In true Elven fashion, I am keeping this long and detailed.
Ahhh, where to begin. It happened so fast that I'm having trouble remembering...or I don't want to remember. For there are some things too strange for one with a brain to comprehend. Anyway, I do know how it started. The five of us - Cyril the fighter/cleric, Simon the sorcerer/rouge, Aldare the bard, the theiving gnome and I, the elven ranger Volund Amakiir, had returned to the city from our tussle with three ghastly ankhegs, one of which I graciously take credit for killing myself. As we neared the city limits, we all realized that we needn't have rid ourselves of the vile, disgusting ankheg stench and feces. But that would have to wait, for we needed to sell some items we had looted off of several corpses found inside the insects' lair. Our first step was to drop off our old swords which had been replaced by blades of masterwork quality. A gnome swordsmith turned out to be the one who bought our wares.
It was during this exchange of steel and gold that she happened to chance upon my sword and with a glint of pride in her eye, she proclaimed, "I made that! Where did you chance upon such a beautiful work as mine?" When we told her of their former owners' fate, she gave a shrill laugh and dismissed us. Cyril or Simon might have bought something from her, but as I said, my memory is slightly hazy.
Our next stop was a dwarfen armoursmith who turned out to not like us much, especially me. (Of course, being an elf, that is understandable.) The only thing that got her to cooperate was an ankheg mandible we had seized from our quarry out at the farm, using it as a bargaining tool...was able to raise the price on the two sets of cracked, feces-caked, studded leather. I've got to hand it to that bard. As much as he annoys and makes fun of me, he has excellent bargaining skills.
Well, with our extra load disposed of and our pockets slightly deeper, we parted ways for an hour to clean ourselves up and meet back at the local tavern. Cyril and Simon were able to find a spot in the city's temple (which I hear is full of flagellants so I worried deeply about them.) Aldare went to hang out at his house, while I retreated across the riverbank to my uncle's house via ferry. (That ferry would eventually dig nearly a silver piece out of my wallet.)
Upon arriving at my kin's humble abode, I happened to stumble upon a very disgruntled uncle who needed me to help in his arrow making business by stripping roughly 300 branches of bark and twigs. Well, this sort of job was going to take me into the evening hours, which meant that my companions would be waiting too long and might get fed up and go somewhere without me. So quickly, just in case my uncle looked in the backyard, I moved the sticks into nearby underbrush, and dumped all 45 of my arrows in his backyard where I had been working. I then made my way back to town as quickly as I could. To replace the arrows that I had dumped, I hastily made my way to the nearest weapons shop and purchased what I had lost, all the while, learning where the arrows my uncle makes, go.
After I made my purchase, I ran into my companions after a heated debate with Aldare. He convinced me to go work for my uncle and meet up with them at night to track down a sea monster. Well, after an afternoon of long, hard work, I met my friends and walked down to wait with them at the river.
After awhile, we walked down the riverbank for a few miles and happened to chance upon a mill. It was a rundown, ramshackle place with a large waterwheel that turned with utter silence in the pitch black river, and a two-story house attached to the main structure. Light seeped from the cracks between the window shutters. I would certainly prefer the trees to such a run-down shack. Simon advanced to the mill's door, the rest of us following closely behind.
Simon rapped sharply upon the door, and an old man came to greet us. After a few minutes of questioning, it became apparent that this man was completely oblivious to the monster attacks of late, so we thought it necessary to move on.
It was then that, through low-light vision, I glimpsed two cloaked figures rowing upstream on the other side of the river, a large case in tow. When I noted it to my companions, they exclaimed that they could see nothing. I often forget how in a few respects, humans are inferior to us elves.
I promptly hailed them, noting the dangers that lurk in the night. The figures looked around frantically and proceeded to row faster upstream. Simon, apparently fed up with looking blindly into the night, loosed an arrow that he had cast light on only a moment before at the far bank. As the river bank illuminated, the figures in the boat proceeded to row faster. Frantically, we looked around and found the millman's boat flipped over on the shore. Hastily, we righted it and set out in pursuit of the mysterious men. The waves were choppy and the men we were pursuing were fast, but with the Gnome's and my eyes, Simon and Aldare's strength and the excellent coordination of our steersman, Cyril, we were soon closing in, all the while our quarry growing more and more nervous by the second.
