Day 270, Year 437
I woke up to see some kind of dragon thing assaulting our party. It felt like I had been dragged around for a bit... I have no idea why and, well, it wasn't the time for inqueries. In any case, I whipped out my sword and shield and attacked the dragon-like thing. Unfortunately, it seemed like I was a bit groggy and the damnable thing got a good hit on me. It hurt like hell, but I've had worse. At that point, I'm sure I heard that wussy mage scream like a little girl. It looked like they had been battling this thing for awhile and it appeared no worse for the wear.
It looked like I had to take matters in my own hands. After hitting the thing in the back, it regenerated almost instantaneously. I figured if I couldn't slash away at it, I'd just hack its head off. After getting in a good swipe, the thing looked visibly wounded -- and it wasn't regenerating. Then it hit me: this thing was one of those hydras I had heard about so long ago. The only way to take these mythical things down was to cut off its heads and cauterize the necks with fire. Relaying this information to my comrades, we proceeded to do just that.
However, the eyes in all five of its heads seemed to glow red with anger and it took a vicious swipe at all four of us. It caught me off guard and I fell to one knee. The rest of us -- except for that damn mage (who probably summoned this thing to begin with) -- were about to be finished off. I couldn't let it end like that -- I had more to do still. And besides, I wasn't going to die before that damn mage. Rising up again, I slashed at its head and lopped it off good. The rest of the party managed to survive and eventually the it tried to run away -- to no avail. The final head slid to the ground and the damn thing finally fell. As a victory trophy, I sliced off some of its neck meat to make some fine hydra jerky later.
After the battle, that idiot mage insisted we couldn't stay where we were. Apparently, we fell into whatever swallowed his pathetic hometown. I didn't really understand his inane babbling, but we needed to get to Mercran, so I agreed to set off in its general direction.
To say the least, the forest was... weird. It was oddly subdued and quiet; I couldn't sense the presence of anything besides ourselves. And the sky... there was still light, but it seemed to just go... dark after awhile. In any case, after walking about a mile, a sudden feeling of extreme nausea seemed wash over me. It was like nothing I've ever felt before -- not even when the Zauate clansmen were falling around me. Suffice it to say, I nearly lost it, and to make matters worse, that stupid mage started spouting junk about being stretched. I sure felt like stretching his face with my fist. We tried to continue further after that, but the feeling just got worse and we all pretty much lost it after that. And, of course, after throwing up, we had had it with that damn forest and decided to turn back.
At least, that's what I'd like to say. Deep down (an instinct, really), I felt like we had to get out of there. I can't really give a rational reason as to why; we just HAD to. And, of course, that stupid mage wanted to press forward. He stood there like a moron and tried to argue it was futile to go back. Eventually, we just got fed up and Aidyn decided to mind touch Kevkul and I and go forward with him.
What happened after that... well... I can't say that I've ever seen anything like it. Aidyn and the mage walked away from us, but... they were moving really, really slow. Like something was slowing down time or something... but only for them. Kevkul and I were fine where we were, and, after watching two people walk slowly for five minutes, I got a little bored. I tried some of my hydra jerky, but... ugh, it tasted worse than some of the rot I've had in Imperial taverns. Honestly, though, with a little seasoning and the right amount of marketing, it could be a profitable business.
While I was considering the marketability of gooey, rotten hydra meat, Aidyn seemed to have some sort of revelation. Well, maybe it was just a moment of derangement. He mind-shouted back to us that it was "like a balloon" and something "bad happens". Being unable to decipher that cryptic piece of advice any more than I could, Kevkul dumbly suggested we continue forward. While I was about to berate him for yet another incomprehensible suggestion, the winds behind us started to pick up. I didn't pay it any mind at first, but it suddenly increased in strength tenfold and everyone except that lunkhead Kevkul was knocked to the ground. Aidyn mumbled something about the "doommarch ride" and I guessed this meant we were getting out of here, although that damn mage's rantings never stopped throughout the ordeal. He even called me "Zanktel" -- just what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Ignoring the mage's rants, I looked up at the barbarian an, to my surprise, he was floating. And going higher and higher by the minute too! The rest of us were caught up in it as well, and in a moment of panic, I tried to thrust my sword into the ground to stay anchored. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of my better ideas and whatever was pulling me up was just too strong. Eventually our ascent seemed to stop, though my eyes were filled with tears from losing my precious sword. However, next thing I know, whatever was keeping us up disappeared with a whoosh, and our untimely fall seemed inevitable. The forest floor beckoned to all of us as we slammed into it from twenty feet above. It left a hell of a nasty bruise, but all in all, it could've been much worse. Oddly enough, all four of us were now much closer together than before; that damn mage was practically holding my hand. Fortunately, my sword landed near enough to where we fell, and barring more idiotic banter from the mage, no further antics occurred that day.
