20th day of Flamerule
1373 DR The
Year of Rogue Dragons
Hello, I doubt we’ve met before
but my name is Thantius Tic-Towen,
but you may call me Thistle… in fact I insist.
What you’re holding in your
most privileged hands is a chronicle of my indisputably heroic exploits, my
new, improved journal, recently purchased from Mr Tase,
purveyor of leather-bound books, resident of Book Street, Waterdeep;
a fine fellow who admirably refrained from fleecing me too dearly.
In case you’re interested,
which I assume you are, I shall attempt to give you a brief summery of my life
to-date. I was born 27 years ago in the back of a travelling wagon somewhere on
the road between Silverymoon and Neverwinter.
My father made a decent
living as a travelling entertainer, tumbling, juggling and knife throwing for
the entertainment of all. My mother spent her time writing; she’d happily
tackle drama, comedy or prose, always with a sly wit and an elegant hand.
With such an upbringing it
is hardly surprising that I ended up as I did.
To say I was a handful as a
child would be a gross understatement the likes of which hasn’t been seen since
Grandpa Towen once described the Time of Troubles as
‘a bit of an inconvenience’.
What I called healthy
curiosity, my parents called a complete disregard for the sanctity of a locked
room or a private conversation. By the time I was 15 my parents had had enough
of my sneaking around, eavesdropping and other such tomfoolery, and so they
packed me off to Uncle Stromford, who, I was
threatened, would teach me discipline.
Uncle Stromford,
a veteran of Neverwinter’s armed forces had settled
in a small city workshop where he happily produced assorted weapons of average
quality. Rather than try and break me of my bad habits, he decided instead to
try the much more subtle approach of working me to
death. ‘The dead don’t snoop’ was one of my uncle’s favourite mottos.
Things weren’t as bad as
I’m perhaps making them seem, in-between the unbelievable amounts of
backbreaking housework, he also insisted that I engage in at least 3 hours of
exercise and weapons practice a day, and for a time I entertained the thought
that I was quite the deadliest housekeeper in Neverwinter.
That idea was soon quashed when I met Ms Buckler, Mr Finch’s maid. I swear the
woman had biceps like a bull’s leg, and absolutely no sense of humour!
On the eleventh day of Eleint, which happened to be my 25th birthday,
Uncle Stromford declared me to be an adult, and
himself not altogether embarrassed by our kinship. With such hearty sentiments
ringing in my ears, I decided to set off and see the world, to seek out my
inevitable fame and fortune, far, far away from any hint of a yard brush.
Intending to avoid the
well-trodden path of the average aspiring adventurer, I journeyed around the
Western Heartlands for a couple of years. I had a few successes, found some
treasure, but ultimately found the whole business terribly disappointing. Any
predicament I could safely deal with on my own gained little acclaim with the
populous, and when I tried joining up with a few enterprising fellows, mainly
disillusioned farmers, they ended up either getting themselves killed or trying
to stab me in the back.
Two months ago, at the end
of my tether, I decided to head for Waterdeep, City
of
It was a fair and blustery
evening as I travelled through some wooded hills, when Lady Fate, the fickle
mistress of my life decided to make things more interesting for me.
It appears that a band of Orcs had
also decided to seek their fortune by way of some constructive banditry, and
the trade caravan to which I had attached myself was obviously too tempting a
target for their in-bred intellects.
I do try not to upset people too much, but the Orcs seemed to take exception to the demise of half-a-dozen
of their number, and chose to vent their displeasure on the wagons, burning
them to the ground. Obviously a disappointment to Mr Smythe
the cloth merchant, and a devastating blow to me personally since my pack was
in with the baggage.
Thus my old journal, my prized
cedar pipe and three tomes, on whose nature we shall not dwell, became a small
pile of charcoal sitting on a hill, and I found myself walking the last 30
miles to Waterdeep.
It is here that we catch up
with events; I’m not entirely sure what to do now I’m here, but I’m sure
something will come along.
26th day of Flamerule
I haven’t been in Waterdeep
long, but I’ve already teamed up with a nice chap named Vardoc,
very eager, looking for his father or some such. We had a little tussle with
some muggers, and I have to admit that he’s handy with that illegitimate sword
of his.
30th day of Flamerule
Things are working out very
well, we’ve heard about a group of adventurers who are looking for a trap
specialist and some extra muscle. The word on the street is that they’re too
dumb to be dishonest and are doing well for themselves. We’re going to go see
them later today.
