Chapter One

Turn 1 - Keridwynne

You have arrived in the town of Blyth and have inspected the house of one Sir William Doherty. It is a large house with well kept gardens and even a pond that seems to be stocked with fish. The gardens have been set up for the winter covered in straw and whatnot.

For days you notice no one in either the forest or at the house. No one seems to come and go. Sometimes late at night, when the lights in the house are singled down to just one room, you see a single figure silouetted in the window. It looks bent over and old. Sometimes you can see it have coughing fits and once you are sure that it threw up.

Nov. 2
This day, windy and cold, has come and with a man, who seems to be staring at the house and you. You watch him and he watches you. He is half-elven and is wearing a well kept cloak of a royal blue. He looks at you with the intensity of a cat about to pounce on prey. He never moves to confront you nor does move about much. You decide that maybe he is doing what you are and you retire for the night.

Night brings little sleep, your mind is awash with visions of the pond in the back of William Doherty's house. You seem to dive in and out of it, but very little else. Always though when you come out of it, you seem to be in a hurry as if something chased you.

Nov 3
You arrive at William Dohertys house and knock. He answers the door. From here is the point the game will start.

Turn 1 - Talorc of the Heath

To answer a few questions for you first, yes both seals on the notes were broken, indicating that someone read both of the notes before you got them. Blyth is 2 days ride by horse from you. So your ritual can occur upon any night you wish it to and does as it happens you choose to do it on Oct. 31. It is a cold night, with the wind howling in great fury, you take extra precautions to avoid forest fires. You start a small fire and place some more fuel upon it. It springs to life. It flames soaring above you. The small clearing in the forest is cast in every changing shadows and the flames soar higher. You dance around in the forest watching the flames trying to touch the sky. No one bothers you. You finish early in the morning as the fire has now died to embers.

Days later after a very circuitous route you arrive on Nov. 2. Traveling to 1213 Overton you spy a house, a rather large house. The resident must be wealthy by the look of it. Well tended gardens, now covered over with straw for the winter that is about to come. It is a mighty cold day this day but with a south wind blowing tomorrow promises to be different. You watch the house for quite some time and the only person that seems to be hanging around is some old laundry lady with her silver hair up in a bun. She is the only person that you see with any regularity. She is usually carrying a load of laundry up and down the street. She is dirty and dressed in peasant clothing. Most uncomely.

November 3, 522
You approach the door of one Sir William Doherty and knock politely. From here I have story that will be sent to everyone.

Turn 1 - All

Nov. 3, 522 Early evening. Warm southern breeze rustling the last leaves on the branches. Sun has set but the last dying embers of light are just burning out over the ridge. Time is about 5 PM.

You have all approached this house of Sir William Doherty. It is a large house with a well kept garden and a pond in the back. This street of Overton is well lit. You have come cautiously looking to make sure that no one is lurking or anything looks suspicious. Talorc (Derek) has arrived first, followed by Keridwynne (Laura L.), Nightshade (Laura K., Rich (Rich) and finally by Tieron (Doug).

William Doherty greets you all. He is an elderly human about 75 to 80 years of age. He is stooped over somewhat and is very frail. It is the opinion of most of you that he is soon going to die. Pale in color but still commanding your attention, he has dressed in his old armor that looks as if he has lost much weight since he last put it on. His voice is still strong though. It speaks of confidence and power. He makes introductions around the room. Each of you nod at each other, Talorc and Keridwynne seem to recognize each other, but say nothing. William has led you to a room that houses a library. The centerpiece of the room is fireplace, on the other 3 walls are bookcases and interspersed between them are souvenirs of travels long past. Swords mostly but a few pieces of armor and to the mages in the group. It looks to be a broken wand on one wall. The room has couches and chairs to sit on and one chair with its back to the fireplace. On one bookcase is a small supply of liquors, he says to help yourself to whatever you wish to drink. He slowly lowers himself in the chair and begins to speak.

“I have asked all of you here to speak of things that concern you and the world. I am part of an adventuring company known as Ashlers Bane, as were some of your parents and some of your acquaintances. He turns slowly to face Rich. Your father was the first to disappear whether he still lives or not I can not determine. His disappearance was made to look accidental but I do not think that it was.

Your husband ,Keridwynne, he was part of that company towards the very end. He was present when we thought we killed off Ashler and his evil priests. He died not by accident or of other causes but killed just like they are killing me. Slowly and painfully using a plague cast by his clerics and to make it look as if it was accidental they infected a few others around the woods you lived in to make it look natural. “

He shifts again to face Tieron.

