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Campaign Diary of Abernathy's Company (runs 21-30) (1828) Sunday, August 29 - (run 21 begins) The Company arrives in Lan Hae, a large city with a significant Elven population. Dranko (who has a .. erm.. thing for elvish women) manages to control himself. The party dines at a nice restaurant with many exotic and leafy Elvish dishes. Ernie, always on the lookout for culinary exotica, buys some unusual spices. Monday, August 30 - The Company departs for Dal, a small town where they can get a ferry across the Steel Sea to Ghant. It’s a two-day journey so they camp by the road that evening. While Ernie and Kay are on watch they both fall asleep in an alarmingly synchronized way. Dranko is shaken awake to find a scimitar held tightly to his throat. The person holding the blade orders him to call the others. When everyone is awake, the man (now seen to be a bald dark elf) orders the others not to move, and then a second elf walks around securely tying up the other party members. Just before the second elf gets to Tor, Dranko says "just remember, my life is expendable." Well, that sure sounds reasonable to Tor; he grabs for his sword and attacks! The first elf does not kill the trussed-up Dranko. Instead he zaps Tor with a spell that greatly reduces his strength. Weakened, outnumbered, and without his armor or shield, Tor is slashed into unconsciousness by the two scimitar-wielding dark elves. Dranko, who has been rolling around trying to trip up the enemies during the battle, falls on Tor’s body, Laying on Hands and preventing Tor from bleeding to death. Both Command spells and Mind Read spells seem to have no effect on the dark elves. With everyone secured, one of the elves begins asking questions. "Why do you work for Abernathy? What is Abernathy up to? What services does the party render for the Archmage? What is your association with the Oasis Mages Guild?" When the party doesn’t answer the questions to the elves’ liking, they start breaking Flicker’s fingers one at a time. The halfling shrieks in pain, and the sound of snapping joints is sickening. A strong wind picks up during the questioning, and starts buffeting the bald elf standing over Flicker. Meanwhile, Dranko has been discretely sawing at his bonds with his ceremonial dagger (always carried at his belt for show, though forbidden in combat by the church of Delioch). Mrs. Horn attempts to cut her ropes with the magic sword-ring, but her angle is wrong. The wind, having beaten up some on one of the elves, has now begun to loosen Kay’s ropes. Dranko, his wrists freed, leaps to his feet and hurls both the missiles from his necklace of missiles at the surprised elves. Kaboom! Still, both elves are standing after the blast. Kay’s bonds are free; she grabs her dagger and conceals it, pretending to still be tied. She tells the elves that she has a letter on her that contains information…one elf goes to take it from her while the other covers. When the first elf comes near, Kay whips out her dagger and holds it to the dark elf’s throat. The other casts a spell (Hold Person), but Kay shakes it off. The second bald elf then attempts to leap backward (in a magically enhanced fashion) away from Dranko, to help his friend being held by Kay, but Dranko lashes out with his whip and (critical hit!) curls the mages’ ankles in mid jump. The elf flops to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. The moving air has managed to free some of the others by this time, and the elves go quickly from the predators to the prey. Soon, seeing that they have been defeated, the dark elves commit suicide in their usual grisly fashion, popping open the posion sacs in the roofs of their mouths. The Company loots the bodies. Among other goodies, they find that the dark elves are wearing pendants that shield the mind from attacks for a limited duration. One of them has a Ring of Jumping. Kay, pressed for information about the mystery-breeze that keeps helping her out, admits that as a child she had been given the nickname "Windstorm" because of a strange wind that had blown during her birth. She can control this wind, though she's not sure how she does it. The party regroups and continues on toward Dal. Tuesday, September 1 - A brief expedition is sent to find if the Dark Elves had a camp nearby. It is found that they did, and some of their supplies have obviously been bought in Lan Hae. The Company then continues on toward Dal. Wednesday, September 2 - The Company departs Dal, taking a ferry across the Steel Sea. The Ferryman is concerned because some of the other boats are late in returning from their normal rounds. As the ferry nears the southern shore of the Sea, a great cloud of smoke can be seen hovering over the interior of the Ghant Forest. (The city of Ghant is in the heart of the forest, built both on the forest floor and within the boughs of the trees.) At the shore, the docks (along with three ferries) have been smashed and partly burned. The Company hurries inland along the forest path to Ghant. They arrive to find the city half-destroyed. Buildings have been smashed, trees burned, and many elves and humans have been killed. In the center of town, by the blasted remains of a great fountain, are the surviving fragments of the creature that visited all the destruction on the city. Although now in pieces, it is clearly all that remains of the Gargoyle statue that was being excavated near Sand’s Edge. Dranko is pretty ticked off by the connection that can now be made between the Scarbearers of Delioch and the devastation of Ghant. He takes a piece of the Gargoyle’s head, intending, as he claims, to "shove it down Mokad’s throat." The Company learns that the Gargoyle was killed in an epic battle with Fylnius, Archmage of the city. Fylnius himself was wounded in the battle, but still lives and is being tended by Elvish clerics. The party goes to speak with him. While grateful for the party’s attempts to help, he is distraught, and says that he has failed, and that the attack of the Gargoyle accomplished its purpose. "Something big got through," he says, but in typical Archmage-ish fashion he doesn’t get more specific. Thursday, September 