Umber

Haissha recounts the fortunes of war to her old friend, Sir Geoffrey, currently serving Tenser at Mage Point.

Dearest Geoffrey,

It is the morning after the battle. From outside my window come the sounds I feared never to hear again: the town about its normal business. The troops are still drilling, of course, preparing for the next onslaught, but the traders are trading, the millers are milling, the smiths smithing. The carpenters, at my direction, are dismantling the town gallows. You may make of that what you will, but it should only be puzzling if you receive this letter prior to my last. At noon I must officiate the service for the slain. If only Blasingdell sat atop a diamond mine, that I might raise them all! But there is no point in wishing for what I cannot have, and you are doubtless impatient to hear the outcome of the conflict.

As we were leaving the graveyard, Serge and Enai returned to report back that the enemy army was massing only a few hours away from the town, hidden from our aerial scouts by sophisticated arcane trickery. It was time to deploy our own troops in response. Kuhlefaran linked all of the adventurers together with a telepathic bond, enabling them to communicate over any distance on the battlefield, and in perhaps a unique meeting of the arcane, divine and psionic, Bane, Sister Alonsa, Psydney and I employed our disparate gifts to amass enough enchanted arrows to grant each of our archers two fortified shots apiece. Bane and Hadrack assembled their forces along the walls flanking the gate into town. Dara and Grendar shepherded the bulk of the children and other non-combatants into the manor, and Grendar stood at the ready with his axemen as a final line of defense.

The light cavalry arrived in time, and although we decided to hold them in reserve if possible they took up a position hidden in the woods outside of town. Jaded as such mercenaries are, they were nonetheless clearly tickled at being led by Scald, who was tempted out of his forest at the prospect of wreaking havoc on an entire army of orcs. If any survive to return home, I imagine the tales of their unicorn commander will spread rapidly through Greyhawk.

Magnus took one unit of swordsmen to hold the gate. I took another beyond the walls, and Bane remedied the problem of unavailable further cover by providing a hallucinatory forest: we all know the wit of orcs and giants, so were little concerned with discovery. The remaining adventurers vanished into the surrounding countryside. I confess I was a little disappointed at their unwillingness to assume command; only Bane seemed eager, although Magnus took up the burden with no complaint. In the end, however, I think all chose rightly.

Now there was nothing to do but wait, and we didn’t have to wait long. A unit of orcs led by a fierce-looking ogre appeared, some drawing large empty carts doubtless intended to leave fully laden. I don’t know what they thought we would fill them all with, even if we had wanted to pay tribute: the villagers’ silverware? The orcs were flanked by six stone giants. Looking at the relatively small force, I dared to hope that our efforts to hide the presence of the adventurers had succeeded; these opponents did not look especially formidable.

The ogre called for Blasingdell’s leader to come forth. I was too far away to hear the exchange between Berrick and the enemy leader, but when the stone giants drew forth boulders and hurled them at the gates, utterly destroying them, I knew it hadn’t gone particularly well. Berrick, his negotiating efforts at an end, retreated to the manor, where he found many of the children on the top floor glued to the windows, waiting to see their heroes trounce the enemy.

Magnus’ Finest Desperate Hour

While the ogre was blustering in the way large, stupid creatures often will, Psydney was flying invisibly over the battlefield doing additional reconnaissance. I assumed that she found something, as Enai bounded off and Serge suddenly vanished, and only hoped our troop positions would not be compromised.

“I am Garnic!” the ogre was shouting, loudly enough that even I could hear him. “I am in charge! You have one chance to avoid tribute. One of you fight me, and win, we go. I win, you pay tribute, no fight.” The orcs behind him grinned viciously as Magnus strode forward to accept the challenge. Berrick told me later that the children went wild, screaming, “Magnus! Magnus! Go Magnus!” The ogre looked him up and down insolently.

From Garnic’s first blows, it was obvious that he was no sop, and was armed with an impressive panoply of effects both personal and supernatural. His large long sword was particularly wicked-looking, and he wielded it with deadly skill. His armor was well-crafted, and his shield of a make I’d never seen before, seemingly able to act on its own. He penetrated Magnus’ defenses with ease, while Magnus was clearly having trouble making headway. His long sword sang in the air and the lion’s shield snapped angrily, but little damage was done. The children, lacking insight into these nuances, kept up their raucous shouting, but were of no consequence beside the roaring of the orcs.

There was a synergy there, between Garnic and his troops. Each blow that struck home whipped the orcs into a further frenzy, and each bloodthirsty cheer bolstered the ogre’s skill. Unable to withstand the fierce onslaught, Magnus fell before the city gates. His men stared at his broken body in horror, and wails of fear erupted from the manor. Garnic smiled with satisfaction and turned to his troops with raised arms. “Garnic! Garnic! Still the champion! Garnic!” they shouted, stomping their feet.

