Games We Play

May 19, 2003

Eleven: Grab What You Can Keep

We waited for the spell casters to get in their meditation or whatever it is they do for eight hours. This is quite dull. Sitting around doing not a lot for eight hours means you have quite a few things you can do. Cards, practice and sleep were on my mind. Sure, we had just been asleep some few hours before, but sleeping on a cold stone floor, even with a bedroll to help you out, is not good sleep, and having to wake up every few hours because you think someone might be coming near, even if it is one of your not entirely trustworthy companions. I know I wouldn't entirely trust me, and I am me.

Nevermind.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

So instead of taking the more obvious route down and around to the main guard rooms, we went back into the grove and down the ramp where, before, giant ants were found. Kumar seemed reluctant, but we convinced him to go all the same. The tanned half-elf seemed quite democratic, in his strong-arm thuggish way. If I had that kind of strength, I would give democracy a little nudge in the proper direction, but in all fairness we were all still learning.

One natural tunnel became another and became a large underground room. The room itself was not natural and was dug deeper into the ground, a ladder going down from the corridor and into this room. The room itself had a central moat, but someone had filled it with sewage for whatever reason. It was probably an orc sense of humor.

Over the moat were three small wooden bridges (of the planks-nailed-together variety, as orcs have no care for craftsmanship), and in the middle were a number of crates, small and large, and a man at a desk. The desk itself was rather well-made, proving that it was stolen. Outside the moat, walking the perimeter of the room, were eight orc guards. Torches lining the room flickered slightly blue.

For the first time I recognized the orcs in armor, and these were among them, all had insignias painted on their shoulders: the one-eyed orc god Grumsch and a pair of crossed oars. Some quick checking on other, deader orcs revealed they all had these marks on their armor. Finally, our once captors had a mark, and marks can be traced for more information.

Near the base of the ladder was a large nest of rags and bits of old tapestry and other lengths of cloth. We know it was a nest because of what happened later, not because there was a sign nearby that said "nest, avoid at all cost". The rolls of dung around it were sizable, and when you are as short as I am this makes it a threat. What would pirates keep as pets that have poop as big as your feet? But none of the rest of my colleagues agreed, and we came up with a quick plan.

It must have been Sully's plan, because it was "rush them". I tried to make sure that Sully knew not to hurt the accountant at the desk, for they not only know where the money is but how much things are work, and they generally cower and whimper when the threat of blood is near. At least, this is what I was thinking, and I know it's what I would do, though I was wrong.

I never said I wasn't wrong, I just said I was better than you, Phedre.

Eventually we had to get it through to Sully by convincing his sword, Susan. Sully was tough and god-touched and I would have used a poison on him if I had to take him out, and then only a very good poison.

Our plan was admittedly more than just "rush them". Colwyn would appease his god for blessings on our lengthy vendetta. We would round the corner of the tunnel, Dane would use magics to make several of the guards sleep and Susan -- I mean Sully -- would take out the rest.

This plan got about that far. I followed Sully down the ladder, half the guards in their unnatural slumber, when a large rodent slithered out and tried to bite me. It was more snake than long rat. Yes, I know it was a weasel now. Except for stories when growing up about the weasel-in-his-pants man the touring circus had and to describe many small-time crooks and fences in Baldur's Gate, I'd never even heard of weasels let alone seen one. So when this thing about half my height tried to bite me, I tried to hit it back. It turns out weasels are slipperier than you'd think.

The accountant went to hiding as the rest of the orcs put crates between them and us (and Sully, mostly) and took shots with crossbows. This was not a problem until another weasel snaked out of its nest and bit the half-orc on the thigh. When those things bite, they do not let go, and the roar he let out made it sound like it hurt.

Colwyn made it down to go put some healing on Sully. Oh, "put some healing on" means that the dwarf was going to do a little in the way of magic. I know you're new and from Cormyr, Phedre, but do try to keep up with slang, okay? Anyhow, a third weasel got him, as well.

It was when Sully was distracted with his weasel that he found out the accountant had the typical accountant skill of stabbing one in the back. I would like to say that became one quickly dead accountant, but he didn't. He was quick and vicious with the dagger and took some doing to get him to stop moving.

We were all rather hurt, whether by weasel or by other unfortunate means. There was one large weasel still asleep in the nest (isn't that always the case, you sleep through all the excitement) but Dane made him nice and dead. No more orcs, no more accountant, and no more damn rodents. There was just sewage, crates, and us.

And the crates. This was quite a find, and I won't bore you with the inventory list, mostly because my memory isn't that good and I forgot to mention that Colwyn, attempting to bind his own wounds, knocked himself completely out. I don't know anything about the whole priest-in-a-poke business, but I do know that you shouldn't try to tie anything around your arm when you're still bleeding severely from a case of giant weasel.

The notes at the desk included shipping reports, rudimentary invoicing (you know, "X bought 10 human males for so much money"), a map of the entire pirate island chain and the export patterns from this island, the main drop-off for the slaves, and the rest of the islands. This was also quite a find.

It was Nosmo's idea to remove our arrows and put in their crossbow bolts into the dead orcs, putting blood on their swords, so it looked like something insane had happened here. Something insane did happen, but we wanted to make it look like something else happened.

Some replacement guards, four orcs, came in from a door at the far end of the hall. It was locked, but they had a key. Dane put them to sleep and we quickly killed them, adding them to the fray. After this point, we destroyed the lock and I set up a quick little trap, just enough to be a loud deterrent.

Sully and Dane carried him back to the holy tool shed while the rest of us carefully went through the crates. Yeah, you didn't think I was going to leave you hanging, did you?

There was gold, there was silver, there was leaded glass, there were clockwork toys, there were bad eggs, there was a clock, and there was a necklace and earrings that Nosmo and I agreed to share between ourselves. Just because I wouldn't backstab my business partners in normal circumstances doesn't mean I wouldn't be glad for a little extra cash. Be greedy, just not too greedy. When you become too greedy, it's worth doing it right and becoming the top dog.

We carried the smaller crates and chests, which had the better stuff in it anyhow, back to the shed and rested. Sure, it'd been only a few hours since we were here last, but as we were bleeding all over the place we thought it'd be a good idea to stop said bleeding. I didn't have a problem with that.

On one of our trips, we ran into a puddle of green that was slowly moving and bubbling. Nosmo shrieked and threw his torch on it. It went nicely up in flames and we tip-toed past.

On our last trip, we heard the rapid-fire sound of someone running, then the louder sound of some quite larger people running after. We tried to make the ramp, but the escaped slave caught up with us. He thought he was trapped (he may have been) and gibbered that big uglies were following. Nosmo suggested knocking the kid out before he gave away where we were, one of the smartest suggestions I heard from the boy.

Instead, Kumar picked him up (he wasn't carrying anything, anyway) and hid in the grove with him while the rest of us fled. The half-elf said two huge orcs, with orange skin and a stare not unlike that of the droolingly stupid, came out, sniffed around and plucked the kid out from next to him without giving him a glance. With that, they dragged the kid back down into the tunnels below and Kumar returned to us in the shed to rest.

Yes, I think it was perfectly fine to leave the kid. He wasn't our responsibility, the things looking for him were huge and we were very hurt. The kid was an escaped prisoner, and though we were here for revenge we weren't here to tell them how to do their business.

Though we were here only a few hours before, it was nice to be back. My bedroll got some more bloodstains on it, but on the whole we all rested well.

It was morning when we were pulled together. Colwyn prayed, Dane and Nosmo read from their books and the rest of us kicked around until I had another good idea. We were planning on taking our new goods (which were worth quite a bit) and returning to the mainland for supplies and a little enjoyment, but I thought it might be a good idea to make sure our boat was still there. This idea was received with some mocking, but it turned out to be a good idea after all.

Kumar and I went to look, each trying to show each other off with our skill. Though I was better at remaining still and unseen, he was the one who saw the boat was missing first, and the first to see the line in the grass that lead up to the hidden stable doors. Neither of us thought about throwing open the stable doors to see where our longboat had gotten to since we were smarter than that. We returned to the shed and reported our findings to others.

On our way back, we ran into a patrol of two orcs. They were surprised, we were surprised, and if it wasn't for Kumar distracting them (by pointing to the side and yelling, "Look!") we may have been overrun. Their distraction meant we could rush them instead. Putting their bodies in the slight and murky moat involved some jumping up and down on their corpses, but better than people finding them just laying around.

Whenever you can, always dispose of the bodies.

With the rest of our business group, we made our way cautiously to the stables and heard the voices coming from it. Someone was talking to their "Lord" and about intruders. This didn't take much intelligence, as we've been picking them off for at least five days. Kumar looked quickly around the corner and saw about ten orcs, three half-orcs and one human in long fur-trimmed robes.

Though not easy pickings, we knew the orcs were and one of the half-orcs had to be a priest. The human, the Lord, would make a good target for our aggressions. So our plan was simple, "rush them".

They were rather surprised, especially the Lord who Kumar reached and made a swipe at, though it glanced off the merchant's robes. I, on the other hand, tried to take out one of the two half-orcs closest to us, thinking they were the priests. I was wrong and the one near the Lord who was speaking was the priest, but I did distract the two from taking out Kumar and, shortly later, Sully as he breezed past to take on the Lord as well. Our anger was clear.

Dane took down most of the orcs with his sleeping magic and Nosmo harassed the half-orc priest with magic missiles, though Colwyn helped keep the caster from getting too many spells off. You see, if you jostle a wizard while they're waving their hands around they might mess up a word and fail the whole spell.

It wasn't a plan, but it was working.

The priest did get one spell off which had words of shame ring in our ears until it hurt, but this was a brief distraction. The Lord was giving both Kumar and Sully a hard time. I was busy with the remaining half-orc, the other felled by a helpful magic bolt from Nosmo. Things went south at this point when the Lord, hard to hit and impossible to kill, fought the two strongest to a standstill. He took out a metal ball and hit Kumar with it, leather straps exploding from it and wrapping him up. The priest managed to cast another spell and Sully and I were held fast, unable to move.

The Lord commanded that we be taken alive if possible, and for a moment it was looking possible.

Nosmo filled the priest with as many bolts of magic as he could, even sacrificing a copy of the spell from his book (I had not known this was possible) for the killing blow. The hold over us faded as I felt the bite of steel across my arm, tearing across the armor pocket with my Number Nine hook-latch tool in it. You remember these sorts of things, because I collapsed and fell unconscious.

All was dark for a very long time, and for a moment I thought I saw some kind of halfling village in a dream, but couldn't move to it or away from it. When I came to we were still in the stables and Dane was pouring some minty liquid down my throat. I didn't feel good, but at least I was alive and the others filled me in.

Kumar broke free from the bonds of his prison right before the priest was killed and was felled by the Lord, who had a longsword somehow concealed under his robes. But Sully, freed, quickly hit the snake-quick human and took him down as well.

Dane, thinking a little too late for me, bribed the half-orc fighting me to attack the Lord for a not-trivial pile of gold. He agreed to at least stop fighting for it, and revealed there was poison on his sword that would probably kill me in minutes.

Colwyn used magic to not harm but keep me from dying. Dane used the last of our expensive pearls to aide him in identifying some unknown potions. Lady Luck smiled on me that day, perhaps in the dream as well, as the first unknown potion was designed to cure any poisons anywhere, and this was what I woke up choking down, but still feeling like a walking bruise.

The half-orc's name was V'roc and he was more coherent than Sully. I'm not sure, but I think Sully was jealous. After being promised another five hundred gold coins to join us in helping him leave the island he was willing to talk. We had been not exactly discovered but a few orcs knew we were here, but they were all dead now. The shape-shifters were working with the orcs. The Lord we killed was in the hierarchy of the people funding this entire operation, though not very high up. The big orange orcs were called "ogrillions" or "orogs" and were so tough they didn't need a weapon, though I suspect they wouldn't know what to do with one if they got it.

He didn't like the holy tool shed, calling it the room guards were made to stand in if they were being punished or if the undead were acting up. Still, this is where we went to wait closer to midnight when we could load the longboat and flee the island.

Sometime during the wait, when V'roc was asleep, I poisoned him with the poison on his sword and he died. I wasn't going to lose a thousand gold to this faithless mercenary, and I was still upset at being poisoned and almost dying myself.

We quickly loaded up the longboat, pulled it out to the ocean (magically silencing the area so we couldn't be heard) and met our waiting boat and who complained about how long we were gone until they heard the sound of money in the chests. The sound of money quells many angers and buys good allies.

