The Dark Frontier

Tarsakh 28	The Semban Terics Ter ("Ty") arrived in Melvaunt at the request of a local merchant, who wished him to accept the commission of a portrait of a local noble.
Mirtul 10	Grieving for the recent loss of her adventuring company, Cyravel Nailo nevertheless accepts the duty of watching over Vhivi V'Diera, who unbeknownst to her was even then at the nearby Breakwater Inn, stymied in her quest to find the bandits who murdered her parents. She had hoped to receive information from a "Lord Tjesnitjérs," but was unable to speak the local language well enough even to find him.       Meanwhile, Ty had gone to ground in that same inn, chased by minions of the Bruil family, who took offense at his favoring the Leigyharons with a portrait without offering one to them as well. He had run into an old friend, the Northern freesword Kerri Brightblade, and was speaking with her when he overheard Vhivi's complaints of not speaking Damaran; being a translator, he offered his services to them both.       A stranger entered, going to a nearby table to speak with a smith and, oddly enough, a Manakja of Loviatar. The stranger, Heimdall, was a freesword who had agreed to help her on behalf of a friend; the Manakja proved to be asking his aid in an unofficial capacity, as the Lady Alexana Tjesnitjérs, rather than as one of the Chosen. Her uncle, the Lord Tjesnitjérs, had been taken hostage by bandits in his own keep; the Lady, unable to ransom him for 5000sp, wished help in freeing him - and doing so quickly, before the locals in Melvaunt heard of his plight. Therefore, she found she needed foreign aid.       Rising to leave, Heimdall spilled Kerri's drink, and she challenged him to a duel. Meanwhile, having overheard the whispered conversation at the next table thanks to her preternatural hearing, Vhivi leapt at the chance to go along, securing Ty as her translator. In order to converse with her directly, the Manakja offered her the understanding of the Damaran tongue, which she claimed Loviatar could grant the elf.       Having searched through the marketplace and several other taverns, Cyravel finally spotted Vhivi at the Breakwater Inn - certain it was her because of the description she'd received, and because she'd seen no other elves. She lurked by the bar, waiting as Vhivi went upstairs with the Manakja and Heimdall, having gotten out of his duel with Kerri, went to ready the horses. When Vhivi came back downstairs, she confronted Cyravel and accused her of being a spy, but the elf assured her she was not and agreed to come along on her quest.       Ty, spotting Bruil thugs looking for him nearby, took the opportunity to get past the city gates by disguising himself and joining the band along with Kerri. In short order, the band had left Melvaunt behind, heading deep into the trackless wilderness.
Mirtul 11	The band arrived on the outskirts of Ropominar, a mining town guarded by the nearby Ezeroh Keep, where the bandits held Lord Tjesnitjérs. Avoiding the town, they made camp near the Keep, and they decided to send the elves to scout it out. Alexana revealed that the Keep was guarded by a spell that allowed no one from without to enter, and the elves confirmed it that evening - even as those who remained at camp were swarmed by hideous, black flying things Alexana identified as bugbirds. In the confusion, Kerri was discovered to be missing. The elves explained that there were almost no people in the Keep, but there were signs that a large group had headed back towards the Phlan Path. Heimdall was voted leader of the band, and Ty punished for heresy by the Manakja. Ty demanded payment for his services, but Alexana admitted that she was all but destitute, instead promising that her uncle would reward all who aided him.
