Maruviel and Vedasi do a perimeter check one mile around the keep. Near the Winter’s Keep Pass, they come across a group of woodsmen cutting down trees. There are about a half dozen men  and a dozen children here. Continuing on, they find evidence of wood-elves in the area. There is a small grove of trees where they appear to be.

The elves go to the grove of trees and sees that they are “deep wood scouts.” Normally elves don’t care about anything outside of their forest, but the evils in the world have gotten worse and some elves have branched out to try to help in other wooded areas.

A male comes to greet them and Vedasi says that they have come to “meet the neighbors.” The elf says that they’ve noticed that the keep has new tenants, and that they travel with strange folk. Maruviel says that they have rooted out the evil of the black arrows. Vedasi says that his lord asked that he be a bodyguard of a mapmaker. The scouts visibly relax as they are discussing, though they say that it seems a waste of talent to defend one person. Vedasi agrees but he says that it’s in order to understand this area better.

The elf’s name is Thioros. There are several others who seem younger than him: Corlolvath, Koladoc, Thilvoth (males), Syrissen, Ylana (females). Vedasi mentions that we have river transportation and also the skaven, ogres and woodsmen are discussed. The woodsmen may work for Hauptner. The area that we’re in is the Hvargar forest.

Thioros gives them a quiver of arrows that are “signal arrows.” He says to light and fire one of them into the air if we need help. He also asks us to be on the lookout for their signal arrows.

The elves return to the keep and we decide to head back to the tunnels. We head in but are not able to navigate very well. There are at least nine branches off of the main tunnel so far and we see that they keep spreading out. Maruviel suggests that we flood the tunnels, but Tobruk says that this would be a temporary measure. The other options would be to collapse the tunnels manually (needing lots of laborers) and to plant explosives. We decide to cut our losses and head back to the surface. Any plans against the skaven will have to wait.

We decide to head to the Boss’s castle via the river, but first we head to the woodcutter camp. We ask them to provide wood for the construction of our various efforts. The man says that his name is Maxwell (the others are Rolf and Theodore) and he explains that the wood belongs to Hauptner. He seems quite well learned for a woodsman. He says that he went to the university to learn to be an engineer, but. He says that we can’t have their lumber because it is promised to Hauptner. We offer them the ability to live in the keep and work for us, but Maxwell says that he will compromise for now because he doesn’t want to take the risk. They will do some work for us and assess the keep, but they need to keep doing work for Hauptner.

Suddenly we hear a crunching sound as something is coming through the woods. We see a group of forest goblins coming from the northeast. We start to fend them off and the woodcutters back away quickly to protect their families. Suddenly a huge spider descends from the trees and a goblin is riding it! He holds a wand of some kind and casts magic at us.

The spider advances on us and the goblin continues to attack. Arrows suddenly protrude from the spider’s thorax as we see Thioros and the other elves come to help. The spider goes down and some goblins that tried to escape are taken out by the elves.

We assure the woodcutters that the threat is done. The elves say that it’s strange for the goblins to be this far. Perhaps word that the Black Arrows have been removed has caused them to become more bold. In a stunning move, Tobruk thanks the elves. They say that they were merely protecting the area.

Maxwell says that he will come back to the keep and begin moving their sawmill to the river. The elves say that while we are in Groghaven they will make sure the keep stays safe.