Posted by jenkins at 4:01 PM

May 9, 2003

Ten: Death Can't Keep a Bad Man Down

Okay, two of you now have asked me about my apparent atheism. That you even know this word means someone's either been filling your heads with garbage or that you've been getting some real training. I think it's a fluke, myself. An atheist is someone who doesn't worship any gods, which is plainly stupid because that's like not wanting a boat when you're stuck in the middle of the ocean. What I didn't do was pander to them like they were going to be there whenever I was in trouble. You can't go around believing that kind of thing because the world just lets you down, unless you're a priest. I'm not a priest.

Yes, Yeimii has a good point. I ended up here just to torture the lot of you. Now I'm going to continue and no more gods talk.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

Not much more gods talk, at least. There was something comforting about sleeping in the guard shed with all the holy symbols around it, not because of any mystical aura of peace or comfort but because we knew it was safe. I was finally getting the idea of the shape of things and the more we wandered the more it became apparent; this wasn't for keeping people out of the keep but from keeping the inhabitants of this part of the keep from getting into the rest of it. This might explain why they hadn't sent any guards to replace the three that were here when we first arrived. Why throw more orcs after dead? Lucky us, in any case.

After resting, we finally decided to head upwards to check out the second floor, though it looked mostly ruined from the outside. In fact, because it looked ruined from the outside it had to have been a better choice than descending into a nest, for instance, of giant ants, but all we found was a route over some of the rubble. The first second-floor room we came upon was missing its floor and the floor beneath it, opening well into the basement. Someone had set a plank across the gap. Normally, you avoid such obvious traps but Dane said it was stable. I don't know why a wood-elf would know, though he said his master kept a gnome prisoner. I certainly don't want to imagine what kinds of "favors" were done for this exchange of knowledge.

At the other end of this plank were stairs back down, and this was the end of our exploring the second floor. However, it did bring us to a door that was not trapped and not locked. In fact, it was barely even a door, charred so thin that it fell over instead of opening. The room inside was similar, blackened, charred and stinking like an orc's dead grandmother. There are some problems with living in a land of you giants, and one is that smells tend to linger lower, so I was busy adding a little color to the room as the others spread out.

At least I was near the door when Sully found the box. It was a nice box in this wrecked room, which was quite odd. Dane was saying something about motion from above when it became motion from right on top of Sully.

There were, at first, five dirty and wild-eyed humans jumping from the ledge above us, but they became four as one landed on a sharp rubble. Why do people keep demanding on being heroic and leaping dramatically? Is it the stories that bards tell about the deeds of heros? Let me tell you all that it never works out the way you think it will. If you have to get quickly down from above, use a ladder or a rope or even someone else. Oh, and jumping onto a horse is about the same, except you bounce painfully off a horse on your way to the ground. Just don't do it, right? Right.

The humans looked like they hadn't eaten in weeks, living in this little room, hiding from the pirates. The one that landed right on Sully started trying to bite into his shoulder. Maybe even a meal of half-orc was better than nothing. But after a moment, even as Sully tried to scrape her off with his sword Susan, he stopped moving. That's when she started tearing into his arm.

The rest of us were now quite avidly trying not to be scratched. Whatever poison was under their nails, we didn't want find out. Colwyn, then, tried to make these people go away by declaring he was a Priest of Hoar and that the vengeance should be respected. Well, yeah, apparently this is one of the ways that priests try to make the undead respect their presence and flee or, sometimes, to do what they're told. Gods can be pretty clever sometimes.

So these were some of the undead. One who kept trying to tear off my head with his long-nailed hands, but I could stay out of reach even with a hand over my mouth to keep the smell, his smell, from completely knocking me on my ass. It is almost impossible to do this and swing any kind of blade effectively, however. Everyone else was competent in taking out the undead creepy-crawlies. Eventually, Sully started moving again.

We did mess with him a little, first.

Kumar had to pull the chains off the box, stretching the links and marring the box quite a bit, but we just used it for kindling later. There was, inside, a smaller box, a bottle, some money and a fine change of clothes that Nosmo claimed. The boy, we were finding out, was a greedy little cuss. I don't mind greedy little cusses, but he was greedy and clever and good with magic which meant he was dangerous. No less dangerous than the rest of us, perhaps. Hells, I think I was the least dangerous of the whole group. Nothing I didn't fix, later.

The small box was trapped with whatever poison these undead had under their claws, and I got the experience of not moving for a while. They did mess with me for a little, first. Oh yeah, it had an extremely expensive necklace in it.

Kumar made sure the other door out of this room was not trapped, which he did by falling through it. I don't know if that was an intentional effect of the door or not, but none of the dead undead around us looked capable of doing much more than chewing on the occasional orc.

The corridor on the other side eventually lead us to a trap. We knew it was a trap because it was on our side, at halfling-height, leading right to the door handle. If someone was unfortunate enough to tug the door open, a rope would pull a pin which would release a board, bent back and covered in spikes, making whomever opened the door feel very unfortunate. It was no challenge to cut the rope, but we all felt better about it. I did not want a face full of spike.

The other side of the door was a small room that something seemed to like to live in, something leaving large piles of quite smelly dung. Something called "Bad Boy", or that's what was painted on the door. "Bad Boy! Stay!" So the trap was for whatever was using this room. It didn't take a wizard to realize this smaller room opened into what Nosmo was calling the Dog Pen.

We quickly left and reset the trap. We were not fools. Yes, Umak, we were afraid. If you were there and you were us, you would be too. Yes, we know how large and bold you are, now it's your turn to go get me the next drink, but don't use the corner cantina; we've hit them once already today. When faced with the idea of being turned to stone, you all would take the smart way out too.

Nosmo was proving to be more insistent than even Umak, though. While we know Umak would have volunteered to go in and skulk around, Nosmo wanted Kumar to do all the difficult work. Kumar, see, was almost as big as Umak and the points in his ears often unnerved people. Half-elves shouldn't be allowed to be that brutish, but he was. A true intimidator-class troublemaker, Kumar, so his size was what Nosmo was hoping to use against whatever creature was down in the pit.

We did return to the charred room and Kumar did crawl up to the roof from there, just to check things out. What he saw was almost more disturbing than a stone-cold killer in the courtyard. On the battlements around the walls of the keep were orcish guards, keeping an eye out to sea. We had the fates on our side, even if our way was difficult. It was easier to pick off some little things here and there than to be rushed by the entire population of the rest of the keep. Our portion of the keep was otherwise unpopulated, except for the holy garden shed and now-charred stables, and that meant we had a tactical advantage. You look for these advantages wherever you can.

Down in the Dog Pen was a multi-legged lizard, larger than several of us standing together. Kumar, wisely, would not jump down and try to give it a good stab between its shoulder blades or through the head. I could not get the image out of my head of Kumar trying and landing poorly, his kneecap flying off and into the shadows.

Nosmo was still sulking as we returned to our portion of the keep and through the only door we haven't looked through, the only door we hoped would not lead out into the face of a giant six-legged iguana. What we found was a small burial room, a well-preserved, elder man on a table, somewhat recent flowers surrounding his head. Maybe this was the old founder of this keep, the man without whom pirates could not have gained a foothold in this far-away portion of the sea. A man who Sully stabbed Susan right into.

Sully was clearly picking up some of Nosmo's insanity, or so it seemed. When the corpse sat up, surprised and in pain, we swung whatever we could at it. This place was just lousy with the undead. Later, Sully said, "Susan didn't like him." Yes, it was time to start making my way to the rear of the group.

There was a small sub-room hanging off this one, but with nothing more exciting than a spare robe and a door into the Dog Pen. This left us with one way to go: Down. Like Umak's standing, now that he's just returning. What, did you go all the way to the fourth quarter to get this?

Down was a system of rough tunnels. They weren't flooded, and I wondered if there wasn't some magic involved. There were also some smaller tunnels, rounder than the rest, about the right size for a young halfling or a large ant. We didn't go this way. The way we did go was a small cavern with several small pits around a central ladder leading up to a trap door. Kumar volunteered to go up first and take a quiet look around, even in spite of the cut rung near the top that nearly toppled him back to the floor and on his ass.

He said that the door was covered by a rug, which was a smart way to hide a door in the floor. He went up, though, with Sully close behind, waiting when the half-elf said there were a pair of guards in a long room of prisoners. He said this quietly, and tried to quietly sneak up on them, but even I, waiting nearly at the bottom of the ladder, heard him trip and scrape the tip of his sword against the stone floor abve.

Sully just sat there until prodded into action. For all his speed and deadliness, he isn't always bright. By the time we all were off the ladder and into this prison room, one of the half-orc guards was dead and the other looked quite worried. The ten orc prisoners weren't cheering or even looking worried. They looked patient, expecting, and that should have warned us that something was wrong. Though they were chained to the wall, once the other guard was dead they easily pulled out of their manacles and drew the small swords that were hidden in their bedding.

This may have been one of the stranger barracks. Fortunately, after a few days of fighting orcs you pick up their weakest points and even even the smallest man can cut them down.

We grabbed their more expensive supplies and made our way quickly back to the holy tool-shed. I didn't really want to do this, but when a spell-caster shoots his wad, you'll find, they'll go around whining like they're naked in a field of fire-ants. Still, we went back so they could get some rest and we could hopefully maintain our tactical advantage. At least mages are good for that.

Posted by jenkins at 3:58 PM

April 25, 2003

Nine: Keep Off the Grass

There are times, or will be, or would have been maybe I should say, where everyone works together toward a common goal. This is always preferable if the goal is one you want. If not, change the goal, or the rules, or go along and when you have an advantage, take it.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

We debated whether or not we should have gone. From the shed, Shelly. The shed at the keep. Do I have to rehash things every time we get together? I and the others, bent on revenge against the pirate slavers who captured us, had followed the directions we found in the journal of the ship we were enslaved on to this island where the slaves were dropped off. Are we good, now? Yes? Thank you.

Though it wasn't the smartest of ideas, and we were quite used to those, we decided to press on into the keep. Sully was still damp and upset from his time spent, head-first, in the shallow moat and the rest of us had scratches and bruises, even after Colwyn called upon powers to heal us. Hoar seems quite amiable toward keeping us fit, probably because we were doing her duty of vengeance. Or his. Whatever.

The first room we discovered inside the keep was a well-made set of doors, wood and metal with a lattice letting us peer inside. Though there were torches along the walls of the keep, which was not a comforting thought, there was none in the open courtyard beyond the doors. We could see trees and grass, some kind of orchard.

The door, for some reason, was trapped. It was trapped badly, fortunately, with nails peeking out of the wood, arranged up and down the edge of the doors. Should some brute try to bust the doors in, they would not only get a shoulder filled with old nails but with whatever tipped them, as well.

We bypassed the door for the time being, as I had not the tools to hammer the nails back into the door and not the skill to overcome the rusty padlock. Again troubling, the padlock was on our side.

The hallway went quite a ways, down the edge of the courtyard we couldn't enter. We checked out a door near the hall's far end and, in the usual process of my looking for traps, all the lichen on the wall beside me turned to stone. Now that I come to tell you kids, I think it was probably the intended purpose of the trap I found, though I found it the hard way. The trap wasn't against us, I think, but what was inside the room. A trap against violent plants.

We did get inside the room which had nothing much more than stairs up and a rather large pile of dirty, sticky rags. The rags had a sickly-sweet scent to them and more than its share of flies.

While we debated whether to head upwards (these kinds of discussions go on far too often without a proper leader), Dane poked at the pile with an arrow. Then the pile attacked, throwing out a sticky something, something like a frog's tongue, and then another, hitting Dane square in the chest and sticking to him.

Unpleasant surprises are usual in a hostile place, but this isn't one I expected. As the seconds rolled by, we trying to hit it and it not moving from under the rags, more of these tendrils lashed out and attached itself to more of us, oozing out something that stung and burnt at the same time, as well as leaving an unsavory mark on my armor. Nosmo, between struggling against the thing and throwing magic missiles into it, must have known what the feeling was because he cried out that we could rub chalk on it. If any of you are in the middle of combat and remember that chalk is good against acid then you're probably not panicking quite enough.

Eventually it was dead, almost us all stuck to the thing and we eventually discovered that it was a plant. See, a trap against violent plants would not have been a bad idea. Dane, scolded by the rest of us, was eager to make some good out of this so he went to get some of the stoneworking tools found back in the shed and he and some of the others hacked the thing apart to get at the gooey acidy center. Dane certainly had the Goddess of Luck on his side, for there were, in fact, many shiny items of precious metal, including a ring, and some gems worth quite their fair share. This was, of course, more money than we've seen since selling off precious pirate artifacts on the boat back to Baldur's Gate.

Badly hurt (again, even with Colwyn's assistance), we fled to the stonecutter's shed, or the shed of holy symbols, and prepared to sleep. We did give the orc guards outside a decent burial, dumping them in the moat and jumping up and down on the bodies until they could not be seen. It was, at least, a better burial than they deserved.

