04/08/5-10

As the group was walking Valeyo brought up the idea of the creature that brought the horseshoe being a trap. He pointed out that the party couldn't be sure that the dog creature that was sent was from Dirlagrauna, instead it could be a false messenger by Midnight. They asked Axi what the beast they had seen was and they pointed out that it was a Yeth hound. They served as hunting dogs or guardians and were used by the Unseelie. The group ultimately agreed to continue following the horse, with Sapphira looking out for danger.

The trip began fairly smoothly, the horse deftly navigating the trees and bushes and Sapphira helping the group avoid any obstacles. They kept walking, but Sapphira noticed that their trip felt longer than it should have. They were tired early and the sun had already started setting. Shiek pointed it out and most others agreed, except Valeyo, who was already tired. They made plans to travel a bit longer and then use a Tiny Hut for camping, setting up some traps beforehand. Sapphira offered for Valeyo to get on her horse if he was tired, and with some help he did. Otto used his eyes of night to help everyone, but Valeyo navigate more easily.

About 45 minutes later, the quiet of the forest was pierced by a deep scream of something in pain. The group decided to chase after the noise, noticing that the origin aligned with their horse's path. Galloping onward, they found the source of the shout. Holding its foot, was crying in pain was a large toad-person with a bear trap on its foot. A river was on the right of the group and the creature had not noticed them yet.

While they were looking at it, they noticed a group of people sneaking behind it. Milivoj called out to them which startled them. The creature itself turned to them and spoke in a deep voice "Help me!" before pointing at its foot. The party started approaching, lighting some torches on the way and they noticed that the light was behaving weirdly, not reaching its full brightness.

The group of men approaching the trap, comprised of a man who appeared to be wearing chitinous armour and brandishing a spear, a hunter with a  bow and a man carrying a staff. The shouted at the party saying "Help us kill this thing and we can move to the real target." When Milivoj asked what that was, they said they were after a unicorn. This cause combat to begin, and the man with the spear to run up to the frogman, stabbing it repeatedly. Otto healed it, as Milivoj charged the enemies, triggering a second bear trap on the way, which his horse avoided. In the combat, the man with the staff, used Ice Storm which killed Sapphira's horse. The frogman, seized the moment, to bite and swallow the man who had just stabbed.

During the combat, from the east, came another cry, which sounded to Sapphira like that of an owl. A bit later, coming into view from the forest edge, was an abnormally large owl-bear. As the party was hunting down the person with the bow, the Toadman turned to the owlbear and shouted something in Sylvan. Sapphira's bees moved the archer into one of its traps, after which, they dropped their bow in surrender. The Toadman went to move Milivoj out of the way, in order to reach the trapped hunter. Milivoj told it to return to the water, but it said it couldn't swim saying the person in the trap was dinner. The Owlbear then rushed to the man in the trap and raised a claw, before asking the Toadman a question. The person in the trapped started panicking and asking for help. Using his universal speech feature, Valeyo tried to convince the creatures to let the hunter go, saying they could use them to find out where the rest of their traps are. The Toadman sat down and the Owlbear began eating the corpse of the dead druid.

As combat finished, Valeyo spoke to the Toadman, who said he is called Walls and the Owlbear is just a bear. Valeyo asked why they were after them, pointing out they mentioned hunting a unicorn. Valeyo asked the frogman if it knew what a unicorn was or where it is and it lied saying it didn't. Milivoj suggested it took a rest, while they questioned the archer. The archer revealed that they were contracted to kill a corrupted unicorn, who was causing this darkness. They were hired by an arcanist, but only the boss knew their name. Milivoj asked if there were more of them and the man revealed that they had a camp, where the rest of them were. She refused to reveal its location, for fear of the party killing the others. After some convincing from the group, she reluctantly agreed to take them to the boss.

The party's attention turned to the Toadperson. It clearly knew where the unicorn was, but wouldn't say. When asked who made it, it said it was an old lady, which tasted nice. It also admitted to eating, goats, people or fish usually. The group proposed that they give the Toadperson the horse in exchange for the guy. It agreed and teleported to the horse, before starting to devour it. The group freed the hunter and she began leading them to her camp. On the way she argued that the party should have attacked the beast, while they said they should have said something before throwing an ice storm on them and killing their horse. She agreed and said it would be an hour to their camp.

They began walking, with the sun setting and the dim light turning to true darkness. Eventually the marshal stopped and she whistled loudly, saying that would prevent the group from killing them on sight.