My long stays in the shrine, waiting in hope for my lost clanmates to return, forced me to find ways to pass the time. I took up studying the marks upon the shrine walls, and soon learned that I had a gift for such things, much more than the common orc. It is because of this, and other recent events, that I am no longer a warrior, but a warrior-scribe. I seek knowledge, and to pass it on to others that care for it.
In my studies, one thing I have found lacking is accounts of the important events in our great history. I must instead seek out those who were there, and hope they have the time and willingness to tell me what happened, and hope that they can recall the details. I would hope to change that.
I place here my recording of recent events. I hope others gain from what is written here, and others may add what they have seen...
At the appointed time, the Children of Grendel did assemble at the Shrine, to share what they had learned of the theat, to aid in the fight against the coming invasion, or just to learn themselves of what had happened.
As the monsters waited for the arrival of the High Priestess, those gathered discussed some of the discoveries they had made. Many showed to others the little crystal mantis statues that they had found on the corpses of those uglies who had invaded since the placing of the wreath in the Shrine. One tidbit told there that was new to me was that Galenth had licked one of the statues, and it had infested him with such disease that he died shortly thereafter. Of course, upon hearing of this, many of those there had to see this for themselves, and suddenly the Shrine was full of very sick monsters, myself included. I myself tried it twice, and found that the disease on each statue varies greatly; I fear Galenth must have gotten a particularly nasty dose. Fortunatly, there were no other deaths, although many were weakened. After the disease had run its course through me (I had thought that I would die myself, but erred in this judgement), I thought to ask for healing, and a few kind souls who were skilled in the art obliged. All this licking did reveal something else... After recovering from the disesase, we noticed the statues were gone, and various baubles in there place. I think perhaps the the statues were made of some kind of strange mud, and had the items trapped inside.
One thing that I found somewhat amusing was that Craz the Ghoul wondered if there was a bomb planted in the Shrine. Unfortunatly, many of the more excitable of those present heard these words spoken, and nearly went berserk, thinking that there was indeed a bomb. Funny birdies, and silly minotaur...
After these events, the High Priestess of Grendel, Rasha the Sphinx, arrived. Upon hearing all the racket made by the monsters present, plus the normal noises of the shrine, she asked everyone to follow her to her speaking place, a bit east of the Shrine.
After we arrived, we told Rasha and the others of the secrets we had found. We told of the talking mantis statue near the teleporter button. We told of the the smaller crystal statues the Uglies had begun to carry with them, how they all bowed or boxed, like the talking statue did both. We told of the the giant human head in the mountains, one that had both two statues in front of it and two within it, each pair a boxing and a bowing. We told of the strange marks upon the plaque that had appeared below the telportation button.
I had thought to let others say the fullness of what they had discovered first, then add the parts that the others could not find, but this did not work out so well. At first, many were reluctulant to speak, and they shuffled around and made other noises. Then, after the simpler of the discoveries were made known, Rasha declared that she would see for herself, before I could make the fullness of my discoveries known over all the noise.
One thing that I discoved was that both the talking statue and the ones in front of the giant head had compartments that could hold the mantis statues. The compartment of the talking one was clogged when a bird tried to put a piece of armor in it, and the compartments of the others became filled with some kind of chaff after some experimentation. I placed all sorts of combinations of smaller statues in the big ones, and tried doing many things to them, but unfortunatly had discovered nothing of use before the compartments became clogged and unusable.
Another thing that I had heard, but knew not the truth of, was that Pyrish thought that the cave of statues was missing some pieces when we visited it shortly before these events. I cannot comfirm this, as I knew not the exactness of what had been there before.
Well, anyway, to see what we had discussed for herself, Rasha summoned the earth-dwelling lich Morchagh, another of Grendel's Scions, who appeared from the ground after a great rumbling. Rasha bid him to open a portal to the button of teleportation, and he did so, creating a pulsating black one that stayed in place. This portal took us above the location of the button.
At the button, Rasha and others bowed to the moving mantis statue, and, as it always does after someone bows, it bowed back and said, "Tell my brother statues that the time is coming." Upon seeing this Rasha wished to see the other statues at the giant head, and called for Morchagh again. He made another portal, this one to the statues in front of the head.
Once there, Mortikai the Zombie tried to tell the statues that the time a come, an effort long since proven futile. Rasha took a quick look at the statues then went forth to the head. She went down into it, and looked at the pair statues there, and investigated it for a moment. Then, Craz the Ghoul told her of the area below the insides of the head, which was a rather new development, and the party moved downwards.
The room below the head seemes most like a neck, but holds other things there. It contained a lever, a bucket, and a tube. More experiements were made, and soon the tube became just as clogged as the compartments in the statues. Rasha professed her ignorance in such matters, and called upon Rezklat, the Master Builder. Rezklat deduced that we were in a giant machine, and the lever was to start it, and some sort of fuel went into the bin. However, he was unable to deduce the purpose of the tube. In all, Rezklat could not find the true secrets of the machine. He did, however, note that it was built in the same style as as the button that teleported, and the mantis statues. On hearing this, Rasha mentioned a legend, one that said that there were others who came before monster or ugly, and perhaps they built these things, and Uloso was one of them, and not a normal ugly at all.
