Day 26 – The Giant King

Day 26 – The Giant King

The dark's his bone.
Call him any name, he'll come to it.

A wind of such violence

Ha! Today we shall get something done. I led my companions back through the secret tunnel under the well by Hommlet. We surfaced by the temple and once again entered and journeyed back to the lower levels near where I slew the Lamir. We went down to the levels below via a staircase we had yet to traverse.  Down a dark corridor we entered a triangular room covered in images of the mighty elemental eye looking down upon my companions and I, like the inferior insects that we are. A large brass gong sat in the corner of this room. Suddenly a door burst open and we were set upon by five ogres. Sameson, Ugg and Joe moved forward to meet them in combat, whilst I called upon my powers to weaken the beasts.

The elf blasted them with his magic and I pulled the sanity from the minds of one of the ogres; sending him fleeing into the corner to babble incoherently to himself. With the odds turned against them Ugg and the others cut down the foul grunts and we entered the room true. Finding nothing of worth amongst the corpses we tried one of the doors only to unleash some bugbears into the room. One of them made for the gong and before we had a chance to stop it the goblinoid had struck it and sent a warning to others in the area. Before we knew what was happening the room was crawling with bugbears and gnolls. Ugg seemed to be taken off guard because he couldn't seem to hit anything.  Sameson on the other hand seemed to have the favour of his god because he smote many of things down with his mace and  conjured a spiritual weapon.

Amongst the creatures was an odd Gnoll that leapt around the room with the grace of an assassin. He greeted Fillian with the words, 'Nice to finally meet you'. It seems the temple is aware of us now and has hired assassins to counter our skills. Fillian tried to blast the gnoll with his magic, but his spells dissipated into nothing. Leaving the elf to fight his own battles I noticed Ugg about to be overrun by two giant bugbears. I had no choice but to call upon the darkest of my powers and I forced one of the creatures to look upon its worst nightmare! The bugbear turned as grey as the gallows and died instantly. Ugg managed to defeat the others with Sameson help. I turned from the battle to see Joe battling with the assassin gnoll upon the staircase. The thing was too swift for me to focus my powers against it and just as it seemed Joe was besting it in combat the thing disappeared.

The subtle approach now completely abandoned we explored this room and the ones the ogres and bugbears had come from. We found little of value and so turned to the last remaining door. We could hear scratching and barking come from within and of course our nature-loving friend Sameson could not resist barking back at whatever was behind the door. It didn't seem to pacify the beast though because as soon as we opened the door it leapt right for his throat. It was a giant wolflike creature called a Warg and it pinned Sameson to the ground; it was all he could do to hold its jaws back from his  windpipe.

But far worse was the owner of the beast that lived in the hexagonal room. A massive hill giant that awoke and demanded to know what was irritating his pet 'fluffy' so. Whilst Ugg and Joe tried to assist Sameson I tried to reason with the giant to see if I could prevent us from being crushed like in our dream the previous day. His name was Scorpp and he seemed to be under some crazy disillusion of being a king! I tried to pretend that we were here to serve him, but he wasn't having any of it. Fillian cast his magic at him, but only succeeded in covering the giant in glitter! Fool elf!

Backing out of the room we killed the warg and extricated Sameson from its corpse. Of course this angered Scorpp more and he burst into the room wielding a gigantic club. The giant pinned Sameson to the floor and threatened to crush him unless we all surrendered. We had no choice and so turned over our weapons. Fortunately, we talked him out of eating us all and offered to find him a new pet in exchange for our lives. He said he knew where one could be found and allowed us to go there down another unexplored tunnel on this level. Not being a complete fool though, he took a valuable magic item from each of us and allowed us only one weapon to capture the beast.

So we went down to near the ill-fated room with statues and found a room with a large pit in the middle. This was where there desired pet of Scorpp was said to dwell. We were forced to travel round the pit by small ledges to the other side and then clamber down a rocky staircase into it. Ugg and I climbed down whilst the others covered us from the top with ranged weapons. Cowards! Of course these men had no plan on how to capture the monster alive. It is most lucky for them that it is me who has control today or they would surely have perished, despite their cowardice. For the creature was an umber hulk; a large muscular beetle-like creature with a gaze that can drive even the sturdiest of minds insane.

It turned its gaze on those standing on the ledge and Ugg. Before I knew it Ugg was attacking me and Fillian was shooting me with his bow in their delusion state. How ironic that it is me that had to bring order to the insanity around me. I stepped forward and cast the spell which put the Umber Hulk into a deep slumber. My companions finally managed to shake off their confusion quickly enough to bind the monster and we picked it up and hauled it back to Scarpp. The giant was delighted with his new obscure, if less fluffy, pet. He agreed to let us go if we would complete one more mission for him. He told us that beyond a secret door nearby were some trolls that had been irritating him. If we could kill them and bring them back to feed the new 'fluffy' then he would be forever grateful to us.

So once again we left Scorpp and found the door he told us about. Joe scouted ahead and told us of a troll waited ahead in a room with four doors leading off from it. We knew this battle would be tough due to the fact that trolls can regenerate any wounds except those inflicted by fire or acid.  I gave my wand of burning hands to the elf both because it would be of use to him against trolls, well that and because it's guaranteed to enrage her. We took the first troll by surprise and hacked the thing to pieces quickly before it could regenerate, however three more the things burst from the adjacent rooms.

To my utter disgust Sameson called forth a Protection from Evil circle and I was forced to back out of the fight. I think I managed to hide this from the gullible tree-lover by working it into my battle strategy and fighting the troll that attacked Joe on the other side of the room to Sameson. I called forth the strongest necromantic spells I could against the thing in the hopes I could kill it before it regenerated.  However, the powerful thing responded by rending me with both its claws. I would surely have died if not for the intervention of Ugg who beheaded the thing before it could finish me. It seems I owe a debt of some sort to the half-orc. With the aid of the wand of burning hands we disposed of the last of the creatures and dragged their burnt corpses back to 'fluffy' to consume.

It seemed Scarpp hadn't finished with us yet though because he did not grant us the freedom we desired. Instead he demanded we get more food for Fluffy in the form of some 'dogs' that lived down another nearby passageway.  He did allow us to rest to recover our wounds however. I really hope it is I who surfaces tomorrow because I doubt she will accomplish as much.

Day 25 – Dreams of air

Day 25 – Dreams of air

Round and round we go. Who you will be, nobody knows.

Today I woke up thinking it's about bloody time to put an end to the fire temple! However, Sameson got it into his tree loving brain that we needed to consecrate at least one of the evil elemental shrines,so we opted to bless the air temple shrine since we were near it anyway.

