MulhorandSage
First Post
Well I was doing an in character diary for the 3e D&D game that Steve Sloane is running, I thought I'd post it here.
Scott Bennie
Cast of Characters
Ascarin Nevermoon. Mage of Sembia, who found the conceits of the courts of Sembia to be stifling, so he fled Sembia in search of adventure. As presented here, he is a mage of 5th-6th level.
Sir Ulrick Cormaeril, Cormyrean paladin of a disgraced family, seeking redemption fortune and power. As presented here, he is a paladin of 5th-6th level.
Sir Aron Wyvernspur A minor Cormyrean knight of a great house, Aron is considered chaotic by most who know him. As presented here, he is a fighter of 5th-6th level.
Kord the elf An elven ranger (with a touch of the thief in his veins). Rather blood-thirsty and egocentric. A Ranger/Thief of 4th-5th/1st level.
What has gone before
In the wake of the devastation brought to Cormyr by the Ghazneths, four adventurers arrived in the Dales and set up a farm in Ashbeneford, hoping to export food to Cormyr and either feed their starving families or make a fortune. Attacks by raiders and the presence of drow led them far afield, eventually leading to the discovery of a series of portals at Galath's Roost. Fleeing the orc army that controls the portals, the fractious band followed one of the doors into Cormyr and has just arrived at the city of Wheloon.
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THE SMILE of CHAUNTEA
Part One:
I have woefully miscalculated the ambition of a paladin. As you know, for months I have been the travelling companion of one Ulrick Cormaeril, who, despite the ill repute of his family, I believed loyal to the crown of his land. And while in his heart he still believes that he is the Torm-true son of Cormyr, he may have begun to take his first steps toward an abyss.
It began, of course, when our errand in the Dalelands went awry. We came to Ashabenford to grow food in the Dalelands to succor (and profit from) the famine that has stricken Cormyr following the death of the great Dragon Azoun. During our time in the Dales, our company became restless, and so we explored the citadel of the Orcs, and in doing so discovered a place of many portals.
(Tell none of this last development. It is the lynchpin of all our designs, especially mine.)
Ah, my merry fellowship, these battle-brethren. Let me speak of them so you might better understand my predicament. First there is Ulrick, a tall man of very fine features. He is a paladin who spends a lot of time on his knees in prayer to Torm, a posture that he has assumed more frequently of late, given how much our misfortunes have grown. He is full of certainty in moments which require introspection, and full of doubt in moments that require decisiveness. It is part of the national character, methinks.
Ulrick is matched in height by his Cormyte countryman, Aron Wyvernspur, a broadly built minor knight who has shown remarkable skill with a great two-handed flail (when he takes combat seriously, he is a chaotic, unfocused sort), and a great ferocity when roused. He has no couth, but after awhile couth can wear quite thin. His family is plagued by a pertilence of trolls, and we have promised to assist him, but other matters always detain us.
My last companion (whom I trust less than the others), is Kord, a shifty elf who shows a great affinity for woodcraft. He is a most unreliable man; he loves to pursue a target and play tracking games with them, but as soon as it appears like an enemy might actually have the capacity to do him some small harm, he retreats, often abandoning us to a potentially unpleasant fate. He is accompanied by two noisy fighting dogs who, when we were travelling in the Dales, were turned pink by a vexed wizard's curse.
Now let me proceed to the week's adventure. We fought our way through the orc den out of Galath's Roost, and followed one of the portals to the Cormyte city of Wheloon. "City", of course, is a term of dubious usage as it concerns Wheloon, for the place was neither fine nor hospitable even before the recent tragedies, but now one cannot look upon the place without experiencing great sorrow.
Before the Ghazneths devastated their realm, whenever a Cormyte looked at me, I saw only contempt in their eyes (which, given their natural state of ignorance, I could ignore). Now their eyes were full of fear, hatred, and above all else, hunger. Wheloon was never a clean place, but what could once be regarded as a rustic charm had been replaced by dirt and rot, and the desperation in the air was a palpable thing. Needless to say, the starvation and the ruin that I witnessed there resonated deep within me, touching my abiding compassion for all things downtrodden (especially when the downtrodden have full purses and empty bellies).
