I wasn’t planning to be in Dalken, originally. I have a lot of work to do at the moment in Exeter and I really didn’t need to get myself even further behind. However, when I learned that an old friend, Sir Kaylin of Avendale, was coming down to visit at the Dalken gathering, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see him. So, I packed up my stuff and headed off to Dalken.
I was expecting to see Dame Parthynia there, but I got word as I got near the city that she had fallen ill back in Theren City, and she would be unable to attend. I was unhappy to hear this news, but she assured me that her squires, Squire Roc Solud and Squire Tovolia Aberdeen, would be able to get me up to date on what had been occurring in Dalken. Thus, I looked forward to the gathering with the hope that many some of Dalken’s problems could be solved.
The turnout for the gathering was not high. Not many adventurers showed up. Besides myself, the Ducal Court of Therendry was represented by Squire Roc, Squire Tovolia, and my squire, Rillien Nol’Feredir. The County of Fellmist was represented by His Excellency Count Simeon Silvercord. Other native Therendry adventurers present included “Action Jack” Fidian, Hadrick, and Kestral De’kiernan. From Avendale, we had Sir Kaylin, his squire, Pacey Learthersmith, and the gypsy Al’Debren. We also had four adventurers from Elysia, including Squire Taestiv Chilox, Spinner, Tephip, and Bagley. The blue drake scavenger Nimbus was also present.
The gathering started out very quietly, which was okay with me. I needed to gather information and re-make old acquaintances, and the slow start gave me time to do so. I had Squire Tovolia explain what had been happening to that point in Dalken to myself and Count Silvercord. His explanation was very thorough and filled in many gaps in my knowledge. It gave me a good starting point to work from in approaching the gathering.
Using the information that Squire Tovolia had given me, I went with Squire Roc to perform a couple of tasks which I felt would help us solve the problems in Dalken. I regret that I cannot be more detailed at this juncture, but once must be careful what one shows to the public eye.
While we were sitting around the tavern, three men came in, telling us that they were mercenaries hired to protect the town from all the lycanthropes. They did not seem to be hostile, although it was fairly clear that their interest was more on money than on people’s safety. I suppose that is the way that many mercenaries work, though. They hung around for a little while before they finally went on their way.
Following that encounter, we had our first action of the night. We got word that there were hostile were-creatures in town, and we went out to meet them. The attack force was made up mostly of wereboars, with a few weresnakes thrown in for good measure. There were no wereturtles, which I hope means that the wereturtle problem has finally been solved. The fight got a little nasty every now and then, but as a whole it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. The weresnakes were throwing gasses, which was difficult for our force of humans, elves, biata, and gypsies to deal with, but we had enough spells available to purify ourselves if we got into any real trouble. The force of were-creatures was defeated pretty easily.
After that fight, everyone went back to the tavern. Most people stayed to play cards, while I engaged His Excellency Silvercord in a game of chess. The game was hard fought on both sides, and although our tiredness made the play sloppy at times, it was still one of the best chess games I have ever played in. I managed to checkmate His Excellency in the end, and His Excellency told me it was the first time he had lost in chess in ten years. That being the case, I consider it an honor to have beaten such an excellent player.
During the chess game, an odd thing happened. A being named Breed came into the tavern, identified himself, and demanded one of us go with him, with the clear implication being that if no one agreed to go, he would take someone by force. Squire Tovolia jumped up and agreed to go with him. I do not know what occurred between the Squire and Breed.
When the chess game was over, it was clearly bed time for me. I went back to my cabin, and there discovered that Squire Rillien had done such a good job of tying my bracers for me that I couldn’t get them off. Thankfully, Action Jack saved the day by unknotting them for me, and I was able to get to sleep.
I did not sleep long, and I woke up just a couple hours after the sun rose. I put on my clothes, not bothering with armor because the morning is usually pretty safe, and I went to the tavern to see if anyone else was awake. No one was, so I sat in the tavern reading a book for an hour or so. Eventually Hadrick got up, and so did Squire Roc, and we all wandered off into the woods in search of adventure. Hadrick wandered by himself, while Squire Roc and I wandered together.
