Interlude

The **Interlude** was the third part of the First Horseman and perhaps the longest, taking place months after the previous Act and before Act III. It saw the formation of a new party after the end of the Heroes of Blackbridge at the end of Act II, a group that would later be known as the Dawn's Herald. Towards the end of the Interlude, the party began to learn about their true enemy, and how the revelations at the end of Act I and the revelations of Act II were false or only corollary to the truth.

## Summary

### Part 1 - Hambor

The party journeyed to Haven with Edmund Trencavel, who was looking for his former mentor, a mage named Piri Niven. At the Swineherd Inn, they learned that Piri Niven's tower had been spotted nearby and seemed to have appeared out of thin air. They also agreed to check out the ruined village of Hambor for Matthew Averill, son of the deceased baron of Hambor; the village had fallen to the plague and Matthew was eager to reclaim his birthright. There, they learned that the village had in fact been purged by the Crusade on the orders of Sir Nordagon of Deminster, who was informed of Infernal Pact activity within the city by Lord Matthew. The party also discovered it had been scavenged by orcs, and within Castle Averill, they fought and defeated Murzol, the Chieftain of the Three-Tusk orc clan. The orcs retreated, and the party discovered Faolan the Gray, who deflected their questions. The party then met with a loose homunculus and found Piri Niven's tower, itself watched over by the fearsome Eye of Gruumsh, Wrugdul.

The Three-Tusk orcs were easily dispatched; resolutely, the party pilfered the tower, fixing its malfunctioning conjuration orb and learning from the tower's animated guardians that Faolan had the Three-Tusk orcs ambush and kidnap Piri Niven. The party confronted Faolan, yet he narrowly escaped their exchange; however in his lair, the party found Piri Niven chained on an altar to Orcus, as well as the Spear of Retribution the orcs thought Piri Niven had stolen from their shaman. Piri Niven confessed that he had stolen the master conjuration orb - the Key - from Faolan, triggering their centuries-long feud. The feud has now turned lethal, and Piri Niven is determined to kill Faolan. Lynette realized that Faolan must already be on his way to Piri Niven's tower. At the Ambulatory Tower, the party mobilized to engage Faolan, along with Lagarkha, shaman of the Three-Tusk tribe, Murzol, with even more orcs in tow. Upon the party's offering the Spear of Retribution, the orcs realized Faolan's misdirection, and turned on the dark wizard. With Volkarr's help they took him apart and cast his ashes away. Piri Niven departed with his tower as the party moved to return to Hambor.

The party then went north; on the way, they ran into the caravan of Yannick Cheesehead, seller of wine, bread, and cheese; meanwhile, Volkarr met with the orcs of the Three-Tusk clan, who he confided in that he wished to become an Eye of Gruumsh; they explained that should he best the so-called King of the Broken-Tooth tribe, gather an adamantine dagger, and a salve that must be applied to the dagger made of the blood of one who dedicates their life to Corellon Larethian. The party went back to the Swineherd Inn, where they caroused and got drunk until Matthew Averill and his guards arrived; the party slew Matthew Averill when a fight broke out and escaped after proclaiming Matthew dead and demanding that the 2000 gold be split between his guards and Hambor.

### Part 2 - Ayles

The party continued north to Ayles, stopping at the Iron Arms Inn, where the pot-bellied dwarven innkeeper informed them that a recent murder had taken place, and a group of adventurers calling themselves the Four Swords Adventuring Company had been jailed in blame for the murder. The murder was of a human beggar - someone no one would miss. Exploring the town, Volkarr and Edmund learned that the Viscount had recently returned to the town, a few weeks before their arrival. They met Elwood at the Garrison, where they interrogated the Four Swords and did an autopsy of the murdered beggar. They met the Four Swords, lead by the ever-mirthful Pryce, who had been ousted from the wizard's turret in Ryfall. Concluding they were not involved, they noticed that the body had been killed by a longsword, and that necromancy was involved, as though a soul was torn from its body. The party investigated the Iron Arms inn, where they had learned the Four Swords were before going to visit the Viscount, where guards brought them to meet with the Viscount at court in Stenet Hold, who offered them a substantial reward in return for accompanying him to Jarlath's Hill, a landmark not far from Ayles where the Viscount's ancestor first saw the land that would become Ayles.

The Viscount encouraged them to call him simply Malcolm and ended up dueling Volkarr, who bested the noble in their brief skirmish but allowed him to wound him with the sword Brionac. The Viscount left the room, clutching the sword and whispering "not tonight, my sweet" to its hilt. Edmund investigated Volkarr's wound and noticed a necromantic aura; the party split up to rest for the night; Volkarr met the dwarven bartender Raegar and the elf Castien, making peace with both before meeting up with the rest of the party, along with a patrol of guards who left in a huff after Lynette continued to try and get them to drink with them. The party attempted to contact Elwood at the garrison, but only made the guards suspicious of why the party would attempt to talk to her so late at night. The party rested for the night; in the morning, they met with Elwood, trying to get her to come over to their side, and learned that she lost her son to bandits. Their attempts to persuade her fell flat and she angrily told them to leave. The party regrouped and met with the young Lord Niall Stenet, who told them that the Viscount was busy helping refugees, who had fled from the South, where apparently some bandit or mercenary had declared himself regent lord of the barony.

