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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sayburr" data-source="post: 1177" data-attributes="member: 92">A Moment of Clarity and the Forging of PowerI can see them as plain as day but larger than life. Watcher and Risk. They are at some gameboard like that of Go but with multiple layers of boards in play at once. Watcher usually seems to calculate his moves with an occasional impulse one thrown in. Risk, on the other hand, nearly always rolls his moves from a wine goblet as a domino player would his dice. Somehow the pieces always stay in play and never land out of square. Even tho Go is a competitive game I don’t get the feeling that they play against each other. I can hear them speaking but don’t understand their language even tho I here my name here and there. It is a harsh language and sounds like it would be very hard on the throat of the speaker. I walk towards them. They know I am there, of course, and beckon to me to come closer as a parent would a child unsure of interrupting a grown up conversation. They are so handsome, no, more than handsome, beautiful. And their power seems to glow from them as light does the sun. What could they possibly see in me?The closer I get to them the more words I can understand. It is as if, the closer I get to them the more I understand, even tho they do not change their tongue their words are as merchant speak. There is my name again. And again. Twice, nearly back to back---or was the second time actually my name or just a word very similar to it? They turn their attention from their game to me. I feel compelled to kneel. Watcher nods in appreciation, I believe, from the brief glimpse I catch on my way to the floor. Risk touches my mind, for I would surely die again from the power that would flow from his merest touch, and bids me to rise. “Your deference is known thru your pledge to service and your daily actions so your kneeling is unnecessary, my dark Angel.” I cannot describe the joy this sends thru my heart and forget to ask him about the repetition of my name. “Just remember, she was once ours, now she has been taken by greed, and she must be stopped.” As I try to fumble the questions out as to whether they mean Daresh and how I should best go about stopping her, once again I awaken before they answer. I am so dumb! Why can I not figure out what they are trying to tell me? I must not fail them again! No wonder mother left me with the Tessin’s. She must have been able to see the weakness in me even then. I sob myself back to sleep reciting my prayers in hopes that this time, it will be clear for me.This morning I slowly hobble to Halaan’s work area. He is fluttering around like a hummingbird in a poppy field. He doesn’t even notice me. I say aloud, “I think I can help with the coin.” He waves me away and says not to be foolish and that he is too busy right now. I tell him again I can help. He waves me away again. I hoist my heavy burden onto the table with a loud thump and dump the mithral out of the sack into view and stagger back to bed. Rakis checks in on me occasionally, as I recover. He tells me he ran across our dwarven friend, Burel, and how he is doing. Finally, after 8 nights of rest, I am feeling whole again. Just in time too, because they have told me that Halaan wants to see us all at sundown tonight. I wonder how we are to use the coin and what powers it holds. I suppose we will find out tonight.We gather in Halaan’s “forge room” for lack of a better word. He says that they are about to start on the coin but will need some “ingredients” before they can finish it. And, oh yeah, they are short a smithy. “Ready to start?” bursts from my mouth. “I thought you were going to give us the coin tonight! And you don’t even know how to work the forge, either?” He explains that they were just getting everything ready and that it takes time to make something of this magnitude and so on. Rakis says that he thinks that we know someone who can handle the forge work and if he will just tell us what ingredients he needs we will go get him and them as well. I am still fuming but try to settle down to listen because Risk and Watcher are counting on me and I need to bleed that bitch out just for myself. He tells us he needs a diamond touched by death, the breath of a blue dragon, and the blood of a demon spilled by a coward. Of course! I think I have those in my backpack. Why was I even expecting some half way normal types of things? Halaan says he may be able to point us in the right direction concerning the diamond. He says there once was a manor in the dark woods northwest of Zoa. Some say it burned to the ground after a storm with terrible lightning. Others say the commoners of the surrounding area burned it down before moving out of the area. We tell him we will go after the smith and then go after the diamond. The others want to leave