[In the beginning: The chase]

Got chased out of Kul-Kan by the face-less demons. "Aerin" A demonslayer and
"Jubal" My master were killed. Aerin, by his own sword. Jubal, by having his
insides eaten. :P Grabbed my stuff from the inn the inn got attacked i think.
fled to the gates, poounded on the gates to get out. A demonslayer left to go
try and take down the demon following me, the other guards open the gate.
Fled on a horse i had purchased through the gates. rode until the horse was on
the verge of falling. Stopped for a rest. decided to head for the barons keep.
offered better protection concidering the kings palace wouldn't open to one such
as me. got to the next village, had an inn got a room, "you didn't see me", and
crashed after depositing my horse. work and found work at the mayors, doing the
tax report. found out afterward why this job was open. The normal scribe had
died in his dreams about the time i rode into town the night before. "You know
how that is. If you die in your dreams, you die for real!" "Yea.... I know."
got some gold and supplies, food traveling stuff. time passed got to the keep.
asked to talk to the mage. told the guard it was important. guard took me to the
mages house. asked for a divination. He said in exchange for a favor. said cool.
mage chanted, lights went out. mage gave me the letter and died. went outside
told the guard about the dead mage and booked. 

[Friends aquired]

several days later got to the
town i meet the party in. went into the inn wet. put the horse up. asked about
the mage in town. saw amazon bitch, albino dude, and warrior person. was told 
to hold on for a sec. got impatient and left. couldnt find the mage on my own. 
went back in apologized for impatience, got barmaid to lead me to the mage. at 
mage, woke him up. he brought me in. talked to him, got a shave.told him about 
his brother. He said to come back in the morning.  "I have a letter for you. 
Your brother is dead." Went back to inn. talked to warrior for a while, told
him bits of my story, he told me he'd kill me before letting me bring more doom
upon anymore innocent people. I agree and told him i'd fight. He offers me a
room. I accept. during the night his wards go off. i wake to a stench of death
and decay. warrior lights up the room. the face-less in the corner screams and
disappears. I scream. dragged out into the hall. met the other two. went out the
inn door. saw lights down near the wizards house. ran there found twenty
goblins. fought them to death. Ran to the mages house. Saw the bodily
decorations and dropped. resqued??? by warrior as the house went up in flames.

told town about dathiki. town talked about idea, and decided to book. They 
headed a direction to another town. Our horses went with them. We began 
preperations for the attack. During this time, William and I scouted. found
dathiki and (another) wizard killed them. William and i hurt. tarri heals us.
Set up baracades. listened to stories of old timers
told of a castle not far from here previously owned by a baron during the 
dathiki wars. supposedly had good magic against dathiki. dragon boy volunteered
to go check on the castle. he came back with exploder wizard Dark Sneider, then
disappeared. Dark sneider had with him a daughter who was wounded. Tarri healed
Arshes as she is named. Arshes turned out to be a young 14 yr-old dark elf.
quite cute. :) We told dark sneider of the dathiki. he told us of the orcs at
the castle told of by the old woman. we volunteered him to join our group. and
informed him of my troubles. he seemed to drift during my dialogue and then
started a new conversation over me. how rude. we decided that the castle was 
more defendable. and took off for the castle. unfortunatly the old people
stayed behind. "i've been here all my life and i'm gonna die here. :)" we laid
a very obvious trail away from the village towards the castle. took several 
days. once there we

[find Magic Castle first time]

foolishly didn't scout before we entered. found there to be 65+ orcs in the 
castle and quickly beat a retreat. we then got dark sneider to fly us to the
roof of the tower. first up was william as he could take quite good care of 
himself. then griffin, then arshes the tarri. by the time arshes was heading
back, the orcs were apon us. tarri was spoted instantly and started to lead a 
group of the orcs on a merry chase. i was missed in the hubbub and managed to
kill two orcs in the twilight. about five minutes later, when i had began to
wonder if i was going to get included in the plan i had thought up, dark 
sneider finally shows up in the sky above me screaming his head off. i wave to
him the orcs notice me. i get picked up put recieve an arrow in the side for my
troubles. go down the trap door find a rusted shut door. discuss for a while as
to wheather we should open it. continued to discuss. etc.... etc.... i finally
told griffin to kick the door down. william helped to cut the door down. A "ki"
sized hole was made in the door. i crawled through into a room with cots and
a four poster bed. i was told it was dark but the moonlight streaming down the
trapdoor was enough to see by. dark sneider wondered how i could see in a
completely dark room, but right as this was asked william finished breaking down
the door and the torch entered the room lighting it for all to see.

William, Griffin, tarri and darshu took the left corridor and i took the right.
At the end of the corridor, stairs went down both sides. both lead down to the
next level. the next level is filled with an attack slime. and has stairs
leading to the church. the church has pews and an altar in the middle.
i got to the middle pick up the bar and get stuck. the altar flares behind me.
the rest leave griffin to defend me and take off. (Griffin) kills the 
soul-stealer after a little time.
next level down is found the magicians study. we find several books, a ring and
a wand(stick). also an altar directly below the one in the church. the flame is 
out on the top of the tower. the use of the church altar must drain the flame
on top.
next level down is a storage room with trap doors. the crates are useless.
down the trapdoor is the demon. demon kills william and tarri. arshes sees it
but flees. darshu goes down to check. get hit in the face with a fireball, dives
out of most of it. comes up and informs us of their death.
darshu sits, reads books and sets me free by way of light spell.
i kick darshu. darshu gets angry. we decide to ignore it and keep going.
We open the door to the parapets and kill a couple orcs on the wall. we cross
over into the castle proper and discover a large grand hall. marble floor with
intricate design. stairs up to several rooms and a library. library still in
good condition. darshu tried to hide library, but couldn't. in a room upstairs
we find the time-cage. containing the corpse of what looks like a powerful
magician and his armour and sword. the cage ages anything that comes into it.
one of our swords finds that out the hard way. there is a kitchen and a stair
down also. oh, and on the up stairs there are two suits of plate. slightly 
rusted. downstairs is found a catacomb, we look around. find an old store room
and decide to leave, as we are not in a position to search.

we climb to the top of the tower again and the blue flame is back on. the orcs
are milling around the bottom of the castle. in the distance we see a dragon.
the dragon gets big passes over and i stress out. in my unconciousness, the 
dragon tells me "Do not fear me, little brother." and leaves a happy feeling
in my head. it swoops and fries all the orcs. We fly down to the orc camp
and scavenge it. find gold(melted) and not much else. other than the fact we
are being followed by several orc wolf riders.  we return to the old village to 
find it burnt and destroyed. the old folk are dead. a large bouncing creature 
was here. with big claws that can gouge stone.

