Our story starts with Zero Uhlit, a portly rogue, poking his nose where it shouldn't be in a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of Deepingwald on The Islands. Thinking the mansion is empty and wondering what treasures it might hold he spied a couple of ruffians up to no good. They unleash a vicious guard dog and Zero has to fight for his life. As the fight starts, Tradden Aversward, a lean youthful fighter, charged with tracking some unsavoury types on behalf of the Deepingwald Guard comes across the mansion and joins the fray. The fight is swift but not without cost, as Tradden takes a blow that nearly fells him, Zero only prevents the pair of them being bitten to death by confusion the hound and bolting it out of the house.
Taking refuge in the mansion to bandage Tradden the pair discover a trapdoor underneath a rug guarded by an lightning trap. Heading down into darkness they find a maze of tunnels and behind a door they stumble upon the incarcerated Khalin Grundokri, a dwarven warlord, bound and gagged, his last memory being of going to sleep in his own bed at the barracks of the Border March.
Heading further into the tunnels the trio are accosted by a swarm of bats, scratching and biting as they screech past, and eventually come to a large chamber with a pit. There they are attacked by rats and manage to swat and beat them away. At the bottom of the pit, wrapped in iron chains laid a robed man, Kireth Majere, a half-elven wizard who Zero frees from his bonds. Continuing through the tunnels, with barely a word of thanks from Kireth, they wind through stalagmites and undulations until the tunnels open up into a much larger cavern, about a hundred feet across, with a small, vacant camp.
A quick check of the campsite revealed nothing of major interest with the exception of a desk whose drawers appeared to be locked with magics. The group took the option to break the drawer open with the use of Khalin's hammer. As the desk shattered to pieces an alarm rang out over the cavern, magicked in the air with a ghastly illusionary mouth shouting "Intruders! Intruders!". Despite the noise the group remained and searched the contents of the drawer that had been spilled on the ground - blank sheets of parchment, many ink stained as a bottle of ink had been smashed by Khalin's strike. One of the papers had some writing on, possibly some form of Elvish, with talk of ‘new recruits’ and ‘mind-washing’. The bottom of the sheet had a single piece of text that was not obscured though - ‘Light must be snuffed, perfection decayed, order dissolved, and minds fragmented.’ Zero had shuddered when he read it. Another item that had spilled from the drawer was a small amulet - a cheap wooden affair on a leather strap. It was plain, wooden, very well used judging by the smooth rounded edges, and practically worthless. Its only distinguishing feature was a small swirl decorated into one side of the wood, filled in with some dark dye. Kireth had pocketed it for later study.
With the alarm halting its screeching the group had moved across the chamber to find some further rooms, shored up with beams and lined with cart tracks as though a mine was once here. In storerooms Tradden found what he could only describe as a makeshift cell, manacles lining the walls and scrawled on the stone wall, perhaps with a mixture of fingernails and blood a single word - ‘lowfield’. Another cell nearby held the bound form of Celestia Gaia, a female elf with golden hair, unconscious and much the worse for wear.
Moving further on, now desperate to get back to light and fresh air, the group found a mine shaft with pulleys and gears and a platform some hundred feet above. Lowering the platform, they all got on and started the slow manual effort of winching themselves to the top. Catastrophe nearly struck when the ropes got stuck, but acrobatics from Tradden managed to ensure that everyone stayed in one piece on the platform and they steadily rose to the top of the shaft, breaking out into the light, and finding themselves in a small hut, with a large open door streaming in sunlight. By the look of the hill and the woods beyond they realised the passageways and caverns had led them a little further than they had thought, and they were at the other side of the peaks surrounding Deepingwald, a brace of leagues from the city.
Starting the march back the group encounters a clearing, with a group of men, huddled around a campfire. A few commoners by the look of it, but on closer inspection they appeared to be a couple of armoured individuals and a man wearing a cloak carrying a gnarled staff. The group were spotted and the group took up arms; the man with the gnarled staff staring at Kireth and shouting, "You will be dissolved. You will decay, be snuffed, fragment!" The group turned the battle well with the aid of Kireth's Flaming Sphere and eventually had floored all but one man who they wanted to take captive. However, rather than be taken prisoner the man ran straight for the flaming sphere and jumped directly into the heart of it. All that remained were cinders.
