From the diary of Silvan the Dryad
Session date: 17.10.2004

5.5.

We decided to sleep in order to help Longfoot's magical spell recovery since he
 had fumbled a spell.

I brought up the subject of Longfoot's learning-amplifying amulet. After some
 creative persuasion, Longfoot agreed to turn over the amulet. After drawing some
 straws and talking things over, we ended up giving Buran it.

It was afternoon when we woke up. I'd been practicing my spells while the other
 slept.

Longfoot woke up and went to cast his spell. We suspected that the Severed Head
 clan might carry a grudge against Ulenlan, might want to torment her, and that
 the Ulenlan Artifact might be headed towards the Severed Heads.

Most importantly, we found out that the fellowship we were hunting had been formed
 on the basis of speed, not combat skills. We made plans of ambushing them.

Once it was dark, we set awing.

6.5.

We flew towards our victims, occasionally taking pauses to rest.

While flying, some of us spotted an orc crossing a road. Then I spotted a corpse
 on the ground. Hérá used a far-sight item, and confirmed that the corpse really
 was dead. It was an orc.

We found out that there was a group of orcs waiting in an ambush. We slaughtered
 them, and after some more creative persuasion, one of the survivors told us what
 he knew. He was then accidentially slain by a sword that Buran happened to thrust
 through his skull, and after the appropriate mourning period (half a second), we
 set awing again.

We set up an ambush for the folks with Ulenlan's skull. After about twenty minutes
 of waiting, they showed up. We saw one wagon, escorted by sixteen orcs.

I hit the wagon, carrying four orcs, with a fireball that killed three of them and
 set the wagon on fire. At the same time Longfoot cast a sound attack that injured
 all of them. The horses were startled, and started running. Everbody's (except
 mine) hearing was taken out. I burned two more orcs with a spell, and the
 survivors began fleeing to the forest. I started to pursue the wagon, but Buran
 instructed me to stay back and slaughter any orc that might be returning to the
 slaughterhouse.

After a while, Buran and the others returned, having looted the wagon. While they
 had found documents and money, they had not found Ulenlan's skull. I healed
 everybody's lost hearing.

Using Knowledge magic, we tracked down an orc. Interrogation revealed that a group
 of riders had been sent in advance to deliver the skull to Quantor, who had
 wished to conduct some experiments with it before returning the thing. We came to
 the result that it wouldn't be a good idea to pursue them since the orcs would be
 almost at Quantor's fortress by now.

While searching for a place to camp at, we spotted a large portal and a dark
 figure standing by it. It was near Quantor's fortress.

Hêrâ flew to Samuel to report. I then gated her back. Samuel wanted us to keep an
 eye on the fortress for now.

We used earth magic, digging a cave inside a mountain. We made this our base of
 operations.

After keeping watch for several hours, we spotted a group of five people
 approaching the portal from the north. One of them was an elf, the rest were
 orcs. They went to the portal and did something. It looked like they buried one
 of the orcs in the ground from the waist down. He didn't resist.

The orcs formed a line in front of the portal, with the first orc diving into the
 portal and the second one grabbing his feet. Then the second one went in, with
 the third one grabbing his feet, et cetera. Finally the last one pulled them out,
 and one of the orcs was missing when they returned. The elf swore.

The elf then left, heading to the north. The orcs stayed where they were.

We decided to attack the elf now that he was alone. Hêrâ went, since she had a
 ring of invisibility. I wanted to go, since I was practically invisible in the
 forest and might very well have killed him with a lucky hit, but the others for
 some reason thought I'd get myself killed. I didn't have the time to persuade
 them otherwise, even though they were wrong.

Hêrâ attacked him, but was beaten. We others rushed to her defense, but the elf
 shouted at us to get down or die. He said he had a job offer for us. He removed
 his cape and we saw that he was the lich that had been the first one Wealhtheow
 had brought back from the book. He was wielding the knife of Aram.

The lich said a project of his was having difficulties. He wanted us to reach
 through the portal and grab a friend of his that was trapped in the chaos
 dimension. The portal wasn't going to stay stable for long.

Session close: 19:07 17.10.2004