As another gathering began, we once again found ourselves in the town of Firelight Cove. In my time adventuring and in my time as a squire to his Grace I have traveled far and wide in the Duchy of Blackstone. I have seen everything from the beautiful green field of Aberwynn to bright city of Braugh-Raor to the rustic mountain town of Haven and plenty in between. Yet when it comes time to adventure we always find ourselves in the cesspit of Firelight Cove. I suppose this makes sense in a way. The Duke doesn’t need our help where things are nice and pretty. The work that needs to be done is in the crime ridden pirate infested undead haunted dives like Firelight Cove.
But the town is certainly not without its amenities. The last few years of near constant adventuring here has caused a number of taverns and inns and such to spring up to cater to the needs of gold heavy and comfort seeking adventurers like myself. I got myself a room at my regular inn and made my way over to the tavern. It had been raining pretty steadily all day, though it was starting to taper off. Sadly, the first thing I discovered that once again we would be without a tavern cook for the weekend. I don’t know who has a shorter life expectancy in Firelight cove, your common goblin or a tavern cook.
I was surprised to see as many people in town for a gathering this late in the year. We had several guests from the north. Most of the adventuring towns north of Blackstone close for the winter season, so it isn’t too uncommon for bored adventurers to take a trip south. From Ravenholt I saw that Guildmistress Lilaiethyn was here once more, along with Viscount Telaris and Ambassador Rillien. From parts further south I saw that Dame Nightshine was here as well, as was Sir Milo. The nobility of Therendry was well represented with Count Siranot, Dame Parthynia and Baron Ruendil all in attendance. For Blackstone, both Baron Cedric and Viscount Delwyn were around.
I saw three newcomers that stuck out a bit. Two appeared to be barbarians and the third was a green skinned half orc. I went over and introduced myself and inquired as to their business in Blackstone. I was expecting the standard answer of looking for fame and adventure, but instead I got a long tale involving lost barbarian tribes and spirit totems and wars and tribal lands. Reynox, Odin and Nacht the orc had traveled from Ravenholt which was just coming out of a war with the barbarian tribes under Theodorik. These three had suffered quite a bit in the war and were traveling to Blackstone to see if they could find some land and recruits to help rebuild their barbarian tribe. I explained that I would bring their concerns to the Duke when I had a chance. I also explained the lay of the land and who to speak with in regards to Guild issues.
There was also a fair number to truly new adventurers in attendance. I spoke briefly with Travellar, Cory, Steve, Thorne and Akilla who were all extremely new to the profession. This was the first real gathering for several of them. It was really great seeing new folks coming out, but this also meant that I needed to pay a little more attention to people to see that no one got into serious trouble. I handed out several healing potions to this crowd in an attempt to make sure most everyone had a way to pick people up if they got dropped.
About the time I got through with all this we received our first undead visitors for the night. I was just your standard roving bands of skeletal bad guys. Everyone came out of the tavern and fought them in the field. The battle was not overly difficult and we took care of things without too much trouble. The fight did give me a chance to see some of the new folks in action. It also served to demonstrate that this was going to be a very muddy, slippery, messy weekend to be fighting.
Once this was over it was back to the dry tavern and back to socializing. It wasn’t too long though before a ducal soldier arrived and spoke to the nobles. Pretty soon we were once again taking the field. Everyone was told to line up and march out towards the edge of town. I could not find anyone who knew what was going on or where we were going. Just as we approached a large manor house I was at least told that we would be fighting shadows.
Everyone was ordered to enter the house and a large fight ensued. There were creepy shadowy creatures of darkness oozing out of every nook and cranny. It started off as a standard line fight but pretty soon dissolved into a formless melee. For the most part we didn’t have any trouble. The shadows were fairly tough but we had way more numbers than they did. I cast a light spell on a necklace and wore it about my neck, and that seemed to drive most of them off from me.
The fight dragged on and on. I got bored and when no shadow was looking I snuck into the back of the house to see if there was anything of importance or interest there. Way in a back closet up on a shelf I found a sizable box which turned out to contain a fair amount of treasure. I scooped it up and continued looking, but wasn’t able to find anything else of interest.
I crept back to the fight and found one of the nobles and explained that the box was all I could find. It got turned over to Akilla to hold since she was looking for something to do and the shadows were just a bit too tough for her to tangle with. We try to think for a bit if there was something we might be missing which would end the attack of the shadowy creatures, but eventually decided not and resigned ourselves to just keep fighting them until they were all gone.
About a little over a half hour of fighting the shadows stopped showing up. I suppose we either killed them all or convinced them to stop coming out of whatever hole they lived in. We marched back to town and back to the tavern. The ducal soldier returned and it was then that I learned that the manor house we were in belonged to one of the officials in town. As it turned out the box of treasure I had grabbed belonged to him.
