As I look back through my papers I see now that it has been almost eight months exactly since I last wrote one of these journals. Things have changed greatly for me over the past year. I have become a squire to His Grace Duke Blackstone. I have traveled Evendarr from the City of Ravenholt to the town of Hawthornes Bluff. I have even left Evendarr to spend several days in the bizarre lands of the Mydian Valley. I made many new friends, fought enemies both new and old, and started new habits just as I got away from some old ones. My habit of journal writing is one of the few old habits that has lapsed that I wish to pick up again.
I began this past gather in much the way as I have begun any other. Once again we were in the town of Firelight Cove. In some ways things were much as they have been for some time. Pirates were to be seen scurrying here and there. The sky remained blackened from the smoke pouring from Mt. Sarabor. Much of the populace was gone or fled, however, owing to the heavy fighting which led up to and followed the expedition to the Isle of Therenstone. There were however a number of signs of rebuilding and renewed activity.
This gathering was fairly well attended. Much of the locals from Blackstone and Therendry were in attendance, and several folks were visiting from out of town. Sir Milo, Dame Nightshine, Guildmistress Lilaiethyn, Vicount Telaris, Sir Taestiv and Lord Logenn were all visiting from parts north. Several new adventurers such as Kainan, Jonathan Foxx and Nius were back, and from the south I saw that Meloria Silverlead had traveled to be here. I always prefer larger gatherings.
It did not take me very long to settle in this time. As chance would have it I knew that I would be leaving immediately following the end of activities the first night, and that I would not return until well into the evening Saturday night. As such I did not bring as much gear as I normal do, and I did not even bother to secure a bunk. I brought a small wooden box with me and I piled most of my junk into it and placed it in an out of the way corner of the tavern. Lord Zerr was kind enough to Mystic Lock it for me, and that served as me storage for the rest of the gathering.
Shortly after I had greeted everyone and looked over the newsletter I stepped outside to see what might be going on. I timed this just right, for no sooner had my eyes adjusted than I saw strange blue glowing lights appear on the pathway that led down towards the docks. There were a small number of people standing on the porch with me so we decided to follow these lights to see where they led.
The lights glowed with a pale cold blue intensity. They seemed to be designed to lead us to the docks area, so that is where we went. Once there we arrived in a large clear area that had a pale blue Circle of Power in its middle made from the same cold lights we had been following. Something stepped out of the circle and approached us and pretty soon a general melee erupted.
There were about six or seven of us, including myself and Viscount Telaris. From out of the circle, nearby shadows, and even the ground itself a number of cold icy undead creatures emerged and began attacking. I stood there for a moment trying to gauge our odds. Pretty soon one body hit the ground, and then another. My choice of action became immediately clear to me. I grit my teeth, pulled out my sword, and turned and ran back to the tavern as fast as I could. After I got about fifty feet I heard Telaris yell “Someone go get help!”
I burst through the door of the tavern and explained that we needed help down by the docks. I was trying not to sound hysterical or overly dramatic, but judging from the lackadaisical reaction I got I believe I might have understated things a bit. It was only when I started waving my hands and explaining that several people were already down that I managed to impress the urgency of the situation on some people.
Once I saw that people were on the way I ran back to the fight. The undead had begun to push everyone back up the path towards the tavern. But once reinforcements began showing up in our rear, our retreat ground to a halt and slowly reversed itself. Pretty soon we had managed to push the fight right back to the circle in the clearing.
The undead we were fighting were pretty tough. They could also jump in and out of the circle when they needed to. There was one on the field that was extremely strong. Nonetheless, with our far superior numbers we were for the most part in control of the field now. But the fight kept going and going without any seeming means to end it.
Eventually a new being showed up in the middle of the circle. He commanded all the other dead to kill themselves. That ended the fight in a hurry. This new creature gave us a little speech. He explained that he was the agent of a powerful evil being. He knew their were people there who were willing to cast necromancy when needed. He said that his master was interested in aiding us against Mclerius, or the Ice Jester as he called him. He said that at some point on Saturday afternoon his agent would appear in town to see if there was anyone of questionable morals who wish to make a deal to fight Mclerius. And at that point, the being rifted out.
