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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oghma" data-source="post: 6828" data-attributes="member: 71">Dear Diary, (Starday, Planting 22)Ah-choo!  I’ve got a cold.  I think that rainy day when we stayed at the keep gave me the sniffles.  Ord has some sort of herb stuff he says will help, but all it seems to do is make my head feel stuffier.I sat next to Ord on the wagon for most of the day, wrapped in a blanket.  He talked a lot, because I think he felt sorry for me.  Normally it’s the other way around, me chattering away and Ord grunting a couple of times.  I just sniffled instead of grunted.Ord is from this dwarf enclave in the mountains to the very southwest of the Yeomanry, somewhere in the Crystalmists.  He said it was a really old community that has been trading with humans for years.He kind of went on about that, that the enclave was really set in it’s ways and even timid.  Yeah, timid dwarves!  He became a priest of Clangeddin, and then realized that none of the priests in his temple had fought a war in years.  He called them a couple of choice names that I’ll have to try to remember.Ord decided to leave to actually put the word of Clangeddin out, and to better serve him.  He thinks that battle is the place of worship for all Dwarves, and he’s glad he’s with a group that has no fear of battle.I thought about that a little bit.  I never saw myself as having no fear of battle, but here I am, tossing magic around, helping my friends fight all sorts of weird things.  I’d like to see Bonnie Thimbleprick try to sass me now!  Silly tailor’s daughter!  Wait, I’m a cobbler’s daughter. Hmmm.My magic is getting stronger, too.  It looks like you can’t stay home and learn much about magic except maybe book stuff.  Felster said that the fey power that I have in my blood probably requires strong acts of will to activate it.  I guess being in a battle sharpens my will, making it easier to use the magic.  I need to remember to ask more questions about great-great-grandma Bonicka when I get home.  If I get home.We camped about a day’s travel outside of Loftwick.  There are some small farming communities in the area, but we just found a grove we could camp in and stayed there.  I slept under the wagon.Dear Diary, (Sunday, Planting 23)Today my cold was a little better, but those herbs Ord gave me! Yuck!  Give me gnome concoctions any day over this bitter dwarven medicine.  No wonder they have so much hair on their chins, this stuff would curl the hair on an egg!  No hair on an egg? That’s my POINT!Once I was able to keep it down, though, it worked well, and my head was much clearer than yesterday.  Not much happened today, we waved to a few farmers working in the fields as we gradually headed towards less settled areas.  Ember had fun chasing my dancing lights though, trying to bite them.  It was pretty fun once she had bitten a couple and knew they wouldn’t hurt her.  Bole showed me some “chords” today.  “Chords” are when you play a bunch of notes at the same time, I think.It’s less damp under the wagon, I think I’ll sleep there again.Dear Diary, (Moonday, Planting 24)Lunchtime.  Made my beef jerky taste like chicken soup.  I think it helped.Not as sniffly today, so I was able to avoid Ord’s concoctions.  I sat in the back, watching where we had gone.  Nice farmers farming their cozy holdings.  We’re about 10 days from Longspear, and two days out of Loftwick.  I think I’m going to see what colors I can change Ember to make her pretty.  (Not that she’s not pretty already, I’m just bored, and she’s black and white.  For now!)I should have known something would happen if I got bored!  It seems that adventuring is hours of boredom followed by a few seconds of sheer terror.Gimil was in front, Rattlin having taken his turn as our forward scout and switched with Gimil.  Rattlin was actually driving the wagon, because Ord wanted to walk a while to stretch his legs.Suddenly, this HUGE BUG rears up out of the ground and bites Gimil and grabs him!  Gimil almost dropped his sword, the horses started acting up, and Ord raced forward with an oath.This bug was about ten feet tall with a bunch sharp-clawed legs. It had huge pincers that were big enough to easily grab Gimil by the waist.I don’t think it thought there was more than Gimil, because he was pretty far ahead of the wagon.  