[find more members]

We follow the townsfolk and move on to the next city. being chased by the orc
riders.  Along the way we meet an odd man. he is dressed in black and 
interested in our cause. we tell him about the orc riders and he tells us not
to worry. we thank him for his time and continue on.  
At the next city, we ask
to speak to the town council of both towns. the town is only a little over
crowded. the man i talk to is rude. i tell him what is going on. he gets unrude
real fast. he takes us to the town council. they are inside the town inn. two
remarkable people are the man,covered in furs, we met before and another young
man a couple years older than me. the boy introduces himself as damon.
we tell them about the 10,000 orc
horde coming this way and the orc riders. we tell them to prep for an attack.
the man takes over defense of the town. he tells us to get ready. the elders
volunteer the local mage for defense of the town. he comes forward and tells
griffin to go running around the city with this magic dust to form a wall. we
can hear the riders in the woods. griffin get mostly around the city when the
riders break from the woods. Damien, the man in black a demon hunter, fells
one of the orcs with a bow shot through the eye. griffin is caught in a fight
with a couple of the orc riders as are we at the center of the town. damien, 
damon, the magician and i fight versus a couple wolf riders who got through. 
Darshu is fighting from the air. Arshes is around some where. griffin completes 
the circle after a bit of dodging from the orcs. the field goes up and a couple 
of orcs are trapped outside. We kill the few remaining orcs inside. the others 
are killed by long range bow fire. we retire to sleep. i inquire about damiens
bow. he says he'll make me one. the next day we go to our horses and damien is
waiting for us. he hands me a new bow with runes inscribed on it. i enquire
about the runes. he tells me they will help on my trip, and remains close 
mouthed about them. he then asks damon if he is ready for the initiation. we
look confused as does damon. he says sure. damien raises his blade and begins
to incant. the blade glows and rune emerge on it. damon eye widen as he looks
upon an elermian slim blade. at the climax of damien rituals he plunges the
blade int the unprepared chest of damon. damien withdraws the blade and gives
it to damon. damon, really dead accepts the blade and begins to heal himself.
Damien gives us a letter to give to the baron to allow us entrance to talk
to him.  the elders tell us to warn the baron and the king. the baron??
the person they own alliance with. they tell us were he is. we sleep the night.
We leave in the morning telling the town to follow after us cause they aren't
safe without more military support.  takes about a week to get from the town to 
the barons keep. However alone the way, we met a group of mounted knights from
the king. the are out here to make sure that the regional barons dont get out
of hand. they are also looking for a man that is amazingly close to what Damien looks like. he is aparently evil or something. so we tell them that we haven't
seen the fellow. even though we kind look slantways at the apprentice demon
hunter in the group. they pass on telling us to continue on our path and warn
the baron. they didn't seem too surprised by the incoming orcen horde. odd.

[meeting the real baron and the seeres]

we go beyond them and continue on to the baron's. although with a lot of
interest as to why the knights were looking for Damien. The baron's is actually
a largish town with the keep at the center and up on a hill. We walk into town
and check around for a couple minutes. And then head for the baron's keep. we
approach the door and talk to the guards. The guards ask us etc. i show them the
letter from damien and tell them to give it to the baron, he will see us. They
come back and tell us to go in. We go into the main hall and see a tall man
sitting in the throne(chair) i step forward tell him of the orc horde and how
his town will rather soon be bursting at the seams from the other towns coming
here. he tells me that he knows of this and that he needs time to think. Come
back tommarrow.  ok, then. does this town have a seer or something. yes, we have
a seeress, talk to her if you wish.ok, we will. We leave and stop by the
seeress's tower. but she is busy say's her old house maid, and we make an
appointment for later. We stop by the church to get healed up. Griffin is down
some damage. Initially send Darshu and he pisses off the first innkeeper. We go
find hotel rooms and have an argument over whether arshes gets one or if she 
stays with Darshu. She gets her own room but Darshu doesn't know. 
we then split up to explore the town. I go to find the thieves 
guild, Damon tries to follow me. Griffin wanders around town. Darshu tries to
bond with his daughter and get's dragged around town shopping. I contact the
beggars, talk to them for a while, and then corner a young man who was both
beggar and runner in the same day.(he was wounded a couple hours ago) we talk
about the rules for the town and ask about things that i should worry about.
we spot damon and tell wave him off. he turn invisible and trys to act that way.
we lose Damon before we duck into a tavern to talk. Griffin get's lost and
tries to find his way around. Damon buy's a couple things. A crossbow and
bolts. He also get's mugged and looses everything he just bought and his sword.
and is given over to the police as a demon. He used magic to try to escape the
mugging. the entire city is horribly magic scared, a very religous town and the
religion denies magic. Damon spends the night in jail. Which is better than 
what happened to us. during the night, i am awoken to the sound of liquid 
bubbling. i grab my sword and leap out of my bed. i step out of my bed and a 
thin line of fluid leaks in through the roof and begins to form a blob on my 
bed. i step to the door, open it and step into the passageway. i trun around
and get a tentecle in the gut. the attack stun me and such. i beat on it once
and awaken griffin and darshu. Griffin come out and slices the tentacle with
his two-handed sword. it withdraws out of me. Darsh comes out of his room and
throws a spell at the demon in my bed.  Griffin picks me up and takes me 
downstairs and then heads back up to the fight. I'm hurt. Arshes hasn't woken 
up.  Darshu runs into her room and tries to shake her. she doesn't waken. Darshu
tries to pick her up and finds she is attached to the bed. He looks under the 
bed and find another demon slime underneath one of it's tentacles in arshes.
the slime thorws another tentacle at darshu and impales him. The one on my bed 
has moved and can't be seen. we hear darshu groan and griffin rushes to help
him. i come back upstairs after bandaging my wounds, with an oil lantern in 
hand. i step back into my room get my bow and  go to help arshes. Darshu hurts
it a bit and hears Arshes make a strangled gurggle noise and goes berzerk. 
Griffin stabs it a couple times, and the tencle pulls out of arshes and darshu
and slams into griffin. pinning him to a wall. i shoot it a couple times. it 
explodes in a shower of acid, right as the other one starts to come through the
wall behind Griffin. we fight it collectively and kill it, but it wound griffin
more. We collect our stuff and leave the inn. i send darsh uand arshes to the
church, it can defend them well. Griffin and i head that way but separately.
Along the way Griffin and i meat the evil wizard. he is a desolid form that
say hello and then tries to touch me. i go on the defensive and step back sword
in hand. Griffin steps forward and tries to attack. the mage touches him and he
falls to the ground unconscious. i see this and start screaming for the watch,
and dodging his touch. after and amount of time of me dodging him the
watch can be heard coming close. the wizard says another time and disappears.
i pick up griffin and head to the church.
we arrive at the church and catch up the rest of the party with what has
happened to griffin and i. griffin comes around a few minutes later and we
ask the priest for healing. he heals us as much as he can. "oh, i tired' quoth
he. wuss. and we remain in the church until damn and the time we can see the 
baron. darshu stays with arshes as she hasn't mentally recovered yet. and is
told to go see the seeress, she is better at such things. we arrive at the 
baron's castle on time,find that damon is here under guard and we follow him
into the castle. Damon is brought up on the charge of being a demon and for
using magic. we interupt to stand for damon and tell the baron that he is
with us and no demon. for he is an aprentice demon hunter. he lets damon lose
and tells him to be more careful. we ask the baron about his 
decision and he says that he already new about the orcs. and he had sent a 
messenger to the king already, but another one would be good since he hadn't 
heard from the one he sent before. he chrages us with the task of going to the 
king and warning him. we thank him and leave. damon tells us of his mugging
and subsequent loss of the elermian slim-blade. we all groan, but i think i 
can buy it back. ie a finders fee, for the thieves guild. 

