I don’t write journals much anymore, as I often am too busy to do so. However, every once in a while, if I feel the circumstances merit it, I will record the events of a gathering. I believe this past Fengate gathering merited a journal entry.
I was not originally planning to be in Fengate. However, I was pursuing a criminal who fled justice in Therendry and headed west, and since I found myself in Fengate, I figured I would stop by. I ended up being glad I did.
When I got to the town of Westhill, I met up with my old friends Sigurd and Kivuli, and we all decided to stay in the same cabin. This was especially convenient, given the fact that Sigurd is a talented celestial caster who could cast a ward and then duplicate the necessary ward keys that we needed. It’s always nice when everyone in a cabin can get their own ward key, although it can be potentially dangerous if one is lost.
A few minutes after the gathering began, the earth and celestial circles in town both disappeared. Normally, I would have been worried, but Sigurd was the town magistrate, and he had already told me that it was going to happen. Besides, he had been given new sets by the Baroness, and so all he had to do was cast the new circles.
I was honored to be able to cast the earth circle, and further honored to be invited to be invested in the celestial circle as well. It is a sign of trust when someone allows you to be invested in a circle, and so I was glad to be trusted by the citizens of Fengate.
The gathering began slowly enough, which was good because I got to see who was in town and meet some new people. Cotton and Crimson, the rabbit scavengers from Baddira, were both in attendance. They are quite a formidable duo, and added substantially to the power available to defend the town. Also present were Nimbus and his friend Timith. Nimbus I know well from Therendry, but I do not think I had met Timith before except in passing. However, Timith proved himself to be quite capable, and I believe he was the most substantial fighter present other than Crimson. MOM and her crew were also at the gathering, including Souffle, Armani, and Furball, and they were a joy to see as always. Anno was there, Minstrel Redberry was there, Tan Ji was there, and a new adventurer named Ishmael was there.
Ishmael impressed me quite a bit over the course of the gathering. He was a rogue and though he is just starting out, he shows the poise and confidence of a more experienced adventurer. He is clearly very intelligent and makes good decisions, and his swordsmanship is advanced for an adventurer of his relative experience. I look forward to adventuring with him more and seeing his progress as his adventuring career continues.
Most of the first night of the gathering was dominated by constant werewolf attacks. I don’t understand the whole story, but as far as I can tell from what I have been told, there are several factions of werewolves, and they all have different takes on a young werewolf who is supposed to rise up someday and become their leader. You see, this werewolf was found as a baby back in November, and he was placed into MOM’s care, and in the six months since then, he has apparently grown to twelve years of age. He is apparently the heir to the former leader of all the werewolves (I think Caliban was his name), and if he is able to ascend to leadership, all the tribes would unite under him. Thus, some tribes want to kill him to maintain their independence, while others want him to ascend to leadership.
For the most part, the werewolves that kept coming into town were ones that wanted the young one dead. Thankfully for us, they weren’t very tough and were fairly easily dispatched. I don’t really understand what is going to happen with the young one from here on in, but I have this nagging suspicion that eventually he will wind up choosing his own destiny.
Eventually, after a bunch more werewolf attacks, Cotton and Crimson decided to get to the source of the attacks. Nimbus, Ishmael, Souffle, and I went along with them on a mission to take out the werewolves who kept trying to kill the young one. It was a bloody affair, but we were never in any real danger, and if we didn’t complete eliminate that tribe, we certainly substantially reduced their numbers.
During the course of the battle, there was also a random guy who appeared and started chucking gasses at us. I suspect he was a non-transformed werewolf, but I don’t really know. He was dispatched pretty quickly.
After we got back from that fight, I got a little to eat and drink at the tavern, which was run excellently all weekend by Foundling Farms. Their blueberry muffins were delicious, and they did an excellent job of catering to my peculiar diet. With eating out of the way, I retired to bed for the night. Surprisingly, the air was fairly cool, but not cold, and that made sleeping easy. It was actually one of the most comfortable rests that I have had at an adventurer gathering.
