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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corran" data-source="post: 76308" data-attributes="member: 85">Session 7 – Thursday, January 10, 2002.21 AlturiakArcelle came to the inn this morning with our money. At least she came through for us on that one. She said she had also made an appointment for us tomorrow to see the King’s herald Sthavar about an adventurers charter. Sthavar, what a name, I’m glad it’s not mine. We invited Arcelle for diner and then we all went out to do some shopping. Celedor went to the Suzail College of Wizardry. I don’t know what the others did, only that Borric used his hard earned money to order a warhammer with an inscription in silver on the head. After consulting with Calim I bought myself a very good quality chain shirt, I managed to get the armorer to take twenty percent of the price. The armor fits perfectly and look quite nice as well, let’s hope I won’t get hit anymore.At diner Arcelle has a gift for Varsk, just like he asked for as payment. The gift is a two foot long horn from some beast. She told us during the dinner that it is a Tuigan war horn. She got it during the battles against the Tuigan horde after her first battle. Varsk is very happy with it; it seems a very precious gift, as it is a personal memento. When Arcelle leaves she mentions that we should think of a name to give to our adventuring group, because it is required to be on the charter. She shouldn’t have said that; we were up into the small hours trying to find a suitable name we could all agree on. Somebody, I can’t even remember who, mentioned The Talon or The Talons. I could hit my head for not thinking of it myself; the name fits perfectly with my family’s crest. After some persuasion I managed to get the name accepted; we are now officially called The Talons. [Evil DM tip: if you had no time to prepare for a session just ask your players to think up a name for their adventuring band; presto, you just filled an entire night ;-)]22 AlturiakBefore noon Winter picks us up, she is wearing a Purple Dragon Knight outfit. She takes us to the Court; an enormous complex of buildings where all of Cormyr’s administrative affairs are dealt with. The Court is located along the Promenade, a broad street with on one side the Court and expensive shops on the other. There are benches all along the Promenade, making for leisurely shopping; it’s certainly more bucolic than any streets in any of Waterdeep’s wards. We get to see the herald; he has us swear an oath to take no actions against Cormyr and the Obarskyr royal family. Nobody has any reason not to do such, or if he does he does not make it known. We do as he asks and then we are presented with our charter. We leave the office being a bona fide adventuring band in Cormyr, I can’t say I feel any different, but who knows the others might feel all warm inside, you never know. Arcelle asks if she can bring a friend of hers to dinner tonight, he might have a job for us. We agree; there’s no harm in listening to what he has to say.At dinner we meet Winter’s friend, a man in his thirties called Darvear Huntinghorn. By both his name and his attire it is clear he is Cormyrean nobility. During dinner he gives us his sales pitch. He tells us that about five to six times a year he goes into the Stonelands with a group of friends and retainers to kill the ever prevalent orcs and Zhents. According to him only three people in his group died the last five years. Until that is, the last time he went into the Stonelands. He lost nine people that time, most of whom were friends. He says they were ambushed and had no chance, he was lucky to escape alive. As to the opposition, he thinks it was a Zhent ambush.To me this does not seem like the best kind of employment, but – you guessed it – I’m a minority once again. Borric is chomping at the bits at the slightest mention of orcs and Calim starts to get that look in his eyes the moment the Zhents are mentioned. Varsk doesn’t care, he’s always happy it seems. Cadrach I’m sure is already figuring out how much we are going to make. Only Celedor remains a mystery to me, we would the aloof wizard want to go into the barren Stonelands. I would almost start to suspect him of having a secret agenda, were it not that he never tries to get us to go somewhere or do something.Calim then asks how much the pay is. After some negotiations we finally agree upon a salary of five gold pieces per day per person. The spoils will be divided equally. The only exception is heirlooms of Cormyr; these are returned to the palace. As we can’t quite imagine them lying under just about every rock of the Stonelands we have no problems with this arrangement. We also get Darvear to pay us ten days upfront to buy equipment. Darvear needs to take care of some business first, before our little foray, so we agree to leave in five days.23 AlturiakCeledor tells us he’s going to create some magic scrolls, so he’s not to be disturbed. The rest of us don’t have much to do as we already did our shopping. Varsk has been invited by Arcelle to eat at her place tonight. I’m going to see if there are any interesting antiques for sale and during the night I’ll see if there a friendly game of Swords and Shields I can get into.24 AlturiakAccording to some of the others, Varsk did not get back to the inn until this morning. I’m not going to spend any ink on this.27 AlturiakDarvear arrived this morning and we left for our first stop: Arabel. It’s a good thing too; I already lost thirty gold pieces. These people know how to play Swords and Shields, that’s for sure.1 ChesToday we arrived in Arabel. When we got in sight of the city, Varsk decide to try out his new horn, Calim was unfortunate enough to be riding next to Varsk; he lost his hearing for about half an hour. Arabel is quite a mess; the city was conquered and subsequently abandoned by a goblinoid horde not a year ago. The people there are now busy building their city up again. There was no room in any of the inns that survived, so we have to sleep outside.3 ChesToday we got to Gnoll Pass; the Stonelands are just to the north of here. Although I’m sure Cormyreans would tell you that the lands we’ve ridden through since we left Arabel are a part of Cormyr, I have to agree with those who would sooner call it disputed territory. While we did not meet any opposition we did also not see any farms and there are clear signs of humanoid traffic on the roads.4 ChesWe had hardly entered the Stonelands when Darvear suddenly told us that he saw between seven and nine orcs seven hundred meters away. My first thought was, how can he see them so far away? I asked this but he would not answer, indicating that we should sneak up on the orcs. We left the horses and slowly started moving towards the bluff Darvear pointed out to us. When we got to about a hundred feet from the bluff a head appears and then disappears again. With stealth losing its use everybody charged the bluff.</blockquote>

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