Editing Challengers of the Unspeakable (section)

===Early Days===
[[Image:BullywugMud.jpg|left|thumb|The adventurers battle bullywugs in a mud-filled ruin.]]
The individuals that would eventually form the Challengers of the Unspeakable first met in [[The Wood's End]] tavern in [[Brightstone]] in [[Calendar#Year 2959|2959]]. At the time, [[Tephra]], [[Gryff]], [[Ro]], [[Harthur]], and [[Nuraya]] were simply prospective adventurers looking to earn some coin. When the [[lich]] [[Leardon Sunflare]] posted a notice asking for adventurers to journey to a nearby ruin in the [[Dawning Woods]], the five decided to band together to take the job. The mud-choked ruin had been taken over by [[bullywug]]s, and Leardon believed that their presence may have imparted certain properties to the mud that would aid him in his ritual research.

Within a chamber deep in the ruin, the adventurers found a magical staff being used to open a portal to the [[Elemental Chaos]], through which the mud had been slowly trickling in. Though they didn't know how long it had been there, they closed the portal and took the staff. On their way back to Brightstone, they encountered a wagon that had collapsed into a hive of giant ants. Rather than accept their help, though, the insane caravan master ordered their deaths. During the battle, a glass container fell out of the wagon and shattered, releasing a bizarre aberrant creature. The adventurers dispatched their foes, but were disturbed by the creature they had encountered. Leardon agreed to look into it, and the next day told them it was a [[fell taint]], a predator from the [[Far Realm]]. Since the presence of one implied the presence of more (and possibly worse, with their connection to the [[Far Realm]], Leardon had spent the evening magically tracking it to a cave deeper in the woods. The five adventurers agreed to travel there and investigate.

[[Image:Corrupted Crystal.jpg|right|thumb|The Challengers battle a crystalline golem and several fell taints.]]
The cave was filled with fell taints, making their investigation quite treacherous. As they continued deeper they found a network of twisting, narrow tunnels that spiraled down into the earth, making navigation both confusing and hazardous. At the bottom they discovered a glowing, crystalline golem with some sort of stone at its heart. Though the golem was a powerful foe, they eventually defeated it and recovered the stone, which turned out to be a crystal clearly corrupted by the energies of the Far Realm. When they brought it back to Leardon, he got worried and brought his fellow [[Brightstone Heroes|Brightstone Hero]] [[Priam]] to see it. Priam told the adventurers that the crystal looked to be a corrupted version of the same crystal that had given him psionic powers, and that its very existence worried him greatly. He and Leardon thanked them for their efforts and began conducting further research on the corrupted crystal.

[[Image:Kethendtir.jpg|left|thumb|The brown dragon, Kethendtir, and its allies.]]
While Leardon and Priam looked into the crystal, [[Tol Sigurn]] asked the adventurers, now that they had proven themselves, to deal with a [[brown dragon]] named [[Kethendtir]] that had been attacking caravans recently. The five traveled to the cavern where the dragon made its lair and slew it, but found a passage leading to an ancient ruin used as living quarters by Kethendtir's [[dragonborn]] and [[kobold]] allies. Within the ruin was an inactive magic portal and an ancient journal from someone named [[Voran]], as well as a piece of chalk that could activate the portal. The portal led to a wizard's sanctum deep underground. After dispatching the rest of the dragon's allies, they found another portal, activated by a floating lantern, that transported them to the ruin in which they had faced the bullywugs. Returning to the sanctum, they also found a ladder leading down into an enchanted living area containing five doors, each with the name of one of the adventurers, leading to extradimensional bedrooms. After resting and deciding to claim the sanctum for themselves, they returned to Tol with news of the dragon's defeat.

A few days later, Tol asked them to deal with a nearby band of goblins that had been getting more aggressive as of late. The goblins' lair was hidden in a tangle of spiderwebs, and guarded by giant spiders that were inexplicably serving the goblins. While climbing down into the hole that served as their hideout, Ro was knocked free and plummeted to her death. Her allies finished dealing with the goblins, killing their chief, [[Urgog the Mangler]]. At the bottom of the goblin hole, they found a few curious things. The first was a drow relic used to control summon and control spiders, accompanied by an unsigned letter proposing an alliance with the goblins in exchange for the destruction of [[Brightstone Keep]]. The second was a series of ancient journal fragments indicating that Voran was a wizard from [[Estorium]] who had led a band of survivors to settle here after the [[Illithid War]]. Unfortunately, they ended with the deaths of all of them at the hands of a group of [[illithid]]s who had apparently followed them. The four surviving adventurers returned to Brightstone with Ro's body. Tol was quite distressed about the possibility of drow nearby, and immediately left to speak with the other Brightstone Heroes about finding and eradicating them. Meanwhile, the adventurers brought Ro's body to Leardon to be raised. When he performed the ritual, however, she inexplicably arose as an undead [[revenant]]. While Tephra spent the next day in the library researching Ro's condition, the other four found themselves having to come to the aid of a gnomish alchemist named [[Fonkin Twiddlefist]] when his alchemical laboratory exploded, trapping his cat in the burning building. Though the interior of the building was awash in chaotic magic as a result of the explosion, the four successfully rescued the cat. Tephra arrived and joined them outside just in time to see Fonkin's bathtub, animated by the ambient magic from the blast, leap out of an upstairs window and charge off down the street.

Priam asked the adventurers to return to the ruin where they had encountered the bullywugs to look for more information about Voran. Using the staff they had pulled from the mud, they cleared it away and revealed a hidden tunnel deeper beneath the complex. Though it was filled with fell taints, they eventually found a chamber containing one of Voran's journals. It indicated that he alone had survived the illithids' attack on his settlement, and thereafter threw himself into researching how to fight against them using a number of illithid artifacts recovered during the war. The fruits of his labor were a number of crystals that could imbue humans with psionic powers - just like Priam's. They also found a disturbing magical tome covered in the skin of several faces stitched together, which moaned and wailed whenever it was opened. Tephra claimed the tome for herself, reasoning that it would contain considerable knowledge about their aberrant foes.