In the following letter, Mielka Dawnhammer, Divine Oracle and Cleric of Moradin, sets out her holiday wishlist.  (Things in orange are text from the AV2.)

Dear Father Winter,

It’s me, Mielka. Moradin will tell you that I’ve been an extra good girl this year – after all, he made me a Divine Oracle!  HIMSELF, even!   I mean, even if I get nothing for Winter Solstice, I think that the memory of meeting the Soul Forger himself when I wasn’t already dead was a pretty big present.

But if you’re up for giving me some more stuff, here are some things that make my cleric-y heart go pitter-pat like … like… something that goes pitter-pat that’s not a heart.

Armor

Healer’s Armor – for extra healing goodness!

Property: When you use a healing power, the target regains additional hit points equal to the armor’s enhancement bonus.

Holy Radiance Armor – shiny beautiful shiny light! and healing! and light!

Power (Daily): Minor Action.  You expend your use of a Channel Divinity Power for this encounter and shed bright light 20 squares in all directions.  While within the light, you and each ally gain regeneration 3 while bloodied and +2 power bonus to saving throws.

Winged Armor – because every dwarf secretly wants to fly.  And honestly, Father Winter, walking chafes my ample womanly thighs, if you know what I mean.  Come to think of it, being FATHER Winter, you probably don’t… just trust me, k?

Power (Daily): Move Action.  You fly your speed.  You also gain a +2 power bonus to all defenses until the end of your next turn.

Weapons

Now, Father Winter, you know I’m not the type to jump into combat.  It’s just too bloody and gross up there.  But every once in a while, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.   It might be nice to do it with these:

Earth-Wrought Hammer – because it’s always good to have a bit of the mountain with you at all times.  Also, would be fun to yell like a mountain goat when knocking people over.

Critical:  The target is knocked prone.

Supremely Vicious Hammer – Okay, this is kinda a silly one.  There are other people in my life who would make better use of this.  But seriously, how awesome would it be to bring down the wrath of Moradin in a super lethal way once in a while?  Right?  Maybe I’ll just stick to healing, though.

Critical: +1d8 damage per plus, and you can choose to reroll any or all of your critical damage dice, but you must take the second result of each die.

Holy Symbols

I’m of the belief that a girl can’t have too many holy symbols.  I mean, it’s like, awesome.  It’s the bling of the gods.  Who’d want any other kind of bling?  Oh, and it has POWERS.  Yeah.  Nobody else’s bling from the corner shop has powers like Moradin’s bling.

Symbol of Branding – NOT FOR ME.  Please, Father Winter, bring this totally awesome holy symbol to a needy Paladin of Moradin.  Because what would be more awesomer  than Moradin symbols branded into the foreheads of every evil thing in sight?

As you utter a prayer, this symbol flares to sear your god’s icon into the forehead of your foe.  Until the end of the encounter, when that enemy takes radiant damage from your divine challenge or divine sanction, it takes 5 extra radiant damage.

Symbol of Defense – You know I hate blood.  This would help me prevent blood.  Hence, WORTH IT!

Power (Daily):  Immediate Interrupt.  Trigger: An attack hits an ally you can see.  Effect:  The ally gains a +5 power bonus to all defenses against the triggering attack.

Symbol of Shared Healing – I’m all about the healing.  So, this would be really good for my often-bleeding friends.  (See how NICE I am, Father Winter? I ask you for this stuff not for me, but for THEM!)

While you wear this symbol, you can heal an ally even as you tend to your own wounds.

Symbol of the Holy Nimbus – A nimbus is a cloud.  A cloud is fluffy.  I’m fluffy like a cloud.  Thus, this would be the bestest holy symbol ever for me.

When you use the healing word power during a combat encounter, you and each ally within 5 squares of you also gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + the symbol’s enhancement bonus.

Arms

My old Shield of Protection is cool, but I think I’d really like a Preservation Shield better.  Even though it has arrows on it and those are kinda elfy, it’s okay.  I hear tell it’s good for quick healing.

Power (Daily): Minor Action.  You and each ally within 5 squares of you gain temporary hit points equal to the number of healing surges you have remaining.

