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The party returned to New Zinnia after defeating the trolls to find the city burning. The town's warden, Akiros, was severely wounded. The Varnhold embassy lay in ruins. The militia was scattered with the destruction of the barracks and the baron lay somewhere in the ruins of the library. They quickly rescued the baron and several inquiries later the party knew a large owlbear was responsible.

They tracked the beast over many miles to its lair. The rogue tried to infiltrate, but was caught by the shriekers and got out before anything could respond. Robert tried to bait the creature out, but only succeeded in luring out a shambling mound. Eventually, the party thought to look for other entrances and found one. The ettercaps and spiders at the back door were dispatched quickly, but the druid and rogue took some poison damage. The party wisely retreated to rest.

The following day, they again went in through the back door again. They found the remains of the owlbear's mate and cubs, the slain bandits, and the one surviving offspring. The rest of the party set to checking out the bodies and cub while the rogue scouted ahead.

The rogue quickly found the giant owlbear and warned the other. They took a few rounds to buff and position before the sorcerer launched a fireball into the main chamber. Unfortunately, their planning proved to be for naught as they elected to stand toe-to-toe with the beast and it proved stronger than anything they had faced before. A few rounds later, the druid tank was dying, the rogue was trying to get enough distance to heal, the sorcerer was valiantly slinging spells and the witch was looking for the exit.

Robert, who had been hanging back firing crossbow bolts, tried to divert the owlbear's attention from the rogue. He stepped up to the creature and received a severe clawing in response. Still standing and seeing no other option, Robert let loose a battlecry and leaped at the monster's face, trying to plant a final bolt right in its eye. Sadly, the beast was ready and swatted the pesky human into a cave wall. Robert did not survive.

The witch was finally able to kill the owlbear with a lightning bolt and bring the rest of the party back to consciousness.

The party was making a return appearance at the troll fort, intent on ending that threat once and for all. They had already been forced to retreat once, leaving two dying members behind to be capture. This time, they approached openly, charging their mounts up the path to the fort. Once inside, they cleared the first room of its two guards and explored the remaining rooms. The tower had been blocked off and the kennels were empty. In the storeroom, they found the path leading deeper into the lair and went down it.

As the rogue scouted, Nagrundi noticed the intruders. The rogue immediately retreated back to the storeroom. The inquisitor retreated after a failed intimidation by Nagrundi. Ethan planned to buy time for the others to position themselves in the storeroom and based up with Nagrundi. He apparently expected to survive the attack or two that was coming before retreating as well. Nagrundi grabbed the half by the legs with one claw, by the arms with the other claw, and wrenched him literally in half at the waist. (Numbers-wise, both claws and both bites hit. One bite was a crit. Ethan went from 42 HP to over negative Con in one round.)

Only the bear-shaped druid saw this happen. The rest of the party found out when Nagrundi chucked the upper half of Ethan's corpse into the storeroom. Nagrundi eventually fell and the survivors escaped to their horses. They'll be resting up nearby before entering again.

The party split up in reaction to the mist trap. Two, an inquisitor and a druid, exited the tower. The other three (rogue, witch, and Marz) went up the steps. Marz and the witch failed their saves. The rogue was chased back down the stairs by some vexgits I added to flavor the encounter. Marz was closest to The Dancing Lady and readily agreed to a dance with the beautiful women. What followed was the party Benny-Hill'ing it up and down the stairs trying to figure out what to do.

As I expected, they dealt with the vexgits quickly and having taken minimal damage, but the gremlins provided a nice distraction. The Dancing Lady was more of a challenge. The party didn't seem to know how to handle her. The dancing apparently terrified them and they would not commit to the fight. A few would run up, get mesmerized, and then run back down when she stopped to pin and feed on Marz. Then the others would run up and do the same.

Marz was actually able to escape once, making it partway down the stairs. However, the rogue had run back in and was struggling (in the negatives at one point), so Marz returned to the fight after a little healing (IIRC) and the cycle started over again.

Once Marz was in danger of dying, then the party committed. Unfortunately, Marz was fully drained before the others could kill the sith. The witch actually contributed quite a bit to Marz's death, having vomited spiders on and shot lightning at the sith while she had Marz pinned, but it was The Dancing Lady's Con damage that landed the final blow.

Marz's remains have been returned to New Zinnia to be interred next to those of Zinnia and the memorial plaques for Rupert and OzKar.

The party fought their way down to the war room of the mite lair, but were running low on resources. They decided to press on, entering the war room to find a group of mites and one giant tick. They quickly decided to pull back down the hallway to funnel the mites. Then Gobi (gnome monk/rogue) charged. Then Jose (half-orc samurai) charged. Zinnia, Zoltan (elf witch), and Cain (human oracle of metal) followed after much befuddlement. The mites were able to do much besides get in the way. The party was having a night of bad rolls so they couldn't put the mites down. Tickleback knock Jose into the negatives. Zinnia rushed forward and healed the samurai, but made a target of herself in the process. Tickleback drained her of her blood and proceeded to lay waste to the party. Eventually all of the mites were dead and the rest of the party was in the negatives except for Zoltan, who had fled around the time Zinnia went down.

Jose and Gobi awoke sometime later to find that the tick had gorged so much it was essentially in a food coma. They quickly slew the beast. They then tried to complete the TPK-1 when they spotted the captive kobold across the gorge and started to cross. Only Gobi's keen eyesight picked up the giant centipede.

The survivors left the lair, buried Zinnia under the tree and returned to Oleg's to nurse their wounds.

