Tales of Greatness – from zero to hero

Silence.

Darkness.

These two things wrap themselves around the party members and hold them tight. Conrad is the first to wake on the cold cavern floor. He draws deep within himself and calls to his god for the power to illuminate the area..and he gets no response. He cannot feel his connection to the divinity.

Other members wake and begin looking around, trying to figure out where they are. A torch flares into life as Tarien finds his backpack, and the view that it gives the party is not pleasant. They seem to be in a sealed cavern, measuring about twenty feet wide, with their items tossed about the cavern floor.

As the party begins searching the area they slowly begin to realize that there is no way out. Without the proper tools to dig, the group sits down to eat and think about how to move forward (or in any direction) to get out of the situation they are in. Jara looks around for a bit, searching for Lux’s body, but finds only a few of his effects. A somberness comes over the party.

After a meal, the group decides to start tunneling, with Tarien using his shovel as best he can. The hammering against the tunnel walls, in hopes of finding a way out. It goes on for more than an hour, but they are rewarded with a change in smell. With this change in smell they hammer against the walls harder finally opening a very small crack which brings in fresher air.

The party begins hearing noises on the other side of the wall, faintly at first, but as time passes the noises get louder and louder until they hear the sound of a mining pick. The small crack the party formed is shattered open by the business end of a pick axe. Voices can be heard much better now and they seem to be speaking in very strange tongues. A single voice begins speaking to the party through the hole, and after seemingly shifting between several different languages Lys beings to understand one very clearly. The common language is the tongue of dragons.

The party, through Lys, converse back and forth with a man they come to know as Movado, who seems to be some sort of guide or wise man. He has come into the depths of the earth with a group of people called the Finders Guild, they are searching for something, possibly magical. Movado knows nothing of the people or places Lys mentions and through further conversation they come to believe that the portal they went through has transported them to a different place, very far away from where they were.

The Finders Guild is willing to extract them from the cavern and get them back above ground for a price, and after some negotiation the party agrees to pay it. In moments the party has a hole large enough to crawl through and they begin their exit from their rocky prison.

The cavern they climb there way into is no more inviting than the one they came from, but it is larger. The crew that rescues them is a motley of humans, elves and us led by a massive half-orc who speaks very directly to Movado when he wants something. Luckily for the party Movado seems relatively well versed in history and geography which he begins expounding on as they make their way back up towards.

The party finds out that they have traveled to another world, a place of powerful magics and houses. The are on a continent called Xen’drik deep in a jungle. Movado does not understand exactly how they got inside a subterranean cavern even if they went though a magical portal, but he tells the party exactly how lucky they are to have survived. He further explains that the area that they are in is dangerous and filled with unknown creatures. The party does their best to come to grips with where they are, but the site of the massive sprawling jungle that comes into view as they reach the top of the cavern tunnel does nothing to calm their fears of the unknown.

The Finders Guild tells the party that the transport, which they call an airship, is scheduled to pick them up a few days north of where they are. The group sets off into the jungle not knowing where they are or where they are headed to.

They exit out onto the site of a ruin, long overgrown by jungle plants and vegetation. The air is substantially hotter than the party is used to, and the size of the bugs, particularly the mosquitos is a bit surprising. The path they take through the jungle is no more defined than a deer path in some parts and in other parts the ground is covered with enormous smooth stones that look like giant streets. Movado explains that the continent of Xen’drik used to be ruled by giants and they established a massive civilization that was eventually destroyed by dragons from a far off place.

After a day of moving quickly through the jungle, the party finally rests near a small river and sets up camp for the night.

With the skull door open, the party slowly makes its way down a darkened hallway, and unlike the previous area they were in, this new area is made of worked stone walls and well masoned ceilings. The hallway is a short one and opens up into a much larger area where torch light can be seen. Hugging the hallway wall, the party moves up a little to get a better view.

What they see looks like a large foyer that leads to an open room with a large staircase at the far end of the room. To the right they see a few large tables with men in what look like guardsmen uniforms and a small enclosed rooms inside the larger area. It is clear that this must be where the Dagonis cult is hiding.

