PoesJournalEntryTwelve
Poes Adventure Journal
Twelfth Entry (after 9/09 session)
Well Alia, I think I recall now why I hated shopping with you so much. It’s not the spending of money (though the Queen knows I hate all the counting and figuring), but the frackin’ wrangling over what to buy. You were nothing compared to these heroes though. They spent days arguing over what type of armor to have and who would get what shiny new magical item. Ahh, well. What I’d give for just one more of those trips with you…
After all the discussion, it was good to get on the road. The heroes set course once again for the dwarven stronghold. The path took us back through the town we’d recently freed from the orcs. Predictably, it’d been sacked. It was still smoldering in fact and scores of the dead were simply laying where the orcs had cut them down. It brought back memories I’ve tried hard not to think about…especially when I stumbled across a family, slain as they tried to flee their home. I spent the rest of the day praying to the Queen to provide all of the dead with a peaceful rest and burning their bodies. Guss and Kleister helped. Our dwarf seemed a bit upset with the delay and as soon as my work was done pushed us onward to the mountains. Fine with me…though I had to wonder where the fire was all of a sudden. Heh.
Once in the mountains it became clear that the heroes didn’t really know where they were going. They tried to do something with their beacon to “triangulate” where the dwarves were located – whatever that means. As we marched, I shared some of my halfling whiskey with Ron. After a few swigs, he began sharing a bit of what he thought about the rest of us. Sunny, he said was a “hot chick with Poe’s gold”. Guss was where he cast all of his area of effect spells. Beros was simply “spit the tree”. OK, maybe he’d had more than a few swigs. I forget the rest. I was drinking a bit myself. Heh.
Anyway, we stumbled into camp and somehow I managed to pull a shift on guard before crawling into bed. Unfortunately for me, a full night’s rest was not to be had. I was awakened by someone shaking me fiercely and the sounds of battle in the distance. And off we went. The darkness wasn’t much of a hindrance as we charged towards the sound. “Kobolds”, I heard Kobe mutter under his breath as I caught up with the heroes. Great. I hate those little frackers. Probably means there’s a dragon or two about. Guss apparently felt the same. Without even a “Hey, Poe I’m off to storm the castle…” he charged into the fray and started laying into the little beasts. Kleister whipped a sunrod out of his pants and lit things up as he followed Guss’ lead. They were quickly surrounded by kobolds. Sunny started yelling at the man on horseback who’d been taking the brunt of the kobold’s attacks. He veered his mount towards her just as Ron dropped a chill cloud on the kobolds. Our dwarf was in the melee by that point so with a shrug I threw myself into the thick of things as well. Sunny was on her own if the mounted guy turned out to be a problem…
The heroes made pretty short work of the kobolds. Guss really showed his disdain for the little frackers, calling them all to come and get it and then smacking the crap out of them when they did. Quite impressive. The only thing that made the battle interesting was that as usual the little beasts had some priests with them tossing healing around. That and the fact that a whole group of the sneaky bastards pulled a Kobe and snuck around behind the heroes, falling on Sunny and Ron while the rest of the armored folks were mopping up the main group. That didn’t even faze Ron – though I swear I saw at least a small bead of sweat on his forehead. He simply stepped back and lit them all on fire. Unfortunately he caught Sunny in the blast as well, singeing her a bit. She was alright though. As the last kobolds started to run Kobe inexplicably started reciting poetry…
“An ode to stickers… I was walking in yardickers when I saw a bunch of stickers…”
Apparently he’d been hitting the halfling whiskey on his watch as well. Heh.
With the kobolds routed the heroes set to interrogating the poor fellow they’d rescued. Turns out he really was a human (you never can really know for sure these days…) by the name of Bizz. He tossed them a sack containing a bronze statue as payment for saving his life. Kleister began acting strangely (more so than usual) – almost arguing with his spear. Uh oh…next thing I knew he was yelling at Bizz, asking him about his contacts with a dragon. I eased a little closer in case things got uglier. They did but not in the way I was expecting. As Bizz started babbling about how his master had sent him to find the heroes of prophecy the prayer beads around my wrist suddenly got ice cold. I guess ‘you know who’ was interested in this one. So, when Bizz mentioned that he was supposed to know the heroes by the fact that they had star metal I quietly pointed out that Ron was lugging around a big chunk of it. Bizz’s eyes lit up at that. Heh. He insisted on seeing the rock to verify it – which took some doing since Ron is a lot more suspicious than our dwarf – but then happily spilled his story. He was in the employ of a copper dragon who was currently pinned down by all of the evil dragons in the area. His master, Byzantine, believed that the heroes were fated to wield the star metal. If he hadn’t been trapped in his lair by the evil dragons, he’d have come to aid the heroes himself. Instead, he’d sent our his followers – like Bizz – to try to find them and warn them. Well, mission accomplished. Bizz was happy to serve the heroes as well, going so far as to give Kobe all of his money when asked for it. I guess I now have some competition in this whole side kick business. Heh. We’ll see how he holds up under fire…
Despite Bizz’s protests that there weren’t any dwarves in the mountains, the heroes continued on their quest for the dwarven stronghold. Finally, they reached the place their talisman said was where the place’s backdoor will be found. Not much around to be seen though. They seemed confident that our dwarf – who does have a lot of insight into dwarven backdoors – would be able to find it, so they made camp. I took the opportunity to nap. That’s what I was doing when Sunny tapped me gently awake. She’d noticed some crossbows up in the rocks nearby. She started talking to the crossbow wielders – turned out they were dwarves, much to Bizz’s surprise – in an ugly guttural language…apparently dwarvish. Three dwarves came out of hiding on a ledge up above our camp. She must have been convincing (isn’t she always), because they spoke some words that seemed to rhyme and a door opened in the cliff in front of us.
