The Evacuation Begins. . . As the sun once again sank into the mountains in the west, my heart remained heavy under the weight of my failures the previous eve. As the shadows of the battlements lengthened, yet again the warriors and mages prepared for battle at the gates. Yet I had another errand, for the innocent of the city were in need. By helping them on a desperate mission, I hoped to regain some measure of my self-respect. Shortly after the battle yestereve, I found myself in conversation with the noble Lady Birmingham. She informed me that a party of civilians were to be evacuated the following night and that warriors would be needed to escort them to safety. I, of course, promised my sword to her service, knowing that this was a quest from which a Disciple of the Avatar could not shrink. Sleeping fitfully through the day, we gathered this eve at the ninth bell in the Keg and Anchor tavern. I fear my preparations for the journey delayed me overlong and I reached the tavern just as the evacuation party prepared to leave. There were roughly ten civilians waiting to be led from the city. I had time but to select a citizen to protect--a charming little girl by the name of Weena--before we were off. Lady Birmingham's plan was to exit through the southern gate and make our way to the moongate. That accomplished, we expected to use the mystical power of the gate to cross over to the forests of Yew. Finally, we were to make the journey through that forest to the Empath Abbey where the authorities of that community had agreed to take in our band of refugees. As we made our way to the gate to the south, two citizens, Alexandria and Arturo, appeared to be entirely too caught up in their obvious affection for each other to keep up. Lady Birmingham placed me in the rear with my charge and ordered me to watch for stragglers. These two appeared to be who she had in mind. I, along with a mage named Hawk of ML, decided to take on these two lovebirds as our charges in addition to Weena as we herded them along behind the rest of the party. Weena did her best to keep up, though I believe her fascination with my horse perhaps had more to do with her determination than did any fear of being left behind. We reached the southern gate and passed below its fortified battlements. Almost immediately on crossing the threshold, we were assaulted by a small patrol of undead warriors. Our warriors and mages made short work of this patrol and we were quickly on our way again. On our way to the gate, I witnessed a scene of touching compassion as a warrior unknown to me offered his horse to the now quite exhausted Weena. She mounted the horse with glee and I thanked the warrior, named Scyther, for her Virtue. It was then that Hawk proclaimed that he needed to leave due to other-worldly obligations. Dismayed and confused by this news, I nevertheless wished him a fond farewell, hoping he would return soon. Approximately halfway to the moongate, as our party become confused by the maze of mesas to the southwest of town, we engaged a far more formidable patrol of undead. Some of the citizens became disoriented and some of the stragglers in my charge ran headlong into the evil horde that waited to waylay our party. Weena, being accosted by a skeleton, screamed for aid and I quickly dispatched the fiend with my sword. Coming to the moongate, it quickly became apparent that nobody in the party was schooled in the finer point of how they functioned. Therefore, we rather haphazardly entered the gate time after time until we finally arrived in the woods of Yew. To her credit, Weena followed my orders perfectly, only entering when I told her to do so. We arrived safely in the forest surrounding the Empath Abbey. However, we did not arrive to a peaceful meadow as we had hoped. Those who had arrived before us were already engaging a party of orcs that had apparently camped near the moongate hoping to ambush unwary travelers. Again, however, we made short work of these foul creatures and were once again on our way. The walls of the Empath Abbey could easily be discerned through the trees as we plodded along. Some of the refugees now grew exceedingly tired and many stragglers were having trouble keeping up. It was then that I noticed forms moving among the trees to the north, and the unmistakable guttural speech of orcs. "Orcs to the north! Orcs to our rear!" I shouted. "Fly, citizens! The enemy is upon us! Do not stop till thou hast reached the safety of the abbey!" With that, I turned toward our foes and drew my sword. "Virtue!" I cried as I prodded my steed and plunged into the mass of emerald flesh and gnashing teeth. And orc lord seemed to single me out and I was busy dispatching him when a menacing ettin smashed through the woods and came into view. Several warriors began assailing it and it was then that Hawk returned, adding his might to the fray. While dispatching the orc lord, it occurred to me that the civilians were nowhere to be seen. Though it was most likely good that they had sped on to the abbey, their being not in my sight made me nervous. When the last of the major threats had fallen (the ettin and the orc mages), we disengaged the enemy and turned for the Abbey. There we found that the civilians had made it inside. However, through some nefarious intelligence, the undead army assaulting Trinsic had tracked us to this spot. A raiding force, presumably originating from the moongate that had carried us here, now assaulted the Abbey. The Abbey proved easily defensible, may the Virtues bless Lady Birmingham for selecting it as our ultimate destination. The slaughter before the gates of the keep was great, though I am proud to report that I did not witness the fall of any of our warriors. The battle raged for nearly ten minutes and when it was over Lady Birmingham thanked us for our services and warned us that future evacuations might not be so easily accomplished. Knowing that the assault upon the gates of Trinsic was most likely underway by now, I asked the Lady's leave to gate these fine warriors to the city's defense. She immediately assented of course and I summoned a gate. Our mission accomplished, our party--at least twenty strong--came to the beleaguered city's aid. . . as fate would have it, we arrived just in time. . . though that is a tale for another time. . .