We failed to convince Dura, the Orcette, that there is some greater evil than orc and man. Darion and Thaylen both objected to bringing her with us into the Elven grove, and so we tied her up on a branch high up in a tree (safe from wolf or bear) and went without her.

Thaylen opened a portal in a tree and we stepped into a magical place, where we enjoyed healing and were welcomed by Lierin Vaquierelle and Glorandal Adwynn, two fellow elven druids.

Here we spoke, and the elves suggested that the “talking door” would most likely speak Dwarven and would probably ask either a riddle or request a password. So it would most likely be Heidel’s presence that would help us there, not forest magic.

They went on to identify our magic items, and recognized Endbringer: Apart from its obvious qualities, it was specifically wrought to harm Infernals and would allow resistance against fire 1x per day. The yellow potion we found was one to control giants, similar to a Charm spell. The wooden ring was the so-called “Ring of the Dryads”, but without any Dryad-properties. It allows the wearer to cast Detect Magic and Entangle, once per day each.
Darion’s Iron Ring, long ago found, and the star-key in his pack, are both mundane.

Darion asked about potential vampire lairs (thinking about some profit for our as-if-employer Mariusz), and while the Elves did not think there was a particular vampire-problem in these lands, they at least knew of two cryptas, which they marked on our map.

They also looked at our yellow-nectar-potion in detail — result to be determined later.

Aretain received scrolls to learn Floating Disc and Ventriloquism, and we all received healing potions from the Elves.

Apoqulis, the soft soul, worried that our orcen captive might suffer from thirst and cold out there in the tree, and wondered if he should go back out and hold her hand during the night, but in the end he did not. It was not Darions cold comments (that orcs should be tough enough to manage one night alone in a forest) that swayed him but Heidel’s and Thaylen’s warnings that going alone he might run into the very wolves and bears we had hid Dura from .

The next day we went to collect our orc and set out to the Keep.

On the way we had to avoid a small gang of Blood Druids going into the opposite direction, but we were not worried because they would hardly know how to open the magic portal. There was a moment of indecision: should we attack them? But Darion said something that struck Apoqulis as incredibly wise: “Since they are going away from our objective, we have already achieved the goal that an attack would serve. Violence would serve no purpose.”

So we ducked out of the way and let them pass.

Scouting and Infiltration

Close to Keep Stormwing, we tried to reason with our orcette once more. She relented a bit and told us in which of the towers we would find the way down to that talking door. We discussed potential infiltration tactics at length, primarily because for different reasons we did not really want to kill all the orcs. Some (Apoqulis) for primarily moral reasons, others (Darion) for primarily tactical reasons.

Gutter the Thief drank an invisibility potion and went out to scout the Keep from every angle. He discovered guards at the front entrance and at one easily scalable part of the hill. Then he fetched a rope and grappling hook and went to sneak in at an unguarded spot. He checked out the area, located guards, then fetched the rest of us to climb up at a hidden spot.

Darion suggested he used his invisibility to backstab one lone guard to open up our way to the tower Dura had pointed out. The others wondered if this was really worth giving up the invisibility, but finally relented. Gutter shanked the guard, and Darion dropped the body down the cliff to get it out of the way.

Next step: Clearing the last 40 feet to that tower.

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