Hey, everyone! I thought I'd start posting the biweekly journals I write for my college's gaming group up here. This is a D&D 5E game, which means I'm as new to the system as a lot of the other players for a change!
The campaign journals are written from the perspective of my character, a halfling cleric named Dandelion the Dark (referring to her hair, not her deeds). We have quite a large party, though some of these PCs fade in and out when their players can't attend.
THE CAST
Dandelion the Dark: Female halfling cleric of Pelor. Dandelion doesn't talk about her past much, and there are times it's clear she isn't telling her friends everything. For instance, someone noticed that she has the Knowledge domain, which is of course an abnormal domain for a Pelorian. Dandelion starts the game living on the outskirts of town, only coming in semiregularly to drink, carouse, and generally live with merriment. She owns a goat named Mulberry and really likes pumpkins. Devout vegetarian.
Naloth: Male brass dragonborn sorcerer. Is engaged in a complicated relationship with an elf sorceress NPC whose sister does not approve. Dandelion is their confidante, and helps arrange meetings.
Tazdaar: Male black dragonborn sorcerer (I know, right?). Tazdaar's tribe was wiped out by a bunch of Tiamat worshipers, partially due to his negligence regarding their spy. He now seeks revenge against the half-dragon who deceived him.
Wodom: Male human warlock (fiend-type magic stuff). Wodom's father was lost or killed when a summoned demon got out of hand. Wodom has always suspected the organization his father belonged to, the "Zhentarim", had something to do with it.
Rose: Female half-elf bard. Rose was found by a traveling caravan as an infant with nothing but her namesake flower on her person. She doesn't know where she came from, but longs to see the world—and probably make fun of it.
Ryn: Male human fighter. A stalwart warrior and the son of the town hero, Ryn has big boots to fill. His player formerly played "Sylv", a monk who appears only in the first journal.
Ophelia: Female drow rogue. A young drow who was kidnapped from her home by the ballsiest bandits in the world. She was rescued by the Church of Pelor, which is where she befriended Dandelion. Now she works as a private eye, counting Dandelion as one of her few trusted friends. Has a drinking problem, and mistrusts humans—especially male ones.
Lady Elanna Amakiir: Female high elf wizard. The scion of a noble family that forces its heirs to earn their own wealth by setting them loose upon the world. Sort of a pain in the ass, and the only member of the party Dandelion doesn't know well.
Frost is raw, enervating. Really, every vine entrenched along lines some fool halfling thought to dig is lucky to have endured so long. I knew this was a bad winter. I should have considered it before we set out. We all feel the chill, and where my pumpkins spite me with sour taste and shrunken shells, others...
No, let me start over. That's ahead of it all. I slept well last night, or as well as could be expected. A single broken window doesn't seem like such a big deal until you're in the dead of a seemingly endless winter and you're trying to sleep. Hopefully, the window will be replaced soon. It's odd, sleeping in town.
I awoke this morning to the sounds of shouting. It was Old Man Holtz. I naturally went down to check on him. Thought I'd see what the fuss was, as he's not the type to scream at nothing. Well, he told us there were goblins on their way.
Ha. Dozens, he said. At least forty, he said, and probably more. Well, he wasn't wron
Merciful Pelor, protect us. I thought we'd been spotted there. I curse this pen's scratching, but I know I'd never forgive myself if I failed to record today's commotion while I had the chance. This is a very important day.
Well, I took charge Really, I just sort of rounded folk up. All the elders in the village was getting set for a war! This village can't endure something like that. I'll be out a home, they'll be out their lives, and whatever devilry's at work...We never would have learned of it if I hadn't taken action.
I credit myself for the union, but most everyone seemed quite intent on helping anyways. Most everyone. I met with Rose, since she was right there—nice enough half-elf girl, and a splendid flutist. Maybe she's got a bit more energy than a flesh golem in a lightning storm, but energy can come in handy. We went and tracked down Sylv. Sylv is an animal-murdering wood elf with a monastic streak, but he's also a darn good tracker. If I had to pick someone to travel with me in these snow-smothered mountains, it'd be him. He sure didn't like the news that the goblins were hacking down trees! Great guy, really. Wish he'd rethink the diet.
