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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1269560" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #1: The Laughing Ogre, Episode 5We arrive at the tower shortly after midday. The tower is circular, and stands about fifteen feet high, perhaps thirty to forty feet wide. Its base is made of solid white stones, but it looks like it used to stand almost eighty feet high. It has been knocked over, like a child’s set of blocks, and rubble, of the same white rock, is strewn southwest from the tower. It looks like the tower is set on some cliffs over the river’s edge. There is a large wooden door on the northwest arc of the standing portion of the tower, facing us.We approach the tower cautiously, listening for danger. Some of us hear horses – a whinny and a nicker, not the beat of approaching hooves. “Hear that?” asks Stone. Seeing that only Goldpetal and Miriel are nodding, he says, “Horses.”“Look here,” Chuck points to the ground. “There are cart tracks, hoof prints and foot prints leading towards the tower.”Miriel nods. “That door looks large enough to drive a cart through,” she says.As we approach to about a hundred feet of the tower, Chuck calls out “Hey, anyone in there?”A man wearing a leather jerkin comes to the door. He carries a crossbow, which is loaded but he keeps it pointed at the dirt at his feet. Through the door behind him, we can see a wooden cart, like a farmer would use. “Stop right there!” the stranger demands, while we are perhaps fifty feet away from the door.Stone, looking at his appearance, says, “Hello, Mister Bandit,” as we halt.“I’m no bandit!” the stranger declares angrily. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” “We could ask you the same,” Paks says, resting her hand dangerously on her sword hilt.Miriel, who is hanging back from the door, begins to cast detect magic. The stranger sees her gesticulations and raises the crossbow to point it squarely at her heart. “Don't you cast any spells on me!” he says, and she freezes immediately. “Witch,” he adds, with venom in his voice.Chuck smiles disarmingly, and tries to ask the man, “So, what’s going on around here?” By this point there is no chance of getting any assistance from the stranger. “Nothing,” he says curtly, hostility still evident in his stance.“Have you seen any strange lights?” Chuck persists.“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There aren’t any lights here!” He glowers about at all of us, the crossbow still aimed at us. “You should leave,” he says. Stone begins flexing his hands into fists, clearly ready for a brawl, but before he can do anything, Miriel says, “Okay, we’re going.”As Miriel, Fergus, and Goldpetal turn to leave, Paks takes Stone by the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go,” she whispers, physically turning him around.We head back up the road, walking north until we are out of sight of the ruined tower.Once we’re out of sight, we stop to talk about what to do next. After some discussion, we decide to head back to the tower, out of sight, and watch it. The road is in plain sight, and the beach is too exposed, so we head into the edge of the forest, which is about half a mile from the road. As we go into the forest, we notice that it’s very quiet. We sneak towards the tower along the edge of the forest, about fifty feet in from the edge. Walking through the forest, single file, we notice that there are a lot of spider webs, many more than usual. Some of the webs are small, but others are large enough to have caught birds. Looking more carefully, we can see many spiders, some as large as basketballs. “I guess this is why they call it the Spiderwood,” Chuck says, jokingly.Stone hefts his crossbow to his shoulder. “Shall I shoot one?” he asks.“Don’t,” advises Goldpetal, who is leading the column. “If we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone.”   We walk on, keeping a close eye on the spiders, and Goldpetal’s lore is correct – the spiders stay away from us. Chuck periodically ventures to the edge of the wood to check our location relative to the tower. Around sunset, we reach a point where we can see the back of the tower from the woods and are unlikely to be seen. It’s now getting dark, and although there is a full moon, just beginning to wane, there is also a fog coming in off the water.  As we sit around, mostly watching the tower, trying to stay under cover, we discuss the situation. Paks suggests, “Is there any way to lure the men out of the tower?”After a minute’s thought or so, Miriel says, “We could make some lights of our own, to try and draw the men out of the tower.”“I don’t know,” says Chuck, “Won’t they be suspicious?”“I don’t think we should,” Fergus says.“Why don’t we just go inside?” asks Stone. He doesn’t appear to prefer subtlety.Seeing that Miriel isn’t getting much support for the plan, Paks says, “Let’s wait and watch for a night, to see if we can see the lights for ourselves.” We agree to wait and watch.We wait, observing the tower through the trees, until midnight, but we don’t see anything. By two in the morning, Chuck and Stone are impatient, and ready to try something else. Over the objections of Fergus, we decide to sneak closer to the tower, to where we can see it pretty clearly. We listen. We don’t hear anything. It’s a quiet night. We all watch the tower. Miriel sees the bandit step out in the doorway and look around. He doesn’t see us, and heads back into the tower. We wait a few more hours, but nothing happens. We never see any lights. The fog starts to lift, and dawn is coming. Before it gets light, we walk back to the camp at the edge of the woods..</blockquote>

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