In the interests of continuing to attempt to find information that could help matters in Therendry, I traveled to Ae’ranor this week. It was a pleasant trip on the way there, as there was no ice and snow as I experienced the last time I was there, although there was a bit of rain.
Again, I was pleased that I got to see many familiar faces in Ae’ranor.
I had traveled up with Squire Verbal of Stormcross County, Caliphar Belmont,
and Beryl Qain. When we got there, we were pleased to find that Baron Havencrest
was there, and Lady Pyroxia Fyrestorm of Calais, Sir Strider of Blackstone,
Sir Noah of Blackstone, and High Lord Tao of Koroket were all on their way.
Also, we got to see old friends like Nicola Serife, Ramsus Belmont, and of course
Squire Glenn Stormwolf. Additionally, I was pleased to see Gehenna and her friends
Lee and Dalen, who I had adventured with the previous weekend in Dar Khabad,
and had proven to be steadfast allies.
Well, it wasn’t long into the gathering when a representative of the guilds
came into town and told us that Guildmaster Gar needed help because his basement
had been overrun with umber hulks. Now, I have no idea what an umber hulk is,
but that didn’t turn out to matter because we didn’t end up fighting
umber hulks anyway. Instead, we ended up going against spiders, I believe of
the attercob variety, who were paralyzing people with their spittle and webbing
people as well. I went in with Caliphar and a group of others, and we made it
down two levels or so before we had to retreat due to lack of resources.
I also spent some time teaching Nicola how to use cantrips. It’s funny,
I have been doing them for so long now that I have forgotten how hard it was
to use them at first. After a few minutes of coaching, though, Nicola managed
to cast an armored to magic upon herself, which I was proud of her for. I suppose
that sometime in the future I will have to work on teaching her how to cast
formal magicks such as investitures.
Most of Friday night, though, was spent patrolling the town. I especially worked
closely with Ramses Belmont, who is a talented young adventurer who probably
needs a little more experience and seasoning. Still, he has ability, and because
of that he has a bright future before him.
There was one final adventure to go on Friday night, where Baron Havencrest
grabbed me to go investigate unusual activity at the portal room, which is a
room of portals that used to belong to the Liche King who used to rule Ae’ranor,
and we ended up discovering that the chaos portal was open. We put a wall of
force in front of it, but I don’t know if it held or not.
Eventually, though, it was time to go to bed, and so I grabbed three hours of
sleep or so before wandering out again with Ramsus, Beryl, and a young adventurer
named Sage. I am not entirely sure what Sage is, or where he is from, but I
know that he uses two daggers as weapons and he likes to go in on suicidal charges
against enemies. He also calls everyone cousin and likes to jump on Caliphar.
By Saturday morning, the town of Freeton had been unofficially renamed Swampton
because of the torrential overnight rains. There were several new geographic
features as well. For instance, there was the Great Front Lake, which was out
in front of the tavern. Then, where the field used to be, there was another
new lake, which had been named Field And Stream. And, right next to the tavern,
there was a hill which had become a waterfall, which we called The Great Waterfall.
There were many incidents of people falling into the water and mud, and I actually
thought to myself that it looked quite a bit like Exeter.
The town was relatively quiet on Saturday morning. I was going to accompany
Ramses on an adventure, but Baron Havencrest informed me that I was likely too
experienced for what they needed, and so I stayed behind. Eventually, though,
Baron Havencrest grabbed me for another adventure, where we had to go clear
out some spiders. Unfortunately, though, because I was pretty well tapped on
spider killing spells from the night before, I spent a good deal of time near
the back, mostly just healing people with healing pools and fighting the spiders
that tried to attack the rear. We found several spider holds, and so we tracked
the attercob deep into the ground, before we eventually came to a ladder that
led back out of the sewers and to the surface.
After that incident was finished, I spent some time in the tavern and eventually
grabbed lunch. It was actually quite a clear day, which was surprising after
the previous night’s rainstorms, but unfortunately it was very muddy. Dry
ground was basically impossible to find, and many people found themselves sinking
into the mud at times. I just felt lucky that I never fell into any.
After lunch, a group of lizardmen attacked the town, and so I rushed off to
fight them with Ramsus and Sage. They were apparently angry about something
involving a battle at a bridge, but I don’t know anything about it. They
seemed to be able to produce nausea with the spittle they released from their
jaws, and they were able to swing their blades for five dagger blows or so,
and so they were a tough fight. However, Caliphar and Nicola joined the fight,
and so that helped us a lot. It took us a while, but eventually we beat back
all the bands of lizardmen, and then we went back up to the cabin to re-learn
our skills.
After our skills were re-learned, we went to the tavern, and were recruited
by a walrus scavenger (who liked fish, he informed us) to help him clear out
some twisted dwarves from a cave. On this adventure I went with Squire Verbal,
Sage, Ramses, and a wolven whose name I did not catch. It was a tough fight,
and we survived mainly through the heroism of Squire Verbal, who used his celestial
magicks to destroy many of the creatures we encountered. We also discovered
a steam vent that appeared to lead further into the cave, but without explosive
traps we couldn’t proceed any further. Perhaps in some future gathering
we should go back and try to get deeper.
At any rate, we went back to town afterwards, and there was a constant stream
of trolls attacking the town for the next few hours. At one point, they broke
through the ward of our cabin, and made the ward go up. Squire Verbal, Kaja,
Sir Strider, and Sir Noah were trapped inside while Lady Pyroxia, Squire Stormwolf,
Sage, High Lord Tao, and myself were trapped outside. Eventually, Sir Noah brilliantly
managed to defeat the trolls, but unfortunately Kaja wound up resurrecting in
the process.
That same group of trolls continued to hound us throughout the night. In one
particular incident, I ran with Sage to deal with what seemed to be a single
troll on the field, only to discover that it had a buddy waiting in the bushes.
Its buddy took down Sage, and I took down its buddy, so the situation was left
with the original troll and I. We trash-talked towards each other some, with
me trying to get to Sage and him not letting me get there. Then, I noticed a
large group of adventurers coming at me from across the field, and I looked
at the troll and pointed out to it that it was outnumbered. To its credit, it
did not run away, but when Baron Havencrest arrived he managed to dispatch it
promptly.
Finally, we decided that the stream of trolls had to be stopped, and so we went
down into the catacombs to kill the mind flayer that was sending them out. He
was nasty, too, being able to arcanely deliver enslavement and berserk. However,
the town worked beautifully together, and we did perfectly executed charges.
Baron Havencrest and Sir Strider headlined the attack, and the trolls fell before
the fury of the adventurers. The mind flayer did a little more damage, but in
time he too was taken down, and we eventually managed to make it out without
losing anyone.
After that, it was finally time to go to bed, and such is what I did. For those
who are looking to speak to me, I should be in Dar Khabad next week. Safe travels
to all.
Scribed by Seronia on the 8th day of March in the year 604.