Very organized, for goblins...
Ophelia was drinking in the morning again. I don't know what stereotypes there are about drow drinking, but she can be really difficult to vouch for sometimes. It's hard to attest to the character of someone who's actively trying to cure their hangover with more hangover. Still, we persuaded her to come with. She has a good heart, despite all the secrets—being a private detective can really set you on your guard around folks, I guess.
I still have no idea if she's planning to help, but she's definitely come with. Pelor, I can still smell the booze on her breath.
It was then that we noticed a high elf trying to convince the villagers to let her help. I recognized her, vaguely—Lady Elanna Amakiir, I think her name was. Her family has a reputation for making their children earn their fortunes through adventuring. Seems wasteful, if you ask me. The villagers don't take any of us "young'uns" seriously, so I convinced her to come with us instead. Very full of herself, but she is a wizard.
Can't remember last time I saw this many magic-users in one place. Wait. I can. Wasn't a good day.
From there, we met up with Naloth, Wodom, and Tazdaar. Tazdaar's a funny customer, black dragonborn, but he's a wanderer, like me, and he knows his magic. Out on some vengeance quest—that's the sort of thing that makes one late for dinner—but a good guy. Wodom's warlockery should come in handy. Fiend magic is a useful thing, even if it gives some the creeps. Least it's not undead.
Just dropped my pumpkin seeds in the snow. War is hell.
As for Naloth, he was really just fretting about that friend of is. I'm sure she'll be fine, I tell him. This is his chance to prove himself. That scaly's magic had better be as impressive as...well, as it needs to be. Because when we arrived, Ophelia, Sylv and I snuck ahead, and we didn't see forty goblins.
Pelor, there's hundreds. Chopping trees. Building siege engines. Something's organized them, and according to Rose's magic, it's something very specific.
They want our village. They want our warm homes, our hot stoves, our heated cups of pumpkin tea. This has been a very long winter. And we all feel the chill.
Best stop writing for now. More tonight, if we don't lose our heads 'fore then.
As a note, Aradi is the elf sorceress Naloth has been seen. Valstina is her disapproving sister, a ranger who regards Naloth as a weakling.
"Friends" inserted, replacing "enemies". Recent events vindicated envoys and levelheadedness, so bully for us.
Ha! I did mean to write more last night. Forgot all about it, but be sure that our heads were not chopped off as I said before. There was just too much going on. Ah,this is why I became a cleric. Sometimes, the awesome power of a deity isn't what you need. Sometimes just need a bit of caution and some good cooking.
Apologies, though. I should start from the beginning. Or the middle, as it was. We'd seen the massive forces and were close to panicking amongst ourselves. Hundreds of goblins? About seven of us! No, by Pelor, no. But two hundred goblin soldiers could overrun the whole town. A vision flashed in my eyes.In hindsight, it was a tad absurd, but at the time. Well, at the time it wasn't so. Imagine Mulberry, fenced in, fending off hordes of hungry goblins eager to put a goat on the roast. It looks funny when I read it, but at the time I was near scared from my wits.
We argued about diplomacy. Some were more receptive than others—Ryn had followed up (son of the town hero, stalwart guy, doesn't like goblins), and he saw diplomacy as a joke. Others of us favored the notion, myself included.
Trouble was, none of us spoke their tongue.
I wanted to stick around longer and form a plan, but Rose was determined to get back and inform theelders. Waste of time. But not as big a waste as
Naloth insisted on going to check on Aradi (as a reminder, that's the woman he's been seeing). I told him not to bother, but when do any of the Big Folk listen to me? So he goes off from the rest of us for a bit, then comes back. Her cottage is abandoned, he says. Good, I say. She's safe, guarding the refugees,no doubt. He won't stop worrying.
We get back to town. Holtz is ready to set out when we arrive and tell the elders we were just there. It was a little fun seeing them all rabbling amongst each other at our every word, I spose. These lot never take us seriously. But they sure get serious when we tell them the goblins' numbers, and tell them about the siege engines.
I'm laughing as I write that. Oh, Pelor. But I tell them about the terrifying goblin war machines, and they're all muttering and murmuring. Again I bring up diplomacy.Again, most everyone's skeptical. Some were giving it some thought—Naloth and Rose, I think, were in favor. But we have no way to communicate. Nobody speaks Goblin.
