ADVENTURERS TALES

           Travel can be a wonderful thing.  For several days we rode through light
woods, cautiously alert for ambush or such.  But the caution we exercise
while traveling is not the utter and desperate paranoia of the close
confines of a small room or corridor; where you know that around every
corner is something or someone who is powerful, clever, and wants nothing
more than to slit you open from ankle to Adams apple.  After living with
that level of fear for some time, simply being cautious is a joy!
        We rise early in the morning, before the sun.  We do our ritual cleansings
and break our fast.  Then we ride steady on till late noon when we stop for
a rest.  I cast my eagle and give him his exercise, we usually have rabbit
of pheasant for lunch, then it is riding again till evening.  A very
leisurely, almost idyllic pace if you ask me.
        The only thing of note for over a week was that Bob's horse almost stepped
upon a bush viper.  But we spotted the serpent just before that could
happen, and Shali used her magic and way with animals to convince the
creature to bask elsewhere.
        But the blissful times were not to last.  After a score or so days riding,
we saw heading towards us a large band of warriors, perhaps 15 to twenty in
all.  As they approached we relaxed a bit, for we could see that they were
Mountain Folk, although they were of an unknown clan.  The Folk approached
in a most serious and warlike fashion, and some even unslung their battle
axes.  When we got within a short hailing distance we halted, and bade them
do they same, which they did.
        They spoke at us in the tongue of the Mountain Folk.  They told me that I
should stop wasting my time traveling with Flatlanders ( a Mountain Folk
term for humans) and Slanteyes ( an insulting term for Elves) and come with
them.  I of course told them in no uncertain terms that these Flatlanders
and Slanteyes as they called them, were my companions, and they had best
not insult them again.
        They laughed at me, and told me that they did not want my company, as it
was obvious I was soft, and corrupted by spending too much time in the
company of fools.  I told my companions a bit of what was being said.  It
was a good thing Vasquez was down with the wasting sickness, or spells and
swords would have been flying long before this.
        These Dwarves then said that they were on a quest.  Some ghouls had raided
the tomb of their great War leader, desecrating the place utterly and
eating the sacred remains.  Their quest was to find and destroy these
ghouls.  They said that if I were of real Mountain Folk stock I would join
them.  But, since it was obvious to them I was not, they would grudgingly
accept 100 pieces of gold to help cover expenses of the quest.
        Now it was my turn to laugh at them, telling them that if they could not
accomplish their quest without begging like paupers at the feet of
Slanteyes and Flatlanders and if they protected their tombs so poorly that
mere ghouls could rob them, then I'd be wasting my coin to give it to them.

        At these words of course their weapons bristled.  I quickly translated
what had been said to the rest of my party.  Shali and Merlaine, wishing
desperately to avoid this fight, which was sure to be an ugly one, hit upon
an idea.   Merlaine asked them ( through me of course) if they had any
healers amongst them.  When they said no, she said that she would be
willing to give them half her stock of healing herbs in lieu of the gold.
Either that, or we could fight, and even if they won, they would be weeks
recovering from the wounds, and that would delay them on their quest long
enough that they would surely lose the ghouls.
        After a short deliberating session, they agreed, and Merlaine doled out
near to half of the herbs she has carefully kept with her all these weeks.
We gave them daffodil, chervil, basil, and many others, whose use I do not
know.  Without so much as a farewell we parted company.  For the next few
days we were more alert than usual, thinking perhaps that the Dwarves ( and
yes, I know which term I use) would double back and set upon us in our
sleep, but such was not the case.
        It could well be however, that our extra vigilance saved us from attack of
a different sort.  Not two nights after parting company with the Dwarves,
Brianna thought she heard something in the woods, but neither her nor
Merlaine with her Elven vision could discern anything.  But upon a close
listening, it was sure that there was something, or several somethings
moving quietly through the underbrush not a hundred yards from our camp.