1st day of Eleasis
Vardoc and myself are now official members of the as yet
un-named adventuring party. I did query the fate of our predecessors, but was
told not to worry about it. Apparently we’re on a grand quest to stop a bad man
from getting some black gems that will do something nasty to somebody or other.
As you’ve probably gathered, I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but tomorrow
we’re going to raid an ancient elven tomb … sounds
like fun.
2nd day of Eleasis
Well, that was quite possibly the strangest day I’ve ever experienced,
stranger in fact than the day I accidentally ate the fiddlesnip
mushrooms with the yellow belly.
The party had a large key they had previously stolen from
some old lady living on an island. We trouped down into the city’s sewers,
through one stinking passageway after another, until we came to a secluded room
containing an elven statue. Hidden underneath the
statue was a large keyhole into which we inserted our key; instead of revealing
an ancient elven tomb, we were instead transported to
a run-down tower where we were attacked by a strange watery creature that may
have been some sort of elemental. Tandrik, the
party’s magical advisor, summoned an equally strange creature he called a doflin that quickly dispatched our foe.
We had little choice then but to journey down the only path
leading from the tower, eventually coming to a small grove of standing stones
and trees.
After a bit of unpleasantness with some stickmen who seemed
to think we needed a nap, we negotiated with an attractive lady who we believe
must have been a dryad. I was tempted to try to get to know her better, but
decided that my throwing a javelin at her may have soured things between us.
Anyway, after convincing
her that we didn’t mean any harm, she allowed us to continue on through an
archway that led to a well-tended garden. I’m not sure who I was expecting the
gardener to be, but it certainly wasn’t an elven liche, even if he was very polite and let us carry on after
picking him some flowers.
After the garden we came to
a large lake, over a mile across, nestled in a valley. Resting at the nearest
bank was a small boat, complete with hooded boatman. In the centre of the lake,
a small island ringed with large boulders to keep the surf at bay.
The boatman, a fine chap
who could have done with a few more cooked meals, ferried us across to a small
jetty on the island for a nominal fee and no fuss.
There, hidden behind the
boulders was a building of strange angles and design, obviously ancient, yet
still solid, four magical lights as bright as noon glowing from each corner of
its roof.
On opening the large doors to
the building, an ancient sarcophagus was revealed inside. While I would have
preferred a little caution, Tandrik boldly strode in
and dropped to his knees, beseeching the long dead elf to aid us. I have to
admit that I wasn’t all that surprised when an invisible creature, obviously
scandalised by his temerity, gave him a whack on the back of his head.
Vardoc and Palarnus moved quickly to the wizard’s
defence and made quick work of the invisible fiend, while I, not trusting the
skeletal boatman, kept a cautious watch outside.
Removing the headstone, we
found the immortal remains of the long-dead elf looking as if he had died only
yesterday. An ephemeral voice charged us with the safekeeping of a black gem he
referred to as the ‘keystone’, our goal and an artefact of great importance. To
aid us in the gem’s defence, the voice suggested we take whatever of his
equipment we would find useful, the dead having no further use for it.
Feeling quite pleased with
ourselves, we headed back through the convoluted path we had taken to reach the
tomb.
On returning to the old
tower, we once again turned the large key, and were returned to the secret room
in the sewers with the elven statue. Things, however,
were not exactly as I had remembered them. The well-dressed wizard, the magical
six-sided box surrounding us, and the four black-clad men pointing crossbows
were definitely new. Not at all the triumphant return I was expecting.
It didn’t take long for
Lord Bellybranta, or whatever he called himself, to
convince us we were beat. There was nothing we could do except hand over the
keystone and swear vengeance on the lord and his duplicitous Halfling stooge Kiro.
I don’t know about the rest
of the party, but I intend to get very drunk, and mope about the tavern
tonight.
3rd day of Eleasis
Well I didn’t get much drinking or moping done last night.
We’d not long entered the tavern when we heard a rumour concerning our friend
the Lord. Apparently he had not long departed the city in some state, heading
in the direction of the 4th black gem’s resting place. We’ve decided
we’re going to beat him to it, and this time our trousers will be round our
waist, not our ankles.
4th day of Eleasis
We’ve been riding hard for two days now and have arrived late
tonight in the
Rather concerned about the prospect of facing a beholder, we
have decided to get a good night’s sleep and decide whether we can spare the
time to aid them in the morning.
5th day of Eleasis
After Eryn spent a few minutes
consulting with a higher power, we decided to aid the village with their kobold
problem.
