The party got thrown together as a result of being trapped in a city named Arc, upon which marched a group of Inquisitors from the nearby theocracy of Aurion. The death of its previous Exarch left Aurion's new ruler attempting to show his strength, which he decided to do by directing an army at Aurion's longtime enemy, Tenebrae. This path happened to go through Arc, which was built on a giant bridge spanning a river canyon, and thus Arc became the first target for Aurion's holy war.
The group essentially fell in the with the resistance in Arc, and when it became clear that they were going to fight their way out of the town, they were asked to carry a case of secret Aurite intelligence to the Academy of Ialea, a mage academy in the town of Tabris. They have arrived in Tabris just a few days ago, finding it flooded with refugees, and learning that Aurion has actually begun wars on mupltiple fronts. Having lost two of their original companions, they are now faced with the question of whether or not they wish to continue working against the Church's efforts.
Pre-Game
The Exarch of the White Staff - the leader of the kingdom of Aurion, and it church - passed away several months ago. In the wake of this death, other important fgures in the church have begun to struggle for his coveted position. As a show of strength and devotion, the man who currently has control - Supreme Inquisitor Rathial, an anti-magic zealot - has begun to move Aurion's armies against its neighbouring kingdoms, especially the scholarly Tenebrae and the eladrin kingdom of Callan'Shae.
The city of Arc, situated on a bridge that spans the river between Aurion and Tenebrae, has found itself an unfortunate first target for the Aurites' crusade. As fate would have it, The White Mask - a dashing thief and local of Arc - captured some vital (if encypted) military intelligence from deep within the church state, and was ferrying it back to The Resistance, a movement within Arc that was determined to keep the Inquisition at bay. Though he was delayed by church henchman referred to as the Steelblood, the case of intelligence made its way back to Arc in the hands of a fellow agent, albeit without The White Mask's knowledge.
Act One: The Meeting
Pursued by the Steelblood, The White Mask returned to Arc to meet with resistance agents in a condemned pub, run by a pair of abilen whose eldest sister had been taken by the Inquisition. There, he rather unintentionally ran into with close-mouthed eladrin Fasrain, displaced soratami Yoshikazu, and punk wu-kan monk Son Pan. After finding that the case of intelligence had been sent to the Depository in town, Mask was about to leave when the Steelblood caught up with him, attempting to take he and all of his not-actually companions into custody.
After negotiating a temporary truce in order to recover the case, the unlikely party were preparing to set out when explosions rocked the city, quickly followed by an attack by members of a local bounty hunter group, the Black Horses. Although the squad's leader, well-known local named Keiran Danava, seemed reluctant, most of the gang fought to the death in an ultimately futile attempt to capture the party.
In the aftermath of the fight, the party realised that the Aurites were performing bombing runs over the city from wyvern-back. While the White Mask rushed ahead to the Depository, the others paused to help terrified locals.
Act Two: Retrieving the Case
Mask reached the Depository to find that it had already been infiltrated by a spy from Callan'Shae, but when the eladrin realised Mask didn't have the information he needed, he fled the scene. The case was already gone, but the Depository's operator Kasha - once he was rescued - told the party that he heard the intruders mentioning a woman by the name of Shealis and a place called the Singing Chasm. A member of The Resistance himself, Kasha begged the heroes to recover the case. In the mean time, they were given the location of a safehouse in town where they could shelter.
On the way to the safehouse, the heroes beheld an injured Aurite wyvern crashing to the city's residential district, where the rider attempted to take a child hostage and retreat to safety. After the soldier was slain and his unfortunate victims rescued, the group proceeded to the safehouse and met with Wrys Tanner, a young cleric leading the Resistance cell in town.
After resting at the safehouse, the group discussed their findings with Wrys and the Brewers, and were officially asked to escape the city and carry a message from the Resistance to Ialea, a magical academy located in the coastal town of Tabris. The cleric also explained that the mysterious case was also critically important to the Resistance's efforts, and sent agents to investigate the identity and whereabouts of "Shealis".
In the mean time, the party were charged with destroying a terrorist cell operating in the town. First, though, they stopped off at the local magic school to make enquiries bout teleporting out of town. The owner, an abilen named Sanura, explained that long-distance teleportation was getting people burned alive, and allowed Pan to participate in an experiment where she was able to see a tsunami of fire bearing down upon her just as she returned to the material plane. The party left with one option closed, but some very important information.
