On the 23rd of February of this year His Grace Duke Mikhail Blackstone convened a great Feast and Tournament to be held in the town of Firelight Cove in Blackstone. The tournament was widely advertised and I knew that a number of people would be visiting from various parts of the Kingdom and beyond. It had been some time since I had been to a tournament, and this would be the first for me in Blackstone. For all these reasons I was looking forward to this gathering.
I arrived early and got my gear settled in. I wanted to be there before most of the people showed up so that I could greet them. There was the normal crowd of all the usual suspects. We got a very large group of people who came down visiting from the Duchy of Ravenholt. They included Sir Daramor Darkcloud, Baron Torin and the Court of Westmark, Ajahana, Omi, Kumir, Trivanus, Cyd and Shoshoto. Shoshoto now went by the title of Councilor Shototo. From further west Baron Valimar Oakenbrow showed up again, and this time he brought nearly his entire court with him. A bit later on that evening Sir Taestiv and the Silverswords from Elysia arrived, and at some point several folks from the Kingdom of Badirra showed up.
I spent some time meeting and greeting people, and trying to play the part of the genial host. Cedric arrived and asked me, Dame Kaiya and I believe Sir Darkshanks to come with him. Since he knew that there were a large number of out of town nobility visiting, he wanted to take a few moments at the beginning of the gathering to meet with them personally.
After speaking with the nobility that was there in the tavern we had to travel to the other side of town in order to meet the Courts of Oakenbrow and Westmarch. Luckily the weather was a bit mild for the season so it wasn’t much of a hardship. Once this task was completed we returned to the tavern.
I saw that while I had been gone someone had distributed the questionnaire that we needed to fill out in order to qualify for the Riddle and Trivia contest on Saturday. I sat down and began to fill it out but I did not get very far before His Grace Duke Mikhail Blackstone arrived. Since I was his squire it fell to me to attend him.
He went and sat in a corner of the room and explained that he would like to receive the various nobility present. They were all sent for, and one by one they approached the Duke and presented their writs. I was able to introduce a fair number of them since I had met nearly all of them in my travels. That made me feel awful cosmopolitan.
Once this was done the Duke told me that he had an assignment for me. Recently a strange tower had been discovered nearby. He wanted me to pick a group of about twenty people and lead an expedition to the tower to investigate it. I was to leave as soon as possible.
It didn’t take a scholar to realize this was some sort of test. I had been a squire for nearly a year now so I was due for some testing. I rushed around and gathered up my group of people and moved them outside to get them organized. I split them up into three separate groups and appointed leaders in order to reduce my span of control.
That may well have been overkill given the small size of our group and the relatively simple mission that we faced. But since this was most likely a test of my leadership, I figured I should put some effort into at least a semblance of organization and control. Once we got sorted into groups we headed off to the mysterious tower.
When we got there we found that it was garrisoned by hostile golems. I lined the three groups up side by said and prepared to send them in. I said that we needed the shield fighters up front, and as it turned out that end up being Baron Ruendil, Dame Tavi and Dame Kaiya. Someone made the remark that this had to be the shortest shield wall in the history of Tyrra. I replied that it was better for the archers and scholars in the back rank. Yeah. That’s it.
We moved into the tower and began fighting our way forward. It was a straightforward fight for the most part. We slowly inched forward towards a set of stairs at the back of the room. Things got a bit dicey at one point when several golems appeared out of nowhere into our rear. But people in the back were alert and Lord Zerr took care of the problem with a flurry of Imprison spells.
Once we cleared the first room we saw that the short stairs led up into a smaller room that was lined with motionless golems. We knew the golems would attack at some point. I just hoped they would wait until we got most of the people up the narrow stairs first. Luckily, they did.
The fighting in this room was a bit more intense due to the smaller size, but we had the advantage of numbers and power. It didn’t take too long to clear this room and push the opposition down a short set of stairs at the opposite side of the room. This is where things started to go wrong.
Unlike the last room, the golems were now opposing us at the bottom of the stairs. This meant the entire group of golems could attack whoever went down the stairs, while we could only attack back with a single person until we could push out into the room. I knew that if we could just get a sufficient number of people down the stairs we would be home free. But that initial assault into the room was going to be tough.
Our first attempt down the stairs went pretty well I thought. It looked for a moment like we were going to get enough of a foothold in the room to get everyone down the steps. Then a bunch of people went down and the rest had to retreat back up the stairs. We made a second push, and again I thought we were just about the clear some space.
That’s when I made the mistake of trying to go down the stairs myself. I got to the landing and saw we had a fair number of people down already, as well as the group that fell during the first assault. I tossed a life spell at someone and then started throwing Repel spells to clear some room. But there were just too many golems and one of them nailed me.