in the morning but I talk them into leaving tonight. I impress upon them my belief that Daresh is growing in power daily. It is almost as if we are connected somehow, I can feel it. They agree finally. We have to bribe the gate guard to open the gates while it is dark. Outside the gates in tents and blankets are those refugees that didn’t make it into the city before sundown. We travel the road thru them toward the dark woods.We travel on thru the night and when dawn breaks the horizon we make camp. Once rested, we continue on. Later that day we hit the dark woods. It is easy to see why they are referred to as the dark woods. There is a gloom that settles upon us as we enter the trees. It is not really a fog or a mist or smoke but it is something tangible even if hard to describe. We make our way until we come to a gate. At least that is a sign we are on the right track. A little further on we see the ruins of the manor in a large clearing. I get off my horse and tie it to a tree limb. It has been deathly silent all the way here but there is plenty of wildlife here. They don’t really seem afraid of us either. They scurry away if moved towards but somehow give me the impression that they are watching us. I walk the perimeter of the clearing while the rest of the group, Amber, Ars, Rakis, and Pandora, search thru the ruins. Amber calls out that she has found something. We all go over to see what she has found. It looks like a capstone to seal an old cistern. The men try separately and together to lift it but cannot. I tell them I have a crowbar on my horse. I go get it and tell them to pry it up and hold it open and I will stick some rocks in to hold it that way. I look around for suitable rocks and they are already opening it up. I start to hurry over so they won’t have to hold it long when this cloud pours out of the opening they have created. I stop hurrying. They are overcome by the stench of whatever it is and begin vomiting. Hopefully it is just the smell and not poison. Their sickness passes and we decide to try again. It opens easier this time and we have the cap off in a short while.There are slick looking stairs leading down into the darkness. I light a torch and sling it into the darkness. It bangs into double doors at the end of the stairs. I anchor my grappling hook and throw my rope down the steps. We decide to go one at a time so that one fall doesn’t endanger the whole group. We also decide to have a person at the top hold a rope tied around the person descending for more caution. I volunteer to go first since I don’t think I could hold either Ars or Rakis. The stairs are treacherous but I keep my footing all the way down. I see that the doors have pentagrams and other sigils on them and are made of iron and are secured with steel chains and lock. I tell the others what I have found and Rakis says he is on his way down. I pick the lock while he is descending. Pandora is next. She gets about 15 feet down and falls. I don’t think the fall is bad but then giant rats flood the stairs from somewhere and she is screaming and flailing and some run up and some run down the stairs. The narrow confines of the stairs prevent me from helping Rakis but I stand ready to open the door if we need to retreat. I remember what a hellish fight he described having with the rats in the tower in the jungle. Rakis takes several nasty bites from the disgusting vermin but kills those who came down toward us. Amber, Ars, and Pandora dispatch the ones who went up as well but took several nasty wounds as well. Pandora is a wreck and says she can’t go on and Ars says he is probably unable to be much help to us either. Amber says she will go on with us if the other two will guard the opening. Amber falls twice on the slick stairs but our preparation with the ropes lets her avoid serious injury. I open the door and step into a room filled with caskets lining the walls with a door at the far end. We start to look over what we think are name plates and realize no one down here can read them and that Pandora is not about to come down so we have her write down Abdul Herrid in Renaarian and throw it down. We find it easily after that but the coffin is empty. We decide to go thru the other door. Rakis goes to it and tries to open it but it slams downward on a hinge of some sort in the floor edge of it and knocks him down and backward battering him in the bargain. I noticed that there was only stone on the other side of the door trap so we decide to search the room for something we might have missed. We pull out Abdul’s coffin to search for the diamond and find a way to another area. We follow it to find a sarcophagus. Rakis tries to open it but can’t just pull it open. I yell for Ars to throw my crowbar down but by the time I do that Rakis has I warhammer out and starts to bludgeon it. After a few mighty smashes several large cracks are apparent. As he pulls back