Letters - Sicarius' Journal, Entry One

Precis to opening passage of the journal of Sicarius Derex, with elements extracted from correspondence to Kobart of Onnwall written around the date of journal entry.

The faithful amongst the the Klan'gh'ddn priests and the B'Lanish scribe lead us to the end of the secret tunnels leading out of the Klan'gh'ddn temple. I couldn't help but feeling the sewer tunnels they adjoined after a while had become territory all too familiar to me given recent events. It also gave me some idea as to what became of the blind diatribes of the Klan'gh'ddn sect known as the "Defenders Of The Faithful". Fortunately, as opposed to my experiences in fighting the kobolds, I wasn't forced to deal with great amounts of ...Faithful Defender rhetoric.

At our exit, as the priests bade us farewell, the B'Lanish scribe presented me with a journal the he informed me that the Great Sage himself asked that I carry. Thus it is that what you read here is also found within that journal. Perhaps not word for word, but you are receiving a potted version nonetheless. I barely had time to ponder the great gift that the Sage had given me before we set off away from the city at high speed no less. We were assured that Ervalle was less than a days ride away and we weren't disappointed.

The land to the east of Highcourt is open plains, wide expanses of arable farm land between townships and cities. From the perspective of one from the realms northern extremities, it stands as an example of the diversity of terrain. Wide open lands with no signs of forest nor of there having been forest. Grasslands extending to the horizon in every direction. I think I would have appreciated it a little more had that same description not also left me feeling very exposed.

As well, tensions amongst the party were not good to say the least. Between several less than tactful things said by Ethne, Ilya's demoralised state of mind after having seen the events in the capital and feeling her part in them to apportion more blame on her than I feel would be fair (that is to say, any at all), the party bickered continuously.

Though I missed what could have been a carrier bird earlier in the day. I was fortunate to spot a cluster of riders moving fast out of the city gates far behind us. This dampened the arguing a little as we concentrated on moving faster than before.

We had a good couple of hours on the riders, whose identities we had not yet ascertained when we reached the walls of the township of Ervalle. We split briefly, primarily to search for information on how to get to the town of Tarndale. This of course, had to be done with a certain amount of discretion. My attempt to pass myself off as someone looking for a traveller going to Tarndale met with varying degrees of success. The degree of success dropped out rather quickly whilst Phaedra convinced us all to leave before we had paid. We hadn't realised what had been done until we had already gone. The first night out of Ervalle was a fireless camp away from the road, listening to our pursuers overtake our position and ride into the darkness ahead. This was the only pause in a night full of blame throwing and bickering.

Having had our pursuers reach the town of Foramoor, we were wary of entering the town at all, but did anyway. Anticipating the need for it, I called upon B'Lan to open the minds of the townsfolk, over the next couple of minutes, my suspicions were confirmed. Our pursuers mission was not only to bring us to their justice, but to also place a price on our heads. A moment or two later, as we were riding out of town, Phaedra or Ethne managed to grab a copy of the wanted poster that was placed there. I've included it with this letter for your amusement, should the god's fortune smile on us and history remembers us as heroes at some point, we've been bold enough to sign it with a passing mood of confidence.

We continued our path to the northeast, a contact of Phaedra's suggested an alternate, out of the way route that would save us some exposure if not time. The village that marked the halfway point of this diversion had already seemed to have had word of us. Not only that, they had seemed to have caught Ilya. Riding forward, I demanded to know what they were doing, the townsfolk, complete with pitchforks pointed out they had caught Ilya, the Heretic. Attempting to pose as a bounty hunter, I laughed, pointing out that Ilya was a female dwarf's name, not a male, which was obviously the gender of the dwarf about to be hung. As the rest of the party failed to pick up on the ruse, the townsfolk quickly saw through it. To be honest, it was a long shot to believe that the rest of the group would pick up on it and play along, it needed some forewarning.

Fortunately, the previous experiences in towns lead to consider prayers for crowd control. Needing a quick resolution to a situation which was getting quickly out of hand, I summoned the Communal Fear spell. Picking up on my idea for a change, Ethne summoned a ghost noise not unlike the noise of a dragon roaring, the two spells combined managed to scatter the crowd quite nicely. The dwarf had had enough time to free himself by the time this happened and refused further assistance as he sped out through the middle of town. It took surprisingly little time for the villagers to get over their shock and fear, climb onto horses and pursue us. Greed will do that to people I suppose. Approximately 30 horses followed behind us in close pursuit as we headed into some light forest. Ilya turned and asked Klan'gh'ddn to assist our getaway, eloquently, Klan'gh'ddn turned a large patch of earth behind us to swamp, causing a pile up of pursuers, all but 5 in fact. The remaining 5 gave chase until Ethne convinced them of the odds they faced.

The next village had warhammer armed soldiers in the town center, so we skirted around the edges of the town and continued on our way.

As I write this, we have reached our destination, Tarndale. The town the scribe said was most likely to give us directions to an old ruined Dwarven Fort. The fort is long abandoned but thought to still have an operable forge, and a library with which I might find books old enough to give some clue as to the whereabouts of the lost Elven tribe.

Again, we have armed soldiers of the church looking for us, getting the information will not be easy. A bridge on the other side of town leads to a sudden rise of mountains to the east. We will be at that bridge soon and hopefully crossing it will be the most of our problems. Somehow, I think this is not the case.

Sicarius D'rex