The ogre took a little too long swaggering for the crowd. Raising his sword overhead to deliver a final massive blow, he turned to find: Magnus, standing hale and hearty as if the conflict were just beginning. Never underestimate the power of fast healing and judicious selections in a ring of spell storing, my friend. I gestured furiously to my troops to keep quiet, and saw Scald do the same with the cavalry even as, from the impatient stamping of his hooves, I suspect he had the same urge to cheer the hero on as I.

Magnus might have come to the same end again if he hadn’t suddenly heard Bane’s voice in his head. “Don’t just stand there! Make him come to you.” Acting on this sage advice, Magnus activated his helm of teleportation and moved sixty feet away, only just, he hoped, out of Garnic’s reach. Garnic sneered at his cowardice and charged, not stopping to think that Magnus might have a trick or two of his own up his sleeve. He looked astonished when the fighter connected with a solid strike that not only injured the ogre, but knocked him backwards. Magnus took the opening Garnic had left him with his heedless advance and pressed the advantage. Summoning all of his strength, he dealt a blow so deadly accurate that the ogre staggered under its power.

His heart gave out at the shock of it, and he collapsed, dead. The orcs fell silent, stunned. Magnus’ troops and the archers looked frightened, relieved and proud all at once, and from the direction of the town I thought I heard small echoes of the renewed cheers that were in fact resouding throughout the manor. Magnus picked up the body disdainfully and tossed it behind him into the town.

Of Armies and Heroes

Meanwhile, yards away, Psydney, Serge and Enai were scouring the woods with increasing frustration for the hidden enemy, abandoning the search when Bane and Magnus both transmitted the news that someone else had arrived at the head of the troops, seemingly out of nowhere. This new opponent, a tall man dressed in black, looked distastefully at the site of the duel. “He never did follow orders. I always knew his ego would get him killed one day.” He shrugged. “Well, no matter. He was not the commander. I am. He had no authority to waive tribute, so bring it out now, please.”

“We’ll bring something out, all right,” Magnus snarled. With that, a hail of arrows flew from the city walls into the midst of the orcs. The enemy troops were too far away to be hit with any great accuracy, but it did send a message.

Unfortunately, the enemy had a message of its own to send. Waiting to coordinate their attacks, all six stone giants hurled boulders at a group of Hadrack’s archers. Five fell, then ten. The orcs advanced. Magnus began leading his troops out of the gate, but as their formation wound through the streets of the town to better conceal their presence, it was a slow process. If I brought my own troops out now, the giants would slaughter them. If I stayed hidden, the giants would slaughter the archers. Now I saw the wisdom of leaving many of our own heroes free to act on their own.

And act they did. Berrick said the watching children were puzzled when one of the rearmost stone giants staggered as if injured, then looked around in confusion when no assailant was apparent. They cheered loudly as Serge darted from the cover of the woods and slashed furiously at the same target, and even more loudly when Enai leaped from the same cover, struck at the giant and leapt backward again out of apparent reach.

This did serve as a distraction, but nearly a costly one. The injured giant drew out a huge club and beat Serge almost to death, and the remaining five contented themselves with hurling boulders at Enai, who was brought to the brink of collapse under the onslaught. The longer they could present themselves as targets, the safer our archers would be. It didn’t look as if that would be too long, however, and studying the enemy it occurred to me that these were no ordinary giants. They were purposeful, and behaved in every way like well-trained warriors.

The orcs advanced upon the town again, close enough that Hadrack chanced ordering his archers to nock their enchanted arrows. The results were dramatic: orc after orc dropped to the ground, dead. Bane shuffled his troops on the walls, bringing them closer to the approaching army in order to make the best use of our by no means limitless ammunition. Sister Alonsa, who had been watching the conflict from atop a temporary tower in the graveyard, flew down and blessed Bane’s most distant troops.

Serge and Enai were forced to remove themselves from the fray, at least temporarily, to myself and Kuhlefaran for healing before heading back out to tackle the stone giants. In spite of their momentary retreat, the injured stone giant fell. One of the older boys watching from the manor, made some quick assessments of the field and shouted, “It’s Psydney! It has to be!”

The orc troop was shaken by their losses, but the commander managed to rally them, and they continued their advance. Hadrack’s unit loosed his last volley of enchanted arrows, Bane his first, and the orcish numbers were reduced by more than half. The giants, alas, having lost sight of Enai and Serge and unable to get a fix on the annoyingly invisible Psydney, returned to throwing boulders at the walls, and ten more of Hadrack’s archers were killed. Magnus’s troops continued to trickle out of the gate.

The black-robed commander stepped forward, and spoke a few words to Magnus. Then a hidden blade shot out of his hand and struck Magnus a deadly blow. For the second time that day, the big fighter turned ashen and began to fall. But Kuhlefaran called out to Fharlanghn, and once again to his opponent’s dismay the fighter steadied himself and prepared to fight on, seriously injured but not killed outright. Before either of them had a chance to strike again, however, the assassin was slashed to ribbons by an unseen assailant. The children in the manor, having figured this trick out now, shrieked Psydney’s name delightedly.