The party moves into action swiftly, arrows fly and swords are swung as they begin to take on several of the guards. As the battle roars along the character quickly begin to gain the upper hand on the guardsmen and wizard that appeared. From one of the side rooms, a man robed in black moves across the room and up the stairway. He begins chanting powerful magics that seem to bolster the guardsmen that remain. A quick arrow shot from Tarien silences him for a moment as he continues to make his way up the stairs and deeper into the underground complex.

With the guardsmen dispatched, the party begins to quickly make their way up the staircase in hopes of running the cleric down before he can alert the rest of his friends. With the chase on, the cleric makes his way to the upper floor and though a door, the party arrives moments later, just in time to see the door slam shut. The interior of this area seems much more like a church, with high ceilings, pillars that line the halls and statuary. In the center of the upper floor a large portion of it is dominated by a room, and the door the cleric ran though.

After a quick assessment of the door, Tarien reveals that it has been locked on the other side. Quickly he grabs his tool kit and begins work on the door lock. After a few moments, the door lock clicks and the door swings open. The room inside is a wide area that seems to be made for some type of ritual activity, and the party has stumbled upon a ritual in progress. Upon seeing the door open, several cloaked men make thier way towards the party and draw weapons.

Trying to think quickly, the party slams the door shut and tries to move into a safe position, and just in the nick of time as the door to the room explodes into a shower of flame and wood pieces. The explosion sends several members sprawling across the floor, while some of them hide behind pillars for cover. A dense fog begins to rise from the ground around the doorway, obscuring the view of what is happening inside the room, but the party picks itself off the floor just in time to parry the incoming attacks from the cloaked figures. Calling to the spirits of nature, Al summons a beast to fight inside the room, in hope of spurring confusion among the enemies. With most of the party engaged in melee, Tarien and Conrad support the party by picking the spots to attack and eventually pick off a few of the cloaked men. Arrows and spells fly as the group battles hard against the cloaked men that battle them in the fog. Jara and Kothar eventually breach the fog and make their way into the main ritual chamber, and after being slowed down for the first part of the fight, they finally engage some of the spellcasters in melee- making short work of them.

With the broken bodies of their enemies strewn about the ritual room floor, the party begins to tend to its own wounds. During this time Lys notices that the blood that has been spilled out of the men in the ritual room has begun to make its way along grooves in the floor towards a central marking spot in the room floor. This spot seems to be a small circular hole in the floor, the blood seeps down into the hole with an unnatural speed. After alerting the party to this, they choose to move the bodies away from the ritual space. Tarien heads out to scout the area while the rest of the party dismantles the ritual room as best they can. They unearth a large locked chest and with the help of a knock spell, find a handsome treasure inside.

Leaving the main ritual room behind, the party heads to a door that Tarien had scouted previously and after working a bit of lock pick magic, the party opens the door. Inside there appears to be a hatch with a metal ring nearby, after inspecting the hatch it is opened, revealing a smooth vertical hole. Further investigation reveals that the hole it self is very deep, so deep in fact that a arrow blessed by Conrad with Light cannot reveal the bottom of it. So, with Tarien in the lead, the party makes its way down the deep, dark hole with the assistance of some rope.

Tarien begins making his way down, searching for traps all along the way. The party decides to go down separately, giving Tarien time and space to deal with any problems that might come up. As the party members make their way down, several of them begin to have difficulty climbing down, and lose thier grip and fall. The party members left do their best to catch the members that are falling, and some do better than others. Eventually the falling party members bang into Tarien and they fall further into the hole. As they fall the party grabs on to the walls and each other, in fact anything that will slow their rapid decent. Finally they find the handholds and strength to hang on, only to hear a click and the grinding of something mechanical. Moments later blades emerge from several different areas in the pipeline and begin spinning around in the pipe. Frantically the party moves down the rope line, desperately trying to get to the bottom before the rope is cut.