Luckily my little incident of larceny wasn’t deemed to be too serious. In fact the town official had decided to reward us for our work with that very same box. I and some others were tasked with dividing up the treasure for everyone. It was all gold and silver and piles of normal equipment and supplies. It didn’t take too long to sort it all out.
Then I was told that there was a magic flame aura sword recovered as well. We decided to do the standard card draw for the item. Squire Juniper borrowed a deck of cards from Nacht and shuffled them. I called everyone over to draw cards. It didn’t end up taking very long at all. Elenril was about the sixth or seventh person in line. He stepped up and drew the ace of spades off the bottom of the deck, claimed his sword and walked off and that was that.
With that chore over I decided to spend a little time outside. It was still pretty damp and muddy but it looked like the rain was over for good. I walked down to the docks and scouted around a bit in the edge of the woods. After a little while I found myself over by a deserted looking ramshackle building near the edge of the woods. It was dark inside but I though I heard something scraping and snuffling. When I got near an open window I got a brief whiff of what smelt like blood.
This wasn’t anything I wanted to tackle alone. This is especially true since I knew the tavern was overflowing with bored people looking for something to do. I returned to the tavern and asked around to see if anyone was interested in investigating this with me. I ended up with convincing Sarin and Akilla and someone else who I’ve forgotten to follow me.
We returned to the house and entered it to see what we could find. Once we got some light inside we saw a scruffy looking wolf faced person in the back room rooting through a pile of bodies. When it saw us it ran up to attack. I backpedaled into one of the side rooms and hit it with a pin spell as it ran past me towards the others.
Once we got it pinned it was a fairly simple matter to beat the tar out of it. I then rushed in to check the bodies. Sadly the three of them were all quite permanently dead. They all had swords with them so I can only assume this was the scene of the sad end to an adventuring group.
I didn’t particularly want to leave them there to rot, though. I convinced everyone to grab up a body and follow me. I grabbed their swords and we hauled their carcasses to the nearest constabulary. Once there we were directed to take them to the town morgue. A short while later we had dropped off the bodies and were back in the tavern again.
When we got back I saw that the Sage of Lumm had arrived. He is often seen in Blackstone convincing people to play his games of trivia and knowledge. He rewards the winner well with a formal scroll of their own choosing. This time he was trying to get teams of two to compete in a contest involving knowledge of the founding of Evendarr.
I was asked a number of times to play, but I declined. I enjoy the games and like the competition, but I wanted to stay ready in case something came up. I didn’t want to start a game and get stuck in it and unable to get up and leave without causing a disruption. And as chance would have it I saw something else entering the tavern which interested me quite a bit more.
Marcus strode through the opposite door and found a seat in the tavern. Marcus is a person a great power and he has been of considerable help to us in past. I went over and sat down and had a short conversation with him. It seems he wasn’t here on any particularly important matter. We discussed the troubles facing the duchy and batted around a few ideas towards finding solutions to some of our problems. We didn’t speak very long but I managed to get a fair amount out of the conversation.
About this time a crowd of unruly and boisterous pirates came bustling in to the tavern. I grabbed my sword, but these guys didn’t seem to be looking for trouble. I saw they were wearing green sashes. The green sash pirates are fairly mercenary but not always up to no good. One of them seemed intent on convincing people to gamble with him to try to win some magic pouch. Another one was selling components, and yet a third was selling scrolls and potions. I wasn’t interested in gambling, but I did buy a pile of scrolls and a few components.
I noticed that Delwyn was acting a bit agitated and talking with Althkaelis. I went over to ask him what was up. He said that he had just received a Whispering Wind that informed him that the defense in Astragate had just fallen. The undead forces of Mclearus had held that town under siege for quite some time. Delwyn was trying to figure out some way to get to Astragate. I don’t believe he ever got there. We learned much later that the Blackstone forces had managed to withdraw from the town in good order so it wasn’t quite the disaster it could have been.
When this was all over I went outside for another walk. I prowled around some more looking for trouble but couldn’t find so much as a surly rat. I think all the rain and mud put a damper on the various monsters and bad guys as much as it did us. It was now getting very late so I headed back to the tavern one last time.
When I got back I was told a messenger wearing the kings colors had dropped off a package for me at my inn. I went over there to see what that was about. It turned out that it was a letter from Dame Miranda Silverwood. At one time she was in charge of the expedition to Greyhelm before being recalled to Evendarr City last year when she was replaced by Count Kelovar Wyndham. We had never met, so I could only guess what it was about.
The letter was fairly brief. Dame Miranda wrote that she had read my account of the recent battle in Greyhelm where the Draco Liche Traegor was destroyed. She said it made her homesick for the field and wished she could have been there herself. The package also included a number of scrolls which she wished me to have, as well as a number of components. I decided that I would spread these out among the folks who I had traveled with to Greyhelm. I thought it kind of ironic that writing about fighting a Draco Liche earned me more treasure than actually fighting one.
