Amora's story

The Tales of Amora the Adventurer (as told to the children of Whiteheart, and anyone else who will listen for that matter)

` ... So we travelled to the country Wendar, to find the part of the sundered man. We arrived at a Monastery, where we stayed for several days, in the hope that their extensive libraries might provide some clue as to where we should travel next on our quest. This actually proved to be quite fruitful, as Phoranin found a book with a picture of a broken tower on top. During our stay, Zim befriended a Priestess of Morgan by the name of Ariah, who seemed interested in our quest. Ariah proved to be quite useful, as she had a wide knowledge of languages, and was able to read a lot of the books there.

We left the monastery, with Ariah now a part of our group, and travelled on to find the tower in the book. On our way to the tower, we had several encounters. First we came across a young child who claimed she was the sole survivor of her family, that everyone else had been slain by a cloak floating in the air that threw daggers. Daggers then proceeded to fly at several members of our party as well as the girl, but no cloak was in sight. Some of us searched for the source of the daggers while others tried to protect the girl form the daggers. Having come across an evil hedge wizardess earlier who had played a similar trick several years earlier, I was very suspicious, but it was not until Tessarael noticed that the girl was magical that these suspicions were confirmed. I knocked her out with the haft of my axe, and Ariah later revived her and cast a truth spell on her so that she must answer our questions. It turned out that she was an old hag who lived in the woods, and liked ot eat humans. Thoroughly disgusted, I clove her in twain with my axe.

Our second encounter came while we were camping one day. A horde of barbarians swarmed on us while we were sleeping. Although we were outnumbered, Tessarael and I killed a majority of them, and we let those we took hostage go, telling them that we would bring drought and famine on them if they did not leave us be. They did not worry us again.

Not long after, we found the tower mentioned in the book. The top part appeared to be blasted away, and inside the front entrance were two huge golems. One was lying on the floor, not moving, but the other one, still standing, would approach our direction if we so much as set a foot inside the door, but returned to its place if we went back outside. The outside wall was too slick to climb, even with my mountaineering equipment, so it appeared we had no other choice but to go in past the golems. Tessarael, being fleet of foot, was lucky enough to run past the golems to the other door without getting hurt. But for the rest of us to get past, we needed a plan.

I volunteered to deal with the creature. I stepped just inside the door so that it came to where I was, but I was able to step back out of range if necessary. By myself I was able to do a lot of damage to it, but it was also able to knock me away from the door. So Zim decided to set off a number of strange contraptions, which caught its attention while we snuck in and attacked it. We stopped it with no problems at all, and went through to the inside of the tower.

After climbing to a higher part of the tunnel, we discovered a shaft that had been bored down deeper, which we followed. At the bottom was a room with a door at the end. We were certain that this was were we were to go, as the rest of the tower did not yield anything. After setting off a few relatively harmless traps, an elven golem opened the door and appeared to us, as she was curious. Her name was Tsaz. She wouldn't let us past the door as he master, Alamir, had ordered her not to. However, she proposed a duel, and if we won she would do whatever we asked. If we lost, we would have to leave.

The first contest was a tight rope walking contest between Tessarael and a grey golem, which Tessarael won. Then I had a duel with another of these golems, which I won in the first round. Tsaz then presented us with part of the sundered man in an urn, much like what the night giant had taken from the gnome caves.

We found out that Tsaz was actually 550 years old, and her master, a very powerful wizard, has been away for 500 years. He had been crafting a broadsword which would be able to destroy undead. He just required a kiss of a goddess to complete it, which is what he was off looking for at the time.

Tsaz let us through the door to look at find what else we could use to aid us, though she would not help us with the traps, which she said were much more dangerous than those we had already encountered. There were 5 doors beyond the chamber, only one of which was not magically trapped. Tessarael found runes along the other doors, and set of the trap while trying to remove the runes. The trap removed the enchantments on most of our magical weapons. Much to my dismay, I found that my armour had lost its enchantment, and the rune on my bracer had gone. However, my trusty axe was still magical, so all was not lost. I took the remaining magical items and headed back up the shaft so that they would not be damaged again.