Moving down quickly, Tarien and Conrad land at the bottom just as the blades slice through the rope and the rest of the party begins its free fall through to the bottom. Landing in a heap of arms and legs the party survives the fall, but not without some serious wounds. Luckily for them, Conrad is able to move and give the party some healing magics.

Once people are able to move a bit easier, they being to inspect their surroundings. The small area they have fell into is a relatively barren circular room, and its only adornment is a large circular stone door with a symbol in the middle. After examining it for a few moments, Conrad identifies it as a symbol of Dagonis, the dead god. The party decides to rest here, before they try to venture deeper into the underground area beyond the stone door.

That night the party sets out from the inn, in hopes of locating the Rook’s Nook and locating where the Order Chapter House is hiding in Kudo. Using the information that Tarien obtained the night before, the party makes its way down the back alleys of Kudo and walks along the base of the seawall until they come to the end of the merchant’s district, near the harbormaster’s house.

After climbing a well hidden ladder, the characters find themselves in front of a man dressed in blackened leathers that guards the top of the ladder. After paying a heavy toll, the characters are allowed to pass. The rooftop pathway, lit by small glowing stones, eventually brings them to a small tent. After heading in, they see a simple bar, with maybe ten seats, few of them filled. The bartender eyes them for a minute as they are clearly out of place. After a moment of awkward silence, the bartender eventually asks them what they are doing here and what it is they want. This starts a somewhat uncomfortable session of innuendo and doublespeak that eventually leads the party to leave the bar somewhat empty-handed and looking behind them for skulking rogues.

With the first lead a dead end, the party decides to check out the lead that Al had overheard in the market streets about the carriages and boxes. This leads them back down towards the docks where they had gotten word of ships docking at high tide and moving strange cargo about in the middle of the night.

The party settles down into hidden positions in the dock area and as it approaches the darkest hour they begin to hear the sounds of a ship sailing into port. They watch in amazement as a ship glides very quietly into port. The ship crew works in complete harmony to preserve the quiet approach. As the ship finally settles into port, the party watches as carriages begin making their way down the seaport road to meet the ship. In the space of half an hour, team of men in black unload boxes from the ship to the carriages and prepare them for travel. After seeing the number of armed men that are present, the party chooses to follow them after they make their way into the city.

After trailing the carriages for sometime they start to pull away. Not wanting to be seen, the party does their best to track them during the night. They eventually find their way to a street deep in the merchant district of town, where the tracks seem to stop. Tarien, still scouting ahead for the party, notices that there are a couple of armed men outside a warehouse and far down the road, a carriage seems to be moving away still.

Keeping the party back behind another row of houses, Tarien moves up to a nearby roof to scout out the situation. He sees that the armed men outside the front of the warehouse have moved off and out of sight, leaving only a couple of sleeping men in different sections of the alleyway. His suspicions heightened, Tarien sneaks down and inspects the first sleeping man in the far alley; close enough to smell the mulled spirits on his breath. Tarien figures that if he’s a planted guard, then he’s the best actor that he’s ever seen, and moves back down the alley towards the warehouse and the other sleeping figure.

After closing his distance, Tarien notices that this man sits much differently, his cloak seeming to conceal something in his hands. Finally closing within ten feet, the man speaks clearly into the night, warning Tarien to stay back and pick a different person to rob. A parley begins, with Tarien trying to find out what the man is doing here and the cloaked figure replying that Tarien should move along unless he wants to have several holes put into him. In the end Tarien does not move, he presses the man more and a fight breaks out. It ends near the front of the warehouse in the street, when the party finally catches up to Tarien and the party puts the cloaked rogue down.

Left with a body to hide, the party moves it into the alley and does their best to keep things quiet. Lys and Tarien move towards the front of the warehouse and begin examining the large double doors. Withdrawing a set of tools, Tarien goes to work on the lock in hopes of opening it. Working hard to flip the tumblers, this door proves to be more complicated than Tarien can deal with at this point. Lys calls on her inborn magical power and wills the door to unlock itself. With the body stashed in the alleyway the rest of the party makes it way around to the front of the warehouse and carefully peek inside the warehouse doors.

