The recapture of Volkir

So this wizard-type stopped by the stall. Seemed reaI confused, puzzled look on his face and all. Don't know if he had one too many last night or what, but he was all "Where am I? What is this place?" and so forth. Weird. Anyway, I'm trying to show him some of my wares but he's looking around all confused when three guys approach on horseback and totally ruin any chance I had at a sale. One of them was a heavily armored guy, human; another was a dragonborn guy wearing light armor and carrying a wand; the third was a priestly-looking guy who was wearing light armor and looked a little odd. They go on about how they are hunting some criminal who escaped a prison and are trying to amass some kind of posse to go rout 'im out. All three guys have emblems on their chests that they say represent the Church of the Silver Flame, and offer us gold and goodwill of the church to go along with. They seem like they're telling the truth and they did just ruin the sale I was making, so I agree to come along. The guys say their names are Agathor Brightwind, Balthazar, and Colvin Shadowbane. They round everyone up in front of my stall a couple hours later. They got a bunch of guys together, like some guardsmen and some townspeople and this confused wizard guy who was shopping at the stall, some dragonborn paladin and Treble, a mercenary who I've seen 'round. He might have come by the stall sometime or maybe we had a couple drinks together at the tavern, can't say I really remember the circumstance but I do remember him to be a pretty okay type. Seems like the kind of guy who pays promptly. Anyway these Silver Flame guys go on about "On to destroy the undead beings!" and so on... sounded kind of creepy to some of us townsfolk type but money is money so off we go, walking two and a half days to some deserted-looking village.

We saw four figures in the distance: one in a robe, one hunched over and drooling, and two soldiers wearing green foresty clothing. The wizardy guy (I later learn that his name is Horadric) does actually seem to know something now and says he thinks they are unfriendly druids called of a sect called the Children of Winter, who are some kind of death cult who want to destroy the weak and promote famine and disease. I don't really get how they haven't died out already then, but there you have it. Treble snuck ahead and said that they were talking about an intruder messing around with their lands. He wasn't sure whether they meant us, or whether they meant the guy we're all chasing after, but the consensus was that either way, they probably wouldn't appreciate the lot of us tromping all around the place. Treble said he saw that the hunchback guy was a shifter... kind of a canine-looking face, werewolfy/animalistic-looking guy. Balthazar and a bunch of the guys start going on about how they want to just fight 'em but some of us weren't real keen on fighting battles that we didn't come out for. I mean we're getting paid to go get some criminal, not to risk our necks to clean all the scourge of the woods. I decide to see what I can do, and offer to "employ powerful magics" to bluff them to head another direction. We agree that I should try to talk them into heading north while we head 'round another direction, so I ask a bunch of questions and then hide behind a tree and do my best to look like that slavering shifter guy. I walk up from the north and tell 'em I saw some guys thataway that were intruding on our lands, and they buy it. That never gets old. Anyway, off they go and I hide behind a tree and do my thing and rejoin the party. While we're waiting around I augment Treble's dagger.

We came upon 3 stone crypts in a graveyard called Col Fen, approaching from the south. Agathor says that they followed the trail here so somewhere in here is our guy. We see one grave is open. Treble starts sneaking over the wall and all of a sudden an arm starts trying to dig out of the open grave. This skeleton and another one come out of a couple of graves and start going towards the entrance to the East. We wait for them to head off that way, and we head 'round to the west before hopping the wall. Treble scouted out and said he thinks our guy is in one of the crypt buildings. As we climbed over the wall, we couldn't help but notice the stench of the place and the chill in the air raised up the hairs on our arms. We heard a woman screaming and a baby crying... sounded like it was coming from the northern crypt. Treble scouted the crypt entrances and said that the southmost one was closed, the middle one had no door, and the door of the north one was ajar, and all were dark. Agathor told us the guy we were looking for was a half-elf with a scar on his left cheek and black ratty hair. He sent a reluctant and grumbling Balthazar to check on the Children of Winter and make sure that they weren't doubling back to find us.

When we went into the north crypt we saw a decayed zombie farmer, a four-foot high sarcophagus, two skeletons, and a ghost standing over a trench. We heard sobbing coming from the trench, and the woman and baby were in there. Colvin was talking inside of our heads and told us that we could do it too as long as he was with us. Horadric pushed the zombie aside. I took advantage of the opening he provided and went inside the room to attack the ghost before he was able to kill the woman and baby. The ghost became insubstantial, and he attacked me with his hair from ten feet away. Once I had him distracted, the woman took her baby and ran away. Along with her went about half the mob of guys we had brought with us... some of the younger ones just weren't ready to confront the horrors in the graveyard. Can't say I totally blame 'em, though they did leave the rest of us in a pretty tough spot. In the meantime, Balthazar came back to get recruits to go battle the Children of Winter, so Agathor and almost all of the remaining men went with him. Inside the crypt, Rhogar the paladin and Colvin were cursing the undead. Colvin killed the skeleton and Horadric finished off the zombie. The ghost disappeared through the wall and went into the middle crypt. Treble searched the room and found a map in the sarcophagus, which he gave to Horadric.

