I realize this journal is a tad late. Sadly, I haven't had as much time to devote to writing as I would like. I still haven't even begun to transcribe my journal from my trip to Dalken in May, and it is nearly time to go back there already.
Nonetheless, here is my tale, as best as I remember it. At least, here is the first part of it. Below I have described the events of the first day I was at the gather. This was actually the second day of the gather for most people. I arrived a day late for reasons that aren't particularly important. Suffice to say I did not arrive in Firelight Cove until around 2:30PM on the afternoon of Saturday.
As I came into town I was rather surprised to see so few people up and about. I began to wonder if maybe some great and momentous event occurred the previous evening which kept everyone up until very late. I figured I would find out soon enough. The first order of business was to get my gear stowed.
Generally when staying at Firelight Cove I take a cabin at the far end of town away from the docks. When I arrived in that area I was disappointed to find that all the cabins where taken and warded. The cabin I usually stayed in had the banner of Viscount Mithrilmyst posted in front of it. I was guessing that he was not looking for an additional roommate, so I went looking elsewhere.
I did a quick look around the downtown area, but was unsurprised to find no open cabins there either. That only left the docks. The accommodation in that area tended to be rather stinky, but it also tended to be a little less dangerous than the other side of town. As it turned out there was plenty of space there, so I found myself a suitable spot and got my guy all stowed away. A short time later I emerged and started to take a look around town.
The very first thing I found was practically on my front doorstep. Out at the edge of the lagoon was a strange golden tombstone shaped monument. It was covered in odd runes, and there was a four inch hole through the middle shaped like a keyhole. I looked it over for a few minutes, but decided something this obvious has probably been well investigated by this point. I would be better off just asking someone about it later, so I headed on into town to check out the tavern.
There were only a handful of people around in the tavern. One of them was the Mystic Wood Elf Roc. When I last saw Roc he was a half ogre, and I had a feeling I knew why he now had horns growing out of his head. During the month of May the influence of the Fae plane waxes strongly in the lands of Blackstone. One of the results of this is an annual blooming of Fae Mushrooms. Consuming these mushrooms produce a variety of random effects. I was betting that Roc had been eating some mushrooms, and as it turns out I was right. I believe he got a race change formal back to half ogre shortly after I met him there in the tavern.
I asked around to find out what I had missed the previous evening. After a couple of shrugs and non-committal grunts I was able to find Hooch who explained a few things to me. At least two people the previous night had been killed and resurrected by some strange shapeless smoky mist creatures. On both occasions they cast sleep spells on their victim and then killed them from within a circle of power. I also learned that Mind Flailers were about, and that one of them had destroyed a ward the previous night.
Hooch didn’t know that much about the golden monument, so I asked Pyroxia and Beryl about it. Beryl read to me the inscription that she had translated. I don’t recall it verbatim, but it was something along the line of that fact that the monument was a gateway to the Wasteland, and that a key was required to open it. I asked Pyroxia what she knew about it, and waved her hand dismissively and simply stated that it was being handled. I gritted my teeth and smiled.
I took my leave of the ladies and Hooch and headed over to the downtown area of town. I found a number of people now milling around in the area. I saw that Rillien was now sporting a rather dashing set of feathered eyebrows. She seemed to be decidedly unamused by the situation, so I did not long discuss it with her.
It looked like for this gathering there was going to be no lack of nobles. Viscount Mithrilmyst was in attendance, as well as Baron Zug, Lord Dawnware and Sir Cedric. I also saw Sir Noah Darkshanks, who I had not seen in quite a while. Squire Ruendil and Sir Merritt were present representing Therendry, and I have already mentioned Squire Roc. I also saw both Tygil Stonebrook and Alcuin, both of whom I had not seen since the Great Dark Swamp expedition almost exactly a year earlier.
After a little bit of socializing I decided to do a little exploring on this side of town. I spent some time searching around in the forest nearby and visiting some of the local sites. I didn’t find much of interest to begin with. I found a large tree beside a field off to the side of a road that was in full bloom and I stopped for a moment to admire it. As I walked away I heard someone moving around in the woods, and then I heard a commotion coming from the area of the road.
I stood there for a moment to see what was going on, and presently I saw Seronia running down the road in my direction. “Where is he!? Did you see where he went?” I reasoned that Seronia and Sathen Gor and the others coming down the road were after someone, so I pointed into the woods at the area I had heard someone moving just a few moments before.
“Who are we looking for?” I asked as Seronia and Sathen and few others plunged into the woods. I asked several more time without getting an answer. So I gritted my teeth, smiled, and moved into the woods myself to see if there was anything to find. At first I didn’t think we were going to find anything, but after a couple of minutes I heard the sound of fighting. I ran to the noise and arrived just in time to find Seronia standing over top of a dead troll.
Seronia and Sathen searched the immediate area, and then spread out and began to search the woods. I was finally able to gather that the troll had stolen Viscount Mithrilmyst’s banner from his porch and run into the woods with it. The troll no longer had the banner, so it was assumed that he ditched it somewhere along his flight path. Unfortunately, no one seemed to know exactly what path he took getting into the woods. We searched around for a while but were never able to locate the banner.
After this excitement I made my way back to the tavern, and learned from some others that we were about to face an attack by sea trolls. A large ship had beached itself on the nearby shore and a band of sea trolls was issuing forth and threatening the town. After a short time to get organized a bit more than a dozen of us marched to the shoreline to meet the threat. When we arrived we found the scene much as it was described to us. A large ship was beached and broken on the shoreline, and sea trolls were milling about the area and emerging from cracks in the hulk.
After a few perfunctory formalities the battle was joined. For the most part the trolls were fairly easy to kill for a group of our size and skill. At the beginning in fact the fight looked to be rather trivial. Squire Ruendil and Baron Zug apparently felt this was the case. The accompanied us to the battle, but when it started they immediately moved to the beached ship and boarded it. They re-emerged a moment or two later carrying what appeared to be some treasure boxes and left the field and returned back to town.
Unfortunately for us the battle wasn’t quite as easy as it first appeared. The trolls had the power to regenerate, and after a minute of seeming death they would rise back up and begin fighting again. Out of careless habit myself and several others would tend to not pay attention to dead bodies lying on the ground. Thus, we would often be obliviously standing right beside a troll “corpse” when it would suddenly leap up from the ground and begin attacking again.
Killing the trolls with weapons of flame would put them out for good, but I think only Squire Roc had any sort of flame weapon. Thus the battle eventually sorted itself into groups of people moving about killing trolls and calling for Roc, who was running back and forth across the battlefield applying the coup de grace to trolls. It was as disorganized and frustrating battle as I think I have ever been in. It wasn’t until the battle was completely over that the blindingly obvious solution of disarming the trolls after we killed them occurred to me. Had we been thinking a little more clearly or perhaps been a little better prepared we might not have had such a hard time of it. Oh well, live and learn.
Eventually the battle did end, and there were no more trolls left. A small treasure box was recovered that Squire Ruendil and Baron Zug must have missed, and we took this and returned to the tavern. When we arrived we found that the boxes previously recovered from the wreck did indeed contain treasure, and Squire Ruendil and Baron Zug had already counted and sorted the entire contents. Thus it was a fairly simple matter to add in the contents of the small box they missed and to pass out the treasure to all the participants.
