Party at the Tibianic

Templar of the Darkness invited me for a party on his shipwreck, the Tibianic. It is located at a little dock north of Greenshore. Right before the party, he asked me to inspect the prepared table for the feast. It was amazing, I never saw a table that rich. Of course, I didn't want to let him know that, that would damage my image as 'mister know-it-all'. So I told him something like "Hmm, I guess this will do". But look at that table! For sure, they selected the finest ingredients and imported exotic fruits for a lot of money. And prepared them with so much care, I believe they used some kind of magic. Sadly enough, I had to leave before dinner, so I got nothing of it all. Later, when I joined the party, some guests obviously consumed too much dwarven beer and were toxicated by alcohol. Of course, Templar abused that by organizing a race. It was funny but embarassing to see the ladies and gentlemen stumble and totter from start to finish... Some later, they also played a game that required more skills: an aiming competition with harmless runes. It was really a great party, and I still can't stand that I missed the feast.
This was what I needed, a little derivation just before the upcoming quest: an intense search for my niece Lorelain in the jungle west of Ankrahmun.

Goodbye, Market Street 6

As if I do not have problems enough these days, my guildleader decided to sell his house. Nice for him, but it is the place where I sleep when I am at Venore. Well, I can't blame him, it seems he will get a nice amount of money for it and his plans for the future are really...nice, I guess, but it is just a little to much... I loved that house! A comfortable bed for guests in a little room upstairs, next to a rich library, I spended many hours there, realxing and dreaming of my adventures. The large, messy living room, where only Edore knew exactly where to find the latest pictures for the TibiaNews edition of the next day. Hmm, now I think of that... how will he be able to be editor of the biggest newspaper in Tibia, without his office? Anyway, it is done. He moved all his stuff out and now all potentional buyers are walking in and out, I can't be there in peace. He even cleaned the clammy basement, where mushroom had a good life as long as I came there. Very unhealthy environment, but he used to sleep there. I suspect him to use the mushrooms for illegal potions, but who cares...
Of course I will find a new place to sleep, a place that I can call my home, but today I am just sad for what I lost.
If I only had an idea what to do! I am stuck, no idea where to search for Lorelain, the main guilds lost interest for my problems, I am broke for all the runes I had to buy, oh, I wish I could organize an expedition to the jungle! I strongly believe that this jungle that was mentioned by the ghost captain will be the key for everything.

Mintwallin

Do you remember the Ancient Temple north of Thais, where I was almost killed by a Demon Skeleton? I went back there with my friends Jack Bonecrusher and Wilfred of Mayhem. This time we were fully prepared, and ready for the worst. So we walked trough tunnels, deeper and deeper... I felt the weight of the earth above me almost pressing on my shoulders, as I don't like to walk in narrow tunnels deep underground. Strange enough, at a place where we expected nothing else than some lurking undeads, we ran into an outpost of minotaurs. Quickly we eliminated them, wondering why they would hang out there. Soon we discovered why... A little deeper underground, the tunnels seemed to be more cultivated, and more often used. The walls were smoother there, and on the floor we found some traces of more intense use by civilized creatures. Then suddenly we stood there surprised, in front of a huge... CITY WALL! Deep down underground, there is a complete city, populated by minotaurs. Minotaurs, that became very clear, they didn't give us much time to look at their town. As we stood there in awe of the enormous city wall and the impressive gate, some of their biggest guards decided to charge our small team. They stormed over the bridge, and right behind them came some archers that fired bolts in our global direction. It did not scare us, we were excited to see the city... So we killed the guards and walked careful trough the gate in order to explore the town. It was really amazing. Inside, there were shops, houses, a blacksmith, barracks, even a small park, in fact everything that we could possibly expect in a human town.
We did not see many minotaurs inside, maybe they were all hiding after we killed their guards so easy. Anyway, when we entered some more buildings, we found a human prisoner in a tower. The poor man had a long beard, he was there obviously for a long time, kidnapped by the minotaurs. We tried to talk with him, but he did respond normal. Like, when we asked him where we maybe could find the key of his prison, he just giggled about a riddle. Of course we wanted to take him out and with us, so we entered the main building, which we avoided earlier. It was heavily guarded. But now we had a goal, finding the key to that prison. No mercy. Not much to tell about it, first we slaughtered every minotaur that was stupid enough not to flee. At last, we were alone with an older minotaur, and we decided to spare his life. We asked his name, but he refused all cooperation. But we found a letter and found out that he was king Markwin of the minotaurs... Wilfred used some of his more advanced techniques to make him more cooperative (involving a rusty cleaver, a rope and two chairs), and the King told us the key should be somewhere in the cellars,
where all his old stuff was moved after his latest clean-up. So we went there and searched everywhere for the key, until we found it. We went back to the prison, and with the key we were able to open the prison. We took the strange man with us, but once down he started to behave very weird. First, he started to run trough a huge field of wheat, ruining it all. We didn't care much, after all we killed most of the poulation of this city. But it was strange. Then he started to shout at us in a language we didn't know. He runned trough the town to the place where we killed some archers earlier, equipped himself with a crossbow and bolts and started to aim at us. We glanced a moment at eachother and decided that it was enough. We put him in the prison again and delivered the key at the King, and left the city. On a sign we saw the name: Mintwallin. Maybe we are the only living people that know about it, and saw this legendary city with our own eyes.

