Well, another trip to Therendry is done, and that means it must be time for another journal entry. It's funny, I do not record constant journal entries for any other land I travel to, but there is something unique about Therendry. Its citizens seem acutely interested in the past, and how it affects the present. Therefore, I think perhaps history is more relevant in Therendry than in some other lands. Perhaps the reason for this is because Dame Pai Zhi of Therendry is an excellent scholar who is nearly unparalleled in her ability to preserve history. Or perhaps it is because the people of Therendry have come to understand the value of the lessons the past can teach us. Either way, the value of history in Therendry makes these journal entries seem significant to me, and thus I have continued and will continue to write them. Enough rambling, though. Perhaps I should end the preamble start into the history itself.
I arrived in Therendry on Friday evening, the 8th of August in the year 603. I traveled with my friend Sheriff Glenn Stormwolf. I am now living in Therendry, on the lands that belong to Glenn's clan, and so traveling in to town together seemed to be the easiest way to go. I see it as a shining testament to his generosity that he was so willing to allow me a place to stay for the time I am in Therendry. He is a good man and a noble defender of the lands and I have nothing but praise for him.
When we arrived in Calais for the gathering, it seemed as if things were pretty quiet, for once. We were easily able to unpack our things in the cabin where we were staying, and headed up to the tavern for the traditional opening greetings. When they were over, I hadn't yet had five minutes to socialize when a dwarf, Gunther by name, came into the tavern, seeming very upset. When Glenn and I asked him what was wrong, he informed us that he had just been assaulted and wanted to press charges. We asked him to take us to the man who had attacked him, and he led us to a spot just outside the tavern.
There, we found a man lying on the ground. I quickly checked him to see if he was alive, but he was not. I administered him a life spell, and Glenn hit him once, very softly, to make sure that he remained unconscious and didn't try to escape. We then asked Gunther for his story.
Gunther said that the man had asked him about getting a crossbow. Gunther had told the man that he could get one for him back at his camp, and so the two started off together, accompanied by Sir Strider and another elf of whose identity I am not sure. However, the man apparently decided to attack his three escorts, and was quickly subdued. That was about the time Gunther came inside and found us.
We brought the man inside and tied him up, intending to question him for his side of the story. However, we did not have enough rope to tie up his legs, and so only his hands were bound and his weapons taken. Right about then, another group of people arrived in the tavern. They were apparently grave robbers looking for the location of the crypt of a vampire. I didn't get to talk to them at all, though, because right about then the tied-up man bolted. He got through the door with Gunther hot in pursuit. Since Glenn was dealing with the grave robbers, he sent me to try to recapture the man. Unfortunately, though, I wasn't fast enough. I cast a light spell and searched for him, but wasn't able to discover his location. Not wanting to be stranded out in the dangerous woods, Gunther and I headed back to town.
When we got back the grave robbers were still in the tavern, but had not become violent. I glanced around and noticed that the townsfolk were significantly outnumbered. Hoping that it would not become violent, I turned to talk to Gunther. He told me that he had found a letter on the man who assaulted him, and had me read the letter to him. It said something about a village where a good portion of the population had been captured by the residents of a nearby keep. The villagers were planning some sort of assault on the keep. I thought that a party should be sent to check it out, and Gunther promised me that he would come back and seek my help in a few minutes, one he had time to investigate.
With that matter somewhat resolved, I next turned my attention to the grave robbers. They had taken a townsfolk and killed them as part of a sacrifice or something like that (to the best of my understanding), and of course we could not allow that to happen. And so, despite being outnumbered, we fought the grave robbers. They had no magical protections, but there numbers were had to compensate for. Sir Strider went down, and I just started unloading. I took down somewhere between 10 and 15 with spells, but there were more left. Hard pressed by two of the remaining grave robbers, I was forced to retreat. I organized whatever townsfolk I could find outside, and we pressed back into the tavern. I managed to get Sir Strider up, and before long most of the townspeople were up and the tide of battle had turned. The grave robbers were defeated not long after.
However, there was still the matter of the crypt that they had mentioned to attend to. If there was a vampire, it had to be dealt with. We gathered the town, and headed down to the crypt. Glenn, who, similarly to me, likes nothing better than destroying undead, was particularly happy about getting the chance to go destroy the foul creations. By this time, I had found my old friend Liriel, an elf who is one of the smartest adventurers I have ever had the pleasure of adventuring with. We agreed to look out for each other on the trip into the crypt. I am glad that we did, too, because Liriel saved my life several times. She had the good sense to get out of the way when an undead came at me swinging his weapon for 20 dagger blows of damage. I tried to hold it off, but was unable to and fell. Liriel, though, was able to get to me and administer a cure light wounds before I died. The fight took a long time, but eventually we were able to clear out the crypt and head back up to town. I do not believe that we destroyed the vampire itself, though, because we had no stake of woe with us.
