Candle in the Dark Campaign - Session 2: Keep on the Borderlands

The Cast:

• Enid, half-elf cleric of Bahamut
• Nashgar, dragonborn paladin of Bahamut
• Leilua, tiefling warlock
• Corrin, halfling barbarian

 We begin today's tale with our heroes leaving the Goathorne Inn and traveling to Restwell Keep in company of a merchant and his family.  The day's travel is uneventful and the merchant shares his knowledge of the keep with the group, since he spends a good part of his time there.  He says that the keep has a good amount of traffic going through, mostly from those who have business with the overseer, Lord Drysdale, a paladin of the god Erathis who liberated the keep from the mercenaries and thieves that ran it.  Lord Drysdale hires adventurers for expeditions into the anomalous feature known as the Chaos Scar, which seems to spawn evil in these parts.  The merchant tells the group that they must have sponsorship from the keep in order to stay for any duration longer than a few days.

As they near the keep, the weather turns as a thunderstorm sweeps through the area.  They enter the keep and hurry though the streets to find shelter.  The doors to the Chapel of Avandra are open and welcoming, so they enter and are greeted by the high priestess Chandera, who offers a room and food for the night.  The heroes accept and are escorted to their rooms.  Later, they join Chandera in the dining room, where she sits with three others; a visiting priest from Winterhaven, another from Harkenwold, and the third being a priestess of the Raven Queen from Fallcrest.

Supper is served and the topics of discussion go from political to current events around the keep.  The group gets a very clear impression that Chandera has strong animosity towards Lord Drysdale, disapproving of his over-zealous approach to bringing law and order to the keep and to the borderlands.  After a bit of awkward dining, brought on by Corrin's lack of etiquette, the guests begin to depart and the heroes retire to their chamber after asking for a private audience with Chandera.

Later that night, in Chandera's study, they meet again and after a few inquiries from the priestess, Nashgar asks about Horvath, the priest who died at the Goathorne before he could perform a ritual that would prevent the undead from rising as they did.  Explaining the entire event, Nashgar asks Chandera what she knows of this ritual and evil.  Chandera explains that Horvath was a priest of Melora and has been in the keep for a very long time.  She was unaware of the purpose of his annual pilgrimages, but knew that he took them at every Winter Solstice.  She agreed to look into the nature of the entity that seems to be behind the undead that attacked the Goathorne and promised to get back to the group. 

Leilua also asks about the Ioun priest that had taken her from her parents to the monastery where she grew up, who was said to have come here to Restwell Keep.  Chandera did recognize the name and said that the priest was seeking obscure arcane knowledge that he believed was to be found in the Chaos Scar.  He joined an expedition that did not fare well and were mostly killed.  He did not return with the survivors.

It wasn't until the following day that the group was finally able to get out in decent weather and seek their actual sponsor for this trip, Lord Drysdale himself.  They are granted an appointment, but must wait a workweek before seeing him, so they all find time to do things in and around the keep to keep busy while waiting.  Enid and Nashgar do service for the Avandra temple, Corrin finds odd jobs around town, and Leilua gets a job collecting gambling debts from deadbeats in the Stumbling Giant that lose in their games of chance.

Finally, the call from the lord's fortress comes and the heroes gain an audience with Lord Drysdale.  Once before the paladin, the group is given an assignment to seek out a relic that is hidden in the small town of Kiris Dahn, which was overrun by goblins a decade ago and has basically been lost.  The town is now call "Gorizbaad" by the goblinoids, which Lord Drysdale says with distain.  Lord Drysdale says the relic is needed to protect the keep and should the group choose to accept this mission, they will need to seek out Treona, an agent of the keep, who is currently in a tower a few miles outside of Kiris Dahn/Gorizbaad and who has the details the group needs to fulfill the mission.  He offers the sum of 50 gp to each member of the group and 100 gp for the group as a whole to split as they see fit.

The group decide to take the job and the following day they make the day long journey to Kiris Dahn/Gorizbaad.  They pass within miles of the Chaos Scar and see it for the first time from a distance, which make it no less amazing.  As night falls, they arrive at Treona's tower, but are attacked by wolves before they can get to safety.  The group is forced to kill the hungry beasts before continuing to the tower.

End of session.