Modified Grey Wolf

Navier found Kyrie and begged for help in search of her sister who's been missing since earlier that morning. They went to leave the city and Kayden warned about going out into the forest, warning about what their superiors discussed earlier that week. They went anyway and Kayden accompanied them in search of the sister. While searching, Kayden got lost and Kyrie took over. They ended up finding the sister in a tree around three in the afternoon, finding the grey wolf awakened and extremely hostile trying to attack her. After coming up with the plan, Kayden was going to distract the wolf while Kyrie and Navier went to rescue the sister. However, fate was not on their side and they made too much noise and had the wolf charging at them. Kayden shot at the wolf but it was no use. Navier casted sleep but it was not effective. She tried a different spell and casted illusion, creating an illusion of the grey wolf, it created the wolf to be temporarily confused. While the wolf was distracted, Navier used detect magic and saw that the wolf had something evil warping the wolf

Wolf Corrupted

After returning from the wolf incident, the city guards at the gate gives a hard time to Kyrie, Navier, Sara, and Kayden for being outside the gate after sundown.Kyrie bids good night and heads off. Navier thanks Kyrie and scolds Sara for scaring her half to death. Kyrie walks Navier and her sister to their home. The next morning Johann Seabasstion , the Captain of the city guard, requests a report from Kayden and Kyrie. Upon hearing nothing more about the creature's strange behaviors, Johann Seabasstion inquires about Navier. Kyrie was ordered to go and find her, after the captain learned of her usefulness in search of her sister. After searching her home, Kyrie didn't find her there, Kayden then suggested to go to the market to search for her. Kyrie finds her on the river bank and brings her to the captain. She informs him of her findings from the detect magic spell, he offers her a job as a city guard which she accepts. The Captain informs them about the different creatures and what's been changed in the certain creatures - something he calls “The Corrupted”, noting that they all have purple eyes and are all exhibiting behaviors. The orders from the captain was to explore the last known locations of the creatures and try to bring back a sample, dead or alive. They decide to go back after the wolf and try to capture it or bring its body back for investigation

Wolf Corrupted

Kyrie and Navier decide to go after the wolf, also known as “The Corrupted”. Navier seeks additional information from Johann Seabasstion and learns that the corrupted have inhanced speed, intelligence, and attack. Kyrie and Navier decide to go searching for the wolf, and they try to retrace their steps. As they are searching, attempting to retrace their steps, they run out of time and set up camp for the night. Kyrie offers to take first watch and Navier goes to sleep. The watch goes smoothly and they switch out, Navier watch also goes smoothly. No traces of the wolf, the next day they don't find anything for the first few hours. There are traces that it was there but its hard to track. Around noon, Kyrie finds a track, a foot print of an animal. Navier finds nothing and Kyrie drags her over and shows her the foot print and tells her to check her eyes cause that's clearly a foot print. They follow the trail but eventually lose the trail. Around four in the afternoon, Navier finds the trail and continues to follow it but its unclear how old the trail is. Its been about ten hours worth of searching and they decide to rest for the night and set up their camp for the night. Navier takes first watch, but she got really close to fall asleep and she didn't notice it sneak into the camp.