Next thing I knew I was back up the stairs being healed by someone. I was just about to panic when the golems all marched off back into the rear of the room they were in. We rushed down the stairs to get everyone back up. I was trying to decide whether to follow up the golems with an attack now that I had a chance, or to order a retreat when one of the golems came forward and commanded me to approach.
I guessed at this point the test was over, and in fact it was. The golem commanded me to return to town and seek out the Duke and make a report. So we all gathered up and marched back out of the tower. Once the last person left, the tower disappeared.
I left someone else in charge of distributing the small amount of treasure we had gathered and I went off to find the Duke. I found him in his encampment. He explained that he was able to view the whole battle through an enchantment on one of the golems. We discussed for a time what I did right and what I did wrong, and basically critiqued the battle. I kind of got the impression that he was hoping that I would have done better. Oh well.
Once the Duke was finished with me I returned to the tavern. Guildmistress Adrafae was in the process of leading small groups of people out to recover some scrolls in a matter relating to guild business. I am a member of the guild, though obviously a rather junior one. So I jumped on the tail end of one of the groups going out and managed to get myself included.
This was a fairly strange affair. I have to admit that my mind really wasn’t on the task at hand. I was still thinking about the test I had been through and I kept trying to think of how I might have done better. But luckily this wasn’t too difficult of a battle.
We went through some sort of gate and found ourselves in a small underground chamber with three exits. Adrafae needed to go through the exits one at a time to gather some scrolls. It was the rest of our jobs to fight their creatures that were there and keep them away from Adrafae.
I don’t recall much about the creatures. I remember they kept whispering strange things which led me to believe this had to be related to the Gul issue we had been working on for some time. After a fairly short period of time Adrafae collected all the scrolls and we left the way we came.
When I got back to the tavern I saw that Lord James Buttons had arrived. It had been some time since I had seen him last. I had heard that since his unfortunate encounter with the Reaverborn over a year ago that his health had been getting worse. I thought he looked about the same. He had been receiving and speaking with several people over the course of the evening. I was told he wished to speak with me, and we had a short conversation about a few matters that we had worked on together a while ago.
When Lord Buttons dismissed me I went to find Adrafae to ask if she needed any more help recovering the scrolls. She was in fact done and was in the process of getting them transcribed. They were written in an odd form of script. Adrafae and Keno said it was a script that shows up often around here and that I should take the time to learn it. As I think about this now, I need to get that back on my to do list.
That was pretty much the extent of the excitement the first night. A bit later on I heard that Cyd Timmons had gone missing, and I spent a little bit of time looking around for him. But I quickly saw the futility in that exercise and went to bed. Saturday looked to be a busy day.
I got up a little later than usual. But by about half past ten I was sitting in the tavern drinking coffee. A few other folks were around as well. Omi and Kumir were sitting over in a corner looking over some music, and Firepaw, Caliphar, Rillien and a few others were sitting around talking.
At one point we looked out the window and saw a couple of trolls milling around outside. There were only a few of them and they didn’t seem interested in coming inside. Since we were the only folks around we just ignored them for the most part, but we kept an eye out in case someone else should wander up. The trolls nosed around for a bit and then headed off towards some cabins a little ways off.
The headed towards a small cabin with two large banners planted outside. I waved over to Firepaw and said “It looks like the trolls are headed into your cabin. Are Nacht and Reynox in there? I assume you don’t have a ward up.” As a way of answering, Firepaw grabbed both of his axes and went flying out the door.
Rillien and Caliphar decided to go help, though they left with a little bit less speed than Firepaw. For his part Firepaw was already across the field and standing in the doorway of his cabin. I could see him flailing away at something with his axes. A moment or two later and Rillien and Caliphar were there as well.
I was debating whether to go out there myself. The battle moved back outside the cabin and I could now see there were two trolls left and one of the cabin occupants had joined the fight. I figured they had everything under control now. Then I looked out there again and saw the Firepaw and Caliphar were both down and one of the trolls was chasing Rillien. Oops.
I headed for the door, but when I got outside I saw that both trolls were dead and everyone was getting back on their feet. I knew exactly what had happened to Caliphar in that fight. Rillien had been backpacking him, and I’m almost certain she hit him with a Magic Armor spell.
I went back inside and spoke to the folks that were still there. I explained to them that they should not cast Magic Armor spells on Caliphar for any reason. Due to an unfortunate backlash he suffered, those spells now kill him outright. For a while I thought it was best to keep this particular fact quiet. But it seems hardly a battle goes by anymore where someone doesn’t end up killing him with that spell, so maybe spreading the word is the smarter way to go.
More and more people starting getting up and the day slowly got under way. The morning passed by without too much in the way of activity. I spent a little time walking around in the woods but didn’t find much of anything. Firepaw and I went exploring, and I got to discuss a few things with him. An odd looking stranger showed up and spent some time speaking with some of the folks from Ravenholt. I never did learn what that was about.
