The Adventure Begins

The adventurers each arrived from various places to volunteer to help with the Undead problem. Only Devon & Gabriel Tremaine arrived together, though Devon was pleased to see his cousin Alyva had come to offer her help as well! After making some introductions it was clear that about half the people here were an already established group, Abadar's Gavel, led by an Elven Bard, Dagiel Noroloth. The rest admitted to having no real adventuring experience, with only their willingness to help the city of Nyksund uniting them. The folks without a group agreed to work together. About this time a woman, introducing herself as Nora, came in to speak with us and explain how we could help. After she got our information and was about to explain in a bit more detail she suddenly stopped and looked towards the doorway. Turning we saw a man with obviously arcane robes standing there. He dismissed her and took over the explanation. He explained that the threat in the mountains was severe. He said to avoid them and just travel to the outlying cities to try to re-establish communication, killing Undead where we could, but staying safe first of all. When asked, he introduced himself as Lyco Macatus. Most of us had heard of him, he being the creator of the spell that protects the city from the cold. He told us to be extrememly careful of the weather outside the protective spell as well. making sure to wear cold weather gear & travel only during the day. He explained that the Iceborne Company would provide any mundane supplies that we needed. He asked us to get to know one another more, explaining a room had been arranged for one night at the Clansmen's Slumber, the finest Inn in the city. He then excused himself. We headed for the Clansmen's Slumber. Arriving there we were shown to our room. We dropped off our combat gear, then headed downstairs to eat. While we broke bread together we spoke about our world views & learned more about one another.
The next morning we were awakened by a rapid knock at our door. Opening it, Vinia found a Halfling woman with a cart load of warm weather clothing. She introduced herself as Poppy. She was very excited to meet us! It turned out she was a member of the Iceborne Company. She had a Raven with her that she named Coal. Alyva asked about where we should be going. She handed us a scroll with our orders, then wished us well and was on her way. Alyva knew the area of the Island fairly well. At this time of year she felt it would probably take about 3 weeks to get to Nordano, our first destination. Luckily, Gabriel had read enough about ways to survive in the wild that he could keep the rest of us from freezing to death. On our 3rd day out we found 5 odd mounds just off the trail. Investigating, we found that this seemed to be a family that had perished here. They had been killed by weapons & left off the sides of the path. We laid them to rest as best we could, considering the frozen ground. We had a discussion about whether we should do anything to try to stop this family from being turned into Undead. We ultimately decided to leave them, hoping they would be left to rest. About an hour later we came upon a wagon on it's side, with more mounds of snow around it. As we approached and started digging at the first mound, others stood up revealing Skeletons! We waded bravely into the battle. They are only Skeletons, right? Rubani was ganged up on, being knocked out repeatedly during the fight. Vinia shone in the fight, between throwing bombs that hurt the Skeletons & using her medicine skills to keep Rubani alive. Tetsu & Devon had a very hard time hitting them, while Gabriel's spells worked fine & Alyva's were mostly resisted.
After the fight we healed up, then searched and found some coinage. We took time to gather the bodies, depositing them in the wagon to form a funeral pyre.