The World of Dreams

Ditto. I will post an account as soon as life allows.

Forgive an old man.
I can no longer rely on my memory of events.
Knowing that fact and also knowing that we were about to witness historic events, I took careful notes on the Troll Treaty signing ceremony and subsequent events. For reasons that shall be explained shortly, those notes have been lost. Without the notes, this account will be a bit sketchy. Perhaps that is a good thing. The entire affair from start to finish was hardly one of Britain’s finest hours.
I showed up on time and joined a modest gathering of other veteran’s of the Queen’s various wars and police actions. While we waited, we naturally shared our opinions about the peace treaty with the trolls. We’re a contentious and competitive lot, but for a change we were pretty much of one mind- we didn’t like the treaty and we didn’t expect the trolls to abide by it.
Once we were admitted to the ceremony grounds at the Minoc Mining Camp, we were introduced to the troll representative for the signing. To my surprise, it was a troll I had never met or heard of. Without my notes, I am uncertain of his name, but it was on the lines of “Ugloid.” In fact, his name SHOULD have been Ugloid. Now, I know Trolls. My current inventory of troll hides out at FH is over 12,000, in spite of the fact that I use them extensively. Next to Ophidians, the trolls are my most familiar and oldest adversaries. In fact, I besides killing trolls I have also been killed by them- probably between 50 and 60 times. I have no respect for any troll who has not killed me nor been killed by me and Ugloid had not earned either honor.
Victoria Tel I’Moen, to her credit, asked for our opinions before signing the treaty and we let her have it –er- them. Then she gave Ugloid a chance to convince us. His arguments were totally lame and even insulting. Victoria suggested that she and Ugloid confer to discuss what could be done to reassure us.
The next thing we knew, Victoria was dead. Ugloid was caught “red handed” with her bloody corpse, but no one had seen the actual murder. It was decided to bring him to trial, rather than kill him on the spot. And that brought us to Britain’s Trial of the Century.
The presiding judge was the Honorable Lev. I will spare you the details of the trial. There was precious little solid evidence. The apparent open-an-shut case against Ugloid quickly unraveled. The shadow of suspicion fell on Guard Eliza, who had discovered the body. In the end, those present had to vote for acquittal due of Ugloid, at which point Eliza went nuts and attacked first Ugloid and then anyone who got in her way. As far as I know, she escaped and has not been apprehended.
I lost track of events at that point and suddenly realized I was alone in the courthouse. Everyone else had returned to Britain. When the population there learned of the acquittal of Ugloid, they apparently broke out into riot. When I arrived there, the streets were already running with blood. The city guards and my fellow warriors had no choice but to beat back the mobs however we could. I was not killed, but I was knocked senseless by a thrown cobblestone (must have been a big one) in the middle of the mob scene and could not get myself together for some hours. When I recovered my senses, I was in a sea of corpses on the street and my notes were scattered to the winds.
Later, I learned that a large volume of magical oil had been discovered on the various bodies in the mob. Guard investigators have conjectured that the oil was from a secret cache illegally amassed by the long-time Britain bowyer, Ahern. They had been investigating him for skimming magical items from sellbag customers which he then “laundered” through Benson. Ahern disappeared during the riots and has not been seen since. He may have been among the anonymous dead or he might have bought his escape with his valuable contraband. Since the oil could not be traced back to any legitimate owners, we had no choice but to claim it as our own and divide it among the survivors of the ugly battle.
When things settled down, a troll appeared who also might have been called Ugloid, but was in fact called Heinrich. He told us that the treaty was off because humans were too treacherous. (Fine- if that is what it takes.) We mourn the death of the naïve but noble Victoria and the hundreds of misguided rioters, but few will mourn the death of the accursed treaty that was the true cause of it all.

(NOTE: any additions and names of participants would be welcome posts)
Homer Oldham

Thank you Homer for account of the events.

R.I.P. Victoria. She was the smartest Tel'Imoen of the lot. Her contributions to the Queen, her land and her people and her pursuit of peace with other peoples mean that her death was not without meaning, but .She is survived by her far-too-many uncles.

The Troll ambassador's name was Urgrok. Ahern has now been replaced by Dov who the guards assure has been well vetted. The rioters were, as it turns out, merely knocked unconscious by our heroes and their wounds healed by Britain's healers.