Characters/Anna/log

Partial travel log of Anna Bell huntswoman

Assynt 7th: Elves enter Kalen and take residence within the Royal Court. The Royal Court is sealed after mysterious lights and an explosion is heard from within.
Assynt 23rd: I have had some waking dreams/visions of things that happen again??? In the evening, I went in the stables to attend to the horses when…..
Then in an instant……
reality brings me back to the stables.
Assynt 24th: I find my mother tending to her herbal gardening just after breakfast. There is no one about. I confide last night’s happenings to her.
After her last visit eight years ago, which lasted only a single day, my aunt took off to the capital city of Kalen to look into some strange things she had visioned. She never did say what they were about.
Now it looks like I may have the gift of sight. I must now travel to Kalen, find my aunt and look into MY own strange things I had visioned.
Since I must travel to Kalen, I look for options in ways I can get to Kalen without completely emptying my purse. It occurs to me that I could hire myself out as an armed escort or a courier to Kalen since it would actually pay my way and get me to the city.
I had beaten the captain of the guard in the last two archery contests. Thinking that he may be happy to see me go and because I may have the skills needed, I go to him to see if he needs an extra for any of the trips or merchants going to Kalen. And since he is employing her to go to Kalen maybe he can even throw in a stipend or some equipment.
After speaking to the captain of the guard, and he rubs his chin for a moment, contemplating how he can fulfill your request and (naturally) get you out of any future competitions. She can tell that he is sorely tempted to make something up, just to send you. At last, he grunts and says "I don't have anything to send to Kalen just now. If you had come a few weeks earlier, I could have sent you with the taxes. The next roll is not due for two more months."
Then his face lights up. "However, let me speak with some of the merchants who are passing through with caravans. I can give you a recommendation that should get you a position with one of them."
From Anna's experience in the town, she knows that trade caravans pass through the town frequently, though few originate from the town itself. The captain takes you to the local caravansary, and introduces you to Caia Ferasona, an Eloshai merchant who is traveling to Kalen with some goods to sell. He already has two elven bodyguards who look quite capable of protecting anything of value, but after a few words with the Captain, he agrees to hire you as additional help.
The trip will take two days, and he will be leaving at twilight in the morning. He will pay you 100 pence (10 silvers) for the two days of work. This seems like quite a bit of money, though you don't know what caravan guards are usually paid, or what dangers might lie between you and Kalen.
Before accepting the offer I decide to speak to Caia, find out if there are any special duties I would have to perform or things I should look out for.
Caia states that duties would include scouting ahead to look for bandits and defending the merchant and his goods from any attackers. He wants Anna to act as an advance scout all the way to Kalen so they are not ambushed.
During the converation Caia gestures for an elven woman to join the conversation. She is nut brown with sun bleached hair, and is a few fingers taller than you. She is fit, strong, yet moves with impressive grace. He introduces her as Myrandia, and indicates that she is in charge. Myrandia is wearing fine leather armor that is clearly elven crafted. At her side is a short sword, in a fine scabbard. Across her back is a bow and a small quiver of arrows.
Myrandia looks you over, and says something in Kyelsoran to you. You've heard the language from time to time, but you do not speak it. The blank look on your face tells Myrandia that you do not speak Kyelsoran, and she quickly says "Sorry, I noticed you have some elvish blood in your veins, and thought you might speak Kyelsoran. It's a pleasure to meet you."
During the conversation I ask if I need to supply any special equipment, arms or food. Myrandia shakes her head. "All the food and equipment for the job is provided. You should bring a bedroll and any other personal effects you may require for the journey, along with any weapons you are proficient in. We'll supply the food, lodging and hard work..." Myrandia smirks.
I agree to meet them at the caravansary just before twilight and they agree.
During the conversation I ask what sort of overnight camp they would prefer. I am told that they prefer to stay close to the road, in a clearing that gives them good visibility of others approaching.
Before leaving I had checked with the local guard as to the condition of the road and they reported back that no one should be traveling alone on the road to Kalen because of the different bandits and robbers on the road.
I recollect from my memory the different types of bandits that people have seen on the road and review them mentally before we set out:
the opportunist - usually someone, or a group, traveling in the opposite direction and decides that the people they meet are easy prey. Some of the less scrupulous merchants are thought to behave in this way, though the stories are often clouded by multiple perspectives of the encounter.
the bandit - those who live in the woods or on the plains, and make their livelihood stealing from travelers.
<b/>the hired</b> - someone who has been hired to steal something specific, and sees the open road as an opportunity to do so.
There are other types, but these are the sorts of stories I've heard. I think that there is a reasonable chance that someone who is ill prepared will have some sort of trouble between here and Kalen. The best defense is to be unappetizing to those who might attack.
I tell Myrandia that I have a good bow and a knife for weapons, I have my own leather armor and that I have my own horse and am planning on bringing it.
I'm looking forward to the trip, I've never been to Kalan. During the trip Myrandia says, "When we get to Kalen, if your intent is to stay there I can make some introductions for you that should make things a little easier... at least for a start."
I also ask her if there has been any news coming back from the city. She says that there are stories of the elven army arriving in Kalen, and the some of the rumors about the royal court being closed off have reached the town, and you may have heard some of that. It's important to note that the word of the Kyelsoran army was *not* heard before that, which is a surprise...

