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Few's history   Marabi's history » Marabi's journal   Fan Dancer prestige class   Divine Servant prestige class May 7 May 8-11 May 11-16 May 16-17 May 18-20

May 7

Game session was 6-19-01.

I arrived here in Kaledor this morning, began the usual round of questions and got the usual round of "no." One of the innkeepers gave me a lead to the obligatory gnomish scholar who knows the entire history of everything -- doesn't every town have one? -- and of course he had never heard of the Sun's Hand tribe.

No surprise there.

The tavern dancers are no different from tavern dancers anywhere else. A few truly talented artists, fallen on hard times. The rest are cheap, unburdened by talent, and destined for a sorry life once their looks fade, if they are not already renting themselves out by the hour. A musician can perform in a place like that, and rise above it later. A dancer cannot. At any rate, there were no leads among them.

No surprise there either.

The street performers, as in most prosperous towns, are infinitely more interesting. Much more talent and self-respect than you'll find among tavern performers. Most have a place they call home and food on the table. Quite a few serious performers, working the nicer plazas and markets of town, building a reputation. I took time to find a likely spot for myself, in case no more lucrative prospects come along. Of course, I found no dancer like Kanagai.

No surprise there...

...except one. Someone -- one of the Halfling tumblers I think, but I can't be sure -- slipped me a note so surrepetitiously that I stopped to count my coins afterward.

Your talents will be best demonstrated to something other than a mirror. Come to the Lurking Ripple tonight! You will not be disappointed. Tell no one of this note. It was signed "A Friend."

I couldn't have been more intrigued if that note had been signed by Kanagai himself.

* * * * *

So I arrive at the tavern this evening and see my first "wonders" in this City of Wonders. At first, I have to wonder if this is some bizarre form of comedic drama, and if I have unwittingly become one of the actors...

· There were two tieflings of -- need it be said? -- dubious character. One Phred, the other Zoj. They don't act as if they know each other.

· A disturbingly intense, very talkative human girl with what must be dyed hair. Queen Ivy, she calls herself.

· A burly wood elf, armored and armed with an oversized hammer that might as well have "trouble" engraved on it. That's Rico.

· A dwarf half-slumped over, half-snoring in the corner. I didn't catch his name, and I intend not to catch anything else from him either.

· A flustered serving boy who trips over his own shadow and can't hold a mug upright. Tallin.

· And me, 91 pounds of mean fighting machine, wearing my ready-for-anything armor under my usual costume.

Aside from the dwarf, who probably can't read anyway, each of us received an invitation that evening. All the notes were scrawled in the same hand, and not by any of us.

It came out that Tallin was recently deprived of an expensive wedding ring by a local bully. His note promised him help. The rest of us, presumably, are that help.

* * * * *

Wasting no time, we headed toward the docks to locate this bully -- Gep I think his name was. Picture these two tieflings, maul-slinging wood elf, Intensity Girl, and myself trying to act like casual tourists sightseeing in the roughest part of town. Sounds like the beginnings of a joke. Anyway, we found the rude little punk lurking in an alley. He insulted and threatened us, but then made a puddle at the sight of Rico's weapon. Unfortunately he had sold the ring to a pawnshop.

The pawnshop in question is not a good place, and the proprietor is not a good man. I was relieved to be out of there. Unfortunately, we left without the ring, as he had sold it to a trader who just set out this morning. I probably passed her on the way in to the city.

Tommorow morning, our unlikely band sets out to pursue the trader and recover the ring. It's a job. And perhaps we will learn who "A Friend" is, and how and why he or she arranged this.

Corellon knows I'll pursue a mystery to the ends of the earth.

Game session was 7-3-01.

The night of the 7th was a stormy one, turning the roads to mud for our travel the next day. The Queen's Highway is a good road though, and we made decent time in the back of a supply wagon -- Ivy riding her horse alongside -- to the guard post.

Before I go into that though, I should mention that we had another talk with the constable. She found a note on the punk kid Gep which put him up to stealing the ring. Written by the same hand as the author of our own notes. What exactly is going on here? I hope we're providing sufficient entertainment to the person who set this up, and I hope even more that we can soon wipe the grin off his or her face and get some answers.

Anyway.

A few hours along the trail to the Fairbane Forest, we caught up to the trader Helgesta. Her wagon was overturned, her horses gone, and an ambush had been set up. We fell for it in the same inevitable way that a boulder shoved off a cliff will fall. Those of us near the front took the brunt of a fiery spell unleashed by a disguised goblin. Ivy fell unconscious, but thanks to a healing potion, still managed to knock out the hobgoblins closer to the wagon. We kept one as a prisoner, though he turned out to be a worthless burden.