The evils that desperation spawns were quite rampant here: crime, mob rule, and the general breakdown of all things civilized. The place was sparsely defended when we arrived; the knights of the city had been slain during Cormyr’s recent foolhardy adventure, along with much of the nobility of the realm, and so when we arrived in Wheloon, we found a mob raiding the foodstores, with the surviving guards ready to slaughter them.
I urged Lord Ulrick to remain uninvolved, but despite my warnings, the big-hearted paladin could not endure the sight of such a pitiable mob, so he strode heroically to the city foodstores and emptied them. Without the consent of any authority, he distributed the stores to the entire populace, rather than leaving them in the granary (where undoubtedly the lion’s share would have been stolen by the city’s most capable scavengers). And thus our troubles began.
Invoking the knightly privilege of hospitality, we stayed at the city keep; a well-fortified but woefully spartan place (though once one is used to sleeping in a drafty farmstead in the Dales, this sort of dwelling almost becomes tolerable). In the evening that followed, we all experienced a most troubled sleep – though Lord Ulrick appearing to suffer more than most of us. We awoke to find the palace guards were gone; the lord had paid the guards in foodstuffs and without food the guards realized they would go unpaid, so they stole horses from the stables and fled into the wilderness (along with most of the town guard; I understand they have formed not one but three bandit gangs). Kord seems rather excited by the prospect of hunting them down. The chancellor, who had been sternly rebuked by Ulrick for his hoarding ways, had also fled.
With Ulrick now de facto ruler of the city, we were forced to meet with a series of delegations. The first was an ostentatious lot, their bodies were covered in tattoos and they wore silk robes dyed in the deepest crimson; the copious quantities of gold they displayed were as everpresent as insults at a Sembian court. Honey dripped from their tongues, and they flattered Ulrick, telling him that he was the savior of the city. They wanted Ulrick to grant them permission to set up a Thayan enclave within Wheloon.
"What!" I exclaimed. If my belly had not been nigh empty, I would have lost my meal. I laughed in their faces, but this act, which was once so effective in provoking these blackguards, did not engender the expected response. It is astonishing to see Thayans holding such legendary tempers in check. They offered bribes to all of us, including a holy sword for Ulrick and an exquisite wand of fireballs (crafted from red cedar, with a silver tip) for me.
They also offered me a substantial discount on mageries, should I purchase a supply from them. It was an offer that might have proven useful, however the Lord Ulrick was in a prudent mood and he refused to grant approval without the express permission of the Regent. I was satisfied that this would conclude the matter, but the Thayans, perhaps finding more hope in Ulrick’s words than I, departed without incident. But they were far from our only visitor - they were quickly followed by a delegation of local guild lords, who proceeded to give Ulrick a most expert and veritable tongue-lashing. They informed our dear paladin that a beholder-mage was blocking the way to Suzail, and an adult red dragon was attacking all the lake traffic, and that by giving away all the grain and causing the guards to depart, he had left Wheloon open to its enemies. This was a grim accusation. They called Ulrick a usurper who had no authority to act as he had done – they were right, of course – and accused him of bringing ruin upon them all. Ulrick was mightily offended by the observation, poking them in their bellies and accusing them of fattening themselves while the people starved.
This conversation knocked out all appetite for authority out of Ulrick’s belly – for now – and he prepared to depart Wheloon for Suzail. The Regent would undoubtedly have heard of his exploits, and given the unpopularity of the name “Cormaeril” with those who controlled the throne of Cormyr, he felt it prudent to clear up any misunderstanding. Furthermore, he felt time was of the essence; despite the barrier of the terror of many eyes that stood between Suzail and Wheloon, he was certain that even the diminished power of the throne could smite him at any moment. It is a typical paladin’s error, to assume that the one to whom you grant your allegiance is nigh omnipotent. But fate has a way of correcting such childish misconceptions.
The next delegation was that of several cloaked figures. Ulrick assumed that they were members of the local thieves’ guild, and refused to treat with them. They beckoned me, and I excused myself, and we had a long conversation. They introduced themselves as fellow Sembians who wish to see Wheloon secede from Cormyr and join our realm. I must confess I found the prospect amusing. They asked for my assistance, asking me to whisper in Ulrick’s ear so he might be bent toward this design. I told them I felt it was impossible – Ulrick’s loyalty to the throne was absolute – but also told them that if Ulrick were to become convinced that the throne of Cormyr no longer served the people of the realm, then a wedge might be driven between them.
