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Post by spacemanspoof on Feb 25, 2016 19:14:42 GMT -7
Herein lies the personal Journal of Kelon the Wild Elf,
also known as Ermitaño,
in which is recorded his many Adventures and Heroic Deeds
in the Land of Eramar and beyond
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Post by spacemanspoof on Feb 25, 2016 19:17:43 GMT -7
Prologue
I shall leave the next few pages blank in the hope that I might someday come back and pen a brief account of my early life and the circumstances that brought me to Rook.
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Post by spacemanspoof on Feb 25, 2016 20:03:06 GMT -7
19 Huntersmoon, ARW 197
I suppose the best way to begin my journal is with an account of how I made the acquaintance of the organization known as the Wayward Path and gained this peculiar artifact. After nearly a century of exile in the forests of the Verdant Realm, I decided that perhaps it's time I rejoin a civilized society, at least as much as I can tolerate. I have spent the past several years trading with the merchants of Rook and found it to be a rather interesting place. Of particular note is the establishment known as the Golden Plow. In recent months I have begun lingering there after my business in Rook, listening to the fantastic stories being told by its regular patrons. If there was ever a place to put my skills with a bow to the test, the Plow would be it.
I went on a few adventures with some of these people and saw many strange sights, particularly in the land known as the Vale where I aided a group of adventurers in fighting a living mountain! (But that is a story for another day.) Many of the jobs I performed were on behalf of the Wayward Path, a loose organization of scholars and explorers. They have recently discovered an island and, being perennial seekers of knowledge, have been hiring adventurers to scout the island and report on their findings. I took part in several of these expeditions and faced many strange encounters: giant tigers and turkeys, a strange mountain with living statues, and a tribe of people whom my party saved from certain annihilation by the barbarians of a neighboring village.
This new island intrigues me. I'll admit I have become bored of always hunting the same game in the forests of Rook. The wildlife I have encountered on this island so far seems like much more of a challenge, and the hides of such exotic beasts will surely fetch a good price in Rook. However, access to the island is currently controlled by the Wayward Path, who have established a camp here with a portal to their Great Library. So, I made my decision. I chose to join their order, so that I may obtain a key to the portal and become a permanent resident of this island, privy to all the wonders it might contain. As you have surely guessed by now, that key is the very book in which I write.
The condition for membership in the group is maintaining this journal, so follow along, dear reader, as I recount the many wondrous events that are sure to unfold in this new era of my life.
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Post by spacemanspoof on Mar 4, 2016 10:47:58 GMT -7
24 Leaf Fall, ARW 197
I was contacted by the Wayward Path today. They had hired another group of adventurers to map more of the island and would like me to go along and assist. This seemed like a good opportunity to indulge my own curiosity, as well, so I accepted the job. In the party were Sadoo the monk and Fran the elementalist, whom I had met in previous travels, along with a few new faces. After exchanging introductions and preparing our equipment, we set out on our expedition.
The first day was rather uneventful. We spent the day scouting and mapping, then set up camp. During the night, we were attacked by a group of bears. It seems like there are many bears on this island, as I encounter them frequently. Gunther and his horse Carl (who brings a horse to the jungle, anyway?), being the only ones awake at the time, bore the brunt of the attack. Gunther was severely injured, and Carl was nearly killed. The rest of us were awakened by Gunther's shouting and rushed to his aid. We swiftly dispatched the bears, after which Faust spent some time healing Gunther and Carl... along with the bears, who quickly decided to seek less dangerous prey elsewhere.
The second day passed much like the first, except for an encounter at lunchtime. We spotted several leaf-like birds flying overhead. They seemed to be ignoring us, but Fran, who had bad experiences with these birds before, decided to shoot one with an air blast. It fell dead, but the rest of the flock no longer ignored us. They dove in to attack but proved to be little more than an annoyance.
On the third day, as we traveled, we were suddenly assailed by a hideous screech (even more disturbing than Sadoo's "encouragement"). It was so terrible that, I am ashamed to admit, I was left incapacitated for several seconds. Upon regaining my composure, I saw my comrades engaged with two owl-like creatures (which I later found out are called chickcarneys). Just as we were about to defeat them, an enormous tiger leapt out of the underbrush, apparently attracted by the sounds of the fight. Sadoo retaliated, stunning it with a well-placed blow, and the rest of us quickly took it down before it could recover.