[Who am i? The answer]

i go to talk to the
seeress about myself while everyone but Griffin heads into the town to try to
find things. we wait at the bottom of the seereess steps for the maid to let us
come up. she tells us to come up. we come up adn meet the seeress. i ask her 
what am i? she replies you are of the blood of heroes. you have the most ancient
and noble blood possible, what is this blood fo heroes? through out human time,
heroes have appeared. they know no reason for their existance but they appear
when there is great need on the land. they can't be traced back through parents
for the blood does not flow like normal bloodlines. it hops and skips around.
you have the highest concentration of the heroes blood that i have ever heard
of.They will be hunting you. Who?? Who will be hunting me? The forces of evil.
oh course. All of them??? all of them! can't you teach me a way to guard myself.
i can't teach you magic. you use magic differently than i. your magic is far
stranger than mine. if i teach you magic i will cripple your abilities. Who can
teach me? another of your kind. and don't rtust most magicians. they will
covet your power and try to enslave or control you. or kill you. anything else
i should or shouldn't do. yes, since you are a hero and one with such inate 
power. i don't feel any power. shush. the creatures of the lower realms will be 
trying to kill you and steal your blood. conjurations or summoning are bad.
they will trun bad and summon something you don't want in your presence. i'm
kinda fuzzy on the whole good bad thing. How bad is bad? imagine having the
small puppy that your trying to summon coming through the spell as one of the
bigger demons of hell. oh, good safety tip thanks seeress. Griffin looks stuned.
we tell her about the demon attack last night, she offers her tower as safety.
we thank her and depart. i ask griffin to follow me as i try to get Damon's
sword back. i find the beggar boy again and tell him i need to speak with the
hand. he arranges a meeting. i show up at the meeting spot with griffin hanging
outside. i am led into what should be a darkened room. the hand stays hidden
in the shadows. however, i can see that it's an older mature woman who is the 
head of the guild. we discuss term and agree to an obscene amount of money for
the sword. i ask her about finding something, if perhaps they had found a lost
object. etc... meet us on the docks etc.. i say thank you ma'am and startle them
a bit. she spoke like a man remember. i leave the building at the same time that
griffin munks up his hiding and gets a ballista through the chest for his 
troubles. i run over and amazingly enough manage to stop the flow of blood. i 
yell to one of the people close by, go get the healer. they run of and fetch 
him. griffin is healed enough to were hell survive. and we return to the 
seeress's tower. at the correct time i go pick up the sword. after giving the
thief the money he steps off the boat into the water. i return the sword
to damon and tell him he owes us. we go to bed and wake up the next morning
go to the baron's collect the letter to the king and head for the king's
castle.

CON

(big break in action until after story detailed in Hero.15.exp)

find a burned out village. in the village. One girl was found alive. Her mother
had died shortly before that. She informed us that men like Derek had killed
the town. We chased after them. The offenders turned out to be a group of 
twenty-five guardsmen, two of which were magicians. through the use of combat 
magic the 12 of the guard escaped our vigilance. we recovered twelve bows and
their insignia from them. the soldiers cut off their own members heads when
they fell to our weapons. damon downed most of the group with his cone spells.
the rest teleported away.

[oops. A fight with the constables. and what do you mean magic bridge]

	At the next town we turned the little girl in to a family. we found out
the forces we had fought against were members of the constables. The militia
and standing army of the contry. the witch in town is the communication point
of the constables. we figure that they were a rogue band of them to start a war 
with our contry. we sleep through the night to be awoken by a green light that 
disappears before we can get to it and figure it out. We check on the witch and
find out she isn't there and that the magic around her house in very reduced.
we talk to the cat and then leave. after several hours the road turns south
and we meet a large outpost of constables. we stop to think about what to do 
and ask for directions they send out a greeting party of fifteen men. we tell
then that we are peaceful traders and they tell us to prepare to be taxed.
derek reminds us of the evidence that we carry. ie the bows and insignia.
i make them teleport away trying to hide them and dereks armor. they find the 
armour. we deny that it's ours. darshu gets pissed and fires at the captain.
a fight ensues. Griffins axe is the only thing that saves us. Darshu and I are
downed in the first instant of combat. the rest slowly fall. then griffin fall
under the axes control. The axe kills everyone else. we gather everything
and gallop into the woods. after an hour we stop and broke for the night.

During the next day we find the constables are still after us and doing a 
pretty good job of hunting us down.
they are combing the woods as if they were searching everytree. We continue 
along for a couple days fearing thast they would catch up.
but we were faster and they were searching carefully. WE magically arange
for a deadfall tree to fall upon the next man who walks underneath it. and then
find the brdige. Its a bridge covered in gargoyles and bathed in magic. dasrshu
gets too close to the bridge and gets sucked in. griffin, derek and i tie ourselves together and leap into the bridge. The line to the tree behind us snaps.
we find our selves facing a rock troll. four arms four legs. big and nasty. 
horrible healing nasty. we and derek fall to the ground because of the anti-magic field that we find ourselves in. griffin cuts me lose and tries to run me
round the end of the bridge to darshu and magic. the troll beats him into a wall
hurting him bad.eventually we get to the side of the bridge that darshu is
on. the troll unharmed by our attempts to wound it returns to the center of its bridge. me fly over the bridge avoiding the null-magic zone. we are in the mountains hundreds of miles from were we were and the temp is -15 degrees. griffin
build and igloo while i examine the bridge. darshu scouts out two caves for us and find wood and food lower down on the mountains. dasrhu the heads of to examine the ornate dwarvish cave.

