My PC is the young Lord Augustus Zyltar, second son of the Viscount of Aramay.  After reaching 21 he has been sent by his father to meet the Lords of the adjacent Marches; the Barons and Marquis of their neighbors.  Lord Augustus Zyltar will assume the position of a Baron in Aramay when he reaches 30 years old.  His brother will become Viscount when the time comes; so father sends them to meet with nobles so they may become acquainted with these people since they will deal with one another.  They have already met the nobles of Aramay at various functions within their March.  (The party started as all level 1 and have advanced to level 5 as of this moment, covering about 40 days of travel and adventure.)

Augustus is traveling with three companions, his squire, his scribe and two footmen.  At present the scribe and footmen are safely behind in a settlement while Augustus and his band have gone ahead.  His three companions are his childhood friend and Cleric, Bartholomew, a Bard named Marcato and his friend, a Ranger named Chaparral.  The Squire, Claudius, is also traveling with them carrying Augustus' pennant.  They are currently in the neighboring March of Garcon, in the Barony of Lamire having stopped in the town of Moskva. (The company of Augustus wear Burgundy tabards with white borders and crest of Aramay)

Moskva is a pot ready to boil over.  It is apparent they are preparing for a war and Augustus knew nothing of these plans except for the rumors he heard as he made his way thus; rumors that many unsettling things were happening including persecution of gnomes and religions of all sorts was becoming common in the area.  The ruler of Garcon is Lord Drake the Elder, and his son, Lord Drake the Younger (who I abbreviate LDY) is ruler of the Barony of Lamire where the 'action' is happening at this moment.

There is an independent faction here called the Adventurer's Guild (funny name) with about eighty adventurers of unknown level and class.  The Adventurer's Guild has no love lost for LDY and was on the verge of taking matters into their own hands without any help from our party.

So LDY has arrived in Moskva with many "guards" and a few more soldiers.  The town was actively training soldiers when the party arrived so they are accumulating a large band of soldiers for what purpose Augustus doesn't know, but the townsfolk are very unhappy.  In addition, a "press gang" has arrived with LDY and attempted to press Claudius into their army.  Lord Augustus stood up to them and they went away.  The next morning, the party has been poking around town waiting for the next day when they are scheduled to leave with a merchant caravan for a distant settlement as caravan guards.  They visited the weaponsmith who is unable to work on silvering their weapons because he has been pressed into service for LDY to make weapons for him.  They see a member of LDYs guards, dressed in a yellow and purple tabard (whether this is for Lamire, Garcon or Moskva or somewhere else, they don't know, but clearly a noble affiliation) over his plate armor watching the weaponsmith.

Being unsuccessful in dealing with the Weaponsmith, they decide to see how much more the town has been disrupted by the presence of LDY and they step over to the fletcher.  There the apprentice says they may not make any arrows until they have filled the large order for LDY.  Two guards in yellow and purple tabards over chain armor are watching the fletcher's shop.  The apprentices gives Chaparral a dozen arrow shafts and a handful of feathers so he may spend time making his own arrows if he wishes.  They leave the fletcher and see another guard wearing the yellow and purple tabard over chain watching the merchants square.  The party follows another apprentice carrying a bucket for charcoal from the weaponsmith and they decide to follow him.  This apprentice stops at the charcoal place and begins fiddling with the charcoal.  Two members of the Adventurer's guild are looking on quite near the apprentices.

Augustus decides to have a covert conversation with them to see if he can determine where their loyalties lie in these affairs, and possibly how far they are willing to go if things get hot around here.  They hint around that the whole guild has had it with LDY and they won't give an inch concerning the affairs of the guild, but they don't care much one way or the other about the town, but they can see that at present the town's fate is their fate.  Augustus believes he can count on the guild to fight LDYs men if it comes to that.  Both of them adopt the term "Peacocks" to refer to the guards dressed in purple and yellow tabards.  (Purple is a color reserved for the Royal Family.  Dark Blue is a color reserved for nobility.  Displaying purple heraldry is more than just a social error.  Although the Guildsmen may feel Augustus and his men are Peacocks as well.)

