998 Sypheros 29th to Aryth 3rd

998 Aryths 1st the capital of New Cyre

Somehow the Honor Guard has survived the battle for New Cyre despite the many brave souls who have fallen. The Sovereign Host must favor my companions and I given the desperate battles that we have seen. For surely it was not our own efforts that carried us through but solely divine providence. By rights we should be dead and New Cyre razed but somehow victory was seized while we were surrounded by defeat.

It all started early in the evening of the 29th of Sypheros. Prince Orgev contacted us via the telepathic connection wrought by the human wizard Immerstal the Red. Prince Orgev “spoke” of a small group of hill giants that broke through the defenses and were rampaging through New Cyre destroying all that lay in their path. The king ordered the “Honor Guard” to counter attack in order to prevent the defenders from being surrounded. Gravely concerned for Bryanna’s safety, I asked her to remain behind and instead allowed the elf-woman Quin to act as our secondary healer. Our archer ally Simon strongbow was no where to be seen.

In short order we came upon the four huge giants who were seemingly unwounded despite the forces arrayed against them. Before any my allies could close with the deadly brutes, I cast a time-slowing spell upon the giants and three of the four began moving with the tell tale zombie-like gate that spoke of a successful casting. Being the fleetest of foot, Pazenga closed with the giants first, delivering a crushing nerve punch to the side of one creature’s knee. Elarin and I began a furious spell barrage on the three “slowed” giants while Zed closed with the unharmed giant to protect the rest of us. Zed was nearly beaten to a pulp by the giant’s tree-sized club but managed to hold his own and even outlast his opponent while the rest of us tore into the weakened giants. When the last giant was slain Quin and I saw to the worst of our hurts before we were again contacted by King Orgev.

What we had most feared had occurred, the great red dragon we had seen in the distance was employing his flaming breath to create a conflagration that would destroy the capital of New Cyre without recourse to battle. Elarin and I had forecasted such an unhappy event and we were prepared with a plan that we thought provided for almost certain victory. I would summon a shadow steed to provide Elarin with unmatchable speed and mobility and the elf would employ the superior range and irresistible power of his acid missile spell to strike from a distance that would preclude counter attack by the dragon’s firebreath. The balance of our party would travel to the sight of the conflict on foot to render assistance should that prove necessary. There was one great flaw in our preparations; we had not taken into account that such a battle might occur at night.

I was not a witness to the subsequent events but I received a detailed report from my close friend Elarin and this is what follows.

Our elven companion Elarin was unable to see the dragon in the cloaking darkness and was forced to approach much closer than we had planned and this very nearly led to catastrophe. Elarin wisely chose to head toward the flaming cottages. Even then the elf was only able to spy the dragon when it breathed fire. As soon as the flaming breath erupted in the distant darkness, Elarin fired his spell at the creature’s revealed muzzle. When darkness closed about the great wyrm once again Elarin was unsure in which direction to flee. As he was riding his phantom steed in a whirling broken pattern to throw off pursuit, the elf was in turn ambushed by the unseen flying reptile. The flaming cone disintegrated the quasi-real shadow steed and inflicted nearly fatal agonizing burns on Elarin. The elven sorcerer-swordsman only preserved his life by hiding in a secluded alley and healing himself with the potions provided by our quartermaster Pazenga.

Thereafter the battle turned into a game of cat and mouse with each opponent hiding from the other while simultaneously seeking to ambush his opponent (I say his but for all I know the dragon was a female). Elarin blasted the creature a number of times from hiding with his acid missile spell and was only caught by its fiery breath on one more occasion but this enough for him to despair of victory. The fact that the dragon did not roar in pain despite what should have been agonizing acid burns led Elarin to the conclusion that the dragon had some sort of acid defense at work. Our elven ally chose the better part of valor and hid until our arrival.

When Zed the war forged warrior, Pazenga the weaponless, Quin the elven druidess, and I came upon the flame-lit scene we found a dragon unwounded and Elarin missing. Naturally we concluded that the elf had been slain and eaten by the great beast and we attacked with bloody vengeance in our hearts. Despite the reckless anger I felt I knew we had no chance to defeat an airborne dragon that was immune to the vast majority of arcane magics that I had prepared. Therefore I took a desperate gamble and darted forward to cast my death illusion spell. As I feared the dragon’s innate resistance to such simple spells allowed the beast to shake off the image of fear I place in its mind. But at least I had turned the creature’s attention away from allies and it used its flaming breath on me instead of them. I had an invisible shield of heat resistance cast upon myself and the searing flames were barely uncomfortable.