And thus I made my most serious mistake. No, not in giving advice to a probable adversary – it is better to keep an eye on a vipertongue than to allow them to slither under your house – but in overestimating Ulrick’s bond of affection to the throne. The Sembians (if that is what they are), expressed delight at my cooperation. Thus I have become ensnared in what feels like a most despicable enterprise. But my love for Cormyr is almost as small as my love for my own people, so I sleep without guilt or shadow of recalcitrance.
The nature of my error was soon made clear to me. Ulrick, whom I had never deserted even in the darkest of hours and the most foolhardy of enterprises, had abandoned me. No monster could frighten him, but the political beast had shaken him to his marrow, and so he quickly departed Wheloon while I was still speaking with the Sembians, and Aron had departed with him. I do not blame them, of course. They are simple folk; like peasants who found themselves forced to dance while wearing tatters in the middle of a grand ballroom, they were woefully unprepared for this challenge.
Kord, eager to see the result of my meeting (almost certainly thinking they were thieves and fellow reprobates), decided to linger awhile to learn exactly who they were; and that is when the crack opened and we found ourselves falling to Gehenna. Not literally, of course, but it might well have been. Thirteen fit armed men, clad in chainmail and wielding bastard swords, forced their way into the castle’s central keep and arrested us, declaring that we were traitors to the throne. The elf argued that as non-citizens we could not be technically be traitors. I noticed one of the guards was a sorcerer, a dragon-blood, who cast a spell upon himself that greatly quickened his reflexes. Realizing that we had a wizard who was my equal, and twelve sturdy veteran soldiers to face one elf, I immediately surrendered. Kord, as he has always done, attempted to run from the fight. He ran into the kitchen, discovered he had reached a dead end, then also surrendered.
Comparing me to the basest of animals, they shackled me and forced a strip of sackcloth into my mouth - the taste was rank and mildewed – stripped me of my possessions, then threw me into their donjon like a common criminal. To make matters worse, I was forced to share a cell with Kord, an elf who is so amoral that I’m convinced he’d think nothing of eating you if his stomach began to grumble.
I suppose the situation could have been worse. William, my stoat familiar, had been sleeping in one of my spare cloaks, they might have skinned him alive, force fed him to me, then cut out my tongue for dessert. That’s been the sorry fate of more than one Sembian who’s found themselves imprisoned in a foreign gaol.
Thus Kord and I were left to languish in the cell for hours. Kord complained incessently that we were better off in Ashabenford. I quickly tired of my comrade’s grousing, and so I initiated an old (if gruesome) child’s game, “ratball”, a sport which involved us killing rats with good stiff kicks and then kicking their carcasses between us like a ball. Anything to pass the time, I suppose. We wondered what was happening with Ulrick, but the outside world was silent except for the taunting of the guards.
We learned no news of the outside world for hours, until the chancellor, who had returned to the keep with these so-called members of the “order of the Dragons of Wheloon”, inspected us. A man of terse manners and irritable patience, he informed us that we were to be put on trial soon. The news was not welcome; a quick trial meant a quick hanging. The chancellor also told me that they hoped to capture Aron and Ulrick so they could stand trial with us (Tymora forbid that they should only have two hangings when four gibbet-swain, swinging in a swift breeze, is a far more entertaining display).
So we waited two nights and a day. Nothing of consequence happened. The guards jeered at us in our cells, especially at Kord which was understandable (since it was an aggrieved elf who was the architect of Cormyr’s recent misery), but still quite disspiriting. I was not completely convinced I was going to die, but I knew that my best hope of survival was to impugn Ulrich’s name at the trial, and such a base act of dishonesty was loathesome to me. Never tell a lie unless you are certain it will not be discovered (and even then, only when it is necessary, for he who tells too many lies is often blind to those truths which can save one’s life). But desperate times call for desperate measures, if not blind panic.
