Session 1: A Matter of Honor

We began our adventure in Sencankarr, the Holy City, on the first day of the month of Akdeipal, the beginning of autumn, two weeks before the Fast of Lamentation. The various members of the company had been in Sencankarr the past few weeks on various business, and now they had chosen for their own reasons to journey to the Marches of the Cheyth, where Sir Ralus, commander of the River Forts (and former governor of the North before he was removed from that position by the current monarch, Onwae) had put out the call for more men, since the Crown had been ignoring his pleas for reinforcements. The members of the company met for the first time at the _karilin_ of the Listing Harkel, where they had heard that a knight named Sir Paraman was arranging a caravan to the North. They were:

- Tengelbur, a Sothbori Wanderer. A failed scribe, he had chosen to make his fortune on the road. [Played by Ben]
- Orusen, a Njeitbori Wanderer. Owing to some crime committed among his own people, he has been forced to a life of exile and wandering. [Played by Arthur]
- Varanjala, a Sothbori Warden. Having guarded the Western marches of the wood for her whole adult life, Varanjala has decided to journey to the North in hopes of finding or making a blade of great worth. [Played by Sabryna]
- Ralathar, a Sothbori Scholar. Ralathar has spent his entire life in the Royal Library, but with war breaking out on the northern moors again, he is travelling to the North to chronicle what will become the history of his people. [Played by Ana]
- Teithbor, a Weixranbori Warden. Bearer of one of the fabled Red Fang longswords, Teithbori is travelling to the Marches of the Cheyth to lend his sword in the war against the Nalshbori. [Played by Daniel]
- Reiana, a Weixranbori Leader. An "army brat," the daughter of a respected Knight of the Order, Reiana is answering the call for soldiers. Her father might have wished for a son, but Reiana still means to make him proud. [Played by Sophia]

