Journal Entry of Nothur Ironbeard
By Diego Gestri
Written in Claghist (Hautherian Translation)
Reuniting with my comrades of the Silver Order was a very interesting affair. As I was making my way down from Hemekh, heading out of the Hirols to the plains and on to Hauther, a familiar gong sounded in the air and a similarly familiar portal opened up in front of me to summon me to the gauntlet. I obliged and rode through on Grognak’s back and came down to an arena where my comrades were engaging in fierce battle against unknown foes as is normal in the gauntlet. What did surprise me was that the squad was not exactly in the same state I had left them. Poor Vallen somehow ended up with mechanical limbs, and acquired a large golem bodyguard named Lloyd. Yugao, who also was reunited with the group by the gauntlet directly from Thule, had climbed her way up the ranks in the Order and was now reporting directly to the top. Tavin, who joined the band just before I took my leave, now had a fierce looking fish-man companion called Blrrrrglglgl.
A number of new faces were also present in the troop. There was a human named Marcus, whom I have heard has a penchant for unconscionable deeds and a female human turned automaton calling herself Maria Fortuna who apparently shares a relationship with Marcus. There was an impressive giant bear charging some soldiers who I later found out to be a shapeshifting elf named Sarafina. At first I thought she may be Errow, Like Kai, but then I realized she was too fair. And lastly there also was a female automaton named Astrid.
Also, very interesting was learning of all that happened in my absence. Apparently, my companions were summoned by, and went off questing for, no less than Ulene herself! Supposedly they were searching for some artifacts that would aid Ulene bring about the end of the plague but, in the process, they uncovered that the plague was originally brought on by the Ancients and that Ulene is one of them (not to mention that the Ancients were the original creators of the Gauntlet itself). This has changed the general opinion of the group and they now apparently see Ulene as a dangerous enemy and are set on bringing what artifacts they found back to Thule instead of Ulene. Not to mention that Yugao brought news from Silver Order HQ that there is dire need of us in the fortresses in the south to help fight back a large invasion of plague creatures. I have also sadly learned of the tragic demise of our old companion Giovanni who, even though he allegedly betrayed the group to join the Church of Daeus, did not deserve to die in such a way.
As we fought our way out of the Gauntlet, Kai was magically transported to another location in the arena where an enemy knight chopped her head clean off! This led me to find out that Vallen now can resurrect the dead! A useful ability indeed, but it seems that new found wonder has enticed some members of team to be more reckless expecting that, even if they die, they will be resurrected anyway. In fact, it seems that dying on purpose has even become an ordinary feat for some! Case in point is Kai who, no sooner was she resurrected after we left the gauntlet (at great cost I might add), that she immediately allowed herself to be killed again in what I would not hesitate to define as an appalling and grotesque experiment. She willingly allowed this magical staff to smash and bludgeon her repeatedly against the walls of the Ancient prison we were in until she lay dead, all in the hopes of being resurrected a demigod of the element of air. It turns out (to my great surprise) that not only did this work but also that other team members had already become masters of the other elements in a similar manner. A boon to the team perhaps, but at what cost I wonder?
We exited the Gauntlet on what I found out to be the Isle of Marr, an island scattered with ancient ruins and apparently used by the ancients for their strange magics as well as to imprison the most various creatures and magical entities. From here we worked our way to the coast in an attempt to navigate up the Great Tamerian Fjord in order to make our way back to the front lines of the war. We camped on the shore at the top of a sheer cliff to rest for the night. It was a very bad idea as we spent the night on the roof of Ramrigar’s rook tower fending off wave after relentless wave of plague zombies. Nobody slept, and this morning we were all so tired that we decided to relocate the tower to a location some fifty feet or so off the coastline in the water (combined with activating the weather stone to keep the inside of the tower dry and warm) in hopes that the zombies would be unable to reach us and we would be able to get some rest.
