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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SurfMonkey01" data-source="post: 1480008" data-attributes="member: 1898">Prelude 1Three Years AgoFrom the journal of Link Sharloe:  Aranna, my daughter, has just returned home.  She’s been gone for more than a year.  Apparently there was some trouble down in Sembia, and the merchants’ council did what they do best: threw around their money to entice others into doing their work for them.  Aranna has been vague about exactly what transpired down there, but she did give me bits and pieces of the puzzle. Roughly fourteen months ago, the daughter of Merchant DuBrul was kidnapped, and ransom demands were issued.  Although no one knows what these demands were for sure, many of the rumors being whispered make them sound twisted and inhuman.  So of course the Council did not want to fulfill these demands.  Therefore, they sent out a call for adventurers.  They wanted these adventurers to find out who the kidnappers were, and where they had taken DuBrul’s daughter.  And of course, they wanted her brought home.  Since this was Sembia, they had no qualms about throwing around more money than most adventurers could count as an incentive to get the job done quickly. My daughter was among those who answered the call.  As her investigation began, she found herself crossing paths with three others: the dark elf Azek, son of my old comrade Chazmyr; the tiefling wizard Mourgram, escaped from the Thayan Zulkir of Conjuration; and Anciano, a deep Immaskari wizard.  The four of them soon realized that they could do more good together than alone, and banded together to find the girl. Over the next six months or so, they followed numerous clues and leads, doing everything in their power to locate the kidnappers and the girl.  I don’t know a lot of the particulars of their investigation (Aranna said she “didn’t want to bore me with the details,” which I think means she doesn’t want me to know they were basically clueless until they finally caught a lucky break), but I know it wasn’t easy for any of them, and they made more than a few enemies in that region. Finally, they caught their break.  A series of clues led them to the hiding place of a secret Zhentarim cell in the region.  Once there, they found evidence linking the cell to the kidnapping.  In a brief but fierce battle, they defeated the Zhents, and found where the girl was hidden.  They returned her home to her grateful family, who of course showered the four friends with coin.  Riding high off of their victory, the four of them traveled together for several more months, looking for a combination of adventure and trouble (and more often than not finding both). Before too long, however, they all felt the pull of their reward money: Mourgram wanted to do some work to his tower in Waterdeep, Anciano wanted to open a College of Evocation, Aranna wanted to bring hers home to me and ask me to “make her stuff,” and I’m not sure I want to know what Azek wanted to do with his.  So the four of them – once uneasy companions, now friends – parted ways. Although I’m glad to have my daughter home again, I have to wonder how long it will be for.  I have a suspicion that now that she’d been bitten by the adventuring bug once, it’s only a matter of time before she feels it again.  And when she does, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of these new friends of hers… </blockquote>

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