THE ABSOLUTELY
Written by
Paddi Whisperleaf
…brought
to light by Glen Sprigg
Day 1
Well, finally! After weeks of
wandering around with absolutely nothing to do, I've actually got a reason to
start writing in this journal. I never knew how utterly boring the wilderness
could be! Those people who tell you that it's full of excitement and danger
should spend some time in the Westlands like we did. They'd change their tunes
in a hurry, you can wager on that! The only reason I hadn't actually died of
boredom is because I've been in the company of a decent group of people these
past few weeks, a group with one common bond: they want to make a lot of money
and be famous. I don't see anything wrong with that idea, myself. I could stand
being famous, and being rich never hurts. But there haven't been many
opportunities to gain either riches or fame recently.
My companions are a group of
interesting people. Edward is the group's unofficial leader, being a nobleman.
The reason I say unofficial leader is because no one actually appointed him to
the position. He just took it upon himself. I can't really blame him, I
suppose. He had just received his investiture as a paladin before I met him,
and as everyone knows, paladins are the type who will automatically lead unless
they're ordered not to. Not that I object to him leading; if anything goes
wrong, we can blame him. If we survive. He's pretty somber and serious, but
that could be his paladin-ness. Or paladinhood. Or whatever you call it. When
he's not standing around looking serious and important, he can be fun.
Warren Greenbow isn't a
nobleman. He is a man, that much I know. And that's about all I know, except
that he carries a green bow and he's very good with it. He didn't have any
problem wandering around in the forest, believe me. He talks to animals a lot.
That in itself doesn't worry me much. It's the fact that he thinks they're
talking back to him that makes me wonder if he's all there. But in a fight,
he's a good man. Not much of a conversationalist, unless you're a squirrel or a
dog. And he doesn't have much of a sense of humor. He didn't appreciate the
effort it took to save up the juice of seventeen lemons to put in his
waterskin. Don't humans value hard work anymore?
Caelisar is an elf, and a lot
of fun to be with. She's about as good with her bow as
Alyssa Thaene is our mage. She
doesn't talk much, although she talks more than
Then there's Branden. He and
Edward are second cousins or something, I think. He's even more religious than
Edward, being a priest of some human god or another. I can never keep track of
them, really. Humans have so many gods. Far more than they need, I think. We
gnomes are much more sensible. We have six gods, and they take care of all the
important things. The little things they leave to us. Still, Branden's a good
person, very caring and compassionate. Although he swings a mean mace, too. Not
very useful when we needed firewood; trees don't seem to mind being hit with a
mace. Then again, I'm not a tree, so I can't really speak for them.
And then there's me. Well, I'm
Paddi. I suppose you could call me the gnome-of-all-trades in the group.
Whenever there's sneaking to be done, I do it. Whenever they need a door or chest
unlocked, they call me. Whenever they're missing their money pouches, they turn
and glare at me as if I took them. But they're humans; rudeness is to be
expected. Since I'm such a wonderful person to be with, they never stay mad
with me, and I'm a very forgiving gnome.
Anyway, the reason I said that
things might be getting interesting was that today, as we were sitting in an
inn so obscure that even I don't remember it's name, debating how to spend the
last few coins we had, some fancy rich-looking man walks in. I looked him over,
noting the plumed hat and the silk cape. Obviously someone with money. Already
I liked him. Not that I was going to steal from him; that would be rude. I was
just curious to see if he carried a full purse.
Then, to our surprise
(especially mine), he looks around and says, in a loud voice, "Peace be
upon you all! I, Hakeem the merchant, seek Paddi and worthy friends!"
No one was more surprised than
I. I didn't realize I was so well known in this little village. This would make
it more difficult to discover if he was really as rich as he looked. Edward
looked at me, then called him over. Hakeem sat down with us, ignoring the
rather messy condition of the table, and told us about a local wizard, one
Lidrium Arkayz by name, who wanted to hire us for a quest of some kind. Well,
considering where we were and what our prospects looked like, we weren't going
to turn down this opportunity. Who would? Unless the mage wanted us to become
sacrifices to some sort of nasty demon lord. I'd just as soon pass on that
opportunity, myself. But Hakeem handed us a scroll, said it was from the
wizard's servant, Jenlar Temlin, then left.
