As is probably well known by now, there was a problem on the way to Whitestaff. I was traveling with Glenn, Mirage, and Peppercorn, and we stopped by the side of the road to rest for an evening. Mirage went to bathe, and then we heard a scream. Glenn went chasing off after Mirage, and Peppercorn and I began following Glenn.
The next few days were a blur of burning legs and frequent stops at fey trees.
Many people from the adventuring community answered the call to save Mirage,
including Caliphar’s Belmont tribe. When we arrived in Whitestaff, though,
not many other adventurers had gotten there yet, and we couldn’t find the
trail that Mirage’s captor had left. We decided we would be best off waiting
until more trackers arrived in town, and so in the meantime we all made our
introductions. That, however, did not last long, for a death knight and his
zombie minions came into town, and we had to be ready to fight quickly.
Ramsus, a member of the Belmont tribe, was the most powerful fighter we had,
being capable of swinging for six dagger blows of magic damage. Ramsus, Glenn,
and I acted as the fighters and tore through undead from the front, while Caliphar
and his tribe-mate Andris did their thing and attacked the undead from behind.
We also had Loral, Nikki, Peppercorn, and Beryl with us, and there may have
been others I do not recall now. It was a very hard fight, and I spent a good
portion of it on the ground, as I had gotten taken out from behind by the death
knight himself. I only managed to get up because I had a contingency life on
me, and that allowed me to save myself, and then I got everyone else up. There
were quite a few people down, but once we were up and organized we knew what
we had to do. I called Glenn over and we both went after the death knight together.
It was certainly very strong, but eventually the two of us together were able
to overcome it.
While we continued to wait for adventurers to arrive in town, a man named Papaya
Effendi came into town. Now, I had heard of Papaya Effendi before, but no description
can quite do him justice. He considers himself to be the embodiment of all that
is great upon Tyrra, and is very fond of talking of himself in the third person.
Every word that issued from his mouth seemed to be full of bluster, and he did
not seem to think there was anything strange about his own behavior. I guess
some people are just eccentric. At any rate, Papaya offered a reward to anyone
who could gather certain items for him that he had made a list of, and for one
reason or another he gave me the list. To the best of my knowledge, the items
still have not been gathered, so if anyone wants a listing, they should contact
me and I will send them one. Or perhaps I will simply post the list in the Great
Library of Navin Weuntzel. We shall see.
At any rate, finally some more people arrived in town, and we had enough trackers
to follow the trail of whoever had kidnapped Mirage. We had a clear plan for
doing so, too. Our intention was to grab Mirage and then run. We had no intention
of staying to fight whatever it was that took Mirage, because we weren’t
sure we could handle it. It took us roughly fifteen minutes of traveling through
the woods, and then we came out near a stream. We crested a hill, and on the
other side we saw Mirage with some type of snake scavenger. The scavenger informed
us that he had not kidnapped Mirage, but instead he had rescued her after her
real captor, a creature called Adder, dropped her by the side of the trail.
Apparently Adder had taken a vial of Mirage’s blood and planned to use
it in some ritual, but I don’t know many details about that.
Unfortunately, Mirage herself was pretty badly beaten up and very shaken. We
checked to make sure she was okay, and we administered her antidotes just in
case she had been forget-it-welled. We brought her and the snake scavenger who
had found her back to town, and when we got there we discovered that the gathering
had already started.
It was sometime around then that a strange creature rifted into the tavern.
It wore a jester’s cap and held a cup in its hand, and it seemed to talk
to the cup a lot. It was quite obviously insane, and it derived pleasure from
driving other people insane. For instance, it enjoyed using fear effects upon
people, and anyone who looked into its eyes saw horrible visions which made
them fall to the floor in anguish. Even worse, every type of attack we tried
against it didn’t work. We tried everything from celestial damage to awaken
spells to banish spells, and every other thing we could think of, but no type
of sword or spell could affect it.
It even caused great fear for Ramsus Belmont at one point, and he went running
off into the woods. That made life extremely difficult, because he is skilled
in the woods and was hard to follow and find. Fortunately, we eventually did
manage to find him and awaken him. Even more fortunately, the creature finally
decided to leave on its own accord.
