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<blockquote data-quote="Pacio49" data-source="post: 2049249" data-attributes="member: 28472"><p><strong>A beginning.</strong></p><p></p><p>Our tale begins in the usual way, with a bored group of people who loosely know each other from around town and a favor being asked for by a friend. After all, what could <em>possibly</em> go wrong with helping someone out? </p><p></p><p>Arien had just finished her training for 3rd level when she was approached by a friend of hers and Marcus', a human Expert (Farrier) named Tobias. Knowing Arien's reputation for goodness and taking care of folks, the thin man immediately thought of her as a possible way out of his current bind. He asked for the favor and promised to meet them at the party's impromptu headquarters in town, the Howling Wolf. Tobias had said to bring some friends, so Arien turned to the others in what became the party and got them all to help out. </p><p></p><p>Tobias appeared and quickly explained his problem. His reputation as a Farrier (a blacksmith who specializes in horseshoes and shoeing horses) and his tireless work at his craft have finally paid off. He's in the employ of several of the more well-to-do houses, and even has a full-time gig at the Sapphire Manor, the local holding of one of the great families from the Jewelled Cities back home. He's successful enough that he has taken on apprentices, and that's where things begin to get complicated.</p><p></p><p>One of his apprentices, a young man by the name of Vair, has managed somehow to meet the young Lady of the Sapphire household, Ymanoura Sapphire (Yma for short). At first, Tobias let their little dalliance go on, since Yma and her family recently arrived in Tol Vehara and there was nothing sinister about two youths having a bit of fun. However, in the recent weeks, it has become serious. Ymanoura and Vair started pining for each other, and now, a week before her father, Lord Sappire, is due to return from a business trip to the Gnomish Outpost, the two have disappeared. Eloped, according to one of the house maids that Tobias was on friendly terms with. Tobias did some investigating on his own, and he knows that Vair has a brother, Balek, who is a ne'er-do-well sort hanging out with the wrong crowd, a juvenile gang that sometimes met at the Wilted Rose, a tavern in the South Banks. Tobias suspects that Ymanoura and Vair will turn to Balek in order to get assistance in getting away from the city, but he lacks the muscle power to make a confident foray into the shady neighborhoods of the South Banks against a group of "young hoodlums". Will the party help? They've only got a week before the girl's father returns, and she just disappeared the day before.</p><p></p><p>After a quick consultation, the party decides that they've got nothing better going on, so they might as well take a look. After an aborted attempt to try and gather their own information by gaining admittance to the Sapphire Manor, Valar (our trusty rogue) checks in with his White Mask guild contacts, finding out the general location of Balek and friends are indeed in the neighborhood of the Wilted Rose, a Gold Riverfront tavern in South Banks. The party arms themselves and makes the long trek to the South Banks on foot, crossing the Gold River to do so.</p><p></p><p>As the party travels, Valar reveals that the 'hoodlums' that Tobias had spoken of were really a minor gang of thugs with a bad reputation for causing trouble called the Death Hounds. Nothing serious, according to what little information there was to be had about them from the White Masks, just one of many little bands of thugs that roamed the comparative lawless area of the South Banks. The party manages to arrive at the Wilted Rose in the late afternoon, and while they make discreet (or so they think) inquiries as to the whereabouts of Balek and his bully boys, one of said Death Hounds slips out into the back alleys and manages to alert the locals that there's something afoot.</p><p></p><p>The party gets ambushed by the Death Hounds as they exit the tavern to go toward the building that the barkeep mentioned might be where they were holed up. Although the rogues in the Death Hounds are well hidden in rooftop perches, they're really no match for the trained party (albeit only at 3rd level), and the party quickly dispatches them with only minor damage to Valar, the supposedly-nimble rogue who can't dodge for anything.</p><p></p><p>One of the rogues breaks off from the attack and makes a beeline for his hideout (what can I say, they're only 1st level rogues and not too bright to begin with or they wouldn't be living in the South Banks). Skalar, the ranger, makes an astonishing Wilderness Lore check to track and manages to pick up their trail among the dusty alleyways. Not that it's necessary: as it turns out the rogue led them straight to the building that the barkeep had talked about. The party approaches carefully, and circles around toward the back when they are surprised by a second ambush from the rooftops from the 'security detail' that the Death Hounds keep posted. By now, Marcus points out that for a group of bully boys, they've certainly got a handle on street fighting tactics. This suggests to him that they may be more organized than everyone on the street thinks.