Rainbow eventually showed up. She wanted everyone to play her game of drawing for a prize. It was interesting to watch the different reactions she got. All of us locals are used to Rainbow and have played her games many times. But I know that in a lot of other lands Fae tend to be more dire and mischievous, and many of the people from out of town wanted to have nothing to do with her. A short while later Imp showed up as well. Now he can be a bit more of a handful.
But it was also about this time that we got our first real action of the day. I was standing outside and I saw a party of around ten elves approaching. I stepped out to ask them what they wanted, and the answer was something along the lines of all of our deaths. That confirmed for me what I suspected and I ran back to the tavern to warn everyone that the rebel elves were coming.
We had not fought these elves in a number of months, and I was a bit surprised to see them again. Their attacks stopped after we defeated their leader General Sorabane, which resulted in some squabbling and in fighting among the remaining rebels over leadership. I guess they’ve settled things to the point of feeling more like fighting us rather than each other once again.
All of us who had fought them before knew there was no point in negotiation or talks. We had been through all of that before. Of course we had a ton of people who had never seen them before. So there was a bit more talking leading up to the battle than normal. But as always all they wanted was a fight, and they started unloading with the spells.
Attacking a town that is hosting a tournament, where the best and the most talented people from far and wide are attending, is probably not exactly the best strategy. We beat the daylights out of the first group of elves, and two more than came along shortly afterwards. The last group approached more cautiously, and decided to bypass all of us at the tavern and move down towards the other end of town.
It was pretty clear what they were doing, but it was hard to keep it from succeeding. At first all of us started following them. But as they kept going more and more people would get bored and turn around to go back to the tavern. Pretty soon there were only a small handful of us still following the elves.
I was afraid they were going to reach the other side of town and surprise the folks that were staying there. I ran ahead of them by taking a more direct path straight through the woods. When I got to the other side of town I saw that everyone was safely inside wards and that no one there was in danger. Well, except me of course.
I knocked on a few doors and let people know what was going on. Eventually the folks from Oakenbrow’s court and some of the people from Westmarch came out, and with the people that had come all the way from the tavern we now had enough muscle to jump the elves. And jump them we did. Once they were defeated we didn’t see any more elves the rest of the gathering.
It was now starting to get close to the time for the tournament to start. People started to gather up around the place where the archery and throwing weapons contest were going to be held. Just before leaving myself I noticed that the Harmonomancer had just shown up in town. I knew that Ajahana had been interested in speaking with him. When I arrived at the site where the contests were to be held I told her he was around and she left to speak with him.
The archery contest was held first. Each contestant shot at a target three times from each of three separate distances. There were not that many contestants and the event went by fairly quickly. The one amusing part of the contest was the fact that there was some difficulty getting the target to stand up. Algorian was recruited to hold it steady, and as some of the arrows whizzed in a bit wide of the mark he needed to be quick on his feet to avoid getting punctured.
The next contest was throwing weapons. This was one of the ones I planned to compete in. I was disappointed to see that for this competition each contestant was only allowed three throws. I thought that was much too few to make for a good competition. I really wished that I had practiced beforehand. I misjudged the distance on my first toss and missed the target all together. I hit it on the next two but I knew that wasn’t going to be good enough for a win.
After this they held some of the dueling competitions. I missed most of these since I wasn’t participating in any of them. I did spend a little time watching the Draelonde One Touch duels because I wanted to see how those would work. I expected them to be a lot of standing and staring, followed by a rapid strike or two and it would be over. I was surprised to see that several of the bouts had as much thrashing and beating and running around as did the blood and guts fights.
The next competition that I competed in was the foot race. I figured I had a slim chance at victory here. Caliphar was the clear favorite, but in a very long race I might prove to have more stamina then him. Maybe. Okay, very unlikely, but it wasn’t like I had much of a better chance in any other competition either.
As it turned out the race was probably less than one hundred fifty yards. Now I knew the only way I was going to win is if Caliphar fell down, or suddenly decided to cast a Magic Armor spell on himself halfway through the race. As it turned out Caliphar did win with a gentleman from Westmarch coming in a close second, followed by me, Ashe Blackfist and Firepaw.
Even as short a race as it was, I was wore out after it was over. I went and spent a little while resting and socializing in the tavern afterwards. I ended up missing the casting competition as well as some of the apprentice duels. I had considered entering the apprentice casting competition, but I only knew enough spells to last me a single round of that.
While most of us had been at the tournament, those folks that stayed back in town had been attacked a time or two by some orcs or trolls. I stepped outside at one point to find that one of the ladies that was visiting from Fengate had set up explosive traps underneath the steps to the tavern. She said she was rigging them with a line that she would pull to blow up any trolls that came attacking. I told her she better not leave the traps unattended, because there would be serious problems for her if she ended up exploding someone.