[ummm... sorry about those runes derek. And who a hot plate]

in the smaller cave. three polar bears. killed skinned and eaten. will last 
nine rough days. this becomes our base for trying to figure out the dwarvish
door. 
in the dwarvish cave is a wall with 107 runes on it and 41 bricks in it. it 
contains 7 privacy runes and 6 of them form the last. it fries what ever is in 
the cave. activation is floor. darshu is the ferry that gets us there. derek is
the rune man. I'm the magic guy. We figure out that it has 7 triggers. 2 touch
1 sound, 1 loss of magic,and one everything(the big rune) and two we can't 
figure.
	after a time we return to our base and sleep. in the night we are 
attacked by a sixlegged nasty that is scared of the light. we are drugged into 
submission by the gasses it emits. darshu and shayla are fine. darshu is
wounded and shayla drives it off with the light. We pause a moment and decend
into the tunnel cause bythe beast. oh it had big diggers.
the tunnel is crumbly and injures shayla, derek grabs her and we continue. 
darshu is hit by the desturbed ceiling and wounded. we continue on down the
passageway. and find a maze like lair. passages lead off and down and around.
we proceed on a down and south direction whenever we can. after a fight with
one of the creatures involving me droping to the ground to allow darshu a shot.
of course the nasty little fog is down there too. and i don't breath in.
the magic and flame don't injure the creature much, but arshes dagger does.
she stuns it and i kill it after shning a light in it face.
We continue away from the creature with me in the lead. i step on a weak 
section of floor. the floor for 17 hexes falls away in front of me. i jump back.
me and darsh uexplore the opened chasm to find it leads down to an old dwarven 
bridge. teh bridge is broken and destroyed, but would have run over a large
river. at the southern road are the remnants of a three hundred year old
fight. griffin and derek identify the humans as northlanders. we find several
magic items amongst them. a shield, helmet, book and three human slaying arrow
heads. the fighters were arrayed around a central figure carrying the book, As 
if protecting him. the bridge was sabotaged and had the feel of custer's last
stand.

[dwarven city. but why is everyone dead]

we take the items and 13 gp we find. and move along the road south. after many
miles, we decide that it's time to nap. Darshu grows bored and scouts ahead, 
in the morning darshu still has not returned. we travel onwards and cover many 
more miles. we come out onto a lhuge opwn area. on top of the area are several
large crystals bringing light in from the outside. a dwarven city is displayed
before us. the city itself is arrayed in perfect uniformity. each quarter of
the city is a duplicate of the others. in the center of the city is a large 
altar, the size of a house. the altar is composed of forging stone and no cast
magic can be generated around it. the magic is still there, it just can't be
focused. at the back of the altar is a section that would perfectly fit the
dwarven artifact that the king gave me. i decide to wait until night and
darkness. Darshu and Arshes decide to go scout the southern tunnel. at night, 
a keen wind like noise begins. it grows louder and as it 
grows. ghost begin to appear, going about there normal business. as the wind
gets louder, no breeze is felt. the louder the breeze the more solid the ghosts.
my compaignions flee to a dwarven house and seek shelter. i summon a magic 
block against the noise. and stay outside. soon the wind is almost loud enough
to overwhel my senses and it stops rising. i remain in the blechers around the
altar, and watch the ghosts do there thing. a group of priest like ghosts spend
three hours carving a bowl from solid stone as if it were wood.ghosts with karts
run around the city moving things and doing other things. yet stars still shine
through the crystals. plan a way to insert the dwarven artifact without
exposing it to the light. come up with an idea. using a bag to protect the
artifact. Try to fit the artifact into the hole in the altar and it doesn't fit
it's missing a 1/16th of a inch. i think it might be missing a coating or
something. my ears start to bleed to i run into cover. i duck into a dwarven
household and allow my ears to heal while i observe the ghostly family before
me. i begin to feel the magic disipating around me. i thank the dwarven family
for a lovely meal. they ignore me and i step outside into the night to find what
is draining the magic. i fly up onto the top of a dwarven building and look
around for sign of magic loss. i spend several minutes as the magic wanes
looking for it and spot something out of the tops of my eyes. up through the
crystal i can see a large spell in progress. very far away and very distorted
from the crystal. i ly down and augment my sight to bring myself closer to the
spell. i can't get anymore information. i build up a pocket of magic around me
to protect myself from the magical depletion, and observe the spell while
lying on the roof. a couple hours before dawn the spell blinks out and the 
magic drain stops. of course by this time the only magic in the city is that
in the bubble around me. it take two hours for the magic to fill the city again.
it radiates out from the stone altar in the middle. i find my friends again as
soon as i am no longer trapped in a prison of my own making. derek did not fair
that well during the magic loss. he is still under. when he awakens he demands
that we leave and head down the south passageway. the rest agree and they head
on. i decline, tell them I'll catch up and remain to try to figure out the
city. i wander the city that day, trying to figure out is many secrets. 
everyhome has a forge. there are seven tiers to society, ie seven different 
buildings. well the buildings are the same. only the front door is different.
i spend the rest of the day investigating the city and wait for night. night
comes and so does the wasting of the magic. i quickly fly to the roof of the 
cavern to get a closer look at the magic. and find out that it is some sort
of change environment. it's huge and it's disgusting distances away. and the
wailing comes from the edges of the room inward. the walls seem to eminate the
noise. i quickly flee down the south passage way and quickly catch up with my
friends by accelerating my running. we continue traveling for a day or too and 
darshu returns. the passage way continues for 1200 miles south till it reaches
an opening and it continues south. the opening leads on itno the horizon.
darshu flies off to find his daughter. we catch up to him a couple days later
at a bridge that duplicates the one that brought us north. darshu is smiling
and tell us to watch. he steps onto the bridge and the magic wall rushes to
greet him. before i can yell warning he is gone. i grab griffin and step through
on the other side the party finds the null magic zone. cough cough. we get
dragged out of the field and find ourselves in the deep south. 

[a live dwarven city. and nomads... how odd]