We headed into the next crypt; there were two half-eaten dead bodies just inside. A pretty gruesome scene. One was of an elderly man, looked like it'd been there about a day; the other was of a woman and looked like it'd been there about a week. We saw a door ajar in the back that headed downstairs, where we heard chanting at the bottom of the stairs. Treble checked over the door and noticed a bucket of acid resting atop; he carefully took it down and put it in the corner (several of the men were highly amused to see the ghost step into it later). Inside the downstairs room were two zombies, two ghouls, two skeletons, and the ghost, as well as a man chanting over something behind the sarcophagus. As soon as Colvin saw the man he shouted, "That's Volkir! He's our target!"

I headed in first and killed the zombie. However, Volkir raised it along with two skeletons for us to fend off who appeared behind our lines. I noticed that Volkir was holding some shriveled-up looking black monkey head thing or something. I didn't get a good look at it, but there were green flames in its eyes and also green flames in three braziers on the walls. Colvin came in and threw lightning bolts across the room, catching a skeleton and Volkir along with it, but Volkir laughed at him and Colvin cursed, saying that it seemed to have no effect on him. In the meantime, more and more undead minions kept appearing, just about finishing off Horadric in the anteroom. As Colvin went further into the downstairs room, he triggered some kind of spear trap and looked like he was in a very dire situation, surrounded by zombies, ghouls, and skeletons in the center of the room by himself. I did my best to heal Colvin and shield him as he and Treble put the fires out on the walls to diminish the power of Volkir's magic artifact. As the fires went out, the undead minions around began to crumble into dust. Horadric knocked the last torch down and we finished the fight, subduing Volkir. Horadric took the monkey head artifact thing out of his hands. Treble checked into the sarcophagus again and found a gold bowl, and a magical gold ring with an onyx stone. Colvin took Volkir's artifact and smashed it to bits, giving the fragments back to Horadric.

Agathor and Balthazar returned, and we noticed that Balthazar wasn't looking well. I guess he had some sort of disease. They said that they encountered the druids again and led 'em on a wild goose chase before defeating them. We took a quick look at the third crypt and found it to be in ruins, and not safe to enter. We started on the long trek back to Brindol, and Balthazar started looking better along the way. He spent a lot of time speaking the dragon's language with Rhogar on the walk back. Along the way, the Silver Flame guys were questioning Volkir, and pretty roughly at that. He mostly laughed at them and taunted them, saying something about the Shadow of the Flame and Bel Shalor. The Silver Flame folks told us that Bel Shalor was a dark god who had been trapped away by their order 200 years ago... this recounting only caused Volkir to laugh even more maniacally. They assured us that they would re-imprison him and do a better job at keeping him captured this time, and paid us twice what they had promised, so with my 400 gold and my share of the loot, I headed back to my stall in Brindol to craft more magic items to sell. I told the guys that if they ever needed anything, to come on by and I'd cut 'em a deal.

XP for prologue

Each player gained 333 experience for the prologue session.

The trek back to Brindol

The party makes camp well away from the lands of the Children of Winter, walking a whole day to put some distance between them and the accursed place. After everyone has settled down around the fire, Colvin counts out 4 platinum pieces to each member of the party. He grins and says, "Doesn't look like much, does it," but you know that each silvery coin is worth 100 gold pieces. Among the bodies of the dead, the party also found 104 gold worth of gold teeth, petty jewelry, and coins. This pile of loot glistens by the fire, ready to be divided.

The party passes around the other items they have found, and each is identified as follows:

1. A gold ring with an inset onyx stone carved into the shape of a hand. It is a Ring of Parrying (equivalent to Parry Gauntlets, which have the following property: When you take the total defense or second wind actions, gain a +2 item bonus to all defenses until the beginning of your next turn.)

2. An old map. After comparing it to some of his own maps, Colvin says that the coastline depicted on it appears to match a portion of northeastern Xen'Drik that lies along the Thunder Sea. There are strange symbols on the map, but no words. Some of the symbols look like crude pictures of birds, men (some larger than others), dragons, and lightning-bolt shapes. Other symbols are indecipherable to the group, and Balthazar speculates that they may be representations of dragon marks. After examining the map, Horadric points excitedly at it and exclaims, "X marks the spot!" Well, it's more of an asterisk than an X, but sure enough, nestled among the symbols lies a clear marker of some sort.

3. Questions arise about the skull, and Colvin explains that it was an artifact of a long-dead evil. The skull now consists of 3 oddly-shaped shards of obsidian. "How much do you think it is worth?" asks Horadric. Colvin replies, "Oh, I'd say about 80 gold in total, now. It'd be best to sell the pieces to different merchants, though. We wouldn't want someone to get the bright idea to try to put it back together."

During the trip back to Brindol, Balthazar miraculously recovers from the disease inflicted upon him by the Children of Winter. Throughout most of the journey, he can be seen walking and talking with Rhogar. After two days of walking, the group arrives at the outskirts of Brindol.

Agathor, Balthazar, and Colvin regain their horses, and bid the group farewell. Agathor salutes you, and says, "'Twas a good hunt, and you have been valuable companions. You have earned my gratitude, and the gratitude of the Church. May the light of the Silver Flame guide and protect you." He then turns his horse about and slaps it on the flank with a, "Hyah!" The horse champs with a whinny, and the three ride out on the eastern road, a column of dust rising behind them.