Ailmar
Against Better Judgement
Felmont 2-4 (Continued)
Inside this area was a large entry room with several hallways leading off from it. A thick coating of dust covered everything in here and obvious footprints were going everywhere. There would be no problem tracking Chambrin through here, at least where he went. There was furniture in here but the odd part was it was all human sized. For being in a dwarven keep this seemed out of place to me. There was also a rotted away skeleton on the floor that had been there for a very long time. There was nothing on it after a quick examination and Holly said the trail where he ended up going was quite clear although there were tracks everywhere and I couldn’t make out anything except he went…everywhere.
Holly led us straight to a hallway that continued on from the main entry which turned the corner to another hall with three doors. Again tracks led to all the doors but Holly said ultimately he went to this one. It was a large metal door that seemed to be stuck and it took Durbin and Dram to open it up and when they did a wave of heat and steam rushed out. Getting the door fully open there were pools of steaming hot water in here making it very humid. The whole room gave off a soft glow from the slime that covered the wall. Holly was quite interested in it and scraped some into a vial she pulled out of her pack. The could be quite a relaxing place if we weren’t in a hurry and we had no idea what else could be in here. There was a door at the other end of the room so we made our way cautiously through. The door was the same as the other and needed some force to be opened which led into another hallway with two doors.
Holly said he went in both doors but looks like he ultimately went through the second door to continue on. We ended up going through the first door to see what was there. It was a very large bedroom with a spiral staircase going up to a balcony about eighteen meters up and another door. This room was a magnificent bedroom at once but it had been ransacked. Everything in here had been rummaged through, cut open, broken, you name it. It was also all human sized again. We went through the remains quickly but nothing was here. Holly wanted to climb the stairs and check the door up at the top but since she had said Chambrin ultimately went on we decided to not check it at that point and continue one.
The next room at the end of the hall was very disappointing. What was once likely a magnificent alchemy lab was totally destroyed. It looked as if there was a huge explosion in the middle of the room. The floor was mostly blackened and most of the room destroyed. We quickly looked through the room but there wasn’t anything there so we continued on to the only door going out and where the tracks went to. Opening this door unleashed the horrible stench but was only a small chamber with another door. Opening the next door unleashed an even stronger sulfur smell. There were three small pools that had crystals around the edges. The tracks went in here but there seemed to be no way out. Holly went in to investigate and I kept the air purified around here. The smell was so heavy in the air you would likely die with no protection. She said the tracks went up to the wall and just stopped. There seemed to be no hidden entry or anything. Durbin said that wall was the same wall as the bedroom. I would have to take his word as I have no idea where we are when underground. Holly came back out and we closed the door heading back to the bedroom.
We discussed exploring the rest of this dungeon as there were plenty of more areas to investigate or going up these stairs to see what was beyond the door up there. Since we were already here we decided to go up the stairs, it didn’t hurt also that there were tracks leading up the stairs as well. After getting to the top and heading towards the door before it was even open I could feel the magic power coming from beyond the door. After opening the door it was like a blinding light of magical power. After being able to adjust my vision it was a very beautiful room with a large pool of water in the center which was the source of power and two large amber lions flanking the pool and a scrap of red cloth near the pool. As we entered the room the lions animated and turned to attack. I retreated into the corner, shrouded myself in darkness and invited Holly to join me while Durbin and Dram fought. After Durbin smashed one of them I was able to charge my staff with lightning and break the other one.
At this point we needed to study this. Since Chambrin wanted to come here and it seems he ended up here it must be the powerful magic he sought. There was the piece of shredded cloak and there were splash marks around the pool of water as if he had jumped or rushed into it. The others pressed that we needed to continue on as we needed to find Chambrin. That was of course a ridiculous notion. We needed to send for the Princess and the other mages, possibly even Geoffrey himself. This was a powerful magical artifact here that needed to be studied before using it. They were insistent so we tried a few items. We threw in a piece of broken amber which sank, shimmered and disappeared. Next I tried a mage eye which did the same but my connection instantly cut on disappearing. Finally Durbin just said he was going and just went into the pool, shimmered and disappeared. There was some disagreement as to what to do next. Dram was insistent on going. I said that Durbin had made his choice and he had to live with it. I gave my opinion as the most knowledgeable on magical matters present and he used it anyways. In the end we decided we could not just let him go through whatever it was alone. Holly volunteered to go next, we tied a rope around her and she went into the pool and disappeared severing the rope. Dram went next. I would be lying if I didn’t think about just leaving. I could go up to the windows in the ceiling, escape and loop back around to Hearth-Home and let them know what happened. I also was afraid that this would just be certain death and I would never see Rhiannon or my clan again. In the end I decided I needed to help my group, went into the water and felt an odd sensation.
I came up gasping in a pool of water bathed in sunlight in a clearing surrounded by trees. At least we were out of the caves! Durbin, Holly and Dram were all there. Durbin was out of the pool, Holly climbing out, Dram and I in the water. There was a stone statue of a woman laying down but when got out of the water it was just a stone, it must just be a coincidence. It did feel a bit odd here, I was slightly dizzy and my head ached slightly. The air was…different somehow here and looking around we were not in the mountains anymore, we were much lower.
Melwen was very excited to be out of Hearth-Home so I asked her to fly up and scout a bit ahead. Holly found the trail pretty quickly and we set off. She said the trail was pretty easy to follow and he didn’t seem to hide it, either because he couldn’t or was moving quickly. After some time a pack of boars ran across our path and the largest noticed us and charged. The others took care of it pretty quick and started talking about reloading crossbows and cutting this thing up. I almost got angry at this, I did not risk my life coming through this portal to stop and do this while we were hunting Chambrin and told them so. They relented and we moved on down the trail. After some time Melwen came rushing back towards me sending me an image of some giant bird creature and her emotion of terror. I let the others know what was coming and they set up their crossbows. Melwen came flying in and the large bird creature (a harpy!) came rushing after her. Holly and Durbin loosed their bolts and took the thing down immediately. With that we took a short break and Dram reloaded Holly’s crossbows, they were quite useful and if there was one harpy around then likely more would be around.
Soon after Melwen came back and told me there were indeed more circling overhead hunting. That started the others talking about trying to trap these things to kill them and even going to hunt them down and find their nest. Once more I had to focus them on the fact we were here to find Chambrin, not hunt harpies. If we wanted to do that once Chambrin was captured then I would be more than happy to help. They again relented and we continued on trying to avoid the harpies. That wasn’t possible as they are actually fairly good hunters so we had to fight two pairs of them that came in. I actually used my bow this time and found I wasn’t too bad. We killed three of the four, one did get away but maybe it could tell the others to stay away from us.
After more time we came upon a small village that was half burned down and no activity of anyone living there. We approached and an old man jumped off a stool sitting in one of what would be a burned down tavern. He spoke Traladaran so I didn’t really catch anything but Dram said the man had lost his family and building and was likely just broken. He didn’t make much sense but apparently Chambrin had been through here and pointed out the way he went. This was also the village of Bywater which was the first one outside the Rift so we were actually close to home! He said there was another village down the road as well. Durbin gave the man some coins and we started through the village. Yet again the others talked about investigating this village or going to the other village and again I had to remind them we were here to find Chambrin. Afterwards we could look for clues and hunt harpies and skin boars. They relented and we carried on, Chambrin was going the opposite way of the second village so he must actually be heading towards the Rift then.
By this time it was getting late but instead of stopping for the night we decided to continue on. Holly was able to keep on the trail he was leaving so it was fairly well confirmed we were going the correct way. As we crested the top of a hill I saw a lone figure on the next hill that seemed to be watching us and then “blinked” away. I would guess it was definitely Chambrin and we were indeed on the right path and let the others know. After traveling the night Holly said she saw that he had left the road and was following a much less traveled path but still fairly visible. It’s worth noting we were slowly going back up into the mountains up towards the Rift until we had to step off the path. The path was winding up into the mountains even more and after some time we started seeing chunks of red granite and up in the distance a two story building made of red. It seems that whatever it was had blown up and spewed debris this far? As we made our way closer it was apparent that seemed to be what happened. It was a red granite tower up here and the top of it appeared to be destroyed. The back of it was also blown out in a “V” shape and appeared to be the only way in as the bottom of the “V” was at ground level. I asked Melwen to take a quick fly around but not get too close or do anything rash (which she wouldn’t do anyways).
As we approached the broken tower cautiously Melwen came screaming back to me again. Images of a large serpent eye and pure terror came across. She nestled up in my hood quickly again but then emerged and tried to actually pull me away while sending me danger emotions. She was even more scared then with the harpies so whatever it was must be big. As we approached Chambrin called out we both knew each other were there so we may as well talk. He said he never really lied or betrayed anyone and we were Marshalls of the Rift and were not in the Rift anymore. He told us to just leave him alone and he would let us go live our lives. He also said something troubling that it wasn’t where we were but when we were. Did the watery portal take us to a different time period? I began to panic at the loss of Rhiannon and everything else we had worked for. Durbin and Dram persisted and finally Chambrin gave up trying to talk and the serpents eye made sense fairly quickly. From out of the darkness in the tower came a large, black wyvern with Chambrin coming behind him. Perhaps this was where it ends.
Holly had already worked her way up by the tower and somewhat beyond Chambrin. Durbin and Dram were in front of me and the wyvern went straight for them. I conjured a globe of darkness and started preparing a ball of lightning that would explode on contact with the ground. I thought this more effective than trying to hit Chambrin himself as he could likely just deflect it. The wyvern threw itself at Dram who dodged and blocked furiously. Durbin attacked the thing, i knew he could hurt it but this wasn’t an orc, this was a mighty beast that best fought with a number of skilled soldiers. I charged my lightning and Dram backed towards me causing the wyvern to block my line of sight to Chambrin. I knew Holly was back there but I would have liked to have a backup plan. Turns out it wasn’t needed, Holly let loose a bolt that destroyed Chambrins leg and sent him to the ground screaming. I threw my lightning at the ground beneath the wyvern but I hadn’t charged it properly for the larger beast so I’m not sure how much it did. As Dram and Durbin danced with the wyvern I charged a true lightning bolt when we heard another scream from Chambrin as Holly must have shot him with another bolt. Durbin had also managed to make the wyvern limp somewhat.
It seems they had both had enough. The wyvern retreated, picked up Chambrin and set him on its back. He asked for a parley and said he had an object that would allow us to go back to the Rift and he held up a small statue. That piqued my interest highly but I was also very suspicious of this man. He would give it to us if we just let him go and we would not hear from him or his wyvern again. I trusted him none but the object was magical. He was also getting woozy and would drop it if we delayed too long. Dram asked me but I stayed silent in my sphere of darkness aiming with my lightning bolt just in case. Dram and the others discussed and took him up on his offer. He actually set the statue down and the wyvern turned and was going to limp away. I shouted to Dram to grab the object, I didn’t want to spend any more time here. In a second I made the decision I cannot let this man go. He said it himself we’re no in the Rift anymore. He also lied and attacked the dwarves. At the very least we should capture him and take him back with us to stand his trial. It was not the honorable thing to do and I don’t quite feel right about doing it but I threw the lightning at the beast. I forgot to mention I had charged this bolt quite high. It hit the wyvern in the side of its chest, searing a large hole in the beast causing it to flop to the ground. Unfortunately Chambrin collapsed, fell off the wyvern, hit his head on the second floor and tumbled to the ground dead. That was very unfortunate and I did question whether I had made the right choice. Ultimately I believe I did as he would have caused trouble here, when, or whatever this was.
Dram had been able to get the statue intact which mattered most. We were also all exhausted and needed to rest going a full day, night and most of the next day. We went through Chambrins body and took all of his items which were fairly powerful. The wyvern didn’t have much in the saddlebags but the scales and such would be a good collection. Durbin and Holly set about breaking down the wyvern so I focused on this statue praying to Ilsundal that indeed could take us home. After a few hours of examination it was true. It was a key, allowing us to return to the pool in Hearth-Home from any pool of water. The problem was it was empty. To take us all back it would take a week to recharge! That was frustrating but at least we could get back home and to our proper timeline. Since we were in a different time it seemed logical to just stay put and return when we could. Dram had other ideas of investigating the Rift and looking into Geoffrey’s “broken story” as he keeps calling it. I did not like it and tried to explain that messing around with portals and time magic was highly dangerous. Also something about remembering history which was laughable to me. I asked him what happened at Blackmoor and he of course had no clue. I drove home the point that humans don’t know history and forget things quickly. I should not have snapped at him but I was tired and stressed. Plus I was strongly against this idea but the others were onboard so I couldn’t just leave them wandering around on their own. At least if I was with them I could stop them from doing anything foolish.
First we had to rest. Then we could look in the morning.
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.
A Cup of Tea to Calm the Nerves
Flaurmont 27 - Yarthmonth 27
This time was very tedious. Connor had to teach us not just human law but how to enforce and interpret it. So many rules to try and create a peaceful society that we Elves just really did without being told or having written laws. I was getting more accustomed to it but it was still a bit foreign (or maybe annoying) to me. Connor did as good a job as he could with the material I suppose. At the end we had to actually take a written exam which was quite easy if you paid attention.
I tried to divide my time outside of the classes between all my studies and Rhiannon. She was most important so I typically worked on my studies while she slept. We did spend a good amount of time together. She showed me more furnishings for the house she had purchased which were quite nice. I also noticed a number of animals that seemed to be coming around more frequently as well that she was taking care of. Having some animals around does make it feel a bit more like home oddly enough so I have no issue with it.
A spent some time at night on different books I checked out from the library in Edgewater and a few basic ones they had here in Melinir. Mostly on how different people interact with each other, how conflicts arise and how to control them and other such things. I also found some information on how to best plan our villages, cities, roads and such. Both topics I quickly grasped the basics but further study would be needed to understand the finer details. After work I did speak with Connor about what lands and abandoned areas could be easily settled again and there is quite a bit. It will take some work but I believe the Rift can be made safe and secure for many generations to come. I also asked about his assistant, he said she was not progressing very well and was not getting much work done.
I also had to stop by the jeweler and have another piece commissioned. Since Rhiannon liked the marshall badge I thought something similar to it but something showing her protecting me somehow? We had the small rubies so I thought perhaps her house banner etched into it large, a series of the small rubies in the shape of a heart and the silvercrest banner in the center smaller. He agreed and said he could get to work on it right away.
Yarthmont 28 - Klarmont 13
Rhiannon and I decided to open up her home (our Summer House she calls it) and spend some time there. For memories I went to the library and borrowed The Big Book of Sappy, Drivelly Love Poems which is how we were able to spend some time together. We brought plenty of wine and our lutes to work on music together. It was a very relaxing two weeks of music, long walks and enjoying each other's company. Melwen very much enjoys this location as well, I just need to get Rhiannon to slow down on the treats she gives her!
Klarmont 14-20
Back in Melinir I was able to get some time on the Island to do some studying. I looked briefly into the Water Elemental as I believed we needed to finish that at some point but I found what I already knew really. It was bound by an object. It was a being from another plane and only enchanted items could harm it. Nothing much new there. At the end of the week I spoke to Dram and Holly about the elemental and heading back there and they agreed to come with me. Durbin was not to be found but I vividly remember him saying before he wanted nothing to do with the elemental. We found the captain who took us last time and he agreed to take us again the next day. Holly went to Grandma Gertie to get some of the insect repellent. We told Pickman of our plan and he insisted on coming as well!
Apparently while we were at our summer home Dram and Holly went back up to Kleine to gather the dire wolf pups they left there. They needed a place for it to stay while we went to the swamp castle and asked if she could stay at our house. Rhiannon of course said yes and immediately took a liking to the pup. I told Holly she would now have to share the pup with Rhiannon, just look at Melwen!
Klarmont 21
I told Rhiannon of our plans for the day and that it should hopefully be just a day trip but I would send Melwen with news if it took longer. With a hug and kiss goodbye she did not even seem upset. I met the others at the dock and we were ready to go. It did bring back some memories of leaving the first time, wanting to get back to work with Rhiannon on our duet. It was a bit laughable now how naive I was to her love. The trip went by quickly and before I knew it we had to put the insect repellent gloop on us. I did not care for the smell or the feel of it but it did work. Keeping up a few simple spells made casting others difficult so it was best to have this so I could be at full strength if needed.
After applying it I shaped and purified the air around me to keep the bugs off and myself comfortable. It is simple enough on myself but to make it larger is fatiguing so the others would need to rely on the repellent. The large otters showed up as before and the crew fed them some fish. We made it easily to the Keep and found that the “newt-men” seemed to be back so we had to be on alert.
Holly scouted ahead a bit with Dram close behind her and myself watching our rear with Pickman. There were obvious signs there were new residents but we didn’t see them. We went through all the rooms and found none of them. The large bed chamber seemed to be full of their nests but they were not there. Perhaps they all went out hunting or fishing? Everything did seem to be as it was except for their expanded residence.
With the Keep seemingly safe at the moment we discussed what to do next. The elemental said it was trapped here by an object its control object in a corner of the Keep. I wanted to check all the “easy” corners first but Dram and Pickman suggested just checking under the elemental. Fine. I wrapped my boots in mana and walked above the water to the end. Once there I switched to my mage eyes and could definitely see what I could only assume would be the object controlling it as it glowed brightly. I walked back and let them know that yes, it was almost assuredly there.
We stood in the dry area by the stairs to the roof and discussed what to do next. We came up with many plans but ultimately it led to us trying to get the control device and after that not knowing what to really do next as we knew for sure the elemental would attack. Pickman suggested we speak to it but I wasn’t sure what to ask it or speak to it about. It was pretty clear it would not leave until its task was complete or we defeated it like it said. After a short discussion we decided it was better than going straight to a fight. Initially we thought maybe Holly could try talking to it first but then decided it perhaps not the best idea. I spoke to it last time and it seemed to at least tolerate me so I would do so again.
I asked Pickman to cast his language spell on me again and wrapped my boots in mana again to go back there. I wasn’t even sure what to say to it so I just asked why this wasn’t done yet. It said it just needed to wait for the swamp to reclaim it and it couldn’t do much else. I tried to get it to agree to us moving it’s control device to another location to help it break down the Keep faster. It seemed to be open to that idea but explicitly told me if I touched it then it would have to kill me. I actually did apologize as if it was saddened by the idea. I asked what if I could move it but not actually touch it? That intrigued it so I moved closer, pointed my staff towards the object and wrapped it in mana. It is difficult when the object is a few meters away but I was able to wrap hold of it.
I paused my breath and was ready to run but the elemental did not move. “Clever Elf,” it said to me. I started slowly backing up pulling the item with me. Once the object was ten paces from the elemental it began following. Interesting, it seemed to have a range? Once I brought it further out I could see what it actually was. It was an icosahedron made of crystal with a bit of water in it. Each face of the object was a rune but I couldn’t really tell what any of them were. I brought the object to the corner by the stairwell where the others were and set it down there. The elemental followed and spent no time getting to work.
Pickman was of course intrigued by the object and thought perhaps we could maybe control it somehow. The two of us worked over several hours to examine the object and between the two of us we did see there were summoning and control runes. I asked Dram to draw out these runes for us and add some notes by each one if said them. After a bit, Dram had a great diagram of all the runes and Pickman and I were able to determine that you need to touch the runes in a certain order to regain control. Of course you would need to best the one who summoned it in the first place. Also you would need to touch the object drawing the ire of the creature,
We estimated about five seconds of time to attempt to wrest control of the elemental. We would need an option to retreat and I did not want to go through the water. I could shape a section of stone wall and move it. Holly pointed out we could draw the ire of the giant crocodile but that was an easy solution. I would just use that same stone to block off the hall to that area! Shaping stone is exhausting so we took a short rest (Dram helped me with some energy) and we went over the plan. I would pull the object to me, drop it in my hands and I just needed them to buy me time to activate the control runes and take control. Pickman asked if everyone had an enchanted weapon which Dram did not. I let him use my knife and he almost scoffed at the idea of using such a small weapon. Well it was enchanted and would do something. Even Pickman said he could still cast a good fireball. With everyone ready and in place we started.
I wrapped the object in mana and pulled it towards me walking backwards along the escape route. I got to the ten pace mark and it stopped looking at me. This was it. I maneuvered the object to the best I could for the runes to start and dropped it. I could immediately sense the hostility. The next few seconds were chaotic. I focused on the runes but I could see the elemental moving towards me, a fireball hit it in the side and it lashed out to Pickman I assume. Dram tried to stand in its way but it’s water so it just went around and rushed up towards me. Like the minotaur I thought this might be it. Thankfully Dram rushed over to it and swung wildly slicing through it with my enchanted knife which drew its attention. With Dram doing that I could focus and get the control sequence done. There was a little bit of resistance, whoever did this was good but between Barik and myself we were able to quickly break down its defenses and immediately I could feel control. I shouted STOP and the sounds of battle stopped. We had done it!
With it now under our control we asked it some questions but they were not helpful. It did not know exactly who summoned it, couldn’t even really remember if it was human. The only real information we got was that it was not summoned here in the castle but further away to what Holly said was the northwest which I believed was towards Wizardspire. With that none of us could really come up with anything else to ask it, so I released it back to its plane. It thanked me and was gone. A part of me was saddened, the elemental could have been useful but it was best to release it.
Apparently Pickman was wounded badly by the elemental and was knocked out. We got him back to the boat and Dram was going on about the newt creatures that I should put the wall back. That was fine. I could easily do that. He thought perhaps the newt men were not evil and they could be reasoned with and perhaps be an ally in the Rift here. I wasn’t sure about that, I had not really even heard of these things before. From our training though we could be in trouble for bringing Pickman with us and allowing him to get hurt. I know he can be healed and this wasn’t really official business but I do feel bad for his injury. The captain was also getting nervous as the newt creatures were starting to creep back towards the keep and we should probably get going. Perfect timing!
We made our way back to Melinir and brought Pickman to the Church who immediately chastised us for bringing him along. They were right but he did like to learn new things and insisted on coming along. Once Pickman was safe at the church we went to the keep of the Quadrial where Connor was still working. Valum was not there but he could record what had happened for us. I also suggested Connor should come over for dinner one night with Rhiannon and I which he seemed to be happy to do. Once that was done Dram quickly left and I chatted with Holly. I suggested she should come over for breakfast in the morning before we came to see Valum. I figured we should let him know about Pickman before he heard it from others.
Upon arriving home I found Rhiannon was already asleep. In the bed with her was the pup. Washed, brushed and a red ribbon around her neck. I chuckled to myself, yes Holly was going to have to share. If she left the pup here too long she may just lose it! I let them be and went out for a stroll to the commons and rested there since it was such a beautiful night.
Klarmont 22
Holly came over early but Dram did not. She said she told him but he had practice to attend or something. We had a nice breakfast and conversation. Holly was happy to see her pup so calm and I just gave her a look like “I told you so”. Holly packed some food for Dram and Connor. I gave Rhiannon a hug and kiss and let her know I had some errands to run here in town. She quickly put together a small lunch and we headed back over to the keep of the Quadrial.
When we arrived Dram was already there along with Connor and his assistant who was a young human female. Connor seemed a bit frustrated and his assistant…I don’t know she didn’t look well. Dram and Holly were speaking quietly about something while looking at them. I asked what was wrong with her and they said she obviously liked him. I looked between them and maybe? I don’t know, it just seemed like she didn’t feel well. Although maybe I’m not the best judge of this since it did take me a while to figure out Rhiannon.
Valum came in soon after and did not seem pleased to see us although that seemed to be the usual case with him. We followed him in and he was of course most concerned for Pickman and not happy we brought him with. He also suggested we take the object to be destroyed or at least a safe place. I figured Geoffrey may be most interested in it so I was already thinking of taking it there. Then I brought up Connor's assistant and why he would choose such a person who is easily distracted. He thought it was somewhat funny and that Connor needed to relax a bit and that she could help. I don’t know, maybe?
Dram wanted to rush off to his studies so I stopped to talk with Holly and tried to keep an eye on Connor and his assistant as well. Maybe there was something there? Everyone else seemed to think so, I had to go with the consensus I suppose. I told Holly I had invited Connor over for dinner but maybe we should invite her as well. I just didn’t want me to be the one doing the inviting so maybe she could talk to Rhiannon and drop the hint there to which Holly agreed. Since we were having them I thought why not Dram and Adrianna too? The wedding attempt did not seem to work at all so we would have to try again.
I stopped by the jeweler and Rhiannon’s “badge” was done so I picked that up. I stopped by the clothier and they were able to make some suggestions for a wrapping for it and even made it so that after the gift it could be used as a handkerchief. It would take a bit so I went to visit the Church and Pickman but they had healed him up and sent him home already. I was chastised again for bringing him with. I stopped by his home and he was there, good as ever. He invited me in for tea and we chatted for a bit. We both agreed that we should have Geoffrey look at the object so I said I would take it there as soon as I could. I needed to go there anyway and look into the newt-men anyways to see what their history was.
With that done I went back to the clothier and picked up the wrap/handkerchief for Rhiannon’s badge and headed back home. She was there and said we should have a glass of wine and picked out two glasses and poured some, setting the gift in front of her. She was thrilled with the gift of course and I suggested we play at the Goat tonight which she agreed. It was already mid afternoon so she went to prepare and we left for dinner that evening. Holly joined us and was flawless in bringing up Connor and his assistant plus Dram and Adrianna. Rhiannon was very excited about this and they started chatting quietly, almost as if they didn’t want me to hear...taking an obvious hint I grabbed my lute to play for a bit while they discussed their plans. As I played I kept an eye on those two and they were very enthusiastic about this, perhaps I had taken this too far? Well it was too late for that now so I just concentrated on my music.
Klarmont 23
This morning I asked Rhiannon if she wished to go to the Island for a bit for study and she said she would, it had been awhile since she had been there. Plus she said she had someone she needed to speak to there anyways so it worked out well. I told her I had invited Connor over for dinner and she said she already knew and things were already in motion. Now I was really actually thinking I had pushed this too far but I took a breath and calmed myself. It would be fine, it was just dinner with friends.
We got to the Island and we decided to meet in the library when we were both done. She went off on her way and I made my way towards Geoffreys tower, actually a bit nervous. Geoffrey was not immediately available so I had to wait a bit. Finally he arrived and asked what I needed in his very nonchalant way that said “I am superior to you, we both know it”. I said we had found an item in Castle Kraal that was used to control the water elemental that sank the Castle. When I pulled the object out and showed it to him he was visibly shaken. Out of all the things that we had brought to this man this actually shook him. He turned sharply and barked at me to follow in a very commanding tone. Shaken myself I hesitated then rushed to follow him up. We went through his store rooms where it just glowed bright of magic everywhere to a large vault door. He placed his hands and muttered what must have been the password and it opened. He scrolled through a number of drawers finding one and opened it. Inside was an empty cloth insert for either this object or one exactly like it.
I didn’t know what to do! Do I turn this back over to him when it obviously came from here? He was obviously disturbed that it was not there so it didn’t seem he knew about it. I asked why I should give it back and what was going on. He didn’t have an answer but he was going to continue working on it. With the oaths, knowing what was on the Island now and everything else I didn't think he was evil or anything but this was definitely odd. I set the object in the insert and told him I was trusting him with this even though it clearly made no sense. I don’t know if it really meant anything to him and he didn’t have much else to give me on the subject. I figured if he got anything from Zanzer Tem he would tell us. I left his tower shaken, even forgetting that I told Rhiannon I would meet her in the library.
I went to the lounge and got a glass of wine and sat down trying to wrap my head around what was going on. Some time later (i don’t really know) Rhiannon did find me and looked concerned. She poured herself some and me some more. I told her I didn’t want to hold anything back so I explained what had just happened. She was mystified as well and could tell I was quite shaken by the ordeal. I told her I wished to end this trip now as I just didn’t care to sit in the library which must have really told her something was wrong. She said we could go home and she would make me some of my favorite tea to calm my nerves. That did sound grand, perhaps being off the Island too would help calm things down.
The more we keep digging the more questions keep coming up. One thing really does seem to keep popping up though and that was the Wizardspire.
A Great Honor?
Flaurmont 11-12
After examining the gems some more they were actually set into the stone pedestal and would not come out easily if someone tried to take them. Durbin thought perhaps we needed to do something with the gems in order to unlock something but I wasn’t so sure. If they were set in there you couldn’t do much. After some more examination of the room we decided to just try the door opposite the pedestal which was unlocked.
The next room was just as well done as the first. A beautiful tiled floor and in the center the symbol of Hearth-Home. If I remember correctly it was a shield and hammer? Also in this room were four alcoves, one in each corner. Each had a chair and three of them had dwarven suits of armor each with a different weapon. The empty chair had a gem just like the gems in the previous room. There was also a door in the center of each wall which were all closed. I examined behind one of the suits of armor and sure enough there was another gem just like the previous room behind it. Durbin did not know what they did. I suspect perhaps some sort of defense? I could see threads of mana coming from the gem into the suits of armor. I suppose maybe the dwarves of Hearth-Home would know how these worked.
After examining the room we decided to go back and check the other door in the first room. It opened and was a hallway to another door. There were a lot of hooks on the wall in this hallway and Durbin counted everyone which he told us there were sixty two. Fantastic. The next door opened in an octagonal room which was actually beautiful. There was carpet that felt almost like grass and the walls were painted with the whole of the Rift! If you looked toward Kleine you could see the falls, if you turned around you saw the Keep of the Black Knight. It was very beautiful indeed. Durbin decided we needed to thoroughly search the room so I just sat against a wall while they did so.
While searching Holly found a small box on top of a pillar. I wasn’t all too excited about that until she brought it down and I saw it literally glowing with magic. The box was odd though. It had no hinges, looked like it was made of metal but was wood. I decided we didn’t have much time to so I put it away to examine later. Thinking they were done I stood up and started to leave the room but they were still examining the room so I sighed and sat back down. After some more searching they found an imperceptible line in the wall and a mechanism to unlock another hidden door to another spiral staircase. It is frustrating but at the same time the care and work that went into this is astounding. If I could be as dedicated as a dwarf to my studies I would surely master weather in no time at all. We decided to leave the stairs for now and check the doors in the other room.
The first door we checked was a very fortified door with a sliding peephole. Looking in Durbin said it was a man trap room. Apparently it is a small room between two fortified doors to control traffic. Given all the defenses the dwarves put into their buildings it made sense. Durbin opened up the sliding peephole in the next door and light poured in. Odd that they would have a light source underground. After opening the door we were actually outside! There was a nice level area next to a small river flowing. I thought we were still underground and it would open up to some huge cavern or something. Then we heard the sounds and I immediately knew there were gnolls here and they were above us! I told Durbin we need to close the door quickly as that would not be good if they saw us so we backed into the keep again and secured both doors.
The next door in this room was the same and opened up to the outside so we made sure to secure those. The third opened up into a small room which had a large dwarven chest with dials and a very nice scale and some weights strewn about. Durbin looked over the chest and mumbled to himself something and then turned away saying no time for that right now. With no more obvious rooms to explore and not wanting to go outside we made our way back to the Rift painting room and the spiral staircase going up. Before going up I sent up a magical eye to check the area using the ring we found to see in the temperature spectrum. There were two doors up higher and the stairs ended with a ladder. I dismissed the eye and explained to the others what I saw.
We decided to start at the top first and work our way down. Holly did listen at both doors on the way up and said she heard gnolls at both of them so this place must be full of them. Disgusting beasts! Hopefully we could purge them all from this place. We got to the top and Durbin climbed up the ladder but said it was locked. I asked him if it looked like the other one we came up through and he said it was the same. I sighed and asked him to come down and I would open it. I don’t know what it is about these dwarven ladders but they just don’t feel right. Regardless I climbed up and repeated the process I used to open the previous one which was successful. I pushed a little to make sure it could open and climbed back down.
Durbin climbed up and it was the top of a tower. He was able to see quite a bit around the keep and he’s sure we are in the main keep in the middle of the pass. Since there was no more going up we decided to take the first door back down the stairs. There was still noise coming from beyond the door so Durbin opened the sliding peephole. He whispered there were some dog-like things running around and an old gnoll in a rocking chair. He pulled out his crossbow, loaded it, aimed and shot the old gnoll through the head killing it. We opened the door and these hyena beasts attacked Durbin immediately. We managed to put them down quickly but the things have strong jaws and bit through to his leg.
The room had a large fireplace and they were cooking something over it. There were three doors off this room. The first one we heard whispering and we opened it to find four humans bound and gagged in here, one of them with a leg cut off! We would later find out that the meat on the fire was the human leg. Disgusting creatures. Durbin rushed in and helped the one who had their leg cut off. I approached the other three and made a silent gesture and ungagged one. He explained they had been captured by the gnolls and we should get word to Bywater. After some back and forth of use saying where we are from and where they are it was now obvious. They were from Karameikos and had no real knowledge of the Rift. We unbound the rest and gave them some food and water. They were in no state to travel and we still had work to do. Holly was not feeling well so guided them down to room with the suits of armor so they could rest well protected. The second door was a large room with a well and hooks on the ceiling with a lone, poorly gutted deer.
The last door caused a flurry of craziness. Upon opening the door there were four female gnolls in what was an old dwarven dining hall. Once we opened the door they bolted. Three went into a door closer to use and one a door further down the wall. Making a snap decision Durbin led us to the closest door to a room with a large table and eight gnolls sitting around it. They picked up their weapons, stood up and charged towards the door. Dram and Durbin set up in front of it and I began weaving mana. They got to the door and unleashed a flurry of blows but Durbin and Dram held them back. I coated the floor with ice although I forgot they had clawed feet. Hopefully it would hinder them. As they continued to fight in the doorway I turned the air to poison, thick gas in the room to choke the rest out. There was a very brief flash in my mind of the disapproving princess but I cast it aside. Gnolls deserved no mercy. With that the fight was over quick. The others made their way slowly in as I cleansed the air of the poison and we finished off the gnolls. Vile beasts.
We needed a bit of rest and since nothing had rushed into the room after the one got away we figured we had some time. The large table in the gnoll room had some dice and a few coins but not much else. There was a large table (a shield?) with the Hearth-Home symbol but over the top of it in tar was a gauntleted fist. Maybe a symbol of these creatures clan? The gnoll room also had some “murder holes” Durbin called them to shoot down into an area below. He also explained there was an area here to pour boiling oil into which they would light on fire. Dwarves took their defenses very seriously. There wasn’t much in either of these rooms but it gave us time to rest uninterrupted.
Once we were ready to go we went through the door the single female gnolls went into and there were stairs going up. We made our way up quietly and at the top was a door on the left and right with sound coming from the one on the left. We opened it to find a large ogre doing unspeakable things with the gnoll female. Durbin and Dram rushed in and although the thing got a few swings they quickly killed it and the gnoll. We checked the other door from the stairwell and it was the ogres chambers which were disgusting. This led to one other door in the Ogres room that was still not explored.
Opening that door revealed a large room that was nicely furnished and not destroyed. Sitting at a desk was a large man-ish looking thing that stood up and looked at us. Durbin asked who he was and he asked what we were doing here. Durbin moved into the room and the thing floated over towards him. Dram tried to protect me as I transformed mana into a bolt of lightning. The thing was very strong so I told Dram to just go in and help Durbin, I would be fine. With that the thing unleashed a blast of cold which hit Dram but Durbin and I got out of the way. I unleashed my lighting at him and it must have really hurt him as he fixated on me and shrunk down to a very small size. I hid behind the door getting ready to cast another lightning. As I peaked around the door he rushed towards me and I had to try and dodge and concentrate on casting which is not fun. I decided to try and just protect myself with a strong whirlwind around me and was barely able to stay focused enough to cast it. Once it was in that (it did not get picked up and tossed to my disappointment) Dram and Durbin were able to end it. I was shocked and exhausted. I walked into the room, mentioned the robes and gauntlet were magical and sat in the chair at the desk he was sitting at.
They went over the body and I was sitting at an empty desk. I thought they would have something here but nope. There was a very heavy chest under the desk which the thing had a key for around his neck. Opening it up revealed a lot of coins, maybe from tariffs. Durbin and Dram were going on about the Gauntlet being evil so I got up and walked over. What happened next is a bit fuzzy but the Gauntlet seemed to influence me. I wanted it badly and nothing was going to stop me. Dram tried to grab me by the shoulders and I dodged away. Durbin tried to say I couldn’t have it but it was mine! I had distracted and given us an advantage to kill it, it was rightfully mine! I even fully charged my staff with lightning ready to try and strike Durbin down. Dram grabbed me from behind and Durbin put the gauntlet in an iron chest he kept. As Dram grabbed me I desperately tried to hit him with my staff and at the same time Durbin closed the chest and the influence disappeared. I hastily released the lightning and just bopped Dram with my staff. How embarrassing. I apologized to both of them of course and hoped they understood that was not me which they did understand.
With that we were trying to decide what to do when we heard a lot of noise from gnolls running out of the keep. Dram was insistent we head to this Bywater asap in case they intended to raid it (they were not going towards the Rift). I told them to hush and listened. I didn’t spend much time on raids but I knew enough to say that they were in fear and running away, not plotting a planned attack. Dram seemed to take my word and did not insist we leave. After some discussion we decided to escort the men to Bywater and inform Valum. I wrote out two notes for Melwin. One for Rhiannon letting her know we were safe and heading outside the Rift and I would pick up any wine we found! The other was to Valum letting him know we had cleared the keep. I sent her on her way to Rhiannon with strict instructions to only have two bits of honey knowing full well that wouldn’t happen. She spoiled that bird.
I did forget to mention the ogre had the cover of a spellbook it was trying maybe use as an amulet? It was a beautiful cover too, all the colleges reflected by a single small gem. Under the bed of the ogre (yes it was using a dwarven made bed that held it!) was an odd book that looked to be made of metal? I also did find one thing on the gnolls, a purple bottle with a stopper and purple flowers painted on it.