Arriving at the Listing Harkel, the Company were ushered in to a private dining room to wait for Sir Paraman. In the meantime, they had a chance to meet each other as well as two other of their traveling companions:
- Malfaloth, a somewhat foppishly dressed rake and duelist of some repute. Although he did not exactly say why he was leaving Sencankarr, it seemed to have something to do with the fact that the city had become too hot to hold him.
- Varjala, a beautiful young Sothbori noblewoman whom Tengelbur immediately recognized as being the neice of Verekan, the Viceroy--and second most powerful man in Amboria. She held herself aloof from the rest of the company as they spoke, and seemed uninterested in having anything to do with her lower-class companions.
Before too long Sir Paraman arrived, and the party had a chance (which they largely whiffed) to make first impressions. He seemed fairly impressed with young Ralathar though, and it seems that the two had a mutual friend in Master Norkur, chief scribe at the Royal Library.
The interview concluded, Sir Paraman left them to make preparations, informing them that he intended to leave as soon as the city gates opened the next morning. With some time on their hands, the members of the company went their separate ways:
- The two Weixranbori decided they would go and visit one of the city's many shrines, in order to prepare themselves spiritually for their journey. There, they heard the story of Orusen's slaying of the Serpent, and the hallowing of the Queen's Pool. Finally, Anaris the Well-Woman blessed them and their journey.
- Ralathar decided to sample some of the fine cuisine of Sencankarr, which as a scholar who had lived a fairly sheltered and austere life, he had never really sampled. He dined on peacock's flesh and grain-fed dormouse, all the while listening to the general gossip of the city about some of his fellow travelers. He learned that Varjala, the beautiful but aloof young noblewoman he would be traveling with, was (as he had heard) the neice of the Viceroy, but that she had been involved in a number of scandals, most recently with a nobleman named Thorind. She was now being sent to marry Commander Feiral of the garrison of Ralakarr (the party's first destination), an arranged marriage probably intended to get her out of the way and out of the public eye. Feiral was reputed to be an old-fashioned moralist,  He also learned that the new governor of Ralakarr, Neratsoan, was an incompetent glutton, and only in his current position because of his friendship with King Onwae.
- Tengelbur and Orusen made their way down to the lower city, to an alley behind the Market Square at Thorinta's field, where they had heard there was gaming to be had. The two managed to lose most of their spending money after a couple of unsuccessful rounds of the game of Pickets, before all of the games were cleared away to make room for a duel. That was when they saw Malfaloth, their new traveling companion, calmly buckling on his shield and drawing his sword. Standing opposite from him was a young, trembling nobleman. Asking around, Tengelbur learned that the latter had challenged Malfaloth to a duel after Malfaloth had... greatly impinged the honor of not one, but two of his sisters. Tengelbur quickly sized up the situation and realized that Malfaloth was an experienced (and probably a professional) duelist, and that the poor sod fighting for the honor of his sisters was almost certainly going to be killed. Considering Malfaloth to be a man wholly without honor, Tengelbur convinced both parties to let him step in and fight the duel on the behalf of the wronged noble (and Tengelbur and Orusen also made a number of bets on the former's chances of winning the duel - at fairly favorable odds, too, owing to Malfaloth's reputation as a duelist). The duel began and there was a quick exchange of blows before Tengelbur ran Malfaloth through the body, killing him instantly. Tengelbur and Orusen collected their winnings, were thanked profusely by the young nobleman whose life and honor he had just saved, and made their way back to the Listing Harkel.
- Varanjala (having the Herb-lore speciality) decided she wanted to acquire some poisons, something she could use to coat her blade in case they ran into any trouble along the road. Since such things are a bit outside the realm of polite society, it took her a bit of searching, but she eventually found a withered old crone down by the Water Gate who was willing to sell to her - but only for a price. The old woman wasn't interested in money, however. It seems she had a competitor farther "up the Hill" (that is, nearer to the Palace Complex that is at the top/center of Sencankarr) whose business she wanted sabotaged. That done, she would gladly give Varanjala the "herbs" she was seeking. Varanjala agreed to this, went up the Hill, and made the same inquiries from the man running the shop there, offering to sabotage his competition down in the lower town in exchange for poisons. The shopkeeper, whose primary customer base were "dirty old men" in the Palace Complex, agreed to this, and provided Varanjala both with nightshade (for coating her sword) and a strong laxative (for sabotaging the competition's stock). Varanjala then returned to the Listing Harkel and waited till after dark. Then, taking Orusen (whom she paid handsomely for his help), they returned up the hill to the well-to-do herbalist's shop, and used the laxative he had given them to poison his own stash. The next morning, on their way out of the city, Varanjala stopped by the old woman's booth in the lower town. Word had already begun to spread of what had happened, and the old woman was more than happy to provide Varanjala with some healing herbs she wanted for the journey.

The next morning the company, led by Sir Paraman, made their way out of Sencankarr. There was a brief moment of tension between Sir Paraman and Tengelbur, when Paraman learned that Tengelbur had killed another one of their traveling companions. Warning Tengelbur not to make trouble for the rest of the Company while they were on the road, the travelers set out. It was a three-week journey from Sencankarr to Ralakarr, and although they encountered a few hardships on the road, they more or less weathered all difficulties. A few things happened of note which would turn out to be of importance later on:
- Varjala, previosly aloof (not to say snobby) towards the party members, now began to take an interest particularly in the men in the company. This began with several attempts to flirt with Tengelbur, which he managed to rebuff on a number of occasions.
- Scouting ahead, Varanjala followed a narrow, rocky path down into one of the rocky canyons or ravines which break up the otherwise endless upland of the moors. About halfway down one side of the ravine she was hit by a horrible stench, and as she neared the source of the stench swarms of huge flies began to buzz around her. The stench was coming from a huge, bloated corpse of a giant dark-furred, bat-nosed humanoid figure, with two enormous spiraling black horns protruding from its head. Although Varanjala could see no marks on its body or indications as to how it had died, there was an enormous black sickle lying beside it. Leaving the body and the sickle, Varanjala ran back to inform the rest of the party. While Varanjala described what she had seen to Ralathar, who thought it might match descriptions in verse and in old murals and reliefs of the Arjagbori, the horned servants of Orkon, Tengelbur and Orusen ran ahead of the rest of the party to see for themselves. But when they arrived, the body was gone, the sickle was gone, and any trace that there had ever been a body at all was also gone. Sir Paraman chalked it up to the strange visions which travelers sometimes see in the mists of the northern moors, but Reiana, glancing up to the opposite side of the canyon, thought for a moment that she saw a pair of glittering eyes watching the party.