When I awoke the next morning, I found that we had some new visitors in town. Shiva, a sarr that I had met in Fengate back in November, had showed up. She is fun and witty to hang around with, and so I was happy to see her at the gathering. Her usual traveling companion, Ifrit, was not with her, but she did have a friend named Kjata with her. Kjata is a sarr who is apparently a mix of several different types of sarr, and he seemed like a nice enough fellow. I believe he is a dual school scholar, but I could be wrong about that. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see him for long, because he was apparently ill, and so he quickly went to bed and slept for the rest of the gathering.
Also, Roison, or Ro, as she is popularly known, showed up in town on Saturday morning. Apparently she had a ceremony to attend on Friday, which is why she did not show up then, but her addition to town on Saturday was a nice bonus because she added a bit of extra healing, which was extremely useful. She also set up a toll on the tavern porch, charging people five gold to enter the tavern, but Furball counter-acted Ro by charging people a hug to enter the tavern instead, and Furball’s door became much more popular.
I was pleased to see that the tavern was open when I got up, because I was very hungry. I think I had some more blueberry muffins for breakfast, as well as a drink, and then I was ready to go out adventuring. I set out with MOM, Souffle, and Ishmael to find adventure out in the woods. The first thing we came upon was a house with the door slightly ajar, and blood splattered everywhere. I kicked in the door and went charging inside, only to find that everyone inside had been dead for a while and could not be helped. Apparently it was a family that had been slaughtered there, and that made things all the more gruesome to me.
Thankfully, we found a trail of blood leading away from the scene, and we quickly followed it. It led us to some orcs in the woods who were attempting a summoning ritual. The guard orcs quickly attacked us, but they were easily dispatched. I attempted to disrupt the summoning by shouting at the caster, but I was not successful. A moment later, a chaos elemental appeared. The orc dropped his circle to let the chaos elemental out, and I have to admit I was a bit worried. I told MOM, Souffle, and Ishmael to handle the orcs so that I could concentrate on the chaos elemental.
I was using the classic tactic of hanging back and waiting for an opportunity to strike when the elemental went to cast it spells. I saw it move aura into its throwing hand, and I pounced. It hit me with a taint blood and a cause mortal wounds, but I shield magicked one and cloaked the other. It also hit Souffle with a cause mortal wounds, which caused him to drop, but I was able to get him back up fairly easily.
Once I had the chaos elemental back on its heels where it couldn’t cast spells, the fight didn’t take long to win. The chaos elemental had claws, and any experienced adventurer knows that claws are no match for a sword and shield. I took out the chaos elemental, and MOM, Souffle, and Ishmael took out the orcs, and we were lucky enough to find some treasure to reward us for our efforts. However, the real treasure was knowing that we had eliminated the orcs who killed the family and made them pay for their horrific deed.
Nearby, we found a gate leading down into the ground, and we decided to investigate it. First, we lowered Souffle down to check it out. He found another doorway, and so the rest of us jumped down through the gate to join him in his investigations. We went forward through the doorway he had found, and we wound up in some type of an armory. The weapons were old, broken, and useless, but there was another gate leading onwards. We went through the gate, and we came to a large arena. Inside the arena, there were many suits of armor lined up. One of the suits of armor appeared to be higher quality than the others. When we approached, it came to life.
It started out swinging for ten dagger blows worth of damage, and I thought that it would be a good opportunity for Souffle and Ishmael to get some training. I stood back with MOM and let the two of them go after the suit of armor. Pretty soon, the suit of armor was swinging for six dagger blows, which we assumed meant that they were hurting it.
At one point, Souffle had to step out to refit his armor, and so I stepped in to take his place. Jokingly, I started swinging at the suit of armor for one dagger blow. It started swinging back at me just as hard. At that point, I had an “Ah ha!” moment and realized that we were dealing with a mimic creature, that mimics whatever you swing at it. MOM came up with the next brilliant idea. She told Souffle and Ishmael to swing their normal damage at it, and then follow it up by swinging one dagger blow, so that it would only come back by swinging one dagger blow at them. The trick worked, and Souffle and Ishmael defeated the monster.