Now, what happened next convinced me that Whitestaff’s tavern is badly
in need of some type of professional that deals with bug infestations, and I
suggested as much to Sir Delwyn, a knight of Blackstone. You see, bees started
coming out of the ceiling and attacking people. The good news is that they were
only capable of swinging for one dagger blow of damage. The bad news is that
they could enslave you with their blows, which is most unusual, and I have never
seen before in any other lands I have been to. However, they were not especially
tough, and I found that even I could take them down with a couple of hits. Lord
Zug had no problem dealing with them, and we found that he was capable of taking
them out in one hit.
Luckily for us, the bee attack had revealed that the Hivemaster, a villain of
Blackstone, had a tunnel into the tavern that had been right below us the entire
time. The entire town jumped down into the tunnel, and we raided the Hivemaster’s
lair. Along with my old friend Fenrir, I guarded the back of the line. Unfortunately,
a massive scorpion attacked the back of the line, and we couldn’t get any
support from the front of the line, because they had problems of their own.
I don’t recall exactly how we took it down, but I think it had a lot to
do with one person drawing it off so that other people could attack it in the
back. I know that Fenrir himself did an excellent job of dealing it a lot of
damage, and I believe I saw Nikki shoot it a lot with her bow. She is becoming
quite the archer.
When we finally took the scorpion down, we managed to meet up with the rest
of the line. It turned out that they had managed to defeat the Hivemaster himself,
and no one is quite sure at present whether the Hivemaster is really gone or
not. I would guess that he is not, because big villains like that just don’t
go away so easily.
When we got back in town, there wasn’t much going on. Glenn went on a mission
with Sir Delwyn, Guildmaster Darius, Sathen, and Legion to check out a crypt
or something like that. I didn’t know much about it, and no one was telling
me much, and so I don’t really have much to report.
I mostly spent the next few hours in the tavern, talking with Fenrir and fighting
off the occasional undead attack. We were attacked by strange mechanical clockwork
beasts at one point, but I do not know much about them. I do know that they
would begin by swinging one dagger blow, then their next swing would be for
two, and then three, and so on. Many adventurers in town, including Caliphar
and myself, began imitating the beasts, and gradually increasing our swings
as we attacked. The town was never in any real danger from the clockwork machines.
Also, the town received a visit from a Lord Rawling. He apparently claimed to
be the Baron of one of the Baronies of Blackstone, and he was planning on making
it independent. He has on his side a dragon mage and a beholder, and so we knew
he had made some powerful allies. I believe a state of war was declared between
Rawling’s land of Saxony and the rest of the Duchy of Blackstone.
Finally, it was time to go to bed, and I went back to my cabin with Nikki, Beryl,
and Anya. Caliphar and the Belmont tribe were nice enough to provide us escort.
I had settled in and was just about to go to sleep when we heard someone come
running up to the door. Someone yelled my name and I was up and ready to fight
in about ten seconds. It turned out, though, that it was Caliphar who had run
up to the door, along with John Little and some other people who were still
awake.
Quickly, they explained to me that there was an emergency situation because
Glenn’s group had been all turned into undead when they got back from their
trip to the crypt. Apparently wraiths had done this to them. I quickly began
strapping on my equipment to get ready to go, and Nikki asked me if I wanted
her to come as well.
I recalled back to a time when I was a young adventurer, and had been faced
with much the same situation. At that time, I was on the Court of the Silvermyst
in Avendale, and there were many dangerous beings on the field. Adventurers
came to our cabin to wake up my Baroness, and I asked her if I should come too.
She told me that she appreciated my enthusiasm, but that I probably wasn’t
ready yet. I didn’t see it at the time, but there was much wisdom in her
words.
And so, essentially, what I told Nikki is that if things got really heinous,
she would probably be safer behind a ward. I then finished strapping my equipment
on and I ran out to join John Little and company. We found Legion first, because
he glows blue, and so we downed him without too much trouble. I found that when
I gave him a life spell, he returned to normal.
Next, we all moved to the tavern, where we were attacked by Sir Delwyn, Glenn,
Sathen, and a death knight (along with several of his minions) that was with
them. Apparently Darius had escaped and never been turned into a wraith, so
that was useful, especially since he would have been hard to take down.
I was fighting on one flank of the battle, and along with Pyroxia, I concentrated
on taking down Sir Delwyn. We finally managed to do so, and Pyroxia administered
a life spell to him while I held off an attack by John Little, who had been
turned into a wraith. I finally managed to take him down, but at that point
I looked at Pyroxia and we both said, “We’re losing more people than
we’re getting back.”
