Wilderness Crawl (Solo)
Mapping the North, Foray 2 - by Lommond
It wasn't hard to find others who were eager to leave the feuds of Middlestep behind. Acolytes of Moradin and a couple of veteran soldiers filled out the ranks. They referred to themselves as the Mercenaries of Moradin and were led by a priest. Previously, they served as escorts for one of the caravans that arrived in Middlestep. We agreed on an even distribution of wealth discovered, aside from mineral rights which would have to be discussed with my employer. They all swore before Moradin that they would respect the spirit of the agreement.
The individuals went by unique names that were most likely aliases. Led by Brother Klang and his righthand acolyte, Hillock, the only Hill Dwarf in the group, the other two are former soldiers: the broad-chested Skullcrusher and the agile Spearchucker.
Spearchucker secured a mule and some basic supplies including a large tent shelter, pick axes, ropes, spikes, rations.
Only once we left did I tell them about the village, our first destination. My initial mapping was sufficient for us to get to the village much faster than it took me last time, even with a mule in tow. I described my encounter with the tree people and made sure they were conscientious about not damaging the trees or, of course, setting them alight. I also mentioned Fastroot's warning about others in the woods.
Our first stop was the cache I had buried a couple of days ago. We filled it with other supplies and then set about exploring the ruins.
The area was so overgrown that it was hard to identify structures through the trees. However, Hillock, after digging around for a bit, revealed cobble and gravel stone roads and trails that we could follow. There was a steep slope down to a wattle and daub barn structure. After a cursory look around the barn and a listen at the doors, Skullcrusher forced the door open easily. Even though the roof was intact, the ground of the barn had thick patches of grass. In one corner I found a section of twine that was taught across the angle of the corner. The twine went up the wall. A trap. It looked like a section of the roof would collapse on us if we triggered the trap. That's when I noticed a coffer tucked away in the grass. Someone was here... somewhere. Curiosity got the better of us and we triggered the trap from several feet away. Sure enough, with a rumble, planks and stones crashed down. We picked through the debris to get to the coffer and found almost 1000 pieces of electrum. This was already turning out to be lucrative. We left the mule in the barn and closed the doors then proceeded North. Less than 50 feet away was a stone building with its walls and roof intact. We were greeted by snuffling sounds. Boars or pigs were within and it sounded like quite a few. The animals had been penned in the building, perhaps 5 to 10 of the beasts. Once again, a sure sign that someone else was around. We found a well and some apple trees (from which we harvested several to supplement tonight's meal), several dilapidated structures and sometimes just the foundations. We decided to hold up in the barn. Spearchucker was on watch as two figures loped into view. He gasped... "Ratmen." I didn't know what he meant until I looked out and saw two humanoid figures coming towards us and, sure enough, they had rat heads. They were in no mood to talk and drew swords. We engaged them as best we could but, despite landing blows, our weapons were useless. Eventually Brother Klang commanded one to flee in the name of righteous Moradin and it did, while Hillock placed the light of Moradin on the other's eyes causing it to flee blindly into the darkness.
Clearly it was too dangerous for us to remain in the barn. Both the command and the light wouldn't last for long. So we broke camp and looked for other lodgings.
It was hard going in the night and we almost lost the mule while ascending a rickety, rotten stair case. The stairs took us to a fully intact stone church. We forced our way in, and conducted a thorough search. Nothing of value remained. We barricaded the entrances including one at the bottom of a set of stairs that, according to my map, would lead to the well and the apple trees.
We set up a watch rotation and were able to get a fitful rest until dawn.
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