As we had some rest, we were startled by a knock on the tower’s door. It is worth noting that at this time the tower’s door was under 20 feet or so of water, so we were all very perplexed as who or what could be on the other side. A number of glances went to Blrrrglglgl as most of us figured that only a fish person could possibly come knocking at an underwater door. We resolved to open the door to find out more, and sure enough it was indeed another fish-man creature not too dissimilar from Blrrrglglgl. The creature started speaking in fish tongue (with Vallen translating) and presented himself as a messenger from the Fish Queen sent to summon us to her royal halls to speak with her. At a loss as to how we could make our way to our intended destination (as it would have been impossible to cross the entire breadth of the plague lands on foot and our rickety boats would not do to carry us by the open sea), we decided to follow the fish man back to his fish city in hopes of finding alternate means of transportation. And, sure enough, the means used to carry us there gave us good hopes as we travelled inside big bulbs on the back of what looked like giant whale sharks. We travelled underwater at a good clip for over two hours passing a number of underwater environments until we reached a sprawl of underwater ruins. It seemed as though the structures had been above water a long time ago and some cataclysm must have laid them to rest in their present state. We eventually arrived at the foot of the entrance stairway to a large and relatively well-preserved structure that looked like an ancient hall.
We were greeted by a number of mer-men and mer-women and, as one such fish woman cast a spell on us, air pockets formed around each of our heads allowing us to breathe underwater. We were escorted in the hall by some fish guards and in the hall, we found more guards as well as the Fish Queen herself. She spoke in fish tongue which we could not understand, and one of her servants left the hall only to return shortly thereafter accompanied by another fish woman quite different from the ones seen so far. While the rest had the upper body of a woman and lower body of a fish, this one had the lower body of an octopus. She was obviously someone important. She cast another spell on us to allow us to understand their language and we soon found out that she was a Sea Priestess.
Knowing that we could now understand her, the Fish Queen introduced herself as Queen Telora and welcomed us to her halls. She then explained that she had summoned us as one of us had offended the Sea Goddess by summoning the mighty Kraken without first beseeching her to obtain her blessing. I once again found myself being surprised and awed by events that transpired in my absence as it turns out that it was Vallen who had gained the power to summon the Kraken and had indeed done so unknowingly angering the underwater deity to whom the Kraken belonged. Members of the team did their best to justify Vallen as he was only following the orders of the captain of the ship the group was traveling in at the time, and did not mean any offense to the Sea Goddess. Unfortunately the priestess was not to be swayed and sentenced poor Vallen to redeem himself and make amends with the Sea Goddess by facing and surviving a trial consisting in successfully destroying a creature considered to be an abomination in the Goddess’s eyes. If successful, Vallen would henceforth be allowed to summon the Kraken as needed so long as he respectfully beseeched the goddess’s blessing as part of the ritual.
Fortunately, Vallen was allowed to be accompanied by a champion or champions and so the whole team agreed to support him. We were then led out of the structure and to an area of open seabed. The bubbles on our heads allowed us to breathe and the spell on us also made it so we did not feel the tremendous pressure of all the water around us. At the same time, however, our bodies were, for all intents and purposes, completely underwater. This had the obvious effect of slowing us down by drenching all our clothes, armor, and weapons. The only exception to this were Blrrglglg of course, and Tavin who was wearing a magical fish scale armor that the party had found on their travels and that was capable of allowing him to be perfectly at ease in any water environment, enabling him to breathe underwater as well swim as fast and effortlessly as any denizen of the sea.
We all dropped our backpacks and any unnecessary equipment in order to be unencumbered for the fight and readied ourselves for what lay ahead. One of the fish people escorting us pointed in a specific direction and, as we turned to look there, we saw in the distance, lying on the sea bed, the contours of a massive creature known as the Sea Giant. A great voice announced that the Sea Goddess would rescind all her blessings until we proved ourselves, and we suddenly found ourselves deprived of the bubbles that allowed us to breathe underwater. We immediately activated the weather stone and those of us that could not breathe underwater took refuge in it. Only Tavin and Blrrrglglgl remain outside taking stock of the situation, seemingly the only ones who would be able to fight the creature. As they were observing the creature’s location however, they realized that it lay in the middle of a circle of runes, and that the area within this circle was devoid of water. This emboldened the rest of us to try and reach the circle to fight the creature.