We also spent some time exploring the rest of the Keep and Durbin was able to figure out how everything worked. It was actually quite fascinating how they controlled this bend with the Keep. The only reason the Gnolls could take it was because it had to be abandoned. There wasn’t much else in the Keep. Since there were no more caravans they had no more money really besides the coins from the magis room.
After discussing with the captured men (not mere militiamen like i thought but some kind of road patrol?) they needed to get back asap and had horses that the gnolls took. We were able to find the stables but one horse had been killed so they had five left (they had two spare). They did want to send someone back to visit the rift at some point so we volunteered to take the wounded man back to the church with us as it was much closer and had a better chance to save him. They agreed and in the morning they were off. Before they left I gave the leader a gold coin and asked him if he could ensure that any caravan coming in had plenty of dry red wine, good stuff. He flipped the coin back and said he would do so free of charge and they rode off.
Durbin and Holly stayed behind and I actually believed together they could hold the keep! They wouldn’t need to as Bryon was coming up the pass with a group of men. He stopped and said he was heading to the keep and that a certain someone needed to return home as soon as possible. He added that someone should suggest to her that they shouldn’t threaten bodily harm to certain people. Rhiannon must have pulled more information from Melwin then I thought she could. Also where was that blasted bird! We let them know that Durbin and Holly were there and we headed back to Melinir. Soon after Melwin landed on my shoulder and snuggled up. Obviously had too much honey and would not hint at what she told Rhiannon. I didn’t realize we had to share familiars as well now that we’re married!
When we got to Melinir Dram went to the church with the wounded man and I headed home. As typical she was not necessarily mad, but very worried. I told her I needed a good bottle of that darokin sweet wine in the cellar and would tell her everything. After that I wouldn't bring it up again to which she agreed. She chided me for being in the center of danger twice but was happy I made it out with no scratches.
Flaurmont 13-14
Durbin came and brought the gauntlet with him to take to the church. It turns out to be an artifact of a high level entropic immortal! I still feel bad for what I did under its influence but it made sense since it was so powerful. When asked how we destroy it she laughed, you can’t destroy an artifact of an immortal easily. There was only one way and that was to find the specific object that could destroy it. Even then would you want to? If you destroy it then you are going to draw the ire of that immortal sure as the sun rises. So we were left with a bit of a conundrum on what to do with that.
Durbin was ready to go after his hammer though. I agreed it needed to be done but give me the rest of spring and I would be ready. He countered with a week. I told him perhaps. He should come to dinner tomorrow night at the mansion and explain to Rhiannon that I needed to leave again so soon. To his credit he did show up and it was an uncomfortable evening of them going back and forth. Eventually Rhiannon had enough and Durbin left, vowing to come back. I told her I had no intention of going out again so soon and she told me I better not! I just let it go and smiled, drinking my wine.
Flaurmont 26
All of us were summoned to the Keep of the Quadrial for dinner (minus Rhiannon, just the four of us). I was wondering what was needed now to keep the Rift from spontaneously igniting into flames but there was actually none of that! They let us know that Bryon was being given the position of watching over and managing the pass. The dwarves agreed to rotate out five in shifts and the humans fifteen, mainly militia men from the different towns. Since the Quadrial were getting up in age and busy with day to day management they wanted to make us Marshals of the Rift complete with some golden badges. I asked Elladin what this was for and he just told me it was a great honor. I understood but at the same time I didn’t want a part of it. Not because I didn’t want to help the Rift, I do but my elven side just seemed to be screaming at this human nonsense. Each of the Quadrial gave us our badge with Elladin bowing and I bowing back and whispering, “isn’t this just what any of our clan would do for any of us?” He smiled and agreed, saying it was just the human way. I know of course, it’s just odd.
With the ceremony over we had a great dinner with lots of drink. I did speak to Valum about a plan I had been thinking of. In order to strengthen the Rift we needed more people, the only real way to get people was to bring people in and settle them. He agreed and thought it was a good idea as we had empty buildings and some empty villages around that could be fixed up easily. Of course we wouldn’t want a bunch of troublemakers so Dram suggested a trial period and if they caused problems they would be escorted out. There was still a lot to work out but it seemed that the beginnings of a plan was forming.
Ah yes and with the new position we had to take a class with Connor on “basic human law”. Connor seemed very enthused about it, adding onto his normal duties. At least he did get that assistant though. He said it would take about a month to get through and we had a test. I mean I understand we broke the law of hospitality but this all seemed like a lot.
As I made my way home I wondered how Rhiannon would react. Elldadin did say humans see this as an honor so perhaps she would be happy? Turns out she was quite proud of the accomplishment. She said she needed one too since she had to look out for me. That gave me an idea for something I would need to talk to the jeweler about.
Now to look into this odd magical box which we found no key. After a bit of examination it mattered not, the keyhole was aesthetic. I also had spells and human law to study. On top of that, trying to research how to properly immigrate humans into a new region. I also would add to the list researching the Gauntlet and if there were any ways to destroy it. I had a busy time ahead of me. My brain seemed to groan under the work but there was a spark inside me that was eager to get started.
A Near Death Experience
Flaurmont 4-11
I was a little flustered by Rhiannon being angry about our short adventure so I put myself to work on research and in my spare time thinking of something to do for her. I spent some time in the library on Mage Island and found some info on the “wights” (what I called ghouls before). It was actually a bunch of loose leaf pages tucked into another book. It mentioned the purple eyes and had very realistic sketches of the wights as if whoever did this had seen them before. I’m very curious who wrote and drew these as they must have had contact with the things. I am also very curious about Geoffrey as well, I just do not know if we’ll ever get any answers regarding him though.
I also thought about what I should do with Rhiannon. These things had to be done and if the Quadrial were not going to do them it had to be us. She must at some level understand this so I believe she fears for my safety when I go out. I thought back to our previous meetings (or dates really, I was too naive to know) and remembered what the woman at the cloth store told me when I was purchasing cloth for wrapping our pendants. She said such an occasion should be romantic accompanied with wine and a walk on the beach. I had already done a walk on the beach but something else perhaps. I thought of other places she liked and thought perhaps the Sarcastic Goat? If I could just have her and I in there? I would have to ask Birna about this.
After I was done with my research I decided to focus on the task at hand. I explained to Bediah and Birna what I was looking for and told her I would compensate them for the loss of normal business. At first Bediah said five gold and to not break anything. That was confusing and I explained it would just be Rhiannon and I and then Birna smacked him on the chest and told him to behave and that we could have it for three gold. She asked what to prepare but I had an idea for that too, I would ask Holly to cook since she was a Hin, no offense to the food there as it was usually decent if not good. Holly joyfully agreed and I told her to spare no expense, I wanted the best of everything. She had no problem with that and set about making a menu and preparing for tomorrow. I went home and went through our wine collection. Only two bottles of the dry red I bought from Birna that Rhiannon loved. We really needed to get trade going again. I wanted this to be important so I took one and another one from Lord Gustavon’s gift he gave us. I took these to the Goat and asked that they be used for our dinner tomorrow. With that I set about to relax. I’m noticing that since my bonding of Barik’s memories I have an additional drive that I did not have before but the elven part of me still wants to just slow down.
Holly told me that Dram and Durbin went north to kill some orcs and such which I think was actually good news. They couldn’t barge in on me like when I was talking to Rhiannon’s father. The next day went smoothly and I told Rhiannon there was a special event at the Goat we needed to attend. She asked a lot of questions but I told her it was a surprise. She wore her beautiful blue dress and asked if we were playing and I said she could if she wished so she brought her lute. When we arrived she seemed disappointed that the Goat was closed. I told her it was no problem and opened the door to a very beautiful setup and took her by the hand inside to a table setup in the middle. Holly did a fantastic job with the food and it was a wonderful night of wine, food and talking. At the end I had picked out a few songs to play for her that I felt expressed how I felt for her. It was all amazing. That night was busy as well!
The next day Dram and Durbin came back so we met at the Goat to discuss our next plan and we agreed it was to open the pass and then come back to deal with the rest. Now of course I had to tell Rhiannon. This time instead of just being bluntly honest I would try a slightly different tactic. I waited until after our evening meal and sat her down. I explained what we were doing and that I understood it upset her. I was doing this for her and for our future children to be safe and secure. I’m sure she understands but is still upset. She wanted updates from Melwin and made me swear to be as safe as possible. Of course I would be plus Dram and Durbin would be there to protect me plus Holly was very stealthy so we shouldn’t be surprised by anything. I wanted to say, “plus all the jewelry, this house and everything has come from these adventures” but something stopped me and said “bad idea”. With that I spent some time studying and strolling outside that night even though it was quite cool.
The next morning we went through our supplies and headed out. The journey wasn’t bad at all although the road was starting to become overgrown. It was dwarven made but it would need some maintenance if we were to get regular caravans again. We knew how to deal with the vampiric moss going through the swamp and we didn’t run into much else until we got closer to where the smaller fort was on our side of the pass. Holly spotted two female minotaurs up ahead in the hills with a herd of goats. She led us around them to get closer to the small keep. We could see Minotaurs up ahead outside of it working on some metal banging away. We decided to try and draw a few off to even the odds.
Holly snuck up closer and made noises like a wounded goat. She seemed to be very convincing as the two females came running out to see what was going on. She snuck back towards us and we made quick work bringing down the two females but the males must have known something was off as they were already coming our way as well. The battle was a chaotic mess. I tried to shift the ground under the two that first charged towards us. The spell was successful but I do not know if it actually hindered them at all. They were amazingly fast and huge! I began charging a lighting bolt and a third came running around and I shot it quickly at it. It only seemed to enrage the beast and now it charged straight toward me! I was actually terrified and my first thought was I wouldn’t make it back to Rhiannon. I stepped back and it came up at me and swung its huge weapon that would have killed me. I pulled a layer of mana around me to help dodge the blow and thankfully I was able to. I smacked it with my staff and sent a jolt of lightning through it but, again, it just seemed to make the beast angry. I took another step back but thankfully Durbin finished his off and turned around to hit the one in front of me in the back forcing it to turn around. I began a powerful storm to hopefully hinder the beasts as this battle could go very poorly. I tried to maneuver it around to impede as many as I could but more of them joined the battle and the storm was not strong enough to really harm the minotaurs. Durbin moved away from us as well making it even more difficult. The leader was after Holly but she seemed to be sort of safe in the tree leaving Dram with two minotaurs on him. I figured Durbin was sturdy enough and only had one minotaur so I moved the storm onto the two in front of Dram.
I wasn’t quite sure what Holly was doing but the largest minotaur seemed pretty angry. I concentrated on keeping my storm moving to keep whatever I could inside it. After a short time the battle seemed over. Durbin literally cracked his mace over the back of the lead minotaur who seemed to be fumbling in the tree brush. Out emerged Holly dragging this monster of a weapon grinning ear to ear. Now that the battle was over my body began to shake. I shambled over to the tree, put my back against it and just slid down. With shaking hands I pulled out my wineskin and took a large drink…and then another. Having that beast rush down on me and believing my death was inevitable had really shaken me. We really needed to take on these battles in a different way otherwise we were going to die. I had always known there was a chance but it seemed like we could accomplish anything. This though…it was different now.
Durbin was wounded, not terribly but somewhat. I provided first aid the best I could but one wound I seemed to just not be able to get clean and bandaged right. I gave him one of the basic potions of health from Mage Island and that seemed to help him out quite a bit. After that we checked the corpses for anything but just found miscellaneous trinkets and coins in their woven necklaces. We moved up closer and the keep doors were closed. On a large stump was what Durbin said was a dwarven anvil. There were also dwarven tools strewn about, some in better shape than others. They didn’t even heat the metal, they just beat it with their strength. That sent a shudder down my spine and a flashback of the beast coming down on me.
We opened the door to a large room and piles of pelts everywhere. In the corner were four young minotaurs and a large elderly female attempting to protect them. Dram suggested we actually just let them go. I was not for murdering defenseless beings but these were minotaurs. Yes they could think and make decisions and very seldomly be reasoned with but they would just as likely kill you and your family and eat you all. If we let these things go they may come back for vengeance with more one day. Dram and Holly wanted nothing to do with it. I honestly did not want to do it either but it just had to be done. Durbin and I closed the doors and took care of the problem. I am not proud of it but I know it was the right decision regardless of what the Princess might say. These things were dangerous. We did take out the children and buried them. The others suggested we should bury all of them, which I could do. It was far easier moving this earth then it was shaped stone.
With that done we needed to decide what to do about the two goat herding females. I didn’t want them to find out what happened here and warn the others (assuming there are others). Dram made a good point. If they did that then they would come and investigate what happened here splitting some off from the main keep. That was a pretty good idea so we decided to leave the remaining two females along and let them see an empty keep.
We went back in and through the door in the back of the room. The main doors were tall, seven feet tall in fact. This one was short and Dram and I had to duck to get into it. There wasn’t much back here really. An old barracks, common room, kitchen, well and library. Of course everything was destroyed. I thought perhaps the well was actually a route to the underground gnome caverns but it did not seem so, just a normal well. As we were leaving I remembered the dwarven carvings in the ceilings of the Salt Mines. They were all connected. So I asked Durbin if it would make sense for this to be connected underground to the central larger keep in the middle of the pass. He agreed there probably was and he and Holly started looking. It took awhile but it ended up in the library. A cleverly hidden door opening up to a staircase going down! Leave it to a dwarf to take their own ingenuity for granted!
I regretted finding the door after some time of course. The stairs went down, then a hall going someway and more stairs. Over and over until, yet again, all I could feel is the weight of the rock above me. It was getting slightly less stressful than it used to be but I still did not like it. After a few hours (I think, time get odd to me down here) we came to an octagonal room with a ladder leading up to what appeared to be a trap door. At first we thought Holly should go first and look at it but then thought better of that as if something was up there she could get hurt. We decided on Durbin going up, checking for any light and then popping alight up and I would send my “eye” through the sliding peephole. Looking up into the room it was quite fantastic. On two sides were great murals of many armed dwarves guarding wagons as they were going through a gate. On one end of the hall was a large stone and iron door. The opposite side was a mural of a large leather glove with a blue stone ring set on its middle finger. Under that mural was a pedestal where there were four large gemstones. I did another quick scan of the room and the trap door before heading down to let the others know it was clear and what I saw.
Durbin climbed up and tried to open the hatch but it wouldn’t open, he said it must be latched from the other side. I asked him to explain what the latch would look like and once he started to I realized I knew exactly what it was when I examined the hatch. I asked him to come down and I could unlatch it. I climbed up the ladder to the top and was able to pop the latch quite easily. This ladder was odd. The rungs were not round as I expected but were actual hexagons. Dwarves and their sharp angles. I came down and Durbin went back up, opening the hatch and climbing through. Next was Dram and I motioned Holly to go up next and I took the rear. It did not seem that anything had been through here at all otherwise those gems would likely be gone. The large blue stone was actually numerous small blue stones of azurite. The four on the pedestal were glowing and had dwarven runes carved into them on the facets. Very amazing work actually. Unfortunately Durbin did not seem to know what the gems did or if they were linked to anything. I’m sure we’ll find out if they are somehow.
Hundreds of Ghouls!
Flaurmont 2-3 991AC
It was time to head back out and start the search for Durbin’s hammer as promised. It was grand to be totally left alone for a whole month! This should really be some type of annual situation I think though from my reading there is nothing to suggest humans do that. We could just make our own rules though and decide that we deserve a month of respite. Well we have plenty of time to think about that during this year.
We met early at the Sarcastic Goat to review the maps and notes that I had. From my notes the most logical place for the hammer to be would be the center temple area. There was entry in the Whispering Mines although it looked to be the stairway going down that was full of garbage. From there we would have to travel through these gnomish halls to get to another tunnel to take us to the central area. I was not very happy to be going back underground, especially this deep underground but I promised Durbin I would help him find his hammer.
We double checked our supplies and I gave Rhiannon a hug and kiss before departing out. The trip to the whispering mine was fairly easy although it was now sealed by the dwarves. Durbin was able to unseal it though so we could go back inside. Nothing had really changed although all the refuse was of course still there. It smelled horrible so I purified the air around me which is easily maintained. The other didn’t seem too bothered by it so I didn’t offer. Since there was so much rotten trash that had been decaying I was actually able to move a good amount of it by shaping earth. In this I took great care, moving it as far from us as possible. Then taking water and cleaning the area and moving that out too. Then the others could pick up the refuse left behind like stones, wood, etc. It took quite some time but we were able to get all the trash out and cleaned the stairs and landing so it was usable now.
There was a doorway with a door that was totally rotted away leading to a tunnel. These looked like some kind of naturally formed tunnels that the gnomes then used to connect their different areas together. These went up and down and around and curved. It was very confusing so I tried not to think about it too much. Unfortunately the sheer weight of the cavern just occupies a portion of my mind although it is getting easier to deal with the more we do it. Finally after some time we arrived at a doorway and the door had been smashed in but into the tunnel.
We followed this through a few rooms and then out into a larger chamber which we had to go through to get to another tunnel. On our way we found a beautiful circular area which was partially open with beautiful columns to the mining area. The gnomes had actually created mosaics of a gnome with a pickaxe and left a raw gemstone open in the stone around the mosaic. If we’re ever able to secure this I’m sure Rhiannon would love to see this! Holly took the time to look at the tracks then explained there was really no way to tell if anything had been recent due the environment down here. So she wasn’t sure if there were any creatures using these halls currently. We had better keep a close eye out.
The large open area we had to go through seemed to be an area they were mining before whatever happened. You could see glints of light reflecting off the wall which seemed to be gems still there. We made it to the entry to the next tunnel and headed through. After some time winding through the tunnel we arrived at a cave in. I jokingly said (well kind of only partially joking) said “well it seems as though this is blocked, we should probably head out now.” No one found it funny. Durbin examined the debris and then started moving stones out of the way and watching the reaction from the rubble. I asked him if he needed any assistance but he kind of waved me away. Dram said I should shape the stone into a passage and use the infused stone to go into the cracks of the rubble around to help support it. I’m not sure what Pickman is teaching him…I did infuse a section of rubble and then, from the center, pushed the stone into the surrounding rubble to create a tunnel. I tried to make it nice with some details in the tunnel but the first attempt was not the best. My next attempts were much better and the tunnel looked nice with a pillar in the center on each side extending up and meeting in the middle. This was exhausting though so I could only do small sections at a time. After some time of me shaping, the other clearing rubbles out while I rested. We finally started seeing water trickle through the stone. We decided this was a dead end and returned to the maps to find a different route.
There was another route on this level, it looked like a large curved staircase in a circular room. We made our way there which wasn’t too far away. The silence of this place is very eerie, along with being Ilsundal knows how deep or even where in the Rift. We came to the large circular room and sure enough there was a round staircase going up. As we entered three gnome sized bodies dropped from the ceiling with purple glowing eyes. Fantastic. Where there were these things there was also like more of the purple stones. Will we ever be rid of these horrible things?! Durbin ran in and Dram stuttered for a second and I bumped into him. Holly went to check the other hall to see if there were any more. They made quick work of the things but afterwards Durbin literally collapsed from fatigue. He said the creatures can drain your energy leaving you weakened. I saw Dram attempt to assist in aiding Durbin with some of his own energy but failing to create the link between them. Unfortunately his own link is fairly dim. I tapped Durbin with my staff and gave him some of my own, quite easily I may add.
With that we needed to rest as Durbin was exhausted. Dram was also talking about clearing out all these rooms and this whole level. I had to stop at that. I said I would help retrieve the hammer. Not spend months clearing out this gnomish complex. From all the maps I had this place was enormous. It could even take years! I wanted to test a new spell anyways so I told Dram to just hold on. I pulled out the ring of heat vision and activated it. Then I pulled mana into a small physical ball and linked it to myself allowing me to see. Then I sent it out to investigate and found many more rooms but no sign of the creature. As I got fairly far away I noticed myself the gnomish size creatures gave off no heat anyways. Drat. I let the magical eye go and explained to the others what I saw.
This room was actually quite awesome to behold. The huge dome was covered in more tile and a large statue of a gnome with the hammer and Durbin’s shield. If we ever clear this complex out it is a beautiful place, too bad it’s underground though. After we rested we continued on up the stairs going up to another level rather than a long winding “lava tube” as Durbin called them. That was odd as the other way we went should have gone up? For some reason that whole area collapsed but this one was intact. Interesting.
There was one hall leading off which opened up into a much larger room. Here there were the remains of a battle centuries old. A line from one wall to the other of corpses, some in armor and some not but a literal long line of piles of corpses. None of us wanted to touch or move the corpses so we went back to the staircase and looked at the maps again. There might be a way to climb from this chamber to a hall but it’s an odd angle and we decided it was not worth it. So we went back to the large hall and the others began talking about building some bridge or something out of furniture or doors. I said I can help us out of this easily but they insisted I stay rested. Fine. I sat down while they tried to figure out a way over the bodies. We could have gone to clear the trade route first but no…we had to come down to this forgotten place.
After some time I just got tired of the bickering and tapped Durbin (a little harder than I intended) with my staff and gave him the ability to walk on air. I tapped Dram and then Holly with it as well and finally cast it on myself. This place was starting to wear on me plus all the casting I had been doing exhausts you as much as physical work can. We walked over the corpses to the other side and I released the spells. Holly scouted ahead and waved us forward. As we moved closer to the section of map I had Durbin said he felt an entropic presence. Fantastic. We made out way to a large throne room, or at least there were two thrones here and a long and very well decorated hall. I’ve written this before but I’ll do it again. The gnomish tile work is fantastic. I walked around the edge of the hall but there was nothing much left. Two large statues had been destroyed. There were two huge open sets of doors overlooking an open area. Outside of one was a decorative stairway going up. Outside the other was a destroyed bridge leading across to another opening that had collapsed. We decided to quickly search the rooms around in our area but found nothing. A lot of bedroom and sitting room combos.
We decided to check the stairs going up but that way was collapsed as well. All these collapsed areas were giving me a bad feeling. Finally we decided to look across the broken bridge to the rubble. As we could see a purplish glow coming from the cracks in the stones of the rubble. Then a set of eyes appeared, then more and more of them until we then started seeing the gnomish creatures. Soon there were dozens of them just standing there on the other side. I thought they would just climb down or up the cavern to get to us but they stayed there. We debated different ways to try and fight them but it seemed folly. Certain death I would say. Now the other side of the broken bridge and the whole ledge was full of the things. I wanted to see if they would just stay there so I just shot a small bolt of lighting across the way. It was easy enough to hit one and that was it. They screeched out and started climbing.
We hauled our butts back to the throne room and closed one of the large sets of doors. The locking mechanism was actually quite extraordinary but we didn’t have time for that. We ran back to the others and those things were streaming out. We all knew what to do. We closed the door, latched it and ran for our lives. Back to the stairway jumping over and knocking some corpses down that were in the line. Down the spiral stairs to the lower level and back towards the “lava tube” entrance. Unfortunately off in the mine area below their ledge they were down already. We tried to sneak by but they saw us and came after us. I got to the doorway and sealed it leaving a small hole for us to look through. We debated about what to do but the best thing just seemed to get out of here. We did need a brief rest in which we started hearing one or two of them trying to pick at the wall I made. I created another hole higher up and tried to send an eye through but they destroyed it. Dram boosted me up so I could see through my hole and I shaped the stone from one wall to the doorways leading into that room to create another blockade for them. Plus those ones in that room should be trapped there.
It was at this time we got another visitor, an unwanted one but one that didn’t outright seem to be trying to kill us. He led us out of the whispering mines. I did seal up another entrance plus we sealed the entrance to the whispering cave until we could deal with this. I’ll spare you the details of the frustrating conversation. He mentioned something about his younger self so maybe Drams theory of some time travel or broken timeline is actually true. Then he mentioned something about a key and a “ghost” ship and a portal to get the tool. The interesting part was apparently whatever the stone is, it may be some type of entity. He said if we can destroy “her” then the rest of the stones and things possessed by “her” would be put to rest as well. That was actually great news I suppose, if we could finally end the threat of these entropic stones it would be a huge win for the Rift. As before the mad mage spoke in riddles. He did say the charm he gave us before would lead us to the next clue which seems to be this “ghost” ship. I was actually feeling tired at this point and tired of this nonsense. Everyone heard the stories of the ghost ship but they were just that, stories. The Mad Mage seemed to not speak about anything relevant after a bit and we went back to Melinir. I washed myself quickly and layed with Rhiannon who was upset for me being back late, although it seemed to me I was early. I told her quickly what had happened but she said we could discuss it in the morning. I think that is the longest I have meditated lying down for rest.
I was in my study and heard Rhiannon get up so I gave her a few moments before I sat down and went over what happened. She wasn’t very pleased but glad we were ok. I went back to my study and she got herself ready for the day and then someone knocked. She got to the door first and announced Dram and Holly were there. And Pickman. Pickman wanted to see the maps I had which I was hesitant to show at first but then remembered of course, he was a mage and went to Mage Island so it shouldn’t be an issue. Rhiannon was interested in the maps so I showed her the route we took and where we saw dozens or hundreds of the creepy gnome things. This she did not like at all. Everyone else got smiles but I got frowns. She got tea and food for everyone but the same thing continued with her hand clamped on my shoulder. I explained we took all precautions against the things and retreated when we had to but it didn’t seem to help. After much discussion about the gnomish caverns, ghost ships, keys and Rift ending threats that didn’t help my situation at all they decided to leave to tell Valum. Rhiannon said I should go but I said I didn’t want to. She insisted but I insisted on staying. Finally Dram said I should stay here and they all left. With that she eased up considerably thank Islundal. I explained I did not want to be down there with those hundred of those things which threw her into another emotional fit and she ran to her room. I was left a bit stunned but unsure what to do so I went over my new song in my study, there were sections I wasn’t happy with yet.
Later I would mention this to Dram and he suggested don’t continually bring up the creatures that are trying to kill us. That actually made sense. I will remember that for the future…
Beauty Abounds
Nuwmont 10 - Vatermont 11
Since I had access to Geoffrey’s library I decided to put it to use. First I started researching Durbin’s hammer since he has been very excited about it since finding the gnomish pictures of the Silver Hammer clan but not much else since. I really hit the jackpot on this one. I found a lot of info on that clan and even some maps of their homes! This will definitely help in our quest to find his hammer when we get to it. I also researched the passages out of the rift. In that I found some decent info. The path to the south lands of Traladara is the one we believe has the best shot. It has a small dwarven tower at the beginning on the Rift side and a larger dwarven fort in the middle. Being that they are dwarven, maybe Durbin or his people know secret ways in. There is a pass to Darokin and the Elven lands of Alfheim but that is guarded by a large red dragon. I also found info on something called “the dark pit” which the dwarves were investigating as another possible way out. It is supposed to be infested with monsters, dangerous and unknown. So out of the three the pass with the minotaurs actually seems the least threatening.
Getting close to the wedding some people were asking me if I was getting nervous at all. This I don't understand, why would I be nervous? We both knew each other and loved each other. What was there to be nervous about? I believe sometimes humans invent things to worry about which is odd because of their shorter lifespans you would think they wouldn’t worry so much about weird things.
In general though it has been very quiet which is fantastic as I would hate to have a carriage roll up and request our presence at this time!
Vatermont 12
This morning we met at the Sarcastic Goat for breakfast. As we were eating and chatting we heard a loud slurp from the end of the table. We didn’t even notice anyone else sitting there but there was a short man taking a large drink. He said his name was Brohn and greeted each one of us personally. We were being summoned to visit the Brichtwood by the Master of the Morning Mist. Rhiannon lightly elbowed me and exclaimed, “I think we’re being summoned to the Summer Court!” Being that something was drawing us away I noticed the others looking at Rhiannon for approval. I stared at her but she took on a stoic look as if I needed to make the decision. It was all too easy though, even I could not fail to miss the eagerness in her blue eyes. We told Brohn we needed a bit to grab our gear before heading out.
At the house Rhiannon said she needed to take off any iron. That makes sense as it was clear we would be around fey. I was reluctant to do so as we still had to get there so I decided to keep my armor and such on. She wore a beautiful green dress so I changed my robes to match accordingly. We met back at the Sarcastic Goat and Brohn was pacing and seemed a bit agitated. He said we had been gone for days! I remember hearing that fey can have an odd sense of time, I suppose this was it.
We made the trek to Brichtwood which was actually quite peaceful. Walking along the river in the Grakkenwood was much preferable to chasing a corrupted tree into a cavern through the Grakkenwood. On our journey Brohn kept exclaiming how we were so late and should have been there yesterday. At one point he even seemed to hold the sun and move time backwards? I’m not sure about that though, Fey are known for their trickery. At the boundary of the Brichtwood there is a huge wall of thicket which would be impossible to get through. Brohn knew exactly where to go and pulled some branches through to allow us in.
Going through it was like going into another season. Inside it was sunny and the perfect temperature. Everything was beautiful and Melwin cheered up immediately and launched herself out to fly up into a tree and hunt insects. She swooped down, caught one and landed on Rhiannon’s shoulder. She gave me a sly smile and pulled out a bit of honey for her. That bird is going to get to the point she can’t fly! Well I suppose it’s a little hard to spoil a snake. I mean do you carry dead rodents to feed it? I digress though. Brohn said we had to get rid of all the nasty iron. I figured we were safe here but Dram and Durbin were somewhat worried. Of course I had to remind Dram that this was just like the Sullen thing again. She had no effect on me and he was worried for nothing. This drew quite a reaction from Rhiannon who took it as a high compliment (I figured as much). Then she chided me for suggesting to Dram it was a good idea to agree to her. I relented at this point that of course she was right but I still liked to remind Dram of it!
During this time Durbin and Brohn almost got into a tussle over some odd argument. I reminded both of them to not engage the Fey. If whatever they said was odd just leave it be. Apparently now we were over three days late while at the same time leaving almost immediately after Brohn showed up. The Fey are just different from us folk on the material plane. Once everything was sorted Brohn led us through the Brichtwood. I cannot put into words how beautiful this place was. It almost puts you in a trance and you want to stay forever. Well at least I did. Durbin exclaimed now he knew how I felt in Hearth-Home but this was way worse. I had serious doubts about that but then again I can’t truly know what he is feeling. I highly doubt it's way worse but I let him have this one.
We finally made it to a large clearing and beautiful pond. There were round rocks that looked like seats in a semicircle facing the pond. Already there was a large centaur and Brohn said we were here but never really said what we should do. As we gazed around in wonder, two large men(?) came out of the woods surrounding the pond. One dressed as a stag and one as a wolf. They bowed to the lake and sat on the stones. At that I took Rhiannon’s hand and guided her to an open seat and sat next to her. After that six large wolves came out of the forest as well and came down by us and sat or laid down looking towards the lake. Finally Brohn announced a number of titles such as Emir of the Evening Primrose, High King of Hibiscus and Master of the Morning Mist. He had said some of these before as we were walking here. Finally out of the lake came a beautiful, huge white horse with a large beard and single horn. It seemed to radiate power and authority. The Fey spoke and Brohn announced that we were to take the first drink from the pond for the year!
Before leaving I had packed a bottle of wine and our glasses just in case. I pulled out our glasses and gave Rhiannon hers. Holly had a small bowl and Dram had one as well. Since Durbin had to leave pretty much everything behind he did not so Brohn spun (for lack of a better term) a silver cup for him. Rhiannon said she would take the second drink as this was our honor today and she took a step back. None of us knew what to do and I had perhaps the only knowledge of what the decorum would be. I suggested we all dip into the lake at the same time and drink at the same time. I quietly counted down and we dipped and I did so again and we drank. The taste and effect of the water cannot be put into words. It was amazing and I literally feel younger. We moved aside letting Rhiannon and two dressed in skins drink. Afterwards the centaur came over and brought a large water skin they filled up. The Master of the Morning Mist retired and we all bowed.
Once the skin was filled the two picked it up and ran off. Brohn disappeared. Rhiannon said we needed to follow them so we ran off. When we got to the spot we left our gear Brohn appeared and opened it up letting our items come out. We didn’t have time to put all our armor on so we grabbed it up and ran on. We could not keep up so we ended up having to track them back to the Moon Grove in Grakkenwood. There were plenty of people with masks chanting in low tones in a circle. Rhiannon said we needed to proceed and that this was our honor. She put on a mask as well and joined those outside the cave while we proceeded inside.
Inside the cave where the large garden beds were pretty much everything had been cleared out. The dead Guardians were there though laid out neatly on the ground. Two of our Treekeepers, other elves and more masked humans were here humming. There was also a third large man(?) dressed as a bear here. They took the water from the large flask and began wiping the roots down of the dead guardians. Rhiannon did say they could still be saved, I suppose this was what she meant! Elladin and Adelle showed up as well to witness this. Being that there were four of us we each were given another cup of water and told to pour it on when told to do so. As the ceremony proceeded and we did so, buds formed on each of the Guardians! It seems the ceremony was successful! Hopefully this would help Knockmort as the damage done by his corruption was being reversed.
With the end of the ceremony everyone began filtering out slowly aside from the Treekeepers and a few others. Eventually we made our way out and I met back with Rhiannon and excitedly told her what happened and that the Guardians would be restored. With that we returned to Melinir thankful for a trip that didn’t involve battle, crazy wizards, or anything else the Rift can throw at us.
Vatermont 13 - Thaumont 28
The earrings were finally done and I spent some time deciding on how to give these to Rhiannon. One night I spent all my time making the commons area an icy wonderland. I made beautiful arches over the walkways, flowers and trees. I took inspiration from our recent trip to the Brichtwood. I’m not the best at it yet so it was a lot of reshaping but eventually I was satisfied. The next morning I asked her to walk with me and brought her through the commons area and presented her the earrings there. She was elated at the gift and proceeded to show them off at our breakfast at the Sarcastic Goat.
A few days before the end of the month we headed to SIlvercrest. Rhiannon and her family had already gone ahead to work with the Elves on the finishing up for the wedding. Everything seemed to be going well and Silvercrest looked phenomenal. The day before many people showed up. A delegation of dwarves and gnomes, Lord Gustavon and retinue, Valum and others from Melinir amongst others. I couldn’t believe we had so many here to see us wed! Dram said of course there are this many, two of the Rifts biggest celebrities are getting married. That evening Lord Gustavon even opened his bottle of wine he received from the Thyatian Emperor! It was fantastic and I was truly struck by how happy everyone was.
The next day I must admit here, in private, I did maybe feel a little nervous. Not nervous like this is a mistake but nervous for the future. Before the ceremony her Father asked if I was ready for this. I had to think for a second, why would I not be ready? I said of course I was. He said it again in another tone and added she looks beyond beautiful. Of course she was, what is this some kind of odd human tradition? Once I saw her I knew now what he meant. If Sullen was beautiful then Rhiannon radiated something beyond that, something Sullen would never have. I was awestruck.
The elven portion of the ceremony was very short. It was just saying that we were pledged as a couple and would be together from this point on. The Druid part of the ceremony took much longer but it was very interesting. It was difficult as I was continually distracted from the ceremony by the beauty of my bride. There were a lot of promises made that we would stay true to each other through good and bad. An elaborate ritual of weaving a circle. It was most interesting but it seemed as though as soon as it started it was over and we were wed in the Druidic tradition.
The rest of the day was filled with merriment. Everyone gave us gifts as well. Beyond sharing his prized wine Gustavon gifted us bottles of our favorite red wines. The Dwarves and Gnomes gifted us Gold and Silver. I thanked them, especially the Gnomes for the gift. They did seem kind of flabbergasted as the Elves were not giving any gifts. Rhiannon and I tried to match up Adrianna and Dram but Dram did not seem himself and was tired. Durbin presented us with a beautiful shield with intricate artwork, one side was the Demir crest and the other side the Silvercrest leaf. It was beautiful work! Dram presented us with a locket of Rhiannon and myself gazing into each other's eyes in a relief that seemed more real than real life. He must have poured a lot of himself into this gift. Holly was sad she couldn’t give us a fancy gift but she made us this wonderful dessert she called “dirt cake”. I had never had it but it was very, very sweet. It was good but I could only eat a small amount!
With that it was time for Rhiannon and I to head back to Melinir with our ceremonial guards. Before we left her Father took me aside and explained he would like grandchildren and that the month after the wedding was a traditional time to work on that. I understood this and promised I would do my best. With that we went back to our home as a “married” couple and enjoyed our time together.
Leaping Lycanthropes!
Nuwmont 8-9
Before moving on we decided to fully investigate the cells. Dram cautiously checked the first one out, finding nothing and moving to the next one. Durbin went in behind him and started pushing the straw around. Always doing things the slow way, I came up behind him and simply shaped the air and pushed all the straw into a corner. We did the same for the next cell and Dram was onto the third when I smelled something very odd. I heard Dram say he was very tired and I immediately started cleansing the air around me. As I came out of the cell we were searching Holly said she was very tired but Dram was actually lying down sleeping. I drew more mana in and purified the air in a larger area to get rid of whatever toxin this was. Durbin pulled Dram out and tried to wake him up. It took some doing but he was able to finally do so. I moved the straw into the corner and it revealed an obvious tile in the floor attached to some cylinder. From now on I moved the straw out before anyone went into a cell!
We saw the deceased Hin in the cell that Holly talked about, we would need to come back for that. The next cell was the human who was actually awake at this point. He explained he was from Kleine and said he had nothing to give us but some boots. Checking them quickly they were definitely enchanted which was odd for him to have in the cell. Dram didn’t recognize the man or his name but he did explain he was from just outside Kleine so that made sense I suppose. We told him to hold tight there and we would return once we dealt with anything else in here. The other cells held nothing much except for the last cell which had a weapon belt with a sword and dagger with silver pummels and a bow. They were hanging on the far wall so we all assumed there was some type of trap but there was nothing, simply the items on the wall that Durbin quietly took down and put in his pack.
