Having spent the last month wandering around Lyonesse with my squire, Rillien, I was anxious to get back to Exeter in time for this weekend’s gathering. Many of the things that I saw in Lyonesse, especially those things that I saw in Persivus, were quite horrific, and I was hopeful to put them behind me in the company of good friends.
Not long after I arrived, the inevitable process of attempting to find people to stay with. In the part of Exeter we were in, there were cabins that each had three rooms. Rillien and I grabbed the left room of the cabin we were in, while Count Fellmist stayed in the center section, and Sir Milo, Lord Zerr, and Squire Nightshine stayed in the right part of the cabin. I was surprised to see that the three of them had made the trip north, but I was nonetheless glad to see them. All three of them are adventurers that I have had nothing but good experiences with, and the type of adventurers that make gatherings much more enjoyable to attend with their presence. And, of course, the fact that they’re all extremely competent doesn’t hurt, either.
I was also extremely pleased to see that many of my old friends from the Ashbury/Ravenholt area made the trip south to visit. There was Sir Kellum Vanderhurst, Squire MacGregor, Talon, and a new adventurer named Javen who I had not met before. There was also an adventurer I had not seen in a good long while, which was Chester Kapel. One of my earliest adventuring friends, he is still about as good a man as I know, and he is certainly still as silly as ever. Still, he’s one of the handful of people I would trust my life to anytime, which is about as high a compliment as I can give.
There were a few people I was disappointed not to see. I was surprised and disappointed not to see Duncan, who is usually very reliable at attending gatherings. However, I had heard rumor that he might still be in Greyhelm. I was also disappointed not to see Kaelis, Logenn, or Kivuli, but it is fairly rare for them to travel to Therendry, as it is a long trip. They are more commonly seen in Blackstone. Still, overall, I thought it best to focus on the people I did get to see, rather than those that I did not.
Not long after the beginning of the gathering, we heard the sound of battle. Time elementals were fighting void elementals. We rushed over to aid the time elementals, but it was to no avail. The time elementals were eventually vanquished, and then it was just us against the void elementals. It was sometime around this time that we learned that there was a rip between the plane of time and the void of corruption, and this rip was centered somewhere around Exeter. It did not take us long to defeat the void elementals, but there were a lot of questions about what was going on, and very few answers.
Some answers were provided by a Mystic Wood Elf blind seer poet named Canvas who came into town. Viscount Telaris, who was also in town, asked her questions while Squire Rillien took notes on the answers she provided. I believe that the key information that was learned was that there was a time lord who had been corrupted by void, and we had to somehow fix her in order to be able to fix the rip. Fixing her would require a scroll and a talisman, or maybe two talismans, and we would get the opportunity to find those throughout the gathering.
As the conversation with Canvas was going on inside, those of us outside were fighting off hordes of undead fey. They were led by a being named Krell, who was only affected by an iron weapon or gasses. We didn’t know he was affected by gasses, and we had no iron weapon, so while we were able to take out his minions, we had little luck with him directly. Personally, I was impressed with how much better we fared against the undead fey than the last time we fought them in Blackstone.
Eventually, Count Fellmist and Squire Roc both found their iron weapons, and Krell started taking a beating. We got beaten into the ground, but a few minutes later he was back. This time Tovolia and Javen gassed him into the ground, and I am not sure how, but somehow we managed to get him to stay away. I assume that he just got bored and decided not to come back again, but I honestly have no idea.
The final adventure of the evening involved us going after the scroll that we needed top deal with the corrupted time lord. We fought against what I believe were void elementals, and we had to take down a large one, since he had the scroll. The problem was that he kept retreating back into the woods. Because of this, we kept getting strung out, and this put us into vulnerable positions. Eventually, we sent a task force after the large one, while the rest of us kept the minions busy. The first task force got wiped out, but we managed to rescue them. The second task force fared better, and eventually it managed to take out the leader. On the leader, we found the scroll.