So Wodom's talking about bringing in those special friends of his—I talked about them in the Hammer15 entry—and I was even considering involving The Faithful in things, and you know I do hate to bother them for favors. But we just didn't have time.
People were losing faith in the idea of diplomacy. I made a last push, because as far as I was concerned, these goblins were only here because the winter was going to freeze them into an army of gobsicles otherwise.
Among halflings, we have a phrase called guerrinagantable—it got kind of bastardized over the years, but it basically translates to "Bad War". See, sometimes you get a war where both sideshave to win. Where nobody can afford a loss. It's fight or die, flight right off the table. There are no winners in Bad War. I reallywanted to avoid a fight.
We decided to try to capture one or two and just hope they spoke Human.
That's when someone—I think it was Naloth—hit upon a pretty darn clever idea. The goblins were starving. We needed a way to lure a few off from the main force.
So after one trip to the slaughterhouse
Okay, someone just started yelling downstairs. Is that Naloth? What's he screaming about? You know, I'm not even going to check. I'm tired of his nonsense. It's probably not anything important. If it is, here it is, recorded for posterity. But I'm probably wasting ink on it.
Speaking of his nonsense, I did go before we left to check on Aradi for him. She wasn't with those fleeing the village, as I'd thought. I told him I'd found her and she was fine—I didn't want him to start panicking over nothing—but he didn't really believe me. We decided to go ahead with the mission first anyways.
So I went against every instinct I have and cooked meat. I still feel gross about it. No matter how many times I wash my hands, that blood and grease isn't coming off. I think this is actually worse than the time I We set up a small campfire and I got all my utensils together to cook a big old leg of delicious dead animal.
Overall, it worked like a charm. We drew two goblins from the main force—but we did notice that the thing they'd been building, their "war machines", weren't there any more. We decided to go ahead with the plan, and like I said, drew two goblins off.
Rose knocked one out with her sleep spell. Say what you will about these mages, they can be darn handy sometimes. I pegged the other one with a bullet, but it managed to let out a scream before the others moved in and started swinging staves at it. Finally we dropped it with a magic missile. No casualties.
We started interrogating them shortly. Using food as leverage. One spoke Human, the other not. Sad,scrawny little folk. One only had one eye, with a little burlap patch that looked like it'd been cut from a sack. The other was small, but clever. I think she was a 'she', but I wasn't exactly going to check.That one spoke some Human. Naloth and Rose handled (?)her(?)interrogation, offering meat in exchange for answers.
We quickly learned a few things.First, the goblins were ruled by a 'Boss'—another goblin.
Second, they had NO IDEA WE EVEN EXISTED! Ha! They were exasperated when they realized we were soclose by. They hadn't been building siege engines. Ha! They'd been working on support beams. They were expanding some huge old cave to serve as shelter. This wasn't an army. It was a mass of refugees.
And then the third thing she told us was what they were refugees from. Tazdaar and Naloth exchanged looks. I've written before, I think, of Tazdaar's sad past. Village massacred by worshipers of The Chromatic Dragon, Tiamat. Real page-turner.
Well, the goblins were fleeing a dragon. A big one.
Color uncertain. Red or black. We got conflicting accounts. But a dragon.
We managed to establish an understanding with the two captives in spite of it all. We would go to their Boss and work out what the terms of this coexistence would be, since a war was officially Off The Table. To my amazement, even the villagers seemed willing to go along with it. They gave us authority to handle the peace talks! I couldn't believe it. Seemssomeone trusts me,hm?
We had a meal at my cottage first. Mulberry didn't like the goblins, but she tolerated them well enough. I had her sent back to the village, just in case things went wrong. Sadly, the goblins refused to try any of my pumpkin extract. They just wanted meat. The eyepatched one nibbled some carrots, I think. Baby steps.
Then we went to their Boss. He was big—the only well-fed one of the lot. The goblins were wary of us,but we explained the mixup. I noticed they didn't have any unholy symbols of Maglubiyet, which I think is actually quite a good sign. He's such a troublesome god. They mostly worship "human" gods. Good news for us, hm?
