S.Y. 311.3 (January
13, 2002)
Quest for Blue Berries
From The
Skara Brae Chimera
Mainland, Skara Brae
By Deirdre
On Friday evening, Lord Steward Engval summoned interested citizens to solve a riddle. In the Shattered Skull, several people gathered to help; one man named Karayan looked especially enthusiastic and helpful. The riddle was actually a translation from gargish that told Engval the way to ward off the evil. However, since the original text was in gargish, the translation turned out to be puzzling and confusing. Fortunately, a couple of interesting books that Chancellor Zed found lent the necessary insight and we came to the conclusion that we would have to find blue or purple berries on the tops of certain kinds of cedar trees in a cold land. Lord Engval decided to dispatch an investigation unit to the lost land in Trammel.
The next day, Chancellor Zed, Teboug of FSB, and myself met at Sapewin's Harvest. None other than three of us showed up. Zed said he had thought Karayan would come, but in fact, he didn't. Also, while waiting, I felt someone who belonged to the enemy force stepped into the town somehow. It was weird, since this town is supposed to be protected by a magical power that works against them. This was a bit ominous as a start.
As
soon as we arrived at our first destination in Felucca, we sensed presence
of enemies. Three figures were on the cliff above us. Two of them were
of DRO, and another one was, yes, Karayan. "What made you think
you could go unseen...?", he sneered at us. I looked up at him
and gritted my teeth. A couple more words were exchanged between Zed
and Karayan. Then a short battle started and three of us were slain
one by one.
"Let us depart," I heard Karayan say as Ilynra of DRO retrieved her stuff from her fallen body. "I think Richard's lesson has been taught. They may think twice about defying him next time..." I was still in the spirit form, but I would have smiled listening to this if I were able to. "What made you think we would give up defending our own town?", thought I.
As we picked up our weapons and armours after resurrected, Zed set up a campfire and we warmed ourselves and rested there for a while.Strangely, they left all our belongings as they were. It was hard to believe that they didn't think leaving our stuff would give us the ability to continue our quest. "It's their arrogance," Zed said plainly.
Spending a night there, we departed to the land of Trammel in search of berries. There were a lot of normal cedar trees, but none that bore berries were found. Then, Zed called us, saying he found something unusual. He led us to a strange tree, with a blue berry on the top of it. We looked at the berry for a moment without a word. Zed tried to teleport onto the top of the tree, but it didn't work. I looked closely at the leaves and trunk of the tree, and held out my hand to the waxy berry. The berry slipped into my hand as soon as my finger touched it. I blinked and looked at a round berry in my hand, then handed it to Zed. He nodded, wrapping it and putting it into a small pouch. We continued the investigation, and found two other berries from the same kind of tree. Then, we decided that it was time to head back to Skara Brae.
The berries are now secure at Engval's small tower. He told us he would do some investigation on them and let us know what the next step would be.