Fractures in the Ice: A Silver Marches Story Hour

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Before launching in to the story, or even a description of the campaign, I wanted to reveal a little bit of information about the players.

I have been a player/DM for about eight years now, and I still consider myself a rookie to the hotseat. However, four of my seven players have never played at all, and many of the vets have less experience at the table or this edition than I do. At the time of this posting, we have had three sessions, and I couldn't be happier.

These guys (and three gals) bring so much raw enthusiasm and spirit to the table that I hardly notice the rules corrections. If you haven't DMed a new group recently go out right now and find yourself 5-8 great people and kick off a game. You'll be glad you did, I know I am.

Ok, and now that the pep-talk is over, here are the basic ground rules that I set out at the beginning. These derivate from what I usually run a campaign on, but I thought they helped the "learning" atmosphere of the group.

1. Players can change characters at any time with no level penalties.
2. If a character dies, the player's next character enters at the same level. Spells such as ressurection still result in level loss.
3. 32 Point character buy, starting at first level with standard PHB gold. Characters above first level start with standard DMG gold, with equipment subject to my approval.
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   The campaign opens in 1372 DR in the Silver Marches as described in the WoTC supplement by that name. Mainly in the interest of my sanity, I did not make any massive changes at the beginning. Of course, that all went out the window almost immediately :-D
   
   The Cast:
   
   Antonius
   An older cleric full of doubts with a troubled past.
   
   Devan
   A wilderness-savvy ranger from the temperate forests to the South.
   
   Eon
   A treasure hungry fighter that knows a "trick" or two.
   
   Melkor
   A thief with a smidgeon of a conscious and occasional accomplice to Thornogil.
   
   Meree
   A small gnome with a sharp mind from the gnomish island of Lantan far to the south.
   
   Redival
   A dwarven cleric of St. Cuthbert* with a few skeletons in the closet.
   
   Thorongil
   A half-elven barbarian from the Uthgart tribes, with a strong sword arm and heart.
   
   * Although St. Cuthbert is not part of the traditional FR pantheon, Redival's player built her history and character out of the PHB without access to the FRCS and was endeared to St. Cuthbert. So St. Cuthbert migrated to Toril and set up shop
   
   The Story Hour is also availible at the campaign website: Fractures in the Ice
   
   Oh, and one last thing...This i s my first story hour and I got off to a bumpy start. It begins as more of a session log but eventually evolves into a better "story" style.
   
   And now...on with the story.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Prelude: A Trek in the Dark -- Introduction

This is the text from the original adventure announcement:

Fractures in the Ice
Prelude: A Trek in the Dark
[25th day of Marpenoth, 1372 DR]

Winter's chill is beginning to deepen in Olostin's Hold. Marpenoth is
drawing to a close, and soon the sun will only shine for a meager three
hours every day. There has been no rain or snow since the harvest, and
the land lays cold and stiff, resembling a dried corpse.

Olostin's Hold is a comfortably sized village of merchants and
woodcutters who embody many ideals of the Silver Marches. The
predominantly human town lives in relative peace with their elven
neighbors in the east and they are careful to treat the High Forest with
respect. Only fallen or dead trees are removed from the forest, and each
day experienced woodsmen depart from homes around the holdlands,
carefully marking the wood that is to be collected. The drought has
favored the woodcutters recently, as sudden snaps of cold and lack of
water has killed many weaker trees.

The gates of the hold itself remain closed for much of the day, mainly
due to the increase in the Troll activity. All the young men and women
of the watch keep nervous eyes on the edges of the moors, fearing that
at any moment they will see a group of the lumbering forms. Beyond the
occasional troll raid, nothing unusual has happened in Olostin recently.
The town seems to holding its breath, waiting for something to break.

Each of you arrives at separate times in your own manner. Thorongil
approaches from the North, grinding the frostbitten ground beneath his
feet with the swift pace of the Uthgardt. The wizard Meree treads her
weary way in on foot, thanking Mystra every step of the way that the
snow drifts have not yet formed. She hopes to soon see the earthy beauty
of Silverymoon, and the cache of knowledge that it holds. Antonius also
appears from the South, bearing the weight of his armor and his faith,
wondering wearily when he will find the answers that he seeks. Somehow
he doubts that yet another nameless town will provide any enlightenment.
Redival, freshly rejuvenated by the shining light of St. Cuthbert's
encircled cross, marches boldly into town, prepared to meet evil in the
eye. Eon arrives with little daylight to spare, and slips into the city
mostly unnoticed. He casts a quick glance across the frozen streets of
Olostin's Hold before choosing his direction. Devan approaches from the
east, shunning the road and relying on her keen senses and uncanny
knowledge of the land to carry her quickly along. Although the cramped
streets of the hold are not as comfortable as the forest, the trees are
not in the habit of brewing warm drinks. Her numb fingers twitch eagerly
at the thought of a hot mug.

As the day winds slowly to a close, each of you find your way to the
Flaming Flagon Tavern, a warm and snug establishment located on the far
eastern side of the city. The tavern itself is an interesting construct.
The building is sunk into the ground so that only the upper two feet of
the tavern are exposed to the winds above. A thick thatch roof covers
most of the common room, while a mound of dirt covers the kitchen. A
narrow stairwell and short hallway transport patrons from the bitter,
cold darkness above to the warm revelry below. Tonight the house is full
and the ale flows free. A bard plays simple tunes to adoring drunken
ears, and everyone can forget that Lady Winter is marshaling her winds
and and heralding her storms, preparing for the long siege ahead.

A quick note on the introduction: In several places I was operating without a specific backstory and just going on what I generally knew about the character. This was the case with Thorongil, and the "grinding the ice" bit has become an inside joke for the party, as debates broke out as to who was better at grinding the ice: Thorongil or Redival.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Prelude: A Trek in the Dark -- Session I

Note: Sadly, Melkor missed this section, so if you're wondering where he is, you'll have to wait until next session.

Meree has decided to be the group chronicler, but she is doing so in a very interesting fashion. She is taking a "Pictoral History" of the group. This is so charming that I felt it had to be captured in the Story Hour.

Meree's Pictoral History for Prelude Session 1

So the story begins in a tavern, like so many fantasy tales of bold adventure, and it even involves a shadowy figure, but with a twist. For the first several minutes of play, I let the players settle into their new shoes, having small roleplaying encounters with eachother and the other patrons of the bar. Antonius requested a ballad from the bard, while Thorongil went over to have a drink with several of the older, more inebriated patrons, and everyone generally floated around the inn.

After several minutes, things began to get interesting. Antonius was leaned back, enjoying his tear jerking ballad, when he caught a hint of smoke on the air. Since there was no fireplace in the tavern's main room, he got a bit suspicious and stood up, looking around curiously. It was at about that precise moment that all heck broke loose.

In the corner of the tavern room, between the wall and the bar, a previously unremarkable igure leapt from his stool and drove a knife into the unconscious farmer passed out on the bar beside him, shouting "FOUL BETRAYERS!" The death gasp of the farmer was immediately followed by a brilliant flash of green light. The flash of light washed over the entire inn room and seemed to be accompanied by the muted screams of hundreds of souls. As if this wasn't enough, the simple robes fell away from the figure and revealed a gargoyled wrapped tightly in strips of cloth! In retaliation, the barkeep stumbled backwards away from the carnage, reaching under the bar for something.

This was basically a surprise round, with those who made the wisdom check to detect the smoke gaining actions within the round. It was also great fun to do the attack by the gargoyle. Nobody was expecting it and I just casually stood up and slammed my fist down on the table screaming "FOUL BETRAYERS!" as loud as I could. Butts left seats, let me tell you. :-D

The party catapulted into immediate action, of course they weren't acting as a party yet, but the general threat seemed to make it a good idea to fight or flee. In proper first level wizard style, Meree magic missiles the gargoyle and dives under a table, hugging her mouse familiar. Antonius, Devan, Thorongil, Redival make their way over towards the gargoyle, but he makes it airborne before they can get too close, although Devan does manage to wound him in the wing. Eon decided that there was not any promise of treasure in this situation, and headed for the door, with all of the other patrons. The gargoyle rammed through the roof of the tavern, and it quickly became apparent that the roof was on fire. He then spun around and rebuked the farmer who, to everyone's surprise, had risen as a zombie, and commanded him to "Kill them all." The bartender finishes getting his crossbow from under the counter, nails the gargoyle, and heads for the back.