Mirtul 12	The band was puzzled by the kidnappers' behavior; the Lady unwillingly admitted that the wizard who cast it lived nearby. Going to ask for his help, they ran into a huge beast with the body of a horse and a man mingled; Koomdawr, one of the legendary kohpox, warned them of "man-hunters," and, quite taken with Vhivi, agreed to lead them to the wizard's tower - only to disappear while chasing off some other travelers in the woods. Still, the band managed to locate the tower of Jarrow... only to be confronted with yet another legend made flesh.       At first mistaking the dragonlike feywing for an illusion, Heimdall was wounded in the fighting that ensued. Vhivi saved him by leading the beast away, and Ty ran for the tower - only to find a woman already trying to get in. When the monster was finally defeated and the group reassembled, she introduced herself as Rhianna Darkstar, who herself had been searching for Jarrow when she was trapped by the tower by the feywing. Jarrow, it seemed, wasn't answering his door, and the door was locked - magically.       Koomdawr reappeared, returning Kerri to the group. He'd found her wandering, lost, in the woods. The group decided to bypass the door and try for the roof of the tower... where Rhia and Vhivi discovered a foot and a hand, all that was left of the feywing's repast. Angered by Rhia's management of the evidence, Vhivi spoke against her to those below; meanwhile, Rhia removed the ring she found on the finger of the hand. When Vhivi returned and demanded it, she at first refused to surrender the ring, but finally gave it to Ty.       While this had been going on, a stranger had been attracted by the sight of their campfire; Durn was allowed to spend the night at their camp. Alexana identified the ring from the severed hand as Jarrow's, and Heimdall insisted that no one enter the tower until the next morning. Instead, he and Vhivi returned to the body of the feywing, gutting it to ascertain the identity of its victim. They found enough remnants to determine that it had been a man, and the owner of the boot on the roof, but little else. Heimdall believed it to have been Jarrow, while Vhivi maintained it had been someone else - perhaps Rhia's mentor, Yunta.       Durn, who had at first taken the band to be looters, joined them after hearing the Lady's explanation of her plight. Kerri reluctantly agreed to undergo Rhia's spell to gain knowledge of the Damaran tongue. When she returned to the camp, Heimdall questioned Rhia, then appointed Ty to lead the group into the tower the following morning.
Mirtul 13	In the morning, the band entered the tower through the unguarded trapdoor on the roof, leaving the Lady below with the horses and Durn guarding their exit. On opening a secret door into what appeared to be some sort of alchemist's laboratory, three identical, handsome young men appeared out of nowhere and attacked, driving out all but Rhia, whom thanks to her guest-token was merely escorted to the inner tower and denied access to the laboratory. Several of those who fled found themselves unwilling to return to the tower, while others were badly wounded - Heimdall and Cyravel worst of all.       Ty was able to enter the tower as Rhia's servant, and they explored the top floor together, finding a study and a bedroom. Calling out a window to the others, they informed them of what they'd found. Heimdall feared the others had been ensorcelled, and the Manakja led a prayer to free them of the "Dark Arts" - all but Durn, who Alexana took to be another of the Chosen.       Heimdall ordered Ty and Rhia to open the door from within, while Kerri and Vhivi would stay nearby on the roof in case they ran into trouble - but Vhivi went in after the two, proving that the windows weren't guarded any more than the trapdoor had been. Kerri joined her, and the four descended to the door without incident... only to find that there was no visible means of opening it from within, either.       Outside, Heimdall, Durn and Alexana were hard-pressed to protect Cyravel as goblins overran the camp, making off with supplies before those inside could make it back up to the ropes outside the window. Deciding it was too dangerous to remain outside, the group retreated into the tower, leaving Durn to watch the horses and Ty on the roof to watch his back. However, the afternoon brought visitors - three women, Emma, Avery and Anya - who sought to rescue what they thought was a lost farm boy - Durn. Finding him well-equipped to take care of himself, they signed on with the Lady Alexana instead. However, unable to reconcile their differences, two members of the party fell away - Vhivi riding off into the woods, and Ty blaspheming one time too many before one of the Chosen.       After a shocking search of the second floor kitchen, Rhia and Avery called it a night.