After I am finished with Myrandia and Cala I bid them adieu and go to seek my father out.
On the way to my father I keep my ears open, trying to hear if there has been a call for adventurers to enter the underground city, but it appears that no word of Calum Gournay's arrival at Kalen or any of the other business has yet reached your town.
I find my father tending to a feed bin which was broken earlier in the day when one of the house hands spooked a horse attached to a cart. Looks like he's trying to figure out if it will be easier to mend the bin, or build a new one.
I tell him that I am going to be going to Kalen and that the Captain of the Guard has helped me getting an escort guard on the way to the city. He is momentarily surprised, since he does not know about the visions that I have had. This passes as he remembers that I've been talking about leaving for a while now. I tell him that I will be leaving at dawn with a merchant party and that I hope to come back soon, but that I must go for now.
He nods with silent resignation.
I ask if he has any advice for me. He stands up, and puts his hands on your shoulders. "No matter how bad it gets, you will always have a home here. Remember that people are like animals. Some are predators. Some are prey. Learn quickly to tell the difference and you'll do fine."
I tell him I will be leaving several things at home, for the time being. "We'll keep your room for you." I look at the broken bin and suggest a new one would be the better solution. He nods. "I think you're right." I ask if there are any messages or packages that I could deliver in Kalen for him, since I'm going that way. He strokes his chin thoughtfully. "I don't have anything to send, but please send word back that you've arrived safely."

Assynt 25th Travel to Kalen

Assynt 26th Travel to Kalen
We arrive in Kalen in the evening. Myrandia recommends staying at The Iron Hill, an Inn in the Whitehall section of town. It costs 10 pence a day, food is another 10 pence and stable fees are 2 pence a day.

Assynt 28th The adventure begins!!! Myrandia sees me in the morning: No word of my aunt
Tells me to see Cpt. Ravensfeather at the gate to the royal court for a job.
The Cpt. offers several of us jobs to map an underground citadel!
He takes us to a room in the gatehouse where we meet several others, not warriors.
We then go through the royal courtyard on our way to a large building. The courtyard is unseasonably warm, the trees and flowers in bloom, and there is an Elven army here!!!
We are led to the 2nd basement of the large building, there is a small cell there, and it houses the LADY!
She asks me “Who are the Scaren”
I ask her “What are your plans”
We then leave the court and go to a noble’s house. Here is the entrance to the underground tunnels.
We here rumors of creatures, “Liryl” that can tunnel.
We enter the underground.
Walk for about half anhour.
The cave opens to a large underground cavern.
There is a wall, with a broken gate.
A temple in the center of the city
Cells and dead bodies.
I have seen this place before, in my seeing…….
We enter to find no guards about, there should be 10 or so.
We approach the temple, open the cloth drapes over the door!!
There are 12 guards hung and dripping blood.

(01/24/04) Assynt 28th We enter the Demarian temple and record sight.
I recognize the inside, the floor designs, it is where Nymvayas was captured.
Ban Dana makes sketches of inside and of one bodies
Cpt. Ravensfeather proceeds to take one of the hanging bodies down
We find one guard alive
We take him down and Triella performs magical healing
I make a stretcher out of the door drapes, 2 of the hanging poles and some of my leather straps
We move the other 11 bodies to the guard shack, cleaning the floor of the broken crystal glass first.
We proceed to head back to the surface carrying the Elven guard on the makeshift stretcher.
He comes too and asks questions, identifying him self as Faravien Longfeather
Cpt. Ravensfeather leads the way with Gurath.
Gurath’s tunnel markings seem to have been removed, we get lost???
We backtrack, can’t find the way we came in
We just keep going up… and emerge in the cellar of building
It is a storage area in the basement
I climb the stairs and listen, no sounds
I open the door, a room with a table and chairs and decaying food.
I smell a foul scent, Triella says it is death.
The Cpt. And Tegred go for a wagon
Triela looks for the source of the foul smell
On the 2nd floor, there is a dead man nailed to the floor by the skin all around his body. His chest is split open and his heart and other organs are missing!!! We make it back to the royal compound
A healer attends to Faravien and heals him fully.
We are taken to a room and debriefed.
We are offered the job of finding the traitorous Demarian sympathizers for 10Gp a day! This is a lot of money and we all accept.
We are given a weeks pay in advance, 70Gp each I ask for equipment and told to submit a list, I will.
We are then told we will be working under cover out of the manor that we used to enter the tunnels from, Faegan Islay’s residence, known as Islay Manor.
I ask for a good quality short sword, and am given one quickly.
Gurarh, Faravien and myself go to see Nymvayas again.
Faravien asks his question after answering her question about the Scaryn.
I now know that they were at war with the Elves a millennia ago. The Elves won and hunted the Scaryn to extinction. I leave and head back to the Inn, pay my debt, pack and head to the manor riding my horse The butler greets me at the front door, says he will take care of the horse and shows me in I ask to see the bedrooms, to choose mine. I ask for an east exposure for the morning sun. There are no bedrooms in the east wing. I look for a room with a south view in the west wing. I’m shown the master bedroom, a large 40’ by 40’ room and take it as my bedroom.
I just put my stuff in a corner and am lead to the library to meet the others that are here already.
There are lots of books and papers here. Several large chairs and a table. It has a nice comfortable feel about it and I soon settle back in one of the chairs. “I could fall asleep very easily in the chair” I say to my self. There is a fire burning in the fireplace that gives off a sleep inducing radiant glow that just magnifies the comfort of the chair all the more.
We start to talk when the rest arrive and the butler announces dinner is being served.
We go to the dining room and begin to eat and plan for the future.

