Cairn: Talons and Treetops

Finally managed to play Cairn today. Woo!

The characters are in the forest, trying help the Quickbough Clan deal with their hawk issue. To wit, the hawk has been driving the squirrels away from a storage tree. The characters have a look, and decide to use some rope to slide the goods down the tree and get them away, since the hawk doesn't seem to be around (after Rummy scared it off). 

Ratatosk scampers up the tree to the knothole where the stuff is kept, and Russelet flies up and looks for trouble, but sees none. As Ratatosk looks down the tree and tries to get things set up, though, a shadow falls across him. He turns and sees...the hawk.

Yipe!

The hawk swipes at him with its talons, and Ratatosk falls back. Snootabur and Russelet fire arrows at it. Snootabur's wounds it, and Russelet drives it back and it jumps off the branch and flaps. Rumdiggle starts singing (she's too far away to scare it, and she's out of Magic Points anyway). All of the Knights feel a sinking feeling in their stomachs - Disharmony. 

Ratatosk blows sneezing powder in its face, and Russelet fires another arrow at the bird's eye. The arrow doesn't kill it, but does stick in its eye and it flies away in pain. 

The squirrels cheer for the Knights, and then immediately start getting all their stuff out of the tree. Ratatosk talks to Oyalla Quickbough (the young squirrel they saved from the hawk last session), and learns that the hawk killed her uncle Berntower last autumn and just left his body at the foot of the tree. Russelet, deep into Discord now, tricks some squirrels into a shell game to try and boost his Harmony, but it doesn't help all that much. He does, however, hear some of the squirrels referring to the hawk as "Ashfeather."

The Knights split up a bit; Snootabur and Rumdiggle go back to Cairn and try and get some rest. Russelet flies off a bit and goes looking for the hawk. He finds it - Ashfeather is by the stream, standing on a big flat rock, tearing a frog apart angrily. Russelet decide to try and trick it and lead it into an ambush, but he loses track of it and then the hawk divebombs and grabs him. He stabs the hawk in the foot and it lets him go, and Russelet crashes into a thicket and passes out.

Ratatosk, meanwhile, is trying to learn more about Berntower's murder and the hawk, but the squirrels are busy and he can't quite keep up. He takes a breather on a high branch, but the wind blows the branch and exposes him to the sky...and the hawk swoops down and claws at him.

Fortunately, Ratatosk is a druid. He casts Thornsting and the branches get all pointy and lash out at the hawk. Ashfeather screams and flies away, and Ratatosk heads to a lower branch. 

At dusk, Snootabur and Rumdiggle meet up with Ratatosk (who has just snorted some Enervating Powder to stay awake). They don't see Russelet, which worries them a little. They head into woods and track him (through blood trail, which worries them more), but find him by the brook, fishing. They talk about the hawk, and Russelet suggests that since hawks are diurnal they hunt the fucker down. But of course, he's still in Discord...