Mirtul 14	In the morning, the band gathered over breakfast to take stock of the situation. It was decided that the women would search the second floor, which they did - disposing of one of the wizard's servants along the way. Deciding they could wait no longer, they decided to force their way into the wizard's laboratory if Rhia, as the Honored Guest, couldn't convince the servants not to attack. She did more than that - she managed to switch their allegiance to her!       In short order the group had moved in, though it proved impossible to open the front door. Even as the rest of the group rummaged through the dead wizard's belongings, Durn fell prey to bandits who preached some sort of madness, keeping their new 'brother' tied in a cave. In an attempt to rescue him, Cyravel, Emma, Anya and Avery were nearly killed, for the bandits were more than they seemed. Still, everyone made it out alive, though they became separated in the attempt; only Cyravel, Anya and Avery made it back to the tower.       Emma and Durn, floundering in the forest, finally found their way to Lake Minarezeroh, and from there to Ropominar. Their location having been divined by Rhia through a crystal ball, the tower group prepared to set out after them - after a rather painful healing ceremony under the auspice of Loviatar.
Mirtul 15	Sending Kerri and Avery to fetch Emma and Durn from Ropominar, the others planned an attack on the Keep. When the four returned, Durn was revealed to be a priest of the gods of the Heartlands. Still, the Manakja let him go, defying her own faith to allow it.       The company advanced.       Using the rod of the dwarves, Rhia destroyed the sorcerous shield that protected the Keep from outsiders even as Anya dropped into the cold waters of the lake with a naked Mikhail, searching for a passage through the rock that would lead her into the Keep's well. Heimdall, who had used some of the salve from the mag Jarrow's tower in hope of aid in climbing the Keep wall, found that it did indeed make the climb a simple matter, though it had the side effect of giving him a long, catlike tail, thick, heavy nails, and eight enormous eyes. When the bandits interrupted him and Emma in trying to lever up the trapdoor to the tower, it was no wonder that they mistook him for a goblin.       No plan survives the first minute of engagement. Anya found no tunnel, and was unable to sneak inside and lower the drawbridge for the others - even as Heimdall and Emma battled the bandits. She hurried back to the rope Heimdall had let down, bringing the others with her - but it was a long climb, and the bandits, once alerted, proved dangerous enough. Their leader, a woman called Malvira, proved to be able to disappear at will - and she took Emma hostage as Heimdall fought an elven mage. Trying to call her bluff, Heimdall found that she wasn't bluffing - when he attacked after her warning, she slit Emma's throat and escaped into thin air together with the elf.       While the invaders gathered and took stock in the stairwell, the bandits were revealed by Rhia to be laying an ambush on the next floor down. To make matters worse, an army had arrived outside... and it wasn't the Boyar's. The bandits had arrived in force. The group discussed their own plans until Anya spotted the elf - seemingly a ghost - listening in.       Anya, Kerri and the nude Mikhail raced down the stairs, heading for the dungeon where the Boyar was being kept, and Heimdall charged past the ghost-elf into the ambush the bandits had laid. Rhia and the Manakja were left to deal with the spirit - and proved unable.       Fortunately for them, the elf left them alive. Heimdall, meanwhile, had a 'vision' he believed to be from Loviatar, and vowed to serve her; shortly after, he had subdued the two bandits that had waylaid him. Then he realized he'd never hauled up the rope he'd thrown down to let his friends into the Keep.       Anya was not so lucky. Though she found the witch-woman and the Boyar, again the ghost-elf threw all plans into chaos... and while the Boyar and Kerri escaped, Anya disappeared along with the witch Malvira and Emistil, the ghost-elf.       Rounding up the last of the bandits Heimdall had trapped on the roof by cutting the rope, Rhia accepted the gratitude of the Boyar as the bandits, frustrated, disappeared into the fog. That night, there was a feast in her honor.
Mirtul 16	Word had reached the city of the Lord's plight, and the Nanther Family gathered a force of sellswords led by their personal troops to send out, hoping to discover what had become of him. The company traveled with a group of priests who did not reveal their reasons for joining them, though it was whispered that they were among the Chosen of the Gods.       That evening, it became clear that at least one of them were. Sent out to ensure that the immediate surroundings of the campsite were safe, the scouts stumbled into an ambush - and Anya, who had escaped the bandits alive... barely. Limping back to their camp with her, Atjets Krel called upon Talona to heal their wounds, and was heard. A scout among the women - Aksana - took charge of her, seeing that she was clothed and protected - by allowing the captain to mistake her for a Manakja due to her scars.       Having seen Anya's escape in her crystal ball, Rhia collected what was necessary to return to her newly-granted tower.
