Editing Fontainver (section)

==The Efferendil (or What Was Left of It)==

Suddenly we were shouted at by a mad-eyed elf, saying that we were hurting the trees and to stop it. Tak apologised at once, saying that he was trying to bring water to the trees. I kept my hand on my weapon. She said that she knew where the water was, and if we wanted to help then we would need to fight the dark elves (Drow) that guarded it. Perhaps she could be an ally if we helped her? We introduced ourselves, and learned that her name was Silanna, and she claimed to have a dragon called Cassandra. Tak had head stories of the great beasts that were dragons, so this was quite impressive. I wasn't so sure, she babbled her words out and seemed to have been living in the forest for longer than I had lived at all - perhaps it had made her a little crazy?

She did explain that the water was dammed up-river, which made sense, and said that we would have to approach in the night if we were to have any chance of getting close. Tak had been taught stories of the Drow, too, and feared that they would be powerful foes. He asked after Silanna's ancestors, but she didn't know her parents at all. At this I spoke of my connection with my ancestors, that Tak had taught me. She might have to use the trees to pay respects, though. Tak suggested going to the place where she was most comfortable before trying to connect with them. Silanna agreed, as it was on the way west anyway. We followed her through the forest, which still seemed a little sparse, until she suddenly turned south. There the forest began to thicken a little, and eventually we came to a massive tree. I felt a change in the air, and said we should stop.

I was right - we had passed a boundary of some kind, and a figure emerged from the tree. It was some kind of warrior, but not one that was living. It may have been an elf once, but now was black and wore a long necklace. It spoke only one word: "no" and then moved to attack Silanna! She swung her body back, avoiding the first blow, and almost did the same again, suffering a minor blow from its second attempt. Tak had moved up to the tree, praying and sprinkling water, and as he did so we heard a loud crack and the flesh fell from the figure to leave just a skeleton. The skeleton struck Silanna again, and this time she was frozen by some power we didn't understand. I launched a flechette into it and moved to attack with Tak, hoping to defend Silanna.

We were too slow to stop her being hit, suffering the full force as she could not move. Suddenly her dragon appeared! It wasn't quite what we were expecting, though, as it was only about a foot and a half long, but it did ferociously attack the foe. We converged, and I struck one blow before Tak git is with a powerful blow from behind. Silanna shook off whatever it was that had held her and quickly put an arrow into the creature. Its chest exploded with the impact, and a slight shockwave surrounded the tree before a wind blew from the tree towards us. We heard a sound that suggested the wood had changed on the other side.

Tak dragged the body away from what he now believed to be a holy place, and it was decaying even as he dragged it beyond what we could now see was a circle of trees surrounding the largest. Tak had heard legends of Haemrandir's tree, and believed that this is what we had found. The others started honouring the spirits of the trees and the ancestors at each tree in the circle, and I took over dragging the remains away to avoid interfering. As they approached the central tree again, Tak became absorbed by the power of the tree, and it started to physically bind him within its branches. Silanna, though, stepped back to see what was happening. Instinctively, Silanna stepped forward and embraced the tree, and Tak was immediately released as it seemed to calm. She heard a voice asking: "protector what can I do for you"? She wasn't sure, but we confirmed that we had heard the voice too. It needed us to release the water - we saw an image of the centre of the tree, which contained an elaborate chamber, and then an image of an ancient demon (Demogorgon) containing the water in a dam. The water must be released for life to endure.

''Inside tree - Oggs to follow - imagery that will be important.''

It felt quite momentous to get such a communion with the heart of the forest, but as we continued to track the bed of the river Cloof west reality began to set in again; we were running out of water. Even Silanna had exhausted her supply, and she told us that she usually went to where the water was dammed at night to collect more. We didn't have long to dwell on this, as a line of swampy looking creatures were approaching from the west (Cassandra had warned Silanna of their approach). They were in a line, clearly searching (probably for us), so we had nowhere to go. I tried to create a distraction, but it didn't affect enough of them to create a hole we could break through. We hid in the trees and waited for the line to reach us. Now that we could see them, they didn't look like they belonged in the forest... was something directing these, as the devil monsters had been driven?

Silanna opened the engagement, killing one with her bow as we ambushed another. Tak stunned it with a powerful blow, allowing us to escape, but we couldn't go without Silanna. I crouched and picked out a tool, firing a small grenade at the enemy closing on her. The capsule broke and did its job, sending two to sleep, which gave Silanna the chance to close up with us. I was pleased with how my modifications were working so far - so much more elegant that the raw dweomer that mages threw around. Silanna was hurt, but there were two more of the things in our way so we still had a fight on our hands. I struck one and Silanna finished it with an arrow at point blank range.