One of the villagers led us to the nearby hills where we
discovered a small group of kobolds and a beholder hanging around outside a
cave. During a relatively easy fight, Tandrik dropped
a giant ball of fire on the eye tyrant, and out popped two crispy kobolds,
obviously they had found a dead beholder and made use of its skin to scare the
locals.
On investigating the cave, we found a vertical shaft going
straight up nearly 90 feet with a chain hanging down from the top, obviously
used by the kobolds to climb up and down.
Not wanting to wait till one or more of my associates clanked
their way up, alerting everyone to our presence. I struck a sunrod
and climbed quickly up the chain. Hearing the unmistakable chittering
and barking of more kobolds, I covered and uncovered the sunrod
a few times, attempting to warn my companions and hasten their ascent.
Unfortunately Palarnus, confused by my impromptu
light show, decided to shout up at the top of his voice, asking what was going
on.
I threw my sunrod down into the darkness, hoping against hope that it
would hit Palarnus and knock some sense into him.
The flaw in my plan quickly became apparent as I realised I
was now stood in the dark near an 80-foot drop with a group of kobolds quickly
approaching.
Even now I’m not sure why I set myself to hold off the
kobolds rather than retreating down the chain. Maybe it was the knowledge that
if we lost the top of the tunnel we might never retake it, maybe I was still
annoyed with Palarnus and needed to vent. What I do
know is that if Eryn hadn’t flown up with the others
climbing quickly after her, things could have gotten a little hairy for yours
truly.
Inspired by Jeena’s rousing song,
we made quick work of the half dozen kobolds that came to investigate.
Advancing further into the
tunnels, we were forced to defend ourselves against a few tougher,
better-prepared kobolds before coming across an even larger group. Tandrik fired off a quick spell, and suddenly the room was
filled with sticky webbing. Struggling kobolds hardly visible through its many
thick strands, we picked them off one-by-one before carrying on.
Rounding a corner, we found a wooden throne and a box outside
a palisade fence. Stepping bravely through a hole in the fence, the rest of the
party discovered a group of female kobolds and their pups. While they happily
threatened the kobold families, I decided to investigate the box. Opening the
lid with the tip of my javelin, I jumped back as an angry snake reared into
view.
Now I think it’s important
to say at this point that I don’t like snakes. I’m not scared of them you
understand; I just don’t like them. At all. Not a bit. Stupid giant worms.
Leaving the snake to its
own devices, I decided to have a closer look at the tunnel heading south, which
just happened to be a good distance from the box and its hissing contents. The
others soon joined me, and we carried on.
Seeing a corner up ahead, I
snuck forward and peeped round. Observing two Ogres stood by one end of a rope
bridge, armed and ready, I crept back to the others where we engaged in a
lively debate about how best to dispose of them. Apparently we argued a little
loudly because the ogres heard us and forced our hand.
Jeena, singing a quick lullaby put one of them to sleep, and what should have
been a quick fight, turned into a pitched battle across the rope bridge when
the kobolds on the far side got involved. Jeena
quickly put the other ogre to sleep, and Tadrick
dropped a fireball on the kobolds. Unfortunately, the fireball didn’t finish
them off, and some of the rope bridge began to burn.
After a minute or two of
trading projectiles and dodging lighting bolts cast at us from a female kobold,
we managed to prevail.
The bridge had been cut
during the altercation, so Tandrik summoned a small
monkey who carried a rope across, around one of the poles, and back again
allowing me to shin across and loot the corpses and a particularly nasty box
that tried to set me on fire.
There was also a gilded
mirror bigger than myself; apparently even kobold woman can’t fry someone
without checking her hair’s ok. For some reason Vardoc
insisted on taking it with us, but then he’s weird… even for a human.
6th day of Eleasis
If
you were intending to do a little travelling this year, maybe see the country,
do a little hunting, I would heartily recommend that you don’t visit Noanar’s Hold. Not only did we have to pay an exorbitant
tax to gain entry to their illustrious village, we were also attacked within 5
minutes by an unseen assassin and blamed for the disturbance by the village
guards. Then when we finally made it to the ‘safety’ of the inn we encountered
the head lawman, a particularly nasty dwarf, who assaulted a barmaid and when I
bravely tried to stand up for her, was threatened into not causing trouble.
Saying
that, the ale was very nice, and the bed was warm and insect free.