</p><p></p><p>The party quickly overcomes the token resistance from the security detail and gains access to the Death Hounds' headquarters without too much fuss, only to find that the place has been hastily abandoned. As it is, after much poking around the rundown two story Victorian-esque house they manage to find out that the lower levels were abandoned in a hurry, but the upper levels look as though they've been carefully vacated in the recent past. Valar manages to find several minor traps by setting them off, and with a slightly numb leg and hand from pin traps he finally locates a trap door in the ceiling of one of the rooms. Pausing to listen while no one else is in the room, Valar hears the obvious sounds of someone moving about up in the room above. </p><p></p><p>Gathering the party, Valar manages to get a boost up to the trapdoor and cautiously opens it. However, the party has been making noise too, and whoever's in the room has been waiting for this. With a THUD the occupant lands on the trapdoor from behind and slams the poor rogue back down into the room below with a nasty bump on his head. Marcus casts mage hand and flips the trapdoor open, and Yovaire the fighter makes a wonderful jump/climb check and manages to vault himself into the room...</p><p></p><p>...only to find that there is a rather upset-looking, dishevelled youth with his legs shackled to the wall with a length of heavy chain. The youth cringes, expecting punishment, and his dirty face shows signs of tears. Quick questioning reveals that this is none other than Vair, the star-crossed lover who spirited Ymanoura away. The party begins to question him fully, and finds out that he was indeed the one who had stolen Ymanoura off, because they were in love and she said her father would never approve. Ymanoura managed to get away because she was a sorceress, and they turned Invisible and simply walked out of the compound via the treetop routes while the guards watched. Vair's brother, Balek, had talked him into bringing her to the Death Hounds "for safety reasons", but then had kidnapped the girl and imprisoned his brother up in the attic when Vair refused to be swayed to Balek's sinister plan.</p><p></p><p>After they unlock him, Vair continues to inform the party that Balek had the unfortunate luck of making a bad run into the Blasted Lands, getting caught without a haven around, and had come back with the beginnings of the Taint affecting him. He doesn't show it exactly yet, but those who know what they're looking for can see the change starting to affect him, if only in his eyes, whose pupils are slightly narrower than they were before. In a hyper-sensitive Taint-fearing society like Tol Vehara, it's just enough to brand him an outcast. It turns out that <em>all</em> of the Death Hounds have just the beginnings of exposure to the Taint, something that isn't to the point where it will progress on its own, but enough to brand them all outcasts. And Balek, a sorcerer himself, is quite resourceful and visionary.</p><p></p><p>Apparently, there's been a rumor circulating that a method exists by which the Taint can actually be reversed. Balek has subscribed to the conspiracy theory that those in power in Tol Vehara know this secret, because they successfully cured the Elf Queen of her infection with the Bane several years ago. It's an old chestnut... the drums spread the word that the Queen was stricken with the Bane and that she was offering great rewards to those who were able to discover a cure. The quarantine was relaxed a bit at that point to allow the Queen to benefit from the supposed cures. Many tried, and supposedly somehow a cure was effected (some say Wish spells, others say she kissed a kobold and that cured her, others say she died and has been replaced by a doppleganger, but those same folks tend to believe that the world is flat and that the moon is made of cheese). After this, the quarantine was reset in place, with no explanation. </p><p></p><p>Balek was convinced that the cure existed, and he was enough of a social activist to be filled with the freedom and opportunity for upward mobility that Tol Vehara represented. He claimed that it was all a plot by the nobles to keep the common man down, grinding them away to nothing by tempting them to make get-rich-quick jaunts into the Blasted Lands, jaunts which ultimately kill off the ones who fall for it. Understandably, Balek is bitter, but apparently he's too intelligent for his own good and without enough common sense.</p><p></p><p>It was Balek who convinced Vair that he should throw caution to the wind and follow his heart where it led him, and it was Balek who filled Vair with the courage needed to approach the equivalent of a visiting Princess of their homelands in the first place. As the party continued to question Vair, it turned out that from his perspective, it was all Balek's fault to begin with. And Balek, it seems, has gone mad. He kidnapped the Lady Ymanoura with the help of his Death Hounds, and they're planning on bringing her out into the Blasted Lands and forcing her to be exposed to the Taint. Once that's done, they'll send a ransom note to Lord Sapphire and demand that he deliver the cure for the Taint into the hands of the common folk, or else they'll complete the process of exposure and make Ymanoura Sapphire one of the Lost Ones who go completely bestial and feral and run off into the south. </p><p></p><p>When the party questions the wisdom of such an action, since Lord Sapphire is invariably powerful enough that Laeka said something to the tune of "Even his household farrier can summon up a party of adventurers to go and hunt them down," Vair reveals that Balek's already thought of that and off in the land of misplaced ideals. He's going to deliver the ransom note to the Halls of Lore, the local bard college, and spread the tale throughout Tol Vehara, letting everyone know that Ymanoura Sapphire has 'broken the veil' (lost her cultural purity status), and if she manages to recover, "the people will see that the leaders have been keeping us oppressed."