Session 1 Summary

  Our heroes arrived in Moore, the seat of the frontier kingdom, for it’s annual Brew Festival. The city was alive with celebration as families from throughout the north flocked there to partake of the festivities and free ale from Reid, the Moore’s premier provider of the beverage.
   After an uneventful entrance to the bannered and bedecked city, Jace attempted to warn Markus Jerryl, the captain of Moore’s guard and lord of the newly established Fort Eastguard of the potential threat his fugitive sorcerer from the Ash Valley could pose to the festival and the thousands gathered there under his watch. Jerryl none too politely dismissed the foreign paladin’s counsel and went about his rotation among his men’s stations. It seemed that there was always some threat against the people of the frontier, and Jerryl wasn’t about to evacuate the city for one more from an unknown source.
   As the festival neared it’s climax with the arrival and distribution of the free Reid ale, most of the yet unacquainted and all foreign party chose to forego the offer and just observe the native tradition. Ozu, however, partook with the festival-goers as Councilman Moore, the chairman of the ruling council, gave the traditional toast to officially kick off the festivities. Fortunately for the sorcerer, the ale didn’t have the effect it did on many others in the crowd as the square quickly filled with the sounds and smells of retching. Most of the thousands gathered fell violently ill, many so that they would never rise again.
   Adding to the crowd’s woes, more than twenty of the Reid-supplied barrels burst open to produce goblins who jumped into the sickened mass with violent abandon, cutting down all in their path and producing a terrifying panic among the people. One even made it’s way to Councilman Moore, beheading him amid the throes of his own sickness. The monster’s celebration was short-lived, however, as Jerryl ran him through and rallied the crowd to fight. The party and several peasants answered his call and the malevolent interlopers were all slain in moments. Ozu’s magic missiles blasting amidst the master dual-sword and scythe-work of Calings and Jace were the goblin’s worst undoing, though the others weren’t exactly slack in their efforts in the fight.
   When the dust settled, the cries of the victim’s loved ones filled the square and Jerryl demanded answers from the Reid cart-drivers who had brought the ale from the northern city. The drivers swore ignorance and were arrested, after which Jerryl put out another call to the people, this time to tend to the sick and wounded. Jadek and Calings both put their talents and powers to use in the task, while Ozu and Varial did what they could to ascertain the properties of the tainted brew. Ozu’s magical inspection yielded nothing, but Varial was able to identify the contagion as a natural substance that seemed to him to be associated with vermin.
   Jace, in frustration at what he saw as a preventable attack, accosted Jerryl for his inaction after his earlier warning. Again the captain brushed him off, scolding him in turn for his finger-pointing when there were so many around them in critical need of help.
   At the appointed time, the members of the party all gathered in the Moore Council chambers, where Jerryl commissioned them to go to Reid and investigate this calamity. So it was that our band of adventurers came together for the first time and were united by the cause of justice...and better beer!
   The next morning, as the group departed the city amidst the mourners, Jace took the lead in proposing strategies for their approach to the investigation which were mostly met with indifference. This only made it easier for his suggestions to become their plan, since there were no dissenting ideas.
   Calings, moved by compassion and empathy for the thousands coming to the city to find out their loved one’s fates, showed his concern for a particularly forlorn traveller by taking a moment and spending a bit of his power to impart The Spirit’s blessing as he passed by. The man was speechless in his anxiety, but deeply moved by this foreigner’s care for him.
   After passing by the outlying farms and villages of Moore and coming to the open road, the party spotted several man-sized creatures take flight from the eastern horizon toward the northeast, but decided after a short deliberation to press on northward to Corrin, their stopover for the night before traversing the North Moore Forest.
   Upon arriving at the small village, the heroes were surprised to find it virtually devoid of activity until they were met by the local lord’s herald, Gavin, who informed them that the town was in mourning for the Lord Daris’ wife, Lorin. He extended the lord’s apologies that he could not host them in the manor for the night, but offered the hospitality of the local brewer and baker at the village hall. Of course, the North Moore Inn just up the road remained an option. Many of the party found the mood of the village and the behavior of it’s lord suspicious, and paid Hilde, the aforementioned brewer/baker, a cursory visit at best before making their way out to dig for answers.
   Ozu, the only one to more fully engage with their hostess, overwhelmed her with the (modestly embellished) gruesome details of the festival the day before, which heightened her concern for her daughter, Erin, who was out a little too late at the village’s river ferry docks awaiting her lover’s return from a day out trapping in the western North Moore Forest. Summarily assigned the task of convincing her to come home, he set out and found the lovesick girl waiting as her mother had described. Unfortunately for the socially inept sorcerer, his repeated details of festival-goers corpses “stacked like cordwood” failed to charm the lass into seeing the follies of her too-late-going vigil and come home. Hilde understood her daughter’s stubbornness, however, and cheerfully provided him with more bread.