At first, we tried to slowly walk on the seabed under the effect of the weather stone. After a short while this proved to be impractical as we found the sea bed to be littered with electric sting rays. Unfortunately for a few of us (including myself) we found out the hard way being electrocuted by the creatures and ending up with numb feet. While some of us were busy dispatching the rays, Adoril attempted to engage the Sea Giant at range by casting some sort of magical shockwave. The shockwave however failed to reach the creature as it was deflected by the same magic barrier that was maintaining the water-free environment inside the rune circle. This did not go unnoticed by the Sea Giant who, at this point, rose up and faced us. The creature, we realized, had the body of a 20 foot tall humanoid, but the large head had many tentacles flowing down around its torso.
We decided that it would be best to swim above the sea bed the rest of the way to the circle of runes and, just as we were about to deactivate the weather stone, the Sea Giant charged towards us and out of the rune circle. It seemed that after all the fight would come to us. We quickly aborted our plan and readied ourselves for the impending onslaught, Vallen and Sarafina preparing to cast spells and Tavin and Blrrrlglgl our first line of defense just outside the aura of the weather stone. Such was the speed of the creature through the water that within seconds it crashed violently into Blrrglgl as Tavin was stepping inside our bubble where he would be better able to fend off the beast on dry land. Blrrrglglgl’s honed instincts of a veteran weapons master allowed him to raise his shield and block the blow just in time but such was the tremendous force of the impact with the massive Sea Giant, that poor Blrrrglglgl was knocked far away to the side stunned, like a pebble brushed aside by a massive wave.
The Sea Giant then breached the edge of the weather stone aura and was immediately engaged by Tavin, Adoril, and Yugao. Before blows can be traded, Marie successfully cast her panic hex (which it seems she is now famous for) causing the beast to flee, temporarily giving us a short reprieve. We made use of this by quickly swimming to the larger circle of runes where, once on dry land again, we arranged ourselves in a defensive position, with the heavy hitters on the outside and ranged fighters and spell casters in the middle. The panic hex’s effect then wore out and the Sea Giant returned charging angrily in the circle from the east. Elre, who was stationed on that side of the circle, took the brunt of the charge, but luckily the Sea Giant’s attack just missed him. Elre and the giant started trading blows as I charged in to assist, and Kai shot an electrical arrow upon it finding that it gave the creature quite a sting. As the flurry continued, the monster unleashed a vicious flurry of blows on Elre and me. Protected by my Sun Shield, I managed to block the blows. Elre was not so fortunate and took a massive blow from one of the giant’s claws which knocked him aside and grievously wounded him.
As I selflessly placed myself between Elre and the creature to protect him, Adoril charged in beside me, Marcus and Yugao moved in to strike it from the flanks, and Sarafina added her lightning bolts to Kai’s electrical arrows. The beast’s hide was very thick, which was very difficult to pierce with our weapons. In fact, Marcus’s weapons were ineffective to the point he decided to withdraw from the fight. The electrical attacks brought on by Kai and Sarafina, however, continued to hurt and enrage the creature. Eventually, thanks to Adoril and Tavin who managed to penetrate the creature’s skin with their magically imbued weapons, the creature received a critical amount of fire damage and was stunned for a few seconds. It was enough time for us to bring the creature down with a combined effort.
