Warning: Spoilers below for the adventure, Siege of Bordrin’s Watch (albeit a modified version).
This entry is from Roxy’s perspective.
After taking a short rest, we gathered the orc bodies in one area and Ruben did his hamana hamana to see if there was anything magical on them, but we didn’t find anything. The orc we captured regained consciousness and Tyrande tried to question him. He spit on her and struggled to get free, and did not appear to understand common, so Tyrande helped him enter dreamland again so we could start heading back to Everlund with him and the kidnapped survivors. Fortunately we were able to take Adronsius’ body back to town with us as well, since we were unable to return Kartenex and Thurann to Everlund for proper burials.
When we arrived at Everlund, there were more guards at the gates than there had been previously—they don’t appear to be taking any chances after the attack a few days ago. One of the guards took the orc off to their jail/cells, while another took us to see Councilman Troius. After tending to the townspeople, Troius told us that word had come from Overlook—a horde of orcs is coming through the Sundered Vale toward Overlook, and that Everlund will be sending some troops. We told Troius that we will head there in the morning and he arranged for a guard to take us around town for supplies. Troius extended us 200 gp of credit, which we used toward ritual components at Adronsius’ shop. In addition to the ritual supplies for Deornoth and Ruben, we stocked up on sunrods, rope, and some healing potions to replace the ones we have used. Yuri also found some alchemist’s fire and frost to supplement his archery skills.
After our shopping excursion, we headed to the Great Hall of Valor, where a lot of townspeople have gathered, and Bertanian has put together a special dinner for us and the town. There was some cheering from the townspeople when we arrived, and Jalissa led us up to a table in the front. There was a bit of groaning from the crowd when Bertanian began speaking, but he was more short-winded in his speech than everyone was expecting. He thanked us for fighting on behalf of and helping Everlund, spoke a bit about Henry’s group, and he presented us with silver daggers that were engraved with the symbol of Everlund. According to Bertanian, these daggers had been made for Henry and his comrades, but since they never returned from their last adventure, Bertanian and Troius decided that it was appropriate to bestow them upon us. Bertanian ended his surprisingly brief speech by emphasizing that it is a night of celebration rather than education, which everyone seemed to appreciate.
While dining with Bertanian, Troius, and the kidnapped survivors (minus Mirtalla, whom Troius had taken to one of the temples to receive care), Tyrande showed the tattoo symbols to Bertanian to see if he was familiar with them or if the symbols had any significance regarding the original Red Hand. Bertanian did not recognize the symbols, Zericksa did not either.
Troius set us up for the night and the next morning we were given horses and a letter of introduction to take to Overlook with us. As we rode off, Yuri brandished his new silver dagger in the air, causing one of the boys seeing us off to call out—“Look, the silver daggers!!” I think we may have our new group name. Our few days of travel to Overlook were pretty uneventful, with the exception of a brief stop to see how Bob was doing. He did not seem too fazed by his home having been attacked by shadelings and big dogs a couple of days before—Bob had plugged up one of the big holes in his walls with one of the dog bodies and was smoking the shadelings and looking forward to having some meat, apparently it had been awhile.
After about 4 days travel we got to Overlook. At the gate we told the guards that we have come from Everlund and have a letter for the Overlook Council. Obviously we are not the only adventurers to have traveled to Overlook to help battle the impending orcs, as the guard tells us that the Council will be meeting with groups this evening at the Citadel. After stabling our horses at a livery, a boy named Bob/Pip offers to be our guide for a silver up front and a silver later. He shows us to the Temple of Selune, then to an inn called Belden’s Rest where we get three rooms for the night. Bob would not come in while we ate that afternoon, he insisted he would wait outside until we were ready to head to the Citadel, so I took some food out for him.
In the early evening Bob led us to the Citadel. En route, I noticed what looked like a scuffle down a side street—there was a woman in scale mail with a longsword, who was surrounded by about 10 thugs. We stopped and one of the thugs told us to move along in no uncertain terms. We stopped and Bob moved off a bit away from us, while telling us that the thugs are part of a thieves’ guild called the Lost Ones. A couple of well placed fire breaths and area attacks took out a few of the guys pretty quickly, which caused a couple of others to run away. Ruben tried to be chivalrous and told the woman to stay where she was while he created icy terrain around a couple of the thugs. He was quite surprised when the woman attacked him and moved past him while telling him not to mess with the Freeriders. After taking out the last couple of guys that had not run off, Rawr and Yuri headed to the end of the alley and took out the last Lost One there, but the woman kind of disappeared.