After I received my share of the treasure I retired to my cabin for a short time. I had struck my head rather sharply against a rock during the battle with the trolls, and as a result I had a rather bad headache. I lay down in my cabin for around an hour and took a short nap. I don’t seem to have missed very much while I slept. I heard that there were a few minor skirmishes with some sort of monsters but no attacks of any real consequence. Count Huntington of Darksand County visited briefly. I’m told he spent some time consulting with Viscount Mithrilmyst, and interviewed some of the adventurers regarding the recent attacks, as well as more mundane issues such as travel and commerce.
When I returned from my nap I decided to pop into the tavern to see what I had missed. After speaking with a few people to catch up on things I started to go on a quick walk through the woods. I wanted to get one last good look around before night fell. No sooner had I started out then I heard a great hue and cry coming from the town. I rush to the sound and found Pyroxia in near hysterics and several other people rushing too and fro.
I asked what had just occurred, and I found many people were just as confused as I was. I was finally able to piece together that something (dark fae?) had taken the Viscount Mithrilmyst as hostage. Pyroxia stated that they wanted her sword as a ransom. Se explained that the sword was the key to the golden monument, that the monument led to the Wasteland, and whoever had taken Viscount Mithrilmyst wanted something very badly in the Wasteland.
That was the way I understood the conversation. Pyroxia was loath to give over the sword for a variety of reasons. While most of us ordinary folk scratched our heads and wondered what to do, all the “special people” started making attempts to contact all the weird and bizarre extra-planular and metaphysical beings and powers that they normally dealt with in order to try to find some method of reaching the Viscount. Before I knew it people were retreating to their cabins and wards or even rifting out.
It seemed to me that if anything was going to happen, it was going to take some time to develop. I saw no sense in standing around waiting for the Viscount to pop out of thin air, so I went back to the tavern and ordered some dinner. Over the next hour or two the town was attacked by several groups of odd undead. They had all the normal appearance and ability of undead, but they had the golden sparkly complexion that one normally associates with creatures of the Fae Plane.
If there was any sort of rhyme or reason to these attacks I never did figure it out. I can only guess that this was in some way related to the abduction of the Viscount. The attacks occurred off an on for around an hour, and then they ceased. If either the undead or the people that opposed them accomplished any sort of goal I am not aware of it. After a time I was told that the Viscount had returned, and that he was badly injured but otherwise well. I don’t know what caused his release. I saw Pyroxia with her sword a short time later so I know that was not traded.
By this time it was well past eight o’clock and quite dark. The sky was clear but there was no moon to cast any additional light. Around this time I was walking down the path leading to the tavern when I saw a new group of undead approaching the porch. There were more than a half dozen of them, so I had no illusions about attacking. I knelt down on the path to watch them and to wait for an opportune moment to make a move.
The undead stood for a moment at the porch and then moved around to the other side of the tavern that faced to road to the docks. I didn’t want to follow them directly, because I would need to cross an open and well lit area of ground beside the tavern. Instead, I carefully moved off the left side of the path and worked my way past the derelict building beside the graveyard below the tavern, and positioned myself beside a tree where I could watch the back door of the tavern.
The undead stood for a time near the rear porch as I watched them. I could hear them speaking, but I could not hear what they said. They then turned and began walking away from the tavern toward the graveyard and right directly towards where I sat. I briefly considered just freezing and hoping they would walk by without noticing me, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk. I got up and moved as quietly as I could back from the graveyard and over to the porch of the derelict building.
The undead slowly made their way down into the graveyard and stood there for a moment or two talking. Then I could hear them moving over towards me again. I couldn’t tell if they had spotted me or not, but I was still not taking any chances. Once again I moved back as quietly as I could to the other side of the building and back towards the road and the spot I was at when I originally saw the undead. Once clear of the building I paused for a moment, and I could still hear the undead moving through the brush towards me. At that point I decided to stop playing games and just bolted for the road.
A few moments later I stood on the road and made the decision to move away from the tavern towards the downtown area. A short distance away was the cabin that Sir Warclaw and Lord Dawnware were staying in. When I approached it I saw that they and several others including Baron Zug were on the porch socializing. They asked what was up, and I replied that a pack of undead was following me through the woods.
They offered to let me come up on the porch, and we briefly discussed how many undead comprise a pack. It was at that time that several undead seemed to materialize right out of thin air right in front of the cabin. I wasted not a moment in leaping up on the porch at that point.
We had learned last year that this particular area of the downtown was periodically haunted by blue glowing specters. That was what these appeared to be. They are by no mean weak creatures to fight, but the crowd I was standing with on the porch took no more than a few moments to take them out. I think some people got confused and thought that these were the undead that I was talking about, and several people went back to socializing.
After I was sure the blue glowing specters were in fact gone, I crept over to the head of the road that led to the tavern to see if the undead that were originally following me were still milling about in the woods. To my shock, not only did I hear the undead still milling around close by, about twenty feet down the road I could hear the last sounds of a fight, and the unmistakable noise of a body being drug off into the woods.
I rushed back to the Warclaw cabin and explained that someone on the road had just been killed and was being drug off. A moment or two later I returned to the road with most of them close behind. There was absolutely nothing to see, but we could still hear movement. We spent a short period of time trying to figure out who was where before we made our move. We could then hear the sound of fighting and cries for help coming from further down the road towards the tavern.
At this point we all rushed forward. We immediately came across a handful of undead of some sort who retreated before us. We pushed them down the road until we backed them into another group of undead who were being pressed by a group of people fighting from the direction of the tavern. It was a short confusing fight in the dark, but it was over quite quickly. As we began to sort through the bodies on the ground to figure out which ones were on our side, someone said that Seronia was missing.
I quickly explained that I earlier heard someone being drug off the road and into the woods towards the derelict building and the graveyard. This was a little harder to explain in the pitch black dark where no one could see where I was pointing, but soon a number of us were pushing through the brush at the side of the patch searching for bodies.
I moved back up the path a little closer to the Warclaw cabin to the spot where I thought I first heard bodies being drug. I began to move off the road feeling though the bushes, and after a short time searching I spotted a faint patch of white over behind a fallen tree. I scrambled over the tree and lay my hand on it, and I realized from the rough cloth that I had found Rillien. She was quite dead.
I activated the one life item I had on me, and this was sufficient to revive her. I asked her if Seronia was originally with her, and she said yes, but that she had no idea where he was now. Time was ticking quickly past, and if we were going to find Seronia, we needed to do it quickly. I left Rillien where I found her, and moved directly towards the graveyard from where I was at, hoping that this would be the direction the undead would be heading.
As I pushed forward I could hear other people moving around in the woods searching as well. At least, I hoped that what I heard was people. I moved forward searching back and forth until I nearly ran into the derelict building. I turned around to retrace my steps when I blue light appeared about ten feet ahead of me and pointed in my direction. It was not a very bright light, but I froze none the less to avoid being seen. At that moment I once again heard the sounds of a body being lifted and dropped right at the foot of the light.
The next few moments were maddening for me. I figured the body had to be Seronia. I felt certain that if I moved I would be spotted. I could tell from the noise they were making there were at least two or more undead there. I could hear other people searching through the woods, but none of them were close at the moment. I stood there frozen for about ten seconds hoping either someone else would approach or the undead would move away from the body. When neither happened I decided I had to do something.
I stood up and starting yelling as loud as I could that I had found Seronia, and that he and some undead were right in front of me. I called for people to come help me. The moment I opened my mouth I could hear one of the undead move quickly towards me, and it only took a moment to close the gap and begin raining blows on me.