Not long after we arrived back in town, there were constant goblin raids upon the citizenry. One goblin said something about holding slaves, but I was unable to get any more information before it was killed. The entire situation seemed rather strange to me. Typically, goblins are wimpy creatures, afraid to come out at night for fear of the undead and other monstrosities of the darkness. However, these goblins were conducting full scale raids and even managed to drop some adventurers. The situation didn't add up.
I headed back to the tavern, and Liriel and I talked over possible explanations for the events of the night. We had thus far learned that there were forest creatures who had somehow been mutated to be different from their original size. For example, there were bears the size of dwarves and dwarves the size of giants roaming around. Also, there was the undead attack and the goblin raids. We theorized that perhaps the goblin had been emboldened by the smaller stature of the trolls and bears and such and so had become braver about coming out at night. To see if there was anything to our point, we went out and investigated the land to see if we could find any type of taint that would explain the mutations. We found none, which seemed to suggest several possibilities. Either the taint was somehow cast directly on each affected being, or the taint was cast through the sky with some type of weird celestial magic, or the taint was alchemical in nature, or the taint was something like dragon magic that only the most advanced of mages could detect. We both thought that it would be a good idea to capture one of the altered creatures and try to examine it, but such an event never occurred, for we didn't find any of the altered creatures that night.
Before too long, our services were again called for. The entire town was being brought to the healer's guild. The bottle of a vampire named Mandrake was being destroyed (I am not sure if he was the same vampire we fought in the crypt), and the town was needed to defend the during the ritual. Several elite fighters and casters (including Lord Zug and Baron Simeon Silvercord) were stationed inside the circle to protect against a possible rift, while the rest of the town waited outside. Sure enough, the circle was attacked from the outside, but under the leadership of Baron Valoric Treehawke, we were fairly easily able to defend the circle. However, things changed when Mandrake rifted himself and some of his toughest lieutenants, including a blue hoardling, into the circle to attack the ritual from there. Despite the fighting prowess of those inside, Mandrake was easily able to capture the circle, and the best we could do was wait around outside and recognize people in and out to life those inside.
Somehow, though (and I am not entirely sure how), we were able to complete the ritual and destroy the bottle. Mandrake rifted out in a rather foul mood. Unfortunately, several townspeople were bitten by vampires in the course of events, and I believe one was forced to resurrect. Still, though, considering how bad things could have been, that was a relatively clean result for the entire ordeal.
After that entire episode was done, it was back to goblin raids. I did manage to capture one goblin, though, and question him. He informed me (not especially willingly) that the goblins were raiding town as a rite of passage, a test of manhood per se. We tried to point out to him that the goblins were just wasting their population with such a test, but of course he didn't listen. He probably didn't have authority to make decisions anyway, so chances are it wasn't significant either way.
After the goblin ordeal, I finally decided to go to bed, and my other cabinmates arrived not long afterwards. Sleep was relatively difficult to come by in the heat and humidity, but I was tired enough to manage it.
I am not sure when I woke up the next morning, but I think it was rather late. However, not many other people were awake in town, so it couldn't have been too late. The only monsters wandering around were some trolls. I met one while traveling with my old friend Beryl and her "special someone," Rapting Little. The troll told us that it wanted to fight one of us in an honor duel. It promised that it simply wanted to train, and not hurt anyone. To ensure that it kept its promise, Beryl weaknessed it.
The terms of the honor duel were set to the following: no magic was allowed, the winner would heal the loser, and both of us would swing for only one dagger blow of damage. Having agreed to the terms, we touched swords and began. Fortunately for me, though, this particular troll needed a great deal of work on his fighting, and so I had hit him twenty or so times without him hitting me once when he conceded the duel. I was happy because the result meant that I had not lost my magic armor. The troll gave me all his treasure, a copper piece, as payment for the loss, and I gave the copper to Beryl to help replace the weakness gas she had used.
Around then we were paid a visit by a far who worked for Lord Oberon. She was looking for people to gather components for her for some sort of ritual. Being uncomfortable dealing with fae, I declined to get involved, but to my surprise, Beryl was anxious to get involved in this contest, as was the mystic wood elf named Verbal. The reason that Beryl being anxious to get involved surprised me is that she had been kidnapped by a fae the night before, and the same fae had also attacked Rapting with sleep spells. However, when I asked her about it, she told me that she wasn't actually kidnapped, but went willingly. That, however, is just about all I know about the situation.