</p><p></p><p>Vair knows where the Death Hounds would most likely go to do this without further jeopardizing their own health. There's a haven that they know of to the southwest. They'd be able to get there in a day's journey into the Blasted Lands, and Vair has been there once before. He offers to lead them to the haven so that they can save the girl and he can look like a hero, or at least redeem himself in her eyes as not being part of Balek's madness. The party discusses the best course of action among themselves, and they're wary of Vair's potential duplicity in this plot. However, calmer heads prevail (and Vair makes a pouty declaration that he won't help them find the haven if they don't trust him), and Vair and party decide to set off for the haven the next morning.</p><p></p><p>They spend the night back in the city at the Howling Wolf, make a few trips to the market for supplies. Laeka checks in with her superiors at the Temple of Povra, Valar checks in with his handler for the White Masks, Marcus carefully prepares his spells, and Arien makes picks up some potions from an herbalist friend who keeps a stall at the great marketplace. The night passes peacefully, and on a balmy April morning, the group sets out. They ride to the southern bank of the Gold River and proceed out of the town altogether, then follow the river to the west for the remainder of the morning and swing south when Vair directs them to. Hegen's Wall is falling into disrepair in this section, and there's a pile of rubble leading up to a breach in it that was under repair when the Taint overtook the buffer lands to the south half a century ago. The party makes their crossing and enters into the Tainted lands.</p><p></p><p>There's general discussion about the fact that the Tainted lands look harmless enough. In fact, there's disappointment that it's not a sere and cracked landscape. Birds still sing in the trees, flowers still bloom, and the plant life is beginning to come into full verdancy like usual. Still, the cleric, ranger, and druid all feel uneasy in the Tainted lands, and point out small places where the natural order is beginning to twist. Roses with thorns that drip some viscous substance, bees that are as large as a human thumb and quite aggressive. Birds that get attacked by squirrels that sit in ambush among the branches, vines that rustle slightly without any wind going through them. Tiny signs that get more and more noticeable the farther they go to the south. </p><p></p><p>As the party is marching along at brisk pace through the Blasted Lands, the group is surprised by a sudden attack on the middle of the party by a pair of ankhegs. The ankhegs burst from the groud to the right of Marcus's horse and manages to grab the mage and reduce him to just above 0, but also to successfully grapple him and begin to retreat back down into the tunnel. The party makes short work of the ankhegs as best they can, but the damage has been done. Poor Marcus is now in pretty dire shape and Vair has also sustained massive damage in the conflict. The cleric and druid heal Marcus as best they can, but healing isn't enough for poor Vair and his wounds fester slightly from the Taint. (Marcus had made his save). Vair needs shelter, but luckily they're within easy distance from the haven he's been leading them to.</p><p></p><p>The haven that Vair is leading them to looks rather picturesque. On the hillside there's a large farmhouse that someone has been maintaining in good repair, with a spring-fed pond and several orchard trees that aren't in season yet. The thing that's strange about the place is that there's a bonfire going on piled high with bodies, and there is a pallisade of stakes around the place with various heads stuck upon them. Upon getting closer, they see that the heads are mostly orcs, ogres, and even a burnt troll-head. Arien, who's been studying to become a Dust Rider, mentions that this violates the code of the Dust Riders. </p><p></p><p>"All quarrels are set aside upon entering a haven. No one can be denied access to the haven, and no one is to interfere with another group entering or leaving the haven. To do so is to invite a reputation that will eventually lead to all other Dust Riders and adventuring groups in the Blasted Lands hunting you down and exacting vengeance upon you, putting out your eyes or cutting off your ears. Stuff like that." </p><p></p><p>Still, the party approaches warily. In the evening's twilight, they really want to enter the respite from the oppressive feel of the Taint upon the Blasted Lands, but if the Death Hounds have taken out the monsters that are arrayed so gruesomely, then they don't want to rush in like fools. Eventually, though, they decide that there's nothing to be done for it... they either enter the haven or risk the Taint for Vair, Yovaire and all of their mounts. </p><p></p><p>As they approach the actual haven itself, they are greeted by a pair of adventurers of a most bizarre description. One is a dark haired human of swarthy complexion, the