“Your brother Jeron is turning down that dark path searching for the easy way to make money. But it is not to late to stop him. Heather Blackthorn, your teacher, came here looking for Jeron to stop him from choosing the dark path. She too was part of my company, but she disappeared not long ago and I have not been able to locate her.“

“Nightshade, Your mother and Sherkas also were part of my team. Sherkas has gone into hiding or disappeared but your mother refuses to. She lives yet but for how long I don’t know. “

“Talorc, Your teacher Montossoy is not the fool that he seems to be. He was once the mage of our company. But after the end of the whole affair, he joined in serving Queen Margawse. He found some way to cloud King Lot’s mind. He became after a time her only advisor. Montossoy found and resurrected Ashlers religion. Somehow he gained powers and became a high priest as well as mage. His hope is to back Ashler ‘s avatar in some manner. Using the new found powers of Ashler he took full control of the Queen. You may ask what has any of this to do with you. Very little as a matter of fact except for the fact that your religion taught to you by Argelia has never been adapted to mage magic except by you. It is an unknown factor and the more time you spent around Queen Margawse the less control Montossey had over her. It frightened him and he now plots to kill you. It seems that the gods that you worship are directly opposed to Ashler and have given you the means to confront him. For you it seems this may become a holy war. “

“Montossoy found many people that would follow this religion and as you know the more people that worship a god the more power a god gains and the more followers he can imbue with spells. It becomes a cycle, one that could end with Ashler walking this plane again. For what reason, Montossoy is killing us off is largely unknown except for the fact of what I am doing right now and that is forming a company to stop him. What I don’t understand is why do it so slowly. If we all died within months of each other no one could have done what I just did and tell anybody else. “

“Who you may ask is Ashler? He is a god of evil. He is kin to the Lady of the Lake but she fought for good and he for evil. He walked the earth killing any who did not worship him. He was a small religion but his numbers grew. I and others recognized the threat early enough and formed a company directed at killing him. We succeeded but some of us were scarred for life. Some physically, other mentally. Nightshade, your mother was captured once by Ashlers clerics and tortured for a period of a week. She never truly recovered from that. She was going to spy on some of his clerics but she erred and was captured. She always blamed her thieving skills for that and hence I believe the reason that she never wanted you to become a thief. “

What happens next is so quick that only looking back at what happened from your jail cell is really the only way that you could piece it together. An arrow flew from across the room and transfixed William Doherty piercing him in the neck and toppling him and the chair he was in over backward. Some of you rushed to his aid. Others of you turned to the door to see who fired that shot. A chant grew louder and by the time some of you ran after the murderer. A chorus of hold persons was chanted off. All of you stopped still in your tracks. Keridwynne stopped just before she could heal William and had to watch him bleed to death with the spell of curing dying on her lips. You were carried bodily to the basement of William’s house and placed in a 10x10 foot room that looks like a wine cellar but only one cask of wine is in here and it is only about a quarter full. Your surroundings are sparse with just the cask and a few odd scraps of wood lying about. Above you water drips down slowly from many points. There are no windows and the door is locked from the outside and barred. You watch in horror as a cleric stoneshapes a section of wall across the door and seals you in. The rest of the walls are made of gray bricks about 1 foot by 1 foot. You are definitely underground. You are in possession of everything that you came with. Sir Williams body was also placed inside this cell. He is dressed in plate armor and a red cape draped across his back. He carried no weapons and no money of any sort. The only thing that he was carrying was a key chain with 3 keys and what looks to be a small piece of yellow rubber also threaded on to the chain.

Your captors were all alike in the fact that they all wore black and all carried a symbol of a hydra somewhere on their person. Most wore it at their necks but some had it like a pin attached to their chests.

Okay for the mages of you out there. The small piece of rubber is a piece of gum arabic or so it looks. Your spell has worn off by the way. Feel free to move around.

Feel free to contact each other and figure you way out of this one.

Nightshade pulls forth the keys from her pocket and slowly crosses the room. She leans over the barrel and fits the first key to the lock. It turns but then stops. Four keys later she has gone through them all.

“Nope, none of these.” she says.

“This may not be the best time to mention this but I had a dream about coming out water much like the pond above. I had the feeling in the dream that I was being chased by something. It is possible that if this dream is correct we could be opening up a cage that houses some sort of creature. “ Keridwynne states.

Talorc shrugs, “Could be but what is life without risk.”

Nightshade pulls out a set of thieves tools and leans back over the barrel. Even from this angle, Nightshade is still just not what you would call pretty. With a popping sound the lock comes open and with a whoosh the whole bottom of the barrel slides back, revealing a long sloped tunnel, roughly the same diameter of a chimney. It is made of natural rock but it has been smoothed over by someone’s hands. It smell somewhat like the sea. Salty but sweet, not unpleasant at all.

Tieron wanders over and drops a small pebble down the slide. You hear it slide for some distance.

“I think it hit water,” Tieron says.