I parried the blows it swung as best I could and thought that maybe all I had done was to join Seronia in his fate. But just as the undead engaged me and I began retreating back along the wall of the derelict building Caliphar and some other burst around the corner of the building at my back and tore into the undead. As fate would have it, as a result of a Fae mushroom he had eaten earlier Caliphar’s blows now had the power of healing added to them, so he hit the undead like a pile of bricks.
I quickly reversed my retreat and followed up Caliphar’s attack. It took us only a moment to push our way right back to the source of the blue light. As it turns out, the light wasn’t being used by the undead. It was being held by Sigurd who had been surprised by the undead and had imprisoned himself. Sigurd dropped his imprison, Caliphar cleaved the undead he was fighting in twain, some others including Lord Dawnware approached from the opposite direction pushing back the last remaining undead, and there at our feet lay the body of Seronia. Neither myself, Sigurd, or Caliphar had a life spell among us. Caliphar dove at Seronia and began yelling “Life spell! Life spell! Life! Life!” A moment later, just as Lord Dawnware stepped up, Seronia’s form dissipated.
That was where that particular battle ended. We came so close, but in the end it wasn’t enough. All that was left to do was to gather up Seronia’s items and take them to the earth circle and hope for the best. Sigurd collected Seronia’s items, and most of us that were present moved towards the guild building. When we arrived we could sense a spirit was already present, which we assumed to be Seronia’s.
Rillien entered the circle and began to perform the ressurection. I had nothing to contribute to the task so I decided to wait outside. Caliphar, Sigurd, Fenrir, Tomas, Sathen and a few others loitered in the area to see how the ressurection came out. The glowing blue specters were appearing once again a short distance away, so we were also more or less guarding the guild building against any sort of interruption. As it was, we remained undisturbed throughout the ceremony.
The ceremony took quite a long time. After fifteen minutes I looked in the window and saw the Rillien was still hard at work. I have no real experience in such matters so I cannot even guess what the delay was. Sigurd, Caliphar and I passed the time going over the last moments of the fight. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I saw a new shape through the window of the guild building, and realized that Seronia had successfully ressurected. Another spirit took his place in the earth circle, and Logenn stepped in to perform that ressurection.
I honestly did know what to say at that point. I have not idea what sort of mood Seronia was going to be in. I guessed that maybe he might want a little time to himself, so I returned to the tavern. When I arrived I let everyone know that Seronia had ressurected successfully. I spend a few moments speaking to the Sarr traders, and I learned from them that the second spirit to visit the circle was most likely the human lady Mercy.
Seronia arrived a little while later, and he and Rillien sat over in a corner talking for much of the rest of the night. I sat around in the tavern for a time myself, but I wasn’t too much in the mood for socializing. So as I normally do when I get restless, I decided to have a little look around outside.
This time I decided to take a walk down towards the dock side of town. I crept carefully along the crooked path that led to the area where my cabin was at. When I got there I briefly checked to make certain that everything was just as I left it, and as I was leaving I heard what sounded like a crowd coming from further down on the docks.
I made my way over to the noise to see what was going on. I kept to the shadows beside some buildings, and presently I came across a large group of people milling around in a sort of meeting or camp. It was hard to make out details in the dark, but after I watched them for a while I picked out a few things. Some of them were wearing fancy looking cloaks, and I saw one or two of them carrying bows. I finally decided that this was most probably a group of the renegade elf tribes that had been attacking towns in Blackstone lately.
Once I came to this conclusion I decided to make my way back to the tavern to warn everyone. I was actually feeling a little excited. For all the time I spent prowling about in the woods and trails I very rarely find anything of any real importance or interest to other people. For once I had finally stumbled across a real threat, and perhaps because of this we might gain an advantage in the coming battle, for I felt certain one was to come.
Of course, halfway back to the tavern I ran into pretty much everyone else coming towards me. “Let’s go to the docks, Duncan, there is a troop of elves there!” Really? Greeeeeat. So much for my little fantasy of rushing boldly in to the tavern and announcing the imminent threat to everyone’s shock and amazement. So I sullenly fell in line and shuffled back the way I had just come.
When we had almost gotten to the area where the elves were waiting, Lord Dawnware called a halt. He ordered someone forward to scout the elves so that we would know exactly where they were at. This was just too much for me at this point. I spoke up and tried to explain that I had spent the last ten minutes spying on these very elves, and what I had seen, but Lord Dawnware wasn’t particularly interested in what I had to say.
To be honest I don’t blame him. I quickly saw how stupid and petulant I must have sounded, and decided to just shut up. More than likely I sounded like I was showing off, and in fact that was exactly what I was doing. Running my mouth now wasn’t likely to change the coming battle much one way or the other, so I was better off just biting my tongue and dealing with my poor fragile ego.
The scout came back and reported, and the order was given to move forward. This time there wasn’t a lot in the way of formalities. Our line faced their line, they let loose with a volley of arrows, we charged forward, and moments later it was a grand melee. I was a little surprised at first to see people on both sides of the fight delivering killing blows.
In previous battles a loose sort of rules of engagement was agreed upon mutually by both sides. Part of this arrangement was the agreement that neither side would deliver a killing blow to any of the fallen. It was all part of this high minded civilized warfare stuff. Lord Dawnware had not taken part in any of those previous battles and I guess as such he did not feel bound by those agreements. He declared the elves enemies of the state and ordered us to slay them with complete prejudice. Thus, killing blows were the order of the day.
The elves were all accomplished fighters, and most of them were casting spells with wild abandon. What made the fight additionally difficult was that the elves were not all that different from us in appearance. It is often hard enough in the dark telling friend from foe when you are fighting trolls or ogres or orcs. It is even harder when you are fighting elves when half the people on your side were elves too.
The battle continued in a somewhat normal fashion for a time, but then things got a little weird. After the fight had ebbed and flowed across the area, the battle lines had developed such that we were for the most part grouped up in the middle, and we had split the elven forces roughly in half and separated them. The elves on one side of our line at some point stopped fighting and held a mini truce while some matter was being discussed. The people fighting these elves seemed to think they were speaking for all the elves, so all of us were ordered to stop fighting. The elves on our other side asked why we had stopped, and they were told that all elves and adventurers were ordered by their leaders to stop fighting.
But this second group of elves recognized no such leader in the first group of elves. Obviously not everyone on the elf side was on the same page as far as who was in charge. Meanwhile all of us in the middle were standing around trying to decide whether we were supposed to keep fighting or not. While the nobles from all groups tried to work out who was in charge and whether or not a truce was in order, all of the rank and file on both sides had to just hang out and wait for new orders. I even saw people from both the elves and adventurers side talking in small groups while we waited. Such is war, I suppose.
After considerable consultation, it was mutually agreed that the fighting would continue until such time as one side or the other was defeated. Now that this was settled, everyone got back to the business of butchering each other again. By this time the elves were already pretty much done for. They were badly outnumbered, and it only took a few more minutes before we were completely in control of the docks and not an enemy could be seen.
That was the last significant event that occured during my first night at the gathering. This is also a good place to bring the first part of my story to a close. At a later time I’ll continue with the events of the last day of the gathering. If I hurry, I just might be able to get it finished before it is time to leave for the next trip to Firelight Cove.
After the long battle with the elves, everyone made their way back to the tavern to rest, eat, and distribute the treasure. Once this was done, people began to drift off to their beds. I lingered a bit longer than most, because I wanted to make sure things were completely done for the night. A number of times I’ve gone to my cabin only to hear the sounds of fighting the second my head hits the pillow.
