So, as I was sitting in the tavern speaking with Dame Parthynia, I suddenly noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a regally dressed man duck in the side door of the tavern. Just then, the realization finally dawned on me that I was about to meet the King of Evendarr, one of the most significant people in the entire world! But wait, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.
I arrived in Blackstone on Friday, July 2, 604. We all knew that the King was
scheduled to arrive that gathering, but that wasn’t our immediate concern.
Our immediate concern was getting rid of the Saxon forces that currently occupied
Braughm-Raor, the capital city of Blackstone. However, the gathering did not
begin in Braughm-Raor, but instead in the city of Mugleden, approximately thirty
miles away from the capital.
I got to Mugleden a little bit before everyone else, as is fairly typical for
me, and I was in the tavern socializing when some orcs came in to attack. They
were fairly easily dispatched even by the younger adventurers there, and thoroughly
thrashed by Ramsus Belmont and myself.
I had told Dame Partyhnia, Mario Greymist, and Anyanka Shadowrunner what cabin
to meet at for the gathering, so I figured I would go and see if they had yet
arrived in town. I wandered over towards the cabin, and saw a bunch of shady
figures up ahead of me. I called out for them to identify themselves, and it
became clear that they were more orcs.
I quickly thought over my situation. I had no components for healing pools,
no magic items, and was outnumbered five to one. I probably should have run
away, but unfortunately my mentality tends to be too stubborn to give up that
easily. I went in swinging, and managed to down all five orcs with just my sword
and shield. I was later told that Caliphar and Nikki were nearby and would have
helped me if I needed it, but they decided that I had it handled.
I next found Dame Parthynia, Mario, and Anya at the cabin and we all journeyed
together to the tavern, where we found out that Sir Delwyn Mythrilmist and Sir
Cedric Warclaw were organizing the town into two groups for an assault on Braughm-Raor.
This actually led to what I found to be an amusing conversation between Lady
Pyroxia of Calais, Nikki, and myself. Lady Pyroxia said that all people who
were primarily healers should go inside the tavern to be split up. Nikki and
I continued to stand outside. She informed both of us that we were primarily
healers, and thus should go inside. I informed her that I was primarily a fighter,
not a healer. And Nikki told her that she was NOT a healer. However, she ordered
us inside anyway, and that ended the issue.
Of course, this led into the next big issue. Dame Parthynia and Viscountess
Kiera knew what groups they wanted to bring, since they knew who they worked
well with. This was acceptable by Sir Delwyn and Sir Cedric, but not by some
other people, and so another argument ensued. Eventually, though, it was decided
that Sir Delwyn would take one group, including Lady Pyroxia, Caliphar, and
Nikki; Sir Cedric would take the other group, including Dame Parthynia, Viscountess
Kiera, and the Ducal court of Ashbury and allies.
Sir Delwyn’s group went in to break a chain so that the Blackstone navy
could land troops and take the harbor. Meanwhile, Sir Cedric’s group, which
is the group I was in, assaulted the front walls, trying to push through the
gate. It was a nasty fight, and I thought that I was going to end up resurrecting.
You see, I was backpacking Squire John Little, and we were having tremendous
success. Too much success, in fact. We got in behind the enemy line, and starting
assaulting the gate. But four people jumped Squire Little from the front right
as I got jumped from the back. We both went down, and I must have been dead
for several minutes before Viscountess Kiera found me and lifed me. I immediately
jumped up and went to life Squire Little, and then we started pushing forward
again.
When we finally got to the door, we couldn’t seem to break the door itself.
However, we were able to destroy the bar across the door with nine destroy spells.
It must have been a very tough bar. Personally, I would like to meet the smith
that made it.
After that, we surged into the city, and once inside we met up with Sir Delwyn’s
group. We formed together and prepared for an assault on the main Saxon keep
inside the city. Many people assaulted the door, while the rest of us hunted
down Saxon rogues who were giving us trouble outside the keep.
One in particular I went hunting down dodged every spell I threw at it for the
first six spells I threw. I think I finally got him on the seventh spell. However,
he was also swinging his blade with might equivalent to a flame bolt from the
front, so he must have been very powerful indeed.