Sameson cast the blessing and another bloody air elemental appeared and began to spin into a tempest. However this time Ugg squished the wispy creature before it could cause us that much harm. The problems came when we decided to bless the tubes next to the shrine by filling them with holy water. No sooner had we began but the tubes started pumping noxious gas into the room. That we might have been able to deal with but not the bloody demonic apparition which appeared in the midst of it. The thing looked like some sort of huge disjointed bird with feral red eyes. Remembering my studies into other planes I recognized the demon as a Vrock and something well beyond our abilities to defeat.

Before I suffocated in the smoke I retreated to a raised staircase with Ugg. The creature teleported itself over to us and battle was joined. I called on mighty Joramy to give me and Ugg Strength but even our combined might was not enough to do more than scratch the fiend. Fillian blasted the demon for afar and the creature decided he would be easier pray and this cowardly teleported over to the elf.

Seeing that Fillian looked likely to kick the bucket I begged Joramyy to send this beast back to whence it came! And it bloody worked! Well, the demon retreated up through the hole in the ceiling at least. The others tried to reach the staircase but it seemed Joe had passed out from the fumes. The last thing I remember is hearing Fillian call for assistance before whoooosssh we were bloody somewhere else.

By blessing the shrine we had triggered another trap that sent us to the top of a bloody freezing cold mountain the gods know where. All I could ascertain is that it weren't on bloody Oerth. Quickly I called on my powers to protect me from the freezing winds that buffeted me, but unfortunately my companions had no such power. To stop them from meeting their deaths up there we decided to head on down the mountain in the hopes of finding a way back to the Temple. We bound ourselves together with some eerie magical rope that Joe found in the Temple which obeys his commands. Seriously sometimes I can't keep up with all this bloody magic mumbo jumbo that keeps happening!

So we were almost at the bottom of the mountain when we run into one of the most beautiful blonde haired woman I've ever bloody seen. Although, we weren't about to trust some random bint that hangs out on freezing mountains on other planes of existence and so we approached her with ample caution. She introduced herself as Darley the huntress and servant of Ehlonna; who it seems is a goddess of nature that doesn't get on too well with the Obad-Hai lot. She offered to send us back to Oerth in exchange for one of our magical items each.

Of course we told her to get bloody stuffed! Firstly why should we trust her and secondly for all we bloody knew the exit could be just round the blasted   mountain. So taking our chances we marched on past to the bottom of the mountain. There waiting for us was a whooping great giant wielding a morning star four times the bloody size of me. He demanded we surrender and become slaves, which of course we refused.

Ugg bravely charged it but was no match for a fully grown giant. It soon squished him into the ground and it was left to me to call upon Joramy's flames to attack the giant. It shrugged of the attack and the next thing I knew I was nothing but a bloody stain in the snow. It all happened so bloody fast! Then what do you know but there I am with the others standing talking to that Darley witch further up the mountain. Grinning the smug bint told us that she had showed us a vision of what was to come if we did not accept her help! Well I be damned if I'll end up a stain in the snow due to some bloody giant from another plane and so I turned over the wand of paralyse I acquired earlier. Even these thick headed males saw the logic in that and also turned over some of their items.

Darley placed these items on the snow in front of us and got us to hold hands like a bunch of bloody tree huggers and then think of home. We thought of Hommlet and then once more we were whooshed there! It happened quick enough to make even one with my constitution sick. Thinking overselves bloody lucky for our escape we decided to find a tavern to rest the night. Before that though I opted to take advantage of Rufus and Burne's library to see what I could find out about this Mitrik name I heard before. I discovered that Mitrik is a house and region and that the very knight who fought Zutogmy was from Mitrik and in the ninth legion! Ahhh so that bloody explains the 9 in the clue 'on 3, in 6 dwells 9'.  Rufus added to my knowledge that a scion from Mitrik  disappeared in the area not so long ago. Ahhh then perhaps the  on 3 part of the clue means that this scion is being kept on the lower third floor of the temple and in the sixth room; whatever that means exactly. I think I'm getting good at this bloody clue solving stuff. I hope that's not her influence. Anyway, I shall go to bed tonight with a new purpose in the temple. Tomorrow I shall find Mitrik's whelp!

Day 1 – A Big Mistake DIARY OF WONILLON OAKFLASH

DIARY OF WONILLON OAKFLASH

Day 1 – A Big Mistake

Everybody makes mistakes; be they human, gnome, dwarf, elf or badger. However, my life seems to be so littered with the things that, at times, I wonder if it is in fact just one big joke being told by Garl Glittergold. I can imagine him dancing atop a table at a great banquet, gesticulating wildly as he tells a hall full of deities of the grave misfortunes of yours Wonillon Oakflash, illusionist extraordinaire!

When I woke this morning, well at least I thought it was morning but it was hard to tell bound and gagged in a cell deep within a dungeon in the Temple of Elemental Evil, I wondered if the punch line was imminent. It's not the best way to start a day you know: lying on a cold dungeon floor clad in rags with your neck shackled to a wall, manacles on your arms and a magical ring of grease shoved up where the sun doesn't shine.

So, 'how did such a reputable gnome come to be in such a state of affairs', I hear you ask. Well I had been exploring this place of ineffable evil with my nice, if somewhat stuffy, friend Taky when a rather large group of bugbears got the better of us. Well ok, that's not really where my history with this place begins, but I'll get to that later. For now let's just say Taky and I were out to save a beautiful maiden by the name of Mai, who happened to be lost in this nefarious temple. But the aforementioned bugbears had other ideas and captured us and thus my predicament. Taky is a big strong fighter but we were surprised and I had no time to do anything but slip my magical ring off my finger to umm...somewhere secure before we were under duress (I love that word 'duress', you should never pass up an opportunity to use it!).

Only problem is I couldn't seem to get it out of the umm place where I put it and anyway I was gagged and unable to activate it even if I could have. It was after a while that I realized I wasn't alone in the dark cell. My impeccable gnomish vision picked out another humanoid with me and I was pretty sure it wasn't Taky because I know his shape anywhere. Also, this man seemed to be quite mad and was thrashing about like he had the whole of the abyss dancing in his head. He managed to break his manacles and took off his gag in order to rant summit about clubbing people over the head. I was worried he might eat me!

Just when I thought my last prank was played the door to my cell burst off its hinges and in strode a towering figure in resplendent (another good word one should make a habit of using) armour, branding his mighty blade high. I remember my first thoughts being: 'now here is a man who takes himself way too seriously'. But I wasn't quite in a position to say that, so I decided gratitude might be in order for whoever this saviour was. Taky, who had been freed by this 'paragon of virtue' from an adjacent cell, stepped around the man and took off my gag. It was at this point that I managed to liberate my magical ring from my..safe place where I put it and used it to cast a grease spell on myself and slip my manacles.

