Chapter One: Faydwer

    Throughout my long life, I have always been interested in the anomalies, the beauties, and strange places of Norrath. Indeed, as a youth some 2200 years ago in Felwithe, I was frequently disciplined by my parents and the City Authorities for incessant climbing of the walls of the City. In fact, one of the principal reasons I joined Seekers of Lore is that its fundamental purpose, as contained in its name, was congruent with my aims in life: to explore and find the weird and beautiful, the odd and out-of-the way, that show that the Nameless really exists. As many have urged me to commit my discoveries to writing for posterity, here are a few of my discoveries that some may find of interest (I have others, and I am sure others beyond this wait to be discovered by the curious).

    So let us start at my beginnings, in South Felwithe. This small city has little of extreme interest, being (I believe the lore masters say) originally a colonial and military outpost of the ancient Elven empire once found on Tunaria (now scandalously known as Antonica) before its destruction by the god of hate (I shall not mention that fiend’s name, though I will say that one of my most satisfactory moments in my life as a battle mage ---i.e. wizard --- was prying his Diamond Rod out of his oh-so-recently dead fingers). As I child, I found that if I ran errands for Tarker Blazetoss (a great, great, great uncle) or one of the other elders, I could sometimes convince them to cast Levitation on me [Note: the NPC’s will not do this.] This became easier as I went through Wizard’s Catechism, and learned the spell myself early on (early on I was a terrible student, but you will see below how that changed). I found that if I stood on the rail of the entry bridge, ran clambering up its final left pointy post, and continued running forward, I could occasionally get onto the top of the entrance to the Paladin Guild, which lies straight ahead. By climbing to the top pinnacle of this roof, I could then (particularly if some passing druid had cast Spirit of Wolf on me), turn around and reach the Guard’s Catwalk that I had just passed under. Once up here, all of Upper Felwithe’s corridors are accessible, and with some care, you can scramble out onto the rocks that are above the city. For instance there is a guard lookout that is above you and to the left when you have first entered the city and stand on the middle of the entry bridge. This lookout can be assessed by the corridors I mention, and, climbing onto its rails, the bold may sprint through the air to reach the pointed roofs of the Guard Towers, that are just inside Felwithe, past the entry bridge. From here, most points of the rocky heights above Felwithe-in-the-Cleft (an ancient name of the city) are accessible.

    Another method I discovered is to be levitating while running down the steps towards the inner reservoir. If you move fast and miss the opening in the wall by the water (the one that leads to the fish shops), you can, if you don’t fall in, scramble onto the rock and ultimately reach the top of the rocks here as well.

    Unfortunately, I soon found that there was little of real interest in Upper Felwithe. Indeed, I was caught by my Uncle Nitriciam, a Paladin of the Guard and father of my cousin and long-time companion Nitram, up there one day, and much of the charm of the upper corridors was lost when he dragged me by my pointed ears through the black portal in the basement of the Paladin Guild. It turns out that this black portal (which I had previously avoided out of caution) is the normative way the city’s paladinic guard reaches their posts in Upper Felwithe. It is located under the Paladin Guildhall, in the presence of their Guildleader.

    When I was old enough to begin roaming through the Greater Faydark, the great and ancient Combine Portal Tines of course caught my attention. Normally known as the “Wizard Arches”, these four tines (obviously not arches) can, with levitation, be climbed (they are slippery, and the best way is to go “over” an edge while trying to go up). On many a hot day, I would read my spell books and bestiaries up on the very top, free from all care, the sun and the wind free on my face (I have never liked the sultry and still air on the forest floor, and can never quite understand what our cousins and vassals, the Wood Elves, see in it). It was here in a sudden rain storm that I knew that Karana, and not Tunare, governed the world.

