The Seawell Times: Special Edition!

The city was shocked today by the reappearance of past Mayor Boscorm.
In a public announcement Boscorm explained that he hadn’t been executed at all but instead been imprisoned by the accursed ‘Thieves guild’.
He was recently rescued by a group of adventurers lead by Eolar; a priest of St Cuthbert.
Given the vacant position, the public support of the Church of St Cuthbert’s leader, Cabal En and the original trial evidence being declared ‘suspect’ and therefore inadmissible, Boscorm was immediately reinstated into the post of ‘Mayor of Seawell’.
Before moving back into the Mayoral manor, he promised in his re-inauguration speech, to 'bring order back to his city'.
The people seem genuinely happy to see him back.
For all his charisma though, Mayor Boscorm seemed a little dead behind the eyes.

Be Our Guest you Rotten Barghests

New Banner to celebrate ‘our’ final victory over the monstrous goblin-wolves.
Thank goodness for Bodush’s timely arrival.

An unexpected gathering

Mendez walks through the woods and is deep in thoughts when suddenly the stone giant appears in front of him. He can hear his deep voice "Mendez, let me be the first to ..". Before he can finish Mendez already reaches maximum speed in the opposite direction and thinks he can easily outrun the slow giant. Just when he turns his head back into the running direction, he bumps into the knee of the second giant and falls hard. The giant looks down on him, grabs Mendez by the shirt and sits him onto a tree stump. "I've written a song for ....". Mendez already made it a couple of feet before he realises that he is surrounded by barghests, sorceres, druids and other creatures he can't even identify. He slowly moves backwards back to the stump that is in the middle of the circle formed by the dwellers of the valley. He can hear the giant tuning his harp and starting to sing with a loud but melodic voice "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Mendez, Happy birthday to you!" The last note is still in the air when the first giant already extends his hand towards Mendez. Shaking it cautiously, Mendez can see a long queue forming behind the giant. This could take hours! He smiles when the thought of the unguarded bridge comes to his mind which his friends can cross easily right now. The smile fades as fast as it came when he spots his friends queuing with the other creatures!! This is going to take hours.....

Mendez Strains Brain for Understanding…Again!

While sitting around the camp, Mendez muses over the problem.
“Normally Eolar and Bodush do our thinking for us. Telfis and I are good for short term strategies, but this seems too much for us. We were just hired to stop the wolves attacking the areas surrounding the village.
From what we know, the occupants of the valley are both arrogant and xenophobic.
Do we want to go in, and if so; why?
I care nothing for these people but they do seem powerful. Perhaps we can somehow drive the wolf monsters back into the valley and then destroy the bridge to prevent their return?
Could these creatures magically cross eighty feet of fast flowing water?”
Mendez hopes for positive responses from his disheartened team.

Fly like the Wind

Placing the letter on the table beside him, the grey haired Esteban pulls himself to his feet.
As he walks slowly to his falcon aviary, he smiles as he thinks of his impetuous son. So like his younger brother Mendoza. Quick with his sword, but not his wits.
Esteban summons one of the birds down from its perch and carries it outside. Whispering a few, almost forgotten arcane words, he releases the beautiful bird into the air.
“Keep him safe Razor.”

Favourite pastime

Uvye was looking down at the group of adventurers. After guarding a bridge for hundreds of years, you start to enjoy every distraction from your daily schedule. And those adventurers were fun! They had been talking to Gyrial before sunrise and now seemed to argue with each other again about what to do.
He noticed movement in the corner of his eye and saw two eagles flying towards his lookout. He stood up and quickly removed the chair to create some clean space. A few moments later the eagles changed into the mistress and the leader of the emerald tower guards. Uvye knelt and bowed his head in front of the woman. "Welcome to my lookout mylady! How can I be of service?"
"Raise, Uvye! We have to talk!I just caught a druid who told me a story about barghests attacking villagers outside the valley. The druid claimed that they are coming from the valley! It seems that there is more going on than we thought!"
"Mylady, I have never seen barghests crossing the bridge in any direction! I would have reported them to you of course!".
"Don't worry Uvye, not even I can easily detect barghests if they don't want to be seen, but we need a plan to find out whether the information is correct! Barghests can choose to be invisible or even jump to the ethereal plane to travel if they are experienced enough. We have to find out what they want outside!"
Tarok the guard rose to speak. "Mylady, we have no reports about barghest attacks in the valley. Why do they not attack the villagers inside the valley?"
"I do not know, yet. Barghests are growing stronger the more they feed on victims. Perhaps they want to get stronger without drawing our attention. I say it is time to keep some barghests from entering the valley. I'm going to stay here and watch the bridge, perhaps we can teach them a lesson! Uvye, I know you are using alarms to detect creatures near the bridge; if you adjust them they might pick up barghests as well! This would at least give us an idea how many there are"

"Your wish is my command, mylady!"
Tarek, who was looking into the valley turned round. "What are we doing about the group of adventurers? What are their intentions?"
Uvye turned to Tarek. "They seem to be harmless! They didn't attempt to enter the valley yet and I will be watching them closely since they woke me last night!"
The woman looked interested "What did they do? The white guard kept them from crossing?"
"No mylady, it seemed they were fighting one of the creatures near the bridge! I could hear fighting and saw a magic storm and lightning bolts. I checked the area after the battle, they don't seem to have killed the creature, though."
"They were fighting one of them? It seems they are not as useless as it appeared at first. I know there is a mediocre druid among them."
"Don't overestimate them mylady, they don't appear to be too brave. It might have been luck this time. I can remove them if they are a nuisance for you!"
"Let's wait and see, Uvye! Barghests first! Let's see if we can adjust your alarms."

Frustrating bridge of invisible giants

A new banner may help us resolve our thoughts ...

So - any ideas?