The gang returns to Milham

Kane caught up with the party as they camped in the forest outside the dungeon.  He'd heard some rumours that the captain and a few of the guards at Red Towers were looking to teach Henril some respect.  Henril was willing to march right back to Red Towers and challenge them but the rest of the party thought it would be better to leave well enough alone.  They had found the scroll they had been looking for (although much of the monastery still remained unexplored) and so they decided to head back to Milham and see what was what with the scroll.  They had a little loot, most primarily a suit of plate mail possibly belonging to St.Ulthur.  Even regular plate armour is a big deal in Beacon - costing upwards of 300gp and taking some time to craft.  This was fancy stuff and even if the gauntlets were missing, it was likely worth a small fortune.  It was also possibly a holy artifact - but don't let that bother you - they also had schemes of fencing the devotional silver bowl and ewer once they got back to town.  They fought a giant bat that evening - and were initially somewhat terrified that it might be the manticore that they had unwittingly set loose.  Good times.

it looked something like this
 - but with rocky death instead of water

They didn't meet anyone on the road north.  Kane wanted to see if they could retrieve his brothers body as they passed the spot by the hollow tree where Ann had told him the goblin warren was.  They made a short foray into the ruins, but were stymied as the goblin scouts fled before them and cut down the rope bridge as they ran.  The ravine the rickety bridge served to cross was some 50-60 ft. across and probably over 100 ft. straight down onto some decidedly pointy rocks and shrubs.  They surveyed this and decided to acquire a grapple and some proper rope in Milham before attempting to go any further into the ruins.  Henril made a point of telling everyone that if he were to die he'd not expect anyone to risk profitless death just to lug his meat back out of some dirty hole.

Once back in Milham they tried to track down the old 'abbot' who had asked them to retrieve the Trials of St. Ulthur.  He was gone, the owner of the Seven Stones said that he had left soon after the party had - presumably returning back north.  The barkeeper's son, an old friend of Klypt, gave them some sage words of advice and they then chose to retire to their usual haunt - the Scarlet Archer, before seeking out the old sage in the morning.  Henril was please to reacquaint himself with the barmaid who had been the bridesmaid at his disastrous wedding and Sannur the barkeep was eager to see some paying customers and had their usual rooms made up.  The next day they visited the sage, gained some information on the time of Ulthur and realized that aside from the documents they had, there was little else known about his sainthood aside from that it was likely some four centuries ago in the time before the new men and the current kingdom.  The sage was keenly interested in their scroll and could only tell them that the other two churches mentioned in it were in Whitewater to the north and Linmere to the east.  He was excited to see some new information from those dark ages.  Henril asked Tim about the history of Ulthur and Ulgar aftrewards remarkking that the entry bar to sainthood was rather low - primarily consisting of having some nice armour, smiting things and having a 'U' in your name.  Henril decided to have the plate mail refurbished for his own use and spent his last coins having the the leathers replaced and getting it fitted.  He wisely didn't mention it's origin to anyone.  Brother Tim took it on himself to purchase the silver devotional and bring it to the abbot in Milham's church.  The abbot was also very excited that the relics had turned up and spoke of sending word to the Bishops in Old Church and perhaps someday returning them and reconsecrating the monastery in the south.

Not a lot of action, but some work got done and most importantly the players seemed engaged in tasks that mattered to their characters beyond mere survival/looting.  They did realize that they might need to do a bit more ruin exploring however.  The goblins they have encountered on the road rarely carry more than a sharp rock or some horrible cheese in their pockets, and bats, spiders and manticores don't even have pockets.