By the time I got finished hunting rogues, the keep had fallen and Lord Alexander
Saxony, Sir William Saxony, and one other Saxon were all in the hands of Sir
Delwyn and Sir Cedric. We held them there for hours, waiting for someone to
arrive to decide what to do with them. Finally, Prince Gabriel of Southwatch
arrived and told us to lock them up in a jail to await sentencing, and so that
is what Sir Cedric did.
Simultaneously to us holding the Saxons, Dame Parthynia dispensed justice in
the matter of Legion, who had been guilty of killing Squire Finna some years
ago, and freeing Adder back in October. He was sentenced to a manual obliteration
for his crimes, and he took it, so I believe he is now a free man.
After all of that was said and done, it was time for bed. I tried to sleep,
but had no success, and so when I went to go hunt things the next morning, I
was not at all rested.
I found Beryl Qain, and she was hunting through the woods for stuff to do, and
so I went with her. We had several interesting adventures.
First, we discovered a golem. However, it looked like there needed to be a key
to activate it, and we could not find the key. So we had to leave the golem
for later.
Next, we discovered the “Wandering Wizard.” He was nice enough to
imbue Beryl and I with some spells that came in helpful later. He told us he
would be around town to meet the King, but we never saw him again. It was odd.
After that, we found a spider that had killed an orc. The spider then attacked
us. We managed to avoid its paralysis poisons and move in and stick it to death.
I attacked from the front while Beryl attacked from behind, which was, in my
opinion, the best way to go.
A couple more spiders came out, but we also dealt with them. Afterwards, we
found a few things lying around, but mostly we were happy that we had managed
to dispatch the spider.
After exploring some more, we found an encampment of orcs. I didn’t think
sixteen to two were bad odds, so we went after the orc encampment. As it turned
out, I was right. We thrashed the orc encampment pretty easily. We didn’t
find much, but at least we had cleared out some orcs so that they wouldn’t
later terrorize the people of Braughm-Raor.
After that, it was breakfast time, and during breakfast Beryl and I went and
found Kellian, a dwarf that was visiting from lands to the south, and asked
him if he could determine anything about the golem. He agreed that we needed
the key, and so we went to find the key.
However, on the way there, we found something else instead – we discovered
a box. Kellian and I stood back and let Beryl deal with the box, since that
is her specialty. However, the box released a non-corporeal thing, and Kellian
and I quickly beat it down. However, another one immediately formed, and we
figured that we had to close the box to stop them from forming. Beryl got in
and closed the box while Kellian and I killed the second one, and that seemed
to do the trick.
We continued to search for the key, and we found it back in the tavern. Caliphar
and friends had discovered it, and Legion had it. We ran back to the golem,
and found that there was another group there already exploring it. We attached
the key, and the golem dug a hole to a tunnel, and we went down the tunnel.
Once inside the tunnel, we fought tons and tons of sand creatures. I mean lots
of them. They were apparently holding human slaves as well, and we had to fight
some of them, but we stabilized them when we were finished. The tunnel had a
little shack set up at the end of it, and so Legion, Caliphar, and some others
tried to break into the shack while the rest of us fought the sand creatures
and the humans.
Very rarely have I been more busy than I was during that fight. My name was
regularly being called in three places at the same time, and I tried to respond
to each as best I could. It was not easy, though, and some people fell before
I could get there to relieve them. I got them back up, but there was a problem.
We were running out of purify blood spells to deal with all the poisons they
were throwing. I was worried that I might have to start killing blowing people
and lifing them to get them healthy again.
However, just about then Caliphar and Legion got whatever was in the shack,
and we began to back out. We figured that we had killed the slave leader, and
so everything else should sort itself out.
The golem helped us get back out of the cave again, and we went back to the
tavern. We were just about to go off on another adventure, but we were interrupted
by the announcement that the feast was about to start.
It was made fairly clear to me that I should go and get changed into appropriate
formal attire. You see, up to this point I had been wearing what I refer to
as “thug gear.” Essentially, this meant that I was wearing a tabard
without a shirt under it, because it was too hot for a shirt. However, that
would not have been appropriate attire for a feast, and so I put on a puffy
white shirt and a nice, clean black vest instead.
