After receiving some useful upgrades to their equipment from their sponsors the party set off on their
mission which is so secret that they themselves don't know the final destination. Their first port of call is
Brimmingstone. There they meet Brin the Ranger who provides them with a few potions
and lots of advice. He tells them it is only a matter of time before the
Red Asps get on their tail and although they are challenging adversaries
it would be useful if the Asps focused on trying to stop the mission rather than on domestic affairs in Cambria. He
is sure the Red Asps will actually find it more difficult to operate on foreign soil than they think.
He warns the party that someone has been recruiting the local ne'er-do-wells and to expect an ambush soon after they
leave town.
Sure enough as soon as the countryside screams 'this would be a good place for an ambush' at the party one duly occurs. The party, however, are far too strong for the bandits and after killing many return the ones that
surrendered to Brimmingstone law enforcement. The party note that the whole encounter was watched by a mysterious
hidden figure. A more serious ambush occurs outside the village of Farn when the party first experience the
deadly poisoned weapons of the Red Asps who, it appears like to hide in the trees by the road. The Asps are
taken aback somewhat by the ability of party members to do prodigious leaps (Firmon) or to fill a tree with
snakes (Gale) and soon they are all dead or fleeing for their lives. The mysterious cloaked figure, who it appears
is a woman, was again observing the combat.
As the party leave Belstead, close to the Cambrian border, they notice a troop of
Geogoths blocking the way, a militia with whom the party have a bit of a history.
The Geogoths try to block the party as they slowly wander up to the troop with Rumpkin surruptitiously casting
'Sleep' every twenty feet. Eventually the Geogoth captain realises what is happening and without further ado
orders his troop to fire on the party. It is clear, however, that for an organisation who are supposed to be
on a crusade against magic, they have met very few genuine magic users. Rumpkin merely upgrades his
spellcasting to 'Fireball' and the troop are quite literally toast.
As the party move closer to the border a lady on a white horse rides out of the trees in front of them. Using
rather archaic language she bids them turn aside to rescue a damsel in distress. Firmon and Rumpkin are
easily persuaded but the rest of the party are more dubious. She tells them that the damsel who needs rescuing
will be the first one they meet if they follow a path to the left. Rather reluctantly they agree and eventually
come across a rather grubby small girl with blonde hair and green eyes being chased by a man with a stick.
Rumpkin, fearing an ambush had put an illusionary minotaur at the head of the party which stops the man in his tracks.
The small girl, whose name is Freya, however, keeps running until she is in the midst of the party whereupon she
requests that the party take her with them. The situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that the man then
identifies himself as the girl's father and child kidknapping is not yet on the long list of things the party could
be arrested for. There are hints, however, that the girl has magical talent and her father thinks the
solution is to beat it out of her. Gale offers the man 10 silver pieces for his daughter and the man accepts 'provided you return her in a few days', a condition which Gale notably fails to confirm agreement to.
The party arrive at the Last Inn, the end of Cambria's Dwarf Road and the beginning of the long climb
up the mountain pass into
Reetland. Outside the Inn there is a commotion and the Inn appears to be overflowing.
An unheard of thing has happened - there are Giants in the pass. Most of those present have never seena Giant but
have heard dreadful things about them. A troop from the regular Cambrian army is camped nearby but are saying
that the Giants are on the Reetland side of the border. Merchants have raised 250gp to pay any party who will
remove the Giants and the party negotiate to make sure this includes a bed for the night and that the merchants
will give them a fair price for all the arms and armour they have accumulated on their travels.
After a day and a half in the mountains the party meet the Giants and in an effort to negotiate with them
use the disarming Freya as their spokesman. She indeed appears to have persuaded one of the smaller Giants
but he is soon brought into line by their leader, a huge Frost Giant. Eventually the Frost Giant says the party
need to start running as he will come after them and the party spring into action. Freya although unarmed joins the
combat by hurling crackling blue rays of energy and the huge humanoids are defeated. The party investigate the large
sack they were carrying which turns out to contain a number of fist sized smooth stones and a satisfying amount of
gold. Two of the smooth stones turn out to be magical sending stones which can transmit messages at a distance.
The party's next contact is at Wolfshead a quiet village off the beaten track a the head of a valley.
As the party walk up the valley the Red Asps strike but, aware of their presence, the party themselves have
set an ambush and a fireball from Rumpkin sets alight some of the trees that the Asps are hidden in. A fierce
fight follows and the Asps are all killed. Dove is waiting for the party at the local inn. He has brought horses
for the party and even a pony for Freya. In the morning the party wake up to discover that Freya has adopted an
owl and that Dwain's wardog is now called 'Mr Fluffy'.