After this battle, we decided we had had enough adventure for the time being and returned to the Wayward Path camp with our new (and very well-drawn, thanks to Arthaz) map. The others received their pay and went home to Rook, while I lingered in the camp for a while longer. I've spent some time now with these pioneers and feel a kinship with them. They are deeply respectful of the forest and its inhabitants and are, like me, in a form of self-imposed exile. I spoke with the camp leader and proposed that, in lieu of a gold reward from this mission, perhaps his campers might supply me with some materials and labor to assist in making my own campsite into a somewhat more permanent structure. He happily agreed.
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Post by spacemanspoof on Mar 12, 2016 13:12:17 GMT -7
24 Winterkiss ARW 197
My new treehouse is progressing nicely. I decided to leave it in the hands of the Wayward Path crafters and make another visit to Rook. The bounty of this island jungle is great, and I had a full load to sell in the market.
After conducting my business in Rook, I stopped by the Plow for some dinner before heading home. Suddenly, a desperate man rushed in and asked for help. A small crowd of adventurers gathered around him, so I stepped over to hear what he had to say. He said that some children had gone missing while playing in a cave, and he needed some adventurers to help find them. I much prefer the trees to the underground, but lately I have found myself developing a strange fascination with the darkness. Seeing that Sadoo and Aetxire had joined the group, I gave in to my curiosity and tagged along.
We traveled with the man to his village, where he told us that eight children had been playing in this cave, despite their parents' warnings to stay away. So far, only one of them had returned. Not wishing to waste any more time, we headed straight for the cave. Once inside, we were immediately accosted by some strange flying creatures known as stirges. Some of them latched onto Yodari and Zephyr and began sucking their blood, but we quickly dispatched the whole group. We discovered two of the children; unfortunately they had been completely drained by the stirges. Disheartened by this sight, we continued our exploration of the cave. In a side chamber, we found two more children wrapped up in spider webs. The spiders were not pleased at having their meal interrupted, and attacked. After dealing with them, we freed the children from the webs. One was still alive, paralyzed by the spiders' poison. The other had already been partly eaten.
Next, we found ourselves in the lair of a stag beetle. We attacked it, expecting to find more of the children (and hoping they were still alive). After a brief fight, in which the beetle knocked out Zephyr and nearly trampled Puff's pet scorpion Ames to death, we killed the beetle. But there were no children to be found.
Continuing deeper into the cave, we next encountered a swarm of rats accompanied by several dire rats. Disgusting! Sadoo and Zephyr dealt with the swarm: punching, kicking, and stomping on the rodents until they dispersed. The rest of us took care of the larger rats which were much easier to hit with our weapons. In this area, we found a child-sized skeleton, completely stripped of all but bone.
We still had two more of the children to locate, although we had little hope of finding them alive, so we continued our search. Far in the back of the cave, we were beset by over a dozen giant centipedes! This was our most difficult fight so far, mainly due to the sheer number of creatures that were swarming us. We held firm, though, and eventually exterminated these pests. We found the remaining two children... or what was left of them, anyway, after having been eaten by the centipedes.
We returned to the village to deliver the bad news, bringing back the one surviving child and the six bodies. Their parents were of course grieved, but the man who hired us paid what he had promised. He thanked us for clearing all the creatures out of the cave, and for retrieving the remains so that they could have a proper burial.
The villagers' anger was mostly turned toward young Billy, who had goaded the other kids into the cave in the first place. He was an orphan and a troublemaker, and the villagers no longer wanted him around. Puff volunteered to take the kid under his care, as the party split up and went our separate ways. Puff doesn't exactly seem like ideal parenting material, though... I hope the kid's OK.
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Post by spacemanspoof on Mar 19, 2016 13:02:00 GMT -7
17 Fireseek, ARW 198
I have spent the past several weeks continuing to build relationships with the Wayward Path camp. They have done an admirable job in aiding me with the construction of my house, and I would like to maintain a good rapport with them, as I'm sure I will need their help again in the future.
