I participated in a recent conversation on the Fae Tree of Therendry in regards to the relative lack of written discussion on recent affairs in the County of Richland. When attempting to contribute further to the conversation there, the Fae Tree became rather disagreeable and refused to accept my submission. Knowning that the clients of that Fae Tree and this Fae Tree are largely one and the same, I thought it better to place my submission here rather than get into a long and likely futile battle with the Therendry Fae Tree.
I probably should not disparage the good Sheriff in the way that I did, or have too much fun at his expense. Lest anyone take my jest in the wrong fashion, Jack Fidian provided sterling service in the defense of Crimson Cross during the recent gather. Still, I suffer some pangs of guilt for having teased the sheriff for not writing up any account of the recent affairs in Richland. And as both Ashe and Chika have stated, such accountings are generally both entertaining and a starting point for further discussions and corrections.
As for the suggestion that perhaps no stories are forthcoming because people are scared, I find the notion patently absurd. There are many things in the lands of Tyrra that frighten adventurers. Yet almost without exception I have never met one that was scared of running his mouth. Now, as for the charge of being tired, that may be a little closer to the truth. In any event, without further ado and hopefully without undue embellishment, I present for your enjoyment and edification my account of the recent affairs in the County of Richland.
On the twelfth day of the month of August a gathering was held in the town of Crimson Cross. This is a smallish coastal trading port on the southern shore of the isle of Trulam which lies off the east coast of Therendry. I had visited Crimson Cross once before during the prior winter season. On that occasion several matters were left unresolved, and I was eager to get back and see them through to their conclusion.
This visit was to prove itself different from my earlier one in a variety of ways. The most immediate difference was the weather. It was hot. Despite the fact that I arrived well into the evening on Friday, I found myself soaked in sweat by the time I have reached the foot of the gangplank from the ferry. After procuring lodging and stowing my gear, I wandered into town to find the tavern. To my great disappointment, I found that the one tavern in the town was not serving food due to a lack of cooks and servers. The combination of the heat and lack of tavern refreshment was to weigh heavily on the gathered adventurers throughout the weekend.
Things started off Friday night much as the always do. People gathered in the tavern to get re-acquainted with old friends and to meet new comers. This gathering turned out to be the smallest I have ever attended. I suspect that many people had more sense than the rest of us, and decided that a tropical island may not be the best location to visit during an August heat wave. All told, there were probably less than two dozen adventurers who visited over the course of the gathering, and far less than that were around at any given moment.
Kyth Wyld was in attendance, and as a knight of Richland he held the highest rank of anyone in attendance. Most of the people attending were part of the local crowd of Therendry adventurers, but there were a few new comers and foreign visitors. A traveling caravan of Gorbe put in an appearance. They were the Visvajit clan, and their camels were packed high with various mint products. I had seen them about a month earlier when they traveled through Blackstone. I rarely saw them over the course of the gathering, and they spent most of their time secluded in their cabin, from which rose the sound of musical notes and the smell of mint.
The first incident of note was a visit from trio of pirates. They held a short conference with Sir Kyth that I did not overhear. I believe they came to assert some sort of sovereignty over the island, which Kyth flatly rejected. Pirates have always been a part of the island life on Trulam, but we came to learn that the local pirates were now well organized under the banner of some pirate captain who called himself the Commodore.
After these pirate diplomats left, our next visitors were a bunch of annoying ogres. They were for the most part harmless and made no attempt at violence. Quite to the contrary, they were scared out of their wits of some terrible undead menace that lurked in the swamp, and they spent nearly an hour cowering in the tavern and hiding behind adventurers and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Two in particular began to try the nerves of Kyth as they insisted in beating upon each other. Eventually the entire crowd of ogres were tricked into looking for something in the woods out of town, and thankfully we never saw them again.
Afterwards the town was attacked a few times by the normal sorts of things. A few swamp creatures put in an appearance, as well as a fairly formidable group of undead. It was nothing that the assembled group of adventurers couldn’t handle, but it became apparent that we would have to take care not to get in over our heads. There was a distinct lack in earth magic in the gathered adventurers. Seronia and Peregrine were the most accomplished earth mages present. Their skills combined with the skills of the rest of the group were adequate for most tasks, but it was clear that we didn’t have much of a margin for error. All it would take is a little bit a bad luck and we would all be in the hurt locker.
The big event of the evening started off in a fairly simple fashion. Kes came back to town and reported to Kyth that she had found something that needed investigating. She had discovered a cave that she claimed had cries for help coming from it. Kyth assembled the town and marched out to the cave in question. We had barely stepped foot inside when the entire floor fell out from underneath of us. After a mercifully short but highly uncomfortable ride we found ourselves stuck at the bottom of a hole with no way out. A small crowd of deep trolls gathered at the top of the hole, but they were not particularly useful in getting us out.