Not long after that fight was over, Rillien and I decided it was time for bed, and so we returned to our cabin. I was nearly asleep when I heard a great deal of noise coming from the guild hall. I found that odd, considering that the guild hall was empty, due to the permanent earth and celestial circles having expired a few months ago. As I was getting up to see what was going on, Squire Nightshine came in and told me that His Grace Pinetree had arrived in town, and the circles were being cast. I thought it would be a good idea to go see my liege and be present as the acting earth guildmaster of Exeter, so I strapped my equipment back on. I asked Squire Rillien if she wanted to come along, but she was mostly asleep, so I went across to the guild building by myself.
When I got there, I ran into someone that Rillien had wanted to talk to, and so I escorted him back to our cabin. I woke my squire up, and then the three of us proceeded back to the guild hall for the casting of the circles. As is proper, I bowed to His Grace when I arrived in the guild hall; Count Fellmist was impressed with the flair in my bow, he told me afterwards.
I requested that I be invested in both circles and my squire be invested in the earth circle, but they ended up investing us both into both circles, which I certainly had no objection to. The castings took a few minutes, and I think Count Fellmist fell asleep, but in the end we had two brand new circles. At that point, I was certainly ready to go to bed, and so that was what I did.
The following morning, I was awoken by a sharp knocking at the door. Lord Zerr went to go see what it was, and it turned out to be Lord James Buttons of Evendarr, arriving at our cabin with a guard. He informed us all that we were having a noble meeting in the tavern within the next ten minutes, and we were all expected to attend. Sir Milo, Lord Zerr, and Squire Nightshine got themselves up and ready quite easily. Count Fellmist and I had a bit of a harder time, but we eventually got up, too. I would have also had Squire Rillien come, but she was called back into Exeter proper on urgent business.
The meeting was fairly uneventful, but after the meeting was over we got a visit from a man who told us that he could bring us to a place where we could weaken the vampire that got away inside the Great Dark Swamp by killing one of his minions. Seeing as how I owed payback to that vampire for killing me, I was only too happy to help out, and so we marched off to fight him in his cavern. With the help of the Ducal Court of Ashbury, the monsters were not all that difficult to defeat. They could cause paralysis with their blows and they could make you sick by throwing poison at you, so I presume they were ghasts, but they weren’t that difficult to defeat. The vampire himself was tougher, especially since he had a vampire charmed elf helping him, but we eventually took him down and staked him with a Stake of Woe that Squire Nightshine had created.
After the vampire battle had concluded, I decided it would be a good time to leave town to conduct some business that I had in Stormhold. Squire Rillien still had not returned, and I was hopeful that we could meet up when my business was completed.
As it turned out, I was pretty close to correct. I arrived back in town just a few minutes before my squire did. With a generous loan of components from Katherine von Sering, and another generous donation of components from my squire, I was ready to do something I had never done before, which was spirit forge.
You see, I had determined a while ago that Rillien and I would work better together if I devoted myself more to front line fighting and she worked primarily as my backpack. To do this, I needed to be more effective as a front line fighter, and a spirit forge to earth templar would be the way to do it. Additionally, I was hopeful that reconstructing my spirit would heal some leftover damage from the two resurrections I had earlier in the year.
It would also be an opportunity for Rillien to cast her first formal, and so we raced to get the formal done before 6:00, so that when the magics reset themselves, Rillien would get all her formal abilities back.
I have to say, she did very well for her first formal, and I am sure we were both glad that she was successful. I don’t think either of us wanted to be blown up by a backlash or anything nasty like that.
Not long after the magics reset themselves, a fey woman came into town asking us to divide into teams for a game of capture the flag. We were bored, so we were willing to play. My team was made up of Baron Kyth, Lord Zerr, Squire Rillien, Kes, Algorian, Squire Roc, and I. The other team was made up of Squire Caliphar, Viscount Telaris, Count Silvercord, Count DeGauss, Tovolia, Ander, and Kaelath. Later in the game, we ended up substituting Kes and Algorian for Katherine von Sering and Anthony Darkforge, but it didn’t much help. We got trounced pretty badly regardless.
