The Gwenethlin Chronicles I Arbor Way

As a wrap up for the events that occured, I will use a posted letter
by Sir Tetch:

Date: April 12, 2003
Place: Arbor Way, Gwenethlin. (Hopkinton State Park)
Gathering: The Gwenethlin Chronicals 1: Arbor Way

I arrived in Arbor Way with a growing feeling of unease. A force of
magic had been twisted, causing the dead to rise repetitively as
mindless zombies. It is a well known fact that I dislike necromancy,
and I would do my best to stop this foul twisting of magic.

Grimloch, under Blade, was in attendance. I didn't relish the idea
of Blade becoming a mindless zombie slaughtering all in his path, so
I determined to stay with him for most the day, and appointed myself
his healer. Also in Grimloch were Slaader, Guilliam and Boom.
Twenaria, Rusk, Gaiden, and Maida (?) also stayed primarily with
Grimloch.

Upon arrival, we spied two forces of undead combatting each other in
a field. One group wore a tabard of gold and red, it looked similar
to a moon over a mountain. The second force wore a shield with black
and white stripes, similar to Darkvale's old colors. We later found
out the gold and red were likely called "The Horn of Yori" and the
others were a detachement of militia from Westmarch under the
command of Capain Gregory Redfist.

In typical hero fashion, the group of folk from the realms engauged
the undead. There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the
undead would just rise over and over.

In one of the skirmishes, both Blade and I determined we needed to
find answers to what was going on, and it was unlikely we would find
them in the field that the undead repetiviely fought over.

We headed into the woods outside the main battleground. We quickly
determined that one of the forces (The Horns) were coming from a
specific area, and started to avoid that location. Tal of Southcorps
managed to aquire a satchel full of letters off of one of the ghosts
(Probably Captain Redfist himself). It was filled with letters from
a man named General Icepaw to a subordinate commander called Captain
Redfist. All of the letters were written in a different script,
similar in linguistic style to Futhark. When Tal gave the satchel to
Blade, it was quickly given to me to translate. Tal and I worked on
the puzzle for only a short time with Guilliam guarding when
we were attacked by undead. The Undead were beaten back, but our
position was compromised. Cain soon joined our little crew of
translators, and we moved to another location. It seemed like the
undead were now interested in stopping us from translating the
documents. Blade set up a ruse and sent myself, Cain, Jeyde and
Faelin off to work through the runes while Grimloch
and others attempted to lead the undead away and keep us safe. Tal
figured out which runes likely meant "The", and Cain, I believe
found "and". The script of the letters was poorly spaced, and
occasionally words were chopped in half, continuing on the next
line, making translation of certain sections more difficult. Also,
there are certain aspects of the script that were more phonetic than
literal, making it more difficult to cipher through. After
several hours of dodging undead and trying to get enough peace to get
through the letters, Cain asked us to skip to the end, looking for
references to a magical staff, a ritual, or a flute. There were 11
pages of notes. We finally found references to the ritual on the 7th
page. I bent my efforts to solving that particular page, as it
seemed to outline a ritual that the defenders of Westmarch used
nearly 600 years ago.

Through the letters we determined we needed to find 8 items and
place them in the correct order/place on the pillars that were
errected out in the field where the undead kept fighting. From
memory, we needed a chunk of adamentine (which Slaader had aquired
somehow), a sword of sentimental value to the militia (not sure who
found it, but it was apparently somewhere near a rock - there were a
LOT of rocks...), a crest of office (looked like a sheild, but of
odd material), holy water in a specific bottle, a promise of
life (we used a seed/acorn I believe), a holy symbol (which from
reports looked like a red triangle - I never saw it), a holy light
(didn't see that either.) and blood from the ritual caster.

Slaader took charge of trying to organize the gathering of the ritual
components, and placing them where they needed to go. Without his
dogged determination, we would have failed. I don't know how he
accomplished what needed to be done.

I had a peculiar vision as we kept trying and failing to complete the
ritual, setting the spirits free: I saw the ritual being performed.
I saw the energy raised. The energy was wholesome, pure... but the
staff that the ritual master (Leiutenent Richardson) was using was
corrupted somehow, and obsorbed the energy, turning it black. The
ritual stopped, then started over again.. and failed again.. and
started over, and failed... over and over the staff turned the
energy black.. then I saw the staff shatter... I awoke, Richardson's
ghost was standing over me, the staff in pieces and Sean O'Quinlin
was running back claiming he disenchanted it.. Richardson walked
away from me, the staff replenishing itself, and he started the
failed ritual over again...

I was told we only had until sunset or we would fail. Then I was
filled with a peculiar stirring of power.. I would rather not go
into details, but I was given the power to disenchant the staff.. I
knew what needed to be done, and when.. so, I told Blade, and
Slaader, and we went through the ritual one last time, and this
time, I supplied my own blood in place of Richardson's, and used
that gift of power from the Kal to disenchant the staff. The Ghost
of the Horn of Yori and the Westmarch Militia fell, finally at
rest...

If someone has the original copies of the information, I would like
to translate them in full for the sake of history and the
information we didn't already have about the ritual and the staff.

Sir Tetch Korucanta
Knight of the Eternal Flame
Magi of the Realms

* * *


Apart from that, I would like to say thank you to my NPCs and staff.
I know there were some problems with the mechanics of this event,
but I was very happy with the level of NPCing, the costumes, the
makeup, and the feel of spookeyness from your roleplaying.

Thanks for coming out, everyone. There will be more tales of
Gwenethlin, so see you there.