Now, on more equal terms, introductions were in order and the serious man told us his name was Eric and that he was a mighty paladin of.............! He said he was here on a holy mission to find a missing relic in the possession of a half-orc called Ugg that had disappeared in the temple. Taky and I got a little excited about this news because we had met the half-orc in questions ourselves a few days, or weeks who knows, ago whilst exploring the temple. I remember him well because he was so ugly, and he had been in the company of a group of adventurers that included a mad red-haired dwarf woman, an elf, a thief from Nulb and an acorn worshipping human. They had been in trouble because they activated a room full of cursed artefact's, so we lead them out of the temple. Mai had been with us too then...before she disappeared.

So, we offered to help Eric as soon as we found where the bugbears had put all our stuff. The mad man started saying something again at this point, but I couldn't understand a word of it. I think he was doing that talking in tongues thing that holy men who live in caves in the mountains can do after not talking to anything but squirrels and eating rocks for weeks (it's true, my uncle met one once!). Taky seemed to understand though because he told me the man's name was Cedric and he is a cleric of the god Saint Cuthbert. I've never heard of that one to be honest, but we couldn't just leave the poor thing here to rot, so we agreed to take him with us. When we stepped out the cell, and I got a good look at his face, I realized he couldn't be more than twenty human years old. Someone should have a serious word with this Saint Cuthbert about forcing dogma on poor susceptible children!

It turned out Eric had already holy smited most of our bugbears captors during our rescue so we were lucky on that front. However, nearby locked in some of the nearby cells were what looked like other prisoners. But when we opened the door to free them, they were really rotting zombies. We shut them in to prevent them eating our brains. We wandered through a few rooms till we found all our stuff and my lovable companion Fonzo. Fonzo is a weasel, but he is still probably more intelligent than both my new found friends put together. He had apparently eaten all of the food rations that belonged to Cedric and Taky, but you can hardly blame a starving weasel for making the best of a bad situation.

I slipped into my more comfortable robes and retrieved my precious spell book, trusty crossbow and dagger. Also, in this room we found a chest which Taky smashed opened and inside was some money and potions. I could tell these were healing potions and took one for me and gave another to Taky. I like potions! It's part of my biology because I'm a gnome. It's in our blood because when Garl Glittergold created the gnome race from gems he found in a mine, a magical potion he had in his sack leaked onto the gems and gave us all special powers and an intrinsic skill in potion making.

So, we found a stairway going deeper into the temple and decided to go down there. I went ahead because I'm sneaky unlike Eric, Cedric and Taky who wear more metal between them than is on a portcullis (at least I think this is true but obviously it depends on the size of portcullis, and to be honest I haven't seen that many portcullises, is that how you write the plural? I bet no one has ever ever needed to use the plural form of portcullis until now). I saw some poor man was being tortured by a bugbear and an evil looking priesty type man in a dungeon with chains and uncomfortable looking hooks hanging around the place. Consequently, I snuck (did you know snuck is not a real word? I use it all the time and I had no idea till I tried to look it up) back and got the others. We invented a brave plan where I was to conjure up an illusion of hypnotic lights whilst the three of them confiscated all the weapons, and nasty torture things, from the priest and bugbear. It worked! I love it when my spells work!! It's definitely one of those rare situations that warrants multiple exclamation marks!!!

However, after we took the weapons off them they managed to shake the spell off and the bugbear tried to attack Eric with its bare hands. This was silly and it was soon cut up like ribbons on Glee day. The priest surrendered and we went to put him in a cell, but it turned out to be full of orcs who were prisoners of the temple. Cedric went crazy, again, at this point and started playing fisticuffs with the the evil priest. Or at least us gnomes call it fisticuffs, but from what they were shouting this lot seem to call it 'my god is better than yours'. It was fun to watch but no one kicked anyone in the unmentionables; which is the traditional finishing move. Cedric knocked out the bad priest and we were left with some rather grubby, well more grubby than normal, orcs to deal with. Eric wanted to keep them locked up forever like some sort of evil witch and had this bigoted diatribe about how orcs are all evil and would do the same to us if our roles were switched.

I reminded him that he was looking for a half-orc and he said that 'half breeds' (his words, not mine) are okay because there blood is cleansed by their human part. I knew he was going to be trouble! No one brandishes a sword quite like that and then when the day is done goes home, pops over to his neighbour's house and surprises them with a bottle of Gimjams whiskey, and watches the sun set whilst singing jovial songs about the mysteries of ladies underwear, let me tell you! No, something serious needs to be done to make this paladin...not so serious. And so I made his armour start to slowly turn pink! Not a monumental move I admit, but a start.

We did free the orcs in the end, along with poor fellow who was being tortured, thanks to Taky being his usual reasonable self. Taky is a good man but has a tendency to be a bit glum at times. This is remedied in the presence of Mai when he lights up like a Tringo Malpossum. She's his girlfriend, Mai that is not a Tringo Malpossum (that would just be wrong), and I like Mai because she makes Taky more fun! She is one of those rare candles that shines light anywhere she goes, and brings out the light in others too. I do hope we find where she went to soon. I reckon Taky thinks he will find Mai if he finds her brother, who was with the half orc.

Thinking on this we travelled to the last place Taky and I saw Ugg the half-orc. Once there Eric used a potion of finding he had to get an idea of where Ugg was and went off on his trail like some sort of pink metal hound dog. We went past a sealed door with arrow holes and sure enough crossbow bolts began shooting through at us. Eric blocked the holes before serious damage could be done, but we couldn't seem to get the door open to get to those cheeky men inside. Taky and Cedric wondered off to see if they could find another way in whilst I stayed with the pink paladin who pretended to not notice his armour's altering complexion.

Taky and Cedric eventually returned and said there was no other way into that room. So we barricaded it up and went on our way. Shortly after we found a room full of useful equipment that we promptly claimed as our own. I got myself a rather nice tinderbox, some lock picks and some oil to name but a few. I must have been good this year! I thought I would take advantage of this brief interlude to play a prank and so I used a prestidigitation to make a shield float into the air and cause Cedric's hair to stand up through his helmet, but they didn't even gasp or laugh. I will just have to be more creative in the future then!

Soon we seemed to be hot on the tail of our missing half-orc and went down a stairway that had a broom placed haphazardly on it. I thought it looked familiar but couldn't quite put my finger on why. Still being the brave little gnome I am I volunteered to go ahead and scout. Then I turned the corner ahead and ran into my best masterpiece.

