The party receives their first assignment from Turnkey. Their boss, Brasscollier, sends them to a mine outside of the town of Apocraphyl. Brasscollier also equips the party with three mascots javelin haulers extremely helpful kobold wagoneers: Brass, Bronze, and Gold.

On the road outside of Turnkey’s home city of Qares, the party is waylaid by miscellanous vermin. They’re aided by Manheim (and his pet wolf), who turns out to be the party’s contact for this assignment. The group arrives in Apocraphyl, where the Festival of Dol Arrah is underway. The group explores the town and finally settles down in their rooms at a local inn to prepare for the next day’s journey onward.

They wake in the morning to discover the town ransacked by monsters. Only the superstitious application of pig’s blood around the inn’s doors and windows spared the party from a similar fate. The group discovers a fiendish creature in the town square as it drains the life from a victim, but the monster disappears before the party can do anything about it. They destroy an ettercap wandering the streets and save the remaining townsfolk, who have barricaded themselves in the basement of the church of Dol Arrah.