I'm getting tired and I should really check and see what everyone's exclaiming over downstairs, so I'll boil it down to the basics: The goblins were fleeing a horde of dragon worshipers. Humans and kobolds, I think they said. That should be interesting. The tribe had been traveling away from their attackers for ten days, and were almost out of food. Hence the scrawniness.
Ten days is a far ways for goblins carrying children and dwindling supplies, but not for a flying dragon.
I think diplomacy went well, aside from that. Oh, and aside from Valstina and Aradi showing up and trying to spill a few quartz corts pints of goblin blood. You know, I don't say such things around Naloth or Aradi, of course, but hand and eye, I cannot stand Valstina. What a self-righteous xxxxxxx troublemaker. That courage of hers will see a knife in her gut one of these days, and frankly, after what she nearly caused today, I'm NOT sure who will mourn her. Does she even have parents? Just her and her somewhat spineless sister, it seems. For all her drive for glory and bloodshed, nobody's going to remember her when she's gone. None of it matters. I wonder if she realizes that.
[I]Maybe it's an elf thing. I have yet to meet an elf I really 'get'—well, aside from Ophelia, I mean, and she doesn't count. Haven't seen the dark elf in a while, actually.Sometimes she goes missing for weeks at a time. Life of a detective,I guess. Hope all is well.
Anyways, I managed to heal most of the goblins she and Aradi had assaulted, and we managed to get the idiot elves to back down when we mentioned the dragon menace. We even managed to smooth things over with the goblins afterwards. I'm optimistic, to be honest. Ithink they're open to trade.
We headed back to town. Valstina gave Naloth a challenge: Kill the dragon to 'earn' Aradi. I'm sure she's not serious, though. Besides, Aradi might be a pushover, but they both know Naloth fighting a dragon by himself would be suicide. Aradi will never allow it. I'm not too worried, as long as Naloth doesn't do anything too reckless.
Okay, it's been a long day, and I think I'm losing coherence. You can tell, I'm sure. I'm just going to go to bed, I'll ask what was going on downstairs in the morning if I remember.
Hope to hear from you all soon.
Shorter entry this time. This is where a party conflict really starts to kick off—Naloth's player can get pretty extreme, as you'll see shortly.
This session also made a new addition to our cast:
Sharbul: Male halfling rogue. He's traveling with the caravan our party is with. Very sneaky guy with a bow. Dandelion and he have bonded over having to crane their necks to deal with Big Folk.
Fighting isn't remotely easy. Really enjoying violence, even around legitimately sickening individuals, is harder than people think. If I could make myself enjoy it, believe me, I would've by now. It'd make things
The caravan's journey completes at last. I said at the start that I was determined to work out Sharbul's story—well, I haven't yet, but at least I know he knows how to use that bow of his. And like I keep saying, it's just nice to have another halfling in the group for a change. My neck hurts!
We set out with the caravan seeking answers to our varied questions. Naloth wanted to save his "lady love". Rose and Tazdaar wanted answers about the deaths of their people. I don't really know why Ryn went—I'm working on it. Something to with his dad, I'll bet. And I think Wodom's just out for power.
Ergh, I have to make this a short entry. We arrived at Greenest, the town of my dreams (in that I've dreaming of it for weeks now), only to find it in flames. A great blue wyrm soared overhead, and cultists and tiny dragonmen—Ryn called them kobolds—scuttled about below attacking villagers.
We noticed a family fleeing the battle, one of them wielding a broken spear against the creatures. She had spirit, but she also had a spear without a head. Naloth wanted desperately to go for the dragon, but we convinced him to focus on helping those we could help first. If you're going to risk your life do-gooding, you might as well do the most possible good for the least possible risk.
The eight kobolds weren't even a challenge. Sharbul shot one of them before it could move, Rose insulted another's face—apparently that hurts them? Remind me not to give Rose insult material—and I called in my god's blessing to aid a few allies. Ryn threw the woman a handaxe. Tazdaar blasted a couple with acid and Naloth went and incinerated a whole bunch with his breath weapon.
Burning kobold smells sort of like cooked rat. I thought I'd never have to smell cooked rat again. Drat it, Naloth.