After short while a hole opened up in one of the walls. A dwarven miner emerged and greeted us. He said that we had fallen into a played out dwarven mine that they were in the process of sealing. He led us out through a series of tunnels and passages back towards the surface. Along the way we ran into more deep trolls, but they were summarily dispatched without much problem. When we reached the end of the tunnels we found a bone pit full of cast offs from the deep troll kitchen. One of the bones was found to be “fresh” enough to contain the spirit of a hapless berry picker. He was returned to life with a life spell, and explained that he had been grabbed earlier in the day. We spent a short time searching around for his lost bow, but given the lack of light and the late hour we quickly gave up and headed back to town, and from there off to bed.
One other small incident occurred very late on the first evening. I mention it primarily because I played a part in the affair. The pirates were bold enough to not even bother disguising their fleet. Several of their ships were anchored in the harbor just outside of Crimson Cross. Kyth and Kes got the idea to try to sink one of their ships using explosive traps as bombs. Since they decided they would need at least two bombs, they enlisted me in their little commando force.
Around two o’clock in the money we rowed a small boat out to the nearest pirate ship. Kes and I set out traps against the hull, and after we had retreated a safe distance we detonated them with pull strings. The bombs made a satisfying large hole in the side of the ship, and the boat began taking on water and sinking. However, the ship was sufficiently large that it took several minutes to completely capsize and go under. As we were rowing our way back to shore and safety we saw that nearly all the pirates and much of their supplies were salvaged and shifted over to other ships prior to the stricken ship sinking. In the end we didn’t accomplish too much, though we certainly ruined several pirate’s night’s rest.
The next morning was bright and clear. Adventurers rolled out of their baking beds at the crack of noon and staggered off to the tavern. Many people were a tad cranky. It was hot. There was no food in the tavern. Two of the newcomers, a gypsy named Wayfarer (or Wanderer, he never could seem to make up his mind) and his companion Elwood (who oddly enough had the least amount of patience for Wayfarer) had decided the previous evening to just bunk down in the tavern itself. They placed a ward on the tavern in order to provide some security. This ward became quite an annoyance as more and more adventurers showed up and tried to enter the tavern. It was to remain a nuisance throughout the rest of the gather.
Since the tavern was a veritable oven, warded, and empty of food, we all spend the better part of the day on the two porches outside the main doors. The porches provided some shade and from time to time a breeze would sneak its way past us. Things were fairly slow throughout the morning and early afternoon. From time to time various swamp creatures and lizards would wander in from the swamp and make trouble. Luckily they seemed to be suffering from the heat as much as we were, so they didn’t have too much energy to make too much trouble.
Around mid afternoon Kyth and Kes rounded up the available adventurers for an expedition into the nearby swamp. He was a little vague on the motivation for doing so. On one hand, I had certainly spent more than my fair share of time adventuring in swamps over the summer, but since the alternative was to spend some quality time alone in town entertaining lizard men, I decided I should go along for the company if nothing else.
Once we arrived at the edge of the swamp we stopped for a short time to rest, and Kyth and Kes decided to use the time to actually explain why we were heading into the swamp. Earlier in the year we had learned that the people of Crimson Cross were cursed to spend the nighttime hours wandering the lands as hostile spirits, and to awake the next day with no knowledge of the violence they inflicted the night before. Kyth was in possession of a flute which we knew was somehow connected with both gypsies and with the lifting of the curse on the locals.
Kes explained that she had been told a story by a local gypsy that the curse was the result of an attack on a local gypsy tribe by some pirates led by the Commodore. The pirates killed all the gypsies in the tribe, and with his dying breath the leader of the gypsies raised his flute and cursed the pirates to spend the night as spirits. Actually, Kes couldn’t exactly remember the wording of the curse, but it was presumably something along those lines. The power of the curse was so great that its effect bled over from the intended pirate target, and took effect on the entire local population. This explained the link between the pirate, the curse, the gypsies and the flute, but we still lacked the knowledge of how to lift the curse. The expedition into the swamp was to try to find a gypsy who would hopefully provide this piece of information.
Kes believed that the gypsy had been drug into the swamp. We began to hack our way into the mire following a trail we hoped was being left by the gypsy and his abductors. After a short distance we began to run into various slimy swamp creatures. A minor beholder also floated up and began attacking. We killed each of these and continued to hack our way further into the swamp. Things progressed in this fashion for nearly an hour. Hack at the swamp, kill the slimes, kill the beholder. Hack at the swamp, kill the slimes, kill the beholder.
At this point we suffered our first casualty. Juniper was overcome by the heat and began to feel a little faint. The order was given to rest, and everyone crawled into the shade and drank some water and tried to cool off a bit. Juniper left the swamp, and a sizable portion of our group left with her. When the order to advance was given nearly an hour later, we had roughly half the number of people we started out with.