After I got done switching into my feast gear, I ran into Dame Parthynia, who
looked amazing in her feast gear. Her clothing rivaled that of Duke Pinetree
himself, and I think I made a comment to that effect, though I don’t remember
exactly what it was.
Then, together with Dame Parthynia and Anya, I began walking toward the tavern,
and Caliphar passed us along the way. “Seronia,” he said to me, “you
look like a vampire.” Now, I found this extremely amusing because I get
that comment every single time I wear that particular shirt and vest. I don’t
know why it is.
Anyhow, when we got to the feasting hall we all parted ways. I went to speak
to Squire John Little, and we were told by Squire Kellum of Ashbury that we
were expected to move tables around to set up for the feast because of the fact
that we’re squires. Well, the three of us got most of the tables arranged,
and everyone poured into the feasting hall.
However, the king was still nowhere to be seen. Just then, though, as I was
speaking to Dame Parthynia, I saw a regally dressed man duck in the side door
of the tavern, and I knew it had to be His Royal Majesty King Mykel Endarr II,
King of Evendarr. Sure enough, a few moments later I was proven correct.
There were many noble festivities, and many raisings accompanying the feast.
Duke Derek Blackstone was raised to Prince of the Heart, long may he reign.
Lord Captain Mikhail Blackstone was raised to Duke of Blackstone, long may he
reign. Sir Delwyn Mythrilmist was raised to the position of Baron of Whitemane,
a newly created Barony in the middle of Blackstone, long may he reign. Sir Cedric
Warclaw was raised to Baron of Blackmoor, a newly created Barony in the southern
part of Blackstone, long may he reign. Finally, Baron Sudbyr was raised to Marquess
of the forces of the Principality of Southwatch, long may he reign.
With all that business done with, all the squires were called before His Royal
Majesty. There were quite a few of us there, including Squire Little, Squire
Verbal, Squire Finna, Squire Ashe, Squire Kellum, and myself. Squire Verbal
and myself were tasked with checking all the food for poisons, and then we were
all tasked with serving His Royal Majesty’s table, which included such
noteworthy personages as His Royal Majesty, His Highness Southwatch, His Highness
of the Heart, Lord James Buttons, and Sir Alexander Norfolk.
Once we were done serving the noble table, all the squires removed ourselves
to behind the counter on which the food was situated, and began to serve all
the other assembled personages as well. By the time that was done, we were all
very tired, and we finally got a chance to sit down and eat. I personally sat
and spoke with Squire Little and Squire Verbal. I told them the tale of the
defeat of Tarlov Ghosthand, as best I knew it, and told them of the parts that
our own Theren heroes Lady Pyroxia Fyrestorm and Squire Draelin of Myrr had
played in Tarlov’s defeat.
After we were done feasting, I decided that I would die from heat exhaustion
in my feast gear, and so I went and changed back into my “thug gear.”
There was a singing, storytelling, and humor contest that many participated
in, but I personally used that time to work on sparring and training myself
for battle.
Afterwards, there was to be a tournament. I wasn’t going to participate,
but Squire Ashe told me they needed a fourth for their Ashbury team, and so
I joined up with him, Squire Kellum, and Sir Nobunaga. I was entered in three
competitions: the fighter’s tournament, the four on four, and the grand
melee. Now, some may ask why I was not entered into the casting tournament,
but the reason is simple: I may be a scholar by class, but that should not define
who I am. I see myself as more a fighter than a caster, and so I choose to work
on skills that will aid me in fighting. A fighting tournament seemed to be a
much better tool for learning fighting than a casting tournament.
Well, in the fighting tournament, I drew Squire Kellum in the first round, in
a matchup of speed against strength. He had the strength; I had the speed. I
hit him nine times with him hitting me only twice, but I just couldn’t
damage him. With my magic sword, I might have stood a chance, but they did not
allow me to use it. Finally, realizing that the fight was going nowhere, and
neither of us could really win, I conceded and gave the match to Squire Kellum.
Amusingly, he told me he was about to do the same and bow out to me.
The eventual winner of the fighting tournament, not surprisingly, was Anthony
Darkforge, who beat Squire Ashe in the final. It was a well-fought match all
around, and Squire Ashe would get his revenge in the next competition.
