At Long Last: News About the Explosion in Elmerton!

In the middle of Boneharvest this past autumn, an explosion was heard through all of the South Farthings, Fiddlehead Hills, and even beyond. This scribe can verify that it was audible from at least as far away as Riverton. Witness accounts had placed the epicenter of the explosion very close to the Town of Elmerton. I journeyed there and found the accounts to be accurate. Apparently, Abraham Blackgate, otherwise known as Boom Blackgate and the patriarch of the Blackgate family, had placed a very large bomb, for a reason unknown to me, a mere mile to the east of Elmerton Lake. When it exploded, it blew away a wide section of swamplands, leaving a large crater that, strangely, has yet to fill with water as one would reasonably expect in such a wet environment. Luckily, the saturated ground had absorbed much of the blast that otherwise might have done much more damage. Unluckily, however, the blast had other consequences.

It is no secret that the lands around Elmerton have strange qualities. It was only a decade ago that 39 square miles of the area were covered by the mysterious Evernight Forest, a place supernaturally starved of both light and sound. Some claim that the Evernight never actually went away. Perhaps that is the case, for the recent explosion seemed to release a dark energy that continuously lashed about the area, dampening any magic and hurting any living beings it touched. The epicenter of the blast was completely obscured by this energy, though out of that center, strange humanoid spider creatures began to appear. They were hostile and began spinning webs across the walls of the crater. Members of Elmerton’s Town Watch and even some citizens were there to meet them and engage them in combat.

Soon, Irvanshirian soldiers arrived to join the fight, and some of the kingdom’s noble houses even sent their own militias to help as well. That battle has raged until only recently. Due to the nature of the wild magic that could not be controlled, the noble houses involved petitioned the aid of the mage guild known as Concori Ayre. The mages who first arrived on the scene proved unable to control the magic; they were forced to call in three ayres from the guild to help. All three ayres are very capable magic users, and in the last day or two they have managed to bring the area under control and even close the portal that had been opened to wherever the spider creatures were coming from.

Coincidentally, since last year, this scribe has had several sources report that humanoid spider creatures were inhabiting the abandoned settlement of Marshall’s Landing, and it was thought that many of them had relocated to Elmerton, likely at the same time as the supposed “Invisible Citadel” was teleported there. The spiders’ leader, one called the Web Queen, has not been seen in Marshall’s Landing since then and also was not known to have shown her face at the explosion site turned battlefield. Instead, she is believed to be within a small patch of forest to the north of Elmerton. The area is surrounded by spider webs, and several of the spider creatures that escaped the battle made their way there, entered, and have not been seen since. The small area must have extra-dimensional properties if it is able to support as many spiders as have been reported to have gone there.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, my initial report to the Magestic Messenger about the explosion was delayed due to my being sent to several places along Irvanshire’s border with Tohmshire to investigate news of portals opening in random places and expelling all manner of strange creatures. The bulk of these portal sightings happened in a cone-shaped pattern heading, from the area of Marshall’s Landing, southwest, the exact opposite direction of Elmerton, so I can only assume the portals were somehow related to the explosion. However, I soon learned that the Portal Authority was hard at work shutting down these portals whenever they appeared and covering up any evidence that they had existed. I did not manage to find any real information about the portals or the strange creatures that may have come through them.

Since the three ayres have subdued the magic at the explosion site, I have not heard any more reports of wild portals; however, it has only been a day or two…

I suppose we will soon see,

Jessup Collingwood

Traveling Scribe

NO VACANCY!

Is what the sign out front of the tavern in Elmerton should read (if there were a sign), for in recent months more and more folks have taken refuge in the establishment’s back room which is now bursting to capacity.
Hard times appear to have befallen the “Town of Heroes” as many of its local commoners are claiming that their homes and lands and even families have been taken from them by strangers or in a few cases, have gone completely missing.
Many of the displaced also appear very confused and befuddled by the circumstances which have led up to their homelessness, and brawls over ownership of local farms have forced the Town Watch to be called in to deal with the rising tensions.
Representatives of House Lav’Endros have yet to take further action until more can be learned of the situation. In the meanwhile, Baroness Lobea Lav’Endros has been quoted as saying, “The matter is not so dire at this time as to require further action from us. We at House Lav’Endros entrust the Town Watch to work in unison with the common folk of Elmerton in finding a resolution to this minor problem.”

A Report From a Traveling Merchant

It was an unseasonably warm day, a welcome change from the bleak winter, so I decided on a walk that took me to the small town of Elmerton. As I was coming upon a crossroads on the outskirts of the town, there was a large explosion and a flash of fire shot out of the ground in front of me! Startled, I hid behind a tree peeking around cautiously so I could see what was going on. What I saw next completely rattled my mind.

A strange man with a large, strange device on his back climbed out of a new, still smoking hole in the ground. He was pulling a litter behind him on which was tied a shorter, stout man’s body. He dragged the litter off to the side of the crossroads and, laying it down gently, he went back into the hole he had made. He resurfaced a few moments later with a large stone pillar on his shoulder and planted it vertically at the crossroad. He reached down and untied the other man (from the rigidity of the body, I could only assume he was dead and likely had been for days) and lifted the corpse, propping it against the pillar.

The strange man then took the thing off his back and placed it at the dead man’s feet. From my vantage point it looked like he was messing with some kind of black vines that were sticking out of a pair of red cylinders. After a few minutes, the man stood up and looked at the dead man, a deep sadness crossing his features. It was then I began to hear a faint humming sound that slowly and steadily grew louder and louder, eventually reaching a level that made me think my eardrums were going burst! It stopped for a brief second before a powerful pulse of force emanated from the pack and I saw a pillar of blinding white light shot into the skies. A secondary ring of energy pulsed out from the white light and stretched as far as I could see in all directions before disappearing completely.

In the dancing shadow impressions the dazzling light left on my eyes, I could see that the strange man was still standing there looking at the dead man, but something was different. The stone pillar had disappeared and the dead man was standing along, unsupported, holding a gleaming sword, as if he had been a statue of a knight in a tomb. The strange man spoke softly to the statue, “ Now uncle, you can watch over all this area, and protect it all forever.”

With a final glance, the strange man walked back into the hole he made, and it seemed to seal up behind him, like it was never there. After a few moments, I walked over to inspect the sword of the dead man- logic dictates that one shouldn’t leave a good sword for someone else to steal- and as I got close, I could see that the dead man was made of stone. It looked as though he had become a statue, though, oddly, his stony hair seemed to move in the breeze. Undaunted, I reached for the sword, but as I did, the statues eyes opened up, bright and clear.  At that point, my wits had had enough and I ran for it leaving sword and statue-man for the next traveler to deal with.