With this area secured we went back to another hall with two doors that was behind us. The first door had a green glow coming out from under it so we were a bit apprehensive about going in. Upon opening the door there was an oddity of broken glass jars and small cages that were all opened up. There was a crystal ball on a pedestal in the center of the room emitting the green light. Durbin pulled out a large bag and went to cover it up but seemed to trip as he got closer to it. Then we heard laughter and some very quiet arguing about being too loud and they would hear us. I told them we could already hear them. Small fey creatures, likely just tricksters. I pulled out some food and a small cup of wine and placed them in the room but they didn’t seem to care about that. It wasn’t until Dram pulled out a jar of honey he purchased a while back that they seemed to get excited. Well whatever was needed to distract them I suppose.
Through this room was another door into a store room. Good that those little rascals didn’t get in here as there were a lot of good glass vials and other such breakables. It’s too bad we had limited time to get through the gate made by the amulet. The next door was barred but was from our side so it was keeping something in. Holly said she could hear snoring on the other side so prepared for a quick fight. Turns out it was yet another group of gnomes trapped and enslaved! So far we had found five total now, four in here and the one who was doing the etching of the ceiling. They said that it wasn’t time to work yet but we assured them they would have to work for “master” anymore. We told them we could get them out and that we had already rescued others of their kind from other caves. They were very happy but wanted to take their forge with them as it was precious. It was definitely enchanted for sure, I couldn’t guarantee we could get it through but at least them. We told them to stay put as well and we would gather up everyone when we were ready to go.
With that we went to the other door in this short hall which turned out to be a kitchen. In this kitchen there were four doors - a blue door, red door, yellow door and a plain wooden door. We went to the blue door first and there was a man inside sleeping who had gold shackles on. We woke him up and we immediately saw he had his eyes sewn shut. He was the cook and wanted to make us food. From seeing what was in the kitchen I wasn't too sure I really wanted anything from here but it would be good to take a brief rest. I was worried about staying too long down here as I hated this place, I was underground and I wanted to get Zanzer out of here as soon as possible. He was an odd man, seemingly resigned to his fate. Dram mentioned the minotaur and Gorgo (the blind man) told us he was beyond the yellow door (pointing to it) and said he would not need to cook for us if we disturbed him. He should feed him first before we spoke to him so he would be “more pleasant”. He had already finished the first dish and after watching him picking out the better ingredients since we were actually not goblins or orcs I did taste what he made and it was good. Not really elven food but not horrible.
With that we decided to take care of “Dimitri” as Gorgo called the minotaur. He woke up quickly as we entered but between the four of us we were able to slay the beast. Holly actually partially blinded it by shooting it both its eyes and I was able to get in a few lightning strikes. Those were a bit tiring so once it was blinded I moved behind Dram and hit it a few times with lightning through my staff until the beast was down. Gorgo was surprised we were able to take the beast down and said he would continue cooking since we were still alive. He did have to feed the other “beasts” beyond the plain door. He said that was to the mess hall and filthy sleeping quarters for the orcs. We decided to hold off on that until the end or just leave it since the cave was sealed. The red door was a small pantry with an unexpected dwarven artifact in it. Some type of secure chest with dials on it that had to be turned in a certain combination to open it. Durbin wanted to get it but we had more pressing matters at the time so we decided to come back for it later.
The other areas we had not been to yet were the alchemy lab area which was totally destroyed. This had a door and passage leading back to the main mining area. Then the library which was destroyed, all knowledge gone. There was a room off this as well but it was empty aside from some chests which Durbin examined thoroughly. With that there wasn’t much else. I said we should just leave whatever was left to their fate but Dram did make a good point that there could be other good races down here locked up or working. I didn’t think so at this point and it was a difficult dilemma. In the end I thought it best to get out with what we had before Zanzer melted or something happened. But both Durbin and Dram wanted to fully cleanse the place so I relented. I suggested we gather everyone together in the kitchen so if we needed to make a hasty retreat I could seal us in and we could use the amulet to get out. That they agreed to. During our time checking out the other areas Gorgo had made some more food. A meat pie to be precise. Dram seemed to notice parts of the minotaur were missing and Gorgo said he did use some of the cheek in the meat pie. I tried it a bit but I am not a fan of these meat pies. Dram would not eat any.
We brought the gnomes first to the room first with their forge and tools. Then we went to get the human, which was easily done. Once inside the room Gorgo wanted to make them all some food so he went and “smelled” each one to figure out what they were. When he got to the human though he was taken aback and brandished some holy symbol and told the thing to back off. It retreated into a corner and transformed into a wolfman. I had heard of these creatures before and this was not good. It went after the gnomes first leaping around the room in a frenzy. I’ve felt fairly confident in most of our battles but this one actually scared me. I tried to stay calm and hit it with lightning hoping it would hurt the beast. I don’t remember much but I believe it takes a special metal to hurt them. After it hurt three of the gnomes and Gorgo we finally got the beast down but it wasn’t done yet. In fact I think it was healing itself. I came up behind the last gnome who was furiously smashing it and brought lightning through my staff. Dram asked for silver coins which Holly got out and Durbin reached in and pulled out a dagger made of silver and together they finished the thing. Afterwards we tried to patch up the gnomes and Gorgo even gave them some of the healing potions we had to stabilize them. Finally everything settled down.
Dram was insistent the body be destroyed and wanted to burn it right there. After thinking we decided that would be a bad idea as it would fill the area with horrible smoke. So instead they decided to chop the thing up and burn it in the small cooking oven since it wouldn’t likely be used again. That battle had really shaken me and I wanted even more to leave this place right now but Dram and Durbin were insistent on continuing on so we did.
There wasn’t much left and what was left was fairly weak, I didn’t even really need to help much. We did find a “counting” room that was full of coins. I have never seen so many coins, they were just everywhere. We did not find anything other than evil race creatures down here. We were discussing how to get this all out and of course they asked if we could get everyone and everything out of the dungeon. I wasn’t sure, this was powerful magic. I sat down to meditate and try to pull from Barrick’s memory and it all flooded back in almost immediately! The gem in the amulet powered the spell which essentially opened a door from our location back to Mage Island. We would have about a minute to get through. We decided to put the coins in sacks and load everyone that could carry something so we could try and get as much out as possible. Once everyone was finally ready and we had all we could take, I activated the amulet, the door appeared and we were brought back to the same room we had left some hours ago.
His apprentices and some other things were in the room waiting for us. We handed over Zanzer to him and they took him away. Then Geoffrey asked for his amulet back plus the one on Zanzer. I held them out but pulled them back as he reached. I told him that we wanted answers. We had been dealing with a lot of this insanity and we needed to know what was going on and I held out the amulets to him. He took them and went out with Zanzer. We stood there for a few minutes in silence and Dram even asked what we should do. Finally an acolyte took their hood off and it was Adrianna! She told us she would guide us out which she did. Back down and out to the boat which she seemed to talk to. She said it was ready and we could go. After all this I was ready to get back.
The ship moved on its own back to Melinir. We went through the mist again and pulled up to an empty dock. Some dock hands asked if we needed help unloading and Dram paid them some silver to cart everything to the store. With that under control we took the gnomes and Gorgo to the Church. Apparently Gorgo was a priest of an Immortal called Nyx and Dram was worried about some conflict. He assured them there would be no conflict and he would respect the ruling of the church. This man was very dispirited, almost as if he had given up on life but wasn’t able to end it himself. We took them to the church and they explained the curse of lycanthropy to us. They assured us everyone could be healed in that time which was great news. Once that was taken care of I stole away to the Sarcastic Goat.
Rhiannon was happy I was back and got us drink and food. I didn’t tell her much about our encounter with Geoffrey, only that I had gained access to his library which she seemed excited about. I then told her a bit about the trip but only really that it wasn’t much of an issue and we even rescued a few more gnomes. She actually seemed to accept it and move on but she kept my glass full and would just ask more questions about it here and there. Finally I just relented and told her about the danger. The minotaur and the werewolf being the most obvious threats. Of course she was…i don’t want to say mad but concerned for me with a small touch of anger? I think that may best describe it.
The next day I sat down with Dram and Durbin and told them no more letters to Geoffrey, no more trips around to investigate stuff, none of this until after the wedding. I was getting weary of having to leave so much and I was putting my foot down. Of course Dram asked about me getting kidnapped. I shuddered. I sure hope that does not happy again but then again Thom and Maybrush are out there. It may be worthwhile to track them down once we open up the valley.
Once More Into the Breach
Kaldmont 26-28
We all took a trip to Hearth-Home. This time I actually felt some eagerness to go with my sense of dread of being underground for so long. I told Melwin she could stay behind if she wished, perhaps stay at Rhiannon’s place amongst the trees which she happily agreed to. I really wanted to finish this song so we could play that but I just couldn’t get some parts right I felt. I’m sure the Dwarves would have some assistance there. We took two of the casks of scotch we found in the area that the hill giant was guarding to help the restock their cellar. Rhiannon wanted to go of course as she loved talking to the dwarves about their stories and history.
Our brief stay was not terrible actually. Although I can feel the weight of all the stone overhead being focused on wrapping up my song helped me get through the time. Adding a dwarven touch to my songs was more difficult than I thought. It’s almost like a foreign culture that is almost impossible for me to feel. I understand it but that doesn’t translate to my music. It’s very odd. I was able to finally be satisfied with all parts, the introduction being the trickiest for some reason. Spending time breaks here and there with Rhiannon also helped comfort me from the unease being in Hearth-Home gave me. Between the focus and her the time there was almost bearable.
Kaldmont 28 990AC - Nuwmont 6
We left Hearth-Home the morning of End of Year day to make it back to Melinir in time. Rhiannon asked about how we elves celebrated the end of year and new years. I explained the rituals of the end of year to hold reverence for what has happened the year up to that point. The new years day was a day of celebration and thinking on what to do with the new year. She seemed excited and wanted to experience it for herself. Of course we could do that, though I did suggest if we stayed with the elves this year that next year I would like to experience the human celebration. She agreed and thought it would probably be for the best as I would be part of her family at that point and the rituals for humans were centered around family.
Knowing now that Rhiannon followed the way of the Druids it made so much sense why she loved being here and why her home was literally in the woods built around a tree. It also explained the sense of calm I felt in and around her home. So my initial feeling from meeting her was definitely correct, there was more to her than what was on the surface!
We spent a week with my clan, well I suppose soon to be our clan as she would be part of our family too, before heading back to Melinir. I was finally able to work on some spells I wanted to learn which came quite easily to me actually. I was also able to work on being able to shape earth and water into artistic forms rather than just basic forms. Turns out I am fairly decent at that as well and picked it up quite easily. The rest of the time was quite relaxing. We actually spent more time out in the woods now that she had finally revealed her “secret” to me. Still a bit baffled why she wouldn’t just share it with me before. It’s not like I would be offended or tell the human Church. In fact I don’t understand why the human Church would even care. It doesn’t really matter, I'll just leave it alone and not dwell on it.
Nuwmont 6 - 8
We left Silvercrest and headed back to Melinir. After going through all the items we recovered from our last trip I had another large stack of coins. We also had plenty of wine. I was able to keep most of the good stuff in the crates and a good portion of the barrels. We decided to donate some to the Sarcastic Goat. The beautiful dragon hilt sword was of course a bane to dragons, since no one else wanted I added it to my collection alongside Ghost Cleaver. One day I would need to learn to wield these. The wand Holly found was a wand of might which could definitely come in handy. Some of the finer items the others relinquished to me for our home. The rest both Durbin and Dram expressed interest in buying the old general store. I wouldn’t mind helping but I still did not have the best grasp on human economics.
After that was sorted I went to meet with the jeweler to pick up the hair piece I commissioned and to bring him more work. The piece was finished and turned out beautiful as always. I showed him the sapphires and supposed they would make very good earrings. He agreed and after some back and forth we agreed on a design and price. He was a bit concerned about getting them done before the wedding but was sure that he could make it happen. I am going to have to find other types of gifts although I'm sure people don’t mind large collections of jewelry.
After that I had to find one of these people that has a sled since Rhiannon thought a sled ride would be fun. I found one of the drivers and at first he was a bit taken aback that I was asking him to do something dangerous. I assured him no, I just wanted a sled ride around safe areas. This seemed to confuse him as I suppose no one had asked him for this before. He said he could do it no problem for only a few silver coins and could use a smaller sled and would put a bench in the back. Excellent, I asked him to meet us tomorrow outside town and we would be ready.
That night we played my new song together at the Sarcastic Goat which went over quite well. Rhiannon puts on a much better performance than I can, perhaps something I should work on in the future. I told her I had a surprise in the morning so we should be ready mid morning. That night I did some work on my ice shaping/sculpting out in the common grounds. I shaped a very beautiful Melwin but one of my proudest was a tree guardian mourning the loss of his brothers. It is a bit taxing so I did these two and returned to meditate inside as it’s still cold outside.
The next morning I was able to get some extra blankets and warm spiced wine for the ride. I showed her the sculptures I made overnight and she thought them wonderful. She wanted one of Buttercup and a bunch of flowers which I assured her I would work on tonight. She was pretty excited for the sled ride and even more so when I presented her with the hair piece. We had a nice ride through the snow though it was a bit bumpy. I also used a few cantrips to keep the snow off of us so it was more pleasant. It was a very good day together. That evening I showed her the process of making the ice sculptures. It’s not very difficult, just time consuming to work on the details.
Durbin wanted to speak to Pickman about selling magic items in the store he and Dram purchased. I wasn’t sure about that as Geoffrey seemed to have a solid grasp on those types of items but I said I would go with him. Holly came along as well and Dram showed up to head there for his studies. Before we even knocked the door opened and Pickman said he was expecting us and had a serious look on his face. Upon entering there sat Geoffrey at the table and he looked terrible. As if he had not slept in days and was unable to rest at all while awake. This put me on the defensive a bit as he was the last person I was expecting to be sitting there. He asked us to sit as he had something to discuss with us and Pickman said he had some tea ready for us. Well I suppose there wasn’t much backing out of this at this point so I sat down and told Pickman I would love some tea.
Geoffrey said he requested our assistance with a certain problem of his. There was a puzzle he was trying to solve, we brought him one piece but he needed another. He couldn’t discuss it here in town as it was not safe. We would need to go to Mage Island to continue the discussion. I believe we were all leery of this invitation, though a part of me was actually very interested to see what was there on the island. There was only really one way to get to the bottom of this. The Quadrial seemed to think he had no ill intention and Rhiannon seemed to put some trust in him as well. Eventually we came to the same answer. The only way to move forward was to see what Geoffrey had to say so it was on to Mage Island. He said to meet him at the docks in an hour and bring weapons and armor. He didn’t really explain much to that part though. He struggled to stand and walk out but was able to do so. He really looked exhausted.
We went back to get our items and I also stopped to let Rhiannon know what was going on. Of course the others followed and I just haven’t seemed to learn from this yet. Of course she knew something was going on right away. A dwarf wouldn’t be going there, I wouldn’t be learning magic from Geoffrey, Holly didn’t seem to have casting so that really only left Dram to actually go there to study. Then someone, I forgot who, said oh yes and he told us to bring weapons! With that i believe she was just left a bit speechless. I reassured her we would be safe but it didn’t seem to help. I gave her a hug and told her no matter what I would be back. With that we went off to meet Geoffrey at the docks.
He met us right on time and had a boat waiting for us to take us there. He still looked pretty tired and worn out. We boarded the boat and sailed out towards the island. Of course we had to take an oath not to reveal what was on the island which was a strong magical bond. I suppose for some people it would be needed. Once the oath was complete and we got closer to the island a mist enveloped us and obscured vision. Once we made it through and docked the mist lifted and the island looked totally different. Lush and green with many buildings and people moving about their daily life. They all seemed to really hold Geoffrey in high esteem as we walked towards his keep.
Once inside it was very grandiose. A large orrery of the planet and moons circled it, Geoffrey assuring us it was precisely in sync. It was actually quite amazing the detail that was put into it. He led us up the stairs to the third floor where his study was. It took him a lot of effort to get up and into his study. Inside there were books everywhere and seemed a bit messy. He called upon some chairs to literally walk over to his desk so we could sit. He told us he knew where Zanzer Tem is and he wanted us to bring him back alive to him. He was actually back in the salt mines where we were taken when captured. When we asked for answers he said he wanted them to but needed this Zanzer here to question him to get the answers. He wouldn’t really answer much else. He did say there are things in the rift that need to stay a certain way lest everyone could be in danger. It was obvious we weren’t going to get anything out of him so I just said plainly you have to know we’re suspicious of this. Without any reassurance you expect us to run this errand for you? He did show us a covered up sphere of crystal in which we could see Zanzer Tem who looked as bad as Geoffrey but he quickly covered it back up. He said he could pay us which I suppose helps but it doesn’t take away the fact that he could be the ultimate problem in the rift. Logically if he wanted to kill everyone in the rift he could so I don’t think he is the ultimate puppet master for what’s been happening. Everyone here seemed happy. So I told him access to his awesome library for research and if he has power stones that would be great. He pulled out a blue stone (of course!) and said I could have access for six months if that was agreeable. I told him life would be better which he initially scoffed at but we were able to come to an agreement. He wanted certain knowledge Barrik had so if he could access that I could access his library. Seemed like a simple deal to me. I let the others decide on their own rewards. I did also ask him next time he spoke to Rhiannon to assure her what we are doing is important.
Once everyone had their reward chosen it became apparent why we needed our weapons, he was going to send us right there. Apparently the cavern had been sealed up and there was no way in or out. He would be able to send us right in and we would have the element of surprise. He also gave us an amulet to bring us back once we had Zanzer Tem. We would need to bring back Zanzer alive and confiscate his amulet. Anything else we found would be ours to keep which seemed reasonable. Since we may be delayed I had to ask to let Rhiannon know that I wasn't going to be back very soon as anticipated. He assured me he would get word to her. With that he took us to where the ceremony would be held to send us off to, hopefully, get some further answers on what is going on. The spell was well done and we found ourselves in a very dim room with the sounds of snoring around us.
There were three orcs in here and Durbin, Dram and myself made very quick work of them. Once I lit up the room though all the horrible memories flooded back in and nearly took my breath. The pain of betrayal flared up briefly but I quickly extinguished it. With that we checked the large cell room which was just full of goblins now. Seems they had to switch slaves since they were not able to procure anymore. We secured the rest of the immediate area and even saw that my tunnel was still there! Holly went out to scout while we waited listening to the familiar sound of cracking and crushing rock. This was not a good place to return to in even the best circumstances.
Holly returned and the operation seemed to be in full swing again. Of course Dram wanted to create a battle plan to take all this on. I suggested we simply sneak by and explore the rest of the areas we didn’t get to before. It took a little convincing but I’m sure they saw that my suggestion was for the best. These foes couldn’t escape and if we could find Zanzer Tem it would stop one major threat immediately. We went to a hall we hadn’t gone down before and Holly did an excellent job thoroughly scouting out. That was until curiosity got the best of her and she picked up an obvious trap that shot out large darts. Thankfully she was able to dodge out of the way and was not injured. She told us of the passages up ahead, a large set of double doors and prison cells with perhaps one live person inside.
I suggested we go right through the double doors, which usually leads to an important area. Dram wanted to help the prisoner that was actually still alive but I told him we had important work here to do. They were not going anywhere and we could help them once we were secure ourselves. He relented and we went through the double doors. On the other side was a large room and a gnome in shackles sleeping on a rough mat. More gnome prisoners! The ceiling seemed to be very ornate but we did not have much time to look at it now. Holly went up to try and quietly wake the gnome who was seriously beaten down into doing what he was told. We approached after a minute and went on about getting back to work and his master wasn’t expecting guests. He pointed to the doors in the corner and said that was the Masters chamber. Assuming this was Zanzer, what great luck to get straight to what we needed?
We got in our typical position and swung open the door to complete blackness and someone shouting out “who’s there!” in a very familiar voice. I pulled the wand of dispel magic out of my satchel and started dispelling the darkness. Thankfully I only needed the three castings it had within its embedded powerstone but that is when the fireball hit. Dram was able to take it on his shield and dissipate it so there was no real harm. He started shouting at us “why were we here” and “why did i hire you?” Durbin and Dram went in to try and knock him out but he was a slippery one. I attempted to make a hole under him but the first try I was too far away. The second try was successful but now I started shouting stop fighting you fools! There was something strange going on here. Was he just crazy or was Geoffreys thoughts bleeding into his?
Dram jumped into the hole behind him and put his arm around his neck. I created water and sprayed it into the hole yelling at them to stop fighting. It didn’t take long for Zanzer to pass out and Dram to crawl out of the hole. I was a bit frustrated as something very odd was happening here, even more odd then what we already knew. Dram asked me for the healing potions and I turned to look at him and now I saw he was deathly pale. I grabbed them right out of my satchel and opened it up for him and Durbin did what he could as well. We pulled Zanzer out of the hole and he started to wake up. I gave instructions to Holly on how to bind him. He could not see, speak or move any limb or extremity.
Once he was fully bound we ungagged him to speak. He said he knew he sent us to get him. He said he learned his magic by defeating other mages and taking their spellbooks. The other version of him was his apprentice (the one that melted brought back from the salt mines) and he was training him. He begged to be let go and he would flee the valley and let us know where his treasure was. He was probably worse off then Geoffrey as he had been tormenting this one, destroying his library and alchemy lab. I don’t know that questioning him would lead any further, at least the questions we were asking. We gagged him again and spoke about what to do next. We could try and tunnel out with Durbins expertise and my casting but that could take awhile. This could be a scheme for us to bring Geoffrey exactly what he wanted and eliminate his problem for him. I still don’t think Geoffrey is evil and doing bad things though. The whole situation was very odd but I think all we can really do is take him back to Geoffrey and see what happens.
We did decide that we needed to check around and see if there was anything else. At least get the prisoner out alive if we could and the Hin remains that Holly found in another cell. To add onto that the ceiling was a full topographical map of the Rift complete with all the secret dwarven tunnels so Durbin did not want that info to get out. The Gnome was making etchings of the ceiling with paper and charcoal. Initially I figured he should finish his work if possible but since Durbin said there were dwarven secrets I suppose we could destroy the etchings. I offered to shape the stone and destroy the whole thing but he said that was not necessary. If no one could get in or out of here it could give the dwarves time to find this place and take care of it themselves.
Once again we found ourselves in another dangerous situation not sure who to trust. The one thing I know is I feel sorry for Geoffrey if he betrays us because Rhiannon knows we specifically went to Mage Island to help him!
Mysteries Solved, Mysteries Uncovered
Kaldmont 20-25
The song Rhiannon gave me had no lyrics to it but looking at the notations and signatures it seemed to be portraying some type of emotion. When she returned to the table she explained it was a love/romance song and she wanted an elven feel to it. That I can definitely help with. It was nice to be back finally and just sit peacefully and discuss regular life. After some time and the Inn was a bit louder, though still not really busy, conversation had to steer back to what was happening. I told her I expected her to break no oaths but we met a younger version of Geoffrey in the mines and the “Mad Mage” was an older version of him we met near the Wizardspire. She wasn’t sure what to do with that information and I honestly told her neither was I, I just wanted her to know something is awry and I just want her to be safe. She understood but said Geoffrey was a great mentor. I didn’t press at all as I’m sure if she knew something and could tell me she was able to.
After that since we were already somewhat on the subject I told her I’m sure Dram is going to want to return to the Grakkenwood where we came from. She asked why we would need to return when I just got back? I started explaining a bit vaguely what was happening and she seemed very interested. A few times she let out a loud WHAT when I spoke of the dangers we encountered. Since she seemed so interested and there was a lot of history there I asked if she would like to come with us. We had already taken care of all the creatures there so it was perfectly safe now. She agreed. She said she needed to gather her things but I should stay and rest. I said I was fine and could come with but she insisted and said her brother could escort her. That was sufficient. I could stay here and relax, review her song and make some suggestions.
Due to the cold and snow I did not want to meditate outside. I did take a stroll out there but the snow covering the ground was very peaceful and I didn’t want to disturb anything. There definitely was a lot going on. Why had the Mad Mage taken an interest in us and used us to stop the threat by corrupted Nockwurt? What was the deal with these replicas and this Met Reiznaz and Geoffrey? Were there any more crystals out there? So many unanswered questions. After some time I realized I had been strolling outside for hours deep in thought and was somewhat cold. I returned to the Sarcastic Goat and rested until morning.
In the morning Dram and the others were in a rush to get out and start making arrangements. He had to go to these people, then another group of people and so on. It was all frustrating. Our clan would simply get it done. There would be some coordination yes but no exchange of coins or hassle going back and forth. For their short time they sure do make simple things far more complex than they need to be. Rhiannon showed up in the morning as promised with her brother armored and ready to go with us. Obviously her brother is very protective of her so it makes sense he would come along although I could protect her just as well.
I went over her song suggesting revisions to give it an elven touch and my own suggestions as well which may be elven influence as well or just perhaps my own personal taste. After some time the others were able to get what they needed and Dram had covered getting everything setup to recover the goods. It was quite a large party now. We had horses and sleds, Rhiannon plus her brother, Valum plus his men, Pickman, the priests from the Church and others I'm probably missing that I do not recall. Rhiannon was actually quite excited about the sled ride. She said had she known she would have brought some blankets and warm drink. I made a mental note of that for a future outing.
The trip there was pretty uneventful. We had to cross the river by raft with all the horses and sleds and then finish the trip up to the cave. Once we got there the hired men were a bit…afraid or in awe of the place. They said it was a sacred place and did not wish to be here. Rhiannon told me quietly this place was called the Moon Grove Clearing. The men wished to wait outside the clearing while the rest of us went in. The roots parted as normal allowing us entrance and we made our way to the cliff of roots we can call it. Dram was very concerned about Pickman getting down, I suppose he forgot I can assist him with a simple spell. Pickman had heard of the spell so I made the simple gesture and told him to test it a bit before going down. I asked Rhiannon if she wished the same but she wanted to actually climb down. So be it, I was just going to walk as well.
At the bottom Valum immediately went to take care of the Iron Ring prisoners. My kin had already been at work identifying the plants. They were all dangerous and had to be destroyed. This was to the dismay of Holly who wished to study them. The elves assured her that these were dangerous and we could not risk them getting out into the wild. The first stop was pointing out the darkness in the cell to the Priestesses. Of course the Ettin was on the way there and Rhiannon elbowed me in the ribs. You had to fight this?! I assured her I was in no danger, I literally brought the ceiling down on the thing crippling it. I feel that didn’t convince her at all though. Once in there they set up their ritual to banish the thing.
Of course Pickman was very interested in the books so that was our next stop. Of course we had to go through the large chamber where we battled the corrupted Nockwort and Dram had to mention he nearly died. Of course this spun Rhiannon up a bit. I told her it was all under control, Splinterleaf gave us the time we needed to crack the crystal and save his life. I don’t think this calmed her though, again. He was very interested in seeing the large books written by the corrupted Nockwurt. Rhiannon was curious about them too. Pickman explained he couldn’t translate the language, even a spell to translate would not work at all. Dram and I got a book down and opened it up so Rhiannon could look. She didn’t understand it though I know she knew multiple languages. With no way to read them the best we could do is take them back and study them later. While the others were engaged in other things Rhiannon grabbed my arm and pulled me away. She quietly told me [a section of the text is thoroughly inked out].
After checking out the books there was more cleanup work to be done. Dram wanted me to assist him up the cave ceiling to cut down the crystals which I could easily assist with. It would take a few rounds of that and resting though. In between that we went back to the storage room I had sealed off. Dram was going a bit crazy about there could be a vampire in there from the sarcophagus. In order to quell his fears I said I would simply open a small opening so we could look in to ensure it was safe and it was of course so I opened the entry the rest of the way. Of course on the way here we passed the giant and I got another elbow to the ribs. I wasn’t even involved in that in any way!
Everything was as we left it. I showed Rhiannon all the items like the paintings and the armoire which she liked very much. Even though we didn’t open the sarcophagus at this moment I’ll still explain it now. It was just a skeleton inside magical plate armor inside. That’s all. Not a vampire or anything crazy. We put the cover back on and locked it back up. The sarcophagus, the horse and the cart were all likely supposed to be entombed together but had been waylaid by the bandits that resided here so we decided to leave it behind. Everything else we would take as there was no sense letting it waste here.
We decided to double check the rest of the dungeon so I opened the other sealed opening. Working our way down we passed the mirrors which I had totally forgotten about with everything going on. Those would definitely need to go out. The pile of dead bugbears in the last room earned me another light elbow. Yet again though I was perfectly safe! There wasn’t much else here and we left Holly and Durbin to go through and search while the rest of us went back to the main chamber as Dram wanted to go up and do another round of gathering crystals from the cave ceiling.
We made our way back up taking our time. I spent a few minutes catching up with my kin before casting and allowing Dram to walk up. A few minutes later Holly came running at full speed towards where the Priestesses were set up. She said Durbin said there was danger and to get them immediately. I told Dram he had a minute to get down, looked at Rhiannon and told her to wait here and I would be back shortly. She called back to me, “Perfectly safe now right?” I ran down to the room they were in and they had found a secret opening and something was trying to come out. Us and the priestesses readied for battle. As we were engaged Rhiannon came in and shouted at us to stop and to the Priestesses to do what they needed. Durbin didn’t seem to hear as he broke the thing almost to pieces. It turned out this hidden room was a secret burial area and this thing was awoken when the door was opened. We placed the corpse back as best we could and closed the door. Dram was very confused why this was here. Well who can identify the motives of the people who came before us?
On the way out I asked Rhiannon [another smaller section is thoroughly inked out here]. We resumed our duties but realized we were going to need more help to get all this out here. Dram was worried about how much to pay them to come in here and work and suggested one gold coin? I know a bit more about negotiation now but I guess one of those coins was enough for one person. Once they saw what we were paying they said they would help. I didn’t want to spend much more time here so I told them to find six more men. He asked something about a finders fee. My guess was he would take my 6 gold and pay the men hired less so I gave him another gold for his finders fee to pass on the gold to the men coming here. They said no problem and would bring the extra men tomorrow.
With that things went fairly smooth. My kin started burning the plants and trees here but it was late so the others needed to sleep. The apples were exploding in the fire and I had to ask them to do that later as the others needed to sleep. We also stopped by and saw Sullen. Rhiannon was astonished that I didn't tell her about the dryad. I don’t see what the big deal is. She’s a forest dryad but Rhiannon was focused on the dryad’s outer beauty. Yes she is but that’s not something that entrances me so I just don’t see the problem. Maybe it was a mistake inviting her down here… With all the burning Rhiannon again pulled me aside and asked me [small section inked out]. I told her I would speak to Elladin about it but we would need to discuss all this later. Some good news is Splinterleaf was coming around now so he would make a full recovery.
We destroyed the stones using the pulley contraption Durbin procured and a large shaped stone and some rope so that the after effect did not harm us. There were a lot of stones to destroy and the final one was very large. We had to gather some extra rope and lengthen it so we could get far enough back to not be harmed. Durbins calculations were pretty exact as we could feel it but it did not harm us. With the extra men we were able to get everything out fairly quickly though it still took a few days. After speaking to Rhiannon I had them bring the large books to our manor as she said she knew of some texts and perhaps assistance from Geoffrey she could assist here.
With that it was finally time to leave as we pulled out the last of the items. My kin would stay behind and finish up healing the guardians and taking care of the rest of the plants. The princess was also able to convince the stone elemental to move Sullen’s tree back up to the sunlight! It was quite a sight to behold to see the thing move the tree back up where it belonged and I was happy for her. I told Dram see he could have easily made that promise. He retorted with she was a fae creature and was trying to ensnare him. I knew he was correct, of course she was. I just simply did not have interest in her that way so I am guessing she couldn’t affect me but I was not about to admit he was right about that! Plus it was fun to pick on him a little about it.
I did forget to mention that Holly found a magical wand in a tunnel one of the prisoners was trying to escape in. She offered it to me and it was a custom make and had no Glantrian symbol on it. Which reminds me as well we found two crates that said they were bound for the Glantri Museum which seemed to be two crates of bones. I suppose they were all the bones of a single creature. Durbin and Pickman had a go at trying to puzzle it together.
Leaving the cave I felt a bit of despair. Four forest guardians dead and the people of Garlands Rest gone. We saved Melinir and the other towns but so much damage had been done. I have a feeling I would be returning here at some point though as there was a lot of history. It seemed right to try and preserve it or fix it somehow. That was for another time though. Right now there were other things on the horizon I had to worry about and questions I needed answers to.
Home is Where the Heart Is
Kaldmont 18-20 990AC (Cont)
After some contemplation I’m not sure what came over me earlier. Perhaps being around humans a lot their emotionality has bled into my personality. I will need to control that better but at the same time be able to show emotion? It is an interesting quandary but one for another day to think about. For now it was time to concentrate on the task at hand. We were the ones here that needed to deal with it and retreating was not an option. Killing Knockmort was not an option either as he was a forest guardian. I suppose he could die but we needed to save him as you can just grow another Guardian. So our only real option was to destroy the stone that had corrupted him and hope that he could be restored.
While I was meditating the others checked out the other cells and found a curious prisoner. A Hin named Hollyhock who is very jovial. She was traveling alone and came across the Bugbears while they were out. She offered them dinner and I’m surprised they didn’t just eat her assuming she meant offering herself as dinner. She was very well hidden and I guess even Durbin barely saw her. We gave her some food and water and she was very happy to be out of the cage. Apparently she had spoken to Splinterleaf as they seemed to know each other somewhat. We went through introductions and explained the situation to her and she seemed very insistent on helping.
We had some discussion on how to defeat Knockmort. I looked through the scrolls we had collected and one allowed the casting of strong silk like a spider web. I thought perhaps we could use that to entangle it but I wasn’t sure of the strength and we didn’t even know where he was anyways. A sphere of earth to be hurled like my ice sphere which, in retrospect, might have been better at cracking the gem then my ice sphere but no dwelling on the past. I thought of using shape earth or making the earth disappear but these treants are too large and I don’t have enough strength for creatures that large. It looked like it was going to boil down to me being able to hurl ice at it and crack the gem. Holly suggested she could climb the tree and try and help crack the gem. The Hin are supposed to be stealthy (well really not noticed by larger folk much) and hearty so I had no issue. Dram did though of course but she had suggested it, it was her choice if she wanted to try! It was hard to come up with a plan since we didn’t even know where it was so we decided to do some more investigating.
We made our way over to the last doors that we could see. Holly said she heard so distant growling and such from dogs inside somewhere so we prepared for anything on the other side of the door. After opening it there was a square room with another set of doors. Inside this room was a large mural that had been altered to look like another set of pictures depicting a story. In the series of pictures it starts with a large purple meteor crashing to earth and creating a crater. It then shows some Hin (Durbin pointed this out) finding it and then worshiping it. An army of monsters show up and wipe out the Hin and drain their blood onto the stone, it grows in size and the monsters start worshiping it. Then an army of humans, elves and others show up and wipe out the monsters and bury the stone. Then a large tree finds a piece of the stone and the final image is the tree holding it standing on top of the world. Interesting history. Dram mentioned something we had found purple stones in all Hin ruins which I can’t say for sure is true. Some of those ruins were Gnomish and/or dwarven.
Holly heard the same sounds at the next door so we proceeded with caution. Another hallway and another door of course. This was the final door. Behind it were two nearly starved direwolves who immediately attacked but were taken care of quickly by Durbin and Dram. In this room though there was a kind of statue of the last image from the first room. A globe with a large tree standing on top of it. Here also was another purple stone. Durbin was having none of that and rushed up and destroyed it which unleashed a torrent of energy mostly absorbed by my robes thankfully. We heard a loud and angry roar with the destruction of that. Was it that easy? Had it taken the gem out for some reason? Durbin found a “secret” door in which he said there was a “rock drake(s)” inside. Of course Dram wanted to take care of it immediately but we needed to focus on Knockmort. This room was odd as a guardian couldn’t even fit in here so why was this stone here? We left and went back out to meet Silverleaf as he was waiting back in the main chamber.
We left this area as there wasn’t really much there anymore and made it back to the main chamber. Silverleaf wanted some water but creating it did take some energy. It was easier to just purify existing water so we went over the fountain and that’s what I did. Holly thought it was amazing I could do such things. I suppose to someone not being around magic it would be. Just like Dram thought I could do anything but my magic is still somewhat limited. At this point we weren’t sure where to go next. Someone suggested we speak to Sullen and see if she knows where Knockmort is which was a good idea so we headed to the center of the main area. She was there and made her dislike of Knockmort known. She also wanted her tree moved out of the cave so her and it could be back in the sunlight and asked me to promise to come back and make sure it was done. Of course I would do that! During this Durbin made his way around and had called us over to see something bad. During this time Sullen took a liking to Dram but Dram was being somewhat rude to her. Later he told me that Silverleaf said there was something wrong with her and he was afraid to give her his name or promise anything. Well that was actually probably not the worst decision he’s made.
Once we got around to the other side I was horrified. When Silverleaf came up he was far worse than I. I wasn’t sure he would move again for a while! Four dead guardians each with a small purple stone in them. This was a sad day for the Rift. Durbin passed me his seeing stone and told me to look at a rock out cropping. I looked through the stone at it and there was a pair of eyes watching us. First things first Durbin used his crossbow to destroy the stones in the guardians. That was easy enough. I reached into my pack and pulled out the wand of dispel magic. I wrapped my feet in mana and walked up above the mulch bed to try and dispel whatever this was. I didn’t need to though as it turned out to be a stone golem. As I got closer it pulled itself out of the dirt. I retreated and it went back down. Well that’s a problem for another time I suppose.