Anyways, Ryn absorbed four attacks with total ease—he knows how to wear that armor! Sharbul and Rose kept laying into their enemies. Sharbul's a darn good shot, and Rose? Well, she flipped it off and its nose started bleeding. Bards are terrifying. Sharbul, Ryn and Rose finished off the rest. She killed one by comparing it to a snake. What the heck?
The woman's name was Linan Swift. We all decided to head for the keep, except Naloth, who we had to argue with for what felt like ten minutes to keep him from just charging after the dragon to keep it from "getting away". I don't understand that drive. What does he think he's proving? He's going to get himself killed with this hero complex of his.
Rose and Sharbul kept the kids entertained with puppets. It was nice of them. I was too angry and scared to worry about them, though. Just as we wrapped up the argument with Naloth, a bunch of kobolds and human cultists arrived. Rose dropped every single kobold with a single sleep spell.
Bards are scary.
Two cultists ran; the third hesitated and got a tiny halfling arrow in each ankle. We captured him. That's when Naloth really climbed up the wrong side of the tree. He started talking about mutilation to keep the cultist from running and talking. What in...I quickly made it clear I wouldn't allow anything like that, and most of the party agreed. Ryn and I carried the captive.
There's darkness in Naloth. That can be used against him.
Anyways, we left the sleeping kobolds alive and they ran after us later with a winged kobold and some more cultists. Sharbul dropped the winged one quick. Poor guy (Or girl? Or whatever? Do kobolds have genders? I'm asking, here.). The wings just made them a bigger target. Tazdaar breathed out a gout of acid that melted five of the Tiamat-worshipers. Really gross. Naloth scared the one surviving cultist so badly they, er, relieved themselves of their coastal impressions, as my mot we halflings like to say. Ryn dropped the captive on me so he could join the fray. We just let the moistened one go.
We ran into six more kobolds on the way to the keep. Naloth just gave them a look and told them exactly what awaited them. Rose contributed with helpful descriptions. They took one look at the dragonborn, turned, and ran. Nice not to have to kill those ones.
We made it to the keep. Barely. That's where we are now. We're about to meet Governor Nighthill, the person in charge around here. After that, who knows? Someone's got to do something here. This is going to be a slaughter. Walls of brick and mortar are strong, but a dragon is a dragon.
And this is a not-so-short entry. Sharbul wasn't present for this one, but Lady Elanna Amakiir made her triumphant return. Poor Wodom, though. He had a bad dice day.
Some more foreshadowing here, as we had a small dispute over how to handle the last captive.
Finally, I realize. Even Ryn's elaborate, valorous explanations all land short compared with the true experience.
I JUST FOUGHT A DRAGON!
I feel exhilarated. I feel energy, I feel passion, I feel alive, I feel like I'm going to have a simultaneous panic/vomiting spell. Also, I feel crackling. And kind of dead. Oh boy.
I just threw up. I'll have Elanna clean it up. That magic of hers can probably Whoa okay nevermind. Lesson learned: Never ask Lady Elanna Amakiir to clean up your misplaced pumpkin chunks.
Where did I last Really? Well, alright. It feels like it's been longer. Last entry was last-minute, scribbled out in a few minutes' downtime. I am now writing with a bit more breathing room. It's evening now.
When I last wrote, I was talking about how we'd just met Governor Nighthill in the keep of Greenest. As a reminder, the cult of Tiamat just attacked this town, and everyone's been holed up here.
Sidenote: Greenest is an alright town. The only town in Greenfields, in fact. Us halflings founded it—one day, many years ago, one of us stood up atop one of these hills and thought to herself, "Yep. Seems like a good place for a town." Mostly humans now, though. I checked on Linan Swift: the woman whose family we escorted here. They're doing alright. I think she forgot to give Ryn back his handaxe.
So Nighthill asked us to go check on the mill, which he thought was in danger of being set on fire. So we're heading outside, bickering about which route to take—I wanted to sneak along the river, but Lady Elanna Amakiir felt the road was more sensible—when we look up and realize a gang of cultists is coming right at the keep. Rose, true to her nature, immediately opened with a taunt. Lady Elanna loosed a blast of fire, burning up two on the spot. I'm starting to get used to the sight of burnt bodies aga.
