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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ancalagon" data-source="post: 7321249" data-attributes="member: 23">SESSION 21 Once again, we have lost a member of the Pentachromata, although this parting was not so sad, as it was voluntary. I have just bade farewell to Blades, and my heart is heavy. But I will return to this in a moment. Although we are now far from Wicklow (at least 30 miles, possibly much more), we are still not safe. Our progress is being tracked by magical devices, and it is possible that more mundane forces are following us. The rest of the afternoon was spent constructing a pair of harnesses, following Suleiman's careful instructions. Suleiman polymorphed both Corwin and himself into small Dragonnes, and a few test flights suggested that the harnesses would work. Finis turned into a snake, and curled about Blades to reduce Suleiman's load, while Urym and I rode on Corwin. Although Corwin and Suleiman are quite strong, they were not strong enough to fly at full speed with so much weight on their backs. We flew for several hours, and landed in the dark. Our camp seemed safe and comfortable enough, but several of the party members spotted a hazy ball of light floating above us. I could not see it, but Suleiman, Blades, and Urym assured me that it was there. I quickly surmised that it was a scrying device, and cast dispel magic in the area. I am told that it disappeared quickly, but I suspect that they saw us. So, we are being tracked, by a very reliable means. I am not sure if there is anything we can do, except hope that we travel faster than our pursuers. Blades and I shared a watch tonight. I soon noticed that Blades seemed uncomfortable, and he asked me to walk a short distance from camp with him. I did so, and once we were out of earshot, Blades quietly asked me to release him from his vow to assist me in Ionia. I was stunned and confused, and Blades took advantage of my silence to explain. He said that he felt as though he was becoming more distant from the party. Suleiman always addressed him in a patronizing tone as "Dwarf", never by his real name. Corwin constantly mocked his abilities, and while Finis was never rude to him, he rarely listened, either. Also, he felt that he was straying too far from his mission, which was to recover his family armor. I, of course, said that he must choose his own path, and that I understood his decision. His immediate plans are to return to the temple of Oghma (now Rinver's library), restore the forge to working order, and make something out of the mithril ingots. After that, he will resume tracking down Jarvos Ironforge. He gave me his ring of protection, saying that it rarely worked anyway, and the magical ring which we have yet to identify. I gave him a rock of continual light, a rock of continual flame in a flask, my rations, and the blessings of Prometheus. Also, I cast dispel fatigue upon him so that he could travel through the night. I encouraged him to wear the patch with the Pentachromata symbol on it, when he felt it was safe again, as he will always, in my mind, be a part of the group. After a sad, fond farewell, I pointed him north, and wished him good luck. Perhaps we will meet again some day. Although Blades is a mighty warrior, he has little in the way of survival skills, and I fear for his safety. He has only a few days of rations, and he does not know how to hunt. With his heavy armor, he moves very slowly (although if he can find a river, his otter pelt will allow him to move more quickly). He also has no map, and no clear idea of what direction he needs to go. Perhaps fortune will smile upon him, and take him safely to his goal. I will pray for him. August 12th This morning, as Finis was clearing his throat to sing to the sun (and wake us all up), he was attacked by an invisible entity. I suspect that it was sent by the Children of Light, guided by scrying devices. It badly mauled Finis, and attempted to pull him into the air and carry him away. Finis caught hold of a tree, and the rest of us took to pummeling the invisible creature. Corwin struck a mighty blow against it, but it continued to pull on Finis. Finis changed into a rattlesnake, and wrapped himself around a tree trunk, but the creature persisted. Finally, Urym surprised us with an amazing swing--it sounded as though he cut the thing in half. For a moment, we simply stood, stunned at the force of Urym's swing, but we soon congratulated him and prepared to leave. Of course, everyone wanted to know where Blades was, and I explained. Some seemed genuinely sad and concerned, but others were angry. Finis seemed to suspect some kind of foul play, and questioned me to make sure that I was the real Patrick. It was more than a little strange. There was little time to ponder Blades' departure, as we were now more keenly aware of our pursuit. Suleiman changed us all into Hibernian Geese, and we flew west as fast as we could. After flying for while, we spotted some huge birds to the north. We flew lower, in case we needed to take to the ground quickly, but they ignored us. Resuming our flight, we passed over a loch with a giant turtle lounging casually in it. The spell wore off around lunch time; we are getting better at estimating how long the spell has left, so we did not waste much time on the