The ensuing rounds were generally chaotic. The gargoyle flew away immediately, heavily wounded. Each round, a five-foot ring of roof collapsed onto the tavern room below, setting people on fire and killing patrons. Poor Devan burned for about 3 rounds before Antonius' aid and frenzied "Stop, Drop, and Roll" tactics managed to snuff the flames. The zombie was dispatched after a failed turn attempt and some poor attack rolls. Meanwhile Eon discovered that the tavern door was blocked from the outside, and began trying to help the bouncer to burst the door open. When the entire situation was looking incredibly bleak, there was a burst of thunder and water flooded into the common room from the hole in the roof. The effect was two fold, it immediately snuffed the fire, but made everyone really cold.

BTW, anybody who's looking for yet another great Druid spell: CLOUDBURST ROCKS!

Everyone began to sort through the dead and wounded dispensing healing where they could, and the obstruction was removed from the outside as the town guard finally showed up. Pretty good response time actually, about 6 rounds.

What followed was perhaps some of the funniest things that I've ever seen as a player or DM. The party began to introduce themselves in ones and twos as they came into non-combat contact. Meanwhile, Thorongil goes looking for the barkeep. When he opens door after door and doesn't find him, he becomes increasingly annoyed. The crowning moment was Thorongil tromping around the barkeep's personal quarters going:

Thorongil: "Uhm...hello? Mr. Barkeep, are you back here?" I open the door.
Me: It's locked
Thorongil: Ok, I hack at the door until it breaks open. CRASH!! "I don't want to hurt you, I just want to make sure you're OK."
Oh man was it classic, especially since he never found the barkeep or discovered how he had left. The only exit they ever discovered was the front door.

Anyway, the PCs with intelligences above 8 were re-grouping above ground, trying to figure out what had just happened. They witnessed an interrogation going on a few feet away in the snow, and several PCs walked over to get a closer look. Standing in a small group were four figures, questioning a kneeling man. The leader of the inquisition seemed to be a middle aged cleric, which a quick knowledge religion check revealed to be a servant of Lathlander, accompanied by a lesser member of his order. Also present was a slender woman, obviously a druid, with her hand resting on the neck of a very large elk, and a man in armor who was forcing the prisoner to the ground by twisting his arm behind his back. Thorongil walked up at the last minute and they caught the tail end of the questioning.

The prisoner was Ranark Landhouse, a bounty hunter from the south who was on the trail of a murder who seemed to be able to assume the identity of any humanoid. Every person he had killed so far had risen again as a zombie, and witness often said they also saw a green flash of light before discovering the body. The PCs volunteered that that definitely seemed to match what they had seen, and Meree added that the creature seemed to be a Kir-Lann, an embittered race of deity-hating gargoyles. Keled asked why Ranark had to endanger everyone in the inn to capture his quarry. Ranark replied that he did not know what his mark looked like, but he knew he was in the inn. He thought that torching the inn would get the job done. At that point a thoroughly disgusted Keled broke the bounty hunter's arm and threw him face down in the snow.

As the description of the dagger came to light, Borstad, the cleric of Lathlander, look worried, but kept silent. However, his acolyte spoke, asking Borstad what they would do if the dagger's was "Jerimar's Dagge--," and that's as far as he got before Borstad backhanded him. Borstad sharply warned his young companion to not "speak that name, lest he bring evil here." From the ground, the acolyte whined, "But master, if that thing manages to slay an innocent with that blade..."

It quickly became apparent that between the calamity at the inn and the threat of troll and/or giant raids, the town could not afford to spare any guards or clerics to chase down the gargoyle, even on the hunch that he might be carrying an evil dagger. It was at this point, when all seemed lost, that Antonious stepped forward and said, "I will go, if others will accompany me." And lo, the random group of characters became a party at last.

The plan was set and arrangements were made. The party would be deputized as guardsmen, and paid wages to track the gargoyle northwards until reinforcements could be sent form the hold. They would receive a small bonus on the completion of their task, and would then be free of all duties and responsibilities to Olostin's Hold. Devan took a look at the trail, obviously worried about finding the tracks of a flying creature, but the gargoyle was seriously wounded, and seemed to be bleeding slowly and crashing every several hundred yards. The trail was readable as long as the drought held.

At this point I was getting a bit nervous. The previous group I had DMed for would have spent much longer making decisions and haggling over the small points. This is where a fresh blood really put things in to perspective. They clobbered the Flaming Flagon encounter and I was quickly running out of prepared adventure. They still amaze me with the speed that they grab the initiative and accomplish tasks.

Being so far north, I had shortened the length of the days to add an additional tactical difficulty and for environmental effect. The day is currently from about 10am-3pm and the temperature drops to the point of requiring hourly fortitude checks during the 5 coldest hours of the night.

The following morning the party set out, hours before the sun broke the horizon. During their first day of travel they are attacked by dire rats in the morning and Eon gets a nasty wound on his ankle from the rat's diseased bite. He continues to limp along on it, but he can tell that something is out of the ordinary with the wound. Redival looked at it the next time the stopped and made an excellent healing check, packing the wound tightly with soothing herbs. They passed the rest of the day without incident, and Thorongil and Devan found a sheltered place for the night. As they were settling down to camp, they were molested by twig blights. They easily dispatched them and then used their remains as kindling. In the middle of the night, during Devan's watch, Devan spotted movement in camp and was horrified to find tiny little gremlin-like things digging through Antonious' pack. She raised the alarm and began attacking the gremlins and their dire rat accomplices. All the intruders were slain or driven away, but not before they made off with a few of the party's rations. And so ended the party's first day.

The party decided to sleep in the next morning, slightly winded from the previous day's activities and so that they could begin travel in the daylight. Around noon, the trail ran cold. Devan cast about for several hundred yards before throwing her hands up in defeat. There were no more blood splatters or crash landings, the gargoyle had vanished. The party formed into a search pattern and began to comb the area. They quickly found something interesting. All of the dead trees in the area were marked by pieces of brown ribbon. Thorongil, Devan, and Meree recognized this as the markings of wood scouts, to let future cutters know what was safe to remove from the high forest. They also discovered three zombies, all of whom had claw cuts across their chest and dagger wounds on their necks. They put the zombies down and, following a general hunch, began to trace the ribbons, which seemed to be in a fairly straight path.

Although it was slow going, they finally tracked the ribbons back to the woodcutter's home. The home was a small group of domed buildings, connected by curved hallways, that seemed very capable of supporting the weight of snow and ice. The entire structure was made out of wood. As the party crested the final rise and the house came into view, they heard a high pitched scream come from the homestead. It sounded like the scream of a child.

Everyone paused for a second, and then Redival remembered the words of the Lathlander acolyte, "But master, if that thing manages to slay an innocent with that blade..."

"Oh no," she breathed, and broke into a dead run.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Prelude: A Trek in the Dark -- Session II Introduction

Here's the "Rocky & Bullwinkle" style introduction for the second session.

When last we met, our weary adventureres were "grinding ice" through the
forest. The sounds of animals had been decreasing steadily for quite
some time, and the epoch of silence was reached when they crested a
small hill. Before them was spread an odd structure, looking very much
like small wooden hills growing out of the ground. The outside of the
structures were covered in bark, and the dome shapes looked like they
would easily bear the weight of a heavy snow.

As the group looked out across the glen at this aberration, a strangled
scream ripped through the unnatural silence. The scream sounded high
pitched, almost like that of a child. For a moment, the entire party was
still, until a recent memory flashed across Redival's mind.

<<The acolyte gets backhanded for speaking a name, J something...you
don't catch it clearly. He lies on the ground, clutching his split lip
and spouts, "But master, if that thing takes an innocent life with that
dagger...! It would be unstopable!">>

In a flash her mind races back to the present. "Oh no..."

Redival breaks into a run, charging across the frozen ground towards the
complex below. "Come on!" she shouts over her shoulder. The seven newest
deputies of Olostin's Hold set their teeth and grimly approach...

Are our hero's too late? Has innocent blood been spilt with the dagger?
What powers could the goddless monster posses now? Weren't they just
supposed to track the gargyole?

Find out Sunday!!!

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Prelude: A Trek in the Dark -- Session II

Meree's Pictoral History for Prelude Session 2

Our second session got underway immediately. I drew out the map of the exterior and told the party which direction they were approaching from.

