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Story Hour
Cormyr: The Smile of Chauntea
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<blockquote data-quote="MulhorandSage" data-source="post: 661380" data-attributes="member: 751"><p><strong>WARNING: SPOILERS for Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor ahead</strong></p><p></p><p>24th day of Uktar, in the Year of the Standing Stone, 1372. </p><p>In the shadow of the Death That Grows</p><p></p><p>Dear Sister,</p><p></p><p>My apologies for cutting my last correspondence short - these days I've done so much running that I'm easily caught out of breath and barely have strength to lift a pen.</p><p></p><p>I would tell you that I'm foreshadowing, my dear, except that I know you're smart enough to fil in between the lines.</p><p></p><p>Kord lay at our feet like a bound pig before the feast. I rather liked the pose, but Ulrick insisted on untying him so we could speak with him freely. I wondered how he'd react to me, especially since I had planted the seed in Ulrick's mind that led to his dismissal, but his anger was mostly directed at the paladin. Elvish eyes, with their eyebrows jutting the wrong way through an evil glare, almost look comical when they're angry. Ulrick bore the resentment with surprising good humor, and was more than happy to embrace Kord and bring him back into our little fellowship.</p><p></p><p>Paladins and their ways are as obscure as the gods' fingerprints upon the cosmos, and sometimes more than that.</p><p></p><p>Kord was reluctant to explain what had happened to put him in such dire straits. Gradually we pried some interesting tales from him; he had fled Cormyr after he was outlawed, and returned to the Dales. (I believe he hinted that he had encountered some revenants). In the Dales he learned that the Dragon Cultists were despoiling elvish tombs - presumably searching for magic items to feed the Pool of Radiance so they could warp the Weave to their purposes. Travelling here to prevent that atrocity, somehow he had been ambushed, knocked unconscious, and bound and gagged (though once the bonds were loosened, the elf's pride and delusions became so great that he refused to believe that he had ever been knocked out, as though the unfairness of the universe could be remedied by simply wishing it away). </p><p></p><p>So Kord was with us once more. But that left the appalling question on how, in all Faerûn, did we manage to get back together at this Azuth-forsaken tower?</p><p></p><p>"Fate," Ulrick decided, and his words held the promise of an extremely uncomfortable truth. "It's fate that we're back together."</p><p></p><p>One cannot deny that great deeds sometimes mold men like clay, despite one's will and one's common sense.</p><p></p><p>Promising the gnome that we would rescue its comrade, we advanced on the tower. It lay huddled in the center of a forest glade on the outskirts of Myth Drannor, which cast a huge shadow directly to the east. The glade was tinder-dry from the summer heat, surrounded by long grass and dry shrubery, though on the northern side it was very close to the forest, The keep was constructed from granite, and looked like strong dwarf-work, with a square bailey that rounded to a circular parapet. Beyond the tower was a graveyard, and in the distance, we could see (and smell) the carrionated remains of fallen cultists, pressed into soulless labour without surcease, the perfect charnel workers for the Sammasterites.</p><p></p><p>"Let's avoid that for now," Kord suggested, though the sight of the undead made our Tormite leader's blood burn. Kord noticed a piece of paper tied to a tree. "Read me," it said in the common tongue. Drawn by curiosity like a small stupid child, Ulrick strode to the note before I could warn him, and read the inscription. I swear I could see his lips move.</p><p></p><p>The note exploded in a ball of flame. I hate it when someone gets cute with explosive runes.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly at least three Sammasterite patrols converged on where we were standing, swarming us from all sides. Seeing incredible peril encircle us, Ulrick did what every paladin would do - he charged straight ahead. There must be a handbook somewhere that tells them to do that. Suddenly a swarm of magical bolts issued from barely-shuttered windows in the tower, exploding all around us, a searing cauldron of bluefire bubbling over in our vacinity. Fortunately I had taken the (sensible) precaution of surrounding myself with dweomermirrors, magical illusions that walked as I walked, otherwise these volleys would have torn me to pieces as surely as if I were surrounded by the swords of a barbarian horde. Unfortunately, the bolts also shattered my illusions within seconds, leaving me practically naked, with only a wizard's armor spell to shield me from harm.</p><p></p><p>But far worse off than I was Ulrick, whose body was now covered in wounds - his charge had borne the brunt of the enemy attack - and he was forced to call upon the power of Torm to heal himself. Seeing a host of foes issue from a small ruin that had been dug in the hillside like a badger's hole, I cast several fireballs from my wand to incinerate them. They did, but they also set the grass on fire. Some of the advancing host were slain, but the bulk of their force continued to advance.