Feet

Fey Warrior’s Boots – Okay, I know I said I’m not into elfy stuff, but let’s be honest here.  I’m a 5×5 dwarf, I’m not too good on the quickness.  These might help me get out of the way of things a bit quicker.

Power (At Will):  Immediate Reaction.  Trigger: An attack misses you.  Effect: You teleport 3 squares.

Hands

Gloves of Grace – I’m pretty sure part of my destiny is being around people who are always dying.  Like, seriously.  These might help me prevent this from happening.

Power (Daily):  Minor Action.  An ally adjacent to you makes a saving throw.

Head

Sacred Mask – It’s pretty and ivory and it scares away the undead – how super cool is that?  Besides, every so often I need to hide my drunk face and when singing the Sober Face Song doesn’t work, this mask would do just fine!

Property:  When you use a Channel Divinity class feature, until the end of your next turn, you deal 1d6 extra radiant damage against undead enemies and can score a critical hit against undead enemies on a roll of 18-20.

Neck

Possum Amulet – I’ve already met Moradin twice, Father Winter, so I’d really like to have this amulet so I don’t have to meet him again until my destiny is fulfilled.

Power (Daily):  Trigger: An attack reduces you to 0 hit points or fewer.  Effect:  You are instead reduced to 1 hit point and knocked prone.  Enemies believe that you have been reduced to 0 hit points, and you gain total concealment from them until the end of your next turn.

Rings

Alliance Band – Because you know how much I love preventing people from bleeding everywhere.  This will help keep everybody nice and sealed up!

This silver ring is inset with complex interlocking decorations and provides healing to your allies.

So, Father Winter, if you could, bring me some of these thingies.  There’s a good long time left before Winter Solstice, so I’ll probably even be strong enough to wear all of them by then.  (Well, except the hammer, you can’t WEAR a hammer, duh.)

To sum things up, I’ve been a very good girl.  Ask any of my traveling companions.  Nobody’s even died yet!

Thanks for everything,

Love,

Mielka Dawnhammer

I waddled over to their table and realized that I was probably a lot drunker than I thought I was originally and I kinda barfed on this one elf at the table before the dwarves.  Oh, it was bad.  I was soooooo embarrassed.   The elf said some nasty words in Elven (I remember Helion using similar words to yell at orcs.) and left the tavern area.

But the dwarves were like totally cool with it.  They roared with laughter and tossed me a towel.  The redheaded one spoke up first.  “Well there Miss Mielka, at least we know how much ale you can hold now!”

So I was like, wait, they know my name.  How do they know my name? Am I famous?   I don’t remember being famous outside of Cillamar.   Oooh, unless a bard wrote a song about me, but I don’t think we really met any bards.  Either way, the wheels in my mind must have been squeaking pretty loud because the redhead continued:

“I’m sure you’re wondering how we know who you are.  We’re here because Moradin sent us to find you.  He appeared to our cleric, the great priest Morral Dargur.   Morral is very old and has been searching for someone who can be Moradin’s voice in the world when he leaves us to become immortal.  Moradin appeared to him and told him that you are his Chosen One and that Morral should seek you out and train you.   He did mention you would appear to be an unlikely heroine.  He was certainly right!”

The redheaded dwarf chuckled again.  He had a deep round laugh a lot like my father’s but of course in a totally sexy and not creepy kind of way.   But I was certain that meeting this Morral guy was way more important than getting it on with some redhead I just met, so I asked where I could find Morral.

They led me up the stairs of the inn and into the biggest room I’d ever seen in my life.  I mean, seriously, I didn’t even know inns had rooms this big.  It was huge!  Big giant bed, big giant dresser, big giant couch, big giant table with big giant chairs.   I mean, not giant-giant, obviously, but big.  Y’know, giant.  But not giant.

Anyway.  Morral was in the bed.  He was super old.  I mean, like probably great-great-great-great-great grandwarfie old.  He called me to his bedside and took my hands in his.  At first I was like, ew, clammy old people hands, and then this feeling of intense sparkly energy went straight through me.   And there I was, standing before the All-Father with Morral.

Moradin smiled at us.  “Good to see you again, Mielka,” he said, and winked.  “Better circumstances this time.“   He laughed a big Moradin laugh and took a swig from a tankard I swear was not in his hand a second earlier.  It must be awesome to be Moradin, I thought.  “It is,” the Soul-Forger said, laughing as I jumped back.

