From the diary of Silvan the Dryad
Session date: 21.9.2003

4.2.

Buran and Longfoot left to speak with the forester.

I went to look for an ABC-book together with the undead and the
 demon. There were some used ABC-books in the marketplace, but
 they were in a pretty bad shape, so we decided go look in the 
 town hall instead. We managed to purchase one there, after
 which we headed to the Ladybug Inn.

We tried learning from the ABC-book, but it was pretty hard. 
 There was a commotion outside, and when we went to look, we
 got to witness a dragon landing. Mages and nobility walked
 down its back. Its name was Arkan, and it departed as soon as
 its passangers had cleared.

We found Buran and Longfoot again. They suggested we go look at
 the dead mage's island, and nobody protested. We returned to
 an inn and saw a rather drunk traveler with a suitcase,
 singing a merry campfire song. He was so drunk that he forgot
 his suitcase when he left. Hêrâ went to return it to him and
 probably do other things to him, too.

While leaving the inn, Longfoot heard somebody moving on the
 roof. I climbed up there and saw a guy climbing down the
 roof with a rope. When I returned to report this, Hêrâ said he
 was landing to the window where Suitcase Man was staying.

Buran and Longfoot went to shoot him with their crossbows. The
 thief was shot and killed. The body was looted for money and a
 signature ring. The crime scene was left.

We headed for the mage's island. On the road we were ambushed
 by three people, one of whom was a half-orc, one a young
 human, and one an old man. The leader, the young man, had a
 dark cloak similiar to the one worn by the thief we ambushed.
 They seemed to be a little unsure, but then concluded we were
 the ones who'd been described to them. They attacked us.

Buran had a leg tendon torn in the battle, and Hêrâ got a
 crossbow bolt in her lung. Two of our enemies perished during
 the onslaught, but the last one - the boss - was left alive.
 His name was Kildor, and he promised to sing if we'd take him
 to the city.

Kildor said we were supposed to have been simple peasants, and
 he hadn't expected us to be so heavily armed. He belonged to
 an organization which killed any singing members and, while
 they were at it, their families too. We decided to take him to
 the Master. On the way, me and Hêrâ wondered what this
 "family" thing might be.

Our list of loot from this encounter was a set of scale mail, a  medium shield, a broadsword, a shortbow, a crossbow, 40
 crossbow bolts, and two quivers.

The Master wasn't at home, but his men interrogated the
 prisoner on their own initiative anyway. Kildor was - emphasis
 on the word was - part of a thieves' guild, the Black Cloaks.
 The BC's post low-priority assignments on a bulletin board,
 from which any guild member can grab them to their greedy
 hands. Kildor had only been a beginning member in the guild.

We decided to visit Tamaol's temple to see if we could get some
 healing. The clerics wanted to know why I was traveling with
 such a party. I told them I was on a mission from god, and
 would talk to Tamaol once I found him. They were content with
 that.

Buran and Heran remained behind, and we others left to watch
 the coast, like the Lieutenant had hired us to do. A messenger
 taking a party invitation to Lord Wiltshire passed us, and
 then we came to a crossing where the messenger had stopped.
 He'd heard some noise.

A moment later, an armed orc rushed towards us. He passed us
 from the left and kept running towards the city. We tried to
 ask him what was going on, but to no avail. When we noticed
 the approach of more orcs, we moved to the side of the road,
 out of the way. The new orcs began to shoot at the first one,
 downed him, and left. The messenger ran away, saying somebody
 else ought to deliver the message.

The downed orc was afraid, and said Gunnad was coming home.
 Then he passed out, but I managed to patch him up somewhat. He
 woke up again, and we found out that Gunnad was coming to meet
 his brother and there were four beings of destruction. He also
 spoke of a temple in the orcish lands. Then he died.

The dead orc had a decorated ring. When we took it from him, he
 turned into an elf. I took the ring and tried it on. It
 created an illusion of me being an orc just like the one who
 had just died. We found that the gem in the ring could be
 changed. The two gems we found created both a
 different-looking illusion-orc. Under the gem slot in the
 ring, the Black Cloak symbol was present.

He also had a letter from "Vionna" to her brother, Elias
 Silverhorn. In the letter, Vionna sent her brother to the
 orcish lands, knowing that at least some of the artifacts
 would end up there. He'd found out that an artifact had been
 found in the lands, but was set up before being able to find
 out more. Trying to escape, he found out that either a god or
 one of the artifacts was "coming here".

We came to the coast. Grunk saw a battle, where one of the
 hooded people we'd seen raiding the Sentinel tower before was
 summoning monsters to fight the undead on the graveyard
 island. The undead lost, after which the veiled one departed.
 We then returned to Dorandor.

In my dreams, I saw the sentence "your heal skill has
 improved". This sentence repeated itself, with some
 variations, plenty of times.

5.2.

We woke up in the morning. We were told that when the god of
 war was locked up in the Sentinel tower, Gunnad, the court
 jester, broke into the tower and released the god of war into
 him. Werner told us this. He thought the four beings of
 destruction the orc/elf had mentioned were Necreegh, Dagardan,
 Fangas, and Dorgan, though Necreegh being involved with the
 other three now was a little unlikely. The temple might be the
 one between Caracal and the Desert Clan. About the summoner,
 he thought the summons might have been cast using the beast
 god's artifact.

