You are climbing steadily through the woods near the head of the valley. The mountain peaks about you are lost in the clouds. There are no signs of the tracks of the hobgoblins.
Finally, late in the afternoon, you reach the top of the pass at the west end of the valley. There is little to see in the mist. Ahead of you, though, the terrain begins to slope downwards again. Following the instructions of the dead head, you turn northwest.
You march until it is well after dark before stopping again for another night.
Zanax asks, "Rage, any chance you have any Stoneskin spells memorized?"
Zanax then turns invisible and scans the perimeter of the camp (~1000 yards) for evil. He will also take first watch.
Several hours later he returns.
Rage mutters that slogging through mud is for grunts.
"We are beginning to lose time," she says to Kadlian. "I know you are upset with the loss of your magic, but it seems that the primary task is to get the job in the keep done."
"I know, Rage, but the elimination of this group is not a bad thing. Ray Jay has bee notified of what we found, so our only delay is in finishing off the Temple and returning to Sandas."
"To be fair, though, I will leave the decision up to a party vote. Who wishes to abandon this chase and return to finishing up the Temple? I can safely say, that we likely know Furgh's vote on the matter."
Hlarn nods. "Perhaps we should just go in blind. Rage can scry for one of the swords and teleport us nearby. We'll have no idea of the surroundings, but if I protect us from fire a fireball located on our position should clear the nearby locals and give us some breathing room."
An invisible Zanax shrugs. "We already have destroyed much of the temple and know it was just a ruse. I think we can afford to stay another day or two to remove these hobgoblins and find out who had Vogarth and the Castellan killed."
Hlarn nods. "If the Black Keep was only to draw attention away from somewhere else, that means there must be a true temple of the Raven Goddess around somewhere. Possibly this lot will lead us there."
"Wouldn't surprise me if Tibia were here. Where else would she go to? As for staying or going, I don't really care one way or the other."
"The group was close enough to stage and ambush on the castellen...who is to say that they won't come back and do try and start up the temple again. Or at least use some of the area around it. I say we continue on," says Sian. Turning to Rage, "I would have to disagree with you there. Slogging through the mud does suck...but we are gaining on them. They are going through the same stuff and we are quicker," states Sian.
"You are a ranger, and used to the outdoors. I am not," replies the mage. "The ivory tower of the mages guild is best suited for me. However, I will continue on."
Hlarn looks at Kadlian. "You've not commented on my idea. I propose we scry for the swords again, and teleport directly to their location. We aren't gaining enough ground to catch them before they get too close to home."
Hlarn details the plan:
Rage scries for the firebrand.
Then, after we prepare ourselves (Endure Heat spells and protections from evil etc) Rage teleports us directly to that location and immediately releases a point blank fireball. Outside as we are it will be huge, and probably encompass the entire group... buying us some time.
Hlarn grins. "The hobgoblin left standing is undoubtably the one holding the frost brand, as it would protect him, and we'd be standing next to the flame tongue."
"Then we mop up what's left."
"I have not yet commented because I was waiting for the rest of the party to comment on whether or not they wished to continue on this trek. Although, I suppose since Sian, Kailar, Zanax and you have made your feelings known, we have a majority."
"I have a problem with this plan. The first is that Rage only has one teleportation spell left. She uses it to return to our base camp so that she can relearn her spells. If we take it away, then we have to walk back to camp and Rage cannot relearn her spells. Until we can work around this small problem, teleportation is out."
"Rage, do you have a traveling spellbook?"
Rage can memorize 2 teleports a day. She casts one at the beginning to travel back and forth from the base camp, and is saving one for the return trip. She does not have a traveling spell book with teleport yet.
Zanax comments, "Sounds good to me. I just want to finish this up so we can clean out the other temple and I can head back to Sandas to finish some business with the Thieves Guild."
"Do you need help with the thieve's guild?"
Zanax smiles. "Only if you want to eliminate them."
Hlarn nods. "The leader of that guild is wearing Kadlian's girdle of giant strength. We'll want that back too," he says with a smile.
Rage sighs. "The way to do this, is for us to teleport back to camp now. And then in the morning we do as Hlarn suggests. The fact of the matter remains, Hlarn, that I do not have a traveling spell book with teleport in it and I will not risk my books by bringing them here, when they are safer in the secret room. I will not teleport us anywhere without a second teleport to get us to safety, if necessary or to home."
Hlarn nods. "Then let's do it. We'll all go back to base, and when you are ready we'll teleport there and wipe them out. That way we'll definatley fight them tommorrow rather than possibly fight them when we perhaps catch up to them."
Hlarn looks at Kailar. "Make sure we can still find them though through the crystal ball first. Thats the basis of this plan."
"I'll have to check again tomorrow morning, but it won't hurt to try now."
Kailar scrys for the Flame Tongue.
It is night. Kailar sees nothing.
"Damn!" Zanax curses. "Could they have entered the other temple already?"
Kailar reduces everyone, and Rage teleports the lot of you back to the Black Keep dungeon.
Furgh is awakened when Rage teleports back in with all of the others who went off on the wild goose chase. It is late evening, October 28th.
The first thing that the new arrivals notice is that the smell from Vogarth's evidently forgotten head is really starting to stink the secret room out.
Zanax pinches his nose. "Whew! That head stinks worse than the sewers under Sandas! You know what they say, Hlarn...use it or lose it! But let's try and get rid of that head as soon as possible."
Kadlian looks confused. "When did you get Vogarth's head?"
Zanax answers "Rage recovered it while you were dead."
"Hlarn, did you question Vogarth before we left? If not, do that before we leave again so that we can get rid of it."