Obviously we have attracted the interest of both Archanon AND the Silver Unicorn! Our two groups met up outside of a village where Fae were being prepared for sacrifice. With our contingent of rangers came some Fae archers and some Malakarans who were most assuredly NOT servants of Leo Donetella. We planned a careful assault under the guidance of the Sgt. Major. Our initial assault caught the enemy completely by surprise and we quickly held the advantage. The battle was vicious, but we never relinquished that initial push and quickly slaughtered or drove off the occupying forces. Our own casualties were, thank Archanon, non-existent whilst the enemy forces suffered almost total destruction. Our reward was seeing the gladdened faces of those Fae saved from a gruesome death on the altars of sacrifice.

We have placed our mark upon this land. Let it be known we will tolerate NO intrusion upon the borders of the Fae nation!

Dear Headquarters,

Dark Moons 33rd

A harsh march with time of the essence pressed against us after engaging in a skirmish with the vile monstrosities of the abyss or wherever they came from if those reading must be a stickler to their cosmology. Sergeant Major Fyrforg proposed I discard my form and inflitrate into the area where the civilians were threatened to be sacrificed. Odd for having support by some Alakar foresters and people whom from past adventures could see possess Malakarian features but their politics could not be thought of currently. Ranger Raganhar followed along to help with the covert operation, though I found him better as a distraction than anything else. On the positive thoughts I knew he could handle himself well.

Those thoughts fell true as I slipped past our enemies while my fellow rangers entered a fierce skirmish with the combination of magic, arcmancy, arrows, and steel. With my luck those dreaded red store agents were in allegiance, and of course they were bare the colors or symbols of Proprietor Luvon. Can he just quit, his organization already is suffering and he wants more failure? Aodh made a good entrance to keep them preoccupied while bidding my time, pulverizing the opposition with some good obscured force of calamity with the Vibora’s venom without knowing the wiser. That conveniently was when our forces overran the perimeter, our group prevailing with only some injuries at worse for us, yet theirs suffering heavily. Now they can run back and Vibora’s hunt with those coins can commence.

I welcome reassignment,

Ranger Dario Alejandro Del Vibora

Having gotten the children to safety, our group proceeded to the nearest village where we expected to find the parents trapped and/or sacrificed. Our thirst for vengeance, whilst unbecoming, was welcome for the strength of purpose it instilled. We attempted to stealthily approach the village, unfortunately Aodh does not know the meaning of the word stealth. Sometimes I fear that he LITERALLY does not know the meaning of the word stealth….. Seeing the watch gargoyle ahead of us flying back to the village I precast a spell of quickness on our group and we approached with a typical frontal assault (note to self, whenever possible pre-cast obscurement upon myself….) The village seemed well guarded by archers and a minotaur well above the normal size of minotaurs. Aodh, in typical fashion (it truly is bravery, though I doubted for a while) charged the foremost archers and slew one. I detailed Bait to follow Gratien in while I called down a rain of purple fire on two archers and the great minotaur (note to self, it would be more efficient to simply use 3bolts if I have less than 4 targets in the blast area of Ash’s rain of fire). The two archers were incinerated and the great beast seemed to be hurt, but he shrugged it off. It was the that Darcassion proved his worth once again by putting an arrow in each of the monstrous creatures huge eyes. The great horseman Gratien charged to Aodh’s side with bait at his heels. Another archer was slain on the end of Gratiens lance. then the hidden enemy archers opened fire. My deflection and cover proved their worth as 4 archers failed to pierce my eye socket. Gratien was struck twice but managed to shake off the hideous blows! Aodh rushed inside the building seeking to slay the archers. Unfortunately he found another minotaur, 4 Malakar warriors and some kind of Malakaran dreadlord. I called upon my angelic minions both to light the area and heal Aodh’s wounds while Bait supported Aodh in melee combat. I used the lesser bolts to clear out 2 archers from their cover. Inside the battle went poorly for a while, Aodh almost dying for the second time. Then the odds tilted our way, I killed 4 more archers with the lesser bolts leaving only 1 to fire. Stiele and Gratien moved in to support Bait and Aodh, all of the creatures insdie were slain with the exception of the Dread lord who was protected by a deflection. Aodh and Stiele noticed some sounds from the basement below. As they went to investigate, the dread lord flew straight at me and I was hard pressed to defend myself from his blood iron weapon. Inevitably I lost my hold on the deflection and quickness as I felt the sting of blood iron once more. (note to self, TRULY I must take better care of myself if I am to maintain buffs on the group). Apparently feeling his job of disrupting my spells done, the dread lord assaulted Darcassion (did I mention the dread lord was flying?). He sorely wounded Darcassion, it was then that Stiele and Aodh slew the enemy mage lurking in the basement. At that point the battle was a foregone conclusion. We saved many of the villagers, unfortunately many more were sacrificed to the evil patrons of these fell creatures.