Niall revealed that the reward for the defeat of the ogres of Jarlath's Hill would be two thousand gold; he brought them to the hill, hiding in the nearby brush, while Edmund fired a crossbow bolt at the group of ogres atop the hill. The party defeated the ogres with powerful magic and accurate strikes; Edmund repaired  the scratched-out sigil on the monolith atop Jarlath's Hill, recognizing it immediately as the symbol imbued on Brionac's blade. After Niall Stenet was returned to Ayles by Volkarr, Edmund activated the monolith, causing an unseen pulley system to move the monolith out of the way and reveal a trap door beneath. The party delved past the trap door into a strange underground complex, where they slew a dangerous otyugh and a horde of ghouls, and also encountered a flesh golem and found ancient lore while avoiding strange events that seemed to reflect the complex's haunted state.

They banished the wraith of Ilmarinen that still haunted the vault, and acquired and destroyed his other weapons. At that point, Elwood arrived, looking for them, and she quickly realized Brionac's connection to the ancient lyceum. Wasting no time, the party went to Stenet Hold, where the Viscount escaped them with Brionac to the local cemetery. There, Volkarr dueled the Viscount and knocked the blade out of his hands towards Lemuel, who picked it up and immediately felt the blade's pull on him. The party destroyed the blade and freed Malcolm from its grasp, who thanked them, rewarding them with extra gold, freeing the Four Swords (who gift the party a fifth sword), and explained his story. The party stayed for another night in Ayles, running into a group of beggars who had escaped the Iron Regent in Hambor. The party chose to press onwards towards River's Edge, escaping an attempted attack from the Hags of Bedivere Tor by slaying their shambling mound guardian.

### Part 3 - Westmoor

On the way to River's Edge, the adventurers saw signs of a wyvern that later flew over their camp; concerned, they arrived in the village and met Conchur, its ealdorman under House Fox, who warned them to not linger, advice they followed, staying only one night at the meeting hall, meeting Grania, who Lemuel was suspicious of, and Hayden, who directed Volkarr further to the blacksmith, Myrddin. The party saw the mysterious Taliesin who stared as they departed, and briefly witnessed a few hooded, robed men watching them leave.

That night, they heard mysterious chanting along the way to Westmoor, leading them to a battle with cultists attempting to animate dead crusaders; the cultists took heavy losses, so the leader summoned a wyvern with his holy symbol and escaped; however, Lynette used locate object to reorient their path. They got on their horses to attempt to pursue the cultist. They tracked the cultist, who rode astride an undead horse, to an ancient barrow in the Western Moors, where they ran afoul of its guardians - four barrow-wights, who the party harried until a black dragon arrived - Nyxingreth - who forced them to flee in a harrowing chase to a nearby rock formation, where they rested until they were fit to make their way to Westmoor. They briefly entertained the prophet Alibarum, a dragonborn who warned them of the Tear of Tiamat, which would streak across the sky in ten days' time, empowering the followers of Tiamat beyond belief.

At Fox Fortress, Viscount Domnall Fox chastised them for the death of Matthew Averill, and they were reintroduced to the constable, Alastar, and the steward, Cormac. The party reasoned that it would be best to slay Nyxingreth before continuing onto Agrawel, their heroism possibly earning a pardon from the king, a view corroborated by Domnall Fox. Deciding to take on the cult, the party is overheard by Nerethach, a local farmer and a scarred, bald veteran of the Half-Moon Heresy with a mean streak. The party offered Nerethach gold in exchange for assisting in killing the dragon; Nerethach agreed and accompanied them to visit Alunoc and Vorm - two more possible hires, a general store owner/veteran and a nordling blacksmith, respectively, when Nerethach exchanged a revealing gesture with Alunoc. Volkarr's intimidation caused Nerethach to leave, handing them the gold back. Meanwhile, Edmund spoke with Domnall, asking that word be sent to King Richard II explaining their conditions and their intention to face justice after defeating the Cult of Tiamat, as well as additional help in defeating Nyxingreth, both of which Domnall assented to. Lemuel met with Father Emmet, replacing the previous parish priest, Father Odran, who was murdered by assassins in last year's spree, who offered five crusaders and holy water and anointed oils.