3 - Monday, September 7 - The Company travels back to Tal Hae. Tuesday, September 8 (Dicing Day - Corilayna) - Sunday, September 20 - (run 22 begins) During this time the party trains. The immediate good news is that Abernathy is back! He and the Company have a good long talk about all the events that have transpired since the Archmage’s "disappearance." Abernathy seems almost overwhelmed by the amount of information the Company has collected in the past few weeks. He warns them about the dangers of knowing too much, suggesting that the run-in with the dark elves near Lan Hae could have been a disaster if the party had known more than they did. Still, he is impressed for all that, and well-pleased with the party’s endeavors. He tells the party that he has been destroying magic items – most notably and recently the Matun Essendi – to help him in his mysterious "work." Mrs. Horn casts Identify on some of the magic items the party has picked up – the glove worn by one of the dark elves lets the wearer catch missiles out of the air. The mirror found months ago below Gohgan’s is some sort of communication device, and the image of a person in the mirror is somehow important to its function. During the training period the Company is visited by Keertine Smith of the Undermen. He carries a sack smelling of death, and the party fears another severed head, but instead the bag contains the body of a creature later to be nicknamed a "bugmonkey" by Dranko. It is mostly humanoid, about 3’ tall, and looks like a cross between a chimpanzee and a praying mantis. Apparently two of these attacked and chased Gohgan out of his shop, and the Undermen want the party to go down and make sure that no more of the creatures come visiting from below, disturbing business in the area. Keertine tells the party that they can consider this payback for his getting them out of hot water after the business with the Matun Essendi. Abernathy also has an interest in what’s underneath Gohgan’s, and wants the Company to report on anything especially strange they find down there. Also during this time, Dranko is summoned to the Church of Delioch where he is questioned in great detail about Mokad, Praska, and the dig in the Mouth of Nahalm. He is told to keep himself available for further questioning, as Tomnic the Soulmender is due in from the Capital, and Dranko will be questioned further by the High Priest. Monday, September 21 - At dusk, the Company (minus Dranko) goes back beneath Gohgan’s basement, returning to the site of their first adventure after five-and-a-half-months away. Little has changed, but the mold-men remember to fear them and do not attack. More relevantly, one of the bigger rat-pens has collapsed into some large space below. The Company descends by rope a good 40’ into this new place, which seems to be an very old (and empty of humans) chapel, with some of the walls caved in with floam (the same spongy rock encountered in the ruins of Verdshane). A bit of exploration reveals that the chapel is adjacent to a dining room – and there are two live bugmonkeys sitting atop an ancient table. At the sight of the party both bugmonkeys flee, each through a different door of the ancient and dusty dining room. Then a bugmonkey comes back out from one of the doors, seemingly passive, but when the party approaches, more of the creatures drop from the ceiling and attack! A fierce battle ensues, and the bugmonkeys are killed or driven off. The Company finds that one of the two doors through which the bugmonkeys fled leads to a throne-room, a small adjacent office, and stairway down into the darkness. In the office is a skeleton (inanimate) sitting at a desk, and a journal on the desk – and all three, skeleton, book and desk, are mostly buried beneath an avalanche of floam. The party frees the book from the floam. Featured on some of the walls and ceilings of this underground place are two symbols – one is the same circle-in-diamond pattern that was on the rings found a couple of stories above, and the other is a large hollow black circle. The black circle seems to have some religious significance, but none in the party are familiar with it. Wounded and spell-depleted from the fight with the bugmonkeys, the party returns to the chapel, intending to surface for the evening. They find that the rope has been cut. Morningstar tries to do some dream-scouting by going into Ava Dormo and wandering around the Dreamscape version of the underground palace. To her great surprise there is a man there, dressed in red plate mail and taunting and threatening a small child. Morningstar demands that he let the child go, which he does, but then he turns on her. "I know how to deal with your kind," he scoffs, as he generates a powerful magic light and shines it at Morningstar. But unlike most Ellish Dreamwalkers, Morningstar has spent plenty of time out under the sun, and though she flinches from the light, it does not drive her away as he seemingly thinks it will. So the red-plate-mailed man advances on the unarmed and unarmored Morningstar and slashes her with his sword. She is jarred out of Ava Dormo, and wakes to find herself bleeding from a wound in her side. (run 23 begins) As the party debates different ways of ascending, most involving clever uses of the Rope Trick spell and/or a Scroll of Minor Creation, they see a light approaching the opening far above. They brace for an attack, but it's only Dranko, who was told that he could leave to join the party as long as he didn’t go too far away. He lowers another rope, and the party returns to the Greenhouse to sleep. Tuesday, September 22 - In the morning, the party returns to the under-under-under basement of Gohgan’s, this time with a number of boxes to stack beneath the hole if necessary. In the lower level of the place, the party finds two dead bodies, along with a short diary . Apparently two young adventurers had come tracking a beast that had killed the author’s father. Nearby is the entrance to a long, wide, straight and well-built tunnel heading away to the north-west. It goes on for at least a quarter mile, and the party turns back. After some more exploration there is another long fight with