Anyway, I can’t really tell you EVERYTHING Moradin said because some of it is like top secret only between me and Morral and the Soul-Forger stuff but I can say that holy crap, Moradin wants me to be the next Morral, which is kind of intimidating but cool at the same time.  I mean, I don’t want to be all old and white and wrinkly, but it would be super cool to be a demigod and well, if I can get a tankard of ale to appear out of thin air, that would be sweet too.

Oh, and that whole defending the world against evil and being a good representation of the All-Father on the material plane, I think I’d be pretty good at that except for the fact that I’m not a dude.   Not that it matters that I’m not a dude, it’s just that I’d have to be like the All-Mother or something like that.

Anyway.

Moradin told me that he’d take care of my adventuring buddies and that I needed to train with Morral and then go into the Underdark to deal with some very bad dwarves who were so bad they weren’t even called dwarves anymore.   Hearts as black as coal, these former dwarves.  They betrayed Moradin and sold their souls to devils and demons.   The fewer of them on the material plane, the better the world will be for good people.

As soon as my training with Morral was done, I vowed to Moradin that I would eliminate these horrible excuses for dwarves.  After all, the world needs more room for GOOD and Mielka is gonna BRING IT!

These people, they were like, hey dwarf, bet you can’t drink this ale through this awesome hat we made with tubes to suck the ale out of and I was like – I SURE CAN – and I did!

Yeah, see, Moradin blesses dwarfs with his drinking abilties like we can do it good.

So………

Oh, so ADVNETURE LOG!

DO DOO DOOO!

Wait, I was suposed to do the trumpets in my head.

ADNVETURE LOG!

Is good now. Okay.

So Fin.  Fin Fin Fin.  Mr. Live-By-Sword.  Which I have to say, if you got a sword that makes fire and green fire and ice and all that stuff, you really should live by it since I think other people would want to steal it and you’d want to keep it close, right? Yeah.  I’m smart like that.

Sure, he’s irritable.  Sure, he’d rather talk to the hoitytoity rich folks in town than us.  But that stuff’s useful.

Fin has never been like talky or anything much.  Other than cuz he saves us with his green flaming stuff, I’m really not sure he even likes us.   But I have to say, since it’s just you n’ me, ADNVUTRE LOG (trumpets!), that he is awful cute.

For a human.

They’re too tall.  And scrawny. And they suck at drinking.  But out of all my adventuring friends if I had to pick one to tie up, gag, and have my way with, it would be Fin.  I think it’s the hair.   Or the green flames.  Or the hair.  Did I say hair yet?

I know he killed me that time I died.  Ha! That still doesn’t get less funny to say.  When I died.  I died, I died, I died.  I’M HERE!  But I died, and died, and died.  But here!  Ooh.  I gotta pee.

WOO!

Okay, maybe I’m a little tipsy, but not really.

I’m a dwarf!  We can handle our ale.  For sure.

Anyhoo, the other drinks kinda were fast because there were some guys betting I couldn’t chug faster than them and I did because well, dwarf. Hello?

Seriously, humans need to fess up that they suck at drinking compared to dwarves and they always will.  Just bite the arrow and admit it already.  You suck.  It’s okay, every race has to suck at something and y’all just suck at drinking.

So I wanted to write about Errich because well, I already wrote about Helion and Drash.  So yeah, Errich.  He comes in all hairy and halflingy and gives us this story about being some kind of boat repairman or something.

First off, never trust anyone who doesn’t keep both feet on the ground.  That’s a dwarf saying my mother taught me and it is SO TRUE.  Y’know, people who live on boats supposedly get these things called “sea legs”.  I’m sorry, but I happen to like my land legs just fine.   Some dude in the drinking contest said I had thunder thighs, which I’m pretty sure is a compliment.

So.  Errich.  He’s always had shifty eyes and has a weird habit of shoving things in his pockets while telling us it’s nothing, not worth anything, nothing to see here.  I’m pretty sure not EVERYTHING is nothing, but hey.

