Session 1: The Circle of Orin Attacked, Meeting the Queen, The House of Five Blades

The PCs began the game out on an errand for the Circle of Orin. In addition to performing mercenary and adventuring services, the Circle also runs a minor wholesale importing business (originally owned by Navien, the Warlord member of the circle). The errand was to pick up some goods from a Riticorian merchant lord named Sark, whom the Circle has dealt with before. Unfortunately, the shipment had been delayed by unknown factors, something uncommon but not unheard of, and the PCs needed to return empty-handed to the Circle house, a villa in the southern (mercantile) district of Nendalem, built on the river.

When they came back to the house after being gone all day, they found a messenger from Queen Amavere along with two men-at-arms waiting outside. The messenger was there to see Haroran, the ranger and leader of the Circle. The messenger had been knocking on the door, but no one had answered, an odd occurrence particularly because the circle employs several servants. The PCs entered and found the interior ransacked, and several smallish humanoid corpses strewn around the vestibule. The PCs were not able to identify the exact race. After a few steps, the PCs came under attack by several more (live) humanoids of a similar origin and appearance, armed with high-quality long guns and professional-grade armor. The humanoids were accompanied by a tall man in a heavy brown cloak with a face concealed by a scarf. He fled the scene while the PCs were engaged defeating the humanoids, but it was noticed that he had a heavy greatsword strapped to his back, and used some sort of magic. He threw one of his daggers at the PCs during his escape. He left by the dock at the back of the house, and either stole or destroyed all the small boats normally docked there.

After the short battle, the PCs searched the villa, which had been thoroughly ransacked. Almost all of the pots and bottles of wine in the wine cellar had been smashed, though much of the dry goods storage was still in acceptable condition, though it had been thrown about. The mage Shaw, a first-generation member of the Circle, was found dead in the basement as well. The main office of the adventuring company had been violently torn apart, and huge gashes and score marks were found on the heavy stone walls. Much of the valuables (including the contents of a safe) were gone. After thoroughly searching the office though, the PCs located a secret door, which led to a small storage room which the intruders had been unable (it seems) to locate. The shelves of the secret room were mostly empty, though there were five items, of obvious importance to the Circle due to how they were carefully stored, which the PCs took. The five items are:

• Book, heavy leather-bound tome written in Elven, appears to be a retelling of myths
• Spyglass, leather decorated with silver and gold
• Necklace of dark red jewels joined my engraved steel tubes
• Helm, winged, made of high quality steel and decorated
• Knife, no hilt, ornamental but well balanced

They returned with the messenger to the Queen's palace (a small but opulent collection of buildings deep within the royal grounds). On the way to the palace, they left Shaw's body at a temple, hoping that the clerics would be able to call his soul back. The Queen had a task for Haroran, but settled for the PCs (the Circle had done missions for the realm before). She had a sensitive message which needed to be delivered to someone outside of Nendalem, and the task could not be done by an official messenger. While in the audience chamber of the Queen, they saw the same man that had been at their villa, though dressed in a fancier cloak, and learned that his name was Colter the Blade and that he was a member of another chartered adventuring company in the city called The House of Five Blades. The PCs accused Colter of invading their property in front of the queen, but it was just their word against Colter's, and the queen had used the services of the Five Blades in the past, so she left the adventurers to work out their differences themselves for the time being, assuming of course that it did not get in the way of the Realm's business.

The session ended with the PCs tentatively deciding to take up the Queen's task before searching for the missing Haroran.