A massive rainstorm swept across the land, flooding the main road and forcing the party off their intended path home. Guided by the men of their pirate ally Sweetbeard, they were redirected down a quiet side road that wound through a small, forgotten settlement called Owlpool. The town had once been a place of great importance, sitting proudly on the main highway with its grand temple to St. Terragnis drawing pilgrims from across the realm, but those days were long past. Now it was a sleepy, insular community of roughly a thousand souls, most of them devoted to the faith in one way or another.
Guards at the town’s entrance stepped out into the rain to halt the travelers, demanding their names and business. Rynell, clad in the sacred holy armor of St. Terragnis, introduced himself as a champion of the faith, and the guards’ suspicion melted instantly into reverence. Bazrug, never one to miss an opportunity, declared himself a bard of St. Terragnis as well, and Merwena’s symbol of Madeira marked her as an ally of the church. The rest of the party — a rather ragtag collection of misfits — were vouched for by Rynell, and the guards, though watchful, directed them all to the local tavern, the Fort of the People, which sat directly across the street from the Temple of Justice.
As the party made their way through the rain-slicked streets, Bazrug noticed something peculiar near a large pond at the edge of town. Dozens of owls sat perched in the surrounding trees, their eyes gleaming in the darkness, watching the travelers pass. The town, it turned out, was named Owlpool for exactly this reason — the owls had always been there, long before the first stone of the settlement was laid. The bartender at the Fort of the People, a half-elf who ran the establishment with quiet efficiency, confirmed as much when Rynell pressed him for answers, explaining that the heavy patrols were simply the price of peace in a town where the church and the law were one and the same.
It was Merwena who first noticed the somber cluster of people huddled in the back corner of the tavern. A man named Kori sat among them, hollow-eyed and barely holding himself together, and his companions explained that his young daughter, Shally, had been missing for three days. She had wandered off near the forest edge in the direction of the Owlpool and had not been seen since. Merwena, moved by the father’s grief, offered the party’s assistance in exchange for Kori’s services as a blacksmith, and the rest of the group agreed without much hesitation — though Daffy’s contribution to the conversation was to loudly wonder, from across the room, whether owls were capable of eating people.
Before the party could even set out, the tavern door burst open and two hunters in wilderness gear stumbled in carrying a small, exhausted girl. Kori was on his feet in an instant, tears streaming down his face as he pulled his daughter into his arms. Shally was unharmed, but her story was deeply strange — she claimed that after getting lost in the woods while picking flowers, she had been found and cared for by two enormous bears, who had brought her berries and small animals and kept her warm in their den. The only thing that had upset her was that she had left her beloved stuffed animal behind, and she was inconsolable until someone promised to go and get it back.
Mal, deeply suspicious of the whole affair, began channeling a protective ward over the child right there in the middle of the tavern, convinced that something sinister had taken hold of her. The bartender vaulted over the bar with a club, the father recoiled in alarm, and the entire room erupted in confusion before Mal stepped forward and calmly announced, “Trust me, I’m a knight.” The ward revealed nothing — Shally was simply a frightened little girl who wanted her toy back. The hunters provided the party with a rough map to the cave where they had found her, and the group agreed to set out at first light.
That night, rather than waiting until morning, several members of the party made their way to the Temple of St. Terragnis to investigate a detail that had caught their attention — the stuffed animals that the temple apparently gave out to the town’s children. After Rynell’s reputation as a holy knight convinced the guards to rouse the High Priestess herself, a composed and sharp-eyed woman named Arkessa received them in the sanctuary. She led Rynell through the old temple, past ancient statues and stained glass windows, to a back workroom where young acolytes were busy crafting the toys by hand. The creatures were strange things — part armadillo, part bear, with big claws and a snout — and Arkessa admitted with a small shrug that no one could quite remember who had first come up with the design. She pressed a replica into Rynell’s hands, and Daffy immediately claimed it, naming it Leopold.
The following morning, the party set out into the woods with Bazrug leading the way, his scout’s instincts guiding them along the trail. Before long, he began to spot small tufts of cotton stuffing caught on branches and bushes — the trail of a leaking toy dragged through the undergrowth. They stopped at midday to rest, and that was when Mal noticed the ants. A vast colony of them was marching in a perfect, unbroken circle around the very spot where the party had chosen to sit, and no amount of interference — thrown rations, a stuffed animal placed in their path — could convince them to break formation. The animals of Owlpool, it seemed, were not behaving like animals at all.
They reached the bear den by late afternoon. Laymun hurled a torch into the cave to flush out whatever was inside, and a bear of extraordinary size emerged, pacing nervously around the flame. A second, even larger bear lurked at the back of the cave, curled protectively around a nest of cubs — and nestled among them, leaking stuffing, was Shally’s toy. Bazrug began to play a soothing melody on his lute, and the bears grew still and glassy-eyed, entranced by the music. Null slipped past them unseen and retrieved the toy without disturbing the cubs, while Merwena left a pile of freshly gathered berries as a peace offering. The party backed away quietly, and Null tucked the toy safely away in his magical cauldron to mask its scent from any pursuing bears.
They made camp in the woods that night, and the watch rotation was uneventful at first — until the hours before dawn, when Laeres and Laymun began to hear rustling from every direction at once. Small creatures skittered away whenever they approached, never quite visible in the dark. When the sun finally began to rise, the reason became clear: the party was surrounded. Birds filled the trees, deer stood at the forest’s edge, and squirrels and rats sat motionless in the undergrowth, all of them staring at the camp in eerie silence. And on the path back toward town, two massive brown bears sat watching them, blocking the way.