Now, I hadn't heard of the
wizard, but the name Jenlar Temlin rung a bell. He's a pretty well-known
warrior in these parts, and he has a reputation for being an honorable and
trustworthy type. We read the scroll, which basically said that Arkayz wanted
to hire us to investigate a really big rock. Why a wizard wants six poor
adventurers to look at a rock is beyond me. But this rock was special,
supposedly holding a great secret.
Having absolutely nothing
better to do, we decided to meet Lidrium Arkayz in the morning. Branden made
arrangements for a room, and we're going to sleep in warm beds for the first
time in weeks. Tomorrow brings hope, as it always does. This time, though, hope
might bring money along with it. I won't complain.
Day 2
Following the map that came
with the scroll, we made our way to the manor. The walk was enjoyable; winter
hadn't come yet, and I've always liked the oranges and reds of autumn leaves.
Of course, the fact that we were going on a quest (and getting paid for it)
made the day that much brighter. I still wondered about the demon lord, though.
You never can tell with wizards. No offense to Alyssa, of course. Well, the
manor house was in a clearing not too far from town, and it was quite
impressive. Statues and frescoes gave the place a feeling of adventure. We
could almost taste the excitement. Well, I was also hearing the clink of gold
coins. I can't speak for the others on that; I didn't really ask them. Let them
have their own dreams.
We walked up to the door, but
before we could even knock, it opened on its own. Wizards love doing that, I
think. I think it's rather tacky myself. But this time there were actually
people at the door: a couple of warriors, guards by the look of them. They
escorted us in, and we got to meet Jenlar Temlin himself. He was a
burly-looking man with red hair and green eyes.He was wearing red robes, which
I thought was pretty strange. At first, I even thought he was a wizard himself.
But wizards don't get that big, do they? At least I've never seen one that size
before. Not that I've seen every wizard in the world; I'm sure there must be
some out there who aren't exactly normal-size. For a wizard, that is.
After the pleasantries were
done with, Temlin got down to the important part. 400 pieces of gold apiece!
That's a huge amount of money! And, we get to keep whatever we find along the
way! I didn't care what Edward decided, I was ready to go.
Before we left, Temlin read us
a warning, penned by the mighty Arkayz himself. It was pretty standard wizard
stuff, that is to say, cryptic and incomprehensible. I noticed Alyssa nodding
to herself as Temlin read it. Well, she's a mage herself, so she's not normal
like the rest of us. I didn't expect her to explain anything to us, and she
didn't shatter my expectations. I decided to let her worry about warnings, and
I'd worry about the money. That's very important in an adventuring group: share
the worries. And the treasure. It doesn't have to be evenly shared, of course.
We left and headed for the
trail that was marked out on the map.
We traveled for the rest of
the day without any incidents, and camped out in the wilderness...again. Still,
there's a difference in the camp tonight. After all, two nights ago we weren't
on a wizard's payroll. There's always a bright side, that's what I always say.
Even if Branden thinks I've never said it. He's certainly not with me every
minute of the day, so how would he know what I say when he's not around?
Priests think they know everything.
Day 3
Well, the day started off
fine, at least until we hear the singing. Up until then, we were happily on our
way to this Rock, planning how to spend the money we were earning. The animals
were up and about, and
Well, Edward took a nasty beating
from those bird-women, and after it was over Branden had to heal him back to
consciousness. He's still pretty hurt, though he won't admit it. Paladins are
like that, I hear. But at least we're all alive, which is more than I can say
for the queen of the harpies.
Well, we continued on. What
else could we do, really? We weren't going to turn back because of a couple of
vultures. But we hadn't got far when we found ourselves in another battle! This
time, we were facing another band of goblins. We handled them pretty easily,
although Caelisar and myself both got hurt. Those goblins were certainly
lacking in the chivalric virtues! That's certainly no way to treat a couple of
ladies like ourselves. But we showed them. Caelisar skewered one with her
arrows, and I stuck another one in the gut with my sword.
After the fight,
Well, the goblin told us about
this deer trap and how to recognize it.