Rondo, Seermoon's apprentice and the Suitcase Man we had
 helped, was asked to help us learn read. He said he might, if
 he had the time.

We reported to the lieutenant some of the happenings, but not
 the whole truth. Then we went to see the Master. We told him
 "the works", and he was very pleased. Now it was sure without
 a doubt that the scarab was on the island, where it'd been
 used to summon the beasts. He was sure the scythe was the one
 the orcs had. Apparently, climbing to the temple during a
 storm gave orcs who did it great respect. If Dagardan was
 coming, it'd be to watch a battle, and if Fangas' scythe was
 here, Dagardan would come to watch what was done with it, too.

The Master warned us - well, he was going to warn us, but he
 changed his mind. We had exceeded his expectations, and he
 wondered what reward we might want. He said he could give us
 money or item boosts. When nobody said anything, he gave us 50
 silvers each.

We left the Master to hatch his diabolical plans, and headed to
 the sword elf building. When we asked for training, the
 lieutenant there asked if we wouldn't want to join the sword
 elves, instead. Even I could join the scouts, he said, if I
 was old enough. When we turned down the offer, he said the
 nobles liked to get practice for their l33t sword skillz, and
 he could reccommend us as practice opponents for them.

It began to rain, a light ripple. We bought armor, guns, and 
 roses. Me and Hêrâ went to look for Rondo to see if he'd have
 the time to teach us now.

We saw the messenger again. He was delivering the message again
 now that it was (presumably) more safe. We escorted him to
 Wiltshire Keep. There were eight guards at the gate. They
 wouldn't let us in, and the messenger wanted to give the
 invite to the lord personally. A man in a robe showed up,
 claiming to be Lord Wiltshire. The messenger wanted to see his
 face. It was shown to him, and it was indeed Lord Wiltshire,
 albeit pale and in bad shape. The messenger gave Wiltshire the
 invite. Wiltshire was leaving when Buran coughed and asked for
 him. The Lord turned to face us again.

"The Lord looks much better than when we last saw," said Buran.
 "States of health come and go," said the lord, crumpled the
 invite, tossed it away, and left. We left, too.

There was a crowd by the dragon site again. The guards closed
 it off from the peasants, and suddenly the site was full of
 people, most of them dressed in robes. Some were Aleandorian
 battlemages. They left, and the people began to disperse. A
 moment later, another batch of people arrived. These weren't
 expected arrivals, it seemed. The Master was among them. He
 greeted the leader of the mage school, and headed for it.

We went to look for Rondo, and saw a man selling Cenopies for 5
 bronzes each. Some of the customers refused to buy any, but
 others wanted to offer their visitors only the best. One of
 the guys who'd followed us earlier was selling, and Arias was
 there, too.

We went to the inn. It was empty. Not having found Rondo, we
 resorted to having Longfoot teach us, and spent the rest of
 the evening studying. Longfoot's teaching was rather basic,
 but we learned a bit anyway.

The old man, Werner, and Rondo came back to the inn later in
 the evening. We talked, and then left to the mage-lake. The
 boat was not looking like it'd be a good way of crossing the
 lake in this weather.  We continued to the coast. The
 graveyard island looked clear of undead, but there were big
 figures there, instead. We went back to town and called it a
 day.

6.2.

There were rumors that the orcs were on the move. Large amounts
 of orcs were gathering.

We reported to the lieutenant and got our pay.

There was heavy wind and light rain.

Buran thought we could go to the mage's island now, but Hêrâ
 and Longfoot were initially against the idea. Longfoot got
 himself persuaded with the thought of magic items, and in the
 end Hêrâ didn't want to be left alone.

We went to find a bucket. We found a bucket. We went back to
 the inn with the bucket. We went to the lake with the bucket.

We tied a rope around ourselves and got lowered down to the
 boat. Grunk was left up. We noticed there were no oars in the
 boat, and there was much cursing.

We approached the island. We saw there was a light burning
 there. We went ashore, pulled our stuff on, and approached the
 building openly. Seeing no movement inside, we went to the
 door and knocked. The door asked who we were.

We said, the Royal Guard, and there was much whispering inside.
 They asked for our mission. We said we were investigating the
 mage's death, and they wondered how we knew about it. We told
 them how.

They asked us to help bring some things to the mage school. We
 refused. They whispered. We whispered too, about attacking
 them.

They said they were afraid the door was trapped, and they'd
 break the glass. They gave us two stone plates and asked us to
 take them away. We put the plates down on the ground, Longfoot
 stepped up on them, and fired his crossbow from the window. A
 battlemage-looking guy inside deflected the bolt with his
 staff and shouted, "that was stupid, we have bottles of Greek
 fire." We debated whether they were really battlemages or not.

They tried to prove their identity with fancy magic, but we
 thought that wasn't enough. They told us to get lost. Either
 help take the things away with our boat and help them, or just
 go away. We refused until we'd see their ID, to which they
 replied by giving us a leave-or-burn ultimatum.