From the diary of Silvan the Dryad
Session date: 30.5.2004

30.3.

Dangund asked to see me. I went to see him. He asked me where I was
 from, and I told him from where I was and what I was.

Angelo then entered. He asked if there'd been anything of value, and
 Dangund reported that he'd found at least one copy. He hoped it was
 what Angelo had been after. There'd also been a few other books. He
 told Angelo where he had hidden it. There'd been no tomes present.

They discussed artifacts and the guardian. Dangund mentioned that it
 was probably no longer possible to resurrect it. There was also one
 minor issue he didn't want to discuss with us present.

The book of necromancy was what he'd hidden. There were also a few
 magic books present, but he hadn't been as interested in those.

Angelo had intended to hire Dangund for another assignment, but he
 suspected that we'd also hired him for the same task. We confirmed
 this. He mentioned that necromancy would be added to the curriculum
 in Galileus' mage school.

Angelo then left. We could now see that there was a bunch of MMM
 escorting him.

31.3.

We headed back to the lost city to proceed with the tracking mission.
 After a few hours we reached the crossing leading there. He said it
 wouldn't be necessary to return to the city, but we wanted to go
 there anyway.

Eventually we reached the city. A few of the MMM were standing guard.
 They stopped us and asked what we were doing here. Longfoot told
 them we came in peace. They wanted to know what we wanted.

Dangund found a trail. We saw a party approaching from the city.
 Angelo approached us and wondered what we were doing here. Buran
 said there were tracks here. We told them we believed they were
 Wealhtheow's.

All of us left the city, and the MMM used their magic to seal the
 passage. Angelo thought they had recovered everything of value from
 the city.

Apparently our target hadn't teleported much anymore. We followed our
 tracker. He said our target apparently knew these caverns pretty
 well, but not well enough to teleport.

The tracks seemed pretty easy to follow. A lot of the paths taken
 were ones unused by others.

The tracks were taking us to an area inhabited by death bats. We were
 to move as quietly as possible, and turn off lights as much as
 possible.

The rockiness, cold and now the death bats of these caves were
 beginning to get on my nerves. I felt very uncomfortable.

We slept, and I practiced magic.

1.4.

We continued on our journey, and spotted a formation of death bats
 hanging in the ceiling. We went round the bat formation, and
 rediscovered the trail. It looked like she'd been headed to Tundas.
 This might cause trouble.

After a while, we reached an underground river. We crossed it.

The demon decided to fish using her explosive sound. Dangund
 mentioned that it might've been a good idea to warn him, because
 there was a Tundan watchpoint 200 feet ahead.

Tundan dwarves came running down, wanting to know what the heck the
 explosion had been about. Dangund talked us out of it, and the
 dwarves left. Dangund told us to warn him about such noises the next
 time, and went ahead of us.

Longfoot came to retrieve us. Apparently our target hadn't gone into
 Tundan, but instead taken another passage. We passed the entrance to
 Tundan and continued.

Half an hour later, Dangund commented that the tracks vanished. He
 thought that some sort of teleport had taken place. He suspected
 that W might've teleported to the surface.

We moved onwards to find an exit. We reached an underground river
 again. There were boats for rent. The cost, together with a
 gondolier, was five silver pieces. We got five dwarfs as gondoliers
 and, after a few hours, reached the surface. We passed a dwarven
 watchpoint without trouble.

It was wonderful to be on the surface again. It was windy, and there
 was a light ripple.

We took a small break, while Dangund went to search for the tracks. I
 went to a tree.

After a while, Dangund returned and I came out of the tree. Dangund
 said it seemed like W was headed to Dilion. It was really easy to
 follow the tracks in this soft terrain. We followed him.

He commented that representatives of the Aleandorian Crown had been
 asking the dwarves about our target, too.

We reached Dilion. Dangund said he'd go ask about our target, and
 told us not to get into any trouble. We went to a nearby tavern.

After a while, Dangund returned and commented that we'd picked the
 better place. We were just about to go to bed when a big crowd of
 people entered and began getting themselves rooms. One of them gave
 a big money purse to the innkeeper, after which the person and the
 innkeeper whispered among themselves. They glanced at us and went to
 their rooms.

2.4.

A group of people entered the inn, carrying two men. The men cursed
 the orcs, after which the two wounded were carried upstairs. They
 returned a while later, apparently unwounded. After that they left
 in a big rush.

Our undead began swearing at the damn Aleandorians. Dangund told us
 not to panic.

Our orc pulled Dangund aside. Longfoot eavesdropped using magic and
 told us his findings. Apparently the orc thought the Inquisitor was
 responsible for beating the battlemages we saw. Dangund couldn't
 really comment on that.

We continued the tracking operation. It stopped raining.

About three hours later, we reached the Orcish border. All the
 dwarves looked very uncomfortable. They were wondering what they
 should do, while all the orcs seemed unconscious.

Buran went to ask what was going on, and dwarves said that everybody
 seemed to be going through anyway, so we could just go on. The
 border orcs had been killed twice so far by people passing through.
 We were told to go through now if we wanted to, since they had a
 suspicion the border was going to be closed within a few hours.