I think our main difficulties were twofold. First, their team was more accurate with their throwing gasses and casting spells. Second, their team had more templars, which allowed them to beat up on our weaponless scholars. Either way, we were defeated soundly, so congratulations to the other team on their victory.
Later, Sir Kellum and the Ducal Court of Ashbury, along with Chester, sent word through Javen that they would like my squire and I to go adventuring with them. I was only too happy to go adventuring with my friends, and so we went to join them.
As we wandered through the woods, we came across a tribe of goblins that were out on military training exercises. They were going through various battle formations, all of which were fairly silly and ineffective looking. Our number was split on what to do with them. Some wanted to kill them, others wanted to leave them alone. Chester wanted to negotiate, so I told him it was fine with me if he negotiated with them. The negotiations were fairly fruitless, and Chester ended up switching sides and deciding that they should be killed. Personally, I still didn’t want to kill them unless they actually did something, but then their leader ordered an attack, and that settled the issue. I told our group that it was now okay to take them down, and so all the goblins but one were soon beaten up. The one remaining goblin ran away.
I asked the remaining goblin if he and his friends had learned their lesson, and he said yes. I asked my fellow party members to first aid the goblins that remained, but I had the leader killed as an example to the other goblins as to what would happen if they decided to attack us. Once the first aid was finished, we left to go wander the woods some more.
A few minutes later, the goblins that we had first aided and left alive ran into town to attack. This frustrated me a fair bit, and I think Talon, who was standing next to me at the time, could hear me muttering to myself as we went back into town to deal with the goblin attacks.
Before we could find anything else interesting to do in the woods, we were told that our services were required for an adventure that Squire Ruendil needed our aid with. Apparently we had to go to the plane of death and retrieve an artifact of some type. I personally had very little information about it, but it sounded important, so I was willing to go along.
Unfortunately, while on the plane of death, survival required standing within close proximity to Squire Ruendil, who was exuding an aura of life. The problem with this was that it was very difficult to fight while we all stood in close proximity. To make matters worse, constant death effects were straining our life spell supply in a bad way. Squire Rillien was trying to keep both Viscount Telaris and I alive, and while she was doing a good job, she eventually ran out of life spells. All across our lines, the situation was getting perilous. Many of us, including Baron Wild and myself, made the call that it was time to pull out, as we did not have the resources to keep going. As requested, Squire Ruendil rifted us out, but then something strange happened.
The incarnation of life intercepted our rift and began speaking to us, telling us that we were close to our goal. It convinced everyone to go back, and we were taken and dumped back onto the battlefield where we left it. The death elementals were surprised to see us back, but they weren’t exactly welcoming. For my part, I wanted to see them for as short a time as possible, so I did my best to hold them off while people worked on finding the artifact so that we could get out.
When we found the artifact, Squire Ruendil rifted us back to Tyrra. Several people were dead on the rift, so we administered life spells to them as soon as we got back into town. At this point the number of life spells we had in town was in the single digits, and even most items were exhausted. We knew we were going to have to be careful to conserve resources from then on.
In the meantime, while we had some free time, I went back to wandering in the woods with the Ducal Court of Ashbury, Chester, Squire Rillien, and we were joined by the biata Chilean. We ended up being attacked by an undead who kept saying something incomprehensible. We beat it down, and administered one of those precious life spells to the dead man. He came back to life, and explained to us that he had been robbed and knocked out, and that was the last thing he remembered. We sent him back to town, and went off to look for his robber.
The next thing we found on the side of the trail we were on was the body of the elf that had been vampire charmed into aiding the vampire that morning. He was now permanently dead. We had no idea what had happened to him, and our searches turned up nothing.
As we were heading back to town, we found yet another body on the side of the trail. This time, the body was unconscious, but alive. We decided to bring the person back to town with us, because we figured it was safer to ask questions in the tavern than it would be in the middle of the woods. We confiscated the man’s weapon and brought him back to town.
