DF Novices, Team-A, Session 54 - Diary of Yorgen Gant
Here is the in-character report from the player of Yorgen. As always, I am giving out an Impulse Point to any player who writes a summary for the blog.
Party roster:
Ben, half-ogre barbarian, 132 points (PC)
Doran Longbeard, dwarf warrior (knight), 162 points (PC)
Eleanor Bayley, human thief, 196 points (PC)
- Dagne Timar, human priestess of Metallys (cleric), 132 points (NPC Hireling)
- Watch-Sister Telessa, human holy warrior of Pidnos, 62 points (NPC Hireling)
Erizax Ofaris, human wizard, 195 points (PC)
Randall, human veteran (knight), 143 points (NPC)
Yorgen Gant, human squire (knight), 95 points (PC)
Ulokk, half-ogre thief, 85 points (NPC)
Maximilian "Stout" Grupher III, goblin cleric of Ishtanna, 87 points (PC)
Campaign Date: 27 September, Year 645 of the Vycenaean Empire.
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Diary of Yorgen Gant:
There is more to being a knight than most suspect. There is, most assuredly, more to it than simply swinging a sword. Any fool can be taught how to fight well with a sword, after all Ser Landonn managed to teach me. Even Bergholdt is more than competent in the art of the blade, which goes to show that even fools may learn how to fight. But that is not the sole purpose of a knight. Nay, the purpose of the knight is to lead and inspire, to spur comrades onto greater deeds of valour, and to keep a wary band going until the fight is won. Often it is taught to lead by example, which leads us straight back into martial pursuits, but leadership, true leadership, goes well beyond being a slightly better warrior than the levvy spearmen under your command.
Ser Landonn understood this well, and although he is better known for his skill with a blade, he had the ability to see what needed doing and ensure it got done. Ser Callowmere understood this less well but was, almost ironically, much better at it. Ser Callowmere could roust a group of men from a warm barracks room hours before dawn, march them off into the mists through a swamp to fight a battle against overwhelming odds, and still make these men feel as if they were better off than had they stayed in their warm, dry, and above all safe barracks room. Uncanny. Which is why although Ser Landonn could always best Ser Callowmere in a duel, it was often Ser Callowmere who was regarded the better knight. Skill at arms is but a small part of what makes a true knight. Creatures like Bergholdt will never understand this.
And there are those who are not called to protect their fellow man who nevertheless take upon them the responsibility for the safety of others. They are true leaders, and they are rare. So I consider it a mercy of Ishtanna that I was there when Eleanor had her crisis of faith.
To begin once more at the beginning, we spent but a mere day in Bridgegate after our defeat of the rat creature, and I am certain I speak for all when I say that we were more than relieved that Dagne would make a full recovery. My instinct was to go straight back to the mine, but was convinced to wait for Dagne's recovery. For such a stalwart companion, I am more than happy to wait. She has earned my respect, and it would have been churlish of me to insist we leave her behind in town while we cleanse the mine once and for all. Dagne has more than earned the right to be there when we end that evil. During this day, Eleanor found Watch Sister Telessa to join us for our next foray into the mine, whilst Erizax, Randall, Ben, and Doran set about securing various odds and ends necessary for our expedition. I would find out later that they all neglected to purchase rations, but perhaps I should not have been too surprised. After all, I carry plenty of spare food with me for just such occasions.
Myself, I spent the morning of that day in prayer, thanking Ishtanna for delivering us safely from the mine, and for her clemency that allowed Dagne to survive. I am now convinced that Ishtanna granted me one more boon, but at that time I could not foresee the favour she had bestowed upon me. The rest of the day I spent practicing my sword arm, and finally giving a closer inspection of the new shield Doran had rescued from one of the goblins we defeated in the mines. But its device, a oiseau sable volant with pick and shovel croissant en or on a field of gules, meant nothing to me. Not then, at any rate. Enlightenment would come later, from a most unexpected corner.
To my immense pride, the party assembled by the town gates at dawn. No grumbling nor displeasure, they were there as if it were the most normal thing in the world. To this moment I do not know if they have seen the wisdom in starting a quest early or if they were simply humouring me, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless. I take some responsibility for what happened later, for I should have been more observant when crossing the bridge, but I firmly believe that had I been looking out for it, I would never have spotted it. Ishtanna works her will, in her own manner. And what occurred turned out to be a blessing in the end.
We returned, then, to the mine in good time, upon which there was a brief discussion of our order of march that was quickly settled between Eleanor and myself, and a much longer carrying on about who would carry which burden. Why this was not agreed before we set out, I shall never understand. But in what amounts to record time for our stalwart band, we were ready to proceed. And proceed we did.
