Recap
The morning of the 16th of Cal, 1329 Avard, Evergreen, Kalla

The party started out hip deep in trouble and with little to go on. They were trapped in the village of Evergreen, three days north of Duckoron, and in the middle of a curse from the God or Vengeance, K’Tath. To make matters worse, they were missing the young bard Sven and were pretty sure he had succumbed to the curse as well. Leaving the inn and the old woman, Helga, our six adventurers set off to explore the village.

Many villagers remaining did nothing to answer their doors. Many afraid some had even given into madness. Other houses were occupied only by animals. The party surmised the curse turned people into animals, but not why or even how. From Ms. Lucy, a kind woman that ran the orphanage, they learned that it had all started with Conner, the smith’s son. A bit of a bully, Conner was the first to go missing, followed by his father. A set of twins, Jack and Jane, volunteered to show the adventurers around to their favorite hiding places with in the half mile area in side the shield with an older orphan named Pips.

The children were very excited, except for Pips who was older and calmer, and were quick to lead the party to small hiding places in the village itself. With a little persuading, they got the twins to show them one of the two hiding places outside of the village. The first was a burnt out tree north of the village. They found nothing of interest there. While out there, they examined the shield. No one could pass out, only in, and it even extended underground. They then moved on to the next hiding spot.

The cave was actually a hollow among a pile of boulders. With in the company found the odd treasures that children classify as their treasures. Among these was a bag full of odd rocks. One caught the mage’s eye. It was one that was broken off from a larger rock and seemed to have part of an etching on it. Upon asking, Jake said he was the one that had found it and led the party out to near the shield where it was found. A search of the area directly behind the cave and near the shield was the larger piece of the rock. Putting the two pieces together formed a rock with the symbol of K’Tath etched into it. Horus came up with a bright idea that kind of back fired: he cast mend upon the broken stone and re-activated it. Silly, Cleric. The stone became warm, started to gently vibrate and became too heavy for Horus to hold. It fell to the earth with a solid thud and lay there immovable. Thrug was so startled by this that he gave the newly activated stone a solid hit that launched sparks into the air. His axe rebounded up and the barbarian stood there shivering. Suddenly, he shrunk into a pile of clothes and gear. Out of it an ugly tusked rat peeped out. The curse had come into the party.

Now the party knew what was maintaining the shield and maybe the curse. They gathered up Thrug’s gear and returned to the inn to rest and plot some more. Jack, Jane and Pip helped collect stuff up and Kai and Gemini noticed the young boy pocketing something. When confronted he held up a gold coin. They moved on to investigate other places for stones. On the way, Jacob feel prey to the curse. The party found four stones at each points of the compass at the edge of the shield. At an end with no more ideas of what to do the party of three humans, one Halfling, one bat and one rat returned to the inn.

At the inn they were greeted by one upset old Helga and a stranger to the town. He was a dark man in darker leathers with a look of a hard man used to depending on no one but himself. He introduced himself as Keyan, a ranger passing through the area looking for an unidentified person or group of people. He and the non-furry members of the party talked long into the night about the curse of Evergreen and what the party had discovered so far. Helga even divulged a bit of information she over heard when some of the monks were in drinking. It was rumored in old texts that a shield could be erected around an area to contain a curse from K’Tath using cursed stones. The number varied, but four and eight was the generally most used numbers. Her listeners hungrily took in this tidbit and planned to set out in the morning.

Once more the curse took a member of the party. Caleb became a cat after he inspected the party’s money pouches and found a strange coin. It was a gold coin commonly found in the Principalities. He kept it on himself during the night and checked it for magic that morning. The coin glowed with soft magical energy. He informed his friends of this and as they set out found himself walking on four legs. Kai picked up the coin and put it into his pouch.

The party found four more stones at the points between the major compass positions. Caleb came up with an idea. If these rocks were cursed, what would happen if Horus blessed it? The feline mage worked hard to communicate this idea to his friends by writing in the dirt. Horus tried blessing the one they were at. The power tried to resist, but was overcome and the stone when dead. With renewed hope, the party hurried to the next stone. Tragedy struck again upon Kai by turning him into a lizard. The party took this as a sign they were doing the right thing and carried on. Three more stones were deactivated before more trouble struck.

As they hurried to the next stone, a dagger came flying out of the bushes and thudded into Horus’ shoulder. From the near by bushes, came a dagger wielding Pips. The party did not take too much mercy on the orphaned boy and quickly dropped him. They tied him up and healed him of just enough life to question him later. Horus blessed the fifth and last stone he could do that day and all eyes were then turned to their captive.

XP AWARDED:
400 xp for defeating Pips.

TREASURE:
They recieved an amulet of natural armor +1, a bracers of daggers, and a magic ring and coin of baleful polymorph which only works if the trigger ring is available. :P

DM NOTES:
I had one fustrated and pretty fuzzy party by the end of this night. :D And we called our party a zoo when I was a PC; I think this was more of a zoo then that. Except for that last campaign we only had like 2 adventures in. That was a crazy bunch, but I digress. Th party was pretty confused about how the curse was spread and who was doing it. They wanted to blame old Helga. Why, I don't want to know. We had a guest with us. Fergison who is palying the ranger is going on leave soon and I strangley enough was not able to tell him no. His ranger is rather..interesting. Bi-polar to boot. Keyan won't be with us long and may become an NPC the party meets again. The night ended with hope for Evergreen in sight and a potentiel villan. Still no sign of Sven.