Assynt 28th The butler is 5’ 2” and well mannered. The two female servants look beefy, almost want to say they are military. They do the cooking, serving of the food and other chores around the house. I think they are ALL spies, but for whom???
At dinner Tegred tries to grab the ass of one of the Female servants. She is quick and grabs his hand before it reaches its target. She puts quite abit of force into the restraining action and warns Tegred that if he wished to keep the hand in working order, it had better respect her space. Not to be deterred he takes a grab at the second servant and scores a direct hit. But his victory is short lived, she too applies significant force to his hand as she removes it from her but and makes a similar threat.
We then proceed to investigate the house. A hidden door is found in the library that leads to a stairwell to a large room over the library. It is a workshop, with workbench. There are several chests in the room. It looks like this place has been searched before, probably when Islay was arrested. Several blank scrolls are found, but to some they are not blank at all. They were maps of expeditions to The Ring of Fire and other lands.
We then found a similar hidden door and stairwell in the master bedroom that also lead to a large room above the master bed room. This room was a torture chamber, that had quite a few devices made to make men willing to talk about anything you wanted or just to give sick people pleasure.
About 11pm we were awakened by a commotion down stairs. There was someone in the tunnels trying to open the access door. We readied our selves and opened it…. It was Krackenheads, he was fighting several undead. We entered and took up the fight. After dispatching them we sighted a cloaked figure bending over a line of bodies. We startled them and they fled, dropping an object on the way. The 19 dead bodies were burned, 11 were Elven guards.
(02/21/04)
Assynt 29th Hebridonia VI: Session IV – 2/21/04 1. Party regroups in basement of abandoned home in Squawkerstown, with acrid smoke and the smells of burning flesh rolling up from the underground tunnel. The move upstairs to avoid the stink
a. The trapdoor is open so the smoke won’t emerge in nobles houses
b. It’s late… almost midnight. It’s raining like crazy.
c. Anna asks Ravensfeather for supplies
d. Anna asks Ravensfeather for an expert on undead. He points to Triella and says “she’s it”
e. Jake stands apart from the others examining the orb. When he notices the attention of the others, he stuffs it in his backpack, which is a bit too small for the orb.
2. Anna and Gurath leave to retrieve her horse, and then return to the manor
3. Ravensfeather departs to coordinate the arrival of a Cohort of the Kalenshire militia (roughly 500 men). He expects the King to declare martial law tomorrow.
4. Triella mounts her horse (which has not been stolen… perhaps because of the “Property of the Mage Corps” brand on its hind quarters), and rides off to the manor
b. Ban removes the orb from Jakes backpack, and stows it in his own pack.
c. Tegred filches the orb from Ban, and hides it in his own pack.
5. Upon return to the manor, everyone except Ban and Faravien head for bed a. Triella tends to her horse, then goes for a bath, then goes to bed
b. Anna tends to her horse, then goes to the library, curls up in a chair by the fireplace, and falls asleep.
d. Gurath goes to bed
e. Jake is helped to the Library by Ban and Faravien. He curls up on a plush couch, and moans for most of the night… slipping in and out of consciousness.
f. Ban discovers the orb is no longer in his pack and starts searching the house for where Tegred has hid it (he does not confront Tegred)
i. After an hour, Ban is about to give up when he finds Faravien searching the closet… probably for the orb.
1. Ban: “He’s good, isn’t he….”
2. Faravien: “Yes, he is…”
g. The search is abandoned when Triella starts screaming. Everyone rushes to her room (with the exception of Jake, who is still incapacitated). Triella was having a very vivid nightmare, which she is unwilling to discuss in detail. Everyone returns to bed, and Ban & Faravien agree to continue the search in the morning.
h. The remaining four hours of night pass uneventfully.
iv. Anna goes into the chamber above the master bedroom, choking back the revulsion, and begins to 6. At breakfast, Jake joins the group and asks where the orb has gone. “I understand if someone decided to take it for safe keeping, given my condition last night. But I think it would be best if I took custody of it again.”
7. Ban indicates that it was stolen, and Jake asks probing questions, finally narrowing in that it must have been Tegred who stole it. He presses for the objects return, threatening to summon the inquisitors if necessary. Teg relents and tells him it is in the stables. Ban and Gurath follow him out to the stables. Teg climbs up into the hayloft, searches around for a minute, then screams that the orb is gone!
