The day of celebration has arrived. Although the locals of Ulthalamel largely disapprove of Princess Elisstyagaren’s union with a human prince, no one in the city dared draw the emperor’s wrath by not properly celebrating a visit by his daughter, and throwing a suitably large celebration in her honor. I can barely contain my disgust at the silly pretenses being put up. Not that I dislike the princess. If nothing else, I pity her – to always be subjected to insincere adorations…

I remember Princess E. She was familiarly called ‘Princess Eliss’ in the courts of Caernbrennau, but I never liked referring to her as that. I remember declaring to her at some point in my childhood when we were introduced that I thought Eliss was too slithery a name for her, and that I would call her Princess E. She laughed at that. I wonder if she would remember. I can definitely still remember the hard smack I received on the head from my father for that.

As I lose myself in my thoughts, a roar sprung up in the crowd, and hands raise up in a great cheer. “I can see the barge now,” says Telemnar. With his abnormal height, he easily rises to almost the height of the highest hand raised in the crowd. In situations like this his height is simply freaky. I wonder if he notices the stares he is getting.

It seem as though it took forever for the barge to float the rest of the way downriver. It eventually reaches the dock with great fanfare. The noise is deafening and the crowd swirls around me nauseatingly, but the green hilted longswords, cloaks and adorned leather armor is unmistakable. The Greenblades are here. I am mildly amused that I found myself surprised. Princess E is royalty – why wouldn’t her escort be the Greenblades themselves.

“And the Commander himself…” I curse under my breath, my voice drowned out by a new wave of cheering as Princess E stepped out into full view, flanked by the elite guards led by none other than my father. I had not seen him for over forty years. His face has not changed much – unreadable as always, now alertly studying the crowd for any signs of threat. Even his armor showed little change, polished to a shine with any marks of battle carefully removed. The man who lied to me all my life… But as my eyes shifted to the now full-grown elven woman standing next to her, my mood took a considerable turn for the better. She is… beautiful…

My thoughts were rudely interrupted. The walking tower next to me suddenly shouted, “Watch out!” and ran through the crowd towards the barge. His shout is drowned out, but my companions heard him. My eyes followed where he was pointing. An assassin! On one of the tree-homes. Everyone began doing everything at once, as the crowd and my oblivious father continue to ignore Telemnar’s cries. I reached for my longbow, but I quickly realized that nothing would quite point out the assassin as… I quickly chanted and summoned four bright blades of leaves into my palm, and fired them towards the assassin. The eyes of the crowd unmistakably followed the magic missiles even as dull colored arrows and bolts from my companions streak towards the same target. To my horror, despite our assault, the darkly clad man released his arrow that streaked dead on towards the Princess!

The warning display was just in time it seems. Prince Jaster saw the oncoming arrow and quickly threw himself in front of Princess E. A good man, that one. The arrow exploded, and that was when the crowd finally reacted, mostly by panicking. The assassin stepped back out of view, and I rushed towards the barge.

Prince Jaster was down. There was time. How is it done again? I channel, but not cast, just enough of the power from my healing spell into my hands and placed them upon the prince. The blue glow flowed into his body, and slowly but surely began to heal the less severe of his wounds. (OOC: Touch of Healing Reserve Feat for NPC healing ftw). And for this service, I receive a glare from the Commander. He quickly rallied his Greenblades and took the Princess back down into the lower deck. My companions and I scour the tree-homes seeking signs of the assassin. Flexing my fingers, I called on the warmth of the summer sun to grant me the power of flame. (OOC: Produce flame has got to be to be visually the coolest low level spell there is.)

Another assassin! Or is it the same one. We returned fire, but not before he hit Prince Elwynn with an explosive arrow. Prince Elwynn appears to hold up well against the pain however, and heads down to clear a path through the crowd. The Duchess herself too appeared briefly, offering to guide us through the crowd. Unfortunately we were not the ones in charge. We cannot keep standing here being shot at like ducks! (Why ducks?) But I see that Telemnar is already on it, descending the staircase to the lower deck. I would’ve loved to see him, standing a head and a shoulder taller than the Commander, attempting to give him orders. Alas, I must watch these suddenly menacing trees. I snatch a glance longingly down the stairway, and to my dread, I see an assassin in the water at the side of the barge, attempting to do something.