Everyone raced across the frosted ground, altering their course slightly when they saw what appeared to be an exterior door that had been ripped off its hinges. The party pulled up about 20 feet short of the door and approached a little more cautiously. The entrance the party chose was originally a set of double doors, which now lay shattered and broken, apparently by a creature with claws. Devan confirmed that they were left by the gargoyle.

As the group readies to go in, everyone is surprised by the sudden appearance of a human along the edge of the woods. The newcomer is instantly the focus of Devan's bow, and Antonius turns his sword towards the stranger. A voice of reason comes from Thorongil, "Hold, your weapons. I know this man. I don't know what he's doing here, but his name is Melkor."

Antonius and Devan were not convinced. "Why should we trust him?" Devan asked over her taunt bow-arm.

Meanwhile, Melkor was approaching the group open handed, offering no sign of attacking. When he got within speaking distance he explained himself, "I arrived at Olostin's Hold a few hours after you left. I found out that Thorongil was getting paid to track something through the forest and figured there should be room for me. So here I am."

"Throrongil?" asked Antonius, who was still pointing his sword at Melkor.
"I'll vouch for him. He's a good man."

"Allright," replied the paladin, "I hope you know what you're doing."

Shifting slightly to allow the newcomer into their midst, the party turned their attention back to the shattered doorway. The fighters, Eon, Thorongil, and Antonius, moved forward into the building. The large double doors opened into a medium sized chamber that filled the entire "pod." Inside were several stables and a large cistern. There was an opening in the roof above the cistern to allow precipitation to fall into the vessel. As the party took all this in they were attacked by a large, undead, northern cow. The shaggy beast's throat had been opened by a vicious dagger wound, and it still gushed blood as it tried to slam in to party members. Everyone quickly scrambled in and dispatched the beast. Further inspection of the room revealed that the cistern was actually opened onto an area below the current floor, but the passage was blocked by a grate. They also found a door in the corner of the room.

The door lead down a large connective hallway to the central pod. The central area seemed to be some sort of cutting area. Large stacks of wood and partially cut logs lay around the floor. Several doors led away from the area, including one at the bottom of a short stairwell leading down. This area seemed to double as meat storage, as jerked meat was hung from the ceiling. Large areas of the room, including the stairway and the meat, was blocked off by hastily installed steel bars. In the middle of the room, rocking back and forth was a small child. As the party entered the room, she stood and turned to face them, her head lolling to the side from the vicious stab wounds across her neck and chest. She began to chant and wail, "You cannot stop him, she knows all! You cannot stop her! Jerimiar! Jerimiar! Jerimiar! Jerimiar!" As the girl chanted the name, the party felt a chill prickle their spines, as if some evil force had taken notice of them.

Thoroughly freaked out, the party charged into action, slinging spells and blades at the undead child. As they reached the center of the room, they also saw a second group of enemies: undead chickens charging across the floor. The battle was rather anti-climatic, with the undead child going down in the first round quickly followed by the chickens. One chicken did manage to clock Thorongil in the forehead before being cleaved in two by his scimitar.

I'd like to take a moment to thank one of my best DMs ever for the idea of the undead farm animals. It is such a wonderful trick and adds flavor to the normal low level zombie battles that so many first level adventurers wade through. There's nothing quite like fighting a swirling cloud of undead chickens :-D. It also helped to lighten the mood of an encounter with a child stab-wound victim.

After searching around for several minutes, the party is eventually drawn to the encaged stairwell. Melkor takes a few attempts at the lock before giving up and letting Thorongil bash it throughly with his morningstar. Everyone tromps down the steps, with Devan and Thorongil in the lead. Devan pauses at the bottom of the stairs and places an ear up against the door. She faintly hears distant yelling. Certain they are hot on the trail of their quarry, she yanks on the doorknob which, much to her horror, comes off in her hand and causes a portcullis to crash down onto her and Thorngil. Both the ranger and the barbarian failed to leap out of the way, and get nasty cuts on their legs from the closing gate. Shaken, the party does some quick healing and lifts the gate passing into the area beyond.

The basement level of the complex is obviously living quarters for three men and a small girl. After the initial faint noises heard by Devan, no one hears any more screaming. Rooting through the property of the now, obviously deceased, occupants, the group uncovers a healing kit, some rations, a bear-skin rug, and a journal (included below). Meree, while playing dressup in the child's closet, also discovers something: a slightly ajar door with a faint tinge of green light seeping in from the far side. She can also finally hear the screaming that Devan detected earlier.

Meree quickly alerts the rest of the party, and everyone files through the door in the back of the girl's closet. The door opens into a natural cavern area, and Redival quickly realizes that the entire living space is built inside of a natural cavern. This coincides with the journal entries. With weapons drawn and spells readied, everyone advances down the corridor, heading towards the green light and the source of the babbled screaming. The party rounds a corner, and perched on the rim of a large, natural, cistern is their quarry. He is grasping the dagger tightly in his fist, and it is radiating a large aura of sickly green light. The gargoyle was a quite talkative opponent.

Before the session, I had everyone turn in "secrets" for their character. I told them this could be a huge secret, or a small one -- anything their character would not want to be general knowledge.

Throughout the entire combat, the gargoyle shouted streams of gibberish followed by laments such as "Where is the chest? Where have you taken it? It should be here! She says it is here, where is it!", etc. His voice seemed to be two-tonal, with a deep guttural growl overlaid by a feminine screech of sorts. Whenever anyone got close to the creature he would look at them and spit an insult that seemed to be intensely personalized. For example, the beast snarled, "Am I to fear the drunkard who's sword is as dull as his wits?" at Antonius, hinting to some past the paladin would have probably best left off of the table.

The battle with the gargoyle was satisfyingly difficult. The party got an early lead by nicking the beast with a few ranged attacks, but he responded by using Ray of Enfeeblement on Melkor and his negative energy touch on Antonius. In the end, however, mob tactics and missile fire won out, and the dagger fell from the gargoyle's slack grip.

Antonius carefully scooped the dagger up in a sheet from the living quarters, and Meree did a quick detect magic on the gargoyle. He seemed to be wearing a magical headband, which changed into a hat when removed from his head. Curious, the gnome packed it away for further study. Redival, in for more gruesome trophies, hacked the gargoyle's head free, and wedged it into her pack -- earning a few startled looks from several party members.

I'm still waiting for the party to have a discussion with Redival about her "collection." She has become quite fond of celtic-style trophies of late, but the subject hasn't come up for group discussion.

Operating on the ranting of the gargoyle, and clues found in the journal, the party felt that there was something more to be found in the cistern. After searching for a bit, they found a circular joint in the bottom of the cistern that had been caulked several times. By carefully wedging and pulling, they were able to remove a large plug from the bottom of the cistern, which promptly drained all the water into a small room below.

Curiosity overcame the group, and they all hopped down through the cistern into the pool of murky water below. Quite unexpectedly, everyone instantly felt an invasive force grip their mind out of the darkness. After a few moments of hanging mid-air, paralyzed, the party heard a voice telepathically within their minds.
"Why are you here?" Asked the voice, which sounds like one voice imposed upon a multitude of whispering voices, is definitely feminine.

"We came to stop a murder...who are you?" This is a summary of the general babble that followed the voice's question.

"My name is...Kihmet. I...died. I do not know how I came to be imprisoned here, but I am bound to protect a great treasure that lies in this room. My power is waning, and soon I will not have the ability to protect it." There is a pause before the spirit continues, "I must do everything that I can to ensure that this treasure does not fall in to evil hands. Therefore, I must test you. If I find you worthy, I will relinquish the treasure into your protection. If you are not worthy, I will slay you in the hopes that the next group to discover this place are of good intent. The test is simple. I will ask you three questions. These are not riddles, there is no single right answer, but the wrong answer will mean your death. I will ask for your consensus and then ask you individually if you agree. You will be compelled to speak the truth, I would not suggest lying. I will not listen to your deliberation, only your final answers. Do you understand?"

Having little choice but to agree to the spirit's terms, they each agreed mentally.

"Good. I wish to know: What is the embodiment of truth? What is the heart of love? What is the purpose of honor? I will return in ten minutes."

At this point I left the room, so I really have no idea what actually passed between the characters in the deliberations. Perhaps I can coerce one of them into posting what was said.
After ten minutes, the spirit returned to collect the party's answers. The group selected Meree as the spokesperson, since she had recorded the answers.

