The Gloom in the Gloaming

**DM**

Weni

**Players**

Atalie d'Orien - Woesome Warrior

Kiln ir'Kavay - Dad Bod Glitter God

Vonan'kesh and Mighty Huntress - Hakaar Warrior and her Golin Companion

Tamiyah Athéhsa - Shifty Business Punchy Ghost Eater

**NPCS of Note:**

Imre Levalle

Yulia d'Orien

Elena d'Orien - Atalie's Mother

Frost of The Fallen - Children Of Winter Pack Leader

Wylla Silverfish - Former Wayfinder and Inn Owner/Contact

Raven - Children of Winter Nyctarch

Forlorn (Bug Man) - Raven's Lieutenant

Lyriel - Liar Harp - Juvenile Magebred Captive of Raven

Shade of Adrian Chastain

**Introduction**:

A letter, one for each of the Wayfinders, arrives by courier this early Sul day. The sun has barely crested the horizon, not that many of you can likely see it from your dwellings, but you know that it must assuredly be there as an Orien of perhaps sixteen thrusts out an envelope toward you that had been dated for a few days prior. "Sign 'ere, please." The man-boy intones in a bored sounding drawl as he sticks a clipboard and quill pen into your face and tippy-taps his foot impatiently.

Opening the letter, which is addressed from Imre Lavelle, you find it reads thusly.

Wayfinders,

Word travels fast in our circles and it's my job to stay on top of it. It appears we share a common interest and I will be arriving in Sharn this coming Sul and expect to find you at the Moraggan’s in Highhold when I arrive at 5pm. Dress appropriately, no one needs to see you looking like you just stepped off a galleon back from Stormreach. Have some class. I will brief you of your mission and you will brief me of your intentions. Remember 5pm sharp.

*Imre Lavelle*

Curator of Acquisitions

Wayfinders Foundation

**Expedition Summary**:
The Wayfinders are contacted by Imre Levalle who informa them he wishes to meet to discuss matters that have reached his ear. When the group arrives they are disturbed to find out The Trustee has sensitive information about a personal quest Atalie d'Orien was arranging. The Orien meant to venture deep into The Gloaming to retrieve the remains of her late father Adrian Chastain with the help of trusted friends. The four Wayfinders are met with hostility from the start as Imre seems particularly flustered about an artifact recovered from the Mournlands said to be in the possession of a sect of Druids called The Children of Winter.

The four adventurers are taken aback by his aggressive nature and willingness to pry into personal matters of a staffer to get what he wants and to find a team willing to go into the dangerous locale. He offers them funding should they agree despite this and the four decide that this mission will be secondary to finding Atalie's father and rightfully so.

Eventually an agreement is reached by the four and they set out by lightning rail toward Atalie's home of Passage to catch a ferry to Delethorn in Eldeen, the quickest route to their destination.

Atalie stops to meet with her mother when in town and tells her of her intentions, Elena gives her a broach of her fathers and Atalie is successfully able to summon something close to her lost familiar Jasper but the bird is made of some strange mix of smoke and light. Before leaving Passage Tamiyah and Atalie venture to the main enclave of House Orien and inquire as to the whereabouts of Tamiyah's clan.

They soon set out again and reach the ferry in time to make it to their destination. In Delethorn they meet with a former Wayfinder and contact and learn more about the supposed artifact called The Lyre Harp and a large pack of radicalized Children of Winter led by someone referred to as a Nytarch. With this information in hand they venture into the gloaming. In the outer ring they encounter a group of befouled Myconids and beastial creatures under their thrall. They dispatch them and realize they have been purposely corrupted.

When venturing further into the rings they use their combined expertise to defuse other threats on the area before they are confronted during a watch shift by a Children of Winter Pack led by a woman named Frost. Frost tells them more of this Nytarch whom she names as Raven. They learn more of Tamiyah's people from an elderly shifter who is amongst Frost's followers. Eventually Frost offers the Wayfinders a glimpse of where Atalie's father is likely buried with their word they will destroy or take from Raven this Mournlands artifact that threatens to upend the natural order of life and death.

