Not Another Lost Mine of Phandelver Campaign!

"Mighty Dragonborn," AB asks Val, his eyes on the Wolf, "what are your plans with ... her?"

Nothing especially overt sticks out to you guys on a primary scan of your surroundings. The wagon is where it was, and all the supplies are relatively unmoved from what you guys can remember. It is still late at night, and you hear the forests around you brimming with life. 

Mav limos over to the cart. “I think it best if we rest, the goblins won’t give us any problems tonight.”

"I don't like being so close to these goblins, but we don't really have a choice." Kor says to the group. "Hope you like spiders." Kor says to the new guy with a grin before summoning his familiar from its pocket dimension. Giving it instructions to watch over the camp and notify him over their telepathic if anything approaches, Kor sends the spider off to wander the area.

Kor then dug into his pack and removed some string and a small bell. As a noise trap it wouldn't cover the whole area, so he set it up along the most obvious looking approach to the camp site.

Berrus lays down .  "wake me for 3rd watch"

Ooc....im going to be out of touch most of the afternoon

"Klarg was keeping a pack of wolves chained in the room at the bottom of the furnace. Majestic creatures like that don't deserve such a life. I freed them, and they provided me this." He pulls the clover the alpha's mate offered him from his pack. "After speaking with them, they informed me that this one" Valathar tugs on the she-wolf's chain, "betrayed the pack, defecting to Klarg's service. They asked that we bring her to them, alive, so they may have their vengeance. I'm inclined to provide them their wish, but I'll hear her side of the story first." 

Valathar sits down a few feet from where Berrus lay snoring. Pulling some herbs and a mortar from a small pouch in his backpack, Valathar crushes the herbs, and strikes them with a stone. The incredible scent of the smoldering plants fills the clearing. Valathar closes his eyes, and inhales the smoke. A few short moments pass, then he speaks a single word in some strange language, and again, his voice transforms into the low growl of wolf speach. 

"Now I'd hear your part of the story." Valathar says to 'She who dances in the hunt'. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Mav also grabs his bedroll, and sets up near Berrus but away from the wolf. He doesn’t trust the wolf based off the info that Val conveyed from the pack leader.

(is Val taking first watch during the rest then? If we need I can take second? I don’t know if Moonknight what’s to give us problems since I’m assuming the wolves will be nearby and the goblins won’t bother us tonight.)

The She-Wolf glares at the entire part with her single eye, one by one, the pure malice radiating off the wolf would be enough to send lesser men running for their lives. She then circles around and drops to the forest floor with less grace then what you’d expect from your previous interactions with her.

 “You know the ways of the forest and it’s inhabitants. I’m broken goods. Even if I can still hold my own now, I’m not getting any younger or healthier.”

She shifts to show the party the massive burn scars that dance across her entire left side. Even though they look relatively old, there’s something off about them that makes them appear extremely red and angry looking. 

”Dragons breathe is a cursed thing. Some say red dragons breathe can burn bright forever more, white dragons makes a nearly unmeltable coating, so on and so forth. A green dragons breath is said to curse its mark forever more, withering and decaying for all eternity, any birth or creation a distant memory. Most say deaths more merciful then bearing that mark. I’ve felt like a ***** ten years my senior ever since I received my own. I heard whispers from the pack that I would receive ‘mercy’ in my sleep, the bastards couldn’t even fight me head on, even with the mark dragging me down. The pups had all left the pack to find mates and packs their own, I decided to do what was best for myself.”

She turns around again, no longer facing any of you. 

“No pack would accept a wolf with curse marks, even if they were top of their prime. The fare of a lone wolf is starvation or getting picked off by a bigger predator. Anything,even being mauled by that omega *****, is better then starvation I guess.”

As Val translates the She-Wolf's explanation of her decision to turn against her pack, AB reclines on the ground near the Dragonborn, hugging his bruised ribs and watching the She-Wolf. "What do you think, Green Scales?" he asks quietly. "I know what it's like to be alone and searching. But to turn on your own pack like that. Seems a little ... too far, right?"

Noticing that the others were intent on conversing to and about the wolf, Kor took Berrus' lead and set up his bedroll underneath the wagon. He didn't like sleeping without a roof over his head and several locks between him and the outside world, but exhaustion and injury quickly pulled  him under...

The She-Wolf looks directly into Ab’s eyes, the green catching the fire and looking like a near perfect emerald implanted into the wolves skull.

”How would you act, if this lot was casually talking about killing you in your sleep just because you could be slowing them down? What I did might not have been the best course of action, but it’s the one I took. I’ll live with the consequences, but don’t you dare judge without placing yourself in my stead.”

"Valathar. I don't think I've had a chance to introduce myself with all the comotion." Valathar holds his hand out to Ab. "And indeed, what she'd done is ruthless." Valathar falls quite, sitting for a long while, watching the wolf. After an hour or so he stands, "I'm going to light a fire. Here." He hands the leash to Ab, and stalks off, in search of wood. A few minutes later he returns, piling the wood in a short tent. Speaking one of the ancient Sylvan words, a small spark jumps to life in the center of the kindling under the wood. The fire quickly grows to a roaring flame. 

