Relentless

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## Friendly Farewells

With a couple hours to spare before the worg riders arrive, Bungle and Kiira go shopping for some ink and letter wax to replace the supplies they used earlier on the book. Kiira also pops to what's left of the post office to deliver a letter to Blackmoor. With their small shopping trip completed, they head off around the camp to try and locate Rayner and Maurice. Asking around, they are directed to a similarly large tent and find the two inside. Rayner seems a little down in the dumps about everything, but still pushes through with a smile. He says he doesn't quite know what his plans are for the future, but produces a gift for the party. He hands over a small platinum badger sculpture with his signature engraved on the bottom. Kiira also excitedly shows off her mechanical frogs named in their likeness; Rayner was chuffed to bits about having a frog named after him, whilst Maurice felt conflicted in whether to be endeared or insulted. They say their goodbyes to the party and wish them the best of luck on their quest to reclaim Gravenham.

Meanwhile, Carric looks around the camp and tracks down Od and Edvard to speak to them about the whole incident with Blackmoor drafting. Neither of them were sent up to Blackmoor, but Od helped Carric find someone who was. The guy they found was initially cagey about being spoken to, but opened up once Carric introduced himself as a member of TPWDWTS. The guy told him that they received a letter from the capital asking for a portion of the guard force to come up and help in a possible terrorism threat. Captain Harmend tried to gleam some more information, but failed to, so sent the guards up to Blackmoor in hopes that more information would come his way soon. Once the guards made it to Blackmoor, they were met with confusion and found that there was no mention of a perceived terrorist threat, and that nobody sent them any letters asking for their arrival. Thoroughly bamboozled, the Blackmoor guard requested the situation to be investigated, whilst the Grimmholm guard were taken care of until Harmend came to pick them up and take them back.

With Carric's investigating finished, the party headed to find Vakon to share their goodbyes. They found him in the middle of packing some bags, as he revealed that he was heading to Wymsly to stay with his brother, Balzire. He continued to say that his brother had apparently had a run-in with Zaldran in the past, as he used to be the captain of Olfheim before it was taken over, so he hoped to garner some more information about the warlord to help in some way. Bungle asked him to ask Balzire if he met any "strange characters" in Olfheim, to which Vakon agreed. With that, the group headed back to their tent and waited for the worgs to show up.

## Taming the Beasts

The sound of approaching footsteps snaps the party back to attention. Someone does a strange knock at the tent door (the awkward one where you kind of stroke it), to which the group open the door to find a buff looking hobgoblin. He introduces himself as Rhardan, the leader of the worg riders and their personal escort to Gravenham. He lays down the plan; each one of them will be paired up with a worg rider to ride in pairs to the outskirts of Gravenham, where the party will be left to fend for themselves and complete their mission. He then tells them that it is time for them to meet their mounts, but they should approach with caution and under no circumstances should they attempt to pet the worgs, unless they wish to lose a limb.

Heading outside, they see three other hobgoblins standing next to four large wolf-like beasts, similar to the ones they saw the other day. Rhardan introduces the rest of the worg riders and their worgs; Avran, alongside Bullet, a scarred and angry worg; Klon, alongside Sand, a paler worg; Magnoc, a crusty hobgoblin riding a small worg called Dinky; and finally a large and imposing worg called Judge, ridden by Rhardan himself. He tells the party to choose a worg to attempt to garner the trust of, otherwise they will not be able to ride one. After some persuading and careful approaches, the party pair up with their respective worgs; Carric with Sand, Mirik with Judge, Kiira with Dinky and Bungle with Bullet. They take a seat on their mounts and the hobgoblins ride off towards Gravenham with them.

On the way across the plains, the hobgoblins give the party a brief lesson in speaking goblin, as it is the language the worgs also speak. Carric asks about the situation in Gravenham and the incident that occurred. Rhardan tells him that they strolled up to the front gate asking to be let in, but were cruelly dismissed and insulted by the dwarves, so had to leave. He also reveals that the machine the party need to shut down is producing a giant cloud of darkness over the town and surrounding area, allowing the vampires to roam freely all times of the day. Mirik asks Rhardan if they can try and outspeed Rhardan and his worg, so a small race ensues between Bullet and Judge. Bullet pulls ahead into the lead, but as the head worg Judge barks him back into rank. Eventually, they stop and set up camp near a the treeline of Meusewood around 2 hours away from Grimmholm.

## A New Trick

A couple of the hobgoblins go hunting for dinner and to feed the worgs for the evening, which Bungle lends her survival skills to aid in. Unfortunately, they do not manage to catch much, but Kiira gets to feed to worgs some rabbit and begins to make friends with Dinky. Meanwhile, Carric practices casting a new spell, and creates a 10ft impenetrable dome with Leomund's Tiny Hut. The party experiment with the dome to test it's capabilities, and decide to sleep inside it for the night. Kiira still sets up her tent inside anyway because she's extra like that.

The party still decide to take watch, despite being inside a safe dome. During Bungle's watch, the Innkeeper shows up on the outside of the dome, and gives her her name back. He warns her to be wary with it if she ever ventures to the outer planes, and disappears. Somewhat confused, Ahsatan finishes her watch and goes to sleep. She finds herself in her dreams floating inside a large black void, with sickly green smoke flowing around her. A raspy voice calls out for her, asking if she really wants to know "what [its] deal is". It offers her great power and knowledge on many things, including her own patron, should she accept it from this entity (which is presumably tied to the Vecna book). She refuses, and the voice and the dream fade.

In the morning, Ahsatan summons her demon to ask him about Vecna and the conversation she had with "him" in her dream. He replies saying that gods cannot communicate with people directly, so it could not have been Vecna. As they and the party discuss this, the dome around them disappears as the spell duration comes to an end. Kiira emerges from her tent and stretches in the morning sunlight, when a sharp pain to the back of her head causes her to whirl around and find herself face to face with Emota, who ran out of the nearby bushes to attack as soon as the spell faded. With Kiira heavily wounded already, the party rush to her defence...