Day 274, Year 437
Nothing as strange as that little adventure in the Doommarch occurred on the rest of our way to Mercran. In fact, pretty much nothing happened, save the passing merchant or two. After four days of listening to Kevkul describe the best way to catch a magical tiger beast and the mage bitch and moan about EVERYTHING, I was begging for anything to show to sink my sword into. It seems like the Gods have truly forsaken me. After four days of such torture, the pathetic little city of Mercran appeared in our sights. It looked better than some of the dirty little hamlets I've seen, but it certainly wasn't an Imperial capital. The city appeared to be in the middle of celebrating something called "Passing". I had indeed heard of it before, but my knowledge on the subject was about as much as Aidyn's. Truly, though, I was far from caring; my number one priority was to purchase some leather sleeping armor. I'd had more than enough of that incompetent Mage's attempts to attack us in our sleep with his pathetic minions. I accompanied Aidyn to the doors of the Twin Minotaur Lodge -- a rather seedy establishment, if I do say so myself. We parted ways there, though I was forced to take the barbarian with me. Probably because Aidyn (correctly) guessed that he'd hinder any attempts at information gathering. Even though we told the mage to go swimming the city fountain, he insisted on coming with Aidyn. He seemed indifferent to the mage accompanying him, so I didn't protest about it any further.
Anyway, after wandering around for a bit, we finally stumbled upon the town armorshop (although I seemed to have developed a bit of a cold on the way). He looked like the typical metal-loving, bearded armor fanatic, so I put on my best countryboy performance. My 'what-ho!' and 'yo ho ho' were absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, he was a smart one, and I didn't really learn anything more about the town or Passing itself. So, we exited the store with two new pairs of the best studded leather armor the town had to offer when we ran into Aidyn. He quickly explained that the stupid mage had gotten them tossed out of the Twin Minotaur for making up dumb stories and he was now off stalking some Imperial (!!) soldier. I found the entire thing pretty humorous, though Aidyn and Kevkul seemed less thrilled than I that the mage might be meeting his end. They ran -- er, well... they really *walked* off in the direction of what sounded like a tussle (guess they were less worried than I thought), and I slowly followed them behind. Though I had no intentions of saving that mage, the Imperial he was following was of some interest. Unfortunately, the Imperial ran off and we met up with the idiotic mage (mostly undamaged) in a dark alley. So much for that.
It was getting on in the day by then and we had yet to find any sort of clues about the ruins we had come here for. And, worse yet, I had yet to have a drink! Aidyn thought perhaps the local crazy homeless people would have a clue about the ruins. As we had no better leads, we found one that looked particularly crazy. He greeted us with a toothy grin and dirty gray hair and told us his name was Fel Brimstone, the Crimson King of Sarnath. The name actually rang a bell from a similar story I had heard in passing at a bar ages ago! The King told us the ruins were inhabited by mighty dragons -- implausible, but not impossible. Kevkul further questioned him, asking how we might come to possess such mythical beasts. King Brimstone suggested a potato might do it -- but not just ANY potato! Only the legendary potato spoken of in the great texts of Cheese would allow such a feat! At this point, he had been of far more help than the mage ever was and Aidyn suggested we allow him to join us. While all of this was terribly amusing, the crazy man did say something of interest:
"When the moon is full, the dragon raises from its slumber and flies into the night and doesn't come back for another 100 years! And that's where he is now! Up in the sky!"
True or not, it's an eerie prediction for sure. Aidyn wanted to know when the dragon would be back, though the old man went on about not being sure, saying "time's different up there in the sky". "King" Brimstone also said that, when the dragon returns, he'll bring a heap of gold with him. If nothing else, it's an amusing fairy tale. We parted ways with "our liege" there and split up once again. I left those suckers to hit up the nearest bar in sight. It was pure bliss being away from the mage and barbarian for awhile with the warm lull of a good, cheap grog at my side. Unfortunately, it didn't last nearly long enough; Aidyn returned with our two flunkies in tow. Evidently, they learned absolutely nothing, though the local barkeep was able to point us to one "Bear Cheeks" Mond at the Dirty Wolf bar. I wasn't opposed to even more drinking, so I figured it was worth following up.