Augustus goes back toward the tavern so they may use the Sending Spell to confer with his father, Lord Zyltar the Viscount.  They stop by the weaponsmith to see if they can get a dozen forged arrow points and the weaponsmith indicates with a glance, not with this Bozo standing here.  Augustus nods and the weaponsmith excuses himself to go find something 'in the back'.  Augustus steps over to close the only door into the shop from the outside.  As he does, he asks the Bard, Marcato, in a whisper, "Do you got this?" The bard nods and whispers back, "Yea, I got this."  The Cleric moves to block the entrance into the back.  The Ranger moves to block the door to the outside that is now closed.  The bard casts Silence.  The guard doesn't seem to notice.  Augustus draws his +1 Longsword and steps in front of the guard and looks him in the eye.  The other party members draw their weapons.

Initiative Roll - everyone rolls and Augustus rolls a nat 20 giving him a 19 in initiative.  He waits and the guard realizes something is happening and draws his sword.  Augustus strikes delivering a hit with an adjusted roll of 20 and a damage roll of 7 which adjusts up enough to kill the guard outright.  He didn't need a second swing much less a smite.  Augustus wipes his blade on the guards tabard.  He turns to Marcato who uses prestidigitation to clean up everything.  Marcato steps into the other room to see about the smith but dispels the silence before he steps out of the room.  The smith comes in and says he will take care of disposing of the body.  He gives the Ranger, Chaparral, a dozen forged arrowheads.  Then there is a knock on the door from outside and the voice of the squire, Claudius.

Chaparral lets him in and he is shaken up and there is blood on the hilt of his own sword.  He explains that the press gang came back to get him and he had to kill the man.  The innkeeper told him to run off and find us while he fixed things here.  Marcato cleaned him up too with prestidigitation.  They all head over to the tavern.

At the tavern there are four towns guards, two LDY guards in yellow and purple tabards with armor, a handful of townies an orc and the innkeeper.  The orc is acting like he is almost drunk and saying something about smashing the guy's head in because he tried to press him onto the army.  Augustus walks right into the middle of it and asks the town guards what is going on.  They explain that apparently the orc killed a man and they are trying to sort things out.  Augustus turns to the orc and asks "Is this true?" and the orc replies with a wink, "Yes, I think I smashed his head in.  You see he came up to me from behind."  And Augustus replies, "I see."  And nods a very slight nod.  Then he turns to the LDY guards and says, trying to intimidate them and draw their full attention to him, "And what have you to do with this?"  As he does this, Bartholomew steps in and places a coin in the palm of the orc.  The LDY guards stammer and say, "We only just got here ourselves, my lord."

Lord Augustus asks them something about where he might find Lord Drake the Younger, and they reply they don't know where he is.  Lord Augustus says he is on a diplomatic mission from Aramay to meet the Lords of Garcon and his father, Viscount Zyltar, will be most displeased if Lord Drake can't make time to see Lord Augustus Zyltar today.  Deliver that message and tell the young lord he may contact us through this tavern.  They acknowledge this and head off to deliver the message.  At that point the DM had to end the session.

I am struggling as Lord Augustus because the indications are the war will involve Aramay even if Aramay is not the target of the war.  But there're indications it could be THE target.  He figures that causing a disruption to Lord Drake's plans will throw him off his timetable at the least.  Also, if they begin fighting among themselves with the Guild, they will sap their strength as well as impact their time table.  It appears that with the power of 80 adventurers, the Guild could thwart Lord Drake, but when his father hears his son is facing problems, even if he doesn't approve of his son's adventures, Lord Drake the Elder will come to Moskva and deal a heavy blow.  Lord Augustus doesn't want this to be his fault even if he has good motives for screwing with Lord Drake the Younger.

I'm trying to figure out what to do.  My immediate plans are to use Message to contact my father and tell him war is coming in Moskva because of LDY and he (Lord Augustus) feels compelled to act for Aramay to reduce the blow.  Depending on what his father says, he will decide on a plan.

The next day, the party was supposed to leave with the caravan.  Otherwise, LDY has locked down the town so nobody can leave.  Augustus had planned on using this event to slip away, but that is tomorrow, and he's not sure he can make it to tomorrow as things are developing.  Also in the immediate future he plans on helping the orc beat any punishment that might fall on him for taking the blame for the death of the press gang man.  His next priority is to see Claudius safely delivered to Stonebridge, the nearest settlement in Aramay.

Lord Augustus has learned that Lord Drake the Younger (LDY) is involved in a conspiracy against his own father to take control of the March.  This seems extremely odd, but the information was reliably obtained through magical means.