for another blow, the smashed sections blow out into the room and the horrid Herrid pulls itself out to see who has disturbed its slumber. Watcher only knows what changed this from whatever it once was into what it is now! It has tentacles growing from its face where there would be a mouth on a man and its arms are now tentacles too. Its frame is grotesquely warped and deformed and the thing drips some black ichor as well. Rakis goes into his battle rage and I call up Risk’s protective shield and ask Watcher to guide my blade and Amber calls her battle cat. Under this barrage, the monstrosity goes down to whatever hell awaits it on the other side. We cut the diamond out of the creature’s body and take a book from its coffin. To make sure it stays in its hell, we cover it in oil and light it on fire and get out of the crypt fast. We load up and make our way out of this desolate place. As we are trying to leave, a gigantic dark figure appears up ahead to block our path. I dismount immediately and run to flank it. Ars fires an arrow into it and Rakis drinks a potion and goes into his battle rage again to face the 20 foot foe toe to toe. Amber strikes the ground with her hammer to punish the shadowy figure some from a distance and Pandora sends a small blue sphere into it. Rakis hurts it with a mighty sweep of his ax and I am in position to threaten it from behind so now it must guard on two fronts and Ars is making his way to help Rakis. Amber’s battle cat appears and strikes it and Pandora depends on more mundane missiles now. The thing had wounded Rakis with its first blow and next it strikes Ars down in his weakened state. I try to help Rakis as much as I can but can’t compare to the massive damage he inflicts on enemies. Steadily we wear the creature down but instead of falling it simply dissipates like smoke. We are overdue to be out of these woods!We make it back to Zoa and give Halaan the diamond. We ask him how we are supposed to catch a blue dragon’s breath and he says he really doesn’t know but Geolain might. He says he hasn’t seen him in a while and figures he is at his house. Rakis asks if we need him to go and we say no. We girls head to Geolain’s with Ars behind us and a distance back. I guess in case he is recognized. I ring the bell. No one answers. I ring it again. No answer. I start to go over the wall and see the little manservant peeking out the window when I get to the top of the wall. I wave him to the gate and drop back down. He hurries out and hurries us in with tells of unrest and bolts shot into the courtyard. We meet with Geolain in his study and I ask him how are we supposed to catch a dragon’s breath. He says he is glad we asked. He then hands me a metal rod and says all we have to do is get the dragon to breathe his breath weapon onto it and it will capture it for us. Sounds simple enuf, of course it is the getting away afterwards that is never simple. We ask him if he knows where we might find a blue dragon. He tells us about one which lives in the Khydoban Desert across the Sea of the Dead. We head back to get Rakis and to book passage on a ship once again. We make the relatively short trip without incident. We make landfall at the capital city, Dynaj. We buy horses and set out southeastward along the coastline. We are looking for the village of Ejja-Vonan as a jumping off point to navigate from. We travel at night because the sun practically roasts one during its trek across the sky. The men have even forgone their armor of leather to avoid dehydration. Rakis’s ax helps us a lot by cooling our water before we drink it and allowing us to cool off with a good dousing or soaking our clothes and headgear for some brief relief. After several nights worth of travel, we spot a village up ahead. It is still a few hours before dawn and we decide it would be best if we waited til daylight for 5 armed strangers to come riding into the village. We call out to the villagers once we see them up and lighting lamps and such as we ride in. I see a stable and a corral of sorts and make my way there. Ars has seen the boulder, in the center of the village, that wells forth water and heads for it. Pandora follows him of course. Amber and Rakis spot a tavern so to speak and head to it. I use sign language to get across to the fellow running the stable that I would like to pay him to feed and house my 3 animals. Amber and Rakis come back to where I am shortly, after discovering what any real pub frequenter like myself already knows. Taverns and pubs are night time establishments and therefore will generally be closed most mornings. They stable their horses with ease as Amber speaks this desert tongue. I am concerned about Ars and Pandora playing in the town’s centerpiece and water supply. Such a thing might be considered sacred in a place as this and cannot be natural, but I do not want to imitate the bossy Pandora and let it go. Eventually