There’s an unranked spirit of despair been around for about five years and Galithinal Nomass who’s the Assistant Guildleader of the Humactis wanted some people to help him try and lay it to rest. This is my third mission and each time I’ve met an unranked spirit and they’re just really hard to get rid of. This one has been causing lots of trouble making undead all over the place near the Ikarthian Triangle. Probably its also not a good place for the Alliance because of the Ritual of Ashes or something. Anyway the people who went to help him were like this.

From the White Retreat we had Kal who’s a spiritual warrior in the Order of King Michel, Ozriel who’s a Crusader, Ansell the red wizard, Khortaz and Luke who are Priests of Humact and me, Mouse, acolyte of Humact.

Then in the Valley Alliance Tower there was Taigan who says he’s a druid, Piskie who is a druid priestess, Run-with-Wolf who’s an archer, Lupus and Seeker the Grey Gauntlets.

And also Wolfhold sent two people, Puke who’s a Reaper and Walks-with-Spirits who is a Necromancer.

Apparently at All Hallows last year an impressive group with High Priest Silverheart in it found out what was causing the unranked spirit of despair its problems. It had three ties that needed to be broken. The first was love, because it loved Anya, a lady who used to be a Dymwan scout. The second was loyalty, for Otion Wraithchild, who is a Dymwan necromancer. The third was despair but unfortunately we didn’t know much about that one.

Visions at the Wraiths Head

We went to a waystation that was owned by the Halmadonians but while we were there got bought by the Reader or something, anyway its called the Wraith’s Head and its on the border of the Ikarthian Triangle halfway between two of the towers (Valdemar and Labyrinth I think). Outside of it was some heads of undead creations which was quite horrible, especially when people were picking them up and kicking them about, someone said the previous people there thought it was fun to collect them or something. Anyway High Priest Nomass had arranged for some Halmadonian Seers to get some visions, I was outside on guard duty when they came along but I’ve done my best to remember them all below (if you want exact details about anything in this report then Luke has written a lot of things down).

A Shadowsfall Adjudicator was talking to a Valdemar person, he got her to sign a contract and gave her a big key.

4 people from the Valdemar were there with a Kalid. The first three families all said they’d pledge themselves to be their Kabbiti but the person from Gawfus said they wouldn’t, so the Kalid person said the Gawfus people would never be True Kalid.

Two Dymwan Necromancers were talking, one was sitting on a chair another was kneeling in front of him. The kneeling person said he’d do something for the other one, who himself said he was going to go and see his father, which didn’t really surprise the kneeling one.

I think the two Dymwan Necromancers appeared again, later in time.

A red wizard seemed to be being interrogated by some invisible people. We could only see and hear him talking. He was from the White Retreat although he said he only went in there when it was raining. He said that Lightfoot Flame was acting head of the Red School and he talked about the Ritual of Ashes a bit. He said the Alliance had done it before and they had at least 20 people with brands on their faces to prove it, although he couldn’t say whether the ones from Wolfhold would be willing to prove it, also he wouldn’t give any names.

Some Pax Silvani from Halmaddons Heights came storming towards us, they thought we were wraiths, and were hitting us with mighty spiritual blows. One of them cast a huge effect which flung Puke and Walks-with-Spirits back against the wall unconscious and stripped them of all their power. Then they all vanished, this was the last vision.

We thought the visions were probably in chronological order dating back from when the waystation was first bought from the Shadowsfall. The Gawfus people are the ones who used to do the Ritual of Ashes. The kneeling Dymwan we guessed was Malvineous and the sitting one was maybe Otion Wraithchild. The red wizard might have been from about two or three years ago when the red school was about to take over the Ritual of Ashes.

To the Plane of the Sleepless Dead

Then I went to meditate and High Priest Nomass and another Humacti High Priest arrived, also lots of other people came along like Rancor who’s a wizard and Cirith who’s a Priest of Humact.

Then some people from Wolfhold were outside with the body of Malvineous who Lord Mian who’s the Necromancer Sect Head had been using as a fetch. Things got confusing because they were calling Puke an acolyte when lots of people here said he was nearly a hero or something, also I seen him done a horrible ritual where he bites a chicken to pieces.