        Shali then used her ability to communicate with beasts of all sorts to see
if it was an animal of some sort out there in the darkness.  When Shali
tried the language of the big cats, she got an answer.  Shali asked the
beasts ( for there were several..most unusual for cats) why they were
following us, and the only answer she got was " you have food."  Shali
asked them more questions, but the only answer they ever gave was "You have
food."  Shali got the impression that by food, they meant either Moughrim
or the horses.  Once, when Shali had stepped away from the light of the
fire, thinking that was unnerving the creatures, she got the answer, "you
are food," to her questions.  Shali quickly returned to the circle of light
and our company, and did not end up as food.  After over an hour of this,
we decided that the beasts would not attack as long as there were two of us
on watch, so we went back to sleep, and the creatures kept their distance,
padding around our fire all night, making our rest uneasy at best.
        For several nights this continued.  During our travels in the day, the
weather was warm, if not hot, and rain was sparse and we saw no sign of our
nocturnal visitors.  But come sundown, just after we had set camp and built
our fire, the snap of a twig, and the nervous whuffling of the horses would
announce our visitors.  After the third night, the creatures upped the
anti.  At about three hours before sunrise, one of the creatures charged
the camp.  It dashed in at an incredible speed and let out a fearsome
high-pitched scream, and then vanished into the bushes again before those
on watch could even raise a weapon.
        The effect of this of course, was chaos.  The horses panicked and started
rearing and bucking, trying to throw their hobbles and run into the night.
The mules brayed and tugged on their ropes, sensing something was amiss,
and Moughrim screamed and ran into the darkness of the woods.  Fortunate it
is that we were all on edge, for Shali was up, and had cast her spell of
binding upon the horses before any of them could get to far from us, and it
was no problem for Bob to chase down and tackle Moughrim, who still limps
badly from the poorly healed broken leg.  Moughrim did lash out at Bob with
the dagger we had given him back at the temple, so Bob disarmed him and
dragged the screaming, terrified Moughrim back to the circle of firelight,
where he huddled under the blanket and whimpered to himself the rest of the
night.
        We realized the of course, that something must be done.  Shali agreed to
summon an animal, although she hates with a passion to do this sort of
thing.  So, Shali engaged in a ritual, and after an hour or so, a large
buck appeared near our camp.  Shali released it from the spell, and it
instantly turned and fled into the gray mist-filled woods.  The buck did
not get twenty yards before a terrific scream, followed by the sound of
much thrashing for several seconds announced the buck's demise to our camp
followers.  The sound of their feasting was not pleasant, and none of us
slept any more that night.  We realized then we would probably have to
attack these cat things, for even a simple person knows that when you feed
a cat, does it go away?  No, it hangs around, waiting for more food.

Day The Next:
        We  felt very fortunate when our nocturnal companions failed to appear
last night.  We figured that they had gorged themselves on the buck and
would be back in but a night or two.  But the light of the day has revealed
to us that we were wrong, the followers in the night had not just stopped
the pursuit for a day or two, they had run away from this area in terror,
and we could see why.
        Not an hour after our mornings start, we came across a track of monstrous
size.  It was readily identifiable as the print of a Sabre-toothed cat, but
where the print of a cat of this kind is normally eight or so inches
across, this track was fully twenty inches across.  Bob and I estimated the
weight of this creature at several tons, and figured that when standing,
its head would be higher than any of ours.  The cat that made that print
would have no trouble taking down a huge bear, or even larger animals for
its meals.  No wonder then, that our sly nocturnal hunters as decided to
leave.
        But did we do the wise thing and leave?  Oh no..not us.  Shali was
desperately wanting to see this creature, and Bob and I were curious as
well, so we pressed on, trusting to Shali's skill with animals should we
ever encounter this monster cat.  Poor Moughrim was so terrified that he
nearly turned his horse around and fled back down our trail, until Shali
gently reminded him what waited back there, and the fate of the buck, and
the sounds we had heard in the night.  With a few whimpers and tears,
Moughrim followed us, having learned well the most basic rule of
adventuring...With companions, you are safe.  Alone, you are food.
        After a time, we noticed that someone, or something, had been cultivating
this land.  Very skillfully, fruit trees such as pears or apple had been
placed, and every now and then a small patch of potatoes or other such
plant would be growing in a sunlit glade.  We realized then that we were in
an orchard, a very well planted orchard that would not be noticed as such
unless someone knew what to look for.  We pressed on, more cautious and
circumspect than before, but still following the giant Sabre-tooth tracks.