they come back to the stables too and Amber asks if we might get and audience with their mayor or chief. The stable hand tells us where to find him but suggests that we leave our weapons with our animals. I knew armed strangers in a place as desolate as this would not be too welcome. We leave our weapons with the horses( I keep Flamesinger in the palm of my glove of course) and we go to see their chief.We draw lots of stares as we cross the small village. They must not get many visitors at all. We find the chief and we, I mean Amber, talks to him but he is of little use. We decide to catch up on our rest as the sun starts its brutal climb into the sky. We get up after the worst of the heat has gone and head toward the tavern. We go in and head for the bar. I use my crude sign language to ask for a drink and lay my money down. The barkeeper doesn’t even act like I am there. I try a couple of more times and get ignored each time. I know when I am not wanted. I may not know why but that is irrelevant when you get right down to it so I pick up my money and leave. I go back toward the stables where I had lain down earlier and enjoy the cool of the coming night and the soothing sound of the surf. It must be my brush with death but nothing seems trivial any more. To think that my flesh could already be moldering in the ground and that I might never get to enjoy a cool breeze or the sound of the waves again certainly can put things into perspective. The others come back grumbling except for Ars. Evidently he got service when no one else could. I tell them it is no matter. There is nothing of import to be had here. It is merely a navigation point as far as I am concerned. I turn over and use my prayers to ask for guidance and to calm me as I think of Daresh. Sleep comes, as do my visions, but they always end at the same place before I get an answer. The next morning we are making ready to depart but some of them want to try the chief again. I ready my animals. A short while later Amber returns and asks if I have any more of the potions that I gave her to help revive Ars from the blowun darts poison. I tell her yes. She asks if she may have one. Of course I give it to her. I ask if one of us was injured but she doesn’t answer except to shake her head and hurry away. I start to follow but feel she would have asked me to come if she thought my help was needed. The rest of them return after a short while and Amber tells me that she used my antitoxin to save a little boys life from a deadly sting from something called a jelly fish. She says the mother of the little boy will try to sway the chief to help us but we will have to wait until tomorrow. Delays! Delays! We must act I want to scream but the others want to wait too, so I start unpacking.The next morning they go to see the chief again. I start to load up. While they are away a great commotion erupts from the villagers who are out fishing. I look up to see one boat smashed by a large tentacle a good ways from the shore and another tentacle picking a man from the sea close to the docks. I drink my potion of alter self and run to the water recalling the water humanoids that attacked us on the Forsaken. I call up Risk’s barrier as I dive into the water and start to change. I hit the large sea monster with Flamesinger and am plunged into night by some murky, inky discharge from the beast. I can see nothing here and decide to try to help some of the men further from the shore. I call on Watcher to help me get there in time and I nearly fly thru the water. I strike at the area it seems to be drawing the fisherman to and at first think it has dropped me into night as the first beast did, but then I notice the crimson color of this cloud between me and the sun just before I am buffeted as the waters churn in incredible violence. I can see the beast starting to drift to the sea’s floor a long distance from me. How could it have possibly covered such a distance in such a short time?! The men! I stroke hard hoping I can get there in time to keep them from drowning. I change back to my form before I reach them so as not to alarm them. Then I begin the arduous task of trying to get them back to shore.Everybody’s attitude has changed by the time I get back to the shore. We are now heroes instead of strangers! We are fed and given plenty to drink and some of the bastards even thank us in merchant speak. I should have known. Even the chief changes his tune and says that he knows of the dragon and he will even give us guides if we will stay for our hero’s feast tonight. Ars and Rakis are eating it up. There will be no leaving til after the feast unless we want to go without them. Let them enjoy the adulation. I just hope no harm comes from our waiting. The next morning the chief is good for his word. He tells us what he knows about the dragon and provides us with 4 guides. We wanted to leave last night after the