Governor Nighthill’s continued worry over the townsfolk who had not yet made it to safety made his gratitude for the adventurer’s assistance seem thin. Still boisterous and proud of their exploits, our heroes assured the good governor that they would foray once more into the town and bring his neighbors to safety.
“I’ve been helping a Warforged out, putting him up in my house,” Grant said earnestly, “The guy seems pretty rough. I mean… like things have been hard on him and he’s got lots of pretty hairy stories - war stories. I thought helping him was the least I could do…
“Anyway, the raiders came in so fast and hard… well, I didn’t have time to get all the way back out to my place. I’ve been here - and I’m gonna have to stay here. I’d love to know the guy is alright. He really doesn’t deserve this, you know? But I can’t get to him. Not right now. If you can… could you please check on him?”
Tross, knowing more than a little about the importance of seeing to the safety of friends and allies, readily agreed to the task and proposed the party could easily skirt the edge of town by following the path they had cleared of raiders a short time before.
Setting out, the party found themselves in the midst of a large scouting party sweeping the river. However, they made quick work of the ambush drake and then easily cleaned up the two cultists and ten kobolds still remaining. From the river, the party made their way across the wooded bank and onto the main thoroughfare of the western part of town, stopping to check the houses for straggling townsfolk along the way. Though they found none in need of help, they did encounter a very bold group of two cultists and an acolyte.
Inexplicably, these raiders moved to attack and were immediately and permanently silenced by our heroes. Moving forward, they heard a scream pierce the night air, and saw a bright red glow flash out of the upper windows of a nearby abandoned house before all fell silent once more. This dilapidated building stood next to Grant Markguth’s indicated home and drew the interest of the adventurers. Tross approached cautiously, passing through a front door which swung airily back and forth on loose hinges, its latch long ago rotted away. In the main room they found two strange circular symbols etched into the wooden floor. Upon closer examination, Tross determined the etchings resembled a soul binding spell or perhaps even the creation of a phylactery. However, there were unusual changes and additions which he could not read.
Losing no focus, Tross continued directly up the stairs, finding a trail of blood dripping down each step as he passed. On the landing, a pool of blood covered the floor with the bodies of two cultists lying just beyond. Smears of blood dragged across the floor from the cultists to a ritual circle hastily drawn in blood and within the circle sat a suit of armor. The Warforged, Vessel lay slumped against the far wall of the room, next to two more suits of armor and a finely crafted shield. A pool of darker blood emanated from the dying Warforged’s body, and his breaths came in short and shallow gasps. As the party drew close, he rolled his head upward to look at them.
“It… worked?” Vessel croaked out with hope in his voice and turned his eyes toward the armor seated in the ritual circle.
“What worked?” asked Tross, stopping mid-room and trying to assess what had happened here.
With struggling breath, Vessel admitted he was trying to perfect a method of creating new Warforged from unwilling conscripts. He mentioned something called the Emberfrost Alliance, but gave no greater detail. He thought that by using invading cultists for his experiment, then his efforts would be welcomed by the town’s defenders. It all mattered very little now, his breathing growing ever slower and his life slipping away. Whatever he had discovered would not be able to help his fellow Warforged and his secrets were doomed to die with him.
Just then, the armor inside the ritual circle jerked itself to its feet and stumbled toward Tross, arms outstretched.
“Free us… please!” it moaned in a ghastly whisper.
Tross looked on in shock as the armor grasped his shoulders tightly.
“It’s so cold…” the armor complained, insistently.
Tross tried to ask it some questions, with Vessel looking on through sanguine eyes, his own light quickly fading away, but his curiosity over the success of his endeavor bolstering him in his final moments.
“Destroy the armor, it is our prison…” came the next gasp from the suit. Tross offered some words of comfort, some assurance that he would find a way to help, but it was as if the animated suit could not hear him speak.
“Free us… please!” it repeated desperately, moving its hands to Tross’ neck in an aggressive gambit. Tross easily pulled the gauntlets aside, holding the new creatures arms away from his neck and asking the suit another question.
“...so cold.” was the only response.
Rilos, disturbed by the scene, obliged the grotesque suit by hurling a firebolt into its midsection, causing the whole thing to fly apart and clatter to the floor. It lay silent. Beyond the remains, the party saw Vessel briefly raise his hands to object. However, the Warforged lacked the strength for rebuttal and the last of his vigor left him in that moment. His hand fell and his body slumped, dead to this world forever.
Tross looked at Rilos in disgust.
“You just destroyed his life’s work right in front of him.”
Rilos sputtered for a moment, then retorted, “It said it was cold… I was just warming it up.”
“You couldn’t have waited until it was dead first?”
After quickly skimming the book, however, Shay realized that nearly anybody in their group could benefit from the odd shield, and became self-conscious about her intention of claiming the item for herself. However, Unka waved her hand dismissively and muttered something like “shields aren’t for me.” Rilos appraised his staff carefully and offered that he didn’t feel the shield was to his liking. Tross, on the other hand, examined the piece more carefully, looking from it to Shay’s hope-filled countenance repeatedly.