</p><p></p><p>"Retreat!" Ulrick shouted, realizing we wouldn't make our way to the keep's front gate alive. So we retreated, even as the magic missiles continued to batter us, and Kord found himself in a sniper's duel with several of the Dragon Cult's rangers. Eventually - battered, beaten, and frightened out of our wits - we managed to retreat back to the gate of Mystryl (which in Aron's armor is a considerable feat) and from there we returned to Saerloon to catch our breath.</p><p></p><p>Once we finally regained our composure - and wasted our energies with the usual exchange of angry words - we determined that we could not abandon our quest, so we decided to return to the keep at the edge of Myth Drannor and fight again. Ulrick was determined that we wouldn't use the gates to return, for he was certain they were guarded. I was loth to take the time to travel there on foot, for I feared what was happening in Wheloon in our absence, and felt the press of time upon our errand. The others were willing to wait. I swear that my companions are like children who cannot stop themselves from playing in poison ivy - they care about nothing except their current itch, yet take no sensible precautions to protect themselves from it.</p><p></p><p>We hired a mage from the temple of Azuth (my patron deity, in case you thought I was still besotted by my brief dailliance with Mystraism) who teleported us back into the area. That is, everyone except Aron - the damn fool let go of the teleport chain just before the spell was cast.</p><p></p><p>"We go on without him," Ulrick declared, and so we devised a cunning plan that would compensate for our diminished combat strength (though if Aron kept missing the target with that damn flail of his, it wouldn't be diminishing us <em>too</em> badly). </p><p></p><p>So what was this cunning plan? At least it was a <em>paladin's</em> idea of cunning (which very much resembles other people's ideas of <em>simple</em>): this time we would ambush a Sammasterite patrol, steal their uniforms (the least bloodied ones, I assume), find a safe place to observe the front gate, and wait until another patrol approached the door, Hopefully, we'd then learn the password and use it to infiltrate our way inside the keep. </p><p></p><p>Unfortunately this brilliant plan failed when Kord instructed us to hide too close to the tower and we were spotted almost immediately by one of their patrols. Elven ranger prowess, ha! No wonder Cormanthor fell. </p><p></p><p>Seeing the trap close around us, once again Ulrick drew his weapon, shouted out something grandiosely silly and pious about Torm, and charged. Even now we hoped we might catch them off guard and press the attack to victory, but another barrage of magic missiles quickly shattered our hopes. Kord ran away almost immediately. Finally discouraged, Ulrick retreated as quickly as he could manage, and I followed him. Again. </p><p></p><p>Seeing a force coming away from the shrine to cut off our escape, we bypassed the shrine of Mystryl and retreated further into the West, not stopping for a day and a night.</p><p></p><p>And of course, it rained the entire evening. At least it put out the fires - the wand of fireballs that the Thayans sold seems to do a spectacular job of burning the landscape. Fortunately, I was firing them in the brush, not in the forests.</p><p></p><p>Ulrick and I were soon joined by Aron, who had either gotten himself very drunk, was a better liar than I had given him credit for - or had actually managed to persuade an archlich (one of those very rare good liches) that the situation warranted teleporting him to our location so he could rejoin our company. Again, Ulrick insisted that we could not abandon our quest (and I concurred), so we returned once again. This time we decided to attack the graveyard first. Unfortunately, we were spotted approaching the keep before we got within a hundred yards of our target, and once again the mages drew their wands, and (yet again!) a rain of magic missiles poured from the sky. </p><p></p><p>Suddenly it occured to me that our best way of getting into the keep was by allowing them to take us inside, so I feigned that a priest's spell had ensnared me, hoping they'd bring me inside for questioning, where I could catch them by surprise. Unfortunately, Ulrick, the big drooling lummox of a paladin - who was never quite as happy as when he had a chance to demonstrate that his code of honor as tight was as a virgin's belt - was determined that he would leave <em>no one</em> behind, so he grabbed me and pulled me out of the fray. So much for <em>that</em> plan. Once again, the barrage of magic missiles nearly killed Aron, and once again we escaped by the skin of our teeth.</p><p></p><p>We retreated back to the Cormanthyr road, where Kord once again joined us - he claimed he had been looking for us, though he had conveniently kept his distance from the keep.</p><p></p><p>So here we are again. And we realize that with everything at stake, we have no choice but to make a <em>fourth</em> attack on the tower. Ulrick's driven by his vision of the dracolich, Kord is driven by the need to preserve his precious elven artifacts (which, from their sheer elvishness, are so much more important than human), Aron's reasons are beyond the comprehension of even Ao and as for me, I cannot allow this undead filth to corrupt the Weave.