A while later, we came to a
branching of the paths. Caelisar impressed us with her knowledge of the forests
we could pass through. I'm sure
Day 4
We got off to an early start
this morning. We discussed which path to take, and Edward decided we should go
south. I was all for taking the most direct route, but Alyssa disagreed. She
pointed out that the most direct route would likely be the most dangerous. I
didn't see why it should be any more dangerous than the other routes, but
Edward always listens to Alyssa. So south we went. Maybe she liked the color of
the trees in that direction.
The weather was beautiful, and
we walked on through the southern forest. It was pretty peaceful, at least
until we heard the heavy breathing up ahead. We stopped, watching the trail as
an old man came into view. He wasn't paying any attention to us, he was just
watching the road. Finally he noticed us, and screamed, "Stop!"
Well, we weren't actually
moving, so he assumed we were obeying him. He started to rant about desolation
and truth. Apparently he'd done some suffering and pondering. I was going to
suggest he ponder a little more quietly, but he didn't seem to be paying
attention to me. He went on about some leviathan that was going to do some
evil-smiting. I'm sure Edward approved, but the stuff about sweeping away the
boundaries of the elements made me shiver a bit. I really don't like crazy old
men, especially ones that look like wizards. Wizards are dangerous as it is.
One who was foaming at the mouth and raving would not be a pleasant person to
run into.
Well, he finally stopped for
air, and I was ready to move along past him, but Alyssa just HAD to know more.
So the old man gets this look of infinite wisdom on his face, and I resigned
myself to infinite boredom. Sure enough, he droned on about having spent a week
in the desert, and seeing Leviathan...and apparently, we were chosen to spread
the word of his coming. I couldn't wait.
The old man finally wandered
off, still babbling about his vision. I suppose he's still walking. I know I
won't miss him. We kept on walking, until we came to an area known as the Barrens.
It wasn't a very inviting area; no trees, not much brush. Just a lot of sand.
Up above, the storm clouds were gathering. They weren't very inviting.
We stayed there for what
seemed like a year, covering ourselves as best we could. The cave kept the
worst of the storm off us, but breathing sand has never been high on my list of
'things I'd like to do before I die.' I shudder to think how much worse it
would have been if
Well, after the storm blew
itself out, we continued on our way. And wouldn't you know it, we heard some
more singing. After our last encounter with the musically-inclined, we had our
weapons and spells ready. But this singing wasn't the seductive call of a pack
of vicious harpies. It sounded more like a chant used by people hard at work.
Pretty soon we saw something coming toward us.
Now, I admit I haven't seen
everything the world has to offer yet. But if you had told me this morning that
I'd be standing among a range of sand dunes watching a sailing ship being
rolled through the sand on a bunch of logs, I'd have been asking Branden to
pray for your sanity. Now I was asking him to pray for mine. He wasn't
listening to me, though; he was busy thinking of himself and his own mind. And
I thought priests were supposed to help others before themselves. Even Edward
wasn't sure what to make of this apparition.
Well, we approached the boat,
and saw a gnome standing in the prow of the ship, yelling into a bull's horn at
the struggling workers who were dragging the boat along. Naturally, I had to
find out what one of my people was doing sailing a boat through a desert, so I
quickened my pace a bit. Then this sailing master shouts at us, saying,
"Out o' the way, ye lubbers!"
Now, I've heard some strange
ones before, but a gnome standing on a ship ordering us to move out of the way
so he could push this boat through the desert ranks up there with the best of
them. Before I could ask him what he was doing, half his crew of workers
collapsed in exhaustion. Magnanimously, the gnome in the prow told them to take
a break for supper. Nice of him, I reflected.
Then, the ship's captain
actually asked me where the nearest ocean was!! "How am I supposed to
know?" I shouted back. "We just came from a forest! There isn't even
a decent stream around here!"
He squinted down at me.
"Ah, I see a lass after me own heart below. Come up here and we'll talk a
spell. Bosun! Pipe 'em aboard!"
Well, he certainly seemed
charming enough. Rather round in the belly, but that's alright. Mother always
said that a man who appreciates good food will always remain faithful to the
woman who feeds him. And a ship's captain must surely have money. Even if he is
sailing in a desert. So we went aboard.
The captain introduced himself
as Robern, giving me a deep bow. His eyes twinkled brightly as he looked at me.
