The evening passes slowly as the party anxiously watches the woods for any signs of the strange little creatures they saw at the ruined tower to the north.
Mimo creates a makeshift over and begins baking loaves upon loaves of bread in hopes of luring the whiners away from the ruins. Lucia helps her with the yeast, and her secret compulsion prompts her to eat some of the sour starter.
The small halfling complains to the group about dealing with the primitive people and admits that she is afraid of them. However, she agrees to come with them so long as they try to lure the whiners away first.
At first light, Kristov loads up his cart as Mimo lays a lure of bread for the creatures and hopes it’s enough to entice the small clan. The party heads northwest away from their camp to avoid the whiners picking up their scent.
It’s not long before the path gets increasingly darker as the woods crowd around them. Then the party starts to notice something strange.
“At first, there are just a few, but more and more eyes appear, more than you can count. You are surrounded. Owls and other woodland creatures move between the trees, mice run over your cart Worms crawl at your feet and birds sit on your axes and swords. A deer stands a few feet away, and next to it is a fox. The animals approach you slowly.”
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of woodland animals have surrounded the party. The animals are small at first, but then large elk, wild boars, and even wolves start to appear. The beasts don’t harm the adventurers but do nip at them and bang their antlers against the cart. It’s clear the party’s presence is not welcome.
After a few minutes of tense confrontation, the beasts part, and a majestic black elk appears from out of the dense woods. This elk is hands above the rest with a huge rack of antlers. The elk brays at the part and stomps her hooves on the cart, waking up Mimo.
The startled druid leaps off the cart and begins to chant. She utters the words to a spell that will allow her to talk with the horde of beasts. The diminutive halfling even pulls out one of her own teeth — a vestigial baby tooth — in order to power the arcane energies. Unfortunately, something goes wrong and she is struck with an untimely backlash. The spell causes her to become uncontrollably thirsty.
Kristov gives Mimo some of his water-skin but in her haste to drink, she drenches herself in the precious commodity. Refreshed, she addresses the black elk and begins to ask the two questions allotted to her by the magic.
First, she asks if the party could help the animals with something, and the elk responds “Man-folk aren’t welcome her. You can help us by leaving.”
Next, she asks if the animals would like any bread. The elk’s answer indicates that while the animals are hungry, it could just as easily be the party that sustains them and not the druid’s bread.
The party marches quickly out of the animal sanctum, flanked by a pack of wolves and boars. It’s not long before they come back to the clearing and the ruined tower. This time the area is quiet, and it’s not clear if the clan of whiners is still around.
Kristov suggests that the adventurers surround the tower, and enter by some of the breaks in the walls. He and Lucia head to the broken walls to the north and south while Sturmberg and Mimo head to the main entrance.
The party is able to advance stealthily — all except Lucia that is. The Ravensister tries to avoid a branch, but trips in doing so and lands with a yell and a thud face-first.
Undeterred, Sturmberg and Mimo press on and get to the dark entrance of the tower, waiting for a signal from Kristov or Lucia to head in. The party had agreed to make a birdcall if any decided to enter the ruins.
While Kristov and Lucia peek around the broken walls, Mimo gets bored and decides to march into the tower with an offering of bread loaves. The whiners are surprised by her presence but don’t act aggressively, the simple creatures are too confused by the tiny halfling and the overpowering smell of fresh bread. She sits down quietly and Sturmberg kneels beside her in a non-threatening manner.
The whiners turn out to be quite taken with the shape of the loaves that Mimo created. She crafted curvaceous fertility goddess loaves that make the whiners quite animated.
While the half-dozen of the whiners jabber, Lucia listens intently and is able to make out a broken, simple form of common. She realizes that the tribe is obsessed with the bread and this creates an opening.
Walking through the broken wall, Lucia greets the nearest whiner who reacts in a guarded, but non-aggressive, manner. Lucia makes it clear that the party means the tribe no harm.
It’s not long before Kristov and Lucia hear yelling come from a closed door in the back of the tower. People inside the room yell that the whiners had captured them and mean to either sell them back to their people, “or feed us to their ‘god’ under the tower.” Thankfully, the whiners are too obsessed with the fresh and obscene bread to take notice.
Kristov carefully creeps over to the door and is able to unlock it. Handing a crossbow from his sack to one of the elves inside, he motions to them to stay quiet and escape.
Seeing his actions, Lucia and Mimo put on an ever-more-animated show for the whiners and somehow manage to keep them distracted long enough for the elves and Kristov to escape. However, in his haste, Kristov had left the door to the cell wide open.
As the villagers run to the woods, Kristov promises to help them find their settlement should he meet them again. He watches them round the tower as the villagers run to the north.
Back inside the tower, Lucia convinces the whiner she was speaking with to join the rest of his fellows. Somehow he fails to notice the open cell, and she is able to sneak over and close it once again.
Mimo sees that the heroics are done and leads into a grand crescendo of performance to awe the whiners. She plies them with her sweet bread and promises to teach them how to make more should they ever meet again.
With evening time coming, the party heads north after the elves and makes camp after hiking what they hope is a safe distance away from the tower. As night comes on, Kristov hopes that they can evade what is sure to be a pack of angry whiners once the little creatures realize what has happened.
JesseFolk.com 