We’ve had an eventful couple of weeks here, even though rampaging lizards and flying troll-spiders made no attempts on any of our lives.
I’ve been working down in the township of Al’Veydra to help rebuild where I can. Most of this week I spent helping people re-seat and re-plaster the front walls of their houses on Nohn Street. The dragon whipped his tail a long slash down this area, and between that and his shoulder pretty much ripped the fronts off all these connected households. I think two people got caught in the collapse of their home down on the corner of Potrefina Street…the bodies were already taken care of, but the house was a real mess. Blood all over the floor.
Anyhow, I got to spend a lot of time working side-by-side with many of the people here. At first I kept my hood up, because when I initially took it off I frightened a few of the children. The next day I brought some extra apples with me, and it seems the fastest way into people’s hearts here is through their children. Smiling kids tend to have a good effect on their parents, and I think it helped, seeing me put some sweat into the rebuilding as well as just money. Some little girl started calling me Azzie when she couldn’t pronounce Azrael, which was a lot cuter than it sounds.
I did get to speaking to a few people, and although general opinions of Fellbane as a whole were wavering, having myself on one end of town and Sered on the other (which I thought should go down on a commemorative plate or something, we’d make good opposing book-ends) seems to have helped a lot in giving people a better sense of us. The Sword (a title given to the local head of the militia) worked with me a bit, and he seemed to grudgingly admit that he was glad for my help. Even shook my hand.
I’m still very, very concerned about that dragon. It could return at any time, and I’m no fan of that taking place.
As we continued to repair the buildings, a lot of the sideline commentary I got was that we were being blamed for the mess by more than a few people, but I also heard several people argue that it didn’t really matter who was up in the keep, some kind of attack was due to happen. I tried to put a kind face on things – particularly with several of the men I recognized from the guard. A lot of them were angry with us, but I could see behind the anger that there was a lot of self-recrimination for deserting their posts, and I did my best to blunt that. No one man can stand against a dragon, especially not one of that size, and I can’t really blame the ones who ran and haven’t returned. I made sure they knew there weren’t going to be any hard feelings.
There’s a priest of the Black Queen here, a dwarf named Xirago. I’m really beginning to wonder whether he isn’t some kind of necromancer in disguise – he spends an awful lot of time stirring up people’s fear of death in order to get their followership rather than calming them with the reassurance that She is there to guide them. I might have to make a bit of an example of him at some point, arrange a more personal audience with Her. He’s spent a good long while spreading false rumors about us, and that alone deserves a knife between the shoulders. The strange pair who are here from Acererack’s little enclave are even worse…claiming that Fellbane is about to invoke a sweeping retribution of undead, for the record, does nothing to calm the populace. I did keep my eye on them through most of the week, just to make sure they weren’t about to stuff a bag over my head again and pull me away to resume my place in whatever ritual their boss had in mind all those centuries ago.
As of my writing this, the town is mostly repaired, and the bodies are buried and spoken for. Seeing all those fresh graves really bothered me. Such a waste. I’m also a little concerned about undead infection here. That many bodies at once is a big attractor. I’ll have to ask our new guard captain to post a watch on the cemetery for a month or two, just to make sure those don’t get used for less-than-healthy purposes.
During the evenings, we spent a few long evenings figuring out what we want to do here – and I think I made my case successfully that regardless of which direction we choose, the troll king Veyd must be dealt with. He smacked us hard here, and for a stupid animal like a troll, seeing weakness only encourages further incursions. We must do away with it before it decides to truly put us away. Given that the dragon retreated for no reason whatsoever that I could fathom, I can only conclude that this victory was intended to soften up the town’s population and serve as a recruiting tool for his own forces. That said, once the word gets around that he spanked us, then that attack’s purpose will have been served and the next thing we’ll know the entire keep will be swarming with trolls and the dragon will be waiting outside to eat whichever of us makes it out the front door.
The team seemed torn between a few options here. Marbryndan’s offer was still up, and in addition to this Sered offered a compelling argument for why we should refuse and offer our allegiance to the new heir to the Grand King. There was also talk of setting up Al’Veydra as a kingdom unto itself, but no one seemed to take to that idea with much relish. I’m actually a little surprised at this, it would have seemed to me that among them, someone must have the ambition to rule.
