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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 1785" data-attributes="member: 150">Chapter 3: We go hikingNow, gentle reader, I’m sure you know that I’m not a complainer.  I mean, I’m a pretty hardy little halfling, and I’m perfectly happy to do what it takes to keep up with the crowd.  But every once in a while there’s a problem and this time around it was our ‘guide’ Elmer.  Trying to follow him was like trying to keep up with my bowels after Hawk makes his special red pepper stew.  And just about as painful.Anyway, we got up at the crack of dawn the next day, packed our bags and got ready to hit the road.  Pandy edged his way out of the tavern a little after the rest of us, his hair sticking up at odd angles, his shoulders showing bright red scratches, and his eyes glowing with this blissful, vacant light.  While we waited out front for Elmer to turn up he seemed to recover himself a little.  Then, like the first drop of rain that announces a rainstorm coming, he idly scratched his crotch.  Elmer turned up and scowled at us.  He looked us over and told us to go home.  When we didn’t, he shrugged and turned and walked out of town, heading right up into the mountains.  We had to ask him to slow down a little.  He has a pretty long stride, and between Hawk’s and my short legs, Trandle’s heavy armor and Pandy stopping to scratch every couple of minutes, we just didn’t have a chance of keeping up.  Elmer was NOT happy about leading us, and even less happy about slowing down for us.  Obviously it was going to be a good trip.I tried to work on a limerick for him, but it was hard during the day.  That night, while I was on watch, I worked on some, and came up with this.There was a crusty hardass named ElmerWho spat nails and fought like a badger    He never knew love    Except with his gloveAnd knotholes small enough for his pecker.I decided not to show that one to him, or read it to the rest of the gang while he was still around.  I didn’t figure he’d like it very much, not being much of an art lover and all.While I was on watch that night Pandy got up to go relieve himself a little ways away from camp.  I was sitting there keeping one eye on the underbrush for trouble and another eye on my poetry, when I heard a muffled wimper from the bush where Pandy had gone.  Hawk and I grabbed our bows and covered the bush, but a few seconds later Pandy came out, wiping tears out of his eyes.  “It hurts when I pee,” he said.  Hawk started to laugh, so I punched him to shut him up.  “Really?  That bad?  I’m sorry, buddy.  We can get that cured – I’ll bet a travel deity like Fharlanghn has lots of spells to help cure the local versions of the clap.”   I wanted to wake up Trandle and get it over with – actually, I was surprised that Hawk laughing himself sick over near the fire wasn’t waking the cleric up already, but there he was sleeping in his armor as if it were a feather bed.  Anyway, Pandy didn’t want to wake up the cleric, so he went back to bed, and I had something new to write about.Goodman Jaeger met a buxom young maidenWho made love like an immoral heathen    She bedded him hard    The grabbed his right nardAnd begged him to give her many childrenJaeger learned about the birds and the beesFrom a barmaid with well-calloused knees    She took him downstairs    Tugged at his short hairsAnd left him with a bad case of HerpesI think I’m getting better, don’t you?Anyway, the trip got more dull after the first day.  We were sore and tired most of the time.  Pandy finally asked Trandle for a little help, and I think he got it.  Elmer led us to the foot of a huge ravine – some sort of glacial wash, probably.  He pointed up the ravine and then turned and left us there to make our own way up to where the old monastery was supposed to be.  Thanks for nothing, big Elmer.  It was really slow going on the way up the ravine.  We were climbing over sharp rocks every step of the way.  At one point we had to build a raft for our heavy gear and swim it across a lake.  That was a drag, let me tell you.  Mountain streams are NOT WARM.  It took another day and a half, but eventually reached the foot of a cliff.  About 200 feet up we could see the monastery.  No sweat, right?  Well, it was decided that I should climb up first, anchor ropes and let the others follow me.  It was a crazy idea.  But, I’m no chicken, so I did the climbing.  I slipped a couple of times, got beat up a little on the rocks, but made it up about half way, with the rest of the gang coming up behind me, when we found an entrance – a doorway in to the cliff.  We decided to go inside and look for a place to hunker down for the night.  This little 5x5 doorway opened up after a while into a big hall, and that into a bigger chamber filled with little stone huts.  And it was dark.  I’m going to have to figure something out about light in dark places, because the dark was really getting in my way.  Hawk, of course, has much better vision in the dark than the rest of us, so he was scouting around.   We poked around in that room for a while, and it was pretty boring.  Lots of moss and little insects, but all we found loot-wise was an old pouch and a scrollcase.  And there were bugs in both (ew).  After we finished poking around in the stone huts, we went down that hallway, wandered around until we came to a room filled with water.  Well, half filled.  There were steps down from the floor level, and they went down into very, very cold water.  Just to our right as we looked at the pool, trying to talk Pandy into going in for a swim, there was a big iron lever sticking up out of the floor.  Not having any better ideas, we got Pandy to try pulling the lever, to see what would happen.  And, of course, it broke off in his hands.  Big lug doesn’t know his own strength.  Maybe it was his new-found strength after Belle made a man of him.  Anyway, we ran out of ideas there, so we went back a ways to another room.And as soon as we stepped into the doorway something started screeching REALLY LOUD.  It was a couple of big mushrooms that just would not stop making a huge racket until the big guys (Junior, Pandy, Trandle) hacked them up good.  Hawk and I were standing just outside the doorway when the noise finally stopped and we could hear again.  My ears were ringing.  I could barely hear the sound of Pandy cleaning off his axe in the room behind me.  Trandle was jabbering something about the name for the mushroom creatures – and what it was in Draconic as well as common, and what he’d read about other travelers encountering them in the holy travelogues of Fharlanghn.  The screaming was almost better.  Then Hawk touched my arm.  “Listen.”So I did.  And I heard scuttling.  Big scuttling. And then he pointed, but I could see what he was pointing at – it was too far outside the light.  That was spooky.  Watching Hawk get out his bow and look spooked was spooky, too.  And then it came into the light.  It was a huge scorpion – like the size of a big dog, maybe.  Its huge poisonous tail waved around over its head and seemed to be pointing right at me, the way Dans used to when I’d broken a tray full of crockery again.  It was coming for me.  I just knew it.  I reacted quickly, yelling for help and casting the first spell that came to mind – Color Spray.  It was the first time I’d actually used the spell when it wasn’t a training exercise.  I didn’t think about it at the time – I was moving too fast – but the training the guild put us through really did prepare us well.  I mean, before I joined the guild and went through the training I probably would have been too scared to do anything when I first saw the scorpion.  But now boom.  A huge cone of bright colors and sparks and flashes flew out from my hand and streaked towards the Scorpion.  It stood there for a few seconds, stunned and disoriented, while the rest of the gang gathered around it and start bashing.  It did fight back a little – scratched up Junior and Trandle a little – but it was fighting blind, thanks to my spell, and it missed a lot more than it hit.  It wasn’t long before the thing was pulp (thanks to a HUGE blow from Jaeger), and we all stood back, leaning against the wall, and realized we had just won our first battle in the Barrier Mountains.  It felt pretty cool.</blockquote>

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