About 6 days out from Ralakarr (and the night after the strange corpse had been found), the party camped for the night on the moor. Orusen went off from the rest of the party to study the stars and see if he could find in them any clues to how the rest of the journey would go, or any answers about the strange happenings earlier in the day. While he sat alone, gazing at the stars, he suddenly heard a fell voice shrieking on the air. Looking in the direction it had come from, he saw what appeared to be a low hill rising up out of the darkness, into the side of which a bright crack had begun to form. Strangely compelled to move towards it, he began following the light.

In the meantime, his absence had been noted. Teithbor and Tengelbur decided to go in search of him, while the rest of the party stayed behind to keep watch and secure the camp. Catching up to Orusen, Teithbor and Tengelbur saw the strange light as well, but they were not close enough to see what Orusen saw: the figure of a woman, cloaked and hooded, with two gleaming serpent's eyes peering out at him out of the darkness. Then she vanished, and the Arjagbori attacked.

Fortunately, the three men heard the Arjagbori before they attacked, and had a chance to draw their weapons and loose a trio of arrows into the darkness. Orusen and Teithbor both hit their marks as four black steel javelins came whistling out of the darkness, missing the heroes. Then the Arjagbori were upon them. Huge and hungry, with faces like bats and teeth like leopards, the horned things came on. By this point the rest of the party had heard the sounds of the fight and came rushing up, to see one of the creatures already dead on the ground, slain by Teithbor's Red Fang. Reiana quickly organized the company, enheartening her comrades with a mighty battle-cry as they closed in. All fought hardily, and although Tengelbur and Teithbor were both rather badly knocked about, in the end the heroes won the day. Orusen buried his sword in the back of one of the Arjagbori through a Sudden Attack, while Ralathar the Scholar cleaved another one in half as it latched on to Tengelbur's shoulder. Tengelbur slew the last of the four creatures, cutting its legs out from undre it and severing its head from its shoulders. Although they heard more shrieks in the darkness a long way off, they saw no more monsters that night.

The company rested, and Varanjala used some of the herbs she had acquired to treat Teithbor's injuries. The next morning they investigated the site of the battle, but saw no trace of the Arjagbori, or the hill, or the mysterious woman. The trophies they had cut from the Arjagbori were all missing too - all save a tooth that Tengelbur had pried from the jaw of one of the monsters. But as they searched the field, Ralathar found a shattered bronze tablet with an inscription upon it in Old Amborian, which he was able to read:

Under hill the horned creatures
Long ago, the Children fleeing,
Lay, and here the hand of Verek
Buried them to lay forever
Under moors with heather shrouded
Till the awful day of judgment.
Cursed be the Son of Water,
Forest, sky, or gleaming cavern
Who this seal should break, releasing
Ancient evils on his children.

With no other sign of the monsters and several days of travel ahead of them, the party continued their journey towards Ralakar. [Following the battle, Sir Paraman also had a brief aside with Ralathar. But since it was a private conversation and neither Sir Paraman nor Ralathar have yet seen fit to reveal it, I am leaving the details out of this AP.]

Varjala made one more attempt to connect with Tengelbur, and even suggested that perhaps instead of marrying Commander Feiral - whom she was due to meet when they arrived at Ralakarr - she might possibly continue on with the party on their journey towards the Cheyth. But Tengelbur rebuffed her again, soundly, and she seemed ready to accept her fate. But Ralathar was not willing to accept the injustice of a young woman being forced to marry a man she had never met and did not love. He rode up alongside her and let her know that, just between them, if she wanted she was welcome to come with him when he left Ralakarr. He would ask nothing of her, expect nothing of her, but if she wanted to be free she could. Varjala did not outright commit to leaving with Ralathar, but she did accept his offer with gratitude, saying that she should at least meet Commander Feiral before she makes a decision. She owes herself and her family at least that much.