The warehouse itself appears to me relatively normal, but was puzzles Tarien is what they saw in the side alley. The man that attacked them was guarding a cellar entrance to the building, but there is no sign of any need for it. Tarien begins a calculated search of the building and the floor. Al and Lux join in the search, while Jara and Lys watch the door. After a moment, Tarien finds an irregularity with the floor, and finds signs that there may be a concealed stairway under some of the floor tiles.

Working with the tools he has available Tarien is able to loosen one of the floor tiles, but only after finding and disabling a very nasty trap that was concealed under the tiles. As the tiles are lifted off, the party finds a steep staircase that leads down. The steep staircase leads down and makes a sharp right that leads to a lower landing. At that landing the party sees two doors. and notices that the floor is scuffed up and dirty.

Both doors are made of wood but appear to be encased in a stylized metal framework. Sensing some type of danger, Tarien inspects the first for traps. The door appearing to be clear of traps, he moves on to the lock and begins forcing the tumblers to lock into place. As the last tumbler falls to his designs a blade shoots out of the top of the door frame and swipes him across the back, biting into his flesh.

Falling back from the door, Tarien is quickly healed by Conrad and after gathering himself, makes his way back to the door. The door trap seems to have folded itself back into the frame of the door, silently resetting itself. After a second attempt to disarm the trap, Tarien is finally able to get it disarmed, and then promptly takes it apart. After a few moments of inspection the door is unlocked and the party proceeds deeper into the underground area of the warehouse.

The stairway leads down and empties out into a long hallway which ends at a door; much like the one Tarien was just attacked by. Proceeding with a bit more caution this time, the party stays back as Tarien operates on the door again. Moments pass and the trap is disarmed, and the door unlocked. The party moves through the door and into a long hallway with strange banners and paintings. The scenes depict truly gruesome images of death and destruction, they seem to almost be painted as they were happening, one painting shows a human woman decaying from the inside out. At the end of the hallway the party comes to a floor hatch, opening it reveals a a long iron rung ladder that goes down beyond sight range. Conrad assists Tarien by casting Light on one of the scout’s arrows; afterwards it is shot down the tunnel, illuminating the bottom. The party carefully makes it way down the ladder, with Tarien in the lead searching for anything that might jump out to harm them. After going down over one hundred feet, the party finally reaches the bottom, only to hear the passageway above them seal. Inspection of the sealed tunnel, shows that a large piece of stone has moved in the way of any retreat.

Past this hallway the party moves into a small square room with an exit on the opposite side, barred by a gate made of human bone. One wall in the room holds a large bowl, with some liquid in it, potentially water. The party debates what to do at this point. Back and forth, the party debates options of what to try first. The gate does not seem to have and sort of key slot, and it resists the barbarian’s great strength. Conrad inspects the water, but comes to no conclusion of its nature. Jara and Kothar work together and begin lifting the gate, and as they do, the large bowl of water that sits against the wall crumbles releasing a great geyser of water into the room. At this point the gate stops cold and wont budge, but Lys can see that there is something beyond the gate itself, so she crawls through, Tarien close behind her. Twenty feet or so beyond the gateway, they come to a large skull that has been crafted into the wall, and with the help of a Dancing Lights spell, Tarien is able to locate the locking mechanism

Back in the room, the water continues to poor out and has reached hip depth for most of the characters. With the water rushing out of the hole, Lux attempts to soften the stone around the hole to get the hole to close. It works momentarily, until the rush of the water becomes too great and the water continues to gush back into the room. Tarien continues to work on the lock, picking his way through the skulls nostril holes as the water in the room begins flowing down hidden channels in the hallway past the gate. Lys notices this, and alerts the party to it, and what it might mean if it reaches the skull. Taking up a position near the center of the room, Al draws upon his connection to the earth and pushes the ground down using the Dig spell. The sudden change creates a draining effect that the rest of the party are forced to swim away from. It does keep the water at bay long enough for Tarien to get the door open. As the skull door opens, the party hears voices and sees lights in the halls ahead.