</p><p></p><p>I'm girding myself with spells, and preparing for the inevitable. Again.</p><p></p><p>Doomed (but with love), Your Brother,</p><p><em>Ascarin Nevermoon</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MulhorandSage, post: 661380, member: 751"] [b]WARNING: SPOILERS for Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor ahead[/b] 24th day of Uktar, in the Year of the Standing Stone, 1372. In the shadow of the Death That Grows Dear Sister, My apologies for cutting my last correspondence short - these days I've done so much running that I'm easily caught out of breath and barely have strength to lift a pen. I would tell you that I'm foreshadowing, my dear, except that I know you're smart enough to fil in between the lines. Kord lay at our feet like a bound pig before the feast. I rather liked the pose, but Ulrick insisted on untying him so we could speak with him freely. I wondered how he'd react to me, especially since I had planted the seed in Ulrick's mind that led to his dismissal, but his anger was mostly directed at the paladin. Elvish eyes, with their eyebrows jutting the wrong way through an evil glare, almost look comical when they're angry. Ulrick bore the resentment with surprising good humor, and was more than happy to embrace Kord and bring him back into our little fellowship. Paladins and their ways are as obscure as the gods' fingerprints upon the cosmos, and sometimes more than that. Kord was reluctant to explain what had happened to put him in such dire straits. Gradually we pried some interesting tales from him; he had fled Cormyr after he was outlawed, and returned to the Dales. (I believe he hinted that he had encountered some revenants). In the Dales he learned that the Dragon Cultists were despoiling elvish tombs - presumably searching for magic items to feed the Pool of Radiance so they could warp the Weave to their purposes. Travelling here to prevent that atrocity, somehow he had been ambushed, knocked unconscious, and bound and gagged (though once the bonds were loosened, the elf's pride and delusions became so great that he refused to believe that he had ever been knocked out, as though the unfairness of the universe could be remedied by simply wishing it away). So Kord was with us once more. But that left the appalling question on how, in all Faerûn, did we manage to get back together at this Azuth-forsaken tower? "Fate," Ulrick decided, and his words held the promise of an extremely uncomfortable truth. "It's fate that we're back together." One cannot deny that great deeds sometimes mold men like clay, despite one's will and one's common sense. Promising the gnome that we would rescue its comrade, we advanced on the tower. It lay huddled in the center of a forest glade on the outskirts of Myth Drannor, which cast a huge shadow directly to the east. The glade was tinder-dry from the summer heat, surrounded by long grass and dry shrubery, though on the northern side it was very close to the forest, The keep was constructed from granite, and looked like strong dwarf-work, with a square bailey that rounded to a circular parapet. Beyond the tower was a graveyard, and in the distance, we could see (and smell) the carrionated remains of fallen cultists, pressed into soulless labour without surcease, the perfect charnel workers for the Sammasterites. "Let's avoid that for now," Kord suggested, though the sight of the undead made our Tormite leader's blood burn. Kord noticed a piece of paper tied to a tree. "Read me," it said in the common tongue. Drawn by curiosity like a small stupid child, Ulrick strode to the note before I could warn him, and read the inscription. I swear I could see his lips move. The note exploded in a ball of flame. I hate it when someone gets cute with explosive runes. Suddenly at least three Sammasterite patrols converged on where we were standing, swarming us from all sides. Seeing incredible peril encircle us, Ulrick did what every paladin would do - he charged straight ahead. There must be a handbook somewhere that tells them to do that. Suddenly a swarm of magical bolts issued from barely-shuttered windows in the tower, exploding all around us, a searing cauldron of bluefire bubbling over in our vacinity. Fortunately I had taken the (sensible) precaution of surrounding myself with dweomermirrors, magical illusions that walked as I walked, otherwise these volleys would have torn me to pieces as surely as if I were surrounded by the swords of a barbarian horde. Unfortunately, the bolts also shattered my illusions within seconds, leaving me practically naked, with only a wizard's armor spell to shield me from harm. But far worse off than I was Ulrick, whose body was now covered in wounds - his charge had borne the brunt of the enemy attack - and he was forced to call upon the power of Torm to heal himself. Seeing a host of foes issue from a small ruin that had been dug in the hillside like a badger's hole, I cast several fireballs from my wand to incinerate them. They did, but they also set the grass on fire. Some of the advancing host were slain, but the bulk of their force continued to advance. "Retreat!" Ulrick shouted, realizing we wouldn't make our way to the keep's