We searched around some more around the arena, but we didn’t find anything else particularly interesting, and so we returned to the surface. Once back there, we started back towards the tavern, only to run into a random circle of power along the side of the road on the way. I used a detect magic spell on it, and it turned out to be an earth circle, protective in nature. I found it odd that someone would put up a circle not powerful enough to be used for resurrections, but I figured they were using it as a base from which to cast summoning rituals, or perhaps undead creation.
However, it was not DFM’d, because it was not worth using the components to destroy the circle until its implications were understood. It was reported later to the Baroness, so she is aware of the unauthorized circle within her lands.
Moving on, we came across a family packing up their carts. Apparently, they had been renting their farm from the Wally Art Trading Corporation, and they had been making the interest payments, but not the rent payments, and so eventually it just became too much for them to handle and they had to leave. I was sad to hear a story about the Evendarrian Dream not coming to be for this family, but on the other hand, Wally Art has the right to take back his land if the payments aren’t being made. It’s just an unfortunate set of circumstances all around. We did offer them some money, but they had decided to move on and seek better opportunities elsewhere.
When we got back to town, most people were now awake, and it seemed like a good time to get lunch. MOM was cooking, and she made me what was called a cheese quesadilla, which was quite good. She, however, was concerned that she had not made it large enough, and so she offered me a second quesadilla, which was certainly fine with me.
A little bit after lunch, we were attacked by some wandering trolls that came into town. At first I figured trolls couldn’t be too bad, but these were the nastiest, most powerful trolls I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of trolls. Each troll could take at least four hundred dagger blows of damage, probably more. They could each resist magic five times or so each, and resist a bunch of poisons as well. The fighters could swing for eighteen dagger blows with mighty blows and parries, and the casters had huge columns. To be totally honest, I was a little surprised that they couldn’t phase my attacks.
On the plus side, they weren’t very skilled fighters, which gave us an advantage. Crimson and I tried to do most of the attacking from the front, thus trying to give people like Nimbus, Souffle, and Ishmael a chance to get behind the trolls. Unfortunately, they quickly learned that Crimson was the biggest threat to them, and so they directed most of their spells at him. At one point, Crimson went down and we were beginning to get surrounded, and I thought we might be nearing the end of our rope. However, Cotton and Kivuli both showed up, and that helped swing the tide back in our favor. With their added help, we defeated the trolls. Unfortunately, the trolls regenerated and got back up again. I tried to get people to killing blow them with fire, but since Nimbus was the only large celestial caster in the immediate area, he had to run around like a maniac from troll to troll killing blowing them. A fire sword would have been amazingly helpful right then.
A second wave of trolls showed up, but there weren’t as many of them, and we dispatched them fairly easily.
At some point in the morning, I got to fight in a couple duels. The first one I was challenged to by a random elf that walked into the tavern. He told me he was the champion of his tribe, and had come to assess the skill off the elves in the area. He fought Ishmael first. Ishmael defeated him by finding his weakness and exploiting it. The elf champion constantly kept all his weight on one foot, and so he couldn’t move that foot, and Ishmael took advantage of that fact to keep hitting him in the foot.
I opened my mouth probably a little more than I should have, and told the elf champion that his technique was terrible because he was leaving himself with no mobility. He asked me to prove that I could do better, and so I had to go back up my words with my actions. He fought much better against me, like he was concentrating more. Still, I managed to defeat him five hits to one, and he left saying that he would tell his tribe that there were great Elven warriors in Westhill.
The other duel I fought was a sparring match against Cotton. That was a VERY tough fight, and I would not even dare to criticize Cotton’s technique, because he’s clearly just as good as I am. I think he’s a bit faster than me, and my positioning is a little bit better, which makes us an even match. Cotton basically tried to get me to open my shoulder so he could strike it, while I refused to budge my shield off of it, instead keeping my stance constant. Cotton constantly tried different attack styles against me, and so I was constantly having to make adjustments. I did end up beating him in the sparring match, although just barely, and I suspect that any future sparring we would do would probably be an even match.