The he explained he was looking for the ocean. "Wouldn't it have been
better to build the boat AFTER you found the ocean?" I asked as tactfully
as I could. His nose was quite handsome, after all.
Then he told us about a
merchant who had sold him a book on shipbuilding and navigation. On a bet, he
built the ship and went looking for the ocean to sail it on. At this point I
came to the regretful conclusion that, regardless of his appetite and his
wonderful nose, Robern wasn't going to be good husband material. I prefer a man
with something other than bean curd for brains. So I'm picky; I've learned to
live with it.
Branden told Robern that the
ocean was to the east. He also pointed out that there were mountains and swamps
between here and there, but Robern wasn't deterred in the least. He was so
happy that he gave us several sacks of food from his stores. He invited me to
come along with he and his clanmates, but I managed to turn him down without
hurting his feelings. It
wasn't too difficult to
refuse, considering his limited brainpower, although the twinkle in his eye
made me think about it for a few moments. Not seriously, though.
We left shortly thereafter,
and Robern's clanmates continued their journey. I wonder if they'll make it to
the ocean. But we'll probably never know.
We kept on walking through the
barrens, until we came to a river. Robern hadn't mentioned this river to us,
but I wondered how he could have possibly missed it. It was too wide for us to
cross, but there was an old stone bridge going over it. There were runes on the
bridge, and Alyssa stepped forward to try deciphering them. But she couldn't do
it. Neither could I, nor Branden. Alyssa's best guess was that they were a
warning about the dangers in crossing the bridge. Not knowing any better, I
couldn't disagree. I was all ready to turn around and head back to the fork in
the trail. There'd be another path. But Edward decided to cross anyway. Without
waiting for the rest of us, he stepped onto the bridge. And nothing happened.
We crossed the bridge, ending up near a stand oftrees. We continued on a little
while longer, then found a campsite as night fell. The storm clouds have
passed, and I find myself thinking about Robern and his silly quest to find the
ocean. I wonder if our quest will be as fruitless as his seems to be. This
worries me, partly because I don't like failing. But more importantly, we
haven't been paid yet.
Day 5
Well, we were out of the
barrens and into some rocky terrain. We could see some mountains in the
distance as we walked through the trees near a cliffside. But then we realized
that the mountains weren't that far away;there were five huge rock-creatures
blocking our path!
Then one of them informed us
that they were the Rock-Men of the Barkel mountains. He also said that he and
his friends WERE the Barkel monutains, which I thought was quite believeable.
Then they had the nerve to tell us we had to pay a toll to get past them!
Well, Edward actually started
to discuss paying them! Fortunately, Istepped forward in time to contain the
damage he was doing. Using my expert negotiating skills, I pointed out that we
didn't have any money. Edward nearly corrected me, but I stomped on his foot
before he could reveal we had the harpy queen's tiara.
Well, the rock-men agreed to
let us go past, as long as we promised to come back when we were done and pay
the toll we owed. Of course, I agreed, but then so did Edward, which was not a
good thing. He ruined a perfectly good evasion with his knightly honor. Now
we'll actually have to come back after we get to the Rock and pay them!
Paladins!
Well, we went on our merry
way, and I discussed comparative morality with Edward for a while. The
discussion was quite spirited for a while, until
We didn't have to wait long -
about twenty goblins jumped out at us, screaming war cries and swinging stone
weapons! They were also swinging strange whistles through the air, made of
leather and small animal skulls. Rather gruesome, I thought to myself even as I
yanked my shortsword out. Then their leader started demanding money from us.
Since we didn't have any, we were stuck. If we didn't give the tiara to a group
of walking mountains, we certainly weren't going to give them to a pack of
stinking goblins!
Realizing the odds against us,
I was ready to do my impression of a jackrabbit, but Alyssa had other ideas.
Before I could remind her that
We finally approached the Rock
as evening fell. We camped within sight of it, still mystified as to what the
great secret was all about. Let's just hope that tomorrow we get the answers
we've come all this way for. Not to mention the treasure. Until then, though,
I'm going to get a good night's sleep.
Day 6
This has been a most extraordinary
day. I don't think I'll ever forget even a moment of what happened today. But
just to be sure, I'm writing everything down.