After I got the letter and scrolls and components safely stored away I returned to the tavern to see if anything else was going on. There weren’t many people around. I was quite surprised to discover at this point it was five in the morning. Where had all the time gone? I know where the people had gone. They had gone to bed.
I was about to head there myself when I saw a strange fellow sitting with Milo and Zerr and some others. I walked over and learned that he was a gentleman named Redbrook, and that he was the Viscount of Magic in Ashbury. He was explaining that we needed to be at some battle the next morning at ten. That was less than five hours away.
He had some more stuff to talk about. There was a day when I would have stuck around to listen to every single syllable he said. But I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. Plenty of other people were there listening to him. I’ll let then explain the important parts to me in the morning.
And with that I took my leave and went to bed. The next day would be full of ambushes and battles, spiders and driders, pirates and porter. I’ll get to that tale shortly.
I managed to get in about four hours worth of sleep. I was up a little after nine stumbling around and slipping through the mud trying to make my way over to the bath house. I made it there and back without too much trouble. I had been to Firelight Cove enough in the past to be at least partially prepared to deal with no tavern cook. I had brought some bread to eat for breakfast and a pot to brew coffee. By the time ten o’clock started to roll around I was clean and fed and stoked up with coffee.
I’m not entirely sure what Viscount Redbrook was hoping to accomplish the previous night when he asked a few people to set up an ambush. There were almost a dozen or so folks up and about when ten o’clock rolled around. Since there was nothing else going on they all ended up wandering down to the ambush site to see what was up. So it wasn’t exactly an exercise in stealth and surprise. It was more like a mugging. The three folks we were told to watch for wandered into town right at ten and got the daylights beat out of them. Other people were in charge of that particular affair and I was quite happy to leave it to them.
When that was over Guildmistress Lilaiethyn came over and spoke to me briefly. She said she had been contacted recently and been told that someone was going to show up in the morning to give her some kind of test. She wanted to know if I wanted to help out. Sounded like fun to me. About a half hour later the person she had been told about showed up and around half a dozen of us went to help Lilaiethyn out with her task.
It was one of the oddest sort of tests that I have ever seen. The person who came to meet her was some kind of black moth winged faceless mute. The person or thing didn’t speak at all, and instead communicated with us using all sorts of hand gestures and pantomimes. Trying to understand what he was attempting to tell us became a frustrating game of charades.
We finally came to understand that he was going to open some sort of gate for us. We stood back and let him get to work. He went through all sorts of exaggerated contortions and waved his arms all around and generally acted like some kind of clown in a circus. But in the end, sure enough, he managed to open a gate up for us. So we all piled in hoping we would be able to figure out what to do on the other side.
When we got through we found ourselves in a normal sort of appearing forest. There were some sort of humanoid creatures there which approached us and attacked. They had flame tattoos or markings upon their face and used several kinds of flame based attacks. We tried communicating with them or figuring out what it was they were up to, but in the end all we managed to do was spend about a half hour fighting a succession of these creatures.
Eventually a much more powerful form of the creature arrived. We fought it several times as it would get in trouble and rift or gate out, only to return a short time later. When we finally managed to defeat it, that signaled the last of them. We then returned through the gate.
I have no idea how we did on the test. The strange moth winged creature “spoke” with Lilaiethyn for a bit afterwards and even granted her the power to renew the skills of some of us. I had not exerted myself all that much so I declined. With that affair being over we returned to town.
When we got back to the tavern I saw that the lightning elemental I had met last month had returned. He was standing outside the tavern beside a tree that had been decorated in ornaments. I had spoken to this creature before so I knew what this was about. As a sort of seasonal celebration the elemental powers of lightning had decided to imbue this tree with their elemental magic. If you chose one of the ornaments from the tree it would grant you some sort of gift. The nature of the gift was rather varied and may not be entirely to your liking.
A fairly sizable crowd had already gathered and a number of people had already chosen ornaments. I asked if anyone had gotten any sort of truly horrible result yet. I was told they had not, and I was strongly urged to take my turn choosing an ornament. Against my better judgement I allowed myself to be persuaded.
Still, I wanted to hedge me bet just a tad. I stepped up to the tree and pulled a scroll out of my pocket. I loudly proclaimed my gratitude to the tree for bestowing its elemental bounty upon the adventurers present, and asked it to accept a small token of elemental power on my behalf. I then read the scroll and cast a Lightning Storm upon the tree.
This may sound a little rash, but I knew from my conversation a month ago that this is what the lightning elementals wanted done with the tree. I hoped that it might influence my reward a bit. I have no idea whether it worked. As it was, I chose an ornament from the tree, closed my eyes and clenched my teeth, and fervently hoped for the best.
