# The Elvencourt campaign (Me an' my brother)



## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 6, 2007)

Introduction:

From The Official History of Elvencourt and the Eastern Kingdoms by Sollan Banitryn, High Sage and Chief Historian of Elvencourt:

	“...and so, with one final, mighty swing of the Goldenblade, did Ellon strike down
	the wicked demon lord Kulak on the slopes of Mt. Firoth, ending the reign of evil 
	that had plagued the Eastern Kingdoms and beginning a period of peace and 
	harmony for the many peoples therein...”

“Peace? Harmony? Bah! ...if yer an elf maybe.  'Ya ask me,  id' be better if that demon 'ad lopped off the king's 'ead rather'n the other way 'bout it. Sixty-seven years've elf rule, an' I fer one don't feel no 'armony.  No peace neither.  Stinkin' elves. Since they been runnin' things 'round 'ere, can't a dwarf leave 'is hole not 'avin t' see some reminder o' who's in charge now, what wit' th' elves patrollin' all th' roads an' all th' stinkin' elf laws tellin' ya' whatcha can an' can't do.  Can't even go up th' road nowdays without payin' a toll or 'avin some elf ranger askin' yer bizness.  Even worse fer them wizards an' spell casters.  I 'ere they gotta register wit' the local elves jus' t' practice their magic.  No freedom, I tell ya'...them elves wants it all done their way...thinkin' they're so great.  Bah!   I gotta mind t' stomp meself on down t' that 'alfling village down yonder and bust down that statue they built 'n 'onor o' th' stinkin' elf king.  Course then they'd come an' take me away y'know.  I 'eard some 'alf orc done somethin' like that over 'n Yellowknife, 'an them elves came down on 'im like stink on an 'otug...'eard they claimed 'e hadn't resiter'd wit' th' elves an' they took 'im away to that Harney Peak Prison.  Least we dwarves don't gotta register wit' th' elves like th' 'alf-orcs do...least not yet.  Me cousin Oskar says th' elves got it in fer all'a us...Me brother says 'e's crazy, but I think 'e might just be on t' somethin'.  You just wait n' mind my words, someday soon we'll all be regrettin' they ever took over.”


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## Son_of_Thunder (Aug 6, 2007)

Impressive, most impressive. I await more.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 6, 2007)

Our first gaming session will be this weekend, so I should have something up by early next week.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 8, 2007)

*More introduction material*

Looking back, I guess you could say it was Amaali's letter that started this.  

We had met at the Gold Lion to get in a few games of Antac...you know, a bit of friendly wagering to pass the hours on a hot, summer afternoon...

Of course, as usual our “friendly wagering” got a bit heated itself.  Let's just say that Ortuk was having his usual streak of bad luck with the dice and his “happy” side was beginning to show it's pretty little head.  

I remember this one time, he was playing a bit of the Scally at the Little Bear Inn...doing just great, too...I swear he was pulling nines on half of his rounds. Had a great big stack of coins in front of him on the table.  It didn't last, of course, and things went south quickly as they always tend to do whenever Ortuk games.  Four straight zero-outs in a row turned that stack of  coins into one coin and then no coins, and that's when he turned  that table right over and sent it flying about ten feet across the common room, nearly taking out half a dozen drunken halfling farmers.  Now I know he's a big pup and all...three hundred fifty pounds of  half-orc makes quite an impression, but I never would have thought that anyone could send one of those tables at the Little Bear flying like that;  you know how big those things are.  Suffice it to say that the rest of the night was spent in a drawn out chase through the back alleys of the city with the watch right on our tails...I'll spare you the sordid details, but I will tell you this, that's the last time I stick around when Ortuk is on a hot streak like that.  Only bad things can come of it...  

Anyway, like I was saying, the five of us were a number of rounds into our game that afternoon when in comes an elf of the Courier Order asking for Amaali.  It seems he had an “urgent letter” for her.  Well, you know we all just had to see what was so urgent about it, so we demanded that she crack the seal open right then and there so that all of us could get a look at it. It's not too often someone gets official letters handed to them by a member of the Courier Order, you know.  

Now mind you, it's been a while since I've actually seen that letter, so I obviously can't tell you what it said word for word, but basically what it did say was that Amaali had some great uncle, Lord William Wheloon I think it was, that had kicked the bucket, and that Amaali was the only known heir to his “estates and holdings” known to still be alive.  It said she had two months from the day of her uncle's death to “have an audience” with the local magistrate in White Mountain County, which is up north at the foot of the Bear Tooth Mountains.  

Of course, Amaali had no clue what “estates and holdings” meant, given that she didn't even know she had any great uncles...It could have been a castle on a thousand acres, or it could have been a dead imp's carcass, but it sounded interesting enough.  With the exception of Orutk's crummy job down at the docks and my gig working night watch detail at the salt warehouse, our little group had no real prospects around Westhaven anyway, so there really wasn't any question of whether or not we'd all go along with her to see just what these “estates and holdings” were.  After all, it was only a few weeks travel north along the Front Road...it's not like there'd be too much risk involved with it, right?