After lunch was finished, Ishmael and Souffle wanted to go back out to find more adventure, and so we took Tan Ji with us and went down to the lake. Lounging by the side of the lake, we saw a gorgeous woman. Quickly, though, it became apparent to me that she was not so much lounging by the side of the lake as she was living in the water. Now, I have never before personally encountered any women of the water, but I have read a great deal, and I have always been told that women that live in lakes are there pretty much to drown men. Thus, I was not especially trusting of this particular woman. Tan Ji also seemed intelligently cautious, and Ishmael told me that he had problems with women anyway, and thus even attractive ones couldn’t really hold sway over him.
Souffle, however, was dumbstruck by her beauty. He was immediately willing to do almost anything to help her. The woman explained to us that she and her sisters had been trapped in the lake by a kraken that had moved into the tunnel they came in through, thus blocking their escape. She wanted us to kill the kraken for her.
I immediately said no. Krakens are huge, they eat ships, and a group of four adventurers, especially when most of those adventurers are inexperienced, was not going to be able to defeat a kraken. The woman in the lake assured me that it was just a tiny baby kraken, but I still thought it was a bad idea, and Tan Ji agreed with me. Souffle, however, was dead set on helping her, and so I eventually relented, although I sighed to myself, “I know I’m going to regret this.” It turned out that it wouldn’t be me who regretted it.
The woman provided us each with a piece of seaweed, and the seaweed allowed us to breathe, talk, and cast spells underwater. Alchemy was useless, which hurt Souffle, but everyone could swing a weapon, and so no one was totally useless.
I have to say, it was quite beautiful under the water. At various times, I saw schools of seahorses, and at one point a fish bumped into my nose. A crab also pincered my foot, which was less pleasant, but I survived.
The tunnel was too narrow to fight four across, and so we rotated out shifts. I usually anchored the center while I was on the line, because I had a shield and I swung the hardest. Tan Ji, who also had a shield, often fought on the right side, while Ishmael fought on the left, and Souffle filled in everywhere. The kraken’s head was way down the tunnel, but the tentacles could extend very far out. Each tentacle took approximately a stone bolt to kill and hurt you for a magic missile when it hit you. I stepped back to refit my armor quite a bit, but I was never in any real danger against the tentacles, and I don’t think Tan Ji, Souffle, or Ishmael were, either.
We carved our way through the kraken tentacles as we moved forward, and finally we got near the head. The head was much more powerful than the tentacles. The head had a whole lot of durability, and when it hit you, it struck for a lightning bolt of damage that a shield could not stop. I told the others to keep the tentacles off of me, I tucked my shield behind my back, and I started hitting the head as much as I could. After a few minutes of such abuse, it finally fell lifeless. We recovered a decent amount of treasure from it, which we later split, and we also found four more pieces of seaweed, which would become important later on.
When we left the water, Souffle was given a magic hairpin by the lake woman, and invited back to the lake that night for a more practical appreciation of her gratitude. I encouraged him not to go, but he wasn’t going to listen to me when he was that love-struck.
When we got back to the tavern, I made sure to get my piece of seaweed from Souffle, and then I stayed to help Furball and Sigurd guard the town while everyone else went off to explore some tomb or crypt or something. Sigurd went off to do something, and so it was just Furball and I guarding the town. I was sitting on the tavern porch while Furball wandered around, and soon she started gesturing frantically to me. I came over to see what was going on, and I saw four people acting strangely around a well.
It didn’t take long to figure out that the strange actions were probably due to hallucinogens in the well, and so I purified one of the townspeople. He explained to me that they were field-hands who had come in for a drink of water and he didn’t really remember much after that. Before I could purify any other townspeople, one of them jumped in behind me, and told me that he was “Peasant Man,” and he was a superhero with super powers. I purified him, and he told me that I had stolen his superpowers, and he must drink more of the well water so he could get his powers back. I stopped him, and I purified another townsperson while Furball purified the last one. One took his purification well, while another told me that I told taken away his “high” and he needed to get it back by drinking more water. I pulled the well bucket up, and sniffed the water, and it turned out that the next well water was instant death elixir. I decided at that point that it would be a good idea to cut the rope and remove the bucket.
I had Furball bring Peasant Man and High Guy to the tavern for some water, while I went to grab Sigurd. As I was speaking with Sigurd, I saw Peasant Man running across the field, trying to get to the well. I sprinted across the field and stopped him, and then I moved over towards the well with Sigurd so that we could talk and protect the well at the same time. Unfortunately, High Guy slipped past us and jumped in the well.