“I think you should have it.” Tross finally declared to Shay and walked down the stairs with stolid certainty. On the main floor, just off the main room, they found a small office with a wide but clean work table. On it were three tomes, stacked neatly from tallest to shortest. The smallest of the books was an arcane book of some sort, written in an unfamiliar script, but clear enough to reveal it was a detailed description of some form of ritual binding work. Shay was hopeful this was some form of record for Vessel’s life work. The middle tome was named the Nexus Cipher Compendium and contained and extensive listing of gems and their uses when coupled with something called a “Nexus Ciper.” Pictures in the book revealed the nexus cipher to be the same shape as the smaller sockets in her new shield, so she tossed that book into her pack as well.
The final and largest book was a history of the Emberfrost Alliance. The party paused in interest as Shay read aloud from the book. They learned that the warforged were built to fight in something called “The Last War.” The first of them were mindless automatons, but House Cannith devoted vast resources to improving these steel soldiers. An unexpected breakthrough produced fully sentient soldiers, blending organic and inorganic materials. Warforged were made from wood and metal, but they could feel pain and emotion. Built as weapons, they now needed to find a purpose beyond just the war they eventually won.
he Emberfrost Alliance was named after the city of Emberfrost, which existed on another material plane and was created in secret by an alliance of humans and free warforged who had escaped captivity. The city was eventually besieged and destroyed, but not before much of the population had been evacuated across the planes to Faerun. Many warforged and humans gave their lives to cover the retreat.
The Emberfrost Alliance believes that the city was betrayed from within, since the invading forces moved directly to the evacuation portals, whose locations had been a closely guarded secret. The Alliance is now focused on bringing to justice those responsible for betraying Emberfrost. They also wish to find a way to return and rebuild.
Some factions within the alliance think that they should build a new Emberfrost in Faerun by taking one of the existing cities by force. These are trying to raise an army for this purpose. Most of the rest of the tome then focused on the mechanics of raising an army of warforged. The last section contained extensive speculation on the pragmatism and acceptability of forcibly converting potential enemies into warforged for the sake of drafting them to the cause. Shay skimmed over these parts, as they now had a fair idea of what Vessel was trying to accomplish.
It was in this moment that the unsteady alliance of our five heroes nearly crumbled. Exhausted, shocked and singed, Shay and Rilos cried out in despair.
“Why are we even here?” moaned Shay, looking upon the corpses of their fallen charge and weeping.
Rilos interjected readily, “We could just leave.” He looked longingly at the open field just beyond the edge of town a mere 300 feet away.
“We are helping these people.” spoke Tross, with finality.
“But we’re not,” said Shay. “We just got them killed.”
Seraphina looked on quietly and shrugged, balancing her shortsword by the tip on her finger.
“Whatever you want to do.”
“I haven’t even heard from my guide, I don’t know why I am here. I have a duty to attend at court and I don’t even know where I am. It’d be fine if I was actually helping, but we just led these people to their death, and for what? Are we even supposed to be here? And who is Lo Risten and why is she so squeamish?”
Shay fell silent, her outburst reverberating through the party.
“I agree. Why are we here?” Rilos observed after a moment. Unka gripped her battleaxe tightly, licking her lips and gazing at the fires and chaos in the rest of the town with greedy enthusiasm, but her only reply was:
“Unka go wherever.”
“Let’s at least go back to the keep.” Tross spoke up. “Maybe there is a reason we are here. We all have strange memories and other fates in our head. None of us meant to be here, and none of us truly knows what is happening. But we’re linked together somehow. If we stay and fight, we can do a good thing that might give us the understanding we seek.”
So the party trudged on quietly, making quick time and discovering eight more townsfolk hiding along their way. Governor Nighthill positively beamed upon their return, he was so grateful to see more of his constituents safely within the keep’s walls.
Suddenly, the dragon roared again, swooping low and unleashing its breath against the defenders of the wall of the keep. It killed four noble souls outright and Shay flinched, taking cover in the courtyard.
“We can’t kill a dragon!” She shouted over the din of defenders ineffectually firing arrows at the massive beast. Lennithon wheeled about for another attack. Undaunted, Tross took five long strides up the parapet stairs and braced himself at the top of the wall, raising his hand toward the dragon in defiance, intoning dark words. He closed his fist in a deathly grip and a crackling boom ripped through the air at the dragon’s flank, sending Lennithon rolling to his side. The dragon stopped short of his assault, wings beating the air as he contemplated the keep. Rilos silently prepared his spell, stepping up to the challenge but Lennithon turned and flew away. The keeps defenders erupted in cheers of gratitude. How would the raiders react to this loss?
