Orhan 5 Day 56 TE 6053

Psyched that the curses are gone, we decide to invade the town. Sadly, we don't have a real clear plan, so we argue about it for a while. We begin to reconsider if invading the town is even appropriate.

After an hour of discussing the matter, we see some poor guy cautiously making his way up the trail. Oathar had Imre contact him by using his illusion powers to make his voice appear. It appears that there are some of them in the villiage who are trying to get away from them. They just want to get away. There are six or seven families out there. They'll sneak out, but need protection to travel somewhere. We get him to come to the camp.

It turns out his wife has forced him to come out and lead them to safety. We interrogate him. They were farmers, but then they were forced into town, "for protection". There are a couple of nearby fields that they have to do their subsistance farming with.

10 adults, 5 elderly, 12 kids want to go. We think about getting them out of town. They can probably all sneak out over the course of a night. Perhaps we should send them to that town Oathar has a teleport point at Santa Vallandra. Perhaps we should send them with a letter of introduction and escort or something. And money. Hmmm....

Well, we find a nice dark place to wait for them, and send D. to watch near the wall where they'll be sneaking out. There's some sound and now a little light is coming out. Some giggling kids make it out. D. watches as more kids make it out. The biggest one sends them out to the rendevous site. All seem like it's going according to plan. Haeraan tells them what to do. They keep coming out in groups. All goes fairly well. The elderly have trouble getting out through the hole.

About 20 of them have come out. D. hears one of them get caught on the other side. "Halt!" She listens in. "We were looking around for the kids. They're playing." "We'll deal with it and contact the guard. You go home." The parents leave. D. hops over and goes in. She tracks the missing parents to their house and knocks. "Emergency Evacuation Service, agent D. speaking." She goes in and talks to them. They were planning to head out after waiting a bit.

Meanwhile another group makes it out. There are just four more left, including the two D. is with. Another group comes out so now it's everyone but D.'s pair. They head towards the gate. D. is hiding in shadows. Some guards appraoch, but the bird and invisible D. get the people away from the guards. With our amazing powers all, we get them out. Woo!

We start marching our people away from the town.

We camp for the night. We consider sending them to Bokpentok otherwise known as Vallandraville. Oathar talks to Chet. He recruits Chet to be his man in Bokpentok setting up with gold for his family and more gold to establish operations there.

Orhan 5 Day 62 TE 6053

By this day, we get all of the familities to santa Vallandra. Yay!

Thinking about where to go next, we remember all sort of terrible things about shars and lats and I-lats, and stuff like that, but it's all so powerful and traumatic, that we decide to avoid it entirely.

Sigh, I guess we're taking the harrowing mountain top path that passes no towns.

Orhan 1 Day 22 TE 6054

We make it to the outskirts of Ardenia. After some discussion, we decide to wander through Ardenia and take alook around.

The city is expanding. No wall. since lot's of new construction around the edges. It's all new! New new new!!! See that! it was build last week! That there, we built that yesterday. It's all new, new new! The city proper has cobblestone streets. They're new too. Lot's of people. They are all prosperous. No beggars anywhere. No poor people. Heck, no vaguely well off but saving their money for a rainy day people. Lot's of big houses in the main part of the city. It's all extra clean. Heck, there's a full sewer system. Lot's of city guards.

We head to the center of the city. There's a golden glow coming from the middle. We get there and Lo! It really *is* a palace of gold! Huge gold dome and gold spire with gold trim. Oh and the front door is gold. There are two guards with two-twohanded swords. Very imposing. Kyrik, Haeraan, and Imre wander up. They are called out for loitering and instructed to move along. They do get close enough to see that there's some sort of disc-like indentation in the center of the hilt of the swords. Lyrik loiters some more.

Suddenly one of the guards pulls his sword and points it at Kyrik. We see that it does indeed have the Laen disc. We start making protestations of innocense. The sword starts glowing. What's going on here. The palace doors open up and two more guards come out. Now the other guys all have swords. We all stay with them. There's now a bunch of guards and now an older guy. He wants to know what's going on. Teh guard points a sword at Kyrik. It glows. Thge old guy says, "Right! Everyone follow us." We are escorted into the palace.

We are all lead to a nice little room to wait while Kyrik is lead away into a tower. Eventually the old guy and two fo the big guards sit him down and talk to him. "Why do you appear to be a member of the Order of the Sword, an uninitiated one at that." "Ah, so that's why your guards brought you up here." "Yes laddy, now, what are you doing?" Kyrik stalls telling them that he's just travelling through.They want to know where his family is from.

"The Order of the Sword is an ancient and noble order. The positions in the order have all come down by direct descent and only the Emporer can induct new members into the order and the Emporer didn't induct you, so we'll have to talk to the Lord Marshall about it."

After some interrogation, they bring in a mage. The mage says that if he answers some questions, he'll be free to go. He casts and touches Kyrik. "Why are you in the city? Passing through." "Do you have any ill intent towards the Emporer or Ardenia? No, unless he turns to the dark gods or something horrible like that." "What do you know about your family descent? Lot's of details."

Very well, you can all go.

On teh way out of town we stop at the temple district and there's lot's of temples. Haeraan stops in at the temple or Rianne and asks about the Logor Swamp. They blanch slightly and tell that most travellers stay on a small network of raised paths that go through the swamps and they strongly reccommend staying on the paths. And bring your own water. Haeraan briefs them on the necromancer dude ranch in the swamp. They suggest we take someone with him and show them the area.

We stop for the night at an Inn.

Imre fills us in on some church secrets. One of the eight orders is the crimson order who were were the priests of the church of Zenar. Way back when, they were worshiping Zenar, but there wasn't a Zanar here so Eissa stepped in and took over. It's unclear how mized up the modern church is.