Since my other thread discussing my D&D 3.5 game got derailed, I wanted to start a new one that will have a better discription of the first session as well as discribing session 2 which just happened last monday.

Session posts to follow.

Session #1: The Journey Begins

Characters:
Sir Victor (Dan): Level 1 Elf Knight
Eletta Kerrich (Marisa): Level 1 HumanHealer
Mercury (Kevin): Level 1 Dwarf Rogue
Tiberius (The Game Guy): Level 1 Human Ranger
Haup Ironhosen(Brad): Level 1 Dwarf Wizard

New NPC's:
King Armoran, Elven King of Jiin
Jaylar, High Advisor to the King

The game began with the group spread throughout the capitol of the Jin nation, with Mercury starting out robbed and imprisoned by the local authorities. Haup, Tiberius, and Eletta were all at the Rusty Nail, a local tavern which was somewhat friendly to outsiders. Without knowing one another or much of anything else we spend some time drinking and looking around to see what we could tell when a disheveled elf rolled into the bar and the entire crowd give him a wide berth to make his way through the crowd and sit alone at a table. Without seeing any evidence we are unable to see why he is such an outcast and Haup saunters up to the serving wench and offers to take the drink he ordered over to him. She seems immediately relieved and proceeds to scurry away after Haup rolls up to the table and introduces himself. The scowls in the room quickly turn on Haup, who is oblivious, and continues to try and chat up the strange man. Just as the conversation started the stranger got up and left the bar, Sir Victor, who happend to be frequenting the bar since it is more liberal and forward thinker saw the happenings and tried to follow the man outside, but lost him in the crowd.

The excitement gone, the group slowly filters one by one into their rooms and falls asleep. The next morning Mercury is awoken by his jailors and told to go with them for his trial. He is taken in front of the Elven King, and his chief advisor Jaylar, where he is promptly declared guilty of some crime, sentenced to life imprisonment, and then has his sentenced suspended in exchange for service to the King in the future. He is then thrown out of the palace and told to begone. He scurries away and tries to find a way of making some money and ends up panhandling in front of the Rusty Nail. Sir Victor then recieves a summons to the palace where the King requests his assistance in a new development.

Victor, hoping to earn some brownie points, quickly complies and agrees to help the King with his newest problem. One of his twin daughters disappeared while riding in the countryside a few days ago and has not been seen since. It is feared that the Human King is behind this, but it is unsure and if it were to become public this could lead to renewed fighting. He is tasked to find the girl and return her, and is to be assigned some helpers for this task. Shortly later aforementioned helpers (Haup, Healer, and Tiberius) recieved notes in the Rusty Nail and on the way out pick up a pandhandling bumb known as Mercury and proceed back to the palace in accordance with their summonings.

They are taken in front of the same panel, where Mercury is derided anew after his most recent stay in the dungeons of the palace. We are informed that we are assigned to Sir Victor to assist in his task, with very little information being given to us, and basically told we will due this with no offer of reward, rather we are threatened into submission (Jaylar is a real ass). With little choice we concur and head out of the palace. While discussing our options outside the palace Sir Victor reveals the details of what he knows. We learn that the princess disappeared while out horseback riding near the neutral zone with her twice sister and their nanny, humans are suspected but there is no proof.

We proceed to investigate what we can find out in town and we quickly learn find more people who are outcast from society, this time a women hysterical in the market, who the local grocers refuse to even sell food to. Haup quickly offers his help and purchases some food for the woman in an attempt to console her. We then learn that the reason for this public disconnect is that someone is stealing elven children in the borderlands near the neutral zone. They never come back and the kidnappers are cloaked in black with no faces, and this is taken as a bad luck omen marking the families and making them societal outcasts.

We move on to talk to the nanny who is very short with us and all we are able to learn is that it was her with the two girls alone when the kidnapping happened. She doesn't know exactly when or where, only that they were all riding when she looked back one of the girls was gone. This occured on a trail at the nearest point to the neutral zone. Around this time Tiberius begins to dub a new nickname for our haughty elvish overlord, Sir-Vix is born.

