Part I: The Dark Road (Book II)

Part I (Book II) is currently in progress. A summary will be posted upon its completion.

Part IV: Standing In Harm's Way

The road to Elventree was anything but easy. Hours into its journey, the contingent was set upon by a pair of bloodthirsty ogres, leaving the friends battered, their last remaining coach barely drivable. As they gathered themselves, Luna having broken an arm after being blasted from the carriage, a red, leathery-winged creature appeared before them, threatening that more vile ogres awaited them on Elua's Ride. The fiend then vanished.

The promised encounter occurred a short while later, with large stones raining down on the companions from either side of the forested valley through which they were traveling. The melee was gruesome; five more ogres assailed the contingent, the friends claiming victory only after the dwarf, Spitbeard, was slain, his head caved in by one of the brute's clubs. Their wagon, too, was destroyed in the battle. Wrought with injuries, they continued on through the night (having slept the better part of the previous day), and arrived in Elventree late the next morning. On the streets of the shaded village, Markel encountered Fiernoth Freemantle, the forester first met in the temple of Mielikki in Hillsfar. Fiernoth greeted Markel warmly, and introduced to him his uncle, Sir Regallo Flambaster, a diviner of some local fame, called upon from Yûlash to help uncover the fate of a band of Elventree's hunters, recently gone missing in the forest.

The rest of the companions rented rooms at the Swaying Bough Inn, then all of them called to Moonsilver, High Herald to all the Dales. Moonsilver proved amiable to the friends' cause, pledging Elventree's support; reassured, the friends returned to the inn for some much-needed rest. They slept well into the next day, awoken by a commotion outside: Fiernoth and Regallo Flambaster had returned from Cormanthor, the latter swooning and in desperate need of a cleric. Through Fiernoth they learned that the uncle had been "mind-blasted" by some kind of magical scrying ward, though not before he relayed visions of armored men and a ring of blue fire, which Moonsilver presumed to be a portal.

The friends agreed to accompany Fiernoth back into the forest; at the bidding of Moonsilver, they also accepted the company of one Azil Greyfoot, a slippery-fingered halfling from Melvaunt. Soltrius and Hadrian stayed behind, intending to recover the wagon and spices left abandoned on the road; Luna, too, remained, her arm still badly injured. And so, seven companions delved into Cormanthor, finding the blue portal and the blades of many soldiers defending it. The armored men were Zhents, and they battled the contingent fiercely, but when the companions seemed outmatched, the Zhents' own mage turned against his allies, slaying them with spells and causing several to flee outright, the Zhent swordcaptain included.

The mage, they learned, was possessed by some other being, that believed to be the same black essence the friends had encountered near the Eshen Glade, several days earlier. This "shadow spirit," as it came to be called, proffered the release of Elventree's hunters (who had actually been captured by the Zhents) upon completion of these tasks: that the contingent would travel through the portal to Zhentil Keep, locate a wizardess named Jelescavia Runesurr, and recover a golden artifact from a temple called the Chalice of the Dead Three. After the spirit also informed the friends that the fourth captured hunter was yet imprisoned in the notorious city, they knew they had little choice but to agree.

Left behind were Lefwain, who had remained hidden in a tree during the party's discourse with the spirit, and Fiernoth, who was too grievously injured to contunue on. When finally the gnome tried to escape back to Elventree, he was captured by the Zhent swordcaptain and baited to help the soldiers return through the portal. The plan failed, the shadow spirit slew the Zhent assailants, and Lefwain fed Fiernoth a Zhent poison that he believed to be a curing potion. The forester died there, and Lefwain was ordered by the spirit to fetch back the lone Zhent who had escaped during the skirmish. The Zhent dueled Lefwain, but the gnome's dagger ultimately prevailed, and he returned to the portal grove, still captive and with nothing else to do but wait.

The other end of the portal opened in a store room beneath a Zhent armory; upon exiting, the friends took to the streets of Zhentil Keep and its many taverns, searching for leads. Meanwhile, Penrith and Addledasher arrived in Elventree seeking their friends, but finding only Luna. Late that night, a mostly-recovered Regallo divined the demise of an ally in Cormanthor (Fiernoth's, of course, though the wizard knew this not), and bade Luna to accept a casting that would transport her to the place where the fates deemed her most needed. She agreed, and found herself in a dark and silent chamber.

Not knowing where she might be, Luna set a light and uncovered a long wooden box stowed beneath the stone floor. The box was a coffin, and its ancient skeleton attacked her, nearly to her end. When finally she defeated it, Luna discovered a golden dragon's horn beneath where it had lain; she took it, found an escape passage, and snuck out of the basement of what proved to be a temple. Luna found herself on the streets of an unknown city (Zhentil Keep), alone, and at night.

