Bamboozled Again!

Klarmont 26
 
After delivering the elemental control device to Geoffrey a few days ago I was still a bit shaken by everything going on. I decided to have lunch at the Sarcastic Goat but Rhiannon was busy so I went by myself bringing a book to read. After I ate, had a glass of wine and was about to start on another, a pair of guards poked their heads in, saw me sitting there and came straight towards my table. I sighed and closed my book regretting coming here. “Marshall, your presence is requested at the gate,” one of them said. For a brief second I was about to look around, almost forgetting he was addressing me. I got up, grabbed my book and asked the guards to wait a moment. I approached Brytnyss at the bar and asked for a regular cup I could take and return later looking over towards the guards. She nodded and poured the glass into a basic cup for me. I thanked her, dropped a few silver coins on the counter and told her I would bring it back. She said I better and gave me a wink. I told her I would, not sure why she would doubt me.
 
With my cup of wine for the road I told the guards to lead on and they led me to the gate where a few of my fellow elves were waiting, two of them which were rangers so this must be something serious. They explained they had been tracking down and killing gnolls in the purge of humanoids that had been kicked off months ago. They explained there was a mage with them and this mage would surrender to the Marshalls but only them. This seemed very odd to me but my mind immediately went to another copy of Geoffrey wanting something? I looked around to see if anyone else was near us and Dram and Holly had just walked up. I asked the Ranger to repeat what he told me. With that we discussed among ourselves. My first thought was Rhiannon was going to be frustrated about this interrupting the party we had planned. The elves said the mage was contained and they could keep him that way for a bit and was not an urgent thing to take care of. Not to mention Durbin wasn’t even here. In the end we decided that we would wait for Durbin and the dinner party since my kin had the situation under control and the mage was contained. I told them we would meet them in Silvercrest in two days to meet up with them and head to where this Mage was holed up.
 
Dram suggested of course we go and tell Valum which at first I thought, why, we’re Marshalls we need to handle this. He did make a good point that Valum should at least be kept aware of what we were doing and where we were. I brought up every time we talked to Valum he always seemed annoyed by us bringing him information. Dram tried to defend him saying he was older and wasn’t up for the job and such. Seemed like a simple solution to me for him to just retire and let someone take over and Dram countered he didn’t have anyone to do that. He can coach someone to do it? Humans have odd customs with all this, if Elladin wanted to step down of course someone could take his place. I digress though, back to speaking to Valum. He didn’t seem annoyed as usual and told us to take care of it and that was pretty much it.
 
As we were leaving I glanced at Connor and his assistant and I actually felt a bit guilty. I couldn’t just let him walk into this blind. I told the others I needed to take care of something and I would catch up later. I told Connor I needed to speak to him in private but he was content to just speak elvish in front of her. I told him that I had to let him know that we set the dinner party up because his assistant liked him in a physical way. With that he blushed and said he hadn’t seen it and asked how Rhiannon had “trapped” me. I didn’t feel trapped ever and tried to explain this to him. I told him he didn’t need to get married or anything in human custom either, Rhiannon and I just had a series of coincidences and we found we were great together. I told him I would find him later tonight if he was out if he had any more questions which he was appreciative of.
 
With that done I went home and told Rhiannon what happened and she gave an exasperated sigh of “of course this again!” She suggested we go do it before the party but I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic about it or not. I assured her it could wait until after the party and she seemed to be happy with that. We spent a nice evening together working on music and taking a walk around Melinir. It was nice to have a peaceful time with her with everything going on. That evening as I spent time in the commons Connor found me and we had a long discussion about human women. Obviously I really had only one real relationship there and it turned out to work great for me. I went over what I had learned the hard way. One good communication was key, you couldn’t go months without talking and being away as in our culture. Second they loved gifts but I believe they had to be special, not just a common trinket from the streets. Third, they had rolling emotions sometimes. There were times you just had to deal with whatever emotions they had at the time. Some other minor things but I think those were the big ones. He didn’t have a journal to write it in but I bet he went back and wrote them down after we were done.
 
