From the Diary of Vida Pankhurst
The bloody rigmarole I was forced to endure today, I have decided to chronicle my (mis)adventures in the form of this here diary. If only to prevent myself going insane.
Today I woke up in that blasted shell of a shed again, hungry and cursing those blasted misogynists that forced me out of the comfort of the mountains, and into this forsaken pit hole of a village in the first place. I noticed my rat trap seemed to have mysteriously disappeared, most likely due to those little human brats I saw trailing me last night.
The previous few days had been spent trying and failing to find work in this god-forsaken place. It seems Nulb already has a blacksmith and an armourer. Both, of course, are men! The villagers themselves are strange and seem devoid of any feelings, be it either sympathy or anger. Even the women give me the strangest of looks and avoid me when I try to approach them. I wondered what the blazes happened here to make these people so downtrodden, so desperate; and their children so bored, as to take such sadistic pleasure in my misery.
Then, just as I thought my luck couldn’t get any worse, I discovered a strange white rat in my backpack that scampered off with the last of my copper pieces before I could crush it into oblivion!
In an almost apoplectic rage I stormed into town, heading for a tavern in the hopes of findings someone vaguely sane, and willing to pay for either a cleric of my skills, or a blacksmith that isn’t a complete dolt of a man, only to bump into the strangest group of individuals kicking up a stink in the village square. An elderly woman, seemingly a cleric, was ranting some nonsense at a gathered crowd, whilst a half-orc, bedecked in more armour and weapons than probably exists in the rest of the entire village, stood staring blankly nearby. The village blacksmith was there of course, but he always seems to be where trouble is, as was another man I’d seen skulking around the village that professed to be a net-maker.
Ignoring the men, and just being happy to see a woman in charge finally, I approached the cleric only to have her spit at the mention of my mighty goddess and ramble some nonsense about a deity of luck. The woman, whose name turned out to be Crippelina claimed she could help turn these people’s luck around. ‘Pfft these people don’t need luck,’ I said. ‘They need anger, wrath and a bloody kick up the backside.’ I will make it my bloody mission to galvanize the people of this village– well the women at least – in the name of my mighty mistress, Joramy. However, this time it seemed Crippelina had the advantage with the crowd and so, realizing that debate would not mollify my rumbling stomach, I inquired if anyone had any work so I could at least get some food.
The blacksmith informed me that the town has been suffering from an infestation of giant rats, as if I hadn’t already bloody noticed the fact, and offered me a reward for every tail collected. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Consider it done.’ And off I marched after learning that the very shed I’d been sleeping in was the believed location of their nest. Imagine my dismay when the half-orc followed me under orders from that bitch Crippelina to keep an eye on me, along with the so-called net-maker.
So I get there and find an elf lurking where I’d slept the night before! ‘Who the hell are you,’ I asked. He garbled some story about being a mage and the only survivor of an envoy that was ambushed by orcs en-route to the village; or some rubbish to that effect anyway. He seemed to have suffered some kind of head wound, but then it’s hard to tell with elves sometimes. What’s more, by my hammer, he confessed that the white rat that made off with my coppers was none other than his bloody familiar, that he’d managed to lose somewhere round here.
Then, as if it wasn’t already getting crowded in there, another man turned up who seemed to have followed us from the village. After a short interrogation he revealed himself to be a cleric of Obad-Hai. Which as far as I could tell, basically means he worships bloody acorns. He fed us some story about looking for a lake, for some unbeknownst reason, but since he’d failed in that thus far he decided to help us eradicate the rats. Maybe to kill time. Hell, I don’t bloody know!
Anyway, I decided to at least find out the names of my all male ‘companions.’ It turned out the half-orc called itself Ugg and seemed to believe Crippelina was his mother. The net-maker of suspicious origins called himself Joe, and also had some sort of affiliation with the luck worshipping hag. The acorn cleric confessed to the name Samson and the elf mage, Fillian.
Introductions suffered, we decided to follow some rat tracks deeper into the dilapidated ruin, which I suppose must have been some sort of barracks once. At first we discovered little more than decaying furniture and a few old weapons that looked like they might crumble if used in battle; most of which I took to be melted down should I eventually find somewhere to practise my trade as a blacksmith, but a rusting spear we gave to Samson who, like a confounded fool, had come unarmed.
In the last room we searched we found a locked chest which the ‘net-maker’ attempted to open. All he managed to succeed in doing, in fact, was triggering a needle trap which, fortuitously for him, seemed to have long ago lost its poison sting and therefore, aptly, only resulted in giving him an impotent prick. Of course, after all that, it was bloody empty but after further investigation of the room we discovering a trapdoor hidden under a decomposing wardrobe.
Opening it revealed a hole with no clear ladder down. Joe managed to put together something resembling a rope from materials around the shed and we tied it up and headed into it. We sent Joe down first, he made the bloody rope so let him plummet to his doom if the flippin thing breaks, and as I clambered down after him I heard the sounds of a ruckus below. Jumping down I landed to find myself beset upon by an animated bag of bones wielding a sword. Raising my holy symbol of Joramy high the creature fled the wrath of the mistress of raging volcanoes; obviously realizing that neither me, nor my goddess, are women to be trifled with.
Meanwhile, Joe had been battling with a walking corpse nearby. Imagine my surprise when the acorn worshipper’s chant from above made the zombie disintegrate into nothing before it could do more than take a bite out of Joe. The threat dealt with, the others, who had been cowering above in typical male fashion, joined us down in the cave. Thankful to have a homely rock ceiling above my head again I called upon my goddesses’ powers to heal Joe’s wounds, whilst the others picked off the remaining, rebuked, skeleton.