Thora eventually got the doors open. The rooms beyond were a laboratory, which held the sword Tsaz had mentioned, as well as 2 electrum casts - one for Tsaz and the other for the grey golems, and lots of books. There was also an armoury, a bedroom, and a library which had been ransacked. A tunnel had been dug to the library, which we followed. We found a pool of what Tsaz called quicksilver, but the priests in our party called in mercury. It was the remains of the golem who had protected the library. Apparently it was very poisonous. We continued on after the priests had taken some of the quicksilver, and followed the tunnel outside.

We had an unevenful journey back to the capital of Wendar. Between Wendar and the monastery we were warned to look out for horrible creatures who were 6 foot tall with scales, wings, big teeth, and were able to carry people off. Luckily we didn't see any, though I'm sure Tessarael and I would have been able to deal with them without any problems. Thora had divined that we were to take the sword to Tromso so that Freya could complete it. After one and a half weeks of flying back to Tromso in Zim's ship, the ship stopped working, but landed safely. Unfortunately we had landed in the middle of a plain where a large herd of big shaggy creatures with horns on their heads were herded straight through us.

Immediately, some horsemen in strange armour surrounded us, as those creatures were theirs and had just been stolen. They suspected that we had played a part in the theft. However, at the sight of Safrana, they withdrew their bows and arrows and went back the way they had come. Luckily Zim fixed the ship and we took off again before they came back.A few days later we arrived at the place Thora had apparently been instructed to go. We were to look for a gate which would take us to Freya's plane. After searching for a few days, I found a stone slab, which was but one of many such slabs of what appeared to be an old temple or something.

There was a hole in the middle of it all, which had steps leading down. This lead to a chamber which housed a ghost called Tom. He had once been an adventurer like us, but now he was a trader. He had lots of gold and different weapons and items to trade. He claimed that we would receive an equal amount to what we gave. Tessarael traded with Tom to see what sort of equipment he would acquire.

After we had finished with Tom, we told us the door leading from his chamber lead to something called a nexus and lots of gates. After bidding him goodbye, we set out along the corridor, which ended in a door. Upon inspection, the door was very obviously trapped - there was a wire running all the way from the door handle to the roof, where someone had unsuccessfully tried to hide something by painting it a similar colour to the roof. Tom was watching us, so we concluded that it was a trick of his, so we obliged by opening the door. A banner came down, which said "BOO!", or so I am told. Tom was quite happy that someone had finally opened the door - he said that many others had tried to tunnel through the wall in order to avoid setting off the "trap".

I led the exploration of the maze of tunnels for a while, finding various mirrors, which appeared to be the gates, and lots of dead ends. While exploring one part, a big ball of flame started advancing on us. Most of us decided that it would be wise to find a tunnel it couldn't come down and stay out of harm's way - who knows which planes the creatures in here have come from! The two priests decided to try to talk to it, and somehow succeeded, though I know not how. One day they will come across a creature which their spells will not protect them from. Bah. Give me my axe anyday.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The creature apparently was good, and told us to avoid white and blue gates, and that the gate we were seeking was the golden gate. It had also told Thora which direction the gate was in too. Not having anything better to go by (though I was doubtful as to how Thora could possibly have talked with a ball of flame and extracted this information), we headed down the only passage we hadn't explored yet.

The passage was filled with obstacles, such as metal jaws which opened and closed, a pit with spikes on the bottom, a pit where you were flung from the roof to the ceiling, small crawl tunnels, and water. Of course, we managed to get past them all. There were also "buttons" on the walls of the corridor, where, if you pressed them, you were turned into an animal - chicken, cat, frog and fish - which helped get through most of the obstacles.