Once we had gotten ourselves collected up and returned to the tavern I went looking for Althkaelis and Caliphar and a few others. One of the things that had been long planned for this particular evening was a trip to retrieve an artifact to use in our campaign against Gul. Rituals and High Horoscopes had been cast during previous gatherings, and all signed pointed to this night being the one and only night on which we could mount this attempt to retrieve the sword. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss the trip.
When I stepped into the tavern the opposite door opened and who should I see but His Grace Duke Blackstone himself. He started gathering up all the nobility and he directed me to go and fetch some of the ones who where not present. So off I went to get them.
I knew something odd was going on. The Duke was very terse and brusque. He was traveling without the normal retainers and guards he is typically seen with. Once he had gathered those of us he was interested in he set off to find a place to meet. He didn’t seem to have any particular place in mind and tried a few before settling on an unused and unheated hall. I thought this was all very odd, but was beginning to guess what this was all about.
The subject at hand was a trial. Baron Ruendil had brought charges of Mockery of a Noble against Althkaelis. Althkaelis had said some unkind things about Baron Ruendil in a private message archive that is used by myself and others to coordinate our efforts against the duchy’s enemies. Katherine, who was also a member of this message archive, decided to report this to Baron Ruendil. Katherine had a short time before left the service of Viscount Delwyn and joined Baron Ruendil’s court. She later decided to secretly allow Baron Ruendil access to this private message archive without letting anyone else know. Baron Ruendil did not like what he saw, and brought Althkaelis up on charges of Mockery. He asked the Duke to impose a sentence of one death on Althkaelis.
The trial was a fairly confusing affair for me. Evidence was cited, but no one actually brought the evidence with them to trial. Baron Ruendil was obviously prepared for this, but no one was appointed to speak for Althkaelis. Althkaelis was in the court of Viscount Delwyn, yet Delwyn was not going to be at the gathering until the next day. As far as I know he was not informed of the matter until well after it had already been decided. When it came time to consider the charge of Mockery of a Noble it appeared for a time that no one present even had a copy of current Evendarrian Law. Eventually Sir Roc Solud produced a copy of the law which he had conveniently thought to bring with him.
At one point myself, Baron Ruendil and Baron Cedric’s two captains were ordered to leave and to fetch Althkaelis and Katherine to testify. Once we were out of the room Baron Ruendil instructed me to go find Althkaelis and he would find Katherine himself. Finding Althkaelis was an extremely simple matter, since he was standing right outside the building. While the trial had been going on Xavier had arrived and announced that the moment had come to cast a gate to take us to where the artifact sword was sequestered.
The timing could not have been worse. Several of the people who were supposed to take part in the trip were taking part in the trial. Althkaelis was in fact the one being tried, and he was meant to play a large role in the trip to recover the sword. Xavier was clearly quite vexed about this, but there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Katherine was brought in to testify, and so was Althkaelis. The charges were discussed and debated among the various people in attendance. All told the entire trial lasted a bit longer than an hour, but given how anxious we all were to see it end it appeared to go on forever.
Althkaelis was found guilty of Mockery. The Duke chose not to impose a sentence of death as Baron Ruendil asked, and instead fined Althkaelis one hundred gold pieces. When the trial concluded Althkaelis and several other participants quickly left and joined up with Xavier for the trip. I had been intending to go as well, but the Duke required my presence to guard him on his way back to his encampment. When I returned from that duty I found that I missed the trip to recover the sword.
I was upset at having missed the trip. This had been something that had been planned for a considerable amount of time. But at the same time I knew that the group that went were more than capable of achieving success without my help. So I contented myself with that knowledge and took off for the woods.
As it turned out, most of the people who I socialize with were on that trip, so I figured now would be a good time to take a look around town and the surrounding area. It did not take me long to turn up an old lady sitting beside the road with a parcel of goods at her feet.