Hadrack and Bane quickly dispatched the remainder of the orcs, and along with Magnus began a strategic retreat. The regular troops were no match for these battle-hardened giants; it was up to the heroes now. The giants managed to kill ten of Magnus’ swordsmen before the withdrawal was complete, but soon found themselves hard pressed. Serge and Hadrack shot at them from cover. Enai took more care with her melee attacks, and leapt into and out of reach and sight. Psydney continued her invisible onslaught, and Bane, his troops safely off the walls, emerged to wear them down with elemental attacks that awed all the small faces pressed against the glass of the manor. I myself managed to dispatch the lone giant bright enough to penetrate the hallucinatory terrain. He laughed scornfully when he evaded the primary onslaught of my holy fire of destruction, but had time for only a moment’s surprise before he was consumed by the secondary blast.

Triumph and Tribulation

The carts intended for tribute became vehicles to haul the enemy dead to the site of a giant bonfire. Then the town came together for a spontaneous celebration of our victory, which was marred only by – I don’t know exactly what it was. Clearly Serge’s sword is intelligent, and clearly it has plans of its own. When it made a speech riddled with images of war and glory, the people were enthralled by it, ready and willing to march to their doom. It didn’t actually make any demands, but I fear that will come. I don’t know what – oh, I can’t speak of it now. I must think of a plan to thwart it.

The adventurers mingled among the people for a long time, then retreated to the manor for refreshment and, most of all, relative quiet. Unfailing endurance doesn’t protect one from the fatigue of excessive attention. I visited each in turn to ensure that their needs were being adequately attended to. As I approached Psydney, sitting alone in a corner, I heard her muttering to herself. “The child. I must do something about the child. But what? I don’t trust T’lar, don’t trust any of them. King Yiss might do, but I can’t very well spirit Callie away to the Troll Fens.” Suddenly she slammed her fist so hard against the table that I jumped. “Lia! Of course! But will she come? She must. By the Abyss, who had the helms of teleportation last?” Rising suddenly from the table, she nearly knocked me down.

“Haissha – just who I was looking for. I need to leave for a little while. If I’m successful, I’ll be back with a guest. She’s old, even for an elf, and a little frail. If you and Berrick could put her up at the manor, that would be ideal.”

I was dumbfounded. “Now?”

“That little girl came up to me tonight and asked me why her sister has to die. She’s seen it. If someone doesn’t get her under control, she’ll be the death of herself or someone else. I know what she’s going through. And my parents understood my powers.”

“But here?” I said. “In the middle of a war?”

“Lia won’t care. She’s seen just as bad. I must do something for Callie, before it’s too late.” I restrained her as she started to walk away.

“Psydney, let’s put things in perspective. The entire town of Blasingdell – “

She wheeled on me in a sudden fury. “I’m not Tenser. I’m not you. I’m here out of duty, even affection of a form, but never mistake me for a geopolitician or the guardian of a people. If your town is saved and Callie lost, I will have failed my honor as certainly as if Blasingdell were a smoking ruin.”

So Psydney may or may not be within a hundred miles of here. Svengali is pacing about restlessly in that way he does before he’s about to disappear. Magnus is making noises about going back to Lyzandred’s crypt to recover the Doomgrinder. Bane is continually badgering Kuhlefaran with schemes to get a mechanical warrior from some ancient Suolise cairn to Blasingdell. Enai is driving my clerics to distraction with her suggestions for discipline (in a way, a woman after my own heart, but I’ve learned the hard way that you can only push a Pelorite so far), and her acrobatic antics caused half a dozen sprains among the copycat children at last night’s celebration. Worst of all, Serge’s sword is trying to convert my temporary defense forces into a standing army for its own purposes, and unless Kuhlefaran and I can figure out how to turn the tide of its mass charm, it’s likely to succeed. The party’s newest rogue, a man with little aptitude for and apparently even less interest in larceny, has swiftly gained the confidence of a town all too quick to mistrust his kind, but with this Silvertongue in his hand it is hard for me to wish him anywhere but far away.

Disconcertingly, the Ghaele have returned unbidden. Their obligations discharged when combat ended, they were summoned to attend their deities. They found Pelor and Fharlanghn together, engaged in sober discourse. “The terms of your contract may have been fulfilled, but you are not freed from service. Return and render what aid you can until we instruct you otherwise.” More than anything else that I have seen or heard these past weeks, this frightens me. If Pelor and Fharlanghn find it necessary to act in concert, what do they think is opposing them?

Ah Geoffrey. I respect these adventurers, admire them even, but even those devoted to the law bring chaos in their wake. I sorely miss your guidance, your company, and your battle-hardened sense of strategy, though our loss is Mage Point’s gain. There are enough dark days to go around both here and there, I fear. May we who are servants of Pelor bring what light we can.

Ever sincerely yours,

Haissha