Journal of the Exeter Gathering, Nov 3-5, 2006
I don't even rightly know if I should be calling these things journals anymore. The more of them I write, the longer they seem to get. If this narrative is too lengthy to read then I can understand that. Still, I always seem to feel better once I get these done, so I'll continue to write them if only for my own peace of mind.
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The sun set on Friday night and the air turned crisp and cold. The wooden walkways around the tavern became slick with the frost that was also lightly coating the grass and leaves out in the fields. The sky was cloudless and the moon was nearly full. As I walked into the tavern I could see my breath clearly in the cold bright moonlight. The winter adventuring season was upon us.
The tavern in Exeter was not as full as I had seen it in the past. A week earlier there was a very difficult campaign fought in Blackstone. I believe this resulted in some of the local adventurers taking a little time off. Still, around two dozen people showed up, including a few new faces. I met a wild elf named Maris who was just starting his adventuring career. There was also a blue faced drake scavenger whose name I cannot for the life of me recall.
The last gathering a month ago in Exeter was also a particularly grueling one. We suffered greatly at the hands of a black unicorn, and misfortune took the life of a popular noble. For me, the death of Kyth Wild and even Boo who was lost a week ago were never really far from my mind the entire weekend. Over the past month I had a number of black armbands made with the house symbol of Baron Livingston sewn on it. I wore one as an armband for most of the gather in honor of his memory, and I passed the others out to some other adventurers.
Given the cold weather outside, most everyone stayed gathered in the tavern shortly after they arrived. The first disruption occurred a little before midnight when a small band of undead fae came crashing through the doors. There were around half a dozen of them and they had some casters with them. The battle was short and sweet, and fortunately for us entirely fought within the warmth of the tavern.
The undead fae kept up their attacks for the next hour or so. They mixed it up and attacked in groups, they challenged us to single duels, they rushed us in the tavern, they crept around and tried to ambush us in our cabins, and generally made a nuisance of themselves for quite a while.
I grew tired of the attacks fairly quickly. After a time they settled into a rather annoying pattern. When they would attack we could usually managed to kill the three or four melee fighters fairly quickly. But then the casters in the back would immediately desecrate themselves and run off or go behind a building and put up a circle. While this made for a rather good tactic, it was tiresome for us to chase desecrated casters all around the woods and to wait around for one of them to drop a circle.
Only two fights with them merit any real mentioning. The first came fairly early in the night. A group of them came up and looked over the tavern, but then kept walking over towards one of the cabins. I snuck outside to watch, and came around the corner to see one of them guarding the door to the tavern and facing a few people in the open doorway.
I decided to sneak up on the fae guarding the door. As I was creeping up behind
it I thought the people standing at the door saw me. But just then they slammed
the door and the fae turned around and spotted me. He immediately came at me,
and for the moment I decided to hold my ground.
I traded three or four blows with it hoping that the door would open back up and that people would rush it from the rear. I finally spared a glance and I saw that no one at all was paying any attention to what was going on outside. I was completely on my own. At that point I realized a retreat was in order. I turned to run but choose my moment poorly. A well timed slay to my back stopped me before I could make three steps.
I’m not sure what happened at that point. After what seemed like an eternity of blackness my spirit barely clawed its way back to my body after I was delivered a life spell. I found myself underneath a tree several yards from where I fell. There was still some fighting going on around me as people killed the last of the undead fae. I can only guess that I was being drug off somewhere when I got noticed by someone inside and rescued. That one was way too close for comfort. I got lucky this once, and I made a mental note to not press my luck any more for the rest of the weekend.
The second memorable incident happened a short time later. The undead fae managed to surprise Roc, Juniper and Kes in one of the cabins. We spotted what was going on from the tavern and ran over to the cabin to try to effect a rescue. There were plenty of people at the door, so I ran around to the side of the building and looked in through one of the windows. I could see that Roc, Kes and Juniper were in a circle and in no immediate danger.
Just to be sure, I quietly checked the window I was looking through. Sure enough it was securely bolted from the inside. I stood watching until everyone made a charge into the building to rush the fae. I ran around the building and was one of the last to get in. When I got inside I saw some undead fae bodies, but they were too few in number.
“Quick, back outside!” someone shouted. “They just jumped out the window!” I looked where they were pointing, and they were pointing at the same window I had been standing at only seconds before, and which was still securely locked and bolted. I still haven’t figured out what that was all about.