At the Dirty Wolf, we found a burly man, big cheecks, and a scruffy beard -- indeed, the one and only Bear Cheeks. Aidyn quickly opened his mouth and said to bring us *the best*. My pockets cried afoul at the costly gesture, but Aidyn -- blest his heart -- said he'd pay for me. Good thing too as *the best* happened to be 10 gold. Aidyn quickly started to weasel some information out of the hefty fellow, learning that the ruins aren't entirely known. Some think they're the remains of a failed city or a fort in the earlier days of the Empire. Bear Cheeks himself hadn't been there in a decade and the two or so he'd visited were as empty as the mage's brain. The discussion was interrupted when the drinks came.
And, by the gods, it was indeed some of the best booze I've ever had. It tasted slightly of sweet berries and numbed my mouth for a bit. Whether it was the bliss from the booze or some kind of drug, memories of home appeared in my mind. The time I spent with the Zauate before their foul end at the Empire's hands... I'd nearly forgotten what those peaceful days were once like. Unfortunately, the reverie only lasted for a fleeting moment and I was suddenly back staring into the large cheeks of our host.
We inquired further about the contents of the ruins, asking about the monsters they contained (and lying that we were monster collectors). Bear Cheeks couldn't say specifically what was in there, but whatever it was, it wouldn't surprise him. Guess King Brimstone's dragon theory can't be discounted quite yet. He went on to say that the Imperials were sparse around the region and he doubted they were poking around in them because of "the Silent Towers". This was by far the most interesting news to me in many, many years. The twin kingdoms of Claycastle and Shieldmere had been absent from the calls of the Empire lately. Moreover, Bear Cheeks said that it's the general feeling that the Empire is "hanging on by the skin of their teeth" and that there's an air of feer coming from most Imperials. Could the Empire finally be crumbling? And what of these kingdoms that have gone dark? Are they preparing for rebellion or did something more sinister occur? These thoughts plagued my mind the rest of the night.
Our accomodations for the night were provided by Bear Cheeks on the house and we decided to head out to the sprawling ruins around the city tomorrow.
Day 275, Year 437
I can say with the utmost certainty that going to these ruins was a big mistake. Fortunately, the dumb mage couldn't be roused, so we left without him. From the outset, all we could find were little walls built into the sides of cliffs or other completely worthless things. It wasn't until midday that something more along what we were looking for came into view. It looked like the top of an old watch tower with a rotting wooden hatch leading down. Seizing the opportunity to infiltrate the ruins, we descended downwards upon the rickety planks of the old tower. They held out far longer than I expected and about 50 feet up the stones beneath us started to crumble. Miraculously, we managed to keep our balance, though the going was agonizingly slow. At the bottom of the tower there were heaps and heaps of bones, which didn't make any of us want to get down there any faster. As the stones continued to crumble beneath us, we finally decided to just jump for it about 10 feet above the ground. And, wouldn't you know it, that turned out to be bad idea.
At the bottom of the pit, hiding behind the numerous bones, were yellow slime creatures and presumably the ones behind the mass graveyard. It at once attacked Kevkul, who narrowly escaped having his head taken off. He retailiated by stupidly slicing the creature in two, which, as one would guess, gave us two foes instead of one. One of the oozes then made a beeline for Aidyn and sucked him in. Strangely, the scene seemed reminiscent, but I had no time for daydreams. Kevkul immediately seized the initiative and pulled Aidyn out with a monstrous tug. Guess the lunkhead is good for something.
While those two were at that, I was busy trying to remember how to defeat a living bucket of slime. A brilliant idea came to me: slime naturally has to be vulnerable to fire. Hell, what isn't? With that in mind, I devised a plan to create a fire sword... Zairyn style! I wrapped my sword with some of my linen rope dipped in a flask of oil and set it aflame with a lantern placed on the ground. Kevkul once again tried brute force, but only succeeded in making another one of the damn things. Fortunately, my fire sword seemed to singe the ooze monsters and the barbarian actually discovered something useful: it seemed you could beat ooze to death. Who knew? So essentially we spent the next few minutes beating the slime monsters to death. After the battle, the mage finally managed to get the hell out of bed and show up. After retreiving our meat shield and discovering there was nothing of interest buried in the pit of bones, we moved on through a door. As luck would have it, there were some ghouls feeding on the corpse of another unfortunate victim.