bugmonkeys, (persistent little buggers!) followed by another period of sleep. (run 24 begins) In the evening, the party takes a staircase down to an even lower level, and finds a row of prison cells, partially buried in floam. A bad smell emanates from the end of the row. When the party enters the room at the end of the hall, a room ankle-high in bugmonkey remains, they learn that the smell comes from a huge, ugly, rubbery humanoid monster… which attacks! The creature is tough, strong, and fights with reckless violence. Worse, its wounds start to heal themselves almost as soon as they're taken. There is a harrowing moment when the beast grabs Morningstar, throws her into an open iron-maiden (the room was once a torture-chamber), and slams it closed! Morningstar is badly wounded, and only her shield comes between her and a horrible spike-driven death. Eventually the party kills the beast, hacks it to bits, and keeps the head as a souvenir. Rest and healing follow. Some more exploring reveals that the only untried path (other than the “endless” tunnel) is blocked by a magical blue force wall. Wednesday, September 23 (Festival of Winterheal - Delioch)
- At 4:30 in the morning, the party ascends to the surface, and sleeps in
the Greenhouse through the afternoon. In a brief talk with Abernathy, the
Archmage (recognizing the description of the force wall) suggests that perhaps
a mage (e.g. Mrs. Horn) might be able to deactivate the blue field simply
with her touch. Thursday, September 24 - The party descends into Gohgan's under-under-under basement one more time. In the lowest level of the under-basement, Mrs. Horn extends her arm through the glowing blue field, and (just as Abernathy predicted), it drops, allowing the rest to continue through. When she herself is through, the field springs back up. "Ha, ha," the party jokes. "Mrs. H had better not die while we’re down here, or we could be trapped forever!" Beyond the field is a room strewn with skeletons, and here the party is attacked by some shadowy undead creatures, which seem to be immune to non-magical weapons, and which drain strength from those they touch. Many are turned, and the rest cut down with enchanted weapons. In one corner of the room is a doorway, over which is drawn a glowing and incomprehensible glyph. Dranko walks through the door, the Glyph vanishes -- and he loses the last ten years of his memory. He believes that he is ten-year-old Melendiel Brightmirror (his real name, never revealed), and the last thing he remembers is being on his grandfather’s farm. He is understandably scared and confused, being in a dark underground place with armed strangers. While most of the party deals with him, Tor notes that in the now seemingly-unprotected closet beyond the door is a cabinet, and in the cabinet is a large wooden chest. Believing that the Glyph was the only protection for the chest, he flips it open with his sword before anyone inspects it for magic or traps. KABOOM! A giant gout of fire roars from the chest, knocking Tor over and blasting into the room beyond. Most of the party manages to dive out of the way, or miss the worst of the flames, but Mrs. Horn is caught dead-on in the center of the fiery cone. When the smoke clears, she has died from horrible burns on her back. Stunned silence follows. Someone raises the question of how the party can get back to the surface without her. More silence. Flicker stands in a far corner of the room, pale-faced, lips moving, talking to himself, and staring in horror at Mrs. Horn's body. Dranko, a ten-year-old surrounded by strangers, badly burned, and seeing a dead body, begins to cry. The party takes the (strangely unharmed) contents of the chest, which include a disturbing, oily-feeling book and robe, each with a black circle inscribed on them; a gray book with the infinity symbol on its cover; a green glass rod; and a large sack with a magically large interior. In the final room of the under-basement, the party discovers two skeletons, some burned smears on the wall, a statue of a man with part of the head crumbled away, and an unusually intact skeleton in a sitting position in front of a filled-in archway. This skeleton has a (burned out) metal wand in its hands, and a faint gray circle burned onto the front of its skull. The filled-in archway seems to be held with five round green glass seals; four are glowing faintly, and one is cracked and dark. (run 25 begins) Morningstar decides to contact Abernathy, hoping that he can help them out of their predicament. She dreams to the Ava Dormo parallel Greenhouse, and activates the crystal ball. Somehow Abernathy detects it, goes to sleep, enters the Ava Dormo, and meets Morningstar there. He is shocked by the news of Mrs. Horn’s death, and agrees to do his solid-image-projection down to where the party awaits. He does so, though it’s clearly a strain for him. He puts his arm through the blue force wall just long enough for the party to escape, and then his image vanishes. The party makes it to the surface takes the body to the Temple of Brechen, (God of the Sea, worshipped by Mrs. Horn) and asks if the priests will be able to bring her back from the dead. They are told to wait; a message will be sent. Afterward, they take the young-in-mind Dranko to the church of Delioch, where the priests restore his memories. He experiences a strange dream before he awakens: that Harmon, his mentor, was speaking to both him and Praska. The old teacher tells them that there is a priest who suffered from “a scar on his soul,” and who now “stood within the circle.” “Do not forget him,” Harmon warns, “for he will certainly not forget you.” With that, Dranko awakens, cured of his memory-erasure. One of the first things he learns is that the Scarbearer Mokad has defected from the Church of Delioch, taking about 20 others with him. Then, since he has no memories of the time since his mind-wipe, he learns of Mrs. Horn’s fiery death. Not a good day for him. That evening, the Company is visited by Abernathy in the Greenhouse, who is unsurprisingly disturbed over the death of Mrs. Horn. He is a bit brightened by the evil-feeling robe and book retrieved from the under-basement, since they will help him in