At about that point, a wave of wraiths who had formerly been townspeople swept
into us. Even some of the Belmonts, such as Caliphar and Ramsus, had been transformed
into wraiths. I ended up squaring off with Ramsus one on one, and I took him
down and gave him a life spell. Unfortunately, by that point Pyroxia was a wraith,
and I had to take her down as well and give her a life spell. I was running
through life spells quickly.
Finally, though, the onslaught ended. Somehow we managed to break the tide.
To the best of my knowledge, though, the only adventurers that were not turned
into undead at some point during the battle were Loral and myself. Loral obviously
couldn’t have been defeated by a bunch of wraiths because she is a great
hero of Therendry. For myself, I was probably just lucky.
After the battle was over, I went back to bed and informed Glenn that he probably
should not go back to the tomb and get himself transformed into a wraith again,
or I would get upset.
The next morning I awoke relatively early, and there were not many people in
the tavern when I got there. In fact, I think it was only Mirage, Beryl, Germage
the barbarian, and myself. Beryl and Germage wandered off into the woods while
I sat and talked with Mirage. Unfortunately, not long afterwards Beryl came
back in screaming for help. I went outside and discovered that a chaos bear
had taken down Germage and was in the process of eating him. I tried throwing
sleep spells and paralyze spells at it, but they seemed to do no good. I thought
that death might work, and so I tried that. It resisted it, and then I knew
I was getting somewhere. After several more deaths from me and a couple from
Beryl, the bear finally died and we were able to cut Germage out of it. I gave
him a life spell and we found that there was some magical property to the bearskin.
Since Germage had been ingested by the bear, I let him keep its skin as a reminder.
I never found out what the magic of the skin did, though.
Not much happened that morning until a bard, whose name I cannot recall, showed
up in town to regale us with stories. The first tale he told was the tale of
a necromancer. I think Beryl may have notes on the entire story, but I will
recount what I remember of it here. The necromancer, in life, was a servant
of chaos and evil, and made many deals with them. When he died, he did not wish
for his time on Tyrra to end, and so his spirit went to Lady Chaos and tried
to get her to let him carry on, but she refused him. He whined a lot, and then
his spirit went to Lord Evil, and tried to get him to grant a second life, but
Lord Evil refused as well.
The necromancer then wound up in the Graveyard of the Four Winds, but he had
one trick left. He called upon the keeper of the graveyard itself, and the keeper
answered him. The doomed necromancer challenged the keeper to a trick. He pulled
out a deck of playing cards and told the keeper that he would pull the joker
from within it. He did manage to do so, but the keeper knew that he had cheated.
You see, he had put the joker up his sleeve, and taken another card out of the
deck. No one is sure which card was taken out, but it was believed to be the
queen of diamonds or the jack of spades.
For his treachery, the keeper punished him. He allowed the necromancer to walk
upon Tyrra for only one hour a year, and all he was allowed to do it go to living
people and try to get them to pick from his deck of chance. It is said that
some good things can come from the deck of chance, and some bad things can come
from the deck of chance.
Personally, I don’t deal with decks of fate, because the bad things in
the deck always outweigh the good things. The good things always go away after
five days, and the bad things tend to be things like deaths that stay with you
forever. I highly recommend against playing with said decks.
At any rate, the second story the bard told was a tragic story of a mage who
loved research. You see, this mage was doing research on golems, and he considered
his research so important that he needed to make sure he finished it during
his lifetime. Accordingly, when he was coming near that age when people die,
he decided to do a ritual to change his fate. The ritual was supposed to preserve
him for long enough to finish his research. However, during the ritual, a spider
which was in the circle came over and bit him on the hand, backlashing the ritual.
The ritual ended up killing him, and trapped his spirit within what remained
of his body. To this day, his spirit remains trapped within his skull, which
is all that remains of his body, deep within the ruins of what was once his
tower. This lies approximately twenty miles from Whitestaff, and so I imagine
that at future gatherings adventurers will want to go there for two reasons.
First, they will hopefully want to free his spirit from its captivity. Second,
there is a great wealth of information on his scrolls if they still exist, and
they might reveal great magical knowledge to us.
After that, the bard was finished with his performance, and so he left town,
and a few minutes later the tavern was assaulted by a strange creation. It was
a mobile fortress, with walls and ballistae and everything. It was rather strong,
and its weapons fired so that even your shield could not protect you from them.
Fortunately, a good part of the town was there, and so we managed to wear down
the fortress’s defenses to the point where it collapsed. I don’t know
if the fortress was related to the Saxon rebellion or not, but it may well have
been.