The word then went out that the Riddles and Trivia contest was about to begin. I hoped to make it into the finals for that, and it was the only competition I really stood much of a chance of winning. As it turned out I was one of the six finalists chosen based on our score in filling out the questionnaire the night before. The other five were Sir Telaris, Adrafae, Omi, Councilor Shoshoto and Anwyn of Westmarch.
We were each asked either a riddle or a trivia question. This was to continue until one of us answered six correct. Anwyn was needed elsewhere and had to drop out of the competition fairly early. For most of the match things stayed pretty close. The most frustrating thing was that practically every time a person was asked a question or riddle that they didn’t know, at least two of the other people knew it and wished they had gotten the question instead.
Eventually the Riddlemaster ran out of questions and had to start over from the beginning again asking riddles and questions we had missed previously. I knew several of the ones that had been given to other people, so I knew it was possible that I might get lucky. Both Telaris and Shoshoto seemed to have the worst luck and always ended up getting the most obscure and bizarre questions. In the end Adrafae answered a sixth question correctly just before time ran out.
For the next competition everyone moved out into one of the nearby fields. The Team Competition had six different teams competing. So after the first round, three teams were left. It was decided to fight the finals as a three way fight rather than give any one team a by, which would have been a considerable advantage.
The three teams that squared up in the end were a group representing Oakhurst, a team from the Court of Westmarch, and a third team made of up several people from Ravenholt. When the bout began there was a brief moment when all three teams stood warily looking at each other. Then someone from the Ravenholt team yelled “For the Northern Alliance!”, and then both the Ravenholt and Westmarch team turned on the Oakhurst team and drubbed them pretty soundly.
Once that was done the two remaining teams stood back once more and got ready to fight each other. There was only a big upset, however. When they went at it again, from out of nowhere Keno jumped back in the fight. Someone had earlier gassed him down with the rest of the Oakhurst team, but neglected to notice that he just drank a Purify Blood potion. This caused a bit of confusion for a moment, but at the end the team representing Ravenholt was the last one standing.
The next competition was the two handed weapon competition. I competed in this event as well. I used my two handed sword, which put me at a disadvantage against all the other folks using polearms. I also ended up drawing Cormyn in the first round. Between his reach advantage and his polearm’s reach advantage, it got knocked out pretty quick.
It was now starting to get late and close to feast time. Everyone moved back to the field near the tavern for the last competition before the feast. This was the five touch contest with sword and shield. I watched this until it came down to the final. Like many of the earlier competitions, the final wasn’t fought at that time. The plan was to hold the finals for most of the dueling competitions just before the feast while the Duke looked on.
By this point I was looking pretty grubby. I was quite dirty and muddy from running around all day long. I took this time to get myself washed up and dressed in some nicer clothes for the feast. I didn’t have much in the way of truly fancy clothes. My wardrobe is still rather basic. But I had been careful with my nice ducal tabard all day long so it was still in good shape. I figured that was as good an outfit as any other to wear.
I took a bit longer than I meant to get ready. When I made my way back to the tavern I learned that everyone else had already moved down to the pavilion in order to view all the finals. I also learned what apparently practically everyone else knew by this time except me. His Majesty King Mykel Endarr II had arrived and would be attending the feast.
I hustled down to the pavilion and saw that things were already underway. A large Circle of Power had been erected, and the Royal Party was seated inside of it watching the events. In the center was of course His Majesty. This was the first time I that I had ever seen him in person. There was also Prince Gabrielle Harcourt, Prince Derek Blackstone, Duke Mikhail Blackstone, Lord James Buttons, Lady Shentir Zemvolos, Dame Miranda Silverwood, Sir Alexander Norfolk, and a Dark Elven gentleman who I was told was the king’s personal executioner.
No sooner had a got there than Squire Ashe Blackfist grabbed me and said we needed to get the nobles something to drink. So we hurried back to the tavern and came back carrying several glasses of water which we passed out. I considered trying to see if His Grace the Duke wanted me to attend him in any fashion, but I saw that doing so would have likely been disruptive so I just melted into the crowd and watched.
What followed were the finals for several of the various dueling competitions. In each case the finalists were called forward to compete in front of the assembled nobility. When a winner was determined that person was personally recognized by the King. He also awarded each winner a single piece of Kingsilver.
When these were complete everyone moved back to the field behind the tavern for the final event of the Tournament. In the last portion of this journal I’ll relate the outcome of the Free For All, narrate the events of the Feast, and comment on our journey into a volcano.
The last event of the competition was the Free For All. This was to be a grand melee with the last person standing to be declared the winner. When everyone arrived back at the tavern we were forced to wait for a bit. The tournament marshal needed some time to lay some special enchantments on the field so that there would be no danger of anyone accidentally dying. We also needed to wait for the King to arrive in the tavern and for his viewing stand to be arranged.
When I looked over to see how that was going I saw a rather odd thing. Lord Zerr was down on his hands and knees messing around underneath the porch to the tavern. After a moment or two I realized what was going on and walked over to see if I could lend a hand.
