We started with the aftermath of the Balrog battle.  Brian seemed to be playing the young girl who was being sacrificed that we rescued.  She was in fact a teen and claimed to be now teeming with sorcerous energy.  She wanted her parents buried and we did so, away from this unholy ground.  But the most pressing issue was the burning urn.  One was damaged, causing its fire elemental to return to its plane and its urn to stop burning but the other still burning.  If we messed with it, would a fire elemental come out and kill us all? Or another Balrog? We couldn’t just leave it here for the next passersby to stumble upon.  After much debate, we decided to take a short rest and then strike the urn, figuring we could take a fire elemental at that point.  But it did not happen.  We tossed the remaining golden slag into sacks and got back on the road.  With the teen in tow.  An hour later, it was sunset and we made camp.  We survived and got a long rest.

The next day about the only thing that happened was that Kharn and Loki spotted a big black dog-like thing in the woods.  It rattled their souls.  We pressed on however some skill rolls were made and it was revealed that these things put some sort of curse onto those who met its gaze.  So, it was said.  But we figured we wouldn’t be able to find it again anyway so kept going.  What’s one more curse.  That night, they had bad dreams.  The next day we made it to the town.  The abbey was on a steep hill, within the city walls.  Once again, the city guards were jerks.  They would not let us in, despite our name dropping.  We lamented that Ezra had PMS but I don’t think it would have helped.  After some pointless roleplaying, the local leader told us we had to do them a small task to prove our worthiness before gaining entrance.  What is this, Oz? Ironically, it was to go to the wizard winery and figure out why they had stopped shipping wine here as well.  He also requested/insisted that we take the monster/bride along with us.  Out came Brian’s true new character.

She was a dusk elf although a bit pale.  She seemed to be wearing a wedding gown that looked shabby for a second but then looked normal-ish.  It was pointed out that all the female dusk elves were supposedly killed by Stradhanya.  Evidently, she had been serving as the abbot’s scholar and bookkeeper although her memory was a bit fuzzy past a couple of years.  She and Ambrus had a lot in common.  They continued to talk.  (Dan: Mostly mentioning how little they remembered) The name Lady Petrina sounded vaguely familiar to him.  He leafed through his history book and discovered that Lady Petrina was the one that the dusk elves refused to hand over to Stradhanya, choosing to stone her to death instead.  This caused the vampire to kill all the female elves in the land.  But that’s just a coincidence in names, I’m sure.  We debated breaking into the town but Lady Petrina advised against that.  She said that the abbot was very busy and had been very distracted of late.  Even if we could get to him, he wouldn’t be much help.  However, if we brought him some wine, it might go better.  They refused to take the teen off our hands.  Besides she wanted to be reunited with someone from her family or at least some Vistani.  On the road, Lady Patrina overheard the conversations about the Death Dog.  According to something she had read, they did indeed curse people.  However, she cast a Remove Curse the next morning.  The first removed the curse on Loki and the second on Kharn although she felt there was a deeper curse still in play.  Unfortunately, this used up her two third-level spells for the day.  Brian revealed that the curse would have resulted in fatigue the next day and unconsciousness the next.  The moral of that story is to avoid making perception rolls.

Eventually, the road became more of a path which was difficult terrain.  Loki, who was walking point as usual, spotted some strange twig like creatures running through the forest.  In their midst, was a crazed Druid fey feral thing that vaguely looked like a Druid Loki once knew.  Combat was started.  Loki and then others tried to talk to the Druid but he was not hearing it.  The twigs were weak but there were a lot of them.  So much so that it bogged down Brian’s computer so badly that he had to reboot, mid fight.  Kaladin’s breath weapon had recently improved and he was doing pretty good with 2 AOEs a round.  It didn’t do a ton of damage but enough to be killing 3-4 a round.  Others followed suit as best they could.  The Druid cast a couple of Thunder Waves and an Entangle but it was over pretty quick. Kharn had grappled the Druid, hoping we could figure out how to help him but Ambrus ran him through with a critical backstab.  As he died, his eyes cleared briefly, and said:      

Loki...<hack>...<cough>...Is that you?

Our way has become...<cough>...corrupt...

We cannot reach...<cough>...<hack>... the Ladies through Stradhanya.

Find...<wheeze>...the 3 Ladies: The Weaver, The Seeker, The Huntress

Restore their Fanes and return their stolen power!

Find Jenny Grrr...<cough>...<hack>...<death rattle>...

So, then Loki revealed some of his tragic backstory to explain that.  (Although it’s really Brian shoehorning his backstory into the module plotlines.)  Basically, he and his family had been captured by some Druids.  They were attempting to build an army by uplifting animals into soldiers/servants/slaves in order to marshal forces to defeat some “great evil in the land”.  He was one of the few to survive the process, most ending in death or twisted abominations.  As a survivor, he was subjected to further experimentations, both physically and mentally.  He attempted to escape multiple times, finally succeeding with the help of his artifact item.  He didn’t see much beyond the Druid encampment but has come to realize that the great evil was likely Stradhanya and the land was likely this accursed place.  It’s not hard to imagine that these twig blights are an extension of those uplift experiments.  Although he didn’t say this out loud, his greatest fear is falling into the hands of his tormentors once again.  And now he is tasked to somehow save them? Or maybe not.  The 3 ladies are the gods they worship and a Fane we think is a temple of some sort.  No idea who Jenny Grrr… is.  Maybe she can be found at Castle Argg…