Wolf Corrupted

Kyrie and Navier were successful in killing the wolf, however Kyrie came down with sickness and went home to recover, so Navier reported to Johann Seabasstion by herself, bringing him the corpse much larger than normal. Meeting her new teammates, Nox and Goro they discuss the abnormalities of the corrupted. Johann Seabasstion goes on to explain that it's beginning to affect the trade and must be dealt with or the people may soon have a rough winter. The trio go to the local medic, Stratsberg to get aide, and Nox drags the wolf in and its hind legs get stuck and the medic scolds him to the side door. He motions to the back of the room for a flat table for operating with various equipment, the table while large is fairly short. Immediately he notices its corrupted and requests to have four to six hours to operate and shoos them out the door ecstatic to get to work and sending a happy waive as the team go on their way to return the next morning. After asking around, they learn that the hunters and butchers frequent taverns the closest one is “the bear claw” tavern . Navier goes to the library and checks for anything worthwhile and finds some diseases some are close but nothing is a perfect match, she then gets distracted by kids books then loses track of time. Meanwhile Nox goes to The Bear Claw and talks to local hunters, not a lot of hunters available due to the difficulty to hunt due to the corrupted making meat pricing go up making the hunters scarce trying to earn wages. The information he learns isn't very great and is roughly the same as what he had. Then, he goes to The Butcher guild and have a lot of people with no work, in fact they were backed up on orders. Some of the meat they collected were inedible and were thrown out and they came in all shapes and sizes. Goro goes to the docks to ask the local fishermen if there were any in the water. According to the locals, the fish orders are the main source of food due to lack of other meats. One of the fishermen mentions, although they haven't had anything locally, however his uncle's brother some where at another port there was only one fish that came back with the meat was off and alive, however he often liked to tell stories and they thought nothing of it. In the morning, the gnome medic is ecstatic to show Goro and Navier his discoveries. Meanwhile a knocking from the main door and the medic answers eagerly urging him inside. Before them is a gruesome scene of the dismantled wolf, Navier throws up and the medic gives her a potion to help her nausea. Nox recognizes the smell to be arcane mixture of brimstone and lavender, he informs his two teammates of the magic like scent. The medic exclaims, “correct! correct!” and he starts to explain the source of it is its dismembered head. Navier notices there's a mist all over its body, she sees on the counter there's an object, but is unable to see what school the source of magic. He points to the incision on the brain and he gestures for them to come forward. Navier and Nox go forward and see a white scar where there's fur missing and there appears to be a small hole in his brain. he runs over to the counter and shows to the three teammates and shows the crystal Navier saw, and he gives her the crystal and its still gross and it wasn't cleaned. The crystal appeared to be almost fused with the brain, suspected to be the source of crazy in the wolf. Nox then inquires about a local enchanter, happens to be his brother. The gnome writes down for fifteen minutes very thorough paragraph directions to find him. Goro backs away eyeing the gnome and hits his head and the door slams behind them. After several hours of searching they ended up back where they started. While Navier breaks the news Nox, Goro finds a local and gets a quick and easy way there versus the three page essay. Goro knocks on the door and asks why they're there and gives Goro back the instructions to the house making him irritated. Navier moves him out the way and states they're there for identifying the crystal. He shows them to the back where he stores merchandise and Navier sees him run magic through the crystal. He says its crystal mana, which is unheard of and by someone very powerful. He goes on to say it's hard to see what spell was used on it. He offers to attempt an appraisal at a fee, however its degrading quickly. He asks the team to bring back another crystal, fresher and alive. Goro remembers a potential less dangerous candidate of the corrupted, smaller animals, that might be able to obtain. Nox asks Flatsberg if there's a way to track the magic, he offers to try and requests to keep the crystal. Goro asks about a sword, drooling over it, however changes his mind upon looking at the price tag muttering “later”. Goro suggests going upstream, Nox inquires about how Navier she came upon the wolf. After her recap, he remembers how the corrupted stay near the forest. Goro remembers there's been reports both lizards and lynx like creatures corrupted that are easier to capture and bring back alive. Navier suggests going to the marketplace and Nox remembers leaving older fish would be good bait for both creatures. After arriving around 1 P.M. the fishers are all sold out, running in two cycles to catching fish. Goro inquires about long period time preserving for the bait.