No traps waited for us, nothing more sinister than the discovery that the secret door into the lair had been closed and locked. The chamber beyond proved equally devoid of challenge or danger, aside from the locked door into the next corridor, and so it continued until we returned to the corridor outside the room where I once surmised the more important of the enemy had their quarters, and where I instructed Doran to search the room properly. It was likely that memory that caused me to go in after Doran, followed swiftly by Ben. This meant that most of our fighting force was concentrated in that room, and such would have been a boon to us, had the enemy actually been present. As it transpired, the enemy attacked us from down the corridor, while our warriors were all standing in an empty room.
I could just make out Eleanor's cry of danger before running back, greeted with the sight of foul shambling figures heading towards us. Undead, once more... But as before, they stood no real chance against our swords and axes, and we reaped their number with a will like a farmer harvesting wheat. The greatest challenge was indeed not the fight, but what came after. A crisis that could have undone everything.
After the last undead had been slain, littering the corridor with their reeking carcass, that we heard the call. Or better put, the cry. 'Worry not friends, I'm coming!'. The voice, high and squeaking, with the undertone of supreme helpfulness, could only have come from one being of my acquaintance. But surely it couldn't be? It wasn't until I heard Eleanor's cry of surprise that I called to Ulokk for confirmation, and my brave friend did indeed confirm what I had feared.
Our young friend, Maximillian Grupher the Third, better known as Stout, had followed us. For those of you not familiar with this ambulatory phenomenon, Stout can come as a shock. Indeed, I myself was taken aback when first encountering this young priest of Ishtanna. It's not often one finds a goblin preaching the word of the goddess of war and peace, and many are disinclined to wait for him to open his mouth before jumping to the inevitable conclusion that Stout is nothing more than a foul beast to be slain. I was once among their number, but my eyes have been opened since.
Unfortunately I was convinced that the same could not be said of Doran, with whom we had had an incident the day before. Indeed, Doran and I nearly came to blows over a matter of honour, after he had insulted Ulokk purely on the basis of my friend's race. We settled it then, and we shared ale and stories afterwards, but I was not at all certain how he would react to a goblin running towards him. You see, Stout is a paragon of good intentions, and often fails to see how others may perceive his... more enthusiastic approach to life. Between Ulokk and myself we managed to keep the meeting peaceful, but only just, and it was Eleanor who insisted on having a word with me in the abandoned room.
I do not blame her for what she said, nor the suspicions she held. But I was saddened to see that the progress we had made was rapidly evaporating, and the suspicion creep back into her expression. I tried to convince her that I hadn't known that Stout would try to follow us, or had any idea he was even nearby, but I'm not certain I managed to convince her. How sad it was to see suspicion and anger return to where once there was a friendly smile. But we still had a task to finish, and so we set out again, but it quickly became clear that Eleanor was approaching some sort of breaking point, and her manner with our party grew short and terse.
It was agreed that, due to his ability to see in perfect darkness, we would let Stout scout ahead of us beyond the light cast by our various illuminated implements and equipment, and follow after a set interval, giving him strict instructions to wait before venturing into a corridor at an intersection so we could decide upon which path to take. This worked well until we returned to the corridor where we were ambushed last time, and I called a halt to confer on how to proceed. It was then that Eleanor called out that she needed a rest, and we decided to do so in a nearby abandoned room which Stout had already searched before we arrived.
Now, in the natural course of things, the rest of the party will look to myself and Eleanor for decisions on simple things, like who shall stand watch and how long we will rest. So their faces turned to us, and it was then that the crisis came upon us. Eleanor wanted nothing to do with any decision making, wishing only to be left alone and not be spoken to. So I set the watch and then set about attempting to resolve this far more dangerous threat to us all.
I am no stranger to a crisis of faith. Quite the contrary. I have struggled through them myself, and have seen far braver men than I succumb to the sudden despair that comes with the weight of the knowledge that your decisions may very well decide who lives and who dies. The thought that a simple mistake might result in harm to a friend, aye and even their death, will eventually grind even the most stalwart down. I was shocked the first time I saw Ser Landonn in such a state. I was there when Ser Landonn broke. Every leader suffers from this, although none will acknowledge it. The truth of the matter is that such doubt is inevitable, and is forever the lot of the leader. But a crisis of faith, if not addressed, can destroy a leader as quickly as it will destroy the group they lead. I saw then the wisdom of Ishtanna in sending us Stout to bring on this crisis, and quietly thanked her for giving me the opportunity to repay Eleanor for the courage she has shown with the wisdom I only learned from better men.
It was clear that she was in no mood to speak to me, so I banished all from our corner of the room so that we might speak in private. None else had come to speak with her, mistaking her angry words for a true desire to be left alone, and so it fell to me to break through the fear and doubt. I spoke then of my own experiences, of the experiences of leaders to which I owe so much, and the inevitability that all who lead must carry this burden. I spoke to her courage, appealed to her wisdom, and finally put before her the dilemma of choice that Ser Landonn and Ser Callowmere placed before me years ago when I first experienced such a crisis of faith... learn to deal with this, or walk away.