The first thing that Squire Roc and I came across was a cave with a bear in it. Behind the bear was a sword and shield. Now, knowing that normal bears do not use a sword and shield, I surmised that this bear must be a werebear. Squire Roc disagreed, and argued that the bear may have simply eaten an adventurer who came into its cave. I granted that he may very well have eaten an adventurer, since there were bones scattered about the cave that appeared human in origin, but I still suspected that the sword and the shield were more than decoration. I proposed that we could decide if the bear was or was not a werebear by trying to take the sword and shield. If it resisted, it had intelligence and it was a werebear. Having agreed to this strategy, we walked over to take the sword and shield. As we did so, the bear transformed into a werebear and began attacking us, thus validating my theory.
Of course, the satisfaction of having my theory validated was quickly overcome by the seriousness of being attacked by a werebear, and a very powerful werebear at that. The bear had many slays, and all of its blows could cause a victim to fall asleep. To make matters worse, Squire Roc carried no silver weapon with him, and so his blows had little effect on the werebear. My blows were full effect because I had my silver weapon with me, and so the bear concentrated mostly on killing me. That was a mistake, because it allowed Squire Roc to slay the bear. Unfortunately, the bear parried Roc’s slay and slayed him in return. Roc parried that slay, but he had no more ability to parry when the bear hit him with another slay. Roc fell asleep, but I managed to hit him with an awaken spell. Unfortunately, the bear hit him again before he could get back up, and he fell right back asleep.
The bear tried to slay me, but I got a magic armor up quick enough to stop it. Still, the bear had me overmatched, and I knew it. Three hits from the bear would make it through my magical defenses, and even though I could resist the sleep effect a few times, I knew I could not hold out forever. Thankfully for me, my skill with a sword was better than the bear’s, and so I was able to strike the bear two or three times for every strike I took. Despite that, it was obvious that the bear was eventually going to burn through my defenses. I needed to get Roc back up.
I drew the bear away from Roc the best I could, and then I tossed a quick awaken spell over in his direction. It found its mark; Roc got up, and then repaired his armor quickly with a refit spell. We were back in business. With me attacking the bear from the front and Roc hitting it from behind, our combined prowess eventually proved to be too much for the bear, and it fell to the ground, lifeless. We administered a killing blow to finish it off, thankful that there was one werebear we wouldn’t have to fight later.
We resumed our wandering, and we eventually came to an open field where a man was waiting. He asked us if we were there for the training. Always open to training, Squire Roc and I said yes. The man was an excellent teacher, and he helped both Roc and I find flaws in our fighting styles and fix them. He improved my mobility and defense, and improved Roc’s combat sense and awareness. He charged each of us two gold for the lesson, but I would have paid ten gold for the value of what he taught us. When I get a chance to fully practice the new strategies I learned, I expect it will make me a much better fighter.
When we got back to the tavern, I grabbed some quick food (a spiced pound cake, I believe), and then Squire Roc and I set off to adventure again, this time bringing along Action Jack, Squire Taestiv, Spinner, Tephip, and Bagley. We ran into a group of trolls, and Squire Roc ensured that we were quick to begin the battle. The trolls hit us from many angles, and they were very strong, but we had spells on our side, and we made short work of them. I thought the Elysians stood out particularly well in the battle, as they showed both skill and intelligence in the way they attacked their foe. We found a little bit of treasure, which we later divided, but nothing substantial.
We also realized that we were in a mercenary camp that had been abandoned, and we searched around for any clues about what might have happened there. All we found were a sap and a javelin in the fireplace. As to where the previous occupants of the camp went, I am not sure. I do not think the trolls found them, as there were no signs of violence, but I can’t be sure. Perhaps the trolls moved in after the mercenaries left, and the mercenaries decided that the sap and javelin weren’t even worth taking with them.
I also got a chance to sit down for a game of chess with Squire Roc. He told me he wasn’t very good, and early on that proved to be true. I grabbed a quick upper hand in the game. Soon, however, a fey lady came in and asked if we wanted to play penalty chess. I declined, but Squire Roc accepted, and from that point on, whenever he captured one of my pieces, he got a reward. However, whenever I captured one of his pieces, he got a punishment. That punishment was always an arcane sleep. Truthfully, I think it was more of a punishment for me than him, because he got to sleep while I had to wake him up every time. I came up with all types of creative ways to wake him up, including poking him with Action Jack’s spear (not hard enough to really hurt him) and creating various foot stomping songs loud enough to wake him up. At one point I shook him hard enough that he told me he thought he had “shaken ogre syndrome.”