a dwarven
entrance to the south of us and to the north what looks like a nomad travel 
camp. we send darshu to explore the dwarven entrance and we wash and 
investigate the nomads, looking for food and hopefully horses. we are 
intercepted by a vanguard of the nomads, they ask us what we want. we say trade.
they ask what do we have. we say money. oh and the nomads appear to be 
matriarchal. the front rider is female and we let shayla do the talking. the
merchants show us there wares. shayla hasn't had much experience dealing with
merchants or haggling. so we couched her before hand. we end up getting two 
mules and lots of food for four gold coins. the merchants head back to the 
nomads and the nomads continue on towards the dwarves. we go with them.
They seem to be trying to go around us. they set up camp as do we. During the
night of the first watch derek wakes up and finds that there are now 6 tribes
of nomands over the hills. he was alerted by the noise. Shayla takes over
and sits byt the fire. the next day, 40,000 people are over the hill. Derek
heads off looking for a seerer. the rest wander with me looking through the 
newly formed town. the tribes are distinct and separate. they do not mingle
and spend there time setting up camp. looks like it will take them 4+ days to
finish setting up their tents. We wander around and find a centraltribe that
is in white robes and stands out from the rest as having no weapons. They don't
speak our language so we can't communicate. We decide to find the original tribe
we dealt with and speak to them. We pass by a group of men sparing with twin
knives in a circle. derek catches up with us and tells us his tail of the vision
and the fact that the leader of the first tribe is lying about trading with the
dwarves. Derek pushes us towards the dwarves as it is our 'mission' We head
towards teh dwarves and meet the group of dwarves coming out. we warn them
about the 40,000 humans and they continure on anyway. one asks where Griffin
got the axe. he found it. it should have stayed lost. we continue on. find
darshu drunk on the floor. throw him over a shoulder and find the gate. about
a day travel. find a large dwarven gate. guard house outfront. drunk dwarves
drinking out front. they offer us alcohol. and i tell them we need help and
that we need to see there elders. They say sure. go ahead. but don't open the
gate. they give us dwarf beer and we thank them and continue on. i open the gate
with a little strength assistance from my magick, and we enter the first living
dwarven city we have ever seen. As we step forward, the layout looks to be the
same as the other dwarven city. Quartered as it is. Dwarves walking around
make up the difference between the two. light streams in from the crystals 
above to illuminate the enormous cavern carved from the mountain rock. we step
down the stairs of the dwarven city to the floor of the cavern. and hear a
strange voice say beware your blood." as we walk towards the center 
of town horns sound heading towards the center of the city and the forging 
stone altar. after walking for a while and having the dwarves watch us, 
disappear into their houses and reappear behind us, ten dwarves step onto the 
street ahead of us. Each carries a hammer instead of the axe we were thinking 
of. one steps forward and introduces himself as Thomgrim, th captain of the 
guard, i step forward and introduce myself as the emisary from a northern
kingdom that request assistance from the dwarves. Could he take me to their
leaders. Thomgrim says sure. the dwarves escort us to the altar. one on each
of us but griffin. they give griffin and the axe a wide birth and avoid him.
as we get to the center of the city. we notice a very old dwarf atop the altar
working on some task. Thomgrim says that's the rune master, you want to see him.
Would it be bad to intrupt him. yes. When will he be done. six days. oh, we
can't wait that long. You see we are from a kingdom thats in a lot of trouble.
an orc horde is descending upon us, and the king sent me for military assistance
oh, you should have said something. I'm the leader of the military. What do you
want? we seek assistance and military reenforcements. can't help, our northern
city has ben ravenged and we don't have the dwarf power. perhaps the gift my
king sent will help. describe describe. hold on a moment.. thomgrim goes
interupts the runemaster. and the rune master come down looking grim. his
acolytes follow. the acolytes introduce themselves and then he does. he is
fellstorm, rune master of this city. if you have the artifact you say you
have then, we will help you but with hard heart. uh, why. had you brought this
150 years ago then we would be happy as it is the corner stone of the horrible
spell that decimated our northern city but the other pieces to the spell have
been stolen. the spell was cast by a mage of some power who we had trusted.
he had asked for three items, two sowrds and a suit of armour. we made the 
items. he wrapped them in a spell and offered the result to the demons of your
belief system. the result of was the destruction of our northern city. human 
thieves have stolen two of the items that we need to reverse the spell. we
can't recover our kin with just this. we will help you but with heavy heart.
well, actually we will help you to find those stolen bits. the key is a gift
from my king, we need help but not at the expense of your destruction. Humans
have lied to us before. how can we trust you again. "we are of good heart but
how do we prove that to you. we have returned the master key to you, and if we
do not get your help our kingdom falls." we will trust you. we also get rid of 
the axe and get it exchanged for another item. the dwarves find such items
repugnant now. they agree to destroy it. i hear downstairs with the runemaster
into the vault that the sword they still have is stored in. the master opens
the door and a near overwhelming wash of evil waves over me. i stand bathed in
evil as the master stores the master key with the evil sword. we head back 
upstairs. i ask about the mage who did it. and also ask about the voice we
heard at the edge of town. i realise after the master says he has no idea what 
my blood is, that the villian was also of the blood of heroes, and that 
mentioning it aroudn here will get me killed. luckily i phrased my question 
well accidentally. Especially since i had already admitted to having magic.
we return and look around for suplies. griffin gets a forging stone sword to
replace the axe he had destroyed. i trade my farseeing helmet for new chainmail
and a set of strength gauntlets, and a displacer cloak for damon(scum). speaking
with thomgrim gives neat answers and we find out what alot of our items do.
we wait two days for my gauntlets to be finished and then we head out to see
the nomads again. during the wait thomgrim come up and tells us 40 dwarves have
taken the slayer oath and have joined our cause. the engineers are building
a bridge to get them to our kingdom. i teach them human, and they help with
dwarven. they start to make their own items and supplies while we help the
engineers build the bridge. i give the slayers a map of our country and amaze
myself with my memory of the country. also include a letter to garius and the
king, with derek's sigil.

[investigating the nomad city]

	We wait until my gauntlets are done and two days have passed. we then
trek out of the dwarven city towards the encampment of 40,000 nomad. Damon and 
Shayla stay behind and decide to accompany the slayers to our realm. we find
darshu with a hangover on the way back. we torment him for a while until he 
takes a swing at us. ("do you like cheese do you like cheese.") we pick him and
suffer through his moans. we get out of the cave and find that the encampment
has grown to be about 600,000 people. estimated to be the entire plains tribes.
all of them. we start to wander among the tribe trying to figure out what to do.
we meet and odd woman named shiva who knows the plains people better than we
do. she says she doesn't know why all these peope are here. we talk for a while
and we decide to talk to one of the people she knows in this area and inquire
about this large gathering. we go to this persons tent and have shiva translate
for us. turn out that the gathering is for the interpretation of the prophets
words. the prophet was a man who predicted the destruction of the Elermian
society and nine signs leading to the direction the nomads are to take. all of
their chieftains are at the center of the camp in the white robes camp. they
are interpreting the prophets words and will be done in a couple days. the next
sign is the blotting out of the stars and is the seventh sign. i inquire about
the elermian writting of the prophecy that i have. the lady recognizes it and
sends us to another camp, were we find that they are using the characters as
artwork. Everything seems to point to us needing to talk to the chieftains to
get anymore usefull information. let alone try to recruit these people to our
cause. However it is getting dark and we must set up shop. we retire to a 
acceptable distance and set up camp. little later in the night while darshu and
i are watching the sky a distance away from camp trying to figure out what the
seventh sign could be 600,004 scream rise in the air. we look away from the sky
to wonder what that is and then look back up to discover the sky is dark but
for the moon. Shit. darshu carries me flying back to the camp and we discover 
that our compagnion's shadows have risen and begun to fight them. griffin is
horribly wouned in the fight and derek is wounded. Darkness kills them and light
duplicates them but halves there powers. darshu suggested that they are 
creatures of magic perhaps a null magic field would kill them also. i heal
griffin as best i can quickly and then darshu and i fly to help the nomads.
	We arrive there to find our efforts in effectual, and resign ourselves
to to assisting only the white robes. Darshu flies us towards the center of the
town and we find that we are too late. the center camp has already been 
destroyed. we set down looking for survivers and find none, but do find one of 
the demons. It manages to get a swing off at me before darshu can evac me out
of there. we decide we can't help them any and return to the camp. Along the
way we meet another flying magician in the sky, and after noticing him darshu
has a powerout. we are surrounded by a null magic field and begin to fall to 
the ground from roughly 10hex up. the impact with the ground is stunning
but we shake it off and have no broken bones. derek calls out to the other mage
and asks for a name. Malkar the mage replies as darshu levels his hand at him. 
Shiva calls out the she recognizes this mage. He's alright. We accept him into
our camp and he tell us of the demons. they are shadows and are horribly
destructive. an enormous amount of power would be needed to summon this many
creatures. well, we must try to save the town as best we can. so we form up go
inside the edge of the town and retreat after our level headed tactical types
inform us how dumb this was. we run back to the camp and wait until dawn.