I greeted her and she explained that she was selling some items in order to make enough money to open a tea shop in town. I asked to see her goods and she showed them to me. It was an odd assortment of potions and scrolls and such, and a single sheet of paper elaborately decorated with some drawings and writings. I told her that I would purchase the entire lot from her for around ten gold pieces or so.
It was a bit more than what it was all worth, but I figured the money would do her more good than me. Firelight Cove needs a tea shop more than I need ten gold. So if you run across a shop in town called “Tea and Crumpets”, just think of it as part of my urban renewal efforts.
Also, to be perfectly frank, the only item that I was interested in was the piece of paper. I have no idea precisely what it is, but I had seen one of my friends with papers and scrolls that looked very similar. I was nearly certain this was something she had been looking for. When I returned to the tavern and showed it to her I found I was quite correct. I felt rather lucky that I was the first one to run across that old lady. Very few people in town would have recognized the sheet of paper for what it was.
I hung around for a bit and drank some coffee, but I still had a whole lot of nervous energy left over from the trial. So I decided to strike off again into the woods to see what I could find. I wandered down by the waterfront and didn’t see anything of any consequence. A short while later I heard some commotion and followed the sound to see what was going on.
I stumbled into the middle of a very strange and confusing fight. Khel and Kastirandrothono were fighting with a bunch of spiders. Sir Taestiv Chilox was also there with the other members of his Silverswords group, and there were a couple of others as well. The problem was that there was something there that was throwing poison based death as well as poison based enslavement.
I never got a good look at it. Someone told me it was an attercob. At any rate, the enslavements and death were making the fight horribly difficult. There were a couple of people that were enslaved who kept getting knocked down by people, healed by someone else, would start attacking again, get knocked down, and on and on and on. After seeing one guy who was healed for the third time and who once again started attacked people I waylayed the guy for all I was worth. Rather than wait for him to get healed yet again, I drug him off to the side.
I thought the fight was going pretty badly at this point. I knew without some enslavement antidotes we might never win. So I took off running for the tavern. I yelled at a bunch of people to go help the people fighting, and then I started hitting people up for enslavement antidotes. Hooch had a bunch handy, so I grabbed them and ran back.
I found the guy I had laid off to the side and fed him an antidote. Then I waded back into the battle pouring antidotes left and right. When someone told me they didn’t need one I explained they were either getting the potion bottle or the sword and to decide quickly. Everyone decided on the potion bottle.
The battle ended fairly soon after that. It took everyone a while to get collected back up, all the various people’s weapons and shields found and returned to them where they had gotten disarmed, and the last few people dosed with antidote. I thought we had done a pretty good job. Unfortunately that wasn’t entirely the case.
A short while later while in the tavern I heard someone mention that there had been a ressurection during the fight. When I asked who it was they pointed to the guy that I had waylaid and drug to the side. I asked him what happened. He said he had been enslaved, and that someone slugged him in the back of the head, and that it must have been hard enough to kill him because that was the last thing he remembered.
Crap. Well, guess who that was. I explained to him that I had been the one who had hit him on the back of the head. I apologized profusely, but what else could I do. The guy seemed to be seriously pissed about the affair, and I could hardly blame him. I was trying to think of some way to make it up to him, but he disappeared shortly after that and I didn’t see him again for the rest of the gathering.
From that point things began to wind down. The town got attacked by a couple of waves of sea trolls. They had some kind of seaweed golem with them which was pretty tough, but for the most part we handled them without too much trouble. I thought about leaving then, but I really wanted to wait until the group that had gone to retrieve the artifact sword returned first.
Late into the night they finally returned. As I suspected they were successful in retrieving the sword. Althkaelis was carrying it and he let everyone examine it. It possessed a number of truly bizarre powers as artifacts often do. I didn’t pay that close attention to them, though. I figured the odds of me ever using the sword were fairly slim.
Shortly after that I left town for my other trip. This makes a good place to end the story for now. Later on I’ll write of my return to town, and the events of the second night of the gathering.
