A few days earlier, a gnome nick named Fop, a druid named Ivan, a priestess of the Red Knight named Lucy, and a paladin of Helm named Wai Li are seen walking west along the River Chionthar, not returning for a few days time.
((All of the below is strictly OOC except for those immediately involved IC.)): The four, including the renowned treasure hunting gnome nick named Fop, whose previous crews of treasure hunters met horrible deaths, stumbled upon a werewolf infested woods, which caused the brave gnome to wet his pants more than once. After fighting through many werewolves, the four confronted a strange stone tower guarded by large metallic looking golems, which a still pant-stained Fop reasoned their way past. They were then greeted by a creepy gargoyle looking winged creature nick named Home and invited to come and see the master of the tower, Renaldo, a man the group had been looking for since hearing about him from the merchant Meck couple in Baldur's Gate. Renaldo had made a box to protect against the theft of a rare sword the Mecks had shipped from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep about five years earlier on the ship Tymora's Touch, which was soon after never seen under the same sailing name ever again. Renaldo gave the group an audience in front of his many guard golems, clokroaches, and his creature Home and offered to help them produce a gem that would reverse the protections of the aforementioned box, for a price, explaining that the protection was in fact a powerful curse that drowned any thieves of an item contained in the protected box and then cursed the souls of the thieves into eternal undead abominations. Renaldo additionally mentioned something that Lucy only initially understood: that he was currently conducting experiments below ground -- as in on buried dead.
After payment, he delivered the gem that would reverse the magic of the box to the group, but then was immediately confronted by the group for his necromancy and pollution of the forest by his golems. The paladin of Helm then offered Renaldo a way to avoid violence if he would pledge never to use necromancy again, which Renaldo firmly refused. The paladin then attempted to grapple Renaldo to the ground, but utterly failed, after which Renaldo cast Vampiric Feast, killing the paladin immediately and grievously harming Ivan.
The battle against Renaldo and his minions was eventually won, however, during the course of which Wai Li was raised by Lucy, and the adventurers left Renaldo's compound after searching it, only to see Malarite werewolves ransack it to ruins and then threaten to hunt the forest region to the last prey as well, now that their numbers would be unculled by Renaldo and his minions. The four adventurers dispatched these werewolves and after failing to attract other such lycanthrops to their location to cull their ranks, made their way back to the Baldur's Gate area and thereafter parted ways, with Fop quite certain that the treasure of the rumored ghost vessel would be his now that a gem able to reverse the protective curse of the box shipped on Tymora's Touch had been obtained, assuming that Tymora's Touch and the ghost ship were in fact the same vessel.
