The Road to Ris

Honorable Priestess of Melora,

I am writing to you as we near the city of Ris.

This morning, we met again with Falan, the uncle of the Halfling Rogue, Bran Tredegar. Falan has agreed to trust us with the Knot (the Knot that holds the memory of the identity of the Mad Mage), and Bran wisely suggested that Falan tell him about the Mad Mage while they hold the knot. Then, as long as Bran holds the Knot, he will be able to identify the Mad Mage.

After they did this, Falan proceeded to direct us to the location of the Mad Mage. We were to travel to Ris and find a guide there to take us to the mountains, where we can get into the Station of Samhain in the Temple of the Featherwood. (While there were obstacles blocking the Great Goddess of Melora's doorways of Life and Death that led from the other Stations to Samhain and the Winter Solstice, we could still get to these Stations from the mountains.)

Once we were in the Station of Samhain, we could follow the doorway to the Station of the Winter Solstice. From there, we are to head out North, where we will find a town and a guide there who can lead us to the Mad Mage. Falan was not clear about how we would be able to find that guide, but we all agreed to proceed in any case.

On the road from Put to Ris, we encountered a very strange creature. It was a large (almost giant) man who wore no clothes. He had uprooted a tree in order to cover parts of his body from sight. As an Elf who understands and lives in harmony with nature, the idea that a living, breathing, vibrant tree would be torn away from its soil -- for this! I felt horribly distraught. Especially since a short, fallen branch could have easily covered the region in question.

We tried to speak with the man, but most of us could not understand the gibberish coming from his mouth. However, Kale Metis, the brilliant Human Mage, deduced that the man was speaking in Old War language. Kale was able to understand the man's words and confirmed his suspicions that this man was one of the 100.

The man knew Logrid and the other member of the 100, who we encountered when trapped in that enemy camp earlier. The man did not remember how he got here or when he got here (much like Logrid). He did remember that in his world (the one before this one), the Lover of the Raven Queen had made everything a living hell. He was constantly attacked by monsters, and his world was full of death. It sounded much like the experience that some of our party members had when seeing through Logrid's eyes (Tiny's refugee's eyes) in their journey to the tower with the Bone Cannon.

We asked the man about the 101, and he said they considered the 101 to be a nuisance. The 100 captured and confined the 101 a few times in the past, but the 101 always seemed to have escaped.

He did say something else interesting about the 101. When we asked why the 101 didn't track down and kill the 100, the man replied that the 101 cannot kill without a judgement. (This seemed quite consistent with the Judge's Oath that we found earlier in the abandoned campus of the Judges.)

It seems as though more of the Featherwood trees are dying and more of the 100 are becoming the freed and walking this world. It does not seem to bode well that the 100 and 101 are here again. Perhaps this is an omen of a coming war.

Your servant and faithful follower of the Great Goddess Melora,

Aelar