Today, I returned to Rook to sell some more hides and continue my studies of the Planes. I find myself especially attracted to the Shadow Plane, almost as if it's calling to me. While taking some time in the Plow, I overheard a group of adventurers discussing a couple of jobs that were posted on the board. There was an exorbitant bounty on locating some missing chickens, a post looking for help rebuilding Freygate after the recent upheaval there, and a notice from the elves of the Vale once again asking for help. The other adventurers seemed most interested in this last one, but they were rookies and their knowledge of the Vale was quite limited. Having been to the Vale before and fought the taint there, I knew what dangers they faced and offered to go along with them. Besides, studying this taint may bring further enlightenment on the mysteries of the Planes.
We went to the usual location in Rook and traveled through the portal there to Varundaelle. Once in the elven city, we were informed that the fight against the taint was progressing well, and that we were being hired to clear out a particular region of the forest by destroying a pack of tainted creatures there. After receiving directions to this location, we set out on our way.
The first day of traveling was largely uneventful. But in the night, a few of us were awakened by the approach of some giant bees. After a brief fight, we dispatched them with little effort, although Jack and Gonaldi were greatly weakened by the bees' poison. I inspected the corpses of the bees but found no sign of the taint in them.
On our second day, we encountered the taint: a vile, fleshy substance covering the ground. Despite having encountered it before, I was overcome with disgust and had to step aside to retch before continuing. I still felt queasy for a while after that, which was unfortunate, because we were suddenly ambushed by two goblins with crossbows! It was quite obvious from their appearance that these goblins had long ago been corrupted by the taint. Their surprise attack took down Meridreya. Gonaldi rushed to retrieve Meridreya's wand of Cure Light Wounds and heal her with it; meanwhile Jack, Francis, and I moved to cover them and draw the attention of the goblins to ourselves. I had not yet recovered from my revulsion, and my aim suffered as a result. Jack killed one of the goblins with a well-placed shot, while Francis wounded the other. The wounded one launched itself at us and exploded, spraying black tentacles everywhere! The explosion knocked out Jack, and we quickly discovered that the tentacles were burrowing their way into his feet. Meridreya, back on her feet by now, healed Jack enough for him to wake up and tear the invader out of his body.
We were rather shaken up by this encounter, but we pressed on. On the fourth day of travel, we discovered what must have been the main focus of the taint in this area: an enormous, writhing mass of slug-like tentacles (or was it tentacle-like slugs?). I fired off a Solar Sting, hoping that it would slow down the monster enough for us to come up with a plan of attack. No such luck. Francis and Gonaldi approached, and the creature quickly moved to engulf them. Francis was injured, and Gonaldi was knocked down and nearly consumed as the tentacles began invading him as well. Meridreya and I ran up to distract the creature, while Francis dragged Gonaldi out of the mass. Our distraction worked, or perhaps it merely chose to seek new prey after infecting the others - it moved to attack us instead. Meridreya went down as well, but I stood firm even as it surrounded me. Jack attempted to attack the creature, but weakened as he was by the two previous encounters, he was not very effective. Francis, seeing the dire state the party was in, turned and ran like a dirty coward. I knew we couldn't stand against this thing much longer - with two party members down, one fleeing, and one weakened, it was up to me. I summoned up all of my strength and training, spotted an opening, and fired a shot right into the center of the beast. The arrow struck true, and the tentacles ceased their writhing and fell lifelessly to the ground.
After the monstrosity was defeated, we helped Meridreya back to her feet, so that she could patch up the rest of us. Gonaldi was in especially bad shape; he was very nearly consumed by the tentacles and turned into a taint-creature himself. Francis and Meridreya had also been violated. Fortunately, the elves in Varundaelle had plenty of experience dealing with this sort of thing and were able to treat all three of them.
This adventure almost turned into a total disaster for our group... maybe we should have just gone after those chickens instead.
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Post by spacemanspoof on Mar 30, 2016 19:10:08 GMT -7
5 Wakening ARW 198
I died today. Twice, in fact.