You see, the next competition was casting, and there were only four competitors:
Sathen, Caliphar, Nobunaga, and Squire Ashe. In the first round, Sathen used
his displacement to great advantage to dispatch Nobunaga while Ashe fairly easily
handled Caliphar, who simply didn’t have enough spells to really compete.
In the final, it was Sathen against Squire Ashe. Sathen thought he had it won
when he webbed Squire Ashe, but Squire Ashe magic released himself out of it.
Squire Ashe then pinned and bound Sathen, and Sathen forgot his own magic release
spell, and as such Squire Ashe won the competition, which was very impressive
when you consider the fact that he has a shield spirit linked to him.
The third competition was the race. Caliphar was the heavy favorite, with Squire
Ashe and Squire Verbal also likely to be competitive. Well, right at the starting
line, Squire Ashe got behind Caliphar and started hitting him, but he didn’t
hit him enough to drop him, especially since Caliphar moved out of the way of
one of the blows. When they turned the first corner, the race was already over.
Squire Ashe might have been able to salvage it, but he would have had to pin
Caliphar, and for some reason he didn’t think to do it. Caliphar just accelerated
from there, and the race ended quickly.
Moving on, we came to the four on four competition. There were only two teams.
One consisted of Squire Ashe, Squire Kellum, Sir Nobunaga, and myself. The other
consisted of Dame Parthynia, Mario Greymist, Sir Marcus Gunnar, and Sgt. Anthony
Darkforge. I am not entirely sure why I was competing against Dame Parthynia,
but we’ll levae that matter for another day.
The key blow in the battle was a mistake that Anthony made right at the beginning.
He flanked wide, and cut himself off from the rest of the group. I took him
down quickly with two sleep spells, and that turned the competition into a four
on three.
After I got done with Anthony, I saw that Mario had taken down Sir Nobunaga.
I chucked a couple spells at Mario, and then got Sir Nobunaga back up. Somehow,
Dame Parthynia fell, and then neither Mario nor Sir Gunnar noticed. I finished
taking down Mario since he no longer had a backpack, and someone else took down
Sir Gunnar. I am not sure who, but I assume it was Squire Ashe.
With that finished, the underdog team was victorious. Why? Well, I think largely
because both Anthony and Mario tried to rely on weapons instead of spells, and
spells were the key to winning that competition. Gasses would have worked, too,
but there’s no reason to waste gasses on a practice.
The final competition was the grand melee. It had many twists and turns, but
it essentially boiled down to three teams: a Blackstone team consisting of Sir
Strider, Baron Cedric, and Rastlin; an Ashbury team consisting of Squire Ashe,
Squire Kellum, Sir Nobunaga, Squire John Little, and myself; and a Therendry
team consisting of Viscountess Kiera, Sir Gunnar, Sgt. Darkforge, Mario, and
Dame Parthynia.
The three giant teams began by eliminating most of the people who weren’t
with their team, and then the fight began in earnest. Squire Ashe circled himself,
but many people thought it was bad form, and so he dropped it. As the competition
went on, my team slowly got eliminated, and I circled myself.
Anthony was assigned to guard my circle, and so we started talking. I asked
Anthony to pick a number between 1 and 10, and he guessed 7, but that was incorrect.
So we started asking the King and Princes who were watching to guess numbers,
and His Highness Southwatch finally guessed the correct number – 3.
Finally, when everyone else was down, Kiera’s team surrounded my circle.
I challenged Anthony, their champion, to a sword fight to determine the winner
of the competition. They gladly accepted, and Anthony decided to swing low to
make the fight sporting.
For the next ten minutes or more, everyone attention was riveted on the fight
between Anthony and I. While it was going on, however, Kiera’s team was
healing up the Blackstone team, which would prove costly in the long run.
Anthony and I went down to the wire. When I was at the point where I could only
take two more hits from him, I swung my sword and almost got his knee, but he
parried the blow. I knew I was close, but I had nothing left, and he got the
last two hits off to down me.
However, by this point things had changed. The Blackstone team had taken down
Kiera’s team, and they controlled the field. They took down the depleted
Anthony, and then fell to treachery within their own ranks.