Right after breakfast, we
headed straight for the Rock. It looked like a mountain with the top cut off by
an axe. I've seen some interesting mountains before, but this was quite an odd
one. It was by itself, standing in the middle of a plain without even a hill
nearby. And it was rectangular, which certainly seems odd for a mountain. It
almost looked as if it had been carved out of the earth.
As we approached, we realized
that there was someone near the Rock. This unknown person shouted at us to flee
from a terrible danger. Considering what we had already been through on this
journey, we weren't exactly shivering in our boots.
Then we got to the base of the
Rock itself. There we saw a very pretty young woman chained to the Rock. She
also had a tiara on, which seemed odd considering the rest of her was pretty
tattered and grimy. I was about to ease her suffering by taking that weighty
thing off her brow when she started talking to us again. She had been
imprisoned by an evil hag who hated beauty, to be left until she died of old
age.
Now, I'm not the world's
greatest expert on evil, but it seemed to me that this was a pretty strange
punishment to dole out. If someone's too pretty for some old hag, just give her
a poisoned apple or something and be done with it. There's no need to put
someone through this kind of torment, especially since she'd have to be fed
constantly. Is it worth the trouble? And I didn't notice any unusual stains on
her clothes. So the hag was chaining her to a rock in the middle of nowhere,
feeding her, AND providing her with a chamberpot. My ears were tingling a bit
here.
Not so for Edward and Warren,
or Branden. The three of them were oh-so solicitous of the poor maiden's
plight. They were practically fighting over who would get to free her. Men!
But their discussion was put
on hold when the wolves showed up. Maybe the crone was tired of feeding her,
and wanted to get the whole thing over with. Caelisar was the first to notice
them, and shouted a warning. She and Warren had their bows ready in an instant,
and the rest of us prepared for a battle.
Although Caelisar and Warren
struck the first blows, it was Alyssa who was the heroine of the battle. She
put three of the puppies to sleep with her magic, leaving one left for us to
defeat. It didn't take long, and we turned back to the helpless girl.
Then we found ourselves under
attack again, this time from a set of floating knives! Where these came from I
had no idea, and there was no time to think about it. Have you ever tried to
hit a dagger? It's not easy, believe me! But we managed to knock them out of
the sky without
suffering serious damage to
ourselves. That has got to be the strangest battle I've ever heard of, let
alone been involved in.
Once again we turned back to
the girl. My suspicions were growing; knives just don't appear out of thin air,
nor do they stay in the air after they've appeared. So I was the only one who
wasn't surprised when the really beautiful girl, the one that the men were
ready to fight over, suddenly became much less attractive as she changed into
the very hag she had been speaking of. She hadn't described herself in very
flattering terms, had she? Accurate terms, but hardly flattering. She made
those rock-men look attractive. A goblin would have looked at her and said,
"Now that's ugly!"
She was also hissing and
attacking us, which also didn't surprise me. A lot of people had been doing
this lately, and I wasn't enjoying it. Give me a nice, friendly city with fat
merchants and dull-witted guards.
Well, the battle didn't last
long. After the initial shock of what we had seen, we demonstrated that six
brave adventurers with weapons can beat up an ugly old woman any day of the
week, even if she does have claws and a hump on her back. She didn't look much
better after Edward stuck his sword through her chest, but she could hardly
have looked worse than she did when she was alive.
Three battles in such a short
space of time had left me more than tired, but except for Alyssa, everyone was
excited about having reached the Rock! They seemed certain that this old crone
was the last guardian we had to face. Alyssa wasn't so certain. I was too tired
to care.
We pressed on up the trail
that wound around the Rock, and we came across an unusual sight: a sword stuck
in the ground. Not something you run across every day. When Edward grasped the
hilt and pulled it out, I half expected to hear a heavenly choir anoint him the
right-born king of all the realm. But nothing as exciting as that happened. The
sword did have some writing etched into the blade, though, and Edward presented
it for Alyssa's examination.
Alyssa read the words aloud.
"Broad and wide the path to nowhere; thin and narrow the way to true
riches. Unravel the riddle the riches to win." That sounded promising, at
least the part about the riches.