To our surprise however the fight was not over yet. As the creature collapsed its tentacled head detached from its body and leaped onto Yugao. Yugao was ablaze, as she had been throughout this encounter, but that did not deter the tentacled creature from fiercely holding on. As Yugao attempted to dislodge it with Judo moves, Tavin, Marcus and I surrounded her and started striking the creature to get it off of her. Marcus’s weapons again proved to be completely ineffective against the creature’s thick hide and he again withdrew. Eventually working together the remaining three of us managed to dislodge and kill the creature thus successfully completing the trial.
Though the Sea Priestess, who witnessed the whole trial, seemed displeased, we were brought back victorious to the Queen’s presence. Indeed the Queen thanked us and announced that not only would Vallen henceforth be allowed to summon the Kraken using the proper rituals seeking the Sea Goddess’s blessing, but we were also rewarded with a boon for previously helping her escape some imprisonment from an island of pirates. It seems there are more stories I have yet to hear. We unanimously decided to request for transportation as close as possible to uninfected lands to then make our way to our intended final destination. The Queen agreed to have us transported, by the same means that brought us to her halls, until the coast of the city of Iridan. Iridan is located in the north of the plague lands, just south of the border with the Norther Woodlands. From there it would then be feasible for us to leave the plague lands and circle around the northern tip of the continent to then turn south towards the front lines of the plague zombie invasion.
At this point we also took the sad but necessary decision to leave Blrrrglglgl behind with his people as it would not have been possible for us to adequately sustain him on land for a prolonged period of time. He will be missed by all and by Tavin in particular. As we said our good byes, Yugao was compelled by her duty to the Silver Order to take any magical items back from Blrrrglglgl, and I felt duty bound to take what pieces of the Dwarven Paragon Armor he carried with me so that I may one day return them where they belong with my people. We then embarked on a 9 day journey under the sea to the city of Iridan. The journey was long and the bubbles were cramped. All of us suffered one way or another from the proximity to the plague lands with horrible nightmares brought on by the blood ritual we all undertook. Tavin was particularly affected, barely eating or sleeping for the duration of the trip.
The fish people left us and our boats some 300 yards from shore. We decided to pay a visit to Iridan before moving on northward, so we rowed and sailed our way to the city docks. The moment we set foot on land, the “sixth sense” bestowed on us by the blood ritual that allows us to detect plagued creatures washed over us intensely warning us that the city is overrun. Nonetheless we all agree that our objective must be to reach the northern exit to the city and make our way north from there. Before we venture out, however, we needed more information as to what awaited us beyond the docks.
Adoril offered to scout the city streets around us with a curious spell called a “Wizard Eye,” a magical floating eye that apparently allows Adoril to see what it sees, while remaining itself unseen by those it passes. As the eye went off floating around the city, Adoril updated us on what he saw. Waiting for us beyond the docks are a large number of infected, including Ragers (infected that will attack anything on sight) and an unknown number of large “Pyramid Heads.” These are the massive and vicious plague zombies that some of us previously faced in the mine where we rescued Hrujah, who unfortunately died soon after when we tried to save her from the plague by subjecting her to the blood ritual.
On the way back to us, the wizard eye passed by a type of plague infected that we had not seen before. It has multiple heads and limbs and, most disturbing, it clearly was able to see the wizard eye and turned to look straight at it.
As we are now standing here on the docks planning our next actions, theories abound but the general consensus is that this is probably a magical type of infected that can see that which is invisible. We therefore decide that invisibility spells and camouflage will not help us through this. Some propose that we create a diversion on the south side of the city to draw as many infected away as possible and clear a safe path to the north gate. Others propose that we make a stand in Ramrigar’s rook tower until we kill enough infected to allow us to safely leave. One thing is for sure, whatever we decide to do we must do it fast as being in the plague lands is fueling our innate blood lust (also brought on by the blood ritual) and the infected are starting to be alerted to our presence. A Rager has already spotted us in fact. Though, strangely, instead of charging us as a Rager normally would, he is only slowly shuffling towards us. Something else is afoot here that we do not fully understand, and we must be very, very careful.