To Castle Hydell

Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (NPC; Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (Steve B.; Human Bard)
Trygvie (NPC; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk) at
Zuran (NPC; Human Fighter)
Ryneh (Tom S.; Human Rogue)

The players had gathered at the Inn of Fouteen Virtues.  It was four o'clock in the morning and Kane and Rhyneh had just returned from burglarizing the Earthsblood Miner's Guild.  Since the players were pretty sure that the monitors would come after them after having discovered that the Earthsblood Miner's Guild had been broken into, they decided to get out of town fast.  They packed up their meager belongings and lit out over the fields north of the village to hide in the wooded hills beyond.

Trygvie wrote a note to Endrew MacKurian telling him of their decision to leave town and gave it to his owl to deliver to the MacKurian house.  While Hootie the owl flew off to deliver the note,  they began to have a look at some of the items they had obtained in the raid the night before.

They had:

• some sort of an account book
• a map labeled "Castle Hydell"
  
• a scroll written in a curious looking pictographic code
• a letter written in a strange, flowing script
• a small book bound in leather wrapped in string
  
• a scroll labeled "Last Will and Testament"
• a wand and a magic spell scroll

They looked at the Last Will and Testament and read;
Trygvie seemed very confident the document was a forgery (Steve G. took 6 ranks in Forgery skill when he created the Trygvie character aeons ago --- now we know why!).  Speculating that Grisson Oyle was plotting to murder Cornover and steal her estate, the party considered the possibility of warning her and decided to inform MacKurian and ask for advice.

They passed around the note written in the strange flowing script, and, to his astonishment, Ryneh discovered he could read it.  The note said; "Grisson; Obtain 36 amulets from the usual source.  One wants to step up production.  -- Dutch."

Mace picked up the small book tied shut with string and opened it.  Suddenly it burst into flames, burning the fighter.  When they doused the flames they discovered that only about 1/2 of the book remained.  The few remaining pages were some sort of code book for decoding the strange pictographic writing.   Using what remained of the codebook, the bard (well, Steve, actually) set to work decoding the message.  It was determined that the coded message said,  "To Grisson Oyle; Sell more slinks by reducing prices.  Our plan must go forward.  Signed, One."

The account book recorded the sale of many slinks in Bramwald, as well as expenditures for guards, bribes and payments to a group of bandits.   While looking at it, Rhyneh discovered a small map pasted on the inside of the cover of the book.  This proved to be directions to "Castle Hydell."  It instructed that to reach Hydell, one ought to take the road east, and, where the road branched off North to go to Shelton, one should take the hidden path south.  Cryptically, it also said, "Remember the Guardians."

By this time a reply (via owl post) had reached them from Endrew MacKurian asking them to stay hidden at the edge of the forest and Curry Woodspice would be along shortly.  After a while they saw Curry the Elf trudging across the fields leading a laden mule.  The elf greeted them and offered to show them the way to a small hunting lodge, a few hours trek north of town, where they could stay while hiding out.  The lodge was owned by Gurney Dain, High Sherrif of Bramwald.  The mule was laden with food and wine, to help make their stay at the lodge more comfortable.

The  party and Curry marched to the lodge and found a large one-room cabin beside a clear running stream.  The key was hidden under the front step and inside were beds, a fireplace, some pots and pans and a few old musty hunting trophies and racks of antlers.  The place was musty, dusty and unused but better than sleeping under the sky in the wind and rain.  They showed their books and papers to Curry and the elf admitted that the will would be interesting to MacKurian.  Curry told them that he would slip out to the cabin to check on them every now and then; if needed, he would leave a note beneath the front steps of the cabin in the spot where the key was kept.  Curry also agreed to deliver a note to the thieves guild in Bramwald written in the strange pictographic code saying, "We doubt you have the WILL to succeed..."  Curry was to instruct the guild to deliver the note to Grisson Oyle anonymously.  Obviously, it was intended to let Grisson know that they had his copy of the fake will (as well as the pictographic code book) and that they had figured out his plot --- thereby hopefully protecting Riga Cornover.