I asked Sullen again where Knockmort was and she concentrated for a few seconds and then pointed in a direction and said his “heart of hearts was that way”. I thanked her and we went over to the cave wall where she pointed but I couldn’t see any passage or opening. It took Durbin a bit of time but he did eventually find it and a huge entry opened, big enough for a guardian easily. This had to be where he was hiding so we stepped in. Immediately some giant bats swooped down and attacked us. Thankfully I had been practicing with my staff so I was able to deflect its attacks while pushing lightning through my staff to wound it. Before I could finish it though, Dram came in and did it for me. Our victory was short lived as Knockmort came out from another tunnel and greeted us. Silverleaf rushed in and they started fighting. Knockmort was larger and stronger plus Silverleaf was already wounded from his captivity.
I started casting my sphere while Durbin and Holly rushed in to do their part. Dram stayed by me to help in case Knockmort or anything else here decided I was a prime target. I charged it, aimed until I had the best possible shot and hit! I could see the cracks in the gem and Knockmort screamed in pain and anger. I saw Holly was not making good progress so I stepped forward a few steps, reached out my staff and wrapped her feet in mana as well and said “just walk”. Hopefully she understood. Silverleaf was not faring well. Guardians did not really fight so Knockmort had another advantage in that he actually had a weapon. I charged another sphere and aimed while they battled. I saw Holly make it to the gem but we all realized that she just wasn’t strong enough to do anything so she came back down. I let loose with my second sphere and another hit! The stone looked almost shattered, we had to be close! In my haste while charging my last sphere I ended the spell abruptly and, while it wasn’t likely big enough to defeat the gems toughness, the mana flowed with ease and I could feel Ilsundal’s touch as if he was giving me a bit of help. At this time Silverleaf collapsed and Knockmort set his sights on us. Dram told me to run but I told him I couldn’t, I knew this last one would do the trick. I aimed as long as I dare and loosed as he stood back up from picking up his scythe. While I didn’t hit the gem I hit next to it and knocked Knockmort down! With that Dram and Durbin both rushed and swung at the gem, smashing it and unleashing a torrent of energy. While my robes absorbed most of it they were both badly injured but we did it. Knockmort was down!
Dram had to lay down but would survive. Durbin wasn’t well off either. I checked the scrolls again and, just like before, there was only one major healing. I asked who would like to accompany me to the mouth of the cave so I could send a message. Dram said to just heal Durbin so I did so. I wrote out a quick message to Prince Elladin saying to send rangers and the tree keepers here as soon as possible. Also send word to Melinir and please stop and let Rhiannon know I was fine and would be back soon. With that we sent Melwin out to fly to Silvercrest which she was more than happy to be out of the cave! I should note that it was early morning at this point. Now that word was going out we went back into the cave to where the guardians battled to check out the other two rooms. On the way back in we released the prisoners that were in the tool shed. I noticed they all had iron ring tattoos and pointed this out to Durbin. I didn’t think they would be going anywhere so we let them be there with some water and food. We could take them back to Valum for final judgment.
One was a storage room for guardian sized tools. Some of the fruit that was growing outside was packed up here but oddly. For example apples were packed separately, like a single apple wrapped up and put in a crate with other single wrapped apples. Obviously the fruit was odd enough but this packing system made it seem like they were perhaps to be used for something other than eating. The other room seemed to be a guardian sized alchemy lab where Knockmort was experimenting and making the powder. He had a large satchel full of the stuff which is what he must have thrown in Garlands Rest. There was also a bookshelf with guardian sized books and normal sized books. The larger books were bark on the outside and leather (human skin?) on the inside. Later Dram would joke that it was the opposite of a normal book being leather bound wood (paper) on the inside. He thought it was hilarious but I did not find it amusing. While in this room we heard a laugh that sounded just like the Mad Mage. Durbin pulled out the charm and it did not strongly point in a direction but it did and then it just fell limp. I’m guessing this means we ended the threat for now?
The eerie laughter also made me realize we shouldn’t have left the slavers turned slaves turned rescued slavers alone. I told Durbin we needed to check on them and we rushed out of the cave through the large secret door back to the cottage and exit. As we ran out towards the cottage Dram was out there giving them more food and water and looked good as new! I called over to him that we needed to speak to him urgently. He finished up and I explained they all had the iron ring tattoo. I suggested we trick them back into the cottage by telling them there were more bugbears and they should hide there. I couldn’t do it. I know I would give it away and Dram wouldn’t do it. Durbin had no issue but he didn’t bother too much with the ruse and as soon as they were in he nailed the door shut. They cried out that we tricked them and other foul curses. I feel somewhat bad as I wonder if they could ever change their ways but Valum seemed to care not for that and they were humans so it was their jurisdiction.
Now that everything was under control we put all the valuables we found back in the room with all the paintings, wine and such. I then sealed off both halls with stone. We were not losing out on all these items, especially all the alcohol! I did grab a few bottles. One to celebrate with and another for Rhiannon to try when we got back to Melinir. With that I went out to the fountain and used my shape and purify cantrip and then froze a rod of water. I then went back to the cottage area to wait for my kin to show up. I poured some wine, added some ice and let myself relax for a time. Dram didn’t want any wine saying he was on watch. After a bit Holly excitedly came out with a batch of books. She said she was studying alchemy and these books were helpful. Holly did want some wine and some ice to go in it as well.
Somehow we got on the topic of Rhiannon being my fiancé and Holly was very excited for that. She loved music and Rhiannon's music and started breaking down some of her songs. She indeed seemed to be a fan and had some appreciation for the musical arts. She asked if she could meet her and I told her that shouldn’t be an issue, I’m sure she would love to meet her. I even told her I’m sure she could come to the wedding if she liked which she was ecstatic about. Dram talked up my abilities as well so I played part of my Dwarven tale from the whispering mines. It was nice to play again, I haven’t done much of anything since we left to strike at the goblins. Speaking of weddings I should make sure that Adrianna will be there. I don’t know if Dram would ask her but maybe we could just make sure they’re both there.
After some time my kin showed up and we hurriedly showed them where Silverleaf and Knockmort were so the Treekeepers could get to work. I quickly explained what had happened on the way. Hopefully they could both be saved. We showed them Sullen and her tree and the rock golem. The Princess was actually able to actually calm down the rock golem. I explained the prisoners in the cottage to Elladin. He had the same concern I did about handing them over to Valum but they’re humans and it’s their law so not much we can do about it. I suggested we head back to Melinir but of course Dram wanted to look into every other little item in the cave and tunnels. As if just hadn’t saved everyone in the Rift! I told him you could but you would have to do so without me for the time being. He relented and after speaking to Elladin the elves would be here for a while mending the guardians. We told them we would take out leave to Melinir and update Valum.
We packed up what we had and made the cold trek back. When we exited the cave it was noon the next day from when Melwin went out. It took us until just after dark to get back to Melinir with short winter days. As the others hurriedly made their way towards the Quadrial base I started to slowly fall behind and was about to break towards the Sarcastic Goat when Holly turned around and saw me. I put my fingers to my lips, turned and made my way there. I pulled out the bottle of wine before entering and opened the door. Rhiannon was sitting near the door working on a song perhaps? All my weariness seemed to disappear. I had been cold and wet but I now felt warm and invigorated. I came up to the table and told her I was sorry I didn’t want to embrace but I’m not in the best of shape but I do have this wonderful bottle of wine. She didn’t care and jumped up to embrace me anyways. She told me to sit and look at this song she was working on and went to get some food. It was good to be back!
A Guardian Freed
Kaldmont 18 990AC (Cont)
After collecting ourselves after this latest battle Dram checked the door from the room I had poisoned the air in. There was nothing coming from the other side of the door anymore. We decided to leave it and head down the hall to the intersection. Not much here. The sleeping area for the bugbears we fought, a latrine and another door. Behind this door was what seemed to be possibly a hill giant? Durbin actually had a conversation with it and shared his beer. The creature was greedy though and wanted all of it and Durbin was not having that so it escalated to fighting. I told Dram that Durbin needed his help and I watched our back while they took care of the creature. It did say that it was guarding a door or a prize it had been given. Something along those lines but I am still a bit tired from the last fight.
They quickly slew the beast and Durbin found a hidden door (well not really that hidden) leading to another hall. The next room might well make this whole thing even more worth it, I mean aside from saving the people of the Rift! Inside were boxes of wine, kegs of alcohol, beautiful paintings, beautiful rugs, a gorgeous cabinet and other items. The torches on the wall were magical as was another item. A beautiful coffin that was chained and locked. I advised that we should just leave it alone and the others agreed. After the past two battles everyone needed a rest so we stayed in here for a bit before moving on. I didn’t need too much rest so I spent some time checking out the items in here. While the wine was crying out for me I was very interested in this cabinet. I checked it over for any traps or mechanisms but it was simply a very nice cabinet. Opening a few of the drawers it became apparent that this was a cabinet for storing cutlery. VERY nice cutlery. I repacked everything up hoping again we would get the chance to come back here.
I have been looking for a way to assist the others when my power is low and I suddenly remembered a scroll I had picked up while home. I pulled out the scroll and quickly reviewed it. It all snapped into place quite easily! A way to nearly instantly transform mana into energy flowing down my staff into whatever was hit by it. Even with expending no effort it was still a painful jolt. I would need to test this in my next fight as just hitting with my staff was nigh useless against these armored foes. I am quite excited about finding this stock of wine. Hopefully we will be able to get this out or come back for it.
When we were ready to move out Dram said there was noise behind the next door, pots and pans clinking. We opened the door to find another hallway with multiple doors. Opening the door it was another latrine and this one was very disgusting. I purified the air around me as it was just terrible. Then a head peaked out and yelped and tucked back into a door down the hall. I don’t feel particularly good about what happened next and the Princess would not approve but it needed to be done. This was where the women and children were. Once they were in danger the warriors attempted to scramble to their rescue but it was pretty much a slaughter. I let Durbin and Dram do the dirty work and I really didn’t care for it. I suppose I would do it if necessary but I kept look out. Once that was complete we took another brief rest before continuing on to the next hall. I did test my new combat magic and it worked out very well
These were stairs leading down to a landing before turning on itself to another hall and door. There was a very large enchanted mirror on the wall at the landing but it was not obvious what it did. Dram suggested we cover it up which was probably a good idea. We went back to the storage area and grabbed one of the large rugs to put over it, again this was a very large mirror. Once covered there was a door at the end of the hall. Opening the door there was a makeshift barricade and what appeared to be the bug bear leader and some of his underlings. I saw immediately this would be an issue for Durbin so I quickly gave him the ability to step on air so he could get up high enough to fight.
This battle was over fairly quickly but it was a bit frightful. Dram had multiple injuries fairly quickly. Luckily for us the barricade they erected impeded them and helped us. With Dram having to fall back had they pressed I would have been in trouble. As it was they tried to focus on Durbin allowing me to smack them with my staff lightning. After the battle I distributed the last of our healing vials. Durbin found two metal vials on the leader. I opened them and smelled the contents which smelled like cinnamon. I immediately plugged them and put them away.
We took a brief rest and I checked the room. More of the same. All the beauty that used to be here had been destroyed by these creatures. There was a large dresser which I examined and found a trap! It was not for opening the drawers but if you moved the dresser. I thought that was odd. I checked the drawers but there was nothing but garbage. We were getting ready to leave and I told the other about the trap and why would it be trapped to move and not on the drawers? They were curious too so we moved the dresser and let the trap harmlessly trigger. Behind the dresser was an obvious stone that could be moved and a large sack of coins tucked in! There was another item as well. Another large mirror like the other one except this one reflected nothing and was just black. Dram ran up to the other mirror and shone a stone in and we could see the light. Very interesting! Another item to gather if we are able to come back.
That seemed to be it for this area aside from the first door I had poisoned the air behind. We gathered up what we could carry and made our way back to the initial intersection. Behind the door were dead bug bears and more fine furniture that had been destroyed. There was one item that was in good shape and it was a tiled and painted tabletop which was a map of what Barrik called “the known world”. Another item if we could come back and gather. That seemed to be the end of these bugbear quarters so we headed out back to the cavern to investigate more.
Durbin wanted to check on his trap at the hut so we did that first but there was no sign of any movement. We had two choices at this point. A very nice doorway or another one that seemed to have been modified by the current inhabitants. We decided to check the latter first. The door opened and there were two bugbears standing guard inside which we quickly dispatched. This area was actually quite tall and large. Another set of iron bound double doors that we opened leading to a large but short hall ending in another set of modified double doors. Durbin was going to step in but I tapped him on the shoulder and suggested waiting. This area seemed like an obvious trap but we couldn’t find anything.
We went up to the next set of double doors and there was a barred window added to one but it was up very high, both Dram and I would need to stand on our toes to look in. Dram peaked in and saw a large two headed giant inside. The two of them came up with a plan to have Durbin attempt to shoot it in the eye and wound it and get it to come out. I gave Durbin the ability to step on air again and he took his shot but ended up missing. The creature thought it was someone[thing] teasing him. It got up, picked up the bar from the door and told them to enter. We did not do so and the thing got angry, threw the bar back on and went back to take a nap as it said it was sleepy.
In the meantime we debated the best way to fight this thing. I didn’t know and rely on Durbin and Dram as that is their area of expertise. We came up with a plan for luring the beast out and hopefully surprising it. I gave Durbin back the ability to step on air, put down a layer of ice in the hall. Durbin stayed hidden in the corner while Dram stayed in sight at the first set of double doors trying to get it to charge. I created a small ice sphere and threw it at the door. The creature woke up angry. It came to the door and threw the bar off and opened the door. It thought we were quite comical I guess and went to go and pick up its maces. Yes, plural it had two large ones. It came out and skittered a bit on the ice but didn’t fall. It did immediately drop a mace which it was not happy about. The two heads had separate thoughts and seemed to argue with each other. I threw a few lightning bolts at it and between Dram and Durbin it seemed a bit confused on what to do. At this point I didn't know what to do. I wasn’t sure more lightning would help. Another idea I had thought of using before and this may be the right time. Shape the stone above and simply cancel the spell allowing it to fall. I did so not using my staff for easier mana manipulation. I pulled all my energy reserves for this almost, it was all or nothing at this point. As I was getting it ready it slipped and fell which was perfect. I ensured it was ready and cast another lighting and held it up yelling at the beast to watch me. It did so and I canceled the spell and the large chunk of ceiling crashed down and smashed the thing killing one head. It was enraged and came after me but Dram stood fast in defense. After two swings the thing simply fell to the ground. I slumped in the corner, my eyelids drooping down as I was exhausted.
I had almost dozed off when Durbin came and got me saying I needed to come and see this immediately. I used my staff to push myself up and walked slowly over. In a small cell was Splinterleaf nailed to the corner and floor with large spikes but still alive. What an atrocity! He had been captured by Knockwart who had called him for consul but then tricked him and he had been here since. He said we must defeat Knockwart and as soon as Dram and Durbin got the spikes pulled loose he got up and started marching out. I cried for him to wait and that we needed to rest. Dram seemed to think we just needed to do this. I explained he didn’t understand. This was a Forest Guardian. It was no mere tree to be cut down and milled. This was a Guardian. It was folly we would need my full clan and even then… Knockwart explained Melinir was in danger. If we didn’t stop him everyone could die. He also explained that Knockwart was infected and had a purple crystal embedded in him. The frustration boiled over at that point and I threw my staff. I am ashamed of that but this was impossible! Now Rhiannon and the others were all at risk. How were we supposed to succeed in this? Then Dram brought up Zanzier Tem and Splinterleaf thought for a bit. Then he spoke the name backwards and explained he was the first person into the valley and a very powerful mage. This was very disturbing. Who exactly was Geoffrey? Who was this “Mad Mage”? Who was the young version that melted? This was getting to be too much. I would have to mention this to Rhiannon. I don’t expect her to break her oath but she should know something about what is going on. Assuming we made it out of here. Durbin pulled out his trinket from the Mad Mage and it pointed back to the main area. Great. All I can do now is rest and prepare for the next battle.
Sadly Once More Into the Depths
Kaldmont 14 990AC (Cont)
It was a difficult decision what to do next. Dram was still unconscious, I was drained to the point of barely being able to walk and Durbin was injured as well. He looked over Dram and dressed up his wounds. I was able to dress up Durbins wounds as well. We also thought that maybe forcing Dram to drink a healing potion could help as well so we were able to get him to swallow it. Durbin offered to heal me with his divine but I declined and suggested he keep any energy he has for now. With that we decided to just stay here for a bit. I had listened out in the hall and it was deadly silent so hopefully we would be safe. After a bit of rest Dram woke up and we slowly made our way back to the stairs and up to the kitchens again.
The dwarven women were all armed and a few of them had armor as well. They explained that if any Orcs did get through they would have to “clean up that mess”. Being exhausted we sat at a table and they gave us some food. Not my favorite but I do admit that some of the dwarven food is good. Dram of course wanted to rush off and help the men with Orcs or go notify the Loremaster of what we had found. Durbin didn’t seem in an extreme rush so I just told Dram we were exhausted and needed to rest. I feel like I just explained this exact same situation to him not long ago. Humans and their need to rush everything. Thankfully Rhiannon did not seem to have that trait in abundance.
Durbin left to go out and fix Drams' damaged armor, and it seems like he was looking for something to keep him occupied. Dram and I rested quietly and soon the warriors started filtering in from their victory over the orcs. They didn’t know it was only a diversion for their real goal but that’s fine, let them celebrate a well earned victory. Finally Durbin returned with Drams armor. By then the Loremaster and Warchief were both back so Durbin went to speak with them and we followed. They were immediately concerned and sent his warriors to man their normal posts while some of us went down to examine the lowest levels.
The dwarves were quite disappointed at the damage done by the goblins. They were also quite surprised by the craftsmanship of the goblin armor. The oddest part was that the dwarves didn’t even know that the library and laboratory was even down here. Apparently the secret door hiding them had been well hidden and not marked like the other. They made several derogatory remarks against magic which I ignored. No sense in getting into that debate here. We explained everything that happened and they were very surprised. I explained that the magic they had used was very odd and did not make sense to me. They were not sure how the goblins had even got here or been able to even find this. I strongly suspected something was guiding them. Maybe guiding this whole valley for a long time.
The Loremaster suggested he needed time to go through all the destroyed books and documents to try and piece anything together. I offered my services as well since the dwarves do not know much arcane magic. He accepted the assistance and we got started right away. Any dwarvish I found I passed to him, anything he did not understand he passed to me. I was actually able to get some valuable spells to add to my spell book. The Loremaster was able to piece together this was the room of their “mad king” from several generations ago. Apparently he started out fine and then slowly started going mad and ended up just disappearing. It’s not a thing they discuss frequently or advertise. I suppose I wouldn’t either.
After we went through the notes they showed us the way to a known library and tucked away any of the notes they had. Their scouts had found the way the goblins used to get in and were able to close that off so if anyone else knows they will not be able to use it. With that we went back up to the main keep (thank Ilsundal, the weight of what I know is above me is emotionally painful) and decided to rest for a few days before heading out. I wanted to stop at Silvercrest first and let Prince Elladin know what was happening and see if they had any news of other events. The other agreed to this. I wanted to head out sooner but I know Dram and Durbin need time for their wounds to heal in addition to any magic.
Kaldmont 17 990AC
I spent the last few days working with those dwarves who were musically inclined to try and add some dwarven influence to my ballad I have been working on for the ghost dwarves. Their music is different then elvish of course but the fundamentals are all there. I picked up a few items I should be able to incorporate but a lot of it is foreign to me. I would really like to get this done so it can be shared. My time with the humans and Rhiannon has made me somewhat more dedicated to accomplishing tasks. I can see Rhiannon and myself traveling the known world playing in the courts of the great Lords. First we would need to get out of the Rift though.
The dwarves led us out of their tunnel in the closest area to get to Silvercrest which is at the south east corner of the Farolas Hills. We went south to the river and began our journey to Silvercrest. Walking along the river we came across an old man fishing with a spear in the river. He radiated magic and, conveniently, we were very close to the Wizardspire which was a place known not to go into. Durbin approached him and we came cautiously up behind him. He actually was quite excited for guests though he never talked directly to us, always telling his skull “Tilka” to tell us something. He also seemed to point the skull the direction he was looking so he could have been blind.
He asked us to build a fire to cook the fish he caught. He also washed himself up in the river that was freezing cold. His clothes were threadbare and he was obviously severely frostbitten. I had an odd sense that he was familiar but also dangerous. I tried to ask him some questions but he always prompted the skull to reply and it was difficult to get any answer from him. Dram built a fire and the man began cooking the fish to share with us. Durbin shared some ale with him and he seemed to really enjoy that. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this mad man and I believe magic was sustaining his life as his physical ailments should have likely killed him already. Dram leaned in and whispered to me he looked like an old Geoffrey. Of course I immediately saw it after that. Something very odd was going on here. I kept a weary on him throughout our short time together. He was quite chatty and it was at least somewhat pleasant until he told us that we would need to go underground again and would die down there. He did say it cheerfully though.
At the end of the meal he thanked us for the company and gave Durbin a small trinket which was magical of course. He then gathered his items and walked off into the snow towards Wizardspire. I of course suggested to Durbin to be careful of that trinket as it was imbued with some type of magic. There was no way we were going to follow him into Wizardspire so we continued to Silvercrest. Dram had a wild theory perhaps this was Geoffrey in different stages of his life living at the same time. There are odd magics but I should hope no one is playing with anything like that again. The last thing we need is another reign of fire.
We made it to Silvercrest and everyone was quite happy. The orc king had been tracked down and killed. There was discussion of a joint venture with the dwarves to clear out the burning hills of evil humanoids now that they were leaderless and their numbers weakened. It seemed that things were taking a pleasant turn for once! We met in private with Elladin and Adelle about our meeting. Elladin was interested and called him the “Mad Mage” and that he had never met him, only heard of him before. I explained it was another Geoffrey clone but very old. With that his expression was grim. That brought up the item again that no one really fully trusts Geoffrey but he has given no one real reason to doubt him. We decided it was best to take this information to Valum only as another mage like this was of great concern to the Rift. The Princess assessed the charm and found that there was an arcane “blessing” placed upon it and it seemed to be linked to Durbin. This was very interesting now indeed.
We decided to stay the night in Silvercrest which was a relief. It was nice to be home and rest under the open sky again.
Kaldmont 18 990AC
In the morning we headed for Melinir finally! I couldn’t wait to get back to Rhiannon after everything we had been through so far. We followed the river down and planned to stop in Garlands Rest before completing our journey. Unfortunately we would not be completing that journey. We found Garlands Rest partially destroyed and no one living in sight. Upon some investigation it seems the residents had been infected by the tree curse which seemed to take effect quite quickly. We needed to get this information back to Valum immediately! Unfortunately Melwin hadn’t returned yet so I couldn't send word ahead. We checked all the houses and found a very poor surprise in the last one. A Troll!
Durbin knocked on the door and it said we should “come in”. Being that this was the Hunters house and we knew what he sounded like it was an obvious trap. We went around the side of the house which was torn off and Dram and Durbin rushed in. It was too bad I have not mastered fire yet but lightning would work, just not as well as fire. While they kept its attention I shot it with several bolts of lightning eventually catching it on fire. Trolls hate fire so it really started to panic and began running away. Durbin had an ax stuck in it so they both wanted to chase it down but I reminded them I am not very fast and they wouldn’t do much against a troll without my assistance.
Upon a bit more investigation we found very odd large tracks at the well. Pulling up a bucket we found the water to be contaminated of course. The water in the smell inlet here connected to the river was not. I should mention we did come across a dog tied up that had been left alone here. Dram suggested we take it with us even going so far as suggesting that Rhiannon would like a dog. I have no problems with dogs of course but I wasn’t sure about this suggestion. Regardless we couldn’t just leave it here so we did take it. The interesting item was that once we found the large odd tracks the dog was intent on following them to the point it was actually pulling me along. Giving in we followed the tracks to see where they led to my disappointment of not getting back to Melinor right away.
We followed the tracks out of Garlands Rest along the river until we saw that it crossed. Dram said there was not anywhere we could get across easily so I used my spell to allow them to step on the air as though it was solid and we made our way over. The water was too cold this time of year and I would not want to get wet anyways. I carried the dog over as it was still intent on tracking this down. There was a bit of a problem as this thing was heading to the Grakken Wood. We decided to follow a bit more and if it was deeply in the forest we would head back to Melinir. Along the way we found a pile of the black tar-like substance on the ground. I collected it by merely shaping it like water into a jar Durbin provided. With that we decided we had to head back to Melinir as between Garlands Rest and this we needed to notify others. Unfortunately that was not going to happen, Ilsundal and the other immortals were really leaning on us for something it seems.
When we tried to go back after a bit of time Durbin said he couldn’t move anymore. He took off his pack and was fine. Pulling out various items we found the Mad Mages trinket was suddenly very heavy. The dog was also pulling me to continue tracking the item. When Durbin continued on the path into the Grakken Wood the trinket was light again. It seems we didn’t have much of a choice, something very important was down this path so we continued on following the tracks and into the solid line of trees of the Grakken Wood.
The wood was eerily silent and old. We lost the tracks so visible in the snow but the dog had no problem tracking the scent of this thing. Eventually the tracks led to a clearing with a large old tree on a small hill and some old shaped stone lying around partially buried. It also had large roots covering up a cluster of these large stones. Upon closer and cautious inspection there were druidic spirals on the stones. We also found them on the large tree at the top of the hill which also seems to be rotting away. Suddenly the prints and trees clicked in my head that this was likely the treant of this forest? I tried to communicate with it several different ways but I was not able to. I was no expert on these matters, the guardian of Gauntlin Forest was always active when I had met it. Durbin took a closer look at the roots that draped down and found them hiding a cave and moved away quite easily. The tracks seemed to lead to the cave. Boy was I a fool, this was just a normal tree!
At that time Melwin finally returned! She had a note from Rhiannon saying she loved and missed me and that she was at the Sarcastic Goat playing. I told the others that if this was the end of this quest I was not doing anything again until after the wedding! I was really getting tired of being dragged into adventure after adventure like this. Dram wanted me to send Melwin with word of what was going on. Melwin was no simple carrier pigeon! Besides, I may need her aid if this place is truly going to be dangerous. I refused to send her back so soon to Drams dismay. He can find his own familiar in his own time to run messages if he wants to.
We decided to descend into the cave that we have been guided to. As we started to go the dog refused to go and Melwin flew off my shoulder. I consoled her as much as I could and finally persuaded her to nestle up in my cloak hood. It was very difficult going down as the roots were everywhere. I have never seen anything like this. There were plenty of handholds but it was also very uneven. After some descent into the ground (why can’t our adventures be more above ground!) we came to a large opening and almost like a cliff or waterfall of vines that went down even further. This cavern was very large. There was an eerie purple light which seemed to be coming from the roots that had grown down this far. There were large garden beds of various bushes and trees all over and a cabin. If it didn’t feel so evil it could actually have been beautiful.
We descended quietly to the ground and found numerous folded up blankets and such at the bottom laying on the roots. Not sure what they are for but they seemed clean. We made our way to the cabin which was fairly close. The main part of the cabin was very nicely made with logs. The add on we were near was very roughly made as if added later. Dram tried to look into some windows we found but could not see anything without shining light in. We made our way around the whole cabin and found a door. Everything was very quiet and there seemed to be no sign of activity here at the moment. We opened the door and found a tool shed full of well maintained and recently used tools. There was also a door on the back to addon that was barred. I watched out the door over the cavern while the others checked the door. When they opened it there was a little bell that rang. Dram told me there were human slaves in there that were fairly well beaten down and of no help. They did keep mentioning a “Gardener” that would be back soon and would kill us. Great.
Durbin wanted to set up a trap with some of the sharp tools in here so we left him to it. There was another structure close by that we needed to check on. There was one thing to note that there were no axes in there. Treants are not fond of axes. We made our way along the cavern wall to the other structure. As we got closer it almost seemed like a prison cell. As we crept along the wall I heard a faint voice whisper to me “are you really an elf?” I moved up closer and replied i was, what was she doing here? After some conversation I believe this is the treant spirit. She said the easiest thing was for me to call her Sullen. She pleaded to be let out and that we should leave immediately or the Gardener would kill us, he was very powerful. I asked where she would go if we let her out and she pointed to the large tree in the center and said home. Well she was a wise spirit so Dram helped open up a portion for her to get out. She said we should leave and bring the elven host but I told her something else was binding us here. With that she ran to her home. She was the most beautiful creature, more beauty than any mere mortal being could hold. She also told us of the bugbears and goblins here though the goblins have been gone for many days. I’m guessing the goblins in the lower hold of Hearth Home that are now dead.
With that taken care of we met up with Durbin and we skirted around the cavern. There were about a dozen of these large garden beds with many odd shrubs and trees. All of them were affected by the odd light as if it twisted them somehow. It was very disturbing. Again if it wasn’t so evil it could be quite beautiful. We found three doors around the whole cavern and no other outlets that we saw. The last door smelled heavily of bugbear so we decided to start here. It opened into a hallway with a door at the end. We made our way across and the other opened the door where there was a bugbear guarding. Dram and Durbin hit it hard and fast but it managed to make some noise. What happened next was a mess. This was a T intersection, to the left was a door and to the right another intersection. Dram went to the door and I followed with Durbin in the back. Dram said he heard more bugbears on the other side that he could hear. At the same time some bugbears came from behind us I am assuming to check on the guard who had made some noise. I made a large area of poisonous gas on the other side of the door (I didn't know the size of the room so I just made it big) and then turned to back Durbin up. I wasn’t sure of what the bug bears would do so I just turned the stone underneath them to dust to impede their advance. I had to do it twice as the first one wasn’t really deep. One jumped over to get Durbin and it was a fierce battle. I tried to hit in the face with my staff but I am just not strong enough physically to hurt it. So I told Durbin to hold and instead of hitting it I just created water in its face. I had figured Durbin could use the distraction to hit it back in the pit but he punched it instead. In the end we defeated all four of them but it was tiring to myself. Hopefully the ones I poisoned on the other side were taken care of. Every time I do it though I can just see the Princesses disapproving face. Well they are evil and corrupted by this “light” or whatever this entropy source is. We would need to find the source and eradicate it.
An Admission of Error
Kaldmont 13 990AC
After sending the gnomes out with the humans from their conquered home we continued on. Durbin was able to spot a hidden door which he was able to open and found some kind of…pre ceremonial chamber. There were robes, staves and some earthen jars sealed up along with more of the beautiful tile murals. We decided to come back later for this as we assume the gnomes held these items sacred.
Continuing down the hall we came to some kind of ceremonial chamber. The goblins had really taken to trying to destroy anything in this room. There was a pedestal and a large mud shaped goblin over what I assumed was the original statue. This seems particularly bothersome to Durbin who started to try and clean it off. I stopped him and told him I could do this much easier. I pushed the mana through my staff and changed it to water and washed the mud away revealing a severely defaced statue of a gnomish immortal.
There was another passageway going further and we continued further Durbin leading the way. Going through another low and short passage I heard some strange muttering, a screech and combat. I entered and there was what I would guess was a goblin shaman doing some kind of ritual Durbin interrupted. The thing had some kind of protection as Durbin seemed to not be as effective so I assisted in taking the thing down with a bolt of lightning. After it was dead we examined it further to find the thing had basically mutilated itself pushing various bones and items into its skin. Horrid. It also had many hide scrolls and such but they were all written in goblin. There could be some good intelligence here but we would need to come back and get it. Oddly enough the room was surprisingly cleaner than the rest of the goblin areas.
This was the end of this tunnel and we had one more to clear out, at least hopefully one more. Making our way down there we came across a room of Bugbears that were sleeping. Durbin and Dram made quick work of them so I stayed back and kept an eye out to ensure nothing snuck up on us. There wasn’t really anything in their chamber but they would have been quite the foes had they been awake and alert! The next room was the biggest challenge of this gnomish cavern, hobgoblins! They were well organized and not surprised at all. I think Durbin and Dram are getting a bit full of themselves as they just pretty much walked into the room and got hit quite hard. I was in the process of working the mana into an ice slick. I would have liked it larger but I didn’t have time so I made it as large as I could and forced it to ice to hinder as many as possible. It definitely helped and for additional assistance I brought together a lightning bolt in case it was needed. It definitely was as a large hobgoblin came out and joined the battle. I aimed, loosed and I swear that Ilsundal guided this to the best location to damage this one as it was smote down upon the floor. After that the battle dragged on for a bit but dram and Durbin had it in control though they were badly hurt. Durbin rushed in but before I could cancel the ice he slipped and fell on his back. I admit I had to stifle a laugh at that before I shouted sorry and canceled the spell! I gave Dram a healing vial we had left which helped some.
We went through their belongings and an item of note was 100 brand new shiny silver coins from the same mint outside the rift. Very odd. There is something going on here to manipulate the rift towards something? I’m not sure but the conspiracy seems to keep growing. With that we decided to head out, rest up a bit and have the humans come in and help us gather everything we could. I figured the treasure we found was the gnomes they could use to help rebuild or settle them somewhere. I would like to negotiate for the two sapphires though as they were perfect for a beautiful set of earrings.
Coming out of the caves we found wounded dwarves and the rest not to be seen. We learned that they had indeed found the Orc King but he got away with a small retinue and they were hunting him down. With both the dwarves and elves on top of them it was only a matter of time before they were killed. We went back in and gathered what we could, especially the items from the hidden chamber. When we came out the gnomes were delighted and especially interested in the two jars. They opened them and began giving everyone who was wounded a sip and it turned out they were a powerful healing brew! Someday I may like to learn how to make these items but that is for another time.
Since everything seemed to be under control with Orcs being pursued by the Dwarves and Elves were asked to take the wounded and such back to the Kleine. Dram was very disappointed and wanted to continue to help. Young children. I explained that we did our job, others must do theirs. Continuing to push on despite wounds and such could just cause worse problems. There is an old elven parable of such that I recounted to Dram which seemed to help him some. The travel back to Kleine was uneventful and the townspeople were more than happy to help. It’s good to see that in times of need humans are very helpful. It just seems that in times of peace they want to make poor decisions.
Kaldmont 14 990AC
I began writing out a note to Rhiannon when the War Priest came in and asked Durbin to take his kin and the gnomes to Hearth Home. Dram was very happy to hear that as I know he wanted to go back. I was about to decline when I had a very strong feeling that I needed to go. I don’t know what it was but it superseded my dread of returning to the underground fortress. Melwin felt it too but I assured her she did not have to go this time. I tore up my original note and wrote out a new one. I informed her everyone was safe and things were well. We needed to stop at Hearth Home with Durbin and would return home afterwards. I know she would like to return so I assured her I would speak to Durbin to get another visit, perhaps after the wedding and that I would gladly return there just for her. I sent Melwin and told her to stay with Rhiannon for now and I would return as soon as I was able.
With that we set out to Hearth Home with a mix of apprehension and something else. I can’t explain it but maybe a sense of determination? Something wanted me there. The journey was uneventful, at least until we got to Hearth Home. Apparently the Orcs had come here too so the rest of the fighting dwarves were on the battlements keeping the Orcs at bay. Dram of course wanted to help but from what I saw of the dwarves going into the Orc cave would they even accept our help unless it was dire? It was a moot point anyways because of what happened next.
As we settled in to figure out what we would do next a dwarf (Durbin swears there were only women and children around us but I don’t know) came running into the room covered in flour crying about goblins in the cellars! Now there was definitely something very odd going on in the rift. We gathered our things and went down even deeper. Every flight of stairs down I can just feel the pressure increasing, the weight of the stone just growing ever heavier. It doesn’t hurt but it’s like an annoying bug buzzing around that you can’t get rid of. Getting to the bottom of the stairs we could immediately hear them trashing a supply room.
Peaking in these goblins were very well armored. Like so well armored it was very out of place. They also had those glowing purplish eyes like we encountered in the other cave. What was going on here?! Dram and Durbin rushed in to confront the goblins and more were coming in through the doors leading into the room on the other side. I created another ice slick and, again, not as large as I wanted but enough to hinder a number of them. It took awhile but we dispatched them all and this time Durbin looked to me to ensure the ice was gone. I canceled the spell early and we continued on. A part of me wanted to not cancel it and see someone fall again but this was not the time for such foolishness. Off this room was the alcohol storage room which the goblins had trashed as well. The wine, whiskey and ale was on the floor! That was a real stab of pain in my heart. I thought about how I could perhaps shape it, clean it and separate it but we just had no time. I whispered a blessing over the loss and we moved out.
We continued down the winding corridors which had me very confused where we even were. We ran into a few more groups of goblins that Durbin quickly dispatched. Then we came to the library which was, like the wine, destroyed. The goblins in here were rushing towards another room though and what happened next was a flurry of destruction. A tentacled monster came after Durbin backing out of the room off the library making this high pitched noise inside our head making it difficult to concentrate. It attacked in quick succession wounding Durbin and Dram faster than I've ever seen before. I charged up a lightning bolt through the occasional shrieks from Durbins hits, but only Durbins hit for some reason. Once charged I stepped in the room and aimed. Thank Ilsundal the thing barely noticed me and I only had to dodge one attack which I quickly grasped mana out of the air around me to assist. If I was hit holding this it would be pain and possibly death. I loosed and hit it! It shrieked horribly at that so it seemed to really not like the lightning attacks. I stepped back while it concentrated on the others. This time I put all I could into charging another bolt. I pulled nearly all my energy and partially drained my large stone. No sense in holding back now. I stepped out, aimed and unleashed. The thing screeched, shuddered and exploded causing some minor wounds.