He could be right, but he was the only one with good enough ears to hear it for the rest of you heard nothing.

“I think I should go first because of my ability to breathe water just in case Tieron is right,” Keridwynne states.

“One never argues with a lady,” Talorc says and gestures to the slide.

Keridwynne grabs all her stuff and jumps into the hole and is gone. Looking after her you see her light from her staff linger for a minute or so and then it is black.

“Damn knew I should have built that fire,” Tieron swears.

It is several long minutes and this time no one hears anything. Talorc shrugs and jumps into the hole head first. He is followed by Nightshade, Tieron and Rich.

Its a long dark slide, twisting and turning and completely black. The end of the tunnel must be coming near as you can now see light coming from the bottom of the slide. Suddenly bursting into the light, the tunnel is no more and you feel the exhilarating rush of a freefall.

“Ooooohhhhhh Shit!” Nightshade exclaims.

A long drop proceeds a very loud splash. You are plunged into the water. At least the water is warm. Some of you dog paddle to the shore. Keridwynne is there and pulls the rest of you to shore. What you see is a large cavern 30 feet high, looking up you see a vein of clear quartz set in the roof of the cavern. It allows sunlight to filter in but the diffraction of the light causes a myriad of rainbow patterns to ripple across the pool. The pool it self is not very big in width not more that 50 feet across, but in length it is farther to its other end than you can see. The cave has slate gray walls that have been smoothed by hands or water or both. It is difficult to tell. The quartz in the roof has very clearly be set into the roof. It is in one long strip of rock about 5 feet wide, that is easily the work of dwarves but they have not been here in a long time for the quartz is chipping and the path that once wound its way along the shore of the lake is partially eroded.

While the rest of the group has been looking around Keridwynne has been looking over the rest to see if any of you have been wounded. You all are going to be sore with a few bruises here and there but on the whole you are uninjured.

Tieron whips around quickly and mutters “Footsteps, just one person, I’m pretty sure.”

Most of you are beginning to wonder how Tieron is hearing these things when to you there is no sound. (Sidenote to players: The DM is wondering himself how Tieron is hearing these things as well because you should see Tierons Detect Noise score. :) )

There is very little time to hide and almost no cover so it is quickly determined that you will have to stand your ground. Rounding the bend at a trot is a small man barely half the size of 5 foot Talorc. He is obviously a halfling the hair on his barefeet giving that away. His pudgy face is showing a mask of concern, his curly brown hair is flopping up and down as he runs. He pulls up short and looks over your group panting.

He looks up at you and gasps “mmpartat tat tatqouet sxyx.aey thatato tytht tmanaayt”

You all look at each other confused by what language he is speaking in. Nonchalantly Nightshade looks up, still wringing out a bright purple sock, “He said he has been awaiting the day of the benevolent ones and he is here to serve.” Nightshade suddenly realizes what she has just translated and looks like her jaw just dropped.

The halfling rambles on. Nightshade translates.

He says that his people live in a town not far from here called Coleth under Blyth and have been awaiting a sign from his god Avoreen the defender and we are it. We dropped from the sky riding a staff of light. He says that Avoreen was sending help and they would defeat the horrible goblins that are moving into their area.

Nightshade asks something in halfling. He answers.

He says his name is Demorak and he is the high priest of Avoreen. He also says that we should follow him to town for it is not safe for halflings to be this close to the place of goblins and hydra people, but that he feels safer with the “gifts of god” walking behind him.

He takes you on a short walk into Coleth under Blyth. (Demorak will answer all questions posed to him by the party at this point. Nightshade will have to translate for you as he doesn’t know common or elven. )

Coleth under Blyth is a wonderfully smelling city. It smells of baking pastries and bread, intoxicating stews and simmering meats. It is a colorful city with banners of red and gold hanging everywhere. These seem to be the colors of Avoreen the defender. You pass many shops selling food items and many many restaurants. These people do know how to eat. The city itself is laid out in wagon wheel shape with all streets leading to a central hub. It is here that a farmers market seems to be selling, what else, more food. It is crowded here with many a halfling. A pedestal rises in the center of the opening. It seems to have a sword sticking up out of it. Sort of sword in the stoneish. Though you seriously doubt that if you could pull it from the stone you would become king of all Britain maybe king of all halflings.

Halflings all around you stop what they are doing and stare at you. One of them starts to clap and suddenly you are enveloped in a thunderous cacophony of sound. Grinning from ear to ear, Demorak turns and waves to the crowd as if he is in a parade. Demorak leads you to a building that looks as if it is some sort of administration building. Leading you up some marble stairs he takes you to large room.

Nightshade translates.

With that he starts to back out of the room leaving you alone.

(I thought before the meeting in the morning that you could talk amongst yourselves and explore the city and so on. If you have questions for Demorak, ask away)