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• Arwynn Liadon (Half-Elf – Druid / Ranger)
  • Rides Horse: Laska
  • Pet: Mozilla (Fire Fox)
• Arrimar Oakroot (Wood Elf – Ranger)
  • Rides Horse: Goliath
  • Pet: Chrome (Silver Wolf)

Learn more about the origin of Shadow Island.

DM Note – The story so far, the duo has come to the “abandoned” city of Stormthunder in hopes of finding information on the Sea Hag they’d slain and the Coven she is a part of in the once Great Library that was here. However, the party has discovered gnolls have taken over Stormthunder. Heading into the sewers to try and sneak inside, they encountered goblins who explained that they once populated Stormthunder after the humans left it and lived peaceful lives. However, recently a band of gnolls lead by Chief Barkspear came and took over the city. Agreeing to help the self proclaimed “King” of goblins, King Terralol, the party agrees to see if they can rid the city of goblins so that they can get access to the Great Library. The two stealth through the city – but are however, captured by the Bugbears and taken before Chief Barkspear. Chief Barkspear agrees to abandon the city to the goblins, if the party agrees to help clear out “the ugly lady in the caves” that the gnolls once called home. The party agrees to investigate and see if they can figure it out. Venturing inside, the duo wanders for sometime until…

• Arrimar and Arwynn enter the cavern and have no sense of direction where they headed since the gnolls had no map of the caves; they simply marked their territory to find their way around the caves; and after getting lost for quite some time, Arrimar and Arwynn finally find a large cavern, similar to what Chief Barkspear described, and soon they were greeted by the sight of a ghastly woman

• he spirit arises, and seeing that it’s not gnolls – but an elf and a half elf – she reveals that she was an elf mage once; and she studied at Stormthunder’s Great Library, when she was lured away by a jealous lover who murdered her. While she explains, she regrets that she’s extracted her revenge, she’s unable to rest because the weapon that murdered her – a weapon known as Bloodthorn or Elf Bane – is in the hands of someone evil. A drunken bugbear further down the cave. Should they help her get rid of him and recover the murder weapon, then she would be able to find peace.
• Arrimar and Arwynn think it through; get rid of the bugbear, and Alareesa can find peace; she finds peace, the gnolls return to the caves; the gnoll returning to the cave means they give the city back to the goblins; if the goblins get the city back, Arwynn and Arrimar get access to the library tomes… and hope, after all of this, there’s information about the Coven that they’re after…
• Arrimar looks at Arwynn and smiles, “Well, Druid. See if you can pick up anything on this bugbear, and I will see if I can pick up any tracks or evidence of his presence.”

• Unfortunately, neither of them are able to find evidence of this drunken bugbear who has the foul weapon
• Wandering aimlessly through the cave, in hopes of finding some kind of evidence of this drunken bugbear so that they can track him, Arwynn and Arrimar eventually reach a stream in which they must cross to reach the other side

• Examining the shallow water for the potential danger of quipper fish; none can be seen; but both Arwynn and Arrimar hear an unusual sound that resembles the sound you’d expect if there were rats gnawing at things inside the walls of a home
• Looking around, Arwynn spots unusual looking rat-like creatures…

• Arwynn points out the rat-like creatures to Arrimar and asks, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
• Arrimar shakes his head, “No. But then, we’re pretty deep in this cave system and I don’t make it a habit of delving this deep into caves normally. Add to the fact the weird magic that surrounds Shadow Island, who knows what those rat things are. We could try to move aroun them.”
• Arwynn agrees, and she silently moves, however, Arrimar who confessed that he doesn’t do much cave delving slips on several moist rocks from the stream, and alerts the creatures to their presence…

• Three of the rat creatures, known as Gremishka, decide to try and make meals out of the duo
• Zilla goes first during the combat and unleashes her fire breath on the rodents, making quick work of them (even those who saved against the fire breath, the half damage was enough to kill them)

