That night, as they got the campfire started, a chipmunk appeared, examining Ardwyn first, then hopping down to see the rest of the party. All of a sudden, it transformed into an elf-- a druid! The elf bluntly informed the party that a “fell beast” in the shape of a boar was killing travelers, and only the intervention of the elves of the forest was keeping the road safe (since the beast avoided getting too near to them). But, he declared, he could see that the party was able to handle itself in battle. Therefore, the elves were going to retreat, and the party was going to slay this beast. “Build your fire high tonight,” he told them.
This one-sided declaration was met with hostility from Ardwyn and the others. The elf did not improve their disposition by deriding Adamir and Valra for “smelling of the city” and not being “a true druid”. As their mutual dislike grew, the strange elf only reluctantly gave information on the threat, revealing that it had shrugged off a shot from his longbow and that it had “mostly targeted dwarves”. Only Tessel indicated a sure willingness to help, but this was enough for the elf, who departed into the forest in a huff.
The party decided to try to prepare for this unwelcome surprise as best they could. Adamir and Ardwyn spent a few hours digging a trench, while Tessel stoked the fire to great heights. Valra decided to prove her druidic prowess by transforming into a bear, but unfortunately was unable to sniff out the boar. Daelon, for his part, went into his trance and rested.
Several hours after dark, the boar finally emerged. But to the party’s surprise, it appeared to be more of a boar-person hybrid, standing on two feet and gripping a massive maul in its hands. Snorting and snarling, it charged toward the party.
Two members of the party were especially fast to respond. Adamir fired off a well-aimed shot from his longbow, hoping to keep his distance from the creature, but to his dismay, the arrow merely bounced off the beast’s hide. Tessel ran forward, striking the boar with her longsword, but similarly drew no blood. The quick-thinking Adamir, seeing that his arrows were of little use, pulled out the new toys he bought from Jilbin, the Spicy Buffalo Rings. Three rays of fire sprouted from the rings on his hand, arcing through the air and striking the boar, scorching it and causing it to roar in pain.
Ardwyn, crafty as ever, had stealthily hid in the woods before the boar arrived, but she now saw that her options to attack were limited. Recalling the creature’s apparent hatred of dwarves, she stood out in the boar’s path, shouting out a string of vicious insults, trying to draw it towards the fire. “Bitch,” growled the boar as it charged towards her. The beast succeeded in goring her with his massive tusks, though the swing of his massive maul did not find its target.
The party wracked their brains trying to recall any useful knowledge about a monster such as this. It was Daelon who suddenly understood: “Of course! It’s a shapeshifter! A lycanthrope! A wereboar!” He struck it with a Flaming Sphere and began to ram it into the creature, painfully burning it over and over again.
The beast initially shook off Valra's signature Faerie Fire spell, but when she heard that it was a shapeshifter, she cast a druidic Moonbeam spell, calling down a cylinder of silver light. When it hit the wereboar, it screamed as its skin sizzled and split, shrinking down into the form of an ordinary dwarf (albeit naked, angry, and with oddly boarlike features).
Around this time, the party’s prisoner, Avisha, decided to make a run for it. Struggling in her bounds, she shimmied off into the woods as fast as she could. Tessel caught up to her with little effort, held her ropes to a tree, and magically fixed her Stiffy Staff in place to bind the captive woman to the tree.
Adamir, running out of options, charged the dwarf and shoved him into the pit he had dug before. The dwarf fell prone, even dropping his maul for a moment, but was able to climb out of the pit. With his beast blood, he was able to continue taking all this punishment and keep fighting, but the party was slowly wearing him down. The ranger followed this up by lighting a torch and attacking again, but though the fire dismayed the dwarf, his attack were still unable to pierce the wereboar’s skin, even in its humanoid form.
Ardwyn, having put a safe distance between herself and the wereboar, threw her new Tagger Dagger, and was glad to see that its magical blade succeeded in hurting the wereboar. She quickly teleported to the dagger, retrieving it for a follow-up attack. But before she could strike again, the mad dwarf swung twice with his maul, knocking her to the ground, leaving her unconscious and on the verge of death.
Daelon fired a quick Fire Bolt, finally killing the wereboar... Or so he thought. Incredibly, the reeling beast recovered its balance and prepared to attack again. Luckily, Valra’s Moonbeam continued to follow her target as he moved, and with one final burst of burning silver light, the wereboar finally fell dead. Tessel quickly revived Ardwyn with her holy healing powers. The party burned the body in the raging fire and took a well-deserved rest.
Leaving camp the next day, Ardwyn again found herself facing a chipmunk in a tree. Recalling the druid from the day before, she pulled out the Mouthbeast, using the puppet to ask the cute animal if it was just a normal chipmunk. “What you mean, just normal chipmunk?” it replied indignantly. Just then, the strange druid walked up from further up the road. “WHAT are you doing?” he demanded haughtily. After dispensing with his confusion, he gruffly thanked them for killing the wereboar, and offered a handful of herbs that would prevent any lycanthropy infection from taking hold. Ardwyn, thinking it better to be safe than sorry, applied the herbs to her wounds before the party continued to Inverelle.