I'd never seen a basilisk before (or I would be a statue and not here to tell you this tale) but my employer was nice enough to show me a detailed drawing of the lizard-like creature and provide me with a detailed explanation of how they moved and acted. He scared me that one. If the temple is a place of ineffable evil then this was a man who epitomized it! But perhaps I should begin at the beginning. Even though I have already began at a beginning which is not the beginning that I will begin at now. Because the beginning which I will now begin at is a beginning I would rather begin to forget in the beginning. If you take my meaning!

I had just been kicked out of Nulb. It involved an incident with an illusionary swarm of squirrels (seriously you would think a bunch of bandits would have a sense of humour, wouldn't you?). I was desperate and down on my luck, and not for the first time. Understand that I couldn't afford to eat and my quick hands could only provide so much. The man seemed to know me. He said there was need for one of my talents and he was willing to pay handsomely for me to utilise my skills as an illusionist. I think I mentioned before that I was desperate and so I chose to not ask questions and take the money.

Maybe I should have challenged this man's insidious designs when he took me to the place they call the temple of elemental evil. I should probably have seen something was awry when he asked me to make a five headed snake monster appear to breath fire. Maybe I should have foreseen future problems when I made gargoyles look like harpies and, finally, made the illusion of the basilisk. O he paid me all right, but I knew when I left that place that what I had done would cost the lives of the innocent. So I went to Hommlet (this is weeks before they too banned me from returning over a complete misunderstanding regarding an illusionary fire over Burne's tower). Hommlet is a great place to go to forget things. The tavern there serves the best whiskey I have ever tasted and I soon drank away every last gold piece I had earned. But I just couldn't escape it. I would hear stories of people going missing. Rumours and the temple of elemental evil growing in power and blighting the land.

One day I woke up and looked myself at myself in the mirror and I said, 'Wonillon, you go right back to the temple and tell that man it was all a big mistake, and he is to take down those illusions right away else they'll be trouble.' So I got my things, settled with the innkeeper and walked right into the brick wall I now call Taky. Him and his girlfriend, Mai, were about to go to the temple to see if there was any truth in the new rumours about the temple. I couldn't believe my luck and so I teamed up with them. Ok, so maybe I didn't tell them about the bad man and my illusions, but I'd cross that metaphorical bridge when I came to it. I didn't think it'd be a bunch of religious fanatics I'd be having to explain myself to rather than the more understanding Mai.

But there I stood weeks later facing the basilisk (and it did look real because I'd worked damn hard to make it look that way). Of course it didn't work on me, but one look from its eyes would turn my new friends (they may be stuffy and fanatical but they did rescue me and that makes them friends) to stone like the gaze of a real basilisk would. And I couldn't dispel it because that horrid man had put some other sort of spell on it to make it permanent. So I ran back and begged them not to go on. I begged them but they ignored me. So I knew this was one of those big moments in life where you make a decision about who you are that you can never go back on and so I did something almost impossible. I told them the full truth!

Just as I was awaiting their holy judgement, Ugg ran into the basilisk room (somehow he had been unaffected by it) and told us to run for our lives. And that's just what we did...

So I knew this was one of those big moments in life where you make a decision about who you are that you can never go back on, and so I did something almost impossible. I told them the full truth!

Just as I was awaiting their holy judgement, Ugg ran into the basilisk room (somehow he had been unaffected by it) and told us to run for our lives. And that's just what we did...All the way back to the room full of useful items from before. Luckily in the heat of the moment nobody made me explain myself further! Ugg barrelled down the passageway shortly afterwards and, man is he ugly. I mean he has a heart of gold and all that but a face only a mother could love (unfortunately for him his mother doesn't seem to be the loving sort – but more on that later!!!). He told us all about my nasty former employer who is an EVIL mage called Falrinth. My illusion had turned all Ugg's friends to stone and that horrid man had done something with them. Only Ugg had somehow been unaffected; maybe even the basilisk couldn't look that ugly face in the eyes!

Of course we had no choice but to face the heinous creature that is Falrinth, but first we decided to rest. All night I couldn't seem to shake an odd feeling that we were being watched. The night passed and it seemed I was right. Eric sensed evil in the room and lone behold an imp like creature had been invisibly watching us all night. We gave chase after it but my little legs couldn't keep up with these giants, and they left me behind in the commotion. They rounded a corner into what I knew to be the Earth Temple and suddenly I saw flashes of light and got a whiff of sulphur down the corridor. I entered the room to find Eric lying prone on the floor with his hair standing all on end. Things looked bad so I cast one of my favourite spells: Mirror Image. It makes exact duplicates of me to confound my foes. Eric stirred calling upon his deity to cure the wounds made by the lightning bolt cast at him by none other than the evil Falrinth, who stood upon a raised platform in the middle of the earth temple.

These big men ain't too bright so I yelled at them to spread out. The way they were standing one fireball would have blown them all to smithereens (I'm not completely sure exactly what a smithereen is, but now was hardly the best time to find out!). The imp thingy must have been Falrinth's familiar (like Fonzo is mine) and it had led us right into a trap! So Eric picked himself up out the dirt and we advanced on Falrinth. What I hadn't noticed is that Taki was acting kind of strange. He had stopped moving towards Falrinth and had turned to watch us! I was just about to hurl a fireball that would have put old Fally on his backside, but the sneaky mage managed to conjure a globe of invulnerability that made him impervious to magic. I hate him! I switched to my crossbow but he dodged my attempts to put a quarrel in his head.

Eric moved up the platform to attack, but Taki attacked him. He had been charmed! Cedric showed uncharacteristic sanity and dispelled the charm with holy magic before things got really ugly. Falrinth was out numbered and outclassed, surely his days were up! But no suddenly, materialising out of thin air, a beautiful elf woman clad in black stabbed Cedric in the side. I spun to face this new threat (since she wasn't protected from my magic by Falrinth's globe) when to my utter astonishment (and I'm a gnome. We ain't easily astonished!) Ugg yelled out 'mother.' Now I don't profess to be any expert on these things. Biology is a complicated, and messy, affair (especially when concerning orcs). But I'll be damned if this graceful, yet undeniably evil, creature was related to the pug-like, albeit well-meaning, Ugg. I decided Ugg must have hit his head one time too many and so I went right ahead and set about blasting the bitch with a magic missile spell.

What I didn't expect is Ugg to actual attack me. He flung his massive bulk of a body at me in an effort to disrupt my spell. Of course he ended up right in the dirt when he fell though one of my illusionary duplicates. My magic flew forward unerringly and injured the elf and Cedric hit her with his club too. Just as it looked like we would get the better of this new foe she vanished again within a blink of the eye. 'O', I thought. 'She's using invisibility, I love that spell!'