After routing the well-funded insurgents and hauling their supplies back to the safehouse, the party found a message to the group from a mysterious "X", ordering harm upon an abilen city councilman named Erdan Menash. The party wasted no time in visiting Menash, though when they arrived that evening, they found a group of bounty hunters disguised as city guards patrolling the area around his house. After spooking them into attacking, the party routed the group just in time for The Ebon Blade (aka Randel), a local rogue who fancied himself a rival to The White Mask, to save absolutely nobody. Nonetheless, he introduced himself with much flourish and asked the party for the small favour of delivering a scroll case to his half-sister, an eladrin named Elisaea, in Ialea.
After getting ruid of Randel, the group proceeded to knock on Menash's door covered in post-battle gore. The councilman was understandably wary and in no mood to deal with an audience, but was persuaded by the letter to let the group stay in his house for the evening. The following morning, he heard their case and agreed, provisionally, to meet with the Resistance's coordinators.
Returning to the safehouse, the group arrived just in time to find that a minor earthquake had opened a crypt beneath the building (a former temple). After dealing with the undead monsters that had been unleashed, they learned that Wrys's agents had discovered that Shealis was an eladrin mage staying at the local school of magic, operated by an abilen woman named Sanura.
Returning to the school, the party met a rather unpleasant gatekeeper by the name of Dion, who held a particular dislike for the popular Shealis. He hoped that the party would deliver her comeuppance, but when he realised that they mostly wanted to talk, he seemed to lose interest. They also noticed a large crow watching them at the gates.
Handling things their own way, the party marched up to Shealis' apartment with Pan climbing up the outside to cover the window. Her escape thwarted by Pan's tactics, Shealis reluctantly entered into negotiatons with the party, during which they learned that she worked directly for - and hotly disliked - the princess of Callan'Shae, Elenyare. By equal parts logic, sympathy and ego-stroking, the group convinced Shealis that the case would be better off in their hands, and she agreed to take them to where it was hidden. They noticed the raven followed them as they left.
After leading the way to a ghetto in the slum district, Shealis showed the party to a boarded-up shop with a trapped door. Irrepressable Pan tried to work out the lock despite Shealis's presence, and sprung an alarm that sounded within. However, when none of Shealis' soldiers reacted to the alarm, the party forced their way in and were attacked. Realising her group had betrayed her, Shealis stood back and let the party prove themselves, which they did in short order. Afterwards, she took the case from their belongings and handed it over to the heroes.
After the combat, the raven tailing the group realised it had been found out, and turned into an attractive young human. The Steelblood knew better, having met Lasutrael - a succubus summoned by High Inquisitor Hamied - before, but he allowed the devil's secret to remain for the time being.
Act Three: Escaping the City
After returning victorious to the safehouse, the party discussed methods of escape with their allies. Ultimately it seemed that asking Erdan Menash for help would be the best chance for success, and so they headed back to speak with him. After some further convincing, Erdan agreed to arrange something with his dear friend, Captain Keld of the city guard.
He also gifted them with some expensive (and fabulously tasteless) gifts for the journey. The Steelblood, in particular, found an unusual item; a chunk of mythical metal that Erdan had been unable to shape, which reacted like fluid when the jotun touched it. Reluctantly seeing that it was only useful in the Steelblood's hands, Erdan gave it into his care. Finally, he also entrusted them with an odd precursor artefact labelled as a "Dianoem", asking them to deliver it to his kobold friend Vaess'Valar when they reached Ialea.
With Erdan's letter of introduction, the party travelled to speak to Captain Keld, who astonishingly turned out to be a jotun. The jovial captain agreed to help the party, saying they could leave with his sister, Lieutenant Skald, on her patrol that evening.
As they were leaving, a group of thugs began to cause a disturbance in outside the watchhouse, drawing the guards away from a robbery that was occurring nearby. After settling the real problem, the heroes returned to the watch house with several prisoners and waited for evening. Finally, they were able to leave the city as part of Skald's patrol, just as an ominous bell announced that the Inquisitors were entering the city.
Act Four: The Road Ahead
The party escaped from Arc and rested the night at an abandoned watch post a mile or so out from the gate. In the morning, their path led them into a winding canyon that angled down toward the riverside. Here, the Black Horse Bounty Hunters had set a trap intended to function as a sort of "gauntlet", with clever obstacles to trip up their horses and soften them up for combat. However, after spotting the hunters' scouts, the party disarmed the trap by dismounting, sneaking up on the scouts, and simply waiting for the ambush to come to them.
During the fight, Keiran Danava appeared again, this time trying to convince the hunters' leader, Renard Woodsman, to stand down. Renard would have none of it, and fought to his death before Keiran was able to call a retreat. After paying a quick visit to the hunters' camp to clean up their ill-gotten gains, the party continued on through the canyon.