Ryn rushes forward and cuts up the scraggly one that Rose just implied "freed an air elemental", as we halflings politely call it. The last one turns and runs, but Rose shouts after him, "Bedwetting coward!"
I don't know why her insults pack so much more of a punch than mine, but he went down. I guess I'm just too nice, hmmm?
Going along the road, we see more cultists and kobolds looting. They're easy enough to avoid, distracted as they are. We decide not to pick any fights we don't have to.
Our group arrives at the mill, and we see a bunch of thugs acting like they're setting fire to it. Now, I was sure that was what was happening, but Rose and Ryn must have noticed something I didn't. They were faking. My instincts screamed "Trap", but to what end? Rose sneaks up ahead of us and tells us to hang back. We take positions.
So, Rose isn't exactly a master of stealth. I mean, she's a bard. Asking a bard to be sneaky must be like asking a gnome to be less annoyi cleric to be less religious. The wave of thunder we heard right after wasn't remotely sneaky, that's for sure. Half the thugs went down with bloody ears. I smacked another with a "clay pigeon" from my sling. Right in the throat! It was a darn good shot, if I do say so myself. Ryn slices another one down, and Rose tells the last to run.
Now, Lady Elanna Amakiir wants to kill the last one. Me? You know me—full of compassion and mercy. I call on the authority vested in my by the heavens above and Command the last one to come towards me.
So, er, lesson learned: I don't have the presence to take an enemy's hand, totally unguarded, and get him to spill the beans without stabbing me in the gut. Yet. I thought it was an impressive gesture, anyways. Maybe just work on the execution a little bit.
What I'm saying is, Ryn and I tried to interrogate him to know what they were doing here. What was their goal in pretending to set fire to a mill? He gestures behind us, towards the mill doors.
"To kill you," he says.
My memory is a little scattered around that point. A group of guards bursts out of the mill and comes towards us. I called upon the blessing of my god to encourage my teammates, and Tazdaar spits a glob of acid at one of the enemies. Ryn and Elanna both attack my "captive audience", but miss.
Do you know what it feels like to have your belly sliced open? I don't. I'm asking. The man I'd just "captured" lunged at me and sliced across my gut. I felt like I was one errant breath away from...well, spilling out, from turning outside in. I healed myself as quickly as I could as Elanna froze the man who'd got me. Do you know what it feels like to heal a wound? I've gotten varying accounts. For me, it feels sort of exactly like you weren't healed at all for a few seconds. Then your nerves realize that the injury is gone, and they sort of overcompensate with a short burst of plea Okay, that is not the right word, trust me. It's not pleasure. It feels like...the opposite of pain. If that makes sense. All-in-all, it's a pleasant experience, but weird. Sorry, I'm rambling.
We chased the would-be ambushers off. It was clearly a trap for soldiers, not for "heroes" like us. We went over the mill for a while to see if it was tampered with. I was sort of expecting poison. But we didn't find anything suspicious, and ultimately went back to the keep.
At the keep, we had another short conversation with our esteemed prisoner, who I think I have taken to calling "Granuja". We do seem to talk with him a lot. He told us—and this is important—that the worshipers of Tiamat have a precise purpose. The stealing and pillaging isn't just on behalf of their clutch of black dragon eggs, that is to say.
"Collecting loot," my friend Granuja said, "for the great hoard to bring in Tiamat."
But who cares who cares my GOSH THE DRAGON THOUGH LET'S SKIP TO THE DRAGON.
I probably shouldn't be this excited, considering we all nearly died and five people did die. The blue dragon from before had showed up to harass our keep again. We all ran up to support the soldiers—I think Tazdaar said it was an adult, but who understands dragon aging? It's certainly not polite to ask the dragon!
Sorry, corny joke.
The dragon's fear aura washed over us as we went out there. It felt sort of like being hit by a wall of seawater with your mouth hanging wide open. I wasn't scared, though. I mean, no more than usual—it was a freaking DRAGON. But we halflings aren't easily panicked. Ryn, Naloth, Elanna and Wodom held up well, too.
Rose and Tazdaar had more trouble. They panicked and hid. Tazdaar recovered after a while, but the fact of the matter is—and I hate to say this—Rose has a lot of self-interest. I don't not half-wonder if she might've stayed down just out of practicality after the initial wave of fear passed.
