In the Hook's Shadow, Part 4 (Sunday, Kuthona (XII) 1st, 4707 AR)

The ogrekin had a ratty, stained blanket tucked into the back of his belt. Five patches bearing the Black Arrow crest were sewn into the blanket - in some cases, the patches were bloodstained. Shalelu recognized the patches.

The firepelt, which survived the battle, frantically tried to communicate with the heroes. The heroes deduced that the firepelt was very concerned about someone or something and wanted them to follow him. The firepelt nibbled at their cloaks, tugging them toward a poorly maintained trail that led deeper into Kreegwood. Following it for a half-mile led to a homestead.

The Farm

This is where the heroes got their first taste of ogrish hillbilly horror. The trail led to a sickly farm in a clearing in the forest. The woods around this land were decorated with several hanging cornhusk-and-leather humanoid-shaped fetishes meant to ward off intruders - an investigation of any of these fetishes revealed they were stuffed with what appeared to be a mix of dirt and human hair. A tangled field of corn and other diseased plants grew in the eastern section of this land, while to the north slumped two sagging buildings: a barn and a farmhouse. Both have had their windows boarded over, and moss and fungus grew heavy on the shaded sides of the decrepit structures.

The heroes encountered there an 8-foot-tall ogrekin. His grotesquely deformed head resembled a giant pumpkin on the right side - a huge puffy mask of tumors and overgrown bone giving his head a lopsided look. The ogrekin stalked the perimeter of the farmstead., on the lookout for intruders.

The ogrekin noticed the heroes' approach. When he saw the intruders, he gave a cry and lumbered to attack.

The ogrekin bellowed and yelled as he fought. Cosniderably braver than the other ogrekin the heroes fought, he focused his attacks on Thurden, but was easily defeated.

The barn housed several mounds of molding hay, grain stores, and even a large but crude still. Two catwalks rose up along the walls, leading to doors near the ceiling in the east wall. Lower, a pair of massive doors, boarded over with thick timbers, allowed ground access to the room beyond. Several dingy kennels were built into the walls under the catwalks.

The still functioned, but the moonshine it produced was nauseating and the ingredients the ogrekin used to brew the stuff were suspect at best. Several keys hung on a bent nail by the main entrance. These keys were for the manacles in the cages in the prison. Three ogrekin were here.

One of the three ogrekin was a hulking brute with a vestigial arm growing form his left elbow and a no-necked, dented head. The other was a big, handsome boy towering over the others. His eyes were huge and milky white, and his skin pale as the full moon. The last was the shortest of the three, standing barely more than 5 feet tall, with crooked stumpy legs and constantly twitching skin. They were easily dispatched by the heroes.

The majority of the large, stuffy prison chamber was covered in filthy webs forming a funnel that dipped down into the ground. A catwalk ran around the rim of the room near the ceiling, twenty feet above the ground. In the northeast and southeast corners, the catwalk expanded into a ten-foot-wide platform that was fenced in by wooden beams, forming cages. The walls withing each cage were hung with iron manacles. Most of the manacles - while bloody - were empty, but three in the southeast corner imprisoned emaciated men.

An immense ogre spider dwelt in this room. The immense spider scurried out of its web to attack within moments of the heroes entering this room, a fight the heroes are currently engaged in. All three of the humans locked in the southeast cage were unconscious.