Much has happened since last I girded my loins to write about the campaign.
The team delivered a piglet from a witch to a knight in his hilltop castle — the knight became furious with them, assuming them to be in league with the witch, and the piglet was his young son transformed.
He threw them into prison, but eventually calmed down and admitted that they might have been innocent pawns in the whole affair. His lady, however, did not forgive, and it was very obvious that if she could have had them flayed alive, she would do so without a second thought.
Our Heroes offered to clear out an infestation of Creepers from the subterranean tunnels below the castle, to make amends for their inadvertent insult.
That mission did not go at all well. In fact, it was something of a fiasco.
They stayed for a few days longer, but there were hints that they had imposed on his lordship's hospitality for long enough, and the lady's poisonous glares and hissing obloquy were becoming socially awkward.
While out and about, one of them (I forget which) was slapped in the face by a large wind-blown leaf, on which was written a message: the wizard BAN, presently located at Four Corners in the Great Forest, was seeking a group of brave adventurers for a perilous and profitable mission.
Seeking information from the chamberlain, they learned that Four Corners is the intersection of the two Forest Roads, and the site of the annual Goblin Fair. The team decided to give it a go, rather than wait around for her ladyship to have them all horribly assassinated.
They set off the next day, with the moderately good wishes of all (except, of course, the Lady, who still wished them all to die in some sort of horrible, protracted and painful manner), and following the chamberlain's directions soon enough found themselves on the east-bound Forest Road. They were told that by simply following the road, they would reach Four Corners in just three or four days easy walking.
The following day, in a clearing, they found a great stone head with the road forking around it, left and right.
As they approached, the head spoke:
"Choose your path — go to the left, and pass in peace and safety. Go to the right and find both peril and profit. Choose your path, and abide by it."
After not very much discussion, they elected the Path of Peril, since (a) they were, after all, adventurers, and (b) PROFIT!
They made their way past the stone head, which uttered not another word, and as the trees closed in again around the road they looked back and saw nothing but a rock jutting out of the grass beside the trail, which looked, if you squinted and imagined hard, very vaguely head-shaped.
They went on.
The trees became closer and less appealing, and the forest seemed darker and more unfriendly. The trail became boggy and dank.
A midnight encounter with a ghostly rider pounding down the road, and a shambling mass of rags coming from the opposite direction, both ruined the rest of the night and left Olaf with some sort of horrible fungal respiratory infection.
The next day, late in the afternoon, they came upon a small goblin-like creature that was poking and jiggling with a long stick at the corpse of a hanged man, dangling from a gibbet by the side of the trail.
It was clearly startled by their approach, but not unduly hostile or fearful after the initial surprise, and they asked it what it was doing.
It was a bit difficult to make out its reply, as it lisped and drooled a great deal, but eventually it made its purpose known: it had the right, once the corpse had fallen, to take its teeth for his own purposes, and it was just checking to see how much longer he would be likely to have to wait.
Cajetan kindly took upon himself the initiative to cut the corpse down so that the creature wouldn't have to wait any longer, and it immediately descended on the cadaver and, by some means not immediately clear, transferred its teeth into his own mouth.
His speech immediately became much clearer, and in gratitude, he alerted Our Heroes of the existence of a Goblin Knight, ARSXZKIL, whose castle was just a little further down the road. Arsxzkil labours under a geas, by which he must grant hospitality to any traveller who asks it of him until the next cock-crow. The geas works in both directions however: any guest who offends against the laws of hospitality immediately becomes helpless against him, whereupon he whisks them off to a cell where he strips them bare and thrashes them about the naked breech until eventually they expire, whereupon he eats them. Also, he has prisoner in his tower a Beauteous Princess, PRISCILLA by name, of whom he is utterly besotted.
The team decided that this sounded like the potential profit the stone head had mentioned, and decided to go immediately to murder Arsxzkil, loot his castle, and rescue the princess.
And so, off they went.
