As the snows begin to melt and the first trickle of new settlers arrive in Iredar Wren receives a surprise invitation from a group
calling themselves the Embeth Travellers. By reputation the group are a powerful band of rangers who hunt down monsters throughout the
River Kingdoms area. Seeing the Travellers as potential allies Wren personally accepts the invitation
and takes along Mistletov, Raguso, Kenzin and Sin in case there is any actual hunting to be done. The initial meeting takes place at the Travellers newly refurbished hunting lodge some 15 miles east of Ford on the River Guilin. When Wren and his companions arrive they find in
addition to Grand Ranger Jamal Visser and his two associates his distant cousins Edina and Joli Aldori from Varnhold have also
been invited on the hunt. A third faction is represented by Annamede Belavarah, a bard from
Pitax and her two bodyguards.
The evenings 'entertainment' takes the form of one on one duels between Edina and Wren and Jolia and Raguso. Both women are skilled
duelists and Edina suggests that Raguso ought to remove his plate mail and maybe use a proper duelling sword for the contest. Jolia, however, points out that they should treat the contests as a warm up for the following day and lets Raguso keep his familiar arms and armour.
The very serious and aggressive Edina wins her contest against Wren but Raguso beats Jolia and also wins in the diplomacy stakes by
crediting his victory entirely to his superior armour.
After an impressive dinner they retire for the night. In the morning the entire party of hunters sail east along the river in the Travellers barge to the hunting grounds. The Aldori sisters head north after a hydra, while the Iredar party (minus Wren who had stayed behind to
chat to Jamal) travel east after a wyvern who is known to have killed settlers in the area. The party find the wyvern's nest which contains a bear corpse which seems to have split in two in an unusual way in addition to some human bodies. While examining the body of the bear the wyvern arrives back , however, and
attacks the party who slay it in a fierce fight.
While the party are recovering from that fight they hear distant shouts of battle and assume the Aldori sisters have
engaged the hydra. Knowing how tough such a battle might be they rush to the scene to help out. The sisters are wounded so the party offer
healing to them as well as fighting by their side. The hydra's fatal blow was landed by Jolia but she not unreasonably offers to count it
as a joint kill with the party. Exploring a nearby narrow ravine the party find and defeat a hungry giant flytrap and find and collect some
peculiar looking seeds from within it. The party next meet Jamal's three rangers who have just returned from killing a Krooth. Back at the barge Annamede's party had neither found any monsters to kill or seemed terribly worried by their lack of success.
All the hunters return to the lodge where Jamal declares the Iredar party the hunt victors and hands them a returning weapon crystal and a wand of superior healing as a prize. A disturbing feature of the hunt was the unnaturally bright colours of the prey. Even more disturbing
is the collapse of Tomol, Jamal's servant, and the eruption from his chest of a similarly coloured basilisk. The party take samples from
the bodies of Tomol and the monster and cast spells as precautions before eating and drinking that night. In the morning they return to Iredar where the sages find the same peculiar seeds in Tomol's body as the party found in the giant fly trap.
Wren immediately sends out messengers to warn the rest of the kingdom of the outbreak of what some are calling 'The Bloom'. Mistletov is sent
to Silver Fall and returns with an apprentice druid, an orphan named Ralf. Ralf has an interesting plant creature as a companion who he calls 'Tree' despite it rather resembling a small bush. Ralf and Tree accompany Mistletov as he fights the creatures affected by 'The Bloom' and when clues point to the goblin village of Greengripe as a possible source
of the outbreak they accompany him there as well. Posing as a group looking to trade the Iredaran spies investigate the village but although they suspect the chief of being an imposter (shades of the kobold cavern) who has a peculiar obsession with exotic plants they find no direct connection with 'The Bloom'.