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Weston puts the stones in his pouch, along with a few spares from his backpack.

"I agree, we are awake, we should get moving."

Just a DM suggestion, why not follow the trail the ogre's made if you noted my posts they were brutishly smashing, knocking down and ripping out anything in their way. Who knows where they came from but it might lead you to where you seek.

Searching the defeated ogres you also note they both have a symbol tattooed on their arms. Which also matted a strange symbol one of you remembers seeing imprinted on the gnolls armor and the goblin scouts armor.
DM detail I failed to bring up prior kind of came up with this idea more recently sorry.

Egon

Good idea.

"Why don't we follow the Ogre's trail and see what we find?"

Delsonora

"Especially given that they have the Queen's symbol."

Trist

Trist adds “Sound good let’s follow the ogre tracks “

Egon

Egon will try and track the Ogres.

He has tracking nwp.

Tracking ogre's doesn't appear to be as hard as one might think. Egon and Trist find their path fairly obvious to follow even a blind halfling could follow it. The path doesn't lead back to the trail that the gnoll tracks were on but rather more north deeper into the mountains. You travel for most of a day before you find a mountain goat like trail that leads up into the mountains. You look upon a keep in the distance and between it and you is a gorge. The keep stands in a 200-yard-wide gorge. Rather sneaky place to hide a base for an evil army come to think of it. A light fog covers the area and as the wild blows lightly you get mixed warm air when it comes from the east and south but as it switches directions and comes from the west it is chilly. You are about and hours time just after lunch time (1 pm). Scouting the area you note that there are several dry caves in the area that might work as temporary bases for enemies or that you might make into a base of operations if you plan to do as suggested and "hit & run" on the keep. Further scouting leads you to a slight cliff that you notice a recently looking uncovered mine entrance possibly. Some signs lead you to believe this is fairly recently opened up as the rocks show sign that they were moved. Your would estimate within the last day or two.

Looking at the keep more you notice it has walls built that go up to both sides of the gorge and have but one maint entrance that is currently guarded and gated. There are gargoyle looking statues near that entry gate and it looks like more ogres standing guard outside the gate. Up on the parapet you notice some orcs with crossbows. The Keep is a good distance away and you are certain nobody can see you from the keep.

Egon

"I think it best if we explore here first and secure our escape route and potentially a base of operations before moving on the keep itself. Any ideas?"

Delsonora

"Agreed, I think that we should clear the caves up the hill. This way will will always have a place to retreat to and reduce the chance of a two prong attack. As we do that we should have the target of the recently looking uncovered mine entrance, if this was uncovered in the last 48 hours there is going to be action in that spot if not now then soon."

Weston

"I agree with the proposed actions, a most logical plan, indeed."

Trist

gurusql wrote: ↑Sat Mar 12, 2022 9:22 pm Delsonora

"Agreed, I think that we should clear the caves up the hill. This way will will always have a place to retreat to and reduce the chance of a two prong attack. As we do that we should have the target of the recently looking uncovered mine entrance, if this was uncovered in the last 48 hours there is going to be action in that spot if not now then soon."

"I agree with Delsonora",adds Trist. Clear a spot, heal up rest for spells, move up to the next and repeat or fall back to the prior cleared location. I can also send Jivet for some scouting invisibly to get an idea of what is ahead.

Jivet, I'm sure you might get to play a prank occasionally.

Egon

"Sounds like we are in agreement. Sending Jivet in first makes sense. I will get closer and once we learn what Jivet finds out we can decide how we want to go in."

Trist

Trist says, “Ok Jivet, I’ll need you to fly up invisible and scout the first cave for us. Just the entrance and a little bit inside. Don’t go in too far just so we can see if there is anything we might have to fight. Use cover too if you can.”

Jivet scouts the first "closest" cave and discovers it appears to be the den for a family of bears. Other than that nothing else appears to live in the cave and it does not have any passages connecting to it. She then moves onto the next cave which is a big larger and appears to house nothing currently she can tell that something used it as a temporary dwelling in the winter but other than that no signs that anything else has been in it recently aside from insects and bats. The cavern has one smaller chanber that has a passage off the back of the cave and it appears to have been the nexting place for whatever mammal was here in the winter perhaps it raided it's young ther are a few tufts of fur possibly from a deer, or something similar.

Delsonora

"Excellent, let's head to the second cave and continue."

Egon

"Agreed." Egon moves up and searches the second cave, trying to be snaky as he goes.

Trist

Trist say,”Good job Jivet you’re the best.”

Trist agrees.

Xlore

"Great work Jivet!" exclaimed Xlore. "I'll follow Egon and try to remain in the shadows." The High Elf quietly and cautiously follows Egon from a couple of feet away trying to remain in the dark.

Weston

The cleric will hang back and keep an eye out behind, letting the quieter party members search ahead.

Moving to the cave you notice something about dwarf height running down a trail from the recently uncovered mine/cavern entrance you spotted a moment ago before Jivet scouted the first few caves out.