After a few nights of this, it occurred to me that with all this talk we weren’t really deciding anything, but what we were discussing had an awful lot of impact on the people whose kin we’d just buried. After a short discussion about this, we as a whole decided to host a dinner for the leadership of Al’Veydra in the throne room here, and to invite them up for opinions on what should be done. I assembled drinks, Nix and Sered arranged the food, and we settled in for a long evening.
I guess we should have expected it – boy, did we ever get opinions! Xirago seemed fairly outspoken, and on something of a personal pogrom to see that we were somehow “acceptable” to his faith. The others in attendance had concerns of a similar quality, although the differed on certain particulars. Fellbane settling here seems to have just been accepted as fait accompli’ by the residents and by the members themselves, but the integration of Fellbane into the town’s population remains something of a thorny issue. Tavish, who is the Staff of the town (something of an administrative or wise leader, as opposed to the Sword, Carlson, who is more of a security bent) presented us with a rather long document that when boiled down amounts to the conditions under which they (the town) would accept our continued residence here. This seemed to me to be pretty ballsy, since the accumulated power of this troupe in the hall could probably have exterminated the population of the town in the one evening. Still and all, it was a respectable move, and the team seemed willing to accept that the residents of the town were the ones with the right of heritage here.
After the evening was done, we had pretty much settled acceptance of this agreement, which has since become known as the “Grey Compact” in honor of the dragon that precipitated this entire get-together. His name, I have since learned, is “Rain of Tears”. I never knew of him in my time, so I would have to assume he was either not hatched or not significant when I was last in this world. We, Fellbane (for I myself now am counted among its number), are responsible for the defense of the keep, the township below, and the surrounding lands; in return the locals will route certain tax revenue to the upkeep of the keep and its security. The peasants insisted that a member of Fellbane be present at all times, which I think will take a bit more negotiation, but overall we found the agreement to be well thought out and fair. Tavish, the Staff, is positioned well with our agreement, so we are looking to him to be a solid connection with the citizens of the township.
Althas, the hobgoblin everyone had been referring to as KDL (“King’s Dark Lantern,” referring to his time in service to the troll king before our arrival) and who had been serving as our top man in charge of the keep, has resigned his post and accepted a role as the “Shield” of the town. It seems that four or five ruling seats will be present in this area – the Staff, the Sword, the Shield, a member of our troupe, and a fourth seat held by another commoner. Interesting concept, it seems to me. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for such an arrangement, but seeing as thousands and thousands of years have gone by with monarchic systems, and they always seem to fail, maybe this can work.
Once we’d settled this business, Tavish came up with a surprising offer – as the leadership of Al’Veydra, they wish to hire Fellbane to take care of Veyd for them. I found myself a little stunned there…they actually wanted to pay us to do away with Veyd! They actually did, too – they dropped a thousand gold on us just to do this. Amazing. A fascinating way to end the evening.
The following day, we all decided if we’re going to handle Veyd, we need extra guards on the keep. Mostly, that meant underneath it. With the great hole in the center of the throne room leading down into the Underdark, it is a weakness from which someone might launch an attack. The undead of Cozule and the infiltrating trolls of Veyd’s strike me as first candidates for this sort of thing. Sooooo…something had to be done.
Like negotiate with the drow. That fellow Vizrith, who had been Cannon’s “apprentice” of sorts, is apparently the nominal leader of a small band of drow who were evicted from the outpost of Cozule when it was overrun with undead some time back. Numbering about sixty, and cut off from the rest of their civilization (who would probably just as soon kill them as look at them), they are down on their luck and seemed in a position for us to make a mutually beneficial arrangement. So with that in mind, we did a little trekking down into the dark, and had a face-to-face with the fellow. When all was said and done, it seemed his grasp on his tiny society was tenuous at best, and our assistance to him perhaps will lend some political capital for him to take a firmer grip on his people.
Next our planning began to launch an expedition against Veyd. I should have asked a while back, but here it went. I discovered that Veyd has found himself a redoubt in the Feywild. My dread at returning to that realm is nothing short of chilling – no pun intended. I will go along with this – I am, after all, a member of the team – but I am certainly not looking forward to entering a land where even the vegetation has designs at eating me.
It’s about time for me to hit my rack. The beer is almost gone for today, and my pen is wavering from exhaustion. Tomorrow we gear up and begin heading out to Veyd’s stronghold. I’m going to prep some additional arrows with a lightning enchantment before we leave – both I and that miniature archer can use those to throw a bit of a rock into the mill if we run into that dragon again. As I am almost certain that we shall.
I can only hope the return trip from the Feywild isn’t in a sack.