We head out to the stables and discuss the details with the stablemaster and learn very little, there are no signs of foul play at the stable, no indication of any lies or magic. So we head out on the same trail and when we reach the approximate point where the kidnapping occured Haup casts detect magic to attempt and see if there are any lingering effects or disturbances. He is able to spot a large hemispherical source of magic and proceeds to investigate along with Mercury, upon crossing into the zone of magic the two of them disappear. The rest of the group begins yelling and looking for them but inside the sphere both Mercury and Haup have been apprehended by two large orcs, holding them hostage. After a short scuffle the invisibility sphere drops and the two dwarves manage to break free of the holds and then a third hostile is seen, a black cloaked man with no face, who quickly disappears.

The battle opens up with Tiberus and Haup engaging one Orc, wielding two clubs and Mercury and Sir-Vix dealing with the other who is swinging a huge axe. Tiberius goes first, firing an arrow at the Orc and scoring a solid hit, Haup then fires a pinpoint accurate shot (critical!, 1 on dmg  ). Meanwhile Sir-Vix and Mercury are wrestling with their Orc, scoring a few minor hits until Vix deals a deathswipe, ending the battle. The other two are not so lucky, Haup is hit hard and quick, being knocked down and bleeding profusely, thankfully the EMT's on standby were there in a nick of time. Eventually this Orc dies as well, courtesy of an arrow from Tiberious. We loot and leave, nothing super valuable. However in searching the area we did find some magical writing on the ground which Haup confirmed to be some sort of a teleportation circle. He is able to determine that the metal powder comes from a unique mine just outside the human capitol, and that the writing/language is a bit strange, but can't quite figure out why. We also uncover some tracks leading away from the area, but the tracks don't appear to match anything we know of, with a longer strider and a longer/narrower foot print. We track to the best of our ability and it also leads to the human capitol.

After days of travel we reach the capitol and sneak in through some openings in the surrounding wall and head to the most pro-foreigner bar in the area. While in the alley outside the bar we uncover another teleportation circle, while Haup investigates the circle activates and while the rest of the group hides a cloaked man with no face appears suddenly. Before anyone can say a word the man launches an area attack throwing everyone back and stunning the entire group except the two dwarves who see the man dart down and out of the alley and disappear. Any attempt to see where he went fails. The foreigners then decide it might be best for us to wait outside, and we do, while Tiberius goes into the bar and tries to do some more investigative work.

Tiberius and Healer spend walk into the bar and are immediately confronted by some rowdy locals accusing Tiberius of being an "elf lover", a short brawl breaks out before a local and disastrous prostitute saves Tiberius and drags him out of the bar. 30 gold later she tells him that the strange things tend to go to and from a strange building down the way and indicates the building. The group re-unites and in the middle of the night moves to investigate this new building.

We move to a nearby area where we can observe don't see much except for a building which is disguised as a low security warehouse is actually anything but. It is recently built, well constructed, and highly secure. The only windows are up the walls a good distance so we have no idea what is in there. Haup sends his rat familiar to take a look who comes back and conveys that there is a room full of caged elven children which is under guard by several men including the man with no face. Shortly after the no-face man comes out of the warehouse, exhausted, and his magic covering his face fades briefly to reveal that he is in fact Jaylar, the Elven King's Advisor.

Sooper.

Session #2: Humans or Elves, it's all the same...
New NPC's:
King Raemel II, Human King of Azria
Ellorana, Princess of Jiin, Half Sister to Jordy
Jordy, Half Elf Advisor to Raemel, Leader of Half Elf Community, Half brother to Elven Princess
Terry, Owner and Bartender
Trinna/Tessa, niece of Terry, cousin to Jordy

After seeing Jaylar as one of our new found enemies we continue to observe the warehouse throughout the evening to see if there are any new developments. After a few hours of observation we see a cloaked man exit a rear door of the building with an elven boy under his arm. Haup, Mercury, and Tiberius attempt to pursue and follow, but Mercury quickly trips up on some garbage cans, alerting him to our presence. Mercury gets a good look at the man, but he flees down the street. We do our best to follow, but we are unable to keep up and resort to tracking him across town. We follow the tracks and they lead us right back to the Inn where we had been staying. We enter the inn and promptly get a few rooms and settle in for the evening.

We try to talk to the barkeep (Terry) and his niece (Trinna) but are unable to learn anything, aside from the fact that Terry is sympathetic towards elves/half elves etc and is a fair and good person. We also learn that he is very protective of his kitchen, and we set about trying to get a look in there. Trinna shuts up whenever we talk about strange things, her uncle, or strange men entering or leaving. Haup sends his rat to take a look through the kitchen, but it finds nothing unusual.