That night, we all had nearly the same dream. Sully even drifted off to sleep during his watch; I suppose the collective power of so many consecrated holy symbols in one place gave them the power to do whatever it is they want to the people within. Minor henchmen of deities I did not particularly remember came and told me things I don't clearly remember. This isn't because I'm old but because that's how the dream was. Maybe gods like to keep some mystery, or maybe I'm not devout enough to have that privilege. Whatever the case, at least the higher beings in my dream were halflings. Maybe they were in Sully's dream, too, as that would explain his reluctance to talk, but he really didn't like the gods anyway so it could have been anyone.

All of us learned something that night, depending on what we did. It was as though the gods were whispering instructions straight into our memories, letting us know things we were ready to hear. We all came out of it better than before. I decided about then I'd been too harsh on the gods, though I wasn't ready to worship just one. After all, asking things from as many gods as possible keeps your options open.

We got the door to the orchard open the next day, or I should say night as we were doing all our sneaking around in as much darkness as we could afford. The torches along the halls were lit, either again or still we didn't know, but there was still no light in the orchard beyond.

There was just enough light from the stars to see the path, the scraggly bushes and the black fruits on the trees. We debated for far too long about the significance of a locked and trapped orchard having black fruit on its unkempt trees, but fortunately down the path was something more interesting: a mausoleum.

The door wasn't locked but it did make a hideously loud screeching noise. There was no light below, though, so I went off to grab some torches.

While I was away, Dane made some light, everyone saw giant ants, which were blinded, burnt and, in one case from Kumar, thrown at one another. I missed the excitement on my return, but it wasn't excitement I was disappointed in missing. We opted not to go down until we finished taking a look around the corridors we would have left behind us.

We went all the way around past the plant room to a door that smelled faintly of manure. The stables? Yes, very good, the stables, complete with overturned card table and guys with bows shooting at us. In such an action, it's always good to let the more physical people go first.

They weren't carrying anything else impressive, though as Dane scanned the room for items of useful magic he sensed one in the hayloft. It's clear the hay hasn't been renewed for years, but there were plenty of places to hide. When the item started to move, he summoned a ball of heat and threw it up into the loft, which quickly caught on fire. If this boy was exiled from his tribe or group or whatever, now we knew why.

There was, in this stable, a large pair of doors leading out, covered by a field of magic. I had been cautious about it, in part because it could have been a trap and in part we didn't see any large doors on the back of the keep, but now we had an urgent need to leave. Most of us, anyway. There was the sound of a woman in the loft which sent Nosmo up there like a shot to rescue the damsel in distress. It actually was a damsel in distress, and a naked damsel, too. Nosmo said, "She's mine", and started calling her Maria, even before he could usher her down the ladder and out of the room. The bag she was holding, though, was on fire and the boy had a few seconds to collect the goods (one of them was our precious magic item) and flee the burning room.

Outside, there was nothing but a blank wall, clearly an illusion. I took some of Dane's chalk, the chalk from earlier, and marked where the door was so we might find it again. We closed the doors to help smoke out whomever else was inside and turned our attentions to the girl.

She wasn't too attractive for a human, but at my height I have something of an angle where only some very attractive humans are interesting to look at. Sure, if you can look a woman in the eye then look /down/, that's one thing, but a naked walking torso isn't attractive. Dane gave her a cloak in exchange for her name, which was Diane and not Maria. Diane sounded like quite the twit, claiming to not know where she's from (just "the castle") or the name of the castle's guard (having a standard of red and yellow checks with a white hawk on it). It was clear she could be rescued, from the island if not from herself, and possibly returned for a reward. Nosmo clearly wanted to be the one who was her hero-figure and I think we let him play this role. The poor boy was so desperate to be laid it was at the same time amusing and disturbing. I wanted nothing of it.

She also claimed there were more than twenty men here, herding slaves into a main courtyard before shipping them off elsewhere. She knew almost nothing of the orchard but knew more of a third courtyard, which she called "icky" and "filled with statues". She also claimed to escape by seducing an orc. It turns out all this information was suspect, which is really too bad because if there were only twenty men in this entire compound then it would be an easy, if lessened, revenge.

We next discovered the "icky" courtyard, after walking clear around the side of the keep and through the holy stonecutter's shed and down the small maze of hallways. It was huge, and open to the sky so it was hard to see how large. The stench of latrine was clear, though, and even some areas near our side of the courtyard had swampy, murky spots. It also had quite a few stone statues. Upon close examination of one, we found it was rather well detailed. Remarkably detailed, as well. Either the holy stonecutters here had tools that could show every pore and dimple on the various creatures' skins, or there was something wrong. Even I, who was trained to be a security specialist in the cities, knew that overly lifelike statues meant get the six hundred and odd hells out of there quickly.

Colwyn cast a spell, at first, to see if anything nearby had unkind intents for us. Now this would have included myself. I admit that I would have cut the hamstrings of the first people who worked against us, and for all his skill I was eyeing Dane's legs, but it was Maria who attacked us, arms turning into blades. She was evidently playing us for fools all along, or at least playing Nosmo for a fool and the rest of us came along for the ride.

I meant Diane. Right.

So instead of asking what she was doing, I think everyone else decided to make her bleed first and ask questions later. She did bleed, too, though swings of her sword-arms put Kumar under right quick.

What we got when she was dead was more of a gray, mostly featureless thing. We stuffed her -- or it -- into the dangerous statue-heavy courtyard and quickly went on our way. What's worse is I don't think Nosmo was disturbed that he was trying to sleep with it.

Posted by jenkins at 3:55 PM

April 24, 2003

Eight: The Company You Keep

Where was I? Oh yes, sailing again. Or, at least, sailing and not rowing. Look, you can see where my back has freckled over from the number of times my back was burnt. Not even the cold hand of death could take these freckles off. I did have a loving tryst once with a girl who tried to count them all. No, she wasn't a gnome. If she were, she would've gone off and made a bloody freckle-counting machine or something. I would've had to untie her from the bed first, though, heh heh. Ahhhh.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

Hmm? Oh, all right. Give a man his happy memories for a moment, wont you?

In the Moonshaes we stopped at Kings Bay, the capital city in the central isle. It seemed off to me that a rag-tag boat of ruffians and us was to land at the port in the Moonshaes with the most rules against living in the alternative lifestyle. To wit, us, boys and girls. The rental sailors stayed well away from the docks. I had heard there was a halfling quarter and went to check it out. Unfortunately it was depressingly filled with the folk who make happy farmers, tinkers and tradesmen. Still, they had some pretty good ale.

It was near the middle of the night on our second night away from port when Sully heard a voice in the darkness. Now, Sully was just as theatric as any boasting half-orc, and this is how the conversation he relayed to us later sounded.

There was a voice in the darkness that called, "Stand and deliver!" This is the kind of thing an amateur says because when you're on the ocean, there's nothing to stand on. See, its supposed to mean "get off your horse, carriage or whatever and give me all your loot". So that some imbecile said it on the high seas, well, we were all smarter after a few months of pirate slavery.

Sully, or so he says, called out with, "Who called?" to which he was replied, "Your nemesis." Sully then, it is said, yelled back, "Long list." See, this is orc humor. The implication is that Sully has too many enemies to count but this very well could be any number above five and likely includes his own horse.

Actually Im being unfair. Whatever house of whatever god he was raised at got him to think. He tended to think always about cutting into things, but at least he was thinking about interesting ways to do it.

The mysterious voice in the darkness announced itself as the "Bone Baron" and ordered us to slow. This was the option instead of putting all our valuables in a rowboat and lowering it down. In retrospect we should have admitted that we had no such thing on board, but then how would we bolster our scurvy sea-dog credibility?

Sully then ordered the sailors increase speed, so faster we went. Sully had also sent someone to wake the rest of us up, possibly thinking that the more people there were the less of a chance he would be hit. This is a good strategy.

It was about this time that we all discussed things quickly and remembered that the "Bone Baron" was a long-dead but powerful sea captain. Very long dead. Rule number two for establishing yourself is to not hide behind the name of someone you're not. Not only do you look even more like an amateur but eventually someone will take offense.

What we forgot was that we were amateurs, too. I, at least, remembered this about the time the ballista hit the deck. It missed nearly everyone, but the tip was a small barrel until it hit, when it became fragments and not a small amount of oil that burst immediately into flame. We got desperate and started firing into the distance, where we thought the voice of the so-called Bone Baron to be.

Dane hit the mark not once, but twice. The jaunty rebuffs from the Baron were strained, but his lingo was good. "You cannot kill what does not live!" It turns out that you can kill what doesn't live, anyway.

By the time we got some light on the pirates deck -- the other pirates deck, anyway, the pirates that weren't us -- another ballista shot tore our mainsail to ribbons. We could at least see bone. There was bone rowing the ship, bone working the ballista, bone in the form of skeletons, the aforementioned skeletons that, while dead, could indeed be quite killed.

Thanks to the vengeance of Colwyns god, the skeletons manning the ballista were urged to flee, and flee they did right into the sea, proving you didn't have to kill the dead. We, at least, would not lose more than a sail and half our deck. At least now I knew why we were carrying a barrel of sand.

To put out the fire. You smother it. Good gods, hasn't anyone taught you how to deal with fire? What will you do if you have to come down a chimney? "Don't?" Very good, Toral, I'll have a special assignment for you later.

I finally saw the Bone Baron cowering behind a low wall, though by the number of arrows around him you would guess he'd been in clear view since he started talking. That he could be seen just meant he was more of a target. Eventually, through the mortal mans own magics, he turned into a seal and slipped into the sea, leaving his bone crew rowing without a captain. We had won; the ship was ours.

Such as it was. The boat was on fire because the skeletons, and we did take care of a few skeletons, tended to explode into flame when shattered much like the ballista that hit our deck. How convenient, a crew and a siege weapon. We had to get there before the ship went down, and getting there meant possibly upsetting the skeleton crew.

The solution of jumping was Sully's first and probably only idea. Problem was, he missed. Wearing the armor he was, he started to rapidly sink. We got a rope for Dane to hold onto (the elf shied away from armor, as magi usually do) and he dove in afterwards.

Nosmo too dove in, though I think he was trying to reach the other boat, and also disappeared beneath the waves though eventually he returned and climbed the ladder that hung down the side of the ship and was back on deck by the time Dane and Sully resurfaced. Eventually after all this tomfoolery, which you will notice I was having no part of, Nosmo simply swam to the other ship and the rest of us roped it and pulled it over.

The skeletons did not respond without their master and were easy to push overboard.

Out of the whole embarrassing ordeal we ended up with some ballista bolts, including a few of those that exploded quite nicely, and the spell book of the false Baron. No actual gold or booty, as it were. We could not even salvage the ship, though we did move far enough away that it did not catch us on fire.

Much of the next day was in repairing the mainsail and making our way to the last, westernmost port in the Moonshaes, a dirty, nervous little port on the isle of Flamsterd. The port was so small and uninteresting that I cant remember the name. One of the largest attractions, however, was a shrine to Umberlee, the cruel goddess of the sea. Everyone pitched in something of value, though in the case of the crew they seemed to have more of value than us. It is always good to try to get on the good side of an angry goddess.

When we left, we left the rest of civilization behind and headed toward truly lawless waters. There was supposed to be an elvish land out here somewhere, but thankfully we didn't run into it. Instead, with the knowledge of Rokellen and Nosmo, the notes left by our original captors and an expensive nautical device helped keep us on course to Gull Rocks, the drop-off point of the orc-and-human pirates that roamed these waters.

There were a lot of gulls when we finally saw the island, and one rock sticking up as a hill in the middle, but the same can be said for nearly every bit of land in the ocean. It was a small island, little more than the hill and a dock and a worn-down fort at the top.

From our vantage point we came up with a quick plan: We, those who were suicidal enough to want to come here, would row ashore and do some basic reconnaissance. Every night a few hours after sunset, our ship would come near the back side of the keep and pick us up, if we were indeed there. This would go on for a week or thereabouts before the captain would cut his losses and return to Baldur's Gate. But as his cut was up to us, he was being very helpful in helping us come up with this plan. I don't know how he thought about working for novices, but he was being patient about it.

We landed the rowboat near the back of the island slightly after sunset, giving us some light to explore by. The island itself was flatter than I could tell from at sea and had more grass and trees (though everyone else called them shrubs) than most small ocean islands. It also had, around the fortress, a shallow but murky moat, easy to jump and near impossible to drown in.

