It has always seemed to me that there is very little that is more valuable in life than friends. Good friends are who you turn to when your back is to the wall. They’re the ones who don’t turn away from you in your moment of need. This weekend, I learned a lot of lessons in exactly what friendship is.
You see, this weekend I went to Greyhorn. It was a controversial decision on my part, as some old friends recommended that I probably shouldn’t go there. Given overriding concerns everywhere else, it was very hard for me to find anyone who was willing to come with me. I knew it wouldn’t be safe for me to travel the many miles to Greyhorn alone, and so I turned to my friend Caliphar Belmont, and asked him to come with me. He readily agreed, and I was happy to have an ally for my long journey.
It took us a while to get to Greyhorn, but when we got there, it proved a worthwhile trip. I was glad to see old friends that I hadn’t seen in quite a while, such as Sir Faustus Evermore and Guildmaster Big Ben. Mostly, though, I was happy to see Baron Smoke Darkstar and Lady Chancellor Nyneave Crescenthorn, who I had not seen since we met briefly in Ae’ranor a few months before. You know, in a way it’s sort of funny. When I met Lady Nyneave in Therendry, I was a foolish young adventurer who thought he was capable of much more than he really was. I rushed headlong into a situation beyond my control and got soundly thrashed by Mordakai Pennance. With such a foolish beginning, it’s amazing that my friendship with Lady Nyneave has lasted as long as it has. But she has managed to stick with me through my repeated failings (more about that later), and I think that says something about what a great friend she has been to me.
Actually, to that end, I should point out a couple amusing notes from the gossip column in the Greyhorn Newsletter. Noted gossip columnist Mistress Dietre apparently has all types of opinions about me. First of all, she believes that I am romantically pursuing the Lady Chancellor, or perhaps the Lady Chancellor is romantically pursuing me. Either way, it is not true, as Lady Nyneave is quite happy with the good Baron Smoke, and I am quite happy being single. Secondly, the gossip columnist suggested that His Grace Duke Chance plans to make me Baron of one of the Baronies of Greyhorn. This is also untrue, as I am quite satisfied in my current position as Squire to His Grace Duke Ellis Pinetree of Therendry.
At any rate, I suppose I should move on to events of the actual gathering. The Guildmaster was nice enough to provide Caliphar and I with a place to stay, and so we slept in the Guild building, protected by the earth circle. Greyhorn has laws that I find to be a good idea. If one is going to put a ward on their building, they must duplicate a ward key and provide it to the local nobility, so that one cannot use their ward as a place from which to conduct illegal activities. I would assume that the same law applies to the new mystic lock spells, but I am not certain.
Well, once Caliphar and I got set up, we went to the tavern, and found that it had a greater ward on it. One would think that this would have been a significant problem, but in fact the two tavern keepers were so good at recognizing people in and out that it was almost as if there was no ward there at all. Even during battles, the tavern keepers saved many a life through their quick recognitions. The only flaw in the entire weekend came when one of the tavern keepers accidentally recognized a hobgoblin into the tavern, and I dealt with that very promptly.
It didn’t take long, though, for things to heat up at the gathering. We were attacked by shadow creatures. You know, now that I think about it, shadow creatures are becoming a major problem. I have fought them in Therendry, Dar Khabad, and Greyhorn. These ones had a particularly high amount of power, being able to throw elemental damage that hurt as much as a lightning storm spell. We managed to fight off the first few raids, but it was not easy.
Finally, we were sent off on an adventure to find out information about these shadow creatures. We had to crawl into a cave. When we emerged, there were statues and three boxes set on three tables. A rogue gentleman whose name I do not know began examining one of the boxes, and he rifted out. Then, his friend, a gentleman named Arven, examined another box, and he rifted out. Finally, someone went to examine the third box, and he also rifted out. The statues kept saying something about a password, but we had no idea what the password was.
After the people rifted out and we still had not provided the password, the statues came to life and began attacking us. The battle didn’t last long, and we defeated them pretty easily. While the statues may have been nasty, they weren’t nearly fast enough to get out of the way of the scores of blows that were rained down upon them. Unfortunately, they did not take much affect from my blows, but oftentimes I was able to hit them enough to defeat them despite that fact.
When we had defeated the statues, we came into another room, which was filled with chairs set up much like an auditorium. Sir Faustus sat down in one, and began to scream. Immediately I remembered something that Sheriff Glenn Stormwolf had told me months ago. You see, he had gone on an adventure with Duke Chance, Baroness Kellendia, Sir Faustus, and some others, and they had horrible visions of some type of being watching them and speaking to them. When Sir Faustus calmed down, I asked him if his current experience was related to what he had seen that night, and he confirmed that the personage was the same. I don’t know what conclusions to draw from that, but I assume that it isn’t anything good.
