The Elvencourt campaign (Me an' my brother)

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

So, what does the Bug have to say about all of this?

They'll kill me if they know what I saw.

I ain't tellin' nobody nothin'. Nothin'.

That elf guy can talk to me all he wants...nothin' ain't comin' outta my mouth. Nothin' but spit. I know them elves are bad guys.

They'll kill me if they know what I saw.

All I wanted was to get me some better food. That icky gray stuff wasn't no good...no good, I tell ya.

Just somethin' better to eat, that's all I wanted.

Now this elf guy is takin' me someplace bad just because I wanted to get some better food to eat. But if he knew what I had saw, he'd kill me. They'd all want to kill me. I ain't tellin' him nothin'. I ain't tellin' nobody nothin'.

Even those new guys, they'd want to kill me too. I ain' tellin' them nothin'.

I'm not sure where this elf guy is takin' me, but I hope they won't hurt me there to make me tell them.

I hope we get there soon if they ain't gonna hurt me. I get scared out on these roads like this. Too many things tryin' to kill ya.

Like that wizard guy. I saw him try to come and kill us...kill us all. Maybe he knew what I saw. But that little wizard guy, he killed him first.

Then we found that old building in the hill, and those two big dog things tried to kill us...but these new guys killed them first, too.

I think he might have sent them to kill me just like that wizard guy. Maybe those dog things knew what I saw. Maybe he sent those dog things to kill me.

They talked kinda like people, and they had funny feet. Not like dog feet, like deer feet.

Maybe he talked to them and told them to wait in that hill building and kill me, but those new guys killed them first. Maybe those new guys came here to help me.

Or maybe they came to trick me. To find out if I saw what they think I saw, and when they find out what I saw, then they'll kill me.

I ain't saying nothin'...nothin'.

They'll kill me if they know what I saw.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

We 'ad found th' mage's lair off th' stones 'ways. Coupla' small hills near where th' elf 'ad tracked them prints. After bit, Oi calls out, "Crikes. Lookit' 'at." I seen wot' appeared t' be an old post put up by me kin. Twas' facin' away from the road...must a' been 'bout four 'r five 'undred years've age r' such. Nothin' lasts ya longer 'n a good ol' buildin' a' th' dwarves I tells ya. Most folks wouln'ta been able t' see it fer what it was, but Oi knew right quick what Oi was seein'.

We scurried on up to what woulda been th' back of it, 'way from th' door, an' then we found the cracks leadin' into it along that back parta' the 'ill. Lots a them tracks 'round the back part a that 'ill.

Th' 'alf orc led us inta' one a' them cracks...after a' bit, we seen an openin' inta' one a' th' rooms in th' post. Most a' us were still stuck in 'at crack when them talkin' dog things came at us.

Big as ponies, they was...and mean as 'ungry bears, they was too. Took most of what we 'ad in us, but we took 'em down 'fore any a' us bit it. Coupla' us 'ad were bleedin' nuff t' show we seen some good action, but nothin' I couldnta' cured wit' the 'elp of the big guy.

Lookin' 'round th' place, we caught sight a' many a piece a' stuff lyin' 'round lookin' like travelin' gear. After a' bit a' searchin' we found a place lookin' like that wizard the 'alfling done in 'ad been sleepin'. Musta' been usin' th' post as a place t' ambush travlers like us at th' campsite we 'ad set up at. Good stuff in the piles a' stuff in that ol' post...some good fer sellin', some good fer keepin'. That 'alfling sure was 'appy when e' found that box behind th' wall stone in th' wizard's sleepin' room. No doubtin' it had that ol' wizard's magic book in in it. Too bad fer th' 'alfling that some kind a' magic kept us from openin' it. Had ta' wait till Angelspire to find a way to get at it.

Gotta give this gang a' mine credit...we done right good fer a bunch of newbies to th' killin' a' baddies.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Yeah, so we made it the rest of the way to Angelspire without too much trouble. Sure, it was a bit weird with that squirmy kobold looking at us all shifty all the time, but you kind of got used to it after a while. The elf was kind of quiet, too, but it was good having him with us...made getting past the patrols a lot easier. Not that we were in trouble or anything, but sometimes they like to give you a hard time or charge you an extra toll, you know.