At one corner of the keep was a common grave area, no doubt to have some place to raise undead from. At another was built an extended structure that came out almost to the moat and had a door of its own. We might make our way over here, but we wanted to see the gated door first. Dane leapt across the easy reach, long elf legs carrying him across only to slip on the far side and land in the murk with a loud splat.

Whatever it was that stuck its head out of the door in the corner shed soon lost its head from a sudden magical blast from Nosmo, but this only brought out more. Orcs, two then three. I was not going to risk the jump so I rounded the keep to make sure others weren't coming out the front. Sully leapt the moat to engage them, but he tripped on a root and landed head-first and went limp. This moat even I could cross with a running start, and did. Dane, already covered in the slimy water, pulled out the half-orc. Unfortunately the brigands were armed with pikes and could easily reach across the moat, though before I knew it Nosmo was on the other side with them. Perhaps he jumped without knowing they were there.

It looked, for a moment, bleak. Nosmo, with little proper training to fight, was cornered, Sully was unconscious and Colwyn was trying desperately to wind up his crossbow. But with luck and skill, not to mention a number of arrows, rocks and magic, we killed them quicker than they could react. Nosmo was rather shaken, but not a scratch on him.

Sully did lose his sword, Susan, for a moment and dove back into the murk to fetch it. Thus dirty, he simply walked the rest of the way across the moat. The rest of us jumped.

So we ended up in this room, like a gardening shed with shovels and backhoes and some stone-working tools and the walls covered in nearly every kind of god and goddess holy symbol that at least I knew. I didn't have much solid trust in gods back in those days, but even I was impressed by the collection. None of them were worth prying off the walls. I don't know anywhere I'd rather hide against undead, though, and the thought was shared among us as we faced the doors that lead deeper into the keep.

Posted by jenkins at 3:52 PM

Seven: Now You Sea Us ...

Orcs are not the most annoying and crude of species, but they do try to mimic civilization, to no real success. They might live in some large settlements, but they breed like rats anyway so who's to say they don't just fill up space, like rats. Some like the nomadic life, but some humans and most elves do, too. I've never heard of nomad halflings, but the world is bigger than even giants can understand so I wouldn't be surprised if they were out there.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

Thinking this -- about the orcs, not about halfling nomads -- that the others asked the caravan master to wait a few hours while they went to look for the nest. Rokellen and I stayed behind with the caravan on theory that someone would have to get paid for this trip in case they walked into a trap. I wasn't in the mood for walking into any.

It happened that they did walk into a trap, but it was a sorry thing little more than a pit covered with some leaves. The orcs who ambushed us took over an abandoned homestead or hunting lodge not far off the road. They built some huts for themselves and had a few small sheds and a cabin left over from the previous owner. There were basic traps (rusty knives and ancient crossbows) on the huts, which guarded nothing much but perhaps some spare weapons in case they needed them. There was a pond with a plank hanging over top, so I suppose that even orcs like having a little non-bloody fun. Though there could have been bloody fun involved in that, since the others never explored the pond. Maybe there were spikes stuck randomly in it and it could have been some kind of game of bravery to jump in and survive.

Yeah, these are the kinds of nasty things that you've got to think of when wandering through a tribal encampment.

What there wasn't was more orcs ready to rush and kill anyone coming into the camp. There were more orcs, one wounded in the cabin and killed before it could say a word; when you're waiting for ambush I guess you can strike first and ask questions later. The other was a teenaged thing hiding deeper in the cabin. It couldn't speak Common but Dane could speak Orc, possibly in case he had to explain to his enemies just how he was going to slaughter them. He was at least useful to say that they came from a larger orc village to the east by three or four days.

They brought the boy back because he surrendered, which some of you might disagree with but is the thing you do with people who surrender. If nothing else, you could sell them off later. Kumar offered him as a gift to the caravan master, which is about the same thing. Just because you follow a strict code doesn't mean you cant take advantage of people who don't. The master lost the boy in a card game in the next town.

We finally made it to the fortified trade post called the Friendly Arms Inn, a dusty and uninteresting building in the middle of practically nowhere. The people were just transient caravan crews and people who were unfortunate enough to be born and raised in this dusty crossroads along the Sword Coast, a situation similar to mine before I decided to leave and make my own fortune. Some of you didn't have choices in becoming rogues and cutthroats but most of you did. You who did know what I mean.

Now I was still a young and largely inexperienced businessman at the time, so Ill tell you all that we all make important mistakes with this little story. When we were at the Friendly Arms, I looked around the rooms of other patrons and found some nice gems. Not wanting to raise too much suspicion, I took only one -- it's obviously theft when all your moneys gone but when only a little is then it might be simple absent-mindedness. Always keep them guessing.

To be safe, I stored the gem on the caravan, where I could pick it up in the morning when we were well away. This way, if we were stopped we all could say that we had no gem on our persons, and it would be true. But caravans don't always unload their goods and pick up the new goods for a return trip. No, instead they sometimes trade entire wagons, probably with those from the same trading coster. This is what happened, and my newfound gem and I parted ways as it went further south with the wagons we were in the day before.

Kumar gambled quite a bit of coin from other caravan masters and Colwyn nearly caught himself a social disease. Social disease, boy. You know, the rockets, unfriendly itch, guests in your breeches, an unwanted gift down below. Good goods, spotted dick. Yes! May I please continue?

Around midmorning, Kumar realized the caravan master didn't have the orc we gave him, which only disappointed Sully and Dane who wanted the creature to make a mistake so they could pull his arms and legs off. Instead, the master lost the boy in a poker game. The wheel of civilization turns, and everything turns out for the best.

The trip back to Baldurs Gate was uneventful. Sully and Dane amused themselves by trying to guess where we were ambushed and talked boasts about going to find the main village and causing more pain to orcs. This stopped when we saw the site, difficult to miss with the remains of bloodstains and trampled wheat. I don't know what it is about some who need to gloat and brag about the times they've died, or come close. I've done both with these people more times than I care to remember and all it has ultimately done is bring me here. Lucky for you lot, isn't it.

Isn't it? A little louder from the back, there. Good, good, that's what I like to hear.

No new jobs awaited us back in Baldurs Gate, but none of us were surprised. Dane went out and about to find someone more experienced to tell us about some of the mysterious magical items wed found. Normally this would be a job for Nosmo and Dane himself, but their record for success was not high at all and we all felt better paying someone off. We still had some sizable pearls, the main component for such a feat, so the rest was relatively inexpensive. We did not have a lot of money as it was, but it ended up being good for all of us to spend what little we did.

Afterwards we broached the subject of the ocean, again. The brutes of the business were eager to go out and knock the heads of anyone together, especially the slavers who captured us, and we did have the accurate location of one of the slaver ports but we didn't have what was most important, a boat and a crew. Nor could we afford such things.

Fortunately it was the Thieves Guild who gave us the means to fulfill our plan. At the mere risk of transport, we would give the Thieves Guild two full shares of anything we brought back with us, which would supposedly be shared more or less fairly to the crew. Rokellen, much to our surprise, was adept at navigation. He was a quiet sort, much like the dead he was charged to help pass to their just rewards, and we didn't know a whole lot about him. He had held onto some of the navigation tools from the shipwreck of our captors ship when it dashed on the rocks almost a month before. I was a little upset, as those tools could fetch a good price, but it also meant the Guild did not have a chance to fleece us for more shares for rental of more supplies.

I did not, by any means, want to go. We had just survived the ocean once, but if I were to repay my monetary debt to these people I had to participate and no discussion was swaying them.

"The Brethren of the Waves" was a sizable sloop of questionable age and quality. Its crew knew what they were doing, for even though the Guild did not submit to piracy lest they upset some of the Sea Kings, Baldurs Gate was a port town and its impossible to swing a dead cat without hitting a few dozen sailors. And sometimes you just want to move some goods quietly by sea without inconveniences of city taxation taking hold.

I myself found myself a cork vest in case I was dumped overboard and an oilcloth cut to fit over my head to keep off the rain, something I remember there being more than enough of out around the Moonshae islands. The sailors made fun of us for going around wearing our armor, in cases of the brutes it would drag them under without mercy, cork vest or not. I don't blame them for not riding the waves without some kind of protection, but I was glad I am both small and light.

On our second day to Mintarn, the island equivalent of Friendly Arms Inn, a sleek but small sailing vessel running the black flag infamously known as pirate colors approached us. I don't know why black except maybe it is the opposite of white, being the color, at least in civilized lands, for surrender. Black must mean something like, "You have no chance, so you might as well surrender."

Some beefy brute standing on the pointy end, the prow or whatever its called, had a similar olive-skinned look as Kumar and boomed out, "In the name of the Duke Valaa, surrender your goods!" Now the ship was such a poky little thing that I don't know where they were planning on putting the goods if we had any. If we were on a large merchantman with our hull filled with spices and food, would he just take whatever he could fit and let us go? We would never find out, though, since our own captain recognized him, paid the oceanic version of a toll (and I could hear "extra charges" for the trip adding up in my head) and the little sleek ship sailed off at speed.

When we finally made it to Mintarn, I had won most of the money back I had lost at cards the previous days. There is almost nothing to do on a boat unless you're running it, and I finally understand why sailors are so antsy to get drinking and to places like the Blushing Mermaid when they finally see land. This lot wasn't as rowdy as most, but we were only gone from land for a few days. A few days too long, if you ask me.

There we learned a little more about the pirates who picked us up, a group of new slavers from further west of the Moonshaes. These, unlike most the pirates around these parts, were mixed humans and orcs and, of course, half-orcs, which is what you get when you mix humans and orcs. Even the honest sailors were wishing for just the old pirates, these new folk being backed by some unknown power, probably someone with gobs of money stretching out their arms, but there isn't much out past the Moonshaes but more shards of rock and eventually some other continent. What I meant to say is nobody liked this new group much, so I was hoping we could drum up support from merchants and local pirates alike to deal with them, if someone isn't already doing just that. Actually I was hoping I could make it back to mainland in one piece.

The night out of Mintarn, where not even Nosmo dared try getting a disturbing social disease, we had more ocean versions of a toll, but with less gold and more blood. Late at night, on the middle watch, something started crawling over the railings. It was huge, easily eight foot tall and ugly with scales. I didn't know, at first, because like most of the others I was below trying to get some sleep, but the watchman up the main pole has a loud bell that could wake the dead. But not Dane, who needed kicking to get him awake, though he later tried to tell me he never really sleeps anyway. Elves try to pull this kind of mystic shit on you all the time.

The fight was brutal and ugly, and the large greenish seamen were as rough as any battle wed faced yet. I, fortunately, was finally not so much a target as Kumar and Sully were. Kumar, especially, was bitten and torn into, but not so badly as two of the crew who fell in a single swipe of the monsters claws. But the large desert man was eventually struck down by the seamen and remained down until Colwyn could get to him and bind up his wounds then use his divine powers to heal. Kumar stood in time to get hit by the Brethren of the Waves ballista, sending him right back down again.

He didn't die. At the time, I was thankful, because its always a pain when useful people die.

Afterwards, we had a brief ceremony for the fallen and we went back to sleep. It was getting a little easier to sleep after this excitement. You just become jaded to it after time, used to the frenzy of activity and blood. It helps if you aren't gored by some ugly giant man-thing from unknown depths.

Posted by jenkins at 3:48 PM

Six: Home is Where You Pay Off the Officials

It was good to finally get home to Baldur's Gate, to the familiar sights and smells. Dane looked ill when we got close enough to them, but that's just an atmosphere with body and experience, air that's been really lived in, air that's completely unlike the air of a farm if only because stables are eventually mucked out.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

Now I know some of you have never been to the big city, and you're just going to have to muddle through it and listen. Now that I've got you kids quiet for most of the story I'll entertain questions if they make sense. Ask me questions that don't make sense and I'll think of something entertaining for your next training. Something involving blades and pits and lemons.

So we were being led into Baldur's Gate on the ship, guided by the experts in the eddies and flows. The city must make a mint on these people, the dozens of boats coming into and out of the harbor to the sea every day. The docks look like a forest of masts on ships almost as large as the merchantman we were on. While standing on deck, impatient to get home, I easily counted sixty merchant ships.

I neglected to tell the other guests of the Gate, which was everyone else but Nosmo who was just a street rat anyhow, about what the city does to visitors. Instead of building outward of the city, which is dangerous and expensive, they discourage visitors. The Flaming Fists keep tabs on everyone and visitors can be denied entry into some quarters without the right kind of pass. Some visitors aren't even allowed out of the Adventurer's Quarter by night. My slave-ship companions were almost marked as adventurers without some fast talking and warnings from myself and Nosmo.