Zed and Pazenga charged the grounded red reptile but only the gith martial artist was able to close with it before it took to the air. Paz struck delivered one his powerful nerve blows and the creature seemed to be discomfited by the attack. Just before the reptile launched itself into the sky a battle cry resounded from the top of a tall inn and Simon strongbow threw himself off the roof and onto the dragon’s back, both hands wrapped around the hilt of his ensorcelled bastard sword. The sword did not appear to penetrate the thick scales but the frigid enchantments on the blade caused the fire creature to panic and take to the air. At this point Elarin found us and screamed that the dragon was immune to acid as well as heat. I knew then with a crystal clear certainty that we could not defeat the dragon now that he was in the air, immune to our close combat warriors as well, as the vast majority of spells in our combined arsenal.

My companions rapid fired arrows and bolts at the thing to little effect. Desperate to save myself as well as my companions, I drew upon the magical power deep within my soul and recast the death illusion. This time I felt the dragon’s supreme confidence its own invulnerability waver just a bit. The dragon was enraged and retaliated with his searing fire breath and this time my defenses were overwhelmed and I received painful, if not debilitating, burns. I knew I would not likely survive the next flame blast and I once again drew upon the magic that runs through my gnomish veins and recast the death illusion, this time imagining that we were frozen deep in an iceberg in the distant north, frostbitten, suffocating with rock-hard ice filling our throats and drowning out our screams of terror. It seemed so real I believed it was real and so did the dragon. With a roar of agony and despair the beast’s heart burst from sheer terror and it plunged to the ground looking for all the world like a child’s broken kite.

For a few heart beats there was an uncanny silence as we looked at one another each surprised that we had survived the seemingly hopeless battle. Quin and I set to healing our friends with our enchanted wands and then we began the long march back to Orgev’s command headquarters.

Upon our return Lord Orgev informed us that a number of enemy goblinoid forces had breached the outer defenses and were converging on hastily created barricade manned by a dozen New Cyre militia and a handful of elves that were lead by a Deineith warmark by the nickname of Lion. Given the situation the risk to Bryanna was limited and her healing skills could potentially save many lives. Therefore I thought it prudent to bring her with us to the barricade. In order to hasten our arrival Zed scooped me up and ran for the barricade and Simon did the same for my wife. We managed to beat the goblins to the barricade and had time to place our forces in a strong defensive position. We placed the human militia with crossbows on a roof to our left flank and the elven archers on the roof on our right flank.

We did not have to wait long once our preparations were in place. A small force of just under a dozen hobgoblins supported by two airborne manticores could be seen heading towards our position. I prepared my prismatic mist spell and when the Red Claw soldiers came into view I conjured the spell into their midst. The spell was too weak to cause fatalities but it did injure and harass the attackers. The hobgoblin infantry charged the barricade and attempted to leap it, only to be hurled back time and again, often with lethal results for the humanoids. Zed, Pazenga, Lion, and Elarin defended the barricade with a fierce tenacity and none could stand against them.

The two manticores were apparently more intelligent than the hobgoblins and soon chose to avoid our center and instead attack the flanks. A fierce archery contest ensued, crossbows and longbows pitted against the tail quills of the manticores. Our human and elven soldiers took the worst of it, many falling injured from the roofs. Bryanna and Quin sprang into action to succor the beset warriors, Bryanna healing the injured humans and Quinn aiding her elven kin. Meanwhile I healed those in the center, keeping an especially close watch on the Deneith called Lion. The elves managed to slay their manticore without losing a single man thanks to Quin’s healing prowess. The human militia were not so fortunate as the beast felled a number of them and then flew on to their roof to employ tooth and claw at close quarters.

In short order the suicidal charges of the goblinoids soldiers became a route and very few escaped with their lives. At this reversal, our center was able to assist the human militia on our left flank. The elven archers also did what they could to support their human allies as well. Despite the horrible wounds inflicted by the mighty claws and teeth of the manticore and the subsequent bone breaking fall from the roof, only three humans perished. Though my darling wife managed to save many others she wept bitterly over the three that had crossed over to Dolurruh before she could attend them.

The final manticore had no hope of opposing our small army and was quickly dispatched with bows, crossbows, and spells. While I attended the wounded soldiers Zed engaged in barbarous vengeance. As a warning to the other goblinoids, he struck off the heads of the dead and dying and placed them on posts that jutted from the barricade. This is was a brutal an unnecessary act that put us on the same moral level as the Red Hand. We needed to cling to the moral high ground if we were to have the favor of the Sovereign Host and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The Honor Guard had only a few minutes to heal the worst of the injured and redeploy our forces when the next wave charged. This time our opponents were a handful of powerfully muscled and lightly armored bugbears, with fur bleached a dead white, bearing great two handed axes. By the howling racket the goblinoids made and the drooling rage on their countenances, I could guess they were berserkers. They seemed not to care one whit about my prismatic mist spell and ran straight through it as though it did not exist. Unlike the hobgoblins these hairy humanoids were quite capable of leaping the barricade and bringing the fight to us. I spent much of the battle healing the Deneith warmark, Lion, as he fought much like his namesake.

