Tordek was just in the middle of an awkward exchange with a former student in the shanty tavern of Drellin's Ferry, a town struggling to reestablish itself in these frigid times, when ol' Delly Mullaney burst into the place. She was screaming and hollering that something come out of the woods beyond the cabbage field and that Mr. Mullaney was facing it down alone.
Two of the townsfolk immediately leaped to Mrs. Mullaney's aid, as did Tordek, Kornak and the ranger Milo. They may have finished their drinks, first. Hearing the commotion in the road as folks bolted for the farmhouse, Mermur left her clandestine meeting to see what opportunities might arise.
At the farm, the band put their lives on the line to defend the precious Mullaney cabbages, cajoled to slow growth by mundane and magical means and protections from the elements. First, the party fended off bears, then the hobgoblin hunting party that pursued their ursine quarry out of the forest. Mr. Mullaney and the two good townsfolk fell, grievously wounded in the fight. Mrs. Mullaney performed feats of great strength and demonstrated lethal proficiency with her broom.
Then, whether attracted by the sounds of combat, or guided by unholy provenance, a pack of skeletal undead advanced on the cabbage patch. In place of their eyes glowed a blue flame, a frosty haze whisping from the sockets. When they saw the movement of the living, their pace quickened. Like wolves, they launched over the corpses of the fallen bears, townsfolk and hobgoblins. They propelled themselves with hands and feet, leaping at the throats and faces of the intrepid adventurers. It seemed the farm might be finally overrun, after all, but as a bloody field of heroic corpses.
As the heroes were scattered and nearly broken by the oncoming wave of animated dead, a mounted man, a golden lion's head embossed on his gleaming cuirass, arrived with two footmen at his side. They charged against the ferocious undead, and the last of the surging skeletal remains fell.
Mrs. Mullaney wept at the devastation of her farm, churned by hoof and foot, and the prospects of her family as her husband clutched desperately at life. Though one of the horseman's entourage attended the wounded, at least half the crop had been destroyed in the fray. To her, death seemed like a certainty for her family in the months ahead, only a matter of time and means.
The mounted interloper was declared as Lord Kevin of Garmyrich, Lord Protector of Rhest. Perhaps meant as a gesture of comfort, he imperiously announced that Mrs. Mullaney and her family would be welcome in his great city to the north, should they swear fealty to the House of Garmyrich. Indeed, all able-bodied folk willing to swear would be welcome, he proclaimed. There, he said, shelter, protection, clean water and food would be provided to all good citizens of the Rhestilori Kingdom by the House of Garmyrich. In four days time, he would return to Drellin's Ferry and any willing could join his escort there.
The adventurers' interest was piqued by this revelation. The city of Rhest, conventional wisdom told, was sunken in the swamp, likely devastated by ice in this unrelenting cold, and an unlikely sanctuary for the cold and hungry.
The party, with the ranger Milo in their number and the river in an ice floe, decided that traversing the Witchwood would be their best route to Rhest, with a stop at Starsong Hill being in order.
They travelled for a few days through the woods, meeting a large-statured fellow along the way. This fellow, though not overtly aggressive, did firmly encourage them to mind their step as they ensured they did not linger in the area.
They also encountered a small camp of hobgoblins and, presuming it was an unfriendly patrol of some kind, promptly dispatched it. They captured an interrogated a sort-lived survivor, but they could not break this one before they spilled his last blood into the powdery snow. His pre-mortem curses and threats did reveal some clues, however. The Witchwood is likely home to more roving bands of goblinoids and their allies, all of which yield to and revere something named Murdock.
Equipment at the site bore the worn remnants of handprints made with red paint which, to those in the know of the Great Razing years ago, suggests these were indeed remnants of the Red Hand Horde.
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