With Malvineous’s body High Priest Nomass was able to work out where he might be on the Plane of the Sleepless Dead, we got transported there and it was full of undead including a fetch who looked quite a lot like the dead body we had seen earlier. There was a Blood Lord she didn’t want us to take a spirit and thought we were trespassing there. She said only one of us was worthy to take him and that was Walks-with-Spirits, he went and clung to a big rock and started crying out in pain, then the Malvineous fetch carried Walks’s unconscious body back with us to Orin Rakatha and hissed nastily at me when I went to discern Walks, fortunately Walks wasn’t actually dead like he appeared, although a hair’s breadth away. When we got back to the Wraith’s Head we found Walks had some big scratches on his face which had done some uncurable damage to his health. High Priest Nomass took the body of Malvineous away to resurrect and regenerate it for the morning when we were expecting Anya.

The Lovers Reunited

The next day Anya came to the place, she had been in contact with a Grey Warden called High Priest Shard. She saw Malvineous who was alive and they were both overjoyed which was nice. Malvineous told us a few things, like to get to Maeglor where Otion Wraithchild is we could go via a demi-plane which was near a darkwell node and he could help us summon a sentinel to guide us there. Also why Otion Wraithchild might be calling himself that considering his father was someone of influence within the Dymwan. Well Quicksilver has done a report in the Library of Spirior (now the Kern Archives) about Cranium Doomwraith who’s really Lord Cardonaris or something, so we worked out that was his father. Then he started hinting to the Wolfhold people that Lord Mian would quite like the body of a High Priestess called something FoeShredder, 6th High Priestess of a House Alzzore. Well that stirred up a bit of trouble, but Kal was our leader.

Then High Priest Nomass did a ritual to get a symbol of the love that Malvineous and Anya had for each other, which turned out to be two conjoined roses, which he was going to present via another ritual to Drakken (the spirit of despair) who was in love with Anya. She had said she had no idea why Drakken thought she might like him, apparently after Malvineous had died before Drakken had told her that with him dead then they could both be happy together which had made her quite upset.

Going to visit the spirit

We set off, first up we met a load of undead on the path, the droul blinded quite a few of us. Then we met some Saldorians. One of them seemed okay about us going past, but the rest of them were quite hostile especially to anyone who wasn’t a human they thought they were corrupted or something. Unfortunately this led to a fight where they were using lots of evil power. One of them had a pass on him which got translated, we think the person who wasn’t hostile might have been in the Free Thought Society. A bit further on Run-with-Wolf came back to say there was a drow on the path with a husky voice, also he had some other people with him who weren’t drow. Well the drow was a Shadowlord they were all wearing Kalid colours, he said that this place was their land and we’d have to go a different way. I got confused because I thought Kalid land was up in the North West of Orin Rakatha like where I been to before and this is in the very South. Anyway there was another big fight and the Shadowlords got killed.

Then a few of us went to meditate during which time lots of rank 4 spirits of spite turned up. Then Ozriel collapsed dying so Piskie elixired him, and Walks-with-Spirits fell over unconscious. Luke said he was somehow connected to the Plane of the Sleepless Dead and that nobody should go near him. Then Taigan started prodding Walks and all of a sudden fell over on his back. Well I discerned him (and Walks) for undead and Taigan’d got a rank 0 corpse in him! So I dismissed that and Luke told Taigan off. High Priest Nomass came over and said Walks was paying the price for overcasting and being a Necromancer, a bless would sort him out but he didn’t want the Humactis to have anything to do with it. So when Kal had finished doing his meditate he gave the smallest bless to Walks which brought him back. Then we carried on.

Spirit of Despair – The First Fetter

One problem that the spirit of despair was doing was that he was summoning undead at will. By breaking the first fetter we should be able to stop this problem, however High Priest Nomass had to do a ritual with the rose which had to be completed undisturbed, and all these undead kept appearing and swarming around. The spirit got quite upset while the ritual was ongoing and let out two almighty moans which affected our party badly in different ways, I think the drast it was then blinded and weakened me so I crawled over to a tree where a load of undead set upon me. When I came to Seeker was looking after me and told me that I’d been elixired, also it seemed that Galithinal Nomass had done the ritual and we were about to leave. There weren’t any more spirits of spite hanging around so that was a relief.

Visitors to the Waystation

The next tie that had to be broken was the loyalty to Otion Wraithchild but we couldn’t access the darkwell node while it was still light, so we went back to the Wraith’s Head, to try and rest back some power. Lots of different people turned up while we were there. Some Pax Silvani, Wizards Concillium and Reader.

