Progress Report




Progress Report


La Ruta Verde (West of the mountains.)


Puerto Verde


The story starts in the offices of Belogard Urnstwil, governor of the city, and the man who is to send the four new 'cuernos' on their quest. After accepting his quest, the core party are joined by Carlton, who is a sort of guardian of Astra, having been tasked by 'The Librarians' to travel with him and watch over him.

They go to the Library with Astra and Carlton, and Woodstrike is cheeky enough to ask the librarian if there is anything he can do to earn a brand or a clip. The librarian is poring over some small tiles that appear to be made out of petrified wood. They contain strange 'rune-like' inscriptions that the librarian is studying.

Since he knows the party are to travel East, where the 'Old Ones' are supposed to have lived. He gives Woodstrike the task of finding out more about the language and about the fabled 'Old Ones' who are believed to have made the tiles. The tiles look to have been carved in wood, then the wood to have been petrified. Woodstrike accepts the challenge, but has no idea how he will carry out the task.

Rowanfury enters - a Half-Orc farmer exits.


The Cuernos, along with Astras Guardian, Carlton, left Puerto Verde, heading inland, towards Cuidad Verde. After leaving the coastal city behind they entered farmland, and began to look for provisions and possible employment in exchange for clips or brands. They came across a half-orc farmer who offered them a clip in exchange for removing the stump of a large tree from his field.

They tried in vain to move the stump, and asked if the farmer had a horse they could hitch to the tree for extra pulling power. He said he would let the centaur do it and brought out a centaur, shackled and hobbled. The party learned from him that he had been captured by the half orc, tricked and enslaved. The Centaur was of course, Rowanfury, a cleric of Corellon.

The centaur had a clip taken out of hit ear which was still bleeding. The half-orc had other cuernos which he treated equally badly. They managed to persuade the half-orc to un-hobble and de-shackle the centaur so that he could help them better. Reluctantly he agreed, but the centaur promptly set upon the half-orc, killed him and the party buried him beneath the stump of the tree.They used the half-orc's clip to clip their own cuernos, and high-tailed it out of the area.

Goblins on the road.


Passing through the greenwood, close by the dark wood, the party are offered a task by locals to clip their cuernos in exchange for the head of a goblin from each party member. The party ventures into the darkwood and waylay a small band of goblins. Each takes the head of a goblin back to the locals, who clip their cuernos as promised.

First blood to the Cuernos, unless you count the freeing of Rowanfury.

A fishy tale


The party encounters a merchant coming the other way. He has barrels of fish which he is sadly bringing back from Cuidad Verde, unsold. He tells a tale of a new type of fish that has made his salted fish unsellable in the capital city. The party cook some fish and spend the night with the fishmonger, they happen across a delicious recipe by accident, and decide to sell the fish to travellers as it seems very tasty.

They do well, and the merchant returns with them to Cuidad Verde, selling their cooked fish as they go wherever there is an opportunity. Once in Cuidad Verde, they sell his entire stock to various places, including the chef at The Ranger's Rest, a sort of motel for rangers, run or at least owned, by Sulindu, an influential elf, and Carlton's former boss.

Cuidad Verde - Enter Ammelath.


Remembering the instructions of Belogard, the party decides to look into Merryweather Stout, and see who he is. They go to take a look at the house he owns in Cuidad Verde. Attempting to be discrete, they decide to watch from trees outside his grounds. They notice some noisy birds flapping about in trees nearby, and their attention is drawn to what appears to be a human female hiding in the tree, whose position is being given away by "Go Away" birds.

They talk to the now non-hidden female, who turns out to be Ammelath, who is also looking at the house of the rich merchant, but for reasons of her own. She finds that the party have every intention of going inside the house, which would give her ample opportunity to see inside with a view to establishing a 'possession re-assignment', in her favour. That being the nature of her profession.

Ammelath decides to join the party with the sole aim of using them as cover for her acquisitive activities. She goes inside the house with them, and is somewhat annoyed to find it well protected, guarded, and probably well trapped too. It is almost like the owner is a halfling thief!

Logging Camp


Merryweather Stout, as hinted at by Belogard, gives the cuernos a task, to accompany a payroll wagon to his logging camp in the hills close to the mountains in exchange for a brand on their cuernos.

The party duly carry out the task. The logging camp is not a nice place. Merryweather treats his cuernos worse than the Half-Orc farmer did, and the party are disgusted. There is a graveyard for 'failed cuernos', and the accommodation they are offered is flea ridden and really not very suitable, in their opinion.

Two primitive human barbarians work for Merryweather, Gorda and Gilda. A brother and sister. Gorda prepares a drink from tree sap and other ingredients that proves nourishing and energy-rich. Gilda prepares the food for the cuernos, and tries her best to make it palatable, despite poor, almost non-existent ingredients.

