We pick up with our adventurers outside the city of Zamora, also known historically as the Crossroads. The group has travelled for many weeks as part of a caravan. Periodically, the caravan itself suffered attacks from monsters, bandits and shadowy things as it plodded along towards its destination. This served as good training for our young adventurers, many of whom wished to be warriors, and it also impressed the hired guards accompanying the caravan. Many smaller misadventures occurred as well, giving the characters opportunities to meet with (and sometimes steal from!) the regular townsfolk. Bonds are formed as the group gets to know each other better.
Ultimately, their friendships is expected to be short-lived, because each of these men is preparing to undergo the ceremony of aging. In this coming of age event, young unskilled (but promising) artisans, craftsmen and warriors are given the opportunity to be reviewed and selected by masters in their trade. These masters will take selected ones on as Apprentices, and they will go to live in their domains. This is a highly public ceremony, and people come from all over to attend and witness the event. It is a cause for celebration, and great anxiety for the young apprentices as they wait to learn their fate. The group plans to at least have a good time in the city the day before the ceremony. Some also choose to explore the professional guilds, priesthoods and monasteries located in Zamora. Breyen in particular questions his chosen path up to this point, and seeks advice from the Monks of the Northern section of the city. They offer him a place in the monastic order, should he wish it, and he decides to think upon it but attend the ceremony in honour of his friends in the meantime.
The adventurers awaken the next day for their ceremony and all are troubled. Their amulets are icy cold (a sign of danger) and yet, no one can spot an apparent problem. They make their way to the central square for the Ceremony of Aging. Things get progressively stranger as the party comes to realize that there is something odd about the dwarven headmaster, Zhed, who leading the ceremonies. He seems to be hiding something. And, strange, conspicuous people are seen to be moving through the crowd towards the stage area.
The next events happen in a blur. At the stage, Teuvdar the Druid confronts Zhed about his dubious behaviour, while the rest of the party begin discreetly releasing the peace bonding on their weapons. Breyen, sensing the approaching figures, moves into the masses to intercept one. He does not get far before screams erupt from the crowd all around. Shadowy creatures can be seen morphing from the bodies of their human disguises, attacking those around them. Magic users and guardsmen from the city enter the fray, and Zhed himself seems to be fighting the creatures with magical spells of his own. In between the casts, he screams to the party (now standing next to him) to prepare themselves for combat, and pulls a lever. With this, a huge section of the stage drops and takes the group with it, including Torrig’s mule, but with the exception of Breyen. He follows moments later, however.
The group lands in the bowels of a dark cavern network under the city. Dwarvish and human construction, from what the group can tell. Weapons and instructions are left, apparently by Zhed, that a rescue party will be sent to help as soon as possible. In the meantime, they are on their own. The group sets off into the dark caves, avoiding traps indicated in their map. The travel is uneventful, until midway they run into a nasty surprise in the form of a giant tentacled fungus beast (and it’s mate). The battle is fierce, but Torrig, Shadowfoot and Draven are well equipped to dispatch it. Wounds are minor and tended quickly, and they move on.
Not long after, they meet up with the Captain of the Guard who has been sent to retrieve the party. They are escorted back up to the city for a meeting with Zhed. (A search party is sent back into the caves to retrieve Torrig’s mule, now turned Dire and unhappy after falling into the pit with the group. He bites several people, and kicks one guy!) He congratulates them on their survival. The group is not impressed, and again confronts him about his motives. He explains at length that the shadow creatures were tracked entering the city around the same time as the party. It is unknown for certain exactly who they were after. They can take human form, and are hard to spot. So, he claims that this was the best they could do to bring them into the open. The lives of the villagers lost was regrettable, but unavoidable. He offers not further explanation.
He does, however, offer the group into his Adventurer’s Guild. He has some jobs that need done and figures they could handle it. Several in the group are not anxious to sign up, but figure their options are limited if they wish to uncover the plot. It will be useful to keep Zhed closer to them than to not be involved. Considering that the Ceremony of Aging is over, and their chances for apprenticeship are dashed for a while, they also have no other ready sources of income. Zhed offers them fame and fortune, and this rings desirable to many in the group.
Their first job involves an expedition to uncover trouble at a Gnome encampment in the North.
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