Wrapping up Langston and Sharing Backstories

The party gathered their findings from Maybelline‘s home and brought them to Solaine to help figure out what’s going on and how to fix it. She shared that by removing the pact from the ground, it would return the farm to normal and cure Maybelline‘s parents of their malaise brought on by the unhallowed land. She said she couldn’t help with the undead, but The Radiant Order will be able to fix the ward when the new clerics arrive. Tanya Anathram thanked the party yet again and handed out more gold and released them to head back to Iron Falls. The next day, the party woke up for the last time in Langston‘s inn and discovered they were missing a member. Arthur was missing and upon his bed was Arthur’s Note of Departing. Ralathen sent a message to his crystal to wish him good luck in wizard school and Fergus made an attempt to send a message, but it was mostly him trying to figure out how to send a message. The party then started their trek back to Iron Falls. The first few days went by without a hitch, Jukli spent his time collecting objects and writing in his journal as Fergus and Ralathen steered the cart. The party chatted about things they might do after arriving back in town: Jukli explained he is looking for a group that has a powerful staff that his tribe, The Verdant, want and showed everyone the group’s symbol if they recognized it, but they did not; Fergus explained he is going to go look for a rare flower that his wife, Betsy, loved and use it to craft his final invention for her; Ralathen said he would probably just get back to work, but was persuaded by the others to possibly tag along in their endeavors as they worked well together. One of the nights the party set up camp, while Ralathen was meditating, he had Ralathen’s Dream After the Langston Investigation. During his watch, he noticed some murmuring coming from the woods across the creek from their camp. Going over to investigate, he was surprised as he pushed to bushes apart and they started yelling at him! The awakened bushes shooed Ralathen away, but as he was leaving an awakened tree called out to him for help. There was a bird nest with three chicks that was bothering him and he wanted it moved. Ralathen agreed to move it and climbed up the tree, picked up the nest and ever so gracefully got his pajamas caught in the limbs and dropped the nest on the way down. The nest hit the ground hard and the chicks spilled out unmoving and seemingly unresponsive. Ralathen quickly gave the chicks small drops of a healing potion and they began to stir and breathe again, with a profound sigh of relief he placed the nest in another tree. The awakened tree then rewarded him by pointing out an area that someone dug a hole and hid something. In the morning, the party began to search the area indicated by the tree for the item and eventually found a locked metal box. Fergus spent a good hour trying to unlock it and eventually did, unfortunately his lockpicks got mangled beyond recognition. In the box was a rusty key with a question mark on the handle. Jukli attempted to lock the box with the key, but it didn’t seem capable of locking the box so he put it in his bag for safe keeping. The adventurers continued on and ran across a traveling merchant, Lucy Luck. After much bartering, the party came away with almost all the items that caught their attention. A balloon backpack made by goblins, clothes with some illusory flair, a silver pin of a drama mask, armor made of bones and leather, a metal container of spicy sand and some charred tinkerers goggles were all apart of the loot. Then the party continued on their journey only a few days from their destination.