A very poorly planned one for them, not that I'm complaining! After taking one of their heads off I slipped into the woods and took out another one (nice, that, snuck right up behind him and put a katar through his heart)! Then things got really weird. The forest vines started attacking everything that moved! Some kind of poisonous/vampire vines, really nasty. Again, it was poor Gyldemer who was attacked first (mere coincidence?). Ronin came to the rescue as I was
extricating myself from the woods. A good thing, too, as one of the vines got a stranglehold on Lauryn about then. He shouted that we all get out of the area while he delt with the vines. I wasn't about to argue, so I mounted Honey (my horse, if anyone else ever reads this), grabbed the nearly
unconscious Lauryn, and Gyldemer's reigns, and took off. Slayer and his unicorn weren't far behind. We ran full out til we reached the beginning of the grasslands.

Slayer got his unicorn to heal Lauryn and Gyldemer. Luckily Honey didn't take any damage, probably because she was standing still until we took off. I don't know what Ronin did back there but he and Hellfire arrived at our improvised camp before too long, hale and hearty. It was decided that we would camp for the night there, rather than pressing on to a halfway house Lauryn knew of further on. Ronin took first watch.

That night I was awakened with fangs piercing my skin. A band of were rats had attacked us in our sleep. But we beat the cowardly creatures off without much trouble. It was then that we realized that they had somehow managed to abduct Ronin. (Never did find out how!) After treating ourselves for possible infection (filthy beasts!), I tracked them to the camouflaged entrance to their lair with the help of Lauryn carrying a torch. It was in a hollowed out tree trunk, with a spiral staircase leading down.  Although I never could figure out why they bothered to camouflage it, the stench was enough to give it away from a dozen paces! Be that as it may, down we went. Lauryn spotted some heel marks where they had dragged Ronin down a tunnel, so we followed them. Taking a branching tunnel I spotted a trip wire set up as an alarm, so we stepped over it. (It's always the simple things you have to watch out for!)  Coming upon a were rat in the tunnel I used the old "Wanna buy some Junior Amazon Cookies?" routine on him. Being as stupid as he was ugly it worked to perfection, and he got himself clubbed insensible before he could raise an alarm.

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