In any event, we all turned around and ran back outside and chased down the two remaining undead fae and killed them. After that attack we only fought a few single stragglers that were still lingering around in the woods. A short time later we stopped seeing them altogether, and didn’t see them any more for the entire weekend.
When we had a few minutes to spare in between skirmishes I sat down to spend a few moments talking to Roc. Since his liege perished last month his position as squire sort of went into limbo. I asked him if anyone from the noble houses of Richland had contacted him to let him know where he stood, or where Squire Juniper stood for that matter. He said that he hadn’t heard a word from anyone.
This struck me as somewhat strange. From what I know of Richland, Kyth Wild
was the only adventuring noble. The De’Genovia family surely should see
the value in keeping up good relations with the adventuring class. It would
just make sense to me that they would take care of Roc and Juniper in a prompt
and fair matter. But I guess it is hard for me to see things from a noble’s
perspective. I’m not too worried about Roc or Juniper. In a worst case
scenario, either one would have little trouble finding a new patron.
The next thing I knew we were all being gathered up to go on another expedition to the Lost River Forest. We needed to once again visit the Wellspring in order to gather some more purified water. I’m not sure exactly how we came across this information, but that was the plan. Sir Merritt was chosen to be in charge of this expedition in the absence of Count Lyonesse. Sir Merritt got us all lined up and assigned to buckets and marched as out of the tavern.
I was relieved to see that we would not be walking the entire distance to the Lost River Forest. Instead we were taken to a gate that had already be set up and we moved through it. We appeared once more near the glade of the Wellspring, which we had visited several month earlier for a similar reason. This time the Wellspring was guarded by undead. I honestly can’t recall whether these undead were undead fae or undead elves. They appear very similar to each other.
This time our approach to the Wellspring was crowded by several rocks and trees. We started off with a front line followed up by the line of three buckets, each with two people to carry them. So at the start of the fight I was in the back holding a bucket with Rillien. The battle line formed and started to spread out a bit. It looked like we needed more people to support the front line so Rillien and the rest of the bucket hauler moved forward and we just stacked the empty buckets up in a pile for the time being.
We had to force our way through a narrow gap in order to get to the Wellspring. It was slow going at first. I stayed in the back with the pile of buckets with nothing to do except dodge the occasional stray spell that arced over the line. When we finally broke through we did so in a rush, and I had to hustle to push the empty buckets through the gap.
Once we got on the other side I lost track of the buckets. When the space opened up the undead were able to swarm us from all sides and I had to finally pull me sword and start swinging. The bulk of us were able to keep the undead busy while the buckets got filled. Just as I saw the buckets start to head back Sir Merritt ran up to me and shoved a brass pot full of treasure into my hands.
So we ended up having to fight our way back out the way we came in. We took much less time on the way out, luckily. It was awkward for me because I had to hold my shield and the pot of treasure in one hand, which made it very difficult to ward off attacks. I tried to stay to the middle and think small and insignificant thoughts, and luckily managed to make it all the way back out to the gate without mishap.
The night ended shortly afterwards. The treasure was split up, the Wellspring
water was stored behind wards, and people slowly drifted off to sleep. I did
the same, but sadly did not sleep very well. I had strained my back a week earlier
at the start of the campaign in Blackstone, and the mushy bed that I had been
assigned was not particular comfortable.
As such, I was a little grouchy when I got up the next morning. I soon got over it, though. I went to the tavern and got some coffee made. Sir Merritt and Sheriff Blackguard were also already up. I set up a table for breakfast and waited for Katherine VonSering to show up. We had spoken earlier in the week and made arrangement to meet around this time. There were some local landmarks in the woods that she wanted to observe and I agreed to show them to her.
Katherine presently arrived in the tavern, and we sat down and ate breakfast. I hadn’t originally planned on anyone being there besides Katherine and myself, so I was glad I brought a little extra food. It would have been a bit uncharitable to shoo Seronia and Conner away, and luckily there was enough for all.
After we had eaten and spoken for a while Katherine and I left for our little sightseeing tour. By this time Maris was also up, and so he came also along with Seronia and Connor. The five of us set off towards the river where I was going to show Katherine the dam she had been interested in. As it turns out we didn’t get all that far.
Right on the outskirts of town we turned the corner of a building and found ourselves face to face with a small patrol of stone golems. At first they just stood there and didn’t move, but once we approached them they moved forward purposefully and attacked. Most of us jumped back, but Conner and Seronia jumped forward and met them head on.