• After dispatching the rat like creatures, the duo along with their pets Zilla and Chrome, cross the shallow stream – where once they’re there, they can see muddy footprints that clearly belong to a bugbear that – based off the walking pattern – is swaying from side to side as the footsteps seem to go everywhere

• Following the footsteps – they do see a corpse – and despite, clearly being intoxicated, the bugbear’s tracks do veer away from it

• Arwynn points out that because even a drunk bugbear stays away from the dead body, they’d best do the same thing; and so the duo give the rotting corpse a wide berth
• However, as Arwynn keeps an eye on it to make sure it suddenly doesn’t lunge forward; she notices two things – it’s wearing a very expensive looking necklace and also seems to be wearing a ring with some kind of royal insignia on it; but from this distance she can’t tell much more about it
• She tugs on Arrimar’s shoulder and points
• “I thought you said we were leaving it alone?” he asks
• “Did you notice the necklace and the ring? I think it might have been someone important,” she explains
• “Someone important who came down this deep in the caves and got themselves killed,” Arrimar muttered
• “Should we check out who it might be, from the ring? There might be a reward for the discovery, or at the very least the return of the ring,” Arwynn shrugs. “Might make all of this trouble we’re going through worth it.”
• Arrimar grimaces and nudges her, “Sure, if you want to check.”
• She looks over her shoulder at him, “Gee, thanks mister ranger.”
• As she kneels down to look at the ring – something lunges forward from a seemingly almost impossibly thin crack!

• “Crap!” Arrimar growls. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
• The creature’s boneless arms wrap around Arwynn and entangle her

• However, after the surprise attack – Arwynn’s adrenaline is running on high and she’s more than ready to dispatch the beast!

• After taking two blasts of burning hands from Arwynn the creature slumps forward, lifeless

• Arrimar helps her up and says, “This is going surprisingly better than I would have expected and the last time we went into a cave.”
• As Arwynn takes his hand, she pulls him to the ground and says, “Now look at the ring and necklace.” Arrimar tumbles forward.
• “Well, he’s dead… that much is certain, and I am pretty sure whatever that thing was,” pointing at the deceased Choker, “was what appears to have been slowly feeding on it. I am guessing it knew that the jewelry would make for a trap to lure others,” he stares at Arwynn, “to go near the corpse.”
• Using a crossbow bolt, he flings the corpse’s necklace towards Arwynn, who surprisingly catches it; then they pry the ring from the corpse as well to examine the insignia on it
• Despite the necklace and insignia on the ring, neither of them are able to tell who belonged to; Arrimar looks at Arwynn and says, “If after all this, if we get inside the Great Library at Stormthunder, we might be able to look up the significance of the insignia on the ring and see whose corpse this is.” Arwynn investigates the necklace and notices three inlaid gems and estimates it to be 500 gold in value
• The duo quietly resume tracking the drunken bugbear; and finally discover his den
• Despite – Zilla and Arrimar being ready for battle – Arrimar misfires his first shot at hits Arwynn, shouting his apology

• Despite the fact that both the bugbear and his pet wolf seem to be inebriated, they seem to be quite effective during combat; hitting both Chrome and Zilla a considerable amount of times, while Arrimar and Arwynn maintain their distance either using ranged weapons or magic, until the bugbear moves in on Arrimar

• Arwynn lands a Faerie Fire on the bugbear which, due to being intoxicated, had disadvantage on dexterity and critically fails (so drunk he moves into the glowing effect of the Faerie Fire so he glows purple)
• The bugbear manages to down Arrimar, but as Arwynn slides next to him, she’s able to stabilize him while Chrome and Zilla try to keep the bugbear and wolf occupied
• Arwynn manages to draw out her harpoon – and while Chrome and Zilla finish off the wolf, she’s able to stab the bugbear beneath his armor and shoves it into his chest, finishing him off at last
• Arwynn searches the bugbear and finds an ornate dagger – and as soon as she picks it up she hears, “Kill… I must… drink the blood of Elven Kind…”
• Arwynn uses her last healing potion on Arrimar and brings him back to health; and the two decide to take a rest here in the cave for now…

TO BE CONTINUED?