We had a disappointing session tonight, trying to coordinate skype with a player in Lancaster (he’s there for work) and the energy just wasn’t the same. All in all, the party meandered around the valley trying to make sense of everything they witnessed.

In short, the party argued for a while about what to do next, traveled with the Herald (Aidan) back to Ingram’s cabin where a note was left for them, written in a flowing elven script by a woman named Viviene saying they had gone south to deal with the missing Wallace, deal with rumors of more disappearances, and investigate talk of an orc camp in the vicinity.

After escorting Aidan all the way back to the keep, the party returned to Thurmaster, witnessed the unloading of a great deal of stone, brick, and lumber at the docks, and snuck into Luther’s tower to investigate his whereabouts (and if there was any sign of Skye). Well. Crandel snuck into the tower.

Afterwards, the party gave the dogs something of Skye’s to smell and the party headed north into the Hardlow Wood (a very dangerous place) once the dogs found her scent. The journey took them on a strange course through the wood, up into a desolate and damaged landscape, to some dead bodies, then to an obelisk, and then to the Great Rock Dale (I didn’t name that).

From the north end of the Dale, they could see down into the chasm of stoney earth that the dogs were heading into. The path down looked treacherous and the conditions of the Dale appeared very dangerous — any number of creatures could be hiding in there ready to strike. But the party headed down anyway and the GM had to basically pretend nothing was in there this day (ugh).

The journey was slow-going and the party found a cave to sleep for the night. During the night a scuffle between orcs and goblins took place outside of the cave and by morning two goblins had been stoned to death.

The party headed south and upon reaching the south end of the Dale, encountered an obelisk much like the first, although this one radiated positive, soothing energy. Everyone but Verner touched the obelisk and immediately felt better.

The trail for the dogs continued up and out of the Dale, across the plains again, and over into the Carmen mines (just north of the city of Milborne). The session ended with the party squaring off against the dwarven foreman (Grim), who the party had met before. A gruff stand-off occurred as the party wished to enter the mine to investigate the missing Skye, but Grim refused to allow entry.

The session ended there and we promised each other we would not try to do a skype/telephone game again.