So we continued to wait, and on the second day of our captivity, we received some very shocking news - the Chancellor, who seemed the most temperate of our enemies, was dead. The guard told us that Ulrick had lured him to the town square, and then had him shot with poisoned crossbow bolts. This story was, of course, absurd. The guards promised to kill us, but first they would deal with Ulrick and Aron, who had chosen the moment to single-handedly storm the castle. What wonderful fools those lads can be. The guards departed to battle the intruders; with our cell now unguarded, Kord took a pick from his boot and opened the look on the cell door like an expert thief. We could hear the commotion on the castle's upper floor, and so we bolted to the battle in an attempt to bolster our rescuers.
Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a smart move on our part. Our comrades were engaged in a desperate struggle against the surviving Dragons, and the enemy sorcerer, bolstered with spells and employing a necromancer’s touch (such a specimen of Cormyrean nobility), was slowly killing our good Lord Ulrick – Tymora had not been kind to them prior to our arrival. Kord had raided the armory and fired a crossbow bolt into the back of one of the soldiers who was bedevilling Aron, whose great flail was missing its mark more often than it struck. My task was to teach the dragon-blood of the virtues of a studied approach to magic, a task I undertook with relish. With a single spell, I stripped away the magicks that bolstered the sorcerer – six images that diverted killing blows shattered like shards of a broken mirror, his lightning-quick motions became sluggish, and his magical armor crumpled.
This turned the tide. Without his illusory doubles to protect him, Ulrick drove his greatsword into the sorcerer’s arms and sides, attempting to hew him like an unwelcome tree. It looks impressive, though I must confess that Sir Aron’s fighting style interests me more – I would never have guessed a flail could be such a fell weapon (he once smote an enemy in the neck with such a mighty blow that its head fell from its shoulders).
With an new enemy at their flank, the enemy found themselves in a dire predicament. One of the guards charged to engage me, but warded by my own spells, I ignored him while I directed a barrage of evocations at the sorcerer as he was battling against Lord Ulrick. After my lightning bolt nearly cut him down, th dragon-blood cast a spell to reestablish his quickness, cast a second spell to bolster his footspeed, then he fled through a door, scaled the castle walls, and escaped into the depths of the city. His fellow Dragons, on the other hand, did not survive the battle, and their loudly spoken oaths to defend Cormyr had fallen upon the deaf ears of the gods.
We buried the Chancellor and his Dragon zealots with honor, though the people of Wheloon seemed to think that a dignified ceremony was unwarranted. These wretches had endured months of war, famine, loss and a host of other miseries, and now their despite for House Obarskyr and all who followed their banner was an equal of our hatred for the Zhentarim. Still, I must confess to a certain guilty amusement. Is it not the perfect irony that this nation, which had so proudly lorded the greatness of its knights for generations (and who had labelled all Sembians as “honorless curs”) were now themselves fighting like starving dogs in an abandoned kennel?
The next day, bearing himself in lordly fashion, the victorious Sir Cormaeril assumed the duties (if not the title) of the Lord of Wheloon. He sent a messenger to the Harvestmaster of Monksblade, informing him of the changes that had occurred in the city. Then he did the one thing that most surprised (and alarmed) me; he met with the Thayans, and granted them permission to establish their enclave. He drove a hard bargain: in addition to the bribes they had offered us, the Thayans also promised to remove the dragon that had been preying on the local trade routes, restore the water traffic with Sembia, and import sufficient quantities of grain to feed the masses of Wheloon and its surrounding for a year. It was a good bargain for the people, but any bargain struck with devil-hearts must turn to evil in the end. Also inevitably, those Sembian blackcloaks (whom I am certain murdered the chancellor) will attempt to use me as an instrument to sway the heart of “my lord Ulrick”. They cloak themselves in shadows, but a veritable sun shines on their intent – they wish me to turn Ulrick completely against House Obarskyr and the Purple Dragons, so that in the end I will deliver Wheloon to them as a bauble that will gleam brightly in the crown of whatever nation they truly serve.
So let us savor this triumph and pretend it is not a disaster. Let us celebrate the glory of my great and valiant lord paladin. Perhaps if we besot ourselves with these old, crooked delusions, it will make the situation seem tolerable for awhile.