The spirit formally intoned, "What is the embodiment of truth?"

Meree responded, "Truth is Nature, because in Nature there are no lies."

Solemnly, the spirit asked each member if they agreed with the response. Each person answered a resounding yes...until the voice reached the last person and asked Meree. "No," she replied, "the embodiment of truth is knowledge. Only through learning can the truth be obtained."

The players all held their breath when Meree disagreed with the consensus. No one was really sure what the spirit would do if they did not all agree.

A tense moment of silence followed Meree's answer before the spirit continued, "What is the heart of Love?"

Collective exhale

Meree calmly replied, "Motherhood is the heart of love. There is no love greater or more fulfilling that a mother's care."

This time the party unanimously agreed on the answer, and the spirit continued, "What is the purpose of honor?"

"To govern actions between yourself and others to uphold a standard."

The first hiccup came from Antonius, who insisted, "Honor is meant to protect the weak. That is its purpose." This disagreement was immediately followed by Eon, who said, "Honor is system of beliefs used to justify one's actions." The rest of the group agreed with the consensus.

After a long pause, the spirit spoke again. "I find your words to be well spoken. I am heartened by the fact that you to not blindly follow the crowd if it conflicts with your true feelings, this speaks volumes of your judgment. I deem each of you worthy of this gift, and I have one of my own to impart. But beware, the items within the chest are not yours to give away. The gold and gems you may sell, but the items you must keep -- or fall under a dark curse. Farewell."

I accidentally left out the qualifying remark about being able to sell the gold and gems initially and had to make a quick correction. What good is gold if you can't spend it?

As the Kihmet's presence left their minds, their paralysis fell away and some of them finished the fall into the pit. In the center of the room, a spinning cube of force appeared and suddenly shattered, sending bright sparks of energy, and what appeared to be souls, in all directions. Several sparks hit the members of the party, and they felt slightly altered. Shaking slightly from the weirdness of the experience, everyone eventually began to explore the room.

They quickly found a chest in a low niche on the floor of the pit. It appeared that over the course of time, water had seeped from the cistern above and flowed around the chest into a crack at the back of the niche. The party popped open the lid and found their treasure to be quite wet. The bottom of the chest was mostly rotted away and was filled with rotten and destroyed papers. The information on the papers was indecipherable. They also discovered two vials of blue liquid, a scroll case containing a unique spell Jerimar's Retroactive Ward, a carved wooden token, and assorted gold and gems.

Meree quickly determined that the unique ward spell was what had been cast on the pit, but was unsure as to why it had broken down. The token appeared to be a token to a ward, but Meree was able to determine that it was not a key to the ward they had just set off. It apparently belonged to one of the other thousands of wards in the Silver Marches. Carved into one side of the token is a woman's head wreathed in snakes with snakes pouring out of her mouth. The other side is carved with a sailing vessel.

Satisfied that they have found all the loot, the party decides that they should begin the return journey as soon as possible. The dagger makes everyone a bit edgy, and they would like to get it back to Borstad as quickly as possible. The party doesn't get very far before bedding down for the night, still exhausted from their battles during the day.

During the first night of their rest, a dire rat approaches the camp but is spotted by the watch and flees into the night without attacking. The night was bitterly cold, and for the first time several of the party members succumb to the grip of the ice. Meree falls unconscious from subdual damage, and Thorongil has a rough night of it as well. They are both healed by Redival, and travel continues towards the Hold.

The second day of travel is uneventful, and so is the night, until Redival takes over watch from Thorongil. As she walks by Antonius, she notices that his pack is open and it's contents are strewn out across the ground. Cursing, she wakes up Antonious and goes over to chew out Thorongil, only to find the barbarian half frozen from the cold. Infuriated, the party begins to search their belongings for what is missing. They come up only one item short: the dagger.

The party makes the decision to quickly search for the thieves. Devan finds some faint tracks heading deeper into the forest, away from the Hold. She also finds dire rat tracks. The party quickly agrees that the small creatures that stole their rations before have returned. The set out in pursuit, but are delayed by the difficulty of the tracking.

After about an hour of travel, Devan finds a pit trap the hard way. She has her nose to the ground when it suddenly opens out from under her and she takes a hard fall. The party quickly pulls her out with some rope, and Melkor is placed in the lead to find any more traps. Antonius finds the next trap before Melkor can spot it, falling in a crash of armor. Sensing a pattern, they fashion a rope safety-line to keep anyone else from falling. They "find" several more pit traps, but their rope system keeps them out of harm's way.

Soon after the zone of pit traps, they finally track the footprints back to an earthen mound. One of the small creatures is standing guard outside and sees them before they can act. He quickly runs into the mound screaming what the characters assume to be an alarm.

The party makes a few smart decisions at the door. First, they place Redival in the lead. Her darkvision and size are a great asset in the dark, cramped space of the mound. Melkor also scouts around the mound for other entrances, but finds none. They sort out their light sources and begin their infiltration of the mound.

Inside they find a warren of tunnels, and are pelted on a regular basis by darts and spears. Redival managed to find another pit trap, and Thorongil got bit (and infected) by a dire rat. They experimented with splitting up, and quickly found the advantages and disadvantages of that tactic.

Most of the party was on the other end of the complex when Thorongil rounded a corner and saw a really big version of the little guys they had been fighting so far, with the dagger stuck through his belt. The larger critter cast some sort of spell and Thorongil got scared out of his wits, and ran for the nearest exit, which just happened to be an opening in the mound that Melkor had missed on his scouting run. Antonius, who was just around the corner, only sees Thorongil turn and then run screaming out of the mound. He shouts for the rest of the party and approaches cautiously.

The characters arrive in two's and three's over the next several rounds. The basic setup was the large nasty flanked by two of the normal sized critters in a rounded room about twenty feet in diameter. Antonius and Eon reach the scene immediately after Thorongil "exits," using most of their movement to get into position. The fear spell cast by the nasty cleric only lasts for a single round on Thorongil, so he starts to run back immediately after he runs away. The rest of the party was either on their way or helping Redival out of a pit, and the cleric finishes out the round by casting an unidentified spell.

The first blow was actually landed by Thorongil, who comes charging in through the hillside opening raging, blows past both of the smaller bad guys (provoking two AoAs), and slams full force into the cleric. Eon and Antonius work on the smaller opponents trying to get to the boss, but lacking the room to do so, while Meree, Devan, and Melkor work on the boss at range. A raging Thorongil, Meree's magic missile, and Devan's crack shot made quick work of the cleric, who fell to the ground and morphed into the acolyte from Olostin's Hold (the one who had been backhanded for his insolence).
Well...that was unexpected. On a side note, Thorongil charging back into the mix was absolutely beautiful. Through pure accident, this nice corridor was established between the doorway and the cleric. He hit the guy like a sack of bricks.

The party should have made short work of the remaining nasties, but a series of pathetic misses let them hang on for another few seconds, until they were finally put down. A quick search of the cleric's body revealed that he carried two holy symbols: one to Lathlander and one to Shar. Redival examined the Lathlander holy symbol and noticed that it carried just enough minor flaws to be invalid. The party also discovered a temple to Shar in the warren of tunnels. Shaken, they left the mound and continued travel back to Olostin's Hold.

The attempt to kill the remaining enemies was really quite sad. I've never seen such a poor series of rolls. Thorongil, Eon, and Antonius ganged up on the last nasty and attacked: 1...1...1. Three 1's in a row.

There was some concern, especially on Redival's part, that Borstad might be involved in the plot to take the dagger. But Antonius pointed out that the cleric had not registered as evil in the Detect Evil-dar, and it was also mentioned that Borstad could have easily sent the acolyte to reclaim the dagger without involving the party. Confident that they were still doing the right thing, the party continued onward.

They got extremely lucky on their return trip and encountered no monsters in the forest. They arrived safe, and relatively sound at Olostin's Hold. Redival helped Thorongil and Eon to overcome their diseased wounds, aided by her new healing kit, and the party received the rewards and thanks of Borstad. He was terribly shaken by the news that his own acolyte was apparently a spy of Shar and began an investigation into the matter immediately.

Meanwhile, the party relaxed and began the process of leveling, their first adventure now a thing of the past.

At the end of this first adven I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone really puts me to the test as a DM, especially in the area of prepared material: they blast through situations like John Wayne on steroids. I am also impressed by the amount of participation and roleplaying, although I don't remember the specifics of what passes between the party members, they are constantly chatting in character around that table, and everyone synergizes really well when making decisions. I can tell this is going to be a lot of fun.