It wasn’t too long afterwards that I met a gypsy named Nikolai. He was
an interesting fellow, and seemed nice enough, and we were sitting talking about
cantrips in the tavern, when suddenly we both seemed to get very tired. Caliphar
walked in and sat down, and he seemed to get very tired as well. Loral noticed
what was going on, and wisely surmising that this was probably not a natural
sleep, she ran to get help. After that, I was vaguely aware that people were
pushing at me and trying to get me to wake up, but I was too tired to care.
I think someone may have tried an awaken spell, but if they did, it didn’t
work. Apparently, we then disappeared, and when we re-awoke, the three of us
were on the plane of dream. Only, we weren’t the only ones there. Apparently
a similar effect had overtaken Germage, Legion, Dame Pai, Sir Delwyn, and Astute
the MWE.
On the plane of dream, a dream elemental explained to us that the jester creature
that had been in the tavern the night before was causing trouble on the plane
of dream, and so we had to go stop him. Apparently he was spreading some type
of void taint that was corrupting the plane.
The dream elemental sent us down a path, and when we got to the end of the path,
we came out into a clearing where we were attacked by tainted dream elementals.
They used mostly sleep effects on us, and they were relatively easy to beat.
The trick was to dodge the elemental sleep attacks they sued, and then close
in and beat them in hand-to-hand combat. I have to give some special praise
to Germage here, because for a barbarian fighter, he does an amazing job of
dodging attacks. I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone better at getting
out of the way of thrown attacks.
Every time we killed a dream elemental, they dropped a piece of paper, and Dame
Pai and Astute worked on putting the pieces of paper together while the rest
of us concentrated on killing the dream elementals. After a while, we decided
awaken spells were not cost efficient and so we shook people awake instead.
Sir Delwyn in particular did a good job of guarding me while I was shaking people
awake. However, there was one point where Germage tried to shake Caliphar awake,
but didn’t realize Caliphar was bleeding out. Caliphar ended up dying and
I had to life him, but no permanent harm was done.
We eventually managed to get all the pieces together, and then holes started
appearing in the buildings that were all around us. I didn’t actually go
in any of the holes, though, so I don’t know what was inside them. I decided
that standing outside and guarding with Caliphar and Nikolai was likely a better
idea, in case anything bad happened inside the buildings.
However, nothing bad did happen, and eventually Dame Pai managed to collect
a lot of scrolls, although I don’t know exactly what they were. However,
somehow they managed to open up a path that brought us to a new building we
hadn’t seen before. In this building there was a doorway, and beyond the
doorway there was pure void. Our of the void came a dream elemental that looked
like it had been badly tainted with void, and it attacked us, swinging for ten
dagger blows of void damage that could pierce through our shields. Several of
us, such as myself and Caliphar, decided to drop our shields and go after the
creature with only our swords instead.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Caliphar unleashed a flame bolt at the
void creature, and it was a beautiful shot, sailing right toward the void creature.
Unfortunately, the void creature dodged out of the way, and the flame bolt thudded
off my chest. Fortunately, I had a shield magic up, and so disaster was averted.
I teased Caliphar about it mercilessly afterwards, though.
At any rate, we weren’t making much progress against the void creature.
We hit it a lot, but it was capable of healing itself, and so we weren’t
knocking it down much. Then, though, it decided that it wanted the papers that
Dame Pai had. That was its mistake. It ran after Dame Pai, and Dame Pai ran
away. That allowed Caliphar and I to get behind it and pound it mercilessly.
Admittedly, though, Caliphar hitting something from behind is more effective
than me doing the same.
Unfortunately, it managed to take down Dame Pai and grab the papers, and then
it ran back towards the entrance to the void. Several of us hit it with disarms
to get back the papers, and we managed to get them handed off and I ran away
with them. Finally, as the void creature turned to give chase, we managed to
beat it into submission. It disappeared and we were brought back down the path
to the dream plane. The dream elemental thanked us for our help and sent us
back to Tyrra, where we met up with our friends.
It turned out that while we were gone, war had officially been declared between
Blackstone and Saxony. Lord Rawling’s troops were attacking, and so everyone
was moving towards the Healer’s Guild to set up a defense. Lord Zug ordered
Fenrir and I to accompany him, and so we followed Lord Zug down the trail to
the Guild.