The party left New Zinnia (formerly known as the Stag Lord's Fort) headed west after some trolls that had attacked farms on the outskirts of town. They came across some gnomes in trouble by the river. They realized this was probably the Narthropple Expedition, which they knew had been missing for some time. They saved the wagon before it could be swept away. Some unfortunate actions later, one of the expedition gnomes lay dead and another unconscious by stable. Jubilost was also heavily wounded. Gobi surrendered himself to Jubilost as penance for his actions. He was not the one to kill the gnome but had attacked Jubilost.

Despite the departure of their general, the party continued their troll hunt. They tracked the trolls all the way to the way to their base. The party made camp at the base of a path that leads to the fort in the hills. When they attacked the fort the following day, they initially infiltrated through the tower. They killed the troll there as well as the two in the barbican. They lured the troll and hounds in the main hall onto the stairs between the main hall and the barbican. That troll did not last long, just long enough to get a warning shout to Nagrundi. After killing the troll and his dogs, the party heard something else approaching. Lacking resources as they're set up for 15-minute working days, they retreated out of the fort. Robert (human inquisitor/Zinnia's replacement) set an alarm over the entrance of the fort and the party headed back to their camp.

Before they could get a mile away, Robert heard three creatures pass through the alarm. Knowing they were being chased, the group worked out their strategy while jogging back to camp. After arriving at their camp, Zoltan flew off almost immediately. The others proceeded to talk, discuss, and argue. Eventually, Nagrundi, another troll, and a trollhound caught up to them. Robert was already on horseback and Cain was able to mount in short order. OzKar attempted to mount, but the hound bit the horse in half and the half-orc went tumbling to the ground. Rupert attempted to secure Cain's escape as he is the baron of Riverdale. Unfortunately, Rupert got the worse of it when trading blows with Nagrundi and the other troll. Cain's and Robert's last images of Rupert and OzKar were the sight of their bodies being slung over the trolls' shoulders.

Rupert and OzKar awoke later in the troll fort. OzKar was treated well due to his similarities to the trolls. Rupert was tortured for information by Tartuk, who has temporarily allied with the trolls against Riverdale. Both were eventually released, but Rupert was geas'd by the kobold to kill Cain when he saw him (He failed). Yes, there was some GM handwaving here. OzKar's player wanted him to return. I wanted a way to keep the kobold in the mix and Rupert's player was okay with it.

A couple of months after the Nagrundi incident, Rupert has done from Warden to General, replacing the departed Gobi. The Council of Riverdale received word of a missing boy, Tig Tannersen. Baron Cain dispatched General Rupert and a handful of militia to track down the boy. Rupert and four (level 1) rangers found the boys tracks by Tuskwater Lake. They also found the lizardfolk tracks indicating the boy had been taken. Rupert dispatched two rangers back to New Zinnia with a request for reinforcements while he continue on with the two remaining rangers. They followed the tracks all the way to the lizardfolk island.

Rupert saw the palisade and a couple of guards watching atop the walls. He attempted communication with a guard, but as he spoke no Draconic and the guard no Common, there was limited success. Leaving one ranger on the shore, Rupert decided to swim out to the fort and try negotiating at a shorter distance. These negotiations had the same result as before and with negotiations at a standstill, he fell back on what he does best. He intimidated the guard into opening the gate.

Once inside, Rupert saw a number of lizardfolk going about their evening and one human boy suspended in a wooden cage over a pit of angry caimans. Still communicating in Common, the fighter walked purposefully toward the boy.

Vesket exited his home and when he saw the human walking towards the boy, he quickly objected and a fight erupted. Rupert was able to down four lizardfolk before succumbing to the king's trident.

Baron Cain dispatched Treasurer Zoltan and a half-dozen militia in response to General Rupert's request for reinforcements. When they arrived at the lizardfolk, they found the lone ranger Rupert left on the riverbank. He relayed the situation. In response, Zoltan flew over the palisade while invisible. Zoltan saw the bodies of one lizardfolk and one human being butchered. He recognized the human as being one of the rangers. He saw no sign of General Rupert, but he was able to rescue the boy by himself.

Zoltan and his party returned to New Zinnia and relayed the situation. It was decided to take all of the surviving PCs (Cain, Zoltan, and OzKar; Robert has not been able to play the last few sessions) to find out what happened. Under the guise of a diplomatic alliance, or at least peace treaty, they actually made peaceful contact with the lizardfolk. After the kobold situation in the Stolen Lands, some of the PC's took the time to become fluent in Draconic so they were able to communicate with Vesket. Vesket invited them into his home for a meal while they negotiated; he only requested that they leave their weapons outside the fort. And the party agreed!

Once escorted into the king's home, what do they find roasting over the fire? The body of General Rupert, of course! Zoltan and Cain refused to partake of the meal, but OzKar dug in with enthusiasm. Several tense minutes of negotiation later, there was a rough agreement that the lizardfolk will try to leave the kingdom alone so long as the party brought a troll that Vesket could use as a 'sacrifice' to their ancestral spirits.

That brought the discussion around to those spirits. The party correctly surmised that it was a will-o-wisp. After Vesket had left to commune with the spirit, the party decided to fight their way out. Zoltan put two lizardfolk braves, who were guarding the door to hut, to sleep. OzKar tangled with Vesket's pet caimans to secure Cain's escape. Cain ran out the door, followed shortly after by Zoltan. Vesket got in position to intercept Zoltan the following round but OzKar ran up to the large lizardfolk, absorbing the AoO. The caimans followed the half-orc and dropped him. Zoltan was able to turn invisible and run away. Cain's superior speed got him out of the fort. All of the other lizardfolk were so confused they did not continue pursuit.

OzKar will probably be served for breakfast.