Upon reaching the village, the party was met by a very young woman, who seemed to be in charge. The woman demanded to know the party’s business and why they were carrying a captive into town. “You’re in luck,” she told them. “There’s a Ranger in town.” She directed them to the man further in town, a member of the country’s Capital Rangers.
The Ranger introduced himself as Birch. He recognized Avisha as a member of “Danica’s crew”, seemed unsurprised to hear that they had been caught on the wrong side of the law. He used a magic set of iron bands to bind Avisha and, knocking her to the ground, forced her to drink from a small canteen he produced from his pocket. “You try to break those bounds or make a run for it,” he told her, “and your heart will burst before you make it ten paces.” He took the party around a corner and took a swig from the bottle himself, revealing it as harmless. “Usually scares them enough that they don’t try anything” he explained. “Now what brought you to Inverelle?” The party explained that they were investigating the attack, and Birch brought them over to the burned-out tavern to discuss what had happened.
He explained that he had been investigating the wreckage and speaking to the few surviving witnesses. His working theory was that it was, indeed, a demonic attack, that nobody fitting Baldric’s description had been seen, and that it seemed to be a “recreational” attack. The disaster had left “a lot of widows and orphans”, including Maya, the young woman who had declared herself the “acting mayor” of the town. Adamir inspected the grounds and saw the evidence in the rubble, including bones that may have been damaged by claws or talons. The party informed him that it may not have been a demon after all, relating the story of Sylvan’s trickery. The Ranger promised to take this into consideration, but confessed his confusion. After all, he said, the witnesses had described a flying, vulture-like creature, not a mage.
The party, presuming that the attacker would continue south toward the city of Balenor, headed back toward the main road. Along the way, Daelon told them that it was imperative that they destroy the demon before the Rangers; otherwise it would be interpreted as other duchies picking up Cindre’s slack.
“Pardon me.” Their walk was suddenly interrupted by a devil appearing behind them at the crossroads. “Relax! I’m only here to talk.” The devil (who revealed that he was appearing as a magical projection and thus “not really here”), proposed a deal: he would tell them about the demon’s aims and location, but only if they would pledge not to pursue Baldric any further.
Tessel was the first to refuse. “Ah, Tessel,” said the devil, “uncompromising as ever. I expected nothing less.” But he pressed the paladin, asking if no champions of Bahamut had ever compromised for peace, and if order was not preferable to chaos. But she stormed off, ready to lead the others away from evil.
They did not immediately follow. The devil tried to persuade the others. Valra stubbornly refused to answer to his offers of “enlightenment”, while Daelon was unconvinced by his pressure to “help clean up Cindre’s mess”. The devil offered to “sweeten the pot,” tantalizingly telling Ardwyn that “I know where your sister is”. But even this was ultimately not enough to sway the party, and after Tessel came storming back, this time they followed her away. “Despite everything, I’m surprised at you,” said the devil, as he disappeared in a swirl of smoke. Adamir checked for some means of tracking it, but found none. Returning themselves to their path, the party continued onward.
They reached Balenor the next day, passing through the giant crumbling walls and ring of abandoned buildings of the old capital city. Eventually, the party reached the center of the city, where the nicer shops, the Temple Complex, and the Capital Hall were located. Ardwyn asked around and heard about an alchemist and a shop for magic weapons, but Daelon suggested visiting the Capital Hall and dropping in on the Cindrean ambassador to get an update on what the Duke was up to.
The ambassador turned out to be a charming and somewhat flighty young woman named Saphira Greydale, the younger sister of the infamous Galby. She warmly greeted them and offered drinks, though Valra spotted that she was served from a separate pitcher. The druid looked closer at the pitchers, prompting Saphira to offer to trade glasses; it turned out that hers was a non-alcoholic version of the fruity drink, but she happily downed Valra’s glass in one gulp.
Saphira informed them that the Duke had “set everything to right” in the city and had set off for Balenor a couple days ago. She asked them where they were headed next, and cried out in horror when Daelon pulled out his hand-drawn map. She quickly searched through her cabinets and pulled out a map of Rakos for them to examine. Saphira went on to chat about some of the other regions, including Valen (“all they have up there is snow and orcs”), Highrock (“now that’s where I’d want to live if I were a sheep”) and Cindre itself (“in my great grandfather’s day you were either a pirate or a farmer, but now!”).
Fortified by the drinks and the spirited conversation, the party said their goodbyes and exited to the streets of Balenor once more, though not before Ardwyn rescued a forgotten gold coin from the cushions of Saphira’s couch...