Klarmont 27
 
The next day Rhiannon and I went down to the Sarcastic Goat for breakfast. Pickman and Durbin were both there so we sat at the same table. I asked Durbin if he knew any engineering to help with the roads and other structures. He didn’t have that knowledge but he was sure there were dwarves that did. I started talking about other things I was reading about but he didn’t seem to be interested. I didn’t care too much but Pickman was interested. He interrupted me and said we needed to be careful. Technically we are part of this new Duchy of Stefan Karameikos and we don’t know what he would do. He could be a tyrant for all we know and attracting attention to the Rift could bring him down on us. I hadn’t really thought of that as it’s not much of an issue in elven clans but I did read some history and it makes perfect sense. He did suggest he would love to go outside the Rift and gather some information but would need some guards. I’m sure the others would be fine with it so I suggested we could help him and go out there as well.
 
I don’t remember but the matter of this Mage we were going to visit came up and Pickman was of course interested. I didn’t want him to get hurt but also didn’t just want to tell him no. I suggested he come with us to Silvercrest, we would accept this Mages surrender and he could meet him when we came back through. He seemed quite excited at the opportunity to travel to Silvercrest and happily agreed. That was easier than I thought!
 
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful but Pickman did give me something to think about, or another thing to worry about. I had these grand dreams in my head of a unified and safe rift but he reminded me that it can’t always be perfect. We would need to proceed with caution.
 
Klarmont 28
 
Since the dinner party was today the manor was busy early. Rhiannon’s sister came in to help and of course Holly was there as well. I decided to leave them to what they were doing and go out for a stroll. Rhiannon asked that I take Princess with me as she was being a bit distracting. Princess the dire wolf pup that Dram had wanted was living with us. Along with the dog from Garlands Rest we found that was now named Violet. It wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t really mind it but a part of me was slightly annoyed as they were not my decision to even keep within our group. Anyways I grabbed the leash and set out with the “pup”.
 
The day went by just fine although Princess was still a bit rough and had to be shushed and pulled back a few times. I stopped by the Sarcastic Goat and Durbin was there so I reminded him of when to be there which was earlier than needed but I wanted to make sure he was there. I didn’t see Dram but I was sure he wouldn’t be late. I made it home early and changed into the proper attire and went down to wait for the others. Durbin and Dram showed up a bit later but not actually late! Durbin was in his armor which was polished and looking very shiny. Dram wondered why he couldn’t wear his but I don’t know why he complained, armor was cumbersome and he looked very nice. The women brought us drinks which was nice and we discussed a few things going on. Shar showed up looking very nice and Durbin told her she looked clean which was not a lie I suppose. The others showed up closer to the dinner but I did notice that Dram and Adrianna were matching.
 
The dinner went well except Connor was literally stumbling all over himself. It was so obvious even I could tell but I did try to help him out here and there. The food was all fantastic and things went well even though everyone was a bit out of place and awkward. Afterwards I went up to grab my lute and Rhiannon request and played music. We drank, talked about things not pertaining to our adventures and had a good time. As it got later Rhiannon gathered all the women up except for Shar who did not want to stay. The other ladies went up to our master room and stayed in there all night with a bottle of the good wine. All the men left as well except for me. Connor said he had a great time and thanked me for inviting him. I was a bit relieved at that as I was somewhat nervous it would have been a disaster for him.
 
Felmont 1
 
We set off first thing in the morning to Silvercrest stopping for a fast breakfast at the Goat to get Pickman. Holly looked exhausted. I knew the girls had stayed up for quite awhile as they were a bit noisy. A bit of curiosity wormed its way into my mind and thought of trying to listen but that thought that would be rude so I dismissed it and returned to my studies. I think it’s best to let the women have their own secrets.
 
We made it to Silvercrest with no issues and met with our ranger guides. The journey north was far more time consuming. It was wild forest and while the rangers knew their way it was still much harder than traveling by road. After some time we made it to the broken lands where most humanoids, evil or not typically stayed away. Odd things happened here as it was a very mana rich area. Manipulating the mana was very easy here but a failure could be catastrophic. The rangers warned us to watch our steps and be careful.
 
First we saw a plant where the roots were growing up towards the sky and we could only assume the branches and leaves were underground. Then Holly ran off exclaiming she saw a six footed rabbit. So much for watching steps. A bush that had flower petals for leaves and leaves for flower petals, a hill cut perfectly in half, fish floating in air, what seemed to be a full apple tree but only a meter tall with tiny little apples on it. It was all a lot to take in and I was careful to follow the rangers exact steps.
 
