Questa's Journal

49th of Latahndor
The party leave the Caves and head north towards East Wykle. On their way they decide to stay overnight at the town of Flussdorf. They venture in to town and Questa insist on finding a tavern to stay the night. She locates a building called Hermit's Rest. Questa is very exhausted and immediately has a Long Rest.

Rygon considers making a copy of the map of the Caves. Instead he goes exploring and finds himself in a General Store. He strikes up a conversation with the store owner and then looks at what the store has to offer. He finds out that the store keeper isn't skilled enough to make a copy of the map but suggested that someone at the Prison might be able to. Rygon purchases a Chess game and is told about the local champion ' Sarina ' and leaves for the 'Emerald Path ' that is closed. He decides to go to the Tavern where Gronk is and orders a drink from the Tavern Barkeep. Rygon orders the 'Pale Ale' after hearing what every drink was for sale. He then makes his way over to Gronk.

Gronk makes his way over to the 'River Fish ', which appears to be a Tavern and orders a drink (obviously!), he tries to strike up a conversation with one of the locals. He finds out the directions on how to get to East Wykle (take the North Road on to the Highway, about a 2 day journey by horse, 4 days on foot). Gronk asks about buying horses but has no luck. He gets a lot of information from the locals about the journey, including a series of Inns that they would be likely to pass on the 2nd day of their travels. Gronk has made himself at home at a table with his new found friends. Rygon joins him at the table.

The two of them talk about what drink they have ordered and Rygon says hello to the locals. General chit chat ensues. All of sudden 4 strangers walk in to the Tavern and start going to each table and seem to be asking questions. The strangers are a human (who is looking particularly annoyed), a Dwarf and 2 Elves. The human walks straight up to Rygon and Gronk's table, stands menacingly in front of them and asks..............

'Have you seen our cow?'. We have had too much to drink, left a gate open and now Tom our cow is missing! It was nice meeting you!'.

Gronk heads back to Hermit's Rest on his own while Rygon enjoys finishing his drink of Ale. After the drink he asks around the tavern about 'Sarina ', finds her and shakes her hand and challenges her to a game of Chess for 5 silver pieces. She confidently announces to everyone that she is about to beat the newcomer to town and it will be the easiest game she has ever played. Rygon plays as 'dark' and doesn't get off to a good start. Sarina is playing very confidently, skillfully and starts bragging about how easy this game will be. The crowd watching have seen this before and are beginning to get bored. Rygon is obviously nervous and makes some seriously strange moves. In the blink of an eye, Rygon is at chekmate. Rygon offers 'double or nothing'.

Sarina starts the next game just as well and it is not long before Rygon is in check. Rygon battles defiantly but Sarina plays like a Grand Master. Rygon hands over his 15 silver but gets a free drink! He heads back to the Inn.

The next day begins......

Breakfast is announced and in the morning and Rygon is so excited he is knocked out of bed and slams down on to the floor. The three all go downstairs and sit at the round table enjoy breakfast and discuss their travel plans. Horses seem to be the main discussion topic but the conversation goes nowhere. They are told by the owner that the nearby water pump is broken. Questa asks about offering their help. The party exit the Inn and go through town and walk 'up' the river. There is a large pipe that seems to be blocked. Questa checks it out and it appears that a large tree that has animals in it could be dropping debris causing the blockage. Rygon checks out the tree, which appears normal. Gronk and Questa hop in the river and start clearing the pipe, water then flows freely and appears to be fixed. They go back and tell Melissa and are rewarded with 5 copper pieces each.

Rygon leads the party to the Emerald Store that was closed last night. The closed sign is replaced with a 'missing persons' notice. They go in to the 'jewelry' type store and a very short store keeper is present. Rygon asks the store keeper about the sign out front. The very short man looks all the way up to Rygon and explains the three miners that he hires to to make the trinkets on sale in the shop and that they are very late and were last seen near Gems Split Mine. Normally they would be back 5 days ago but they are not! Gronk suggests that this is on our way, so maybe we could help. Once again the conversation turns it's way to horses and yet again ends in awkard silences. Gronk asks about some jewelry for sale to break the silence.

The store keeper offers 50 GP to the adventurers to find out what has happened to the miners. The party leaves the shop and Gronk suggests that they go to the Prison. The short walk there takes about 15 minutes. A dwarf male and a half-orc male are at the prison and seem to recognise Rygon and Questa. Gronk states that he is not with these two and skulks in the background. The prison guards draw their weapons and advise that both Rygon and Questa and have been cleared of all charges previously. The guards demand to know what is their business. Rygon asks about horses. A female elf appears and reminds them both they are not above the law.

The elf has 2 horses that they can 'rent' for 60 GP for each horse with a 50GP refund on return of said horses. She invites them to come inside to discuss the terms. Rygon and Gronk go with the elf, Questa goes back to town to see if she can find a cart or a wagon of sorts. They decide to rent 2 horses and pay 120GP to the elf.

