Adventure 12: Chasing, Chasing, Chasing
It is the beginning of Part Two of the campaign, and by now the party are really in trouble. They have freed a vampire; an ancient, historic evil - a creature that chills the heart of mortal folk up and down the lands. That was the night before, though. Now it was almost morning, the grey light was starting to warm the sky from the east.
The Earl's Office
Earl Browly is not a man that likes to be woken in the night; it's not that he is fond of a soft warm bed, but he knows that any matter too big for his assistants to deal with is usually very bad news. This tends to make him a little bit annoyed. Because the party had reported to both Danethrae and The Pale Flame about the escape of the vampire, the Earl heard about it pretty quickly. He sat at the desk in his office, absent mindedly drumming his fingers on the table; the party were stood before him. His worst fears seemed to be rearing up ahead of him. Once word was out that the vampire had been freed, the Kings Guard would come down on this, and his hands would be tied. He had to act now, both for the appearance of having the matter under control, and to stay one step ahead of General Garrick.
A heavy sigh passed the lips of the Earl, his eyes still smouldered. Eventually he addressed the party; they looked guilty, wide eyed and blinking in the pre-dawn lamplight. He told them straight that this was their mess; that they were responsible for a real live vampire being un-alive and awake in his city. In his county. Where the peace and security of every individual from lowest peasants and serfs to the Duke and even the King if he visits is Browley's responsibility. The Earl looked down, he was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled - suddenly the solution appeared before him.
He reminded the party that they became Esquires of the County of Nuneith; that this means they are honour bound and oath bound to the Earl and thereby to the King, to do the bidding of those lords, they understood how this feudal duty worked. Then he gave them the formal charge, a direct order, to rid the land of this vampire menace. They should consider it their duty and their quest to resolve the problem. They tried to argue - it didn't last long; the Earl was in no mood for such debates. The party left his office.
Earlier that night, they'd been at the Pale Flame, who told them that they felt partly responsible; Magnus Elberman had fooled them too. He is clearly quite adept at wizardry, and the party must take care if they ever meet him again. They had already suggested that the party take it upon themselves to solve this vampire problem before it becomes a crisis. The party had agreed.
Even earlier, they'd been to the church of Danethrae. The senior clergy simply could not believe what had happened; they had to be told more than once by Insorce, their own cleric, before they began to grasp the enormity of the events. They also had laid the charge upon the party to resolve this; they did preach a cautious approach. Derren and Yanneg together would be a mighty enemy for anyone in the land, and the party would fall well short just yet of the standard needed to defeat them. For now they should at least try to find out where they have gone, and what they're planning. Maybe if the party aren't strong enough to face Derren themselves, they could find him, maybe thwart some of his plans, and Danethrae would volunteer their finest Knights to deal with the vampire himself. This had brought a mixed reaction from the party.
The party returned to their base at "The Man and a Half", their inn in Eversham. First order of business for them was to rest; they could find no vampires if they were so tired they couldn't keep their eyes open. They did not rest for long, by late-morning, they were well into discussion about their options. They'd probably need to find Yanneg at this stage; where could he have taken the newly-awakened vampire? The party only knew of his tomb, so that was where they chose to investigate first. They head out of town on the following day, on the morning of 21st Ulunacon.
Back to Yanneg's 'Tomb'
It's only a short journey across the hunting moors and up into the Nuneith Mountains north of Eversham, where the tomb was located. It's been a year since the party were last here, but they found their way safely enough. The journey lasted four days, and they pressed on into the complex as soon as they arrived. Someone has definitely been here recently - the party encountered freshly summoned guardians in the place. They were vampire spawn, easily defeated and posing little threat, but they were a nuisance. As the party spent a couple of days pottering about here, and discussing things further, they slowly realised that they are maybe not quite ready for a face-to-face battle with either Yanneg or Derren on their own. They realised that maybe it was a good thing that those two weren't here when the party arrived. And that charging up here could have turned out to be a pretty foolish thing to do.
In reality, the journey proved worthwhile; now there were several party members that needed training. They headed back to the city and arrived on 30th Ulunacon.
Danethrae Raided Again
As training was nearing completion, the party brought their thoughts back to the task at hand, and began looking at what action to take next. As they considered many options, events caught up with them. On the night of the 13th Semot, a day before training was to end, the church of Danethrae in Eversham was raided. It looked like the raiders were there looking for wish magic books, the members of the party that were not training investigated as far as they could. The raiders had swooped during the night, broken into the church, and turned the place upside down; the head priest had been killed trying to fight them off. The raiders could find no books, however, as the church had sent them all to their Callenhall facility a couple of weeks before. The raiders left as quickly as they arrived, they headed out of the northern gate, which is on the Callenhall road. The eye witnesses that work in the church believed these knights to be anti-Paladins, but did not know which church they were from.
Organising a pursuit was difficult, as the party were still training. It was not until the 15th that they could head out themselves, and by this time the trail was becoming cold. They made good progress on the road, though, travelling as hard as they could, and reach Callenhall on the evening of 17th Semot.
When they arrived, they realised that they were still too late. A group of knights just like those that attacked in Eversham were here the night before and had attacked the church of Danethrae; this time they took the prize which they sought - two books of Wish Magic. The party were very tired, they'd ridden hard, and getting out of the city now would be complicated; so they rested the night. They spent the evening making enquiries about who had been here, and what people had seen. They soon discovered that the knights had left town quickly on the same evening, and they had used the south-west gate, on the road that leads to Cellam, not Eversham.
