Tormeron's events: the Stories

[Gergel]

As was suggested earlier, the group had used the week offscreen to travel from Wetlands to Feralas, and gather at Feathermoon Stronghold. There is very little preliminary banter and it's pretty quickly decided to head to Dire Maul, as that is where the cursed ring's visions pointed last week.

Just before reaching the fork in the road which leads off to Dire Maul, three night elf sentinels stop the travelers. They strongly suggest (in Elvish, as none speak Common) that the group should not proceed because local ogres have recently become more and more dangerous. However, the armed-to-their-teeth adventurers show no concern about ogre attacks and the sentinels allow them to proceed with their blessing.

On the road that runs up to Dire Maul the adventuring party encounters a party of a different kind -- their first ogre group. At first neither side attacks and even attempts to start a conversation, but things go bad very quickly and the ogres attack.

(Sadly I missed this specific part because of network problems, so I saw Siaraa offer food to an ogre, and the next thing, after my network came back and I logged back in, was a battle.)

The few ogres are dispatched fairly quickly, but one of them, badly injured and possibly missing an arm (may or may not have been cut off by Thelarwen), picks up Silsbury and runs away towards the gates of Dire Maul. The group gives chase to rescue their companion.

Halfway to the actual Dire Maul ruins the group runs into a much more formidable force. Twenty ogres in full plate armor block their way. Led by an ogre in a golden helmet, they act like a proper and trained military squad instead of the average ogre "ME SMASH!" free-for-all melee group. The brute that was carrying Silsbury is all the way behind them, still holding on to the worgen. There does not appear to be any way of reaching and saving her other than going through the ogres.

Interestingly, the ogres do not seem to wish to actually attack the adventurers. Instead they quickly surround and encircle the group, then attempt to move and herd them towards Dire Maul proper. This does not sit well with Thelarwen who promptly draws her sword, derails ogres' (and Tormeron's) plan to move the group into Dire Maul, and attacks the ogre chieftain. There are a few other ogres in the way but Thelarwen is not particularily hindered by that, as she easily cuts her way through and confronts the golden-helmeted chief.

This, of course, also puts a permanent stop to any plans the ogres might have had to non-violently move the group and a huge battle begins. Most of the ogres are dispatched. Some travelers are injured, some are temporarily flattened under tumbling ogre corpses. The badly-injured ogre that's holding Silsbury just dies of its wounds and Silsbury has a lot of trouble trying to struggle out of its dead grasp.

All the ogres are finally dispatched, including the golden-helmeted leader who manages to knock the wind out of Thelarwen quite badly, leaving her to fight at diminished strength for the rest of the evening.

Just as everyone starts to catch a breath, one of the fallen ogres decides to get up on its feet again. There's a necromantic chill in the air and in an incredibly creepy manner (if you just try and imagine how it actually looks like) the flesh of other dead ogres begins to melt and flow up and onto the raised one, filling its wounds and replenishing its mass. And so all the tired, wounded and weary adventurers are once again forced into battle.

Thelarwen the Argent Champion, of course, is the first one to taunt the creature to try and focus its attention on her. Lilandris the Lightmancer, sworn enemy of all hostile undead, is close behind, and all other team members also attack with great fury. Being able to focus their attacks on one target, at first it seems the battle will be easier. Unfortunately the eldritch self-recovery ability (using the nearby corpses of other ogres) just allows the monstrosity to keep healing itself, despite of big chunks of flesh being cut and clawed off. The undead ogre picks Thelarwen up and uses her as a human shield to attack other skirmishers. That, of course, does not stop her from ordering everyone to ignore her and continue their attacks, despite the spells hitting her as well. Lilandris casts Shackle Undead; the holy chains finally immobilize the undead ogre and force it to drop Thelarwen. At this point everyone is able to fully cut loose and the creature is destroyed despite its regeneration.

During this battle, Silsbury is accidentally injured by friendly fire from Tessliana. Thelarwen is of course quite badly shaken by unfriendly and friendly fire she took while being used as a shield. The injuries of others are not as bad.

From out of Dire Maul, an elf emerges. He does not look like any known elf race, he speaks in broken Common to say something along the lines of "your world is at an end!", "you cannot possibly expect to destroy me!", and then turns invisible and runs away really quickly. That is rather anticlimactic.

So most of the group proceeds forward and into Dire Maul. Silsbury remains behind, injured and unable to walk. Siaraa stays with her to heal her with her bandages and potions, and Thelarwen to protect her.

(What happened in Dire Maul is a bit hazy for me as I was mostly talking with Sil and Siaraa. So the description is terse. Chepi can hopefully shed more light on these events.)

The group finds a site of total carnage, ogre corpses everywhere. A leper gnome crawls out from under the corpses, then runs away to a teleporter machine and disappears. A few strange coins are left behind. Then another survivor is found, this time a blood elf female. She is chained and starving, so the adventurers untie and feed her, then ask for information. The ungrateful elf demands payment of 30 of those strange coins in exchange for what she knows. As not enough are found, and nobody seems to want to allow Thelarwen (who has meanwhile caught up with them) to... persuade... her, it's eventually decided to move her to Dalaran and Violet Hold for further questioning sometime in the future.

To Be Continued... probably at least 3 weeks from now, as that's when Tormeron retuns from his well-earned vacation.