We awoke the next morning to the sound of screaming, and soon found a man fastened to a tree with some kind of webbing.  Before we could free him Skye and Speckles were both hit with the same webbing and stuck to two different trees.  The source of the webbing turned out to be huge spider creatures that we finally fought off.  After freeing the man (Skye, in her bear form, and Speckles freed themselves) Dyrian told us that this was the wizard who had been picked to accompany us on our mission; his name was Phoenix Black.  Dyrian decided he would return to Moonbrook and tell his father of our progress.

 

Phoenix and Skye immediately got off on the wrong foot when he explained that he had had some dealings to take care of and wasn’t able to join us at the start of our mission.  Skye thought this was a flimsy excuse.  It didn’t help that Phoenix seemed to think he was now the leader of our group.  The wizard fared much better with Finger and two of them shared a pipe filled with herbs and they ended up dancing naked around the campfire for most of the night.  Skye and I declined to participate.

 

After some arguing the next morning, we decided to check out the next “dot” on the map, where we discovered wolf like creatures guarding a cave with a locked door across the entrance.  We killed the wolves and Fingers tried to pick the lock on the door but broke his thieves’ tools in the lock.  I smashed in the door with my axe and we went inside.

 

Fingers scouted ahead and came back to report that several goblins were sitting around a fire in the next chamber.  Phoenix (who was the only one of us who spoke their language) addressed the goblins and was greeted with grunts then silence.  The wizard then said he wasn’t going to stay where he wasn’t invited and since we all had broken into their home we should leave as well and left the cave.  As for me I agreed with Phoenix, unless they attacked us I felt we should leave them alone, but I could tell that Skye desperately wanted to start a fight with these creatures ( I remembered later that she had told me that it had been goblins who raided her village).

 

Hoping Skye could control herself I went out to talk to Phoenix.  I told him I agreed with his position, but I was worried that if we couldn’t get Skye out of the cave something bad was going to happen.  He refused to go back in the cave but would wait for me to talk some sense into her.

 

When I went back into the cave, Skye was fighting the goblins and Fingers had chased another one deeper into the cavern.  I had no choice now but to join in the fight to protect the group.

 

Three bugbears charged into the chamber.  Things just kept going from bad to worse. Thankfully, Skye realized we were outnumbered and agreed to leave but Fingers was still missing, I could just make out the thief still exploring the next chamber.  How was I supposed to protect the group with them split up like this?!

 

Hearing the fighting, Phoenix returned and joined the fight, casting several well placed spells.  The Bugbear who had been fighting me attacked Phoenix and I took the opportunity to try to find Fingers but Phoenix cried out and I went to his aid.  The battle raged on like this for what seemed like an eternity and when it was over, Skye lay dead at our feet.

 

Olu had charged me with protecting this group and I had failed