Adventure 1 -- Awakened

Adventure 1 -- Awakened
 
Cohor gasps with a start, water rushing to fill his lungs. He flails his arms about, long, swaying weeds threatening to strangle him. A fit of coughing to expulse the salty water. As he strokes his arms down to swim upward, there's a sharp pain in his ankle. A ball and chain. His foot is twisted and ruined, his toes facing the opposite direction... the flesh around his ankle has worn through to the bone. Trying (and mostly failing) to remain calm, the dead man realizes the decayed flesh can slide easily out of the binding to the chain, if taken at the right angle.
 
He does so, but his frantic, jerkish movements caused further damage to his already hopeless ankle and foot. His lungs start to ache. He strokes hard, pushing himself up... and up... and up... Finally, he breaks the surface. A cool, quiet night. He's in a bay, waves lazily washing onto the beautiful sandy beach.
 
Cohor side-strokes to the strip of beach, left foot awkwardly dragging behind him.
 
The swim is uneventful. Upon reaching shallow waters, Cohor braces himself for the pain of hobbling on his disfigured foot. With a sharp breath, he puts weight on it and -- a dull, slight pain. As if distant. 'Odd...' He thinks to himself. If anything, hobbling on a backwards foot was challenging balancing- and gait-wise. Shrugging, the dead man worked his way onto the shore.
 
Despite the darkness, he immediately recognizes it as Dartris Bay. A remote area his uncle often took Cohor and his brothers to when they were in their teenage years. It was an 8-hour hike, though they usually had brought horses. They'd commonly spend up to a week here, while their father was off governing his people. Instinctively, Cohor hobbled his way up to the place where they'd always camped on their visits. Though it doesn't look like anyone has used this site for years... But what was that on the stump he'd so often used as a chair around the firepit? He moved closer. A scroll.
 
"Cohor." It reads. "A mile to the north you'll find some equipment you need. Afterwards, summit the nearby hill where an agent awaits you. You have been wrongfully murdered. I have made it my quarry to deal with your murderer. It shall be sweet irony when he is slain... by the first he murdered. And then he shall be mine. Make haste." An upright skeletal arm holding balanced scales was etched into the papyrus, as if in signature.
 
Cohor immediately recognizes the symbol as that of Kelemvor, the god of the dead. Surprise washes over him. He's dead? Well. That would make the last 5 minutes of his existence make sense. His foot, the bare-boned ankle, having awoken at the bottom of the bay, the dull, distant pain as he walked. Lack of feeling the cool crisp air, despite being thoroughly soaked himself. With that information in mind, Cohor, whilst sitting, grabs his foot and jerks it 180 degrees back to its natural, forward position. Loud snaps and pops and dull pain, but not enough to even cause a clenched jaw.
 
He looks north, identifying a ridge about a mile away. He heads that way, walking much more fluidly now, and the scroll vanishes into tendrils of darkness.
 
The night is silent as he walks among the coastal trees. After 20-minutes, he's covered the ground to the ridge. A 30-foot cliff he and his brothers used to scale when they were young and reckless. At the bottom, something glimmers in the moonlight. A coin! The words "The Iron Coin" stamped along its perimeter. Unbeknownst to Cohor, it binds to his soul. He simply places it in his pocket.
 
He starts to work his way west along the ridge, a place that made for easily juvenile rockclimbing. Before reaching it, however, he stumbled upon the corpse of man in glittering armor. He looks to have taken a fatal fall from the ridge... His head swollen and distorted. Assuming this is what was meant by the equipment mentioned in the scroll from Kelemvor, Cohor removed the armor, the Priest's Pack, the sword, shield, and javelins, and equipped them himself.
 
His next destination, the top of Carris Hill. He followed the ridgeline west, finding the familiar place where he first learned to rock climb, and began to scale the 30-foot cliff.
 
The climbing proves difficult with all of this additional gear. He manages to reach the top, however, despite a couple of heart-racing slips. Heart weakly thumping, the dead man continues his journey towards the hilltop.
 
A rock strikes Cohor in the back as he’s walking in the dark, forested area. Another thumps into the dirt by his feet. He turns and sees some creatures scampering down the trees.
 
The creatures come up in a flurry, swinging their arms and gnashing their teeth. Baboons... Cohor is able to withstand their initial flurry, bringing his shield up to prevent them from getting too close.
 
After one of the baboons snuck around his shield and scored a bite on Cohor’s forearm, sending a dull pain through his arm, he rips out his sword, swinging it at the baboon that hit him.
 
The baboon dances out of the way of the blade, and they both rush Cohor at the same time. This time, they don’t break around his shield.
 
Both baboons leap over Cohor's defenses, landing on his shoulders. They start to bite and tear at his neck, causing Cohor to stumble to his knees.
 
Cohor uses a reaction to trigger Unnatural Vitality.
 