As it turned out things were mostly done for the evening. There were only a few of us left awake when two dark clad figures entered the tavern and asked for Kale Rend. I recognized the big guy as Strider, or at least whatever it is that Strider has now become after his death. The other one had to be Fachtna.
I explained that Kale has left for bed about five minutes earlier. Fachtna seemed rather put out by this news, and I figured that surely Kale wouldn’t want to miss this. So I took off running for Kale’s cabin. I caught him as he was getting undressed and ready for bed. I explained that Fachtna was in the tavern looking for him, and he grudgingly agreed to return.
We came back the short away along the shore of the lagoon. When we got there the tavern was empty except for two dark elemental creatures. I saw Blue Ocean Wave Rider outside spying on them. He said he was the only one left around, and we considered our chances. We didn’t figure them to be very good. Kale headed back to his cabin, and after a little while I decided to do the same.
When I got back I found Kale, Strider, and Fachtna all sitting out front talking. I thought about going to bed, but then thought better of it. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep with those three practically standing on my porch. I headed back to the tavern to check on Blue.
He was still there, and we spend a little while trying to draw out one of the creatures so that we could double team it. We weren’t having much luck. One of them ran off after Blue, and then I saw Fachtna, Kale and Strider heading for the tavern. I figured with Kale’s help we could take the one remaining creature inside.
So I jumped inside, and a moment later the other three strode purposefully through the door. I trailed them as the marched across the tavern, right past the shadowy creature, and right back out the opposite door. Okaaaay. Maybe this isn’t going to work.
I beat a hasty retreat outside, and met up with Blue again. We tried and tried again to gang up on one of the shadows, until I finally gave up yet again. I knew I couldn’t kill the shadows, and I bet that if I headed off to bed they would just come get me. Not knowing what else to do, I went to go see what Fachtna and crew were up to.
I found them at the far end of town discussing planar rips with Caliphar. I thought Caliphar was quite friendly and helpful given that several uninvited guests were standing in his cabin in the wee hours of the morning interrogating him about arcane metaphysical concepts. I watched the show for a while, and decided I really had to get to sleep.
On my way back past the tavern, I saw we were down to one shadowy creature, and Blue was still stalking him. The guy was persistent. We debated our chances against just the one, when our hand was forced when Hooch and Guido blundered into the tavern and got attacked. They imprisoned themselves, but there was no way we could leave them like that. Blue and I screwed up our courage, drank a few potions, and charged in. After all the agonizing over whether to attack or not, the eventually battle was over in just a few second. Hooch and Guido dropped their imprisons as soon as we came in, which made it a four on one fight. The elemental managed to paralyze Hooch, but Blue and I were able to beat the stuffings out of it in the meantime. With that out of the way I was finally able to go to bed.
The next morning dawned bright and early, and in fact it dawned a bit early on some than they expected. Around eight o’clock in the morning I woke up to the sounds of someone approaching my cabin. As a precaution, I rolled out of bed and onto the floor inside a circle I prepared the night before. I cast a circle of protection just as a misty grey shape appeared on my front porch and addressed me through the screen door.
The creature asked if he could enter, and since I was inside a circle I readily consented. Of course, I couldn’t stop him anyway, so I saw no harm in extending the invitation. He asked me to open the door for him. To do so I would need to drop my circle, so I asked if he could simple pass through the door since he was clearly immaterial. He assented, and drifted inside.
He asked my name, and explained that he was the Spirit of Hospitality. He was visiting people this morning to see who would allow him into their cabins. I now felt just a little silly squatting in the floor inside my little circle, and so I went ahead and dropped it. The spirit and I spoke a moment or two longer, and he rewarded me for my hospitality with two components. I thanked, him, and he drifted off again presumably to visit other cabins. I spoke to a few people during the day, and it seems he visited quite a number of cabins that morning. Most were warded, and I don’t believe anyone else let him inside.
I went back to bed and slept a while longer, and then rose went back into town. I took my normal early morning walk, and found that a handful of people were up ahead of me. When I visited the tavern and ordered my breakfast I saw that Silas was sitting at a table talking to Beryl and Caliphar. I had not seen Silas for some time, and was curious what sort of business he had with those two. It really wasn’t any of my business of course. I thought it might have something to do with Beryl currently being a stone golem as a result of a mushroom. I know that Silas is well versed in matters relating to formal magics. They also could have been talking about poker. Who knows?
Anyway, there wasn’t a whole lot going on at the moment, and after Caliphar finished his business with Silas he announced that he was going to consume some more mushrooms. Plenty of other people were bored as well, and pretty soon everyone was shoving mushrooms down their throats. I couldn’t keep track of all the weird things it did to all of them, but nobody exploded or rifted out or dissolved into slime or anything quite so dramatic, so I suppose none of them were too dreadfully harmful.
A short time later a rather red troll came ambling out of the woods and up to the tavern. He announced that he was here to eat us, and so in due course we commenced to fighting on the porch. He was defeated after a short battle, but we spotted another one a short time later. This one headed up to the upper end of town. Roc and I and a few others headed after it. I figured it would be pretty lousy for some sleepy person to get caught halfway between the bath house and their cabin and end up beaten by a smelly troll.
When we got there the troll was already fighting some other people, and with out help we clobbered it pretty good. While we stood there talking over the corpse yet another troll appeared out of the woods. This one seemed to realize that it’s chances against all of us were pretty slim, because it immediately took off back into the woods and headed back towards the tavern.
I took of running after it with Roc following, and with Seronia and Rillien close behind. It was a silly sort of chase. The troll was moving away off into the woods at the pace of a fast walk. I could have easily overtaken it, but I had no intention of doing so without first making sure Roc was with me. Roc was plodding along in pursuit at roughly the same pace as the troll, so for a while I was thinking we were never going to catch the smelly thing.
It finally came out of the woods and broke into a clearing. Now that everyone had room to move we overtook it quite quickly. Once we killed this one, no more appeared. That suited me fine. I found I needed a little bit longer for my breakfast to settle before exerting myself too much. The short fight with the trolls already had me feeling a tad queasy.
The walk back to the tavern gave me my first chance to speak to Rillien and Seronia since the time that Seronia resurrected. I didn’t want to completely ignore the subject, but was still uncertain as to how to broach it. Someone made a comment about Rillien’s outfit, and so I mentioned that I was actually able to recognize Rillien the night before when I lifed her by the texture of her outfit in the dark. Rillien replied that she didn’t even realize that it was me that lifed her. Not knowing exactly how to reply to that, I went ahead and just let subject drop.
We returned to the tavern, and I got to see Sathen Gor’s decidedly different look. He had been given some kind a bizarre tree form by a Fae mushroom. We now had Beryl looking like a pile of rocks and Sathen looking like a stack of lumber. I suppose someone else will show up in the tavern looking like a bucket of water next. I honestly can’t understand why people do this stuff to themselves.
I waited around in the tavern for a time, but nothing seemed to be going on. I decided to take another trip into the woods exploring. The previous day when I was looking for the troll with Viscount Mithrilmyst’s banner I came across a very well marked trail that I had not found previously. I wanted to spend a little time exploring it to see where it went.
