Storm Lords present:

A week has past since the Storm Lords defeated Sinruth of the Red Hand. Councilmember Eoffram is suckling at the teet of power and gloating over his successes.

The Paladin, Wardren, has his assets inspected by the acolyte of Ioun, Jelissa.

There is a mighty feast in honor of the Storm Lords defeat of Sinruth.  It is interupprted when Kartenix’s eight-year-old son, Thurann entered the hall, bearing a sack with dried blood crusted to the outside.  He confronts Almirith and exclaims that the Eldrain could not avoid the harvest!  The young boy punctuates his tales by tossing forth a severed head for the sack he had carried.  The party is stunned to recognize the Warlord’s young squire as the victim of the mutilation.  The horror intensifies as people take note that the head is still animated with powerful magics that the Eldrain identifies as soul bonding.  Beset by guilt or honor bound to avenge his squire Almirith declares his intention to return to the Feywild and punish those responsible.  The rest of the party is left to deal with the not quite dead head of the young squire.

Ever dutiful to his liege, Tuldil'el seeks to submit Sam’s soul to the Raven Queen.  The party learns that the Raven Queen’s influence is not strong in Brindol, but a missionary of sorts lives in the outskirts of Overlook, a town not far from Brindol.  Determined to free Sam’s soul, the party makes plans to travel to Overlook at first light.

Fortunately, a mountain of a man, more goliath than human offers to serve as guide to Overlook as he is from that area.  The party strikes an accord with their new guide and learns that his name is Arbrath Frostclaws.  Securing mounts and provisions the party sets off for Overlook the next morning.  Arbath shares what he knows of the man the cleric seeks.  Rufus Crumbling is his name and he is a religious tither to the Raven Queen.  He lives in Chanty town in a tower that used to be an Advance Tower for the town that has swelled to encompass it.  Rufus services for the dead have allowed him to buy the tower that he keeps as his primary residence.

That night the party makes camp not far from Lake Restin.  During the early watch the Wizard notes a raven harbinger alight on a nearby tree.  Being clueless to the import of this event he fails to rouse the cleric and inform him of this oracle.  A few hours later as the Dwarven ranger and his pet keep watch over the party, some swishy Elven magic disturbs his vigil.  A brilliant flash of light in the woods and before him sits a Knight in full plate upon his steed.  Duamerthrax demands that the knight identify himself and the knight treats the dwarf like a yappy puppy. 

The mounted warrior is seeking the now famous Storm Lords and wishes the meet with their leader ad litem.  Since no one had really decided who would lead the Storm Lords in Almirith’s absence, this led to some miscommunication at first.  With all the luck due the Halfling race, it is the party’s pirate in residence who is able to leverage some naval negotiations by advancing a parlay.  He identifies, for the knight the noble paladin as the leader of the Storm Lords and is able to smooth ruffled racial prejudices. 

The Eldrain knight, explains that Almirith had dispatched him to assist the party three weeks ago and that he had been searching ever since.  Syed, still a bit numb from the rum, tries to reconcile Almirith’s leaving a day ago with the knight’s dispatch happening three weeks ago.  Apparently, time works differently in the differing planes.  The knight is retained by the party for the duration and  is entertained and interrogated by the Halfling over some excellent spirits.  His name is Quevvyn and he hails from Stormholt, not any port that Syed could recognize.

The next morning, while on the road to Overlook, the Storm Lords encounter a butchered merchant caravan.  Their trained eyes note that the attack was carried out in an organized fashion, most likely by orcs, and that it was a murderous attack with loot carried off as an afterthought.  Quevvyn has almost completely forgotten about the raccoon poo in his helmet as he suggests they burn the murdered traders.  Funny that no one notice Syed pull of on a side road towards Lake Restin, but soon catches up with the rest of the party at the massacre site.  There is a brief bit of macabre humor as Quevvyn and Arbrath discover that their respective cultures have a stark difference of opinion when it comes to dealing with the dead.  The cleric suggests that the Storm Lords reconstitute the wagons and pose as the caravan to draw out the vagabonds who did this.  Syed protests, observing that bait is bait no matter how it is strung on a line.  Voted down, the party takes on the role of the merchant caravan. 

Now orcs must be stupid because…

Combat Round 1:
Well we didn’t have to wait long.  The orcs sat in ambush and the caravan sprung the trap, sort of.   Hurricane detonates a force bomb to decimate an orcs squad on the west side of the road.  In an attempt to display his craven manhood he whips out him tiny wand and unleashes his frosty streams and slays an orc outright.  The splatter does hit a few other orcs, making them cold and sticky.    Warden drives forth his wagon and deftly draws his bow and slays a cowardly orc.  Syed follows suit moving his cart into position and shots an orc in the shoulder.  Quevvyn’s warhorse, smelling blood, charges forth to run an orc down.  Quevvyn impales the orc, in the thigh.  Niles begins singing and dancing a ditty to encourage the heroes.  A monster of an orc attempts to make Quevvyn his bitch, but fails to knock him down.  Vala jumps from her cart and lands flat on her face!  Arbrath screams his own name, for reason beyond comprehension and stands up in the wagon tearing open the cover.  Lumbering forward he throws his shimmering trident with a heft shredding the orc’s right arm.  An orc charges the Paladin and takes a swing, smashing into the wagon’s side.  Tuldil'el declares that the Raven Queen desires the orc’s soul.  Another orc charges to subdue the mouthy cleric swinging his massive club but missing the pious blabbermouth.  In the woods, orcs swarm around the mounted Knight.  A critically smashing axe blow nearly tears Quevvyn’s helm off.  The knight is not in good shape.   Seeing an opening, another orc cleaves into the knight’s other side nearly killing him.  Meanwhile, Duamerthrax wakes up and is in the middle of a drink of spirits when he sees that the newbie Knight is almost dead.  The ranger and his faithful companion move in for their ballet of death.

Round 2:
The craven wizard…played with is little wand again, shooting one.  Wardren moves to trample the orcs with his obsidian steed and wagon.  The orc gets bashed around but remains standing.  As Wardren continues on down the road, the orc spins around to be shot in the chest by Syed.  Quevvyn slips between the orc corpses and takes a moment for a second wind.  The Orog hero wades into combat being slashed and stabbed by the heroes Quevvyn and Duamerthrax.  Orog swings his great sword in a vicious arc hitting all three companions Wardren, Quevvyn, and Duamerthrax. In doing so, marking them for death.  Vala, dusting herself off from the road, moves to take on an orc.  She brings forth a wind prison that makes the orc rethink moving.  Arbrath thunders into the woods charging the Orc hero.  The berserker with wagon marks on his side thrashes Tuldil'el and feels a surge of pleasure in the spilling of blood.  Tuldil'el turns himself into a sneeze or something and grants the Eldrain knight a blessing of health.  Wetting the Orog, with little effect.  Feeling as though he hasn’t done enough, our favorite cleric spends his action point and blasts the Orog with a warpriest strike, this gets the Orog attention. 

Round 3:
The wizard shoots the orcs with some frosty sparks.  Wardren uses Paladin’s judgement with a critical strike doing massive amounts of damage to Orog.  Syed shoots the berserker who is menacing him.  Quevvyn teleports away from close combat, drops his spear and blasts the Orog hero with a pinning strike, missing scantily.  Niles makes fleeting remarks about bunny slippers to enrage an Orc.  The Orog get back to his feet and sweeps the group again striking all of them.  Duamerthrax cleaves the villian in twain.

Round 4:
The wizard and the paladin put a beat down the last orc.  Syed rides up a puts a bullet into the brain of the orc, putting him down like a mangy pig.