With Love, as ever, thy brother and thy servant,
Ascarin Nevermoon
Scott Bennie
Cast of Characters
Ascarin Nevermoon. Mage of Sembia, who found the conceits of the courts of Sembia to be stifling, so he fled Sembia in search of adventure. As presented here, he is a mage of 5th-6th level.
Sir Ulrick Cormaeril, Cormyrean paladin of a disgraced family, seeking redemption fortune and power. As presented here, he is a paladin of 5th-6th level.
Sir Aron Wyvernspur A minor Cormyrean knight of a great house, Aron is considered chaotic by most who know him. As presented here, he is a fighter of 5th-6th level.
Kord the elf An elven ranger (with a touch of the thief in his veins). Rather blood-thirsty and egocentric. A Ranger/Thief of 4th-5th/1st level.
What has gone before
In the wake of the devastation brought to Cormyr by the Ghazneths, four adventurers arrived in the Dales and set up a farm in Ashbeneford, hoping to export food to Cormyr and either feed their starving families or make a fortune. Attacks by raiders and the presence of drow led them far afield, eventually leading to the discovery of a series of portals at Galath's Roost. Fleeing the orc army that controls the portals, the fractious band followed one of the doors into Cormyr and has just arrived at the city of Wheloon.
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THE SMILE of CHAUNTEA
Part One:
I have woefully miscalculated the ambition of a paladin. As you know, for months I have been the travelling companion of one Ulrick Cormaeril, who, despite the ill repute of his family, I believed loyal to the crown of his land. And while in his heart he still believes that he is the Torm-true son of Cormyr, he may have begun to take his first steps toward an abyss.
It began, of course, when our errand in the Dalelands went awry. We came to Ashabenford to grow food in the Dalelands to succor (and profit from) the famine that has stricken Cormyr following the death of the great Dragon Azoun. During our time in the Dales, our company became restless, and so we explored the citadel of the Orcs, and in doing so discovered a place of many portals.
(Tell none of this last development. It is the lynchpin of all our designs, especially mine.)
Ah, my merry fellowship, these battle-brethren. Let me speak of them so you might better understand my predicament. First there is Ulrick, a tall man of very fine features. He is a paladin who spends a lot of time on his knees in prayer to Torm, a posture that he has assumed more frequently of late, given how much our misfortunes have grown. He is full of certainty in moments which require introspection, and full of doubt in moments that require decisiveness. It is part of the national character, methinks.
Ulrick is matched in height by his Cormyte countryman, Aron Wyvernspur, a broadly built minor knight who has shown remarkable skill with a great two-handed flail (when he takes combat seriously, he is a chaotic, unfocused sort), and a great ferocity when roused. He has no couth, but after awhile couth can wear quite thin. His family is plagued by a pertilence of trolls, and we have promised to assist him, but other matters always detain us.
My last companion (whom I trust less than the others), is Kord, a shifty elf who shows a great affinity for woodcraft. He is a most unreliable man; he loves to pursue a target and play tracking games with them, but as soon as it appears like an enemy might actually have the capacity to do him some small harm, he retreats, often abandoning us to a potentially unpleasant fate. He is accompanied by two noisy fighting dogs who, when we were travelling in the Dales, were turned pink by a vexed wizard's curse.
Now let me proceed to the week's adventure. We fought our way through the orc den out of Galath's Roost, and followed one of the portals to the Cormyte city of Wheloon. "City", of course, is a term of dubious usage as it concerns Wheloon, for the place was neither fine nor hospitable even before the recent tragedies, but now one cannot look upon the place without experiencing great sorrow.
Before the Ghazneths devastated their realm, whenever a Cormyte looked at me, I saw only contempt in their eyes (which, given their natural state of ignorance, I could ignore). Now their eyes were full of fear, hatred, and above all else, hunger. Wheloon was never a clean place, but what could once be regarded as a rustic charm had been replaced by dirt and rot, and the desperation in the air was a palpable thing. Needless to say, the starvation and the ruin that I witnessed there resonated deep within me, touching my abiding compassion for all things downtrodden (especially when the downtrodden have full purses and empty bellies).