We didn’t do so good at first. Seronia squared off with one and they started trading blows. Conner got almost immediately knocked down, and when I moved up to support him I got the stuffings beat out of me as well. I hadn’t been expecting a fight this early, and so I only had my short sword and no shield. When Katherine tried to rush forward and get some healing on Conner she took a number of nasty whacks as well.
Luckily for us, it wasn’t enough to put her out, and she managed to get Conner back on his feet. I backpedaled like crazy and fought defensively and managed to survive long enough for Conner and Maris to kill the one I was fighting. A couple of shatter and destroy spells from Katherine put the third one on the ropes, and we finished it off just as Seronia was putting the final touches on the one he was fighting.
Katherine and Seronia spread some healing around real fast just in time as some more golems marched around the corner. Now that we were a little more ready we had an easier time with the second wave. Seronia again picked up the first one, and the second one latched on to Conner. I saw that these golems were pretty tough but extremely slow moving, so I grabbed the attention of the third one and started to slowly lead it off while staying just out of range of its weapons.
I knew Seronia could handle the one he had, and Conner was okay as long as he
had Katherine backing him up with healing and shatters. So I just needed to
keep the last one busy until they were done. I had forgotten about Maris, though,
until I saw him angling to get behind the one I was leading. So I made a minor
course correction which maneuvered the golem’s back right in front of the
wily wood elf rogue. I smiled grimly as he stepped forward to deliver a devastating
attack to the golem’s rear.
Tink. Tink tink. Oh, that’s right. Maris is kind of new at the attacking the back thing. His attack ended up lacking just a bit in terms of devastation. Nonetheless the golem stopped and turned to see what was chipping away at its fanny. That was all the opening I needed, and I stepped up and beat the daylights out of the distracted golem.
I looked around and saw that all of the golems were taken care of at this point. We searched around the area for a little bit but couldn’t find anything else of any interest. This must have just been another one of the various roving patrols of golems that we always hear the peasants reporting.
At this point we split up. Katherine and I continued on our way to the waterfront while the rest returned to town to see if anyone else was around. I took Katherine down the spot where the dam crossed the water, and we walked a little ways further downstream where a footbridge crossed the channel. Once she was satisfied we made our way back towards town. As we drew near the tavern we began to hear sounds of some fighting.
I ran to see if I could help but it was all over by the time I got there. There were about three or four drazeel bodies lying around, so I guessed that these were the cause of the commotion. We had fought these creatures in earlier months and I thought I knew them pretty well by now. They were lizard like creatures with incredibly hard scales that shed weapon blows easily. There constantly seek elves and attempt to drag them away in order to perform some kind of transformation on them in order to create another drazeel.
As it turns out, these drazeel had learned a few more tricks. I walked past one of the bodies to investigate another, and a moment later I was struck down from behind. When I got healed I saw that all the drazeel were back up and fighting. As I observed them fighting I saw a number of things I had not observed previously when fighting them.
Flame based magic heal them, and they were able to produce spell strikes with their weapons. In addition to offensive spellstrikes like magic storm and magic missile, they would spellstrike themselves with refit armor spells and healing flame spells when they got in trouble. They also exhibited considerable amounts of spell defenses which included returns, resists, and even reflects.
Their last trick we found was that they now regenerated. Only killing them with an ice based attack seemed to put them out for good. Luckily for us, Tygil has a mace with an ice aura on it, and he was put to work running around finishing off all the drazeel we managed to drop.
We fought off a number of attacks from these lizard creatures for about an hour
or so. Once we became familiar with their new abilities it became a bit easier
to deal with them. Eventually the drazeel attacks ceased, and instead we found
ourselves getting attacked by phase spiders. These attacked us off an on for
quite a while until mid afternoon or so.
During a break in the action with the Drazeel a number of us that were standing around decided to do a little exploring off in the woods. We came upon an area that had a number of dilapidated and decaying shacks and huts that looked like it once housed gypsies. Sitting out in the open beside one of the buildings was a small ornate box.
The box looked a little suspicious sitting so plainly in the open where it was. Tovolia decided that it must be trapped, and that he was going to investigate it. He passed off all of his fragile items to me and Rillien to hold and then knelt down by the box to check it out. He was unable to find any traps even after digging around underneath of the box with his magic spoon. Inside the box was a small amount of treasure items, and so we split these up and continued on our way.