These tracks led a very round-about trail, but eventually we came in sight
of a low hill.  Surrounded by large trees and immense boulders, there was
what appeared to be a cave near the crest of this hill, and the only path
up appeared to be narrow and somewhat treacherous.
        Being cautious, we cast Walking Unseen spells upon Shali and Bob, and it
was they who began to ascend the narrow, winding path.  When they were
about half way up the trail, a giant arrow buried itself in the dirt at
their side, the immense point fully two feet into the earth... to quote
Bob, "that would've hurt."   When they looked, Shali and Bob could just
make out the form of the shooter, crouched amongst the boulders at the top
of the hill, in a position almost impossible to reach with arrow fire.
Shali threw her hands in the air and started yelling, " We mean no harm!
We come in friendship, we were just interested in the giant cat tracks!"
        After a minute the figure in the rocks stood up, and we saw a human
figure, fully twelve feet tall, and armed with a bow of extraordinary size,
and a hammer that must have weighed twenty pounds if it weighed one, and
armored in thick leather armor, with a huge round shield slung over his
back.  This immense warrior held his bow steady, pointed at Shali and
yelled, "put down your weapons then."  Shali and Bob set their weapons down
on the ground, and when the giant called, " And your friends too!" we all
emerged from our hiding place at the edge of the woods that surrounded this
hill.  It was then that several Sabre-toothed cats, all of normal, but
still frighteningly large size, un-crouched from the rock where they had
been hiding, and began to leisurely descend towards Shali and Bob.
        Bob and Shali stood there as the cats approached, and the giant said that
they had nothing to worry about if they were truly friends.  The
Sabre-toothed cats paced around Shali and Bob and sniffed at them for
several minutes.  Shali's Wulfhounds were nearly in a frenzy at this, but
at a command from her they lay down and merely whined softly to themselves.
        After the cats had thoroughly sniffed Bob and Shali, they approached the
rest of us.  We too stood there while the cats sniffed us.  When they were
through with us, they were going to go over and sniff the horses, but the
giant seemed to realize this was a bad idea, and at a low whistle from him,
the cats returned to his side where they lay down and licked their paws.
        This giant then came down from the hill, and lowered his weapon as he did
so.  He asked us what we were doing here.  We told him a bit about our
travels..ruined temple, hundreds of slaves, slavers and all that bit.  The
giant seemed to make a decision at that, and put his weapon away
fully..although I did notice that his cats remained alert.  This giant, who
is a stone giant by the way, introduced himself as Ursk, and complimented
Shali on the quality and training of her hounds.  We introduced our selves,
Shali introduced her dogs, and I my eagle, and then told him about the
giant cat print we had been following, and asked weather or not he knew
about it, for if he did not, it would surely be a danger to him and his
cats.
        Ursk laughed at that, and said that he had some skill with the magics of
earth.  Every now and then he would cause one of his Sabre-tooth cats to
grow to a huge size, and have it run around the area for a few hours before
it shrank back to its proper dimensions.  Ursk said that this kept most
wild animals, and most people, away from his home.  Bob's ears pricked up
at the mention of Earth magics, and he asked Ursk a few questions
concerning the effects that the huge size increase might have on the cat's
metabolism and bone structure.  Bob then introduced himself as a mage of
Earth as well.  Well, at that, Ursk fairly beamed, and invited us all,
horses dogs and everything, to his home for a while.  We were delighted to
accept.
        We hiked ourselves up to Ursk's home, although Moughrim took more than a
little convincing, as he was terrified one of the big cats, or Ursk, would
turn on him once inside Ursk's dwelling.  We explained Moughrim's condition
and circumstances to Ursk, so that he might not be offended by his
behavior.
        Ursk's dwelling is immense.  He has, using his skill with Earth magics,
dug a huge crater out of the top of this rocky hill.  Fully one hundred
feet across, Ursk then roofed this crater with beams hewn from large oak
trees, then added more beams and soil on top, and then planted grasses and
small bushes.  The whole thing looks like nothing more than a shrub covered
rocky outcropping from without.  But within is a different story.  Ursk
lives with his cats, and also has several owls that he has trained.  The
cats keep the large predators and humans away, and the owls keep the place
free of mice and rats.