A voice comes to Cohor's mind. "Reach inside yourself, Cohor. Into your soul. Draw on the well of power bestowed upon you." As the baboons descend upon his neck, darkness cloaking his vision, Cohor reaches for the voice, searching for its meaning. Eventually, he feels a power within him that he didn't know was there. He dropped his sword, using his free hand to push this power into his leg. Life welled back into him. He threw off the baboons, managing to pick up his sword and prepare for another onslaught.
 
Cohor cast Lay on Hands!
 
The baboons, surprised and frazzled at the sudden display of heroism, were unable to break Cohor's defenses. One of them ran itself straight into Cohor's blade.
 
Cohor's newly acquired sword catches the baboon in the side. The creature's eyes go wide in fear before rolling into the back of its head and falling lifeless to the ground. Lethargically, Cohor sheaths his blade and continues forward, determined to reach the hilltop.
 
Another two hours pass and Cohor reaches the top of the hill. He stands around for a minute, in the moonlight, searching for the agent mentioned by the scroll.
 
"You sniveling, weakly, walking corpse!" A high pitch comes from behind him. He turns -- and finds a blade pressed close to his navel, along with a short, hooded man. "So stupid! So unaware! And you are supposed to kill a king?" The halflfing lets out a mocking laugh. "You, who was nearly baboon poo? Hah! You. Who walked into my blade. Pathetic..." He clicks his tongue and flicks his blade back up his sleeve.
 
"King?" Cohor asks, concerned.
 
"Yes, King! Your brother, fool. King of a lost land. He killed you, you know. Jealous of your birthright, he was. Cut your throat, had you stolen away and dropped into the ocean. Now you're supposed to kill him, so Kelemvor says, though you'll likely kill yourself a second time before you reach the next town. Assuming the town doesn't kill your sorry, rotten hide!" Before Cohor could speak, while his eyes were widening at this revelation, the Halfling continued. "Marxstaff has been cursed. An evil effigy constructed in the center of town, guarded by the creatures it has maddened. Resulted in a massacre, it did. While most people slept. Kelemvor doesn't like this. Unnatural and unjust death isn't his way. You're to stop this before you're trusted with further powers." He turns as if to go, but stops suddenly and whips around. "Oh! And here's this!" He tosses a blonde, long wig and box to Cohor, "Wear this! And pamper your rotting face. Use a cloak to cover that neck scar, too. You're no good to us if you're mistaken as a zombie and killed." With that, he takes a few steps into the darkness and disappears.
 
Markstaff is 9 miles to the northeast.
 
Cohor pushes on, northeast, towards one of the towns he stopped at as a child. It was a common stop while they traveled to the bay.
 
4 hours pass. He found the familiar road that lead to the small hamlet. It came into view, sitting atop a rocky outcropping above wooded hills. An eerie violet light seemed to pulse from the courtyard of the largest building, a structure of wood, stone, and thatch.
 
Violet eyed ravens swoop down from the trees, letting out a mimicked shrill shriek. Cohor pulls out his sword and shield...
 
As one of the ravens swoop in like an arrow, Cohor manages to slam his shield into it, dropping it to the ground, where he sticks it’s blade through its avian body.
 
Cohor dives out of the way of a screaming raven. Which in turn brushes out of the way of his blade.
 
Cohor blocks another diving beak attack with his sword, cutting the bird in two.
 
Cohor progresses to the town when he spots off on the distance...
 
Two thralls. Men standing with clubs hanging loosely in their hands, standing at the entrance of the hamlet.
 
The thralls’ attention snaps immediately to Cohor as he approaches. They rush, clubs waving in the air.
 
Cohor side steps a swing, then uses the man’s momentum to drive his abdomen into his blade. His eyes go wide in shock before falling to his knees. Cohor uses his foot to push the man backwards off his blade.
 
The other thrall manages to strike Cohor’s shoulder, who is unable to respond with a quick enough strike to catch the the thrall like his companion.
 
The thrall strikes again. Cohor takes a wooden shaft to the side of the head...as the man brings his club about again, Cohor turns and swipes his sword up, cleaving the thrall’s club arm from his body. He finishes him with a blade to the stomach.
 
Feeling a dull ache all throughout his body, Cohor retreats down the road a quarter mile and finds an adequate place to rest for a moment.
 
Cohor takes a short rest!
 
After an hour rest of sitting against the trunk of tree, Cohor felt the throb from his wounds fade. He forced himself to his feet, and continued to the hamlet. He found the effigy in the town’s green. An ugly thing, crafted out of twisted sticks and animal bones. A single violet gem resting in the eye socket of a deer skull bathing the green and surrounding buildings in purple light.
 
“No!” A voice hisses as Cohor cuts the effigy down. He turns, and sees a silhouette move from the window overlooking the village green. Plucking the violet crystal from the effigy and sticking it in his pack, which he settles on the ground. Cohor preps for whatever is about to exit the building.
 
A man in a bone mask comes out of the building, waving a scimitar above his head.
 
The man barrels into Cohor’s shield, who then shoved the man to his rear, and drove his blade through his heart.
 
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