With that out of the way, we moved back to the outer chamber of the cave, and the boxes were still on the table. Squire Dae was sent to go touch a box and see if it would now move, but unfortunately, he vanished in a bolt of lightning. I later learned that he re-appeared back in the tavern in a charred mess, but he received some healing and so he was okay.
Finally, we toyed with a candle that we apparently weren’t supposed to mess with, and the entire cave began collapsing around us. Deciding it was a good time to leave, we all ran outside just in time to see the cave collapse.
Now, after all that excitement, I thought that we were likely done for the night, but that was not the case. Many of the significant people of town went off to cast formal magics, and in the meantime a dwarf came into the tavern and told us that his cousin Digger had been captured by giant man-eating wurms. Caliphar and I looked at each other, and then we both got up to go help recover the dwarven fellow’s cousin. Some young adventurers and Arven and his friends all came with us, which made for a pretty effective group, actually.
To get to the area that the dwarf was being held, we first had to crawl through a tunnel the wurms had apparently dug themselves. When we got on the other side, we were attacked by wurms from all sides. This was a serious problem since only Arven and his friend Navae were dealing enough damage to crack the wurms’ tough armor from the front, although I believe Caliphar could also crack it when he got behind them.
Finally, I happened to notice someone lying behind a rock. When I got to him, I realized it was a dwarven fellow, who looked to be a miner. I helped him up, ran him back across the room, and told the younger adventurers to get him out safely. Once he was out, Caliphar, Arven, Navae, and I finally managed to get out ourselves, and safely return to the tavern.
It turned out that the dwarven miner we rescued was in fact Digger, and he began explaining to use about the mystery of the wurms. You see, many years ago, a dwarven miner named Tazil decided to create animals that would be useful for work in the mines. For example, he created a canary that could smell any gasses that were building up to warn of an explosion. Unfortunately, his creations were always flawed. For example, the canaries were always afraid of the dark, and would faint in the mines. Well, the only creation he ever created that did what it was supposed to do were the wurms. They were designed to eat through rock, but not metal. Thus, they would dig holes for the miners to use. Unfortunately, he lost control of the wurms, and they ate him. Now, they are out of control, and no one really knows how to stop them. To make matters even worse, they are growing bigger than ever before. We are not certain if they reproduce asexually or sexually, but we are certain that finding their nest or central gathering point is most likely the key to defeating them.
Well, when we were done talking to Digger, we decided to head to sleep. The rituals had been completed, and so we could again get into our cabin. It was probably 5 AM by the time we got to bed, and Caliphar and I were up bright and early at 9 AM the next morning, going out to scout.
We searched through the entirety of the woods, and found some interesting things. First of all, there were lots of holes where the wurms had been going in and out the night before. Secondly, there were tracks that looked as if they had been left by a large duck. It probably wasn’t quite as big as a human, but it was definitely bigger than a normal duck. This gave me quite some cause for alarm, because on my first trip to Greyhorn, I did encounter a group of rabid ducks that set upon me and attacked me. However, this looked like it was only one duck and not a group, so that was good.
When we had finished circling the area, we went back to town and waited at the tavern while the adventurers woke up. Lady Nyneave was one of the next people to wake up, and she wanted to come with us on another scouting mission so that she could pick some flowers along the way. She did pick quite a nice variety of flowers, and I believe that she presented them to Mythrin, although I am not sure why.
After that, people were really waking up, and the tavern was in full swing. I had some hotcakes for breakfast, and I believe Caliphar also had some hotcakes, except that he went with sausage on the side. Digger was back in town again, and so we used some time to talk to him and place orders for items for him to make. As it turned out, he was quite a skilled smith, and skilled in the new ways of smithing. For example, he could make things like strengthened pouches, and sharpened weapons, and stuff of that nature. He could also refit armor to its full strength even if it had been breached and he could refit armor much faster than anyone else I had ever seen.
Well, seeing as how not much was going on besides breakfast, Caliphar and I went out scouting again. Somehow, though, we missed a bunch of flowers that had grown while we were gone. They were apparently component quality, but too fragile to travel outside Greyhorn. These were harvested and divided up amongst the cantrip capable earth casters. We probably also would have given some to the celestial casters, but their were none. The biggest celestial caster in town (aside from the tavern keeper) was Guildmaster Big Ben, who had a fifth level celestial spell as his highest. Next was Caliphar with a fourth level celestial spell as his highest. Never before had I seen so little celestial in town.