There was a white gate along our corridor, out of which a nasty earthen creature appeared. It engaged Tessarael while he was crossing the last pit, when the ball of flame appeared and drew it away from Tessarael. We were not troubled any further after that by creatures emerging from the gate.

After much shape changing, we emerged from the water at the other end of the corridor in our human form again. There was a hole at the end of the corridor...

Amora's Ramblings part 2

... We went down the hole at the end of the corridor, and heard humming ahead. We followed the new corridor down to a furnished room, where we found a strange creatuer who was the source of the humming. He said he was a goblin, and that his name was Corat. He had come through a grey gate and had been stuck here ever since. My reluctance to find the gold gate increased further. Corat had quite a lot of knowledge about this place - he said he had built a lot of it. He was also able to tell us that the golden gate led to a place called "Mirage", where nothing was impossible.

We then decided to bring Safrana and Remus along with us, as well as the sword and the ashes of the Sundered Man. Tessarael went back to meet them by himself, but again fell into the first pit with the big spikes. So we all ended up going back the whole length of the above tunnel to rescue Tessarael. Luckily he was still alive, though unconscious. I offered my mountaineering expertise to go down and bring him back up, but they insisted to using spells to bring him up.

After Tessarael was fixed up, Corat was able to make a hole in the wall for us so that we wouldn't have to go back past all the traps. He gave us instructions to start us on the way to the golden gate, and warned us to look out for the "Mants", strange half ant, half man creatures. He also told us to avoid the corridors on the right.

After following various passages, we came across 2 extremely tall creatures with tusks who were carrying blades. They wanted us to give them some gold, and then one of them led us further. He took us to a big cavern where lots more of these creatures were. Ariah told us that these were called "Orcs", and Safrana, Phorannin, and Tessarael all agreed that these creatures were very violent and treacherous. Despite these warnings, Ariah and Thora both insisted on healing a lot of their kind. This was just the first instance where they wasted their healing spells on our enemies.

When they had finished, our guide took us down a passage which led to a smaller cavern filled with gold and silver. There was a big bonfire there too, with 2 black spots in the middle which appeared to be eyes as they followed us around the room. The orc bowed and scraped to it, and gestured that we chould sacrifice some gold to it. Lani threw some gold down, but I am not the type to waste my money on some god-thing! After seeing Thora and Ariah carrying on the way they do, I can't imagine why anyone would want to worship a god.

Eventually we parted with our guide at the edge of the orc territory, and he gave us a few paths which we could follow. He indicated that some other humans had also been down this way very recently, and they too were looking for the same gate.

We decided to rest for a while, and while we were sleeping, Tessarael saw a group of orcs walk past. He followed them, and watched them attack some stone like creatures and pull out some sort of ore from the inside of the other creatures. After we had rested, Thora checked with her deity to make sure we were going in the right direction. Apparently we were, and had to go past those stone creatures to some water.

We headed off the way the orcs had gone, and came up to one of the stone creatures. Thora cast a spell to talk to it, and it offered to take us to the "Water Lady". We followed it to a nymph who was singing in a lovely grotto covered in carvings. her name was Shan. She said she knew where the golden gate was and gave us directions to go there - we had to swim through her water to get there. She also told us that a huge snake had chased her from her previous home, and asked us to take care of it for her.

Tessarael, Ariah, and Thora went off to investigate, and not long after Tessarael returned alone, highly annoyed. It appeared that they had found the snake, and healed it whenever Tessarael wounded it! They reckoned they could convince the snake to leave Shan alone just by talking to it. I was all for leaving with Tessarael and returning back here to Whiteheart. Oh how I missed this place!

It was decided, against my wishes, that we should all swim through to the golden gate. I tried to make the two priestesses promise first that they would not heal our enemies again, to which they replied that they had never done any such thing. Well! I was not happy at all, but had no wish to return to Whiteheart alone, so I had no choice but to go through with their foolhardy scheme.