With that Dram collapsed but was still alive so I rushed up to Durbin and looked in the room. Some kind of circle of control that had failed. Durbin was convinced this magic stone needed to be in the circle but that caused it to glow. Barrick nor myself understood this thing that seemed to defy the nature of magic. I knocked the stone out of the circle and the glow went away and the circle disappeared. That was easy enough but then Durbin pushed it back in causing the circle to appear it glow again! We started arguing, he was convinced the stone needed to stay in but I was convinced otherwise, it could be charging the circle to summon again. As the argument got more heated he pulled out his warhammer and I jumped back. He swung down and smashed the stone to bits causing the circle and glow to disappear completely but causing some minor wounds to us from the explosion. I stood in shocked silence for a few seconds. “That was the correct action master Durbin, it seems you were right.” Then I leaned in and said quietly, “I will not openly ever admit it again and there is no one else to recount the tale.” I patted him on the shoulder and walked out to help Dram.
A Surprising Discovery
Kaldmont 12 990AC
I picked through the wide assortment of gems we have now for an idea I had for Rhiannon. I took them to the Jeweler and asked about making them into a hairpiece for her. He had a great idea to use the gemstones for flowers. As before he asked me more details then I really know so I really just need to trust his judgment on what works best. He also asked how many coins I wanted to use for the metal. I wasn’t sure so I pulled out a small handful I thought would be enough. He initially said that would work but he also asked for one of the golden leaves I had kept. That seemed very fair to me. He would work on some sketches which he showed me before I left Melinir which looked wonderful. I really need to figure out gifts other than just jewelry though. I suppose the manor is a large one but I do need to work on some furnishings. That will need to wait until after this latest excursion into the north.
After making preparations in Melinir we headed to Kleine. The journey was uneventful which was a nice change of pace. It seems we can’t do anything without getting embroiled in something going on in the rift. When we got to Kleine that’s when the whole mission started to take on a life of its own. It immediately got out to the townsfolk what was going on and they all wanted in on the attack. Dram was asking me what to do but I had no idea. Once our clan agreed to a plan that was the plan. Others didn’t just do what was not best for the clan. Dram tried to help settle them down but it was to no avail.
After that fiasco then the dwarves arrived. It seems they had the same idea as the people of Kleine and brought around thirty of their warriors. This was no longer just a tactical strike to cut off the head of the beast. This was going to be a full on assault. Prince Elladin showed up with our small host that was agreed upon before and was a bit taken aback by the change of plan. He sent word back to Silvercrest for more of the clan to join. Bryon was leading the humans from Melinir and wanted to get word back to his Father about the change in plans. That was easy enough as I needed to send Melwin to Melinir anyways to send a note to Rhiannon. I asked him to write out his note briefly and I would send it with Melwin and ask Rhiannon to deliver it.
With that all the groups settled into their own. The dwarves and humans started drinking and having a big, loud party. I spent time among my clan finding out that they had spotted gnolls and hobgoblins heading to the meetings. I did forget to mention the dwarves said they ran into Orc tracks of a large group, likely fourty or more that were heading to this gathering. They thought this odd as each group was only sending delegates. I’m not sure what to make of that but I am no general. I’m sure our Prince, the dwarven warmaster and Bryon will figure out the best strategy.
The dwarves and humans stayed up late into the night drinking. I spent time writing this and thinking of the future. We needed to get the passage back to the outside world open again. Not just for the wine Rhiannon and I like but for the sake of everyone. I would definitely like to visit some of these places outside the rift as well and meet some of my other kin. I know Rhiannon would like new audiences to play for as well. It just seems like we keep getting sidetracked into all these other issues around the rift. Reading my words you must think I sound like a human being so impatient. I suppose they are rubbing off on me a bit. In that time Melwin returned with two notes, one from Rhiannon and one from Valum to Bryon which I promptly delivered.
Kaldmont 13 990AC
The next morning was not a pleasant one for the humans. Apparently they had tried to drink like dwarves and, well, that’s just not possible. It took longer than we would have liked for everyone to get up, moving and ready to head out. Even once we did, the discipline of the humans is very lax. I do not doubt their hunters but for a stand up fight against the evil races…i’m not sure how they would fare. I did read of the Legions of Thyatis and it sounds like they have a very professional standing army. So the ability to do so is there.
It took quite a bit of time and changes in our direction to head to the meeting place. More of our clan showed up in the morning and we met more men from Melinir on the way. For the human hunters bragging it was the elves leading the way and avoiding any patrols or other groups we didn’t want to come across. They may know the land slightly better but an elven scout cannot be beat, well very rarely. After some time we came up to the first challenge. Well I would really call it a challenge I suppose.
The scouts had found a large depression that had some old ruins in it and two caves. It seemed that the evil races had also indulged quite a bit as well and some were fast asleep outside the caves, ogres and orcs. The dwarves quickly went in and crushed those. The dwarves also chose their cave they were going to go in and clean out leaving us with the other one. The humans were ordered to not go in unless there was an emergency and my kin would rather leave it to others. Which left our group and a handful of humans to help cover us.
These were gnomish ruins overtaken by goblins. Immediately Durbin triggered a warning alarm alerting the cavern to our presence. Dram and Durbin made quick work of the creatures. We ran into another small group which Dram and Durbin again were able to handle. The next group was much larger and almost snuck up on the humans guarding our rear. They came riding in on wargs but they had chosen their battlefield poorly and the humans made quick work of the wargs. The problem was there was a mass of goblins coming in behind them. Now was my time to assist. I pulled wisps of mana and spread it out over a great area in the goblin horde and turned it to ice on the floor. Then I pulled more into the area and transformed it into the obnoxious gas. I could hear and see the Princess in a non approving stance but these were evil races and needed to die.
With them handled there was movement in another corridor and it turned out to be the goblin leader, his lackeys and an owlbear! I had heard of them before but to see one in person was a bit terrifying!. I didn’t need to worry though as Dram and Durbin made quick work of it and then the leader as well. Following through to their quarters we found some old gnomish covering up entry ways. In a small tunnel off where the leader slept was a trove of treasure including a beautiful ruby and two sapphires. The two sapphires would make beautiful earrings (I know, I said something other than jewelry!) and a large ruby. We grabbed what we could as we didn’t know if we would be able to make it back and back tracked to a doorway we hadn’t checked yet behind us.
Opening the door there were gnomes being kept prisoner! The goblins overran this area a hundred years ago, I cannot believe there are still gnomes here! We quickly assisted them and they warned us of a nasty goblin who wore gnome skin as clothing. We had slain quite a few goblins so it could have already been dead but it wasn’t. We found that one and killed it in the forge where it was forcing two other gnomes to work. Another room held something similar and once we showed our faces the gnomes rose up and killed their captor. We explained quickly what was happening and they were worried about the women and children in the other cave. We assured them not to worry, 30 dwarves were clearing that cave out as we speak.
Things really got interesting here!
The Embers of War, Can I Go With My Friends?
Kaldmont 6 990AC
To anyone reading this in the future and seeing a large gap in entries I apologize. Please keep in mind that I am an elf and prone to putting things off (compared to humans) and I also have been studying and contemplating my future a great deal lately. I see now why human and elf relationships are rare as our perception of time passes differently and we have various goals that change. In no way do I regret being with Rhiannon as it has pushed me to adapt to the human world and her viewpoint which has been tremendously helpful though somewhat frustrating at times. So if I should perish and you are reading this in the future Love I regret nothing.
To catch up on events in the rift now. We had a short excursion up to Kleine to look into the theft of many, many random items in the town and one very highly valued artifact. Had it not been for the artifact and the sheer amount of items stolen I would not deem it worth my time. It turned out to be not much, just some local Goblins stealing and hoarding items. We did find a pair of our enchanted elven boots but not from our clan though. It was how the goblins were getting in and out unnoticed. We also saved a local child from a severe punishment as they were trying to pin the theft of the artifact on someone.
During this trip I made sure to remember to keep Rhiannon informed of what was going on via Melwin. She is getting quite a lot of exercise from this! It is a lot to ask of her to make these trips but she understands and Rhiannon takes good care of her as well. Most humans think birds love to fly and can do it forever but it is actually quite taxing on them. When we returned from this trip Rhiannon was quite happy with these updates. This is somewhat different than my elven kin who can go months or years without updating each other or being in each other's presence. Perhaps I should dedicate some of my study time to human skills as well rather than focusing solely on magic.
I should also note that the Goblins had some what we believed to be orders written on hide. Pickman wasn’t fluent but said he would be able to translate these for us and we could pick them up later.
Kaldmont 10 990AC
Pickman delivered us the translation and the news was dire indeed. The evil humanoids were gathering for a meeting in a few weeks and it seemed serious. They even included the Rakasta which was odd as they were very isolated and not aligned with any of the evil races. This could be disastrous indeed. We met with Valum on what to do and marching a whole host there to fight would not be practical. I suggested a small force, led by us with some champions of all the races. A small strike force could get in, deal a huge blow and get out far more easily than a whole army marching to war which he agreed and pledged to several of his best warriors.
After meeting with Valum we went back to the Sarcastic Goat where Rhiannon was playing. We went over the items we received from Raven the Goblin adventure and went over the plans to head to Silvercreat and Hearth-Home to ask my clan and Durbins for assistance. Rhiannon retired and we finished up our business and I was just getting ready to follow her upstairs when the door opened and Erik entered. I sighed and hurried up the stairs hoping this wouldn’t lead to what I thought. Sure enough a few moments later Dram knocked on my door and said the Burgormeister was requesting us immediately for an urgent matter. Rhiannon was getting quite attached to his wine collection so there was not much resistance from her so I agreed as well. She got dressed in her (and my) favorite blue dress. On the way out in the rain Erik was about to use his coat to shelter her but I just parted the rain around us to keep us dry. We once again made a late night trip to Torlynn.
The trip was uneventful and, as usual, we were offered food and refreshments even at this late hour. Always in such a hurry although this time time was actually of the essence. We were led to Gustavons chambers and it was darker than usual with a large hooded figure sitting off to the side. Gustavon was his usual pleasant self and asked us to help save the rift once again and introduced his friend Kaminari who turned out to be a Rakasta! He was an elderly magi of the Rakasta and explained the leader of the Rakasta, Kamaggi, seems to have been taken by a dark influence and was planning to join the evil humanoids on a war against the goodly races of the rift. The mention of the Rakasta on the hide makes sense now. He asks us to help fix the situation.
My first question is how of course? Does he have any ideas on what we can do? He does of course, he has a stone that can transport us to the palace. He tells us to be wary as Kamaggi has changed and may have killed everyone in the palace. We would need to neutralize Kamaggi so that Kamanari can return (he was exiled) and calm his people down and break the alliance with the evil humanoids. This made sense but I was actually worried. Rakasta were feared warriors and their equivalent of elven rangers were terrifying from the tales I heard. This would be dangerous. If we didn’t fix the situation my people would take the brunt of any attack from the Rakasta so this was necessary. We agreed to help.
We gathered our items and I spoke to Rhiannon about our plans. I told her the full truth of what was going on as I really could never lie to her and building any relationship based on lies is not a good way. She was, let's say, less than enthused but agreed it was necessary. I really needed to stop putting off my gift plans and focus on getting that together. I kissed her goodbye and returned to Gustavons chambers ready to go. Kamanari gave me a rock full of magical power and explained I needed to touch the rock, all those who needed to travel and then speak the word of power and we would be transported to the garden inside the palace.
I did as he said and the rush of energy was powerful. Spirit animals whirled around us, grabbed hold and transported us right to where he said it would. It was over quick but almost knocked the wind out of you and made my stomach lurch. After regaining my senses it was eerily quiet and very tranquil. The sound of running water and the occasional clunk and splashing of water broke the silence every so often. The garden was beautiful and the woodwork was exquisite. In this calming atmosphere it was hard to believe that there were serious problems here.
We began exploring the palace. The deck around the walls for the garden was very creaky so I wrapped mana around Dram’s feet so he could step above the deck and move more quietly. One room off the garden had eerie black candles that were magical in nature. Something odd was likely going on here. Exploring more of the palace we found several desiccated husks of rakasta. The palace was beautiful though. The artwork, wood work, everything was gorgeous. Different from elven work but still beautiful. I’m sure Rhiannon would love to visit some day but the rakasta are very reclusive.
We continued through the palace cautiously. We found a Rakasta that was alive and chained to a beautiful marble and quartz table. I stopped to check on it while the others proceeded ahead and I quickly heard the sounds of battle that didn’t last too long. I asked if they needed assistance but they were fine. I kept an eye out the door and down the halls but everything was clear. The Rakasta seemed to be alive but barely. I was more worried about anything coming from the hall and cornering us. I heard shouts and movement behind me only to turn around and see Dram and Durbin trying to grab at or hit a…something hard to describe. A puddle of black burning liquid? I tried to wrap it in mana which just forced it to alter its route. I tried to wrap it like I would water which seemed to work. Durbin had a jar he was trying to put it in and we almost had it when at the last second it escaped.
Durbin rushed after it and I followed. I assumed Dram was too but he stayed behind to try and do something with the Rakasta that was chained there. The thing had gone under the floor and was moving quickly through routes that were blocked by walls for us. Durbin simply pulled out his ax and chopped a hole through it. The chopping of the wood pained me I will admit. It was very beautiful and although the pain was not physical I winced at every chop but was not going to say anything to Durbin in the state he was in.
We chased it and seemed to have it cornered when a Rakasta appeared in the hall and shouted something at me. The slight delay was all I needed. I transformed the air around it to heavy poisonous gas while Dram ran up to confront it. I went into the room Durbin was in and he was hacking at a moving dead Rakasta that the thing seemed to inhabit. I shouted for him to not destroy the vessel and wrapped it in mana to try and control it somewhat. I tried to get Durbin to carry it to the garden area but to no avail, the thing just wanted to swipe him down so he knocked it out. After that I just maintained my spell and moved it slowly to the garden while Dram fought off the other one.
It took some time and we reached the garden. I used most of my energy to shape the stone on the ground and wrap this whole thing up so it could not escape. As I was doing that though the thing jerked suddenly, opened its eyes which were black and then the black seemed to dissipate and the thing went limp. Dram came running in and said he destroyed the idol which must have broken the things connection to this plane. From the sounds of battle this place would be swarming any minute but Dram was arguing about something that we needed to stay longer. I said we just need to grab this Rakasta (I had a feeling she would be important) and get out of here. If it was the leader or her sister she could explain what happened. He relented, I touched the stone, everyone else and spoke the word of power and we were back in Torlynn.
We were back in Gustavons chambers with the almost dead Rakasta and Kamanari was there as well. When he saw the other Rakasta he shouted, “YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KILL HER!”
He pulled out some small metal objects that looked like throwing weapons so I began casting my newly learned magic. It alters mana around a person and deflect missiles by the slightest as I figured he would target me. He was targeting the Rakasta on the ground though and managed to hit with a thrown metal object. It became clear what was going on and instead of myself I simply shifted the spell to her and luckily I did as I could feel the magic working to deflect the next two incoming objects.
To summarize what had actually happened Kamanari was the bad guy here. The thing he summoned to control Kamaggi (she was the one we brought back) was too powerful and broke free of his control. That was why he had to flee. I wrote a short message to my tribe and sent Melwin on to warn them of what was going on. He had some story about how he was only trying to do right by his people, just like the Black Knight was trying to restore his titles. We needed to get her to a translator and Melinir was mentioned but my people traded with them and I know at least a few of my clan could speak with them so we made for Silvercrest. The decision was also easier as the elves would be the first to be hit by any attack.
I explained all this to Rhiannon and she wanted someone else to go. I understand why she would want this but these are my people and I had to be there. She relented again and I kissed her goodbye again for a short while. We rushed to Silvercrest with Dram carrying Kamaggi on horseback. They were on alert of course and brought us straight in. I explained the situation and we needed someone who could speak with the Rakasta so, of course, they brought Princess Adelle to assist and she was immediately concerned.
I am going to skip over some tedium that I quite frankly don’t remember very well. We had some confusion but ended up taking Kamaggi back to her home and she was able to quickly bring the situation under control. The Princess and one of her maidens came with us as well which pretty much exhausted the power of the stone so we had to walk back down the cliff of the plateau which was pretty exhilarating. I would love to learn more about them and visit someday but they seem like they just want to be left alone at this point which I cannot blame them.
With the immediate threat of war lifted and things going back to normal I remembered our main mission. Working with Prince Elladin about the strike force for the evil humanoid chieftain meeting. He made the same observation as Valum about leading an army there but was intrigued by the strike force idea. He also pointed out an issue with Pickmans translation. We had 3 DAYS, not 3 WEEKS. This was going to be very difficult indeed.
Durbin had already rushed off at this point but Elladin said they could contact the dwarves and let him know the new schedule. There was going to be much to do and we decided to meet in Kleine to make our move. I went back to Torlynn and spoke to Rhiannon about the change of plans and she was angry but I could see the fear in her eyes for me. She even wanted to ensure that this was a real and serious issue that warranted my attention. She spent some time with the Princess which seemed to calm her down and she agreed. I really need to start speaking to others about the ideas for gifts I have for her. I’ve been putting it off for too long now. The next few days will surely be interesting.
A Flame Rekindled
22 Yarthmont, 990
I found out that all the River Bandits had been hung, even the one we had made a deal with. Valum said we had no right to negotiate that and it was void. These men were irredeemable and nothing would be able to make up for their actions. This saddened me. I had hoped that people could change and make up for their misdeeds but it seems humans want to hold onto their grudges. At least most of them I suppose. I shouldn’t lump them all together as each person is their own unique individual.
21 Felmont, 990
The last two months have been fantastic. We stayed in Edgewater and Rhiannon’s family really seems to be warming up to me. The sense of family loyalty is strong, if only humans could have this loyalty within larger groups. Perhaps it’s just their short lives? During this time we spent time in Melinir playing and relaxing, spent a large amount of time in Silvercrest and then time back at Rhiannon’s home as it is very tranquil there and isolated. It was nice to ignore the Rifts issues for once and just spend time with Rhiannon without having to be worried about being pulled away. She also seemed to loosen her grip on me somewhat and let me wander about out of her sight. I don’t mean that in a negative way either. I had definitely screwed up not letting her know where I was.
I also spent time working on my epic for the story of the Dwarves. Some of the songs I wanted a more direct influence on but there were many emotional pieces I asked Rhiannon for assistance on. I know I cannot write the song from a dwarven perspective but perhaps they would like it. I tried to ensure the length was not too long to keep humans interested in it as well. My time playing in Melinir taught me that they do not have the patience for long elven songs and tales.
22 - 27 Felmont, 990
This day started like any other. It was getting close to the time we all agreed to meet back up so Rhiannon and I went back to Melinir. I wished to try out a few of the songs in my dwarven epic to see how people reacted. We went to the Sarcastic Goat to have dinner and some wine. Shortly thereafter Connor stopped in and said the Quadrial had some questions for me on the River Bandits and asked if I could come soon to meet with them. I looked at Rhiannon and she assured me it was OK, it was important to the Rift. I nodded to Connor who said he would come pick me up in an hour or so when they were ready.
I kept conversation away from our adventures even though it was forefront in my mind now. I had picked up a book on Traladaran history and one on the Five Shires and was discussing with Rhiannon that we should travel to some of these places once we got out of the Rift on our way to Thyatis City. She seemed excited about the prospect of visiting these new lands and meeting new people. This made me very happy as, like i said before, i was worried she would not want to go out and would want to stay with her family here in the Rift. We need to really look into opening one of these passes.
After some time Connor came back and said they were ready. I asked Rhiannon to just wait here for me and she said that was perfectly fine and that it would be a nice night for a walk once I returned. Connor was very talkative on the way over. I felt bad he was so isolated here, I should make it a point to visit with him more often. The Quadrial just had some basic questions on the things that happened. I went over everything but they seemed most interested in the purple gem we destroyed. They didn’t give me any more information on it really. I asked about the tar substance as I was more worried about that really but they dismissed me.
As I was walking back to the Sarcastic Goat to meet back with Rhiannon I saw a figure in the dark that looked similar to her. As I got a bit closer it looked very much like her and she ducked into an alley. What was going on here? This was very odd. I whispered to Melwin to check the Sarcastic Goat for straw hair. This absolutely could not be her, this must be some trick. I cautiously approached the alley. She was walking down the alley constantly looking at her surroundings and saw me, turned and I saw her. It was her. Or something that looked like her. I pulled a lightstone out to see better and it even more amplified that it was her but I noticed a fine black cloak outlined in green. I called out to her but she did not respond and looked utterly shocked. I shifted to mages eyes and there was no glow around her but the cloak. This baffled me, what was this trickery? I called out, “are you ok?” and her expression changed from startled to confident. I heard Black Thom call out behind me, “she’s fine” and all went black.
When I woke I felt the splitting pain in my head but the worst pain was in my heart. It felt like an icy dagger had been plunged into it. I was bound, gagged and blindfolded. Little things flooded into my brain. The chance meeting months ago on the streets with Black Thom when I was with Rhiannon and whatever happened in their past. Her being fine with our dinner being disrupted by the Quadrial. The fact she wanted to “take a walk” after dinner. In the back of my mind I felt this could not be true but emotions flooded through and told me to face the facts. Humans only knew betrayal. The elders warned me I might not be old enough to venture out and my naivety could get me into trouble. Now here I was, betrayed by the one human I completely trusted. I was utterly devastated and felt a flame of hatred burning in my heart towards all these people. I could not point it to Rhiannon no matter how hard I tried. In my heart I still loved her which I suppose is why this hurts so much but there was just this nagging feeling that this could not be true. Perhaps it was just hope that I didn’t want it to be true no matter what.
I heard Black Thom talking in the background to another person. His boss wanted all four of us gone. His boss being Maybush. Hands grabbed me and stood me up. Weakly I pushed myself up just dumbfounded. A collar was placed around my neck and I was told it would stop me from pulling mana and would also cause me pain on top of that. If it was possible for me to be more panicked and defeated this was about it. Betrayed by the one I loved and trusted and now locked from my birthright. The flame grew inside me. If I was to escape from this there would be no more mercy. No more compassion. All who betrayed me would die and I would retire back to my clan. Except Rhiannon. I still could not bring myself to even wish harm on her. I even hoped she would escape so no harm would come to her. It’s hard to explain but that’s how I felt. At least I could feel Melwin was safe.
I was dragged around for a while by orcs I believe and then stood up and my blindfold, gag and bonds were removed. I was shoved into the cell and heard it crash behind me. I saw Dram and the green grocer boy plus other humans but it mattered not. I moved from the iron bars and crumpled to the ground. Dram rushed up to me asking me if I was ok but I barely registered him. The pain was so great. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying and he was rambling on about how I had a black and green cloak and had lured him into a trap. I shot up at that and pressed him on it and he confirmed. It was me and I had on a black and green cloak he repeated. Relief flooded through me and the fire of hatred in my heart almost disappeared. The nagging voice that said it couldn’t be true must be right, it was some sort of foul magic that only made the vision appear real! I felt a renewed vigor and told Dram that “hope has been restored, let’s find a way out of here.” He seemed puzzled but I did not wish to share what had happened. For me the pain was too deep.
That was easier said than done. These were all dwarven carved. I had hoped to find some up to now unknown secret door but I scanned the walls twice and saw nothing. No way out of the cell directly. That night I reflected on my memories of Barrik on this collar. He knew what it was and with Dram’s help discovered there was a dwarven rune of pain carved into it. It takes any mana the wearer tries to channel and dissipates it. The rune then focuses it into a pain spell to hurt the user. There was a keyhole on the back to remove it. Barrik also knew that flooding it with power could destroy it but could kill the user even with no rune. Dram thought perhaps if he could use the crude tools given to us working in the mines he could knock the gem out which would break it too. The only problem was that guards were always watching.
The next morning (I suppose they still followed day/night cycles still) they split all the prisoners up into two groups. They mentioned something about a new tunnel they needed to work so half would do that and half would dig in the salt mines. The work was hard but my desire to get out of here alive drove me to keep working despite the weight of the underground. They at least gave us plenty of water. They were not stupid enough to let all their workers die of lack of water I suppose. After some time digging the salt I was switched to carrying the loads into a large room with four dwarves smashing and sorting the red salt out. There was an Ogre in there watching over the dwarves and beating on them every so often. Potential allies if we could get them free. After the day was over we were returned to the cell. The other group looked very haggard and dirty. Dram was chummy with one of them and they explained they had been digging straight through rock and it was very rough work. Since everyone was exhausted the humans all quickly fell asleep leaving me awake to ponder.
After examining the walls again and feeling confident we had no exit directly through secret access I pondered on the recent events and what I thought was betrayal. Black Thom was a known ladies man so yes Rhiannon could have had some relationship but she seemed disgusted by it now. Being OK with me pulled away at dinner? She was just more comfortable with me being out of her sight. The walk after dinner? Not a trap, she just likes romantic walks and is totally ordinary. I felt stupid for thinking she would do something like that and ashamed. Putting that out of my mind as best I could, these humans did seem to betray and abuse each other quite a bit. I need to be more cautious in the future in dealing with these people.
The next morning they did the same thing. Split the groups up into two, one to go dig into this new tunnel and the other to continue mining the red salt. It was another day of hard work and no opportunity of escape. Whoever was handling these orcs was very efficient and smart and kept them in line. I had a renewed vigor to get out now. It wasn’t even revenge at this point though I did desire that. I just wanted to get back to Rhiannon at this point. When we got back Dram’s friend had some visible injuries and there were fewer of them. They said they had broken into some dwarven ruins and been attacked by some creatures in there. He didn’t want to talk too much about it and just wanted to sleep. Dram was starting to get worked up about needing to get out of here but there was simply no opportunity yet. He was also lamenting how ridiculous this whole thing was and all I could tell him was to read his history books. This kind of thing was common with humans.
The next morning was the same but our crew was smaller now. They were even giving the other group some blunted weapons so things must be pretty bad down there. We went into the salt mines and the other group went to the dwarven ruins. We were working as usual and Dram said we needed to help these people and we needed to try to escape quickly. There were slightly fewer guards but it still seemed very risky. Dram seemed convinced it was the right thing to do. We would create some diversion and the other humans would join us to escape. It was a difficult decision. I was leery to trust even Dram on anything but I needed to have some trust with people close to me. The thought of betrayal still stung even though I was confident now there was no betrayal. I nodded that I trusted him this was the right time and suddenly the whole cavern shook. A few of the guards ran off to see what was going on and this seemed the perfect opportunity. Then the cavern shook again and again and a hobgoblin that seemed to have some authority rushed in and ordered the guards to bring us back to our cells and that we would have the rest of the day “off”.
We were brought back to the cell and many fewer returned from the ruins. Dram's friend said there was a Dragon down there! He also showed us a large golden dwarven coin with a large gem in the middle. He said if we ever got out of here he would be rich but I could see in his face he never expected to leave alive. We had an idea to try and use the very hard gem to scratch the rune off. Dram’s friend was not excited about it but if it could help us escape he would try. It was no use though, the dwarven magic was just too strong and even though the rune was destroyed the magic remained. Again Dram lamented on the situation that the “master” was an idiot throwing away his slaves. Again I told him to read his history books. Humans were prone to betrayal. Not all humans but too many for my liking.
The next day there were only five of us in the salt mine gang. Dram, two traladarans, the green grocer boy and myself. The others were going back down to face the dragon. From what he had described I could see no return for them. Even giving them weapons was fruitless, a young dragon would kill them easily. Dram’s friend seemed to know his death was near. He told him that the large coin was buried in the straw in the corner. If he died and we were able to get out it was ours. Sadly I watched the other group disappear to their death. Now there were only two orc guards but far fewer of us. It seemed to be now or never.
I started a scuffle with Dram, blaming him for this whole thing and swung repeatedly at him. The orcs thought it was hilarious and cheered us on though they did get irritated that Dram was not fighting back. They whipped at him and said to fight so he rushed at me, picked up and went straight toward the ork. The movements were too fast for me but Dram quickly had the things sword and the other was rushing in and Dram retreated behind us. I pleaded with the two other men to help us to take these things down. They obliged and were able to quickly take down the orcs. They stripped the orcs of weapons and armed themselves ready to fight on. Dram took the crude tools and asked if I was ready. To get back to my clan and my new soon to be family, yes, I was ready to endure whatever. It took some work and it hurt a lot but Dram was able to shatter the gem. I felt a change and tentatively reached out a simple apportation spell and it worked! Now these things would pay.
Dram had told me earlier how he was led to a room where there were a bunch of magical items, some weapons and armor. Perfect, we should head there first. The only problem was there were plenty of other things in the way. I pondered on this and had a spell that might help. I asked Dram if he could sketch out what he knows of the caverns/mines so far. He sketched it out and I saw a potential place to create a tunnel to bypass the most dangerous things. I made the earth disappear by making a tunnel into another hall and it was right on! We crawled through and Dram led us down a few halls to a door and he believed it was beyond here. He listened and said there was at least someone else there. If it was where the magical items were it could likely be this mage we had heard about. This could be dangerous.
Dram wanted to rush in but I had a better idea. I asked him if he remembered the gas I created at the Black Knights keep? I moved up the door and smiled, held a hand and gestured. Within a few seconds we heard choking and gasping from inside. The door flew open and a bugbear came out choking. The fighters made quick work of the thing but then my gas was being pushed out of the room back at us. I dispelled it as it came out and Dram rushed in tackling the Mage. I finished dispelling the gas and entered quickly looking around the room. Dram had the mage down. I saw my dagger and other items on the table and Princess Adelle with a collar on. I should note they had told me about her earlier so it wasn’t too surprising. Unfortunately my rage took over and I grabbed the dagger and rushed over to the mage. “Give me the key for the Princess!” I told him and Dram echoed it. He quickly fumbled and pulled it out. I unlocked the Princess who started to thank me but my fire had grown and I took the collar and slapped on the mages neck. I asked Dram to hold him up and held my dagger close. I forced him to cast, mostly to ensure the collar worked but also I wanted to see the pain in his eyes. He did so and it did work but I felt nothing good from the pain caused. The taste of revenge wasn’t to my liking. I pressed him on the cloaks, what were they, how did they work? He seemed to know nothing and I held my dagger closer now but I remembered the feeling of seeing his pain. He did say that the cloaks were a Black Thom and his boss thing. Killing this mage would do nothing for us and nothing for me except scar me. I loosened my grip and we bound the mage up and I released my anger. I apologized to the Princess for ignoring her when she tried to speak to me initially.
We examined the room. My staff, obviously my dagger and my power stones were here. I searched all over for my leaf but it was not here. I almost wanted to cry. But there were other helpful magical items and his spell book that would help us. Unfortunately my stones were drained but the others had some better items now. This was where the cheap potions were coming from. They were pinkish from the red salt here. Dram was able to use these as he had been injured in the past fights. The next thing to do was to clear out any other orcs and free the dwarves. Clearing out the orcs was simple, there weren’t many left as most had gone down to fight this dragon. The ogre was still there and it would be a problem. I did not have much energy and we weren’t fully outfitted to fight the thing. Princess Adelle suggested she could create a distraction and I could use a spell to hopefully defeat it or at least hurt it enough. She did not want to kill it but I had no such qualms.
She created a very realistic looking and sounding dragon entering the room. In that time I cast a large bolt of lightning to hopefully knock the ogre down. The dragon scared both the ogre and the dwarves. Dram rushed in and soon the dwarves were being unlocked. I loosed my bolt and hit the thing but it did not bring it down. Dram and the dwarves rushed in and in a flurry of blows the thing was down. We led the dwarves to the armory and had them suit up. The Mage said he could help us get out with passwords and such. Dram wanted to help the people down with the dragon but the Princess said it was folly. With the number they took down and the age of the dragon they stood no chance. Dram was insistent but I had to side with the Princess. Even the dwarves refused to go down there. It hurt but it was certain death to face a dragon that age without the proper equipment, numbers and a trap.
Dram was insistent on going down though. The Mage was still trying to barter his freedom. He would allow us to escape with the survivors of the battle and get us out past the orcs above. That was laughable. I told him we could just ambush any of our captors who survived, free the humans and smash the orcs above with our numbers. He went silent after that. Dram returned a short while later from his venture looking very sad. Everyone was dead. Everyone. Our captors and all the humans. I felt saddened as well lamenting the fact that perhaps we could have tried earlier to escape but there was no looking back now. Dram returned to grab the coin, we grabbed the rest of the magic items in the mage's room and headed out. The dwarves made quick work of the orcs above and we were outside again! Earlier Melwen had given me some sense of where we were so I knew Kleine was to the east. As soon as I emerged Melwin swooped down from her hiding place and landed on my arm singing and happy I made it out. I asked her if she saw straw hair at the place with the broom lady but she excitedly said something along the lines of not making it there before she felt the danger and forgot. Well it’s not a big deal, there was no betrayal.
We headed to Kleine and Dram’s parents who took us in and fed us. Since it was getting dark we stayed the night there even though I greatly wanted to get to Melinir as quickly as possible. Dram seemed insistent we notify someone else of what was going on so I put a short note on Melwin that we had the Princess and a very short summary and sent her off to Silvercrest. Dram’s mother got Princess Adelle some better clothing and in the morning they sent us packed up with a load of supplies for the road. I thought we could just take a raft down but the Princess was not comfortable with that, apparently it was how they were taken so we decided to walk. The road down went through our forest and our scouts quickly appeared to escort the Princess. She would head to Melinir with us still under escort though to meet Elladin. We hastily made our way to the city.
As we got closer we discussed how to try and nab Thom and Maybrush. Dram and I would sneak in and attempt to handle it but before we could do so Valum and company rode out to meet us. Elledin rushed to Adelle and Valum questioned us on what was going on. We quickly explained what was going on but he already knew some of the details. I had failed to tell the elves to keep this secret and the whole town knew now. Drat. Thom and Maybrush had likely already fled then. Dram, the dwarves and I rushed to the Dancing Dragon but Thom was gone. Valum reported that Maybrush was gone as well. Horror quickly entered my mind and I asked if anyone saw Rhiannon lately. No, no one had seen her in Melinir. I told them I needed to get to Edgewater even though it was late already. Valum didn’t understand but Dram sure did. We rushed off to Edgewater under escort of the dwarves who felt a sense of obligation to us. I sent Melwin ahead to check on her.
When we got there the town was silent of course. I rushed over to their home and pounded on the door. Her elder brother answered and was furious! How dare I show my face after what I had done to his sister! He told me to leave and never come back and slammed the slit shut. What? I thought she would be happy I was back? Then it dawned on me…Black Thom. I rushed over to where Rhiannon’s room was and pulled out my lute I had grabbed from my room in Melinir. I played and sang the most loving song I knew and put all my heart into it. She opened her window and started yelling at me! I can’t just do what I did and come back and sing a love song and expect things to go back to normal! I was still shocked but all I could say was “I was paid a visit by Black Thom.” With that I could see the shock and horror on her face. She closed the window and I knew she would come down, I just knew it. Dram wasn’t sure and asked if we should just leave. I told him no, just wait and walked over closer to the door. The door opened and Rhiannon rushed out and threw her arms around me sobbing and sputtering out a story. It turns out Black Thom had spun a story that I wished nothing more to do with humans and was leaving though he begged me to stay for Rhiannon’s sake. He told her I threw my leaf at him and told him you deal with her. Of course she was devastated and everyone was mad at me. I understood their point of view. With the leaf and the disappearance of our party it made sense. She released her grip on me and pulled out my leaf and held it out. I took it back and put it on. I held her face in my hands and stared into her eyes and saw nothing but love there. It was all a trick. I kissed her, held her close and cried. She said Thom had come by last night and explained he came into a lot of money and was leaving the rift. She admitted she had thought about it due to what she thought was my betrayal but in the end declined. I told her how he lured me into the alley and that, I too, had thought she had betrayed me. With that she got angry at me saying she would never do such a thing! I was a bit confused, I wasn’t angry she had thought to go with Thom. Well, I know by now I shouldn’t be confused anymore by these things and Thom was a master of lies.
With that we explained to the rest of the family what happened and they were all understanding. Even though it was late her family broke out some wine, beer and food and celebrated and I felt even better about our relationship than I had before. That flame of hatred I felt briefly had died down to cinders and the flame of hope rekindled. Though I was going to be much more cautious of humans outside my immediate group of people I know. It seems some betrayal lurks around every corner.
28 Felmont, 990 to present
After that there was much commotion. Some things of concern. We verified by Seeker spell that Maybush had indeed escaped the rift. The spell put him solidly outside the mountains. Thom we were not able to find anything personal of his to cast on unfortunately. I really hoped he escaped the rift as I did not want to deal with him again and I was afraid he would possibly hurt Rhiannon now. Valum examined the mage and realized he looked exactly like a very young Geoffrey. Connor let us know in questioning the thing melted once Geoffrey tried to force it to speak with magic. He called himself “Zanzier Tem”, Connor also noted that some entity started speaking through him and called himself the same thing. Perhaps this was the Master they were speaking of during our captivity. It seems separate from Maybush and Black Thom.
On a less serious note Connor asked Valum about an assistant but he was not too keen on it. With all of our efforts I did speak to Valum about it and I got him to at least “think about it”. Knowing Valum it sounds like that is definitely leaning towards yes. I mean yes we have caused some trouble but we’ve stopped a lot of bad things from happening here.
Oh yes and Rhiannon again said I was not leaving her sight again. She has been keeping this promise a great while longer than before. I was safe to venture around Silvercrest but outside of that she wanted to be with me. Which is fine as I enjoy the time we spend together.