The evils that desperation spawns were quite rampant here: crime, mob rule, and the general breakdown of all things civilized. The place was sparsely defended when we arrived; the knights of the city had been slain during Cormyr’s recent foolhardy adventure, along with much of the nobility of the realm, and so when we arrived in Wheloon, we found a mob raiding the foodstores, with the surviving guards ready to slaughter them.
I urged Lord Ulrick to remain uninvolved, but despite my warnings, the big-hearted paladin could not endure the sight of such a pitiable mob, so he strode heroically to the city foodstores and emptied them. Without the consent of any authority, he distributed the stores to the entire populace, rather than leaving them in the granary (where undoubtedly the lion’s share would have been stolen by the city’s most capable scavengers). And thus our troubles began.
Invoking the knightly privilege of hospitality, we stayed at the city keep; a well-fortified but woefully spartan place (though once one is used to sleeping in a drafty farmstead in the Dales, this sort of dwelling almost becomes tolerable). In the evening that followed, we all experienced a most troubled sleep – though Lord Ulrick appearing to suffer more than most of us. We awoke to find the palace guards were gone; the lord had paid the guards in foodstuffs and without food the guards realized they would go unpaid, so they stole horses from the stables and fled into the wilderness (along with most of the town guard; I understand they have formed not one but three bandit gangs). Kord seems rather excited by the prospect of hunting them down. The chancellor, who had been sternly rebuked by Ulrick for his hoarding ways, had also fled.
With Ulrick now de facto ruler of the city, we were forced to meet with a series of delegations. The first was an ostentatious lot, their bodies were covered in tattoos and they wore silk robes dyed in the deepest crimson; the copious quantities of gold they displayed were as everpresent as insults at a Sembian court. Honey dripped from their tongues, and they flattered Ulrick, telling him that he was the savior of the city. They wanted Ulrick to grant them permission to set up a Thayan enclave within Wheloon.
"What!" I exclaimed. If my belly had not been nigh empty, I would have lost my meal. I laughed in their faces, but this act, which was once so effective in provoking these blackguards, did not engender the expected response. It is astonishing to see Thayans holding such legendary tempers in check. They offered bribes to all of us, including a holy sword for Ulrick and an exquisite wand of fireballs (crafted from red cedar, with a silver tip) for me.
They also offered me a substantial discount on mageries, should I purchase a supply from them. It was an offer that might have proven useful, however the Lord Ulrick was in a prudent mood and he refused to grant approval without the express permission of the Regent. I was satisfied that this would conclude the matter, but the Thayans, perhaps finding more hope in Ulrick’s words than I, departed without incident. But they were far from our only visitor - they were quickly followed by a delegation of local guild lords, who proceeded to give Ulrick a most expert and veritable tongue-lashing. They informed our dear paladin that a beholder-mage was blocking the way to Suzail, and an adult red dragon was attacking all the lake traffic, and that by giving away all the grain and causing the guards to depart, he had left Wheloon open to its enemies. This was a grim accusation. They called Ulrick a usurper who had no authority to act as he had done – they were right, of course – and accused him of bringing ruin upon them all. Ulrick was mightily offended by the observation, poking them in their bellies and accusing them of fattening themselves while the people starved.
This conversation knocked out all appetite for authority out of Ulrick’s belly – for now – and he prepared to depart Wheloon for Suzail. The Regent would undoubtedly have heard of his exploits, and given the unpopularity of the name “Cormaeril” with those who controlled the throne of Cormyr, he felt it prudent to clear up any misunderstanding. Furthermore, he felt time was of the essence; despite the barrier of the terror of many eyes that stood between Suzail and Wheloon, he was certain that even the diminished power of the throne could smite him at any moment. It is a typical paladin’s error, to assume that the one to whom you grant your allegiance is nigh omnipotent. But fate has a way of correcting such childish misconceptions.
The next delegation was that of several cloaked figures. Ulrick assumed that they were members of the local thieves’ guild, and refused to treat with them. They beckoned me, and I excused myself, and we had a long conversation. They introduced themselves as fellow Sembians who wish to see Wheloon secede from Cormyr and join our realm. I must confess I found the prospect amusing. They asked for my assistance, asking me to whisper in Ulrick’s ear so he might be bent toward this design. I told them I felt it was impossible – Ulrick’s loyalty to the throne was absolute – but also told them that if Ulrick were to become convinced that the throne of Cormyr no longer served the people of the realm, then a wedge might be driven between them.
