Continuing adventures of Band of Jenkins

First Session Recap (July 3, 2010):
Monk (1st level Monk)           Tully (1^st level Invoker)           Leucis (1^st level Warlord)
Tarak (1st level Warden)         Windham (1^st level Sorcerer)
PCs began in the town of Stonehallow with a summons to Windham''s benefactor, Kor Yeznia. While an ally through and through, Yeznia is a bit unstable and paranoid. After traveling to the part of Stonehallow known as Lowtown, the party entered the small home of Yeznia. He informed him that times were tough and he had found a way for them to make some money as body claimers. He told them to travel to the village of Col Fen and meet with Veran Tal who could help them retrieve some freshly buried bodies. Those bodies could be transported back to Stonehallow and sold to some seedier members of the town's underbelly.
After spending the night in Stonehallow, the party set out for Col Fen on July 4th and around noon of that day spotted a glimmer in the sun halfway up a mountainside. After some stealthy approaches, the party discovered the leg of an adventurer with a blood path leading into a cave. After a fight with spiders and others critters, the party discovered a small note with a diagram of a staff and skull. Searching deeper into the cave, the found a spider's nest and an apparent dead end with some light streaming in from above. Deciding to take the bodies discovered in the cave back to Kor Yeznia, they returned to Stonehallow only to be told that the bodies needed to be embalmed.
On July 5th the party set out again and arrived back at the cave mouth and investigated further into the cave to make sure there were no alternative paths or treasure to be found. After a discussion, they decided to return to Stonehallow once again to ask about the diagram discovered on the bodies. Kor Yeznia examined the sketch and told the party it was a magic item known as the onyx staff and had necromantic properties. He inquired about where they found it and indicated it could be worth finding if they got lucky.
Setting back out on July 6th, the party returned to the cave, camped and made their way out again on the 7th. A copse of trees with ropes hanging from them drew the attention of the party. Quick investigation led them to another clearing with two bodies hanging from the trees, jerking in the air as though being hanged. Although the group approached to save them, the quickly realized the bodies were reanimated dead. A battle ensued against zombies and ghouls in which Tully was killed.
Arriving at the village the group met with Mara Kres who told the party that Veran Tal, his daughter Kyla Tal, son in law, Holt Nas and granddaughter Lysa Tal all were missing and the dead have recently come to life in the old cemetary. When night came the party tested the resolve of the dead by entering the graveyard to see if they would leave the perimeter. Realizing that they would leave the perimeter, but return when no prey was evident, the party decided to get a room or two at the local inn to decide on the plan of attack.

Second Session Recap (July 31, 2010):

Monk (1^st level Monk)            Brandis (1^st level Fighter)

Dora (1^st level Wizard)            Viegar (1^st level Ranger)

Edahs (1^st level Bard)             Windham (1^st level Sorcerer)

The group settled into their rooms for the night and were awoken close to dawn by the sounds of screaming in the streets.  Rushing out to the street they say a group of restless dead terrorizing the streets and a man being dragged away by an undead dog.  After combat was over, the party discerned that the victim was a stranger to the town who had just arrived the day before with a companion, both claiming to be paladins of Pelor.  After questioning the innkeeper at the Farkeep Inn, they were able to explore their room to find his companion missing as well.  They waited the rest of the night and he didn’t return.

The morning of July 8^th the group decided to ask about town for information about the current problem.  The witnesses to the attack overnight said that the dead had never come that far into town to their knowledge.  They decided to visit the village Wisdom, an old lady named Alustra.  After some conversation about flowers, she told the group that the problem had begun only recently and that she had been entrusted with blessing the perimeter of the graveyard but that she had months ago lost her contact with Erathis so the blessings were really irrelevant.  They also learned that the same problem with divine communication existed outside the village. She told the group about the history of Col Fen and how the crypts were here when the villagers arrived many years after it was the site of a destroyed evil temple.  A disease appeared after a group of heroes destroyed the temple, wiping out nearby settlements.  The Col Fen villagers arrived a century later and consecrated the ground but refused to touch the crypts, so they used the area to build their cemetery. She told them that Verin Tal’s home was around the corner so they went to visit.

Although no one was home, the group entered the house to find the upstairs empty with no real sign of struggle.  The main level also empty but on a desk they discovered a parchment sketch of the local graveyard marked with a series of X’s and a journal with entries that seemed to be observations about activity.  A brief foray into the basement embalming room expanded when the group discovered a trapdoor in the floor leading to a smaller earthen chamber with three undead chained to the wall.  Perhaps an experiment? After dispatching the undead, they determined through various observations that Tal and his children and granddaughter had been missing for a day or two at most. 

Heading to the graveyard, they observed locals trying to build a rough palisade.  They entered the eastern part of the yard and began heading towards the first X only to discover the grave disturbed and empty.  They were led to the body of a paladin nearby ( likely the companion of the earlier paladin), on which they looted a Staff of Ruin.  Closer to the crypts, they were assaulted by skeleton archers, a skeleton soldier and a handful of famine hounds.  Although the battle pushed the party to its capacity, they were compelled to push on when they heard the sounds of crying from the northern crypt.  Pulling open the heavy crypt door, they were forced into another deadly battle with more undead, including an incorporeal pale reaver.  Rescuing a young woman and her baby from the crypt, they learned their identity as Verin Tal’s daughter Kyla and granddaughter, Lysa.  She was overly concerned about the whereabouts of her father and husband, Holt.  She also claimed to know nothing of the undead trapped in the subbasement and told the group she had been taken from the house in the middle of the night but didn’t recall anything else.  Turning over the contents of the sarcophagus, the party discovered a set of magic armor and a magic orb.