Editing Session 20

Date: 19 August 2020

As the party prepares to leave, [[Elfield Manor]] is visited by members of the city guard. [[Astrid]] gets the stolen logs and manifests from the party and leaves to smooth things over and return the items, saying she'll meet them in Redford.

On the fourth day, they have to cross a [[Love Brook|stream]]. The stream splits into 2 channels here with a river island – the western channel is deeper and faster while the eastern channel is shallower and slower. [[Nergil]] casts ''fly'' on himself and [[Quill]] and easily crosses. [[Pasky]] uses Step of the Wind while [[Corrin]] climbs on [[Ro]] and they jump across. 

That leaves [[Mino]] and [[Raen]]. Mino goes to cut down a tree, but he talks to a squirrel who has a panic attack and a mafioso muskrat first, and the muskrat tells Mino he cannot give permission to cut down any tree because that’s not his role in the ecology of the woods. Mino eventually passes a rope across the river with Corrin and Ro’s help, who tie it to a fallen tree – although that one breaks, and they have to try again. They set the fallen tree across the narrow point, and Mino ties himself to Raen, who makes it over. Mino then comes over himself, with the rope anchored on the river island. They then make their way across, but the rope comes undone from the far bank and Raen almost trips, but Mino grabs them both and gets out of the water.

The next day, Raen realizes someone is following them. He lets Corrin know, then turns invisible and steps back to wait for their pursuer to pass him while the group goes on. The group goes on for a while before Raen realizes whoever is following should have already passed, but he didn’t see anything, so he moves forward; Pasky, who had gone ninja, lets Raen know that someone is ahead. Raen follows but mistimes a step and alerts the figure to his presence, who waits by a tree and aims her crossbow in his direction. Pasky, thinking his friend is under attack, casts ''darkness'' and begins throwing darts; a crossbow bolt narrowly misses him and also Nergil, because the rest of the group heard the commotion/cry of pain from the dart hitting and are making their way back. 

The spell drops, and Nergil tries to use ''charm person'', but it fails. Raen tackles the tracker, who drops her crossbow and Quill catches it with ''mage hand''. While Raen has her pinned, her eagle partner divebombs him, but they convince her to call him off. After some discussion they let her up. She says she’s been tracking a five-person raiding party, and started following them to see what they were up to. The party is annoyed at being mistaken for raiders, but they agree to help her because they are pretty sure that, and I quote, “she’s gonna get killed if it’s just her and the eagle”. She introduces herself as [[Quinn]] and the eagle as [[Valor]], and they begin working with Raen and Corrin and Ro to retrace the path and begin tracking.

After some time, they come across a trail of day-old blood; it takes them some time to follow the trail, and it seems like it’s winding as if to complicate the trail. Valor scouts ahead, confirming five targets in sight; he speaks with Mino and confirms they have “lots of fur”, aka they’re hairy. They eventually come across five bugbears making their way through the woods. 

Corrin casts ''spike growth'' on their position, and Mino and Raen move up to attack, but Nergil and Quill fire off a ''fireball'' and ''thunderous fireball'', respectively, which all but decimates them. Of the remaining 2, Quinn picks one off with her crossbow, but the last one makes a dash for it. Corrin shoots his bow – a true long shot – and hits the final, burned, bruised and beaten bugbear in the back of the knee, bringing him down. As the group approaches to inspect the bodies, Raen realizes there’s a more well-worn trail ahead of them. They follow the trail to a ridge in the forest, at the base of which is a cave entrance...