While Lemuel and Volkarr finished up their business, Edmund ran into a strange, unfamiliar child dressed in servant's clothes who asked him to meet Vaiel, a mysterious information broker, black market dealer and Westmoor's link to the Noslithian underworld. On their way to meet with Vaiel, the party was attacked by cultists; after causing damage to their surroundings they narrowly defeated the cultists and continued on to Vaiel's lair, an underground grotto overlooking a large pool of water with tiered wooden platforms beyond a featureless hovel and a hidden trap door. Vaiel offered them the location of the cultist's hideout, the key to their operations in Westmoor, in exchange for their help in acquiring an object. The party assented to his terms after allowing that he would give them information on Silas Rooke in exchange for their help; the party then left after Vaiel revealed they had occupied the shipping house in River's Edge. The party made their way to River's Edge after a night's rest, but encountered lizardfolk along the road they easily dispatched. They diverted themselves into the Western Weald, getting a vantage point on the cult headquarters before moving in that night; their initial probe alerted the cultists, ruining their chances at surprise and forcing them quickly into a prolonged combat that awoke many of the slumbering commoners. Having killed most of the cultists, the players revealed themselves to the commoners who investigated the scene of attack and were brought to Conchur, the ealdorman, who explained that they were in Taliesin's thrall. The party convinced Conchur to take the people of River's Edge away to Westmoor, but not before they killed the cult overseer, a masked dragon priest.

After finishing off the cultists in the shipping house, they began to head north when two dragons appeared in the sky above. Nyxingreth, Maugloskor, and the cult of Tiamat arrived to stop the fleeing folk of River's Edge. Taliesin himself appeared, and commanded his dragons steal the players and Conchur away to a sacrificial altar, where he nearly killed Conchur before Grania and Hayden's successive interruptions. Hayden died to give the rest of the group a chance to escape, a chance they took, fleeing from Taliesin into the woods. Grania returned to River's Edge to steal back the party's horses before continuing on to the road, where they used a sending to get the Viscount to send the aid they had gathered and to attempt to slay one of the dragons, having learned both of their lairs' locations. Outside Nyxingreth's lair, they prepared to fight after meeting with their allied crusaders and guardsmen; however, Nyxingreth heard their plotting and went out to meet them, slaying most of their aid before the party finally slew the black dragon.

Overhead, her newly abandoned lair loomed. The heroes easily defeated the remaining cultists, gaining new information on Taliesin, and defeated the rest of the dragon's minions, plundering her hoard of valuables as well as collecting the ancient broken armor and weapons of Maelor Fox, warrior and progenitor to the line of House Fox. The party returned to Westmoor, heralded as dragonslayers, and made their final preparations, restoring the armor to Viscount Domnall, while Volkarr ran into Vaiel, who demanded they meet him before leaving. With Vaiel, the party rode across the moors to the hallowed barrow wherein lied the Temple of Tiamat. They dispatched a fearsome wyvern, the cult's last of the winged beasts, before delving into the dungeon, besting the rest of its guardians and bypassing the burning wall of fire that guards the main entrance by breaking through a weakness in its stone walls.

Within the temple, they defeated Alunoc and Vorm, two villagers from Westmoor who had betrayed the party and thrown their swords in with the cult; Vaiel ruthlessly killed any survivors. The party finally found Taliesin and his right-hand Morgar at his altar, sacrificing villagers from River's Edge; the ensuing battle ended with the party's defeat and Vaiel's withdrawal from the party. They were taken to Avram's Labyrinth, where they were imprisoned; Taliesin and Morgar mocked the party before the cult leader left for Dragonsgrave to fulfill his destiny: to resurrect the dragon Palarogoth beneath the light of the Tear of Tiamat as a dracolich. The party left Avram's book behind but were forced to make a verbal contract with Imotiel, a barbed devil who serves as Taliesin's liaison to Baator, to escape Morgar. Imotiel demanded only Impietas, an ancient, cursed blade, that lies beneath the Temple of Tiamat, in exchange for returning Volkarr's soul to him.

The deal was enough to escape - the party defeated a minotaur, reclaimed their gear and slew Morgar on the way out, before witnessing Maugloskor's escape from the lair and realizing it was his lair they were trapped in. Guided by Duscae, a dryad of the corrupted forest, the party made their way to Dragonsgrave on Maugloskor's heels. Their battle with Maugloskor had the cost of their remaining resources, but they were able to meet up with Alibarum and Grania, who had brought the rest of the villagers from River's Edge, revealing that a riot broke out when Taliesin's weakened cult attempted to maintain control of the hamlet. The party was forced to rest, and woke up as the red light of the Tear of Tiamat appeared in the sky. Alibarum, Grania, Duscae, and the party entered Dragonsgrave and defeated Taliesin, but when Volkarr destroyed Taliesin's staff of frost, it caused the ritual of Palarogoth's resurrection to complete and simultaneously backfire, instead resurrecting Faolan as a lich from the mysterious, bloodstained scroll they found in the depths of Faolan's lair. Faolan the Black escaped after a brief skirmish that saw the adventurers retrieve the sword Dyrnwyn from the skull of Palarogoth, where it both in legend and in fact had remained. Grania and Alibarum reveal that they actually serve the Talons of Justice, a Bahamut-faithful order of good chromatic dragons and dragonborn. Granialadere, a gold dragon, offered to fly the party to wherever they needed to go.