Thankfully the Greenblades started emerging from the lower decks looking rather peculiar. It took me a moment to realize what was wrong – their offhand short swords are sheathed! Instead, they were holding up their shields. Among the formation I thought I heard Karasin’s voice giving orders. It would have to wait.

Must not lose sight of the assassin! I had thrown a burst of flame towards him before I realized that he was wet. “Bloody water.” However, several projectiles from my companions was enough to faze him. He dropped some contraption he was carrying into the water, and it exploded, throwing him and a good amount of water onto the docks. The Greenblades reach the streets and form up a defensive column around the Princess. “Be safe,” I muttered under my breath as the shields obstruct my view of Princess E. They would not be able to move quickly through the crowd. We have time to deal with the assassin. Daquj, Hawkins and I jump off the other side of the barge to the assassin and lose sight of the column completely.

There are a lot to be said about these assassins from Risen being multi-talented. However this one was ridiculously resilient. Despite the liberal beating we gave him, he refused to go down. He bit the tip of his own tongue off, attempting to choke on his own blood, but a healing spell removed any chance of that succeeding. We’re not about to let him die before questioning him. However, overpowering him took many more hits even after that. Daquj hit him with the flat of his blade at least five times, and he even stabbed himself, but he refused to go under. It was the most ridiculous half a minute of my life. What do they feed these assassins? But there’s surely no escape for him now.

I ran to the front of the ship – the column is still moving, albeit slowly. Daquj and Hawkins followed shortly after, the human carrying the limp assassin across his shoulder. It’s a wonder the spiked chains wrapped around his body doesn’t pierce the assassin to death. “Let’s rejoin them!” I shouted, and we moved towards the Greenblades. Ashyra and Telemnar was already with them. “Another two!” someone shouted.

“Is there no end to these assassins?” I heard one of my companions mutter. I could not agree more. I suddenly felt a very real fear. What if there was an entire army of them. Even the Greenblades… I suddenly heard Pazzik’s voice casting a spell next to me. What on earth… these gnomes need to wear a bell so that we don’t step on them and accidentally interrupt their spells! But the spell produced the effect we desired. Glittering dust floated over one of the assassins and he started twinkling in the sunlight. He jumped off the other side of the tree at that. We wounded the other and he too retreated.

The journey back to the manor appears to be uneventful. The Greenblades quickly took over Prince Elwynn’s manor and set up defensive positions. Telemyn was fuming around the place, and several times fired scathing remarks at Prince Elwynn about the lack of security and how he “allowed all this to happen.” Quite typical of the old man.

There was nothing for us to do at the moment, so we checked in on Prince Jaster. He appears to have sustained fresh wounds – there had been some fighting at the head of the column too. I healed him as best I can. “I wonder if Prince Norrick was also similarly attacked at Oldkeep,” he wondered. “I will send out a messenger bird, Jaster,” Prince Elwynn replied. That was when he realized that it was the first time he had met me face to face. The prince was as friendly in person as he is in his communications. Having seen the way my father and I behaved around each other, he obviously realized the truth, if not from our last names. “Did you know? Your mother, I mean your second mother has also passed away. My condolences,” he informs.

It came somewhat as a surprise, which I tried to hide. Is there some kind of foul play in place here? I had wondered about my mother’s wedding ring for some time now, but I had thought that even my father is above harming his own spouse. Perhaps it is time to put some serious research into the curse behind that ring. “Join me at the Princess’ room – we must discuss the situation,” Prince Elwynn interrupted my thoughts.

I returned to my bedroom briefly to find the ring before the meeting only to discover that the Greenblades have commandeered that room too. Someone’s very green equipment was already in the room. How careless – a Greenblade who had left his longsword behind. Something about that sword though… – the burn mark on the upper part of the sheath. It could only be Karasin. I remember the flame blade I conjured over the sword I was gripping during our training. Karasin was shocked and under the magical assault he barely deflected my blow with this very sheath. That was the only wound I ever managed to give him in all our practice duels. I wonder what kind of person he is now, having been under the tutelage of my father for so many years.