I found the trail again, and followed it for a fair distance in both directions. It didn’t seem to lead anywhere in particular. Along the patch I found a Fae mushroom, and a short distance later I came across a small turtle. I was about to pass it by when I thought about the fae mushrooms and all the various transforms that people had been receiving, and I had a devious thought.
I returned to town, and I saw a person I recognized as Xavier, the proprietor of the Imporium Arcanus. He was out and about telling people that his magic shop was about to open, and trying to attract some customers. I walked with him a ways to a part of town where we ran into Roc, Kaiya, and Juniper. We were all returning down the path into town when we came across an odd sight. There in the middle of the patch was a half eaten fae mushroom, and a turtle with a note attached. Juniper picked up the turtle, and saw that the note read “Help! I ate a mushroom! ~Ruendil”
I’m not sure what she eventually did with poor Ruendil, but she did not have him with her when we all finally showed up at the magic shop. There was a pretty good sized crowd already gathered. Xavier welcomed us all and opened up his shop. The building was protected by a greater ward, and there was an earth circle put up immediately inside the door. This meant that entering and leaving required Xavier to repeatedly recognize you, but it did make for some pretty tight security.
Xavier had several tables set up with merchandise. On one table was a number of old newspapers from a foreign land. I bought one of these as a novelty, since the headline spoke about the treachery of a certain Sir Duncan. I believe most of the rest of them were purchased by Beryl.
Another table had around ten components of various types on it. I bought two of these as well. I didn’t know what kind I was buying, but a person in a position such as mine (non spell caster, low on the social food chain) doesn’t get many opportunities for getting components, so I take advantage of them when I can. I bought a moray eel tooth and an ash wand. I believe all the rest were purchased by various other people.
A last table held a sheaf of fine quality paper, a celestial cantrip tome, an armor golem formal magic scroll, and a cup labeled “Cup of Ka’rul (inquire if interested)”. Of course everyone was interested about the cup, but Xavier wanted to get some business completed before he told the tale of the cup. Pumpher bought the cantrip tome, and later on Conner bought the paper. When we finally left I believe the armor golem scroll was the only item not purchased. Xavier was originally asking for two hundred gold pieces for it, but was unable to find a buyer even after dropping the price to one hundred fifty. I might have been tempted to buy it in hopes of reselling it at a better price, but I did not have anywhere near that kind of money.
Once business died down Xavier explained the cup. He said it was a curious magic item that was somehow able to create formal magic components. He was unaware of the exact nature or history of the cup, and only knew that it was somehow connected to a place known as the Wasteland. He was unwilling to sell the cup, but he would trade it in return for knowledge about the Wasteland.
When he was done with his story the shop began to clear out. I stuck around a little longer to ask him a few questions along with a few others. When we were finished and had left, Xavier closed up his shop. He explained where he could be reached should any of us wish to speak with him further or bring him news of the Wasteland. And with that he took his leave of us.
I saw that a handful of people had moved over to the golden stone monument that stood at the edge of the lagoon. I recalled that this was supposed to be a gateway to the Wasteland, and that Pyroxia held the key in the form of her sword. I wandered over and saw that they were preparing to use the sword and travel to this Wasteland. I got the impression that Pyroxia had intended for this to be a smaller and more private expedition. She didn’t look all that happy that so many people had decided to tag along.
Nonetheless, she took her sword and passed it through the keyhole in the monument. Rather than emerging whole on the other side, the sword simply evaporated. A large shimmering gate appeared in the air before us. After a moment’s pause to steel ourselves we one by one stepped through the gate.
The air on the opposite side hit us like a hammer. We emerged to find ourselves standing in a desolate nearly featureless plain of dirt and sand and wind. The air was brutally hot and all the blowing sand made it nearly impossible to see for any distance. We stood there for a few moments trying to get our bearings, and then we found ourselves under attack.
Several vaguely man shaped creatures approached us. They gave the appearance of clouds of dirt and sand wearing scraps of robes and rags and cloth. They began hurling elemental corruption at us and flailed at us with swords and axes. Luckily there were only a few of them attacking us at any given time, which allowed us to spread out in a line and keep them from getting around us.
We battled these corruption spirits for around twenty minutes, all the while steadily advancing further into this strange land. When we had gone several hundred yards the sand creatures melted away and stopped attacking. Before us we could see the ruins of what must have been a large low stone structure. We all passed through the front doorway to get in out of the sand and wind.
There was very little left inside. The building had obviously been abandoned for quite a long time. When we approached what appeared to be a large stone desk near the entrance we were confronted by a misty immaterial ghostlike figure. It stood behind the desk, and before it lay a pen and a pile of paper.
When we began asking the spirit questions, it replied by writing its answers on the paper. We spent nearly the next hour interrogating the spirit about every subject we could think of. Our primary interest was in learning about the Wasteland itself, the building we were in, and the history it involved. We learned a great deal, but at times it was a difficult process.
The spirit tended to give fairly direct answers, but it was limited in that it had to write the answers out. At a number of points several people would ask the spirit a bunch of questions all at once, and then we would sit there waiting for the spirit to catch up. It would end up writing “Yes. No. Several times. No. I am unsure. Yes” and we would have to start all over again asking the questions because we couldn’t tell which answer applied to which question.
Unfortunately I’ll have to be a bit vague about the specifics of what we discovered. I know that information is being used by at least one person in a financial transaction, and making it completely public would cost this person quite a bit of money. At a later point I may return to this subject and explain it a little better. Most of the things we learned were quite new to most of us, and we enjoyed the thrill of discovery. There were also some among us who spent a lot of time rolling their eyes going “Well, duh! We already knew that!” I just gritted my teeth and smiled.
Once we had exhausted our supply of questions we used some of the magics of the building to transport ourselves back to the spot we had left from. Hooch had taken possession of all the sheets of paper with the answers on it that the spirit had been writing, and he and Pyroxia headed off to find Xavier, I believe. The rest of us all broke up and went our separate ways.
I took a quick swing by the tavern, and then I headed off to the woods to search some more for the Viscount’s banner that was stolen the previous day. On the way to that spot I came across a rather curious activity. There was a twenty by twenty foot magic arena set up in the corner of a field, and several people were standing around it.
I had an idea about what was going on. I had heard previous stories about a traveling mage/sage/researcher who could command a magical gladiatorial arena. He would show up and set up his arena and challenge people to step inside to fight against the summoned spirits of several different kinds of monsters. The monsters would gradually become more and more powerful as you progressed through the rounds, but each time you won you would get a greater reward. For his part, the mage was able to study the spirits and the fighting.
When I arrived there were two of the younger and newer adventurers in the ring. Mercy Blackguard was fighting alongside a polearm fighter whose name I don’t recall. They fought through a number of round and then decided to call it quits. The next person to step up and try a turn was Beryl.
Beryl presented an awkward problem for the ringmaster. The fights were meant to be to the death. However, since Beryl currently resided in a stone golem, it was going to be very difficult to find a properly challenging spirit to fight her. And since the moment she would die she would also go to resurrect, the stake would be rather high indeed.
After a little while of considering the problem , the ringmaster placed Beryl within a circle inside of his fighting arena. By some unknown means he was able to draw upon the powers of the arena to temporarily pull Beryl out of the golem, and to allow her to fight for the duration of her time within the arena in her true physical form. When this occurred, I was a bit surprised to find that Beryl was now very much a badger, and not the furry feline form I was expecting. It seems as though she had consumed a few more mushrooms than I was lead to believe.
