Chronicles of Highcliff Jouney to Orc Island Part 2

Chronicles of Highcliff
Journey to Orc Island Part 2
The Haunted Forest

As told by
Snori Wallburg
Translated from the original hill dwarf by Nathan Miller

Wednesday 5th day of the Harvest Moon, Year of the Horse.
Well out first attempt to traverse the Haunted Woods have come up short on account of a band of ornery Orcs of the Rock Fist tribe. In order to avoid another mess like that one we snuck into the woods before we got to the trail head. We also took Grottz our orc captive with us.

This however did not prove to be of much help. After treckin a fer piece along the trail, after we found it, we was ambushed by a pair of wild hell hounds.

Hell hounds are nasty critters to be sure. Wish I could say their bark was worse than their bite but their bite is pretty darn nasty. On top of the usual dangers when fightin hound type varmints hell hounds can also breath fire. Helsa found this out the hard way as one of em lit her up pretty bad.

Grottz also got lit on fire by the same hound that got Helsa but he managed to find a small pool to jump into. Joe found he before he could sneak away. Not that he was gonna try. He was burned up pretty bad.

With Helsa knocked out cold we decided to make a camp where we was. I was on watch and Aleena was up as well readin some book of hers when I saw somethin shamblin down the road towards our camp. I was a group of undead skeletons.

I commenced to shoutin and with Joes help we dispatched the undead patrol fairly easily but not with out a few cuts and bruises.

Thursday 6th day of the Harvest Moon, Year of the Horse
Well we was in bad shape and nearly out of our healin potions so we decided we had no choice but to turn back once again and head to town. Luckily we managed to get out of the woods without runnin afoul of any nasty varmints lookin to do us harm.
We were runnin out of gold so after we got healed up again Helsa and I decided to sell off some of our loot we found in the Hexor cults hide out. We managed to find a shop run by a pair of Dwarves named Hengst and Hogarth’s Weapons and Armor, New and Used. They gave us a fair price for the equipment we had so we decided to head to a local waterin hole to see if we could find anyone else who could help us. We found a pair of humans there, Molly Malone a rougish looking young woman and Finnius Fillmoor a cleric of Fharlanghn. We decided to head out first thing in the mornin to make a third attempt to get through the woods.
Friday 7th day of the Harvest Moon, Year of the Horse

Well we headed out again early in the mornin and we were makin pretty good progress. Just when I was thinkin we might make it through the woods this time I was hit in the arm by a black arrow. A few other arrows wizzed passed our ears before we spotted some hobgoblin archers up on a hill takin pot shots at us.

We started headin up the hill but before we got to the archers another group jumped out and attacked us. The archers fled however and after we dealt with their friends we began to chase the varmints right into another group of em. As we was tryin to get at that group a third group started shootin at us from a rocky outcropping.

So we was in a runnin battle for quite a bit the archers would stay out of range while their friends tied us up a few at a time.

We finally started to wear them down but they made it hard for us. They would seem to retreat but would instead maneuver in such a way as to support the other groups or consolidate their forces.

When we finally managed to finish them off we had all been shot at least a few times. Still we hadn’t faired too bad. No one had taken a serious wound so we pressed on down the trail.

In the mid after noon we was supprised to see a small group of pirates running down the road towards us. They weren’t looking for a fight but as they passed us you could see they had been terribly frightened by somethin in the woods.

It wasn’t long until we came across the remains of 20 some odd pirate bodies on the trail. We couldn’t tell what killed em but they was all dead so we buried them in a mass grave and said some words even if the rascals didn’t deserve it. We decided to press on a bit further then set up camp just off the trail. We set up watches and settled down fer the night.

Chronicles of Highcliff Journey to Orc Island Part 1

Chronicles of Highcliff
Journey to Orc Island

As told by
Snori Wallburg
Translated from the original hill dwarf by Nathan Miller

This here is a chronicle of my adventures involvin the rescue of a group of orphans who were kidnapped from the Monastery of Heronious outside the town of Highcliff in the Kingdom of Aswald by cultist of Hexor who sold them into slavery on Orc Island.

It was on a Saturday mornin that I was awoke by the sound of frantically ringin church bells. It was the first day of The Month of the Harvest and I was on my way home to join in the Harvest Festival at Flaghill. I was stayin in an Inn at the Monastery of Heronious that night because all the inns in Highcliff proper were full. Naturally I got up to see what the commotion was. Everyone at the monastery had gathered in the main sanctuary. And old priest was there and he explained that all the youngins at the temple orphanage had been kidnapped. Now as luck would have it the local lawmen as well as most able body types were out searching the countryside for some notorious local bandito including some of the more able monks from the monastery. This left the old priest with no one to help rescue the orphans who had been snatched during the night. Now their ain't nothin so vile in this here world as those who would harm helpless little children so I immediately volunteered to track down the varmints responsible and help get the youngins back. A young elf named Aleena also volunteered on account her sister was one of the orphans taken as well. There was also a paladin named Helsa who was training at the temple who offered to join the search though I reckon the old priest would have volunteered her for the job even if she had not spoken up.

