A'horangi (A'horangi Ha'hana Syrtis, t'skrang Monk and Bodyguard) came by asking if I was interested in "diplomacy and secret violence" and, while neither is my idea of a good time, I am not one to ignore a friend in need. As anyone that got this far in my writings would have noticed, violence at least would have come up eventually anyway. I just wish sometimes people asked me with help judging the pastry competition in Sky Reader instead of murdering slavers.
Once the whole group (Azurea, troll Shadow and Elder of the Purifiers M.D. (S.O.A.P.); Bloodbeat II of Syrtis, t'skrang Nethermancer and Weaponsmith; Zivilyn (windling Magician (unknown clan)) was gathered, A'horangi explained they had been asked by Seymon Tagarlic (noted scholar working out of the Cloister of Silence) to approach the Wyrmwood to broker a scholarly exchange on the subject of the passions and their changes during the Scourge.
We begun by travelling to Smuggler's Respite (going around Sosanopa) where we hoped to find someone familiar with the reclusive elves of Wyrmwood. We were directed towards Venmara (troll, one of the town elders), who we found in the inn trying to have dinner. Also in the inn were two elves who kept their bodies covered in cloaks. Azurea spotted some blood on the one at the bar and walked over offering various ointments to help with whatever may ailing them. Putting two and two together I realised these must be blood elves and tried to keep the situation firmly on the diplomacy part of our mission instead of the violence.
Going back to Venmara's table A'horangi and I explained our situation and the troll eagerly foisted us onto the other blood elf. The blood elf introduced themselves as Ellenar (Blood Warder, Archer and Woodsman) and was initially quite suspicious. They explained that they would have to vet us before we could be allowed in the wood and called their partner over (Miirphys, Blood Warder aspirant, Archer, Elementalist and Woodsman).
Many pretty words were spent trying to convince the elves that our intentions were genuine and we could offer value for value, but in the end the only thing that seemed to even remotely spark their interest was mentioning Azurea's abilities as a Purifier. Of course Azurea being Azurea they had to mention those abilities around both of the feet she'd firmly wedged in their mouth.
Eventually we are invited to their cabin, where we performed proper greeting rituals, perform full introductions, and continue our discussion. Having learned a long time ago that stacking the deck in your favour is always useful, the music of my greeting ritual was laced with magic to invite trust in our hosts. Meanwhile Ellenar and A'horangi danced, Miirphys cooked up a (plant) feast, Bloodbeat drummed, and Zivilyn wove a basket.
Some eyebrows were raised at Bloobeats theories on reincarnation and Zivilyns laundry list of magical disciplines, but nothing compared to when Azurea dropped that she was death's bride while making some shadow puppets. Maybe violence would have been the easier route.
Unsurprisingly since both Ellenar and Miirphys are high circle adepts they expected me to be flexing my Troubadour talents, but since they did not throw us out, my work was not in vain. The rest of the evening was spent with Ellenar going into great detail about how stuck up and arrogant her people were and how they would probably just ignore or request.
The next day we crossed the Serpent and made good time towards the wood. Now, I've been in the outskirts of the Wyrmwood before, when returning from Iopos, but that did not prepare me for the true wood. I understand why some are calling it Bloodwood now. There was blood everywhere, the animals were bleeding and trying to kill us, the plants were bleeding and trying to kills us, the ground was bleeding. And probably trying to kill us. I never thought I'd find a place worse than Sosanopa.
Eventually we reached the city of Altana, were we were greeted by some "friendly" guards before being allowed in. After a quick wash to get most of the blood off we went to meet the local Warder (Preystia) who ruled the town from a very ostentatious building up in the trees. Once again we were met with unmitigated suspicion and disdain, but we managed to pour enough... diplomacy... their way that they are willing to at least listen. Azurea was shown a vision of the Ritual of Thorns, which may have gotten the gravity of the situation in their head and then Preystia started compelling truth out of us (how barbaric) trying to assess our intentions.
Eventually the Warder pointed us to a temple that hosted a number of scholars studying the subjects we were interested in, up north in the town of Noirn. Miirphys was tasked with taking us there.
The next few days were spent trudging back out of the wood, following the edge north, and then re entering it to get to Noirn. Noirn was not what I expected, the place looked almost abandoned, the "entrance" to the temple was in a hollow under a tree and blocked by growth. Miirphys left us there to go look for people, while me made our way inside. Along the way we were attacked by something that looked like a walking tree.
Inside we found a library that looked like it had been used as a mating pen for dyres and four scar'keks (giant beetle like horror constructs with a penchant for stabbing people to death even through the heaviest armour I'm told) which we proceeded to murder. Finally we had both diplomacy and (not so) secret violence. As we were looking around we noticed that the floor was crawling with worms, just as Miirphys returned with some friends. Apparently the scar'kek were guarding the lair of a horror which was going to reform in a few hours.
So we did the only sensible thing: filled Isidoros' packs with as many books as we could (and that's a lot of books) and begun our return journey. We definitely did not flee. Or run. Or escape. We just collected what we had come for and left since we had no more interest in the place.
As we left we learnt that the horror Koz'gimoch had taken residence in Noirn during the scourge and the town was supposed to be off limits. Back in Altana we handed the books to the Warder who had no idea about what happened to Noirn (sigh, elves), but was willing to provide us with copies of the books to take back and to arrange for five monks from the cloister to come study in their town.Statistics:Posted by sigfriedmcwild — Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:52 pm
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