Havoc in High Hay

High Hay

Burley hadn’t had a very exciting week. He had travelled to High Hay with his mentor, Menny Reedfellow, to investigate rumours that wild beasts - bears and wolves - had attacked wood-cutters on the forest’s fringes. As game wardens of the Dower, it was Menny and Burley’s responsibility to monitor and manage the wildlife in the various woods and forests. However, Menny had also bought his young son, Galwin, and the expedition had, thus far, only entailed setting up camp and sitting up through the night, watching the near treeline, hoping for a glimpse of some vicious man-eating animal.

To add insult to boredom, Burely had also run into a couple of the Rangers of the Reach - a haughty human woman called Derbret and the grizzled orc, Hokrun. It seemed that Hokrun had shared tales of the Lost and Foundling’s adventures in Wicklow Mill, and, likely as a result, the Rangers were condescending to Burley and their old team-mate, Menny. Their duties, they suggested, were vastly more important: they hunted the Poor Sons bandits, who had robbed merchants traversing the woods, and searched for goblins, who had been seen in the woods again - far closer to human settlements than they have been in years.

By the time that the rest of the party arrived, excitedly bearing the evidence of Ilyad’s innocence, Burley had been left with child-minding duties, watching over Galwin while Menny and the Rangers ventured into the forest, following up rumours of a bandit encampment.

High Hay is a small, sleepy settlement on the edge of the Reaching Wood. It is the last stop for merchant caravans before they venture into the vast, dark forest. It has one inn, which doubles as a tavern, called the Notched Axe; a huge stables; Goldie’s Dry Goods and Vittles;  Fendor’s woodwork and handicrafts; an outpost for the Rangers of the Reach; and a few small hovels.

High Hay was once surrounded on all sides by a palisade wall, but that has long fallen to disrepair. Much of the wall has been disassembled to construct the few shacks on the town’s northern fringes. It is most heavily maintained on the eastern side, facing the Reaching Wood.

Timber merchants drink in the Notched Axe. On the day the Lost and Foundlings arrived, carts loaded with freshly dressed timber and bundles of firewood crowded the town square in front of the inn.

Den and Pebbles went to have whiskey sours in the tavern, where Den interrogated the bartender, a tiefling called Bargain, about the whereabouts of his missing father, Gander. He got little information, but Bargain offered a drink on the house and the promise of keeping an eye out for the errant Gander.

The rest of the party went to talk to the timber merchants, wanting to hear stories of the wild animal attacks. They met Phil Salmon, the brother of Ted Salmon, who told a rambling tall tale about an encounter with a ferocious bear.

A Runaway Horse

While Phil was chatting, Den heard a commotion from outside. Emerging into the inn’s forecourt, he spied a horse bolting from the woods, and heading toward the town centre. He saw an arrow’s fletching and blood on its flank, suggesting that it had been attacked.

As the rest of the Lost and Foundlings watched, Den closed the distance to the horse, then expertly grabbed the reins and used the runaway’s momentum to hoist himself into the saddle. However, pulling on the reins proved ineffectual. Burley too had little success, as he moved forward and tried to bodily check the mare’s reckless progress.

Pebbles cast the a sleep spell, which didn’t affect the frightened animal, but did send Den into a stupor, causing him to crash painfully from the back of the horse. It wasn’t until Featherfew used his ability to speak with animals, that he was able to calm the terrified steed.

Extracting the arrow from its flank, Featherfew was disconcerted to discover that it was different from the iron arrowheads of the Poor Sons - this wicked implement was carved from some strange, hard wood, and cruelly barbed. A Goblin arrow, he surmised. Burley recognised the grey mare as Menny’s horse.

Into the Woods

Leaving Galwin in the questionable care of an inebriated Phil Salmon, the Lost and Foundlings raced into the woods. Burley masterfully tracked the course of the horse’s flight, leading the friends swiftly through the trees. At one moment, however, he temporarily lost the beast’s trail, and cursed himself for precious time wasted.

The Lost and Foundlings emerged into a clearing amidst the dense woodland. At the centre of a gully, surrounded on each side by steep, rocky inclines lay a bandit camp. The campsite was so perfectly situated for an ambush that it occurred to the party that it was likely set up for just such a purpose - a trap! And indeed, a posse of bandits had established themselves on the western hillside, firing down on the Rangers who were pinned down amidst the tents. Through sheer misfortune, a gaggle of goblins had come across this already fraught scene and had, as goblins are wont to do, joined the fray. A pitched battle had resulted, with the goblins loosing arrows on anyone and everything who wasn’t a goblin and the bandits firing on the rangers and the goblins. The Rangers of the Reach were caught in the middle, and had already sustained serious injuries.

The Lost and Foundlings joined the fray. Burley raced forward, smashing a bandit on his way with  Chainbreaker, the maul of Daven Ironhand. One goblin reached into a tree which he was sheltering behind and grabbed an entire beehive, which he hurled into the centre of the group of friends. The bandit captains, who wore crude masks resembling a hare and a hawk, fired a flaming arrow toward a leaking barrel of pitch, then fled into the woods.

Fleeing the crowd of infuriated, stinging bees, Pebbles ran forward, preparing a spell. But his magic had grown unreliable since he found the pin from Sir Starling’s armour, and his incantation backfired, transforming him into a potted plant. The bees descended upon his pollen-rich flower.

Hurling himself over tree stumps and around other combatants, Den flew to the centre of the campsite, in the middle of the besieged Rangers, and summoned the magical darkness that was his to command since he had garbed himself in Candlefoot’s mantle of shadows. Plunged suddenly into deep darkness, the Rangers were temporarily alarmed, but swiftly realised that they were fortuitously concealed from their foes, and enjoyed the temporary respite.

The largest goblin, surely their leader, leapt toward Enid, but was met with steely resistance, as the young knight summoned holy light and plunged her blade up to the cross guard into his chest. Horrified, the goblin coughed blood, and muttered, eyes wide with shock, ‘You’re a knight! I didn’t think there were any true knights left in the Dower…’.

Ilyad unlocked another new power, seemingly granted by Xalik cul Zhan’s troth ring, flitting around the battlefield in puffs of mist. The moment of sudden transportation felt to Ilyad much like blinking, a split-second of darkness. And in that darkness she swore that she could hear something, where before she had felt only silence: it was the rapid, panicked breathing of a small beast realising that it had become some other creature’s prey. She appeared suddenly behind Enid and exploded the goblin leader’s head with a blast of magical energy.

Within the darkness, Burley continued to smash bandits, while Pebbles emerged from his odd transformation and used his magic to slow the spreading fire, blasting it with an icy blast. Den shepherded the injured out of the fight, cloaked in darkness. Featherfew, incandescent with stars and storms, lay about him with bolts of magical energy. He shouted to the goblin wielding a knotted, twisted wand: ‘If you flee now, we will not hunt you, provided you cleave to the deep woods and do not threaten the realms of men and halflings.’

The goblin ground his sharpened teeth, ‘I will leave. But if we ever cross paths again, I will eat you, and your friends, and your children, and your parents, and anyone and everyone you ever met.’ With that comprehensive threat, the goblins melted into the woods, and the Lost and Foundlings retreated in the opposite direction, their allies safely ensconced in a shield of shadows. As they departed the battlefield, the fire spread to barrels of gunpowder, causing a cataclysmic explosion.