Tak was badly hurt, but he took a moment to pause and some of his wounds knitted, leaving him looking much better; he managed to deflect the next blow aimed at him as well. Silanna killed another (she was pretty good with that bow), and I finished off the one attacking Tak. The rest of their party had closed in on us, and one struck at me, but once again the cloak moved to protect me. Tak stabbed at the one that had been thwarted by my cloak, piercing its heart so it dropped dead in an instant. Silanna was in trouble now, looking badly wounded, and Tak stepped in to parry a blow aimed at her. Silanna kept up her assault, killing yet another with a single arrow. That seemed to be the last straw for the slimy creatures, as the last two broke and ran.

Considering how much we had suffered, we were happy to let them go, and in fact we decided to get out of the area as quickly as possible, so I let Silanna carry me so we could cover more distance. I used my power (was it the power of rock, if Tak used the power of water?) to heal some of Silanna's wounds as we traveled, but we kept going until dusk just to be safe. Then we took time to rest properly, and I tended to our camp as the others used the darkness to approach the dam and gather water. It was much bigger than we had expected, a tall, solid stone structure with a significant flood plain behind it. Now we could understand why the Cloof was so dry! I didn't get to see it until later, but I secretly had to admire the scale of the construction - it would have taken significant planning and effort to complete.

Tak and Silanna has seen patrols that paced the dam infrequently, that were definitely Drow. It had been easy for them to get in and out without challenge, as the guards seemed disinterested and didn't go beyond the dam itself, but it would be difficult to destroy the dam, or even affect it in any significant way. We did a quick tally of anything we had which might be of use... and that's when I remembered the ring. The moment I took it out, Silanna wanted it. It was quite disturbing to see her so excited by it, and to listen to her you would think it was the one thing in the world that could save her home. I backed away slightly, unwilling to give it to someone that seemed quite so unhinged. In the end I passed it to Tak as a neutral party to hold until we understood more about it, which seemed to placate Silanna... at least for now.

We talked instead about the tactical plan to deal with the dam. There was nothing we could do without a thorough inspection to look for any weak points, but that would mean dealing with the guards first. We thought that we would have to approach from the south to avoid them just going to get help (we believed the enemy was stronger in the south), which would mean crossing the Cloof. Tak insisted on crossing via the water, upstream, but Silanna had no means to cross easily (and without getting wet), so we decided to leave him to it and meet on the south side near the dam. We would walk across the dry river bed, which seemed the easier option.

He later told us that, despite swimming easily across the four hundred yards or so, he had almost not made it as a massive fish had intercepted him. At first it had just nudged him to see if he was dangerous, but then had bitten deep and dragged him under the water. He had been forced to kill it for his own survival, but wasn't happy at harming a creature of the water. We also had an eventful crossing. Once we were about halfway across, mud warriors (similar to the ones in the forest, although they seemed more comfortable here) had emerged from dark patches on the river bed. Silanna loosed arrows and killed one before they closed on us, and I had used the flame elements in my weapon for the first time to heat it before the fight. It was glowing nicely by the time they attacked.

Silanna was stabbed, but retaliated with an arrow strike, and I slashed and stabbed one another, which fell dead. Silanna was hit again, and this time collapsed with blood oozing nastily from a wound in her side. The small dragon appeared again, seemingly doing so when Silanna was in dire need, and it ripped the back of her attackers neck out, killing it (I'm not sure I know dragon expressions, but I'm sure it didn't like the taste). There were still two, though, and rather than fight alone I hurried to Silanna's side and used my powers to seal the wound and revive her. She was still sorely wounded, but had the strength to push the dead creature off her, pick up her bow and kill one of the foe with one shot! She might seem fragile, but there was definitely an inner strength to her. The last one turned and ran, sinking back into the mud, and we were not bothered again as we finished the crossing.

We waited until it was nearly dawn, but still dark, and approached the dam from the south as planned. There was a road on that side, so we positioned ourselves near it, and then Tak went forward to talk to the Drow as we covered him from the cover of some trees. He had insisted on giving them a chance to leave in peace, despite the stories telling of how evil and uncaring they were. The Drow were pale, with glowing white eyes, and the nearest guard jumped when he hailed him from the darkness. He was confused by Tak's insistence that the dam must be gone, and took him for a simpleton when he explained that it was stopping the water from flowing... that was the whole point of a dam, after all! Tak was unmoved, though, and just said that if the guard insisted on staying then he might get wet, which just caused the Drow to laugh out loud. He told Tak to get lost, but when Tak walked forwards he got angry and loosed an arrow at him. Tak swayed his body, deftly avoid the attack. That was great, but the alarm had already been raised.