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 9, 2007)

*On the Road*

It was a simple plan...simple, but it worked.  

We had left Westhaven during the fourth week of Highsummer, giving us almost four weeks to journey to Falkirk and make our audience with the magistrate in order to see what Amaali's great uncle's estate comprised.  Our travels started as smoothly as one could hope, to be sure.  Ortuk and Lydia left their dead end jobs behind, and the five of us gathered what little gear we had and set out along the Front Road  north to White Mountain County.  

Naturally, the elves manning the gates of Westhaven gave Ortuk a bit of a time when we tried to exit the city.  Their propensity to harass those with orcish blood is well-known, but  his papers were in good order, and we were able to start off along the stones with only a small measure of hassling.  I've heard tell of half-orcs in some parts of the east being denied leave of the cities by the elves under the guise of  “security”.  It seems more and more that half-orcs such as my friend are being delegated to non-citizen status by Elvencourt.  I've even heard word that in the Elfwood itself, those with any known measure of orcish blood  are being denied residency due to their lineage, and that some are being driven out of their homes to live elsewhere in areas less near to the heart of the empire.      

Our first setback came upon reaching the Dunwater Bridge.  It would have been pleasant for the gate guards back in Westhaven to have informed us that the main span over the Dunwater was out.  It cost us half a day's backtracking to one of the side roads...they're probably still laughing about it back at the gatehouse even now.  As much as I appreciate the order the elves have brought to us here in the east, sometimes their prejudices and haughtiness can be a bit bothersome.  Lydia often struggles to apologize for the nature of her blood kin.  

After going back several miles to the fork of the Heidelford Track, we left the stones of the Front Road behind us and set out along the somewhat overgrown track leading us through the scrub forest surrounding the hamlet of Heidelford and its river crossing.  It may have been a bit less risky to cut through the farming village of Rylan and use the stone bridge there, but travel by that route would have entailed another half day of extra backtracking on top of the fact that we'd have had to deal with the Rangers securing the bridge there against attacks from the denizens of the nearby forest.  Our annoyances in leaving Westhaven were enough for the time being.

We should have known straight out that something was amiss...even on the backpath that the Heidelford trail was, we should have encountered some form of traffic going one way or the other, given that the Front Road bridge was out.  Of course there was none, but it just didn't seem to register with us at the time.  

It was about five miles along the path, halfway to Heidelford that we saw the body in the middle of the road.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 12, 2007)

*So what about that body in the road?*

It can be good sometimes to be this big.  Ripping someone's arms off and beating them to death with their own arms because they hurt your mom real bad can be good.  It can be real easy to find jobs, too.  People always like to use big guys like me to pick things up and move them.  Like barrels, or crates, or drunk people.  

Sometimes it can be not so good to be this big.   People think that you're dumb, even if you're not that dumb.  And it's hard to hide, like when you want to stay out of the way of some of those bad elves so they don't bother you all the time and stuff just because they don't like you.  

Not all  elves are bad elves.  Some of them can be nice.  But it gets me so mad  when some of them just won't leave me alone.  Like when all I want to do is buy a loaf of bread from the market or something but they just won't leave me alone.  And I get all mad. And  I can't do anything about it.  

And they make me carry around these dumb papers because mom was treated bad by an orc  this one time and she kept me because she loves me.  She's so nice.  I wish she wasn't dead now.  

The body in the road?   Yeah.  I can tell you what happened. 

We walked back on that smaller road because the big bridge was in the river.  

Amaali said that something was in the middle of the road ahead.  It was a body.  It was face down on the ground and looked like a person.  There were some arrows in its back.  

We wanted to see who it was, so we walked up real slow.  We tried to be sneaky by walking in the woods on the side of the road but it didn't help much.  We made a lot of noise.  

When we got close to the body, it looked like it was a dead lady lying on the ground  but she wasn't really dead.  When Amaali went up to go see who she was, the lady jumped up real fast and shot at her with a bow and it's good that she missed.   

Then this other guy jumped out of the bushes and tried to hit Torgen with his hands.  He had real sharp claws.  He didn't miss and after he got hit the dwarf couldn't move or nothing.  

The dead lady tried to shoot at Amaali again but she missed again and then Amaali walked up and stabbed at the lady with her sword.  She stabbed her real deep.  

I ran up to the guy who jumped out of the bushes and hit him real hard with my sword.  I hit him real hard and he looked real hurt.  He didn't look like a real person too much.  He looked like an orc.  But he looked different too.  

After I hurt him like that, he tried to run away into the woods.  Brennan and Lydia tried to keep him from getting away.  Lydia took out her bow and shot at the guy, but she missed.  Brennan shot one of his magic arrows at the guy from his fingers and he hit him.  But the guy still tried to run away.  


The dead lady tried to shoot again at Amaali, but she missed.  I'm glad she couldn't shoot real good.  Amaali tried to stab her again, and she hit the lady in her arm.  

I chased after the guy from the bushes and hit him real hard again with my sword.  He fell down dead.  I felt good about that.  I was worried about Torgen.  I hoped he would be ok and not stay like that forever.  He didn't.    