The mountains that we traveled along on the road were quite a sight. Having grown up on the docks of Linshire back east, I wasn't used to that kind of view. From Westhaven all the way to Angelspire, we had an awesome sight out to our west, especially when the sun went down behind those peaks.

When we got to the city, it was amazing! A beautiful red brick wall with the black towers of the city's wizards standing tall over it. Above it all was the mountain of Angels itself, one of the tallest in all the lands, I'm sure.

True to his word, the elf made it easy for us to get in through the gates, and with no toll either! Not only that, but he offered us an easy job for some extra travel cash. Seems that because of some Bugbear problems to the east of the city on top of some mining trains arriving from the west tying up a lot of the city's militia, there was a need for an escort to go with him and the Bug to Harney Peak. Word had it that smaller groups had been jumped recently by bandits or something on the mountain road that led that way. Twenty five coins for each of us up front and twenty five more when we got to the prison if we wanted it. Who could say no to that kind of easy cash?

After a short stay in the city...too short if you ask me; I would have loved to look around at that market a bit longer to see those things from the West that you never get to see back home like those dunlizard tooth necklaces...we gathered ourselves and started out on the short trip to the mountain prison.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Of Flying Kobolds and other such nonsense (as told by the $#@! talkin' dwarf)

Flyin' kobolds? Roit, Try tellin' em' all back 'ome 'bout that one an' they'd knock yer 'ead off fer makin' up stories. 'course I woulda done th' same if ya'd been tellin' me 'bout that kinda nonsense before we seen it ourselves...A flyin' kobold...Crikes, what's next? 'Alflings savin' the realms? Horsch! Wouldn't s'prise me in the least what wit' all we been seein' lately.

After droppin' off th' Bug out at 'Arney Peak, th' elf gave us th' resta' th' money owed us fer doin' th' job, and we started on back with 'im to th' city. Five and twenty coins may not seem much to some, but back then t' us it was good pay on top of th' other 'alf 'e gave us back in Angelspire.

'Twas on th' way back that we ran into troubles. 'Bout 'alfway back from 'Arney Peak, coupla' big giant vultures come roit at us from outta nowheres droppin' big ol' rocks roit down on toppa' us. Near took off the 'alflings 'ead.

Them birds weren't no match fer us, though...couppla well placed arrows and bolts from the woman an' th' 'alfling left one of 'em dead an' th' other nearly so. Flew so slow after that it gave us an easy path t' follow t' see from where it came.

Not too long after that we seen th' flying kobold.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Yeah, so anyway, like the dwarf said, those two big vultures bombed us with rocks, and we were able to take one out and left the other flying for home. We had been warned before we left for Harney Peak that there had been word of small groups getting ambushed on the road that passed by the prison. That's why the elf wanted to pay us to go along with him in the first place.

Looking to where that bird flew away, the elf, he came with us on the road back to the city after dropping the Bug off, said it might help to look into things a bit. Though we really didn't have to, we knew it was the right thing to do. If we could help put an end to folks getting rocks dropped on them, we'd have done good by things, right?

So we checked in the direction of that bird's flight path and headed that way a bit. Not too long after leaving the road, the elf found some tracks near a dry gully that he said like kobold prints or something like it. Now I don't know about you, but from my experience, most kobolds don't usually mean too good by people, so we followed those tracks to see what we could find.

Let me tell you, what we found was an amazing site to say the least.

A couple of miles north of the road, past a few turns through the gorges that cut through the mountains this side of Angelspire, we came upon a more open area, like a big bowl in the mountains. Right there in the middle of it was this big rock looking like a big giant bird head with an open mouth sticking up into the sky. Crazy stuff, I tell ya'. It must of been a few hundred feet high or somthing like that, and it's kind of hard to describe it if you haven't seen it, but it was a pretty awesome sight. Definitely nothing back east like that for sure.