When they had gotten ready to lead the King out onto the porch and over to his viewing platform someone alertly noticed that a strange box was rigged beneath the steps. It was the explosive trap placed there during the afternoon by the lady from Fengate that she hoped to blow up trolls with. Zerr was in the process of disarming it. People seemed to be confused where the trap came from. I told a few people standing there why the trap was there.
Once that was taken care of we all started to move out onto the field. But just as I got there I heard someone loudly commanding Duncan Abercrombie to immediately come to the tavern. I hurried over and found a very stern and very serious Dame Miranda standing on the porch with her arms crossed.
“Squire Duncan Abercrombie,” she began in a very formal tone. “I’m told that you have information as to exactly who it was who set explosive traps beneath the porch His Majesty was going to use. Indicate to me who this person is.”
As it turned out, the lady from Fengate was standing right behind Dame Miranda at that very moment. She was helping out with the preparation for the feast. I answered that the person she was seeking was the lady in black standing behind her. “Thank you” she said, and then turned on her heel and slammed the door. Through the window I could see her grab the lady in black by the scruff of her neck and haul her off to where His Majesty was sitting.
Oh crap, I thought, they are totally going to execute her right then and there. I felt more than a little bad about that. I stood there for a moment to see what was going to happen. Luckily, it seemed that the lady got nothing worse than an extremely stern lecture from the King. With that I jumped back off the porch and ran out to take my place on the field.
I really planned badly for this competition and had not gotten myself ready by the time it came about. I only had time to quickly borrow a small handful of paralysis gasses from some of the folks who weren’t participating. I figured the best way to proceed would be to present as little of a threat as possible and hope people would concentrate on others.
When the word was given to begin, no one wanted to be the first person to make a move. Everyone sort of just milled around a little trying not to get close to anyone else. Councilor Shoshoto I believe realized he had very little of a chance and decided to go out in a blaze of glory. He had started in the very middle of the field, and after a few moments he got erased in a flurry of spells and gasses.
At that point people started to gather up into various loose groups. The Argent Guard collected over on one side of the field. Glenn Stormwolf and Cormyn started to work together. Several folks from Ashton made up another faction. Reynox and Nacht helped each other out.
I wasn’t exactly a precise fit for any of these groups. But on the other hand, I was also fairly well regarded by several of these people. To be perfectly frank I lasted for as long as I did in this competition by relying on the goodwill and assistance the other participants gave me.
I tried to just stay out of the way, and to jump in from time to time to help one of the bigger groups eliminate some of the other smaller groups and individuals. I got several Shield Magic spells from Caliphar and helped him take out Reynox. I survived two or three flurries of spells from Lord Zerr as he ran by from time to time. I got ambitious and tried to waylay Nacht and got beat down for my efforts, only to get a helpful bit of healing from Glenn.
Eventually things got down to where all that was left was Glenn and Cormyn, the Argent Guard group, and the folks from Ashton. We all gathered up again in the middle and essentially started over again. Malak Marr said something to the other folks on the Ashton team, and then stepped forward and just stood there with his hand outstretched.
Everyone just looked at him for a second trying to figure out what he was up to. Caliphar and I figured it out about the same time. For whatever reason, Malak had decided he was done for the fight and was inviting someone to just take him out. Caliphar leaped forward and started hitting him, and the last melee was on.
I more or less supported the Argent Guard group against the people from Ashton. They got outnumbered and eliminated. Then it was the remaining Argent Guard against Glenn and Cormyn. I elected to attack Ifrit as he ran by after Glenn, and ended up getting hit with an Imprison from behind thrown by Kivuli.
At that point I was done. But luckily I got imprisoned fairly near the center of the field, and the battle moved out in front of me. So even though I was out of the competition I got an excellent view of the ending.
The last three people standing were Kivuli, Glenn and Cormyn. Glenn and Cormyn started pressing Kivuli, and he kept trying to imprison himself as a defense. I momentarily wished that Kivuli would come over and free me from his imprison so that I could help him out, but there was really no way for him to do that.
Finally Glenn and Cormyn set up on each side of an imprisoned Kivuli. Before they could act Kivuli dropped his imprison and whipped around to take out Cormyn with a spell. Then Glenn caught Kivuli with a spell and that was that.
The King called out to Glenn to ask if he was truly the last person standing. There were still a number of bodies lying around on the field. Glenn was instructed to check each of them to make sure that no one else could continue the fight. Glenn walked around the field checking each body. He also checked me and determined that I was imprisoned.
