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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oghma" data-source="post: 8141" data-attributes="member: 71">Dear Diary, (Earthday, Flocktime 6)Well, hobbit funerals are very sad.  Everyone got up and told stories about Raddo and what a great hobbit and all-around excellent fellow he was.   Cradomar had a long speech that had many of the hobbits in tears, and he mentioned Rattlin in such glowing terms that I thought Rattlin’s ears were more red than the beets in Old Filber’s Garden – which win prizes in every fair in Treedimple and all the surrounding areas.We were able to get some adventuring plans at the funeral, which was odd, but there was a lot of talks of bandits along the Low Road that went to a village named Hommlet.  It goes into the Kron Hills and then east, away from the gnome valley inside the hills and towards the Gnarley Forest.  The people at the funeral said that the humans were pretty upset by it, because the Low Road was being re-opened for trade.  We got some details from the hobbits about the whereabouts of the bandits, but we tried to be discreet about it.  It was, after all, a funeral.The party afterwards was a very cheery affair, with everyone having fun and celebrating Raddo’s life and life in general.  I went to bed early because I ached from all the preparations, but I know that Rattlin, Ord, and Gimil were drinking it up most of the night.After I got up, I started looking over our supplies to check what we had and what we needed.  We were low on ale (again!) and needed more oil for our lanterns.  Our mules looked well fed and taken care of, and I bought some more feed for them.  I went over to the market for fresh food and some smoked meat and fish, and arranged to have them delivered to Rattlin’s house.When I got back the guys were up, and we had a snack (second breakfast!) and talked about what we were going to do.  Gimil and Ord wanted to go shop for a magic greatsword for Gimil and maybe some nice armor.  Rattlin wanted to tag along with them (I guess he’s tired of all the sorrow.  Rattlin is too cheerful to stay sad long.)  I wanted to go shopping for some magic.  I got a little bit of a bonus because Ord and Gimil paid me back what they owed me from our other loot.  Gimil and Ord took the magical waraxe with them for a possible trade and we all split up to shop.Verbobonc is a fun place for a gnome, because so much of it feels like home.  Of course, there is always the gnome section of town (Verboektown), which is like the marketplace in Treedimple, only *all the time*.  Lots of close packed houses, the smell of gnome cooking, the occasional acrid whiff of someone’s backyard alchemy lab, the look and feel of gnomish architecture, and the happy chattering of gnomish children helped make me feel at home.I wanted to relax in that atmosphere, so I went to a little tavern called the Brass Rail and sat outside and watched gnomes being gnomes.  In a city, it’s a little different – you can’t play just anywhere and there is a lot less green, but city gnomes seem to have as many pets as gnomes in the hills.  I saw a lot of little gnome boys and girls wit their birth pets, and I saw some boys practicing Dizzyboff with their friends.  They had a practice table that some of them were spinning, and two of them took turns with the padded Dizzyboff sticks.  One was pretty good, and kept his balance and was able to even land a few blows and block a few while spinning on the table.  After that, I went searching for a few things.  I was directed to the Silver Consortium (the mages guild) to buy a wand of magic missiles.  I wanted to have something around in case I ran out of spells.  After a lot of haggling, I got a medium power wand that shot two missiles at the same time for a little over two thousand gold.  I think the wizard knew I was from out of town, but thought he might offend some in-town relatives of mine if he padded his price any more.  It is fully charged.Two thousand gold is a lot of money, but I had it, and then some.  I went to a gemcutters to buy some amethysts (You know how I like purple!) and he had a next round-cut set of ten that I bought with my remaining gold and platinum.  I assured him of some more business from Gimil, Ord, and Rattlin, so we both left happy.I shopped for clothes the rest of the afternoon, and had a great time.  In the first shop I went to, called Clotho’s, I hit it off really well with one of the girls who turned out to be Clotho’s daughter! I offered to pay her to come around with me to the shops because she had such great taste in clothes, and we had a good old time going from shop to shop and having a glass of wine while the shop-keepers fell over themselves getting nice clothes out for me.  I bought six outfits at one for Maribelle (Clotho’s daughter) because it looked really cute on her, then went back home where all the things I had ordered were piling up in the entryway.It was a nice change from the funeral and sadness, Dear Diary, and Ember had a great time getting petted by all the gnome children.  She got so many treats I’ll have to roll her onto the wagon!When I got back, Gimil, Ord and Rattlin were showing off their new weapons and stuff, and it made me itch to get back in action.  