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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PHDungeon" data-source="post: 5356003" data-attributes="member: 86320">DM Note:  We had another change in our player line up. Deryl’s player had to leave the game and a new player took her place, so we had to write her out of the story and bring in a new character. After destroying the enchanted, formorian, stone cauldron and thus preventing Skalmed the Trollking from returning to life, the heroes took an extended rest. During this rest Deryl’s magical dagger burst into flames and the flames consumed her. The heroes awoke to witness this event and she seemed to be in no pain. Soon her entire body was gone and only the dagger remained behind. All the arcane power had been drained from it. The adventurers were left to speculate the cause, and they decided that Loki was likely behind the event.Soon Afterwards the heroes were introduced to Melek the tiefling warlock/wizard. The following is the first journal from Melek’s player and introduces this new character.Melek’s Journal:Well, that has to count as amongst the most eventful few days that I've ever spent. Let’s see: Make a new pact with a new entity, leave the Feywild, return to Grimmsburg for the first time in years, learn that the one place that I really consider home is under siege, and witness a failed coup attempt that is pretty much guaranteed to lead to an immensely damaging civil war.I shudder to realize that this still puts the week in, at best, third place on the "eventful weeks that I have spent" scale.But I should probably start from the beginning. I traveled with a group of clerics of Thor from Thunderholme abbey to the town of Moonstair. Our mission was to bolster the town’s defenses, as it was apparently threatened by trolls. After arriving, I learned that the town boasted a mystic portal to the Feywild, and I volunteered to lend my support to a diplomatic mission sent to that realm to garner aid from the mysterious eladrin.In the feywild I joined an eladrin war band that had become aware that trolls were entering into their realm through some means of their own. They suspected it was linked to our own problems with trolls in midgard, and myself and several good clerics of Thor pledged our aid in finding a means of sealing their access to the fey realm.Well, that ended up in a complete disaster. We ran into more trouble than a band of pointy eared stuck up snobs could handle, even with my help. Several of them had already died when the rest of them abandoned me to my fate. I managed to fight my way out but soon found myself wandering in the swamps, sick and injured. My last real memory was collapsing in a circle of standing stones that I'd hoped would take me home.Then we have dreams and images and sounds. I know that in my delirious state, I made some form of Pact with some kind of Fae lord. I really, really wish that I knew more. I guess that I didn't have much choice in the matter. It was that or perish. And I'm pretty sure that my soul hasn't been sufficiently redeemed as of yet, so perishing really was NOT an option.At least I gained something in the bargain. I seem to have an instinctive knowledge of at least some of my newfound abilities. The Fey step and Eye blink are pretty standard Warlock fare, I've seen them in action before. But how the heck the Pact caused my Winged Horde spell to now be real burning damage as opposed to illusion I do not understand. Darn useful, mind you.When I awoke I found that I knew the way to a strange formorian cauldron that trolls coveted. Certainly this information must have been gifted to me by the fae that I have made my pact with. That seems a pretty obvious hint as to what I'm expected to do. Wonder if other "suggestions" will be this clear? At any rate, I headed off to where my horns were leading me.It was soon obvious that somebody had been there ahead of me. Corpses of trolls and various fell beasts littered the ground. As I advanced cautiously, I heard the sounds of people talking ahead. Given that stealth is hardly my strong point I called out. Fortunately for me, they didn't automatically attack the "Evil Devil". Even more fortunately, one of them was Bjorn, a Cleric of Thor that I recognized from Thunderholme Abbey. The rest were the usual motley assortment that makes up an adventuring band. Why do I detect the hand of the Norns in this?With the help of Bjorn vouching for me I was able to join the band. It turns out that they needed my help to get out of the Feywild as the ritual required Arcane Fire together with a good knowledge of Arcane magic, and the sorceress who had brought them there had mysteriously vanished.This seems a good place to give my impressions of my new companions:Bjorn, a Cleric of Thor. What can one say about a Cleric of Thor? Brave, Trustworthy, Perceptive, generally dumb as a brick, and a good person to have by one’s side, as long as one doesn't have to listen to him TOO much.Belladona – a highly skilled archer- almost certainly a Rogue by profession. I've met her sort many a time before- very, very, very good at killing things. My first impression was that she was something of a coward, but I'm not sure that is true. She definitely likes to stay way back from things and disappear at a moments notice. I have no idea whether or not she can be trusted. In my experience, people like her fall into 1 of 2 categories. Category 1 will betray ANYBODY at the drop of a hat. They tend to either die quickly or rise in power quite quickly. Category 2, choose who they betray with some care. They keep faith with at least some allies (at least as long as the allies aren't a major impediment).  