We woke the man up in the tavern, and he explained to us that he was a laborer looking for work, and he had been attacked on the side of the trail. He wanted to talk to Count Lyonesse about finding work, and so I brought him over to speak to the Count. Of course, it turned out that the “laborer” was an assassin, and he attacked the Count. He was a pretty stupid assassin, though, because I merely beat him down and then healed the Count, and that was the end of the assassin with no permanent harm done to the Count.
The final adventure of the evening was a mission to go set the time lord who had been corrupted by void right. We had to go back in time to defeat her at the point when void first corrupted her, and apparently this would free her of the taint. However, we were given many boons for the fight, as our weapons would not come back with us, and it was likely to be very difficult.
First, we were given a very large supply of components, cantrip tomes, weapons, potions, and scrolls to use in the fight, a supply we were very grateful for.
Second, those of us with transforms saw them activate. There were many powerful and interesting transforms on the field. Some were more for power, others more for utility.
Third, those of us without transforms got boons from time to help us in the fight. I received the boon of a templar, which was an extra polearm swing worth of damage with my sword, and an extra three columns of casting ability, plus the ability to take a bit more damage. It proved very helpful to me during the fight.
Finally, time reset all our skills, which also proved helpful to us during the fight.
Apparently, when we arrived back in time, we were not as sneaky as we should have been, because before we could even get equipment, the attackers were upon us. Adventurers were scurrying everywhere trying to run away. If we had been smart, we would have had those who already had weapons due to transforms guard the doors, but unfortunately we didn’t think of it at the time.
My role was to distribute components to all the casters, so that was what I immediately started doing. I gave each earth caster three components for healing pools, and each celestial caster six components for element’s fury. I then held on to the rest of the components that were leftover, so that we would have a backup supply if needed. I also found a sword and a shield, and went out to join the fight.
Rillien and I employed a double pronged attack approach. While I hit an enemy with my sword, she stood behind me and pounded an enemy with aura capable of inflicting ten dagger blows worth of damage channeling elemental reason. She could use many of these attacks, and reset them by concentration. Between her unlimited supply of thrown damage and my unlimited supply of weapon damage, we hurt things quite a bit. The only times we really got into trouble would be if something rolled up behind us, taking Rillien out, which deprived me of healing, and then taking me out.
At one point in the fight, I found myself finding alongside Ander against a monster whose claws caused paralysis. Ander was transformed into an ice elemental, but she was fighting passively. I asked her if she was affected by paralyze. She told me she was not. “Well, then go take it out,” I told her, and she tore into the monster savagely, defeating it easily. It dropped the poison from its claws, but to no avail. It was dead quickly.
At another point in the battle, another paralysis monster managed to catch me in the leg. I was not all that injured physically, but I could not move. Rillien went to try to unparalyze me, but the monster took her down as well. I was stuck there, watching her bleed out on the ground, while I could do nothing. It was very frustrating. Thankfully, soon by good friend Sir Kellum came around and fed me an unparalyze potion, and then I was able to heal Rillien.
The leader herself was difficult to beat. She was extremely powerful. She could swing blows that would penetrate a shield, and she could make herself invulnerable to harm for periods of time. Over time, though, we wore her down, and she was eventually defeated. The group of people that were with her disappeared, including Count Lyonesse and Viscount Telaris, and I assumed they had everything under control. Baron Wild and I told everyone to head back to town, and so that was what everyone went to go do. We all felt the boons leave us when we got back to town, but we were okay with that. We were just happy that the battle reached what we believed was a successful conclusion.
As we got back to town, I realized that I had business I had to take care of early the next day, and so I had to leave. Squire Rillien decided to stay for the rest of the gathering, which I had no objection to. I got a chance to say goodbye to Count Fellmist before I left, and I look forward to seeing him, and everyone else, next weekend in Blackstone.