For those are the only meaningful choices available. Anyone who takes it upon themselves to lead, or who has leadership thrust upon them by their comrades, must accept that there will be moments of doubt, and that none are perfect. Mistakes will always be made, for only the gods are infallible. Us mere mortals are given the choice to swallow our doubts and soldier on, or walk away from responsibility in the knowledge that few will rise up to the challenge of replacing us. Indeed, by fearing we get our friends killed with our mistakes and walking away to safeguard them, we may very well lead them all to be killed as they try to proceed leaderless. I told Eleanor then the true secret of leadership, as it was passed on to me by generations of Knights of the Vycenaean Empire, that any decision is better than no decision at all.
We then sat in silence for one full quarter of an hour, sharing food and water, until finally Eleanor spoke again. I shall write down these words here, so that I might remember them when I next falter in my duty and feel the weight of responsibility crushing my spirit. 'Thank you, Yorgen.'
And that is all the needed be said, and all it took. Perhaps I have inspired Eleanor to take on the responsibility of leadership more fully. I certainly hope so. Because my quest is still to find Ser Landonn and Ser Callowmere, or avenge their deaths if required. It is almost certain I shall die in the attempt, for any that can best these two heroes of the Empire is sure to squash me like the insignificant squire I am, but honour demands that I try. And I shall go to my honourable death much easier knowing that Bridgegate has a group of heroes to protect it.
After our rest, Erizax suggested we go left, to the same corridor that we had attempted to reach before. I overrode his suggestion fairly cavalierly, stating I had no desire to be ambushed yet again, and we should therefore proceed to the first corridor right, from whence the majority of our enemies had come. To my delight, Eleanor immediately backed up this decision, and so it was that we proceeded down that mostly unexplored corridor with Stout as our scout. Unexplored to me, at least, since the others seemed to know what was ahead. A shrine, and some sort of bedroom. I had previously considered that the shrine was the cause of all evil in this mine, and that their previous cleric had failed to properly cleanse it. So when we arrived there, I bade all to halt and for Dagne, Stout, and Watch Sister Telessa to join me in what I expected to be a den of pure evil.
Only to find rubble, ashes, and burned furniture. It was, in fact, much as the others had expected to find it, and none of those with divine inclinations among us could detect even the slightest trace of evil in that room. Bewildered, I proceeded down to the bedroom and found, to my astonishment, a room that would not have looked amiss in the guest wing of any stately hall, complete with the shields and devices mounted on the wall. For a moment I grew suspicious that some hidden entrance might lurk under the carpet, for who would lay down a rug in a mine? But underneath I found nothing but solid rock, and the cupboards and closets were innocent of all things but old clothes and rags. My companions informed me, upon my return, that the bedroom is where they suspect the initial rat creature they fought had been sleeping, and that Ben had taken a shield from that room. I had indeed seen that one of the shields appeared to be missing, one that had once held pride of place above a line of what appeared to me to be trophy shields. To my relief none of their devices were familiar to me, for I would hate to think that any of the brave knights of my acquaintance would have met their end in these gloomy tunnels. The shield had turned out to have once belonged to the Ganu family, and was considered to be cursed by all in town.
Onward we went, until we hit a deadfall, and turned our attention to a branch tunnel, which led us eventually to what Doran described as a mine head. This then is where the miners had given up trying to follow the seam, and from the three tunnels branching off from the chamber it was clear that they had had no luck in finding it again. We had a brief discussion about what goblins and orcs would want with a silver mine in the first place, and I mentioned that according to the device on their shields, they were most likely a clan devoted to stealing ore. It was when I described my reasons for thinking this, by describing the device on Doran's shield in part and detail, that Ben made the remark that set the light of understanding dawning in our minds. 'Oh, so exactly like the shield I picked up in the bedroom then?'
I can assure you that a deep silence fell over us then. I asked, at long last, if the device on Doran's shield, which he had liberated from a goblin but two days hence, was the exact same as the shield which those in town claimed to be of the Ganu family, which was considered cursed? You may wonder why I made the question so detailed and specific, but while it is true that Ben is mighty indeed in feats of strength, he does occasionally need assistance in feats of the mind. No mere stupid brute he, by no means, but it pays to be very specific when asking him questions. And so he confirmed. The device on Doran's shield, the shield liberated from a goblin, was an exact match to the device of the Ganu family.
It was then that we all began to speak of small things we knew, of things that were said by the original rat thing (that the blood of Ganu ran through him), of the history of the mine and why it was considered cursed, and our dawning suspicions as to why these goblins and orcs are present in the mine. Although both myself and Erizax have similar theories, we differ in detail. However, all now seem to agree that the Ganu family is involved in this, one way or the other.
Sufficient onto the day the evils of this day, and we broke off the speculation before we lapsed into indecision and fruitless speculation. We now have found a true dead end, a place from which no enemy may emerge and which we may count as a place of safety. That we have not encountered more resistance worries me, but I shall keep these worries to myself.
Onwards friends, our quest is nearly complete!
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