But y’know the handy thing about rogues (cuz really, Errich, we kinda figured it out), is that they can pick locks and find traps and all that good stuff that the rest of us kinda stink at.  Can you imagine me trying to pick a lock with my pudgy hands?  Oh, especially that lock where Errich had to shove both hands in the giant mouth and do it with his eyes closed?

Ok, that looks really funny now that it’s out of context. Hee!

Of course, then he goes and gets himself arrested just as we’re coming back with the rescued slaves and are heros and whatever.  I really have to get him to tell us the whole story about that sometime…

Maybe I’ll go find him in a few more beers…

Anyway, I’d like to pause a moment to remember someone who is no longer with us – Drash.

Drash of the deep gravelly voice and the scales and the dragonbreath and the dying.

When I wrote that I was going to find his squishy dragon heart, I’m pretty sure I didn’t mean it was going to be through his death, but hey, who am I to question Destiny, right?

What’s really gross is the most I remember about Drash involves him bleeding all over the place.  Ew.  I mean, seriously.  I wish sometimes that Moradin had picked me a destiny that was a little less bloody.  Drash is all bleeding everywhere and ugh.  I gotta stop thinking about that before I hurl into a perfectly good beer.

Either way, besides the bleeding, what always made me grin about Drash is his way of throwing himself into dangerous situations to protect me.  That’s pretty nice of him, I think.  I mean, who doesn’t want a burly dragony looking guy taking all the arrows and spells so you don’t have to suffer?

Another thing – who knew that dragonborn had a paralyzing fear of shafts?  Drash did nothing but complain and generally avoid the situation (well, until he saved Helion, which was awesome!).  So yeah, who knew about this shaft problem with dragonborn?  Or maybe it’s just Drash.  No idea.  I haven’t met any other dragonborn.  Would be silly of me to pass judgement on a whole race based on one guy.  Sheesh, I really should find some other dragonborn and… wait, there’s one over there.  BRB.

Okay, I asked this dragonborn if he had a paralyzing fear of shafts and he kinda looked at me funny for a second and then made a VERY lewd comment that I don’t think has any place in an Adventure Log.

Okay, hearing the trumpets makes me feel a little better about things.

No more shaft talk.

So do I miss Drash?  Yeah, kinda.  Nobody really jumps out into battle to save me anymore.  He was kinda like a big ol’ scaly shield.  Then again, things in the group have been a little better since he left.   For sure, the bar wenches at Slumbering Drake are treating us nicer!

Which reminds me, I need another beer…

ADVENTURE LOG!

Da-dada-daaaaaaaaaa!

Ok, it doesn’t work well on parchment.  But if I think about it, you can’t really WRITE music with words (well, unless it’s a song, duh!) but you kinda have to just HEAR and FEEL it.

So, let me try this again and this time just HEAR and FEEL the trumpets…

Dear… ADVENTURE LOG…

Oh yeah, that works so much better.  I heard the trumpets and in my head they’re much more in tune than the da-dada-daaaa stuff.  Cool.

Anyway, hi!  Today’s a low key day and I’m just hanging in the tavern of The Slumbering Drake, nursing a pint of McIvan’s Blackest Stout.   It’s like a loaf of bread in a glass – elven journeybread be damned, McIBS is wayyy more filling!

I can’t believe how short a time it’s been really since I discovered my destiny, learned how to make awesome sparkles, was HAND-PICKED by the Pack of the White Wolves, and came here and met all these crazy but kinda cool guys.

I have to say out of my original group of friends the biggest surprise has really been from Helion.  “Protector of the forest” was his original description, which apparently is just a nice way of saying “hater of orcs.”  It’s pretty racist if you ask me, but then again, I’m not sure I’ve met a nice orc.  Maybe a half-orc or something, but even they are kinda stinky and that’s coming from a dwarf and we know stinky pretty intimately.

Either way, Helion has been a pretty big asset to our party.  He can track things like… um, tracks?  He’s handy with a bow as long as the string doesn’t break.  Y’know, that seems to happen to him a lot.  I wonder if it’s just that I haven’t hung out with rangers much (I mean, seriously, what self-respecting dwarf would be seen with a fruity BOW when there are WARHAMMERS – RAWR! to be had?).   But yeah, I mean, his string breaks a lot and granted, he has back-up string, but shouldn’t there be some kind of sturdier material?