Governor Nighthill came not far on the heels of the great victory over the dragon, telling the adventurers that he feared they would never last the night if they didn’t understand what the raiders were up to. The dragon was gone, but clearly this small army had many tricks up their sleeves if they could even call upon a dragon to help them in the first place. Also, the raiders had started trying to set the mill on fire. This was the real reason for Nighthill’s desperation. If the town lost the mill, they’d never be able to rebuild their stock before the winter months. People would be forced to move or flee, which they would hardly be able to do after all of their possessions had been stolen or burned.
Nighthill hand a band of defenders preparing to break through the keep’s attackers so that they could defend the mill, but they’d never make it in time. Men had to gear up, distractions had to be orchestrated, plans needed to be set in place. He was desperate for our heroes to take the lead and ensure the mill was kept safe before it was all too little too late.
Without hesitation and without stopping to see what his companions might think of the continued gauntlet this night represented, Tross agreed to help and set off toward the tunnels. The rest of the party followed. They approached the mill from the cover of the woods so that they could observe the movements of the raiding party. Unka’s sharp vision revealed a small group of kobolds and cultists who weren’t actually setting fire to anything. They were just making a big show of it. This was obviously a trap.
Changing their position, Unka looked at the mill even more closely, observing that there were a number of shadowy shapes shifting around in the loft of the mill. Through the open door, she could see that the loft strained under the weight of all that had been stored there along with the added encumbrance of ambushers. Seraphina slipped forward into the mill and knocked one of the support beams free before scurrying back a few steps.
Nothing happened at first, but then with loud creaks and groans, the loft began straining and snapping under the weight of its load. The ambushers had no time to anticipate the collapse, shifting nervously for only a moment amidst the noise before the whole loft came crashing down, sending flour blasting out of the open doors and scaring the kobolds and cultists making a show of burning the place down. Without hesitation, the heroes dashed into the fray, slaying many of the fallen before making short work of those that remained. Even the two massive guard drakes stood no chance before the fury of Greenest’s new defenders.
By the time defenders from the keep had arrived, the situation was thoroughly handled and Shay was busily performing funeral rites for the fallen raiders while the rest of the party looked on with mild interest. Free once more but no longer looking for escape, the adventurers picked their way back slowly across the wooded bank, scanning the treeline for any sign of raiders adorned with purple robes. Though they found none, they did happen upon a group of six cultists sweeping through the woods in response to the failure at the mill. Like so many others, the inevitable battle was short and easily won, leaving a lone cultist to surrender after watching her compatriots fall. Tross carried her back to the keep and Shay took the lead in questioning her.
The only information they could convince the cultist to reveal was that the raiders were only searching for wealth, to be added to something she called “the Great Hoard to usher in the return of the Queen.” This sounded very ominous, but the cultist knew very little else and the interrogation was soon interrupted with a new request from Governor Nighthill. Dragging the adventurers to the keep’s parapet once more, he pointed to the Temple of Chauntea located at the southeastern corner of town.
“Dozens of townsfolk barricaded themselves inside the temple before it was completely surrounded by raiders. The building is stout and has protected them well, but the raiders have now deployed an improvised battering ram. It looks like they are only minutes away from breaching the main door. The people inside are helpless and I have nobody to send. Can you help them?”
Of course the party agreed, rushing off again into the Old Tunnel. Indeed the raiders had the temple surrounded. The temple, made of fieldstone with a peaked slate roof, offered very little opportunity for attackers to breach aside from the large, sturdy doors now guarding its entrances. On the north side, the raiders assaulted the door with their ram while on the south side a backup force prepared for the eventual rout. However, on the western side of the building, a small group of enthusiastic kobolds led by two cultists was trying to gain entry by burning the door down. However, they were met with no success as they struggled to even light the fires they needed.
To the great fortune of the party, these foolish kobolds had created a thick blanket of smoke which completely obscured the western door. Rilos quickly performed a prestidigitation which drew the attention of the southern raiders more to the east side of the building while Seraphina snuck in close and handily unlocked the side door. Within she found twenty-five townsfolk milling about in a state of panic along with three priests who were trying to calm them.
“Excuse me,” she intoned in a loud whisper, but received no response.
“Excuse me,” she repeated, slightly louder. Still no response.
“Excuse me!” she whispered as loudly as she dared. Brother Brem turned his attention to her.
“Why... where did you come from?” He stuttered in shock.
“Would you like to get to safety?” Seraphina replied matter-of-factly and motioned toward the door.
“Are there raiders out there?” Came the cautious response. Seraphina cracked the door open and looked into the smoke.
“Just a moment,” she winked and then disappeared out the door.
As silently as a ghost, Seraphina slipped through the dense cover slitting unwitting throats until she accidentally stumbled over a fallen body and the remaining raiders rushed to investigate the noise. Seraphina’s companions rushed to her aid, seeing what was afoot and the remaining foolhardy invaders were felled without a sound.
Seraphina returned to the door, poked her head inside and called out:
“Ok,. let’s go!”
Quickly, the townsfolk were led from the endangered building, quieted and careful as they picked their way back to the river, tunnel and keep.