ground waiting for it to expire. I tried to go through my prayers while they ate, but I must admit, the smell of the food was tempting. Nonetheless, I can make do with water. We took off again after lunch, once again as geese. I wonder how many charges the wand has left. Anyway, we passed over a large gray winged reptile, lounging on some rocks by the sea. It appeared to be sunning itself, and it looked at us, as though curious. We sped past, and it left us alone. The sky began to grow dark, and a light rain began to fall. Toward evening, just before landing, I noticed a fireball go off, in the woods to the north. We landed, except for Finis, who flew to the area (still as a goose) to check it out. The rest of us approached on foot, slowly and cautiously. Finis soon returned, reporting that a wizard had killed a large bear with the spell, and was cutting off pieces of the bear. The wizard appeared to have ridden in on a magical horse. Suleiman volunteered to go ahead with Tanvil, and they disappeared into the deepening dark. We continued to approach slowly. By this time, the rain was absolutely torrential, and we were without shelter, except for the trees. Suleiman and Tanvil returned to report that the clearing made by the fireball was empty. We proceeded to the clearing and examined the bear's remains. It seems that the wizard removed its tongue, one eye, some teeth, and the left forepaw, most likely for spell components (perhaps for some sort of strength spell). It was dark and miserably wet, so we tried to locate a drier spot to camp. We were unsuccessful, and lay on the wet ground, next to a pile of rocks of continual flame. They have allowed me to use the magic pillow, as I had some spells to recover. Still, I do not think even I will sleep comfortably tonight. Perhaps we should procure some tents for future travels. August 13th Our clothes were soggy and uncomfortable, and we felt stiff and tired, but we decided to begin walking today. Corwin is a remarkable woodsman, and leaves almost no trail to follow, despite his size. We move much faster than we used to, as we do not have Blades slowing us down. The morning march was uneventful. No sooner had we stopped for lunch than Suleiman heard branches breaking, as someone approached the party. We hid behind trees, and soon saw two Fomorians walk toward us. One of them noticed Corwen's sword, and started to point to it, but the other (apparently a female) slapped him and they continued forward. Suleiman attempted to sneak up behind them, but one had an extra nose on its hip, and smelled him as he approached. The giant wheeled about, smacking Suleiman to the ground in one blow. Finis and I scrambled to heal him, while Corwin charged into the melee. After Suleiman's condition had stabilized, I tried to strike a Fomorian with a sunscorch, but the spell would not come to me. I am not sure if Prometheus has forbidden me to cast that spell because of the evil deeds I have done with it, or if he has forbidden me to cast all offensive spells. I accepted his decision and concentrated on healing the wounded. Corwin managed to kill one of the giants, but his mate knocked Corwin unconscious with a heavy fist. Finis and I brought him back from the brink of death again, and prepared to face the giant's onslaught. We were surprised to see that the female giant had decided prudence was the better part of valor, and she backed away from the group carefully. Of course, we let her go, and continued to mend our wounds. Corwin now has a noticeable limp, as his leg seems not to have healed properly. We searched the male Fomorian, finding two gemstones, a battered bronze cup, and a finely carved box. The cup clearly worthless, and there was nothing special about the gems, but the box (which was empty) seemed interesting. The carvings on it depicted ocean scenes, including a boat. It seemed to be made of wood panels laid over each other, so I suggested that it might be a magic box that unfolds into a boat. They jeered me! They thought that was a ridiculous idea. I placed it in a puddle, thinking water might trigger it, but nothing happened. So, I began to say some nautical phrases, like "anchors away!", and "ahoy!", and such. Corwin said "Hoist the mainsail", and suddenly the box exploded into a twenty-four foot, one-sailed boat! I had to dive out of the way to avoid being crushed by it. Unfortunately, we activated the box in the dense forest, and it expanded into several trees, damaging a section the hull, and damaging the riggings. "Raise the anchor" caused it to fold up again. After some discussion, we took it to a cove on the shore, and tried again. The boat again expanded, but the damage remained, and it was taking on water. While I bailed, Finis tried to mend some of the broken boards with shape wood. It helped, but there is still work left to do. Although it is not a large boat, it is striking, with a carved wooden dragon on the front, clutching a shield. As our wounded members are in no condition to travel, we have decided to stay here for the night. I have tried to untangle some of the riggings, and Urym used mend to repair some ripped sections of sail. If Finis continues to work on a few boards every day, we should have it seaworthy in a couple weeks. