Eberron Interlude: Return To The Eldeen Reaches

Eyre 28

When the Wandering Wolves reached the community of Sheryn Wayfinder, they were surprised to see several familiar faces. Arenydee had arrived from Sharn about two weeks ago, and with her were Luggoth's girlfriend Savannah and her son Borgoth. There was another shifter, too, a ruggedly attractive woman named Cavoletta whom they had met on the road.

Arenydee fills the Wolves in on what has been happening since they last communicated with Sharn, almost two months ago. After spending a couple of days in Fairhaven visiting with old friends, Arenydee took the Lightning Rail back to Sharn, where she did a variety of work for House Phiarlan. After getting some of the messages from the road from Lysander, she did a little digging on Cardinal Hetrion, to find out when he was traveling, but she never knew where to send the message.

On Therendor 20, Arenydee was relaxing in the House Phiarlan enclave when a pair of frightened shifters came in, asking for her. They were Savannah and her son Borgoth, and they claimed to have been attacked in the streets by fiendish looking humanoids of some sort. They fled to the Silver Flame chapel where they worshiped, but Savannah wanted to talk to Luggoth and let him know about this, because of the messages they had exchanged and the worry he had shown for them. Arenydee arranged for Savannah and Borgoth to stay with her until they sorted things out.

That turned out to be trickier than she had first thought, because on the night of Therendor 21, in the middle of a City Council party at the Celestial Vista Restaurant, someone tried to assassinate King Boranel. And House Phiarlan being what it is, they knew before the Sharn Inquisitive printed it the next day who that someone was.

It is at this point that Arenydee produces a copy of the Sharn Inquisitive for Therendor 22, with the front page article: "Renowned Adventurers Disrupt Event With Attempted Regicide." The article goes on to describe how the Wandering Wolves (made up of Luggoth, Maechen, Lysander and Brand), despite not having been invited to the party or seen prior to the attack, launched an ill-fated assassination attempt on King Boranel and his entourage, including his young bride. The King's guard held them off, and the Wolves were forced to flee. An investigation is ongoing, and King Boranel has offered a 2,000 gp reward for the capture of each member of the Wolves.

Arenydee tried to contact the Wolves. She had received a communique from Lysander just a week prior, indicating that they were heading to the Eldeen Reaches. She intended to set out for the Reaches immediately, but before she could leave, she heard word that Gareth's Gear had burned down, with at least two people inside it at the time. Gareth's was owned by a dear friend, she explains, and though his body was not found inside, the ruined metal and wood form of Tock, the store's artificer, and the body of dwarven manager Jalis ir'Mroranon were.

Baron Elvinor summoned Arenydee and told her that she suspected a conspiracy against the Wolves, and that they wouldn't hesitate to act against their loved ones. She arranged passage to Aundair on the Lightning Rail before things got worse, providing Arenydee with false identities and money to get them clear. The investigative powers of House Phiarlan were already being brought to bear on this clear frame of the Wolves.

Arenydee managed to keep up on the news, both through reading the Korranberg Chronicle and by using her own contacts. When Arenydee and her companions arrived in Fairhaven five days later, they immediately went to stay with Lady Elaydren, and she told them what had developed in that time. The Wolves had left about two weeks ago, and since then, Elaydren had been keeping tabs on information about them out in the world. She was quite distressed by what she had found.

After three days of investigation, the King announces that the Wolves had been involved in some sort of altercation in Thrane, and they were wanted there as well. Questions at their guild revealed that they had arrived back in Sharn a week ago, and that they had been seen talking with a half-orc who was now identified as a member of the Daask. Questioning Pel revealed that the group had taken on a contract from Droamm, which he had refused on moral grounds. He didn't know exactly what it entailed, only that it involved a great deal of money. Documents and platinum found in the living quarters of Luggoth revealed that they had taken on a contract from the Hags of Droaam to kill King Boranel. The King announced the formation of a special task force to hunt down the Wolves and bring them to justice.

He also announced that this was an act of war by Droaam, and increases the troops on the border. After a quick vote from the City Council, the Daask "arrest on sight" order was changed to "killed on sight," and a de facto martial law started in the lower territories of Sharn.

Statements were released in the Sharn Inquisitive and the Korranberg Chronicle by House Deneith and House Orien, both condemning the Wolves. Sharri d'Deneith promised the assistance of House Deneith to the King's task force, while Aeromus d'Orien expressed his deep regret about Brand, spilling dirty laundry about his father and saying that he should have trusted his instincts, rather than his desire to see his nephew redeem himself. Brand was officially exiled from House Orien, and Orien announced its intention to help capture the Wolves by posting information and making their own security aware of the Wolves and their compatriots. House Phiarlan issued a statement denying Lysander's involvement, claiming that this was a frame, but they could not provide proof of his whereabouts, and were generally discredited in the media by Sharri d'Deneith.

Arenydee explains that she, Savannah and Borgoth were only in Fairhaven for three days when they were attacked out in the open by fiendish agents of the Lords of Dust. She fought them off, but determined that their cover had been blown, and it was time to move again. Elaydren provided them with horses and Cannith security to get them to the Eldeen Reaches, where they could hopefully find the Wolves. She expressed her willingness to help, although Arenydee admits to you that she thinks Elaydren's house is compromised. She doesn't doubt Elaydren's sincerity, but believes that there are agents watching her and waiting for the Wolves to contact her for help.

