Session 10 - All Eyes Wood!

Extract from the Collected Letters of Mallius Vane

The sixteenth day since the fall of Phaendar and we were still struggling to survive in the Fangwood. The loss of two of our number lay heavily on us all...as did the constant fear of discovery especially since we learnt that the Ironfang leadership had put a bounty on our heads!

That evening, around the camp fire, we decided that we had two immediate priorities. The first was to find and kill the huge boar who had gored our two companions to death and posed a threat to our day-to-day safety. Aubrin told us she thought the boar might be the legendary Gashmaw...famous locally because of a ring which had somehow become lodged on one of its tusks, causing it great pain...the source of its violent and aggressive behaviour. We must either track Gashmaw down or bait a trap for it.

The second priority was finding a better campsite. Aubrin told us of All Eyes Wood, a couple of days to the east of us. Apparently, the Chernasardo Rangers have a camp there...or used to. Whether they are still there is another matter but it is worth going for a couple of reasons...

...they may still be there and if so then we can let them know what has happened to Phaendar, if they don't know already. Getting the word out is something I desperately want to do so we can begin to coordinate some sort of nation-wide response. And, besides, the help of the famous Chernasardo Rangers would be invaluable.

...if they are not there then we could perhaps use their camp ourselves. It is likely to be more secure than our present one...better hidden and more defensible. There may also be provisions.

So we were agreed. The following day we would hunt the boar. Once we had dealt with Gashmaw we could then safely leave our camp and the rest of the survivors while Folgrun, Kana, Xin and I went to All Eyes Wood in search of the Ranger camp. But no plan survives contact with the enemy...

I was awoken the next morning by Xin with the news that one of the night watch had gone missing. At first, I thought it might be the boar but quickly realised that any attack by Gashmaw would hardly have gone unnoticed by the rest of the camp. After a short search the man's body was discovered, poorly concealed, not far from the track the guards walk during the night. His head had been hacked off and left next to the body!

I thought it unlikely that this was the work of the Legion. Why would they bother potentially alerting us to their proximity...giving us the chance to escape? Surely an Ironfang patrol would have just attacked or a scout would have returned to Phaendar to alert the Legion to our whereabouts. Kana was not so sure. Either way, it meant someone knew where we were.

Folgrun picked up the killer's trail...booted and humanoid tracks...heading north-east. We immediately set off to follow them. I took the lead with Kana and Xin behind me and Folgrun covering our rear. Suddenly I was enveloped in a darkness so thick I could not see a thing. As I stood stock still, bow drawn, wondering what was going on...I was suddenly stabbed. I let out a cry and quickly backed away whence I had come, trying to stop the blood that was flowing rather too freely from my grievous wound. I passed Kana in the darkness and muttered something about being stabbed and then I was in the blessed daylight again. Xin looked at me aghast as I staggered over to Folgrun who took one look at me then raised his hands. Muttering under his breath, his hands began to glow with a warm light which immediately eased the pain and stopped the bleeding. As soon as he had healed me, Folgrun clapped me on the shoulder, swung his battle-axe a couple of times and then strode into the darkness, completely unfazed.

As Folgrun headed into the darkness, Kana backed out of it, her bow also drawn. What followed was a strange and eerie experience. The darkness moved...sometimes one direction, sometimes another...but all we three heard was the occasional grunt from Folgrun as we kept to the edges of this dark cloud. Xin would sometimes fire a bolt from his wand into the darkness but it just disappeared seemed to achieve nothing so he eventually gave up. Instead, he launched into a blistering verbal tirade full of the foulest language pointing out to the killer that it was just a matter of time before she was a dead woman. It appears that Xin had a least caught a glimpse of our attacker. I belatedly joined in...though with much less eloquence.

Suddenly, the darkness...which had been moving back and forth at a steady pace...came racing towards me and Kana who were standing close together. In my haste to back off I almost tripped over but then we heard the dwarf laughing. He had killed her single-handedly but still had the time to play a little jest on his jittery companions.

The killer was...as Kana had suspected...an Ironfang scout. We searched the body but found nothing that could confirm whether she was alone or not....nor of how much she knew about our camp location or whether she had got word off to Phaendar. Worried now that the Ironfang Legion were so close and, in fact, may already be aware of our location, we headed straight back.

After making sure the camp was as secure as it could be, Folgrun, Kana, Xin and I immediately set off for All Eyes Wood in the hope that this would make a more safe camp for us and...if we were lucky...to secure the help of the Chernasardo Rangers.

By around midday of the nineteenth day since the fall of Phaendar, we had reached All Eyes Wood. I have to say it did not fill me with much hope. The canopy was so thick that little light filtered through to the ground which was relatively bare of undergrowth. This dank and gloomy place was also unnaturally quiet...no sounds of birds or woodland animals. We made our way in until we reached an eerie gully full of standing pools of murky and stagnant water. Many of the trees here were dead and the air was full of the buzz of insects. A little further on was a makeshift bridge over a stagnant waterway, leading to a platform in the treetops. It looked like this may well have been a camp of some sort though it looked deserted now. The tree tops were also full of spider's webs. Large ones.

Folgrun and I warily made our way over the bridge with Kana and Xin holding back and covering us. We weren't careful enough. Suddenly webs shot through the air towards us...luckily for us, missing. Then a giant spider and a hideous spider-like humanoid attacked me and Folgrun whilst another giant spider attacked Kana and Xin. The spider-like thing tried to bite me with its fanged maw which seemed to be dripping some sort of poison. It missed. But it managed to claw me rather badly. I backed off and let loose and arrow, hitting the thing. Folgrun was busy fighting off his giant spider when Kana gracefully glided past me to attack the spider-thing...the giant spider that had attacked her and Xin behind us already dead. Unfortunately, the creature managed to sink its fangs into Kana who let out a grunt of pain. I drew another arrow but the damn bowstring snapped...again! It must be the constant damp of living outdoors. I just had time to draw my scimitar before the spider-thing sank its maw into me too and tore at me with its claws. Everything then turned black...

For a slightly easier read, a PDF of the write-up on Google Drive here.