We’d warned the two evil people on the party to go and hide if the Pax Silvani came cos they get quite upset about evil. The Pax Silvani are elves in Halmaddons Heights, they came and told us a story about their history (I’ll tell it at the end) and asked Galithinal Nomass for help laying some of their ancestors to rest. After some consideration he said he would after we’d sorted out the spirit of despair, although such things took time and a lot of research. They all got happy and said it would strengthen ties between the White Retreat and Halmaddons Heights, which was nice. Then they gifted a few of us a bit of power before departing. Unfortunately this all got used up right away when some hordelings and trolls turned up, these were killed, then some more came along. At this point we hid in the building which had a big ward all over it which stopped hordelings getting in. Ozriel was quite upset because his father and brother were killed by a troll and he had wanted to have some revenge on them. Eventually they got bored and went away although we found they’d barricaded the front door, but Puke quite easily bashed it down.

Then all of a sudden some Wizards Concillium people teleported to meet us, there was three of them led by a scholar called Vilmeus. He said that the Concillium want the Ritual of Ashes to be complete and that they’ll help us to get it sorted. Also he said that the Concillium are worried that the agreement they have with the Cabal is in danger of being broken cos of a Sorcerer in Wolfhold who’s not in the Cabal but set up his own school of magic, although relationships between the Valley and the Concillium are not quite like they once were (originally quite poor from the sound of things). He saw the key to the waystation and wanted to identify it cos apparently he’s quite interested in things like that, but it was for the Reader so he couldn’t.

Then some Reader people came along, Master Alberto Serrulian accompanied by some former Azad An guards who are now Reader, and also a person from the Kalid Valdemar who was the main guard person who was all in chainmaille and stuff. Master Serrulian got given the key to the waystation, (cos the Reader’d just bought it), and Luke and Kal managed to do a deal with them so we could get some good power in our group as we’d run out! Run-with-Wolf tried to sell them a plan for world domination but they weren’t interested. Seeing as there was a Kalid person there we asked him about the Kalid. He said that he was in the Swordsworn Legion of the Valdemar and his tower was the Tower of Day and Night. Also he confirmed there were Kalid towers called Tower of the Hunt and Tower of Thorns. Apparently when the Valdemar had joined the Kalid they’d been allowed to keep their old culture and stuff. Also that asking how many Legions there are in the Valdemar is like asking how many guilds there are in the Alliance. Also that people from the Kalid don't introduce themselves by their tower names, but by their Legion names. Hopefully some of this is useful.

The Darkwell Node

By this time it was dark so we set off to the darkwell node. Walks-with-Spirits had been taught to read some words which summoned a sentinel by Malvineous, after repeating them over and over the sentinel appeared and said it would guide us to Maeglor through the darkwell node. While we were walking along some Shadowlords were there, they got upset cos they don’t like the Valley and said that this (the demi-plane) was their territory. They gave us a chance to leave but we attacked them right away, unfortunately they were quite tough (their leader could only be affected by black magic, fortunately the swords of his comrades had black blades on them so we used them) and the leader killed Run-with-Wolf and Luke who was trying to save Run. Once they’d all been slain we went to travel further on, when this scary-looking beast thing turned up. It walked right past us although it had a sniff, fortunately it didn’t do anything. Then there were some more Shadowlords but we made it to Maeglor.

Maeglor

We stepped out onto Maeglor, the first person we met there was a guide. He said he’d help us if we could give him something that interested him, apparently magical things are quite interesting on Maeglor, well Ansell had a focus we’d taken off a dead Saldorian earlier which sufficed. The guide told us that we’d need to be careful because this Shadow comes down at night and if you get caught in it you get turned into dark elves. (A bit like mists and hordelings on Orin Rakatha perhaps). He said he’d guide us to a nearby place, a waystation or something called Ixx, he also mentioned Otion Wraithchild was there so we set off.

