Adventure One: The White Moon Festival

Foursday, 25th of Shar

The adventure begins during the White Moon Festival in the town of Veilburn. In the central street, a variety of vendors, merchants and performers have assembled to celebrate the festival, and large braziers of burning coals line the street. They cast a bright warm glow on the celebrating townsfolk under the pale full moon.
On the main central stage entertaining the crowd, Jamien, the ringleader of a group of travelling performers, introduces the next act, a towering Goliath strongman known as Laden who wears the skin of a bear over his head and shoulders. Laden lifts three tumbling performers at once in a beautiful display of strength, and then a cannon is rolled onto the stage. He lifts the cannon, straining against its weight, and does his best to throw it forward. It travels a short distance before falling down and denting the wooden stage.
Jamien then announces the next performer, an illusionist named Odel who produces a table with three cups and a ball. He chooses a Triton diplomat from the crowd named Guadalupe and asks him the follow the ball as he shuffles it under the cups. After Guadalupe guesses wrong, the man reveals that all the cups are empty and then vanishes the cups, and the table itself, explaining with a flourish that it was all done with the power of illusions. He gives Guadalupe a wooden pin of a gull for being a good sport.
Panicked sounds and some sort of upheaval behind the stage suddenly ring out, causing Guadalupe and Laden to quickly head towards the source. There they are joined by EVANGELINE, CONSTANCE and TYTUS, who had also been attending the festival and watching the show.
TYTUS is a serious looking man with dark hair and long simple robes that hide most of his appearance. He arrived in Veilburn with seven dwarven shipwrights that he considers his close allies and friends. CONSTANCE is dark-skinned human woman in a neat leather coat. Her friend and travelling companion is EVANGELINE, a blue-skinned elven woman with hair as white as snow. Laden and EVANGELINE had met once before when she saw the group of travelling performers, and she had given him a love note on their previous parting.
Behind the stage, the five of them come upon an escaped tiger, a highly exotic animal for this far North. It is pacing back and forth and growling fiercely at anyone who approaches. EVANGELINE quickly takes charge of the situation, and uses her druidic powers to speak to the tiger. She learns that it wants food, and relays this to CONSTANCE, who quickly runs to a nearby stall selling fish. She takes some fish, promising to pay the merchant back as she races back to her friend. EVANGELINE gives the food to the beast, and tells it to run away. It flees, and moments later the five are joined by two sets of guards and Jamien. One of the pairs of guards has apprehended two young boys who had freed the tiger in a prank with unforeseen consequences. The other is accompanied by a very angry fish merchant.
EVANGELINE pays the merchant and Jamien begins to complain at the loss of his very rare and very expensive tiger. The guards apologize to him and ensure him that the boys will be made to clean the streets of heavy snow for many weeks.
As EVANGELINE, CONSTANCE, Guadalupe and Laden have barely begun becoming acquainted with one another, they are approached by a dwarven man with a thick beard split into twin braids. He introduces himself as Ezia and assumes that the five must work together with EVANGELINE as their leader. He offers to hire them to help retrieve some form of item from a nearby ruin. The offer of gold (and an opportunity for Laden and EVANGELINE to spend some time together), is too good of an offer to turn down.

Fivesday, 26th of Shar

The following morning, the five assemble and meet with Ezia at Veilburn's docks. He has hired a ship named The Interloper which is captained by a fierce halfling named Odette.
They sail North for a day, and in the early evening they come to the cove where the ruins are, they are high on some cliffs at the Northern end of a long cove, once a watch-post and fort in a war long past. Ezia has learned of a creature using the fort as its nest, and wishes to retrieve a specimen for his collection. The party leaves The Interloper in the bay, aiming to return once they have cleared the fort of any danger.
Eager to have the job complete, they row to shore as the sun sets, where they find and battle a pair of giant crabs. EVANGELINE uses Faerie Fire to light them up in the darkness, and the party makes quick work of the creatures.
Realizing that the night may hide more danger, they decide to make camp. They assign watches and rest undisturbed.

Restsday, 27th of Shar

At first light the five set off up the beach for the fort, making their way through long windswept grass and around the Western side to its entrance.
Having been warned of goblins in the area, the party quietly moves through the fort, past empty dilapidated rooms. Among a pile of long-ruined and rusted weapons, they spot a shine of unspoiled metal, and discover a beautiful spear that is untouched by time. CONSTANCE identifies it as a Spear of Lolth. Advancing, the party finds the corpses of some dead goblins. They seem to be rotting or molding with some kind of purple-ish fungus. As they grow closer, the fungus detaches itself from the bodies and attacks!
With the violet fungus defeated. The party steel themselves in preparation for the rest of their mission, and the first adventure comes to a close.