Almost forgot. Kihmet gave each of the party members a gift when she broke the ward. She gave each of them a spell-like ability, useable once per day. Here's the breakdown: Antonius->Inkling (Psi-Handbook), Devan->Know Direction, Eon->Guidance, Melkor->Mage Hand, Meree->Trinket (Psi-Handbook), Redival->Missive (Psi-Handbook), Thorongil->Lesser Natural Armor (Psi Handbook). Some of the spells were altered from their original text, but the gist is the same.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Prelude: A Trek in the Dark -- Barian's Journal

The following is the text of Barian's Journal:

13th Deepwinter, 1367 DR

I had hoped that we would be done with construction on the homestead two months ago. The weather here was at least bearable then. We finally finished work on the stove today, and it is bringing warmth back into our barren little living room. Kihmet, bless her soul, is trying her best to be strong, but the children sap at her strength and I know that our unborn wears at her horribly. I love the children, but I am praying vehemently to Lathander for her safety. This old cavern should serve us quite well as a home. I'm surprised no one was using it when we arrived here.

3rd Chex, 1367 DR

I spent most of the day trying to fix that cursed cistern. Every time I caulk the cracks in the bottom of the pool, they reform within a matter of days. For all my years on a ship, I've never seen anything quite like it. I'm beginning to wonder where all that water is going, and Kihmet is teasing me that our little home best be sea-worthy, because it will float away on the cistern's lost waters. Bless her soul, she is looking worse with each passing day.

23rd The Melting, 1367 DR

Today we celebrate a birth and a funeral. Mere hours after my daughter Damarae was born, Kihmet passed away from weakness and exhaustion. We named Damarae after Kihmet's guardian, who was named to her in her homeland so many years ago. I will go into town tomorrow and find a wet nurse for Damarae. Life has been so harsh here, but the wars in the south were so much worse.

The next several years detail the success and growth of Barian's business and his pride over his strong sons and daughter. The entries express true happiness, with the occasional regretful reference to Kihmet and her fate.

5th Leaffall, 1372 DR

It has been a harrowing two days. Yesterday my sons and I were on a collection run when we came across a sick and weak bear cub. We did not have the resources to nurse it back to health, so we put it quickly out of its misery. In accordance with the laws of the forest, we brought the bear back here and used every part of its body that we could. Damarae in particular needed a new coat desperately. We did not know at the time that its mother was still alive. In hindsight, we probably should have realized that the poor beast was seeking water and had left her cub behind. The mother assaulted our homestead in the early morning, and we barely managed to defeat the poor beast. We have begun the sad task of stripping her body as well, keeping everything that we can.

6th Leaffall, 1372 DR

I do not know how it is possible, but the bear attacked again this morning. She began her assault at almost the exact time that she did yesterday, and it lasted for about twenty minutes. The monstrosity that attacked us was the same bear, without a doubt, but seemed to be composed of vines and plant-matter. We were unable to defeat this abomination, if it can be destroyed. I hope that this is not evidence that the spirit of these woods is angry with us. I must go now and strengthen the defensive measures of the homestead. Damarae is still too young to go on the journey with us, and she must have some way to protect herself if the bear returns.

26th Leaffall, 1372 DR

We are leaving this morning for a marking run. Damarae will stay behind for the last time, for her nameday is soon and she is begging to go out with us. I see no real harm in taking her along. It is probably safer in the woods than it is here with the bear. May Shiallia keep us safe.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Prelude: A Trek in the Dark -- Ward Token

The carvings on the Ward Token:

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Chapter I: Peddling Sin -- Session I

View Meree's Pictoral History of this Session!

The first session of this chapter was played just after a nasty ice storm hit the South (or as a Northerner would say "a dusting"), and so we wound up with some interesting player arrangements. Eon's player was unable to attend, due to the weather, and two of my friends wound up joining the session because they were without power and quite bored. So Eon was bundled into the background, present but inactive, and we were Joined by Maxamillion (Pal 1/Clr 1 of Torm) and Borus (Ftr 2). Sadly, I ran out of time to do an e-mailed introduction, so the session begins with everyone just finishing up their leveling training...

The past several days were a nice break for everyone, as many members of the party exercised their newfound abilities. The party finally began to feel the teeth of the North, because the night they returned from the forest, a chill wind and snowstorm blew into Olostin's Hold, making everything cold and dreary. Meree began to copy spells into her spellbook, while Devan went in search of her first animal companion. The only item out of the loot pile that was sold was a rusty old sword found in a closet of the woodcutter.

On the evening that Devan trotted back in to town with a beautiful wolf affectionately named "Wolfie," each member of the party received a brief note from Borstad, cleric of Lathlander, requesting their presence the following morning at six. The note also indicated that they should come prepared to travel.

I am not sure if Wolfie is the permanent name for the wolf, because Devan's player was absent for the first portion of the adventure, but I'm pretty sure that if something else isn't created soon, it will stick. I'll probably call it pooch anyway ;-)

The following morning, they each made their way to the temple of Lathlander, shivering as the cold wind found every opening in their clothing. Inside the beautifully decorated temple, they were welcomed by an exhausted Borstad and Felevel. Borstad introduced the party to two town guardians, who had been out on a mission when the party left to track the gargoyle: Maxamillion and Borstad. He tells the party that they will need all the help they can get on this mission, and he trusts the two guardians.

Once introductions were out of the way, Borstad motions for the party to follow him, and leads them through the beautifully decorated temple. The floors are inlaid with magnificent sun symbols, and statues of Lathlander adorn every corner. Finally, he ushers the party into a large room that appears to be his office. Felevel enters behind the party and quietly shuts the door while Borstad casts a quick spell. Several divine casters of the party recognize the spell as some sort of ward against divination magic.

Borstad begins, "Before I go any further I must have an oath from each of you that what I am about to tell you will not get told to another soul. Whether or not you accept the mission I am about to propose, my words must not leave this room."

Several members gave their oaths, but others wanted a bit more information, especially Antonius, Redival, and Maximillion, who are not in the business of giving oaths that might conflict with their beliefs. "How do we know the oath we are swearing is one that we can keep?" asked Redival. "You may be swearing us to secrecy and then telling us that you plan on murdering an innocent. I could not keep such an oath."

"It is nothing that will require you to break your vows," Borstad assures them. "I would never ask you to swear such an oath. What I am asking is for you to swear that what I am about to tell you does not fall into the wrong hands."

Nods and verbal affirmatives from everyone allows Borstad to continue. "Immediately after you returned the dagger and Hugar's...head...to me, Felevel and I began searching for more information on agents of Shar within the church of Lathlander. It seems that Hugar was not the only spy within our order, and that even now, agents of Shar are active within the Lathlander temples on major trade routes across the Silver Marches, feeding information about trading activities to their dark Goddess."

"It sounds like your church is weak Borstad, this would never happen within St. Cuthbert's order," boasts Redival, her dwarven face radiating outward disgust and inward pride.

"Watch your words," warned Borstad sharply, "our divinations indicate that the agents have not infiltrated Lathlander alone, but I am loathe to pry into the business of other orders." Redival looks slightly taken aback as Borstad continues, "After discovering the extent of this infection, I enlisted the aid of Felevel to find out how we could extract these spies. With a lot of detective work, and no small bit of luck, we managed to uncover Hugar's messenger, his link to the rest of the spy ring. Since Hugar lacked the ability to magically send his message, he relied on an old peddler by the name of Finmar to carry his information to Everlund. Unfortunately, we arrived at this information too late. Finmar came to the city soon after your return, when the hold was still buzzing with news of Hugar's death, and left that same night. We know that he is making hard for Everlund. He will be there by the end of the day. We believe that the peddler is heading for a Shar cell in Everlund, and we need that cell silenced."

"Why send us?" asked Antonius and Maximillion, "Why not send guards or clerics of Lathlander?"

"As much as I would like to send an army of clerics charging northward, I do not believe that it is an option. If the cell in Everlund posses the ability to spy on our location, it would be too risky to send such a group from the gates, it might arouse suspicion. And we are also under just as much threat from a troll attack now as we were when you left to retrieve the dagger; even moreso actually, trolls have been spotted around the edge of the east woods several times over the past two days. The cold must be making game scarce.