Silanna reacted first, slamming an arrow into the neck of the guard and causing him to topple over into the water, lifeless. It seemed Tak was right... he did get wet! Another arrow flew from the darkness farther along the dam, though, and buried itself in Tak's chest. He moved back quickly, badly hurt, to take a position behind us where he could use his own bow in support. A second Drow appeared, and I sent a flechette flying into it from my gauntlet. Silanna followed with several arrows, and the target staggered and feel down the face of the dam, either dead already or when they hit the ground.

Tak shouted for us to let them come rather than advance, although he loosed arrows over our heads into the darkness; it seemed he was able to see further than us. Thankfully the Drow couldn't see any better than us, as another Drow appeared at the edge of our vision. Silanna was clipped by a couple of arrows as the Drow returned fire, but she found her mark with her first arrow and he fell dead where he stood.

According to Tak there was another Drow just out of sight, and sure enough we saw him when he moved forward to engage us. Tak and Silanna both buried arrows into his chest and he too fell dead. There was one more just behind him, but seeing the bodies of all his fellow guards, he decided to turn and run.

The others started after the fleeing Drow, looking to chase them down. I was under no illusions that I had any chance of catching them, so I just ran forward to give Tak some aid (the wound he had taken at the beginning of the engagement looked particularly nasty), and then I stayed to fish the body out of the water and see if they had anything of value. They didn't need me, anyway, as Tak set an incredible pace and soon chased him down.

Tak struck him just with his fingers, and somehow that paralysed the Drow, bringing him to a sudden stop. Tak made sure he removed all his weapons, and there were quite a lot of them! Silanna hoisted him over her shoulder and carried him back to the shore, where she was able to tie him to a tree. Tak tried to get information out of him, but he wasn't cooperating at all. I had collected arrows to replace   those the others had fired, along with a few coins, but our attention now had to turn to the dam itself.

I walked down the dry side of the dam as the sun started to rise, and immediately saw that there were metal sluice gates linked to several towers along the length of the dam, so releasing the water would be simple... except that they would be easy to close again. Silanna investigated the nearest tower, and found one of the mechanisms that could raise the gates. As we suspected, though, if we were to destroy the mechanism it would leave the gate closed, which didn't help.

As the light improved, I tried inspecting the dam for any weaknesses that we could exploit. I reached the halfway point, a little dismayed but also impressed. The dam was well built, and I hadn't found any point we could really work with to weaken it. I had to stop, though, as some of the mud creatures emerged from their damp patches nearby. We had planned for this possibility, and I grabbed a rope that Silanna was holding onto, getting hauled up and out of their reach before they could get close. They eventually sank back into the mud below.

Not to be put off, I started at the other end of the dam and this time I had success! There was a fault - a layer of stones had been pushed out slightly, leaving an edge overlapping the stones below. It wouldn't be easy to exploit, though, but we had seen some old, abandoned wharves on the south bank not far from the dam, so it might be possible to construct a mechanism that would give us a chance.

It took a day and a half to construct a pulley system, suitably braced, and with chains and hooks set up to try and pull at the weakness. The idea was to use the pressure of the dam to aid us, but it would still need a great deal of force to have any hope of working. I had worked out the design and supervised as the others did most of the hard work (not that I didn't help, but they were bigger and stronger after all). Overnight we set ourselves up on the south bank, just in case more Drow came to relieve the original guards, but the night passed uneventfully.

Finally we were ready, and Silanna (as the strongest of us) took hold of the chain at the top of the dam and pulled as hard as she could. For a minute or so it looked as if it wouldn't be enough, but then it shifted slightly. I looked over the edge and could see that water had started to leak out - now it should be easier to dislodge! Silanna hauled at it again, and again it refused to move for her. Just as she was about to stop it suddenly gave way catastrophically, and Silanna fell backwards as the tension disappeared.

There was a terrible sound as first one and then several stones were pushed out, and the dam started to crack and collapse! We ran towards the south bank, but the damage started to accelerate and the water was soon right behind us with the whole structure unstable. We must have been just under a hundred yards from the bank when the devastation caught up with us. I used my mental powers to keep my footing, but it was all I could do to just stay where I was as the water rapidly flowed beneath me. Silanna had managed to find a scroll as she was running, and read it quickly in the last few seconds - it gave her the ability to fly! She was able to pick me up and fly us both to the side where Tak was waiting for us.