These events occurred in and around the town of Stonehold from late February to early April of 2000. All of the major events that follow did happen in-game, although the exact descriptions may not be totally accurate due to the fact that these events took place almost a year ago. ~Teru

~ Chapter 4 ~

My first experience as a Peacekeeper left a sour taste in my mouth, I thought to myself, how can we stand up to these raiders if they are so much more powerful then we are. I began my training the next day, I only entered town to restock the rest of my time I spent training, I promised myself that I would not go down so easily again. It was during this time that the tranquility of Stonehold was shattered, never to be fully rebuilt. It occurred one bright crisp day, I was returning from a hunt as I entered Stonehold. The usual town chatter was conspicuosly absent, as I entered I noticed that everyone was gathered in the central square. I slowly walked towards the square where the crowd had gathered, they were armed and there seemed to be a buzz of excitement in the air. Recognizing many of the faces in the crowd it seemed safe to approach and as I did I could hear the talk jumping from mouth to mouth. I t seemed that Druez Traceless, the Warlord of the Family of Silver Serpents had declared war on one of their allies who also lived in Stonehold. I was a member of the Family of Silver Serpents but I wanted to know where the General stood in this issue.

I had not seen the General for a few days since I had been in Stonehold for only short amounts of time and rarely at the same time as he. However I knew he had to be in the area, he would not miss this. I ran towards the hill were we had talked the week earlier. I climbed the hill and found what I was looking for, my fellow Peacekeepers were sitting in a semi-circle with the General standing in front of them.

As I approached I heard the General say, "Druez has gone too far this time."

Turing towards me, the General said, "Teru, its good that you're here, a lot has happened, take a seat and I'll try to explain what is going on."

I sat down between Frost Gunner and Morgoth Ogureson, a fellow Peacekeeper with whom I had spent many hours hunting in the northern woods.

The General continued, "I attended a meeting of the FSS leadership a few days ago, we attempted to get Queen Danciy Dynae to tighten her reigns on Druez, who we all know has been trying to take control of Stonehold."

"The Queen disagreed with us, she didn't see any problem with Druez's actions", Zang said quietly, "Many of the FSS leaders walked out the meeting then and there, dropping their allegiance to the Queen."

We all sat listening to the General, waiting to here what else had happened.

" I didn' t want to give up that easily", the General continued, "I thought that if we could talk it out, the FSS wouldn't have to die."

"However, Druez has made it clear to me that has no intention of working anything out", said Zang, a touch of anger in his voice, "last night he came into town, accompanied by members of the evil mage Loch's guild. After slaying the inhabitants of the town, he nailed this note onto the Archmage's door."

Some of us gasped in disbelief, Druez had crossed the line.

Zang pulled out a small, torn piece of paper and began to read, "General Zang, Aytalya, and all those that have already left the FSS, you will be killed on sight by the soldiers of the Serpent Queen."

"Druez doesn't want to talk, he wants to kill, that's all he was ever good at, "Zang said bitterly.

The General stopped and looked down into the valley of Stonehold, I could tell he felt the same way about the town as I, "Druez is a power hungry fool, we need to work together not fight each other."

The General turned back towards us, "Fortunately, Druez has no support from any other guild leaders and all the other FSS leaders have already left him and his puppet Queen, he has given me no other option, we are leaving the Family of the Silver Serpent."

As the General finished, Frost Gunner stood raising his fist in the air and proclaimed, "We are the Peacekeepers again!"

~ Chapter 5 ~

The Family of Silver Serpents was shattered, the leaders left and created their own smaller guilds within Stonehold and many others left the town for good. All that was left of the FSS was a small group under the leadership of Druez, it was agreed that they would be banned from Stonehold until further notice. Our group was not safe from the ripples of this event, almost as soon as we had declared our independence some of our members left, many whom I not even met. The Peacekeepers were down to General Zang, Frost Gunner, Hellspawn, Ravage Galson, Morgoth Ogureson, Light of Leagon, Svenn and myself. We found ourselves in a turbulent sea with only a skeleton crew to run the guild, we needed to act quickly to keep the Peacekeepers from becoming part of antiquity.

We began a strong recruiting drive during the next few weeks, we made countless treks into the southlands using the heartland portal that was located near the town. We knew we had to make ourselves more visible or the Peacekeepers might fade away into history. Our work slowly began to pay off as we received messages from across Dereth from people interested in joining us in our fight against the rampant forces of darkness. One of the first recruits to join us during this time was a mage by the name of Sai-Ban, joining us at one of our lowest points and staying a Peacekeeper through good times and bad, all the way to the end.

During this time period I went through a transition along with the guild. Only a few weeks previous I had ran to Stonehold and became one of the newest recruits, now I found myself becoming more of a veteran and with that came new responsibilities. Through many hours of practice and concentration I was able to learn how to summon portals, a skill no other Peacekeeper had at the time. This gave me the responsibility of traveling to many of the most dangerous southern towns, where new recruits were living and transporting them to Stonehold. As I did this I couldn't help but wonder whether they were missing out on an important experience by not running the distance as I had earlier. These thoughts were overtaken by the cold hard facts, if we didn\rquote t pump knew blood into the guild it might not last much longer. I took it as my responsibility to act as the gatekeeper to Stonehold for many of the new recruits that joined during this time. Our numbers seemed to rise everyday with recruits such as Red Monika, Finn Yarber, MacHeath, Archidamus, Deborah, Jaye, Aztec, Judge Death, Judge Mortis, Chi-Maria, Samtgryyl, Antigone, and Glaurung joining the cause.