The party believes they see the camp being watched, but cannot find a watcher when they look. Luthien sees that someone or something heavy has stood in one place for quite some time, but there appears to be no trace of anyone walking to or from the place. Just the marks where someone has stood still, and not easily identifiable footprints.

They are told that the wagon will continue to the mine to take wages to the miners. The party watches as the wagon they accompanied travels further and a different wagon returns with some ore and goods. They accompany this wagon back to Merryweather's house. They believe they see a large humanoid following the wagon that leaves for the mine, but are assured by the loggers that it is probably a troll, or some other mountain beast and that they will never attack the wagon.

The wagon they travel with carries a halfling, also called Merryweather Stout. He is a nephew of the other like-named halfling. Also a dwarf called Grumlin Goldaxe, who is one of Merryweather's guards. On return to the halfling's house, their curnos are branded as promised.

More Cuidad Verde


Still in the capital city, the party manages to arrange accommodation in the Ranger's Rest since Lúthien qualifies, and Carlton, as a former member of Sulindu's 'Explorers' is acceptable. A very sylvan feeling establishment with its own woodland area. They manage to get a cabin with semi-open stabling where Rowanfury feels more comfortable. The elves in the party are then summoned to appear before Tinwen Glyndil, the governor of the city, and head of the council. Tamuril is particularly pleased, as he is also titular head of her tribe.

They find Tinwen to be a bigot, very much biased towards elves, and that his son, Tiran-gal is taking a more prominent position as the old elf gradually retires from active political life. Tiran-gal is much less bigotted. At the reception, Sulindu is approached for a cuerno brand, and he offers a quest for the party to map the whereabouts of an alleged stronghold in the mountains. Sulindu remembers Carlton from his own Cuerno days, and gives him the task of ensuring that the map is not just a copy of what he already has.

Sulindu expresses annoyance that a previous questing party merely added a cross to the crude map he provided to them. He knew the existing map to be inaccurate and wanted an accurate map of the area, not just a simple cross on his map.

Mountain Stronghold


The party accepts the challenge, and sets out to find the stronghold. High in the mountains they encounter a half-ogre-mage who instructs them to follow him. After nearly causing a fight, the party realise he is trying to help them, and eventually follow him to a place that is hidden from the guards which he had spotted and they had not.

Korath had been observing the stronghold for some time. He explains that he saw the party earlier, at the logging camp, and followed the wagon firstly to the mine and then eventually to the stronghold.

The party co-operate with Korath, getting his assistance in mapping the area and also the benefir of the several days that he has been observing the place for. His reconnaissance proves invaluable, and is a great help when they finally report back to Sulindu. The party not only gets their Cuernos branded, but Korath has his Cuerno Blanco sealed by Sulindu too, effectively ending his service to Tinwen.

Sulindu tells the party that they now have enough information to mount an attack on the stronghold, and that the success of the attack will largely depend on their information. He is very grateful for their help, and rewards them in coin. He tells them that a caravan will follow them after several days, and that they should attempt to 'accidentally' give out this information, hinting that the caravan will be valuable, carrying the wages for the new garrison to be built at the far end of the pass. They are given a letter of credit to spend at the trading emporium.




Across the Mountains (Spina Armagada.)


La Ruta Verde pass


The party now must continue their travels eastwards towards the coast. They spend a day or two in the small garrison town at the entrance to the pass, where Sulindu and the other mountain guard are based. Sulindu advises the party not to travel with a convoy, as he wishes them to travel alone, to draw attention.

They spend their letter of credit at the trading emporuim as advised, knowing that if they are right and the owner, Merryweather Stout, is implicated in the mountain stronghold, then their credit will remain unpaid, and he will have lost more ill-gotten gains. Rowanfury has his hooves tended by Bort Hummingbird, a human farrier and blacksmith, not Drazak Stronghammer, the dwarf weaponsmith and blacksmith who works with Polti Legeviel who is known by Carlton to be a member of the Librarians. However Polti is eventually persuaded to take Rowanfury on as a Cuerno Verde and assign him to assist Carlton.

Tamuril finds that Bort Hummingbird suffers financially due to once having been involved with Merryweather Stout. He is unwilling to be involved with the denouncement of the halfling, as it goes against his principles, despite there being bad blood between them. Now the elves do not do business with him, despite it being accepted that he is the better animal handler and farrier. Sulindu agrees to have his people use Bort for some things, but that Drazak will still get all non-animal related work.

Rowanfury is persuaded to heal the sick wife of the chef at the prestigious Ruta Inn, who has Woodmans Ague, though he actually knows nothing at all about the disease. He does this as much to test the holy symbol that Tamuril bought for him as anything. The symbol seems to be very good, allowing him to channel the energy from Corellon into his healing spells.