And thus I made my most serious mistake. No, not in giving advice to a probable adversary – it is better to keep an eye on a vipertongue than to allow them to slither under your house – but in overestimating Ulrick’s bond of affection to the throne. The Sembians (if that is what they are), expressed delight at my cooperation. Thus I have become ensnared in what feels like a most despicable enterprise. But my love for Cormyr is almost as small as my love for my own people, so I sleep without guilt or shadow of recalcitrance.
The nature of my error was soon made clear to me. Ulrick, whom I had never deserted even in the darkest of hours and the most foolhardy of enterprises, had abandoned me. No monster could frighten him, but the political beast had shaken him to his marrow, and so he quickly departed Wheloon while I was still speaking with the Sembians, and Aron had departed with him. I do not blame them, of course. They are simple folk; like peasants who found themselves forced to dance while wearing tatters in the middle of a grand ballroom, they were woefully unprepared for this challenge.
Kord, eager to see the result of my meeting (almost certainly thinking they were thieves and fellow reprobates), decided to linger awhile to learn exactly who they were; and that is when the crack opened and we found ourselves falling to Gehenna. Not literally, of course, but it might well have been. Thirteen fit armed men, clad in chainmail and wielding bastard swords, forced their way into the castle’s central keep and arrested us, declaring that we were traitors to the throne. The elf argued that as non-citizens we could not be technically be traitors. I noticed one of the guards was a sorcerer, a dragon-blood, who cast a spell upon himself that greatly quickened his reflexes. Realizing that we had a wizard who was my equal, and twelve sturdy veteran soldiers to face one elf, I immediately surrendered. Kord, as he has always done, attempted to run from the fight. He ran into the kitchen, discovered he had reached a dead end, then also surrendered.
Comparing me to the basest of animals, they shackled me and forced a strip of sackcloth into my mouth - the taste was rank and mildewed – stripped me of my possessions, then threw me into their donjon like a common criminal. To make matters worse, I was forced to share a cell with Kord, an elf who is so amoral that I’m convinced he’d think nothing of eating you if his stomach began to grumble.
I suppose the situation could have been worse. William, my stoat familiar, had been sleeping in one of my spare cloaks, they might have skinned him alive, force fed him to me, then cut out my tongue for dessert. That’s been the sorry fate of more than one Sembian who’s found themselves imprisoned in a foreign gaol.
Thus Kord and I were left to languish in the cell for hours. Kord complained incessently that we were better off in Ashabenford. I quickly tired of my comrade’s grousing, and so I initiated an old (if gruesome) child’s game, “ratball”, a sport which involved us killing rats with good stiff kicks and then kicking their carcasses between us like a ball. Anything to pass the time, I suppose. We wondered what was happening with Ulrick, but the outside world was silent except for the taunting of the guards.
We learned no news of the outside world for hours, until the chancellor, who had returned to the keep with these so-called members of the “order of the Dragons of Wheloon”, inspected us. A man of terse manners and irritable patience, he informed us that we were to be put on trial soon. The news was not welcome; a quick trial meant a quick hanging. The chancellor also told me that they hoped to capture Aron and Ulrick so they could stand trial with us (Tymora forbid that they should only have two hangings when four gibbet-swain, swinging in a swift breeze, is a far more entertaining display).
So we waited two nights and a day. Nothing of consequence happened. The guards jeered at us in our cells, especially at Kord which was understandable (since it was an aggrieved elf who was the architect of Cormyr’s recent misery), but still quite disspiriting. I was not completely convinced I was going to die, but I knew that my best hope of survival was to impugn Ulrich’s name at the trial, and such a base act of dishonesty was loathesome to me. Never tell a lie unless you are certain it will not be discovered (and even then, only when it is necessary, for he who tells too many lies is often blind to those truths which can save one’s life). But desperate times call for desperate measures, if not blind panic.