There was an armed squad of dwarves waiting behind the door. Things seemed a little tense at first, but after a lot of talking in dwarvish and some pointing at the talisman on the spear, the armed group let us in. They escorted us to a huge room where an important looking dwarf – greybearded and wearing a fancy golden crown – talked with Sunny for a while. Ron began translating for the rest of us. Old Greybeard was interested in learning more about the heroes’ adventures so far. I volunteered to let him read my journal as I’ve recounted most of what they’ve accomplished. The upshot of the whole conversation? The dwarves would love to work the star metal into something more useful than a chunk of rock. But they could only do that for brothers. Of course, non-dwarves have to undergo some kind of test to become brothers. Kleister slammed his spear down at that and announced that the heroes would slay the white dragon that had taken up residence in the dwarves’ former hold. This he claimed will make them brothers of the dwarves. Greybeard was impressed by Kleister (who I have to admit, can put on a good show…). The dwarven king added that the star metal could only be worked by a set of tools that were lost inside Grimwatch when Diamond (the white dragon) took the holding from the dwarves. Apparently within Grimwatch there was a vault used by a great dwarven smith. Once Diamond was killed the talisman the heroes have would help them find it.
We spent a couple of days with the dwarves. And that’s when I made a surprising discovery. In a small side cavern I found a whole herd of those damned flightless birds from the plains. Turned out the dwarves raise them to, get this, eat. Heh. Gotta hand it to them – dwarves are tough bastards. Funny, too. They have a wonderful dish made from the wings (yeh, bird things have wings even though they can’t fly…go figure) of these creatures slavered in a spicy red sauce that they call “buffalo bites”. And boy, are those buffalo bites excellent…they go extremely well with the halfling whiskey. And even better with the dwarven beer. Let’s just say that the three days pass rather quickly for me. Though I did manage to pick up some nice plate armor for the Raven. Something tells me he’s going to need it.
The heroes left the star metal with the dwarves and set off on the dragon hunt. The dwarves lined the halls of their caves as they marched out. I’ve told them a million times that they are a big deal…I hope they’re finally starting to believe it themselves. Heh. It was a long walk. Three days underground until we made it to Grimwatch. Did I mention that Grimwatch is a holding built in the form of a 4000 foot tall statue of a dwarf? Or that Diamond’s lair is in the dwarf’s chest – right where his heart would be? Or that, most importantly, we’re entering the place from…wait for it…the statue’s left ankle. It’s gonna be a long long climb. Heh.
We found a spiral staircase just inside the ankle and started the long climb. We were no more than 50 feet in when Kobe – who was scouting ahead for treasure – ran into a spider. He attacked it and several more spiders the size of small ponies jumped out of the webs above us to attack. Green goo was quickly flying everywhere as Guss and I began hacking at the creatures. Beros’ arrows found their mark but he was bitten in the process. Kliester went down under one of the creatures, wrestling with its eight legs. Ron started lighting them on fire and then, when he gots a bead on the largest spider (mama I think…) dropped his chill cloud on it. The worst of it all? The damn things jumped. First on top of us, then back into the middle of the cavern into their webs. Which don’t burn by the way. Big disappointment that was. For some reason I expected their webs to simply go up like kindling. Not so. The heroes proved their mettle once again, killing spiders with abandon and finally, with some fierce strikes from Kleister’s spear and a few well placed arrows from Beros, dropping the mama spider. The remaining spider fled at that…leaving us panting and bloodied on the staircase staring at a waving sea of broken webbing…
Well, Alia…I must break here for now…darkness calls.
Poe