We went through and emptied the orcs' purses. Dangund commented
 something about regretting the agreement on the loot he'd made. We
 also found six rings (nonmagical), three amulets (magical), two
 black steel short swords, and a dagger. 

We noticed three Orcish runners. They demanded us to turn over our
 loot at once. When the demon refused, the orcs attacked us. We made
 battle with them and won. Dangund said we were in a rush now.
 Longfoot quickly looted them, but found nothing of interest.

Dangund rediscovered the tracks, and we continued. They led to a
 forest, and we paused for a moment to equip our new loot. We
 followed the tracks, which seemed to avoid the locations of every
 orcish village. Dangund lost the tracks once, but rediscovered them
 eventually.

We camped by a river.

3.4.

Having followed for a while, we found the tracks of battlemages as
 well. At one point, Wealtheow's tracks disappeared, and the tracks
 of the battlemages returned to the road.

Five hours after Dangund lost the trail, he found the tracks again.
 We set up camp.

4.4.

There was a light wind and some mist.

Having traveled for a while, the tracks vanished again. Dangund
 suspected W had teleported herself to higher ground, since we saw
 mountainous terrain ahead. We climbed.

5.4.

It began to rain while we slept. Badly.

We decided to continue, since there was little point in trying to
 sleep while it rained so badly.

We spotted an orcish patrol and hid from sight. After they had
 passed, we continued.

About an hour later, Dangund lost the tracks. Hours passed without
 him rediscovering the tracks. It became evening, and Dangund said
 that Wealhtheow must've teleported a really long way. We made camp,
 deciding to continue in the morning.

6.4.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a woman's
 scream. I awakened to notice that my axe was gone. By the time I'd
 properly awakened, I was floating in the air.

Wealhtheow came to us. She had noticed that we'd been following her
 for a few days, and asked what we were after. It became fatiguing
 for her to keep us suspended in the air, so she let those of us down
 who agreed behave. I was the only one who agreed, so she only let me
 down.

Dangund said that he'd been hired to track down Wealhthow, and his
 job was mostly finished here. Wealhtheow let him down.

When I mentioned that Dorandor wanted the artifact back, she said she
 wasn't very sure Dorandor was a safe place for the artifact anymore.
 Then she said she was getting tired, and asked if the rest would
 behave or if she'd teleport them away, too. The rest refused to
 comment, so she teleported them away. Dangund, the undead and I were
 left together with Wealhtheow.

Dangund said it'd been a while since it had happened, but during the
 war Wealhtheow had visited the village, when they'd battled the
 great wyrm. Me and the undead spilled our guts to Wealhtheow. She
 teleported the rest back after hearing our tale.

"Assuming you got the book of Necreegh, what'd you do with it?", she
 asked. We discussed Master's soul devices a bit. Dangund asked if
 Wealhtheow really had the book. We sat down by the fire to discuss
 things.

Wealhtheow pulled out the Book of Necreegh from a pocket in her
 cloak. She opened the book and turned the pages. Nine tenths of the
 book were empty pages. She said that the book was much more
 dangerous than she'd thought - she'd been intending to only read a
 few of the first pages, but it was impossible for her to stop
 reading. She'd now become obsessed with the book, and could no
 longer give it away. She hadn't read it in many weeks, however. For
 some reason she now had a need to travel north, where she had
 supporters.

After discussing the issue, we decided to follow Wealhtheow to the
 north. I was hoping we could escape the Master and find some way to
 combat him this way. Dangund decided to come along as well, saying
 this was his first chance of being part of something big.

Hera cried against Wealhtheow's shoulder.

11.4.

After traveling for many days, we found a village. Wealhtheow said
 that we could stop to visit this village, seeing that we'd probably
 evaded some of our pursuers. Longfoot went first to scout the
 village, and reported that a herder and some sheep had been killed.
 We went to the village. The people in the houses said seemed to be
 humans.

They came out to talk with us. The people in the village were second 
 generation settlers. We brought the dead herder back to life. The
 villagers told us the story of the village.

During the undead war, a group of people became tired with the war
 and decided to flee. The Aleandorian authorities decided to pursue,
 since the act was interpreted as desertion. One of them returned to
 check out where the pursuers were, and the villagers, who were
 supposed to stay behind, but decided to continue onwards. The
 lieutenant had returned to their agreed meeting point. The meeting
 point had been found by Aleandorians, and they killed the
 lieutenant. When Necreegh grew stronger, he rose from the dead as an
 undead and continued pursuing them. Once every three weeks, the
 lieutenant would come and eat some of the sheep. The herder we'd
 raised from the dead had tried to stop him, but had been slain.

The lieutenant's appetite was increasing year by year. In the
 beginning, he only ate one sheep a week, but these days he was
 eating eight of them. The lieutenant felt like the villagers owed
 his upkeep.

Wealhtheow said we could look into the undead matter, but we'd need
 some equipment and food for it. We were given a room in the local
 inn.

We slept. While we were eating, a wandering merchant came to village,
 saying he needed to quickly get rid of the weapons he was selling,
 and the villagers would get them for cheap. We went to see.

The man looked wounded. He showed us a lot of weapons he was selling.
 I healed his wounds, and Hera also did something little for them.

We bought a magical spear the merchant was selling.

Session close: 19:24 30.5.2004