A summary of what happened during the game sessions:

October 26, 2001 - Session 18

The morning started out with an announcement from Winter. He said that his god, The High Lord's Right Arm, had called him to undertake a task that would cause him to have to leave the group for a time. He would try to catch up with them later, but for now he had to go. The group said their farewells, and he headed back with his horse in the direction from which the group had just come.

After his departure, the group proceeded toward the bridge. They noticed the edge of a road leading out from the bridge, perhaps 50 feet or so of perfectly set cobblestones that had been uncorrupted by time's passage. The stones ran into the mountain, or rather, the mountain bisected the road beyond that point, and the stones were gone. But it reminded them of the road they had followed on the way to Portsmouth.

Ezhno was in the lead, and was carefully inspecting the span across the river and chasm. Sana decided to fly underneath the bridge, inspecting it from the other side, to make sure there weren't any gaps, nor people/creatures hiding underneath, waiting to attack.

As she found nothing, and Ezhno was sure the bridge was safe, the group proceeded across, slowly and carefully.

About half-way across the span, the sounds of high-pitched screaming came from in front of them. And in moments, the cause revealed itself. Five bugbears were running, screaming toward the group. But it wasn't a battlecry, but the sound of fear.

As bows were shot and preparations were made, the strangest scene played out in front of the group. One bugbear immediately jumped off the bridge in the middle of the span. Two others jumped to either side of the bridge, trying to catch the slope near the end and doing so. The remaining two ran past Ezhno where he had set his spear, trying to run past the group without attacking them, just trying to get away from whatever was ahead.

Our heroes, however, were having none of that. Hildegaarde shifted into bird form and flew ahead to see what was there, while they cut down the bugbears as they fled. Sana even went so far as to go after one who had managed to climb far enough away around a cut in the ridge to be unable to be attacked from bow range, and using her whip to catch his wrist and toss him into the river. To her surprise, the bugbear seemed relieved to be tossed in the river as he vanished from her sight. As they had been fighting, they heard an unearthly moan in the distance.

The group approached the end of the bridge quickly, and more cautiously. Sana, thinking the moan may have been what caused the bugbears to flee in fear, asked that the group stay within twenty feet of her. She moved to the center of the group and began to sing, sounding a series of notes to combat the effect of the eerie moaning.

Within a few minutes, they saw a male elf fighting to one side of the bridge with an unseen attacker, and the human woman, with the gnome Gleam behind her, fighting something else unseen on the other side. The woman and Gleam's attacker seemed to be the source of the moan. And the battle was joined.

Bow shots were fired, fireballs and divine flames were struck, and Sana used the ability in her whip to combat evil and undead, called Sunburst, and with her attack, the moaning stopped. A quiet, whispered, "I am so out of here" came from somewhere ahead, and the visible people began to flee. The woman was the first to run, and managed to get out of sight quickly. Gleam cast a spell, and a wall of stone sprung up across the end of the bridge, cutting the group off from their enemies.

Margaret, however, was having none of it. Shouting incoherently, she charged the wall with her staff out in front of her, believing it to be an illusion. She passed right through the wall, proving it to be just so.

The others passed through in turn, and cut down the gnome in short order, and the elf not long after. They had tried to keep the elf alive to speak to him, but he refused to go quietly, taunting them into killing him. They knocked him unconcious and near death, and Margaret rushed up to stabilize him, bringing him just barely back to life.

They stripped him and the gnome, as there was no sign of the woman who had fled, and after some discussion, moved to the center of the bridge, to rest for the day. They decided to identify the items they had found off the gnome and elf, as well as the others they had found in the house. Most of the items were magical, with the exception of the crystal statue of the woman that had appeared magical before. When the spell to identify the item was cast upon it, it was in fact just a plain crystal statue. Sana at first thought it was a very powerful artifact, as they have been known to be very difficult to identify. But when another spell was cast to detect magic, it was no longer magical. Rylan checked Gleam's spellbook, and found a spell that allowed items to detect as magical even if they were not.

The group rested for the day, and debated about their next course of action.

No quote of the evening was recorded.