   Meanwhile, the rest of the party dispersed between the manor and the local temple. Jace and Jadek at the latter made inquiries of the priestess there into Lord Daris, his wife and what she thought about all that was going on in the village. She informed Jace that she was concerned for Daris. He didn’t seem to be taking his wife’s death well at all. Seeing this caused her to be concerned for the village as well, and what might become of it without Lorin; not that Daris is cruel or in any way a bad man, but his wife was the heart of the village, always showing kindness to all and giving as much as she could to see to everyone’s well being and happiness. As Jadek began his devotions, Jace left to see what could be done about Lord Daris’ spirits.
   As the Paladin made his way to the manor grounds, Calings and Varial were making their way into the manor house, having snuck along the river to it’s rear. Calings scaled the houses log wall without difficulty while Varial made his way around the front to provide cover from a tree from which he could survey the grounds.
   Jace had little difficulty talking his way past the guards at the manor gate, but Gavin would hear none of his persuasions at the front door. His lord was in no state to be receiving visitors, and had ordered the house shut to all besides. When it came to threats of staying the night in the dungeon instead of accepting Lord Daris’ generous offer, Jace withdrew...to the side door, which he found unlocked.
   Calings also found the second-floor windows unlocked, into which he slipped, finding himself in the manor’s display hall, as it were. Suits of armor lined the wall abreast a glass display case containing Lord Daris’ record of lineage and the original deed to Corrin.
   Back at the bakery, Hilde slipped to Ozu, amidst concerns that their lord was drowning his sorrows, that when runners from Moore brought word about Lord Daris’ wife they also ordered that any Reid ale on hand in the village not be opened. The recent delivery of the brew was taken then to the manor house, which was simultaneously secured by order of Lord Daris. Ozu promptly left the suddenly silent Hilde for the manor, meeting Jadek on his way back to the bakery from his devotions. After a loquacious appeal to the cleric for assistance in bringing their headstrong hostesses daughter home, Ozu made his way toward the manor while Jadek stopped at the bakery for a bite before obliging.
   In his exploration of the manor, our Paladin came upon a door from which he could hear drunken ramblings of a sorrowful man. Finding it locked, Jace had the courtesy to knock instead of bursting in upon the nobleman into whose house he had intruded. Lord Daris called for Gavin, who appeared a moment later in the now opened door. Jace literally pushed past the man’s cries of outrage to counsel with his inebriated lord, and barricaded the door once the herald had rushed out. Though it took quite a bit of patience and repetition, Jace was able to deter Lord Daris from his suicidal binge for the sake of his people and the memory of his wife, noting that a copious amount of the supposedly same ale that had had killed her had no effect on Daris except to put him three sheets to the wind.
   As the benevolent knight was having his breakthrough with the lord of the manor, a crash sounded from the room above them when Calings broke the display containing his precious documents. Taking the deed to Corrin, he made for the same window by which he had entered. Much to his surprise, a patrolling guard heard the commotion and saw him escaping the scene of his crime. His cries for the guards echoed those from the front of the manor as Gavin also called Corrin’s finest to respond to the intruder on the first floor.
   Calings managed to make his escape relatively cleanly. Nearly missing a leap onto a nearby shed and calling on the plants in the path of the guards to delay them, he made for the river, deed tucked safely beneath his leather armor. Once across, however, he was spotted by the guards and made for the Western North Moore Forest where he disappeared into it’s darkened depths.
   Ozu and Jadek both attempted to respond to the call for guards from their respective paths, but were turned away at the gate and escorted back to the bakery after Ozu’s verbose attempts to persuade the guards to allow them past. Once inside, the crafty pair used the perceived peril Erin was in to convince Hilde to sneak them out the back door. Initially willing, the innocent mother had a change of heart upon opening the back door to a swarm of passing guards. Reassured of her daughter’s safety, she tried to get the pair back to the front. Without a moment of consideration they pushed past her into the street between the bakery and the manor grounds, where they were instantly spotted by the remaining guard at the gate. After a very short chase they were both arrested, caught between the straggling guards from the manor and those at the river. At least they had the satisfaction of seeing Erin being escorted safely home by the very guards they were evading, carrying on about Rufus’ delinquency in returning.
   Jace, having accomplished his mission of saving Lord Daris from the depths of despair, allowed himself to be arrested and taken to the manor’s dungeon once the guards swarmed him as he attempted a casual stroll out of the dining room.
   Varial, having observed the dozens of guards passing beneath him, finally saw it clear to leave his perch and see what would become of his companions. In a rare moment of clumsiness, however, his descent became a fall, drawing the attention of the only guards left on the grounds up in the tower atop the garrison. He managed to escaped unharmed and unpursued to observe Ozu and Jadek being taken to the garrison, presumably to be kept there in shackles.