So we continued to wait, and on the second day of our captivity, we received some very shocking news - the Chancellor, who seemed the most temperate of our enemies, was dead. The guard told us that Ulrick had lured him to the town square, and then had him shot with poisoned crossbow bolts. This story was, of course, absurd. The guards promised to kill us, but first they would deal with Ulrick and Aron, who had chosen the moment to single-handedly storm the castle. What wonderful fools those lads can be. The guards departed to battle the intruders; with our cell now unguarded, Kord took a pick from his boot and opened the look on the cell door like an expert thief. We could hear the commotion on the castle's upper floor, and so we bolted to the battle in an attempt to bolster our rescuers.
Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a smart move on our part. Our comrades were engaged in a desperate struggle against the surviving Dragons, and the enemy sorcerer, bolstered with spells and employing a necromancer’s touch (such a specimen of Cormyrean nobility), was slowly killing our good Lord Ulrick – Tymora had not been kind to them prior to our arrival. Kord had raided the armory and fired a crossbow bolt into the back of one of the soldiers who was bedevilling Aron, whose great flail was missing its mark more often than it struck. My task was to teach the dragon-blood of the virtues of a studied approach to magic, a task I undertook with relish. With a single spell, I stripped away the magicks that bolstered the sorcerer – six images that diverted killing blows shattered like shards of a broken mirror, his lightning-quick motions became sluggish, and his magical armor crumpled.
This turned the tide. Without his illusory doubles to protect him, Ulrick drove his greatsword into the sorcerer’s arms and sides, attempting to hew him like an unwelcome tree. It looks impressive, though I must confess that Sir Aron’s fighting style interests me more – I would never have guessed a flail could be such a fell weapon (he once smote an enemy in the neck with such a mighty blow that its head fell from its shoulders).
With an new enemy at their flank, the enemy found themselves in a dire predicament. One of the guards charged to engage me, but warded by my own spells, I ignored him while I directed a barrage of evocations at the sorcerer as he was battling against Lord Ulrick. After my lightning bolt nearly cut him down, th dragon-blood cast a spell to reestablish his quickness, cast a second spell to bolster his footspeed, then he fled through a door, scaled the castle walls, and escaped into the depths of the city. His fellow Dragons, on the other hand, did not survive the battle, and their loudly spoken oaths to defend Cormyr had fallen upon the deaf ears of the gods.
We buried the Chancellor and his Dragon zealots with honor, though the people of Wheloon seemed to think that a dignified ceremony was unwarranted. These wretches had endured months of war, famine, loss and a host of other miseries, and now their despite for House Obarskyr and all who followed their banner was an equal of our hatred for the Zhentarim. Still, I must confess to a certain guilty amusement. Is it not the perfect irony that this nation, which had so proudly lorded the greatness of its knights for generations (and who had labelled all Sembians as “honorless curs”) were now themselves fighting like starving dogs in an abandoned kennel?
The next day, bearing himself in lordly fashion, the victorious Sir Cormaeril assumed the duties (if not the title) of the Lord of Wheloon. He sent a messenger to the Harvestmaster of Monksblade, informing him of the changes that had occurred in the city. Then he did the one thing that most surprised (and alarmed) me; he met with the Thayans, and granted them permission to establish their enclave. He drove a hard bargain: in addition to the bribes they had offered us, the Thayans also promised to remove the dragon that had been preying on the local trade routes, restore the water traffic with Sembia, and import sufficient quantities of grain to feed the masses of Wheloon and its surrounding for a year. It was a good bargain for the people, but any bargain struck with devil-hearts must turn to evil in the end. Also inevitably, those Sembian blackcloaks (whom I am certain murdered the chancellor) will attempt to use me as an instrument to sway the heart of “my lord Ulrick”. They cloak themselves in shadows, but a veritable sun shines on their intent – they wish me to turn Ulrick completely against House Obarskyr and the Purple Dragons, so that in the end I will deliver Wheloon to them as a bauble that will gleam brightly in the crown of whatever nation they truly serve.
So let us savor this triumph and pretend it is not a disaster. Let us celebrate the glory of my great and valiant lord paladin. Perhaps if we besot ourselves with these old, crooked delusions, it will make the situation seem tolerable for awhile.
With Love, as ever, thy brother and thy servant,
Ascarin Nevermoon
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