Aragon, Thokein Tuskhand of the Huldrask, and Rithlas stepped outside the front of the temple into the overgrown courtyard, where they came across a troubling sight—scattered boot prints, kobold claw marks, and something far more disturbing: the faded tracks of a massive creature. The impressions were wide-set and clearly left by something with eight limbs—each mark suggesting the limbs were edged with blades or armored in some unnatural way.
The tracks were old—perhaps a week—but they were unmistakable.
They had seen them before.
Just the day prior, while pursuing one of the kobolds who had fled the stagecoach ambush, they’d come across nearly identical prints in the forest. The kobold tracks had ended abruptly at the same spot the creature’s began—clear signs it had mounted or been picked up by the beast.
Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t just passing through.
It was working with the kobolds.
And it was part of something much, much larger.
It was a chilling connection.
Beside the massive tracks lay evidence of a kobold warband—larger and more disciplined than the ragtag hunters they’d just faced. The signs pointed north, deeper into Wyrmhollow Wood. Whatever was happening out here, it wasn’t random. Something bigger was moving—both in numbers and in purpose.
Inside the temple, Costa took a quiet moment to admire the ancient architecture, while Akiro turned his focus to The Four Pillars—Velmira’s cornerstone treatise on elemental balance. With the help of code found on the robes of the statue outside, he was able to translate her writing for the first time and began studying in earnest. The tome was dense and complex—absorbing its knowledge would take hours, if not days.
Seeking a change of pace, Akiro turned to the charcoal rubbings he had made of the open page held by the statue outside. Though it was only a single page, the runes inscribed on it pulsed with hidden meaning. They weren’t just decorative—they were alive with arcane purpose.
For those skilled in arcana, studying those runes at the statue for an hour unlocked a rare boon: a fleeting moment of deep magical clarity, as if Velmira herself stirred within the lines.
This gift—Insight of the First Keeper—can only be gained once per moon cycle. It grants advantage on the next Arcana or research-based check. When used specifically while studying Velmira’s work, it enhances all such research for the next eight hours.
Velmira didn’t just leave behind wisdom.
She left a spark.
And Akiro had just lit the fuse.
Elsewhere, Thokein Tuskhand of the Huldrask attuned to Voran’s Ring and discovered it was a Shifting Relic. He grasped its basic properties and felt a sudden, vivid impression—a vision of a distant, frozen land and a great sacrifice made long ago. The ring’s true nature remained unclear, and it was obvious that deeper research would be needed to fully understand its power.
Night Terrors
That night, as the party settled in and Aragon took first watch, something changed.
The air thickened—too still, too silent. Torches flickered and leaned toward the ruined fountain, drawn by some invisible force. Even the dust shifted unnaturally. Then Aragon’s breath caught—his lungs refused to fill.
That’s when he saw it.
From the dry, cracked basin of the long-dead fountain, something began to rise—not from water, but from nothingness. It unfolded like ancient parchment, brittle and wrong. Skin hung in ribbons from its skeletal frame, stretched tight over collapsing bone. Each breath it took came as a slow, rasping wheeze that filled the temple with dread.
It made no sound. No roar.
Only hunger.
Not for blood. Not for souls.
For breath.
Aragon tried to shout—but no sound came. He fired arrows instead, then rushed to wake the others. But it was too late. The creature had already entered the room, its unseen force dragging Rithlas from his bed and pinning him to the ground beneath crushing winds and suffocating pressure.
As the others scrambled to respond, the creature turned its focus to Costa, seizing and pinning him just as violently. Seeing his companions in mortal danger, Thokein summoned a field of Spike Growth, forcing the creature to release them and retreat across the ruined temple.
That’s when Akiro struck—fire erupting from his hands in a brilliant arc. The blast hit true. The creature crumbled to ash.
Silence returned. The danger had passed.
But none of them would sleep easily again.
The next day, as the party followed a winding trail beneath Wyrmhollow’s gnarled canopy, the air began to change. The moss beneath their boots grew dry and brittle, the earth itself radiating a rising heat. A faint, acrid scent clung to the breeze—smoke, but not from any fire they’d seen.
Then they saw it.
Nestled in a scorched clearing, cradled in the heart of a still-smoking crater, lay something that should not exist.
An egg.
Roughly the size of a melon, it pulsed with a gentle, inner light—slow and rhythmic, like a heartbeat. Veins of crimson and gold laced its surface, shifting and glowing as if alive. The heat it gave off shimmered in the air, distorting it like the edge of a forge. Ember-like flecks drifted lazily around it, floating but never falling, as though the ground itself dared not touch them.
The party froze. No one spoke.
It was a phoenix egg.
Ancient. Sacred. Dangerous.
Aragon stepped forward cautiously, his eyes fixed on the impossible relic. He emptied his spare pack, lined it as best he could, and with reverent care, lifted the egg into the bag. The warmth bled through the fabric almost instantly, as if the egg knew it had been moved.
A gift? A warning? A curse waiting to hatch?
None could say.