The next morning, the team meets up at fish merchants. Navier went to check on Kyrie and she was feeling better, unfortunately Nox seems to have caught what Kyrie had and wasn't able to attend, according to Goro, Nox had said, “servant! go and delivery this message!” After Goro had pulled his sword it was evident it was a joke. They were able to acquire the fish they needed, Goro went to get the fish as Navier went to fetch Kyrie. Kyrie got sick again and ended up going back to her house after meeting Goro. Goro and Navier agreed to rent horses, the standard: three gold on the first day and then one gold per following days. They agree to start north and start searching for the corrupted bale cat. Goro put a piece of fish on top of a leaf, then placed a stick on top so it would fall on top of the animal. Goro ensured that the trap would work. They spent the rest of the day setting traps and called it a day, around a 40 mile radius. When they checked the traps they were all eaten with no animals captured, they had about half of the fish left over. They went the next morning to the same spot they started and Goro suggests using the fish-like traps as bait to lure the corrupted out. Navier says, “that's a much better plan” giving him sass and he started to argue but let it go. They set up the meat on the edge of the forest and after a couple hours, they notice a stray dog, using detect magic Navier sees that it's just a normal dog. Goro shoos the dog away and about 15 minutes later comes back and they let it snag the food. Around noon, after no luck, Navier suggests going to the butchers guild to try to find a hunter who can teach them to make traps. After arriving they encounter a dwarf, she inquires about making a trap and he suggests going to the bear claw which is right across the street. Upon entering, there's evidence of hunters and a poker game. There's a waitress who recognizes them immediately and walks to them. Navier follows behind Goro and talks to him. The waitress sends them to Jeffrey and they give him mead and gold as persuasion, not before winking at Goro. Thanking her, he winks back at her and goes to where Jeffrey is sitting. After talking to him they learn that he's caught a few corrupted and he shows his map and shows them where he's seen them in caves in that area. After trying to convince him to shares a secret of the trade, he ponders on it for a while before asking the waitress for a napkin to write instructions down for them. Upon looking at the instructions, Goro's trap was written down causing him to exclaim, “I knew it! We were just in the wrong area!” Jeffrey laughs and draws a separate instructions on the other side for live traps. Jeffrey warns about a wrong beast potentially wandering into the trap but Goro reassures him and asks to pay but he refuses because they're helping take out the corrupted. The next morning they get more fish and head out towards the caves. They decided to make camp and Goro takes the first watch and they keep as close to the road as possible. There's a few different groups, about four groups around fifteen people camping. A known area to camp, and Goro and Navier's watches were uneventful. They travel down the next day to the lairs, a number of large trees and rivers and as they approach they see a number of bale cats as Jeffrey said. Goro proceeds to set up a trap along the cliff of the ravine (roughly about a 20 foot drop), testing if it will lure the bale cat. The next morning when checking the trap Navier sees that the aura is not the corrupted and is just a bale cat, so they set it free. Seeing the trap worked, Goro makes a new trap but they're rather time consuming, requiring about a day worth of time. They capture a second bale cat and still not what they're after so they decide to go down into the ravine to look for the corrupted. The more time they spent around the bale cats, notice there's four separate clans and they explore the region. Bale cats are black cats that have white markings with various differences, can even be solid black and they're very skittish of them. Goro puts Navier onto his shoulders (like luke and yoda) and go down the small ravine. The cats begin getting more familiar to them , among the larger clan Navier doesn't see anything with detect magic so they go left to the smaller clan. She still doesn't see anything, however she sees alcude with a faint glow, similar to the same glow from the wolf. She informs him about the glow and he sets her down gently from his shoulders and he makes a new trap and kept his sword handy. After he was done, he put her back and they went to their camp the night. Returning in the morning, the trap looks to be messed with the trap, the meat inside was bitten like it was grabbed but not consumed and there is scratch marks along the side. They decide to make camp closer to the trap and Goro, the trap was set off and so he woke Navier up and the slowly unsheathe their blades and walk closer to the trap. Navier sees that the bale cat is a different spell and is an illusion spell instead. She reaches out to stop Goro and warns him about it. When he looks around he doesn't see anything and when he pokes the trap with the tip of his sword and it goes quiet, when he asks her about her seeing anything there was nothing but from the alcove. He lifts the trap and sees nothing and sees there's more scratch marks. They approach the alcove and when they were surrounded by the illusion bale cats. She grabs Goro arm and informs him about the illusions and he immediately tries to protect his teammate as they get closer to the alcove.

