory, many Orc corpses laid at our heroes feet as the heroes fought valiently. In the end, however, just at William surcame to the sleep poison fo the Orc weapons, Erana emerged, escorted by two of the Snake women. The Orcs were ordered to cease their attack, dozens of them and a remaining chosen waited impatiently to pounce. The heroes were free to collect their wounded and go. In exchange, Erana would stay, and drink deep the sleeping poison. The heroes reluctantly left, and Erana drank in the deep sleep.