The dead lady tried to run away too.  But Amaali caught up with her and stabbed her again and the lady fell down.  

We thought she was dead but she wasn't dead.  

I picked the dead guy up and was walking with him back to my friends when the dead lady stood up again and tried to hit Amaali with her hands.  Amaali saw her moving and got out of her way and stabbed her again.  The lady fell down again.  Then Lydia and me went over to her and cut her into little bits, and then the dead lady really was dead.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 13, 2007)

I met them on the road to Harney Peak.  

It had started one week previous.  The captain had summoned me to tell me of my new assignment.  It seems that there was a convict who needed to be taken to Harney Peak in order to be interred there.  Usually such tasks are given to Ranger patrols rather than just one of us, but it seems that securing the arrival of fifteen trade ships from the West coupled with protecting the taking in of the corsberry harvest sucked up much of our manpower.  Besides, I was told, this prisoner was not one who needed much in the way of an escort anyway.  I found out why soon enough.  

The Bug was more of a threat to himself, I think, than to anyone else.  Small even for a kobold, he was skittish and nervy.  It was almost a bit hard to believe that he had been charged and convicted of breaking and entering and theivery at the High King's palace itself.  As my superior informed me, it seems that he had been a house slave or such there and had somehow broken into some of the most secure rooms of the palace.  More about it, I don't know, since the Bug certainly doesn't talk about it, or anything else for that matter.  He seems to have as much trust for us elves as he does size.  Throughout the entire journey from Westhaven to Angelspire, about all I could get out of him other than bitter looks and sideways glances were yes and no answers to the most basic of questions regarding food, drink, and bodily functions.  Not much of a travelling companion, you might say.

We had taken the side road through Rylan in order to avoid the fallen bridge over the Dunwater.  Fortunately, we avoided the Heidelford route, as I was later to learn that travellers by that way had been ambushed by monstrous thieves or something like that.  I trust my skills in the blades I wield, but would rather not have to use them if I can avoid it.  

The Bug and I were camped at one of the waysides along the road north to Anglespire when they approached us.  They made an eclectic grouping:  an enormous orc-spawn, a halfling mage, a cantankerous dwarf of the Order of Pelor, and two females, one human and one half-blood.  They seemed pleasant enough and unthreatening, so I offered to share camp with them for the night.  Like I had said, the Bug wasn't much of a traveling companion, and it did tend to get rather lonesome on the road.  

I soon found that they too were travelling northwards, though farther to the north than I and my charge.  It seems that one of their number, the human woman named Amaali, had a relative who had passed on and left her some kind of estate or such.  She did not provide many details, and I did not ask for them.  After some discussion into the night on trivial matters, I did offer to have us join numbers through to Angelspire...it would be a positive gain for all of us...more security for me and an easier go at the gates when we got to the city itself for them.  I was sure that the orc-spawn would undoubtedly run into some trouble when trying to enter the city, and having a member of the High King's forces support his entry would surely help their cause. 

We split up watches for the night and made our rest shortly after moonrise.  It was not long into my watch with the big fellow that we heard the horrific scream of a woman from somewhere to the north on the road.  I set out to investigate and told the orc-spawn to wake his companions.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 16, 2007)

*Don't mess with Halflings*

Ha!  Stick that in your wurtleweed pipe and smoke it, Silas Buckthorn!  Tell me a halfling wizard'll never make it, huh?  Well, nyah to you and your funny nickname which makes you run crying to your mommy every time you hear it.  

One shot, that's all it took.  One shot from the best halfling wizard this side of the Front Range!  (Never mind _you_ that I'm probably the only halfling wizard this side of the Front Range.)  

Like pop always said, “If you want something done right, find a halfling.”

Yeah, so after Ellian had left up the road to find out what that woman's scream was all about, Ortuk tried to wake the rest of us up...not too much luck there, though, because he only got a chance to shake me and Amaali awake before that sleep spell put him down and left the rest of our little group sleeping like babies.

Amaali had just enough time before that wizard guy appeared right in front of her and sprayed a blast of light on her to dodge just enough to avoid its effects.  Not that it would have mattered anyway, though, because like I said, all it took was one shot.  

Before that wizard guy could try anything else, I hoisted my crossbow from next to where I had just stood up and shot him right in the neck.  Blood started gushing out of the wound, and I thought he would drop right then and there, but the guy had just enough left in him to try and back away before Amaali could get out her rapier and stab him through with it.  He tried to cast something, I think, but dropped to the ground in the middle of it.  Either that or he was trying to surrender, but it's hard to talk I guess when blood's spurting from your neck. 

Like pop always said, “If you want something done right, find a halfling.”


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 20, 2007)

I left the others back at camp in order to investigate the scream.  Hard to imagine that anyone would be travelling at night, even on the main road; you never know what may be lying in wait, especially in these western wilderness areas.  There are only so many patrols to go around, and the West is known as being more wild.  Even the wayside camps have been known to be targeted often in these lands...too few patrols for too many stopping points.