feast but the guides told us that braving the harsh sun would be far better than risking the sinking pits of sand and the predators camouflaging themselves in the terrain. We travel a few days and we come across a pit in the shifting sand. At the bottom of the pit, near the center, is a shiny object. A gold coin? A small gem? A plan leaps into my mind and nearly out of my mouth. I could tie a rope around my waist and around my saddle horn. I could take a running leap and dive into the pit using the difference in height to get to the object in that one bound. I could have one of the group ready to smack my horse’s ass as soon as I grab the object so that its power will pull me up and out of the pit just like that. Then I hear the words from my death’s vision and from my dreams… “She was once ours, now she has been taken by greed, she must be stopped” and I know that they apply to me as well as Daresh. This sends a chill down my spine, in spite of the baking sun, as I realize the similarities we share, and for some reason I fear the connection might run deeper than just that. I am sure that I did the right thing now when I felt overwhelmed by the desire to overpay the priest. Watcher’s hand guided me to rid myself of my excess of money, a symbol of my greed; no, no, a badge I wore proudly in greed’s name. Almost as if reading my thoughts, Ars asks, “Aren’t you going to retrieve it, Greedy?” I had already decided to ride around the pit and was on my way when he asked but this just makes me more certain I have chosen correctly even tho I would love to try it just to show him up. Rakis backs me up, scoffing at Ars calling anyone else greedy and sites several examples of the woodsman’s own greed as I ride on. Ars simply will not let it go tho and begins badgering Pandora. I tell her not to listen to his baiting because that is just exactly what the shiny object is: bait. I try to show him this by firing an arrow into the sand ; hoping to hit whatever lies beneath it waiting to devour the less wise. My arrow provokes no response tho, so he keeps at her to try to lift it with one of her spells. She says she should be able to do that safely because one of her spells aloows her to lift small objects like handaxes and light flails from up to 30 ft as long as nothing else is holding them. I smile as I continue to ride. She is wasting her spell. I might not know what is holding that carrot in front of that donkey’s nose but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t being held. “That is strange,” I hear her say. “ I should have been able to bring it right to me. It must be stuck or part of it must be buried under the sand to make it weigh more than it looks.” You are righter than you know sister I tell myself smugly.The next day we cross a dune to see a tent covered in sigils with a camel tied outside. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up immediately. Daresh! I know it in my soul! I can feel my scar in my palm flare just as when I made my blood oath. I ride closer to Amber and whisper to her. “Have one of your cure spells ready because I am going to try to slay whoever is in that tent and I would hate for someone innocent to die if I am wrong.” She looks at me in a peculiar way and I realize what my face must look like. I must try to regain my composure before we enter the tent. We call out to the tent as we approach. No one answers. “Fortunes”, the sign reads. We dismount and go in. The inside seems larger than the outside would allow. More evidence of Daresh. A figure behind the veil bids us forward and to have a seat to have a fortune told. No one else steps forward to sit with the “man”. Even tho I want to keep my feet to try to catch this bitch off guard from behind in her new pretend role, I don’t want her to become suspicious, so I sit. Not too bad even tho I am seated because I am right on top of her at her own bidding. She goes into her play and turns some cards as if she were a real gypsy and I place one hand on the bottom of the table ready to throw it up and will Flamesinger into my hand to gut her. She turns up a skull and screams “Death!” as I am putting my plan into motion. I fling the table over as the smell of rotting meat floods the tent and she starts to fade into nothing. I mutter the words of power to guide my blade but it slides right thru her fading image as if thru smoke. Then I feel the pain. It is as if a thousand blades are folding in thru me as the tent folds in on itself. I scream as they pass thru me and then I am out in the sun again. I curse that bitch for all I am worth and then spit on her devilish trap and then put a torch to it.We continue to ride until we see something shining of in the distance. We make our way to it. It seems to be a man in full plate resting under one of 3 good sized plants/trees. What a fool! He must be dying in that cooking pot he is wearing unless it has the chill power