Questa asks at the local tavern about where to buy a wagon. She is told that Miles has a horse and a cart and go ask him. She does that and is told that he owns a cart that he would sell for 30GP. The conversation between her and the man is quite glitched but she gets the cart in the end!

The party join up and head towards the North Road with their 2 horses, who appear to be very calm, and Questa has the unenviable luxury of riding in the cart for the duration of the journey. They discuss the mountain range where the miners are missing, the possible Inns they may see on their 2nd day of riding, going to East Winkle to get supplies and Bronhataan the town was also discussed. Gronk wanted to go there specifically to seek out a master forger about a piece of wood. Questa looks unimpressed about travelling in the cart.

The party have learned that on this journey there may be quite a lot of gnomes, a religious temple and lots of vinyards on their travels north along the Ouinion Highway. Questa is feeling warm, lying on her back, resting on her backpack while enjoying the trip as much as possible and feeling quite relaxed, most unexpectedly! Gronk and Rygon whilst riding the horses northwards on the road notice some flora called Elon Scrub. Rygon collects some of the vegetation. They cross paths with a stranger. Mostly people with horses and carts, donkeys and such pass the party. A group decision is made to keep going after travelling for 6 hours north.

The party continue for another 2 hours. The road has been fairly straight so far and they have reached a particularly high point in the land and get a very good view of where they are heading, except for the fog. The team decide to set up camp for the night not too far away from the road. Questa volunteers to stand watch for the night, so they all feel reasonably safe with their current circumstances. Gronk, once again, is able to find some awesome fire wood, in fact about 8 hours worth! It's about 3pm so Questa goes a-hunting. She notices that the animals are scarce and can't seem to find any. She looks harder and goes deeper in to the forest, which is quite thick, no wonder Gronk found so much wood she thinks to herself. It seems unusually quiet to Questa and strangely lacking in wildlife.

Meanwhile, back at the campsite, the other two notice a stranger (a gnome) walk passed.

Questa hears a familiar wooshing sound of an arrow and the familiar thudding sound of an arrow in to a tree. She then feels the familiar feeling of an arrow piercing her side. She winces in pain and another arrow pierces her flesh. Another arrow gets stuck in her and she is starting to resemble a pin cushion. She hides behind a tree and cannot see any evidence of who is attacking or where they are coming from. Feeling helpless, she calls out for help to Rygon and Gronk. Another arrow grazes her and she does not feel at all comfortable with having lost half of her hit points, but finally she has been able to identify the two camouflaged goblins about 40 feet away. Rygon responds to Questa's call for help and dives down in the forest to Questa's position and is able to help her out.

Gronk has bravely decided to take care of the horses while Rygon rushes to Questa's aid. Gronk also manages to strike up quite an interesting conversation with the gnome who has made himself quite comfortable at the camp. Gronk suspects the gnome looks a little too comfortable for his liking and questions him further. The gnome gives Gronk an explanation about being a merchant and such. Gronk bravely looks over the horses.

Rygon charges at the gnomes but can't reach them, so he decides to go back to Questa, who has been taking a lot of damage and cannot for the life of her see where the attackers are. Rygon cast one of his more powerful spells named Cure Wounds on Questa, she was grateful. Then, all of sudden, one of the attacker's arrows wooshes past the two hiding party members and lands in the eye socket of another hiding goblin who screams in agony and dies. (Apparently that goblin had one day until retirement!). The fight ended there and then, they guess that the other goblin ran off (with the other goblin's wife?).

Gronk saw the other two coming back to the camp and said, what's up? Rygon gave a brief description of what went on and Gronk reminded everyone that Goblins are easy. The gnome wanted directions to go somewhere or other and looked at the map Questa offered and announced that he was staying with the party's camp for the night.

Questa goes on first watch and it is quite uneventful. The most exciting thing that happened was Gronk's snoring. Rygon takes over for second watch and notices Tony the Gnome rifling through Questa's backpack for food. Rygon offers him some food and everyone goes back to bed. Next morning the gnome has gone! Gronk makes sure nothing of his is stolen. Questa notices a couple of gold pieces missing, like 4GP & 5SP precisely. Rygon nervously checks his equipment and finds his whole coin purse is gone along with some other important stuff! The gnome tracks were unable to be determined but the team remembered him mentioning a town called Bro-Na-Nutch-Town. The gang will definitely catch this crook and get Rygon's stuff back!

To add to the misery of the group, it starts raining! After travelling with the horses and cart for about 2 hours, three different buildings appear. They have the sound of merriment and joy coming from within them. The 3 buildings are almost identical except that they aren't. One of the buildings is called the Hoppon Inn and Gronk seems very interested in going in and will be hard to convince otherwise.