Braylec Noman’s Journal

While being kept in a dark room with his friends Thanodel and Jutiapa, Braylec has time to pray for guidance from his lord, Thor. Thor answers in the darkness of Braylec’s mind that he should keep a journal of his doings and those around him. Maybe this will help resolve the mysteries around them and guide them to better purpose.

Entry I:

Well where to begin, I will start back a few months from know and bring myself up to date. This current saga of my life started when I meet up with some old friends in the city of Galantry. We were all there to witness the rites of inheritance for the Barony of Laurance Syngon Smyth, Thanodel and Jutiapa are old friends, who introduce Braylec to Sir Cronnen, they tell Braylec of there journey from Wendar to Galantry informing them that they are 1 short who they will meet soon at a prearranged place outside the city. They hang around the city and get involved with the brotherhood, in getting in the way of a cheat for the mage duals that are happening to determine the lawful Baron Laurance. The final duel sees the combatants disappear and the crowds driven of by the mages guild, this leave the party at a loss and knowing their limits as all good adventurers do decide kind of involuntary that it would be best to travel south and find the injured friend of Sir Cronnen.

So of we set carry a message for the Galantrian Embassy at Darokeen from Captain Black of the Galantrian Guards. We join a caravan that is heading in the right direction, after a few days travel the Sir Cronnen and Bob find the place where ??? was resting only to find that the place has been smashed by the Cracked Skull Orc’s. We decide to leave the caravan just before the broken lands and watch as one the guards sumarilary kills a young goblin child, this in senses me I charge in for the fight of Justice followed closely by Sir Cronnen. The battle is short and justice is served by the death of the murderer, we then decide to follow the edge of the broken lands to find the Orc hoard who may have our fallen friend. After a few days ride we are ambushed quite simply by 3 trolls lucky the rest of the party is through and the only way to survive this encounter is to throw a bag of money at them and in the confusion ride away. Thanondel spots some Orc’s that are on the nearest ridge and we decide to rest in a large cave, we cannot take the horses through this country so leave them there with Bob to look after, he says he will wait 3 days.

Tracking cross country on foot is not fun in full plate but we all do it following the ridge lines where possible, we soon find the Orc’s encampment; on further investigation the place seems very quite after after looking through the various caves decide to head deeper into the one with a tunnel.

This soon leads us to a chasm, there is a pity full rope bridge across and as I try to cross the ropes give way and I can just hold on as i swing to the far side. From here i can see the correct way down the far wall and inform the others, they all descend the iron rings and enter the tunnel, I Then tie my rope to the one i fell on and throw this across to them in the tunnel and climb down to them, with noise of a party following us Sir Cronnen set a small fire of winter blankets and lamp oil. We then follow the tunnel to its end in a large cavern, I have no real knowledge of what happened next, I seem to awake with Sir Cronnen by by side and a pile of dead orc’s around our feet we then run to a tunnel being held by the bow of Thanodel and head down the tunnel to meet up with Jutiapa and a load of human slaves that have being saved.

We decide to head down a small side tunnel of the fungus farms which give of this eerie light any pursing orc’s break off at this point and laugh down the tunnel saying that we are doomed know, we press on and eventually come to this cavern with this arch way that has a black wall of nothing in it, I do not like this but decide that we must enter if we are to get away from this place, on stepping through it feels as though we are pulled to the far wall where we are stuck fast. What away to end my life i think when Thanodel and Jutiapa suddenly teleport to the far side of this room. Jutiapa casts some magic and we are all released from this magic wall. The only exits from this place are the arch way we just came in by and a door leading up some steps. At the top is a room with a platform and various magical things. Sir Cronnen and Jutiapa soon work out that the green crystal when moved activates a portal on the platform, in groups of 4 we all step through me, Thanodel and Jutiapa first only to find our selves in a clearing in the middle of know where the weather is considerably warmer and within 2 minuets Sir Cronnen comes trough the portal, we are soon attacked by 2 humans and several orc’s from the cracked skulls tribe. Dispatching them we head of to find shelter and where the hell we are?

After a few days travel Thanodel know has a hawk on his shoulder that he proclaims is safe, we find ourselves at the town of Freetown. Here we bring esteem upon ourselves with the local populace by finding some children that are being held captive by some slaves. They have this star in star symbol that we saw on one of the humans that attacked us in the clearing. The local mayor helps us by showing us some messages that these people have requested by delivered to a city to the south, one of the messages describes us really well, but we decide not to head south but across the mountains back north so that we can recover all our gear that Bob is looking after if he has not sold it yet.