We’re leaving tomorrow at first light, and maybe Gimil will get a chance to use his magic greatsword, and hopefully Ord won’t have to use his new wand of healing.Dear Diary (Freeday, Flocktime 7)We are on the eve of Harnekiah, the dwarven “cleansing of the mountains”, when dwarves all get their gear up and go hunting humanoids.  Ord says that it is a good omen that we are starting out on our next adventure at this time.  I hope so! So far it’s been a lot of fun.We set out in our fully stocked wagon, waving good-bye to the hobbits we had met.  It was nice to get a chance to meet Raddo before he died.  I hope we’ll see Elora again sometime.  She is someone my mother would really like.We headed up the valley along the part of the Low Road which borders the river called Nigb’s Run south towards the Kron hills.  It’s nice to be outside the city again.  We got about halfway to the next town, a village named Merboek (it must have a lot of gnomes, with a name like that!)Dear Diary (Starday, Flocktime 8, First Day of Harnekiah)I didn’t know Harnekiah lasts a *week*.  Can you imagine, the mountains ringing with the battle cries of crazed dwarves, their stubby legs thundering up and down the slopes?  I would plan to be away from any mountains during this time, whether or not I’m a humanoid.  Eep.Ord did this ritual he called the “Battle Cry of Clangeddin” he says is done during every Harnekiah.  It involved blessing all our weapons (even my staff!) and intoning certain ritual words in Dwarvish.  “We shaaaall scour the hiiiills”  “Orcs shaaaaall taste our steeeeel” and other such dwarfisms were uttered by Ord, Gimil, Rattlin, and yes, myself.  Ember was rolling around laughing behind the wagon, but I was able to be serious.  For a while.  Then I said, “Why is an elf leading this ritual?” Ord can be pretty quick when he needs to be!  My butt still stings!  I guess that was disrespectful, but Ord needs to be taken down a peg or two.  When he catches Rattlin, I wonder if he’ll get swatted on the butt or on his little hobbit head, because Rattlin laughed out loud when I said that. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Gimil was pretty angry with me, too.  He probably hasn’t celebrated a Harnekiah since before his village was slaughtered, and this was important for him.  I felt bad after I realized that, and joined in the later chanting with a most un-gnomish gusto.  “My Blaaaaaade shall be quenched in their bloooood!”We then ambled through the hills, sometimes seeing the river and river traffic, sometimes seeing other merchant groups heading towards Verbobonc moving quickly.   We asked them if they had any news, and they told tales of noises in the night and stealthy footfalls.  One of the caravan guards in a merchant group was a dwarf, and he warned Ord under his breath that there may be goblinoids about.  He said he smelled them.We passed through Merboek at about four in the afternoon, and pressed on.We camped without mishap.  G’night, Diary!Dear Diary (Sunday, Flocktime 9, Second day of Harnekiah)“We shaaaalll hunt them in their hoooooooles!”  Happy Harnekiah to you, too, Dear Diary.Besides the exciting morning ritual, it was a pretty dull day.  Ember ran around sniffing at things all day, and she said the she smelled many different scents, including humans, gnomes, elves(!) and goblinoids.  She didn’t have a really good sense of the goblinoids or I’d have brought it up to the group, because Gimil and Ord are all ready for action.Gnight, Diary.Dear Diary (Moonday, Flocktime 10, Third (yes, THIRD) day of Harnekiah)Ow.  I’m hurt.  It’s been an exciting day, though, and I’ve used almost all my spells.  Ord has used all his spells too.  We’ve camped for the night in a forested area of the hills after a long chase and a few battles.After our Harnekiah noise, we started down the road with Gimil in front.  After about an hour, as the road went into a forested area, Gimil came back to the group barely able to contain his excitement.  I know this because I’ve been around him a lot, but anyone else wouldn’t have noticed.  For him, joyous excitement is a tiny, tiny widening of his eyes, and a tone of voice just a little bit higher than his usual rumble.  I’ve been noticing this stuff more since I got Ember.He’d seen five bugbears camped in a circle around the road about 50 yards after it entered the forest.  He’d spotted the backside of the first one as he crept up the road, and waited until he’s spotted all of them.  He sketched out how there were two on once side of the road, and three on the other.We planned that we would sneak up on them, myself hanging back, and when Ord, Gimil, and Rattlin took their first arrow shots on one of the three, I would try to sleep the two on the other side of the road.  We hid the wagon and mules and left Ember to guard them.  I cast mage armor on myself and Gimil, made Rattlin, Ord and Gimil invisible and we sneaked through the forest.Gimil, Ord and Rattlin, all went ahead once we’d spotted all of them.  The guys aimed at the nearest bugbear, and shot it dead just as I began my spell.  Fwoosh! I slept the two on the far side with one spell!The other two charged Gimil and Ord. The dwarves shot another round of arrows, damaging the next one, then dropped their bows and readied their weapons.  