        Ursk has a vast array of herbs drying in the rafters, as well as strings
of dried fruits and meats ( these last are hung within large iron cages to
keep them from the cats.)  Ursk also brews his own ale, as he is fond of
ale, and the nearest brewer he knows of is more that  two weeks travel
away.
        As we sat around Ursk's single huge table, we talked of our travels, and
Ursk told us what he knows of the area.  Ursk says that the pack of cats
that harried us for several nights are called Likshara, and are not to be
taken lightly.  During our conversations, Bob and Ursk fell to talking of
magic.  It would seem that Ursk has the knowing of several spells that Bob
would very much like to know, while Bob knows the spell of trollskin, which
Ursk does not know and would very much like to.  After discussing it
amongst ourselves for a bit, we decided that staying with Ursk while he and
Bob traded spell was a good thing to do.  The rest will allow us to catch
up on our sleep, and it will allow me to replenish my sorely low stock of
runesticks.
        We told Ursk about the body of Enkil that we were carrying.  And that we
were probably being pursued by very powerful and dangerous people, who
would use powerful magics and think nothing of killing Ursk, and his cats,
to get at us.  Ursk said that anyone who had not made powerful enemies in
his life, had not truly lived.  Since we were now Ursk's guests, our
enemies were his enemies.  Ursk also voiced the opinion that anyone who
could do what Enkil had done to Moughrim, deserved whatever fate awaited
him, which would hopefully include being pounded over the head with a large
stone many times.  And so it was that we agreed to take up with Ursk, and
be his guests for just under two months, for it would take he and Bob that
long to teach each other all the magics they wished to share.
        Sitting in one place for two months, while it will allow us to rest and
replenish, does seem like we are making ourselves more of a target for
those following us.  But there was nothing we could see to do about that.
Melody however, could not abide the delay.  With a loud scream of rage, and
ranting about crawling through the woods and stopping to chat with every
squirrel and field mouse we saw, and now we were going to sit on our asses
for months!  Melody declared that she had had enough.  She gathered her
weapons and stalked out of Ursk's.  When we shouted warnings about the
Likshara, all she replied was " I can handle a few oversexed house cats!"
And with those angry words, she was gone.
        Over the next few days Merlaine tracked Melody using her crystal balls.
Melody almost always was cloaked by an Unseen spell, Merlaine could see
through that however.  The likshara picked up Melody's trail, and followed
her scent for several days.  But they never could seem to find Melody
herself, cloaked as she was by her spell.  The last Merlaine saw of Melody,
she was headed eastward.

        The next  months were amazingly pleasant.  By day, Bob and Ursk would talk
of magic.  Their conversations are too esoteric for me to follow, so I no
longer try.  The pair would spend hours outside, staring at some plant or
animal or such, talking in low tones.
        Shali and Merlaine spend the days teaching each other skills.  Merlaine
instructs Shali in the arts of a Healer and helps her with her Elvish.
Shali for her part, instructs Merlaine in the arts of the acrobat.  And I
of course,  spend the days ritually carving runes to silver sticks.  Such
is my skill with this ritual that I can now do three per day, and still
have some energy left for other things.  In the evenings we sit around
Ursk's table and talk of the world, he is very hungry for news.  He has
heard that there is a war on, but does not know who the warring sides are,
or how the war goes.  We tell him what little we know of the war with the
Empire of the Moon.  As to how the war fares, we do not know either.  Since
he has little news for us, Ursk tells stories.  His people have a great
many stories to explain all sorts of things, why the moon is round, why
winter comes and summer follows after spring.  It seems as if for every
star in the sky, Ursk has the tale of how it got there.
        We also sample Ursk' brewing,which is not bad at all.  I ask Ursk many
questions concerning brewing, and the hops he uses and honey and such.  For
it was my intent, many years ago when I set out to be a grand adventurer,
to gather enough gold to purchase a fine stone inn, and set up a tavern.
