The current campaign began in the city of Mirros, the capital city of Karameikos. Through a little DM manipulation, all the charcters in the group were invited to join a quest for the glory of Karameikos. The person who invited the group was Alhana Nadin, Knight of the Griffon. The group was not told what the quest would involve untill after they had agrred to secrecy. It seems that the security of Karameikos was at stake, or at least the reputation of some important people. The charcters agreed, and Alhana filled them in. Also joining the group was the engimatic Mysta.
The night before, a group of theives had actually broken into King Stefan's Stronghold. An attempt was made on Lord Devon Hyraksos. While this attempt was thwarted, they did manage to escape with his magical sword, the Orc's Bane. It was very troubling enough that these thieves could even break into the palace, let alone get close enough to Lord Hyraksos to nearly kill him. In addition to that they managed to steal his personal weapon and escape. In the interests of security, an outside group (the players) was brought in. They were to recover Orc's Bane, and try to apprehend those who were responsible for its larceny.
The group's first lead took them to a rather nasty part of town, the Nest. They cautisoly entered, and made their way to an alleged safe house. Upon entering, they met resistance from its occupants. After some fierce combat and sliding, they emerged victorious. (See H1 for a more complete summary of the combat.) They discovered a map that pinpointed the place where the sword was to be sold. It was a cave, north of Mirros.
After interrogating the captured thief, the players set out immidietly
for the cave. Upon arriving at the turnoff point to head into
the woods, the group wasted much time bickering over were to park.
Eventually that conflict was resolved. They split up, sending
Vitrius
ahead to scout, and keeping Ashen
behind. They also noticed that Mysta had gone off on her own.
There was some concern that she was going off to betray them,
but they pushed on despite this. When they arrived at the supposed
cave, Vitrius met some resistance from bushes, while Ashen triggred
an alarm spell. After the orcs/bushes were dealt with, they entered
the cave. Ashen did a marvolous job of finding traps in the cave.
The group met an Orc Mage in combat, and quite a bit of trouble
defeating him. There were many cases of friendly fire wounds,
as most of the combat took place in the dark. Ashen made the diving
recovery of Orc's Bane. The party that was to buy the sword never
showed themselves. The party made their way back to the city.