Well, another trip to Therendry is done, and that means it must be time for another journal entry. It's funny, I do not record constant journal entries for any other land I travel to, but there is something unique about Therendry. Its citizens seem acutely interested in the past, and how it affects the present. Therefore, I think perhaps history is more relevant in Therendry than in some other lands. Perhaps the reason for this is because Dame Pai Zhi of Therendry is an excellent scholar who is nearly unparalleled in her ability to preserve history. Or perhaps it is because the people of Therendry have come to understand the value of the lessons the past can teach us. Either way, the value of history in Therendry makes these journal entries seem significant to me, and thus I have continued and will continue to write them. Enough rambling, though. Perhaps I should end the preamble start into the history itself.
I arrived in Therendry on Friday evening, the 8th of August in the year 603.
I traveled with my friend Sheriff Glenn Stormwolf. I am now living in Therendry,
on the lands that belong to Glenn's clan, and so traveling in to town together
seemed to be the easiest way to go. I see it as a shining testament to his generosity
that he was so willing to allow me a place to stay for the time I am in Therendry.
He is a good man and a noble defender of the lands and I have nothing but praise
for him.
When we arrived in Calais for the gathering, it seemed as if things were pretty
quiet, for once. We were easily able to unpack our things in the cabin where
we were staying, and headed up to the tavern for the traditional opening greetings.
When they were over, I hadn't yet had five minutes to socialize when a dwarf,
Gunther by name, came into the tavern, seeming very upset. When Glenn and I
asked him what was wrong, he informed us that he had just been assaulted and
wanted to press charges. We asked him to take us to the man who had attacked
him, and he led us to a spot just outside the tavern.
There, we found a man lying on the ground. I quickly checked him to see if he
was alive, but he was not. I administered him a life spell, and Glenn hit him
once, very softly, to make sure that he remained unconscious and didn't try
to escape. We then asked Gunther for his story.
Gunther said that the man had asked him about getting a crossbow. Gunther had
told the man that he could get one for him back at his camp, and so the two
started off together, accompanied by Sir Strider and another elf of whose identity
I am not sure. However, the man apparently decided to attack his three escorts,
and was quickly subdued. That was about the time Gunther came inside and found
us.
We brought the man inside and tied him up, intending to question him for his
side of the story. However, we did not have enough rope to tie up his legs,
and so only his hands were bound and his weapons taken. Right about then, another
group of people arrived in the tavern. They were apparently grave robbers looking
for the location of the crypt of a vampire. I didn't get to talk to them at
all, though, because right about then the tied-up man bolted. He got through
the door with Gunther hot in pursuit. Since Glenn was dealing with the grave
robbers, he sent me to try to recapture the man. Unfortunately, though, I wasn't
fast enough. I cast a light spell and searched for him, but wasn't able to discover
his location. Not wanting to be stranded out in the dangerous woods, Gunther
and I headed back to town.
When we got back the grave robbers were still in the tavern, but had not become
violent. I glanced around and noticed that the townsfolk were significantly
outnumbered. Hoping that it would not become violent, I turned to talk to Gunther.
He told me that he had found a letter on the man who assaulted him, and had
me read the letter to him. It said something about a village where a good portion
of the population had been captured by the residents of a nearby keep. The villagers
were planning some sort of assault on the keep. I thought that a party should
be sent to check it out, and Gunther promised me that he would come back and
seek my help in a few minutes, one he had time to investigate.
With that matter somewhat resolved, I next turned my attention to the grave
robbers. They had taken a townsfolk and killed them as part of a sacrifice or
something like that (to the best of my understanding), and of course we could
not allow that to happen. And so, despite being outnumbered, we fought the grave
robbers. They had no magical protections, but there numbers were had to compensate
for. Sir Strider went down, and I just started unloading. I took down somewhere
between 10 and 15 with spells, but there were more left. Hard pressed by two
of the remaining grave robbers, I was forced to retreat. I organized whatever
townsfolk I could find outside, and we pressed back into the tavern. I managed
to get Sir Strider up, and before long most of the townspeople were up and the
tide of battle had turned. The grave robbers were defeated not long after.
However, there was still the matter of the crypt that they had mentioned to
attend to. If there was a vampire, it had to be dealt with. We gathered the
town, and headed down to the crypt. Glenn, who, similarly to me, likes nothing
better than destroying undead, was particularly happy about getting the chance
to go destroy the foul creations. By this time, I had found my old friend Liriel,
an elf who is one of the smartest adventurers I have ever had the pleasure of
adventuring with. We agreed to look out for each other on the trip into the
crypt. I am glad that we did, too, because Liriel saved my life several times.
