Of Hunting Horns and Strange Sausages

The morning was an uncomfortable experience with all of us (save for Orla) changed in strange ways. The cosy cottage was now an abandoned ruin and instead of the cooked breakfast that we had been expecting we had dry rations and whatever Orla could hunt. Krisanna was feeling glum but cheered up by her new woolly socks - a present from the Spirit of Small Gifts.

We headed south into the forest, not having much luck foraging through the day, but in a stroke of luck Makander stumbled over the perfect camp site for the night and for once it didn't rain! Dry socks all round.

The next morning dawned with just a hint of a chill in the air. Krisanna was relieved to be back to her normal size, as was Bastonn, but Makander still had mysterious red eyes. We remembered passing some strange pillars marked with magical script so we took a diversion for Aodhan to check them out. He spent some time and managed to decipher two useful spells.

After another night at the premier campsite we headed north east to find an old tree with an opening at the base and a boulder split in two. Krisanna's treasure sense was tingling so maybe this was the silver mine that we had been looking for? OK, so there were some faded warning glyphs on the boulder and the stairs looked a bit slippy and there was a funny smell of bones too.

There were pictures on the walls of the wild hunt with ominous images. Krisanna could make out sounds of a large animal (or animals) in the dark - yikes! Krisanna and Makander crept back out and then Krisanna tooted the hunting horn to see what would happen. Apart from a blood curdling note nothing happened, so Krisanna went back down and threw a biscuit into the darkness. In response two fearsome looking dogs bounded out of the gloom, two fast for Krisanna to evade. Fortunately Bastonn killed one with his mighty attack and Makander jumped to save Krisanna from being mauled.

Dogs despatched we explored the next room, which contained a pool of blood and a slightly gnawed arm. We found a room with a sinister mural (featuring a surprised looking adventurer), a staircase with bloody bits and a final room which had a non bloody staircase so we took that one.

This led to a room full of iridescent beetles (soon encrispified by Aodhan), a mysterious mechanical creature with four faces and more mysteries until we concluded that we really needed to speak with the crones to find out how to defeat the dogs.

We skirted the edge of the woods, until we chanced upon a meadow with immaculate vegetable gardens, flowers and fruit trees. Orla noticed a large black cat on a window sill and flying monkeys.

Krisanna knocked politely on the door to be greeted by three witches who were completely in the nip! Crikey! We asked for some milk and eggs for our breakfast in the morning, politely declining the sausages which looked a bit ... unusual.

We camped for the night outside the rose bushes, disturbed only by a strange creature wandering about in the garden. Curiouser and curiouser.