The group wearily trudged back to the city, heading to the Captain of the Watch to report what they had found. Despite Tradden's best attempts to ingratiate himself with the Watch Captain riches were not bestowed on the group. However, the Captain did offer the group a reward should they take up a mission on the dangerous voyage to the east to the Old Continent. Arranging board and passage on The Guiding Fire for the group and a contact named Kassar the Captain alluded to the mission being to follow and track an individual heading to the Old Continent and the new founded town of Blackengorge, giving Tradden a sealed parchment with more information and swearing Tradden not to open it until they reached the mainland.
With the thrill of adventure and the unknown in all of them the group set sail on The Guiding Fire heading east and to Blackengorge. The journey is not smooth, however, as a storm brews some days out to sea and Celestia spies Kassar signalling across the waves with a lanthorn. As a vast bolt of lightning crashes over the sky, Celestia sees a single striped sail against the bleak horizon, moving straight towards them. The crew had talked about the striped and black sails near the main continent, and The Guiding Fire’s first battle and the loss of The Epideixis.
The striped sail pulled alongside and hordes of hobgoblins, orcs and goblins boarded, taking on the crew of The Guiding Fire and the group in a pitched battle. As the striped sail pulled away a little, a bolt as long as a spear caught Abrahams, the Captain of the ship in the midriff and pinned him to the main mast. Despite the Captain's mortal injuries he still helped direct the crew to beat away the boarders, but the striped ship remained not far away, the beating of their spears and clashing of their shields like a chant on board their ship. Zero could spy the outline of the horde’s ship through the inky blackness, slowly moving away from The Guiding Fire. Shadowy figures danced about on the deck, but most prominent were three horned figures, taller and broader than a man stood on the quarterdeck, with axes held aloft, aimed at the foredeck. He also saw another shadow, small and spindly crawling up to the top of the fo’c’s’le, towards the figurehead at the prow of the ship.
As the shadow arrived at the prow the chanting and spear-beating ceased as one. An eerie keening could be heard emanating from the enemy ship. The water began to boil, great pockets of it exploding over the side and sending spray across the deck of the ship. The group looked around trying to understand what was causing the water to churn so, and then one of the sailors shouted, "A monster, a sea monster, we must flee!" Then with eldritch slowness black tentacles, many feet long, began to squirm and wriggle onto the deck from over the side of the ship and seek out their targets. A guttural cheer came from the other ship, all of the group could see the ship now as they were being carried into the air by the tentacles. On the quarterdeck of the enemy ship stood three huge horned figures, half-man, half-bull with bronzed armour and their axes gleaming. Slowly shifting down from the prow of the foredeck was the spindly figure — returning to where ever it came from, its role completed. Orders could be heard being barked from the largest of the three horned figures, and the ship started to turn about and head to the north.
Further splinters could be heard from The Guiding Fire below and then the sea took her — rushing in and consuming the sleek vessel. As she sank below the boiling waves the last the party saw of her was the shattered mast and Captain Abrahams still pinned, going down with his ship.
All of this seemed to happen is slow motion for Celestia, her eyes transfixed on the beast trying to stem her fear and agony. As the beast started to sink into the now calming waters to consume its prey her chest began to burn, she lost her breath, and a light sprang from the amulet around her neck. Bright it was, and seemed to mirror the starkness of the stormy clouds and the chaos of the rolling sea with grey and blue and green rays streaming out of it and over the beast’s black tentacles. Suddenly the beast gave a roar, and whipped its tentacle around, releasing and flinging the hapless adventurers and the lifeless bodies of the sailors across the surface of the water, where they skipped across and eventually plunged into the icy blackness. Almost at the same instant the ship’s only lifeboat, bobbed to them across the surface of the water. Khalin managed to drag people out of the water and get them into the boat with his unearthly dwarven endurance. The light from Celestia’s amulet dimmed slightly, leaving the party in a soft glow, out on the open ocean — now calm. Drifting, ever so slowly drifting, the group finally succumbed to fatigue, and blackness filled them all.