It started out as a normal day - pack up my haul, sell it in Rook, and get a meal in the Plow before heading home. That was when the trouble started. In the Plow, I encountered Sadoo and Puff and started chatting with them about our previous adventures. Well, chatting with Sadoo, anyway; Puff just interjected the occasional "yeeaaahhh mannnnn". I think he's gotten into some bad herbs or something. Anyway, after a while, we noticed a man dressed somewhat like a cleric post a notice on the job board. We looked it over, as adventurers do, and saw that it was another missing persons request. Apparently some of the members of this man's church had gone missing, and the ones sent to find them had also gone missing. They decided to call in some adventurers before losing any more of their own. The chapel was located a reasonably short distance from Rook, so we thought this would be an easy job. How wrong we were...
Another monk came up as we were discussing the job and offered to join us. He introduced himself as Gaelach. Feeling rather confident, the four of us headed off toward the chapel mentioned in the notice. Along the way, we entered a clearing and noticed that the trees seemed rather odd, as if the branches were hanging too low. Attuning my senses, I caught the unmistakable scent of bandits. "Careful," I said to the others, "looks like an ambush." An ambush it was indeed, as several arrows flew out of the trees. Goblins! Realizing that their cover was blown, they sprung their trap early. This was fortunate for us, as half of them were too far away to be effective. After a tough fight - these were some of the best-trained goblins I had ever encountered - we took down the four closest to us, although Puff and Gaelach were both knocked unconscious. As Sadoo helped them heal up, I rushed forward and took cover behind a tree closer to the rest of the goblins. Unfortunately, I was a bit overeager. Sneaking out from behind the tree, I took a shot at one goblin, then felt an excruciating pain.
The next thing I remember was Sadoo standing over me asking if I was ok. I was not. It turns out that although I had wounded my target, its companion got off a lucky shot and struck me right through the heart. After the others took care of the bandits, Sadoo had found my Salve of the Risen Dead among my belongings and applied it to me. It's a shame I had to waste it on a couple of goblins; it took me a long time to convince the Wayward Path folks to produce one for me. But despite this setback, we decided to press on toward the chapel.
We arrived at a dilapidated old chapel, and an old man wearing some sort of clerical robes came out to greet us. Sadoo felt that something was not quite right with this guy, but he seemed OK to me. Then again, I was severely impaired from having been recently deceased. I asked if he was a healer and could help me with my... condition. He happily agreed and the group followed him inside. The inside of the chapel was just as run-down as the outside, but I didn't much care. I just wanted to be rid of this terrible lethargy. The man introduced himself and held out his hand. I returned the greeting, took his hand to shake it, and felt another immense pain, as if my very soul was being torn from my body.
Once again, I awoke with Sadoo standing over me, this time in a small room. Talking with him later, I found out that the party attacked the man once they figured out that he was not exactly helping me. They defeated him and discovered that he was a wight in disguise. Unfortunately, the lingering effects of his touch turned my body into a wight also, which the party was forced to put down. After the battle was over, they found a small basement containing the wight's other victims, some of whom were still alive, albeit barely. They healed up the survivors as well as they could, then brought them and my remains back to Rook.
Back in Rook, they received yet another surprise. It seems that one of the wight's victims was a wanted criminal who had eluded the Guard for some time. As he was in no shape to resist arrest, they promptly took him into custody and offered the party a reward for his capture. One of the guards also noticed me, or what was left of me by this time, and offered to have me revived in lieu of the bounty. Puff suggested instead that they go find a druid who could reincarnate me for a much lower cost. They agreed, and decided to follow him off into the forest to search for druids. Bright idea, guys - follow the kobold who's barely sane even at the best of times. After wandering for several hours and getting nowhere (despite Puff attempting to engage the local wildlife in conversation) Sadoo and Gaelach chose to return to Rook and accept the guard's offer rather than follow this kobold to gods-know-where. And so, I found myself being dragged back to life for the second time.
Raise Dead spells are not inexpensive. That salve alone cost the islanders a large amount of resources to procure, and it may take a while for me to convince them to provide me with another. So there must have been a sizeable bounty on that criminal, which the others chose to give up for my sake. I never would have thought that such compassion existed among humans. Perhaps they're not all so uncouth.
Reflecting back on the events of the day, I realize that for all my prowess in combat, I am still far too fragile. If I am to survive these harsh times, I must find some way to increase my power. I fear that training alone will not be enough...
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