Adventurers in town included Andro, Ahmed, Jordan, Kate Waters, Jomar, Jordan Cross, Runt (half orc), Wanderer (a Mystic Wood Elf, new to town) and Nerrik. The company that calls themselves Greyhawk was in town. They hail from Baddira, and I've had the pleasure of meeting them before. The include Loran, Khel, Darrien, Serai (sp?), and Soaring Falcon. Pendar was also here from Baddira, although I'm not sure if she counts herself as Greyhawk. In any case, Andro, Ahmed, Jomar, Jordan Cross, Nerrik and Kate Waters were also in town. Eventually as the number of town adventurers grows I will be unable to list everyone by name, but for now we are still few. There was so much happening that we still have two things left to investigate – something making the carpenters uneasy in the southeast part of town and an unexplained upheaval of water on the west side that caused the crew of one ship to drown.
A full two year Celestial Circle was recently established by Lord Law. He appeared to a few of us in the night, for which I chided him. After all, I could have been in bed clothes, but fortunately had been up and about. Of course he would not care what state of dress any of us might be in, not having such mortal concerns, but we would still be embarrassed. In any case, I was Rifted into the Tavern where Lord Law cast the circle and thus was I Invested. This and the Earth Circle are going to be the foundation of a combined Guild of Magic which I am Guildmistress of.
That evening, Nerrik and Xnyl had a Spirit Link ritual performed which linked the two of their spirits together. As this was a very private affair, I am not at liberty to write of the details. It was a very touching thing to be trusted to witness the ceremony. I was glad to be there for my friends in what was an emotionally sensitive time.
Later that evening, a sheep farmer entered the Tavern speaking of a strange pink twister over his farm which had caused some of his flock to disappear. This was to be the first indication of a very important event in the chronicles of Drakesbridge. We were not to find out about that until the next day. The twister only appeared in the daytime, so we assured the farmer that we would come to his farm the next day and investigate.
As expected, the Daughter of Life was in town. While she still looks like Nala Strongbow with a more rosy complexion, she certainly bears little other resemblance to the stoic former ambassador. The Daughter is jovial, spirited and light hearted. She has teased and joked with people, including Lord Law. She tells me he has a tickle spot, which I intend to learn. There is still some cautious part of me that wants to not die or have some other strange effect on my spirit. After all he is often quick to effect his will on people. How much of the original personality or reactions might be left is still an intriguing question. These are the only two of the five Elementals I would feel comfortable exploring the question with, as two are bent on our destruction and the Lord of Death is an unknown.
Being that Nala has essentially been possessed, albeit willingly, it makes me wonder what kind of people her other siblings possessed? The Daughter tells me that Nala is still in the back of her mind, watching but not able to act through the body. I wonder what kinds of personalities lurk in the minds of the other four, if they are even still existent as separate individuals?
The Greyhawk company put up a 2 year Earth Circle in their cabin, with permission from Lord Law. It was good to have them in town. They are not only brave and worthy battle companions, they are of a friendly and helpful sort. Both their skills and their good cheer made the events of these few days much easier to survive and smile through. Loran had asked me by the end of Sunday if he could join the Healer's Guild. I must say that having a Life Knight in training inquire about membership is an honor indeed. We discussed the necessary oaths and I will be bringing him a medallion when I am in Baddira in a month's time.
The next day we had some dire news. We learned that an army thousands strong, comprised of Undead and sent by Gloomwood, was marching on Drakesbridge. In addition, they also planned to bring an army from Redmarch, their “protectorate”. We learned that it would be possible to get the Redmarch army to head home and take Redmarch back if we could prevent Gloomwood scouts from reaching it. We also needed to keep those scouts from informing the Gloomwood army that we had attempted to turn back the Redmarch army or that we knew of the Undead army. Therefore we spent a few grueling hours under the southern sun hunting down the scouting parties. Each consisted of a necromancer, a couple of skeletons, one of those prismatic, and a couple of other light troops. Fortunately we were able to eliminate them all before word could reach the Gloomwood army. Unfortunately there was still a force of Undead a few thousand strong headed our way and due to arrive at dawn. It traveled under a pall of blackness, allowing the undead to travel during the day with no adverse affects.
After arriving back in town, we informed Lord Law and the Daughter of Life of the impending attack. They worked to raise forces of their own. At that point, we had no further information to act on as of yet. As promised, we investigated the sheep farm. Nerrik warned us that when he has seen pink skies in the past, there has been some sort of time distortion or changing effect. His suspicion was confirmed. The investigation of the farm turned up more information on the invading army and even the cosmology of Drakesbridge.
The twister was hovering over the farmer's field when we arrived. We watched as a sheep approached and disappeared into it. Loran reached in one one hand which appeared to age rapidly, his nails growing long in a matter of seconds. Soon appeared the white haired Messenger of the Time Lords whom we had seen once before. He sent us back in Time to recover an artifact so we could place it where it needed to be. We wound up at the Tower which stands today in Drakesbridge but many years in the past.
