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As the friends walked back to the horses they noticed a lone rider approaching from Hightower. It was Jobric who had finally caught up with them. Gaius decided to go treat his bird and wounds rather than continue, so Radagast continued along with Jobric instead.
The companions trotted away as fast as they could, but soon Jobric's horse got tired and they had to slow down. They started hearing horns, the sounds were closing on the rode. Soon they spotted a group of orcs trying to cut to the road ahead of them. Radagast fired arrows at them, wounding a couple, while Jobric's spells had a couple feeling pretty bad as well. This bought Radagast and Jobric enough time to ride safely to Shopik.
Shopik turned out to be a tiny village of few buildings surrounded by a palisade. The orcs had not tried to attack the village, but hunters, farmers and travelers outside had had encounters with the orcs. They learned from the man on watch, Frulaf, that they could sleep in one of the buildings and there would be meals as well.
The village had a small trading post, and a shrine, and that was about it. The shrine had small herb garden surrounding it. An old man called Gjuldor, that the others had called Teacher of the Law, was tending the garden. Radagast gave him two poison arrows as the man seemed to be rather interested in herbs and poisons and what have you. The trading post was manned by Alvi, a big man with long beard. He seemed to be good at woodcarving, Radagast noticed as they walked in. Alvi also remembered Quintus, who had bought some food from his store. Radagast traded in the orcish longbow for 40 gold of barter from his store. Jobric used up 8gp immediately buying some really potent liqueur Radagast thought better to leave alone.
They learned from Alvi that Karuknar was selling a quiver of endless arrows. Apparently he needed money for a wedding. Radagast and Jobric ate the meal they offered (after Jobric cast a spell to purify the food, just in case) and played some cards. Karuknar was not willing to play for the quiver, so they played with copper pieces instead. Radagast and Jobric learned that most of the orc activity was in the mountains, and that 40 years ago the orcs had actually attacked Shopik village itself, but Waymarch knights had driven the orcs away.
Next morning Radagast and Jobric went to the woods on their scouting mission. They were on foot, since they figured they would fly back quickly, and they did not intend to spend the night in the woods anyway.
After a few hours of tense nerves Jobric spotted tower in the woods. It was about 40 feet high, with square layout. Jobric cast his fly spell on himself and Radagast, and the companions went scouting. There were two clearings around the rower, with some ruins and a well. Seeing no movement they boldly went to the door of the tower and knocked!
Radagast had to knock again, until a man appeared at the door. He was rude, and said he was not allowed to let anyone in as the master forbade that and he would be very angry. He did not give the name of himself or his master, even though Radagast tried to get him a little confused (he did not seem very bright). After a while he just shut the door and wouldn't answer it anymore.
The fly spells still active (it was faster going around the tower area that way) they did not want to give up, and scouted the area close to the tower. They found some drainholes, and heard a voice from there. There was a girl named Gleir trapped in a dungeon. The companions learned what they could, and dropped a torch, some food and water to the girl and went back to the tower, intent on getting in.
They searched the door for traps, Jobric doing a magic check, but they did not notice anything unusual about the black door and the sculpted wolf head above it. But as Radagast banged his shoulder on the door, the wolf head breathed icy frost on Radagast who was totally unpreared for it. Luckily Jobric was there to save him.
Radagast did not want to try the door again, so they flew to the roof, and hacked their way through it. While doing that they spotted some humanoid movement at the edge of the farthest clearing, but they chose to ignore that for the moment.
The top door had some wood, tiles and tools in it, as well as black and white pictures of torture covering the walls. While Radagast was descending the stairs to the next floor, the man jumped from under the stairs, opened his jaws impossibly wide, and tried to bite and slash at Radagast who nimbly dodged aside. Radagast, seeing his foe was not wearing armor, swung his sword as hard as he could, and was rewarded with a pained grunt and a deep slash on the creature. Just to be on the safe side Radagast backed into a corner and cast shield on himself. The beast seemed to figure it would never be able to hit Radagast, and concentrated its attacks on Jobric, who was really feeling the sharp teeth and nails. The monster was fading in and out of existence which made it hard hit it it. Luckily Radagast finished it off with a few powerful strikes. Just in case it might regenerate Radagast cut its head off. During the fight Radagast learned that his flaming sword was capable of bursting out a spectacular flare on an extremely good hit.
A search through the room did not find anything interesting. The only magical things were the creature itself, and a spot on the wall which they recognized was the other side of the wolf head (which was why it did not register as magic on the outside).