We fell right back into the same pattern as before. Hack at the swamp, kill the slimes, kill the beholder. This continued well into the afternoon until finally we could not continue any further. The trail that we had been following dead ended at the food of a sheer rock face. Kes found the situation maddening. She was irate that all our work and effort turned out to be basically wasted. The rest of the group was mildly disappointed in not finding the gypsy that we were looking for, but this was more than made up for by the immense relief at finally being able to get the heck out of the slime infested swamp. We all just wanted to leave. I thought one of us was going to have to waylay Kes in order to get her to leave with us.
We slowly made our way back into town. People began to split up into small groups in order to search the surrounding neighborhood for something to eat for dinner. It was getting on towards dark before everyone started gathering up again. Kyth, Kes and Seronia took this time to make a small trip down to the local Lizard Man pond in order to speak to some of the scaly locals. They were hoping to learn what was driving the swamp creatures away from their homes in the deep swamp and up into town, but sadly they didn’t learn anything useful.
A strange sort of gambler put in an appearance around this time. He came to town with a small stack of formal magic components and a fist full of dice. He challenged all present to figure out his game of dice. If they bet a gold piece, and correctly solved his dice puzzle, then they would win a component. His puzzle involved rolling about five dice and figuring out from the result how many petals were on the rose plants.
Luckily for me I had seen this puzzle in a slightly different form a few years earlier. Once I realized this I made my bet and won a component. Several other people tried their luck once they thought they had it figured out, but I believe only myself and Sir Noah managed to actually guess how to correctly interpret the dice. Still, a few people got lucky and made correct guesses, and after all his components were gone the gambler departed.
As the sun went down and things cooled off just a bit, people began to gather up once more on the porch of the tavern. The cooler weather also seemed to have an invigorating effect on the local monster population as well. Small groups of swamp creatures and lizard men began to attack the tavern once more. Once again, these were defeated without too much difficulty, but nobody was feeling particularly confident.
By this time we were down to only a little more than a dozen adventurers. Peregrine was off on some errand, so that left Seronia as the only formals capable healer. The small skirmishes with the lizard men were all successful, but they also showed just how worn out we all were. After the grueling day in the hot sun hacking our way through the swamp, many of us found ourselves tiring a lot faster than we were used to.
Events were beginning to take their toll on Kyth Wyld as well. He was growing increasing frustrated with our situation. He had spent a very difficult day attempting to provide some sort of leadership and direction to our efforts, and some adventurers had given him a fair amount of grief over our lack of progress at accomplishing any sort of real goal. As night fell and the attacks on the adventurers picked up, he began to lose patience.
We were all hanging out in several small groups in the general vicinity of the tavern and the nearby cabins. People started getting careless, and we started to suffer some casualties. The lizard men had retired, and in there place stepped a few small groups of deep trolls. There was also a very motivated and persistent rogue lurking around in the shadows who would rush out and drop people with his sword and gasses before disappearing again into the inky darkness.
We managed to get pretty lucky. Several people were surprised by the trolls and the rogue and dropped, but each time someone managed to spot the casualty and make a timely rescue. But Kyth was getting very tired of rushing around trying to keep people organized and in one piece. Eventually he gathered us all up in one spot under some bright lights behind the tavern and forbid us chase anything into the darkness.
This was a somewhat awkward time. I can well understand Kyth’s reasoning, and given our reduced numbers, lack of healing, and general state of weariness, bunkering up in the light at the tavern was certainly the best defensive strategy to take. But several people chafed at the restraint. The rogue in particular took this opportunity to taunt us from the edge of the darkness, and many people just itched to go pound his face in. He finally managed to make a sufficient nuisance of himself that Kyth consented to let some people go out and administer a much deserved beating. Sadly I wasn’t able to participate in the beating, because I had been set up in an ambush on the other side of the tavern. Still, I took considerable satisfaction in the event since I ended up with the rogue’s nice magic sword at the end.
By now the time was starting to get late. The air was cooler, the rogue and trolls were no longer around, people were getting their second wind, and thoughts turned towards the pirates that were gathered up at some docks just outside of town. Kyth was beginning to start the process of organizing us into an assault force when we all got bushwhacked in the oddest attack I have ever participated in.
We were all standing behind the tavern when suddenly a group of about eight creatures rifted in all around us. Swords were drawn and people leapt to the attack, but these creatures started casting arcane sleep spells at anything that moved. In a matter of moments half the adventurers were slumbering away on the ground and the other half was scattering to the four winds with the sleep elementals in hot pursuit.
I ran about fifty yards and ducked into a shadow to get my bearings. For the moment all the sleep elementals were out of sight chasing other adventurers. From where I stood I could see six or more adventurers sleeping on the ground. I pulled out an awaken potion that I thought I was never going to use, and ran over to the nearest adventurer, which happened to be Encaren.