The second dropped from a tremendous hit from Ord, and sword, axe, and arrow quickly dispatched the third one. Gimil went across the road and slew the other two sleeping ones, and dragged their bodies over to the first three.  We looted them, finding a magical amulet on one, a potion, and some gold.Ord did some ritual stuff, and Harnekiah had officially began.  Gimil looked around for tracks, and found they led of deeper into the forest.  We fetched the wagon and found that shortly after the tracks left the group, they went to a trail that it looked like the bugbears had made which we were able to follow in the wagon.Gimil and Rattlin went ahead to stealthily follow the tracks that Gimil had found.Shortly afterwards, they came back to say that there were two walking in our direction!  We didn’t have time to hide the wagon, but as soon as we could see them, I slept one while Gimil and Rattling attacked them from the bushes and quickly dispatched those two.Gimil and Ord both figured that those two were runners reporting to the ambush group, or coming to relieve them, so we took a rest.We thought that seven bugbears were a lot to have encountered!In the good old Harnekian spirit, we continued down the trail, following the tracks with Gimil and Rattlin in front with Ord and I behind in the wagon, hunting more bugbears.  We were barely wounded, and had cast very few spells.Then the luck of Clangeddin, Glittergold, and Harnekiah left us as we were ambushed by six bugbears.It was a huge and bloody fight.  Javelins came hissing out of the underbrush and Gimil and Rattlin were struck.  My mage armor deflected one and Rattlin and Ord were missed by another each.  There were three on each side of us, and Gimil and Rattlin were about 30 feet ahead of the wagon.Gimil charged the two on his right as Rattlin shot an arrow and retreated towards the wagon.  Ord cast a bless spell and charged off the wagon as I tried to get two with a sleep spell and got only one.We were in trouble.  Gimil was out ahead of the group, flanked by two, while the rest of the group had three howling bugbears swinging their morningstars and charging us.Rattlin took another shot at the charging bugbear and drew his new sword.  The bugbear took a big swing at him and Rattlin got knocked backwards by the force of the blow.Gimil hewed at one with a mighty swing and nearly killed it, while Ord began fighting the one in front of him.  I saw that two were headed toward Ord, and cast another sleep spell at it.  It’s eyes rolled up in its head and it fell to the ground.  Meanwhile the other one charged at me and took a big swing and missed!The two fighting Gimil swung their morningstars, one hitting, the other missing.  Ord’s shield shook with the blow from his opponent.Gimil roared a battle cry and cut the wounded one in half!  His sword continued through and hit the one behind him, wounding it slightly.Rattlin poked at the giant bugbear with his sword and made a small cut.  His bugbear hit him again and Rattlin fell to the ground.  The bugbear roared and charged towards Ord.Gimil missed a swing at his, and was hit a crushing blow with a morningstar. Ord’s shield rang with another blow, but he took a fierce axe cut and deeply wounded the bugbear in front of him.I jumped backward off the wagon on the side opposite the bugbear that had just hit me, and tried another sleep spell.  He resisted, and ran around the wagon and crushed my shoulder with a powerful swing. OW! Ony one spell left!Gimil raised his sword high and cut his bugbear to the waist! He roared “Clangeddin lives in me!” and charged down to help Ord.Rattlin just lay there, bleeding.  We were all too busy to help.  My shoulder was a bloody mess, almost pulped by the bugbear’s blow.Ord swung at his and dropped it, just as the other came rushing to hit him. His shield arm was numbed, and hung limply at his side.I backed up and tried my last spell. SLEEP! I commanded, power flowing from me and ensorcelling his mind.  Down he went!Ord and Gimil had one flanked between them.  I ran to get to Rattlin.Gimil nicked the remaining bugbear, and Ord swung and his axe drew sparks from the bugbear’s shield against the bugbear’s shield.I drew a healing potion from my pack and poured it down Rattlin’s throat.  He choked and gasped, and looked around wildly.Behind me I heard the final blows as Gimil and Ord ended the life of the last bugbear.“Are we safe?” Rattlin asked.“Not yet!” I said, “There are still two sleeping!”I pointed Gimil to the two sleeping bugbears.  “Kill them!” I shouted, and he and Ord brought their blades down on their throats.We had survived, but barely.  We were all badly wounded, Rattlin was barely alive, I, bleeding from my shoulder, Gimil with several cuts and bruises, and Ord badly hurt also.Ord went around and did what healing magic he could, but we were all still wounded.  We’ve decided to camp here and rest.  We’ll leave the bodies where they lie, Gimil is taking the first watch.  It’s already dark, and I have no spells left.  Ord has none either and we are both resting to regain our spells.</blockquote>

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