other is a minotaur. They don't offer any names, but they welcome the group to the haven under the code of the Dust Riders. When Arien asks what happened there, the man explains that the monsters were stupid enough to violate the sanctity of the haven, and he and the minotaur "had to take care of them." They mention that so long as the group doesn't do anything stupid, they'll be on their way the next morning. The man and the minotaur have been making deeper jaunts and their mounts are inside the farmhouse laden down with treasure. There's a second floor to the farmhouse, and the group quickly puts Vair into the bed, where he is ministered to by the Druid (whose Heal score is higher than the cleric's) to nurse him through the night in the bubble of normalcy that the haven provides. They'll attempt to deal with the disease in the wounds on the following morning using Long Term care, but it becomes evident that they'll have to bring Vair back to the city where they'll have someone who can assist him with magical healing.</p><p></p><p>Valar spends some time eyeing the mounts and the magical haul of loot that the minotaur and his friend have amassed, and although his fingers itch to try out his thieving, the sobering reminder of the heads and bodies of the fallen prove to be caution enough. Instead, he tries to be friendly and asks for information from them. The man mentions that when they arrived at the farmhouse haven the monsters were already attacking the folks who were shacked up here. There had been some kind of slaving or raiding party of orcs and kobolds led by the ogres. The minotaur had decided he rather liked the idea of fighting inside a haven without losing the privileges or gaining a bad reputation, so the pair of them had waded into the thick of things and beaten off most of the raiding party. However, they were too late to save any of the group within. They did see a slaving party run off to the west from there, and they guessed that they would be heading to the ruins of Dorecan Manor, an old human settlement that has long been abandoned and picked clean by looters so close to the edge here. </p><p></p><p>Valar gets the distinct impression that he's not welcomed at the camp of the other pair, so he goes outside to wander the perimeter, learning the feeling of what a haven's boundary does. As he does this, he runs into an old man in the moonlight, walking by the shores of the pond. He greets the old man and the man nods and returns the welcome, saying that it's been a while since he and the missus had nice guests. The last lot has been particularly nasty, but he overheard the mean ones say that they'd be moving on in the morning, and now that there's a druid here the group can't be all that bad. Valar chats with him, and learns that the man's name is George. His wife, Martha, is back up "at the house" dealing with that sick fellow they brought. George is evidently a ghost, and the moonlight makes him seem real enough that he can manifest and interact with the living. George says that he and Martha died in a war long ago, and that on the anniversary of the war the house burns down, but appears the next morning as it is now (some nice folks restored it in thanks for their help). </p><p></p><p>Valar thinks to ask George about the folks who were here before the monsters invade, and George confirms that it was Balek and his bully boys, and they had a captive woman with them. The girl got taken first by the invading monsters, and then they made short work with all of the 'sick men' (Valar guesses correctly that George can somehow sense the Taint on the guests who are afflicted with it). George gives his blessing on their use of the haven, asks them if they could to please take down the severed heads once the other two are gone, and bids Valar good night, then walks off into the darkness to go 'walk the fields' and disappears when he reaches the edge of the haven.</p><p></p><p>Up at the house, Arien is visited by Martha herself, an older woman with a sharp face and a no-nonsense attitude. Martha tells Arien to get some rest, she'll keep the watch over Vair tonight and see that he comes to no harm. Arien feels at peace with Martha, who asks her idly if she'd mind blessing the cows in the morning for them, which Arien promises she'll do, but thinks that the cows may be gone. Martha confirms that, sighing at her own empty-headedness "this late in life. Of course, I'm dead now, but that doesn't seem to have fixed my memory problem." As Arien turns away, Martha reminds her to bless the cows before she goes.</p><p></p><p>The party rests that night with a watch, and the evening passes peacefully. The next morning the pair of unsavory adventurers leaves at first light on their way back to town, and they express dismay that the minotaur didn't get to teach the thief to keep his hands to himself and not on their treasure. The party takes down the spiked skulls and Arien decides that Vair is well enough to convalesce under the watchful presence of Martha, whose presence she feels by the bedside but cannot see. He's apparently out of the danger of infection thanks to the heal check she made, but he needs his rest.</p><p></p><p>The party forms up and decides that it's time to investigate this 'abandoned Manorhouse' they've been told of, and off they go to try and rescue Ymanoura before she takes on more of the Taint than is necessary. Odd that Balek would die unexpectedly at the hands of monsters yet still manage to see his plan set in motion. Ymanoura is most likely already Tainted because she will soon sleep or pass out in the Tainted lands, but the party hopes to be able to rescue her before more damage is done.