his work. He admits at this time that he will use them as he used the Matun Essendi – he’ll drain them of their magic, to fuel his mysterious endeavors. Friday, September 25 - The party is summoned to the Temple of Brechen. There they are told that the Sea God is willing to return Mrs. Horn’s soul to the mortal realm, for a price. Each of the Company, including Abernathy, will be asked to make some sacrifice or promise , and only if all are accepted will Mrs. Horn be resurrected. Abernathy is actually there in person – this is the first time in a long, long time that he has been entirely outside of his tower. Each person accepts his or her part of the price, and the Priestess of Brechen overseeing the ritual tells the party that Mrs. Horn’s soul has begun its journey back, though it will take some time. The Company returns to the Greenhouse. Saturday, September 26 - Wednesday, October 14 - (9/27 - Ceach-ha Brea - Yondalla) (10/8 - Day of Tides - Brechen) The Company trains. Each member of the party shares with the others what he or she was asked to promise to the priests of Brechen. One day a red-haired, slow-witted fellow named Radburn shows up, claiming to be Levec Oldbarrow’s brother. His story is that he hasn’t seen his brother in many years, and his attempt to follow the trail led him eventually to the Greenhouse. The party tells Radburn that Levec was a hired spy who had been killed on the job. Radburn seems somewhat upset, but mostly seems dumb. He claims to be a farmer, for instance, but confesses that he doesn’t know much about farming. The party decides to keep an eye on him while he’s in Tal Hae. Also during this period Keertine Smith visits the Greenhouse, thanks the party for their help with the Bugmonkeys, and tells them to consider their debt to the Undermen paid. He mentions that the floor of Gohgan’s basement has been permanently boarded up. (run 26 begins) On the eighth day of October, on Brechen’s Holy Day of Tides, Mrs. Horn is brought back to life. The party tells Mrs. Horn all about what happened to her, and explains the nature of their various promises and sacrifices. She is shocked, humbled, and extremely grateful. As the party finishes training they begin to hear rumors of fighting going on near the capital city of the Kingdom (Hae Charagan). There are many different variations of the rumor, most involving an army of indeterminate humanoids, and in which both Hae Charagan and the nearby city of Feslin are involved in battle Abernathy visits the Greenhouse again and is delighted to see Mrs. Horn alive and well. He himself seems more spry and happy than usual. When asked what he was asked to do as his part of the resurrection, he is his usual vague self, but says: "I have always considered myself a chess player. But now I have been shown that I am merely a very important piece." Presumably it is a sacrifice for him to realize that, but whatever the case, he seems happier than the party can ever remember him being. He has two possible "missions" for the party now, neither more urgent than the other: one is to go to Verdshane, and see if anything interesting has happened to the ruins there, and in particular to the skeleton in the stasis field. The other is to go to Oasis, and find out what is going on there with the erstwhile "Oasis Mages Guild." Thursday, October 15 (Cinnamon Day - Yondalla) - At ten o’clock that night, while Dranko (invisibly) and Flicker are watching the inn at which Radburn is staying, Radburn leaves and goes for a walk -- into the seedy and generally unsafe dockside area of Tal Hae. Dranko follows. He observes Radburn entering an old rundown row-house, and follows(invisibly) to investigate. From the floor below, Dranko spies on a brief interaction between Radburn and a old, dirty fellow in a second-story apartment. After Radburn departs (with Flicker trailing), Dranko goes up and (still invisibly) proceeds to pretty much scare the hell out of the second man. By tossing gold pieces onto the floor, Dranko eventually convinces the man to confess that Radburn had hired him to find out information about Abernathy’s tower. (The man had had little to report, save a bit about the appearing and disappearing window high up on the tower wall.) Satisfied for the evening, Dranko returns to the Greenhouse. Flicker reports that Radburn has gone back to his inn for the night. Friday, October 16 - That morning Tor and Morningstar confront Radburn in his room at the inn. While Tor "recommends" (insert physical intimidation here) that Radburn should keep his nose out of the Archmage’s business, Morningstar hits him with a Mind Read. Although Radburn stubbornly sticks to his story, Morningstar learns that Radburn is not what he claims. He was sent to find out what happened to Levec, and to do a bit of snooping around Abernathy's Tower, by a man named Gluefoot in the town of Woodfork. He is not nearly as stupid as he seems, and his mind is racing, wondering how he’s going to get out of the situation. Then Morningstar drops a comment about his plan, that causes him to figure out that his mind is being read. After that it’s impossible to get anything more out of him. He threatens to call for help if the two don’t leave him. They leave him. The Company tries to report back to Abernathy, but only his apprentice Thewana is available to talk over the Crystal Ball. She seems even more peeved than usual, and expresses a concern that her master doesn’t seem as focused as he usually is – a dangerous state of mind for an Archmage. Soon after the interrogation, Radburn skips town, taking off in the direction of Calnis. Since the party has decided to investigate Verdshane, and since both Calnis and Woodfork (where they guess Radburn is fleeing) are en route, the party immediately sets out after him. Saturday, October 17 - After almost two days of fast travel, the party arrives in Woodfork in the mid-evening. They get rooms at an inn, (the Oak Palace) and discover Radburn’s horse in the stable. The location of Gluefoot and his "Fine Carpentry" shop are no secret, so Invisi-Dranko and company saunter on over in that direction. Gluefoot lives in his shop, essentially one giant room doubling as living quarters, woodshop, and