Bale Cat (Corrupted - Spells)

As Goro and Navier stand outside the cat's cave in the middle of the night, Goro lights a torch a torch and sees two standing above them. The cave wall seems to be about 35 feet above them, Goro picks up Navier and he starts to climb (about 20ft up) the cliff, all the way up to the cats while she carried the torch. After reaching the top one of the cats hisses and swipes at him and scratches him and he stumbles into the water and causes Navier to drop the torch into the stream and it floats away. As they get up, they see three people walking towards them holding a torch. They recognize Nox and Kyrie and they inquire about the new person Quacks sent by Johann Seabasstion. Nox teases Goro about splashing in the water which proceeded to irritate him. Goro goes over to Nox and he touches him to allow them to see in the dark, his cloak glowing in the dark. Goro jokes about Navier being blind so Nox takes Navier but the three of them fall. On the side Quacks and Kyrie see that there is more cats onto the cliff. After trying again Nox stubs his toe so he decides to spot Goro and Goro climbs up onto Nox's shoulder's and makes it onto the cliff. As the rest of the team makes the climb, the three cats jumps to attack the team, Goro gets hit pretty bad, the one night without his helmet. Nox was safely avoided but then Navier gets the worse and is bleeding profusely. Navier tries to attack her with her rapier but she misses and jumps back with the cat. Kyrie runs towards Navier to try to heal her. Quacks misses the cat and hits Navier instead just a glancing blow. The cats attack again but miss, and a new cat runs out and attacks Nox and Goro and Nox notices when the cat opens its mouth bullets coming out as it hisses at him while it attacks. Goro attacks the one in his face and he grips on its face but it grips harder. Grabbing his sword he uses it to get it off him and succeeds prying it off him but it goes up in a purple smoke and he smells lavender. After sneezing, he slashes at the one below him and it also puffs up in a smoke. Kyrie goes to Navier to grab the cat and is barely able to get the cat off of her and it appears to be very angry. Nox attacks the cat on him with a hammer on his face and the cat disappears in a puff, luckily the cat got most of the attack but he still got a ringing in his ear. Joking, he looks at Goro and ask, “how's my face?” in which he replies “as ugly as ever.” Feeling offended he says, “wasn't asking you.” Quacks attempts to play music but his bagpipes are wet. Navier casts sleep on the cat and it works and falls asleep but so does she. Three more cats run out and the first two run and jump to Goro and in his attempt to dodge he ends up falling to the water. The second one shoots at Nox and it pierces him and the other one by Goro shoots him. The cat appears to have been unaffected by the sleep spell and attacks Kyrie. Goro teleports towards Navier as she started to float down the river and he grabs her and tries to run towards to the tree line. Kyrie attempts to kick the cat but misses. Quacks throws a net onto the cat and was successful in catching it after Kyrie let go. Three cats attacks Kyrie, two attacks Nox, and one attacks Quacks in which the one in the net disappears and smells lavender and brimstone indicating strong magic. Goro sets Navier down and is successful in waking her up and he suggests running back to the camp evident by his bloodied up self. Nox notices that one of the cats didn't use magic missile. The team essentially runs away from the cats because the original keeps making copies.

Spider Monkey x2

As the group went back to camp to lick their wounds, they did not realize that their present had been noticed by one of the more dangerous predators in the cliffs - the Spider Monkey.

After some discussions about the dangers that may exist in this area, they decided to setup a watch get some sleep.

The first part of the night was uneventful. Goro and Navier took the first 2 watch but noticed nothing, however during Nox's watch this changed. Nox noticed some rustlings in the trees to the north, but when he went to check it out, he discovered nothing of note, however since his time was almost up anyway, he woke up Quagmire and the two of them took a look, but they didn't see anything. Content that they were safe, Nox quickly went to sleep, leaving Quagmire on watch.

