The World of Telvar

Felix traveled to Teft to train, while Morgan went to Depwood and Albee went to Barnacus.

Balinor, Cassian, Donald, and Chiaro remained in Restenford. They were there when the first event occurred.

Balinor and Chiaro were home when a trio of dwarves knocked on the door. The central dwarf was wearing elaborate robes and said that he was the ambassador Moran Barrelstain of Shabrund. He said that he was aware of the crowning of a new king, and wished to speak with Felix to make sure the situation could be corrected as soon as possible. He claimed that it was an atrocity each day that Felix’s rule continued. Upon hearing that the items were being identified and were not in our possession, the dwarf stated that they could not allow the items to be touched by “outsiders,” and must be stopped as soon as possible. With their usual charm and grace, the pair directed Moran to Teft, where Kain had joined Felix and Nakumanu.

The Restenford group had enough presence of mind to send a letter ahead to Felix. The dwarves arrived and agreed to wait for Felix to finish his training (the last four days or so) before they spoke.

Felix and Kain spoke with the dwarves, who were thoroughly arrogant but willing to negotiate. An agreement was nearly reached when several points were brought up about the dwarves of the white mountains (another kingdom of dwarves). Wouldn’t they be interested in at least witnessing the de-coronation of Felix?

Felix had negotiated for 30,000 gp plus a +2 hammer, commission rights in Shabrund, and several other minor benefits. The ceremony would be performed on a hill a few days away.

Felix and Kain hired a professional negotiator at this point and asked for consultation from the local sage as well. There was evidence that the dwarves of Shabrund were not fond of outsiders and that this was consistent. Clearly they wanted to resolve this as quickly as possible.

Back in Restenford, another set of dwarves arrived. These were from the White Mountain Kingdom and were much friendlier and clearly wanted to advise Felix on his new responsibilities and resolve the situation somehow. We sent them along to Teft and warned Felix. Balinor finally grew suspicious enough to run a check on these dwarves to see if they were for real.

It turned out that the story of this second group of dwarves was true. They were contacted by the Nevronian Church upon hearing Felix’s concerns and were sent to help him.

Felix received the letter about the other dwarves and told the Shabrundian dwarves that the negotiations would have to hold for several days until the other dwarves arrived.

That evening, all hell broke loose. The dwarven delegation broke into Felix’s room at the inn, and one psionically paralyzed him. Peacemaker was aware of what was happening but could do nothing, despite screaming to all as Felix was dragged to the hilltop. The people simply failed to notice them. Peacemaker managed to ESP for a moment and picked up frustration and such, but was then blocked by what was presumably a Tower of Iron Will.

There the dwarves produced a contract in Runic IV and ordered Felix to sign it or die. He was also forced to send bardic mail to the School of Wizardry transferring the items to the dwarves. They stated that the money was nearby and the alleged hammer +2 was handed to Felix. They also warned Felix not to make waves.

The de-coronation ceremony occurred and Felix was dragged back to his room. The dwarves then left to take their prize at the School.

Felix then told Kain what had happened, and they were incensed. It was decided that if the dwarves were legitimate members of the Shabrundian dwarves acting under orders, then little could be done and we would have to bite the bullet.

Fortunately, the Church of Osprem was Communing that very day. The Defenders purchased one question and asked whether the dwarves were acting under orders.

“No.”

This was really bad. Whether they were actual Shabrund dwarves or not, they were clearly power mad and had to be stopped. Extreme measures were necessary.

It was discovered that the dwarves had used all the express bardic mail horses and left none for the party. So Felix and Kain traveled by fast ship to Poseidonus with the Petethalian Navy for safety. In Poseidonus, through fortuitous negotiation Wicker saw them immediately and felt strongly enough to help them. For a greatly reduced fee of 2500 gp he agreed to Teleport them to the School of Wizardry.