Heading back over the mountains is fairly uneventful with just one run-in with a giant family and we soon find ourselves in Darokeen, there is not much happening and little rumor of the star in star crowd and after resting our new horses and doing some personal things around the city, were i was fortunate to spend some time with followers of Thor, we continue North across the broken lands and back to the lair of the cracked skulls.

When we arrive there is little left and further investigation finds the underground cave totally destroyed, we nearly get destroyed by this beast while looking through the rubble, it takes me, Sir Cronnen, Thanodel and Jutiapa to finish it off the final blow coming from Sir Cronnen. We decide to rest that night in one of the side tunnels that Jutiapa opens up again with some feat of magic that I will never understand. During the night we are disturbed by a group of Orc’s the leader being Gargouth the son of the late tribal leader and he is trying to regain some control over the remainder of the tribe.

We soon find ourselves back at the room with the crystal and the platform and on careful examination find that there are 4 notches on the base sending an orc through first finds him come back with an arrow in his chest dead! Stepping through the other positions soon finds out where they are:

1. A clearing in the border country of Galantry, The Broken Lands and Ethnigar there was a camp here not long ago.
2. Sleep.
3. Outside the city of Darokeen
4. A large house is to the south just beyond a clearing in the woods.

The clearing south of the town of Freetown, this is the location where the Orc came back dead from.

Gargouth promptly sends the rest of his Orc’s through the portal to this location and non come back alive. He is know the last of his tribe.

Me, Thanodel and Jutiapa go through the portal with the understanding that if we don’t come back we will meet Sir Cronnen in Galantry City in the main Square on a Saturday afternoon. We arrive in this dark room with strange lights around the wall and blackness descends, I awoke to find Jutiapa and Thanodel in the same cell as me and we are stripped of all our belongings, we are bound and boy do I feel rough we must have been beaten continuously. After a brief interrogation we are left in the cell unbound we are feed and after 8 days I decide it it is time to escape. When the guards come that evening to feed us I command cast on the one that opened the door and get him to hold the other. Me and Thanodel charge out the cell and knock them unconscious but not before they can call for help, grabbing their swords we fan out down the corridor Thanodel at the end near our cell Jutiapa in the middle and me at the other end, in the middle cell are some of the slave that we freed from the orc’s and we open there cell door in the end cell is a beaten man who claims to be one of the Laurance’s from the final bout back in Galantry City he must have been here for some time.

Soon the end door by Thanodel is opened and 4 burly guards stand there, Thanodel cast entangle on the door blocking the entry, the end door by me is locked but not to well as my shoulder soon breaks it down. This leads into a small room where I pick up a longsword and we all pile stuff against the door, there is another door leading up some stairs and after what seems like 2 flights we come to a door peering through a small crack in the door reveals a large room with tables and chairs. There are 4 guards and a mage in this room Thanodel and myself charge out and take on the guards the released Laurance heads for the mage and instantly turns into a pile of burning bones.

Jutiapa is surrounded by the slaves and they defend her to the hilt having being rescued by her twice they soon die as the guards attack undefended humans, she climbs up a tapestry and breaks a window to escape to the below moat I kill the guard in front of me and head for the mage striking him once causing no damage he then disappears, Thanodel dispatches the guard in front of him and takes on the guard I stepped around which he soon dispatches while I take on the last, a mage soon appears at the door we came from and a strong wind tries to knock us over. Thanodel tries to escape the same way as Jutiapa, but pull the tapestry down, I defeat the remaining guard and dropping my swords make a running jump for the open window, Blackness soon surrounds me.

I awake some time later drifting down a small river being helped by Jutiapa, she informs me that Thanodel did not make it out, just outside the city of Galantry we climb out of the river and find ourselves some clothes to cover our dignity. I then leads around to a safe house held by the brotherhood where they equip me wit a longsword and short sword and chain mail plus 50 gold pieces, they tell us that the house we escaped from is held by a powerful family that are rarely seen abroad so we take the gamble and head into the city to meet Sir Cronnen, surprised to find him with Gargouth posing as gladiator and master.

Me and Jutiapa are summoned to see Captain Black who tells us he wants us out of the city by Sunday evening. We also go see Price Bragheart’s emissary in town and inform him of the death of there Laurance and say that if they need help in attacking the house to give us a call.

Again we find ourselves minus a lot of equipment and chasing our tails, I have take on some bouncer work to get a few pennies, some day soon our luck must change and we will find some connection to all this. I wonder if Captain Black would like to know about the house, he was interested in the mage duel disappearances before we went south?