Recap: DF Nexus 2 - The Dark Woods

2014.02.26

Characters:
Brother Pick - Arakun Initiate
Clink - Arakun Brute
Tion - Arakun Apprentice

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3138 AP, Second Fall, 3rd:
The characters got back to town and had Mother Kind look at the druid's crude map. She was able to give them some better directions and clear a few things up. It looked like this trek was going to take them several days so they bought up some rations and decided to rest up and head out in the morning.

4th:
The first day of travel kept them in the familiar areas around Appleton, so and it was uneventful.

5th:
During the next day though, they found themselves in a dark and unfamiliar part of the woods. The forest canopy had gotten very thick and blocked out much of the sun. Here again, they found large webs filling the trees and branches.

Continued on, they didn't hear the quiet sounds above until several giant spiders dropped down all around them.

They readied their weapons as the first round of spider attacks came at them. Clink attempted to block just as he had gotten his shield ready, but ended up throwing it from himself.

Tion decided to take out the two spiders in the back with a rain of stones. Unfortunately, the heavy canopy hindered the stones quite a bit at first.

After the first couple of seconds of confusion and a few mishaps, the group found their footing and did fairly well. Tion parried one spider, then dodged another, just as his rain of stones made their way through the leaves and webs to strike the spider he just dodged dead. Pick smashed down one spider with his mace and Clink gave a few good cuts to one of the others, while parrying an attack from a second spider.

A few spider bites made it past the party's defenses though, and their SM-2 mail didn't protect well against the impaling attack from the spiders' mandibles. Pick was quick with a heal on Tion so no one ended up being terribly hurt.

They managed to finish off the spiders, noting afterwords that some were clearly weaker than others. After healing up they continued on. The rest of the second day and night were uneventful.

6th:
On the third day they found what might have been some sort of camp site, or the scene of some sort of conflict, none of them were skilled trackers. Still, the groups curiosity got the better of them and they decided to follow the tracks off into the woods.

Clink did a pretty impressive job following the tracks, even without any formal training (great roll on skill default), and they camp up on a small camp of Gecklings. The small lizard creatures were just sitting around. A couple looked like they were keeping (very poor) watch, and another couple were in the far side of the camp near a small canopy.

The party, having discovered what the tracks were made by, decided to head back to their own mission, and managed to leave without being seen. But they didn't manage to retrace their steps very well, and spent most of the remainder of the day just getting back on track.

7th:
Now back on track, they tried to make up some lost time. In the afternoon, they were surprised when an elf stepped out from a tree just a few feet in front of them. He was dressed in dark greens (which matched his hair), and carrying a elven bow and sword.

After appearing, he asked the arakuns what they were doing in this part of the woods, warning that it was a dangerous area. After some initial distrust on both sides, the characters mentioned that Durid Oak and after showing the map, the elf decided to help them. He lead them through the rest of the forest and pointed out a house and fenced off area across the field.

"That is the Bunny Ranch," he told them, which is where they would find the seeker. They thanked him, and asked his name before he left. He told them that he was known as Fennor, then disappeared back into the woods.

It was sundown, when the party reached the front door of the modest cottage and knocked at the door. A loud stomping preceded the door being flung open by a huge minotaur!

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Notes: This session had just one combat, but the group handled it fairly well. They did miss the PER roll to spot some loot in the webs and didn't attempted to search around. Next time I'll try to be a bit more colorful with the descriptions of the area to give some subtle clues that there might be something worth searching for.

Again the party an "observation" encounter, but didn't get much information this time around. But this is probably not the last we are going to hear about that group of gecklings.