Until the next update

-Your Dungeon Master

With the information they have in hand the characters returned to the Three Rivers Inn and meet up with Tarien, who had been missing for several days.

He reports what he has seen over the past few nights after spying on the home. With the additional details that he brings, the party decides that they must find their way into the Hornwood Manor, and find out what is really going on.

The party splits up, with Tarien and the Druid Al heading in through a tunnel that Tarien discovered on the road near the home, disguised as a large potted plant. The tunnel runs under the stone walls and into the Hornwood landscape. The rest of the party wait for Conrad as he obtains a “Writ of Religious Inquiry” from the church of Athoris to question Johnna Peterson and keep her from using her high social station to protect her. Conrad is warned that his own temple is put at risk if his questioning is considered out of like or overly disrespectful.

After pleading his case with the local high priest of the temple, Conrad is given his writ and soon the characters find themselves in front of the gates of Hornwood manor. The house guards do not look much like the city guards that the characters observed earlier. These men look like mercenaries and might be a little more eager to pick a fight. Presenting the writ, Conrad waits to see the lady of the house. He is eventually allowed to see her, but the rest of the party is barred from entering the land.

Inside the grounds of Hornwood, Tarien and Al have made it to the end of the tunnel and slowly peek out into the night air. Locating the stables a few days ago, Tarien directs Al to free the horses in hopes of creating a distraction so Tarien can make his way into the house.

Stalking off into the night, Al makes his way towards the horses, quickly taking off their harnesses and saddles. Using his deep knowledge of animals, he begins to direct the horses out. Quickly chaos ensues as well over a dozen horses run wild over the Hornwood grounds.

As soon as the guards notice the horses running wild, they are forced to make a move to try and contain them. This begins to leave the front gate a little under manned. As more and more guards leave the front gates of Hornwood, the party members there, begin to sense that the time is right. They take on the last of the two guards that are present and overpower them, and eventually kill them.

At about this time Tarien has made his way to the servant’s entrance of the Hornwood manor. After skulking in Tarien makes his way down the hall and hears a familiar voice, it is Conrad and he sounds to be questioning the lady of the house, Johnna Peterson.

As the fighting dies down outside the rest of the characters begin to make their way into the Hornwood manor and eventually meet up with Tarien and Al. A search of Hornwood eventually reveals a secret passage that runs from one property to the adjacent, and people can be seen leaving through the passageway while Councilman Peterson is being questioned.

A full search of the house eventually uncovers some rather devious matter going on. Councilman Peterson is not what she seems, and is in fact a follower of a god of parties and chaos. Tarien and Conrad watch in horror as she breathes life into dead men, raising them in front of their very eyes.

A chase ensues as Tarien and the party tries to keep Peterson from leaving the home, but they she is able to get away though a ground floor window. The characters are attacked along the way by Hornwood’s house guards and wound Tarien before he dispatches them. The characters flee the scene, off into the night, as the city guards storm the front gates.

Eventually the characters surface at a little used inn on the south side of Westlund, but their rest is short lived. They are soon found by a white cat that Tarien saw on the ground of the Hornwood manor. Taking the information Conrad had collected form his interrogation of Peterson, the party decides that coming forward and getting as much of the information they have gathered into the hands of Councilmen Eller and the church.

Conrad heads to the church to inform the high priest of his findings. After a look at Conrad’s notations and the reactions of Peterson at Conrad’s questions, the high priest sends Conrad back the party and tells him that something must be done to curb Peterson’s activities.

The party meanwhile has made their way into the council chambers and waits for the rest of the council to arrive for an emergency meeting. One by one, they make their way in…including Johnna Peterson. Tense moments pass until Councilmaster Eller makes his arrival from an inner office. The party makes the case, laying out what they found at the Hornwood manor and Conrad gives his own account of what his interrogations revealed. The party is questioned heavily and does the best they can to explain everything they found and encountered. In the end, the council minus Peterson, adjourn to deliberate.