At noontime there was a meeting called of the Healer's Guild, and I decided to attend to see what the Healer's Guild of Therendry is all about. I liked some of the things I heard, and was less fond of others. Unfortunately, the Calais Healer's Guild, like so many others, had no resources to work with, and so was always scraping and not able to fulfill its duties to the fullest extent. Having dealt with the same situation in Avendale, I found this state of affairs upsetting, and so ended up making a donation to the guild.
The meeting lasted an hour and a half, and much of it was spent setting up the guild structure. The guild has six tiers of people. The Guildmaster/Guildmistress, currently Parthynia, is of course at the top. Next on the list is the Assistant Guildmaster/Guildmistress, currently Fina. Following that are the master healers, then the journeymen, then the apprentices, and then the petitioners. I don't know a great much more about the system itself, but I am certain that if one wanted to, they could find out more by contacting Guildmistress Parthynia or Assistant Guildmistress Fina.
After the guild meeting, things were pretty quiet for a while. Elementals came into town as some type of a test for Baron Treehawke, and after each was defeated a question was asked and then Baron Treehawke had to cast a spell to supply the correct answer. They were strange elementals, though, for they were unaffected by banish, and that confused me. One of the elementals managed to set the woods on fire, but quick thinking by Assistant Guildmistress Fina allowed us to stop the blaze from spreading.
At one point, Beryl and I tried tracking the dwarven fellow, Gunther, with whom I had spoken the night before, hoping to discover what happened with the assault on the keep situation, but the trail had long since been covered over and there was no way to figure out where he had gone.
There was also a situation where two elven men kidnapped Adrian, a celestial mage of the town, and Caliphar and I took off after them. Unfortunately, we were unable to find them, and I don't know how the situation eventually worked out.
Mostly, though, things remained quiet until two things happened at once. First, we learned that dwarven giants were holding slaves that had to be freed. Second, we learned that several townspeople had resurrected in the healer's guild circle, and a field of roses had grown around the circle.
We decided to deal with the healer's guild situation first. When we got there, we discovered that the roses berserked anyone who touched them. Thus, accessing the circle was difficult. We soon discovered, though, that the roses could be cut in one large swoop of a sword, and cleared that way. It caused a berserk, but it could be resisted or shielded. Thus, we were fairly easily able to clear half the roses out, but then we ran into a large rose that would not be cut. It had some type of magical properties, but could not be dispelled. Glenn told me that the entire rose trap had been set up by a chaos queen that he had a particularly strong vendetta against. We discovered that the large rose acted like a battery, storing spells that were then discharged by the smaller roses.
There wasn't any more time to investigate the roses, though, because we were attacked by some of the dwarven giants. They swung massive and were extremely difficult to defeat. They were relatively weak against spells, though, and that was how we took them down. As more and more waves of them emerged, however, we realized that we had to go after the source of them, and so we went to deal with the slave holding dwarven giants.
I can't honestly say what happened inside the dwarven ginats cave in the first stages of the battle, because I was outside guarding the rear along with His Grace Ellis Pinetree, Guildmistress Parthynia, my new friend Lock, a relatively inexperienced healer named Nicola, and several others whose names unfortunately escape me right now. Small monsters kept ambushing the back of the line, but Lock did an excellent job dispatching them, and we were never in any real danger.
As the rest of the force advanced deeper into the cave, Baron Treehawke came and retrieved the rest of us to get us to catch up with the rest of the line. Not much was going on at the back of the line. We kept getting assaulted by small monsters, but they were dispatched easily. Then, several large dwarven giants appeared in the tunnels behind us, and we ran up to the main body of the army for reinforcements. His Grace backpacked myself and John Little, and together the three of us easily conquered the dwarven giants. I must say, it is the first time I have been backpacked by a Duke and it was a unique experience, one I doubt will occur again anytime soon, especially since I normally do the backpacking.
When we got to the ed of the cavern, we found a narrow tunnel leading to a medium sized room. Because not everyone could fit in the narrow tunnel, though, I stayed at the back with His Grace for some conversation and, of course, to offer him protection. Apparently, the medium sized room was filled with undead with a vampire commanding them. We trapped the vampire in a circle of power, though, and defeated the rest of the undead. Then most of the town went back into town, and only a few of us stayed behind to deal with the vampire. The vampire did try to escape, but was heroically cut down by Baron Simeon Silvercord. With the threat finally vanquished, we were able to return to town, and I took the opportunity to catch a quick dinner.