[return to the dwarves with the elermian tablet]

	at dawn the shadows disappear and we filter into the town.only 40,000
people survive the slaughter. they start to assemble into group that can
roughly communicate. we search the white robe camp and find the last tablet
of the prophets prophecy. it is written in elermian. we abandon the town and
return to the dwarves. pass the dwarven party on the way and inform them of 
what has occured. they mumble about the breaking of the seals. we hear this 
and are advised to talk to the runemaster. we return and i talk to the rune
master. wait roughly another week for the runemaster to finish destroying
the axe. total axe death two weeks. talk to the runemaster inform of shadows.
looks worried. during the week lots of people hiss and slink away at mention
of dracofiends. show him the tablet and he gets more worried, wishes for the
rest of it. i tell him to use the tablet as a focus and to look backwards
through time to read the rest. he says good idea. I'll send this to the farseer.
i next ask him about dracofiends. he tells me that dracofiends are the riders
of dragons. i say but they are good guys. there a group of them. he says what??
and calls for the extermination of the human race. i quickly fall back from the
altar and inform the rest of the group as to what has happened. Thomgrim gets 
pulled away. my friends remember dark riders from talking with the dragonrider.
shiva gets the dwarves attention and informs them that the dark riders are 
working with the orcs. the dwarves decide to investigate and not neccasarily
obliterate humanity. they eventually send 7000 dwarves to fight the orcen horde.
they leave three k on guard back at home. we tell them that we are going to 
continue to search for the two other items we need. we decide to start in 
the ruins of elermia. we head out of the dwarven city and ...

[Elermia... is it really you]

snag three horses and several mules along the way. the nomads are not having
a good time. we continue to what is supposed to be 
elermia. taking several days to reach the supossed area of elermia. using the
flyers as patrols we find what appears to be an old city. blasted and destroyed.
nothing remains standing. We find shelter in a rubble filled basement of one
of the buildings. the area used to be a lair of some animal. using that as a
base camp, we begin to explore the ruins of what we hope is elermia. nothing
remains. it looks as if the city had been leveled, purposely and carefully
by some horribly powerful magician. there are explosion marks everywhere. old
ones multi hundred years old. we don't have enough experience to determine
dates or times from anything. and we find nothing. no entrances. no gates.
no anything. it gets late and starts to rain. we go back to shelter for the 
night. we set up watches but notice nothing. in the morning, i come up with
the idea of checking to see what has walked in the area since the day before.
see what tracks are around. the flyers, malkar and i search around the place
and find a couple foot prints. we summon griffin, our tracker, forward to see
what they are. humanoid, and probably concious. can't recognise what they are
specifically though. we follow the tracks to find an goblin outpost. using my
magic i look closer at the camp. the are constructing siege engines and are
lead by a large orc. the gobbo's are scared of the orc and work furiously.
me and griffin decide to try to sneak around gobbo camp and find out what they
are up to. the gobbo's notice me and begin yelling. "Hewmy. hewmy." Of course,
this alerts everyone to our being there. at that point derek lets lose with
an arrow hitting the orc. suddenly the gobbo's on his side of the camp notice 
him and begin to move away. the orc however takes notice and fries his area 
with a lightning bolt. taking both Malkar and Derek down in one shot. long story
short. me and griffin keep trying to get to the orc without killing ourselves.
the orc get scared, tries to summon something and gets "george" the faceless 
demon by mistake. the orc freaks and dies as his soul is sucked away. derek
tries to bandage malkar and fails a couple times, but eventually succeeds.
the demon turns towards me as i greet him. "Hi george. How are you today?"
he doesn't respond and hovers over towards us. George and I battle for power
and i lose. griffin picks up my unconscious body after we have covered more 
than half the distance between derek and us. george final got me with a null
magic field. i fall unconcious and panic. griffin picks me up and drags me out
of the field. once i reach the edge of the fields, a sun burns itself into our
eyes from behind us. a huge swath of destruction has obliterated the entire
gobbo camp. the only things standing are George and our party. the grass is 
gone. the siege engines are gone. everything is gone. a circle of bare burned
dirt is centered on George. the gobbo's that dug into the ground to get away
from the fight have everything above ground removed and gone. Griffin is blind.
derek is momentarily blinded, but puts an arrow in George once his vision comes
back. George being horribly wounded by the previous attack goes away. we rest
and heal ourselves. (neat moment for hasashki. did i do all this?)
	Next we go back to looking for elermia, although we spend several days
recouperating from the fight. griffin looks for elermia by talking to the 
underground animals. and malkar lets his mind walk away from his body and
explores the underground. griffin finds a mole that knows of human tunnels in 
the area. and has him lead us to them. once the mole gets to the tunnels we send
malkar's mind into the tunnel and have him follow it to the end. the tunnel
ends several miles away from the dead city in a portculis hidden quite well by
plants. i open the portculis while the rest of the party hides around teh 
entrance. once i open the door everyone assumes a hidden or defensive posture.
i look around like everyone is nuts. Darshu says he can hear something down the
tunnel and says it's coming. taking hi m to heart. i dodge out of the way of 
the tunnel. and then wait for ages while a stone golem slowly advances down the
tunnel at us. darshu tries to test the golem and trips and gets hit by the 
golem. derek continues to plink the golem as it pummels darshu twice. the second
time because he didn't play dead. darshu finally playes dead. and it keeps
walking forward. he flies off behind it down the tunnel. derek continues to
plink the golem and griffin takes a swing at it with his sword. the golem
strikes back putting griffin into unconsciousness.malkar can finally see it.
i put malkar in a high magic field and he shoots it destroying it. we step over
it. oh, yea. shiva tried to trip it with a round stone. we step over it and
proceed down the tunnel. we find the end of the tunnel and step out into
Elermia. an underground city that has been  caved in. But the city not 
destroyed. tunnels run all over the place, and the tunnels are odd things
some in good shape some barely dug out of the rock. i start to map the tunnels
as everyone but derek, myself and shiva goes into wild orgies of greed.
Darshu and malkar begin to assemble piles of maigc items to figure out. griffin
destroyes a suit of elermian plate while trying to modify it. and right as i 
finish mapping the tunnels.... Derek pauses for a moment and says"
i think introductions are in order." to empty space. i ask who he's talking to
and then i hear the noise. "open your mind." says an old voice. derek
and i talk about it for a while and decide that i can put down derek faster
and easier should one of us be taken over. derek opens his mind and i mind link
to him to see what is up. a black dragon forms in his mind looks around and says
there you are then disappears. poopy shiva has noticed this and wonders.
we assemble everyone and tell them what happened. we leave quickly. 