I mean… they’re ELVES.  They’ve invented all sorts of cool magical stuff like that bread that’s supposedly better than this beer.  Yeah, right.  Nothing is better than this beer.  Oh well, ADVENTURE LOG (listen for it!), I gotta put you down for a while so I can turn this tankard up with both hands and shake out the last few drops of McIBS before ordering a second round.

RAWR!  Seeya later!

It turns out that our girl is Lady Sophie Ismae.  She’s from the noble house in the town and disappeared two weeks ago.  There was a reward for finding her.

“Her father will be very happy to know she’s alive,” the sisters tell us.

It turns out her father’s house is next door.  Fin asks the nuns to send out two servants – one to get the town guard and another to notify the family of Sophie’s rescue.

The sisters take Sophie into a back room to begin work on healing her and offer us some food and drink.  We wait for about an hour for someone from the Ismae house to come to identify her.   He thanks us and says the count will be very happy.  I don’t like the way his face looks when he says this – it doesn’t seem like he’s REALLY happy about the news.   The reward, he says, was 500 gold.  We can come to the house to collect it.

Later, the town guard comes.  We give a complete report and they say they’ll recheck the area.  There were probably some experiments going on there, but we have a feeling that more are happening in another location.  The guards pay us for our work and lift our ban on leaving the town.  At least we’re back in their good graces!

The others go back to the inn, but I want to stay with the sisters and Sophie.  There is just something not quite right about the messenger from her father’s house.   We’re able to heal her once she’s rested up a bit.  At first, she doesn’t want to talk to me about what happened.  I explain to her how we saved her and brought her here, she breaks down crying and begins to talk.

She’s the youngest daughter of the count and doesn’t have much of a future other than hoping to marry well.  For fun, she sneaks out of her house wearing peasant clothes and goes to the slums area of town called the Warrens.  She likes to talk with the refugees and other people there.   Her father was furious about it when he found out, but she kept going.  One night, when she was sneaking back home, she blacked out.  When she woke up, she was in the torture chamber.  There was a man dressed in black – she never saw his face.  He did horrible things to her.

I do my best to comfort her, but she’s haunted by the experience and has nightmares whenever she sleeps.  All I can do is sit by her bed and pray that Moradin can bring her some peace.

The next day, we’re scheduled to go see the count to get our reward.  I ask the nuns if we can get some town guards to watch Sophie’s room while I am gone.  They agree that it would be a good idea, since she was already kidnapped once.

Walking up to the Ismae house, we can see that Cillamar’s oldest family certainly is well-to-do.  The house is heavily guarded and we’re being eyed very suspiciously.  I step up to speak. “We’re the ones who rescued Sophie,” I tell them.  “Don’t move,” the guard replies.  He goes into the house and comes back with a purse with 50 platinum pieces.

“Here’s your reward,” he says. “The count is very happy that you found his daughter.  There will be something else for you” – he nods towards me – “for taking care of his daughter.  You can go now.”

Something is fishy.  Errich stays in the area to watch the house and I go back to check on Sophie.  Guards of the Ismae house have replaced the regular guards.  They thank us and say that our job is done.  She’s back in her family and her family will take care of her.  I’m not liking this one bit.

Fin suggests that I ask for a job in the temple so I can keep an eye on Sophie – he’s so smart!   I speak to the head nun, asking her if I can work with them and learn their ways of healing, and she says yes!  The guards look a little peeved to see someone other than the nuns in the temple, but they accept me begrudgingly.    The next morning, her people come to take her back to her house.  Oh well, the best I can do now is pray to Moradin that she stays safe and finds some happiness in her life.

Maybe once we’re done adventuring, she can marry Fin!   She’s human, he’s human.   She’s from a good family, he’s got connections like he’s from a good family.  She looks good in his undershirt… I think it’s a match!

Our prisoners aren’t saying anything about their employer, so they get taken off to jail.  The dirty dwarf gets taken to jail too because apparently he was beating up the bartender.  The group asks me to speak on his behalf, but dirty dwarf says he won’t love Moradin, he’d rather go to jail.  Fine by me.  Every dwarf should love Moradin – how can you not love the One that FORGED YOUR SOUL?  I don’t get it.