When we got there, we had to hold off a few Saxon soldiers, but overall things
weren’t too heinous. These particular Saxon soldiers could only swing their
blades normally, and normal soldiers have no chance against adventurers. We
defeated them handily.
While we were standing around down by the Guilds after the Saxons were beaten,
I challenged Mario to a sparring match, because I had heard he was very good.
And everything that I had heard was true. We were probably about evenly matched,
and I found that fighting him was very different from fighting Lord Zug. While
Lord Zug’s movements are slow and deliberate, Mario was lightning-quick
and aggressive. Both are very effective fighting styles, and I would be happy
to have either of them next to me on a line any day of the week.
We also used the time down by the Guilds to get some formal magics cast. Lady
Kes got a new item using components generously given by her husband Lord Zug,
Tayaana got a spirit forge, and I believe Guildmaster Darius got some formals
cast on him as well. Overall, it was one of the biggest formal-casting fests
I have ever seen.
While Lord Zug and I were walking back up to the tavern with Rastlin, a powerful
mage of town, after the formals were complete, we saw Sathen get taken down
on the path in front of us by Adder. I said to Lord Zug, “I have your back,”
and we got ready to fight.
Adder began with two spell-strike death blows right into Lord Zug, but I lifed
Lord Zug and brought him back up to full body. I could see fear beginning to
develop in Adder’s eyes. It was a pitched battle, but there was simply
no way Adder could get around the efficiency of Lord Zug’s attacks backed
up with my healing. Adder eventually fell to the ground, and we stabilized and
imprisoned him, as well as giving Sathen a life spell.
We were bringing Adder back into town when a dirty snake named Racer ran up
and dispelled the imprison. Adder ran off into the woods, and we had to go chase
after him again. Someone, I believe Rastlin, found him lying in the woods, and
Lord Zug went up to him to investigate. Adder popped up and attacked Lord Zug,
but Lord Zug beat him down yet again. We again imprisoned him and moved him
towards the tavern.
However, this time someone else dispelled the imprison, and Adder ran inside
the tavern, generally causing terror. It didn’t help that the jester creature
was in the tavern again at the same time. Lord Zug, though, again managed to
take Adder down, and Fenrir and I investigated who could have dispelled the
imprison. At this point, no suspects have been taken into custody.
Lord Zug moved Adder to a warded cabin to imprison him there, and as far as
I know Sir Delwyn moved Adder back to prison after the gathering ended.
Meanwhile, in the tavern, the jester thing was around, so I ducked off in a
corner to talk with Peppercorn while I ate my food. Caliphar, along with many
others, eventually managed to defeat the jester creature, realizing that it
had to be hit with a number of spells and effects in sequence in order to defeat
it. I believe they were a greater bless, a cause serious damage gas poison,
a turn undead spell, and a silver weapon. I could be wrong, though, as I did
not take part in most of it.
Sometime while I was eating, I was called away to guard a ritual that was being
done by Sir Delwyn and some others. I don’t know what it was for, but Fenrir,
John Little, Ramsus, and I faithfully guarded it.
Actually, let me pause here to say a little about the Belmonts, and Ramsus in
specific. I kind of think of the Belmonts in the same way I think of Caliphar.
The Belmonts are the people you call when you need competent people who will
act intelligently and get the job done. Caliphar has proven for years that he
is capable of doing this, and Andris seems to be following in Caliphar’s
footsteps. Loral herself is already becoming a hero of Evendarr, and Ramsus
is a very skilled fighter, not in how hard he can swing, but in how he fights.
Since Ramsus was the Belmont I got to know the best this weekend, I want to
talk a bit about him. I consider Ramsus a model for how other adventurers should
be. He is quiet, and listens to the information he needs to know. He is always
alert and observant, and he doesn’t take on fights he doesn’t need
to. He is fiercely loyal to his friends, and will go to almost any lengths to
protect them. In short, if I had to design the perfect adventurer, most of his
qualities would be qualities Ramsus already has.
At any rate, someone came over to me a little while after the ritual had completed
and told me that Mirage was unhappy, so Fenrir and I went to talk to her. She
told us that Peppercorn was missing, and Fenrir and I promised to go find her.
We left her with John Little, and told them not to leave the tavern area.
Well, I can assure you that the woods that night were eerie. There were rumors
of undead around, and we weren’t sure if Adder’s lackeys were still
in the woods somewhere. We went down to check Peppercorn’s cabin and the
Healer’s Guild, but didn’t find her in either place.