Quagmire's watch started out quiet, but when he heard more noices coming from the otherside of the bluff he decided to wake up Goro and check out. Gorospotted the danger and called out to Nox as they went into combat.

The Spider Monkey was hiding in the trees so they were not able to get a good shot in immediately, and were suprised when the monkey quickly ascended the cliff to reach them and got off an amazing shot on Quacks, disrupting his attack as he accidently slings a rock at Goros head, barely missing him. The next round it again attacked and this time proceeded to grab Quacks and try to drag him off the bluff, almost knocking poorQuacks unconscious in the process. Quacks luckily broke free and retreated, finally noticing another Spider Monkey sneaking up behind them from the other side, who, luckily for them, appeared to be injured already. He called out to the rest of the team the upcoming danger and ran to Navier's side to try to wake her, hoping that she would be able to turn the tide of battle.

Warned of the danger, Goro moved to intercept this new enemy, leaving Nox to try to go toe to toe with the other one. Goro quickly distracts the beast and tells Quacks to fire at him while hes distracted. Quagmire realizes Naviers crossbow is sitting out and grabs it to fire off a bolt and the distracted monkey. This too almost hits Goro, but darts past his ear and into the throat of the Spider Monkey just behind him. Both monkeys are enraged at this point and proceed to grab both Goro and Nox and look to get away just as Navier begins to awake. She realizes the problem and, seeing the now very wounded creature, quick drops a sleep spell on it, dropping in its tracks, unconscious and calls out an inspiration to Nox who was trying to free himself.

Freed of the grasp of the now unconcious beast, Goro preps an attack and then in mid attack, teleports over to Nox's assistance, unleashing a brutal critical on it and dropping it prone in the process. It lets go and the team make quick work of it. As it tries to run away down the cliffs, Quagmire pulls up the crossbow and lets fly a beautiful shot, finally bringing the beast to its end.

Quacks tastes the dirt and it tastes like dirt. Quacks suggested they keep an eye open to potential danger. Nox investigates the strange footprints and he notices that the lead down a foliage at the edge of the ledge, no signs of reasons for said footprints. Quacks notices that its a thick foliage. Navier and Kyrie go down to where Nox and Quacks and Navier sees them playing in the dirt and she questions, “what are you guys doing?” to which Nox immediately says, “not licking dirt that's for sure.” Afterwards Quacks goes onto a tangent on dirst tasting. They continue to investigate the foliage, Nox casts a light spell with a coin to peer into the cave and he doesn't see much, all he really sees is more evidence of someone being there but weirdly enough no signs of sitting just a lot of shuffling. He tosses the coin in to see more but it disappears along the back wall. Deciding to crawl in, he gets passed the illusion he sees an anvil and he sees a mechanoiseed character. He also sees a door of some sort. He also notices a yellow door and a bronze door. Nox calls out to the team and he points out what he sees, the back of it is an illusion and the rest is an open area with several doors. From the looks of it it appears to be someone's vault that they stumbled across, unknown if its a false vault or if its a low or high vault. After picking up his coin, Nox fires an arrow on the opposite side of the room and it skids across the floor and the creature doesn't appear to move. Meanwhile Kyrie kicks said creature and it didn't move. At the same time, Nox and Navier notice chalk sticks by the anvil but it appears that it hasn't been used anywhere else in the room. The anvil appears to be unused and he feels frustrated because its not his area of expertise. Walking around the room, he doesn't see anything else. Nox walks up to the armor and investigates it. Nox doesn't see anything interesting so he pulls out his hammer to tap it. When he does, it swings off the armor and back at him. After attacking him, the creature then goes back to standing still. Attempting to talk to the creature, it ignores him so in response he attempts to take his hammer gently and then slowly apply more pressure, but the creature seems to have a good grip on it so he gives up and attacks the anvil to which nothing happens. He checks the doors to find that all three are locked. Using detect magic, Navier she sees on the anvil that there's a transmutation and that on the hammer is ivocation, the anvil appears to be needing something to interact with it. Quacks places the chalk onto the anvil and nothing happens, however Nox draws a key and the creature awakens and slams the hammer onto the anvil to create a key. Using the key on the doors but it was the wrong size for any of the doors. He places the key down and uses the silver coin but nothings happens. He goes to draw a second key slightly smaller but it was the same results. Quacks writes “golden key” and when it slams against it a golden key appears and it looks like it would fit. Nox then goes to open the golden room and sees that there's a bronze key, he walks in and looks around and when he reaches down he trips and a small dart flies out where his hand used to be. After retrieving the key, he runs out and writes “silver key” and jests to Quacks and says, “why don't you give it a go?” To which he replies, “well you seem to be quick on your feet.” Reluctantly, he goes to open the door slowly, in which he hears a small clicking, he sees a chain and from the dangling chain he sees the next key to it. Being overly cautious, he attempts to lift the key off the chain, The key is on a hook attached to the chain. Darts go flying and he gets grazes his cheek slightly. After taking both keys to the bronze door, they unlocked it to find a room full of gold, roughly 2,000 gold coins but they also find a note to what seems to be a vault company (Dante's Infernal Traps), they assume it was left by the builder of the vault, not the owner.

