Poes Adventure Journal
Fifth Entry (after 2/09 session)

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I never thought I’d want to see a tree so bad. All this open land and rolling hills can really get to you after a while. Or maybe it’s just that I’m sick of listening to the infernal yapping of the gnolls and their hyena pets. Thankfully, after our last skirmish, they’ve done the smart thing and left our intrepid heroes of prophecy pretty much alone. Having your butt kicked will do that to you. But I’m ahead of myself. I don’t want to forget any of the details of the last few days, so before I finish off the last of this good stuff – the stores of strong drink that Sunny procured for me before we left are so painfully low that I’ll be drinking mere beer starting tomorrow – I’d better get it all down. So where were we…

Yes, the dragon had been driven off and the hoard finally discovered. Or had it? I’ve mentioned that these heroes were greedy. And persistent. I guess I should add smart? Hmm, maybe that last one is premature. Anyway, I followed them out of the complex to the entrance – they suspected that the kobolds had made off with a portion of the dragon’s hoard and were determined to capture it. Kobolds? I thought we’d killed all of the little frackers, right down to their women and children. Hmm. Turns out I was wrong and they were right. Beros found the tracks of a group of the frackers making their way through the swamp. They were apparently dragging something heavy. And square. The heroes’ eyes lit up and the chase was on. Have I mentioned they were going through a swamp? Heh. A couple of damp, smelly days later we caught them. Too late to exact any kind of punishment on them though. Something else already had eaten them. Or sucked the blood right out of them. Uggh. We found out what it was soon enough – Stirges. Cunning little bloodsuckers had laid a trap for us and we’d walked right into it. The bait, an unopened wooden chest, was just too good to pass up. As the cloud of winged creatures descended upon us, Ron was inspired by the Queen and dropped a freezing cloud on them. My personal barmaid Sunny smote several with a thundering blast that literally flung them back from her. The rest of us pretty much stood around, swatting at them and trying not to become a stirge’s tall cool drink. Luckily, Ron was inspired by the closeness of the treasure and blasted the bloodsuckers again, dropping most of them. In the midst of all of this, our dwarf starts screaming from behind me that an evil tree is attacking. Now I know dwarves are creatures of the underground, but I figure he knows that trees don’t move so he should be fine if he simply walks away. I stay with the stirge, watching helplessly as one of them goes after Ron who’s been our most effective attacker to this point. Ron flicks his wrist and a magical shield pops up. The bloodsucker smashes his long beak right into it rather than Ron’s meaty arm. Heh. I sense some annoyance from the gods. Turning to see this however allows me to see our dwarf – just as he is engulfed by a walking tree. Ooops. I guess I’d better get back there. Guss must be thinking the same thing. We both hurry to help our dwarf.

Guss pushes the tree-thing at me and I smack it good with the axe. I figure trees should be afraid of axes, right? Heh. Ron’s back on the case, too. Some frigid darkness descends on the plant creature (my wintry Queen is really working through our group’s namesake today) and Sunny follows this up with a blast of magic that blows splinters off of the tree. We don’t take too kindly to things that try to eat our dwarves…or stop us from getting to some treasure. Ron’s on that case, too. He heads back towards the chest now that the stirge are all down, causally flinging a magical blast that slays the tree thing over his shoulder as he does. The heroes get the chest open and inventory its contents. I’m busy keeping watch and praying about the death that we’ve inflicted here so I miss whatever they pull out of the wooden box. Hope it was worth almost losing our dwarf…

So, we head back to town to collect Kobe. You can imagine the heroes’ surprise when they learned that he’d left with the start metal in the company of a beautiful woman. I’d seen how he’d been looking at the young halfling lass in town, so I figured right away that something was up. When everyone we talked to failed to describe the woman, except to say that she was beautiful, we started to realize that something was probably up. Not to worry, we had business to conduct first. So after the loot had been sold we began getting ready to head out. However, it turns out that we had another mission as well. Apparently some owlbears were causing problems to the north. Since it was the same direction that Kobe was reported to have headed (which had been confirmed by Beros), the heroes decided to kill two birds with one stone. Works for me – fewer stones, more killin’. Heh. A trapper from town volunteered to show us the way, so we were off. He and I got a little friendly on the trail and he shared some information about the necromancer we’d run into earlier with me. Apparently the necromancer was known as Germar and he lived nearby. The trapper drew me a map to Germar’s tower. I think it’ll come in handy when we finally decide to pay the fracker a visit. Heh.