Lorelain kidnapped! (part III)

Today I returned to the place where I was training with Lorelain when she got kidnapped, I wrote about that earlier. To be honest, I should have done that earlier, but I found reasons to avoid it every day. My friends convinced me that it could be useful to investigate the crime scene, even now it was more than a week ago. And the Orc outpost was close to Venore, so we went there early in the morning. I expected to find the place empty, since when I was there with Lorelain, we killed almost all Orcs except for some that we trapped in a deep cave to "use" later, and they were so scared that I was certain they would have fled. But when we arrived there, the place was filled with Orcs again, even more than last time. This time there was even a Shaman, those are the Orc Druids that study the dark forces of nature. That made me think, an Orc outpost close to Venore with so many troops... they might be up to some big raid on the human cities. I told myself to report it to the city guards later. Anyway, we enjoyed killing those Orcs, since of all hordes of evil, I hate Orcs the most. Then we started to search every square meter of the caves, hoping to find a clue related to the kidnap of Lorelain. But soon it became clear that the reinforced Orc troops had destroyed all eventual evidence by living there some days, since "living" as an Orc means a lot of garbage and destruction. One thing that annoyed me a lot was the behaviour of Jack and Wilfred, they found something funny in a box but didn't want to show me. I guess it is just to tease me, but I hope they will show me later...