After the flowers were found, a duck came into town. I don’t want to go into too much detail here, as the details are pretty disgusting, but suffice to say that we got some components from it as well. We figured that the duck was probably the one Caliphar and I had seen tracks for earlier.
When we were done distributing those components, Lady Nyneave and I decided to go investigate the holes that were being left behind by the wurms. The Lady Chancellor held on to a rope while I lowered myself down into the hole. What I found was evidence of what Digger had told us the night before. The wurms had eaten clear through the rock and dirt, but had left the metal behind. Lady Nyneave and I both realized that there was a danger that the entire town of Aril’s Bend (the town the gathering was held in) could collapse if something wasn’t done and the ground was chewed out from underneath it.
The strangest thing, though, is that these wurms didn’t seem to be filling in the holes behind them. Normally, earthworms fill in dirt behind them, thus preventing the ground from collapsing. If these wurms weren’t doing the same, we had no idea where the dirt was going. We theorized that if we found huge piles of dirt piled up somewhere, it would give us a clue as to where the wurm’s nest was, but unfortunately we never found that giant pile of dirt.
Well, Lady Nyneave and I went back to town and informed Baron Smoke of our findings. A determination was made that the area that the wurms were coming from had to be discovered, and so Caliphar and I were dispatched to investigate. We followed one of the wurm tunnels down into the ground for quite a distance, before it finally emerged into an open area. It was a twelve-foot drop or so to the ground, and then we found tunnels leading in every direction. We followed the tunnel that seemed like it was leading downwards, as we figured that the wurms were likely coming from deep underground. This is the type of place where Caliphar and I could have used our friend Squire Verbal, as he is an expert at these types of things. However, without him, we had to simply do our best. We followed the tunnel that led downwards until it opened into another cavern. This cavern had three tunnels leading away from it, two that looked naturally formed, and one that definitely was not naturally formed. It appeared to have been carved by a gigantic wurm, about as large around as Caliphar is tall. That tunnel led us out into an open area which appeared to be the remains of an old dwarven mining area. It clearly was not in use anymore, and to our best guess, it probably hadn’t been used in a hundred years. There were a few stray wurms in the mining area, but they were pretty easily dispatched. We looked for evidence of dead canaries, but found none. Nonetheless, our examination of all the tunnels leading outwards from the area led us to believe that this was some type of centralized area that at the very least used to be a wurm nest, even if it were no longer in use for that purpose. We decided that we had found what we were looking for, and so we found an old mining shaft, and used the old pulley system to get back to the surface. Should we need to go after the wurms again in the future and find that particular cave, Caliphar and I both know where the entrance is, and using that entrance is important because shields don’t fit down the normal wurmholes.
When we again got back to the tavern, we discovered that Lady Nyneave and Baron Smoke had left town to go deal with a matter involving a person known as the Sage. Sir Faustus and the Ducal squires had also gone out of town to deal with a matter, but I am not sure what they were dealing with.
Well, when Lady Nyneave and Baron Smoke arrived back in town, a large group of Gouged Eye orcs arrived to parlay with the good Baron. Baron Smoke met with their leaders behind a greater ward, and so to insure the safety of their war chief and their shaman, they demanded Lady Nyneave as a hostage. She agreed to this, and so the orcs held her outside while Baron Smoke negotiated with orcs inside. I was not overly thrilled with the arrangement, but I knew that the Lady Chancellor had Mythrin and Caliphar looking after her, and that made me feel better.
During the entire conversation, I was impressed with the alertness of the young adventurers. They read the actions that Baron Smoke and I were taking very well, and reacted accordingly. They showed the poise of much more experienced adventurers, and I believe that they will be very good adventurers someday.
Well, the negotiations did not go well. It turned out that the Gouged Eye, being a culture based entirely on war, would not agree to the peaceful terms that Baron Smoke had proposed. We did let them leave peacefully, and to my surprise, they returned Lady Nyneave peacefully as well. Of course, not ten minutes later Gouged Eye orcs started flowing in to attack the town. They were not especially difficult to beat, but there were a lot of them, and they all had slays. They were quite a waste of resources, but we did manage to beat them. Baron Smoke was a star of this battle, using gasses to tremendous effectiveness. Eventually, the Gouged Eye decided that they had had enough and withdrew, but I have no doubt that they will eventually return.