Further down the road, they were stopped by a pair of equitarn guards, in the name of "…Prince… Laksha". After conceding to meet with the unexpected monarch, they were led to a nearby cave formation with unnaturally smooth, almost organic-looking walls. Here they met Laksha, the self-proclaimed prince of a self-proclaimed kingdom that existed due to a loophole in an excavation contract. An archaeological dig for Precursor artefacts, Laksha's expedition had surprisingly uncovered relics that could not be moved, thus his impromptu kingdom.
At Laksha's none-too-pleasant urging, the group helped to repair one of these artefacts - a lift system to a lower cave segment - before moving on. They also solved a rash of recent thefts by discovering Skelter, a kobold who led a gang living in the cave system. While the group took her to negotiate with Laksha, Acid engaged in some additional exploration in search of interesting relics.
After reaching an accord, Laksha treated the heroes to a small feast before sending them on their way, which turned out to involve Skelter stowing away in their saddlebags. They followed the canyon east to a small wood, where the remains of an old stone house served as the lair of a gnollish thrallmaster and a pack of bewitched hyaenas. They at least had a few valuable trinkets.
Act Five: The Inquisitor
Following the road as it forked down toward the river, the party came upon a small farmhouse where dark-haired waif of a girl waited, speaking vaguely of visions that told her they were coming. Afraid that the Inquisitors would soon arrive, the girl - named Faolan - begged the party to convince her father, Haldin, to leave with them. He turned out to be a profoundly horrid man who was entirely too stubborn to leave, but when the group noticed that he seemed to be using a mind-control spell on his daughter, they turned to force.
Due to Faolan's warning that the Inquisitors would catch up with them, the party rested at the farmhouse before moving on, with Mask and Pan laying a few traps for the expected ambush. The first lone figure who appeared turned out to be Laksha, however, who had abandoned his "silly kingdom" in favour of something that seemed far more fun. Steelblood hurried him inside before he could set off any traps, and soon the Inquisitor appeared. Steelblood recognised Second Inquisitor Boreus, and a cohort named Smarg "Smiley" Hobbler, who had been called upon by the church to carry out some of their nastier tasks in the past.
After a pitched battle with the Inquisitor and a horde of his undead and guilt-motes, the party emerged victorious. Along with their new cohorts, they were able to use Faolan's boat to travel east to the rivermouth, where they could finally commission a boat to Tabris.
Act One: The Road Less Travelled
The party took Faolan's boat to the coastal town of Overflow, where Pan used her gauntlets of Ogre Power to commissioned a ship of kobolds, the Sensible, to ferry them to Tabris. After a brief stop to gather supplies and sell off their extra spoils (courtesy of Laksha), they set to sea, only to encounter a dreadful (and quite possibly unnatural) storm by the second evening. Though the ship was ultimately torn apart, the party managed to save the crew and their cohorts, and salvage much of the cargo as well. Coming ashore, the group found themselves in a mangrove swamp, and took shelter under a massive root structure with the help of some fragments of the wrecked ship. They were briefly threatened by a tribe of aquatice creatures that tried to take the shelter by force, but emerged relatively unscathed.
The next morning, the crew of the sensible decided to remain and establish themselves in the swamp, while the group began their long and arduous slog south. Steelblood wound up carrying most of the cohorts on a makeshift raft, while Pan and the White Mask scouted ahead in the treetops. After a day of trekking through the mud, the heroes were set upon by a trio of crazed witches who screamed bizarre prophecies at them, and summoned up crocodiles from the marsh. After defeating the sisters, the group detoured briefly to seek out their home, an island covered in stinking shacks and rotting human remains. There the party were battled restless undead risen from the corpse mounds, and inadvertently rescued an elven woman who introduced herself Elisaea, a student of Ialea.
Amongst the trinkets, spell components and grisly remains scattered through the shacks, the party discovered a few key items, including a note describing a contact named Alosius, and a map showing a route from the swamp to what appeared to be a Tabrisian fish market. They also found eight strange globes that were obviously magical, seeming to seep blood. Even Yoshikazu could not ascertain their exact purpose, though he recognised a blending of arcane and primal energies, and predicted some sort of abjuration or protective effect. This victory was dampened by the escape of Haldin, Faolan's father, during the distraction of combat.
Continuing into the swamp another few days, the party next came upon a detachment of Aurite soldiers, a bizarre find indeed this far South. Assisted by a wyvern commander, the group seemed to also possess a few of the magical globes found in the witches' shack, one of which had been broken and was releasing a cloud of red vapour.