0AJD, Month of Nebulara

The court of King Arethic II would have to wait until the return of Bohwihsh, one of the expedition members, towards the end of the month, to learn that the expedition to rescue the rightful heir of Lorenthia, Prince Ruthic was still underway.  The two (well, three) Rangers - The Twins and Ren - and their companions had found the way to sneak past the enemy lines.  They may even have reached Ruthic by now, if they are still alive...

Shortly before Bohwihsh made it back home, another Ranger, Godric Drake, had reached Tallis, his head held low.  He had been sent west with his company, some two months before the Jungle Deep overcame Lorenthia, to the region of the Vale of the Whispering Wind.

Dark events were troubling this region that sat between Alladore and the Tollonian Principalities, claimed by neither, and the Abbot of Mankhundun had asked the King for assistance.  A few of Godric's reports had already reached the court, bringing yet more troubling news of lost Hu-Man civilisations, but also of the dead rising.

As Godric told the King in person, he had confronted the returning warriors of an apparently long buried Hu-Man civilisation, the Tarans; and also discovered that it had been eliminated long ago by the Cult of Sisyn, whose present day priestess he had thought his ally.  In truth, it was the Priestess of Sisyn that was raising the dead in the Vale, and she would need to be stopped.

 

The commanders of the Rangers were planning that mission when something else of great import occurred - good news, for once, but that would nonetheless stretch the Rangers resources to the limit.

An embassy arrived from the Ghost Archipelago, the group of islands to the east of the Great Forest of Nar, forbidden to Alladore for centuries.  To everyone's utter surprise, a Hu-Man was among them, able to speak the common tongue of the Elain to boot.  The islanders told of their symbiotic relationship with the Hu-Mans they lived alongside, and claimed that the two peoples were able to push back the Deep...without knowing what made it possible.  They were sure it was magic at work, but had themselves lost all understanding of magic centuries ago.

Convinced of the paramount importance of the Archipelago's secret, the King sent a summons to the Cascades, and assembled a company of four Rangers and a dozen Companions to set out across the sea...