During
our brief and altogether unpleasant visit, we encountered a shonky
fellow named Shallowbrook who has offered to show us
a tunnel through the mountains. Apparently the tunnel is a shortcut to the Lost
Peaks, lair of Zanvarthangular, the green dragon
rumoured to possess one if the stones. I have offered the man double his asking
price of 20 gold pieces in the hopes that it will keep him honest, and with the
provision that he spend a couple of weeks hunting and not show anyone else the
tunnel.
Note
to self: Return to Noanars at earliest opportunity;
remember to bring oil, tindersticks and a dwarf-sized
coffin.
7th day of Eleasis
In
the cesspit that was Noanars, how were we lulled into
thinking that any of those people could be trusted? All around us was violence
and corruption, and yet even knowing that something wasn’t right with Shallowbrook, we still paid him to lead us into the middle
of no-where, to a cavern filled with dangerous creatures… and then let him lock
us in. Heroes just aren’t supposed to be this dumb!
Anyway,
Shallowbrook betrayed us. On entering his supposed
tunnel, we were met by some orcs and wood elves that
attacked us, and just when I’d noticed a giant pile of sparkling treasure; a
portcullis could be heard crashing down over the entrance and some horrible,
gangly monster rose up from the glittering pile, all thrashing limbs, 15 foot
long.
I
was pretty annoyed at this point (probably more with myself than anything else)
and rather foolishly rushed forward to pitch a javelin at the monstrosity.
After it slouched forward and gave me a solid thwack with a weapon held in one
long tenticle, I was glad it didn’t have the chance
to hit me again before I could scuttle away to a safe throwing distance.
During
a very short, brutal fight, the horrible creature dealt a number of greavous wounds to our heroic team. At one point, Eryn was beaten to the ground, rent, bleeding, and coughing
blood; I feared that she would die before any of us could help her. Apparently Vardoc feared the same, as he rushed forward to administer
a healing potion, taking a couple of solid hits for his trouble.
Eventually
the creature fell to our combined assault, and I found myself thinking that
maybe we should have kept it alive, that way we could have fed Shallowbrook to it… slowly.
Anyway,
right now I should be concentrating on finding a way out.
Why
do bigjobs have to have such bloody long legs?
To
say I am exhausted would be a patently silly understatement. I thought I knew
what tiredness was; when you’re knee-high to a beagle and have just had to
scrub three hearthstones before a certain uncle will let you go to bed, you
tend to believe that you’ll never be that tired again. (The punishment was
totally undeserved by the way; I still maintain that a freak wind unfastened Mr
Finch’s belt, and my proximity when his trousers fell
to the floor in the middle of a particularly boring speech was purely
coincidental).
After
falling foul of that despicable liar Mr Shallowbrook
we escaped his trap, and have the rest of the day and most of the evening
walking, or in my case trotting, towards the
It
was well past sunset when we came across a cabin in the woods, perfect we
thought! Nice solid walls and a comfy bed to sleep in before getting up early
to slog ourselves to death all over again tomorrow. However,
the bedbugs at this establishment where slightly larger than we expected… and
armed.
Thanks
to Eryn’s superior vision we spotted the group of orcs milling outside the cabin before they saw us. Jeena and I tried to sneak around behind them;
unfortunately I discovered that Jeena is far better
at attracting attention than avoiding it, which probably has something to do
with her being a bard. Finding the biggest, driest twig in the forest she
promptly stamped on it. Luckily, I had planned for such an occurrence, and with
a quick song, Jeena turned herself invisible while I
slunk into the darkness and hid behind a large bush.
Hearing
the commotion, the rest of the party charged into the clearing, magical orbs of
light dancing ahead and around them. The orcs put up
a good fight, though they seemed to loose some of their enthusiasm when Tandrik dropped a fireball on most of their heads, and Palarnus, blurringly fast thanks
to his mithral armour, took down their leader.
After
disposing of the last orc, we settled down to our
well-deserved rest in the main cabin where the orc
leader must have sleep previous to his recent decapitation.
Now,
I don’t usually comment on something so mundane as my less-than-subtle
compatriots destroying everything around them, but I should probably mention
that the balls of fire Tandrik was throwing around
like cake at a wedding, happened to set a large oak tree on fire, bathing the
clearing in a nice flickering glow that helped lull me to sleep.
Somewhere
around
To
say I am perplexed would be an understatement, but I have decided to put it
down to hysterical exhaustion, and plan to keep an eye on the suicidal mage
from now on.