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pacio49, post: 2049249, member: 28472"] [b]A beginning.[/b] Our tale begins in the usual way, with a bored group of people who loosely know each other from around town and a favor being asked for by a friend. After all, what could [i]possibly[/i] go wrong with helping someone out? Arien had just finished her training for 3rd level when she was approached by a friend of hers and Marcus', a human Expert (Farrier) named Tobias. Knowing Arien's reputation for goodness and taking care of folks, the thin man immediately thought of her as a possible way out of his current bind. He asked for the favor and promised to meet them at the party's impromptu headquarters in town, the Howling Wolf. Tobias had said to bring some friends, so Arien turned to the others in what became the party and got them all to help out. Tobias appeared and quickly explained his problem. His reputation as a Farrier (a blacksmith who specializes in horseshoes and shoeing horses) and his tireless work at his craft have finally paid off. He's in the employ of several of the more well-to-do houses, and even has a full-time gig at the Sapphire Manor, the local holding of one of the great families from the Jewelled Cities back home. He's successful enough that he has taken on apprentices, and that's where things begin to get complicated. One of his apprentices, a young man by the name of Vair, has managed somehow to meet the young Lady of the Sapphire household, Ymanoura Sapphire (Yma for short). At first, Tobias let their little dalliance go on, since Yma and her family recently arrived in Tol Vehara and there was nothing sinister about two youths having a bit of fun. However, in the recent weeks, it has become serious. Ymanoura and Vair started pining for each other, and now, a week before her father, Lord Sappire, is due to return from a business trip to the Gnomish Outpost, the two have disappeared. Eloped, according to one of the house maids that Tobias was on friendly terms with. Tobias did some investigating on his own, and he knows that Vair has a brother, Balek, who is a ne'er-do-well sort hanging out with the wrong crowd, a juvenile gang that sometimes met at the Wilted Rose, a tavern in the South Banks. Tobias suspects that Ymanoura and Vair will turn to Balek in order to get assistance in getting away from the city, but he lacks the muscle power to make a confident foray into the shady neighborhoods of the South Banks against a group of "young hoodlums". Will the party help? They've only got a week before the girl's father returns, and she just disappeared the day before. After a quick consultation, the party decides that they've got nothing better going on, so they might as well take a look. After an aborted attempt to try and gather their own information by gaining admittance to the Sapphire Manor, Valar (our trusty rogue) checks in with his White Mask guild contacts, finding out the general location of Balek and friends are indeed in the neighborhood of the Wilted Rose, a Gold Riverfront tavern in South Banks. The party arms themselves and makes the long trek to the South Banks on foot, crossing the Gold River to do so. As the party travels, Valar reveals that the 'hoodlums' that Tobias had spoken of were really a minor gang of thugs with a bad reputation for causing trouble called the Death Hounds. Nothing serious, according to what little information there was to be had about them from the White Masks, just one of many little bands of thugs that roamed the comparative lawless area of the South Banks. The party manages to arrive at the Wilted Rose in the late afternoon, and while they make discreet (or so they think) inquiries as to the whereabouts of Balek and his bully boys, one of said Death Hounds slips out into the back alleys and manages to alert the locals that there's something afoot. The party gets ambushed by the Death Hounds as they exit the tavern to go toward the building that the barkeep mentioned might be where they were holed up. Although the rogues in the Death Hounds are well hidden in rooftop perches, they're really no match for the trained party (albeit only at 3rd level), and the party quickly dispatches them with only minor damage to Valar, the supposedly-nimble rogue who can't dodge for anything. One of the rogues breaks off from the attack and makes a beeline for his hideout (what can I say, they're only 1st level rogues and not too bright to begin with or they wouldn't be living in the South Banks). Skalar, the ranger, makes an astonishing Wilderness Lore check to track and manages to pick up their trail among the dusty alleyways. Not that it's necessary: as it turns out the rogue led them straight to the building that the barkeep had talked about. The party approaches carefully, and circles around toward the back when they are surprised by a second ambush from the rooftops from the 'security detail' that the Death Hounds keep posted. By now, Marcus points out that for a group of bully boys, they've certainly got a handle on street fighting tactics. This suggests to him that they may be more organized than everyone on the street thinks. The party quickly overcomes the token resistance from the security detail and gains access to the Death Hounds' headquarters