Arriving at Ralakarr, the Company was greeted by Governor Neratsoan, an enourmously fat, repulsive, effeminate sort of man with an eye for the delicacies of the dinner table as much as for young women. He greeted the company and, upon learning that they had escorted Varjala this far, offered them the hospitality of the Governor's Mansion as long as they were to stay in Ralakarr. Varjala gave Ralathar several meaning glances as she invited all of them to attend her engagement banquet in three days' time.

The PC's spent the three days of downtime with various Fellowship Phase undertakings: Teithbor crafted a new suit chainmail, Reiana made a necklace as a wedding gift for Varjala (whom she had offered to stay with and help in her preparations for the engagement banquet), Tengelbur and Ralathar went in search of answers about the Arjagbori they had encountered on the moor and the tablet they had found, and Orusen and Varanjala spent some time singing/whittling to heal the corruption they had gained as a result of their activities over the past several weeks.
- Tengelbur learned that there had been many sightings of strange creatures on the Moor.
- Ralathar met with Kjanli, the Well-Woman of Ralakarr. It turned out Kjanli was a member of the Scarlet Sisterhood, an offshoot order of Well-Women (about which Ralathar knows little), but using her second sight Kjanli was able to tell Ralathar a few things that were helpful: In the reflection of her Well, Kjanli saw the Arjagbori as they had been long ago, when they came with Orkon to the sack of the Hills of Jade. Something was awakening these ancient evils which had been believed all destroyed or imprisoned since the days of Sencan, but Kjanli could not seem whom. Whoever it was, she said, was "very good at hiding, even from me."
- Reiana made some discrete inquiries into the personality and character of Commander Feiral, Varjala's new husband-to-be, and found out that although he had a reputation as something of a hardass (something Reiana could appreciate), he was known to be just, honorable, strict, and old-fashioned. So perhaps not the most fun husband for a girl of Varjala's age and reputation, but possibly the steadying influence she needed in her life.

When the day of the banquet came, the Company appeared dressed in the finest clothes they could find in Ralakarr. Although not nearly as opulent as Sencankarr, the Governor's extravagant tastes and overt dislays of wealth meant that there was food and drink in abundance. As the Company arrived, they were introduced to Commander Feiral for the first time: a tall, gray-haired man with upright posture and little time for small-talk. As he excused himself, Varjala brushed past Ralathar and shoved a small slip of paper into his hand. Going off to read it alone, she found the following:

Meet me in the garden after dinner. There is something you need to know.
 -V

The banquet progressed with delicacy after delicacy, extravagance after extravagance. Orusen suggested a drinking contest, which to his consternation the Governor (who has an enormous amount of body mass) took him up on. Half an hour later, the Governor was just getting warmed up, while Orusen lay passed out next to the table for the remainder of the evening. When the desert course came, Varjala excused herself from the table, got up, and walked out to the garden. Ralathar followed her out, along with Reiana (who was mostly checking to make sure Varjala was all right).

In the garden, Varjala took both of Ralathar's hands, and explained that she couldn't marry Feiral: she didn't love him, and she wanted to start a new life somewhere else, somewhere far away from all of the expectations and pressure her family was putting upon her. A new life with Ralathar, if he would have her. He said that he would, and she kissed him. And at that moment, there was a shout of outrage and dismay, and turning, Ralathar saw Commander Feiral standing there. He had evidently just come into the garden, had seen the kiss, and as Varjala began to sob and say, "it's my fault, I shouldn't have encouraged him," and ran off to her rooms, Commander Feiral threw down the gauntlet and there and then demanded satisfaction upon the following morning.