Helgesta came to, and told us her woeful tale as we helped to right her wagon. Half her goods went missing -- including, of course, the ring we were looking for. In exchange for some supplies, we hitched Ivy's horse to the wagon, escorted her back to the guard post and camped for the night.

For the record, we have arranged it so that I take the first watch, Rico the second, the two tieflings third, and Ivy the morning person gets the sunrise watch.

On the 9th, we set off up the trail again. We were jumped by some horrible panther-like thing that -- I swear upon my mother's grave -- turned its face inside out and screamed at me. I couldn't help it, I ran away. It had an even worse effect on Ivy, who went tearing off down the trail on her horse at a full gallop. Apparently Rico and the rest had little trouble dispatching it though, and it was with some embarrassment that I rejoined the group.

Our sleep that night was interrupted by what Phred said afterwards was a lemure. I tried to entangle it with a bola, but it just sank right in to its translucent flesh. Disgusting. Thankfully the thing didn't hurt us much and fell under the onslaught of Rico's maul.

At sunrise we marched on, reaching a goblin camp near the edge of the forest. I fired on a guard, hitting him from a respectable hundred yards away, but didn't take him out. Rico took the lead by charging in like a madman, and so the rest of us were compelled to follow suit. It was kind of fun, really, though I expected to run straight into a pit trap or sprout a dozen crossbow bolts at any moment. Zoj was struck down by a hobgoblin with a longsword and came very close to death, but we were triumphant. Among the goblins' other treasures -- no doubt the former property of Helgesta and other unlucky merchants -- was the ring we had sought.

A day's travel brought us back to the guard post, and a somewhat uncomfortable ride on a hay cart (though I've had worse) brought us back to Kaledor the next day. With the Carnival coming up, a line had backed up at the city gates. As we waited our turn, we witnessed a guard chasing a cloaked kobold away. Some investigation by the Draconic speakers in our group determined that this kobold is Akara, and that "his people" -- Dwarves, not more kobolds as one would expect -- have been enslaved and put to work by a "blue man" in a mine about a week's walk from here. Zoj promised to meet the kobold after dark and sneak him into the city so we can negotiate.

Game session was 7-10-01.

Not wanting to push our luck with the sherriff, we decided to meet Akara outside the city. Not that I've met a lot of kobolds, but he seems more trustworthy and earnest than I expected. We agreed to move out that evening, down the Farsouth Road, up the river and into the mountains to find the Dwarven mine where the little guy was raised.

We traveled by night and rested by day. On the 11th and 12th we had no difficulty, but spotted some bandits on the evening of the 13th. Not very efficient bandits; perhaps they were expecting Humans who can't see well in the dark.

(Let me digress a little here, and mention that among the other little things that are odd about her, "Queen" Ivy has no trouble seeing in the dark. I only assumed she was Human; perhaps I was wrong. But I wouldn't feel right asking her about it.)

The bandits were divided between a small mounted group in front of us and some number of archers in the woods to our right. None of them even had a chance to attack us; after Ivy sent most of the riders into dreamland, the rest faded into the woods. While the two Tieflings went about slitting throats, I just gave "mine" an extra lump to remember us by. I have no doubt he woke a couple hours later with a bad headache, no gear, no horse, and thinking about a career change.

The horses sped us on our way, and right around sunrise we reached Ruoyna's Den, a tavern by the bridge where we needed to turn off the road. We spoke a bit with the owner, Bear (who is Ruoyna anyway?) and a fisherman named Harry who was a little tipsy and a lot curious. Somehow we wound up telling him that Akara is a former Paladin who was turned into a kobold, which drove him to madness and now he's afraid of horses and thinks he's a Dwarf. Meanwhile, Ivy fed him (Akara, not Harry) from a mug of sausage gravy. How did I get mixed up with these people again?

After a good day's sleep we rode beside the river, up into the mountains. On the 15th we reached the entrance to the mine, which proved to be something of a challenge. A gully ran right in front of the (sealed) entrance, and the bridge across it had been destroyed. But down inside the gully a sewer outlet gave us a way in, so we tied up the horses and made our way inside. Phred slipped off the rope and was washed away by the current, but limped back to join us. We made camp inside to rest and recover before setting out to explore the mine.

What we found was a nest of giant fire beetles. It wasn't a particularly difficult battle, but after I slashed a few of them wide open and Rico smashed some into a flat pulp, it got pretty messy. I'd change clothes, but I don't expect to stay clean inside a mine anyway so I'll just have to deal with it for a while.