I strayed a bit to the east of the road itself and made my way north in the direction of the scream, using the taller grasses and occasional brush as cover to hide my movements lest there be something bad ahead.  I scanned the areas alongside the road in the vincinity of where the scream should have eminated, but found nothing...well, nothing other than the tracks of what appeared to be large antelopes or deer.  This was a bit far south for the herds to be found, but they have been known to leave their common territories from time to time.  Nothing pointing to there being any sort of human or humanoid figures though, and only the sound of the breeze over the plains met my ears.  

After several minutes of fruitless searching, I made my way back to our camp.  What I found there was a mild shock, to be sure.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 22, 2007)

*Halfings uber alles*

Let me tell you something.  There are many ways that you can wake up from a deep sleep.  One of them is to slowly and peacefully crawl out of your slumber while lying in a soft, warm bed.  A second, slightly less pleasant manner is to be shaken from a drunken stupor by the city watch because you passed out in the alley behind The Lion again.  Yet another is to feel the stinging shock of having your immature younger brother, who is no doubt up to no good at this very moment, douse you with icy water so that you toss him in the manure pile behind the shed out back.   

But there is still another way to wake up from a deep, deep sleep...a much more irritating and scraping way than even the ice water bath, and that way is to have a runty halfling mage jump up and down on top of you and your companions screaming out, “I DID IT!  I DID IT!  BOW DOWN BEFORE THE MIGHTY POWER OF HALFLINGS!”  

Of these options, the last one is now assuredly my least favorite.  

That is how we arose following the “attack” on our camp by the mysterious wizard who had put us into our slumber. 

It seems that as Ortuk had tried to rouse us following his and Ellian's hearing of a womans' scream in the night, the wizard, whose person or  purpose were not known to us until later, hit us with a spell of sleep, taking down the half-orc and leaving those of us who had been sleeping deep in our restful states.  

Apparently both the halfling and the rogue were spared from the magic, though unfortunately I cannot say that we were spared from the halfling.  I will give him his due credit however for succeding in single-handedly fending off what seems to have been a  much more experienced foe.     

The elven ranger returned to camp shortly after we awoke, stating that nothing was found of the screaming woman he and Ortuk had heard other than some animal tracks that he chose not to follow too far from the road in the night.  By the next day we would learn the solution to that particulary mystery.   

Once the halfling finally began to settle himself, merely jesticulating rudely toward the corpse while muttering something along the lines of, “Take that Silas (unmentionable)-thorn, doo, doo, dee, doo,” rather than carrying on like a complete fool, we set about the task of searching the body for anything of interest.  Let it be said by me now that although we are not commonly in the practice of looting from the random dead, it is common policy in these parts that if one is attacked by another, one is entitled to the spoils of victory should one come out on top. 

If we had been looking for much of value, we were soon disappointed.  Other than his robes and a pair of worn-looking boots, the wizard was devoid of any possessions.  Thinking it strange that someone would venture this far from habitation with nothing more than the clothes on his back, we concluded that he must have had some kind of home or lair nearby, and we decided to have the elf search for his path.  To our surprise however the ranger could not find any footprints left by the wizard in the dusty dirt of the camp area, an impossibility given the fact that he had obviously walked into our area in order to incapacitate us.  After a short time of thinking, we decided to inspect his possessions further, and a quick divination by the dwarf revealed a slight dwemor about the wizard's boots.  It seems that these boots would leave no tracks nor prints when one walked around in them.  Very interesting for certain, and they had me wear them after we had deduced their nature.  

We decided as a collective to wait until morning to have the ranger attempt to find out more about the scream and the animal tracks...no more sounds other than the breeze through the grass and our own voices would prove to be heard that night.   After disposing of the wizard's body in a nearby gully, we set about the difficult task of once again returning to sleep.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 24, 2007)

*So, what does the Bug have to say about all of this?*

They'll kill me if they know what I saw.  

I ain't tellin' nobody nothin'.  Nothin'.  

That elf guy can talk to me all he wants...nothin' ain't comin' outta my mouth.  Nothin' but spit.  I know them elves are bad guys.     

They'll kill me if they know what I saw. 

All I wanted  was to get me some better food.  That icky gray stuff wasn't no good...no good, I tell ya.  

Just somethin' better to eat,  that's all I wanted.  

Now this elf guy is takin' me someplace bad just because I wanted to get some better food to eat.  But if he knew what I had saw, he'd kill me.  They'd all want to kill me.   I ain't tellin' him nothin'.   I ain't tellin' nobody nothin'. 

Even those new guys, they'd want to kill me too.  I ain' tellin' them nothin'.    

I'm not sure where this elf guy is takin' me, but I hope they won't hurt me there to make me tell them.  

I hope we get there soon if they ain't gonna hurt me.  I get scared out on these roads like this.  Too many things tryin' to kill ya.  

Like that wizard guy.  I saw him try to come and kill us...kill us all.  Maybe he knew what I saw.  But that little wizard guy, he killed him first.  

Then we found that old building in the hill, and those two big dog things tried to kill us...but these new guys killed them first, too.  

I think he might have sent them to kill me just like that wizard guy.  Maybe those dog things knew what I saw.  Maybe he sent those dog things to kill me.  