She had the good sense to get out of the way when an undead came at me swinging
his weapon for 20 dagger blows of damage. I tried to hold it off, but was unable
to and fell. Liriel, though, was able to get to me and administer a cure light
wounds before I died. The fight took a long time, but eventually we were able
to clear out the crypt and head back up to town. I do not believe that we destroyed
the vampire itself, though, because we had no stake of woe with us.
Not long after we arrived back in town, there were constant goblin raids upon
the citizenry. One goblin said something about holding slaves, but I was unable
to get any more information before it was killed. The entire situation seemed
rather strange to me. Typically, goblins are wimpy creatures, afraid to come
out at night for fear of the undead and other monstrosities of the darkness.
However, these goblins were conducting full scale raids and even managed to
drop some adventurers. The situation didn't add up.
I headed back to the tavern, and Liriel and I talked over possible explanations
for the events of the night. We had thus far learned that there were forest
creatures who had somehow been mutated to be different from their original size.
For example, there were bears the size of dwarves and dwarves the size of giants
roaming around. Also, there was the undead attack and the goblin raids. We theorized
that perhaps the goblin had been emboldened by the smaller stature of the trolls
and bears and such and so had become braver about coming out at night. To see
if there was anything to our point, we went out and investigated the land to
see if we could find any type of taint that would explain the mutations. We
found none, which seemed to suggest several possibilities. Either the taint
was somehow cast directly on each affected being, or the taint was cast through
the sky with some type of weird celestial magic, or the taint was alchemical
in nature, or the taint was something like dragon magic that only the most advanced
of mages could detect. We both thought that it would be a good idea to capture
one of the altered creatures and try to examine it, but such an event never
occurred, for we didn't find any of the altered creatures that night.
Before too long, our services were again called for. The entire town was being
brought to the healer's guild. The bottle of a vampire named Mandrake was being
destroyed (I am not sure if he was the same vampire we fought in the crypt),
and the town was needed to defend the during the ritual. Several elite fighters
and casters (including Lord Zug and Baron Simeon Silvercord) were stationed
inside the circle to protect against a possible rift, while the rest of the
town waited outside. Sure enough, the circle was attacked from the outside,
but under the leadership of Baron Valoric Treehawke, we were fairly easily able
to defend the circle. However, things changed when Mandrake rifted himself and
some of his toughest lieutenants, including a blue hoardling, into the circle
to attack the ritual from there. Despite the fighting prowess of those inside,
Mandrake was easily able to capture the circle, and the best we could do was
wait around outside and recognize people in and out to life those inside.
Somehow, though (and I am not entirely sure how), we were able to complete the
ritual and destroy the bottle. Mandrake rifted out in a rather foul mood. Unfortunately,
several townspeople were bitten by vampires in the course of events, and I believe
one was forced to resurrect. Still, though, considering how bad things could
have been, that was a relatively clean result for the entire ordeal.
After that entire episode was done, it was back to goblin raids. I did manage
to capture one goblin, though, and question him. He informed me (not especially
willingly) that the goblins were raiding town as a rite of passage, a test of
manhood per se. We tried to point out to him that the goblins were just wasting
their population with such a test, but of course he didn't listen. He probably
didn't have authority to make decisions anyway, so chances are it wasn't significant
either way.
After the goblin ordeal, I finally decided to go to bed, and my other cabinmates
arrived not long afterwards. Sleep was relatively difficult to come by in the
heat and humidity, but I was tired enough to manage it.
I am not sure when I woke up the next morning, but I think it was rather late.
However, not many other people were awake in town, so it couldn't have been
too late. The only monsters wandering around were some trolls. I met one while
traveling with my old friend Beryl and her "special someone," Rapting
Little. The troll told us that it wanted to fight one of us in an honor duel.
It promised that it simply wanted to train, and not hurt anyone. To ensure that
it kept its promise, Beryl weaknessed it.
The terms of the honor duel were set to the following: no magic was allowed,
the winner would heal the loser, and both of us would swing for only one dagger
blow of damage. Having agreed to the terms, we touched swords and began. Fortunately
for me, though, this particular troll needed a great deal of work on his fighting,
and so I had hit him twenty or so times without him hitting me once when he
conceded the duel. I was happy because the result meant that I had not lost
my magic armor. The troll gave me all his treasure, a copper piece, as payment
for the loss, and I gave the copper to Beryl to help replace the weakness gas
she had used.
Around then we were paid a visit by a far who worked for Lord Oberon. She was
looking for people to gather components for her for some sort of ritual. Being
uncomfortable dealing with fae, I declined to get involved, but to my surprise,
Beryl was anxious to get involved in this contest, as was the mystic wood elf
named Verbal. The reason that Beryl being anxious to get involved surprised
me is that she had been kidnapped by a fae the night before, and the same fae
had also attacked Rapting with sleep spells. However, when I asked her about
it, she told me that she wasn't actually kidnapped, but went willingly. That,
however, is just about all I know about the situation.