I made my way back towards town, and once again as I drew close I heard the sound of screaming. When I got closer I saw that there were two rather provocatively dressed women near the tavern speaking to several adventurers. They had been the ones screaming in response to some spiders showing up. The spiders were now dead and the two women were in deep conversation with Count Fellmist. Every now and then someone else would come over and they would giggle and flounce and bat their eyelashes. I wasn’t much in the mood for any of that sort of thing so I left them in the capable hands of Count Fellmist.
Around this time another visitor showed up. This was a gentleman of advanced years who walked with a cane that was topped by a rather garish looking clear crystal. He as guarded by a silvery flowing golem that I was told was a quicksilver golem. I was later told that this person was Corlav Blackstone who had been leaving messages lately on the fae tree. He had some business to conduct with Count Fellmist as well, but he was forced to wait until his attention could be taken away from the two ladies.
A short time later I was recruited to accompany a group of people including both Counts Fellmist and Lyonesse on a trip to visit a library. I was a little unclear as to why their was a need for such a strong force to go to a library, which doesn’t quite top my list of dangerous and foreboding locations. In any event, the trip was relatively uneventful. Count Fellmist procured a book he was looking for, and in short order we returned to town.
It was about mid afternoon by this point, and I noticed that for the most part I hadn’t really accomplished all that much yet. In particular, I was hoping to earn a little more gold this weekend to put towards a purchase I had in mind. Towards that end I decided to spend some more time searching around in the woods.
Caliphar was also looking for something to do, and so the two of us decided
to search over by the river. When we got close to the shore line we heard the
unmistakable sounds of someone rifting in right behind us. We whipped around
with our hands on our swords to find ourselves looking at the smiling face of
our old friend Fachtna, the petite lady of Chaos.
Fachtna seemed to be in a friendly mood that afternoon so I judged we were in no real danger. Fachtna didn’t pay me too much attention, and that was more or less fine with me. She seemed mostly interested in speaking with Caliphar. She and Caliphar discussed Boo and Strider and Tomas and other people they both knew and once knew. After a short bit of socializing she went ahead and bid us goodbye and rifted out once me.
Caliphar and I continued along our way and presently came upon another gentleman heading up from the docks. It was getting dark by this point but I could see that this guy had quills growing from his face. The porcupine scavenger introduced himself as Sticks and offered to sell us valuable information. Caliphar and I were both interested in buying, but sadly between the two of us all we could come up with was about four and a half gold. As we stood there trying to decide what else we could offer him Kes came walking up. Sticks greeted Kes and it was apparent that they knew each other. Kes said they had some business to discuss, and so Caliphar and I shrugged and left them to their business. I was starting to get tired of finding people who were only interested in talking to someone else.
It was plenty dark by this time so we decided to just call it quits and head back to town. When we got to the tavern I spotted a young lady dressed in blue wandering around with the look of someone what was searching for something. I called over to her and asked her if she needed any help. She turned to me and came walking over saying that she was looking for some adventurers and not having any luck finding them.
I was standing near the back door of the tavern at this point. I saw that she had a glowing hand of aura and was walking towards me with a fair amount of confidence in her stride. Having been burned one too many times in such situations I decided that discretion would be the better part of valor, or even courtesy in this case. I said there were some adventurers in the tavern, and I hastened up the steps in order to be in plain sight of everyone inside when I opened the door for her.
She came inside and I led her over to one of the tables. She seemed rather pleasant now that we were both no longer standing outside alone in the dark. She sat down and smiled at me and explained that she had been sent from the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences in order to assist us. It was known that we were having problems with some planar rips, and she was here to provide us with some help in this regard.
My earlier caution was now gone. I was starting to think maybe my luck was changing.
Considering the last couple of people that I have found were either undead,
scaly, a Power of Chaos or a money grubbing porcupine scavenger, I have to say
this charming young lady with the bright smile who seems to want to talk to
me was a vast improvement. Of course, I should have seen what happened next
coming from a mile away. Just as I was about to sit down and speak with her
she says “?and who I am really looking for is Katherine VonSering or Pyroxia
Fyrestorm. Can you bring me to either of these people?”
Oh well. Like I said, I should have seen that one coming. I turned and called over to Pyroxia who was sitting in the corner of the tavern to come over and join us. I introduced the two ladies, and they began to discuss a small bottle that they hoped to use to capture some essence of pure evil from a mist which could be found in the middle of the Lost River Forest. This was then to be used in some fashion to close the rip between Good and Evil. As they were discussing this Katherine came in to the tavern, and I waved her over and introduced her as well.