Meanwhile, the rest of the companions learned little from visiting many taverns, the few leads they uncovered pointing to an area of the city known as the "inner quarter." This was a guarded sector, and the friends made it inside with the help of a goodly priest of Deneir named Halfast Mercantor who they encountered on the streets nearby. The friends skulked about the inner quarter for some time, finding, to their amazement, Luna!

They set up for the night at an inn called the Steadfast's Citadel, exchanging tales and information. In the morning, the party stood divided on its course of action; half traveled the city, visiting the hall of records (and learning that Jelescavia Runesurr had seemingly died decades earlier), and the other half returned to the armory and the portal room in its basement. There was set a ambush by Zhents, who battled the companions fervidly. But when the tide swayed in favor of the Zhentilar and their leader, one "High Imperceptor of Bane," Penrith and Addledasher emerged from behind crates, attacking the contingent's enemies. Penrith was killed in the battle by a cloud of black ash that spewed forth from the severed neck of the imperceptor; solemn, the friends learned that the pair had arrived in the portal room by the same magic used to transport Luna below the Chalice of the Dead Three, cast by the hand of Regallo Flambaster.

This half of the contingent, which now included Vennel, Luna, Halfast, Azil, and Addledasher, returned through the portal to learn what had befallen. Shortly thereafter, Markel, Mercurius and Achran came forth as well. The shadow spirit proved true to its word, releasing Lefwain, the three hunters, and Fiernoth's body. The fourth hunter, a half-elf named Temrillis, was still captive in Zhentil Keep, although the spirit insisted that this was not its own doing. Then, having accepted the golden horn and information regarding Jelescavia, the shadow spirit departed into the woods, still controlling the body of one truly ill-fated Zhent mage.

The following day, the party returned to Elventree to a mixed reception of tears and praise. Soon thereafter, Moonsilver journeyed with a small escort into Cormanthor in search of the Sy'Tel'Quessir, and the companions convened with Lethedluin, Moonsilver's half-elven associate, and Master Vollangar, a mage of local renown, at the cottage called the House of the Harp. There, the contingent determined its course to be Melvaunt, Soltrius for trading spices and all in search of answers to the brooding conflict between Hillsfar, Zhentil Keep, Cormanthor, and the Dalelands.

Part III: Journey Untold

Seven of the contingent's eight members passed through the gates of Hillsfar on Midsummer's Eve with minimal questions from the guards. Once inside, the friends found their way to The Tangled Vine Tavern, where they drank heartily, conversed with numerous patrons, and met a young, flaunting woman named Cahylie, who openly propositioned herself to Mercurius.

Brother Bevue entered the city separately, distantly behind his companions, and found his way to a modest temple known as the Monastery of the Hallowed Pale. Leras, its caretaker, bid the humbled priest to stay for the evening, and he did, attempting to learn what he may of Hillsfar and its recent dealings with the wild elves of Cormanthor. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the contingent stowed the horses and caravan at a local stable, and sought rest at a low-key inn and alehouse called Ye Olde Trip to Cormyr.

The next morning, Achran reconvened with his companions, then set off again on his own to tarry about the city and gather more information. Markel and Hadrian visited a local shrine to Mielikki, where they met a traveling forester, Fiernoth Freemantle, hailed from Elventree. Luna, Vennel, Lefwain, and Mercurius ventured about the city and located Penrith's brother, a masonry worker named Heseail, while Soltrius peddled his trade-goods in at Hillsfar's market square.

As latefeast neared, Luna and Lefwain headed out to a dinner meeting with Heseail, where they informed the mason of his brother's whereabouts, and of the Sy'Tel'Quessir's attack on the Red Plume camp. Achran, still wandering alone, found himself approached by a pair of soldiers, then escorted into a nearby barrack. To his surprise and utmost horror, Nemmish, the Red Plume wizard thought dead in the forest, was there waiting for him. The evil mage infiltrated the priest's mind with his spells, ere he cast him back out onto the streets. Panicked, Achran fled back to the inn, only to see that his friends were nowhere to be found.

Finally, the priest spotted his companions in the market, and ushered them into a nearby pub where he offered up his tale. The friends headed back to the wagon, but when they arrived, they found that Soltrius, too, was missing. As they scoured the bustling square, Cahylie revealed herself from the shadows, informing the contingent that she had watched Soltrius leave with a man disguised as Mercurius. The friends took to the streets, now fearing too for the safety of Heseail. They hadn't gone far when they were ambushed in a dark alley by a band of crossbow-brandishing sellswords who displayed no outward signs of allegiance to Hillsfar or the Red Plumes. The hoods were defeated, though when questioned, they revealed only that their hirer was a dark-robed mage, previously unknown to them.