For the better part of the day on Saturday I was away from Firelight Cove on a matter of business that could not be avoided. As such I missed a number of significant events and only learned of them in passing afterwards. I head that a great battle was held against Vhladic, and that he was slain with the sword that Caliphar has been carrying for so long. I also understand a trip was taken to battle some kind of extra-planular “outsiders” of some sort, and that Siranot acquired a rather stylish mask. He wore it for much of the rest of the evening.
A barbarian who wore clothes in the fashion of a dark elfs also visited town. This was something of a mystery. It took some time for people to get her to talk, and it turns out she was interested in learning about some events which took place in Ravernholt some time previously. Sadly, no one knew what she was looking for, even the folks that spend quite some time there.
There was also some brief mention of a small group of people going off to fight a group of fairly powerful undead. The thing I heard most about that trip was the obscene amounts of components that were found as treasure. The story I heard was that each person who attended got a share of a dozen components each. Why don’t these trips ever happen when I am around?
When my business was concluded I hurried back to town and arrived shortly after night fall. The very first people I ran into were Kainan, Foxx and Nius. This was fortunate, since just prior to leaving the previous evening I had loaned my magic sword to Kainan. I retrieved that from him and went into the tavern to check on my box of stuff. All was still in order.
When I stepped back outside I could hear some hollering coming from over in the area of the docks. I asked the guys on the porch what was going on and they said nearly everyone was down there fighting some undead. I trotted down there to see if there was anything I could do.
I arrived on the scene just as it looked like things were finishing up. Baron Cedric was ordering everyone to retreat and head back towards the tavern. There still appeared to be a small number of undead milling around the area harrying the group as they slowly left the field. Just as I got there Viscount Delwyn cast a Sanctuary spell on himself and returned to the field of battle. Presumably he was checking for stragglers or people who might have fallen.
Captains Lucian and Elintari both paused to wait on him, and that made Cedric come back to see what the holdup was. I stuck around to watch, but it turned out that things were truly over at that point. Viscount Delwyn returned shortly and we all left the field.
I wandered around trying to catch up with some people to talk to them and see what it was that I missed over the course of the day. I eventually found myself over by the guild building and I saw there was a fair number of people inside. I peeked my head in and learned that Khel had just ressurected. Further, several people claimed that they had seen Lord Zerr dissapate as well, but his spirit was not at the circle.
I waited about for a bit, but for whatever reason Zerr’s spirit was not forthcoming. Eventually I wandered off and spent some more time catching up with people. I let some of Zerr’s friends know that he probably ressurected, and from that point people took to periodically checking the earth circle.
About this time I ran into a Drider that was creeping about town. Several people had spotted him, but for the time being he was standing back and not attacking. I tried to get him to explain what he wanted. He said he was looking for Dark Elves, but would not explain why. There were none in town at the time and I said as much. I also explained that if he didn’t leave there might be trouble.
This led to the predictable sort of I’m not scared of you threats and such. I went and found Delwyn, Siranot and Cedric and explained there was a Drider creeping around town, but none of the three seemed all that alarmed by this. So I went back outside and tried to keep an eye on him. A few minutes later I got distracted and lost him and never saw him the rest of the night.
One of the oddest things I saw next was Katherine. She was sitting with Count Siranot and Baron Ruendil talking. As I think about it now, I don’t believe I saw her more than arm’s distance away from Ruendil the entire rest of the evening. But the odd thing was that she was sporting a pair of elf ears and she had flowers and such growing out of her hair. I assumed this must be some sort of transform, though I have no clue what was so special about sitting around in the tavern to make it go active.
A short time after this I saw that some extra-planular looking fellow was starting to gather some folks up. I suspected this was to be the thing that had been hinted about on the Fae Trees about Life and Death needing their champions to step forward. I wandered over to watch this and I end up getting taken along as well.
The whole scenario was rather complicated and it is beyond the scope of this journal to explain in detail. Some of the small points are still a little vague to me. The general gist of why Life and Death were both interested in an affair was that people from the Town of Ben Dahl were dying, but their spirits were not making their way over to the Graveyards and the far planes. We knew that a hive of Mind Flayers operated out of Ben Dahl. A group of Life’s Champions and Death’s Champions were put together to travel into mind of a person who had met his end in Ben Dahl and not crossed over. Once there we were to battle the manifestations of his fear and madness, and try to collect memory fragments that we could put together to hopefully learn what was going on there.