A False Start


The party eventually leaves on their trip through the pass to the east late in the day. They travel for some time, then settle down for the night. In the morning, a messenger running non-stop from the Ruta Inn summons Rowanfury to return urgently, which he does.

Woodman's Ague


Rowanfury returns to the Inn, finding several people are now ill with the same sickness. He fears that it may be his doing, having encouraged the woman to return to work. Woodstrike has previous experience with Woodsman's Ague, and knows this to be typical of the sperad of the disease. He is worried, as the disease is often fatal.

Rowanfury manages, with the help of the others, to completely isolate the disease and cure all those who were infected. He also gets the assistance of the local cleric of Pelor to watch for further developments, and the party once more leaves the garrison town to cross the pass.

Across the pass


After some time the party notices something travelling in the hills to their right. There appears to be some humanoid figures moving approximately level with them. Korath goes off to investigate, staying invisible in order to observe hopefully undetected. His invisibility does not seem to hinder the Grimlocks who are blind anyway. They turn towards him and begin to move in their direction. By this time, the three giants further up in the mountains have seen the party too, and released their worgs.

Things do not all seem to be going the way the party had hoped. A fight with the Grimlocks ensues, and despite being a little un-nerved by the encounter the party are basically unhurt, however they do seem to have annoyed the three giants a little. Their big dogs are sent into the fray, and though they prove more challenging, the party continue to be aggressive as far as the giants can see. Shouts of "Get off my land" in giant did not help.

Luckily, Korath speaks a little giant, and replied, finding himself talking to a giant, who assumed that the party were his hunting beasts, just as the Grimlocks and Worgs were the giants. The giant was offended, and asked if he might kill the centaur, who was threatening his personal space by this time. The giant finally allowed the large half-ogre to leave provided he called off his beasts and left gold under a rock at the side of the road. The party promised to do so on their return through the pass.

The ranger notices that a heavy waggon is travelling several hours ahead of them. Later, the party slept at the site of a cairn, that other travellers had used to place tokens of their gratitude for a safe journey upon.
Tamuril placed a rock she had, but not her special rock from Eludil. Astra used magic to carve the Librarian symbol onto a rock, and left it there. Ammelath saw nothing there worth taking, so left everything there, just as she found it. Luthien and Woodstrike placed small parcels of food scraps on the cairn. Rowanfury prayed to Corellon, Carlton simply stood there for a second in silence. Korath looked on, wondering what the fuss was all about.

In the morning the waggon is found to be further ahead, having not stopped during the night. A little further on, that party spot some of Carlton's ex-colleagues to the north, high in the mountains above them. The explorers were not expected to be seen, as Sulindu had warned the party not to expect help, but for some reason they appear to have allowed themselves to be seen by the party. No one seems to see this as anything remarkable, not even Carlton, who knows that staying hidden is second nature to them.

Eventually, the party notice they are even making a noise, deliberately banging shields and making their presence obvious. Carlton moves towards them, and finally sees that they have been trying to get the party moving on quicker as there is a huge troll about to start raining boulders down on them. The party finally makes a run for safer ground and the imminent shower of geological samples is averted. Thanks mainly to the sympathy of Sulindu's Explorers, who had witnessed the Giants/Grimlocks/Worgs fiasco, and decided that based on past performance, the party was about to die without their assistance, despite Sulindu's orders.

In a short time, the party see the end of the pass. and find that the Waggon is now parked at the Eastern entrance to the pass. There is a human-looking person curled in a blanket under the waggon, asleep, and the oxen are unhitched and tethered, eating grass and seemingly quite happy.

The party wake Martin Martinssohn, the driver, who wakes slowly and chats freely with them. They insinuate themselves into his company as volunteer guards, and as a result, he decides to take the easy road back to Two Rivers, where he is heading.




Armagada (East of the mountains.)


More Goblins on the road.


Martin explains that there has been an increase in goblin activity on the better road, so people have been using the other road, which makes the journey longer in time, due to the steeper gradients and poorer road condition. With the party to act as guards he is confident they will have little trouble.

Despite this, the goblins do attack, a suicidal charge by a dozen weak lightly armed and unarmoured wretches that are soon slaughtered and their bodies burned. Several such ineffectual attacks mark their progress to Two Rivers, a large town, almost worthy of city status.

Two Rivers


The party, accompanying Martin Martinssohn, finally make it into Two Rivers, the largest settlement in the whole of Armagada according to their new found friend. It is a market town, acting as a focus for all the trade in the area. Central to the land called Armagada, midway between the coast and the mountains, and far enough from the devastation to have survived unscathed from the time, centuries before, when the land to the south was shaken to its very core.