Glenn then walked over to the reviewing stand and announced that everyone else on the field was dead, except for Duncan who was in an imprison spell. Just as they were asking him whether it was my own imprison or someone else’s, a dark shape suddenly moved from behind me and quickly glided over the field towards where Glenn was standing with his back turned. Somehow Trivanus had avoided detection all this time and was now moving in to attack.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see exactly how it ended. The two began fighting and it ended off to the right out of my field of vision. When it was all over the field marshal came out and dispelled my imprison. I later learned that ending somewhat in dispute, but that Trivanus was judged to be the winner.
With all of that over all that was left was the feast. I ran and dumped all my gear on my bunk and tried to get myself as presentable as possible. When I entered the tavern I saw that all of the nobility were seated at a large head table. I checked with His Grace and learned that I was to sit there as well to serve him.
The tavern was festively decorated. All the various courts and groups went to lengths to display their individual heraldic devices. Guildmistress Lilaiethyn had her unicorn banner on display. I saw colors representing Blackstone, Therendry, Ashton, and so forth.
I noticed that even though most people were in the process of finding their seats, Baron Torin and his court chose to remain standing at attention awaiting word from His Majesty. I pointed them out to Duke Mikhail, who showed Prince Derrick, who remarked upon it to His Majesty. His Majesty then gestured for them to be seated. He then asked Ashe to take a Kingsilver over to Baron Torin.
As everyone began to get seated, His Grace began a formal to create a permanent Circle of Power around the entire head table for security reasons. Sathen Gor chose this moment to approach the table and attempt to present His Majesty with a bottle of wine of some sort. It was a terribly awkward moment. His Majesty was more than a little confused as to who Sathen was, and the Duke could not interrupt his formal to manage the situation. Prince Derrick informed Sathen that the gesture was appreciated, but since the Circle of Power was currently up and no once could be recognized in until the formal was complete, he would need to come back a bit later.
One of the first orders of business was a performance of “A King Walks Through Time”. Several weeks prior to the feast Lord James Buttons made a request that this particular song be performed at the banquet. The song was written a few years ago by a witness to the events whereupon His Majesty King Mykel Endarr II travel forward in time several hundred years and began his reign.
The song itself is quite extraordinary. It is eighteen verses long. While the lyrics are recorded in a number of different places, no written score existed for the song. In a remarkable bit of effort and organization, a performance was in fact arranged. Kumir arranged a score for the piece, and throughout the day both the musicians and singers had worked in hasty practices.
In the end, if my memory serves correctly, the piece was performed by Kumir and Omi on flute, Kivuli on recorder, Baron Torin on guitar, Lilaiethyn on drum and Korenia on some form of harp. Vocalists were Dame Nightsthine, Lilaiethyn, Glenn, Nacht, Lady Rillien, Althkaelis and Dame Anwyn,
Given the length of the song, the performers decided to divide it into three separate performances. They wanted to start the feast off with their first one. I had been asked to introduce the piece to the audience, and while the performers got ready to give a brief explanation of the historical significance of the song.
This ended up being something of a problem for me. I had originally planned on explaining in grand dramatic fashion the events that the song narrates. The problem was that the end was rather tragic and excruciatingly heartbreaking to the King. I had not planned on him sitting five feet from me as I related how he was cruelly ripped from his wife and child not once but twice in the matter of a few moments.
At the last minute I completely changed my plans. As part of my preparations I had corresponded with the original composer of the song, who was a gypsy by the name of Amadeus Baljar. He had written me an account of how he wrote the song. So while the musicians were getting set up I read that story instead.
The performance itself was magnificent. Being aware of the difficult circumstance under which it was practiced and prepared made me appreciate it even more. It appeared to be very well received both by the King and by Lord Buttons.
Once that was done it was on to the feast. The simple act of serving and eating food ended up being the most difficult part of the entire banquet for me. Since the nobles table was surrounded by a permanent circle of power, all the servers and wait staff constantly needed to be recognized in and out.
Ashe was trying to personally wait on Lord Buttons, and following his example I was trying to wait on Duke Blackstone. But that just kept getting everything confused. The wait staff felt they were supposed to serve food to everyone, including all the nobles. They were all rather stressed from trying to manage the whole affair and frankly they were more than a little upset with me every time I would go to the kitchen to get something for the Duke. I finally decided it would be easiest for everyone to just let them handle everything.
Once dinner was finally out of the way it was time for the various awards. This started with the awards for all the various events in the tournament that had not already been given out. I ended up helping the Master of the Tournament pass these out. As before, when the winner was announced and given their prize, the King also awarded them a Kingsilver.
Two special awards were presented. At the very beginner Sir Cadoc of Westmark was granted a special award. I can’t recall exactly what it was called. The Tournament Master explained he was being recognized for his sportsmanship and excellent display of character throughout all the events in which he competed. He felt that he more than any other competitor exemplified the Knightly Virtues.
And the last award that was presented was for the Grand Champion of the Tournament. His Grace Duke Blackstone called Trivanus Lithanos forward. In recognition of his achievement in winning the most individual events over the course of the tournament, Duke Blackstone awarded him a special magical tabard in the colors of Blackstone. He asked if Trivanus would accept it along with the title of Grand Champion of Blackstone, and he accepted both.