Errich attempts to speak for the dirty dwarf, but then the guard realizes that the bartender has disappeared.  They agree to let the dirty dwarf stay with us and let us know the gatekeepers will have our descriptions so we better not try to leave town.

Fin follows the guards and helps them search the inn.   They find some letters from Pherros to someone named JL about getting an interesting group for some experiments.  US? For EXPERIMENTS?  Ewww!  Good thing we killed that guy!  Oh guess what? His name was Pherros Three Fingers, which is kinda weird because he totally had all ten.  Fingers.  Yeah.  I don’t get it either.

Fin finds a secret door in the cellar and marks it with a piece of chalk.  Despite the fact that we’ve been helping the guards, they still don’t really trust us.  Since the Manticore is the direct competition of the Slumbering Drake, people would probably start to spread the rumor that we were in cahoots with Chauntessa to bring down the Manticore.   You know what I think? Chauntessa is too nice for evil cahooting.

We go back to the Slumbering Drake and fill Chauntessa in on the story.  There are guards posted outside the inn to watch us, and at the crack of dawn, those same guards are banging on our doors to wake us up for a meeting.

The prisoners had talked, thankfully!  They were hired to kidnap us by Pherros and the owner of the Manticore, Jasper Livex.  JL!  (Whoa!)  Errich remembers that in the paperwork we found at the monastery some of the slaves were sold to somewhere other than the orcs.  The guards checked out the secret door in the cellar and said it lead to the sewers.  Fin asks the guards to hire us to check out the passageways, seeing as we just broke up another smuggling ring in the area.  The guards agree and will pay us 150g each when we get back.

We venture into the basement of the Manticore and through the secret door into the sewers.  I’m not sure what I like less – blood or sewage.  Blech.  We walk along the service corridor looking for a way that the smugglers could have gotten us out of town if they kidnapped us.  Errich finds tracks going towards the center of town and towards the High Quarter.  (One handy thing about being a dwarf?  I can always tell what direction I’m going, even underground!) Fin shines his lantern at the wall, where there’s a door.  He opens it up.

There’s a smaller hallway here that doesn’t look like it’s seen much use.  It doesn’t seem like part of the sewer system.  We draw our weapons and head in.  The dirty dwarf lights a sunrod and wedges it into his belt.  We keep heading east and are now under the town necropolis.   There’s another door, which opens into a room that was dug into the dirt below the necropolis.  The ground is covered in thick mud and there are two coffins that are almost falling into the room from the ceiling.    A wooden door is on the other side.  This room seems to have been dug pretty recently but it’s hard to tell in the mud if anybody has been here lately.

Two ochre jellies rise up from the mud.  Ew!  I sparkle one good! BEST. SPARKLE. EVER!  Errich gets slimed by one and it smells like his skin is burning off.  This place is the stinkiest place I’ve ever been, and if you’ve ever been to a dwarven public restroom, you can really appreciate what I’m saying here!!

Errich slashes one and it splits into two smaller jellies.  There’s sloshing noises everywhere and then Errich is surrounded by jellies – oh wait! – now Fin is!   Errich kills the jelly in the corner.  I heal Errich and then land a totally AWESOME sparkle on the big jelly and then another totally awesome sparkle.  The big jelly splits in two.  Fin is struggling and is bleeding and oozing everywhere.  Ew!   I summon all of Moradin’s strength and hop up into the action, flanking the jelly in front of Fin and using my healing strike.  I feel the life force drain from the jelly and into Fin as the jelly oozes into the floor.  I heal Fin again and he’s looking much better.  Errich can hear a woman crying quietly on the other side of the door.

My boots are all nasty and muddy.  This is so nasty.  Errich checks the door for traps, but is apparently not on his game, because when he picks the lock, we hear two clicks instead of one.  Darts fly out of the door and hit the dirty dwarf.   Just as we’re about to ask if he’s okay, he rubs his arm and shakes it off like nothing happened.

The other side of the door smells horrible – as if this place couldn’t smell worse!!   There are two of those giant stone boxes where you put dead people in the middle of the room.  (Shush, I can’t spell the word.)   There are six naked people chained up to the wall.  Most look dead, some of the bodies are twitching with the last remnants of life.  It’s really sad.  On the far end of the room is a ladder going up to a trapdoor.