8. Gurath swallows this whole, but Ban isn’t buying. Ban calls him on it, and Teg tries to escape. Gurath tackles and starts pummeling Teg. Teg tries to keep the deception, but eventually relents and promises to retrieve the orb, under the condition that he has to retrieve it alone. Guards are posted to the exits of the manor house, and Teg is allowed to go get the orb alone. He returns a few minutes later and hands it to Jake.
9. Ban decides it is important to check in on the Islay Trade warehouse, and Triella wants to visit a magical supply shop where she thinks she smelled something akin to the chest in Islay’s attic that contained the crystal dust. So Ban, Jake, Triella, Gurath and Anna depart for Whitehall to see the merchant.
10. Teg and Faravien leave to find Max in Squawkerstown. Though they have several colorful encounters, and discover that there are a lot of people looking for Max, they do not find him.
11. Triella, Jake and Ban enter the magical supply shop, an unmarked storefront in a backstreet of Whitehall. Anna and Gurath take up position in the back of the building, in case the proprietor decides to make a run for it.
12. Triella addresses the proprietor, whose name is “Fonte”, and asks him about the crystal dust. Fonte nods that he did sell the stuff, but he won’t say to whom or what it is used for, or where it comes from. Triella presses, but Fonte explains that the reason why people come to him for certain supplies is because he can get the confidentially, and without questions, unlike the official suppliers to the Mage Corps. “If I start telling people certain details, then nobody will trust me to keep my mouth shut, and I won’t have any customers. Certainly everyone who comes in here has something to hide, and I’m sure you (meaning Triella) would want me to be quiet about any purchases you may have made in the past….”
13. Ban interrupts, and indicates that he is the due representative of Islay Trade, and shows the charter to Fonte. After close inspection, Fonte grudgingly shows what shipments have been made to Islay Trade, and hands over a package that Islay had ordered (Jake and Triella tender 75gp each to pay for the package, and Ban indicates that they will be reimbursed from Islay Trade).
14. Ban asks to see the “books” regarding Islay Trade… both in accounts receivable and accounts payable. Fonte tells him that aside from the package, there were no outstanding orders or debts owed by Islay. However, Fonte does not open the books, and suggests that if Fonte owes debts to Islay, that Ban should produce the appropriate notes.
15. Ban, Triella and Jake leave the shop, and hear the door lock behind them. Fonte draws the shades of the front window, so it appears he has closed for now… at mid-morning. Ban, Triella and Jake rendezvous with Anna and Gurath in the back. Anna notices someone look out the rear window briefly, but she does not get a good look at him. The party departs for Whiteinch, where the Islay Trade warehouse is located.
16. Upon entering Whiteinch, the foot traffic in the street thins, and Anna notices that they are being followed. The party turns down a side street, and Gurath and Jake keep walking while Ban, Triella and Anna hide in the shadows of a corner building. The stalker looks down the side street after Gurath and Jake, but quickly notices Anna, Triella and Ban lurking nearby. He hastens away down the main street and the party follows after him, with Triella and Anna closest to their prey. When the stalker sees them following, he tries to make a run for it, but is quickly felled by two of Anna’s arrows, which nail him in the leg and shoulder.
17. The party drags the stalker to the abandoned warehouse and start asking him why Fonte told him to follow them. At first, the stalker is confused, but quickly picks up on the party’s line of questioning, and starts to make things up about his assignment from Fonte. The group figures out that he was not sent by Fonte.
18. Under threat of an inquisitor, the stalker admits that he was hired by someone to follow the party, and make a written report which would be left under a potting plant in front of the Iron Hill pub. He does not know the name of the person who hired him. He was paid 10 gold sovereigns.
19. The party lets the stalker go under the condition that he leave town immediately, since Triella assumes the man will be killed when it is discovered that he was intercepted.
20. The party arrives at Islay Trade, and Ban produces his credentials. The guard is surprised, and leaves to summon the foreman. (This is where we wrapped for the night)