At first there was nothing. Then a got a strange sort of nauseous feeling I have never experienced before. I got brief feeling a dizziness and disorientation, and then things settled down. Something felt different, however. It didn’t take me long to figure out what it was, though. By and odd sort of coincidence I had gone through something very similar to this a few weeks ago.
The elemental magic of the tree had scrambled my spirit up. I found myself with an entirely new set of skills. No longer was I good at matters of stealth and nimbleness and trickery. Instead I once against felt the icy warm glow in my gullet which consisted of dormant celestial spells waiting to be cast. I experience a brief moment of sheer panic until the lighting elemental explained to me the effect was temporary and should wear off in a few days.
As it turned out I was not the only person scrambled up in this fashion. I know that both Lord Zerr and Guildmistress Adrafae found themselves with skills very much like me former self after choosing ornaments. Count Siranot became a straight up warrior. There was also an incident of race changing that resulted from an ornament choice. However, the person involved did not seem overly pleased with the experience so I’ll just say that in short order the deed was undone and leave it at that.
It could have been worse. Despite the instant ability to cast a great number of celestial spells I was by no means an instant wizard. But at least I had some experience casting celestial spells. Similarly Count Siranot was no stranger to a sword and shield. For both of us it was a matter of adjusting to the considerable enhancement of some of our skill and dealing with the loss of others.
Lord Zerr and Guildmistress Adrafae were a different story. Neither were very experienced at all with the finer points of stealthy attack. Their adjustment was going to be far more difficult. Lord Zerr decided to make it considerably easier for himself. He disappeared and a short time later showed back up looking like a shiny new silver piece. He had gone and dug through his considerable trove of formal scrolls and placed himself into a Mithril Golem.
Adrafae and I discussed our flip flop in skills and realized we needed to do a little trading back in forth of equipment. She found herself no longer needing many of her scrolls, and I found myself with all sorts of armor, swords, shields and alchemical gasses I no longer had any need for. We spent a little while swapping gear and trying to get each other set up a little better.
Then it was time to put the new version of me to the test. I heard some shouting outside and I ran out to see people fighting with a couple of spiders. I stood around and watched for a bit until I noticed that there was also a drider with them. The spiders we could handle fairly easily. The drider was another story entirely.
Just about the time we realized this was going to be a pretty tough fight the drider and the spiders retreated off into the woods. A fairly slow and disorganized pursuit formed up to follow them. The drider kept going and the spiders would periodically stop and make a stand and slow us down.
I found myself up towards the head of the line. Things stalled when the driders and spiders turned and for a time defended a small foot bridge leading across a stream. The small group of us that were close to them decided to wait until more people caught up before attacking them where they could defend so easily.
Unfortunately, our reinforcements were slow to arrive. The bridge where we stood facing off with the spiders was at the foot of an extremely steep and overgrown hill. The direct path down from where people were wandering over from the tavern to where we were standing at the bridge was down this difficult terrain. There was an easy path that lead around the hill to us, but apparently most of the people coming were not familiar with Firelight Cove or it's terrain.
The drider and spiders went ahead and crossed the creek on the bridge. Reynox, Odin and Nacht decided to run over after them and let the rest of the people follow up when they got there. By the time I moved over to the bridge and crossed to support them things had already gotten bad. Nacht was down and behind the lines and he was being carried off by one of the spiders.
The path of the opposite side of the creek that we were on now was very narrow and heavily overgrown on both sides. This made it easy for the spider minions to block us and keep us from pursuing. The prudent thing to have done at that point would have been to just wait for everyone else to finally make it down the hill and cross the creek. But I was worried about what they might be doing to Nacht, and so we pressed the attack.
We made a real mess of things. We fought back and forth across the same fifteen feet of trail for quite a while. When the spiders would drop us they would cover us up with sticky cocoons. This made healing people a pain. I was still trying to fight like I could sneak up behind things and splatter them with my sword, and that wasn't working out for me very well.
More people began to filter up from behind and the spiders retreated down the trail some. I decided to see if I could get in behind them and bottle them up. I crashed into the brush on the side of the trail, scooted down into a gully, leaped a ditch, and climbed up the other side towards where the trail continued to loop around. I looked behind me and saw that Reynox was following. I suggested we rush the trail to try to see if we could rescue Nacht who had by this time been down a considerable amount of time. He looked at me and said "You know I'm just a scholar, right?"
That brought me up short. So was I, at this point. What precisely was I thinking about? Or more precisely, why wasn't I thinking? Reynox and I instead cautiously approached the trail, and one of the spiders and the drider moved over to face us. We moved back away from the trail and into the brush. I was hoping that we had managed to pull these two away from where Nacht was laying. I think that is what ended up happening. I could hear people fighting further down the trail, and then people began advancing along the trail towards us. Nacht was with them. When the drider saw this he turned and retreated further down the trail.
