Tangle calls a rest. “No reason to exhaust ourselves, we will need our strength to see to the dragon.”

Jalt perception: 20

Tangle’s perception: 20 

Soar made sure that Gwen was safe and comfortable with the villager and she tries to explain everything she knows about the girl to them. She assures them she will be back to help her find a serious healer or her people.

Shes quiet as they move through the forest, deferring to Tangle’s drive. She’s quite happy to sleep/trance in the clearing, offering to take a middle watch shift.

Perception: 5

Bazavur: 9

You rest beneath the treetops, in the misty darkness.

2

You all wake in the late afternoon, having completed a long rest, and you resume  your journey.

After about three hours of travel north, you reach a point where the tracks of the cultists seem to split; the majority move away to the north-east, while a smaller group continue direct north. You are pondering which direction to go when Tangle, you hear a faint cry in the distance, a voice calling out in Elvish "Help! Help!" You barely hear it at first, but it seems to be coming from directly east of where you are.  You get the sense that it's not too far away, but the voice is feeble and the speaker is not calling out very loudly.

Tangle shushes everyone, then whispers to them what she has heard. She ghosts off into the forest (we’re still in the forest?), indicating the others should come, and circles south so as to not come upon the voice from the same direction as the others. She keeps her short bow to hand, arrow nocked.

Stealth (Adv for boots): 29 

"Someone else needs help?" Soar says. "We're getting good at this part of the hero business. Still working on the dragon-hunting part, but this we can do." She sets off toward the voice, happy to be the obvious one while Tangle is the ghost observer. 

Perception: 13

"Who's there? What happened? Please tell me it's not another mushroom patch..."

You all wake up, and after a quick message, Tangle heads off through the trees, bow at the ready.

Yes, you're still in the forest. :)  I will assume that the others follow, as Tangle has requested. Soar, you don't hear the voice that Tangle has reported, but you know she has excellent senses, even better than your own.

Tangle, you reach a tiny clearing, not much different to the one you left. There's still a fair amount of fog in the air, so the moonlight comes down as a sort of faint glow, and you cannot really see the sky above. Still, it's lighter than most of the forest.

In the centre of the clearing, a tree that appears recently to have fallen. Lying next to it, one leg trapped under the tree, is an elderly-looking elven woman. She struggles to raise herself as you approach, but winces in pain as she moves. "Help me, please" she repeats. "The tree fell, and I'm trapped. I've been here for hours. Can you help please?"

(Does Soar start to hear anything as she gets closer to where Tangle indicated? Or still nothing?)

As she gets close enough to be seen - if she does indeed - then yes, Soar would start to hear pained moaning and the occasional cry for help.

Soar, tromping through the woods, briefly touches Hazirawn and casts detect evil and good. She peers through the trees and spots the woman, and she slows, her mind going back to Gwen in the mushroom patch again. She gets within 30 feet to see if the spell picks up anything.

She scan the woman's face -- is there any resemblance, perchance, to Gwen? 

"I would be happy to help you, that looks painful. I have friends right behind me, maybe we can all get this off you. If you are injured we can heal you. Are you from Altand? What is your name?" she says, approaching, and trusting Tangle to watch her back for any shenanigans. She looks at the tree and tries to see if it seems at all liftable, perhaps slinging a rope over a higher branch on another tree, tying one end to the fallen one, and lifting it with the other end?

Normal d20 roll for whatever's needed: 13

Once Soar appears, Tangle edges forward enough to be seen, too. She focuses on the woman‘s body language and the timbre of her voice, trying to detect any falsehoods.

Ear for Deceit Insight roll: 31 

Soar, Detect Evil and Good is still active when you get sight of the woman within range; you detect none of the creature types mentioned. No resemblance to Gwen, though it's harder to be sure from a distance. Nevertheless, as you get closer, you are more confident that there's no clear similarity to Gwen.

"No, I live here, in this part of the forest, but not right here. And thank you for your aid." the woman replies.

Soar, you would say that you and perhaps Bazavur or Jalt could together move the tree just enough to allow another to pull the woman free. If you decide on this plan, who will help move the tree, and who will pull the woman out?

Tangle, you get the sense that the woman is concealing something; something about the sounds of pain she is making sounds a little theatrical to your ears.

Jalt will help move the tree with Bazavur to allow Soar to try and free the woman.

Soar agrees to this plan and thanks Jalt for just going with it. She's got eyes alert on the woman for any weapons or spellcasting that might happen but she's giving her the benefit of the doubt. She tries to lift the tree a bit from her end closer to the woman, but she mainly tries to help pull her out from underneath while the boys lift. She trusts Tangle to have her back. She readies an eldritch blast in case she's attacked, though this is more aspirational than anything given her hands are occupied.

Tangle remains at a distance (30’?), puts a light draw on the bow, and says in Common, “She is not in as much distress as she feigns. Perhaps we should not lift this tree too quickly.” Then in Elvish, she adds, “You would do well to be truthful with us, creature.”

The elven woman does not respond to Tangle's words. Do Soar, Jalt and Bazavur go ahead with the plan?