The three ladies discussed the magical bottle and its use for a short time, and then it was handed over to Pyroxia. Seeing that I wasn’t particularly needed here I decided now would be a good time to take one last look through the woods before it got too late. I left out the back door of the tavern and walk around the corner towards the woods. Just then the lady in blue stepped out of the side door and began walking in the same direction I was headed.
Hoping to at least learn a little about her before she left I came over to her and asked if we could walk together for a short time. I asked her about her work with the Academy and how she came to be assigned to come help us. We made small talk for a few minutes until our paths diverged and I bid her goodnight. I have for some time been wanting to make a few contacts within the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences, and I resolved to try my best to remember her name.
I turned off the road as this point and moved over into the woods that bordered this area of town. After a short time I spotted what appeared to be a number of undead of some sort standing motionless in a thick clump of trees. Not feeling overly ambitious at the time I decided that I would pass them by.
A short distance later I can across another undead ambling down the road. Something struck me as a bit odd about this one. It seemed to be just walking along like it was headed to market, and not shambling like a corpse newly ripped from the grave. Nonetheless I pulled out my sword and said something overly corny like “Halt, you undead creature you!”
The undead stopped in his tracks and said “What? Undead? Where?” He then started frantically looking around in every direction to find where the evil undead might be lurking. I was puzzled by this. I honestly got the impression this guy didn’t know he was undead. You would have thought the bones and bits of rotting flesh might have clued him in.
I stepped towards him and point over into the woods and said “Look, its
over there.” Right on cue it turned around and started staring into the
woods, turning its entire rotten backside to me. For the briefest moment I hesitated.
Something odd was going on here, and it might be worthwhile to talk to this
corpse for a little bit. But I was alone, and the chance to finish this fight
fast was right now, and I couldn’t afford to pass this chance up. Besides,
there are a bunch of laws about consorting with undead and stuff, and even though
everyone and their brother does it I didn’t feel like pressing my luck.
So I began beating the mess out of this undead, who was so surprised at my attack that it never even thought to pull out the rusty sword that was at his hip. I just kept going “Ow! Ow! Why are you hitting me? Ow!” I felt a little weird and not entirely satisfied when I finally finished the job. Sometimes adventuring is like that.
I came back to the tavern again and caught up with what was going on. In my absence a iron pot or kettle of some sort had been retrieved by Count Lyonesse and some others. When I asked about this I got told some stories which helped me put together a number of events I had not previously thought were related.
I had seen a drawf come into town and talk to the nobility a few times, and I learned that he was the source of much of the information that had led us first on the trip to collect Wellspring water and later the trip to retrieve the magic pot. Additionally a number of people had received hints last night in their dreams relating to a method of getting rid of some dark evil mist in the Lost River Forest that was responsible for the undead elves and other problems coming from there.
I learned that the next thing we need to do was to go to some deep underground location to collect some lava in the magic pot. Once we had that, we would later combine the Wellspring water with the lava in the pot to produce purified steam which we would then use to get rid of the evil dark mist.
An expedition was setting out to collect the lava from the underground cave. Once again we arrived at the location by way of a gate. This time it was provided by Nevah Starcrafter. He had previously assisted us a number of time in our efforts in fighting the drazeel. We went through the gate he provided and ended up in a series of underground tunnels. I’m not entirely sure where these tunnels were on Tyrra, and I’m not sure anyone else knew either.
As soon as we came through the gate we were attacked by a small number of drazeel. We defeated them without any trouble, but since Tygil and his ice mace were not on this trip we couldn’t kill them for good. We just pushed the bodies out of the way and kept on going. It didn’t take us very long to reach the cave where the lava could be found.
There were a number of drazeel guarding the cave as well as various fire elementals
of some sort. Once again we had to fight our way through a narrow choke point
in order to get to where we were going. While the frontline was trying to force
the gap, I found myself fighting in the rear with a number of drazeel that had
come up behind us. Since there was a good amount of light in the tunnels owing
I suppose to the lava, I found that I could read my scrolls without much trouble.
I cast a few magic missiles into the drazeel, but they appeared to either resist
the spells or not feel particularly bothered by them. I instead tried to cast
a lightning storm to see how they liked that. Well, that is when I learned that
they could reflect spells when they so choose. A few minutes later when I healer
scraped me up off the ground I just stuffed my scrolls back in a pouch and decided
to stick with my sword.
