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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 489006" data-attributes="member: 5675">Jared Blackspawn’s JournalPart 6----------------------------------Eleasis 4th - In the very early hours of this morning the group’s sleep was disturbed by an enraged dire boar, a truly frightening monstrous porcine creature around 9' in length from its tail to the wickedly curved tusks it tried goring us with. We succeeded in defeating the beast swiftly, but not before it had grievously wounded Stedd. Taeghan's spells luckily were up to the task of pulling our monastic companion back from the brink of death. I think I fought well, moving about the beast, my blades slashing it several times. While the rest of the group went back to sleep or on watch, Braddoc carved several large juicy steaks from the corpse. We ate the best breakfast any of us have eaten in months as a result. The gods do not dine on bacon as divine as this tasted! We headed on after breakfast, turning off the road in the mid afternoon and heading across country. The day passed without incident and as we made camp this evening, I could just make out the tower in the distance. Eleint 5th - Thankfully the night passed quietly and everyone got a good nights rest. We set off towards the tower just after first light, it lying in forested hills against the base of the Desertsmouth Mountains that mark the western extremity of Daggerdale. As we got close, Stedd alerted us to something big moving in the trees up ahead. And I thought my hearing was sharp, I hadn't heard a thing! Upon getting a bit closer we saw what we believed was a bear shaking a tree. The wind must then have shifted, because it suddenly turned and charged us. It was indeed a bear... an Owlbear! It put up a good fight, but it had picked on the wrong group of adventurers. We are no rookies now, and we easily surrounded and bludgeoned the beast, the killing blow though was mine, as I sunk both my blades in it to the hilt. It collapsed on Braddoc, most amusing. The fight done, we left the body for scavengers and continued towards the tower. The tower was built to impressive proportions, and standing on guard outside it was a huge (about 9-10' tall) greenskinned creature in heavy armour and carrying the largest axe I have ever seen. I had never seen such a creature before, indeed it perplexed all of us as to what its nature might be. Rand turned himself invisible (evidently a new enchantment he has learned and one I shall have to be wary about), and went to investigate. Despite his precautions, the Troll (for that is what is was, as we found out) sniffed him out and made a few attempts to attack him. It then must have seen Tanus, and charged towards us, throwing the corpse it was gnawing on at him as it advanced. We moved in at it thundered into Tanus, and surrounded it, attacking as a group. To no avail, its armour turned aside most of our blows and those that did defeat the metal plates it wore had little effect, the creature regenerating its wounds almost instantly. It then picked a target and swung felling me in one blow. I dropped like a stone, and lay there on the ground perceiving my companions trying to wrestle the creature through a red haze as my lifeblood pumped out to stain the earth beneath me. Then I passed out. I was woken by Rand slapping me, he having dragged me to safety. Hearing the din of battle nearby and seeing Tanus' bloodied body lying beside me, I got to my feet and ran into the forest as fast as I could, using the training Alfgeir gave me to blend into the trees and vanish. Better to live and run away, than pointlessly die here today I reasoned. My comrades be damned, I care not for their lives. The others managed to get away though, as when the Troll tried to pursue them into the forest, some force of magic stopped him and he headed back to the tower. Clearly the new resident has an ingenious way of "leashing" his bodyguard. I rejoined the group, and we backed off and made camp some distance away, where we will lick our wounds and decide what to do. Eleint 6th - In the early morning Braddoc woke me from my rest, as something was approaching the camp. I readied myself to die, my wounds from yesterday still considerable. I could clearly see in the distance that what was headed our way was a minotaur. He charged at us, and Braddoc readied his spear to receive him, the minotaur running himself onto it and impaling himself, though also viciously goring the dwarf in the process. Rand and I then leapt to the attack, attacking with spells and blades, felling the beast almost instantly. Rand recovered a pair of gloves from the corpse that he says are magical. I went back to sleep. In the morning after we had eaten, we decided to leave the tower alone for the time being and go and retrieve our silver from its burial place. Eleint 7th to Eleint 13th - Trekking along the edge of the Desertsmouth Mountains heading southwest towards the hobgoblin fort that we burnt down. No encounters with anything remotely dangerous. When we are not busy travelling, we are hunting to supplement our rations, I believe I am getting better at this. Eleint 14th - After a lengthy and uneventful journey, we arrived at the ruined fort and proceeded from there to the location where we had buried the remaining two chests of silver ingots. We found them untampered with. After exhuming them, Braddoc set to work to rig up a sled, which we tied to Taeghan's horse. We then loaded up the sled with the chests (much simpler than us hauling them back this time), and we set off back towards Clearwater. Eleint 15th to Eleint 18th - Travelling back to Clearwater, again no significant encounters with anything dangerous and the few travellers we passed on the road were definitely of the non-threatening kind. I am itching for a good fight. Eleint 19th - We arrived back in Clearwater to find the Inn under siege (Vhaeruan be praised, a good fight awaited me!). It turns out the thugs staying at Jake Morgan's house attacked the place a few days ago and have been surrounded and besieged in there by the village folk ever since. They are holding the Mayor hostage and there are six of them in all. Why is it always the Mayor who needs help? If this were a drow run community such a disorganised and hapless official would have been assassinated long ago, to the betterment of the community I feel. A new sheriff had arrived in the area a couple days back; Alfgeir's replacement is a man by the name of Marley. He has already tried to negotiate with the thugs, and been shot twice for his troubles. He looked quite concerned by my presence (Another new face who does not know me, Clearwater becomes more alien and hostile to me by the day I feel. How long before others who know me, like the Mayor, start to feel the antipathy that these newcomers direct my way and respond to it, or even support it... and things were going so well). Marley informed us that there is a bounty of the heads of these villains, indeed he was eager for the Clearwater posting as he had heard they had headed this way and was pursuing them. The bounty is 10 gold each for them dead, 25 gold for them alive. Looks like it will be 10 gold apiece then. We decided for a four pronged assault with myself and Stedd climbing up to enter through two different upstairs windows while Braddoc and Taeghan storm the front doors and Tanus and Rand rush the kitchen doors on the ground floor. Things did not go to plan. We were spotted approaching the Inn and they were waiting for us. Tanus and Rand did not go in through the kitchen door, instead trying to hack their way futilely through the wooden wall from the servants quarters upstairs, a plan I thought it had been made clear not to go with earlier on. Braddoc and Taeghan took their time in getting through the front doors, and as they tried to do so an archer looked out of an upstairs window and spotted me climbing up, putting two arrows into me before I had even gotten into the building. My assault was then stopped short by a sword as I was quickly cut down in the common room upstairs, my assailant then running off to deal with Braddoc and Taeghan who had finally broken into the ground floor. I was brought around by Taeghan's magic some time later, after all the fighting was done and to my great amazement not all of the bandits were dead, despite Braddoc flying into one of his famous battle rages. Indeed of the six bandits, only two had been slain, the other four having been beaten unconscious. We handed them over to the new sheriff for the princely sum of 120 gold coins. We also stripped them of any coins they were carrying and belongings of interest, many of which under Rand's arcane investigation registered magical auras. We then all chipped in money to pay for his mentor to identify the items for us, but we lacked the funds to get them all seen to. As a result I have procured for myself a moderately strong healing potion and also an amulet said to protect the wearer against being hit. I don't feel any more protected wearing it I must admit. As we need to head to Dagger Falls to get our silver ingots stamped with an official seal so that we can spend them, we have agreed to travel with Marley as an escort for the prisoners, to see them to the magistrates in the capital of Daggerdale. From what little I know of Dagger Falls it is a grim town filled with surly and unsavoury folk. I can't wait to get there!</blockquote>

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