Finally we arrived at a clearing where large stones were literally floating in the air at different levels and the amount of mana here was insane. The rangers said the Mage was up in a cave, one of them would take us close but not into it. That was agreeable and they led us up to the cave mouth. We could not see him and he would not come out of the cave. He only wanted to speak to us because we were trustworthy. He also said he would only stand trial in Hearth-home as Valum nor the elves would give him a fair trial. His words, not mine. We would of course try him fairly but Valum I could actually see his point after the way he dealt with the iron ring. He was working with the gnolls but claimed he only paid them for protection in the wilds here. I did not like it at all. Without even seeing him this did not sound right and he was trying to get to Hearth-home for some reason. He agreed to surrender everything only wanting his magic dagger and ring for protection on the trip. He said we could have all his notes, books and other possessions if he was found guilty but if he wasn’t he would like them back. I did not like it at all but he said he would be no trouble. I don’t think any of us liked it but we decided to agree to his terms as long as I could verify the enchantments on his items he wanted to hold onto which he agreed.
 
It was late already and we couldn’t head out especially with the time it would take me to analyze his items so we camped outside the cave mouth for the night. I took the items outside the saturated mana area to examine them, I didn’t want any chance of anything going awry. The items were exactly as he said they were. The more everything lined up to what he said the more this shouted that something was wrong. I didn’t like this much, not because we had to go to Hearth-home but because this whole situation was odd. I returned his items and he finally showed himself. Thankfully it was not a Geoffrey copy. This was a human with wild red hair. We told him we would take him to Hearth-home in the morning and he seemed fine with that. He handed over his items and we settled down for the night. Of course I had to review what notes, books and such he had. He was looking into portal magic, mana flows and enchantment. This could only end poorly.
 
Felmont 2
 
That morning I wrote out a note to Rhiannon explaining what was happening and sent Melwin. I had to negotiate how many treats she would get and I settled on three. She was getting quite plump from it all! Not that she cannot do what she wants but it’s just too much for a bird. I sent her on her way and told her to meet back up later in the day as it would take awhile to get to Hearth-home. With that we headed out towards Hearth-home. The journey was not pleasant but at least we didn’t have to take the secret route with blind folds. On the way I spoke with Cambrian about his research. He was quite excited about it saying we could help a lot of people. I told him this was all dangerous stuff, it had been attempted in the past with disastrous results. He believed he could control it of course. I didn’t wish to carry on the conversation. I liked this even less if that was possible. As a lot of the orcs had been wiped out we could just walk up to Hearth-home. There was a lot of activity as we came up to the main gate. It looked like they were actually rebuilding their defenses after many years of siege from orcs. It was quite a sight to see these industrious dwarves rebuilding their home.
 
We entered the main hall and Durbin went to find the Lore Master. The Mage (Cambrian he said his name was) wanted to look at the sculpting on the walls throughout the hall which seemed fine, he couldn’t really go anywhere. Once the Lore Master came in he took him down to a cell where he was watched by two dwarves. He said he would speak to this man after dinner as to what his story was. To try and occupy my mind I set up in a corner of the main hall and put out all the books and documents Cambrian had. The dwarves stayed pretty far away from anything I was doing which was fine by me.
 
After dinner the Lore Master came up and said the man had an interesting story. As we were about to ask what was happening I felt a surge of magic as a powerful spell was cast. I had thought the dwarves would have a cell or something with runic magic to counter this! We rushed down and found the cell empty and the guards not knowing what happened. We rushed back to the main hall and we found a single book and a few items of his gone. Suddenly Durbin said he believed he knew where he was going and we went into a large hall that was coated in dust with a single line of footsteps to a large double door. A large door with a broken metal bar that held it closed, or at least used to as it was broken in half laying on the floor. I groaned. Once again we had let someone get away. Durbin said we had to go after him. We argued for a minute but his mind was made up as I believe was Drams. Drat! I pulled out my scribe kit and wrote a note out for Rhiannon giving it to the Lore Master. Please get this to Lady Rhiannon in Melinir as soon as possible, thank you. With that we entered the door not knowing what was awaiting us.