Near the advent of spring and the end of winter at the first melt, I had another vision from the life of the spirit, the Druid Norolk, which inhabited the emerald around my neck. I saw him saving villagers from an attacking white dragon during a harsh winter long ago. I contemplated this and decided what I would do about the artifact. I had to set those plans briefly aside however when the owner of the property directly adjacent to my tower forced me to purchase it as my tower was directly up against it and may have impinged a little bit onto his land.
After the spring was in full gear and business in Rockhollow was preparing to roll forward I paid the local woodcarver to craved a small superior quality box which I could enchant later (with the Temporal Stasis spell I recently acquired) to assist in the mastery of the artifact. Unfortunately it would take 3 weeks to be finished. A few days later I was busy getting things arranged and stocking my tower while both Tweena and Vorox were away putting in orders for an anvil, probably to be imported from the west coast, and hiring laborers and buying lumber to build a fully functional forge next to the longhouse/lodge when I heard someone yelling their fool head off outside.
I poked my head out of the only available aperture in my place, the single arrow slit above the gate. It turned out to be one of Keenor’s servants summoning me to the suspect merchant’s warehouse on the other side of town. It turned out to be a meeting working out the wedding plans and dowry for his daughter, apparently I agreed to a spring wedding over some freshly imported and very strong Hill-Lander whiskey. The wedding was appointed for the following month. I left his place with 1 bottle of superior quality wine, 3 bottles of the high quality Hill-Lander whiskey we had been drinking, 1 bag of fresh fruit, a bag of onions, a bag of potatoes, 1 cask of ale, 1 sack of nuts, 1 sack of grain and a carboy of honey. All of which were deposited into my tower’s larder.
I finished the day and worked through the night, transplanting the Death’s Head Lotus into the planter in the antechamber of my tower, which I had dubbed the “Tower of the Lotus”, and scribed the runes for the Control Plant spell along the curbing.
A couple of weeks passed, Tweena’s forge was built but she was still waiting for the anvil, I had spent the time transplanting as many lotus flowers form the Green Tower as I could into the planters on the top of the tower and among the battlements as I could. The next morning I was still brushing the broccoli from my eyes before the arrow slit, I was taking in a breath of the cool morning air, when I heard a crash from outside in the direction of the lodge.
I saw a group of Hill-Landers, obviously hired muscle, outside; looked like we had some enemies that were still alive. A half-giant/half-faun was charging into the longhouse, the doors had already been busted in. A human in chainmail was standing in between the lodge and my tower; he appeared to be a mage of some kind. At my gates was a pair of well-equipped thugs. I realized then I had forgotten to bar the gate the night before. The half-giant charged into the lodge out of my sight and the sounds of battle echoed from within, obviously there were other hired goons within that I hadn’t seen. The mage in chainmail shot a lightning bolt at me and I ducked behind the edge of the arrow slit just in time to avoid it. I heard another loud crash and shattering wood along with Greyshadow’s roar from within the lodge. I risked my head to get a gander at the situation outside and saw the two thugs enter my gates. The mage in chainmail was out of sight. Figuring the Death’s Head Lotus would make short work of those two I teleported down to where I had last seen the mage in chainmail. I spotted the mage on the porch of the house. Suddenly, something swooped in on me and nailed me with its poisoned sword. I used a feature on my blue-steel skullcap and turned invisible. That’s when I saw what had hit me. It was a draconian, an alchemically mutilated humanoid dragon. It landed close to where I was at and began trying to sniff me out. I quickly blasted it with a lightning bolt admixed with some shadow energy. It didn’t do as much damage as I had hoped. I moved away from the monster and cast Neutralize Poison on myself to loosen up my rapidly mortifying joints.
I saw one of the thugs that had charged into my tower emerge with a panicked expression and the draconian swung at me missing by a hair’s breadth. I teleported next to the thug and entangled him in Shadow Ribbons and slit his throat. I definitely heard several heavy bodies hit the floor in rapid succession and the blast of the fireball that was shot into the lodge by the mage after. The mage in chainmail retreated from the porch in my direction but I could tell he couldn’t see me so I teleported over to where he was and caught him up in shadows as I did the trespassing thug. I stabbed him once but since that failed to kill him I blasted him in the face with an acid bolt which finally did him in. The draconian leapt into the air and flew off towards the east. I ran into the longhouse to survey the damage.
Both Greyshadow and Tweena were dead and Vorox had just extinguished the flames which had blackened the main room of the lodge during the battle. Vorox was badly wounded and without his armor as he hadn’t time to don it before the attack, everyone had still been asleep, but we both decided to chase down the draconian immediately so he drank down a few potions of healing and I cast Commune with Nature and concentrated to get a bead on the unnatural monster which was the draconian as soon I was able to pinpoint the creature’s location I teleported both myself and Vorox there.
We were engaged in battle with the monster very soon after. Both Vorox and I had to back off a few times in order to drink down some healing potions as the creature scored some devastating blows, the battle turned however after I was able to disarm it of its sword with a Tornado Disc spell flinging the weapon far out of sight into the bush. Evetnually Vorox scored a powerful hit and killed it, fortunately he was able to pull his axe out of the monster before it turned into stone then melted into a puddle of acid.
It was after the monster was destroyed that we surveyed our surroundings. We were in a small clearing in an unfamiliar part of the woods. That’s when we realized we were lost.
To Be Continued…