Not having a clue where she'd gone I looked back to the fight with Falrinth. Ugg had stopped trying to attack me and joined Eric in trying to mash up Fally on the platform. But there seemed to be no end to the mage's bag of tricks when he cast an invisible wall of force blocking anyway from being able to get to him up the stairs. I seriously must get my hands on this man's spell book.

Then that imp thing appeared from nowhere again and tried to scare Cedric and me. It didn't work so I threw a scorching ray at it, but missed! I heard a commotion by the platform and looked up just in time to see a lightning bolt streaking down toward us. I leapt aside and it only caught me on my side, leaving a nasty burn mark. Cedric and Taki seemed to take the brunt of it, but they are strong men (especially Taki who looks like a mountain range with his shirt off) and they picked themselves up to continue the fight.

Eric was doing something truly awesome at this point and riding a horse around the platform and Falrinth's wall of force. How in Arcadia had he got a horse in the middle of this temple! It must be some paladiny type magic; so they do get to have some fun after all! As Cedric healed himself with divine power I quaffed my healing potion ready for whatever other random, yet admittedly fun, turn this fight would take next. Ugg attacked the imp thingy that lashed out at us with its barbed tail like some kind of demented flying scorpion.

Falrinth obviously saw his doom in Eric, and cast a magical darkness to block the advancing paladin. The crafty mage then slipped into the darkness, no doubt to buy him time to plan his next devious stratagem to lay against us. Did I mention that I hate him! Eric bravely, or foolishly depending upon your perspective, steered his mount right into the darkness. I bet his head was just singing with metaphors about paladins riding into the darkness. They thrive on that kind of stuff you know.

I turned to shoot my crossbow at the imp thing, since it was the only foe I could see, and I succeeded in clipping one of the things wings. From the corner of my eye I saw Ugg's elf mother reappear again and once more stab Cedric and disappear before he could riposte. At the same time Ugg scored a blow with his mighty sword on the imp causing the foul thing to cry out for its master. I've heard that losing a familiar is not a pleasant experience, and clearly old Fally had too because this forced him to take action. He cast a spell to paralyse Ugg and stepped out of the darkness behind him with a dagger; he warned us to surrender else he'd slit poor Ugg's throat! This put us in a conundrum because we couldn't let him kill old ugly face, but then we weren't about to surrender to the likes of old Fally either.

I opted to keep him talking in the hopes Eric would ride up behind him and save Ugg. I bravely taunted the nasty mage and demanded he tell us what he'd done with Ugg's friends. He revealed that he'd given them to each of the elemental temples as gifts to appease their wrath against him. Then he must have heard Eric clanking up behind him because he said, 'you're own your own my dear' (he must have been talking to Ugg's 'mother') and then vanished on the wings of a Dimension Door spell along with his imp, that it turns out is called Critch. Drat, he's just so damn sneaky that one!

Ugg's mother used that moment to attack but her blows missed and, realizing that she was outnumbered, she made herself invisible again. I was certain that she planned to escape and so I used my grease ring to make the floor by the closest exit slippery. Although she must have managed to circumnavigate it in her retreat because we heard no more from her. I think my friends were slightly frustrated that all our foes had managed to evade us, but I thought we kicked some serious butt. Old Fally got more than he bargained for with us. Ugg said that his mother was really a half-orc using an illusion to look like an elf, but he could see through it (this was not that surprising really because I think I'd use an illusion on myself all the time if I was that ugly).

After what Fally said about Ugg's friends we had a poke around the earth temple and found Joe's inert statue (Joe is Maye's brother. I think I mentioned that before). Of course none of us had the ability to turn him back, we needed an uber powerful mage for that (I'm not there yet but I am getting there), so in the meantime we stashed him in the room where we rested the previous night.

We put it to a good old democratic vote and decided that we would check out the air temple next. We marched on down there and easily found the statue of that mad bra burning dwarf upon a pedestal. Only problem was it was guarded by a massive giant. Now I know giants are generally pretty dumb so I had a plan. I made myself invisible and was about to confound it with an illusion when I realized something was not quite right here. This giant smelled way too bad and its eyes were all glazed over. It was undead and my illusions don't work on things without minds! Eric and Taki attacked this monstrosity but it seemed to be getting the upper hand. Cedric tried to call on his deity to send the beast from whence it came (I've always wanted to say that) but it didn't work for some reason. Ugg shouted something about the giant wearing some magical jewellery that blocks holy powers.

Luckily I was at hand to diffuse the situation and I put a grease spell right under the creature. It worked a treat because the zombie giant plummeted to the ground; the only problem with this was that it fell right on top of Eric! He was a little squished but he managed to slip out from under the thing thanks to my grease spell. The giant clambered back up and seemed really angry now. It picked up the statue of Vida ready to hurl her at us. So I cast grease on her statue too, hoping that it'd drop her rather than use her to do us damage. It kept its grip on her though and threw her at Cedric. However, it missed and she hit the ground and (all greased up) slid across the room and into the wall. A bit of her chipped off and I hope it wasn't anything too important (like only a toe or nipple or something. I mean what do we really use nipples for anyway?) and that dwarf is a tough one!

Ugg, Taki and Cedirc surrounded the giant and the three to them finally managed to beat it into a pulp. Now we had a second statue to store away. But where to next?

So we looted what we could and Eric suggested we go back to town to see if we could find someone to help us unstone Ugg's friends. As much as I didn't fancy going back there, and having Burne and Rufus rebuke me over that little misunderstanding we had with the illusionary fire above their tower, we needed supplies and information. So off we went back up to the freaky looking cathedral up top to exit via the rope we left hanging out of one of the windows. I climbed out first, because lets face it, I'm the nimblest! I'd just got to the other side when I realized something was wrong. The place seemed even more eerily quiet then usual. I was just about to shout for my companions when something rather rudely hit me hard on the head and things went a little black!

Next thing I knew I was face to face with an ancient dragon, black as midnight, and bearing down on me with talons as big as mountains! I bound the mighty beast in chains of shadow and summoned balls of fire and lightning to vanquish it. But then it polymorphed itself into the mad cleric Cedric who started yelling at me to put some clothes on because I was scaring the children! Then I realized I was in the midst of a horrible nightmare so woke up sharpish. Only I wasn't sure if I had woke up because everything was still black.