Curry went on his way and the player characters bunked down for the night.  The night was uneventful (except when Mace opened up a can of whup-ass on the sleeping Ryneh in retalliation for Ryneh having stolen his purse when they first met).   The next day they set off to the east, cutting around the  Earthsblood fields to the wast of Bramwald.  They travelled east on the road until they came to the  road that branched off north to Shelton.  This was the point upon which the map Ryneh had found indicated a "secret path" to Castle Hydell.  Searching around the bank of a small stream running along the road, they found some footprints leading down the bank and into the stream.  Someone had apparently recently waded the stream.  On the other side of the stream, the party found a trail hidden by piled brush.  They began to follow the narrow and rough trail south.

Suddenly a large half-orc in plate armor leapt from the bushes and cut at Wilbered with a bastard sword, wounding him badly.  Other men, one with a bow and others with crossbows, began firing at the group.  Trygvie launched a fireball, frying several of the crossbowmen, as Wilbered went berserk, frothing at the mouth and swinging wildly at the half orc.   This behavior was quite unusual for the cleric and caused everyone to wonder how this change had come over him.

Kane engaged a human dressed in a chainmail shirt who fought with a small flail in one hand and a battle axe in the other.  Kane attacked to subdue while Ryneh and Castor attacked the remaining crossbowmen.   After Mace took down the half orc and Kane had successfully subdued the two-weapon fighter (intending to question him), a still raving Wilbered ran over and smashed the prisoner in the head with his mace.   The unconscious bandit coughed a few times and seemed to be bleeding very badly -- clearly he was not long for this world -- and Wilbered's comrades were wondering why the normally lawful cleric would behave in such a fashion.  Kane attempted to restrain the cleric (who seemed intent upon beating the prone man into jelly) and Trygvie cast a Cause Fear at Wilbered.  Wilbered failed his save and ran gibbering into the woods with Kane in hot pursuit, with Mace clanking along behind him.

As Castor looted the bodies, Trygvie administered first aid to the prisoner and managed to stabilize him.  Kane attempted to subdue Wilbered and the cleric turned on him. striking at the monk with his mace.  With grim satisfaction, Mace bludgeoned Wilbered into unconsciousness with the flat of his sword.  They bound the unconscious cleric up with rope and dragged him back to the others.

A cure spell from Castor revived the unconscious prisoner.  The bandit introduced himself as Rufglaf and admitted that he and his comrades had been hired by Grisson Oyle to guard the path to Castle Hydell.  When asked about "Dutch," Rufglaf  said that he was Grisson's boss.  Rufglaf claimed to have never been inside Castle Hydell and said all of his dealings had been with Grisson Oyle.  When asked about the Castle's defenses, Rufglaf said that ogres were known to lurk around the enterance and he had also seen guards taking captives into the castle and bringing slinks out. 

The group gathered what loot they could.  A battleaxe used by Rufglaf detected as magical as well as a potion bottle found on the half orc.  A few coins, a pearl necklace, a small gemstone, a suit of armor, a flask of alchemist fire and some masterwork weapons were also gathered.

By this time, Wilbered had awoken and claimed to have no memory of events beyond having been attacked by the half orc.  The party untied him and bound the hands of the prisoner and asked him to lead them on to Hydell.  A few hours later they saw the jagged ruins of the castle atop a rocky hill.  A wide path led up to closed doors and a small path led around to a side enterance.  No one seemed to be on the walls or in the area.

Since the characters didn't want to approach the walls in broad daylight, they elected to wait until nightfal and then sneak up to the castle.  They knocked Rufglaf the bandit over the head so he passed out, intending to leave him in the woods so he could make his escape when he woke up, but Mace snuck off for a while and when he returned he was cleaning blood off of his sword.   Odds are that Rufglaf would not be bothering them any more.

They then hunkered down and waited for nightfall.
The adventure ended here.

character/player:	class/level:	XP at start:	XP award:	bonus:	XP at end:
Mace (Mike D.)	human FTR 7th	28,502	620		29,122
Wilbered (NPC)	human CL 7th	25,519	310		25,829
Castor (Steve B.)	human Bard 6th	19,614	610	100	20,324
Trygvie (NPC)	Elven MU 6th	21,602	310		21,912
Kane (Al G.)	Human Monk 7th	25,509	610		26,119
Zuran (NPC)	Human Fighter 4th	8,727	none		8,727
Rhyneh (Tom S.)	Human Rogue 5th	10,125	610		10,735