Got it? Are you straight on that? The two groups were composed of four champions. Myself and Baron Cedric accompanied each group in turn as they ventured into the mad mind of a dead man. The mindscape we traveled in looked eerily familiar, because it was constructed out of memories and images from our own thoughts. When we battled the manifestations of fear and madness they appeared to look just like our friends.
The fight itself was fairly simple and straightforward each time. I ended up not contributing much on either trip. The nature of the manifestations was such that they took the same amount of damage no matter how hard or skillfully you swung. So there was really no point in trying to get clever and sneak around them. The fight was just a stand up slugfest, and as such the people with the armor were the ones best suited for the front of the lines.
One of the odd things I did see was Adrafae tossing some damage and some healing composed out of elemental reason. I thought at first she must have manifested some sort of Transform. I soon came to learn it was only a case of her acute knowledge of the mind allowing her to manipulate the very fabric of the mindscape we were in to achieve those results.
Once both groups had ventured into the mind and retrieved the memory fragments we returned to one of the lighted cabins to sort through them and see if we could assemble them into some semblance of order. We had just begun the process when the doors flew open and His Majesty The King of All Space entered. He was accompanied by Chester Chitters, Lulu, Ferris and a couple of other folks. Unlike the last time I saw him when he was a short guy with long frizzy grey hair, he now took on the appearance of a man with an enormous multicolored T-shaped head.
The KOAS is for the most part of fairly ridiculous fellow, who in fond of foolishness and games. He was trying to get people to go with him to some kind of dance. I was really not in the mood for foolishness at the time, so I left the memory fragments with the others and grabbed my sword and took my leave.
I went and wandered about in the woods for a bit, but once again I didn’t manage to find anything of any real interest. On the way back into town I stopped in one more time to check the earth circle. When I stepped inside of it I felt the unmistakable eerie sensation that let me know that there was a spirit present. Lord Zerr’s spirit had finally shown up.
I briefly considered doing to ressurection myself since it was something I had never done before. But I immediately though better of it. That is the sort of thing that can lead to hard feelings. As it turned out almost as soon as I walked out the door I ran into both Juniper and Dame Nightshine who were on their way to check the circle themselves. I let them know Zerr was waiting and then I went inside to let some people know that Zerr was ressurecting.
Fifteen minutes latter Zerr was once more among the living. While he was getting his belongings and his act back together I walked out back behind the tavern and ran into Sir Taestiv and the Silverswords sitting around talking, They had been asking me earlier about who might be willing to do some trading with them, and I figured now might be a good time to do a little of that myself.
I spent the next couple of minutes gossiping and haggling with them. They had a number of things they were will to trade and trade for, and I managed to do a couple of small deals. I purchased a magical polearm that is nearly out of enchantment. I also picked up a nice longsword that a master smith had given the abilities of both a Mighty Slayer and a Deceitful Blade. I trade a small amount of gold and a couple of fresh components for these.
Once we had struck these deal I followed them over to their cabin where the items I purchased were stored. They were even nice enough to throw in an Iron Longsword. This was especially nice when I realized the sword was one of the last items that Action Jack had smithed before his retirement. That is a nice little keepsake.
I bid the Silverswords goodnight and started to make my way back to my cabin in a fairly roundabout way. I stepped a little ways off the path into the woods, and suddenly I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There was a strong clean smell in the air that you get right after a nearby lightning strike. I could even detect a low humming in the air.
I backed up the way I came and the sensation went away immediately. Since this clearly was something to do with lightning, I decided to leave this to the experts. I knew of two people in town with Lightning Transforms, and one was in his cabin only a short distance away. So I trotted back the way I came and knocked on his door.
Caliphar was inside talking to some people, and I explained I had something he needed to see. He never even asked me what it was, he just followed me over to the spot. Once we got there, we both got the same electric feeling I had gotten before. He confirmed for me that there was surely a strong source of elemental lightning nearby. I suggested we go find Siranot, the other Lightning Knight in town. Caliphar agreed and off we went.
