Mirtul 28, Kryptgarden Forest

We made it to Triboar and decided to provide some entertainment at the Frost Touched Frog Inn. Usually, the innkeeper will pay us in dinner, though someone threw coins into mine while I was singing (and Windy whipped them back at whoever did so!). In spite of the rather sparse crowd (is that an oxymoron?), I could barely hear myself over some obnoxious person in the room— turns out it was another gnome, or at least, he claims to be a gnome, but has red eyes and acts much more like a halfling. Whatever he was, he couldn’t form two coherent ideas in a row and would not stop sharing his train of thought with everyone around him.

I let Windy tell one of his tales while I played lute softly, hoping that would settle the rowdy fellow down. Another, er, a real halfling entered the inn just then, limping from an obviously recent attack. He talked to a very, very tall orc at the bar, and a gnome-sized female with furry wings that had been flitting around, but the loud gnome went over to chat with them and I never did hear what the wounded halfling said.

He apparently told the orc that there were werewolves in the nearby woods— Windy and I both perked up at that, as he did say we could go “adventuring” if the opportunity found us. We gave up on our performance at that point and wandered over to the small group, and it was decided that we’d go immediately to the Kryptgarden Forest west of town— the fear was that the halfling had been bitten by a wolf and may succumb to lycanthropy at the next full moon, tomorrow night! We were also warned that the forest contained evil “tree goblins” that were prone to attacking.

The halfling did not join us, but the other patrons of the bar did. Four of us are about 3’ tall, and the orc (Kor’tac) is well over 7’ tall— he was willing to let me and the other female (a gloaming called Seren) sit on his shoulders for a better view as we traveled! I already had the start of a good adventuring tale now, and we had barely left the town.

We found the woods quickly, and soon about eight wolves found us. I sang something I hoped was inspiring to the others while fighting wolves with my crossbow. Windy shot at some, and Seren did as well— I think the other gnome (who goes by Rookinoniak) was attempting to talk them to death. Kor’tac was amazing— where I was able to do some damage to a wolf, he took out several with one swing of a huge axe. I was bitten, but none of the wolves looked particularly lycanthropic (they all stayed as dead wolves after the skirmish, and lore tells us that killing your assailant prevents the magical curse from spreading to you), so I think I’ll be okay.

I got to talk to a porcupine briefly, asking him if there were any other wolves in the area. The porcupine pointed his nose in a lot of directions and said the wolves ate his friend, poor thing.

We walked in the direction the porcupine pointed first though, and eventually saw much movement in the trees. The tree goblins! Rookinoniak yelled at them, and the filthy, naked, hairy things all started leaping out of the trees, trying to bite us and throw nets over us. I hate goblins! I was able to kill one with a well-placed bolt right away, but soon the sheer number of creatures was overwhelming. Luckily, Kor’tac could kill several at a time, and he did most of the killing of the things. I had to stab at some from inside a net, but I held my own, at least. The talking gnome was hit so hard once that we thought he was dead, but some quick action on Windy’s part kept him alive (and talking).

Our only loot so far is about sixteen well-made nets, and Windy wants to know if I’ve had enough “adventuring” yet, but my, this is exciting!