Mirtul 17	Having done what he could to heal her, Atjets Krel reported what Anya had said of the bandits to the captain of the company, who promised to question her further at the earliest opportunity. The long trek through the Forest was made easier by the tales of Spielos, a young "gypsy" with white hair. When they made camp, Sergeant Stammel approached Aksana, charging her with keeping an eye on Spielos, Anya and the outlander Thaurlann.
Mirtul 18	The company of hireswords arrived at Ezeroh Keep. After establishing that the Lord is in charge of the keep, Captain Garsha and his men camp on the list, expecting to remain for a while. Anya, drugged so that she could be safely kept (for questioning if she proved to be a bandit spy) without harm (in case she proved to have saved the Lord as she claimed), woke to find sellswords playing tug of war with Thaurlann over her at the command of Manakja Aliz of Shar, herself acting on Garsha's command. Anya panicked and ran, and Garsha sent the sellswords to the dungeon while he tried to discover whether or not they were rapers of their own people. Rhia told off Aliz, who had her thrown in the dungeon for showing disrespect for the servants of the Church. During this, Thaurlann found the Things from the Forest had followed him to Ezeroh.       Thaurlann rode out into the Forest alone to deal with the Things while Rhia was told the nature of her sentence. She fared better than he, avoiding not only losing her life, but a flogging as well, thanks to intercession on her behalf - and to an oath sworn to the Holy Masters to serve the Tjesnitjérs and the Church. Thaurlann lost his armor, his sword and nearly his life to the Things in the trackless Forest, but managed to escape.       That night the group began to plan the hunt for the escaped bandit army.
Mirtul 19	Rosjevo and Aksana carried out an action to distract Manakja Aliz from their petition to the Church by implicating Spielos and Heimdall as unnatural. Krel tried to convince the Church to send the troops after the bandits. The Church offered to send troops from Melvaunt when they returned there. Spielos gets in a fight with a sellspear and Aksana is instructed to go with the bandit hunters. Half the sellspears prepare to abandon the keep. Rhia receives Heimdall's sword. The group meets to discuss the hunt. The Church puts Krel in charge of Rhia.       Thaurlann was following the smoke from the village to find his way out of the Forest when he came upon some horse-tracks. Thinking it was a bandit's horse, he followed it to find Koomdawr, who was badly wounded. Convincing Thaurlann to follow, the kohpox fled deeper into the Forest trying to lose the 'Man-hunters - who turned out to be peshka with strange powers. They attacked and Thaurlann fled, promising Koomdawr he would find "Jarrow friends."
Mirtul 20	The Church and sellspears abandon the keep for Melvaunt, taking Manakja Alexana, Heimdall and Kerri with them. Lord Tjesnitjérs sets Anya to handling the guards.       Thaurlann followed the river upstream, then back down again to the site of the fight with the Man-hunters, where he found a silver horseshoe.
Mirtul 21	Thaurlann found the Horn of Koomdawr. Following the river, he finally made it back to Ropominar. Anya has Krel heal Thaurlann. He tells her of Koomdawr's request. Rhia falls ill. The party leaves to hunt the bandits.
Mirtul 22	The party travels through the Forest.
Mirtul 23	Atjets Gannon and his pet "demon" Alethra join the group in the morning. The group enters the heavily ridged area they believe the bandits to be in. In the evening Spielos falls prey to a trap set by a mysterious, tall woman in the swamp who goes by the name of Bretanja. Bretanja tries to take the Horn of Koomdawr from Thaurlann, but is bested by the group before vanishing back into the swamp. Anya goes missing during the encounter.
Mirtul 24	Anya returns to the group with information on the bandits' whereabouts. The party is attacked by boginki who mention "the call," which is apparently why they're traveling north and west to the Dragonspine Mountains. The group forges their slow way over the steep ridges. In the night they are beset by an enormous swarm of bugbirds, but they're kept at bay by a huge bonfire and Gannon's fiery sermon.