"The largest problem is getting you North undetected and in less than a day. This is where Felevel's expertise will help," with a meaningful nod, Borstad turns the explanation over to Felevel, who steps forward from her position at the rear of the party.

"Many years ago," begins Felevel, "the elven kingdom of Siluvanede built a great magical road in the treetops of the High Forest called the Sky Road. This magical roadway acted as a major artery for quickly transporting elves to almost any location in their kingdom. Now it is mostly forgotten, but a few still know it's properties. First, it vastly increases your rate of travel, because each step you take on the road equals hundreds of steps on the ground. Second, it masks travelers from most forms of divination, so anyone watching will simply think that you have vanished into the woods. By taking the Sky Road, your trip will be reduced from two days of travel to six hours of travel. You should arrive a few miles southwest of Everlund by one o'clock today. I shall cover the specifics of the Sky Road in greater detail when we get to the nearest access gate."

"Now," resumed Borstad, "I understand that you completed your last mission for almost no gold, and I applaud you for it. However, the gravity of this mission prompts me to give you a little more compensation. I am prepared to give each of you 100 gold now and a note for 100 gold from the temple of Lathlander when you complete your mission. Is this satisfactory."

"We each get 100 gold?" Asked Melkor, in disbelief.

"Yes, this is a no easy task. It is well deserved if you complete the mission. So, 200 gold for traveling to Everlund and silencing the spies there. No spy of Shar can escape, or her agents will slip through our fingers. Understood?"

With nods of agreement all around, Borstad stood, "Good. Once you have silenced the agents, contact Mertor, the head of the temple in Everlund, and inform him of the situation. He will pay you the remaining 100 gold and make sure that any spies within his order are dealt with. One last thing, be careful of the old peddler, Finmar. I fear that he is more dangerous than he looks."

With those parting words, the party funneled out of the temple, following Felevel to the High Forest. Luckily, they encountered no wandering mischief, and arrived at a rather nondescript patch of forest after a thirty minute walk. Felevel moved to the base of a tree and carefully brushed away some of the dead fall. There, inscribed in the dirt, was a circle of red, elven script.

"This a gate to the High Road," Felevel explained. "Everyone who wishes to enter the road stands in the circle, and one person, who must have elven blood, speaks the name 'Siluvanede.' You will then be transported on to the road. There are gates along the road identical to this one, and you leave the road in the same manner. You are looking for Gith's Gate, it's sigil looks like this," she carefully drew a complex elven rune in the dirt, which no one in the party could understand because no one speaks elven. Meree scribbled it down in her notebook, however, so that there would be no mistake.

"Good luck," said Felevel, as the party stepped into the ring, which seemed to expand to include all eight of them.

Nodding, Melkor spoke, "Siluvanede," and the world dissolved into a rush of color. There was a few seconds of disequilibrium as the surrounding forest condensed into streaks of color, as if they were rushing upward, but there was no other sense of motion. Then, suddenly, the party was standing on Sky Road.

The road itself was more of a bridge, running from tree to tree and supported in the crowns. It did not run in a straight line, but seemed to move opportunistically from one tree to the next closest one, running generally north to south. The party was currently standing on an octagonal platform, surrounded by the red elvish circle. Maxamillion took a few careful steps out of the circle and was immediately disoriented as the forest floor below rushed by in an irregular, jumpy fashion. Further examination of the forest below revealed that it seemed as if the Sky Road was hundreds of feet in the air, taller than the normal trees in the High Forest.

"Weird," was all Redival had to say, and she seemed to speak for the entire party.

A quick inspection of a sign-post on the octagonal platform revealed that the proper direction to travel to reach Gith's Gate. The party quickly found a comfortable formation and set off down the Sky Road, trying to ignore the disquieting jerking motion of the forest floor below.

"Wow, this would be a perfect hideout for bandits," commented Borus.

The party had been traveling for several hours when Maximillion suddenly gave a shout of surprise. His feet were trapped in some sort of spider web. At the same time, two six foot long spiders dropped down on the party from above and began attacking the front line. The short combat generated quite a lot of noise, as the party members tried to move around eachother on the bridge to land blows. Antonius was unlucky enough to get bitten twice, and both times he felt himself grow weaker. Gritting his teeth, he continued to swing his (much heavier) bastard sword.

Soon after dispatching the spiders, the party heard a commotion ahead of them on the bridge. Moving forward, they spotted something that they had not expected. Ahead of them, and just around a sharp bend in the road, was a portcullis, lowered onto the bridge. The portcullis was in a frame built on to the bridge, but it looked like it would be a relatively simple matter to swing around the outside of it. On the other side of the portcullis, attached to the side of the bridge, was a large building. In front of the building, were three men. One of the men drew his bow and approached the portcullis, one ran further down the road and out of the party's sight, and the final man ran into the building. All three were shouting at the top of their lungs.

Quickly, the melee fighters made for the gate, as the archer opened fire from the other side of the portcullis on the unprotected rear of the party: Devan, Melkor, and Meree. To their dismay, the fighters found that the area in front of the portcullis was the home of two three foot long spiders, as Antonius got caught in a web and the spiders began attacking the fighters. Thorongil, Redival, and Antonius worked on the spiders, while Max and Borus tried hacking through the gate with little success. Meree released a precious magic missile at the archer, while Devan and Melkor pelted him with arrows, only occasionally making it through his armor. After being struck by an arrow, Meree took shelter behind her taller companions, clutching her Maus and hoping that she did not get targeted again.

Finally, Redival had enough of trying to hack through the gate. Taking a careful hold on the side of the portcullis, she swung out and around it's end, winding up unharmed on the far side. A few seconds later, Borus' brain awoke, and he too swung around the side of the portcullis. With fighters dispatched against the now bastard-sword weilding opponent, and Redival cranking the winch to lift the portcullis, the battle was quickly over, but Melkor was nervous of the noise that had been generated, and moved up the bridge slightly to cover any reinforcements.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party was looting the corpse of the human fighter and dispensing some much needed healing. Among his items they found a superior quality long bow, bastard sword, some medium quality half plate, and two potions. Antonius, with his strength depleted and taking more hits than he desired, started to change into the half plate as the rest of the party lined up for healing.

Unfortunately, Antonius was halfway out of his armor when the double doors on the side of the building burst open, and two hairy spider legs cautiously probed out into the open air. The legs were followed by the lumbering body of a ten foot long spider, and perched on its back, holding a lance and enwrapped with a spiked chain, was the elusive bartender. The shock only lasted for a moment, as Melkor released an arrow at the rider, missing by a foot.

I had been waiting all evening for this moment. I hadn't used the bartender mini since the original Flaming Flagon encounter, so everyone thought I was joking when I placed the mini on the table.

CM: Well Thorongil, you found the bartender.
Thorongil: Oh, hah.
CM: No, I mean really. Astride the spider is the bartender, carrying a lance and wrapped in a spiked chain. Oh, and he doesn't look happy.

Melkor's arrow broke the tension, as the bartender's mount charged out across the bridge, overrunning Melkor and attempting to plant his lance into Borus. Missing by a mile, the bartender began hastily switching to his spiked chain as the spider lashed out at nearby adventurers. Everyone began to shift in to gear as Antonius, Max, Borus, and a (now frothing-mad) Thorongil moved in for melee and Devan began firing arrows. Meree and Redival decided to steer clear of the encounter, and Melkor, who was close do unconsciousness, began to eek away from beneath the spider. The spiked chain came out, but did not last that long, as Borus sundered it with a solid crack! The large spider managed to cause several more wounds, and began screaming at the party when they damaged it, "You shall pay for that!...[bite]...I will kill you all!"

The bartender remained mysteriously silent, and could apparently tell that his mount was quickly dying under the sure blows of the heroes. In a sacrificial move, the spider backed up toward the open door and the bartender tumbled off, back into the safety of the unexplored hallway. It was dead seconds after its rider dismounted.

Not yet willing to split up, there was a brief moment of regrouping before the party surged into the hallway. Suddenly faced with tighter quarters, the fighters began cussing as every decision put precious sword arms out of reach. They finally maneuvered into the doorway that Borus had spotted the bartender disappear into, when things got interesting again. Lacking his normal weapon, the bartender turned to the only other thing in his possesion: alchemist fire. The mini-fireball hit Borus and several nearby fighters before they stepped in and finished the job.