After all the cheering and congratulations died down, I went to take my seat once again. His Grace surprised me by asking me to step forward instead. At that exact moment I was honestly clueless about what was about to happen, but when he asked me to kneel it became clear.
I had served as his Grace’s squire for almost a year exactly. As the day of the Grand Tournament and Feast got closer I wondered quite a bit if His Grace would take this opportunity to elevate me in rank. But in the rush of all the things that had gone on that day I had completely forgotten about it until just that moment.
I can’t even remember precisely what he said to me. I remember being asked to take an oath, and agreeing to serve the people of Blackstone. Then he touched me with his sword and I was suddenly Sir Duncan Abercrombie, Ducal Knight of Blackstone. I was quite moved at the time. To be promoted right their, under the eyes of His Majesty and all the other Royal Princes and Lords, as well as such a large gathering of my friends and comrades, I really could not have scripted a better scene for myself.
I then went and sat back at the head table in a nice pleasant little daze with a completely stupid grin on my face I’m sure. Luckily the next activity didn’t require much in the way of active participation on my part. The awards that were voted on in the Therendry/Blackstone Herald were presented next. These went over a bit better than I thought they would. I feared that most of the out of town people would have trouble following them since they would not be familiar with many of the winners or why they won. But owing in large part to the style and enthusiasm of the presenter, everyone seemed to enjoy the presentation.
It was now time for the second of the three performances of “A King Walks Through Time”. After a much shorter introduction they began playing and singing again. Once again, my memory of this part is a little bit hazy. I was still a little giddy from being made a knight.
Towards the end of the performance I did notice that there were some whispered conversations going on over at the other side of the nobles table. When it ended I was told to go report to Sir Norfolk along with Dame Kaiya. Sir Norfolk took us outside and explained what was up.
He said that Baron Valimar Oakenbrow had gone missing. Some rather confusing circumstances such as the discover of one of his garments had caused a little bit of an alarm. Sir Norfolk was going to go to the far side of town where the rest of the Court of Oakenbrow was staying and ask them some questions. Dame Kaiya and I were to accompany him.
As we moved to the other end of town I saw that there were several people already out searching various areas of the town. Both Ifrit and Khel came over at one point and spoke to me briefly about where they had looked. I had to keep up with Sir Norfolk, though.
Sir Norfolk arrived at the cabin where Baron Valimar and his court were staying. He questioned both Sir Titus and Lady Kaleigh his Seneschal. They explained where they had last seen their Baron and what they knew of his disappearance. While Sir Norfolk spoke to them Dame Kaiya and I did a quick search of the surrounding cabins but found nothing.
We spend probably the next half hour or so running messages back and forth between Prince Derrick and Sir Norfolk, and searching all the various areas of the town. I won’t go in to the entire back and forth and searching that went on. Eventually Sir Norfolk called me over and said that he now felt there was most likely no danger to Baron Valimar and that I should start spreading the word to call off the search.
I went ahead and did that and then made my way back to the tavern. By this time I had missed the last musical performance, and His Majesty had already departed. Most of the people in town were now sitting around in the tavern socializing. I went in and joined them.
I saw that the Mithril Golem that always accompanies Lord Buttons was speaking to some people. I’ve always seen this golem guarding Lord Buttons, but up until a short while earlier I had just assumed it was a mindless automaton. It had never occurred to me that there was some guy in there.
I stood there listening to the conversation when without any sort of warning the golem just keeled over and flopped down on the floor. I thought surely the guy was dead. Lord Buttons and some other folks rushed to his side, and I could see that he was still alive, but something had obviously gone terribly wrong with him.
Several people helped him outside and over to the guild building. I followed them over there to see what was going to happen. I discovered that the person in the golem had some sort of terrible injury that should have caused his death. He had been placed in a succession of stronger and stronger golems over the course of the years as a means of preserving his life. But now that he was in the strongest golem possible, there was no other golem to put him in now that he was again beginning to suffer.
After a consultation involving the members of the guild and Lord Buttons, the decision was made to have Adrafae cast a Mend Golem formal on him to see if that would fix him up. She did this, and Lord Zerr stood in the Celestial Circle the entire time using its powers to Identify the golem. When the formal was complete the golem was once again whole and functional. Lord Zerr explained that there was still a grave flaw in the golem, and that the problem is almost certain to occur again.
I went ahead and walked back over to the tavern again. Things were still pretty much as before. I spoke to a number of people and accepted no end of congratulations on my promotion. I spoke to Trivanus about some things and we looked over some of the rare and strange components that were given out as prizes for the events. I saw that Dame Nightshine and Dame Tavi were over in a corner with Sir Norfolk and Prince Gabriel. They had gotten several papers from somewhere that had some humorous topics on them, such as an essay on being evil, and a rather preposterous description of some kind a monster called a Spidermantis.