I watched Beryl fight for a short time, but the early rounds against rats and bugs and skeletons and such were a bit boring. I heard some shouting off in the distance, and I went to investigate the source. Once I made my way back to town I saw a rather confusing battle. There was some sort of man shaped and extremely angry creature attacking and screaming at everyone. What made it so confusing was that he had some power to cause others to go berserk. So when I first arrived there were a number of people attacking him, and a number of people attacking each other.
It all looked to be way over my head. The last thing I needed was to get involved in that and end up eating some berserked adventurer’s slay or death spell. I thought for a moment that a good strategy might be to try to intercept the berserk effects myself, since even if berserked I would be practically harmless compared to most people, but after a little more careful consideration I decided that probably wasn’t as good an idea as I first thought.
The creature was defeated, but it or one like it rifted back in a few moments later. I began to surmise that this was some sort of creature from the plane of Hate, and that its presence was probably related to the planar rips that various people had been studying and fixing. This even further convinced me I wanted no part of this affair, so I quietly snuck back to the gladiatorial arena to see how Beryl was doing.
When I got back she was quite advanced in the rounds, and was fighting larger and more powerful creatures. Even in her badger form with its claws, she wasn’t exactly a fearsome fighter. But between her spells and her gasses, she was mowing he way through the opposition. Unfortunately, both spells and gasses were a finite resource, and once she started to get low she bowed out of the competition. The ringmaster computed her winnings and gave it over to her. It seemed to me that given the amount of gasses she threw that the reward didn’t even come close to getting her to break even, but she seemed satisfied with her experience.
Some others may have taken Beryl’s place in the arena, but I had grown a bit bored with the show. I went ahead and wandered off. On my way back to the tavern I saw a number of people, most of whom were elves, following some sort of pale white deer off into the woods. I was tempted to follow along after them to see what that was all about, but I got a strange sort of “by invitation only” vibe coming from the group, so I decided to just keep heading towards the tavern.
When I got there I found place being attacked by giant mechanical bugs. There were three grey scorpion constructs scurrying about the tavern and attacking people when they came outside. They moved rather slowly so they were fairly easy to avoid. I gave some people a hand getting them killed and then I went inside and got something to eat.
About the time I finished my meal two small red creatures entered the tavern and announce that the Skullball Championship of 606 was about to begin, and that they were recruiting players. I recalled hearing Ashe Balkfist yelling “I am the Skullball Champion!” a number of times during battle, so I had a good idea what this was about. I agreed to play, and a number of other people joined up as well.
It took a while to get the game started. The first obstacle was recruiting enough players. Besides myself, only Caliphar, Guido, Hooch, Kaiya and the new polearm guy agreed to play. The head kobold, Gruffy, kept trying to badger other people into playing, but no one else was interested. He also kept getting distracted by other people’s gear that was lying around the tavern. I though for a while the Skullball Championship was going to get called off due to the head official getting executed for thievery.
Eventually our little band wound our way out to a field near the edge of town. Gruffy explained the rules. Each player tries to take a ball and stick it in a goal to score a point. That is where we ran into the first problem. There was no goal. Luckily, there was a firepit nearby with a circle of benches around it. Gruffy explained that it would serve as a perfectly good goal.
Then we ran into the next problem. Gruffy forgot to bring a ball. This proved a little harder to overcome. Gruffy started to disrobe in order to use his balled up clothes as a ball, at which point I FORCEFULLY suggested that we instead use the small totebag I was carrying. It was about the size of a small pumpkin and turned out to make a rather decent ball once we stuffed some cloth in it and tied it up. After that, there was nothing else but to begin.
Caliphar and Hooch had played the game before, and knew exactly what to expect. I had a pretty good idea. Gruffy tossed the ball up in the air and I ended up grabbing it. Before anyone else could react I tossed it into the ring of benches and claimed the first point of the game. At least, that is what I thought. Then someone grabbed the ball off the ground and slammed it square into the middle of the firepit itself, which I now learned was the actual goal, and not the circle of benches. As I stood there looking at my tote bag getting ground into the black embers and ashes I started to have second thoughts about volunteering it. Oh well. Too late now.
A short time later I had the ball again and was rushing towards the goal trying to score when some miscreant pounded me on the back of the head and knocked me out. Such is the rules of Skullball I guess. Gruffy woke me up a moment or two later and I rejoined the match. Suddenly Gruffy began to loudly berate the newer adventurer with the polearm. He was standing there looking dumbly at a magical pendant that was in his hand, and that moments earlier had been around my neck. I reclaimed my property and Gruffy tried to disqualify the other guy. But then he got distracted and the game continued.
The game continued for a time in a sort of organized form of mayhem. There was much creative interpreting of the rules as well as somewhat aggressive and unorthodox tactics employed. I was doing pretty well and scoring a lot of points, but I eventually realized that no one was keeping score, so I began to wonder how it was all going to end.
Gruffy finally announced that the next goal would be worth 300 points and would determine the winner. The ball was flung high into the air and I managed to come down with it. I streaked towards the goal and just as I was about to try to toss the ball over Hooch and into the pit when I got chopped to pieces by Caliphar and collapsed in a heap. Later Gruffy came over to heal me and I never did figure out who made the final score.
Gruffy then announced that the game was not over, and that a winner would be determined. Oh, by the way, all the playing and scoring and stuff we just went through wasn’t how the winner was to be chosen. Instead, Gruffy and his assistant official Scruffy huddled together and held a vote to see who was to be the next Skullball Champion of 606. In the end, they announce the winner, and it was Kaiya. There was much rejoicing and cheering. When Kaiya received the trophy and found out about its powerful protective properties, she seemed quite pleased. When she realized that she now had a great big honking skull spirit linked to her and that she would have to lug the thing around with her wherever she went, her smile began to seem a tad forced.
When we got back to the tavern after the match, we had barely sat down before Lord Dawnware ordered everyone outside for a Wizard Titling ceremony. I had seen a few of these before. Raistlin finds all the wizards who have attained either four or nine levels of formal magics, and grants them either one or two titles respectively. The titles are chosen by consensus from the assembled ranks of the other titled wizards present. The recipient is given a choice to accept the title or not, and if they do it is “pinned” on them, which is a polite way of saying they get blown to pieces by the assembled celestial wizards and then healed by the earth wizards.
I’ve always thought these ceremonies to be a little silly and a bit like hazing, but I don’t suppose there is any harm in that. Five wizards were to receive their titles at this event, which is a fairly large number. As Raistlin was explaining the process there was a lot of joking and interruptions from the audience. There was an amusing moment when Raistlin got tired of Zug’s comment and cast a silence spell on him. It was baned Raistlin reflected it. It was baned again. Raistlin was forced to play a short game of charades to get another wizards to remove the effect before he could continue. For a moment I thought the two of them were going to have it out right then and there, but Raistlin decided instead to continue.
If memory serves correctly, the titles that were given were Archwizard of Earth and Sky (Draelin), Wizard of Secrets (Beryl), Wizard of Sacrifice (Katherine), Wizard of Subtlety (Tygil) and Wizard of Letters (Rillien). Once again, Beryl’s stone golem form presented everyone with a problem. If her titled was “pinned” to her as tradition dictated, it would result in a trip to the earth circle. Raistlin was up to the task, however. He loudly intoned “I CALL FORTH A DRAGONS BREATH 40 igrantyouthepowerofabless” and with much shrieking and flailing of arms Beryl collapsed in a heap, only to be revived a moment later by the earth casters.