Dove changes the plan due to the presence of Freya and information he has received that more assassins are on
their way. He leads the party cross country to the village of Greenwald but due to the wildness of the
country they don't make it before dusk and camp in the open. Gale spends 10 minutes magically creating
a stable for the horses which is just as well as events turn out. Dwain and Dove take the first watch with Freya
on the grounds that no one should be left alone with the young witch. This is a sensible precaution as its takes
an extra 10 seconds for her to send both of them to sleep before skipping off into the forest. To be fair she
leaves her owl, Moonbeam, behind who has the best night sight in the whole party.
She is, however, back at her post to warn the party of an approaching pack of wargs with an unnatural air about them.
Sure enough the wargs prove to be immune to normal weapons but the party have enough fire power to kill a third of the
pack before the wargs are close enough to use their teeth. As they close Freya summons a magical darkness which severely limits their usual pack tactics. Needless to say Freya and Moonbeam are quite happy fighting in the pitch
blackness even if the wargs and rest of the party aren't. The wargs fight to the death driven on by an evil bloodlust
but the party are relatively unscathed. As they die the wargs' bodies disintegrate.
Reaching Greenwald the party make themselves at home in the inn while they wait for the Lady Hawkesly to arrive.
When she does she has two colleagues a man named Carl, from Reetland's spy network, and the Lady Giselda Reinhart
who invites the party to call her 'm'lady'. It would appear that Hawk has made an alliance with Carl and
he will ease their way through Reetland (he brings forged papers) in return for one or two favours.
Hawk has a long talk with Freya. The party then set off for the next village without Hawk and Carl but with
'M'lady' who provides their cover story. Freya is her maid and the rest of the party are her escort who she hired
at the Cambrian border.
Gale is off scouting far ahead when the party are ambushed by invisible attackers. M'lady shows impressive reflexes
in acrobatically dismounting her horse and firing a crossbow in retaliation. Like the assassins her bolts appear
to be poisoned. Many of the assassins bolts miss completely but Firmon is particularly unlucky and takes several
hits. Freya casts a magical darkness again and fearlessly shins up a tree to melee an assassin before anyone can
stop her. M'lady is deadly with her crossbow and soon the party have the upper hand. Freya who is unscathed gets
bored with her combat and ejects her opponent from the tree for the tougher members of the party to deal with on the ground. This
time there appear to have been six assassins, all full Red Asps.
The next encounter is more puzzling - a group of horsemen in the distinctive blue and red livery of Reetland's
'magical incidents' force are spotted up the road. As they approach the party several other figures appear
in the same livery levitating in the air. Despite protestations from Dove the original party members are arrested
on obviously trumped up charges and magically transported to a secure jail with an anti-magic field operational
in the cells.
In the early hours of the morning Medalric the monk hears someone fiddling with some keys outside his door. Not expecting any visitors he hides behind the door and jumps the unwanted intruder as they enter.
Two other assassins are waiting outside the doors of Rumpkin's and Dwain's cells. It is rather unfortunate that they
picked on the martial arts expert to kill first as despite their poisoned weapons Medalric disposes of his attacker
quickly. So quickly in fact that the second assassin has to abandon his attempts to enter
Rumpkin's cell and
help his colleague.
The third assassin manages to enter Dwain's cell, who fights him off until Medalric arrives to help him. It transpires that one of the jail's wizards has been bribed and had slept all the guards for the assassins.
The next day the party are released after making statements about the attack.
It turns out that one of the 'favours' that Carl would like from the party is to raid one of the homes of a rich
noble looking for evidence that he has been plotting to start a war with Cambria. Finding a secret passage the party are checking
for traps and duly find one by triggering it. Worse follows as they find themselves running from a huge boulder
with a chasm ahead and their magic not working. Most of the party find themselves clinging to ropes or the chasm wall. Medalric is quite happy
to jump down the 80 foot drop as is Firmon. At the bottom, however, are two carrion crawlers and to
complicate matters some gargoyles join the fray. None of the maagic users feel they signed up to fight gargoyles
in an anti-magic field and Freya for once feels fairly helpless. The monsters are killed or repelled, however,
and in a room on the other side of the chasm the party find the incriminating papers they are looking for. Handily
the noble also had a collection of illegal magic items that the party take in payment for their troubles.