I realized that I had a hood over my head and something was carrying me along. Something that smelt worse than Ugg! I had been gnomenapped! I was just about to try and reason with my captor when he dumped me in a bush like an unwanted sack of spuds. Confused by this I decided it best to lay still until I was sure the thing had moved off. Then I heard the sounds of my companions approaching and shouts which could only mean the joining of battle. Something nearby was chanting magic and suddenly everything got a little cold. I yanked off my hood to discover I was in the midst of a magically conjured snowstorm! Surely an ambush, and I had been the bait! Arrows rained down from somewhere nearby.

I couldn't see much further than my hands and the floor soon became treacherous to walk on without slipping over on my gnomish butt. An arrow clipped my sleeve, so I quickly cast Mirror Image to confuse whatever it was that was trying to turn me into a pin cushion. I could make out the lumbering form of Ugg nearby and decided to slide on over there, but a wolf materialised out of the storm to attack me. I let aside from its attempts to make me its dinner and blasted it with my magic. When it died it disappeared which leads me to believe it was summoned by the same magic user who cast the storm. A bit further away I could see Eric valiantly fighting off another wolf, so I blasted that one too. It didn't kill it and, whilst fighting it, I witnessed the amusing sight of seeing Eric fall flat on his arse. He did manage to dispatch the wolf from on the floor though!

I turned back to Ugg and called the words of a protective enchantment to use on him to mind. Only problem was on the way over I forgot to keep my balance too and slipped, going down like a cheap hooker from the capital. O what fun! By the time I picked myself up the snow storm had subsided and I could see we were outside the insidious looking tower on the outskirts of the temple grounds.

Whilst Eric and I had been fighting wolves a group of human pirate types from the water temple had attacked my other companions. But they had been no match for Ugg, Cedric and Taki; and their bodies lay amongst the snow. The magic user who summoned the storm and wolves was nowhere to be seen! Upon the battlements of the tower two groups of bugbears had been shooting down at us and a huge ogre now blocked the tower entrance! Cedric had used some holy powers to smite the bugbears on one side, and so I created a beautiful pattern to distract the ones on the other whilst the boys dealt with the ogre. It worked and the bugbears (who happened to be the enraged wives of all the bugbears Taki and co killed yesterday) were transfixed by my amazing talent for creating patterns out of magical lights! Well all except one of them, and Taki shot that one dead before it could shake the others free.

Cedric, who is mad (I think I may have mentioned that before), decided to climb up the walls of the tower to reach the bugbears! He succeeded and slew them all just as my spell wore off. At the tower entrance Eric and Ugg killed the ogre whilst receiving only a few bruises. Again we were victorious!

Now the whole thing was all very confusing because the bugbears seemed to be from a different section of the temple then the water temple pirates. It's almost like an ambush meant for us was gate crashed. And where did the magic user go to!? Apparently he had looked like some kind of druid (in other words he had bits of twigs coming out of his hair and his robes were stained with animal poo). So he must have been who is covering up all the tracks outside the temple and the reason for Burne and Rufus's ignorance that the temple is occupied again (well that and also the salient fact that they are incredible stupid!).

Scratching our heads we journeyed back to town. Now I wanted to go invisible at this point but Ugg talked me out of it and said he'd vouch for me to the officials. Vouch for me for what like! I never did nothing! So Ugg went to the tower with Rufus first and they came back and let us all go with them. Rufus, the magnanimous, agreed to let us stock up in town and transcribed my stone to flesh scroll into a bigger scroll with four copies of the spell on it for each of Ugg's friends. We decided to stay a few days and stock up and make a plan to launch another assault on the temple of elemental evil and finally set things right. I will throw myself into my magical studies for a few days because otherwise I don't think I can resist teaching that pompous mage Rufus a lesson!

Day 28 – Bone to stone

Day 28 – Bone to stone

Doomed to wait eternal, which one of us will burn until the end.

Awake once more I listened to my companion’s talk of plans to consecrate the earth and fire temple shrines. Travelling with them Sameson managed to accomplish this feat without summoning any demons this time, although he did look a bit singed after consecrating the fire shrine. Once this errand was complete I suggested we again go down to the third level of the temple and continue our search for Mitrik's whelp. And so we went west from 'king' Scorpps old lair into unknown terrain.  Joe spotted a hidden door and inside were some descending steps that oddly had been swept clean by a broom we found at the bottom. So...something that has a desire for cleanliness resides in the temple after all.

A corridor led round a corner at the bottom and we sent Joe ahead to investigate. Only he did not return! So Fillian went ahead to see what had happened to our little thief and he in turn did not return. Sameson used that badge of his to investigate, but it saw nothing...or at least could not communicate what it saw to us. So we decided there was nothing for it but for the remaining three of us to try our luck. I turned the corner and was horrified to look into the eyes of large lizard. A basilisk, I realized as I looked into its reptilian eyes and felt my skin harden as I turned to stone along with Sameson. Ugg was the only one to shrug off the creatures gaze and promptly closed his eyes. But what good could a blind half orc do against such a monster with his comrades statues around him...

… who knows how much blasted time I spent incarcerated as a statue. I was aware of nothing, except the rage of my deity pulsating within my head at allowing myself to be imprisoned so. Finally, his hand guided those who would free me to my side. None other than the trickster gnome, Wonillion, and its comrades Taki (the lover of the favoured one), a cleric of Saint Cuthbert by the name of Cedric and Ugg himself. Wonillion is a mage and used scrolls of stone to flesh to reverse the transmutation. Later it was revealed that it was this very same gnome who conjured the basilisk, which in fact was nothing more than a very convincing illusion. It did this under the service of an evil mage named Falrinth (the very same who gave the half-orc in Nulb the cursed sword) and now sought redemption in freeing us from the results of its handiwork. Redemption however seems to only go so far with gnomes because in our incarcerated state the treacherous creature had covered us all in brightly coloured paints for its amusement.

Should I meet this trickster again I shall find a way to get even with it. However, for now it worked its magic to change us all back to our true forms. The transformation was a dangerous one which required the strongest of constitutions to survive. Joe would not have lived through it were it not for my intervention; calling upon my deity to keep this most useful thief alive. Amusingly, another side effect of the gnome’s magic was that its familiar, a ferret, turned to stone and shattered upon the chamber floor leaving the gnome to release a cacophonous wail to rival that of any banshee.  Then the warrior with the misplaced affections announced his intentions to leave in his search for Mai and blessedly took the distraught creature with him.

This left us with the Cuthbertite who simply shrugged and joined our ranks. There is something else about this cleric. Something more than his obvious religious fervour that I can’t yet put my finger on, but I intend to get to the bottom of when the opportunity presents itself. A look around revealed we were in some kind of storage chamber away from the basilisk illusion. It also revealed that Fillian (the elf mage) was no longer with us. Cedric told us that Falrinth had put our statues in different elemental temples guarding by powerful monsters. They had been unable to get Fillian back because he was guarded by the Juggernaut within the water temple.

