Session Four: Thrane Justice

When the train finally arrives in Vathirond, the party is hailed as heroes for saving most of the passengers from the rampaging Warforged terrorists. They are rewarded with gold and magic items and offered a free stay at the town hotel and a free train journey to their next destination, Aruldusk.

Everyone on the train is very surprised that the party wants to get off the train at Aruldusk, as the city has been mostly abandoned for over two years and trains no longer usually stop there. Because of the party's reputation as heroes, the conductor agrees to make an exceptional stop at Aruldusk Station, but urges the party not to linger in the city.

Getting off the train, the party finds the city nearly empty, with most buildings condemned and barricaded, with a small contingent of soldiers visible on watch towers and in a fenced-in barracks courtyard, but absolutely no one in the streets. Heading towards the center of town, the party finds a dozen statues littering the streets. The statues, seeming to mostly represent terrified peasants running for their lives, as well as a priest and two soldiers brandishing weapons, look very intriguing to the party. They quickly determine that these are not sculptures, but real people who have been turned to stone by magic. Using her powers to sense arcane creatures, Damarris detects a large aberration in the river that separates Aruldusk from the Mournland.

After questioning a soldier through the barracks fence, the party learns that a Beholder crosses from the Mournland into Aruldusk every few days and patrols it, as if it had decided the city was part of its domain. People who happened upon the Beholder's path were either paralyzed and eaten whole, turned to stone, dinsintegrated into dust or mind-controlled and made to murder innocent citizens. Most of those who survived the first week fled the city, and most of those who refused to leave were either killed by the Beholder or starved to death. The soldiers posted in the city chose to ignore their orders to kill the Beholder and instead lock themselves inside their barracks as soon as it shows up, only coming out after it has been confirmed to have crossed back into the Mournland. The party briefly considers waiting for the Beholder to show up and fight it, but ultimately decides against it, believing they are not equipped to face such a fearsome aberration, and leave the city towards the north in search of a way to cross the river without encountering it.

On their way north, Damarris hears a voice in her mind begging her for help. Advancing forward, the party comes across a grisly scene: a group of men in heavy armor and blood-red cloaks are hanging a hobgoblin man as a half-elf man, a human woman and a tiefling teenage boy lay on the ground with their wrists and ankles bound and an elven man lies dead in a wheelbarrow. Damarris recognizes the armored men as knights of The Order of the Virtuous Blood, a particularly zealous and extremely violent faction of the Church of the Silver Flame, the Thrane state religion. As the party carefully approaches the scene, weighing their options, Sparky breaks rank and shocks one of the knights with a lightning bark, alerting the squad to the party's presence. The paladin overseeing the execution singles out Damarris, calling her a "demonspawn", and slashes her badly with his greatsword. Luu and Fletcher focus on cutting the hanging hobgoblin down as Nyx, Damarris, Sparky and Quartz take the knights on. Fletcher eventually manages to cut the hobgoblin down by shooting the noose with his gun and Luu uses his latest draught to fly around the battlefield, taking potshots at the knights.

The combined efforts of the party quickly take down the paladin, and the half-elf prisoner, Xander Hoff Swindel, manages to free himself from his bonds and casts a powerful fire spell at the surviving knights, accidentally setting the wheelbarrow on fire. The human woman, Elthina Ffamdren, immediately starts panicking, yelling about needing to save Naefir, the dead elf laying in the wheelbarrow. Xander soon puts out the fire threatening Naefir's body, and then frees Elthina, who immediately rushes to Naefir's corpse and kisses him passionately. Naefir's body begins twitching, his lifeless eyes glow green, and he rises up as a zombie. Xander loudly protests, yelling at Elthina to let Naefir go.

Naefir and Kólosh Azrag, the hobgoblin who was being hanged, join the battle and the remaining knights are soon dispatched. As all zealots lay dead, Xander and Nyx argue with Elthina to let Naefir die. Elthina initially refuses, arguing that she cannot live without him and that he would want to be with her for all time, but is eventually convinced to let go of her late husband. She gives the zombie one last emotional kiss, but as she cannot bear to hurt him, she turns away and lets Xander plunge his dagger in Naefir's heart, killing him a second time.

The two adventuring parties introduce themselves, and learn that both groups are headed inside the Mournland to recover lost artifacts. Xander convinces Elthina to go back home to Fairhaven with the rest of the party to give Naefir a proper burial, and that he will take care of their assignment with the help of the Cyran knights. Elthina and Byron get on the wheelbarrow with Naefir's body, and Kólosh starts pulling it, heading west towards Aundair. Xander collects the knights' armor and weapons in his bag of holding in case they come in handy, and the party heads further north, hoping to find a boat to cross the river at Angwar Keep and finally head inside the Mournland.