We doubled back to the tavern, almost getting jumped several times in the process,
and when we got back to the tavern Mirage and John were gone. I was going to
wait for them to come back so I didn’t put any more lives in danger, but
Tayaana, a friend of Mirage’s, convinced me that I should go look for her.
Consequently, I took Fenrir and Ramsus with me, and the three of us went down
to check Mirage’s cabin and the Healer’s Guild. We ran into Sir Delwyn
down at the Healer’s Guild, and he told us that Mirage had just safely
arrived back at the tavern.
We moved back toward the tavern, but as we got close, Ramsus put out his hand
to tell us to stop moving. I looked, and in the distance you could clearly see
movement. We decided to hide off in the woods, and then as soon as the coast
was clear, we made a break for the tavern.
Waiting for us at the tavern were Squire Parthynia, Mario, and the assembled
forces of the town. We quickly fought off the creatures that were attacking
us, which I believe were working for Lord Rawling, and the town was safe again.
Or so I thought.
Squire Parthynia asked me where Sir Delwyn and Pyroxia were, and I told her
we had just seen them down at the Healer’s Guild. She insisted that we
get a group together to find them, and so we split the town into three parts.
One group remained at the tavern. One group, led by Squire Parthynia, took the
woodland trail down to the Healer’s Guild. The final group, led by me,
took the road down to the Healer’s Guild.
Well, remember how I said before that there were rumors of big undead around?
As we walked down the road, three vampires came up behind us and attacked. They
downed John Little quickly, but the rest of us managed to stay up. I darted
off into the woods, intending to put my meager stealth skills to whatever use
I could.
I jumped out at one of the vampires, and managed to get it to run away. It seemed
like they could not cast while they were being hit, which was strange for undead.
Someone picked John Little up, and suddenly I realized that the battle had been
joined. Both Squire Parthynia’s group and Sir Delwyn’s group had come
to help us fight off the vampires, and I appreciated the help. With all three
groups there, they couldn’t do much against us, and so they eventually
just rifted out. I don’t know if we managed to take any of the three of
them down, but I do know we hurt them pretty bad. Without stakes of woe, though,
it probably didn’t matter anyway.
We next moved to secure the Healer’s Guild, and while there we were attacked
by a large group of undead under the command of the death knight who had taken
Glenn and company and transformed them into wraiths the night before. Well,
this time he tried again, but this there was a factor he hadn’t anticipated:
Lord Zug. With Lord Zug on the field, and my healing backing him up, we were
able to deal with things much easier than we had been able to the previous night.
There were still many townspeople who were transformed into wraiths, including
Fenrir, but we dealt with the undead efficiently and eventually even managed
to take down the largest undead, which had a slay that could do three hundred
dagger blows.
Victorious in that fight, we returned to the tavern, and not much went on for
some time. However, one event did occur which must be mentioned here. Astute
told me that I had to mention him in this journal, and so I am mentioning the
brave and wonderful Astute here.
I think that about brings me to the final events of the evening, and that would
be a raid upon Lord Rawling’s camp. With the help of a local wild elf tribe
contacted by Caliphar, we brought the entire town to raid the camp. It was tougher
than we expected it to be, though. Lord Rawling had both his dragon mage and
his beholder with him. Glenn and I fought Lord Rawling and his dragon mage,
while Lord Zug took on the beholder.
While I was not present for Lord Zug’s fight with the beholder, I was told
that he destroyed it in a most impressive manner. Meanwhile, Glenn and I were
using a strange strategy for dealing with the dragon mage. For some reason,
I was fighting and he was backpacking me. Usually we do it the other way around.
Fortunately, though, we managed to do enough damage to force both the dragon
mage and Lord Rawling to rift out.
Outside, Lord Rawling re-appeared and killed both Lord Zug and I with instant
death gas poison. Fortunately, my contingency life activated and I got right
back up. I then hit Lord Zug with a life spell, and together we went after the
dragon mage. We downed him, but Lord Rawling ran away.
I sprinted after Lord Rawling, and Lord Zug caught up to me. Together with a
couple other people I do not recall, we took down Lord Rawling and he went to
resurrect somewhere.
I do not think that Blackstone is yet to be considered safe after that gathering,
but with Lord Rawling on the run and Adder captured, it seems like it must be
at least a bit safer. And that, to me, means that our efforts were a success.
Scribed by Seronia on the 28th day of October in the year 603.