Fly South
The following morning, the party were out of their inn very early, and joined the queues that inevitably formed just before the opening of the gates. Once out on the main road again, they made good progress. They arrived in Barwell by the end of that day, and at Doveridge after a mammoth ride the day after.
During their evening discussions they thought it probably that they were not catching up with the knights they were pusuing, and so decided to try a new strategy. They spent a day in the town here at Doveridge where they commissioned the manufacture of a small font cast from silver which Insorce could use with his clerical magic as a scrying device; they wanted to see the book, and glean some hints about where it was headed and what was going to happen to it.
The one day delay does provide some benefit; they left town heading south on 21st Semot, and stopped on their journey to use their new scrying device. They observed the book and those around it, and they confirmed that the people who had the books now were the same knights (or at least, had the same leader) as the knights that had chased the party from the Kathron delve several months earlier. With new impetus, they resume their chase as hard as they can.
By mid-afternoon on the 26th, with Cellam looming only a couple of hours ride away to the south, they encounter a gruesome sight alongside the road. A fight had taken place between two factions of knights, the bodies of the defeated still lay on the ground. A militia man tries to move the party on, but they continue to gloat, and discover that a group of Danethrae's paladins had met these others on the road. The militiaman has few details, he thinks the fight was probably about some private point of honour between the groups. The losing faction seems to be the very knights the party had been following; but they can count only nine bodies, they know they have been pursuing twelve men. Eventually the party set off for the city - they need to talk to any survivors of this fight.
Arriving at the Capital
Cellam is a large urban sprawl, and probably the biggest victim of the move towards industry in the nation. The party headed for the centre, for Old Cellam City, where the major churches are located, and where, it turns out, the finest inns can be found. First the party checked in at an up-market inn called the Hotel Metropolis, and then went to find the church of Danethrae.
A group of Paladins were here who had only recently arrived. The party talked with them but found that the trail of the books was going cold. The Paladins knew some of these knights had got away with the books, but they did not know how many had done so; these others were not with the main group when they fight commenced. They told the party that they sought only justice for the assault upon their churches in Eversham and Callenhall.
Next the party made a call on the senior clergy of the church. These people were not devoted to the single cause of finding the books, they had a broad range of concerns, and so were much more helpful in other ways. They couldn't help much with regard to finding the books, but did help in other ways. They told the party of a temple setup that was rumored to be in the hills to the west of Cellam, overlooking the estuary of the river. The rumour suggested that people had been worshipping elemental gods there - something that pricked a few ears up in the party; the Valtannarin Ennethdor had begun this practice, and the name of one of the elemental gods was found among the treasures taken from Charles Derren's tomb. If the party could make no progress with the books, they decide that they would go and investigate this temple.
The following day the party split up spent their time around the city pursuing different pieces of information. Jim was keen to discover a local Thief Guild that he could work with, and set off for the docks, where such lowlife can traditionally be encountered. He made an interesting couple of contacts there, people he could certainly use to move small valuable items if he needed a quick sale. While there he also happened to notice a couple of unusual black crates being unloaded from a ship in the midst of many other crates. Taking a closer look, he suspected these to be of Drow origin, and headed back to report this unusual finding to his friends. While Jim was at the docks, Insorce worked with the Paladins to try and locate the books using his scrying. He was of little help, but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the knights who left him at the church while they went off to investigate every blip or ping on the scry-o-meter. Randy spent the morning with his sect, the Pale Flame, building up his contacts in Cellam. After a few hours there he had managed to get a promise of help, although it was pretty unspecific; suitably vague. Formil and Fax spent the morning sampling the cultured delights of the Hotel Metropolis, raising eyebrows as the Elf and Dwarf sat chatting in the up-market bar amid the well to do travellers.
When they regrouped and discussed all that they had found, it was decided that Jim could go and take a look at the black crates; it would be interesting to note what was being shipped from the Drow into Cellam. Using his knack with disguises, he slipped into the warehouse where he'd seen the crates unloaded looking like a regular worker. He had a good look around, and soon found the crates. They were stacked at the back of the warehouse, and looked like they were going to be reused for shipping something else. He could find no delivery notes, but it looked like what they contained before was nothing special. Someone somewhere, it seems, is doing business with the Drow, but the goods are probably not reaching Cellam yet.
A Change of Plan
Drawing blanks on all their lines of inquiry, the party decided that the following morning they would head up into the hills to see if they can find if anything sinister was happening at the elemental temple they'd heard of. A quick visit to the local druid grove just outside town, was considered as a good idea - Fax knew that druids and nature are well aligned with the elements, so they left for there late in the afternoon. The druids warmly welcomed the party, they showed plenty of interest in their elfish druid brethren. This helped break the ice, and one of the senior druids sat down and chatted with the party well into the evening. The discussion was helpful. The druids told them that they had once had dealings with the Ennethdor Cult, that they had been approached by them to assist them setting up the elemental church which they'd expected to be in harmony with the Cult of Nature. The druids were keen at first, but as time passed, and they discovered more and more about the elemental gods, they drew away. They would have less and less to do with these elemental cultists, they could see how evil its gods had become.
The party returned to the city - they prepared for their journey into the hills the following morning.