Once at the gate, we found that it activated briefly every 30 minutes. We all went through at once, and ended up at the top of a cliff in an incredibly horrible place. Everyone's thoughts were visible to everyone else, and a few people promptly practised hiding their thoughts. Not having anything to hide, I let my thoughts remain open to everyone. I did not care if they knew exactly what I thought of them and their idiotic ideas!

The others soon discovered that they could make anything appear just by thinking about it. I was disappointed to see that even Tessarael was seduced by the magic. They started doing all sorts of silly things such as creating flowers and creatures and flying about everywhere. Ariah even went as far as to create a human, who was in the image of a friend of hers, called Sir Lanthat, whom she obviously loved. I was thoroughly disgusted, as she could not see anything wrong with thinking up a person! I made no attempt to create anything, and kept watching to see if the gate would reappear. Not surprisingly, it did not ever reappear. We were trapped in a place where every single thing was magical. Thora then cast another divination to see if we were in the right palce, and was told that Freya was not in this domain. My worst fears were confirmed. We had walked straight into hell.

The others wasted many days creating all sorts things. They tried creating a gate out of here, but unsurprisingly it did not work. While they were playing with the magic, I discovered that Sir Lanthar did not have a reflection in my axe, nor did anything else the others thought up. It also turned out that they could not manipulate another's mental creation.

During that time, there were plenty of strange sights to behold. There were flying castles and villages, and even a moutain range that sprang out of nowhere which developed carvings in it.

Eventually, the rest of the party decided to move on to find Freya. They even created a horse and cart to alow us to travel quicker. I wanted no part in it, but Tessarael told me we would be stuck here longer if I did not ride in the blasted thing. Being in a no win situation, I decided that suffering the cart would be better than be stuck here for longer, even though I did not expect that we would ever escape.

After a while, we came across a person painting. He said he was called Loth, and that he was an immortal. His Patron was Alphatia, whose domain we were currently in. He knew were we could find Freya, and pointed us in that direction.

About a week later, a cloud of dust sped up to us, which contained another immortal. This one was called Nannon, and he said he had a message to deliver to Freya. He worshipped Hermes, who is the god of messengers, trickery, and thieves. He was a very strange fellow. He insisted on telling us all the gossip on the various immortals around here, and invited himself along with us. Tessarael wanted to fence with Nannon (the gods only know why), and Nannon promptly produced a wooden picket from a fence and used that as a blade! I have not seen such lunacy in a long time (well, other than the priestesses that is).

Eventually, we came to a castle on top of a mountain, which Nannon told us was Freya's dwelling. There was a man at the gate to the castle, who later told us he was a god called Erland, and he took us inside and bade us wait in a strange room - it appeared to be a plain with a wooden door at one end! He told us Freya would see us shortly. Nannon didn't wait long before he crept out of the room, followed shortly by Zim and Lani.
They returned not long after. Soon, Erland took us to Freya, who was with a host of other noble looking people who were having a feast. Freya sent those who worshipped other deities through gates to speak to them, and sent Lani, Tsaz, Nannon and I back to the weird room we waited in before. When we were called back, Sir Lanthar was not there anymore, and Freya made a gate for us to go back home. She had apparently completed the sword, which was now entrusted to Safrana for reasons I could not comprehend. Apparently Safrana would be a ranger when the sword was completed. How that worked, I knew not.

Once we had escaped from Mirage, somehow with Nannon in tow, it was pointed out that those who had spent time with Freya had not bothered to give her the ashes of the sundered man! How I was journeying with such I idiots I will never know. Nannon had not delivered his message either, so he went back to Mirage with Thora and Remus. They returned a short while later.

Those who had gone to see their various gods discovered that they had all been told a similar thing - to travel with each other and recover the rest of the sundered man. This certainly killed plans Tessarael and I had been making for taking a break from adventuring for a few years so we could pursue our own goals. I had wanted to return home so I could complete my train in my battle axe, and so I could continue aiding my Jarl, may he feast in Valhalla eternally, in whatever way possible, and to continue training his personal guard. But it appeared that this was not to be.