Sir Strider had beaten down Rastlin, but Rastlin had a contingency cure serious
spell on him, and so he popped right back up. He then took down Baron Cedric
and Sir Strider to win the competition.
With that finally ended, the His Royal Majesty thanked everyone for the entertainment,
and told us that he felt that watching us made him feel good for the future
of the Kingdom. There were many cheers, and at the insistence of Lord Buttons,
His Royal Majesty demonstrated to us how to make Kingsilver.
With that done, it was time for His Royal Majesty to leave, and all were sorry
to see him go. I went back to the cabin with the Ashbury crew to split up proceeds
from the tournament, and I was completely exhausted.
In fact, when I left the cabin, I ran into Lord Buttons and Dame Parthynia.
Lord Buttons instructed me to kneel, and I did so. He then told me I may rise,
and I told him simply, “I can’t.” I was so tired that I could
barely walk, let alone get up from a kneeling position.
I went back to the tavern to get some refreshment, and when I was done with
that, I spent some time sparring with people out on the porch of the tavern.
An undead giant and his minions appeared in town, but he wasn’t all that
hard to beat. I circled around behind him while others attacked from the front,
and he fell pretty hard.
I did some circle fighting with Caliphar, Fenrir, Logenn, and Squire Little,
and Squire Little beat me, which impressed me a lot. He ended a long streak
I had going of winning sparring matches. He has gotten a lot better recently,
and along with Sir Gunnar, is one of the most improved fighters in Therendry
in the past few months.
A bit later, I was told that Dame Parthynia was in trouble, and so I went rushing
off to save her. We found her in a Circle, surrounded by spiders. We engaged
the spiders, and she took the opportunity to drop the Circle and run away. Unfortunately,
one of the spiders chased her. She jumped over a branch in one direction to
get away from the spider while I jumped over the same branch in the other direction
to intercept the spider. You almost have to feel bad or the spider, it never
knew what hit it.
Finally, that night a herald came rushing into the tavern out of breath. He
gasped that Morbidus Bane, the foul undead, was attacking a town. I asked him
where, and he pointed me in the right direction. I said, “Lets go! Morbidus
Bane is attacking!” and I ran out of the tavern, expecting people to follow.
Exactly one person came with me, and that was Sir Nobunaga. Then, outside, Viscountess
Kiera and Anthony Darkforge both joined my little group.
I cannot tell you how disgusted this kind of thing makes me. If there are people
in trouble, every second counts. Many lives could have been lost because of
the delays the town made in getting together. For all I know, maybe many lives
were lost. This kind of thing is simply not acceptable and people have to work
on improving it or get out of the adventuring business. If you don’t want
to save innocent lives, you’re not worth my time.
I spoke to Baron Delwyn afterwards, and he told me that despite the efforts
of people like Dame Parthynia, Squire Ashe, and himself to get people together,
people just continued to mill about instead of responding to his order. Back
in Avendale, Baroness Kittery once executed someone for failing to follow an
order on the battlefield. Maybe that’s the kind of discipline we need to
get things done. I don’t know for sure one way or the other, but I do know
that the current situation is unacceptable. When a noble gives an order to you
to help him go save an innocent life, you follow it.
Anyway, by the time the town finally got there we saw just how significant the
undead force was. There were glowing eyes everywhere. We pushed into them as
hard as we could, but we were getting hit hard. Anthony got feared, and ran
all the way back to the tavern.
Sir Nobunaga and Squire Kellum tried to take refuge inside a Circle of Power,
but the undead entered the Circle, and dropped them both. It then killed them
both, and rifted away with them. This greatly angered me, but through a Circle
I was powerless to stop it.
I spent most of the battle using hit and run tactics along the woodline. I would
jump in, take out some undead, and jump back out again. A couple times I found
myself trapped behind enemy lines, but I always managed to get out again. My
favorite example of this was when I just casually walked through the undead
line and they didn’t notice me.
At one point in the battle, Dame Parthynia got captured behind the undead line,
and probably killed. I decided that it was my squirely duty to go in after her,
and so I got permission from Baron Delwyn to lead a two man force of myself
and Caliphar in for the rescue. We used sanctuaries, but it didn’t work
very well. Caliphar himself got taken down, and I was forced to retreat.
