16th of Marpenoth, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

 We leave Kormul. It was kind of dreary.

After a few hours, we think we can hear drums. They become more distinct, and definitely drums. And then we hear some horns. It sounds like an army troop! We go around a bend, and see a group of people running, running for all they are worth, and a great dust cloud behind them. We can hear yipping, and it sounds familiar. We see some gnolls, and some creatures that look like what I've heard called hyenas. I've heard they laugh, but I can't hear that over the yipping, drums and horns. I also see monsters - they look like a giant mouth, and not much more. 

They are shooting arrows at the people, but miss many of their shots. Some people fall, but the ones that are not hurt (and one that got shot and is still running!) keep running. It doesn't take long before they are past us, and we are the new targets. That is okay - we can take an arrow better than they could. 

We manage to beat all of them. I mostly hung back and shot arrows - it feels kinda like I'm cheating, but traveling hurt sucks, and this way, they are less interested in Vorest.

We continue, and see a familiar wagon - it's Cedric's! Except - does it have a cloth pinned over the part that says Cedric? It does! It says Fibblestib. Though Fibblestib has the same voice as Cedric, and looks like he is wearing a child's disguise mustache. Curious.

11th of Marpenoth, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

 We continue walking, and we hear some gnolls. There's a whole lot of them. We beat them, and continue on. We reach a wayhouse, the Sleepy Dragon. Vondal runs up, eager to be sleeping inside. We enter, and are greeted by some friendly staff. There is another fellow eating already.

We sit and eat. The food tastes ... odd. But not in a "they make different food here" way. I glance around to see if the others notice it - I think they do, and notice the other fellow is passed out beside his bowl. And the barkeep looks annoyed. And then I notice that the serving girl has snake eyes. Oh, come on now! Are these folk everywhere?

The door bangs open and more of these snake people come in. Vandederp lets them convince him that he should be tied up - these guys definitely play mind games! Vorest calls in some giant lizards, and they help to free Vandederp by killing his captors. This also lets him snap out of being okay being caught, and starts to fight - just in time for Vondal to sit down! If they manage to trick all our brains, we will be in trouble - none of us would fight them! Fortunately, he gets up almost as fast as he sat down. One of the snake people shapeshifts into an actual snake and tries to sneakily run away. Vondal and Vorest magic him to death. 

They are all dead, and we check them out. As suspected, they do have the snake tattoo.

Vorest wakes up the guy that was eating by us. He says that he has heard rumours of slavers, but had seen nothing, and heard nothing for sure.

Vondal, while looking through the kitchens to see if there was real food, found some people. He untied them, and they told us that they had been guests in previous days. They mentioned that the snake people had said that they just needed a few more people before they took them back to Selosah.

We go to a large room upstairs, to sleep in a bed and keep watch.

1st of Kythorn, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

 We continue on. We see gnolls - some look like skeletons. 

24th of Tarsakh, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

We go to the woods and Vandederp finds a tunnel entrance and cave. It's the banshee's lair. We collect some loot and then let the Ederfields know that it was, in fact, a banshee. Then we head back to town. 

Overnight we are attacked by some gnolls.

 

17th of Ches, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

We are still walking through the hills, I am sure my legs are getting stronger with all these hills! We have run into some gnolls - they shot  us from a great distance and were pretty good shots, unfortunately. Fortunately we were able to defeat them, even if we appear to be better at hand-to-hand combat.