I sighed heavily and told Sigurd that I would go in to retrieve him. Sigurd held the rope and I lowered myself down into the well. My sword and shield didn’t fit well, so I just took my spells with me. I didn’t figure picking up a body would be too complicated. Unfortunately, when I got to the bottom of the well, I found no body. However, I did find a bunch of kobolds with gasses. There were three kobolds in the front line, each holding five gasses, and there were some more behind them. I dodged like Caliphar, but I took a couple hits, although thankfully I managed to get new poison shields up so I was never actually poisoned. The second wave was more of the same, and Sigurd came down the well because he was beginning to get worried, and he helped me deal with the third wave. At this point, all that was left was three kobolds, and they were protecting some type of alchemy laboratory. Sigurd imprisoned himself, and I fought around him, and we managed to take out the last few kobolds. Searching the room, we found a box, but it was trapped, and neither Sigurd nor I can disarm traps. Thankfully, Furball can disarm traps, and so we brought her down the well to disarm the trap.
When we went back up the well, Sigurd has a cantrip tome delivered to us from the Baroness, and the cantrip tome had the cantrip Purify Well in it, which I was able to use to purify the remaining alchemy out of the well’s water supply. In the end, I don’t know if there was ever any poison in the water. I think the mischievous kobolds were dumping alchemy into the bucket to cause general mayhem. Hopefully, even if they resurrect they will have learned their lesson and they will not try it again.
With the well taken care of, and with all the other adventurers back in town, I was asked to observe a spirit forge, where Armani spirit forged from an earth templar to a fighter. I think it was a very smart move for her. Templar is not a good adventuring class when you are starting out; it becomes much more effective when you gain A LOT of experience. As a fighter, she will be able to focus her skills more and probably be much more effective.
As dusk began to approach, it was time for dinner. MOM fixed a wonderful spaghetti and broccoli dish for me that was extremely good. I think everyone else had hamburgers, though I am not sure. Over dinner, I had an interesting philosophical discussion with Cotton, Ro, and Crimson, with a heavy emphasis on life philosophies and theories of law and justice. After dinner, I spent a while relaxing, and having a thoughtful, philosophical discussion with Ishmael that I found extremely interesting.
I also received an invitation to go with Sigurd and have tea with the Baroness. Now, one has to understand that I have very little training in formality, and so I was probably a little awkward around the Baroness, who is clearly a lady of class, but I acquitted myself as best I could. I felt awful having nothing in the least bit nice to wear, but unfortunately I had heard no announcement of a feast, and so had not brought along my formal attire. Nevertheless, the Baroness did not seem to mind my somewhat ragged appearance.
The Baroness had with her her lady in waiting, Sara, Minstrel Redberry, and a guard. As the tea began, we conversed on many topics, and Sigurd and I did our best to bring the Baroness up to date on what was going on. The tea that we shared was excellent, and I also got a chance to try crackers with goat cheese that had come from Foundling Farms. Of course, before I tried the goat cheese, I had to make sure it did not come from Souffle’s goats, because I had heard too many bad things about Souffle’s goats. When I was assured it came from the goats from the rest of Foundling Farms, I thought it a lot safer.
After our tea was finished, I went back to the tavern for a while and listened to some music from Minstrel Redberry. Meanwhile, Sigurd received information saying that the liche, Garlac, was planning to attack Westhill. Sigurd thought of this as an opportunity. He asked me to find one or two people I could trust, and be ready to go on a secret mission to destroy Garlac’s bottle while Garlac fought the town. I chose Kivuli to come with me, which was a good move from my perspective, but probably not so good for the town. I didn’t even think of it at the time, but Kivuli, Cotton, and I were the three major healers in town, so removing two of us left a definite lack of healing behind. Shiva later told me that things apparently got so bad without us that she decided to try to go find us, although she was not successful in doing so.