As dangerous as the lands outside Baldur's Gate is, adventurers could be better welcomed. Trolls, hill giants and bands of orcs and goblins infest the countryside and threaten caravans. They must, like the mercenary Flaming Fist, be important for the city's survival. Instead, this works against them, because there are so many opportunities to do whatever it is adventuring companies do there are so many adventurers. As many of you might not know, adventurers are usually not interested in their civic duties or willing to wait for reasons before acting. Sully is a perfect example of an adventurer.

I also neglected to tell my companions about the Adventurer's Quarter. There was no reason too, anyway, since these people were just folks who helped me get back to the city. I had no plans on sticking around with them as they were simply ragtag and violent tallers. Sure, they saved my life, but I also saved theirs. I was just hoping they didn't realize that of the spoils of the adventures, I had the most advantage of it. They did not forget this, which is a surprise from the minds of most of them, but they surely did forget I bartered a better price on almost all of it. It is important to know, for all of us independent businessmen, to try your very best not to get caught getting the advantage over others until it's too late for them.

The Adventurer's Quarter is one of the ways Baldur's Gate accepts their necessary burden without having to put up with them disrupting trade and little old ladies. This works in the favor of the Thieves' Guild that has a little freer reign to access the rest of the city without loincloth-wearing grunts getting in the way.

It is the Thieves' Guild that we ran into just off the docks, staring at people and signaling other members further down the way. It's a good way to get information flowing to the Guild and if there's an easy mark the collector down the street would get someone working on the guy. Pointing Dane at them to start a scruff may not have been a good idea, but I was about to fade into the background and pick up my life where the slavers so rudely interrupted it, but one of them said right to him, "You with Foley?"

Some of the others talked to the pair while Kumar confronted the collector, or at least distracted him.  I was trying to remain small, but I owed the Guild twenty gold for yearly dues. Kumar was smart enough to ask where to pay and we were directed to the Blushing Mermaid.  This is good because I'd never paid in person before and had no idea where to go. This was bad because the Mermaid was in the Adventurer's Quarter.

Okay, it looks like Makar has a question about what I've got against adventurers. This isn't too stupid a question coming from someone whose parents spent their lives walking the rim of Anuroch looking for secret caves. It's because adventurers disrupt the normal lives and laws of civilization. As a thief, you bend the rules and expectations, but this is in the dark when nobody's looking. Without us, civilization wouldn't properly work. Adventurers have their place, but that isn't in the city.

The Blushing Mermaid was even worse. Not only was it a silver just to get inside, but it was nothing more than a constant party and brothel. No wonder the Guild claimed the tavern as a place to meet. Mark my words, a lot of the time the noise keeps anyone from overhearing conversations.

Everyone came with me. Kumar remembered how much money I owed and was coming along to protect his investment and to talk with the Guild for joining up. Nosmo was interested in spending what little coin he had. Everyone else, I think, was just interested in a good honest drink except for Rokellen who just sat around looking uncomfortable.

We lost track of Nosmo almost immediately. I saw his legs push through the heavy crowd toward the rooms in the back. Kumar and I asked the bartender where to find the man for payment. The Mermaid was a good place to be obvious because if you ended up talking to someone you didn't have to talk to you could probably be found out back the next day without even a pair of breeches to keep you decent. This passes for security where hushed voices can't be had.

We were directed to a senior man named Robert near the back. Sully had disappeared and some disturbing howling noises were coming from one of the rooms up above, to the amusement of everyone else in the bar but put me off my drink. Robert gladly took my gold and answered questions from Kumar, who was not doing a very good job at asking about joining the guild without admitting to being a practicing pickpocket, but paid for a half-year's membership all the same.

The largest drawback to the Blushing Mermaid is there were no rooms to actually sleep in, at least not those that aren't rented by the hour. This probably wasn't so bad since with all the noise it'd be impossible to sleep anyway. Instead, everyone else went to a small, strict and dry inn called the Blade & Stars.

I went back to the securities group that I was apprenticed to and crashed there. Fanmar, my mentor, simply noticed I was back, which was a relief. I didn't want to answer questions, and he probably knew the answers already.

What I did next was perhaps the biggest mistake since being captured by slavers. I went down to the Blade & Stars to tell them I was quite all right. I should have stayed and disappeared into the city until they got bored and wandered off somewhere, but instead I showed up and that's when they mentioned how much of "their money" I had spent while training and traveling. I may be a thief, but I'm honest, and it was clear they needed help if they were going to stay in Baldur's Gate.  It also helps to have other targets around.  I agreed to stay with them, but only if we did not market ourselves as adventurers and if we agreed to have nothing to do with the name "the castaways".

This meant we would have to get a small office space somewhere in the city proper.  For this, we returned to the Mermaid once again, though Nosmo was going there anyhow to pick up an embarrassing disease so it was not a difficult decision. Kumar and I talked to Robert about finding some rental space and a believable and trustworthy man to watch it should we travel out of town. He got us a third floor space about large enough for one halfling to live near the Temple District.

Then we went out to look for work.

I'll make the long story short, since it is such a long story filled with quite a lot of walking around and occasionally being followed by the Flaming Fists, probably under suspicion of being adventurers. Kumar and Rokellen almost got hired on by an ancient human woman to protect her allegedly precious storefront of string and thread. Dane was desperately looking for a woman who offered to sell him a map, which right away is suspicious but that's wood elves for you.

We didn't find a job but we did find the woman. The map was a dud, leading right up to a pit of undead in the mountains to the north of Baldur's Gate. Everyone knew about it, and nobody went there. Except for Rokellen, who for the first time sounded excited. Yes, the Judge-God of the Dead, Kellemvor, believes dead things should stay dead. For once, I have to agree with the opinions of a god.

We met again that night at the Mermaid, partially out of habbit but mostly because of Nosmo's squeaky insistence. There we asked around (after the incident with the map) and were pointed in the right direction by the honorable men of the Guild. We were instructed to go talk to a man at the south merchant's gate who offered us a job as lowly guards for a caravan of rope and fabric and other inconsequencials, but it paid and we went. They even provided horses for the length of the trip.

Honest work is often not too dangerous, but by the gods is it boring. Up until the second day when an orc -- a full-blooded orc for once -- told us to give up our goods or be killed. And instead of learning in previous experiences with this situation, we went ahead and attacked, risking blood and life for what was basically somebody else's stuff. Learn from my mistakes, kids, gold can be stolen but you've only got your one life. The gods have a few more spare that can be loaned to you, but gods are fickle about that as you all well know.

At first it seemed to just be the leader and bowmen in the bushes to the side until we were hit with magical effects. No one else seemed to notice, and magi tend to be both annoying and easy pickings, so I went off by myself, on foot, through the high grass to confront the orcish spellchucker.

I don't remember a lot of what happened next. There were caltrops, nasty things but easily spotted in everything but high grass, and there was flashes of power and quite a bit of pain. When I came to, it was all over and we were all rather battered. That's when I learned that you should always negotiate a hazard portion to our agreements.

Now go away, I'm tired.

Posted by jenkins at 3:15 PM

January 21, 2003

Five: The Castaways

There are things about boats I know that no one who's not sailor should ever have to. I can't splice anything, but I know what it means. One of the things I know about boats is there is never any good food on them, ever. I know you're all thinking I'm pandering to the halfling stereotype by complaining about food but having something good to eat is how you know you're somewhere you want to be.

The food is simply another reason why I don't want to be on boats.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

Another thing about boats that I just do not like is everyone knows who and what you are unless you don't tell anyone anything. Word spreads on a boat, and at port word spreads onto a boat like bad food, cargo and rats.

I can't remember the name of the ship but I remember most of the people on board. The Small Merchant's Guild said it was a law-minded, well-armored merchant ship that made the trip between Baldur's Gate and the Moonshaes on a fairly regular basis, stopping in a mid-way point known as Mintarn. The trip took us nine days, which to me is about two weeks too long.

The captain was a surly, homely human woman with some orc in her ancestry. This actually seemed to put off Nosmo from hitting on her, but did nothing but draw Sulley's gaze throughout the voyage. He was smart enough not to do anything to her, though, or at least nothing to get himself thrown overboard. She did wear an amulet with Tyr's symbol on it, though, and nothing frightened off Sulley like a religious woman.

Her first mate was an actual priest to some god or goddess I forget the name of, but had something to do with water elements. This was only a start to the ship's magical power as they also had three magi on board, two human males and one green-tinted blue-haired web-fingered elf I was told was a "sea elf". If there's anywhere elves aren't I'll be grateful.

We made our goodbyes to Melisana and her father days ago, though he was keeping tabs on us anyway. Any good businessman will keep an eye on his investment, and we cost this one around five hundred gold. It seemed like everyone was keeping an eye on us because it wasn't more than a day on board before the purser sent someone our way asking if we were "the ones they call the Castaways".

If any of you start talking about "the Castaways", I'll break your fingers. I can hear you sniggering in the back; don't think the shadows protect you from being heard.

It didn't help that Dane Metrik was looking for a spell and saw these people as his way to get to it. He thought that he'd start with the sea-elf woman only to find himself blacklisted from even speaking to her. She kept to herself throughout the voyage, though said something to me passing in the halls to the stairs. I think it was meant as a compliment but I wasn't listening at the time. There's little an elf has to say that's of interest, and an elf woman less so. I could get started talking about drow in this regard, but I'll save that story for when you lot can afford it.

Eventually Dane did find the youngest mage amiable to an exchange of money for spells, which lead to our first discussion as an actual group. The discussion was about money and that we didn't actually have any that wasn't silverware sets and a crown. But when we got some, we decided, for the time being, that money earned by all would benefit all. I wasn't used to the vague nature of money ownership, but it made sense. If we all could benefit from getting some spells for the elf, then the elf should have some spells.

The other benefit to this is the elf then owes us all for chipping in for his spells. Loyalty through obligation is one of the best kinds of loyalty there is.

This was the time Duke Nocens came by, asking for "the Castaways". He had heard, through our historian friend Fflewdder, that we were looking to unload some a spoon or two from the Pirate King Viadel. He was, he said, something of a collector and was interested in seeing if what we had was genuine.

Sully kept trying to ruin the transaction by talking. Fortunately not even he could make the day less profitable when the Duke saw just one spoon and he just started talking from there, talking in good ways about how long he'd been trying to make just one place setting. We eventually dropped that we might have one and he was ecstatic. We then hinted that we might have eight and he was probably more excited than an eighty year-old human can hope to get.

After seeing the set and the box, the good Lord offered twelve hundred gold for the lot, on the spot, which was almost twice the value of the metal and craftsmanship itself. I didn't need to remind anyone that this is just the reason why we didn't sell it earlier; we were all seeing and thinking riches, however fleeting.

Payment was in gold and gems back in the Duke's high-priced cabin, a smart move instead of bringing the gold to us. We mentioned the crown and he laughed, saying he had two fakes already. Sully then said something that will haunt my memory forever. He said, "It might'a been a fake, but he looked pretty upset when we took it off his head."

Even so, we got the Duke to come back to look at it and authenticate its ... authenticity, though he was disappointed at the gems. Beggars can't be choosers, we said, or something like it, and we made another five hundred for the crown. This was a lot of gold for one day so, to cover all bases, we got the purser to observe and record the transaction. Few things can ruin your day faster than a good deal going sour.

Then he mentioned the mace.

There is a point where the lure of money is just sated, when one knows your luck is being pushed and it's time to back off. We, and when I say "we" I mean Kumar and I, tried to play it cool but it is hard to ask about things for long without letting your true motives be known, especially when you have people like Dane and Sully making deals harder. It was only a matter of time before Duke Nocens asked to be paid for his consulting services.

We learned some things about the mace, then sitting in Rokellen's pack, but of all the important things, I'll tell you it was named Gathering of Storm. He teased us with such prices as three thousand gold, and I briefly entertained taking it from the cleric and selling it, but by this time we were all business partners to a limited extent and you don't stab a man in the back then expect him not to stab you in the front. Besides, business is sacred. It's more binding than religion, and better for you. Upsetting gods is less hazardous than upsetting a loan agent, though not by much.

The purser was a paid-up member of the Small Businessman's Association here and there within the Moonshaes and was also happy to be paid from our now much fuller coffers to teach me some things I was curious about. In fact, several of the others took the opportunity of the voyage and increased cash flow to do the same.

In the middle of the voyage, we reached Mintarn, which wasn't as exciting as you might think. It had a half dozen whore houses, two or three dozen bars right up against the docks, and an extensive bazaar which featured little more exciting than tiny houses made from seashells and art drawn with stained sands. Dane did manage to unload some crossbows we lifted from the goblins. Rokellen and I had a few overpriced drinks and we all met back on the ship.

A few days later and we were in Baldur's Gate the usual way. Sail up to Ohm's Ford, take on a navigator and make the rest of the way up the river to the stench and racket of the Baldur's Gate docks.