Momentarily out of the fervor of combat, everyone stops to examine the building and their own personal wounds. Due to the flagging resources of the clerics, several of the precious healing potions are distributed, and Melkor begins to do his duty, exploring the complex. He begins with the room that the bartender was backing in to, which was apparently some sort of bedroom. Scanning carefully with his eyes, and occasionally poking with his dagger, he carefully scans the room for traps. The rumpled bed has been slept in, piles of unreadable, apparently encrypted, documents adorn the desk, the dresser contains a few nicely made garments, but the most attractive object is a trapped chest. Upon closer inspection, Melkor deduces that attempting to pick the lock will cause a small needle to stab the "locksmith." Everyone racks their brains for a moment before Melkor lookes over his shoulder and shouts, "Thorongil!"

The barbarian lumbers in, "What?"

"Could you bash this chest open...carefully?" asks Melkor.

"Right," says Borus, "I'm going to stand outside."

Melkor also exits the room, with an encouraging smile to the barbarian, and goes to ply his talents further down the hall where Meree has discovered an empty room covered in spider webs. The gnome is currently examining a closed door, which Melkor confirms is not trapped. To be safe, Thorongil is called forward, grips the knob, and is paralyzed. Luckily, the effect is only temporary, and the group finds some sort of storeroom behind the door.

All told, between the chest and the storeroom, the group comes away with some serious loot. 230gp, 2xMalachite (10gp), Jeweled Electrum Ring (5,000gp), Silver chalice with lapis lazuli gems (105gp), Sapphire pendant on gold chain (1,750gp), 5,000sp (in a chest), Old Masterpiece Painting (1,400gp), Large Well Done Wool Tapestry (350gp). Almost all of the material (except for the actual gold itself) is marked with a very distinctive heraldic device.

"We're rich!" exclaims Melkor, accompanied by delighted claps from Meree.

Meanwhile, Antonius has finally managed to change out of his breastplate in favor of the half-plate stripped from the fallen guard. Borus and Thorongil are in the process of rounding up the party to investigate another hallway. They finally decide to forge ahead with out Meree and Melkor, who are trying to decide how to lift the 500 pound chest. With Devan and Redival in the rear, the melee types open a set of double doors around the corner from the bartender's bedroom. The doors open into a stable, currently holding four horses and waiting guard. The only other exit is another set of double doors behind the guard.

Surprised, the fighters pull up as the guard lets an arrow fly before dropping his bow and placing his hand on the hilt of his bastard sword. "I don't like these odds," thinks the guard, "if only i can draw them outside..."

The loosed arrow breaks the fighters from their shock, and they rush forward with weapons drawn. Borus levels a telling blow after a reckless charge, quickly followed by a miss from Thorongil. Antonius shouts for reinforcements and tries to find an unoccupied opening in the tight space of the stable. The horses neigh and buck wildly in their stalls as the guard tries desperately to keep his assailants at bay, carefully backing away, pushing one double door open with his movement.

With blows raining down from all sides, the guard is showing heavy wounds when the rest of the party rushes in to the other end of the stables. Melkor slinks forward to try and find an opening, while Devan looks hopelessly for a shot: the quarters are too close even for her precise aim. Meanwhile the guard is has managed to back most of the way out of the door, which opens back onto the Road. Frustrated by a series of misses, Thorongil uses his incredible movement to dodge around the guard and into a flanking position. Out of nowhere, an arrow impacts with Thorongil's head with incredible force and the massive barbarian drops with a heavy thud. Screaming, Antonius and Borus hack the guard to pieces while Melkor desperately drags the barbarian back into the stable, using the heavy stable door as cover.

Redival is instantly by the barbarian, but there is nothing she can do. Tears running down her ruddy face, she simply shakes her head. "Vengeance," hisses Max. Acting as a tactical team for the first time, Melkor and Max begin to shout orders.

"Redival, Antonius, you'll be the first out. Neither of you have been hit, and you'll be the hardest to hit. Both of you screen Devan, she'll provide us cover. I caught a glimpse of another one of those portcullises down there, the archer is firing from behind that. The rest of us will follow you three. Meree you're last." Satisfied, Melkor bends over to clap his old friend on the shoulder and distribute the two healing potions the barbarian had in his belt.

The plan works nicely, with the freshest fighters charging out first trying to work their way around the bridge. Devan tries to pin the archer down, but the portcullis gives him some cover, and she has trouble threading the needle. At first the guard drops his bow and stands ready on the open side of the portcullis with his bastard sword drawn, waiting for one of the intruders to try swinging around the end. However, the feverish attack by Redival and Borus on the wooden gate makes him nervous and he backs away to the far side, hoping to lure them across.

Antonius is the first to take the bait. Swinging around the end of the portcullis, he lands right on the edge of the Road. Under heavy arrow fire from Devan, Melkor, and Meree, he charges across the Road and slams into the heavily weakened paladin, trying to knock him over the side. Unfortunately for the guard, he loses his footing at the last minute and Antonius shrugs off the attack. At almost the exact same moment, Borus opens a space in the portcullis large enough for Redival to squeeze through, and soon the guard is trapped between far too many invaders. Trapped by another lowered portcullis, the guard screams as the party repays Thorongil's death with grim efficiency.

Behind the portcullis is yet another octagonal platform, this one holding a gate off of the Road. Although the gate is not Gith's Gate, some are tempted to use it anyway, worried about what else might be in store ahead. In the end, several quick decisions are made. After discovering that there is no apparent winch for raising the other portcullis, several people set to work on destroying the barrier, while Devan and Melkor coax one of the frightened horses out of its stall. They hoist Thorongil's body onto its back, and tie the heavy chest of silver securely behind the saddle.

Regrouped and low on health and healing, the party begins down a long section of Road capped by yet another portcullis. The right side of the road is open, but the left is still occupied by the building the party had entered earlier. Two doors are unopened into the building.

Curious, the party sets to exploring the doors. Cautiously, they peek inside the first one and discover a living quarters, with six beds, four of which look to be slept in recently. There are also footlockers at the end of each bed, which are quickly raided by Melkor.

"Four beds, four horses," comments Melkor, "Best case scenario, there's only one guard left. Worst case scenario, there's at least four." Max makes a sour face at the prospect. The party can ill afford more beating.

The next door leads into a mess hall, with two long tables that is currently empty. A door at the far end of the room is carefully explored by Devan, and leads into the kitchen. The dull pots and pans do not catch her eyes, but a small half-door left of the stove does. She creeps up to it and listens intently at the door. She hears a low cough and shuffling from the other side. Waving to the rest of the group, she kicks open the door and looses an arrow in one fluid motion.

The half-elf guard waiting on the other side of the door is crouched behind a bay of arrow-slits looking out onto the other entrance to the compound. Focused on the noise of the horse and party members in the hallway, he does not notice Devan's approach until her arrow catches him in the side. In a tight area with no exit, the battle is quickly done. Fighters surround the guard and wounds quickly open under his half-plate. Melkor looks through an archway and uses his mage hand ability to momentarily distract the guard by dropping a cloth on his head, causing one of his blows to swing wide. The mistake proves to be his last, as he falls from arrow and sword wounds.

Tired and bruised, the party cranks the last two portcullises open and steps onto the other side of the compound. As they take the first few cautious steps away from the portcullis they hear a loud drumming, as if hundreds of feet were coming toward them from the other side of the building. Then they hear the shrill trill of a spider...then another...then a chorus of angry clicks and screeches. "Run!" shouts Max, and the party burst into a jagged trot, leaving the ill-fated outpost far behind.

After another thirty minutes of travel, they finally arrive at Gith's gate. With a simple "Siluvanede," the party is back on solid ground, and a mere thirty minute walk from the city of Everlund. Happy to be alive and on solid ground, the party begins to make plans.

First, they sadly bury the body of Thorongil. Max and Redival say a few words over his body, while everyone else looks on in respectful silence. Then they turn to the dilemma of silencing the Shar cell. Everyone agrees that the peddler Finmar must not be allowed to contact the cell, and that it will be much easier to silence him outside of the city. They scout the gates, standing in the light of the rapidly fading sun, they decide that taking him close to the gate would be too risky. They finally find a nice ambush spot a sharp bend in the road a ten minute walk from the gate. For hours they crouch in the bushes on the side of the road.

They know that their mark should make the gate before it closes at six, but are unsure of his exact arrival time. As it approached gate closing, the traffic on Evermoor Way slowed, but the party continued to wait in the dark, freezing hands clutching weapons and nervously loosening them in their sheaths.

