Monday, October 10, 2011

The 8th of Planting, 579 CY (5041 O.C.) (2729 F.T.)

Well for the elves, the year is 5041 and for my own culture, we would say that it is the year 2729 but I realize that some may get confused if they read this and are unfamiliar with how the Elves or the Flan count their years. I am not a historian so I could not explain why this is so. Just keep it simple for the rest of us who use the Common Year....

Anyhow,  this day has turned into a beautiful summer day with little to no wind in these hills. Therel, the elven druid mentioned something about 25C as how hot it was but I don't understand how druids measure things.... 0C is supposed to be ice? I shrug my shoulders and sharpen my weapons whenever such details are discussed. We are about to arrive into the village of Hommlet, must have been named for someone who loved omelets? But an older traveler who was picking berries with his daughter needs our help. I like my group, they didn't argue about if we should help or not.... we just followed him into the hills to find his daughter in some hole (someone called it a sinkhole?)

No glorious battle for Percival, the cavalier so he just ties up a rope and lets Hematite, the monk climb down to rescue this young girl. I notice a giant rat and some 6-legged creature that looks like some dog staring at us from the hole, they don`t threaten the girl and they both seem to treat us like we are invaders? The girl has her head stuck to her shoulder and she explains that there is some moving plant in there with them with sticky goo and some weird puddle that moves? This all sounds so confusing so instead of asking Therel to come back from his wanderings (he seems so unfocused, there is a girl to be rescued and he is off picking berries with his wolf companion Maira), I decide to use my psychic abilities of speaking with animals and ask the giant rat how things are....

OUCH, the puddle tries to attack me with psychic powers!? And I wasn't able to reach the rat.... nobody home in the brain even though the rat was moving?! Thankfully Hematite didn't jump in the hole and was still mid-way down on the rope when the attack came.... she's a smart one, not too clean because she keeps rolling around in the dirt when she does her martial arts monk stuff, but smart! Mayim the magic user, she's smart too and has psychic powers like me.... she and I attacked this puddle with our psychic powers and destroyed it! Someone called it a gray ooze and I think Raerean the half elf henchman shot it with at least one arrow while the psychic battle was on. The metal of the arrow sizzled while the wooden part of the arrow was safe? Weird puddle-ooze!

Raerean is a jack of all trades, he knows some magic, does priest spells and can fight with a sword. He happens to be related to his boss Percival and to Therel.... I hung out with him and we went out on hunting trips before we went out to discover the world. Raerean has a little brownie familiar, Grenadine is her name and she likes to be part of the action! She threw a stone with a magical light on it into the hole while she was on Hematite's shoulders on the rope (what a funny sight to behold) and we saw a weird looking mushroom plant thing trying to hide the light so that we couldn't see it anymore. Everyone says that the plant was afraid of the light.... didn't seem like that to me, but I am only a fighter, so what would I know?

Anyway, we managed to kill all the weird creatures before Percival realized there might be a glorious battle and he jumped in to save the girl despite Hematite already being there to pick her up, but he compensated himself by counting all the treasure left behind by their former owners. We divided the loot and I thought to myself, I have to get a porter to carry some of my weapons. I realized that I didn't have any wooden weapons to deal with metal-eating puddle/oozes and I didn't want to lose my metal weapons.

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Back to Hommlet and we bump into Elmo, some drunk who pretends to be drunk.... well that's what Hematite said, I don't know why someone would want to pretend to be drunk, but everyone makes up their own personal habits. Therel wanted to see some druid leader to heal the girl and the sticky goo. Why we just didn't wash the girl in the stream, I don't know but I suppose the weird plant did seem to control the giant rat and the "osquip"-thing? They eat giant rats, Therel said when he got back from gathering his berries and they, the giant rat and the six-legged dog-like creature, were both the best of friends trying to protect the plant.... so if the girl was going to be infected..... curing her was the right thing to do. The girl and her dad left to go to home and Therel wanted to talk berries and burdocks with the other druid so we all went to the Inn of the Welcome Wench! I had heard about that place and I wanted to try out the local brews! My family has been brewing alcohol and making wines for the past dozen generations! And my family had impressed dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings with our recipes over the generations! Maybe we can get some recognition from a human kingdom one day.... but I guess that's Porto, my elder brother's quest. Porto will take over the family business.

Anyhow, we are inside the Inn and we are planning to hire Elmo because he isn't drunk and we want to..... well see, here I am confused because everyone seemed to not want to hire him because he was pretending to be drunk and then Therel says something about needing him to help us against the evil temple that used to be in these parts.... so now we are supposed to hire him and go back to the sinkhole and..... check out for more treasure? Then there is this moathouse I keep hearing about, an evil place connected to the old temple which might be haunted?

Well at this point everyone seems to have gone their separate ways. Raerean went to his church of the billy club.... They like to hit evil over the head with a club.... either they see the light or their brains get smashed, that's what Raerean used to say years ago. Hematite went to get dirty by climbing to the roof of the inn to do her martial arts-monk training stuff. Percival took off his shiny armor and left it in our rented rooms, Mayim was probably studying her spells in the rooms and Therel may have been meditating in the rooms.....

I fed my "children" and hooded Murr and Ace for sleep (large falcon and small falcon) while Benjie, Poker, Norton and Alfred stayed in the rooms to guard our stuff (my two guard dogs and two hunting dogs) and I went back down to meet the locals and the traveling merchants to see if someone might be interested in becoming my personal porter. I was told that the local brewmaster would be by..... I have got to talk to him about his delicious brew (yes I tasted and I enjoyed).

I don't really know what the others may be planning on doing but Percival seems to let us do what we want.... not very efficient for an expedition, but it is an elven attitude, something Therel approves of.... although I suspect Hematite will get more and more annoyed at our lack of "structure". Oh before I forget, Mayim also has a familiar but he is mostly invisible: Smok, the pseudo-dragon (loves to do fly-by poison stings)..... if I don't see him, I tend to forget he is there.

Not to worry, our horses are also well cared for in the stables (I should go visit and see what other horses are there to see the quality of the guests at the inn, we are probably not the only ones with warhorses). Senator is our heavy warhorse ridden by the glorious Percival and he also owns Longstep, a light riding horse that we use to carry items. Mayim has a mule but refused to name him, so I proposed Shortstep and the name seems to have stuck. My older sister Edwina would be proud of me for coming up with such a clever name!

My biggest worry is that I may have inspired my younger sister Neevo to run off and adventure. I am a young adult but she is still a child and she has the hopeless romantic belief that she can find her charming gentleman to sweep her off her feet.... and since we were in a nation filled with mostly elves, she may decide to follow my footsteps and find human communities to offer herself to the first young man who smiles at her. Edwina would not be proud of me if that ever happened.

Anyhow, these are my first impressions of my first adventures in the Kron Hills, where the evil temple of elemental evil once had its influence felt. What will I find as I search these lands?