A young group of adventurers began their journey at an adventurer's guild in the port city of Marquise looking for work, and work they found.  The city hadn't seen or heard from the family that ran the lighthouse at the end of the swampy peninsula 3 days trek away for weeks, nor had any ship travel come from that direction either.  This group was sent out to find out what happened, and find out they did.

A few days into their trek through the swamp, they came upon a tribe of somewhat civilized lizard folk, an almost unheard of event.  From them they found out that pirates and taken the lighthouse and smashed the lamp, set up a false lighthouse further inland, and had been luring ships to their demise before plundering the wreckage.  With help from the lizard folk, the young adventurers defeated the pirates and brought word of what had happened back to Marquise, where they were received as heroes.

Now with a small amount of fame to their names, they were asked to help the people of Duvik's Pass.  A mysterious illness, incurable by any known means, had struck the mining community and anyone who had entered the silver mine recently had not been heard from again.  Quickly realizing the well was tainted after arriving, the group headed into the mines to see if they could solve this riddle.

Once in, they found a sickly group of Kobolds that had taken up residence.  At first they were unfriendly, and the group had no choice but to kill a few and lost one of their own.  After regrouping and teaming up with a Paladin of Lathander, they headed back into the mine and had parley with the kobold leader.  Apparently, their dead had gone missing and there was some sort of demon taking up residence deeper in the mine.  Taking this information, they drove on to find that the demon was an orcish necromancer and the stolen dead had become his minions!  The adventurers dealt with this threat, and were thanked as best as the community of Duvik's Pass could manage in their hard times.

On their way back to Marquise, they ran into the Duke Ostral of Marquise, the head of the Marquise adventurers' guild and a famed warrior, Malgun Rutas, and a dozen guards fighting off a band of more than 2 dozen orcs.  Eventually, the Duke was captured and the party's horses taken.  Malgun was the only one of those the adventurers had come across left alive and uncaptured by the orcs.

From Malgun, the group found out that Drow had appeared from the forest to the south by night and had attacked.  Drow had not been seen since the great wars of legends thousands of years ago when they had been defeated with magic of the kind that has also never been seen since.  Rumor had it that since they had not been seen, they must have been utterly destroyed, which is now known to be false.  Only the Wizard's University, home to some of the most powerful wizards in the land, was able to protect itself through powerful magical barriers, and the rest of the city was pronounced lost and those who could escape or find shelter within the university did so.  The orcs had seen Malgun and the Duke fleeing to the capital to bring news to the king and bring the king's cousin (the Duke) to safety, and had taken advantage of the situation and attempted to seize a valuable hostage.  Obviously they had succeeded.

The group sent an animal messenger ahead with a note for the king before going to retrieve the Duke.  They found a back entrance into the orc camp and fought their way to free the Duke.  During the attack, Malgun, the greatest warrior in the land, lost his hand in an unfortunate blow and progressed to become a bumbling, self pitying coward only useful for bashing down doors and carrying things over his shoulders.

After escaping, they were pursued by orcs, but after 2 days managed to hook up with a squad of the kings men that had been sent to find them, and were escorted to the capital.  The group is separated from Duke Ostral and Malgun then given first aid/healing and rooms (the ranger is allowed to keep his wolf with him as long as he keeps him on a leash when they are not in the group's quarters.)   There is a small sitting room right off a hallway, and each of their rooms branches off from this sitting room.  All of it is ornately decorated in the royal red and gold, and each room has a plush bed, wardrobe, vanity, chair, and a tub full with hot water.  In the sitting room, there is a central table with bowls of fruit, goblets, bottles of wine, and a bit of mutton.  The table is surrounded by 4 plush chairs, one of which has a large pillow next to it, perfect for a large dog type animal to rest on.

The group is led into this room and told that they will be summoned in the morning and that if they need anything, to ask the guards posted outside the door.

((OOC: This is a closed Moderated Thread.  Any post by players not approved by the DM (me) will be deleted without warning.  If you would like to join in, please e-mail me and if there are any empty spots and it is a good time to introduce a new player, I'll let you know.))