Nothing much more than this happened for probably the next hour or so. Most everyone had eaten quite a bit at the feast anyway, so few people were motivated to do much more than sit around a socialize. I saw that the odd red haired barbarian lady who visits from time to time had shown up again. Later on a dark elven lady arrived as well along with something that appeared to be some kind of Black Sarr Golem. A bit later on a fairly large crowd of dark elves showed up.
I didn’t get a chance to figure out what that was all about because just as they arrived I got pulled over into a corner by Adrafae. She explained that she had just come into some information about the Artifact that we knew was lodged in Mt. Sarobar that was responsible for the large plume of ash that covered this portion of Blackstone.
It has been our goal for some time to recover this artifact from the volcano, but we didn’t know exactly where it was, and with the large amount of undead that were there we couldn’t search for it. Adrafae explained that she not only knew wear the Artifact was, she also knew of a way we could get the entire town very close to it. She would be able to Spirit Walk all of us to a Circle of Power in the volcano that was in close proximity to the Artifact.
She said time was somewhat of the essence. We could not leave just yet, but very soon she would be ready and we would need to leave quickly at that point. We both started to quietly spread the word to everyone about what was coming up so that they could start getting ready. For my part I went back to my bunk and got all my business gear together. I stowed away all my excess crap and bolted on my armor.
When Adrafae informed me that it was time to leave, I jumped up on a bench and got everyone’s attention and gave a short speech. This was the very first time that I was doing this. I was painfully aware that for my inaugural trip as newly created noble I was going to be taken a bunch of people, many of whom didn’t know me, into the pit of an undead infested volcano. I knew this was going to be a fairly difficult trip and I wanted to make certain that everyone else knew this and took the whole thing seriously. I’m afraid that in the stress of the situation, my speech turned out to be a little bit profane. Still, it seemed to have the desired effect, and I felt pretty good heading out.
We all went over to the guild building and as best we could we squeezed into the Celestial Circle. I saw that a small group of people stayed behind and somehow managed to get themselves transported to the volcano using some power of Dream. The rest of us Spirit Walked from Firelight Cove and up into the volcano.
We arrived at a circle somewhere buried deep in the root of the volcano. We appeared to be in some sort of roughly rectangular chamber. The air was thick with black smoke and ash. When we stepped out of the circle we were immediately met by a crowd of undead.
We formed up into two rough lines opposing each other. From behind the undead I could see countless other undead pouring into the chamber through all sorts of small cracks and passages. On the far side of the chamber I could also see what appeared to be the source of much of the smoke and ash. I reasoned that was where we needed to go.
Now that I had gotten us here I found there really wasn’t all the much to do in terms of leading. Everyone pretty much knew what to do. I solid line of fighters formed the front rank. The celestial casters and archers stood behind taken shots as the chance arose. Several of the earth scholars like Glenn and Cyd made extremely good use of the Bane of the Dead cantrip to force back the undead.
And force them back we did. Slowly, steadily, we ground our way to the other side of the room. A few times one of the undead would force it’s way along the walls toward the rear of our lines, but we had so many people that these were easily defeated. The worst part came when we had pushed right up to the very crack where the smoke was coming from. There were several undead right in front of it, and even when defeated there was no room to shove them out of the way to get to the crack.
The right side of our line eventually reached the very far wall and then turned left and began to push the undead in the center of the line over to the left side of our line. This finally managed to clear the crack for us. I had previously detailed Keno, Adrafae and Baron Ruendil to secure the artifact. Once they told me they had it I sounded the retreat.
If anything was going to go wrong, it was going to happen as we backed out. That is always the way it is. It is twice as easy to push forward as it is to fight moving backwards. I was scared to death we were going to lose someone and they were going to end up back behind the undead line. But our luck held, and for the most part the retreat was rather steady and orderly. We moved back into the circle where we came in, and Spirit Walked right back to the guild hall.
We all went back to the tavern and went through the standard treasure distribution process. A couple of magic items were recovered and we drew cards for these. The rest of the gold and items were quickly passed out to people and at this point most everyone began drifting off to bed.
There were a bunch of trolls out trying to pick off people as they made their way from the tavern to their cabins. I know that Nacht was unfortunate enough to get ambushed. I very nearly suffered the same fate. One jumped me as I tried to make it off to bed and very nearly put a very sour ending on the gathering. I was lucky that Crimson was there at the time and he was able to convince the troll to let me go.
And so I made it safely to my bunk. Nacht and Sir Telaris were over on the other side of the tavern casting some sort of Dreamvision. At a different gathering I would have more than likely tried to stay awake to see what that was all about. But I was anxious to have things end on a good note, and so I just buried my head in my pillow, and let the curtain close on the Grand Tournament of Blackstone for the year 608.