Hello, Girard.
I am writing these letters, not knowing if I will ever get a chance to send them to you. In any event, it could be important to have these events documented.
We stayed in a copse of trees overnight where we encountered a trio of basilisks. Stupid creatures. They didn't last too long against Westwind, however, and we finished out the night. As we approached Highport the next morning, a flock of stirges fled the city followed by Harpies. The Harpies charmed Westwind, and questioned us. Our responses were acceptable, and they allowed us to continue. We were further questioned at the southern gate of the city. We passed ourselves off as slave-buyers, and it seemed that our disguises worked. We headed toward the center of the city, where the slave markets were located. The streets were filled with every type of vermin, from rats to trolls. I believe I even saw something like ghouls sitting on rooftops, like ravens by a slaughter-yard. We passed a side street that was barricaded by humans and orcs, sitting on what looked like casks of oil. Further down the street, we passed another avenue to the east that led to a temple guarded by two bronze-skinned people.
Ahead, a wider avenue led to a square filled by an open air market where slaves were being auctioned off. There was a guarded stockade, with a yard inside the stockade with a raised platform. Across the street from the market, there was a fortified manor house guarded by half-orcs and men with blue sashes in very good armor. It seems we missed the viewing of the slaves; we should have come in the morning to see the slaves before the auction. The current lot of 10 was being sold for 70 gold pieces. We were about to leave in disgust, when a lot of children came up for sale. There was no way we could pass them up, so we bought them to keep them out of the hands of the slavers still at the market.
We gathered up the children and started to leave the city. A feral-looking man seemed to be staring intently at me. I believe he was trying to detect the level of goodness associated with me. We got very suspicious, and Kespin ducked to the side and became invisible, and Wrye did the same (those his method of invisibility was more due to skill than magic). I gathered the children close to me, and we continued on the most direct path to the gate. The feral-guy (and 8 others) was following us south, when we passed the barricaded avenue. The feral man went to the barricade and said, "Time to Worship" and 30-40 people joined him in pursuing us. 9 of them dropped back and turned toward Wrye, as Lysander and I ducked into a side alleyway with the children.
I cast blade barrier across the road, and Lysander summoned a swarm of rats into the rubble where the men were pursuing us. At this point, the 9 moving toward Wrye engaged him. He dropped one with an arrow, but the feral-man shot a searing light at Wrye, and then a half-orc, called Grolsh, struck Wrye critically with his sword, and then hit him again. I started leading the kids down the road as Lysander hit the rabble heading at us with a fireball. One of them fell, but the rest stayed up. Kespin rushed him, and struck down the feral looking cleric with a called shot to the neck. Wrye retreated down the alleyway and encountered a green slime stretching across the alley. Grolsh pursued Wrye and struck at him again with his sword. In an act of desperation, Wrye tried to jump over the slime, but missed. Unfortunately, landing in the slime proved to be too much for his little body to handle, and he died in the alleyway. Kespin breathed fire, and Lysander shot bolts of that dark energy, and the remaining enemies fell. As expected in a city this evil, the dead began to rise. I called upon Pelor, and the undead were restored to their natural state. We recovered Wrye's body and retreated to the copse of trees. When I spoke to Wrye's spirit, he told me that he did not want to return. He was looking forward to seeing his friend Kobort and other friends again. We will miss the little archer. Pray for his soul, my love.
On the fourth of Goodmonth, I wind-walked back to Safeton with the first four children. When there, I found that Safeton had been attacked! Orcs from the Pomarj had entered the city at the harbor. The orcs had been repelled but the fires were still burning when I arrived. I deposited the children at the temple of Pelor and went out to heal the wounded. The next day, I went back to the copse. It seems that while I was gone, Westwind got bored and went to go play with a group of goblins that were walking by. His actions attracted some Harpies, who came out and charmed him (again), but Kespin was able to dispel the harpy song with his countersong and Westwind was freed of the enchantment. I got back to the group that night, and we moved to yet another copse a bit further on. I left the morning of the sixth with the last two children and headed back to Safeton.