We headed back through the maze of corridors past the orcs (giving up more gold in the process), until we reached the cavern where the Mants had been previously. We were most surprised not to see them, when Phorannin and Remus both collapsed to the ground in agony. Tessarael and I both searched for the source of this pain, and found lots of brains on legs on the ceiling! They promptly attacked us both with the same spell, and we fell to the floor, writhing in pain. Someone managed to get one to drop, and it landed on Safrana. We were all released from the mind attack then. Lani grabbed the brain from Safrana's back, and we made quick our escape. Lani held onto the brain, and dashed it against the wall. She then dropped it and jumped on it, but it flipped over and bit her, poisoning her. Ariah attended to her, and we let the brain go.

We soon found Corat again, and he was surprised Lani hadn't died instantly from the brain bite. Apparently its poison is extremely lethal. He let us go back to Tom's, bypassing all the traps, after we promised we would come back in a few months to see his new additions to his creation. And not long after, we were finally safe out in the open air.

We flew to Soderfjord, with the intention to stay there for a few days while Tessarael sorted out a few things, before flying back to Whiteheart at last. But as things turned out, our help was needed in Soderfjord.

While drinking at an inn one night, a woman entered in a very distressed state, and starting drinking lots of ale. I bought some more ale and asked her what the matter was. She told her that a friend of hers, Bera, had just been murdered in a most horrible fashion - she knew not how, but that it must have been done by a horrible beast. I promised to avenge Bela, and set out to investigate.

After wandering up the street for a while, I came to a strange shop which had a sign with a tooth on it. The door was open, unusual for so late at night, so I crept in to investigate. There were 2 doors at the end, both open, and a cupboard. I heard whimpering from the cupboard, and saw that the other two rooms were in disarray. One appeared to be a study, and the other held a recent corpse - Bera. I decided to get the others before continuing the search, since I had no idea what I would face.

The others came along, and we searched some more. Bera had been clawed and raked, and her hand had been chewed up and spat out again. Others investigated the study. I remembered the whimpering in the cupboard, and opened it to find an adolescent boy who screamed in terror. He too had been attacked. Thora healed him and used a spell to calm him down. He thought I must be a Valkyrie! I guess I must have looked very resplendent in my wonderful armour with my shiny battle axe.

It took little prompting from us to tell his story. His name was Eldric, and he was an apprentice to Bera, who fixed up people's teeth. It appeared that a man had appeared at midnight complaining of a sore tooth, so she went to replace it with another tooth. He then became very hairy and had fangs, and attacked her and then Eldric, who fended him off with a broom. The woman I had spoken to at the tavern had also been an apprentice to Bera, and had found her after she had been killed.

Tessarael went to get the Militia, who recognised me as someone of authority here in Whiteheart. They asked for the details of the events that had occurred that night, and for advice. I told them that there was a werewolf here in Soderfjord, and offered to hunt him down since I had much experience of that kind of thing here in Soderfjord. They recognised the monstrosity as a raider called Arnlug, who had a price on his head as it was.

We looked around to see if we could find anything else of use, while Tessarael made some enquiries around some inns to see if he could find Arnlug's whereabouts. It turned out his ship, the "Golden Goose" was in port. I lead the rest of the party to the Militia to see if they would like to accompany us since they could recognise Arnlug. It turned out that he wasn't there, and his crew were not being helpful at all, although one suggested we should try an inn called the "29 Bells". He was not there, nor did the barkeep help much, so I returned to the ship.

On the way back, I saw a guy in a dark brown cloak attacking Lani, whom Zim had cast an illusion on to look like a fiery demon. Lani managed to knock him over, and Tessarael escorted him away from us. I had my suspicions that he might be the guy we were looking for - who knew what form he could take! - but I had no evidence so I had to let him just walk away. In any event, the guards arrested the entire crew, just in case.

