After surviving the journey to Kalazart and rescuing the GRAY DOGS, the journalists of The Salvation Times made a few stops on their way back to Salvation Outpost.
A Tale of Two Houses
The Salvation Times crew visited the ruins of the Bakker Farm and Brewery, having heard rumors of the treasures that might be hidden there. They old farm brewery stood in the midst of verdant fields of crops where the remnants of a warforged colossus and warforged titans were scattered across the land.
They found the farmhouse occupied by a family of warforged, former servants of the human farmers who were transformed by the Mournland into mindless zombies. The warforged suffered from a form of madness or malfuction and attacked the journalists, but they were subdued and were restored to sanity. With the help of the warforged, the Salvation Times team discovered the farm’s hidden secret stash of ale, and arranged to have it brought to Salvation Outpost.
Before returning to town, the journalists made one more stop at a lonely-looking house upon a hill. This turned out to be the former abode of a dead necromancer who had turned the house into a giant beacon for undead creatures. The Salvation Times crew barricaded themselves inside and held off the undead horde long enough to disable the beacon. But in the meantime, two of the Gray Dogs, whom they had rescued from Kalazart, betrayed them and fled by themselves, taking the Oracle of War with them.
Salvation Under Attack
Upon returning to Salvation, the journalists found that the outpost was under attack from another horde of zombies and, even worse, a warforged colossus. Banding together with other adventurers, they defended the outpost and defeated the iron giant.
Soon after, a labor strike by the magewright’s guild in the nearby town of Vathirond caused the local lightning rail to sever its service to Salvation, cutting off the town from the outside world. So the Salvation Times crew sought out an old abandoned message station in an underground bunker and sent a distress message to the House Orien enclave in Passage, Aundair, asking for help. Their efforts led to the restoration of the lightning rail line to Salvation.
A Week Later…
Several members of the community were preparing to leave the outpost for various reasons, including Kalli Alran. The Salvation Times crew confronted her at the rail station and learned that the other Gray Dogs were planning to sell the Oracle of War at the Salvage Market. They arrived there in time to see the Gray Dogs being accosted by members of the Ashhounds, a salvage crew working for the wealthy salvage broker IRULAN KARNACH who had skipped town during the battle with the warforged colossus.
Although they saved the Gray Dogs from the Ashhounds, they soon faced an even deadlier foe: a team of assassins summoned by the Oracle of War itself arrived on the reconnected lightning rail. The assassins killed SHERIFF, the warforged law enforcer, and Rothus Teskelyndros, the town drunkard, and they threatened to kill others if the Oracle was not handed over to them. The Salvation Times Crew confronted the posse of assassins and defeated them, capturing the leader of the assassins, a half-orc named SAAL DREADSTROKE, and saving the town.
In the aftermath of the showdown in Salvation, Elynvashir, who had been deputized by Sheriff shortly before her death, became the new sheriff of the outpost. And Kalli Alran resolved to go to Morgrave University in Sharn to learn more about the Oracle of War.