Now the only question was, how
do we get inside? We wandered around, trying to figure out a way inside. Then
Branden had an idea. We went back to where we had taken the sword. Then Branden
pushed on the stone, and his hand disappeared! The solid-looking stone was
nothing more than an illusion! He explained that the niche where we had found
the sword was narrow and thin; this was the answer to the clue on the sword.
This caused some discussion as
Alyssa pointed out that it could in fact be a trap. Caelisar sided with
Branden, while I had to agree with Alyssa. Never argue with a mage, that's what
mother always said. Unless the mage is telling you to jump into a flaming pit,
in which case it's perfectly alright to argue. Since there was no flaming pit
to be seen, I didn't have a problem going with Alyssa's interpretation. To no
one's surprise,
That left it up to our
intrepid leader, and this was one of those times when I was glad we had him to
make these decisions. If we got into major trouble, we could blame him for it.
If we survived, of course. After thinking about it for a while, Edward led the
way through the illusion, and we entered what we hoped was the Rock.
Since we didn't immediately
die, I became even more convinced that we were being led into a deadly trap. We
would see the vast riches, and go running after them, then fall into a
bottomless pit and die of starvation before we hit the ground. Or something
equally unpleasant. But of course, I didn't mention this to anyone. I decided
to be extra-careful instead.
We found ourselves in a
gigantic hall, hundreds of feet wide, and as brightly lit as a summer
I tore my eyes from the chests
to look around a bit. The walls were marble with gold inlaid, with beautiful
frescoes everywhere. It was like looking at a painting of the gods. To carve
this all would have taken an army of dwarves a lifetime to accomplish. And to
think, it had been
undisturbed for so long. We
were the first living beings to set foot inside here in untold centuries. And
everything looked so...clean. Dust hadn't collected on the floor. I didn't need
Alyssa to tell me that this place reeked with magic.
Even the floor was decorated,
with silver and gold letters that read: HUBRELIS TUMASSEN. Alyssa translated
them as 'The Great Pride of Tuma.' A bit of experimental chiseling told me that
this wasn't the treasure we wanted. It would take too long to dig the metal out
of the floor. But at least there were the chests.
Then I noticed something odd
about the hall. The right side was beautiful, as fresh as a spring flower. The
left side, on the other hand, looked like it had been dragged through a city
street on a leash. We started walking toward the platforms (and the chests),
keeping a careful watch for anything that might attack us. After a minute of
this tension I realized that considering the size of this hall, anything that
might attack us would have to run at us from far enough away that we could have
dinner before it got to us. So we relaxed a bit, and made a beeline for the
treasure.
As we got there, we noticed
that the chests varied in their appearance; some were quite fancy, others much
less so. I heard a voice thundering throughout the hall, telling me to grasp
the glory that was Tuma. The voice spoke of foolish choices and other sensible
advice. When the voice told me that I deserved the best, I couldn't argue with
it. After all, we had worked hard to get this far. So now it was time to claim
the reward. I took one step toward the nearest chest and found myself in the
air.
I hadn't discovered the secret
of flying;
"Getting what we came
for, silly! Didn't you hear what the voice said?"
The others looked at me
strangely. It then occurred to me that I was the only one who had heard the
voice. I was the only one who had been given this magical blessing! And now
they were trying to keep me from what was rightfully mine!
Then I heard the voice again,
and the looks on the faces of my companions told me that they were hearing this
voice as well. This time the voice told us that only one of the chests held the
secret of the Rock, and we could only choose one chest. I tried to get down,
since it was obvious to me which chest to pick. But
Then, Edward stepped forward
and stood before the chests. He looked at them all, obviously not having a clue
which one he should choose. I tried to point it out to him, but he ignored me.
Then, to my horror, he chose the wrong chest!
I cringed, knowing we had
failed. But then I saw that the chest wasn't empty. In fact, it was filled
almost to overflowing with coins! That wonderful paladin knew what he was doing
all along! And there we were, swimming in the treasure of Tuma. We found some
other goodies as well, including a strange talisman. I was about to pocket it
when Branden thanked me for finding it. Then he took it himself, the thief!
Some people have all the nerve in the world! It just goes to show that you
can't really trust a priest.