Things looked pretty bleak. Commander Feiral was a seasoned veteran and a renowned swordsman, while Ralathar was a sheltered scholar from Sencankarr who was still wet behind the ears. Word spread quickly throughout the Governor's palace, and the banquet came to an abrupt halt as the evenings excitement had thoroughly killed the "engagement" vibe. Varjala kept to her rooms while the Company discussed their options. Eventually, Tengelbur decided to go to Commander Feiral and see if he could convince him to call off the duel, or at least accept a proxy for the scholar.

The conversation between Tengelbur and Commander Feiral went unexpectedly well: both were men of honor who had seen much of the world, and Tengelbur understood Feiral's difficulty, and the demands which honor put upon him. Tengelbur offered himself as a proxy for Ralathar, pointing out that there would be considerably more honor in killing a duelist such as himself than an unknown scribbler like Ralathar. But Feiral countered that if he were to kill Tengelbur in a duel, not only would the man who insulted the honor of his betrothed still be alive, but Feiral would be deprived of an honorable and competent man who might still do him future service. In the end, Tengelbur was not able to change Feiral's mind on the matter, but the two parted as friends. Tengelbur also learned two important pieces of information which Feiral let slip in the course of the conversation: He had received a letter from Varjala inviting him to meet her privately in the garden after the dinner (which is why he had been there to see Ralathar and Varjala kiss); and contrary to what Varjala had told the Company, Feiral had visited her a number of times in Sencankarr and was very much in love with her. And in that moment Tengelbur realized that Malfaloth, the duelist who had been intending to travel with them before Tengelbur killed him in Sencankarr, had likely been intended to provoke Commander Feiral into a duel and kill him.

Unfortunately, none of this was communicated to Ralathar, who stayed up all night with Reiana, who used her training in Warfare to prepare him as best she could for the duel. As the sun was coming up, Varjala visited him, professing both her contrition at getting him into this situation, and her love for him. She gave him a poison she hoped he might be able to use to give him an edge in the duel. Ultimately (after disuasion from Reiana) he decided not to use the poison, but at the appointed hour he met Feiral in the garden for the duel.

The duel, presided over by the Governor, was short and brutal. Commander Feiral took the initiative, scoring an early hit and stunning Ralathar. But Ralathar, using the training he had been given by Reiana and a few tricks he had learned when he had learned to use the longsword back in Sencankarr, managed to hold his own for a couple of rounds before disarming (partly by a great stroke of luck) his opponent. As Feiral drew his dagger and attempted to close with the scholar, Ralathar drew his own dagger, parrying Feiral's thrust with his sword in one hand while driving the dagger in his left hand through the Commander's chest. Feiral looked down at his wound in surprise and said, "I... I loved her, you know," before falling dead. Feiral was slain, and the duel was at an end.

There was a sense of melancholy in the air as the players realized that Feiral had been killed, and Ralathar (and I think, Ralathar's player) instantly regretted the decision not to simply wound or disable him.

When word was taken to Varjala about the outcome of the duel, it was found that she had already left the palace. She was nowhere to be found in the city, but on her pillow there was a note, addressed to Ralathar.

I am very, very sorry for what I have done to you, Ralathar. You are far too good a man to be used in such a way, and I dare not hope that you can forgive me for what I have made you do. Feiral, you see, was a friend of the Old King's, and my Uncle made it abundantly clear that unless I went through with this, the man I love would suffer. I hope you find what you are looking for on the Cheith, and I hope that in the days to come you will remember me more kindly than I deserve.
With love,
Varjala

~

And that was where we ended the epic seven-hour session. When we begin the campaign proper in the New Year, the PC's will - perhaps a bit sadder and a bit wiser for their experiences - be continuing their journey towards the Marches of the Cheith. And as for Varjala... well, who knows? But I have a sneaking suspicion we haven't seen the last of her.

Thanks to all of my players for making this session so dynamic and memorable. It's difficult in an AP writeup to communicate all of the heart, humor, anger, and sadness of a marathon session like this, but I consider it one of the greatest efforts of my GMing career, and one of the best sessions I have ever played in period. I've been on pins and needles for the last two months since I started planning this adventure, and sharing my main worldbuilding and storytelling effort for the last 15 years for the first time with a group of players was everything and more than I could have wished. This was one for the books.