The four dwarves were all brothers and gave us their name and to call on us if we ever needed anything and they went back home. There was a plethora of magic items to go through which Pickman assisted with since I am not quite done with that spell yet. Quite a few very nice items.
There was a great celebration in Silvercrest with the return of the Princess and the reuniting of the pair. We spent most of our time there. Rhiannon does love it here plus she wanted to spend more time with those of the clan working on the wedding. Despite Thom’s efforts he was not able to destroy our bond. I’m not keen on another adventure so soon but this Zanzier person is still out there so we need to be cautious.
A Final Salute!
18 Yarthmont - Melinir and the Whispering Cave
Pickman requested more of the tainted water for study as it was so diluted. Thinking we would need more containers we were thinking of where we could procure them when Durbin pulled out multiple containers from the dresser on his back. That made it very simple. We went back to the mine and gathered water from the same spot. Dram and Sorin suggested maybe trying to find something more concentrated but we decided to wait to delve deeper until we had more information. Nothing was touched or changed. I shaped the water to gather it into the containers and we made our way back to Melinir. During this time I sent Melwin to deliver a message to my clan that six of these Iron Ring members were loose and to keep an eye out, even actively search them out if possible.
When we returned I quickly glanced over the documents and saw that they were unreadable. The letters made no sense so I thought I would consult with Connor since he deals daily with these types of things. He quickly realized it was some sort of cypher. A way to make it so no one else without the cypher was likely to read it. I had heard of such things before. He said it is possible to decipher but it was a lengthy process sometimes. Although in this case he quickly was able to do so and showed me how to change the letters around so we could read it.
Connor was able to actually scan the documents as he could decipher in his mind. For me it took longer as I had to actually write out the message again using the code Connor gave me. It was pretty chilling. This mine was indeed the main camp of the river bandits. It seems we had all accounted for except for the six members that escaped. The Captain we found murdered by his Lieutenant was taking orders from someone else via these cyphered letters. It was a pretty detailed account of theft, drop offs and payments made. What was even worse was that recently they had been ordered to take lone travelers for someone buying people. They were exchanged for goods at some unknown drop off point. There’s also someone referred to as “Black” who is apparently the secondary person behind the one writing these letters. It seems there was something far more sinister at work here than just some men down on their luck.
We worked through the night to get as much info as possible that could help us. Connor also lamented his job in dealing with humans sometimes. They didn’t seem to have the best sense of community and working together. I suggested he get an assistant to help with the human interactions. He thought that was a wonderful idea. He thought a pretty woman would help as some people get quite angry sometimes. He thought they would not do that to a pretty woman and that did make sense. I’ve never seen anyone angry with Rhiannon and her smile washed away any of my frustrations. It was a good idea.
19 Yarthmont - Melinir and the Whispering Caves
In the morning I told the others what Connor and I had deciphered from the letters. It wasn’t all of it but it did seem to paint a general picture of what has been going on. The others were concerned as well, especially about the missing people and another unknown out there. We had breakfast and discussed possible theories of what can be happening. While parts were pretty obvious there was still a lot hidden. Who was this mysterious boss and their secondary? How was the water tainted with a mana infused poison? There was really only one way to find out and that was to go back into the mines. This was all much simpler chasing down kobolds who stole a book. Which by the way I still don’t don’t understand how it drove people to such extremes. Perhaps a mystery that will never be solved.
We went back to the mine first thing after finishing breakfast. It seems we were not careful enough and left the doors open. Something had come through and destroyed everything. And by everything I do mean everything. All the items in the main entry were smashed. Going to the main room with all the crates and foodstuff. All smashed and destroyed, rummaged through by some large creatures whose prints were everywhere. It was too bad all this was destroyed but I was a bit more worried about what did this. Sorin said they were big but not exactly sure how many or what exactly they were.
He did say it seemed like they continued into the mine but had not come back out yet. Fantastic. We would need to delve deeper into the mine to determine what is going on which I of course expected. It didn’t make me feel any better though but this needed to be done. Sorin led us cautiously through the tunnels. It was a mind numbing twisting labyrinth. Multiple intersections, dead ends, ore tunnels, nicely finished areas, more branches, more dead ends. Very soon after starting the exploration I was lost. I had no idea how deep we were or where we were. I just followed the others and muttered a prayer to Ilsundal that Durbin would know how to get us out. Hopefully he would hear my prayer down in the earth here.
After some time we came to a stairway going down. Great, now we had to go deeper. But wait…no we can’t go down yet because there are other areas. After a bit more exploration it was decided we should just go down the stairs. With the ruckus these creatures seemed to be making we doubted they would be hiding quietly to ambush us. We made our way back to the stairway and went down. I don’t know how they kept track of where we were going, I had no idea how to even get out anymore.
We went down the stairs to another level of twisting mines. Here though we ran into something very interesting. As we started exploring we came across two dwarves fighting but making no sound. They turned out to be ghostly apparitions replaying out a scene of what happened here in the past. One ran towards and through us and they disappeared. As we approached the scene where they were fighting we found two “tombs” dug into the wall where it seems their bodies had been laid to rest. Like everything else they seemed to have been desecrated, their bones tossed about like trash. Durbin solemnly put the bones back how they should be and said a prayer of rest over the bodies and put the stones back up that entombed them. Hopefully they will find some rest. He did mention they were actually brothers. Of course Dram was saying see I told you it was haunted. I found it easier to just not correct him anymore.
As we pushed on we saw more scenes of violence. Unfortunately the more we pushed on it seemed like the entire weight of the earth above us was pressing down on me. It was giving me a headache and making it a bit difficult to focus. Nothing horrible that I couldn’t function but a sense of wanting just not wanting to be underground like this. I can’t even recount the number of tunnels again. More winding paths, forks, intersections and dead ends. Is this how Durbin feels all the time on the surface? Or maybe just in the woods? I feel odd asking him about it but perhaps some time I should.
We found more of these tombs carved in the walls. Some had bodies in them, all desecrated of course and some were empty. Durbin took the time to put them all back and say prayers over them. We put together their tombs as best we could. This poison is devastating. We will need to find the source and destroy it lest it take the whole rift. As we delved deeper we got a point where one of the dwarven apparitions actually seemed to notice we were there. He looked at us and shed a tear. In another vision a dwarf ran cackling holding something and others chased after him. The dwarf running away looked…wild. We followed the apparition and found a long winding set of stairs going down. Great, yet more stone between myself and the sky. We backtracked the direction the others chased the wild dwarf from.
Inside we saw a clearer vision of the wild dwarf taking something out of a large iron chest in a storage and running away. There was a purplish glow from the chest so it seems it had grabbed something and ran with it. Perhaps an object that could be the source of the poison? It seems we were getting closer to the source. We went back to the stairs and followed them down. It was becoming insufferable now. I can’t remember how long we walked down those stairs but it was too long.
When we got to the bottom it was a very large natural cavern. Later Durbin said it was likely cut out by an underground river. There were giant mushrooms in mounds of dirt all over. As we started to move through the chamber suddenly dozens of apparitions appeared around us. It was hard to tell but there were gnomes for sure. Maybe some dwarves also but it was a large frenzied brawl. I didn’t know there were any gnomes here as well unless the vision was wrong or of something else?
Inside this natural cavern off to one side was a large hall that Durbin said was gnomish. There were brightly colored tiles and mosaics on the walls going down it. We decided to investigate the rest of this large cavern before checking that out though. We found large groups of mushrooms and a crystal clear large pool of water. Pristine water that was not tainted and likely undisturbed for centuries. This was odd, if the source was down here would this be heavily tainted. Maybe there were other forces at work here.
As we were cautiously exploring a sudden sound of a rock falling interrupted the quiet. We moved towards it and found a huge pile of rock blocking off another cavern and bugbears furiously digging at it. They quickly noticed us and rushed in. Thankfully everyone was already set for battle and they were only able to get to Durbin and Dram. I quickly thought about shaping the stone on the ceiling to fall on them but by the time I went to start to prepare they had two down already. I asked if they had the situation in control which they did so I just watched our rear. The battle was over quickly but Dram was shouting that one of them made it through the rubble. He also mentioned they had oddly glowing purple eyes which I had not heard of in bugbears.
As we made our way towards the rubble to investigate we got another vision. Three heavily armored dwarves fighting the wild dwarf who was almost naked. They hit it hard over and over but this thing was vicious. It jumped on one Dwarf and just snapped his neck in full armor and did more damage to them then they did to it. Finally the thing retreated and the remaining dwarves pulled out some sort of satchel, threw it into the cavern and it exploded. They tried to move out of the way but were not quick enough and the blast consumed them. They had trapped it but at the cost of their lives.
As we got even closer an apparition rose from one of the skeletons of the dwarves (which were still lying there) and stared right at us with tears in his eyes. Very sad indeed. We went through the hole one by one into another gnomish hall. Dram was very worried about letting this thing loose now that there was an escape route for it. Shaping a large stone wall was very tiring so I contemplated saving my strength for battle or putting up the wall. I asked for the opinions of others but they weren’t much help, trusting on my decision. I weighed the benefits and negatives and decided that I would still be strong enough to assist. I shaped the stone and locked us, and the thing, in. I don’t believe Rhiannon would be too happy about this.
We cautiously moved forward down the hall until we came to what seemed the end, opening up to a small natural cove and an eerie purple light. As we rounded the corner a wave of revulsion shot through me. This emaciated short humanoid creature was hanging the body parts of the bug bear that had been ripped to pieces. It was hanging them directly over this purple crystal on the ground. As the blood dripped and touched it the glow brightened quickly and went back down. The next second or two seemed like an eternity. The thing turned, looked at us and ran leaping onto Dram slashing at his face.
I stepped back dumbfounded. No ice sphere this time though I had no problem destroying that thing. No shape earth it was way too fast to be tricked. The best thing I could do was try to ensnare it with mana. I could see blood dripping from its claws as it slashed at Dram’s face. I held out my staff forcing the mana through it and wove it around the creature but was not successful the first time. The second time it was if Ilsundal himself guided the mana through me, my staff and surrounded the creature. I lifted it up off the ground and back off Dram and told them I had it but not for how long. They hit it hard multiple times literally just smashing the body to bits. Everytime something broke off this purplish “mana dust” floated in the air. I didn’t know if it would do any good but I created air above Durbin which pushes out the existing air creating a breeze. It didn’t do anything.
The battle didn’t last much longer. The creature struggled but with the help of Ilsundal it was not going anywhere. They literally smashed the thing into dust. I moved the rest of the body parts to the corner and dropped them. The blood was still dripping on the crystal and I swore it grew a little every time. With each drip the light pulsed eerily in the silence. Durbin moved to pull down the body parts but I warned him to not go near the thing. I could just pull them down by wrapping them in mana but that would be tiring as those bugbears were heavy. I decided to just shape earth to cover the crystal and roll it up into a ball we could take out. Durbin said he had a large chest we could put it in which was perfect. I wrapped up the crystal and moved the stone towards the chest. As I did I opened a small hole to ensure the thing was there and it was. Suddenly I had an idea. If we could split the taint from the crystal it would be a powerful source of mana. It should be possible to cleanse it and leave the raw power behind. I excitedly told the others we could harness this thing so I opened up the shaped stone more to see more of the crystal. This was exciting! It would be far more powerful than any mana stone anyone could create. With that much power I could fix Castle Krall myself! Open up the passages to the outside world with ease! Do whatever I want with that power and Barriks knowledge! It was all possible right here with the power contained in this crystal. I would put the elves back into their rightful place in this world! Just then I saw Durbin with lighting reflexes smash his hammer down directly on the crystal turning it to powder and the power contained within evaporated.
I fell to my knees and screamed although quickly my mind cleared. What was I thinking? No one could harness that crystal! The effects of the thing were quick and brutal. No wonder so many dwarves fell to its power and before that the gnomes it seems. It seems it had ensnared the others too as they seemed to be blinking as if just waking up. I thanked Durbin and told him I owe him a debt of gratitude as that could have ended badly for many.
There wasn’t much else here in this hall. A dead end and one small empty room. That creature must have been stuck here for centuries trapped in this cave in. We all needed rest though as we had been down here for hours? Days? It was hard to tell down here but we were in for roughly a day. Durbin made some of the mushroom stew that we had in Hearthome which I thought was fantastic. Dram and Sorin were somewhat disgusted as those mushrooms grew from the dead gnomes. I tried explaining how nature works and this was perfectly natural but they were having none of it. Durbin and I shrugged and enjoyed our stew. Humans.
We made our way out of the rubble and back into the main cavern. Durbin put the bodies out there to rest. There wasn’t much else here. The other gnomish hall had a lot of empty rooms with more colorful tiles and many murals. We found a locked store room that Dram asked me if I could get it open. I told him yes, I could just remove the stone from the sides and let the door fall. He wanted to return the objects to the gnomes in the area, only one I know of. I was leery though. Would this be breaking any laws? Hospitality or something else? Would they be angry I did this if we ever have any gnomes in the rift? I asked Durbin for guidance and he said it’s no issue, open it up! I did so hesitantly. There wasn’t much in there, a bunch of old rotted food and equipment. Dram took some old tools that were half rusted. Nostalgia I suppose.
We went back upstairs and I felt a little better. Not a lot. The length of time, the dreariness and the maze of tunnels were all compounding now. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last but the others wanted to check everything out and leave nothing unturned. We found all the dead ends in that level. Durbin found a book of maybe what events were that happened down here. I wasn’t too interested in it at this point. I was just watching the stairs going back up waiting for them to be ready.
We investigated more tunnels again on the top level. Eventually we came upon a very murky small underground lake. The taint was heavily concentrated here and the water was dark and muddy. There was a small dock and an old boat and by old I mean old, there were mushrooms growing all over it. The others wanted me to freeze the water over or make a boat which was very tiring and wouldn’t help much. They wanted to see why there was a boat here and if this went somewhere and if the bandits were using it for this and that. In the end I wrapped a light stone in mana and sent it out of the water for as far we could see. There wasn’t much here. I doubt the boat was used in the last century and probably did not get out. We could hear what sounded like a small waterfall close by. I suggested we go out and look because I was over being underground. They said we would but wanted to check the other tunnels first. Great.
They went through more winding tunnels. More dead ends. I had enough. I told them over and over we should go out and see if the source was leaking into the water from outside instead of from the crystal area where there was no tainted water. I must have either worn them down or they finally saw my way and relented. We finally made our way outside to the blessed sun and fresh air. Immediately I felt better and that weight on my shoulders disappeared. Thank Ilsundal for that!
We went up to the top of the hill and sure enough we found a stream. We found a spot where the stream leaked into the ground and there was a disturbed rock and a splotch of a black tar like substance that was glowing purplish with mana. Once again the elf was right. I was immediately revolted by it but Dram was worried it was like the crystal. I was sure it wasn’t, this was made by someone or something. The worst part is the way the stone was shifted and how this was placed, this was done intentionally. Someone or something did this and poisoned the River Bandits. Perhaps to weaken them to get to the crystal down below? How would they know about it? I shaped stone and did to that substance what I was going to do to the crystal.
We went back down to the entry to the mine. I wrapped the wood to bar the door in the mana, we closed it and I dropped it into place and we left the whispering cave. As we made it back up to the road there was a large contingent of dwarves in perfectly shined metal armor gleaming the ray of light as the sun was beginning to set. Law of hospitality! I knew it. I knew we should not have gone in there without express permission from the dwarves! Now we have to go on trial again and they weren’t going to take kindly to an elf being in there. It turns out I was worried over nothing. It was just another apparition. This one was definitely directed directly to us though. They saluted and gave what seemed to be a very deep thank you and disappeared. I could not wait to compose this song!
We went back to Melinir and made it back as the final rays set over the horizon. We stopped by Pickman and dropped off the rock and went through everything that happened. He was very curious as to what was actually happening here as were we. After that we stopped by Valum’s but he didn’t have much to say. The prisoners weren’t talking so we didn’t have any new information. They would be put on trial and hung likely. I would need to discuss the deal I had made with the one but later, it was late and i needed to just relax. Connor brought out some drinks and stew. Afterwards I wanted to head to Edgewater but it was dark and Dram didn’t want me going alone still. So I stayed and we went to the Sarcastic Goat. I played some and then spent some time out in the courtyard putting down an outline for the epic song of ill fated dwarves and the evil crystal.
19 Yarthmont - Melinir and Edgewater
In the morning though I told the others I needed to go to Edgewater and find Rhiannon. They all escorted me there and the exact opposite happened of what i thought would happen. Rhiannon was furious at me! I figured she would be happy I was safe but it was “oh no I had no idea where you were or what was going on!” I suppose I was in the wrong but this wild emotional swing wasn’t the best way to tell me but I kept that to myself. After telling me loudly how much of a fool I was she started to act somewhat normal but not normal towards me. I wonder how long this would last? In the future I must do a better job of letting her know what is going on. She did make it plainly clear that we were going to be inseparable for a while although when I was there she didn’t seem to want me there? I’m not sure, I’ll just give her some time I suppose. I figured it better not to try and reason with her in this state. Perhaps these wild emotions gave her music such an impact. Time will tell…
A Rational Explanation
28 Flaurmont - Melinir
With the trial now finished and behind us there are a few items I noticed I left out. Longmane is pretty angry with us. He vowed revenge for what we had done. Dram seems to think it’s pretty serious and he may break the law to get back at us. He was quite upset about not being able to inherit the Keep as well and it going to the Church. Bodgan (Rhiannon’s Father) did not seem upset at the Knights demise as I pointed out in my last entry. Tristram is a bit upset with us as we ruined the tournament. I do feel some remorse for being critical in the Black Knights death. Durbin was the one smashing him in the head but it was my magic that brought him down. I was told he was actually the last member of the Fighters Guild so me doing that seemed like a continuation of the war. In reality I just didn’t want my friends or myself to die. Nothing I can do about it now but try and not harm any humans we come across in the future.
8 Yarthmont - Silvercrest
Rhiannon and I will be heading back to Edgewater tomorrow, Dram and Sorin as well but only to escort us. He is worried that Longmane could cause trouble for us so we shouldn’t be split up. The clan would like her family to visit so they can meet them. They also want to meet quickly as with only a bit less then a year to prepare there is much to be done. Rhiannon was working with them on blending our traditions together for the ceremony. There was a mix of sorrow and happiness for our marriage announcement. I’m guessing sorrow because i’m not marrying an elf and happiness that she is a great person and we have a good relationship. The Princess is still missing but they are out searching for her now. It could be something we look into but Dram and Sorin are very obsessed with these River Bandits.
12/13 Yarthmont - Edgewater
Bodgan wanted the elves to come to his home. I had to explain that elves do not really have blood names or bloodlines but that the entire clan was my family. So basically if he wanted to host my “family” he would need to host the entire Silvercrest clan. After that he agreed to come visit Silvercrest. I’m glad he’s come around but the differences still might be a bit much. I’m sure we can overcome them in time though. Aside from that it was a pleasant stay. Before he left, Dram was concerned about us traveling alone so I told him I could send Melwen when we are ready. We decided to both head to Melinir to spend time there and play together again.
When Dram arrived he wanted to head to Torlynn. Rhiannon had no issue as the meisterburger had great wine, which was definitely agreeable to me as well, but I had a suspicion that Dram was up to something. Indeed he was. He wanted to attempt to hold another tournament but really needed someone to sponsor it. He also said he had inquired into the river bandits and there is a substantial reward he was going to use to help fund it.
The Dimir family could host so I asked Rhiannon if her brother could join but I had forgotten he was too young for the Black Knights tournament. Though you don’t need to send people to join in any tournament games to actually host it. I was a bit torn. I have a very odd sense of loyalty to the Barrik family but I was joining the Dimir family. I didn’t want to really upset either one by helping either one more than the other. It is all very difficult to keep track. Among the clan it wouldn’t really matter much we would just do this and all would contribute. Rhiannon was very excited though. She wanted to announce our engagement then officially and we could play together. It does sound like a good time and would help people in the Rift.
We went to Torlynn to meet with Gustavon. Things were going very well there which was good to see. Gustavon was very keen on hosting but did not have the money to do so until the harvest came in which would then put off having the tourney next year. Dram offered up his cut of the river bandit share when we caught them to help host the tourney. Gustavon did not like that idea, he did not want it as a gift. He said he would take a loan but not a gift. I would guess that it would dishonor him for taking money to host the tourney? I wonder if there are any books at the Monks library about these types of things. It’s getting very difficult to keep track of.
18 Yarthmont - Melinir and Surrounding Area
The others wished to start investigating the River Bandits now to collect the reward to loan the meisterburger the money for the tourney. I wished to have some more time off but to get the tourney going I suppose we could do that. Apparently they would hit different spots on the river between the two forests. It was sporadic so no one would know where they hit and try to capture them. Valum had sent out expeditions to root them out but to no avail. The Guilds had just essentially come to an agreement to pay the bandits what they wanted and everyone be on their way.
Dram and Sorin were discussing how to track these bandits down. They were discussing scouring the river area to find any trace and try and track them down. That all seemed far too obvious to me. Any bandit in the area would be alerted and hunker down or simply vanish. I suggested we just go to where their hideout could be and try and surprise them. There are the old abandoned mines and the whispering caves that were rumored to be haunted.
Durbin told us according to legend the mine had been going well but was close to being finished up. Then the dwarves in the mines started getting very argumentative with each other and that led to actual fighting breaking out. The dwarves decided that the mine was cursed and since it was almost finished anyways they sealed it up and set a warning that no one should enter. The locals believed it to be cursed as well and stayed away. Well to me that’s the perfect place to hide if I didn’t want anyone to find me. While there are real curses they are few and far between so likely this was explainable.
I suggested we should just go directly there. It was the perfect hiding place for a group of ruffians who didn’t want to be found. The others were somewhat skeptical but i explained if we start poking around it would alert them. If we just went to where they are we could perhaps catch them off guard. It seemed to have swayed them and we decided to try that first. I did have one request. Since these were humans we should not try to kill but rather capture. If they were tried and convicted then their punishment was just. We should not be the ones doling out punishment as we see fit. They agreed to that.
We had an approximate location of the mine so we headed out. On the way we ran into a father and son on a wagon who called themselves the Green Grocer. They sold goods between all the little villages in the area. Dram and Durbin bought some of his goods, the latter buying a barrel of salt. An entire barrel of salt meant for a small community called Garlands Rest, Apparently the raftsmen would stop there on their way down before entering the Grakken Wood. That could be a good place to check if the Whispering caves yield nothing.
After the others bought their supplies we continued on. It quickly became apparent that none of us could actually find the Whispering Cave. It’s not like there was a direct path or signs or anything telling us where it was. Well we would have to check out Garlands rest then I suppose which was just up the road.
It was just a few buildings with one large barn that was kind of a communal building, tavern, inn, etc. There was a raft tied up with crates of goods stacked on it. There was a man skinning a deer outside who we would find out is Glahd. We entered the barn and sat down. A middle aged dirty woman was serving beer and some stew. I would try the stew but I had my own wine. I created some water for ice as well and she said we shouldn’t drink the water here. She apparently was offering herself as well which made me sad. After this river bandit thing was over we should help out this area so she wouldn’t need to do that.
The others were discussing what we should do next and it all seemed rather roundabout to me. So I just asked the other table if they had been hit by river bandits lately. They had been just a week ago. Then I asked if anyone knew where the whispering caves were. That I got a lot of pushback on. “Why would you want to go there, that place is cursed!” Pretty much exactly why we wanted to go there. The woman said that children had actually come up missing as well in the area. Definitely something to check out then for sure. She said Glahd could probably help us if we really wanted to go there.
We dropped some coins on the table and went outside to speak to this man. He gave us the same reaction. Why would we want to go there?! He basically refused to go. He said it was very difficult to find and that he only stumbled upon it by accident. He did give Sorin a detailed description of landmarks and how to get there. We thanked him and headed out. It took some time but Sorin was fairly confident we were on the right path. Eventually he came across some tracks and we decided to follow them. Eventually they split. A larger group went off towards the river and a pair went off towards Garlands Rest which we decided to follow.
We quickly followed them to a pair of men leaning against the barn there. As we approached they started to rush off. We pursued them and eventually they stopped to question why we were following them. Dram and Sorin had drawn out conversation with them about what they were doing. They claimed they were just going to check their traps and spots on the river. It was pretty obvious that this wasn’t the case and the Whispering Caves was the River Bandits base at this point, at least to me. There was some conversation about even arresting them but do we have any real lawful authority here? I was getting a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing but they decided that we couldn’t really do anything. Then they walked away from the river though they were saying they were going to check their traps. Dram called them out and they said they were nervous about us following them. They had a point, maybe these weren’t the same men that left the tracks? So now I was getting more nervous, I didn’t want to be put on trial again, I don’t think Bodgan would care for that much after I had finally built a bit of a bond with him.
At this point Durbin had his crossbow and Sorin his bow. I reminded them to please aim for limbs so as to not kill them but I was unsure now these men were really a threat. I did notice one man seemed to have a raspy cough and was wheezing a bit as if he was ill perhaps? They began to move away again and without real evidence we couldn’t really do anything. My arm brushed against my pouch of coins I kept on me and I had a spontaneous idea. “5 Gold if you help us, plus we’ll heal you and forget about your involvement”. The last part I now regret as we’ll learn more later but I gave him my word. Just not sure how to go about that now. Anyways they stopped, said a few words between each other and then the raspy man clubbed the other knocking him down. He agreed to surrender and help us if we could heal him. That definitely helped, we were on the right track after all and we had one of them to assist us.
He was insistent on collecting his gold but the deal was him to help us. He also was questioning our ability to help him. He showed us the “wound” and his skin was literally turning into bark and the skin around it an angry red. He was a bit hesitant but he did say they blamed the elves. Preposterous! Why would do anything so callous? Dram asked about perhaps any dark elves that would do this? I sternly told him there are no dark elves and to not mention it again. There are no dark elves. I shifted to my mages eyes and could see it was definitely magical in nature. I did this after confirming that Durbin and Dram saw nothing entropic about it. It was almost like the poison that had frozen Prince Elladin and the others.
True to his word he led us to the cave. We did have to get this man and his companion back to town though to get him treated as I needed to keep my word as well. Sorin blazed a trail back to the main road so we could find it again and we rushed them back to Melinir. Dram didn’t want to bring them in case the disease would spread. That made sense and Sorin ran off to notify the church. Dram wanted to find Pickman but I assured him the church would call him if needed but he was insistent. I told him to do as he saw best so he ran off into town. He came back with Pickman and a bit later Sorin came back with Father Martin. I explained it was definitely magical related and then was ready to head back. Dram and Sorin were watching over them. I could see even Durbin was ready to go back as well. I announced we should get going, we needed to get back before our surprise was ruined but they kept talking. Durbin started walking off and I followed and that seemed to snap them out of it and they followed us back up the road.
We made decent time back to the cave. There was a dwarven statue out front that confirmed the mine was closed and sealed and no one should enter. Of course the seal was broken and tracks going in and out. Next time I hope that the others listen to me! Scouring the river area for days would definitely have alerted them. We entered the “mine” and were greeted by what looked like a well constructed castle. This was definitely not what I was expecting. If it wasn’t underground it would actually be somewhat pleasant. I should have known the dwarves would not simply dig a hole and would make it something grand.
We were quickly greeted by a surprised habitant who was expecting his friends to return. The others sat him down and started asking questions and the man kept making noise and looking down the hall. He was clearly stalling for time like the Black Knight was before and I announced it. They tied him up and sure enough there were armed and armored men coming down the hall. I noticed they were very organized as well. Whoever was leading them was very skilled. It was a small hallway and it was finally time to use something that would even the odds here. I began preparing the spell and letting the others know to move or stop to time it correctly. It worked out perfectly and I created a thin layer of perfectly smooth ice under them. It didn’t just even the odds, the battle was over before it started. Five surrendered but three were able to run off. I should add that after we all agreed to capture these bandits Sorin stabbed one as hard as he could in the face. The face. I find it hard to fault him though, it’s not like he knew what I was going to do so he believed he was at risk. The man also will live as well and it seems like these men may have done some nefarious deeds. I apologized to them that we had severely injured one of them, that was not our intent.
The ones we captured were not willing to talk at all really so we continued on. There were more rooms built with fine dwarven masonry but eventually it led off to a series of tunnels where they were digging out when they stopped due to the “curse”. We found more sick men. The leader was dead, killed by the lieutenant who was barely hanging on. The same thing, turning to bark and madness. The bandits did tell us that the lieutenant and the captain had been fighting quite recently. There was also a room with a number of what literally looked like tree timbs. Some of the trees were even stood up like people with clothing or weapons. It was quite eerie.
There was a pool of water in the tunnel where the actual “mines” were. Durbin had picked some mushrooms and upon closer inspection they were foul, he said. Something was wrong with them, spots that looked like little veins. Very odd. We questioned the men we had captured (we picked up the three that ran) and they said yes that was their drinking supply but they had been using it for years. Also some of them were newer to the gang and were not from the rift. This was very interesting as perhaps there is another way in and out? I digress though, back to the pool of water. I used my mage eyes and could see there was indeed what I would say an entropic mana taint in the water. I used one of Durbins small glass flasks to collect some water using apportation (I did not want to touch it or have an accident). I could still see the foulness. I purified it and it went away. It was all falling into place. Dwarves had a natural resistance to poison so it didn’t turn them into trees but eventually affected their minds. The men did not have this so they started turning. I was correct again, it was no curse and had a rational explanation.
There was much more to explore in here but we did not have the time and these men needed to be taken care of. We took the horse and cart and loaded everything we could including grabbing another vial of water that had not been purified. We made our way back to Melinir as quickly as possible. Dram pointed out that the other gang of men (the larger group of footprints from earlier) may get away but we can’t do anything about that now. I was more worried about any odd laws we may have broken. Did this law of hospitality apply here? I mean they were using it as their home and we went in uninvited. A sudden fear crept into my mind that yet again we did the right thing the wrong way. Dram assured me that wouldn't be the case this time. The bandits had unlawfully made the mines their home after the dwarves sealed it so the Hospitality law wouldn’t apply here. That made sense and made me feel better.
When we got back to Melinir there were guards outside and tents set up. We dropped off the prisoners and Valum showed us some disturbing news. These men were part of an organized gang from outside the rift. He showed us one man (a Hattian he said which I understood from my Thyatis book, a group of Thyatians who believed themselves superior in every way) and his tattoo. These men were definitely not from the rift. He said they were known slaver’s so the children that came up kissing were likely sold away but where to? We did not have time to question them much as we needed to return to the whispering cave and delve deeper into the source of this foulness to prevent it spreading further.
Shattered Shield
19 Flaurmont 990AC (Black Knights Keep)
After some discussion about what to do next Sorin and I decided to take a walk around the Keep while the other spoke to the families in the tents to glean any information. There wasn’t much on either side of the castle but behind the castle was a nice copse of trees and a beautiful garden. I would definitely like to visit that area and spend some time there if allowed but there would be no time for that. There was also the kitchen with a woman working furiously at, I'm assuming, making dinner for the guests. Sorin didn’t seem to want to say anything to her (“what would I ask?”) so I asked her pretty bluntly about any hostages she was taking care of. She said yes, an eldery woman that she was taking great care of. Well that was very likely definitely Grandma Gertie. I asked about a second young lady but seemed confused at that. She also said a few times she couldn’t really say anymore without getting in trouble. Perhaps the two were not connected at all?
We met back up with the Durbin and Dram and explained what the woman in the kitchen had said. I should also note that it was Revit’s wife. She seemed like a very pleasant woman married to a very creepy man. Little did I know what that actually semi good hearted man set in motion. Well it wasn’t his fault (nor mine!) but that will come in a bit. I thought this would be a good time to try and explore the Keep a bit while everyone was super busy outside and I had just the trick to distract the guards inside. I explained the plan to the others and they were somewhat reluctant but agreed. We would enter the hall, I would pause just inside and the others would continue on. I would cause a distraction and we would slip into the door by the dining room.
We made our way into the Keep and a light change in plans as Bryon and Erik were coming out. They acknowledged us and continued walking out. I nodded to the other to continue on and stopped to look at the statue. I shaped the air inside and changed its properties to a vile stench that even these orcs would not like. That went off easily and I rushed to the end of the hall with the others. The door was locked (of course!) but both Sorin and Durbin could detect some entropic presence beyond the door. A very powerful presence. I scrambled to think how we could enter this door without leaving damage behind but we had nothing. Out of desperation I said run out coughing and gagging and just ran out through the cloud.
There was a crowd growing outside with one orc passed out and another gagging (ha!). The Black Knight rushed up to get the situation under control assuming that the orcs got into something they shouldn’t. Well that was pretty easy to get out of. He had his orcs basically fan out the area to get the stench out. Well that wasn’t helpful but we learned one thing was there was definitely something evil going on here beyond just mere orcs and kidnapping.
After the commotion many of the champions came in and went to their rooms I assume to get ready for dinner as we were getting close to that time. We spoke to Bryon about what we had found but he kept repeating the “Laws of Hospitality” and we shouldn’t be going into places expressly forbidden. This whole situation was confusing for me. Openly working with Orcs, kidnapping people and now the presence of some entropic immortal or entity and the humans keep pressing on about “Laws of Hospitality” as if that explains anything. I can only imagine how Durbin feels surrounded by these filthy beasts that are trying to destroy his home.
After the fiasco of the locked door I decided we seemed to have a few days to unravel this so it was time to relax and think about this calmly. Revit came and notified everyone that dinner was ready so we headed out to the main hall. It quickly became apparent that only the champions and their man at arms were going into the dining hall. So it appeared we would not get a chance to sit with the fiend. Oh well no big deal. I retired to the parlor where there was food and wine. I brought out my lute and some papers and continued working on several songs that I had in the works. The others went into the game room or did whatever they were doing. I wasn’t too worried about them and we could try to poke around the Keep later at night.
After some time, Dram came in and started asking me about my ability to shape stone and make it look the same when I put it back. Of course I can’t have any rest! He wanted me to make a hole to look through to the other side of the parlor room. The others were there as well so I assumed we were just going to go through? I was somewhat conflicted though. Everyone kept talking about this “Law of Hospitality” so it must be something big among humans and going against it could be detrimental. At the same time there was far too much here to simply ignore for some trivial formality.
I explained that when I opened it we would have about thirty seconds to decide what to do so I had enough time to close the hole. We decided to do it behind a couch to cover up the evidence if I couldn’t make it look similar to the wall. The other problem was it was flagstone and mortar so I couldn’t make it look the same unless I made a hole just in one piece of stone. I gave Dram a light stone and told him to be ready. It is so difficult to manipulate stone and takes a lot of power to force the mana into the stone to get it to move but I did so and created a decent size hole to see through. Dram looked in and sure enough a few seconds later an orc showed its face and started squealing.
The others started debating about what to do but no decision. Whatever, I closed the hole, slid the couch back and went back to working. The others were quite concerned about everything but we had time to look into this and figure out what was going on. They left and I stayed behind enjoying the decont wine and food left out for us in the parlor. I must admit though that the proximity of the orcs, the art in the hallway, the entropic presence and the lack of any care by the other humans was wearing on me making me a bit restless.
After some time and making some good progress on my music I heard shouting from out in the hall. Disgruntled, I got up and walked out of the room to see what was going on. Tristram and Erik were out there arguing with the orcs making a huge ruckus. Down the hall I see Sorin, Dram and Durbin running over to the door at the end of the hall. I wasn’t sure what they were up to but I made my down there nonetheless. When I got down there they were using a key to open up the door. You could feel the malice pour out of the room when the door was opened.
Inside was a man dressed as a clergy member. Turning around he was quite surprised to see us instead of his “master” whom I am assuming is the Black Knight. There was a very brief fight and Dram nearly took out the man's throat. I don’t know why he did that as we kind of needed him as a witness. We bound and gagged him and the realization sunk in of what had happened. Someone went to get Tristram and show him what was going on. He stormed in at first angry and then horrified at the site of the room. There was a dark altar of some entropic deity or entity. A banner hanging on the wall made from human hair and skin. A bowl that had what we assumed was human blood on the altar. Nothing in this room was good. At this time Revit came in and said something along the lines of, “oh what a mess, this shall have to be cleaned up later.” He turned around, walked out back to his room and locked the door behind him. Dram explained that he gave us a skeleton key and not just the key to Tristrams room.
Tristram stormed out to go tell Gustavon about this and the evil doings inside the keep. Dram told me to follow him so I did. I wasn’t sure why that would help but I did so in spite of my gut feeling. He stormed out past the dumb founded orc guards and went straight to Gustavons tent. They argued a bit back and forth and suddenly there was a great commotion. I could see the Orcs on the walls gathering and loading their crossbows. This was not going to be good. I ran back to the Keep to warn the others of what was going on.
Upon entering the hall Erik was still distracting the orcs. In a fit of fury (a poor choice looking back) I pulled Barrik’s dagger and tried to stab an orc in the neck. While I did hit, I am just not strong enough to penetrate their armor. I shouted out for help and Erik engaged the other orc. I backed up retreating into the parlor and using quick mana shifts to help evade the orcs' blows. Thankfully I was not harmed and Dram came rushing out and the orcs were dispatched. I blurted out everything happening outside and that we were in real trouble. I grabbed Durbin and we sealed off the Orc rooms by the game room with a wall of stone.
After a short discussion we barred the front door, the back kitchen door and the kitchen windows. Erik was satisfied they would hold for some time and would watch the hall while we explored the rest of the Keep quickly. We went back to the shrine room and went through the door in there which turned out to be the Black Knights room. Inside was Adraianna, the woman kidnapped earlier that was Dram and Sorin’s friend. She was quite calm about being kidnapped and she confirmed that she was indeed kidnapped. She mentioned something about a dress and keeping it. Dram was surprised she would wear a dress and then she said “a woman can always change her mind.”