Still having no lead, the companions returned to the market, where Cahylie came to them again, this time bidding them to meet her outside a little-frequented taproom on Pale Moon Lane. They convened there, and Cahylie, obviously more than a common barfly, ushered them through the entrance to her secret hideout. Inside, she offered the friends a place to rest, and promised to help find Soltrius. She also introduced them to a half-elven boy named Seminser, quiet and apprehensive, who seemingly had lost his way.

At dawn's first light, the companions were awakened by a gnome called Throttle, who claimed himself an associate of Cahylie and confided that Soltrius was being held in Hillsfar's dungeon, located in the basement level of a nearby gatehouse. The friends ventured there and milled about the building's exterior. Before long, a pair of city watchmen asked Luna and Lefwain inside for questioning, inquiring as to the whereabouts of "a laborer named Heseail." Shocked, Luna offered up her story in truth; when the guards called for their captain, the duo was arrested and imprisoned in the dungeon where Soltrius was being held.

With the help of Lefwain's lock picks and a raucous dwarf jailed in a neighboring cell, the friends managed to escape, just as the others located them by way of the city sewers. Together, they all made their getaway, emerging hours later in Hillsfar's dock ward, far removed from the gatehouse dungeon.

After cleaning themselves meagerly and purchasing a change of clothes, the friends returned to Cahylie's hideout, where they plotted to leave the city. With the help of Cahylie and Throttle, they departed through Hillsfar's east gates that very eve, riding for Elventree on a promise to seek out the high herald called Moonsilver, hoping that she might be convinced to parley with the Sy'Tel'Quessir. Seminser and Spitbeard, the rough-and-tumble dwarf from the dungeon, rode with them, the former hoping to find a new home among the villagers of Elventree, and the latter for reasons known only to the gods.

Part II-b: Horizons

"Horizons" tracks Markel, Hadrian, and Brother Bevue as they plot their return to the Eshen Glade.

While the rest of the contingent was on its way north through Cormanthor, Markel, Hadrian, and Brother Bevue set their sights east, to return to the Eshen Glade. When they arrived, they were greeted most amicably, though they found that they were not the first to have recently graced the gladesfolk with their presence; Adraiya and her small circle of druids had already come thither, bearing a warning and a request for aid to the people of the Eshen village-camp.

Adraiya explained that one of the circle's kin was found slain deeper into the forest, several miles away. Coupled with the unexplained murder of Falidhara, the druids' concern for the region and its inhabitants was growing. Adraiya believed the killings to be linked to the spirit of a nefarious wizard, who traveled to Cormanthor over a century ago with a mind to "cleanse" the Duathamper riverbed of the ancient elven treasures the area was said to behold. The wizard was subsequently captured and put to the blade by the wild elves of the Tangled Trees. When the mage's spirit returned after death to lay claim to the treasures once again, it was imprisoned inside a magic pendant, one that until recently had been worn and guarded by the keeper of Falidhara's Grove. With Falidhara's passing, the evil spirit was believed to have been released.

The companions, along with Rillen and Pruatris of the Eshen Glade, accompanied the druids through Cormanthor, where they discovered an old, abandoned tower while investigating the area marking the circle druid's murder. Inside, the friends were attacked by a darkmantle, and during the course of the ensuing battle, the tower began to shake violently. Within moments, the companions heard Adraiya shouting outside before they were instantly transported away by some sort of spellwork, presumably woven by the druids for their collective safety.

Markel, Hadrian, and Brother Bevue arrived among friends, coming to in the midst of the Red Plume camp, mere hours before it would be assailed by wild elves, and its soldiers slain.

In the wake of the attack, possessed of many more questions than answers, the three continued north with the rest of Soltrius's contingent, to arrive at Hillsfar's gates.

Part II-a: Trenches

"Trenches" follows Mercurius, Vennel, Luna, and Lefwain as they accompany Soltrius's wagons along Rauthauvyr's Road.

Back in Essembra, the contingent mutually decided to split ranks, with three members—Markel, Hadrian, and Brother Bevue—pledging their return to the Eshen Glade in its days of turmoil following the great elven Retreat from Cormanthor. The remaining companions, led by Soltrius and his half-brother Anintko, a veteran warrior from Ordulin, continued their journey along Rauthauvyr's Road, driving three coaches stocked full with supplies and spices be to traded north of the Moonsea.

The contingent's venture to Hillsfar and the southern shores of the Moonsea was anything but easy. After arriving at the great Standing Stone, a monument to the centuries-old treaty between the humans and elves of the Dalelands known as the Dales Compact, the party found itself passing through the Vale of Lost Voices, a region of Cormanthor said to be haunted by ancient elven ghosts. Such tales proved their warrant, and within the Vale, the contingent battled fierce goblins and found itself at the whims of spirits of those long removed.

