Session 22: Lark Meet & Greet

- The party decide to investigate the sounds of fighting they previously heard in the alleys. Alamir took the lead, whilst Garm got distracted by an newly posted wanted poster on the wall of a building.

- Alamir arrived at the site first, meeting two Selphids from the Brinehearted mercenary company beating up another member of their company. Upon asking for an explanation, the scuffle was loosely explained as the attackers feeling they were being accused of not performing their patrol duties diligently as Cathair, the man on the ground, said that they had missed a new kind of Vorthid in their area.

- Cathair's Story: as he and his four teammates patrolled around the valley overseen by the Spirepeak, they stumbled upon a dead Magespine with tracks of blood leading away from it. They investigated but realized too late they were being led into an ambush site. Suddenly surrounded by webs, a black humanoid creature of adolescent proportions attacked and overwhelmed them in seconds. Being the rearguard and seeing the writing on the wall Cathair ran away as fast as he could before breathlessly reaching Goldenview on the day the party met him

- As the party shared what they knew about the Vorthid they previously faced, Cathair asked for their help finding the creature to at least safe two of his comrades who he is pretty sure might still be alive. In return any and all finder's bounties for the Vorthid will be given to the party, as well as Cathair's gratitude. They agreed to meet at dawn and separated to prepare.

- As all this was going on Garm, invisible, sneaked back into their inn, with only Eliza noticing him, he then brooded for a while, surrounded by spectral cats.

- In the meantime, Eppa bought himself a (surprisingly cheap) new spike-covered shield, before he and Alamir visited the local Barracks to retrieve their Iron Ingots. There, they met a jolly iron merchant by the named Lavigne Sethis, a Gloom Gnome who seemed to have instructions and paperwork that made it seem like the party had an agreement and permit to sell the iron. From the whole exchange the party netted 210 gold.

- The party spent the night and early morning talking to Eliza Margrove about her condition, steadily approaching to determining how to more meaningfully help her. The backstory details will be on her page at some point in time.

- As the sun crested the mountain the party departed from Goldenview. Unfortunately bad rolls resulted into Garm being chased by some guards but the party managed to get him out of there safely by expending some magic.

- After travelling for a couple of hours, our heroes, guided by their new companion, managed to reach the general area in which the ambush occurred yet before reaching it, they found a clearing in which dozens of Vorthids had been killed, seemingly by the black one. Going deeper, they started seeing strands of silk spread everywhere around the area and avoided multiple traps set by the creature. As they noticed two swarms of grubs waiting in ambush, they also realized that the creature had started stalking them. The tense standoff was broken off by a tortured voice signing a song of warning, naming the creature Lark as the party initiated combat.

- Hopefully the encounter is balanced