They talked kinda like people, and they had funny feet.  Not like dog feet, like deer feet.  

Maybe he talked to them and told them to wait in that hill building and kill me, but those new guys killed them first.  Maybe those new guys came here to help me.  

Or maybe they came to trick me.  To find out if I saw what they think I saw, and when they find out what I saw, then they'll kill me. 

I ain't saying nothin'...nothin'.  

They'll kill me if they know what I saw.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 26, 2007)

We 'ad found th' mage's lair off th' stones 'ways.   Coupla' small hills near where th' elf 'ad tracked them prints.  After bit, Oi calls out, "Crikes. Lookit' 'at."  I seen wot' appeared t' be an old post put up by me kin.  Twas' facin' away from the road...must a' been 'bout four 'r five 'undred years've age r' such.  Nothin' lasts ya longer 'n a good ol' buildin' a' th' dwarves I tells ya.  Most folks wouln'ta been able t' see it fer what it was, but Oi knew right quick what Oi was seein'.  

We scurried on up to what woulda been th' back of it, 'way from th' door, an' then we found the cracks leadin' into it along that back parta' the 'ill.  Lots a them tracks 'round the back part a that 'ill.  

Th' 'alf orc led us inta' one a' them cracks...after a' bit, we seen an openin' inta' one a' th' rooms in th' post.  Most a' us were still stuck in 'at crack when them talkin' dog things came at us.  

Big as ponies, they was...and mean as 'ungry bears, they was too.  Took most of what we 'ad in us, but we took 'em down 'fore any a' us bit it.  Coupla' us 'ad were bleedin' nuff t' show we seen some good action, but nothin' I couldnta' cured wit' the 'elp of the big guy.

Lookin' 'round th' place, we caught sight a' many a piece a' stuff lyin' 'round lookin' like travelin' gear.  After a' bit a' searchin' we found a place lookin' like that wizard the 'alfling done in 'ad been sleepin'.  Musta' been usin' th' post as a place t' ambush travlers like us at th' campsite we 'ad set up at.  Good stuff in the piles a' stuff in that ol' post...some good fer sellin', some good fer keepin'.  That 'alfling sure was 'appy when e' found that box behind th' wall stone in th' wizard's sleepin' room.  No doubtin' it had that ol' wizard's magic book in in it.  Too bad fer th' 'alfling that some kind a' magic kept us from openin' it.  Had ta' wait till Angelspire to find a way to get at it.  

Gotta give this gang a' mine credit...we done right good fer a bunch of newbies to th' killin' a' baddies.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Aug 30, 2007)

Yeah, so we made it the rest of the way to Angelspire without too much trouble.  Sure, it was a bit weird with that squirmy kobold looking at us all shifty all the time, but you kind of got used to it after  a while.  The elf was kind of quiet, too, but it was good having him with us...made getting past the patrols a lot easier.  Not that we were in trouble or anything, but sometimes they like to give you a hard time or charge you an extra toll, you know.  

The mountains that we traveled along on the road were quite a sight.  Having grown up on the docks of Linshire back east, I wasn't used to that kind of view.  From Westhaven all the way to Angelspire, we had an awesome sight out to our west, especially when the sun went down behind those peaks. 

When we got to the city, it was amazing!  A beautiful red brick wall with the black towers of the city's wizards standing tall over it.  Above it all was the mountain of Angels itself, one of the tallest in all the lands, I'm sure.    

True to his word, the elf made it easy for us to get in through the gates, and with no toll either!  Not only that, but he offered us an easy job for some extra travel cash.  Seems that because of some Bugbear problems to the east of the city on top of some mining trains arriving from the west tying up a lot of the city's militia, there was a need for an escort to go with him and the Bug to Harney Peak.  Word had it that smaller groups had been jumped recently by bandits or something on the mountain road that led that way.  Twenty five coins for each of us up front and twenty five more when we got to the prison if we wanted it.  Who could say no to that kind of easy cash?  

After a short stay in the city...too short if you ask me; I would have loved to look around at that market a bit longer to see those things from the West that you never get to see back home like those dunlizard tooth necklaces...we gathered ourselves and started out on the short trip to the mountain prison.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 5, 2007)

*Of Flying Kobolds and other such nonsense (as told by the $#@! talkin' dwarf)*

Flyin' kobolds?  Roit, Try tellin' em' all back 'ome 'bout that one an' they'd knock yer 'ead off fer makin' up stories.  'course I woulda done th' same if ya'd been tellin' me 'bout that kinda nonsense before we seen it ourselves...A flyin' kobold...Crikes, what's next?  'Alflings savin' the realms?  Horsch!  Wouldn't s'prise me in the least what wit' all we been seein' lately. 

After droppin' off th' Bug out at 'Arney Peak, th' elf gave us th' resta' th' money owed us fer doin' th' job, and we started on back with 'im to th' city.  Five and twenty coins may not seem much to some, but back then t' us it was good pay on top of th' other 'alf 'e gave us back in Angelspire.  