We finally pushed our way through the gap, and things got a little chaotic at that point. I squeezed through along with everyone else, and found myself pushed over on the side of a swirling melee. Drazeel and fire elementals and people were all fighting each other in one great big jumble.
Caliphar and myself moved along the wall to try to find some clear space over behind some fire elementals. This proved a very bad decision. Several flame blasts and spell strikes later Caliphar lay in a smoldering heap up against the wall and I was scrambling to get back to the main group of people. I managed to make it back just as our two lines finally solidified. Luckily I was on the right side of the lines. Unfortunately, Caliphar was not.
Tomas (or whatever he is calling himself these days) was behind me throwing elemental ice at anything scaley or on fire that moved. I tried to get him to blast a path for me to go grab Caliphar, but there were just to many things in the way. I knew Caliphar by this time only had a few more moments of breath still in him before he would be beyond healing, so I decided to activate my one single healing item.
I tucked my sword and took a deep breath and tried to pretend there wasn’t anything between him and me. Then I incanted my spell and tossed the aura in a high arcing throw. The aura gracefully looped through the air and nearly grazed the ceiling of the cavern before finally coming to land smack dab in the middle of Caliphar’s chest.
Caliphar was up like a flash and moments later was standing beside me back on our sides of the lines. In the overall scheme of the battle this little episode probably didn’t amount to much. Someone else would most likely have gotten to Caliphar eventually. Still, I couldn’t help but feel inordinately proud of myself at that particular moment.
While all this was going on we managed to clear enough monsters out of the way to get to the lava flow and begin filling up the magic cauldron. Several elementals and drazeel tried to rush past us to prevent this. Before the battle Caliphar had the foresight to give me three enchantments of elemental blade. I ended up using two of these to stab elementals in the back as they went by, and that made short work of them.
We finally got the cauldron filled, and then we had to basically fight the entire battle over again in reverse. We had to force the gap once more, and then fight a long slow careful retreat back to the gate and back out. There were a couple of bad moments along the way, but in the end we all finally made it out without further mishap.
Sadly, as we passed out of the gate and back to Exeter we practically tripped
over the body of Nevah. He had stayed behind, and apparently came to a rather
unpleasant end. His permanently dead body was lying right beside the gate where
we had left him.
This rather spoiled the mood for many of us. There wasn’t anything to do other than forge on, though. I understand that some people were a little closer to him and agreed to handle some of his personal items and affairs, including making sure his young son was taken care of.
Right after we finished splitting up the treasure I spotted Count Fellmist and Tygil returning to town from some errand. At that moment I recalled the group of undead I had spotted in the woods and passed up earlier. I asked the two of them if they were interested in investigating the matter with me, and they agreed.
It was a bit rough going getting to the spot in the woods where I saw the undead. When I got there we could see there were about six of them. None of us liked the two to one odds, but we decided to cautiously move forward and do battle. In the end it was rather anticlimactic. The undead were little more than lesser skeletons and zombies, and took less time to kill than it takes me now to write about it.
Shortly after this somewhat odd affair happened. While we were sitting in the tavern we all heard loud barking and howling coming from outside. Several of us went out to investigate. Since the moon was full this night, I think several people thought these might be werewolves.
Once I got outside I could see that a small pack of about five wolves had approached the tavern and stood facing us. Someone jumped forward and attacked and a moment later all the wolves were dead. As everyone else turned to go back inside I walked over and looked down at one of the wolves.
I was expecting to see the taint of chaos or foaming mouths or some indication that these were anything other than normal woodland creatures. But for all I could tell that is just what they were. That hadn’t seemed all that threatening prior to being attacked. Why were these wolves killed? Now, I’m not exactly a Tynsil Treehawke at heart, but for some reason this bothered me that night.
A little while later it was time for the main event for the night. We had all the things we needed in order to dispel the evil dark mist at the heart of the Lost River Forest. Sadly for me I wasn’t able to attend this trip. Just before we were to leave a neighbor of mine came to the tavern and explained that my mother was filling ill and that I was needed at my parent’s house. Luckily this didn’t turn out to be very serious and was mostly a matter of over reacting on my mom’s part, but while visiting with them I missed the trip.
