We bring the boat back to dock and search everything. Among the loot is an interesting parchment that reads, "Play this and the guardian at black tree bend will subside" accompanied by a bunch of dots and dashes. Then we find a lyre +1! Do we actually need a bard to complete this thing?!? Well..., the world doesn't just exist for our party's convenience, so we'll just have to muddle through without (tacitly everyone knows that we're better off, even with a hundred guardians).
Someone scouting sees a large beacon out in the waterway among the shadowy fens. So we shove off and investigate. The sturdy beacon has a light to the "left" and one to the "right", but only one is burning. So we sail off that way, propeled by Stryfe and Veronwe at the oars. Everyone is sad for the absence of pirate-y prattle and patois... We soon see another beacon ahead, and then another, and then another; each with the "forward" light and "backward" light burning. In total we pass about two score beacons.
Along the way we come to a large "bend", which Duffy assumes to be "black tree bend". He whips out his lyre and starts strumming, making a best guess as to the meaning of dots and dashes on the parchment. Nothing at all happens, so Duffy must have successfully single-handedly made the guardian subside! Cheers to Duffy! 2,500 xp solo encounter woot! Later on we encounter and fight an undead dragon turtle and some hungry swamp gators, which we deal with the old-fashioned way.
We also witness a couple of dim, "different" light sources to the sides as we are following the beacons. We guess that they might be provincial villages and ignore them. Nearly led astray by Duffy, Avveron casts a spell to divine the "lay of the land". Cool. He sees swamp in every direction for 50 miles, and indeed a village to the side and a "collection of buildings" 5 miles ahead. We continue to navigate forward.
We finally arrive at the final lit beacon and weigh anchor at a dock. It appears to be another outpost with stone buildings, walls, and lit torches all over. We don't really see anyone to fight, so we explore forward. Scouts come to a 30' x 40' stone chapel with windows way up high. One by one the party enters through the window, as we fight some sort of spooky faceless shadow golem. As the dust settles, we find an altar and holy symbol of the evil Cyrik. There are 2 statues covered with heavy black drapes.
