With Spring beginning, the former conscripts recruited by the party had plenty to do in tending to the crops and helping make Cranford more defensible. At this point, the adventurers had a couple of options. They could further investigate the rumors of the ruined tower to the north. This could provide a defensible base of operations for the planned resistance. But based on the rumors Smoth heard, it seemed a little too risky at the moment. Another option was to try to find some willing orphans to take back to Freka where they would learn the ways of the druids. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long and it was something that needed to be done, so the party agreed to pursue this course.

After deciding that they would go ahead and try to find some orphans to take to Freka, they next had to decide what town they were going to look in. This was a tough decision because they were either not welcomed or wanted for “crimes” in most of civilized Kensing. Even though Nent was probably the last place they should go, the party thought if they could teleport into Nent right next to the Temple of Heironeous, they could see if the clerics there had taken in any orphans. Because Keldon joined the party only recently and had not traveled through much of Kensing before joining, he had never been to Nent before. To have a base of reference for the teleport destination, Findail urinated on the ground and used the resulting pool as a scrying device. After some hand gestures and vocal incantations, an image of the temple in Nent formed in the pool. As Keldon studied the surroundings to aid his teleportation spell, the rest of the party immediately noticed something was wrong. There were a lot of people gathered around the temple area and they could see quite a few armoured clerics outside. Everyone seemed to be focused on one point, but it was obscured from the party’s view by the crowd. They’d have to go there to find out what it was everyone was focused on.

Keldon was able to gather a lot of information from the scrying and therefore could place the party anywhere at the scene. Fin suggested they appear right next to the focal point, which they did. Sitting at a table in front of the temple were two warriors and two robed men. The warriors were wearing the crest and colors of Duke Harcourt, which explained the tension in the air. The sudden appearance of four beings out of nowhere surprised everybody, especially the Duke’s men. One of the mages immediately vanished and the other suddenly had 7 other images of himself appear next to him. Combat immediately ensued. During the fight, the mage with images cast a lightning bolt that went through both Shun and Fin. They both survived, but four civilians who were running away were hit and killed. There was a female scream of “Ahhhhhhh!!” followed by a little girl shouting out “Mommy!! No!!”. Right after the civilian deaths, the leader of the Heironeous clerics shouted out a command that made no sense to anyone except for the clerics. They immediately sprang into action and surrounded the combatants. After this, every time an offensive spell was cast, one of the clerics countered it with a dispel. The party managed to knock out the three Harcourt men without killing them.

The leader of the clerics turned out to be Father Jeremy, who they had met before but he didn’t recognize the party. Fortunately Jervais did recognize them and convinced Father Jeremy of their identity. Jeremy was very angry at the party for attacking the Harcourts and the resulting deaths of the civilians. Fin took great offense at this and began to berate Jeremy about how the temple has not been doing enough and someone had to take action.

I don’t remember the details of what you were arguing about with Jeremy, so if you want to write about your argument that would be cool.

- Party asks if temple has taken in orphans

- Jeremy says we must take 12 children and four adults.

- Shun argues with Jeremy about the temple’s inaction. Jeremy takes a shot at St. Cuthbert.

- Smoth and Keldon succeed in calming everyone down.

By the time they had finally finished arguing and agreed to take the orphans and refugees, it had been long enough for the Harcourt forces to organize. The party decided they’d use a combination of Keldon’s Teleport & Dimension Door spells and Fin’s Feathers spell to evacuate themselves and the refugees from the city. They were able to escape successfully but as they were heading towards the wall, they heard explosions coming from the direction of the temple. They could see black smoke rising from the same direction and then they heard an awful and frightening roar in the distance. Besides how it actually sounded, it was frightening in the fact that they could not tell what type of creature made it. All they knew was that it sounded very large.

- Fin goes back to the burnt down temple in bird form

- Flies through what’s left of the roof and sees 3 mages

- One has finer robes and a necklace with the same symbol as the one on the brand. He has black hair and looks like an elf.

- The leader blinds Fin, but Fin turns into a bat which negates the blindness.

- Fin flies out of the temple, but the 3 mages teleport up and a battle is fought

- Fin manages to escape, but as he leaves he hears the words of the leader mage in his ear telling him that he will be found and dealt with later.

---

Experience

Defeated Harcourt’s soldiers – CR 9
| 8 | 3600xp |
| 9 | 2700xp |
| 10 | 2000xp |

Excellent roleplaying w/ Jeremy – 350xp each

XP/person:
| 8 | 1250xp |
| 9 | 1025xp |
| 10 | 850xp |