Well, I have amassed much gold several times, but have always spent it on
things such as armour and weapons and cloths of fine quality.  It does, I
think, behoove me to start learning a bit about the keeping and running of
an inn, since I know much about the use of armour and weapons.
        In spite of our fears, we were not discovered while we rested at Ursk's.
There was, all told, only one incident that was at all dangerous.  We had
been with our large host for over a month when one of his big cats came
running into the steading, and started yowling loudly.  Well, Ursk and Bob
and Shali and Brianna can all understand the language of cats, and so
within a few moments we knew that the cats was telling Ursk that a human
who was a "stealer of skins" was in the area and setting up "cat catchers."
At this, Ursk became angry, and started donning his armour and gathering
up his weapons.  Ursk politely informed us that as we were his guests, he
would not ask that we come with him as this was most likely going to be
dangerous.  We laughed and told him we would be honored to accompany him,
and help in any way we could.  Ursk just shrugged and said "well, get your
armour and things then."
        Ursk travels much faster than us when he walks, so it was a good thing
that he was not in a hurry, as he kept having to wait for us to catch up.
In addition to his weapons,Ursk also had two of his cats accompany us.
Eventually we got to the spot the cat had been leading us to, where he had
seen the "stealer of skins."   Sure enough, we found a trail, several hours
old, It appeared to be a single human.  A little walking along the trail
led to our discovering a trap.  The trap was a huge noose snare, designed
to trap an animals leg when it steps into the loop of rope laid and
camouflaged on the ground.
        Ursk told Bob to spring the trap, which he did sending the young tree to
which the rope was tied springing back upright.  Ursk then told one of his
cats to yowl and scream very loudly, which it did.  So loud was that cat's
scream that the ground itself shook and all  the animals of the forest were
still for many minutes afterward.  Ursk then told us to use our Unseen
spells, which we did.  Brianna also cast her Witchsight on us, so we could
still see and hear each other, despite being undetectable to other beings.
For his part, Ursk told his cat to go lie where the loop of rope had been
and play dead.  The cat did this in a most convincing manner.  Ursk then
cast  Walking uUnseen on himself and his other cat, and the two of them
settled in the undergrowth of the forest to wait.
        And wait is what we did; for many hours.  It was well into evening, and
while our Unseen spells had not worn off, our Witchsight spells had, so now
we could neither see or hear each other.  Just as we were about to give
this up as a bad job, an arrow struck the cat who was playing dead in the
snare.  The cat did not move, perhaps because the arrow barely scratched
its thick hide.  After a short time, another arrow hit the motionless cat,
and this one actually drew a bit of blood, but still the cat did not
flinch.  I had high opinions of Ursks's training before this, those
opinions went up a bit on seeing this.
        Then, several things happened at once.  Off to my left, perhaps a hundred
feet away, Bob and a human I did not know suddenly appeared, with a great
yelp and scream from the human, and then the two crashed to the ground in a
heap.  Merlaine was suddenly standing next to the pair, and Ursk and his
cat appeared in the undergrowth where they had been hiding, perhaps forty
feet away from me, and the cat that was playing dead in the snare leapt to
his feet with a snarl and charged toward Bob and the unknown human.
        The poor wretch of a human actually tried to put up a bit of a fight.  But
after getting hit once with Ursk's massive hammer, havinf to fend off Bob
and his spear ( with which he is most expert) and seeing Merlaine standing
off to his side, her wickedly curved scimitar ready, then having the pair
of snarling sabertooths in his face gave him an ounce of wisdom, and he
threw down his broadsword and surrendered.