The ghouls were, of course, no match for my prowress. They fell quickly to the furious swings of my blade and soon we had a pile of dead (?) zombies. Thinking that burning them would keep them dead, I beckoned for Aidyn to burn the corpses, which only served to make all of us queasy. Guess that's a lesson in screwing around.
Anyway, the next door was locked and it was the start of a long night of door kicking. We looked through the stone walls of whatever ancient keep we had stumbled upon the barbarian stepped on a trap and a fireball exploded in the middle of a room. That was the last of any excitement for awhile as the next few hours were filled with random exploration and more door kicking by me. Damnable doors! Eventually I got so sick of them that I had Adrek just start burning one that refused to die. Evidently that turned out to be a real bad idea.
For, of course, the one door we try to burn down has stuff inside of it. Hearing thumps from the other side of the wall, we quickly tried to put the door to maintain its integrity. Unfortunately, the orcs wouldn't hear of it and quickly spilled out from not only that room but one further down the hallway too. Where the hell did so many orcs come from!?
Sensing our clearing disadvtange, we decided upon a strategic retreat down the hallway to a more secure location. The orcs fired arrows after us, but we were able to barricade ourselves in a room. Little did we expect there to be as many as 15 orcs on our tails with their boss (who we christened "Big Ugly"). The mage and I guarded the southern entrance to the room while Aidyn and Kevkul stood by the north, ready to take anyone who tried to infiltrate our temporary base. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that simple. The orcs continued to shoot arrows into the room and bodyslammed both Kevkul and me away from the doors and back into the room. With our defense compromised, the orcs quickly swarmed into the room and surrounded us. With our backs to each other, the situation became desperate. Aidyn received a nasty blow and was out like a light and the mage fared no better. Kevkul and I made a last stand as we cut through the flurry of orcs in what I can only remember as a berserker's rage.
At last, there was only Big Ugly left. Kevkul's blood lust seemed to peak at that moment as he strode towards the gigantic orc with heavy strides. Lifting his great sword above his head, he unleashed a vicious slash -- one of the finest and most powerful I had ever witnessed. His sword sung through the air and a sickening crunch sound echoed through the old stone walls as Big Ugly's body was cut in two. His blood splattered everywhere and a piercing howl came from the dying orc as he fell beneath the might of the barbarian. Truly, I might have misjudged him.
After the fight, we dragged the barely conscious mage to rest in the room the orcs had come from. Upon closer investigation, there was a small jewelry box hidden underneath a desk. It had neither any hinges or latches on it -- just writing and a panel. The panel looked to be made of some sort of slime... definitely suspicious. Wary it might be some kind of trap, we decided to leave it alone for the night and recover our lost strength for the night.
Day 276, Year 437
Once we were all awake, Aidyn decided to push in the slime panel on the mysterious jewelry box. The slime panel flashed in a dazzle of colors until some writing slowly appeared upon it, saying:
From the beginning of eternity To the end of time and space To the beginning of every end And the end of every place...
I thought about it for a moment. Clearly, it was some stupid kind of riddle, so the answer had to be hidden within the message. The answer lept out at me after a few moments: obviously, it was the common letter 'e' that the words were referring to. Beginning of eternity, end of time and space, the beginning of end and the end of place. I quickly wrote e into the slime panel (ugh, it felt disgusting) and the metal top of the box seemed to fizzle away. It was a pretty clever little puzzle... perhaps too clever for the orcs to have come up with. Strange indeed. Anyway, the box contained a wealth of gold and jewels that we split. Deciding not to waste the rest of the day, Kevkul and I set about exploring the rooms we had merely glanced over. We let the mage hole up in the room we were in to continue resting while Aidyn guarded it from any foes.
There was nothing of any real interest in the rooms until we came upon some flying squirrels in the corner of the room. After the beating we had taken last night, I was eager to do some of my own and I rashly dashed at the dingy little things. I don't really remember much after that. Next thing I know, that dumb barbariab has his hands on me as I'm being pulled out from some kind of hole, feeling pretty damn out of it. They told me later those squirrels -- *imps* evidently -- had stolen our jewels AND some of my blood. MY BLOOD! Ugh.
After some healing, we decided to journey forth and explore more of this damnable ruin. We encountered some scorpion-like things, but like the zombies before them, they were nothing to my blade. Whatever awaits us, I don't give a damn. All I want is vengenace... and my damn blood back!