Sometime around this time, a group of hobgoblins came into town, one at a time. They were mostly stealing things, and it was irritating. One stole the sign to the tavern, but Caliphar chased him down and caught him. Another destroyed Caliphar’s thrown weapon, and so I chased him down and got him. One managed to steal Squire Zeifren’s sword, but the good Squire eventually chased him down and waylaid him with a rock. This went on for almost an hour, but never really posed much of a direct threat.
Another incident that occurred was that Kendrick Vaas, a merchant, came into town, selling a magic shield. It had some pretty nice effects in it, and so I knew that I would not be able to afford it. I believe it ended up selling for 200 gold or so, and the good merchant intends to use the gold to help out his village.
Well, after we got done with that, we got word (I believe through Sir Faustus, who was back in town) that there was a cave behind a waterfall that we needed to go to. I don’t know what our purpose was, but I believe it had something to do with the shadow creatures, because they attacked us when we got inside. It was a tough fight, and I have to thank Lady Nyneave, who destroyed me and lifed me after I was apparently turned into undead.
I think we eventually managed to do whatever we came for, because Sir Faustus eventually ordered us all out and we left. I am sorry that I cannot provide more details about that encounter, but I really don’t know very much.
Caliphar and I, along with the younger adventurers and Mythrin, accompanied Baron Smoke and Lady Nyneave to go find the Sage. Unfortunately, he was not at home, and so a contingent of Ducal guards was left behind, while other business was taken care of.
This time, Sir Faustus led us into a network of very small, tight tunnels, which a shield barely fit through. I think we were going in to disturb something that was important to the shadow lord, but I am not sure. When I got to the end of the tunnels, I saw that there were a lot of bodies lying in front of me, and I stopped. Every adventurer who had gone out so far had been cut down. I called back to Caliphar behind me and Lady Nyneave behind him and let them know the situation. I then tried to start throwing healing at people to get them up, but the shadow creatures moved imprisoned adventurers into my way.
At this point, I did something I rarely do. I froze. I couldn’t throw healing anymore, because there were people in the way. And I didn’t want to dispel the people in front of me who were in imprisons, because they may have been their own imprisons, and they would have been cut down.
And so, I sat there, not taking action as people bled out, until Lady Nyneave pushed her way to the front and took the decisive action that saved the day. She dispelled the imprisons on both of the people in front of her, and then while they provided a distraction, she ran out of the hole and healed everyone else. Her actions saved everyone from resurrecting, and I hope that her heroism in that incident is not soon forgotten. She cares more than almost anyone I know about saving people, and she is quite good at it, too.
Well, to make a long story short, we managed to defeat the shadows, and we left the cave again. I was standing outside chatting with Caliphar when Baron Smoke ran by and told us that they were after the Sage. Well, we ran all the way back to where the Sage was, but when we got there he had already been abducted, and all the Ducal guards had been slaughtered.
Sir Faustus, though, told us that we had one last chance. We could take an elite group of eight people to disrupt the shadow lord’s plans. We decided to bring Sir Faustus, Lady Nyneave, Arven, Navae, Squire Ducranthu, Squire Zalerian, Caliphar, and myself. We rode on flaming horses to Elmstar, and there we had to obtain a piece of liche flesh that could stop the shadow lord from summoning the undead lord into being. Unfortunately, we were betrayed by the power being that brought us there, and we were left stranded in Elmstar with no horses, no way to get home, and Sir Faustus being controlled by the shadow lord.
Fortunately, Lady Nyneave was able to call in a favor to get us back to Aril’s Bend, and when we got back, Sir Faustus seemed to be himself again. Still, for a little while things looked really bad.
And, ultimately, I guess they wound up being pretty bad. The liche flesh was used to bring the undead lord back, and those undead attacked us later in the night. Baron Smoke and Lady Nyneave had to leave the gathering early to deal with Ducal business, and right after they left we were attacked with waves and waves of nasty undead. There were several greaters, including what I believe were death knights and a mummy.
They pounded us hard to begin with, and we had to fall back into the tavern with many people left out on the field. It was at about this point that the tavern keeper saved the day. She summoned some aura to her hand, and went outside to use her celestial power to blow up the undead.
It was exactly what we needed. We managed to surge out, and using sanctuaries, we managed to get to all the people trapped outside, such as Sir Faustus and Navae.
Well, I can’t think of anything else that happened at the gathering, so I think I am going to end my tales here. I enjoyed my visit to Greyhorn greatly, and I highly encourage others to travel there. The population of adventurers are some of the friendliest adventurers I have met, and I feel that there a great deal of people in Greyhorn that I can feel comfortable calling friends. I can’t wait to go back to Greyhorn again, and dear reader, I hope to see you there.
Scribed by Seronia on the 26th day of April in the year 604.