Ravric: Down Dawn

It starts before dawn at the Prancing Pony in the human-run town of Bree.

A few other players were already on, and the tavern is a good meeting place. There was no entertainment happening in the tavern, and Ravric, Human Captain of the 17th Level, had the dead to kill.

It is a quick hop to the west of Bree to get into the graveyards of the Barrow Downs. The sub-zone is full of living dead (I don't think the term undead is used), and amazingly enough they are still of bogeyman-like legend to the people of Bree. I summoned my trusty Herald, who should really be a Standard Bearer but will forevermore be thusly named Billdo. And we went to killing the dead.

Verily, Ravric and Billdo did slay many of the dead that night. However, it wasn't until I started collecting trinkets from the individual barrows (read: grave robbing for a weaponscrafter that needed shinies for a sword handle) that I was overwhelmed and had to retreat. The aggro or threat range (the zone where an enemy will start to attack you) is great for the open areas of the Barrow Downs. But, once I got close to an actual barrow, I had to be much more careful. It's not the melee-type Wights that hurt... it's the archers. Although Billdo fought valiantly to my aid, four Wights were too many and I had to retreat to Tom Bombadil's home.

I fought my way to the Southern Downs just as dawn was breaking.

I left the Barrow Downs just as a group of people came to enter one of the dungeons, and I completed my quest (after slaughtering a few boars on the way back to Bree). The quest giver was the most ungrateful person in Bree. Not only is he a complete idiot (losing swords for his clients), but he asks me to go gather materials for him at practically no charge. I wish that was it, but the whole quest line deals with him and a dwarf in Bree who is standing about 200 yards away. Needless to say, the "blacksmith" grabbed the trinkets and boar-hides I had risked my life for and said that he needed my help again. A Captain's work is never done.