warehouse. He and Radburn are sitting and talking in the shop, Radburn catching him up on what he discovered in Tal Hae, and the news seems to be making Gluefoot distraught. After Radburn leaves, Morningstar does a Mind Read on Gluefoot through the window. His thoughts are along the lines of: "That does it! Easy money is one thing, but this is getting decidedly dangerous. I’ll tell Frohwirth what he can do with his gold pieces. After all, I’m not that bad a carpenter. No more!" Then his thoughts turn to carpentry and sleep. (run 27 begins) Sunday, October 18 - Dranko continues his invisible vigil on the shop. In the morning, Gluefoot writes out a note, thinks better of it and burns it, then writes another note. He takes a metal box out from under his bed, and puts the note in it. A couple of minutes later, he opens the box again, looks in, closes it, and slides it back under the bed. Eventually, when Gluefoot leaves for lunch that afternoon, Dranko breaks in and steals the box. There is no piece of paper inside of it. On a whim, Dranko relieves himself in the box. A minute later, there is no sign of – er – relief remaining in the container. He flees back to the Oak Palace, and the Company leaves town, headed down the Greatwood road for Verdshane via Walnord. (Walnord is directly on the way, and the party also wants to track down the family of the young man whose diary they found beneath Gohgan's shop.) That night, Abernathy contacts Morningstar via dream, and relays a message (not quite so urgent as the last) about an upcoming auction in the city of Minok. Alykeen's apprentice Parkitt has reported that one of the items up for auction is a statuette of a cyclops, the eye of which is evidently a source of wild magic, and which fits the physical description of an Eye of Moirel. Since the party is in the area, Abernathy asks them to attend the auction (Parkitt will have tickets), buy the item if possible, come by it by other means if a minimum of violence can be assured, and otherwise note who the buyer ends up being. As he did in their last meeting, Abernathy seems somehow less intense, and more mischievous. Monday, October 19 - The Company arrives in Walnord. The party finds that they have become local celebrities, as stories about their fight with the "werewolves" have spread and changed, shedding truth right and left. After speaking with a local priest of Pikon, they are led to a nearby farm. There they meet a man named Fenbolt; it was his sister’s husband who was killed by the beast mentioned in the diary found beneath Gohgan’s. Fenbolt tells the party that his sister had been slain as well, never having made it to Walnord, and that he didn’t know what happened to his nephew. The Company tells Fenbolt about the sad fate of the nephew, and gives him the diary. Fenbolt tells them to keep the rest of what was found on the bodies, and tells them how to get to his sister’s farm, should they ever want to go there and hunt down the monsters that have taken it over. That afternoon the Company departs for Verdshane. Tuesday, October 20 (Watching Day - Uthol Inga) - The Company arrives at Verdshane in the evening and stays the night at the Shadow Chaser. Wednesday, October 21 - The Company heads out to visit the "bad" ruins north of the village. The elven bonechamber, tower-with-floam-base, and the strange building into which the goblins had broken all seem to be undisturbed. In the blue stasis field, however, the skeleton within has dropped completely to the ground, and the pack on its back is gone. As they continue to explore, the party hears a low background roar coming from the north. They head in that direction and the roar grows louder…and louder…and eventually it resolves into the shouts of about 25 goblins. They are chasing a sword-wielding woman who is fleeing toward the ruins. Dranko is the first to reach her, and she explains (while fleeing) that she isn’t really that worried about the goblins, and has already dispatched about a third of them. She invites Dranko and the party to join in the fighting. They do. The goblins are all slain or driven back into the forest. The woman calls herself Meledien. She is tall, hard-featured, and strong as hell -- the party can tell that she wasn't exaggerating about having dispatched a dozen goblins on her own. Her story is that she was shipwrecked on the northern edge of the forest and captured by the goblins while still dazed. Later she escaped, and was pursued by the goblins all the way to the ruins. She is unwilling to say where she was going, or where she came from, claiming that "she isn’t supposed to discuss those details." Well doesn’t that figure. As she talks to the party, she wanders around the ruins, asking questions about them. During the interchange, Morningstar attempts to Mind Read her, and gets the thought "What are these people doing here?" before Meledien becomes aware of the spell and somehow renders it ineffective. Needless to say, this doesn’t exactly endear the party to this woman, who already is clearly not the nicest person they've met. In the end, she announces her intent to head toward Verdshane for some rest, before returning to the mountains for the rest of her gear. The Company leaves her, departs Verdshane and heads for Minok. Thursday, October 22 - They travel to Minok Friday, October 23 - They arrive as the sun is setting. (run 28 begins) The auction house is closed for the evening, and at the Mages' Guild, Parkitt is not available. Mrs. Horn picks up the seven tickets left for the Company. The party sends a note via street urchin to Golda Pincloth, the woman whose property is up for auction, asking for a private meeting to discuss the nature of the Eye. The boy returns; he delivered the note, and was then turned away by the guards. Saturday, October 24 - With one more day until the auction, the party wakes bright and early to visit Gatha’s Auction House. There is tight security, and those of the party who enter are divested of all weapons and magic items before they are allowed inside. There are six items up for auction: a silver pet bowl; a white maple double-flute; an ugly piece of abstract sculpture; a gaudy ruby necklace; a painting