While riding towards Varna in the Eldeen Reaches, Arenydee and her group was attacked. This time, in addition to a half-fiend leading from the air, there was a Zakya Rakshasa and other fiendish troops. The Cannith bodyguards fell quickly, and Arenydee was sure they were going to die. That's when Cavoletta made her presence known. Cavoletta burst in, and at first Savannah and Borgoth thought she was Luggoth. She tore into the attackers and drove them off, then revealed to Arenydee that she had been following them ever since they left Fairhaven. Arenydee tells you that this confirmed suspicions she had that they were being followed.

Cavoletta at this point breaks in to explain. She has been trying to find Luggoth ever since seeing stories about him in the Korranberg Chronicle. Like him, she is a weretouched master, and she only recently learned the truth about her family. Her human mother and father told her that they had found her when she was just a tiny child, beaten and bloody and near-death. They took her in, but were never able to figure out where she came from. Cavoletta believes that she was a member of Luggoth's tribe who survived the attack, and she's been looking for him ever since. She heard of Savannah and Borgoth in Sharn, and following rumors about their travel north, she went to Fairhaven. She heard about the attack on them and went to offer her aid, but she quickly found out that it was too late, and that they had fled the city. Using her tracking abilities, she followed them, and caught up to them a day before the attack. She had been off hunting to find some food as a peace offering before making contact, and came back just in time to help Arenydee drive of the agents of the Lords of Dust.

After five more days of traveling together, Arenydee, Cavoletta, Savannah and Borgoth reached Varna. They arranged to stay the night at an inn while Arenydee checked in discreetly with House Phiarlan. Much had happened while they were on the road. "The Sigilstar Accords" were signed in Thrane, with Aundair, Thrane and Breland declaring war on the nation of Droaam. The very day before they had arrived in Varna, these accords were acted upon, and Droaam was invaded by military forces from those three nations. Back in Sharn, Councilor Sava was killed by Daask forces, and her trusted aide Pel had taken over and was taking a hardline stance against the Daask and the gang war, helping to mobilize increasing numbers of Watch forces against the Daask.

Five days later, Arenydee, Cavoletta, Savannah and Borgoth arrived in Sheryn Wayfinder's village, only to hear that the Wolves had gone into the Demon Wastes about a week ago. They resolved to wait, and hope that no further attacks from the Lords of Dust or whoever was behind this conspiracy against the Wolves materialized in the meantime. That was almost two weeks ago.

The day before the Wolves returned, Baron Elvinor d'Phiarlan sent a messenger to speak with Arenydee at the druid community. After verifying her identity, this messenger told them that Elvinor had discovered a few things about the conspiracy. First, she was certain the Tyrants were involved, as the impersonation of the Wolves during the "assassination" was nearly flawless. If she wasn't sure it was a frame, she'd believe it was the Wolves themselves. Certainly Pel's exclusion from the group of assassins pointed to Tyrant involvement, but Elvinor knows that Pel is with the Wolves, so it seems that he may have been excluded from these plans as well. Indeed, Pel is probably in more danger than the rest of the Wolves, because someone has taken his identity, and Elvinor very much doubts it was without the permission of the Council of Tyrants. She has heard that the Council has new leadership, a changeling named Vadis having taken over and formed an alliance with the Boromar, bringing the gang war in Sharn to a close. There are even rumors that this new Boromar-Tyrant alliance is cooperating with the Sharn Watch and King's Dark Lanterns to root out the remaining Daask, as part of the war effort.

Elvinor heard that Cardinal Ossul Hetrion launched a raid on an Archbishop's home in Thaliost almost a month ago. A bishop believed to be in league with the Lords of Dust was killed, and a paladin and town priest were found in the basement of the Archbishop's mansion, tortured but alive. Their tales of Rakshasas, however, were without physical proof, and Hetrion's charges and claims of the Wolves' innocence were shouted down by the other Cardinals. All of this information was hushed up, but Phiarlan has spies everywhere. Elvinor believes that because Thrane went to war with Droaam partially due to the actions of the "Wolves," they can't afford to believe that they were tricked, and so they are avoiding looking too deeply into the matter.

Elvinor also knows that the task force hunting the Wolves is exceptionally skilled, featuring agents from the Citadel, the King's Dark Lanterns and even the Redcloak Brigade. Though even House Phiarlan was unable to discern their makeup, Elvinor has heard rumors that they have tracked the Wolves to Fairhaven and are no doubt on their way to the Eldeen Reaches. She has no doubt that, as it stands, they are more powerful than the Wolves in stand-up fight. Her suggestion is that they should flee to Xen'drik, where the reach of Khorvaire's laws doesn't quite extend, while the resources of House Phiarlan are put to work finding out more about who framed them and how it can be reversed. To avoid legal entanglements, she suggests traveling on foot to Zarash'ak inside the Shadow Marches, then paying to get aboard an independent cargo ship headed to Stormreach. It will be slow, as the trip is nearly two months long, but better that than running across the military and law enforcement forces of Thrane, Breland and Aundair, all of whom are now looking for the Wolves based on agreements in the Sigilstar Accords. Elvinor has provided Arenydee with 100 platinum, which she believes will be enough to get them all aboard a ship.