8th day of Eleasis
We
set off early the following morning, and after another day of hard walking we finally arrived at the base of the
Much
discussion was given as to whether we should confront the dragon straight away
or wait till tomorrow when we would be better rested, and having come to the
conclusion that we couldn’t afford to have Bellybranta
catch up with us, we prepared as best we could and then strode bravely into the
dragons lair.
The
cavern was dark and filled with the sound of liquid dripping into pools of acid
and a thin, piercing scent that made my nose shut down in protest and forced me
to blink tears from my eyes.
Jumping
down four 8-foot deep steps into the centre of the cavern, we were soon
fighting for our lives as a large green dragon dropped into the centre of our
party, its mere presence making my heart pound fit to bursting. If I hadn’t had
Jeena’s song ringing in my ears and been standing
inside the holy ward of protection that surrounded Eryn,
I’m not ashamed to admit my nerve might have broken.
The
few javelins I managed to throw seemed to bounce harmlessly off its thick green
scales and I was forced to dive desperately out of the way as it blew a thick
stream of acid at us. Luckily, Eryn, Palarnus and Vardok had fortified
themselves with potions and spells so that the acid fell harmlessly away from
them as their magic swords bit deeply into the dragon’s
hide.
We
had only been fighting the dragon for half a minute when I realised that things
were getting desperate. Tandrik’s celestial creatures
flayed their hooves at either side of the dragon, Eryn
and Jeena were urgently trying to heal Palarnus and Vardok’s wounds
before the dragon’s razor-sharp teeth and claws could open up others, and the
two swordsmen were desperately trying to land a killing blow. Even I found
myself gritting my teeth and running in, dagger in hand, hoping to distract the
dragon and give it someone else to swing at.
Shrugging
off one final spray of acid, Palarnus managed to find
a gap in the dragon’s scales and sunk his six-foot blade over halfway into the
dragon’s chest; just like that it was over. The dragon, coughing up black blood
that steamed on the stone floor, slumped to the ground and only twitched when Palarnus smoothly pulled loose his sword.
Even
now, 3 hours later, I have to resist sighing in relief when I think back to
that moment.
We
searched the dragon’s lair as thoroughly as we could, finding many things that
made no sense… a table, 3 bookcases, a large marble circle in the rock, but the
strangest thing we found was a metal enclosure actually built into the floor,
10 foot by 10 foot and 4 feet deep. Removing the four large screws that held
down the lid, we discovered ladder rungs leading down and after investigating,
we realised it was actually an entrance to what would appear to be the Underdark. Quickly closing it up again, we decided to leave
it well alone and carried on the search.
Finally,
we had to face the fact that we had found no dragon’s horde and no black
diamond, and the one place we had been unable to look was where the dragon had
flown from, a ledge of rock separated from us by 20 or 30 foot of acid.
Admitting defeat for now, we left the cavern until Eryn
could pray at
9th day of Eleasis
We
returned to the cavern just after
Along
the ledge and around a corner we found a pile of thousands of gold coins,
artwork, weapons, and other sundry items. We quickly began filling our bag of
holding and mundane sacks with as much treasure as we could, all the while
searching for the black stone or anything that could contain it.
We
hadn’t been searching for a minute when a shout from Jeena
warned us that someone had arrived at the cavern. We doubled our pace, hoping
that the others could hold off whoever it was, or that we would find the gem
and get to them in time to help.
I
was investigating a small red box, when a shout from Jeena
froze us all in place. Palarnus dead? It had seemed like nothing short of an avalanche
could have killed the farm boy. How many were there? Was it Bellybranta?
Flying
back, we found Palarnus dead on the floor, a hole in his head like a spike had been driven in by
a hammer. Standing near him was a single black clothed man covered in sword
cuts, crossbow in hand, a black crossbow bolt in the slot just like the one
that hit Vardok back in Noanar’s
Hold.
There
was no sign of Tandrik or Jeena,
though a large dog with glowing eyes was biting and growling at the black
clothed man and Jeena’s voice called out to us
warning that the bolts were poisoned.
Tipping
back his head, the man swallowed a potion and immediately disappeared from
sight. Even when Eryn cast a spell that would remove
invisibility magic, he didn’t reappear. Assuming he had fled, and with the fly
spells quickly running out, we hurried back to the dragon’s treasure,
collecting as much as we could before we were forced to retreat across the acid
once more.
On
investigating the red box I had found before, we discovered that it contained
the black stone along with a particularly nasty spell that tried to set me on
fire. Our goal accomplished, we collected up our colleagues and left the
Dragon’s lair; Vardok and Eryn
carrying Palarnus’ corpse as carefully as his bulk
would allow.