In fact, we would have been on them had there not been a sharp bend in the river, which the men we were pursuing had slipped behind. I warned Cyril of the bend, and he was able to get us around it unscathed. However, when we turned the corner, they were nowhere to be found. However, I did spy a small tribuatary and had Cyril steer us up it until I saw a large, looming building jutting out of a rugged mountain covered in brambles. I had Cyril bring us to shore.
As we all stared ahead, I think that we all knew that we had come to the right place. The Gnome stayed back at the boat to hide, and Simon and I went ahead to scout. We crept up to the building and took a listen into a rather loud conversation coming from the building. It turned out that the fellows we had been tailing were telling their friends about what happened out on the river, and what they should do about it.
When their voices began to die out, Simon decided that he would stay and keep watch while I slipped through the brambles that lined the area back to the beach where our friends Aldare and Cyril were waiting. After telling them of our findings, they crept back with us across the landscape to where Simon kept watch. As we moved up to Simon's encroachment, it annoyed me to listen to Cyril's armour clanking as he moved, and my ears range with every step he made. Nevertheless, we made it to Simon and our group was reunited. However, when we all heard the crackle of branches being broken and promptly disbanded again. Aldare and Cyril moved as silently as they could (And for Cyril that wasn't quiet at all) closer to the building, and soon disappeared out of sight.
Simon and I shuffled around the other side of the mountain. Soon, we heard several footfalls upon the mountain's summit, and a split-second later, Simon had cast light upon a nearby stone and promptly threw it up to the summit which illuminated the whole mountain and the immediate areas surrounding it. The mountainside showed no perpetrators upon the summit, but it did show the men on the other side of the hill. There were two human archers, rather lacking of skill and absolutely terrified.
It was then that Cyril mounted the hill just as Simon and I exchanged a volleey of arrows with the two unknown archers. Cyril demanded that we all cease fire and strangely, all four of us, including our enemies, listened to us. Cyril and one of the archers proceeded to question each other, though from what Simon told, the archers were flat out lying. It was then that Simon, taking advantage of the diversion, snuck off to the front of the building. As an afterthought, I gravely wished that he had stayed. It was then the light gave out, plunging everyone into darkness, save me. One of the archers snuck off, but the other was at my mercy as I slowly stalked him, and he would grow more scared.
It was then that I made a terrible mistake. I charged at him, attempting to capture him alive. Unfortunately, he was also thinking along the same lines. As we grappled in the darkness, he gained the upper hand, tangling me in my own cloak. I fought back, though no matter what strength I exerted, it was never enough. As my strength gave out, I began to lose hope. Then, as I began to see myself as a goner, the man released his grip. As I untangled myself from my cloak, I saw that it was Simon who had come to my aid. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that Aldare and Cyril were there, too, the latter holding a brilliant sun rod. I saw the man hanging from his cloak which was clutched in Simon's hand. Just watching the terrified man just made my blood boil. With lightning reflexes, I loosed an arrow straight into the gut of the archer, killing him before anyone could do orsay anything about it. The man head drooped and his eyes glazed over in a slow, sickening manner.
"Why did you__", "How the," and"What the -" were some of the responses I heard. After I thought about it, I really had no reason for my actions. But before I could apologize, Cyril had stolen the man from death's icy grip with one of his many healing spells, and was already proceeding to tie him up. As I watched on I realized that this was a fate I might have met had I not been aided.
Well, I certaintly couldn't apologize to the man, for he would recieve it, so I just kept silent and thought to myself, "Where to Next?" My questions were soon answered by Simon's dicovery of a secret passage in the back of the mountain. As I looked into the forboding hole, I could only imagine what was in store for us next.