Valathar sits back down next to Ab, and leans against a tree. "Her betrayal is indeed a step too far. We could easily hand her to her pack, and they could execute her. But I think she may still have more to offer this world. She's already lost her pack, I think losing her life might be a waste of the gift of life."

Sitting for a long while, Valathar contemplates the consequences of the actions he was about to perform. He pulls his pack onto his lap and pulles the top flap open. From within the pack, he extracts a ornately carved box, made from some dark hardwood. Flipping open the lid, he pulls a vial containing a thick, dark paste. Finally, wordlessly, he stood. He approached she she-wolf, and kneeled down, facing her left flank. After uncorking the bottle, he scoops some of the paste from the container, and spreads it across the wolfs side. The smell, something between pine tree sap and old milk, fills the clearing, just as the smoke from his incantation earlier in the evening.

After coating the entirety of the she-wolf's burns, Valathar places both hands over her. Until now the air had been calm, the forest full of nighttime sounds, but now, the sounds die down into nothing, the wind picking up, the trees being singing with the motion. A soft light radiates from his hands, first pure white, then a soft blue. Then as quickly as it all started, the light blinks from existence, the wind dies back to nothing, and the sounds of the forest return. 

As Val was preparing his healing of the wolf, AB responds to her chastisement: "First of all, I said that quietly so you wouldn't hear it. Secondly, I'm sorry, but I must have misunderstood you. I thought you said you were wanting your pack to put you out of your mystery, but they wouldn't. I now hear you saying you were afraid they were going to 'put you out of your misery,' so you protected yourself by aligning with the goblins. That is a different story all together." AB watches as Val performs his magic on the She-Wolf's burns, then says, "Good luck to the both of you," he says, unrolling his own bedroll. "I've got some more negotiating to do tomorrow morning with his highness the great poobah Goblin, so I'm going to get some sleep."

While the She-Wolf is being healed, she shrugs at Ab’s line of thought. 

“Im a wolf, if you want me to not hear something, don’t say it at all. Even with one ear, I still have better hearing then you sad lot. Life is a series of he said, he said situations. Never take one persons opionions as the absolute truth.”

(At a birthday, will continue story tommarow. For now, congratulations, you have all leveled up too level 2! Please inform me of what subclass you choose if you can choose one in the private group chat.)

The night passes without much hastle. After you leave the cave, the noise and even the light gradually lessens, to the point where about an hour before dawn breaks, it’s practically dead queit aside from the usual noises of nightlife in the forest. Your wolf prisoner quickly fell asleep after last nights healing and conversations. In the morning, the scars, or what she labeled curse marks are still present, and seem to be even more agitated then they were last night, but the wolf herself seems to have caught a second wind of sorts, holding herself higher, and pacing around the camp more sure-footed. 

While breakfast is cooking, Ab wonders away from the camp grunting an incomphresensable line of syllables, and comes back to the camp a few minutes later with one of the biggest scowls you could imagine a human face to hold. Apparently the goblins had somehow cleared the entire camp last night, and aside from a few remnants like wooden scaffolding, and the creaky dam, there was barely any sign they were there in the first place. 

After breakfest, you all hear the sounds of the nearby brush snapping, and ‘She-Who-Dances-In-The-Hunt’s single ear pops up in alertness, and her face twists into one of anger, and possible fear. 

Three wolves slowly walk into the camp. One is the Alpha’s mate you rescued yesterday, and the other two are healthy weighted males you’ve never seen before. 

The alphas mate paws the ground and mimics opening and closing her mouth, and looks expectantly to Val. 

AB doesn't say anything during breakfast. He's brooding and appears lost in thought. When the wolves appear, he doesn't do anything but stand, but is ready to pull his swords at the slightest threat.

Kor was practicing communicating with his familiar when the wolves arrived. He sent a mental command for the spider to stay hidden and got to his feet with a ready smile and his hand resting on his hip close to his rapier.

"Looks like your friends are here, Val," he says to the dragonborn.

Quickly pulling the reagents from his pouch, Valathar again performs the ritual. The scent of burning herbs fills the camp, and then Valathar speaks. "Hello again. I see you made it past the goblin guards safely. We continued after you left, and killed the great beast Klarg. The goblins fled in the night, you shouldn't have cause to worry about them again. How do you and your companions fair? I see you've found new friends as well."

After he finishes his sentence, Valathar stands, pauses a moment, then kneels to the ground, hand outstretched toward the wolf, making as if to per her. 

The Alpha She-Wolf stays just out of your arm’s reach. 

“Do not think we haven’t noticed your healing of the traitor. What games do you play humans, this is no honor duel, this is a culling of a cancerous blemish upon the forest.” She states, glaring down at the cursed wolf.  

”We can no longer approach her without danger of injury. With the rebuilding of the pack we cannot afford set backs like this. Humans if you honor our agreement and put down the *****, we will guide you to the magic item we have hidden away.” She declares, staring first at Val, then shifting to look at Mav, Kor, Ab, and Berrus in turn, getting a sense of the groups moral ambiguity and staring at the members that would be more likely to carry out such a grim task.