We quickly leave the town, stealthily, and it appears that we have gotten away clean. After a bit, however, Telrun spies a raven flying above us and it seems to have been following us for a while. He takes a shot and it disintegrates into a puff of feathers. Apparently someone had created the raven from an enchantment and was spying on us.

We ascend a hill and see smoke ahead of us. We see a merchant’s caravan that have all been killed, along with dead orcs lying around as we approach. Suddenly the “dead” orcs start arising and coming towards us. A large one charges through a nearby house’s front door — he has a mask over his face with several inlaid gems in it. Another comes out of a different nearby house, this one has a wolf’s pelt on him. We take out the others but the shaman strikes us with lightning and attacks with a spirit wolf. We eventually defeat him, and start looting the orc corpses.

The leader has a bag of holding, the “everlasting provisions” basket that always has food. Also there is a magic flint that can create an invisible, smokeless fire, and a satchel that creates an instant campsite including a campfire and two large tents. There is a “restful bedroll” that gives you temporary hit points if you spend an extended rest in it. Finally there is a skull helmet called the Helm of Seven Deaths. There are seven dull gems on it, that has several uses. On the merchants we find more gold, armor, swords and a jeweled dagger. We check the houses and they seem to be abandoned. We toss the bodies into a pile and burn them.

In the bag we find a note that says “Half now, half upon completion. -D”  We guess that these orcs were hired by Dreus, the evil wizard.

We head back to Treona’s place and tell her that we’ve recovered the stone, and she is pretty surprised to learn that we’ve made a deal with a dragon. We also let her know that Dreus most likely was the one who hired the orcs to attack us. We give her the stone and she performs the rite to destroy it.  It glows and then turns a dull color. Telrun takes the remains of the stone even though they no longer have any power.

We return to Fallcrest and see the Warden. He is pleased that we were able to help Treona. While we were gone he sent a cleaning crew to fix up the tower for us, however the people have not returned after a day. We go to check things out.