front gate alive. So we retreated, even as the magic missiles continued to batter us, and Kord found himself in a sniper's duel with several of the Dragon Cult's rangers. Eventually - battered, beaten, and frightened out of our wits - we managed to retreat back to the gate of Mystryl (which in Aron's armor is a considerable feat) and from there we returned to Saerloon to catch our breath. Once we finally regained our composure - and wasted our energies with the usual exchange of angry words - we determined that we could not abandon our quest, so we decided to return to the keep at the edge of Myth Drannor and fight again. Ulrick was determined that we wouldn't use the gates to return, for he was certain they were guarded. I was loth to take the time to travel there on foot, for I feared what was happening in Wheloon in our absence, and felt the press of time upon our errand. The others were willing to wait. I swear that my companions are like children who cannot stop themselves from playing in poison ivy - they care about nothing except their current itch, yet take no sensible precautions to protect themselves from it. We hired a mage from the temple of Azuth (my patron deity, in case you thought I was still besotted by my brief dailliance with Mystraism) who teleported us back into the area. That is, everyone except Aron - the damn fool let go of the teleport chain just before the spell was cast. "We go on without him," Ulrick declared, and so we devised a cunning plan that would compensate for our diminished combat strength (though if Aron kept missing the target with that damn flail of his, it wouldn't be diminishing us [i]too[/i] badly). So what was this cunning plan? At least it was a [i]paladin's[/i] idea of cunning (which very much resembles other people's ideas of [i]simple[/i]): this time we would ambush a Sammasterite patrol, steal their uniforms (the least bloodied ones, I assume), find a safe place to observe the front gate, and wait until another patrol approached the door, Hopefully, we'd then learn the password and use it to infiltrate our way inside the keep. Unfortunately this brilliant plan failed when Kord instructed us to hide too close to the tower and we were spotted almost immediately by one of their patrols. Elven ranger prowess, ha! No wonder Cormanthor fell. Seeing the trap close around us, once again Ulrick drew his weapon, shouted out something grandiosely silly and pious about Torm, and charged. Even now we hoped we might catch them off guard and press the attack to victory, but another barrage of magic missiles quickly shattered our hopes. Kord ran away almost immediately. Finally discouraged, Ulrick retreated as quickly as he could manage, and I followed him. Again. Seeing a force coming away from the shrine to cut off our escape, we bypassed the shrine of Mystryl and retreated further into the West, not stopping for a day and a night. And of course, it rained the entire evening. At least it put out the fires - the wand of fireballs that the Thayans sold seems to do a spectacular job of burning the landscape. Fortunately, I was firing them in the brush, not in the forests. Ulrick and I were soon joined by Aron, who had either gotten himself very drunk, was a better liar than I had given him credit for - or had actually managed to persuade an archlich (one of those very rare good liches) that the situation warranted teleporting him to our location so he could rejoin our company. Again, Ulrick insisted that we could not abandon our quest (and I concurred), so we returned once again. This time we decided to attack the graveyard first. Unfortunately, we were spotted approaching the keep before we got within a hundred yards of our target, and once again the mages drew their wands, and (yet again!) a rain of magic missiles poured from the sky. Suddenly it occured to me that our best way of getting into the keep was by allowing them to take us inside, so I feigned that a priest's spell had ensnared me, hoping they'd bring me inside for questioning, where I could catch them by surprise. Unfortunately, Ulrick, the big drooling lummox of a paladin - who was never quite as happy as when he had a chance to demonstrate that his code of honor as tight was as a virgin's belt - was determined that he would leave [i]no one[/i] behind, so he grabbed me and pulled me out of the fray. So much for [i]that[/i] plan. Once again, the barrage of magic missiles nearly killed Aron, and once again we escaped by the skin of our teeth. We retreated back to the Cormanthyr road, where Kord once again joined us - he claimed he had been looking for us, though he had conveniently kept his distance from the keep. So here we are again. And we realize that with everything at stake, we have no choice but to make a [i]fourth[/i] attack on the tower. Ulrick's driven by his vision of the dracolich, Kord is driven by the need to preserve his precious elven artifacts (which, from their sheer elvishness, are so much more important than human), Aron's reasons are beyond the comprehension of even Ao and as for me, I cannot allow this undead filth to corrupt the Weave. I'm girding myself with spells, and preparing for the inevitable. Again. Doomed (but with love), Your Brother, [i]Ascarin Nevermoon[/i] [/QUOTE]
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