Later that evening, three palace guards burst into the tavern looking for Mercury and Haup. The two dwarves surrender themselves to the guards who haul them off proclaiming them to be arrested as spies for the Elven Kingdom. We are hauled roughly through the streets and eventually into a back door of the palace where our treatment promptly changes. We are told the king will see us and we are invited to dinner with the King and three of his advisors (two wizards and another man named Jordy, whom we recognize as the cloaked man from the night before). Over dinner the King informs us that he is aware we were retained by the Elven King to complete a task for him, and that he wants to make sure his Dwarven "allies" remain sure where their allegiances lie, we are then presented with 1,000gp sacks each and told to remember where that came from. Haup promptly pulls the back in while Mercury grumbles about "blood money", Haup grabs his bag too. We are then escorted out by Jordy, when he gives us an assigment. We are to travel a few days to the bordering Wild Lands and there clear out a fist of orcs which have been causing them some problems, and provides us a map to the area in question. He then tells us to get lost and get moving.

We go back to the group at the Tavern and tell them what we discovered, and present a new option. SirVix would prefer to lay siege to the warehouse, but after some discussion we determine the best thing we can do is go along and see what presents itself at this location in the Wild Lands, for all we knew Jordy is trying to lead us there to either frame us, kill us, or meet with us. So, we head out towards the new location and as we enter the Wild Lands we move off the roads and cut through the forest to try and conceal ourselves a bit more. When we get close to the area we are able to hear some yelling... in dwarvish. We approach the scene and discover a group of five orcs who have managed to catch 6 dwarves and tied them up to a nearby tree, while preparing to cook them. The battle begins when Haup casts Ray of Enfeeblement at the Orc leader, hitting him but doing very little strength damage. SirVix steps out of the brush and moves to block the orcs. Tiberius fires his first arrows, scoring a hit on the King, Mercury runs over and cuts loose the other dwarves who quickly grab up their weapons and head towards the fray. Eletta fires he newfound bow, but scores no hits. In the first round, non surprise, Haup casts Grease, dropping two of the orcs in the mess as the other advance. The gaggle of dwarves swarm on the fallen orcs and proceed hacking at them. Their leader takes hard blows, but the dwarven troop quickly butchers the two Orcs rolling in the grease as the other three are hacked down by the group, with the leader being dropped by a crit from SirVix.

As the battle comes to an end the Dwarven troop leader thanks Haup and Mercury and leads his troop back to find the rest of their unit, after trying to rent Eletta. We also reflected on our experiences and hit level 2, with the following result:

SirVix: Elven Knight 2
Eletta: Human Healer 2
Mercury: Dwarf Rogue 1/Archivist 1
Tiberius: Human Ranger 2
Haup Ironhosen: Dwarf Wizard 2

We quickly search the battlefield finding nothing of value as Haup cuts off the Orc ears to return to Jordy before heading back. We return to town uneventfully and reach the tavern as the two dwarves head to the palace to find Jordy. We are sent to a waiting room and after a short while Mercury wanders away and back to the Tavern out of boredom as Haup continues to wait. Back at the Tavern the group continues to try and plot about a next move, with SirVix wanting to resume his assault on the warehouse. Several hours later Trinna excuses herself from the Tavern and tells SirVix she must go get flour and will be back shortly. Haup, who is now making dinner in his waiting room, begins to harass the local staff about the waiting time, while looking around he sees Trinna going through the halls, this time dressed as a noblewoman. Haup tries to follow by is quickly discovered. After some poor attempts at lying his way through it he decides to leave her alone, proceed around the corner and cast Disguise Self to appear as one of the butlers running around and then returns to Trinna to see if he can be of assistance. Trinna requests to be taken to her Jordy's quarters, whoms he reveals to be her cousin. After arriving at Jordy's quarters Haup walks away again while trying listen in on the conversation after she enters his quarters, after hours of waiting he was there all along! Haup sends the rat in to listen up and sneak in after they exit the room. All we can make out is that Trinna's real name is in fact Tessa, and that she is warning Jordy that some woman is "going to ruin everything" and that he needs to go and talk to her. They rush out of the quarters and out of the palace, likely heading back to the Inn. Meanwhile Haup's rat sneaks into the room and Haup rushes to the door to be able to slip a finger under the door to allow him to cast detech magic via the rat to look around. The rat finds a large collection of clothing including a wide variety of boisterous hats as well as some notes and paperwork. After trying to steal Jordy's cloak through the door crack Haup resorts to having the rat bring over some of the papers on his desk. Haup grabs up as much as he can ferry under the door quickly and then leaves, telling the rat to return to the Inn when he finds his way out.