Well that kind of scared me a bit. I asked her wait, can a woman just change her mind about anything at any time? Like even a wedding proposal? She said of course it’s a woman's own right to choose what she wants. I was very concerned now, not just for our current situation but would Rhiannon just simply change her mind at any time? Dram tried to explain to her what had happened between Rhiannon and myself and she was quite intrigued by that. I started to explain how we met over the book and she loved that it started over poetry and lamented the Black Knights own poem which she claimed was hideous. She also sensed quickly that I was a mage. Thankfully Dram brought us back quickly to the present and said we needed to press on. He was definitely right, this conversation could happen later.
There were no other doors which seemed odd as there was obviously more to the Keep then this and the others thought the same. Adrianna thought there may be something behind the large banner hanging on one wall. Sorin said a prayer and began examining the wall closely behind the banner and quickly found a secret door leading to a hall. We went to the right and opened the door at the end. More Orcs, of course! There were only four of them and the three went in to fight. I created a sphere of ice and when I went to throw I merely dropped it. They seemed to have the fight under control so I just watched the hall behind us to make sure nothing surprised us coming from behind.
After taking care of the Orcs there seemed to be a crypt beyond another door. From Barrik’s Keep we learned to just close the door and stay out of that room and keep moving. There didn’t seem to be anything else at that end so we went to the other end of the hall. There were three cells, two empty and one that was furnished nicely that Grandma Gertie was in. She was kind of confused about what was going on but seemed fine and even complacent in this whole thing. So now I was really confused about this. With all the things the Black Knight has done it seems maybe we are in the wrong for going into this area because of “Law of Hospitality”? Though Revit gave us the skeleton key which allowed us to go anywhere. I don’t know, the whole situation is confusing for me.
Dram wanted me to bring down my wall to deal with the orcs behind it but I wasn’t too concerned. Erik said the orcs were hacking at the back door and we should reinforce it. I decided to The final door went into what looked like an armory. Adrianna came out with us and said there was definitely magic in there. I warned them to stay out as it was obviously a trap. I went over to the parlor to have a glass of wine as the other ignored my warnings. I invited Adrianna as well but she wanted to “see if the others would be killed” as she thought I was right. There was another door in the armory Dram was concerned about but I cautioned them that they were pushing their luck.
By this point they were ramming the front door and trying their best to get in. I am assuming they were trying to get in the back as well. Well we were quite secure for a while so I might as well enjoy some wine while we wait for whatever is going to happen next. After a bit the Black Knight called for a parley. I wasn’t too interested in what he had to say but it ended up being that if we sent out the dark “priest” he would let Adrianna go free. I don’t think any of us were going to let that happen as the Black Knight would just likely try to kill us anyways. We closed the door again and things went back to them trying to break in. Sorin suggested we open the door and fight on our terms rather then waiting for them to burst through. The orcs were also hammering at the stone wall at the other end of the hall so we were going to have to do something now.
We lined up and opened a single door and the Black Knight and orcs were already there waiting. He demanded we surrender and I mocked his magical armor though he didn’t believe me. I suppose if you never really used your armor in true battle maybe he just couldn’t notice the extended properties of the armor. We exchanged more words but it was no use. The following melee was chaotic. None on our side could really penetrate his armor and he seemed to be just delaying, likely to allow the other orcs to burst in behind us. I used my cloud of stench again but it did not drive them away. I used apportation to put a bright light source in his face but that didn’t help either. It was time to use the most difficult spell. I hoped to try and surprise him and shaped the stone behind to try and capture him but unfortunately it did not work and they jumped out of the way. I shaped the stone into a nice smooth ramp and let the spell go.
He of course called me a coward so i replied back that hopefully I didn’t get murdered in my sleep by a coward. I brought Adrianna in as well to mock him too but it was not successful to draw him back in. The Orcs behind us were going to get through. Sorin was going to use everything he had to try and shoot the Black Knight directly in the visor. We could try but the cloud of stench was still there. I would use as much power as I could put into an ice sphere as well. While casting I had a horrible sense that things were going to go VERY wrong but it disappeared and my spell simply failed. I swear I felt the touch of Ilsundal assist in something that would have been very bad. I simply recast it and we waited. Sorin wanted to shoot first which was fine. Problem is the cloud of stench was still there. It is very thick. I used my senses to best determine where the black Knight was and purified that air to create a channel to where I thought he was. It worked! We both aimed and Sorin let fly and a split second later I let my sphere of ice fly. Sorin hit but it just pinged off his armor. My sphere of ice on the other hand knocked him down and backwards. He tried to block it but it was just too strong and shattered his shield and put him down.
We all, on both sides, seemed a bit stunned. Dram and the others weren’t sure what to do but to stay here was to die. I yelled out to them to rush out! Finish off the Black Knight and while they did that I was yelling out to the crowd to help us, the Black Knight deceived them all. Dram was hit by a few bolts but they didn’t slow him down. The orcs started freaking out and some were just stunned and others turned and fled. Some did stay and fight but we made quick work of them. Sorin and I used our respective ranged weapons to support and then Bryon came in at the end to help finish off the Orcs. The Orcs on the walls and others retreated and ran away. Durbin was smashing the Black Knights head with his hammer but Bryon pulled him off.
There was a flurry of confusion now. Of course we were accused of everything until we showed them the foul room with all the foulness in it. Of course they went right to the “Law of Hospitality”! I brought up that we were given a skeleton key so, logically, we were given access to any location inside the Keep. Even though we all put forth great effort to defeat the Black Knight I suppose technically I knocked him down and out so I “won”. I took down the banner, painting and shattered weapon and wrapped them up to give back to Rhiannon’s family. It’s the least I can do, I just wonder if this whole fiasco is going to cause any issues.
Even though everyone seemed to be relieved the orcs were gone, Adrianna found and the evil under control we were still under “arrest”. Revit backed us up as well that there was great evil here and the young man (the old Black Knight's son) really changed after his father died. Basically when the dark priest (i forgot his name already) showed up the boy started to change and would not take Revit’s advice. A sad story really I suppose. In fact, Revit was even a bit scared to come out unless the Black Knight was actually dead.
20 Flaurmont 990AC (Black Knights Keep/Melinir)
Valum said we were going back to Melinir under escort and supervision to be put on trial. It is a bit odd to know you did the right thing but yet still people were upset. I told them to just have their tournament anyways, the cheater had been taken care of! It seems that the whole incident was too much for everyone and they were all leaving too. The Church and Master Pickman were being called down to investigate what had happened here. Though we broke the “Law of Hospitality” most were happy enough that the orcs were gone and an evil had been banished so I think that should help us. If all else fails perhaps Prince Elladin can get me out of this and maybe help the others?
We arrived back in Melinir and were kept under guard. Not exactly thrown in a cell per se but it’s not like I could wander about town. It would have been nice to be able to go out after having to be in that Keep all night. Rhiannon and her Father came to see me (and the others too). She flipped between being angry at me for being a fool and almost getting killed to crying that I was still alive and how happy she was. I didn’t try to explain what actually happened, it just did not seem the time. I just tried to comfort her the best I could. Her Father was standoffish still so I don’t know if this would help or hinder his view of me. Though we weren’t gone that long the thought of dying in that Keep made it seem like alot longer and it was good to be with her again.
21 - 27 Flaurmont 990AC (Melinir/Trial)
There was a lot of back forth about exactly how things went down. In the end it boiled down to yes we did break the Law of Hospitality. In this case it did seem warranted though to actually do so we should just have gone about it another way. The idol that the priest (Perin was his name!) was worshiping was not even an Immortal, it was some entity of some kind. That actually really helped our cause too though “technically” we were still guilty of breaking the Law of Hospitality. I suppose there is not much to do about that.
The soul of the old Black Knight had to be put back to rest, apparently it wasn’t happy with what his son was doing. In the last room we did not explore (that I told them to stay out of!) there was an animated suit of armor that was pretty deadly. Renk (who Sorin and Dram did not like) tried to claim the Keep as their own but that failed and the Church took control of it. We were not given much through the trial, basically let off with a warning.
The Church on the other hand was very pleased with our efforts. They let me keep the banner and broken weapon, gave us some coins from the treasury and are allowing us a pick of one item from the armory. That was all nice but I was just happy to be let free and to return these items to Rhiannon’s Father which I did so promptly. I turned them over and let him know because of our deeds I would understand if he did not wish to give his blessing. He seemed to actually smile a little and told me the Black Knight was a thorn in the valley and he’s glad that he’s gone. Well that was reassuring!
I suppose it’s time for a break before the next thing happens that we get roped into.
An Accidental Proposal
27 Thaumont 990AC (Hearth-Home)
The Dwarven delegation arrived at Silvercrest yesterday. We had a banquet for them and they stayed overnight and, quite frankly, I’m surprised they stayed that long. I could see the boredom in Durbin after being in Silvercrest for a week. Our people are just too different in most everything for us to live amongst each other. I was sad to leave my home though Rhiannon was excited to see Hearth-Home. I was curious but the dread of being stuck underground for all that time was weighing on me. Most of the travel there was perfectly fine. Once we arrived at the edge of the Farolas Hills they took us in a secret entry. Because it was secret they had to blindfold us. That may have been worse than the entire stay in Hearth-Home.
The city itself was very foreign to me. It’s very hard to put into words but for the lack of a better term it gave me a headache. The sharp angles and repetitiveness of it did not help. Rhiannon wanted to meet with the Loremaster and was very excited to listen to his stories. I stayed with her for a bit but I found it difficult to stay focused here. They did have an apple tree in what I would say is their courtyard so I stayed there as much as possible. Even Melwen did not care for the dwarven city and stayed perched on my shoulder the entire time due to the predators above. Rhiannon lamented as well that she did not feel comfortable here but wanted to stay a bit longer to learn more. Had it not been for her I would have left by myself as soon as possible.
They did have a grand feast to celebrate the return of their War leader and thank us for saving him. The elves had given us fine silver rings denoting the Silvercrest clan (not that I really needed one) and the dwarves gave us gold rings done in their style. It felt heavy and awkward but I'll wear it while I am here as I figured it may be a sign of disrespect to take it off in front of them? The food was actually fairly decent which surprised me a bit. Still it’s impossible to shake the uncomfortableness of this place. I wonder if Durbin felt this way the week in the forest? I can’t imagine he could as he was traveling a lot outside and didn’t seem uncomfortable.
3 Flaurmont 990AC (Kleine)
We finally left! I felt a huge sense of relief after we exited the secret tunnel and Melwen felt the same. It felt so good to have the blindfolds off and finally be out from under the oppressive weight. Melwen was ecstatic and could not contain herself. Rhiannon and I made our way to Kleine and stayed there overnight. There was not much to do though we did play songs for them in their tavern/town hall building. She suggested we keep the songs simple and not perform our duet. Which reminded me we still needed to finish our duet for Melinir as we only played the first half the night we went to Torlynn.
Tomorrow we’ll take the raft down to Melinir. Before we left Hearth-Home I spoke to the others about the items we had identified from Barrik’s Keep. Durbin wanted the enchanted bag but that’s it. I had some plans for a few items but with them technically being Lord Gustavon’s he would need to allow it. So we’ll head down to Melinir and then to Torlynn to speak to Lord Gustavon.
7 Flaurmont 990AC (Torlynn/Melinir)
The journey down on the raft was pretty uneventful. There’s not too much room, pretty much sitting on the crates of food they are bringing down to Melinir. The journey itself was pleasant enough going down the river. Not as peaceful as the forest but it was very nice and I have found that with Rhiannon with me everything seems better. I could never have made it through three days in Hearth-Home myself.
When we arrived in Melinir there seemed to be somewhat of a buzz going through town. The Black Knight had announced some kind of tournament and the prize would be a “damsel in distress”. Rhiannon seemed a bit rattled by it, I assume because the Black Knight doesn’t seem to be a very trustworthy person. Aside from that everything else seemed fairly normal there. Rhiannon mentioned she would like to visit her parents in Edgewater. I asked her to come to Torlynn with me first and then we could head there. She seemed a bit reluctant but agreed. Maybe just this Black Knight tournament has startled her?
Torlynn was thriving! Some of the fields actually had seedlings coming up already. It also seemed like it was greener here then the surrounding countryside but that could just be the happiness of the people. Lord Gustavon was happy to see us and sat us down to wine and a meal. We discussed the items and the identification provided by the elves. The only item he wanted was the bell to summon food. That was slightly disappointing but not surprising. The good news is he let me keep the gems and the gold leaves I wanted. We also got the book “safe”, the blue dyed wooden box and crystal key, the dagger and the wand.
These items in hand we enjoyed a nice meal. I did offer my services if he needed assistance and he said they were still planting anything they could and needed assistance plowing fields. While plowing fields by itself did not seem much fun I figured I could use some magic to make it interesting and make some games of it. I agreed though I could see Rhiannon was looking a bit disappointed. I asked if she wanted to head home to her parents and I would meet her there and she quickly agreed. She finished her wine, kissed me goodbye and was out the door quickly. I guess she hasn’t spent time with her family in awhile so that makes sense.
The plowing was fun for a while but became dreary after some time. At first I just used a simple shape earth spell. A bit of create and shape water to water the seedlings and onto the next row. I did try some more complicated ways after seeing how the humans did it. I froze water into the shape of one of their plows and tried that way as well. I also challenged some of the farmers to speed tests to see how I could fare against them. Well part of the reason it became boring was that magic did indeed make things much easier. I spent about half of this day on the 7th plowing and was ready to move on. I said goodbye to the farmers near me and Lord Gustavon and made my way back to Melinir.
My first stop was the jeweler. I showed him the two golden oak leaves and the gems I wanted set on them. He suggested silver so it stands out from the leaf. The star ruby he said should be left as a polished uncut gem and the topaz should be cut. He was the expert so I said if he felt that would be best then do what he needed to do. I also asked for gold chains for both, one for mine and one for hers. He made suggestions and, again, I told him he’s the expert and what he felt would look best would be good for me. This cost sixty of the gold coins which seemed fine to me. I also mentioned I had several other gems he could have that we did not need so I was able to get a few coins back from that. I did need to present these in some way, maybe a smallbox? He said typically they are presented wrapped in fine cloth and I should see the weaver about that. I thanked him and he said come back in about a week and they should be ready.
Stefan was not in but his wife was of great help. She asked what colors Rhiannon liked and I had to think. I know she liked blue and the star ruby was pink. I showed her what I was going to give her by pulling out one of the other golden leaves I had and explained what it would be. She asked what the occasion was, which surprised me a little. I told her no occasion, it was just a gift as I appreciated her and enjoyed her company plus she liked the star ruby. She asked how I was going to present it as well which I replied I was going to give it to her. She said no, such a beautiful gift should be accompanied by wine, a walk on the beach, something romantic. This was getting to be a lot to just present a gift but if she was giving me advice I suppose I should listen. I paid her and asked if she could deliver it to the jeweler and I would pick it up all at once from there and she agreed.
After that I stopped by Pickman’s to check and see if Geoffrey had been there yet for any power stones. Turned out he had been by and did leave one I may be interested in. It was very powerful but had a small quirk. In order to recharge it had to be exposed to sunlight. It wasn’t a big deal Pickman explained, it was in a small box with continual light cast on it to keep it bathed in light. He joked it was “afraid of the dark”. If acceptable I could take it and leave the fifty gold coins behind and he would pick them up. Seemed acceptable to me though I had used a large portion of the coins I had. This is all a bit frustrating as we did not do things this way among elves but I will need to learn if I’m going to travel more.
Last stop was the monastery at Edgewater to return the book of “poems” and pick up something new. The process was easy enough and I was able to get a book on Thyatian geography. I was very excited about this though someone will need to open the trade routes up so we can get out. I did ask them how to get a better card and they said there were several ways. Donations of gold, books, etc were the biggest. Time with the library and returning books in good condition was another one. I’ll have to keep that in mind. I would donate but I did use a lot of coins between my stone and the jewelry.
With my errands finished I went to the home Rhiannon told me about in Edgewater that was her parents as I should check for her first there. There was some tension in the household because of the tournament and even Rhiannon didn’t seem herself. I found it odd but wasn’t sure what to do so I just kept to myself for a few days, spending time with her as I could and reading the Thyatian geography book which was amazing. Their capital was likely at least as big as the entire valley, maybe larger.
That reminds me I did ask Gustavon about how he came to own that bottle of wine. He said it was an old adventure where he saved a noble lady and the Emperor thanked him. He was actually in his palace on a balcony overlooking the whole city lit up at night. Although it is not the forest I was curious what it would look like. From the book there are many elven communities within Thyatis as well and it would be nice to meet others outside my own clan.
15 Flaurmont 990AC (Edgewater)
Yesterday I finally asked Rhiannon if there was anything I could do to help her as she did not seem her ordinary self. “You could talk some sense into my Father!” I believe it has something to do with the tournament but I could definitely talk to her Father about it. With that I told her I needed to go back to Melinir to check on something and I would be back later. I suggested we take a walk down by the lake and have a picnic this evening to which she agreed. Well that part was set.
I went to Melinir and picked up the necklaces and gold leaf pendants. They looked fantastic! I wasn’t sure what to do with mine so I had him put it in the same silk bag/wrapping hers was in. When she opened it I could explain I made matching ones for us. Once I had those safely in hand I picked up the sweetcakes she liked and one of the bottles of her favorite dry red I got from the Sarcastic Goat and set off back to Edgewater. This was very nice but I still don’t understand all the formality and ambiance around just giving a gift. Well I was about to find out.
I made my way back to Edgewater and picked up Rhiannon at her parents home and we went down to the beach and found a good place to set down for our picnic. As the sun started to set and the sky was awash in a myriad of colors I presented her the gift. She was silent at first staring at them and then burst out that she loved them! I was happy she liked the gift but then she said she wasn’t aware that humans and elves could marry and if I asked her father. So my joy turned to confusion…well yes elves could marry humans and no i didn’t ask her Father…is that customary? She said yes we would need his permission.
I wasn’t sure what to do here. I told her I wasn’t aware of any of these customs and I just wanted to present her a gift as she liked the gem. I saw a disappointed look on her face and her bright blue eyes actually seemed to dim. She said she was sorry for the mistake and she liked the gift. Now I was disappointed and confused too. I didn’t get it? Mistaken about what, I told her I enjoyed being with her very much. I pulled out my book on Thyatis. Look! After you mentioned Thyatis sounds like a wonderful place I got a book on it to learn more. I want to go there with you and learn new things, perform new music in other places. If this marriage is a human custom then I would do that.
She was silent for a moment and asked if elves marry. I explained no, we don’t. We do have very long term relationships that would be similar to human marriage. With that the disappointed look remained and she said, "So then i was correct, this is not a proposal.”
I was silent for a moment now. I didn’t understand what was going on here and needed a moment to think. I apologized for the confusion. This would be akin to marriage. We don’t have such customs among elves but I would like to be with you and travel to the places in this book which I held up for emphasis. With that the color returned to her eyes and she smiled. She accepted the gift and everything went back to normal is the best way to say it. We enjoyed the wine and fine weather and stayed on the beach well after the sunset.
16 Flaurmont 990AC (Edgewater)
Well this is becoming a common occurrence now of the difference between elven and human culture. This evening I decided to finally sit down and talk to her father before the evening meal. At first I brought up the tournament. He explained she was worried that his house would respond, as it should he said, but that they would not. His son Alin is not old enough or trained enough and he was beyond his tournament days. That made perfect sense so I was a little confused why Rhiannon was so worried if they weren’t even going to the tournament.
Then he asked about the necklace. I explained yes I got her that, it was a bit different as our customs are not the same. Then he kept asking more questions. What were my intentions? I explained I enjoyed his daughter's companionship and wanted to be with her. Then he asked me if I wished to marry his daughter and was a little forceful about it. I stammered a bit: yes marriage, yes I would like to marry your daughter. Then he moved into how to provide for her, how to provide for children, what trade I studied? I did not know humans would plan all this out before marriage!
I explained as best I could we were both skilled in music and singing and wanted to travel outside the rift to make a name for ourselves and see other places. I am a strong mage even by elven standards so I would continue those studies. I’ve also done a little adventuring to help people. Then he seemed very concerned we would be “traveling vagabonds”. Now I was confused, had he not heard his daughter's music and voice? Like we would be staying in dirty inns playing for mongrels? Or raising children while traveling from city to city? Not knowing that humans planned this out I just had to tell him I didn’t know what the future holds. The whole conversation seemed to just spiral out of my control. I felt like I was trying to reassure him that I had honorable intentions but he was starting to get angry.
That’s when the door flung open and Dram, Durbin and Sorin stepped in. We were all surprised by this. Dram asked if everything was good and I explained this was more of a private conversation and I did not need assistance. Well I suppose I could have used his help navigating the human customs as I was clearly doing something wrong. Then the ladies came to fetch us for the evening meal, saw we had additional guests and set some extra plates. Her Father said we would continue this discussion later. Great, I would have some time to figure out what to do to salvage this situation.
Dinner went well enough. Her father was not too happy and just kept his head down and gave short, curt answers when asked anything or engaged in conversation. We discussed our songs and what had happened in Torlynn. Her mother seemed happy enough though I wonder why she had no say in this? Must be another human custom.
Dram said we needed to urgently leave. It’s obvious the Black Knight is planning something and apparently Valum needs our help. He said it might be best to give her father some time to cool off. Very smart, give me time to think and her father some time to relax, that made perfect sense. After the meal I excused myself, let her Father know I would return to finish our conversation and said farewell to the rest and to Rhiannon.
We got back to Melinir late in the evening and Dram wanted to see if Valum had time to talk. We went to the Town Hall and sure enough he was there outside with his Son and Connor. To my surprise he did want to see us and led us inside. Connor brought us drinks, even going out to get ale for the dwarf. Valum explained he wanted to put us in the tournament somehow but could not figure out a way. He also explained that there was bad blood between the Black Knight and house Dimir (Rhiannon’s family). Her grandfather was killed by the Black Knight and many suspected foul play and not an accident but it was never proven. Well that made a lot of sense with how tense everyone was at the house.
Valum explained some of the rules of the tournament. Each house provided a champion and a man at arms who would both compete. All the families had already accepted and either sent their people or registered them so there wasn’t much hope to get us in. Dram looked at me and started to speak and I believe I knew what he was going to suggest. ABSOLUTELY NOT. I seem to have already upset her father enough, I can't go there asking him to send his untrained son to the tournament with us in tow. We would need another way. Valum said Pickman was looking into anything they could do but that would be tomorrow. Well that was enough for me. The quadrial was working on it and they were probably the best hope so best to just turn in for the evening.
17 Flaurmont 990AC (Melinir/Torlynn)
I don’t know if we are blessed or cursed by the Immortals! I spent a lot of time thinking about this whole marriage situation and how to win her father over. I met everyone at the Sarcastic Goat for breakfast and we discussed what to do next. Of course Dram wanted to rush in and help out. I suggested we talk to Pickman first and see what he dug up or see if we were meeting up later. That turned out to be irrelevant as when we stepped outside a familiar carriage was waiting for us. Well at least this time it wasn’t in the middle of a fantastic performance.
Erik said Lord Gustavon had great need of our help urgently. Well this was good, let the champions of the other houses deal with the Black Knight, we could enjoy some hospitality and hopefully solve another issue not involving Rhiannon’s family. Well that was not to be as when we pulled up Tristan’s man at arms was very sick and he wanted Dram to be his replacement. Fantastic. It seems we can’t just get away from this. Since we were here I may as well make the best of it. Dram would need to train for the few days leading up to the tournament. Sorin had to go fetch him a horse as apparently the man at arms had to be riding a horse. Apparently I was to be his “minstrel”. I may yet ask for the Emperor's gifted wine…
19 Flaurmont 990AC (Torlynn/Black Knights Keep)
I spent time helping around Torlynn, studying my Thyatian book, working on a few songs I had currently going and pondering how to win over Rhiannon’s father. Oh yes and drinking whatever wine I could. I did not want to seem overly indulgent or usurious but he brought us here so I may as well take advantage of it. Perhaps if we could help foil whatever the Black Knight was planning I could win some favor that way? Maybe this wouldn’t be so much of an issue?
On the last day everyone packed up and we headed down to the Keep. I wrote a note to Rhiannon to let her know what was going on. I would have liked to deliver it but we were not going through Edgewater. I paid a farmer a silver piece to deliver the note to Rhiannon, not anyone else. He seemed ecstatic about it! Admittedly I did send Melwen to follow him and meet back up with us. I wanted to ensure that she got the note and not anyone else in the household. A bit later she did return and confirmed that Rhiannon received the note. I know she was not happy about this tournament but the die was cast now.
The journey down there was fairly uneventful and even the Keep itself wasn’t that surprising. The Black Knight was a bit surprising. His armor was indeed black and gleamed in the light. Next to him was a man that Dram said was from the Landmayne family from Kleine. Apparently he does not like him at all and was getting quite agitated quickly. I had to remind him to keep his emotions in check. The jousting field was being set up at this time. Apparently they like to charge full speed at each other with long lances. I don’t understand this. Perhaps if there was some archery I could help. Oh yes and the Black Knight does not like elves or dwarves. He also does not like Mages. Seems I will fit in just fine here.
Apparently the champion and companions stay inside the keep while the rest of the families stay outside to watch. A butler named Revit who I believe we all took an immediate dislike to met us and would show us the Keep and our room. We walked in and the furnishings were very nice except for the two Orc guards inside the doors! Not only is the Black Knight openly kidnapping people but he has Orcs on his side. How do humans allow this? Just inside were also banners and displays of the victories. The Dimir family seemed to be his most “proud” moment as it had an elaborate painting along with the banner and broken sword. I was now the one with emotions running high. Had I the power I would tear this keep down and bury this scoundrel in the rubble.
After that he showed us some paintings of the old war of mages and fighters and they showed the mages in a very bad light. Both sides were at fault but this did not sit well with myself. Then the dining room, a sitting room and a training room. The rest were off limits and we needed to stay out of them under what I can only assume would be a harsh penalty. He then showed us our room which was quite large. He gave Tristan the key for our room and that we were not to go in anyone else's room. Made sense. He showed us his room and to knock if we needed anything. He and his wife (who would marry this man?) would be there and could assist. He also asked if Rhiannon Dimir was with us. As if I would bring her to this foul place. That got me a little worried though, and got my emotions roiling a bit more.
We set our gear down in the room and am sure we were all thinking the same thing, what did we just get into here? After a few minutes we heard Revit again showing Bryon his room and giving him the same spiel. After Revit left we crept out to talk to Bryon. He seemed pretty surprised to see us so I guess Gustavon had not let anyone know. He did bring some bad news, a woman from Kleine who went to Mage island for training was kidnapped as well. Apparently this was someone that Dram knew quite well growing up so He was not happy. Would he try and kidnap Rhiannon too? Wouldn’t he have done so already, Melwen saw her at home not long ago. I don’t know if this is going to help or hurt me if we are to figure out what is truly going on here.
Homecoming
Well it turns out the suit of armor was not a problem at all. In fact it was a guardian and would attack anyone evil or chaotic. I couldn’t remember much about it but it would definitely be a good item to have. We could look into it another day as we had more pressing items currently. This room was his study and was actually in fairly good shape. The bookshelves were lined with books that actually seemed to be usable. A large book was opened on the desk as if someone had just recently been here and a very nice globe. It did look like the armor golem (for lack of a better term) did claim some victims here as there were some weapons and blood on the floor and carpet. Good for it.
The last door went into a small library. This room was in a very sad state and the books inside, those that were not vandalized, were ruined by moisture and age. Such a sad state this Keep was in, left to ruin and rot. We will definitely need to speak to Gustavon about this. This place should be cleaned up, the usable objects moved and at the very least shuttered and monitored so evil creatures do not move in again. Humans sometimes perplex me, leaving all this to just waste away to “honor” his memory.
This was the last area of the castle and we had found nothing to help us yet. There was the front tower with the icy strands but I was loath to go there as I did not care for an encounter with any spiders if they existed. Not knowing what else to do I switched to mage sight and we went room by room looking for any enchanted items that would assist. In the Library I found a book that glowed. Pulling it out it was not a book, it was actually a small lockbox that was made to look like a book. Not wanting to really disturb it I set it down and we moved to the Study. The large book that was open glowed as well. I looked over the page it was on and it was the basics of one of the magical colleges. Interesting. I did not want to disturb anything more so we moved to the Dining Room. In the cabinet a small silver bell was also enchanted. I noted it and we continued room by room through the Keep. The last item we found was a large and beautiful elven made box that had no keyhole yet was locked. Vague memories of a gift from the elves came through but not much else. This was definitely coming with us, stigma notwithstanding.
Since we were not able to find anything of immediate use to help with the throne it was time to investigate it more. We went back to the alchemy lab (or throne room). I attempted a simple shape water but the ice on the floor resisted it. I had no wish to fight anything else on ice if it came to that so I wanted a nice clear path to the throne. I tried again but this time put more effort behind it and it worked. I was able to clear a path to the throne quite easily. Under the throne was a summoning circle that was quite interesting. Inside the throne was a sword. Both glowed magical so this was definitely the source. I attempted a shape water on the throne and was able to get it to move slightly which was a good sign. Durbin asked me to do so again and he would attempt to pull the sword out. Dram protested that he may get his hand or arm stuck in the throne but if he was willing to try I was willing to oblige. I tried again putting much effort into and I effortlessly controlled the spell splitting the throne open exposing the sword hilt. I recognized it instantly as a Silvercrest sword by the hilt. Almost immediately an icy hand formed, grabbed the hilt and reformed the throne before Durbin could reach. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.
We decided to try and move the throne outside the summoning circle. There was some concern that it might activate or trigger something but that might be what we needed at this point. Durbin got behind the throne and, back against the wall, pushed his hardest against the throne. Rather than sliding it started to tip and hit some magical barrier that seemed to be the summoning circle. Another plan that was not going to work.
We were very focused on the throne up until now but examined the rest of the room. Another room that was destroyed and left to ruin by time. There seemed to be a prison cell or a lock up area which (aside from the front tower) was the last area to check. Sorin found the keys, opened it up and examined inside. I stayed by the throne studying the summoning circle and trying to think of anything that could help. All Barrick said was there is great evil here. Was it the wererat or this ice golem? Sorin said there were four people inside and all seemed frozen and lifeless. A pity that they should have had to die so. There was something that we were missing and standing there I became lost in thought until Dram was shouting that the people in the cell were elves so I rushed in.
Inside were Prince Elladin, my uncle Kiirion and Fayeth who was a well known scout. There was also a dwarf who was Durbins father. We had two members of the Quadrial here frozen and captured! When Sorin said he found them in there I assumed they were dead (or perhaps I just wasn’t paying full attention which could be the case, the throne was perplexing) but perhaps due to the nature of all the magic here they weren’t actually dead. Maybe they just needed to be thawed out so my first instinct was let’s get them out and warm them up. Durbin pulled his father out, Dram grabbed Prince Elladin, Sorin my uncle and I used apportation to lift Fayeth out. As we discussed what to do on the way out Sorin thought that if we warmed them up now it could kill them and we should keep them cold until they can be examined by someone with more skill. At first I resisted but after thinking it did make sense (spoiler alert, it saved their lives!). I did use mage sight on them and there was a very faint glow in their veins as if something was there but not sure what.
Since we were not making any headway on figuring out the throne puzzle we had some debate about what to do next. After hearing a few arguments I volunteered to write two letters, one to the Church and one to Pickman to come right away and described the situation to them and the urgency. We sent the hunters off with the letters and instructions to not speak of the Quadrial members here as we did not want anyone panicking. They agreed but ran off laughing about how they would tell the story of the rats. Well that isn’t too bad I suppose as it would keep people away from the Keep.
Once they left, Dram wanted to check the final area we hadn’t looked at yet, the front tower with the ice strands. I was hesitant to go down there for some reason but Dram convinced me. He also wanted me to use apportation to move a large blanket down the hall to show any invisible spider webs just in case. Better to be safe than sorry I suppose but didn’t like the idea of a blanket obscuring our vision. I suggest a piece of wood the length of the width of the hall and I would just move it up and down slowly going down the hall. That worked fine and we found several dead spiders at the end of the hall. There was one live one but Durbin and Sorin made quick work of it. It was slowly coming together but I was pretty hesitant that members of the Quadrial could have been bitten by these spiders.
There wasn’t much else in the tower here. A dead body and some gold coins neatly stacked in the corner. Durbin and Dram smashed the icy webs but we were no closer to solving the puzzle. I wanted to take a closer look at the open book in the study so we went back there. I started thumbing through it and a rush of nostalgia hit me from Barrick’s memories. This was going to be his life's work, a huge compendium of magical knowledge. A lofty goal for a human with a short lifespan. I started going through the whole book and lost time. Dram kept bugging me once and awhile if I found anything but this was fascinating and I ended up losing myself in going through all the detail that had been put in the book so far. Finally Dram was getting worried and I did notice I was getting very chilled. I moved the bookmark to the page I was on, closed it, picked it up and was ready to go. The others were worried the armor golem would attack me but not I, it would only attack evil creatures so I was fine.
We went back to the camp to await Pickman, the Church or both to look over these frozen victims. I went over and examined them with mage sight again and was able to discern more information. There was a spot where the magic was stronger and it seemed to radiate out from that spot. I checked my Uncle and found two teeth bite marks there, like a spider bite. I suppose the others were right, the four had been bit by the spiders and ended up in this state so there is a very good chance we could revive them and bring them back. I showed Sorin and the others but there wasn’t really much we could do. He already tried a blessed healing on them and it did nothing. So we would sit and wait.
We ended up staying there overnight which wasn’t too bad as I had uninterrupted time with my book. Nothing much happened and the next morning no one had arrived yet. Maybe they got to Torlynn late and didn’t want to make the trip to the Keep in the dark? So we waited for a few hours and still no one showed, so we packed our things and started to make our way to Torlynn with the four victims in tow. Of course we ran into Father Martin on the way there. I showed him what I found but there was nothing he could do on the road and suggested we head back to Torlynn where he could better examine and treat them.
We arrived back in Torlynn and headed straight to Gustavon’s mansion. He was gravely concerned of course and his first instinct as well was to warm them up. Once it was explained to him that it could be fatal we decided to put them outside in his garden which was hidden from view of the others in the village. He thought it was a bit macabre but it was honestly the best solution atm. Father Martin rested and prepared to use a blessed poison treatment and Durbin insisted his father be first. That’s fine, dwarves have a great constitution so if there were any complications he had the best chance of pulling through. Once cast I verified the magical energy was gone from the body which it was. We brought him and warmed him up and he came back to life thinking he was still in the Keep fighting spiders. He was quite surprised to learn that he had been frozen for months in the Keep.
We repeated the process with the others and it went well and everyone woke up the same thinking they were still fighting spiders. We all sat down for a meal and explained what had happened to us in the Keep and that Kishute was dead, there was an ice throne and a sword in the stone that was definitely one of ours. Checking his scabbard, Elladin realized his sword Khelek was missing. I explained to Dram and the others that Khelek means ice in elven. Dram asked if the winter got worse months ago when the four had been bitten and captured and Gustavon seemed to remember yes it did. So it seemed that the ice throne was some sort of ice creature or elemental and it was using Khelek to amplify its power perhaps? Elladin wanted to head out as soon as possible to retrieve his sword and help right this wrong even though he was very weak. He was persistent so we agreed but any sign of danger we would get him out.
We headed back to the Keep with Elladin. He rode on a horse along with Dram as he couldn’t walk. The trip to the Keep was uneventful. Dram dismounted and helped Elladin inside and we made our way to the alchemy lab/throne room. There Elladin extended his hand and shouted “Khelek, come!”, then the ice throne vibrated for a few seconds as if fighting against releasing the sword and finally it burst forth showering ice particles around. We had no time to really celebrate as the ice immediately began forming into a very large ice elemental, pointed to Elladin and said “FOOD!”
Dram pulled Elladin behind him and stepped back. I cast apportation to hold him up and told Dram I had him so he could focus on the creature. Knowing they would need room to move around to fight, I backed up along with Elladin and moved him out to Warren. I could hear the clash of ice and shield but I focused on getting the Prince out safely. Once I got him to Warren and they started moving out the creature wanted to follow but Dram (and the dorway) was able to slow it down. I wasn’t sure what to do so I tried to shape the stone and try to sink it or slow it down somehow. It failed miserably, did nothing and left me tired. After that I wasn’t sure. I could hurl an ice stone but would it actually just absorb it and heal itself? Dram and Durbin were fighting desperately so I tried a shape water spell to try and contest its movement at least. It did seem to work though the creature was powerful and it took all my concentration just to hinder it slightly but it seemed to help. Finally the two were able to completely break the creature down and it fell into a pile of ice chunks.
It was almost an immediate sense of relief. Soon after it started to warm slightly and soon after that we stopped seeing our breath. Then rays of light shone through the holes in the roof and the winter finally was over it seemed. We started to make our way out but I could not take the “stigma” anymore of not taking things from the Keep. I grabbed all the magical items and we headed back to Torlynn. We received further confirmation the winter was indeed over on the way back as the sun was out and the spring weather had returned. The village definitely knew as the few people left were all outside basking in the warmth and were ecstatic literally dancing in the mud.