The companions rode throughout the night to clear the haunted Vale, and the ensuing ride saw one of their caravans damaged by a thick, dead vine laid out across the road. The incident recalled warnings from Essembra that dangerous "creeper vines" had been waylaying travelers on the road through Cormanthor, and the party continued on with the utmost caution. Soon after, the contingent found itself battling living vines along the road that caused further breakage to its wagons before the companions finally prevailed.

Two days out from Essembra, weary from their journey and their encounters along the road, the travelers were met one eve by a trio of riders who named themselves soldiers of the Red Plumes of Hillsfar. The Plumes declared the road to be closed due to perils such as the deadly creepers, and led the contingent back to their camp, a short ways into the woods, to await an official escort back to the city. The Red Plume camp housed over two dozen strongswords, along with their captain, Wrenegal Larson, and his wizard-adviser, Nemmish.

The contingent remained among the Plumes until the following night, when the camp was inexplicably assailed by an unyielding tribe of wild elves. Despite its efforts to retaliate with spells and blades, the camp was defeated, and nearly all the Red Plumes were slain. One soldier, a young, blond-haired man named Penrith, was spared, incidentally, by the fact that he'd been keeping watch with Soltrius's contingent at the hour of the attack. The wild elves, who named themselves the Sy'Tel'Quessir, led Penrith and the companions further into the forest, where they explained that the Plumes had knowingly breached the Dales Compact, and sought to overtake elven lands protected by the ancient treaty. Among the Sy'Tel'Quessir was a young elf maiden named Ellisendria, Markel's godmother from the days of his youth in the Tangled Trees.

Thanks to Ellisendria, the otherwise inimical wild elves allowed the contignent to continue its journey north, and accompanied the companions back to the road. Before they reached it, however, the friends found that one of their three caravans had been stolen during the night while it lay unguarded in the grounds of the defeated camp. Ultimately, the friends decided that Antinko, Penrith, and two others would return to Essembra, both for Penrith's safety in the wake of an impending conflict between Hillsfar and Cormanthor, and to warn Essembra of what the party had learned.

Shortly thereafter, the remaining members of the contingent arrived at Hillsfar's south gates, bearing a single one of its original three trade caravans.

Part I: Cormanthor (Book I)

"Scars of Battledale" began in the forestside town of Essembra on 21 Flamerule in the Year of the Arch (1353 DR), as a three-caravan contingent headed by a charming young merchant with an adventurous streak named Soltrius Belflaggon charted a course through ancient Cormanthor and across the Moonsea to peddle his spice trade. Soltrius had hired an array of unconventional guards for his journey in the Sembian capital of Ordulin, and when word came to Essembra that an unknown treasure seeker had gone missing somewhere deep in the old elven wood, the merchant elected to divert his band into Cormanthor to see what they may find.

In the vast reaches of the great, lush forest, the contingent stumbled upon a half-elven village-camp known as the Eshen Glade. While present at the glade, an inexplicable attack by a lone gnoll left a gladeswoman seriously injured. Though the gnoll was quickly defeated, the companions witnessed an ethereal, shadowy form escape from the creature's body upon its slaying. In the wake of the attack, two half-elven warriors from the glade pledged themselves to accompany Soltrius's band further into the forest.

Things only got stranger as the party continued its journey. Not far outside the Eshen Glade, the contingent discovered the body of a renowned elven caretaker of the wood named Falidhara who, apparently, had been slain by the blades of unknown assailants, signs of which were naught to be found. Disheartened, the companions continued on toward the Duathamper riverbed where the lost treasure seeker was said to have disappeared. As they neared it, they encountered a jutting rock formation surrounded by nearly a dozen more dog-faced gnolls.

The gnolls' leader proved to be a strongclad human warrior who seemed notably out of place in the middle of the ancient forest. When he was felled, a shapeless, shadowy form escaped his dying body, much as the party had witnessed back at the Eshen Glade. The battle with the gnolls was enervating, and although the contingent proved victorious, suffering nary a loss, injuries took their toll, and the companions were forced to take shelter in the cave; there, they encountered a strange hermit named Brother Bevue, who claimed himself a traveling priest of Silvanus that was taken captive by the gnolls while wandering the forest.

As they rested, the contingent was approached by a small circle of druids; its leader, Adraiya, proffered her aid to the wounded and remained with Soltrius's band throughout the night. The following day, the companions began their trek back to the Eshen Glade, not wholly certain as to what they had learned.

When they arrived, the contingent bid the gladesfolk farewell and set back off for Essembra, where they would seek to continue their journey northward through Cormanthor, and on toward the Moonsea.