All the waking Roc up was distracting me, though, and I wasn’t playing well. He took the lead, but I managed to come storming back when I used my rook to capture one of his bishops and take back the lead, which I would not again relinquish. Before I could checkmate him, he conceded, and the fey lady arcane paralyzed him. I was expecting something bad to happen to him when he lost, so this did not overly surprise me. However, she then started to rift him out. I thought, “Nobody rifts someone out of my town without me at least trying to stop them,” and so I grabbed on to the rift. Then, thinking about it, I grabbed my weapon and shield, too. Action Jack grabbed onto the rift as well, and we all went to the fey plane.
Once there, we were not attacked, but it was explained to Squire Roc that he would be on the losing side of a game that would take place in a couple months if he did not find water that has never seen the light of day before then. Thus, if anyone has such water, please bring it to Squire Roc. I suspect that being on the losing side of this game will not be good for his health. With her piece said, the fey rifted us all back to town.
At that point I went off to commune in the woods for a couple of hours, and when I got back everyone was standing around talking in town. I would rather be acting than talking, so I asked if anyone wanted to come with me to explore the woods some more. Action Jack agreed to come, and so we went wandering in the woods for a while. We found a bridge I hadn’t seen before, and a new path I had never known about, but we didn’t really find anything adventuresome going on.
When we got back to town, Squire Rillien was talking to someone, so I didn’t want to disturb her, although I did check to make sure that everything was okay. Meanwhile, in another part of town, a fight promoter was trying to establish a bare-knuckle boxing champion of Dalken to compete with Squire Rillien, who is apparently the bare-knuckle boxing champion of Exeter. I declined to participate, because I consider such contests to be a poor reflection upon nobility, but Squire Roc, Squire Tovolia, Action Jack, Al’Debren, and Count Fellmist competed. The finals were a bit muddled, but I think Squire Roc eventually emerged the winner, but then a change in judging votes somehow caused Squire Tovolia to become the winner. I wasn’t really paying all that close attention.
With all that finished, I sat in the tavern to reminisce and hear new stories from Sir Kaylin. I found out some things that sort of disturbed me; things I had not previously known about my friend Kabaka. In light of them, I have to re-evaluate my feelings, I think.
Eventually, most people went to go forage for food, and so the only people left in the tavern were myself, Nimbus, Sir Kaylin, and Count Fellmist. In fact, we were the only people in town when a woman came running into the tavern telling us that an ice monster was attacking her sheep.
Nimbus, Sir Kaylin, and I went to investigate, while Count Fellmist finished his food. We found the ice elemental on a patch of ice in her field. We tried to tell it to leave peacefully, but it just attacked. Sir Kaylin wisely deduced that it could not leave the ice, and so we realized that we could pin it in a corner of the ice if we fought wisely enough.
The early battle was dominated by Nimbus blowing tons of dragon’s breath scrolls and flame bolt scrolls into it, while I hit it with my sword a lot. I also served the convenient purpose of keeping it off Nimbus so he could cast, and he served the convenient purpose of backpacking me against it, so all in all the arrangement worked out very well.
Eventually it decided to rush Sir Kaylin, and as a first reflex he repelled it. Now, using his repel, we were able to back the monster into a corner. Unfortunately, it wasn’t out of tricks yet. It came at us with more slays than I could count, and each slay harmed you even if you blocked it with a shield. Nimbus was forced to use a lot of defenses, and I fell down a few times, but eventually we weathered the storm of slays. Count Fellmist showed up as the monster was weakening, and between more scrolls from Nimbus and the blows of Count Fellmist and I, we were able to take it out and save the woman’s fields. It had some type of magic item on it, which Nimbus claimed. I didn’t really feel like arguing, so I let him have it. Treasure acquisition had become much less of a priority for me as of late. Besides, Nimbus did use a lot of scrolls to help us defeat the monster.