The party wonder aimlessly in Two Rivers, Carlton, Rowanfury and Tamuril volunteering to work for the town guard for a while, and Ammelath attempting to find things that were not previously known to be lost by the owners, and re-assign the ownership of such items.

Some of the older buildings in the center of Two Rivers appeared to be made of petrified wood. These were allegedly built by "The Old Ones". Then Woodstrike found the tower of the local mage, who proved to be an elderly human female called Tina. She seemed to know more than expected about Tinwen and Belogard. ...

Tina and Tinker


While woodstrike talked to Tina and irritated Tina's apprentice, Rowanfury, Carlton, Tamuril, and Korath imparted their fighting knowledge to willing members of the Town Watch. Once Woodstrike finished with the apprentice, Tina and Peter the apprentice, went to the high class dining establishment for her daily outing. Ammelath saw them, and recognised a possible target for her skills. She purposely dropped a small purse in the restaurant as the first step in her plans.

Woodstrike had arranged to return to the tower later to continue his attempts to gain knowledge. Tina was more than willing to see them in the early evening. While demonstrating tactics on the clear ground below the tower, Rowanfury thought several times that he saw movement in the small trees that surrounded the tower. However, he never managed to see exactly what that movement was.

Later, after Rowanfury healed the town watch members that had volunteered to be part of Korath's demonstration of unarmed combat, the majority of the party went to Tina's tower. Ammelath, having returned to the barn they had hired outside town. Korath, Astra, Lúthien, and Carlton spotted a small figure watching them from under a tree. A female figure, looking like a miniature elf, but with tiny insect-like wings leaped into the tree, hiding behind the trunk, now totally invisible to all except those who knew where she had disappeared to.

The entire party, except Carlton and Korath, went into the tower. Some of them convinced that the others were hallucinating. Carlton stayed to try to communicate with the tiny creature. There was no reply at first. Korath went invisible and moved behind the tree, where he could clearly see the creature clinging, trembling to the tree.

Meanwhile, inside the tower, Tina was learning what she could of the party, while giving out some clues about Merryweather, Belogard and Shockingly, her sibling relationship to Belogard's wife, Bridget. She invited the party to dine with her later in her favourite restaurant. When they accepted, she sent Peter to arrange an appropriate private room.

While this was going on, Carlton and Korath continued to encourage the little creature to come down from her tree. Carlton switched to Elven, and finally made a comment that put her more at ease. Korath reappeared, also setting her more at ease. Finally, she agreed to talk to them, and admitted she had been following them since the time they burned the bodies of the first dozen goblins they killed after they crossed the pass. She told them she was Tinker Kaufmann, a Golan, one of the "Old Ones".

She said that she was scared now that she had been seen. She was not supposed to exist, and wanted to talk. One of the reasons that she wanted to talk, was the fact that it had been 300 years since she had spoken to anyone. She agreed that she might re-appear to them when she felt comfortable if they would allow her to leave now and keep her existence secret from the rest of the world.

A meeting and a meal.


The party took Tina's earlier hint about the quality of the establishment, and made themselves presentable, some buying fresh smart clothes, Rowanfury even going to the lengths of getting himself groomed at the town watch stables. They convened in the restaurant and were shown to a private room, where provision had been made for two centaurs by simply leaving lots of space and putting matting down on the polished floor. The observant waiter spotted the error, and fetched a small sturdy couch for Korath to sit on instead.

Over their meal, Tina encouraged the party to tell more of their task, eaking out of them that part of their mission was to take the head of Merryweather Stout to Belogard. The party in turn learned more of the background of the party to which Tina, Belogard and Merryweather had belonged. Tamuril learned that one of the elves was Eludilim, Rowanfury and Carlton learned that one was the brother of Polti Legevial, Lúthien learned that one was his own uncle, Saren, who had never returned from his own Cuerno service.

Tina told the party how Merryweather had shown cowardice during their fights and had been running away when she was captured by the trolls that she knew killed Elanduril Eludil. She had personally killed the troll that had got him. By this time Saren Meneldur had already died bravely fighting the trolls, and she had no idea, until the party had told her, that even Belogard had survived, though she suspected that the halfling would have escaped, since he was already far away when she lost consciousness, terribly wounded by the trolls, who carried her off.

They agreed to take Tina back with them, when they returned to Cuidad Verde, and to clear the names of Tina and the dead elves, and hopefully, to bring justice to Merryweather Stout.

At the end of the meal, Carlton returned to the guard barracks, where he was staying, but the rest went to the barn outside town. They had been there for about half and hour when Korath heard the voice of Tinker Kaufmann, calling his name. She said she was now ready to talk...

Damn! Too close to the word count limit....can't add any more....have to extend to another page.

Progress Report Continued...

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Contributors to this page: Len .
Page last modified on Tuesday 08 of June, 2010 16:19:28 BST by Len.

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