Although the guilds of Stonehold were able to decide that the actions that Dreuz Traceless had taken were not in the best interest of the town, they could agree on little else. General Zang attempted to create a Council of Stonehold, where the leaders of the many guilds in the town could discuss matters without having to use force. Although there was some support from powerful figures such as Colonel Coward and Angur Jado, many of the guild leaders were apathetic towards any type of organization, they felt that it was unnecessary and it never came into being. It felt as if a student had just been handed a book from which to study and instead of reading, the student threw it to the ground, proclaiming that it had learned all it needed to know. Any chance at a democratic Council of guild leaders disappeared and soon the most powerful figures would take control and guide the town into unknown water.

~ Chapter 6 ~

As I look back, one of the defining moments for the residents of Stonehold occurred during the time of the shadow invasions. The curse was all around us at that time, it was unsafe to leave the valley as the forests were filled with shadow minions. It was said that the shadows would attempt an attack on the town itself, led by a shadow General. Many disregarded these prophesies, others listened intently as it was rumored that perhaps a great weapon or powerful wand could be taken off the corpse of the shadow General by whom ever was strong enough to kill it.

As the time of the attack grew closer, word came from other towns, that they were fighting off attacks from shadows, the prophecies were true. When I entered Stonehold a large crowd had already gathered in the square, as I mingled with the crowd something suddenly hit me. I recognized the insignia upon many of the people's armor, these were members of the guild led by the evil mage Loch. I froze and slowly scanned the crowd, the townsfolk of Stonehold were gathered in a group on one side of the square while the forces of Loch were standing on the other. I slowly moved over to the Stonehold side and found Frost Gunner. When he saw me he motioned for me to come over by him.

I approached and Frost told me in an angry voice, "This is not right, how can we allow these killers to stand in our town!"

I nodded slowly, eyeing the evil gathered across the square, "Who asked them to come here? Why weren' t they attacked when they first entered town!"

Frost sighed and answered, "They were invited."

"Invited!", I blurted out.

"Yes, it seems a group of Stoneholders thought it was best if they came to help defend the town from the coming shadow attack."

"Protect the town?", I said in amazement. "These men know nothing but death and violence, we Stoneholders can defend this town from the shadows without their help."

"I know," Frost said quietly, "I have already informed Colonel Coward, he agreed that we can't let this evil in our town!"

I saw Colonel Coward and Ballpark Billy charge out of the armor store towards Loch yelling, "For Serpico!" Serpico being a member of Ronan's guild, an ally of ours, however no one really knew what that meant.

Coward and Billy fell upon Loch as he stood there talking with his men, but Loch's troopers reacted quickly and Loch ran for cover. It happened so quickly that no one had time to react. If I had life magic I would have tried to heal them as they fought, but instead I could just watch, I knew my bow without any magic enchantments would be useless. Within seconds Colonel Coward and Ballpark Billy had been killed, I still wish I had reacted faster, I can\rquote t believe I let that happen. My vassal Judge Death was the first to act, although he was no match for the mighty mage, he attacked Loch, his courage shocked many in the crowd.

As he attacked someone yelled out, "The shadows are coming!"

I saw Judge Death fall to the ground, his lifeless eyes staring back at me, they seemed to ask, "When will you act?"

The shadows streamed into town, mixing in with friend and foe alike. Frost and I pulled our weapons and went after the Lochs, bypassing the mindless shadows. I soon found myself engaged in a running fight with an archer, elemental arrows whizzing back and forth but none of them could find their mark. As the fight went back and forth, the archer was joined by a mage who began to cast spells that drained my life away, I was forced to try to heal and fight at the same time. As I attempted to heal myself one of the archer's arrows found its mark. I grabbed the acid tipped arrow and pulled it from my leg and notched one of my own frost arrows. The archer had started to run towards me, perhaps thinking I had been injured more then I actually had been. I stood and fired the frigid arrow into his shoulder sending him falling onto his back with a scream of pain. Just as I seemed to gain the advantage in the fight, the mage turned his attentions back to me, allowing his fallen comrade time to recover. The mage started to drain my health again, and I quickly healed then let loose a frost arrow. The uncoordinated mage made a pathetic attempt to avoid it and he winced in pain as the arrow froze the skin on his arm where it struck him. As this happened, Frost Gunner, Sai-Ban, Red Monika, Judge Death and Serpico came running towards me. The archer had recovered and began to flee but Red Monika cast imperiling spells on him as Frost Gunner sprinted towards him, sword drawn. Sai began to drain the health of the archer and he was quickly sent back to his lifestone. Seeing the archer being cut down, the evil mage ran into the woods, holding his frozen arm to his side with the arrow still stuck in it.

The battle went on for many hours into the dark night, with many falling on both sides. Many times as we swept through the town chasing a Loch or being chased by them, we realized that Stonehold had been deserted by the townsfolk. We wondered were they had all gone, we had seen Colonel Coward and his men fighting, but what of the rest of the town? Had we been left to sacrifice ourselves for the them? We fought on into the early morning, many of us being sent to the lifestone multiple times, but in the end Loch had been pushed out of Stonehold and we had stood up for what the Peacekeepers represented. When looking back at that night, it was a moment that separated the men from the boys, those who would fight and die for Stonehold and those who would prosper from us doing so.

To be continued in Part 3 of 4 tommorrow....

Click here to see Part 1 of the Stonehold Saga