After the titling ceremony broke up an impromptu Fae Carnival commenced. A number of Fae appeared out of nowhere and started doing all sorts of weird things. One of the Fae was carrying around a Skull that he called Murray, and he would have all sorts of conversations with it. I never figured out exactly what his story was. Another Fae convinced several people to play in a Fae version of Simon Says. The game went on for a time until this particular Fae grew bored of the affair and declared all remaining participants winners.
There was a Fae with long white bunny ears and a bandit’s mask who wanted people to participate in a scavengers hunt. This was the sort of thing I enjoyed, so I signed up on a team with Pyroxia, Beryl, Hooch and Caliphar. The Fae presented us with a list of about ten things, and we all picked something to get and spread out of find our items.
One of the items on the list was a piece of burnt wood. I took one look at my soot stained tote bag and said that I would get that. The path leading to the field is a bit lengthy, but as the crow flies straight through the woods it isn’t that far. I tore off through the brush and ran up to the field to where the firepit was located. As I bent down and picked up a chunk of burnt wood I recalled that there was a fireplace in the tavern full of burnt wood not fifty feet from where I started. Too late now. I ran all the way back and placed my wood in our pile, and that completed our entire list, making us the winner. The prize was a fairly girly looking magical necklace made of pearls. Magic is magic, after all, but when I ended up losing the dice roll for the item I can’t say I was entirely disappointed.
The next game we played was called “What is in my hand?” The bunny bandit fae began pulling magical components out of her pouch, and then she would ask us to guess the component. My experiences with formal magics was rather limited at best, so I wasn’t particularly well suited for this game. It got even worse when she started giving us clues. When the Fae said things like “It is some kind of feather…” Beryl whipped out a notebook she was carrying which listed every known component categorized by name, strength, and type. She just flipped to the page labeled “Feathers” and read down the list. She did the some thing when the category was rocks, and then teeth, and so on.
By this method Beryl ended up with the lion’s share of the components. I tried to cheat as well by reading over Beryl’s should and starting with items lower down on the list, but it didn’t work for me. In the end I didn’t manage to get a single component. I guess I just have to stick to letting strange misty noncorporeal creatures into my cabin at the crack of dawn to get my components.
Shorly after this the Fae began to take their leave of us, and soon they were all gone. Most people moved back into the tavern, and a lot of people took this opportunity to eat dinner. A short time later we got a new guest of a decidedly strange sort. A large silver eye with a blue glow about it drifted into the tavern.
The eye was about as big as a peach basket. It slowly drifted about the tavern and looked everything over. There had previously been a number of very dire poems and stories placed upon the Fae Trees referring to an Eye of Blue, but this eye seemed to be fairly harmless, or at least non-threatening. People laughed and joke around with it, and when it had finished in the tavern it rifted outside to the front porch and floated off into town.
I was curious, so a few of us followed it to see where it was going. Sir Cedric Warclaw came along, and I believe Beryl and Alcuin came as well. There may have been some others. The eye slowly floated up to the upper side of town and looked over some buildings and such. It then approached the guild building and rifted inside.
We entered and watched the eye float around for a bit, but when it came to the earth circle it rifted out and rift right back in on the inside of the earth circle. A moment later we could see the unmistakable effect of a formal magic casting begin, and the earth circle flickered as it came under attack. The eye was trying to complete a destroy magic formal on the earth circle.
Things were now quite serious. Cedric immediately contested the formal and entered the circle himself. He struck several blows against the eye, but had no effect. Someone suggested caution to Cedric, since he was the only one present who was invested in the circle. If he was to somehow come to harm on the inside, we couldn’t aid him. I suggested trying to cast dispel magic on it, but I’m not sure anyone heard me. Several blows of normal, magic and silver were struck, but none had any effect. I knew exactly what was coming next. I was already moving towards the door when I was ordered to summon help from the tavern.
I took off running to the tavern and went looking for Lord Dawnware. When I found him I explained that the earth circle was under attack by the eye and that Sir Cedric was requesting aid. A number of people within earshot heard me and took off running for the guild building. I ran back to the guild building myself with Lord Dawnware following at a somewhat more dignified lordly pace.
When I got back to the guild building a small crowd had already gathered. Cedric and Viscount Mithrilmyst were both in the circle trying various spells on the eye, but so far they were not having any luck. Cedric called for someone to bring him his iron sword. Nobody seemed to know where that was at, and Cedric raised his voice just a tad as a way of expressing his strong desire that his sword be brought to him.
As this was going on, the eye suddenly vanished. Viscount Mithrilmyst had finally stumbled upon the proper spell. It was dispel magic. That’s awful clever, I thought, and grit my teeth and smiled. At that moment Lord Dawnware strode purposefully thought the front door and loudly ordered everyone who wasn’t a noble to vacate the building promptly so that the matter could be dealt with. Cedric explained that the matter was over.
Everyone slowly filtered back out of the building and began walking back towards the tavern. There was the familiar sound of a rift opening and right there among us the eye reappeared. It turned about and fixed its unblinking glare on Viscount Mithrilmyst, and began subjecting him to a steady stream of death spells. As the Viscount hit the ground like a bag of potatoes we all started yelling “Dispel it! Dispel it!” Several people cast at once and the eye disappeared once more, and this time didn’t return.
By now it was starting to get dark. People started to gather up in the tavern and stopped roaming about outside quite so much. After the dark smoky creature of the first night resurrecting people in circles and after Seronia’s resurrection the night before, I think people decided that a fair amount of caution was in order.
The next event that came up was an assault on a Mind Flailer stronghold. I’m not sure how this particular thing got started. All I know is that everyone was told to get ready, and that we were going to fight a lair of Mind Flailers. They were supposed to be trying to perform some kind of super formal magic ceremony to completely encircle the entire town within a circle of power, and we had to stop them.
We all marched off to an area of warehouses near the docks not too far from my own cabin, which was a tad unsettling. When we entered the tavern we found ourselves confronted with a large number of human mind slaves. These guys were pretty easy to take out, but there were a couple of stone golems mixed in, and they were a bit tougher.
Once we cleared the warehouse of all the pawns, we searched around until Sir Noah found a hidden staircase leading down. We descended to a lower level where we once again found ourselves fighting mind slaves and even more stone golems. We cleaned these up and fought our way to a final chamber in the rear.
When we forced our way inside we found a large stone altar or dias with a mind flailer sitting on top. He was on a chair which in turn sat on a box, which in turn set inside a circle of power inscribed on the altar. The mind flailer seemed to be working his way through a formal spell of some sort, though I did not see either a scroll or any components inside the circle. Surrounding the room were several posters or hangings with mystical symbols attached to the walls.
This puzzle took all of about an instant to figure out. Once people crossed into the room they began hacking and tearing at all the hangings. When the last one was pulled down, the mind flailer began to spasm and then keeled over dead, and the circle dropped.
Cedric and some others hauled his icky purple carcass off to the side and then began to examine the chest. It was fairly large, locked, and attached to the altar. Caliphar was called forward to attempt to pick the lock. It was a tough one, and he wasn’t having very much luck at it at all. While everyone was waiting, a few people amused themselves by chopping off mind flailer tentacles and handing them to Caliphar to use to pick the lock.
Suddenly the mind flailer leapt up and dived back onto the altar. The moment he got back inside the circle he raised it up once more. I don’t know if he was faking, whether he revived, or whether he had some sort of contingency in place, but there he was back in the circle, and we all seemed to be pretty well screwed.
