kiya

Session 1: The wind and the dust go 'round and 'round
Session 2: Oh no. . . I just realised I named my horse 'Charlie'. . .
Session 3: Look, you got beaten up by a RICH ogre.
Session 4: Chief.
Session 5: Roight, Brain, but next time you're wearing the dress.
Session 6: Today was a very ranger day.
Session 7: God is dead. Long live God.
Session 8: More gaming.
Session 9: Stick 'em up! Put all your arithmetical operators in the bag!
Session 10: An Interlude Full of Irritating Cats
Session 11: Psycho Killer Cybermuppets and Other Magical Explosions
Session 12: Rich beyond our mildest delusions (Excuse me, sir, could you spare an orc?)
Session 13: Let's go visit the Spartans! I hear Switzerland is lovely this time of year.

We spent a good amount of time with the elves, preparing. Couple of weeks, with Adosar making things in his room in the evenings, and all. It was busy.

We got asked if we'd attend a meeting in something called the 'Portal Room' after we'd been there for a bit. So we got directions to there, and went around and up, and it was up a big tower, higher up than I've been without climbing a tree. Or a mountain, I suppose, but hills aren't up in the same way that trees are.

The room had in it a sort of, well, frame, I guess. I looked at it with Semtek's gift of sight, and it was magical, or at least had had magic sleeted through it a lot, like Lord Stashen's keep was. Now I'm wondering if it has anything to say; I wonder if I'll have a chance to ask it sometime. We got there, and then two elves stood on either side of the frame, and made a magic, and held it there; I could see them working on it, and it was hard work.

And magic slid across the frame, and then we could see through it, to trees on the other side. And Serenny, who we knew, who's one of the chief druids at home. She came through, and gave us news of what's been happening. The clans have survived the winter, well the last one, the one back before the mountain; the ritual they worked with the bowl we brought them held.

It's been bleeding out outside the clan's lands, though. Harder, harsher. The clans have all settled closer to the center, to make it easier, and there's a Council now, everyone talking, all the chiefs and some of the elders all talking together. Fahad has resigned any claim to the chieftainship of anything, but he's proving himself as a leader of warriors. Which means . . . which means that the clans are going to be ready. We're not going to have to argue with them too much, I don't think.

There's been more contact with orcs lately. (Session Quote: Any of it peaceful? --Renn) They've come down off the high plains, because something's been fighting with them, driving them off. I don't expect that they're really happy with that at all. I'm guessing Xenecal's forces are stirring, and that's why; he's the one that lived on the west side of the stepped. Fire and demons and anger and lashing out at everything and . . . not the problem at the moment.

The halfling caravans are still moving, some; the one we met hasn't been seen since they left, but we wouldn't expect them to yet. But at least that's normal.

- Adosar, Thiara, Renn, Thiara, Renn

Adosar told them that we're going to go kill Fingul. A lot of people were awfully surprised at that. I guess I don't really know why right now, because there isn't anything obvious left for us to do right now. We solicited help. Renn got some healing magics in bottles from the druids, enough for three for each of us and three for Niador, too, since he's coming along all the way. And we're getting an escort to get us there, but we're not going to be able to bring them all the way to the thorn-fortress.

We asked our escort, who'll be getting us to the Dark Road, to decide about having someone come along with us to help us get there. It feels right, too, not just because it demonstrates that the elves are in this war, if this is the first blow and they have someone to be a finger in the fist.

I got them to give me some inks and magics for making magic maps, and wrote more protections with Adosar's help. Renn's looked at them, so she can help me read the maps, so it won't take so much time to do it. This is good.

The Queen gave us each a cloak that will help us with hiding when we go into the cavern. Which is also good.

We got all the news we had, and sent news back home. I nearly asked Serenny to bring the shortsword the clan gave me back, but that would be too much like expecting not to come home. It's my burden, it's my responsibility. I will carry it home and give it to my father, so that he can give it to the next person qualified to bear it for the clan's good. This isn't a thing for intermediaries. It is still my clan, and its responsibilities and respect persist in me.

keshwyn

jikharra

So we set out with our escort, heading for the Dark Road. Hethian came with us, even though he wouldn't be able to get through the crack when we got there; I guess he'll stay with the escort and help them fight. The elves didn't seem to like the Road much. Niador seemed amazed -- I'm getting the impression that he'd not known it was there. It's a dwarfish thing, and he knows a lot about dwarfish things. I hope he goes back to his city and makes them think that it should be part of their national pride to fix it. Fixing the Road would make it easier to bring everyone together, because there's a way to walk there. All this walking through holes in the air is useful, but not something that just anyone can do.

We camped in the road. The leader of our escort had a little device, that looked like it was made of glass. He started it up, and said that the magic would keep us from being seen. We stayed near the edge of the Road and had sentries. Then we started walking again.

