Beware! Bad grammar lies ahead...


June 25, 2002:
“Catch Me If You Can”

Leaving the troubles of Raven’s Hollow behind them, the Silver Hands made their way home to Silverymoon. Sticking mostly to the roads, it took several tendays to reach their home. It's 15 Uktar in the Silver Marches, and a typical one at that; snow thinly coats just about everything. Finding their tower much as they had left it, they gathered some of their extra items and headed for Silverymoon itself. Finding a bottle of universal solvent was a top priority for Aramil since his tongue was glued to the top of his mouth, so they headed for an old favorite shop—Myrdivar’s Magical Emporium. Selling two magically enhanced breastplates and the remaining sovereign glue as well as throwing in a few hundred gold purchased the tongue-tied cleric a dose of solvent to loosen his tongue.

The door burst open and a young guard huffed into the store. “Are you the Silver Hands?” he asked, his breath coming in gasps.

“Who wants to know?” answered Bladewin, tentatively.

“The city guard,” he replied, “we received notice that you had passed through the city gates and are in dire need of your help.”

All visibly relaxed, Traithelir answered the question, “Yes, we are the Silver Hands.”

“There has been a murder…we…we are in great need of your assistance, heroes,” stammered the guard.

Following the guard to the southwestern corner of town, the heroes noticed that a section of street had been roped off and was being patrolled by armored guards. Crossing the lines with the guard, they were escorted through guards combing the scene for clues. Standing in the middle of the search, was a tall, beautiful armored woman with symbol of Tyr emblazoned on her armor. “It is good to see that you have returned to Silverymoon, heroes…though you have some new members I see,” she said grimly, nodding her head to Ossondrea. “I’m afraid I can only greet you by asking you to help us once again. There has been a horrible murder, and we are quite honestly stumped.”

Saeunn, the armored woman, indicated a section of wall where a storm drain emptied into the sewers; crammed into the drain was a body, nearly completely folded in half. Its clothing was soaked in blood, though most of the body was crammed into the storm drain. “We’ve haven’t had such a grisly murder here in Silverymoon for…for years,” she said with a vacant stare in her eyes.

Bladewin looked around a bit, and then started inspecting the scene closer. Walking along the wall, he spotted something—more blood, in the shape of a footprint. Looking near the bloody footprint he easily noticed a trail of faint bloody footprints in the heavily packed snow. The trail was short, however; it ended in a large puddle of slushy water. Pausing for a moment to disturb the murky cold water, something else caught Bladewin’s eye—a bit of color. A ragged piece of fine dark blue cloth, to be precise.

Meanwhile, Ossondrea took hold of the corpse, tugged it free from the drain, and set it on the cold ground. The woman lying before the party was horribly mangled. Her neck was dark blue and it was obvious that she had been strangled; cuts and bruises marred her face—she had been smashed into the floor or wall repeatedly. The most obvious wound however was below her dress. A deep slash ran along her side, gouged through her dress and into the side of the abdomen with near-surgical precision.

Examination by Aramil, Kyri, and Bladewin, after he had found several clues, revealed that her left kidney was removed completely with nearly no damage to the surrounding organs. Someone with some real medical knowledge carved this woman up like a turkey.

Avoiding the grisly examination, Ossondrea noticed a crumpled piece of paper and a small metal box in the storm drain. Removing the items and opening the box, Ossondrea gasped. Floating in red wine was a large chunk of meat—a kidney. Taking the note from Ossondrea, Aramil opened it up and began to read it—it was written in Espruar, so he had to translate. INSERT LETTER TEXT HERE. It was signed only with a simple challenge: “Catch me if you can, Miss Saeunn.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Trudging through the depths of chilly Lurkwood, our heroes press on in their journey to Raven’s Hollow, attempting to find the great evil that the prophet spoke of. Following a roughly beaten path, they make a grisly discovery—a decomposing body crucified to a tree with climbing pitons and a half-spear. Searching around the tree and attempting to ascertain what exactly had happened, a javelin skewers Traithelir and more fly through the air around our heroes. Slinking away from the edge of the cliff to hide and take cover, two heavily cloaked men drew out slender wands and take aim on our bewildered adventurers. While the Hands scramble into formation to try and deal with the hidden assailants, more enemies came crashing out of the forest; half-orcs, outfitted in fine armor bearing heraldry similar to that of their other enemies rushed into melee with the heroes. As skirmishes ensued on the ground, the soldiers on the cliff took sniper shots at the combatants, seeming to especially enjoy slamming magic missiles into Traith’s chest. A long and difficult battle raged on, but in the end, the villains were victorious. All but Traithelir fell to the might of the enemy; he turned invisible and watched all of his friends stripped of their valuables, bound, and gagged before staging brief guerilla attacks against the remaining enemy forces. Sensing the growing futility of his resistance, Traith reluctantly surrendered, felt a blow to his neck and feigned unconsciousness.