Lord Gustavon was overjoyed at our return and the return of life to his village. He embraced us all and thanked us profusely. He ordered tables, food and drink all brought outside and everyone would feast. I was just happy to be through the quest, have a good supply of great wine and be back with Rhiannon. Lord Gustavon told everyone that we were the ones who had ended the winter and saved them and tried to sink into my seat as much as possible. I don’t mind playing for crowds but having someone call me out personally was not enjoyable for me. I liked to help but did not really want all the attention. It was a grand party for all that were there. Rhiannon suggested we play our song together which was a great idea so we played our duet and then took turns playing for the crowd. Late into the night. We played until we were both exhausted and pretty much everyone ended up exhausted and called it a night.
The next morning Gustavon was clearly hung over so it was no time to discuss any business. We had breakfast and I told Rhiannon what happened in the Keep and showed her Barrick’s magical compendium. She thought it was interesting but magical studies wasn’t her main focus in life. Well that’s no problem, her voice and playing are too beautiful to focus on magical studies anyways. Gustavon did say that an elven delegation was coming to escort Prince Elladin and the others home. I wanted to return home as well for some time now and asked Rhiannon if she would come with me to which she emphatically said yes. I know Dram wanted to move onto the next “quest” but I wasn’t ready to jump so quickly to the next thing. I needed some time away to focus on other things.
We had another great feast for dinner though this was inside and fewer guests. I explained to Gustavon what happened to me with Barrick’s memories and the items we found. Also that we needed to clear out the Keep of anything usable and ensure it doesn’t become a haven for evil creatures again. I also said I would like to keep the magical compendium and work on finishing it to which he agreed. He also agreed the Keep should be cleaned out and that it was perhaps a mistake letting it sit and decay for so long. Finally I asked if we could take the magical items with us to be identified and he could have them back since he was the next of kin. He agreed to that as well. The next morning the elven delegation arrived to collect Elladin and the others. I asked if they could wait for us to return and I would like to return with Rhiannon and if any of the others wanted to go. Everyone said they would, even Durbin though I believe just because his father was going so he could return back to the dwarven lands.
We brought along all our wine and gear we had and made for Silvercrest. It was a great homecoming except for the fact we learned that Adelle and some of her handmaidens were actually getting worried about Elladin and went out to search for him but now they haven’t been
heard from. Once he is rested Prince Elladin was going to search for her himself along with some others but the time in the frozen keep had sapped him of strength. We had a wonderful time and it was good to feel at home again in the forest. Rhiannon's home was close but there was nothing like being home. I showed her all my favorite places, we drank some of the wine from Gustavon’s cellar and had a fantastic time in each other’s company.
We learned that a dwarven delegation would be here soon to pick up their member of the quadrial and head home. I really did not want to go but Rhiannon figured it was a once and a lifetime chance to see it so I agreed to visit. Durbin did visit my home. I suppose it is only right that we visit his home. I don’t know if I can last as long as he has here though, I suppose we’ll find out.
Memories of the Past
After an enjoyable evening (despite the interruption!) and an equally enjoyable night we met downstairs the next morning for breakfast. There were two people downstairs that I did not recognize. One was a fine dressed human nobleman and the other was a bit haggard and sitting off by himself. The finely dressed man introduced himself as Tristan, the nephew of Gustavon who is the Burgomaster of Torlynn. The other we would learn was Warren but not much else except for the fact he might not be quite right in the head.
Soon enough the two men who witnessed the creature inside the Keep joined us for breakfast and were ravenous. Tristan poured us some wine and everyone started really digging into the food which then led to some actually packing some of it away. I didn’t think this was quite normal but it’s not my house so I quietly ignored it. While eating we asked the guides questions though they weren’t super helpful. The Keep was built by Barrick, a great wizard and friend of elves. I remember reading some stories of him but I don’t remember much except he was very powerful for a human mage. They left the Keep alone out of respect for the old Wizard who passed away many years ago.
People have said they have been seeing lights in the Keep. These hunters actually saw some creature inside. A tall and large creature, white with beady eyes. They also noticed, very faintly, that there seemed to be a vortex of snow coming up from the Keep and spreading out to the surrounding countryside. This is why Gustavon believes he has found the source of the cold weather which seems plausible enough. I just wish they didn’t have to disturb our time together playing in The Sarcastic Goat. (There I go again! I must let this go!)
Once everyone had eaten their fill and taken some for the road we dressed up to head out. I asked Rhiannon to find Erik and peruse the wine cellar and pick out our reward. I kissed her goodbye and told her hopefully we should be back by nightfall. Once outside of town the snow was quite deep. Thankfully I could just shape and move it out of my way so I didn’t have to trudge through it and soak my boots. Even though the snow was cold, the ground was squishy. Like the first snowfall in winter before the ground had really frozen, it was an odd sensation. The Keep was not far away and I helped the hunters clear an area to set up camp. They seemed quite amazed by my cantrip calling it an “elf trick”. Well if that’s what they want to call it I suppose I’ll just let them call it that. I did tell them that humans could learn to do it too although few do because it takes many years to achieve any strength in it and humans have so few years. They seemed somewhat interested until I mentioned decades of hard work. Plus they would need the innate ability to cast which neither of them had anyways. Oh well, they seem happy with their lot in life.
Sorin and Warren went out to investigate around the Keep to look for tracks or any signs of life. Dram seemed intent on watching the entry or the whole Keep so he moved closer. He wanted some canvas to cover himself and let it become covered with snow for cover. Always with the more difficult ways of doing things. I told him I could easily shape the snow into any form he wanted to so he could keep an eye on the Keep if he was so interested. The two came back after not too long and said they found tracks coming in and out of the Keep. Weird tracks. Walking on both four legs and two. Large feet that weren’t human. They weren’t sure exactly what they were but they seemed to be maybe crawling in and out of the Keep.
Sorin and Durbin both wanted to go in directly but Dram wanted to take a more cautious approach and watch the main trail that Sorin had found. This was on the other side of the Keep and looked like it had the most traffic from whatever was in the Keep. In the end the others relented and we made our way around the Keep in the trees. Then just inside the treeline I shaped the snow into a barrier so we could safely watch the Keep and this trail. We sat there for several hours and no movement. Both Sorin and Durbin grew tired of sitting around and told Dram it was just time to go in the main entry. Dram seemed reluctant to do so and I understood why. There were merits to both a more cautious and direct approach. In the end I let the others decide as it seemed more their area of expertise being the more front line combatants.
During this time Tristan came walking down the path I made from Torlynn to our small encampment. Erik was beside him and looked quite upset. Tristan was suited up in full armor and combat gear ready to go in with us. Well having another front line combatant didn’t seem like an issue to me until someone mentioned that it could affect our reward. Erik also said his Uncle did not want him going into the Keep. I asked Erik if that was true and he said yes his Uncle did not want him going in and it would affect our reward. That changed my train of thought. With no caravans coming in for quite awhile the good wine selection could be limited for some time. We came to a compromise that he couldn’t enter the Keep but if we were hard pressed we could bring the monsters (if there are any) outside so he could face them.
It is also worth noting that I could sense Warren was a mage and a powerful one as well. I did ask him about it and he was very tight lipped so perhaps he was trained on Mage Island by Geoffrey. They are all very secretive about it so I wonder what goes on there? I’ve wanted to ask Rhiannon about it but I know no one discusses what happens there so I have not. Much like her past with Black Thom it is her past and she can share with me what she wishes too. I digress though. Him being a Mage rationalizes my decisions coming soon.
The Keep door was slightly ajar allowing some of the snow to blow in. The main entry was likely very grand at one time but now it is dilapidated. What was probably a beautiful red carpet lay on the floor in decay. I understand wanting to be respectful of a dead man's belongings but wouldn’t it be best to continue using them to honor his legacy? Not just let them fall to ruin? There was a hall to the right and an open doorway in front of us. It’s also worth noting there is a small cloakroom off the side. At the end of the hall to the right was one of the short towers of the Keep. Looking down there were thin lines of ice almost like spider webs? We decided to not go down there as I had got lucky last time with spiders, ice spiders may be a different thing altogether. Dram even wanted me to block it off but that is very tiring so I opted not to.
We went into the open doorway which was a sitting room. There was a couch, two chairs and a table. On the table was an eerie skull with a half melted candle on top of it. Of course it glittered with mana and here is why I mentioned Warren being a mage before. I didn’t think I would need to say anything like “do not touch this old magical artifact!” There was also an odd acrid smell similar to after blowing a candle out. This room didn’t seem as bad as the carpet in the previous room but was still worse for wear. There was a closed door off to our left and an open doorway in front of us that led into a large room with piles of garbage. It was also room to something else that was very hard to see but I noticed it. “Sorin, look out to your right!” That’s when things went sideways.
Thct next minute were chaotic. I could see the creature was a large gelatinous thing. Sorin and Durbin were inside near the thing and started swinging at it. I didn’t know what this thing was but I figured with a good shape stone I could probably trap it if everyone moved correctly. I rose the stone and started slowly moving it up and towards the thing to hopefully trap it in the corner which is what i shouted. That did not happen. As I was concentrating and moving the wall I heard a hissing/crackling noise behind me and smelled a stronger version of the acrid smoke from the sitting room. “Did you happen to light that candle from the other room?” The answer was yes. I was pushing the wall towards a passage so I hoped the creature did not get down that passage and was trapped in the corner. By the time I got the wall clear of the passage it seemed that Durbin had got stuck on the other side and was unconscious inside the creature.
Sorin and Dram attempted to rush up and help Durbin when a loud scream came from behind me and Warren was rushing up with the lit skull candle flailing it at the creature. I wasn’t sure what to do so I finished moving the stone to the corner and let the spell go. I did feel bad about ruining the Floor of this room which appeared to be a Ballroom but at least it cleared up some of the trash. The others were able to force the creature to retreat down the hall leaving Durbin a slimy mess and it seemed to be slowly eating at him. I came up and looked as Sorin was trying to wash it away with water to clean him up. As unseemly as it was we had to strip the dwarf down and clean all the slime off of him so it didn’t kill him. It was pretty cold so I said we needed to get a fire to warm the dwarf up. Warren decided to use the lit skul to light the trash in the room on fire which succeeded in making a thick smoke and an even worse smell. We grabbed Durbin and all of his stuff and prepared to haul him back to our small encampment. As we tried to get through the sitting room we were stopped by a smokey apparition of an older man. It was Barrick and he was asking who we were. Knowing him to be an elf friend I told him my name. He said there was evil in his home and I responded we were here to help end that evil. Then the apparition turned into a shot of smoke coming right at me. Dram tried to block it but it went through his shield. I threw all the energy I could into a defensive spell but it was not of use. The smoke hit me and I went unconscious.
I woke up in a field of green surrounded by forest and it looked just like the area the Keep was but no Keep. There was an old man looking down at the ground laying out what would be the Keep. I asked him where I was and he said “My Memories.” He repeated there was a great evil and again I said yes we were here to figure out what that evil is. I asked if he knew anything or had any information. He said, “let me show you” and approached with his hands out to my head. By all the stories I remember he was a very good person so I allowed him to do so. When he touched my head I was taken aback by the flood of information entering my thoughts all at once. A lifetime of information flowing into me within a few seconds and then he was gone and I could feel myself back in my body coughing.
Dram must have been furious but I told him it was quite alright and he helped me out of the Keep and went back in to get Durbin and the others. Once we were together (Durbin was still unconscious) we went to the encampment to recuperate. Dram was very concerned I was injured but I felt great actually. I just needed to get down anything I could on paper so I didn’t forget. I grabbed my satchel and all the paper I had, went into a tent and began frantically writing. Dram came in with me as he was still concerned. As I was furiously writing and drawing he started asking me questions about all this. I did get hit by a dark smoke and went unconscious so there were probably questions. “Yes I should explain what happened, gather the others and I will tell you all what happened to me.” By this time Durbin was awake and had cobbled his gear back together.
I explained that was Barrick. The skull was an anchor to this plane, lighting the candle would draw his spirit back to this plane and his home. He was currently exploring the astral plane and was quite happy except for being dragged back here. He said there was great evil that needed to be taken care of and then basically gave me all his memories. Of course with that they assumed I knew everything about the Keep but that was all fuzzy. I also felt more control over my innate power to draw mana so perhaps I got a bit of that as well? They were afraid that I was “possessed” but I do not believe that to be the case. (and seriously? They were afraid of Rhiannon and they couldn’t have been more wrong about her!) They wanted the Clerics in town to check me out and if they wanted that we could but I would prefer a Treekeeper to examine me for anything out of the ordinary. I need to make a trip home anyways but now maybe learning spells will not be so difficult? I feel like the knowledge is there, I just need to concentrate.
After I took down more notes and we were all rested, it seemed time to go back in and continue our quest. We entered back in the Keep, through the sitting room, trash room and into the hall where the gelatinous creature had been forced down. From Barrick’s memories I knew this thing to be a gelatinous cube. It will eat any living material and he would feed it trash and failed experiments burning off any excess as it grew. It did grow like anything else, from feeding and there was plenty of trash and rodents around here to feed it. In the hall were two doors. We went to the far one first and inside was an obvious bedroom but, like the rest of the Keep, everything was ruined and decaying. Inside was the gelatinous cube devouring a large beetle. Dram wanted to get some of the cube, which I thought was a good idea, and the beetle but it was already dead and being digested by the creature.
This was definitely the side the “snow vortex” was coming from so we were getting close to the cause of the issue. We went to the other door which was closed and slowly entered. The room was a storage for reagents. Again, they just left everything to rot in here. Why waste all these good items?? There was another doorway beyond this small room and you could feel it was colder in there and the floor was ice. Thinking back to the skull candle I warned the others not to walk on the ice that it is dangerous. We walked up closer to go into the next room. It was covered in ice. The ice was slightly magical but the two objects of note were a large ice throne which was radiant and a large white rattish humanoid sitting on that throne. It had what looked to be a bone crown of fingers and a large leg bone that was a mace. All radiating magic. Then it began to speak.
I started backing out of the room. Warren decided to have a conversation with it. I told Dram what was in there while keeping an eye on it. Durbin and Sorin were ready to shoot the thing and I prepared as well. I put everything I could into a sphere of ice to hopefully blast this thing. Warren was going on explaining to this thing (it called itself Keshute) that if it wanted to be a ruler it needed to extract taxes, protect the borders, and so on. He was doing a great job at buying us time. I tapped Durbin with my staff and gestured to my sphere, his crossbow and Sorin and made a gesture to launch. It was at this time Keshute seemed satisfied that Warren would be his servant and the rest of us were food. Dram was also going on about some noise from above but I didn’t see anything. As all three of us let loose our missiles Keshute jumped towards us and the door in the back of the “garbage room” flew open and a dozen more creatures smaller than him came charging towards us. Durbin’s bolt missed but both Sorin and I hit but Keshute was still up.
Dram was in position to hold off the rat creatures from following the hallway but there was a gap. I began to shape the stone to narrow the entry to the hall to make it difficult for them so I told Sorin to fil the gap to which he did not do that. I figured he would want to help his cousin rather than let him get surrounded by “ratmen” and get eaten. Luckily that did not happen. Durbin and Warren took care of Keshute (well he was pretty bad off after Sorins arrow shot and my large ice sphere) and Durbin turned to help us. I got the entryway narrowed making the creatures turn, duck and step up to get to us and that was easy to wrap up that though one did get away. Turningback to Keshute there were piles of white fur, a dead boy/teenager and Warren pale white murmuring to himself as if he just saw something horrific. Yes, yes it is horrible the boy was a were creature but it cannot be helped now. I tried to coax him out to sit down on my stone chairs I shaped in the hall but he didn’t want to move. I’m not quite sure about this man, maybe he needs to just stay with his benefactor Gustavon, he is a very odd person.
I was leery to enter the throne room with all that magic and was hoping there might be something else in the Keep that could help us. We went to the doorway the ratmen came through in the back of the “garbage room”. It led to the second (read) tower of the keep and a kitchen. The kitchen is in a sad state with pretty much everything destroyed and rotten though it did seem the ratmen were using it for whatever they were eating. In the tower there were four coffins along the back wall. Approaching them the bodies rose out of the coffins and started attacking. I wasn’t sure what to do. Barrick did have apprentices that were entombed here so these were probably it but why were they rising from their graves? Sorin was able to call upon his faith and force them back into the coffins! I had heard of such abilities but never seen it before, it was an inspiring sight indeed. We decided to just leave them alone.
From the kitchen it went into the Dining room. This room was trash just like the others though not in such a state of decay. There was a statue of a falcon in here which was his familiar though I didn’t really tell anyone else. Why do they need to know everything? It seemed like we were getting close to exploring all the castle and nothing that would help with the ice throne or snow vortex. There was a door off the Dining Room so we opened that and went in which was his study. That’s when the giant suit of plate mail with a giant weapon started moving. Really Barrick? You kept that memory fuzzy from me?
A Rude Interruption
During our rest we discussed options to gather these items in the flooded room with the crocodile. It took some convincing but finally I was able to dissuade them from trying to fight this monstrous creature. Had it been a direct threat to the city or its people that was one thing but here it was no real problem. We decided to use Dram’s net to dredge the bottom and bring the items up. The dwarf went up to the roof and knocked some holes in there from which we hung some lighted stones and Sorin kept an eye on the beast. We would use the bodies of the frogs and salamanders to distract the beast and move it out of way while dredging.
I shifted back to mage sight and noticed one item had moved. No issue the crocodile must have knocked it out of its original position. They dropped the first frog in and the croc went right for it tearing into it making a loud disturbance. I used basic apportation to move his net in place and sink it directly on top of the item and Dram pulled it in. The first item was a very nice wand and came in quite easily. While we were doing that I was watching the third item that had moved and it continued to move along with the croc. Like it was in the crocodile's head? I couldn’t see anything, just that there was something magical there. That one we might just need to skip. The next item came in with a bit more difficulty but we were able to finally get it. It was a very nice chain hauberk. Along with all this we were pulling up various coins from the bottom. I thought that was quite fun so we continued to do that until I was just exhausted again and needed to rest.
Dram said there was a room off to each side as well and one of them had a large stone chest. Durbin put a hole in the roof above each room. We lowered Dram into the first one that had the least water. The croc was busy with a salamander creature we had thrown in so he should be fine. If not we could pull him up. While he was down there he tried to grab what he thought were pearls and got stung by a rock fish and his hand started to swell up. He tried to grab their eggs so it was just defending its young. Always trying to do things the hard way. I told them to lower me down and I would take care of it. They were worried the croc would come after me but I assured them it wouldn’t be an issue. They lowered me down to about a yard above the water. I froze it and then shaped two items from the ice. First an ice door to block off the entry and second a wall around the chest and pulled the water away so when opened the water didn’t gush in and ruin anything. The lid was heavy but simple apportation allowed me to lift that off. Inside was a bunch of nicely folded clothes and a matching sword/knife combo in nice condition. The chest was actually wax sealed so everything was nicely intact. Dram wanted to pull the chest out too for some reason. Always trying to make things difficult.
After that I needed to rest yet again. Then we attempted the other side as it seemed like it may be a matching room? This one had a lot more water then the other one so I decided to try something different this time. I shaped the stone from the floor to cover the door but left a small slit at the top and then shaped water to move it out of the room. After a few minutes the water level did not move at all which I thought was odd. I figured some water would seep in from the floor or cracks but not enough to fill it up as fast I was emptying it. I swung my staff at the stone door i created on a hunch and sure enough it disappeared. Sometimes magic just doesn’t work as you think it should. Moving dirt is not too difficult but moving this worked stone floor is exhausting so I had to rest yet again. This was getting quite tiresome, literally. This time I had no issues. I created the stone wall with the slit at the top and moved the water out. The room was exactly the same as the other. I pulled the lid off and this chest had clothes again (not nicely folded like the other i should note) and a satchel with papers inside. They pulled me out and it turns out it wasn’t paper in there, it was messages written on some kind of skin.
I was exhausted. Continuously casting and resting had taken its toll on me throughout the day and we needed to get back before dark anyways due to trolls. The trip back was fairly easy. We unloaded everything relevant to the mission and took that to Pickman’s. We took our spoils to my room at The Sarcastic Goat which made it quite cramped. Dram was worried about someone called Black Thom? We got some food and a drink but the tavern was becoming quite crowded so I decided to head to the Commons. Rhiannon had given me some ideas to add some emotion to my songs that I wanted to work on anyways.
The next morning was fairly uneventful except Dram believed that Black Thom broke into our room but didn’t steal anything? Perhaps, I don’t know. I didn’t have much to really do until Pickman went through all his information and met with his patron so I went to meet Rhiannon. I did buy the last bottles of her favorite wine from Birna. Since no caravans had been in there was simply no more stock. That was saddening as I had grown to like it as well. We had a fantastic few days and were able to finally finish our duet. She didn’t seem keen on finishing it as quickly as I would have liked. Our peace was broken by Dram finding us walking on the waterfront. I broke away to speak to him and he told me something had happened to Grandma Gertie. That was enough for me to know that I should head back and to my surprise Rhiannon wanted to come as well. She knew Grandma Gertie quite well and wanted to help. Dram headed back alone and we grabbed our gear and she picked up Buttercup and we headed back to Melinir.
It turned out that she had been kidnapped by a group of orcs and horsemen? Dram and Sorin were quite distraught over the whole thing but Pickman assured us that the Quadrial was looking into the matter and we needed to steer clear. They were still going with Durbin to the base of the Quadrial. I declined to attend as they were going to be denied entry and Rhiannon was with me. We went back to the Sarcastic Goat and had a wonderful dinner together and after dark went to the commons by the fountain. We sat down and she lamented that the town was nice but the light took away from the stars. I agreed the stars were beautiful. I played a piece I had worked on from last night that she had inspired. As she looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes it all suddenly hit me like a boulder. The time together, the late nights, the playful flirting, dragging out our duet, an endless list of things anyone else would probably have realized sooner. This was not just simply two people enjoying each other's company, it was a much deeper connection than that I believed. I embraced her and kissed her deeply and I could feel a difference between us after that, as if she was saying ‘finally!”. I suggested we get our own room at the Sarcastic Goat and she agreed.
One oddity on our way to the fountain that night Black Thom stept out of the shadows and it seemed like he knew Rhiannon. She admitted that there was something between them long ago but it was over and that he was a scoundrel. I dropped it as she was clearly not comfortable or was embarrassed by it. He said he would see me around but of course he would, I’m usually in Melinir? Perhaps Dram is right to be worried about this man?
Rhiannon slept late and I stayed with her reflecting on our time together. When she woke we went down and had breakfast and I let her know I had some errands to run this morning. I can’t tell if she genuinely dislikes Dram and the others getting me into these adventures or if it’s just a playful thing? Perhaps both? I’m not sure, I’ll leave it for another day to figure it out. I went to Pickman’s and the others were actually there and had tea made. Delightful. He reviewed all the documents and was able to clear the Commander’s name. The second stone chest that had the documents had explicit instructions to put the water elemental orb/tether in the keep to destroy it. We received quite the payday for the information. He also had identified the items but they were all fairly trivial. The wand was just a detect magic enchantment from a kingdom called Glantri. Apparently it was ruled by Mages. If we are able to make it out of the valley it could be a grand place to visit some day.
The others still wanted to meet with the Quadrial but I again declined the invitation to join. If they were looking into it there wasn’t going to be much we could do. I did ask about some power stones. I’m tired of using my own energy constantly, it would be nice to have some mana stored for emergencies. He had a small one he could sell me but for larger ones I would need to contact Geoffrey on Mage Isle when he came in. Pickman did say he knew him and could talk to him and even purchase them in my stead. It sounded fairly simple to me so I gave him some of my coins for the next time he came to Melinir. Hopefully it won't be too long.
I went back to The Sarcastic Goat since we had no other pressing issues. Rhiannon and I began playing together and drew in quite a large crowd. It did make me a bit nervous to have all this attention although since it was mostly men I am guessing most of it was towards Rhiannon. I saw Dram in the crowd trying to get my attention but this was something I had been greatly looking forward to. He was also probably still looking into the Grandma Gertie issue which the Quadrial was handling so I paid it no attention and focused on playing. Next thing I know, Dram and some well dressed human next to him try to get my attention after we finish a song. I was actually slightly angry. I told him The Quadrial would handle the issue and to leave it alone, I was busy!
Well this had nothing to do with that and was something else entirely. The wealthy patron from our previous mission apparently needed our assistance urgently. Odd. I put my arm around Rhiannon and pulled her closer looking out over the crowd (it may have taken me awhile to realize her feelings but I’m not blind) and whispered to her that the wealthy patron needed more assistance, had a fine meal ready and I would assume a well stocked wine cellar we could peruse for assistance. This seemed to pique her interest though I did suggest we play one more song. To my surprise she suggested we play the first half of our duet! It went over quite well but she did say it was a good time to end as the staff were all looking quite exhausted. We wrapped up and all took the coach outside to Torlynn.
The unnatural winter here was very depressing and most had left the area. The patron believes he knows the cause of the winter and wants to restore his town’s prosperity. I did question the reasoning to drag us out in the late evening as we were in the middle of a set. He was apologetic but firmly wanted us there as soon as possible as he worried about the people who stayed behind and put their trust in him. That was all fine. I was just slightly irritated at the whole ordeal. I did request that part of my payment would be wine and that Rhiannon be able to go through the collection to pull out some suitable vintages. The interruption may well be worth it then if we can settle this issue in Torlynn as it has been very friendly to the elves and add to our dwindling wine collection!
The Swamp Castle
I took the ring to Pickman as I do not have the spells yet to determine what it can actually do. His price seemed fair for a human I suppose. He had maps of the swamp to the south layed out that he appeared to be studying. I asked if he knew much about them and he told me he had a client that was interested in a few points of interest there. Remembering that Dram said we could do more to help, I offered up that I knew a few people that may be interested in assisting. Once he found out the enchantments on the ring he would bring it back and let us know if his client was interested.
Over the next few days I started working on my duet idea. Brina had some excellent wine and even gave me a discount when I told her it was Rhiannon and I working on a song together! I stopped by the library and picked up the book as well. It’s very exciting to be collaborating with such a fine artist in addition to her wonderful company as well. Pickman also came by with the ring and to tell me that yes his Client was most interested in gathering a party to head into the swamps. The ring had a minor enchantment on it making the person a bit harder to hit.
One morning I met Dram at The Sarcastic Goat and sat down for a meal and to catch up as I was supposed to meet Rhiannon on this day. While we were sitting the mercenary Ap Hen came in and just sat down with us at the same table! I was astounded by the rudeness but not sure what to say. He did eventually say that Pickman was going to meet us here this morning about this Client and the mission and he was going to join the expedition. Fantastic.
Pickman explained that we would be heading to the ruins of Kraal castle to investigate why it happened. There was a base pay plus many bonuses depending on what we were able to retrieve and any information we could find. It pretty much all revolved around the Commander of the Garrison as it is believed she betrayed everyone and that is why the Castle fell. There was a long history of the Castle which I may need to research later as it could make a grand and epic tale.
We went through some of the details and some others signed up as well. This seemed pretty serious as the pay seemed quite high. This was good as I would find Rhiannon has expensive taste in wine but then so do I so I suppose it matches fairly well. After leaving The Sarcastic Goat Rhiannon actually came to Melinir to meet me and was most excited to get started. That was excellent as I was too. I did suggest that we go to her home instead as it was far more peaceful then this town and she agreed,
The next two days were fantastic. We worked on our music, we took walks, she showed me some dance moves and she fell asleep snuggled up to me under the stars. She told me I would need the dance moves later so I paid close attention. She was quite disappointed when I told her that I would need to leave for our expedition. She does seem to be quite emotional at times. Perhaps that is why her songs focus on love. With her emotional music and my epic tales we can definitely compose some beautiful pieces together. I left her the library book and a short note I would return.
That morning we loaded onto the boats that would take us across the lake. They provided a salve to keep the bugs away and it was necessary we found out. The bugs in the swamp were horrible and the salve only kept a majority of them away. You would still get bit from time to time. We made good time to cross the lake and follow the river that runs through the swamp to get to the Castle. It must have been a great feat of magic to raise the land to build a castle here but Pickman did say elven magic was used so it does make sense.
We made it to the outer walls and were able to navigate fairly close to an entry point to the inner keep. It seems that something destroyed a large chunk of the wall. It also looked like something else had made a home here as there were some very rude fortifications built to try and defend this entry. Nothing was there so we made our way to the small courtyard. There was definitely something living here and it did not seem to like Lizardmen as there was one gutted lying there. Maybe whatever is here eats them?
There were a set of doors entering into the keep. They opened quite easily and we made our way inside. It was essentially a “T” intersection. Dram and I stayed behind to cover the intersection while Sorin and Durbin ventured into a room just down the hall. Suddenly there were sounds of battle and a cry of “spiders!”. I rushed down the hall and saw there were indeed some large spiders in there. Apparently Durbin finished one quite easily as it was all over him. The other two were proving to be very elusive.
Fearing the worst I wrapped them both in mana and pulled them up and away from the pair. Some spiders I know can definitely be very poisonous and if they are this large it would likely kill quickly. I asked Pickman if he wanted them to study and he said yes so we grabbed Dram’s new net, I moved them together and we wrapped them. We will definitely need to ensure there are no egg sacks, we don’t want any more of those running around.
There wasn’t much else down that hall so we moved down the other hall into the keep further. We found a very nice scabbard and bag that had not degraded via decay so I am assuming they are magical, perhaps part of the Commander's gear? The next room seemed to be the Commander's quarters and inside there were three salamander type creatures hiding. Durbin and Sorin made quick work of them. I was going to assist but the combat was so fast and furious there was nothing much I could do.
Pickman was ecstatic after he entered. There was the body of the Commander, books, notes, etc. He even said there seems to be proof she was not related to the fall of the castle but not definitively. We were back to having multiple paths to go and Dram was getting worried about someone attacking from behind if we moved forward. I shaped stone in one hall leading towards the center of the keep and blocked it off. So now we only have one path.
Moving forward we found stairs going up and another hallway. Down the other hall there were some large frogs but also I could see something glowing with essence down at the end. Perhaps another magical item of the Commanders? Dram came up with an idea to lure the frogs out and kill them for their “giant frog legs”. I wasn’t so sure it was a great idea but we needed to get down there. They threw a large rope with rusty bits on it and coaxed the frogs out who attacked. The fighters made short work of them although one did comically bite onto Durbin’s head. If I do write a song for this that would be very humorous.
Dram and Sorin swam down to the end and found something quite interesting. A dead frog that looked like it had been slammed into the wall at the very end. They threw a log in and watery hands grabbed it and smashed it against the wall. I made my way down there and called out in elvish to show itself as I believed it to be a water elemental” Sure enough it came out of the water and spoke to us. I called out to Pickman if he knew any spells to help and he did. I quickly swam back, he cast it upon me and I swam back.
The elemental said it was placed here by a sorcerer to kill the garrison and destroy the keep. It’s binding was not yet completed so it cannot leave. It had an anchor item in the corner of the keep. It said the only way to get rid of it was to either destroy it, sending it back to its plane, or it finished its binding mission. I’m not quite sure what to do. I don’t have enough knowledge about these elementals as those are pretty advanced spells. I know fighting it would be dangerous. We decided to back off for now until we gathered more information.
The stairs up just went to the roof where there wasn’t much of anything. Another room we skipped had two lizardmen tied up probably awaiting the same fate as his gutted brother outside. We ended up letting them go as they don’t really attack and raid humans on purpose, only those who go into their home.
The last area was the hall I moved the stone to block off. Of course that is very tiring so undoing it is a lot of work. Pickman lent me one of his charged stones and I used that. Afterwards I needed to rest. Dram wanted to check out the room so I wrapped a lit stone in mana and moved it into the room to light it up. It seems to be the main chamber of the keep. On a hunch I shifted my vision to mages eyes and saw three items in there glowing. Dram also found a giant crocodile in there. Not just giant but monstrous. I needed to rest though as I was exhausted.
To be continued….
An Unexpected Journey
I met Dram at the Sarcastic Goat Inn which I thought would be a day like any other. Harfur and a Dwarf came in (later I found his name to be Durbin) and Harfur was talking loudly about something but I heard something of a Succubus with a large snake. That reminded me of a long song-tale I was working on so I got out my notes and began writing some notes. As the ideas flowed I had a few ideas for some melodies to use so I brought out my lute to play them and write them down. Once I did that Harfur came over and wanted to hear what I was doing so I went over my melodies I was playing.
At some time Dram’s cousin came in, a follower of Zirchev no less (his name is Sorin) and was looking for Harfur. Apparently he had posted some notice on the board looking for discreet adventurers. I was trying to focus on my song but Dram thought it might be a good idea to tag along with them. Harford was looking for some book held by this “succubus” outside of Edgewater. This piqued my curiosity a bit…until I learned he meant Rhiannon. She spent time on Mage Island so I suppose the snake would be her companion. So what is so great about this book that Rhiannon would steal it? I agreed we should look into this. Apparently it is of some haste as well as the book was due back to the library the next day.
Harford took us to his small home in Edgewater and offered us tea. Of course I couldn’t refuse tea though I don’t think the others wanted to wait? He told us where we could find Rhiannon’s home outside Edgewater but he would not go for fear of the snake. He said we should watch out for magical traps but I don’t think she is the sort to do such things. We approached her home and found something amiss. Her instrument left outside, a glass of wine tipped and a disheveled blanket. I figured something was horribly wrong so I went to her entryway and she was inside crying. She had “borrowed” the book from Harfur she admitted but something had stolen it. She said there were great stories inside, a lot of silliness but still some good stories. I told her if we got the book back we could see about extending the loan or something. Apparently the library is a stickler about such things which is why Harfur is so afraid of not being able to return it.
Dram came in and said Sorin found some tracks outside that we should look at. Not my area but sounds like a good place to start. The creatures did not even try to hide their tracks he said, it was pretty easy to follow the trail. They went straight into the swamp and likely through to the Horned Hills. As we walked through the swamp all of us started developing a headache that seemed to be getting worse. Perhaps just the air in the swamp? The creatures ran fast too…unfortunately it was not the case. It got so bad I changed to my mage’s eyes and saw immediately what was going on. Some creatures in the trees were sucking our life via some spell. My pain got so great I couldn’t do much besides point the others to the issue. Once we did some damage to the creatures they stopped their spell. In order to press on quickly we decided to deal with those things later.
We made our way out of the swamp and into the Horned Hills. At least the swamp had trees, the trees here were very sad. Sorin spotted their camp up ahead and thought we should check it out. I thought this odd, why would we all go up there? He should check it out from a distance and gather some information so we can plan an attack? That’s how my Father did it but perhaps Humans do this differently? He agreed and ran off, coming back a bit later. The creatures were Kobolds and they were engrossed in some ceremony worshiping the book. This book must have some enchantment on it, perhaps it’s dangerous? I wouldn’t think the Monks at the library would lend out a book like that though.
There were not many Kobolds so we agreed to sneak in as far as we could and surprise them and take out the leader who held the book. While we all agreed that all Durbin must have heard was “let’s go get them” as he just walked right into the camp. After that Dram rushed in knocking Kobolds all over and Sorin fired his bow from the trees. Well it seemed as though they had this handled so I hurled a few balls of ice. Once I saw the battle was winding down I walked into the camp and the leader and Dram were facing off. The Kobold was holding the book up as a shield so Dram seemed afraid to do anything. I wrapped the Kobold in mana and lifted him off the ground to ensure he didn’t escape. Dram said he had trouble hitting him but Sorin was able to put the beast out of his misery. Afterwards we found a magic ring on the Leader's finger, I'm guessing that could be why he couldn’t be hit. I’ll need to have that checked out as I cannot quite decipher the enchantments yet.
With that done I was most excited to see what this book was that enchanted so many. I cast a simple detection spell on it but nothing. I used my mage’s eyes and nothing. I opened the book to see if perhaps the ink used was magical. Nothing. Dram was babbling about some curse or something but the book wasn’t magical. This was very confusing and disappointing. This book that caused so much mischief was…a book. I found some notes in Thyatian and asked Dram to read it. Harfur’s poetry. No thank you. Rhiannon was very interested in the book and her talent is well renowned so I had an idea. I asked the group if I could hold the book overnight so Rhiannon and I could collaborate since it wasn’t due until tomorrow, I even gave half my pay to the dwarf. They reluctantly agreed, still believing that she was some type of evil sorceress maybe? Oh and Dram thought he was cursed for touching the book so I had to tell him this book is just a book.
The way back was uneventful. The bloodsucking tree creatures were back. Dram would actually go to the Monks and find that they were called Vampyric Moss and needed to be burned with fire to kill it. We knew now what to do to take care of them so it was fairly easy this go around. We stopped at Rhiannon’s and the rest went into town to stay with Harfur. We stayed up deep into the night going over the book and the poetry therein. Unfortunately she needs her sleep so we had to call it a night. There is a very peaceful serenity surrounding her home. I think there is more to her than meets the eye.
The others came and got me in the morning. I had hoped for my time, but again, humans need sleep. We escorted Harfur to the monastery to return the book. They make quite the event out of it. Harfur told our tale so I suppose the others told him what we did. Oh well, it is quite a boring episode anyways. At the end they were satisfied with the condition of the book and Harfur was free to go. They even gave us a library card!
After that we took care of the moss that was along the route we took. I suspect there is more throughout the swamp but I don’t want to spend days or weeks getting rid of it. I stopped by Rhiannon’s again and showed her the card. I explained I could check the book back out and we could spend more time. She was very excited and wanted to spend a few days together and put together a duet. We agreed to meet in a few days for a lengthy collaboration. Thinking back on the last night and this I had to tell Dram some of what happened and see if he thought she was interested in me. He seemed to think so but perhaps it’s just the joy of music and arts?
Dram now thinks we should check the message board more often. I’m not one for such immediate adventures but this one has turned out to be very good in the end. I will need to get some good wine. I also have some ideas for a duet I hope to speak to her on I think it can be quite the grand tale.
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