At this point, suddenly all the chimera in the room became startled, and looked around, and asked if others heard what they did. Then, Uloso himself faded into view before us. Most of us assembled for battle, even if a few were a bit too eager. Pishaw noted that he wore only cloth and not armor, to which the impetuous human replied that he didn't need any. He then went on to say that he had only been gone from Uthgol a year, and in that time traveled to a dozen other worlds, and learned the 'truth' of his 'inheritance'. He then said that he would bring back his ancestors, and retake Uthgol. He announced the first agent of his return, then disappeared before our weapons could fall upon him.
Shortly afterwards, Rasha said that something had... landed on Uthgol. She summoned Morchagh, who came this time from an 'NPC locker',,, he said it was his non-alive preservation chamber. He too felt that something had landed... At this point, I felt it would be a good idea to investigate the other place known to have such strange things, and departed the events, going back to black portal to the room of the button. On finding nothing, I returned...
I entered the neck, and found Rasha asking Mortikai for a portal to somewhere, the location I must have missed while away. I knew that most dead things are unrecognizable sacks of bone and rot, Rasha must have been truly disturbed by the events to confuse him with Morchagh. After that was sorted out, Morchagh created a portal, and I was the first one through it, even though I was not sure where it led.
Before I had even arrived, my nose told me I was at the wondrous Gnoll's Knoll, but that was not my primary concern, for before me stood the the largest creature I had ever seen. It was made of metal, stood eighty feet into the air, and spewed black smoke. As I stepped out of the portal, the thing said "there is a large amount of green soft material that compresses under our feet." It had strange things upon its body, and bore a nameplate that said "Tilisi". Shortly afterwards, the others arrived, and some of them even newlings, fell upon it The sounds of their claws and weapons banging and tearing through the metal made hearing anything impossible. To make things worse, the thing was so thin that only 4 could approach it, so when I gave up learning and tried to lend a hand I could find no room amonst the weaklings, the weaklings who could do nothing but take up space. I wished again that knew how to shoot or throw things, as many others were doing, but instead my weapon fell useless in this great battle. I did make these words out amonst the din... "ah, we see monsters." Then it just poured burning air out of its mouth. That, and whacked with its tail, and created amber portals the brought forth uglie. After some time of battle, a black stone fell out of the back of the thing; this happened again and again during the battle.
After some time, the thing walked to the west, and the combatants soon followed. Again they left no room for me, and then the thing called down a beam of golden light, which undid the scratches they had done to it. I could take no more, I took weakling in my hands, and screamed for him to remove himself. He did, and I could finally cut the thing apart! Ah, glorious combat! But I digresss... After a short time of this, Morchagh, who had left to research these events, returned and created a portal. I considered staying to continue my assault, but I knew that one of Grendel's Scions would not call his Children from battle. So I left through the portal, leaving others to take my place.
The portal lead back to the giant head machine. Some of those who took it had thought to take the rocks that fell from Tilisi with them... After a short time, we discovered that if you put a rock in the pin and a builder pulled the lever, the rock would burn up. I returned to the battlefield to fetch some stones, and returned. Shortly afterwards, the entire room rumbled, and we hear a voice say "I AM AWAKE. I AWAIT INSTRUCTION."
Instruction was not so easy to deliver. We shouted things out, and eventually I thought of speaking into the tube. This did not reward me; I recieved a shock similar to the ones the undead have given me. Once this was realized, we all tried all sorts of things with the tube, hoping it required special words, disregarding the shocks. It was amusing to see Lurekus sample his own cruelty. It was eventually Gabocha the Minotaur who was first successful. When he first spoke the word "Hello", he was not greeted with a shock, and his next utterance, "Attack Tilisi" was greeted with obedience. We all scrambled to discover his secret, but after a short while learned that only the ones who were leaders within the clans could direct give commands.
Learning how to give commands was not victory, however. The leaders tried many things, including telling it to attack Tilisi, to go southwest, to go to Gnoll's Knoll, to fly... It kept saying it could not go, or did not know where to go. Eventually we guessed that this thing, who said his name was Masaki, did not have his head upon his body, but was still able to see and move his body. This discovery took time, and sometimes too many giving orders caused confusion. After making this discovery, Pyrish the Phoenix told it to recover its head. It went to it, but said it would take years to repair the damage. During this time, I left the head several times to scout about, and may have missed some events. Lurekus and Bain decided to bully themselves into being the only ones to give commands, by stunning those who spoke. This was annoying, but fortunatly ended quickly.
Eventually, Lurekus teleported the Masakai's body, which was comparable to Tilisi, to the site of the battle with Tilisi. While this was taking place, Pishaw gave the rather amusing order to 'stamp on Lurekus', but was ignored.
However, I went and scouted a bit at around this point, and when I returned, I came out of the portal the wrong way, and I hit my head badly. I lay dazed for a while, and when I could finally stand, I could not pay close attention, so the rest this account is rather simple.
After Lurekus teleported Masaki's body, the leaders tried to direct in combat, but soon learned that it could do nothing. After a while, it was learned that it could destroy itself, and after some difficulty, it was directed to grab Tilisi and destroy himself. This destruction created such an explosion that all the monsters at the scene of the battle were killed. I am not sure if Tilisi is gone; It may have been destroyed, too, but may have escaped. I did not see it, and do not know.
This is what I can recall of these recent events, I hope that others may learn from these, and those who saw other than what I did would add their own insights to this account.
-Written by: Blackhand the Scribish Orc