The bugbear berserkers managed to kill another member of our crossbow militia and all of us were hard pressed by their furious assault. Most of the Honor Guard was forced to withdraw a few feet from our defensive position in order to avoid being overrun. Only Lion and Pazenga were able to stand their ground before the furious assault. Elarin was bleeding from a couple of deep axe wounds and would certainly have been hacked to pieces had he not chosen that time to unveil his greatest new power. Elarin has learned a spell that allows him to charge his blade with negative energy such that it steals the life force from his opponent and adds it to his own. The elf’s wounds healed as those of the white bubears grew ever more terrible.

Then the tide of battle shifted in our favor as the archery support from the militia crossbow and the elven archers began to take its toll on the goblinoids. One particular bugbear made it his dying mission to send me to Dolurruh ahead of him and I received a life threatening wound to my shoulder. But by this time there were few bugbears still on their feet so I retreated through our skirmish line. As expected, the huge goblinoid pursued me but was cut down by my associates as he attempted to weave between them. With this berserker’s death the force was broken, each of them dead, or routed from the battlefield.

Once again we had only a bare few minutes before the third wave charged the barricade. We were convinced that we had faced the worst with the destruction of the bugbear berserkers, we were wrong, very wrong. At first we seemed to be facing a half dozen goblin Calvary mounted on what appeared to be large blue wolves. As the mounts loped near the barricade it became apparent that they were blue dragon spawn of unknown origin. Electrical arcs danced between them somehow without harming their goblin masters. My prismatic mist spell had no effect upon these dragon spawn and little enough upon their masters.

Intuitively sensing the danger we were in, I blasted the goblin cavalry formation with a fireball that severely burned the mounts and slew one of the goblin riders. We knew we were in danger when the draconic creatures halted a few dozen yards short of the barricade. Lightning erupted from their collective maws and our entire center was jolted with searing electricity. The sole exception was Pazenga who somehow managed to dodge the deadly bolts and hold his position. We called for archery support and the human militia and elven archers began to annihilate the goblin riders. However their arrows were nigh useless against the dragon-like hide of the bluespawn mounts. After a second jolt the tide turned against us and Elarin, Zed, and I were forced to run for our lives. While retreating, I retaliated with another fireball that left the dragon-spawn reeling in pain. Again they exhaled lightning and Zed and I were thrown off our feet twitching and smoking from electrical burns. Yet again I retaliated with a fireball and this time a couple of the draconic creatures burst into flames and collapsed to the ground. The tide had turned back in our favor and we counter charged the beasts, striking them down without mercy. In short order the beasts were surrounded and slain thanks to our superior numbers. Wearied beyond endurance Bryanna, Quin, and I began to heal the wounded.

We three healers had not yet completed our life-saving task when a telepathic distress call reached us from King Orgev. In the middle of the transmission, the king was severely wounded and near death, apparently the victim of an assassination attempt. The arrow that struck Lord Orgev had even been poisoned to ensure his demise, but the king is far to strong of will to be slain so easily and he fought for life.

Thinking quickly I cast another shadow steed spell, this time on Zed and he cradled me in his arms while the shadow mount sped toward the king’s command post. When we arrived I healed what I could of the king’s hurts but was unable to do anything about the poison weakening his body. I had sudden inspiration and requested that Zed place his strength gauntlets on the king’s hands and our lord stirred and returned to consciousness. King Orgev was as weak as a newborn but at least he had command of his full mental faculties and was able to resume command. The king ordered Zed and I to find and destroy the assassin that had so treacherously ambushed our lord.

We were directed to a tall building from which it seemed the deadly arrows had originated. On our way there we were met by our githzerai ally Pazenga. As we approached the tower I thought to protect my friends from the deadly poisoned arrows by offering myself as a target for the assassin’s missiles. Despite what later occurred this was not empty bravado on my part, I had protected myself with my illusionary duplicates spell and a missile shield that would keep out un-enchanted arrows. Somehow the assassin was able to ignore most of my illusionary images and his bow and arrows were enchanted so as to bypass my missile shield. I was struck by two poisoned arrows and was forced to dive into an alley for cover. My wounds did, however, buy Zed and Pazenga the time they needed to reach the assassin’s building.

Zed and Pazenga then engaged in a cat and mouse battle with a hobgoblin sorceress that left them both wounded from her lighting bolts and a summoned swarm of insects. Limping into the building, I placed a silence spell upon Pazenga that stripped the witch of most of her powers. The sorceress had no real hope of defeating such powerful opponents and could do no more than delay the inevitable. After a protracted chase she was slain.