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to stay here and repair the boat. Tomorrow we will resume our travels, on foot. August 14th After folding the boat back into a box, we continued westward, through the woods. Our march was peaceful, and the weather has been clearer. Our lunch was interrupted by the sound of footsteps running towards us. Once again, we hid behind trees, and waited to see what was coming. What appeared to be a lone elf was running in the general direction of our camp. Corwin stepped onto the trail, totally surprising the elf, and asked him where he was going. The elf introduced himself as Kellindel Falconhands, and pleaded for our assistance. We asked him what he needed, and he said that he had a friend, a dryad, who was in mortal peril. He offered to explain more on the way. Cautiously, we followed him, with Suleiman (who had remained hidden the whole time) following a distance behind. Kellindel explained that his mentor was killed by a wizard who is trying to take over this forest (what would a wizard want with a forest?). He has taken up the fight against the wizard, but he feels that he is too inexperienced to be effective against the threat. We surmised that he was a ranger, and he looks to be a capable one. He wears leather armor, a bow across his back, and has two swords at his hips. We picked up our pace and reached the dryad quickly. She appeared to be a strikingly beautiful woman, and was bleeding profusely. Cure moderate wounds did not seem to have much effect; she explained that her tree had been cut down, and pulled an acorn from the trunk, saying that she needed a new tree. She then collapsed. Finis planted the acorn in the ground and cast plant growth upon it. A sapling sprung from the earth, and the dryad's body disappeared. A moment later, she stepped out of the sapling (a strange sight to behold!), and introduced herself as Mistle. She thanked us for our efforts, and she had a reward as well. The leaves of her old tree would heal our wounds, she said, and there were stones hidden beneath her old stump. The leaves were not pleasing to eat, but they did magically cure our injuries, so we managed to ingest as many as necessary (I was not injured at the time, and I did not break my fast). We also found the magical stones she referred to. Suleiman said that one would call woodland beings, and the other was a powerful animal summoning spell; apparently he had seen druids use these before. We talked with Kellindel for a while. He seems interested in joining us, as he has much to learn before he confronts the wizard threatening his forest. Also, he said that he is an elf (there was some confusion over whether or not he might be a half-elf), and a follower of Meilikki (a nature goddess). A town named Earmark's Haven is only two day's travel to the west, and Suleiman has suggested that we allow Kellindel to guide us at least that far. I was about to tell Kellindel that we were being pursued, and that we were a dangerous group with which to travel, when I was (ironically) interrupted by the appearance of another scrying "window". Once again, Finis was attacked by an invisible creature. Corwin managed to kill it, and Kellindel cast cure light wounds on Finis, revealing that he was in fact a ranger and a priest--or at least, he has some priestly abilities. Kellindel proved to be a good guide, and we have traveled swiftly. We set up camp at dark. Kellindel and I have just finished our watch, and it was an exciting one. We heard the sound of voices speaking orcish approach, and much to my surprise, Kellindel translated what they were saying. They were apparently looking for a patrol. We noted that there were two ogres with the orcs, and quickly woke everyone up. Then our attack began. Kellindel rained arrows down upon them, while Finis caught most of the orcs in an entangle. A faerie fire made the unentangled ones easy targets; I even struck one with my staff sling. The pair of ogres and thirteen orcs didn't stand a chance. A search revealed only that they were wearing surprisingly well-maintained chainmail, and that their symbol was an evil looking man/tree combination. We cut off the orcs' ears, hoping that we might be able to redeem them for coin in a city, and returned to bed. August 15th Once again, we have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat! The Pentachromata (or what is left of them, anyway) have truly triumphed today. I did not believe that we could be so effective! It was a quiet day of marching, and we made good time with Kellindel leading the way. By the afternoon we had reached a river, which Kellindel says leads straight to Earmark's Haven. As we proceeded, Corwin began to hear a growling, roaring noise downstream. We could not hear it, but he said that it sounded like something talking, pausing, and talking again. He could not understand what it was saying. While the rest of us proceeded ahead slowly, Finis shape-shifted into a squirrel and scampered through the trees toward the noise. Corwin spotted a frog-like creature--I believe they are called bullywogs--keeping watch over the path, blended into the forest. Kellindel pulled out his bow and killed it with a single arrow. He believes that it was a scout or guard; the whistle around its neck supported his theory. Finis returned, changed back into human form, and explained that a large group of bullywogs were assembled, and one of them was negotiating with