We then made a push to rescue all the people who got captured, and we were successful.
Dame Parthynia, Sir Nobunaga, Squire Kellum, Caliphar – we got them all
out okay. However, there was one big frustration leftover even after we took
out all the undead. Morbidus Bane, who I know since I slayed him at last Blackstone
gathering, was nowhere to be seen during the battle.
When the battle was finished, we slogged back to town, and were soon assaulted
by rabid squirrels. I wanted to teach Nikki about the brilliant uses of the
calm animal spell, but she had no first circle spells left to cast. So, I used
an inspiration spell to allow her to get a first circle spell back, and then
we calmed the animals. I tried to cure their disease as well, so that they wouldn’t
be rabid anymore, but it didn’t work.
After that, I went to bed, and I am not sure if anything else happened on Saturday
night.
On Sunday morning, the theme seemed to be fire and water. Fire, because we needed
it to fight trolls, since they regenerate if you don’t kill them with flame.
Water, because it rained during the entire fight with the trolls.
When the trolls first came out and I realized that they weren’t being stopped
by normal killing blows, I asked Rastlin to go get Baron Cedric’s flame
sword. Rastlin brought it out and handed it to me, and then we went and chased
a group of trolls across the city of Braughm-Raor to the area where Legion was
staying.
Together with Caliphar, Ramsus, Nikki, Beryl, and maybe some others, Rastlin
and I fought the trolls. He used his element’s fury with “10 elemental
fire” while I used the flame sword. It was a conundrum for me, though,
because I had to simultaneously be a healer and a fighter. I did the best I
could, but it was not easy.
To make matters worse, every time Rastlin and I went to walk away, more trolls
showed up, and we had to start pounding on them again. I think we finally eliminated
the full group of them, but I can’t be certain.
Back in the tavern, I ran into my old friend Sir Telaris of Neridia. I spent
some time sitting and talking to him and Squire Ashe, and then a man came into
the tavern and told us that adventurers had been captured and we should go help
them.
We went to a lighthouse, with Baron Cedric leading the way, and we fought our
way in and rescued Peregrine of Lochwood and Kellian the dwarf. Apparently the
lighthouse had some significance to the war effort against the Saxons, as they
planned to use it to send messages. We captured a copy of the code they planned
to use, and so we became in control of their message sending apparatus. Later
on, that would prove very important.
When we got back to the tavern again, a man from an archery guild of Blackstone
came in with a special practice bow that would let anyone fire arrows. Now,
I hadn’t done archery since Gormonkane removed from me the ability to do
so (at my own request), but when one considers how much time I had spent studying
archery, it only seems logical that I would be at least halfway decent with
a bow.
Well, I wasn’t going to compete, but Sir Telaris insisted that I should.
As anyone who remembers the cheese incident will attest, Sir Telaris can be
quite convincing when he gets going, and so I agreed to give it a shot. I got
the first bull’s-eye of the competition, and then Sir Telaris followed
up behind me by getting the second bull’s-eye of the competititon.
Surprisingly, some people had a lot of trouble in the competition. People like
Caliphar and Nikki, who are normally such impressive archers, must have had
trouble with the practice bow, because they were misfiring quite a bit.
Squire Ashe impressed me a lot with his firing techniques, and his shots were
almost perfect even if his aim was a little off. As for me, my luck continued.
In got a second bull’s-eye, and then a third. At the end of the competition,
I had three bulls-eye’s, Sir Telaris had two, and Caliphar had one. No
one else won any.
I should also point out that I won a bet with Squire Ashe during the tournament.
He bet that the archery guild person’s bow would be more accurate than
Kellian’s throwing axes. However, Kellian won a competition between the
two of them, and so I won a gold off Squire Ashe.
After that was done, a mission was undertaken to go down a sewer hole and deal
with a rat infestation problem. At least, I think that’s what the mission
was. I wasn’t too clear on the briefing. I think we were helping out some
kobolds that had been in town on Friday night, but I don’t remember for
certain.
Fortunately, the rats were only capable of striking for a little better than
the force of a magic missile, and so my protection aura was able to protect
me from their blows. Then, when we found a tunnel, I volunteered to crawl through
first, since their blows didn’t hurt me very much.