Mirtul 25	The party finds a lake tucked among the ridges. It is home to a strange and terrible monster, as they find when trying to approach the bandits' lair by the southern lakeside. The captured boginki are slain by it, but the party escapes. They set a trap for the bandits that evening, luring some of them into the monster's grasp even as they use magic to fly to the lake's east end, where the bandits are holed up in a series of tunnels and caves.       The bandits are routed, but Mandrake and his cronies escape.
Mirtul 26	Krel is summoned from where the trap was laid for the bandits. The party explores an opening in the back of the tunnels into an ancient buried crypt. Six undead warriors rise and attack them, but in defeating them Thaurlann, Gannon and Gannon's dog Alyosha are greviously wounded. They are taken back to the firepit cave, where Krel treats them, then poisons Atjets Paryev as a test of his worthiness.       Unaware of the Atjets' death, the party leaves Thaurlann and Gannon under the eyes of the sellspears and hunt down Emistil the elf, who surrenders. They bring him back to the caves and interrogate him about Mandrake. They learn that Mandrake had plans to become a local warlord, which were ruined by the group's foiling of his takeover of Ezeroh Keep and the destruction of his bandit army.
Mirtul 27	The party decides to search the crypts for whatever Mandrake was after. Emistil suggests that he should be allowed to aid them in defeating the crypt's defenses. However, he betrays them, escaping via magic with a book he took from the tomb. Rhia and Alethra set off in pursuit while the others are caught fighting the tomb's monstrous undead guardians.       Once the guardians are defeated, the party is sorely injured, but with the help of Rhia's potions they go to hunt down Emistil again, having found his location with the scrying pool in the tomb. Thaurlann, badly injured, and Krel, exhausted from his prayers of healing, stay behind to rest. Rhia and Anya remain below the cliff, scrying on Emistil and ready to take potions and float up the cliff face to attack.       The group on top of the cliff runs into a cete of badgers in a man-made buried structure. The remains of skeletons armored as the ones in the tomb had been were half-buried in the dirt. It was clear that Emistil hadn't used it as an entrance, so the group decided to rappel down the side of the cliff and attack together with Rhia and Anya.       The assault is overwhelmingly successful as they take Emistil by surprise, and he surrenders again. Rhia and Anya, the effect of their potions faded, are trapped in the cliffside room with Emistil.
Mirtul 28	The rest of the party fetches the sellspears and spends the day digging Rhia, Anya and Emistil out of their hole.
Mirtul 29	The party splits. Spielos and Aksana go hunting with the sellspears while the rest of the party interrogates Emistil and searches the laboratory. Spielos and Aksana run afoul of the Grika-aa, who command them to take a body and set it to rest to end their being haunted. They decide to boil the body's flesh off. Gannon decides that the group will spend another day searching the caves, then leave. The party has strange dreams that night.
Mirtul 30	In the morning everything they want from the bandit lair is packed on the horses in the corral. Rhia contacts Heimdall, and finds that he is in a place called Sirenik. She confronts Aksana about being a Sharran. At highsun they leave the cave complex, sealing it forever.
Kythorn 2	After a few days of travel the group reaches the Phlan Path, where Gannon departs for Melvaunt with Emistil and most of the sellspears.
Kythorn 3	The group reaches Sirenik, where they're reunited with Heimdall. They rest at the Black Bird Inn, and Burgomeister Surgars tells them of Mandrake's latest depredations and Morlaine's madness.
Kythorn 4	The party goes to visit Morlaine, who rants about ghosts and singing. Then they go to the razed Enta farm, and from there into the Quivering Forest, on the trail of the bandits. Morlaine follows and joins them. They're ambushed by bandits, oversized goblins and Forest Things, but dispatch them quickly.
Kythorn 5	The party follows the bandits' trail deeper into the Quivering Forest. They run into strange spider-creatures who demand tribute, but Rhia tricks them into telling her where the bandits have gone: to the ancient ruins in the middle of the forest. The ruins are in sight when the party is attacked by giant wolves.