After I returned from my dinner, I learned that the entire town had been cut down by a leprechaun and only a few people made it out alive. I asked those people to show me where the leprechaun was, figuring that even if I couldn't find it, I could at least pick people up, and save some lives. Fortunately, though, by the time I got there the threat had been dealt with, and so no heroic action was needed.
At this point Adrian organized a group of people to go find some slavers, and since I always like hunting slavers, I decided to come along. Since Liriel had left town, I decided that for this adventure I would watch Lock's back and he would watch mine, an idea which worked out since neither of us got into any real danger. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find out any of the information that Adrian wanted, and so in that respect the mission was a failure.
Let me pause here a moment to say a bit about Lock. I only met him this gathering, and yet I think he is a warrior with a great amount of potential. He uses a two handed sword, which I admire, because very few fighters fight in such a style these days. It is a style that i best suited to certain fighting situations and not others, but there are certain situations where access to a two handed sword or polearm can be the difference between victory and defeat. Lock has a ways to go yet as a fighter, but I would predict that one day he will be a great hero of Therendry.
Anyway, getting back to the journal, it was a very quiet night once evening fell, and I spent most of it talking to Nicola and Glenn's friend Mirage. I learned that Nicola was engaged to Adrian, which I did not previously know, and was having a rough day because of all that had happened to him. Mirage, who I might add does an excellent job of looking after Glenn, made the good observation that things were too quiet, and Nicola and I both agreed with her. It seemed like something was getting ready to happen.
And before too long, something did happen. We were attacked by the nemesi. Realizing that I couldn't fight them, I backpacked LOrd Zug, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Lord Zug is one of the easiest fighters to backpack that I have ever known. He protects his healer well, he doesn't get out of range of his healer, and he takes the effect of healing spells quicker than most. However, despite Lord Zug's skill, this nemesi, a general, was a tough fight. He swung for twenty dagger blows, and could increase that to 45 massive. I dumped two entire healing pools and many cure mortal wounds spells into Lord Zug, but eventually we did manage to take the nemesi general down. I heard there were other nemesi around town, but I don't know anything about that.
A little later that evening, His Grace Ellis Pinetree announced that we were going to go into the crypt of Mandrake the vampire and kill him once and for all. We marched down to the crypt through the pouring rain, but were met with heavy resistance at the door. There were banshees, mummies, and other assorted nasty undead. Wecouldn't break through Mandrake's defenses until Glenn set up a bane of the dead on one side of the entrance and I set up one on the other. The constant stream of harm undead spells was too much for them to handle, and they all were either destroyed or fell back. That allowed the town to get into the crypt, and once inside Glenn and I set up bane of the dead on opposite sides of the room again and began pelting the undead. Unfortunately, Mandrake the vampire rifted to where I was and interrupted my bane of the dead, but a timely warning from the Duke saved my life.
We were able to hit Mandrake pretty hard, and he was forced to keep rifting. I have to give special credit to Guildmistress Parthynia here as well as Glenn, because the two of them probably did more damage to Mandrake than anyone else. The constant stream of damage was more than even the vampire could handle, and soon he was hidden in a circle while Guildmistress Parthynia, Lord Zug, myself, and several others sat around and taunted him, trying to lure him out so we could destroy him. Unfortunately, he rifted out and never rifted back in, so I assume he got away.
After that battle, things again got pretty quiet in town, and Glenn told me that he was going to bed and I should catch up with him in a few minutes. I left the tavern a few minutes later, and wandered through the woods alone toward our cabin. When I got there, I found that Glenn and Mirage had been taken down by a crystal golem. It attacked me, but I imprisoned myself before it could get me. It began to wander off, and I dropped my imprison to go help Glenn and Mirage, but they were already up because I guess one of them had been possuming. The three of us beat the golem, but then it began to re-form into a bigger form. Glenn sent Mirage inside and the two fought the golem.
At the risk of sounding conceited, I believe that the teamwork between the two of us was amazing. One of us would draw off the golem so the other one could heal himself, and then we would both start attacking it again. Spells were constantly reflected off of it and it could occasionally swing for massive damage, so it was hard to take down, but finally we did manage to do so. And then, both thoroughly tired and beat, we went to bed.
And so, in conclusion, this gathering left a lot of questions unanswered but did answer several questions convincingly for me. For one thing, it convinced me that the strength of Therendry is in its community spirit and ability to pull together for the greater good. In addition to this, Therendry is blessed with many great people, more than I can possibly list here, and so I won't even try. But I will say this. When the chips are down, you always know the people of Therendry will rise to the occasion, and this weekend proved no exception to that rule.
Scribed by Seronia on the 10th day of August in the year 603.