Back in Red Larch, Sorrel had been hearing rumours of a new druidic circle, called the Circle of the Scarlet Moon, who were going to be holding a ritual in the Sumber Hills to end the unusual weather. We decided that this needed investigating so joined some of the other townspeople in journeying into the Sumber Hills to find the location of the ritual. We found a hill with a tower on top, and a great wicker man, and many people camped around it. Sorrel and Feyabelle investigated, accompanied by me invisibly, while Thorg and Arielle waited hidden at the base of the hill. The first camp had a group of druidic followers, Varigo, Mahoon, Iniri and Fariya,  who welcomed us and shared their mead and wine with us.  They seemed dangerously naive about the whole event – but then we have more experience of the dangers of the Sumber Hills and the restless evil that we now know sleeps below it.  We expressed a wish to see more of the encampment, and Varigo accompanied us as he said he would take us to hear a minstrel who was camped further up the hill.
The next campfire had two more men, with a chained bear. Sorrel was very disturbed by this, and asked the bear if it was OK and well looked after. The men objected to Sorrel talking to their bear, and one attacked him with a spell. We attacked back, and I untied the bear (while invisible), which ran off, along with one of the two men, the other one having been killed by Sorrel in bear shape.  The running off was rather disappointing, as I hoped that the bear would cause a bit more excitement before it left.  Varigo was rather disturbed by the sudden outbreak of violence, so we rapidly moved on, leaving the dead man, as we expected anyone finding it to blame it on his bear. We were on our guard now though, as we had found the symbol of the fire cult on the dead man’s body.
On the way up the hill we bypassed another fire that our new friend said was occupied by two hairy and unfriendly men. We passed through another camp, with a somewhat friendly lady druid, and three rather nervous looking ranger-types. Not wishing for further incident, we hurried on. We finally reached the campfire with the minstrel, Gariena, who was accompanied by sprites.  Gariena welcomed us and we watched the sprites dancing. She was impressed to hear our tales of derring-do against the elemental cults in the area and gave us magical scrolls to aid us.
After that, I continued to climb the hill alone, and invisible, and found the courtyard at the top, with broken walls around the old tower, and the wicker man.