Haup then rushes out of the palace and returns to the Inn to tell the group what has transpired. Meanwhile Eletta has pulled the girl card and decided to go to Trinna about "female problems" and is promptly invited to the Estrogen Conference taking place in the kitchen. She is taken into the kitchen where a group or women are trying to comfort a crying woman in the corner, who keeps sobbing about having lost a child, but it becomes more and more clear that the child was less lost and more misplaced, when a human male enters the room, Jordy. Eletta excuses herself just as Haup gets back to the Inn and tells the group what he discovered in the palace. The group then decides to storm the kitchen, with Tiberius and Mercury taking the back and Haup and SirVix taking the front, Eletta hiding away to not appear complicit. Haup saunters to the bar asking for another cup of tea for Eletta and when Terry heads into the kitchen to get the tea both SirVix and Haup storm through the door as Mercury opens the rear door, trapping a crowded kitchen. We see a full room with Terry, the big ugly cook lady, the sobbing woman, Tessa, Jordy and now the group. After some threats and insults Tiberius knocks off the hat of Jordy to discover he is in fact a half-elf, and earns a kick in the teeth for it.

After long circular logic we figure out that Jordy has been taking the kids from the warehouse to some safe location elsewhere, and that it is also likely where the sobbing woman's child got to. Jordy refuses to cooperate and escorts the woman out of the kitchen to leave the area and take her to her child. Tiberius pursues Jordy following him quite well and stealthily, only to watch Jordy double back to the Inn and enter a secret entrance to the basement. Shortly after we follow into the basement only to find a teleportation circle, which appears to be written in far better Elvish, and not similar to the one we found in the Wild Lands. We then check the paperwork Haup stole, and in it we find a message we cannot decipher as well as a map back into the wild lands, which we think to be his hideout. After damaging the teleportation circle to disable it we head out to the area as quickly as possible.

While enroute we notice that we are being followed by a suit of armor bounding through the trees. After tiring of being follow Haup decides to try and disable it, by firing a ray of enfeeblement at the armor hoping it will become too heavy for its occupant. The ray hits, the armor drops, and the group pounces on it. We soon realize that the elven children are being used to create these suits of armor, though we are not sure if there is actually a child inside the armor or not. We try to communicate with it, but all we hear are anguished screams until it eventually collapses. We bag it up and Haup carries it along our journey.

We finally reach our destination to find a rocky outcropping in the woods, we begin circling the outcropping looking for some sort of clue of entrance, and just as we discover it a handful of half-elves emerge from the woods and order us to surrender (we get arrested every damned day!) and as we are being bound they notice the armor on Haup's back and quickly proceed to secure the armor inside a special metal net and haul it away. We are then taken inside the entrance and through what appears to be a refugee camp, with nothing but half elves being seen all about. There are numerous poorly built structures all over, mostly appear to be scavenged. Eventually we reach a larger and better built structure which we are lead into and reveals to house Jordy, as well as the missing Elvish Princess. It is revealed that the princess was in fact sold by her father to the humans, primarily because she is a seer, or the oracle of elven lore. She also tells us that if there is a war, Jordy can win the war, but he will die in that same war. It seems both the Humans and the Elves want to resume the last war, the elves for shear hatred, and the humans over their resentment of the elves living on lands they gave to them. We also find out that Jordy is half brother to the princess, born to the same mother from an unknown father (Terry is my bet, stupid barkeep)!

The group at this point feels the war is inevitable and Haup and Mercury are asked to go and seek out the dwarves help for this potential conflict. Haup rejects the idea of drawing the dwarves into a war which does not involve his people, but will try to stop them from supplying the armor being used to trap the children. Mercury on the other hand is unsure, and it is revealed his background may have more to it than it was initially revealed. While in Half-Elf Town we are treated very well and spend a few weeks there while we help fix up the town and try to learn our next move.