Lord Makmar, the ruler of Cor, sent his Crimson Centurions out into the city to find competent adventurers for a mission past the Western Mountains. Zorba and Gareth were corralled after a bar fight, Vela volunteered in order to redeem her name as a wizard, Thia and Jasnah were captured at the city gates, and Void was lured into a trap in The Place Where Thievery Takes Place Alley.
The party and twenty five other risky-looking people were all taken to Lord Makmarâs receiving room. The Lord took control of many of the people in the room, including Vella and Gareth, and used them as a loudspeaker to announce that some people in the room would be chosen to do a task for them. One by one the people in the room fell asleep, and there were only two groups left: a ragtag band of what appeared to be thieves in the front of the room and the people who ended up being our party. As the players watched, each of the thieves nodded to each other, and they rushed the stage in order to attack Lord Makmar, who was still speaking. The first man caught fire immediately; the second had each of his limbs torn off and thrown across the room; the third dissolved through the floor. The fourth thief, brandishing a knife, reached within two feet of Makmar before General Captain Jack, the lead Crimson Centurion coiffed with a giant red plume on the top of his helmet, stepped forward and deftly cut him in two.
Our heroes were the only remaining people in the room, and despite the protestations of the halfling barbarian Zorba, they all agreed to take on the task he desired after his demonstration of power and a mental display where he stated that after completing this mission each party member would have exactly what they desired. Zorba saw herself hoisted on a chair being carried in a parade. Vella saw a nice, neat desk with her name on it in the Wizardâs School. Other people saw appropriate things for their own desires.
General Captain Jack, whose first name is actually Captain, took the party aside to explain their task. He told them that beyond the Western Mountains, where The Rending emanated from, has been unsurpassable for nearly 500 years. He explained that there is a massive chasm at the base of the mountains that no one has been able to cross, and that those who have attempted have been quickly destroyed by unknown agents. However, in the past few months there has been a development: a massive mountainslide has filled in the chasm at its thinnest part, creating a way to cross and investigate what lies beyond the Western Mountains.
The mission is thus: investigate the crossing, pass the Western Mountains, and find out who is ruling the lands beyond. Find out as much as possible about what might have caused The Rending. Investigate the clouds of smoke and red haze that continues to emanate from across the mountains. General Jack gave Vella a small blue orb the size of a grapefruit and told her that it would help in the event of trouble. He also told her to be very careful with it, as it is very magical and extremely fragile.
The party was given the ability to go party hard in their final hours before setting off, and the Crimson Centurions took it upon themselves to âsilver stripeâ the partyâs weapons, performing a metallurgical act that infused each of their weapons with a long strip of magically enhanced silver.
When the gates of Cor opened the next morning, the party set off from the Central City through the ruins of the Outer City. There was a somber tone, and Zorba, still drunk from the night before, nudged back into a proper sitting position atop her pony many times. It was quiet, and no merchants or travelers passed them on the road. The road was flat, and the city receded behind them slowly as they made their way west. Sometimes they would see smoke on the horizon to the north, but the mountains to the west always cut a black, jagged edge between the grey brown plains and the smoky skies.
About an hour before sunset, the party began to see another line on the horizon, and as they continued down the road they saw it slowly increase in size until hundred-foot gate stood in front of them. A wall stretched to the north and south as far as the party could see, but it was in extreme disrepair, with massive gaps and holes visible from where they stood in front of the gate. The gate itself was abandoned, but a small inn made of reclaimed stones from the wall and gate was erected on the southern side of the road. A large sign outside portrayed a smiling, pooping goat, and the party entered The Weary Goat after meeting the stable boy Tony (who works for tips exclusively).
A few minutes into speaking to the proprietor about his business, a gnomish woman burst through the door pursued by no one. Gareth took watch while Zorba, Thia, Jasnah, Vela, and Void spoke to the gnome. Her name was Trina, and her leg was completely crushed. Trina told the party that she would split her âtreasureâ with them if they healed her leg, and while the party argued about whether that was a good idea or not, Thia healed the leg with her ranger abilities.
Trina eventually came to a deal with the party: she would give them half of her âtreasureâ if they accompanied her to the site marked on her map. Everyone bedded down for the night, but Gareth woke early in the morning just in time to hear Tony complaining that Trina had not tipped him. He was able to get downstairs fast enough to see Trina ride through the massive gate, and the party mounted up and began to track her. With help from Jasnah and Thia, the party tracked Trina and her horse through some scrub plains and a scraggly forest. Finally, they crossed a hilltop and saw Trinaâs horse in a shallow gully. Thia spoke to it in order to figure out where Trina might be, and it said âDANGER!â It is a horse.
Cresting the next hill, the party saw a bald hilltop crisscrossed with deep lines all over it (described as looking like a rubberband ball). The bottom of the hill was ringed with large stone debris, and Trina was crouching behind some of that debris looking at the hilltop. The party snuck down the hill to talk to Trina, and she told them that this was where her âtreasureâ was. When asked about the treasure, she admitted to having no idea what it actually was, and she showed several crossed-out locations on her map. One by one she had visited every place on the map she had been sold by a hermit, and this was the last location, so surely treasure had to be there.
Trina explained that her leg had been crushed in this very location the day before, and that there was a golem wandering the hilltop. The party argued for quite a long time about what to do about the golem. Vela suggested invisibility, Gareth advocated fighting it, and finally Void used his disguise kit to dress himself up to look like a golem. The golem was not alarmed by this, and Void went to the top of the hill and discovered a pit where the golem had been throwing what appeared to be trash for years.
After relaying this information, the party decided that they would all run up the hill as fast as possible to jump in the hole before the golem noticed. Sadly, Vela and Thia fell down as they were running, and while the rest of the party hopped down into the hole, they were eating dirt. The golem, noticing the grounded adventurers, began making an awful racket and moving toward them, but they scrambled up the hill and into the hole.
The party was now in a trash hole filled with trash with a raging golem right above them.
Digging through the refuse, they discovered a rusted box that they could not open. Zorba found a keg of wine that granted her some additional hit points when she drank it, and she took a small barrel that was beside it. After looking through the room, the party began to wonder how they might get out of the hole. The golem was roaring above, and Jasnah took her grappling hook and deftly hooked it and yanked it down into the hole (with a natural 20). The party scrambled up the golemâs body (which was sticking feet up in trash) and escaped the hole. They could hear it thrashing in the hole behind them as they escaped.
Standing on the hilltop, they looked for Trina and her horse. Neither of them were to be seen, and in the west, the sun was going down behind the smoking mountains.