A low fire crackled in the fireplace, the wind howled outside, and the Silver Hands awakened, shivering. At least they had each other for warmth; none of the heroes had much in the way of clothing left on, and freezing winds whistled through cracks in the wall of their prison cell. Their hands and feet tied, their mouths gagged, and the whole lot of them tied back to back in a circular bunch, the Hands heard footsteps outside of their cell and looked up. Standing before them was a dusky-skinned figure wreathed with shadow, his features hard to distinguish. “Welcome to Raven’s Hollow, adventurers,” he chuckled. “You are alive now only because you are strong and will make good workers. Excavation duty awaits you all tomorrow; you will be issued winter work clothes and a meal and will be expected to work quickly and efficiently. If you happen to cause us any trouble, you will be immediately executed. Should we find you planning to escape, we will grant your wish and send you into the wilderness completely naked.” With his stern threat, the man turned on his heels and walked out of the room quickly.

The date is Elient 26, and the weather in Waterdeep is very seasonal. Our band of heroes have finally found Traithelir’s kidnapped friend, Kalemin. The time has come, however, for the old friends to part ways. Not wanting to waste time, the party departed Waterdeep with haste and began the eight day journey back to their home near Silverymoon, bringing along their new companion from Waterdeep, Kyri. At midnight, after hours of traveling, the heroes still travel on, trying to get the most amount of travel accomplished. Far off in the distance however, they are being watched. Several hundred feet away they can barely detect a dark, wispy form standing dead in the center of the road. Valiantly charging into battle with his wolf and wolverine, Bladewin soon discovers what guards the darkened road. The wolf and wolverine realize much sooner than their druid friend that the creature is floating about a foot off the ground and is clearly not alive; the animals really don’t like the looks of the baddie, so they run off, and Bladewin soon follows. With some difficulty the creature is dispatched, and the characters enjoy a restful nights sleep.

The next day witnessed more traveling which was mostly uneventful until seven hours into their journey when they encounter two weary merchants on a wagon. They relate a tale of horror and woe—for days they have been besieged by the attacks of undead creatures crawling their way out of the ground. Since it is nearly time to stop and rest, the heroes agree to protect the two merchants from the marauding undead. Before setting up camp, the heroes decide to scope things out a bit. Before long, they find some very loose dirt—like something had been digging. Bladewin’s wolverine, an excellent burrower, made short work of the loose dirt, and soon a door at the bottom of the pit was found. Calling his companions over to the hole, it was decided to try and get into the trapdoor; a rope was then lowered to help expedite the process. The first one down was Bladewin himself, and he began to try and get the wooden, cellar-like trapdoor to open. Meanwhile, 20 feet above Bladewin, Traithelir loses his grip on the rope very near the top and plummets to the bottom of the pit. Unfortunately for Bladewin, Traithelir went careening into him. The force of the impact was simply too much for the door and it quickly shattered and sent the two adventurers tumbling down a set of uneven stairs.

The tunnel before the slightly bruised duo was only five feet wide and was extremely dark. It seemed as if the whole area sucked the light out of anything. After a deep, ghastly sounding voice called for Bladewin, both he and Traithelir left promptly. After scrambling out of the hole, the heroes attempted to get some sleep; everyone in the campsite was intimidated by a very still, and very dark night. Morning brought little relief from the darkness, as roiling black storm clouds gathered above the area.

Their curiosity piqued, the entire party descended into the subterranean tunnel. Not far in, the tunnel widened into a room with a skeleton in it; the heroes made short work of the skeleton and got a fine looking dagger out of it. Moments after their victory, blood-curdling screams were heard by the party; the came from the surface, and it was unmistakably the merchants they had befriended. They darted out of the tunnel and starting trying to climb their way out of the tunnel, but Bladewin and Kyri both had limited success in their initial attempts to climb out of the hole. Meanwhile, on the surface, a moon elf fighter headed from Silverymoon to Waterdeep quickly ran to the rescue of the wagon she saw was under attack by some sort of vile creature. Traithelir was the first to arrive after the mysterious elven fighter, and the rest of the party came dashing into combat after several rounds. After a rather long, drawn-out combat, the creatures were dead, along with the wagon’s horses, and one of the merchants. The party now met their ally—Ossondrea, a fighter from Silverymoon. The lone adventurer then decided to join forces with the party, and sent the merchant off to Waterdeep—on Traithelir’s horse, and armed with Traithelir’s dagger.

Several hours of dungeon crawling led to the discovery of an incandescent blue stone, the size of a fist, a battle with seven skeletons, and finding a long sword capable of delivering jolts of electricity to its foes. After much searching for a suspected secret door, Ossondrea discovered it. Beyond the door they found a room occupied by a strange robed figure. The figure was hooded, and swathed in black clothing that was once fine. It sat cross-legged on top of a small altar or dais, and addressed the party—IT was the source of the voice heard in the entry tunnel. Bladewin tried to attack it, but a simple gaze froze him in place; and another gaze sealed his mouth completely shut. The creature removed its hood and revealed dry, shriveled skin, and empty, staring eye sockets. It proclaimed that it could see all and offered the following cryptic advice to the adventurers, “A great evil grows in the land…it is the cause of the walking dead. The source of this evil is from darkness itself, and you alone are the bearers of the light that will stop it. In the cold north, seek out the lair of the ebon ravens…”

Armed with new magical items, a cryptic clue, new friends, and a wish to return home, the heroes rushed their way home to their humble tower nine miles south of Silverymoon, hopefully leaving behind the relentless undead.