'Twas on th' way back that we ran into troubles.  'Bout 'alfway back from 'Arney Peak, coupla' big giant vultures come roit at us from outta nowheres droppin' big ol' rocks roit down on toppa' us.   Near took off the 'alflings 'ead.  

Them birds weren't no match fer us, though...couppla well placed arrows and bolts from the woman an' th' 'alfling left one of 'em dead an' th' other nearly so.  Flew so slow after that it gave us an easy path t' follow t' see from where it came.  

Not too long after that we seen th' flying kobold.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 9, 2007)

Yeah, so anyway, like the dwarf said, those two big vultures bombed us with rocks, and we were able to take one out and left the other flying for home.  We had been warned before we left for Harney Peak that there had been word of small groups getting ambushed on the road that passed by the prison.  That's why the elf wanted to pay us to go along with him in the first place.  

Looking to where that bird flew away, the elf, he came with us on the road back to the city after dropping the Bug off, said it might help to look into things a bit.  Though we really didn't have to, we knew it was the right thing to do.  If we could help put an end to folks getting rocks dropped on them, we'd have done good by things, right?    

So we checked in the direction of that bird's flight path and headed that way a bit.  Not too long after leaving the road, the elf found some tracks near a dry gully that he said like kobold prints or something like it.  Now I don't know about you, but from my experience, most kobolds don't usually mean too good by people, so we followed those tracks to see what we could find.  

Let me tell you, what we found was an amazing site to say the least.  

A couple of miles north of the road, past a few turns through the gorges that cut through the mountains this side of Angelspire, we came upon a more open area, like a big bowl in the mountains.  Right there in the middle of it was this big rock looking like a big giant bird head with an open mouth sticking up into the sky.   Crazy stuff, I tell ya'. It must of been a few hundred feet high or somthing like that, and it's kind of hard to describe it if you haven't seen it, but it was a pretty awesome sight.  Definitely nothing back east like that for sure.   

We looked on from some cover at a distance for a bit and saw that there were a bunch of flying shapes circling it...looked like a bunch of vultures and one or two big ones.  There were a bunch of small cave-looking holes along the front of the "bird head" too.  We wanted to get a closer look, but those caves looked too in the open for our tastes.  

We wanted to get a look to see if there were any other ways up there, so we used the brush and rocks along the edge of the basin we were in to give us some cover to check out the other sides of that rock.  

After a little bit, Brennan spoke up, saying that he saw some kind of ledge along one of the sides of the rock leading up from the base to the "mouth" of it.  We figured that we might be able to make it up there without being seen by any of those birds if we did it the right way.  

We did make it across the floor of that bowl to the ledge, but I'll tell ya' this, we only made it about halfway up it when those big birds found us.  Yeah, you could say we were stuck between a rock and a hard place...the hard place being a fifty foot drop off that ledge.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 10, 2007)

*Bombs Away*

Tell me which of these situations you'd rather be in:  Lounging in a hammock between two trees on a late summer afternoon with a warm breeze and bright sun shining down on you as you watched the Corellian sunflower harvest get brought in from the fields or standing on a ten inch ledge fifty feet above the floor of a desert basin while giant vultures dropped rocks on you from above and tried to knock you off that ledge.  

If you chose the first option, I'm right there with you.  If you chose the second, get bent.  

Befitting our recent luck with these kinds of situations, we found ourselves stuck in the second position. 

These two vultures were even bigger than the ones before.  It seemed that someone must have trained them to do what they were doing, because I for one had never encountered such behavior in birds of this kind before, and we used to get a fair number of vultures back in Meahanna, especially during the dry season.  

Fortunately for us, their aim was worse than ours, and after a few near hits on their part, we were able to fell them with a scattering of bolts and arrows before one of those rocks had the chance to slug one of us down to the basin floor.  Our only fear now was that the noise of the combat had alerted one of the other denizens of the rock. 

We continued our way up the ledge, eventually finding ourselves in the "craw" of the rock formation looking out over a large spread of normal-sized vulture nests.  They were spread out over a tub-like area some two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide.  There were three cavelike openings in the far side wall from where we stood, two right next to each other and rather large, and another, smaller one a ways down from our position.  The open "mouth" of the bird-rock opened up above us, giving one the impression of standing in some large beast's belly. 

The smaller birds ignored us as we slowly advanced towards one of those larger openings.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 16, 2007)

So anyway, we made it past all those nests of the smaller birds to get to one of those cave openings we saw on the other side of the opening.  It was pretty clear to us once we got in there that it was where those bigger birds nested.  That one we had hurt back on the road was laid up in one of the five big nests in the room we came into.  A quick thrust of my rapier put it out of its misery soon enough.  

We saw that the two openings to this chamber from that bigger nesting room joined up just inside the room...still didn't know about where that other opening led though.  

Not that it mattered much at the time though, 'cause right after we entered the big birds' room, two kobolds came walking out from a tunnel on the far side of the room.  They took one look at us and took off running down that tunnel before we could do anything about it.  Something about a seven foot plus half orc wielding a great sword and a dwarf with a big giant hammer must have put a fright into them or something. 