of Rakis’s ax. We are about to go investigate but our guides warn us that those plants look like “vampire cactus”. They warn us to stay a short javelin’s throw away. I walk up to within about 80% of my rope’s length. I swing my grappling hook and snag the man’s armor and begin to pull him toward me. It is heavy, but not like it should be for steel armor, if that is truly what it is, and a man inside. Once I get it to me I can see why. The thing inside the armor can only be described as a husk of a man. It has been drained of every drop of moisture. I throw again and hook the shield. The worth of this steel should be a fair gain for the group as we have seen so little since the vaults of our inheritance. I throw again, going for the sword. The hook slips off several times. The sword’s hilt is partially buried so I cannot hook it and use it to pull the sword to me. Ars asks Pandora to use her spell to carry a rope with a slipknot I put in it to loop it around the sword. She agrees to do it and takes the rope. She has it in hand and starts to walk forward. I know she heard the guides tell her to stay at least a short javelin’s throw away so I can’t believe she walks right into the things range! Six vines with barbs shoot out at her and five sink into her flesh. She is being dragged toward the plant! We all spring into action. Rakis runs around to one side and severs 4 of the 5 vines. I run to her to try a tackle to stop her from being dragged but miss as she suddenly pulls back against the pressure of 4 vines that are no longer there. More vines shoot out of the plant toward Rakis and Pandora and some shoot from the middle plant at Ars as he tries to help. Amber calls her battle cat to strike at the vines too. I decide to take the fight to the plant itself for who knows how many vines it can shoot. I rush to its flank and am rewarded with a direct strike in the throat that instantly covers my chest and belly in blood. I sever that vine out of sheer desperation. I can no longer see what the rest of them are doing as I try to save myself from point blank hits and slay this desert leech. I strike true a few times and see some puffs of dust that seem to streak toward and into the plant thru the sand itself and Pandora is free and the plant dead. I grab the sword and back away from the middle plant keeping the dead one between it and me. Our guides can only shake their heads.Later we see smoke off to the side of our direction of travel. We send one of the guides to scout while we continue toward the dragon. Ahead in the distance we can make out a town nestled in some dunes as we crest some of the higher dunes. We leave our horses and guides and Pandora and Amber to go scout on foot. There are many dog-headed humanoids in the town. Many of them seem sick and some drunk. I suggest we sweep down upon them while they are weakened. Ars and Rakis do not like the idea. We are heading back when we see our scout coming back. He explains that the smoke was a nomadic camp that seems to be heading our way. I don’t like the sound of it and suggest that we try to lure them into town and maybe the two parties will eliminate themselves. The others agree and we ride away in single file with Ars covering our tracks. We ride off a good distance and then stop to watch. The nomads ride up our tracks as we had planned but do not blunder into the dog-headed beast men. They pause to consider the situation and we decide to make the most of our lead. Our guides say that this is as far as they go and tell us they will wait for us a few days in a spot they give us directions to from here to lead us back. We start off into the rapidly falling night. Not long after our departure we here the sounds of fighting. “Should we go back to help them?” I ask aloud, “ I am concerned about finding our way back.” Rakis assures me he can lead us back. “Let them survive if they can then,” I say, as I turn back to our destination. Rakis growls something under his breath and says he must go help them. Ars says the same but he seems less than happy about it too. “Well, if we are going let’s do it right,” I say as I put the spurs to my steed and charge off to the sounds of battle in the darkness. We find the fight dimly lit by starlight and I never slow my mount. I charge him in swinging Flamesinger and sending nomads on to wander the otherworld. I mean to finish this fast in hopes that we won’t alert the dog-men and any other nomads. Risk must be watching because after we drop the last nomad all is quiet. We head back toward the dragon’s hills.We camp at the foot of the hills. In the morning, with everyone anxious, we start to climb for the huge opening in the side of the hills. When we get close, we find another man in full plate armor with the same crest on his shield. We find this no small coincidence. Pandora says that she thinks it might be the herald of a group of barbarians to the northeast