by the well-known artist Finley; and the cyclops statuette, standing two-feet tall and with what looks like an Eye of Moirel as its single eyeball. As the party is leaving, Sagiro shows up! He says that he is there to bid on the painting, being a collector of Finley's works. Um, yeah. Ernie learns that Golda Pincloth has been a widow for about 20 years. It is generally assumed that she is coming to the end of her ex-husband Lord Savoy’s wealth, and is auctioning off some valuables to continue her lavish lifestyle. Dranko breaks into Golda’s house (invisibly, of course) and drops a note practically in front of her nose. She spots it, reads it -- and screeches for a servant (in a horrid voice), demanding to know why a third note about the auction has been allowed to reach her. Seeing that Golda is probably not of a sort to be reasoned with, Dranko hastily departs. Sunday, October 25 - Auction day arrives. The party has put down over 3000 gold pieces to cover bids, and Kay is the designated bidder. Flicker and Ernie are also in attendance. Before the auction, Gatha admits that the eye of the Cyclops might be magical, but because attempts to verify its magical nature have failed, it cannot be advertised as such. Still, word that the thing is a significant source of Wild Magic has clearly spread. The auction begins with the item with the smallest starting bid, and works its way up to the Cyclops. Along the way Sagiro wins the painting, for just over 600 gold pieces. When the Cyclops comes up, the bidding soon eclipses the 3000 GP mark; there are several people who are clearly there just for this particular item. They are: a short, swarthy fellow in gold and red robes; a tall, noble-looking fellow with a well-trimmed blonde beard; a short woman with short black hair and a silent dwarven companion; a very tall (6’ 8"), painfully thin man with frazzled hair; a thin, unassuming young man with spectacles; and a handsome light-skinned elven gentleman. The bidding among these people rises and rises, soon eclipsing the 10,000 GP mark. Sagiro, sitting next to the halflings, lets out a sigh when the bidding goes over 12,000 GP (about the same time the blond-bearded fellow stops bidding), commenting that he can’t believe how high the bidding has gone. Eventually the young bespectacled fellow wins the Cyclops, for over 14,000 GP. (After the auction, Kay makes a desperation-overbid on the pet bowl which is ignored by the auctioneer, but the woman who ended up buying it (who was more-or-less goaded into it by her kid) sells it to Kay. (The party has two cats back at the Greenhouse, named Smeggy and Argol, who keep Eddings company while they're gone.)) Outside, some of the losing bidders attempt to talk to or make deals with the winning bidder, but he’s not willing to talk. He tells them that "they’ll have to discuss any details with Sarai." The short woman (who turns out to be from the Tal Hae Guild) and the tall man (from the Guild in the Capital, Hae Charagan) both are upset that the Cyclops has just been bought by an independent mage, rather than someone from a Guild. Kay goes back to the Mages’ Guild to pick up her bowl, and learns that the spectacled man who won the Cyclops was only a front bidder. The actual winner is a wizardess named Sarai who is staying at the Guild, but who is not particularly welcome there and will likely be leaving soon. Kay and Morningstar follow the elven bidder to his inn, and Kay asks him questions while Morningstar Mind Reads him, but he turns out to be an honest bidder from the city of Lan Hae, a man interested in studying wild magic. That night, Dranko and Flicker scope out the Guild house, waiting for Sarai to emerge. Monday, October 26 - Early in the morning a huge warrior-type
shows up in front of the Guild House, leading two ponies, one laden with baggage.
A few minutes later an elderly woman exits the Guild accompanied by an enormous
red tiger and carrying a metal box large enough to hold, say, a two-foot-high
Cyclops statuette. The woman mounts one of the ponies and she, the large
man, and the tiger head off in an eastward direction, traveling slowly. Dranko
tails them while Flicker runs back to the inn to alert the party; they’re
on the move again. Dranko follows Sarai at a safe distance as she leaves the city via the Greatwood road. After only a few minutes she is met by one of the other bidders, the short one with the red and gold robes. They have a brief argument, in which the man insists that she make the Eye available for study, but the woman continues to balk, claiming that she’ll "consider making it available, in the future, for a price." Angered, the robed man departs back toward Minok. A short while later, perhaps ¾ mile from the city, Dranko hears the sounds of battle from up ahead, and rushes forward; a couple of minutes behind, the rest of the party hears the sounds as well. (Thankfully this was 2nd Ed., when a combat round lasted a whole minute!) When Dranko gets close to enough to tell what’s going on, he sees that the trio is being attacked by a number of bald dark elves (the Sharshun), and the blond-bearded bidder is there as well, fighting along side the elves. One has apparently struck down Sarai, while another has engaged her fighter companion. The tiger has just leapt on the woman’s attacker, bearing him to the ground. (run 29 begins) While the rest of the Company rushes toward the battle, Dranko goes invisibly to examine the old woman’s body, and finds that it’s not her body at all, but a double made not of flesh, but of dirt, twigs, leaves and rocks. Also, he discovers that the Cyclops is missing from its box, the lock broken and the lid smashed open -- from the inside! The battle that follows is pretty much a rout for the good guys. Hold Person spells from Dranko and Morningstar take out the more powerful Sharshun and the blonde-bearded bidder, and the rest of the company, with the help of the tiger, the old woman’s bodyguard, and the woman herself (who blasts one of the Sharshun with a lightning bolt from the forest), manage to slay almost all of the ambushers. Kay, Tor, and Ernie (on horseback) chase the two fleeing Sharshun, but one gets away and vanishes into the forest. Kay tracks that one, but the tracks literally disappear when they leave the path. Back at the site of the battle, the Company loots the bodies and ties up the Blonde guy (they learn his name is Masteen). As Kay approaches him, a wind kicks up in her vicinity, and she suddenly gains comprehension of one line of the elvish song her mother taught her: "War blew across the world, and we were the terror of our foes." Among the loot are two Holy Symbols from the two Sharshun priests