Only time will tell which she is. For the moment, I'm going to trust her no more than she is likely to trust me.Turak - A minotaur. Not exactly sure what he can do, but I think he has some sort of ties to the primal spirits of the land. He hits stuff fairly hard with his massive maul and tends to knock things down a lot. Even more than Bjorn he seems to think with his weapon. Obviously, he’s a little bit of a savage. Still, he accepted me with no problems at all and that has to count for a lot, definitely worth cultivating his friendship. He also seems to eat only hay and mushrooms. I wonder what that is all about?Vesna - A female viking warrior. She’s the daughter of the Jarl of Grimmsburg, and very, very definitely somebody worth cultivating a relationship with. She also seems to have a reasonable head on her shoulders, far better than I'd expect most viking shield maidens to have.At any rate, I performed the ritual, and we all returned from the Fey Wild into a troll infested cavern, which afforded me the opportunity to see something of my new companions abilities.They're all quite powerful, at least as powerful as I am. But they seem to be insanely prolifigate in the use of their abilities. It would appear that they believe the old saw "Never use a hammer to do a job when you've got a sledgehammer available", and they're quite bloodthirsty. Belladona attacked a sleeping Dire Bear. Yeah, he might have gotten involved but one can hardly be certain, and when some of the trolls tried to surrender the decision was made to kill them all anyway, which I had no problem with, actually. Trolls are vermin and should be exterminated. I was just a little surprised that my new associates agreed.As can be surmised, this little pack of trolls was no match for us. Vesna went down at one point but she was back up a couple of seconds later due to Bjorn’s divine intervention. Bella hung back and sniped, exceedingly effectively. Note to self- never go against her unless really, really necessary. Turak bellowed and charged and hewed mightily with his maul, and against trolls my fire magics were a quite welcome and a useful addition.Apparently Belladona is also something of an arcanist. After the battle, she threw a portal ritual and there we were in Grimmsburg, in teleport circle located in a tavern owned by the notorious Victor Starke. Apparently Bella works for Starke.We next headed over to the home of the Jarl for a touching family reunion. It turns out that my companions had found a letter in the troll caves indicating that somebody wants the Jarl and Starke at each other’s throat. This person seems to think that this will weaken the city enough to make it easy prey for the trolls. It also turns out that Thunderholme Abbey is under siege by giants who are being led by an Earth Titan, and Turak believes that it is the same titan that destroyed his clan labyrinth. In my opinion that threat is pretty clearly our highest priority. While conversing with the Jarl, I also got to meet Dean Danzig of the Scarlet Stone Academy again. I admit to mixed feelings about him. At the time, I blamed him for letting them expel me just because I was a Tiefling. But now that I'm older and at least a little wiser I see that he probably saved my life by getting me away from the vengeful family of that poor fool who died in the lab accident. And I guess that under the circumstances I can't complain TOO much.I went off to see my family while the rest got involved in some diplomatic mission trying to arrange a treaty between Stark and the Jarl, a mission that turned out to be rather, uh, a failure.Meeting my family again was about exactly as much fun as I expected. Father is still a raging <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> who is convinced that I've thrown my life away. His reaction on seeing me wearing the symbols of Odin and Uller was priceless. My brother Leucis looked like he'll be hiring my sister Akta to kill me some time soon rather than have me as a rival for the family business (no matter how many times I tell him that I have NO interest in business he never believes me). And unfortunately Killista was out of town with her troupe. At least I got to see mom, which was nice.The next day we had a big meeting between Stark and the Jarl to see if they could come to some kind of arrangement. The meeting took place at the Jarl’s Hall. Starke arrived in a massive iron carriage pulled by clockwork stallions and accompanied by a half dozen constructs called warforged. The warforged were originally created by my ancestors in Bhal Turath to battle the empire of Arkosia, and as far as I had known the secret of their creation had been lost. It seems that Starke had managed to discover that secret. Starke acted very, very strangely. He didn't even try and to negotiate, he just presented the Jarl with a rather absurd ultimatum. The Jarl was to give him 1/2 of what he owned, so that Starke could build an army of warforged that would be under Starke’s exclusive control. In return, Starke would use the warforged to defend the city, and the Jarl could retain his title as the Jarl and continue to rule the city. There was no room to negotiate. When the Jarl didn't pretty much instantly agree (the whole meeting took maybe 10 minutes) Starke attacked with a really impressive, exploding, clockwork pigeon. I'll give Bella credit. She reacted instantly and managed to shoot the pidgeon down while the rest of us were gawking. I guess she showed which side she is really on. Given the resulting boom, I'm pretty certain that the Jarl wouldn't have survived a direct hit. Even more suprisingly, Starke then drank a potion and disappeared. He didn't follow through with the attack; he just left. However, he warforged were ready to finish the Jarl off and they moved in to do just that.I then tossed up a Wall of Fire to stop them. I gotta give Bella credit again- she didn't bitch when she got slightly singed by the fire. The warforged made their way through the fire anyway but were quite damaged in the process. As a result, mopping them up wasn't a big deal. They're reasonably tough but not a whole lot more than that, and they make Vikings look smart <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />.According to Bella, Starke had a look of surprise and awe on his face when she shot the pigeon and it exploded. I’m not at all sure what that means. The whole thing makes little sense. Maybe Starke has gone mad? Maybe he thought that he was negotiating? If he'd intended to kill the Jarl then why didn't he carry through while we were all reeling from the explosion? Did he WANT to start a civil war? Maybe he was surprised when the pigeon went boom? Nothing really fits. I strongly suspect that we're missing at least one vital bit of knowledge.Not that it really matters all that much. Now we have a civil war. So much for the Jarl sending troops to relieve the Abbey. I hope that the rest of my new associates still decide to save the Abbey. Turak and Bjorne are likely going to be in favor. But Vesna is likely to want to stay here with her father. I have no idea what Bella is going to want. Presumably she's high on Starks hit list right now.Hmm. I wonder if this was all some sort of ploy to get Bella really trusted? That sounds like something my father would plan- probably not but worth keeping in mind.</blockquote>

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