without too much fuss, only to find that the place has been hastily abandoned. As it is, after much poking around the rundown two story Victorian-esque house they manage to find out that the lower levels were abandoned in a hurry, but the upper levels look as though they've been carefully vacated in the recent past. Valar manages to find several minor traps by setting them off, and with a slightly numb leg and hand from pin traps he finally locates a trap door in the ceiling of one of the rooms. Pausing to listen while no one else is in the room, Valar hears the obvious sounds of someone moving about up in the room above. Gathering the party, Valar manages to get a boost up to the trapdoor and cautiously opens it. However, the party has been making noise too, and whoever's in the room has been waiting for this. With a THUD the occupant lands on the trapdoor from behind and slams the poor rogue back down into the room below with a nasty bump on his head. Marcus casts mage hand and flips the trapdoor open, and Yovaire the fighter makes a wonderful jump/climb check and manages to vault himself into the room... ...only to find that there is a rather upset-looking, dishevelled youth with his legs shackled to the wall with a length of heavy chain. The youth cringes, expecting punishment, and his dirty face shows signs of tears. Quick questioning reveals that this is none other than Vair, the star-crossed lover who spirited Ymanoura away. The party begins to question him fully, and finds out that he was indeed the one who had stolen Ymanoura off, because they were in love and she said her father would never approve. Ymanoura managed to get away because she was a sorceress, and they turned Invisible and simply walked out of the compound via the treetop routes while the guards watched. Vair's brother, Balek, had talked him into bringing her to the Death Hounds "for safety reasons", but then had kidnapped the girl and imprisoned his brother up in the attic when Vair refused to be swayed to Balek's sinister plan. After they unlock him, Vair continues to inform the party that Balek had the unfortunate luck of making a bad run into the Blasted Lands, getting caught without a haven around, and had come back with the beginnings of the Taint affecting him. He doesn't show it exactly yet, but those who know what they're looking for can see the change starting to affect him, if only in his eyes, whose pupils are slightly narrower than they were before. In a hyper-sensitive Taint-fearing society like Tol Vehara, it's just enough to brand him an outcast. It turns out that [i]all[/i] of the Death Hounds have just the beginnings of exposure to the Taint, something that isn't to the point where it will progress on its own, but enough to brand them all outcasts. And Balek, a sorcerer himself, is quite resourceful and visionary. Apparently, there's been a rumor circulating that a method exists by which the Taint can actually be reversed. Balek has subscribed to the conspiracy theory that those in power in Tol Vehara know this secret, because they successfully cured the Elf Queen of her infection with the Bane several years ago. It's an old chestnut... the drums spread the word that the Queen was stricken with the Bane and that she was offering great rewards to those who were able to discover a cure. The quarantine was relaxed a bit at that point to allow the Queen to benefit from the supposed cures. Many tried, and supposedly somehow a cure was effected (some say Wish spells, others say she kissed a kobold and that cured her, others say she died and has been replaced by a doppleganger, but those same folks tend to believe that the world is flat and that the moon is made of cheese). After this, the quarantine was reset in place, with no explanation. Balek was convinced that the cure existed, and he was enough of a social activist to be filled with the freedom and opportunity for upward mobility that Tol Vehara represented. He claimed that it was all a plot by the nobles to keep the common man down, grinding them away to nothing by tempting them to make get-rich-quick jaunts into the Blasted Lands, jaunts which ultimately kill off the ones who fall for it. Understandably, Balek is bitter, but apparently he's too intelligent for his own good and without enough common sense. It was Balek who convinced Vair that he should throw caution to the wind and follow his heart where it led him, and it was Balek who filled Vair with the courage needed to approach the equivalent of a visiting Princess of their homelands in the first place. As the party continued to question Vair, it turned out that from his perspective, it was all Balek's fault to begin with. And Balek, it seems, has gone mad. He kidnapped the Lady Ymanoura with the help of his Death Hounds, and they're planning on bringing her out into the Blasted Lands and forcing her to be exposed to the Taint. Once that's done, they'll send a ransom note to Lord Sapphire and demand that he deliver the cure for the Taint into the hands of the common folk, or else they'll complete the process of exposure and make Ymanoura Sapphire one of the Lost Ones who go completely bestial and feral and run off into the south. When the party questions the wisdom of such an action, since Lord Sapphire is invariably powerful enough that Laeka said something to the tune of "Even his household farrier can summon up a party of adventurers to go and hunt them down," Vair reveals that Balek's already thought of