DavesGaming

Sarah

We had been at the Ducal Palace a couple weeks, the crowds were increasing. Mostly refugees coming into the city to escape Caelar’s Crusade. She was a warrior of some renown along the Sword Coast, but recently had been raising an army, for currently unknown reasons.

One night, Imoen came into Chuck’s and my room, saying she’d heard footsteps, like someone creeping around our part of the Palace.

Suddenly we were attacked by four dark cloaked figures. Thieves, assassins. We killed them quickly enough, but Imoen was down. Stabbed, apparently by a poisoned blade.

Chuck cast Neutralize Poison and a Heling spell, but Imoen was still down. Alive, but out. Duke Jannath was running up the stairs towards us and said the Palace was being invaded. I sent the Duke and a couple guards over to Chuck while I ran downstairs where I could hear fighting.

Once I was sure we were secure, I ran back to Chuck and Imoen. Imoen’s wounds had closed, and she was breathing fine. But the poison must have been exotic, she remained unconscious.
We had an immediate conference with all the nobles in residence. The intruders had been in several teams, in each team, someone had the symbol of Caelar’s Crusade and a reasonable portrait of Chuck.
“Where is Caelar now? We owe her a social visit”.

The Duke’s agreed. A fresh body of troops were heading up North in two days to join allied forces that had found her main base at Dragonspear Castle. And we’d be going with them.
For now our team was just Chuck and I. We didn’t yet know how long Imoen’s recovery might be. And no one knew the whereabouts of Jaheira, Khalid or Alora. But Minsc and Dynaheir were apparently in town at the Three Kegs Inn. A few known rogues/scouts were at the Elfsong Tavern. So we set off to build a team. A Flaming Fist officer, Shael Corwin, would accompany us as additional protection.

At the Elfsong, we saw Safana. She has a contract with the Fists, but I don’t like her and steered Chuck elsewhere. Coran was there, we’d met him earlier and he would be agreeable to me, but he was not interested. We met a refugee woman, a half-elf named Erato who was a cleric of Sune and said she had some scouting experience.

We can help with that. Next we went to Three Kegs and met our old friends Minsc and Dynaheir. They joined us before we even explained the whole threat. Its nice to have such true friends.

We loaded up on supplies, and were ready for our trip the next day. On return to the Palace we had a brief encounter with another intruder, a hooded man who seemed interested in Chuck, and spoke in riddles. This doesn’t bode well.
We were more pleased to find Imoen was conscious. Able to talk with us. She wouldn’t be coming along, but she should be able to resume her studies in a few days and will rejoin with us when she can.
During the night, I chatted with a Skie Silvershield, the daughter of Duke Silvershield. She “covertly” told me she’d joined the Flaming Fist and would be with us on the expedition. Honestly, we’d met her before, and suppose she was pleasant enough. But she always struck me as a bored and spoiled noble. Now she’s anonymously joined the Army, during a war. Well, this should be interesting.

The day was uneventful, and we set camp near the Coastway Crossing, a bridge on our journey north. I suggested we scout the area, and checked in with Shael. She offered to join us, I had no doubt she would be a big help and quickly agreed.

We came across a cave complex that was being explored by a group of dwarves. They reported one of their friends had disappeared deeper in, but they were now beat up and worn down by relentless undead attacks. We agreed to head in and look for him.

I believe that made him a Lich? I’ve heard of such things but never seen one before. Fortunately this was a rookie Lich. We were able to put him down and destroy his phylactory (?). You know, his soul box thingy. You can quote me on that.
We gave our condolences to the other Dwarves, and asked if they would us against the Crusade. They agreed and joined us at camp later.

Next day we set out to scout the bridge, it was defended by Crusaders.

We fought a few surviving guards, but soon Caelar herself stood across the river from us. She shouted for Chuck.
She talked about fighting for the fallen, those who were in the Nine Hells since the Dragonspear Wars. And that she needed Chuck’s cooperation, insisting we were on the same side…
Sort of the ravings of a mad-woman.

We parted from the crazy lady and went back to camp. The Bridge was down, we’d need to head to the next one up river, the massive Boareskyr Bridge.