We followed the drider for several hundred yards along the trail fighting spiders along the way. The trail finally opened up a bit into a clearing at the top of a hill, and this is where the drider and his minions turned and made a stand. The battle turned for the better at this point. We could finally maneuver around the spiders to engage the drider directly.
I started hitting it with Lightning Storms and Ice Storms, and it also took quite of number of Harm and Destroy Undeads as well as some good old fashion sword smacks. More and more people moved up the trail and joined the battle and that kept the spiders busy. It was only a matter of time before we prevailed.
With the drider dead and all the spiders slain or retreated, we found ourselves with a long walk back to the tavern. It was somewhat surprising to see how far out we actually went. The long walk gave me a chance to reflect on the battle. I resolved to definitely act a bit more cautious in future fights and not dash forward waving my sword. Well, at least until I got my spirit back unscrambled that is.
When we got back to the tavern, Parthynia and some of the other folks who had stayed behind told me a package had come for me while we had been gone. Sure enough a paper wrapped box sat on the table. I looked it over and saw that it came from the Barony of Cumberland in the Duchy of Ravenholt. Finally, it was here! I was afraid it wasn’t going to show up in time.
Everyone was most anxious to see what was in the box. But I grabbed it up and hustled it into the back of the kitchen. I opened the box and got out some glasses and mugs and set up a tray. Then I took everything back out into the tavern and gave a little speech.
Last year when I visited Ravenholt, on the advice of Baron Amra I visited a pub in Cumberland. Cumberland is a damp, foggy and wet place, full of swamps and peaty bogs. It is the kind of place that makes you appreciate a fine inn or pub. Perhaps for this reason the Barony of Cumberland is renown the kingdom over for it’s hospitality. I was shown great hospitality that night, and I drank a fine example of a local porter while I was there. I had just that porter shipped to me her in Blackstone.
I explained all this to one and all as I passed out glasses and mugs. When I was done I raised my glass and gave a toast. To Baron Amra Al’hassan. I have met no finer man or more gracious host in all my travels. To Amra! And for a short time we all drank and laughed and acted silly.
Once that was over it was back to business as usual. There was some racket coming from outside, and we stepped out to see a bunch of water elementals sloshing all over the place. They weren’t improving the mud situation one bit. Everyone spent a little bit of time fighting them until they finally went away.
I saw that one of the new guys was all of a sudden sporting a different look. This was Travellar’s first gathering, and earlier on he looked pretty much like you would expect a brand new guy to look. But now I saw he was sporting a new suit of armor, a nice sword, and he was hauling around a rustic looking banner with a hawk on it that I saw Odin and Nacht messing with earlier.
I asked around and some people told me that those guys were recruiting Travellar into their newly re-forming barbarian tribe. They fixed him up with some gear and made him their banner carrier. Latter on when the signs and portents were right they planned to conduct a ceremony to completely bring him into the tribe.
The next thing to show up was a crowd of scruffy looking ruffians. They weren’t wearing pirate sashes, so I’m guessing these guys were either prone to seasickness or maybe they couldn’t afford a boat. They were pretty smooth characters. They wandered up to the first group they saw and said “Hi! We are merchants. I command you to sleep!” I thought, geez, if that is as hard as you are going to try to fool us, why even bother?
Despite their astoundingly clever sneak attack we managed to fight them off. Another group of them emerged a short time later with pretty much the same routine and same result. After they were gone I thought perhaps we were rid of them. I walked over to where Delwyn was standing with some folks and began talking to Lilaiethyn. But I had hardly said a word when another group of lowlifes and dirtbags comes wandering up.
These guys were a whole lot more patient. They came over and started talking to Delwyn. They claimed to be mercenaries and were looking for work. I don’t think anyone bought it. I stood there trying to simultaneously hold a conversation with Lilaiethyn while also watching these guys out of the corner of my eye. She was doing pretty much the same thing, and anyone who had been listening to our distracted conversation must have thought we were simpletons.
Eventually the bandits made their move and started casting spells at Delwyn. Instantaneous about twenty people who had moments before been casually standing around trying extremely hard to pretend they weren’t paying attention to us were now barreling towards us at great speed. I decided to try to run away to get clear so I could stand back and throw some spells.
No such luck. The second I made my move one of the bandits took off after me and was hot on my heels. I ran over to a building and along the side of it. When I got to the end I studied the ground carefully to try to pick the perfect spot to plant my foot in order to make a fast turn without slipping in the mud. I saw one rough dry patch and aimed right for it. One step before I got there my feet came out from under me and I sprawled out unceremoniously in the mud.