In the past we traveled to, the races we currently know, such as humans and elves, were little more than barbarians. There was no town of Drakesbridge nor any settlement that we could see. The Tower we now know as the Tower of Law was held by Chaos and looked much different. Rather than a severe white structure, it had swirling colors and the floors seemed to slide and change. As we approached, we saw chaos imps inside. Before we could try to find some way of bypassing them to get to our target, someone attacked the imps. Naturally, they were able to throw elemental chaos energy at us, as well as other spells. Unsurprisingly, they were chaotic, at times seeming to play with each other and doing things like trying to pick one another's nose. The battle was very rough on us but eventually we prevailed over all but one who put up a Circle of Power around itself and our target – the statue of the Titan. This was worrisome as we had little time to accomplish our goal of reaching the statue and taking its pin.
Loran used quick thinking and his powers as a Life Knight in training to resolve the problem. He Purified the Land under his feet, which disrupted the Chaos of the Tower enough to destroy the magical Circle. This has left a green mark on the floor that survives into the current day, the only mark to mar the otherwise colorless white structure. Defeating the last chaos imp, we reached our goal and reclaimed the pin to put where it should have been. After completing this mission, we returned to the time rift and back to Drakesbridge.
The Messenger told us of the origin of the Elementals in Bakrasah, of which there are 5. They are the children of a large being known as the Titan. The four opposing Elementals are Chaos and Lord Law, the Lord of Death and the Daughter of Life. The Lord of Undeath seems to not have a counterpart. An afterthought is that we are not sure if the Son of Chaos is the Elemental or its “child”. The Lord of Death is the only one of these five siblings to stay away from the conflict surrounding Drakesbridge. The Titan who is currently imprisoned somewhere by his children, who wished to roam the world without being under its control. Further details will be written into a Treatise on the Elementals of Bakrasah.
The Messenger also described the state of the battle between the armies of the Daughter of Life and Lord of Undeath. The Daughter was returning life to soldiers who had fallen both recently and who had falling in the past. The Lord of Undeath was raising corpses as foul Undead faster than the Daughter could resurrect them. The Messenger implored us to have Lord Law take the field to engage the Lord of Undeath directly. Before we left, at our request, the Messenger returned the missing sheep to the farm.
We then quickly went to Lord Law to ask him to take the field as the Messenger instructed. He agreed, much to our relief. A few other things happened of note that evening. At some point we were recruited by a merchant to retrieve a barrel of goods from the swamp which had been taken over by an elemental of some sort. We didn't see the creature on our way to the dock where the barrel was. As we approached I noticed glowing eyes down the path we had come from. When we reached the barrel, the merchant was very insistent that we not open it. The swamp creature challenged us, saying we were on his territory and that we had to leave without the barrel. He would not be persuaded, so a fight ensued and we slayed him. We left with the barrel and one healthy, grateful merchant.
Later, we were approached by farmers who were terrified of some monsters that had taken over their barn. These turned out to be a small contingent of Brood without a Queen. It had been over a decade since I had last heard their chittering or faced their acidic spit. At first I was unsure what I was hearing, but one look at one of them was all it took for me to know what we faced. Fortunately, without a Queen, the Brood were not nearly as terrifying as they had been years ago in Ravenholt. It was a long fight, and difficult, but we managed to clear them out without anyone having to Resurrect.
Ahmed Rahab asked me to accompany him to visit some Goblins and witness a cultural rite of some importance to them. We were shown a pile which was tribute to the Great Gabo. This pile was made of all sorts of things including shiny things, gems, coin and plain old garbage. We were asked to contribute to the pile to pay tribute to the Great Garbo and so we did. Among the items was a green ribbon we had been looking for that they were loathe to part with. Looking through what I might trade, I realized that my belt was green and longer than the ribbon. After some haggling and a couple of other coins, I traded my longer green belt for the shorter green ribbon. Fortunately the white leather belt is holding up. As we returned to town, we discovered them in the middle of a battle with vampires. We ran up to assist, and the creatures were defeated.
There was one other mission of a more personal nature to accomplish before I could seek rest that night. Enlisting assistance from Khel of Baddira's, I went to see Lord Malcador, Ambassador of Gloomwood. The armies of that city-state were still on the march. I had to know if he was aiding their assault or innocent. If the former, spies have to be dealt with. We knew that the Redmarch contingent had turned back and that Lord Law and the Daughter were to help even the odds against the thousands of undead who were marching toward Drakesbridge and expected at dawn. Our safety was by no means assured. My suspicion was that he did not know of the assault, and this proved to be correct.
The morning was unexpectedly quiet, given that we had expected an attack near dawn. From what I understand, the armies clashed outside of town and the Undead were later than we thought they were going to be. We were able to get in a decent breakfast before trouble began. Although the forces of the Daughter and Lord Law had taken a heavy toll on the opposing army, they still greatly outnumbered the adventurers in town. The remnants of the Undead army stormed into town that morning and we were surrounded by 50 Death Knights. Gravely, we steeled ourselves for what we thought would be a valiant but fatal confrontation. The lead Death Knight started to speak, but Loran cast Silence on him, and so the undead simply called for his troops to attack. Fortunately, the Daughter of Life removed the undead curse from the knights, who were then transformed to 50 live people confusedly blinking in the sun.
It is very fortunate that Alyria had sent us carpenters to aid in the rebuilding of the town. At this point we have a few thousand refugees, the former undead troops of Gloomwood who have been returned to life. There is now even more work that needs to be done. The new citizens have many questions, some of them having not been among the living for many years. They need food, clothing and shelter. We are working diligently to broaden the resources of Drakesbridge to accommodate our new citizens, and working with them to help the adjust to their new lives.