Campaign summary of Preemptive Justice, set in the World of Kiynan (5E compatible, based on Wizard of the Coast’s SRD 5.2.1).
Night had barely settled over Haven when the attack came.
Two assassins struck from the darkness of the harbourfront alleys, moving with speed and purpose, their target clear: Kaelen, the troubled youth whose uncontrolled powers had already drawn dangerous attention. They did not waste words. Steel and sorcery answered the night instead.
Ethain the Amber reacted first, opening the battle with a blazing fireball that tore through the shadows and forced the attackers into the open. The assassins retaliated in kind, calling forth writhing shadow-tentacles and hurling spears of flying ice toward the party.
The fight turned quickly. Shep the Green held the line with steady resolve, sending healing magic where it was needed most and binding one assassin in thick, clinging webs. Bitoh the Red drove straight into the second attacker, trapping him in close quarters and hammering him back with relentless force, never allowing him room to recover. From behind them, Oren fired shot after shot, musket and pistol cracking through the chaos as bullets tore into the enemies.
The webbed assassin met his end under Ethain’s focused fire, burned down by precise, lethal rays. The second, battered and cornered by Bitoh’s assault, finally faltered. At Shep’s urging, he surrendered.
Interrogated, the assassin revealed his allegiance to House Spite. He claimed Kaelen was a wielder of forbidden magic and insisted that killing the boy was not only justified, but necessary. Allowing him to live, he warned, would lead only to greater disaster.
The party returned to Spenser the Blue, bringing both Kaelen and the captured assassin with them. Spenser thanked them, his concern evident, and confirmed what the revelation implied: his next visions pointed toward Castle Malice. Two more individuals there were marked for death, and—like Kaelen—they were likely users of forbidden magic.
Bitoh voiced the obvious risk. Traveling to Castle Malice would mean stepping directly into House Spite’s territory, just as the assassin had violated House Calm’s lands. Spenser acknowledged the danger, but made his position clear. This would not be an official mission. The party would go as private citizens, without House Calm’s protection, because the matter was too important to ignore.
Spenser agreed to take Kaelen under his protection, and even suggested he might train the boy as an Augur, if he survived what lay ahead. He also promised to see the prisoner extradited to Castle Malice to face judgment, though he expressed little confidence that true justice would be done.
With urgency pressing in on all sides, Spenser arranged immediate passage for the party. A ship was commissioned, its course set for Castle Malice. Before long, Bitoh the Red, Shep the Green, Ethain the Amber, and Oren would be sailing straight into House Spite’s shadow—aware now that the struggle unfolding around them was larger, darker, and far more dangerous than random violence.
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