July 5th, 2013

Prelude to Kingmaker

DM: Mike

Cast:

Krysalis, human sorceress - Sally

Lenora, human druid - Melissa

Vel'kash, human druid - Arren

Serafina, human sorceress - Rachel

Hargus, human cleric - Kevin

The guard asked us to remain at the station for 24 hours while Aladrin was allowed to leave town. We dutifully waited, and during this time we each received a letter from the local house Cannith representative, inviting us to a meeting to discuss the recent murder and apologize for Aladrin's actions. While we waited we pondered what to do about the mysterious Cannith book, which was obviously magical but contained only blank pages.

After the 24 hours, the guard asked for our assistance again in investigating the professor’s murder, specifically they asked Serafina to help interrogate a suspect, one of Aladrin's contacts. She discovered that this rogue had not yet received payment from Aladrin, but he had provided her information about a possible cache of old Cannith artifacts. He expected to be paid once Aladrin made her haul, but she had not returned to pay him.

After the guards thanked us for our assistance, we retired to our inn, and planned our next move. We weren't sure we wanted to return the book to house Cannith, since we didn't know what it was or how powerful it might be. As we discussed the matter, we heard shouts and alarms from outside, and going to investigate discovered a fire blazing in the stable across the street.

We rushed to quell the fire, and came under attack suddenly from a trio of enemies. Two of them fired crossbows, wounding Velkash, while the single warforged leader shouted commands. Lenora raised an obscuring mist to shield us from the archers, while everyone rallied around Hargus. The assailants strode into the mist, where Hargus and Lenora coordinated their attacks. Krysalis moved into position behind the enemies, where she cast sleep, knocking out the two human attackers, leaving only the warforged leader standing. Finally, Hargus dealt a terrible blow to the warforged, killing him instantly.

We recovered the loot carried by the attackers before the guard arrived, and found a severed human finger bearing a house Cannith ring on the body of the warforged. We soon discovered that the ring unerringly pointed the finger at the mysterious Cannith book we recovered from the professor’s office. With some trial and error, we found that the ring needed the severed finger to function, and using the ring revealed the hidden printing in the book, which seemed to deal with ancient house Cannith creation forge construction.

We still didn't trust house Cannith, but we decided to meet with them and hopefully gain some insight about why Aladrin had lied about her uncle's murder, why the warforged disciples of the Lord of Blades wanted this book, and what the book might be. We met the representative within the Cannith enclave, and he revealed that he believed Aladrin had stolen the book and the ring from her mother, who had previously held the items. He didn't know why she would take it, and claimed that the book had more sentimental value to house Cannith than practical value, but it might be useful to the Lord of Blades. With it, he might find a way to make more warforged minions to further his goal of eradicating humanoid life.

The Cannith representative offered us 1,000gp each for the safe return of the book, the ring, and for finding Aladrin. We carefully considered his offer and accepted, but we still did not trust him enough to immediately return the book or the ring. Instead, we planned to find Aladrin to get more answers...