[meeting Molron]

Darshu stays
behind promising to meat us in a week at the human city. we travel that week
and have an eclipse along the way. we get scared by the eclipse but continue
anyways. we find the human city and find the dragon wrapped around it. head
resting on tail. wrapped all the way around it. several miles out from the 
actual city. it's fucking huge. it's ten miles long. it's damn big. the town is
still inside the dragon ring. we go warn the dwarves. the dwarves look at us 
like we insane. derek suggests that we go talk to it. we leave and find out it's
asleep. and that it is chained. black dragons are the joining of a dragon and
a demon. so malkar says. and that it has a throne. the rider is still inside
the dragon ring. we walk off to look at it and find out that the rider is
on a throne of bodies and is causeing the town to sacrifice each other. the 
twenty thousand people quickly become ten thousand and continue to destroy each
other. we notice that he is wearing a sword and armour that could be the armour
we are looking for. we stil can't risk attacking him so we come up with
a plan to look for the armour elsewere. we decide to go to the western capital
and look for them along the way. the from the capital to a dwarven bridge to 
the southern capital. darshu shows up and we alert him to our plan. we given
him a map of the area with our projected route on it. he heads back to elermia
to continue studying. we start on our trip leaving the dragon behind. we
find an inn that night and go to bed. we awaken to shouts and shiva saying
there are ogres. i put on my armour in record time with magical assistance.
derek and griffin go without armour into the streets to help me. 15 ogres have
attacked the city. along with one orc. the ogre lay waste to everyhting in 
their path. we stop them. get in a fight. get in over our heads. if there were 
less of them we might not have to flee. Malkar and shiva run of after the orc
to try and kill him. garius shows up halfway into the fight
and assists in taking the ogres down. 

[Hail, derek the king???]

after the fight and griffin has begun to
eat, garius approaches derek pulls out a crown and says hail my king!
griffin becomes derek's bodyguard, garius talks to us and he leaves in the 
morning. we take a bridge to the southern city and stop at a smaller village 
along the way to discover the value of gold has dropped because of the refuges 
from the northland bringing all the gold down here.

derek tells me about his dreams from the crown of fate sometimes in here

[Meet the Emperor]

Derek and i talk to one of the northlander's who has settled here and is 
happy. he tells us what happened. that the orcs chased them all down south
and that food is scarce here. silver is now the big money.
we then p[roceed into the big city to talk to the emperor.
malkar goes off to talk to his mages guild. shiva goes off to look around the
city as do i. looking for clues on how to see the emperor.
i find out about this princess that could get us in.
then derek and i decide to just go to the front gate and ask to be let in as
messengers from the king(derek). we get to the gate and i have to manufacture
a piece of paper from derek saying that we are messengers. we get let into a
room and are told to wait. after a day of waiting, that night a dragon and 
dragon rider shows up. we mentally communicate with the dragon and ask him info 
about what is going on. Malron is attacking in the west as if a monster civil 
war is going on. and is using this to unite the peasants against the southern
kingdom. the dragon and rider are here to warn the emperor. he doesn't listen
the next day 2.5 days have passed, we meet the emperror and introduce ourselves
Derek addresses the emperor as brother and we ask for forces to assist in 
retaking dereks throne. the best we get without proof is that if derek shows up 
with an army. the emperor will let him have free passage.
we retire from talking to the emperor and head back to talk to our group.
malkar has found out that the big mages of the guild are worried about something
and have been working on something for the last two weeks. two weeks ago
a demon hunter was seen in the guild and malkar wants to talk to him.
we start checking around and spend several days trying to find this demon
hunter as our supplies get smaller and smaller. derek and i decide to request
assistance from the emperor again.
we got hang out at the palace and ask to see the dragon rider also.
the dragon rider shows up and we talk to him for a while about trying to
prove to the emperor that malron is nasty and after him. he offers us
a ride to the elven forest. we accept and leave the palace. we gather everyone
together sell our horses, buy food for the trip and fly east.
the dragon after flying a bit asks us to please close your eyes, we do.
we feel a bump and suddenly we are above the elven forest.

[hello elves. Sorry about the stop over]

