Scribbling Rambler wrote:
I got a fireball for you!
From the Journal of Ezren Zefiir: Last I wrote, I was sitting with my new companions by a paltry fire and was interrupted by mangy dogs that the heroic warriors of our party dispatched in quick haste. The following day we progressed further on our journey and came to a smelly lake followed later by a canyon of a seemingly sinister nature. On the other side of the canyon we could see an entrance to what must clearly be our ruse-filled destination. In a hurry to get there, most of my companions fled quickly down the ravine, falling mightily in the process and covering their gear in mud. Leaving my much younger companions bedazzled by my spryness I pranced quickly down the path and came to the bottom none the worse for wear. I know my companions see my verbosity as a drawback to having me around, but I showed them that age comes with many things and one of those, apparently, is the ability to walk down a hill without falling on my ass. The petulant serial killer elf scrambled up the other side ahead of us--apparently because something shiny took her attention away from the strategy meeting we were having. About this time, the bag of swords named Valeros awoke from his drunken stupor and began ordering us about like slaves or common scullery maids. He's a good chap, though, and certainly has the strength to brandish his sword--his accuracy will, I'm sure, develop in time. We found a foul scene of rotting horse atop the far side hill and found the doors to the farcical holy flame cave, or whatever the villagers call it, open and beckoning for us to enter. So we did. As my companions pushed ahead recklessly, I poked a foot at a pile of bones only to see that pile of bones rise up and begin menacing me with a rusty implement I can only assume was once a sword. Others rose as well and rather than boring myself later when reading this I'll simply relate that I did quite well with this Hand of the Apprentice incantation I taught myself and caused a fair bit more mayhem and carnage than even our diminutive psychopathic elf friend. We breezed through a trapped room after that and found a babbling young man who had gone quite mad, though I'm not sure what from. I guess in my youth seemingly harmless things like walking skeletons and pillow pits may have driven me mad, but in my elder years now I can see the wisdom of acknowledging the challenge and fighting through it. This poor fellow, however, seemed incapable of both and babbled endlessly about the bones etc. Someone, I recall not who, gave him a stunning blow to the head and ended the ranting, thought the poor fellow awoke again later, but in a communicative fashion that allowed us to actually talk to him. We're resting with him tonight and I fear I won't get a lick of sleep. Ahh, it seems we're not. The elf has found a giant beetle in the next room and wants to kill it. I'm sure this will end well. I'll write more later. Postscript: The beetle was defeated but not before the lady warrior and the elf were covered in the smelliest, most vile concoction of mucus I have ever seen. I shall get no sleep tonight I fear. Lastly, I see that someone has scribbled notes in the margin of my first journal entry. By reading carefully, I surmise it's our lady warrior companion from the north. Though I'm assuming she meant to write in common, it's such a poor attempt at it that it's almost as if her and all of her kind only just recently learned to read and write the common tongue. Like, a scant eight months ago they were quite incapable of reading and writing, the lack thereof causing quite a lot of angst and uncontrollable anger, but then just moments ago they learned to read and write but not in a fashion understood by those of us who have been reading and writing for the better part of four decades. Curious. I'm also unsure who her notes were intended for---are they curious scribbles, or doodles perhaps? Is she talking to herself? For now, I'll not conceal my journal and see where she goes with this. Who knows? Maybe her skills at writing will improve so that I can understand what it is she writes!
From the Journal of Ezren Zefiir: As I begin this journal my new compatriots of peregrination are scattered about in a variety of tents in a most uncomfortable glen our barbaric young lady-warrior suggested we sleep in. My ears are gravid with a stridulent, porcine variety of snoring that whelms the crackling of our fire and the distant howling of wolves. The air is sharp with cold, the ground is rough and rocky, and my legs ache from a long day spent traipsing down a back-woods path. I am at once vexatious and atingle to finally be on the road, out from under the impracticable pollex of my dilatory pedagogue, and thoroughly enjoy this small, but obviously supposititious, introduction to adventuring life. Just five years ago, I was but a map-maker in Absalom suffering under the withering gaze of the church of Abadar as they bear me no small animus over my father's conviction of heresy. I left Absalom behind and decided it was time to find someone trained in the arcane arts who might help me grow the small spark of magical skill I'd felt inside since I was a little boy. Unfortunately, the only master willing to take on a 40-year old student was old whats-his-name in Kassen and I've spent the better part of this last half-decade training myself and being perfectly and precisely ignored by a maladroit, somnolent, arrant twit. How convivial it must be for the townsfolk to impel me into this lot to take part in their little light liturgy that seems to be in essence a hazing ritual so the superannuated brood has something fun to do when it's cold out rather than sitting around the fireplace and debating suicide. I'm am truly thrilled to start this adventuring life, though, and my companions, though vernal, brusque, and insensate, are an interesting covey. The lady-warrior from the north seems interested in rascality as much as hostility and her habiliment leaves nothing to the imagination. And by imagination I mean, I can't imagine how she stays warm. Our cleric seems obsessed with some god or another and in truth is probably the more level-headed of us--five years ago I would've been the more level-headed, I think, but this last half-decade under the pollex of the old pedagogue seems to have driven me a little mad. Our fighter is a taciturn fellow, which doesn't fit this group at all, but maybe he'll explore his voice soon enough. Lastly, we have an elf with us and despite my guess that she's three times older than me I'm positive that she's been possessed by a six-year-old human child serial killer with incredible urges to collect and use all manner of daggers. She's dangerous, impulsive, frightening, and alien to me. In Absalom her kind were flogged publicly--here, she's best watched cautiously from a distance. It seems as though something is developing. I shall write more later. |