The three left that evening and arrived at the School. It was learned that Zalk had not identified the items and would not for some time. When the entire situation was explained to the constable there, he agreed to verify the dwarves’ identity should they come asking for the items, hoping to resolve the issue fairly while trusting neither the dwarves nor the Defenders.

Fair enough. Additional surcharges were piling up and the items would be identified sooner to avoid possible danger. The Defenders, who were already flat broke, would need to sell several things to make ends meet for this one.

Then we return to Restenford once more. Everyone was around when another delegation of dwarves knocked at the door. They came in and the leader explained that he was Moran Barrelstain from Shabrund and wanted to know where Felix was.

We patiently explained that someone had come by a week previously who had claimed to be Moran Barrelstain, an ambassadorial emissary from Shabrund.

Moran’s response will live on in legend. “Ambassadorial emissary, my fat ass!”

The ambassador wasn’t even due for several weeks. Moran explained that the others were dark dwarf devil worshippers of the religion at the Sentry (lawful evil—the Burrower). He was quite graphic about hewing their arms off and such and said that if we went with him we’d just get controlled and have our arms hewed off if we got in the way… and so on.

We offered to go with him, but he wanted fast transport to the School of Wizardry. We took him to Peltar, who was eating pancakes at the Inn of the West Wind. The dwarf dumped a half dozen gems out of a large sack and Peltar agreed to Teleport him. The party, having no money, shrugged. Moran left his three dwarves with us and told us to “keep them amused since they don’t speak the language.” He really hated speaking Common as it was corrupted by goblin, and was happy to speak in dwarven with Chiaro and Balinor.

Peltar Teleported him to the School.

Five days later, at the School, Felix and Kain were summoned to a bizarre scene. There were several dwarven bodies on the ground with arms hewn off and a large door with arms and eyes holding a sputtering dwarf with an axe.

It was explained eventually by the constable that the dwarves had arrived and the authorities had checked their identities. When they were discovered to be fakes, they were declared under arrest. The dwarves began to resist, and suddenly there were five more dwarves (totalling eight). They had appeared out of nowhere, when suddenly another dwarf ran screaming in and hewing off arms of the other dwarves. Realizing all was lost, the five living dwarves vanished, including the newly crowned king. The magical door had activated and caught one dwarf, who then died mysteriously moments before he was properly questioned.

Time passed. Eventually the mess was sorted out and everyone met in Teft, including a disoriented Morgan.

Both groups of dwarves negotiated this time. We gave the Crown to the more remote dwarves of Shabrund for 10,000 gp reward. The crown shielded the user from all sorts of things and activated key doors in certain complexes and did all sorts of things that were a bad security risk and should be locked away as soon as possible. The hammer was a hammer+2 in the hands of a non-dwarf, but a hammer +3, of throwing, with many other cool powers in the hands of a dwarf.

The hammer given to Felix by the evil dwarves turned out to be heavily enchanted with deceptive magics that hid the fact that it was a normal hammer. We kept it anyway.

We ended up picking the treasure offers from the Shabrundian dwarves over the potential stonemasonry offers of the White Mountain dwarves. We were paid an additional 10,000 gp, had all expenses from this fiasco covered, and obtained two suits of plate mail +1 (for Nakumanu and Bogomel), and a hammer +2 which grants the user immunity to strength drain and once a week can pump his strength randomly up to hill or stone giant level! Balinor’s second magic hammer (Other) was handed over to the dwarves.

Woo-hoo!

Also, Wicker received an extra 1000 gp for his time.

Before we could breathe, a messenger arrived saying Dunstill and Illic wanted to talk with us.

We met with the two veterans and learned that a fascinating mission was available. There is an orcish island normally occupied by many powerful orcish clerics and an impressive navy. The really powerful people have left and are meeting for some sort of ceremony. We are supposed to take advantage of this by landing on the island and taking a week to do as much damage as possible to the infrastructure of the island.

We get to be a wrecking crew, essentially. Sounded fantastic to us. We took it.

Until next time.

Joel/Balinor