The Children leave the Wayfinders to their own devices and the elderly shifter leaves Tamiyah with a gift, a crudely made pendant with a symbol that only would have meaning to the two of them, showing his words about her family have truth to them.

They head out once again, braving the choking spores of polluted mushrooms and twisted Mabaran flora and fauna until they come upon a sickly looking man who seems consumed by madness. He is seen shoving brightly colored stones down the throats of dead men. Kiln casts magic on this man, compelling him to trust them as they try to pry information out of him under the guise of being agents of Raven. This bug man, for he was found eating bugs, tells them of little birds and pestilence spread but they find making sense of his babbling tiresome. Kiln finally compels him to flee as far from them as possible, but not before Atalie coerces him into giving her the remainder of the stones, which radiate a necromantic aura unlike that of Mabar.

No sooner does the bug man leave do the corpses reanimate, filled with hellwasps that attack the party. The Wayfinders are finally able to destroy these creatures and continue on into the corrupted forest in search of what remains of Atalie's father.

Eventually through their combined efforts they come upon the camp of what can only be Raven and her large Pack. They opt to sneak into the camp and finally come across a large tent guarded by a group of men. With their cunning they successfully sneak around to the back of the tent, slit it open, and climb inside without the guards becoming aware. They are soon confronted by something they couldn't have expected. The sole item in the tent isn't an item at all, but a teenaged man of unearthly beauty.

This man, who says his name is Lyriel but the Children have called him Liar Harp, tell the Wayfinders he has been held captive for quite some time and they have used him and his innate magic to command undead to perform atrocities on nearby farmsteads and villages under the pain of death should he not listen. What is even more disconcerting is that he tells them he is from Metrol and wishes for nothing more than to return to his people and his Empress Donata.

With the Magebred in tow they tram is once again able to outwit the guards and Children of Winter, in part thanks to the innate ability of the Magebred to calm and lull people with his spoken word.

They rush toward the exit of The Gloaming with the young man in tow chased by Raven and her Pack after she realizes her prize from Metrol has been stolen. After a desperate chase they finally throw them off of their trail and reconvene in the Middle Ring, the territory of Frost. They speak for a time on what should be done with Lyriel and it is decided he will journey back to Sharn with Kiln to meet with Leonardo 'ir Brenith soon after. With this decided with a heavy heart they make to leave again, racing toward the outer ring and home, empty handed save for the Liar Harp.

Soon before they leave the twisted forest they come across The Bug Man again, but he is not alone. He reveals himself to be Raven's lieutenant, a man named Forlorn who has raised undead and has been tracking them since he gave them the stones. He is far less addled than he led them to believe, but no less insane as he summons his thralls, including one man who's spirit is unmistakable, the shade of Adrian Chastain. He knew there was something special about Atalie when he spoke to her and divined further after he left their presence, bringing to bear the incorporeal form of her father in a sadistic act of vengeance for them trying to take Raven's prize from the Mournlands.

A great battle ensues wherein the Wayfinders destroy Forlorn, a terrible cat made of mold and decay that was Raven's beast, and finally put to rest Adrian himself. Left in the ashes of his hollow form, Atalie finds a glowing crystal heart broken but mended whole, which she takes with her. After they finally are free of The Gloaming Kiln performs a ceremony over Adrian's remains and they part ways, Atalie and Tamiyah to passage so the Orien may put what remains of her father to rest and to check on what the Oriens found of her clan. Kiln and Lyriel return to Sharn, and Vonan'kesh visits his family in Fairhaven while they are in the area.

In the end it wasn't the outcome any of them had hoped for or expected and the mission would turn out to be the last Atalie d'Orien or Kiln ir'Kavay would ever take, both retiring from the Wayfinders soon after. Technically the mission was successful, but at what cost?