At noontime there was a meeting called of the Healer's Guild, and I decided
to attend to see what the Healer's Guild of Therendry is all about. I liked
some of the things I heard, and was less fond of others. Unfortunately, the
Calais Healer's Guild, like so many others, had no resources to work with, and
so was always scraping and not able to fulfill its duties to the fullest extent.
Having dealt with the same situation in Avendale, I found this state of affairs
upsetting, and so ended up making a donation to the guild.
The meeting lasted an hour and a half, and much of it was spent setting up the
guild structure. The guild has six tiers of people. The Guildmaster/Guildmistress,
currently Parthynia, is of course at the top. Next on the list is the Assistant
Guildmaster/Guildmistress, currently Fina. Following that are the master healers,
then the journeymen, then the apprentices, and then the petitioners. I don't
know a great much more about the system itself, but I am certain that if one
wanted to, they could find out more by contacting Guildmistress Parthynia or
Assistant Guildmistress Fina.
After the guild meeting, things were pretty quiet for a while. Elementals came
into town as some type of a test for Baron Treehawke, and after each was defeated
a question was asked and then Baron Treehawke had to cast a spell to supply
the correct answer. They were strange elementals, though, for they were unaffected
by banish, and that confused me. One of the elementals managed to set the woods
on fire, but quick thinking by Assistant Guildmistress Fina allowed us to stop
the blaze from spreading.
At one point, Beryl and I tried tracking the dwarven fellow, Gunther, with whom
I had spoken the night before, hoping to discover what happened with the assault
on the keep situation, but the trail had long since been covered over and there
was no way to figure out where he had gone.
There was also a situation where two elven men kidnapped Adrian, a celestial
mage of the town, and Caliphar and I took off after them. Unfortunately, we
were unable to find them, and I don't know how the situation eventually worked
out.
Mostly, though, things remained quiet until two things happened at once. First,
we learned that dwarven giants were holding slaves that had to be freed. Second,
we learned that several townspeople had resurrected in the healer's guild circle,
and a field of roses had grown around the circle.
We decided to deal with the healer's guild situation first. When we got there,
we discovered that the roses berserked anyone who touched them. Thus, accessing
the circle was difficult. We soon discovered, though, that the roses could be
cut in one large swoop of a sword, and cleared that way. It caused a berserk,
but it could be resisted or shielded. Thus, we were fairly easily able to clear
half the roses out, but then we ran into a large rose that would not be cut.
It had some type of magical properties, but could not be dispelled. Glenn told
me that the entire rose trap had been set up by a chaos queen that he had a
particularly strong vendetta against. We discovered that the large rose acted
like a battery, storing spells that were then discharged by the smaller roses.
There wasn't any more time to investigate the roses, though, because we were
attacked by some of the dwarven giants. They swung massive and were extremely
difficult to defeat. They were relatively weak against spells, though, and that
was how we took them down. As more and more waves of them emerged, however,
we realized that we had to go after the source of them, and so we went to deal
with the slave holding dwarven giants.
I can't honestly say what happened inside the dwarven ginats cave in the first
stages of the battle, because I was outside guarding the rear along with His
Grace Ellis Pinetree, Guildmistress Parthynia, my new friend Lock, a relatively
inexperienced healer named Nicola, and several others whose names unfortunately
escape me right now. Small monsters kept ambushing the back of the line, but
Lock did an excellent job dispatching them, and we were never in any real danger.
As the rest of the force advanced deeper into the cave, Baron Treehawke came
and retrieved the rest of us to get us to catch up with the rest of the line.
Not much was going on at the back of the line. We kept getting assaulted by
small monsters, but they were dispatched easily. Then, several large dwarven
giants appeared in the tunnels behind us, and we ran up to the main body of
the army for reinforcements. His Grace backpacked myself and John Little, and
together the three of us easily conquered the dwarven giants. I must say, it
is the first time I have been backpacked by a Duke and it was a unique experience,
one I doubt will occur again anytime soon, especially since I normally do the
backpacking.
When we got to the ed of the cavern, we found a narrow tunnel leading to a medium
sized room. Because not everyone could fit in the narrow tunnel, though, I stayed
at the back with His Grace for some conversation and, of course, to offer him
protection. Apparently, the medium sized room was filled with undead with a
vampire commanding them. We trapped the vampire in a circle of power, though,
and defeated the rest of the undead. Then most of the town went back into town,
and only a few of us stayed behind to deal with the vampire. The vampire did
try to escape, but was heroically cut down by Baron Simeon Silvercord. With
the threat finally vanquished, we were able to return to town, and I took the
opportunity to catch a quick dinner.