I gave the children over to the care of the clerics at the temple of Pelor and went to check on those that I had healed earlier. Bendelle approached me and told me that someone was looking for me. A shadowy figure, wrapped in a dark cloak, trailed after her. She said, "I leave this one in your hands" and walked away. It was not a very reassuring introduction, and I got the feeling that Bendelle did not entirely trust the one behind her. The figure refused to give its name or the name of those who sent it to find me, but then told me that it needed to find the swords of Sunndi. It told me to refer to it as "Wraith". It said that it was sent to find us by someone whom the swords knew, but would not be more specific than that. It then showed me that it was either a shape-changer or a master of illusion by changing itself to look like me. This was not a good move in trying to build any measure of trust between us. I understand the need for secrecy in many aspects of life, but when asking someone to trust you, I feel it is better to downplay those aspects that you do not wish to share. It didn't seem to be evil, but one does not need to be evil to be used as a tool for evil, so I wasn't going to simply bring it along to the rest of the party without further probing. In any event, it did eventually give me enough information that I could give it some measure of trust, and I brought it down to meet the party on the 6th. I gave my oath to not reveal what secrets it gave me. I felt that removing it from the city was a good idea for the safety of the townsfolk, and I felt that the party could deal with any threat posed by this "Wraith" creature. I do not like its penchant for mimicking the undead, though. Or at least taking the moniker. Perhaps if its cloak were white, or a pale grey, it would be less disturbing. It's something to think about at least.
I will leave this letter in Bendelle's care to send to you when she can.
Be well, love.
Tess
Greetings again, Girard.
I am continuing my documentation of our quest. I have found that I am trying to watch events unfold with the objectiveness that you so often display. It makes me feel closer to you, love.
While I was up in Safeton, it seems that a large flock of 30 or so stirges attacked Lysander, Kespin, and Westwind. Horrible creatures, really. Kespin wasn't badly hurt, Westwind took 2 Con damage from the 8 stirges that attached to him, but Lysander was nearly killed by the 12 con damage that she took. Kespin was able to breathe fire on him, killing all the stirges that were attached to him, through dropping him in the process as well. <Lysander spends one fate point to stabilize.> They healed him as best they could, and I brought both Westwind and Lysander up to full strength when I returned.
Wraith was able to give more information to Westwind and Kespin when it met them, and they did (grudgingly) allow it to join the party. It revealed that the slave lord behind the capture of the Swords of Suundi was Ajaxtu, a name we have heard before. Now that it was with the Swords, it revealed that it is working for the Lord Mayor of Irongate, and that its name is Lawrence of Woton Manor. Kespin and Westwind immediately began calling it "Larry", which I find most amusing. That night, we were awakened by another presence in the copse of trees where we were camping. When we investigated, we saw a ghost of something very large. I knew that it did not pose any danger to us, but also that we did not have the time to spare to send it on its way to the afterlife. We will have to return to this place to put this spirit to rest after we have completed our task with the slave lords in the mountains.
We moved off on the 8th toward the mountains. I have sketched out a rough map of the paths that we followed. We chose to windwalk to avoid incidental encounters along the way as well as move more quickly across the terrain. We took the small trail that went south of the largest fort we found. It led into the forest in the foothills and started moving up into the mountains. The trail was just wide enough for one wagon, and it did not seem to get a lot of traffic. As it moved farther up into the mountains, the forest changed from mostly deciduous to almost completely coniferous. We eventually lost the trail when it petered out in some more rocky terrain. We decided to fly up the mountain. It seems that the top of the mountain has been sheared off, leaving a large flat terrace at the very top. We suspected that we would find our quarry at the top, so we headed up. We passed a couple of caves, and two yellow-green flying lizards with no eyes flew out at us. We flew quickly away from the mountain, and they gave up the pursuit. We came back to the mountain and renewed our ascent. At that point, we saw a very large dragon fly out over the edge of the mountain, circle around lazily, and return back to the top out of sight. We stopped our ascent at that point. We landed and tried to discuss possible approaches to our assault on the top. Unfortunately, our discussion was overheard by some trolls in a guard post in a nearby cave. They came out, we flew around them and into the cave where we dropped the windwalk and joined battle. We defeated them, anointed them with oil, and set them afire. We then explored the cave. There was a pit trap in a tunnel that seems to go nowhere. The other split passed a shallow pond. The wall by the pond was seeping water, and the floor of the tunnel is damp and very slippery in sections. The tunnel then started sloping downward. It split, and Wraith went ahead to scout it out. The right fork ended in a dead end, and the left fork had nothing within 50 feet of the split.
We returned to the main room where we had fought the trolls. We searched around and found a small statuette of a horse among their belongings. There is an inscription on the statuette that says "Steelhoof" in dwarvish. Unfortunately, none of us speak dwarvish, so for now, the statuette is useless to us. We found a bone scroll case in the pit trap with an arcane mark on the end of it: the letter "O" in draconic, and the arcane rune for "ice". The scroll inside has the spell "Power Word Stun", and we gave the scroll to Lysander.
We will stay here tonight and decide what to do in the morning.
I hope you are well, my love. Pelor watch over us.
Tesseran