From what I was told afterwards when people returned everyone was rifted somewhere
by Shepherd. Stepherd is a nightmare elemental of some sort and in the past
hasn’t been entirely friendly with us. I’m not quite sure why she
was being so helpful this particular evening. However, she rifted everyone safely
to some area that was presumably deep in the Lost River Forest.
The area was overrun by undead elves, and the evil black mist hung heavy in the air a short distance away. Stepping in to the mist quickly sucked away a person’s life, so it was a tricky affair to fight and stay out of it. Somehow I’m told that Ruendil used the magic of some artifact found a few months earlier to make it possible for Sir Cedric to enter the mist and use the water and lava pot to create the purifying steam. This caused the evil black mist to abate, and shortly afterwards the undead elves all were killed or disappeared. Katherine was also able to collect a sample of the pure evil in the mist using the special bottle that was given to her earlier.
I arrived back in the tavern a short time after Shepherd had rifted everyone back. Seronia came over to speak to me and explained that he and some others had attacked Shepherd at that time, but she merely rifted away to escape harm. She rifted back a short time later and convinced everyone of the futility of attacking her at that time, so at the moment she was just sitting around socializing in the tavern like everyone else. I found that more than a little odd, but wasn’t about to make any sort of issue of it.
It was by now just a little past midnight. Two things still left to be done before things were over for the weekend. The first of these was the Qualinorim ceremony that Lord Vargo planned to hold. From what I gather this is a traditional Quentari Elven ceremony that comes at this time of the year wherein those who have passed on beyond this life are remembered and celebrated. I think the version that Lord Vargo held differed slightly, and followed another Elven (Sylvari?) tradition in that it was somewhat less joyous, and a bit more serious and somber.
Lord Vargo set up a guild hall with a circle of candles and with many other candles spread across the room. One by one he invited us in to the hall. I was one of the last ones to enter. When my turn came, Lord Vargo explained this was a solemn ceremony, and asked if I was prepared to take part in it. I agreed, and he marked my face with blood and I entered and took a spot in the rear of the room.
Lord Vargo spoke in the beginning and explained the ceremony and how it would be held. All of the elven members of our group sat in the front. Each in turn stepped forward and into the circle of candles and told some story about someone who was no longer with us. There were stories of people I had known, like Ramsus and Kyth Wild, and there were also stories of other long gone adventurers and family members and friends.
Once all of the elves had said there piece, Ruendil asked if there was any other
among us who would like to speak of the dead as well. A few people stepped forward
and spoke. I briefly considered, but decided against it. I had no story prepared,
and in truth I have been fortunate in that no one really close to me has died.
I could have stood up and told some story about some time I remembered spending
with Kyth for instance, but I would not have felt particularly sincere in doing
so. I would have felt that it would have been more an act of my own vanity than
any sort of celebration of Kyth. That wouldn’t have felt right, and so
I kept my seat and my peace.
The last person to speak was Sir Cedric. He spoke of a dead friend of his, and how they had often thought of giving up the life of warriors and instead devoting themselves to the arts of healing. At the end, Cedric drew one of his two swords and handed it to Lord Vargo. He then paused and looked at us all and said “From this day forward, I will shed no man’s blood.” And with that he broke his remaining sword across his knee and walked out of the building.
After a brief and somewhat awkward silence Lord Vargo stood and took the center of the circle of candles once more. He thanked us all for coming and participating in the ceremony, and with that it drew to a close. We all got up and slowly filed out of the building.
The same building was to be used for the next ceremony, which was the Spirit Farewell for Kyth Wild. I had spoken to some people earlier and been told that this was going to be a small ceremony performed by Seronia and only attended by a handful of people. Seronia had not attended the Qualinorim so I went to the tavern to tell him that it was ended and that it was time for him to perform the Spirit Farewell.
When I arrived at the tavern I saw that Count Fellmist had proceeded me and that Seronia was already on his way back. I returned to the building where the ceremony was to be held and was surprised to see that a number of people were still hanging around. I was even more shocked to learn that at some point there had been a change of plans. Seronia was no longer going to be performing the ceremony. Instead, Tovolia of all people would be casting the formal, and additionally almost the entire group of people still up would be attending.
Roc was standing by the door of the building letting people in one by one. When only Seronia and myself were left standing outside I asked him what in the world was going on. Roc seemed to be as confused as I was about the change of events. Since nearly everyone else was inside at this point I asked if I was invited as well, and he replied that he thought I was and he waved me inside.