With that task completed, people began filtering back into town. I got involved in a game of cards with His Excellency Silvercord, Squire Pacey, Sir Kaylin, Al’Debren, and Nimbus. I was losing fairly badly, but Al’Debren helped me out mid-game, and that gave me the boost I needed to come back and win.
Somewhere in the middle of the card game, Squire Rillien came running into the tavern, saying that help was needed outside. I grabbed my sword and shield and ran out, and saw that many adventurers had already fallen to the chaos elementals. I engaged in the fight, but quickly discovered that they were fairly powerful chaos elementals, and I started getting pounded on quite badly. Thankfully, Squire Rillien showed up just in time to heal me, and with the aid of the other adventurers who came pouring out of the tavern, we began to push the chaos elementals back.
We managed to get the other adventurers who had fallen outside healed up, but these were fairly cunning chaos elementals, and their attack did not abate. They used the darkness to their advantage, and they often sprung out at us unseen. We were scattering in every direction, and this was just making out job more difficult. I tried to get us organized together on the field, but it didn’t much help, because it was so dark that we were having difficulty telling friend from foe.
Thankfully, our combination of skill and spells eventually proved to be too much for them. The crew from Elysia proved to be quite proficient in hunting down stray elementals, and it got to the point where I stopped worrying about them because I knew that they were competent enough to keep themselves alive. I got quite a few chances to fight alongside Squire Pacey, and she acquitted herself well, showing an aptitude for the tactics one often uses in adventuring fighting.
After the chaos elementals were defeated, I left town for a couple hours to attend to some personal business. I understand that during this time an incident occurred involving a fey that had lost its doll, and some type of theater performance, but I have to admit that I did not really understand all the details of what occurred. On my way back into town, I was fortunate enough to run into Kes, who was just arriving in town.
I was very glad to see Kes, because Kes has always proven to be an excellent person to bounce my thoughts off of and she usually has good ideas. If anyone could help me solve some of what was going on in Dalken, it would be her. I gave her the background that Squire Tovolia had given me about what was going on in Dalken, and we went off together to see if we could put some things together and maybe solve some mysteries. We were not able to make as much progress as I had hoped, but Kes was able to elucidate some matters for me, and so the trip was certainly not a failure. She made me realize that I wasn’t quite as far along as I thought I was, but I could get there with the right information.
With our travels done, Kes went to go scout for more information, while I went to see what was going back in the tavern. I saw that there was another card game going on, and I saw that Squire Rillien and Count Fellmist were both near winning. I told Squire Rillien that it was her duty to uphold the honor of the Ducal Court of Therendry by beating Count Fellmist in the game, and sure enough she won. I just don’t think it was Count Fellmist’s day for games.
Before too long, Kes came back and reported that the mercenaries had decided to begin torching the town to kill all off all the werecreatures. She also told me that the people’s houses they were burning were just ordinary citizens of the town – innocent people. Obviously, I couldn’t let that stand. We rallied the town together, and we set off towards where Kes said the event was taking place.
When we got there, we discovered approximately eight buildings on fire. We split ourselves up into small groups so that we could cover more ground. I had Squire Rillien and Hadrick with me, and I asked Hadrick to go try to put out the fires in one of the buildings while Rillien and I tried to hold off the mercenaries, who tried to stop us. I gave them the chance to throw down their arms and leave, but they believed that they were doing the right thing, and they were impossible to dissuade from their view. Rillien worried that we were too cut off from the main group of adventurers, but I told her that we could always resort to spells if we needed, because the mercenaries were humans. Of course, what I failed to account for is that the mercenaries were humans WITH gasses, which made defeating them much more difficult. They gassed me down pretty early, although thankfully Rillien managed to get away and get help, and then she got back to me to heal me. I was very grateful.
One of the mercenaries tried to attack Sir Kaylin as he was putting out the fire in one of the buildings, but Squire Pacey and I entered the building from both sides and the mercenary died fairly quickly between us.