It was good to be home.

Posted by jenkins at 3:12 PM

January 18, 2003

Four: Trolling for a World of Hurt

A few days ago, one of you know-it-alls came to me to challenge my telling of my instructive life history. What he said was true; Caladeer is the trade capital of the Moonshaes. The Halls of the High King are on top of the hill overlooking the city, a mile and a half long sprawling along the ridge of the hills. So that’s going to be today’s target lesson. The boy who corrected me thinks he already knows about this, so he won’t be with us for a while. At least not until his fingers heal.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

The first thing we found out about Caladeer was there were no wizards on the streets and no supply shops. Even though magic's for those weak-kneed wizards who use it, it's never bad to get an idea on the lay of the land. These wizards and their apprentices all worked for the High King up in the fortress. The others, mostly Nosmo and Dane, went out one evening being obvious about their magical interests trying to, I don't know, stir up trouble. But Caladeer was a wholesome town with hardly a cheap tavern with dwarfs falling off their stools at all hours of the day. They didn't bait anyone.

They call this kind of thing "trolling" after some kind of old fishing custom. They used to take a troll, you see, and give it a few cuts and dump it in the water waiting for the big fish to come by and take a nibble, then they'd try to catch the fish. Because it was a troll, it was like getting free bait until the thing escaped and killed everyone. I'm sure not many people used trolls but the saying must have stuck.

There was an independant businessman's council, though. It was --

It's a Thieves' Guild, girl. Now shush.

It was not too difficult to find. First we hunted down a historian to better price some of the more artistic items brought with us from the island, the one we crashed on just a few days earlier. Sully was giving me a hard time about it, but that's the way of orcs, always thinking that a thing is a thing. But when a thing has history, you can sell the history along with the thing. It's like being a bard, eh? Business is like that.

The were eventually pointed to a man named Fflewdder, a tall hawk-nosed man who we were told did some bardic work but I couldn't stand listening to him for more than a few minutes. It was our pleasure to feed him beer while he looked over one of the spoons. I'd like to have played poker with the guy, though, because he got immediately excited, going on about how it was from the Fortress of Viledel, the Pirate Prince who later tried to go legit some ninety years ago.

So we disturbed the grave of an infamous local legend and stole his son's boat, but we weren't going to tell anyone, certainly not this guy. He already knew, before we even met, that we were newcomers to the island. He didn't think anyone in Caladeer would be interested in the historical value, but he would let us know if someone did.

By the time I made it to the businessman council's headquarters, thanks to a helpful beggar, we were being called "the castaways". Dane had some trouble accepting this and, for some elf-brained reason, was trying to come up with a name like we were some kind of touring circus. We were about one dancing bear short of it, though, so I can't say I was surprised.

By the next day, even the messenger who came to fetch us was calling us "the castaways". Even a law-abiding city benefits from a criminal element, remember that.

We were asked to come down to the docks and talk with the dock master who had a job for us, such as it was. The next boat for Baldur's Gate wasn't leaving for another five days so what were we going to do? So for the not-too-paltry fee of ten gold, half now half when we returned, we agreed to take three bolts of silk up to a nearby castle owned by a Duke Blackthorne. The dock master was even kind enough to provide horses, and a pony for myself.

We packed up and set out immediately. Dane was quite bold about his knowledge of horses, but Sully only grudgingly admitted to knowing a thing or two. I think he was a stable boy, though I don't know how they kept him from frightening the horses. The rest of us knew just enough to hold on to the reins.

The ride was pretty boring until we were just going around the mountain. I'm sure the thing was called "Blackthorne Mountain" or something equally unimaginative. Sully's horse tripped on a vine and he fell right off, whatever swearing on the way down cut off by the sudden stop at the end.

Something unseen chuckled from nowhere and told us that we were being robbed, whether we wanted to be or not. I don't know if it was the idea of losing money or hitting his head on the ground, but Sully didn't like this idea. He closed his eyes and waited as the rest of us threw things at the empty air, not entirely sure anything was there at all. But Sully closed his eyes -- this is how insane half-orcs can be -- and took a swing so hard I was sure the sword would fly out of his hands. Instead there appeared a half-orc (how many of these damn things are there and how do we stop it?) with all his insides becoming his outsides. From invisible to dead in one swipe, and Sully just grinned.

He did some talking to his sword, who he named "Susan", but wouldn't explain that.

The unknown half-orc had friends, though, and a rain of crossbow bolts shot out from the nearby underbrush. A few hit Sully and took him down, but the Priest of Kellemvor, Rokellen, decided it wasn't his time yet and helped him with bandages and words of healing.

It was the magics of Nosmo, who magically shot, and Dane, who enchanted the crossbowmen to sleep, that saved us from another volley. I and then Sully went out to take care of the slumbering bowmen, goblins all. I was almost there when the saplings behind the shrubs started to shake, then parted to a large, green thing with long teeth and longer claws. It doesn't take a bard to know a troll when you see one, even if you've never seen one.

There's pretty much one thing you can do when you see a troll: Run. Until you know you can take it, you can't. They're big, strong, fast and angry, and this one probably was upset we just took out his leader and bow support. And I was the closest.

I did get some new scars cross my chest, though. Look, you can see this one cut made it to my ear. Eventually Sully limped close enough to be the new target. Him and again Nosmo's gleeful destruction eventually took the thing down, but Sully fell down from the blows, again. Nothing is better than the feeling of healing when you get in a scrap, but avoiding a scrap is better still.

We killed sleeping goblins and burnt the troll for some reason and talked for a moment about going up the trail the large creature made through the woods. Fortunately better heads prevailed (that is, mine) and we continued on our journey to the castle. We almost weren't let in because of our state, but having the silk they wanted made us guests of honor. Estate rooms and comfortable beds and food was made available to those of us who were still in pain.

The morning we all felt much better and collected our steeds and went out back to Caladeer. At the site of our fight, all the goblin corpses were gone but the half-orc remained. Not far into the woods was obviously an encampment one day and a clearing the next. I guess the goblins were being browbeaten into servitude by the half-orc and were glad to see him die. Then again, so was I.

We didn't even bother to explain to the dock master what happened. We just returned the horses, got our pay and got some rooms for the night.

Posted by jenkins at 3:08 PM

December 20, 2002

Three: Landfall

So here's the thing, when you're looking for land the first thing you do is open your eyes. Sometimes, when you're exceptionally lucky, you'll see it. It was as simple as that to find out which way to row, with little more than a pair of locked chests, some undead man’s sword and dinnerware. The plates were helpful for bailing out some of the water as we tried to get to the land on the horizon, not the land under the sea.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

It took us almost to nightfall to reach the small island. Melisana was no help, but only Sully expected her to row. Such a styleless thing never crossed my mind. She was worth more undamaged, besides.

At one end of the island we saw smoke but because of our recent encounters with creatures standing upright and wearing clothes and carrying weapons, we decided we would not go into the surprised and waiting arms of potential pirates.

Instead we plowed right into the island, narrowly missing one of those things of sharp rock right under the water. Dane may be an annoying bowman, but he makes for a decent navigator.

After dragging up the boat, we set up camp and debated how to proceed. Proceeding meant looking in the chests, which meant seeing if they were locked which meant seeing if they were trapped.

On the one hand, finding traps means you experience the deviousness of others. On the other hand, it means you're doing it first-hand. The poison didn't take hold, but it did make my arm something of a fright to see. Colwyn and his Just goddess helped there, at least.

Boxes opened, and lots of gold and silver shining bright at us, we now had to get somewhere to spend it. Also were some goggles, like a gnome might wear, and a long rabbit-lined cloak. There were some other things from the island that were passed around, mostly armor for you giants that, of course, did not fit the likes of me.

Kumar and I went to look at the nearby village in what remained of the day's waning light.

It was, quite obviously, a fishing village of no obvious threat to anyone, not even themselves. It was night and doors were closed, boats were moored or tied or whatever the hell it is you do with boats to make sure they don't go away. We picked out the church and a warehouse by their silhouettes, and guess which one we looked into. Except there weren't any windows. This only disappointed Kumar briefly before he lifted me to the thatched roof and we looked inside.

It was dark inside, pitch dark, and filled with some boxes. Now, the idea of opening crates at random and hoping there's food inside might seem a good idea until you try it. We did get some candles out of the attempt, but that's all.

Kumar and I exited again via the roof and he, for reasons I still don't understand, worked his way to the front doors. Now this village was quiet, dead quiet, everyone no doubt trying to get some sleep for the busy day in the morning leaving Kumar to play with the doors, opening them slowly so the squeak of the hinges didn't echo quite so loudly.

Inside he could not find any obvious signs of food, but true to those of us closer to the ground than you giants, I just needed to follow my nose. The crate held fish packed in salt, but it was food. We took some and fled back to the camp. The camp where there was the light and warmth of fire and the smell of cooking fish.

Now, by "cooking" I mean we were hoping we didn't get ill from fish too raw, but not so cooked that we could use it as a wooden stake. None of us meant to be living the uncertain life of adventurers and I, for one, prefer the cooking of Mrs. Helfrik's kitchens on Tramegutter Street.

So fish, cooked and salted, and sleep went a long way to erasing the pains of the last month. Pirates, gruel and the occasional beating, running from madmen and Goddess-sunk islands. The sand was soft and the fire warm. For the first time since leaving Baldur's Gate, I slept.

Yeah, now you kids get quiet. You think you're living crappy with your bug-filled mattress and, yeah, that is pretty crappy until you wake up chained to it and the ground's always moving, or you've got to sleep on cold stones near people you don't know if they're gonna kill you the minute you stop being useful. There are two things that are more important than power, and that's sleep and food.

So we all bury the booty the next day, hiding it under some brush. The island, we can now see, is a lot like the one we just left only without the hills or insane servants or hordes of pirates. After protecting our small but substantial horde, we all went to meet the villagers.

We took the boat around the side of the island. If they discovered some fish and candles missing, and they see us trekking up the beach, they might have been bright enough to put the two together. Instead, we arrived as travel-weary rowers, attracting a small crowd of women and excited children. The men and the boats were out for the day, but the elderly mayor and his priestly companion were not.

The mayor welcomed us and let us come ashore, or adock or whatever it is. His name was Barrett, the only reason I remember was this place was called Barrett's Quay. I don't know what "quay" means, but it must have something to do with "smells like fish."

What's that? It means what? Oh.

Besides the point. His priest was a priest Valken, protector of fishermen. There's a god for everything, isn't there? There's probably a god for buggering sheep, but I don't want to know what it is. He was about as nice as Barrett, though. Nice and trusting. Too trusting.

I decided then I wouldn't steal these people blind. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, that's true, but you don't do it because the other hand might very well be holding a sword. I'd be surprised if these homely and simple fishermen were led by a lion, but as they had all the information we wanted there was no sense in pushing.

They were nice enough to put us up in a hut for a few days. The widow volunteered to sleep elsewhere. They were nice enough to feed us and tell us how to get to the island of Alaorn, where Melisana was from. All we had to do was wait two days for the trade and supply ship.

We waited and I relaxed, we talked to each other almost like we were friends. Certainly acquaintances by now, people I would buy a round of drinks for every once and a while. People I'd share booty with, which we retrieved and took a closer look at. Were surprised to find that the gnomish goggles and a mace were magical. There was nothing more we could do at this point but look; the two more magically inclined, Nosmo and Dane, did not have the knowledge to eke out the nature of the magics.

The supply ship was a medium-sized galley, about the same size as the pirate ship we were all prisoners on, only it had a few masts and absolutely no oars. We practically thanked the gods right there. The first mate refused to tow our six-oared funeral boat, so I went to try to trade it with Barrett while Kumar bartered our passage.

It is, I suppose, not surprising what small fishing villages pick up that they don't need. Such as some Umberlee holy water (they could probably make their own), cooking spices and some leather armor.

Ahh, I remember the armor quite fondly. It is the kind of garment that you dream of when you are young. It was useful, filled with pockets of tools perfect for picking locks of all sizes, and it was free. Gnomish armor, really, but the previous owner had the same thoughts of it that I did. An arm was missing, as were several of the tools, but it was the second best news I had in a month. All this and a small sack of vegetables and Barrett had his own slightly used funeral boat.

All eight of us crammed into one cabin. Melisana wasn't comfortable with this, but she was too giddy to be going home to complain much. The trade ship's next port was Caladeer, her hometown, and we only had to wait two more days on the sea to get there. I stood on the deck for the thrill of doing nothing on a boat.