Destressing a bit

My life was full of stress, last weeks. So I decided to have one day to relax, to balance myself with the manasphere around us. I took some runes and food with me and travelled to the quiet shores of Edron. In total harmony with nature, I wandered around trough the woods north of the city, became friends with some bears, ate some delicious blueberries and roasted a rabbit on a campfire with some lonely hunters. We sang some old Elven songs together and I showed them how to make my famous Bunny d'Orange, slightly grilled bunny ears wrapped around orange parts. Then suddenly I heard some noise, and before we could jump on my feet, a skeleton ran trough our campfire, with a swift girl on it's tail. Surprised I ran after her, just to see how she fired two arrows at the skeleton with great skill, no idea how she did it but the skeleton scattered in bones on the floor with nothing else than arrows hitting it.
Then she turned towards me with a big smile, and greeted me with the secret greeting of the Rising Dragons! "Be greeted, mr. Borceforth! Nice to meet you here!", she said. Then suddenly I recognized her, it was Issa Lea, grown up now... She joined our meal, but then continued her hunt. Since I was there to find some rest, we agreed to hunt together sometime in the future. Alone now, I explored some more of the woods on Edron, following the coastline. Across the sea, I was able to see a city, and I knew that had to be Venore. More to the west the large fortress of the Orcs. Pensively strolling, I stumbeld upon a lady that was fishing there. Distracted, I greeted her, but she gave no reaction at all. She just kept fishing. Triggered now, I came closer, and greeted again. Nothing. So I stepped in front of her, but before I had the chance to talk again, I saw something strange... Her eyes where totally shifted, I could just see the white of her eye-balls. Alarmed I took her shoulders and shook her a bit. She just kept fishing, throwing the line with no bait in the sea over and over again. I decided she needed help and used my mental connections to the other Rising Dragons to contact my friend Jack, he lives on Edron. Not much later he arrived with the local psychiatrist, a strange man with an enormous, impressive blue cape around his shoulders. His diagnosis was quick, according to him she was slowly turning into a zombie. He told us that this mental disease striked many druids lately, and the medicine was not difficult: a forced vacation to a place with no water to fish. The cause of the probem was not yet known, so he asked us to watch out for those fishing maniaks and to report all of them.
Then they left me alone again. I stared a bit to the sunset, depressed now. It was time already to sail back to Venore...

Kazordoon's mines

Last days I was very busy to organize a rescue team, since I get more and more convinced about the difficulty of my quest: finding my niece Lorelain and set her free.
This quest will be expensive, of course. So Jack Bonecrusher and I decided to pay the dwarves a visit in their mines. For me a good opportunity to practise my magic attacks, and we expected to get some nice loot from this expedition. My most powerfull magic attack is casting a wave of pure energy. It is not very difficult to do so, but it is actually pretty hard to aim right. But I managed to use the spell very good, my mentor would be proud of me.
After a long battle with the dwarven guards, their elite warriors, we collected really a large amount of valuable things. I dragged a huge bag with me, filled will all kind of dwarven equipment, like battle hammers, battle shields, scale armors, steel helmets and double axes. We were in a good mood and happy that the trip would be a success, since we could sell this equipment for a lot of money. But then suddenly, an evil person showed up. coming from the dark, he grabbed our lootbag and disappeared in the dark. Of course we chased him a long time, but since the bag was way to heavy to just pick up and run away with it, he finally managed to get away from us. This was a real disappointment, and the whole way back to Venore we didn't say much.
Here is a picture of this shameless thief:

Entered by a Ghostship

After the disappointing raid on the headquarters of the Necromancers of Drefia, Jack and I returned to Darashia. There we split up, Jack had some urgent business at Edron, and I planned to gather more information about the Necromancers from Drefia. Since it was already late, I had to find a place to stay during the night. I could not sleep at all, so I wandered around trough the city, took a bath in the public bath, and catched some fish at the harbour. The next morning, I tried to talk to several local merchants, but they were unaware of the presence of Evil powers in Drefia. I also visited the local library, but all books were gone long ago. What happened to those books? Only the gods will know.
So around noon, I decided to travel back to Venore. I found a ship that would head for Venore later that day, paid a generous price to the friendly captain and decided to take a nap. Since I was really tired, I climbed on the highest deck on the ship and fell asleep within a few minutes.
I woke up because all was so quiet. Way too quiet. Alerted, I grabbed my backpack with still some runes left, and started to scan my surroundings. I noticed the ocean was all around us, but we didn't sail. There was no sound at all, an that scared me.Then suddenly I noticed that at starboard, there was another ship! I didn't notice it before, because it was not as visible as 'real' things. It was not transparent at all, but somehow, I did not see it if I did not focus on it. Quickly I went down, looking for my captain, to ask him what was going on. But I could not find him. Knowing that there was no chance that I could handle a big ship like this on my own, I had no other options left, I had to explore the strange ship alongside. So I took a deep breath, and stepped on the board between both ships. As soon as I entered the other ship, many undeads came from all corners and cracks, skeletons and ghouls, some with shreds of typical sailor clothes still wrapped around them. After the first moment of surprise, I runned to some nearby stairs, and with my back against the wall, I managed to parry most of their attacks, meanwhile eliminating them one by one with heavy magic missiles. Those undeads were probably sailing merchants long ago, since some of them carried lots of gold with them. I decided they didn't need that anymore and took it all. Wounded, I climbed the stairs, just to meet a ghost at the steering wheel. This must be the captain of those undeads, so I asked him the first thing that came in my mind: "What, in the name of Durin, happened to you and your ship?" I glanced at me with sad, transparent eyes, and answered with a whispering voice: "Yoooou really want toooooo heaaaeearr? Whooooo are yoooou to help meeee... You betterrr goooo now..." and he throwed some blue powder on his deck, which tranformed soon into a pulsating, magic portal. But somehow I felt pitty for the poor, suffering soul and I asked him again about the story of his life and death. Then he told me a story that made me shiver... Long ago, he was a merchant from Ankrahmun, and sailed the seas to trade with the people of Venore, Edron and Ankrahmun. Sometimes Ab'Dendriel. He always avoided Darashia, since there where pirates waiting for prey near the harbour back then. Barbarian times, I tell you. But once, he decided to sail west, because people from Venore told stories about a rich city called Thais. Some sketches and old maps made him believe that this city should be reachable by ship, so he loaded his ship with the finest trade goods from Ankrahmun, and traveled west, following the coastline. Soon he passed the mountains that were, as the people of Ankrahmun believed, the border of the world. Behind, he found a coastline with a wild jungle. Miles and miles he sailed, and then he found a bay with something that looked like a village, and throwed his anchor. With some of his sailors and junior merchants he went to the village, to find a strange tribe of people that worshipped skulls and big statues of pure gold. As soon as they saw this, his sailors couldn't control themselves anymore. They slaughtered the tribe, burned down their poor cabins, and started to dig out the big golden statues, trying to transport them to their ship. But then the horrible happened: an dark, skinny woman showed up at the borders of the jungle, and shouted with a high voice some terrifying words in a strange language, which made the crew from Ankrahmun shiver and feel a cold deep into their flesh, yes, even their bones felt frozen. Scared, they left the destroyed village, running back to their ship. But from that moment, they were unable to find a harbor, and they didn't die anymore. Some sailors tried to kill themselves, but their soul did not seperate from their dead bodies, and they became undead skeletons. Sometimes, they spotted a ship like ours, and tried to meet with the living people aboard to look for help. But always, the captain jumped in the sea and swam away, scared almost to death, and the passengers were mostly attacked by the hungry ghouls among the former crew.
I decided to help the poor ghost. We agreed that vaporizing his unearthly remains with pure energy would be the best, so I asked him to stand back a bit and focussed totally on the manasphere around me. Then I casted an enormous Energy Wave and he was gone. Somewhat exhausted, I stepped into the magic portal and was transported to the harbor of Venore.
The story of the ghost captain left me thinking. What if Lorelain was not kidnapped by Necromancers, but by the people that lived in the jungle? They seemed to be able to use never seen before magic... It made sense to me, and I decided to find a team that was willing to explore this jungle with me.

Lorelain kidnapped! (part II)

While Crom started a search in old libraries for information about Dark magic, especially involving Dark equipment, Kon started to gather a team for the quest. I knew this would take several days at least, and didn't have that much patience. So I asked my old strong friend, Jack Bonecrusher, to join me and pay the Necromancers at Drefia a visit. Since this place was well-known as a hideout for the evil sorcerers, I hoped to find Lorelain there.