We looked on from some cover at a distance for a bit and saw that there were a bunch of flying shapes circling it...looked like a bunch of vultures and one or two big ones. There were a bunch of small cave-looking holes along the front of the "bird head" too. We wanted to get a closer look, but those caves looked too in the open for our tastes.

We wanted to get a look to see if there were any other ways up there, so we used the brush and rocks along the edge of the basin we were in to give us some cover to check out the other sides of that rock.

After a little bit, Brennan spoke up, saying that he saw some kind of ledge along one of the sides of the rock leading up from the base to the "mouth" of it. We figured that we might be able to make it up there without being seen by any of those birds if we did it the right way.

We did make it across the floor of that bowl to the ledge, but I'll tell ya' this, we only made it about halfway up it when those big birds found us. Yeah, you could say we were stuck between a rock and a hard place...the hard place being a fifty foot drop off that ledge.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Bombs Away

Tell me which of these situations you'd rather be in: Lounging in a hammock between two trees on a late summer afternoon with a warm breeze and bright sun shining down on you as you watched the Corellian sunflower harvest get brought in from the fields or standing on a ten inch ledge fifty feet above the floor of a desert basin while giant vultures dropped rocks on you from above and tried to knock you off that ledge.

If you chose the first option, I'm right there with you. If you chose the second, get bent.

Befitting our recent luck with these kinds of situations, we found ourselves stuck in the second position.

These two vultures were even bigger than the ones before. It seemed that someone must have trained them to do what they were doing, because I for one had never encountered such behavior in birds of this kind before, and we used to get a fair number of vultures back in Meahanna, especially during the dry season.

Fortunately for us, their aim was worse than ours, and after a few near hits on their part, we were able to fell them with a scattering of bolts and arrows before one of those rocks had the chance to slug one of us down to the basin floor. Our only fear now was that the noise of the combat had alerted one of the other denizens of the rock.

We continued our way up the ledge, eventually finding ourselves in the "craw" of the rock formation looking out over a large spread of normal-sized vulture nests. They were spread out over a tub-like area some two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide. There were three cavelike openings in the far side wall from where we stood, two right next to each other and rather large, and another, smaller one a ways down from our position. The open "mouth" of the bird-rock opened up above us, giving one the impression of standing in some large beast's belly.

The smaller birds ignored us as we slowly advanced towards one of those larger openings.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

So anyway, we made it past all those nests of the smaller birds to get to one of those cave openings we saw on the other side of the opening. It was pretty clear to us once we got in there that it was where those bigger birds nested. That one we had hurt back on the road was laid up in one of the five big nests in the room we came into. A quick thrust of my rapier put it out of its misery soon enough.

We saw that the two openings to this chamber from that bigger nesting room joined up just inside the room...still didn't know about where that other opening led though.

Not that it mattered much at the time though, 'cause right after we entered the big birds' room, two kobolds came walking out from a tunnel on the far side of the room. They took one look at us and took off running down that tunnel before we could do anything about it. Something about a seven foot plus half orc wielding a great sword and a dwarf with a big giant hammer must have put a fright into them or something.

Yeah, so we took off after them as quick as we could, though that wasn't as quick as we might have liked. The good things about kobolds is they're small and easy to waste...the bad thing is that they're small and live in places with small tunnels. Squeezing my five and a half foot self through those tunnels was hard enough...imagine the trouble Ortuk had getting through them.

By the time we made it into the next chamber, those two kobolds had become four, and they were ready for us with their slings and darts. Luckily their aim stunk; unluckily, the big guy made his way across the room in a charge of fury only to fall into the pit trap in the middle of the room. Naturally, he would also have to deal with the big spider that made its home down there.

While Ortuk dealt with that little problem he "stepped" into, the rest of us did our best to take out those little dudes on the other side of the room. Didn't take us too long to take out three and send the other running. Sticking to our basic plan, we followed up, stopping only long enough to drag the big guy out of that pit.