Caladeer was a large, sprawling town of probably a few thousand laying between a few small mountains and the ocean. No, probably a little more. Maybe around ten thousand, but it was hard to tell. Instead of clumping the buildings and people together like most human settlements, everything was spread out across the light woods and crawling up the mountain. The whole area reminded me of some halfling villages I've been to. These humans were probably smarter than most.

Melisana's father was so happy to have his daughter back that he let in all of us through the front door, even Colwyn and Sully who worried even the sailors on the trip to Caladeer. He even offered them a drink.

In his thanks, he offered us all store credit to his general-purpose stores here and there around the sprawling town and booked passage for us to King's Bay, the largest port in the Moonshaes.

By unspoken agreement, we stayed more or less together and waited for the ship to arrive.

Posted by jenkins at 2:44 PM

December 6, 2002

Two: Gods and Orcs

Outdoor living is not for the likes of me. Sometimes it's a good place to hide, and you can find some lost and pretty things, but you eventually have to get them back to civilization. Civilization is the reason to live. Civilization is the last thing we found on the sad, brief existence of the island.

(The following journal is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

Knowing how close we were to the main Moonshae islands did not help finding our way off this one. There could have been a grove of druids around the next hill or the whole island could have been on the back of a giant sea turtle who was just taking a ten-year nap. We could have been on the mainland and never known it until we started exploring.

The dwarf Colwyn, Sully and Kumar decided to go searching for other parts of the ship that was our home for so many weeks. What they found was a bit of bench and oar tied to a young human who said his name was NoSmo, a bookish sort from Baldur's Gate, taken while he was walking to his master's tower. He was grateful for the rescue though Kumar told him, in charming terms, that he could come along with us or die of starvation. I was getting the idea that Kumar was maybe some leader-in-training from his little desert village.

In all this time, the rain never let up. It went on and on, picking up as we were climbing the small hills that surrounded us. Okay, yes, except on one side where we have the sea. And don't you bardic wannabes go waxing poetic on the fresh scent of the sea. Against the rocks it smells like dead fish.

So it was rather a relief to get away from the ocean, up into the hills and among some good, honest and above all sturdy scrub and rocks.

After less than an hour of searching, we heard the unmistakable sounds of people in disagreement, the sorts of disagreement where people hit each other with metal. Dane said they were orcish cries. I wouldn't pass up the chance to watch orcs getting a thrashing, so we went to carefully look into a dry, rocky ravine over the next ridge.

Orcs there were, orcs and humans, brigands all, fighting along one another against an equally mercantile band of goblins. They had the same unshaven and wary look of the pirates who originally captured us. At least a similar breed, all fighting one another. We were quite content to sit and watch.

Off to one side, bound and unconscious, was an old man. The orc and human side was clearly protecting him and, from the way the fight went, he was the prize. I suspect it began with an ambush in the gully and has become a full-out skirmish. In the end, the goblins survived and chittered with pride right up until Dane hit them with a magic spell that put them all to sleep.

There was some useful gear here, bows and halberds and the human leader wore some armor. There was no food, though, so we were only comforted that we could defend ourselves for a while until we starved.

We dispatched all but the old man and one goblin, who spoke a bastard mix of common and orcish tongues and was quite happy to be useful as long as possible. The way the two mixed-bloods in our group, Sully and Kumar, talked about frying him up for food was appalling, even through the hunger and wish to eat anything but gruel. Many of us are civilized creatures and I wanted to get away from the uncivilized ones as quickly as possible. Working together was the only way.

The old man said he was Keysteak, a name that did not help our two day hunger. He was kind, respectful, patient to our thousand questions and crazy as a kobold whore. Though he was a prisoner, and his situation didn't look like it was getting a whole lot better, even after threatening the goblin with a short existence ending on a spit over a fire. He was the island's caretaker, there since he was seven and a loyal servant of the Master, the King of the Sea, Viadel. He and his wife settled here in the Mansion not far from the Temple, words he spoke with a reverence and grace.

He did the same with the Treasure, but didn't want to tell us where it was. The human was simple-minded from years of living alone, though, that we could get him to tell us that the Treasure is buried with the Master and that he, too, would like to be buried with the Master some day. With this, he looked wistfully toward the Mansion. Simple, simple indeed.

We weren't just sitting in the gully chatting with this addled old man. No, we were walking to the nearby temple, if you call "nearby" several hours in a rocky ravine through the hills in a cold ocean rain. As we walked he talked cheerfully about the pirates.

There were two groups. The orcs and humans working together under an orc pirate named Halek, a name that none of us had heard of, to my relief. The last thing we needed was to be recaptured on the heels of our freedom. A splinter faction of his band of unmerry men, entirely goblins, was lead by Lucius. Remember these names. Yes, you have to.

Yes, you do. And it's now your turn to get me a smoke, missy. And a pipe. And not one of the shit beggar blends for it, either. And be back by the time I'm done.

So Keysteak lead us to a temple, a large old temple to the Goddess, a local aspect of Chauntea the Harvest Goddess who has complete control over the Moonshae islands. About this time the goblin started screaming and trying harder to escape, eventually gibbering that another goblin tore a painting off a wall and that's when the storm started.

In a way, this other goblin saved us from slavery. It probably doesn't matter unless he was trying to do it on purpose, and he was going to die soon anyway.

The temple was probably pretty nice, once, but it was wood and the slats cracked and warped from misuse. The foyer was completely clean and some large leaves were drying on the walls. There weren't any of those large-leafed trees on the island, so I don't know where he found them. Maybe the Goddess blew them in just for him.

Well, boy, if Chauntea wants to come down here and tell me not to make fun of her, then she's welcome to. Do you see her? No? Then let me continue.

Keysteak was still being helpful and drew a map of the island for us using one of these leaves and a stick of charcoal he had hidden on him. Then, and only then, did we untie his hands. Well, yeah, obviously we untied his feet so he could bring us here. He even gave us a roughly drawn map of the Goddess' temple. He wasn't upset or angry or anything. I should have been more suspicious about this.

The Mansion, and the Treasure, were not too far on a taller hill. The two pirate groups were using the Mansion as a battleground while they probably looked for the Treasure.

There was more talk about eating the goblin as we started wandering around the temple. The main room was once fairly ornate and well painted, half the room separated by columns and a nice stone statue of the Goddess, though several feet of mud was spattered about the wall. Keysteak said he was busy lately with the warring pirates and all, but would get to cleaning the place later. Occasionally, he told us, floods made it up this high, and it was still raining outside and there is never a bad time looking for a way off a wet and slowly flooding island.

We found the painting our goblin savior pried off the wall that made the storm start, but it needed glue and there wasn't any. Apparantly, see, glue takes days to make out of goblin.

Oh, thank you lass. Yes, yes that's a good smoke. Tremblespark blend, tastes like. My compliments to whomever you stole it from.

So, there was even more talk of cooking the goblin when we found the kitchen. We finally, finally decided to ask the old man what he ate when we discovered Sully missing. He was, we quickly found, in the foyer with the old man and a wet and greenish smear on the floor of what had been the goblin.

Everyone else ate goblin, but I ate fried rat and cucumbers that were growing in the temple garden.

The kitchen had one occupant, though. Hiding in the chimney was a gray, skinny human with long, long fingernails and thought us as food. Colwyn panicked a bit and chanted angrily his way, but the man jumped atop him and Colwyn stopped moving. Eventually, the skinny beast was killed and Colwyn started to move again. It was a ghoul, the undead. Keysteak was surprised about it, but since seeing a goblin torn apart in front of him he was getting a little jumpy.

We were quickly outstaying our welcome, and Sully's half-breed brooding was not helping any. He demanded that we leave, now, not by stealing a pirate ship, which we were going to do, but by finding the Treasure, the burial place of the Master and the Mistress, which included, he said, a boat. The old man absolutely refused until Sully whispered a word to him. We all thought it was a threat, reminding what he did to the goblin, but we were all wrong.

The old man agreed to help and reluctantly drew out a map of the Mansion while Sully refused to tell us how he knew about the boat, or how he knew we had to be off the island by noon tomorrow or everyone, everyone on it would die.

At the time I thought it was just some kind of threat, pounding his orcish chest and gnashing his tusks or whatever. All those years living in a monestary probably made him crazed.

We wanted off the island anyway, and there's no reason to go against a madman when his goals are similar to yours. He's more likely to work himself into a frenzy and to be the first target when trouble comes. Sorry, lass, or a madwoman.

We got a little sleep, both Dane and Colwyn happy to rest their magical energies. Again, no one killed me while I slept. Don't laugh; it's happened.

The sun was barely up, the gray sky a little lighter but there still was rain and there still was wind. And there was a plan. Keysteak needed to look in on his room near a broken window, far from any of the main building entrances.

The window he led us to was boarded over, but it came out and he went in, chattering quietly about his own cleverness. That is, until he reached his room. The door was kicked in, the place ravaged and torn apart but the thing he was most angered about were three broken flowerpots in the back. These, he said, were his friends.

Now having one madman with you is helpful, but having two is dangerous. They might argue and fight themselves when you least expect it, which is always the way with madmen.

Fortunately, fear of a half-orc was greater than Keysteak's love of flowers and we moved right along, sneaking around torch-lit corridors, this blood-stained but mostly trash-littered battleground. We made our way to what was once the library without incident. There were no books left, just scraps of covers and bits of pages that weren't burnt or used for toiletries.

Keysteak climbed one of the shelves and pressed a button on top. We heard the metal grinding against metal and saw the bookshelf shake slightly but it would not budge.

We pulled on it and nudged it and hammered our fists as quietly as we could. I didn't, of course, because someone had to listen at the door. In the end, a halberd was used to pry the thing off its hinges and it fell to the ground with a sound loud enough to wake the mansion's Master. It was certainly enough to alert some dim-witted orcs.

We pulled another shelf down and jammed it in front of the door, fleeing down the ladder into the basement. Kumar stayed up top and jammed his sword through a hole in the door, through the eye and skull of someone looking in. So when you look into a hole, be careful.

The basement was dank and ugly but there was a light glow on the walls, a kind of mold maybe that eats darkness and gives off light. It was handy for us to see all the boxes piled up, but Keysteak stayed back near the ladder, pulling a lever that collapsed the walls of the library above us. We bought ourselves some time.

But the old man wouldn't come with us, claiming he had to rest. Kumar didn't believe him and I went to investigate some of the crates. I don't know what the old man did, but I passed out. When I came to, he was dead and I was one large bruise. You'll get used to feeling like a living bruise, as long as you're living.

With our host thankfully dead, we all decided to get the information out of Sully once and for all. What did he say to compell the old man into helping us this far? What was going on? Reluctantly, and growling and threatening, he revealed all, or at least enough.

He said the Goddess spoke to him in her temple, warning him that she was upset about the pirates and was going to sink the island. He was upset about this, because he came from a monestary of moral folk and never wanted to deal with gods again. Having Chauntea pick on him snapped his tiny orcish brain, but she gave him enough information to get us out of here; the Master's son, who was buried with a boat. Because Keysteak didn't tell us about him, this made Sully's usual threats carry a ring of truth from the old man's goddess.

Sully tore apart the goblin out of frustration. After all, he said, the goblin was going to die anyway. That made sense, but he should have told us.

From here on out, his map of the basement was wrong. The pit trap dropped the entire floor away, and hitting the ledge on the way down with the rest of the floor knocked me out, again. I had to be brought to by healing magic before we moved on. Healing magic is refreshing as a great wine, as you all will, no doubt, find out.

We passed the trap along a ledge and went into a door with an empty stone mausoleum in the middle. Occasional trips past the hole to the waters below kept tabs on the pirates' progress. They probably wanted the old man and probably didn't know he was dead. Poor saps.

We eventually found the hidden door in the back of one of the storage holes. All the boxes were empty or filled with dirt and rocks; it was all an intricate diversion but it doesn't stand up to seven greedy people looking for escape.

The corridor went a few hundred feet in complete darkness, the moss left behind, but with so many of the tall races can see in darkness or easily fake it. There's a feeling you get when you enter a large space and I had that feeling now, we all fumbled around the place a bit to find out the large cavern had a wall of mortered brick cutting off one wall. The others said there were two slabs of stone, each with someone on it.

The first one had to be the Master of the Sea, the plaque apparantly reading, "Viadel, the Sea King. Tamed by the islamd, laid low by pirates."

Beside him was the Mistress, her own plaque read, "Queen Liella, laid low by pirates, rests with her sea king". Keysteak must have been a busy guy learning all these burial rites and carving and everything. The Queen didn't have any such weapons or finery, just an old and tattered dress. It didn't surprise any of us that they were starting to get up. I and NoSmo were concerned because we couldn't see a thing and I could hear the orcs shouting near the other end of the long, long corridor.