The girl on the other side of the room is weeping softly.  She looks awful.  I run to her to see if I can heal her, but there’s nothing I can do.  She needs rest before anything can heal her.  Errich climbs on my shoulders and unties her and I catch her as she falls to the ground.

Fin wriggles out of his undershirt and we dress her in it.

“I’ll offer my loincloth,” says the dirty dwarf.  “NO!!” Errich says.

The boys want to check the big stone boxes.  “Look, but don’t touch!” I say.  It’s not proper to disturb the dead!  They slide the lid a bit but don’t recognize any family crests or other signs of which family owns the crypt.

Errich sneaks up the ladder and finds the trapdoor seems locked on the other side.  The dirty dwarf climbs up and tries to bust it open.  It’s not locked, but something heavy is on top.  Something made of stone.  We need more lifting power – my floating disk!  I summon it and use it to lift on the trapdoor until it pushes whatever was in the way off and we see light.   We’re in the necropolis in a ruined crypt that has been collapsed.

The girl is too weak to respond to anything.  I carefully load her up on the disk and lift her through the hole and outside.   It’s about midday and we see people walking in the graveyard who don’t seem to notice us.

Fin suggests that we bring the girl to the infirmary, but I want better help than that.  Quality help that won’t turn on us.   I want a temple.  We go to the Sisters of Elyr – the Lady of the Healing Touch.  Errich and I explain to the sisters about how we found the girl.  One of the nuns gets a washcloth and cleans the girl’s face.  “Oh my!” the sisters say, “We know who this is!”

When Helion asks him how much he wants, the guy says he’s more interested in the stuff we’d bring back.  He wants to be a partner with us.  He’s really, really interested in us.  Kinda interested like a dog is interested in you when you have a sausage in your hand.   I can tell there’s something a little not-Good about him, but maybe he’s just greedy.   Helion asks him to bring the information to the Slumbering Drake, but he insists that we come to his inn – The Manticore.  We tell him we have to discuss it with Fin and Errich when they return and we’d get back to him.

We meet up for lunch and talk it over with the group.  Chauntessa doesn’t know Pherros but she does know about the Manticore Inn, which is her direct competition.  It’s a nice inn, smaller than hers.  We want to send our stinky dwarf friend to follow Pherros and spy on him.

“Will you accept the mission?” Fin says.

The dwarf shrugs.

“You might get to kill someone,” Helion says.

The dwarf’s eyes light up with happiness.

Helion offers him ten gold pieces to wash up.  The dwarf points to the blood on his hair and grunts, “This is my family.”

“Twenty gold?“  Helion asks.

Apparently not.  Ew.  “I’m sure Moradin still loves him,” I say, rocking back and forth nervously. “Moradin loves all the little dwarves…“   He shoots me a dirty look.

Our plan was for the new guy to sit at a different table than us so he can follow the guy afterwards and check him out.  Pherros drops by our inn for dinner.  He’s looking cleaned up nicely and judging from his clothes, he must be a wizard or warlock.  He seems pretty nice, tho, and tells us about how he’s been learning magic in the southlands, adventuring, traveling.  His former adventuring party had been to Castle Whiterock and when they retired, they left him with the maps in case he wanted to go.

He seems greedy for treasure, but not evil.  Helion asks him what kind of caster he is and he shows a few wizard tricks.  He tells us that the owner of the Manticore is a friend of his and that all the maps are in a vault in the cellar.  Fin suggests we bring the maps to Silverheel to get them verified and Pherros agrees, saying that we can get the maps today and go to Silverheel tomorrow to get them checked out.

We walk down to the Manticore, which is just like the Slumbering Drake, just a lot smaller.  The dirty dwarf is following behind us stealthy-like.    Pherros goes to the bar and tells the bartender that we’re the people he was talking about and he’d need to take us to the cellar.   He nods and goes back to tending bar.  We go to the kitchen and through the trapdoor to the cellar.

There are rows of shelving with bottles and boxes and casks full of food and drink down here.  Pherros tells us that his safe is at the back.  I see Helion put his hand on his longsword – something is up.  He draws his sword and puts it to Pherros’ back.  “This is a double-cross, isn’t it?” he asks.   Pherros disappears and reappears at the back end of the room.

