On Atlantic the other evening, I attended the Escorting of Martoo Saul (an FoA member) from the Jail's in Trinsic to the Yew Courthouse Prison. The event started out very nice. Two guards appointed by Lord British showed up, and began the escort, one walked closely to the prisoner, the other would frequently walk ahead of the entire pack of people (numbering at least 50).

Just outside of guard zone of Trinsic, we got our first taste of combat. As most of you may know, I love to find humor in the teeny tiny mistakes that happen when humans try and run things smoothly. Well, on Atlantic, at the very beginning of the escort, the GM in charge of the "disruptive spawns" to the escort completely MISCLICKED, and spawned three black ancient wyrms right around the entire party. Thankfully the GM was just as quick fixing that mistake, and the three beasts were deleted almost as quickly as they came, with no real casualties from them. (would've been hilarious to watch everyone die soo early in the escort though :P )

Well the escort continued along, and it wasn't long when the party began to be regularly sieged with small groups of Ogre Lords. The first few times they were easily repelled, but the futher the escort went, the more Ogre Lords seemed to be in our path. Finally, the guards themselves became a little too involved in combat, and both were slain while fighting Ogre Lords. This set Martoo Saul "free" and he began running. Several of us caught up to him, and surrounded him yet again. This time, a supporter handed him a bardiche, and Martoo attacked one of those people surrounding him. A battle erupted, and I found my spells did diddly squat to the man, I was standing right next to him, and my Master Mage flamestrike did soo little damage that I couldn't even see the difference on his health-bar. Then someone opened an "escape" gate for Martoo, and he ran through it.

Luckily for all of us, it was treachery against Martoo, for the gate led back to the road to Yew, only further along the trail then before! Another battle erupted as Martoo attempted to get away. This time, however, his captors would not be so foolish, five men surrounded him and began relentlessly beating on him with Halberds, he was quickly drained of nearly all of his health. Indeed, he was soo near death that I ran up to him to give the finishing blow to such a criminal, but he supposedly "surrendered." again, and others nearby began healing him.

Then the escort began again, and after several mistakes in navigation through Britain (recall has totally killed people's sense of direction), we made it out to the Britain Crossroads. Just north of the guard tower north of the Crossroads, the entire party was besieged by a devastating army. A mass of 30-35 Orc Magi, and 10-12 Ogre Lords (YES, OGRE LORDS) filled a 2-3 screen area and began killing people left and right. It was right about the third death in this utter chaos that Martoo simply VANISHED without a trace. I swear to you readers, I had Martoo on screen, keeping track of him, I looked away for less than 5 seconds, and he was gone. I began screaming outloud for his whereabouts, but noone had any clue. It was as if he had recalled out of battle, and noone had seen him do so.

.

We gathered at the Trinsic Jail at approximately 10:00 p.m. There were at least 30 warriors prepared to transfer the prisoner Martoo Saul from Trinsic to Yew. The Trustworthy Garfield and The Trustworthy Conway were our benefactors for the evening. They lead Martoo and the group out of the Trinsic west gate and on the road to Yew. We were only a mile or two down the road (about a five minute walk, in heavy lag) outside of Trinsic when our group was set upon by possibly 10 trolls (was suprised at the low number of attackers, but we didn't get too far out of Trinsic as you will see).

We defeated the attackers and moved down the road a little, when all Hell broke loose. We were once again set upon by a few trolls (possibly 10 more) when Garfield attacked one of our party. (Hard to say whether this was intentional or by accident, I was ahead of the group and didn't see his actual attack. When I came back to the fray, he was being attacked by tens of men as he was now flagged criminal. Keep in mind there were a large number of Martoo's supporters in the group. In any event, both Garfield and Conway were killed in short order.) In the confusion of the moment, and without true leadership of the group to keep the massess focused, Martoo Saul escaped. I lost track of him in the battle, and he dissappeared from view.

Martoos dissapearance on Atlantic was EERIE... the method of his dissapearance almost defied explanation it was done so quickly and quietly. Not to mention the fact that the entire escort duty was being attacked by two very tough monsters, especially in combination, the Orc Magi, and the Ogre Lord. you can't use Blade Spirits or Summoned Monsters on the Ogre Lords with so many Orc Mages nearby, and Orc Magi have a wicked Energy Bolt spell. Also, the sudden spawn of such an enourmous army of these beasts really leads me to believe that the escort was doomed from the start.

PLEASE, SEND ME YOUR ACCOUNTS OF THIS EVENT... I can't promise I'll post yours, but I can promise I'll read it and add it's outcome to the stack. Thank you everyone.