Actually Otion Wraithchild was just up the path, he had several rank 7 undead with him (I think they were shadow wraiths) all hissing and gliding about. In our depleted state we didn’t think we could kill him which was the previous plan, so we bargained with him for the greater good. He said he’d give us a token to break Drakken’s loyalty to him upon some conditions. These were that we’d kill High Priestess Foeshredder (who we’d heard about before from Malvineous), that we’d get rid of the sentinel, and that noone from the Alliance would go to Maeglor for the next three years. Kal replied asking for timescales and some clarification, he said that we had a year to sort out the first two things. Also if we broke any of these then he’d hunt down each one of us and kill us, also for each one of us he’d kill twenty non-status people from the Alliance. Well we thought some more and Kal said those who were there would promise not to visit Maeglor but he couldn’t speak on behalf of the whole Alliance, but we’d pass on the message. Otion Wraithchild seemed to accept this, and said he relinquished his ties to the Dymwan for a year and handed us his Dymwan tabard. He then got one of the wraiths to follow us off the plane.

The guide said he’d take us the quick way off but he wanted our names before travelling, apparently names have power on Maeglor. We didn’t have much choice but to give them to him, and it was our true names he wanted not our nicknames.

Back at the Wraith’s Head

We returned to the waystation, where Luke and Run-with-Wolf got resurrected, both seemed to find coming back to the land of the living as quite a shock. We went to bed, the next day High Priest Nomass returned with a skull which he’d got from a ritual on Otion Wraithchild’s tabard.

Then three drow turned up, the main lady had some lightning bolts on her face, someone said that meant she was in House Alzzore or something. (By the way noone did ever answer my question about what are the tower colours of Annach Morannonil, and if it’s a House symbol thing then how come them drow Houses that are in Wolfhold aren’t also in Annach Morannonil colours or something?)

She said she was High Priestess Foeshredder, 6th High Priestess of House Alzzore and she wanted to thank us for releasing her from her captivity on the darkwell node. She was all happy and pleased and was saying that it would strengthen ties between Alzzore and the Valley, I felt terrible because we had to kill her otherwise lots of people in the Valley would die. So she did get killed, and Taigan then even robbed her dead body although he got bitten by a spider in her pouch.

Breaking the Second Fetter

We set off to the spirit of despair, fortunately it hadn’t made any new undead although we were concerned that if we didn’t break the second chain soon enough it might regain this ability because it was still going on about its love for Anya.

There were some nasty undead there, including a banshee which shrieked so horribly that tragically Seeker the Grey Gauntlet died. High Priest Nomass did his ritual on the skull, after that the spirit got loose from its chains and started walking off. This was a bit disconcerting because the third tie still hasn’t been broken and we weren’t sure what that is.

The spirit was talking about saving his family or something, one of the Halmadonian visions had suggested that by Drakken failing to get help for the Dymwan like he’d been meant to when some Valley people had attacked them, he might have got in trouble over it, and evil people are quite nasty and don’t have any problem doing horrible things to your family. It kept telling us to leave it, that was the last I saw of it, Kal having to remove my terror.

The Tale of the Pax Silvani

Once the Pax Silvani used to live in their own Tower on Orin Rakatha. They were ruled by a King and a Queen. One day the King went to get the Queen a present, (it might have been a key?), he went to seek out a Melnibonean because he’d heard they were the most talented at making those kinds of things. But he never returned. I think the Queen might have gone after him after a while to look for him, but she didn’t come back either. They had three children, the oldest of them were two twin brothers. One of the brothers went out to look, years passed he didn’t return, then the next one departed as well. Years passed again without his return. The third brother was more of a sage and instead of journeying out he turned to books and research to try and solve the problems. I think he did some research which bound a hepath into a rod (there may have been some Melnibonean involvement again). Lots of people from their tower were sent out to look (they referred to this as the hopeless quest or similar) but they never returned. Then the second brother came back. By this time the third brother had got really paranoid and stuff, and was a bit jealous of conceding his rulership of the people. I think their people were split down the middle over who to back, the brothers decided to have a noble dual to decide it but the younger brother couldn’t resist cheating and killed the elder, not realising that he would lose his final spirit strength. After this he got quite tormented, there was the previously-unknown threat of civil war, there was a battle and he called upon the hepath to help him but he didn’t have as much control over it as he thought he had and it killed lots and lots of his people. With his dying breath he remembered the words to bind it back into the rod before passing away. The rod is now looked after by the Watchers Sect of Halmaddons Heights, they guard items of evil and chaos.

May the Good Sphere light our Paths,

Elyssia, Acolyte of Humact
Of the White Retreat.