But with each step they took, the bag on Aragon’s back seemed just a little heavier.
Farther along the trail, the party took the left fork, following the creek in hopes of reaching town before the strange warband could. After a few quiet hours, the forest thinned, revealing the still, glassy surface of a small lake. Fog clung low over the water, and the scent of damp wood lingered in the air. On the shore, half-swallowed by bramble and time, stood a weathered hut.
It looked forgotten—slouched under the weight of its collapsing roof, walls overgrown with moss and ivy. The shuttered windows gave no hint of life within, and the crooked wooden door creaked faintly in the breeze, as if something had only just slipped away.
The snuck up to the hut and peering through a smudged window, the party saw a space choked in silence. Dust clung to every surface, undisturbed and thick. Shelves stood empty. A bedroll lay collapsed against the wall. And in the far corner, seated before a cold hearth, was the body of an old man.
His hands were folded neatly across his chest. Gray robes hung loose over rusted chainmail. His face was calm—peaceful, even. As though he had simply… sat down and never stood again.
They stepped inside cautiously, expecting danger, but the stillness held. The man had died within the past week.
Under the man’s old bedroll, a loose floorboard gave way to a hidden cache: a battered suit of plate armor, once noble, now dulled by age. Upon its chest was a sigil none of them recognized—a sun, split cleanly in two. Not the mark of Lord Hemendar, but likely an order long forgotten. Beside it, a rusted longsword. And tucked to the side, a small, sealed lockbox.
They returned to searching the empty shelves and there it was: a small iron key. It hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps it hadn’t wanted to be found until now.
The key fit perfectly.
Inside were 100 platinum pieces, bundled carefully in aging cloth. Resting atop them was a single note, penned in a frail, trembling hand:
"To be delivered to the Church of Lord Hemendar,
for the Temple of the Hand we razed in cowardice.
It is not a large sum,
but all that remains of this humble apologist’s worth.
Begging forgiveness.
—Sir Dembrudell"
Some in the party claimed their share without comment. Others paused, the weight of the knight’s final wish lingering. Thokein stood unmoving, the letter still in his hand, conflicted.
Zax said nothing. But he watched.
And he remembered who reached for the coin… and who did not.
Moving deeper into the forest, the party’s path narrowed to a twisting, choked trail, veiled in thick, unnatural spiderwebs that clung to every tree and branch like old bandages. The forest had gone eerily still—every step forward felt like walking into a waiting mouth.
Peering ahead through the veil of webs, they spotted movement. A massive War Spider perched atop a twisted web-covered rise, its chitinous limbs twitching with unnatural precision. On its back sat a hobgoblin commander, scanning the forest with cold, calculating eyes. Kobold scouts flanked him, weapons at the ready.
There was no time to debate.
As the party crept forward, a second group of five winged kobolds swooped into view, one clutching a war horn. The party lunged into action—Aragon’s arrow and Thokein’s magic silenced the horn-blower and another kobold before the alarm could sound. But the moment of advantage slipped away. The remaining three shot skyward, screeching out warnings and unleashing globs of sizzling acid from above.
The battle that followed was nothing short of brutal.
The war spider charged, crashing through trees and webs alike, its eight legs tearing across the battlefield with terrifying speed. The hobgoblin rider bellowed commands and loosed massive arrows from a towering longbow, forcing the party to split their attention between survival and strategy.
Thokein called down moonbeam, its radiant silver light slicing through kobolds and scorching the spider’s thick carapace. Shifting into dire wolf form, he tore through the enemy’s flank, pushing deeper into the chaos and continuing to sear new waves of enemies as they emerged from the trees.
Aragon summoned writhing vines, catching advancing kobolds and slowing their charge. His arrows struck with deadly consistency, dropping enemies one by one amidst the chaos.
At the center, Rithlas and Costa held the line—a bulwark of fists and steel. Rithlas spun through the melee, his staff and fists a blur of motion, while Costa, bloodied but unrelenting, stood against the full fury of the war spider’s assault—shield raised, teeth clenched, refusing to fall.
Zax’s Frost blasts lit the air, hammering winged enemies from above.
But the enemy kept coming.
Kobolds poured in from the trees, archers loosing arrows from the shadows while acid-spitters circled overhead, raining down globs of bubbling venom. The tide began to turn.
Zax was struck and fell. Rithlas was nearly overwhelmed.
And yet—they refused to break.
Moonbeam pulsed once more, carving a radiant path through the battlefield. Aragon’s arrow downed another acid-spitter. Zax, revived, called out a healing word, steadying the faltering line. And then—Costa pressed the attack, driving his blade into the hobgoblin commander, toppling him in a spray of blood. The war spider shrieked, staggering, then collapsed into the dirt.
Finally, the last kobold fell.
The clearing went still. Webs sagged from scorched trees, acid hissed on the forest floor, and the air stank of blood and smoke. The battle had taken nearly everything they had—but they stood.
Wounded. Scarred. Victorious.
And ahead, the webbed lair waited—filled with spoils… or something worse.