• ???
• Bale Cat

Looking around Goro notices that going a mile up that the land will even out, it will take an hour. They start to make their way across the river however, Quacks messes up from strutting too much and loses his balance receiving a few scraps and bruises in the processes but was able pulling himself back up. Quacks proceeds to try again proclaiming too easy as he jumps on the rocks and falls back down stream, washing himself down the river. When he comes back up with bruises on his face and scrapes all over him and laughs it off like haha I meant to do that. He finally makes it and blames it on his boots. They proceed cautiously as they travel towards the lair of the bale cats in a calm manor. On the way their way Goro sees a shiny leaf and doesn't see a bale cat going towards the cave entrance(20 ft) and disappeared into the foliage, however fortunately does (150 yards away). Preparing weapons and preparing for a fight, Navier casts detect magic keeping an eye out for cats as they continue forward. About 30ft away from the cave entrance, they are coming up they see three cats start to emerge from the cave. Navier sees the two in front sees that they're illusions but cant see the one in the back. A magic missle attack Goro and two more attack Nox. Quacks goes to pet the bale cat but it backs away and hisses at him. “You're a bad kitty!” he went to slap it but missed. Navier went up to the second bale cat, went to attack it, but missed. Nox moved to behind the cat and said, “I will move over here!” He casts booming blade and crushes the bale cat and it disappears in a puff of smoke, smelling lavender and brimstone. He moves towards the other cat and remains on guard. Meanwhile Goro is on the ledge and swings at the bale cat, missing terribly. Out of anger the cat swats at Goro and the other bale cat swings at Quacks scratching his nipples. Nox tried to swat the paw away but the cat dodge him and the swat at Quacks. Navier moves towards the edge and sees that the third is an illusion. She tries to climb down but she slipped and Goro tried to catch her but missed, managing to slow her fall, she lands on the ground just barely missed the bale cat. As Navier sits on the ground she attempts to slap the cat however mises and slaps Goro's leg causing him to feel inspired to kill the cat. Goro twirls around with a hum and destroys the cat with a puff. Looking up he hopes they managed their cat, helping Navier to her feet and they make their way to the entrance. Meanwhile the cat continues to miss them. In response Quacks finally strikes the cat and it disappears ending the cat and mouse game. Navier asks Goro for help down into the cave and when she's standing there she sees the cat is the real cat and casts sleep and she falls asleep failing to put the cat to sleep. Goro watches her fall asleep and mutters to himself “not again…we need help with this cat!” Nox makes his way down but slips and falls before catching himself before landing on the ground. He sees Navier asleep on the job, Goro moves down onto the ledge and leaned down to wake Navier up and bonks her on the head with the pommel end on his sword. Successfully waking her up she exclaims, “Owwwwww!! Why did you bonk me on the head!!! Oh that didn't work.” Goro replies, “Umm we need a new plan.” Quacks throws a new over the ledge before realizing there wasn't a cat there. Moving down the cliff he makes his way to where the cat is. Navier tries to sing to the cat as a way to calm it but it doesn't work. Nox move down by Navier kneeling down to see the cat, and casts lighting lure to try to grab the cat and pull the cat towards him, scratching and crying. The cat is now at the mouth of the cave and they can see its head sticking out of the cave. Goro tries to grapple the cat while Nox taunts him, “Not like that!” to which Goro says, “Shut up Nox!”. He fails dramatically and moves out of the way as he is very unhappy about it while Nox says, “good job though.” The bale cat summons another cat, but Quacks captures the real bale cat and Navier attacks the illusion cat and manages to kill it with ease. Nox casts command commanding the cat to sit, the cat doesn't listen. Nox then prepares a leash, or a way to bind the cat. It isn't a happy cat. They meet up with Kyrie and head towards Stratsberg. Along the way they put the cat inside a cage and was able to feed it, purring off it on. It appeared to be happiest when being fed, warming up slowly to them. Nox remembers that there are times where monsters are tamed. The team is now divided between taking the cat to Stratsberg or taming the cat.

