Duncan "Blazing Jibblets" Fairen

It all began in a tavern (don't all stories start this way?), as Jibblets and his friends Safa the monk and Lorrissa the sellsword were sitting around lamenting the rapidly diminishing funds each was carrying. As the hour grew late and the tankards emptied, Safa noticed a pair of pinpoints of red light staring through the dirty tavern windows. When he went outside to investigate, he only found the empty dark streets. Chalking it up to the drinks, the party thought nothing more of the mystery.

The next day as they were walking to the market place to seek employment, Lorrissa noticed a trio hooded figures on the other side of the street. She saw a glint of red light as the leader turned its hood towards her. It seem to be appraising her. As she drew the others' attention to the hooded figures, they turned and moved away before anyone else saw the leader's red lights. The other two figures walked with a strange gait.

Since a job was more important than accosting strangers, the friends continued to the market place. After a long search, Safa managed to haggle a merchant into a contract to guard his wares for the night. It was a hard driven bargain and there was a stipulation that under no circumstance were the guards to enter the tent.

Everything was uneventful, until late into the night when Safa detected faint scratching sounds from inside the tent. Suspecting thieves, they were at a loss as to how to protect the goods if they were not allowed to enter the tent. Jibblets decided to take a torch around to the rear of the tent to look for any signs of entry and hoped that the light might force the thieves to flee out the front where Safa and Lorrissa were waiting. No cuts in the tent were discovered and noise continued. Safa and Lorrissa decided that the risk of the thieves escaping with any valuables was too great so they entered the tent. Inside they discovered several tables with what may have been bodies covered by sheets. The noise was coming from under one of the sheets. Since it was dark inside, Jibblets lifted up the edge of the tent and tossed the torch inside. Since it was not possible to enter the tent without cutting a hole in the back of the tent, Jibblets went around to the front. As he was entering the front, Safa saw one of the sheets move as a skeletal hand slid out from underneath. It was holding a vial that it dropped. Safa, in a heroic move, tumbled under the vial and caught it before it struck the ground. Unfortunately, it was extremely fragile and broke in his hands. He and Lorrissa immediately passed out from unknown causes. As Jibblets saw his friends collapsing as all the sheets sat up, he detected a strong, cloying scent in the air. Resisting the poison gas, he managed to stubble outside and yelled for the nightwatch. Unfortunately, the gas was stronger than Jibblet's constitution and he passed out in the street.

When Jibblets awoke, he discovered that he and Safa were in a cell. The captain of the guard arrived and began interrogating them. The bodies were no where to be found and therefore was thought to be a story to cover up a dispute amongst a band of greedy thieves. He finally informed them that Greebek the merchant was charging them with theft. Unfortunately for Greebek, his inventory records were seized by the guards and everything was accounted for, so the charges had to be dropped since Greebek did not dare admit to tax evasion. Jibblets and Safa were released with a warning that they were going to be watched closely and given the slightest reason, the guards would re-arrest them. Inquiries into the whereabouts of Lorrissa revealed that only Safa and Jibblets were found at the scene of the crime and Greebek denied ever hiring a woman as a guard.

Needless to say, Jibblets and Safa were quite perturbed with Greebek, but they could not touch him as long as the law was on his side. After many inquiries in seedy places, the pair came upon rumours that the captain of the guard was possibly a slaver and may have been responsible for the disappearance of several fair-haired maidens matching Lorrissa's appearance over the past few weeks. Nothing could be found out about Greebek; either he was a mystery or simply not worthy of notice.

With no other leads, it was decided to follow Greebek at night. One night he lead the pair into the slums. Greebek met with a shadowy figure in an abandoned building. Since Jibblets was trained as a warrior and not a spy, he lacked the skills to approach the meeting undetected. Safa through stealth managed to get close enough to overhear Greebek mention that the "merchandise" had been acquired on the night of Lorrissa's disappearance. After some form of payment was transferred, Greebek left and Safa decided to follow him while Jibblets kept watch over the building. After a confrontation with Greebek and a fruitless interrogation, Safa returned and simply replied, "He chose death." to any questions about his meeting with Greebek.

Safa went to see if the shadowy figure was still in the building since Jibblets did not see anyone else leave. The mysterious person was still inside and was busy writing something. Safa recognized a powerful cult symbol that was worn by the figure. At that moment the man looked directly at Safa and Jibblets was beset by skeletons that came out of several other buildings. Much to Jibblets' dismay, he discovered that disarming a skeleton of its weapon makes the skeleton doubly dangerous as it now can attack with both clawed hands. Strangely, the man shattered a skeleton that was going to prevent Safa from running to Jibblets' aid. Not having any time to ask questions, Safa raced over and dispatched the skeletons overwhelming Jibblets.

After the battle, they went back to the building and discovered the man gone. After searching the room, they only discovered ashes and single unburned fragment of a message. From the few words left, it was discovered that abandoned dungeons of the old city prison were once again in use.

By approaching a city official whose daughter was one of the missing, the pair managed to convince the bureaucrat to demand that the city guard check out the dungeons. The captain of the guard lead an investigation of the dungeons and rescued Lorrissa and the other missing women. Surprisingly, the captain was very co-operative and seemed happy to see the women go free.

Safa and Lorrissa decided to follow the path of vengeance as they continued to try to root out the remains of this slavery network. Unfortunately, Jibblets had to flee the city ahead of rumours of serial killer stalking the merchants. His lack of ears made him too easy to recognize and it was just a matter of time before the captain of the guard connected Greebek's corpse to Jibblets' dislike of the merchant.

Now Blazing Jibblets, a wanted outlaw and suspected serial killer who stuck gold pieces under his victims' eyelids, arrived in Asgra. His dreams of donating lost, ancient artifacts to the great museums and avoiding the local law's notice was about to begin...