After a bit of hurried pursuit and a few wrong turns, we split up at a fork, and my crew came into the main chamber of this little group of kobolds. They must've had some bad luck recently, cause there were only about half a dozen of the males and and equal number of women kobolds in there. The ladies hung back and threw rocks at us while the guys came at us with spears. They gave us more trouble than you might think...our aim turned out to be as bad as theirs.

Not too long into our little fight, the other half of our group came out around a bend in the room and was right away attacked by the leader of this little bunch...a kobold who could fly. Yes, that's what I said...

I only saw the tail end of him, cause by the time we had offed the adult kobolds in the room, he was already swooping out down a side passage after figuring out we weren't a group to be messed with. Kind of strange seeing a kobold with big bat wings flying away from you, but there you go.

Satisfied that we had helped rid the world of this little clan of bandits after looking through all the side tunnels of their lair, we made our way out and back to the road to the city.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Too many halflings spoils the pot

Dealing with one was OK. Dealing with two would be difficult, but possible. But dealing with half a dozen on top of the braggart we drag with us to begin with? Inconceivable!

Never mind, I'll let him tell it...

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Oh, yeah baby! That's what I'm talkin' about! Not just one lovely lass, but two, two fine young ladies of the halfling persuasion. The only thing that could've been better would've been three!

Y' see. It all started not too long after we scooted out of Angelspire on the road north to Gillette. Beautiful day...sun was shinin' and the birds were singin' if y' get my drift, you know, when all of a sudden we see a couple of carts sittin' on the side of the road up ahead.

I knew straight out once we got a bit closer that they were halfling carts. Not that it was too hard to tell...nobody except my kind or gnomes would've fit in carts of that size too comfortably over the long haul, and I know halfling gypsy carts when I see them.

First a thing about halfling gypsies. You see, like the bigger ones, these types go to all places in the land here in the East trying to make do with whatever talent they have...more often than not that talent is conning the locals out of their cash.

One more thing about halfling gypsies...they have the loveliest ladies in all the realms. I assure you that.

As I'd soon find to my great pleasure...this group was no different.

It was a small grouping, only seven of them. Two middle aged ladies, one a fortune teller and the other a performer and apparent leader of the group, two younger guys, brothers, performers, and sons to the head mistress, one older guy who looked (and smelled) to be the teamster of the bunch, and the two previously mentioned younger, very lovely ladies...one a daughter of the fortune teller and the other one also a child of the head mistress.

Let me tell you this, as soon as I laid my eyes on those two lovely lasses, I just knew one of them had to be mine...but which one? Oooooh, the suspense of it all...I can still feel it even telling you about it now.

 

[Raidkillsbugsdead]

Oh no...something's missing!

I am real mad that someone took my potion!

It was yellow, and the dwarf said it would help make me feel better if I got hurt. Now somebody took it.

I think it was one of them halflings. They make me nervous because they're so small, and I think I might step on one by accident or something. I don't think we can trust them. Halflings are nicer than elves, but they can try to trick you sometimes. Maybe one of them is trying to trick me. I don't like tricks very much.

The halflings asked us to go with them to the next city. Because when we met them, one of them was hurt real bad. It was the dogs that attacked them that did that too them, they said.

They asked if we would help kill the dogs, and we did. Those wild dogs were real easy to kill. The halflings said they had been travelling North on the road like us, and then they were attacked by those wild mad dogs and got chased away.

But we came along and helped kill those dogs. I killed three of them myself with my sword. It was easier than fighting those kobolds back at that bird-rock. Those kobolds played tricks. I liked fighting the dogs better.

But now one of my potions is gone, and I want it back. I will be real mad if one of those halflings is trying to play a trick on me. And the dwarf is missing something too. He said he can't find one of his flasks of oil. We went to sleep on the beds in the halfling wagon that none of them sleep in and my potion was gone the next morning. And the dwarf's oil was gone then too.

Somebody who took my potion better get it back real soon. I don't want to get too mad about it. But I will if they don't give it back.