The story so far

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THREE PARTY MEMBERS HIRED BY RINARA TO INVESTIGATE TOWN

SHIFTER VILLAGE ATTACKED AND ARTIFACT STOLEN

Captain Fancypants INTERROGATED

PARTY ATTACKED BY SHIFTERS FROM PRINCE ????'S TRIBE

PARTY INVESTIGATES RUINS OF VILLAGE

DISCOVER THAT THE CHILDREN HAD BEEN ABDUCTED

PARTY FIGHTS THE KING OF THE SHIFTERS THAT TURNS INTO A DEATH KNIGHT

PARTY GOES TO DRUIDS TO TRACK DOWN CHILDREN

DRUIDS NEED HELP WITH DEALING WITH ENCROACHING EVIL IN THE SOUTH

PARTY SETS UP WARDS WITH THE HELP OF ENTS

ASTARTE ATTACKS THE PARTY

SAHALDAR INTERVENES

KEPLER EXILES THE PARTY

The party was thrown through the portal and exiled in the Shadowfell. After some time of wandering in the Shadowfell, the group came across a house belonging to a group of Vecna worshippers. The Vecna worshippers were dispatched, the house was cleansed of the Vecnite symbols, and the party used the house for shelter for the night. During the night, the party awoke to a massive, blinding blizzard swirling about the inside of the house. The Raven Queen appeared to Wil Blackspeare in the blizzard in all her dark beauty. She told him that she knew of the party's work to disrupt Neoseod's soul residuum rituals and their conflict with King Kepler and his attempts to evade the prophecy of his fall by exiling the party in the Shadowfell. She made Wil an offer: if he was willing to serve her and work against the undead forces of Neoseod and work to enact the prophecy about Kepler, then she would grant Wil some of her power and guide the party in the Shadowfell. He agreed, the pact was made and her power flowed into him. Before she departed, she told Wil to seek out the city of Midnight. It was there that they would find the next step in their journey. There was a flurry of white snow and black feather and she was gone.

From there, the party struck out toward Midnight. The party came across a field full of scarecrow constructs that attacked the party. The party noticed a farm house just over a hill and decided to investigate to see if they could discover the source of constructs. Arriving at the house, they discovered a slight Drow woman holed up in the house. She lured the party into the house and once they were inside, her glamour fell away and revealed a vile creature in the shape of a woman but composed of lashing vines and wicked thorns. The party escaped the trap and defeated the thorn creature largely through cunning use of the wizard's sorcery. Underneath the floorboards of the farmhouse was a small cache of magical items, no doubt belonging to the hapless souls that fell into the creature's trap.

YUAN-TI SLAVER FIGHT

The party arrived in Midnight and cast about for allies. They met with one of the magisters of the city, Magister Shardmind. He told the party that he would consider heliping them after he knew he could trust them. To that end, he said that the vampire coven in the city may be breaking the laws of Midnight by creating unwilling vampires. If the party investigated the coven for him, he would arrange passage back to the Prime Material. He also mentioned that there may be magical practicioners in the city powerful enough to port the party home. The only one he named specifically was the Val'Sharess of the Drow, a high priestess of Ioun. He also suspected that the yuan-ti have a portal somewhere in the city that they use for their illicit slave trade and smuggling operations.

The party then sought help from the temple of the Raven Queen. The high priest was able to offer information on some of the groups in the Shadowfell, but little else in terms of returning to the Prime.

Thinking that Lord Asmodeus may have seen the party as a common ally against the deviless, Astarte, the party sought help from his temple. The priests there summoned a devil spokesman for the god and he told the party that he would send them home in return for helping or stopping a devil in the Shadowfell with an experiment; summoning an agent of Lord Asmodeus to deal with Astarte when the party encountered her next; or both. The party was unable to reach an agreement with the devil and left. The party's swordmage stayed behind in the temple.

From there, the party met [insert name], high priestess of Ioun and the Val'Sharess of the drow of Midnight, in the temple of Ioun. But first, the party met with the head of the magic item creation department in the temple. He seemed to be enamored of the greatsword that Gorzak carries and offered to transport the party back to the material prime in exchange for the weapon. Gorzak refused the offer. From there, the party met with {insert name] personally. She told the party that she was seeking a new location to relocate her people as dwelling amidst the undead and being subject to the magisters had grown tiresome to her. If the party would agree to scout a few potential sites for settlement and assist in the relocation she would send them back to the Prime. The party would return at the end of two months or whenever they had secured a suitable location -- whichever came first.

During the conversation, the party also told the high priestess of the soul residuum that they carried and explained some of its origin. The Iounites were familiar with the substance, but had never had a chance to study it in its raw form. Intrigued by the possibility, the high priestess agreed to buy the soul residuum from the party for 25,000 gold worth of items. Glad to be rid of the foul stuff, the party agreed, and armed with their upgraded equipment, set out into the shadowfell in search of the first potential settlement location.

Dragon attacks notwithstanding, the party made it to the first potential city site located acoss the mountains from Midnight. When he party neared the city they noticed a soft glow coming from the horizon near where the site should be located. The party went to investigate and were attacked by the sentient trees that were guarding the grove. The party defeated the tree guardians and investigated the source of the glow. They discovered two figures frozen in place around a giant ball of energy. It was then that another sentient tree guardian, this one dozens of times larger than the ones the party had just struggled to defeat, approached the party.

The guardian introduced himself as Badiah, the sire of this forest. He explained that the two figures seemingly frozen were actually fragments of the gods Vecna and Nerull. They were locked in a ritual to contain the swirling mass of energy that hung between them, and that the ball of energy was actually a dimensional hole to the feywild. The hole, created by the god Obad-hai, was intended to funnel positive energy from the feywild into the Shadowfell thus, theoretically, balancing out the two planes and creating two new Prime Materials.

Vecna and Nerull had evidently discovered the Obad-hai's plan and moved to stop it. So now here the three stood, Avatars of Nerull and Vecna on one side of the gate, and Obad-hai on the other. Badiah also indicated that the Eladrin had seemingly had some role in stopping the planar collision, a fact that the party's Eladrin wizard, Akyre, seemed to agree with. Badiah had watched the entire unfolding of events because he himself, like the figures of Vecna and Nerull before the party, was an avatar of Obad-hai and had taken it upon himself to guard this spot so that the ritual not be interrupted.

The party decided that nothing could be done about this new situation without more infomation, and so they continued on their initial quest to scout out the ruined city as a site for the Drow relocation.