Our story begins with a test of manhood. But since our story is about a group of elves, I guess you would have to call it a "test of elf-hood". Four young elves (young, of course, to elves, means approaching their 100th year) are coming of age and are about to be tested by their mentor, a wiser elf known as S'Roth.
Our elves are not the sort of elves you are likely picturing in your head. You may have heard of or seen drawings of many different elves, but none would look as these elves do. They are of the same stature one finds in the High and Grey Elves, but are white of skin, with black hair, sparkling almost magically with silver highlights. The eyes of these elves are usually dark; green and blue are uncommon
but nand eyes. The hair
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S'Roth had planned to take his young proteges to the specially prepared ruined temple for the usual test, but the discovery by S'Roth of "Merkan" camp not two days march from the village caused him to rethink his plans. He decides to send in the four students to destroy the camp and the evil Merkans. This would satisfy as the test if the party was successful, but alas, they weren't. Only S'NfL is left after the Merkans are destroyed, and he was put to sleep by a poison gas trap at the end of the battle.
Later on El'Fross wrote a bit in his diary of the battle.
The true test of man(elf)hood involves the illusion of four Drow elves and a battle. The party proves to themselves and S'Roth that they possess the resourcefulness not to solve all battles with swords and bloodshed. Brains and cunning are required to survive. The party gains random stats from a special magical fountain. S'NfL gains +1 to CON, A'Ha and X'Ylo gain +1 to INT and El'Fross gains +1 to STR.
Encounter with a Wereboar. They let it live and find it is a human in the morning. They let the human live and go back to its home, a hollowed out tree. It seems grateful.
Upon arriving back at the village they find it has been demolished by Drow. They are very distraught and search for survivors. S'Roth finds a living Drow and fights it. The rest of the party arrive on the scene after S'Roth has dealt the Drow a mortal blow but taken a highly poisonous crossbow bolt in the chest at the same time. He bids them come closer and instructs them to seek out the others of their kind to continue to populate the Oerth and build a great army to eradicate the Drow. He also asks them to take his special longsword "Jadlaif" and his three spellbooks.
From the diary of El'Fross:
This diary begins at the beginning, oddly enough. The beginning of my career as an adventurer. My name, for the record, is EL'Fross. I'm from the clan K'Needian. I may or may not get more into that later. For the time being, the beginning is now. The frequency of my posts may be sporadic. I will only write if I feel like it.
The training sessions seemed to last forever. S'Roth, our mentor, is a nice enough guy - very capable and all, but the repetition of it all was really getting to me. S'Nfl and the others seemed much more anxious to learn. I just wanted to get at it. As we left for our "test" of elfhood, I was feeling a little keener. S'Roth called me lazy the other day. I've never really considered myself lazy. I prefer....efficient. After all there is no reason to work any harder than necessary. Its more important to be rested for the crucial moments in life. The group I travel with, and I'll get a little more into that later (maybe), need me to be ready to defend the safety of our party at any moment and of course, I'm always up for a good fight, as long as there's a good enough reason for it.
As we walked through the ancient forest, I felt the excitement of the other three, as well as my own. S'Roth followed behind, calmly and confidently. I find it a little odd that he carried a spell book under his arm. Perhaps that was his way of being prepared? Though there was five of us in all, we moved so quietly, I could actually hear the breeze at the very tops of the trees. Maybe we did learn something after all?
The walk itself was exhilerating, but a couple of days of later, S'Roth finally told us about the test. A group of Merkans had invaded the forest. They are vile, evil creatures without regard for the forest, or anything living for that matter. Our test was to drive them from our home. S'Roth told us of the camp ahead and that was it! Our first real fight. We were ready!
We crept to the edge of the camp for a better look. The creatures had created a clearing and had half heartedly set up camp. The camp included a fire and three roughly erected shelters. From our vantage, one shelter was directly in front of us, on the other side of the fire. The others were at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions, if there was such a thing as a clock. A merkan sat on a stump near the shelter to our left. There was no way of knowing how many more there were in the shelters. A'Ha decided to take the initiative and followed the perimeter of the camp to the left. Before I realized what was happening, Xylo did the same to the right. Xylo is the only one in the party capable of healing. I wondered if that was such a good idea. SN'Fl moved to the right slightly, probably looking for a good shot with his bow. I stayed where I was, waiting for something to happen. Stunned into inaction by the sight of the camp ahead.
The series of events that took place next may be out of sequence and missing certain details, but hey, it was a battle. A'HA positioned himself behind the lone visible Merkan and attacked. SN'Fl let fly with his bow. Two more creatures emerged from the 3 o'clock hut, where Xylo had positioned himself and he engaged them as they came out of the shelter. I stepped into the clearing. Assuming there were also creatures in the hut directly ahead of me, I conjured otilukes smokey sphere and hurled it towards the doorway, hoping to catch any creatures in the shelter by surprise. It may have been the excitement of the "first battle", I'm not sure, but my aim went astray to the left. It fell between A'Ha and the Merkan he was battling. Oops..... Two more Merkans jumped out of that shelter and fortunately, right into Otiluke's smoke. A'Ha and the two of the three Merkans started coughing horribly as they swung blindly at one another. I wondered if I might be able to convince A'Ha later that I knew those creatures were in the hut and that they would run into the smoke?
A lone creature emerged from the hut I was throwing at and came towards me. I readied my swords. My first swing hit the creature and wounded him severely, but he kept attacking. The fight raged, but I noticed out of the corner of my eye that both Xylo and a Merkan were down. Great, our healer was the first down. The second creature on Xylo has turned his attention to SN'Fl who drew his sword from the earth in front of him where he had stuck it at the ready.
Finally, I took down the Merkan on me, but as he fell, I see that A'Ha is now down also. Beside him another creature lay motionless. That left at least two or three Merkans and only me and SN'Fl left. I found myself wondering how long S'Roth would let this test go, or if he could stop it at all.
The remaining Merkan on A'Ha turned his attention to me. We battled ferociously. I managed to score a mighty blow, but suddenly, I saw red and then black, as a sharp pain in my head turned to nothingness. SN'Fl was alone......
I awoke with a terrible headache. It felt as if someone had bashed me on the side of my head with a club - it felt a lot like that. Later we were told that SN'Fl managed to finish off the creatures, only to set off a trap on a chest of treasure. If not for S'Roth, we'd all be dead. I'd say we failed the test. The others were dejected also. S'Roth was a little kinder and told us there was another chance to pass. Xylo healed us and we rested in the clearing for a day, giving the Cleric a chance to rest and pray for spells again.
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