The voice came back as we were
busy putting away the treasure. It congratulated us, and told us the secret of
the Rock. I don't need to write it down here; the words will always be in my
heart. After the voice was finished, everything faded away (except the
treasure) and we found ourselves back outside at the base of the Rock. It was
time to return to Arkayz's home and relate our tale.
I was all for choosing another
route home, but Edward remembered the rock-men we had promised to pay the toll
to. So we started back the way we came.
And of course, the rock-men
hadn't forgiven us. Edward paid them their toll, which was pretty steep in my
opinion. But we didn't have much choice; we weren't going to be able to argue
with five walking mountains. At least that's what Caelisar told me. I still
think we should have talked our way out of it. Five hundred gold pieces! It was
outrageous!
We continued on our way, and
came again to the river. Alyssa made another attempt to read the runes, but she
had no more success than the previous time. We entered the barrens, and got
caught in a short sandstorm. The wind was hot, and the sand blew around us.
Suddenly,
After the storm was over, we
came across a chest that had been uncovered by the storm! Well, finally an
opportunity for me to exercise my special talents! The lock was simple, and I
had it open in moments. Inside we found a lot of ancient copper coins, as well
as some daggers and a curious-looking shield. It wasn't much, but we took it
anyway. Why not? After having gone so long with so little, money was just
falling into our hands now.
Finally we stopped for the
night. We had come quite a bit further from the Rock than expected today. I
think it had to do with the fact that there was still much more money waiting
for us back at Lidrium Arkayz's house. I know I was eager to get that money.
Not that I'm greedy, but I think we earned it. Tomorrow we should be there to
collect it. I hope he thinks the secret was worth the effort. Actually, I know
he will. We certainly do.
Day 7
It's funny; for weeks we
wandered around with no money and not one monster attacked us. This morning we
broke camp, but before we could even leave the campsite we found ourselves
under attack by a couple of gruesome bugbears! Now that we had some money in
our pockets, every greedy monster in the Westlands wanted a piece of us. Greed
is such an ugly emotion.
We fought them off, and we
discovered something very interesting: the sword that Edward had drawn from the
niche in the rock glowed with a golden light during the battle; it is a magical
blade! The bugbears were no match for us, especially Edward's blade. After he
dispatched the second bugbear by slicing its head right off, Edward knelt down
and asked Branden to bless the sword for him. I suppose a blessing doesn't
hurt, but I thought it was customary for a priest to bless the warrior BEFORE
he goes into battle. Still, paladins and priests have strange rituals. Humans
are so weird.
After the blessing was
completed, Edward christened the blade with a name, Everbright. Not a bad name,
I suppose. I've noticed that warriors like to name their weapons. I have no
idea why. I didn't think the sword was all that bright; it was a pretty dim
light. But he seemed happy, so I didn't comment on it.
We continued on, and arrived
at the point where the trail branched off in three directions. Caelisar noticed
that the trees seemed a bit odd. Then I saw that the grass was bending against
the wind. There was something very wrong here. We tensed up, ready for
anything...
...except for what happened.
One moment we were grabbing our weapons, the next we found ourselves standing
in front of Lidrium Arkayz's manor house.
Well, it did save us a day's
travel, so I wasn't about to complain. We entered the house, and the guards
escorted us to Jenlar Temlin. He was waiting for us in a parlor, and he was
eager to hear about our journey to the Rock. Caelisar told him the tale,
including the secret of the Rock. Temlin nodded, but said there was more. I
don't know how he knew, but he obviously was expecting us to have something
else. Branden handed him the talisman, and Temlin nodded, very pleased. I was
just as pleased when he handed us six pouches of money. At last, fortune smiled
upon us! And I smiled right back at it.
Temlin was kind enough to
offer us rooms for the night. We stayed the rest of the day, talking about the
wonders we had seen on our way to the Rock and back. It was definitely an
exciting journey. We shared a laugh over the plight of the desert-sailing
gnomish ship, and I found myself wondering about Robern and his crew. I hope
they find their ocean.
Day 8
In the morning, Temlin saw us
off. He suggested we should travel to Specularum, where a great festival was to
be held within a few days. After all this time in the wilderness, I'm more than
ready for a trip to the city. We left the manor of Lidrium Arkayz, and headed
for the road to Specularum. Who knows what adventure will await us there?
Whatever it is, I'm certain it won't be boring.