Yeah, so we took off after them as quick as we could, though that wasn't as quick as we might have liked.  The good things about kobolds is they're small and easy to waste...the bad thing is that they're small and live in places with small tunnels.  Squeezing my five and a half foot self through those tunnels was hard enough...imagine the trouble Ortuk had getting through them.  

By the time we made it into the next chamber, those two kobolds had become four, and they were ready for us with their slings and darts.  Luckily their aim stunk; unluckily, the big guy made his way across the room in a charge of fury only to fall into the pit trap in the middle of the room.  Naturally, he would also have to deal with the big spider that made its home down there.  

While Ortuk dealt with that little problem he "stepped" into, the rest of us did our best to take out those little dudes on the other side of the room.  Didn't take us too long to take out three and send the other running.  Sticking to our basic plan, we followed up, stopping only long enough to drag the big guy out of that pit.  

After a bit of hurried pursuit and a few wrong turns, we split up at a fork, and my crew came into the main chamber of this little group of kobolds.  They must've had some bad luck recently, cause there were only about half a dozen of the males and and equal number of women kobolds in there.  The ladies hung back and threw rocks at us while the guys came at us with spears.  They gave us more trouble than you might think...our aim turned out to be as bad as theirs.  

Not too long into our little fight, the other half of our group came out around a bend in the room and was right away attacked by the leader of this little bunch...a kobold who could fly. Yes, that's what I said...

I only saw the tail end of him, cause by the time we had offed the adult kobolds in the room, he was already swooping out down a side passage after figuring out we weren't a group to be messed with.  Kind of strange seeing a kobold with big bat wings flying away from you, but there you go.  

Satisfied that we had helped rid the world of this little clan of bandits after looking through all the side tunnels of their lair, we made our way out and back to the road to the city.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 19, 2007)

*Too many halflings spoils the pot*

Dealing with one was OK.  Dealing with two would be difficult, but possible.  But dealing with half a dozen on top of the braggart we drag with us to begin with?  Inconceivable!

Never mind, I'll let him tell it...


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 23, 2007)

Oh, yeah baby!  That's what I'm talkin' about!  Not just one lovely lass, but two, two fine young ladies of the halfling persuasion.  The only thing that could've been better would've been three!  

Y' see.  It all started not too long after we scooted out of Angelspire on the road north to Gillette.  Beautiful day...sun was shinin' and the birds were singin' if y' get my drift, you know, when all of a sudden we see a couple of carts sittin' on the side of the road up ahead.  

I knew straight out once we got a bit closer that they were halfling carts.  Not that it was too hard to tell...nobody except my kind or gnomes would've fit in carts of that size too comfortably over the long haul, and I know halfling gypsy carts when I see them.  

First a thing about halfling gypsies.  You see, like the bigger ones, these types go to all places in the land here in the East trying to make do with whatever talent they have...more often than not that talent is conning the locals out of their cash.  

One more thing about halfling gypsies...they have the loveliest ladies in all the realms.  I assure you that.  

As I'd soon find to my great pleasure...this group was no different.   

It was a small grouping, only seven of them.  Two middle aged ladies, one a fortune teller and the other a performer and apparent leader of the group, two younger guys, brothers, performers, and sons to the head mistress, one older guy who looked (and smelled) to be the teamster of the bunch, and the two previously mentioned younger, very lovely ladies...one a daughter of the fortune teller and the other one also a child of the head mistress. 

Let me tell you this, as soon as I laid my eyes on those two lovely lasses, I just knew one of them had to be mine...but which one?  Oooooh, the suspense of it all...I can still feel it even telling you about it now.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 26, 2007)

*Oh no...something's missing!*

I am real mad that someone took my potion! 

It was yellow, and the dwarf said it would help make me feel better if I got hurt.  Now somebody took it.  

I think it was one of them halflings.  They make me nervous because they're so small, and I think I might step on one by accident or something.  I don't think we can trust them.  Halflings are nicer than elves, but they can try to trick you sometimes.  Maybe one of them is trying to trick me.  I don't like tricks very much.  

The halflings asked us to go with them to the next city.  Because when we met them, one of them was hurt real bad.  It was the dogs that attacked them that did that too them, they said.  

They asked if we would help kill the dogs, and we did.  Those wild dogs were real easy to kill.  The halflings said they had been travelling North on the road like us, and then they were attacked by those wild mad dogs and got chased away.  

But we came along and helped kill those dogs.  I killed three of them myself with my sword.  It was easier than fighting those kobolds back at that bird-rock.  Those kobolds played tricks.  I liked fighting the dogs better.  

But now one of my potions is gone, and I want it back.  I will be real mad if one of those halflings is trying to play a trick on me.   And  the dwarf is missing something too.  He said he can't find one of his flasks of oil.  We went to sleep on the beds in the halfling wagon that none of them sleep in and my potion was gone the next morning.  And the dwarf's oil was gone then too.  

Somebody who took my potion better get it back real soon.  I don't want to get too mad about it.  But I will if they don't give it back.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 26, 2007)

If the half-orc says one more thing about that stupid $#%^$#* potion, I'm going to slap him silly, and I don't care that he can probably rip my legs off.  I'll slap him silly anyway.  