– black circles set with diamonds. After divesting Masteen of his mind-shielding pin (standard issue among Sharshun – too bad it didn’t help against Hold Person!), Morningstar Mind Reads him while the rest interrogate him. By standing behind and out of sight of the bound prisoner, Morningstar is able to respond to and guide the questioning. And she finds out a great deal. Masteen has been in the hire of Sagiro and the Sharshun for a few months, and has been given lots of information about the party. He knows that the Sharshun are looking for the Eyes of Moirel, and that the Eyes are devices that are used for some sort of travel. He has a guess that the Sharshun are trying to free their imprisoned Emperor, though that is only a guess. By inference, it is clear that Masteen is not being affected noticeably by the Masking. And he divulges (by thought) how much he has been paid and where he’s keeping the money. Eventually, he figures out that his mind has been read this entire time, and he despairs. The Company decides to let him go, but not before Kay makes him drink a fake potion, which she claims will kill him if he commits any act of violence against women. He departs with some unkind words for her. Meanwhile Sarai, while grateful for the help against the Sharshun, is upset that the Cyclops is missing. Kay sorts out some tracks that seem to match and follows them into the forest, where they end at a tall tree. The Cyclops is sitting up in the tree. And then, as the Company and Sarai look up at it, it begins to talk in a gravely voice. Dranko calls up to it, offering to keep it safe in a storage room in the Greenhouse, but it claims that it would rather be set prominently on a mantelpiece. Sarai jumps in and offers to do just that, and the Cyclops agrees to go with her. (It actually seems to consider itself as the Tiger’s property.) In the discussion with the Cyclops that follows (and over the next few days’ travel), the Company learns some interesting things, though the creature is often hopelessly enigmatic. It is clearly self-aware, and refers to the other Eyes as its "brothers." It dislikes the Sharshun, because they want to use the Eyes to "travel nowhere," and it doesn’t want to do that. It claims that Moirel went mad for that reason; that she "traveled nowhere" and, not being ready for whatever that entailed, lost her mind. It seems to regard all notions of (and questions about) time as meaningless. It feels closely associated with its physical form – it thinks of itself as the Cyclops, not just the Eye. It’s also of the opinion that its brother should not be held captive in the Greenhouse. As the discussion is drawing to a close, the Eye warns that a Sharshun had been watching them from nearby, with a loaded crossbow aimed at them. It announces that it has taken care of the problem, and suggests that the humans below might want to move about 20 feet or so back. They do. After about a minute, a Sharshun comes plummeting (and screaming) out of the sky, crashes through the trees, and is killed by a collision with the ground. Then the Cyclops jumps down out of the tree, and agrees to travel with the Tiger and her woman. That night, in a shelter, the Eye claims that more of the Sharshun had been approaching, but that he had "sent them away." The Eye offers no more details, and the Company asks for none. Tuesday, October 27 - The party travels toward Calnis, spending the night in Verdshane. Wednesday, October 28 - (run 30 begins) At night, in a roadside shelter between Verdshane and Walnord, Sarai begins cursing vehemently. The Cyclops has crumbled into a pile of black stone with the Eye on top. Sarai claims that she was casting a spell on the Eye (with its permission) to discern the strength and nature of its wild-magic-ness, and it just crumbled to pieces. She collects the remains in the original box. Thursday, October 29 - Saturday, November 1 (10/30 - Season’s End - Pikon) - Travel to Calnis. Sunday, November 2 - The group arrives in Calnis. The city is up in arms again; there are reports that another Gnoll/Kobold raid might be imminent. Sarai invites the Company to her home, where she gives all of them some food, and as a gift for their assistance, she gives Mrs. Horn a spell-book entitled "Terfilian’s Compendium of Alterations." That afternoon the Company departs for Tal Hae, to report all of their recent activities and discoveries to Abernathy. Monday, November 3 - Travel to Tal Hae Tuesday, November 4 - The Company arrives in Tal Hae. They try to communicate with Abernathy, but he is extremely busy and tells them he’ll get back to them in a few days. Wednesday, November 5 - Wednesday, November 26 - (11/9 - Gourdswatch - Yondalla) (11/13 - Farwhay’s Day - Corilayna) Dranko, Tor and Flicker train. Also during this time (not necessarily in chronological order): * A letter has arrived from the Church of Brechen. It asks that all of the Company (and presumably Abernathy) return to the church on March 25th and again on September 25th – the six-month and one-year anniversaries of Mrs. Horn’s raising. (A bit of back-story: one of the things Dranko did as a youth was to invent a fictional Crime Lord called "The Oracle." Dranko would spread rumors all around the city about the power and mystery surrounding this dangerous man of the underworld. And he'd occasionally imply -- though never actually state -- that he had a close relationship with this "Oracle," with the merest hint of a suggestion that Dranko and the Oracle might be one and the same. In this way he hoped to increase his reputation among the seedier elements of Tal Hae. As it turned out, his rumormongering was more effective that he could have dreamed...) * Dranko, during his training, is