Stop the Poaching - Group 2, Session 7

Late Afternoon... 3rd day of the Time of Thirar's Carrack, 2171CR

The party returns to the village of Spirit Lake from their meeting with Two-Twist the Satyr (and the Quicklings that arrived first), thinking about what may lie ahead. The satyr claimed that his friend on the other side of the river had knowledge of the poachers and their operation, but he couldn't - or wouldn't - be specific. Satyrs are known to be carefree and unconcerned with the goings-on of anyone else - unless those goings-on involved a good party.

Returning to the resort, the group had little time to spare. Boarding one of the rowboats docked behind the resort, they made their way along the shore toward where the Dryad River emptied into Spirit Lake. Fortunately, the river was wide and slow-moving, with only an easy current to row against. They continued upriver until they reached the fallen tree landmark mentioned by Two-Twist.

Tanalith Q'uelan sang out the summoning tune that he had been taught by Elianna Asturiel, and in very short order, the satyr appeared. Hopping into the boat (and almost toppling Aryk Underforge out in the process), the satyr simply said, "Straight across the river from here!". Thornas Tiller at the oars complied, angling his approach to offset the current, and in short order, the group was dragging the boat onto a small sandy patch of shoreline on the south side of the river.

"We should conceal the boat", Aryk suggested, and so it was dragged a bit further until it was under a shrub and well off the beach line. "That'll do", thought Aliya, noting there was nothing left in the boat to make it an attractive target anyway.

Meanwhile, Two-Twist had produced a set of pan-pipes and he played a tune similar to, but not quite the same as, the tune the party used to summon him. In very short order, another satyr appeared, bounding over a low shrub and landing on the beach. Two-Twist introduced the newcomer as his friend, Hollowhorn. In turn, Tanalith, Aryk the Dwarf, Thornas, Aliya, and finally Zatqualmie Timbers introduced themselves, with Zat adding a spate of accolades for all of the wondrous things the others - "the Adventurers" - had done and were capable of doing. Hollowhorn merely stifled a yawn and waited for the gnome's blathering to cease.

When it had, Hollowhorn simply said, "Follow", and started down a game trail that paralleled the river, about fifteen feet or so into the brush away from the shore. He had to adjust his pace a few times - and did not hide his impatience at needing to - as the party struggled to keep up. The forest undergrowth was quite rich on this side of the river, and while the game trail made passage through the brambles and shrubs easier, it was still slow going. Only Aliya seemed to have no trouble moving through the brush whether she stayed on the trail or not. She easily outpaced even Tanalith.

After a mile or so, the trail they were on intersected with another that led south, away from the river. Before turning onto that path, Hollowhorn pointed to two wooden things partially visible beneath shrubs. They were also covered by a layer of cut branches obviously meant to conceal them. "Those are the boats that your Folk came in", Hollowhorn said to the party.

Aliya, feeling somewhat mischevious and at the same time increasingly angry as she had been thinking about the poachers and what they were doing to her "forest friends", decided that these poachers didn't deserve boats. Without a word, she hopped over to the nearest one, threw off the camouflaging branches, and dragged it to the river's edge. Shoving the empty boat into the current, she simply said, "That's one!". But before she could do the same with the second, Hollowhorn made a comment about this taking far too long. The party quickly convinced Aliya to leave the other boat alone for now, and the group set off again, now heading away from the river along the new game trail.

A mile and a half south of the river, as most of the party struggled to keep pace with the satyrs, and Aliya happily slunk through the brush to the right of the trail as if it were pavement, two things happened simultaneously. Aliya, looking all around at the flowering laurel bushes they had been passing through, noticed something strange hanging on the bush just a few feet away from her. And at the same time, Tanalith, spying the slightest movement off to his right, behind Aliya, noticed a lone Sprite flitting about. As he watched the tiny creature approach a laurel flower, it suddenly seemed to become entagled in something. Struggling, it fell to the ground, more of the entangling thing wrapping around it. "Stop a moment", the Elf commanded and those ahead of him paused on the trail.

Aliya examined the thing on the shrub before her... it was a net: an extremly fine net of silken thread with a mesh of about 2 inches. She turned at the sound of Tanalith's command, and watched the Elf push his way into the brush to an area she had recently passed. At the same time, the high-pitched squeals of a tiny Fey creature crying in terror and alarm in the Sylvan tongue they spoke reached her ears. She bounded back to Tanalith's side.

As the Elf looked at the net carefully, trying to find a way to free the Fey without harming it, the creature kept pleading, "No... stay away! let me go!", but Aliya realized that this Elf did not understand the Sylvan tongue! Her belief that all Elves could do so flashed through her mind for a moment, causing her to look at Tanalith oddly for a moment, but she then began to speak to the sprite in its own tongue. Aliya reassured the creature, telling it that there were simply trying to free it, and that they were here to ensure that no others of her kin would suffer a similar fate.

The sprite relaxed a bit and allowed Tanalith to continue his efforts to free it - no longer threatening to jab him with its tiny dagger. Soon, the sprite was free and flying away in great haste. The elf and halfling looked around and identified five other shrubs netted in this little pocket of forest. They quickly removed and destroyed all but one of the nets, the last one being stuffed into Aliya's pack intact. Tanalith returned to the trail, and indicated they could continue.

The party had been watching all this in earnest of course, with Aryk muttering curses on the poachers under his breath. Thornas wondered silently what could bring Folk to harm the fey this way. Two-Twist watched silently with perhaps the slightest hint of concern on his face. Hollowhorn merely stifled a few more bored yawns and stood with folded arms and a tapping foot. And Zat expounded on how wondrous it was that the Elf and Halfling had even noticed the nets, and wasn't it wonderful how these Adventurers were so caring for the creatures of the forest. He furiously scribbled notes in his small journal - which he had taken out to keep handy when the party first reached shore.