It looked like it wanted to drag Gimil back down the hole it came from!Well, Gimil wasn’t having any of that!  With a roar, he tore his way out of the pincers!  Bole cast a bless on us, and Rattlin threw the reins to a startled Ferdal, saying “Deal with it!” and hopping off, drawing out his new short sword.Meanwhile, I popped off a couple of missiles and got one of our healing portions ready as I ran up to help.Gimil drew his sword and swung at the beast, but missed off it’s hard armor-like skin.  It took another bite out of Gimil, but Gimil was able to avoid letting it grab him.  Ord  kept running up to it, as did Rattlin.I shot more missiles and kept running.  One of these days I’ll have other things to do which are useful in battle, but it’s clear that in this battle, I needed to hurt it, to distract it.  I wasn’t about to accidentally put Gimil to sleep!Ord reached it and took a swing at it with his axe, chipping it a bit.  Rattlin began to work his way around behind the thing, and I realized that Gimil was armorless!I don’t know what I was thinking, shooting off the missiles, but I cast my armor spell and ran to touch Gimil.  The armor surrounded him and deflected another attack from the bug.  Then it looked at me.Oops. Gimil had armor, I didn’t.  I’m sure that at this point the was looking at gnome as a bit tastier and not quite as hard to swallow as a dwarf.  Ord had taken another swing at it and there was quite a thunk as his axe cracked it’s skin.It reared back to take a lunge at me, when suddenly a small sword point stuck out through it’s eyes and it toppled over, dead.“I killed it, I killed it!” Ratt was dancing up and down, cheering and waving his sword about.  Ord and Gimil just looked at each other, panting.  Ord had hit with a huge blow, my missiles and charred holes into it, and Rattlin had hit it just as it was about to go down.  The dwarves looked furious, and Rattlin saw that and slowed down his victory dance.“What?”  Rattlin said.  “I killed it, I did! I hit it and it died!”Gimil looked at Ord and his lips twitched a bit.  “You know, these bugs usually have lairs.  The tunnels they make are kind of small, though.”Ord nodded with mock gravity.  “Sure enough, they do.  We dwarves could never fit down there, though.  It requires someone really small…”Ratt looked at Ord and Gimil, back and forth, trying to see if they were serious.  “Guys?”Ord and Gimil just pointed at the hole the ankheg (for that is what it was) came from.  “Down you go, boy.”I lit a stick with a light spell.  “Here, Rattlin, you can carry this!”  I grinned.Ratt’s face fell.  “Ok, I guess I can go…”Ord said “There may be some loot at the end of the tunnel.  Of course, there may be quite a few turns and intersections…”I giggled and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll come with you, you big chicken.”We went down the tunnel, and there were a couple of turns, but we eventually found its nest.  There was quite a lot of dried and rotting clothing, like it had eaten fairly well over time.  There were also some old leather pouches, with 5o (!) platinum, some with gold and silver too, some small gems, and a giant axe.Ord and Gimil recognized the axe as a dwarven waraxe and told us about it, but I’ll tell you, I can’t imagine anyone wielding that one handed.  It was immense!  It did make me wonder if the ankheg had developed a taste for dwarves though…When we got back, Ord had healed Gimil and they had gotten the horses calmed down, so we moved the bug’s body off the road and plugged the hole a bit, and traveled on until night fell and we found a camp spot.We were in a pretty good mood, having survived the ankheg and gotten some treasure with it.  Bole sang some more songs and we had a pretty nice fire.  Ember and Millyeneum played around and we put together a hot meal.I didn’t even realize that my cold was gone!Dear Diary, (Godsday, Planting 25)This morning Ord did a short service for Clangeddin to recognize Godsday.  It involved a list of battles that dwarves won and some rituals involving an axe.I just think that waraxe we found made him feel like he’d been remiss in his religious duties.  I wonder if we can look forward to these every Godsday…Boring day.  I mostly re-read you, diary to fix the dates and stuff.  Ember played a bit with Rattlin, but all in all, we just traveled.  We made camp near a stream.</blockquote>

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