So we arrived in the area where the owlbears were causing problems. The heroes’ plan made sense – they wounded a deer and put it out for bait, hoping to draw the creatures into a trap. The group arranged themselves in a rough circle around the wounded animal, hidden in the trees. I decided to stick by the dying animal and buried myself in leaves and underbrush right next to it. We settled in to wait. We didn’t have to wait long. An owlbear approached within the hour. As it closed on my position, Beros plunked it with a couple of arrows, getting it all riled up just in time for it to smack me good. As I was shaking this off, I heard Sunny scream – a second owlbear had arrived and grabbed her. Sunny’s tough though – her screams turned to curses and then blasts of thunder. The creature drops her and she takes off as Guss moves in. That’s all I see because the owlbear in front of me grabs me in a feathery, smelly embrace. Its not as much fun as it sounds. Thankfully, Kleister, Ron and the others are pounding on it. Problem is as it gets weaker it lets out a screech the likes of which I’ve never heard. My head’s ringing, but Kleister is knocked senseless, stumbling around dazed. Good thing Sunny and I are on the case – I smack it with the bloody axe and she hit sthe creature with something magical. It drops.

Meanwhile, poor Guss has been holding of the second owlbear all by himself. I’ve mentioned that Guss is one tough SOB, right? Well, Kliester and I run to help him out anyway, getting there just as it grabs him. We both strike it as he pushes it off. The creature isn’t done yet though – I grabs Guss, ripping him to pieces and shrieking. I catch the full brunt of this screech and am stunned so I can only watch as Ron hits the beast with a blast of frigid darkness followed by a flurry of force orbs. Kleister shouted at Guss, bringing him back to consciousness with some inspirational words, but Guss was still trapped in the owlbear’s grip. It bent to bite him again, but I jumped in taking the hit for him as Beros’ arrows finally bring the creature to its knees. Not a moment too soon if you ask me. We take some time to heal up – but not until after we’ve tracked down the creatures’ lair and looted it of anything of value.

That task completed, the heroes set out after Kobe. It’s a long journey. For one with such short legs, he sure is moving far and fast. To keep us in food, Ron and Beros do some foraging as we travel. Pretty soon we’re in the plains. Well, rolling hills really. I think I’m already on record about how I feel about this landscape. Before long, we’re in trouble here, too. Hyenas are howling nearby and pretty soon we can see their masters. Gnolls. Filthy, frackin’ dog-men. We decide to wait for them at the top of a hill – another ambush I guess you could say. Wow, two in a row. It’s almost as if the heroes have been learning from all of the ambushes they’ve walked into. Heh. We still aren’t too good at it though, so we end up surrounded on top of a hill – hyenas behind us, gnolls charging up at us. Or maybe that was the plan – I don’t know. At any rate, Ron covers the charging gnolls with a cloud of poison while Kleister and I move to intercept the hyenas. Guss, Beros and Sunny join Ron attacking the gnolls. Sunny adds a zone of necrotic darkness to the poison engulfing the gnolls’ leader. Ron turns his attention to the hyenas, giving Kleister and I some support by freezing several of them. And for once, I am not singled out by the enemy’s archers – this time Kleister is their preferred target. Not to worry though – between Sunny’s darkness and Ron’s poison the gnoll leader is in trouble. Worse yet, just as he tries to get free of the overlapping zones of painful death, Guss lifts him off his feet and hurls him back in. He never emerges…and we mop up his underlings.

Now, we’re resting again and I’m putting things down on paper. Beros says we’re gaining on Kobe and should be able to catch him soon. That’s good I guess. I hope the little bugger is OK – even if he did take off with the star metal, he’s still one of the heroes of prophecy and I doubt the Queen will be too pleased if I let anything bad happen to him…

Poe late in the first month of my third life