As most of the group passed a night in Corrin's dungeons, the party's Foulden fugitive took refuge in the western North Moore Forest, across the North River from Corrin. There he followed a creek westward until dark, then made his way north, intending to make it to Reid his own way. His path was blocked, however, by a nearly impenetrable wall of vines and thick undergrowth which he followed east until it took a turn northward. Finding a suitable place to make camp, he had to rid it of a hostile vine before doing so.
His sleep was disturbed by a foraging wolverine, which Calings had the incredible natural charm to befriend. Having named it Toby and providing it with a drink and a bed, he fell back asleep with the tamed beast licking berry juice from his fingers.
As they Mystic Ranger slept, he had a vision of a man, severely wounded and stranded at the bottom of a ravine through which the creek he had been following flowed. The man was young and handsome but for the pallor of his condition, and bore the crest of Corrin on the breast of his leather armor. Upon waking, Toby was gone, and Calings knew his path must be diverted for the sake of the dying man.
Finding him along the creek in the ravine as he had seen, feverish, delirious and with a severely broken leg, Calings took some precautionary measures to secure him should he become violent when brought around. With his arms and the good leg secured to nearby trees, he used the powers of the Spirit to at least get the bones of his leg bound again by flesh. Roused by Calings' efforts, the man was grateful but wary given his disposition and bindings. Calings proceeded to interrogate the man, who turned out to be none other than Rufus, the son of Lord Daris of Corrin. He had set out on a routine day of trapping, but had found the most unusual sight of a bear cub in one of his traps near the ravine, just above where he now lay. As he was collecting the trap, mama bear showed up in her baby's defense and startled the young noble right off the edge, putting him in the injured and helpless state Calings found him in. Rufus hoped to enlist his rescuer's help in hunting the bear, which Calings wisely declined to offer alone.
For his part, Calings remained cryptic about his reasons for being in the forest, his destination, and most of all, why he wouldn't assist the young man back to Corrin. He did gain some valuable information about the ale from Reid, most importantly that it primarily came from a single brewery owned by a man named Aritus. Despite his cooperation, Calings was obliged to leave Rufus in his still injured state while he went in pursuit of his still unstated mission. The mystic at least untied him before going on his way, and Rufus was nonetheless grateful for his assistance, promising help in Corrin if ever he needed it.
Climbing out of the ravine, Calings did indeed find a savagely destroyed trap near the top that must have held the cub Rufus mentioned. Despite his declination of services to Rufus, Calings tracked the bears away from the site, and came upon mama bear within an hour. Fortunately, the wind and his skills were on the ranger's side as he assessed the bear, rummaging through the undergrowth and behaving exactly as a bear should. Returning to the site of Rufus' initial encounter with the bear, Calings set a type of spring trap with a tree branch and returned to the beast's foraging grounds, finding it there still, and still unaware of his presence.
Getting the bears attention and rising it's ire with a couple of thrown rocks, he got the bear to chase him back to his trap, only it wasn't intended for the bear at all. Instead, the intrepid woodsman used the spring of the tree limb to carry him over the edge of the ravine just as the bear caught up with him and lunged, intending for it to take the same tumble as our stranded prince and hopefully, receive the same disabling wounds. Unfortunately for our hero, the bear managed to grab hold of the edge of the ravine and scramble back up beneath his dangling form. After a missed attempt at a dropping strike on the bear's head, Calings found himself face-to-face with the huge black bear as it reared up a full two heads above him and roared it's challenge.
Knowing the odds of surviving a straight-up fight with this woodland terror, Calings took an unorthodox approach to dealing with the bear. Mimicking it's posture, he sought to throw it off by roaring back. Miraculously, the ploy succeeded and the bear relented long enough for the ranger to get in a swipe with his claws of steel. As the bear re-engaged, an arrow sank into it's side from the ravine below. Rufus called up to the foreigner in wonder at his methods as the battle went on, the unlikely duo wearing the bear down until Calings was able to deliver the coup de gras.
The bear dispatched, Calings gave it a shove over the lip of the ravine to provision Rufus below, who again thanked him and promised favor in Corrin should he return.
Having spent himself on the fight and subsequent healing, Calings decided to get on with his original purpose and set out northward through the forest to Reid, following the creek once again as it turned that direction. After some minor harassment of a bear cub and near encounter with papa bear, he found himself following a marked hunting trail. After coming upon an apparently permanent but empty camp, the trail led to a lodge on the shore of a lake attended by one of the hunters. There he found out about unusual animal migrations from the eastern wood into the western, which explained the origins of the rare creature he had just dispatched and it's family, though the hunter had no theory to explain the exodus from the east.
Staying the night at the welcome of the hunter, Calings set out the next morning for the road across the river that his companions had followed the previous day, following his host's directions to a ford to avoid having to utilize Corrin's ferry. Making his way until nightfall, he camped beside the forest road before setting out in the pre-dawn for the forest's edge, and the wayside beyond, where his companions awaited the morning to depart for Reid....
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