that and off in the land of misplaced ideals. He's going to deliver the ransom note to the Halls of Lore, the local bard college, and spread the tale throughout Tol Vehara, letting everyone know that Ymanoura Sapphire has 'broken the veil' (lost her cultural purity status), and if she manages to recover, "the people will see that the leaders have been keeping us oppressed." Vair knows where the Death Hounds would most likely go to do this without further jeopardizing their own health. There's a haven that they know of to the southwest. They'd be able to get there in a day's journey into the Blasted Lands, and Vair has been there once before. He offers to lead them to the haven so that they can save the girl and he can look like a hero, or at least redeem himself in her eyes as not being part of Balek's madness. The party discusses the best course of action among themselves, and they're wary of Vair's potential duplicity in this plot. However, calmer heads prevail (and Vair makes a pouty declaration that he won't help them find the haven if they don't trust him), and Vair and party decide to set off for the haven the next morning. They spend the night back in the city at the Howling Wolf, make a few trips to the market for supplies. Laeka checks in with her superiors at the Temple of Povra, Valar checks in with his handler for the White Masks, Marcus carefully prepares his spells, and Arien makes picks up some potions from an herbalist friend who keeps a stall at the great marketplace. The night passes peacefully, and on a balmy April morning, the group sets out. They ride to the southern bank of the Gold River and proceed out of the town altogether, then follow the river to the west for the remainder of the morning and swing south when Vair directs them to. Hegen's Wall is falling into disrepair in this section, and there's a pile of rubble leading up to a breach in it that was under repair when the Taint overtook the buffer lands to the south half a century ago. The party makes their crossing and enters into the Tainted lands. There's general discussion about the fact that the Tainted lands look harmless enough. In fact, there's disappointment that it's not a sere and cracked landscape. Birds still sing in the trees, flowers still bloom, and the plant life is beginning to come into full verdancy like usual. Still, the cleric, ranger, and druid all feel uneasy in the Tainted lands, and point out small places where the natural order is beginning to twist. Roses with thorns that drip some viscous substance, bees that are as large as a human thumb and quite aggressive. Birds that get attacked by squirrels that sit in ambush among the branches, vines that rustle slightly without any wind going through them. Tiny signs that get more and more noticeable the farther they go to the south. As the party is marching along at brisk pace through the Blasted Lands, the group is surprised by a sudden attack on the middle of the party by a pair of ankhegs. The ankhegs burst from the groud to the right of Marcus's horse and manages to grab the mage and reduce him to just above 0, but also to successfully grapple him and begin to retreat back down into the tunnel. The party makes short work of the ankhegs as best they can, but the damage has been done. Poor Marcus is now in pretty dire shape and Vair has also sustained massive damage in the conflict. The cleric and druid heal Marcus as best they can, but healing isn't enough for poor Vair and his wounds fester slightly from the Taint. (Marcus had made his save). Vair needs shelter, but luckily they're within easy distance from the haven he's been leading them to. The haven that Vair is leading them to looks rather picturesque. On the hillside there's a large farmhouse that someone has been maintaining in good repair, with a spring-fed pond and several orchard trees that aren't in season yet. The thing that's strange about the place is that there's a bonfire going on piled high with bodies, and there is a pallisade of stakes around the place with various heads stuck upon them. Upon getting closer, they see that the heads are mostly orcs, ogres, and even a burnt troll-head. Arien, who's been studying to become a Dust Rider, mentions that this violates the code of the Dust Riders. "All quarrels are set aside upon entering a haven. No one can be denied access to the haven, and no one is to interfere with another group entering or leaving the haven. To do so is to invite a reputation that will eventually lead to all other Dust Riders and adventuring groups in the Blasted Lands hunting you down and exacting vengeance upon you, putting out your eyes or cutting off your ears. Stuff like that." Still, the party approaches warily. In the evening's twilight, they really want to enter the respite from the oppressive feel of the Taint upon the Blasted Lands, but if the Death Hounds have taken out the monsters that are arrayed so gruesomely, then they don't want to rush in like fools. Eventually, though, they decide that there's nothing to be done for it... they either enter the haven or risk the Taint for Vair, Yovaire and all of their mounts. As they approach the actual haven itself, they are greeted by a pair of adventurers of a most bizarre description. One is a dark haired human of swarthy complexion, the other is a minotaur. They don't offer any names, but they welcome the group to the haven under the code of the Dust Riders. When Arien asks what happened there, the man explains that