I crawled through the tunnel, jumped out the other side, and soaked a fair number
of blows before I imprisoned myself. My shield wouldn’t fit through the
tunnel, so I was using Caliphar’s spear instead. Sir Gunnar came through
the tunnel behind me, but he got dropped in the entrance.
I used the distraction he created to drop my imprison and unload spells into
all the rats around the tunnel mouth. That got rid of most of them, but I didn’t
notice a large “mother” rat who was nearby. She began chucking paralysis
poisons at me, and I ducked behind one of the other rats for cover.
The opportunity I created gave the other adventurers a chance to force their
way into the room. Sir Gunnar finally got through, and not far behind him were
Lord Slateron and Squire Finna. We cleared out the rats, but then Squire Finna
found something bothersome.
There was a treasure box in the room, but it was already empty by the time she
found it. We don’t know who it was who emptied the treasure box and then
ran with the stuff, but we have some suspicions. We interviewed all the people
who were there, but unfortunately didn’t get anywhere, so it remains an
open mystery.
When the kobolds came back, they invited us to join them in a game of Skullball.
Apparently, the game was played with everyone trying to hit everyone with a
red ball, and then the last person left who didn’t get hit won the game.
You could also hit someone in a manner similar to a waylay and call, “Bop!”
and this would knock them out for a minute, during which time they could not
be hit with the ball.
Well, as usual, the field organized into two teams, with a couple non-affiliated
people as well. Basically, it was the Ashbury team of myself, Sir Nobunaga,
Squire Ashe, Squire Kellum, Sir Gunnar, and Mario on one side, with the Caliphar
team of Caliphar, Nikki, Logenn, and some other assorted people on the other
side.
Our Ashbury team got the ball first, and then quickly eliminated the entire
Caliohar team. We then asked the referees kobolds to re-toss the ball so everyone
would have a fair shot.
Sir Gunnar has the ball, and everyone kept encouraging him to go after Squire
Ashe, because he would be his chief competition, but Sir Gunnar went around
and eliminated people like Squire Kellum and Sir Nobunaga, who are not as mobile,
instead.
In the end, it came down to Sir Gunnar, Squire Ashe, and I. Sir Gunnar threw
at Squire Ashe and missed, and Squire Ashe got the ball instead, and quickly
used it to eliminate Sir Gunnar. At this point, I had nowhere left to run, so
I just let Squire Ashe come. He threw the ball, I jumped, and it landed safely
somewhere in between us. I jumped on the ball, and so did Squire Ashe, and we
began wrestling for it. Just when I had finally torn the ball loose, he hit
me with a bop on the back of the head, and thus won the game as the last man
standing.
The next big malady we had to face was a vampire. I didn’t start out in
the original battle against it, but I got pulled in because I am an expert at
fighting things that can kill you with just a touch of their claws, and that’s
what the vampire’s minions did.
While a group including people like Dame Parthynia, Mario, Squire Ashe, and
others chased down the main big vampire, I was left alone to fight one of the
death minions. The minion never had a chance. It’s claws couldn’t
cut through my blesses and protection aura, and so I stood there and pounded
it until it died.
Meanwhile, the other group had taken care of the vampire with similar ease,
and then we split the treasure we found on the vampire afterwards.
That afternoon, Viscountess Kiera, Dame Parthynia, Mario, and I spoke to a Mystic
Wood Elf named Butterfly who was unhappy with being a Mystic Wood Elf. She explained
the situation to the rest of the Mystics, and as far as I have been told, they
all understood, and so she talked to Imp, a fey, and became an elf instead,
although I was told that was just a transition stage on her way to becoming
a butterfly scavenger. At any rate, if she’s happy, that is all that matters
in the end.
The Mystics spent a good deal of the weekend dealing with a being called the
Traveler, but I don’t understand anything about that, so if you want clarification,
talk to Leviathan or Pendulum. They should be able to help.
I then went to speak to Baron Delwyn, and he informed me that progress was being
made against the Saxon menace, but that there were two attacks planned that
evening. The Saxons would attack simultaneously by land and by sea.
For the sea attack, preparations were being made. Gallant of the Mystic Wood,
Ramsus Belmont, and Kaja Darkstrider all went and built siege weapons to fire
at the ships as they came in. I believe that they specifically built a very
complex ballista, but that may only be rumors.