At first I was reluctant to heal one of these fools, but he did manage to ask with a something resembling respect, so I assented. I must be careful not to let these male pigs treat me as some sort of mobile healing kit, ostensibly because I’m a cleric, but really I know it’s the result of centuries of patriarchy in which women are expected to follow around men and clean up their mess. I swear some of these overlanders are no better than the worst traditionalists back home.
Anyway, wondering what the bloody hell undead were doing wandering round underneath the village we explored our surroundings. We found another chest and Joe managed to trigger yet another trap. This time the flippin chest literally went up in bloody smoke before we could open it.
Discovering a few doors we picked one at random and headed onward only to encounter more undead. These creatures were stronger than before, some sort of ghoul I think. Even a Burning Hands spell summoned by me, courtesy of the mighty Shrew, was not enough to slow them in their yearning to tear apart my flesh. Luckily the men, especially that pug of a half-orc, proved fairly competent in this battle and together we smashed them apart; although both Ugg and I received hefty injuries from their vile claws.
Through another secret door we found another chest that this time Joe managed to open without causing some sort of minor disaster. Inside, thank Joramy, was some gold that I opted to look after and some boots that really weren’t my colour, so I let the net-maker take them. Knowing this place the bloody things will turn out to be cursed anyway. Realizing we seemed to be in some sort of secret complex we backtracked to look through another secret door and what do we find but more bloody undead!
To my utter astonishment they fell to pieces when Samson uttered a prayer to his god. Clearly these things have some kind of aversion to acorns! On we marched to discover a table with discarded playing cards strewn across it; the place seemed to have once been some kind of thieves hide out. A target practise room for throwing knives through yet another secret door revealed our suspicions to be sound.
Still having found no rats, white, giant or otherwise we continued to look around the underground den, battling more undead as we went. We found more treasure including a healing potion which my companions seemed to take umbrage to me drinking, even though I had not uttered a single complaint about my extensive injuries from before and none of them had the gumption to taste it themselves lest it be poison. Women are of course supposed to just suffer in silence in their minds. And I swear by the hammer if that belligerent half-orc calls me little woman one more time I will stick my warhammer where the sun wouldn’t dare to shine!
Pressing on we found some kind of hole that none of us could fit through, so again we backtracked and found another passage finally leading to the nest of the giant rats. Under my leadership we launched our attack and we made short work of them because even the elf Fillian, who thus far had done little but skulk in the shadows, did his part with a well-executed Sleep spell. Collecting up the tails and picking up some more treasure we avoided a gas trap and found another route back up to the surface.
I almost felt sorry for that misguided treehugger, Samson, when we came up by the very lake he had been searching for only to find it polluted beyond use. My stomach was threatening to consume itself by that point though so I marched us right back into the village brandishing the rat tails. The biggest surprise of the day was yet to come though because, when we reached the smithy to collect our reward, the elf went bloody crazy and stabbed the blacksmith with some kind of poisoned dagger!
Just as I was trying to decide whether to admonish or thank him, the little git turned on our group and launched a Burning Hands spell at us. Luckily Ugg squished the runt with one blow before he could get any more spells off. Lucky for him I mean, because I was about to do something far worse to him involving the handle of my war hammer and his face. As we debated the reasons behind the elf’s actions his unconscious form changed into a pale creature with big black eyes.
'What in blood and bloody ashes is going on here,' I thought. But I had little time to ruminate on this obscure turn of events because the blacksmith seemed to be turning green from the poison flowing in his guts. Curing such an infliction is beyond mine or Sameson's powers, yet, so we had no choice but to send Ugg to fetch that belligerent bitch Crippelina.
The ‘charitable’ wench only made us give her a powerful magic ring, for payment, that we found on the dead elf doppelgänger thing...or whatever it bloody was. Judging from Crippelina's face when she identified the ring, I'm pretty sure it was worth far more than the poxy stall poison spell she pulled out her arse, even if she did throw in a healing scroll to even the score! Then she astounded us further with her 'munificence' by curing Ugg (her so-called son) of a disease he picked up off the ghouls, for the trifling sum of 800gp!!! Only we didn't have that kind of money so she agreed to take an I.O.U. Clearly her generosity and that of her god, Norebo, knows no bounds - even where family are concerned.
Having done what we can to stop the poison killing the blacksmith - still not sure if it was bloody worth it - we took him to the local tavern to rest it off. There I was forced to endure both the pure rudeness of the bellicose barmen and the embarrassment of watching the barmaid debase herself by making eyes at Joe. I was just about to find something to eat, and somewhere to sleep for that matter, when what should turn up but that bloody white rat. Of course it ran to that animal lover Sameson; which was prudent of the little mite because I would have squashed it's furry face, for kicking me when I was down earlier, had it come to me. It seemed to want us to follow it and, being the highly intelligent men that they are, my little entourage decided it wise to follow this sentient creature. Especially because some disembodied voice, coming from nowhere, told us to join it, I swear I'm not bloody making this up!!!
Knowing I had no choice but to stay with this lot, so that they don't all get themselves killed before I can make use of them, I at least managed to convince them to bed down for the night before heading off on this insane quest. Then, if you would believe it, Sameson made a salacious offer for me to bed with him. Pfft, I would rather eat goblin mucus than share a bed with one of these men! So I headed back to spend the night in the cavern we cleared by the lake. That way I got a cavern roof over my head at least.
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