We had to cross a small underground lake; luckily there were a pair of small but serviceable boats in which we could ferry across our gear and ourselves. Not long after we all made it to the opposite shore, some kobolds not known to Akara foolishly attacked us and we sorted them out good.

Game session was 7-24-01.

Moving onward through the caves, we found more kobolds -- a group of miners, a few warriors with clubs, and their "king" sorcerer. Akara recognized that one as an outcast from the group employed by the Dwarves. He recognized Akara as well and directed his troops to kill him, but we had little trouble defending our little guy. After taking out several minions, we managed to negotiate safe passage and a little help.

A little farther along we found that part of the mine was flooded. Though some of the kobolds fetched the boats for us, they wouldn't do to transport the lot of us and our gear. Thankfully as Zoj scouted ahead, he found a sunken boat large enough for three, and after a night's rest Phred repaired it with a spell.

This morning (the 17th) we set out through the flooded caverns, coming eventually to a beach where a troglodyte was meditating and praying to -- well, I'm superstitious enough not to write the name, but the horrible spider-goddess of the Drow. Not a good sign. He turned out not to be the terror in battle that we feared, and so once Zoj healed him back to consciousness we interrogated him. Phred used some kind of spell to make him look like a Drow priestess (granted I haven't seen one before, but I thought it was pretty convincing), and we learned a few useful things. These troglodytes are indeed the "lizards" that enslaved Akara's people, there are many of them, and they are under the direction of a male Drow named "Dotriel" or something like that. They didn't flood the mine, but have turned off the pumps that the Dwarves were using to drain it.

Our business concluded, we slew the troglodyte, hauled the body back to the kobolds and set up camp while Zoj scouted a bit. There's a pipe that goes up a slope quite some way but it doesn't seem to lead anywhere especially useful to us, so we'll probably head up the beach tommorow. With luck we'll be able to free some of the Dwarves to fight beside us before we have to face too many more trogs, or that drow... but we can't count on it.

Game sessions were 8-7-01 and 8-14-01.

Pardon if this entry is lacking in details, but the troglodytes we came across on the 18th overpowered most of us with their stench and I've been ill until today.

So we fought off a handful of trogs on the 18th, and retired to our camp to throw up the rest of our internal organs and recover what strength and spells we could. The next day we found and liberated Romai Sigilstone, apparently the leader of the surviving Dwarves, and two of her followers. She was out for blood, but we urged her to use at least a little caution instead of sheer Dwarven bullheaded recklessness. We succeeded in rescuing and arming several more Dwarves from toiling chained in a pit, and with these reinforcements we approached the tunnel that Dotriel was ordering built. It was probably meant to go straight to some Drow hell full of spiders and worse.

Let me make it clear that I don't like it underground. Though I'm no druid, I say that any day with no sun is not a real day, any night with no stars is not a real night, and any place where you can't step outside and feel the breeze is not a real place. The idea of a tunnel connecting this hole to some deeper, darker and nastier pit of despair is not at all appealing.

Thanks to the quick and stealthy action of the two mages and Zoj, four troglodyte guards went down without resistance. We made our way up the tunnel with our light doused (Rico and I had to be led) all to no avail, as the Drow was watching and sees better in the dark even than the tieflings. I had heard that all Drow priests are female, but Dotriel turned out to be an exception, clobbering Zoj long-distance with a floating mace. I struck a sunrod and charged forward -- right into some Dwarven zombies. As if that weren't enough, the Drow raised a small earth elemental behind me. I took some lumps and then darted out of there to heal up and switch to the bow, letting the Dwarves get up front and duke it out with the zombies.

That Drow was full of nasty surprises, freezing Rico in place and then casting some kind of darkness spell that our light and eyesight could not penetrate. Ivy had the presence of mind to chuck some caltrops into the darkness for him to blunder into, but the rest of the fight was a fiasco all around. I'm not really sure what happened other than a lot of yelps of pain, Phred shooting Romai, and the Drow being slightly charred when the darkness finally faded an hour or so later.

The Dwarves allowed us the Drow's loot, but did not heap us with treasures or praise. They did let us stay with them an extra day to rest and recover, but since they need the time to unblock the exit and fix the bridge, I'm not sure they were really doing us a favor.

A mine is not the best place to practice, but I did get some quality time in today -- and I feel a little more sure on my feet now, like I learned a secret. I'm not quite ready to forgo armor though, so I spent a good part of what passed for the afternoon scrubbing it religiously. I think I have the troglodyte stink out of it now...