Baron Delwyn informed me that there was a rock quarry nearby, but that it was
not doing its job of supplying rocks for the catapults, and he wanted to know
why. Together with another experienced adventurer, a stone elf named Adrafae,
I gathered together a group of newer adventurers to help me investigate. I believe
that the people who came with me were Kaja, another young wolven whose name
I don’t know, Kellian the dwarf, Shana the biata, Darkstar the celestial
caster, Logenn, and Logenn’s brother, whose name I do not know.
When we got to the quarry, we found that it had been taken over my attercobs,
which are nasty half-man/half-spider creatures. Adrafae and I decided to let
the younger adventurers handle it as best they could, as it would be good training.
They did well, too. They worked as a group, and that allowed them to survive.
They cut each other out of webs, and healed each other when needed. Adrafae
and I only needed to become involved once, and then when we had everyone back
on their feet again, we backed off and let them continue.
In particular, I really thought that Shana and Kellian shined during this battle.
Shana showed that she has great potential as a healer, and once she has a few
more spells, she will undoubtedly become a quality backpack, because the raw
skills are there. They just need to be molded a little.
Kellian is one of the better pure defensive fighters I have ever seen. He keeps
two huge axes in front of him, and it is hard to get a weapon past them to hit
him. He also thinks quickly on his feet, and gets people cut out quickly. And,
when all else fails, he has his throwing axes to fall back on.
Well, the rock quarry managers were so happy to be able top get to the rocks,
that they gave the younger adventurers a reward for their efforts. We brought
it back to the tavern, and I dug through my pouches a little for some extra
gold to throw in to their treasure divvy. I think they all made out pretty well,
and I am happy with that, because they deserved it.
The final piece of preparations was performed by Sgt. Anthony Darkforge, Caliphar,
and Sathen Gor. They apparently went down to the wharf, viewed the defenses
available there, and decided to add to them. They had Rastlin Dawnware use a
level ground cantrip to make the ground impassable to ships, and then they threw
a shark into the water, to eat Saxons after their ships fell apart.
Unfortunately, we didn’t put as much time and effort into stopping the
land-based Saxon force, and that was the first force to strike. Logenn found
them on his way back to his cabin, and he yelled for the rest of the town. We
joined up with him, and formed a front line with which to fight them.
They had a few good pushes, but ultimately there just weren’t enough of
them to even really dent our defenses. Personally, during the fight I started
out working with Sir Nobunaga, but that combination didn’t really have
any chemistry, and so I switched to working with Squire Little instead, and
we seemed to feed off of each other much better. We made a couple dangerous
raids behind enemy lines to take out casters, and we were always successful.
With that battle done with, we rushed to the waterfront to hold off the Saxon
landing force. Its numbers had already been depleted by the defenses, and it
got even worse for the Saxons as they started to land. Sometime their boats
blew up and the shark killed them, at other times they actually managed to land
and ran smack into our front line.
There was, however, one thing that was of irritation to me during this fight.
There was only a narrow avenue for the front line to stand on, and so we should
have had our best fighters on the front line. Even though I am usually on the
front line, I know my limits, and so I stepped back and backpacked Squire Little.
To my right, Lady Pyroxia was backpacking Baron Cedric, and that’s great.
Baron Cedric is a front line fighter and Lady Pyroxia is a top-notch backpack.
However, the fact that people kept jumping in front of Baron Cedric to swing
3’s or 5’s really irritated me. When Baron Cedric is swinging five
times as much as you, let the man do his job.
At one point in the battle, Squire Little, who was doing an excellent job, switched
out for Baron Delwyn, and so I backpacked Baron Delwyn instead. He got hit with
a few death spells, and I asked him why he didn’t gift shield one of them,
and he told me he doesn’t have that cantrip, and so that is a problem I
intend to rectify shortly. Nonetheless, I got him the life spell he needed,
and he beat down the last remnants of the Saxon forces, bringing victory to
us and defeat to the Saxons. At the end of the battle, I shouted one word that
I think says it all in terms of the entire weekend, “Victory!”
Scribed by Seronia on the 9th day of July in the year 604.