4. Clayday to Windsday/ Disorder Week/ Sea Season 1618

The adventurers continued to travel further into the Starfire Ridges, following the trail of stolen cattle. Although the trail was becoming less easy to find, the muddy ground enabled the skilled trackers in the group to guide them faithfully. However, they became uneasy that the trail continue to head northward, when an easy route to the Greydog Village lay through a valley to the east. Perhaps the villain Danakos had spotted a threat that way that he wished to avoid? Warily, and with many backward glances, the adventurers continue northward.

As night fell on Clayday and the sun god Yelm passed beneath the land, the party made camp and took care to set their fire so that enemies would be unable to see its light. Taking suitable precautions, they settled down to sleep. During Finmast's watch, he spotted two people appearing to sneak up on the camp. Moving like ghosts through the night, the adventurers were able to apprehend two gaunt and battered humans. It quickly became clear that they were runaway slaves from the Lunar farms to the south. Avareena hailed from the Malani tribe and had been taken as a thrall by a Colymar Clan. When the Clan was unable to pay the Lunar taxes, they had been forced to hand over thralls in payment and Avareena had ended up in Lunar hands. Ranulf was likewise a slave, hailing from the Greydog Clan. He had been harshly treated and starved, his skin hanging off his formerly rotund frame in folds. He was so weak he was unable to tell the story of how he came to be in the slave farm.

The adventurers cared for the runaways and were preparing to let them go the next morning when a group of Tarshite mercenaries happened upon their camp. When it became clear they were hunting the runaways, the adventurer's response was rapid and brutal. As soon as the Tarshites fell wounded, Ranulf and Avareena fell on them and took vengeance in an imaginatively savage fashion.

After this one-sided fight, the adventurers dispatched the wounded Tarshites, supplied Ranulf and Avareena with supplies from the fallen and bid them farewell. With oaths of friendship, the freed slaves disappeared rapidly to the east whilst the party continued northwards.

As they travelled, they came upon a stone road of great age, the stones worn away by time. Along the side of the road, there were the remnants of carven idols, but which powerful being they were meant to glorify was not apparent.

Towards evening, the party came upon a tumble-down ruin of great age, and of similar construction to the road. At that point, our story paused with the adventurers considering the ancient and ill-favoured hill-top ruin, wondering what manner of fate might await them within...