Just before I used the potion, I thought better of it. Clearly I should use my one awaken on a caster that would in turn be able to awaken the others. So I started to dash from sleeper to sleeper, only to realize that the only people sleeping here were all fighters. I just about decided to use my potion on Kyth when I heard someone behind me. I spun around to find a shadowy shape moving among the sleeping bodies in the darkness beside the tavern. Just before I took off running I realized this wasn’t one of the returning sleep elementals, and that it was in fact Peregrine who chose that exact moment to arrive back in town.
I quickly reversed myself and moved to go tell Peregrine what had happened when a sleep elemental popped out from around the corner and began casting sleeps on her. I took off running, and a small crowd of elementals peeled off and started after me. I’ll not narrate the entire cat and mouse race that ensued from there, but I’ll simply state that after a short while a sleep elemental came walking back into town, dumped my slumbering carcass at the edge of the tavern, and joined his buddies in rifting out to wherever they originally came from.
In all only about three adventurers managed to avoid all the arcane sleep spells. The sleep elementals, or whatever they were, did not harm a single person. After someone was put to sleep the left the bodies alone, and eventually rifted out without taking or causing a single casualty. The end result of their attack, ironically enough, was that we started our assault on the pirates about an hour later than we originally planned, but we were all much better rested.
Though we were only asleep for around ten minutes each, the attack caused a lot of confusion. It took some time for Kyth to get everyone rounded back up and put back in some semblance of order. Unfortunately, he took a little longer than some people were willing to wait. Elwood and about two other adventurers decided that they had been waiting long enough, and they decided to head out to the pirates' docks on their own. By the time Kyth had realized they were gone, one of them came tearing back down the road saying that Elwood and the others were in an awful fight and they we all needed to come quickly to save them.
Kyth was none to happy to hear this news, and at that moment I expect Elwood was safer with the pirates than he would have been had he been standing in front of Kyth. Nonetheless, we all moved out quickly to assault to pirates and affect a rescue. When we reached the docks we found a somewhat confused melee. To my surprise I saw that our initial opposition wasn’t the pirates, but instead the small group of sleep elementals that we had fought earlier.
I was near the end of the group that showed up, and by the time I arrived on the scene the elementals were in retreat and nearly all defeated. In following up our advantage on the elementals we ran headlong into the outskirts of the pirate encampment at the docks. I never learned if the elementals and pirates were working in concert, or whether this battle was just a weird sort of coincidence.
There were a ton of pirates in the encampment, but to our good fortune they were obviously not expecting any sort of attack. Our initial attack managed to defeat their pickets and sentries, and at that point we started getting attacked by a steady stream of pirates pouring from their encampment. Having affected our rescue of Elwood and his little impatient assault force, I asked Kyth whether he intended for us to retreat back to the safety of town, or whether we should stay and battle it out. He replied that he intended to see the battle to its conclusion, so we all formed up and started slugging it out.
At first I was more than a little concerned about our situation. Peregrine had returned, but Seronia had not made the trip to the pirate encampment. So once again we found ourselves very light in the healing department. The pirates were pretty darn tough, and had they managed to bring sufficient numbers to bear on us, I’m quite certain we would have been in serious trouble. As it was, we held them off with a very shaky front line composed in no small part of rogues and inexperienced fighters backed up by a patchy force of earth templars and younger earth casters, with the rear being screened by whoever else was left.
This continued for some time, and we were definitely winning in a battle of attrition. The pirates were starting to run out of bodies, but we were running out of steam as well. It looked like it was going to be a fairly close thing. I was guarding the rear, and I got caught flat footed while I was trying to readjust my armor, and I hit the ground hard. After an interminable moment of blackness I awakened to the smell of mint, tuna fish and camels and found myself staring into the whiskers of one of the traveling Gorbe. They had gone into town looking for everyone, and followed the sounds of battle and arrived just in time to give us just the extra push we needed to finish off the last of the pirates.
In the end we managed to clear out the entire encampment of pirates that were bivouacked on the docks. This was by no means the end of the pirate menace, though. The Commodore had yet to put in an appearance, and several pirates ships could still be seen anchored a short distance off shore. For the time being they did not seem inclined to sail in during the darkness to make an assault, and we certainly weren’t about to swim out and climb up any anchor chains. So we searched through the camp and took what valuables we could find, and headed out way back into town.
This is pretty much where this tale ends. After the pirate’s treasure was distributed most everyone was more than done for the night. There was some concern that the Commodore was going to make a late night visit, but if he did come looking for some revenge I never heard of it. Victory was declared, and people stumbled off to their cabins and wards, and slept a peaceful and uninterrupted sleep. In the morning everyone went off on their separate ways. The final fate of the pirates, the Commodore, the gypsies and the flute, the curse and all the other unanswered questions and unfinished business will have to wait for another gathering.