Before the Garlac attack occurred, I got the sense that there was a spirit in the earth circle. I ran over there, and found that it was Souffle’s spirit. Apparently he had gone back down to the water to see his girlfriend, and she had pulled him under and drowned him. MOM performed the resurrection, and I told people that I was going to make sure that the creature that killed Souffle paid for it with its life. However, at that moment my concentration had to be on the Garlac situation.
I can’t speak much about what happened in town because I was not there, but I am under the impression that Garlac hit the town hard, and they bent, but they did not break. I believe that Cotton and Ro managed to protect themselves and then save the town, but I don’t know as I wasn’t there.
For my part, Kivuli and I managed to get Garlac’s bottle and his dog’s bottle pretty easily. I shattered the dog’s bottle against my knee, but Garlac’s bottle was rendered. I used a Greater DFM scroll and a set of components that Sigurd had given me to quickly toss down a circle and de-render the bottle, after which point I was able to smash that one against my knee, too. Combined with the adventurers back in town destroying Garlac’s body, that ended Garlac’s existence.
When we got back to town, there was a major political issue that erupted between Crimson and Sigurd, but I am not going to discuss it in this space, because I don’t feel qualified to talk about it. If anyone wants to know about it, they can talk to one of the involved parties.
While the political issue was being dealt with, I was making preparations to help Souffle get revenge on the Siren that had killed him. I still had one piece of seaweed remaining (Souffle had lost the other three with the rest of his equipment when he was killed), and so I figured that if we couldn’t lure the Siren to the surface, I could go in after it. Kivuli, Shiva, Ishmael, Anno, and Redberry all came with Souffle and I for the attempt.
First, we attempted to have Souffle lure the Siren out by acting like he still loved her and wanted her. That didn’t work. At that point, Kivuli loaned me a light spell, and I took the piece of seaweed and went down after her. People (most notably Redberry) tried to persuade me that going into the water by myself at night was stupid, but I was set on my course of action.
Unfortunately, while I was down in the water, I did not manage to locate the Siren, who had apparently already escaped to sea by that point. I did hear a larger kraken coming, which I assume was angry that we killed the baby kraken. However, the large kraken was still a ways off, so I was not too worried. A shark did attack me, but I killed it easily. Searching the Siren’s nest in more detail, I managed to find Souffle’s equipment, including his magical hairpin, and so I grabbed that to give back to him. When I got back to the surface, I gave him all of his equipment back, for which he thanked me, though everyone was disappointed that I didn’t find the Siren so we could kill it.
Kivuli suggested that we should try fighting the bigger kraken, but I thought that was a bad idea. However, Kivuli, Shiva, Ishmael, Anno, and Redberry came with me to go out looking for more trouble. What we found were some large chaos elementals that swung for ten dagger blows of damage that could go right through a shield. I didn’t have too much trouble with them, since I just went into tuck the shield behind the back mode again. However, we were blowing through spells quickly, and so everyone else was already considering pulling out by the time we finally defeated the last one. Once we destroyed the last one, we decided it would be getter to head back into town instead of staying out in the woods looking for trouble.
Once back in town, trouble found us, but it was nothing serious. There were a bunch of zombies attacking. For the most part, Kivuli and I sat back and let the other adventurers handle things. We stepped in if we thought there was going to be trouble, but for the most part the monsters were silly zombies doing dance routines. For some reason, those things often start coming out towards the end of a gathering, during what is traditionally known as “stupid o’clock.”
Occasionally, there was a powerful undead in the mix. For example, a couple undead threw death spells at Kivuli and I. I guess we looked like easy targets there on the porch. They did get us to move, though. We beat them down before we resumed our places on the porch. One monster tried to sneak in behind us, but I killed him with a pool cue shot from my swords. I lined the shot up perfectly, and everything. I was very proud.
We were also attacked by a series of doppelgangers. Redberry wanted us to leave his doppelganger alone so they could have a duet, but Kivuli had a magic storm up and needed target practice. Eventually, he managed to take down the evil doppelganger with repetitive magic missiles. I killed the Kivuli doppelganger, and I don’t remember what other doppelgangers there were.
At that point, I finally decided I was tired enough to turn in for the night, and so I must bring this journal entry to a close. Before I do so, though, I would like to thank the people of Fengate for their hospitality and let them know that I hope to be able to visit again soon.