Lord Augustus moved quickly to obtain the help of the Adventurer's Guild to arrest LDY and his advisor, and they were mostly successful by using magic to silence the young Lord and then fight off his guards and take him alive.  Unfortunately his advisor was killed after they learned he was under an evil being's influence.  Lord Augustus had even made plans for securing LDY and smuggle him out of town.  The plans were changed, after learning some new information and he is preparing for the trip tonight.

He has been warned that even though magic was used to spy on LDY and learn of his treasonous plans, it will not be easy to get to the root of the problem, because LDY is believed to be under some influence as well.  Lord Augustus is just content that he didn't have to kill LDY in the arrest attempt.  They did have to kill the advisor and six of his seven body guards, but they secured LDY and one of his guards.

In the morning, they plan to gag LDY and stuff him in a sack after feeding him a sleeping potion to keep him quiet.  Then they will load him into a cart and depart with a caravan from the town after breakfast.  An hour away from the town, they will break off and head for another road back to Aramay, the land of his father.  They have to travel through one village, one hamlet and then onto a town, Stonebridge, at the edge of Aramay.  Then they will travel to the seat of Aramay to see his father with LDY.  At best speed it would be about seven days to Aramay, over 100 miles.

Lord Augustus has made it to Lightfoot and narrowly avoided disaster when he stumbled upon a conjuring ritual happening alongside the road at a shrine some fifty feet to the side.  The party approached the part of the road and saw the ritual going on.  They paused hoping to talk to the hooded figure at the shrine, but not wishing to interrupt him.  Then something ominous popped up like some kind of ghost and they got a little worried/curious.  Then a second thing popped up and they did get worried.  As a third thing popped up, they galloped away on the road at the best speed the oxen and wagon could make.

When they arrived at Lightfoot they bluffed their way past the town guard by demanding to see the local ruler at once.  The local ruler is a caster closely aligned with the Adventurer's Guild in Moskva.  They tried to keep the ruler in the dark, mostly for her protection, but she indicated she knew what was really going on, so they brought her into their confidence to see to what extent she would help them.  She indicated she could teleport them to the other destination in Stonebridge, skipping the elven settlement.  Initially Augustus took that to mean she could teleport a few of them, but she later clarified she could teleport them and their wagons and cart, animals and everything, to Stonebridge.  Augustus agreed to this.  She did say they would want to alert Stonebridge before doing this because the group would alarm the folks in Stonebridge until they understood what was going on.

The party used the Sending spell to notify the Baron Narn that they would arrive the next (morning) and the Baron replied they would be ready between ten and noon.  The party used their second spell slot for Sending to alert the Viscount Zyltar about their progress, and he replied that the escort would be another day arriving in Stonebridge.  Then they were informed that the Captain of the Guard in Stonebridge was suspected of treachery.  They knew something was amiss in Stonebridge but couldn't sort it out.  The dominant indications were that the Baron was untrustworthy, but the final meeting before they left Stonebridge indicated it could be the Captain of the Guard that was coloring the Party's view of the Baron, and not the Baron himself.

In the next session the Party expects to teleport to Stonebridge early on and see how things develop.  The DM said, just because they get to Stonebridge (the edge of the Viscount's lands) they shouldn't think the worst is over.

After successfully teleporting ahead to Stonebridge, the "authorities" took responsibility for transporting LDY straight to the Seat of power in Aramay.  A senior Cleric and a number of soldiers were waiting in Stonebridge and they left the next morning to take the young Lord Drake ahead.  The party of Augustus were held up for a day pursuing other threads and intended to leave the following morning following along to Aramay.

Unfortunately the next morning they learned that the Cleric's wagon group was ambushed and LDY rescued from the group.  This throws things into turmoil, which could have been addressed in a proper investigation if we got LDY back to Aramay.

So, the party gets on the road right away in the morning.  The attendants have to catch up later.  After a hard morning ride, they stop for lunch and resume.  Soon after they encounter a mysterious cloaked figure at an obelisk that wasn't there two weeks earlier when they went this way before.  Augustus immediately charges the Obelisk and the cloaked figure.  The encounter is very difficult and the Cleric dropped to zero HP and had to be healed by the Bard.  They managed the rest of the encounter without anyone dropping to zero HP, but two of the characters had a temporary reduction to their HP max.

After the encounter, they collected some "evidence" but no treasure, beyond a suit of plate mail, a mysterious dark sword and two daggers.  They pressed on to make it to a military outpost so they could rest with some security.

Augustus and his party are two hard days away from Aramay, and they need to recapture LDY or things are going to get ugly.  The fear is LDY may be beyond their reach already.