Finally, when they had lost almost all hope, they hear the sound of a lone wagon coming up the path. Rounding the bend is a decrepit old wagon emanating the faint sounds of pans clanging together and the rattling of "cure-all" potions. Suspended on a pole behind the driver is a lantern, which provides a globe of light in the surrounding gloom. In the oscillating light of the lantern, the wide-brimmed hat and gaunt form of the driver is illuminated: Finmar the Peddler.

Waiting until the last possible second, the party springs the trap. As soon as the peddler swings within range of Antonius' Detect Evil he nudges Devan. The peddler is very evil. Devan aims carefully, and shoots, but misses wide and to the left. Their quarry seems unphased, apparently he did not hear the arrow loosed. Melkor shoots, and misses.

Tired of waiting, and worried that the peddler will make it around the bend, Borus charges. Screaming a wordless battle cry, the fighter clears the forest and slams his blade into the peddler. It has almost no effect. The greatsword seems to skid off some hard substance beneath the peddler's voluminous cloak. Finmar looks down at Borus with an almost skeletal grin and says in a frosty, raspy voice, "You dare to challenge a servant of SHAR?" He then levers himself out of his seat, and his cloak falls open to reveal that the bottom half of his body is made out of bone wheels. As he stands, he pulls a massive maul out from the bed of his wagon and grins wickedly.

Fighters begin to swarm the wagon as Meree tosses a rock enchanted with a light spell into the middle of the road to help everyone to see. Wolfie holds the wagon's donkey at bay, while Devan still tries desperately to hit the strange peddler. Sparks fly off of the peddler's body as Max, Borus, Antonius, and Redival try to overcome the sheer hardness of the thing's bones. Meree quickly consults her arcane knowledge and realizes that the peddler is some sort of half-construct: a man who has had missing limbs replaced with golem parts. "Magic won't hurt it," she yells, "and neither will normal weapons. You need an enchanted blade!"

"Tell me something I don't know," grunts Max, as more sparks fly from his axe.

Finally, Borus tires of hitting the peddler and decides to take out the maul instead. He begins striking at the shaft of the weapon, but has some serious difficulty doing any damage to the hefty weapon. For nearly twenty seconds he makes desperate lunges at the thing's weapon, suffering a rather gruesome blow to the head in the process. But finally the weapon breaks.

Meanwhile, the party, who is embroiled in combat, misses seeing another caravan approach from the rear. "Gaedyn," calls the caravan master.

"Yes Sir," answers the bow wielding caravan guard.

"Go see what that is all about and report back to me. We're going around at a full gallop and making for the safety of the walls."

"Yes Sir," he responds and trots forward toward the scene. What he sees horrifies him. A group of vagabonds have onset what appears to be some sort of monster. "What's going on!" he shouts.

"We're trying to take out this evil [female dog]," shouts Antonius. More sparks fly from the end of his new bastard sword, "And we can use all the help we can get!"

"Alright..." responds the archer. And proceeds to bury his arrow into the abomination, right as Finmar's maul shatters.

Dumbstruck, the old peddler reaches deep inside him and calls for Shar's aid, releasing a wave of fear on to Borus, who immediately runs screaming from the combat and into the High Forest. He then suffers a hailstorm of blows from the rest of the party. Now in an unknown race against time, the party tries to drive blows past the peddler's thick armor as the caravan races to the gates of Everlund.

Eventually the peddler's defenses give way, and he collapses backward into the wagon. The party falls back, exhausted and introduce themselves to Gaedyn, their unexpected calvary. They are just beginning to collect their thoughts and decide what to do, when a full detail of Everlund's guard comes racing around the corner at a dead run.

"Surround them!" the man in front yells to his men, and the thirty guards quickly comply. Melkor decides that this would be a good time to make an exit, and tries to melt silently into the shadows on the side of the road, but a glint from his dagger catches the eye of a guard who shouts, "You there! Stay where you are!"

"What is the meaning of this!" asks the guard, gesturing to the drawn weapons and dead peddler.

Antonius, designated face man, steps forward and tries to explain. "Captain, this man is...was....an evil monster. And it was our sworn duty to stop him from reaching Everlund."

"So instead of informing the town guard, you have committed murder on Evermoor Way? This is a serious thing you have done here. Do you know..."

"Lieutenant!" shouts one of the guards, who is leading the party's horse out of the woods, "Look what we found!"

The lieutenant walks over to the horse and turns back to the party with a look a white hot anger. Something he has seen on the horse has infuriated him. "No more talking. Lock them up!"

As the guards begin to mobilize around the party, Max pleads with the lieutenant, "What have we done? Why will you not listen to reason?"

"I do not reason with criminals. That is for the court."

"But--" Max is interrupted by yet another call from the guard by the horse. He has dug out the papers that the party took from the bartender's desk. As he glances through them, he suddenly drops the papers and backs away from them as if burned. The lieutenant crosses back to the horse and glances at several of the papers. When he looks up, his eyes are closed to angry slits.

"Lock them up in the deepest, darkest, cell," he hisses.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

That's it for now...

Well, that's all I've got for now. I'll post the next e-mail introduction after I get it out to my players. Please let me know if you've enjoyed the story so far!

Oh, and this is my first attempt at Story Hour, so lemme know what you think of the writing. What you'd like more of, less of, etc.

Thanks!

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Interlude: A Matter of Law

Here's the next e-mail introduction. We play Sunday!

Fractures in the Ice
Chapter I: Peddling Sin (Interlude: A Matter of Law)
[8th Day of Uktar -- "The Rotting", 1372 DR]

Three nights and two days. Three nights and two days have passed in this
awful, dreary place since the guards drug you down into the pit. Each
step of the way you begged them to stop, to halt and listen to your
story. At first your voice was strong and indignant, offering reasons
and explanations for your actions, insisting that you only did what had
to be done.

But your pleas fell on deaf ears. Half-walking, half-drug, your back
was arched around the point of a sword, causing your voice fade as you
struggled to maintain some dignity. Under the quick gait of the Everlund
guards, the city was reached must faster than you anticipated, and you
found yourself whisked through the heavily guarded Bridge Gate.

The guards maintained a tight-lipped silence, but such a large group
moving through the streets attracted attention. Soon your protective
ring of guards was surrounded by an envelope of onlookers, curiously
whispering, wondering what crime you had committed, even as you did the
same. Eventually the buzz in the cloud of plebeians rose to a roar as
they demanded to know your crime, pelting you and the guards with rotten
fruit and pieces of refuse. Angrily you and several of the others raised
your voices against the crowd, trying to explain your innocence, to
reason with the fervor of the mob. Even Devan's wolf tried to snarl and
bite at the gathering crowd, but the muzzle on his snout and three
guards holding his leash kept him silent.

Finally, you were pushed roughly through the doors to the prison, and
the mob was blocked out by the slamming of a heavy wooden gate. You
stood for what seemed like hours in a desolate courtyard in the freezing
cold of the North. Devan's wolf was removed first, drug away from the
ranger as she cried desperately after him. Minutes later, you were all
led into a dark, looming tower. For a moment your movement was paused as
a grate was lifted and something was spoken from one guard to another.

"Take them...lowest...pit."

Down. From there you went down. Down from the light of the sun and the
wind of the surface. Down to the cell that you occupy now. Stripped of
equipment before you entered, even Devan's sprig of mistletoe and
Meree's small pouch of components. Only your clothes remain, and even
those thick furs are barely enough to protect you in the cold darkness.

Only from the changing of the guard above and the barest clues from the
atmosphere allow you to mark the passage of time. It is the morning of
the third day, although you guess that it must still be dark above the
ground.

Suddenly the grate above you lifts. It is too early for food, they only
bring it once a day. "Get up," says a harsh voice from above, "it's time
for your trial."

Each of you climbs out of the pit, or are hauled bodily from it, and
forced to shower under supervision. Then you are given clean robes and
led back up to the surface, through twisting corridors and down a long
causeway, which seems to separate the prison from the courthouse.
Immediately upon entering Everlund's law building, you can notice a
change in the decor. The halls are well-lit and filled with obvious
displays of wealth and power. Finally, you arrive at a door that appears
too small to provide entrance into a courtroom. You lay your hand upon
the knob and take a deep breath.

Whatever you may expect, a fair trial does not seem likely.