the monsters were stupid enough to violate the sanctity of the haven, and he and the minotaur "had to take care of them." They mention that so long as the group doesn't do anything stupid, they'll be on their way the next morning. The man and the minotaur have been making deeper jaunts and their mounts are inside the farmhouse laden down with treasure. There's a second floor to the farmhouse, and the group quickly puts Vair into the bed, where he is ministered to by the Druid (whose Heal score is higher than the cleric's) to nurse him through the night in the bubble of normalcy that the haven provides. They'll attempt to deal with the disease in the wounds on the following morning using Long Term care, but it becomes evident that they'll have to bring Vair back to the city where they'll have someone who can assist him with magical healing. Valar spends some time eyeing the mounts and the magical haul of loot that the minotaur and his friend have amassed, and although his fingers itch to try out his thieving, the sobering reminder of the heads and bodies of the fallen prove to be caution enough. Instead, he tries to be friendly and asks for information from them. The man mentions that when they arrived at the farmhouse haven the monsters were already attacking the folks who were shacked up here. There had been some kind of slaving or raiding party of orcs and kobolds led by the ogres. The minotaur had decided he rather liked the idea of fighting inside a haven without losing the privileges or gaining a bad reputation, so the pair of them had waded into the thick of things and beaten off most of the raiding party. However, they were too late to save any of the group within. They did see a slaving party run off to the west from there, and they guessed that they would be heading to the ruins of Dorecan Manor, an old human settlement that has long been abandoned and picked clean by looters so close to the edge here. Valar gets the distinct impression that he's not welcomed at the camp of the other pair, so he goes outside to wander the perimeter, learning the feeling of what a haven's boundary does. As he does this, he runs into an old man in the moonlight, walking by the shores of the pond. He greets the old man and the man nods and returns the welcome, saying that it's been a while since he and the missus had nice guests. The last lot has been particularly nasty, but he overheard the mean ones say that they'd be moving on in the morning, and now that there's a druid here the group can't be all that bad. Valar chats with him, and learns that the man's name is George. His wife, Martha, is back up "at the house" dealing with that sick fellow they brought. George is evidently a ghost, and the moonlight makes him seem real enough that he can manifest and interact with the living. George says that he and Martha died in a war long ago, and that on the anniversary of the war the house burns down, but appears the next morning as it is now (some nice folks restored it in thanks for their help). Valar thinks to ask George about the folks who were here before the monsters invade, and George confirms that it was Balek and his bully boys, and they had a captive woman with them. The girl got taken first by the invading monsters, and then they made short work with all of the 'sick men' (Valar guesses correctly that George can somehow sense the Taint on the guests who are afflicted with it). George gives his blessing on their use of the haven, asks them if they could to please take down the severed heads once the other two are gone, and bids Valar good night, then walks off into the darkness to go 'walk the fields' and disappears when he reaches the edge of the haven. Up at the house, Arien is visited by Martha herself, an older woman with a sharp face and a no-nonsense attitude. Martha tells Arien to get some rest, she'll keep the watch over Vair tonight and see that he comes to no harm. Arien feels at peace with Martha, who asks her idly if she'd mind blessing the cows in the morning for them, which Arien promises she'll do, but thinks that the cows may be gone. Martha confirms that, sighing at her own empty-headedness "this late in life. Of course, I'm dead now, but that doesn't seem to have fixed my memory problem." As Arien turns away, Martha reminds her to bless the cows before she goes. The party rests that night with a watch, and the evening passes peacefully. The next morning the pair of unsavory adventurers leaves at first light on their way back to town, and they express dismay that the minotaur didn't get to teach the thief to keep his hands to himself and not on their treasure. The party takes down the spiked skulls and Arien decides that Vair is well enough to convalesce under the watchful presence of Martha, whose presence she feels by the bedside but cannot see. He's apparently out of the danger of infection thanks to the heal check she made, but he needs his rest. The party forms up and decides that it's time to investigate this 'abandoned Manorhouse' they've been told of, and off they go to try and rescue Ymanoura before she takes on more of the Taint than is necessary. Odd that Balek would die unexpectedly at the hands of monsters yet still manage to see his plan set in motion. Ymanoura is most likely already Tainted because she will soon sleep or pass out in the Tainted lands, but the party hopes to be able to rescue her before more damage is done. [/QUOTE]
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