Laeres spoke to the bears in the language of the forest, and Daffy heard something she had not expected — a faint, whispering voice in the Void tongue, threading itself through the sounds of the woods. It came again when Laeres spoke a second time, always just at the edge of perception, always from the direction of the bears. Daffy, her patience exhausted, warned her companions to cover their ears and then unleashed a single terrible word in the language of the Void. Every small creature in the vicinity fled in an instant, birds exploding from the trees in a dark cloud. The hidden voice screamed in response, and the bears, wincing in pain, charged.
The fight was brutal and chaotic. Rynell planted himself between the bears and his companions, taking a savage blow from a massive claw that staggered him even through his holy armor. Daffy drove her spear into one of the creatures with tremendous force, and Null clouded the vision of the other to protect Rynell from its attacks. Bazrug played a rousing battle hymn to steel his companions’ nerves, and Mal laid a weakening hex upon the bears. Then Laymun, with perhaps more enthusiasm than precision, unleashed a roaring fireball that engulfed the bears — and also caught Rynell and Daffy in the blast. The largest bear collapsed in the flames. Laeres finished the second with a clean stroke of his bastard sword. As it fell, Daffy heard the hidden voice cry out in fury, then whimper, and then go silent entirely.
The party returned to Owlpool battered but victorious. Merwena tended to the wounded, the toy was repaired through Null’s magic, and Shally was reunited with her stuffed animal to scenes of tearful joy. Kori, overwhelmed with gratitude, pledged his smithing services to the group without reservation. On their way back through town, the party passed the Owlpool pond once more — and every single owl turned its head in perfect unison to watch them go, tracking their movement as one creature with many eyes. Laeres spoke a greeting to them in the language of the forest, but this time Daffy heard nothing. Whatever had been listening through the bears was gone, at least for now.
The party spent the following days in Owlpool, carousing and recovering from their ordeal. Bazrug charmed the locals so thoroughly that he walked away with a new merchant’s prize and a haircut that seemed to improve his natural charisma. Rynell won a fencing contest against a celebrated local fighter and then bested another man in a wrestling match, his renown in the town growing considerably. Mal, in a moment of poor judgment, slapped a street mime and found himself regarded with deep suspicion by every child in Owlpool for the foreseeable future, though he did manage to make a friend among the city guard. Laymun’s carousing led him to violate some unspecified taboo of the local church, earning him the lasting enmity of a local priest. Laeres discovered a flask of the legendary Van Dinkle whiskey with several sips remaining, along with a rather embarrassing hidden tattoo he would prefer no one ever see. Merwena spent her time in quiet study, successfully brewing a healing potion for the road ahead. The town of Owlpool had given them rest, a mystery half-solved, and the unsettling certainty that something in the forest — something that spoke in the language of the Void — had been watching them from the very moment they arrived.
A massive rainstorm forced the party off the main road and into Owlpool, a quiet, faith-centered settlement of roughly a thousand souls. Guided by their pirate ally Sweetbeard’s men, they arrived to find a town steeped in the church of St. Terragnis, where Rynell’s holy armor and Merwena’s divine symbol earned the group swift entry. At the local tavern, they learned that a blacksmith named Kori had been devastated by the three-day disappearance of his young daughter, Shally. Before they could even begin searching, hunters returned the girl unharmed — though her tale of being sheltered by two enormous bears raised immediate suspicion. Mal’s attempt to cast a protective ward over Shally caused a brief uproar in the tavern, only defused by Rynell’s calm authority, but the ward revealed nothing sinister. The party agreed to venture into the woods to retrieve Shally’s lost stuffed animal, and a late-night visit to the Temple of St. Terragnis introduced them to High Priestess Arkessa, who gifted them a handcrafted replica of the toy — a strange armadillo-bear creature that Daffy promptly claimed and named Leopold.
The trek into the forest grew increasingly unsettling, as the wildlife of Owlpool behaved with an eerie, unnatural coordination — ants marching in perfect circles, and animals silently surrounding the party’s camp by dawn. When two massive bears blocked their path home, Daffy detected a faint voice speaking in the Void tongue threading through the bears’ presence. She unleashed a word of Void power to expose it, and the bears attacked. The ensuing battle was fierce: Rynell absorbed a brutal blow shielding his companions, Laymun’s fireball felled the largest bear but also caught Rynell and Daffy in the blast, and Laeres finished the second bear with a clean strike. As it fell, the hidden Void voice cried out and went silent. The party returned to Owlpool battered but triumphant, reuniting Shally with her mended toy and earning Kori’s wholehearted pledge of smithing services. During their days of recovery, the group caroused with mixed results — Bazrug charmed the town and gained a merchant’s prize, Rynell won both a fencing and wrestling contest, Mal earned the suspicion of every child in town after slapping a street mime, Laymun offended a local priest, Laeres uncovered a flask of legendary whiskey and a mortifying hidden tattoo, and Merwena quietly brewed a healing potion for the road ahead. As they departed, every owl at the Owlpool pond turned in unison to watch them go — a final reminder that something in the forest, something that spoke in the language of the Void, had been watching them from the moment they arrived.
Mal casts Protection from Evil on a five-year-old girl in the middle of a tavern to check if she’s possessed, causing the bartender to vault over the bar with a club.