a monstrous lizard beast. The creature was obviously huge, even though much of it lay beneath the river's surface. Kellindel informed us that bullywogs like these are probably servants of the wizard trying to take control of the forest. He and Finis quickly decided that, no matter what this deal was about, it could not be allowed to go through. A plan of attack was laid out; Suleiman was to approach them from the river bank and kill as many as possible with a fireball. The rest of us would loop around and attack from the opposite direction, from the woods. Kellindel would hide in a tree and shoot arrows at them from a safe distance. It was a good plan, but it did not work as planned. Our survival is proof that our abilities as individuals and as a team have improved. As Kellindel approached a suitable tree, another sentry, hidden in the woods, blew his whistle and attacked Kellindel. Chaos erupted. Suleiman's fireball went off, killing at least twenty bullywogs, instantly. The bullywug that spotted Kellindel hit him, but Kellindel struck back, killing the beast. He then clambered up the tree. The rest of us charged into melee with the remaining bullywugs. Unbeknownst to us, they had two large reptile riding beasts (nowhere near as large as the huge creature lounging in the water), which they mounted and directed to attack us. Meanwhile, the huge creature (which I believe was a Behir, although I have never heard of one so huge!) reared back and breathed a stream of lightning into Suleiman. Suleiman managed to stay on his feet, but when the monster came at him again, he used the wand to polymorph into a sparrow and fly to the other side of the river. One of the bullywogs was a spellcaster, and began interrupting our casting with magic missiles from a wand and other annoyances. However, Suleiman took care of him with two barrages of very large, deadly magic missiles. With the spellcaster down, I was able to cast some healing spells, although Finis was getting hit too often by the bullywugs in melee to cast many spells of his own. Urym was severely injured several times during the fight, but Finis and I barely managed to keep him alive. At first, we were surrounded by bullywugs, but we (especially Corwin, who killed one of the lizard mounts) slowly wittled their numbers down. One of the lizard mounts, with bullywugs on its back, slithered into the water and disappeared. Then the fight really became difficult. While we were still fighting bullywugs, the behir had turned its attention on us, and struck some of us with another jolt of lightning. We stayed on our feet, and Corwin strode forward to do battle with it. The fight was incredible to behold. Corwin, remarkably agile for a man his size, and still limping slightly, jumped nimbly aside as the behir's jaws snapped just inches away from him. It also tried to encircle him in its massive coils, either to crush him or kick him with one of its six legs. Similarly, the creature dodged many of Corwen's mighty swings--but not all of them. Corwin was aided by a rain of arrows, shot by Suleiman and Kellindel, which slowly weakened the beast. The rest of us continued to fight off the Bullywugs, and tried to protect Urym as he stumbled and crawled away. I cast an occasional healing spell on Corwin and Urym, and then rejoined the fight against the remaining frog-beasts. Then we heard a mighty crash, as the Behir fell to the ground, brought low by a final swing from Corwin. Only a few bullywugs remained, and we finished them quickly. We stopped, exhausted, clutching our wounds, and surveyed the battlefield. It was amazing. We had killed over forty bullywugs and a Behir, as well as the spellcaster, which now appeared to be a lizardman (we surmised that his bullywug guise was magical). Kellindel and Suleiman rejoined the party, and we began to search the area. Two huge chests, each carrying what I estimate to be 40,000 bronze pieces, sat on the river's edge. The lizardman had a sheet of paper, the writing on which we could not read. It had a symbol at the bottom, with a "Z" in it--probably a mage's insignia. He had a wand of magic missiles, which we do not know how to activate, a necklace of ESP, and a helmet which blocks ESP, and probably many other mind-affecting spells. It was unclear what we should do with all the bronze. After all, the chests must weigh at least a ton each; we could not possibly carry it all. I picked up enough bronze to buy a night's rest and a few meals, but most of the rest of the party loaded themselves down with as much as they could carry. We are not pressed for money; I do not see why we must encumber ourselves further. Still, I suppose it might prove useful. We continued onward, and later this evening, I ended my three day fast by eating some of the magical leaves from Mistle's tree. I was happy to find that my wounds healed quickly. I expect that the leaves will only last another day or so; it would be best to make use of them while we can. I am exhausted from today's exertions; it is time for bed. Today was exciting, even exhilarating. Such a victory does wonders for one's confidence; Prometheus has granted us the tools we need to succeed. Nonetheless, I hope that the rest of our journey is uneventful. We should reach Earmark's Haven sometime tomorrow.</blockquote>

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