Of course, it's never that easy.

Oh, sure. We left the town easily enough. I just wanted to get to the monestary as soon as possible.

Really, that was all. Meeting that merchant certainly put a spring in my step.

And everything was going fine, too. For about three hours.

Then I heard a voice yell out my name. In a very loud voice.

So I went to investigate.

You know, I really do that far too often.

I saw this... Thing. It was as tall as I am, had orange fur, and for all of me looked more or less like an upright talking dog.

Yes, I'm serious. I was told later they were called... Ah, yes. Celestials.

As in good guys, yes. He wanted to kill me.

Remember, I was still wanted for the supposed murder of the high priest of Mystra.

The fact that I didn't do it was quite possibly the only thing that saved my life.

I explained my current situation. Somehow, the thing believed me. I don't know why or how. I can only say that such things are... Well, beyond my ken.

Which I perfer, personally. The mysteries of women are more than enough to keep me occupied, thank you very much.

The Celestial then left. To go check on my story.

It's disheartening, really. People rarely believe anything I say. I put it down to a loosening of trust.

In any case, the following night we set a fire. This was fairly normal. Shortly after we did that, A dwarf and Anuu lept out of it!

This wasn't normal.

Anuu had quite a story to tell. Pity I never heard most of it.

The dwarf? Oh, he had a story to tell also. He just took his time telling it to us.

In any case, the next day we continued our trek towards the monestary.

Along the way, we stumbled acorss a major battle between several dwarfs being attacked by nearly a dozen spiders.

Naturally, we went to help the dwarfs, and defeated the spiders rather quickly. The dwarfs, being quite pleased with our help, took us to their city, Hilmdell.

What happened there? Let me refill my glass first. It's quite a tale.