1 - The missing villagers of Tar

The village of Tar is no spectacular thing. It sits comfortably on the Goddess Tears River with nice little stone-and-wood houses, a small bridge, a three rooms inn for traveling messengers and barely sixty souls.There is nothing but rocky cliffs in sight to the east and lifeless expenses to the west. It takes half a day to walk up the valley and then you can see it: the Spinecord Mountain Range, so massive that no one would even try to go over it. Stories from the old times talk about dwarven cities that carved the mountains to find and exploit ore veins that only them knew how to find. But those are stories, and no one alive have seen or heard of such cities being anything else than folktales: the region is poor and lives from stone cutting used to build marvelous places that none of them will ever see. And that’s fine. At least, they have the peace and calm of almost untamed nature.



Until two days ago. Because that is what you’ve heard about the place. But when you arrived in Tar the villagers were in such panic that you thought that was on ongoing attack of some kind. You got some information out of your investigation.
Something happened as the sun was barely set and daylight fell. People were attacked in their house and taken. Eight of them were missing, five kids and three adults. The only person who saw and chased the raiders was killed, and his last words were: "Walking nightmares… Find them before they settle... this land is doomed if they do."
Two houses were attacked, the doors busted outward, every human taken and the only tamed wolf had his head… well, teared off or devoured. Whatever. The screams woke the neighbours that searched in the dark to discover the agonizing man.
He had three deep wounds that looked like they had been caused by some kind of war pike: straight, deep, not too large and "clean" cuts. He also had one of its legs broken. The poor man bled out alone in the night with his wife and two kids taken what who knows what…
Those of you who were in the village have been hired by the Old Lady to follow whatever lead was left, discover the raiders hideout and bring the captured people home. During this time, she will gather as much as she can for payment, with an assured minimum of her personal saving: 119 Gold Pieces and a gem necklace worth 20 or 25.

You tracked the raiders for almost two days, going north most of the time. Despite the difficulty to spot and follow the trail, the raiders seem to make no effort to erase their… steps? You don’t know exactly what you were tracking, but it had some kind of fingered paws or claws. Maybe some tamed animal judging by the strange nature of other marks. Some passages were so hard to cross that you wondered how anyone sane would choose to go that way, but at least they didn’t seem concerned by the trail they were leaving behind them.
You lost the track again in the lower part of the mountain, as the ground became more stone than earth. And as you were trying to find them back, one of you spotted three damaged but clearly landscaped openings at the base of the mountain.



You are facing the legendary mountains and just discovered the entrance of a place that isn't mentioned on your map. The wide but somewhat hidden path that leads to the entrance is cluttered with rocks, probably unhooked from the side of the mountain. The biggest of them are twice your size. The sun has already far exceeded its zenith, but you still have a few hours before the light begins to fall.

What do you do?

From the two days you spent tracking them, you got some information about the raiders. First, there was two kind of them : those with apparently normal feet and those that seems to be walking on what looks like large bony hands. Your party mate Jacques pointed out that they certainly were more numerous than the abductees, which matches what you observed in the tracks. Two or three footed creatures, and an undetermined but high number of bony-hands creatures. No traces of wheels, so they must have been carrying their victims. Which makes sense, because no trailer could go where they went.
You found several spots where they apparently took a break, but found no camping spot. They either used magical means to make and hide their camp, hid it in some place you didn't find, or didn't took more than short breaks.

The four of you are hidden about 300 feet from the entrance. No human-sized creature would leave tracks on the rocky ground your are currently standing on, but that abandoned place would make a perfect hideout for the raiders. There is no creature in sight, though, not even standing guard near the entrance.
The sun has already far exceeded its zenith, but you still have a few hours before the light begins to fall.

What do you do?

As a reminder, "the path that leads to the entrance is cluttered with rocks, probably unhooked from the side of the mountain. The biggest of them are twice your size".
It is possible to attempt to sneak to the entrance hiding behind them. If you want to try that, everyone in the group that goes make a Dexterity [Stealth] roll.

Tianni does her best to move quietly, but from time to time the three others can hear her armor's rattling echoing on the stones.

Jacques, Mee'haïl and Chathum walk quietly up the path, looking for anything suspicious around. They can hear, high in the sky, the sound of a strong wind that they cannot feel yet. Dark clouds appears on the horizon.

About 60 feet from the entrance, Mee'Haïl nearly steps on a dirty woman's clothing on the ground. There is some earth on it as well as little blood spots, and some parts of it are torn, but it doesn't look like it's been here for more than a few hours.
From here, you all can see some interesting features about the place. You already knew there were three openings, but only the middle one goes deep in the mountain ; judging by the remaining hinges, the leftmost have at some point had a strong door and bars at its only window. You can't find anything special about the last one for where you are standing.
There are large traces of copper green all around the entrance and on the mountain's side. This place probably was a copper mine. A dwarven copper mine, judging by the style. But it looks like it has been abandoned for several centuries. Maybe it ran out of copper ore?