Karok threw a quick look back to Jhaelin to see if he had objection. Then, if not, rushed to catch up with Durwe, short, powerful legs doing their best to pace him.

"Thanks Jhaelin." Brett said his glance at the fleeing hobgoblin in disappointment that he could do no more.

Jhaelin shrugs at the look from Karok, then as the two warriors make to follow the hobgoblin, the adept follows suit.

He motions to the others, "C'mon, lets follow them."

He pushes through the grasses and reeds, then finally into the tree line a few yards to where Karok stands, watching over a silent Durwe, the elfs eyes intent on something.

"You lose him?", the adept of Heironeous asks.

"Panther Piss!" Dûrwë exclaims in visible anger and frustration, "this assassin is good! I am sorry my friends, but I cannot find his trail."

"Well, we need to keep an eye out for him while in these woods," Jhaelin says, looking through the wooded area as if he would see the hobgoblin spring up like a quail.

"It's only a hand or so past high sun. We need to decide if we are going to continue today. I am spent on casting anymore spells today. I need rest, but if you wish to continue without the possibility of healing from me... well, we can do that too."

"Shore of the lake makes a pretty good spot for a camp. No trees behind yeh."

"It would be best if we could find the reagent and head back," Karok suggested. "If we can't find it much before dark, then I'd agree and say camp, here, but I'd rather be back inside the walls if we could be."

Tynia would look at the group, "Yes, we can do that," she responds to Karok's suggestion to look for the Eldermoss and return. "And I would like to gather any arrows that were used, maybe find out those that the hobgoblin had used as well." She finished. "Well, that and to regain any spells I've used."

Dûrwë has a faraway look in his eyes as he says, "I agree with Karok, we still have a half a day of light and should make every effort to find it if we can."

The party rest at the shore of the lake for twenty minutes. While Jhaelin, Brett and Tynia recover their spell energy through prayer and studying, Ordil gathers what arrows he can find. He locates two of the hobgoblins arrows nearby; one in the shallows of the lake and one where Durwe had fallen. A third he finds in some reeds back the way they had come for a total of three of the hobgoblin arrows.

"Made from the wood around 'ere I think," Ordil says, remarking on the hard dark wood used in arrow's shaft.

The tips are black obsidian and the feathers are black, resembling those of the razor crow. A trace of the poison goo can be seen on the one found back the way they had come. Each of the arrows have a small inscription of magic script along its length.

"And enchanted," Ordil remarks.

Twenty minutes pass, slowly for Karok, but finally the casters are ready to press forward...

Jhaelin spends twenty minutes is prayer, regaining his faith with his God. Afterwards, he approaches the others who are waiting, then looks over at the silver tipped, brighly orange coated fox lying near the brush. It is breathing shallowly and moves its head every so often.

"What do we do with that fox?" asks the cleric. He kicks at the trap lying on the ground, making a clinking noise. The fox jerks, as if the sound from the trap wounds it further.

"Should we just put it out of its misery? Karok, if nobody objects, would you just whack its head off?"

"If no one objects, I would put it out of its' misery," the dwarf agreed. "And, if you do not find it objectionable, the fur would be worth something afterwards."

Ordil stabs the three arrows he gathered into the ground, then walks over to the fox to look at it. Feebly, the fox lifts its head and scrabbles its feet as if trying to get up to run. Getting up though, is not something it can currently do.

"Awwww. Can't we help it instead?"

Others might take his question to mean he is soft hearted and a lover of nature, when in fact, he would help it to further his own favor with Fate. He remembers being taught how all things, including ones actions in this world, affect the scales of balance. He needed a good deed since... well, since the other night.

"Just heal him a little, then we can rest some more. Okay?"
This message was last updated by the player at 01:23, Tue 15 Nov 2022.

Brett would move over to Ordil with said fox and gaze upon it. "It is an interesting little creature. Yeah, I say heal the creature. It too has a right to live, just as we all." He said with a shrug.

Karok gave a brief, massive shrug. "Whatever you like,", and began scanning the surrounding territory again for concealed hobgoblins and the like.

"Tynia, Jhaelin," Dûrwë asks with earnestness, "can you help the poor creature with your magic?"