Together we agreed upon the folly of throwing our lives away against the juggernaut for an elf and headed down deeper into the temple in search of the high priest of the greater temple. Iuz’s days as the master of this domain are numbered. On route we opted to investigate a stairway as yet unexplored near what was the lair of ‘King’ Scorpp. Down it was a large chamber in which laired a two-headed giant, an ettin. Sameson clumsily slipped down the staircase on route to engage the beast and knocked himself unconscious, so it was left to Ugg and our new pious friend, Cedric, to engage the beast whilst Joe peppered it with arrows. I attempted to shatter the mind of the giant but the two heads proved impossible for me to dominate. Regardless we made short work of the monster with Ugg striking the killing blow.

We found little treasure within this room and Joe picked the lock on one of the huge double doors that exited it. The door lead to a long corridor and after much exploration of all manner of chambers (including a banquet chamber adorned with gaudy pictures of battles worn by the temple of elemental evil) we finally came to a room adorned completely in black. In typical fashion my comrades recklessly entered as if it were their own bedchambers and were set upon by shadows hiding unseen within it. These undead creatures would have been dealt with most succinctly by three clerics had it not been for one such creature that gripped a rod within its shadowy claw.  A rod adorned with the symbols of Iuz that protected them from our turning abilities.

We were left with no choice but to attack with our weapons and I concentrated my attacks, along with Cedric, on the one which held the rod. Together we bested the creature that attempted, unsuccessfully, to drain the strength from our bodies with its touch. As it dissipated the rod fell to the floor and I crushed this symbol of a lesser god under my booted feet. Sameson lifted his holy symbol and the rest of the shadows were cast away by his god’s wrath leaving us free to continue to explore the area. Joe spotted a secret door and through which was a huge burial chamber with skeletons cast all about the place. Aware of the threat of undead I cast a death … but after finding that nothing was undead within the area I stayed by the door and let my comrades explore the chamber.

Whilst they continued to make as much racket as humanly possible I sensed another group of shadows approaching from back down the corridor. These unfortunate souls had no such protection as the rod from before and so I managed to silently dispatch them before my comrades even knew they were there. I seized control of half of them and made them destroy the other half and repeated the process till none were left. It amused me to make these dark puppets dance their silent battle whilst my companions stomped around unaware.

In my absence Joe had discovered another secret door in the burial chamber. However, at this time we decided to find somewhere to rest and recover our strength for whatever lay ahead. After all we had been awake for days. I took the first watch and when nothing occurred went to the battle of sleep.

Day 27 – Out of the frying pan into the fire!

Day 27 – Out of the frying pan into the fire!

Twice tosse these ashes into the fire, 

Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted mire.

I'll show her a bloody accomplishment! Today we woke up and went on the giant's errand to capture Moradin knows-bloody-what! The giant told us not to deviate but we ignored him and returned to where we captured the umber hulk yesterday to see if it had any treasure. Turns out it did. Not much though. Some halfling-sized boots that wouldn't bloody fit me, a few coins and a bottle of perfume. Insultingly Fillian tried to give this to me because I'm a woman! Well I made him regret that by throwing the bloody thing at his head and despite missing, got great satisfaction in watching his horrified face as it shattered against the rocks.

So after that interlude will resumed the task at hand and found the room where these 'dogs' are meant to be. Although, it seemed less like a room in the depths of the temple of elemental evil and more like a green pasture out in the countryside. A light brighter than the sun shone down from above and if there was a ceiling up there then we couldn't bloody well see it. The floor seemed to be covered in verdant grass and to the far side of the chamber was a huge rock with two figures chained on top of it. My keen eyes made out a man and woman bound in chains. Swarming below them was what appeared to be wild dogs and giant rats which tried to leap up to the rock to attack the prisoners. Occasionally one would succeed in doing so and the woman would do all the work (typically!!!) in beating them back down, whilst the male prisoner lay prone.

In the distance and perched upon rocky pillars surveying the scene on the rock was three creatures we recognised as harpies. Now I don't need to be a bloody elf wizard to notice there was something odd about this scene. The rats and dogs appeared to notice us and most of them stopped trying to leap on the rock to come at us easier pray on the ground. Well or so they thought.

I stepped into the chamber and prayed that the mighty shrew should surround me in a ring of blades. She granted me this boon and I met the jackal-dog things in battle. Ugg and Sameson moved into the battle too, whilst Joe peppered them with his bow. Then the harpies took to flight and the illusion on them disappeared. They were not harpies at all, but gargoyles. The illusion was put there to frighten us more. Still gargoyles are bloody bad enough and we looked likely to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of rats, jackal dogs and gargoyles.

Fillian may be a bloody dolt of a man elf at times but you gotta give him some credit for being a bit perceptive when it matters. He called on his magic to create his trademark magically web across the middle of the room. He had seen through the illusion in the chamber and realized that the ceiling was in fact only 20 feet high and used this to support the web. Most of the creatures on the other side got caught up in this trap or remained trapped by the rock. This gave us time to handle those on our side of the web.

Unbeknownst to me at the time Ugg slumped over asleep due to magic. I heard Filliam yell a warning that there is a magic users somewhere in the room. I would have given it more bloody heed if I didn't have three dog jackals snapping at me through my ring of blades. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the gargoyles trying to circumnavigate the web in an effort to get to me, so I conjured a spiritual warhammer and sent it to attack it to prevent problems later.

Smoke billowing about the room and the screeches of rage from dying jackals and rats belayed the fact that Fillian had set fire to the web with a burning hands. He's bloody learning that one! So I crushed the skull of one of the jackals and turned to face the biggest one. It looked me in the eye and tried to do some sort of magic on me. My amulet of wakefulness glowed around my neck and I realized it this beast was trying to use a deep slumber spell on me. It didn't work though and so instead it transformed before my eyes into a human female wielding scimitars. It was a bloody were jackal! I switched to using my magical dwarven waraxe and with the help of Fillian, who was blasting away with that magic missile wand of his, we gave her a messy end!

Moving forward along with Sameson who was doing battle on the other side of the room we attacked the gargoyles who had landed to rake us with claws and fangs. The woman on the platform suddenly revealed that she had not be chained up at all and transformed into a hybrid jackal-woman creature and leapt down to attack Sameson with her scimitars. I was hacking away at a gargoyle at the time, but it seemed he managed to best the woman beast and despite taking heavy wounds we managed to come out on top again!