        **I discovered later that this trapper was also an Earth mage, and had
Walking Unseen on himself when he approached his snare, which is why no one
but Merlaine with her Elvish eyes and Brianna with her talent of Witchsight
could see him.  Merlaine had snuck around behind the man while he was
firing arrows at the cat.  Just before Merlaine was going to impale the
trapper from behind, Brianna had figured out that no one else could see the
trapper, and so cast Witchsight on Bob.  When Bob saw what was happening,
he set about to achieve the same result as Merlaine's plan..namely,
attacking the guy with a weapon so he would become visible.   Bob however,
did what Bob usually does, lowered his spear and charged.   Bob hit the
trapper, who screamed at being suddenly struck by a fully armed and
armoured warrior from nowhere, and in their tumbling to the ground, the
trapper managed to hit Merlaine with his foot, so she became visible as
well.**

        On Ursk's demanding, the trapper gave Ursk the bundle of furs he had tied
to his backpack and then threw down all his other weapons which were
standard, but of good quality. A longbow and several score hunting arrows,
broadsword and numerous daggers and knives where what he carried.  Ursk
also made him take off his leather armour.   It was then that Ursk said to
this fellow, "now you shall know how these animals felt." as he held up the
bundle of skins.  Ursk then told the trapper to run, or be slain on the
spot; the trapper of course, ran.  As he was running away, Ursk cast a
counterspell of Earth over him, so that he could not use his Unseen spell.
After a few minutes time, Ursk gave his cats one short command, "get him"
and they bounded off into the woods after the fellow.
        Shali was appalled, and Merlaine definitely uncomfortable with this.
Shali reminded Ursk that the fellow was only trying to feed his family, the
way his big cats had to hunt to feed their cubs.  When Ursk asked if Shali
was pleading a case for sparing the fellows life, Shali said "yes".  Ursk
looked hard at Shali for a few seconds and then said "Because you are my
guest, and for that reason only." Then  Ursk gave a loud whistle, and
within a few minutes his cats came back.   Ursk then gave the cats
different commands, and off they went into the woods again.   Since we have
been conversing with Ursk for many weeks now, I have become passing
familiar with the language of the stone giants.  They do not have a written
language.  The command that Ursk gave his cats this time was something akin
to "scare the piss out of him."
        We returned to Ursk's steading, and several hours later the cats returned
as well.  They had with them shreds of the trapper's clothing, liberally
stained with urine.  When Ursk asked if they had killed the fellow,  they
replied that no, he had wet himself. So they did what they do with waste
and kicked large amounts of dirt and sticks over it, then left.  Ursk gave
us the bundle of furs the man had been carrying as thanks for helping him.
The trapper knew his trade, for there are some mink, silver fox and other
valuable furs in the bundle.

        So, that was the only incident of note really.  That, and the fact that I
decided to take advantage of our extended stay here and attempt to fashion
the runewand that I purchased the materials for oh so many months.  After
many weeks of scribing three or sometimes more runesticks per day, my stock
is now back to an acceptable level.  And so I gathered my material and my
wits, and began the ritual to fashion my runewand.  It is the longest and
most exhausting ritual I know.  Since I was creating a scepter of silver,
strengthened and with flanges and solid at the core, much like a mace, this
ritual took over a month, and left me near weak as a new born babe when I
was done.  But when I was done, I had my scepter!  It is a thing of beauty,
and yet strong enough to bash something over the head.  And while it may
not be as effective weapon as a real mace or flail, it is magical, and it
is a weapon!  It can also store some of my own energy within its core, to
be used later in spellwork should I need it.  It is with great pride that I
tuck my new runewand into my belt beside my trusty copper one which has
served me well, and with luck will serve me well for years to come.
        But now the time has come to once again stop writing and start traveling.
I am still very weak from the effects of my ritual, but that cannot be
helped.  Merlaine's magic cannot heal that kind of damage, only time can do
that.  Bob and Ursk have traded what spells they will, I have finished my
runewand and replenished my back of runesticks, Shali and Merlaine have
finished teaching each other what skills they wanted to know and we are all
well fed and rested.   Even Moughrim seems to have grown a bit more hearty
and hale.  It is a wonder what good food and fresh air can do for a body,
he still trembles at his own shadow, and even now cannot approach Ursk's
cats too close.  I have purchased one of Ursk's owls, and he has taken
several days to show me the basics of its care and training.  I think it
will be a useful night guardian for our camp once I get it trained to such
a task.   But we cannot stay here.  If we tarry much longer we risk getting
trapped by an early snowstorm, and once that happens, we would be forced to
spend the entire winter here and neither Ursk nor anyone of us is prepared
to do that, so time once again for the trail.

        By my blessedly uninjured or mangled hand
        This morning of the 29th day of Augusta,
        The Year of our Lady 540

                                                Drashak Khea Milari