Ortella and her boss, Qhosan Alios, believe there is a credible threat to his life, and the party is accompanying them from Eastwatch to Seene. Aside from the standard pay, Ortella indicated that she would give the party an artifact that could summon a powerful beast to help them at will upon reaching Seene safely.

Prior to the start of the adventure, the party was traveling over Velion’s mountains. They encountered and defeated an ettin, which had sacked a goat farm.

After camping at the farmhouse to rest up and prepare for their journey down the other side of the mountain, the group set off and immediately ran into a group of Velion patrol guards fighting a troll. Unfortunately, the troll killed three of the guards before the party could intervene. While Tamen/Mildin/Tremundo went to help, some bandits and eagles converged on Qhosan and Ortella, who Septimus/Gaerros defended.

After dispatching the troll, the eagles, and the bandits, they questioned a surviving bandit about the operation. The guard that the party saved offered to take the bandit into custody since the group needed to double back and rest again.

Starting again on the second day, the group headed down the path, eventually noticing a cliff with some footholds carved into it. Septimus saw a red-brown blur, accompanied by some skittering noises, but the group opted not to follow up since Qhosan and Ortella were pressed for time.

That evening, as they camped, the party was attacked by two swarms of bats, seemingly led by a winged kobold. Though they took care of the creatures handily, it made Gaerros wonder about the true source of the swarms.

Over the course of the next few days, the group was able to focus on travel with no outside threats, which was good since some of the path got fairly narrow for their mounts. At one point, they opted to skip a mountain village and continue on, still worried about getting to Seene in time.

On the final leg of the trek down, the group encountered a somewhat infamous area: A steep, treacherous, twisting path down among jutting spikes of rock. Most of the party went this way since the only “shortcut” was a rough-carved set of steps down a sheer drop of the mountain.

Tremundo went down the steps, getting a rain of rocks and boulders thrown down by some goblins with a secret access point, but made it safely to double-back and meet the others.

The remaining group got to a halfway point with a large open area filled with boulders and skeletons. Scanning for anything unusual, the area radiated an evil energy. At that moment, an unearthly screech rang out across the sky, prompting Ortella to first look upward in a panic, then frantically rifle through her saddlebags.

To the party’s surprise, the boulders animated, forming into a galeb duhr – normally a fairly neutral creature. It attacked the party, raising two sets of remaining boulders to really wallop everyone.

After finally defeating the galeb duhr, the party continued to the end of the path. Noticing Ortella still flustered, they learned that an important personal item was missing from her saddlebags. Reaching the Velion patrol base at the foot of the mountain, they found that the guard they saved had rounded up several other bandits. The party questioned them about Ortella's missing item, a stone carving of a lamassu, but the bandits had no idea of its whereabouts.

The party remained at the patrol base for the evening, ready to continue the final leg of their journey to Seene the next day.