Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="A'vandira Silvermane" data-source="post: 2926974" data-attributes="member: 15957">The third day5 Artalak:This morning, after my meditation and prayers, I heard a noise at the base of my tree and found Legor waiting for me to come down. He came asking for more divine healing, as he was still suffering from the wounds he suffered yesterday. Calling once again upon Corellon, as I seem to be doing more and more these days, I used some of his divine energy to take care of Legor's wounds. After breakfast, I cleaned and polished my newfound armor and sword. How right I was to bring them with me from that cave! The dull and dusty armor turned out to be made from mithral! And the sword is something to behold as well, perfectly balanced and still as sharp as a razorblade. Ancient Elven runes grace both sides of the blade. The cross guard is set with emeralds, as is the pommel. And an engraving of Corellon's Crescent Moon leads me to believe this sword is somehow connected to the Elven Father. Joining my friends to discuss our plans we found we all have reasons to go to the garrison of the Elven Army, two days travel north of Littlewater, but Relen insisted that we first go to the kobold cave, because Leiah mentioned finding some old Dwarven mining tools in there. Finally it was decided to make a short stop on our way to the garrison.As I was packing my gear and preparing for the journey, my attention was drawn by a little, brightly colored bird, sitting on the railing of the platform.Looking closer I saw a little piece of vellum tied to one of its legs. Holding out a hand the bird jumped onto it and allowed me to take what turned out to be a note from a Shadowguard patrol. Once more our help was needed. As the patrol was moving through Arvalen's Drop, they had been attacked by a group of Orcs and now needed our assistance. Quickly gathering the necessary equipment, I raced down the tree, calling for the others as I went. On the ground I explained to my friends what was going on and within moments we were on our way, running the short distance towards the Drop. Slowing down as we approached, we took some time to survey the area.It was a good thing we did, for it allowed us to make up a plan before heading into the fight. Splitting up and skirting around the vale we approached the battlefield from all sides. Relen, her warhammer hungry for orcs, led the two gnomes around the south side, while Legor and I took the northern route. As agreed Legor's charge would be the signal for the rest to launch a strike from all directions catching the orcs in a circle of death and destruction. The first time I saw a plan survive contact intact. As Legor charged one of the orcs, I followed him closely before veering off to attack another one of the scumbags that was shooting arrows into the crevice that the Shadowguards used for cover. Legor was swinging that big sword of his, like a farmer using a scythe to harvest wheat. The orc never stood a chance and was nearly cut in half. My own opponent didn't fare any better. Before he had the chance to react, he was lying on the ground, his blood pumping out. The elven weapon smiths of old sure knew how to make a blade. What a magnificent weapon this is. Taking a moment to survey the battle, I saw that Relen was doing quite okay as well. Gloobali was flinging spells at the orcs, putting them to sleep or have them slipping on a greasy ground, while Leiah was hypnotizing another one. Relen's warhammer sang death among the enemy, even as Gloobali and Leiah were finishing off the orcs they incapacitated. Turning my attention back to my own side of the battlefield I saw we were not out of the woods yet.Unbeknownst to us, the orcs were smart enough to keep a few of them as a reserve. Legor suddenly found himself the centre of attention from two big orc barbarians. One of them was wielding one of those big orcish double axes, whereas the other swung a mighty greatsword. While the swordwielder was not much of a threat to my friend, (I think he was blind or something, constantly swinging his sword too high to hit) the one with the axe more than made up for the other's incompetence. He was really dishing out a lot of hurt to Legor. Rushing forward I came up behind Legor, where I was able to use more of Corellon's power to heal the worst of his injuries, only to have my work undone again as the orc scored another terrible hit on Legor, almost disembowelling him. From the corner of my eye I saw that my friends had managed to take care of most of the other monsters, Relen still hammering away at them, but Leiah and Gloobali were coming to our aid as quickly as their short legs would carry them.Then a movement further away caught my attention: two Shadowguards had come out of cover and were running at full speed towards us as well. The orcs seemed to have noticed this too and were apparently determined to take at least one of us with them in death. They were hacking away at us with tremendous blows, unfortunately with better results then before. The greatsword this time struck true, right alongside the wounds from the double axe. Luckily I was able to heal some of the wounds these monsters inflicted. But this time, my healing spell had an unexpected resulty; this time I heard a voice in my mind, asking me if I were willing to make a small sacrifice to help Legor. Looking back in retrospect, I see now that I agreed without actually realizing that my sword was speaking to me. When I did agree to make that sacrifice, I felt a little bit of my own energy being drained, seemingly used to power my healing spell. When the elves joined the fray the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Soon there was no orc left alive and we were finally able to catch our breath.One of the Shadowguards addressed me, urging me to follow them back to the crevice and their wounded comrades. After binding their wounds and using more divine energy to keep them from dying, the patrol leader explained about the ambush. As the patrol was making their way through the forest they were beset by a group of orcs. To prevent being surrounded, they withdrew into Arvalen's Drop to make their stand. Though they managed to take out several of the evil monsters, they were forced to retreat as some lucky shots took out their two archers. That's when the ranger asked a bird to relay his call for help to Littlewater, hoping we would be there to come to the rescue.While we were talking the others disposed of the orcish bodies, after taking everything worthwhile from the corpses. Not that there was really that much to be found, mostly some minor gemstones and a some crude weapons, Two exceptions to this were the greatsword and a bow that the orcish archer used. The bow was badly in need of caring but otherwise fine and very well-made, allowing me to return Legor’s bow to him.The conversation with the patrol leader confirmed our suspicion about the increased orc activity and we were asked to help patrol the border to prevent more orcs from coming into our lands. As I am nearly old enough to begin my tour of duty anyways I accepted, thinking about the chance to slaughter more of those damned orcs. As we were talking, his eyes were drawn to my sword and my armor, and he told me to go to the garrison and seek out Thamior Galanodel, the captain. He’s a swordmaster and should be able to teach me much more about the use of my sword. Now all I need is to find someone able and willing to teach me how to best use this ancient armor of mine. Perhaps Thamior can help me there as well or point me in the right direction.After speaking to the patrol leader we went back to Littlewater via the Kobold cave, to satisfy Relen’s curiosity. We found some old, rusty and broken Dwarven mining tools. Closer examination revealed markings that, according to Relen, were in use at the Dwarven colony in the Razorpeak Mountains. Despite a careful search nothing else was found and we returned to our village, with Relen lost in thought.</blockquote>

Verification