brought before the Undermen of Tal Hae and questioned about the Oracle. It appears that someone is committing heinous crimes in the Oracle’s name, and all of the Undermen investigations have led, eventually, back to Dranko. The Undermen have spent some serious effort tracking down this "rival criminal organization," and aren’t too pleased to find that it was essentially a practical joke. Men have been killed for less. In return for his life Dranko agrees to become, officially and for real, "The Oracle," as an arm of the Undermen. The Oracle (and his associates) can be called upon by the Undermen to perform services, though the Dranko is assured that these tasks will not involve murder, assaults, or violent robbery. Probably. * Massive donations are made to the churches of Ell, Yondalla and Delioch. * Lieutenant Marbury Tillerson stops by with the news that the Greenhouse is required by law to pay 50 GP in taxes every year. Not surprisingly, the Greenhouse’s delinquency was brought to his attention by Turlus Whitecake. * At a mention of the Matun Essendi, an agitated breeze picks up in Kay’s vicinity. * Abernathy shows up at the Greenhouse -- at the door, in person! He has been shopping down at the market, and has brought a basket of dates and honey as a gift for the party. Having just drained the Evil Black Book of its magical energy, he feels as though he’s deserved a break, and has decided that he needs to get out more. The party fills him in on all the goings on with Radburn, the state of the ruins at Verdshane, the woman Meledien who was also there, the auction, the fight afterward, and their experience with the Cyclops and Sarai. Abernathy expresses great concern about the backpack being gone from the skeleton in the blue field at Verdshane. He takes Gluefoot’s portable latri…uh, magic box, with the hope of finding where the other end is. He doesn’t know what to make of the Eye’s cryptic opinions, and seems to think that it’s in about as good care as it can be with Sarai. He does suggest that the Company not heed the request of the Cyclops to free its brother from the Greenhouse. Abernathy tells the Company that a colleague of his has detected a powerful (and probably malign) source of magical energy somewhere in or near the small town of Seablade Point on Lanei. He’d like the Company to retrieve it for him, and though it is not immediately urgent, he tells them not to take too long in starting an investigation. * During this time, Kay begins to feel some added urgency in her
desire to visit her home and family in Cyric. Thursday, November 27 - Tor and Ernie compete in the Church of Werthis’ Fall Tourney. Ernie is knocked out in the first round, and Tor manages to make it to second round before he’s defeated. Well, there’s always next time! The Company prepares for the trip to Cyric. Friday, November 28 - Ship travel to Kynder Hold Saturday, November 29 - Tuesday, December 2 (Day of the Seablade - Brechen) - Travel to Cyric. As each day goes by, the air in Kay’s vicinity becomes more and more agitated. Wednesday, December 3 - The Company arrives in Cyric. Kay’s old neighbors are shocked to see her, given that she had vanished without a trace over half a year earlier, and given that she’s traveling with some pretty strange company. Kay’s family is delighted to see her alive, since they never received the letter Kay had sent to the local miller, assuring them that she was safe. (All of Kay's family, including Kay, are illiterate, which is why her letter (written for her by Ernie) was mailed to Mr. Miller.) All of her family is there except for Karn, the middle brother (of her three human brothers), who is (and has been for months) off searching for her. Ever the practical-minded family, they’re happy to see that she’s brought back the salt-shaker, which she was holding when Abernathy teleported her to his tower. Some of the Company go and terrorize poor Mr. Miller, who assures them he never received Kay's letter. Once in the house, Kay is drawn to her childhood bedroom, and once there goes faint. She revives moments later with full a full translation in her head of the song her mother learned from her elvish father , and which she then taught to Kay. And then, for the first time, Kay realizes that she's sharing a body with an Air Spirit. The Air Spirit is young, like a child, though she can impart some basic information to Kay. Her name is Oa Lyanna, and she is a creature called a Yrimpa, one of a race of air-elemental-like beings that once were numerous in Charagan. It is somehow "bonded" to Kay, living in and around her physical form, able to leave Kay’s body invisibly and return freely. Together the two of them can cast the equivalent of a Gust of Wind spell every so often, though that leaves Oa Lyanna exhausted. At last the mysterious wind that blew at Kay's birth (and her subsequent nickname of "Windstorm") have been at least party explained. Kay speaks with her mother (Miri) about her real elven father, but Miri doesn’t know much. She cannot recall anything unusual about Kay’s conception, or particularly odd about the father, Reinhorn. Reinhorn left Cyric soon after Kay was conceived, going north into the forest. Thursday, December 4 - The Company heads in that direction, hoping to find some clue as to his whereabouts. They don’t have to search for long. In the nearest town to the north, a human-and-elvish village called Tandle, the Innkeeper of the Silverbark knows the story of Reinhorn well. It seems that many years back, an elf calling himself Reinhorn came into town, and took a room at the Inn of the Gleaming Bough. That night, the inn was rocked by a mighty blast of wind from inside Reinhorn’s room, and when people went to investigate, they found all of the windows blown outward and Reinhorn dead on his bed, with no marks or other indication of what had killed him. Soon after, the Inn had gone out of business and has since been razed. The Company goes to visit the simple grave, which reads: "Reinhorn - stranger yet kin." The date of death is about eight-and-a-half months before Kay’s birth. (run 31 begins) That evening, the party travels to and camps by the river, hoping to find Kay’s brother Karn. |