At one point when the rest were combatting the undead pair, there was a brilliant flash of light and we could, briefly, see the room then it went dark again. NoSmo started attacking the brick wall with his bit of oar he'd been using as a club and I got ready for the pirates to come down the hall, hiding just inside the cavern so I could slip on out. Remember, survival first, alliances second.

But somehow the others ended the threat of the Master and her Mistress before the pirates found the door down the hall. No doubt they found the bloodied body of Keysteak. They probably wanted to talk to the people for killing the one guy who knew where the treasure was, not knowing they were not far from it.

Down came the brick wall when the pirates found the hidden door and started charging down the corridor. NoSmo and I were guided to the boat on the far side of the wall while the others gathered the Master's finer items. We were all dumped into a boat and the dead body, Viadel's son, was removed from it. Torchlight bounced down the hallway and we still didn't know how to get out.

There was a lever. We could either pull it and risk a trap or explain things to angry brigands, so the lever was pulled. The other brick walls of the boy's tomb collapsed and we saw sunlight, actual, real sunlight through rain and mist. I also got to see the small box of gold we were sitting on in the boat, as well as, yes, six oars.

Arrows whipped past us as everyone pushed the burial boat toward the water. If this was the boat the Goddess promised Sully, we all hoped she knew what state it was in. It floated well and we rowed away from the pirates, alive and well and with the treasure.

Now, you think it'd end there, but the Goddess wasn't done yet. We didn't get too far from the island when the storm closed in from each direction, passing quickly overhead as though it didn't care about us. We got plenty wet, but we didn't get the brunt of the wind which practically attacked the island. We rowed harder and faster, occasionally looking over our shoulders or listening to Melisana's description of the fury of the Goddess upon the pirates who desecrated Her island.

Gods and Goddesses might be annoying, but they're damned powerful in their specialty.

Now, I haven't been talking about Melisana because she hadn't done anything useful but state how disgusting eating goblin was. We didn't dump her on the way; we aren't monsters. Well, most of us aren't.

Funnel clouds attacked the island, lightning ripped at it and set brush on fire even in the devilish wind and rain, and the waves that hit the shores hit higher and stronger.

Then the island was gone and the clouds melted away into nothingness. We were thrown around by the largest wave I have ever seen, a wave that could swallow a fleet of merchant ships, but somehow, somehow we made it over top without losing anyone. We almost lost Dane but I was too busy rowing to give him the push he needed.

Then it was over. We were left, alone, in the middle of the ocean with no water, no food, but a healthy take of treasure.

Now go, shoo, leave me alone. If you kids want to know what happened next, you know what the fee is. Go and steal me something nice and I'll talk with you again in a few days.

Posted by jenkins at 4:10 PM

November 22, 2002

One: Back From the Dead

It was weeks before we saw land and I only caught glimpses of it through the part where the oars, but not people, go outside the ship. When I watched Hafcriss hang over the edge, threatening to drop him in, I knew I didn’t want to.

Rumor moved quickly through the ship that we were passing within a few leagues of the Moonshae Isles, home of the druids and other people who strongly dislike pirates. Freedom seems a lot further when it's just out of reach.

(This is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

While I'm talking, someone can top off my wine, and none of the watered-down stuff this time. I might not be a lay-at-home hairyfoot but I can tell the difference.

So where was I? Oh yes. The Moonshaes. Apparently they are made up of a number of different islands, the Moonshaes, and that's about all I know about them. Rokellen, that human priest of the dead, made a passing comment that we did not really want to go there lest we be judged, but I'd rather judged on dry land than stuck to an oar.

About this time the wind started pressing harder. Instead of putting up the sails, they were taken down and we were told to row faster. At the end of our shift, the boat was rocking so hard that if I had anything left in my stomach it would be part of my neighbor's bunk. I sure as all six-hundred and some odd hells couldn't sleep, even after the exhausting work.

The storm got worse and worse and we could hear the thunder right outside and see the blinding light out the hatch above. Only "above" was occasionally "beside" and "below" became the wall. If we weren't all chained to our bunks, we would be bruised and broken. Hafcriss was certainly looking nervous. When the water started coming down the stairs in more than a trickle he got even more nervous. When the first shift was unshackled and pulled upstairs, he got more nervous still. The sound of one of the masts leaving the ship didn't help any of us, and our half-orc keeper spent half the time looking up the stairs. Squinting against the wind and ocean water, anyway.

The bulkier members of our shift started pulling out of their shackles best they could. Normally this would earn them a sound beating and a night in the box or dangled over the edge, but with no one paying us attention we felt free to act as desperately as we could. No, I didn't do anything, girl. I'm all of three and a half feet tall, godsblesset. What do you expect me to do against iron bands? What would you do against iron bands? Sing at them? I would like to see you try.

There's a sound that is made by the oars pulling against the wood of the ship in time to the drums, a sound that after a few weeks you don't even hear anymore, but you hear when they stop. Hafcriss must have heard them stop when he went on top, even in the wind and the problems of the floor sometimes being a wall. We heard the single set of footsteps. We heard him praying to his dirty orc gods. Then the world exploded.

Tymora smiled on us and drove the ship onto some rocks, splitting it neatly in half and freeing up, hells, I don't know, the tall elf Dane I think. For whatever reason he stayed around to pull the rest of us out of our shackles. Those of us who survived, at any rate. I haven't wasted your time with the names of anyone who didn't survive, or survived and I never heard about again.

The storm was fading away as the ship settled a bit on the rocks, but did not sink. Tymora doubly blessed us by not only setting us free but putting us on an island not a dozen miles from the Moonshaes. Myself and Kumar, both rather agile climbers, got up on deck and saw what we suspected -- no crew, no Hafcriss and the remains of sails swaying in the wind. We were, completely and utterly, free.

Not utterly. The shackles on our arms and legs were still not helping us move around, but we could move.

Colwyn, Kumar and Sully decided it would be best to go down to the solid ground of the beach and see where we were. Dwarf, half-elf and half-orc, going to make life safe, how kind of them. Me, I could see where we were; a few feet from the captain's cabin and whatever goods he had hiding within. So Dane and Rokellen and I went to take a look.

There was a lot of nothing but a knife and a whetstone and the keys. Now we were free, at least three of us. The other two let me keep the knife, though why I don't know. I handed the keys to Dane and went to the only other thing in here that was of any interest; a hatch in the floor.

Climbing down the ladder was interesting but not too hard. It was wet and at an odd angle from the way our half of the boat landed. In it was the captain's private hold which held ruined grain in ruined sacks, ruined wine in ruined barrels, and a large, unruined chest.

The chest contained many things which I forget, and a few things that I don't. The others were upset that I had forgotten these things but even now I don't completely remember. Maps and some kind of brass thing for finding yourself on a map, for instance, and a large unstrung crossbow and some bolts for it. And the string for the crossbow.

At the time I didn't know it was the string and this caused quite a problem later, but I'll tell you lot about that later. Maybe much later. All you have to know is at the time the crossbow was just a really big club.

Also tied up in a corner, bruised from all the barrels and things bouncing around, was a young human girl who said she was Melisana and that she was the daughter of some rich Moonshae merchant. We were terribly nice to her at that point, because it always does to keep your prisoners from knowing they're prisoners for as long as possible.

Outside, the other three were making the beach safe for ex-slaves everywhere in their own way. Hafcriss survived the crash and was approaching them and ordering them around. Kumar says he was very nice about offering to let Hafcriss live if he let them free of their shackles. Hafcriss didn't take kindly to this, but he didn't have to take unkindly for long when you have three unhappy, mobile and capable ex-slaves and all you have is a whip and a dagger.

As it happened, he also had some keys, so by the time we came down with our new guest in tow, they were free and looking around the wreckage. It was still raining and none of us knew how to build a fire out of nothing. Not even the darkie elf, who at one point during our captivity was going on about his people's oneness with the woods.

We ended up cutting the tatters of sail to make a kind of tent and set up a watch in case. No one killed me overnight, so that's as good as we had to a truce at this point, and that's good enough for me

Posted by jenkins at 4:04 PM

November 15, 2002

Introduction: Who We Are

When I left the farm I never thought I'd end up on a slaver's ship floating just a few miles away from the Moonshae islands. It's not the kind of thing you're likely to think about unless you were born a slave on the western edge of Faerun. No one wakes up one morning and says to themselves or any unfortunate person around that they will go into the slaving profession. Not as product.

Let me tell you how it started.

(This is from the viewpoint of Foley, a halfling thief, some years later.)

It isn't hard for a motivated halfling to break into the import-export business in Baldur's Gate. Just showing up and passing the interview is usually enough. I've heard some wild stories about schools and training that are cuthroat, like other people will cut your throat for a few copper. But in Baldur's Gate, the movers of goods are treated with more respect and have to be more careful. The Flamers, who pass for a city guard, are everywhere. They must drain the coffers of the overtaxed city quite often and make it hard to move these goods.

Looking for goods, or information, is how I came across the raiding party. Every once and a while a bunch of insane pirates hit Baldur's Gate and steal stuff from the docks or from the outskirts before the Flamers get a chance to figure out what's going on. It's a hit-and-run, but it's effective.

But pirates are just common thieves and they know what to look for. It will be the last time I hide in shrub. I thought it would be the last time I'd ever see a shrub, with many promises that I would be rowing boats for the rest of my life, and the shackles were very strong.

I don't know if they thought it was funny to seat me next to some dark elf but it wasn't. The thing kept trying to talk to me and ask me questions, though he was smart enough not to talk to our jailer. See, every shift of rowers got their own keeper, some ugly heighty or other with names like Killer or Butch. Ours was a half-orc named Hafcriss who had about as much loyalty to his species as any half-breed. Hafcriss even had some joy in beating down another half-orc chained to an oar by himself. Some of the less lucky slaves had to row alone. But then, they didn't have to chat it up with some dark-skinned mouthy elf.

No, no he wasn't drow. Look, shut up, not every gods-damned dark-skinned elf in the world is drow. This elf was dark like bark. Drow are black and pretty nasty. Not that I care, but a lot of people don't like drow. He just had dark skin and dark hair unlike any elf I'd ever seen. But he was smart enough to shut up when Hafcriss came around.

After a few weeks of rowing, though, anyone would talk to an elf. Or even the half-breeds. At first I thought the dwarf who had his own oar would be a good conspiritor for escape, but it didn't take long for him to get beat stupid. Oh how I wished for one gnome to talk with.

After three weeks I was ready to conspire even with the half-elf. By this time we had all talked with one another just enough for introductions. I never thought I would be grateful for knowing a human, but among these races humans are the easiest to manipulate.

The half-elf, a creature with noble bearing and odd desert accent, seemed the most eager to escape. He introduced himself as Kumar. He was built like a human, strong by the look of his thighs, and had an oar all to himself. Hey, when you're a halfling in a world of giants, you get to look at a lot of legs and it's not pretty.

In spite of this, Kumar had the usual deceptive cunning of an elf. He talked glib of friends and allies but I didn't trust him. That he said he was almost as interested in importing and exporting as I was, and that made me trust him even less. There's honor among us, but not without a reason.

When he asked Hafcriss what the name of the boat is, the orc-spawn had a fit of creativity with a whip, so we never did find out.

The dark-skinned elf claimed his dark skin was from being of The Wood People. "The People" means elves, boy. Stop interrupting. He said his name was Dane Metrik and from the weeks he tried talking to me I learned he was a slave on a different ship, that the other ship was taken over by the one we were on and that he liked it better over there and other things I didn't care to know. At first he would only tell us he liked the bow, but later we found he also had an interest in the mystical.

Though half-breeds make my skin crawl -- because they're so faithless and got faithless parents, and I know you lot were about to interrupt about that -- I had to put up with them anyway. A half-orc, named Sully see, had another oar alone and Hafcrys kept harassing the creature with promises of fetching a high price for muscle and no brain, yet when talking to the giant half-orc he was quite violent but well-spoken about it.

The dwarf claimed fielty to the god Hoar, or maybe goddess. He said it had to do with justice. Justice! Would he call being beat ten ways to the Planes for opening his mouth justice? I suppose I'd better tell you his name while I'm telling you everyone else's. Colwyn. There it is.

Finally we have Rokellen, Follower of the Dead God Kellemvor. He was very helpful whenever someone's life was threatened and promised to help usher us into the afterlife. It's the life I got that I'm worried about. I don't need help getting there; I need help staying here.

I never thought I would be grateful for knowing a human, but among these races humans are the easiest to manipulate. I was hoping this was the case with this one.

There were some others, but they ended up dead anyway, washed overboard. And after rowing for four weeks, four long ugly disgusting thirsty weeks on the ocean, that's exactly what happened.

Posted by jenkins at 3:48 PM