Whit and Gratien and I arrive back in Greentree to a town that is reasonably well kept though a bit ratty around the edges. The Lt. has things slack a bit, but he’s only human. Sgt Major Rallidon quickly assigns us to patrol splitting us into two 5 man teams. My team patrols to the South consisting of Myself and Bait, Darcassion in command, Gratien, Stiehl and Aodh. We see some smoke across the border and cross it to find a caravan that has been waylaid. Following the tracks we find many Fae children who have been freed from slavers. We are currently deciding what to do and worrying about the fate of our Northern contingent….

We tracked the vile killers of High Druid Evoran Starborn to one of his home groves/nexus lines. There Druidess Shayline (who has my vote for high Druidess) began the 24 hour ritual to sanctify the grove while we posted guards. Unsurprisingly an attack was launched by a mixed group of abominations and builders theoretically working for the Chimaera. We drove them off with ease and resumed our watch/rest. another hour passed us by and a second minor assault commenced. Realizing that we were in for a LONG night we husbanded our resources as we destroyed several minor attacks.

On the dawn of the next day on or abouts White Stag 5, Ranger Darcassion flew in with grim news. A mixed army of approximately 1000 collared ratzen with minotaur handlers, control golems, and several leader types wearing elite builder armor approached our position. Unfortunately this led to Shayline having to abandon her attempts to finish the sanctifying of the grove.

A builder envoy approached us under flag of truce. As the ranking officer present, Corporal Murvoth strode out to meet with the envoy over my well reasoned objections. As expected, the “diplomacy” was short, messy, and possibly created the game of “golf” as Corporal Murvoth sent the envoy’s (minus his body) into a rabbit hole all the while yelling “THIS IS LORELEI!!!!”. I must admit, even if only in this report, that I found his handling of the situation both refreshing and gratifying as the “envoy” was the deceased remains of an Eldakar stuck in builder armor.

Unfortunately, rather than managing to delay the assault until some minor reinforcements Darcassion had informed us were on the way arrived, the first wave of builder troops were upon us.

Grimjack and Murvoth strode forth laying waste to minotaurs and lesser golems. Darcassion drove their entire air corp from the sky. Whit turned the very forest against them as his inventions threw sharp spikes that rended Ratzen flesh. Stiele stood by Grimjacks side to keep the lesser creatures off the huge ogres back so that he could deal with the larger targets. I created a fog that kept the second wave off our backs while we slaughtered near 100 of the foe.

Of course, for those who can do math, that left 900………

Throughout the next 2 or 3 days (they blended together) we received reinforcements, split the heavens to drop fire and ash upon the enemy, slaughtered hundreds with our chosen weapons of war and, in the fullness of time, broke the force that assaulted us. Truly it was a battle worthy of the name!!!

Corporal Murvoth was the one who suffered most, losing his boon companion “Chewie”, a Wyvern verging on full growth. A great victory we had, but we paid for it with many lives. I fear there is yet more to come…….

It is my duty to report a disturbing happening. Our Ranger contingent tracked a group of evil-doers through some burned out towns. Upon overtaking the perpetrators we found a dense bank of obscurement set up by an enemy mage using high magic. As if that was not enough the enemy consisted of several arc-casters, minotaurs, ratzen, and builder golems. this suggests an alliance of sorts amongst our enemies. I strongly suspect this is done at the behest of the being that is taking prisoners and using them as experimental material to construct “golems” of sorts.

In any case, shaylene and I used our respective magics to provide light to counter the obscurement. This was to little avail as the enemy caster was puissant in his use of high magic. That is, until Darcasion put 2 arrows through both eye sockets. The 2 golems merged into a “super golem” of impressive size and potency. It took all we had to bring it down. Murvoth and Grimjack did a “rope a dope” with it confusing it’s programming and tearing into it’s tough metal hide. The shear numbers of enemies was dismaying. Finally we prevailed and managed to route the enemy forces.

I fear this is only the beginning…. Further reports to follow….

Ranger Report 25

17th Harvest Moons

Written by Aodh B. Raganhar

Present Rangers: Gratien, Darcassion Pandarus, Ash, Stiele, Whit, and Myself.

We ride back to Lorelei after getting Gratien’s ribs back into place.

(( Street-Wise Rolls ))

We receive words that Malakaran’s that aren’t the ordinary merchants and such
from town, and have been traveling back and forth from town for weeks.

Vinnie says they have been asking around about us, and who we are. ((Jvorik))

Whit attempts to make a mechanical torch.

18th Harvest Moons

Darcassion and Whit receive word a man is in town, and go meet him in a a local
tavern.

The art of parlay, begins as Darcassion and Whit begin to question this Malakaran.
He beats around the bush a lot, but does say he wants/wanted to know more about
us.

(( Notice Rolls ))
(( Hand Caster at his side ))

Whit points it out, with a response of “It helps with certain obstacles.”