We found Count Siranot in the tavern and sure enough he was definately interested in investigating the lightning. We went back to the area and started searching around and finally found what was surely a Lightning Elemental circling a tree and fiddling with it.
I stood back and left this elemental to the lightning guys. Even though the elemental didn’t look dangerous, I figured I would let them do their thing without me getting in the way. It isn’t very often that a guy gets a chance to interact with the element to which they have dedicated their spirit, so I let them have a little space. Caliphar and the Count approached the elemental and began to have a conversation.
Roughly a year ago during a gathering in Dalken in the Yule season some of the Fae enchanted one of the local trees. Elliot the Fae explained that the tree was decorated with various baubles and ornaments, and if you chose one of the ornaments and removed it the tree would reward you. Sadly, trees and fae both aren’t always precisely sure what normal people like in terms of a reward. So the rewards ranged from items to gold to components to spell both good and bad, and even went so far as to do some formal magic effects on some people. Most were nice. Some others weren’t.
The lightning elemental explained that the Lord of Lightning observed this, and decided that this would be a rather nice thing to do again this year. As such, he was in the process of preparing this tree so that in a months time it would produce ornaments and baubles that would give people lightning themed rewards.
Once the elemental came to realize he was speaking to the Siranot Degauss and Caliphar, he acted as if he was in the presence of royalty. I understand that Siranot has some serious prior history in serving Lightning, and this was quite well known to this elemental. He asked if they would care to endow the tree with any lighting of their own. Caliphar took the opportunity to consume a components and spend a number of minutes blasting the daylights out of the tree with bolts of lightning. This delighted the elemental to no end, and the tree seemed none the worse for wear because of it.
Before we left Siranot promised to return and speak with the elemental at the gatherings end. And at that we left. So if anyone is in Firelight Cove during the Yule season and you come across a decorated tree that makes your hair stand on end, be warned. Choosing an ornament will grant you a reward, but it will be a reward as defined by the elements of lightning.
Shortly after this I saw everyone getting their act together to head out. I asked what all the commotion was about, but no one really seemed to know other than the fact we were about ready to leave. I finally learned that a Ducal messenger or guard or soldier had arrived a short time earlier and was about to lead us to some cave infested with undead. That sounded simple enough.
This fight started out pretty much the way they all do. We arrived at a cave and sure enough it was crawling with undead. We had nearly thirty people with us at this point and so we just shoved our way in and started slugging it out. As we pushed them back a bit a ledge in the rear of the cave was revealed and we could see there was a circle of power on it.
There were only two small approaches that led up to the ledge. There was a fair amount of steam and smoke there at the back of the cave and it made it extremely difficult to see. From out of that mist a rather formidable looking undead stepped forth and I could tell right away this was going to be the tough one that was in charge.
I stepped back into the mist and tried to pretend I was part of the wall. When the tough guy eased past me I tip toed up onto the ledge to see if there was anything of interest up there. For the most part it was completely bare other than the circle of power, and there didn’t even seem to be anything in there. So I slipped back the way I came and rejoined the fight.
I could hear a lot of yelling and that let me know where the big guy was. Shortly thereafter the yelling stopped and I knew he had finally fallen. The rest of the undead were still coming at us from all over the place so I concentrated on them for a bit.
I heard my name being called, and I turned around to see Delwyn coming over to see me. He pointed over to where Ruendil and Katherine were at. He explained that when they killed the big guy Ruendil had taken something from the body. He asked me to keep an eye on Ruendil to make sure he didn’t do anything funny with it.
At a different time this sort of thing would have likely caused me a certain amount of anxiety. But instead I found the situation to be so absurd it was actually funny to me. Delwyn and Ruendil were clearly not on the best of terms at the moment and Delwyn was almost certainly still very angry over the affair with Althkaelis the previous evening. But I had my orders, so off I went to watch Ruendil.