Lani, Tessarael, and I decided to spend the night on the boat in case Arnlug turned up. He did not, but the brown cloaked man returned, stripped his clothes off, and dove into the sea. He did not return. Cursing myself for not having accosted him earlier, I collected his clothes in case he turned up later.

Later the next afternoon, Thora contemplated bringing Bera back from the dead to "find out more information". What more would you expect from a priestess like her!?! I told her to leave Bera alone - surely she was currently feasting in Valhalla, as was her due! I could not believe that the party I was travelling with consisted of so many infidels - they often looted the dead, and did not care when Thorfinn and Tessarael were reincarnated, but there was no way I was going to let them disturb Bera. At least they had the decency to listen to me. I'm sure the Militia wouldn't have minded gaoling those that thought otherwise.

We investigated Bera's shop further, and found that Bera had a necklace of teeth. It seemed that if someone had a sore tooth, that she would pull it out and replace it with one of these. These teeth were not human however, and it was instantly obvious that these teeth were the cause of the problem. (Well, Thora took hours to figure this out, but I guess being a priestess doesn't require too much common sense when you can ask your god to do everything for you!) From the number of missing teeth on the necklace, it appeared that we had more than one lycanthrope on our hands.

I went back to the ship to keep a watch out for both the brown cloaked guy and Arnlug, while most of the others went to find out what they could about the necklace. It turned out that it came from a strange, fearsome sea creature, which is what the brown cloak had become.

Elric found that there were 3 more people other than Arnlug who had these teeth. They were the brown cloak, who was called Ingold, a sailor on the "Red Raven" called Stein, and a lady called Goodrich, who ran the soup kitchen. We started looking for them straight away. I started by informing the Militia of what was happening, and gave them Ingold's clothes.

We found both Stein and Arnlug in the 29 Bells. Arnlug refused to come with us, so I tried to knock him unconscious. This resulted in both of them changing their form. I took on Arnlug, and killed him, while the others put a holding spell on Stein. Tessarael removed the tooth from Stein while he was still frozen in place, and Lani dashed to the temple of Freya to get a cure for him. While deciding what to do with him, Ariah, the "peaceful" priestess of Morgan who would always try to stop us from injuring any enemy whatsoever, suggested pulling off his "claws"! I never thought I'd see the day when a priestess of healing would suggest ripping a man's fingers off! My my!

When Lani returned, the two priestesses argued with each other about what to do, a most amusing sight! In the end it was decided, somewhat stupidly, that some of us would try to hold Stein down while the priestesses released the spell and forced the help down his throat. He managed to throw everyone off except me, but his strength was immense and he was throwing me around everywhere, so I had no choice but to let go. The hold spell was put back on him, and Lani went back to the temple to find out how long it would take for the lycanthropy cure to work. It turned out that it would take several hours, so we tied him up and place him on Safrana's back so she could speed him to the gaol. However, Safrana being her usual clumsy self, tripped over partway there, and Stein fell off her back. The hold spell wore off and Stein broke free of the ropes in the same instant that Tessarael attacked him. I raced over as fast as I could, and finished Stein off. We took both the corpses back to the Militia, and set about trying to find Goodrich.

We found Goodrich at her home, and she consented, at my urging, to come with us to the temple of Freya so that we could check to see if she was ok or if she too would change shape on us. Elric managed to extract her tooth without any problems of all. The temple did not have any more lycnathropy cures, but it turned out that Zim had been carrying some. Tessarael and I felt that Ariah should check if it was necessary to give some to Goodrich, or if it was not necessary since she had not shown any signs so far. But Zim went straight ahead and popped it into her mouth before we had made a decision. Bloody hedge wizards! Luckily, Goodrich was fine the next day, despite the fact that Zim had given her poison...

To be continued