But me, I'm slinging bullets, Ryn's borrowed a crossbow, and Wodom...well, he's hurling a lot of eldritch blasts, anyways. Maybe one of them hit? His hand has a weird shakiness to it. And Elanna's hurling blasts left and right.
We're just needles. Our keep is a little hedgehog fending off a grizzly bear.
But not even the grizzly bear enjoys stepping on hedgehogs.
The dragon turned away. We weren't worth it, I suppose. It was looking for some cheap thrills and kills, not a real battle, thank goodness. All-in-all, it was a truly awe-inspiring, wondrous experience. I hope it never happens to me again.
But then we come to the matter of me lying bruised bandaged on a medic's cot, my hair a cloudy mess, leaning against the wall to write this.
As Elanna was off trying to comfort a still-spooked Rose, a purple-cloaked woman and twelve guards show up to look over the keep. The woman was none other than Frulam Mondath: The cult's apparent leader. Like the fearsome grizzly, they decided we aren't worth their time and clear out. They'd already taken what they needed from us.
And then we get introduced to the honorable Langdedrosa. A half-blue dragon. We didn't ask what the other half was. Judging by the size, "ogre" would seem a fair bet, being honest here. The big old knight marches up, accompanied by kobolds and four prisoners—including two children. Why is it always the children war hurts the most? Really pi ticks me off.
He then issues a very strange ultimatum. This knight of Tiamat wishes to face our strongest warrior in honorable single combat. If we accept, he will release the prisoners. If we do not, they will be taken back. If we cheat, they will die on the spot.
We only take a short time to decide. Elanna urges that we accept. I hated to pressure Ryn, but it was a high-pressure situation. To his credit, he quickly agreed to the terms set by our enemy. As a show of good faith, the half-dragon releases the two children first. But the other two remain until we honor the agreement.
What I did was not smart, and I will learn from it. In all honesty, I was worried about Ryn. I was also confident that, if caught, I would be able to talk my way out of it. Langdedrosa has a sense of honor. That sort of thing can always be exploited. But what I did was not smart.
Ryn didn't go out alone. I slipped out behind Ryn, creeping beneath his cloak. If anybody noticed an extra pair of little feet beneath him, nobody commented on it. Big folk never look close enough, and the kobolds were busy watching the prisoners.
Ryn took the first strike, and it was a bloody one. He hacked into the draconian with that sword of his, cracking armor plates and slicing deep into the shoulder. I was close enough to feel the impact, through Ryn. It felt like metal striking bone.
The half-dragon recovered and knocked the sword away to swing at Ryn, but Ryn ducked under. He slashed again, driving his blade through and along Langdedrosa's left leg. What a sound!
Apparently, this made Langdedrosa rather unhappy with us. I heard him breathe in. I felt Ryn leaping to the side, and following his lead, I leaped, too. Not quite quick enough.
I felt a horrid jolt in my leg. I distinctly felt my heart thud four times in a single second. And I'm afraid I passed out.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor inside the keep. The prisoners were being freed. Langdedrosa had gone. I was in so much pain. Am in so much pain.
They'd tried to bandage me. Why would you bandage electric shocks? Ugh. Well, my hair was ruined. Is ruined. It won't stop standing on end. I can't even get Mother's hat to stay on. Worse, Ryn was knocked unconscious. Not by the breath, apparently—he landed one more hit after that. But then the half-dragon finally managed to hit him with that enormous greatsword.
Langdedrosa spared Ryn. He must have not even noticed me, thank goodness. I may have a silver tongue, but it tastes like ozone in my mouth right now. I can't talk my way out of anything when I'm nearly dead.
I nearly died.
The Cult is moving out of town now. I suppose we 'saved' Greenest. But did we? And what is driving the Tiamat worshipers forwards? And where the heck is Aradi, anyways? Naloth has been off trying to calm himself. I pray for my sake, and for his, and for Aradi's, and for all of ours, that he succeeds. The next few days will require delicate action. If we use a hammer when a needle would have done...
I'll find Aradi and get to the bottom of this. We all have too much on the line for me to fail again.