Jhaelin shrugs, then kneels at the fox and offers a healing prayer. A suffused warm glow spreads over the fox and it suddenly bounds up from the ground and runs a few yards away before stopping and looking back at the group. Jhaelin is keenly aware of an intelligence in those eyes, not like a normal yard dog.

"Okay, ten minutes," the cleric says, walking a short ways away to pray. He takes out a string of wooden beads and presses a silver symbol to his lips as he kneels in the grasses.
This message was last updated by the player at 01:26, Tue 15 Nov 2022.

"Thank you Jhaelin. You are a good man."

Ordil grabs the three hobgoblin arrows he jabbed into the ground and offers them to Durwe.

"You might can use these. I think they are enchanted," he says, then picks up his pack and readies for the push into the forest.

"How far you think it is?"

Jhaelin looks at the map, tracing his finger to the location that Milon says the elder tree was located. It took them two hours to get to the lake from the camp with the dense forest. He had a bad feeling about this. They still had to traverse around the lake.

"Don't know really. This here map ain to scale," the cleric replies. He looks at the sky above the lake, squinting in the direction of the sun.

"Only bout five hands of light left. We won't be com'n out of here before nightfall I think."

"Aye, but if we return to town, now, we'll just have to rewalk the trail tomorrow," Karok sighed. "And, while it's sure fun fightin' poison flingin' hobgobs, and razor-winged birdies, I'd hate to hold the rest of the time we'd spent out here profitless."

Relief is clearly visible on Dûrwë's face when Jhaelin heals the mortally wounded fox.

He waves to the fox with a joyous smiles and says, "goodbye, fox. Stay away from the hobgoblin's territory, and live to raise many strong cubs!"

He turns to Jhaelin and says with clear conviction, "thank you, my friend."

"I would dearly love to give one of these back to that assassin," Dûrwë says as he takes the offered arrows from Ordil.

Addressing the group, Dûrwë nods in agreement with Karok, and says, "I agree that heading back now would be wasted time, which is in sort supply for those currently suffering from the affliction. We must camp in the woods tonight then."

Jhaelin rests, regaining his spell energy for another ten minutes while the others stand around, keeping a wary eye out for a grey skinned hobgoblin. The air is hazy with humidity, and the insects buzz everywhere. The high sun beats down on the forest with unrelenting heat, making everyone sweat and feel uncomfortable.

Finally, the cleric is done and rejoins his companions who are eager to get underway. Within moments, the Falcon Six were underway, traversing the shore of the lake before turning north toward the elder tree.

The sun moves two hands in the sky and after pushing through dense trees and thick brush of the forest, the game trail the party has been following gives way, parting seemingly in respect for the titanic darkwood tree that utterly dominates the clearing ahead. Several times taller than a temple minaret, the obviously ancient tree in one direction reaches into the sky with branches like a giant’s arms, while in the other it plumbs the earth with roots thicker than a man’s waist. Its limbs broad and strong, its bark thick and so richly colored as to almost be black, and its leaves the size of bucklers, the giant thing is less a tree and more a cathedral of boughs and branches.

Standing on the edge of the clearing, the deep shade of the tree is inviting, a refuge from the ceaseless heat of the day.

---

The clearing is roughly ovular, 180 feet from north to south and 110 feet from west to east. The elder darkwood has a trunk 30 feet in diameter, with low, easy to climb branches that extend 35 feet from the trunk in every direction. It reaches skyward at least 300', well above the forest canopy layer.

The clearing is dominated by high grasses and a few weeds.

Currently, the party stands on the south edge of the clearing in the wood line.

"The woods're not really my homeground," remarked Karok, "So I may be wrong about this, but I think I remember hearin' that moss grows on the north side of a tree. Is that right, or am I short of learnin'?"

"Somethin' big went down near here, by the way. I'm hearin' what I take to be carrion eaters flyin' in on the direction that smell is comin' from."

At Karok's mention of a smell, the others soon detect a light scent of death in the air... and the sound of wings flap'n or flutter'n can be heard off to the left somewhere.

"Anyone else see that?"

Ordil squints up into the tallest tree he has ever seen. Wow... to have had this in the backyard to climb would have made his childhood interesting.

"There's a glint of metal way up there."

If there was a glint of metal... Ordil appears to be the only one to have seen it, or can locate it.