Journal #1: Funeral at Forge

As I entered the city gates, it struck me how good it felt to be back in the city - despite the circumstances. Forge is a nexus, and no finer place could a bard ask for. While I mourned for Mar, it was more for the idea of him, and the lost opportunity of what he could have become, than for a person. I had never met him after all, so in part I mourned my ill fortune as well. Suffice it to say I was feeling rather positive. At last, a lead for me to pursue. I thought all honorable members of the Ru’ Steppes clans to be dead. If Mar had lived, could not others?
 
Forge is like home to me, as much a home as any place outside the eastern mountains could be. So diverse it's impossible to stand out. Maybe the only city on the continent where I’ve not been “the orc.” I can almost blend in. As I passed an entrance into the Dwarven district beneath the city, my thoughts strayed to Galnik and his merry band who changed my life. Seeing the heavy Dwarven presence here, I berated myself for never taking the time to learn his tongue. I always got by on instinct with them - a magical affinity for understanding speech when needed; but such things don’t allow for prose or poetry. It's an untapped market for me for sure, and more than that it's a sign of respect. The next language to learn I suppose.
 
On the day of the funeral, I made my way to the guild hall. Such a mighty structure, I’ve never seen its like. A single building and yet larger than most cities. An auditorium in the center larger than most towns, on a door to a Vault of Volaudryn no less.
 
I’d never witnessed a Warden retirement ceremony before. The sound as the blade struck the door and embedded itself chilled me. Such marvelous power and design in those vault doors, to be pierced of its own accord and not lose structural integrity. It's marvelous. Maybe Mar was on the right track, there must be some validity to an organization that seems to be recognized by the progenitors. I noticed the elf who returned the sword – apparently he’s a new Warden himself. I couldn’t help but track them to a tavern afterwards. They were drinking to Mar: the new Warden, a deep elf; a fey woman, a halfman, a dwarf, and a tortle. I listened for a while, and soaked in the atmosphere of a fine common room with the drinks on the house. They were reminiscing on their memories of this man I never knew, I felt like I met him somewhat, through them. But it was not the portrait of the leader of the Sultaran clan. I did not know Mar personally but I knew him based on his potential, and the history of his clan and the dark days. These people knew Mar, but didn’t seem to know that same history. Perhaps it was an opening to get closer, perhaps it was a tribute to Mar, perhaps just a bard’s need to be heard. Perhaps all three. Anyway, the tale needed to be told.
 
The Sole Survivor of the Sultaran Massacre. A hasty bit of editing on my part, of a far more tragic tale I told when I thought there were no survivors. The tragedy seemed to be fitting still, the original almost prescient. I lost myself in the tale. My drum, my voice, my magical effects, I was no longer in control - just in the moment.
 
When I came back to my senses, I felt lighter. The new Warden approached me and told me that he knew Mar. I spoke with this band of companions, and found that somewhere along the way Mar had a signet ring stolen from him, they hope to retrieve it. Perhaps his could be the sign I was looking for. I’m told Mar served in Warden chapter #723 with these fellows. One of them, a ginger dwarf, told me he knows who has Mar’s ring and it’s only a matter of time until he can go get it, but he has to keep the specifics close to his chest. He insinuated some enemy of Mar’s has agents everywhere. The Warden, Ghiravont, asked me to meet him in his office the next morning.
 
When I arrived, he was signing up new members for his team. I got him to agree that he wanted to sort out the issues of the Sunken Summit, but I got the impression he didn’t really understand the true state of affairs there, though he was earnest at least. I decided to sign up, and see where it takes me. Worst case, I get to knock some skulls and earn some silver, but I might be able to find what Mar had in plan, and perhaps convince these Wardens to turn an eye eastward, in time. I must trust to fate in this. Mar’s death must, if nothing else, serve to introduce me to companions who share my goals. There is still no clear path to the salvation of my clan, but I am more likely to achieve it with these fellows, then wandering around entertaining people in the tavern.
 
Ghiravont had a stack of potential jobs to take, and he settled on a strange woman who refused to say who her master was who wanted to hire us. Truthfully, I wasn’t paying much attention before we were walking out of the western gate and parked on the road is the largest carriage I’d ever seen. Three days we spent on the road, and then things started to take a turn.
 
In hindsight, something must have awoken or breached a barrier between realms. A house burned in the distance, smoke on the horizon became an orchard in flames, and a two headed giant was hurling trees at my new friends while using a woman as a human shield. It was mostly over before I could even get on scene, but at that point the woman, who we’d all feared to be long dead, up and turned into a Satyr. She seemed to struggle to interact with civilized people, whether as childishly innocent as she appeared to be, or using that as a disguise while being utterly ruthless I couldn’t quite decide. She tagged along as we returned to the road, and stopped at a camping caravan on a plateau. The Satyr claimed to be from the Underwood, which our client says is a place only the Fey can reach, supposedly a realm lost in ages past. No one has seen a giant in some time, and supposedly this Underwood realm was shared with centaurs, trolls, and other monstrous creatures - so now they’re in the common world, banished from the Underworld collectively. Yet, if that’s the case, this Satyr being from the Underworld herself would make her ancient, yet she looks like a child. Could it be so, or was she perhaps in some sort of ageless stupor? Or, has a door to the Underworld been reopened?
 
The night seemed happy and carefree, while I played songs on a boulder, and the torches burned in the night. Until a half dozen angry trollish creatures I had never seen before invaded and turned the camp into a massacre. Destruction was everywhere, thousands of campfires, of the countless campsites, ours was only one of half a dozen to survive the night. The goat-woman was hugging us and crying. A Satyr, a two headed giant, an invasion of trolls, all in a twelve hour span. Something just isn’t right.