Once the council returns they find Peterson guilty of raising the dead and attempted murder. She is remanded to jail for the time being and her lands are seized by the city. In light of what the characters have found the city chooses to not press charges on the party for killing several members of the Peterson House Guard. Eller suggests that the characters head east to Kudo, where Johnna said that some of the house guards and thugs came from.

The next morning the characters set out towards Kudo after stopping for supplies, in hopes that they can find the source to where these men came from.

Our tale continues tonight.

-Your Dungeon Master

I apologize for the distance between blog posts, the holidays were fairly busy for my family here. That being said, let me get you up to speed on what has transpired since I last posted.

The party followed Masterson inside the church, where they began to spin their tale about the fate of Homewood. They seem to make an impression on Masterson and with the tradesman lying in a sick room; they seem to have enough proof to back up their tale. The characters meet the high priest of the Athoris Temple and are questioned further more to the nature of the attack itself and what could be learned from it. Eventually they are recommended to the Three Rivers Inn and leave the Temple.

After a stop in the marketplace to sell their cart of supplies from Homewood, the character finally get a chance to sit down to a full meal and some ales at the Three Rivers, they buy a few rooms and begin sinking into a few hours of relaxation.

Tarien heads back out to the marketplace to see a locksmith and after some haggling buys a lock and gets the lockbox that he took from the house of the mayor of Homewood finally opened. Inside they find a potion bottle made of elegant crystal. Without the ability to identify the true nature of it, Tarien heads back to the Inn and joins the rest of the party for dinner.

The next morning the party wakes a summons to the church, it seems that their presence is required. After collecting their things, they head down and are greeted by unsettling news that the infection has returned to the trader and this time the city council would like to as some of their own questions. This session of questioning goes on for much longer, and goes over much of the same information that Masterson had asked them. The council is led by Redvick Eller a robed man who appears to be in his fifties. He asks specific questions and seems almost methodical in his questioning. A few of the characters notice that there are a strange number of city guardsmen here although they do not appear to have manacles on them. Not all of the councilmen ask questions, but they all do seem interested in following along. Masterson continues to take notes and asks some of his own questions. The party meets Johnna Peterson another member of the council who appears to be from the upper crust of the Westlund society. She is sympathetic to the party after what has happened, and she suggests that council take the information that it has already and set about protecting the people of Westlund from what could happen.

The questioning ends and Masterson shows Conrad to the sick room when the Infected trader is being kept. It appears the situation got bad enough that they had to strap him down to the bed and even then he still tests the restraints. A few different spells are tried, most are unsuccessful. Conrad feels like gets close to a breakthrough with one of them, but a unknown force pushes him away at the last moment. The two clerics, Masterson and Conrad study the infected for any sign of what might be causing it, but they come up with little in the way of answers.

After a full day at the church, the party returns to the Three Rivers Inn and settles in for a good meal and a few drinks and begins to talk about where they will go from here. During their time at the tavern Lys is confronted by Eller who appears mysteriously out side the privies inside the Inn. He invites her to talk with him privately, in a secret chamber that appears inside the hallway of the Inn. Eller shows her the disk that the Man in Black dropped and that the party handed over to Masterson. He said that after some study, markings on the back of it suggested that the symbol might be linked to a secret order called The Order of The Mist, a secretive splinter group that is known to be very powerful. Eller does not know much about them, only that they have been around for hundreds of years and are known to be able to communicate with dark spirits and are known to protect their locations by killing the people that find out about them. The last time that he encountered them was in the Last War when they were rumored to fight for Godfrey and were helping them raise the fallen troops and press them back into service as undead.

Eller confesses that he cannot investigate too deeply into the matter lest he betray his position, but he assures Lys that he is convinced that something terrible did happen at Homewood and he supports the party in finding out what that is. He suggests a bar on the southern end of town, the Boar’s head Tavern, it could be a place to look for information. With that, the meeting ends as quickly as it began. Armed with some new information, Lys and the rest of her party head off to investigate.

The Boar’s Head is a much rougher tavern than the characters are used to. The place is large and filled with all manners of people in all states of drunkenness. In the center of the bar there is a ring for fighting, which seems to have some type of wagering system built in with the moneychangers that work here. Jara, becomes very interested in the fighters and watches on as they go back and forth. She eventually throws her lot in and enters the fighting tourney.