After I returned from my dinner, I learned that the entire town had been cut
down by a leprechaun and only a few people made it out alive. I asked those
people to show me where the leprechaun was, figuring that even if I couldn't
find it, I could at least pick people up, and save some lives. Fortunately,
though, by the time I got there the threat had been dealt with, and so no heroic
action was needed.
At this point Adrian organized a group of people to go find some slavers, and
since I always like hunting slavers, I decided to come along. Since Liriel had
left town, I decided that for this adventure I would watch Lock's back and he
would watch mine, an idea which worked out since neither of us got into any
real danger. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find out any of the information
that Adrian wanted, and so in that respect the mission was a failure.
Let me pause here a moment to say a bit about Lock. I only met him this gathering,
and yet I think he is a warrior with a great amount of potential. He uses a
two handed sword, which I admire, because very few fighters fight in such a
style these days. It is a style that i best suited to certain fighting situations
and not others, but there are certain situations where access to a two handed
sword or polearm can be the difference between victory and defeat. Lock has
a ways to go yet as a fighter, but I would predict that one day he will be a
great hero of Therendry.
Anyway, getting back to the journal, it was a very quiet night once evening
fell, and I spent most of it talking to Nicola and Glenn's friend Mirage. I
learned that Nicola was engaged to Adrian, which I did not previously know,
and was having a rough day because of all that had happened to him. Mirage,
who I might add does an excellent job of looking after Glenn, made the good
observation that things were too quiet, and Nicola and I both agreed with her.
It seemed like something was getting ready to happen.
And before too long, something did happen. We were attacked by the nemesi. Realizing
that I couldn't fight them, I backpacked LOrd Zug, and I would be remiss if
I didn't mention that Lord Zug is one of the easiest fighters to backpack that
I have ever known. He protects his healer well, he doesn't get out of range
of his healer, and he takes the effect of healing spells quicker than most.
However, despite Lord Zug's skill, this nemesi, a general, was a tough fight.
He swung for twenty dagger blows, and could increase that to 45 massive. I dumped
two entire healing pools and many cure mortal wounds spells into Lord Zug, but
eventually we did manage to take the nemesi general down. I heard there were
other nemesi around town, but I don't know anything about that.
A little later that evening, His Grace Ellis Pinetree announced that we were
going to go into the crypt of Mandrake the vampire and kill him once and for
all. We marched down to the crypt through the pouring rain, but were met with
heavy resistance at the door. There were banshees, mummies, and other assorted
nasty undead. Wecouldn't break through Mandrake's defenses until Glenn set up
a bane of the dead on one side of the entrance and I set up one on the other.
The constant stream of harm undead spells was too much for them to handle, and
they all were either destroyed or fell back. That allowed the town to get into
the crypt, and once inside Glenn and I set up bane of the dead on opposite sides
of the room again and began pelting the undead. Unfortunately, Mandrake the
vampire rifted to where I was and interrupted my bane of the dead, but a timely
warning from the Duke saved my life.
We were able to hit Mandrake pretty hard, and he was forced to keep rifting.
I have to give special credit to Guildmistress Parthynia here as well as Glenn,
because the two of them probably did more damage to Mandrake than anyone else.
The constant stream of damage was more than even the vampire could handle, and
soon he was hidden in a circle while Guildmistress Parthynia, Lord Zug, myself,
and several others sat around and taunted him, trying to lure him out so we
could destroy him. Unfortunately, he rifted out and never rifted back in, so
I assume he got away.
After that battle, things again got pretty quiet in town, and Glenn told me
that he was going to bed and I should catch up with him in a few minutes. I
left the tavern a few minutes later, and wandered through the woods alone toward
our cabin. When I got there, I found that Glenn and Mirage had been taken down
by a crystal golem. It attacked me, but I imprisoned myself before it could
get me. It began to wander off, and I dropped my imprison to go help Glenn and
Mirage, but they were already up because I guess one of them had been possuming.
The three of us beat the golem, but then it began to re-form into a bigger form.
Glenn sent Mirage inside and the two fought the golem.
At the risk of sounding conceited, I believe that the teamwork between the two
of us was amazing. One of us would draw off the golem so the other one could
heal himself, and then we would both start attacking it again. Spells were constantly
reflected off of it and it could occasionally swing for massive damage, so it
was hard to take down, but finally we did manage to do so. And then, both thoroughly
tired and beat, we went to bed.
And so, in conclusion, this gathering left a lot of questions unanswered but
did answer several questions convincingly for me. For one thing, it convinced
me that the strength of Therendry is in its community spirit and ability to
pull together for the greater good. In addition to this, Therendry is blessed
with many great people, more than I can possibly list here, and so I won't even
try. But I will say this. When the chips are down, you always know the people
of Therendry will rise to the occasion, and this weekend proved no exception
to that rule.
Scribed by Seronia on the 10th day of August in the year 603.