Well, crap. I’m done for now. No sense just lying there, though. I might as well make the attempt to get up and run. To my utter amazement I manage to scramble to my feet and start running before the guy behind me could get off a spell. I don’t know whether he was surprised or amused or what, but I wasn’t going to turn around to find out.
I rounded the building and ran back the way I come cutting a zig zag pattern. Spells were now flying fast and thick from behind me but none landed. I ran past some of the good guys and turned around just as my pursuer ran into them and got a gut full of swords for his effort. I then whipped off a sleep spell and tagged him dead center.
Alright! Yeeeeah! Now that is how you cast spells! Yes sir, I turned to the guy walking up to me and said “Did you see that?” The bandit it smiled at me and brained me with his sword.
A few moments later I woke up with the taste of a healing potion in my mouth feeling like the biggest idiot on the face of Tyrra. Next time I’ll stick to casting spells, and not stop to admire my work. That was not one of my finer moments.
Once these guys were disposed over, yet another crowd of lowlifes came shuffling into town. Hello, we are mercenaries, blah blah blah. I’m surprised we didn’t just clobber them right then and there. But once again we let them go through their spiel, and just waited for them to attack.
Strangely enough they didn’t. Nobody had any mercenary work for them, so they just kept wandering around from person to person, group to group asking for work. A small crowd of folks followed them around waiting, but they never made their move.
After about fifteen minutes of this everyone finally decided that, huh, maybe these guys are actually mercenaries looking for work. Who would have thought it? And as it turned out they found some I believe. They spoke with Reynox for a good length of time and I believe I heard him say he hired them as guards for something later on.
It was now beginning to late in the day and dusk was fast approaching. Someone said that everyone was gathering up into a group outside so I went over to see what was going on. When I arrived I found everyone standing around in a circle. In the middle stood Raielath Ca'Carilon, Guardian of the Seventh Grove. We had been expecting him.
Raielath was here to help us with a matter relating to Gul, a world destroying menace that many of us have been working diligently to thwart over the last few years. One of his three powerful minions held some secrets we desperately needed. This particular minion employed an army of Quicksilver Golems. Raielath was here to explain to us how to fight these golems in order to retrieve the secrets.
This is the plan that was arrived at. All of us would gate to the stronghold of the golems and face them there. We could not defeat them. Due to the bizarre manner in which they were constructed, if they were destroyed their spirit would be drawn to a nearby spirit node which would reform the golem moments later. These spirit nodes were protected by circles of power and they beyond our power to destroy. This point is important, because it came up later on.
The whole purpose in fighting the golems was to hold the attention of the enemy. We needed to fight them for at least on hour. Meanwhile, Raielath would use our distraction to sneak into the lair of Gul’s minion to steal the secrets we needed. Thus, our task was simple. Fight an endless army of Quicksilver Golems for an hour and survive.
Oh, there was one more wrinkle. Gul’s minion had taken several of his golems and cast a strange enchantment upon them. They glowed with a red aura and could feed off the energies of powerful people and use it against them. The secret to defeating them was to send weak and inexperienced adventurers after them. So anyone who was really tough was warned to stay far away from the red golems.
Once the plan was explained we marched to where a gate had been prepared. We
all passed through the gate and found ourselves in a foul smelling clearing
in the woods. On the other side of the clearing was the spirit node, and between
us and it were the Quicksilver Golems.
We formed a line, and fought them one by one as they came at us. I can almost
stop right there, because that was essentially the entire battle. We just did
that for about an hour. Well, there were a few odd moments here and there, but
for the most part that was the battle in a nutshell.
It was a neat experience for me. Normally, these were the sort of fights I absolutely loathed. The nobles were constantly screaming at us to maintain the line and not advance. There was no sneaking around the back or stealth involved in this fight. Normally during these line battles I just sulk in the back. This time, with all my scrolls and spells I could blast away whenever I felt like it. I just had to make sure I paced myself.
We didn’t have too many bad moments. Our line inched forward and back from time to time. Zerr walked around in with near impunity in his Mithril Golem form. Lord Shirokaze stood near the rear of our line and cast a Boltstorm of lightning. Lightning healed both the Quicksilver Golems and Zerr. So he couldn’t use it offensively, but instead served as an infinite healing station for Zerr. He stayed that way through the entire fight.
The only real difficulty came as it got dark. What we discovered was that the red golems didn’t really glow at all. They were just red. When it got too dark to tell which golems were red, we had a few bad moments where some of the more experienced folks came up against one and got the stuffings beat out of them. But luckily for us we managed to recover each time and get the right people in the right place.
Finally our hour was up. Delwyn called for us to retreat back through the gate. Parthynia however started yelling that we couldn’t leave until the spirit node was destroyed. At that point she and Delwyn got into a bit of a shouting match across the width of the battle field.