I took a seat along the same back wall where I had sat previously during the Qualinorim ceremony. There were around a dozen or so people spread out among the benches facing the circle of candles. Inside the circle of candles stood Kes, Tovolia and Parthynia, who had arrived a short time earlier before the Qualinorim ceremony. Tovolia had a number of unlit candles with him along with a scroll of some sort.
One we were all settled Tovolia began the formal, or ceremony, or séance, or whatever you might choose to call it. It was clearly not a standard formal ceremony of any sort. He was not using a Circle of Power, nor was he using any sort of components. From what I could see he was using one of the weird Griffon Scrolls that I have seen him working with a few times over the past few months. Somehow this particular scroll granted him the ability to perform formal magic effects without any of the other normal requirements.
Tovolia began be asking Kes, Seronia, Roc, Juniper, and Parthynia to stand off to the side and hold candles. He then called them forward one at a time and lit the candles and set them about the scroll he was using. Each time he explained how each of the candles represented the something mystical and metaphorical. After all the candles were arranged he called Roc forward and asked him to draw forth Kyth’s sword.
Tovolia instructed Roc to wait for his signal and then to cut Tovolia’s throat with the sword. Tovolia would then die, and his spirit would go forth to find the spirit of Kyth Wild and lead it back to all of us. As soon as he explained this I knew exactly what was going to happen next, as did I think everyone present with the possible exception of Tovolia himself.
Kes immediately began to protest. “Wait a minute! Why does he get to be the one to die and seek Kyth? Why would Kyth follow him in the first place? This is bullshit! Kyth isn’t close to Tovolia!” At first Tovolia attempted to just continue with the ceremony, but as Kes began to argue louder and louder it became impossible. “Why are we even doing this crazy ceremony? Why aren’t we just doing normal standard Spirit Farewell?”
Things were going downhill fast. Kes was getting more and more upset, and everyone in the audience was shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Tovolia just sat there staring at this scroll as Kes’ protests showered down on top of him. Just when I thought things were going to end in disaster, I was amazed to see cooler heads prevail.
Tovolia stood up and he, Kes, and Parthynia discussed something quietly for about half a minute. They all then took their places and continued with the ceremony. They had changed things around so that now Parthynia was going to be the person who was killed and whose spirit would guide Kyth back to us. This compromise seems to have been acceptable to Kes and she allowed the ceremony to continue.
Roc stepped forward and slit Parthynia’s throat with Kyth’s sword. She then collapsed in the circle and fell against Tovolia, and I rather suspect she bled all over him. And then we waited. And waited. Everyone sat perfectly still and no one spoke a word. I kept track of time in my head and after four minutes I began to worry that we might have a problem.
But just at that moment came the unmistakable sound a someone rifting. At first it was difficult to locate the sound, but then I realized that it came from above our heads. For some strange reason Kyth had decided to rift into the rafters right about the fireplace. I don’t know whether he did that for dramatic effect, or whether he had not gotten particularly good at rifting yet.
After a few moments Kyth swung down from the rafters and embraced Kes. In appearance he looked much as he did in life, though it was apparent by several markings that he now held the form of a being from the Plane of Death. It was clear to me that Kyth was going to have important private things to say to people other than myself, and so I decided to slip quietly out the back for the time being.
I took a brief ten minute walk around in order to let people get through the initial emotional part the seeing Kyth once more. I came back to the building and was rather surprised to find it completely empty. Surely the ceremony wasn’t already over. I saw light coming from a nearby cabin and investigated and found that everyone had moved here due to it being warmer inside.
I stepped in and saw that Kyth was standing in the back with everyone standing around looking at him. Off in another corner I could see that Strider was also here. He and Parthynia were talking among themselves. Caliphar was asking Kyth some questions, and people were making uncomfortable and awkward small talk. Nobody seemed to exactly know how to behave or act, which is pretty understandable.
I listened for about ten minutes. Kes started dropping hints that if we had anything important to say we should say it soon before she took Kyth away for some alone time. I said a word or two to Kyth and left at that point. I was sad that Kyth was gone, but we had no real unfinished business between us. He was doing what he was supposed to do now, and it was time for me to get back to my own business.
And presently, that business was finding my bed. I went straight back to my cabin and crawled into bed. I’m told that Kyth stayed around for several hours after I left, and didn’t leave until early the next morning. My guess is that like Strider, Ramsus and Tomas we will run across Kyth again sometime before it is all over. But until that time, there were still things here on Tyrra that I needed to do.