After this distraction, we joined up with Bob and had him take us to the Citadel, where a guard took us through many hallways to a large hall. There were a lot of adventurers in there and a 20-foot high dais with five dwarves on it. Tyrande, Yuri, and I noticed the woman we saw in the alley across the room with another adventuring group. While Tyrande and I were discussing approaching the woman, Yuri pointed the woman out to Ruben, who was still a bit sore about having been attacked by her. Ruben created some ghost sounds near her and gestured to her when she looked in his direction. It looked like she said something to one of her companions, who then looked at Ruben and shook his head. Tyrande and I tried to talk with the woman before Ruben confronted her, but the woman seems genuinely confused and says she has been here the past couple of hours. She has no memory of us or of having been in the alley with thugs. Ruben asked her if she is part of the Freeriders, and she says she is Megan Switchblade, their leader. She moved back to her group and left us with a mystery to figure out—if she was not the woman in the alley, does she have a double, a doppelganger, or someone who might have been impersonating her? Did someone want to create bad blood between her group and our group? Did someone set up our group to get distracted/delayed by the thugs and other Megan? To what end?
We didn’t have much time to dwell on these questions as the youngest of the 3 male dwarves, Dorak, came forward to speak. He says we are at war against a lot of orcs, and that Durkik will be leading the militias to reinforce Bordrin’s Watch, while the Far Striders will be closing the nexus and access to the tunnels under the mountains (where the orcs have already made their way into the tunnels). Dorak asked for volunteers to go to the Monastery of the Sundered Chain to warn the monks of Moradin of the impending attack, and to tell them to close the tunnels so that the orcs cannot get through. Our group immediately volunteered, a couple seconds before the Freeriders got their hands up. Dorak asked who we were, and we said we were from Everlund, that we had just helped Everlund when they were under attack and that Councilman Troius had sent us to help. I believe one of our group identified us as the Silver Daggers, but I’m afraid I do not recall who did so. A rather well-armored group, the Far Striders, seemed to be rather arrogant, and not very happy that we were selected for the monastery mission, but they left with the other groups while we stayed to talk with Dorak.
We told Dorak about the hobgoblins, goblins, and others we had run into at Rivenroar, and asked Dorak a bit about the monastery. Dorak says the monastery and citadel have not been in close contact for a while—it sounds as though the monastery is fairly ascetic and considers Overlook too decadent. Dorak says it will be a couple of days walk through the mountains to the monastery and that we may run into orc patrols along the way. Yuri asked if we could have a guide show us to the monastery, and Dorak agreed.
After spending the night at Belden’s Rest, we meet Elmora, a dwarf woman who is waiting for us downstairs at Belden’s Rest at dawn. Despite Ruben’s indicating a proclivity for dwarf women, Elmora is all business and escorts us to the monastery at a pretty brisk pace. We followed her lead as well as we could, taking care to stay hydrated and warm and being careful about where we walked, and keeping an eye and ear out for any orc patrols in the area. We spotted one group before they spotted us and were able to avoid them, so we arrived at the monastery on the second day, and Elmora was able to head off to Bordrin’s Watch.
Tyrande knocked on the gate to the monastery and a few minutes later a small door in the gate opened. A dwarf peeked out at us but didn’t say anything, so we told him we have come from Overlook to warn of coming orc attacks and to help them close the tunnels to prevent orcs from coming through. The dwarf says that they will do it tomorrow, because today is a high holy day to Moradin and outsiders are not allowed in. He then closed the little door quickly. Deornoth, who also worships Moradin, knows that this is not a special day for Moradin, so we are left with a couple of questions. First, why did the dwarf lie about it being a high holy day when it is not? Is he in cahoots with the orcs and does not want to let us in and help close the tunnels? Or do the monastic dwarves just like to keep to themselves so he fed us a line about it being a holy day, not realizing that one of our party members also worships Moradin and would see through this? There are other options of course, but these are the first couple that come to mind.