Amongst the corpses we found some coins, potions and scrolls. Of course I didn't get bloody any of it because these greedy men swiped it all up before I could lay claim to a single coin! I clambered up on the rock and freed the man bound there but he seemed to be of a weak disposition because he awoke and then promptly fainted again when told where he was. I only bloody said temple of elemental evil! Eventually we managed to get out of him that he is a carpenter from Faloona. So not Mitrik then! I lost interest after that and we decided that the right thing to do would be to let someone take him back to Hommlet to recover from his ordeal. We gave Ugg a swift kick in the unmentionables to rouse him from the sleep spell and he agreed to do the task. Although personally I just think the bloody coward didn't want to face the giant again!

We carried some of the dogs back and Scorpp demanded to know where the ugly one was! He didn't believe my lies so luckily Fillian and Joe managed to convince him that Ugg had fallen down a pit or some such rubbish. This didn't seem to do anything for Scorpp's mood though because he decided he wanted to eat one of us and asked Fillian who he thought would be most tasty. He decided on Joe and was just about to eat the poor pickpocket when I instead told him that the fire temple had plenty of nice people to eat and they had insulted him as a king. Thankfully he took the bait and furiously told us to ready ourselves for battle before marching us up there.

It's about time we brought down that area of the temple! I've been waiting for this for a while. So I cast protection from fire on us all and we kicked open those double brass doors again and made it clear that this time we weren't there to scrub their floors. With Scorpp there we made short work of some bugbear priests, but one of them retreated to the fire pit at the far side of the temple and seemed to be doing a summoning incantation there. In the pit what seemed to be some sort of portal opened and fiery forms could be seen growing inside. Scorpp stayed up by the doors of the huge chamber to swot bugbears and priests that were trying to come through a curtained area, whilst the rest of the men went into the room to kill the bugbear priest. I planted myself by the portal and waited for all hell to bloody break loose.

It wasn't long before fiery salamanders burst forth and duplicated themselves with magic. I raised the holy symbol of the true goddess of the flame high and attempted to seize control of the creatures. They proved resilient but I soon had one of the salamanders under my control and made it attack the others. Their fiery attacks proved impotent against the protection of my goddess on myself and my companions, and that combined with Sameson's circle from evil spell and Scorpp lumbering over to help squash the fiery lizards lead us once again to victory.

But the fire temple was far from finished yet! The main doors burst open to admit the high priest of the temple and two of his acolytes. As we traversed the room to meet them in combat a side door opened to reveal two far more imposing figures. Both had red hoods and one was clad in black armour and had the markings of a high priest of the greater temple, none other than bloody Hedrak himself, whilst the other wore the jet black robes of an evil mage. It just never rains but bloody pours in this place! Hedrak yelled at the high priest of the fire temple, who it turned out is called Lord Chess, that if he can't defend his own temple then they are unworthy. Then the bloody cheek of it he told Lord Chess to bring the bodies down below afterwards. I said 'don't worry, we bloody will'.

They didn't seem to take too kindly to that because Hedrak called on his foul god Iuz to blast me with unholy fire. Thankfully my goddess absorbed the worst of the flames with a protection spell. The mage blasted Fillian with magically bolts, but he too was protected thanks to a magical broach. It shattered into pieces though. After this, typically male, ostentatious show of power Hedrak and the mage strutted off and left the fire temple to its fate. At this point three bugbears charged into the room from nearby and blinded Scorpp momentarily with a curtain in his face.

I called on Joramy to give me holy might and battle was joined was more. The priests came in casting and one tried to shatter Joe's bow unsuccessfully, whilst Lord Chess stunned Sameson with a sonic blast spell. The battle felt like one big bloody blur to me under the holy might of Joramy's power, but before I knew it all the bugbears and priests were dead except Lord Chess. Realizing his defeat he cast a spell to merge into the rock, making it impossible for us to finish the job and splat his brains all over the temple floor.

We knew he couldn't stay hidden forever so we decided to wait and explore the chamber. This would have been easier if Scorpp hadn't started to demand we get Lord Chess out the rock with our bare hands. I let the men reason with him whilst I investigated the firepit. I cast detect magic and saw what appeared to be a chest glowing down in the embers. Under the protection of my goddess I retrieved it from the pit and called my companions to help open it. They seemed to have reasoned with Scorpp and were relatively unscathed, well all except Joe who the giant had shook and dropped on his head.

In the distraction Lord Chess emerged from the rock and convinced the giant, with his serpent tongue, to side with him and leave to find better treasures. So we had no bloody choice but to let him escape, else Scropp would have swotted us. Bah, we'll get him later and at least he took that bloody giant away with him...that overgrown man was really starting to get on my nerves. Finally we're free of him. We opened the chest easily and inside was a ring, some potions and an odd sword. Even though I bloody had to go digging around in the fire for it everyone else laid claim to the treasure. Fillian reached for the ring and set off a bloody trap that cleaved his hand clean off.

I don't think I've ever seen so much blood in my life! Part of me thinks the elf bloody deserved it for pilfering, but I helped Sameson bind the stump anyway. We tipped the chest upside down to get the treasure without setting off the trap and I took a potion or two this time. Then the elf bloody began to talk to the sword. Of course I thought the blood loss had gone to his head, but it turned out that the sword is a magical sword that can talk into your head. At least that's what some of the others told me, but it never did so to me. Maybe these men are making it up or the fumes in this room were getting to their heads. How the blazes should I know what goes on in their male brains.

Anyway, Fillian took the sword and we went for a look around the fire temple's side chambers purloining everything from the tapestries on the walls to the clothes of the now dead inhabitants. In one room Sameson found a bottle of what I and Fillian recognised as drow poison. Horrid stuff. I bloody hate drow! Under the mountain we killed the things on sight. Fillian understandably whipped this out of Sameson hand and smashed it on the floor. It is said that the very existence of the drow is an insult to the elves in the same way that the duergar are to my people. Well I say 'my' bloody people but what sort of people treat half of their own people as inferior based upon their gender! At least the bloody elves don't do that. In fact, come to think of it, I heard that drow societies have women in charge. Humph maybe that ain't so bloody bad after all. But I digress...

We thought that Ugg might have returned from his errand taking the carpenter back to town by now and we realized we never told him where to meet us. Our guess that he might head back to where Scorpp quarters were proved accurate. Ugg told us he had taken the carpenter safely back and what's more the 'talking' sword 'told' Fillian to give it to Ugg as a more suitable owner. Frankly I've never heard such a load of ashes! Thankfully the giant was not longer in his quarters and so we raided insdie although it seemed to be strangely empty of treasure considering! Weakened by our battles we returned to the crypt we had been using as a rest area and tried to get some shut eye after our most productive day! Only I knew that once again my shut eye meant another battle with that bitch!