Going Home Sweet Home

AK510-20 Gold Autumn Week 4
[Charon Watching, Shale Watching, Cycles Guiding]

They all regroup in order to pack all of the library contents away safely. Stuffitt creates a holder for the alchemy items and uses tapestries to line a couple of barrels and pack away the glassware from the lab. The books and scrolls are thrown into sacks and after a couple of hours they are ready to depart with their booty. They reluctantly leave many weapons and sets of armor behind in the forest.
Charmer sends his bees to scout out Arkthus Poten and his men and they are reported to be less than a mile away when the party leaves the dark keep.
They are attacked by more poison dusk lizardfolk firing poisoned arrows from behind dense bushes. They put down the booty and quickly dispatch the lizardfolk. They loot black adder and their blue whinnis poisons from the bodies and then at Tim's insistence the move the bodies to the keep.
The zombie boars keep turning the machines to drain water from the lower levels all this time. They are still moving when Arkthus arrives at the keep.
They head home and using the bees to avoid any undue attention they are untroubled on their journey home.
Appleby attempted to 'plant' the Applewood staff in the ground. It reacted strongly. It shook with power and grew large sharp thorns, the colour of apple pips, serrated like the teeth of beasts. But Appleby sensed that there was more that the staff wished to do but that something was 'not right'. He blamed his companions for forcing him to wear metal armor and renounced metal from that day forward.
Tanner sends Stuffit to scout out woodhaven to ensure that there are no spies left by Arkthus, to report of their arrival.
Stuffitt scouts out the village and has a secret conversation with Helen Tanner who tells him all is well.
They return to a warm welcome from the villagers who thank Ethan for his wisdom in sending the kobolds from the village and in slaying a Baphen for Arkthus' men. The small army made a muddy mess of the village and took more than they were entitled to, with Arkthus' blessing. But because of the Baphen meat supply and the presence of the Blackguard, the villagers were left with enough to see them through the winter.
Todd Stuffitt visits the ex-bandits who the party had sent from the wilderness. They had been welcomed by the villagers and a house had been built for them. They had been given the opportunity to use what skills they had and to learn pottery and tailoring.
Melkior Ellrohiriad is an almost noble, but he was too far removed from money or influence. He turned out to be a ropemaker with a great knowledge of history.
Xavier Zengarion is a close friend of Melkior's, who shared distant relations and close circumstances, is a blacksmith and is forming a strong bond with Orin who he sees as an amazing craftsman.
Decimus Belioni was a Torlandish rebel who fled to stormwatch from the senate's assassins having said the wrong thing a few too many times. Minions of the dragon want him dead. He is a barber by trade.
Michael Labour the atheist ringleader of the Honeyglen bandit group disappeared after the party left them. No one knows where he went.
John Appleby decreed that Ethan's rather sad crop of Hemp was fully legal. He also declared that poison use was legal under certain circumstances in woodhaven, not specifying what those circumstnaces were. Then he was with his wife for two days. She became pregnant.