I walked quickly down the hallways towards Princess E’s room. Another reunion, though I doubt that the Princess will still remember me. Even during my time at the High Tower of Magic I had not seen her much. Princesses are brought to watch the physical contests between young elven boys like those in the Greenblades. The Wizardry Guild puts up no shows of magical duels between apprentices – only the highest mages produce displays of power entertaining enough for the nobility. I had hoped to slip into the room behind everyone else, but at the bedchamber doors, my companions had been stopped by the Greenblade guards. Only with some convincing by Prince Elwynn were we allowed to enter. Still in the ensuing discussion, the Princess did not seem to recognize me, even after I spoke briefly to her.

It turns out, there wasn’t much of a discussion. Although we were worried about a possible attack at Oldkeep and wanted to set out right away, Telemyn was adamant that we stay, and that was that. By order of the emperor my ass. I doubt he wanted us around for our skills so much as for use as body shields should a large enough force attack. He gave me a liberal dose of thinly disguised snarls, and I gave him a proportionate amount of sarcasm in return. My companions are beginning to wonder what is going on. It is also disgusting how he bullies Prince Elwynn into submission. The man who have been all over the place, pulling all kinds of strings to secure peace between these two nations, now treated like a mere puppet.

We left the pointless discussion to interrogate the assassin prisoner to see if we could get anything out of him. Prince Elwynn summoned in his wizard friend to obtain some assistance in scrying the area for any further assassins, and to aid us in our interrogation. On the way to the cell, we finally ran across Karasin giving orders.

“A lieutenant now!” I greeted him, noting the decorations that he was wearing on his armor. He also had a brand new, more ornate longsword strapped to his side. He didn’t forget his weapon after all.

“Rioden! What are you doing here!” he asked, and I noted in relief, with warmth in his voice. We had parted ways uncertainly. Although I had tried to remain in contact with him during my years at the High Tower, my father had been an annoying ass who kept coming up with ‘training’ and ‘drills’ to keep him busy whenever he knows I am free. The man is just full of spite for my having embarrassed him.

We greeted each other warmly and quickly caught up on each other’s story. He knew of course that I had left to join the druids, but he was surprised that I had maintained my magical training in spite of it. I introduced Daquj to him, and studied his reaction to my new non-elven friends. He quickly warmed to them, something which I had to smile at. My friend had chosen not to learn the lesser ways of my father, and apparently had met his own share of dwarves. We promised to catch up more later, and my companions and I headed to the interrogation room.

The prisoner could not speak obviously, having bitten off the better part of his tongue. We tried to force him to express himself on a piece of paper with ink, however he appears completely un-intimidated. We asked for the wizard’s assistance then. I begin to wonder if the Wizard was truly racist or just generally insane. He asked if he could cut off Telemnor’s legs so that he could ‘borrow’ them to grow taller. He weaved some form of suggestion spell. I’ve seen it used before – many a lazy student at the academy had been coerced by their masters to perform all kinds of chores for them. A spell I tell myself I must pick up at some point.

We learned little though. This organization of assassins are as insidious as they are stealthy – each assassin is given a specific task in a vacuum of information, and do not have the faintest idea of the big picture. The Commander came into the room with his longsword drawn. As he raised it, I reminded him of the law. “Even criminals are afforded a trial under the laws of Caernbrennau. Would you go against your Emperor’s own laws with your fellow Greenblades as witnesses?” He lowered his weapon, but a nod at the guard standing next to the prisoner was enough. The guard drew his sword and lopped off the assassin’s head before any of us could react.

The Greenblades have not changed much over the years – still a bunch of automatons at their Commander’s absolute command, and there is little sign that they are ruled by their own conscience.

With nothing left to do, we retire to await what the next day brings. That night, as I lie on my bed with Karasin sitting and in a trance on the makeshift bed in a corner of my room, I found my hand fingering the old ring tucked safely away in one of my pockets. Yes, there is definitely a reason to study the ring again. Perhaps I have grown sufficiently to crack the magic behind it.