As I glanced at the scrolls the hobgoblin sorceress bore, Pazenga ran up the stairs after the assassin. Upon opening the door at the top of the stairs Paz was ambushed by the unknown assassin who repeatedly plunged a poisoned blade into the gith’s body. Barely alive, the githzerai martial artist wisely chose to tumble down the stairs to safety. I healed my friend Paz as best I could, like the king he was suffering from a poison that weakens its victim and I had no counter for that. I asked Pazenga to act as rear guard and I positioned myself behind Zed to heal him should the assassin strike again. This seemed a prudent action in that warforged are immune to most poisons. But when Zed opened the door the assassin was nowhere to be seen and the warforged swordsman was instead struck with yet another bolt of lightning. More lightning followed as well as an enervating spell that left Zed as weak as the typical human. The second sorceress fought courageously for a time, but with the assassin fled, she chose surrender over death.

We had thought our labors complete this day and thus I sent Pazenga and Zed to the Host temple for healing. As I was journeying to the command post, King Orgev contacted me via telepathy and ordered me to return post haste. I came as quickly as I could but we gnomes are a short legged race and much slower than the oversized races like humans. Furthermore I was escorting the hobgoblin prisoner with my lighting wand trained on her back. Thus I was somewhat annoyed when King Orgev ordered me to head back out again defend the temple. I could have saved a great deal of time by heading straight there. But such is life of any servant of the royal family of Galifar.

I was informed by King Orgev that the Red Hand general known as Wyrmlord Kharn was leading a small party of giants and ogres in the direction of the Host temple, seemingly intent on a suicide attack on the symbol of our faith. Fearing for my friends already at the temple, Elarin, Bryanna, Quin, Simon, and I left at once. Because of my slow pace we arrived after the battle was already well underway. A little less than a dozen crossbow militia led by Zed and Pazenga faced off against Kharn and his giants. I did arrive in time to witness Zed’s master stroke however.

Ignoring my warning, Zed used the glass-encapsulated black ball as a weapon against Kharn and his giant allies. The warforged swordsman broke our elemental gem to summon an air elemental and instructed it to smash the black ball on the ground at Kharn’s feet. What happened next was nothing short of devastation.

The elemental did as instructed and a great ball of entropic blackness erupted that pulled at everything within a few yards. Anything that entered the ebon sphere was instantly disintegrated. The elemental was immediately slain. Wyrmlord Kharn’s speed and agility allowed him to leap aside and avoid any harm. Kharn’s giants were not so fortunate. Within a few seconds only three were left alive and two of those three had received disintegration injuries and were dripping blood.

Kharn called for single combat against our champion and called Zed out. Neither willing to dishonorably attack Kharn nor to allow Zed to die unsupported I settled for a middle road by casting a speed spell upon our party that would give the warforged warrior a significant edge against the huge hobgoblin. Zed drank his potion of displacement as he strode toward Kharn’s position on our left. The giants and our allied party fell into an uneasy peace, weapons prepared for violence while the two warriors squared off.

Two handed axe clanged against great sword and the battle began. It quickly became apparent that Zed was overmatched. Had it not been for his magical enhancement Zed would have been slain in the first few seconds of the duel. Kharn was easily able to penetrate Zed’s defenses and every blow weakened the warforged. Zed was quickly tiring and many of his own blows were far off the mark. Then Zed somehow managed to deliver two mighty slashes that left the hobgoblin bleeding profusely.

The two separated, each eyeing the other, both know that the next un-parried blow would end it, both unwilling to be the one to lose the duel. Did I see grudging admiration in their eyes? Or was that a trick of the light?

Elarin and I exchanged a glance not knowing what to do. So it seemed, but Elarin knew exactly what he wanted to do and he put an arrow through Kharn’s eye! As the hobgoblin lay unconscious, squirting blood from his eye, breath rasping in his throat, Simon put an arrow in his lung with that great bow of his and Kharn went still. With their leader slain, the giants began a suicide charge against our position. Wounded as they were the giants were quickly put down.

When we returned to the command post we were told that the Red Hand had been routed by the Deneiths and were fleeing back to their mountains. It seemed that the horror of this war was over. We should have been elated and relieved but something held us back. We had seen too much to be filled with joy.

998 Aryth 3rd Capital of New Cyre

It seems that the war is not over but merely entering a new phase. We have been summoned by Prince Orgev to yet another war council indicating a threat still remains. Perhaps Wyrmlord Kharn was not the highest ranking member of the Red Hand Horde. I fear that we yet have our greatest challenge before us.