Ruendil was carrying a book of some sort in one of his hands. It was tough to try to navigate my way through the undead while trying to keep one eye on Ruendil. Ruendil was having a similar problem trying to juggle a sword and a shield and a book while trying to keep from bumping into undead himself. Katherine was still right beside him at every step, and she was also strangely still transformed into some kind of Fae creature. It was equally odd seeing her trying to juggle a sword and shield and cast spells.
This little tableau went on for some time with the three of us pretending to not notice each other and all the while fighting undead. Finally Ruendil just gave up the pretense and angrily strode over to me. He said he had been told I had been instructed to spy on him by Delwyn, and that I might as well just take the darn book. He then went back into battle, pausing only to call over his shoulders for me to tell Delwyn he didn’t appreciate the lack of confidence he had in him.
Well, so much for being a super spy. If anything this just amused me even more. But then I realized that Ruendil had played a dirty rotten trick on me. Instead of my normal shield and sword I had decided to bring my two handed sword to this battle. Now that I had this book in my hand I found I couldn’t swing my sword at all and pretty soon I was scrambling to find some place to get away from all the undead.
The big undead guy kept showing back up on the field, and I finally saw that he kept reforming in the circle. Thinking that perhaps the solution to defeating him lie in the book I made my way over to where Zerr was standing. I gave the book to him and he and Cedric looked it over. He eventually cast a Lore cantrip on it, but all he found was that it was an earthen spellbook filled with a bunch of necromantic spells. It had been enchanted to be able to cast a few spells, and the magic item’s name was “Malice Blackstone’s (sp?) Spellbook”. So at least we knew who we were fighting.
Once we realized we had done as much as we could we began the process of retreating. There was the normal sort of difficulty you have trying to get everyone to leave at once but eventually we managed to get disengaged and back out of the cave. I’m not entirely sure what happened to the book, but I suspect we are going to end up running into Malice or Malus again at some point.
There remained only a single thing left to do for the evening. In earlier gatherings we had learned of the existence of a Light Elemental who took a special interest in Blackstone. The Light Over Blackstone had been captured and locked away in a special prison by one of the agents of Gul. Gul was an enormously powerful being of Time that threatens all of existence. Yes, one of those.
We had recently found a key which we could use to free this light elemental. But as you might imagine, it was going to be trickier than just opening a lock. We needed the help of another light elemental to travel to the prison, which had the appearance of a gravestone. Once there we needed to place the key within the lock, and music that had been obtained earlier in the gather needed to be sung by a group of people. While this was going on we would have to fight off the attacks of Gul’s minion, a creature known as The Last.
We all gathered up and made our way through the gate provided by the light elemental. We approached the gravestone, inserted the key, and the singers began singing. If I recall correctly the choir consisted of Kivuli, Lilaiethyn, Nightshine, Adrafae and perhaps some others. Once the music started The Last arrived and the battle was on.
We knew we could not defeat The Last completely. Our only task was to keep him from getting at the singers. Even though The Last was pretty darn powerful we just had way to many bodies between him and the singers. He was knocking us down pretty good, but there was always two other people to step up, and three other people to get the first guy back up.
The Last circled and circled but never got close to the singers. Finally the song ended and The Last retreated and did not return. Not knowing what else to do we just stood around waiting hoping that something positive would happen. After a short time a dim being of light approached.
This was the Light Over Blackstone. He was pitifully weak from his ordeal and long imprisonment, but he thanked us all for our work in freeing him. We all made our way back out the gate that we came in. Once back in Blackstone proper the Light Over Blackstone explained that at the coming of the day he would return to the Court of Radiance and take his place with the other elementals of light. When his strength had fully returned he may be able to aid us further in our fight against Gul and his minions.
This was pretty much where things ended for the night. There was a little bit of socializing afterwards in the tavern, but people started heading off the bed pretty quick. It wasn’t long before I was heading that way myself.
This ends my story of this gathering. Now that this is done I can begin my preparations in earnest for my trip in two weeks times to the southern frontier County of Greyhelm, where people from all over Evendarr and beyond are gathering to face Traegor the Draco-Liche. Hopefully I’ll survive the trip to write of that gathering as well.