Ray finally showed up, but Chris is out due to an excess of celebration. Bob (Yorden), Tim (Laerynthe), and Mike (Messerbad) are all here.
Ray is playing Lukar, a kitsune (humanoid fox). Lukar has recently arrived from Shildree Bridge, but hadn't spent much time there. He speaks Old Youden, having learned it from an expatriate youda community. The Kitsune racial package includes +2 Acute Hearing, Voice and Color Blind (4 points).
The group picks him up on the banks of the Kashaad River. He claims that his presence has to do with angering immortals.
The characters traveled through the Tadooban Forest for four days, picking up an escort of three atraphors. Yorden identified the tracks, and the group elected to try and catch them. They stopped and fortified their camp with snares (set by Laerynthe) and simple pit traps (dug by Lukar with his Earth magics), then waited. Yorden set himself up in a tree with a demek crossbow to play the sniper.
The ambush was relatively successful. Two of the atraphors fell for the bait. Yorden shot one, angering it enough to make it rush up the tree afer him. Yorden retreated up the tree, staying one step ahead of the atraphor, until he managed to Levitate it out of reach. In the meantime, Messerbad used Flame Jet to incinerate the creature. The second atraphor attacked Laerynthe, and inflicted terrible wounds upon him. Laerynthe managed to acrobatically dodge across one of his own snares, catching the atraphor in it.
After the excitement died down, Yorden took teeth from both of the atraphors as trophies.
The characters traveled on from the ambush site, still aware that a third atraphor was still following them. They were momentarily impeded by a section of forest too dense to travel through, and took a detour towards the Edge of the world to compensate. A few hours later, just after dark, Laerynthe encountered the third atraphor. It's eyes glowed a malicious red, and it continued to fight even after Laerynthe chopped it half apart. When the characters finally managed to kill the thing, a strange red mist seemed to dissipate from the creature's body.
Laerynthe took additional wounds after the encounter with the red-eyed atraphor. Worse, the group could hear the sounds of many more behind them. Messerbad had seen a small cluster of hills when he had reconnoitered the bounds of the thick forest earlier, so the characters decided to take refuge there.
Very quickly after their arrival, the characters determined that the "hills" they were hiding inside were actually the ruins of a deyrey hive. The first element that tipped them off was the unusual strength of Lukar's earth magic: his Earth spell skills were all at +2, and his spells cost one point less energy than normal. He used this additional power to seal off the hive entrance.
Lukar and Yorden spent some time exploring the lower depths of the hive. They found many dead deyrey, including a few animate ones still wandering around dropping bits of dead flesh here and there. They also found a chamber holding two dead drones with some valuable items:
In contrast to the relatively successful time had by Lukar and Yorden, Messerbad had a very bad time. He was attacked by a translucent deyrey drone who glowed with a green light and drained 3 HT from him after magically sickening him. He also suffered horrible nightmares that prevented him from regaining fatigue. The only bright spot occurred when Laerynthe (guarding him) realized that Pawnbroker's sword could probably hurt the ghostly deyrey. He attacked it, and managed to drive it away.
While the characters hid inside the ruins of the hive, about a dozen atraphors gathered outside the blocked entryway. The characters debated what to do about them for some time, then decided to create a limited-access entryway through their barricade, large enough for one atraphor to crawl through. Maddened by hatred, the atraphors fell for the bait. The characters managed to dispatch about ten of them, including three with glowing red eyes.
After some time the surviving atraphors seemed to draw back, so Messerbad (eager to get out of the hive, and reasoning that the atraphors wouldn't attack him) exited the hive and attempted to encourage the remaining atraphors to go through the passage. He managed to persuade two more to go through to their doom before Attafoon of the Ganbell Clan fired a couple of slingstones at him and tells him to stop it.
A brief exchange between Messerbad and Attafoon followed, ending with another of the Ganbell Clan members in the area geting the drop on Messerbad and holding a jezzen to his head. Messerbad first attempted to lie to the Ganbell, then to fast-talk them, then to simply threaten them. These attempts start out fairly well, then go downhill quickly. They also don't get much mileage from Lukar, who tried to help Messerbad by yelling out that he is a fire magician. Yorden shot Lukar in the back to shut him up, then levitated him back to safety.
By the end of it, Messerbad is forced to use Flame Jet to injure one of the Ganbell. The other two retreated, one by climbing a tree and one by simply disappearing. Messerbad healed the wounded Ganbell, who also flees. The characters decided at this point that they have no choice but to leave the ruined hive as quickly as possible.
The characters traveled as quickly as possible for two days, finally reaching the edge of the Tadooban Forest and (comparative) safety. In the process, they encounter first a disembowelled atraphor hanging from a tree (and apparently killed by a much larger creature) and a madman who calls himself The Third Who Watches, apparently a member of a group called The Five Who Watch. When Messerbad asked what he watched, he said "Beyond" and gestured towards the Edge of the World. Messerbad looked in the same direction, and found that it was possible to see the Maelstrom through the sky. He was only transfixed for a few minutes, and managed to pull himself free with no apparent long-term effects upon his psyche.
As soon as the characters realized that the Third Who Watches is a potentially dangerous madman, they left the area as quickly as possible.
The session ended with the characters in sight of the edge of the Yodai Forest, across a river. Each active character gained four experience. Pawnbroker gained one experience (for the use of his sword, though he spent the session sick and unable to move).