Chapter 1: Burnt Offerings

"Wonderful! It'll be good to get our minds off of the recent attack," Aldern says, "We leave at first light tomorrow morning!"

"Ah yes, I almost forgot to give you this!," he says, pulling out a bulging sack of coins and setting it on the table, "50 gold coins for your timely rescue. Use it well!" With that he turns to leave, saying that he'll be back in the morning to fetch you.

The Next Morning...
Aldern shows up early the next morning as promised, "You all ready to go? It's a beautiful day out, so it should be good hunting," he says with a dazzling smile.

He leads you to the stables, where he has horses (or ponies) waiting for those who don't already have mounts. Once you're all mounted he sets an easy pace to the south, peppering you with questions, "Where are you from? What brings you to Sandpoint? What are your plans from here?" After a while this becomes very annoying and unnerving.

You reach the forest about 30 minutes after you leave Sandpoint. It is a beautiful day outside, you can hear the birds chirping and see the squirrels gathering nuts. As you pass through into the forest you see a deer about 100 feet away stop what its doing to stare at you. You can see the creature's muscles tense as it prepares to spring away.

"I was just there to participate in the festival, like most. Not often that a whole town turns out to celebrate!" Aldern replies, happy to finally get some real conversation, "How about yourself? What brought you to town?"

To Urthask, it seems that Aldern is trying to earn your favor for some reason.

"No, I come from Magnimar originally, he says to you.

Xandak doesn't see any sign of goblins, but he does see what looks like pig hoofprints.

Having found what might be boar sign, what are you all doing?

Urthask somehow almost gets himself lost and only manages to find his way back to the party with Arktos' help.

A couple hours later, following the boar's trail you can hear snorting in the distance, off to your right side. Aldern motions you to be quiet, "Sounds like we found our prey... perhaps one of you should circle behind the thing to make sure it doesn't escape.

Daire will try to spot the beast while it's being flanked, and readies his bow in case it spooks in his direction.

Xandak and Gongar attempt to sneak around to flank the boar, but the wind changes as it catches a smell of you. It tamps a hind hoof down, lowers its head, and begins a charge at Gongar.

Daire's arrow flies out from his bow, catching the boar in the side, not slowing it at all.

Shocked as Gongar and Xandak are, they don't have a chance to react before the boar is upon you. It lowers its snout a bit more as it's about to gore you, but catches a tusk on a root in the ground, causing it to go rolling end over end to slam into a tree about 10 feet away.