Barrows and Caravans
Arc 2.
Joining the Riders
Back in Fallcrest, Banner offered the party positions with the Riders of the Watch — free agents under the Riders' banner, with access to Rider resources and missions. Kvothe and Jocelin accepted. Sharwyn and Braford, recovered from the Gulthias Tree, became recurring companions.
Thistle's Marvelous Marvels
The party found Thistle Thornapple's shop and met his eccentric halfling family. Thistle produced a map to an unexplored barrow in the Barrow Downs and hired the party as muscle for the dig.
The barrow held traps, undead and treasure. It also sits on ground the Winterbole Tribes hold sacred. That was noted at the time as a cultural tension and left alone.
Thistle proved more curious and opportunistic than reliable, and consistently overstated his own contribution afterwards.
Escort to Harken
At Banner's request the party escorted a caravan to Harken under caravan master Pieter. The trip was uneventful. The stop was not.
At The Hungry Hound Inn they met Andrin, a young jeweller's apprentice, looking for his missing fiancée Jaylin — an apprentice to the Septarch of Fallcrest who had vanished without explanation.
That conversation is the thread the next third of the campaign hangs from.
The Spiderfell
On the way back the party scouted the Spiderfell, expecting a bandit hideout. They found Brokenskull Orcs instead, and took Potions of Domination off them without understanding what they were.
Pressing deeper, they fought spiders and an ettercap, and only survived because Oleanne turned up with two wolves. She told them what was actually happening in the forest:
- Orcs, bandits and ettercaps were allied
- They operated out of the ruined Broken Spire Keep
- Some of the kidnapped caravan travellers were being fed to the spiders
Back in Fallcrest
Voren the Green, the Septarch, and Sparky Thornapple examined the potions: they lower resistance to mind control. Nobody could say who made them.
Worried about Jaylin, Voren cast a divination and saw her imprisoned in a dark cell, location unknown. He also warned the party that Broken Spire Keep has an infernal history — destroyed years ago by fiendish forces — and gave them a Wand of Magic Missiles.
The party began gathering allies for an assault: Sharwyn, Braford, Booger Thornapple, Oleanne, and Leander, an itinerant priest of Erastil.