the dragon sets us down. we ask for a map. the dragon rider draws a very 
detailed map for us. and then takes off. we decide to start by walking to the 
river south of us while griffon and derek hunt. we hit the river and find
river traffic. we wave and then use the river as a base to start from in our
search for the elves.
we travel two weeks north hunting the entire way. adn find the other river
that we were heading for. we get attacked by 7 orcs and three twisted
datheki. the datheki try to transform me and derek into something else.
i get knock unconcious by the first orc i meet on a lucky shot. adn then
one of the datheki focuses his attention on me.
two go after derek. griffon kills one while derek tries to killthe orcs.
a nimbus of power appears around me and helps to stop the transform against me.
i wake up from the strike by the orc just in time to notice the datheki
trying to touch me again. i blaze a force sword into existance and stab at
the datheki. it does minimal damage but distracts the creature.
Suddenly a wave of arrows erupt from the forest killing all of the evil guys.
11 elves fade in from the forest and one tells us they hve already killed
there messengers. we gratefully thanked them for there help, informed them that we came to this forest to recieve there help. the elf says you have recieved it.
we state that we wanted a different kind of assistance. help with taking back 
derek's kingdom. the elf says you need to talk to the speaker.
we follow the elf to a shimmering portal and walk through into an elven town.
the entire town is a highmagic field. five huge , huge, HUGE trees dominate
the view. they don't look like any kind of tree we've ever seen before.
we are led to a refreshment stand and told to eat. the elf will be back.
Shiva starts juggling and causes quite an uproar in the elven populace. Most 
of the elves in this area of the city start to join in her juggling fest.
Several hours pass and eventually the elven guide re-appears and tells
us the speaker will see us now. we follow the elf and he leads us up the
center tree. we travel high into the leaves of the tree and eventually step out
onto a broad tree limb several roads wide. This limb leads to a amphitheatre
size room which has only the speaker in it. She is wearing a robe made of 
feathers. She lets us intot the amphitheatre and asks us what we seek. Derek
hesitates and steps forward. He informs the speaker of what is going on in his 
kingdom and also of the orcen army that is traveling through her forest. She
already knows about the orc army. And what do you wish from us, she asks.
Derek replies, military assistance. She says i'll ask my people if it is there 
destiny to follow you and join your cause. That is all i can offer. Thank you.
That is all we can ask. Is there anything else i can help you with she asks.
I step forward. "you have heard the request of my companion and his cause is
mine, but i must ask for individual assistance in a separate matter. Molron
is active in the land and is seeking a host of my line. I have reason to 
believe it will be me. THe only way we can currently defeat molron is to 
strike in his moment of regenration and apparently i am to be the bait. If i am
to be bait, i wish for very sharp fangs. I have come to seek those fangs here.
Can you help me find my fangs?" "That is a dark road and is something we must 
think on. Come back later and i will have your answer"
We troop back down the tree and go our individual ways. I engross our guide 
in a discussion of darkelven history that then drifts quickly into a language 
lesson. Shivais off dancing, Derek, Griffon and malkar try to figure out more 
about where we are and what is going on. Malkar goes flying, Griffon climbs
the center tree and Derek Just kinda wanders around. On towards evening I ask
the guide to educate me as you would a young elven child, he tells me to join 
in the dance. I join in the dance stopping off to get a couple new sets of 
clothing and a cloak. Griffon gets a scabbard for his blade, Derek and Malkar
find a vacation and equipment. Three days later, I slow in the dance and know 
i must go talk to the speaker. I head up to the speaker, knowing the way.
i step into the amphitheatre and notice many presences in the seats around
the ring.
"I come as summoned" And bow. "We have thought long on your request and seen
aspects of the future. The fangs you seek we can supply, they are knowledge...
Go out into your world and dance. But it is time for you to leave. It has
been 3 fortnights of your time. 60 of my people have choosen to join your 
cause."
"Thank you, Speaker"
"Go with Destiny" This echoed by all of the presences in the amphitheatre. I
began to realize that the speaker was the speaker for all of her people at 
once. I turn and leave, find everyone tell them to collect there things and 
we've got to get out of here, it's been 6 weeks. Collect Shiva from the dance
and get going. We step out of the elven town hoping we would be on the other
side of the world. we aren't. so we summon the dragon by breaking the scale
he gave us. We wait for him and inform him of what has happened. We decide to
stop by the castle to check in and raise morale. The dragon asks us if we want 
to bring the elves. What elves. those elves. 60 elves step out of the forest
into the clearing. AGH! We get on the dragon and fly to the castle and drop 
off the elves. we stop and get off, everyone bows to the king. the captain 
of the guard come up and gives us a run down of the situation. Garius hasn't
been seen in three days. the orcs have pulled back. We have achieved air 
superiority. we have roughly three months worth of food left, but have sent out
search parties for more food. Anything you need my liege. ARmour for me and
my companion, arrows and a moment to rest. The dragon flies off to eat.
We spend three days looking around the castle,  eating, examining the throne 
room and noticing the blood stains on the floor from when the king was killed.
The archery sacrficed most of it's personel trying to storm the throne room 
and rescue the king and then to kill his killers. None escaped alive. The kings
personal guard were the best of the archery and turned against him. The rest of
the archery sacrificed their lives bringing them down. Very few still survive 
in outlaying districts. Derek begins a session of training for archery.
Malkar goes around healing everyone in the castle. Griffin stay with Derek
He gets a suit of royal guard chain as armour. Shiva entertains the children 
of the castle and get many thankful looks from the mothers. I wander around 
the castle talking to people. I search fo rgarius. Fly up to the roof of his 
tower and look around. I can't pierce the spells on his tower to see if he is 
there. i assume the best and return to exploring the castle. I check in with 
the alchemist to see what he has that might be usefull in the upcoming battle.
He alchemist has already come up with a fire device for the assault. He has
another stew on the fire. We renew our supply of his vile lunch. I look around 
his room looking for things that might prove more useful than others. We notice 
a two gems and a torqu made of forging stone that are AC magic and grab those. 
And i notice the tapestry 
from the destroyed castle folded in the corner. How it got there i have no 
idea. i ask the alchemist and he doesn't remember. I show derek the immortality 
rune and notice that it's already in my pattern. neat. me and derek start to 
examine each others arms and geek out for a moment. we find out that we are 
immune to aging. Cool, this arshes wont see me die of old age. neat.
	We wait another day, with malkar healing, derek training, shiva
entertaining, griffon practicing, and me wandering around and dancing. I start 
to dance around a corner and walk into garius. We talk to garius find out that 
the desolid guy is VERY well hidden and that garius had a hard time trying to
find him. he is suspecious and most probably very dangerous. I'll continue to 
look for more information about him. our dragon ride returns and we begin to 
get ready. I ask garius if he's seen arshes cause i haven't seen her since i 
got here. he says... she hides in my towser sometimes you can look there. 
Thanks. I go off to find arshes again. His tower door is open this time. I walk
in and find the place to be pretty cool. "Arshes... Arshes" "yes" comes her
quite voice somewhere in garius' tower. "where are you" and suddenly I'm being 
hugged. this startles me a bit. but i don't mind arshes arms around me a bit.
I return the hug and say. "I 'm going soon and i had to see you before i could 
allow myself to go. we have to go kill molron still. I will be back" My hold
on her tightens and I kiss her.  Reluctantly I let go. "I must go." I turn to 
leave. "Hasashki" I turn around to face her. "go get the
bad guy" she says.. I smile and head out to ride the dragon to the aerie. We 
gather our stuff and take off. the dragon gates and we arrive at the aerie.

[Dragon Riders: neat bunch eh?]

The Dragon swoops down onto a old hollowed out volcano and hovers besides
a cave entrance in the side of the volcano and lets us off. He departs to feed.
We talk to the hed dragon rider find out that there numbers have been 
devestated since the war has begun. they are down to about 1/5 their original
numbers. oput of 200dragons they are down to 36 left. They haven't killed
a single evil dragon. all in all not happy. The armsmaster is a two blade 
fighter. he starts training me in florentining. Me and derek get tested for
being a dragon rider. We pass nobody else does. Shiva is pissed. We are
odd riders though. We can't communicate with the dragons. we can see them
mentally but can't communicate with them. We can communicate with ourselves 
but not them. we talk about how we have to get into molrons fortress
to stop the ritual and to kill him during it. The dragons bring out a map
and show us the no fly zones
        6: getting attacked by the dark stalker or whatever it was.
        6.5: us being recognized as kinda dragon riders.
        3: the trip on the dragon and getting attacked by the dark rider.
                also what was the purpose of this trip.
        2: shiva becoming a dragon rider
        5: getting the dwarves from the orcen forces.
        1: visiting the dragon-rider/demon-hunter
        4: doing the avatar thing.

	coming back. practicing in the bell, going to other worlds. and coming 
back. then using it for real. hot lava flows. nasty tentacled horrors. annoying
running gobbo
 
        7: anything else you caer to remember.