The following is written is in a pretentiously beautiful handwriting.

Dead Lead

4 Kythorn, 1502 DR

Ma'am Warmtop summoned our group from the Glassfang Syndicate, so Fenris, Forvist, his drake companion Glitrende, Tova, Vernal, and myself (Sylk) headed to her trailer in Shining Falls. She remarked she was looking for... something. She never elaborated, though seemed embarrassed for whatever this was. She had been sending the risen corpses of forest creatures into the nearby Dire Woods to seek this out. But despite the hundred or so that she sent, only a few had come back. Worried something was between her item and her critters, Ma'am asked us to follow an undead squirrel to investigate. We were not instructed to solve the issue if it seemed impossible, but rather, see what it was.

At the edge of the Dire Woods, our party was stopped by a wood elf. He seemed to blame the Syndicate for strange occurrences, but hadn't known too much. Evidently, the group had seen a party come through before. While they were suspicious of my scimitar, they eventually let us all pass, handing us a matching spear as a token of allowance. I explained to the party after, that the last time I was here, we came across a group of wood elves who had been massacred by wolves. Our party looted their items. Though I had agreed to hand my scimitar back when we found the tribe, that agreement only persisted during that particular mission. And I quite liked my scimitar. Also, it would be troubling if I alerted the wood elves of the fact any of us were from the Syndicate. I pointed out the wood elves wore more militant-grade armor than last time. Regardless, we pressed on.

Through the petrified trees, we found a cave entrance. Forvist sent Glitrende to continue following the squirrel investigate deeper into the cave for us. After a few minutes, there was an explosion. Glitrende told us he watched the squirrel touch a door and explode. We found the grave of woodland critters, all fried and thrown around a room in a cave, with a door. The door had no knob, just a keyhole, and after some testing, an automatically generating glyph of warding spell embedded on its stone surface. Without a key or a real way in, we decided to turn back to report our findings.

The "testing" we did involved triggering the lightning glyph at least a dozen times. As a result, we drew the ire of various fiends at the cave mouth. Wretched sorrowsworns, a maw demon, two tanaruuks, and a balgura attacked us. Though there was a brief scare regarding Tova being trampled by the balgura, we survived the chaos and headed back through some mysterious blood rain... We reported the strange news to Ma'am Warmtop, who paid us for the information in both coin and pies.

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Loot

• 160gp, 32gp to each
• Horn of Silent Alarm (Sylk)
• Manifold Tool (Forvist)
• Potion of Healing (Tova)
• Sylvan Talon - Spear (Vernal)
• Veteran's Cane (Fenris)

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The above information is written to the best of my knowledge regarding the day's events. -Sylkran "Sylk" Teke'zynge

Adventure Note - Miss Wormtop’s Lost Drones

Tova

For my first official Syndicate job, I traveled north of Shining Falls with Fenris, Sylk, Forvist, Vernal, and Forvist’s drake to help Miss Wormtop, a middle-aged halfling woman with a very strange talent for making squirrel “drones” out of corpse flowers, nothic eyes, and dead little animals. Charming? No. Effective? Apparently, until hundreds of them vanished in the woods.

Our task was simple: follow one of her drones and find out where they were being destroyed. We did not need to recover the lost thing she was searching for, only learn where the drones stopped.

Along the way, we met a wood elf, learned there were Underdark entrances nearby, and heard warnings of aberrations and undead. Sylk carried a scimitar the elf seemed to recognize, which was interesting. Forvist also gave us a surprisingly passionate explanation of a Silver Talon Spear and how, in rare cases, elven craftsmanship can rival or even surpass dwarven work. Rare cases, mind you. Very rare.

The drone led us into a cave filled with the remains of countless little animal constructs. It touched a stone door, climbed onto the pile, and was destroyed by a thunderous magical blast. Fenris identified the trap as a Glyph of Warding. The door had only a keyhole and refused to open, despite Sylk’s Mage Hand and my attempts to test it with different types of Sorcerous Burst.

Unfortunately, all that noise woke the forest.

On our way out, we were attacked by several creatures, including a barlgura, which made the awful monkey-like sounds we had heard. It hit hard enough to drop me, which I did not enjoy. Fenris healed me, and Forvist brought the barlgura down with impressive force. Sylk held his own beautifully, Fenris’s Spirit Guardians cut through enemies, Forvist and his drake hit like thunder, and Vernal’s small blade did far more damage than expected.

Then it rained blood on the way back. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. I need several baths.

We returned with the answer Miss Wormtop needed: her drones were being destroyed by a trapped stone door protected by a glyph. For a first job, I would call that a success.

I went unconscious, yes, but everyone came back alive. Having capable people at your back makes all the difference.

And truly, nothing is sexier than capable people who have your back.

• Tova

This job had us stick close to the Syndicate. We were tasked with meeting up with an elderly woman in Shining Falls that asked us to find out where the creatures she had been sending out had disappeared to. Apparently she had been making undead squirrels, which I'm honestly not a big fan of, though she was using a strange flower to do it. We set out with one of these creatures leading us. Leading us deep into the forest to a cave, it continued on in only to explode as it neared a strange door that was just in the middle of this cave. Realizing that we wouldn't be able to open this highly protected door, we started heading back as we were only tasked with finding out what had happened to the creatures. However, as we left, demons set upon us. Slicing our way through, one demon crushed Tova with a mighty blow but I was able to heal her before death found her. After the demons were put down, we quickly left the area as we heard more coming. We made it back to Shining Falls with no further incidents and the elderly woman was happy with our work.