I thought we were going to be in store for a long hour of trying to wait him out, but luckily he wasn’t inside very long before he made a break for the door. Caliphar then came forward and went back to work on the lock, and a moment or two later the mind flailer carcass was once more drug back inside and dumped in a corner.
The mind flailer had already revived once, and there was a concern he would do so again. What would be the best way to prevent him from getting in the circle? I suggest that someone was just going to have to jump up in the circle and sit in the chair himself. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Cedric’s bottom was planted square in the chair. Recall if you will that the chest that Caliphar was trying to open was placed under the chair. The image of Caliphar bent over hard at work between Cedric’s knees was the subject of some rather crude comments, which I won’t repeat here.
The lock was giving Caliphar fits. I took one look at it and knew I would never be able to pick it. I gave the box a good look over and noticed that it had exposed hinges on the back. I thought it would be possible to drive out the hinge pins and gain access to the chest that way. I had nothing on me with which to do this, but my cabin wasn’t very far away. I ran off to my cabin and grabbed my toolbox and headed back to the warehouse. I got there just in time to see the last of the treasure being pulled from the box. Someone finally thought to use a magic key cantrip. Rats.
I dropped my toolbox off in my cabin on the way back to the tavern. We had time to get settled in and the treasure all sorted and distributed before the next great battle came upon us. This time we didn’t need to travel very far at all. The battle came to us.
I’m told that someone spotted an elf peeking in the windows of the tavern a short time earlier, but I’m not certain of the truth of that. What I do know is that nearly all the nobles who were present were seated at a table near one end of the tavern, and they placed a large circle of power about themselves. A moment or two later the door burst open and a force of elves dressed in blue forced their way inside. Everyone who wasn’t in a circle rushed forward and presented a solid wall of shields and swords across the entire tavern. It looked pretty darn impressive. And then the dragons breaths started flying.
It was very very ugly. Every one of the elves was a skilled celestial caster. They opened up with a fusillade of dragons breath and ice storms and binds and disarms, and the entire front rank of us just wilted away. When some people jumped forward to try to close the gap they got hacked to pieces by swords. The elves methodically pushed forward under the command of their leader, who stood in the back. He was a tall elf in an elaborate set of silver armor with a blowing blue and red sigil on his chest and his shoulder.
The elves pushed forward through the middle of the tavern. Everyone rallied briefly and turned to face them at the rear of the tavern, but the result was pretty much the same, if only quicker. After all the oppositions lay smoking at their feet, and the few survivors had fled out the back door and scattered, the elven general ordered his troops to march out the back door off through town. As the door swung shut behind them the nobles leapt out of their circle and started the process of scooping up the gooey and fried remains and trying to put people back together.
It was a pretty awful fight, but we had gotten caught flatfooted. Confined as we were in the tavern, and without the support of the most of the powerful casters who had circled themselves up, we were easy targets for their massed magery. Once they were gone it took a surprising short amount of time to get everyone and everything put back together, and then it was time for some revenge.
After a quick process of getting organized and making some plans, it was discovered that the elves had marched to the end of the road leading from the tavern and set themselves up across the mouth of the entrance leading to the upper side of town. While we were still getting our act together and getting ourselves into position to counteract, we started hearing Seronia shouting from the upper side of town. He and Beryl had the extreme misfortune to pick that exact moment to walk through, and got ambushed by the entire crowd of elves. Seronia managed to get into a circle, but Beryl was flat on the ground.
That added a little bit of haste to our preparation. I’m not sure what the overall plan ended up being, but when we finally launched our counterattack, the battle took on the appearance of the one with the elves the previous night. We charged their front line and got pelted with spells. But this time we had a little room to maneuver and some healers to back us up. The elve’s spells took a frightful toll during the first volley, but then our forces collapsed down upon them and the battle degenerated into a swirling confused melee.
Once things got to this point our greater numbers gave us our biggest advantage. The elves were just not able to get themselves reorganized into any semblance of a formation or order. When a new elf would launch himself into the battle he would very often take out one or two people with an imprison or ice storm or something similar. But there were always two other people to step into the gap and finish off the elf.
The elven general managed to rally his troops briefly. They all rushed to his side and formed a wall. This drew the attention of everyone on the battlefield, and there was a terrific crack as both sides simultaneous did their worst. When the spells died and the swords lowered and the smoke cleared, nearly all the elves were finished, but in the confusion the general managed to make his escape.
The battle continued for quite a while afterwards, as small groups and individual elves would emerge from the woods and engage us. Everyone of them could cast at least an imprison, so every one of them was a threat that had to be dealt with. In the end the battle was certainly a victory, but it was a Pyrrhic one. A great portion of the towns skills and magic were expended in the fight, and this was going to become a problem later on.
Sadly, the worst was not quite over. Once everyone got back to the tavern it was discovered that an undead army was on its way to attack the town. Perhaps it’s leader, the Lich Meclaurius, knew of our weakened state and was trying to take advantage of it. Or it may have just been one of those coincidences. Regardless of the reason, the news alarmed a number of people, and some very drastic measure began to be suggested. A plan to ward the tavern was mentioned by some people as a way of avoiding the army. I’m told that some nobles even suggested pulling out entirely and abandoning the entire town.
I’m not sure of the truth of this, because clearly I was not someone that took part in those discussions. I’m even less certain of the truth, or at least the facts of what happened next. Some weird extra planular creature chose this exact moment to make a little visit to our humble little tavern. This creature began talking with the “special people”, and general weirdness ensued.
I was completely unable to follow exactly what occurred next, so I’ll just explain it they way it was explained to me. The creature was some sort of minion of time, or Father Time to be exact. He had the power to renew a number of people’s skills and spells. However, he would need something in return. Father Time is a busy man, and had many things that demanded his attention. As such, he is often forced to neglect such prosaic tasks as cleaning up his house and room. In exchange for the gift of skill and spell renewal, Sir Cedric, Baron Zug, and Sir Draelin were all compelled to travel to Father Time’s abode and clean it up spic and span. Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up.
What I am quite certain happened was that after the time creature left the three nobles were no longer with us and that several people were fully recharged with skills and spells. Thus, with a renewed amount of energy and resolve we marched forth to take on Meclauris and his undead horde.
After all of the drama and heartache and weirdness that led up to the battle, in the end it went over in a fairly ordinary fashion. We found ourselves faced with an army of skeletons and undead creatures of various sorts. It was a powerful force to be sure, but it was the sort of thing that we had done and seen a number of times before. The battle lasted for a bit longer than half and hour, and in the end after much effort and striving we managed to prevail. In truth, we didn’t even end up bringing our full strength to bear. In addition to the absence of Zug, Cedric, and Draelin, a number of adventurers took themselves out of the fight and stayed in the back in circles. I know that a few of the people who were still in golem forms weren’t willing to risk the battle, but I’m not sure what everyone else’s story was.
Once that battle was over, the gathering pretty much drew to a close. After the post battle socializing and treasure splitting most people went straight to bed. There were a number of small episodes that occurred a bit later. I’m told the Boogieman put in an appearance, but I didn’t see him. Very late in the evening just before I was going to head off to bed I entered the tavern, and held the door for two gentlemen who were leaving. When I got inside Hooch told me that they were two vampires, and that I should watch my step. And that is exactly what I did. I watched every step on the way straight to my bed, which is where I’ll draw this tale to its conclusion.