The party continued south, but only another half-mile or so before Hollowhorn stopped, turned to the party with a finger to his lips indicating silence was needed, and gestured with the other hand for the group to crowd closely around him.

"I can smell them from here.", the satyr whispered, "Their camp is just a few hundred feet further south." Then, turning to Two-Twist, he continued, "They'll find it from here... we're late for our party, so what say we get to it?" Two twist agreed, quickly reminded the party that they had but follow the game trails back the way they came, and the two satyrs bounded off through the forest and disappeared from view within a few seconds.

The party realized that even they could smell the campfire from where they stood. Without discussing tactics, Tanalith simply drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it, and proceeded to quietly but purposefully head toward the smell of campfire smoke. The rest of the party looked at each other, a few shrugged their shoulders, and they followed as quietly as possible.

As Tanalith neared the camp, he began to hear snippets of conversation. He made out one voice saying, in the Commonspeech and accent of a Human, "...that's it... pin em down and snip off the wings...". This was followed by the sound of a small, muffled, thud. The first voice continued, "...no, you arsehole! now that one's waste ---"

The word "wasted" was cutoff in mid syllable by the sound of Tanalith's arrow thudding solidly into the back of the speaker. But while the shot was true, the Human's leather armor apparently softened the blow enough to prevent it from being a killing stroke. The struck human leaped to his feet and turned around, shouting, "We're under attack!", which got his two companions up also, looking around to see what threatened them as they loaded sling bullets into the slings pulled rapidly from their waists.

Tanalith, advancing like a silent automaton, fired a second arrow. Again his aim was true, but at the last second, the human it was directed at flinched his arm up as if to shield himself, and the arrow seemed to simply veer wildly off course. Still not uttering a sound, Tanalith strode in toward the camp without regard for stealth or cover, nocking another arrow as he came.

Aliya, bounded off the trail to the right and attempted to circly in toward the camp. She was not careful enough though, one of the other humans noticed here, but seemed confused about what was happening. His sling twirling, he looked at Tanalith, then Aliya, and then back to Tanalith as he let fly a wild stone that hit nothing. He quickly loaded a second stone and aimed at the halfling this time, but missed again. A third stone back at the elf also went wide of its mark. The third human in the camp also managed to get a sling bullet away, but it, too, went wide of any target.

The original target, in the meantime, had drawn a shortsword and began to close toward Tanalith. The two clashed, and the Human landed a severe blow on the Elf. Tanalith, in his rage, and ignoring the fact that he was now at point blank range, nocked another arrow and fired it into his attacker. The leather armor was not enough to stop this one; it ran the human through and he collapsed, dead, onto the small tent alongside where he stood.

The sight of this "mad Elf" was enough to convince the other two Humans to drop their slings and raise their arms. Aliya approached the one that had fired at her, and tugging at him, pulled him away for a moment before leading him back to the campfire ring.

The two surviving humans were quick to tell the party everything they knew about the poaching operation, which unfortunately wasn't too much. The one who knew things - their leader - was lying dead with Tanalith's arrows sticking out of him. The party was able to discover, though, that this group was due to return this very night with their "load" so it could make an outgoing shipment. They also learned the wherebouts of the dropoff point: the keg cellar beneath Gimna's Palace. And they learned the name of one other of the "insiders" in the ring: Georji, son of Amaric Duncanson (the general store owner). Georji was chief bartender of Gimna's, and was responsible for the keg cellar. They poachers were to bring their catch to the cellar and leave it in "the room behind the kegs", like they always did.

Tanalith had not spoken a word during the interrogation. He left the intimidation to the axe-wielding dwarf. But he suddenly rose, and ordered the two to strip to their skins. Taking his dagger, he slashed a cut across the foreheads of each, explaining that "this was the mark of the Elf Council. They were to leave the forest and never re-enter it. If any Elf-kin should see them and see these marks, their lives would be forfeit." The two, naked and bleeding from their new cuts, fled in terror down the game trail."

There were a number of caged sprites in the camp; Tanalith quickly freed most of these. One was found with its wings already clipped; this one was healed as best the party could manage, and was led away by a few of the healthy sprites. The tents, backpacks, and clothing of the poachers was thoroughly searched, and a number of interesting items uncovered before Tanalith gathered up all of the traces of the poachers and threw them into the campfire to be burned. After waiting to ensure the fire would die down, the party started heading back to the boats. Aryk had the body of the poacher lieutenant slung over one shoulder; Aliya dragged along one of the backpacks into which she had stuffed a few of the items from the rest of the camp.

When the party reached the point where the two trails joined, they realized the second boat was now missing - no doubt taken by the two fleeing poachers. They realized that letting them go may have been an error - if they got back to town first, they could claim it was the party that was doing all the poaching and murdering! But they had little choice other than to return to town - intent on monitoring the alleged pickup of goods that was supposed to take place that very evening.

When the party arrived at the dock of the resort, the two Brownies, Button and Bow, were waiting for them. "We has... clues!!!", they exclaimed. They explained they had seen two strange Tallfolk running naked through the streets a short while ago. They ran into a house, came back out a few minutes later wearing clothes, they got on two horses, and rode south out of town at a gallop.

The party breathed a collective sigh of relief -- the two they had freed were apparently intent on getting as far away from Spirit Lake as possible. They would not be accused of wrongdoing. And so, they focused on what would come next: getting to the keg cellar at Gimna's Palace to deal with any poachers that showed up there.

The session ended here