• ???

About halfway to Kamir the group decides to try to tame it. Nox puts his hand in the cage and at first the cat backs away but ended up getting scratches and loving on him. Navier then attempts to give fish to the cat and takes the fish but cautiously takes the fish from her hand. Quacks went to pet the cat, at first it didn't like it but warmed up for pets. Nox makes a collar for the cat with his captain medallion incase it gets loose. Nox puts the collar on it and surprisingly it lets him. When he tries to take the cat out of the cage and it freaks out and fights him. Quacks then attempts to take it out and its skittish but lets him hold it, eyes wide but not moving. Nox takes half of the last fish along with a leash and goes to the cat to feed it. As it takes the fish it, but when he went to put the leash on it it freaked out and scratched Quacks, but Nox was able to help calm the cat down giving Nox the side eye while Quacks was able to hold the cat. They put the cat back and the cat flipped out on them while they attempted to put it back. Goro loudly makes his judgements and protests about the cat. They start heading towards the camp with no problems with what looks to be five to six merchants, about fifty to sixty people. Its a well guarded camp. As they walk up they get asked their names and business for protection of the camp and then they're free to move around the camp with merchants trying to sell them stuff. Goro and Kyrie go to the camp enchanter, Nocens Sonitus to see what they have to sell, everyone else kinda just tag along. Among his items there is a clock amulet with gears clicking back and forth. It enhances attacks once a day but allows the user to achieve its desired attack (10 attack plus modifiers). He shows another amulet (amulet of breathing) allowing the user to have an hour of clean air no matter the circumstances. Goro mocks, “See Nox there's other ways to breathe.” Quacks then attempts to exchange his boots but the merchant doesn't see interested. The merchant then states the breathing amulet is to be sold for 250 gold, to which Quacks wants to test out the amulet to which Goro mocks, “how would you even test it?” Then Quacks replies, “as a holy man you can see my intentions are pure.” The merchant says, “I trust your holiness as much as your image.” Goro proceeds to buy the amulet of clockwork for 400 gold. Goro slips it on and he can feel the magical energy from the amulet. Quacks then attempts to waterboard the merchant while he's wearing the amulet, he states he will increase the price. Nox then uses detect magic to stop the nonsense and it was placed on the table and Nox sees that when he was wearing the amulet it didn't have magic but then when placed on the table then it had magic. Nox also purchases a belt. Quacks asks Navier to purchase the amulet of breathing for him as the merchant isn't too happy with him. She gives him the amulet and the five gold he had given her as a thanks for doing it for him. However she gives it back to him as she doesn't understand why he did that. Goro inquires about the corrupted and the merchant states he was attacked by a bird with purple eyes and with five gold would take them to the attack site in the morning. Kyrie goes to speak with John Paul and inquires about the corrupted. He states that there has beeen some seen up the road. The night was very uneventful and in the morning they buy some fish for the cat and Nox feeds it resulting in a very positive feedback from the cat. They then go to meet Nocense where he states that its about a fifteen miles up the road, about three hours where they're by the tree line by dragna. He points out where he was attacked by the bird and suggests that the cat should help with it. Nox then states he likes birds and then Goro sighs in frustration and says, “of course you do, pretty much an y creature with purple eyes.” Trying to get more details about the bird it wasn't very helpful. Noted that the bird is brown like and likes shiny objects to which Nox offers Goro as bait. Nocense sets up a blanket to watch the fight. The team looks up in the tree line that there is a Sparrow Cross in a nest that is about three inches sticking out, but Kyrie is looking the wrong direction to which Goro assists her by showing her the correct way. Nox uses locate object to find the crystal and it points directly at the bird. They attack and capture the bird with the merchant and heads back to Kamir