of here if her memory serves her correctly. “The Skarrns,” Rakis says thru clenched teeth. While we are wondering at that I start calling out to the dragon. The others seem startled at this but I definitely don’t want the monster to think that we are trying to sneak up here to kill it. So I figure we should announce ourselves to avoid any confusion. I have called only a few times when a massive bolt of blue thunders out of the cave entrance on leathery wings that beat me to the ground from the buffeting air. It swoops out over us and completes a turn that belies its incredible size only to land back in between us and the cave entrance again. It grumbles in a gravely voice that I can feel in my chest as well as hear, “Who dares tread the path that leads to the lair of Agememnon and why?” I reply, “It is your humble servants Jzashedra, Amber, Ars, Pandora, and Rakis your magnificence. We come bringing you gifts of horse flesh and a precious stone in return all we ask is that you breath upon this rod. This is why we tread the path to your home and this we ask most humbly of your greatness,” I say as I struggle holding my pack horses steady and dropping their packs. In a flash the beast has taken the horses from my grasp and doused me liberally with their blood as he sweeps back into the cave. After the horrible sound of crunching bones and a few wet smacking sounds, the dragon sticks his head out of the entrance again. “What? You have not run for your miserable lives?” he booms. “We are on a quest of greater import than our lives, which is why we have traveled all this way to ask this favor of a grand beast such as yourself when you surely do not owe us anything. I do have this gem, probably not much compared to the horde I am sure you have garnered but it is all that I have. I risk my life and offer all that I have for this endeavor and I ask that you merely breathe on this rod in exchange for that,” I offer him in my most respectful yet persuasive tone in my first real attempt at diplomacy. I hope my words give him pause enuf to think about it instead of just killing us all and taking everything without giving anything in return. “I will take these gifts and two others to let you live and to breathe on your puny stick. the first of the 2 is to rid my home of some tiny pests that have invaded the cracks in my home and the second is to return the items they took from my horde. How say you?” We look at each other dumbfounded. Who ever thought there was a choice?He bellows into the cave and some ogres come blundering out. Ars starts drawing his swords and Rakis probably saves all of our lives as he catches him before they clear scabbards. “What are you thinking?” he asks Ars. “But they are ogres! I must kill them. I am sworn to it!” he blathers. “And that is a dragon and they seem to be his dogs. Would you take kindly to someone coming to your home and killing your dogs?” Rakis asks. Ars is not happy but seems to see the situation a little more clearly and fully sheathes his blades. The dragon commands them and they start climbing down to us. He tells us that they will carry us up blindfolded and on into his lair. I don’t know if that crypt smelled any worse than being head down over an ogre’s ass. I think I am grateful for the blindfold if the view could have been anything like the smell.They take the blindfolds off after what seems an impossibly long trek into the underground of the hill. The impressive scaly beast is sitting on a horde of treasure of uncountable wealth like a hen sits on her brood nest. We must be deep in the earth because this cavern seems to be wider and maybe taller than the very hill we were climbing. My ogres are too large to follow these pests back into their tiny tunnels. “You must go in and kill them all and return my treasure they have stolen to live.” He nods toward the far wall and the ogres push us ruffly toward it. Once there, they point out a hole maybe a little wider than Flamesinger is long. No wonder the brutes were ineffective. It will be tight for us. We start crawling in one by one, Rakis, Pandora, me, Ars, and Amber. We follow the twisty, curvy tunnel marking our way as we go. We go so far and come to a fork. I suggest we split up since only the person in the lead can fight anyway and I go left where Rakis went right. Amber follows me while the others follow Rakis. We continue marking our way and listening for movement. Soon we hear something. It is not the movement we were listening for but it helps us find the little beasts nonetheless. We sneak up on the noise and I slay 2 of them while they are rutting. We go on feeling like we are in a labyrinth until we hear some noise and see some light. That seems odd to me to see that bright light, so I call out softly, “Rakis?” It is the others. We relate what we have done since splitting up and pause to see what to do from here on.</blockquote>

Verification