After a while, there was sound up ahead. I saw Adosar's mark on the ground, the one he'd made with magic so we'd know where the crack we wanted to follow was. (I asked him if that was his mark, and he traced a few lines in the air with his finger and asked me if that was what it looked like, and it was, so I knew it was his.)

When we got to where we could see the crack, though, it wasn't a crack anymore. They'd opened it out into a sort of rough tunnel, and had guards there. Goblins, trolls, and . . . things. Skin-beasts, looking like starved, furless wolves only the size of horses, with spines. When they fought, they shook themselves, and the spines stuck into people and got in their way. Our escort took out the guards, though. The skin-beasts howled, so we knew we'd probably been noticed. The captain introduced us to the elf who'd be coming with us. He's named Ta'Nial. ("He doesn't think he's going to die! He's in Ta'Nial!" --

keshwyn)

We went through the passage. It was the same passage, for sure, the same length, and when we came out on the other side we saw the ragged ruins of the webs that the spider that attacked us had made. I guess they killed it when they went through here.

We started towards the thorn fortress. After we'd gone a while, we saw some spiders, coming along the walls. I had to make a quick decision; I'd prepared some magics that would protect people from poison as the best I could do, so I made one on myself, and moved so that they would probably attack me first. Two of them rushed at me; I poked one with my sword and it backed off, but they bit me a bit. The magic held, and I killed them pretty fast, with Renn shooting them from back over my shoulder occasionally.

When we had finished killing the spiders, I gave Niador my potion that helps against poisons, because he was looking a little wobbly. He turned a little green a few minutes later, but he was all right. I drank a few of my brews while we were walking, so we saved spells.

We ran into an entire pack of skin-beasts, and that hurt a lot. We also got spotted by a troll and his pack of goblins, which hardly hurt at all. I'm not sure what they saw, though; we were really hard to see. (Session Quote: Put the shield under the cloak. --Karas) When we were attacked by shadow-beasts, only the people who hadn't seen them before had a problem; they ran right by Renn (who'd been scouting for us, up ahead) and she came up behind them and used the magic gloves Adosar had given her to cut them through with light. One of them hit Karas, and I cut it apart with my sword; I think Adosar dealt with the rest of them.

Right after that we ran into another pack of skin-beasts. Renn didn't see them, but they didn't see Renn; they didn't seem to see us either, and were going by, but then I guess they noticed something (maybe Niador hiding behind a rock) and came around. This time I had a chance to awaken the amulet Adosar gave me, and as they came forward, I came over to cover him from if they attacked. He went forward, waved to me to stay a little back, and yelled at three of them to come at him; when they charged, he took a magic he had on his arm and flung it up to make a wall in their faces.

Whump! Whump! Whump!

When the wall came down they were all mad, though, and they whirred and bit at him and spines went everywhere and he fell down. I stepped up to try to keep them from biting him, I didn't have time to see if he was all right or give him one of my potions or anything. Renn rolled past me and made a magic at him as I was trying to stand them off and I could hear him wriggling away after that.

I took one of the skin beasts down, but the other ones hit me and bit at me and I sort of fumbled backwards, and nearly dropped my sword. Renn poked me in the back with her staff (she'd done this a couple of times before) and I felt better, and then Karas came roaring around behind one of them and hit it and we pounded on it and it fell down, and the last one ran away. I tried to hamstring it as it ran away, but I didn't get that lucky; I did hit it, though. Karas was still angry, and he ran after it and killed it and then came back looking a bit winded.

We decided to take a rest and hide carefully in amongst a good pile of rocks, to deal with the healing and the recovery and the thinking about what we're doing next; we'd had a lot of fights all in a row and people were being busy about it. Adosar made a magic, put it on a pebble, and asked me to swallow the pebble. He's done this before, but it's still a little odd.

I asked the sword if it knew anything about how to find Fingul inside his thorn-fortress. And then I thought about it for a moment, and made the tracking magic and studied the sword, and there was a line of power running between the sword and the thorn. I couldn't tell whether it went up or down or anything, but I think it'd be easier when we're there.

I studied the magics for a while, and I saw other lines, going off in other directions. Karas seemed worried about it. I'm not sure I know how to explain it, especially since some of them went off in a direction that I couldn't look. Adosar reminded me about the ones on elemental planes, so I guess that would explain that if I were entirely sure what a plane was. I finally told Karas that it looked like a loom that someone dropped a kitten on, but I don't think that helped.

When we get to the fortress, I'll change cloaks from the sneaky one to the one that makes me stronger against magics, and I'll make the tracking magic again. And if Fingul's right around there, I'll start with the protection maps. If we have time.

The tracking magic's gone out again. I guess that means it's probably time to go. . .

Into Barney

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