Granialadere and Alibarum departed to meet with the Council of Wyrms, while the party returned to Westmoor. The party delivered a full report and learned that Westmoor had fallen ill to the plague, the steward among the infected. They then ran into Vaiel, who decided to travel with the party to the Temple in spite of them revealing their new deal with Imotiel. The party rested for the night before making further plans, having acquired new supplies from the kindly old herbalist. The heroes hastened for the Temple of Tiamat, getting to know Vaiel further along the way, as well as clarifying the terms of their agreement with Imotiel. Vaiel hints that they may best kill Imotiel after giving him the sword, and then surrender Impietas to the elf. The party encountered Berenwen and four other knights of the Litany of Arrows, a Sehanine Moonbow worshipping sect of the Fellowship of the Seldarine hunting Vaiel. The party defeated Berenwen, and Volkarr unlocked the secret of Splattergore's dark magic, its power unleashed when wet with the blood of elvenkind. One knight was able to escape Splattergore's wrath, and went on to alert the Elven Church in Agrawel. The party finally entered the Temple of Tiamat, pilfering the upper levels of the dungeon before proceeding to the entrance to the monastery.

In one fell swoop, the party cleared out most of the aberrations and horrors that had taken root in the ancient, yet-uncovered ruin; defeating its hydra guardian, the undead wyverns that waited in the underground gorge, a hulking gorgon and even a mind flayer, accompanied by three intellect devourers, who would have killed the entire party save for Lynette's timely intervention and slaying of the illithid. The party defeated a group of abishai, Tiamat's jailers, and Lemuel singlehandedly destroyed a long-functioning gate to Avernus that the Church of Tiamat had used in past eras. At the foot of the sword's shrine, the party slaughtered a group of mad otyughs, and having retrieved the sword itself, called upon Imotiel to close Volkarr's pact. However, once Imotiel took the sword and removed Volkarr's brand, Lemuel conjured a magic circle around Imotiel that prevented him from fleeing. The party subsequently sent the devil back to Baator, although he warned them that they acted on the behalf of some demon. Lemuel gave up the sword easily to Vaielnor, but Lemuel's final words and continued encouragement as well as displays of courage influenced Vaielnor to allow the party to follow him as he gives Impietas to his master, revealed to be the murderous Blade in the Dark.

The party hurried back to Westmoor with Vaiel just ahead of them, spending some final moments in the village before meeting in pursuit of Vaiel. They found that the village has continued its decline as a result of the Rasping Pox, resulting likewise in a greater presence of the Crusade, who recognized the party but stayed their distance. They followed Vaiel to the Black Moor Well, a ruined farmstead some thirty miles west of Westmoor, where the elf left his horse and approached the ruin, Impietas in hand. An ancient crone and a hideous quasit emerged from the cabin to observe the elf as the Blade in the Dark entered the fray, passing through the wall as though it was immaterial. The seven wraiths surrounded Vaiel, punished him for drawing the Infernal Pact's eye, and then demanded he slit more throats for their ceremony come the next eclipse. Afterwards, the quasit took the sword, and withdrew with its crone mistress back into the collapsed home. The shades disappeared back through the northern wall and withdrew on their fell steeds until they simply vanished from any perception. Vaiel revealed he will always be bound to the Blade in the Dark, for he made a pact with Pazuzu to escape his imprisonment in Gaelathara. Vaiel quickly departed and refused to allow the party to judge him when they had Volkarr among their ranks, who grimly warned Lemuel that he will answer Gruumsh's call when it comes, no matter what.

Vaiel rode off back to Westmoor, leaving the party to journey onwards to Overbrook, where they happily met the Four Swords, having recently defeated the bandit lord Finnbar who threatened the small outpost and its tower of Forfar. The two reunited adventuring companies drank together, traded stories of adventure, and got to know each other, Volkarr finding a connection with Soraya and Barnabas while Tora showed cautious curiosity about the other group; Pryce, still a friend to Lemuel, offered to travel with the party onwards to Westmoor, which the party quickly agreed to, paying Daniel Durant for their stay. Meanwhile, Edmund and Pryce made arrangements to meet afterwards in regards to Edmund's plan to cure the plague. The twin adventuring companies rested and prepared to finish the one day and a half remaining of the journey to Agrawel, the possibility hanging in the air of Pryce holding off on the contract he offered to bring the party along with in order to aid in their legal troubles.