Delwyn ordered everyone back through the gate because we had been told over and over that the spirit nodes could not be destroyed. Parthynia kept screaming that she and Mario could destroy the spirit node. Delwyn wanted to know why this hadn’t been explained to him before, and Parthynia replied that she had somehow only been made aware of it herself a few moments before.
So we all got turned around and we charged the spirit node. People and golems were running all over the place. Mario did something with a weird sword he had been carrying around and before I knew it the spirit node broke in half and crumbed to a pile of junk. And that was the end of that.
By this time it was good and dark, and people were starting to get hungry. We all retreated back through the gate and went to the tavern to sit down and wait for dinner. I’ll leave off at this point and finish this tale tomorrow.
We were without a tavern cook for the weekend, but for dinner we had the next best thing. Guildmistress Adrafae had consented to cook dinner for everyone as a gesture of goodwill from the Mages Guild of Blackstone. In addition she ran a form of raffle. A ticket cost one component. Third place got you a shatter resistant pouch, second got you a pouch that was even more shatter resistant, and first place got a two year rendered magic item with three levels of spell store in it.
Since I was in the guild as well I tried to help out some making dinner. But for the most part Adrafae had it all under control and I was just in the way. Still, I made the effort. Dinner consisted of baked spaghetti of various types, bread, and green beans. There was also a large selection of cookies for desert.
We had a while to wait until dinner started. A noticed that the tavern received a large number of visitors in that time. There were a couple of nondescript fellows, a stone elf, and even a turtle scavenger. The fact that strangers decided to show up at the exact moment that a free dinner was being prepared struck me as a tad coincidental. Still, it would be rude to speculate further along those line.
A rather striking looking lady also showed up. She had short fiery red hair and dressed in black velvet clothes and black leather armor. She also hauled around a polearm. Nightshine explained to me that this was the lady who visited Firelight Cove the last gathering when I was out of town. She had some kind of interest in Dark Elves, and wanted to know something about an incident that happened a while ago in Ravenholt. Not being very conversant in Ravenholt history, and not being a Dark Elf, I figured she probably didn’t want to talk to me.
For the most part people were a bit tired and wore out from the long fight with the Quicksilver Golems. So even though we had a wait a bit for dinner to be made most people were content to just sit around and relax and socialize. Baron Ruendil and Katherine found a quiet corner to talk in. Elenril and Parthynia and Mario formed another little group. Count Siranot, Viscount Telaris and some others spent a fair amount of time trying to work out some of the finer legal and political points raised by the recent Eastwycke Affair in Ravenholt. The mysterious carrot topped stranger sequestered herself with Lord Shirokaze for a nice long talk.
Finally dinner was served and everyone dug in. On one hand I was famished and tempted to gorge myself. But I also suspected there was going to be some heavy fighting again before the night was over so I forced myself to eat moderately. I can’t precisely incant my mighty celestial spells of power and destruction if I’m nauseous from over eating.
When dinner was over it was time to announce the winner of the raffle. Third place was drawn and I believe that went to Viscount Telaris. Second place went to Dame Parthynia. The winner was announced, and of all people it ended up being me.
For the first moment I was thrilled, but then I thought about it a little more. I already had a very nice spell store item. I am probably as well or better off than most people in terms of magic items. I knew there was a number of newer adventurers in the room who don’t get a lot of chances at nice stuff. And I felt a little bad winning the raffle that was being put on by my own guild.
So I thanked Adrafae and declined the item. I asked her to draw another name. She said instead that it should probably just go to the second place winner. That meant that Parthynia got the magic item. That didn’t sit too well with me at first. I’ve got nothing against Parthynia, but I thought the item might see better use elsewhere. She rarely gets into the field these days, and besides, she had an absurd number of earth spells already. What does she need a spell store item for? Later on I was told she gave it to Mario, who got himself a magic sword created to replace the one he lost shattering the spirit node. That made a little more sense to me so in the end I was fine with it.
Right after dinner was over with Akilla came over to talk to me. She was one of the people who went out with me Friday night when we found the werewolf or whatever it was in the building at the edge of town. She said she was bored and looking for some action and wondered if I knew where more stuff like that might be.
Offhand I didn’t. But I figured I could give it a try. I told her to try to round up about three or four other people and wait for me to get back. Then I went out looking to see if I could find some trouble. In a surprisingly short amount of time I found some. There was a terrible racket coming from inside a building not all that far from the tavern.
I went back inside to find Akilla to see if she was ready. Boy, was she ready. She had managed to round up a small army of about ten folks. Well, assuming we don’t all get in each others way and stab one another, I suppose the more the merrier.
I took them over to where the building was that had all the noise coming out of it. I tried to kind of set them up into some kind of rough formation or order. I knew it wouldn’t last, but it gave me something to do. I also told Blake to sneak over and peek into a window to see what was going on.
