The Story of Daire Draven's Death
Daire Draven was serving on the Frontier under General Kelithose when he got the news of his wife Aithne's pregnancy. He was granted leave immediately and headed home, but a few months later, he was called up again in support of troops fighting against the armies of Shuzug the Flatulent, an Orc Rebellion that had crossed The Line and was threatening Illastar.
In his time on the frontier, Draven heard about strange events involving unusual and unknown monsters, as was common for soldiers stationed there. But being a druid, he was curious about these stories and wondered if the creatures in them might actually exist. He talked with various fellow soldiers, and in the end he found two who would accompany him: the ranger Aywin Miramaris, a renowned veteran archer native to the Western Lands; and Illitran Triscaryn, a young combat sorcerer born in Timarion whose greatest claim to fame was that he had won an underwater swimming champion by holding his breath on the bottom of the Alanea River for over ten minutes. Discussing their options, the three agreed that the next time they had a few days’ leave, they would look into some of the stories.
The stories they had heard included mention of strange creatures who were attacking the fey, so the trio set out to a distant stretch of woods where there was purportedly a faerie glen, to seek further information and counsel from them. After several days uneventful travel, they arrived at the site and discovered that the faerie glen had been destroyed - in fact, much of the glen had been uprooted and then burned. Even more disturbing, in the woods nearby they found the bodies of fey that appeared to have been tortured.
The ranger and druid were skilled in woodcraft and so they set immediately to search for those who had caused the atrocity. They searched for three days, losing the trail and then picking it up again. Their quarry was very crafty - they had to use almost every trick they knew to find the tracks again. The pursued brushed away tracks, used streams to lose the scent and track, and even climbed into trees and jumped between them.
At the end of the third day, the trio came across a strange camp at the edge of a stand of woods. Around two dozen people were in the camp, mostly humans and elves and half elves but also some very strange humanoids - several that looked like crosses between elves and orcs, and another that looked like a cross between a dwarf and an orc. All of those in the camp seemed to be in a daze, wandering around aimlessly, and did not respond to attempts to get their attention or communicate, nor did they respond to any of the ranger’s or druid’s healing magic.
Frustrated by their failure, the trio decided they should return and get some help to deal with these poor souls. As they turned to leave the camp, they were confronted by a group of reptilian-looking creatures who had appeared as if from nowhere. There were 2 large (9 foot tall) snakes that stood on their tails and had human arms holding scimitars. Another half dozen looked like humans but with snake heads, all with scimitars and some with bows as well. These were surrounded by another dozen creatures who looked like humans with reptilian features. To either side were the strangest creatures of all - two great beasts who looked much like centaurs except they had bull’s heads instead of human ones, along with two pairs of arms coming from their torsos.
As the elves watched, the reptilian-featured humans all changed form into large snakes, some into vipers and others into constrictors. Knowing they were outnumbered and it would be foolish to run, the trio lined themselves up for battle. The strange creatures immediately set on the trio, who rapidly found themselves in trouble. The large snakes split up and headed for the two casters, with the vipers curling around their arms and the constrictors around their bodies. Both the druid and the sorcerer found themselves quickly bitten numerous times and having their breath squeezed out of them. The sorcerer Triscaryn, however, was wearing a periapt of proof against poison - a family heirloom - and so while the viper venom quickly downed his druid comrade, the sorcerer was able to stay alive. He quickly realized he should respond as the druid did, twitching and bending and screaming in pain as he saw Draven do from the bites he received, and when he fell to the ground, holding his breath to try and fake his enemies into thinking he was dead. And so Illitran Triscaryn watched the rest of the short battle through slitted eyes.
The remaining creatures swamped the ranger, and while he fought valiantly, there were far too many of them, and they clearly knew how to use tactics. The mino-centaurs swung huge battle axes that did great damage to the veteran ranger, and then the snake headed creatures let loose from their bows in volley after volley that pierced the ranger and quickly brought him down. The last thing the sorcerer saw before he passed out was one of the large snakes with human arms step forward and behead the ranger.
When Illitran Triscaryn woke, he found the camp had been abandoned. The dazed folk that had been there were gone, and all their camp goods taken with them. The head of Aywin Miramaris lay on the ground next to his body, which had been hacked to bits. And there was no sign of Daire Draven, though it looked as though perhaps his body had been dragged away. unfortunately, the sorcerer did not have the skills his now lost friends had. He tried several times to try and follow what he thought were tracks, but each petered out within a few hundred yards. Tired, wounded and scared, Triscaryn set out to make his way back to the army’s camp alone. Though it took him many days and he nearly died from starvation and encounters with orcs, he finally stumbled into the camp.
The look on General Kelithose’s face when he heard his brother-in-law was dead chilled all those around him. He immediately ordered troops to start hunting for the strange creatures, and to visit the site of the battle and the fey massacre as well. Unfortunately by the time he returned to the site with other soldiers, almost any trace of the camp and the battle were gone. The body and head of the ranger had been dragged into the woods and feasted upon by animals.
The army continued to search for Daire Draven for weeks, but found no trace except for a small pendant that Aithne had made for Draven for their wedding. That was found many miles from the site of the strange camp, along a line headed straight for the mountains in the far distance.
It took an order from the King to get Kelithose to stop and regroup his forces to face the orcs the army was there to fight, and even then Kelithose assigned some troops to continue the search for the rest of the campaign.
The strange snake-like creatures and the mino-centaurs had never been seen before, and they have only been sighted a few times since that first encounter, all in or near the mountains. One was an attack on an orc village where they killed the males, tied up the females, and took the children away. Another was a sighting by a cavalry patrol who gave chase but lost the creatures in a dense stand of woods, and yet another sighting was by infantry who were unable to keep up the pursuit. In each case, troops were called out to search the areas extensively - even after Kelithose was no longer the General for the frontier. It has been decades since the strange creatures were sighted, but their description and the story of the death of Daire Draven is told to every elven soldier stationed in the Frontier to this day.
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