19th Harvest Moons

More questions being asked, stories being told.

20th Harvest Moons

I stalk the Captain all day, and Darcassion flies in, and apparently the kids
that were with said Captain were watching in amazement, were reported missing.

No serious incidents though, as they were under my watch as I followed the
Malakaran.

21st Harvest Moons

Malakarans leave, I follow to border and return home without incident.

(( Notice Roles after being sent by Lieutenant I succeed))

(( One Move Action ))

(( More Notice Roles ))

We are ambushed by the Malakarans that had previously visited Lorelei.

blood splatters

Now there are a bunch of bodies everywhere. We have a broken down golem with us,
a couple of arc lances and captives. Whit is also now in love with a builder.

After escorting the freed villagers back to their homes to much rejoicing (I hear they are going to build a statue to our honor and have taken to naming children after us, silly humans) we continued our pursuit of the “thing” that we suspected had taken the Eldakaar mage’s head. After tracking the abomination to its lair, an abandoned tower lying in ruins, we heard a voice of apparent reason emit from a dark blot on the landscape. The voice admonished it to leave or it would lose control and have to drive us away. Correctly suspecting that this was the mage we had been seeking, we bent to the attack in order to restore the natural balance. Failing to initially harm the creature with our attacks, the mage and I played a game of “lights on, lights off”, until it grew vexed with me and closed into combat. After surviving it’s gross attack upon my person, our group managed to take the beast down by removing it’s head from it’s body and burning the body. The mages ghost app.eared and thanked us for freeing its spirit from captivity. The tower had belonged to its mentor and it retreated to the tower in order to rest its troubled soul. The mage gifted me with a power storing stave and we buried his body and head with full honors.

Dear Headquarters,

12th to 14th of Harvest Moon

Leaving that horrific cave of destruction, haunted by the thought of what occurred to the Eldakar Sorcerer. Plunging into the confine of his mind it was distressed, pondering on the whereabouts with a clue of seeking a home from a mysterious master. Gratien demonstrated his savvy nature of the woodlands, tracking some large tracks. Someplace during our travels we released the prisoners and from there approached a mysterious tower

Creeping up upon us was a black blob of unknown origin, imploring us to leave these woods, myself receiving some backlash from exploring his mind. Something hostile lurked , signaling to Corporal Darcassion to take this creature out. Unfortunately the power emitted from his bow clashed with his first shot, taking some damage along the way. Corporal Whit unleashed the fury of his boiling oil, looking unfazed in the darkened cloak of slime. We started to spread out, and the monstrosity in black attacked. Crushing the ribcage of Gratien, his screams bellowing.

Ranger Ash uncovered his true form through his summonings of the light, revealing something too grotesque to describe. This Chimera forged creatures out of nightmares, grafting an Eldakar head onto the imposing form of a giant troll. Explaining the difficulity we faced, I stayed frozen near my horse in what cover I can afford. The Koridian rushed off in the opposite direction, not that I can blame him.

Aodh and Mavi continued their frontal assault, however a few experienced with this beast knew of their tough hide and rapid regeneration. The magi fused with him augmented his defenses with darkness and some mythical shielding to make evading our attacks easier. Ash took some wear and tear, yet the state of his wounds were mainly scrapes and slight bruises. The Alakar druidness Fawn startled everyone in the forest, leaving it vulnerable with a trained shot of life energies to puncture through his magics. We needed to kill it with haste, myself sniping from sight with an invisible strike from the distance, developing a hole through the small head and dropping him.

Mavi being the faithful servant to religion severed his head off with his white-silver blade to enable mercy onto him. Time was spent tending to the wounds of Gratien, meanwhile on the campground the magi resurfaced. In ghost form he revealed the tower to belong to his Master of the Arcane arts and that Cragen Arvin the builder was the one who did the experiment on the magi whom we fought at that base in the cave. Leading the Eldakar to the building, he returned with an everwood stave. That thing will give me nightmares for days to come.

Your Welcome,

Dario Alejandro Del Vibora

Not too sure what in the Abyssal Hell is going on out here, but I’m seeing a reoccuring theme: those rat things that were improved with machine parts. they were a pain in the but to take down, but our team managed. I ended up being able to do little besides swing my sword and block with my shield in the engagement. I need to work on my speed. a tank is no good unless he’s taking hits meant for others.

that cave we went into had all sorts of contraptions and machinery, and a working elevator platform. we were greeted with an assumption that we were fresh test subjects and a whole mess of bad guys that were backed up by golems, including a massive one that exploded upon damaging it.

still sifting through the rubble, and then we plan our next move, but man I hope we get to the bottom of this soon. we dont need anyone else getting hurt, especially with those mutant chimera creatures running around.

those wierd bat things? some people are actually trying to experiment on the fluid they found in the belly sacs. gross, man.