He came back and said it was a bunch of orcs torturing a guy. Well, that sounds like something we can fix right up. We crept up to the doorway, and I counted to three and threw open the door and everyone charged in. I heard a whole bunch of hollering, grunts, and thuds. After the last person made it inside I joined the back of the line. I followed the crowd back into one of the rear rooms where it looked like everything was happening.
I found our little warband in the process of finishing off a handful of orcs. The stone elf I had noticed earlier in the tavern was tied up against one wall. Before I could even do anything I heard some more orcs coming up behind me from another part of the house.
I dove into a corner and hid behind a bed. Everyone else charged out and put a hurting on the orcs. A few more orcs appeared out of some other rooms, and things went on like this for a while. The stone elf guy shouted encouragement from where he was at tied up on the wall. I finally figured out that maybe he might want loose. I could have gone over and untied him or cut the ropes, but I was a big and mighty celestial scholar now. Far more fitting to hit him with a release spell.
Once he was free and all the orcs were slain we left the house. He explained that he and his buddy got jumped by the orcs when they left the tavern after dinner. His buddy took off but they got him. He rewarded us with a few things and then went off looking for his buddy. We returned to the tavern and split up the loot.
Sadly, though I didn’t know it at the time, that was pretty much it for me. I got a message from a ducal soldier that told me that I was needed for something a short ways out of town. I was hoping that it was something I could take care of quickly. Instead I ended up spending pretty much the entire rest of the night assisting a magistrate in a boring legal matter.
I managed to hear a little bit about some of the stuff I missed. I understand that right after I was gone that some kind of lizard or snake people made a couple of attacks on the town. Despite the cold weather they moved pretty past. They grabbed a few people and drug them off. They had people running all over the place from what I’m told. But in the end they managed to get everyone rescued and they defeated or drove off the lizard guys.
I’m also told that a whole bunch of people made a trip to some kind of town called Gratha. It had something to do with curses and darkness elementals or something along those lines. I think this is something that has been going on for a while. Meloria seems to be the person who is handling that particular little affair.
I’m also told that the signs and portents finally came into alignment, and the adventurer formerly know as Travellar was inducted into the Hawk Tribe. Or perhaps the Wolf Tribe. The story was a little confusing. I know that Nacht, Odin, Reynox and Travellar managed to travel to one of the islands in the Five Sisters. They brought along Dame Nightshine in part for her experience with barbarian totems and partly for her earthen magic skills. They conducted an elaborate initiation ceremony where they called upon the spirit totems. The wolf spirit showed up at some point. In any event, at the end of it all, Travellar was no more, and instead there was the adventurer now known as Firepaw.
The last event of the evening started off fairly slow. People were sitting around the tavern when a bunch of undead showed up and tried to get in. They got defeated fairly easy. But then a second wave showed up. This time a few folks chased them outside. Once outside, a third group could be seen approaching. Further off behind them was another undead with glowing eyes.
People who had gone outside began to follow the trail the undead were taking to see where they were coming from. They came across a bunch of blue glowy lights that lead down to a field. They moved up to the edge of the field, and sure enough, there were a bunch of undead standing out in the middle.
Everyone gathered up into a defensive clump and waited for the undead to attack. Unfortunately, there were several undead in this new group that were quite a bit more powerful. Some of them could even spellstrike taint blood spells. Things started to rapidly go down hill.
Luckily, someone had the presence of mind to realize they were in over their heads and ran back to the tavern. They got manage to get everyone else that had stayed behind to come. The rescue party arrived just about the time that the leader of the undead joined the fray.
From what I am told it was Malus Blackstone, who we had first encountered about a month ago. I’m not sure why he was back attacking us again. Once they figured out who the leader was, most of the heavy hitters on the field immediately concentrated on him. He backed off, and kept backing off.
When Malus retreated, things got real dicey. Malus kept retreating and ended up running off into the woods with most of the experienced adventurers following him. That severely depleted the forces in the main group. The bulk of the undead were fighting them, and the undead started getting the upper hand again. It became something of a race. Could the people chasing Malus defeat him and get back before the undead managed to kill everyone and raise them as undead?
It got a little scary, but before things got too bad the group that had chased Malus came back. Once we had everyone back together it was just a matter of time before the undead were defeated. I’m guessing they managed to kill or drive off Malus, but I’m pretty sure he is going to be back at some point.
I got back into town right after this battle. I was all rested and ready to go, but that was pretty much it for the night. I sat around and talked to a few folks for a while. I had a nice conversation with Rillien about her new ambassadorial duties in Ravenholt. However she was sitting on her bunk at the time and nearly fell asleep mid sentence on me. I went back into the tavern only to find that a small group of shrill goblins were now there. When the squeaky goblins show up, it is time to go to bed.
And that brings my story to a close.