Helion yells for Fin to get the dirty dwarf and Fin runs to the top of the stairs.   I feel a wave of thunder hit me and it throws me for a loop.  There are thugs approaching from the shadows.  NOT COOL.

Errich runs up and kills Pherros.  We’re trying to battle the thugs, but there’s a lot of them.  We hear hollering upstairs – what is the dirty dwarf DOING?  We need him down here!

Helion shouts to the thugs, “The wizard is dead.  If you don’t want to be with him, lay down your arms.“  His voice is quavering a bit and the attempt at intimidation doesn’t work.  At all.

Meanwhile, the thugs are attacking us from all sides.  I whisper a crazy scared prayer to Moradin and cast Beacon of Hope.  I feel his strength in me and sense the thugs getting weaker.  Yay Moradin!  I activiate my shield of awesomeness so Fin and I could be more protected since we’re surrounded by four baddies.

Fin unleashes a bolt of lighting, grabbing the big guy and dragging him across to the stairs.   Fin burns the big guy and sets some of the shelves on fire.  The dirty dwarf comes howling down the stairs and hits the big guy – FINALLY he shows up!  Moradin allows me to heal myself – but my sparkles fail. Grr.

I keep getting hit over and over.  This being in the middle of battle thing is not cool.  I call on Moradin again and swing my frosty hammer, smacking the big guy hard.  Helion’s arrow finishes him off.  The guards drop their weapons and surrender.

Fin says, “Where are the maps?”

Helion is not satisfied.  “Dead! Dead!  Kill ‘em!”  I have never seen an elf with such bloodlust.  It’s pretty disturbing, if you ask me.

At the top of the stairs is a handful of very unhappy bar patrons.  Helion shouts up the stairs that the place is on fire.  We climb up into the kitchen with our thug prisoners.  There are some inn people wielding various cooking utensils in a not-so-cooking kinda way.  The dirty dwarf puts on his scary face and many of them back off.   The guards come and we help out, passing buckets of water to put out the fire.

Oh boy, are we gonna have some splainin’  to do…

A little voice comes out of the darkness.  The tiny voice hmmms between sentences as if he’s still thinking through his offer while he gives it.  He tells us that they’ll give us back all the slaves and leave the area if we leave them alone.

Helion asks how many of them are left.  “I won’t tell you,” the voice says, “But here is a symbol of our good intentions.“  Two human slaves come out of the darkness.

We huddle up and whisper to each other, all team-like.  After some discussion, we take their offer.  Helion speaks for us, letting the slavers know that we will give them one day to get out and then we’ll be back to check on them.

Eight more slaves stumble out of the darkness, including Lyssa.  They’re alive but in really bad shape.   “True to our word,” Helion says, “We’re leaving now.  Goodbye and I hope our paths never cross again.”  There’s no answer.

Thank Moradin we had those town guards with us!  A couple run up ahead and come back with carts so the rescued slaves don’t have to walk the whole way.  We make it back in the early evening and find a few hundered people outside the gates to town.  There’s a huge party to celebrate the return of the missing townsfolk and honor us as heroes – US!  I’ve never had a party for me other than a birthday party, and seriously, you kinda HAVE to have a birthday party.  This party was totally optional and they did it for US!  So freakin’ cool.  Errich slides over and tells us he has something to do and he’ll meet back up with us at the inn.  People are handing us drinks and huggin’ and kissin’ on us.   Having a destiny is pretty awesome!

We finally manage to work our way through the crowds of admirers and get to the inn.   We meet up with a new guy, who I have to say is pretty gross.  He’s a dwarf, but he’s got this nappy hair that looks like it’s caked in – ew, I’m gagging just thinking about it! – blood.   We’re talking with him and considering him as a replacement for Drash when we see the guards taking Errich off to jail.  What?!?

Helion explains to the guards how we saved the slaves and he’s one of us – a hero!  Fin tells them to tell Lady Woden that Errich will come with us.  The guards say that he was caught with stolen goods and must be taken to the jail.  Fin goes with him since he has the best relationship with Lady Woden.

We all go to bed in the Slumbering Drake.  I have to say, it’s really nice to be able to wash up and sleep in a bed again.  I’ve never had such a good night’s sleep!