From there, most of our time was spent hunting down the mercenaries while several of our number concentrated on putting out the fires. Squire Rillien and I spent a long time talking with one of the mercenaries, trying to convince him and his group to leave, but he wasn’t having any of it. He was fanatically devoted to his cause, it seemed. I suspect that the mercenaries were so angry about their losses to the werecreatures that they were beyond all rational thinking. Eventually, other adventurers came over to join the conversation, and the mercenary had a couple friends of his join him. I gave him three seconds to lay down his weapons. Of course, he chose not to, and instead fled behind a building.
Squire Rillien jumped in front of me to pursue him, and she took several quick stab wounds, and her body fell sickeningly against a nearby tree, looking like she had cracked her spine in half. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help her at that exact moment, because the mercenaries started chucking gasses at me and I had to move out of the way. Thankfully, help arrived from Count Fellmist and other adventurers, and we managed to take down the bandits. I got over to Rillien and discovered that her injuries were not as serious as I had feared, and healing fixed her up good as new.
Afterwards, we spoke to a man named Johnny, who was apparently one of the local townspeople whose home had been set on fire, and he thanked us for helping to save the town. I told him that he knew where to find us if they needed any other help. We also received a reward from the merchants of town.
When we got back to town, we split the reward money amongst the adventurers, and many adventurers, such as Sir Kaylin, Al’Debren, and Squire Rillien, donated the money they received into a fund we created to rebuilt the homes. All together, the fund had a little bit more than ten gold in it, which should be plenty suitable for rebuilding that section of town. Count Fellmist and I delivered the money to the harbor master, and instructed him to use it to buy building supplies, rather than handing the money out. It was less likely to be abused that way. The building supplies idea actually came from Al’Debren; His Excellency and I were just the messengers.
Kes and I were preparing to do some more investigations as to what was going on in Dalken, but before we could get started, we saw several wereboars march into town. These wereboars were more dangerous than ones we had fought previously, because they could cause berserking magically, which oftentimes turned us against each other and forced us to take our own people out of the fight.
Towards the beginning of the fight, we held our own fairly well, but that was before we started to run low on resources that were capable of curing the berserks. I personally tried to keep shield magic spells up, but the wereboars quickly learned to throw their berserks in sets of two. Reflect magic spells had an amusing effect, since they would turn the wereboars against each other. However, the wereboar weapons could not affect other wereboars, and so that reduced the effectiveness of the plan.
At one point, I got berserked and ran off after the wereboar that berserked me. When I finally killed him, I noticed that Squire Rillien had loyally followed me. Still berserked and unable to control my actions, I cut her down. Then, Hadrick came up to help, probably also not realizing that I was berserked, and I cut him down as well. Thankfully, someone finally fixed me, but I cannot express how utterly detestable it is to have no control over your actions and to attack your own closest friends.
Finally, I realized we were beginning to become overwhelmed, and so with Kes’s help, I rallied everyone back into the tavern so that we could regroup. Squire Rillien quickly informed me that we left His Excellency Silvercord behind, and I replied by telling her that if anyone could survive on their own, it was going to be him. He was inside a cabin and had a ward he could hide behind in addition to his own protections like circles of power.
Apparently Count Fellmist had been going to get supplies, and so, with supplies in hand, he made a mad dash across the field towards our location. He got hit with two berserks, but a displacement and a shield magic stopped them, and he made it safely back to us with all types of potions and scrolls that could be used to protect against or cure berserks. We loaded those people who could use them up with supplies, and then we marched out again to attack the wereboars. This time, the chief wereboar was present, and he proved to be quite powerful. He could swing for as much damage as a flame bolt, and his blows caused your limb to become withered. On the plus side, we had plenty of restore limb spells left, so the carrier attack was not a serious problem. We eventually surrounded him and pounded him into the ground with multiple sword blows raining down on him at once. My suspicion is that with him gone, wereboars won’t be a serious problem anymore.
As the gathering ended, we all left to go our separate ways. Sir Kaylin and his companions headed back to Avendale. Count Fellmist headed back to Goldhaven. Squire Taestiv and his companions headed back to Elysia. Squire Rillien headed off into the wild blue yonder. As for me, I headed back to Exeter, where I now sit writing this. I do not know when I will next be in Dalken, but when I am, I hope to see everyone again.