"_Where's my potion?  Who took my potion?  What happened to my yellow potion?  Hey, Amaali, did you see my yellow potion?_"  

Yeah, I'll give you a yellow potion all right, Ortuk.  Just hand me that empty flask over there and about twenty seconds behind that tree, and I'll have your yellow potion back, you big ape.

If I find out that one of those halflings took it, I'm going to beat them repeatedly with a wet noodle just for making me listen to that half-orc for the last 2 days.  

We confronted them about it, sure enough, but denials all around, as you might expect.  And those halfling women have our little dude man so wrapped around their little fingers that there was no arguement from him of course.  I will admit at least that they've been fairly pleasant company along the way.  That little guy, Rondo, can sure whip out a tune, and that fortune teller, Alana, she pegged down a lot about me right off the bat when I asked her to read my cards the other night.  You'd think she could read my mind or something.  

Still, something doesn't quite shake out right here.  First the half-orc's stupid potion and then the dwarf's oil flask went missing.  Then, the next night, I swear to the heavens that I saw something or someone looking at me when I woke up in the middle of the night in that wagon they've been letting us sleep in.  

I don't care if the nights have gotten a bit colder this week...I'm sleeping outside in the tent from here on out.  

At least we're almost to the town that those halflings were looking to get to.  We can ditch them there and get on our merry way to finding out just what that estate is my uncle left me.  

Just one more day of halfling town around here...now, how about handing me that flask over there...


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Sep 30, 2007)

I find it hard to comprehend how insane this entire expedition has become.  As if fighting dead people who wouldn't die, thieving wizards, and flying kobolds weren't strange enough, we had now found ourselves in the midst of a mystery involving the disapperance of several of our group's items and now regular occurences of the strangest sort such as floating objects in the wagon at night and the sighting of some kind of creature or such by Amaali as she slept in said wagon.  

Oh yes, that and we were now travelling alongside a troupe of what I suspected to be con artist halfing gypsies.  Enough already...

After a few days travelling with those random acts of mayhem, we had decided it best to avoid that spare wagon completely, relegating ourselves to sleeping in tents outside once more.  Better to face the cold of night outside than whatever odd creature was plaguing us in that wagon.  I dare say though, that I still did not fully trust all of those halflings.  I had the thought that one of them may have been plying this "possession" to his or her own advantage.  Must have been my elvish half coming through there...the full bloods are known for their suspicions of the smaller folk.  Sometimes I think those suspicions are well-founded, though the implied bigotry may not be so good.  

Whatever the case may be, it would have been nice to not have to fret over the thievery of our possessions, be it halfling or red-eyed mystery imp.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Oct 4, 2007)

No good ever comes from visitors.  That's what I say.  This little town of mine would've made it through it all just fine, thanks, without the meddling of that ragtag group of nogoodniks.  If anything, they just made it all worse for all of us...hmpf!  

Sure, Mary Ellen Mayfair might say how lucky we were to have them come through, but I know better than that.  Don't you tell this old lady that a bunch of no good halfling con artists and their strange companions, one of whom was a half orc so big and ugly I'm sure he frightened all the children and half of the adults in town, were any good for us at all.  They just should have kept going on the main road and left this little town be.  

If it weren't for those no good Schrumpins, who I'll say gladly up and left two winters back, they never would have even had a reason for coming here.  

Like I said, all this group brought to my town of Daverford was a whole heap of Trouble, with a capital T!


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Oct 8, 2007)

Denied!  Me!  The halfling mage from Tarrytown struck low by the lovely Aelena.   The lovely girl with the long brown hair, and the cute little nose, and the bright green eyes, and the way she shakes that tail end when she walks away after smacking me across the face.   She wants me...no fortune telling daughter of a fortune teller could turn down all this man has to offer.  She's just playing hard to get.


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## Raidkillsbugsdead (Oct 8, 2007)

This town is staring to give me the creeps.  I've been to a lot of weird places after scootin' out of Linshire, but something about this place just don't seem right.  

Don't get me wrong, the people are friendly enough.  We stopped at a few of the houses to find out what had happened to the buddies those halflings were looking to visit when we found their house abandoned when we came into town, and all the people who greeted us were as friendly as you would want.  

There's just some weird things about this place.  

Like the mayor-guy, or whatever you want to call him.  There's this big house I guess he lives in on a hill over the town, but you'd think no one's been living there for like fifty years.  And no one answered that door when we went knockin' to ask about those halflings and to see if we could camp out next to their old house.  

Then, we find out that the town priest has shut himself up in the "church" for the past two days along with his acolyte, and no one's heard a thing from either of them, and no one there will open the door to anyone who knocks.  

And then, there's the town guards.  A bunch of elves that seem like they stepped out of a bad elf fairy tale.  I know most of those guys can be a bit haughty, but these guys just seemed tough and mean, like the old ragged sailors on the docks back in Linshire.  Must be mad about being stuck out in a hole like this instead of patrolling the roads or serving back in Elvencourt.  

And that's not even the whole of it...


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