We packed a lot of runes and bolts, because we expected to have some heavy battles. Plain firepower is most important against Necromancers. We sailed to Darashia, and from there we had to travel trough the Daramian desert to Drefia, a haunted, long abandoned city of ruins at the west coast. The only living beings there are Necromancers, and the stalkers they hired to guard the place and to warn them for approaching enemies. To have the advantage of a surprise assault, we waited on the edge of the mountain until we had spotted all stalkers in the area, knowing they would come together sometime to report to their leader about their observations. We used that moment to jump down and take them out, using an extreme ball of fire, a nice spell burned on a rune. Oh, I love to use those runes, they are spectecular. Without the stalkers to warn our enemy, we were able to sneak in the cellars of the main building, using some advanced magic that made us invisible for most creatures. On a deeper floor, we could hear the rumours of human voices, although raw and creepy. We decided to approach the Necromancers fast and with overwhelming firepower, so they wouldn't have a chance to see who or what attacked them. For that purpose, I created two elements of pure living Fire, able to do amazing blasts of fire and causing heavy explosions over a large distance. The plan was maybe a little to simple, since the resistance was more heavy than we expected. Some necromancers managed to summon some creatures battle us, mummies, ghouls and skeletons. But in the end it didn't help them much, we wiped out all what moved in their caves, even a strange cattle of black sheeps with red glowing eyes in a far corner. But we didn't find Lorelain, and my spells to sense human life made it very clear, she was not there, no, she had never been in Drefia...

My friends came over today

Lorelain, my most beloved, young niece, is kidnapped by, as it seems to be, evil Necromancers. I had no idea where to start searching, so I asked some friends to join me in the quest to save her.

Crom will do the intelligence part. He is the brain of our team, because although of little physical strength, nobody can beat his brainpower once unleashed. Normally he hangs around on Rookgaard, teaching and training new souls. He once was my teacher also. But for this quest, he left his natural habitat and joined me in Venore.
Also, my oldest friend, Kon, did not have to think twice before joining me. He hates Necromancers anyway. To be capable of using all required magic, he had to request a promotion in the profession of sorcery first. Now he has all licenses that are needed to use the most deadly "good" magic, something he avoided as long as possible. Although very skilled in the art of sorcery, he really wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless the fly is summoned by a Necromancer.
Crom and Kon are brothers, members of the respected Henceforth Family.

Lorelain kidnapped! (part I)

Something horrible happened! My niece Lorelain, a sweet little girl, growing up to be a lady, is kidnapped! And it is all my fault! My feelings didn't betray me, the Evil Forces have made a terrible strike and hurted me deep in my soul. I felt it comming for days.
Lorelain isn't an adventurer. She is one of those cute girls that chat a bit with the other girls in town, making fun and burning some runes to earn money.But for some reason, I thought it would be nice to take her on a hunt, to train here a bit so she would be stronger on later age. This world is though! So all people should learn at least the basics of survival. We went to an Orc outpost near Venore, after I equipped her with a basic equipment: a Dark Armor that I bought from a friend, plate legs, a Dark helmet and a firesword. She wasn't totally unskilled using swords, since she had practised that on Rookgaard. We slayed some Orcs, and actually we had a great time, she liked it more than she expected before. I thought it was a safe training.
But then suddenly she grabbed her head, and I saw how the Dark helmet was firm attached to the Dark armor. She glanced at me with eyes that seemed to be distracted by something far away, but we were in a small cave. I runned some steps towards her, not knowing what to do, but then the Dark equipment buzzed, and at the same second I appeared on a totally different place, surrounded with lava, in the middle of a fireplace. Totally in panic, I jumped out of the fire and tried to get trid of my burning clothes, meanwhile reaching with my mind for the thoughts of Lorelain. For several minutes, I was totally disoriented, and although I heard some phrases of what my niece tried to tell me, I couldn't react properly. This is what I remember: "Help! Men in black coats chase m..." "...aaah! Where are you WHERE AR.. HELP! help me!".
I never knew that it was possible to move people to another location, other than by divine power. But I remember that I heard rumours of what can happen when several Dark parts are combined...
This all makes me believe that she is kidnapped by Necromancers, and that is a terrible thing to realize. Somehow I have to rescue her.

Dear diary, I hope that you understand why I did not write for several days. This all confused me very much.