• ???

Upon making back to the city the return to Stratsberg and bring him the corrupted bird, Goro angrily left the room cursing under his breath. As Stratsberg was examining the bird, he discovers that the gem was embedded into his legs and inquires the group on any odd behaviors and he starts to cut on the bird's leg. He pulls out two very tiny shards, significantly smaller than the shards previously found. Very light purple aura, still containing the magic. After the operation, Navier feels very sick to her stomach and the group was to regroup in the morning so that Stratsberg can begin his investigation. Nox goes to the market to get some fish for the cat, striking out he goes to the shoreline to see fishermen about to throw out old fish. He then buys a few days worth for the cat and nothing more because he was worried about it spoiling. The rest of the group goes to their respective houses for the night and slept. In the morning they go directly to Stratsberg to discover the shards can be safely removed however if the creature were to die there would be a loop to go to the shard to destroy the shard and that the shards have layered enchantments. While the group listened intently Goro listening in at the doorway with his arms crossed. Stratsberg suggests going to see his cousin, Needlepuck for more information and may even pay them for the shards. Goro mutters, “Goodie…”. Stratsberg gives them a very confusing, yet detailed instructions on how to get to Needlepuck across the river. Looking at the map on the back is a very detailed information on how to get there including climbing through someone's window. Ignoring the weird instructions, they decide to go a different way. Looking at the map Navier decides its best to go through the forest is the best way to get there, roughly it'll take two days by foot to get there. At the camp, Quacks attempts to sell his boots of water walking. When he attempts to sell, he gets an offer of 30 gold which he declines. They make it up the road to the river, its not too big but there is a bridge leading across. It feels very woodsy and feels like the right way to go. They wander up the river for several hours but are struggling to find it as there are many boulders. Goro looks in the opposite direction at a small boulder and states he thought he saw a spider and sometimes has nightmares about spiders in her armor. They see a river crossing and an odd boulder crossing which didn't seem natural. They ended up finding Needlepuck and walk up the stream and it seems like someone uses a makeshift rock bridge looking towards the bridge. Nox see a shiny something fly towards them and him and Quacks hear a high pitch whine, like high speed gears spinning and whirling. Looks like it goes up from something, looks like a bug, doesn't feel like its a threat. It flies up and Goro gets hit (8 piercing damage, 5 poison damage) and it bites him then flies away. More flies out from behind the rocks and they look like clockwork beetles and appear to be very angry, about 20 to 50 feet away and they hide in-between the rocks.