The tree of us searched the orphanage and Aleena found an odd lookin holy symbol. The old priest confirmed it was a symbol of Hexor the evil god of war and destruction. His cult was long though to have been stamped out in these parts. Accordin to the priest most of the old strongholds of the cult had been raised following an uprising over a decade ago but there was one hideout that was not destroyed. An old cave only five miles from the monastery.

Sunday 2nd Day of the Harvest Moon, Year of the Horse
We set out for the cave the first thing Sunday mornin. We were set upon half way there by a band of cultist of Hexor but they proved to be no match for my companions and I. After that we found the cave and cleared it of it's inhabitants but none of the orphans were to be found. It just so happened that a group of pirates had docked their boat at an underground river that flowed through the cave. We caught on of the varmints and he confessed, with some persuasion, that he and his mates had sold the children to slavers on Orc Island earlier that day. After gathering some booty from the cave we set sail for Orc Island that night but we had to stop over on a small island on the way there. We didn't figure on findin any trouble but we set a watch anyhow. It a darn good thing we did too because I was attacked by a frightful lookin Ghast just a short bit after sunset. I commenced to raise a racket so as to wake the others as I fought with the beast. Luckily I managed to lop off it's head before it was able to bite any of us.




Monday 3rd Day of the Harvest Moon, Year of the Horse
We arrived at Goldtooth Port by mid day. Goldtooth port is named fer The Goldtooth Goblin Confederation of Traders. It's also the only safe port on Orc Island. We paid to dock our ship for a whole week at quite an expense but there was no use arguin with the goblins as their Ogre security force is quite formidable and prone to rippin ones arms from ones body if they think your a threat to the goblins. We decided to settle down at “The Miner's Pick” a fine establishment run by a highland dwarf named Feargus MacDugal.

Tuesday 4th Day of the Harvest Moon, Year of the Horse
We decided to have a look around the town to try and figure out what happened to the youngins. We weren't havin much luck as it seems there is no formal slave market at Goldtooth Port which struck me as mighty odd seein as how the goblins like to charge fees for just about any thing and everything at the port. We got lucky though when Helsa spotted a young goblin street urchin wearin a tunic from the orphanage. We managed to discreetly corner the little rascal and he told us he got it from a Rockfist Clan orc with a big red hat. We managed to track the orc down at a local drinking establishment but he figured out real quick what were was up to and wouldn't give us any details.
We returned to “The Miner's Pick” to ask Feargus if he knew where the Rockfist Clan lived he drew us a map. Problem was even with a map it was going to be hard get to the place. By road we would have to travel through an Orcish crossroad trading post and that wasn't such a smart thing for our party as Orcish trading post are no were near as “civilized” as Goldtooth Port. There was another way. An old path ran through a forest straight to the Rockfist lands but Feargus warned us that the forest was haunted by all manner of terrible beast and that it would take us at least a day and a half to travel down the overgrown path.
We figured we might need some extra muscle so we headed over to an Ogre bar named “BAR” to see if we could hire a mercenary. Most the Ogre were working for the goblins or various pirates and warlords but there was one Ogre lookin for work. A very cleaver Ogre named Joe who could count all the way to 10 which as could be expected was his price in gold to do the “job”.
So feelin all confident like with our new hireling we headed in the direction of the path through the haunted forest. Just before we got to the trail head however we was set upon by 10 Rockfist orcs.



Aleena Managed to trip a few of em up with some elfy magic that turned the ground under their feet all greasy but their archers were already shootin at us as a pack orcs charged up the hill at us.



I don't know if these orcs were some kinda super orc or if we was just overconfident but the battle didn't go so well for us. Being a big target an all Joe managed to attract an awful lot of attention from the orcs. He went down and I was knocked out shortly after that. apparently Aleena and Helsa faired a little bit better and managed to kill or run off most of the orcs. They also managed to capture an orc named Grotz



Helsa and Aleena had also been hurt pretty badly in the fightin and it became clear we would have to return to town fer some healin. When we got back to town we headed for The Temple of Goldfingers which was the only temple in Goldtooth port. They healed the party for 30 gold and we began to understand why every goblin establishment in the port had “gold” in the title. Feeling just a little beat up we headed back to the Inn for the night and made plans to set out again through the forest in the mornin.