Meanwhile the characters are trying to track down people to talk to, and doing their best to gather information on the most connected people in town. Jara finally enters her first match beating her opponent with ease. At the same time her half brother Lux separates himself from the group, at least mentally, and seeks out spirits to talk to in hopes of finding one that could help Jara. Back in the ring, Jara battles on through the second and third opponent, working the crowd into a roaring, shouting mass. Lux finally connects with a spirit of strength and asks it to watch over his sister and help her anyway that he can. The fourth match is much closer that Jara would like, but she manages to fend off the last few attacks and win. Beat but not beaten, Jara takes on her final opponent of the night, and near exhaustion she is able to push her opponent out of the ring and win. She is given a purse of winnings and a badge of honor to wear for the night. These items are presented to her by the owner of the bar Lyndell White, a councilmen that they had met earlier in the day. After explaining a little bit of why they are here, Lyndell directs them to two possible sources that could be found here in the bar. One is a man called Duncan, he is known to run with a somewhat disreputable lot and his prices are high, but he is known to provide quality information. The other choice they have is a bartender by the name of Amanda, she might not have the highest quality information but she sees and hears more than her fair share of the things that happen around town.

The part splits at that point, and Lys and Jara head over to see Duncan, while Lux and the rest of the party head over to see Amanda and try to get some information out of her. Duncan is a tough man to get close to, as Jara and Lys find out. When they do finally get a chance to talk with him it happens while they are surrounded by Duncan’s men. Their conversation is fairly short but it does end with some significant pieces of information passed on. Duncan tells them that if they are looking for what they say they are, the upper crust of Westlund society would have to know about it, and someone either in the church or the council would have to know about it. He also confirms that he saw the Man is Black as they described in Westlund a few weeks or so ago. He believes that if they did have a Chapter House here they would have to have room for it, as it would probably take up a considerable amount of space from what he has heard. There are only a few houses in Westlund that could hold such a place and they all sit on the north end of town.

As for Lux and the rest of the team, Amanda had some information for them, but much of it they already knew. Amanda said that there were some rumors that members of the church might be behind all the strange voices that are heard on the northern section of town. She did say that she had people who she could check with, and suggested that they come back in the morning because she might have more information.

The party joined back up and headed back to the Three Rivers before going over what each other had gotten in the way of information. They slowly begin to piece together a disturbing picture. If the church or the council is involved in the hiding of the Order of The Mist then by now they may know that the characters are looking for them. The party decides to be cautious wait till morning and then go back for Amanda’s information.

The next morning they start straightaway to the Boar’s Head and Lux went inside to meet with Amanda. She tells him that they need to be cautious, that some people have already begun to ask questions about them. After making contact with her people, she did find out that people have been reporting voices in the northern parts of the city, near the larger estates.

The party leaves the Boar’s Head to travel to the northern part of the city and check out the houses and estates. They notice that as they get into the northern section of Westlund the houses and estates separate and begin to really get larger. There are also seemingly more guards in the northern section as well, but not all of them are from the city, some appear to be paid house guards.

They come upon the estate of Johnna Peterson while walking. Her mansion, Hornwood fits the size that they are looking for, but the place is well guarded and it doesn’t take them long to be asked by the local guards what they are doing there. After a short conversation, the party chooses to leave rather than attract more attention.

As they make their way back down toward the center of town, Lux notices Amanda from the Boar’s Head, she beckons him closer. She said that she has come upon very important information for the party. Her contact is waiting nearby and is willing to give them some more details on who is behind it. Lux and Kothar head down the alleyway to the back of a building near the market district. After getting the nod from Amanda, the two characters head in.

Inside they find a shorter man who does not introduce himself. He simply asks if they have more questions. They both agree that they do. The man replies “That’s too bad, because it seems you’ve already asked too many.”

With that the door shuts, and tonight we find out what happens next!

-Your Dungeon Master