    One of my next adventures almost got me executed. My family and I went to visit my father’s fighting compadres, in the underground city of the Dwarves. Knowing my proclivity to climb, my mother strictly admonished me beforehand NOT to climb on the Great Statue of Durin that grimly guards the entrance to Kaladim. Of course, this only served to fuel my imagination. Slipping away, and ignoring the stares of the somewhat hostile gate guards, I exited the city into the Butcherblock Mountains. Turning to the right, and after gaining the use of Levitation from a passing wizard (they could see in me what I would become and always humored me), I clambered laboriously up the rocks, keeping a wary eye out for Krag Chicks and their elders. At length, I was higher than the Statue! Far above the entry to the City of the Dwarves, I could survey most of The Butcherblock, catching I thought, in the far off depths of sky, a glinter of the sun on the waves of the legendary Sea of Tears (I believe, but do not know, that this ocean was so named when our ancestors fled the destruction of the Elven empire in Tunaria). Turning at length back to my purpose, I glided across and down, landing on the statue’s head. At first I did not notice the shouts from below, but this aroused considerable ire from the Guards, who viewed me as a pest at best, a desecrator at worst, and demanded that I come down at once to “face the justice of Kaladim”. [Note: the guards do not aggro on you for this.] I began the descent and was terrified to see that the guards had drawn their swords and were waiting to kill me on the spot! Fortunately for me, old Great Uncle Tarker happened by, and after immobilizing all the guards, and grabbing me by the ears, teleported us back to Greater Faydark. He immediately locked me up in the Wizard Guildhall, and told me that the only way I was getting out was when I learned to Gate out. I was rather miserable and when Father and Mother came and glared at me, without any mention of release from Uncle Tarker, I knew it was learn Gate or else (at least father slipped me his notes on Gate from when he had been a youth). Well, I of course learned the spell quickly, and found that learning was more enjoyable than I had previously thought. I had been rather impressed by Uncle Tarker’s gating me away from death in Kaladim, and the light finally came on in my head that the Way of Wizards might be my life’s vocation.

    While in the year to come, I explored the heights and breadth of the Greater Faydark, I found nothing further of real Norrathographical interest. Sadly, most of this forest is deserted. It is said that King Faydwer of the Faeries occasionally holds court in a Southern glade here; however, I have never seen him and doubt this tale. Beyond the known dangers, I have little else to say for the geography of both of the Faydarks, Greater and Lesser.

    Since we are on Faydwer, let me skip a few years of travels elsewhere, to come to the time when returning to Faydwer, I was led astray by my cousin, Nitram the Paladin, to “go bash some undead heads” in Unrest Estates. Arriving at the Estate, we were immediately attacked by a host of fiends. I became disoriented and found myself inside the Mansion, pursued by a host. Running wildly, I ascended stairs and then more stairs, emerging onto an exterior upper deck. I looked around wildly for escape, but on the lawn below hideous hags and scarecrows gathered, shrieking at me to “Come down!”. Declining their invitation, I cast Levitation on myself (having learned at last this skill!), and with the aid of a Spirit of Wolf that had been previously cast on me, was able to gain the very highest pinnacle of the Mansion. But what now? Where to flee? Looking into the dark distance behind the Mansion, I could see that I was higher than the outer wall. “Perhaps”, I thought, “I can reach the top of the wall and be safe there!”. Taking a deep breath, I ran through the air and barely reached my goal before I had drifted too low. Looking down, I could see the faces of my pursuers and hear their ghastly and frustrated cries: obviously no safety there! So I looked over the wall; expecting to see only rock, I was vastly surprised to see wide ground below, and beyond a shimmering white wall of a substance I had never before seen. I saw none of my pursuers on this side, and after reconnoitering the entire top of the wall, decided to jump down. Sadly, I found that there was nothing of interest there beyond the mere existence of this space, which is otherwise inaccessible and which has no exit. I was forced to cast Gate and, not for the first nor last time, blessed old Tarker for having forced me to learn that spell. Later on in life, when I had learned the fabulous spell Gravity Flux, I returned here and found that one could get on top of the arched roof at the entry to Unrest Estates just before the fountain, and could perhaps gain access over the wall at its lowest points…note that if you do not have this spell, another can cast it upon you only if you duel him.

    My gate point was outside the entrance, in Dagnor’s Cauldron. There I found my cousin, polishing his armor and waiting for me. We decided to explore the mountains around the lake a bit, and casting Levitation on us both, off we went. Little did we find, though we did discover that there are several spots where the rock can be climbed to the highest points of the mountains, from which points you can see all of the Cauldron below.

    Sadly, the World of Norrath, with so much promise, often is mainly empty places. In the next installment, I will tell you of some further exotic places that one can climb to or discover. Until then, may Karana’s storm protect you!

Chapter two

Chapter three