1. A secret mission

Our story began in Erevos, the only region of the world of Chthon to not have succumbed to the darkness. Only there could life flourish and prosper, as the River of Souls kept the evils on the other side at bay.
To protect Erevos from the threat of the ever-looming darkness, the Guard of the Crest was founded. It is from within the headquarters of this order that four unlikely heroes would one day emerge...


321 years after Darkshed

At the beginning of each month, the lowest-ranked soldiers of the Guard of the Crest, called Guardians, would normally report to their respective keeps to receive their assignments. Near the end of the year, however, a group of fifteen Guardians within Candlekeep found themselves without a task; they were instead instructed to report to Tana Selvarin’s office, the High Guardian’s own secretary.
Fearing the worst, the group headed upstairs and sat down before Tana’s desk. The Guardians were then split into two groups, with most of the men heading into the High Guardian’s office, while the remaining five met the very leader of the Guard of the Crest: General Reeman Adarion.
The five Guardians were: Delvin, a tall and kind-hearted Human capable of fighting with both weapons and magic; Isabelle Vesslurah, a nature-loving Elf and expert archer; Nero Aelius, a shy and frail-looking Human who excelled at healing others; Strider, a solitary masked man of unknown race; and Morgus, a newly recruited Guardian who only seemed to work with the higher-ranking members of the Order and never spoke to anyone else.
General Reeman, known as The Wall, had a terrifying reputation within the keep, and the four Guardians - Morgus excluded - were shaking in their boots as they approached his office. The old Half-Elf who greeted them, however, defied the worst of the rumors, revealing himself to be an honest man who, past his stoic and emotionless act, seemed sincerely concerned for the group’s safety as he explained his need to send them on a dangerous, and possibly deadly, quest.
According to Reeman, one of the order’s keeps, named Ironmelt, had ceased all communications with the rest of the Guard of the Crest. Nobody had been able to get in touch with the Guardians inside, and every men who attempted to approach the keep had not returned. The General needed a small and reliable group to travel to Ironmelt and discover what had happened to it; the plan was for Delvin, Isabelle, Nero and Strider to act as a reconnaissance team and travel the Bloodline path all the way to the keep, while being followed at a distance by Morgus and a small army of Guardians led by him. The five Guardians were given the choice to refuse the task, as Reeman deemed it to be incredibly dangerous, but all five accepted to go.
Delvin, Isabelle, Nero and Strider were given the means to communicate with the rest of the Guard directly through a magical ring. All five Guardians were also gifted with a magical item of their choice from Reeman’s own vault. They were instructed to keep their real mission a secret from everyone - including the other keeps - and they were asked to prepare to leave the very next day.
The four of them, who named themselves the “Guardians of the Deep”, split off for their final day in Candlekeep. They said goodbye to friends and families and packed their belongings. The next morning, they were ready to go.
Tana led them to a secret room in the basement where they found a teleportation circle. With its help, they were transported to a nearby outpost of the order named Tania Post. It is there that the group made their final arrangements, including taking a cart and a couple of horses. Isabelle also gifted Nero the magical item she had chosen amongst Reeman’s possessions, as she had purposefully picked a healing staff that she couldn’t use but her friend could. She had even engraved it with a personalized poem the night before.
The Guardians of the Deep started traveling towards the next outpost, Fromel Post. They planned to stay on the Bloodline, since they had been instructed, as their secondary task, to also make sure the most traveled trading route in Erevos was safe. But it only took them a day of travel before they came across some trouble...
The cart was forced to stop at a roadblock. The party was approached by armed man, claiming to be members of the Guard of the Crest working to keep the road safe. Since the four Guardians had been warned, back in Tania Post, of nearby bandits active on that same route, they were wary as they interacted with those who had stopped the cart.
The party asked to see their crests, the medallions that only the members of the order wore. When the men refused, the Guardians showed their own crests, and warned the men against impersonating them. However, that’s when the bandits decided to attack them in order to take their medallions and better look the part in the future.
The Guardians did their best to hold back and to give the bandits plenty of chances to retreat, but they were forced to fight back in order to protect themselves. At the end of the battle, only one of the bandits survived, finally ready to surrender. Nero was also knocked unconscious, brought back only thanks to one of Isabelle’s potions.
The group interrogated the lone survivor and learned of Morrigan, their leader. According to him, his group of bandits was a bunch of fugitives from Shadowport who banded under her, trying to make it big. The party learned the location of their camp and was faced with the choice of dispatching of it personally or moving on with their quest.
With the blood of many men on their hands, the Guardians of the Deep pondered their next move.