A much more successful second outing with Untold: Adventures Await, playing at a faster speed and going for fewer details...

A much more successful second outing with Untold: Adventures Await, playing at a faster speed and going for fewer details...

The new series, Grand Fantasia, is a high fantasy with predominantly humans in a world of untamed wilds and tiny settlements, hardscrabble life and kingdoms only cobbled from tribes a few centuries past. The land is under siege by unknown forces, and plant life both wild and tamed is dying, causing death on up the food chain.

Our first episode takes place shortly before the War of Three Kingdoms, in the kingdom of Etricca. The action starts in a farmland, a village with no name. Animal attacks on farms are on the rise, and sheep in particular are being carried away in the night. Pests are swarming fields and crops are being consumed before they even fully ripen.

Our heroes are:
- Gareth, a hunter of the village, whose family run a farm there. His tracking skills are legendary.
- Clint, a local governor and Etriccan Flame, an official representative of the crown. He bears a seal of the royal family, who are distant cousins of his. He controls the local militia, organized of the boldest and strongest from the nearest villages and farmland.

On tracking prints and signs of the dragged-off sheep, Gareth leads Clint and a few of his men to a cave in the Tesslau Mountains, but whatever - or whoever - took the livestock has left, and the trail grows cold. The bones of the sheep are not gnawed on. They are clean-cut and the meat clearly separated by human hands.

Upon returning to the settled lands, Clint and his men discover the locals have noticed a stranger afoot in town. Scowering the villages for the stranger, Clint and Gareth find themselves suddenly surrounded by wolves, in town. The militia arrive and are able to drive off the wolves.

Gareth learns that local messengers, carrying word both official and that of the people, have not returned in recent weeks. Following the latest messenger's path into the northern Wild Wood, they find a small hut in a clearing. It is occupied by an old hermit, known to barter trinkets and perform small feats of magic in exchange for food and other goods. He had not been seen in town for the previous month. He claims to know nothing of the attacks, but the men find his larder stocked with salted meats, grains and vegetables suspiciously like those that have been disappearing. There is no further sign of the messenger.

Upon regrouping and returning to town, our heroes are beset by the very hermit they just left, and the people are crying out that the "Stormsage" has returned! His hands waving wildly, he calls down the thunder, setting farmsteads ablaze and terrifying livestock and horses. After chasing him a distance, the militia is able to inflict a wound on the Stormsage, but on trying to capture him he vanishes, a whiff of ozone and a flash of lightning covering his retreat. Beating a path to the Stormsage's door, the militia is caught by surprise when the old man appears, beasts of all manner at his sides and seemingly at his command. Gareth notes they seem to match stories of monsters unheard of for decades or even centuries. There are huge bears, more wolves, and even oversized insect-like creatures, slavering, snarling and chittering away.

The Stormsage says he is out to return the settled lands to nature. He claims to work with "greater forces" to "balance the debt," before fleeing once more while the heroes are surrounded by the beasts. After beating back a few beasts and losing one or two of their own, the remaining animals fall back with no Stormsage to protect.

Tramping after their quarry, the militia and our heroes find themselves suddenly at the foot of an entire city in the trees. It seems to go on forever in all directions, clearly populated but in seeming seamless harmony with nature. They are immediately surrounded by far superior numbers of the Treepeople of Lofty Heights, captured and corralled into a hut high in the branches of an enormous oak. In the process, half a dozen men fall to the Treepeople. The Stormsage shows his face, and makes claims to the Treepeople that the farm folk are rampant, causing the death of forest flora and fauna. Gareth and Clint together are able to convince most of the elders that they are not truly at fault, telling of similar fates for their own lands. The Stormsage then counters that they have also caused fires that have resulted in the deaths of several of their people. The night is long, and the elders depart, to reconvene the following day. The two heroes are themselves able to escape their guards, but before they can free their compatriots, the Treepeople kill the entire remaining militia.

Escaping into the woods and hiding their trail by Gareth's skill alone, the two make their way across many leagues. Two days later they find themselves at Castle Ad Etricca, home if the Duke of Adia, named Covington. Flashing the total seal and telling of their recent adventures and misadventures, Clint earns the Duke's pledge of his army of three hundred well-trained soldiers, headed by the Duke's own sister, Altea, who in time of peace is Captain of the Guard. There seems to be chemistry between Altea and Clint, though they have no time alone to see where things may go.

The army marches on Lofty Heights, successfully hunting down the Stormsage, who seems to be weakened from days of exerting his considerable powers. Upon his pleading for mercy and offering up information on who is truly behind the recent attacks on all the nearby lands, he is taken into custody and his hands bound, his powers seemingly disabled entirely. Clint and Altea broker an uneasy peace, even a temporary Alliance against whoever may be bedeviling them all. Two of the elders, however, spit at their feet in disgust and storm off, vowing revenge for their kin who died in the tumult.

A peace is reached, for now. But what is the information offered up by the Stormsage? From whence do the monsters originate? Who was the stranger seen about town? Where have the messengers disappeared to? Hopefully some of that may be revealed next episode!

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All this played out in little over an hour and worked great!